Originally posted by Kenpo Yahoo
Thank you for your insight Doc. I don't believe that I'm familiar with that technique. However, it seems that its purpose is to get the defender back into a position of manueverability and attack. That's the type of material and response that I've been looking for.
That particular technique is something worked out with Ed Parker and was included in our curriculum at least 18 years ago. I took it right out of our 301 Course (1st Brown).
Originally posted by Kenpo Yahoo
Unfortunately it kinda verifies my suspicion that EPAK doesn't have any base for ground fighting. If new techniques have to be designed to deal with the situation then that means something was originally lacking.
Well you're right and wrong as well. It's missing from one aspect of Kenpo. I've said all along that the vast majority of American Kenpo is the "commercial" or "Motion-Kenpo" variety which does not include specifics for anything. It is the most well known because it was specifically designed to reach the most people within his lifetime. It is a lesson plan designed to be administered and supplimented by competent instruction. However there are students and instructors of Motion-Kenpo who address those issues in their teaching, but you are right in that it is not addressed in the designed Lesson Plan.
Originally posted by Kenpo Yahoo
It doesn't mean that SGM didn't know anything about it, it just means that he didn't put it in the system.
No argument there, but what it means is he didn't put it in Motion-Kenpo. Ed Parker was very competent in grappling skills having studied Henry Okazaki's Dan-Zan Ryu Jiu-Jitsu in the islands with Chow. He asked the questions but did not supply any answers because that aspect requires extreme "hands on" as well as very experienced instructors in that area, which were in short supply. Additionally this training does not lend itself to the commercial application and proliferation goals he had in the early seventies. That is why ALL of the "hands on" techniques are taught as "attempts" by most. It requires very specific information and skills to teach this information as it relates to the lesson plan as a whole. It really doesn't fit the commercial mold. There is a reason that there are not a bunch of "grappling" and Jiu-jitsu schools in every strip mall and neighborhood. It simply is not commercially viable to the bulk of the people. Motion-Kenpo will attract those who don't want to "wrestle," be thrown or "choked out" and have their arms twisted.
Originally posted by Kenpo Yahoo
I just get tired of hearing people say that Kenpo is all inclusive and trying to make to out to be stronger than it is. Kenpo is great for a lot of things, but it has some pretty big holes. The only way to fill in the holes is to logically create new templates to deal with the different situations, or go outside of Kenpo to find the answers. I honestly don't see anything wrong with either situation as long as it is done in a logical manner.
The holes you speak of were addressed years ago, but just not in Motion-Kenpo, but it does seem to be a paradox because American Kenpo is all inclusive but, most of those that make such declaration are not the ones with the knowledge to demonstrate that it is. Some of these are the same people that also condemn the things I say are in Kenpo as I learned it at the same time. It would seem you can't have it both ways. The tendancy is to think of Kenpo only in its commercial form because that's what most are familiar with, but there is far more Kenpo than that.
Consider this:
Ed Parker said himself there were as many styles of (Motion) Kenpo as there are Kenpoist. Your statements lead credence to what I have already said. The popular form of Kenpo is commercially (business) driven and has at its roots the many "self-defense studios." Now of course there are those who do not approach it that way, but it still is a commercial model they are forced to work from. Clearly he meant that the individual should be flexible to suit his own needs and effectiveness because that is the commercial goal of quick self defense.
A quote:
"As I travel around the world teaching I correct these techniques then I ask the question to the student 'Do you think anyone could possibly write this down well enough to explain it?' and they all say no. There's an old saying that "a picture is worth a thousand words" but in Kenpo we say it takes a thousand words to explain the picture. Mr. Parker used to say if you gave ten students the manual and had them read a technique that they don't know and try to put it together you would have ten different techniques with each student doing
what he thinks the book told him to do. " - "Huk" Planas
This is the reason for that interpretation of his art being "motion" based, loaded with personal preference tailoring, and soft tissue assault focus to insure effectiveness first overall. But what happened is the bulk of the "margina"l students of the commercial system have ultimately become many of its instructors, now teaching there personal preferences and tailoring to their students, as well as passing along their short comings.
