Talk:Hapkido/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Hapkido. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

About hapkido and aikido

Is there any major difference in technique between hapkido and aikido? At least the hanja for both martial arts are same...

Tremendous differences. As just a singular example: Aikido has no concept of a spinning heel kick or an eagle's claw. The stances are different, dive rolls are done differently (at least in the schools I trained in for both martial arts), and--subjectively--the throws and locks have a different "feel" to them. There also seems to be a strong difference in training philosophy.

My understanding is that it would be proper to say that Aikido influenced Hapkido, but they are in no way the same and the differences outnumber the similarities, at least as far as differences between martial arts go. --71.218.228.229 06:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Hapkido does not actually come from Aikido. Both arts stem from Aikijujustu, i.e. they share a common origin. It is incorrect, therefore, to claim that Aikido influenced Hapkido.

NPOV

This sentence seems like it should be changed to something sounding less like a personal opinion.

"Hapkido is the authentic asian martial art of total self-defense"

POV

This article is here and there very POV and feels promotional and biased. I've cut a short section from the end as an example:

"Unlike Taekwondo or Karate, there is little to no competition in Hapkido. The very powerful techniques of hapkido can pose a great risk of injury or even death if applied uncontrollably for such competitive events.

While I think the article is overstating the issue, there is some truth to that. While in, say, Aikido the philosophy is to teach students the art's most powerful techniques after having tought the elementary ones, in Hapkido the philosophy is that you should teach the most powerful and effective techniques first so that students will have learned them particularly well when they become masters. Of course, I can only speak for my own branch of Hapkido (Choi Yung Sool -> Wollmershauser -> Gregoire), students of Ji Han Jei may opperate differently for all I know. Symmetry 05:10, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Since its founding, Hapkido has become one of the most popular and respected martial arts in the world."

(Boldface for emphasis). Also, sources for the various claims made? Mikademus 10:28, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Various

A typical Korean claim has a conclusion a priori. Then Koreans make a cover story but do not exaimne facts. In this case, they claim that Choi succeeded Takeda Sokaku's Aikijujutsu. To adjust things to this conclusion, they first claimed that Choi was adopted by Takeda Sokaku but they did not give evidence to prove this. Soon it was revealed that there is no chance. Then they cooked another cover story. Hey! Why don't they deduce conclusion from facts? Their claims are as meaningless as talking about what aliens do in America without proving that they lived there. Unless they bring a fact-based argument, I have no choice but to treat these stories as groundless. --Nanshu 03:54, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I understand your frustration. As someone who practiced Hapkido for years, I heard numerous stories surrounding Choi. Some that he was adopted, some that he got his teaching certificates from Takeda but lost them before he returned to Korea, and so forth and so on. In my edit I presented what I believe to be the most logical progression (his servitude) without excluding the farfetched claims that he was adopted (tryin' to keep that NPOV). There are numerous tales surrounding Choi's education but the important feature is that somehow he did learn Daito-Ryu Aikijutsu. Is your complaint that there is no clear history to Hapkido? Maclyn611 05:12, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Do you have no hesitation in explaining history only with presumptions and inconsistent testimonies? I found it quite surprising that Koreans have no compunction about making arguments that are not based on facts. To keep your story, you have to prove at least that Choi actually served Takeda Sokaku.

When Koreans are accused of not showing evidences, they often say, "Hideyoshi burned," "Japanese imperialists burned," etc. I hope you don't say, "Racist Japanese eliminated all evidences related to the Korean." (How convenient!) --Nanshu 06:41, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Actually I'm quite hesitant to tell a history with only "presumptions and inconsistent testimonies". The problem is, somehow we have to explain where and how Choi learned Daito Ryu Aikijustsu. In 1930s/1940s Asian the only place it was being taught was at Takeda's residence. Therefore we must conclude that somehow Choi went to Japan and learned it from Takeda. I simply presented the far-fetched story (of his being a student) as well as the most logical (his being a servant). As for there being no evidence to support Choi's claims, it seems a bit paranoid to say "The Japanese destroyed it!" Maclyn611 13:27, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_martial_art add yourself!

Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_martial_art

This was recently posted on the dojang-digest. This guy makes a interesting point.

