does anyone believe this???

[cerebus]

If you think the Villari video course is bad, type in "Kenpo" on e-bay. For far less than $150 (one course was only $30!) you can receive a manual covering the full curriculum of one of the various versions of Kenpo complete with signed, undated rank certificates (just fill in the rank as you learn each level to your own satisfaction), and Voila! Instant Kenpo instructor!

[mattburg111]

Capitalims is great lol. People find ways to make money off of everything. The karate guy in Napolean dynamite sums up what martial arts means to mnay Americans. And that makes me laugh

[waterleopard]

Good thread. I'm a kempo guy and I agree with what's been said. Unfortunately, there's good and bad with anything. I live in a very small town that's not close to any major city. My choices for MA are Tang Soo Do, Karate, and Kempo - all within about 10 miles from me. Tang Soo Do doesn't appeal to me at all, and I wanted something that wasn't 100% hard/linear, etc., so I selected the Kempo dojo, which is only about 10 minutes from where I live.

It's an independent dojo (nothing at all to do with USSD or Villari). It's also very serious about belt promotion and has only produced two adult black belts in eight years. There have been no children black belts given out. The adult classes average about six students/class, so there's a lot hands-on one-on-one instruction. There are no contracts, and I can attend as many as five classes/week in addition to being allowed to practice on my own time (which I do).

I feel sorry for any MA student, especially the Mac-dojo student, who never takes the blinders off to research their chosen style. It doesn't take much to see through any smoke screen. At best, as Gene has said before, Kempo is very confusing. And there's no escaping the fact that Kempo in this country is very Americanized. That's neither a good nor bad quality (I think) if it's marketed as such. But it borders on fraud if it's not.

For the right person, kempo can be a good starter-home or "first car" along the MA journey (or the only home/car, for that matter). And as I implied earlier, one's geographic location and the quality of instruction can and do have a big say in what they study (definitely my case). But the road has many twists and turns along the way. I for one, would very much like to try another style some day when the opportunity avails itself. Right now, I am what I am, and I do what I do. But I keep an open mind about it.

[SanHeChuan]

People wouldn't be able to get away with this, or at least profit from lying if more martial artist educated them selves about the martial arts.

[gfx]

Sorry for asking, but what exactly is Kempo? I've been confused by it for many years. It claims to be a Chinese art? Then why is it pronounced in Japanese? And why is it in the _incorrect_ romanization for Japanese? If it's Japanese, why does it claim it's Chinese??

It seems to be something that only exists in America, so it's American? But Chinese?? With a Japanese name???

[Mr Punch]

There are two 'Japanese' ken/kempos.

The standard transliteration is n, but m is acceptible too. Especially after a p/b, hence the standard transcription of the word 'gambare' or 'gambatte' meaning 'hang in there', 'go on', 'good luck' etc.

There is old Okinawan kenpo (Ryuukyuu kenpo) which arguably went to Okinawa in the 17th century and is very like shaolin I heard, with a lot of circular actions and a lot of emphasis on vertical fists. Then there is Japanese kenpo which comes from the 20th century, has no relation to shaolin whatsoever and was chosen literally because the name sounded cool. Can't remember the name of the founder, but look it up.

More confusingly, both of these are known as shorinji (shaolin temple) kenpo.

Incidentally kenpo means 'fist laws/principles' where fist can be translated as 'way of fighting'.

I've no idea about American kempo except for that Dillman geezer who's always blithering on about pressure points.

[waterleopard]

Sorry for asking, but what exactly is Kempo? I've been confused by it for many years. It claims to be a Chinese art? Then why is it pronounced in Japanese? And why is it in the _incorrect_ romanization for Japanese? If it's Japanese, why does it claim it's Chinese??

It seems to be something that only exists in America, so it's American? But Chinese?? With a Japanese name???

Heinz 57, mostly assembled in America.

At best, using real ingredients.
At worst, artificial ones.
Probably somewhere in between.

[Becca]

Question: To those responding about what Kem(N)po is or isn't, do any of you have any actual experience with it, or are you repeating what you've read on this or other forums?

[neilhytholt]

Question: To those responding about what Kem(N)po is or isn't, do any of you have any actual experience with it, or are you repeating what you've read on this or other forums?

I've done a lot of research about Kenpo recently.

Basically Kenpo seems to be a name for Chinese martial arts that come from Okinawa, primarily, kindof like in Indonesia, Chinese martial arts are called Kuntao.

