Combat Hapkido With Grand Master J. Pelligrini!

[Brian R. VanCise]

Combat Hapkido
is an art that has derived from Hapkido and also has other influences from grappling arts (brazilian jiujitsu) and police defensive tactics.

Following are a variety of the videos for Combat Hapkido out there.

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I am interested in those that have trained with Grand Master Pelligrini and their personal opinions on the training, techniques and the man at the helm of Combat Hapkido. While I have had training in Hapkido I have personally not trained with the GM of Combat Hapkido though I have met a few of his practitioner's and they are simply great guy's.

So looking at the positives of this system, what do you have to say about it?

 

[terryl965]

Actually Brian GM Pelligrini is a very talented individual and has alot of great training techs. though his years of training. He is very basic and direct with all his movements and if you ever have the chance do a seminar with him. The money is well spent.

 

[David Weatherly]

A friend of mine did a training seminar with him last year and had nothing but good things to say about Master Pelligrini and the seminar. In fact, he's looking at training in the art full time this spring.

David

 

[Drac]

A friend of mine did a training seminar with him last year and had nothing but good things to say about Master Pelligrini and the seminar. In fact, he's looking at training in the art full time this spring.

David

I had a backround in Shorin-Ryu karate and was authorized by the state to teach at the police academy when I took my first 2 day class for for GM Pellegrini's Police defensive tactics..The ICHF reconized my police training credentals and experience and waved the black belt only requirment..I was so impressed that I flew to Nova Scotia to attend a 2 day seminar there the following month...Like I said in a previous post GMP is not PC all the time, but in the 5 years I have been around him I have NEVER heard him run down any other system, discipline, Master or Grandmaster...

 

[Eric Deveau]

So looking at the positives of this system, what do you have to say about it?[/quote]


Greetings,
I have Been with The Boss for 11 years and I would not be where I am nor would my school if I had stayed where I was at. I found this org after looking around and being slighted by the Traditionalists and other name Korean M A orgs. Having been Martial Arts oriented since age 6 the one thing that drew me to this organization and kept me here is the lack of elitist attitudes and ego problems that seem so prevalaent in some other KMA"S and their practitioners not everyone in the world wants traditional (whatever that really means) KMA or any other M A. GrandMaster teaches and provides much the same as my original instructor and like them has tasked me on several occasions to prove why what I was saying did or did not work much the same as he has done with his.
That being said I have enjoyed many seminars and travels with the GrandMaster and everyone else in the group. Even being injury sidelined for the past two years I still make it to the seminars and I still learn from the experiences, and will continue to do so.
It is of course about the training so by all means keep training.

I like to say if you get attacked relax and have fun as you do in training.

 

[arnisador]

The HKD and BJJ influences are very clear in the last two clips!

 

[MBuzzy]

I have one seminar worth of experience with ICHF and I loved it.

The thing that stood out the most to me was actually what some people say is one of the problems. There are no dictated stances or specific places to put your feet or to move. Everything that I learned was based solely on being effective and controlling your attacker. In a real situation, your attacker isn't going to be compliant and let you stand in perfect stances and step correctly and place your feet here....they will move and react and you have to react with them. Most of the other traditional styles that I've encountered (including traditional Hapkido) require your opponent to stand still and don't talk a lot about training with resistance or opponents who are fighting you. All in all, I think that ICHF has it right. It isn't for everyone, but I think that it is a great style with my experience.

 

[howard]

The thing that stood out the most to me was actually what some people say is one of the problems. There are no dictated stances or specific places to put your feet or to move... In a real situation, your attacker isn't going to be compliant and let you stand in perfect stances and step correctly and place your feet here....they will move and react and you have to react with them.

Could you explain what you mean by "dictated stances"? Are you suggesting that traditional hapkido has formal stances, like TKD or karate?

Most of the other traditional styles that I've encountered (including traditional Hapkido) require your opponent to stand still and don't talk a lot about training with resistance or opponents who are fighting you.

With all due respect, this is simply incorrect with regard to traditional hapkido (by my definition, the art that Choi Yong Sul taught when he repatriated to Korea from Japan, and which is still taught in a few places). Compliant attacks are used to teach basic principles to beginning and intermediate students, but advanced techniques are practiced against attackers who are moving with intent and/or grabbing or striking at you with intent. The attacker's momentum is actually a key element in the techniques, in that the defender exploits that momentum to his advantage, and to the disadvantage of the attacker. That is the essence of aikijujutsu; accordingly, it is the essence of Choi's hapkido.

