Hapido is still pretty new to me, but during the last year learning this very active cardiovascular form of martial arts, I’ve come to realise that you have to be very dedicated. I have been committing myself to one session per week, while others may do two or three sessions. Not only is this great for self defense but it’s great way of keeping fit, but to also learn how to relax, destress by meditating and breathing exercises. This is a very disciplined art just like other martial arts.
These classes start by 10 minutes of warming up, it’s important to warm up all your joints so that you don’t pull any muscles when you later start trying some of the hapkido moves. This may consist of a little runing, star jumps, and other exercises to help warm up your wrists, elbows, hips and knees.
This form of martial arts is a lot more active than others, Hapkido involves a lot more jumping around compared to Karate, for me, I needed something that was going to keep me moving and have me working up a sweat, as I was looking at continuing with this sport as a replacement for my cycling through the winter months.
The exercises really does get all your joints moving, learning side kicks, punches, how to hold a good firm stance, break falls, forward rolls, jump kicks and some judo moves. Regular grading gets you progressing through the different colour belts, but the order is very different to karate, and there are about three tabs on each colour belt too, starting at white as a beginner then moving on to orange, gaining three tabs before continuing on the next colour belt.
All I would say, is that this is martial arts, you can still get hurt, so you must be very carefull, so it’s still classed as a dangerous sport so best be careful, and you have been warned. I learned after a free-fighting session, when I dislocated a finger and fracturing a knuckle, at the time I didn’t think too much of it, so I just popped my finger back in and carried on fighting, I just thought it was the right hardcore thing to do, and nobody at the time seem to be too phased about it, except for the instuctor. I had another free-fighting session before I thought it was time to talk more about what happened and whether my hand needed looking at. After the instructors realised that it was the first time it had happened and that it wasn’t a regular occurrence, they strapped my fingers together. It was only the morning after, that my fingers started looking a little grey and knuckle almost black that I have to make a trip to the doctors on the way to work, although that wasn’t enough. They sent me to A&E! It was then they found the fracture after an X-Ray, it took a while for my three fingers to heal properly especially the dislocated finger, this took a good six months…! So beware…!
This is a great sport, it well get you working up a sweat, keep you fit and help you learn some self defense too!