Most of the Kenpo in this country seems to come from Ed Parker, who studied with Mitose and Chow in Hawaii. Mitose was a Japanese guy living in Hawaii who supposedly was sent to study at some temple in Japan, and Chow evidently was Chinese and possibly got sent back to China to study. However, there is a lot of dispute about what they knew or studied with. Ed Parker also evidently trained with Daniel K. Pai at some point.

At any rate, Ed Parker had a school down in Southern California and trained a lot of celebrities (including Elvis and Priscilla). In fact, Priscilla Presley left Elvis for another martial arts instructor not affiliated with Ed Parker.

Some brothers, the Tracy's, studied with Ed Parker and started the first martial arts chain school, and evidently made a ton of cash (like $2,500,00 per year or something) back in the late '60s and early '70s.

Ed Parker was always evolving his system, and it went through several iterations. After (and probably before) Ed Parker died, tons and people broke out with their own versions of Kenpo, which is where a lot of these chain schools come from, but they all teach something slightly different. It's a huge mess right now with an extreme number of variations.

[waterleopard]

I posted my experience earlier in this thread. Most of what I know is based on my own research and from people in the system that I trust. It's confusing and not at all clear cut. I'm beginning to feel that the phrase "kempo" should carry about as much definition as using just the generic term "kung fu." There appears to be several varieties, and unfortunately, just as many people customizing it, changing the lead-in adjective, and claiming it to be there own. Also unfortunately, it seems to be at the forefront of "martial arts is nothing more than a business."

[Becca]

Basically Kenpo seems to be a name for Chinese martial arts that come from Okinawa, primarily, kindof like in Indonesia, Chinese martial arts are called Kuntao.

Yep, that about summs it up. Wether it is Chinese or Japanes depends on what is was mixed with.

KEMpo denotes a Chinese background. KENpo denote a Japanese background.

The temple you refer to is the Northern Okinawan Temple. This is a chinese temple founded by monks fleeing China in the that 1500s due to the Manchurian Revelution.

You missed several styles in yoyr run down of who offers Kempo. I won't pretend to be familiar with any but the one I study, Pai Lum. It is a blend of the Kempo Daniel K. Pai learned at the temple as a child and the family style of kung fu he learned from his grandfather, Po Fong Pai. This family style is called Pai Te Lung Shi'ang Kung Fu.

[neilhytholt]

Also, I should add that it seems that some styles of Okinawan karate call themselves Kempo (like Ryukyu Kempo), some Chinese martial arts call themselves Kempo (like Temple Kung Fu or whatever it's become now claims to teach Kempo), etc.

It's going to be a bit ironic watching all these chain schools that broke out trying to make a buck go down in flames. It's already happening.

[Jingwu Man]

Kenpo/kempo is Japanese for Quanfa.

quan- ken = fist
fa- po = method

My teacher has said that in the past, if a Japanese fighter wanted to become proficient at unarmed combat, he had to go to China and learn. Japan at the time was all about the swords, and China had been doing the unarmed thing for hundreds of years, so they just went to the source.
I've heard that the founder of both Aikido and judo, plus others, went to China and came back with "new" moves that were really powerful, and it made those guys famous after they integrated it into their own systems.

[neilhytholt]

Yep, that about summs it up. Wether it is Chinese or Japanes depends on what is was mixed with.

KEMpo denotes a Chinese background. KENpo denote a Japanese background.

The temple you refer to is the Northern Okinawan Temple. This is a chinese temple founded by monks fleeing China in the that 1500s due to the Manchurian Revelution.

You missed several styles in yoyr run down of who offers Kempo. I won't pretend to be familiar with any but the one I study, Pai Lum. It is a blend of the Kempo Daniel K. Pai learned at the temple as a child and the family style of kung fu he learned from his grandfather, Po Fong Pai. This family style is called Pai Te Lung Shi'ang Kung Fu.

Yeah, I don't claim to have done a thorough job in research. I got tired of tracking down all these styles.

IMHO we need a program for the U.S. like China has to standardize martial arts in this country, because there's just too many variations and it's a big mess.

[Becca]

IMHO we need a program for the U.S. like China has to standardize martial arts in this country, because there's just too many variations and it's a big mess.

AMEN! There would also be alot less fleecing of the lambs, so to speek. If there were some regulation on what you could call yourself based on what you've actually learned and who you've studied under, there would be no Ashida Kims out there. Then we'd only have to deal with the all the Mile High Karates on every other street corner teching kids that braking boards will someday save thier lives...