Southern Chinese Kung Fu + Ed Parker = American Kenpo

[tattooedmonk]

I apologize if this has already been discussed..........

[hskwarrior]

Ed Parker = American keMpo. not keNpo. (But i could have that backward)

I know there is shaolin Kenpo....and Ed Parkers American Ken/m/po

A good part of Kempo comes from the Lau Bun lineage. It's well known that ed parker tried to get next to Professor Lau Bun

[pateticorecords]

It is said that Professor William Chow's father, Priest Hoon Chow, was an immigrant Buddhist Priest from Shanghai. Professor Chow practiced the teachings of his father. Then he studied with James Mitose.
Professor Chow unified all his knowledge into one uniform system called Chinese Kara-Ho Kempo Karate. Three of his top students were: Edmond Parker (founder of American Kenpo), Adriano Emparado(founder of kajukenpo) and Sam Kuoha (Professor Chow's succesor and grandmaster of Kara-Ho).

More info can be found here.
http://www.karaho.com

I have studied and taught various styles of Kung Fu, and I am currently studing American Kenpo under Mr. Dave Medina
http://www.medinakenpo.com

-Sifu Tom Lugo

[TenTigers]

William Chow studied under his father, who supposedly learned a Southern style.
He later aligned himself with Mitose.
James Wing Woo was brought in by Parker to add more Kung-Fu to the system.

[Yum Cha]

My Kempo buddie says the "n" and the "m" was just a typo that got carried through...

Parker's stuff came from Hawaii, by way of Okinawa is my understanding. Daniel Pai fits in there as a contemporary too, these where Hawaiian hard men who were very creative.

To my mind, it fits right between shouthern short armed TCMA and Japanese Karate.

[TenTigers]

I believe the kanji for fist is "ken"
However, Okinawans say Kempo, and there is Shorinji Kempo.
Chow, Ralph Castro, and Parker use the term Kenpo.

[David Jamieson]

I believe the kanji for fist is "ken"
However, Okinawans say Kempo, and there is Shorinji Kempo.
Chow, Ralph Castro, and Parker use the term Kenpo.

It's a dialectic thing. kenpo and kempo are the same thing.

as stated.

[hskwarrior]

Forgive me if this is common knowledge....but shorin is the japanese version of Shaolin.....Ralph Castro taught Shaolin Kenpo.

[TenTigers]

I believe he was the first to coin the phrase, "Shaolin Kenpo" followed by Villari, USSD, et al

[jdhowland]

My Kempo buddie says the "n" and the "m" was just a typo that got carried through...

Not really a typo. Both forms are accepted as orthographic convention. Kenpo preserves the pronunciation of the first word. Kempo shows the correct pronunciation in combination when followed by a b or p. Parker intentionally spelled it kenpo in order to distinguish his style from Japanese kempo systems. He may have supposed it looked more Chinese that way. I don't think kyuhn faat is a common expression in Cantonese, but it's understandable.

[David Jamieson]

Not really a typo. Both forms are accepted as orthographic convention. Kenpo preserves the pronunciation of the first word. Kempo shows the correct pronunciation in combination when followed by a b or p. Parker intentionally spelled it kenpo in order to distinguish his style from Japanese kempo systems. He may have supposed it looked more Chinese that way. I don't think kyuhn faat is a common expression in Cantonese, but it's understandable.

Or Chuan fa as well.

Fist method, or Fist law.

man, language is a funny thing and it's easy to understand why the esoteric can be a deep and frothy sea of chaos.

[Dragonzbane76]

Parker's stuff came from Hawaii, by way of Okinawa is my understanding. Daniel Pai fits in there as a contemporary too, these where Hawaiian hard men who were very creative.

yes pai taught in hawaii and a lot over the U.s. A lot of his teachings in Pai lum were from kempo, but a lot of his stuff was taken from other styles.

[Kevin73]

Mitose called his art "kenpo jujitsu", one of his main students was William Chow who called his art many things, but always with the kenpo label.

One of Chow's main students was Adriano Emperado, who helped co-found Kajukenbo (karate, judo, kenpo, boxing).

One of his other students was Ed Parker. After Parker came to the mainland he taught what he had learned from Chow and called it kenpo karate (name recognition). After Parker moved to California he started studying more of the chinese arts. Some of them were James Wing Woo (not the same Woo from San Soo), Art K. Wong (who was the biggest chinese influence) and Lau Bun. Bruce Lee also stayed with Ed Parker for a time and exchanged ideas as well.After his study with these masters, Parker started to change how he performed his kenpo. He moved from a more hard linear style that he had originally learned and added more fluidity and circular motions. Again, the biggest influence though was Ark Wong and even more specifically, the "splashing hands" methodology that Parker learned from one of Wong's students "Tiny" Lefiti.

Parker's goal was to kind of create a chinese martial art for Americans. At one time Parker called his art "Chinese Kenpo", and kept refining it throughout his life. All of the terms used in asian martial arts where replaced with American terminology.