Norco Herrington

Posts Tagged ‘kempo’

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There are many stories of the martial arts that are, shall we say, not very honorable. One of the worst I have heard, however, is the one I heard about Kenpo Karate. Unfortunately, I don’t know the truth or falsity of it, but with the data I present in this article perhaps some one could let me know if it is true.

Ed Parker is credited with being the founder of modern Kenpo, teaching movie stars, including Elvis, putting on the biggest tournament in the world for years, the Internationals, and all manner of other deeds. His students are legion, and his prowess is quite well known. Unfortunately, he was only a brown belt when he first began teaching.

In those days he was actually teaching Shotokan karate, this as illustrated by one of his earliest books. Running out of material to teach his students, he returned to Hawaii and asked his instructor to teach him more, but the founder of the system refused to do so. Rumors have it that Ed was teaching without permission.

Ed then ran into a fellow in San Francisco named Jimmy Woo, whose named might have been Jimmy Wu, who knew tremendous and authentic gung fu, but who spoke almost no English. Ed brought Jimmy to Los Angeles, where they lived together, and where Jimmy created the Kenpo forms, the techniques, and so on. Ed took these forms and techniques and began teaching them as his own.

During this time, Ed asked Jimmy to write a book with him on this new art, and Jimmy spent his days writing a book on Kenpo, teaching Ed and some of his students, all while still being lacking in the English language department. One day Jimmy saw a rough draft/translation of the book that Ed was planning on sending to an agent, and he was surprised to see that his name was not even mentioned in the book. This was surprising, because even though he was partners with Ed, Jimmy was doing all the work.

Why not my name on book, he is supposed to have asked. Ed said he would tell him all about it, but could they take a drive, Ed had an errand to run, and he would explain on the way. Ed drove Jimmy into Hollywood, but Ed didn’t say a word about the book the whole time. On Hollywood Boulevard Ed let Jimmy out of the car, and drove away.

Jimmy had one single quarter in his pocket, the clothes on his back, and nothing else. With that last quarter he called one of Ed’s students, who he had been teaching. In his broken English he explained what Ed had done, that he didn’t know where he was, or why it had all happened.

He had been teaching, writing, and suddenly, he had been betrayed. Now, is this story true, or is it a pack of lies? If anybody has definite facts, I sure would like to know.