Articles
To Grapple with Reality?
This article is written by Bryce Burrows, 3rd Dan, "Southern Man" and Paul Quickenden, 2nd Dan, Kingsland Martial Arts.
"Grappling... erm that's rolling around on the floor isn't it?"
"Oh we don't do grappling, we take them out before it gets to that stage." *nods knowingly*
"We learn to put them on the floor and to stay on our feet, so we don't need to learn much grappling."
"Grappling isn't safe, so we don't recommend our students learn it."
All of these are typical responses to the question: "Do you do/teach/learn any grappling at your Hapkido class?
The fact of the matter is that most Hapkido classes don't learn much in the way of grappling skills. As a general rule it's because the instructors themselves have not been schooled in the techniques or importance of learning floor-work or because individual instructors are not keen on grappling or feel it is an uneccessary skill. In other words everyone wants to stick to what they know but I believe the practice of burying our heads in the sand about an important part of self defence needs to stop.
So why should we bother?
Well for a start historically grappling/wrestling has always been part of Hapkido from its fore-runner to the martial art we now know and learn today. According to Master Forbes the Korean fore-runner to Hapkido consisted not only of striking techniques and weapons, but also of grappling. As a little aside it was also taught to those of noble origins (some would say it still is) and the fore-runner to what we now recognise as Tae Kwon Do was taught to the peasants.
A very important part of Hapkido is that it considers itself to be a complete martial art - but no martial art can call itself complete if it neglects to teach techniques on how to deal with being caught on the floor in a headlock. A few floor "self defence" techniques don't add up to a hill of beans when you're down on the floor and fighting for your life.
Of even more importance is the fact that the majority (some quote 90%) of real life fighting situations involves some sort of grab or grapple, a fair percentage of them end up on the floor. While we'd all love to say we can take someone out with our striking techniques, can we say the same of our ground fighting? And given that the majority of self defence situations will end up on the ground shouldn't we spend time learning how to defend ourselves in this situation?
This also begs the question of what, as an instructor, you would tell a student who found themselves on the floor in a "situation" they had no experience of. One, where due to their lack of training, they come off "second best". How could you reassure such a student that all of the time spent learning the "complete" martial art of jumping spinning hook kicks wasn't just a waste of time.
We now have three reasons:
- Historical
- To make Hapkido more "complete"
- For student safety
I would like to reiterate here that I still agree that there are benefits to learning acrobatic techniques but that learning ground skills is not and should not be mutually exclusive to learning jumping spinning hook kicks.
What is Grappling?
An important question when we're considering why we should focus on it. Is it just rolling around on the floor until someone miraculously finds a limb to lock or is it a whole lot more?
Most martial arts, new and traditional, consider stand up, throwing, shooting and ground fighting to be grappling. So pretty much anytime you've actually grabbed or been grabbed by your opponent your grappling. I'm sure no one would argue with the value of learning stand up locking and throwing as being essential to Hapkido. It's the other bits that are a bit of a black art to us.
Aims
Grappling without any learnt skills is pretty messy to look at, when I was a junior belt free sparring was a case of kicking and punching until a grab happened. Someone would attempt a basic throw (usually something like a stomach throw) and the rolling around would ensue - the tactic seemed to be to put your opponent in a headlock and as a general rule the bigger guy won. Not a lot was learnt from this.
The aim of Hapkido street grappling should not be to pin your opponent while "waiting for help" or "the police to come" or for them to say "uncle", but rather the aim should be the same as when one has no choice but to stand and fight i.e. to end the fight as fast as possible. What are the fastest possible ways to end a fight? Using strikes (elbows, knees, fists, head butts), joint techniques (arm locks, wrist locks, neck, knee and ankle locks), chokes and stangles (to cut off the air supply or cut off the blood flow). Notice here that headlocks are not listed. Headlocks are not good "fight ending" or "finishing" techniques as they don't incapacitate your opponent and are pretty easy to escape from.
Another aim is to dominate your opponent, using the mount, side pin, applied scarf hold etc. Once you have a dominant position, using finishing techniques becomes a lot easier.
If you can't dominate them by obtaining a position on top, then you need to control them in some other fashion. The guard is a good method for controlling them if they are on top. It allows you to ensure they can't move around you. Also many finishing techniques can be employed from here as well as sweeps and reversals. Learning to grapple from ones back, while initially difficult is something that is of particular use, especially to our female students. This is one reason why we have a women's self defence syllabus.
Why do I want to grapple?
As a general rule, you don't. This article is not to say "stop training stand up and learn grappling" this article is to say "add grappling skills to your repertoire, you might need it".
Being on one's feet is much preferable to rolling around on the ground. But if you wind up on the floor and don't know what to do, then you're in trouble. There are many reasons not to grapple on the street, for a start it is hard and hurts - there may be glass or all sorts. Also, if there are other people around you have no idea who elso will have a go at you when you're down there. Don't forget you have the same worry on your feet. Indeed it is easier to react to multiple attackers while standing. But these are not reasons to avoid learning to grapple, these are time and place considerations. You may find yourself in a pub on the floor with same wag doing his best to send you to the plastic surgeon. A situation to avoid if possible but something you may have no control over.
But, but, but...
"We don't have time to learn it" is an oft' used excuse. Well, take a look at your class timetable maybe you should consider dispensing with some of the more superfluous techniques. Time management is important during running a class and it's a good idea to periodically review the class schedule to provide variety.
To this and the other "buts", ask yourself this question: What are you going to say to the student who walks up and says "I tried, but nothing I had been taught seemed to work...".
"You didn't do it right" is not an answer.