What does everone think of CNG's SKK...

Interesting... We teach 18 combination at Purple Belt... I was speaking to Prof. Nohelty past Saturday. The topic of the Combinations and the numbering/sequence and when they were passed down to him from Prof. Cerio. (Prof. Cerio recognized both Profs. Nohelty and Bryant as Instructors and they are both listed on Prof.Cerio's Black Belt tree.) Both Prof. Nohelty and Prof. Bryant have documented the entire system from white belt to Nidan in their student manual. You can go to www.masterscenters.com and check for availability. This might give you an insight into the your SKK,NCK,KGS roots. It will help you understand where exactly your founder split from the mother Art. You want a real eye opener??? Go back to www.nickcerioskenpo.com and check for the Masters Text... Want to go back even further??? Check out www.kajukenboinfo.com, if you order the complete Kajukenbo DVD set you can see what the codified root of your sub-art really looks like. The similarities between Kajukenbo and KGS are quite evident in my opinion... The forms are different granted, but there is a ton of common material and fundamentals...
I think it would be to your advantage, BEFORE you open your school, to check out your true roots, and then, you can decide exactly what you can pass on to your students... Remember, you want to feel confident in being able to prepare your students to defend themselves and their families if the need arises... Wouldn't you want to make sure what your are teaching has been proven?
I recognize the pressures of paying "the rent" all to well... That does not relieve me of the responsibility to make sure what I teach can prepare my students to protect themselves and their families if needed. THAT is a huge responsiblitiy!!! I feel comfortable in teaching what I have learned from my Instructors. I have had the unfortunate experience of having to defend myself... I know what I teach would work, if it had to. Can you say the same?

 

Note on Pinan 2

The way I was taught pinan 2, it had two major lessons. The first was how to change directions (carried over from pinan 1) and the second was how to sink and rise to derive power in your strikes. This is especially true in the series of the four strikes where, in the way I was taught, you are actually rising, rising, sinking and rising as you strike. At a more advanced level, you are actually moving your center forward on each strike every so slightly. We also teach the cat transitions as transitions and not holding points.

I thought I would add this in, to represent a different interpretation.

 

We teach that same concept as you progress in rank...
Shifting weight on every strike and maintaining proper body alignment. By the time you reach Shodan these are well practiced and the motion is refined to a higher degree. I think your description of the proper body mechanics for two Pinan is very good... Sounds like what I teach!

 

Agreed, by Shodan this form and the movements are well practiced. I would go as far as saying they are ingrained. It is the second form taught so you would and should see a notable difference from an orange belt level to shodan. We're on the same page.

 

Joe, thanks, but can you answer my question from way up there on your high-horse? are we talking about the same combo or not??? What is the attack that "your" #18 defends against? is it the high/low attack as I described above?

And to Red J - yes we teach those same principles, but for the one difference as I noted before, where we hold the cat stance for half a beat. We have reasons for that, I think I already wrote about them.

 

Okay "little pony", here is your answer.
There are many applications to this combination. Could be a high - low attack. Could be a kick attack. Could be a back swinging/back hand club. I have even been taught a multiple attacker defense from this one.
18 combination.
Step back to a left cat stance. Do a left downward parry block. Step forward with the left leg and strike the attacker's neck with a left back hand/forearm. Grab with the left hand and step back into a right side stance. Do a right downward elbow to the attacker's spine and from that strike a right reverse hammer to the temple. Cross away and cover.

 

That's a completely different technique from our #18, so your question about it being hard or soft, I can't answer... I don't think we even have that combo in our system.

our 18 goes like this:

Attacker strikes with right punch to the body (or kick), step forward with the right foot and use a right downward palm block. Attacker follows with a left cross to the head/face, block using a right upward/outer block. From the block the right hand strikes the attackers left temple or jaw with a plam heel / tiger claw rake, turning attacker's head to his right. Strike to the attacker's left temple with a left thrust punch, cross out to guard.

Sounds like a completely different thing.

And I would descrbie this as a "hard" technique using the criteria I wrote about back on 3/1.

-David

 

Again, very interesting... Like I said, this a purple belt combination. I am surprised it is not in your system. Your 18 sounds very much like a "kempo punch technique" I learned from Master Mullaney. Do you know where your #18 came from??? Seems to me that your system has taken a radical departure from the SKK,NCK,KGS roots. Why is that? Do you know where your system deviated from the Mother Art?

 

#18 as I learned it:

Against a forward front punch; Step back into a cat stance with a down parry. Step forward with left leg and left open back hand to ear/face. Grab left shoulder with left hand and step back into a horse stance facing 9 0 clock pulling opponent down onto his knees. Downward right elbow smash to spine which flows down into a right hammer fist to side of head. Cross and cover.

 

I perform it the same way you described it! You described it much better than I did!
Joe V.

 

Pacificshore wrote on #63 25-Feb-2006, 05:39 PM

"Yes, very interesting with the back and forth e-mails between Pesare and Gascon, as well as the negativity towards Shuras by Pesare. Regardless of the issues between Geary and the Karazenpo group, there seems to be issues between Karazenpo and Pesare per the e-mails shown in Chapter 14 of Geary's autobio."

I posted back to Pacificshore on March 2, 2006. It may be reviewed on Post #77 of this thread. Pacificshore and I had a very cordial correspondence.

