# Hapkido Unification



## Nikos Botsios (Dec 25, 2018)

Merry Christmas to everyone in martial arts forum.
The Secretary General GM Bae Sung Book of the Korea Hapkido Federation recently posted this on facebook saying that the Hapkido is going to unify. Does anyone know any details? Are they going to make one Internation Federation?


----------



## kitkatninja (Dec 25, 2018)

In big step towards unification, however if Tae Kwon Do can't do it, I very much doubt that Hapkido can do it when it hasn't been unified for how long?  There is going to be alot of politics and costs that are different...


----------



## Nikos Botsios (Dec 25, 2018)

What you are saying it's true my friend I think it's going to take a long time for the unification to take place. Taekwondo has two International Federations WTF (Kukkiwon) and ITF (International Taekwon-Do Federation) but Hapkido doesn't have any International Federation. Or they do have and I'm wrong maybe?
I think the only federation that is recognised from the Korean goverment is The Korea Hapkido Federation, am I right?


----------



## dvcochran (Dec 25, 2018)

Nikos Botsios said:


> What you are saying it's true my friend I think it's going to take a long time for the unification to take place. Taekwondo has two International Federations WTF (Kukkiwon) and ITF (International Taekwon-Do Federation) but Hapkido doesn't have any International Federation. Or they do have and I'm wrong maybe?
> I think the only federation that is recognised from the Korean goverment is The Korea Hapkido Federation, am I right?


Yes, but that is very similar to how TKD "unified". First there was the Korean TKD Association.


----------



## Nikos Botsios (Dec 25, 2018)

So the only official federation of Hapkido right now is the Korea Hapkido Federation?


----------



## Dirty Dog (Dec 25, 2018)

Nikos Botsios said:


> What you are saying it's true my friend I think it's going to take a long time for the unification to take place. Taekwondo has two International Federations WTF (Kukkiwon) and ITF (International Taekwon-Do Federation) but Hapkido doesn't have any International Federation. Or they do have and I'm wrong maybe?
> I think the only federation that is recognised from the Korean goverment is The Korea Hapkido Federation, am I right?



Um, no.... TKD has about a dozen or so international Federations. There are three separate ITF's, for example.
And of course, the WTF (now called WT) and the Kukkiwon are two completely different groups, with different purposes. WT is not a style of TKD, for one thing.


----------



## dvcochran (Dec 25, 2018)

Nikos Botsios said:


> Merry Christmas to everyone in martial arts forum.
> The Secretary General GM Bae Sung Book of the Korea Hapkido Federation recently posted this on facebook saying that the Hapkido is going to unify. Does anyone know any details? Are they going to make one Internation Federation?
> View attachment 21986


I was unable to find any media reference to Hapkido unification. Maybe someone else will have more success. In typical Korean fashion I imagine it will have a strong political spin to it.


----------



## skribs (Dec 26, 2018)

Nikos Botsios said:


> So the only official federation of Hapkido right now is the Korea Hapkido Federation?



If you want to be certified by the Korea Hapkido Federation, yes.

If you want to learn Hapkido and a school teaches Hapkido and is not part of that organization, then you can get certified with whatever organization your school is part of.  It just won't be with the Korea Hapkido Federation.

I don't think they would be able to demand other Hapkido schools join the Federation, especially those outside of Korea.  For example, why should an American school succumb to the Korean politics?


----------



## Tony Dismukes (Dec 26, 2018)

I periodically see calls for such-and-such martial art (Kempo, hapkido, etc) to “get past politics” and “unify.” In general it never seems to mean “let’s visit each other’s schools, learn from each other, and stop worrying about who has the truest lineage”. Instead it seems to be code for “let’s start a new organization where I’m in charge and everyone has to send me membership dues.”

For some reason that never seems to result in more unity.


----------



## skribs (Dec 26, 2018)

Tony Dismukes said:


> I periodically see calls for such-and-such martial art (Kempo, hapkido, etc) to “get past politics” and “unify.” In general it never seems to mean “let’s visit each other’s schools, learn from each other, and stop worrying about who has the truest lineage”. Instead it seems to be code for “let’s start a new organization where I’m in charge and everyone has to send me membership dues.”
> 
> For some reason that never seems to result in more unity.



Speaking as someone from a military town, I see a LOT of students come and go.  Being a part of the KKW, it's nice that we can have our black belts go to another school and not have to start all over.  So for me, it's less about visiting schools and learning form each other, and more about being able to move with your family and not have to worry about wasting all your progress.

And even if rank isn't important to you, if you go from being a black belt in John's Taekwondo in Washington and then go to Jimmy's Taekwondo in Texas, where the forms and most of the techniques are identical, it would be a little disheartening to start all over at white belt and be forced to just do the basics for the next 3 years until you can get back to learning the advanced techniques.


----------



## Tony Dismukes (Dec 26, 2018)

skribs said:


> Speaking as someone from a military town, I see a LOT of students come and go.  Being a part of the KKW, it's nice that we can have our black belts go to another school and not have to start all over.  So for me, it's less about visiting schools and learning form each other, and more about being able to move with your family and not have to worry about wasting all your progress.
> 
> And even if rank isn't important to you, if you go from being a black belt in John's Taekwondo in Washington and then go to Jimmy's Taekwondo in Texas, where the forms and most of the techniques are identical, it would be a little disheartening to start all over at white belt and be forced to just do the basics for the next 3 years until you can get back to learning the advanced techniques.


