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Hello again, and let me say that I am sorry for the assumption that I am a sir. I suppose MJ is the reason. MJ stands for Mary Jo. I could be granted a pass into the ladies locker room if desired. I will certainly look to find you in each volume.
My apologies. Most of the ladies usually identify themselves in their posts. Please excuse my making such an assumption.
This is the way it was presented to me by my instructor and I found it to be very curious that Ed Parker would allow such freedom in interpretation. I totally agree with you that by design, intentional or not, this is both innovative and destructive to the art at the same time.
Although essentially he had no choice, the idea of a self-defense based art of practical and functional choices mandated it could not be presented any other way. He took the concept of self defense courses found in many universities and expanded on the theme and added belts. In this format, most do not study long term (semester to semester) and therefore only want reasonable skills as quickly as possible.
Flexibility was inherent in the presentation because students were not studying an “art form” and the individual had to take responsibility for their own actions and personal well being.
Previously most martial activity had been “sold” as an “art form” with strict country of origin cultural rituals and foreign language mandates. This intrigued many Americans who embraced these activities as an art with some vicarious martial benefits.
Ed Parker changed the focus to self-defense and left just enough of the Asian influence to maintain that “mysterious foreign” flavor, to separate it from American boxing and wrestling. He inserted the word “karate” to that end because of the public familiarity with the term. “Learn karate and defend yourself from attack” became the theme and it wasn’t long before most subscribed to this method of “selling” their art.
Originally the Japanese Arts dominated after WW II from our exposure when American Servicemen returned home. These arts were “sport arts” and called as such. Karate-do was a natural extension of the ju-do activity. Those who practiced ju-do were known as “judo players” because of its competition mandates for advancement. The same was true for “karate” practitioners who were also known as “karate-players.” I have found memories of my grandmother asking me if I was “going to play karate today.”
So you see most arts were sold as just that or as a sporting activity. Ed Parker changed all that, and although those activities haven’t changed much, they are now all “sold” as “the ultimate in self-defense.” Good or bad, Ed Parker influenced the industry in that way.
So on one hand he had a positive proliferation effect on the martial arts in America and is known, quite rightly so, as the “Father of American Karate.” The bad news is mass consumption meant reducing it to its lowest common denominator, if it was to be financially successful. But because of it’s inherent flexibility the individual was responsible to make it work. Conceptually the tools were all there, and the student engaged the information at the depth they chose to participate. There were some good things that came of it, but most, at best were mediocre to sorry under mass belt driven business mills.
Ed Parker borrowed and based his business model on an existing dance chain called “Arthur Murray Dance Studios.” This was when “karate schools” first became known as “studios” instead of “dojos.” In selling, terminology was very important. A “studio” was a comfortable term. What the hell is a “dojo?” most would say.
Anyway, Arthur Murray would lure people come into the studios with “5 private lesson” for a flat low fee that was attractive. Most people who didn’t know how to dance would be embarrassed to get in front of a group and show their dance ineptitude, so the idea of initial private lessons cheap was attractive and an effective lure.
Parker would say this is how you brought the “lookey loos” and the mildly curious into the studio to ultimately get them into group classes, by making them feel comfortable. It didn’t hurt that this methodology yielded high returns for the amount of time invested.
The majority who entered the dance studios learned to dance reasonably well enough to satisfy their needs and desires and moved on. They could now dance with their friends without being embarrassed, but few became true really accomplished dancers. However clearly they got their money’s worth. Those who did well and who thought they would like to make a living dancing were offered the opportunity to teach in their own “studio,” once they reached a certain level.
Thus the student became the teacher rather quickly. I think most would agree that a year or two of part time dance lessons hardly qualifies anyone to teach dancing except on the most superficial of levels. Sound familiar? Ed Parker would advertise in the paper, “Karate Instructors Wanted, no experience necessary.” Anything to get people into the studios to sell the art to the American public.
Study a few years and then turn around and now you can teach. It’s called proliferation and an effective business expansion concept, but at best produces and promotes mediocrity. Particularly in a martial art where significant street experience is important, and injury is a distinct possibility upon failure. This is why the student and not the teacher is responsible for how they choose to execute a technique. “I present the concept, and you decide how, when, and even if you use it.”
But Ed Parker also conceded the limitations. He said, “We are an industry feeding upon itself.” And at some point he knew it would collapse upon itself without a true foundation. He knew that was not possible under that existing format. Proliferation took the commercial studio art all over the world, but it had its price.
Imagine someone who graduates from elementary school who suddenly is allowed to teach elementary school. A person who doesn’t know how to fight, with no effective street fight experience, works out for several years and is now a “self-defense” instructor because they passed the course, is now teaching others how to fight. Even at its best, it’s the bleary eyed teaching the blind.
