How to spark interest in Hapkido at a TKD/HKD school?

[skribs]

My school does HKD and TKD. It's pretty much night-and-day. We consistently had around 250+ active students from when I started there 8 years ago until COVID hit. We went online-only during much of COVID, where we still had around 75 students. Right now we're doing hybrid classes, and are back up to around 150 or so.

HKD has been a different story. I think the most we ever had in one class was 12. For a while, we would maintain 6-8 (5 regulars and 1-3 drifters). Two of the regulars have moved, and the last few months it's just been the 3 regulars that remain (no drifters).

There are a few factors I can see holding us back.

• Previously, we have only allowed Hapkido for ages 16+, or for students who are a black belt in Taekwondo. Around 80% of our students are kids, so it makes sense that this would limit the number of students in Hapkido. However, that would mean that of the 30 or so adults we have, the vast majority have chosen TKD over HKD.
• Hapkido is an extra cost over TKD. However, it's cheaper to just do HKD than to just do TKD (about 2/3 the price).
• Hapkido is only once a week, compared to TKD twice a week. (This does make it more expensive per class). It's also either been Friday evening or early afternoon on Saturday.

We don't really advertise for either class. We do mention it periodically to adults and black belts, but we get very little interest in it. Personally, I'm starting to get a little bit frustrated, because it's such a small pool of people to drill/spar with. Both of the other people are several inches taller, quite a bit stronger/heavier, and more experienced in martial arts than I am. I'd love more people my size and of varying experience levels.

How do you spark interest in Hapkido in your school?

 

[MetalBoar]

My school does HKD and TKD. It's pretty much night-and-day. We consistently had around 250+ active students from when I started there 8 years ago until COVID hit. We went online-only during much of COVID, where we still had around 75 students. Right now we're doing hybrid classes, and are back up to around 150 or so.

HKD has been a different story. I think the most we ever had in one class was 12. For a while, we would maintain 6-8 (5 regulars and 1-3 drifters). Two of the regulars have moved, and the last few months it's just been the 3 regulars that remain (no drifters).

There are a few factors I can see holding us back.

• Previously, we have only allowed Hapkido for ages 16+, or for students who are a black belt in Taekwondo. Around 80% of our students are kids, so it makes sense that this would limit the number of students in Hapkido. However, that would mean that of the 30 or so adults we have, the vast majority have chosen TKD over HKD.
• Hapkido is an extra cost over TKD. However, it's cheaper to just do HKD than to just do TKD (about 2/3 the price).
• Hapkido is only once a week, compared to TKD twice a week. (This does make it more expensive per class). It's also either been Friday evening or early afternoon on Saturday.

We don't really advertise for either class. We do mention it periodically to adults and black belts, but we get very little interest in it. Personally, I'm starting to get a little bit frustrated, because it's such a small pool of people to drill/spar with. Both of the other people are several inches taller, quite a bit stronger/heavier, and more experienced in martial arts than I am. I'd love more people my size and of varying experience levels.

How do you spark interest in Hapkido in your school?

So, I was an avid Hapkido practitioner for 5 years. I had been looking for a good Hapkido school off and on for several years before I found the place I stuck with and it was a dedicated Hapkido school with classes 3 days/week. I looked at a lot of TKD schools that offered Hapkido and they never got my business because it seemed painfully obvious that Hapkido was the unloved, redheaded stepchild of their operation. Offering one class a week on Friday evening or Saturday afternoon makes it sound like it's similar at your school.

I get that there's a chicken and an egg problem here, TKD is your moneymaker and it doesn't make sense to devote a lot of resources to something that's going to have less than 5% as many students, but then it's hard to get students if you aren't devoting resources to a program. If it's 2/3 the price for half the classes in an unpopular time slot (I'm making assumptions here, but Friday evenings were always just about the least attended class time at the schools where I've trained) I can see why it's a hard sell. I'm also guessing that a lot of the adults in your school are there as a family activity with their kids. If their kids can't train in Hapkido then only the real martial arts geeks among them are going to want to add it on. One class at an unpopular time isn't going to get a lot of love from prospective students who just want Hapkido either and it's obscure enough that you probably won't get a lot of walk in customers without advertising. I doubt you're going to get much more interest without some sort of significant changes.

