Benefit of other Martial Arts Experience - - Chief Instructor's Blog May 2009

Let me start out by saying that Mr. Kim was not an advocate of studying multiple martial arts. He felt there was everything you needed to learn within Han Moo Kwan. In fact, if he found out you were studying other martial arts, he may not have trained you.

Many of the initial students of the Han Moo Kwan Club came into the Club with other experience. Of the Board of Directors, Gary Murray has prior experience in Shotokan Karate, and both Bob and Brian Rainie have prior experience in both Judo and Aikido. Other than Han Moo Kwan, I have about six months of training in Aikido.

Learning Han Moo Kwan with prior martial arts experience can assist in your training, or impede you, or some of both.

You might be asking what I mean by that

With prior experience in martial arts, this can help with some of the fundamentals you learn and rely on in martial arts (e.g., balance, breathing, coordination, discipline, flexibility, focus, timing, speed and reaction, etc) that come from learning any martial art. However, if you have trained your body to move a certain way or perform a kick a certain way or spar a certain way, you may need to unlearn this and retrain your body. Often, retraining your body can take 2-3 times longer than learning it the first time.

What most of the instructors at the club have experienced is that Han Moo Kwan in its style and philosophy is not like most of the martial arts we have seen taught in the Bay Area, even compared to other Tae Kwon Do or Karate styles. While in many ways it may look similar, it is not. Jeff Burgess’ analogy is it’s like learning a second foreign language. You may have learned French, but thinking you can then learn Italian very easily may or may not be true. They are different and while there are similarities, those similarities can help you or sometimes trip you up.

The next question you may ask, is what about studying other martial arts simultaneously?

You can study other martial arts, but it can also hinder one’s grasp of one single art form since you can mix styles, concepts and philosophies. My recommendation is to stick to one to learn it well. If the mechanics learned in Han Moo Kwan are in conflict with your body type or you feel you are not learning certain aspects of martial arts from our Club, then maybe a second or a different martial art is what you need.

My personal experience, and from what I have read and learned from others, is that any martial art can take a lifetime to study if you really set out to learn it inside and out – spiritually, physically, historically, and philosophically. Many masters would only study one form (hyung, kata) throughout their lifetime in detail because it could take that long to discover all there was to learn from it.

Gichin Funakoshi has stated, “In the past, it was expected that about three years were required to learn a single kata, and that it was usual that even an expert of considerable skill would only know three or at the most five kata. Thus, in short, it was felt that a superficial understanding of many kata was of little use.” [1]

The goal of any energy-based martial art is the use of energy to discover yourself and your potential - physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. The path to that goal for each martial art may rely on different strategies and tactics, but in the end it is about the energy and the use of energy. The mechanics is the means to an end.

If you challenge yourself and commit yourself to the studying of Han Moo Kwan in class and through independent study, it will lead you to the ultimate goal which is the same for all energy-based martial arts.

Regards,
Kelly

“There are many kinds of martial arts, ...at a fundamental level these arts rest on the same basis. It is no exaggeration to say that the original sense of Karate-Do is at one with the basis of all martial arts. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form itself. The kara of Karate-Do means this.” ~ Gichin Funakoshi, founder of Shotokan Karate

References
1. Karate-Do Kyohan: The Master Text by Gichin Funakoshi