Forms in Hapkido

Discussion in 'Hapkido' started by Shihan, Dec 14, 2004.

  1. Shihan

    Shihan Valued Member

    I've been studying hapkido for 6 years now. Due to the birth of my child and some injuries, I haven't earned my black belt yet. Hopefully I will test for it next year(I'm 1st gup-red belt w/black stripe). But I have heard different opinions on hapkido as far as forms are concerned. Some people say that traditional hapkido doesn't teach forms. But I have seen hapkido books with forms. My Sabumnim has also showed me a very old hapkido book with forms. But are forms really necessary in a system that's suppose to be self-defense orientated ?
     
  2. iron_ox

    iron_ox Jungki Kwan Midwest

    Hello all,

    There are no forms in Traditional Hapkido, at all. Forms have been added for a variety of reasons, from a need to increase amounts of available material, to a way of getting students to spend valuable training time in a dojang fighting an imaginary opponent - often while the instructor reads a newspaper.

    I have been to SEVERAL dojangs that teach forms and have never seen a "master created" form that was in any way useful in am greater understanding of Hapkido.

    In terms of seeing forms in "old books" - lots of instructors in Korea saw the rapid growth of TaeKwonDo and wanted to mirror its success - thus added forms in this attempt.
     
  3. Thomas

    Thomas Combat Hapkido/Taekwondo

    Here's some relevant info I've posted earlier:

    I would say that having forms in Hapkido would be more the exception rather than the rule. I learned forms in Korea and enjoyed them. I am not really sure how many other schools used them though. I know that Moo Moo Kwan had them as did Korea Guard's Martial Arts and GM Myung Jae-nam's IHF.


    In my opinion, when used correctly, forms can be a good training tool. There are other ways to get the same results and forms are just one way. If your system has forms, good... use them well. If it doesn't, you're probably learning the same concepts and reinforcing them in different ways.
     

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