I instruct in Ed Parker’s American Kenpo system of martial art training in the Central Ohio area.

There are two main competing systems of Kenpo instruction in American today, one being Ed Parker’s American Kenpo and the other is Tracy’s Kenpo karate. Both systems have their roots in exactly the same place. Both are derived from Japanese Kempo Ju-Jitsu. Both were originally brought to Hawaii primarily by the Mitose family (Mit-o-see) and both started out using the same system of training as taught by Professor K.S. Chow in Hawaii around 1945 which was called “Kenpo Karate”.

Mr. Parker started his commercial version of the art of Kenpo Karate in Pasadena, California officially in the spring of 1957 with the Tracy brothers as his students. But Mr. Parker began to evolve his understanding of the martial arts in the early 60s and because of his personal evolution, started changing the system of Kenpo Karate training within his school. The Tracy’s preferred to to remain true to the Chow way of teaching even while Parker moved further and further away from the original Kenpo Karate system of Chow. Ultimately and with Mr. Parker’s blessing, the Tracy’s took over the original Parker schools and started their own school franchises using 95 % (I’m guessing here) of Professor Chow’s material and about 5% of the material that Mr. Parker was teaching in his schools at the time. Meanwhile Mr. Parker continued going off in his own direction continuing to change the name of his art several times during the 60s and 70s until he settled with the final name of American Kenpo.

Towards the end of his lifetime Mr. Parker told Mr. Will Tracy that the American Kenpo system of training used less then 10% of the original Kenpo karate curriculum. Having spent some time within the walls of Tracy Kenpo schools I can personally attest that this appears to be true. (www.KenpoKarate.com)

Kempo Ju-Jitsu was one of the original mixed martial arts coming out of Asia that was assembled by many master fighters over a 2,000 year period. The original art consisted of fighting empty handed either standing up or on the ground against the weapons of the day which included but were not limited to swords, spears, maces and often some sort of body armor worn by government soldiers. The local Samurai (local Police) used swords to deal with the provincial problems of the population back then whereas our police of today might use tasers or guns

Peasants would rise up and fight against the Soldiers or Samurai with farm implements including the tool for thrashing wheat (nunchaku) machete (sword) or the handles of rakes, hoes, and shovels (clubs). Whenever they felt they were being treated unjustly. Back in those days, some nation was alway invading some other nation and so early Chinese and Japanese people knew that at some point of other they would always be fighting for their rights and sometimes for their very lives.

Kempo Ju-Jitsu is believed by me, to be a set of fighting skills that were born out of the cultural and sociological consequences of constant war between Japan and China in the 1800s through the 1900s.

The impression I get when reading the Tracy website (www.KenpoKarate.com) is that the Tracy brothers preferred to stay mostly true to the art form as was laid out by Professor Chow and even Mitose so I think, their art can be considered more traditional then American Kenpo in that many of the things they teach today were the common fighting skills needed back in the early 1900s.

I believe, Mr. Parker decided much of the information being taught by Professor Chow was quickly becoming obsolete after the industrial evolution brought on by WWII. Mr. Parker decided to make his art more effective against the types of attacks everyday people in American might face out on the streets during the 60s through the 1990s. His art is much more in tune with the needs of ordinary people living in this day and age against the thugs, criminals, and yes, even the terrorist that threaten our very way of life.

KenpoCoach practices Parker-Planas American Kenpo. This is important because as things stand in the world of American Kenpo, there are many variations to the American Kenpo art form. I follow the art form as it is taught to me by Senior Master of the Arts (SMA) Mr. Richard "Huk" Planas (10th degree) through the excellent teaching skills of Professor Joe Doyle (6th degree at the time of this writing) out of Mentor, Ohio.

Mr. Planas was one of the original architects of the American Kenpo system. Mr. Planas, working beside the founder of the system; Senior Grand Master of the Arts (SGMA) Edmund K. Parker (deceased 1990), and SMA Tom Kelly, wrote out the teaching manuals that were used by Kenpoists from the early 1970s through about the late 1980s. Mr. Planas was a major developer of the original commercial version of the American Kenpo system of training for the martial arts.

