Vovinam Viet Vo Dao [p.3]

While Vovinam went into a hiatus for five years after 1975 in Viet Nam, the martial arts began to take root in countries to which the Vovinam masters migrated. In 1976, the first Vovinam training center in the United States was opened in Houston. Vovinam schools were also opened in Germany and France at the same time.

Today, over 30 years after the fall of South Viet Nam, there are Vovinam schools in 20 countries in America, Europe, Africa, and Australia, with more than 20,000 disciples. In Europe, Vovinam schools operate in France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, and Spain. There were Africans who studied Vovinam while they were in Europe, and went back to their own countries to open Vovinam schools in Ivory Coast, Tunisia, and Ghana. In the United States, nearly 30 Vovinam schools exist in many major cities, including Washington D.C., Houston, San Jose, Los Angeles, Orlando, Boston, and Chicago.

In Viet Nam, Vovinam was permitted to operate again after 1978. After Grandmaster Le Sang was released in 1988, the school experienced a revival. With diligent support from masters Tran Huy Phong and Nguyen Van Chieu, Vovinam spread to more than 30 cities and provinces in Vieät Nam, with more than 30,000 practitioners. Vovinam students have represented Viet Nam in many martial arts festivals and competitions for the past several years.

The Vovinam Difference
Casual observers at a Vovinam demonstration would most likely be amazed by the martial artists' display of agility and the unique, spectacular flying neck lock moves. However, as a martial arts discipline with a long history and great depth, Vovinam is much more than these public displays. Starting from founding Grandmaster Nguyeãn Loäc to all current masters, Vovinam teachers have always stressed building the complete martial artists with a clear, definite code of honor. This code of honor is summarized in the 10 Vovinam Credos and the motto "Ban tay thep vi trai tim tu ai" ("Hands of Steel and a Compassionate Heart"). Training sessions or competition events organized by Vovinam usually start or end with a ranking master explaining or reminding all students of the code of honor of the martial artists. All Vovinam students are expected to remember and live by these credos.

For many Vovinam students, the credos are living principles and not just rote recitals. A true story of Vovinam students during the Viet Nam War illustrates the practice of the credos. In the early 1970s, a group of South Vietnamese commandos went on a mission behind enemy lines. As their movement was discovered, the North Vietnamese troops sent teams to hunt them. In one encounter, the South Vietnamese commander engaged a North Vietnamese soldier in hand-to-hand combat. After just a few moves, the men realized they were both Vovinam students. The North Vietnamese soldier called a truce to the fight and led the South Vietnamese commandos to a safe route of escape. Despite being on opposite sides and not knowing each other, these Vovinam fighters still considered each other as brothers.

A key appeal of Vovinam to martial art practitioners is its practicality. Vovinam students learn practical, time-tested self-defense and hand-to-hand combat techniques very early on in their practice. These techniques, various elbow attacks, chops, leg sweeps, and blocks, were based on the traditional Vietnamese martial arts and refined through more than 60 years of application in combat. Vovinam moves are always executed in quick, successive, and unexpected combinations, and thus, give the Vovinam students tactical advantage in real-life situations.

Like other Asian martial arts, Vovinam also has many elaborate "bai quyen" (also known as "forms" or "katas") designed to build the students' endurance, agility, and footwork. The Eastern principle of yin and yang and the combination of strength and flexibility are built into each form as the practitioners learned to execute series of complex punches, sweeps, chops, elbow hits, and kicks with power and catlike agility. As they advance in their study, the Vovinam students also learn to effectively use long sticks, swords, knives, machetes and advanced breathing techniques.

Unlike other martial arts, Vovinam doesn't have a "black belt" as a key goal or focus for its students. Instead, Vovinam has a simple belt system that is uniquely and patriotically Vietnamese. As students advance through Vovinam, they successively earn blue, yellow, and red belts (the yellow and red belt colors are identical to the red and yellow colors on the Viet Nam national flag). At the highest level, the Grandmaster of Vovinam wears the only white belt in the discipline. At each belt level, practitioners have to earn three stripes before they can advance to the next belt. At the blue belt level, each stripe is equivalent to a minimum of six months of practice, while at the red belt level, a stripe is the equivalent of four years of continuous training. In terms of capability, a Vovinam yellow belt is considered to be the equivalent of other martial arts' black belt, and a red belt is the equivalent of a fourth degree black belt.

In the past 10 years, the "black belt" was introduced to Vovinam schools in Viet Nam, but only as a transitional stage to the yellow belt level. Vovinam schools abroad still adhere to the blue-yellow-red belt system.