Korean Martial Art


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It has a lot of similarities to Hap Ki Do which is also a Korean martial art. I trained in Hap Ki Do several years ago and quite enjoyed it. One day someone had a magazine at the studio featuring eskrima, a Filipino martial art. When the head master saw it he threw it out the door and sneered that there is no such thing as a Filipino martial art - The thing is I'll never know if he was mostly joking or if he was serious - I couldn't tell with that guy.

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1 hour ago, SpiritDragon said:

It has a lot of similarities to Hap Ki Do which is also a Korean martial art. I trained in Hap Ki Do several years ago and quite enjoyed it. One day someone had a magazine at the studio featuring eskrima, a Filipino martial art. When the head master saw it he threw it out the door and sneered that there is no such thing as a Filipino martial art - The thing is I'll never know if he was mostly joking or if he was serious - I couldn't tell with that guy.

If he was raised in Korea, he probably wasn't joking.  Koreans tend to be hyper-nationalists (by American standards).

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He was very much raised in Korea. Supposedly, he was a bodyguard to the president of South Korea and trained special forces before he was forced to come to leave the country by enemy factions making threats on his family - he apparently left the country after coming home one day to find that his wife had been attacked and her face was bleeding, she does have a scar that runs diagonally across her face like a nasty knife ran across it. I tend to believe the story, but I'm always a little leary simply because so many martial arts instructors tell tales of military expertise to sound more credible as instructors, when for many the closest they actually came to any of that is mall security.

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4 hours ago, SpiritDragon said:

It has a lot of similarities to Hap Ki Do which is also a Korean martial art. I trained in Hap Ki Do several years ago and quite enjoyed it. One day someone had a magazine at the studio featuring eskrima, a Filipino martial art. When the head master saw it he threw it out the door and sneered that there is no such thing as a Filipino martial art - The thing is I'll never know if he was mostly joking or if he was serious - I couldn't tell with that guy.

Technically, there's no official Filipino Martial Art.  Yes yes yes, the government did recognize Arnis/Eskrima/Kali as an official National Martial Art a few years ago but that's only for the purposes of sport and therefore, the art is narrowed down to sports application.  And yeah, the fact that they can't even decide on a common name for the thing is a clue to its disorganization.

 

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The Koreans I know would say that Taekwondo is the watered down fluff suitable for westerners that can't tell the difference. Case in point, we have a new Yoga instructor where I work who is from Korea, she was asking questions about whether her husband could teach martial arts at our facility and I mentioned that I had trained in a Korean martial art, at which point she started to mutter Taekwon... under her breath and looked disappointed, but when I clarified it was Hap Ki Do she smiled and sighed with relief, "Oh, a good martial art."

Lest this is read wrong, I have nothing personally against anyone who practices Taekwondo or eskrima or really any other martial art, these are just observations I've picked up from dealing with Koreans I know personally. I should also clarify that I'm not trying to speak on behalf of Koreans or suggest they are all of one mind on such matters. 

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On 9/2/2017 at 3:28 PM, anatess2 said:

I thought Taekwondo was THE Korean Martial Art.

Taekwondo literally means the art of kicking and punching.  It is considered a sport just as boxing is a sport in the US.

You could consider it Korean boxing just as some used to call Kung Fu: Chinese boxing.

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On 9/2/2017 at 4:29 PM, SpiritDragon said:

Hap Ki Do

Ah, yes; the art of tacky gi design.  (Which, of course, must include "HAP-KI-DO" in 2" or larger letters and at least three languages.  A requirement set by other arts so they don't accidentally get blamed for that.)

Second only to BJJ in the amount of excess junk applied to the clothes.

:P

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On 9/2/2017 at 9:05 AM, Carborendum said:

I found this very informative video that I thought I'd share.

The style being shown here is called Kuk Sool Won.  This literally means "National (Korean) Martial Art".

This is some seriously bad stuff when used by the right person.  My son is a black belt in both Taekwondo and Kuk Sool Won.  When he was stationed at Ft. Bragg in the 82nd Airborne, he was shopping at the Spring Lake Walmart.  As he was going to his car, two punks, one with a knife, tried to rob him.  I'm not quite sure what he did, but the punk with the knife took an extended nap and was taken away unconscious in an ambulance.  The second punk was put on the ground a second or two after the first was disarmed.  My son later told me that the second punk obediently stayed on the ground and was desperately grateful when the police came for him.

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4 hours ago, NightSG said:

Ah, yes; the art of tacky gi design.  (Which, of course, must include "HAP-KI-DO" in 2" or larger letters and at least three languages.  A requirement set by other arts so they don't accidentally get blamed for that.)

Second only to BJJ in the amount of excess junk applied to the clothes.

:P

Interesting. The school I attended years ago only had one small patch on the gi over the left breast and the rest was plain white, unless you wore the black gi reserved for black belts who were also instructors in which case it was plain black with one patch over the left breast. Must be a regional thing.

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4 hours ago, SpiritDragon said:

Interesting. The school I attended years ago only had one small patch on the gi over the left breast and the rest was plain white, unless you wore the black gi reserved for black belts who were also instructors in which case it was plain black with one patch over the left breast. Must be a regional thing.

I usually see them in the contrasting sleeves and lapels, way more embellishment than any dojo I've been a member of, etc.

hapkido002.jpg

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