The use of the knees in kicking holds a particular importance to my thinking and practice. In order to generate power in most kicks the movement of the knee is key. Without the knee exploding from a chambered postition towards the plexus most kicks will lack the force they could deliver. By using the center of your body you use your whole body, neglect this and you exponentially dimininsh what you want to do for almost every kick in the system. The non kicking leg maintains your root (especially with impact) and cannot be locked. the knee must bend and even sink with the kick and not striaghten out or lock. The return to the crane afterwards re indexes the spine and brings you back to center alignment and equilibrium…bring the knee back to your center. the further you move from these prinicples of the knee the less effective your kempo becomes.
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i concur with everything you have stated, plus, the knee by itself, is one hell of a deadly weapon too!
: o)
Marlon –
I hope you know i respect you but I am just such a devil’s advocate that I cant help myself. Your principles are all sound on the way you talk about kicking, there is no arguement there from me but it is not the end all of B all’s. When you talk Kempo do we start with SGM Pesare or Prof. Chow? both would probably go against you on some of what you are saying. SGM Pesare’s original way of 1 kata (his 1 pinan) does not retract back to a crane after the side kicks at the end – he allows gravity to help with the damage he delivers to the knees. This was different for me when I first saw it and then when down in D.C. training with someone that I highly respect he too did not come back to the crane saying if you are going to do the damage make sure its done and go straight to the ground with it and grind it in. Our Kempo is a blended art so when we start kicking we need to remember where that kicking came from — Tang Soo do. So i do not agree with your last sentence on the further we move from these principles the less Kempo it is. I am pretty well versed on the benefits of re-craning after a kick but there are other ways that are just as much Kempo and just as good for certain scenario’s. It becomes more prevalent the way you see different teachers finish a person – difference between those who have been in the military and those who have just been in classes — I have just been in classes but have seen the difference.
Jesse
Hello Master Dwire,
I hope you know i respect you for your knowledge, skill and rank. Yet, i still stand by every word i wrote in the above statement. BTW i did not say that one becomes less kempo the further away from the principles one moves, i said the less effective our kempo becomes. As to the kicks in a kata, we need to always consider form vs bunkai. the prinicples of a correct kick does not change because your bunkai changes the kick into something else. Combo 26 i do not have a side kick i have a stomp to the ground. were i to include it in a form then the motion would match. My side thrust kicks tend to be downward in nature becuase i want my weight behind the kick. high kicking is playing tag in many cases. What you describe above i would not consider a side thrust kick at all but ratyher a stomp, and therefore it requires different mechanics. A kata or form as much as it contains the famous bunkai, has it’s greatest benefit in re inforcing proper effective mechanics, that when we discuss different applications (scenarios) may morph into something different yet similar.
I recognize that i am not even a fifth degree nor do i have the exposurre and experience you have, but when i consider the historical lineage of our art (beginning mainly with Chow) i do not neglect analytical thought, nor empirical evidence. Sturcturally, a side thrust kick is most sound as i described above, the more we move from the ideal principles the less effective our kempo becomes or we are no longer doing a particular kick and perhaps different mechanics apply.
just my thoughts, and i reserve the right to be proven wrong and improve my practice and teaching.
cannot edit but i meant combo 21 not 26 😉
It will be great to take your seminar next month master Dwire and hopefully we can get some kempo talk and practice in afterwards as well!
I would like to simply add that in many American Kenpo techniques the kick (front, side or otherwise) is not returned to crane but used to walk through the attacker further taking them off balance. I do not debate the effectiveness of learning to re-crane your kick I am only offering this as a note.
Thanks Justin. Sometimes when i am doing what i can to understand something and especially when we are not face to face there can be misunderstandings about my tone. So, please forgive and thing that comes off as disrespectful, as I do not intend to be at all.There is nothing wrong with intelligent debate.
