You paint a pretty grim picture of Mr. Parker and his intentions Ras. While I wouldn't refute the facts, I prefer to see him, his students, and the martial arts community in general in a slightly better light.
Ok, he created a system of techniques that are maybe marginally executable exactly as written and disseminated that throughout the country. And he got paid for it. But a man has a right to feed his family. And what did he really do? He took all his combined karate knowledge at a certain point in his life, condensed it down to a few hundred lessons, and had it put in a binder. Then he shopped those lessons around, and other karate guys took his lesson plan and sold it as their kenpo.
He was right. It was their teacher's fault. But I don't think he was a villian for doing it. You have to remember, it was still the best thing going. I have a lot of karate books. And most of the techniques shown in them are pretty basic. Out Block/Cross. Countergrab. Out Block/Front Kick. And that's the whole book. That's what was being shopped around at that time. Mr. Parker put together something far more complex. Was it perfect? No. But it was groundbreaking. And innovative. And a lot of us are better for it.
If he hadn't shopped it around and sold it to charlatans and spent so much time away from his family trying to promote it maybe it wouldn't be here for us to complain about. Personally, I'm thankful. Are the techniques perfect? I was never told they were supposed to be. I was told that they were supposed to demonstrate specific physical movements, combat scenarios, concepts, and interactions specific to unarmed combat. And not all techniques do all those things at the same time.
For instance, a technique like Lone Kimono works in a purely functional sense. Take him, break him, hit him in the throat. But a technique like Fallen Falcon could never be performed to completion, as written, against anything but a dead man. Fallen Falcon isn't supposed to be performed as written. It's a repository for a group of similiarly themed actions. Opponent prone face up at 3 with their near arm extended into your grab. Strikes to the near side, arm, and head.
Some techniques teach specific grappling moves that are important enough to have slapped a simple striking combination onto one end of just so they could get a name and make a spot on the list. Some techniques exist because Pro Wrestling was popular at the time and students would come into schools asking how to defend against popular wrestling holds. How many times do you see a full nelson in a real fight? Some techniques teach defense against a kick right side forward, left side forward, hands up, hands down, moving back, moving forward, moving laterally. Then the students could be encouraged to practice them "left and right handed" to double the amount of possible physical combinations! Some techniques exist because they are universal responses to common assaults, or throwbacks to old Chinese Chuan'Fa, or got picked up in a jiu jitsu class sometime. Some techniques exist to teach common striking combinations, or lock escapes. Sometimes the most important part of the technique isn't the technique at all, but the attack. When I teach Captured Twigs we spend most of our time talking about bearhugs, not stomp/elbow combinations.
There's a middle ground here Ras. There are people who only teach the Ideal Phase, never practice the techniques against resistance, don't spar, don't practice dynamic drills, and don't know their techniques don't work because they don't practice them on the body.
Then there are people who practice some version of the functional style. Usually one they came up with on their own based on something they learned from someone else and then made specific personal alterations to based on what they found worked. And they found out what worked by working the material.
But those aren't the only two schools of thought. Many schools use the Ideal Phase techniques as a series of loose class plans around which they build drills and exercises drawn from the material. This is what I do, but so do many others in one form or another. My students are required to learn, perform, and understand the techniques in the Ideal Phase. But they understand that that is not intended to be the true combat expression of the kenpo that I teach. I may make changes to the material, but on their own, those changes aren't important, because the point is to teach the system as a whole, not to teach specific responses to specific defenses. I don't care if I step to 10 or 11 in this technique, or if I use a handsword to the throat or a backnuckle to the temple, because we're going to practice the technique in every direction anyway, with every basic to every target, against every attack, against resistance, while moving. Eventually. So Ideal Phase isn't really important to me except as a kind of footnote for the knowledge I want to teach today. I look up, see Deflecting Hammer and think, "ok, so front kicks, deflecting blocks, stepping away with defenses/in with counters, long range to short range, angular momentum, high hands/low hands/hi hands, bringing the target to the weapon, moving to the oustide of the opponent's stance, stepping in with checks, striking the head, inward elbow strikes, and push drag foot maneuvers." We're only gonna spend a few minutes on Deflecting Hammer, but we're gonna spend most of the class on all that other stuff. I keep the technique in the system because I need a place to teach all that stuff anyway. But I don't expect my students to deify Deflecting Hammer. I expect them to not get kicked in the balls.
