Uncle
Blue Belt
Exactly because it's not about this...Correct. Under duress fine motor skills become much harder to near impossible. Adrenaline dump can produce tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, and diminished dexterity in the extremities. The old adage that, 'less is more and simple is better' applies here.
Also, just because a martial art isn't popular in an professional sport doesn't mean it isn't still effective. I have great respect for those athlete fighters, I would not want to tangle with one of them. But I also grow weary of MMA'rs dissing arts that they don't find valuable for their particular venue.
It's about the fact that gross motor skills are more reliable and ones which go after the core/legs or secure the arm better work better against trained opponents and under adrenaline or exhaustion. Compare for example hijishime from aikido and standing waki gatame from judo. Hijishime secures the arm by grasping the wrists and going elbow to elbow. Waki gatame grasps the wrist and uses the body as the leverage point to break the arm. Waki gatame secures the arm better and uses more gross motor skills. It's more reliable as are most techniques (not all) which are competition tested especially in open rulesets like MMA.
You can make similar comparisons with say wrestling and judo. A double leg takedown is far easier to set up and finish than an osotogari. And even though a double leg is more reliable than an osotogari, and osotogari is still more reliable than ikkajo from aikido. There's a reason wrestling techniques used to be allowed in judo competitions and aren't now. It's because judo used to be concerned with effectiveness. Kano even incorporated wrestling techniques into judo specifically for that reason. Now the Kodokan is concerned with maintaining the judo favour and not being shown up in their own competitions by wrestlers rather than making their skills and techniques the best.
Cool story bro but we're discussing mechanics here, not anecdotes. Here I am critiquing the grappling aspect of hapkido, specifically the daito ryu techniques with the mechanics mentioned and for the reasons mentioned. One anecdote doesn't take away the physiological effects influencing the outcome of these techniques in concert with the fight data. All we can really say is cool story bro. You fought the guy off, good for you.In regards to adrenalin. I've had to fight for my life with little more than my Hapkido training. I just about took a knife right to my eye socket. It was plenty scary and when it was all over I was shaking like a leaf. I am certain I experienced the adrenalin dump. Happy to report my Hapkido worked just fine. It wasn't very pretty but still perfectly effective. What more could you ask for?
Now these grappling techniques have their place but it is generally where there is no adrenaline dump and the opponent is not fully resistant. And I do love that hapkido seems to fluidly integrate striking and grappling, even moreso than many mma schools it seems.