Vietnamese martial arts???

[Surferdude]

Is there a Vietnamese ma??? I mean Japan,China and Korea have one but what about Vietnam???:confused:

[Stranger]

Vo Vin Nam- I know nothing about it.

[Abstract]

Viet Vo Dao..or something similar? i really don't know anything about it except for what i've heard, that it's a mix of different chinese/korean/japanese styles, depending on which teacher learned what...i could be way off base though...:confused:

[Former castleva]

Yes...
I think they are both legitimate,I cannot remember which one is the mish-mash of various other styles (or they can even be one and the same)
There are also Vietnamese versions of tai chi,snake style (sorry,mediocre definition) and "Vietnamese kickboxing".
I do not think Vietnamese MA is any (or that much) smaller than,say Korean but only much less known to public (for an example,how many burman arts do you know?)

[Stranger]

check out www.worldfightingarts.com


The head guy is tough and has legit experience in the ring and in combat. He teaches a few Vietnamese styles, I think.

[Surferdude]

Vo Co-Truyen (Vietnamese traditional Karate/Kung-Fu existing for more than 1000 years)
Over 1000 years, I don't know why there aren't more schools in America?

elbow strikes from Vietnamese kickboxing (considered the best elbow techniques).

Wow I didn't know about this:eek: :cool:

[chen zhen]

My best bet would be that Vietnamese MA sucks ass.
They would get slaughtered in full-contact tournaments in Thailand, Burma, etc.

[ZIM]

Chen Zhen-
What is your teddy bear doing? It looks like he's going to go blind, man. :p

[chen zhen]

The reason my caption is as it is. (http://www.ebaumsworld.com/forumfun/misc3.jpg)

[Surferdude]

hahahaha

[Stranger]

My best bet would be that Vietnamese MA sucks ass.

The man who teaches at the school that I linked didn't suck anybody's arse when he was competing or at war. I admit, he does teach Thai-boxing as well. I can't speak for Vietnamese arts as a whole.

[apoweyn]

Originally posted by Stranger


The man who teaches at the school that I linked didn't suck anybody's arse when he was competing or at war. I admit, he does teach Thai-boxing as well. I can't speak for Vietnamese arts as a whole.

He kinda sucked that day he elbowed me in the nuts, quite frankly. My best friend used to attend that school. I went with him once. Once.

:)

From what little I've gathered from that school and a short-lived kung fu school here in Rockville, Vietnamese martial arts have heavy Thai and Chinese influences. The Spirit Mountain school that used to be here was Vietnamese kung fu. I can't remember the native name for it. And the World Martial Arts school in College Park made use of a lot of knees and elbows. But as Stranger mentioned, the school also claims to teach muay thai.


Stuart B.

[conputer]

Yes Vietnam Does have martial arts of its own.
1000 years of invasion by China surely helped that :D
Nonetheless vietnamese got rid of chinese around 1500 (Le loi) and proved in a way their level.
Usually, one can divide Vietnamese MA in 2 great classes:
Thieu lam (shaolin) and Binh Dinh (center of viet nam).

Thieu lam is the term that stands for all styles greatly influenced by CMA, the most seen are hong gia (hung gar), vinh xuan (wing chun), bach my phai (pak mei), duong long (tang lang), thieu lam, tai cuc (taiji) and others great chinese MA styles(like chow gar and hakka styles).
Now most of these styles have a different flavor than actual CMA.
One reason is that they kept the "old style" flavor.The other one is the mix with vietnamese techniques and adaptation to vietnamese body type (supposedly smaller than chinese).

The other great family is binh dinh. Quite hard to see, the name derives from the regions those styles come from.
Most of the time they are considered genuine Vietnamese martial arts, you can even read Anti chinese styles.
They do use a lot of elbows and knees but it is very hard to synthetise the characteristics as most binh dinh styles are kept more or less secret (reserved to a village or a family) and some are very specialized (like one style only for the whip). The best entry door for binh dinh is the style sa long cuong that has been quite widespread. The style is well known for making tough fighters.

Now on the general characteristics of Vietnamese MA you should find:
quyen (taos)
song luyen (2 person forms)
bai vu khi ( weapons)
vo tu do (free fighting)
cam na (qinna)
vat (wrestling)
noi gong (nei gong) or ngai gong
And of course all hand-leg-elbow and knees techniques....

The most widespread vietnamese Style is Vovinam, a synthesis style (done in 1930 by nguyen loc).Usually the emphasis is placed on leg techniques but the style is quite complete.

Sidenote:i currently practice lam son vo dao,after having practiced hau quyen (monkey)

[Black Jack]

For what its worth I have heard of two. Vovinam Viet Vo Dao and Qwan Ki Do.

Qwan Ki Do from what I gather is very karate based in style with a heavy underpinning of Taoist philosophy. I also remeber reading that Vovinam has a heavy wrestling slant.

Cheers,

[conputer]

qwan ki do (qwan khi dao, it depends ) has indeed a deep karate flavor.Maybe the most karate-type of all vietnamese martial arts.
Now, i've heard from some friends close to Pham Xuan Tong (founder of qwan ki do) that he taught a biased version of what he had learnt, and it makes sense since their way of moving is too karate to be vietnamese (some of their postures indicates that also).Now maybe Pham Xuan Tong teaches the real stuff to his very close pupils (traditionnal way after all) but don't consider qwan ki do to be representative of Vietnamese arts.

About Vovinam, yes they do have a lot of "vat" (wrestling) , but like any traditionnal style, and it comes generally for the advanced.
One of the advantages of Vovinam is the structure of the curriculum, very organized, rationalized.
Nonetheless they're still very oriented towards high kicks(let's say too much for my likening :D )