We are a small volunteer-run association in Humlebæk, Denmark. We train three Korean martial arts — Taekwondo, Tang Soo Do and Seonmudo — for young people and adults from 16 and up. No competition teams, no commercial interests. There is the training, and there are the people who show up.
The name was not picked at random.
What Seonbae means
Seonbae (선배) is made of two characters:
- Seon (선) — the virtuous one, the elder, the scholar.
- Bae (배) — a group, a cohort, a fellowship.
Literally, that gives a group of virtuous people or a cohort of scholars. In modern Korean, seonbae is also an entirely everyday word: it is the person who walked the road before you — the senior student, the colleague with a few more years behind them. Not a master on a pedestal, but someone a little further along who reaches a hand back.
That is the meaning we have taken for ourselves. Dojang (도장) simply means training hall — the place where the way is practised.
The warrior who was also a scholar
Further back, Seonbae was the name of a body of warriors in Koguryo (37 BC – 668 AD), the northernmost and most martial of Korea’s three kingdoms. A harsh climate and constant invasion made defence and physical training a national discipline, and the Seonbae were at the heart of it.
The remarkable thing is the name. They did not call themselves the strong or the feared. They called themselves the virtuous. Strength was meant to be an expression of character — not the other way round.
Without character, strength is just violence that has been allowed to train.
Pen and sword
The ideal was Mun Mu (문무) — the pen and the sword in balance. Their education therefore ran on two legs:
- The sword: Subak (striking and grappling) and Taekkyon (kicking and fluid footwork), archery on foot and from horseback, horsemanship, sword and spear.
- The pen: philosophy, history, literature, poetry, music and calligraphy — plus meditation and breath work.
The thinking was that physical dominance without mental clarity is dangerous and empty. Calligraphy taught them precision and focus; the breath taught them to keep a cool head when it counted.
The virtues
The Seonbae lived by a set of rules meant to keep their skills pointed the right way:
- Loyalty (충, chung) — faithfulness to country and community.
- Filial respect (효, hyo) — duty and care towards those you come from.
- Courage (용, yong) — acting when it costs you something.
- Justice (의, ui) — standing up against oppression.
- Trustworthiness (신, shin) — your word holding.
- Humility (겸손, kyeomson) — being capable without making a show of it.
- Benevolence (인, in) — protecting whoever is weaker.
In the middle of society
The Seonbae did not keep to themselves. In peacetime they lived and trained together, but they worked out among people: they taught the young, administered local affairs, settled disputes, and helped build roads, bridges, fortresses and irrigation works. In war they stood at the front — not behind, pointing.
Seonbae, Hwarang and Musa
Most people have heard of the Hwarang (화랑), the “flowering knights” of the neighbouring kingdom of Silla. The two groups shared their ideals, but the Hwarang were from the outset a state-run youth programme for the sons of the nobility. The Seonbae came from Koguryo and were, to a greater degree, educated adults with responsibility in their own communities.
Musa (무사), by contrast, is the general word for a warrior or martial artist — the professional soldier whose trade was combat and not also the book.
It is that middle road we named ourselves after: neither the elite’s youth squad nor the pure career soldier, but the person who is capable and uses it decently.
The inheritance today
When Grandmaster Hwang Kee founded Moo Duk Kwan — “the school of martial virtue” — in Seoul on 9 November 1945, reviving that spirit was exactly the point. The goal of training was not violence but Moo Do: martial virtue, character and self-mastery.
You can still see the line in the curriculum. Values such as Yong Gi (courage), Chung Shin Tong Il (concentration of mind) and Kyum Son (humility) are the same ones the Seonbae trained by. And when we address a senior grade as sunbae, it is not a pleasantry — it is the oldest meaning of the word, still in use.
Much of what we know about the Seonbae has reached us through tradition rather than through archives. We tell the story because the ideal is worth training towards — not because we can document every last detail.
Why we are called this
We train stance, balance and technique, and we do it thoroughly. But the name reminds us what it is all for: a strong body, a calm mind, and a backbone that holds up outside the hall as well.
Want to see what that looks like in practice? Read about the disciplines, look at the schedule, or come to a trial class.