I'm not going to try to analyze the business's financials without more info, but looking at it from the existing TKD customer's perspective, I'd feel like it was a lot more attractive deal if it cost one third more to add it on to my TKD classes and that it was a little unreasonable to charge more than 50% more for only 50% as many classes when I'm already paying for a full time classes with your school (assuming it doesn't involve hiring a whole new instructor or something). If I were a prospective customer looking for Hapkido and wasn't interested in TKD, or only minimally interested, I would be very unlikely to sign up for one class a week unless I was convinced it was special in some way and that's extremely true if it were on a Friday evening, and Saturday afternoon would be only marginally better. If I'm only going to get one class a week why can't it be on a Tuesday or some other time I have nothing going on? The price might or might not seem unreasonable for one Hapkido class/week depending on how it compared to my other options.

So, now that I've harped about that, the changes that might help:

• Move the class to a better time slot.
• Add a second class so that it was more viable as a stand alone training option.
• Cut the price for full time TKD students if you think you can more than make it up on volume in one way or another.
• Advertise.
• Finally, my least favorite option, lower the age requirements so that it can be more enticing to families.

Sorry if I come off as abrasive in this post, you just hit on a particular frustration of mine. I couldn't find a good Hapkido school for a long time and then after the one I found closed all I could find were TKD schools that didn't seem to really want to teach Hapkido, they just seemed to want to say, "Oh yeah! We offer self defense too!" and point at their Hapkido or TKD/Hapkido mashup without having any real commitment to it. My apologies for projecting that on you.

EDIT: When you talk with your current TKD students about it do you tell them how cool it is and what it's about or do you just mention that there's another, kind of expensive, thing they could add on to their TKD? I think how it's presented could have a big impact on interest, but may not help as much as you might like if you've only got about 30 adults to draw from/

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I can't answer for everyone, but I can say the reasons that I might not be interested in that particular class. Also keep in mind I'm not a business owner so take my fixes with a grain of salt, and remember they're from the customers viewpoint.

1: I enjoy striking more. I'd guess the same is true of people that go to a TKD school. I might be interested in going to a class every once in a while, but not enough to pay extra for it.
2: I have a budget, which includes a set cost for martial arts. Let's say (randomly assigned for ease of discussion, and based around my areas COL) TKD costs $150/month. That would mean in your school, Hapkido costs $100/month. If my budget is 150 a month for MA, I might not have an extra 100 to add to that (particularly if point 1 is true and I enjoy TKD more to begin with).
3: Even if I did enjoy them the same, and could afford both, I wouldn't consider that a good ROI. If we say classes cost 150/month, for twice a week, that means the classes come out to about $18 a class. Vs hapkido where it's $25 a class. Not a huge difference, but when I like them both, and I have to choose one, I'm going to choose the one that's less per class, and also let's me go twice as much.
4: Once a week isn't always enough to learn something new. And hapkido is significantly tougher (from my experience with grappling vs. tma-striking focused styles), to practice outside the dojo than tkd would be.
5: I'm likely not going to be available every friday night, and saturday afternoon I'm probably with family or sleeping in from the week. So I'm likely going to miss classes meaning I'd be paying $100/month (or equivalent rate in your area) to go 2-3 times a month.
6: There's less people there, meaning that I've got less friends going to that class. I'd rather go to the class with my friends.