This ‘walking’ through an opponent, what exactly does one do with the leg after the kick…fall forwards? leave it straight? Crane but away from the body? Did Ed Parker espouse this or is it an innovation from his students? It does seem to me that by relying on the attacker’s body for balance is somewhat unsafe. Would it be as effective to kick through the attacker starting at a closer distance, perhaps, returning to a good crane and still step forwards? Does this leave you unbalanced in the middle of a response, if not how do you regain your equillibrium? Is this an AK basic or taught by certain instructors? Thanks, i await your continued sharing
I know a lot of 5th degrees and higher that do not have your knowledge.. I did not bring rank into the conversation. this is what caught my attention. ( “the further you move from these prinicples of the knee the less effective your kempo becomes”) You state that if i do this without the crane that I will become less effective and I beg to differ. In fact with this new knowledge I think my Kempo is better then before – I am not using there leg for balance, I am using Gods great gift of gravity to help my kick be more powerful and then use Mother earths great gift of the ground to crush the leg into the ground.
As for the Form v. Bunkai we will differ on that too. You fight as you practice so you should practice how you fight.
Cant wait to see you in March – I am trying to figure out the sat. workout too – but just got off the phone with SGM Pesare and he is doing a seminar at his school on sat.
Jesse, thank you for the compliment. I am not trying to make an issue out of rank, i am simply showing you the respect you deserve. Besides, I am still a product of the MSDC org, in part…
As for the principles around the knee, i understand your position and look forward to working out with you in March. I bring gravity and weight into my kicks as it is silly not to do so. Yet, to unbalance onesself goes against the grain of certain things that is just good fighting technique, to my thinking and i do not see how removing it makes one a better fighter.
As for form v. bunkai i am not so sure that we are all that far apart. you state.”fight as you practice so you should practice how you fight”. Agreed. However, if my form is all about one set of particular bunkai then i limit my ability to respond to situations that are dynamic and unpredictable. Yet, if i work on good mechanics and movement then i will respond and fight with good mechanics and movement. I will pose the same questions to you as i have asked Justin:
what exactly does one do with the leg after the kick…fall forwards? leave it straight? Crane but away from the body? Did Ed Parker espouse this or is it an innovation from his students? It does seem to me that by relying on the attacker’s body for balance is somewhat unsafe. Would it be as effective to kick through the attacker starting at a closer distance, perhaps, returning to a good crane and still step forwards? Does this leave you unbalanced in the middle of a response, if not how do you regain your equillibrium?
I say by all means add practicing “Mother earths great gift of the ground to crush the leg into the ground”, yes (combo 21) but let’s not call that a kick, let’s recognize the structural issues and balance issue involved and address them, because skk is built for multiple attackers we train to keep ourselves balanced and mobile while fighting. Things that disrupt that disrupts our skk so needs to be examined. I prefer to kick close and kick downwards for the very rerasons you mention, and for me the whole view of a multiple attacker fight (surviving it) requires that i re align my spine and maintain my center equilibrium as much as possible…the question is how to do this and effectively kick.
March is going to be great!!!!
I’m really looking forward to March, as I think we all have some interesting things going on here. I tend to separate the chamber, the delivery and the return based on what needs to be done. In some cases, I want my leg back to move somewhere else, so I return like the ‘typical’ return to crane stance method. In others, I want to go from the impact to the slide, so the ‘return’ slides in like a wedge to alter the base of the person I’m kicking. In still other cases, I tack a different chamber on to lead into a movement in a different direction. Go out like a back kick, return like a hook. It all depends. I think we’ve all done the chamber like a hook kick / deliver a side kick while sparring. This is that idea taken just a little further.
March madness is coming!
When, where, and who in March? I need some exciting seminars!!!
Marlon I would much rather you disagree with me completely and explain why then agree with me and “rub butts” and bask in all our glory of how great we think we are. Anyway, in the example I was giving I do not use the attackers balance for mine I simply walk through where they are. Does the kick drop straight legged down? Well in some cases, as Jesse and Matt pointed out to scrape the inside of a leg. In others the leg does bend to walk forward but not as defined as a chambered crane. Not a hard and fast rule but a nuance.
Thanks for the discussion, all. Forcing me to think. I’m wondering if there is a You Tube reference for the non-second-chamber kick? I’d like to see if my understanding of this is on target.
