That website is out of control. To be honest, I'd never even visit or call a school with text written like that. The top page is fine, but it was clearly not written by the same person who wrote the branch pages. Seriously, the copy wasn't even run through a spell-check. Does anyone feel the same way? Maybe I'm on my own here.....(I probably shouldn't be allowed out of the ninjutsu section without a minder!)
I never got any black belt i shotokan i was orange belt the style was very hard and your techniques had to be perfect if not you would fail the belt grading. That school closed and i wanted to pick up karate elsewhere, that was in the mid 80 and karate was very big back then, there was only judo and karate back then. I went to a kyokyshin school this was very hard as well, and i was very skinny so size matters in a fight because i got knocked out a lot in sparring by the bigger guys, most of the students there where older then me and a lot heavier, i was 16 they where 20 and up and pretty much all around 200 pounds. I used to kick they felt nothing but when they leg kicked me i felt everything. I finish that style with a green belt because i started as orange belt due to my shotokan experience. I quit kyokushin because i was tired of getting beat up, and went to tae kwon do, from there on it was easy, after a year and a half of kyokushin and conditioning i was finally beating people up in sparring, but at some point all this changed when i got more tae kwon do oriented, i stopped punching in fights and doing that tank approach that karate uses, i had a real hard time stopping the leg kicks as well sort of a reflex and close combat was the liver punch. In tae kwon do you are all equipped so you rarely get injured in sparring, kind of felt like a foam pad. I did 7 years on and off, i finished there with a red belt almost black belt but i just quit i was tired. That was back in 1994, i was also a lot bigger 205 pounds, bodybuilding and gaining mass was a passion of mine and i had been lifting weights since the age of 13. In 1998 i tried boxing for a year and it really rocked, i got my weight down to 174 pounds got a coach and a very good diet and i felt great, in shape, and i got used to get hit a lot, that is a fear the i overcame back them but i still have today the fear of getting hit. In the world today people are crazy, i almost got into a fight last night with a moron that almost caused a car accident with me and my girlfriend because he acted like a jerk, guess size does matter because when i got out of the car at 220 pounds the guy just drove off, seeing how mad i was did not help either. But i need to control my temper too and even at 38 i still have so much to learn. That MMA place gave me a good feeling and if i can in September because i am still under treatments for back pain, but if i can i want to go there, to get the feeling of grabbing someone, taking them down, getting to hit the bag and doing lots of sparring. Most of the time in point fighting you do lots of things that you get your hammered in the streets, like turn your back to give a spin kick and a lot more. Tae kwon do got a lot of kicks where you turn your back........
*tugs on stephenk's collar* -- BACK! Ye old ninjer dog, back to where we belong before Mistress Manga finds out! :bang: We've got serious fraudbusting to do, and must be ever vigilant of Domatello! All before dinner and our nightly shurikenjutsu class... :evil: And back to the topic. Kenpo/kempo is cool. Find what works for you personally and you'll find that regardless of what it is, it'll work when you need it to. :hat:
OK, today is 5/28/2010. I just wanted to see the difference of linage or roots there are of Kenpo/Kempo Karate. Please if there are really people out there in Kempo/Kenpo Karate, write the people in your system/style, Roots/linage. Here are the people in the system I'm in"Karazenpo Go Shinjutsu" Shaolin Chinese Kempo Karate System...."James" Mitose, William Chow, Adriano Emperado, SONNY GASCAN, George Pesare, Nick Cerio, And I train Under "Rudy" He's a awesome Martial Artist, I really look up to him.... thanks for letting me share.... Please write your Roots....
I am not going to rip on Kenpo karate, I'll just say in november 2009 I left it for Shotokan. Never regretted my decision
I think Kempo / Kenpo is great, I practice Pencak Silat. kempo competitions allow different martial arts to compete such as karate kempo pencak silat kuntao kempo shaolin kempo and so one. only one down side are the rules of the competitions Standup fighting only. With 8-10 oz boxing gloves, light contact touch point punches and kicks to the head and body. No ground fighting, No Grappling, No leg kicks. BUT Standup Kickboxing, with 8-10 oz boxing gloves, full contact punches and kicks to the head, body and legs, with throws, take downs, submissions on the ground. No punching or kicking on the ground, only submissions; armbars, legbars, chokes, etc,. THAT'S THE FUN ONE but is not used much sadly
Well at some point for the sparring you need to choose where you stand, for me a 38 year old male coming back from an injury that took 9 years of my life, i know that for me its avoid re-injury and security all the way, for Kenpo i dont like point fighting i did this a lot in Shotokan karate, it does not reflect the street at all, more a game of tag. For MMA there are some schools that spar light contact, a lot of students are my age and older, have jobs, families and dont want to get injured. Of course then again its a contact sport and anything can happen. Kenpo school near my house is too much into muscial forms, point sparring. Again last month i went to a class and it does not feel serious for me. I have seen on youtube a few kenpo school that look amazing with free fights, and Jeff Speakman Kenpo 2.0 which as a lot of grappling, takedowns and more. If that where the kenpo school next to my house i would be there already. That said i beleive in kenpo but not the school next to my house.
At my current school I started with just the Kenpo class it started very simple not much conditioning and no sparring. Since I was not in the best physical shape ( lots of injuries and illness) this was just well an good for me. As I stayed and increased in rank the conditioning and sparring exponetally increased and I can understand the reasoning behind my instructor and his starting small and simple method. Since then I still take Kenpo but have also add BJJ and MMa classes to my plate and although the Kenpo has a little slices of all 5 ranges the other classes have helped fill the 'holes' that might be if i just stayed with straigh Kenpo . A five ranged Kenpo program is deff. worth the time to learn if it is avaliable, though I would not recommend a flashy kata kenpo school just to commecial for me.
Hello, You may for clarity's sake for the readers want to list out those "5 ranges in Kenpo" as it may be more specific to your Kenpo denomination philosophy as opposed to say the more widely defined the five animals of Kenpo: Dragon, Tiger, Crane, Snake & Panther - or is a Panther also known as a the "Leopard". Assume nothing, eh? There ain't no Dragons!
Aha! Be specific ok. Five ranges differ from animal because it just describes the relationship of space between opponets. Kicking, punching, trapping, infighting, ground/wrestling. Have a great day
Interesting, not the answer I thought - are there not "close-in" kicks and punches - such as side-edge snap kick to the knee or a vertical thrust punch? In traditional JMA the term "ma ai" refers to the combative distance between opponents - but techniques are techniques. Now some techniques are more effective long range, some are mid-range, some are close in.
