44 % mental

 

Some thoughts on "Category Completion"

(from a a recent conversation on Facebook)

Category Completion is a teaching concept but more importantly, a constructive concept to allow the three-dimensional creation of the system and how concepts and principles interact with each other from any point of observation. Relationships build family groupings, families groups build sequential flow and position recognition during a confrontation.

Category flow builds a holistic kenpo system that fits the individuals needs.

Choice of what you like and don't like is made available to the student to make comparisons and choose what fits their body and emotional content. - Mr. Larry Tatum

Category completion is designed to make kenpo EASIER to understand, not complicate it. It is done to simplify the relationship between attacks, various techniques and cross referencing them. The phrase Mr. Parker would say often was "For every move, concept, principle of definition, there is an opposite and reverse". - Mr. Joe Rebelo

It teaches you position recognition and helps understand the system, which in turn makes you faster at responding once you have contact. - Mr. Jason Arnold

My teacher, Mr. Planas, often says “you learn to be spontaneous only by being spontaneous”!! I don’t think there is a better comment on the subject. To reiterate, Category Completion is not a magic pill that makes kick a$$ if you just memorize all the relationships in the system! There is NO replacement for quality basics drilled numerous times, and spontaneous training. Perceptual speed aside, where Category Completion is intended to aid is mental speed, by facilitating efficient motion within the Universal Pattern, as you respond to the attack. Strong basics should take care of the rest.

With regards to the Equation Formula, the Equation Formula tells you what to do, Category Completion shows you how to do it! But like Billy Mays used to say, “there’s more”. Instead of just showing technique modification, it addresses footwork, attack angles, strike patterns, opposites and reverses, etc. so to conclude, Category Completion combines concepts, such as Equation Formula, opposites and reverses, and so on, and puts them within physical context within the Universal Pattern. - Mr. Max Bychkov

From Bruce Lee to Chinatown: Sue Ann Kay reflects on her Seattle roots

(nwasianweekly.com Nov. 15, 2024)

“I’m 79, and in the Chinese calendar, you’re a year old when you’re born. So I’m using that I’m 80, because it sounds better,” Sue Ann Kay, a longtime Seattleite and Chinatown-International District advocate said with a laugh, during her recent Q&A with the Northwest Asian Weekly.

After Kay spoke at the Landmarks Board Meeting in September, advocating for the preservation of Bruce Lee’s first dojo on University Way preserved as an historic landmark (which the board did not approve), Carolyn Bick of the Northwest Asian Weekly caught up with her to learn more about Kay’s life.

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Tell me about your background, and your childhood. Were you encouraged to seek out new experiences and experiences not then typical for girls and young women?

Yes and no. I mean, in our family, my sister and brother got to go into music. And my mother put me into baton twirling classes and ice skating, which was a little different. Now I wish I had some music background.

We had a good childhood on Capitol Hill, and we always went to the Chinatown-International District. So, our childhood was filled with going there to eat out with family and see what was happening. And yeah, in those days, the Chinese Baptist Church there on 8th was sort of a gathering point. I was a church dropout. But yeah, my sister and sister and mother, yeah. So we’ve been around Seattle since, well, I was born here.

I’m a product of Stephen’s [Elementary] School, Meany [Middle School], and Garfield [High School]! I graduated in ‘63 from Garfield.

How old were you when you met Bruce Lee? How did that happen?

Let’s see, I was in high school, and my father hung out in Chinatown. And so he had heard about Bruce Lee and had seen him demonstrate. And [my father] was the Boy Scout leader, so he asked Bruce if he would teach the Boy Scouts.

Bruce did end up teaching at the Chinese Baptist Church there in the CID. There’s a picture in the Wing Luke Museum. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention [at first]. That was before I joined and started martial arts. I think my brother was like 13, or younger. I don’t know—he was a Boy Scout, anyway.

My dad also invited [Bruce] over for dinner. He was sparring with my brother in the yard and showed me a few tricks. I guess I was impressed. And then he said that I could join the class on Saturday, just come. And I did, and I was hooked. I guess I didn’t really think about it, that I was the only female in the class. He just treated me like I was another student.

I became a fairly serious student. … Because he was a friend of my father’s, I think that he always treated me with a lot of respect—like I wasn’t any less of a student. 

