Matt Barnes' Kempo Page

I posted the idea at martialtalk and martial arts planet, and I've gotten some pretty positive feedback so far. Almost all of mine are up or will be shortly, so now whether or not the project goes further is going to shift to the community. Let's see what happens.

I've put up a small slideshow of pictures from over the years. Hope you enjoy. I'll try to update them now and then.

I'm considering posting a technique archive. Shaolin Kempo has long had the 'secret technique' problem. It's like a little club - you can't even see the 'higher' stuff until you test for it. I've always felt it was a bit dishonest. There's a whole generation of 7th dan folks walking around with huge gaps in their material, because nobody seems to know what it is. So we get a bunch of folks 'filling in the blanks' and out come some really weird results. Often I've heard it was so those at the top would know who was and wasn't a Nth dan. Well guess what. You judge them by skill. Or how long they've been working with you. At the olympics they don't ask the skaters how many twirls and jumps they know. They watch them do the jumps and judge how well they do them.

For those who are concerned that someone will set up shop as a 'fraudulent master' based on access to the material, I have two considerations.
One - there are plenty of frauds set up all by themselves.
Two - The entire shotokan syllabus has been available for ages. How bad is the shotokan fraud problem?

Let's start with the combinations, as they are the most standardized of the bunch. I only have 1-40 plus some stragglers from the really high numbers, so I'll need contributions. If you do send them in, try to be specific writing them out, and if possible, tell which lineage they come from in case of duplicates. If I get three versions of #50, I'll post all three with where they came from.

I've started with #1 and will continue as time allows.

Can you hear me now? Good...

The contact form is working properly now, so if you have a question, article idea or request or just would like to tell me how wrong I am, you can use the convenient form.

Matt

I've seen some sad news posted by 'KenpoJoe' Rebelo. His teacher and mentor David German has passed away. Mr. German was the founder of T.A.I. Martial Arts, and he specialized in grafting together kempo and jujutsu in a seamless way. He was an innnovator in the mixing of stand up and grappling, and was way ahead of his time. Mr. German was 65.

I've sent some test messages using the contact form. I haven't received any yet. I'm not so sure how fast it works, but then again, I'm not so sure it is working at all. If you wish to contact me, I guess just email for now.

A couple of years ago I went to a Fumio Demura seminar. I had penned a review, but had never gotten around to posting it. Well, here it is.

I just revamped the 'contact' form, and don't know how well it works. Drop me a line if you read the site, and test the form out.

Thanks,

Matt

I'm going to set the pictures up in a different way, so they will come down for a bit. Once I get the new system up and running, they will change more often, and there will be a separate section for those that deserve to stay up.

I've put up an article on practicing techniques and forms slowly. It's a huge help in memorizing and (more importantly) internalizing your art.

I've put in a 'blog' page, as the website was previously so labor intensive to update that I didn't want to unless I had the 'perfect' article. Now I can pop up short bits, and put the articles elsewhere. In the olden days it was 'text edit', yep the free text program that comes with macs, and now it is rapidweaver ($35 well spent!). So, now we might see some regular updates. I will get all of the previously existing info up ASAP.

Thanks for your patience,

Matt