(from brianadamsintegratedmartialarts.com)
Can you tell us where and when you first started your Martial Art training ?
I started my training in Kenpo at age 18, [1960 ] at the Pasadena CA. studio on Walnut. I was going to Pasadena City College at that time and majoring in Psychology and minoring in Sociology. It was an exciting time . It was the 60’s. Lots of new things to explore. Many students at Pasadena City College were enrolled at Ed Parker’s “Kenpo Karate Studios.” The night classes were huge, hardly any room to move some times. So I went to the day class [ it was pleasantly small ]. The first year I had several day time instructors. Jim Tracy was the most consistent then [ he was a technique technician } . I would from time to time have Ed Parker , Dave Hebler , and John Mc Sweeny fill in for Jim. When the Tracy’s left and opened up their first studio in San Jose, Ed Parker became my main day time instructor.
What types of training gear did you have at the studio in those days?
The first thing I saw there was the Makawara board. It was in the back, stuck in the ground and the top 8” was wrapped in burlap bag padding. It was tapered at the top and got thicker as it went down to the bottom and into the ground. It was a little springy when you punched it. It was for building up calluses and calcium deposits on the knuckles etc.. we also had a inner tube filled Banana Bag [ hand held ].
I worked the Makawara board for four months and my knuckles started the become changed, then one day it was gone. Ed said that “boards and bricks don’t fight back “ and that was the end of my gung-ho knuckle training. I recall seeing Al Tracy’s walnut size knuckles some time later and was glad I stopped when I did. Ed had kind of a pudgy hand and his knuckles were not so obvious. In the early 60’s I saw Ed break bricks, boards and a very high stack of roof tiles. He always broke on the first effortless try. He was like the force of a locomotive going down hill. Unstoppable. The only other training feature was the rice/straw Tatami matts we used to fall on. They were used mainly for Judo rolls and for braking the “Leap of Death” dive landing and the “Back Breaker Technique” = fall on the back. We never saw or practiced any Judo through.
Wasn’t Ed Parker a Black Belt in Judo?
I remember when on one of our long car rides to a demonstration Ed told me he was a Brown belt in Judo. Now that story has morphed to “he was a Black Belt in Judo“. But I will say this, Ed had a very advanced mastery over foot sweeps and entanglements from the knee down.
I heard you used to go on day time demo’s with Ed because you were a full time student and could usually be free to travel.
Yes. Me and a few others … that were available would assist with the shows.
Dave Hebler [became Elvis Presley’s Body Guard] ,
Steve Golden [became one of Bruce Lee’s favored students and head of the Bruce Lee Fan Club]
Jerry Meyers [went on to open a school in Pomona CA.]
Jim Grunwald [opened a school in la Puente CA]
Tom Gow [starred on the cover of the Kenpo Basics Booklet]
John McSweeney [became known as the father of Kenpo in Ireland]
Danny Inosanto [became Bruce Lee’s top J.K.D. Instructor and Heir to his legacy .
Also the most known F.M.A.. promoter in the world.
Deion Stickling , Jimmy Duarte, Bob Goya [classmates]
Tom Bleaker [managed Ed Parker’s school in Santa Monica and hosts Kenpo - Past, Present and Future on You Tube]
Chuck Sullivan [ has a large school in LA, CA., and was Ed’s business partner in early video Kenpo instruction movies, director of the first International’s in Long Beach Ca.}.
One time we all participated in a large demo at “ Terry Hunt’s Health Club“ in Beverly Hills. We had lunch after ward with Jose Ferrer, Paul Newman, Mickey Hagarty [Jane Mansfield’s husband] and Blake Edwards [Hollywood producer] etc. I did not know who most of these people were at the time. I have a picture of me doing the “Five Count” on Ed by the pool. I think Tom Bleaker took the shot.
How did things change after that?
I think Ed got a reality hit and became more business focused. He started considering some of the avenues for commercial endeavors that he had previously thought were not true to the old school Kenpo values in Hawaii… things like tournaments and the Tracy’s method of test requirements and standards [ test fees and colored belts etc. ]. Although these were brewing in the future schema of things to implement, they did not come to fruition until after I left to open my school in San Diego in 1964.
One thing he did experiment with was the tournament. I was still a 4 Tip White Belt when Ed held an inter-school tournament at Brookside Park in Pasadena. I won the tournament and was awarded a custom set of book ends. They were clearly poses of Ed Parker and Chuck Sullivan in combat stances. The typical point system was not used to determine the winner but rather a point system based on the most creative personal individual style demonstrated.
