Karate vs. Kenpo Karate
Quick answer
Kenpo Karate is the earlier name of Ed Parker’s American system, whose line leads through William Kwai Sun Chow to James Mitose and Hawaiian kenpo, and we have not found an explicit derivation from Okinawan or Japanese karate. Karate rests on kihon, solo kata and kumite, kenpo on 154 named self-defense sequences and their variations. Karate competes under the WKF in kumite and kata and was Olympic just in Tokyo 2020, and we have not found competition rules for kenpo.
At a glance
| Karate | Kenpo Karate | |
|---|---|---|
| Country of origin | Japan | United States |
| Origin | 20th century (present form) | 20th century (present form) |
| Founder | Anko Itosu (codifier) | Ed Parker |
| Contact | Semi-contact · Full contact (depending on style) | – |
| Sparring | Medium contact · Full contact (depending on style) | – |
| Competition format | Point fighting | – |
| Olympic status | Former Olympic sport | Not Olympic |
| Ranks | Yes (belts) | Yes (belts) |
| Rank recognition | fragmented | fragmented |
| Attire | Gi required | – |
| Weapons | No weapons · Weapons optional (depending on style) | Weapons optional |
| Forms | Forms at the core | Forms at the core |
| Relative cost | low | unknown |
| Katas and forms in the encyclopedia | 67 | – |
| Techniques in the encyclopedia | 230 | 1 |
Scales 1–5
Rated for the typical training of an adult beginner in an ordinary club, calibrated across all arts.
What each art is built from
Editorial rating 0–3: how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
History and relationship
Karate developed in Okinawa from the local te under the influence of Chinese martial arts, and Funakoshi Gichin brought it to the main Japanese islands in the nineteen twenties. Kenpo Karate is the earlier name of Ed Parker’s system (1931–1990), who studied under William Kwai Sun Chow in Hawaii and developed the system in the USA, later as American Kenpo Karate. We have not found an explicit statement that it derives from Okinawan or Japanese karate.
- 1922: Funakoshi Gichin demonstrates karate in Tokyo.
- 1933 and 1936: karate changes its written form from 唐手 (Chinese hand) to 空手 (empty hand).
- From 1944: William Kwai Sun Chow teaches at the Nuuanu YMCA in Honolulu under the name Kenpo Karate.
- Parker begins teaching, with sources giving the year 1954 in Provo, Utah, or 1957. He has had a dojo in Pasadena since 1956.
- 1962, or the end of 1963: Parker founds the International Kenpo Karate Association (IKKA).
- 1964: the first Long Beach International Karate Championships.
- 1970: the world karate union WUKO is founded, and from 1992 it is the WKF.
- 1990: Parker dies without a designated successor.
Technique
- Kihon (stances, strikes, kicks, blocks), kata and kumite.
- WKF kumite: 1 point for a strike to the body, 2 for a kick to the body, 3 for a kick to the head.
- The WKF prohibits, among other things, contact to the throat and attacks on the joints.
- Locks and throws are found only in some styles, for example Wado-ryu.
- 154 named self-defense sequences (“ideal phase”) with 96 extensions.
- Subsequent What-if and Formulation phases.
- Principles such as “Marriage of Gravity” or “every block is a strike and every strike is a block”.
- Technique names such as Five Swords or Thundering Hammers are presented as memory aids.
According to an article by John Sepulveda in Black Belt, Parker understood self-defense techniques as ideas meant to help one understand movement logically, and he guided students to adapt them. Karate passes on technique mainly through fixed kata and their analysis, bunkai.
Training
| Karate | Kenpo Karate | |
|---|---|---|
| Pillars of instruction | kihon, kata, kumite | self-defense sequences in the Ideal, What-if and Formulation phases |
| In pairs | from prearranged yakusoku to free jiyu kumite and competitive shiai kumite | we have not found the degree of the partner’s resistance |
| Frequency | we have not been able to document it | Al Tracy describes Parker’s schools of the sixties with two lessons a week, with forms taking up a large part of the time |
American Kenpo has no uniform syllabus across schools, because Parker’s art changed over time and some instructors left before his later changes. Karate has syllabi set by the organizations of the individual styles.
