The Original Curiculum of Kajukenbo/Karazenpo

[RevIV]

Sijo Emperado shouldn't be lumped in with these other kenpo/kempo masters. His whole reason for getting together with the other four founders of Kajukenbo was to have more, not stay with the status quo of less is better. They created this whole thing everyone is now calling mixed martial arts.
If your running chain schools or video programs where someone can earn a black belt in 12-18 months, then 30 combinations is probably a good number.
But if your black belts are training 5-6 years for their student black, then 105 combinations is not a large amount of material.
Sijo Emperado never settled for less. He always looked for the right tool for the right job. His Original Method of Kajukenbo has 105 defensive combinations divided into punch, grab, knife, club, and multiple attacker defenses. It also has 14 katas.
And then there's 3 more branches of the Original Method.

Master Bishop;
I here what you are saying in this but I don't see a problem with "lumping" Sijo Emperado into this group, Matt is not lessening his reputation by putting him with these great Masters. He did incorporate more but Matt was just giving an example. Matt was refering to the combinations- Not the full curriculum.. Those 30 combinations did not include the 30 punch techniques, animal tech., club, knife, gun, and ground techniques. 105 techniques i think is a small amount compared to some of the kenpo schools out there and a huge amount compared to others. Now i do not know which is better of worse i do not have enough time in to know any better. But i do know that of the combinations i have i can use them left, right, for grabs and in a numerous amount of other variations for the scenario. As for the MMA thing, to my recollection, GM Pesare's 1st black belt GM Carpenter was in the first ever sanctioned full contact anything goes MMA fight- where his opponent did not survive. If all he had was 21 combinations (I dont know) I think that was enough. I know GM Carpenter and he is a dangerous person and i dont care if he only learned 1 technique i bet he can take us out 10 different ways with that one.
Mastering 1 kata is better than knowing 20.
In Peace
Jesse

 

[John Bishop]

Master Bishop;
I here what you are saying in this but I don't see a problem with "lumping" Sijo Emperado into this group, Matt is not lessening his reputation by putting him with these great Masters. He did incorporate more but Matt was just giving an example. Matt was refering to the combinations- Not the full curriculum.. Those 30 combinations did not include the 30 punch techniques, animal tech., club, knife, gun, and ground techniques. 105 techniques i think is a small amount compared to some of the kenpo schools out there and a huge amount compared to others. Now i do not know which is better of worse i do not have enough time in to know any better. But i do know that of the combinations i have i can use them left, right, for grabs and in a numerous amount of other variations for the scenario. As for the MMA thing, to my recollection, GM Pesare's 1st black belt GM Carpenter was in the first ever sanctioned full contact anything goes MMA fight- where his opponent did not survive. If all he had was 21 combinations (I dont know) I think that was enough. I know GM Carpenter and he is a dangerous person and i dont care if he only learned 1 technique i bet he can take us out 10 different ways with that one.
Mastering 1 kata is better than knowing 20.
In Peace
Jesse

Thanks for the sign of respect, but please don't refer to me as master. I know some people here insist on signing off with a master, shihan, or professor title attached to their name, but my signature says John, and that is good enough for anyone who is gracious enough to converse with me here.
Matt and myself have had many email conversations over the last couple of years, and although we don't agree on everything, we seem to share a mutual respect. And I'm sure he can speak for himself either here or in private communication with me. In this particular instance, I did and still do disagree with parts of his statement.
As to your example, I fail to understand what "the first sanctioned full contact anything goes MMA fight" has to do with the founding of the first MMA in America. People like Prof. Chow and Prof. Emperado did their fighting for real on the street without any sanctions, 20+ years before the contest your referring to.
And no one who knows anything about the history of mainland karate would ever say that Roger Carpenter was anything but a outstanding martial artist. But I'm sure it wasn't his intention to kill another human being in a sporting contest to prove his skill level. Unfortunetely those tragedies happen. People get killed in boxing rings, kickboxing rings, and even high school football games. If I thought that killing someone in a sporting contest was the true measure of a systems effectiveness, then I could also point out that Kajukenbo purple belt Victor Raposa retired from full contact karate after killing a man in the ring. Or I could say that western boxing was the best fighting system because Max Baer killed a man in a boxing match.