"......What kind of work has been done comparing the style of aki-jujutsu that was taught by Takeda Sokaku at his school in Japan and the original hapkiyusul that DJN Choi taught, before the kicks etc. were added by the early hapkidoists? Records are so vague about DJN Choi's life in Japan, but certainly the original hapkiyusul and Takeda Sokaku's aki-jujutsu must have looked a lot alike, if not identical... Comments?...."

You may want to look at the Hapkido history thread on the newly organized Hapkido section of AIKIDO JOURNAL net. I am addressing this very issue but its a bit larger than being able to be explained in 25 words or less. Here are just a few thoughts.

1.) Usual investigation seems to link Takeda and Choi Yong Sul. This may not be entirely accurate. I think that the person to investigate is actually Yoshida Kotaro who is often represented as a student of Takeda but may have been more of an "organizer" and "recruiter of muscle" for the Black Dragon Society.

2.) Proceeeding from Point One, if you examine "2nd Generation" individuals such as Choi Yong Sul, DoShin So, Mas Oyama, and Richard Kim you may begin to see that all of these people had a rather eclectic MA experience and a rather vague or non-specific history before moving on past the 1950-s.

3.) I suggest that Yong Sul Chois' comment in his interview that he taught "yawara" was exactly right on the money. If you examine the derivation of the term "yawara" you find that it has its origins in the use of various and sundry techniques--- a kind of eclectic approach if you will--- whose sole focus is the undoing of ones' opponent. There are no "ryu" for "yawara" though many ryu HAVE a "yawara component". Think of this like "hoshinsul" material for TKD, or Chin Na material for Chuan Fa.

4.) I suspect that with continued probing I will find that Choi Yong Sul was probably recruited by Yoshida to be trained and put to work (on call, as it were) for work in anti-union and political situations where the conservatives such as might be found in the Black Dragon Society could get by bullying what they had lost following the Boshin War.

Now---- Before you tune-up on me let me just add that it doesn't make a hill-of-beans to me one way or the other. Choi Yong Sul would not have been the only person to come back from Japan and try to parley his knowledge of fighting into a money-maker. We all know that there were plenty of Korean people who came back with a lot smaller credentials in Karate that went on and started "kwans" which focused on "korean" arts. So all I am saying is that we need to look at the history of the Hapkido arts without the rosey and romantic crap we have been fed for years and let Hapkido arts stand on their own merits. FWIW.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

Can we get some less esoteric description of "Yu, the water principle" under techniques? Ewok 15:06, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

External Links

I agree that the external links section of this article has become somewhat like a massive advertisement/link page that serves little purpose to the overall good of this article or Wikipedia. I understand why someone pulled several of the links. But, I also believe that there must be some consensus before individual links are added or simply randomly removed. Perhaps a good criteria would be to determine how much information on Hapkido and the Korean martial arts each linked site provides. If there is good information on the site, then perhaps the link should remain in this article. If the link is just a school advertisement, then perhapse it should go. (HKD 01:49, 24 May 2006 (UTC))

The sites that are linked to should be (IMHO) informative sites and/or national/international sites from organizations aiming at an English speaking public. If it is a very informative club site, it should be in English. Otherwise you can link to your school/organization from the local site. (ie. Korean sites can use the wikipedia article over het wikipedia korea.

People are using the external links section for advertisement again. I ordered the links in alphabetical order of their domain name. I also don't see why a general KMA mailing list should be mentioned there. It can have it's place at the general KMA article. --Kbarends 18:17, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Training

What is the reason for the recent deletion of the part about chae yook kwan? When you ask your everyday Korean what a 'dojang' is, he will tell you it is the stamp they use to put on official documents. Modern day Koreans use the term chae yook kwan when they refer to a gym.

I'll reply to the above, though i'm chinese and not korean a lot of words sound the same. Yes dojang is a homophone for 2 words rubber stamp and dojo(sorry about using japanese). Dojang is where I practice hapkido, nuff said. A chae yook kwan is a gym, but very multipurpose. IMHO this is a page about Hapkido, would you post about chae yook kwans in all the other korean martial arts wikis? Start a chae yook kwan stub.

HI. I am not registered on Wikipedia but i think that one VERY important person is missing in all this chat about Hapkido and how it became great. The greatest fighter to come out of Choi's original's is Ing Shik Hwang. I have heard from MANY people that knew him back in the day that he was very similar to Mas in that he spent a lot of time PROVING its effectiveness before he moved to Canada.