To fix this, there are a couple things as a business owner I might try.
1: Change the day/timeslot. Everything else isn't in order, but I'm putting this as #1 because if people don't want to give up their friday nights for MA, the rest of this doesn't matter.
2: Offer a free month of hapkido to current TKD practitioners that qualify, so they can test it out. This lets them see if they like it before they have to commit to paying for it.
2B: Offer that free month to current members at the same time, to increase their incentive to take advantage of it, and also let them experience it with a full class/with their friends. Then for new people, provide it to them when they turn 16/when they get their black belt, this way it's seen as a reward for them and makes them more likely to try it out.
3: Outside of that month, offer a bundle-maybe hapkido costs 100/month and TKD costs 150/month alone. But if you were to bundle them together, someone could go to all classes that your dojo offers for 200/month. This makes it easier to eat the financial burden as a customer.
4: This may or may not work depending on your class format and availability. But maybe offer a class a week (or every other week if that's too much), that's open to everyone regardless of which class they're in. Either make it a cross-training session where you learn to combine the two arts, or a sparring session with hybrid sparring rules. Just so they can see/learn how to incorporate the two arts together, and increase interest.
5: This is the last option I can think of, but lowering the requirements if money is a factor. It wouldn't really solve your issue yet of not having sparring partners, but if people start it around 10/11 years old, when they hit 16 they'll be more likely to continue and then you might have older sparring partners to work with.


I hope at least some of that helps.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I can't answer for everyone, but I can say the reasons that I might not be interested in that particular class. Also keep in mind I'm not a business owner so take my fixes with a grain of salt, and remember they're from the customers viewpoint.

1: I enjoy striking more. I'd guess the same is true of people that go to a TKD school. I might be interested in going to a class every once in a while, but not enough to pay extra for it.
2: I have a budget, which includes a set cost for martial arts. Let's say (randomly assigned for ease of discussion, and based around my areas COL) TKD costs $150/month. That would mean in your school, Hapkido costs $100/month. If my budget is 150 a month for MA, I might not have an extra 100 to add to that (particularly if point 1 is true and I enjoy TKD more to begin with).
3: Even if I did enjoy them the same, and could afford both, I wouldn't consider that a good ROI. If we say classes cost 150/month, for twice a week, that means the classes come out to about $18 a class. Vs hapkido where it's $25 a class. Not a huge difference, but when I like them both, and I have to choose one, I'm going to choose the one that's less per class, and also let's me go twice as much.
4: Once a week isn't always enough to learn something new. And hapkido is significantly tougher (from my experience with grappling vs. tma-striking focused styles), to practice outside the dojo than tkd would be.
5: I'm likely not going to be available every friday night, and saturday afternoon I'm probably with family or sleeping in from the week. So I'm likely going to miss classes meaning I'd be paying $100/month (or equivalent rate in your area) to go 2-3 times a month.
6: There's less people there, meaning that I've got less friends going to that class. I'd rather go to the class with my friends.

To fix this, there are a couple things as a business owner I might try.
1: Change the day/timeslot. Everything else isn't in order, but I'm putting this as #1 because if people don't want to give up their friday nights for MA, the rest of this doesn't matter.
2: Offer a free month of hapkido to current TKD practitioners that qualify, so they can test it out. This lets them see if they like it before they have to commit to paying for it.
2B: Offer that free month to current members at the same time, to increase their incentive to take advantage of it, and also let them experience it with a full class/with their friends. Then for new people, provide it to them when they turn 16/when they get their black belt, this way it's seen as a reward for them and makes them more likely to try it out.
3: Outside of that month, offer a bundle-maybe hapkido costs 100/month and TKD costs 150/month alone. But if you were to bundle them together, someone could go to all classes that your dojo offers for 200/month. This makes it easier to eat the financial burden as a customer.
4: This may or may not work depending on your class format and availability. But maybe offer a class a week (or every other week if that's too much), that's open to everyone regardless of which class they're in. Either make it a cross-training session where you learn to combine the two arts, or a sparring session with hybrid sparring rules. Just so they can see/learn how to incorporate the two arts together, and increase interest.
5: This is the last option I can think of, but lowering the requirements if money is a factor. It wouldn't really solve your issue yet of not having sparring partners, but if people start it around 12/13 years old, when they hit 16 they'll be more likely to continue and then you might have older sparring partners to work with.


