I have been to a lot of seminars and Kenpo classes where it looks like the Kenpo beginner student looks as lost as a goat in a hailstorm. They are desperately trying to learn the mechanics of the technique being taught but within a few minutes, the instructor is asking; “now what if this happens instead?” This goes on and on so that by the end of the class, the student has learned a least 5+ what-if factors where the technique could go wrong in its application. After so many “what-if’s” the student becomes less confident in the ideal phase technique as it is supposed to be taught. They leave the class thinking they have learned some cool stuff, but that ultimately, they don’t know if they could ever make the ideal phase technique work because there are so many other factors involved.
Hence, I think it is extremely important that Kenpo students first learn the ideal phase techniques against ideal attacks, and that they work these over and over so that the techniques become spontaneous. If taught in this manner, should something go wrong when executing an ideal phase technique, there will be many other ideal phase techniques that one could graft into. Isn’t this what we also do in sparring? We often put a combination together in the hopes of making good contact with our opponent, but somehow, somewhere, something goes wrong? And when it does, do we fall to the floor and curl up in the fetal position? No, of course not. We “graft” into other sparring techniques that have worked for us in the past and get right back into the game mentally and physically.
Through consistent practice, the Kenpo practitioner learns that there are so many ideal phase techniques that he/she can call upon in a moment’s notice should the situation warrant it. Additionally, one learns that the “what-if stage” that is so often taught to beginner and intermediate students, is already built into the system as one learns the extensions of the ideal phase base techniques. The difference is, however, that students that learn the what-if stage as part of the extensions have already put in several years of mastering the ideal phase techniques, can perform them well, and have COFIDENCE in them.
