About KAJUKENBO

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KAJUKENBO is a highly effective street fighting Martial Art that focuses on Self Defense for the street.   Our curriculum concentrate's on Punch Defense, Grab Defenses,  Club attack defense  and knife defense.  

KAJUKENBO, is often referred to as America's first Mixed Martial Art.  KAJUKENBO was founded between 1947 and 1949 in Hawaii by Five Men who initially set out to test their individual fighting skills against each other and simply "to test each other out".  Each of these men brought differing experience and backgrounds in the martial arts and through this process and training together decided to combine their knowledge to create a combined Martial Art that was made for self defense in the streets taking what works from each of their individual styles and/or experience and discarding what did not.  This combined style would eventually become known as KAJUKENBO an acronym that represents the styles that were brought together to form KAJUKENBO as shown below.  

KA - Karate  style of KENPO Primarily contributed by A.D. Emperado  with Peter Choo and Frank Ordonez as secondary contributors

JU - Judo and JuJitsu Primarily Contributed by Joeseph Holck with A.D. Emperado, Peter Choo and Frank Ordonez as secondary contributors

KEN - Kenpo Primarily contributed by A.D. Emperado with Peter Choo and Frank Ordonez as secondary contributors

BO - Boxing American and Chinese contributed by Peter Choo, Frank Ordonez and George Chang (Kung-Fu) and A.D. Emperado as a secondary contributor

The founders trained together from 1947 to late 1949.  Rumored to have called themselves the Black Belt Society the the group met in secret using their collective knowledge combining their techniques first trying them out on each other style verses style and then taking them out to the streets and testing them out in real life in one of the roughest areas of Hawaii.  Unfortunately due to military obligations in support of the Korean war the founders went their separate ways in late 1949.   Sijo (Founder) Emperado remained in Hawaii and began teaching his brother and a small group of about 10 students that would become known as the Halawa Kenpo club.  While KAJUKENBO was founded during the 1947-1949 time frame by the founders mentioned above this was just the beginning. The concepts and principals defined along with some very effective techniques had been created but KAJUKENBO was still evolving and was still in its creation stage.   At this point the KAJUKENBO Name was not being used and was simply called Kenpo-Jujitsu as that was the style that A.D. Emperado was teaching under his Instructor William Chow.  Emperado was chow's first Black belt and the fourth Kenpo Jujitsu Black belt in Hawaii.

Emparado  started teaching at the Palama Settlement Gym in 1952 , his brother Joe Emperado who had been training under chow for previous six years along side Sijo was a senior color belt  in Kenpo Jujitsu and was promoted to black belt by SIJO later that year and named the assistant instructor at the Palama settlement gym.  This is when Emperado's style of Kenpo-Jujitsu really began to take form.  He was later joined (1954) by another Kenpo-Jujitsu Black belt Woodrow McCandless who was also teaching Kenpo-Jujitsu at the Palama settlement who merged his class with Sijo Emperado becoming an assistant instructor. I think that this is pretty noteworthy as Woodrow McCandless essentially took a step down because he liked what KAJUKENBO had to offer and wanted to learn.   Another name that deserves mention is Mario Tiwanik a professional Boxer who was a close friend and student of Joe Emperado

The Emperado brothers along with McCandles and Tiwanik moved forward constructing, refining and adding to the foundation that was created by the founders from 1947 - 1949. These first 8 years effectively established KAJUKENBO’s original method and what was presented to the world officially in December 1957 when SIJO changed the name to KAJUKENBO and presented it to the world in a Hawaiian Newspaper article and later when KAJUKENBO was registered in 1960 with the state of Hawaii.  If you would like to know more, please  Subscribe to my You tube page where I have several videos on the History and so much more.  by clicking on the link below.  

KAJUKENBO is not a fixed martial art, meaning that it has continued to evolve since its founding (1947-1949), its creation (1949-1957) and beyond.  KAJUKENBO has continued to evolve and now incorporates many more styles than the acronym KAJUKENBO represents.  There are currently four styles or Branches of KAJUKENBO that were recognized by SIJO Emperado as a result; they are the Emperado/Original Method, Tum Pai, Chu'an FA, and WUNHOPKUNDO.

Unlike traditional Martial Arts KAJUKENBO is not a fixed system where Instructors are required to "Parrot" or teach the same curriculum as was taught to them by their instructor and are given the liberty to change their curriculum and make it their own adding, taking away and developing their own expression of KAJUKENBO.  This has resulted in countless Methods that fall under the individual styles of each branch such as the Gaylord Method, RAMOS Method, and  Hawaiian Kenpo.  

I myself am under the Hemenes Method of KAJUKENBO.  My Lineage tracing back to SIJO is Anthony Hemenes, Charles Gaylord, George Seronio Adriano Emperado.  So to illustrate my point  The Hemenes Method is my Instructors Expression of the Gaylord Method,  The Gaylord Method is Great Grand Master Gaylord's Expression of what he learned from George Seronio. Both Methods fall under the Chu'an Fa Branch of KAJUKENBO.  

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