Bong Soo Han and Ji Han Jae are more famous names but Hwang is the more influential Martial Artist. Jackie Chan, angela Mao, Bruce Lee. (although Ji Han was there it was Hwang that Bruce left lunch to come and play with).

Please add Ing Shik Hwang. The man that a search of the web will lead you to know that to other martial artists outside NA, He is the 'GOD' of martial artists. The greatest living fighter of his era. I would have loved to see what he could do when he was in his prime. Unfortunately i came to his club when he was already in his 40's.

Mike

Mike,

Master Hwang could still move pretty good in his 40s I think. But I know what you mean.

Why don't you add http://worldhapkido.com/ to the external links. This is a link to the association to which Master Hwang is the current Head Teacher. That way it won't really be a dojang advertisement and yet there is a link to some information on that page.

Just a thought.

Matt

Modern hapkido

There was section added called 'modern hapkido'.

To me all hapkido is 'modern' hapkido (1958 or afterwards). I haven't heard of this as a separate style of hapkido. Doesn't all hapkido emphasize self defense?

I'm wondering if this section is necessary.I think the submission should at least be developed a bit more to merit inclusion.

Any feelings out there about this?

Matt--Mateo2006 00:44, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree - I think this is unnecessary. Also, I think the "example syllabus" that follows is not particularly useful as black belt levels and syllabus requirements vary greatly from association to association. Dr Aaron 06:08, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Personally I think that having something about the content of a hapkido curriculum is useful even if where in the time line the material is learned varies. Some people unfamiliar with what constitutes hapkido may be interested in such things. The overall content is pretty consistant from organization to organization. I'd like to see more technical aspects represented rather than less. -But perhaps that is just me.:)

What are the feelings on this out there? --Mateo2006 07:12, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

You might start an article on hapkido curriculum and link to it from the hapkido article. Just an idea. We could do the same for hapkido techniques. If people want to know more about them, there is a seperate article that delves into it deeper. Kbarends 07:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

That's an idea. But other articles such as judo, etc contain curriulum content. If technical stuff does not belong in the core article, then what does? (I'm not trying to be sarcastic here. :)) Only history and controversy? Most people looking to find out something about hapkido are not so interested in this, I think, and you have to be in the art a while before you even know about that stuff. I think people want to know what hapkido people do.

Before adding the curriculum, with all the judo material posted, it appeared to indicate that hapkido is a judo based art which is, of course, not true. Also most hapkido teaching methodologies are systematized according to attacks and the curriculum kind of illustrates this.

This wasn't the curriculum I followed coming up (It is based on an older KHA curriculum I believe.) but if I change the belt levels in which things are learned a bit it seems pretty consistant. I believe that the KHF only has technical gradings up to fourth dan rather than 5th as shown here but certainly the order that the material is learned is pretty consistant there too.

A nice addition to a technique section might be the pictures you once posted on the forum showing common manipulations. Just a thinking out loud here.--Mateo2006 02:08, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Choi Yong Sul Section

Re: "Others also suggest that one purpose of list was to keep track of financial obligation of licensing."

The 2 types of books that Sokaku kept, the eimeiroku and shareiroku, are in existance and are quite clear in their nature. The first states any who attended including seminars with names, dates and locations. The second is a ledger which states the amounts paid for training. Some of the eimeiroku were cremated with Sokaku but cross referencing these two sources fills in a great amount of the gaps.

The object of these books are quite clear. Licensing was handled through the giving out of significant scrolls.--Mateo2006 03:33, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Ji Section

I know that there is controversy regarding many senior teachers (Han Bong Soo, Kim Chong Sung, Kwon Tae Man) of hapkido asserting that their master was Choi Yong Sul while Ji asserts that they were his students. I removed Master Han from the list of Ji's students because he has always asserted he was a student of Choi's. While this may or may not be true, it is not really for me to get into. Master Kwon on the other hand sometimes claims to be a student of Choi's (as on his homepage) and yet in an interview with Tedeschi he identifies Ji as his teacher so I identified him in the latter way because he spoke to this specifically.

