I think we're basically in agreement Ras. I guess what I'm trying to convey is that I don't believe that Motion Kenpo as a method is inherently flawed. I think there are a lot of bad instructors. And that's sad. But there are a lot of bad instructors in every art. I just try to be a good one. And hope that along the way I can help others get better, and learn from those who have something to share.
I think there's a lot of amazing stuff in Motion Kenpo. But I've known instructors who never let their students practice
any kind of dynamic or competitive "sparring" style drills because they said that those kinds of activities built bad habits. They advocated pure basic practice and technique repetition and grafting drills, with the ultimate goal being perfect technique execution and position control in every violent encounter. I have heard advanced ranks in these kinds of methods claim that they can respond to any attack with a kenpo technique, and graft perfectly to another kenpo technique in any possible what if scenario. I've known several advanced rank instructors who've held some version of this position.
Personally, I can't see it. Maybe it's just because I'm not good enough at karate. But I've always felt that if I had that degree of control over a violent situation than
I wouldn't be in a fight in the first place. I can't see a situation wherein I don't need to react dynamically, move and cover and evade and counter. So I see the Motion curriculum as a way of organizing every possible lesson for every possible violent confrontation, with the ultimate goal of transcending techniques and spontaneously expressing your combined knoweldge and skill across all disciplines to respond appropriately to a dynamic situation.
I can't really say the first way doesn't work, only that I've never been good enough at karate to make it work. I can say the second way works. Just tonight I taught a color belt class where I had men and women circling and punching and kicking and grappling and evading and defending and countering. At speed, with contact. And they are able to dynamically apply the guard sweeps, striking combinations, and fighting concepts I've been teaching them. So I've taken civilians off the street and taught them how to fight and low and behold, we just spent an hour and a half fighting. And I'm constantly demonstrating to them how this technique is Alternating Maces, and that technique is Parting Wings and how you can counter an open side jab with a parry to Mace of Aggression.
Because for me, the ultimate goal has always been actual combat performance. We aren't memorizing patterns, we're learning how to
fight. At least, my students are.
You know, I had a
very similar conversation several years ago with James Hawkins over on KenpoTalk, only I was the one holding the position that the techniques were non-functional and he had the position that they were. I actually have a lot of respect for that guy, he knows what he's talking about. I think we could probably have this argument all day. In the end, what makes it functional, or not, is whether or not you are actually using it.
Those instructors I know who didn't let their students spar? One reason, it teaches them to turn their backs to their opponents.
I call that bad instruction. Sparring doesn't teach that. If anything, it teaches you
not to turn your back on your opponent.
Because he will hit you there. But only if you actually practice where students can hit each other in the back. If you aren't, you aren't practicing a real fighting art. You are practicing a sport, or a tradition, or a dance. But if you can't stomp on someone's face, it isn't real combat.
That doesn't mean every drill is full street. Sometimes we're just hitting the pads, or practicing chi sao. But our students are taught real fighting. So they learn not to turn their back. Sure, new students turtle up and turn away, but they learn how to fight through that.
By fighting through it.
I've taught a fully functional system. I had a bunch of students with different fighting backgrounds who weren't interested in learning "kenpo" so much as learning "fighting." So I built my classes around the lessons in the Motion system, but left the actual curriculum out. Just basics practice, fighting techniques, and dynamic drills. Now I teach in another guy's American Kenpo school, so I teach all that stuff
with the Motion curriculum. Because these students are there to learn American Kenpo, and get belt ranks, and maybe be instructors themselves someday. It's a different environment, so I teach a different method.
I wonder just how pervasive the problem of bad kenpo is. I mean, obviously there is a lot of bad kenpo. Technique demonstrations, which are presumably people at least trying to do their best, where students are bouncing off their opponents with sloppy stances and weak basics. Sparring footage where the students just move straight in and straight out and trade ineffective strikes while being constantly battered by their opponent's equally ineffective strikes. Schools where the students
never practice their techniques on the body or spar.
I honestly don't know how you could teach karate without
any physical contact. Too much is only really learned through physical interaction with a resisting opponents. But I've known of schools, kenpo schools, where this was the practice.
But how many of those can there really be? I mean, how many kenpo schools
don't teach basic boxing, or practice bag work, or drill their basics, or spar? I know there used to be a lot where there was no practice of groundfighting, but that's changing. How many no contact kenpo schools can there really be? I have to think that even most of the kenpo guys who's videos are just them practicing completely static Ideal Phase techniques spend a significant portion of their mat time on dynamic application. Don't they? Isn't it normal to discuss angles, and anatomy, and bio-physical response?
That's how I learned kenpo. Maybe I was just lucky. But I have to think that I'm not the exception. I went to Speakman's kenpo camp a million years ago and the kenpo students there seemed to know what they were doing. Although admittedly most of the seminars were devoted to technique practice on the body, which was mostly just standing still while somebody pounded you with a kenpo striking combination. Now that I think of it, we didn't do much spontaneous stuff in the kenpo seminars, mostly just pattern work, although we did do more dynamic stuff in the Benny Urquidez and Gokor Chivichian seminars.
Now you've got me wondering. Is kenpo really that bad off? Or does it just seem that way because of our limited perspective? All the local kenpo schools I know are great, but they also come from the same root, so maybe that doesn't mean anything.
I know the Kaju guys are starting to struggle with this in their community. I guess some of the old school think the practice has become increasingly more commercialized and less rigorous. So now they're having a bit of an identity crisis. Kajukenbo has always been kenpo's older, meaner brother. And now some feel it's straying from its own "funtional" roots.
Is it really that endemic? Is there a real risk that some kenpo schools will follow the new wave TKD model of martial arts themed "community centers" where adults and children can play karate side by side in pretty new outfits with flashy patches and shiny weapons and hefty monthly membership fees? I've always thought of kenpo as a true war art. Hitting people in the back and then kicking them when they're down. Punching someone in the groin and then ripping through their face with your open claw. That's the art I teach.
Is kenpo really so lost? Or is it just that the really hard workers don't spend time defending their method on the internet? It always comes back to the instructors. If the art is a failure, it is only and always the fault of bad instruction.
In the end, the only answer I see is to go back to class. Train more. Train harder. I teach my students that there are no shortcuts, that repetition is the mother of all skill. So when I doubt my method, I get on the floor and practice it. Then I learn where I am right, and where I am wrong.
“While the schools remain apart in thought and styles, they are bound together by the practice of sparring, which is the only standard value in the sport recognized by all who are responsible for advancing the true art of karate.”
Sihak Henry Cho
Korean Karate, Free Fighting Techniques
-Rob
I said this in other threads, but its worth saying again. I teach the IP techs. I do so because I have to. I dont own my own school, so I have to do what everyone else does. Even if I did own my own place, I'd still teach them. Why? Because I like to use them as a foundation, some sort of building block. But, I stress to my students that they shouldnt be bound by them. People talk about grafting from on IP to the next, to the next and so on and so on. This is fine and dandy, but its not what I'm trying to stress. I'm teaching them (the IPs) and then I toss in some other situations, in hopes that the students will start thinking outside of the box. 
