Hapkido?

hey everybody. I was wondering what you guys could tell me about hapkido. what type of attacks it has, how it stacks up against other martial arts, how it is against muay thai, against karate, against kung fu, against ju jutsu, and what styles are similar to it. Any information you have is welcomed.

Also any links to videos of hapkido guys fighting (winning or losing) would be great.

Actually, I'm going to tentatively close this thread. This generic a question has been asked many times already, and I'll help you find the way to your answers. Once you've read through the multiple threads on Hapkido, feel free to ask the specific questions that are sure to follow.

 

Go to the top of the page, click search, put Hapkido in the key word space, and search only in the Korean Arts forum. You should get about 80 threads to read. You'll probably find most of your answers in these. Start with the ones titled Hapkido.

I changed my mind. There is sooo much information on Hapkido, spread out over sooo many threads, I would rather see this one grow into a comprehensive source of information.

 

Here, however, are a couple of the threads you can find by that search.

 

http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=6841&highlight=hapkido

 

http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=5066&highlight=hapkido

One day soon I am going to do a short essay entitled “What is Hap Ki Do”. Until than let me give you an accumulation of stuff that I seem to have all over the place. You can also go to the forum Budoseek. They have a Hapkido forum there with very knowledgeable practitioners and a lot of info already posted.

 

This one has video .

 

http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=5555

 

This one is kinda old, but ok.

 

http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=621&sid=37c4f24566e833de1477e77cc981ca83

 

go to http://www.kickboxing.com and look up hapkido down the left hand side. It's got some good explanations there.

 

This is good.

 

http://hapkido.netro.com.au/

 

http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=1910&sid=98bd61d736aec572f60c1cefe60d196d

 

 

 

One site that has some video of hapkido is the Australian Hapkido Group. I believe that’s them. Just do a search for them and check out their Mpegs.

 

One of the biggest differences between the two arts is that Aikido is large circle and Hapkido is small circle. But it doesn’t' end there. Even with Tomiki Aikido, who does small circle movements, there is almost no striking. In Aikido they try and achieve their goal by inflicting as little damage as possible. I believe that is the Buddhist influence. In Hapkido, even though we try and do only as much damage as needed, if you pose a great threat then all bets are off and you can be guaranteed to go to the hospital. We are taught proper use of force but also to be as aggressive as needed to survive. As well, Hapkido covers every aspect of fighting extensively, from striking, ground fighting, throws, pressure/pain points, joint locking and manipulation, joint breaking, kicking, weapons. You name it we cover it. And we strive to be as proficient in each area as the specialty fighters who train in specifics, i.e.- striking, kicking, ECT.

 

Tae Kwon Do with a few joint locks and street defense does not equal HAPKIDO.

 

Hapkido is much more than TKD with joint locks

 

To suggest that Hapkido is TKD is joint locks and throws added to it is to totally miss the concept of Hapkido. TKD stylists, even at the highest levels, when competing pure TKD, look like dancers (and that is NOT an insult!). Their feet and hands move in an amazing, "popping", frenzied rhythm- fast paced deceptions and strikes. With a good Hapkidoist, the whole thing is over before you even realize it has begun! The attacker attacks- the attacker is down! And the Hapkidoist is standing there like nothing even happened. THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE THERE!

 

