Chinese kung fu fans

The International self defense organization known as the World Kempo Association has passed its eighteenth year after its founding by President Carter Hargrave. Hargrave is no stranger to martial arts or to those familiar with combat self defense as he is well known from his being at the helm of two associations with membership numbering over eight thousand. Carter Hargrave began his training in sport karate, then switched gears after a chance encounter with a member of the Bruce Lee School in California who trained him to be an instructor of Jeet Kune Do as well as Kempo Karate.

In 1992 Hargrave founded a new combat martial art that he named American Combat Kempo. At the same time he organized the World Kempo Association to offer his new fighting art to other Kempo and Kenpo systems who are more focused on the tournament aspects of the art, but were needed some hard fighting moves to add to their systems so their members could meet a street attack.  American Combat Kempo was just what the other arts needed, and Hargrave’s World Kempo Association was there to assist them in whatever capacity the student or school needs.

American Combat Kempo is primarily developed from heavily modified Okinawan Karate, Ju Jitsu, and Okinawan Weapons. While the end result is so off base from its traditional limited origins, the final arts beauty is in its direct and modern applications. Weapons of old are used for defense as well as the other side of the coin, modern edged weapons and firearms. In the Japanese Kempo Training Manual that Hargrave wrote lists his rules of combat which have nothing to do with fighting fair. The Kempo style also utilizes standard sparring to interact with other arts but Hargrave admits his standard fighting method is so severe that the sessions will be over in ten to twenty seconds. “I have never had a student loose a real fight on the street, and there have been plenty due to some of the hazardous professions my students engage in.  In the end if my legacy is that I helped keep honorable people safe from the bad guys, Im good with that” says Hargrave.

The World Kempo Association is a non political group who welcomes all styles of karate to join and be able to learn the hard hitting full contact moves that sport karate lacks. For those who are not close to an WKA school, the association has a DVD training and ranking program that has been groundbreaking and hugely successful.

Carter Hargrave pioneered DVD training and ranking in Jeet Kune Do and brought his experience in developing that program to the Kempo distance learning system. Along with the ten films, the World Kempo Association offers two books with illustrations authored by Carter Hargrave that follow the films so that the student learns exactly like a private one on one lesson with 10th Degree Black Belt Grandmaster Hargrave.