I don’t have any idea how close to “pure” Hapkido this class was, he called it “street style Hapkido” which mainly meant that what he taught was taught with real-world application firmly in mind, with less regard for the stylistic aspect of martial arts forms. Anyway, that’s a pretty succinct summary of the philosophy in the class I took, too. I loved it, my instructor was a 6th dan black belt with a PhD in philosophy. I always sort of imagined he could come into a room and make you dead before you knew he was there, but a very gentle, quiet sort of guy who took me seriously as a student even though I was uncoordinated and horrifically un-athletic. I feel like he handed me a sense of balance and taught me how to stay on my feet in any situation. I sure do miss that instruction.
We study a little Hapkido in an informal class I go to on the weekends. The class mixes both Kenpo and Hapkido. I tend to stay away from the Hapkido side because it is just no fun to practice - you are going to get your joints locked up. No fun!
Personally, I’d much rather get accidentally kicked in the face or something than have my wrist and elbow locked up with Hapkido. It hurts less.
But, that speaks a lot for Hapkido. If you can do it right, it’s way effective. I’ve been trying to pepper it in to my Kenpo moves and it adds a whole other level to the effectiveness of the move. Instead of disabling the attacker on the 3rd or 4th step of a move with your brute force, you lock his joint on first contact and he’s your bitch. THEN you go and take out his knee or whatever.
That sounds about right. If you’ve got time for a good read right now, a guy named Sam Sheridan recently wrote a book about how he went to Thailand after he graduated Harvard to train Muay Thai under legendary Thaiboxer Apidej Sit-Hirun at Camp Fairtex. His description of the training regimen more or less says it’s walking the razor’s edge between peak conditioning and total body breakdown.
He also goes to Brazil to learn Jiu-Jitsu (and gets injured almost immediately), trains MMA with Pat Miletech in Iowa, and travels around to learn and write about Tai Chi and pro boxing. There’s some stuff about dog fighting in the Phillipines that some readers might find distasteful (especially in light of recent events), but overall it’s pretty entertaining. The title is “A Fighter’s Heart: One Man’s Journey Through the World of Fighting.”
I train with my son at, of all places, the local YMCA. There is a very accomplished instructor there and it’s a lot cheaper than most places, win/win. We study a MMA system that is Hapkido based, with an emphasis on real world fighting situations. We also do a lot of ground fighting and cross rank in JuJitsu, the reasoning being that even though it’s much better to disable your opponent without going down to hard concrete covered in trash, in a real life fight 9 times out of 10 you do wind up down there and you better know what to do. We do lots of joint locking with an emphasis on pain compliance and disabling strikes, either to a joint or utilizing pressure points. Pressure points intrigue me greatly. The mythology behind them is not something I buy into totally, but they do work. I saw my instructor knock a guy out with a strike to the inside of his elbow of all places! He grabbed the guy by the wrist, controlling his strike and activating the PP in his wrist, and then landed a hard down and out strike to the inside of his elbow and the guy dropped like a gaffed cod. I just recently passed my blue belt test in Gaijun Ryu JuJutsu and it almost killed me, no McDojo there! This is what I wrote in my blog afterwards:
From your statements in the OP and following, I think JuJitsu would be a good match for what you are looking for, but really any art taught by a competent instructor is going to offer a lot of benefits.
Cool story, Weirddave. 
Always like hearing about people’s belt test experiences.
Give it a name, and get a decent corps of instructors behind it, and you will make a mint. I’d love to take that course. Aikido was great, but this is better.
My Aikido Sensei was awesome. He had MS or something similar, and was not able to stand without crutches. He could, and did, throw many a heavy guy to the ground wincing in pain. Then he taught the heavy guys’ 120lb daughters to do the same to them. He would drop his crutches and lean against the wall and ask for students to choke him. If you only pretended to do it, he’d let you know that he wanted you to actually try to choke him to death. Once you made an effort, he’d have you on your stomach crying for mercy, and then he’d show you how to do what he did to you.
Having a “disabled” Sensei, really opened my eyes to Aikido. His legs were almost useless, but he could inflict pain in the smoothest manner imaginable, with seemingly little effort. Physics and physiology gave him a huge advantage. I probably learned more about momentum and center of gravity from him than I ever did in HS.
