The Rise of American Kenpo

As I saw it

(Part 5)

The Break and Healing of Kenpo

by:

Will Tracy

First published Feb. 10, 1997

In the Judo school where I studied in Japan, in the Muduk Qwan school
that was little more than a dirt courtyard where I studied in Korea, in all
the Judo and Kung Fu schools I visited, there was always a picture of
the master displayed in the school. The first day I walked into Ed
Parker's Walnut Street Studio, (not the present location) I noticed there
was no picture of his instructor. In all the years I was with Ed Parker,
there was never picture of Professor Chow in his schools. It seems that
from the very beginning, Ed Parker gave no more credit than absolutely
necessary to Professor Chow.

But this was more than a sign of disrespect. When I went to Hawaii to
study with Professor Chow in 1959, I knew there was tension, if not
animosity between Chow and Parker. Ed Parker had not only wanted a
promotion to Sandan, he wanted Professor Chow to agree to an
International Karate Federation that would recognize belt rank, not just
for Kenpo, but for all karate. I was sent to pave the way, or take the
burnt of Professor Chow’s anger as it were, and while I said nothing to
him about Ed’s plans, Professor Chow rejected the proposal outright
when Ed arrived back in Hawaii later that year. This was the first time
Parker had returned to his home since going back to BYU in 1954.
Chow made it clear to me that he, not Parker, was the father of Kenpo
Karate, and he would not recognize any black belt rank other than
Shodan in his system. Actually, Professor Chow who had completely
changed his system, was already claiming Godan as a higher rank, but
did not want to recognize for anyone but himself. Chow also knew Ed
Parker would take control of any organization they formed together.
After all, Ed Parker was already claiming Sandan, because he had
thought Chow would go along with him. This was the situation when I
arrived in Hawaii, and it placed me in a difficult position of walking a
path between loyalty to both men. The position became even more
tenuous when I began training with Oshita who was the ranking Kenpo
Master. It would be nearly three years before I net the other kosho-
Kenpo masters in Hawaii, and discover that Chow as the 12th ranked
among them.

Ed’s plan for an international karate federation was all but dead when I
arrived at Chow's door. When Ed arrived in Hawaii later that year,
Professor Chow still had no interest in his proposal. However when I left
Hawaii to prepare to go on a mission for the Mormon Church later that
year, Professor Chow promise he would consider the federation when I
returned in two years. This was not the International Kenpo Karate
Association, as Ed would later claim. The IKKA was created when Ed
discovered that he could not control the Shodan of Kenpo. What
counted with Ed was being in control, and Ed did not control Kenpo. Ed
Parker would give rank, position and title to gain that control, but it was
his way, or the highway.

Ed Parker had been making over $1,000 a month since my brothers had
taken over teaching for Ed and this hurt Professor Chow because Ed
had told him he was barely getting by. In order to heal this breech, my
brothers had to do a lot of talking with Ed before he finally agreed that
when he opened a second school he would split the profits from that
school, 50/50 with Professor Chow. The school was opened, but three
years later it still had not turned a profit, at least none Parker would
share with Professor Chow. James Ibrao confirmed to me recently that
the La Cienega school was doing as well as the Pasadena school when
he taught there in 1960. It was, however, the prospect of this school
making money that changed Kenpo belt ranks.

There were several reasons for the La Cienega school not making
money. The most obvious reason was all of Ed Parker's black belts and
most of his high ranked brown belts left him to study with Jimmy Wing
Woo about a year after it opened. This defection was a crushing blow to
Ed, and he held a bitter resentment for the rest of his life towards Woo
and those who followed him. He also harbored a life-long resentment
towards Al and Jim Tracy for not telling him what Woo was doing. The
fact is, they didn't know anything about it. This animosity toward my
brothers meant nothing to me. I was not there. But it was another
indication to me that Ed was not following the Way of Kenpo. He was
himself thinking dishonestly, and saw dishonesty in others, even when it
was not there.

