History of American Kenpo Karate

[bushi_no_ki]

What I'm looking for is the real lineage of AKK pre Ed Parker. Who Has what links? Who can point me in what direction? Where did James Mitose really learn his kenpo style from? I understand that a certain amount of the history was inflated by Mitose to make his style look good in the eyes of Japanese who were big on tradition/age. I consider this one of the most important steps in cleansing modern American MA culture of bullshido/mcdojos, as EP is often called the "Father of American Karate", and probably rightly so. But alot of the BS in American MA schools can probably be traced back to the distorted history of the style he created.

[jwbushi]

Mitose hooked up with William Chow and did alot of PR. According to Chow, in an interview published in a recent Black Belt magazine, Mitose was mostly a good talker and Parker was just a green belt. Then again, in the same article claimed to be a fifteenth degree bkackbelt.

[bushi_no_ki]

Alright, so where's your link, or how do I find the BB mag article. The only rule is you back everything you say in here with some sort of proof.

[The Kai]

If your bookstore is slow in changing the stock, it might still be on the shelves.

[MattJ]

Here are a few to start off -

http://www.tracyskarate.com/

http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=19787

Some good links in there.

[jwbushi]

The article is in the July, 2005 issue of Black Belt on page 36.

[bushi_no_ki]

Matt, you know I've already seen the Tracy's Karate link. What I'm looking for specifically is the Ryuha that Mitose originally studied under. We're talking twentieth century, so it couldn't be impossible to find.

[Bishop]

Mitose is a man who spent most of his adult life as a criminal and conman, and died in prison serving a life term.
He lied about being a Doctor of Divinty. He lied about being a ordained minister. He lied about being a Doctor of Oriental Medicine.
So there's very little reason to believe his accounts of his martial arts training. There is no evidence to support his account of being "trained in a monastery in Japan". And all the techniques he did teach point to training in a Okinawan system, not a Shaolin based system taught in a monastery.
He is long dead, and most of his contemporaries from the 30's and 40's are dead. So it's pretty unlikely that the truth about his training will ever be discovered.

[bushi_no_ki]

Bishop, I'm saying, where is your documentation. Where is the link to a website with an interview with someone who knew Mitose. Bashing James Mitose is not acceptable in this thread. Providing me with a link to something that tells me why you believe what you say is. I know about Mitose's "con", and his prison sentence, bashing him for those things is pointless. I want substantial information about the man and his training. I have every intention of writing an essay about the origins of AKK, and need the info from all different sides, not just the bashing of one man.

[eyebeams]

Bishop, I'm saying, where is your documentation. Where is the link to a website with an interview with someone who knew Mitose. Bashing James Mitose is not acceptable in this thread. Providing me with a link to something that tells me why you believe what you say is. I know about Mitose's "con", and his prison sentence, bashing him for those things is pointless. I want substantial information about the man and his training. I have every intention of writing an essay about the origins of AKK, and need the info from all different sides, not just the bashing of one man.

If Bishop is John Bishop, he's had direct access to people who knew Mitose, including Adriano Emperado. BJohn Bishop is also the person responsible for making the Mitose trial transcripts accessible to the public for a moderate fee.