Originally posted by Bill Smith
My thesis is done but not turned in. I had to take a pause in Kenpo. My family was getting an overload on Kenpo and me. I'm still training, just took a small vacation from the studio.
Back to the topic, mine was on Kenpo strikes. What kind of damage or harm to the body, what are the effects to the organs and the long or short term effects.
I believe Mr. Parker quoted (to make a long story short) "do you want to die in two weeks or today". The story I heard was about two individuals coming into his studio to challenge him to a fight. He invited them to join a class to see what Kenpo was about but they kept pressing him to fight. He ended his conversation with what I typed above. That story got me interested strike damage to the human anatomy.
Mr. C will be the authority on this one because I'm not sure, as I said I was told this years ago. I'm not sure if it's fact or fiction.
As a Kenpo stylist, you should know what kind of effects happen when executing Kenpo strikes, weither it be for real or in the studio.
Bill Smith
Mr. Smith,
You have touched one of the issues that many in Kenpo have ignored or misunderstood. The story became to be known as "The Menu of Death" story and Ed Parker told it a lot to just about everybody more than once. Everyone always laughed at the punch line ("Do you want to die today, tomorrow, or next week?) but Parker would always tell me, "They don't get it yet." Nobody ever asked him the implications of the story. What did he mean? Was he going to beat them up today, or find them next week and kill them? That really didn't make sense, but they laughed anyway.
What Parker was alluding to was his knowledge in progress of "Dim Mak," or the "death touch." In this Martial Science, you are supoosed to be able to regulate when a person dies with a "delayed death touch." Extensive knowledge of specific human TCM cycles and sensitivity of organs in conjunction with the location of nerve cavities associated with specific postures etc.
Evertime Ed Parker told that story he was waiting for someone to ask him what he meant because on one level he wanted to talk about it. As far as I know, no one ever did. Ed Parker had serious knowledge of many aspects of the arts that never found its way into the Lesson Plan of Motion-Kenpo.
Parker knew more about Hung Gar, (Lao Boon) Five Animal, Splashing Hands, (Ark Wong / Tiny Lefiti) Mok Gar, Chin na, (James Woo) San Soo (Jimmy Woo) gung fu then many who claimed these arts as their own.
You obviously have your thinking hat on. The simple answers you want can be actually found in Ed Parker's first book on Kenpo published in 1961. It has a simple nerve chart in it as well as the implications and possible physical effects of specific strikes. Yes the preliminary information has been floating around all this time, and Ed Parker never put it print again. This will be a good place to start from the AK perspective.