There are other masters within the field of American Kenpo. Many of them are great fighters and have wonderful organizations through which they promote their students up in rank. But these masters should be considered equal to Mr. Planas; none can claim they are higher in rank than Mr. Planas in the American Kenpo society.

Mr. Planas has told me there are some very notable Kenpoists practicing in the world today who do not practice the art as it was intended to be performed by SGMA Ed Parker. I mention this because I am sure you are wanting to learn American Kenpo correctly from the start, and by alerting you to this fact, you are now notified to make sure you do your research and pick training partners who will be able to provide the training experience you seek.

Mr. Planas is available for consultation via e-mail at Hukplanas@Aol.com if you want to ask him about qualified Parker-Planas training organizations in your area.

I also want you to understand is that not all empty-handed martial arts are conducted the same way. Although all of our goals are the same - defending ourselves against an aggressor or attacker - the methodology is different for each art.  If you join the American Kenpo community, you will find that sometimes even the American Kenpo methods themselves vary from school to school.

Empty-handed fighting means to fight without use of any weapons other than the weapons provided through the wise usage of one's own hands, feet and head.

This guide will help you understand what it is we do; it will not help you understand how the other martial arts stack up against the art of American Kenpo.

American Kenpo is a striking art. It is similar to boxing, but without the rules of boxing. American Kenpo is designed to make the Kenpo user victorious. Kenpoists do not strive for second place in a fight. We strive to win. We will, if necessary, break a person's arm, leg or neck, gouge out eyes, chop throats, use strangulation and even bite someone's ear off if we feel it is necessary to win the fight.

Kenpoists also use the scientific application of physics to enhance their fighting abilities. We use all of the power we can find, combine that power with the most accurate strikes we can do, and will fight as fast as we can (without sacrificing the power principles) to win the fight.

The American Kenpo system is not designed to be used in point sparring competitions. If you are a person who likes to participate in point sparring, you must recognize there is are benefits to be found moving against an opponent in the sparring ring. These benefits can actually enhance your Kenpo training. But it is the sparring enhancing the Kenpo, not the Kenpo enhancing the sparring. Further, you must understand that you will do some things in a point sparring match that would not work in a real-life, hand-to-hand combat situation against an opponent who is set on killing you. Some of the regularly accepted practices in sparring will actually endanger you on a real field of battle. Some Kenpo instructors go so far as to say "bad habits" will be formed on the sparring floor. You decide what is best for yourself, of course. But I think it is best to become a great Kenpoist first. Let Kenpo be your primary mission, with sparring just another training method you can use sparingly.

Kenpo is not suitable for cage-type fighting. There are a great many people who know Kenpo who also know how to cage fight. These men and women can enter into a cage and keep the principles of Kenpo separate from the rules of the ring. Many great ring fighters will tell you they learned how to fight best by using their Kenpo training experiences, modifying them to fit the situation in the ring. But make no mistake - these fighters are modifying their use of Kenpo. It is not possible to fight in these venues using their full Kenpo knowledge and expertise. The competitors would be killed. Having said that, I wish to clarify that I believe all of the fighters in the cage type of fights, no matter what their area of martial art expertise is, know how to kill using their respective arts. Viewers of these types of shows must remember they are viewing a show; what they are seeing, although entertaining and in some ways educational, is constraining the actors and actresses by the usage of rules.

If you want to participate in some sort of competition using your Kenpo skills, the most effective system to use is "Freestyle" tournaments. In these tournaments, each opponent is fighting using the style he or she prefers. It is not, of course, exactly like real fighting would be in the street, but you will get a better feel for how well you know how to use your Kenpo.

To fight the American Kenpo way means that we destroy our opponent. As I write that, however, you should understand that all Kenpoists are thinking and feeling people. We do not just go out and maim, kill and destroy without just cause. We prefer to think of ourselves as being over-skilled with our fight knowledge, but we do not over-kill just because we can.

