The frauds would come out everywhere!!! Claiming to be a Eddie Bravo instructor. Eddie's Blackbelts might want to go in different directions. Causing a bunch of BS politics. Some might want to cash in on Eddie's legacy and make claims of "True Eddie Bravo JJ".... this shit has happened in martial arts many times...look at some of the Gracies!
a example:
American Kenpo died with Ed Parker, on December 15, 1990. At his funeral his wife, Leilani Parker, announced that Ed Parker left no successor. Thus the death knells toll not only the passing of a great man, but proclaimed the slow death of the martial arts style he had created. In the twenty years since his death American Kenpo has deteriorated to such a deplorable state that only two Ed Parker students, Kevin Lamkin and Erick Lamkin, now teach American Kenpo as Ed Parker established it.
At his death, belt rank and fees, the cash cow of American Kenpo, was up for grabs. Who had authority to promote, and to what rank became a cottage industry with more than 50 organizations coming into existence to unite Kenpo (for a fee). Low ranked students claimed authority to promote their instructors, and the instructors eagerly claimed that worthless rank with the promise to promote anyone who would unite under them. Mrs. Parker brought in marginal black belts, "secret weapons," who feigned authority for what had for a decade already been questionable rank. What she failed to realize was a branch from a dead tree is still dead.
American Kenpo quickly became a term of exploitation. Honor was given to Ed Parker in name only while diluting his system; and, as the concepts of American Kenpo failed, many of those pretenders began calling what they taught, "Ed Parker Kenpo Karate." Likewise in Europe, American Kenpo was completely abandoned while still claiming direct authority from Ed parker. The standards for belt rank in those systems is so lax, that a 3rd degree black belt would not qualify as a green belt in true Kenpo. Additionally, some of Ed Parker's writings contained inconsistencies, errors and misstatement's which became the creed of the credulous, and a gospel of the gullible, that bread anarchy and promoted dishonesty as the hallmark of the new pseudo American Kenpo.
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Originally Posted by Nick Powers
