What clarification are you talking about? Karazenpo was originally just Kajukenbo re-named due to issues that Gascon had with the Kaju folks. Since he wasn't very highly ranked, he brought his brother-in-law Godin out to teach (Godin was much more knowledgable than Gascon). The original patch had the kata kana that read Godin and Gascon as the founders. It only lasted for a couple of years before Godin left and Gascon didn't last much longer teaching "Karazenpo". Godin kept teaching his stuff, but Gascon retired from the martial arts for a couple of decades before being dragged out of obscurity by a Shaolin Kempo guy named Corrigan to go around and give out promotions to SKK guys that had left their instructors under the name of Karazenpo Go Shinjitsu. Gascon didn't remember any "Karazenpo" and since there really hadn't been much of a system in the first place, Gascon just said "It's all Karazenpo" meaning that the system that his former student George Pesare created (With additions from Cerio and Villari) would be relabeled Karazenpo by him so that he could make some money giving out rank. These days, Karazenpo is just a bunch of cross-ranked SKK guys for the most part. Gascon and Godin had a falling out when Gascon wanted sole credit for Karazenpo a few years ago. Godin basically said "He can have that F-ing Karazenpo!" [yes I know people who were standing there when this happened] and went his own way. Since Godin had been teaching Hawaiian Kempo to the likes of Martin Buel, Eugene Sedeno and John Hacklman, he figured that he didn't need to take credit for all the cross-rankers that were now ostensibly under Gascon. Everyone knows who Walter Godin was and the tough reputation of his students. The only person of note that was ever trained by Gascon was George Pesare [until he promoted Chris Geary years later to his everlasting infamy] and Pesare only trained with him for a couple of months to the rank of purple belt before he went to the East Coast to eventually form what would become SKK. Pesare got black belts in Judo and TKD and formed his art himself. This caused a pretty big falling out with Gascon later on when he essentially took a bunch of Pesare's guys under him and promoted them and then tried to claim himself as the founder of SKK etc. Not cool IMO. Pesare always credited Gascon for his start in the martial arts, but Pesare's Kempo was of his own devising (he only had 10 combinations and four forms when he left Gascon in 1961 and most of those he dropped in favor of ones he made up himself), and not Gascon's.
So there you have it. Now, I know you were "there" back in the 60's. You told us that years ago. However, you also admitted that you were only in Leoning's studio for a few weeks and that you were not even taught by him, but rather one of his colored belts. I've never seen how that makes you an expert on all things Leoning and Gascon. I can't begin to tell you the number of students that only train with us for a few weeks and we never see them again. However, the way things seem to go, I'm sure that 30 years from now one of them will come out of the shadows and claim to have been one of Prof. Bishop's students and act like he revealed all the hidden knowledge to him. There's got to be a Gary Brewer in every generation. This world would be a lot less interesting if there weren't.
As to Dave Simmons: I'm not taking your bait. He and I had issues when he was alive, and it's unseemly to get into that now that he's gone. He was never shy about giving his opinions to my posts, and it's un-gentlemanly to talk about someone if they're not here to answer for themselves. Whatever has been said, has been said. RIP.
Dan Weston
1st Degree Black Belt
Emperado's Original Method Kajukenbo
Under Prof. John Bishop