One can't really blame Jimmy Wing Woo for doing what he did, given
the way Parker treated him. But there is little doubt that Woo would
have done the same thing at a later date, even if he had been treated
properly. After all, Ed Parker had taught his top students everything he
knew (and he told them so), while Woo had a wealth of knowledge to
impart. In fact, Ed Parker’s three black belts, James Ibrao, Rich
Montgomery and Rick Flores, have continued to learn from Woo for
over 35 years.

Woo had come to Pasadena to live with Ed Parker on the promise of

greatness or at least credit for what he contributed. He had no money,
no transportation and he was completely dependent on Parker for
everything. In return for what would be a place to sleep and food, Woo
labored night and day for nearly eleven months, creating forms,
teaching Ed's advanced students, developing a Chinese style for Ed
Parker, and helping Ed write their book. Ed Parker on the other hand
was absorbing everything Woo taught and told him. In the first few
weeks, Woo's ideas were brilliant. A few weeks later, Ed would tell me
they were not much different from his own. Then after six or seven
month, what had originally been Woo's ideas and concepts had become
Ed's. Woo's forms became Parker's forms, and Woo's knowledge had
become Ed's knowledge. He had absorbed what Woo had given like a
sponge, and it had become a part of him. So much so that there was
little left of Woo.

With the help of Chuck Pranky, Ike Roman and others Al Tracy had built
Ed's second studio on La Cieniga Blvd, near Beverly Hills, and Ed and
Woo were on their way to success. It was not a success he wanted to
share with either Professor Chow or Woo. So when Parker's book was
near completion, Ed broke the news. The book was all his. Woo would
have no part in it. Not only wouldn't he be given credit, he wouldn't even
receive mention. Woo was devastated. Parker had blind-sided him.
Woo's reward for all his hard work was after all, a place to stay and
three meals a day. The Chinese community in San Francisco was
outraged, and would hold a grudge against Parker from that time on.
But Jimmy Wing Woo was not completely unprepared. He had been
making his own plans. He had told Al and Jim Tracy, never trust the
Chinese, and Woo was Chinese.
Woo had really needed more time, but Ed was through using him. It was
Ed's way, or no way, and Woo was on the highway. He was without a
place to stay, and Ed didn't even give him a ticket back to San
Francisco. That was one of the biggest mistake Ed ever made. Instead,
Woo was put on the street is Hollywood without a nickel for a phone
call. He had no one to turn to but Ed's advanced students. He bummed
5 cents from a stranger and called one of Ed's black belts. Word spread
fast and secretly. One of Ed's black belts came and got Woo off the
street in Hollywood, and there was first shock, then outrage as word
spread among the Shodan. They knew what Woo had done to help Ed,
and now they could see their own futures. Woo moved in with Rich
Montgomery. The black belts and high ranking belts didn't have much
money, but they were able to scrape enough together to rent a small
storefront building on Hollywood Blvd.

Since Al and Jim Tracy taught the Pasadena beginning and

intermediate classes none of those students knew much about Woo,
and without beginning students, Woo would have a hard time making a
school work, and he knew it. But Woo’s students were loyal to him, and
he rewarded them with more knowledge. After all, he was the only
Chinese who was actually teaching non Chinese until Bruce Lee 4 years
later.

I got a frantic call from Ed in the late spring of 1961. Belt promotions
had been put on hold during the period when Ed was developing
Classic Kenpo. Now the system was complete and Ed was going to give
Al and Jim Tracy their long over-due Shodan. Ed called a meeting of his
black belts and waited at his studio for over three hours, but none of his
black belts showed up. Ibrao had already agreed to the promotions, and
had gone on tour with the Harlem Globetrotters a couple of weeks
earlier. When Ed asked around, several of his advanced students told
him that some of the black belts had been talking to them about training
at Woo's school. Ed was furious. He reasoned that only Al and Jim
Tracy could have established a school for Woo, and he wanted to know
what I knew about it. I had been on my mission for over a year and
knew nothing. My brothers had said nothing to me. I called Al and he
was as surprised to hear about the defection as I was. Parker was so
upset when I called him back to tell him that my brothers didn't know
anything, he told me he was not only not going to promote my brother's
to black belt, he was stripping them of their brown belts. What Ed didn't
know, is Woo's school was little more than a small store building without
even a phone, and it was located just two or three blocks from where
Parker had left him on the street in Hollywood.

