Why Did Ed Parker Make Five Styles of Kenpo?

The Five Kenpos of Ed Parker

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.

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

Complete scientific analysis of Kenpo Karate

Fiver versions of Kenpo Karate, and which one is the real one?

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.

Interestingly enough, Ed was proud that the last version of his Kenpo wasn’t Kenpo at all. If you want to read that story click on The Man Who Killed Kenpo.

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.’

Before People Knew What Kenpo Karate Was

Back in the Beginning of Kenpo…

I began studying Kenpo in 1967.
It was so unknown that it was called Kenpo Karate so it could be identified with the art of Karate. Not that that many people knew what karate was.

Check out How to Create Kenpo by Al Case. Fifty years of martial arts knowledge turned loose!

Kenpo was born in Japan. There are many lineages, but the specific Kenpo that is so widely known these days came from James Mitose, Thunderbolt Chow, Ed Parker, and finally, an instructor near you.

Martial Arts were not studied widely at the time, and usually it was fellows who were tough, who looked forward to the street fight, who studied them.

Kenpo came from Okinawan Karate and Japanese Jujitsu. There were other sourcss, many and varied, but the American style Kenpo you might study was likely based, at least in the beginning, on these arts.

Right from the outset Americans realized that Kenpo could be marketed more easily through tournaments, so we studied our freestyle rabidly, and we looked forward to the weekend trips.

For such a violent art, the participants at these tournaments proved to be a polite bunch. Schools were located a distance apart and there wasn’t much competition. Instructors actually looked forward to seeing each other, to comparing notes, and even learning a ‘secret’ technique or two.

And, outside of school, fights did happen. Proud warriors, Kenpo stylists, all martial artists, were happy to step up to a challenge, take umbrage at a veiled insult, trade fists with a goon.

We were more rabid back then. We didn’t do ten or twenty kicks and think we were done, we would do a couple of hundred and chide ourselves for being lazy. We would do forms by the hour. See if we could do 60 forms in an hour.

In short, we would exhaust ourselves. We would go for a run, do some weightlifting, and then freestyle for a couple of hours in class, and know that we were doing it right.

Mistakes? We made a ton of them. But over time we fixed them; the martial arts tend to be self fixing; the turn of the foot, the line of the wrist, the physics of the universe corrected us and were out teachers.

And now, near fifty years later, all we wish is one thing: to do it all again. To do Karate and Kenpo, to throw and kick and punch to our hearts content.

And we feel sorry for all those people who quit early, or who were born too late, or who were just too lax in their training to really find the truth: You are what you do, that is your measure, and that is your worth.

If you want a REALLY good book on Kenpo, consider ‘How to Create Kenpo’ by Al Case. It has the real history, the one you don’t hear much about, plus a section on how to do forms, plus 150 kenpo techniques, thoroughly analyzed so that you can be the best Kenpoka you can be. That’s How to Create Kenpo, available on Amazon. The hard work is up to you.

Here’s a fascinating bit of history: The Man Who Killed Kenpo.

The Man Who Killed Kenpo Karate Founder James Mitose

A Legendary Martial Artist!

James Mitose was the fellow who brought Kenpo Karate from Japan to Hawaii, and thence to the rest of the world.

And, who, you might ask, could ‘kill’ a fellow who had studied martial arts for decades? Who introduced Kenpo Karate to the world?

The story is right below, and it is a corker, with one of the most bizarre endings you will EVER read.

James Mitose ~ The Founder of Kenpo Karate

James Mitose was born in Hawaii in 1916. At the age of four years old his family returned to Japan that he might receive a good eduction.

One of the important elements of his education was the study of the martial arts.

The martial arts he studied included Okinawan Karate and Japanese Jujitsu. The training was done at the Mt. Akenkai Shaka-In temple.

In 1935, at the age of 21, James returned to Hawaii, and it wasn’t long before he began teaching Martial Arts. He called his art by the traditional names of Shorinji Kempo, and Kempo Jujitsu. Eventually, he settled on the name Kosho Shorei-ryu Kenpo.

Sensei Mitose taught martial arts for over ten years, but eventually stopped teaching and moved to Southern California, and here is where he met the man who would later ‘kill’ him.

Terry Lee (Nimr Hassan) ~ The Man Who Killed James Mitose

In Southern California James Mitose would teach only a few students, and one of these was a young man named Terry Lee. Mr. Lee changed his name to Nimr Hassan.

In the 70s Nimr Hassan was arrested for the murder of a Mr. Namimatsu. Mr. Namimatsu was stabbed multiple times, had a completely collapsed eye, and was strangled.

