Kempo/Kenpo techniques

Star Dragon

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Are there really that much difference between the striking art partner drill and the wrestling art partner drill?

If his 1st punch can knock his opponent down, why does he need the rest of his moves for?

Ideally that will indeed be the case. But unlike Japanese Karate styles, in Kenpo we just don't want to rely on the 'one shot, one kill' philosophy.

If a situation happens to work out that way, that's great. However, we are aware that in the real world, you can never be too sure how much of an effect any of your techniques is going to have. If the adversary tolerates or evades it, we want something else in place without delay. So they will feel overwhelmed with a flurry of effective blows coming in from multiple directions.

This is a realistic and highly effective approach to self-defence.


In the following clip, he can take his opponent down with his 1st attack.


In the following clip, he can't take his opponent down with his 1st attack and even his 2nd attack because his opponent steps back twice.

 

JR 137

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Ideally that will indeed be the case. But unlike Japanese Karate styles, in Kenpo we just don't want to rely on the 'one shot, one kill' philosophy.

If a situation happens to work out that way, that's great. However, we are aware that in the real world, you can never be too sure how much of an effect any of your techniques is going to have. If the adversary tolerates or evades it, we want something else in place without delay. So they will feel overwhelmed with a flurry of effective blows coming in from multiple directions.

This is a realistic and highly effective approach to self-defence.
I’m pretty sure none of the Japanese karate styles literally rely on the “one strike, one kill” philosophy.

You’re taking the phrase too literally. Kind of like how the “there is no first strike in karate” phrase gets taken too literally.
 

Kung Fu Wang

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But unlike Japanese Karate styles, in Kenpo we just don't want to rely on the 'one shot, one kill' philosophy.
One of my Karate friends who loved to ride in police car. When police needed to arrest someone, he would step out and tested his "one punch knock down". From what he told me, most of the time, his opponent would drop after 1 punch.

How about "one take down and end the stand up game" philosophy. If punch is not effective enough to knock your opponent down, will take down be better option instead?

 
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Kung Fu Wang

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in Kenpo we just don't want to rely on the 'one shot, one kill' philosophy.
IMO, all MA system try to develop effective finish moves. If we have to deal with multiple opponents and if our punch don't have enough knock down power, we will be in big trouble (because we may not have chance to throw that many punches).
 

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By the way I trained with a karate guy who could legitimately fight.

So it definitely can be done.


Coach doing the comentry.
 
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Kung Fu Wang

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in Kenpo we just don't want to rely on the 'one shot, one kill' philosophy.
In that clip, he punches on his opponent's body. If he punches on his opponent's head, the result can be different. A 45 degree downward hay-maker on the back of your opponent's head can knock your opponent down quite easily.

IMO, it's not that difficult to knock your opponent down by 1 punch if you know where to punch.
 

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By the way I trained with a karate guy who could legitimately fight.

So it definitely can be done.


Coach doing the comentry.

Maybe I’m fortunate, I’ve trained with a whole lot of Karate guys who could legitimately fight.
 

Gerry Seymour

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In that clip, he punches on his opponent's body. If he punches on his opponent's head, the result can be different. A 45 degree downward hay-maker on the back of your opponent's head can knock your opponent down quite easily.

IMO, it's not that difficult to knock your opponent down by 1 punch if you know where to punch.
And land the punch.
 

Kung Fu Wang

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And land the punch.
Here is my question. It doesn't matter which MA system that you (general YOU) may train. If you doesn't train full contact. how can you develop your confidence in your knock down power? If you have not knocked down 100 guys in the past, how will you know that you will be able to knock down the 101th guy? I have lost my confidence in non-full contact training long time ago.

The same issue doesn't exist in the throwing art. If you have taken down 100 guys in the past, you know that your chance to take down the 101th guy will be high.

- I can take a guy down 100 times without hurting him.
- I can't knock a guy down 100 times without hurting him.

This is why IMO, it's no fun to train the striking art.
 
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In that clip, he punches on his opponent's body. If he punches on his opponent's head, the result can be different. A 45 degree downward hay-maker on the back of your opponent's head can knock your opponent down quite easily.

