The Kenpo Women’s Symposium is honored to be able to highlight this week Kenpo Woman, Manon Aben from Utrecht, Netherlands and her 42 year journey in Kenpo. What an amazing accomplishment!
I have never had to use my Kenpo skills physically, but there were two occasions when I thought that my training helped me to avoid a fight.
One of them was when I was a purple belt and was teaching at a primary school, on the playground, before school time. There was a boy who had an issue with one of the boys at our school. He was choking him with his fist against his throat, so I walked over and asked him to release the boy. The guy said in a rude way to mind my own business , I told him to let go of the boy and he turned around cursing and looked at me (he was a head taller than me !) in a flash I thought: if you’re going to hit me I’ll hit your nose and kick your kneecap, (Delayed Sword ), the result : he looked at me and walked away.
The second time I was in a tramcar with my sister , going to the centre of Amsterdam. We were minding our own business when two men got into the tram, checked us out and walked towards us; it felt very threatening. I stepped in front of my sister and went into fighting mind. They looked and backed off again.
Meanwhile my fascination for “other ways of a warrior” continued and I started to do Archery. There were similarities in the way that I looked at my Kenpo training and the way that I learned to shoot arrows.
It wasn’t about reaching a goal: becoming a black belt or hitting a bullseye. It was the journey and my personal development that was important.
I believe that to complete the circle of the Warrior I shall continue to develop my healing skills (but that is another story.)
My fascination for Kenpo deepened when I was 55 and had a bleeding in my head that left me paralyzed on the right side of my body.
I can remember the first movement I made, when I got a little feeling back . I made a fist and thought: I’m back!
I told the nurse that that I would be walking at the end of that week, because I wasn’t prepared to give up “my” Kenpo. She gave me a look of disbelief, but I walked!
It was a hard and long road , not being able to walk without a walker in the beginning but doing my forms in the swimming pool. I persevered.
Ten years later I’m still on the mat and training at my capability. They say: Kenpo is in your blood. I am sure that it is in mine! I am not able to do Kenpo the way I used to do it , but I can adapt it to my more limited ability and that is one of the things that fascinates me about Kenpo : no matter what your circumstances are , if you are willing you can train!
I entered a number of competitions: techniques divisions, forms divisions, weapon divisions and in the “old” days there was a competition at the end of the brotherhood dinner between the schools for the best demonstration . (those were the ones that I loved the most and did the choreography when I could!)
I entered the weapons divisions with the staff mainly because there were no women competing ; the reason became obvious when, after a number of competitions, it appeared that we were no match; man and woman are different it seems! . So we fought for Women’s Divisions and we got them. That was my goal and then I stopped competing. The last time I was in a competition was in 2017 in Lisbon, because I wanted to perform my form 6 when I reached the age of 60 and I did it.
The results were not important to me, because showing up and being there was sufficient . I had challenged myself.
I’m still going to seminars as often as I can. The one that stands out was the year that I went to one of the last Internationals at Long Beach in 1995 . It was my first big trip abroad and to be where thousands of fellow Kenpoists had gone before me was overwhelming . The seminars were given by: Dian Tanaka, Frank Trejo, Doreen DiRienzo , and many more. I entered the weapons division . In those days there were a lot of people competing in any division. For me, being there where it all started with Mr. Parker , was a prize on its own.
I have been practicing the Art for about 42 years, and my motto is still : “You never stop learning if you have an open mind”