I remember finding an article online about this. It was about Ed parker and some of the original guys he trained with. It talked about how he left after becoming a brown belt. The guys who wrote this article stated years later they met up with him and said that his Kempo seemed incomplete. Also somewhere in the article it said they all were learning Kempo Karate from a Japanese master.

The article was not very kind to Ed, but it also seem very informative and legit. Sad thing is I can't find it!!! I've searched all day today and yesterday. It's driving me crazy. It also wasn't a bash Ed Parker Kenpo article, it was just stating what the author felt was the truth. I am dying to read this again.

Anyone have any info on this subject or know of this website?

I'd love to train in either art listed earlier in my post. Right now I am living in China and training in Shotokan Karate. Strange huh? :-p

Was it this article?: http://kenpokarate.com/1954-1956.html

It was written by one of the Tracy's, who have their own lineage within Kenpo in the USA.

I think so. Thanks buddy.

No problem. This article pops on many a website, but the content is largely the same.

I think Tracy suffers from OCD. Skewing facts to elicit doubt. Personally I think he's just a bitter old man who is spiteful that he wasn't given the same glory as Parker.

I think Tracy suffers from OCD. Skewing facts to elicit doubt. Personally I think he's just a bitter old man who is spiteful that he wasn't given the same glory as Parker.
I agree.

The article was not very kind to Ed, but it also seem very informative and legit.
Anything with this much hyperbole can't be fully legit. Also, it is a bash Parker article. The guy is going through and discounting Ed's stories.

That's the trouble with finding info on the history of Kenpo, and probably aplies for any MA research: huge egoes and feuds have troubled the data, and what remains is often hugely inflated and conflicting. French writer and martial artist Patrick Lombardo wrote an excellent little volume scratching the surface of the history of all systems that have " Kenpo / Kempo" in their name. I'll have to see if it was ever translated in English.
Edit: Nope, it was never translated.

That's the trouble with finding info on the history of Kenpo, and probably aplies for any MA research: huge egoes and feuds have troubled the data, and what remains is often hugely inflated and conflicting. French writer and martial artist Patrick Lombardo wrote an excellent little volume scratching the surface of the history of all systems that have " Kenpo / Kempo" in their name. I'll have to see if it was ever translated in English.
Edit: Nope, it was never translated.I have fortunately sat and been advised by Parker's first blackbelt James Ibrao. It's quite enlightening. Even he said that not everything that Parker said was accurate but it wasn't done because of lying but because of simple recall mistake.

I have fortunately sat and been advised by Parker's first blackbelt James Ibrao. It's quite enlightening. Even he said that not everything that Parker said was accurate but it wasn't done because of lying but because of simple recall mistake.

Yeah, I gather as much. Ed Parker must have been quite a character though. A bit larger than life, I would say.

Interesting.

I find it very interesting how many famous masters seem to have begun teaching with only a few years of experience and often without a black belt or formal teaching qualification.

They (Tracy) did organize the Gathering of Eagles and got James Ibrao, Thomas Mitose, the son of the late James Mitose, Roger Greene, Ted Sumner, Ray Arquilla, Al Dacascos, Ralph and Rob Castro, William Chun, Jr., Sonny Gascon, Bart Vale, Larry Tatum, Adriano Emperado, Richard Lee, Sig Kufferath, Tino Tuiolosega, and John McSweeney to attend.

True, but it's undeniable that, from the article I posted, some Tracy's are violently opposed to Ed Parker's version of events. But that's all politics. Ed Parker was a master marketeer as well as a proficient martial artist. It's only natural that this infuriated at least some people, it always does.

But the style he created is something I enjoy tremendously. I would love to do some Kajukenbo too, having scratched that surface when I competed in the ICKKF championship last month, but first things first.

They (Tracy) did organize the Gathering of Eagles and got James Ibrao, Thomas Mitose, the son of the late James Mitose, Roger Greene, Ted Sumner, Ray Arquilla, Al Dacascos, Ralph and Rob Castro, William Chun, Jr., Sonny Gascon, Bart Vale, Larry Tatum, Adriano Emperado, Richard Lee, Sig Kufferath, Tino Tuiolosega, and John McSweeney to attend.

I doubt Mitose was there, unless prison let him out for a recess.

I've seen those articles from Will Tracy before, I don't think Al Tracy has really embraced them, or discounted them either.

I think the truth is somewhere between what the Tracy's write about, and what all the "Ed Parker Masters" write about. Mostly, I think both Parker and the Tracy's were in the right place at the right time and profited well from it. That they were marketers and business men and also martial artists.

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I doubt Mitose was there, unless prison let him out for a recess.


It was his son, as James Mitose died incarcerated in 1981, and the first Gathering of Eagles was held in 1999.