IMO, it's not that difficult to knock your opponent down by 1 punch if you know where to punch.
As a point of clarification, the punch isn't actually to the person's body, it's a punch to his armpit. And there is a punch afterwards to the back of the head (in the video it looks like a shuto/"sideways spearhand" to the neck, I learned it as a rolling backfist)
 

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Here is my question. It doesn't matter which MA system that you (general YOU) may train. If you doesn't train full contact. how can you develop your confidence in your knock down power? If you have not knocked down 100 guys in the past, how will you know that you will be able to knock down the 101th guy? I have lost my confidence in non-full contact training long time ago.

The same issue doesn't exist in the throwing art. If you have taken down 100 guys in the past, you know that your chance to take down the 101th guy will be high.

- I can take a guy down 100 times without hurting him.
- I can't knock a guy down 100 times without hurting him.

This is why IMO, it's no fun to train the striking art.
There actually is a problem in grappling arts that is analogous. If your partner is compliant - even partially (not fighting back very much) - then you don't really know if you can take down someone who's resisting the takedown. I think striking practice should include some actual punching of people who are trying to punch back, and I don't think it has to require knocking them down - power can be tested and developed on a heavy bag. I think grappling practice should include some actual taking down of people who don't want to be taken down (it doesn't have to be all techniques).
 
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Generally speaking, if you hit the person first, you tend to win the fight. especially if you hit them in the jaw or in a place you stun them then you get two free hits in. And you can look put plenty of videos of people face to face with each other and the first to hit usually wins if they land it and it gives no reaction time ability as its posturing stage.

The same sort of rule applies to shooting situations as well, the first person to land shots on target tends to win, getting shot is pretty demoralizing and if its your first time getting shot at effective suppression is pretty demoralizing.

Just feel like that should be brought up because "one shot one kill" was brought up. But the jaw is a good place to hit to cause the type of damage you need to perform that, i think body shots are more hit and miss unless you get them good in a organ, which might be harder than just clocking them on a jaw. Kind of a lateish response.
 

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Here is my question. It doesn't matter which MA system that you (general YOU) may train. If you doesn't train full contact. how can you develop your confidence in your knock down power? If you have not knocked down 100 guys in the past, how will you know that you will be able to knock down the 101th guy? I have lost my confidence in non-full contact training long time ago.

The same issue doesn't exist in the throwing art. If you have taken down 100 guys in the past, you know that your chance to take down the 101th guy will be high.

- I can take a guy down 100 times without hurting him.
- I can't knock a guy down 100 times without hurting him.

This is why IMO, it's no fun to train the striking art.

I am of a completely different opinion. There is nothing more fun than striking arts.
 

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Here is my question. It doesn't matter which MA system that you (general YOU) may train. If you doesn't train full contact. how can you develop your confidence in your knock down power? If you have not knocked down 100 guys in the past, how will you know that you will be able to knock down the 101th guy? I have lost my confidence in non-full contact training long time ago.

The same issue doesn't exist in the throwing art. If you have taken down 100 guys in the past, you know that your chance to take down the 101th guy will be high.

- I can take a guy down 100 times without hurting him.
- I can't knock a guy down 100 times without hurting him.

This is why IMO, it's no fun to train the striking art.
It is not so difficult. You hit things like heavy bags. You develop your power.

And you work on application skills with partners. You do not need to go full contact on your partner to know you can take someone out.
 

drop bear

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It is not so difficult. You hit things like heavy bags. You develop your power.

And you work on application skills with partners. You do not need to go full contact on your partner to know you can take someone out.

A bag sort of doesn't develop power. Unless you already know how to develop power.

Which is why for all you guys who do striking and have to contend with these sort of doughy punches. Have that issue.

And that by the way will also tie in with gassing out in the first 10 seconds.
 
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Gerry Seymour

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Generally speaking, if you hit the person first, you tend to win the fight. especially if you hit them in the jaw or in a place you stun them then you get two free hits in. And you can look put plenty of videos of people face to face with each other and the first to hit usually wins if they land it and it gives no reaction time ability as its posturing stage.

