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| PAST events PRACTICAL STREET SELF-DEFENSE SEMINAR (23 Apr 05)
The 5th Learn from the Master Martial Arts Seminar, “Practical Street Self-Defense,” was held at 3:30 p.m., on the 23rd of April, 2005, at the premises of Oasis Fitness Studio, at 15A/B Cantonment Road (near to Outram MRT Station). Grandmaster Jack Wang, a 9th Dan Hapkido Instructor, & President/Founder of Hap Boxercise Martial Art International conducted the packed seminar. The topic of this seminar is "Practical Street Self-defense.” Even though Singapore is a relatively safe country with very little street violence, all it takes is one unfortunate incident to make all the difference to the victim. This course is designed to train the average individual to handle some of the common confrontations that might occur in the streets. Grandmaster Jack Wang, having trained in various martial arts including Taekwondo, boxing, kick-boxing, Muay Thai, Kali, Kung Fu & of course, Hapkido, was a bouncer & then a bouncer instructor/director. He has encountered many violent altercations in his long career in the restraint & control, & self-defense arena. So, he is imminently qualified to teach this course & share his lifetime of experience in what techniques work & which ones does not in real-life confrontations. Among the participants were those totally uninitiated to the world of martial arts, to those that have training in various martial arts, to martial arts instructors. The training area was packed and a couple of spectators decided to join the class after seeing the action! GM Wang not only showed off his mastery of his skills & the ingeniousness of his techniques, he also showed his skills in calming down aggressors or talking aggressors out of violence! His years of experience as a bouncer & bouncer trainer really showed through! The participants were totally into the training and action! The course taught them various techniques that could be used in different scenarios. These are techniques culled from the different martial arts that Grandmaster Wang has trained in & put together in their most effective ways. After the training, there was a discussion session where participants had all their queries answered and doubts clarified. Grandmaster Wang covered a series of case studies from his career where he gave examples of techniques that worked in those situations & why they were used. It was truly an enlightening session. Unfortunately, because of time constraint, GM Wang did not have time to cover all he had wished to teach for this seminar. This seminar syllabus is actually a small fraction of the materials he had for self-defense. He lamented that seminars like this in Singapore is so different from martial arts seminars in the US and Canada where they last 1 or 2 full days. In just 2 hours, you won’t learn all that much; there were just too much to learn. However, most martial arts enthusiasts in Singapore are not willing to pay for expenses for full-day seminars, unlike their counterparts in the West. Nevertheless, those 2 solid hours of training did give participants valuable insights and knowledge in certain self-defense skills and techniques. Fortunately, GM Wang had decided to start his own establishment teaching martial arts. His current students & others that are interested will be able to have a club of their own to train together soon. That evening, the participants left Oasis Fitness tired, but well rewarded with the skills and techniques to handle certain physical confrontations, or to add to their respective martial arts repertoire.
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