# Beyond Kenpo The Video



## Kempojujutsu (Apr 5, 2002)

Recently I purchased Beyond Kenpo, which features  7th degree Black Belt Joseph Simonet. I like most of the two tape series, except one part. The part that concern me is when he uses the knife to work self defense. One of the self defense techniques is komono Grab. He does the technique first unarm, then shows how you could use this with a Knife. He bascally fillets and guts his attacker. I am looking at this morally, and as a instructor. If you teach your students to do this for a lapel grab(which is not a life threating attack) You may be looking at a long prison term and or a lawsuit. 

Bob Thomas:asian:


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## Blindside (Apr 6, 2002)

I can think of several instances when using a knife on a double lapel grab would be appropriate.

Lethal force in self defense would probably be appropriate if the victim was my mom, meaning female and 4'11.  Significant dichotomies in strength increases the appearance of threat and can justify the use of deadly force.

The second would be in a multiple attacker situation, and the double lapel grab was the initiation of the action, and the victim felt he/she was under deadly threat.

The last example I heard on a tape somewhere, I think it was Tony Blauer.  Anyway, the example is, what if that double lapel grab was taking you over the edge of a bridge or some equivelant.  Is that situation appropriate for using deadly force?

I'm just pointing out that your underlying assumption that a double lapel grab "is not a life threatening attack" is flawed.  Certainly there are lots of situation where it would not be appropriate, but that is not always the case.  There are instances in kenpo when responses are out of wack with the attack, for instance, Sword and Hammer is a yellow belt tech that attempts to crush the opponents throat in response to a shoulder grab.  

Good topic,

Lamont


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## vincefuess (Apr 6, 2002)

When I work out with martial artists from other styles on self defense techniques, they always think my Kenpo solutions are excessive.  You HAVE to be excessive in practice.

How would you feel if you were attacked and threw all of your "nobody can survive this" attacks at the guy and it did nothing??  It happens.

My approach is- be ready to finish it.  I HOPE my extreme measures will work.  Some tattooed punk on PCP who wants to cut your guts out for fun is no one to experiment with.

None of us wants to gut another person- but would you rather BE gutted?


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## kenpo3631 (Apr 7, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Kempojujutsu _
> 
> *Recently I purchased Beyond Kenpo, which features  7th degree Black Belt Joseph Simonet. I like most of the two tape series, except one part. The part that concern me is when he uses the knife to work self defense. One of the self defense techniques is komono Grab. He does the technique first unarm, then shows how you could use this with a Knife. He bascally fillets and guts his attacker. I am looking at this morally, and as a instructor. If you teach your students to do this for a lapel grab(which is not a life threating attack) You may be looking at a long prison term and or a lawsuit.
> 
> Bob Thomas:asian: *



My take on Kenpo is this. We train to the most extreme situation. (Dennis will probably disagree)...lol, but the techniques are designed with the intention of missing targets. In other words, Mr. Parker knew that you might miss your targets , so the techniques were designed to have many back ups if indeed you did miss. You shouldn't have to pull off every single move  of a self defense technique, if you do, in my opinion you must have done something wrong. Either you are real sloppy with the technique and missed the desired targets all together or just didn't have the proper body mechanics working to generate the power, and frankly, some people just can't derive the power whether it be because of lack of mass or whatever.

Morally as instructors it is our obligation to study the laws in our state to be able to clearly define justifyable force. It is also our obligation to explain to students that what they are learning is the extreme end of self defense and that the technique should never reach that degree of violence and if it does they should be ready to deal with the ramifications of the law.

And that's all I have to say about that - F. Gump:asian:


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## Klondike93 (Apr 7, 2002)

You come up against superman, complete with the iron testicles and is real hard to hurt, you need all the back up techniques you can muster.  (plus a good pair of running shoes doesn't hurt either).

Over skilled not over kill.

:asian:


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## DoctorB (Apr 14, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Kempojujutsu _
> 
> *Recently I purchased Beyond Kenpo, which features  7th degree Black Belt Joseph Simonet. I like most of the two tape series, except one part. The part that concern me is when he uses the knife to work self defense. One of the self defense techniques is komono Grab. He does the technique first unarm, then shows how you could use this with a Knife. He bascally fillets and guts his attacker. I am looking at this morally, and as a instructor. If you teach your students to do this for a lapel grab(which is not a life threating attack) You may be looking at a long prison term and or a lawsuit.
> 
> Bob Thomas:asian: *



I have to share your concern Bob.  Not only is the defender looking at a long prison term, but the instructor is also facing a potential civil suite with very expensive consequences.  Given just the information that you presented, the use of lethal force is not warrented; therefore the defender must be able to show some very serious mitagating factor, preferably several factors that would justify the extreme use of the knife.

The fillets cross over into a very murky area dealing with size, strength, age and gender of the people involved, but prehaps you can see a more subtle set of messages in this tape as well...