The same sort of rule applies to shooting situations as well, the first person to land shots on target tends to win, getting shot is pretty demoralizing and if its your first time getting shot at effective suppression is pretty demoralizing.

Just feel like that should be brought up because "one shot one kill" was brought up. But the jaw is a good place to hit to cause the type of damage you need to perform that, i think body shots are more hit and miss unless you get them good in a organ, which might be harder than just clocking them on a jaw. Kind of a lateish response.
Something to remember: the videos you see are edited. What I mean by that is you're going to see more videos of more interesting things. One-shot knockdowns are more interesting, more notable, so are probably more likely to show up in a video. They're also easier to compile into longer vidoes - nobody is compiling "20 6-shot KO's". While it's best to get the first shot in, whether that gets you to a win (or even stuns the other guy long enough to get in another shot, much less two more) depends on a lot of factors...including the person you punched.
 

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A bag sort of doesn't develop power. Unless you already know how to develop power.

Which is why for all you guys who do striking and have to contend with these sort of doughy punches. Have that issue.

And that by the way will also tie in with gassing out in the first 10 seconds.
I didn't follow the thought to that last sentence, DB...

Anyway, my thoughts on bags and power: it's where people can work on developing power. Just hitting the bag - you're right, that won't develop power. But folks can gain confidence and not hold back so much once they're sure they won't hurt themselves. And then they start learning to generate real power (now that they're not holding it back so much).
 

drop bear

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I didn't follow the thought to that last sentence, DB...

Anyway, my thoughts on bags and power: it's where people can work on developing power. Just hitting the bag - you're right, that won't develop power. But folks can gain confidence and not hold back so much once they're sure they won't hurt themselves. And then they start learning to generate real power (now that they're not holding it back so much).

This is kind of a Gumby explanation so bear with me.

Ok what happens is you punch through the bag like everyone kind of tells you to do. But the bag gives the wrong feed back a bit. And basically to get the best reaction out of a bag you need to push the bag.

So what you wind up doing on the bag when you hit with power is to stay connected to the bag for a long time and continue to drive the punch. And this is generally how a hard punch works if you only ever received feedback from a bag.

You are basically pushing it.

Now when you crack someone in the head all that push is doing pretty much nothing but wasting energy. And you don't get that nice crisp snap connection you get this dull hit that never seems to feel solid.

But when you are hopped up you tend to want to hit as hard as you can and so lean towards that kind of punch.

But it takes a lot of effort and doesn't really hurt all that much and will very quickly gas you out.

Brophy tent gives a good example of these two styles at play.

 
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Gerry Seymour

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This is kind of a Gumby explanation so bear with me.

Ok what happens is you punch through the bag like everyone kind of tells you to do. But the bag gives the wrong feed back a bit. And basically to get the best reaction out of a bag you need to push the bag.

So what you wind up doing on the bag when you hit with power is to stay connected to the bag for a long time and continue to drive the punch. And this is generally how a hard punch works if you only ever received feedback from a bag.

You are basically pushing it.

Now when you crack someone in the head all that push is doing pretty much nothing but wasting energy. And you don't get that nice crisp snap connection you get this dull hit that never seems to feel solid.

But when you are hopped up you tend to want to hit as hard as you can and so lean towards that kind of punch.

But it takes a lot of effort and doesn't really hurt all that much and will very quickly gas you out.

Brophy tent gives a good example of these two styles at play.

Thanks, that makes sense, and is a pretty concise explanation, actually. Well done.

I have noticed that almost everyone starts out (and continues, if not guided) trying to make the bag move. If anything, they do more of this with kicks, but it's definitely a common thing with punches. I have to work to get folks focused on getting some snap into the punch. Once they get that snap going, most still require guidance as they increase power, to keep from doing exactly what you're talking about. But once they get that down, the bag is where they work on power.

(I've seen folks teaching kicks this way, even with kicks that are not really well suited to pushing. Drives me kinda nuts.)
 

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