I hope at least some of that helps.

A side question I had while typing this: Are students allowed to just do hapkido? Reason I'm asking is that if there are specific requirements for the class, I'm not sure if the standalone option is an actual option.

If it is, then advertise outside-it might be easier to find people that are interested in hapkido from the general public (less% but larger pool to advertise to), then only looking for people already practicing TKD that want to also practice hapkido.

 

[MetalBoar]

2: Offer a free month of hapkido to current TKD practitioners that qualify, so they can test it out. This lets them see if they like it before they have to commit to paying for it.

I particularly like this one. I think it's a really good suggestion.

1: I enjoy striking more. I'd guess the same is true of people that go to a TKD school. I might be interested in going to a class every once in a while, but not enough to pay extra for

Depends a lot on their flavor of Hapkido. The place I trained had a very high emphasis on strikes, it probably represented at least 50% of our practice time. I've done cross training with and/or watched demos at a lot of Hapkido schools, including a large number in South Korea, and there's a lot of variation. Some you can't tell the difference from Ki Society Aikido and some look like there's a lot of Judo, CMA, and even Western Boxing influence. One place where we did a technique exchange had more in common with Tracy's Kenpo than the Hapkido my school taught. Traditionally it ought to include striking but a lot of TKD places drop that because they want you to do it the TKD way.

If they're teaching a more traditional, complete, version of Hapkido it should appeal to people who want to integrate striking and stand up grappling.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I particularly like this one. I think it's a really good suggestion.

Depends a lot on their flavor of Hapkido. The place I trained had a very high emphasis on strikes, it probably represented at least 50% of our practice time. I've done cross training with and/or watched demos at a lot of Hapkido schools, including a large number in South Korea, and there's a lot of variation. Some you can't tell the difference from Ki Society Aikido and some look like there's a lot of Judo, CMA, and even Western Boxing influence. One place where we did a technique exchange had more in common with Tracy's Kenpo than the Hapkido my school taught. Traditionally it ought to include striking but a lot of TKD places drop that because they want you to do it the TKD way.

If they're teaching a more traditional, complete, version of Hapkido it should appeal to people who want to integrate striking and stand up grappling.

I think (and im sure skribs will correct me if I'm wrong) that he's mentioned before that they split it off to tkd is mainly striking and hapkido is mainly grappling. Which makes sense to me if they teach both.

So I was going off of that assumption. I didn't know that there was that much variety though-tbh I know very little about hapkido past the idea of it being korean jujitsu.

 

[drop bear]

The separate payments are probably not helping the cause.

 

[MadMartigan]

Hapkido is only once a week, compared to TKD twice a week. (This does make it more expensive per class). It's also either been Friday evening or early afternoon on Saturday.

As they said before me.
If you're trying to get a large audience for a tv show, you make sure it's on during prime viewing hours (at least before pvr took over).
I love my analogies... so here's another. It's like scheduling your birthday party on a day when hardly anyone can commit to making it... then getting upset when no one shows. Don't set yourself up for failure.
I've also tried the 1 class/week (when my work schedule had no flexibility and I had no assistant instructor while starting up). That right there is a huge turn off for many.

I didn't know that there was that much variety though-tbh I know very little about hapkido past the idea of it being korean jujitsu.

This illustrates my other point. If seasoned martial artists can not have a solid idea of what goes on in a Hapkido class; should we be surprised that the general public would know far less? Most don't know anything more than the word Hapkido sounds 'martial artsy'. Only getting visible education/advertising out there (that shows what Hapkido actually looks like) has a chance of bringing in new bodies.