Ed Parker ultimately admitted Motion-Kenpo is an entity feeding on itself and each generation gets further away from the very good lesson plan he created for competent instructors to teach. But as the "system" generates its own teachers, much is lost to the de-evolution of the original model. This should be obvious as students constantly speak of techniques they would not actually use, and the primary question seems to be "how do you do it?" This doesn't exist in the Martial Arts in general but is the norm in Motion-Kenpo.
This means really good instructors are rare. Although many are competent practitioners, that is all the "system" was designed to do. It wasn't created to make teachers, but primarily marginal students who could defend themselves. Although there are always exceptions, anyone who looks around should see it. It's in all the written material; It's on the windows of the studios. "Learn quick self-defense." going from A - Z doesn't make you a teacher, or qualified to open a school, but that's what happens.
Before Motion-Kenpo, Ed Parker did not draw the majority of his teachers from his own school for logistical reasons. He attracted black belts from other styles who brought with them essential background and life skills that allowed them to embrace his lesson plan and its concepts and produce good students. (This is the reason for the many asterisks on prominent students names on the family tree including myself). But at the core, these people were already good martial artist that Ed Parker made better. Many of the more recent have no foundation (life or otherwise) to allow them to take advantage of that lesson plan. Most of the Senior Seniors, were ex-military and/or law enforcement for a reason. They knew the "real world" and what it took to survive on the streets.
The marginal everyday students are the ones that especially need these really good instructors. Instructors that know the lesson plan and teach it. Huk Planas who was heavily involved in the creation of certain aspects of Motion-Kenpo said it very well. "The Ed Parker System is what you teach. What the student does with it is their style." Many instructors teach their style, not the Lesson Plan. Do not however see this has an absolute negative. Some innovative instructors do quite well and produce some good students but many more are awful.
Bob White has "re-written" the book on teaching methods of that material and has no peer in that area. Frank Trejo took his knowledge of the lesson plan and applied his own interpretations and concepts and an impressive boxing, grappling, and kick boxing background to produce unique students. Dennis Conatser is one of the most intelligent men you may ever meet and is the "experts expert" on the most dominant era of American Kenpo ever. Larry Tatum has always been one of the best practitioners in that era and came up along side Frank Trejo has well.
Also consider there are many prominent Kenpo "Senior, seniors" who never transitioned to or learned Motion-Kenpo when it was essentially created in the seventies (Infinite Insights). Chuck Sullivan has demonstrated his personal preference for what he originally was learning. James Ibrao preferred to stay in the "Chinese Kenpo" era of Ed Parker's teaching along with Steve Herring. I evolved under Ed Parker's guidance from that era as well. Dave Hebler too is "Old School" along with Steve LaBounty who never needed an entire Motion-Kenpo technique to get the job done anyway. Many Senior, seniors like the late Bob Perry transitioned and embraced Motion-Kenpo with there own abilities, did quite well, and produced really good students. Dave German as well earned his black in Kenpo but left long before "Motion-Kenpo" was created like many others. The kenpo that these people and myself learned still exists in the practitioners themselves or in their lineages and they are all different from each other and none of them are Motion-Kenpo.
So:
1) you have many unqualified people teaching their tailored motion style instead of the Lesson Plan.
2) You have Old School teachers teaching Ed Parker pre-motion Chinese Kenpo, etc.
3) You have Ed Parker evolved Kenpo that is not "motion" or Chinese.
4) You have good motion Kenpo teachers making the system work in their students.
5) You have the many off shoots from Chow/Parker (Shaolin, Tracy's, Universal, Vallare, Cerio, Kara-ho, monsoon, Oki Dokie, etc.)
Most of these are all existing concurrently with each other calling what they do American Kenpo. The Kenpo represented in Infinite Insights is not the only Ed Parker Kenpo, but it is a great lesson plan. Unfortunately the numbers of those qualified to teach it well are few. Ed Parker wanted all of his Kenpo students to evolve, but all are not qualified to evolve and most didn't stay with him to evolve with him as he grew.
Stop thinking so much, they'll attack you. But as we say in the biz, "Good Obs."