 

[RevIV]

Thanks for the sign of respect, but please don't refer to me as master. I know some people here insist on signing off with a master, shihan, or professor title attached to their name, but my signature says John, and that is good enough for anyone who is gracious enough to converse with me here.
Matt and myself have had many email conversations over the last couple of years, and although we don't agree on everything, we seem to share a mutual respect. And I'm sure he can speak for himself either here or in private communication with me. In this particular instance, I did and still do disagree with parts of his statement.
As to your example, I fail to understand what "the first sanctioned full contact anything goes MMA fight" has to do with the founding of the first MMA in America. People like Prof. Chow and Prof. Emperado did their fighting for real on the street without any sanctions, 20+ years before the contest your referring.
And no one who knows anything about the history of mainland karate would ever say that Roger Carpenter was anything but a outstanding martial artist. But I'm sure it wasn't his intention to kill another human being in a sporting contest to prove his skill level. Unfortunetely those tragedies happen. People get killed in boxing rings, kickboxing rings, and even high school football games. If I thought that killing someone in a sporting contest was the true measure of a systems effectiveness, then I could also point out that Kajukenbo purple belt Victor Raposa retired from full contact karate after killing a man in the ring. Or I could say that western boxing was the best fighting system because Max Baer killed a man in a boxing match.

John,

Thank you for the reply, Matt is a good friend of mine and was at my wedding a few weeks back, I wasnt really trying to defend him, he can do it much better than i can. Respect goes to where its earned, I wrote Master for you beause i have seen it on others but never when you write so i will stay with just john, I have seen your humbleness on other forums, the one i like the most is about doing a seminar just for the chance to go fishing and hunting.. I believe that was you.. I did not harp on the kill.. said it once and i know that was not the intention of the fight and it does not prove anything you just seemed offended that Sijo was placed with these other Masters and I just didnt get it. PRof. Chow throughout the decades refined, restructured and added pieces of other arts to his own.. I think he referred to his system with 4 different names each one the next generation of the other. GM Pesare took what he had learned from GGM Gascon and then incorporated his own things also. We both know that All three of these men I just mentioned would, could, and did bring it to the streets when needed (and not needed). I brought up the sanctioned fight because you brought up the MMA, and now i realize that you were refering to MMA in a defferent manner. When i here MMA now a days I just think of UFC, or any of the caged fights. The way you speak of MMA is the way i think of Kempo in the first place. To continue the diversity of GM Pesare- he holds a tournament once a year - 9 events - Boxing, Kicking, Grappling, Blade v. Blade, Stick v. Stick, Sword v. Sword, knife throwing, archery, pistol. you must compete in all events and the overall highest point score wins. This brings in a lot of different styles and shows the diversity here.
In Peace
Jesse

 

[Matt]

Sijo Emperado shouldn't be lumped in with these other kenpo/kempo masters. His whole reason for getting together with the other four founders of Kajukenbo was to have more, not stay with the status quo of less is better. They created this whole thing everyone is now calling mixed martial arts.
If your running chain schools or video programs where someone can earn a black belt in 12-18 months, then 30 combinations is probably a good number.
But if your black belts are training 5-6 years for their student black, then 105 combinations is not a large amount of material.
Sijo Emperado never settled for less. He always looked for the right tool for the right job. His Original Method of Kajukenbo has 105 defensive combinations divided into punch, grab, knife, club, and multiple attacker defenses. It also has 14 katas.
And then there's 3 more branches of the Original Method.

John -
First, sorry to be so slow to get back to this - summer school is keeping me busy. I think I may not have articulated my point as well as I could have. There's a continuum that I see in the martial arts, as far as curriculum goes, and it reminds me of a description my earth science teacher gave me of how long an essay should be. In his words, it should be like a mini-skirt: Long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to be interesting. In the case of martial arts, any given curriculum should have enough material to cover the predicted adverisites, but not be littered with redundancy. In the field of motor learning, there is a provable, repeatable effect that as the number of response choices available increases, so does response time. Additionally, if you have a finite number of practice hours, as the 'required' items increase in number, the number of hours per technique of practice goes down. If the amount of practice time falls lower than the threshold where 'automatic response' comes into play, the chance of applying them real time becomes somewhere around diddley.

Now, as far as 'lumping' Sijo Emperado in with the Kempo folks, I did as far as intensity goes. But, as you said, Sijo got together to get 'more'. He didn't necessarily get more 'stuff', but mainly more 'ideas'. If you go to an original method school, you don't learn Tang Soo Do, Chinese Boxing, American Boxing, Kenpo, Judo and Jujutsu; you learn Kajukenbo. He (and they) took what they had and created a new cohesive whole out of it. If they simply glued the five arts together, it would have been an an abomination and unwieldy. They took what they had, sifted, pared and created, less as it would have taken five lifetimes to study those arts. It does touch back on your mention of 'right tool for the job'. How many half inch box wrenches do you need? One for each hand perhaps? After that it seems to be redundant to carry more.

