 What exactly is Hawaiian Kempo? Now we have a special guest with us today who has been training in the martial arts since childhood. He's a user for self-defense. He's trained through traditional Kempo roots, competed and coached in the MMA and he currently runs a gym that conditions and prepares future MMA champions. Now we'd like to welcome Master John Halcomann, the founder of the Hawaiian Kempo system and the pit. And today he's going to take us behind the curtain of his unique take on the art. 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. So instead of getting sponsors for VPNs or shadow warrior, legend, battle league games or novel manscaping products, we felt we wanted to offer you something a little bit better. 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I even thrown a little shadow con in the beginning too but that was just kind of feeling out different gyms or different art, you know, systems and then as soon as I found Kaji Kempo or my instructor in his gym, I knew that I wasn't gonna go anywhere else and I was gonna stay with it and that was, I was probably like 10 or 11 then and I just, that was it. I never switched around to different arts. Intel, Intel, you know, after the army and I came here and I opened, came to here, California and I started Hawaiian Kempo. I knew I had to plug in a lot of different things because I knew my vision, what I wanted for the art and so I had to go out and get different things. Like, you know, I had to get the best wrestlers, you know, in the world and work on takedowns and takedown defense a lot. I got the best jiu-jitsu guys in the world like Mario Sperry, Ricardo Laborio, the Nogara brothers and work on getting off the bottom, you know and getting out of a choke and, you know working on stuff I wanted to, for my art, Hawaiian Kempo and then I got, you know boxing was my thing and kickboxing was my thing but I would also get, you know the best kickboxers around, you know I get the best boxers, guys like Howard Davis who was the Olympic gold medalist, you know and work on boxy stuff and so I wanted to get all these arts all put it together just like they did in Kaji Kempo but I wanted to take out anything choreographed or like kata-ish or anything that when somebody saw it they say, why would you do that? Like for instance, like something like this or you know, they do these weird hand movements and to me if you have to think if you don't know exactly what it's gonna do then it's just, it's not gonna do anything. I had to plug in other things for it and make it a martial art and not just a fighting system because I wanted to teach kids I wanted to do a belt system so I knew I wanted it as a system so instead of the katas I had to plug in different things for the testing I spent a lot of time going over that and you know, I also had a hard time with some things because I've been doing this so long and getting rid of some techniques, you know it was kind of hard to be like throwing away stuff if you were trying to clean up your room and then something means something to you it's hard to throw away but so I did, I found the things that I thought wouldn't fit in a real true martial art and I added things that I thought should be in the true martial art and I went from there and you know, I never looked back it's always to me been the best choices, you know so that's the way I feel. So can you tell us about your instructor was it Walter Godin, is that correct? Yeah, yeah. Was it like training him? It was a wild, it was wild because he's the wild guy and I mean, just look at his record and look at his, you know, some of the stories I mean, he was doing crazy stuff, you know and I was a kid, I was one of his top guys, you know and I don't know, kind, I don't know kinds of word but I mean, he took really good care of me and stuff but I've seen people that he didn't like or didn't want to take care of and he could be, he had a mean side to him and, you know, he didn't comply with, you know people and he was, you know, I mean, what? I mean, how many years they spent in prison? I mean, I mean, that speaks for itself on his, you know, on a lot of things but it doesn't speak on other things I mean, he changed my life probably as much as any other, you know, person did for the better and I'll be internally grateful for everything he's done for me and because of him, I was able to do. So, you know, he took, he was a big chunk of my life and a big chunk of who I became and stuff and without him, you know, things would have been a lot different and so, I mean, you know, I love him and I love him like a father but you know, I saw things that some people might think aren't that great and I didn't think everything he did was great but I definitely, to me, my world was a much better place because of him. I'd like to, I'd like that you're talking about that this became the person who you are today. So once you establish yourself defense in the martial arts training that you embraced and you liked, did you pursue a career? Like, did you know ahead of time you were gonna do a career in the martial arts or what got you into the competition? I went there, I went to a good age school because of the racism against white people in Hawaii and they get very