I've been watching a few kenpo classes at a few different schools and haven't seen a whole lot of sparring. Is sparring a big part of kenpo or is it mostly slower drills? I tried a class and like the techniques seemed like a mix of striking, judo and bjj. I would just like to do some live sparring bc that's when I learn the most.
when I did shaolin kempo some years back, we did do sparring. it'll be all to the body until purple belt I think. and it was all point sparring that I did
We had two sparring classes a week, full contact mma rules, and once a week it was open to people outside the school, so random mma / kick boxers would come in.
Ok thanks I'm going to give it a try, I just didn't want to be stuck never trying the techniques at a realistic speed like some TMAs
One of my friends is a Kenpo guy, all he does is spar more or less. He teaches kata and stuff to kids but from what I can gather, when they spar it's basically kickboxing.
Depends on the school. Some schools spar like it's kickboxing or mms with a gi on. Some schools do nothing but kata and "eagle grabs the snake" bullshit. The techniques in kempo/kenpo are good, but worthless if you don't train them against a resisting opponent.
Is kempo/kenpo a japanese karate style or another kind of chinese gung fu? If another kind of gung fu, than they should have sparring with strikes and takedowns, that is if they spar at all.
There are many kinds of "kenpo" so the name itself is about useless as just saying "karate." Most likely you're talking about American Kenpo or some off shoot of it, which was created by Ed Parker, in the 50s I believe. If you can find a "Kenpo 5.0" school--and can get over the silly name--then they tend to do a lot of sparring and Jeff Speakman (the founder, also the guy who starred in the 90s movie The Perfect Weapon) has even added in some BJJ-esque groundwork.