To train as a Kenpoist means methods must be found that allow our training opponent to survive the experience. Although no training system is perfect, we feel the stop-action method employed by our instructors to be about as good as we can get without actually entering into a do-or-die  situation. Stop-action refers to the technique used in the movies, where an action part is shot on film, then, when played back frame by frame, the viewer can learn what happened in the scene moment by moment. Today the Kenpo system is taught using a modified version of the stop-action film technique. We break fighting situations down into numbered sequences (frames), then speed up the sequences with some variables thrown into the mix until the fight sequences begin to look and feel like normal fighting situations (action shots) to the student.

The founder of our fighting art, SGMA Edmund Parker, was in Hollywood during his lifetime, and saw the usage of stop-action film techniques during the filming of such movies as "Kill the Golden Goose" and the several "Pink Panther" productions in which he was involved. The last movie Mr. Parker actually choreographed was Jeff Speakman's "The Perfect Weapon."

In the early years of Mr. Parker's American Kenpo development, he used 8 mm film to watch himself and his students perform Kenpo. He would watch the films going forward and backward, one frame at a time. Many of the breakthroughs in understanding the Kenpo martial art came through the constant reviewing of those films, uncovering information that would make himself and his art almost unbeatable.

Mr. Parker did not live to see the development of personal computers. If he had, he certainly would have made use of flash drives and videos to show his students what they are doing right and wrong in the development of their own understanding of Kenpo. Today, students can do the same thing by going forward and backward within videos taken of themselves and watching themselves perform their understanding of Kenpo.

This may sound strange, considering how widely known Kenpo is in the world of martial arts, but Kenpo is actually a secret art. Many of the techniques used within the fighting system came through generations of teachers, stretching over 2,000 years. This information was handed down one Chinese Tong (clan or school) at a time, from master to master and from school to school. If you are interested in the history of Kenpo, I suggest you buy the five-volume book series titled "Infinite Insights Into Kenpo" by Ed Parker. Within its pages will be a review of the history of Kenpo as Mr. Parker believed it came into being.

Secrecy in the martial arts was, and still is, a must. It should be obvious, but sometimes it still needs to be pointed out, that if every martial artist knows what every other martial artist knows about fighting, advantages found within individual fighting systems could be lost. Therefore, the Tongs kept their unique fighting style and skills to themselves. There were other reasons for secrecy, of course. Many governments outlawed the training of citizen soldiers, and many countries still keep limits in place to this day. In these types of situations, the Tongs simply moved - or will move - underground and continued training their students in secret. It might perhaps be better understood as training their students quietly.

In the early years of American Kenpo, Mr. Parker was willing to break with some of the secret traditions and teach the masses in America the ways of the Chinese Tongs. Later, after he discovered a lot of new material through use of the 8 mm films, he became increasingly aware that other arts were stealing his fighting discoveries. He became not so quick to put everything he knew about fighting out for consumption by the general public. Often when Mr. Parker would write out information for his students, the written document only made sense to the student on the mat who was being trained by Mr. Parker.

To this very day, there are those within the American Kenpo community who know the many secret ways of advanced Kenpo, but will not share them with the public at large out of respect for Mr. Parker's memory, and also to protect Kenpo's most deadly secrets from being well known in the world of  martial arts. This, to me, seems a lot like Mr. Parker's Kenpo has become a Tong of its own kind. Some members in the Parker Tong are still very protective of their deceased master's reputation, and will guard against any attempt to adulterate Mr. Parker's memory or his original commercial version of Kenpo. Some who didn't even know him are his loudest benefactors today. (Myself included)

With the passing of time, an increasing number of instructors who did not know and never met Mr. Parker, or did not qualify as American Kenpo instructors through the established IKKA organization, are teaching the American Kenpo system. There are school owners and instructors who taught themselves Kenpo from the original manuscripts. The written material left by Mr. Parker was not always consistent with what he taught his students on the floor; more will be written about this later. For reasons of secrecy, the material was deliberately and cryptically  written to throw off a competitor from stealing the information. For this reason, much of the original intent of SGMA Parker's original written American Kenpo training material is not properly understood by many instructors today.

