KenpoTV is here!

You can put down the torches and pitchforks, the online learning site is here! Go to http://www.KenpoTV.net/. Here's the scoop.

A recurring monthly charge on your credit card of $45 for an all-access Charter Membership for the first 100 members.  OR, a basic membership is $30/month and you can upgrade at any time to get even more information in our other packages. You may cancel at any time.

Trial package on the guest home page is FREE ! See a selection of videos from the various sections for beginner, intermediate, skilled and advanced levels as well as basics, principles, sets, and Instructing for Instructors under the "Recently Featured" tab. They're marked "free videos".

What’s Inside?

General Rules and Principles lay the groundwork for Kenpo motion. Other rules and principles are incorporated in the technique segments.

Drills/Basics/Freestyle detail components of the singular moves. The basics are described in detail and context. Drills are helpful to develop skills and are easily learned and practiced. Instructors will find them to be popular classroom tools.

Techniques - Each technique has three dedicated segments. One shows the technique “in the air”. The basic instruction segment shows how it is applied along with instruction on targets, weapons, basic theme, principle and terminology. The segment labeled “A Closer Look” adds more related information such as family groupings and common variations. Kenpo 101 includes the first 42 self-defense techniques of the original Yellow and Orange belt curricula set down by Ed Parker. Kenpo 201 has more from Purple and Blue. Green and Brown is in Kenpo 301 and Kenpo 401 teaches extensions.

Instructing for Instructors will give teachers insight into effective instruction. Too often those responsible for passing on knowledge have received little or no training in how to teach. An entire science, pedagogy, has grown up around the subject of teaching. These tips cover laws of learning and forgetting, how people learn and ways to transmit information effectively.

Playlists have been created to group certain subjects together for ease of reference, such as Web of Knowledge groupings. The "search media" box in the upper right corner is also very useful. On your media page you'll see the Kenpo 101, etc, groupings.

Right now I have 625 videos up. We still have techniques to add. Information will periodically be added to the site. 98% of Blue is shot and will be uploaded in the next week. Instruction on Forms 4, 5 and 6 has to be shot as do the Staff and Spear Set segments. Chi kung is on the list and so are the rest of the freestyle techniques. Guest instructors will be included. We’re far from finished!

Please pass this e-mail along to your Kenpo friends and students. That 100 person Charter Member offer won't last long.

Podcasts

More 'casts have been recorded and uploaded. The most recent are on power principles and the functional anatomy of breathing. Dr. Rowe and I are working on some about the implications of impact to the breathing apparatus of your body.
     Since I launched them on June 24 the recordings have been downloaded almost 1,000 times. Looking at the stats, it looks like you're enjoying the technical material. The podcasts on the basics priority, analysis of the original Orange belt techniques are top downloads.
     The feedback I've gotten is good and you're using them like I thought you would. On your iPod at the beach and the like.
   You can listen to them over your computer or through iTunes. The links are on the home page at http://www.leewedlake.com/. There's no charge and you don't have to have iTunes to listen, just use the first link if you don't.
   Always looking for suggestions on subjects. E-mail me at lee@leewedlake.com.

The big grin

Sam Babikian promoted to 4th degrre at Marc Shay's studio in Broomall, PA on August 1st, 2010.

Weekend seminars successful and some promotions

Three airlines, two cities, in three days. I visited Steve Hatfield's Panther Kenpo Karate in Mt. Vernon, OH and Marc Shay's American Karate in Broomall, PA over the weekend. Steve and I tested some of his people on Friday and Monte McCammon was promoted to third black. On Sunday I promoted Sam Babikian of Media, PA to 4th black. Sam hadn't been promoted since 1991 and has been working under me for the last three years. Congrats to them both!
   I taught seminars for Steve's juniors and then two man defenses for his adults. What's notable about Steve's people is they always have their notebooks out- and they use them. This is something Mr. Parker always encouraged and I seem to remember it being required at Pasadena at one time.
   Mr. Shay's group asked to do some basic groundwork and joint-lock countering. I'd done a class like that in Chicago earlier in the year and the guys loved it. It's just a little basic "rolling" but enough to familiarize people with some grappling principles.
   Steve Hatfield also showed me a book he's been included in. He writes poetry and is one of ten poets to be published in the Apple Valley Poets collection. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=apple+valley+poets&ih=12_5_0_0_0_1_0_0_0_1.0_231&fsc=-1&x=17&y=19

