American Kenpo Karate May Be Overweight And Unwieldy!

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[I:http://www.aikido-judo-karate.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/AlCase41.gif]I sauntered into my first American Kenpo Karate dojo over 4 decades ago. This was the Rod Martin offshoot of Tracys Kenpo, which had broken from Ed Parker Kenpo Karate. Therein lies the first problem with the art of American Kenpo.

It grew much too fast. In the east instructors didn’t teach until they had a minimum of a decade of experience, had studied under a variety of teachers and had learned a variety of martial arts styles. We were borning 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 of the versions. There are senseis who have created combat kenpo and tournament kenpo and MMA kenpo, and so on. It seems there are as many types of kenpo as there are people practicing 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 number of techniques I saw how the changes were sometimes small, and sometimes large, but always tailored by the person making the changes. Now, to be honest, every art should be a creation of the individual, and kenpo does seem suited to this. Still, it would be nice to have an exact set of applications, and maybe a list of exact concepts that would standardize the kenpo art before individual martial arts instructors expanded it with their own variations.

In the final analysis, I boiled the techniques of five complete arts, with a couple or three partial arts, down to 40 specific 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.

Al Case, the greatest martial arts writer of all time (almost 2,000,000 words in print), is at Monster Martial Arts. You can see his forty technique variation of American Kenpo Karate there. Make sure you get his free book on Matrixing. 1