Some instructors have taken it upon themselves to interpret what Mr. Parker and Mr. Planas wrote in the "Big Red" American Kenpo training manual, and have actually rewritten the Amercian Kenpo materials to more clearly represent what they "think" Mr. Parker had in mind. If you ever get a chance to actually read an original copy of "Big Red," you will soon see how cryptic Mr. Parker's training manuals can be. The manuals make sense once you have been properly instructed, but are tough to read and understand without proper instructor training.

Many modern American Kenpo instructors reorganized the American Kenpo system and moved techniques around, added some training sets and even some new training forms to more closely represent the learning they themselves want their students to learn. To put it nicely, Kenpo has "evolved" in many schools into a Kenpo training system that some say Mr. Parker himself would not recognize as being his own creation. Indeed, sometimes it is not Mr. Parker's Kenpo anymore.

In the beginning, when Mr. Parker was just starting his American Kenpo programming, his uniforms were plain and practical. Other than his Kenpo Crest (Parker patch), which was shown over the left breast, there was little insignia used on his white Japanese training uniform, called a GI. As his organization developed and evolved, and more people began to join, Mr. Parker wanted to promote certain special aspects of his developing American Kenpo way. Thus, he eventually started listing his International Kenpo Karate Association on a "rocker patch" on the left should with a circular Universal Pattern patch located just below. Further, he created and displayed a patch to represent the fellowship of the Long Beach International Tournament competition he was promoting in California. This patch went opposite the crest, and was located on the right breast of the GI. The name of the GI owner eventually found its way onto the GI in the form of a second rocker patch over the Kenpo crest. Some students took to adding another rocker patch on the right shoulder to indicate what organization, state or country they were from.

The uniform, as Mr. Planas would later tell me, was designed to look similar to military fashion. Just as the military uses metals, ribbons and patches to denote the accomplishments of the wearer, so, too, the patches and other insignia allowed on the GI by SGMA Parker designated the status of the GI's owner. After Mr. Parker's death, and with the steady development of American Kenpo around the world, other patches and insignia have been developed and used on the GI. Today, one might see all kinds of patches and decorative artwork on a GI that in the past would have been unacceptable to Mr. Parker.

If I remember written history correctly, at the start of Mr. Parker's Kenpo Karate training program he used only three colors of belts: White, brown and black. Of course, in the beginning the Kenpo karate system as described in Mr. Parker's book "Kenpo Karate; Law of the Fist and the Empty Hand," had far less information than what is usually in the American Kenpo taught today. The usage of three belt rankings thus was adequate for the system as it stood back in the 1960s.

As Mr. Parker's Kenpo organization grew,  he continued to add additional information to the system, and it became clear additional belt rankings were going to be needed for proper identification of a student's training level. At some point, probably in the early 1960s, a new belt system was  implemented.  According to a history recently provided to me, the origin of the multi-colored belt system actually was created by a Tracy's Kenpoist who thought up the idea of selling Kenpo in bits and pieces to the American consumer.  By belting and striping the student, it would be possible to sell lessons based upon where in the Kenpo system the student was last belted, and design a payment plan to continue the student's lessons from there, should a student leave, then return to the school to continue his training.  According to this history, SGMA Parker hated the idea, but was persuaded to change his belt system to the new version as it proved to be economically successful within the schools. 

The system of multiple colored belts went through several revisions. Some versions had fewer belt colors, but were based upon a greater number of techniques offered per belt.   The system officially selected by Mr. Parker contained 24 techniques per belt, and settled on the following colors: White, yellow, orange, purple, blue, green, three separate rankings of brown, then the black. Striping each belt with a color of tape representing the next belt color to come allowed and even finer indication of just where the student was within the Kenpo training system. This system is still used today. You will see many different colors of belts at American Kenpo schools, with taped stripes at the ends of each belt so instructors will always know what to teach the student next. This also helps the instructor know what to expect from of the student in the way of performance on the training floor, and how much more money the student is to be charged for his lessons.

