What's wrong with just teaching Kenpo/Kempo?

**Salacious Crumb** · 11-19-2003, 08:20 AM

How come all these arts that are supposedly influenced by Kenpo, which may even contain Kenpo forms, never want to admit they are Kenpo-based? Even when the masters claim to have trained with Ed Parker, etc.?

Why do you always get the same story about how their master trained with Parker, but really, they showed Parker stuff, not the other way around?

Or, you get the Kempo guys who rewrite Chinese history and claim Kempo was the orginal style taught by Bodhidharma or some shlt like that.

Really, what's the stigma with just teaching Kenpo/Kempo?

**txwingchun** · 11-19-2003, 08:46 AM

Kenpo politics are a mind boggling subject to behold

**MonkeySlap Too** · 11-19-2003, 09:17 AM

I'll never get it. The art spread rapidly, as it filled a vacuum in American culture. Developing along many branches, some grew long, and some grew short. In my exposure to Kenpo people is that there is often a desperate need to claim a link to CMA or beleive that it is an improvement on CMA. When the Japanese Kenpo it evolved from was actually pretty cool to begin with (I know, I saw Thomas Young do his thing before he died) but this is something they deny whole heartedly for some reason.

**Indestructible** · 11-19-2003, 10:23 AM

Al Tracy talks about some of your concerns at his site. Its not a real organized web site but it is filled with lots of Kenpo facts and history.

http://www.tracyskarate.com/