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Thoughts on Kenpo – The Way of the Fist?

In Japanese it is pronounced kempo, in Mandarin Chinese, chuan fa, and in the Hokkien dialect, kuntao. Regardless of how it is pronounced, all of these words come from the same Chinese characters and have been translated variously as fist law, fist rule, fist way, and way of the fist. Using Hepburn's Japanese and English Dictionary, a long-standing authority on the Japanese language, the word kempo is made from two Chinese characters - ken and ho. Ken translated literally means "a game played with the hands." Ho means "rule" or "law." When these two simple characters are combined, their pronunciation becomes "kempo" which is written in Romanji as kempo or kenpo.

The literal translation of these two characters then, is a game played with the hands, and "rule" or "law." But, as with most languages, literal translation is woefully inadequate. Take the case of the computer translating program which attempted to translate Russian technical journals into English. Since it could only translate literally it completely missed the mark when it translated the Russian term for a "hydraulic ram" into "water goat." "Fist way" and "fist law" also miss the mark (although not so dramatically). If we go beyond the literal translation of "rules of a game played with the hands" (rearranged) we come up with "boxing principles." Fist law, fist rule, fist way, etc., are all acceptable, but boxing principles better captures the characters' real meaning.

One more refinement, however, should bring us even closer. Substitute the word "fighting" for "boxing." This is because to the Western mind "boxing" carries a hands-only connotation, where Oriental martial arts "boxing" includes both hands and feet. Substituting "fighting" for "boxing" then removes that "hands only" impression, yielding "fighting principles" as the best translation of the term - kempo.

On a final note - we often refer to "fighting." Do  not mistake this to mean that we expect you to be mugged next week, or some lunatic to attack you at your local gas station (Weigel's in Knoxville!).  We use the word "fighting" because the possibility that you will be attacked is the basic premise in all martial-arts training. This is just a focal point for your martial arts training. View the martial arts as a path to inner peace, a sport, a way to lose weight, a physical-fitness discipline, or just a hobby. Any of those are fine, but keep your focus on the imaginary confrontation to guide you through your martial arts training.

Fighting is both a literal possibility and a metaphor for battles with any enemy you have in mind, whether it's obesity, stress, laziness, or a street thug.