On Monday, Al and Jim came in to teach the beginning class at the

Pasadena school. Instead, they threw there brown belts on Parker's
desk and told him he could have them. Parker knew he had made a big
mistake. At the very time he needed my brother the most, they were
ready to walk. Ed just couldn't believe Al and Jim didn't know what was
going on. Even later, when I pointed out that Woo had not said anything
to any of the Mormon students, Ed still believed my brothers had to
know something about the defection. The fact is, none of Ed's Mormon
students went with Woo. As Woo would tell me, Mormon blood is thicker
than Chinese tea.

I have mentioned the Mormon connection, but no one really understood

just how much influence the Church had on Ed Parker, and how much
influence Ed Parker had on the Church. It was early October when I got
a call from my Mission President. I had three months left to serve, and I
was being reassigned to another Mission. I was dumbfounded. Then
when I was ordered to report to Hugh B. Brown, a member of the
Counsel of Twelve Apostles in Salt Lake City, I was numb. When I
arrived at the Church Office Building in Salt Lake, I was greeted by
Howard W. Hunter, who had been my (and Ed Parker's) Stake
President in Pasadena. He and Elder Brown explained that Ed Parker
was a great missionary tool for the Church. More of his students
converted to Mormonism than were converted in some Missions in the
Church. Ed Parker was in trouble and the Church wanted to help him.
They released me from my mission and reassigned me to Pasadena
where I was to do everything I could to help Ed.

Ed Parker was desperate when I arrived in Pasadena in October 1961.

Jim was in the National Guards for 6 months and Al was refusing to
teach because he didn't want Ed to think he was pirating students for
Woo's school. For the first time in three years Ed's Pasadena studio
was making less than $1,000 a month. Ed's La Cienega school, which
had never made much money was now losing money. Ed had no black
belts, and he had promoted some of his white belts just so he could
have brown belts.
The day I returned from Salt Lake City, I told Ed he needed to get the
support of Professor Chow before he did anything else. Ed had a better
idea. He introduced me to James Mitose. Mitose had been talking to
Parker for some time about a Kenpo temple, which Parker though he
might call a shrine. But it was readily apparent that Parker was no
match for the shrewdness of Mitose, and he would have to take second
to Chow. I was nothing wrong with Ed taking second place, but Ed
wanted the discussion to move in a different direction. I explain to
Mitose why his idea of a temple was contrary to Mormon beliefs, and he
understood. After all, he was a Christian minister, and proposed uniting
the Yuudansha as the first step in restoring honor to Kenpo. Mitose had
been very forceful on the Temple, but now he put on the air of only
desiring to be a benevolent benefactor. He wanted no honor or position
for himself, but only to improve Kenpo. Both Ed and I knew Mitose's was
doing this in order to get future support for his Temple. For the time
being, he had other ideas he was developing. As fate would have it, or
perhaps the collective unconscious, Mitose set the Temple aside for
nearly ten years before approaching Parker with it again. Like minds
attract each other, and it was shortly after that, that I introduced Mitose
to Paul Twitchell. Over the next decade, Mitose would watch with
bitterness as Twitchell made his new religion exactly what Mitose had
dreamed of, and he again approached Parker with the idea.

