Written by Mr. Matt Snell

         Welcome to our Flaming Fist American Kenpo Academy newsletter.  In this issue we discuss Kenpo related topics, give you information on concept & principles, times and venues of our Academies and hopefully give you useful and interesting tips for your training with us whether you’re a junior member, an adult, a parent or just interested in what we do and teach.      

What is Black Belt Excellence?

          Surprisingly, to have black belt excellence you don’t have to be a black belt. If you read this newsletter carefully you will find ideas and suggestions to help you focus on ways to improve yourself, your training and how to begin to think as a black belt. Anyone regardless of belt level can train like a black belt.

    Increase Self-Esteem & Confidence

Self-esteem means, having a positive impression of, and respect for yourself, and to have a positive feeling about you.    

Self-esteem affects everything we do in our lives. Students with strong self-esteem are more likely to succeed in school or work, or at any goals they set.  A healthy self-esteem promotes a positive “Yes, I can!” attitude.  Poor self-esteem promotes a negative “No, I can’t!” attitude. Low self-esteem leads to low confidence. 

Choose your attitude! Feel good!  Be an achiever!

    It is up to you to choose your own attitude. Be positive about your skills and your abilities.  It is a proven fact that people, who feel good about themselves, produce positive results. One way of building your own personal self-esteem is to set and achieve attainable goals.

 In American Kenpo the passing of the different belt levels reinforce achievement by the attainment of short-term goals.  Within Martial Arts your short-term goal is always the next belt level.

       What is your long-term goal?

      However, how often do you look at your long-term goal? Do you have a long-term goal in the martial arts?              

I would hope that your long-term goal in American Kenpo is to reach the level of Senior Black Belt.  With time, commitment, hard work and effort this is an attainable goal.

    Look at each new belt as a challenge to reach a new level in your own training. Remember each belt level gained is a step towards Senior Black Belt.

 Each belt level attained stretches you a little further than you have gone before and builds upon the skills you have gained under the previous belt level.

    Remember, setting and achieving your goals is a key ingredient in your own sense of progression. Your progression will increase your own self-esteem and this in turn will make you more confident in your own abilities.  

How can I improve?   

I would encourage you to continually assess your own progress through each of the required belt levels.  Set yourself attainable goals, listen to your instructors, strive for perfection, train intelligently, train often, and you will meet all your goals. Your self-esteem will have increased and ultimately you will reach a level of “Black Belt Excellence”.         

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Kenpo Principles & Concepts 

Written by Mr Andy Seatherton

Reactions

  How many times have you found a technique or part of a technique that for some reason just doesn't work? It’s uncomfortable, not seeming to fit you, but you can't figure out why?   Well 50% of the answer will lay within the reactions your partner is providing to your strikes, and 50% will lay within your response to those reactions.  A lot of Kenpoists have favourite and not so favourite techniques, but this shouldn't be the case, as Kenpo is built around the concept of fitting the art to the individual not the individual to the art. We call this "TAILORING".

 Tailoring

    Tailoring is one of the key principles of Kenpo.  It entails two major aspects, (1) Adjusting your physical as well as mental and emotional attitudes to fit each given situation and (2) Fitting moves to your body size, makeup, speed and strength, in order to maximise your physical efforts. 

Mr. Parker would explain this principal with a story.

Say you went to a shop to buy a suit, but all the suit’s in this shop were size 44.  Seeing as you take a size 40 you'd quite rightly ask the shop assistant "Do you have these in a smaller size?" But the assistant replies "No, all our suits are size 44". You would obviously state, " But I'm a size 40!” If the shop assistant then handed you a piece of paper saying "No problem sir, just follow this weight gain program for 2 months then come back to see us. I guarantee you'll fit one of our suits then". How would you feel? Would you follow the program, or would you go and find a shop that sold suits in your size? I'm fairly sure you'd go elsewhere. Although some people are size 44 and would be happy to buy one of the suits, no one should have to make a change against their wishes just to fit in. What if you are willing to change but it is physically impossible for you to do so? How could a martial arts master who had the hardest, fastest, strongest right hand punch in the world teach a student to be as good with his right arm if that student has no right arm?

This is why tailoring is so important. Lots of martial arts now practice this principal, they give it different names like "Mixed Martial Arts" or "Cross Training" but ultimately its TAILORING, something Kenpo practitioners have known about for more than 50 years

"So how does this help my techniques", I hear you cry. Well a common error martial artists' make is only looking at principles from one point of view, and that point of view is theirs as the recipient of an attack. Guys this is why we have 3 points of view.

The 3 Points of View

This entails viewing a confrontation from three points;

 (1)   Yours (attack recipient),

(2)   Your opponent (assailant),

(3) A bystander/witness to the event.

Utilising this concept will illuminate many avenues of offence and defence that would have otherwise been missed. The 3 Points of View helps to prevent the over looking of many things, including the effect our response to an attack will have on our opponent.  

Kenpo, Overkill or Overskill?

  Kenpoists are often accused of using "OVERKILL" and our techniques of being complicated. If you get into the art of Kenpo, and I mean really into it, you will see "OVERKILL" is really "OVERSKILL" and complexity gives way to sophistication. All Kenpo techniques are design to end a conflict within the first 2 or 3 moves, however as any good General will tell you, you should always have a back up. This is what the uneducated see as overkill & complexity. The response we receive from our opponent to our counterattack will ultimately determine whether our base technique performs realistically. This stage is known as the Ideal Phase or Phase 1. Students involved with the practice of any given technique in the IDEAL PHASE, should assume that any given strike would cause a reaction. This allows the subtraction of body contact to ensure a reaction occurs. All students should reproduce an appropriate reaction to the appropriate strike. 

The Assumption of Injury

 In competition we have rules; these rules are there to prevent injury. In techniques to prevent actual injury, we have assumption of injury. If you wish to make a competition more realistic, you must reduce the rules in accordance with the degree of reality required. Therefore in technique practice you must reduce the degree of assumed injury to increase the degree of reality. Although it is good to reduce assumption of injury to a certain degree, therefore achieving a stronger realistic feel to a technique, if this is taken too far we would very quickly run out of willing training partners. So it is up to each student to tailor their reactions in such a manner that will allow their partner to execute a technique through its full path of action. Thereby receiving a realistic feel to that technique without incumbent or injury to training partners, all students involved in the execution of a technique will reap the benefit of lessons it contains. Because knowing how to react to any given strike will not only provide the realisms but also knowledge to predict what will happen to your body should you be struck, and on how to fool a real assailant into believing you are injured worse than is true...... Think about it. 

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