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On October 14th, 2012 there was the passing of a legend. Senior Grand Master Simeone George Pesare has passed. If you got your start in Villari’s Kempo, Masters Self Defense Centers, Cerio’s Kenpo or basically any other school in New England, you owe this man a debt of gratitude. He is the man who brought Kempo to New England. He has left an outsized legacy, may he rest in peace.

Frequently controversial, you never wondered where you stood with him. Blunt, hard nosed, tough; over his 50 plus year career he produced many tough black belts. I only had the privilege of attending his seminars a few times, and had met him a few times, but he is not one to be forgotten. As is often said, if you study kempo in New England, or if you study Shaolin Kempo or one of its many offshoots, you most likely study under one of his students, or a student of one of his students.

I have a Thursday night workout that is the highpoint of my week. We start every week with an intense warmup, follow it with crazy mitt work, some technical work, and then some sort of full range sparring. It’s fun, it’s motivating, and it really gets the stress out. The warmup has changed lately – first it was the jumping jack/ pushup / squat / situp  ‘pyramid of pain’; then it was ‘the fifteens’ (which turned into bigger numbers) where we would do 15 or more sets of a jumping jack / a squat / a pushup / a situp/ a burpee; but now we’ve got a new toy.

We picked up a heavy equipment tire. It’s big. Really big. We’ve incorporated it in a variety of ways – plyometrics on and off of it, flipping it to each other, and of course, beating it with a sledgehammer. It’s a great workout, and anyone not wielding a sledgehammer can do the other warmup while they wait their turn. The ring timer app for the iPod helps keep things moving and keeps the rest periods on track. I recommend it as a worthy whole body addition to your repertoire, just be careful and do a little research first before just grabbing a sledge and slamming away. To start your research, take a look at this page where you can get some good basic information on sledgehammer workouts.

There is a post up on Martialtalk that lists the forms and rank requirements for Nick Cerio’s Kenpo. I thought it would be useful information now that the organization is for all intents and purposes defunct.