parkerlineage

Hey, Tara! How are you?! I'm fairly sure you don't remeber me - this is Peter...wow, let's see...8 years...I believe you got your black belt sometime when I was a third kyu brown...I was 10...little kid, big ears, in the adult class. I actually looked up to you quite a bit. Didn't you come and visit a few...months?...ago? I think I addressed an envelope about the camp in September to you, if I'm not mistaken. Hope to see you there! As for Leaping Crane - just about everything seems to be somehow related to that. I love those things. Yes, I have noticed.

The principle at our school told me that when he found out I do karate. Well, actually, he said, "I know Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu, Karate, and seven other Japanese words," to which I responded, "Tae Kwon Do is Korean, and Kung Fu is Chinese." Other things I hate: - "Will you teach me how to kill people?" Yes. Jam in the clip, rack the slide, hit the safety, pull the trigger. - "What would you do if I...(random attack)?" Stand here, 'cause you're not actually going to hit me. - "My (relative) has a (ridiculously high rank) in (arbitrary martial art), and s/he showed me some stuff." Oh, that must make you a master, then. - "That doesn't work in the real world." Try me.

Is this progressive American Kenpo, or just Kenpo in general? Could you explain to me what defines progressive, other than mixing in another style, or is that it?

Kenpo is probably more circular than shotokan. That's all I feel that I can offer, because I have limited knowledge of shotokan. In terms of hard vs soft, Kenpo leans more toward the middle with an edge toward hard, while shotokan is hard.

Bo: It's common for a reason - it's good to learn! It will teach you coordination, and is a good base to springboard into spear. However, that's about the only place you can go, other than learning bo forms - of which there are probably thousands. I reccommend learning at least a few bo kata, so you can know how to use and combat it. Besides, you can almost always find a bo-like object around. Kama: I don't like the kama because of the lack of versatility, at least with what I know of them. 'course, the flying kama are rad, but it's going to be tough to find a good flying kama instructor. I hear they are rather popular, and also probably rather easy to pick up. Katana: I know no katana technique or forms, but once you start playing with edged weaopns, you'll love it. However - if you choose to study it, you better be ready for the long haul, 'cause they're not easy! And, yeah, a good instructor is a must. Sai: I loved sai for a long time, and still do. Perhaps not the greatest for competition, but you can learn some very effective kobudo techniques, and they're rather versatile. I would reccommend starting with them, especially since you do Shotokan (from what I gather) - they go great with hardstyle karate. Tonfa: Know nothing about them. Don't even ask me. Nunchaku: Good to learn at least a few things. In fact, we use the Nunchaku as our introductory weapon - before you learn anything else, you have to learn them. It will teach you coordination, and how to spin things, and many other useful weapons techniques. Not too hard to perform with, either. Hope that helps! If you have any other questions, I'll try to answer them.

Hm...I'll try that, and see how I like it.

I first got started because I saw someone using nunchaku, and I thought that I wanted to get in on that. That was about 11 years ago...since then, I've experimented with tons of weapons, and kept working with the ones I really like. You kind of have to think about what sort of thing you like to do...straight attacks, power, speed, acrobatics, two-handed, one-handed, double weapons (ie sai, kama), and then go from there. If you don't know - try them all! Like I said in one of my posts, if you think of weapons as an extension of yourself, you can learn the basics of most (with an instructor's help), and see with which you want to continue. As for competition, just sign up for weapons when you go to tournaments. Performing - once you find out, let me know. If you'd like help choosing a weapon, you could tell me what you like to do, and I could try to help - I'm sure there are others who know even better than I, also.

I guess you're right. That's something I love about these forums...you can get questions answered in just about any style from people who know.

In Karate, we have our kiai yell for when we want to add emphasis to our strikes. What is the equivalent of that in some of your styles?

I've thought about removing belts or stripe levels from my system when I start my own dojo...it just seems like there's so much patting on the back, and people think only about their next promotion...I dunno...

