Mr. Speakman Seminar Notes

[cdhall]

Hello everyone, I have been pretty much gone for a while but Mr. Speakman just taught a seminar here in Austin, TX tonight Thursday 12.20.2002 and I thought I might as well share my notes/outline with you here.

It was very educational. If you can go to a seminar with Mr. Speakman, go. He is a very nice guy.

Topics he hit upon:
1. Techniques are illustrations of principles. Experiment with your material.
2. Opposing forces enhances the Speed, Power and Balance of your execution
3. Rebounding
4. Outer Rim Theory (Anchor Your Elbows!)
5. Directonal Harmony and the common sacrifice of Power for Speed. You are "going to fast" when you fail to hit your stances properly
8. Knife fighting
9. Stick fighting
10. Kenpo family, as in Kenpo is more than punches and kicks...
11. Kenpo evolution throughout the lifetime of Mr. Parker and Mr. Sepulveda's relationship to it as a student witness of Mr. Parker from the 1960's until Mr. Parker's death
12. Weight training as a good suppliment to Kenpo and fitness in general
13. The day Wing Chung became Jeet Kune Do and why we do our Forward Bow differently from Korean systems for example
14. Right hand bias. One handed system vs One Sided system.
15. His teaching of Mr. Parker's system and the 5 techniques he has changed from their last "recorded" form.
16. Purposeful Compliance, Purposeful Defiance and Borrowed Force.
17. His movie/commercial ventures and what he is up to (in anticipation of a flame, I'll clarify that this was in response to a question)
18. The Form he did in The Perfect Weapon, the tribute to Mr. Lou Angel in The Perfect Weapon, where he "learned the Kali and Escrima that he did in The Perfect Weapon"
19. And I'm sure I'm missing some stuff. As I said, it was educational. It was also entertaining, fun and "comforting" in that Mr. Speakman really talked about mutual respect and honor and how Kenpo students and teachers can be a close knit family to each other.

All for $25.00. Incredible.

I just got home. These are my rough notes and I may post some more later. I think we worked on a drill and 4 techniques over 3hours. He ran an hour long apparently but no one complained and it really seemed to me like we were not there very long at all. There was no clock visible to me so this may have helped.

It may be hard for me to post a "blow by blow" or "strike by strike" account of the seminar, but this is what happened and maybe if you go next time it will be like this. I understand this was different from the seminar he taught in SA a week prior.

I hope these details prove interesting and inspiring to some of you. They were to me. Happy Holidays.
:asian:

P.S. I got to be an extra in a film he shot here last night and I am pretty sure I will prominently visible in a promotion ceremony that will run with the end credits. Woo Hoo!

 

[tarabos]

well...i know one thing...i wish all seminars cost 25 bones...

 

[Sigung86]

Hey Charlie,

Thanks for sharing... Looking forward to some details if you are up to it later...

Dan

 

[Klondike93]

His teaching of Mr. Parker's system and the 5 techniques he has changed from their last "recorded" form.

I'd be interested in this one, not in any malicious way either, but just to hear wich ones and why he changed them.

Well, actually I'd like to hear more about all you covered, but this one intrigues me the most.

Some day I'd like to make his kenpo camp in Vegas too.


:asian:

 

[cdhall]

Originally posted by Klondike93
I'd be interested in this one, not in any malicious way either, but just to hear wich ones and why he changed them.

Well, actually I'd like to hear more about all you covered, but this one intrigues me the most.

Some day I'd like to make his kenpo camp in Vegas too.


:asian:

From what I understand, Mr. Speakman is teaching exactly what Mr. Parker was teaching him with 5 exceptions which I believe are Shielding Hammer and 4 knife techniques. He did not teach these techniques and I don't have the knife ones anyway, but he said he made changes to the knife techniques to reflect what Mr. Parker was teaching them in their Knife Fighting (apparently part of the class routine at Mr. Parker's house when Mr. Speakman was there).

That is about all I know. I may come back later to elaborate slightly. Mr. Speakman basically said that the stuff they worked on in knife fighting contradicted some of what was in the knife techniques so Mr. Speakman altered the techniques to be more consistent with the fighting and that this kept with the theme of Kenpo being internally consistent (I think that is right) so that we don't teach something in one technique that is contradicted elsewhere.

 

[Handsword]

That's interesting about the knife techniques. I have never trained with Mr Speakman, although I was under the impression that he'd changed a few other techniques in the AKKS syllabus (Lone Kimono, Locking Horns etc) as I have not seen these versions anywhere else.

