Quick Kenpo questions...heh

[nanook2k3]

Hello Mr. Lamkin et al,

My name's John, and I'm sure you know my instructor (Mrs. Hahn), and I just finished testing for my 1st degree brown today! woohoo! heh. I also happen to be active duty air force and they're moving me to Albuquerque next month, so I was wondering if you knew of some instructors down there. Before I started training with Lynn, I studied in Lompoc, California with a Mr. John Chard (a student of Rick Avery out of Santa Barbara...in case you are familiar with that area), where we trained in what I guess is the Chow system (which looked identical to the Tracy system of 33 techniques/belt), so it was a bit of a change coming here to Washington and working with the American Kenpo material. I'd like to continue with American Kenpo if at all possible, and I've already been to ABQ and started looking at schools, where the AKKA is quite prevalent. I tried researching them but haven't found out what sort of belt requirements they have, but I suspect they'll more than likely be similar to what I studied back in California. Does anyone know of any pure Ed Parker American Kenpo instructors in Albuquerque? If not, how difficult would you think it would be to transition to AKKA, or is that even wise?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Take care,
John Vinson

[administrator]

Not being familiar with the AKKA advancement criteria, I cannot give first hand advice on how your ranking will be received within a different association. Some associations honor rank, others have no honor. I pulled up a page that shows the advancement criteria for the AKKA so that you can compare click here. (http://www.akkava.com/downloads.html)

Because you have just tested for 1st Brown (congratulations!) it may become a very big dissapointment to jump into a different association that may require you to start over. We have the Home Study Course (http://www.arnis.org/home_study/home_study.htm) available for situations like yours, if you do not find another AKLA school in your area.

Kevin Lamkin

[profesormental]

Hi!

You could join a school there and keep training the materials from the Home study course. That way you can go to the otehr studio and have some bodies to play with.

Also, the insight of instructors over there into what you're doing should be a leaning experience, since being a 1st brown is a very long way from being just a beginner and that should be accounted for and respected.

Hope everything goes well.

Sincerely,

Juan M. Mercado