 As a Kemple practitioner, one of the misconceptions I hear the most is Kemple won't work in MMA. You want to bet? Today, we have special guest master, John Halkeman, founder and grandmaster of his Hawaiian Kemple system and one of the most notable MMA coaches and contenders in the sport. Let's go talk to him and see what he has to say. I'd like to ask you some questions about a little bit more of the MMA themed. I figured let's go ahead and let's ruffle some feathers here. One of the comments I hear a lot from people is, oh, Kemple will never work in the ring or in the UFC. What is your answer to that comment? It's an incomplete comment because Kemple, whether you spell it with an N or an M, most Kemple systems that haven't evolved, they wouldn't do well. If you're doing kattas, you're not going to do well in MMA. Yeah, you're just not. So now people argue that here's the biggest two arguments, Masheeda, Liora Masheeda and Steven Wonderboy. They like to do kattas. They grew up at three years old doing karate already because they were born, both of them were born into karate school owners, they were born to them. So they also have eight to 16 hours a day every single day to do kata and do their MMA stuff. So instead of two hours a week, like the average student goes twice a week, that's two hours a week. Steven Wonderboy and Liora Masheeda, they've probably been at their gym 12 hours a day, six days a week. So they have a lot of time to do that. If you only have two hours a week, there's no time for a kata. And you're not going to be an MMA guy. You can't train to be an MMA guy with that kind of schedule. It wouldn't work for Taekwondo or Shodakam or any other style. Now the same thing holds true for jiu-jitsu. If you did two hours a week and you just did jiu-jitsu, you wouldn't do well in MMA. No, I want to draw back to what you said before because previously you said that it didn't matter what art you train in. If you don't put that condition in there, you don't put that fuel in the tank, then it doesn't matter what the system is. You're just not going to do well because that effort isn't there. So basically the quote, top gun maverick, it's not the plane but the pilot in the box basically. For that, yeah, for the conditioning part, yes, for the conditioning part without a doubt, but a lot of other things go into it, but nothing can come out of it unless it's conditioning. But without anything else, you still have a chance of winning. So if you have no wrestling and no jiu-jitsu, no grappling, but just striking, you could still win. If you only had grappling, right, and no wrestling and no striking, you can still win. If you don't have conditioning, you'll never win. Hey dojo fans, we are excited to share our new colors of combat t-shirt collection with all of you. Now we love this channel and we love our community and we want to keep producing content, but we do need help. 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I probably took out more stuff than I put in or just as much. So from your days competing and now going over to training your MMA fighters, do you train them and teach them differently than the way you trained yourself? Uh, was there any evolution in that? Or are you pretty much the same way? Ah, there's a lot of similarities, but even more differences. I evolved a lot. Training has evolved a lot. My, my, um, my, uh, philosophy and concepts have changed a lot, but I bring in some stuff, you know, like the mental toughness and, and, uh, the fun part might, I've always had fun coaches and, you know, we've joked around a lot and I've had fun teammates, you know, so I've kept some things. I've done both, I've kept some things the way they were, like back in the day. And then I've evolved a lot. Maybe the spine, the spine is the biggest thing I've evolved. You know, I don't even remember the last time I had my guys just sparring full on. When that was every day from my entire career and a huge part of the time, my fighters, it was, they were going hard every time. Now we've, we, I don't even remember the last time, you know, my guys went hard and sparring to the face, um, or grappling really hard. Um, we don't do that anymore. So we've evolved that, you know, tremendously. And then conditioning is, it's, it's, it's changed a little, but, um, pretty much, we've always been known for a hard, hardcore in our training, both my Hawaiian tempo and my, um, and my sport, you know, my MMA or my kickboxing or whatever. Uh, we, we push the conditioning like no other gym I know. Is your cross pit program, uh, separate from your, your training program or are they integrated together? The cross fit is, is the fourth thing, you know, we are striking, grappling, wrestling and cross fit. So it's our conditioning for that is our conditioning program. So I like how you're talking about, um, the effort was there to kind of create a hybrid between the striking and the jujitsu stuff. Uh, when you have a new student come in that has prior experience and they're interested in becoming a fighter, do you try to incorporate as much of their previous experience as possible? Or do you try to break them away and kind of conform to a kind of a new way of thinking? It depends. Like he comes over with all this experience. I don't know, is he coming over with a lot of skill too? So if he's, if their skill is, is, is grappling heavy, you know, everything else that he's doing, he's going to learn everything else, but he's going to focus on his wrestling, focus on his strength, you know, build, you know, you want to work on your weaknesses, but you want to focus on your strength. What's the weirdest or most unexpected technique that you've seen work in a real match? Uh, it was, um, and it was a weird up kick. Well, the guy with the girl stand, it was a girl, I think it's you standing on the other girl and the girl gave her a lit liver kick from her guard. And it was, it was probably the weirdest. That was probably one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. I've seen crazy shit over the last 50 plus years, but that was probably the weirdest, uh, one of the weirdest techniques I've ever seen work. So we've seen MMA evolve over the past couple of decades. I mean, even just from the nineties, what did this day, it's changed quite a bit. Uh, what do you see for the future of the sport? And do you think that there's ever going to be a particular blend of MMA that will become its own art, almost like a new Kaju tempo? I think it's the opposite. It went, it went the other way already, you know, like, I don't think a sport is going to turn into a street art. There's just people are always going to have those