violent towards them, you know kill Howley Day, beat up the Howley, you know and I knew that, I knew from the stories I was hearing in grade school that I was gonna need to train. I need to learn how to fight because things got a lot worse at middle school, you know so I started, you know, I went and found a place and on my own and I started training on my own and I think the fact that it was Godine's place and the things that taught me and the attitude it taught me and watching the way he was I think that changed everything for me and made everything better. So I like that, well, I understand that you had to learn to defend yourself and you actually use it in real life. So when you were switching over to competition did you change any approaches to what you fought or is, you know, street fighting and the sport ring like did you kind of fight the same way or were there any adaptations that you made? Yeah, no, back then, they were one and the same. Now, the way I teach is different. My fight team and my Hawaiian Kempo team for the street are completely different but back then it was the same if I was a fight I'd get in a fight in the backyard in the back campus of our middle school I'd bounce when I kick them, I punch them I throw combinations, you know just the stuff we were learning at Godine's school and then when I get in and I'd have anger towards the guy that started the fight, you know so and the same was when I was fighting I didn't really like my opponents I didn't buddy up with them and shit like they do now which I like a lot better it's a lot more respectful but back then it was just everything was a fight to me and that changed over my career towards the end of my career I could be buddies with my opponent we could fight in the ring and we could be buddies after but back in the old days it wasn't like that so I trained pretty much the same for both. So once you went through your competition your competitive career what made you decide to open up your own school in your own gym? I have my own gym when I was still fighting because I wanted a place to train and I was a registered nurse working full time raising my kids, supporting my kids so I was very busy having to work and take the kids to soccer and go to games so I didn't always have time to make it to the gym so I had a gym put in my backyard it was like 400 square foot was my first one and I would invite guys over from the gym to train so I could work more my hours because training was like noon or 11 a.m. and I was working the graveyard shift so I get off work at seven or eight in the morning I had to go straight to sleep so I started training in my backyard when I was having fights coming up I'd have my spine partners come over and I could train at my time but then I have other people coming and next thing I know I named it the pit and I started running it like a little school and then I moved and I got a thousand square foot in my backyard, my backyard is three acres now so I started training people then that's actually when Chuck came to me but then I opened a main dojo which is 10,000 square feet and it's in town so it's just kids are training right now and we have kids classes and jiu-jitsu classes and the fitness classes and stuff like that what is your curriculum like and you mentioned earlier that you added the belt system how does promotion work within your Hawaiian camp and what is the curriculum like between the kids and adults programs? Kids and adults are a lot similar in the techniques less in the carrying out of the techniques the way that they're gonna respond in a fight is a lot different as a kid we teach the hit first just like we do with the adults the difference is school yard dominance you don't ever wanna be bullied so you wanna dominate in the school yard it's not the street so it's not usually life or death if someone jumps you if someone jumps you in the street you always think it's life or death because it probably is and if it isn't then the guy should have left you alone and if it is then you don't train and you don't fight that way then he'll win every time in the school yard is to make that bully leave you alone and show all the bullies all the other bullies to leave you the F alone so it's more of you hit first and there's different techniques obviously we have but the difference is in the goal is to stay alive in the street and to not be bullied in the school so that's different more than the curriculum is and the other difference is we have four things we have striking, we have wrestling which is only takedowns and takedown defense that's what we consider wrestling so if you've taken someone down or defending the takedown and then grappling is once it hits the ground that's grappling so getting off the bottom getting out of a submission stuff like that the fourth one is conditioning physical conditioning and that's just as important as the other three because with the other three if you don't have the conditioning it's like you have the most beautiful car in the world but doesn't have any gas it's not gonna do anything you can't ever win a fight if you're out of gas you can win a fit fight if you have a lot more gas and shitty techniques but you cannot win a fight if you run out of gas because it's