Korean Job Discussion Forums

Marathe · Joined: 07 Feb 2003 Location: Spider Hole

I just signed up for Hapkido classes today (after 4 months of telling myself i would do so). It took me 4 months to do so strictly due to my internal debate between tae kwon do or hapkido.

Is anyone else taking advantage of the presence of numerous training facilities whilst they're here and if so what did you choose.

marathe out

oh yeah if you are training here what are you paying per month just so i can compare to mine (i'm in for 60,000 a month 6 classes a week)

Zyzyfer · Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2003 5:09 am Post subject:

Last year, I took Hapkido for about 10 months. Made it up to red belt(though I really still should be blue, red was a reward) and earned a pal in the form of my Hapkido instructor. Can't restart it, though, because I injured my shoulder at the very end of my tenure.

Martial arts can be totally awesome for interesting fitness, but be careful, especially if you're clumsy(like me). It's extremely easy to hurt yourself.

I paid 70,000 for 5 classes a week.

Oh yea...Hapkido gets really acrobatic a few belts in. Good luck.

kimcheeking · Guest

Hapkido rocks....

I did it for 6 months but had to quit due to time contraints.... started studying and baby. I was paying 80,000 for 5 days a week - I could go 3x a day if I chose.

gang ah jee · Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Location: city of paper

I did taekwondo for several months but that martial art is, like, no fun. I mean, it's completely linear, the centre of balance is waaaaaaaay too high, and all the attacks (if you think you'd ever really need them) are pretty much designed for competition. Like, they're not good at making people HURT.

I wished I'd done taekyeon, which is more or less the only "truly korean" (ie, not developed by ex-japan army or yangban chinese wannabe peeps) martial art. It's completely rhythmical and you get to do all kinds of freaky jet li style twisting and stuff. Like the opposite of TKD. You practice while repeating this "ICK! ECK!" mantra. Good work Taekyon fellas!

I ended up taking Hae-dong Geomdo, which people say is what japanese Kendo is based on. In reality, it just keeps some set patterns from (apparently) the traditional Korean sword arts (which were based on the Chinese styles). Lots of talk about Samurang and all that. The unarmed styles of it are pretty cool, like kung fu, but don't seem practical if you're talking about fighting, which i'm not. My geomdo master told me to run away at any sign of trouble.

Anyway, I quit when I moved out of kangnam area where my dojang was and still haven't found a new dojang. But I loved it.

Plain non-Haedong geomdo is basically identical to Kendo, so I hear.

I think I paid 50/month for TKD and about 80 for Geomdo. It was completely up to me how many times I showed up a week at both places, but anything less than 3 times, and oooooooooooh can of whup ass from master be opening on my ass whoaaaaaaaaaAaa

mokpochica · Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Location: Ann Arbor, MI

I did TaeKwonDo in Korea. I also paid 50,000 a month. I enjoyed it while I was doing it, and made it up to a blue belt in about 6 or 7 months.

When I returned to the US though, I found that it was much more difficult (and expensive!) and took much longer to get belts. I also needed to re-learn a lot of what I had learned here. So if you do TaeKwonDo, make sure you have a good instructor who will correct your mistakes and not just pass you to the next belt level so you can get a black belt in a year.

I think one great thing about TaeKwonDo is that it is something you can easily continue, even after leaving Korea, wherever you live. Maybe that is the case with Hapkido as well, but I haven't seen as many Hapkido places in the US.

gang ah jee · Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Location: city of paper

yeah mokpochica

it's pretty damn easy advancing in taekwondo here... i trained with one of the least coordinated guys I've ever seen and he was rackin the belts up like nobody's business. I figured sabunim thought that he'd be outta korea and outta his hair soon. and it was good publicity having a few foreigners training at the cheyukgwan.

hellofaniceguy · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Location: On your computer screen!

It's questionable about what martial arts is best. It'll never be settled. But I think for an all around skill comprising of many forms is kung fu. That art, if mastered, has all the worlds arts combined. Of course, I'll take a street fighter/grappler over any martial arts any day. 99% of fights end up on the ground anyway! The idea is to take your enemy out in 10 seconds or less and that means breaking bones or else he may break yours! I have seen many 3rd, 4th and 5th degree dan black belt tae kwon do instructors get their rear ends beat bad by grapplers. Korea now will have the UFC sometime in the future. You can bet, the winner won't be tae kwon do.

gang ah jee · Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Location: city of paper

I heard that a thai kick-boxer beat six hong kong kung fu masters in under two minutes or something like that.

But, yeah, there's martial arts and then there's brawling. I'd rather learn something that was fun and looked cool rather than just learn how to hurt people.

Zyzyfer · Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2003 6:45 pm Post subject:

Anybody can club a guy in the head with a random body part. Don't gotta go to classes for that. The point of martial arts is self-defense, and, by virtue of that, any pre-arranged fight with martial arts masters fighting kickboxers and so on pretty much defeats the point of the martial art.