techniques and they're always going to, you know, it's going to be, um, I think martial arts schools like that are, that are partial art schools and they don't teach, you don't teach, uh, you know, all the other factions of the art. Like if they don't teach takedown defense and it's a striking school, then it's, it's not going anywhere. It shouldn't even, you know, it's, it's terrible. You know, it's, it's, you're taking people's money unless you're teaching them and saying, this is for sport only. Like you go to a BJJ school, they're saying, you know, hey, this is for sport, you know, so they're, they're training them for the sport, you know, boxing gym, they, they train them for the sport, right? I think each martial artist is going to start saying, you know, hey, I gotta, you know, I gotta evolve because I want to stay at a relevant, you know, school and not be a mcdojo, then I'm going to have to, you know, I'm going to have to learn this, this and this. So, you know, I think they're going to keep their name just like, you know, just, yeah, but I think they're going to, you know, pretty soon it's just all going to be one, you know, so it's just going to be the name of the, the individual name because everything else is going to be, everything being taught is going to be the same. It has to be. So that's what I think. I think it's the opposite. But I don't think the MMA sport will turn into a martial art. It is a martial art already, you know, it's a mixed martial arts and they call it MMA just like Kajikempo or, or, you know, whatever else, Dali Tudou or, you know, shoot boxing or, you know, whatever. It's just, it's just a label and a name. But all martial arts should, should teach the four, you know, the four blocks or else they, they're, you know, then they, or else they're just a sport, you know. So for somebody who is watching this video and they're considering a career in MMA or they want to go into competitive fighting, what would be the number one key takeaway message that you'd like them to leave this video with? I would try to number one, see, I mean, if you're really serious and you want to do it, you know, and you're willing to sacrifice, you should find an MMA facility, you know, and an MMA gym, like say you live in, you know, Florida depends on where you were living near Coconut Creek, you go to ATT, you go, there's, there's MMA fight gyms all over right now and there's a hell of a lot in Florida, but that's what you should do. And if you couldn't do that because you live in wherever like bum, bumfuck wherever and you don't, they don't have an MMA gym. Then you should try to put a striking gym with a grappling gym and a wrestling gym and go get a CrossFit, you know, start training some CrossFit. So if you could have a dream sparring match with anybody, whether it's a fictional person or a real-life person living or dead, who would your dream sparring match be and why? Change sparring match. I like the best, the guy that I think is the best striker ever, the best kickboxer ever, Benny the Jet, KDs and I got to spar with him more than once. So I can't think of anyone that I think is the better striker ever, you know, ever. So it's funny that you, I like that you mentioned Benny the Jet because a lot of people I asked that question to you. They say that that they wish they could, but I find it interesting that you actually did. So that's a pretty unique experience that you have that a lot of people don't have. Oh, yeah. And he trained me for probably 20 of my pro fights. Yeah. So I had a lot, I've had a lot of dealings with Benny the Jet and we fought on the same card when I was 16. We sparred together when I was 16, unfortunately, and didn't end well for me at all. But yeah, I'm really close with him in a lot of ways and he's my he's who I think is the best martial artist ever. I think probably best martial I've had to pick one person. Do you have a favorite unspoken rule in the martial arts? The others to number one is always hit first, always hit first. And it's better to, you know, have to, you know, get forgiveness than end up in a fucking nursing home with a tracheus to be in a coma. So I would always say hit first. And then it kind of one that at the gym it's hit his heart sparring. Hit as hard as you want to get it. I like that one. That one I like. I believe in that one as well, too, because you kind of feed you feed off your partner so like you can kind of give as good as they get. There's almost like a communication, nonverbal communication there. Yeah. Yeah. And then some guys have absolutely no control as some guys have a lot of control. They're just fucking bullies so they go harder when they go with a you know, a lighter guy or a or a lesser guy and some people just have no control. They swing wild against Chuck or or, you know, someone that doesn't know anything. They just have no control. But that's when the instructor comes in. But the majority of the people they will control that. I give percentages like like when they're sparring, I go from the leg to the body to their head. So I'll say, you know, seven percent to the legs, eighty eight percent to the body and seven percent or two percent to the head. And that's the power, the percentage of power I want. And the final question is, is there anything that you wish people would ask you that they never do? Well, I can say I can tell you when I wish they would stop asking me. Are you Chuck Liddell's dad? Yeah, if people could fucking stop asking me that, I'd be really happy. That's that's the kind of he's like he's nine years younger than me, nine years. So no, I'm not his dad. You ask home. And I'm teasing. That's fantastic. That's fantastic. I would like to thank you for sharing your experience with MMA, because a lot of people will always get that side of the perspective unless they're in it. So it was very interesting to hear you coming from your art background and you I mean, you trained in the martial arts and you actually fought on the street. You fought in the ring. So you have a unique experience. So I just want to thank you for sharing with us that today, because it's perspective most of us don't have. Yeah, well, thank you guys for putting it out there. Thank you again to Mr. Halkaman for sharing his experience with us. It's quite easy to criticize and judge, but I place heavy value on the opinions of those who have actually walked that path. Now, there's a lot more to Hawaiian Kempo than what we covered today, and it's important to know its roots. Now, Mr. Halkaman spent some time talking with us about his establishment of Hawaiian Kempo where it came from how we started and tells us exactly what Hawaiian Kempo is.