The day I arrived home from Salt Lake, Ed took me through the first four
forms, and the next day, when Ed began to show me the forms, and the
changes he had made to the techniques, and he knew I wasn't
impressed. Compared to the Kung Fu forms I had picked up over the
past two years Parker's forms were simplistic and meaningless. But
mostly I was unimpressed with what had happened to the Kenpo
training. When I left, much of the class was devoted to falling, rolling,
mat work and Kenpo and Jiu Jitsu techniques. Now in October 1961,
nearly all the Jiu Jitsu and mat work had been eliminated, and the
Kenpo techniques were relegated to a quick a demonstration before
forms were practiced during the rest of the class. Even the beginning
classes were being taught forms in place of techniques. Instead of
teaching techniques and then showing how they fit into the form, Ed
was teaching the form and letting the students discover how they could
be broken down into techniques. From what I observed, Ed had gone
from training the Way of Kenpo to a Kenpo dance.
Al Tracy had not been teaching for Parker for nearly four months when I
returned, and Ed wanted to make amends. What Ed also wanted was to
get his schools back on line and he wanted control of the KKAA patch
that had been designed by Dick Tercell. I didn't know Tercell, so Ed
asked Al to go with me to meet with Dick. Tercell thought we were there
so we could train with Woo. When we told him our purpose, he was
irritated. He had seen what Parker had done with Woo on the book, and
how Parker was claiming all of Woo's Kenpo forms were his own. He
wanted to make sure Parker could never claim the design of his patch
as his original idea. Tercell showed us his art work, the picture of the
Chinese Temple from which he got the idea, his tracings of the temple
and graphic lines into which he had made them. Then he showed us
several dozen drawings of the animals, and how he had changed them,
going from crude lines to the final drawing. Tercell didn't want the patch
for himself. He just didn't want Ed Parker to be able to claim it as his
own.

A few months later Tercell would die while trying to perform a kung fu
technique where he would be hanged by his neck without injury. His
death was ruled a suicide. Parker later told me Tercell's parents had
contacted him because they had heard there was kung fu training that
involved hanging. They were deeply religious and desperately needed
Ed's help to have their son's death ruled as an accident. Their son could
not have Mass said over his grave, and he could not be buried in a
Catholic cemetery. Parker knew about the hanging technique, he had
even taught Kubi Katsu, the Jiu Jitsu resuscitation from hanging
technique, but he told Tercell's parents there was nothing involving
hanging in kung fu. It was his way of getting even with Tercell.

In 1982 Parker would publish his first volume of Infinite Insight into
Kenpo, in which he claimed his brother, Frank, designed the Kenpo
patch. Anyone looking at the Tiger and the Dragon in Ed's Book can see
that they aren't even remotely close to the Tercell Tiger and Dragon.
Still Ed was able to accomplish exactly what Tercell had feared. He (and
his brother) Frank became the creator of Tercell's Patch.

Shortly after our meeting with Tercell, Ed wanted Al and me to come to

his advanced class at the Pasadena Studio to show everyone that the
Tracy brothers were solidly behind him. None of the students had been
there more than a year and a half. Most knew Al, some knew Jim, but
none knew me. In those days we worked the line. After warm ups and
mat work, all the students lined up and the first student in line chose a
technique to work. If it was a break away (a grab technique) the second
student would be the attacker and the first student would work the
technique. The first student would then go to the end of the line and the
second student would work the technique on the third student, and so
on down the line until the entire line had worked the technique. There
were about 15 students in the class, and it only took about two minute to
complete the line. The second student then chose a different technique,
worked it and went to the end of the line while the next student worked
the new technique, and so on until everyone had picked a different
technique. If a student didn't know the technique he was used as the
attacker and all the students worked the technique on him. After just half
a dozen times of running the line, Al and I were the only ones left who
knew the techniques we were working. Parker hadn't been teaching any
advanced techniques since Woo left, yet these were supposed to be Ed
Parker's brown belts. His new system just wasn't the same.