Finally, as far as the 'numbers' game breaks down, I think part of the problem with my answer is in terminology. Combinations are 'defenses against a right step through punch' in Shaolin Kempo and some karazenpo groups. Some vary the attacks, use hooks, crosses when appropriate. I didn't mention:
Grab Techniques.
Kempo Punch techniques.(more step through front punches)
'Animal' techniques. (even more step through front punches)
Knife defenses.
Club defenses.
5 Pinans (forms)
6 Katas. (other series of forms)
and more...

For my shodan test, it worked out to about 90 or so techniques. What I'm saying about Shaolin Kempo, is that nobody needs more than 108 answers just for a right hand step through punch.

Okay, maybe that wasn't finally, since I'm writing 'one more thing.' As far as the original method having 105 techniques - is that for black belt or is that 'total'? It seems reasonable. And, as far as I know, most folks study one branch of Kajukenbo at a time. Is there any one person that has studied the full curriculum of all of the branches and can bring any given technique out from memory?


Matt

 

[Matt]

Perhaps you are correct Matt, however, what is the purpose of finding the original content, if not to understand how to become better and how to produce better students?

I'm certainly not discouraging that aspect - as I'm sure you know how much digging in that direction that I've done over the years. However, I just want to point out that the techniques aren't going to be what does it. You are. You will be the difference in your students. Every technique you teach can be had elsewhere. However, you are the one who will make it useful by teaching how, when and why to use it.

Perhaps the more techniques helps to motivate students to higher intensity levels and is not merely a marketing ploy. I agree with Master Bishop's post that a curricullum for black belt involving at least 5-6 years of work and training, with many yechniques and forms shold not inhibit intensity, but rather versatility and broader understanding so as to help them make the material work for them in ways that were not presented in class or a seminar or a book.
And lastly my question had to do with the curricullum, despite my feeling that it was training that mattered more than style /curricullum...perhaps i wam mistaken. It is not semantics to my understanding at this stage, rather seeking the training that is truth in terms of product...i.e . an effective martial artist...by corollory an effective teacher.

Respectfully,
Marlon

It was a semantics thing, but there is an upper limit. I just thought you had inadvertently hit the nail on the head. More is not always better, and sometimes it is worse. The versatility is encouraged by limits in quantity and exploring using the principles of the technique in depth and generality.
Matt

 

[Matt]

In terms of how many techniques there are Prof. Chow apparently had a HUGE amount of them. According to his students, he never taught the same thing twice. I don't know if that simply meant that he had a never ending supply of learned techniques, or that he made them up s he went, or that he saw something he liked and brought that in to his curriculum (if one can even call what he did a curriculum). In other words, I don't think that the "Less is More" idea applied to Prof. Chow either. It sounds more like a recent construct to pare something down to a size that can be taught quickly.

You are correct in stating that he had a huge number of techniques, and I've heard the same thing about never teaching the same thing twice. That's exactly what I'm trying to get at. He didn't have a giant list of technique a1 through a1300. He had a core of principles, and could apply them on the fly. What people saw was the example of the principle, but the lesson was the idea. That's why it didn't reappear in verbatim, it was just 'an example'. They then worked the idea to death, forwards, backwards, inside out, and then hopefully absorbed it. It's not a 'teach quickly' sort of thing.
Caution - Matt's ego example coming up
I had a private student who moved away. He was a brown belt, and a pretty good one. He came to me with a pile of material, combos, kempos, forms, etc. We spent the next year and some ripping apart 1-5 kata from the ground up. We added almost nothing as far as new techniques go. When he arrived at his new school, the folks there were blown away. Why? His depth of understanding. We threw away many things, but as far as how to move, he improved substantially. He has actually left that school, as they seemed more interested in 'collecting techniques' and kept having him teach class to explain the bunkai of their forms (even though he hadn't learned them yet). The new school he is at seems to fit him better, but then again, they are more impressed with his quality of movement than whether or not he has combinations 28, 29 or 30.