Progression and ranks
| Karate | Kenpo Karate | |
|---|---|---|
| Student grades | JKA 10 kyu, kyokushin 11 kyu, the order of colors is not standardized | white, yellow, orange, purple, blue, green belt, then brown 1st to 3rd degree |
| Master grades | 10 dan, by examination up to 5th or 6th dan, higher ones honorary | black 1st to 10th dan, grades marked by red stripes |
| Higher grades | JKA: minimum times and age, 7th dan from age 50 | after 3rd dan, promotion rests more on contribution to the art, for example teaching and research |
| Content of the exam | JKA: kihon, kata and kumite | IKKA 24 techniques per belt, some schools 16-20-24, Al Tracy gives other numbers as well |
Al Tracy states that Parker backdated IKKA certificates, so early grades in kenpo are difficult to verify. In karate, grades are awarded by the organizations of the styles with their own requirements.
Physical load and risks
- A meta-analysis of 28 kumite studies (Lystad et al., BJSM 2020): 88.3 injuries per 1,000 starts.
- Most often the head and neck, mostly contusions of the lowest severity.
- We have not found a study of injuries or fitness benefit explicitly about kenpo, and neither the review by Lystad et al. (28 kumite studies) nor the study by Halabchi et al. from 2007 includes kenpo.
- We have not been able to assess from the sources the demands, the risk of injury, or the self-defence and fitness benefit of kenpo.
Who it suits
| Karate | Kenpo Karate | |
|---|---|---|
| Competition age | WKF: U14 (ages 12–13), cadets 14–15, juniors 16–17, seniors from 18 | we have not found age categories |
| Women | at the world championships since 1980 | we have not found programs, Parker wrote the book The Woman’s Guide to Self Defense (1988) |
| Older age | Shotokan SKDUN veteran categories up to over 68 years | we have not found this information |
| Disability | WKF para-karate, championships since 2014 | we have not found this information |
Children
| Karate | Kenpo Karate | |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest competitive category | WKF U14 (12–13 years), Shotokan SKDUN from 10 | we have not found it |
| Protection in competition | WKF up to 14: helmet and body protector, a bout of 1.5 minutes | we have not found children’s rules |
| Injury study | Slovak children’s tournaments: 45.3 injuries per 1,000 starts | we have not found a study in children |
Self-defence
- Kumite from prearranged attacks (yakusoku) to free fighting.
- In the WKF, points and light touch to the head limit resistance, while kyokushin fights at full contact.
- 154 named sequences against attacks, variations according to the attacker’s reaction in the What-if phase.
- We have not been able to document sparring with full resistance in kenpo.
Kenpo builds instruction on predefined responses to an attack, karate on kata and kumite with rules. We have not found testing of technique against a fully resisting partner in the sources on kenpo, while karate has it in free kumite, with a degree of contact depending on the style.
Practical use
| Karate | Kenpo Karate | |
|---|---|---|
| Older age | 89 people around the age of 70, 5 months (Witte et al. 2016): improved motor reactivity and divided attention | we have not found a study |
| Balance | 16 people aged 59–90, 5 weeks: faster dynamic balance, no control group | we have not found a study |
| Professional use | we have not been able to document it | we have not been able to document it |
The karate studies involve small groups and short programs, and we have not found a kenpo study with figures. No general conclusion about suitability can be drawn from them.
Competition
| Karate | Kenpo Karate | |
|---|---|---|
| Disciplines | kumite, individual and team kata | we have not found competition rules of any kenpo organization |
| Scoring | kumite 1 to 3 points, kata by judges’ votes | we have not found it |
| Tournaments | WKF world championships since 1970 every two years | Long Beach International Karate Championships 1964–1999, a kumite tournament under the IKKA |
| Olympic Games | just Tokyo 2020 | no |
Parker opened the Long Beach tournament to practitioners of all styles, and competitors there included Chuck Norris, Joe Lewis and Bill Wallace, and according to Black Belt the winner of the first edition was Mike Stone. Bruce Lee demonstrated a one-inch punch there in 1964.
