He's just moved into the area and today I spoke to him about some private lessons to supplememt TKD. He seems very knoledgeable and friendly. Showed me some pretty cool stuff too. Anyone have any insight?
That is funny becuase his school is in my neck of the woods in MI. I guess he moved. He is under the Late Grandmaster Myoung. They style of hapkido he does is, kind not like any hapkido I have ever seen. And that is not a good thing or bad thing just is.
His homepage: http://www.ushapki.com/pages/about_grandmaster_gagne.php I don't know him personally but I did speak to him on the phone when I was looking for classes/resources on Hankido. He seemed fairly nice on the phone and was very flexible in offering training. He seems to have a sizable collection of videos and a flexible arrangement of training opportunities. It probably wouldn't hurt to check out his school and see what you think. The Hapkido is from GM Myung Jae Nam's lineage (same style that I studied in Korea).... and he offers Hankido, which is fairly rare in the states. If I was closer, I'd give a physical check-out. If you do, please let me know how it goes.
I met with him yesterday and he seems pretty straight. Gave me about 20min of lesson which was working well for me. My conflict is that I really like my TKD school and won't quit there, but they won't teach us self defense until we have a black belt. I don't want to wait another 2 years to begin learning so I'm trying to find someone who will supplement the TKD. Seems to me like I should get my master's permission to go for additional training elsewhere, don't you think? Or would it be better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission? (my normal modus operandi)
In my personal opinion, an instructor shouldn't have a problem with students cross training, and if they do, they should have a good reason. I would be up front with the instructor and tell him/her what I was thinking, e.g. "I need more self defence and I think a bit of Hapkido cross training would be good". Hopefully your instructor will support your idea and may possibly recommend a place to go (or know of this school you are talking of). Again, I think being straight forward and honest is the best policy. Granted, if the TKD school doesn't get into self defence (Ho Shin Sool) until black belt, maybbe they have a reason. For example, some schools believe that students should get a strong foundation in one art (to about 1st dan) before any cross training... to help prevent confusion. In fact, we in general follow this idea and prefer that our students don't cross train on a wide scale until 1st dan (although seminars and short term is fine at any level). If your instructor forbids any cross training at all withouit a good reason... then maybe you should start looking on your own and maybe even for a new school. Good luck!
Master Kim was very reluctant to allow me to take this additional training. Some of his reservations were probably justified. He asked me to review the subject over the weekend and return with pros & cons. I came back with several straight positives, a good number of negatives that I either nullified or turned into a positive. Concluded with a request that I try it for a few months, monitor the progress, if there were problems I either correct them or discontinue the extra training. At which point he consented. I have now had 3 sessions with Master Gagne and like it. We still don't have mat area so are working outside, other than some grass stains where he's bounced me I think doing some training in street shoes outside is a cool thing. Hopefully we'll do more of this even after we get mats down. I know when I did tkd forms on top of Monsarrate and at the beach the uneven footing makes for a challanging environment. Anyway, so I'm now enrolled in 2 MA schools. MWF @ noon w/ Master Kim's, TT @ noon with Master Gagne, Thurs PM sparring class and an occational Sat AM class (like today.) That's about 6hrs a week of MA. I still need to do some strength training (weights&mch), cardio (bike) and somewhere I need to find a good stretching routine which can get some flexability of this 40yr old bod. Looking at the Kurz. Thanks for your advise and if you are ever in Greenville stop on by and attend a class. VIP free on me, just tell them Robin sent you.
I've now had 6 or 7 lessons with him. From everything I can tell he really knows his stuff (though since I'm such a newbie I may not be the best judge.) Also, on the DVD thing, I got the whitebelt one and I'm pretty impressed. I thought it would be really cheezy, but it's quite well done. Not sure I'm the type of personality to do the distance learning thing, but having the DVD as a supplement to class is fantastic. Really gives me a chance to see the move slowly and over and over so I can get it right. Wish I had something like this to help learning forms in TKD.
Would you mind telling us what is covered on the tape (a brief review) and the general price/length... I am very interested. What forms do you do in TKD? GM Hee Il Cho has really good tapes (and good video + book combos on the internet) for nearly every set of forms for TKD, although there are some variations between instructors. See http://www.aimaa.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=GHICAS&Category_Code=IS
The entire whitebelt curriculum is on the 1st DVD. To give you some idea, I sat thru 9th and 8th gup for the first time the other night and it took about 2 hours. That's not pausing it or anything either, just straight thru. Warm-up exercises - extensive, even including 8 different ways to do pushups. Variety of blocks Variety of strikes Variety of kicks The above in combos Falling and some beginning groundwork And more. Much of what's required for Whitebelt. I’m told there are 9 DVDs in the set, though I have not seen all this yet. His blackbelt course is a 5 year program in school. My impression is that this will not be a McDojang. It’ll include not only the Hapkido and Hankido, but also Hankumodo and Gymnastics. From what he says I’ll be learning all kinds of extreme sports along with the self defense and weapons training. Clearly will need to improve my conditioning greatly to handle backflips, handsprings and the like – never done one in my life. I can't begin to detail it all. The whitebelt student manual is 83 pages and the DVD covered all that and much more in far greater detail. I told M.Gagne yesterday that I thought he should put clips of it on his website. What he told me is something that happens to so many. He had this on his site and a whole lot more. Unfortunately his webguy wasn't the most honest fellow and never provided backups of the work he did. When the fellow was shut down the entire site (6yrs work) went with him. M.Gagne is working on a new site which will include clips like I suggested. I'm not trying to pitch this as a 'go buy DVDs and you'll be a black belt', merely saying that as a training supplement I think it’ll be great for me. If you were enrolled in his school here I'd certainly recommend it (or even the Michigan school since he trained the new owner.) I’m not even sure how you’d