 

[marlon]

based on the information provided by John Bishop, i think i will now refer to shaolin kempo as a Mitose-Chow related art, as are AK, Kajukenbo, JKara-ho, Shaolin kenpo, and the goshin jutsu of Bill Chun and Hawaiian kempo. The things i see related in these arts are teaching defenses outside of forms/kata, multiple strikes off of a mobile base, built around the idea of a multiple attacker situation, elements of striking-grappling-aiki jitsu, street orientated, and low kicks (the exception being Kara Ho). Just my thoughts

Respectfully,
Marlon

 

[Danjo]

based on the information provided by John Bishop, i think i will now refer to shaolin kempo as a Mitose-Chow related art, as are AK, Kajukenbo, JKara-ho, Shaolin kenpo, and the goshin jutsu of Bill Chun and Hawaiian kempo. The things i see related in these arts are teaching defenses outside of forms/kata, multiple strikes off of a mobile base, built around the idea of a multiple attacker situation, elements of striking-grappling-aiki jitsu, street orientated, and low kicks (the exception being Kara Ho). Just my thoughts

Respectfully,
Marlon

Well, the issue with this has been dealt with at length before, but when you talk about AK, Kajukenbo and Shaolin Kempo, you're talking about mixed martial arts in the sense that they had multiple influences from their founders. In other words, it's reductive to say they are "Mitose-Chow" related arts. AK had a great deal of kung fu and other inovations put into it by Mr. Parker and his end product looked almost nothing like his teacher Prof. Chow's.

Kajukenbo, by its very name, tells you that it is comprised of over five different martial arts, Karate, Judo/Jujutsu, Kenpo, and Chinese Boxing (also Escrima and American Boxing), and while Prof. Chow was always impressed with Kajukenbo and Sijo Emperado, it was not what he taught himself.

Shaolin Kempo Karate, has several different influences also. Pesare had a purple belt in Karazenpo, then he got black belts in Aikido, Judo, Taekwondo and escrima. Most of which went in to his system. Then, his student Nick Cerio put in a great deal of Shotokan kata and technique. Cerio's student Villari put in a good many more changes from his various influences with an end product that is unique and doesn't resemble the previously mentioned arts.

Though I've only seen a small bit of Chun's Kempo, I understand that it is pretty close to what he learned from Prof. Chow back in the early days. Though I believe that he also had TKD expertise that he may have brought into it.

 

[Joe Shuras]

Here's a little updated information I posted on Martial Arts Planet a little while ago, hopefully it will answer some questions.

Here's what I know. Again, due to history being history, especially verbal history, sometimes I may end up with several accounts of the same event or as Bruce Corrigan pointed out, sometimes I could be given inaccurate information but in good faith, so I'll report what I've been told and everyone can take it for what it's worth.

I do wish to remind you that all martial arts, and in all due respect and I mean that, Kajukenbo is no exception but neither is any other art, they all have confusing dates, events, inaccuracies, who trained in what and under who, blah, blah, blah. I was just looking at Tang Soo Do lately, wow, what confusion there. One of my 4th dans is also a 2nd dan in Hapkido. He told me there are two senior grandmaster founders, both laying claim to the system with different histories. Confusion in EPAK and Chow and promotions and the Jimmy Woo controversy. Chow himself, no one really knows where his Kung Fu came from and if he really had a 5th dan in judo and exactly what his father knew or didn't know. This should not, however, reflect negatively on any of our arts. Having said that, let's get to some good discussion.

The Godin mystery. Okay, I liked Walter Godin also the week I met him in Virginia. We had a blast out there, both in training but socially too! This is what I know. It has been posted on other forums, maybe even this one too, about Godin's problems with the law and his incarcerations involving narcotics so I'm not letting the cat out of the bag. Last I knew, his daughter was supposed to be writing a book on his life but I haven't heard anything for several years now. Sonny Gas had sent for Walter Godin to train with him and to assist in KGS in an attempt to keep him away from certain elements and out of trouble. Sonny Gas is very anti drugs. Unfortunately, this didn't work out and Godin left after that short period of time, I think around 6 weeks as Mike Rash reported. I'm not sure exactly how long after but this eventually led to his first incarceration. Later, ammends were made and Sonny Gascon took him back in and both seemed to get along quite well when I was in their company in 1994. Now, again, I'm not sure of the dates because I don't have them but Godin did another stint (I was told he did two stints in prison), I don't know if it was this time or that he just got in some kind of trouble that Sonny found out about but that's when Sonny Gas wrote him off for the final time. That's why the patch change and so forth. Sonny Gas brought him in, in good faith with good intentions but it didn't work out. So, that's the story on that. I didn't want to say too much before but when I recently did a search I found a thread where this was discussed (incarcerations) so I'm not giving away anything here. It's unfortunate but Professor Godin made some mistakes and misjudgements in his life. He's certainly not alone.

