Just a little bit longer...

Scott Williams
May 14, 2021
3 min read

Savoy Hapkido

Scott Williams

May 14, 2021

Just a little bit longer…

Illinois is starting its bridge phase to phase 5 of the coronavirus restrictions this Friday.

https://coronavirus.illinois.gov/s/bridge-phase

With the updated guidelines it WOULD be possible to start hosting indoor, in person classes, just like I am sure many programs will do. Due to our personal household with young children who are not able to be vaccinated yet, we have made the decision to wait to hold in-person classes inside at both of the two facilities where we offer classes, Band of Brothers Martial Arts and Fitness in Bloomington and HMD Academy of Taekwondo in Savoy, Illinois.

Over the past year we have added online classes for training on Zoom: Monday and Wednesday evenings 6:00pm to 6:30pm for the kids’ class and 6:30-7:30pm for adults.

What does a Zoom Hapkido class look like? Is it possible? Of course, training by yourself is never going to be 100% better than training in person with a partner and/or instructor to help guide you through the techniques of Hapkido.

But with the right attitude and spirit it can be beneficial until the time to practice in person is available.

Kids Class

What you can expect to see for the kids’ class (30 minutes total):

Basic striking and kicking and learning how to perform basic falls correctly (back falls, left and right side falls, and front falls). Plus we learn basic takedowns and throws.

Some of the kids’ class members have purchased child size throwing/grappling dummies that can be filled with old clothes or stuffing (available from Amazon for $30). The dummy is not a requirement, but if you have a child who is learning by themselves it allows them to practice the motion and principles of getting another body off balance and be able to throw them. Or, if there is a concern for injury of siblings working together the dummy can offer a safety buffer zone to be able to practice and lower the chance to injure each other.

We also play a few quick games to go along with our exercises to attempt to keep everyone moving and attention sharp.

Adult Class

In the adult class we take things up a notch. I have designed a class curriculum with a one-hour HIIT (High-Intensity-Interval-Training) routine. For each class, we do a selection of strikes (very similar to boxing and close-quarter striking), Judo throws, and joint locks in twelve 30-second rounds with 10 seconds’ rest before each new round. At the beginning of class I cover all the movements that we are going to do during that evening’s lesson plan, then we perform 3 sets of all twelve exercises, trying to do as many techniques or movements possible in the allowed 30 seconds. Afterwards we do 2 more sets of nine rounds solely on kicking (close range and far range). Then we end class going over different ways of applying the techniques we covered earlier in the evening to different attacks.

In making this type of workout more cardio-based, it falls between what the more traditional martial arts like Taekowndo or Karate would call Forms or Kata, Judo would call Uchikomi, and Boxing would call Shadow Boxing. Even in the traditional martial arts listed—Taekwondo, Karate, Judo, and Boxing—the self-training tools are only one part of the system. In a perfect world we would train face to face, also with and without resistance. Self training should not be ignored but embraced to improve ourselves even while we are using precaution in the days of the Covid pandemic, we still have tools to keep us exercising and ready to train in person when everyone feels safe to do so.