I have noticed over the past few years fewer and fewer "hapkido black belts" that can take a good fall. As I travel the country teaching at and attending hapkido events I have observed Nak Bub seems to be avoided by some schools!!! Have any of you had a similar experience?
In our school nakbub is probably that part of hapkido that people like most about it. Well, maybe kicks are more popular. But they certainly like to fall. I think that it is the teacher is the one who has to set the right example. When he does all the falls, so will most of his students. On the other hand I notice that a lot of teacher don't know how to teach falling properly. So it are just a few students who figure it out on their own, while the rest tries to avoid it because it hurts. The late Myung Jae Nam once said that hapkido is good for your health, especially for the person taking the falls. So maybe we should start promoting nakbub on tv as 'power falling' with a video done by some nice looking women in bikini and some specially designed workout device. Maybe that will work
At my school, the break falls are not taught. I think that's a very bad idea. My instructor has and will teach me if/when I've asked. He does teach the kids class rolling and falling but not the adults. I think he feels that 30+ year olds will not be as into the falling and may keep some away from joining his school. I can see his point, after all he does have to make a living out of this. One of our 3rd degree black belts feels very strongly about teaching the break falls and I've talked with him alone about it. He's told me that he's tried talk the owner/instructor into adding it to the adult curriculum, but I don't think it will ever happen. He has gotten to the point that the owner will let him teach it to those who are interested. Now we just have to wait for the 3rd degree's knee to heal after surgery about a month ago. I think they should be taught for the safety of the students. I hate working with people that do not know how to fall, it takes away my ability to practice my techniques all the way through. I've been doing Hapkido for just about 2 years. For me, I'm lucky enough to be naturally athletic and have good control over my body, even for a 34 year old. I have been able to have the instructor teach me the break falls, and have worked a little on the air rolls. One other thing to add, is for myself I want to learn the break falls because I see myself staying with Hapkido until they have to remove from the Dojang in a body bag. So, I feel at some point in my future I'll be teaching people Hapkido and I'll want to be able to teach break falls. I guess one other thing, I noticed you said you haven't seen many black belts that can take a good fall. I will have to add at my school, most of the black belts I've seen can and have taken falls very well.
There is a TKD/Hapkido school that I had looked at near me. The Head instructor there does not teach any rolling or breakfalls until after 2nd Dan. He professes liability issues as well as a lack of qualified people to teach the skill properly. I wonder about the second reason as he teaches his Black Belt instructors.
I wonder about "liability issues" when a hapkido class is practicing throws when no one knows how to break fall. Nak Bub is not hard to learn..... It is even fun for adults if taught safely by someone that knows how to fall.
I can only assume that in that school the emphasis is on TKD, and not on HKD. There is a lot of that these days. No true HKD school would fail to teach rolling and falling. It's a vital skill set in our training. Any decent HKD school will start to teach rolling and falling to new students as soon as they start training.
Falling and Rolling,should be a part of every martial artists training,never know when a shove,a trip or just plain ole falling may happen,one should know what to do to prevent injury and how to enable a fast recovery.
Some part of my body lands on the mats about 300 times a week when I train (from throws, sweeps, falls etc.). When you first start training at our dojo, you practice basic breakfalls over and over again. I remember my arms and legs covered in bruises and getting really peeved that I wasn't learning 'the good stuff' in that initial stage. Now I thank sensei for making sure I know how to breakfall properly.
thats just stupid. not learn how to fall till 2nd dan?? i agree with whoever it was before, that has to be a TKD first school
If you feel you can't teach break falls in a proper way to people who are 30+ you shouldn't be allowed to teach martial arts at all. I don't expect everyone to do all the complicated aerial stuff that we also do. But there are a few basic falls everybody can and should learn. Back fall, side fall, front roll, back roll, front fall, when done in a basic matter can be learned even at a high age.
