NIC kenpo instructor adjusts teaching to fit students
A student in a white gi throws a punch with his left hand. In a flash, the instructor in the black gi steps in with a block and is on him, striking five times in less than a second.
The student, who is a tad short with dark hair and glasses, is on his knees, bent over his purple belt. The instructor is tall, 6-foot-6, with a shock of white hair and four red stripes on his frayed black belt. He helps the student up, and they go through the technique again, slowly.
After blocking the punch with his right arm, the instructor hits the student in the neck with the edge of his hand, the “karate chop” of movies, strikes the chest with an open palm, digs an uppercut into the student’s chest, steps to one side as the student bends over and finishes with a knife-edge to the back of the neck. This is “Five Swords,” a technique in the American Kenpo system. The man in black is Dale Eberwein.
If you wanted to create the ideal martial art, you might borrow from a variety of sources: the hard strikes of karate, the holds and throws of jiu-jitsu, and the flowing movements and dynamism of kung fu. Melting them all down, you might end up with kenpo. And if you looked for the ideal instructor to teach you that art, you might ask for a person that exemplified the hard and soft, who could express the knowledge with passion and selflessness. You would end up with an instructor like Eberwein.
American Kenpo was born in the 1950s after founder Ed Parker combined several arts he studied while living in Hawaii. It is characterized by combinations of fast strikes, grapples and throws that overwhelm the opponent. A native of southern California, Eberwein began teaching kenpo 31 years ago and now propagates the American Kenpo tradition at North Idaho College. Eberwein is steeped in the art. He studied with Huk Planas, a first-generation student of Parker and took seminars with the founder himself. Eberwein has been in the military, worked in Alaska as a bouncer and as a correctional officer, and now lives in Coeur d’Alene with his wife and two sons. Eberwein’s passion is Kenpo. Yet, in conversations about the art, the subject inevitably turns to his philosophy of instruction, something he refers to as teaching without ego. “I don’t believe ego has any place in our life,” Eberwein said.
He began teaching at NIC in the spring of 2006. The elective PE class teaches students all the material needed for their yellow belt, the first step past the beginner’s white belt. That first semester, Eberwein promoted 35 percent of his students to yellow. In general, 60 percent is more common. Eberwein thought about the traditional interaction between student and teacher with the teacher conveying the information year after year in the same way, or worse, holding back information from his or her students to retain superiority.
“When you put a ceiling on what you teach, you don’t promote excellence,” Eberwein said. “You’re sending the wrong message to the students.” He said this entrenched teaching style stems from the belief that the instructor gives and the student takes. After a while, the instructor runs out of energy or feels used. Eberwein said that this is a bad model. “All your life you’ve been living under a lie,” he said. “You’ve been taught that there’s a limited supply of things. And there isn’t. When you give, you get back.”
The next semester, Eberwein began handing out a learning style inventory to each of his new students. The LSI is a questionnaire that determines both a student’s strongest aptitudes and his or her favored way of learning. For instance, some students need to move their bodies to understand a concept, while others simply need to hear a description or be able to visualize a technique. Some students enjoy learning in small groups where they can socialize, while others prefer honing a skill on their own.
“The race is to understand each student each semester. The LSI gives you an objective overview on how to best impact your student,” Eberwein said.
Eberwein collated the LSIs and came up with a class average. He then tailored the presentation of material to the way most of the students liked to learn. A recent class was 90 percent social learners. So, Eberwein focused on breaking up the class into pairs or small groups so the students could interact while they went over the material.
It’s had a dramatic effect on the success of his students, according to Eberwein. After implementing the LSI and catering to how the students like to learn, the promotion rate skyrocketed to 93 percent and has been climbing ever since. Eberwein used the results in his master’s thesis at the University of Phoenix, Online and presented them to the faculty of NIC Jan. 10.
The class works a kata called “Star Block” in two lines with the more experienced students in the front and to the right. The students are in a horse stance, the feet wide apart and the knees bent as if they are riding an imaginary horse. They practice blocks, watching themselves in the mirror. Eberwein watches them closely. Soon he stops the repetitions and asks a new student to the front of the room. There’s a flaw in the student’s horse stance: his fists are kept too low, near his hips.
“He comes from Shodokan (karate),” Eberwein says. “So, that’s why he has them here. But this isn’t the most efficient place for a back elbow.” Eberwein demonstrates how the low placement prevents the elbow from reaching behind the student. He explains a concept known as “back-up mass”: when the fist is in line with the elbow, it adds force to the blow or block. In their rows, the other students nod. Eberwein moves the students hand, drawing lines and angles leading away from the elbow. He demonstrates the differences in reach when the fist is lower than the elbow and when it is in line with the elbow.
When he finishes, he slaps his demonstration partner on the shoulder. “Thanks. That allowed me to explain a very important point in Kenpo,” Eberwein says. The student goes back to the line, but he is not sheepish, nor does he seem embarrassed. He has a look of illumination on his face.
Eberwein’s passion for the art finds its balance in his compassion for his students. He barks commands and can make the hardiest student jump with a kiai, but he welcomes students with hugs and listens to their relationship problems. This combination of the hard and soft is something Eberwein said he discovered in himself in the past few years.
“There’s been many people like me (throughout history) that epitomize the yin and the yang,” Eberwein said.
All of his life, Eberwein pursued sports and martial arts as a way of emphasizing his masculinity, all the while suspecting there was something else below the surface. Recently, Eberwein realized that he is transgender; that is, he identifies as female though he was born male. The discovery of what he calls his “diversity” led to a new way of thinking about his own life and the way he teaches.
“Most men don’t nurture on the floor,” he said. “They’re more macho: ‘You’ll do it this way because I said so and quit your complaining.’ And that doesn’t help the students, especially in the college setting.” In the world of martial arts, being transgender puts Eberwein in a unique position. He is both a warrior and a mother. He can excite the most physical and aggressive students while drawing out the shy, reluctant ones. He modulates violence with compassion. He understands both sides. “I learned the art as a man; I disseminate the art as a woman,” Eberwein said.
After three decades, Eberwein is still going strong. He attained his fourth-dan black belt rating a year ago. The initial Kenpo class at NIC has expanded to four classes. He continues to explore ways of engaging his students, asking for feedback and expressing appreciation to his students in every class. Last spring, two of Eberwein’s students made it to orange belt in one semester, something that had never happened to him before. In November, one of Eberwein’s first students, Chuck Epperson Jr., was inducted into the USA Martial Arts Hall of Fame. Eberwein said he is proud of the success of all of his students. The key, according to Eberwein, is engaging the students in the way that works for them and getting them involved in the teaching process.
“If people believe in you, they’ll do anything for you. And that includes improving themselves,” Eberwein said. “My goal is to make you more proficient in whatever we do here than I am.”