Kenpo Karate Setting History Right 1956-1959

by
Will Tracy
3/8/97
(revised 1/11/98)
(second revision 8/8/99)

Ed Parker published Inside Elvis Rampart House 1978 which was the year after Elvis died. On page 25 he wrote:

"Graduation was decision time ... should I further my education or seek employment? Roy Woodward was now the manager of a health studio in Southern California. He extended an offer, which I accepted: however, through a chain of circumstances, I suddenly found myself unemployed."

It is quite different from what Ed would later write about having planned with Chow on opening Kenpo school on the mainland after he graduated from BYU. And becoming unemployed (leaving the Probation Department) was what Ed always told my brothers and me.

Ed has his meeting with Terry Robinson wrong where he wrote, "Roy called one day while I was renovating my new studio. He invited me to American Health's Hollywood Gym. He wanted me to meet Terry Robinson a World War II "kill or be killer" combat instructor...'if I had the time.' It was an afternoon well spent and concluded with Terry inviting me to the Beverly Wilshire Health Club where he was the physical director." (Inside Elvis (1979) Rampart House, Ltd. Page 26.

NOTE: Many in American Kenpo believe Ed Parker held some secret knowledge which he only imparted to a select few. In a way, that was true. But it had nothing to do with Kenpo. How to make a sawdust mat was a "secret" Ed only showed to his inner circle. Everyone in Ed Parker's Inner Kenpo Karate Circle knew how the mat is made, the type of canvas used and the details of its construction. This was the type of mat the Tracy brothers used in their first studio in San Francisco, and anyone who does not know how it was made was never in Ed's Inner Circle.

NOTE: The tatami mats were standard 35.5" wide X 71" long and 2.25" thick. They had a vinyl covering to protect the rice straw, and cost $100 each. There were 20 mats in the workout area, and 14 mats used to protect the wall and a couple of extra in storage. That's over $3500 with shipping for mats, (in 1956 dollars = $14,000 in today's money) and they arrived less than three months after Ed opened his studio. These were a gift to Ed from his close friend in Japan.

After moving the school to a new location across the street to 1713 E. Walnut Street in 1958, Ed had his students clean the vinyl covering with soap and water. Unfortunately, the students didn't take the coverings off the mats and the rice straw got mildew and rotted. Ed got another gift of 30+ mats from the same person in Japan, which took longer to get because customs required them to be fumigated and they remain in quarantine for several weeks.

There are many who claim to were close to Ed and knew him well. Few people really knew Ed. I did. I know how Ed was able to get the tatami mats - they didn't cost him anything. I know who that friend is, and I know far more about this matter than anyone alive today (other than that friend). Anyone who does not know who gave Ed the tatami mats, did not really know Ed Parker. It doesn't matter how close someone claims to have been to Ed, if they don't know who Ed lived with in Provo when he first went to BYU, and who later went to Japan where Ed visited them, and later gave Ed the mats, and the relationship Ed had with that family, never really knew Ed, and Ed never really trusted them.

NOTE by Roarke Tracy: My father and Uncle Jim began training in October, 1957, and my Uncle Al was in the Air Force. About two weeks later Uncle Al had over two months of leave time and came went Pasadena where he began training. He came back on another thirty day leave in mid 1958, before going discharged from the Air Force, when the began training each week.

I trained with Ed Parker until the March 1959 and having access to Ed Parker's Kenpo techniques he kept on 3x5 index cards in his desk my brothers and I copied them by hand because there were no copy machines back then. As my brothers an I went through the cards to pick out the techniques he would teach the advanced class each night it became obvious that Ed had taught us just about everything he had on the cards; which was everything he knew. I told Ed I wanted to go to Hawaii to train with Professor Chow and Ed liked the idea, because he knew from the Island boys who had come over, that Professor Chow was not happy with him. Ed wanted to make amends, and he wanted Professor Chow to promote him to a higher rank. But Ed also wanted to add forms to his system. All of the Japanese karate demonstrations were getting great response from their forms, but Ed didn't have any. I suggested that we go to San Francisco where I knew several Kung Fu men, and Ed could see what Chinese forms were like.

Ed had turned the Pasadena studio over to Al and Jim Tracy in August 1959, to finish the photographs for his book so he could go to Hawaii, and Al and Jim raised the first months gross receipts from its usual $600 to over $1,000. When Ed returned from Hawaii in late September 1959, he found the school doing so well that he saw no need to go there to teach, and that gave him time to go over the final draft for his book. Over the next few weeks, Ed taught private lessons to the Beverly Hills students, and train Al and Jim in his back yard each day when they brought the studio receipts to him. By the end of the year, December, which was always the worst month for money in the school, Al and Jim brought in $2000.