User:Martsteacher/Five-Level Method

Five-Level Method© / Shorin-Ju Kenpo is a martial art style founded in the late 1980's by Jerry Smith.

Five-Level Method© / Shorin-Ju Kenpo History
In the late 1980's, Jerry Smith founded a martial art training system called "The Five-Level Method”©, based on his decades of experience as a martial artist. Jerry formed his training system around what he learned during his own fighting career and his many years of training professional fighters in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

The concepts and principles in The Five-Level Method© were born from Jerry’s need to develop a template that effectively assessed a professional athlete’s abilities in a combative sport, and then could be used to train those athletes to be professional fighters. Jerry felt a strong responsibility to teach young fighters about fighting principles and methods, in order to give them a competitive advantage over their opponents without sacrificing safety.

The Five-Level Method© was also originally known as “Shorin-Do Kenpo”. That name was based on Jerry’s own formal training in Shorin-Ryu, Judo and Kenpo. Jerry later changed that name to “Shorin-Ju Kenpo” to give equal weight to his training in Jujitsu.

Attaining black belts in Shorin-Ryu under Jun Kina in Okinawa, American Kenpo in the Tracy system (see Tracy_Kenpo ) and Jujitsu under John Chambers, as well as a brown belt in Judo, gave Jerry Smith the technical foundation for Shorin-Ju Kenpo. And engaging in years of successful competition and personal training with the martial arts legend Joe Lewis (see Joe_Lewis_(martial_artist) ) gave Jerry the practical experience he needed to ensure the effectiveness of Shorin-Ju Kenpo. As the Senior Grandmaster of this style, Jerry continues today to use his experience as a coach and former international semi-contact champion fighter to train the next generation of students in the martial arts in Sunnyvale, California.

As Jerry regularly tells his students, Shorin-Ju Kenpo is more than a martial art, it is a martial science. It is based on fighting principles, instead of a rigid “style.” It provides a complete method of self-defense and fighting, rather than being limited to a particular style of martial art. Many martial art styles focus on the physical or technical levels of self-defense. (e.g. conditioning and techniques.) The Five-Level Method also teaches fighting principles as well as the five necessary levels of combat:  physical, technical, mechanical, psychological and academic. For example, increasing your cardiovascular stamina is certainly good for a student, and knowing which specific muscles to train to be a more effective martial artist is even better. As another example, while mimicking an instructor’s movements is generally practiced in martial arts, you should also understand how the body needs to be positioned when executing the technique (mechanics) and why the technique is valid (academic.)

Shorin-Ju Kenpo uses a combination of sets to build coordination and mechanical proficiency, techniques to arm students with practical self-defense options and forms to train students on using strikes, blocks, kicks and techniques from any angle. All of this in addition to focusing on five levels of defense and fighting principles allows this to be a complete system.

Credo: The ultimate goal of The Five-Level Method© is neither victory nor defeat, but the perfection of ones character.

Five-Level Method© / Shorin-Ju Kenpo: Required Forms, Sets and Techniques
Square Blocking Set (Orange)

Punching Set (Orange)

Kicking Set (Orange)

Moving Set (Orange)

Long Blocking Set (Purple)

Stance Set (Purple)

Hidden Set (Purple-Blue)

Empty Hand Set (Blue)

Advanced Striking Set (Green)

Advanced Blocking Set (Green)

2-man Set (Brown-Black)

2-man Set, moving (Black)

Short Form 1 (Green-Brown)

Long Form 1 (Green-Brown)

Long Form 2 – part 1 (technique names only) - Brown: - Hidden Hammers - Folding Wings - Escaping Blades - Sweeping the Mace - Circling Hammers - Snapping the Twig - Crash of the Eagles - Parting Wings - Trapping Wings - Folding Fans

Long Form 2 – part 2 (technique names only) - Brown: - Seven Swords - Dance of Death - Kimono Grab - Twin Kimono Grab - Full Nelson - Bear Hug - Rear choke defense - Overhand knife defense - Thrust knife defense

Advanced Techniques - Attacking the Ram - Flashing Daggers - Thundering Hammers - Circling Winds - Smashing Hammers - Sweeping Fangs - Twisting the Twig - Weaving Ridges - Hooking Hammers - Circling Branches

Weapons Set - user defined (Brown-Black)

Five-Level Method© / Shorin-Ju Kenpo: Belt Rankings and Approximate Timing Guidelines
White to Orange – approximately 3 months

Orange to Purple – approximately 3 months

Purple to Blue – approximately 3 months

Blue to Green – approximately 6 months

Green to Brown – approximately 9 months

Brown to 1st-degree Black – approximately 12 months

1st-degree Black (1st Dan) to 2nd-degree Black and beyond – dependent upon skills and discipline of individual students

Five-Level Method© / Shorin-Ju Kenpo: Top Instructors/Students
(Sorted by rank and then alphabetically by last name)

Temple, Robert (10th Dan) []; Dinu, Marius (7th Dan); Avila, Aristeo “Caruso” (5th Dan); Anderson, Ken (3rd Dan); Rabinovich, Felix (3rd Dan); Keels, Adam “Junior” (2nd Dan); Neeley, Brian (2nd Dan); Norden,Robert (1st Dan) Okada Mami (1st Dan) August, Sara (1st Dan); Garlo, Brian (1st Dan); Heimbaugh, Alan (1st Dan); Kirschbaum, Rene (1st Dan); Marroquin, Adrian (1st Dan); Tran, Brian (1st Dan)

History of Senior Grandmaster Jerry Smith
In addition to being a three-time international champion in semi-contact karate, and a former trainer of world-rated full-contact fighters, Jerry Smith is one of the original founders of the Black Karate Federation (BKF) in Los Angeles California.

