Hey ya'll. As I try to learn something new about martial arts everyday, and my Kenpo interest, I was wondering who is a Kenpo practioner named John LaTourette. I just have a few questions about him. What style of Kenpo does he come from? (American, Chinese, Tracy, ect) Is he a legit Kenpo practioner. (I've heard good things about him, but bad as well) Is he truly the world's fastest person? (18.5 hits in 1 second?)
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQpadGaAmx0"]The Speed Master, Dr. John La Tourrette - YouTube[/ame] I watched the whole thing, and yeah, my punches and strikes be fast too if I wasn't fully extending any of my strikes.
John LaTourette originally studied Korean martial arts (don't remember which one). He was later a student of Ed Parker in American Kenpo. His kenpo training was "legit", although his later marketing attempts have rightly (IMHO) earned him scorn. No idea if he's the fastest person in the world. Irrelevant to me in any case, since speed is only one factor in being a good fighter. Hope this helps.
This is what Bullshido has up about him. This is something you would need to check into your self by calling Latourette. http://www.bullshido.net/forums/search.php?searchid=1830239 http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=60335&highlight=John+LaTourrette So anything that make you unhappy take up with Bullshido or John Latourette. I actually respect and like what Bullshido is doing my self. They are trying to get rid of the fakes and BS around martial arts. I personally did at one point buy a few of his videos and was in no way happy with them. In fact he turned me off of buying any videos that had anything other than certain forms. That I knew for a fact had same form, as I had already studied. I bought those way back before there was any such thing as Cd's or DVD's so they where on tapes. If I find them!
Any Kenpo guy looks fast throwing fast strikes without fully retracting arm , things like punch pull back a little, palm strike, pull back little claw strike, etc. Never seen a single Kenpo person that is fast standing 4/5ft away from someone and zipping in with jab punch or finger jab, etc - stuff where it counts. All the multiple strike Kenpo stuff is mainly BS, few Kenpo guys fought in MMA , they never once used any of the 'Deadly Multiple Blur Hand Strikes BS'!
Not the first UFC, but four of the early ones. I also think one of Oleg's early UFC opponents was a Kempo guy (maybe Eddie Verdicia? Style not listed). And wasn't Rick Davis a kempo guy, too? Chuck Liddell claims Kempo, I think, though there's been some debate about if it's representitive of Kenpo or not. Anyway, I hope the irony of KickinIt's contradictory statements is not lost. As for La Tourrette, I've got a knife fighting book he wrote. It's got some not-so-bad ideas, some questionable concepts, and some iffy techniques. It's not complete trash, but there's definitely better stuff out there.
Far as Chunk Liddell goes he does claim to have a Kenpo background and I've never really questioned that. Sure he uses a lot of material in MMA events that might not be Kenpo yet who's to say what he did before and maybe still does now and then? BTW. Is Kenpo or Kempo the proper spelling?
Windtalker- There was a lengthy discussion on "Kempo for the Cage" or something like that where Liddell was brought up. IIRC, some folks said it was Kempo, some said it wasn't, but that's an argument that I'm not particularly interested in. He could call what he does "Hyper Fluffy Bunny Ninja Ballet" and I wouldn't call him on it! As for the spelling, apparently which one you choose can denote a particular lineage. I'll tell you what I learned in Japanese class: that the only stand-alone consanant in their phonetic alphabet is "n". Take that for what it's worth. Now I can't cite the source at the moment, but I remember a story about a guy in Hawaii publishing a book back in the 50's or something on KeNpo, but when it came back from the publishers it had been typo'd into KeMpo. I could be wrong, or it could be a false story, but that's the only thing I remember hearing or reading on why there was some discrepancy in the spelling. Some on here prefer the expression "ke?po". In light of everything else, I might just start typing it that way.
Nope. The word is a composite of the characters for FIST and LAW (chuan-fa in Chinese). In Japanese these characters are read "ken" and "ho". However, this doesn't blend well in Japanese and the "ho" mutates into "po". If that wasn't irregular enough, the 'n' sound in Japanese mutates into a 'm-' type of sound if it is before a 'b-', 'm-', or 'p-' sound. Thus the pronunciation "kempo" and the transcription "kenpo". Neither is any more correct nor wrong; it merely brings up the irregularity of the language itself as well as the hazards of transliteration. Chuanfa (Chinese), kenpo (Japanese), and kwonbop (Korean) all are the same words and are generic terms for any types of (generally Chinese-based) kickboxing arts. Incidentally, it's not unlike the Chinese word "shuai jiao"; although it is translated as "throwing down and tripping up", it simply means "wrestling" and is a generic term for any form of wrestling. Chinese/Mongol folk wrestling [which is what most people usually mean], Mexican lucha-libre, and Greco-Roman wrestling would all be described in Chinese as "shuai jiao". Kind of silly in my opinion, but hey, whatever floats your boat.
Seeing as how I can't speak Chinese and speak limited Japanese very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very badly, not really something I can comment on outside of the alphabet thing!
Was interesting, but hmmm... I don't think this would work that well against a moving target. Also I don't like how he hurts his student when he doesn't have to and the "come over here!". I smell jerk and egomaniac.
You know Gong_Sau_Rick, not as a joke or anything he is or has a account over on Martial Talk.Ha, the thing is way back when I was young I bought those tapes and once I saw them that is what I thought also. Talk about complaint training partner. Come here hits him in the face than the guy never even throws a punch or anything.