Also problematic is the timing concerning when Ji began to strongly asssert in public (as opposed to private conversation) that he rather than Choi Yong Sul was the 'true' founder of hapkido. There was a big article in 1992 where Ji was interviewed for the premiere issue of Inside Taekwondo where it was being claimed for the "first time" that Ji rather than Choi founded the art. But perhaps he did so earlier in print as well.

I have many other earlier interviews with Ji and he never made such a statement in print in those publications. Perhaps someone can point to some sort of public statement in print prior to 1986 where Ji asserted that he was the Founder? (I'm not saying it isn't true I have just not seen any evidence of it.)

It is common knowledge that in KHA, and Republic of KHA dojangs, presided over by Ji, Choi was always identified as the founder and his picture adorned all the dojang walls.--Mateo2006 14:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

References and Further Reading

I removed the following link not because that it not interesting but because we are not allowed to let the sections grow too large and so must be selective.

http://hapkido.4t.com/Downloads/History.pdf

This article was not, to my knowledge, used in creating the information listed above in Wikipedia hapkido section.

Unlike the others listed it is not really a primary source. It is an article based upon primary sources like the ones listed above which are used extensively in the article.

Some of the sources (like Shaw) contain no first hand information and yet fail to identify the sources of very important statements of things which the author could not have been a witness.

Lastly there is some incorrect information in it as well. Just for one example, it states that people do not contest Ji as being the first person to use the term 'hapkido' and yet one of the primary sources cited often in the article is an interview with Choi's first student Suh who states explicitly that this was not the case. "In 1958 Choi Yong Sool and I agreed together to officially add the 'Do' to Hap Ki to have the lasting name hapkido. No one else did this." The Beginning of Hapkido; An Interview with Master Suh Bok Sub. TKD Times, May 1996, Pg. 41 -

That there is no significant argument about this detail certainly seems not to be the case when the first student of the art disagrees.

Another example of incorrect information is the idea that Daito-ryu was a well known art in Japan or that Sokaku Takeda was a martial artist known to the general population at that time of the founding of hapkido which is clearly untrue. Despite the fact that Sokaku taught Daito-ryu to many high profile students, to the general populace this art was even less well known at that time than it is in Japan today. (Today the people who know of the art are primarily aikido practitioners.) Also attempts to popularize Japanese arts in the late 1950s was not an effective marketing tool as to even get a license with the Korean government one had to be promoting a Korean art, thus at this time Tang Soo Do changed its name to the Moo Duk Kwan/ Soo Bak Gi, and Kumdo and Yudo attempted to trace the roots back to original Korean traditions

In short when there are only a certain number of links permitted in an article there seems to be enough reasons to delete this particular article reference.--Mateo2006 01:31, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Kudos!

I practice and study Hapkido every day, and I've found the article comprehensive, detailed and from a neutral point of view. I'm also glad that my contributions (however small) have been changed and improved. Keep it up! 58.169.75.103 13:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

For myself and the others who have contributed thanks for the positive feedback. It is nice to see that someone is reading it and finding something worthwhile there. Next time if you leave your user name we can thank you more personally. Best regards, matt. --Mateo2006 02:48, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Reference

Hi Mateo, I am surised that you removed my reference point on Shaw's book. As this book was published by a major publishing company, in the field of the martial arts, and was the first to mention the fact that Choi was simply a worker in the home of Takeda and not an adopted son, I feel that it is a natural point of reference for the article. Futhermore, you make statement, "You giving references for my writing." I am not quite sure what you mean by that. Wikipedia is a place for everyone to contribute. Furthermore, please look back into the history of this page. I was working on it long before you ever came on the scene and though I have not contributed to Wikipedia for a few months, I was one of the early contributors to this article and was one of the first to detail the history of hapkido on this page. So, this is not ONLY your writing.

Also, while we are at it, I think it is important to mention that someone is using a reference to an article, "Inside Taekwondo. Vol.1, No.1. Feb. 1997." Inside Taekwondo was only published between late 1992 to 1995. So this should be corrected. I haven't taken the time to look through all of my issues to find the appropiate article mentioned but who ever posted it should correct this incorrect fact.

Another point is that you pulled my statement regarding the fact that the discussion in Aiki News Magazine No. 77 interview is not fact, it is only speculation. As I am sure you understand, Wikipedia is about presenting a collective understanding of the facts, it is not about presenting one person or one groups opnion. Like many others, I have long known of this interview. No where in it does it state that it was actually Choi who took this seminar. It is at best speculation that it may have been him. To present this as a fact in this article, does not do it justice. For this reason, it is essential for the integrity of this article to detail that point. So, I have also replaced the disclaimer. If you would like to reword it, feel free to do so.

