1968 Karate Tournament of Champions - Hawaii tournament program

(Recently posted to Facebook by Mr. Rich Hale.)

An autographed official program signed by Mr. Parker given to Mr. Hale. 

Definitely a treasure.   

Kenpo Karate well represented in Masters magazine

 

Some good advice from Mr. Hale

(recently posted on Mr. Hale's Facebook page)

During my journey of over fifty years, I've often been asked how someone could become a better martial artist.

Well, here's the best advice I gave myself a long time ago.

Useless vs Unuseful

(recently posted on Facebook by Mr. Rich Hale)

Several of our senior Kenpoists are known for their intellectual approach to our art. One of these guys is Dennis Conatser, who's fond of saying, "You don't know what you don't know."

What this means to me is when we enter a new realm of learning, we'll come across many things we've never imagined or thought about, so we won't even know the questions, let alone the answers.

A good example is when I first started in Jiu-Jitsu. While kneeling in front of my instructor, he put one hand on my knee and one hand on my opposite shoulder, then swept me down to the mat. Thinking I knew this technique, I tried it on one of the other white belts. Well, I didn't know that, done incorrectly, that action could cause your opponent to bend forward, so as I successfully swept my opponent to the mat, I also successfully swept his forehead into my face. I simply didn't know that could happen. Thereby, I didn't know what I didn't know.

To this end, Mr. Parker missed his opportunity to fix everything in Kenpo, because if he'd only asked me at orange belt, I could have fixed everything!

Seriously, the real problem with not knowing what we don't know occurs after we get our black belts and mistakenly think we're experts in karate. Before then, we generally have someone ahead of us who keeps us on course, but when we get our black belts and open our own school - we're the boss, we're in charge, and everyone listens to us. No matter how stupid we are.

When we have our own schools and we get to decide what's right and wrong, we make our biggest mistakes. We determine which techniques are good or bad, and we choose to teach katas or not.

Yes, we can all look back and recognize times we were mistaken and made a wrong decision. That's not the problem; it's our unwillingness to go back and correct mistakes that could lead to our lack of progress.

Let's say, on the way up, we learned a technique that seemed to have no practical value, so when we opened our own school, we deleted it from our curriculum. Later, we discovered this technique contained movements that developed several inherent weaknesses in our overall physicality. How do we reintroduce this technique back into our system?

When we removed this technique, we thought we were evolving and shedding unnecessary techniques, but as we personally grow and our overall knowledge of the martial arts improves, we must be able to go back and correct mistakes we've made simply because we didn't know what we didn't know. This may sometimes leave us wishing we'd never deleted something from the system in the first place.

Don't get me wrong. There are several techniques from the classic Ed Parker curriculum that I either don't teach or don't spend much time on. Yet, there isn't a single technique that I have thrown out entirely.

Mr. Parker's Encyclopedia of Kenpo contains around a thousand terms. Most are easily understood, but the terms "useful" and "useless" take more consideration. Useful is straightforwardly defined as "Any logical or practical move that can be effectively used."

On the other hand, Useless is more complex, defined as "Not the same as Unuseful. These are moves that are not effective under any condition."

This leaves us with the term "Unuseful," which is not explicitly defined in the Encyclopedia of Kenpo but is referred to in Mr. Parker's Zen of Kenpo, under the term "Usefulness," where Mr. Parker says to categorize your moves as useful, unuseful, or useless. Then cautions us never to discard knowledge that is not applicable to us but to store it.

Do Self-Defense Techniques Work?

(recently posted on Facebook by Mr. Rich Hale)

It was early in 1972, and I’d just learned Delayed Sword – I knew karate! In time, I learned more techniques, and eventually, I earned not only my yellow belt but my orange belt as well. Now, I really knew karate with enough techniques to use against any bully who came up against me. Or at least I thought I did.

Only as I eventually learned, my self-defense techniques didn’t really work that well on anyone who was actively resisting my techniques. They did work on cooperative partners, but if my partners were uncooperative, I’d struggle to get my techniques to work; so, do self-defense techniques really work, or are we merely brainwashed into thinking they do?

In short, yes, self-defense techniques work, but unless you understand how they work and what they work against, you’ll be mentally and physically struggling with self-defense techniques for the rest of your life.

The first thing you must understand is that Self-Defense Techniques are not Fighting Techniques!

