Name that Kempo!

Posted on April 26, 2008 by matt

Once again on Youtube, I found another demo:

It was put together by a couple of folks at The Martial Way, a kempo school in Vermont. The description was:

Two Kempo / Kenpo practitioner-instructors from the Martial Way Self Defense Center in Vermont demonstrate the crushing power and speed of Kempo Karate. Both are full-time Police Officers and instruct Kempo part-time. The Martial Way offers many different fighting disciplines in addition to a rock solid and long standing Kempo program.

What I found interesting about the demo was that I couldn’t immediately peg the style / lineage of the folks involved. It looked to me like one fellow had more of a Shaolin Kempo background, and one had more of a EPAK background. Each seemed to mostly stay within one of those genres, as opposed to an even mix.  They appear to call what they do ‘Chinese Kenpo’, but that could mean a whole bunch of things. I’m going to drop them a line to find out more. What do you see in the demo?

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Combination 16 off of what attack?

Posted on April 25, 2008 by matt

There’s a thread going on over at martialtalk addressing the point raised (in various places) that the combinations don’t necessarily need to be trained off of only a step through right hand front punch. Many of us already address the problem in a variety of ways, but the point was raised that perhaps there are ‘ideal’ attacks that the combinations are designed to address. In this youtube video, Joe Rebelo applies his experience and some critical thinking to combination 16:

“Kenpo Joe” Rebelo,Massachusetts Co-Vice President of the Karazenpo Goshinjutsu Black Belt Society,Demonstrates the combination/defensive Manuver #16. Karazenpo Goshinjutsu is the parent art for New England Based Kenpo/kempo styles as well as Shaolin Kempo. KGS was founded by Victor “Sonny” Gascon. For more info, go to www.karazenpogoshinjutsu.com
NOTE:I inadvertedly state that Adriano Emperado is from Karazenpo, when in fact he is one of the founders of the Kajukenbo system.Please accept my apologies for the “verbal faux pas”.

So, first, is this the correct approach, and second, did he draw the correct conclusion? There are a lot of variations on 16 out there. Does your version apply here, or do you have a different answer? I’m saving my opinion for later as not to bias any comments.

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I could beat this intruder with my eyes closed.

Posted on April 24, 2008 by matt

Legally blind man teaches alleged intruder a lesson – Yahoo! News

Stories like this give me the warm fuzzies. I think that it brings up several important points. First – visually impaired folks would do well to learn a contact / grappling based self defense system. Second – a knife can be a great equalizer apparently. Third – this is where the spirit portion comes in. The fellow here pretended it was Christmas and he was Santa. He just didn’t give a darn what he might get, but he sure gave. I’m glad it worked out okay.

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