iron_ox
Black Belt
- Thread Starter
- #21
Hello all,
OK, back to reality. I was starting this post not to get run over from the mega thread, but to examine what attitudes people have to "Hapkido" dojangs whose instructors have almost no Hapkido in their background. Now, as I said, for the minute, I wanted to leave behind the more controversial, larger and more well known organizations, including KHF and Combat Hapkido, and concentrate on the mom and pop size groups that start small and grow to super-con proportions.
This may include defining how others see Hapkido. I would like to stick to simple definintions, e.g. founded by, includes, not "based in blah-blah culture" - just simple definintions. I consider Hapkido founded by Choi, Yong Sul and is based on his curriculum, but again, the Ji tradition here is fine, whatever, but examine how we determine fakes and what should we do...
Personally, I think that a guy, for example, that has 13 years tae kwon do experience, then decides after a single Hapkido seminar this summer with a somewhat dodgey Hapkido character, to call himself "dojoonim" of his own Hapkido style is very suspect. Now, if we are not self policing, who is? If we allow some to turn the term Hapkido for a general catch-all for any KMA tradition (or Chinese tradition) with a throw in it, or use Hapkido as a general determinate for nunchaku groups, will the art survive? Examine all other major martial arts of today. Is Shotokan a catch-all, how about Tae-kwon-do? This catch all nonsense allows others to say "I teach Hapkido - it really has no definition - so my Chin-na, rice-flail, neo-Confucian mantis style is also Hapkido".
Not for me it ain't.
OK, back to reality. I was starting this post not to get run over from the mega thread, but to examine what attitudes people have to "Hapkido" dojangs whose instructors have almost no Hapkido in their background. Now, as I said, for the minute, I wanted to leave behind the more controversial, larger and more well known organizations, including KHF and Combat Hapkido, and concentrate on the mom and pop size groups that start small and grow to super-con proportions.
This may include defining how others see Hapkido. I would like to stick to simple definintions, e.g. founded by, includes, not "based in blah-blah culture" - just simple definintions. I consider Hapkido founded by Choi, Yong Sul and is based on his curriculum, but again, the Ji tradition here is fine, whatever, but examine how we determine fakes and what should we do...
Personally, I think that a guy, for example, that has 13 years tae kwon do experience, then decides after a single Hapkido seminar this summer with a somewhat dodgey Hapkido character, to call himself "dojoonim" of his own Hapkido style is very suspect. Now, if we are not self policing, who is? If we allow some to turn the term Hapkido for a general catch-all for any KMA tradition (or Chinese tradition) with a throw in it, or use Hapkido as a general determinate for nunchaku groups, will the art survive? Examine all other major martial arts of today. Is Shotokan a catch-all, how about Tae-kwon-do? This catch all nonsense allows others to say "I teach Hapkido - it really has no definition - so my Chin-na, rice-flail, neo-Confucian mantis style is also Hapkido".
Not for me it ain't.