Quote Originally Posted by 5FDP
Agreed. Hapkido is definitely more practical as it is a practice that teaches the individual to use the energies of their attacker rather than relying on flashy kicks and punches.
IMO "flashy" moves are useless in a real fight. They're widely used in sport and performance martial arts because those martial arts have been modified for use other than combat.

That's why I like the dirty and messy fight choreography in the Transformers live action films - it's what a _real_ fight looks like. Just chaos happening all over the place. The "art" in being a martial artist is being able to ride along with that chaos. Toy Story actually has one of the best quotes that describes martial arts: it's not flying, it's falling with style.

Quote Originally Posted by 5FDP
The best way of describing Hapkido to someone that doesn't know the style is to compare it to Taekwondo. Taekwondo is mostly about the big 'circle' movements and kicks whereas Hapkido is more about smaller circles and redirecting your oppponents energies e.g. grapples, holds, breaks etc.
I disagree with the statement about Taekwondo's circular nature. I think Taekwondo is a very linear style. Even if you look at their reverse spin kick, the kick itself doesn't spin. You turn your body 180 degrees then the leg kicks up in a linear movement. The body itself turns, but the kick itself doesn't. If you look at Taekwondo's Taeguk Poomsae, there's virtually bugger all circular movement.

This is all rather ironic considering the history of Taekwondo's creation. Much like how Frantzis argues that Aikijutsu was derived from Baguazhang, but Ueshiba would never have admitted this as it would have been extremely politically incorrect at the time, Taekwondo is essentially derived from Shotokan Karate. TKD's founder Choi Honghi lived in Japan for some time where he learnt Shotokan Karate from Funakoshi Gichin himself. At the end of WWII Korea underwent a period of intense anti-Japanese sentimentality after having been forced to be a Japanese colony for 30 years. Thus it was not PC for Koreans to be seen openly embracing anything Japanese. So in order for Karate instructors like Choi to stay in business, he had to redesign and remarket his martial art. He modified his Karate and renamed it "Taekwondo" to make it look and sound more Korean. Now the real irony is that in Taekwondo's modification of Japanese Shotokan Karate, they've actually played DOWN Karate's original Chinese elements, and amplified its Japanese elements!

Chinese Kung Fu is quite circular and fluid in nature. Okinawan Karate is also quite circular. Japanese Karate became less circular and more linear. Taekwondo is even less circular and more linear! There are claims that Taekwondo is merged with traditional Korean martial arts, but I don't see it. If you look at Taekkyeon (which today is primarily a performance art), its movements are circular. A lot of Taekwondo practitioners claim that Taekwondo evolved from traditional Korean martial arts, but there's insufficient evidence to support this theory. All the evidence I've seen indicates that it was derived from Japanese Karate. Arguments against Taekwondo's Japanese origins seem more based on Korean national sentimentality rather than on substantial evidence.

One of the most detailed texts on ancient Korean martial arts is the Muyedobotongji; which has sources that can be traced back to Ming Dynasty China. The ancient Korean art of bare-handed fighting, known as Gwonbeop is derived from Chinese Quanfa (boxing), and is written in the same Kanji (which in Japanese is Kempo (拳法), although as I've said before, Kempo doesn't have a direct lineage to Chinese Boxing). So evidence, both in terms of ancient texts and by examining pre-Taekwondo Korean martial arts like Gweonbop, Taekkyeon etc., indicates that traditional Korean martial arts were more similar to Chinese martial arts (more circular) rather than of Japanese Karate (more linear). Even older Japanese martial arts (e.g. Taijutsu) is more circular in nature than Japanese Karate. Some people argue that the linear nature of Japanese martial arts is derived from Kenjutsu -- i.e.: using straight linear movements like you would when hacking with a sword. Admittedly my knowledge here is rather limited, but my initial thoughts are skeptical considering that Karate was widely practised by commoners whereas Kenjutsu was restricted to the Samurai class. Also some might argue that pre-Bakumatsu Samurai used more circular techniques anyway (which I imagine would have been particularly important during the second Mongolian invasion of Japan in 1281.