Kenpo Karate
Ed Parker's American system from the 1950s. It builds not on one strong strike but on a rapid series of hand contacts from a higher, mobile stance.
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About Kenpo Karate
Kenpo Karate, more precisely American Kenpo, is a system assembled in the 1950s by Ed Parker. Parker was born in Hawaii in 1931, studied under William K. S. Chow, and in 1954 opened his own school in Provo, Utah; two years later he moved to Pasadena, California, where the International Kenpo Karate Association was formed. His system differs from Okinawan and Japanese karate in its basic idea of a fight. It does not build on one strong strike from a firm stance but on a rapid series of hand contacts, five or ten of which land in succession before the opponent can regroup. The stance is higher and more mobile, the footwork shorter, the kicks low. Parker also created a theoretical structure of his own: he speaks of angles of attack, of variations of one technique according to what the opponent does, and of the need to take a sequence apart and put it back together. The self-defence sequences have names of their own, such as Delayed Sword or Five Swords, and are learned in a fixed order by grade. Parker was an organiser as well. From 1964 he ran an international tournament in Long Beach, where Bruce Lee gave his first public demonstration. After Parker's death in 1990 the organisation broke into several branches, and the system has no single leadership. It should be added that the word kenpo or kempo denotes several unrelated lineages, for instance Japanese Kosho-ryu or Hawaiian Kajukenbo, and American Kenpo is only one of them.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.