To change or not to change kenpo

(from Mr. Hale's Facebook page)

I find all the squabbling about what “is” and what “is not” Ed Parker’s American Kenpo to be both amusing and frustrating. I’ve read where people say to be Ed Parker’s American Kenpo it has to “change”, because Mr. Parker always advocated change. Others say to be Ed Parker’s American Kenpo it must be performed exactly as it’s laid out in the Accumulative Journal and Volume 5 of Infinite Insights ...into Kenpo, because this is what Ed Parker said.

Although the below quote, by Ed Parker, won’t “fix” anything, it should be of some benefit to those who are interested in what Mr. Parker had to say on the subject. This quote is from: Black Belt Magazine, Feb. 1975 V-13 No. 2 And In The Beginning There Was Ed Parker - by Gilbert L. Johnson

“You’ve got to know how to vary things,” he (Parker) says. “A lot of the techniques I’ve worked with, they’re ideas, they’re not rules. At any given time, any of my moves can change from defense to offense, offense to defense. Martial artists, and Kenpo people especially, become so involved in doing the techniques exactly right in such and such amount of time, that they get caught in a pattern that they can’t break. That’s not what they’re for. Specific moves, specific techniques are based, like the ABC’s in the English language or standard football plays. You have to have a point of reference and from there the combinations are endless and limited only by universal laws, laws that you can’t change.”