Combat hopak
Type of dance
- Country of origin
- Ukraine
- Type
- folk dance, martial arts, type of dance, type of fighting style
Combat Hopak (also Boyovyy Hopak, Boyovyi Hopak from Ukrainian: Бойовий гопак) is a Cossack martial art from Ukraine. It was systematised and codified in 1985 by Volodymyr Pylat (a descendant of a Cossack family from western Ukraine). It can be trained in light, semi and full contact formulae. Combat Hopak includes techniques of traditional Ukrainian folk fist fighting, folk wrestling, Cossack sabre fencing, and Cossack war dances like the hopak and the Povzunets (Cossack dance centered around crawling and squat position movements) and the metelytsia. Combat Hopak practitioners wear traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirts, wide long cloth belt and Sharavary. Combat Hopak fighters also wear shoes like practitioners of Savate and perform kicks while wearing them.
External links
Facts from Wikidata Q4090105 (CC0); quoted introduction from English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Data retrieved 2026-10-22.
Data: Wikidata (CC0 1.0); Wikipedia (English) (CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.