Ps. I Also agree that the pricing bundles should motivate people to take both... cause the deal is too good to pass on. If you already have them for TKD, make it a steal-of-a-deal to tack on the extra Hapkido class(es).

 

[skribs]

Thanks for the replies so far. Keep in mind that I am one of the senior TKD instructors and a HKD student, but I have no actual control over the schedule or pricing. These are merely suggestions I'm trying to get for my Master to help his class out.

It does seem like HKD is the red-headed step-child, but he does have a passion for it. In fact, he's actually slightly higher rank in HKD than TKD.

• Move the class to a better time slot.
• Add a second class so that it was more viable as a stand alone training option.
• Cut the price for full time TKD students if you think you can more than make it up on volume in one way or another.
• Advertise.
• Finally, my least favorite option, lower the age requirements so that it can be more enticing to families.

Better time slot is a good idea, but we don't really have one available. Taekwondo already takes up 5 hours in the afternoon each weekday (except for Friday). We have the same problem with a second class - it would probably mean Friday/Saturday class, but then we run the issue that it's back-to-back and they're both bad time slots.

I could suggest cutting the price, but that might just come across as "I want cheaper Hapkido."

We don't really advertise our Taekwondo classes, and they sometimes have a waiting list for new students. We do push Hapkido to our black belts and our adult classes every so often, but rarely do we get takers.

I think he did lower the age limit, but the one kid only did one class.

4: Once a week isn't always enough to learn something new. And hapkido is significantly tougher (from my experience with grappling vs. tma-striking focused styles), to practice outside the dojo than tkd would be.

I will definitely agree here. As I said above, it's hard to find a time that doesn't interfere with TKD.

1: Change the day/timeslot. Everything else isn't in order, but I'm putting this as #1 because if people don't want to give up their friday nights for MA, the rest of this doesn't matter.
2: Offer a free month of hapkido to current TKD practitioners that qualify, so they can test it out. This lets them see if they like it before they have to commit to paying for it.
2B: Offer that free month to current members at the same time, to increase their incentive to take advantage of it, and also let them experience it with a full class/with their friends. Then for new people, provide it to them when they turn 16/when they get their black belt, this way it's seen as a reward for them and makes them more likely to try it out.
3: Outside of that month, offer a bundle-maybe hapkido costs 100/month and TKD costs 150/month alone. But if you were to bundle them together, someone could go to all classes that your dojo offers for 200/month. This makes it easier to eat the financial burden as a customer.
4: This may or may not work depending on your class format and availability. But maybe offer a class a week (or every other week if that's too much), that's open to everyone regardless of which class they're in. Either make it a cross-training session where you learn to combine the two arts, or a sparring session with hybrid sparring rules. Just so they can see/learn how to incorporate the two arts together, and increase interest.
5: This is the last option I can think of, but lowering the requirements if money is a factor. It wouldn't really solve your issue yet of not having sparring partners, but if people start it around 10/11 years old, when they hit 16 they'll be more likely to continue and then you might have older sparring partners to work with.

I like options 2 and 3. I'll suggest those. I've addressed 1 and 5 above. I don't think 4 would work with how my Master does business.

A side question I had while typing this: Are students allowed to just do hapkido? Reason I'm asking is that if there are specific requirements for the class, I'm not sure if the standalone option is an actual option.

Yes. However, all three of us are black belts in TKD (one 1st Dan, two 3rd Dans). The 2nd Dan in HKD is a 1st Dan in TKD, but is not active in TKD. We've had a handful of people do HKD only. Many of them have a kid that does TKD.

Depends a lot on their flavor of Hapkido. The place I trained had a very high emphasis on strikes, it probably represented at least 50% of our practice time. I've done cross training with and/or watched demos at a lot of Hapkido schools, including a large number in South Korea, and there's a lot of variation. Some you can't tell the difference from Ki Society Aikido and some look like there's a lot of Judo, CMA, and even Western Boxing influence. One place where we did a technique exchange had more in common with Tracy's Kenpo than the Hapkido my school taught. Traditionally it ought to include striking but a lot of TKD places drop that because they want you to do it the TKD way.