Yep. Break falling should begin at the beginner levels. I think people who are afraid that students risk injury during break falling drills and lessons a) don't understand how to teach it. b) don't see that break falling is for the well being and safety of the student. Best wishes, J.B. Murphy
Even on the Taekwondo side, I teach my students basic breakfalls too (front, side, back, and roll)... mainly because sometimes they get swept or thrown in class and need to know how to fall (and because we have some Hapkido in the Hoshinsool making falling essential as well). In TKD they learn falls from white or yellow belt (10 or 9 geup) and on. On the Combat Hapkido side, we teach the basics (front, side, back, roll, and a couple of others)... all essential in my view. Some of the interested students learn some of the fancier falls but they're optional. Honestly, any art where you may get thrown, swept, knocked off your feet, or slip needs to have basic breakfalls in my opinion.
We learn/teach rolling & breakfalling from day one. In fact it is part of the warmup. Currently our Adult class has quite a few over 40 students. There is a 53 year old from a traditional HKD background who does awesome jump breakfalls and today I was impressed with a 69 year old doing pretty decent dive rolls. I am 46 years old and being one of the higher belts my Instructor uses me alot as Uke/Bat-gi.
For us, if you can't do proper breakfalling (not perfect)by the time you are ready to test for your 2nd belt then you will never progress any further. In the white belt requirements alone, we have 6 take-down techniques. The problem is, laziness. People want quick and easy. It is that simple. America as much as I love it and as much of a patriot as I am, has become the land of the entitled, the playstation and the beer belly. People just don't want to work hard (physically) for anything anymore. We care more about our pleasures & entertainments than anything else. As for a majority of TKD schools that CLAIM to teach HKD, well I admit I am a bit biased, but experience has taught me that most of the time it is more like HKD based self defense techniques. They need to keep to a particular style of instruction and TKD & HKD are 2 different arts. Trying to teach any art under the same roof as a combined art is difficult, if you want to maintain each art's individuality. There are fundamental differences in how we fight, move and think. So it usually boils down to TKD philosophy, fighting style and way of thought winning out. Lets face it, we are not Joe Blow's art. People who study the martial arts are unique, but those who study arts like HKD are even more so. There is a difference between building up a sweat, doing poomse, punching & kicking all day or having the most sensitive parts of your body feel like they are getting destroyed, getting thrown to the ground hard or being locked up hard and painfully on top of the sweating, punching & kicking. And you get no trophy or physical object to testify to your hard work as proof of what you do.
I don't think this was a dig towards me but it does bring up a couple of good points. As a Taekwondo school, we wanted to make our self defense better. Especially we were concerned with adding a basic degree of breakfalls, some lower-level-of-force solutions to grabs/situational defenses than the standard kick-punch, as well as add in more awareness/avoidance/weapons awarenhess, etc. In the style of TKD we studied, there already was elements of Hapkido in the Ho Shin Sool (self defense) sections. So, for us, it made sense to look to Hapkido to more fully round this out. By turning to Combat Hapkido, my instructor was able to add on supplemental techniques and concepts to the base art of TKD. This was Combat Hapkido's original set up and rationale. As it became more popular, people (not just us) wanted to learn it as a base art... so the core system (Hapkido) was expanded and reordered to make it a full core art (with loads of bolt-on programs that fit the core system and allow it to be customized). So, although we teach both arts as separate systems, there is quite a bit of bleed over (more of the Hapkido bleeding over to the TKD but students of both tend to have a better striking system that solo artists). We give credit where credit is due and students know where the techniques come from. For us, we prefer to teach effectiveness over "purity" though. For example, having TKD students who can do "Hapkido" breakfalls makes it a lot safer when slipping, throwing, sweeping, etc than not learning them becuase it isn't "Taekwondo". As instructors (and black belts) though, maintaining your level in both arts is tough - and it requires a lot of time and work to stya up on both. Just ask me - I know!
Oh, never Thomas, I would never put down another art, I am just talking about the HKD/TKD combination ciriculum. I know that there are some schools and teachers out there that can make it work, but a majority end up taking away what makes HKD the art it is and turns it into the TKD add on.And in doing so, many times they end up taking out things that they may feel are not so important, like breakfalling.