The self-defense techniques of American Kenpo can generally be broken down into three phases. Avoiding and/or blocking the attack, then taking control of your attacker through a strike, series of strikes, body manipulation, etc., then injuring your attacker through additional strikes, etc.

Fighting techniques can generally be broken down into two phases – evading your opponent and striking him with enough force to end the fight.

Self-Defense techniques also include minor moves and checks, while fight techniques really don’t.

Let’s first look at minor moves. Minor moves are defined as subordinate moves that are not devastating but can cause ample damage and/or delay to allow the execution of major moves.  This is a perfectly good concept when dealing with a low-level attack. Someone pushing and shoving you around, an unskilled drunk trying to punch your lights out, etc.

On the other hand, fighters don’t feel pain or acknowledge damage. Not during the fight, anyway. Pain, blood, and physical damage mean nothing to a fighter. If anything, punching a fighter in the face might be just the wake-up call, he needs to crank the fight up to his most effective level. 

If the UFC has shown us anything, it’s how much damage a fighter can take without so much as blinking. Self-defense techniques consist of both minor moves and major moves because the average guy is affected by these things. Fighting techniques consist of major moves because fighters aren’t affected by anything else.

As for checking. In self-defense techniques, checking your opponent’s actions is critical to maintaining your control over him during a confrontation. Especially if you don’t want to inflict excessive damage. Checks can keep an average guy from grabbing, hitting, and so on.

Again, fighters are not average guys. These people know how to fight. They’ve hit people, and they’ve been hit by people. If you try to place a check on a trained fighter, all you’ve done is taken one of your weapons out of play. With that said, there’s a difference between passive and active checks. Passive checks are when you try to maintain a check against your opponent’s body. Active checks are more like swats or strikes in themselves. Active checks can hinder your opponent’s motion without taking your weapons out of play.

Now that I’ve briefly gone over the difference between self-defense techniques and fighting techniques let’s look at a few things that are needed to make any technique work.

To make any technique effective, you must understand the limitations of memorization when it comes to a technique. Memorizing a technique is essential to practicing a technique, and practicing is essential to developing the skill and physical attributes needed to make the technique effective.

The first stage in developing a technique is to memorize the technique. This is best done with a cooperative partner. The second stage is to practice the technique against varying degrees of progressive resistance. The third stage is to consider many of the what-if scenarios that surround every technique. What if he does this or that? What if he’s unaffected by a move, or over-affected by a move, etc.

Of these three stages, the most neglected is practicing against progressive resistance. Considering the time restraints in most karate schools, I can understand why this is so, but for a technique to be effective, it must be practiced against a resisting partner. The process is simple and straightforward; the partner starts out being cooperative, then less cooperative as the practice continues. 

It sounds simple, and it is, but there is one trick to making the idea work. It’s to keep the degree of resistance in the hands of the person doing the technique, not in the hands of the person defending against the technique. Left to the defender, the degree of resistance inevitably becomes too much for the practitioner to cope with. The uke should only increase their resistance at the request of the person doing the technique, as you’ll soon learn that even the slightest resistance can totally derail a well-rehearsed technique that has never been tested.

I cannot overstress the importance of progressive resistance in the development of self-defense and fighting techniques alike. I can only compare it to memorizing a bodybuilding book and practicing the exercises daily – with a broomstick.

Perpetual Refinement

(from Mr. Rich Hales' Facebook page May 10th, 2021)

When Mr. Parker wrote The Zen of Kenpo, he said, “Kenpo never changes it is perpetually refined.”

I always try to keep this in mind when I make . . . refinements to the curriculum that I use and teach. Granted, a few of my own refinements are sometimes more like outright changes, but the process itself keeps me in check. Without checks and balances, it would be easy to drift so far from our roots we may as well stop calling our art American Kenpo.

I don’t have many pet peeves, but one is certainly when I hear people indiscriminately say things like, “I fixed that technique for Mr. Parker. If he were here today, he’d thank me.” Really? Do you think there’s any chance at all that if he were here today, he would either explain to you why he did it that way or maybe just bounce your head off the wall? Honestly, not only does Mr. Parker have a hundred times more “personal students” today than when he was alive, but damn near every one of them is smarter than he was.