A couple of days later, Ed gave me a round trip airline ticket to Hawaii

and $300 for expenses. I met Professor Chow at a Buddhist youth
society lounge, and took him to lunch. I presented him with the letter of
introduction from Mitose, and we talked. I took him to dinner and we
talked more. Fusae Oshita came to dinner with us and Chow was
impressed. First, he was impressed that I had completed my mission
and had come back to Hawaii as I had promised. Second, he was
impressed that his Stake President (in the Mormon Church) had talked
to him just two days before, and told him I would be coming from the
mainland. Third he was impressed that Mitose had shown me so much
respect as to make me his personal envoy to him, and that Fusae
Oshita had taught me hand sets that only Chow knew. But he was even
more impressed that Ed Parker was paying my expenses.

Professor Chow had gone through some drastic changes in his

teaching. After the Emperado brothers, and some of his other students
had left, he changed his system to one that simply did not work. But
Professor Chow was first and foremost a man of integrity, and secondly
a fighter. He knew what he had changed in the system would not work
on the street, and changed back to his old system. He had deep
emotional problems, not the least of which was alcoholism, and
domestic problems. All in all, he appeared to be a man who had little
else in his life except his superb mastery of Kenpo.
Chow was still angry with Parker because of his success, and he was
pleased that Parker's black belts had left him. But mostly he was angry
because Parker was making money and he wasn't. I told him that the La
Cienega school had never made money, and my brothers wouldn't
teach for Ed any more because he had threatened to strip them of their
brown belts. This made Professor Chow laugh, and even though he had
stated two years before that he would not give Ed Parker a Shodan
Certificate, I didn't realize Professor Chow had never actually promoted
Parker above Ikkyu. Chow could see what was happening with Kenpo
and knew something had to be done to establish some standard for belt
rank.

I had studied with Fusae Oshita back in 1959 when I was first with
Chow, and it was Fusae who was senior to Chow, who convinced him to
join the Yuudansha in creating the Yuudanshai Kokusai. I showed them
everything I had learned in kung fu, and Parker's new forms. Oshita was
impressed with my development, but like Chow wasn't impressed with
any of the new Kenpo forms, but he told me he thought Jimmy Wing
Woo's Kenpo forms were completely worthless. On November 10, 1961,
Fusae Oshita promoted me to Shodan, and the following day Professor
Chow promoted me to Shodan. I stayed another couple of weeks,
training with him and Fusae Oshita, then went back to Pasadena. Since
I had stayed with Oshita and with members of the Mormon Church in
Hawaii, I had spent less than $30 while there. I gave Professor all but
$10 of what I had left ($260) when he saw me off at the airport, and the
Old Man cried. That was the equivalent of over $1,300 today.

I returned to Los Angeles, and spent the next two weeks helping Ed get
his schools back on track. Then I went back to Hawaii where Professor
Chow had me fill out Ed Parker's Shodan Certificate so he could sign it.
Although Professor Chow had authorized a formal certificate for his new
system, he did not want anyone in his new system to know he was
promoting Ed or anyone else. Professor Chow did not issue formal
certificates, but rather used certificates of accomplishment or
completion that were purchased from stationary stores. Also, Professor
Chow had only gone to the sixth grade, and he was functionally
illiterate. And while he had a brilliant mind, he could barely write more
than a few words, and it took him as long as 5 minutes to just sign his
name.
I gave Ed his Shodan Certificate about a week before Christmas, but he
refused to take it and gave it back to me. The Yuudansha had followed
the Shotakan and made Godan (5th-degree black belt) the highest rank
in Kenpo, and Ed would accept Sandan, or nothing. It would be some
time before he was given Sandan, and even then he refused that
certificate also, because Chow had refused to sign it.

The division in Kenpo was healed by ignoring it. Those who had left
Parker to study with Woo went their own way. Only Jimmy Ibrao would
go on to teach his own system of Kenpo. For the first time since Chow
left Mitose Kenpo was united. The union would last less than a year,
and it would be Ed Parker who caused the division that would split
Kenpo into the same factions that existed before the Yuudansha united.