Hapkido

One of the first Arts I ever learned was Hapkido.
My friend was a BB in TKD and I wanted to learn BAD.
He wanted to practice his Hapkido. To do this he needed an Uke(partner). Would I be willing? Whatever you want, teach me TKD.
Fortunately, being a good Uke required learning what he's doing on you. Yes, as the Uke you need to cooperate some, not to make them look good (it was only us two anyway) but so that you didn't get hurt. Too much work finding new throwing dummies.
So I got to learn some pretty good basics, manipulations, throws ect. Alot of it is still in my basic self defense stuff.
And I always new what my buddy was teaching me was pretty good stuff. His teachers were pretty learned Koreans, Lee H. Park and Hee Yung Kim most notably.
Back then all I really knew was what he taught me and a few pics he showed me. There weren't really videos available, ect.

Later, I found him an Aikido school and first he joined, I joined later.
I still remember when the teacher, Dave Rodrigues (a very good teacher), wanted my friend to demonstrate for him the difference in application from one Art to the other. Really wanted him to do the technique so he could feel it.
So, do you see what's coming? My buddy asked him three times "are you ready?" Yes, yes, yes.
That's right, the teacher ended with a badly broken hand .
My guess is, rather than just be a good Uke, he couldn't help but try to use his Aikido at the same time.

I always just kinda new my buddy was really good but never had any comparisons. I have however seen some bad Hapkido over the years.

Well now there's Youtube and it occurred to me to look today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yZihj8Fi98


This guy rocks (the Uke's are really working it though). Age be damned.

But yeah, it looks just like I remember it (plus some techniques I didn't learn).

thanks Dave