Mr. Planas has told me that at one point in the American Kenpo system development, a black belt was the highest rank a student could hope to achieve. But, he said, "... it was hard to get that black."  The workouts were grueling and later became known as "hard school" training (as opposed to the "soft school" training used in the later 1970s). The students who followed hard school training were to practice what became known as the Basics over and over, until the movements were thoroughly ingrained in their mind and automatic responses came out of the student's body.   They learned to hit hard, and then hit harder still, using all configurations of hand weaponry as the student moved about the room fighting his real opponent. 

This was considered normal practice.  Bruises, cuts, broken bones, bloody noses and sore joints were all part of the original training regimen. Much of the early training system is still available to be seen if a student locates a copy of Mr. Parker's book "Kenpo Karate; Law of the Fist and the Empty Hand," (hint, hint), and through the viewing of Internet videos. Every once in a while, schools today will take to practicing their martial arts in a similar fashion to the way Mr. Parker did it back in the '50s and '60s. You'll have to decide for yourself if this is something you wish to participate in should the school you attend get "real" with its training system.

As further incentive for the student to complete his Kenpo studies, Mr. Parker instituted a plan that allowed the student to wear a black GI only after the student made it through green belt, and was awarded his brown belt. The white GI is the color of the newer students. The black GI has proved itself popular with the public at large, and taking advantage of this popularity was a keen stroke of marketing genius on the part of the Parker organization. When on the training floor, members of the Kenpo community who wear the black definitely stand out in contrast to the students wearing the white. In the movies, the bad guys always wore black. Perhaps this is where the idea of the black GI used in Parker Kenpo originated.

For the black belt level, Mr. Parker eventually settled on a plain black belt, then used an increasing number of red stripes, spaced 1/2 inch apart, to denote rank up to 4th degree black.  The color red is reserved for those in the Parker system who are very advanced instructors.   Upon achievement of 5th degree, the red stripes are removed and a single red strip, or "brick," was used to designate the wearer as a 5th. A 6th degree would wear one red brick and one red stripe; on it goes up to 10th, where the wearer will use two red bricks for his rank. Originally, the use of the red stripes and red bricks designated how high up in training and how high up within the Parker organization the wearer was. The system was used to determine who was given certain insights into advanced fighting concepts by Mr. Parker personally, and who was not yet ready.

One problem with this belt system did not show itself until the passing of Mr. Parker. As long as Mr. Parker was issuing the rankings, everything was kept in smooth order, but upon his death, other organizations outside of American Kenpo began to use the red stripes and red bricks. It soon became possible for advanced students from an organization other than American Kenpo to become even higher ranked than a well-established Kenpoist who is an American Kenpoist.

While Mr. Parker was alive and in control of his fighting system, those red stripes and red brick designations really meant something to the wearer. Gaining in rank meant the student would be more and more privileged to the secret ways of American Kenpo.  The higher up in rank, the more the instructor was trusted to keep the advanced Kenpo methods to themselves.  The red stripes and red bricks still matter and still command the same respect among Kenpoists who went through the Parker Kenpo system while Mr. Parker was still alive. These men and women know each other and still preserve the respect earned by each other as members of the original Parker American Kenpo community at large.

With the passing of Mr. Parker and the closure of his IKKA,  the stripes and bricks are but a shell of what they once meant to those inside the original Parker American Kenpo society. Although there are many schools and organizations that utilize the Parker belt system, and the surviving training manuals, they do not necessarily follow the same guidelines as those used by Mr. Parker when awarding belt designations. The stripes and brick designations being handed out today are being handed out by people other than Mr. Parker himself.  This does make a difference in the value of the designations.

I am not second guessing the authenticity of these designations, because with Mr. Parker gone, it is natural that the growth in the American Kenpo martial art continues. What I am saying is that not all instructors were created equal, and it is possible that some third- and fourth-generation Kenpoists who are issuing these designations cannot possibly judge who is worthy of certain belt rankings in the same fashion as did the founder of the art.  It is important to realize that belt rankings matter the most within the organization to which you belong, and to never forget that the men and women who came out of the original Parker American Kenpo organization are perhaps even more knowledgeable than are you when it comes to Parker Kenpo, even if they are ranked below you.

Respect is everything for the survival of our art.  And if you were to ever fight one of these "Old Timers," you might just find out that you, although ranked higher, are simply not up to the task.  Enough said.

