RevIV
Black Belt
John Bishop said:Sijo Emperado shouldn't be lumped in with these other kenpo/kempo masters. His whole reason for getting together with the other four founders of Kajukenbo was to have more, not stay with the status quo of less is better. They created this whole thing everyone is now calling mixed martial arts.
If your running chain schools or video programs where someone can earn a black belt in 12-18 months, then 30 combinations is probably a good number.
But if your black belts are training 5-6 years for their student black, then 105 combinations is not a large amount of material.
Sijo Emperado never settled for less. He always looked for the right tool for the right job. His Original Method of Kajukenbo has 105 defensive combinations divided into punch, grab, knife, club, and multiple attacker defenses. It also has 14 katas.
And then there's 3 more branches of the Original Method.
Master Bishop;
I here what you are saying in this but I don't see a problem with "lumping" Sijo Emperado into this group, Matt is not lessening his reputation by putting him with these great Masters. He did incorporate more but Matt was just giving an example. Matt was refering to the combinations- Not the full curriculum.. Those 30 combinations did not include the 30 punch techniques, animal tech., club, knife, gun, and ground techniques. 105 techniques i think is a small amount compared to some of the kenpo schools out there and a huge amount compared to others. Now i do not know which is better of worse i do not have enough time in to know any better. But i do know that of the combinations i have i can use them left, right, for grabs and in a numerous amount of other variations for the scenario. As for the MMA thing, to my recollection, GM Pesare's 1st black belt GM Carpenter was in the first ever sanctioned full contact anything goes MMA fight- where his opponent did not survive. If all he had was 21 combinations (I dont know) I think that was enough. I know GM Carpenter and he is a dangerous person and i dont care if he only learned 1 technique i bet he can take us out 10 different ways with that one.
Mastering 1 kata is better than knowing 20.
In Peace
Jesse