Anyway, I think an honest and conservative approach to refining the system of Kenpo that Mr. Parker left us is not only allowable but should be a requirement for advancement within the black belt ranks. Not that every refinement should be accepted, many may not, but the process alone is a lesson unto itself.

The Process of Refinement:

A conservative process of refinement should end with only slight alterations to the original, but its journey should take you through a myriad of exploration and enlightenment.

This is what I tell people who want to change something Mr. Parker wrote. Imagine that you’re an attorney who has been hired to defend the writings of Ed Parker Sr. In this case, you’ll receive a thousand dollars for every self-defense technique you can defend to be true and of great value to the students of American Kenpo. With this thought in mind and $154,000 on the line, how quickly will you be to say, that one doesn’t work?

Maybe now, you may say, no this one is not as street effective as some of the others, but all the techniques must be considered as an entire body of work, not as individual techniques. Many techniques are like the difference between triceps extensions and biceps curls. Curls are easier and give you big guns. Triceps extensions are painful and much weaker than curls. Does this mean triceps extensions have no value? No, it means there’s more to bodybuilding than biceps, chest, and abs.

In hindsight, maybe Mr. Parker should have called his techniques drills instead of techniques. Think about it like this. Have you seen a football player do ladder drills? This is where they wiggle and jiggle through a rope ladder that’s laid out on the ground. Knowing it’s an agility drill makes it okay, but what if they called it a touchdown technique? I can’t help but imagine a guy running toward the goalpost crisscrossing his legs back and forth across an open field. What a stupid technique! In reality, we know that “technique” may be executed in only one brief moment and it may only be a single step, but without training the drill, the runner may have been blown off his feet by the opposing team. Herein is the essence of American Kenpo.

As an example, you can look at a small refinement I made to how the technique Back Breaker is written. It’s not a big change and it could be considered unnecessary. Few people ever read the manuals in such detail that it would ever be noticed. Only for Kenpo to be perpetually refined, as Mr. Parker said it would, I believe it’s worth a little effort now and then to keep the process moving forward. Hopefully, you can see and understand how the refinement is minor compared to how the process itself helps you interact with the material and brings other thoughts to mind. Ultimately, it’s not about changing or fixing, but about gaining a greater understanding of our art.

The Back Breaker: A classic technique of American Kenpo.

I have only refined a single movement within the sequence. Most people would never even notice the change because it's the way most of us have always done the technique anyway.

Step 4. says to drop your right foot back toward 1:30 into a left neutral bow as you pull on your opponent’s shoulders, forcing his upper spine into your left knee. Your hands should end at the level of your hips.

Then Steps 5 6 & 7 say to twist his head, break his neck, hand-sword the bridge of his nose, and deliver two downward back knuckles to both shoulders.

I love the entire sequence, but just try to keep your opponent on your knee while in a neutral bow. As far back as I can remember, we have always done this technique using a wide kneel. It's a stronger more stable stance and the angle of your left leg now provides shelf-like support for your opponent's back to rest on while you break him up into little pieces.

Note: Step 7 calls for the delivery of two downward back knuckles to the left and right humerus of your opponent’s shoulders. I originally learned this as two downward back knuckles to the collar bones. I'm neither here nor there when it comes to these targets. Many people will say the collar bones are a better target, as they're more vulnerable and when broken, quite debilitating.  

I agree with this, but then everyone seems to already know this, before any martial arts training. Yet, how many people are familiar with the effects of striking the bundle of nerves that run by, around, and under the humerus bone of the shoulder? Not as many, I suspect. I'm not sure why Mr. Parker said to target the bone instead of the nerves, but it could have been to either simplify the target or maybe to hide the specific target. Only Mr. Parker would know for sure.

If you do decide to target the collar bones instead of the humerus, you'll have no argument from me, but if you so choose, I suggest you switch your weapons from back-knuckles to hammer-fists. When striking nerves it's beneficial to use a pinpoint-type weapon, i.e. knuckles. Whereas if you want to break bones a heavy hammer-fist may be more appropriate.

Note: Another example of where targeting the nerves in the shoulder comes into play is in the original Five Swords, which was called Five Count. As I was taught, this was performed with all fists and no swords. Its name came from the five beats of timing. People who are unfamiliar with the origins of American Kenpo sometimes rename Five Swords to Seven Swords, because they don't know its history.