Originally Parker’s proliferation plan worked for one simple reason. He started with men who had “life and street” experience. In most cases the majority of Parker’s students came to him with significant martial arts experience. In fact, very few people were actually taught by Parker from a no experience white belt to black belt. The majority of the well-known names were brown or black belts when they came to Parker. For them the conceptual product worked because they had a significant foundation coupled with street experience to make the ideas more than functional. Parker basically started with a bunch of “tough guys” who could already fight. Parker just made them better. These were the guys that brought their experience to teaching and making the “kenpo studio” material work. However for the most part, these people are no longer taking students from white to black, and no matter how good a student is, without experience there will always be a void.
I was curious as to why he never made video tapes, other than Sophisticated Basics (that I am aware of) to show the techniques, basics, sets and forms to promote consistency.
I was apart of that project along with Ed Parker jr. who did all the real heavy lifting. I was the announcers voice and also briefly in number one demonstrating a few difficult movements he needed. But the answer is a simple one. How, or why would you create videos of a definitive way to do undefined conceptual techniques? Remember he promoted individual flexibility in his commercial art. He was concerned if he committed techniques to video, everyone would attempt to mimic instead of “think.”
It would have been counter-productive as well to the idea of the individual being personally responsible for “sticking fingers in someone’s eyes.” Parker himself didn’t do these things because he didn’t have to, but the business model used soft tissue assaults to the throat, groin, eyes, and neck to insure a level of effectiveness. (I think I just described all of the commercial techniques in one sentence.)
It was this paradigm between innovation and what I considered to be a form of inherent self destruction that sparked my interest in finding out Ed Parker's intent for Kenpo. It just didn't make complete sense to me. It is most curious.
Different interpretations have different intent. Simply, the version that peaked your interest was about proliferation while imparting some level of skill that was satisfactory to the individual student. It was and is a rather shallow concept, that allowed a few brilliant people to do well, but the majority never rose above the level of the concept.
After reading the quote below I began to wonder why Ed Parker would want the base system to be taught identically, yet not have a written curriculum.
He never definitively defined the base business model; therefore there was no definitively written curriculum beyond the conceptual.
That led me to the knowledge of the Accumulative Journal. I was happy to hear this, because it meant to me that he built something that he must have believed was worth preserving in some way.
Well yes and no. He created a “franchise guide” he called the “accumulated journal” for school owners and managers. It contained all of the conceptual information, techniques ideas, etc. available at the time.
Prior to that the written techniques were not available to students. Students were given the “names’ of techniques, which is why they were constructed as they were to help students remember them, with no written material beyond a simple list of requirements.
Ed Parker sold them the Accumulated Journal and mangers/owners taught from the journals to create a loose semblance of material from school to school. Over time students began requesting the written versions of the techniques, so Parker created the “technique manuals. However, the accumulated journals were never intended for everyone to have, and is also the reason why they are rare. They were never produced in large numbers. It also becomes clear why schools never ever did things the same. It was all subject to interpretation, which was what Parker promoted.
I'm wondering why you never really used this. Was it because you knew the material, or because you didn't find it necessary or valuable in your teaching?
In the methodology I was taught it had virtually no value, and was actually a divergence from some of his other more n-depth teaching. Many of the older students to this day resent the “business version” and resisted learning it.
I'm not sure if you know him, but this was written by a man named Kevin Lamkin and is an excerpt from the article Kenpo Never Changes:
I asked Mr. Parker (he preferred to be called 'Ed') why the American Kenpo in his own organization had so much variance between schools. He seemed agitated about this question, yet I went further to inform him that the instructor who had hosted a recent seminar stated that this was because Ed Parker is always changing the system. Before I could complete my sentence, Mr. Parker blew-up and firmly stated,
"Kenpo Never Changes, it Perpetually Refines Itself."
He added, "Very few instructors understand this parable. What it refers to is this; My system should be taught from the base system, The Ideal Phase of each technique. I will be starting a limited franchise of schools next year (1988). Each school will teach, as all should, the techniques, basics and forms identically. What the instructor is charged to do is to "tailor"the technique - after the Ideal Phase is understood. In this way, Kenpo remains the same and is refined perpetually for the student."
Just for the record, Ed Parker never preferred nor asked to be called “Ed” by anyone. There were those who were around in the old days before things became more formal who called him “Ed” and he didn’t correct them, but he didn’t “prefer” it.
When I first met him as a teenager he was Mr. Parker. As I grew and our relationship grew, I called him “Edmund,” (as I do his son) as well as a series of nicknames. “Kahuna,” “Manaloha,” “Grandmaster Flash,” “The Magician of Motion,” “Boss,” and “The Old Man” were some of the many. For me, he fluctuated between being a father figure, big brother, and best friend. I never ever called him “Ed.” He personally confided he didn’t like it, but as far as I know never corrected anyone. He was an informal person who simply introduce himself as, “Ed Parker.” No “grandmaster” or titles. Just Ed Parker.