I think what I’ve mentioned before in interviews is that I really appreciated that he taught me how to protect myself, before there were women’s classes. He used me to demonstrate to the rest of the class with an umbrella how to protect myself and use it as an extension of my arms. And I’ve never had to use it or really don’t think about that’s something that I would do. But I think that it does stick with you, and when you practice it, it becomes that your aware of your surroundings. And I don’t know if I could ever protect myself, but I’ve been exposed to what I could do if I had to.

You mentioned that you were hooked, after your first class. What specifically hooked you when you took that first class?

I think it was the Chinese culture. He introduced me to Yin and Yang, and he gave me that book, the Tao Te Ching. I just became interested in Chinese philosophy, although I’m not a real good student of anything.

But yeah, the culture intrigued me. And acupuncture—I got really interested in that… it was during a time when doctors at the University of Washington were calling it “voodoo.” Acupuncture wasn’t accepted here in the 60s.

So all of that was new to me, and fascinating.

My sister went through the university studying Chinese history and culture, but I didn’t, so I did get it a different way, I guess, and it was kind of a different group of friends … a lot of Garfield students—like Doug Palmer is one of them, wrote a book. (https://www.chinmusicpress.com/product-page/bruce-lee-sifu-friend-and-big-brother)

We’re all tied. You know, you run into people and then you find out about them and their backgrounds. Everyone had kind of a new awakening to something that wasn’t offered before. And Bruce was pretty charismatic.

Did your family support you studying martial arts?

They never questioned it. I just went every Saturday.

You mentioned that with Bruce, you were not treated any differently. Was that your experience broadly within the field of martial arts, or was Bruce really stand-out in that?

I have experienced sexism and racism through the years, and become more aware of it. But when I think back to that period, I was carefree and just open to anything. And I didn’t put up with a lot of negativity. It was a fun period growing up.

I didn’t do the competition round [in martial arts].

Part of the class was Tai Chi. And now, you know, there are Tai Chi classes and Qigong classes. I tried to go to see if I could keep it up, but I’m not really structured to do it on my own. I’ve never wanted to learn from someone else, after I learned from Bruce. I don’t know if that’s because of Bruce, or because I’m just not one to master anything. I just sort of dip in and see what it’s all about. 

But when you’re that young, too, it leaves a lasting effect—it was a lasting imprint. It’s like, “Wow, I got to really feel what the energy, the chi in Gung Fu was about, because in the classes we did the sticky hands. And I remember it was like an “Aha!” moment, because Bruce went around and did it with everyone in the class. And you do figure eights with your arms and you can feel the give and flow of the energy, so that if you were being hit and you connected to the arm, you could just deflect it. 

I didn’t really master any of that, but to be introduced to that type of an education—it was like another class that I had at the university, only it wasn’t at the university.

https://nwasianweekly.com/2024/11/from-bruce-lee-to-chinatown-sue-ann-kay-reflects-on-her-seattle-roots/comment-page-1/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJsk59leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHsjG6La0tkAqwtwar7IrCyHaob2pbha5rzcOE_mP2zAHgNd286UoV1HJZ93N_aem_wosB3vuX7UePuKPHSjx96w#comment-2002403

Some nice training space at USSD's headquarters

 Looks like some ample training space at USSD's headquarters in Irvine CA.

"My Empty Hands" podcast

https://myemptyhands.net/

"I started Chinese Kenpo in the mid 90s. I have trained in Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido, Boxing, and Capoeira. I now train in American Kenpo, Hapkido, Muay Thai, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

I was inspired to start a podcast as I’ve been a life long fan of the martial arts and want to hear about the experiences of my fellow brothers and sisters in the arts."

Credit to Mr. Reggie Darden for all his hard work at creating and maintaining his "My Empty Hands" podcast. 

Started in September of 2024 he is now up to 55 episodes and has interviewed some of the biggest names in Kenpo such as Jeff Speakman, Ted Sumner, Dennis Conatser, Darryl Vidal, just to name a few. 

Check out his podcast and let him know with a comment what good work he is doing for the kenpo community. 

Seattle Landmarks Board rejects Bruce Lee’s first dojo for historical designation

(nwasianweekly Sept. 20, 2024)

After lengthy discussion that took up most of its Sept. 19 meeting, the City of Seattle’s Landmarks Preservation Board decided not to designate the site of what advocates call Bruce Lee’s first formal dojo as a historical landmark.