Ours is almost exclusively joint locks and throws.

 

[skribs]

The separate payments are probably not helping the cause.

Maybe not. However, we have a dedicated sparring club that's also an extra payment, and we have no problem filling that class. (We do maybe 10-15 minutes of sparring in regular class; sparring club is 100% focused on sparring).

 

[drop bear]

Maybe not. However, we have a dedicated sparring club that's also an extra payment, and we have no problem filling that class. (We do maybe 10-15 minutes of sparring in regular class; sparring club is 100% focused on sparring).

Which is potentially where the people who might have had hapkido money are going.

 

[skribs]

Which is potentially where the people who might have had hapkido money are going.

Could be. I know for a long while I did sparring club instead of Hapkido not because of money, but because I could only handle so much abuse in one day.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

My school does HKD and TKD. It's pretty much night-and-day. We consistently had around 250+ active students from when I started there 8 years ago until COVID hit. We went online-only during much of COVID, where we still had around 75 students. Right now we're doing hybrid classes, and are back up to around 150 or so.

HKD has been a different story. I think the most we ever had in one class was 12. For a while, we would maintain 6-8 (5 regulars and 1-3 drifters). Two of the regulars have moved, and the last few months it's just been the 3 regulars that remain (no drifters).

There are a few factors I can see holding us back.

• Previously, we have only allowed Hapkido for ages 16+, or for students who are a black belt in Taekwondo. Around 80% of our students are kids, so it makes sense that this would limit the number of students in Hapkido. However, that would mean that of the 30 or so adults we have, the vast majority have chosen TKD over HKD.
• Hapkido is an extra cost over TKD. However, it's cheaper to just do HKD than to just do TKD (about 2/3 the price).
• Hapkido is only once a week, compared to TKD twice a week. (This does make it more expensive per class). It's also either been Friday evening or early afternoon on Saturday.

We don't really advertise for either class. We do mention it periodically to adults and black belts, but we get very little interest in it. Personally, I'm starting to get a little bit frustrated, because it's such a small pool of people to drill/spar with. Both of the other people are several inches taller, quite a bit stronger/heavier, and more experienced in martial arts than I am. I'd love more people my size and of varying experience levels.

How do you spark interest in Hapkido in your school?

Right off the bat, I'll say that most students seem to understand that once a week isn't enough to learn at a reasonable pace. When my program was 2-4 times/week it was easier to keep attendance up. When I had to go to once a week, I never managed to get numbers up above 4.

 

[Buka]

Wish I could help, but I can't. if I was choosing between the two I'm going Billy Jack.

 

[Ivan]

My school does HKD and TKD. It's pretty much night-and-day. We consistently had around 250+ active students from when I started there 8 years ago until COVID hit. We went online-only during much of COVID, where we still had around 75 students. Right now we're doing hybrid classes, and are back up to around 150 or so.

HKD has been a different story. I think the most we ever had in one class was 12. For a while, we would maintain 6-8 (5 regulars and 1-3 drifters). Two of the regulars have moved, and the last few months it's just been the 3 regulars that remain (no drifters).

There are a few factors I can see holding us back.

• Previously, we have only allowed Hapkido for ages 16+, or for students who are a black belt in Taekwondo. Around 80% of our students are kids, so it makes sense that this would limit the number of students in Hapkido. However, that would mean that of the 30 or so adults we have, the vast majority have chosen TKD over HKD.
• Hapkido is an extra cost over TKD. However, it's cheaper to just do HKD than to just do TKD (about 2/3 the price).
• Hapkido is only once a week, compared to TKD twice a week. (This does make it more expensive per class). It's also either been Friday evening or early afternoon on Saturday.