1. to be effective, a knife must be in on'e hand
2. if both of your hands are tied up in your attack, they are tagets
3. it could be advantagous to have a less than lethal hand tool   availible to you, but that does not negate #1 above
4. perhaps if one has training with a pocket stick (yarawa), kubotan keychain and/or gunting knife, the hand tool negates the need for lethal force.

I do teach the utilization of all three of the above handtools as part of my training program, although I strongly emphasize the use of empty hand techniques, first and formost because of problem #1 mentioned above.  If anyone is interested I have a seminar curriculum that covers "Empty Hand and Hand Tools".

The above statement is presented for information purposes and in context with the original post.

Jerome Barber, Ed.D.


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## brianhunter (Apr 14, 2002)

I am a law enforcement officer and I am kinda drawn on this one myself. One thing Tom Kelly said to me awhile back made a lot of sense. We where in a morning class and we seemed to do a lot of "what if" things which I tend to enjoy and he said;

"Better to be judged by 12 then to be buried by 6!"

I believe this is all about perception and perspective...
Mr. Parker wrote about this in Insights books one...
*your view
*your attacker's view
*the bystander's view

No situation is the same, but the jury will look at if you had a legimate fear for your life and the "persepectives" of those around. I think some examples already given would be adequate. Group encounters, bridge, physical stature etc... 

I know that extra second I take to think about it could be the one night that I do not get to see my wife or my kids again.

Thank you for your time,
Brian Hunter


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## Kempojujutsu (Apr 14, 2002)

In the process of defending one self, one should go through different levels of self defense. 1st should be stunning your attacker so you can exit the scene. If your stun doesn't work next should be maim your attacker. This could be breaking a limb, fingers to the eyes, etc. Last is death. I know you have seconds to make decisons on what you do. In the video if you haven't seen it, he works several techniques. One of them is Kimono grab which is a double lapel grab. 1st movement he does is stab into the chest, followed by slash to the forearms, then a stab to the neck, slash across the face, another slash across the face, "then deball them" with stab to the groin. finish with side kick. What I am trying to state is his first movement a stab to the chest could be a lethal technique for a double lapel grab. Why not a less than lethal technique, like slash to the forearms(Defanging the snake), if attacker still follows up then a more severe technique. In Cyclone is a defense against a left handed punch. Block punch with knife, follow with stab to groin. Claw to the face, slash to kidney, follow with stab to the brain stem. Reach around cut their throat, side kick to knee as you stab one last time to the throat. Martial Artist "Honest Judge Judy it was self defense" Judge Judy " Did you have to stab him 37 times. He looks like a side of beef". Yes I know each attack may be different, the main thing is 
we are not teaching people to be Navy Seals, Marine Recon etc.  
1. Yes I would rather be judge by 12 then buried by 6.
2. As a instructor, you have legal and moral obligations. 
3. People judge you how you train others. If you are teaching people to kill. Would you want your child going to that martial arts school. Look at all the bad press we got then they found out that one of the terroist of 9-11 took some Martial arts training. Knife training matter of fact. 
4. I had a student that went to a club one night. As they walk out his friend was stab (he did not die) student did a disarm put the thug in a rear naked choke and the attacker Died. He died mainly because he was on drugs at the time. My student lost his job of a result of this. His employer did not to keep someone who may of have killed some one. They thought it was BAD PR for them. He 
was clear of all charges.      

Bob Thomas:asian:


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## brianhunter (Apr 15, 2002)

Point taken and well said. As an instructor you should consider the audience and I guess I did not see that point. I also think it is habit of our society now to sit around and "arm-chair quarterback" situations like this due to liability and litigation.
     I do agree and I think you made a great point


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## DoctorB (Apr 17, 2002)

> _Originally posted by brianhunter _
> 
> *Point taken and well said. As an instructor you should consider the audience and I guess I did not see that point. I also think it is habit of our society now to sit around and "arm-chair quarterback" situations like this due to liability and litigation.
> I do agree and I think you made a great point *



A key point in the comments of Bob Thomas was the resultant firing of his student from a job; the incident had nothing to do with the students's employment, yet he was released none the less, because of the potential bad PR associated with the death of a person, regadless of the fact that the deceased was the ARMED Aggressor.  In short, we need to be mindful that a fight that ends in a death is not really over after the cononers inqyest or a court trial and aquittal... there is still an empoyer, fellow workers and neighbors, not to mention your family members and their individual opinions.

My suggestion is for everyone to be very wary of defenses that move immeditately toward lethality.  I am not say that these should not a part of one's training program, I am simply saying that these should not one's immediate and first choice in every situation.

Train carefully and train well.

Jerome Barber, Ed.D.


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## Goldendragon7 (Apr 19, 2002)

make sense to move to potential "safer" ground than to "potentially" deadly ground right away!

:asian:


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