When I say I have a black belt in martial arts the first thing out of someone’s mouth is “don’t hurt me” or “fight me I bet I can beat you.” To be completely honest, I blame the karate kid.

Now as an avid fan of all martial arts movie I can see the appeal but they have it wrong- at least for Hapkido. I wasn’t taught for competition or to fight people. I was taught self defense.

I take martial arts at Quest Hapkido and we are trained in Hapkido. Hapkido is a type of Korean martial arts and we mainly focus on joint locks.

I’ve been taking martial arts for the past four years now and my instructors have always taught us to only use martial arts for self defense.

Our student creed is “I will improve my mind and body to avoid anything that will keep me from reaching my goals, I will only fight to protect my life and the lives of others. I will achieve my fullest potential by developing respect, knowledge, honesty, and strength,

In class we are all partnered up with different people each time. If you were to walk in you wouldn’t see all the short, smaller people partnered up and the tall muscular people together. We all work together to partner up with someone that is going to give you a challenge.

If something were to ever happen we would be prepared to protect ourselves from anybody, no matter their size. We are also constantly taught to respect everyone and treat people the way you would want to be treated.

The assumptions that people have about martial arts are not always right. Every school is different, but I can say with confidence that where I go, we learn how to respect others and protect yourself, not how to appear tougher or fight to get ahead.

If you are interested in learning martial arts go to http://www.questhapkido.com/?gclid=CI6jyfDdjNACFUlahgodCIAMOg