Shaolin Kempo Karate... Thoughts?

[SenseiShellie]

yeah that sounds good but I give it 2 weeks before they start talking about porn lol.

well you're up then. Give us something to talk about!

Lol! Ok...how about let's discuss Han suki? What do you think is happening in the opening striking sequence?

[GeneChing]

It'd beat eating granola and singing kumbayah...

[TenTigers]

Lol! Ok...how about let's discuss Han suki? What do you think is happening in the opening striking sequence?

Joseph Robelo "KenpoJoe" has a video on this form. He seems to have the most information of SKK history.
Apparently, Villari did not create this form, check out his video on youtube-put in Hansuki.
(I will say this however, he does not really seem to know much about other traditional systems. Pinans did not come from Goju, and stepping with the right foot does not indicate Chinese origins)

[SenseiShellie]

Joseph Robelo "KenpoJoe" has a video on this form. He seems to have the most information of SKK history.
Apparently, Villari did not create this form, check out his video on youtube-put in Hansuki.
(I will say this however, he does not really seem to know much about other traditional systems. Pinans did not come from Goju, and stepping with the right foot does not indicate Chinese origins)

yeah...i'm a little skeptical about his knowledge. Han Suki is an actual form. Other styles of Ken(m)po have it. That's why I was thinking of starting with that form and analyzing it a bit...

[TenTigers]

there is an entire thread on Hansuki, including its origins from William Chow, to William Chun, to Nick Cerio, to Nick's brother who taught Villari



http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38945

[twistingcrane]

Lol! Ok...how about let's discuss Han suki? What do you think is happening in the opening striking sequence?

I'm going to have to admit that other than performing it poorly, I have a limited understanding of this form.

[SenseiShellie]

I'm going to have to admit that other than performing it poorly, I have a limited understanding of this form.

Well...let's break it down! What do you think is happening with the first strike sequence? I know kenpo Joe has an explanation...but let's see what we come up with! I think that we are grabbing them by the shirt and pulling them in to a back 2 knuckle to the bladder. With the stun shock, we can then do the back 2 knuckle punch to the face (villari doesn't do the han suki strike), inverted hammer to the ribs (left hand) , etc.

[TenTigers]

when looking at applications to moves in form/kata, we need to understand that every movement (at least in a traditional form) has four elements:
Da (striking)
Tehk (kicking/leg manuvers-which also include sweeping, locking)
Suht (throw/takedown)
Na (joint manipulation)
Look at the movement and then ask, how would I use this against a grab, strike, anti-grappling, etc? Also, bear in mind, that not all movements are defensive in nature and may be an offensive attack. Also, some movements in forms are used to open up meridians, tonify the immune system, and might not have any Martial applications.
You should be able to find several applications to each move.
They may not be the applications that the creator of the form had intended, but it will open your mind to understanding form, and application, and be able to look at your art as well as other arts with a more discernable eye.

[Kevin73]

Here is the roots of Shaolin Kempo as it happened in the early days. Much has been changed and altered for marketing purposes.

John Leoning was a BB under William Chow in Hawaii, he later started studying Kajukenbo with Sijo Emperado. Sonny Gascon and Leoning both moved to the west coast. Gascon studied with Leoning and they started to alter the Kajukenbo that they had learned.

In 1961, due to politics, Gascon dropped the name of Kajukenbo and started calling what he was doing "Karazenpo Goshinjutsu". At the time the material included 5 Kata and around 20 combinations (1-13, 22, and 26) which were based on the Kajukenbo Pinans (later called Palamas) and the Kajukenbo punch defenses.

In 1963, George Pesare opened up a school on the east coast after training with Gascon. Pesare added Kata 6 to the system and also Statue of the Crane, which was an alteration of the Okinawan form "Rohai".

1963, was also the same year that Nick Cerio started to train with Pesare. In 1966, Cerio broke away from Pesare and started his own thing. Cerio added Pinans 1,3,4,5 which were adapted from Kyokushin's Pinans. Pinan 2, was a Nick Cerio creation. Cerio also added a version of Hansuki, which he had learned from Bill Chun Sr. At some point, Cerio went to Hawaii and trained with Prof. Chow (there is disagreement about how much training and for how long, also the rank was supposedly issued for Cerio's own brand of kenpo and NOT Prof. Chow's kenpo). Cerio also completed the 26 combinations with what he learned from Chow.

In 1967, Fred Villari started to learn under Nick Cerio and got up to 2nd degree BB. In 1971, Villari left Cerio and opened up his own school. By 1975, Villari had added combinations 27-50 (27-39 were created together with Nick Cerio) and the addition of the Swift Tigers (Circle of the Panther from Cerio) and Parker's Two Man Set along with other "kung fu forms". In the 80's Villari created the remaining combinations (51-108--matching the Shaolin concept of 108 movements) and some more kung fu forms.

So really, up until BB level in SKK, it is just the material of Karazenpo Goshinjutsu. No one knows for sure where the "kung fu" was pulled from. Villari was a business man and sold many franchises for alot of money and proliferated the east coast with his schools. The base material is good and solid, it is just the instructor who teaches it on the quality of what you learned. There was an old BB magazine article that actually compared Villari with McDonalds's because that was his goal, to put up many schools and make it accessible to a wide audience.

If you talk with people who knew Villari back in the day, they would tell you how tough the training was and how effective it was (still had that Kajukenbo mentality) and how when he started to open up more and more schools the training was REALLY toned down to make it alot more marketable to a wider audience.

[TenTigers]

please stop calling it,"Kung-Fu."
If you do a made-up form based on pinan kata and add mawashi uke and claw hands, it does not make it Kung-Fu, any more than putting duck sauce on chicken fingers makes it Chinese cuisine.

[Shaolin]

Please stop calling it "kung fu", the correct term is Shaolin Wushu, or Shaolin Chaun Fa.

[TenTigers]

Please stop calling it "kung fu", the correct term is Shaolin Wushu, or Shaolin Chaun Fa.

Yes and no. Wu-Shu is the direct literal tranlsation of Martial Art, but Chinese Martial Arts, and thinking are not so cut and dry. "Kung-Fu" is an accepted term used by Chinese in mainland China, Hong Kong, and the rest of the world, because it encompasses all that makes up good Martial Arts technique-hard work, dedication,time, man's effort, etc. One term decribes an entire concept, like a many petaled lotus. But yeah, the dictionary term is wu-shu, or mo-suht in Cantonese.
I've met and trained with many Chinese teachers. All of them used the term, "Kung-Fu," none of them used wu-shu, ch'uan-fa, mo-suht, etc.
Actually, the only people I have ever heard use those terms were non-Chinese.

[sean_stonehart]

Please stop calling it "kung fu", the correct term is Shaolin Wushu, or Shaolin Chaun Fa.

So you'll be changing your website contents when??

[Kevin73]

please stop calling it,"Kung-Fu."
If you do a made-up form based on pinan kata and add mawashi uke and claw hands, it does not make it Kung-Fu, any more than putting duck sauce on chicken fingers makes it Chinese cuisine.

Thus, why I used the term in quotes and not as the literal meaning of it. The implication was that even though it is being called kung fu, no one knows where it actually came from and was probably made up by Villari.

It was also to show where all of the material came from. It can all be traced through teachers and styles until the "kung fu" part, then it devolves into a weird story of where it was learned with no style or instructor that anyone knows about.

[Shaolin]

So you'll be changing your website contents when??

Webmaster is currently building a new site. I've always hated the term kung fu but my partners out voted me. They're now realizing how a simple term will limit clientele.