Training under Al tracy's system of kenpo, we train hard and it is what I consider an honor to advance from one belt ranking to the next. More recenetly I have noticed more and more scams out there, about advancing people in rank. For a fee that is to say. I recall seeing in ad in blackbelt magazine where an instructor offered to certify you as a 5th degree black belt for 299.95. Didn't even appear as a test was required. Upon looking on ebay a few days ago, i saw an auction that offered to automatically certify you under the kenpo system as a 1st degree black belt. Why would someone do this? For the money of course. But what does the actual guy who got ripped off get out of all of this. A shiny, fancy diploma!! not to mention a complete false sense of security. What is also bad, i feel, are many of the long distance training programs out there. I saw a chinese kenpo system in particular that made me gasp to say the least. It was called a complete kenpo system in their own words, and upon looking at the lists of techinques, i noticed many black belt techinques were actually orange and purple techinques. So what happnes after the buyer spends all this time doing their supposed training, and paying their fortune to the con artists. Again, the get a false sense of security and assume they can fight whomever they want to and win. Now, I do not mean to say that all training tapes are nonsense, as in effect sometimes it is good to watch them in order to train with the lesser known arts. But this is assuiming the viewer knows what he is doing to a certain degree.
Lol! I have seen those tapes, some even offer rank advancement by sending in a video of you doing the required techniques, they grade and send you your new belt...I just wish they would apply this same technique to the medical field, watch a few videos, become a doctor and start making more money....that would be great!
reply... Actually surprisingly enough, i have seen courses offered that will legally make you a doctors assistant/vets asistant, or even a dentist!! Now as for the ranking system, it is almost always a scam or bs. I, however, believe there is an exception for the rule. Right now i am guilty of training under a series of videos. But before you gasp and call me a foolish traitor, let me explain about those. I do not do the actual video testing and pay the fees simply becasue me knowing the techniques is enough, and should i ever actually do decide to test I am in contact with the instructor. The tapes were made pretty much for his students as a curriculum review, and he decided to start selling them. The system was kali/arnis/silat and was presented rather nicely. I went through the tapes rather quickly learning more and more. Although, one can surely never learn just by watching and not doing, so i took the concepts to my studio, and began training there. But then again, I had prior knowledge of how to do many concepts demonstarted. So again, if you happen to have the knowledge to take the concepts from videos and apply them, its definetly worth trying. But in my opinion for the sake of learning!! not advancing in rank or cheating your way to becoming an overly confident phony blackbelt.
You will always find people who corrupt any practice to gain money. Martial arts happens to be very popular. I mean who doesn't want to say they are black belt in suchandsuch. Especially without years of training, hard work and dedication. A branch of this would be considered the clubs you find which rush you through the ranks, not allowing you time to digest the material. They collect the testing fee and off you go with a shiny new belt. There are actually students who go a long with this stuff too. Unfortunately this is what really takes away from other schools/martial artists. I mean arts like Kenpo (hehe) will get a bad name. Aren't there enough skeptists out there already? I agree with the tape thing.They really give you insight! I mean I would never go running around claiming I knew judo after watching Mike Swain, but keeping an open mind will benefit you as a martial artist.
I don’t know much about American Kempo, but there is no way you could learn much from a video with regards to Shorinji Kempo. They are a good resource for review, but not to learn. Even just watching your instructor won’t teach you how to do the techniques, you need to practice with another person to develop the feel and knack of a particular technique.
It is the same with American Kenpo. And probably is with any every other art (depending on the representation). You really need to take the time to learn, feel, analyze the techniques. There is always something new to learn about the technique/form you thought you had mastered. Never under estimate the intricacies of delayed sword!
I agree with most of what has been said here, and the differences are too slight to mention. But here is one thing I would like to point out. A name is just a name. A technique named Thundering Twig in one system is not always performed the same way in another system just because it uses or has the same name.
Paying for test had always seemed perfectly normal to me until I began reading some post on it a while back...With some people saying that alot of the time this is done only for profit...And in our dojo, you actually pay for a stripe as well, and there is a stripe at EVERY belt, with brown belt having at least three steps, this concerned me as nobody wants to be suckered! Thanfully, I found that Shihan devides the fee among his blackbelts that serve on the testing board, and since the black belts are not employed by the dojo, this eased my mind alot! Now as far as the stripes go, I also read that this was typically reserved for the kiddies. Again, I just had to ask...what i found was that Shihan will NOT sell a belt to anyone, the stripe is simply given to show accomplishment as well as for the student to feel a sence of accomplishment. And this is very important as there is approx. a 3-5 month wait between notches (solid to stripe, stripe to next solid) in the beginning levels, with that time extending as you gain experience, and generally, I would imagine that without some kind of reward (for lack of a better word), the majority would drop out...And when one goes from teaching MA to teaching MA to pay his bills, then drop outs are not a good thing! As far as the videos go, we have videos that the student can buy ($25) and it has all the needed techniques to your next level (you CANNOT buy past your current belt level), and i feel those are a pretty good idea I guess! I dunno, have yet to purchase one...but I do not see where they would hurt.