Okay, you mentioned George Pesare. When Bruce Corrigan first contacted Sonny Gas the name (Pesare) did not immediately ring a bell, this was back just before the private gathering we had in 1994 but when Bruce discussed it further, Sonny Gascon did indeed remember George Pesare. Remember, at this time it was like 35 years ago. I spoke to Sonny Gas myself, personally, and he told me George was a good fighter and he emphasized that, and although the smallest of his students, he held his own against anyone he threw at him. He also stated no matter how much of a beating he took in training, George Pesare would always show up bright and early the next morning ready to train again. He also stated he didn't know exactly how long Pesare trained under him but it may have been 4 or 5 months or so. Now, I know, we've all heard the 2 1/2 months and the purple belt thing. Mr. Pesare stated to me and Kathy once, after we saw and was totally impressed by his DVD of his 60's training, "2 1/2 months of training, huh?" and he laughed. He even sent a recent e-mail joking about it ( the 2 1/2 months) to his mailing list. I say to anyone, please send for the DVD and you will see why.

Now, I remember Bruce telling me not too long ago, from what he recalls, George Pesare trained in the Karazenpo on the west coast around a year and two or three months, so we got 14-15 months not 2 1/2 months or 4 or 5. Please also bear in mind, however long it was, this wasn't two or three 60 or 90 minute classes a week but it was from dawn 'till dusk and sometimes into the night. I believe on Saturday's, however, was party time, and they would have a lua. George lived with the Hawiians during this time. If you look back at this period, you will see guys like James Ibrao who made black under Ed Parker in 9 months, Joe Lewis in 7 months, Mike Stone in 6 months. There is an article I still have from a History of Kenpo (New England), from what I recall it was at least two volumes long in Nick Cerio's International Martial Arts Association Newsletter (NCIMAA). In it there is a story of Mr. Pesare training in California and during testing, he threw a jump spinning back kick (later to become one if his signature techniques) right into the rib cage of a large Hawaiian guest instructor who came to assist in the test. It was stated from the look on his face, Pesare passed the test. Later, of course, he came back to Rhode Island and resumed his training in Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido, Judo, Eskrima, Aikido, Boxing, Shotokan, Tai Chi amongst other arts and weaponery. Dan, you and I have also spoke about Nick Cerio stating Mr. Pesare did indeed have a black belt certificate in KGS from the west coast because he saw it when it arrived, implying the paperwork came a little later from the time he initially brought the art to New England which is perfectly acceptable during that era.

There is no question in anyone's mind, at least I hope there isn't, that these men are indeed, the real deals. They are most certainly accepted by their peers and seniors as such and all have publically and formerly acknowleged them as such. Why the discrepencies? Who knows..... Why did William Chow say Ed Parker was a purple belt in "The Lost Interview"? Why the twists and turns in the history and lineages of all the arts? I guess we can just go back to Bruce Corrigan's post, I think he said it best.

Dan, I have answered your post as honestly as I can, that's all I can do. Take care & be safe, Joe

Note of edit: Dan, to explain this a little further - Okay, you mentioned George Pesare. When Bruce Corrigan first contacted Sonny Gas the name (Pesare) did not immediately ring a bell, this was back just before the private gathering we had in 1994 but when Bruce discussed it further, Sonny Gascon did indeed remember George Pesare. Remember, at this time it was like 35 years ago.

Dan, from what I gathered Sonny didn't connect the name with the face right away but once Bruce continued his description of SGM. Pesare, he immediately remembered. - Joe

 

[Joe Shuras]

Here's a little more that may help sort out a few things erroneously reported on the 'net'.

if I recall on a previous post I did say that Sonny Gas did not recollect a David Kamalani. This I didn't ask of Sonny, Mike Rash did and told me. I believe, again, according to what has been written, that Kamalani died in a car accident something like a year after he opened a school. Now, Kamalani contributing #3 kata came from Bill Mailman's website. I did get that info. as I had previously stated through Peter Teymourez but remember, Peter, who is, undisputedly, an honest man, was a student of Mailman's so that's obviously where he received it. Although Mailman was originally from the Boston area, I never met him nor heard of him until Peter.