Five Count:

1) Left outward block to opponent's right inner arm, below the elbow with a right thrusting vertical punch into his right shoulder joint.

2) Right back-knuckle to opponent's temple, followed by a left vertical punch to his face.

3) Right punch to opponent's stomach.

4) Left hooking hammer-fist to the left side of opponent's neck.

5) Right downward hammer-fist to the back of opponent's neck.

When all is said and done, a conservative approach to refining the system Mr. Parker left us, should do more to reinforce your faith in his system than it does to boost your ego by having “changed” it.

Learning versus Training

(from Mr. Rich Hale's Facebook page April 14th, 2021)

In my opinion, many people are overly concerned with learning Kenpo (techniques, sets, and forms, etc.) and under-concerned with physical training. Techniques, sets, and forms are part of the equation, but only part. Equally important is getting in shape and staying in shape.

I often hear some older guys say things like, I may not be in the shape I was once, but all I need is about seven seconds to ruin somebody's day. I know they’re partially joking, because no one over sixty, will ever again be in the shape they were in at twenty. It's also true that some of these old guys can rain havoc down faster than most people can blink. On the other hand, there are a lot more trained fighters roaming the streets today than yesterday. When I first started in Kenpo, if you knew any amount of martial arts, you knew more than just about anyone you were likely to get into a fight with. Back then, a little bit of training went a long way. Today, if you get into a fight, it's far more likely that your opponent will have some training as well. They may not have as much as you, but they're far more likely to have something up their sleeve than not. This is where fitness comes into play. 

For self-defense, I don't think people have to be in shape to pound it out for three five-minute rounds, but they may need to go a single three-minute round. I know this sounds easy, but if you haven't done it for a while, start the clock and put everything you have into a heavy bag for three minutes. The average person’s punching power drops significantly after only thirty seconds. Add in some heavy kicks and most people gas out completely in about a minute.

Aside from being in good enough shape to outlast an opponent, whatever happened to the martial arts being a way to get in shape AND TO STAY IN SHAPE. Forty years ago, angry young men, drinking heavily in bars were my opponents. Today, a slower metabolism, longer recuperative periods, and the overall effects of aging are my opponents. Back then I didn't so much need to get in shape, because I was in my twenties and just being in my twenties meant I was in pretty good shape. What I needed then was to learn karate. Today, after studying karate for fifty years, I know so much karate it's coming out my ears. What I need now is to be in good enough shape to perform it. 

We can look at learning versus training like a scale we're trying to keep in balance. Too much learning with too little training and the scale drops to one side.  Too little learning and too much training and the scale drops to the other side. Now if this was all there was to it, all we would have to do is come up with the proper proportions of learning and training to balance the scale and we'd be set. Only life doesn't work that way. We can't just learn something once and keep it in our memory forever. Neither can we train our bodies to where we want them and stop training.  So now let's look at our scales as having varying size holes in the treys, where we're placing our learning and our training. As we learn, the knowledge is continually leaking out the hole in its tray and as we train, the fitness is continually leaking out the hole in its tray. Our job, if we're going to keep things in balance, is to add more learning "when learning is needed" and to add more training "when training is needed". I believe many martial artists, including myself, are out of balance.

There was a time when my image of a high-ranking Kenpoist was that of a strong and powerful person, who had great knowledge, power, precision, and control. Today my image of a high-ranking Kenpoist leans more towards a heavyset guy who can't even see his toes, let alone touch them.  In 2014, Master Ken, the ever-popular YouTube martial arts comedian, was the comic-relief entertainment at the Master's Hall of Fame event in Long Beach, CA. His comedic speech focused on various martial arts, teasing them about well know aspects of their art. For example, he said "Muay Thai guys are always kicking banana plants and cracking coconuts. So, what do these guys have against fruits and vegetables anyway?"  Okay, it was funnier in person.  So he gets to Kenpo and he says, "So what is it with this mandatory weight gain between every rank in American Kenpo?"  Well, the room burst into laughter . . . all except for a bunch of overweight Kenpo guys saying stuff like, "Who does this guy think he is!"

Ladies and gentlemen of American Kenpo - this is becoming our reputation. Not that Kenpo is the only art to have overweight and unhealthy practitioners, every art has its share . . . but we must admit, our share is disproportionately large and getting larger.

