Customer Reviews

Elementary hapkido

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This is a review for "Elementary Hapkido" which is volume two of a two volume set. Volume one is "Introduction to Hapkido" also available on Amazon (you can also read my review on this title). After doing some reading on martial arts forums online, I found out that these volumes were written for a projected series on the Korean self-defense art of Hapkido, which was to entail up to six volumes, which were never published.

Like most Korean martial arts, Hapkido also has a strong foundation and extreme emphasis on kicking. Additionally, what I really like about "true" Hapkido is its focus on effective methods and techniques for use in self-defense and combatives. Very little is suitable for the spot arena; this is not to say that Hapkido has no sports application, I just personally have no interest in its use as a traditional sports art in competitions and the like.

In this volume "Elementary Hapkido" Mr Lee discusses the fundamentals of Hapkido building on the basics covered in volume one. Like the first volume, this presentation is quite good and effective in how the information is conveyed to the reader. This book covers defensive and offensive techniques with a focus on kicks, as already mentioned. This work stress the use of these methods in the combative situation and not sport, which is excellent. As a self-defense manual this book offers an array of techniques for application against attacks. With a majority of the moves being very fast, simple and effective to be used in high stress situations were fine motor skills become an issue. However the book has its flaws, there are quite a few moves that I would never attempt in combative situation. Overall not a bad book to reference.