Terry, my apologies at not responding sooner.
I wanted to comment on the bolded part.
As a "traditional" hapkido practitioner, I have not observed anything resembling 5000 techniques, at least not in our system. I have friends who hold higher grades than I do in the IHF and they don't seem to find 5000 distinct techniques either.
The curriculum in our organization consists of 72 hoshisul drills, roughly ten different knife defenses, ten or so different gun defenses (vs. a pistol), a similar number of defenses against knives using a belt, a similar number of sword defenses, and a similar number of cane techniques.
There are about eight distinct kicks (front, turning, side, axe, back, hook, back hook, and a crouching sweep kick) practiced low, middle and high (except the crouch). Most are also practiced with the leading and rear leg, performing the kicks while jumping, and performing them while spinning and jumping.
Hand techniques include various blocks and strikes, both opened and closed hand and both leading and rear hand.
We utilize mainly a somewhat crouched walking stance, but transition between that, a back stance, a long stance, and a horse stance.
There are front rolls and falls, side rolls and falls, back rolls and falls, performed from a crouch, standing, and with a jump.
Finally, there are six danjun breathing exercises.
You'd be hard pressed to break 300 techniques with our curriculum. I have never counted them up, but I can say that we definitely are in the sub-500 category.
Daniel