Once again - Choi Yong Sul's original style of hapkido had NO formal or "dictated" stances. You move more or less like a boxer - on the balls of your feet, in balance, mobile. At the very moment your attacker makes contact with you, or attempts to, you take your attacker's balance, and you never give it back. Then, you control him, then you finish him.

If you all want to put combat hapkido on a pedestal, by all means do. But please don't presume to do it at the expense of Choi Yong Sul's art. Choi taught a comprehensive system of unarmed self defense that derives from aikijujutsu and is effective against many types of attacks. Anybody who sees fit to criticize Choi's art should have a basis of years of training in it in order for their criticisms to be valid. Anybody who says things akin to "we took the formal stances and formal trappings out of traditional hapkido" simply has no idea what they're talking about. There's really no other way to put it.

 

[MBuzzy]

Howard - agreed. Let me rephrase.....please replace the "traditional Hapkido" with "some of the traditional hapkido that I have encountered." My post was in no way intended to be an attack of ANY style of Hapkido. I have a great respect for traditional hapkido and would love to learn it. I simply don't have any hapkido schools in range for me, so I stick to my base art for now.

If you are lucky enough to be at a school that keeps to the original traditions that you mentioned (which I admit, I am not aware of), then you are in fact lucky and I do hope that your school is representative of a majority. I have experience with 4 hapkido schools that I have had the opportunity to attend/observe. 3 did have dictated stances, hyung, and very compliant attackers.

The school that I attend on a very limited basis for Haidong Gumdo training is a great Traditional Hapkido school and does not include these things (although they do have hyung). I suppose the take-away from my experience is that there is a wide variety in Hapkido training and for that matter in the training of ALL arts....some is good, some is not as good.

One of the things that I do like about Combat Hapkido is their organizational standarized elimination of some things, which in my PERSONAL experience is not widespread.

 

[MBuzzy]

I should also add that I have had about the same amount of exposure to combat hapkido and traditional hapkido. With combat hapkido, my experiences were 100% good...which is perhaps because I had great instructors. My experience with Traditional Hapkido was closer to 25% good and again, that could just be my bad luck for running in to what may have even been the three only bad hapkido instructors or ones who didn't follow the traditions. And my style isn't blameless either, we have just as many instructors who don't stick to the traditions and do things their own way and may even be classified as "not as good." Again - in no way a detraction from traditional hapkido, only a discussion of my positive experiences with Combat Hapkido.

 

[MBuzzy]

Ok, last one along these lines, I promise!!!

There is one more thing about Combat Hapkido that I feel strongly about. The ICHF has NEVER claimed to be traditional hapkido. In fact, they make it pretty clear that they ARE NOT traditional Hapkido. So as far as I'm concerned, they are different styles. The Hanja for Hapkido is 合氣道 (literally: meet energy/power way), which is the same chinese as the Kanji for Aikido (although Aikido now does prefer the use of 気 instead of 氣, but that's semantics...just simplified vs traditional, same word). So TO ME - there is no requirement for a comparison between Combat Hapkido and Traditional Hapkido. Yes, I am guilty of doing it in my post, I admit it! Sorry! But I just had this thought.....
As far as I'm concerned, there is no more requirement for similarity between Combat Hapkido and Traditional Hapkido as there is between Tang Soo Do and Karate. Ok....just my opinion....although a bit more thought out now that we're on the topic.

 

[Drac]

At more than one seminar GM Pellegrini will ask if there are any LEO's, CO's, Sheriffs, etc.etc.. He will then take us aside and show us a couple of movements that pertain to what we may encounter and not shown to the rest of the attendees..I attended one seminar put on my a different GM and you were not allowed to ask him questions directly, you had to go through one of his senior students and maybe you would get an answer...

 

[YoungMan]

I'll tell you,
I've seen some of the clips of Pellegrini on YouTube, and to be quite honest, he doesn't impress me. He seems clumsy and stilted, and without a sense of timing that characterizes authentic masters. I don't care if he's John Pellegrini the Founder of Combat Hapkido. I don't find him impressive.
That and the fact that he wants to be on the cover of every MA magazine that will have him.

 

[Hollywood1340]

I've FELT GM Pellegrini, so I speak from experience as opposed to those who have "seen" him. In Kenpo we have a saying "To see is to doubt, to hear is to be deceived, but to feel is believe" Well worth the time no matter what your training. I really enjoyed my time in the ICHF.