We don't really advertise for either class. We do mention it periodically to adults and black belts, but we get very little interest in it. Personally, I'm starting to get a little bit frustrated, because it's such a small pool of people to drill/spar with. Both of the other people are several inches taller, quite a bit stronger/heavier, and more experienced in martial arts than I am. I'd love more people my size and of varying experience levels.

How do you spark interest in Hapkido in your school?

I think you need to target your audience. It might be cheaper, but even if your standards for allowing people to take your classes were lower, the fact that a lot of your students are kids tells me that they’re not exactly interested in practical application - for them, it’s just an activity. As kids, not many of them take their sports seriously.
You need to target older students who are interested in self-defence or have a general interest or passion for martial arts.

 

[ksn]

Super low effort response on my part but- teenagers want to be popular and accepted by their peers; they typically don't want Hapkido, they want BJJ, MMA, etc...

I offer Hapkido classes starting at 8 years old. Our junior curriculum starts with break falls, pressure point striking from a static position (to teach basic accuracy), counter attacking from a kick / punch (to teach distance management, timing), wrist grab escapes, basic wrist locks, basic hip throws. By the time the kids have been with us a couple of years, they can practice hapkido safely and I don't have any problems teaching more advanced techniques.

My retention rate for hapkido kids is pretty high, and as a byproduct we end up with many 14-17 year old students who are fairly advanced. We get some adults, but for the most part, our hapkido "older" classes are filled by kids getting older.

Reading back on your post, 1x per week isn't enough for hapkido in my opinion. We try to schedule a minimum of 2 classes, Mon / Wed is all junior classes, Tues / Thurs is all adults, Friday is competition training, and Saturday is a mixed Junior / Family class program.

With my kids classes we tend to be "flashier" with acrobatics, high falls, self defense techniques that look amazing but may not be the most practical. As the kids mature, and with the adult classes, we focus more on applied self defense and making sure the techniques are relevant for modern usage. Adults don't want to get hurt and do flips.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Right off the bat, I'll say that most students seem to understand that once a week isn't enough to learn at a reasonable pace. When my program was 2-4 times/week it was easier to keep attendance up. When I had to go to once a week, I never managed to get numbers up above 4.

Yeah, once a week is tough to develop any sort of usable skill at a reasonable rate. At least for TKD or other striking arts, students can practice their kicks and forms on their own time. For a grappling art it's a lot harder. For an art like Hapkido, which specializes in some of the trickier and more subtle aspects of stand-up grappling, it's going to be really hard for a beginning student to reach competency with one class per week.

 

[H Whalen]

Having been out of the Hapkido limelight for a while I may add a few things .One I teach Hapkido not as a filler or to bridge the gaps. I held rank in Taekwondo and Judo and also Hapkido. I started teaching Hapkido in 1979 there were "Zero" Hapkido schools in my area and in order to practice what I had learned and to progress, teaching became the only way. I know it was different era and a different mindset . Now some 42 years later the body does not do work the way it once did the spinning kicks are not as fast. The jump kicks are a memory that still bring a smile when I see them done correctly. At 64 I still love it and with over 54 years in the Martial Arts 45 of them in Hapkido.

 

[bushido]

The first is one day per week... No katas in HKD, so if you don't have a body, you don't train... the second, is to teach HKD, not TKD or other style patched in with some HKD. One is circular, the other linear. One relies on muscle, the other on centrifugal & centripetal forces. One is hard, the other soft... etc. They don't blend. In other words, it must be clear to an onlooker that they are very different styles. Three, have proficient teachers that can convey & show the sciences and forces at work... if they suck, you are not getting new blood. If they cannot clearly enunciate their science, why would I want to train there? A lot can do a technique but have no idea how to explain it clearly in a way that a novice can understand and learn. Four, remember that our core science is Jui-Jitsu... if you are not teaching groundwork, you are going to look pretty foolish when a student signs up that does! And lastly, be physical... If you can suck it up, you will never have highly proficient students.