In the late 1960's, a group of young martial art enthusiasts including Jerry Smith came together to train and exchange techniques. Jerry Smith, along with Cliff Stewart [], Ron Chapel [], Steve Sanders [], Donnie Williams [], Karl Armelin and Curtis Pulliam formed a core group of dedicated martial artists.

“Smith recalls the group: ‘We were the right mix of people at the right time’ he says. ‘We created a great and unbeatable mix of techniques.’ At a follow-up meeting, several names for an organization were suggested. Jerry Smith, whose background was in graphic design, created a few logos for the group containing the initials "BKF", which stood for the Black Karate Federation. During the meeting, several logo designs were introduced to the group. The organizational structure of the BKF formed with Steve Sanders, the most prominent and visible member of the group. Therefore, he was unanimously selected to be the organization’s first president. Jerry Smith became the first vice-president, Cliff Stewart the secretary, Ron Chapel the technical historian and Karl Armelin was treasurer. From this core group, which included Donnie Williams and Curtis Pulliam, the Black Karate Federation was officially founded.”

The first official BKF School opened in late 1971 at 10302 South Western Avenue in Los Angeles. Known as "The 103rd Street School", it was the home of the original students of the BKF. Martial arts champions such as Joe Lewis, Cecil People and Benny Urquidez often visited the school to train. Lewis would come there to prepare for his tournament battles. In the early 1970's, Jerry captained the BKF team that won the International Karate Championships three times.

“The 103rd Street School achieved notoriety as the location chosen to film a portion of the immortal martial arts films, "Enter The Dragon" starring Bruce Lee. Released by Warner Bros. Studios in 1973, the film contains a scene in which Jim Kelly ("Williams") goes into the karate school to say good-bye to his instructor (Steve Sanders) and the assistant instructor (Donnie Williams). In the "Enter The Dragon" scene, BKF co-founder Jerry Smith, as well as several BKF students can be identified. As fate would have it, those few seconds of exposure in "Enter The Dragon" has cemented the continuing legacy of the BKF because of Bruce Lee and the global impact that the film continues to have.”

In 1973 Jerry Smith, a commercial artist, who was a black belt and a prodigy of World Heavyweight Champion Joe Lewis, was hired as an illustrator at Black Belt Magazine.

Jerry soon became recognized as one of the first, and most successful full-contact karate coaches in the U.S. As an active tournament official, Jerry was one of five individuals chosen by fighters around the U.S. to be a referee at Mike Stone’s East vs. West Coast Team Championships in Long Beach in 1974.

In May of 1975, a pioneering article was written for Karate Illustrated Magazine. The article was called "The New Fighters Stable" and was truly ground breaking. Jerry Smith, as a legendary full-contact karate trainer, created something so unique and extraordinary that it changed the face of karate forever. The way fighters train today is reflected by what was done then. The semi-contact fighting tournaments in the 1960’s and 1970’s that morphed into the full-contact competitions of the 1970’s and 1980’s were a major contribution to today’s professional martial art fighting competitions. Jerry’s training methods in the 1970’s were the forerunners for today’s professional fighter training methods.

Jerry has been featured in numerous periodicals on the martial arts, including “Black Belt”, “Inside Kung-Fu”, “Professional Karate”, Karate Illustrated” and “Fighting Stars”. He has also been included in several books on the martial arts, such as “The Original Martial Arts Encyclopedia-Traditions, History, Pioneers" (c) 1993 by John Corcoran & Emil Farkas and “The Ultimate Martial Arts Q&A Book” (c) 2001 by John Corcoran and John Graden. Jerry was most notably featured in the definitive directory of martial art masters:  "Who's Who in the Martial Arts" (c) 2003 by Bob Wall.  This book, in its second printing, features the top 250 martial artists for the last 3 decades based on their world class fighting abilities and their positive contributions to the martial arts.  Jerry was also in several TV specials, including ABC’s “I am somebody” and NBC’s 13-week series called “Secrets of the Martial Arts” starring John Saxton and co-hosted by Jerry.

During his long martial arts career, Jerry Smith trained many top champion full-contact fighters as well as a long list of celebrity students such as film stars Gloria Hendry and Bernie Casey, pro basketball stars Sidney Wicks and Curtis Rowe and pro footballer Bob Geddes. Jerry has also performed personal security work for Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, the Temptations, Helen Reddy and Beatle Ringo Starr.

Senior Grandmaster Jerry Smith has been called one of the true geniuses of the Martial Arts and Science. The regional and world-rated fighters who were with him were some of the greatest at that time: "Big" John Henderson, Grandmaster Kraiguar Smith [], John Townes, Ernest "Madman" Russell, Samuel Pace, Gary "Rabbit" Goodman, James Honest, Jim Echellac, Adam Keels Jr. and Don Parish. Along with Jerry Smith, these men defeated hall of fame fighters including Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, and they were responsible for motivating thousands with their revolutionary ways.

As well as Jim Kelly's Ray "Blue Steel" Davis and Eric "The Flame" Mobley were also fighters and trained in Jerry Smith's stable.