I start Hapkido in about 2 weeks.....

[Cain]

avatar

what do you guys think of my new avatar?

[ramus]

The instructor has 36 years martial arts experience, 8th degree blackbelts in HKD and TKD, taught the Korean special forces, and has a very clean dojo where i can take up to 5 classes a week during the summer.

[Tom Yum]

probably not.

[Tom Yum]

Its the Chinese character for death (pronounced sih)

[Cain]

hmm, japanese for death last time i checked they might be similare/the same?

[Tom Yum]

His credentials are solid. Go visit his class and see how it goes. You might become a martial arts addict (if you aren't allready).

[Tom Yum]

Cain, written Japanese borrows its characters from Chinese. The word for Chinese character in Japanese is kanji (cahn-jee) in Chinese its hanzi (hahn-zih). Japanese has taken some steps to westernize its language, they also have an alphabet.

[Cain]

hehe

that might be, i just have a japanese friend that tried to show me signs, and i recreate them in gimp

[ryanhall]

Ramus,
I don't want to disappoint you, but most people who claim to have taught special forces personell never had a military contract. If they did, it usually didn't last. Allow me to illustrate the difference: Paul Vunak had a military contract and taught many SEAL groups for a couple years. Jerry Peterson of SCARS had his system taught at BUDs training to a few potential SEALS and he claims to have taught the SEALs as well. The majority of instructors have just had a single individual from the military who has trained with them at one point. From this, they seem to think that they can say that they trained "Special Forces." Also, each group will often have its own trainer. Special Forces guys don't use hand to hand in their line of work, so the fact that someone trained them doesn't necessarily speak to the greatness of the teacher.

[ramus]

he trained korean special forces for 8 years!!!

[ryanhall]

he trained korean special forces for 8 years!!!

That's cool, but I am not sure what kind of use a special forces unit would have for wrist locks and throws. I'm not doubting you, just wondering what a military unit would have gained from a martial arts instructor. HKD bears no resemblance to anything that they would use in the field.

[ramus]

the class also begins with 5-10 minutes of grappling/wrestling

and i wrestle so i should get some benifits, and i might even lose that stubborn 10 ponds

[Tom Yum]

That's good. Does he let you guys start standing up, or allready on the ground. hkd and judo share some of the same throws.

[ramus]

is there any outside training i should do??????????

[MrPoopy]

5 times a week sounds pretty cool. You'll get more out of it the more you train. Just don't do it so much that you get sick of it.