I learned a variation of this in another art — that is, no overt 1st or 2nd chamber — but never saw anyone but the master who could pull it off (which is not to say it couldn’t be done, just that none of the senior students had achieved that).
As I think about it (very early this morning ;)), it seems I use two-chamber kicks for rear-leg kicks, but a no-chamber (either 1st or 2nd) for front-leg kicks. Hmmm… would appreciate any input.
Justin, I like you but am not even remotely tempted to ‘rub butts”, besides i m happily married 🙂
Seriously, you seem offended. Please accept my apologies for any rudeness that may have come across. It was not intentional and i am only seeking to understand your position. I will disagree with the leg dropping straight down and the leg scrape/ stomp thingy i do not call a kick and it is a very valid technique. My position is about balance and spinal alignment…anywho perhaps when i see you guys i will understand better and my objections will disappear. but balance and structural alignment for me are hard and fast rules. I think in my response to you i raised my questions clearly, some of which you have addressed and some that perhaps we need to be in person to really ‘see’. As my first post mentioned this is a princple i apply to most kicks, not all. a stomp ,no, nor an axe kick a side thrust and front kick yes. This is just the way i have found things to be most effective and i am always willing to learn. BTW i not found anyone on this site “basking in their glory” or thier own sense of greatness. And i do not think of myself in terms of any glory and i am not a great martial artist. I am however, working hard to be a good one. And this is how i have always thought of you.
Well, hope to see you in March
be well
Marlon
once again i want to bring attention to the fact that tone and nuance of voice is very hard to convey in a forum like this, so my apologies in advance to anyone who may take offense to the way i might say something. rest assured i can be very blunt so if i want to be insulting or degrading, it will be obvious. if it is not please ask and let’s clear things up quickly. Anything i write is my view on kempo and i am still learning and very aware of my limitations
as you stated tone does not come through in this median. I am in no way offended and quite frankly just the opposite, which is where my comment from basking in our glory (sarcasm) came from. I think that the difficulty you are having is that you seem (I obvioulsy don’t know) to be mistaking walking through someone as being off balance. There is no loss of balance due to not returning your kick to chambered position, which I will reiterate in case it was lost in translation, returning your kick to crane is an INvaluable asset. These two kicks are just different in application. There are times when it is absolutely prudent to return your kick to chamber(flamingo) and then there are times where it makes more sense not to. Again I am the furthest thing from offended I believe everyone on this site knows each other personally and professionally and it is the reason I continue popping up here, no one is basking in the glory of their greatness. Hope that clarifies.
btw I may have to comment four more times just so I can finally move ahead of jesse on the recently commented board. 😉
my school practices both “Form” in which we return our chambers to crane stance, and, also, the kick-to-step down behing/45degree/inside of opponent’s stance to gain superior position and keep the flow of kempo still rolling.
Glad to know that here was no misunderstanding.
Two different kicks, agreed
Mark, a decent solution. Do you do this with all the students or only the more advanced?
How do you guys look at #40?
Don’t like 40 nor do I like Leaping Crane (basicly epak version). That being said, perfect example. The traditional (so to speak) #40 rechambers the leg while Leaping crane uses the “stomp” version of a side kick. For me #40 attacks at a side view and leaping crane attacks from the rear, due to reactionary positioning the body aligns differently and different areas are targeted.
Thanks, Marlon. I teach chamber (two-flamingo) kicks first, since they seem easier to newbies. The ‘straight-leg’ or scoop kick off the leading leg is introduced at about green belt since it’s more difficult. I see the stomp as you do, I believe, a separate motion all it’s own akin to a crescent motion (rises a short ways, loops over, drops to target).
on our#40, we step/hop(we practice both) to a left 45degree, simultaneously deliver a left palm check block, then right side blade kick to back of opponent’s knee, thus bringin him down.
We have 2 ending’s, depending on if opponent falls on his back(laying down, ) or, if opponent is only kneeling on his right knee, that you just kicked out with your blade, either, we do not chamber back, after the right side blade, we step down quickly in between opponent’s legs.
