My Hapkiddos

[FearlessFreep]

Last Friday, my two kids tested in their Kids Hapkido class; my son Stephen (7) and my daughter Karina (9).

Stephen is pretty quiet usually and not always that coordinated. He is a white belt* with one stripe** and was testing simultaneosuly for his second and third stripe. He did very well and passed.

Karina is...well outside of the Donjang she is a total goofball...living in her own fun world that she shares with the rest of us on occasion. In the dojang she gets really serious and is very focused. She is a white belt with two stripes and was testing ahead to yellow. She passed....well...she blew the test away wth skill and power and aggressiveness. Her instructor awarded her a yellow belt bt said he was tempted to do more. She already knows some fighting combinations she will need for green belt. So he's going to push her ahead in testing and training because she has such natural talent and ability at it that she needs to catch up to where her belt will give her challeneges in the techniques she needs to know

I'm proud of them both.

Meanwhile, my two older kids and I will be testing next month for our own yellow belts














*all of the children and I had been in Taekwondo before we switched to Hapkdio and wen back to white belt in our new school/art

**the Kids Hapkido classes has three stripes between each belt color

 

[Paul B]

That is awesome! Big congrats all around!!

artyon: artyon:

 

[matt.m]

Very good. Raise the roof, you should be quite happy. Congrats, congrats, congrats.

 

[SFC JeffJ]

Congrats to your two youngest and have fun at your testing next month!

Jeff

 

[matt.m]

You know Jeff hit the nail square on the head, have fun. If you don't it can be stressful. Just have fun and it will all fall into place.

 

[terryl965]

Fearless Freep that is great news glad everyone is having fun and tell them congrats for me.

 

[FearlessFreep]

Thanks, all.

Since my orginal post, Karina has tested to green and Stephen to yellow. Basically he seems to be pusihng Karina ahead to reach the point where the material will challenge here. She picks things up pretty fast and has physical skill so she is training all the material but just moves through it faster than most of the students so he's trying to keep her from getting bored at this level until she reaches a level that challenges her.


Meanwhile, Daniel, Jessica and I will be testing next weekend, but because of where we came in on his testing cycle (and probably are prior experience in Taekwondo) he's continued to teach us new material as we've kept training, we will be testing for two belts at once. It's pretty intimidating because it's a lot of material.

Kicks: 17 basic kicks required for all belts. In addition for white belt we're expected to be more proficient at about six kicks and for yellow belt about six more. Baiscally, the 17 kicks are kicsk that everyone is supposed to know and be able to execute the basic mechanics of, increasing in profficiency as you advance. Then each belt has a set of required kicks that you are expected to have a better grasp of and ability to execute.

Hoshinsul: White belt has ~15 hoshinsul techniques (all same side wrist grabs). Yellow belt has 32 hoshinsul techniques: some cross side wrist grabs, cross side arm grabs, same side and cross side chest grabs and shoves, and center chest grabs.

Entry techniques: These are a series of responses to a reverse punch that involve a step to the side with a parry and then a counter strike. The general mechanics is a 45 degree step into a right front stance with a knife arm block that comes down into a trap/grab. Then the strike is accomplished with a turn of the hips into a front stance facing the opponent as the strike is delivered while pulling the opponents arm into you. The strikes are (so far): palm heel to face, two-finger jab to eye, hammer fist to temple, slap to ear, knife hand to brachial stun, two finger jab to side of throat, finger grab of trachea. Eventually, at further belts, these are followed up with takedowns.

The "Dance": Each belt has what is called a 'dance', which is basically an
evasion and counter to an opponent's jab/punch combination that involves several sets of techniques peiced togather, usually a slip of the jab, a softening strike (or several), and a takedown/control.

POR ("Point of Reference") - this is part of an extra class we take on Tuesday mornings. The basic idea is to go from any attack into a 'point of reference' which is a certain close-in control point of controlling the other persons body. From there you pick an objective which could be a leg sweep, a neck crank/break, a throw, etc... So from various attacks (reverse punch, front kick, double hand choke, double hand shove and side choke are the ones we've worked on) you identify the primary threat, remove the threat, and get to the "POR" position, from there you have several objectives and ways to accomplsh them

Throws - variouis hip, under shoulder and arm throws. Both from a standing opponent and an opponent moving forward into you (different opponent motions require different setup footwork)

And I think since we've been in some groundfighting classes we will need to know some basic guard and mount escapes and arm bars and such.

Therre is some overlap, for example some of t he hoshinsul involve variations of some techniques (like 'nikkio' and 'center lock') but different attacks to respond to to get there and variations in application. Also by example there is a throw in Dance #2 that also appears in a hoshinsul technique (in fact two hoshinul as the hshoinsul are almost the same except for different attacks). So the thing you start realizing is that there are not 'set responses to canned attacks' but different principles and techniques that can be applied well in different contexts

Basically it comes down to "if you've been taught it, you will be tested on it" and we are in class a lot so we've been exposed to a lot of stuff

This is all the technical stuff; the other aspect is the condition and fitness. For example the test starts with a timed run (not sure the distance, over a mile) and if you don't make the time, you fail the test. Then I know for the 17 basic kicks you have to do 10 per leg per side so that's 170 kicks per leg just for the basic kicks; I'm not sure what the specific kicks will require. and other aspects The whole test is scheduled for 8am-noon. Basically his attitude is, by the time he says you can test he think you already know how to technically accomplish what's on the test so the test is a lot about your own spirit, persaverance and determination to survive the test

Fun week ahead...

