Kajukenbo Ohana Association - KOA

Kajukenbo - WUN HOP KUEN DO

Wun Hop Kuen Do (Kanton) or Hun He Quan Dao ( Mandarin ) is the art of the combined first fist fight style, an American innovation of the Haiwaiian Kajukenbo system and various Chinese martial arts, which had been founded in 1968 by Albert J. Dacascos (born in 1942 ). Although the Kajukenbo system gave the strongest basics for the Wun Hop Kuen Do style in the beginning, it developed itself independently and the original Kajukenbo principles fell out; this development found new extreme expressive and effective methods of fighting for the street-fight as well as for the competition and the Wun Hop Kuen Do forms (Kuen/Katja). Secondary forms consist of the use of traditional weapons as well as the traditional forms of the Southern and Northern style, the Si-Lum and inner system. Through Sigung Al Dacascos and his few chosen legal master students, the student learns all important physical basics of the art; for example blocks, beats, kicks, throws, levers, etc. The most important part of the Wun Hop Kuen Do is not "what is done" but "how it is done".

The method is the physical, philosophical and psychological approach; to develop the optimum in performance in a student. The best result in Wun Hop Kuen Do had been reached by the teaching method from a teacher to a student, so that a lot of successes had flowed out of the doors of the Wun Hop Kuen Do academies. The first physical level stresses the inner and outer condition very hard, so that the perfection of the own physical weapons ( fingers, legs, etc. ) as well as the control of aids ( sticks, knives, etc. ) will be reached.

The second physical level of the Wun Hop Kuen Do is the application of the mechanism and the use of the fighting principles ( explosion, direct movement, timing, etc. ) which is needed to obtain a development to the third physical level of the Wun Hop Kuen Do. The third level is for personal development and creativity with the help of spontaneity and effective exercises of reaction. These exercises are only prac- tised by top students and teachers of the Wun Hop Kuen Do to reach the end result - the total fight artist.

From the thousands of people who prevailed through Wun Hop Kuen Do and its three levels only few of them managed to realize the Wun Hop Kuen Do. To realize Wun Hop Kuen Do means to live Wun Hop Kuen Do, to succeed through the big experience, which Sigung Al Dacascos received through the years. He is ex-champion in fighting and form competition as well as an excellent producer and teacher. His ability is clearly showed through his students, who he brought out to the USA and Europe.

The meaning

The meaning of Wun Hop Kuen Do, according to Sigung Al Dacascos, came to light only in 1969. "I needed 13 years ( 1956-1969 ) to form the thought and further years to limit the meaning, develop and understand it. Wun Hop Kuen Do is only a name. It is not a fixed system or style. It is only an expression of personel creation from a basic idea to a personel freedom of expression. Wun Hop Kuen Do is not finished. As long as I live and even afterwards the ideas and thoughts will be maintained through my successors and bear fruits.

Whether the name Wun Hop Kuen Do will remain the same in future is not important for the way this martial art will go. Don't let us go on about the name because only the meaning of the target is important - the end result, how and through what it can be reached. Go into the things and be spontaneous in all what is now ( life ) and understand what has been and is passed ( death ). Everything has its reason and its meaning.

Everything that is now and all that lies in the future depends on the past. It doesn't matter how you approach a problem, the problem contains the answer. To value the freedom, you have to know the borders. In our case, the borders are the mechanical part, the traditional, the classical. Shortly said, the past. From here and with the total understanding of this part we can continue our progress in unlimited areas in the present and in the future.

My thought is that tomorrow the present is already past and this brings along new discoveries....... I use the word "discovery" because "martial arts" are more than 4,000 years old and a lot of masters have taken their secrets with them into the grave. Could it be that I rediscovered some of these thoughts due to my efforts and my experiments?

Nobody knows it but a lot of honours were overdue a long time ago. I hope to have ex- pressed what they ( the masters ) would have expected from these arts: Namely, not only to practise the arts but to express their personality through them. To let yourself drive and not to fight against it. To be for it and not to be against it. Only when you, the student, are through the beginning you will be able to assess this expression correctly. There is no end and no frontier in Wun Hop Kuen Do. It is only the beginning of the human ability to be creative and therefore to "be" ( in the sense of human life )."

I use the word "discovery" because "martial arts" are more than 4,000 years old and a lot of masters have taken their secrets with them into the grave. Could it be that I rediscovered some of these thoughts due to my efforts and my experiments? Nobody knows it but a lot of honours were overdue a long time ago. I hope to have ex- pressed what they ( the masters ) would have expected from these arts: Namely, not only to practise the arts but to express their personality through them. To let yourself drive and not to fight against it. To be for it and not to be against it.

Only when you, the student, are through the beginning you will be able to assess this expression correctly. There is no end and no frontier in Wun Hop Kuen Do. It is only the beginning of the human ability to be creative and therefore to "be" ( in the sense of human life )."