Club History
Enlightenment Martial Arts grew out of Mike Ryan’s Mt Albert Branch of Kempo Bushido Ryu, which was established in 1987, as a sub branch of Mr Ryan’s larger Glenfield school.
Early training was very physically intense, with an emphasis placed on hard conditioning, and power development. During this era of training, students focused heavily on self-defence, and practical application.
Kempo is a Japanese word used to denote the fighting system of Okinawa prior to the development of Japanese Karate. Traditional Karate training consisted of kata (forms practice), bunkai (applications) and kumite (free-fighting), and overtime this system became more codified as a sport. This rule-based structure meant that many karate styles dropped the older grappling, and weapon components, which had become less relevant in modern competition. Sometimes this was due to instructors living outside of Japan/Okinawa and not having access to older training methods; and sometimes this was done deliberately, to try and streamline the already vast amount of study needed. Kempo, as opposed to Karate, referred to older training methods of fighting that had developed in Okinawa.
Okinawa is the main island of the Ryukyu Island chain, and was part of China until Japan invaded it during the 17th century. Its geographical location meant that it was an important trading hub, and many different styles of Chinese gongfu influenced the development of Okinawan martial arts.
Shorinji is the Japanese pronunciation of Shaolin, and around 1997 Kempo Bushido Ryu was rebranded as Shaolin Kempo. Instruction now included a method of training called ‘Shaolin Quan Chang’ in Chinese, or ‘Shaolin Long Fist’ in English. This type of training focuses on lengthening the fibres and tendons of the body, improving flexibility, mobility and speed.
During this time students attended four ‘Taupo Seminar’ training camps a year, and competed at the Auckland Championships, which was held at the North Shore Event Centre every November. This was New Zealand’s largest martial art’s tournament for many years, and students would compete in various events across two days. Categories for competition would include forms, tournament fighting, brick breaking, weaponry, weapons fighting, chin-na/jujitsu, interlocking sets, self-defence and more. Different styles of martial arts were competed across these events including Kempo, Shaolin, Bagua, Xingyi, Tanglang, Mulan and Taiji.
These training camps and competitions introduced many different ways of developing martial arts, and would eventually lead to EMA focusing primarily on Chen Taiji Quan.
In 2012 Enlightenment Martial arts would take its current form, opening to the public and operating out of a permanent training space in Mt Eden. Many of its current instructors can trace their linage back to Shaolin Kempo, or even Kempo Bushido Ryu, and we are indebted to more instructors than we could possibly list here. Thank you to everyone.
EMA is proud to be connected to Master Li Lulai. All of our instructors’ study Chen Taiji Quan under Master Li, who runs his own Chen Academy and teaches across the Auckland region. Master Li is a lifelong martial artist who is very generous with sharing his vast amount of knowledge and skill with us.
To learn more about Li Lulai please visit his website here:
https://chentaichi.co.nz/