Seattle’s Bruce Lee Fan Club submitted the building for historical preservation designation. Located at 4750 University Way, the building was one of the last places Lee trained and lived before moving to California. While the building—which still holds apartments—has been modified since Lee’s time, a landmark designation would have protected the building from further change and development without specific authorization from the board.

The designation failed by just one “yes” vote, with six of the nine board members voting “yes.” A landmark is approved for designation by seven or more members voting “yes.”

In addition to sending in documents (a “main points” document and a more detailed document) supporting the designation, a handful of people showed up to advocate for the site, including two of Lee’s students, CID Coalition member and longtime Chinatown-International District (CID) resident Sue Ann Kay and Jun Fan Gung Fu instructor Abe Santos. Advocates said that the building is the site of Lee’s first formal dojo, which distinguishes it from his more informal ones, like the basement of Ho Ho Restaurant in the CID.

In his public comment period, Santos offered to open a school in the building, in order to preserve the site’s legacy. Santos remembered that, about 12 years ago, he and Taky Kimura—Lee’s best friend and senior student—visited the building. The owners at the time asked whether the pair wanted to start a school there, he said.

“At the time, I was very busy with Sifu Taky, and we said no,” Santos recalled. “But in order to preserve this building, I think it’s important to do that.”

Kay took classes from Lee in 1963. The self-described “80-year-old retiree” was 16 years old, when she started taking classes from Lee.

“What Bruce gave to me especially was just an aura of safety, and he taught me self-defense, which in those days was not popular,” Kay said. “He also taught me about acupuncture when the University of Washington doctors that I knew were still calling it voodoo. And the space in the University District is really special to me, because we first learned in the basement of one of the buildings in Chinatown.

Later, Kay would introduce Lee to Linda Emery. The pair would end up marrying. Kay herself later became one of Kimura’s top female students.

In their designation request, applicants included both the fact that the building is an example of Spokane-born William G. Morris’ mid century modernist architectural style, as well as its association with Bruce Lee. The Landmarks Preservation Board considers architecture on several merits, including its association “in a significant way with the life of a person important in the history of the City, state, or nation” and/or whether it “embodies the distinctive visible characteristics of an architectural style, or period, or of a method of construction.”

Deputy Liaison for the Landmarks Preservation Board Erin Doherty also said that the owner of the building currently has no plans to create a museum in the building or space.

Following significant discussion—about 90 minutes’ worth—the board ultimately rejected the site for a landmark designation. However, there wasn’t full agreement among all members on this matter.

Throughout the meeting, board member Lora-Ellen McKinney repeatedly stressed that she understood the building’s significance in Bruce Lee’s legacy.

Before voting yes to preserve the building, McKinney said that her original leaning towards a “no” vote was because she believes it’s important to connect stories with places. But this is “not a perfect tool,” she said, and because she could not find a good architectural reason to preserve the building, she said that if designating the building based solely on Lee’s association was the only option, “then I will do that.”

Roi Chang disagreed, though she admitted that she saw the merits of what fellow board member Katie Randall had been saying about the board being “too hard” on the building.

“But … what’s catching me is the ability for this building to face significance,” Chang said. “I think without knowing it, without any other stand-up form, I wouldn’t be able to recognize this building for its significance, looking at what it was then versus now, so I’m voting no.”

Following the vote, Seattle Bruce Lee Fan Club President Charlette LeFevre sent out a press release stating that the club directors were “extremely disappointed,” but would be looking into getting the building designated as a state and national landmark.

She also wrote that the club’s directors are “still strongly encouraging the owner of the University Way Apts and the City of Seattle to recognize a site for what they feel is a culturally important landmark.”

https://nwasianweekly.com/2024/09/seattle-landmarks-board-rejects-bruce-lees-first-dojo-for-historical-designation/

No high kicks in kenpo, unless you are Mr. Trejo

Recently it was discussed how Mr. Parker advised against attempting a high kick to an opponent's head, better to kick them in the groin first, then the head will be easier to kick.

(see post here: https://kenponotes.blogspot.com/2025/01/why-no-high-kicks-in-kenpo.html )

However, after seeing the above photo of Mr. Frank Trejo throwing a powerful high kick I'd imagine an exemption was made for him.