Vovinam

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Vovinam

Vovinam demonstration in France in 2014
Also known as	Việt Võ Đạo, VVN, VVN/VVD
Focus	Hybrid
Hardness	Full-contact
Country of origin	Vietnam
Creator	Nguyễn Lộc
Famous practitioners	Lê Sáng (Grandmaster)
Parenthood	Vietnamese martial arts, Vietnamese traditional wrestling
Olympic sport	No
Official website	No

This article contains Vietnamese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of chữ Nôm, chữ Hán and chữ Quốc ngữ.

Vovinam (short for Võ Việt Nam, meaning "Vietnamese Martial Arts"), officially known as Việt Võ Đạo (越武道, meaning "Vietnamese Way of Martial Arts") is a Vietnamese martial art^[1] founded in 1938 by Nguyễn Lộc. It is based on traditional Vietnamese eclectic sources.

Vovinam, based on the principle of "hard and soft", involves the use of strikes, elbows, kicks, knees, and wrestling moves, as well as weapons such as swords, knives, chisels, claws and fans that serve as training devices for reaching optimal control of body and mind. Students also learn defense techniques and forms. Amongst Vietnamese martial arts, Vovinam is the largest and most developed with more than 60 schools around the world, including Poland, Belgium, Canada, Cambodia, Denmark, Germany, the United States, Morocco, Norway, Russia, France, Romania, Switzerland, Sweden, Singapore, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Italy, Australia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Spain, Algeria, Taiwan and Greece, among others.^[2]