Maybe I was just impressed by the way that his technique worked. When attacked, he would shift his weight, engage a limb or evade the strike. He would then grasp whichever part of the opponent’s person came into reach. In one fluid motion he would exhale softly, move which body part he wanted to be moved, and then hold his opponent in a very painful position until the situation was diffused.
We were often shown positions that would allow us to deliver strikes that were almost not defendable. However, we were taught that Aikido is defensive in nature, not based on strikes. Aikijitsu was referenced as the usage of Aikido, plus killing techniques. The part left to the imagination was what one could do with an opponent in a submission position.
That was really what I liked about Aikido. I liked being able to diffuse a situation (which is my preference), control the situation by force if I had to (without ever having delivered a strike), and strike a person already controlled if need be (I was NOT taught this, but it was inferred by many).
pravnik
I’ll look this up and thanks for the reference. The bit about being between breakdown and peak fitness is right. The guy I met over here was not competing of course but still kept up his training. I forget how many miles he ran every morning and how many hours he put in on the heavy bag but it was WAY more than you’d expect of someone if they were just keeping fit and not expecting to compete. The guy had the most amazingly dense musculature of anyone I’ve ever met.
We used to spar occasionally and as a 50 kilo bantam weight he could usually hold his own against me, a 105 kilo guy. Boxing with him was just a losing proposition. Locking him up could work but had to be done carefully or one could run into an elbow traveling at mach 1 or so.S
One martial art that never gets any respect is plain ol’ boxing. These people can be very difficult to deal with as they do not lunge of allow their body weight to shift off of center.
Sorry, I’m not following the; “especially in light of recent events” part of your post. Has something happened in the PI?
Regards
Testy
Trunk
Yeah, boxing’s fun and reasonably effective, too. Like you, I’ve bumped into a lot of bullshit artists here and there. A TKD instructor stopped just barely short of claiming he had the secret of eternal youth. Aikido has been known for the kind of stuff you’re talking about since it was invented. I read once, (no cite, sorry) that about the time Aikido was being developed the concept of “chi” or “ki” was very popular in Japan and that part was added more-or-less as a marketing ploy. No idea whether this is true or not.
I never paid much attention to all that stuff myself. Martial arts are for hurting people and breaking things, full stop. I liked the Kali classes best because they didn’t hassle you with that kind of stuff. A few aerobic exercises to warm up and then start breaking rattan. IIRC, we had to swear not to use opium. Not a real problem in Saudi. S
Regards
Testy
dnoonan
Aikido is an interesting art and I’ve seen a few demos that were amazing. OTOH, it takes a LONG time to reach the level of skill required to disarm attackers without hurting them. To me, that is close to the pinnacle of skill. In my own case, I never aspired to that level. If I’m attacked and can destroy the guy, that’s adequate.
Regards
Testy
I’ll go ahead and be the only one to speak out for non-eastern martial arts.
Western martial arts is a growing community and they offer a lot of variety from more well known stuff like Capoeira and Savate to 18th century dagger/wrestling to (my personal niche) medieval and renaissance European martial arts.
When it comes to historical European martial arts: It’s fun, challenging, and you can’t get more effective than using a system whose purpose was to kill your opponents rather than score points. I would definitely recommend looking into it if you have a decent study group/school nearby, which might be a challenge depending on where you are located.
Kinthalis
I think that if here were more places to learn, the Western MA would get a lot more respect and consideration. Most people don’t even know they exist. I’ve seen a couple of things by a sword instructor (Da Silva?) something like that. I’ve never seen any kind of unarmed Western MA except some wrestling.
Just out of curiosity, what does unarmed Western MA would look like as compared to something like Ju Jutsu. I would suspect they would be somewhat similar as they were developed under similar conditions, constant warfare, poor peasants working for an aristocracy.
Anyway, tell me more.
Regards and thanks
Testy
Yes, the lack of reputable schools and instructors is a major problem. Most people see an SCA bout and assume that’s historical european martial arts (and no, that’s not a put down to the SCA people), or worse they associate it with play fighting with foam swords at your local live action role-playing scene.
But like I said, the community continues to grow and a lot of knowledgeable people are spreading their ideas, interpretations and personal skill around the globe. So yes, depending on the OP’s location I might recommend a school or group, or not
As for the unarmed aspect of medieval martial arts I would say that yes, it’s similar to Ju jutsu, ignoring the modern trend of ju jutsu to adopt more sport oriented techniques. In HEMA strikes are emphazised less in favor of locks, throws, breaks, etc. Joints get special love.