Now these so called 'facts' on the J. Madriga (Mailman) site have been answered by Sonny Gascon, I think pretty thoroughly. Yes, there is some faded memory and he admits it but hell, we're talking events that took place in the 50's and very early 60's, I think we should cut him some slack. I'd be willing to bet this would apply to anyone whom we would interview and ask questions regarding people and events that transpired so long ago. Like Bruce Corrigan said, people have trouble remembering accurately what transpired 20 years ago, never mind nearly 50 years! I did not really want to get into the the Godin questions you asked me earlier, out of respect to his memory, family and lineage, I was not being evasive in any way. Yes, regretably, he made mistakes. I pulled up a thread on M/T where John was discussing his incarceration in a post and came to realize it's a well known fact in the Kempo world so I answered your questions.

This is now my opinion, I'm going to guess at this one but I'd bet I'm on the money. The history page on the Mailman website, J. Madriga. Mike Rash, another instructor and Bill Mailman had a falling out years ago. It sprang up again when Chris Geary posted an e-mail on his Guestbook from Mailman. Mailman had no idea Geary was going to post his private e-mail. (it has since been deleted). Mike Rash confronted Mailman about it and Cc'd me all the e-mails. He took issue with what was said and several others who were around then also reponded in support of Mike and what really transpired. It doesn't matter the details because it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. The only reason I mention it, is that it shows a motive of why on Mailman's website the history is totally slanted against Sonny Gascon with an emphasis on Walter Godin as the founder. Know what I mean? I believe it was his way of tucking it to Mike. Well, Mailman sent Mike a very humble e-mail over the whole thing which I thought was class. These things happen in life.

Anyway, this is the b.s. that goes on in everyone's house, not just Karazenpo's. Dan, you had used the term 'Official History". It is my belief that because something is the 'Official History' it does not mean it is the exact history. I think a better term for it is "Accepted History". All these arts, all of them, have a history that through the years became 'accepted' and your current art is no different, no zing here what-so-ever, we're all in the same boat, all of us and I say, big deal, who cares.....I tried very hard to have a nice factual history of the art but it is impossible. I totally agree with Bruce Corrigan. Who the hell cares? We all have a great martial art to practice for a lifetime, both you and me, that was built on the blood, sweat and tears of those who came before us. Our arts have been around for 50 to 60 years and are still going strong. That's all that matters. Our arts will continue their successful propagation long after you and I have left this planet. Who could ask for anything more than that, that's better than history! Sincerely, Joe

 

[kenmpoka]

Here's a little more that may help sort out a few things erroneously reported on the 'net'.

if I recall on a previous post I did say that Sonny Gas did not recollect a David Kamalani. This I didn't ask of Sonny, Mike Rash did and told me. I believe, again, according to what has been written, that Kamalani died in a car accident something like a year after he opened a school. Now, Kamalani contributing #3 kata came from Bill Mailman's website. I did get that info. as I had previously stated through Peter Teymourez but remember, Peter, who is, undisputedly, an honest man, was a student of Mailman's so that's obviously where he received it. Although Mailman was originally from the Boston area, I never met him nor heard of him until Peter.

Now these so called 'facts' on the J. Madriga (Mailman) site have been answered by Sonny Gascon, I think pretty thoroughly. Yes, there is some faded memory and he admits it but hell, we're talking events that took place in the 50's and very early 60's, I think we should cut him some slack. I'd be willing to bet this would apply to anyone whom we would interview and ask questions regarding people and events that transpired so long ago. Like Bruce Corrigan said, people have trouble remembering accurately what transpired 20 years ago, never mind nearly 50 years! I did not really want to get into the the Godin questions you asked me earlier, out of respect to his memory, family and lineage, I was not being evasive in any way. Yes, regretably, he made mistakes. I pulled up a thread on M/T where John was discussing his incarceration in a post and came to realize it's a well known fact in the Kempo world so I answered your questions.

This is now my opinion, I'm going to guess at this one but I'd bet I'm on the money. The history page on the Mailman website, J. Madriga. Mike Rash, another instructor and Bill Mailman had a falling out years ago. It sprang up again when Chris Geary posted an e-mail on his Guestbook from Mailman. Mailman had no idea Geary was going to post his private e-mail. (it has since been deleted). Mike Rash confronted Mailman about it and Cc'd me all the e-mails. He took issue with what was said and several others who were around then also reponded in support of Mike and what really transpired. It doesn't matter the details because it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. The only reason I mention it, is that it shows a motive of why on Mailman's website the history is totally slanted against Sonny Gascon with an emphasis on Walter Godin as the founder. Know what I mean? I believe it was his way of tucking it to Mike. Well, Mailman sent Mike a very humble e-mail over the whole thing which I thought was class. These things happen in life.