Pm me if you need more info.
I use mainly two chambers for most of my kicks. I like 40 and it helps to teach a certain solidness of balance. I blade kick the knee re chamber and step down to the outside of the leg. Btw the way when I bring my knee back towards my center it triggers a cue for me to re align my spine which is something else I find fundemental to effective kempo as I see it… Especially true after impact or when using multiple blows or dealing with multie attackers. In a multiple attacker scenario where and what do others use if not a crane to effect a re alignment?
marlon, try it like this:
as you blade, step down in between opponent’s legs(usually you quickly step down with right , right after blade, DO NOT RECHAMBER!)
now, left hand grabs side of opponent’s left face, while right round house to opponnent’s right temple area:o)
Want more? ok!
no, as left hand grabs face, and now right hand is on back of opponent’s head, neck break with hands, quickly right shuto right side of throat, as left hand goes to back of opponent’s head, as shuto hits, with right hand, grab under chin, and neckbreak again.Right leg scoop kicks groin, then, Right side thrust kick opponent’s back, to launch opponent forward.Right stomp to opponent’s right achile’s tendon/ankle area, and hold down for opponent’s head to “pop” up:o)
shuffle to side of opponent’s head(left over right foot) then left side blade to opponent’s face, then right roundhouse ball kick to back of opponent’s head, kia, cross hands on guard away.
(one version i have with opponent just taking a knee after right side blade.)Try it slowly, i know you and your friend, Marlon, will like the “Neck Breaks”:o)
you will find, that for this DM/Kempo, it “Flows” rather quickly as after right blade to back of knee-quickly step down, is rather quick, and presses, in pretty tightly, perfect for those in-close -set ups(i wish i had a camera, i could email it to you.)
also forgot, after you check block with left palm across in the beginning, right backfist/right hammer to opponent’s kidney.
Quite a few intersting variations on 40. Thanks for sharing. It gives me an idea. Justin, master Dwire and Matt, if you could give me th combo’s that you use the knee in a a different manner than I mentioned then I can work on understanding your way before we meet. Thanks.
Mark you sure you do not want to leav California and come to snowy cape cod on the 12 th for the seminar? It seems we are going to have a great time outsde the seminars as well. You also warriorkid!
Shaolinmark — after the first neck break – why continue? :)…. Marlon you are confusing conversations here with post 1960 combo’s. and mark just commented on how he does not rechamber in 40. I know you are nothing but respectful here Marlon, sorry i did not respond earlier to ease your mind. After leaving MSDC who followed either the strict guidlines of Villari or later years Cerio’s you do not see the military stomp through. SGM Pesare’s ending (Original way learned by him from Gascon) at the end of 1 kata he does not do a back fist – pretty side kick, he does an elbow and a stomp through side (whatever you want to call it) The first time i saw this done I thought people just had bad basics — just like sometimes when i see different things then what i do, i think bad basics – at least that was back when i thought i knew what i was doing. I later ventured to DC and watched some – how should i put it — people who do there practice as if it were the real thing. They started showing me the reason behind the stomp through and the higher the rank in their school the more dramatic the stomp kick was. to the point as they may leave their base leg slightly to increase the force down. This was eye opening (as were their punches, this i can show you in march) if you are interested in who i am talking about here is there webpage http://www.camausa.com If you look at their black belt board it gets even more interesting. If you were to go to the military art of Xing Yi (matt please correct the spelling) they did not have time to rechamber as they blasted through the lines, they crushed and continued to the next person in line. Again my only gripe was the wording and the continuation that in combat you will be able to continue blasting out kicks because of the rechamber – it seems well and good in a TKD sparring match keeping back opponents in a ring but not in a bull pit. Our kicking comes from the TKD/TSD background and so do the philosophies regarding those kicks – as to proper body alignments and so forth you put forth a valid arguement that I cannot agrue with, but that arguement was not the reasoning for my first post.
