John Bishop

Kajukenbo is being taught in the Moslem world. There are schools in: Kuwait, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.

KAJUKENBO- CH'UAN FA Adriano Emperado (Kajukenbo leader) felt that the Chinese martial arts had an abundance of technical diversity to offer to the kajukenbo system. One thought he entertained was a complete evolution to a kajukenbo style with a much stronger Chinese emphasis. This brought about the development of kajukenbo ch’uan fa in the 1960’s. Aiding in this development was Al Dela Cruz and Al Dacascos, both black belts from Sid Asuncion’s kajukenbo school. Originally named tum pai by Emperado, the first phase of development involved the incorporation of southern styles of kung fu and tai chi. Al Dela Cruz helped with this development by converting the first two Pinan’s to forms more resembling Chinese forms. Although they kept the same foot movements, the hard linear hand movements were replaced by softer hand movements. And many of the hard style horse stances were replaced with very low deep cat stances, resembling those of the southern Chinese sil-lum systems. During this time Al Dacascos was also training with Eugene Ho, a Siu Lum Pai Association instructor who was a student of Buck Sam Kong. This kung fu training provided Dacascos with knowledge that he also contributed to the tum pai development. Professor Wong, a.k.a. “Old Man Wong” of the Honolulu Chinatown kung fu Association was also a strong influence on, and supporter of Emperado efforts in this endeavor to incorporate more kung fu into the kajukenbo system. In the winter of 1964, Dacascos moved to the San Francisco Bay area of California. Over the next couple of years he established associations with many of the Chinese martial artists in that area. One group in particular was the San Jose Chinese Physical Cultural Center. The instructor there was Paul Ng. Ng taught a southern style called fu-chow, a element of the hong-ga kin system. Also in the group was Kam Yuen and Ron Lew of the tai mantis system. One of the focuses of this group was to learn the northern sil-lum or northern pak-pai system from Professor Wong Jack Man. In 1965, Al Dacascos held a meeting in California with Adriano Emperado and Al Dela Cruz to discuss the state of the tum pai branch. Dacascos explained to them that he thought the tum pai name was no longer applicable to the new branch, because it had now evolved to also include northern kung fu techniques. After he demonstrated to them the long range northern techniques that he had learned, like high jumping butterfly kicks, and full circle sweeps, they agreed with him that a more appropriate name should be used to describe this evolving branch of kajukenbo. They agreed to replace the name tum pai with the name ch’uan fa. Dacascos developed a written system of 82 training exercises, drills, and requirements to teach the concepts and principles of the new kajukenbo ch’uan fa. And a number of Chinese forms like, fua yip, limpo, and pak sil-lum were also added to the ch’uan fa branch. Ch’uan fa became a official branch in 1966. At the time it was Emperado’s desire to have all the existing kajukenbo schools convert to the new ch’uan fa style. Al Dela Cruz was given the assignment to teach the new ch’uan fa techniques to the kajukenbo instructors in Hawaii, and Al Dacascos was to do the same with the instructors in California. The conversion to this new style of kajukenbo was met with some resistance by a number of instructors who preferred the original “hard style” kajukenbo. Emperado allowed those instructors to continue to teach the original style. While some other instructors choose to develop their own methods of ch’uan fa. One change Emperado did require of all schools was the adoption of Chinese titles to replace the Japanese titles that were used previously. Sifu, the Chinese title for teacher, replaced the title of sensei. Professor Emperado took the title sijo, which is the Chinese title for founder. Later, other Chinese titles like sigung were also added to the kajukenbo rank structure. As will be discussed below, more branches of kajukenbo evolved, and methods of those branches evolved even more. © KAJUKENBO-The Original Mixed Martial Art, 2006

People worry too much about titles. The title "Professor" has a long history in the physical arts before the academics decided to borrow it and apply it to themselves. It simply means one who "professess an expertise" in a subject. Any subject, although it was mostly used by physical trainers, strongmen, and magician types. In the martial arts the most famous professor was probably Jigoro Kano. Because of his use of the title, it is very widely used in jujitsu and judo organizations. Most of the Hawaiian kenpo groups followed Prof. Henry Okizaki's (Danzan Ryu Jujitsu) lead, and adopted the title.

Only Kajukenbo schools in Ohio are in DeKalb, and Grafton. http://www.kajukenbocafe.com/smf/index.php?board=31.0

You want to see Roy in action, get ahold of the video "The New Gladiators". Great tournament action with Kurban, Benny Urquidez, Tom Kelly, Ray Sua, John Natividad, Steve Sanders, Darnell Garcia, and more great fighters of the 70's.