BJJ has no centralized governing body, but if you have belt rank in BJJ you can move to a new place and 99.9 % of schools will accept your existing rank without requiring you to start over.


----------



## skribs (Dec 26, 2018)

Tony Dismukes said:


> BJJ has no centralized governing body, but if you have belt rank in BJJ you can move to a new place and 99.9 % of schools will accept your existing rank without requiring you to start over.



Fair enough.  I guess it would be more insurance in the case you can't.

Then again, if you move, you may not like the instructor in your organization at the new location, and may want to jump ship anyway.


----------



## dvcochran (Dec 26, 2018)

skribs said:


> If you want to be certified by the Korea Hapkido Federation, yes.
> 
> If you want to learn Hapkido and a school teaches Hapkido and is not part of that organization, then you can get certified with whatever organization your school is part of.  It just won't be with the Korea Hapkido Federation.
> 
> I don't think they would be able to demand other Hapkido schools join the Federation, especially those outside of Korea.  For example, why should an American school succumb to the Korean politics?


For the same reasons TKD school's align themselves with WT(F) and Kukkiwon. Brand recognition and portability of credentials are just a few.


----------



## dvcochran (Dec 26, 2018)

skribs said:


> Fair enough.  I guess it would be more insurance in the case you can't.
> 
> Then again, if you move, you may not like the instructor in your organization at the new location, and may want to jump ship anyway.


I am always amazed by the comments of people who clearly have a lot of options when it comes to different schools in their area. We have so few it is more of the "beggars can't be choosers" scenario. I feel that makes me appreciate the value of information provided by the internet more than people in higher populated areas. That said, it is hard even for the learned person to know if what they see/read online is legitimate. I think this is a big part of why I have always enjoyed visiting other schools during my travels.


----------



## skribs (Dec 26, 2018)

dvcochran said:


> I am always amazed by the comments of people who clearly have a lot of options when it comes to different schools in their area. We have so few it is more of the "beggars can't be choosers" scenario. I feel that makes me appreciate the value of information provided by the internet more than people in higher populated areas. That said, it is hard even for the learned person to know if what they see/read online is legitimate. I think this is a big part of why I have always enjoyed visiting other schools during my travels.



Well, we have a bunch of TKD and MMA gyms in my area, one karate school.  But then its hard to find anything else.  

I wanted to do Bagua or Wing Chun but we didn't have those options.


----------



## WaterGal (Dec 26, 2018)

Nikos Botsios said:


> So the only official federation of Hapkido right now is the Korea Hapkido Federation?



No, there are a few. There's also the IHF (International HKD Federation), based out of Yongin in South Korea, and I think there are one or two more that are also officially recognized by the South Korean government. In addition, there are lots of other Hapkido organizations based out of other countries, which may or may not have some international presence.


----------



## dvcochran (Dec 27, 2018)

dvcochran said:


> For the same reasons TKD school's align themselves with WT(F) and Kukkiwon. Brand recognition and portability of credentials are just a few.


@Dirty Dog , I don't get it. I said these are just a few of the reasons. Why the disagreement?


----------



## Dirty Dog (Dec 27, 2018)

dvcochran said:


> @Dirty Dog , I don't get it. I said these are just a few of the reasons. Why the disagreement?



The usual. There are no WT schools.


----------



## dvcochran (Dec 28, 2018)

Dirty Dog said:


> The usual. There are no WT schools.


Mis-speak to be on the same level as the previous post.


----------



## oftheherd1 (Jan 2, 2019)

dvcochran said:


> I was unable to find any media reference to Hapkido unification. Maybe someone else will have more success. In typical Korean fashion I imagine it will have a strong political spin to it.



Try hapkido unification attempts - Bing for one..  There are links to several threads on Martial Talk.  Some rather colorful.  And I can in no way verify anything in any of the threads, nor dispute much of it for that matter.  I just was never that interested in such things.


----------



## pdg (Jan 4, 2019)

The guild of master craftsmen.

Anyone can join if they meet the membership criteria, and being a member brings benefits such as license to use the crest (for customer recognition), amongst a host of other things.

A member agrees to uphold the standards set by the guild.

The guild offers no system of qualification and no trade/craft training (although there are guild certified training enterprises.

So, a business or individual can be a member and advertise that fact, but it doesn't mean the guild controls how they were trained or certified.

Have I gone mad and started rambling? Let's consider:



Dirty Dog said:


> The usual. There are no WT schools.



Well, there are WT schools, and there aren't.

There are no WT "style" schools, because WT does not have a curriculum. It is not a style.

There are WT schools because a school can join the federation through various means, bring a national association, a member of a member federation, an associate member, etc. This joining brings benefits such as license to use the symbology related to the federation (for customer recognition, outside of Korea and outside of a relatively small group of people who have researched, who has ever heard of kukkiwon? I had heard of the WT(F) through things like the Olympics, but it was more than year of ITF tkd, and following personal research, that kkw even existed in my mind) and access to other sanctioned benefits.

WT school = guild member

WT style school = guild style member (neither of which exist)


----------



## pdg (Jan 4, 2019)

Further to the above, if you visit worldtaekwondo.org and find "members" it will allow you to click on your continent, and from there find your affiliated national association, and from there to something like a "club finder", which details schools available to you.

Ergo, WT schools.

They aren't WT style schools, because such thing does not exist, but they are WT affiliated schools.


----------

