MADDOG

KeNpo vs. KeMpo

What are the differences?

[1] In history.
[2] In style.
[3] In MA doctrine – philosophy.

Appreciate the input.

Ed Barton

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Britt

To my admittedly limited knowledge, there is no difference; they're two different spellings for the same style. I've heard several different explanations for it; that it was caused by a misunderstanding translating Okinawan characters into mainland Japanese characters, that an early manual on Kempo written by James Mitose had a typo that spelled it Kenpo, or what have you, but as far as I know they both refer to the same art.

the same goes for Kajukembo and Kajukenbo, by the way.

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Britt

Another explanation for the spelling difference I ran across:

"Actually, the only difference is in the translation of the Kanji to its English form. The rules of Kanji holds, that when a character (written word) ends in an "n," the "n" is pronounced, when spoken; with the exception, that when the "n" is followed by another character (word), which begins with a "p," the two characters are unchanged in the written form and the "n" is pronounced "m". Ken-po follows this rule. So, if following the correct Kanji translation, it is spelled "Kenpo" and pronounced "Kempo". It is only in transliteration that Kenpo is written Kempo."

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THE ETERNAL VOW

yup its the same figthing system.

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Toudiyama[NL]

Actually it is a generic term like chuan fa, quan fa or kung fu which doesn't say anything about the style itself, Funakoshi called his art Kenpo too

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