17 March 2017

Korea Hapkido Federation - Ulji Kwan - Colour Belt Syllabus

I started Hapkido at an Ulji Kwan dojang back in 2006. The Ulji Kwan is one of the big Kwans in the Korea Hapkido Federation. Having spoken to some sources, apparently, the Ulji Kwan group, and particularly Master Jo's dojang where I started my Hapkido journey, is a very traditional style of Hapkido.

Since my Hapkido base is with the Ulji Kwan, I thought it valuable to share Master Jo's colour belt syllabus. Just before he retired from full-time teaching, he video recorded his colour belt syllabus with the help of instructors Duke Kim 김경호 사범님 and (Dr) John Johnson 사범님. I also got to help out a bit with the recording behind the scenes when they started the project.

Following are links to the colour belt syllabus from lowest (8th geup) to highest colour belt rank (1st geup).


Videos of the higher ranking syllabus (1st Dan and 2nd Dan) can also be found on Instructor Duke Kim's Youtube-channel. Note that in Hapkido the colour belt geup numbering is in descending order (8 to 1); however, at black belt the geup numbering follows an ascending order (i.e. 1st Dan, 1st geup through 11th geup; and 2nd Dan, 1st geup through 13th geup).

My own style of Hapkido has evolved somewhat away from how it is practised at the Ulji Kwan, possibly to a slightly more Chinese influence: a chi-na 逮捕, as the Chinese call it, or geum-na  금나 as it is known in Korean, way of doing joint-locks and throws. Or at least, towards a more ITF Taekwon-Do way of integrating geum-na. Those that have trained joint-locks, throws and other such grappling techniques would know that I fully incorporate ideas such as ITF's sine-wave motion to explain and perform many of these techniques.



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