Looking at why Hapkido isn’t popular

Founded in the 1940s, Hapkido is one of many martial arts that originates from Korea. Since its creation, Hapkido has achieved relative success, whilst never really taking off in the way that its compatriot Taekwondo did. So, why is this?

Firstly, this article isn’t saying that Hapkido isn’t popular – because compared to some disciplines, it certainly has a following. Instead, we’ll be focusing on why Hapkido never really reached the popularity of other martial arts. So, this isn’t to knock Hapkido but is to instead understand why it isn’t that popular.

Hapkido has too many techniques and not enough specialization

When looking at most martial arts, they usually have a key theme. For instance, with Judo we know it’s about throws that take place in the gi. In boxing, we understand that it uses punches whilst wearing gloves. The list goes on, and practically all forms of martial arts can be easily recognized with their key features and unique styles.

However, Hapkido doesn’t really have a distinct specialty or identity. Instead, it takes from all kinds of martial arts. Sometimes, you may learn a takedown, then next week you’ll focus on weapons, then you’ll look at strikes. In short, the problem with Hapkido is that it’s very broad and lacks a core focus.

This can be off putting for martial artists. If you want to learn striking then it’s best to look at a pure striking art such as Muay Thai. If you want to grapple then something like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu may also suffice.

Lastly, if you want to look at weapons and self defense then Krav Maga may be ideal. Sadly though, there are not too many people out there that want to practice all of these disciplines at once. Put another way, as Hapkido is so broad, it actually loses popularity as a result.

MMA ruined Hapkido

Arguably, Hapkido peaked before MMA came along. To say MMA changed the face of modern martial arts is an understatement, and the game was different ever since its creation. Now, unifying moves made sense and could be seen by the masses watching the cage. This showed that you could successfully blend styles and it was fun to watch too.

In many ways, MMA has a lot in common with Hapkido in teaching all sorts of styles and blending them together (minus the use of weapons). Still, MMA arguably did this successfully, whereas Hapkido was always trying to find itself. Because of this, if viewers and practitioners truly wanted to learn various styles, then they would simply turn to Aikido.

Of course, this was bad news for Hapkido which suffered and declined in popularity after MMA came along. Now, there was a clear way of mixing styles effectively, rather than many techniques thrown together in an awkward mess. You could argue that MMA is simply a better version of Hapkido. Whatever it is, its emergence certainly didn’t help Hapkido.

Hapkido doesn’t know what it is

Due to the sheer size of techniques that are on offer, Hapkido has a large curriculum. However, this isn’t necessarily a good thing and it does bring some drawbacks. Basically, you may go to one dojo that mostly focuses on weapons, whilst another may look primarily at striking. In other words, there’s very little unification which is seen with other martial arts.

For instance, if you trained Sambo at one gym and then another, you’d see the same techniques, moves, and culture. This isn’t necessarily the same with Hapkido where two dojos can differ massively in terms of what’s on offer.

As you can imagine, this is not always good when appealing to newcomers. Typically, those looking to start training are looking for a clear identity and want to know what is involved in said martial art. Unfortunately, trying to understand Hapkido from a beginner’s perspective can be tough, which means people may look elsewhere instead.

Hapkido doesn’t have a competitive scene

Aside from pure self defense martial arts, many have big competition scenes which keep people training and help to grow popularity. Perhaps the most common disciplines with large, competitive followings are Karate and Judo. Here, professionals can compete on a large scale or even hobbyists can compete locally. Simply put, competing is fun and draws people to train to test their competitive nature.

Put bluntly, this is something that Hapkido doesn’t offer and this is because it can’t offer a competitive setting. Imagine if Krav Maga tried to implement a sports setting where practitioners could compete. It wouldn’t really work as eye gouges and groin strikes are dangerous.

It should be noted that there are some Hapkido tournaments out there albeit due to the lack of cohesion, these aren’t as popular or common as competitions found in other martial arts.

Hapkido suffers from a similar fate where certain moves would be too dangerous to try in competition. However, this once again goes back to Hapkido suffering from an identity crisis.

For a martial art that practices practically everything, it would be nearly impossible to create a ruleset to score points or determine a winner. At the same time, Hapkido isn’t marketed for self defense as heavily as stuff like Krav Maga. Once again, it suffers from being too broad and loses out because of this.

Conclusion

Hapkido isn’t the first martial art to go through a rise and fall period, and it won’t be the last. Similarly, the likes of Karate and Aikido have also gone through a golden period before stagnating. The good news for Hapkido fans though, is that its decline in popularity seems to have flatlined and there’s still a core community of practitioners that train.

Although we’ve listed off various factors as to why some people may choose not to train Hapkido, it’s also important to note that there’s still a solid amount of people that are drawn to Hapkido enough for it to have a noticeable presence.

Still, compared to more mainstream martial arts, it seems that Hapkido will forever be on the fringes. This isn’t a particularly good or bad thing but it also highlights the need for identity in martial arts and why it’s important when thinking about building something.

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