If you read this far, without hanging up on me, good for you, so now I'll say, of course, there are genetic factors and other reasons people gain weight. That and being large doesn't automatically mean you're not a great martial artist. I know big guys that are faster and more flexible than I am. I don't mean to degrade anyone. But, on the other hand, if you're simply lazy and like eating more than life itself . . .

Kenpo Forms: The Unifying Factor in American Kenpo

(from Mr. Rich Hales' Facebook page, January 1, 2019)

Kenpo self-defense techniques are generally done differently in most schools. Which is okay, because self-defense techniques should not only be done differently between most schools, they should be done differently between most individuals.

I know some instructors will insist that their students perform the techniques exactly as they do, but eventually, everyone will reach a point where they’ll perform the techniques as they see best. This is where the instructors who say it’s my way or the highway, will have to say goodbye to their students, as they hit the road to self-expression.

The argument for self-expression, in Kenpo, really isn’t an argument at all. There are many quotes by Mr. Parker to back this up. Take this one from an article in Black Belt, Aug. 1979, titled The Special Techniques of Kenpo, by Ed Parker:

"The reason I give my techniques names is because there are certain sequences associated with these terms. If I told a student tomorrow that I was going to teach him a counter version to a double hand grab, it's not as meaningful as when I say I'm going to teach him ‘Parting Wings.’ It's not explained, basically, but it sounds intriguing. There is a little mystique and the student looks forward to learning what this is. And though each term I use has a particular sequence I want students to follow, these are ideas and not rules. At any given moment they may alter these ideas."

How about this quote from Karate Kung-Fu, Sept. 1986, V-17 No. 9, titled Ed Parker's Kenpo Karate: Discovered in America, Part 1:

“There is no one correct way for everybody to do a certain martial arts move. Four plus four equals what? Eight. Now, what's six plus two? Right, eight again. And five plus three? Seven plus one? Now, did I use the same numerical combination each time to get eight? No. And it's the same in Kenpo. Each Kenpoist can arrive at the same result a little differently, depending on his or her own style."

Or even better yet, this quote from Black Belt, Nov. 1985, V-23 No. 11, titled Ed Parker on Bruce Lee, Elvis Presley and . . . Ed Parker:

“I teach these techniques not for the sake of teaching the techniques, but for the principles that are involved in the techniques. And even then, these principles have to be altered to fit the individual. My system is structured to bring out a “style” of an individual.”

Another argument for self-expression, regarding techniques, is the Three Phase Concept, defined as the concept that no technique is a set pattern or rule unto itself, but rather is composed of the Ideal Phase, the What If Phase and the Formulation Phase.

Note that Mr. Parker says the Three Phase Concept refers specifically to techniques. I’ve never heard, or read, where Mr. Parker, or anyone else for that matter, says to study Forms according to the What If Phase, or the Formulation Phase. To the best of my knowledge, Forms have always been taught, practiced and performed according to the Ideal Phase.

So, what did Mr. Parker have to say about Kenpo Forms? To see how he felt about Kenpo Forms, I’ll quote another statement, made by Mr. Parker, in an interview with Karate Illustrated, Sept. 1976. The article is titled, Going Through Them Changes:

“While it is true that we should adapt a martial art to suit us individually - and we learn to express ourselves freely and blend with the situations as they occur - a firm basis is still needed to learn from. In learning English, the alphabet forms the basis of our language. Then words are created, phonetics added, and verbs, nouns, pronunciation, along with definitions. Kata is alphabets in motion. If you learn how to pronounce a word and never know what the word means how could you ever use it correctly in a sentence?”

A few years later, in another article for Black Belt, July 1979, titled Ed Parker's Kenpo: The Magician of Motion Reveals Secretes of His Art, Mr. Parker states:

"When learning English, the alphabet forms the basis of our language. From them, words are created, phonetics added, pronunciation, along with definitions to give words meaning. I feel that over the years many students are going through their kata, but they don't know what the kata are for.”

This is why I consider Forms to be the Unifying Factor in American Kenpo. Like any other karate system, our forms are the one thing that holds our system together. Once the forms change to a certain point, so does the system itself. Take Tae Kwon Do and Tang So Do, for example. As similar as these two systems are, it’s primarily the differences in their forms that separate one system from the another.

So, if Mr. Parker was seeing a decline in how Kenpo forms were being performed forty years ago, what can we do about it today? Number 1) quit relying on our teachers to teach us the forms IN THEIR ENTIRETY.