Gear and costs
| Karate | Kenpo Karate | |
|---|---|---|
| Clothing | karategi and belt | we have not found a requirement |
| Protective gear | WKF kumite: gloves, mouthguard, body, shin and instep protectors | we have not found a requirement |
| Relative costs | low | we have not been able to document them |
Apart from Parker’s manual Ed Parker’s Guide to the Nunchaku (1975), we have not been able to document anything on kenpo equipment. We have not found how the nunchaku is used in school syllabi.
Availability and organisations
| Karate | Kenpo Karate | |
|---|---|---|
| World organization | World Karate Federation | we have not found a common organization |
| Splits | after the deaths of the founders of styles: Shotokan 1957, Wado-ryu 1982, Kyokushin 1994 | Parker named no successor in December 1990, senior students teach in their own way in derived styles |
| Who awards dan grades | the organization of the style, there is no central register | individual organizations, there is no uniform syllabus |
| Recognition of grades | we have not found a general rule | we have not found it between organizations |
Switching and combining
- Belts and dan grades remain, the order of colors is different.
- Instead of kata and kumite, named self-defense sequences and their variations.
- New principles of movement such as “Marriage of Gravity”.
- Belts and dan grades remain.
- New kihon (stances, strikes, kicks, blocks) and solo kata according to the style.
- New scored kumite under WKF rules, or full contact in kyokushin.
On the left is the move from karate to kenpo, on the right the reverse. The transfer of grades is made harder by the fact that kenpo has no uniform syllabus and organizations require a different number of techniques per belt.
Philosophy
- The suffix do: a path with a spiritual dimension, the dojo kun stresses character, effort and courtesy.
- Funakoshi’s Niju kun: humility, respect, compassion, patience.
- The IKKA logo (1958) with the characters 拳法 for kenpo and 唐手 for karate acknowledges eastern roots.
- Parker took techniques as ideas for understanding movement, which the student is to adapt.
The IKKA logo thus preserves the older writing 唐手, Chinese hand, which Okinawan karate replaced in 1933 and 1936 with the characters 空手, empty hand.
Forms and terminology
Karate puts solo kata at the center of instruction, there are roughly one hundred of them across styles, and their meaning is analyzed through bunkai. By his death Parker had created eleven forms, three short and eight long. We have not been able to document their names or their place in competition, the center of gravity of kenpo instruction lies in self-defense sequences.
Training culture
- The Shotokan dojo in Tokyo’s Mejiro, built in 1936, was destroyed by an air raid in 1945.
- In WKF team kata, both an opening and a closing bow are mandatory.
- At the Long Beach tournament in 1964, Parker introduced Bruce Lee to the general public.
- Parker appeared in the film Kill the Golden Goose (1978) and in an episode of The Lucy Show from 1963.
Common misconceptions
- The kenpo line from James Mitose to Kosho-ryu is uncertain: it rests on family documents whose reliability is disputed, and the content of Mitose’s book matches Mutsu Mizuho’s book Karate Kenpo from 1933, including a borrowed photograph.
- Mitose always claimed a Japanese origin for his art, but he described Okinawan and Chinese roots, and part of his claims remains undocumented.
Which to choose
Frequently asked questions
Is Kenpo Karate a type of karate?
Kenpo Karate is the earlier name of Ed Parker’s system, later American Kenpo Karate. The line leads through William Kwai Sun Chow to James Mitose and Kosho-ryu kenpo. We have not found an explicit statement that the system derives from Okinawan or Japanese karate. H. Kogel (2010) describes it as a hybrid into which elements of kung-fu, jujutsu, karate, judo and boxing entered.
Why does kenpo have the word karate in its name?
The word kenpo (拳法) means fist and method, and in the USA the system is often called Kenpo Karate. Chow called his instruction that from 1944, while Mitose used the name Kenpo Jiujutsu. The IKKA logo writes karate in the older form 唐手, Chinese hand. We have not been able to document why Chow chose the word karate.
Do they compete in kenpo as in karate?
We have not found competition rules of any kenpo organization. From 1964 to 1999 Parker held the Long Beach International Karate Championships, a kumite tournament open to all styles. Karate competes in kumite and kata under the WKF and was Olympic just in Tokyo 2020.