Is it anygood? Is it a striking or grappling art? Does anyone on this board do it? Thanks
There is a Kuk Sool Won school about 20 miles from me so I was thinking of checking in to it.
I haven't taken it myself, but I took HKD with a KSW black belt. He flew up through HKD belts because he said so much of it was the same. He said that, like HKD, it was almost all of the techniques of TKD combined with falls, locks, throws, and weapons. It's a hybrid TMA.
I think the Kuk Sool Won founder came from a Hapkido background, added more weapons and funkier uniform - now I don't have all the details of their historical background, but I remember reading something along these lines. So like Willybone said, KSW looks pretty similar to HKD - kicks, punches, jointlocks, etc.
Yo, willybone, what's going on with you?
I did some KSW, it's a lot like Hapkido, but with crazy looking uniforms and a lot of weapons training.
I trained Kuk Sool Won for quite a few years back in the 80's.
The style's got basic TKD kicks but it is less rigid than TKD.
The hand movements are more circular and are often
described as hard/soft. The intermediate and advanced
forms are actually very nice to watch.
There are many joint locking techniques, probably three
hundred to get a black belt. Most of these are done from a
standing position, and involve a wrist grab or clothing grab.
In intermediate levels you apply the same techniques from
blocking a punch. The joint locking techniques are very
similar to what I've seen in Hapkido.
For weapons you learn staff and the two-handed Korean
sword up to black belt. After black belt there is the cane,
double swords, and some other stuff that I can't remember.
There is also a fair amount of breaking that you have to do to
progress through the ranks.
After black belt you also learn some animal forms.
The founder of KSW claims to have been taught by his
grandfather, who was an instructor to the Korean Royal
Court. He then incorporated techniques from some family
styles and some buddhist styles to make what he called
KSW.
All in all, I thought it was a pretty good style. The only
reservation I have about it is that the founder spread the style
very quickly through the U.S. There are several schools that
I've seen that didn't have great instruction, but I suppose one
could say the same about many TKD, Karate, and Kung Fu
schools.
Apparently very costly, and a lot of politics involved. You have rank belt gradings ( starting at $40$$ ) and stripes ( more $$ ) and I believe $500 for a black belt grading. Lots of guys I know in the neighbouring town have quit, because of that.
I took both Hapkido and KSW. The techniques are the same but different order. The Hapkido that I took had no forms which is the difference. Also, KSW had better looking uniforms. LOL. I think the founder of KSW Suh and Hapkido's founder Ji Han Jae both learned from Choi.
KSW has better looking uniforms?
Dude, the only uniforms I've seen that are more cheesy than KSW uniforms are the unitards that savateurs wear and arnis uniforms.
*looks at arnis uniform in backpack*
*cries*
Sta94, buddy, I'm still at the arnis school. My back is still a major issue, unfortunately. I miss matwork and sensei's humor something fierce.
Have you made green yet?
*looks at arnis uniform in backpack*
*cries*
LOL @ willybone!
Hey when I did a bit of Doce Pares, the uniforms were
pretty similar to what you wear in Modern Arnis too -
black with red stripes, didn't train long enough to
get around to wearing those uniforms though.
yup, made it to green, but was out the last few months
- messed up a shoulder, made it back recently but it's
gonna be some time before I'm back in full-form. And
yes, sensei's still having a good time crushing me in
matwork.
man, those KSW uniforms are most definitely funky -
silky black with gold frilled edges, & huge korean
letters all over the back???!!!
KSW is a fancier version of Hapkido. In Huyk Su is very very good.