By Betty Tavelero

University of Washington
"Going home with bruises, aches and pains is a small price to pay to learn the art of kajukenbo the way it was meant to be."

"I'd do anything for him, all of us would, he's just that kind of man."

"Not every road is a straight one. Sometimes there are detours on the road to fulfilling your dreams. We still get there, we just have to approach it from another avenue. Never give up. There's more than one way to get where you want to go."

Words like this don't come easily for kajukenbo grandmaster Emil Bautista. His dream of going to college and becoming a physical education teacher looked as though it had ended, almost before it began when he found himself enlisted in the Army with a wife and child to support. He didn't give up on the dream; he simply approached it from a different avenue.

The detour happened to be through a martial art school. And the avenue wasn't really so different after all. The school, run by the late kajukenbo pioneer instructor Aleju Reyes, was located on Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif.

"Back in 1961, just after I got out of the Army, I worked for a vending machine company and through them I had base privileges,” Bautista recalled. “I'd walk by the base gym every week and watch them train in one of the wrestling rooms. It looked interesting and so I started taking classes there. I trained for a little under a year and then the company lost its bid for the contract. That was the end of my training."

Or so he thought. Less than six months later, he came across the Tony Ramos kajukenbo school in Fairfield and began training again, not realizing until weeks later that it too, was a kajukenbo school.

"Tony Ramos taught me kajukenbo,” Bautista explains. “He gave me back my dream of being a physical education teacher, maybe not in the strictest sense of the word, but what he gave me has been the basis for my entire adult life. In my heart, I know that if it weren't for Tony Ramos, I wouldn't be here teaching, I wouldn't be where I am today."

What was the Martial Arts Community in Seattle like Before Bruce?
I think it was just kind of getting off the ground. There weren't too many places up here. As far as what was going on down in Chinatown, you know, The Gung Fu concept. I don't think anybody really heard of it. Karate they had heard of; and there was two or three guys in town that were teaching. One guy was teaching at the YMCA. And the other guy was teaching down at the Americn Health Studio down at First and Pike.

Those are the only ones I knew about. There may have been some other guys, but that was about the time that Karate was just sort of coming into focus in the whole country, basically on the West Coast. Due to Ed Parker with his International Karate Championships.

ED Parker's International Karate Championships
It was 1962 or 63, the first time we went down to one of Ed Parker's tournaments. And because, again, he was pretty close to me, he told Ed Parker, he wanted me to come down with him. He didn't need me, you know! But he always told Ed "Now, I want Taky to come down with me." So Ed would have to come up with another plane ticket to get me down there.

In the demonstration I'd hit the floor maybe 15 different ways and that would be it. About 1964 Blake Edwards and others, discovered Bruce at one of the demonstrations. I can recall that, you know his favorite line when he'd always get on the phone, he'd say "Guess what! -- and I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but I new he was excited about something! That's when he told me he got the call from 20th Century Fox and they wanted to talk to him for the Green Hornet Series.

As I recall, I think he said that during the interview he told them that he wasn't interested in enhancing the image of the Chinaman in pigtails, so to speak, like they had all the time before. He wanted to dignify the character of the roles Orientals would be playing in movies or television. He made this point come across very strongly. Then of course, he was offered the role of Kato in the Green Hornet series.

What was it like demonstrating with Bruce Lee? The first one I went to -- Geez I was just petrified. I think I told this at the funeral when I spoke. We were in the hotel room together and he was telling me, "Now, look, you have to make it look real." He wanted me to react in centerline movement action because that is what Chi Sao is. If you have some guy just off the streets doing everything with his elbows out then it is not a Chi Sao technique anymore.

He wanted to be sure and have my elbows in because when he is blindfolded then you know where that movement is coming from. But if we're doing Chi Sao and my arms are out there is no way he is going to stop me. But I had a habit of doing it with my elbows out and he would get madder than hell.

He got me so mad at myself one time, I just exploded and attacked him in the most animalistic way I knew. There was a little stool sitting behind him, as he moved back he tripped and nearly fell out the window. The first thing that occured to me was Oh, Oh. I've done it now! But he looked at me, and you know, he could give you the damnest looks with his eyes; it was just like he was burning right through you.

Then he started to laugh because he knew he got what he wanted out of me. When you put a demonstration on like that unless you work with someone over and over all the time, with me anyhow, if it's totally rehearsed, I'm not any good because I can't pick up the ques. But if it's just doing something because of principles or just doing your own thing, I think I could probably do better. But anyhow, he used to always get me to do this. Of course whenever I did it right he had no problem with me.

Like that one night at Ed Parker's Tournament. Ed Parker said, "Don't Worry, we'll let you know ahead of time" if there is time to perform. All of a sudden he hollars and calls Bruce's name, Come on down to the stage. Here I was sitting up in the stands with my dress clothes on. I had to rush right off the bleachers to the stage and Bruce nearly ripped the sweater off my arm. The demonstration went as planned and it was over before you knew it!

End of Part 2.
Part 3 Jeet Kune Do

First Generation JKD Student Taky Kimura.....
Photo Courtesy Knownows