Posts Tagged ‘Ken Twaddell’

Ken Twaddell and Master Bruce Yang

Road-Testing Military Tai Chi
© Marc Wickert www.knucklepit.com

It’s 9:30am and Ken Twaddell has just arrived from Springwood after catching the train down to join me for coffee at Gloria Jean’s Café in Robina Shopping Centre.  The waitresses here are lovely and it’s one of our favorite places to enjoy a cup or two.  Today Ken is going to be discussing the application of Tai Chi as military art.

Tai Chi Chuan (Taiji Quan) is the most practiced martial art system in the world.  There’s every chance your mother or grandmother has tried it at their local community center.  Tai Chi’s health and healing benefits are well known, but the martial side of the discipline is practiced by a much smaller percentage of people.

“There are five main styles of Tai Chi Chuan: Chen, Yang, Wu, Wu (Hao) and Sun, with practitioners taking up one of the systems for health and wellbeing or as a method of self defense,” says Ken.  “The internal martial arts of Xing Yi, Quan, Yi Quan, Bagua and Tai Chi Chuan were originally designed for the battlefield.  Soldiers and bodyguards used these arts in combat very affectively.”

“History is filled with famous masters of Tai Chi Chuan: Chang Shan Feng, Chen Wang Ting, Cheng Ling Xi, Yang Lu Chan, Yang Cheng Fu, Chen Man Ching… All of these men used this art for hand-to-hand combat as well as to defeat all challenges.  They all possessed extraordinary fighting skills:

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Ken Twaddell Road-Testing Military TKD

Road-Testing Military Taekwondo

© Marc Wickert, www.knucklepit.com

It’s not long after daybreak at Gloria Jean’s café in Coolangatta, and we’re experiencing another great morning as the surf rolls in while Ken Twaddell and I sit back and enjoy our coffees.  These perfect conditions are expected to change dramatically in the next day or two when Australia’s east coast is in for its third major dust storm in less than a month – the worst dust storms since 1932, we’re told.

Ken has informed me that his latest review of the military fighting arts involves Military Taekwondo.  In the early 1980s, Twaddell and Gary Dunsmore (Taekwondo 4^th Dan and Kempo 4^th Dan) ran a combat karate school at Penrith Fitness Centre in Sydney’s west.  Dunsmore was one of Australia’s early Taekwondo Dan grades, having been fortunate to experience training sessions with the Elite Special Forces Tiger Division, who were greatly feared by the Vietcong army due to their fearsome unarmed fighting methods during the Vietnam War.

“Taekwondo can be broken down into ‘Tae’ meaning to kick or smash with the feet, ‘Kwon’ meaning to punch or destroy, and ‘Do’ meaning the way or method,” says Twaddell.  “Military Taekwondo uses unarmed combat techniques for self defense.

“Techniques include:
*Striking – using open- or closed-hand methods
*Kicking – employing spinning, jumping and numerous linear and circular methods
*Defense – through blocking, parrying with hands, arms and feet, as well as the use of throws, takedowns, locks and pressure-point applications.”

Twaddell says that all Korean military personnel are trained in Taekwondo, and that Korean military arts have a long history incorporating numerous systems.

“Just to name a few, the ancient art of Su Bak was one of Korea’s first martial arts developed by the Hwarang, and it was an unarmed method of combat practiced by the military.  Su Bak fighting methods focused on ‘quick kill’ tactics using aggressive linear techniques.

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Ken Twaddell Road-Tests Military Sanshou

Road-Testing Military Sanshou

© Marc Wickert www.knucklepit.com

In previous publications at Knucklepit, renowned martial arts instructor Ken Twaddell has road-tested Military Systema and Commando Krav Maga.  In this article, Ken zooms in on his favorite military fighting style – Sanshou.

It’s always a pleasure to catch up with Ken, and today I’m interviewing him outside the Lion’s Club marquee in Canberra.  It’s a cool 6am in Australia’s capital as we devour hot pancakes covered in maple syrup to help support the Lion’s Club’s fundraising and our greedy palates.

In the background are approximately 40 hot-air balloons being inflated as festivities get underway to celebrate Canberra’s 96^th birthday.   Only meters from us is a huge kookaburra-shaped balloon taking to the skies.  Behind the RAAF entry, balloons of all shapes and spectacular colors are coming alive; an enormous ladybird is being launched and even a birthday-cake balloon is inflated.

