This is actually a FB memory from my personal page that I thought I'd share.
The classes I teach for Cornerstone Martial Arts are primarily JKD-based, but I also have a background in Kenpo/Kempo (I started Kenpo in late 1974 or early 1975).
This is something I wrote in remembrance of Professor William Kwai-Sun Chow.
The Great-Grandmaster of Kempo.
Enjoy
-David
This was my first instructor in Hawaii. The legendary Professor William Kwai-Sun "Thunderbolt" Chow. The Great Grandmaster of Kempo.
It took weeks that turned into months of me pestering him before he finally took me on as a student, and even though I had already been training and teaching Kenpo for many years, I started as a white belt.
The training was brutal beyond anything I had experienced (or frankly, was prepared for!), and brought new, literal meaning to concept of having "every muscle in your body hurt ''.
Over the years I've had high ranking Kenpoists (on the mainland) tell me with alleged great authority on what kind of a man Prof. Chow was....
"Oh, Chow was 'this', or Chow was 'that'".
I'd nod my head politely and think to myself, "Oh really? Did you know him? Eat with him? Train with him, sit in your car and talk with him for hours on end when no one else could come to class?
Do you know what he actually thought of all the well-known instructors from the mainland that came to train with him?"
No?
I didn't think so.
You want to know how I remember him?
(Martial artists, particularly Kenpoists, ask me that all the time and I usually brush the question off.)
In a nutshell:
*The training was BRUTAL.
*Even as an older man he was EXTREMELY fast and powerful, and VERY scrappy.
*While he was suspicious of people using his name to further their career, he was very kind once he trusted you.
*He used to read and quote Bible scripture in class in-between the brutal training.
That's the nutshell version.
When you think about the fact that all Chinese Kempo, American Kenpo, Tracy's Kenpo, IKCA Kenpo, Kenpo 5.0, Shaolin Kenpo, Kajukenbo...the list goes on and on... ALL these arts, and their organizations, trace their lineage to him; this man was arguably one of the most influential martial artists in modern history.
Really it's a travesty that he isn't more widely known and remembered.
Years ago I turned down an opportunity to write an article about him in one of the (now defunct) major martial arts magazines. Mostly because I didn't think Prof. Chow would like it. I always held to the thought that I wouldn't use his name to promote myself, because he felt so many people had done just that.
Over the last few years I've been thinking of writing something mostly because I hear so many negative things about him from people that didn't even know him.
His legacy should at least be known and he should be remembered for how he really was, not the versions going around the Kenpo rumor mill.
Honestly, I loved him.
He was a good, kind, tough man, and he was literally a living legend.
Professor William Kwai-Sun Chow
The Great-Grandmaster of Kempo.
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