When meeting someone new, and after answering the ‘What do you do?’ question, nine times out of ten the person will follow that with an enquiry as to whether I compete. My answer is always, “No”. And then I usually give the response, “Hapkido is an art of self-defence” or “we compete against ourselves not [...]
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Hapkido training as we age.
How old do you feel? I often find that the way people answer this question has a direct correlation to how active they are. The greater the activity level, the greater the difference between reality and fact. If we look closely at sport, we can find many examples of athletes, supposedly past their prime, still [...]
Power and vulnerability.
Many are afraid of being vulnerable. But is vulnerability really a bad thing and something to be fearful of? When we punch, for example, we actually put ourselves into a deeply vulnerable and off balanced position; but this same body weight shift that causes vulnerability also enables us to get the most power into the [...]
Kibon dong ja
As a white belt we learn basic stances (front, back and horse riding) and spend hours simply walking up and down the mat. I remember it being the part of the class I always hated; but now as an instructor I can see how essential this exercise is. Almost thirty years since I first learned [...]
Don’t neglect the kihap!
Recently a few of my newer students have been asking why we are ‘grunting’ or ‘shouting’ during techniques. What they are referring to is the ‘ki-hap’: literally, Ki means inner power, and Hap means coordination. So the shout is an expression, or perhaps the result of the student coordinating their inner power. The shout shouldn’t [...]
What happens on the mat…
What is the single biggest factor that will affect your Hapkido? Your mind. If you are upset, carried away, scattered, preoccupied…your Hapkido will be poor. If you are relaxed, focused, attentive, calm…your Hapkido will be good and your ki will flow fluently. One could say that Hapkido is a microcosm of what is happening in [...]
Helping lower belts.
I remember about a year ago a blue belt student being very annoyed about having to work with a young yellow belt girl. I told him that I understood how he felt, “Yes, I know… Sometimes the black belts also come to me and complain that they have to do skills with you because you [...]
Boredom vs. concentration in sparring.
Recently, a lower belt student told me that when he spars with more junior belts he is often afraid of hitting them. He also disclosed that he gets bored sparring with the junior or less ‘able’ students. My response to this lower belt was, “If you are worried about hitting the junior belt then either [...]
Tension vs. power in Hapkido training.
I find that many new students need to first spend time understanding the difference between tension, strength and power. In the English language, if we want to improve at something, we often say that we must knuckle down, train hard orgrit our teeth. Each one of these strangely denotes a state of tension, something that we must [...]
Expert technique takes time.
A green belt student asked me for advice on his side kick the other day. He expressed disappointment when I told him that his side kick was fine. “But it doesn’t snap and sometimes I lose balance. Your kick is much better!”, he told me. Each class, students are instructed to perform 100 side kicks. [...]