I created the Kenpo Journal because I wanted to access the all the Kenpo documentation available to me without combing through endless pages of paper. That was about eight years ago and today, I'm releasing Version 7 which is light-years ahead of of Version 1.
My policy for the newsletter is to always keep them short, so I can't even begin to describe the Kenpo Journal in detail to anyone who hasn't seen it, so for those of you haven't seen the Kenpo Journal you can get an overview of it at:
The best I can do here is just touch on why I'm so excited about Version 7.
TERMINOLOGY
The biggest addition to Version 7 of the Kenpo Journal is a greatly increased terminology section. In the past you've been able to look up any word in our system and read its meaning, and of course, click on "Find Term in Technique" or "Find Term in Tech Notes" and instantly find that term highlighted in the techniques or technique notes.
What I've done now is create two additional portals on the terminology page that group words together in two categories. The first category is Similar Terms and the second category is Related Terms.
Let's take the term Accumulated Force.
Similar Terms for Accumulated Force are Confluence of Forces, Correlation of Forces, Harnessing the Force, and Integration of Forces. All these terms are almost identical in meaning.
Related Terms, for Accumulated Force, are Body Harmony, Confluence of Forces, Correlation of Forces, Correlation of Forces, Disharmony of Force, Guided Collision, Harmonious, Harmonize, Harmonized Power, Harnessing the Force, Integration of Forces, Intersecting Forces, and Magnified Damage. These terms are considered "Related" because although they don't mean the same thing, they're related to the same, or a very similar, subject.
TECHNIQUES
One of the most unique sections of the Kenpo Journal is the Technique Notes section. This is where you learn how each technique got its name, the theme of each technique, become acquainted with some what-if scenarios and read some notes on how to improve the techniques.
Only, as beneficial as this section is, it's often thought of as something extra that can be read later on, after we've learned the technique. Which is a big mistake, because the theme of each technique should be read before we learn the technique, or we won't know what we're trying to accomplish with the technique in the first place.
Therefore I've copied the theme of each technique and placed it at the beginning of every technique. That way more people will read exactly what the technique is supposed to teach and therefore greatly increase their knowledge and understanding of American Kenpo.
Q & A with ED PARKER
With the space provided I just wanted to touch on one of my favorite sections of the Kenpo Journal and that's the Q&A with Ed Parker section. This is made up from over two hundred magazines and newspaper articles from my own collection. I've extracted over four hundred questions and answers from Ed Parker and put them in the journal according to the date of the publication. Each quote has the publication name, date, volume & issue number, name of the article and the authors name. It's an amazing resource for those who would like to learn as much as they can about the man who created the art of American Kenpo.
As you click through the terminology section of the new Kenpo Journal you'll see hundreds and hundreds of terms grouped together with their similar and related terms on the same page. This feature alone will bring the daunting task of understanding American Kenpo back into perspective and facilitate learning more quickly and more completely than you ever imagined.