Also,

13. The day Wing Chung became Jeet Kune Do and why we do our Forward Bow differently from Korean systems for example

why is the forward bow stance different? Is the Korean style of a forward bow the one where the spine is in alignment with the straightened rear leg (as opposed to an upright spine)? Or does this refer to the angle of the lead foot?

 

[cdhall]

Originally posted by Handsword
That's interesting about the knife techniques. I have never trained with Mr Speakman, although I was under the impression that he'd changed a few other techniques in the AKKS syllabus (Lone Kimono, Locking Horns etc) as I have not seen these versions anywhere else.

Also,

why is the forward bow stance different? Is the Korean style of a forward bow the one where the spine is in alignment with the straightened rear leg (as opposed to an upright spine)? Or does this refer to the angle of the lead foot?

Thanks for the interest Handsword.

I am now in danger I think of "reteaching" Mr. Speakman's seminar so I am going to try to very careful not to misquote him.

If you or anyone have a question about what I post, please let me know, I want to be sure not to get any of this wrong. I'll try to make it clear where I'm "assuming" something or when I'm not positive that I'm quoting him exactly.

Regarding techniques, I had heard that Mr. Speakman changed a lot of stuff, but he very clearly stated that he is teaching what Mr. Parker taught him when he died with these 5 exceptions. I have seen him do Shielding Hammer before, the knife techniques were all new to me, but I don't know anything about what versions of Lone Kimono or Locking Horns you might be talking about. He didn't comment on them or demonstrate them. While we did start with a drill that became a technique I asked him if it was an "actual technique" and he said "No." We also did variations on Parting Wings and Thrusting Wedge which I didn't get to ask about, but for all I know they were the actual extensions. He never said that he was teaching us the techniques, he just started with them and went on to show us other stuff using them as a point of reference. But as they went into Rebounding and "Guidelining" (at least) they may well could have been extensions. From what I have seen, the Extensions to the techniques do introduce new concepts and principles and are not just "more stuff" but that belongs in another thread. I meant to ask about these but I didn't get to. Maybe I'll go look up the extensions on Mr. Billings' site and see if this is what Mr. Speakman was doing.

Regarding the Forward Bow Mr. Speakman said that in Korean systems (maybe not just Korean systems, but he used them as an example) the knee points forward whereas in Kenpo, our knee is not pointing forward at our opponent when we are in a Forward Bow. This is apparently to protect the joint from an incoming blow making it harder to break/hyperextend our lead knee with a straight attack. He demonstrated how when the knee is pointed forward that it can be locked out with an incoming attack whereas Mr. Parker designed our Forward Bow to allow you to collapse and/or turn your knee if it were hit, apparently giving you another second or two to counter/escape and better protect your joint.

So our lead foot also does point straight but off to a 45 degree angle as in a Neutral Bow. The position of the front foot does not change of course whether in a Forward or Neutral Bow.

He also elaborated that we don't generally expose our forward joints to an attack but didn't give another example.

He really covered a lot of material/made a lot of points as he went along. It was really when I started the notes that I noticed how much he was slipping in and I realized that he covered a lot of ground with the 5 techniques (now I remember that we did 5) we went over, but then again, he told the White Belts that if they could break down and analyze their material like this that they would be really well-prepared to zoom through the material from Purple onward. So I guess he was trying to give us a "Kenpo Tour" and hit as many concepts, principles and allegories as he went along.

I guess if anyone Wants a short answer from me in the future, they should say "Briefly, what do you mean by..." because I can post shorter answers but I prefer to be complete and accurate, so heads up. Warn me if you want a shorter answer.

I think I did answer your questions though, let me know if I didn't. This seminar was like wine, it gets better with age. A friend of mine has been talking to me about another system and some of his "cool stuff" was addressed in this seminar. As we have been discussing stuff lately I keep pulling stuff from this seminar to tell him about. I didn't realize how much was in there when I was doing it. Only now that I'm writing it down. Notes are good.
:asian:

 

[cdhall]

Originally posted by cdhall

...Maybe I'll go look up the extensions on Mr. Billings' site and see if this is what Mr. Speakman was doing.....

As I suspected, and very big thanks to Mr. Billings' site again http://www.kenpo-texas.com/

We were working on what may well have been the actual Extensions to Parting Wings and Thrusting Wedge.

While Mr. Billings' descriptions don't seem to exactly match what Mr. Speakman was showing us, it looks very close. So it is possible that either Mr. Speakman altered the extensions a bit for class or that Mr. Billings has posted a variant, or both.

Thanks again to Mr. Billings for his great resource.