4 Demonstrations That Changed Kenpo

4 Demonstrations That Changed Kenpo - #2 January 1957

When Ed Parker graduated BYU on June 1, 1956 he had a job waiting for him with the Los Angeles Probation Department in Pasadena. His law enforcement students ha primed Ed on taking the civil service examination which he passed, and with the 5 points for being a veteran he received the highest score that year. He began his job on June 4, 1956 and held that job until April, 1957. Ed had chosen Pasadena because Roy Woodward who owned the Provo, Utah Health Studio where Ed taught for three months in 1956 had moved to Los Angeles with American Health Studios. Roy talked Bert Goodrich into letting Ed rent space at his Pasadena Bert Goodrich Barbell Gym on the corner of Fair Oaks and Colorado Blvd. where Jerry Meyers began training with Ed in 1956.

The Probation department job paid Ed Parker just over $4,200 a year. That would be equivalent to about $33,000 today, adjusted for inflation. But Ed Parker had greater ambitions, which did not include teaching Kenpo. Two members of the Mormon Church Pasadena Ward (church) were Helen Hinckley Jones and her husband Ivan who both taught English at Pasadena City College (PCC). Will Tracy was taken under wing by Ivan (Charles) who would tell him "You're not yet Hemmingway," and Will good friend, Gary Ballard married their eldest daughter, Jacque'. Helen Hinckley Jones was famous as a Mormon writer, and she and Charles told Ed they could get him a position teaching sociology at PCC if he had a master degree. The starting salary at PCC at that time was $24,000 a year. That's $190,000 a year in today's money adjusted for inflation.

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4 Demonstrations
That Changed Kenpo
BYU 1955
January 1957
Kenpo Karate

The problem was, Ed Parker needed a master's degree, and U.C.L.A which was across town would take four years going nights, and Ed didn't have the tuition, let alone the time. In September 1956, Roy Woodward introduced Ed Parker to Terry Robinson, who was the athletic director at the Beverly Wilshire Health Club. Ed Parker would write about the meeting in Inside Elvis p. 26.

"Roy called one day while I was renovating my new studio. He invited me to American Health's Hollywood Gym. He wanted me to meet Terry Robinson a World War II "kill or be killer" combat instructor...'if I had the time.' It was an afternoon well spent and concluded with Terry inviting me to the Beverly Wilshire Health Club where he was the physical director."

It's a minor point, but it's also a "small divergence" which has become part of the large divergence from the truth. Ed Parker did not open his school until February 1957, and he met Terry Robinson, and began teaching private lessons at the Beverly Wilshire Health Club in about September 1956.

The documentation for Ed Parker being at the Beverly Wilshire Health Club prior to opening his school in Pasadena will be given for the first time in an upcoming seminar by Will and Jim Tracy.