The Roots of Aiki Kempo Jiu Jitsu
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This page is (c) Guy Gratton, 2006. Please feel free to copy or link any text, but you must say where it came from.

It is traditional at this point on a martial arts club’s webpage to explain why this is a martial art, with a history of thousands of years, practiced by some wizened oriental master living in a cave about 3000BC, and despite being unchanged since then, it’s still the most devastatingly effective martial art in history – learnable in a year, with your black belt in three. None of that is true for us, and it’s probably not true for anybody else either!

We call our style Aiki Kempo Jiu Jitsu; reflecting roots at-least partly in traditional Japanese martial arts. “Aiki” means “to do with the use and flow of energy” (often called chi or qi), “Kempo” means strictly “the way of the fist”, but we interpret it as meaning that we include the use of striking, and in particular anatomically precise striking in our art; “Jiu” (which could be spelled Ju – the only truly correct spelling is in Kanji, or Japanese script!) means soft or gentle, and “Jitsu” means “skill”. So, we practice a gentle skill, that includes hitting people, and also relies upon the use and flow of energy. That may sound contradictory to somebody from outside the martial arts world, but it’s pretty close to the truth.

Whilst based upon historical roots, particularly those from Japan and China, modern Kempo is evolving and flexible – within the framework of Japanese tradition, and the best that each instructor can present. Our style of Kempo particularly includes the use of techniques of:

• Throwing and grappling from Jiu Jitsu (Jujitsu) and Aikido
• Healing from Shiatsu (often called acupressure)
• Flow drills from Wing Chun Kung Fu, and from Eskrima
• Striking from Karate
• Etiquette from the traditional Japanese Budo arts (Jiu Jitsu, Karate, Aikido, Shorinji Kempo and many others)

We believe that modern Kempo therefore forms one of the finest complete martial art systems. It won’t make you invincible, neither can it be learned quickly – a lifetime of study and you’ll probably still be wanting to learn and develop your personal skills further. But it is good fun, good exercise, effective self defence, and should also complement most other martial art systems you might also have learned.

This is delivered in an environment of mutual respect between everybody, and a firm intention that everybody leaves happy, and uninjured!

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