The evidence was clear cut. Not only was a footprint of Nimr Hassan on the victim’s chest, but he admitted his guilt in court by saying that he had done the stabbing and strangling, but he wasn’t guilty because when he left Mr. Namimatsu was still breathing.

At this point, the story takes a vicious turn: Terry Lee claimed that James Mitose gave him the weapons, which included a rope and an ice pick, and told him how to commit the crime.

James Mitose was arrested and taken to trial, and the result of that trial was a terrible miscarriage of justice.

Japanese translators were used, and even the court would admit, at a later date, that the translations were inadequate.

James denied inciting Terry Lee to murder, but stated that as his martial arts instructor he was responsible for the crime. On that flimsy ‘evidence,’ nothing more than a pointing finger and ‘he said,’ James Mitose was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

And Terry Lee? Nimr Hassan? For turning state evidence, for accusing the man who had taught him martial arts, he spent three years in prison.

After he was released from prison Terry would claim to be the legitimate inheritor of James Mitose’s martial arts system; he claimed to be the Hanshi of the Mitose family martial arts.

James Mitose would die in prison, while the man who effectively killed him would continue teaching martial arts for many years.

The Real History of Kenpo Karate 

If you liked this story, if you want some more real history, then you really need to read…’The Man Who Killed Kenpo.’ 

How Karate was Ruined 60 Years Ago!

Martial Arts Horror Story!

Hello and Good morning!
A wonderful work out to you!
That’s what it is all about…
working out
day after day
letting the results build up
until you become unstoppable!

It’s true.

Do you know this Okinawan Karate Master?

Okey donkey,
want to talk to you about what karate is.
Remember,
as you read this,
that you could well be asking
what kung fu is,
or what taekwondo is,
or any other martial art.
All martial arts have their own horror stories.
This happens to be the Karate version.
Well,
one of the karate versions.

Karate was invented in Okinawa.
Came to Japan in the 20s – 40s,
caught on with the rest of the world,
and everybody started assuming that Karate was Japanese.

Nope.
Karate is Okinawan,
and it has roots in China,
but techniques were taken from everywhere
put together in Okinawa,
and became one of the most powerful
closed combat systems ever.

People could shatter bricks with a punch,
twist green bamboo until it splintered,
and sorts of other things.

Now,
the most powerful political Japanese Karate association
is the JKF
Japanese Karate Federation.
They decided that Karate should
be done in gis,
should adhere to a belt rank system,
systematized terminology
set up a competitive format
and so on.

Some of these things are good,
some are bad,
some are mixed.
so let’s talk about the Shitei kata.
(Shee-tay)

Shitei means ‘specified’ form,
and these kata are required
before anybody is allowed to be in any tournament.
You must do them in a certain way,
with specified technique, rhythm, stances, timing, and so on.
There is NO room for personal interpretation.
The shitei kata are

Seienchin & Bassai Dai (Shito-ryu)
Jion & Kanku Dai (Shotokan)
Saifa & Seipai (Goju-ryu)
Seishan & Chinto (Wado-ryu)

So these kata have shaped and formed Karate
for quite some time.
Not just the kata,
but doing them EXACTLY as you are told to.

Here’s the interesting thing…
in 1981
20 Okinawan masters complained about the forms.
These were the best Karate masters in the world,
and they wrote a letter to the JKF
and said such things as
‘the forms were in miserable condition’
‘weren’t pure and traditional’
‘were done for sport and competition’
‘took too long to master’
‘no Okinawan master had ever been consulted on the forms’
‘were incorrectly named’
and so on.

The letter was politely stated,
and ignored.
Oh,
there was a response,
but it was basically
‘we know better,’
f u very much.

Now,
the buzz is up
because the forms were finally discarded.
After some 60 years somebody realized
that these forms were nothing but
some wannabe Japanese masters favorites.

So,
politics.
Sheesh.
And for some 60 years
Karate has been shaped along these lines,
and stupid people bowed and went along with it all.
Here it is 2012,
I am so glad I studied the Kang Duk Won
and never studied the bastard versions
of that incredible art.

Yes,
you heard me.
Bastard versions.
Versions without parents.
Versions that ignored
the hard work of hundreds of years
of collecting and perfecting
a closed combat system
of incredible power.

So,
here we are now,
and I ask you…
what is true Karate?

Matrix Karate is the truth.
It is based upon logic that cannot be argued with.
It is simple and easy to remember,
it is easy to learn and apply.

How many of you have studied systems
with dozens of forms
hundreds of techniques,
and no logic.
Just put together whimsical stuff.

Man,
you can still feel the power,
but…
20 years to learn?
30?
Where’s the joy?
Eh?

