Kenpo Freestyle

Getting used to contact takes some doing.  The thing about Kenpo (American or otherwise) is that you have to get used to taking some shots.  Well I can’t really speak to all Kenpo as I don’t know much about Shorinji Kenpo; however, the Kenpo that comes from the James Mitose/ William Chow variety has contact at its core.  Not the call an ambulance type of contact but controlled contact.  So each night you will take some elbows, punches and backfists to the body, back, legs and arms.  Nothing long lasting but enough so you know you have been hit.  Part of the idea being that you don’t know what it is like to be hit until you are hit.   This is much the old Judo maxim of the best training for judo is judo.

In a typical American Kenpo class techniques will be worked on a partner and while working the techniques you will take a few shots from your partner.  This will also be done on random grab/ hold and strike counters.  In this type of scenario, your partner will randomly attack and you will need to defend.  This is more of a free style format.  I find this to be more useful than sparring.  Sparring as most are familiar involves the wearing of protective gear and follows rules that prohibit some types of strikes as the goal is to score points.  Sparring is fine and it develops alot skills that are useful in self defense situations.  But it is artificial and needs to be viewed with a little bit of a jaundice eye. 

I prefer the freestyle no gloves practice to sparring.  First, it gets you used to being hit, which is necessary.  As Mike Tyson said, “everyone has a plan until they get hit.”  Getting used to being hit is necessary to be able to keep your wits when you are hit for real.  Second,  the random attacks removes the rote practice of martial arts.  It can be easy to get too wrapped up into techniques for their own sake.  This is the practice of techniques to set attacks and then correcting your partner for not attacking correctly.  No one is going to attack just so on the street, so you have to learn to adapt.  Freestyle practice removes the rote thinking.  This is not to say that the practice of techniques is not useful because this is the core.  But the applying those techniques in a freestyle format is more valuable.  Finally, you learn what works for you.  Not everyone can wear the same pair of pants.  The same is true for self defense.  Some people excel at longer distance kicks and punches, some are better grapplers and so on.  Freestyle lets you explore your own preferences and abilities (as well as weaknesses to work on).  You have to be self critical during this training to see where you are getting hit and why, what is working and what isn’t.  This is the intellectual side of the martial arts, the examination.  If you just watch and repeat you aren’t really making the progress you could be.