In Peace
Jesse
Hi master Dwire,
I am nit sure if I am confusing posts here or not. What I was asking for was the combos the yourself and others use the non chamber kick / stomp in so I can work on it before we meet. As for GM Pesare and one kata. I obviously do not know how he teaches now, however on his DVD ” Early Kempo in New England” he has footage of himself and others including Prof. Cerio doing the form. Of note they re chamber after thier kicks and true enough there is no backfist at the end, however there is a clear side thrust kick that re chambers. The web site you mentioned seems interesting. N.B. In their prinicples section the last principle states that control of balance of ones self and the aggressor is key.
Master Dwire I am eager to take your seminar and I really want to experience and learn that punch. This is great. Thanks
Master Dwire you are killing me with the TDK thing. As a martial art I do not like it. TSD however is different( or at least I like to pretend). What I can say is that I love shaolin kempo at the same time I will not accept bad basics regrdless of history. Xing Yi is a great art and philosophically Skk has sme ideological smilarities, but as fat as I understand it is a linear art. Skk is not. So we advance and disregard the attacker as that web site you mentoned states but blasting through does joy fit the combos as a whole in the system. Intention boxing fits Skk however the art we have with the Villari flavour has a different nuance ( thanks Justin) to advancng than XY. It responds with a circularity not evident to me in XY and still maintains a powerful dsregard the opponent contempt. When approached with proper basics it makes Skk nasty and difficult to counter. You Have deepened this conversation immensely, thank you. Let’s continue, I am learning with every post!
I guess I was tired enough to forget some history last night. It is GM Pesare who has the TDK black belt , no? Mitose, no matter the questions surrounding him, must have been teaching kicks and Prof. Chow certainly was not a TDK guy, so our kicks have TDK influence but not only
A great web link, Mr. Dwire. Thanks. I found nothing to disagree with in their ‘Principles’ section, and much to agree with. Of course, whether I am or even can translate those to my practice is another question 🙂 The meta-principle I like most is their dedication to adaptation as application dictates.
Marlon, the thing that most sings to me of what you’re saying is, maintaining or resetting posture or as you say, spine alignment. I think of/preach shoulders over hips and moving from our center. Seems to work.
I hope I’ve interpreted everyone’s ideas and comments correctly. If not, please excuse me. This is more than I’ve said on any board in a while, which tells me how much I’m enjoying and learning from the discussions here.
Wow – Marlon dont write past midnight i thought my fingers were broken when they hit the keys and did the mispellings–hahaha- SM=10 (the SM meter was created by my friends and i about 10 years ago cuz we would fight online because we could not hear the tone of the voice so we couldnt figure out if someone was being sarcastic or not, SM=10 most sarcastic, SM=1 not) As far as I know Chow did not have a lot of kicks, they were added into the system by Sam Kouha (who i believe also did TKD), and yes SGM Pesare was I believe a 2nd in TKD the same time he was starting out his Kempo career. -Lets not forget the Ka, in Kajukenbo stands for Tang Soo Do, which is supposed to be the Self-Defense art of Korea unlike its sister art TKD, but pretty much came about in unison – We may not like TKD very much but their kicking is tops and thats where most of our kicking and kicking philosophies come from. I was not confusing your posts, you did not read into my opening paragraph. I rechamber almost all my kicks in my combo’s which is the way SGM and the rest down the line taught it- that being the post 60’s combos era. Off the top of my head i do not rechamber in combo 8. I touch down after the first front kick and do more of a muay thai kick on the 2nd one. I keep all the same principles of the old combo 8 in my combo 9.
Jesse
Mark,
thanks for the input. Marlon – as i said before – i agree with you on your reasonings behind the re-alignment just not on your wording of the further we fall from this principle the less effective our kempo becomes. March is going to be great.
Marlon:
If i had the money(wife is injured, im only one working right now) i would, trust me, even try to bring in a camera to record it.(if i had a damned camera, i would post videos here and youtube)
Jesse:
That is how Cerio taught it, cerio believed in 3 main principles:
#1) preserve and teach the art the way you were taught-keep the tradition
#2) out of tradition, comes evolution-but do not re-create the techniques-add more to the “Endings and principles”
#3) use the 10 “Master” keys of shaolin kempo, block could be a strike, strike could be a block, footwork could mean sweep, body positioning, etc-marlon has an awesome 1 kata bunkai on those principles, etc..
