it's no wonder you have doubts

If you don't have the person in the know to teach you, it's not going to make sense. Like someone who never learned to read looking at a newspaper.


Elongate circles is about manipulating the orbit of a circle to make it more eliptical. As an example, you could perform an overhead claw from a natural stance by swinging your arm back, over your head then forward and down in a big circle until you hit the target. This movement would take a while. If you were to perform this movement and I performed a straight thrusting spear hand to your eyes, also from a natural stance, I would beat you to the attack.

You see big circles in traditional styles, it's certainly easy to move in a big circle, but it's slow. If you "elongate" the circle, by making it an elipse, you could probably reach me at the same time. Of course we don't rely only on quickness, this is just an isolated example.

You can elongate the circle of the overhead claw by forming the weapon as you lift your elbow, pointing it towards the target, claw moves next to your ear, and the claw then moves up and forward as your arm unfolds and hits downward out in front of you. To do this motion correctly, you begin with learning by the numbers. Position one, lift the claw to the side of your head, elbow pointing toward the target. Position 2, the arm unfolds and the claw moves up and forward and then downward as it reaches the length of the weapon of the inward overhead claw striking the target.

If you do that, it's very choppy. 1, 2. So we can make that quicker by doing what? By doing it in one motion, making that motion smooth, this is now more of an eliptical motion then the first way we talked about. The circle has been elongated. If you want to see how the inward overhead claw continues the elipse, look at raining claw. the left overhead claw rains down, striking the bridge of his nose with the heel palm and as the claw continues down to check the arm, the fingers rip and tear, and continue downward and slightly toward yourself to check the arm. Do this motion and watch the hand, doesn't it move like an elipse in this movement?

As far as rounding corners, we just rounded a corner of time when we took 1 & 2 and did it in one! It's always quicker to do it in one second instead of 2. Isn't it also quicker to cut across somebody's lawn at the corner, rather than walk the path of the sidewalk? Same with the claw, instead of lifting the claw so it is next to your ear, don't pull it back that far. The inward overhead claw eventually moves on a forward elipse that raises in height before crashing down on the target. We don't cock the fist before punching, so we wouldn't do that here either. We change the height of the weapon as it moves forward.

Take the inward block, the elbow moves forward as you raise your fist to your shoulder, position 1. Position 2 is the hammer then travels forward and blocks. Do this over and over so every piece is correct, because that's how learning is done, sorry Daniel san, nature rule not mine. 1, pause, 2. 1, 2. 1, 2. Then you round the corner by doing it in one motion. Do it in 1. The forearm moves forward, lifting the hammer fist to proper position on it's way, so that it's always moving forward without stopping, and doesn't have to hit the corner (fist to shoulder) - this cuts the corner! But to get to this stage of movement we have to learn the embryonic!

I'm lucky to learn from a first generation student of Parker, none of the other Kenpo schools in my area could have broken down and given you the details I just shared. The knowledge my teacher shared with me and his teacher shared with him.

So when someone who doesn't know the why's/the reasons/the knowledge tries to teach you, they can't remove your doubt. My teacher is very big on removing doubt and it's a huge difference between those that remove doubt and those who don't really know.

Now of course I've only been a student of Kenpo a short time, so I may have forgotten some details or might have something incorrect, I haven't been taught yet how to teach Kenpo, but I can at least share the knowledge that was shared with me. Hopefully this helps.