subject: What You Can Do To Fix American Kenpo Karate And Make It Easier To Teach! [print this page] I walked into my first American Kenpo Karate dojo over 40 years ago. This was the Rod Martin version of Tracys Kenpo, which was avariation of Ed Parker Kenpo Karate. Therein lies the first problem with American Kenpo.
It grew much too quickly. In the east senseis didn't instruct until they had a minimum of a decade of experience, had studied under a variety of masters and had learned a variety of martial arts styles. We were creating senseis every 3 years, which is how long it took to bring a student to black belt back then.
Of course, there is also the problem of which kenpo is the true kenpo? Ed Parker, you see, developed five different kenpos. If you learned an earlier version, is it now considered...less than kenpo?
And, this bring us to the fact that there are variations on the variations. There are people who have evolved combat kenpo and tournament kenpo and MMA kenpo, and so on. It seems there are as many kenpos as there are people studying it.
I first became aware of this phenomena, too many versions, while putting together Monkey Boxing, which, in one sense, is my variation of kenpo, or at least as close as I can come to a kenpo. I had studied my a version of the variation of the art way back when, then I picked up Larry Tatum Kenpo, and I had come across some of the kenpo connection material, then I came across rather massive instruction books on Olympic kenpo, and I believe I had two other variations of the art.
As I went through the endless techniques I saw how the changes were sometimes small, and sometimes large, but always unique to the person making the changes. Now, to be sure, every art should be an expression of the individual, and kenpo does seem suited to this. Still, it would be nice to have a specific set of concepts, and maybe a list of techniques that would standardize the kenpo field before individual martial arts masters expanded it with their own variations.
In the end, I boiled the techniques of five complete arts, with a couple or three partial arts, down to forty techniques. I am sure there will be some who shake their heads at this. After all, how can one summate over 500 techniques, and all the evolutions thereof, with but 40 techniques?
Well, I offer no excuse, I merely advise the reader to set himself or herself the task of collecting sufficient versions that you might have a complete viewpoint of the art. Then, start organizing the overwhelming glut of knowledge. It will be a hard task, a number nine headache, but you might end up a true master of American Kenpo Karate.
