The Kajukenbo MMA Branch is Here

Is this what we want?

For those of you who have been sleeping under a rock (or were put to sleep there by your instructor), a fifth branch of Kajukenbo has been created. This is big news.

The last branch to be added was Wun Hop Kuen Do, in 1969. Tum Pai, Ch’uan Fa, and Wun Hop Kuen Do all worked to integrate more of the Chinese arts into Kaju, which itself originally relied more on Japanese arts and Western Boxing. (The only Kung Fu present among the founders was a southern style called Hakka. And by the way, none of the founders did “Karate”.)

This new branch will be focused on MMA. Is that a good thing? As expected, the idea has its detractors. The idea I’ve heard for years was that “Kajukenbo is already a mixed martial art! We teach it all already!”

Except, we don’t. We’ve marketed Kaju as being able to teach groundwork, but we don’t. Our art was developed partly by men with groundwork experience, but how much of that was put into our Palama Sets? Our Tricks? The only Kaju people teaching accurate “Ju” in our KaJUkenbo are the ones who have achieved rank in those styles, or people with meaningful experience in Greco-Roman wrestling.

Some instructors have expressed, and I quote, “disgust” on realizing how little Judo and Jiu-jutsu techniques are found in regular Kajukenbo classes. 

So no. Even though our art encourages you to study groundwork and bring it in to Kaju, taking classes from a Kaju guy does not guarantee you will learn the groundwork necessary for mma and, by extension, modern self defense. Mma is one way to better prepare your students for modern threats, because guess what…a lot of criminals know how to ground fight now too.

Another thing I’ve heard whispers of, regarding the new branch: “It should be led by [insert name], not Hackleman”.

Now, I’m gonna be upfront…Hackleman and I have disagreed on a few things. He probably doesn’t even remember talking to me, but we went back and forth on facebook a few times, years ago. Actually, I think I was the first “Kajukenbo” guy to interview him about himself, back in 2019 when he was still describing what he taught as “Hawaiian Kenpo”. You can find that interview by clicking here.

(If you know of an older interview in Kaju circles, please let me know. I’d love to read it.)

Frankly, I can’t think of anyone better to lead the integration of official mma coaching into Kajukenbo, which is supposed to be evolving anyway. Yes, yes…in an mma ring there’s no glass on the ground, it’s only a one-on-one fight, no weapons allowed, they’ll let go when you tap, no biting or groin shots, etc etc. 

But as Hoch Hochheim best put it: mma is the great “proving grounds” of your training. If you can kick a guy in the stomach, you can kick him in the nuts too. If you can jab a girl in the face, you can poke her eye too. Maybe most importantly: if you can survive the training for a ring fight, you’ll be in better shape to deal with whatever street situation comes your way. And Hackleman has the most experience training multiple champions.

He’s worked his ass off and deserves it.

Have other Kaju guys done well in the ring? Ask Bobby Seronio III, the first mma fighter I saw with his style listed as “Kajukenbo”. Currently undefeated. Ask Tom Theofanopoulos, founder of the Last Stand fight team, about his fighters (or read about them in his interview, in my new book, available July 30th on Amazon).

Kajukenbo CAN translate well for the ring, even with the limits enforced by sportsmanship. And we should be encouraging it. Why not let the guy with the most experience lead the way?

Now, there is one thing I worry about when it comes to making an official mma branch. I recently talked to Melcor Chavez. For those of you who don’t know, Chavez is a Kajukenbo grandmaster with 56 years of Kaju experience, as well as experience in boxing, kickboxing (in New Mexico, Portugal, and Holland), Muay Thai (in Thailand, Holland, and France), Savate, Tae Kwon Do, Shotokan Karate, Judo, wrestling, and stick and knife fighting. 

Running a gym that has been home to 17 world champions in kickboxing, Muay Thai, WBC boxing, and WBA boxing, at one point Chavez started working mma and then…stopped. Why? Because he didn’t like what it was doing to his fighters. Even today you’ll find memes talking about how mma guys are thugs, and how the martial arts creates gentlemen and tough ladies instead. This idea is grounded in truth because of one problem: mma doesn’t penalize students for being assholes.

That was my problem with supporting fighters like Tito Ortiz, actually. I’m fine with playing the dirty dozens, if both people are digging it. But I don’t like bullies. The difference is in trading barbs with someone you drink with later, and punching down on someone riding the short bus. Ortiz struck me as someone who would do the latter. Meanwhile Chavez has worked in a gang-ridden neighborhood since 1973 and produced all kinds of great fighters, and he doesn’t want the fighters he produced to have that stereotypical mma attitude.

I think back to Chuck Liddell’s prime, when he was beating the likes of Ortiz and Randy Couture. One of the things I’ll always remember, one of the things that made me respect Liddell, was watching the pre-fight hype-up interviews.

You know the ones. They go back and forth between spliced interviews to show the fighters trash talking each other. Except…Liddell was really bad at it. And if you knew what to look for, you could tell they were trying SO hard to get Liddell to say something douchie but couldn’t. Maybe he just didn’t have the gift of gab…but I like that he didn’t have to be an asshole before beating the s#!t out of someone. I respected that, tremendously.

Another story I heard from Tom Theofanopoulos (and also found in my new book) tells of a time he brought a teenage Michael McDonald to a fight. McDonald won by a long shot, and his opponent responded with lots of swearing. Theofanopoulos told him to stop the swearing, because families were present. Later, that fighter’s mother brought him to Theofanopoulos’ gym because she loved the respect…can we say “honor”?…that this Kajukenbo/mma coach instilled.

So now we have a new branch, based on mma. What do I think? Lots of Kaju schools have already been integrating mma fighting into their training and improving their fighters. Now, they can learn more, and everyone else can start learning.

At the same time, we have a chance to change mma, and by extension the world.

Teaching an asshole how to fight makes them an asshole who can beat people up. What if we could do something further? What if we could create world champions that can be role models for the next generation, not just for being badasses, but for being good people, too?

What if we can keep the honor and respect that traditional martial artists hypocritically brag about, while training people that can beat up bullies?

If we take this path, our Kajukenbo mma will someday be miles ahead of every other mma gym out there. And I think that’s a good thing for the art that we all love, no matter how you look at it.