Now: back to Sanshou.  Meaning ‘free hands’ or ‘loose hands’, Chinese Sanshou is also referred to as ‘Sanda’, which translates to ‘free hit’ or ‘free fighting’.  “The term ‘Sanda’ has a longer history and was more commonly used, whereas ‘Sanshou’ is a relatively modern term,” says Twaddell.

Sanshou can be broken down into three categories:

Military Sanshou (Chinese unarmed combat),

Civilian Sanshou (Street defense), and

Sport Sanshou (Chinese kickboxing).

Military Sanshou is the style adapted by Ken Twaddell for his own Elite Combat Kung Fu (ECKF). 

“ECKF was designed from the fundamentals of the Chinese Special Technical Forces of Unarmed Combat, which includes pressure-point fighting, and iron-body combat conditioning that I studied over the last 45 years of martial arts training and 30 years of instructing and officiating,” says Twaddell.

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Ken Twaddell Investigates Commando Krav Maga

Road-Testing Commando Krav Maga
© Marc Wickert, www.knucklepit.com

It’s a perfect spring morning here on the Tweed Heads/Coolangatta border, and from the café where I’m sitting with Ken Twaddell, the view is stunning: There’s a humpback whale mother-and-calf team heading back down the coast to Antarctica, and a delightful young waitress is brewing our coffees.  La dolce vita!

Now back to the interview.  Ken has been training with Lui Pirrone Cook for the past year in Commando Krav Maga (CKM).  “Lui was qualified to teach CKM by its chief instructor, Moni Aizik, and I have been Lui’s guinea pig,” says Twaddell.

Combat Krav Maga is an Israeli elite forces defense system that is reality based and utilizes both simple techniques and quick disengagements.  “The one-to-three-move responses are drilled over and over in all different scenarios whilst under pressure to simulate the real thing.  The way you train is the way you fight.  And the less complicated the techniques or methods used the more efficient and practical they will be under stress.”  Twaddell says it’s the repetitive drills that make CKM work in an adrenaline-fueled atmosphere.

The drills are designed to use as many scenarios as possible: surprise attacks, multiple adversaries, inside and outside attacks, various terrains, defense against weapons… “The intensity of these high-pressure drills is designed to strengthen you physically, mentally and emotionally.  You are trained to disengage and escape your attacker(s), and not to stay around because the longer you engage, the longer you are at risk.

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Carlos Navarro, Dan Inosanto and Ken Twaddell

Military Martial Arts Systems

© Marc Wickert, www.knucklepit.com

It’s a sunny autumn day on this leafy avenue in Brisbane, Australia – Ken Twaddell’s favorite time of year. We’re relaxing in a quaint coffee shop as a young waitress floats from table to table, and locals take time out to chat about the day. It seems ironic that one of Australia’s most knowledgeable martial artists can sit here anonymously and just blend in like a chameleon.

I recall Geoff Thompson saying that the superior warrior becomes invisible because he has confidence in his abilities and has nothing to prove. This is certainly the case with Ken, who refers to himself as a ‘martial arts sticky beak’ and is always interested in the different styles of combat being practiced.

“I see there’s a big trend in martial arts at the moment for realistic self defense – hence the popularity of military martial arts and mixed martial arts. And with today’s added violence, the threat of terrorism, and the fact that eighty percent of today’s population has practiced some form of martial arts, it’s all the more reason for people to study some form of realistic self defense,” says Twaddell.

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Commando Fighting Systems Expert Ken Twaddell

TREADING THE TRACK OF KEN TWADDELL
© Marc Wickert, www.knucklepit.com

Knucklepit is excited to announce Ken Twaddell, a leading international martial arts authority and practioner of fighting arts since 1959, will be reviewing a wide variety of military commando systems for our readers.  But first, to get the ball rolling, here is a brief background into Ken Twaddell.

At ten-years-of-age, Ken Twaddell was sitting in a small-town picture theatre at the Saturday afternoon matinee when a documentary on karate was shown before the main feature.

“I was sitting there and they showed these karate practitioners smashing boards, breaking tiles and doing multiple self-defence routines, and as a young boy, I was thinking like ‘Wow. I want to do that!’” says Twaddell.

Ken had already been doing boxing for five years when, in 1964, he started Goju Kai Karate under instructor, Merve Oakley, at Meadowbank in NSW.

Ken went along for the first night and watched.

He was so impressed by the martial artists that night, that he remembers being happy with the prospect of just becoming a green belt one day. Read the rest of this entry »