like you can't race a car that has no gas so if you don't have those four things in your curriculum it's a partial art, it's not a martial art it's not you can't even consider a martial art it could be a partial art it could be a sport martial art like judo, like taekwondo, wrestling, boxing those are sports and you can have a sport martial art but to be a martial arts dojo or have a martial arts system it has to have that, those four things or else if you can jump in the street if you can't defend the takedown you're gonna get your head smashed off the concrete if you can't defend a punch you're gonna get knocked out cold with a left hook if you can't get off the bottom you're gonna die on the bottom so you have to have those four things the conditioning, the striking, the grappling and the wrestling and then we test we test the set of katas we test on conditioning now there's two words I've seen associated with your program the first one is kuzin can you tell us what that means? yeah that was that was a bad must, it was a bad it was a judgment call it was mine, I mean I got talked into it but it was my call so I'm gonna take responsibility trying to change, when I went out to the public and open the pit to the public I've been in the pit since 85, 1985 so when I went mainstream or went to the main people in the town a lot of people thought the pit was too hardcore and people wouldn't come and we should give it a more people-friendly name so I just started thinking of all kinds of names and I thought ku was a god of war in Hawaii kayu and then zen is like zen Buddhism so it was like the god of war and zen Buddhism so that's a good, I like that that's a good dichotomy or it's a lot it's a good, it's a good thing to have both of those both of those ends of the spectrum but so I named it kuzin for a little while but I can tell it wasn't going anywhere and people liked the pit and even people that would come in like soccer moms you think they were really worried about the pit they go, hey, we thought this place was the pit we want, and they would only buy pit shirts never kuzin shirts so we went right back I was like kuzin for maybe maybe a couple months and then I went back to the pit but by then I already had my corporation was named kuzin ink so the name comes around a lot but it has nothing to do with our system right now I have to say I love your logo, the pit logo how did that come about? One of my students in 85 when I was training out of my backyard in Woodland Hills, California I was trying to come up with a logo to put on our patch and we ended up all getting a tattooed right away but one of the guys, his mom was an artist so I was trying to explain what I wanted so she would draw one and he'd bring it to school I go, nah, not quite so it took about three or four, maybe five times and she brought a sketch I go, that's what I want and it was the pit guy that you saw so she made a sketch out of it and we made a tattoo and we put it on our shirts and it went from there Now the other word I hear used a lot in multiple Kippo schools is the word ohana what does ohana mean to you and what weight does it carry in your school? Well it's everything the pit ohana is everything it's with Goodine, Walter Goodine I love him so much and as bad as he was in certain things and how violent he was he had an ohana and like when we had a Christmas party people would, everybody would show up and it would just be so much fun and all the guys that we trained with each other and bled with each other and did other things with each other we get to go to a Christmas party and all the families there and the ohanas there and in Hawaii, you know I grew up in Hawaii the word ohana is very big in Hawaii and ohana means a lot in Hawaii much more than it does in the United States especially now, it means nothing now but you just didn't have that same you know as a family and then you have a family you have cousins, you have aunts and uncles and to be honest a lot of people here in California or the states they have a true love for their family and that's the ohana feel but they don't know, they don't label it they don't know that's what ohana is and then you watch some people they just don't have that ohana they're weak and then they're betas and they're soft and they're entitled and they just don't have an ohana they have a family and they have relatives but they don't have an ohana so in Hawaii, I think it's a bigger thing and I think it's culturally ohana is just it's kind of like if you've been in the army infantry or you've been on a really tight fight team where you guys traveled around and you're fighting together and training together I mean you understand ohana you know and you grew up in Hawaii you're gonna understand ohana but so it's just a really tight niche family and there's a lot of loyalty in this lot I got your back that's a big one for ohana I got your back I'm gonna help you raise your kids this is not a village kind of thing so ohana is a huge word and it means a lot to us as a family in my immediate family, by biological family and it means a lot to our gym even my guys that never been to Hawaii they find out real quick what ohana means and they love the pit ohana like that's part of our everything