buy it if you wanted them since his current site doesn’t have any way to do so. Best bet would be to call him and ask, his # here is 864 968 9322. I do not know the price. M.Gagne does have a bunch of distance learning students though. Several secret service agents and special forces who do this from DVD. Part of the course is 1:1 training from time to time either at the student's location or in school. I don't think I'm the type of person who this would work for, but I guess there's all kinds of peeps out there, probably with a partner it would be a lot better. Frankly I considered the DVDs a complete waste of time – until I watched this one. Now I know better. There is no comparison between this and something like Pavel’s SuperJoints DVD (which I do consider a waste of time and money.) Having talked to M.Gagne about the DVD's I can sort of understand why M.Kim has not done something like this. M.Gagne said it took over a year of work (with 38 years of studying Martial Arts all over the world) and $150,000 to produce these DVDs. I guess a production studio, crew and video editing is pretty expensive. This is all backing up what he's teaching me - except for the groundwork part because we don't have mats yet... ...I guess that bears some explanation. When I was in Barcelona they were teaching some self defense stuff like jointlocks and wrist twists. When I got home I expressed interest in learning this. M.Kim does not teach Hapkido until 1deg which I won't reach for at least another 2 years. A month or so later during testing the black belts were doing tons of these moves and I again expressed interest. Again denied. So when I got home that day I started searching the net for Hapkido & Greenville to see what's out there. M.Gagne had just sold his school in Michigan and moved down here (like me, he's a Yankee who hates snow.) I just happened to catch the site the day he announced this. I called him and set up a meeting. When I arrived he was just finishing his meeting with the new landlord for the location here. It'll be another month or two before the space is renovated. I was able to convince him to begin teaching me now rather than wait for the school to open. So we are working outside, in offices, and anyplace else that works until they clean out the area where the mats will be. The only criticism I can think of is that he's pretty full of his art and continues to express how much better than all the others his is. I’m way too inexperienced to be judge, but if he’s even half as good as he says, perhaps it’s justified. It does rub me the wrong way a bit – strikes me as bragging. It’s a small annoyance when compared to what I will learn from him, but is there. Hopefully this will diminish over time when he feels I’m convinced. Also, my case is a little different since I’m studying TKD at the same time and I’ve made it pretty clear that I continue to consider M.Kim as my primary master at least until I reach 1st deg in TKD – likely I provoke some of this. So far I’m enjoying it. I don’t have the experience to comment on his skill. I can say his teaching ability is quite good. But by all means, if you are in the area contact me and I can get you a free VIP pass and you can judge for yourself. Until the school officially opens (mid Jan to Feb) we meet Tues and Thurs at noon. The Dojang is very close to GSP airport and minutes from I85. Class is supposed to run for an hour, but I haven’t been out of there in less than 2 hrs yet. Once the school officially opens there will also be an evening adult class, which will be around 7pm. Stop by, we’ll have some fun.
Thank you for the huge review. It sounds really good. Personally I use our systems tapes for reference and find them very valuable for reviewing and practicing the core requirements. It's nice to hear that your training is working out well and that you are happy with it. I would like it if Master Gagne had some clips from the videos up, I would like a bit of preview in case I did want to buy them. I am fairly interested in the IHF Hapkido videos.
Be Carefull Hello everyone, I thought I would drop a few lines here about Marshall Gagne and let you know what everyone in our area already knows. Marshall Gagne IMHO has no integrity and only focuses on one thing and that is how much money he can suck out of you. I know this because I was his sales and office manager for a few years along with being an instructor for his morning classes and teaching all his kids classes for a period of time. Like rangerwalker said "don't believe the hype". Marshall Gagne will spill so much crap into your cup it is gonna be up to you to study and learn the correct history about hapkido and martial arts in general. After finding out what this guy was all about I left and joined up with the WHF and found the hapkido I was learning was incomplete. I also did some research and even found out the techniques I learned didn't even look like anything from the IHF, but somehow he is the area rep for them. About signing a contract with him, DON'T DO IT. If you are gonna sign one please be smart and read the back of the contract. You will find out you just signed all rights and freedoms away when it comes to martial arts in general. He has things like non-compete agreements and statements like you have to have a written agreement from him to study anyother art etc..... and if you step out of line just a bit he will have you standing in front of a judge in a snap. Another great ploy is his statement " I've been teaching for 38 years". Now that sounds kind of hard when that would only make him about 18 or 19 and as I remember he was in the Army at that time and still learning TKD. He didn't even start learning HKD until the 80's. Even funnier he never went through the gup system, he received a lateral promotion ( 3rd degree TKD to 3rd Degree HKD). I guess the IHF needed black belts back in the 80's so that is something they did. One more thought to ponder on is, if someone like him is sooooo great why doesn't he have any masters that he tought under him? Think about that for a minute. Here is someone that brags he is so great and what he teaches is the best, but for some reason he has NO masters that he brought up through the ranks that are still with him. Marine Hapkido
It saddens me to see this drama between dojangs… …too much drama for me. I’m learning. I’m enjoying what I’m learning. My impression is that M. Gagne is a good teacher and I’m happy studying under him. The combination of M. Kim’s TKD and M. Gagne’s 3HKDs is working well for me. Last week I had 9x MA classes (5x TKD & 4x HKD) and biked 4 times along with some stretching in front of the boob tube. I feel good! My girlfriend says she likes it too and is enjoying training w/ M.Gagne. She's a natural at this. Her movements and kicks already look better than mine did after 6 months. She's already more graceful than I am. I suspect she'll pass me before long even though she attends only twice a week. She's also mentioned that she is quite pleased with the change in my appearence over the last year Say goodbye to the 240+lb couch potato and hello to the 180lb lean machine