So many of us think of our teachers as the best, smartest and most bad-ass karate men and women on the planet. This may very well be true, but as amazing as our teachers are, they’re not infallible. If a teacher has been taught or learned, something incorrectly, then pass that incorrect information along to us, we are not – by virtue of doing what we’re told – doing it correctly.

An example of something I often see done incorrectly are the foot maneuvers in Short 1. When I see this, I’ve asked the teachers, when they’re teaching a step through reverse, if they tell their students to move their rear foot slightly forward “before” they step back. They say no. I ask if they tell their students to lift the heel of their rear foot off the ground before they step back. They say no. I ask when they’re teaching a student how to cover, do they tell them to first pivot their rear foot, as a separate move, and then step across with the lead foot, as they turn to face the opposite direction. They say no. Then I ask why they and their students do it that way in Short Form 1? To this, I get varied reactions, but mostly just an ugly stare.

Ed Parker’s Encyclopedia of Kenpo describes a “Step Through” as the execution of full steps by either moving forward or back. It describes a “Cover” as shifting the forward leg to the opposite side as you turn and face the opposite direction. The Encyclopedia of Kenpo also says the word "And" implies one or more wasted beats of timing. In Kenpo, we try to eliminate using the word "and", because it involves wasted time and is, therefore, contradictory to the principle of Economy of Motion.

When most people think of the term Economy of Motion, they tend to think of it offensively. In other words, they think of not cocking a punch or kick before executing it. Which is understandable, because the definition of Economy of Motion reads as such: “Entails choosing the best available weapon for the best available angle, to ensure reaching the best available target in the least amount of time. Any movement that takes less time to execute, but still causes the effect intended. Any movement that inhibits or does not actively enhance the effect intended is categorized as Wasted Motion.”

Yet, a lesser-known, but equally important, principle of American Kenpo is what Mr. Parker called the Chinese Fan Principle. This principle teaches how reaction can beat action by simply moving the target, instead of blocking the attack. This principle takes advantage of the time it takes for a weapon to reach its target. Since the target is the last point that an opponent must reach, moving it out of the way first, enables your reaction to beat your opponent's action.

Here's a quote from Inside Kung-Fu, May 1990, titled The Life and Times of Ed Parker: Part 2 by Bob Mendel, in which Mr. Parker tells a short version of the 50 Cent Fan:

"I use a story about a businessman who goes to San Francisco to buy his daughter a Chinese fan," he says. "She only uses it briefly and it falls apart. The businessman keeps the pieces and when he goes back to San Francisco, he goes to the same shop and shows the pieces of the fan to the owner. The owner says: How much did you pay for the fan? He answers 50 cents. So, the owner says: with a 50-cent fan, you hold the fan and move your face.”

"I tell my students that the defensive hand is a 50-cent fan. If they move their face, they won't get hit. If they just use the hand, I'll hit them every time. So, it's a case of move face, not fan. It's a funny story but they remember it."

While the Encyclopedia of Kenpo definition of Economy of Motion emphasizes offense and the Chinese Fan Principle emphasizes defense, they are essentially one and the same principle.

So, why do I care so much about the foot maneuvers in Short Form 1? It’s because I consider the Economy of Motion to be the most defining principle in the art of American Kenpo. Think about what’s truly unique to American Kenpo, compared to other systems of karate. Every karate system has blocks, kicks, and punches. Every karate system rotates their hips for power, shuffles forward, back, and side to side. What many karate systems partially, or completely, ignore is Economy of Motion.

Now, let’s look at how the Economy of Motion and the Chinese Fan Principle relate to Short Form 1. If when I do a step through reverse, I shift my rear foot forward or lift the heel off the ground, I’m actually moving my head forward, toward the attack, not away from it. When I cover, if I pivot my rear foot, as a separate move, before I shift my lead leg to the opposite side, my head remains stationary during the pivot, instead of moving directly and immediately away from the attack.

The bottom line is Short Form 1, and every Form thereafter is primarily a lesson in foot maneuvers. If we’re going to totally disregard the proper execution of foot maneuvers, why even teach the forms at all? Without the proper execution of foot maneuvers, forms are nothing more than a bunch of techniques done while facing in various directions.

