How to Make Kenpo Karate Perfect

Are there Too Many Kenpo Techniques?

I wrote the following comment on a forum where I had posed a question concerning Kenpo having too many techniques. Thought it deserved a reprint here, because it goes to the heart of Matrixing. You can find the original article here…

https://alcase.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/ed-parker-finally-speaks-on-too-many-kenpo-techniques-2/

150 Kenpo Techniques matrixed

I wrote a dictionary of Martial Arts. You can find it somewhere on the net if you google ’Matrixing Technical dictionary.’

The thing that actually got me started on this thing of too many techniques for Kenpo is this simple fact: When you line up the techniques in your system they are taught a) out of order, and b) they’re are missing techniques. This has turned out to be an absolute, and this is why it takes people so many years to maser the martial arts. The first time I wrote out a list of techniques, in order and no missing pieces, the result on the students were astounding. It wasn’t even a combat sequence, it was just stand up grab arts, and there were only forty of them, but suddenly the guys were free styling like they had years of experience. The learning curve went out the roof, so I started doing it to everything, and the same results were evident in every art I had. The conclusion was this: if the art is in order, with no missing pieces, the learning curve can be up to ten times faster. The lack was in polish, but if the student stuck with it, the polish happened within a couple of months. So even that was transformed. Anyway, I started the martial arts back in 1967. and in that time I have never seen an art with all the pieces and in the right order. It just doesn’t happen. But if they did, I speak from personal experience, the result is an art that functions on a conceptual level, and is much faster and easier to learn.

Have a great work out!

Al from monstermartialarts.com

BTW ~ the special two courses for the price of one will be over on the first of January. Go to MonsterMartialArts.com, pick out any course, order it, then pick out another course of equal value, and email me (aganzul@gmail.com) and let me know. You’ll get that second course for free!

MonsterMartialArts.com came into existence in 2002. The first Matrix course (Matrix Karate) was introduced in 2007.

The Five Kenpos of Edmund Parker

How Many Versions of Kenpo Karate were there?

The first Kenpo of Ed Parker was actually Okinawan Karate. One can see the forms in the string of techniques in his first book. Forms were actually not taught, except, I believe, for Naihanchi and maybe one or two others.

Three part series analysis 150 kenpo techniques

The second version was a blend of Karate and jujitsu. This version was originally taught in a small temple in Japan.

The third Kenpo of Mr. Parker was actually created by James Wing Woo, a kung Fu stylist who taught Ed’s class, and helped him write a book while he lived in Pasadena. This was the version of kenpo from which many of the forms were originated.

The fourth kenpo was a reworking and renaming of the 3rd version.

The fifth and final Kenpo was created by Ed Parker to replace the earlier styles of Kenpo. He was proud of the fact that it actually wasn’t kenpo anymore.

Now, this all stated, one has to ask why there were so many styles. The answer is simple, Ed was trying to simplify and make sense out of the mess.

The fact of the matter is that the martial arts are random sequences of motions. This causes the art to be hard to learn, and hard to apply. It is simply hard to memorize to the point of intuition so much data.

Ed was trying to simplify and make sense out of the thing so that students could learn faster (among other reasons).

Unfortunately, he failed.

He came close, but his efforts were still comprised of random sequences of motion.

Each method he designed or compiled or whatever was built upon the ashes of the previous, tried to include new concepts and theories he had come across, and does not make summation of kenpo, or the martial arts.

Was he wrong for doing what he did? Not at all. His work was ground breaking and innovative, he just lacked the logic and perspective to bring it all together.

Does it mean that the kenpo you are studying is wrong?

Nope.

For Kenpo is a manifestation of knowledge, and each person contains the knowledge in his own unique way.

Though Ed failed to make the art a science, it is still an art, and it is still whatever people make it.

About the Author: Al Case began kenpo in 1967. He has just written a three volume series scientifically analyzing 150 kenpo techniques called, ‘How to Create Kenpo Karate.’