To: Pacificshore, at this time, I am very pleased to state that Senior Grandmaster S. George Pesare and myself have reconciled any and all differences we had in the past which caused this unfortunate and regretful situation. All 'familes' have their difficulties but a 'strong' family will always survive and become even 'stronger' after situations as these. Throughout all this, as many of you know, I have never waivered publically or privately in my support for SGM. Pesare and his Kaito Gakko and the tremendous contributions he and his students have made in the last 46 years to our Kempo/Kempo community.

No Pesare-No Cerio-No Villari-No Kempo as we know it today, especially in New England where he is the undisputed founder of Kempo/Kenpo Karate. Many of these threads here today would not have existed on this Kenpo Section if not for him! I kept our personal problem totally seperate from, 'S. George Pesare, the 'Senior Grandmaster of Kempo' and he did the same toward me. My wife Kathy and our students were always welcomed at his Kaito Gakko for tournaments and other gatherings. They loved attending his yearly 'Best of the Best' and always felt comfortable and accepted at his Institute. I maintained my friendship with one of his highly respected grandmasters and SGM. Pesare never intervened or discouraged him from our relationship. He is a man of his word for he stated to me it was between him and I.

I had some people attempt to fan the flames with me because of Kathy's continued cordial relationship with SGM. Pesare after our falling out, one telling me my home was a 'house divided'. My response was, B.S., the situation had nothing to do with Kathy, nor my students for that matter and I totally support their continued alliance with the Kaito Gakko. That's all I wanted to say. Peace to all. Respectfully, Joe Shuras

 

Prof Joe:

In a manner of speaking, it is good to hear that time will heal all wounds no matter how small or big. It is great to hear that all has been resolved between you and SGM Pesare. It was also nice to hear that whatever the disagreement in the past was, that it did not affect anyone else in your family or SGM Pesare's organization. Best of luck to you, your family, your students, and to SGM Pesare and his family and students.

 

Thank You!

Pacificshore, thank you for the kind words of support. It's appreciated. Take care & God bless, my brother. Prof. Joe

 

I don't know where our 18 came from but I will ask. I think I remember seeing something similar on one of NC's Kempo Hands videos but maybe not...

Where did it deviate, in general? The deviations are all from Prof. Geary. I believe he was trying to clean up some of the, shall we say, "less effective" stuff taught at USSD, among other things.

"radical departure"? not really. a few differences here and a few there, but I think you are jumping to conclusions, we've discussed one technique. I've watched lots of video of the Villari and USSD systems and some NCK too. I see more similarities than differences. To me our system looks like USSD with some crap stripped out and NCK stuff put in its place. But I'm no expert on USSD or NCK, that's just a thought from watching their videos.

 

<rant>
If the combination isn't effective, it is either the combination or the person doing it (hint, it probably isn't the combination). Now, it is certainly possible that the person wasn't taught the combination properly. If one hasn't broken off from their organization, they can go visit their instructor and say, "Sensei, I'm having problems making combination X effective. I don't quite see how it works". The instructor will then proceed to throw the student around with the combination until they understand how to make it effective. When one breaks off from an organization at a relatively low rank (e.g. before one is a master), then they lose the ability to get these questions answered, and they end up pulling stuff out of their rear ends. This is not to say that all of the SKK combinations are perfect techniques (they certainly aren't), but most of the time I've seen someone claim they didn't think a combination was effective it was because they didn't really know how to do it properly.
</rant>

 

Good post Octopic.

I also would like to add that as you get into the higher ranks, Shodan and above, you really start to understand the intricacies and the concepts of the combinations and why they are taught. What you didn't understand yesterday suddenly makes sense today, especially if you have an experienced sensei to ask and/or demonstrate. As Octopic suggested being thrown around helps. Some of my best lessons have come from punching in for masters.

 

Wow, guess I touched a nerve there, huh? relax...

are you implying that you guys do the USSD system without alteration?

We see it like this: the USSD material is derived form Villari's which was derived from NCK which was derived from KGS which was derived from KJKB... and we don't think that each step was necessarily an improvement. So Prof. Geary looked back through those phases to see what was changed along the way and tried to figure out why and if it was better. Very few if any of our 'techniques' were made from thin air by Prof. Geary. He brought in combos from earlier incarnations to replace pieces that he didn't think were effective, or made changes to combos to suit his ideas and experience.

 

new chapter

speaking of cng, he has updated his website. christophergeary.com now has a new chapter. it is chapter 16. go check it out.

 

I do Villari's SKK and yes, there are some alterations done, but they are off of the base combination. Most of those you don't see or learn until after BB. They are just different versions and hidden strikes that you learn. Just the other night I saw a new take on #3 (we all have that one) in which the second move had a pinning of the opponet's right arm behind his back. The take down was just plain nasty. It's not something that you teach beginners the first night. I am not sure about USSD.

David, you said in your post that Mr. Geary looked back and improved on certain aspects of the different systems. I was wondering who he trained with to get the advanced combos? Was it through USSD or NCK? Also how many combinations does your system have?

 

we have:
26 empty-hand techniques (vs punch or kick etc)
15 grab techniques
10 club techniques
10 knife techniques
10 gun techniques
5 pinan
5 kata
3 blocking "systems" (8, 10, and 16)

after BB there are more kata

That's not exactly what I meant. I meant that Prof. Geary took some things out and replaced it with other stuff, not that we teach variations... which we do, but that's not the point