Professor Park and the Gathering of Eagles

Author	Michael D. Park
E-mail	michael.d.park@verizon.net
URL	http://www.KempoKarateofPlano.com
Comment	I met and trained with Dr. Barber at the Gathering of Eagles / Kenpo Hall of Fame. I found him to be an honest representative of authentic technique and one of the few that impressed me with a solid tactical understanding and complimentary philosophy. He is a humble, effective and accomplished teacher of martial-arts. ----------------------------------------------------------- I just met Professor Park at the 2013 Gathering of Eagles in Chicago, last weekend, through a mutual friend Master John Bain.  We were able to attend one another's seminars, which ran 90 minutes each and it gave us an opportunity to compare notes and ideas about personal self-defense tactics and techniques.  All three of us share a Kenpo/Kempo background, but have introduced elements from several other styles within our presentations. Professor Park and Master Bain are "old school" trained and their ideas and philosophies are quite similar to my own.  For instance, in training our students, the student is shown the technique, run through several repetitions and then given an opportunity to practice against new partners, critiqued and only then allowed to ask questions.  Then we explain  the details and give a possible variation if necessary.  We expect our students to execute the techniques correctly in practice and "short-cutting" is not an option available to our students because we know that under the stress of an actual street confrontation our students will not be able to perform the technique at 100% efficiency, therefore getting it right in practice means the student has an 85 to 90%  chance of making the techniques work in the street, where it will count the most and there are no 'do-overs'. I want to thank Professor Park for his kind words and I am looking forward to working with him again in the near future. Sincerely, Jerome Barber, Ed. D.