Hapkido Master
In 1959 Ji Han-Jae combined all of his martial arts knowledge together and began to teach hapkido.
Many people consider Ji Han Jae to be the founder of hapkido, while others will credit his teacher, Choi Yong-Sool, who referred to his art as "Yawara (Hangul: 야와라; 柔)" or "Yu Kwon Sul (Hangul: 유권술; 柔拳術)". It is commonly believed that it was Ji who first started using the name hapkido for the techniques he was teaching at that time. Seo Bok-Seob, the first student of Choi, however states in a 1980 interview that it was Jung Moo Kwan who first used the term to refer to the art as well as the symbol of the eagle to represent the art. Regardless, much the curriculum and techniques that we associate with hapkido today is heavily marked by changes that were implemented by Ji Han-Jae and his senior students.
One of the most significant changes in the art which was the work of Ji Han-Jae occurred in conjunction with Kim Moo-Hong (Hangul: 김무홍; also rendered Kim Moo-Woong or Kim Moo-Hyun) who was also a student under Choi Yong-Sool. After studying with Choi, Kim went to a Buddhist temple and learned a local kicking art there. Traveling to Seoul in 1961 he lived and trained with Ji for a period of 8 months and together, implementing the kicking methods they had both learned, they finalized the kicking curriculum for hapkido, significantly expanding it to include kicks to higher targets, spinning kicks and jumping kicks, none of which were originally part of the system taught by Choi Yong-Sool.
In addition to this Ji Han-Jae's original Sung Moo Kwan (Hangul: 성무관) shared space with people who trained in other arts, including Western boxing. Ji and his senior students developed tactics for dealing with techniques of boxing, tang soo do, taekwondo and judo and implemented them into the curriculum.
Read more about this topic: Ji Han-Jae
Famous quotes containing the word master:
“There is between sleep and us something like a pact, a treaty with no secret clauses, and according to this convention it is agreed that, far from being a dangerous, bewitching force, sleep will become domesticated and serve as an instrument of our power to act. We surrender to sleep, but in the way that the master entrusts himself to the slave who serves him.”
—Maurice Blanchot (b. 1907)