A small mystery solved

Over three years ago I posted this photo of Mr. Parker in an Aikido dojo,

https://kenponotes.blogspot.com/2021/09/mr-parker-in-aikido-dojo.html

I had no information on the photo, it was just Mr. Parker in an Aikido dojo shaking someone's hand. Well, we can all sleep a little easier now. Thanks to a recent interview with Mr. Chuck Sullivan the mystery has been solved. 

Mr. Sullivan talked about how he got started in the martial arts and how he met Mr. Parker for the first time. Turns out that Mr. Sullivan had been out of the Marines for a few years and he was out of shape, and was looking to get back into shape. As a kid living in Chicago he had always wanted to study Judo but there were no Judo schools accessible to him. Then one day his brother-in-law told him that a Judo school had just opened only a couple of blocks from their house (Los Angeles area) so he went to check it out.

On the dojo's exterior it had the words "Aikido, Judo, Karate." Apparently the building was being shared and used a couple of nights a week by each martial arts instructor. 

That same week he was able to go observe one of the Kenpo classes which was being taught by James Ibrao and he was hooked. At the next class he went to observe he met Mr. Parker himself.

"It had been an Aikido school and it had been run by an Air Force sergeant who would train the guys and then when he would get transferred he'd leave his most advanced student in charge. And at this time he didn't have an advanced student advanced enough and he sold it to Ed Parker. He said you know, I got nobody... if you want it you can have it at a decent price. Whatever it was, I don't know what their deal was, but uh, he said why don't you do a demonstration for my guys and if they like you enough... they'll come over... he got every one of them. I mean he did a demonstration, he got every one of 'em, I mean they transferred right on over."

Then Mr. Sullivan talked about how later Mr. Parker closed up that school to open up his Pasadena school, and the rest is history.