Kinthalis
Thanks. Yeah, I should have qualified that question with “traditional” Ju Jutsu. So, what is the lineage for this? Have people taught this kind of thing all along and it’s just been ignored? Training manuals? Where do they get the basic moves?
Regards
Testy
No direct lineage sadly, at least not for historical european martial arts, brazilian and other more contemporary arts might have a direct lineage, I wouldn’t know.
Luckily we do have a lot of training manuals from the masters of medieval and renaissance europe. Through a martialy sound study/scientific exploration of several of these texts and diagrams the community at large has managed to piece together very effective traditions. We don’t know everything, and probably never will. There is a lot left to interpret, a lot left to uncover, a lot left to learn, but that’s half the fun of HEMA, IMHO. Instead of being told: “THIS is how you MUST do this, Tradition!” You are instead told: “This is how I believe this should be done, based on this fechtbuch, bolstered by this other manuscript, and this other fellow’s interpretation, and the fact that it works. Let me know if you can refine our understanding of this technique”.
Very scientific, and given the infancy of the serious study of these arts there’s still a place for talented people to make significant contributions to the community in breathing back life into these “lost” arts.
Kinthalis
I never knew there were any ancient manuscripts dealing with MA. Ignorance fought, thank you. Given the way this is evolving, you could wind up with a body of knowledge on a truly superior art. I take it that the evolution is kept on an effective basis? I understand the need and the advantages but hate it when an art that people spent hundreds, maybe thousands of years developing is turned into a sport.
Regards and thanks again
Testy
I’ve been watching Human Weapon lately. One guy is an MMA fighter, the other is an ex-defensive lineman and wrestler. They travel to the homelands of various martial arts, train with different substyles, then take on an expert in that art in the ring. Whenever they learn a move, they discuss the physics of it and what sort of situations it’s useful for. It’s very interesting stuff.
Nope, over here in the states. Atlanta Falcons quaterback Michael Vick was recently arrested and charged with illegal dogfighting, resulting in a moderate amount of public attention and outrage. Sheridan gives a chapter in the book to legal dogfighting in the Phillipines, and attempts to describe it objectively and compare the qualities that dogfighters look for in game dogs to the qualities we respect in human fighters. Some reviewers and readers have been of the opinion that the dogfighting chapter detracts from rest of the otherwise excellent book.
Good show. I missed all but the last five minutes of the Krav Maga one, hoping to catch a rerun.
I trained at a couple of TKD schools when I was a kid that were totally commercialized . . . some of the adults seemed pretty skilled but there were kids who basically just got a new belt every couple of months to keep their parents paying the bills. Then as a teen I switched to a much smaller (and less expensive) school that was much better. Everyone there was very serious, there were no gimme belts. It was officially a TKD school, but the head instructor also had black belts I think in Judo, Jujitsu, and Shotokan Karate, and he had the skills to show they were legit. So my point is, even within a given martial art the quality of schools is really variable.
Best way to tell, I think, is to observe a few classes and keep a close eye on the higher-ranking students. Especially the kids, because that’s where “belt inflation” is the most blatant. If you’ve seen a few good martial artists in action, it’s not too hard to spot the bad ones.
That said, with a martial art like TKD you’re always going to get a bunch of flash moves that aren’t anything you’d ever want to use in a combat situation. But you’ll also learn some more useful self-defense techniques, and a good instructor will be honest about which are which. If all you want is to learn how to win a streetfight, you’d be better off avoiding the more stylized arts. But hey, crazy leaping high-kicks are lots of fun and great exercise – personally I didn’t mind having a little of that mixed in with “Here’s what you do when someone tries to punch you in the head.”
I read somewhere that the fancy leaping kicks were developed to try to knock cavalrymen off their horses. That sort of thing may be theoretically possible, but it would be damned hard to actually pull off.
One thing that is pretty much a giant red flag for a McDojo is the hard sell. Years ago I was walking down the street when I saw some students practicing through a window (I don’t remember what style). I stopped to watch for a minute, then when I turned to go an assistant instructor actually chased me down and tried to get me to sign up for classes on the spot. I asked if I could take the pamphlet he was waving at me and look at it when I got home, but he got all offended and said I shouldn’t wait because that would show a lack of commitment. When I turned to go again he didn’t chase me, but yelled that I was making a mistake. Yeah, because I’m totally going to join your class because you harangue me on the street. Dumbass.