08.06.05 - 2nd Annual West Coast Kenpo Confederation

Wrapping Up
The end of the day was marked by a few words by Chuck and Vic. They thanked everyone for coming and we all did the salute. What happened last was something that I hadn’t been told about but seems to be a tradition of sorts, at least for the confederation. It’s called “Passing the Pain”. We all formed a circle around the room with Chuck and Vic standing at the front of the room. By rank, to the right of Chuck were the black belts and to the left were the white belts. The dividers that had split the room into 3 separate areas for the seminars earlier were opened up and the ring of participants took up all of the space even though we were all standing shoulder to shoulder. The idea here is that Chuck initiates the “passing the pain” ritual by doing a right back-fist to the abdomen of the person standing to his right, Vic, and then Vic then does the same thing to the person standing to his right and on and on. The person delivering the blow ki-yaps upon execution and the person receiving the blow also ki-yaps up receipt. Starting with Chuck, this goes on to his right all the way around from the black belts to the white belts and then when it gets around to Chuck again he sends it back the other way. Basically there is a lot of yelling and hitting going on in an organized fashion, sort of like brutal human dominos. This is passing the pain.

Upon the completion of passing the pain, we all bowed and saluted and that concluded the 2nd Annual West Coast Kenpo Confederation so far as the seminar portion.