Joe

Hey Joe,

Long time no hear, Just saw your post and wanted to clear up one thing.

The SKK's history was sent to me by Mr. Corrigan. I was then under the impression that J. Madriga was a student of his. I in turn gave the information to Mr. Mailman. If the history seems to be leaning more towards GM Godin, it is not Mr. Mailman's fault nor mine. Again, if I remember correctly, Mr. Corrigan and Mr. Gascon were in good terms back then. So why wasn't the information corrected? Please refer me to any recent discussion or corrections from GM. Gascon. At the time it was the most comprehensive research that existed on Shaolin Kempo Karate, and in my opinion still is.

The rest of the stuff that you wrote I have no idea about. Love to get updated. Please give a call when you get a chance.

Stay safe,

 

[Danjo]

Hey Joe,

Long time no hear, Just saw your post and wanted to clear up one thing.

The SKK's history was sent to me by Mr. Corrigan. I was then under the impression that J. Madriga was a student of his. I in turn gave the information to Mr. Mailman. If the history seems to be leaning more towards GM Godin, it is not Mr. Mailman's fault nor mine. Again, if I remember correctly, Mr. Corrigan and Mr. Gascon were in good terms back then. So why wasn't the information corrected? Please refer me to any recent discussion or corrections from GM. Gascon. At the time it was the most comprehensive research that existed on Shaolin Kempo Karate, and in my opinion still is.

The rest of the stuff that you wrote I have no idea about. Love to get updated. Please give a call when you get a chance.

Stay safe,

I'm sure that after Walter Godin died a lot was "updated".

 

[kenmpoka]

I'm sure that after Walter Godin died a lot was "updated".

I know, this happens all the time......

 

[John Bishop]

I know, this happens all the time......

Yes, there is a move by some to minimize the role that Prof. Godin played in Karazenpo.

 

[Joe Shuras]

Yes, there is a move by some to minimize the role that Prof. Godin played in Karazenpo.

In all due respect, John, if you have any evidence of such a move please report it here and I will personally check it out.....again. I, for one, as I reported above, liked Walter Godin and would not at all want to see him unjustly 'minimized' in the KGS history, however, I did what you do when you have a question involving Kajukenbo, you go to the source, Adriano Emperado. So, I went directly to the source, Sonny Gascon, and so did Mike Rash, and that's what he told us. I have read several posts of yours over the years where you mention Walter Godin's stints in prison and Mr. Gascon's account seems reasonable to me. This could have all been cleared up along with any other other questions if you only had met with him last fall when he was on the west coast. So, if that is who you are referring to in this move against Prof. Godin's role in KGS, fine, I will forward this to Sonny Gascon. - Joe

 

[Joe Shuras]

Hey Joe,

Long time no hear, Just saw your post and wanted to clear up one thing.

The SKK's history was sent to me by Mr. Corrigan. I was then under the impression that J. Madriga was a student of his. I in turn gave the information to Mr. Mailman. If the history seems to be leaning more towards GM Godin, it is not Mr. Mailman's fault nor mine. Again, if I remember correctly, Mr. Corrigan and Mr. Gascon were in good terms back then. So why wasn't the information corrected? Please refer me to any recent discussion or corrections from GM. Gascon. At the time it was the most comprehensive research that existed on Shaolin Kempo Karate, and in my opinion still is.

The rest of the stuff that you wrote I have no idea about. Love to get updated. Please give a call when you get a chance.

Stay safe,

Hi Peter, great to here from you. Some of the information I wrote about came directly from Sonny Gascon. I spoke to him directly about certain events and Mike Rash spoke to him about other things I reported here. The rest of the information came from Bruce Corrigan to me directly. We spoke at length recently over the phone.

