http://www.interactivesmack.com/kajukenbo/sijointerview.html
AN INTERVIEW WITH ADRIANO D. EMPERADO
Interview for Centuron Negro by John Bishop
Unlike many of todays so called masters, Adriano D. Emperado is a very humble man. He has no publicist, has never been one to seek out publicity, and rarely grants interviews. Black Belt was very fortunate to locate Professor Emperado at the Forbach Martial Arts Academy in San Clemente, Ca., where he was conducting the saturday morning black belt workout. He was also spending a few days with his student Gary Forbach before going to Hawaii for the holidays. We thank Mr. Forbach for assisting us in obtaining this vary rare and exclusive interview with Professor Emperado, the Sijo (founder) of the Kajukenbo system and our 1991 Instructor of the year.
CN: So what have you been doing the last year or so, besides being elected to the Black Belt Hall of Fame?
EMPERADO: I’ve been living in a cabin in Virginia, where I have been writing my autobiography. I have a deadline of April 1993 from the publisher so I’ve dedicated all my time to it.
CN: That sounds very interesting, you probably have some great stories about a lot of people in the martial arts.
EMPERADO: I sure do, but that will come out in the book.
CN: Can you tell us a little about the book?
EMPERADO: It’s basically going to be my memoirs about my life and the people in the martial arts I’ve known over the decades. I’ll talk about a lot of the martial arts events I’ve been witness to. And of course a lot of stories about the people of Kajukenbo.
CN: Can you tell us one of the Kajukenbo stories?
EMPERADO: Back in the 60s one of my high ranking black belts asked me to sign a piece of paper for him. Thinking nothing of his request, I signed it. He then said he wanted me to sign it again, but to write larger. When I asked him why, he then told me that he wanted a good example of my signature so he could use it to make sure no one was forging my name on certificates. A while later I was visiting a Kajukenbo school. While there I was looking at the instructor’s certificates on the wall when he proudly showed me one with my signature on it. I looked at it real close because I did not remember ever signing it. I later found out that my student had taken the paper I signed and had a signature stamp made. You see he had charged his students extra testing fees if they wanted my signature on their certificates.
CN: That’s a very interesting story, were looking forward to reading the book. Can we talk a little about you and the Kajukenbo System?
EMPERADO: Of course.
CN: When and where were you born?
EMPERADO: I was born on June 15, 1926 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
CN: What was your first exposure to the martial arts?
EMPERADO: When I was 8 or 9 years old I was taught some boxing by my father and uncle who were both professional boxers. They fought at the old civic auditorium in Honolulu. At about 11 when I was living with my brother in Kauai I learned the basic 12 techniques or strikes of Escrima. And then at the age of 14 I trained in Judo under Sensei Taneo at the Palama Settlement Gym in Honolulu.
CN: And of course you trained under the legendary Professor William K.S. Chow of Hawaii. Can you tell us about this man and his classes?
EMPERADO: I started training with Professor Chow at the Catholic Youth Organization when I was 20 years old. Professor Chow had been a Kenpo Jujitsu student of James Mitose and also had a 5th degree black belt in judo. Like Mitose he emphasized makiwara training and ground work. The makiwara training was to develop that one punch kill that was the trademark of the Japanese styles. He also tried to be more innovative than Mitose and taught a lot of ground work because of his judo background.
CN: Who did Chow receive his judo training from?
EMPERADO: I’m not sure, but it may have been Professor Okizaki. CN: Professor Chow was also said to have been taught kung fu by his father, can you tell us about this?
EMPERADO: I’m not sure how much kung fu training Professor Chow had in his early years. When I knew him he would tell me of visions he had of his father and grandfather. In these visions they would reveal kung fu techniques to him.
CN: Visions?
EMPERADO: Yes, one particular time in about 1952 or 53 he told me that his grandfather had appeared to him in a dream. He said his grandfather showed him some techniques and told him that they were “Kara-Ho”.
CN: What does “Kara-Ho” mean?
EMPERADO: Actually nothing. Karaho is a derogatory term in Spanish, but Chow never had a meaning for the word. He said Kara-Ho was what his grandfather told him to call the art. Before that, at different times he had called his school “Go Shin Jitsu Kai” or “Lighting Karate” or “Thunderbolt Karate”.
CN: How close were you to Chow?
EMPERADO: I was his first black belt, his Chief Instructor and a 5th Degree Black Belt under him. We were very close for many years.
CN: Some people say that Professor Chow’s black belts abandoned him, others used him, and that he lived in poverty?
EMPERADO: It’s true that Professor Chow lived in poverty most of his life. Hawaii is a expensive place to live, and he had no education. He could not read or write, so when he worked he was usually a stevedore or security guard. He also was not a good businessman so he didn’t make a lot of money teaching the martial arts. Some people would visit him or invite him to do seminars for them. There was always large sums of money promised to him in exchange for a seminar and promotion. Most of the times the money was never paid or it was not the amount that was promised. Later in life he was forced to collect cans on the beach daily just to make ends meet. It bothered me to see the way he lived, but I tried to help him. When we were starting to get our schools established I went to the Professor and told him that we wanted to start an association with him as the head, and that we would all contribute dues to help him out financially. But you see Chow was a very proud and stubborn man. He refused our gesture of respect.
CN: Can you tell us about the founding of the Kajukenbo system?
EMPERADO: In about 1947 while I was still with Chow, I got together with 4 other black belts to train and develop a style of our own. I felt that the Kenpo Jujitsu system that I had learned lacked self defense techniques against multiple attackers or even multiple strikes. We had trained hard and fast to simply block and strike. We were developing the mentality of only facing one strike, and ending the fight with one focused punch. I started to ask myself, what if my attacker throws a number of strikes and kicks at me? What if my one well focused punch doesn’t put him down? This is why we got together. We called ourselves the black belt society.
CN: Who were the other members of the black belt society?
EMPERADO: Peter Choo who was a welterweight boxing champion and a Tang Soo Do stylist. Frank Ordonez was a Sekeino Jujitsu stylist, Joe Holck was a 8th Dan in Kodokan Judo, Clarence Chang was a Sil-Lum Pai Kung Fu stylist, and of course there was me.
CN: So how did this development process take place?
EMPERADO: Because of the Korean War many of the military barracks and buildings around Honolulu were empty. We would use these abandoned buildings for our training so we could train everyday without distraction. We could train in one building for a while and then switch to another. You have to understand, in Hawaii there is much competition in the martial arts. Instructors would go to other dojo’s and kwoon’s to see what everybody else was doing. In fact some people would train at more than one school or have their own students on the side even though they were still students themselves. When we were developing Kajukenbo I was still training under and teaching for Professor Chow. Anyway we tried to keep our meetings as secret as possible.
During these training sessions we would take advantage of each others areas of expertise. We worked on ground techniques, Korean style kicks, jujitsu locks and breaks, kenpo hand techniques, and circular kung fu techniques. We tried them on each other, looking for each others weaknesses. A karate or kung fu man was no good if a judo man were to take him down and choke him out. We combined our knowledge into self defense techniques that covered every situation we could think of, including multiple attackers, knife defenses, and club defenses. Two years later when we were finished we needed a name to describe our combination system. Joe Holck came up with the name Kajukenbo. KA for karate, JU for judo and jujitsu, KEN for kenpo, and BO for Chinese boxing(kung fu).
