Kajukenbo

Kajukenbo is an eclectic martial art that combines Karate, Judo, Jujitsu, and Kung fu. It was invented in 1947 in Hawaii, at the Palama Settlements, to deal with the street fighting and rough streets there. The inventors were Adriano Emperado, P.Y.Y. Choo, Joe Holck, Frank Ordonez, Clarence Chang, all members of the black belt society.

The name works in two ways: "ka" ("long life"), "ju" ("happiness"), "ken" ("fist"), "bo" ("style") or "ka" ("karate"), "ju" ("judo"/"jujitsu"), "ken" ("kempo"), "bo" ("boxing").

While the path to black-belt status in Kajukenbo is long, the form has a reputation for teaching a lot of practical self-defense early, being a bit heavier on practical fighting technique than on the more meditative side of martial arts.

The emphasis during training was on realism – so much so that students routinely broke bones, fainted from exhaustion, or were knocked unconcious. Nevertheless, the reputation of this tough new art drew more students and Emperado opened a second school at the nearby Kaimuki YMCA. Soon Emperado had 12 Kajukenbo schools in Hawaii, making it the second largest string of schools at the time. John Leoning, who earned a black belt from Emperado, brought Kajukenbo to the mainland in 1958. Since that time, Kajukenbo has continued to flourish and grow.

Kajukenbo has many more grappling moves than regular kempo, plus this art is very brutal, it has a lot of joint breaking moves, and low blows. The workouts can easily get the heart rate up and last about two hours. This school of martial arts train with sandbags, boxing gloves, and every male student is given, as part of their uniform, a cup to protect the testicles.

External link

• Official homepage