James and Michael...excellent posts!!!!
I have had very specific discussions about this fictional myth with several seniors, including Mr. Parker. Of course, the hard part of referencing discussions with a deceased entity is proving it. Among the people no longer with us with whom I've had this discussion, Robert Perry (one of Mr. Parkers early black belts and the founder of the Orange County, CA, IKKA affiliate from back in the early-mid 60's), and SGM Parker. Both said the same thing: The techniques teach us the skills we are to apply intuitively and creatively to each individual attacker, depending specifically on circumstance. Not meant to be used verbatim, long or short version. They are miniature learning labs to demonstrate how those concepts and principles play out under the influence of circumstantial contingencies.
Among the living with whom I've had kindred discussions, Mr. Chap'el (Los Angeles IKKA charter holder under Mr. Parker & Long Beach Internationals coordinator for the last more-than-a-decade of Mr. Parkers life), Mr. Conatser (longtime student and friend of Mr. Parker, travelling teaching partner with Mr. Parker for seminar circuit, and couch fixture in the Parker living room), Mr. LaBounty (another very old kenpoist, whose physical longevity is a mystery to all since we're sure he actually dates back to the pre-historic times), and Mr. Hale (long-time kenpo student, studio owner under the direct guidance of Mr. Parker, excellent kenpoist, and an interesting paradox as a super nice guy who is also super dangerous...kind of a bearded, grinning, potentially sadistic Clark Kent).
It's not a kenpo myth; it's kenpo. It's even in Mr. Parkers written materials (Secrets of Chinese Karate, Infinite Insights 1 & 5), that once you own the lessons in the techniques, you should move to a spontaneous phase in your kenpo development. The techniques should ultimately teach you HOW to move, why, and which patterns of movement do best for which relationships to your opponents positioning and target availability. Your own mastery and creativity should move to the forefront in the heat of combat, replacing learned techs with on-the-spot made up ones that fit each specific circumstance perfectly.
Mr. Parker tried multiple metaphors to make this point, and still many won't see it...most often by choice. Music: A song is not the music; it is merely an arrangement of music. Music theory allows one to learn all about full notes, half notes, quarter notes, writing and reading music. Once they own the language of music, you can hear, read or write Bach, the Beatles, or Fitty cent, and flow seamlessly in and out of each. Each song is just an arrangement of concepts and principles, demonstrating how music can be played in a 4/4 or 3/4, waltz or jazz, etc. One learns these things, but as a Jazz player, uses their knowledge and experience to jam, not spend their lives playing the same written pieces. Scales are for practicing, not enjoyment. You use them for warm up and tuning, not performance. Language study was another example he often used. We don't communicate with a memorized phrasebook, though the phrasebook may demonstrate for us how laws of syntax govern sentence formation for proper grammar and communication.
Techniques are simply individual songs or phrases that demonstrate for us how certain words or notes can come together for a desired effect, based on circumstantial contingencies.
Try this: Get a Barron's phrasebook, and spend a month communicating with family and friends at work and play using ONLY phrases from the book. If it's not in the book, you don't get to say it. Because that's not how it's written. Your wife will leave you, your job will fire you, and your friends will stop taking your calls. It's not a playbook for life; just a demonstration of how words ought to work together in certain contexts.
Same with the self-defense techniques in kenpo. Learn to piece combinations together that utilize the language of motion to dominate an attacker, and are circumstantially appropriate.
I hope that helps, though I know many will stay with "kenpo is the techniques" until the sun burns out. It's easier that way, and as Mr. Parker said to me, it's a nice copout when the artist fails...to be able to blame the art, rather than their understanding of, and flexibility within, the skills the art teaches. (after I told him about how I got my face punched in trying to use Grip of Death verbatim, instead of improvising with spontaneous use of kenpo concepts and principles).
Be good,
Dave