Use your head

Brains will win every time.
Entering a classroom at MCAS, ( Marine Corps Air Station) Yuma, Ariz., a female Marine captain encountered a clearly apathetic audience. She was selected to provide a full hour’s instruction in Iraqi electronic warfare capabilities to 150 Marine aviators who showed by their body language deep skepticism about her ability to teach war fighting skills to an all-male class of Marine Fighter Pilots.
She began by noting that her voice had just been tested to see if it was suitable for some new cockpit recorder messages for Marine aircraft. Unfortunately she had not been selected to be the new “Bitching Betty”, but it was only fair to warn the audience, however, that an analysis of her voice pattern revealed that her particular voice had a tendency to lull to sleep any male homosexual within earshot.
The assembled officers shot upright in their chairs. 150 sets of eyes were wide open and locked on her and stayed that way for the rest of the period.
Colonel W. Hays Parks, U. S. Marine Corps Reserve

So simple, a child can do it

Bonsai!

One of my students has been doing bonsai for many years and she invited me to a meeting of the local bonsai club she belongs to. They were having a bonsai master from Puerto Rico do a talk and demonstration. I got my keeper, Janis, and headed off to the meeting. This was to be more interesting than I thought.
   Apparently this man, Pedro Morales, is a world-class bonsai artist. He started off with a powerpoint presentation of  what was going on "out there". He said he thought it was important that the group see what others around the world were doing with the bonsai. There started a discussion of the stylistic differences of traditional bonsai vs the new generation bonsai. Is this starting to sound familiar? I thought so.
  He touched on competition. There are shows that these people bring their trees to and are judged. He spoke of how he familiarized himself with the style of the judges and worked his creations appropriately, to appeal to their particular tastes. This should be familiar to those of you who have competed in tournaments. I used to do the same thing when I was competing. I wrote about it in my books but here's the gist. I'd harden them up for the karate judges and flow them for the kung-fu people (of which there were not many in the 70's in the Midwest).
   Someone asked him why he selected a particular person to go study with. He talked about his teachers and how far he had to travel to work with them. One point he made was about how his teacher told him he needed to do a particular thing and he disagreed, telling him it just wouldn't work, "no way". He decided to comply, even with his misgivings, and was very surprised to find the instructions were correct and it worked beautifully. He was gracious enough to go back and admit he was wrong and passes that information down to others he teaches. How often does this occur in our training; we are told to do something, we have our doubts and after all, it works? Happens all the time.
   The demonstration he gave was interesting. I really had no idea of how they train the trees and the complexity of the art. I'm always fascinated by the genesis of these things. Who thought of this and why? Then they worked out how to make it pass. The difference in style, like in our arts, was apparent. The Japanese traditionalist makes the tree tell a story with a minimum of information to the viewer. Chinese, Southeast Asian and European bonsai have a different look. There are styles within the styles -  cascade, windswept and others. Some get classified as "landscape" instead of bonsai due to small changes. Technicalities you might say. But we do the same in the martial arts. 
   He worked a tree and explained what he was doing and why. He got people to picture where that three would be in a year or two or five. It really was interesting. I found that when they say something is true when it is true everywhere, it's true. People are people and the concepts they used in their art are like ours. People talk about tradition vs innovation, interpretation, vision, stylistic variations, appeal to the eye and more. In this, their art is like our art. I'm glad I had the opportunity to see this and listen in.