Kajukenbo is a well known martial art. It was developed in Hawaii in the 1950s, and today has schools all over the world. Kajukenbo was Vince Black’s first formal art. He began studying under Jay Labistre in 1963 when he was fourteen years-old. Jay had studied under the founder of Kajukenbo, Sijo Adriano Emperado, in the Palama Settlement area of Honolulu, Hawaii and later moved to Arizona with his family. Vince’s education under Jay was very old-school, the training was hard and often brutal, but the lessons were as much about life as about fighting.
Later in California, Vince met Sijo Emperado himself and, ultimately, Sijo lived at Vince and Kim’s house for nearly ten years. During that time Vince helped Sijo run his organization and learned a lot from him about how he developed Kajukenbo and how to train it.
Today within the association, Kajukenbo training is organized into a compact and efficient system. There are twelve kata called Palamas; techniques are practiced in fifteen grab arts, twenty-one fast punches and ten basics, trained in a multi-person format. Kajukenpo training forms an important component to the overall Tang Shou Tao method, adding a level of application-based training and street smarts that is often lacking in internal martial art systems. Many of Vince’s senior students trained directly under Sijo’s supervision and were promoted by him as high as 9th degree.
