Sunday, June 28, 2026

Professor Chow black belt class


If you look close, everyone in this photo is a black belt, so I am assuming this is one of Professor Chow's advanced black belt classes.

The Emperado brothers, Joe and Adriano, are sitting on each side of Professor Chow.

I don't know about you, but I would be scared as hell to be in this class. It looks to me that only one guy (tall guy in the back) has what you could call even a hint of a smile. The rest are dead serious.

I wouldn't last five minutes in this class.

Professor William "Thunderbolt" Chow


Pretty much all of what we know as Kenpo began with this man. 

This photo looks to be a cleaned up version of an old photo we have all probably seen a thousand times. I guess this new AI stuff is good for something, like cleaning up old photos.

Sunday, June 7, 2026

Dian Tanaka interview (part 1)


There have been a lot of great interviews come out lately, and here is another one from the Blood, Sweat, and Cinema YouTube channel. Dian Tanaka is a very accomplished kenpoist and became quite famous in the kenpo community for her skills with performing forms at the Long Beach Internationals.

(There is also a "part 2" but that is for members only it looks like.)

I've only listened to half of the interview so far but loved her stories about being at the West LA studio and how you couldn't part in front of the building unless you drove a Cadillac.

(If you drove just a normal car you had to park around back.)


Deadly


(recently posted on Facebook by Mr. Tom Bleeker)

Some of these articles from the early days of martial arts in America are fun to read, probably every martial art was touting itself as the "most leathal" or "most deadly" art.

And yes, we do have the ability to easily hurt someone with our martial art, but it is still interesting to look back and see how the martial arts were advertised to the public.