As for the Hapkido issue. HKD is a wonderful art. It is very effective, powerful and can be extremely lethal. But like any art the quality of a system should not be judged by any one person’s limited exposure or experience with it. There are great arts being taught by poor instructors and in bad schools. Also, one thing that even many Hapkidoist don’t even realize is that because of the diversity and non-regulation of Hapkido; it can be almost completely different from school to school. The basics will stay the same but you have to account for how each individual person changes it to suit them and their beliefs. Because of this not to many people teach a true form of hapkido. What you are looking into is no doubt a TKD influenced system, that is not in the least any less effective than many other forms of HKD, but still is not true HKD. You will be able to tell this for sure if there are a lot of TKD Katas required and hyphenated belts, white, white w/ a yellow stripe, yellow, yellow w/ a green stripe and so on. But like I said, it doesn't make it any less effective. Just make sure that they don't require you to compete, or strongly suggest. HKD doesn't usually compete in regular tournaments. There are competitions designed just for systems like ours that can get very dangerous and brutal. Also, make sure that they don't focus on or push the TKD aspect to much otherwise it is not Hapkido, but TKD with HKD based self-defense techniques added in to make the system more street effective. True HKD and TKD do things quite different from one another. Things like how kicks are done, striking (we don't chamber for a reverse punch. We keep our hands up more like a boxer's guard and keep our entire body relaxed) and we don't do a lot of dancing around. It wastes energy. We simple flow with our aggressor’s energy. I would suggest that you do a little research on the net and in the library before you made any commitments. This way you will have a better idea of what you should be looking for and what Traditional HKD is supposed to look like. And don't let the traditional part fool you either. Traditional Hapkido be its very essence is a progressive and eclectic combat system. The traditional part comes into play with ideology, philosophy and many of the other moral and character building aspects you would expect from a traditional MA. As for the price issue. It is important to know what the tuition is after your special is up. You let them know that and they should tell you. If they are still iffy and hesitant on it I would be the same with them. Remember there are many fine self-defense systems out there, not just hap ki do and they know that just as well as anyone else. Sometimes they just need to be reminded.

 

Here are some real comparisons of the three from experienced Hapkidoist.

 

Tae Kwon Do

 

Because it is also a Korean style, Hapkido shares most of the kicking techniques employed in Tae Kwon Do. However, in Hapkido we emphasize low-section kicks and knee attacks as opposed to high kicks in self-defense situations.

 

As Tae Kwon Do developed into a modern Olympic sport it also shed from its teaching many of the self-defense techniques that it previously shared with Hapkido.

 

Aikido

 

As in Aikido, the attacker is encouraged to over-commit their attack. The attack is received with minimal resistance, it is guided past the target and then the defenders own force is added to it. The result is to unbalance and throw the opponent. However, opponents do not always attack with large movements. Often short jabs and kicks are delivered with such rapidity that it is very difficult to lead the opponent’s force. In these situations, the close quarter blocking and striking techniques of Hapkido give the Hapkidoist knowledge of how to counter and overcome such attacks.

 

As we both know, people can turn a good system into crap easy just by making stupid changes based on not truly understanding the techniques of a system or even understanding the system itself. I have been studying the martial arts myself for almost 24 years and heve studied a total of 9 different arts. Of those arts Hapkido is one. And in Hapkido I have studied at 3 different schools. Each a bit different than the other. My current one being my favorite. I honestly feel that Hapkido is better for me and has better prepaired me for real life self-defense situations that any of the other systems I have studied. We have very little in common with Aikido other than origin. As for TKD we don't even execute our kicks the same or punch the same. Our striking is based mainly on Wing Chun, Boxing and Muai Thi. We are basically a MMA with one phylosophy and ideology. We learn techniques to extreemly andvanced levels and not just to a basic understanding or just beyond. We are traditional in mindset, phylosophy and tradition only. We are quick to throw out what doesn't work. A good HKDist will try and keep up on the techniques of other system as much as possible so that we may intergrate the usefull ones into our arsenal and also develop effective counters for said techniques. If you do some reaserch you will see that we are more than the typical comparison. We are so much more. Yes we are a technical and indepth system that does require devotion and some common sense. But for those who can make the grade the payoff is priceless.

 

The biggest problem as with other system I would gather is that people here thisng about other systems that the realy don't know anything about and they pass is on. As they pass it on it gets more distorted as each person who is involved changes the info. adding and subtracting more belief than fact, untill the end result is nothing more than uneducated jibberish. As MAist I believe that it is our responsability to ensure the truth and give the benefit of the doupt. I hope I have done this for you. If not then I have tried. Iether way I respect your thoughts and opinions. I belive that a person beliefs are not wrong unless they choose to not prove or disprove their thoughts and theories with fact. And this is something that only this person will know if they have done or not.

 

If there are any questions that you have about Hapkido please feel free to ask and I will do my best to flood you with my never ending insight and thoughts.

 

D.