similarites

[darren_stranger]

Last night we were playing with some self-defence stuff, and David was taking us through some Hapkido style moves he's been practising for his grading.  One, against a firm wrist-grab, involves taking the attacker's balance by pulling the grabbed arm down, using your legs by bending at the knees, then circling up to set up his hand for a wrist-lock.  The actual movement, bending the knees and turning the body slightly while dropping the arm down and out, then circling it in and up as if scooping water, looked remarkably like T'ai Chi to me.  It's interesting to see something like that, as i've noticed before that a lot of the principles of Hapkido seem to echo things from the T'ai Chi classics (be soft where your opponent is strong etc).  I don't know of any direct connection between the two, but it's interesting to see similarities, from an outside perspective at least. 

(Note for future reference, the wrist lock used is a slightly odd one - both hands held like pistols (thumb and index finger extended) with the other six fingers wrapped around his hand and thumb heels meeting on the back of his hand.  The twist itself is done directly in front, just rotating on front of the solar plexus without moving or turning the body).