Ok so I'm coming back to the arts after 2 year layoff with an advanced belt from a mcdojo. I've narrowed it down to two schools near me, a Hapkido school that is kind of abscure as to the style....and a school that used to offer jujitsu and tomiki aikido but now teaches the jujitsu with the aikido for his advance students due to the local economy sucking so bad. He told me the jujitsu he teaches is Goshin from the usja curriculum?
Literally translated "self defense" it is a Gendai system that was rooted in Kodokan Judo with a dash of Aikido I have met good players and bad players, like any other art/system. At least a case can be made it was the ORIGINAL Gendai! LOL
It means it's a modern style. Rule of thumb anything after 1868 is gendai anything before that date is koryu. There are significant differences between the two but it all depends on what you want.
Oh I see...thank you for the explanation. What I want is to train in a style that has some actual meaning both for self defense purposes and because im a 42 year old with T2 diabetes and need to get in shape! lol Between these two local schools the jujitsu seems the most legitimate, he doesn't really advertise for students, but has them and at least ive heard of tomiki aikido. I just wasn't sure about Goshin jujitsu. The hapkido school is taught by a 50 something grandmaster who has more about his certifications and phd's in martial arts sciences on his website than he does explaining what exactly his hapkido and ho kuk mu sul style is. I just wanted to take something legit. Is it against policy to post the hapkido website here to see what more experienced martial artists would think? My old style was Chun Kuk Do (Chuck Norris Karate System), it just got too much of a join this club and heres you a belt every 3 months for my taste. One more thing, would I have trouble with jujitsu with a bad ankle. I was pretty well able to do CKD but had to wear a brace and it threw me off with kicks sometimes.
http://wongmookwan.com is the hapkido place. The jujitsu place doesn't have a website. He originally had a facebook page then I called him on the phone. The link doesn't work when you click it for some reason, but it does if you type it in your browser.
That website trips every single box on my "Fraud Bingo" card - I would avoid like the plague personally
Not much to go on but I don't like the look of it. I doubt if the training would be very far removed from your previous experience at the Chuck Norris karate school. Have you considered judo and boxing? Just read King's bio: shadey.
Im not trying to put the guy down, far from it. I just want to learn something that means something, if you get my drift. So is the Goshin/Aikido school a good bet? The instructor there is under an instructor from PA as well as under a Tomiki federation instructor. Wish he had a website, but like I said he seems on the up and up
Can't hurt to try it Totally impossible to advise on the functionality of the training without any media though.
Spoke with GM King on the phone, nice guy. Little weird but nice. Told me basically what is on his website...all his achievements, etc. He said they practice the Taeguk forms of TKD and Hapkido. I don't know about it, he's well respected by some of my old school instructors but they all had a tournament alliance together. I've never heard of Ph.D. In martial sciences though.
In over a decade of looking into odd-sounding claims I have never seen a legitimate Ph.D. in martial arts. My guess is that this isn't the first based on his website claims to be a grandmaster in six different systems, especially considering the multiple championships and hall of fame inductions. Just looks like desperate marketing by trying to collect as many awards as possible. In my experience, the quality actually goes down rapidly once you see people starting to claim this much experience. As a rule, legitimate martial arts instructors don't want or need to do that and are happy to simply state they they have an Nth degree black belt in Y and are authorised and insured to teach that system.