In many traditional MA's people often use the "my art is too deadly for the cage" line to justify their never fighting in competitions outside their Dojo or outside of point sparring. While I don't formally fight I do train with a lot of guys that do fight MMA so I am put into that situation a lot and have found that some of my Kenpo is surprisingly effective int he situations, in particular the blocks and parries of puches diverting attacks which many MMA guys never deal with, as they are more accustomed to bobbing and weaving and such. Does anyone here ever compete MMA and find their Kenpo training effective? Just curious if anyone has the same findings I have found...
Some technique can be found effective in MMA from any TMA. The question is the style effective in MMA. No, none of the Ken/mpo systems have what it takes WITHOUT going outside of their systems. They need to train more realistic and drop the weak and useless "portions" of the systems that take a lifetime to master. Here is a quote from the only Hawaiian Kempo master to actually understand and prove my point. "In 1985, when I moved from Hawaii to California, I switched it from Kaju Kenbo to Hawaiian Kempo. I added some things to it, took away some things and started calling it Hawaiian Kempo. I took out the katas and the forms and I threw in more natural fighting techniques and conditioning. Now that’s my style. Like if you see Chuck (Liddell) with the tattoo on his arm, that’s the logo for my school." Hackleman says back in the ‘90s other martial artists began calling their style Hawaiian Kenpo, but he is the only instructor to spell his Hawaiian Kempo with an ‘m’. In Japanese, the letters ‘m’ and ‘n’ have the same symbol, so the art can be spelt either way. John has been spelling his art as Kempo since 1985. "Ours is a little more hardcore. In Hawaiian Kenpo they still do forms and stuff like that. When you see the guys such as Chuck fighting, that’s Hawaiian Kempo. Mine has always been a mixed martial art ever since I started it."
Well, thats obvious enough, my question was more to people that do fight MMA wondering what parts of their Kenpo training they have found most helpful in the cage. It's very obvious that Kenpo itself isn't a "cage art", so to speak.
I don’t know that much about MMA contests, they just don’t interest me. I would think however, that things like timing and strategy would be a direct crossover. From the technique side it would probably depend on the art. Even with grappling gloves some techniques from some arts may not work that well. Some of the more combat oriented forms of Bujutsu may also need to be modified to ensure the player remains within the rule set for the competition. We had a young guy that wanted to compete in a Knockdown tournament a few years ago. He was familiar with their rule set but because he didn’t train within them he instinctively punched his opponent in the head when he was attacked, this resulted in his opponent falling to the ground and a disqualification for him. For him to achieve better results he would need to stop training within our open target randori environment and move to their competitive training environment. This would have achieved better competition results, but at a loss of his Shorinji Kempo skill. I believe in France an ex Shorinji Kempo kenshi has created a MMA to rival the popularity of the American styles. He based it on Shorinji Kempo goho (striking) combined with some form of grappling. Shorinji Kempo juho (locks, throws, chokes, ect) use a number of small joint manipulations; I believe these are illegal in many MMA competitions.
Jeff Newton, an EPAK student of Bob White, fought Sam Hogar a couple of months ago. He was unable to stop Hogar's takedowns, and was unable to escape and get back to his feet.
Oh, yes, there have been a few Kenpoists that pretty much embarrassed themselves in MMA, mostly because, it appears, they didn't crosstrain in ground fighting, which one really needs in MMA. Kenpo in and of itself isn't the answer all the time, and actually, no martial art that I have seen yet seems to be the answer all the time...one must always cross train a little to compete in MMA type situations.
You're right But ALL arts need to crosstrain to be more complete for self defense too. Today many schools have incorporated some form of grappling and other arts to "fix" their weaknesses and those arts that DO NOT follow suit will fall behind and possible been seen as weak.
Very true. Ultimately, for the everyday man on the street (or woman or child) having any fighting knowledge is better than none, and simply being in good shape as far as strength and cardio is a help, but too many people it seems try to find all their self defense answers in their single art of choice...and all the answers are not in any one style. That said, for many people there simple isn't enough time in a day to learn everything about everything...
Yes, I trained for 3 1/2 years in a BJJ school with an instructor that was always telling his students "what to do" when they were rolling with me. One day I woke up (after he disrespected me on a personal level) and realized my ground game was good enough to make my stand up "rough." By rough I mean, grapplers don't do that well, not only do they do not that well, they pretty much don't have a chance if thats all they know AND my students get the best of both worlds. If I pick on a system. Thats because I've been around it enough to know the weaknesses and I teach my students the weaknesses of every system I'ved been exposed to. Thats what sets me, mystudents and my system apart from the "purists" out there. There can claim lineage and high rank and all that but that won't finish a fight.
