Considering that the opinions in these forums is that it impossible to speak of a system or its makeup due to the fact that there are so many variations found in each, and within the same family/organization etc... So, I was curious if anyone would be up for a honest conversation about what they added or deleted from their way and an explanation as to why. Don't consider it a "what I like or don't like" thread, but more of a personal explanation of your own "journey" in a way.
I have competely abandoned the techniques, sets, and forms in kenpo karate.
Not forever, but with the current group of students I'm working with it's a better approach than trying to teach them "manual style" motion kenpo.
Instead, I use the traditional american kenpo curriculum as a template for teaching fighting. For instance, I take a technique such as Delayed Sword, and I extrapolate from it important lessons about fighting, and then I transmit those lessons to my students through the use of dynamic drills designed to teach them to respond spontaneously with a set stimulus. Over time, I gradually increase the number and complexity of the stimulus involved until my students are participating in free combat drills, where any strikes, grappling, or combination thereof may be used to subdue their opponent. If I do my job, then they will be able to use the techniques I've taught them spontaneously in a combat setting.
So, I take Delayed Sword, and I try to think about what it contains. For instance,
An opponent at 12 oclock
A grappling attack
A blocking maneuver
A kick to the opponent's bladder
A handsword strike to the opponent's neck
Combination striking and blocking
That list is in no way exhaustive, but it's a place to start with a yellow belt student.
So we'll work drills with opponent's at 12 oclock. We'll talk about the clock concept, and turning to face an opponent. I'll have the students do stalking drills, and confront each other aggressively from the front to understand the psychology of that type of confrontation.
Then we'll work the attack. You have to understand the attack to put the response into context. So we'll work on grabbing the lapel, and the shoulder, and the collar. And we'll work pulling grabs, and pressing grabs, and lifting grabs. And we'll also discuss punches from 12 oclock as well, and discuss the similarities of motion involved in punching and grabbing, and practice both separately and in combination.
Then we'll work basic blocks, and spontaneous blocking, and slap checks, and grab escapes, and push offs and shrugs, and controlling the opponent's arm while engaged. We'll talk about the wrist, and the elbow, and the shoulder, and how blocking the opponent's arm in one direction or another will effect their position in completely different ways.
And we'll work on our kicks, in the air, on the shield, on the body, on a moving partner, on a defending partner. And we'll talk about targets and anatomical repositioning and striking the bladder, or hip, or groin, or knee.
And we'll practice handsword formulation and combining blocks with chops and kicks with chops and landing with strikes. And we'll discuss what order to land the strikes in, and how factors like range and position might effect that.
Then we partner up and begin spontaneous sparring using a predetermined set of movements. For instance, only the inward block and the handsword strike. Each student is trying to land a lead hand handsword to their opponent's neck, and may only block with inward blocks. Then we'll do the same drill with the kick and the handsword, and all three. And we'll add more blocks, and outward chops too, and grabs, and strikes to the opponent's arms, and backnuckle strikes, and the drill slowly evolves into a more and more complex combat simulation.
And then we will work completely free combat drills, with control of course, where the students may confront each other using all of their combined skills, while I continue to emphasize the lessons learned in class that day.
Of course, that's only a small portion of what you can draw from that one technique, but it's a start. You could probably spend an eternity teaching that one technique alone and make some fairly formidable fighters. I didn't even include drills on stance rotation and leaning, or follow up striking, or the opponent's possible responses. And all those drills are done right and left handed.
In the informal setting I'm teaching in now, where I have students with different training backgrounds and attitudes and commitments and interests, I find this approach to be much more engaging than the traditional curriculum based approach. I have also seen a strongly accelerated advancement of my students in skill. In far fewer classes than it took me, my students are developing spontaneous fighting ability, but maybe I just have good students.
I see some downsides in this style of teaching though. First, while I'm having great success at training my students to fight, I think it will be more difficult to train them to
teach. In a very real way, I am reading to them from a book that only exists in my mind. They can learn the lessons, but it will be hard for them to reproduce them because they aren't being exposed to the material I'm drawing the lessons from
.
It also removes some of the complexity of the American Kenpo system, especially as the students advance through the curriculum. More advanced techniques in Kenpo, such as Prance of the Tiger are based on simpler principles being reinforced from the student's very first class. Some of the problem that people have in
teaching these techniques comes from being concerned with their seeming irrationality in a serious self defense situation. While my approach alleviates that concern, it leaves the student without having a set training mechanism within in which to work less common movements and strikes. Having that material cataloged within the technique curriculum forces the student to learn and practice it, where as my approach will forgo that to some degree.
Whether or not that is a fair exchange is a debate we've never really resolved.
I've taught both ways. I've taught the curriculum as strictly and technically and traditionally as possible, and now I'm teaching with a method more commonly associated with combat sports, with a heavy focus on partner drills, basics, and spontaneity, although with a self-defense mentality instead of sport. There's a time and a place and a student for both. And of course there's a whole lot of other ways in between.
Growing up in the system, my instructors always taught that Kenpo was a way of thinking. The techniques were only a conveyance for the lessons they contained. I'm trying to cut out the middle man and just teach the lessons, without the memorized patterns.
All of that will probably piss some people off. Sorry. I don't think I'm better than Ed Parker. I'm not trying to change what he did, or say he did it wrong. I'm taking what I was taught of what he did, and trying to pass it on in the best way I can, so that more people can learn from it like I have.
-Rob