During this period [ 1960-1965 ] Ed finished all of the new Kenpo forms we use today. Professor Chow had not taught Ed any forms, so he assumed Chow did not know any forms. When I filmed Chow doing a form at Adrian Emperado’s S.F. Tournament [1966 ] , Ed said “Wow, I did not know Chow knew any forms” . I loaned Ed the unprocessed film and I never saw it again. Also the self defense tech’s became more detailed and polished [due to the Chinese influence].
Chuck Sullivan introduced us to the Japanese style “ Thrusting Knife Edge Kick ” [ toes up ]. Prior to that we only used a” Snapping Knife Edge Kick ” [ toes down ]. We did not wear cups in the early 60’s. Chuck Sullivan initiated starting in a loose natural frontal standing position when running the Technique line. Previously we would start from a front Horse stance. And another change about that time was to start out in a Neutral Bow instead of a frontal Horse when sparring.
The new Crenshaw School was Chuck Sullivan and Ed’s testing grounds for Chucks innovative teaching methods. They needed a qualified instructor when it first opened and I was available so I was hired to teach there during the week [ I was a Brown Belt at the time , 1964 ] and Chuck would teach some privates and some weekend classes. I got paid $50 a month to teach.
Also, the Japanese belt ranks went up to 10th degree Black Belt and Kenpo’s only went up to 6th degree Black. In order to get more uniformity between styles Ed created the I.K.K.A and the governing body promoted Ed to 10th Black.
The Kenpo taught between 1960 and 1965 was the basis for all future Kenpo innovations . By the time Ed passed away he had taken Kenpo to very highly sophisticated state and he modernized it for today’s world and named it “American Kenpo” to distinguish his Kenpo from the old Hawaiian roots it sprang from. He will go down in Martial Art history as an innovative genius.
I heard that testing and promotions were a lot different back in the early 60’s? Can you tell us more?
To start with , we had no colored belts except Brown and Black. As I recall , there were two ranks of white belt; and they were distinguished by a brown stripe for the first rank and the next white belt rank was a second stripe on the end of each belt. So each end could have up to two stripes on each belt end. And somewhere around 1961 or 1962 the tips as they were called got expanded to four tips . There was not any official test at that time.
I remember one day seeing my name on a typed sheet of paper on the dressing room bulletin board. It read: “Names of individuals promoted to one Brown Tip “. So that’s how I discovered I had been promoted. There were no specific test requirements. Just a very large butcher paper sheet on the wall listing about fifty different self defense situations. There were headings like “Right hand lapel grab, Left hand lapel grab, Right punch, Left hand punch, etc.
Very few tech’s had a name. So we had to rely on our memories. Many years later [ late 60’s ] Ed succumbed to pier pressure from other schools and from the Tracy Bros. who had upgraded you might say to a more organized commercial sales tool. Yes it was colored belts and the naming of the techniques for an easier word association for memory recall. When I left to open my first school in San Diego CA . [ 1964 ] Ed had still not changed over to the colored belt system; nor had he developed a test requirement chart format for each rank.
I was not happy with the existing Helter Skelter method he used so I made it a priority to create my own chart system for students for clarity and so that there was no favoritism in rank promotions. I kicked it off at my new school in 1964. All I had to do for my Third Brown was to perform Form Four and take a kick in the stomach.
Tom Bleaker and I were tested together at the Santa Monica school together. Also I recall that we had just six ranks of Black Belt at that time. Karate ranks were still in their beginning stages of development in this country; and I don’t think any one had ever heard the term “Grand Master“.
Have the Kenpo forms changed much since the time period you learned them [ 1960 - 1965 ] ?
YouTube “Kenpo Form” videos I have seen often skip the original details I learned from Ed. Lately students have been asking me about the detail in the forms because they have seen the You Tube videos that are sometimes very different than the forms I teach. So I have videoed myself [ at age 80 ] doing the main Kenpo forms I learned in the early 60’s and that is what you’ll see on the videos posted below, just to show students of Ed Parker’s American Kenpo how it was done in the 60’s. Just for the historical record.
I’m not judging today’s versions of the forms but just showing the ongoing evolution of “American Kenpo“, just for the record. I know the reason for some of the deferences in form interpretations. The “Tracy’s” were too busy to leave their new enterprise to come back to Pasadena to learn most of the new forms Ed was developing when they left for San Jose. Ed gave Danny Inosanto permission to film the forms on Super 8 camera for the Tracy’s. I know from personal experience that it is very difficult to learn any detail from a Super 8 film. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons why there are many differences in the forms between Kenpo schools. And of course there is one’s own interpretation.
(link to watch kenpo forms videos)
https://brianadamsintegratedmartialarts.com/kenpo-karate-forms
