Enhanced Hapkido is a more modern syllabus which Master Hughes has created for today’s needs. Master Hughes trained for many years in Hapkido and Kenpo, and he has joined the systems together to form a more advanced Hapkido style.
Master Hughes wanted to change his syllabus many years ago but many students were still happy with the original syllabus named Freestyle Hapkido.
Now that the time has come to enhance the style, Master Hughes has made several changes to the basic techniques – making them so that they are more effective, flow better and give a great workout. The patterns are more street-effective and keep both old and new students learning a vast amount of different activities – this gives an all round effective system.
We aren’t a system for tournaments or competitive sport. We do gradings for each level in the syllabus, which involves fitness as well as students showing their techniques, patterns and sparring. Master Hughes wants students to be driven and motivated so that he can help push each of them to their own limit, in order to help them reach and achieve their goals.
Our classes are not over the top or aggressive. We all wear protective equipment, and only light and semi-contact sparring is allowed under supervision.
Note: As an Insurance regulation we don’t allow full contact sparring.
Semi-contact is enough when you are sparring multiple opponents. We teach different ways to counter attack which develops the ability to learn to read situations.