Durango Kenpo Karate Studio              970-259-3795
Home   About Us   Our Staff   Programs   Our Hours   Adult Requirements   Youth Requirements   Schedule   School Photos   Events   Grand Master   Steve Shover   Calendar   Free Trial   History   Contact Us   Join Our E-mail List		A SHORT HISTORY OF KENPO Of all major Martial Arts styles, Kenpo's origin and history are the least understood and the most confusing. Kenpo is a mixture of five cultures: first and most important, Chinese; second Japanese; followed by Okinawan, Hawaiian ( before Hawaii became a state ) and American. The greatest confusion regarding "Kenpo" is the orgin and meaning of it's name. Despite it's birth in China, the art we call "Kenpo" was passed down through the Mitose family who studied the origial art in China in the 1600's and brought it back to Japan. Since the Mitose family was Japanese, they naturally used the Japanese language rather than the Chinese to describe their family system, which they later named "Kosho-Ryu" ( Old Pine Tree Style ): "Ko (old) " Sho" (Pine Tree): "Ryu" (school or style) Modern day usage of the terms "Kung Fu" ( Chinese Mandarin dialect) or "Gung Fu" ( Chinese Cantonese dialect), Wu-Shu" (Military/War Art) and " Kuo-Shu" ( National Art) to describe the Chinese Martial arts has added more confusion. Each of the the names in general describes the same martial arts. "Kung Fu" (or "Gung Fu") means desciplined technique, skill, time ( the period of time used by a person to do a specific type of work), ability, and is a generic term for exercise. "Kung Fu" is the term used outside mainland China (most notably the United States) to describe any of the martial arts.