I originally started looking for a good Hapkido School about 6-7 months prior to discovering Neo Legend Tigers, unfortunately for me, NL Tigers Hapkido didn't come up on any of my initial searches, I ultimately tried two schools one about 40 minutes away which was technically sound and a more traditional style of Hapkido, but some of the black belts there didn't seem interested in sharing knowledge and you got very little of the grandmasters time. I ended settling on the other choice, one closer to home but wasn't In my humble opinion traditional Hapkido (forms and memorizations were emphasized more than self-defense, joint locks etc, but the people were more open and willing to help, and the instructors
My Taekwondo instructor Master Lee at Jun Lee TKD in Leesburg, after detecting my frustration, suggested I check out NL Tigers (He used to compete with them in TaeKwondo when he worked next door at H.K. Lee TaeKwondo). I am glad I did, I met Grand Master Song (he prefers just Master because he actively teaches on the mat) and right away you got his passion for Hapkido. I went to watch a class, and instead we spent two hours talking about Hapkido concepts, My wife called worried figuring I should have been home sooner. The next day I went back and actually took part in the class, and even though I have done some Hapkido before, I didn't know his system (even though there are similarities to what I did 18 years before) I started over again as a white belt. Master Song spends a lot of time with the beginners he says it's the most important belt, to get the foundations down properly. So often it's Master Song, and one of his 4th-degree black belts or his 5th-degree black belt working with the beginning students, (Master Song would make his way to the advanced belts after we were set). Even when showing something basic concepts, he always relates it to where it will lead to and how it builds on the more advanced concepts, so you know why it's important to perfect the basics. You aren't memorizing movements here, you are learning a system of concepts and how they apply in multiple situations.
Another point to be made is, Master Song has many Black Belts still training with him, some that have spent 13-18 years training under Master Song. One of the Masters working with me told me he was two weeks away from his Black Belt test at another school, but stopped in order to train under Master Song, and while I haven't met all his students everyone is willing if not eager to share.
The only difficulty so far is Master Song can be hard to understand for time to time, but his English is far better than my Korean. I highly recommend this school, I started here even under contract at another school, I did not want to wait. This review applies to Hapkido, I have no experience with the TaeKwondo part of the school. read more