My Kenpo (Video!)
Posted 3 years, 11 months ago at 5:03 pm. Add a comment
It’s not a huge part of my life, except to say that I have one hundred or so students in Sherwood, a great many more former students in Hillsboro, and a coming cadre of new Kenpoists in Forest Grove, Oregon. But it is a big piece of who I am.
A lot of Kenpo black belts seem to live and breath “the Kenpo way”–as if there ever was such a thing, feigning a higher purpose or ideal–few martial arts transport such spiritual insight or purpose. But the fact that I’ve been practicing Kenpo for well over twenty years makes it a significant piece of my being. I understand the art. I know its principals. Have a good sense of its real history. And I appreciate its severe reason for being. So I practice it, teach it, remember it, and pass it on with all of those things in mind.
Speaking at the Tobias Elementary School
in Hillsboro, OR
This is my martial art. I should say my base art, as I enjoy practicing a number of techniques: American Kenpo (as taught to me by the late Grandmaster Ed Parker’s fifth black belt, Dave Hebler and his brother Dennis), Small Circle Jiu-Jitsu (Founder Wally Jay’s student Stan Miller is my connection) and the Goju-Shorei Weapons System (with my friend and mentor, Dave McNeill), pictured below with me and my wife.
A student of mine, Justin Maupin, likes to say, “this is my Kenpo.” Everyone’s movement is different. But in the absense of an on-line video of yours truly demonstrating his Kenpo–like anyone would want to see a fifty-some year old man practicing his Kenpo on-line–you can enjoy this video. The “Red Cloud” video, as I believe it is known, has been widely viewed on the Internet and I’m told contains some significant cameos. Or take a look at this one, from the movie, The Perfect Weapon, with Jeff Speakman. Speakman was a more recent student of Grandmaster Edmund Parker and has a much prettier face than me. The Perfect Weapon is the preeminant Hollywood film featuring American Kenpo. While you’re watching, wonder to yourself, “why don’t I move that way?”