How effective is Hapkido in MMA?

Hapkido is a martial art that was developed for military use and has also been adapted for street fighting, self defense situations too. As a result of this, its philosophy is not massively associated with MMA. Because of this, little is spoken about Hapkido and its relation to MMA, and whether it can be effectively applied to the cage. With this in mind, this brings us to the point of this article, how effective is Hapkido in MMA?

Benefits of Hapkido for MMA

Looking at Hapkido objectively, it certainly has some elements that can be applied to MMA fighting. For example, most Hapkido dojos focus on Judo, Karate, Muay Thai, and other fighting styles. For many, this offers a solid core that can be applied to MMA. It should be noted, that we’re talking about legitimate Hapkido schools in this case that are close to their Korean roots. We are not talking about watered down McDojo types that teach less effective methods of fighting.

With this in mind, Hapkido certainly has some good and useful stuff for the cage. It offers stand up grappling in terms of Judo, and striking with a mixture of Karate and other styles. This variety may help you to an extent, but will only get you far in terms of modern MMA where you need to be as rounded as possible in terms of skill.

Negatives of Hapkido for MMA

One of the biggest issues in Hapkido is its reliance on wrist locks and small joint manipulation, such as bending fingers and such. This isn’t legal in MMA, whilst wrist locks are physically very difficult to pull off as well. Because of this, a large portion of your training simply becomes less valid when trying to use it in the cage. Therefore, this time could be spent on more efficient skills.

Secondly, Hapkido also dedicates time to weapons training. For obvious reasons, weapons aren’t allowed in MMA – so learning these skills is also irrelevant if you plan on becoming a UFC fighter. As mentioned earlier, Hapkido is big on military training so this sort of stuff should be taught but is simply not necessary for MMA.

Lastly, most forms of Hapkido aren’t very big on ground fighting. Since the early days of MMA, BJJ skills have been needed to both attack and defend submissions, as well as getting out of bad positions on the ground. In general, most Hapkido gyms simply don’t pay much attention to grappling from the ground and the idea is not to get there in the first place unless you’re on top. Therefore, if you did Hapkido with MMA in mind, you would need to cross train BJJ to make up for the lack of teaching in this area.

Are there any MMA fighters who use Hapkido?

Perhaps the most famous MMA fighter that has used Hapkido is the UFC’s Robert Whittaker. It’s no secret that Whittaker is a great fighter and his striking was excellent. Here, you can see some of the Hapkido stances in use at times and he has explosive punches. Whittaker has a black belt in Hapkido, so make of that what you will. Obviously, if you’ve previously read about the positives of Hapkido for MMA then you will see that Whittaker has trained Hapkido correctly.

There are also a few other Hapkido fighters that have ventured into MMA. For instance, back in the 90s Patrick Smith competed in the likes of UFC as well as other promotions, and was a black belt but was primarily a kickboxer. In short, this shows some evidence of Hapkido’s use in MMA. Of course, you would need to train at a legitimate Hapkido school to use these skills in MMA, which can be difficult to find these days.

So, does Hapkido work in MMA then?

To reiterate, Hapkido is mostly used in military fighting as well as for street defense. The use of weapons training highlights this. Having said this, there are a few that have bought Hapkido to the cage which says that it can be done. Perhaps the best formula for a successful Hapkido MMA fighter would be to find a legitimate Hapkido school and train alongside Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. With this combination, you would get a good variation of skills to create a solid fighter.

The issue isn’t that Hapkido offers a system that is completely irrelevant for MMA, it’s more that training MMA on its own would be far better time spent than trying to shoehorn Hapkido in and put everything together. That’s not to say that Hapkido is soft either, but it’s also that the system has been watered down over the years too.

Conclusion

Overall, Hapkido certainly has specific moves that can be used in MMA. The issue is that it’s probably better to spend your time on pure MMA training that will have less irrelevant stuff going on. Of course, if you want to dabble in MMA whilst looking at small joint manipulation as well as weapons training then Hapkido may be appealing. However, that pretty much answers the question of why Hapkido isn’t really seen in MMA.

Firstly, its system isn’t as efficient as learning genuine MMA training, and secondly it can be hard to find a genuine Hapkido dojo. Having said this, the likes of Robert Whittaker have proven that Hapkido is certainly effective and if done correctly is not a joke.

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