John Pelligrini and Combat Hapkido

**TEA** · Posted On: 6/01/2007 9:47pm

So it is possible that this staff sergeant at Drum was Pelligrini student prior to enlistment and then opened the door for P-Diddy once he was in a position to do so?

A couple of side notes with civillian instructors. After the Army realized once again that medium to long range rifle skills were a good thing for soldiers to have (the Marines never forgot this), they hired a bunch of civillian High Masters to teach marksmanship for their new Squad Designated Marksman program. The instructors at Ft Hood are all TRSA members who I've shot with and pretty much all were former military.

Also, my GJJ instructor is certified to teach both the Marine Corps and Army combatitves program and one of our purple belts is certified to teach the Army combatives and teaches up at Ft Hood. So, just cause someone is a civillian doesn't mean they aren't qualified to teach military. If P-Diddy is teaching solely out of a desire to help the troops, then I salute him for his desire to help. However, from what I've read about his Hapkido, it seems like the Army could find a lot more better qualified instructors. Of course, they could also do worse. They coule hire Seafood Walrus.

**soundless** · Posted On: 7/24/2007 9:45pm

Although my main focus is in sambo my school also teaches muaythai and combat hapkido. My instructor holds a 3rd dan in CHKD [among others] and has attended several of johns seminars. He would certainly agree about some of the questionable marketing but other then that he seems to find the technique to be fine, this coming from a very good sambo and muay thai instructor. From what ive come to understand, as previously stated is that the split in federations occurred because of a disagreement on the use of acrobatic kicks, forms and the sheer volume of techniques and the desire to make the system more practical for self defense. I'm not sure how most schools teach it but in CT there is a small group of schools in my area[obviously ours included] that intermingle and share a general training theme that runs roughly like warm ups, striking, joint locks, ground work, free rolling sessions. Also as someone said, combat hapkido is more alive, which as I've said includes rolling. sorry my post was a bit scattered but im half asleep lol, anyways, I hope this thread continues, I'd love to learn more about the controversy of his split.

***Omega Supreme*** · Posted On: 7/24/2007 10:09pm

Originally Posted by soundless

Although my main focus is in sambo my school also teaches muaythai and combat hapkido. My instructor holds a 3rd dan in CHKD [among others] and has attended several of johns seminars. He would certainly agree about some of the questionable marketing but other then that he seems to find the technique to be fine, this coming from a very good sambo and muay thai instructor. From what ive come to understand, as previously stated is that the split in federations occurred because of a disagreement on the use of acrobatic kicks, forms and the sheer volume of techniques and the desire to make the system more practical for self defense. I'm not sure how most schools teach it but in CT there is a small group of schools in my area[obviously ours included] that intermingle and share a general training theme that runs roughly like warm ups, striking, joint locks, ground work, free rolling sessions. Also as someone said, combat hapkido is more alive, which as I've said includes rolling. sorry my post was a bit scattered but im half asleep lol, anyways, I hope this thread continues, I'd love to learn more about the controversy of his split.

Where did you get your combat sambo rank? Or rather what group is your combat sambo associated with?

**soundless** · Posted On: 8/09/2007 10:07pm

In response to Omega [sorry for the delay]
I recieved my combat sambo rank from aiki academy of connecticut [although still not a high rank]. My school is associated with The American Sambo Association. Any reason you were curious?

**matt.m** · Posted On: 5/06/2009 5:24pm

Ya know I am a Judo/BJJ black belt. However, I have a red belt in hapkido. My dad is a 6th dan in hapkido and I have seen it all my life. Good hapkido, ok hapkido and craptastic hapkido.

I have seen the dvd's through black belt. I am here to tell you that I was bored. I looked at it with an open mind to give it a chance. However, his through black belt cirriculum look about my organizations green belt level.

If that is what you wanna do then cool, but make no mistake.......it is a light cirriculum. Not real sure how long it takes to get a ichf black belt. But I do know my hapkido system and the other solid hapkido systems I have seen take about six years to be good enough for a dan test.

