Hard and soft, developed together.
Vovinam Viet Vo Dao is the national martial art of Vietnam, founded by Grandmaster Nguyễn Lộc in 1938 and practised today in more than sixty countries.
Its governing idea is Cương Nhu Phối Triển: hardness and softness developed together. A student does not choose between striking and yielding. The art asks for both, and for the judgement to know which one the moment needs. That is why timing and precision count for more here than raw strength, and why a fourteen-year-old and a fifty-year-old can train on the same mat.
At CAD Gigantsport it is taught as it was handed down: technical, orderly and demanding in the way a craft is demanding, without competition pressure and without theatrics. There is no uncontrolled contact. Students learn to look after the partner they work with, because that partner is the reason they can keep improving.
- Origin
- Vietnam, 1938
- Founder
- Nguyễn Lộc
- Principle
- Cương Nhu Phối Triển
- Uniform
- Light blue, every grade
One mat, every age.
Children, teenagers and adults train in the same session, each working at the level their grade asks for.
Younger students spend more time on coordination, rolling and the discipline of the hall. Older ones go further into applications, forms and the reasoning behind each movement. Nobody is held back and nobody is rushed: grades are awarded by examination, not by time served.
No previous experience is needed and no particular level of fitness is assumed. Bring clothes you can move in and the willingness to come back a second week.
What a student actually learns.
Six areas of work, present in every session in different proportions depending on the group and the time of year.
Self-defence
Releases, locks, counters and distance control, drilled slowly first and then at speed. Technique before force, so that a smaller body can still make it work.
Flying scissor kicks
Đòn chân: the twenty-one aerial leg techniques that make Vovinam recognisable anywhere. Taught in stages, with a partner, on the mat, and only once falling is safe.
Forms
Quyền: fixed sequences of attack and defence that carry the memory of the art. They build balance, breathing, precision and sustained concentration.
Falling and rolling
The first thing children learn, and the skill that stays with them off the mat. Landing well removes the fear of falling, in training and in the playground.
Conditioning
Strength, flexibility and coordination built through the practice itself rather than through machines. Every session opens and closes with joint work.
Etiquette
The salute — an open hand over the heart, a steel hand over a heart of kindness — and the rules of the training hall. Respect is a technique like any other.
The path of the belt.
Vovinam does not start at white and finish at black. It starts at the sea and finishes at the spirit, and each colour names a stage rather than a rank.
- 01BlueLam đai
- The sea and hope
Every student begins here. Blue is the water still looking for its way through the rock: the promise of a path, not proof of skill. In a town built on the sea, the beginning could hardly be anything else.
- 02YellowHoàng đai
- Earth
The art has taken root in the body. Yellow is the equivalent of the black belt in other martial arts, and the 1st Dang is yellow with a red stripe.
- 03RedHồng đai
- Fire
The grade of the senior masters. Fire is the art fully alive and handed on to others through teaching rather than kept for oneself.
- 04WhiteBạch đai
- Spirit
Reserved for the highest authority of the discipline. White closes the circle: everything returns to purity and to the founder's original thought.
The võ phục, the light blue uniform, is the same for every grade. Only the belt changes: a deliberate reminder that the person underneath is the same on the first day and on the day of the examination.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, in the school hall.
One confirmed venue, two sessions a week, free of charge for pupils enrolled at the school.
Free for CEIP Antonio del Valle Menéndez pupils
- Group
- All ages (children, youth and adults)
- Sessions
- Tuesday 16:00–17:30 · Thursday 16:00–17:30
- Venue
- CEIP Antonio del Valle Menéndez
- Town
- Garachico, 38450 · Tenerife
- What to bring
- Loose clothing, water, bare feet
- Official confirmed venue for Vovinam Viet Vo Dao
- Spacious sports hall with certified technical tatami
- Accessible facilities and locker rooms
- Full free tuition agreement for students enrolled at the school
The first class costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Come along on a Tuesday or a Thursday. Watch a session or step onto the mat, whichever you prefer.