I think it is important if you are able to get with a master who was first generation under Mr. Parker, as it is more likely you will receive belt rankings that are more in line with what Mr. Parker had envisioned. Many of these masters are retiring or dying off, so it is becoming more and more difficult to gain this close perspective of American Kenpo.  If you fail to get with a first-generation instructor under Mr. Parker's lineage, the next best bet would be to become a first-generation Kenpoist under one of Mr. Parker's high-ranking belt holders.

At the time of Mr. Parker's death, these gentlemen were the highest ranking belt holders (and first-generation Kenpoists) under SGMA Parker in the Ed Parker American Kenpo (EPAK) karate system; all were ranked as 7th degree:  Chuck Sullivan, Dave Hebler, Ron Chap'el, Larry Tatum, Joe Palanzo, Tom Kelly, Steve Labounty, Richard "Huk" Planas, Bob White and Frank Trejo.

There were many great instructors within the Parker organization at the time of his death and so there may be other instructors who were also highly ranked whos name did not appear above.  The student is cautioned to do his own research and to confirm if his or her master was actually a high ranking belt holder at the time of Mr. Parker's death.  Please be aware that many people made "changes to their belt status" soon after Mr. Parkers passing. 

In my case, Mr. Planas is a first-generation Kenpoist under Mr. Parker; Mr. Joe Doyle is a first-generation Kenpoist under Mr. Planas. I train under both of them; this is as close as I can get to the original Parker teachings.

There were other people in the world of Kenpo known to have achieved even higher rank.  Elvis Presley was known to be a 8th degree within EPAK for example, but for reasons beyond the scope of this work, these men are seldom discussed by Kenpoists of today.  In addition, the reader must remember there were men who studied with Mr. Parker long before the IKKA was in existence.  This means there are men who earned their black belts and never had to be, nor wanted to be, marked by the ranking system later adopted by the commercialized system of EPAK.  These men do not show up as Senior Master of the Arts because for them, they earned the black before there was any IKKA or SMA designations.  These men do not need public displays of who they are, because in the old, old days, you never told another man that you knew such a skill. You let him find out on his own.

Something I personally have found interesting about Mr. Parker is his ongoing personal development as an instructor who was also the originator of an art that bears his name. The commercial Amercan Kenpo system of belts was laid out to allow for the continual growth of the student body in the Kenpo community. And yet, the technical manuals were never fully completed. So although there is a belt system designed to take a person all the way to 10th degree, there is no instructional framework provided which a student can follow to reach that lofty goal. The highest ranking a person can achieve using the established training manuals is a 3rd degree black belt.

It can be reasoned that Mr. Parker had a great deal of information he wanted to include within the framework of his commercial American Kenpo, but he never got around to completing the system. After all, he was a very busy man what with his book writing, movie career, being Elvis Presley's personal body guard, setting up and running the California "Long Beach Internationals" tournaments, and setting up and running a system of Kenpo schools around the world, schools which included personal appearances and giving seminars to his adoring fans. Even with his busy schedule, Mr. Parker still found time to advance his own knowledge of the martial arts through personal training experiences he received from other notable martial artists of his time. Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris and others martial artist often met with, and in some cases trained with, Mr. Parker while he was on the road building his Kenpo empire. So by the time of his death in 1990, Mr. Parker was continually stretching his mind and experimenting with these many facets within the martial art field. I am sure it was always his intention to take the continuing education he was receiving from these great martial artists and incorporate that information into his upper belt ranking system. Unfortunately, he passed away before he was able to formally include this information within the framework of his commercial American Kenpo system.

So what, dear reader, did these 7th-degree men learn and what did they do that entitled them to this high of a ranking in the commercial Kenpo system, if the manuals themselves were never completed beyond a 3rd degree ranking?  And how are Kenpoists judged today for rankings above 3rd degree?  For your further consideration, I would like you to think about whether or not a Grand Master of Kenpo today need only to complete the Kenpo system up to 3rd degree, since no other Kenpo information is available to take a student beyond this point.

More to come.