doubletwist

Well, after living in Northern California [san Jose area] for 8 years, I don't particularly like Texas. So many of the things I really enjoyed doing are just not possible here. There's no good places to ride my motorcycle without either paying for track-time or riding 3 hours to find "hills". I can't just hop down to the beach/boardwalk in a half-hour if I want. I can't go driving/walking through the redwoods, and it's significantly more than a 3 hour drive to go skiing. The only reason we're really living here is the cost of living. I'm not really up to paying $1million dollars for a house we can have here for $150k... But at least I finally found a decent Kenpo dojo out here, so that is keeping me somewhat busy. DT

You mean like the optical Camouflage that the japanese are developing? Yeah that'd be sweet. Here's one of the videos DT

Well, we are given black gi's to start with, and I really prefer it that way. My last dojo had white gi's , and you could get a black gi once you hit a certain rank [like blue or green-belt maybe]. I dunno though. If I HAD to have another color other than black or white, I guess I'd go for blue. [LIke a cobalt blue]. DT

Well, it wasn't for a BB test, but for our belt test [i'm only yellow], we had to spar a 1 minute round with everyone else who was testing. [8 ppl I think this last time]. Now, we don't do major full-contact sparring, but it's not the "get a point and stop/restart" stuff either. And you ARE expected to hit, just no face-shots [you can hit the side or top of the head]. Groin shots are legal [Cup check! ]. It was pretty grueling. Actually, we did that first thing, and THEN we went through our forms and techniques. I guess it gave a good indication that you could still remember and perform everything even when you were exhausted. It sucked, but it was great at the same time DT

And this is one of the things we learn in Kenpo [generally known for dealing with multiple attackers]. The biggest rule we learn is to NOT get yourself stuck between two or more attackers. You can NOT win if you try to fight two people at once. Get out of there as quickly as possible. If you are stuck between two attackers, you can hit them both at once, but use that opportunity to slide around one of the attackers, and keep him as a shield. This gives you a chance to beat on his head/kidneys while the other attacker tries to reach you through his buddy, and you can also use your shield as a distraction [shove him towards the attacker and follow him in to attack]. Of course, this is just the stuff I've learned in the last few months. We do some multi-attacker sparring to get used to this. It's not as easy as it sounds keeping yourself from getting stuck between two attackers, even in a limited area such as a sparring ring. DT

Hello, I've decided to introduce myself, even though I've already made some posts elsewhere I'm 30, and am currently a yellow belt in American Kenpo in the DFW area.. I've been practicing for about 3-4 months, although I did about 3 months worth several years ago. I originally started Kenpo in California because that's where a friend of mine was going, but I've really fallen in love with the style, the techniques, the speed and the great attitude of those I practice/learn with. I'm doing it for a combination of self-defense and fitness. As an added bonus it has already helped my coordination tremendously. Um... not sure what else to say. These forums look interesting, and I've already found some useful information and interesting discussions, so here I am. DT PS. And lest anyone take the above stated love of style, technique, speed etc. the wrong way, I have no qualms regarding any other style or anyone who practices any other style.. I just feel that Kenpo really fits me well.

Interesting that you should ask. I am currently studying American Kenpo [aka Parker Kenpo]. I was waiting until the end of this thread to mention it. I am rather surprised to see so few mentions of it in this thread. Is there generally that low of an opinion regarding Kenpo, or is it really just not very popular? It seems strange that it would be un-popular since Mr Parker had such a HUGE influence on SO many Martial Artists. Now I haven't been studying terribly long [i'm only a yellow belt], but from what I've learned, and what I've seen, and what I've heard, it seems to be the Kenpo is a very effective MA for self defense. [i won't go into any arguments over whether it is better than anything else. Simply that it seems effective]. I think one of the problems is that Kenpo is a little more complex than those who aren't familiar with it realize. Basically it starts out with some fairly simple [and potentially effective] self defense techniques based on various attacks. While shortly effective, this obviously has shortcomings if the attack or results of your defense deviate from the book version; which is why perhaps many folks short-change Kenpo. But what they miss is that eventually you learn that these techniques, and the other things that you learn [kicks, punches, eye-gouges etc], become an alphabet that you use to learn the "language" of Kenpo. As you gain experiense and knowledge, you learn to graft various techniques together so that as soon as the situation changes, you can simply flow into another type of strike or technique. I haven't gotten to that point yet, I'm still learning my A,B,C's; but we've done workouts where we will start with a technique, and then we have to change it in the middle, and do 5 more strikes. We do this over-and over and we can't do the same combination of strikes each time. Even the guys in the middle level belts are ungodly fast , and each strike can do real damage. One of the reasons I wanted to post is to reply to a MUCH earlier post asking about an MA that teaches defense against multiple attackers. Kenpo is such an MA, and it is know for its multiple-attacker defense, as well as VERY fast hand-speed. I'm sure there are other MA styles that do multiple attacker defense, but I'm not familiar with any in my limited knowledge. Anyway, as far as self-defense is concerned, my current instructer may not be a super-high-level Kenpo god [2nd black], but he was a policeman for 20 years, and had many opportunities to use his Kenpo on the street. This obviously gives him a lot of experience with just what did and didn't work, and he passes that on to us. I find this one of the most rewarding parts of learning Kenpo here. Anyway, I'm not 100% sure it is true, but from what I understand, Chuck Norris was once asked which Martial Art he would LEAST like to defend against, and his answer was Mr. Parker's Kenpo Karate... Just food for thought. Choose the art that fits you, and enjoy learning it. Just make sure you find a good school for your art. Any good art can suck if tought poorly in a poor environment, and probably any art can be wonderful if tought well in a good environment. Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. DT