This is not solely your article Mateo. This is an article that many of us have contributed to and have revised. Thanks for your input. All the best (HKD 16:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC))

Hi HKD good points in all and I agree almost all and thank you for the feedback.

The Inside Taekwondo is 1992 as you probably knew from the dates you presented.

The Shaw reference I deleted because I thought I wrote that particular sentence. Perhaps I didn't :( I regard much of what exists in Shaw to be mixture of good fact and unverified speculation on his part I don't like using him as a reference. (Besides he even gets the name of Kim Yong Jin's kwan wrong and I have affiliations there. :) ) If you want to put a reference to him here in addition to the one you placed under the KHF then go ahead but it would be better to reference a sentence where it was the true source of the information.

Incidentally my personal source for this information on Choi's role as a servant to Takeda was a private conversation I had with Mochizuki Minoru back at Yoseikan headquarters in 1991. This source was from a person who had a long time association with Ueshiba dating back to the pre-war period and who had known Takeda. If you want to put the Shaw ref back in, that's cool. It is one source. I just don't like leading people to that particular one, but that is purely subjective.

As for the Kisshomaru quote I think the whole thing is there and referenced for people to judge how they wish without our having to be led in either direction of believing it or not. In answering "It is true that a Korean named "Choi" who founded hapkido studied aikido or Daito-ryu?" Kisshomaru said that his father told him that a young man studied in Ashikawa City with his father, that he returned to Korea began teaching Daito-ryu, that he called his art hapkido and that he received a letter from this teacher after his father's death. The description hardly fits anyone else ( eg. Jang Im Mo or Ji Han Jae) but regardless it is all there for people to view in whatever way they see fit. The interview is a 'fact' and history is based upon things like this. Telling people how to feel about some information is not.

Others seemed to like its inclusion as they referenced it for me on-line as my reference was from the original print article.

Also many of the changes I made after consulting with other members. I've had really good feedback about the changes I made and about half of the article has come from my contributions.

I'm sure that you can add to what is there and make it even stronger. It is still not one of the better one's I've contributed and I've contributed to quite a few.

Many complained that the article in its early versions was excesssively negative at the intro saying that it "spends more time talking about what hapkido can't prove about its history rather than what that history is or what the art is about". I reacted to this and made some changes. This might be handled by having a "controversy" section in the article like other articles have had. Do you have any thoughts about this?

I fully recognize wikipedia's collective nature but not contributions are equally valuable and that's why we hash things out here as we should! :)

I appreciate your contributions too and thank you for your input here as well.--Mateo2006 00:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts Mateo. Keep up the good work. (HKD 16:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC))

Thoughts on International Organizations Section

I guess we are getting to the same problem that had constantly plagued this article; Justified External Links.

We've done away with external links which were being used for self promotion many times here. We now have an International Organizations section. I removed the US site for the KHF despite the fact that I thought many might have found the link useful but it would seem that having the main KHF link would fit into the 'international' criteria while the US one would not.

I'm wondering how we should limit this criteria. We've just had Sunny Tar's Singapore based site listed. My teacher and he are friends and he is a respectable hapkido man however I wonder if this site should be included? If I have a school in Canada and am affiliated with another school in England and one in Puetro Rico then I belong to an International Organization. -But a very small one! I'm thinking too small to bear inclusion on this list because the list could grow to unwieldy proportions once more.

What are the other thoughts out there on this one?--Mateo2006 16:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we should only have internal links in the article. So not a link to the KHF website, but to the KHF article on Wikipedia. External links can be placed there. Kbarends 16:36, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a thought. You are a 'hardliner' Klaas! :) Your idea might encourage others to write more articles to justify external links! Not a bad thing.--Mateo2006 00:56, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Lim Hyun Soo section

Nice to see an addition of a section on Master Lim.

There seems to be a bit of cut and past from jungkikwan.com which is not really permissible for a wiki article. There really should be no identical sentences here. Some rewording would be nice and some supported characters for 'Tang Soo' would be better to use if it is not 'Tang Soo Do' which is being spoken of.--Mateo2006 04:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)