I know there's a lot of crap kenpo. And I know we all kind of got the raw deal from the generation of kenpo seniors ahead of us. I remember the exact moment where I had that realization. I was on a bus. But there's more to it than that. We can't hold all the previous kenpo students and instructors responsible for not uniting and keeping Mr. Parker's creation alive. Every one of those guys had their own lives to live. And some of them did try to make things work. And some of them still do.
And maybe we're better off. Instead of one monolithic Church of Kenpo, we have some guys over there doing kenpo knife, and some guys over there doing kenpo groundfighting, and some guys over there doing kenpo with escrima, or with TKD, or with jiu jitsu. We have SL4 and 5.0 and ATACX GYM and more bastards and independents than we'll ever know. And sure, there's some crap. But there's some real bad dudes too.
Kenpo isn't perfect. Neither were any of the instructors who came before us. But that's humans for you. It's not all bad. And there are a lot of really great karate guys out there. I know sometimes it seems like you live in a world of idiots, but if you can see farther than others then maybe you've just looked farther. A lot of people are comfortable where they are at, that doesn't make them liars and theives. They may be wrong, and they should probably address that. But maybe they will someday. It's not my job to correct them. I'm working on my own kenpo.
I'm teaching my students the patterns of kenpo, but I teach them basic boxing, kickboxing, groundfighting, and falls and throws and weapons work too. And we practice sparring and randori and kicking each other while we're laying on the floor and striking a prone opponent with a mantrap chair. I'm looking for techniques everywhere, I don't care if it's TKD or JKD or BJJ or MMA. If somebody has a good idea, we find a place for it in class. I don't care if it's in Sword of Destruction or Dance of Death, if it works, it's kenpo.
Parker had a lot of teachers, and students, and friends, and peers. He trained with a lot of people who are universally viewed as masters, like Gene Lebell, and he was obviously a rare mind. A unique individual in a pivotal time in history. And his art as it's most commonly practiced is only a reflection of where he was in his training at a certain point in his life.
Imagine if you took all your no doubt considerable knowledge and skill, put it in a book, and then that was what was practiced all over the world by hundreds of thousands of martial artists. You'd probably be pretty stoked, and you'd probably pursue that in good faith. But ten years later? Twenty years later? You might think that original version needed an update. By most accounts, Mr. Parker felt that way about what he'd created. But he died before he could update it. Which is sad, but not evil, and not really the most important thing.
It isn't up to Mr. Parker to make me good at karate. It's up to me. He left some signage for me to follow, but I'm alone on my path and I have to find my own way. I appreciate the techniques, and my understanding of the "ideal phase" allows me to use them as a valuable teaching tool.
Your comparison between EPAK and JKD is not wrong, and not a coincidence. The two men knew each other, they shared ideas, they compared notes, they talked late into the night about their philosophies. And many of their beliefs were very similar. If you read the writings they left behind you see a clear progression from extremely traditional training methods and techniques to increasingly more realistic combat oriented concepts and techniques. Mr. Parker wrote Chinese Karate and The Law of the Fist before he wrote Infinite Insights. Mr. Lee wrote Chinese Gung Fu before he began his work on Jeet Kune Do. These were martial artists who were still learning. And their work reflects that. Of course they grew and changed over time, isn't that the lesson of martial arts? You get better. You understand more. Of course EPAK isn't perfect, Mr. Parker wasn't perfect. And he was far better than the vast majority of the people who've ever taught his system.
Lots of karate instructors name their styles after themselves, few are practiced all over the world in their lifetime and beyond. It's not just because he was a crackin' good salesman. At a time when there weren't dozens of karate schools in even the smallest towns, he was one of the only people in the country practicing karate. At a time when every karate guy knew ever other karate guy, and everybody knew who the best was, Mr. Parker was already respected as a Master. And not just by dweebs. By full contact karate fighters, and hollywood stuntmen, and military men, and security professionals, and Elvis Presley. Sure, he was in it for the money. But we all have to pay the mortgage. And he was worth it. What happened after that is unfortunate, but it's not his fault, or kenpo's fault. It's bad instructors. It always comes back to the instructors.
-Rob
