9thDan.com Training Blog

Martial Extras

While surfing the web I stumbled upon an article about a local Vietnamese action film that has recently been gaining some international spotlights. The film is called The Rebel (“Dòng máu anh hung” in Vietnamese). What really caught my attention is the fact that the film prominently features the Vietnamese martial art of Vovinam.

The word Vovinam is a combination of “Vo” (martial arts) and “Vinam” which stands for Vietnam. Vovinam is part of the Viet Vo Dao system which is a generic term for a number of Vietnamese martial arts and philosophies. Vovinam was officially found by Nguyen Loc in the late 1930s. The art combines both hard and soft skills and a wide range of weapon techniques. Vovinam is probably most commonly known for its signature leg grabbling techniques, among them the iconic flying leg scissors maneuver (a take down technique by grabbing an opponent with one’s legs or feet along with the twisting of the body).

What I find interesting is that similar to Taekwondo, Vovinam’s emphasis on leg and kicking techniques is extremely prevalent in many of its demonstrations. A quick search on the web would fetch you tons of high flying leg scissor grappling videos. There is no shortage of them that’s for sure. They are abundant, but somewhat repetitive. One can easily draw the conclusion that the leg grappling technique is what Vovinam is all about…but wait, there is more.

After more searches I came across some old footage of what seems to be Vovinam’s counterattack skills. These are nothing like the aerial acrobatic kicks that I’ve come to associate Vovinam with. These are good old fashion joint locking and arm twisting techniques that resemble the likes of Aikido and Hapkido. See embedded video below:

This find has definitely cast a new light on Vovinam for me. Seeing these counterattacks puts into perspective of how Vovinam is truly a combination of both hard and soft techniques, as its founder had intended.

For those interested in the film, The Rebel, here is a trailer for you.

If you have no intention to watch the film but want to check out the fight scenes, most of them are available on YouTube. And of course, plenty of flying leg scissors Vovinam videos there too. For more info on Vovinam, a good place to start is wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vovinam