The Softer Side

[MJS]

Street effective, brutal, deadly, overkill. Those are a few words that often come to mind when we talk about Kenpo and Kajukenbo. If we look at any number of the techniques, we see some effective moves, as well as some very destructive ones.

Many times, when discussing techniques the 'legal' side usually comes up, especially when we're talking about eye shots, breaking things, and all of the other things that come with the Kenpo package.

So..what is your take on the techniques and how they're applied? Do you make any changes to take out some of the more destructive things and substitue them with something that won't cause as much damage? Now, I'm not talking about totally reworking a move, I'm simply saying that instead of an eye jab, changing that to a palm strike, if the eye jab is warrranted. Usually in the SL4 discussions, it seems like certain things have been changed or are different, giving it a less lethal flavor to it.

 

[IWishToLearn]

I'll admit I've been influenced by a certain group of mad kenpo scientists myself, and I have several members of law enforcement groups in my classes...so I have a tendency to steer my instruction away from legally harder to defend attacks in favor of more humane ways of controlling your opponent. As mentioned above, attacks with palm strikes instead of eye pokes...gall bladder strikes rather than testicles, etc.