Many people believe that a black belt means nothing. However, I believe that what a black belt means is what it is supposed to represent, and in my style (and most others I believe) it represents skill and experience. Contrary to what critics believe, the black belt is not intended to make you extremely good, it is simply a token to reward experience, hard work, skill, and a good attitude, so it's the other way round (I must point out though that there is more training after black belt than before it and that it does take a long time to reach just the 1st duan). However, this only stands up for as long as clubs actually expect a high standard of their black belts. People may do things like pay for an instant black belt because they simply want to be able to say "I have a black belt in..." which is rather pathetic. Also, some people who don't do martial arts don't understand that the standards required for black belts are not universal across all styles and schools, so perhaps they assume from a club saying something like "we will make you a black belt in 6 months" that this mean they will be brought to the magical black belt standard in 6 months. Either way is very unenlightened and silly, IMO. But I say "let them". If they want to waste their money and dig their own grave when there are plenty of good clubs out there, so be it. Those of us who are not foolish enough to do this kind of thing will eventually get the true reward of a deserved black belt. Which is far more satisfying. Personally, I'd rather have a yellow belt that I worked hard for than a black belt that got handed to me - where is the sense of achievement?
Tracy's system is pretty huge. No way you can learn it from tapes, but this guy already has trained and is just keeping fresh from what I understand. I don't know about ed's system, but his system should very from his philosophy on kenpo.
reply... It was absolutely the same techinques. I emailed them when i noticed it and asked for a video clip of some black belt techniques(preteneded that i was interested in buying it)
My studio has tapes of the owner demonstarting all of the techniques from orange-1st black.(also tapes cannot be sold beyond your own rank). They are in my opinion, a great reminder/supplement to help a student remember a particular part of a techinque, but there is no way technqieus can be fully copied correclty without an actual instructor.
Then that is foolish. At that level a students doesn't even understand what 99.99% of the principles that make up any given technique are. That instructor is looking for a buck, regardless of the safety to his students, and that is a shame.
BINGO!! Which brings me to the orignal point of my post. I have seen some well known martial artist start cashing in on this. The best is paying 20.00 over ebay to get automatcially ranked a first degree blackbelt in a variety of amrtial arts! Was really pretty dissaopinted to see Steven Hayes(ninjitsu) start his own program involving soemthing similar. It was a home study course that you essentailly train yourself in, although you do travel to a dojo to test. Still very sad, especailly since his books were filled with informaiton on how important it was to learn how to do everything correctly. It all comes down to a mega false sense of security.
So here is a question for you. At what point is it ok to learn from video? I have been training, one on one, with instructors (the living breathing kind) for 15 years now. I have a 5th and 4th in two different arts. Last year I started to get a monthly video from Burton Richardson on his JKD/HPMMA. I have not tested yet with him, he offers the option to test by video or in person, yet and won't till I can get out there or meet up with him some place to test in person. What is you thought on my situation?
reply... Here is what I believe. In your situtation, my opinion is slightly different. Although let me say that I think it is almost always ok to learn from a video. Although by that I mean for the sole purpose of leraning more and not calling yourself a master from taking some phony course. Due to all of your experience, i am confident that you can go through with the entire course with no problems. ALthough not as good, as the "living breathing" type of insturction, being as how you already know a great deal you can surely apply it. I believe that anyone with a strong martial arts backround, can get these courses and should be able to judge by themselves if its effective or not. I was mainly reffering earlier to those who were new to martial arts, taking these courses and calling themselves masters. Again in your case though, I think theres nothing really wrong about it. You have the desire to learn it seems and not to cheat your way through it. And that instructor is pretty well known also. And the fact of you meeting him in person would greatly help in the ability to improve your fighting ability with that particular art. good luck with it, and id be interested in knowing how it turns out
Thanks. That was the first time, other than my innner circle, I told anybody about whats what. I will let you know how it goes. I should get out there this years or February for his camp that he has every year.
reply... thank you, would be very ineterested to know how that goes I plan to go to an iron palm confernence in las vegas around march and also go to a wing tzun seminar in new york in november. Never hurts to learn and expand and adapt it to your own martial art
I started training in 91 in American "Parker" Kenpo. we were based on the 154 technique system. It took my two years to get to adv. blu and another 17 months to get adv. green. Anyway after I got to adv. blue my instructor started this "accelerated learning program" which requiered you to show up 4 nights a week instead of 2 and pay about twice what the regular student pays. So get this...in the time it took me to advance from adv. blue to adv. green a few new students went from white to green and were standing next to me in the advanced class. This ruined our school. Instead of coming to work out the "real" advanced students were forced to hand hold a bunch of uncoordinated beginners for a hour twice a week. A lot of the top students left. I left. then about a year and a half later the whole school quit and is now under new people. It is a shame and a tragedy that good and honorable teachers of martial artists, and good and honorable businessmen is almost a mutually exclusive term.
