First of all I would like to say thank you very much for waking up early to join us as we are proud to introduce you our martial art, Vovinam, which is now practiced in 40 countries. It is as famous as Judo, Karate or Taekwondo of Japanese. In our country, people continue to practice VOVINAM every morning so do it like the locals!
Before we practice I will give you some short information about Vovinam.
Our Vovinam (Võ Việt Nam, Việt Võ Đạo or Vietnamese Martial Arts) was founded by Mr. Nguyễn Lộc in 1938 under the Bao Dai reigns of the Nguyen Dynasty, Mr. Loc wanted to provide students an efficient method of self-defense. He believed that martial arts could help to deter outside invaders. So Vovinam is a martial art which contains the national traditions and the spirit of the Vietnamese people.
After he died in 1960, Grandmaster Le Sang continued the development and international promotion of Vovinam. Now In Vietnam, Vovinam is very popular, People still practice it every morning for exercise, for good health and to improve balance like you are doing today. The first Vovinam school outside Viet Nam was established in Houston, Texas. Since 2000, Vovinam has become popular in many countries in the world (above 40 countries)
LOGO
The Vovinam logo is composed of a rectangle conjoined with a circle, angular at the top, round at the bottom. Within this yellow shape, the red text “Vovinam” is written above the marine blue text “Việt Võ Đao”. Under the text appears a yin-yang symbol in red and marine blue. The yin-yang symbol is surrounded by a thick, white circle, symbolizing the being of the Dao, with the mission to merge the yin and yang and to enable the ‘chi’ or life force. A yellow map of Vietnam is superimposed on the yin-yang symbol.
Finally we talk about theory of the martial art of Vovinam, The yinand yang theory (Vietnamese: “Âm-Dương” and “Nhu-Cương”) states that everything in the universe and on earth is initiated through the interrelation of Âm (negative) and Dương (positive).
As to this theory there are martial arts that prefer the hard over the soft and others that prefer the soft over the hard. Vovinam Việt Võ Đạo does not prefer either over the other. Hard and soft are used equally to adapt to every situation, to every problem.
The slogan of Vovinam is “Iron Hand over benevolent heart”, and the goal of Vovinam training is to develop both physical ability and spirit.
Vovinam as we know it today, “Nhu khí công quyền” has 10 forms, it is very good for your health, It has been divided into three sections : first you have to warm up, the second is soft movement , and the third is breathing.