Tuesday, August 21, 2007

The missing line on the IKKA crest

Some people are real collectors of Kenpo stuff, particularly the patches. I was witrh a guy who actually bought a Lima Lama patch right off a guy's gi. He gave the man the money and the guy tore it off on the spot and gave it to him. Go figure.
There are lots of "rip-offs" of the Parker crest, made without permission. The dragon looks like a lizard and the tiger like a housecat. In the course of looking over other's patches someone pointed out that some of the IKKA crests had eight lines in the gray circle and some had only seven. The owner of a seven-line patch offered that he had been told the missing line denoted that you don't show everything you knew, according to his instructor.
I am a collector of Kenpo stuff and a lot of it Kenpo stories. When I had the opportunity to ask Mr. Parker about some of those stories I could then confirm or deny "from the horse's mouth". I asked him about the missing line. He said "Simple. That patchmaker made a mistake."
While a patch should have meaning to everything in it, sometimes the meaning is just too simple. You can see this story on my youtube channel.

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