Reading this led me to believe that Ed Parker actually wanted some consistency in Kenpo to transcend time. If this is the case, and Ed Parker actually wanted Kenpo to always begin with the same base, I was curious how it changed so much.
See the above
If this is truly the case, and there was a consistent curriculum that was intended to be taught identically in it's ideal phase, than one might conclude that the ideal phase at least should have remained the same, but yet I've seen lots of versions of the "same" Kenpo techniques, and not always qualified as tailored versions. This is the reason for my interest in the Accumulative Journal. As an instructor, I just really wanted to see how he, (and as I know now, his collaborators) believed the basics should be presented.
One of the great misconceptions in the motion based business model is the “Three Phases.” People assumed they were to do “Parker’s Ideal Phase.” In fact they were supposed to do “Their Ideal Phase” from Parker’s conceptual teachings, and design techniques that would be personally functional. Parker never ever produced a definitive way to physically perform anything. It was all designed to be interpretive.
The “Web of Knowledge” outlined an order of, and general possible attack considerations. The technique manuals proposed possible very general “ideas” to be interpreted by instructors and students.
The Instructor and/or student was supposed to begin that process by designing an “ideal phase” to extrapolate solutions based on Parker concepts. There never, ever was an “ideal phase” proposed, promoted, or taught by Parker in the motion based business model.
Here are ParkerÂ’s written words on the subject taken from his own I.K.K.A Green Belt Technique Manual in the Accumulative Journal.
BEGIN PARKER QUOTE
As you analyze a specific technique, study is best begun by dividing your efforts into phases. Phase I of the analytical process requires that you commence with an ideal or fixed situation.
This means that you are to select a combat situation that has been structured with a prescribed sequence of movements, and use this ideal technique as a basis. In this phase, the term ideal implies that the situation is fixed and that the "what if" questions required in Phase II are not to be included in Phase I.
Using the ideal technique or model situation as a reference point not only refers to the defensive moves you employ, but the anticipated reactions of your opponent as well. Technically then, it is the prescribed reactions of your opponent that completes the ideal technique.
Therefore, the ideal techniques are built around seemingly inflexible and one dimensional assumptions for a good purpose. They provide us with a basis from which we may begin our analytical process, (like a control model in any reliable scientific experiment). Prescribed techniques applied to prescribed reactions are the keys that make a basic technique ideal or fixed.
In Phase I, structuring an ideal technique requires selecting a combat situation that you wish to analyze. Contained within the technique should be fixed moves of defense, offense, and the anticipated reactions that can stem from them.
These, so called ideal or fixed situations when analyzed and formulated properly should effectively take into consideration minor alterations of combat to make phase I significantly able to stand alone.
END PARKER QUOTE
This is an area of massive confusion and a close reading of Mr. Parker’s words should reveal the obvious. He is speaking to instructors and/or students and telling them how to approach the conceptual information and how to create their ideal technique, while utilizing his “ideas” as a starting point. That is why it is so flexible and interpretive. Once YOU create YOUR Ideal Phase and teach or become proficient with it, than you may move to the other phases. The other part of the confusion is the “what if.” It is important to understand, when teachers/students create an “ideal technique model,” students do not, and should not have the luxury of confusing themselves entertaining infinite possibilities of “what ifs” as Mr. Parker stated above.
So-called “what ifs” do not exist in the “ideal phase” process. They should be different techniques with a similar offensive theme. These questions should be answered as you move upward in the levels of your “ideal phase” process. “Broken Ram” answers questions similar to “Charging Ram.” “Captured Twigs” is a variation of the question of “Thrusting Prongs.” “Sword and Hammer” is simply a different reaction timing to “Obscure Wing.”
Thank you for this. This, rather than what I read in the article, makes more sense in explaining the changes in Kenpo. Ironically, while I would like to see a little more common ground in Kenpo, as a certified teacher - the idea of individualization is what most attracts me to Kenpo.
Like most people.
This may be the most interesting exchange of all. Perhaps this is the essence of Martial Arts...the art part of the art - evolving self-expression. If you could presume, and if you feel you can't that is okay, what do you think Ed Parker would think about the way Kenpo has evolved? If that is too difficult to answer (or in addition), what do you think of the way Kenpo has evolved?
I think Mr. ParkerÂ’s prediction of the business model came true. A kind reminder please; Kenpo is not a single entity that has or has not evolved. If the business model is your base, than only the individual may speak of their evolution of what they do and how they have interpreted it. I was taught differently and my personal evolution is on schedule as Parker also predicted.
Thank you for the stimulating exchange, and once again I apologize for the gender assumption, and please excuse any errors in my lengthy and somewhat hurried response. Back to work.
I only mentioned it because you never know... someday I might run into you at a seminar, and you'd be expecting a sir.
