Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
I have made the decision to retrain in my kenpo. Kenpo was the first art I studied, beginning in 1984 when I was in high school. I reached first dan, but was unable to continue training beyond that, as I left for college, my instructor moved way, etc. I always kept practicing on my own, but drifted away from it while studying other arts, sometimes for years at a time. But I always seemed to return to it again at some point.
I always felt it had a lot of good stuff in it. However, in the last couple of years I have modified my material heavily, to streamline the system for myself. I have often felt many of the SD techs were unnecessary and burdensome, and my rants can be found liberally scattered around here on Martialtalk. I won't reiterate all that again here.
I have been giving this a lot of thought, in the meantime. It has been many years since I have had a chance to work with a kenpo instructor. In the meantime I have been focused on learning other arts, and I am sure there is much in my kenpo that I have forgotten while my focus was elsewhere. My original instructors were not high level people, and I now live halfway across the continent from them. While I believe my training with them was solid, I am sure there is a lot that perhaps I never learned as well as I could. So I decided that it would be a great benefit to myself to retrain with another instructor.
I have been speaking a couple times with Ted Sumner in San Jose, CA. As many of you probably know, he is 8th dan under Al Tracy, and has been involved in Tracy's kenpo since around 1964 or so. I believe he is among the very top teachers and practitioners in the Tracys system. Next Tuesday, I will drive down to San Jose from San Francisco, and take my first class with him. It is a long drive, during commute hours. It could take anywhere from an hour, to an hour and a half each way. Honestly, I don't know if this will work out, primarily due to the commute, but I want to give it a try. I am excited about this prospect. Mr. Sumner has been very good to talk to on the phone, and I am looking forward to meeting him and working under his direction.
On top of this, my wife is going with me, and will also take the class and see if she likes it. She has been training in Capoeira for about 8 or 9 years of so (that is where we met), and is kind of wanting to explore something different now. In the past, I taught her a little bit of kenpo, the first couple of forms and a few SD techs from Orange Belt. She also has a background in Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido, during her high school days. So this stuff shouldn't be entirely foreign to her.
We intend to continue studying Capoeira to some degree, and I will still meet with my kung fu sifu on Saturdays. that stuff is too damn good to abandon, and I have no intention of doing so. But I want to bring a stronger line of kenpo back into my life. Exciting stuff, I just wanted to share. Thx, everyone.
I always felt it had a lot of good stuff in it. However, in the last couple of years I have modified my material heavily, to streamline the system for myself. I have often felt many of the SD techs were unnecessary and burdensome, and my rants can be found liberally scattered around here on Martialtalk. I won't reiterate all that again here.
I have been giving this a lot of thought, in the meantime. It has been many years since I have had a chance to work with a kenpo instructor. In the meantime I have been focused on learning other arts, and I am sure there is much in my kenpo that I have forgotten while my focus was elsewhere. My original instructors were not high level people, and I now live halfway across the continent from them. While I believe my training with them was solid, I am sure there is a lot that perhaps I never learned as well as I could. So I decided that it would be a great benefit to myself to retrain with another instructor.
I have been speaking a couple times with Ted Sumner in San Jose, CA. As many of you probably know, he is 8th dan under Al Tracy, and has been involved in Tracy's kenpo since around 1964 or so. I believe he is among the very top teachers and practitioners in the Tracys system. Next Tuesday, I will drive down to San Jose from San Francisco, and take my first class with him. It is a long drive, during commute hours. It could take anywhere from an hour, to an hour and a half each way. Honestly, I don't know if this will work out, primarily due to the commute, but I want to give it a try. I am excited about this prospect. Mr. Sumner has been very good to talk to on the phone, and I am looking forward to meeting him and working under his direction.
On top of this, my wife is going with me, and will also take the class and see if she likes it. She has been training in Capoeira for about 8 or 9 years of so (that is where we met), and is kind of wanting to explore something different now. In the past, I taught her a little bit of kenpo, the first couple of forms and a few SD techs from Orange Belt. She also has a background in Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido, during her high school days. So this stuff shouldn't be entirely foreign to her.
We intend to continue studying Capoeira to some degree, and I will still meet with my kung fu sifu on Saturdays. that stuff is too damn good to abandon, and I have no intention of doing so. But I want to bring a stronger line of kenpo back into my life. Exciting stuff, I just wanted to share. Thx, everyone.