Excerpts from the Diary of a “Mad” Kenpo Scientist, Part Two

The “Kenpo-Karate” & JKD Connection

(by Ron Chapél, Ph.D. msuacf.com 1-15-16)

(Published in Combat Martial Sports, March 02)

Ed Parker’s creation, “Kenpo-Karate,” has a brother and a sister art. The “sister” is Jeet Kune Do (JKD). We’ll save the “brother” for another day. Kenpo-Karate and JKD are both training concepts, as opposed to styles, or even real systems of the martial arts. Although the Bruce Lee vehicle unlike the Ed Parker version was never designed to be commercial, Ed Parker had a considerable influenced in its creation and concept.

Bruce Lee spoke extensively with him about his (Bruce’s) own personal goals and dissatisfaction with his Wing Chun training (even though he hadn’t really trained that long). He expressed a desire to learn as much as he could without the restraints imposed by any one discipline. Bruce became bored easily when he could not readily see benefit to what he was doing. Ed Parker argued this was pretty ambitious, but typical for a 22 year old. (I think we tend to forget Bruce was just a really talented kid.) Parker further expressed there must be variables to allow for the physical, emotional, and intellectual differences in students. For Bruce this was of little concern. He didn’t really care about students or teaching. Bruce Lee was on a personal mission to enhance his own skills and his salability to become a movie star. His teaching was primarily to insure he had training partners and of course, to learn from other accomplished martial artists to get to his personal goals. When Lee moved to Southern California his school was not open or known to the general public. The local “insiders” knew where it was, but to get in you had to bring something special to the table. It was located about five minutes away from Grandmaster Ark Wong’s School in the Los Angeles Chinatown.

 Ed Parker now realizing Lee was only interested in his own self-development, gave him some history making advice. Acknowledging Bruce’s obvious physical gifts, he suggested he should explore as much as possible from diverse teachers. Although Lee had already been doing this to a certain extent, Parker felt he should be introduced to the top guys, and of course Ed Parker knew them all. Bringing him together with notable martial artists like “Judo” Gene LeBell, Dan Inosanto and Sea Oh Choi to name a few, Ed Parker helped Bruce immensely with his martial arts. He advised Lee to study a variety of arts and take what he felt he could use. LeBell taught Bruce to grapple and became his stuntman in the “Green Hornet” TV show, while Choi was partially responsible for the awesome “Korean style” kicks Lee displayed on film. And of course, Dan Inosanto for teaching Bruce the many diverse weapons and for his Kenpo and Filipino Arts influence on Lee. Thus the seed to ultimately what became JKD was planted, but like motion based Kenpo-Karate, more a training concept than a style, and only a system within the confines of its own concept. His introduction by Ed Parker as well to William Self the director of the popular Batman T.V. series, who was casting for the Green Hornet, ultimately got him into television and jump-started his movie career.

(for the rest of the article please follow link)

http://msuacf.com/excerpts-from-the-diary-of-a-mad-kenpo-scientist-part-two/