Hwarang-Do at a grappling tournament

[IzzyDaHedgehog]

So I drove up to this grappling tournament in Madison, WI yesterday. It was a pretty small event (my bracket had 8 people, I think).

There, I saw two or three people show up in black gi's (sleeves rolled up of course) with black belts and "Hwarang-Do" embroidered huge on the back of their gi's. They looked pretty intense.

I saw part of three of one guy's matches. First, he was matched against someone who I've been told is pretty new to jiujitsu, and he slaughtered him. Takedown, took the back, RNC. The second fight I just saw him get some kind of sleeve (ezekiel) or collar choke from inside the other guy's guard. The third fight he tapped to a mounted cross choke, by a guy who I watched do no-gi and was pretty good.

After a cursory Google search, I find that Hwarang-do in Wisconsin seems to be limited largely to goofy Tae-Kwan-Desque stuff, though there is some mention of grappling.

Here are the questions: In one thread, someone claims that Hwarang-do recently starting to train grappling, but have they been doing it long enough to succeed in competition with (kinda-sorta-not really) skilled grapplers?

Some others say that HwarangDo USED to be good but now has become diluted. I noticed from the websites I looked at that the name is copyrighted, presumably by the "evil" people who are diluting the style. How can these people still legally use the name if they are teaching something outside the official curriculum?

Does this guy beating two white belts, both of whom might not be stiff competition even for white belts, prove anything at all? Could this guy have been a good highschool wrestler who watched a couple UFC videos?

Most importantly, has anyone else seen anyone from Hwarang-do in grappling competition?

P.S. The girl they had with them was hot. Hot girl, if you randomly stumbled across this post, register then PM me plz. kthxbye.

P.P.S. This isn't really relevent, but I won the "140-149 lb Men' s White Belt Gi" division. Just wanted to mention that. :glasses1:

[CanucKyokushin]

First question

P.S. The girl they had with them was hot. Hot girl, if you randomly stumbled across this post, register then PM me plz. kthxbye.

How hot are we talking about?

P.P.S. This isn't really relevent, but I won the "140-149 lb Men' s White Belt Gi" division. Just wanted to mention that. :glasses1:

Not abosulutely important.But congrats anyway!

[IzzyDaHedgehog]

She had that hot blonde Russian Bond villain look to her...blonde hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones, wearing a tight black track suit.

One of the few times I have gotten caught staring. I KNEW I should have got a picture.

[CanucKyokushin]

So Does this guy beating two white belts, both of whom might not be stiff competition even for white belts, prove anything at all? Could this guy have been a good highschool wrestler who watched a couple UFC videos?

You should have found a way to get this on film instead of oggling the girl.

But to try and answer your question - and this seems to be going around a lot this week.If he was using Hwarang-Do techniques and if had had to achieve his level of proficency in x amount of the time ,while the 2 whites had achieved their proficiency in x/4 times.Than it probablys doesn't mean that Hwarang-Do are all of a sudden re-leraning theirs lost anti-grapples moves in forms.

It probably doesn't mean all that much except that you saw just 2 Hwarang-Do guys who just happen to decide to compete that weekend.

If everyone sudenly started posting in the next month or so how many Hwarang-Do guys just happen to be showing up all of a sudden at tourneys accross america.

[wackamole]

Joo Bang Lee (who with his brother pretty much created Hwa Rang Do) was a judo blackbelt , as well as hapkido, some kind of tkd, and (i think) kendo. Actually at first they taught just "hapkido" but then later changed the name.

The initial wave of Hapkido/Hwa Rang Do/Kuk Sul Won guys were all heavily cross trained in judo, tkd (at the time, basically karate with more spin kicks) hapkido and/or kendo. So the grappling techniques were there. Whether they trained their later students with resistance (and/or sport fighting) varied by school.

From what I've seen, most of the later students, pretty much sucked and the initial wave of instructors were not successful in developing an integrated training method to streamline in all the judo/tkd/hapkido/kendo. What I'm saying is that they weren't efficient training methods...if you expect everyone to come in with say a black belt in judo or tkd (or both...) then that's fine in Korea where ppl do one of the two in high school. In America, it's just not the case. It's too bad. Korean martial arts could have jump started MMA in America if they'd thought it through better.

You may not believe me, so do this-- go find some old time martial arts guys who trained in the 70s. Ask them about fighting the initial wave of cross trained Korean instructors and their first generation students. Considering that the initial Korean instructors usually had experience in several full contact styles, then did military service, they were generally a force to be reckoned with.

[MEGALEF]

Is isn't that I want to be a grammar nazi, but these two sentences are a bit hard to understand.

I saw part of three of one guy's matches. First, he was matched against someone who I've been told is pretty new to jiujitsu, and he [who?] slaughtered him [who?].

[Asriel]

I think he meant that the Hwarang-Do won. Oh and congrats Izzy :)

[pauli]

when i read it, i thought the nub ate the hrd guy's lunch.

[IzzyDaHedgehog]

Clarification because I can no longer edit OP:

Yes, Hwarang Do dude won.

And as far as it being part judo, it looked like he was shooting like a wrestler. I know that judo "has" these, but aren't emphasized that much.

[TehDeadlyDimMak]

Maybe he was a high school wrestler?