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Although the exact history of Hapkido is still widely disputed, there are two main lines of development that produced this Korean martial art. The first relates to the Tang su (Tang hand) system of unarmed combat created during the Chinese Tang dynasty. Tang su naturally spread to nearby Asian countries-in Korea specifically, it evolved into similar systems such as Tang Soo Do and Taekwondo.
The second school that influenced Hapkido was Japanese Jujitsu. Around 1910, a young Korean named Young Sul Choi began studying the ancient form of Jujitsu, Daito-ryu Aiki-Jujitsu. At the same time, a Japanese man named Morihei Ueshiba also enrolled in the school. Both trained with the founder, Master Takeda, but went their own ways. Ueshiba returned to Japan to create the school of Aiki-Jujitsu , which is known as modern-day Aikido, while Choi returned to Korea, later fusing Daito-ryu Aiki-Jujitsu techniques with those of Tang soo do to produce his own self-defense system, called Hapki kwan(school) in 1958. Ji Han Jae, one of Choi's students, eventually started his own school, known nowadays as modern Hapkido. Since Hapkido and Aikido both have roots in the Daito-ryu style, they bear some resemblance.
Presently, Hapkido is practiced by more than one million students in Korea alone and used for training by government organizations, military academies, and special military units because of its practical self-defense applications. Hapkido schools can be found in several countries as well, including the United States of America, Germany, Canada, Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, China, and France.
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