Tracy reference material for syllabus, curriculum, and which YT channels

[dream]

While I am a Gung fu practitioner, I want my son to learn in a class setting as he is young. I wanted him to learn self defense, the art, and drills with children his size or age as well.

I chose Kenpo karate because it is the best dojo in the area I found. The sensei cares about bout the art, how his teaching is a reflection of his own mastery, and the class sizes and way he conducts class with attention to detail for each child is so much different than the nonsense afterschool program the money hungry Japanese dojo.

Also, having Chinese and Japanese fusion of arts is fitting because I got my black belt in karate before moving permanently to Gung fu. So I really admire Kenpo as a system after seeing a lot of videos and the emphasis on drills and sparring. I like the fluidity of Kenpo in comparison to the other Japanese styles I studied in my youth

My son is at a Tracy lineage school so I wanted to know where I could find Tracy specific curriculum, syllabus and materials to help my son practice and develop at home while the school website is spruced up and we have access to the online videos

I would like to learn about the history, the Tracy lineage and any good information as I am genuinely interested and there is a lot of information about “controversy” and I’m not really aware of any of it . I just want to help my son be the best he can be and learn as well. If you have a good kenpo YT channel please lmk.

Thanks

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I'm going to preface all the below with specifying that I have 20ish years experience in various ken/mpo styles, but not in Tracy Kenpo specifically.
Overall, I'd recommend that you don't help him in the way you're suggesting, for a couple of reasons. The first is that while theoretically all tracy lineage has the same techniques, my experience is that's not the case. Pretty much every kenpo style has a ton of techniques, which get changed from time to time, which means that not all schools will be teaching techniques the same way. You didn't say how old your son is, but if he's 5-10, and he learns "Okay you do a thrust punch, followed by a left step in to close the distance", and then he goes home, practices, and you correct him that it's supposed to be a ridge hand, you've just now greatly confused a kid who will be messing up that technique for the next month.

Outside of that, you don't know the system yourself. Wing chun and kenpo have different philosophies of how to move the body, so simple instructions you give him will likely cause the same issue. Again depending on his age and interest level, most times I've seen parents being super gung(heh) ho about their kids practicing, the kid becomes uninterested.

All that said, I'd recommend you leave him to learn in class, if he expresses a desire/want to practice more outside of class, let him practice on his own or attend/watch the class and ask the instructor what he's learning and how you can best help that.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I'm going to preface all the below with specifying that I have 20ish years experience in various ken/mpo styles, but not in Tracy Kenpo specifically.
Overall, I'd recommend that you don't help him in the way you're suggesting, for a couple of reasons. The first is that while theoretically all tracy lineage has the same techniques, my experience is that's not the case. Pretty much every kenpo style has a ton of techniques, which get changed from time to time, which means that not all schools will be teaching techniques the same way. You didn't say how old your son is, but if he's 5-10, and he learns "Okay you do a thrust punch, followed by a left step in to close the distance", and then he goes home, practices, and you correct him that it's supposed to be a ridge hand, you've just now greatly confused a kid who will be messing up that technique for the next month.

Outside of that, you don't know the system yourself. Wing chun and kenpo have different philosophies of how to move the body, so simple instructions you give him will likely cause the same issue. Again depending on his age and interest level, most times I've seen parents being super gung(heh) ho about their kids practicing, the kid becomes uninterested.

All that said, I'd recommend you leave him to learn in class, if he expresses a desire/want to practice more outside of class, let him practice on his own or attend/watch the class and ask the instructor what he's learning and how you can best help that.

I did ignore your question though, so here's the answer. I don't know of any tracy kenpo youtube channels, but there is a list of tracy's pre-black belt curriculum on kenponet. Tracy's Kenpo- Index

If you notice, the guy who put in the effort of documenting it even said that you can't really standardize it like that and expect it to stay current/static.

Dan Farmer is an old (former) poster on here, who had been practicing kenpo for 30 something years at the time, so I'd imagine he got it all correct and up to date, but like I said I don't have experience with tracy kenpo specifically, so I can't verify that.

 

[dream]

You are absolutely correct. I do agree with your premise: I am not a kenpo practitioner and can only emulate what I see. While I am a very advanced martial artist who can copy from sight, there are nuances (as you made a great example) that I could be missing that will end up being points of confusion. I will let go and Just hope for the best. (He is little, right in the median of 5-10 so he’s at the age where the change from little boy to big boy happens .

I really like kenpo from what I’ve seen, and I just want to help him learn better body and situational awareness and how to handle himself (bullying was a problem).

Thank you for the careful reply! I will certainly follow what I already thought might be problematic because I can’t always sit there and watch everything to reinforce or let him just practice on me (eg if I grab with a wrist hold or shoulder grab, I don’t want him to push the circle with the wrong step)

 

[Buka]

While I am a Gung fu practitioner, I want my son to learn in a class setting as he is young. I wanted him to learn self defense, the art, and drills with children his size or age as well.

I chose Kenpo karate because it is the best dojo in the area I found. The sensei cares about bout the art, how his teaching is a reflection of his own mastery, and the class sizes and way he conducts class with attention to detail for each child is so much different than the nonsense afterschool program the money hungry Japanese dojo.