 

[exile]

I'll tell you,
I've seen some of the clips of Pellegrini on YouTube, and to be quite honest, he doesn't impress me. He seems clumsy and stilted, and without a sense of timing that characterizes authentic masters. I don't care if he's John Pellegrini the Founder of Combat Hapkido. I don't find him impressive.
That and the fact that he wants to be on the cover of every MA magazine that will have him.

Ah yes—but then, you were able to 'tell' from video clips of late 20th century revival taekyon that TKD got its kicks from that nouveau creation, right! Maybe that should tell you something about just how much one can tell from video, YM? :lfao:

And you might notice that the OP wasn't asking about your opinions of Gm. Pelligrini based on a video or two. He was asking the views of people who actually know something about Gm. Pelligrini. Pay particular attention to the bits in red:

I am interested in those that have trained with Grand Master Pelligrini and their personal opinions on the training, techniques and the man at the helm of Combat Hapkido. While I have had training in Hapkido I have personally not trained with the GM of Combat Hapkido though I have met a few of his practitioner's and they are simply great guy's.

So looking at the positives of this system, what do you have to say about it?

That pretty much lets you out, YM, since you have no firsthand knowledge of Gm. Pelligrini's teaching or physical capabilities, or anything else, right? And you're hardly in a position to say anything about the positives, as Brian requested, right? So maybe your comments are a bit off-topic... you think?

I've been at an all-day seminar with Gm. Pelligrini, and I have to say that both pedagogically and technically he is brilliant. There were a number of rather huge guys there from a Marine batallion, I think, and he used them to demo some basic techs—they weren't being in the least compliant, but he controlled them like puppets. My training partner was one of those guys, he knew a good deal about the system, and as he said while we were doing drills, if you execute them correctly, you own the attacker from the getgo. GmP emphasized the important of a 'fence' defensive posture from the outset, and showed clearly how many effective techniques can be spun off as variations on a few simple, basic principles. It was gratifying to see that many of those techs are clearly latent in the movements in familiar TKD and Karate forms—a point which just goes to emphasizes how complete those systems are. The strategic differences between those striking arts, on the one hand, and Combat HKD on the other, are evident, but many of the tactical skills involved beyond simple kick/punch/block literalism are the same.

GmP is a real gentleman, a skilled instructor, and utterly, totally unpretentious. Would that all self-described masters were that way, eh?

And thanks to Drac and Father Greek for putting on that terrific, smoothly run and enormously informative seminar with Gm. Pelligrini!

 

[Drac]

I've FELT GM Pellegrini, so I speak from experience as opposed to those who have "seen" him.

If all the nay-sayers would attend a seminar with an open mind and volunteer to be an Uke and then they would be fit to pass judgement..

 

[YoungMan]

Ah yes, Exile. More of your brilliant insight:uhyeah:

Brian distinctly said he had not trained with Pellegrini either, so I figure another one who had not been in direct contact with him wouldn't hurt. I can watch a YouTube clip and get a feel for someone's overall technique. Unlike you, I've had more than 6 years experience.

Again, not impressed by what I saw. Sorry for the easily impressed among you.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Youngman the op (that is me) set this thread up to discuss the positives bout the ICHG and Grand Master Pelligrini. If you stay within that topic great if you go away from the positives then you are not in line with the topic at hand. Thanks.

 

[arnisador]

It's tough to judge by videos, but sometimes that's all we've got. Lots of the Systema material looks suspect to me but so many people I know and respect believe in it after having tried it that I reserve judgment!

 

[exile]

Brian distinctly said he had not trained with Pellegrini either, so I figure another one who had not been in direct contact with him wouldn't hurt.

It might have occurred to you that he was asking for feedback from people who actually had some firsthand experience with Gm.P precisely because he himself had none, and wanted to know what those who'd in fact had some had thought about it? People who actually knew something about the topic at hand, in other words? Follow the reasoning here?

I can watch a YouTube clip and get a feel for someone's overall technique. Unlike you, I've had more than 6 years experience.

Oh, I can well believe you've had way more than six year's experience watching video clips and figuring you now knew something about the art in question as a result! :lol:

But seriously, YM—no, you really can't get a feel for 'someone's overall technique' by watching a video clip. And what's the point of all that experience if your judgments are still so wide of the mark that they're in the next county already?

Again, not impressed by what I saw. Sorry for the easily impressed among you.

Well, that's material for your autobiography, YM but since—as already noted—everything you've posted in this thread contradicts the terms of the OP, and is therefore off-topic according to the site rules, maybe you should quit now while you're ahead? Know what I mean?