Help me out Hapkido folks...

[oftheherd1]

At 2:30 - 3:10, I know it's no ideal camera angle but what are the thoughts around the application of the arm bar?

The move he begins about 1:12, ending in the person being on the ground from the arm bar, is not something I remember learning in the Hapkido I studied. We would have gone ahead and taken him to the ground from the arm bar pressure point in the triceps. You can keep him under control and deliver a strike to the head, usually the temple. The take down to the arm bar is obviously possible, but needs to be done quickly to get him into position for the take down with the triceps pressure point, before he can react.

The goose-neck, the way I learned it, we would have stepped on his hand with our inside foot (possibly/probably breaking fingers in the process, as well as controlling the hand), the other knee to the ground, pushing against his arm with the inside knee, and again, struck his head, probably with a back knuckle or sudu stride. Of course, there are other ways to acquire a gooseneck.

Nothing I have said is meant to criticize the move shown. Any move you can consistently make work is a good technique, and you can never have too many tools in your tool box.

 

[jezr74]

The move he begins about 1:12, ending in the person being on the ground from the arm bar, is not something I remember learning in the Hapkido I studied. We would have gone ahead and taken him to the ground from the arm bar pressure point in the triceps. You can keep him under control and deliver a strike to the head, usually the temple. The take down to the arm bar is obviously possible, but needs to be done quickly to get him into position for the take down with the triceps pressure point, before he can react.

The goose-neck, the way I learned it, we would have stepped on his hand with our inside foot (possibly/probably breaking fingers in the process, as well as controlling the hand), the other knee to the ground, pushing against his arm with the inside knee, and again, struck his head, probably with a back knuckle or sudu stride. Of course, there are other ways to acquire a gooseneck.

Nothing I have said is meant to criticize the move shown. Any move you can consistently make work is a good technique, and you can never have too many tools in your tool box.

I agree, the arm bar shown is the way we are taught. So when we are doing some ground work lessons, the arm bar is sometimes referred to. In general, we are taught along the lines you have described. First line of defense with the locks and pinning, I don't think I'd utilize an arm-bar personally at least not outside a known environment and clear number of assailants as I personally feel vulnerable in that position, I'd rather position the grounded attacker between me and the next opponent, or maintain control.

As to the OP, I think I understand how ineffective it is now. I had a bit of a play at the arm-bar as done in the OP, the only way I could attempt to get that to work would be to force my way through it assuming the opponent was weaker than me enough to be able. And then if I'm able to, it's not good HKD. (the same for escaping)

After rolling around with this, I can see how off it is now. But while it's good they are looking to expand their repertoire, some more effective guidance would go a long way.

 

[Hanzou]

Yeah, like I said I was very surprised to see two Hapkido black belts not be able to pull off a proper armbar.

Is there free sparring/randori/rolling in Hapkido, or do the students just do partner sets?

 

[jezr74]

Our school does, not sure if that is common or not.

 

[Raymond]

I would encourage any Hapkido dojang that prides itself on "realistic self defense" to start including at least elementary grappling curriculum trained by a competent grappler. Good martial arts that base their values on real self defense should grow and evolve to address modern combative needs. With the rise of mixed martial arts, dedicated grappling is becoming more widely practiced and just the general untrained lay person who watches mixed martial arts is exposed to grappling and as they say "monkey see monkey do". However, the instructors of the dojangs have to be able to admit when they don't have the answers, and seek out an expert to help shore up their grappling self defense if necessary rather than imitate or make up techniques they don't understand (as in the OP).

 

[Chrisoro]

Yeah, like I said I was very surprised to see two Hapkido black belts not be able to pull off a proper armbar.

Is there free sparring/randori/rolling in Hapkido, or do the students just do partner sets?

Depends on the school, the instructor, the style, the time of day, the color of the paint on the walls, etc. The point is that Hapkido is perhaps one of the most diverse arts there is, as a lot of Choi Yong Sool's original students started their own schools with their own focus and take on things, incorporating techniques from other arts which they thought were useful, and their students went their own way again and started their own schools. The result is that you got everything from schools having absolutely no sparring at all to schools doing a lot of it.

I regularly tapped out Hapkido black belts on the ground long before ever getting a black belt myself(since I had been training other stuff like BJJ/Judo a few years before starting hapkido), but I was recently tapped out myself by a non-black belt student from another hapkido club who threw out a lot of really well set up leg locks when rolling with me(I tend to tap very quickly on most kinds of leg locks putting torque on the knees, as I have more or less permanent injuries to both my knees). Afterwards, I asked him where he had learned those leg locks, and he said learned them in his hapkido club and had never trained anything else.

Just as karate goes from no-contact schools/styles focusing mostly on kata all the way to Kyokyshin and Daido Juku, there are currently more than a hundred Hapkido schools, usually tending to have their own focus, and different curriculums), and also dozens of organizations also having different focus on what is the "best" way to do things, there are no simple answer to your question above.

Here's an example of one expression of Hapkido:

Looks a bit different than the two gentlemen in the first post, or what?

Aklso, to get an idea of difference of focus within the art, take a look at the previews of these two books, including the table of contents, of how different Hapkido can be to...well Hapkido.

Hapkido: Korean Mixed Martial Art:
Hapkido Korean martial art mixed martial art jujitsu jiujitsu self-defense technique ground technique striking technique Qi Dennis Kim 9781470157012 Amazon.com Books

Power Hapkido: Essential techniqes:
Power Hapkido Essential Techniques Myung Yong Kim Jung Kim Ki Kim 9781463632793 Amazon.com Books

 

[RTKDCMB]

Is there free sparring/randori/rolling in Hapkido, or do the students just do partner sets?

The one I did had quite a bit of free sparring.

 

[RTKDCMB]

I came across this vid earlier today, and I wanted your opinions about it;

I'm hoping someone can tell me the methodology behind this technique. Thanks.

I can see the defender running into a problem as soon as the attacker started to resist heavily,.he is basically tying to stop an armbar with one arm. Lifting the leg like he did would not be that easy without additional leverage. The attacker could easily pull his arm straight and apply the armbar quickly, breaking his arm.