Now, back to the “why 2 neck breaks, ??
Actually, you do 2 as it is “Extra credit”, and at mastery level, the dragon continues to flow,control, and ultimately shut down it’s opponent’s.
:o)
haha- nice mark –I understand where Prof. Cerio is coming from on keeping the tradition – but not all tradition is worth keeping,, in fact some of it is just ego put in by some instructors then told us to do it this way…. We are in a very fortunate time in our lives with the resources, like this site, to increase our knowledge on a large scale. It has also allowed us to realize some of the lies that have been told to us because at the time they had no answers to the questions or it was a good marketing tool.
Jesse
ps- Marlon hope you caught my SM -meter in the last post..
I’m bringing a vid cam to the seminar for any pre or post workout anyone would like to get on youtube, yes I know their are no cameras in the seminar it will be tucked safely in my bag for later.
Oh and I to agree with re-chambering in all our combos, I never disagreed there. I was simply stating that it was not the only way to finish a kick.
Jesse-
to each their own:o)
I find this very interesting, coming from the person who left behind the teachings of SGM S. George Pesare to start his own expression of kempo:
From what I heard, after he trained with professor Chow, Professor Cerio felt the need to make a radical change from the training he did with SGM Pesare. How do you feel his creation of Nick Cerio’s Kenpo reflects the principle #1?
I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but the founders explored, refined, pushed the envelope, and created what we have. They didn’t do this by copying their teachers exactly.
As the saying goes, “Don’t follow in the footsteps of the masters, seek what they sought”.
A great quote Matt. One I learned from Shihan and one that was echoed by Ed Parker jr. at the east west seminar.
Mark you should jump in more often. You have a lot to offer. And as you can see, dusagreement often serves as a great catalyst for all of us to learn and increase our understanding
Thanks, Marlon (I think…seems there are two ‘Mark’s :). Anyway, for my part, I only just discovered this active, stimulating discussion due to your invite. Thanks for that, also.
Sometimes I hesitate to contribute because my past, and so my practice, is not strictly kempo. But if it’s OK, I’ll continue to follow along and jump in when it seems I might add something.
sorry, im not online , or here all the time, back to for “Tradition” vs. Innovation, i look at it like this, if we never had the traditional art,we would have never had the innovations we have now.I myself, seek both, but always find myself going back to tradition, to seek the “Innovations” or, possible innovations of our techniques/forms.
here is a quote i heard once:
To look and live in the past will rob you of the future.
To look to the future and only live for the future, will rob you of the past.
To live in the present, remember the past, and look to the future, will let you truly live.
Marlon said:
‘Without the knee exploding from a chambered position towards the plexus most kicks will lack the force they could deliver. By using the center of your body you use your whole body…’
If I could go back to Marlon’s original title, want to share an anecdote.
This weekend one of my students was in an altercation (he’s still learning to walk away), evidently against a larger, stronger opponent. My guy was getting the worst of it, adrenaline dump had kicked in, the bad guy was too close to kick and my guy felt punches wouldn’t be effective fast enough. So he used a knee, which of course is identical to the initial chamber for a front kick. Dropped the guy. Just reminded me of how important the whole body alignment thing is to effectiveness and how much power it generates, imho.
So after having master Dwire rag on me for hours about ” but it’s not a kick, right” I will say this: I stand by my original statement and recognize that things that do not fit the optimal kick category can still effectively damage an opponent. And, kicking a soccer ball is kicking but not kempo!!!’
🙂
I have a comment. As a new student to kempo I have found this site a great learning tool. I have an instructor, who I despise. I love the art and therefore maintain my silence. I have found many instructors of kempo in the area in which I live to be total *******’s. I wish there was a school that taught this art with an instructor who did not think he/she was a god. I just want to learn the art. Keep up the good work on this site. It has helped me tremendously where my instructor has failed. I enjoyed the discussion. It made me think more about what I am doing. Thanks.