 

[exile]

Fearless, you guys sound like you're doing great, and having a great time doing it. I have couple of questions based on nothing more serious than general curiosity :

(i) Why did you switch from TKD to HKD? Did something make it too difficult to go on with your TKD training, or did you just decide you wanted to switch arts for some reason or other?

(ii) How much carryover is there between your TKD skills and the new material you're learning in HKD?

Thanks---X'l

 

[FearlessFreep]

Why did you switch from TKD to HKD?

Well, when I first got into TKD I knew nothing about it, t was sorta an accident as it was that I ended up in TKD versus antying else but I didn't know that TKD had a strong sport/tournament component. I just thought that it was another MA and that MA was primarly about self-defense and that was one of the factors in deciding on MA for myself and my kids. This worked out because my first instructor happened to teach Taekwondo as a self-defense/fighting art. He also had a background in Hapkido and our self-defense training included things that I now see as a mixture of Taekwondo approaches and Hapkido approaches, plus a lot of usage of Taekwondo techniques for what I've come to see as fairly traditional for Taekwondo but not typical for how it's taught in a lot of schools (low kicks and knees and elbows, etc...). When I moved, it wasn't easy to find a Taekwondo school in my new home that taught Taekwondo in a similar fashion. My old Taekwondo instructor encrouaged us that for wat we were looking for that a move to Hapkido might be a better path to persue. Mayeb I didn't look hard enough for a 'traditional combat' Taekwondo school but I ran into Master Costley's "Hybrid Hapkido" school and it fit the bill very well for what I was looking for.

How much carryover is there between your TKD skills and the new material you're learning in HKD

Probably more than most considering that my first Taekwondo instructor incorporated Hapkido theories of joint manipulation and some circle motion and Hoshinsul was a part of our testing requirements. Also my Hapkido school uses a lot of kicks that are similar or identical to how I was taught them in Taekwondo. However my Hapkido instructor is a lot more experienced than my first Taekwondo isntructor so it's been more of a pregression than a change and since my Hapkido instructor has experience in Taekwondo as well, plus some other arts, it's hard sometimes for me to see "this is Taekwondo and that is Hapkido" or to know where difference are because of the art, because of my instructor's experience, or because of my own growing knowledge and understanding.

 

[exile]

Well, when I first got into TKD I knew nothing about it, t was sorta an accident as it was that I ended up in TKD versus antying else but I didn't know that TKD had a strong sport/tournament component. I just thought that it was another MA and that MA was primarly about self-defense and that was one of the factors in deciding on MA for myself and my kids. This worked out because my first instructor happened to teach Taekwondo as a self-defense/fighting art. He also had a background in Hapkido and our self-defense training included things that I now see as a mixture of Taekwondo approaches and Hapkido approaches, plus a lot of usage of Taekwondo techniques for what I've come to see as fairly traditional for Taekwondo but not typical for how it's taught in a lot of schools (low kicks and knees and elbows, etc...). When I moved, it wasn't easy to find a Taekwondo school in my new home that taught Taekwondo in a similar fashion. My old Taekwondo instructor encrouaged us that for wat we were looking for that a move to Hapkido might be a better path to persue. Mayeb I didn't look hard enough for a 'traditional combat' Taekwondo school but I ran into Master Costley's "Hybrid Hapkido" school and it fit the bill very well for what I was looking for.

I hear ya loud and clear. It's doesn't seem that easy to find a TKD school which teaches the art as a combat/self-defense system `from the ground up', so to speak. From what I've heard (including much info on MT), what's common is to emphasize a sport-oriented sparring approach, with a technical toolkit to match, and with ho sin sul of varying degrees of street applicability appended to kind of serve as a bridge between Olympic-style competition on the one hand and reality on the other. Since, as Doug Cook in his new book observes, ho sin sul techniques are often borrowed from Hapkido, I can see that it would make sense to eliminate the middleman and go there directly, if that were your only alternative...

How much carryover is there between your TKD skills and the new material you're learning in HKD?

Probably more than most considering that my first Taekwondo instructor incorporated Hapkido theories of joint manipulation and some circle motion and Hoshinsul was a part of our testing requirements. Also my Hapkido school uses a lot of kicks that are similar or identical to how I was taught them in Taekwondo. However my Hapkido instructor is a lot more experienced than my first Taekwondo isntructor so it's been more of a pregression than a change and since my Hapkido instructor has experience in Taekwondo as well, plus some other arts, it's hard sometimes for me to see "this is Taekwondo and that is Hapkido" or to know where difference are because of the art, because of my instructor's experience, or because of my own growing knowledge and understanding.

Actually, a lot of people might well suppose that what you're being exposed to now---especially as it's built `on top of' an already SD-based approach to TKD from your old school---is much like the postwar Kwan-era form of the widely practiced Korean fighting system that was somewhat reconfigured and christened Taekwondo in the mid/late 1950s, before the WTF/KKW went off in this almost exclusively sport-oriented direction. Sounds like you've landed on your feet, for sure---best of luck with your ongoing training and hats off to your hyperachieving youngsters!

 

[bluemtn]

Congratulations to your children on passing their belt tests! That's great that your daughter is learning so fast, and her instructor wants to "challenge" her. Congratulations to you and your other 2 for testing for their belts, FF!