thinking it through

I never met Mr. Parker, and I have no idea what his intentions were regarding his development of his system. There are techniques I have learned in the system that I do believe are nonsense. Some people say that these techniques were developed only to convey certain principles. Some of these principles I have been shown could easily be shown in "better" techniques. However, I also acknowledge that there is a strong probability that I haven't been taught these techniques correctly, so I don't have the proper understanding of it. I only brought up the "nonsense" techniques, because this was something I was told by someone with more knowledge than myself, and from a certain point of view, it is plausible. That doesn't make it fact, though, but it does bring up interesting conversation.

Having not lived through the time of the development of American Kenpo, I can not speak as to whether Mr. Parker cared about how people outside of kenpo perceived his system. My thought would be this, since he was bucking the traditional establishment, why would he care what the establishment thought?