Hapkido

[Daniel Sullivan]

During the temporary sidelining of Kingdomfighter, a lot has happened in my martial life. I've continued taekwondo, but I'll address that in another thread. At the end of February, I took up hapkido at our school.

It has been a challenging art, to say the least, but I have truly enjoyed it. I just received my green belt (6th geub) this week, and in so doing have earned a green belt for sixth time in my life.

I think that the hardest part for me has been the rolls, particularly the reverse rolls. I'm almost 42 and my flexibility is definetely not that of a younger man. Heck, when I was a younger man I was never the most flexible guy. But I have learned the techniques and have been getting better. I could never have done this if I hadn't been doing taekwondo for a while.

To answer the inevitable federation questions, my GM trained in Myung Jae Nam's organization and was a hapkido instructor in the ROK special army. Our assistant hapkido instructor was also in the ROK special army. Our school is independent; GM Kim has his reasons for being unaffiliated and they are legitimate, but I won't go into it here.

In any case, I have really enjoyed the training and particularly enjoy the practical SD application of hapkido. I'm looking forward to my continued study.

Daniel

[Daniel Sullivan]

And continuing study has, well, continued. I have pretty much dropped taekwondo entirely, though I still practice the forms and make it to at least one class a week just to keep myself moving, but my primary unarmed art is solidly hapkido now.

Daniel

[CESAREKIM]

Why the switch? Real world vs. olympic sport type of selection or just more fun? As I was growing up, I made a switch from doing tkd and judo at the same time to doing mostly judo and finally only judo. I just enjoyed judo a lot more as I grew up and understood the complexities involved.

[Daniel Sullivan]

Hapkido is a lot more of what I got into martial arts for in the first place. There are only but so many hours in the day to train, only so many classes that I can realistically attend, so I try to spend that time as effectively as possible.

Hapkido is more practical, has all of the kicks of Taekwondo and then some, plus all of the grapples that taekwondo has none of. I have no interest in WTF style sparring, and I do not need to go to a class to continue to practice forms.

Between kumdo and hapkido, there is precious little time left for an art that has pretty much turned into a sport that, while I like and think is cool, have no interest in participating in.

I guess that you could say that time management is a large factor.

Daniel