There's been a lot of threads that could be viewed as MMA bashing, or close to bashing, so I wanted to add this in to show that we're not just biased. We had a school with its roots in AK that does a lot of MMA/UFC grappling and technique come and visit us last night. The Sensei there trained with (as in, they were students together) my Sensei, so they go way back. These guys were very respectful. My instructor told them that they had to wear our style sparring gear, because of his insurance, and they obliged with minimal complaining - none of it really meant, at least. We all agreed at teh beginning that, before a mix-school match, the two opponents would agree whether or not they would go to ground, so that the less hardcore students at our school (like my mother) wouldn't have to grapple. They hit hard, and alot, and grappled like UFC. But they bowed. The let go when we tapped. They told us good job when we made them submit. There was no hostility at all. It also proved to me that, though I know many grappling techniques, I don't practice them enough to make them reflexive like my regular fighting techniques. My height and flexibility made me rather hard to tap out, since my arms are so long. On the positive side, I also proved to myself what I've always suspected - grapplers will often focus too much on grappling, and forget that the guy they're trying to tackle or sweep can hit back. I made several guys call mate (with little accent mark) because while they were trying to throw me, I punched out their living daylights (respectfully, of course). In any event, I was very proud of both of our schools - just goes to show what a little communication can do.

I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you asking how to become interested in weapons, or how to learn to use them?

Yep yep yep. Karate-Judo-Kenpo-Boxing, if I'm not mistaken, right? I've always been rather intrigued by it...

Interesting...to where do they strike with that? I always understood that the "detour" was the sliding up to a cat stance in the first move, anyway, but I'm still interested.

I'm sure you can find another thread about this, as Red J pointed out. Plain and simple: Spellings are for the most part interchangable - it's what comes first that really matters. However, Kenpo was originally thought to be a misspelling by James Mitose, but he fully intended to do it that way. That was sort of passed on through his lineage, particularly in Chinese Kenpo, aka Kenpo Karate (Parker, Emperado, Chow, Tracy, whatever). Means "fist law", by the way.

We do one of a varied set of basics, depending on what the instructor feels like, and who the instructor is. But they are transferable through all classes, yes.

Good luck with that! IMHO, of those original three, the fourth one is the best. XMA is a no-no in my book, the Kempo one looked so-so, and the AK one seemed a bit too young (in terms of instructors' rank) for you to get a decent education.

You know what I find really interesting? We only punch vertically to the face - almost never horizontally, because the knuckles line up better. My GM always talks about how boxers "hind behind their pillows". Bare knuckles woudl be a lot more hardcore, I would think. My Professor tells the story of when he broke his hand on someone's face in a dark parking lot because of punching wrong - it's a good thing for everyone to learn. I did find that very interesting! Thanks for the good read.

hahahaha... I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but no, it's not from some game. I suppose that would be an adequate description of them, yes. A bit like bunkai, from what I've heard...most of Kenpo is about learning pre-arranged counters for prescribed attacks, and then eventually learning to combine them, delve deeper into them (like I'm doing here), and so forth. Sorry for the confusion - this is really an AK specific statement, and I was mostly just trying to see if there was still anybody out there doing AK. So far, looks like, no. Escape? Care to describe a bit more?

Thank you! That clears things up for me.

Thanks. BTW, can I get a home course in crazy penguin ninjutsu?

So the spelling does matter, then?

I don't know if it's commonplace, but the limited experience I've had will MMA practicioners is that they disregard traditional arts as outdated and ineffective, and tend to snub their noses at things like bowing. I can't say that they all do that, because I don't have enough experience, and I'm sure that not everybody is that way. But I have experienced that.

So perhaps it would be best to offer gun training, but not to require it. I believe that's what licenses are for.

We actually have a specific curriculum for this: 1st Dan - Junior Insturctor 2nd Dan - Associate Instructor 3rd Dan - Senior Instructor 4th Dan - Head Instructor 5th Dan - Associate Professor of the Arts 6th Dan - Professor of the Arts 7th Dan - Senior Professor of the Arts 8th Dan - Associate Master of the Arts 9th Dan - Master of the Arts 10th Dan - Senior Master of the Arts We call anybody 1-4 "Mr/Mrs/Ms" (ie Mr. Katz) Anybody 5-7 "Professor." (ie Professor Halsey) Anybody 8-10 "Master." (ie Master Planas) Technically, at least formally, we're supposed to call one another that, even if you outrank or match the rank of the person to whom you are speaking. A good, "Sir," is always a good one, and I've heard people call lesser-ranking high black belts (by lesser I mean Professor) "Sifu," and Masters "Sensei," but I'm pretty sure that's unofficial.