I started my martial arts training in the Korean Hybrid art of Hap Do Sool. They came to my small hometown of Ladner, BC in the mid-nineties, and I trained for two years until I moved away. HDS was really ahead of it's time. We learned striking, throwing, ground work, and joint manipulation. This was before the days of MMA, and UFC was still fairly new and underground. The quality of training I received there really jaded my view of other Martial Arts, and I felt (as a homesick teenager) that all styles were inferior to HDS, and that my previous Master could have mopped the floor with any instructor in my new home town. It remains a very small Martial Art with only two active branches. It had such a huge effect on me, and I still compare it with other styles to this day. Are there any current or former Hap Do Sool practitioners on this site? I'd love to hear from you. Especially if you live in Victoria, BC.
Um, that's not entirely accurate. The mid-90s were most assuredly not before the days of MMA. The term "MMA" perhaps. But not the concept. Not even the sporting format really. And the first UFC was televised on Pay-Per-View in 1994. "Underground" is a bit of an exaggeration. It didn't enjoy the popularity it does now, certainly. But underground? As for the overall idea of mixing striking, groundfighting, etc., that wasn't new in the mid 90s either. Lots of styles and schools were already doing that. The Japanese pancrase or shooto format, for instance, predates the first UFC and already combined striking and groundfighting. I'm glad you like your style. But I don't believe it was doing anything that wasn't being done elsewhere as well. It was just tougher to know about these things in the mid 90s.
I was not saying that it was the first style in the world to combine techniques. There just weren't MMA gyms on every corner back in the mid-nineties. At least not where I lived. I did not mean underground as in illegal or shady or anything like that. In fact, I remember renting the first three on VHS. I guess I'll choose my words more carefully in the future. The Japanese Shooto and Pancrese styles you describe seem very interesting. I'm going to have to read further into that. Hap Do Sool is no longer my style. I have not trained in that style since 1997. I'm not trying to suggest it's superior to anything. I was just looking to connect with people I used to train with.
Didn't the founder just take his background of taekwondo, boxing and wrestling, and give it a different name?
No, that's true. In the mid-90s, the JKD club I attended was run out of the back room of a community college gymnasium. Still is actually. I gotcha. Well, that's the thing. MMA wasn't a huge thing yet. But certainly there were teachers teaching hybrid styles. They both refer to the same sporting format, also sometimes known as shootfighting. It's the sport that brought us MMA notables like Bas Rutten, Frank Shamrock, and Ken Shamrock. It was MMA before UFC. I'm afraid you're the first person I've seen here mention that style. But you're definitely in the right place for people studying hybrid styles more generally.
Well this is a happy coincidence! I start training again, join a random martial arts forum, and the first post I check out is about HDS I started training in Hap Do Sool about seven years ago at the Tsawwassen Dojang. I trained for just over a year, and achieved my Orange belt (3rd belt) in that time. I had to stop due to financial reasons, but I just started training again, this last week in fact, at the Surrey Dojang. The Tsawwassen location has become an MMA gym since I trained there. I'd be more than happy to try and answer any questions about HDS.
I left as a Green belt in 1997. Did you train under Jewelz or Ivan Lee at all, or was it all with Tony Pentland? It seems that the Lee family now runs an MMA school in Hawaii. Do you know why they left the style? Good luck in your training. I live across the "pond" in Victoria now. If I still lived in Delta, I'd probably train there again.
I never did train under Jewelz or Ivan, they left before I started. I wouldn't be able to guess at if or why they left the style. I trained under Murray Wallace up to getting my Orange belt. Then Andrew Davis took over the Tsawwassen school, along with Sami Gustafson. Andrew had been running his own school with Sami in another part of Tsawwassen. I trained under them for two or three months before I had to stop. Andrew has made the Tsawwassen school an MMA gym, so now I'm training under Tony Pentland. **"When Lee left the school, Davis left as well and would later open Total Defense System, inspired by his near-death experience in Maple Ridge. Davis spent the next five years refining teaching techniques for striking, grappling, and self defense, before buying Tsawwassen's Hap do Sool and merging the schools into UMMA." http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/176971151.html?
Ivan, now known as Ken Lee, runs United MMA in Hawaii. I remember when I first joined HDS, it was a pure self defence system. We didn't compete until will went to the Tiger Balm Internationals in 1996. We did pretty well and there were soon HDS guys fighting in MMA. It's a sign of the times, I guess.
