Hapkido Hoshinsul Reviews

Black Belt, Sept. 2001:  Essential Gear

Hapkido Hoshinsul: The Explosive Korean Art of Self-Defense was definitely one of the big surprises of the day I recently spent reviewing products for Essential Gear.  Featuring Alain Burrese, this Paladin Press production offers a smorgasbord of impressive techniques that are fully explained.  It progresses smoothly and logically from simple locks to takedowns to throws, and Burrese's narrative is simple, clear and concise.  This is one of the few hapkido instructional tapes that I have found worth watching and definitely worth owning - regardless of your level.

The 80-minute tape lists for $39.95.  For more information, call (800) 466-6868 or visit http://www.paladin-press.com.  Reviewed by Mark Cheng.

For those of you who want to accumulate a lot of self-defense techniques, this is a video for you.

- Karate Illustrated, August - 2000

Martial Arts Video Reviews

Primary Grading Criteria:

1. Production/Tape Quality: 10
2. Instructors demonstrated skill level: 10
3. Comprehension Score/Immediate Understanding: 9
4. Degree to which this will make someone a better Martial Artist: 9
5. Score on delivery vs. Hype: 10
6. Degree to which we would recommend this product: 10
7. Wasted time (The higher the number, the less "fluff"/repetition: 10
8. Playback Score/Watching it over and over again: 10
9. Would I purchase more of this company's product: 10
10. Overall grade based on cost vs. value: 10

Grand Total: 98% (4.5 stars = Excellent)

(98% !  Only a few videos out of hundreds scored this high at MAVR)

Secondary Grading Criteria Series:

1. Beginners benefit: Excellent
2. Intermediate benefit: Excellent
3. Advanced benefit: Excellent
4. Time to benefit: immediate on most
5. The need to buy additional tapes to understand this one: None

Written Summary

Pick up the phone, call a martial arts buddy, invite him over, and move the furniture out of the way, cause it's time to have fun doing elbow, wrist, shoulder and finger locks. Burrese has put together an excellent video about Hapkido, minus kicks and punches, that focuses on making the many submissions of this art street effective. Burrese emphasizes that Hapkido is meant to be a true form of self defense, and not a sport like it's more famous Korean cousin Taekwondo. Burrese's focus is on what works in the street and what doesn't. And how does he know? Burrese supposedly had the opportunity to test his techniques as a bouncer and security specialist in some of the toughest GI bars in Asia. This guy is fast folks. He can grab a punch coming at him full speed, apply a submission/technique, and drop a person to the floor in the blink of an eye!

This video is divided into 5 main sections, each about 15 minutes long, and shows:

1. Elbow Techniques: 10 shown
2. Wrist Locks/Come-A-Longs: about 10
3. Shoulder Locks: roughly 5-7
4. Finger Locks: 4-5
5. Throws: 2

The beauty of this tape is the way in which Burrese shows how one can combine techniques and flow from one to another. The tape not only shows alot of great techniques, but also gave me a ton of ideas while watching it. As I've said before, I really like tapes that focus on street effective techniques, especially ones where the instruction is so good that a person gets a ton of other ideas while watching it. To me the mark of a well made tape is one that doesn't just show techniques, but along the way helps a person arrive at a complete understanding of the concepts and principles shown, and does it in such a way that a person gets so many ideas while watching it, that they have a chance of continuing on their own, and greatly surpassing the limited number of techniques shown on the tape. Burrese, in my opinion, certainly did that. He knew his stuff, he demonstrated it at full speed, it looked extremely street effective, there was no excessive repetition, he explained it very well, showed how a person could come up with other ideas on their own, and out of hundreds of tapes I own, I actually saw several techniques done in ways I'd never seen before. In my opinion an excellent tape!

Check out the site this review is from and compare to the other reviews.  It is one of the highest scoring tapes out of hundreds.

Martial Arts Video Reviews

Hapkido Hoshinsul Review at MAVR

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