Also, having Chinese and Japanese fusion of arts is fitting because I got my black belt in karate before moving permanently to Gung fu. So I really admire Kenpo as a system after seeing a lot of videos and the emphasis on drills and sparring. I like the fluidity of Kenpo in comparison to the other Japanese styles I studied in my youth

My son is at a Tracy lineage school so I wanted to know where I could find Tracy specific curriculum, syllabus and materials to help my son practice and develop at home while the school website is spruced up and we have access to the online videos

I would like to learn about the history, the Tracy lineage and any good information as I am genuinely interested and there is a lot of information about “controversy” and I’m not really aware of any of it . I just want to help my son be the best he can be and learn as well. If you have a good kenpo YT channel please lmk.

Thanks

There’s a ton of information online about the Tracy history. It should be a fun read to check out.

As for your boy, hopefully he’ll have fun training. If kids have fun going to a dojo, they learn more and go longer.

 

[dream]

I’m so happy, especially for my son! I showed his sensei my Gungfu and told him my lineage title, how I wanted to help my son practice but I didn’t want to teach him wrong /deviate from class, so his sensei gave us access to the entire curriculum and syllabus on video online! His recently completed filming an online course he sells for the complete system to first degree black and it is fantastic. It is included in my sons tuition.

He does a great job with spending about 40+ minutes on each belt (and Dan) and he does it with Grandmaster Perri so it’s pretty cool to watch the system being performed by real masters of the actual dojo lineage , and not just a random YT video from another random dojo that may have different variations. Now I don’t have to worry about the confusion issue that @Monkey Turned Wolf so aptly described. With this in depth video tutorial course, I am able to help my son now. I can be his “attacker” properly now without the worry about confusion, and I can correct any mistakes or answer any questions he has by simply turning on the computer and logging online!!

I know it sounds silly but my son was being bullied and knowing his sensei is so dedicated to helping my son is a wonderful feeling for a martial artist father of my level. Like I know I can rest easy that he is in good hands with his sensei and you know what? As Baku said, the dojo and classmates are important for a kid his age, so he can get his black belt if he wants to, and if he wants to learn Chinese Internal martial arts I can always teach him that too

But with kenpo, if he applies it, the way I see in the videos, it is just as good as anything else I could teach (almost lol j/k). In fact watching just the first two belts let me see that there is a huge Gung fu influence , moreso than any other martial art or Japanese karate I’ve seen? You guys know more than me about this but am I correct in that premise? (Someone once said to me kenpo is Japanese kung fu or chinese karate)”, and now I get what he meant. It’s so fluid and multidimensional; I haven’t seen the advanced material footwork but that’s the only thing I see as a big difference (cma hands and feet are practically inextricably tied To each other, like tai chi and bagua all move everything at once, but kenpo has more of a traditional Japanese stance and base while the upper body has a lot of fluidity and many strikes within one movement) so is kenpo not included In karate section because it’s sort of an MMA? Cross section of gungfu and karate?

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

But with kenpo, if he applies it, the way I see in the videos, it is just as good as anything else I could teach (almost lol j/k). In fact watching just the first two belts let me see that there is a huge Gung fu influence , moreso than any other martial art or Japanese karate I’ve seen? You guys know more than me about this but am I correct in that premise? (Someone once said to me kenpo is Japanese kung fu or chinese karate)”, and now I get what he meant. It’s so fluid and multidimensional; I haven’t seen the advanced material footwork but that’s the only thing I see as a big difference (cma hands and feet are practically inextricably tied To each other, like tai chi and bagua all move everything at once, but kenpo has more of a traditional Japanese stance and base while the upper body has a lot of fluidity and many strikes within one movement) so is kenpo not included In karate section because it’s sort of an MMA? Cross section of gungfu and karate?

Kenpo's combination is interesting. I'll refer to american kenpo since that's what I'm more familiar with and is also the parent style of tracy kenpo; keep in mind this is a pretty dumbed down version of events. That lineage of kenpo really started in hawaii, where william chow combined jujutsu, a form of japanese kenpo (kosho ryu kenpo from mitose), and chinese martial arts, and made a blend of them. Then Ed Parker came along, studied under chow (among others, but that was the big one) and created his own adaptation called american kenpo karate. At some point, pretty early on in this style, he moved to california and became involved with a ton of chinese martial artists, and changed his style to reflect this. One person in particular, James Wing Woo, actually created a good portion of the curriculum, and may have helped Parker write his original book(?) There's some controversy around that, and I can't recall it well enough to state anything confidently. But, suffice to say, chinese martial arts played a huge role.

So ultimately, yes. Kenpo started out as a mix of judo/jujutsu, karate, and boxing, then each iteration of it until american kenpo included more chinese martial arts. as a result, it's what would be best considered a hybrid martial art, more than anything. I can't say if tracy continued that trend or not.

Regarding the stances, the static stances is very much what is taught, but as time goes on (at least in my experience, mostly with another sub-style, I can't say this is true throughout) the lesson changes to the idea that stances are only meant as transitional stages, and you should always be flowing through them. There's also a running joke that kenpo will try to fit as many strikes in one technique as possible.

 

[dream]

I like that. Great succinct history and also thanks for the reply on the stances. And while I don’t know the system l, after the hours of reading and YT videos , I can appreciate the joke .