And,
not just karate.
The People’s Republic of China
rewrote
from the ground up
Kung Fu.
All Kung Fu.
You would be hard pressed to find
real Kung Fu these days.

Oh,
you can still feel the power,
but unless you have roots
to systems outside the PRC,
from people who fled the communists,
you aren’t doing real Kung Fu.

And every system is like that.

What’s the solution?
Study Matrix Karate,
or Shaolin Butterfly or whatever Matrix course interests you
then,
from the basis of logic,
you can see what has been done to your system,
and you can rewrite it
so that it is true to the original.
Sometimes better than the original.

If you want to know the real martial arts,
if you want to know what the masters were doing
back when they first came up with this stuff,
you have to matrix.
You just have to.

Okay,
I had to write this stuff,
sorry for the heavy handed ad,
but the news that JKF is
at last
admitting that they might have gotten it wrong…
that is powerful news
and deserves to be passed along.

If you want a good article
on one technical fix
for Karate,
google

‘the back stance mistake that ruins karate’

You’ll get an idea of what I am talking about in this article
and how you can fix karate.

And,
the URL for Matrix Karate is…

http://www.monstermartialarts.com/Matrix_Karate.html

You guys and gals
have a great work out
and don’t forget to party hearty this weekend!

Happy Labor Day!

Talk to you later.

Al

Zen in the martial arts, or Tell Your Hands to Shut Up and…!

Zen Karate, or Tell Your Hands to Shut Up and…!

Hello!
A bright shiny grin to ya!
One more day in paradise…
one more day to work out.
I mean,
working out is really
the frosting on the cake
and the juicy steak,
and even those durn veggie things!
you know?

So I got stuck on a work out yesterday.
It was Karate
and I kept doing these moves,
but the energy wasn’t coming out.
I stuck on those moves for an hour,
just doing them and doing them.

Look,
you can’t stop,
especially when you are so close!

So when you do ‘loose tight’ in your karate,
or tae kwon do or kenpo or whatever,
when you really focus your mental and physical,
you have to really give your hands
a mental command to loosen the blank up!
Period.

Sometimes the body wants to get tired,
maybe pretend that the muscles won’t do what you tell them to,
but,
heck,
just clean out the mind,
tell the body to get the blank working,
and DO IT!

Gosh durn furshluginner body isn’t going to get in my way!

Whether you do ZenKarate, Zen kung fu, Zen Aikido, or whatever…just do it!

Anyway,
felt great afterwards,
body rehabilitated an injury I had,
felt young again,
and life just toasted up and flipped over for me.

And,
if you don’t know what I mean,
just work out.
Hey,
the martial arts are free!
You can just do them!
There are no taxes on them!
And,
even if there were,
you could just go to a dark corner
and practice the middle finger kata.
Heh.
That’s good,
eh?
I said a funny.

Okay,
laughter over,
let’s get on with it.
A couple of announcements.

Working on Monkeyland,
having real neutronic thoughts,
should be able to relaunch the site
in the not too distant future.
About time,
eh?

And,
the article is supposed to be coming out in Inside Kung Fu
next couple of months.
It’s funny,
I do Matrixing
and they want to do me on Tai Chi.
Tai Chi is calm and balanced,
and they want me to snarl in the lead photo.

GRRRR!

Oh well,
I live in Hollywood,
so I know what it all means.
You have to present an image that grabs,
and calm and balanced doesn’t always grab.
Besides,
I appreciate what they are doing for me.

And,
on another front all together,
I might sell a book.
A novel.
A western called ‘Small in the Saddle.’
I’ll know in a few weeks,
so cross your fingers
and wish me well.

Hmm,
what else.
So much has been happening,
and I’m behind,
trying not to forget anything.

Well.
I think that is it.

So,
look,
emptiness is the most important part of the martial arts.
emptiness is space is nothing,
and that concept permeates the true art
and life as well.

So focus your energy,
but realize that energy doesn’t exist
unless you create a space for it to exist in.
And the smallest energy can be the largest,
if you create a larger space for it to be in.
Not mysterious,
just start with giving your hands mental commands to relax the blank up.

Here’s the magic link…

MonsterMartial Arts

I really like the Pa Kua,
especially the middle of the three systems on this course.
You really learn how to swirl the energy in your body,
and it is so-o-o darn simple!

Okey dokey
if I forgot anything
I’ll share next time,
until then,
have the best work out of your life.

Al

:o)

Monkeyland be comin’!

You might be a martial artist if…
You tie your bathrobe belt in a square knot. Then check to make sure the ends are exactly even.