kempoinfo.com

Combination 91

matt — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 13:45:00 +0000

Combination 91 was a bit of an enigma. Why start in a left front stance and what the heck was an “open crane’s wing”? We dug into our old crane techniques and experimented to see what felt right. We’re pretty satisfied with the result, but if there’s anyone out there with a definitive answer, let us know or put up a video.

We’ve put over twenty new combination videos into the archive at this point. It’s a pretty good celebration of 20 years of the technique archive. There are more in the pipeline – don’t worry. We have a ways to go, but it’s starting to look like rounding out the archive is almost a possibility. There’s still the issue of 92 and 104-107 where we don’t even have a description – ask around, somebody hopefully has them – but we’re about 75% there. We’ve done over twenty in a little over a month so hopefully we can keep up the pace. The next question for me is: what’s next?

Combination 95

matt — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:38:20 +0000

This one had two very similar descriptions sent in. We did them both, but I think the more detailed one wins for me. There are elements in it that are like combination 34, and the spin move shows up in an intermediate kempo I had. Scheduling has been tricky, but I am trying to keep an every other day posting pace to keep this project moving.

Fine tuning your inward block.

matt — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 11:15:00 +0000

Continuing on the Tommy Karate mining, I was watching this video and found that Tom explained the inward block in similar way to the way I explain it. If you block with your forearm perpendicular to the floor, it presents the problem of powering your opponent’s next punch. By making some subtle adjustments you can stall that rotation and buy yourself some time. There are some other great pieces of advice in this video in addition to the block explanation, so watch the whole thing even if it is a white belt technique. Of course it wouldn’t be a true martial arts recommendation without me saying I’d do a backfist instead of the back two knuckle punch (or in addition), but that’s the way the world of martial arts works.

Combination 85

matt — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 13:36:00 +0000

This one was a little bit difficult due to risks to the uke. We demonstrated it as written, but came up with some alternate versions to keep the elements and the spirit with perhaps more coherence or safety for the uke. See what you think and let me know your favorite.

Tommy Karate

matt — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 04:45:01 +0000

Tom Campbell, 7th Dan has a channel on YouTube and you probably want to check it out. He has videos on combinations and more. I’m glad that folks are putting themselves out there. It’s a whole new world compared to when this archive started.

Combination 83

matt — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:49:00 +0000

We called this one ‘stand there and chicken’. It seems extraordinary to block and perform four counterstrikes before you take any footwork steps. It also has an ‘aspirational’ neck break at the end mid-snap mare throw. However, stay to the end of the video because Chris Hatch had an epiphany that definitely upgraded this combination in my eyes.

Sniffing Out Dead Links

matt — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 14:33:29 +0000

I was looking at the kempoinfo.com site dashboard and noticed that a couple of the links people were clicking on were to my old video host. The archive dates back a long time, so YouTube wasn’t the obvious choice at the time. When the other provider discontinued hosting video, I migrated the content over to YouTube. With over 150 pages of content and around 500 posts, I clearly missed a few. I have fixed a couple (combinations 63 and 11) and will have to replace a few as I don’t seem to have them. Some of the links in the posts have gone dead, but those generally link to other people’s content, so they may have taken it down. That being said – if you click on a dead link in the archive, please let me know and I’ll try to fix it.

Combination 71

matt — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 11:05:00 +0000

This was one of the first ones that Chris and I tried to reverse engineer, and we tinkered with it until we felt we understood the flow of it. I’m pleased to see the introduction of head movement – I feel it is underutilized in many karate and kempo styles. We’ll do a deep dive on that later, but it’s a welcome detail.

The combination is fairly one sided, but I encountered that in some other older techniques from other arts. The flow is interesting, and it has a classic ‘Villari-esque’ finish.

Combination 90

matt — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 16:56:00 +0000

We’re really connecting the dots on the 80-90 page. This one posed some trouble for us as the description used the term ‘floating knee’ and ‘reverse back crane’s wing’, which didn’t show up anywhere else. We used context clues to reverse engineer the technique, but if you have this one firsthand, we’d be happy to see a video of your version.

Combination 89

matt — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 15:51:56 +0000

This was interesting – the archive received two versions of this that were nearly identical except for the assertiveness. One went forward with a closed fist iron fortress, while the other drew back to a cat with an open hand version. I do have to admit that this one was filmed at the end of a long session, and the editing is rougher than usual as I had to trim out a bit of silliness. In fact, it was a second take, as I spent the first one referring to it by the wrong number.