Well, he definetly legit, being one of the early karate pioneers in American. Even won a few tournament championships in his time. As to what he looks like now, he's 67, so he probably looked a lot better when he was 27. Regretfully, videos and DVD's were not readily availiable when some of the great martial artists were in their prime. So, we've got some video of them from their 60's and 70's. Not really a good example of thier past skill level.

That makes alot more sense then paying some outrageous franchise fee. Yes I think it's $125,000 for a USSD dojo? It will probabley be only $10,000 to get my dojo started. $1,500 first months rent. $1,500 last months rent. $1,500 deposit. $1,000- $500 for mats. $500 for gi's and patchs. $100 for phone. I'm not saying that you shouldn't start your own school, just be prepared for all the expenses. Don't forget costs for: liability insurance, advertising, equipment, signage, electricty, gas, water, legal advice. Are you also going to attempt to do this full time as your sole means of support? Student sizes grow and shrink. Depending on your area and other things, you may have more then 100 students, or quite a few less. On a good "Grand Opening" you may sign up 100 or so students, but that dosen't mean in 2-3 months they will still be with you. Students quit the martial arts at a very high rate, but your expenses will remain the same. You may want to start with less startup costs by teaching at a community center, YMCA, church hall, or such. You will have a lot less costs, and of course less income, but it will give you the opportunity to build a solid student base to start a commercial school with. Or you may like having someone else take care of all the overhead, leaving you free to just be a martial arts instructor. You can maintain a much higher standard when your not concerned with how much money your going to or have to make. But either way you go, talk to someone who has done it "successfully", and get a idea of all the expenses involved.

To be more precise, the Okazaki Dojo was called the "Kodenkan". There Henry Okazaki taught both "Danzan Ryu Jujitsu" and "Kodokan Judo". Kajukenbo founder, "Joe Holck" received black belts in both of those arts from Sig Kufferath (Okazaki student). Kajukenbo founder, "Frank Ordanez" also trained with one of Okazaki's students, Sam Luke.

Sorry if it looked like I was correcting you. There was nothing incorrect in your description. I was just adding a little more information for those not familiar with our art.

Kajukenbopr gave a excellent explanation for the "why" Kajukenbo was founded. One also has to understand the circumstances of the people,times, and place. The founders themselves were young men in their 20's. A age when young men are more interested in the fighting aspects of martial arts, then the philosophical parts of the arts. Hawaii in the 40's-50's is a place full of servicemen, some looking for any reason to fight. Hawaii is also a cultural melting pot with immigrants from mainland America, China, Japan, Okinawa, Philipines, Korea, Samoa, Indonesia, and other places. This is a double edged sword. ln that there is a richness of martial arts found no where else in the world. But also in some cases there is racial tension which leads to hostility and fighting. The founders were men of differant races, who became great friends and shared their martial arts knowledge with each other. Adriano Emperado and Frank Ordanez were of Filipino descent. Peter Y.Y. Choo was of Korean descent. George "Clarence" Chang was Chinese. And Joe Holck was of Japanese descent (his true name was Joichi Matsuno, but he changed it after the bombing of Pearl Harbor caused anti-Japanese sentiments.). They basically wanted to design the most complete self defense system they could, by mixing techniques from 7 fighting systems. ("Kajukenbo" is named for the five main arts of the founders, but it also contains some techniques from escrima and western boxing).

Well quite a bit of that money is going to go to; building rent, liability insurance, utilities, equipment, advertizing, book keeping, employee payroll, health insurance, etc, etc. So 100 students isn't going to give you a $120,000 a year salary.

This is my policy with the exception, that the student who has a black belt in another system must wear the uniform/patch that goes with it. This way there is no confusion as to what style their black belt is in. I respect the black belt they earned, and give them the choice of wearing it with the proper uniform, or starting with a white belt in our uniform.

I've heard of a few broken windows and vandalized cars here in So. Calif., but don't know if anyone was ever proven to be responsible. And it happens with some of the other chain schools also. Dojo wars go back to the 60's. Only problem is some idiots think it's still the 60's.

That's another mis-statement. The forms and combo's of Shaolin Kempo are not Kajukenbo. I've seen all the SKK forms and combo's required for 1st degree, and only recognized one technique that resembled a Kajukenbo "Punch Counter". Each generation from Sonny Gascon to George Pesare, to Nick Cerio, to Fred Villari changed, removed, and added material.

And you know this to be true, because? Dosen't sound like you know any of the people who were involved in the case, or victims in the 60-70's. And it would be pretty obvious to anyone who's read the 3140 pages of trial transcript, that Mitose indeed put up a defense.