08.06.05 - 2nd Annual West Coast Kenpo Confederation

Joint Locks and Kenpo
This class was lead by Doug Meeks, a high ranking black belt in the IKCA. He went through a series of moves that comprised a single drill. All of the moves were joint locks or arm bar maneuvers that started with a guard against a left punch. It was interesting that he started the class by stating that the joint lock maneuvers weren’t necessarily something you would generally use in a street fight or personal protection, but could be effectively used should the opportunity arise.

I started out with an ex-cop with an orange belt. He had some familiarity with some of the moves we were doing and had little difficulty making sense of the drill. It was interesting going through the motions with him because he had actually used some of these moves in his role as a police officer. It was also interesting because he was at least a whole head taller than me and that proved to be interesting when applying some of the joint locks on him.

After several minutes, a couple of guys that were next to us in the class asked if we wanted to change partners for a different perspective. I wound up with a 2nd degree black belt who had me by about 50 lbs. or so. I’m glad we did change partners because it was completely different applying these techniques on this guy than it was the ex-cop. For one, he wasn’t nearly as flexible and tapped very quickly when I was going through the steps. For another, he didn’t seem to have such a good grasp of the techniques so I actually provided him with a challenge as well. By the end of the class, I felt that I had a good glimpse at how joint locks could be utilized in Kenpo.