He still nearly had Hogar with that armbar at the end of round one. He'd trained ground work a bit with Erik Paulson, but obviously not quite enough to go against someone with a lot of grappling experience like Hogar. He had some cool shorts though Also, Chuck Liddell (UFC LHW champion) holds a high grade in kempo. I'm not sure how much of it he uses in the cage now
Actually Chuck Liddells line under John Hackelman was the lineage that I posted about on post #2. Their Kempo is the only kempo system that is successful in MMA and they "take claim" to being the ones that "made the necesary changes" and do not want their Kempo to be confused with the other Ken/mpo systems. http://www.knucklepit.com/mixed martial arts-john hackleman.htm
I think you'd get along with my trainer pretty well, he does much the same thing, the base of his Kenpo teaching is traditional Kenpo, but, he also teaches a lot of kickboxing and jiujitsu to suppliment the weaknesses of Kenpo (as he learned it anyway). He is an MMA fighter and feel the mods he has made to his Kenpo training is very good based on what other Kenpo training I have seen. Though there are now enough kenpo systems out there that I have in no way seen them all...
You don't need to see them all. The Ken/mpo systems that are "related" have similar bases. Some may dispute that but the core is all you need to "understand" because that is their strenth. The individual techs that set them apart are not nearly as important to defend against versus understanding the "style" of the fighter and that is the key. This holds true as long as they stay "pure" to their art.
I met Chuck Liddell last year and got to ask him "how much Kempo is in what you do now?" and his answer was basically, it's still Kempo, he's traine dit for so long, there's no way to get away from it. I hope Newton keeps training his takedown defenses and comes back to the UFC. Maybe he needs some of the coaching that Couture brought to Griffin, becasue he stuffed Ortiz many times on Saturday.
Yes David, it is still Kempo but not the Kempo that you or most other Kempoists practice. Not even close. Refer to post #2 for Chucks instructors "word" about his Kempo versus the other Kempos.
Is it necessary to have good success in competition to be able to defend yourself adequately? Does MMA prepare you for real world fights? Personally I’ve seen very few real fights go to the ground. I understand the need for defending yourself from this tactic, I just think it is over emphasised in relation to self-defence. My experience over the years has given me confidence in my abilities to defend myself, but I have no doubt that in a MMA event I would be history. I just don’t have the skills based on the rule sets or the strategy to exploit the rule sets that I would need, or the aerobic conditioning required to compete. All my real world experience has taught me that real fights are anaerobic in nature and made up of violent bursts that come to an end one way or another within a short time frame. There are many martial artists that have experienced real violence and are recognised for their ability to deal with it, not all of them feel the need to engage in competition though.
Colin, I know your a respectful guy and I repect that. But the problem is that "self defending" and "complete fighter" are two very differant animals. The whole point I try to make is 1) a thorough "understanding of groundfighting does not mean fighting on the ground in the street. It means we've achieved the skill to not let a grappler beat us. That is two very differant goals. But to do that, one needs to put in the time on the mat. One may even find that the enjoy grappling which makes are growth easier. And 2) this "understanding is ignored quite a bit for the need to train in one system. And it is safe to say that no single style can combat all fighting styles. If we go way back in time. Our martial ancestors did in fact train in multiple systems until they found efficientcy for their day. Now I would like to mention something in favor of Kajukenbo, the parent art to John Hackelmans Kempo. I started in Kaju, I know this for a fact. All Kajukenbo instructors will stress "creativity" as a part of their teaching and training. And that leaves it up to the Kajuists to "do" as they need. Creativity is a good thing. Also it is not about self defense vs. sport training. It is about "truely" being able to combat any style fighter we are up against. That comes with self knowledge.
My experience tells me that not as many fights outside the cage go to the ground as the Gracie marketing machine would have you believe, but I have seen a good enough number of them go to the ground where it certainly makes it a worthy skill to have. I've seen enough bar fights and parking lot scuffles in my life to make a fair judgement. Women, I think, more than men, have to know their way around on on the ground, more often than not, that is the submission tactic used by rapists and the like, women end up on their backs with a man on top, knowing a little (or a lot) of even the most basic ground tactics could help them overcome the brute strength differences between the sexes. Should that fail there is always the good ol' eye gouge...
Yes, but in "defending" we as martial artists are expecting to be able to defend against anyone or style and without going after the knowledge to be able to do that. Many schools are "selling" a false "solution."
