This is bound to be giving you a big head Dennis. Who is your favorite instructor, given that you undisputably had the best for most of your Kenpo lifetime?
I am a big Tom Kelly Sr. fan, I also respect Bob Liles knowledge and expertise tremendously. Who else, hmmm.... Howard Silva showed up on my doorstep Saturday morning and taught a seriously invigorating class for me. This is very rare ... like in never happened before since he lives in California and I am in Austin. He qualifies as my "Kenpo Dad", (as Bryan Hawkins calls him, himself a great teacher) and the man who spent a year and a half teaching me the American Kenpo techniques and insisting I learn the principles and concepts physically, not just mentally.
Other than the obvious people I study with now, I guess Dennis Conatser would have to near the top also, (remember I know where some of the bodies are buried Dennis.) I like John Sepulveda, Dian Tanaka, and Barbara Hale. Sigung LaBounty always has my respect also, as does Frank Trejo.
Gee, I want "stuff" from bunches of Seniors not just material. I do not know Ron Chapel at all, but SL4 is "interesting"; Mike Pick and Huk Palanas I have only had a few seminars with, ditto with Paul Mills. With a few exceptions, I do not neccessarily want to be "their student" as I do not know them well enough to make that kind of decision. There are only a few I trust to keep me going as I approch my 48th birthday in a couple of months.
I am open to learning from anyone, but would want a teacher who would care about my development as a Kenpoist for the rest of my time here on earth, not just making a buck with me or my students.
Hard choices anytime I approach the question of who I would like as a teacher, if I could have anyone, especially since I already have one I respect tremendously, Mr. Tommy Burks. The best teacher has left us and the loss is still felt in that different "pieces" of Kenpo are found everywhere and people have interpreted or emphasized the part that called to them the most. Wish I had had more time with Mr. Parker and am jealous of what the Seniors that were still training with him until the end had. That includes Dennis of course, even if he was not a 7th in 1990.
Yours in Kenpo
Oos,
-Michael