Yea, I know, I know, hee-yah mumbo jumbo. It's still true, though. Anybody who's taking or thinking of taking a martial art, remember that there's a lot of pyschological effort that must be put into it, if you truly want to grasp the art.

The lowdown on martial arts in Korea usually sums up like this:
Taekwondo: Good for exercise and personal development, bad for fighting since everything is competition-based. Largely based on kicks, duh. I presume there's a lot of acrobatic stuff as you advance in belts...quite fancy kicks some kids do.
Hapkido: Not as good for exercise, still good for personal development, better for fighting than Taekwondo because of the counterattack-based nature of it, but still weak because of the competition aspect. Many kicks, but not as extensive as Taekwondo in that department, more punches and a lot of grapples/counters. Some acrobatic stuff later.
Taekyon: Quite similar to kung fu in an overall sense. Very useful for self-defense, but I would reckon it's a lot more difficult to master.
Gumdo: This one is for people who like swords. I haven't heard a lot about it, though...

Oh yea...my nerdy friend who was taking Taekwondo kept talking about this video he had on Taekyon masters. I never got around to watching it, but he said he saw some crazy, crazy stuff on it.

gang ah jee · Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Location: city of paper

gumdo has the coolest uniforms.

yeah, and the swords.

In haedong gumdo though you do quite a lot of breathing exercises, unarmed stuff with names like "tiger style" and"100 armed flurry of the drunken crane", and, well, SWORDS. It's divided between the chuk-do, with is competition kendo, and the *older* (I don't trust anything koreans tell me about history anymore) sequences and stuff that the choseon army had to do. As far as self-defense goes, I guess it would be extremely effective in rainy season when you can carry your umbrella with a concealed blade in the cane. Hell, even just a regular umbrella. I liked the idea of getting into a fight and banging some thug over and over on the head with my umbrella while yelling "MEO-RI! MEO-RI! MEO-RI!".

(aside - I think all blind people should do gumdo training)

Great fun though, and it's a "do", in that it has it's own philosophy and all that. I spent a lot of time sitting crosslegged doing breathing exercises meditating about where we'd go for kalbi and soju after class. Plus my masters were great. 'Big' master was extremely confident in his meagre English skills and would bellow such gems as "GUMDO IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FOOT!". Little master was just a player, pure and simple.
Ah I miss those crazy cats and keep meaning to go back and visit them. Gangnam is just so far though.

Tae-kwon-do is just a sport, although there are some schools that claim to hark back to the dawn of TKD time (the 1950s!) before competition rules took over.

Tae-kyon was almost lost in the 1960s. It had been one of those things that Koreans hate because, well, "that's what the hillbillys from jeolla are into". Apparently there are still "get drunk and do taekyon" parties in the country, which I'd love to see. I'm not sure if they really exist though, I just saw them on discovery. If anyone knows more about it, (Dr Buck?) let us know

In conclusion, I recommend Hae-dong Geomdo

waterbaby · Joined: 01 Feb 2003 Location: Baking Gord a Cheescake pie

I did karate in Australia for a few years (1st kyu) and did Taekwondo in Korea (when in Rome...) and I loved it. It's just a sport, really. I got a black belt within a year... 10 and a half months to be exact. Prior martial arts training helped but I also worked bloody hard for it... 5 nights a week for almost 2 hours a time. I paid 60,000 a month and it included a ride home in the big yellow van when I wanted it, but that wasn't in a big city. Now my classes are free because my Director also owns a JaeYuKwon (spelling?). Assa!

I'm so over the arguement of which martial art is the best and which one is crap... I've tried many apart from TKD and Karate, including Jiu Jitsu, BJJ, Kung Fu, a bit of Kickboxing and plain old women's self defence classes. Each one has its own merits and has taught me something important. When it comes to self defence (one of my main reasons for taking up the sport) and street fighting, anything goes. It doesn't matter how good your "form" or technique is in a street fight, it's who can hit the hardest and in the most effective places. As a girl, I love taking it up to the Korean guys in my class, often with hilarious outcomes.

I think anyone serious about martial arts should try a number of different types and not just stick to one. I also think it really comes down to your instructor and how and what s/he teaches.

I agree with gang ah jee... I also reckon gumdo has the coolest uniforms. I heard it takes a whole class just to learn how to put it on properly...

Zyzyfer · Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2003 5:28 am Post subject:

Harvard Material · Joined: 25 Feb 2003 Location: Seoul

Is Korean hapkido the same as Japan's aikido, or are they world's apart? Confused

waterbaby · Joined: 01 Feb 2003 Location: Baking Gord a Cheescake pie

I think Hapkido is more like Karate and Aikido is more like Gumdo... uses a sword (at least that's what my Aussie Aikido mates did) and its also about using deflective techniques against your opponent to unbalance them and use their momentum to counter-attack their strikes. Sounds cool, eh?

Zyzyfer · Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2003 6:11 am Post subject:

I've heard Aikido and Hapkido are similar, myself. Sounds like it, too. But that doesn't mean they're the exact same thing.