Hi, im new to the forum.
Do any of You know around what belt a student will be starting to learn Bo staff in hapkido.
im really interest in learning it and currently im green belt..
It will depend on your instructor and school. BTW: Bo is Japanese, in Korean it would be bong, or sometimes jang bong (long stick).
When I was training in Korea in the 90s, white belts did some bong training, but now my instructors there don't teach as much at lower levels, but they use the ee chul bong more. (ee being 2, so the ee chul bong is two section stick, or nunchaku in Japanese)
You will find it will vary from school to school, instructor to instructor....
As Alain said in his post it depends on the instructor and school. The instructor can choose to teach a certain weapon at any level that he wishes.
The curriculum suggested by Dr. He-Young Kimm in his Hapkido book recommends Long Pole training in 3rd degree black belt and Sword and Cane training in 4th degree black belt. I have seen a Hapkido curriculum on another dojang's web site (not my own dojang). In this curriculum they do not teach any weapons until 1st degree black belt. The similarity between these two curriculums indicates that they teach only empty hand techniques before 1st degree black belt level and weapons training starts after that.
By comparison, in my own dojang there is a Sword class that is open to all belt levels. On the other hand the Cane defense class is not taught to the beginning belt levels and a minimum of blue belt is required.
I think weapons training should be introduced from day one, right alongside open hand techniques. I've seen demos by students from schools that do this, and by the time they reach 2nd dan level they are experts with the weapons.