I guess this would be a good place to say I’m not professing to be a master of Kenpo Forms. I don’t consider myself to be a master of anything. Yet, I am a student of Kenpo and my never-ending study of Kenpo is a quest toward mastering the art. All I’m doing here is sharing what I’ve learned during my study of the art. If someone else sees the logic in what I’ve learned, good. If not, fine.

I’m willing to share and discuss my viewpoint on Kenpo with everyone, but I’m not willing to argue it with anyone. Almost every argument comes down to this anyway. Someone comes up to me and says, what about Mr. Famous Kenpo Guy. He pivots his foot before he covers. Are you saying “HE’S” doing it wrong? Well, yes. The proper (and well documented) method of performing a cover is to move the lead leg to the opposite side while turning to face the opposite direction. If anyone pivots their rear foot first, as a separate move, they are doing it wrong. Being famous doesn’t make you right. If that were the case, we’d simply turn our government over to Hollywood and let the movie stars (in all their wisdom) run the country.

Why I believe Mr. Parker’s written materials are our best shot at performing American Kenpo correctly:

One of the most significant lessons I had, with Ed Parker, wasn’t really a lesson at all. He had called me and asked if I could stop by the house because he had something he wanted to show me. When I got to the house, he had his Infinite Insights into Kenpo book series literally on the drawing board. He then went about explaining his Web of Knowledge and showing me how he used it to rearrange his techniques. Along the way, he asked me if I’d be willing to stop teaching the 32 Technique System and use his new 24 Technique System. I, of course, said I’d be happy to, as he continued to tell me about his new books and plans for the future.

At some point, the conversation took a quick turn with Mr. Parker saying he had a dream that he was going to die. Shocked, I asked when he had this dream. He said, five years ago. Bewildered, I said, five years ago? He said, yes and a week later my brother died. Now I’m not saying anything. I’m just standing there staring at Mr. Parker, waiting for him to continue. He then said, you see my brother and I were so close that when I had a premonition of death, I thought it was my death because I couldn’t separate my own death from that of my brother.

He then said it was his brother’s death that prompted him to write the Infinite Insight series and update his written manuals. He said that even though it was his brother who had died, he was left with the realization that he too would die young. He said his books and manuals would leave us with a guide to follow in his absence.

It was at that point I asked a very difficult question. I said, Okay, now that you brought it up. Who will run Kenpo when you’re gone? He said, “Everyone will have a part because no one has it all.”

Mr. Hale keepin' it real

photo from Mr. Hale's Facebook page

The kenpo creed

(from Mr. Rich Hale's Facebook page)

A number of years ago, a member of the association sent me a very old copy of our Kenpo Creed in both English and Chinese. Not trusting the Chinese writing, I ...asked my wife if she would have one of her co-workers, who happened to be Chinese, interpret the writing for me. 

To be sure he wouldn't just match it to the English version, all I gave him was the Chinese portion of the page. As it came back, it was not exact (of course) but was definitely the Kenpo Creed.

To change or not to change kenpo

(from Mr. Hale's Facebook page)

I find all the squabbling about what “is” and what “is not” Ed Parker’s American Kenpo to be both amusing and frustrating. I’ve read where people say to be Ed Parker’s American Kenpo it has to “change”, because Mr. Parker always advocated change. Others say to be Ed Parker’s American Kenpo it must be performed exactly as it’s laid out in the Accumulative Journal and Volume 5 of Infinite Insights ...into Kenpo, because this is what Ed Parker said.

Although the below quote, by Ed Parker, won’t “fix” anything, it should be of some benefit to those who are interested in what Mr. Parker had to say on the subject. This quote is from: Black Belt Magazine, Feb. 1975 V-13 No. 2 And In The Beginning There Was Ed Parker - by Gilbert L. Johnson

“You’ve got to know how to vary things,” he (Parker) says. “A lot of the techniques I’ve worked with, they’re ideas, they’re not rules. At any given time, any of my moves can change from defense to offense, offense to defense. Martial artists, and Kenpo people especially, become so involved in doing the techniques exactly right in such and such amount of time, that they get caught in a pattern that they can’t break. That’s not what they’re for. Specific moves, specific techniques are based, like the ABC’s in the English language or standard football plays. You have to have a point of reference and from there the combinations are endless and limited only by universal laws, laws that you can’t change.”