but to be honest, people like Glover Tixera and Chuck Liddell and Korma Gee, Ramsey Nisham, Steven Seiler, all these fighters that are just badasses, part of my gym and they're part of our ohana and people see that this guy like Chuck he's like fucking a mega fucking superstar but he's coming in the gym just training and shaking every gym and every high five hugging the kids and talking to everybody and they realize, oh shit man so they actually helped me in a lot of ways Glover and Chuck and those guys they treat everybody like their family I mean, I'll tell you one that did that a lot and this said a lot, Jamie Foxx he was one of my students student from the Pit Malibu, which is still around Pit Malibu great martial arts gym and he's one of my top students and he's my first student first one to get a black belt, he got it with Chuck but during one of the tournaments that we had up here in a row of Grandi, we had a bunch of the pits come and including the Pit Malibu so Jamie Foxx's daughter was there and it's Jamie Foxx, you know so he was so much like ohana the way he interacted with all the parents of the term because his daughter was in the tournament the way he interacted with everybody he knew right there, I don't care he's black, he's white, he's whatever that's fucking ohana right there the way he carried the kids that's ohana so what is in the future for Hawaiian Kempo? I'm not trying to like do anything specific we're just growing we're growing a lot I'm doing it online and I'm getting a lot more into my online dojo I have a Hawaiian Kempo online dojo where I'm training people all over the world you know and then I have an in-house one here in a row of Grandi, California and then I have some affiliate schools like Glover Textures in Connecticut I mean he's making such a difference there you know I got a guy in Malibu in Arizona and Idaho in Salt Lake City so I'm trying to get people I'm trying to get people safe safe on the street and in the schoolyard I want everybody safe I want everybody to have confidence I want everybody to to be able to take go home to their family every night no matter what they can go home to their family and in the meantime getting in better shape getting better at the beach being a stronger person physically and mentally I think that's huge for Hawaiian Kempo that's basically what we're about I just wanted to go I wanted to be there for people that need to like I did was to stay safe in the schoolyard and then I went from there everything else piled on that but I've trained guys I almost died today but because I did this and this I stayed alive I always want to thank you so I got that I've had parents that say their kids used to get bullied now they never get bullied the confidence has given them so I got that I have adults that say they feel much better or even I've had to defend myself in a bar, I've had law enforcement your technique has helped me here and here and here so that feels great there's my Hawaiian Kempo right there but now I got guys that have made world champion in the USC training Hawaiian Kempo with us and just modifying a little for the cage I've got three world USC champions now basically a mom and pop mom and pop martial arts school in Aurora Grande, California so I don't know whatever we're doing is working I love it I thank God every day for it, I thank God every day for people that have helped make it guys like Chuck and Glover and Mario Espare and Ricardo LaBorio and Howard Davis and all these people like different genres of martial arts wrestling boxing kickboxing MMA Brazilian jiu-jitsu and coming together and helping me be a better total martial artist now if somebody wanted to join one of your schools how many schools do you have under the Hawaiian Kempo name and where can people go to find information about it yeah we don't have that many I don't know I think the ones I named but the one in the one in Danbury, Connecticut is run by Glover it's called Tekshara MMA and Fitness but it's a fit affiliate he teaches and tests under our Hawaiian Kempo curriculum and then there's the one in Malibu the one in Sully City the one in San Luis Obispo the one in Arizona the one in San Luis Obispo the one in we got one at Tascadero so that's them you go on the pit and you can find it and we are a actual CrossFit affiliate too our gym is I'd like to thank you so much for spending your time with us telling us about your training and what the Hawaiian Kempo system is I really really appreciate that time no problem man thanks for having me I'd like to extend a warm welcome to Mr. Hacklman for his time today and for giving us a tour of Hawaiian Kempo being a Kempo practitioner myself I really love to see sister systems and experience how different they really can be now if you were interested in another branch of Kempo that came through the same roots then you'll want to hear from Master Gerald Vidal of his Chinese Kempo system so click here for that and you're watching this roughly a week after this episode was published well click here for our follow up episode with Mr. Hacklman on Kempo and MMA now if it's not here yet well then I thank you for being an early viewer and please subscribe and click the bell so that you know when the episode does drop