I do know about his history and well, meh......whatever I am not in Combat Hapkido. But I will say this, I know black belts in the ICHF and they were green belts in our system. So again, if it floats your boat then good. If not, then good too.

***Omega Supreme*** · Posted On: 5/06/2009 5:37pm

Originally Posted by matt.m

Ya know I am a Judo/BJJ black belt. However, I have a red belt in hapkido. My dad is a 6th dan in hapkido and I have seen it all my life. Good hapkido, ok hapkido and craptastic hapkido.

I have seen the dvd's through black belt. I am here to tell you that I was bored. I looked at it with an open mind to give it a chance. However, his through black belt cirriculum look about my organizations green belt level.

If that is what you wanna do then cool, but make no mistake.......it is a light cirriculum. Not real sure how long it takes to get a ichf black belt. But I do know my hapkido system and the other solid hapkido systems I have seen take about six years to be good enough for a dan test.

I do know about his history and well, meh......whatever I am not in Combat Hapkido. But I will say this, I know black belts in the ICHF and they were green belts in our system. So again, if it floats your boat then good. If not, then good too.

You do know that this thread is nearly two years old correct?

**GIJoe6186** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 1:16am

Originally Posted by Omega the Merciless

You do know that this thread is nearly two years old correct?

You know that he has some info about the post, correct?

Why do people get their panties in a bunch when a guy add to an old thread? But if he starts a thread on it, then some other poster will probably be all like "SEAARCH FUNCTION NOOB!!!! HARR HAARRR!"

***Omega Supreme*** · Posted On: 5/07/2009 1:43am

Why you jumping on my case. I'm just pointing out something. I thought the post was very relevant.

It would've been completely different if I said "Hey **** brain thanks for resurrecting a two year old thread with absolute fucking babble!!!"

Others have mentioned that they knew they were resurrecting a thread when they realized it and still added to the thread. Now go sit in the corner.

Go...

now...

**Stambo** · Posted On: 9/03/2009 1:27pm

Why all the hubub, bub? I'm new here and I'm very interested in this thread, even if it's old or resurrected.

**ADAPT** · Posted On: 3/21/2010 6:29am

I am aware that this is an old thread, but I'll add my two cents, seeing as it's 0800 on a Sunday and I'm awake. I have seen my share of bad instructors/McDojos, what-have-you (I posted here a few years ago about a "grandmaster" who ripped a bunch of us off in Arizona in the early '90s). I always research these pages before I attempt to try a new school. My background is in Japanese Jujutsu, but I've studied BJJ and Aikido over the years. I couldn't find a good JJJ school here in the Tampa suburb of Brandon, and I didn't want to study Aikido again. I found a few Hapkido schools nearby and started researching. One instructor (who was Korean) advertised Hapkido but said that he taught Tang Soo Do and that Hapkido was part of the TSD training. It didn't make sense, but when I realized that he was pushing the TSD and trying to woo me away from asking about Hapkido, I left. There were two other HKD schools in the area. One was an ICHF school. I looked up the instructors online and found Pelligrini. The second I saw the amount of DVDs he had for sale and the fact that he was wearing an American Flag for a gi (I'm new to Korean arts, so I forget the name for uniform), I thought "McDojang". I then saw his list of accolades and immediately had flashbacks to "Shinan" John Sharpe, my first martial arts instructor. There were many similarities in their claims (both were members of the now defunct ASLET, and both claimed 9th or 10th Dans in arts that they seemed to create themselves). I'm glad that there are webpages like Bullshido that can be used to "out" bad instructors. I don't know what Pelligrini's true story is, but it seems to have been told on this thread, so I'll accept that he's not the instructor for me. I ended up starting HKD under Master In W. Kim. He seems to be legit and his teaching skills are phenomenal. I thank everyone here for the insight on good vs. evil!