Peter, I do remember that your information came from Bruce Corrigan but I didn't know the #3 kata created by David Kamalani also came from Bruce. I have Bruce's history here also and I didn't see any mention of this nor did he mention it in my recent phone conversation but then again, I didn't ask him. So, when I was asked in a post as to my source of the Kamalani situation (someone thought I must have got it from J. Madriga) I stated I had received it from you long before I ever read the J. Madriga history. I remember you telling me you were a student of Bill Mailman's as I believed he was your source. So, my question is, who is this J. Madriga?... if it is not a pen name for Mr. Mailman.... If you don't know, I'll call Bruce and ask and then I'll call you and let you know what I found out. Take care & be safe, my brother - Joe

 

[Joe Shuras]

John -
First, sorry to be so slow to get back to this - summer school is keeping me busy. I think I may not have articulated my point as well as I could have. There's a continuum that I see in the martial arts, as far as curriculum goes, and it reminds me of a description my earth science teacher gave me of how long an essay should be. In his words, it should be like a mini-skirt: Long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to be interesting. In the case of martial arts, any given curriculum should have enough material to cover the predicted adverisites, but not be littered with redundancy. In the field of motor learning, there is a provable, repeatable effect that as the number of response choices available increases, so does response time. Additionally, if you have a finite number of practice hours, as the 'required' items increase in number, the number of hours per technique of practice goes down. If the amount of practice time falls lower than the threshold where 'automatic response' comes into play, the chance of applying them real time becomes somewhere around diddley.

Now, as far as 'lumping' Sijo Emperado in with the Kempo folks, I did as far as intensity goes. But, as you said, Sijo got together to get 'more'. He didn't necessarily get more 'stuff', but mainly more 'ideas'. If you go to an original method school, you don't learn Tang Soo Do, Chinese Boxing, American Boxing, Kenpo, Judo and Jujutsu; you learn Kajukenbo. He (and they) took what they had and created a new cohesive whole out of it. If they simply glued the five arts together, it would have been an an abomination and unwieldy. They took what they had, sifted, pared and created, less as it would have taken five lifetimes to study those arts. It does touch back on your mention of 'right tool for the job'. How many half inch box wrenches do you need? One for each hand perhaps? After that it seems to be redundant to carry more.

Finally, as far as the 'numbers' game breaks down, I think part of the problem with my answer is in terminology. Combinations are 'defenses against a right step through punch' in Shaolin Kempo and some karazenpo groups. Some vary the attacks, use hooks, crosses when appropriate. I didn't mention:
Grab Techniques.
Kempo Punch techniques.(more step through front punches)
'Animal' techniques. (even more step through front punches)
Knife defenses.
Club defenses.
5 Pinans (forms)
6 Katas. (other series of forms)
and more...

For my shodan test, it worked out to about 90 or so techniques. What I'm saying about Shaolin Kempo, is that nobody needs more than 108 answers just for a right hand step through punch.

Okay, maybe that wasn't finally, since I'm writing 'one more thing.' As far as the original method having 105 techniques - is that for black belt or is that 'total'? It seems reasonable. And, as far as I know, most folks study one branch of Kajukenbo at a time. Is there any one person that has studied the full curriculum of all of the branches and can bring any given technique out from memory?


Matt

Hi Matt, don't worry about the "lumped together" comment but John does have a point because if George Pesare read this post he wouldn't want to be "lumped together" either for his own reasons...... I did, however, understand what you meant by it though and thought it was a good post - Joe

 

[John Bishop]

This could have all been cleared up along with any other other questions if you only had met with him last fall when he was on the west coast. So, if that is who you are referring to in this move against Prof. Godin's role in KGS, fine, I will forward this to Sonny Gascon. - Joe

First off don't assume to know who I'm referring to. Or even if it is just one person. If I have a personal problem with anyone, I'll talk to them personally. I don't need messengers, or a forum to talk to them.

 

[Joe Shuras]

First off don't assume to know who I'm referring to. Or even if it is just one person. If I have a personal problem with anyone, I'll talk to them personally. I don't need messengers, or a forum to talk to them.

First off Bud, don't tell me what to assume, or anything else for that matter, this isn't the "Third Reich". Secondly, since all this has been posted on Mike Rash's 'personal' KGS website and has been discussed on some forums, let's not play games. You know Sonny Gascon supplied the information to Mike to post, no assumption here, I know exactly who you mean and you're not fooling anyone else either. No, you don't need forums, or messengers to talk to them nor do you do it 'personally' either, as you claim, you just make your inuendos, 'assumptions' (that sounds familiar, lol) and cheap shots on the forums. Relax, John and give Sonny a call, he's waiting to hear from you... - Joe

 

[Joe Shuras]

Yes, there is a move by some to minimize the role that Prof. Godin played in Karazenpo.

Concerning USSD and Villari's-Please Read
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