Archive for July 2nd, 2009

Here is an introduction by my friend, fellow black belt and hall of famer - David Hays:

I wanted to give this post a introduction.  Many of you know that this post is done by John Zimmer.  John is a good friend of mine and was inducted into the KenpoHall of Fame this past weekend along with Victor Hervias and John West. All of these men are from the San Diego school of Dick Willett. All of us that come from that school are proud to be part of this great fighting system.

 

John Zimmer, Victor Hervias and John West are some of the best all around fighters I have ever trained with.  The speed of Victor, the hard hitting, unorthodox left handed style of John Zimmer and raw brutalness of John West always kept me on my toes. All three of these men are greats in the arts. 

 

Last year at the 40th anniversary of Dick Willett’s  San Diego American Kenpo School (now owned and ran by Todd McElhinny) a statement was read by Al Tracy.  Master Tracy said that Dick Willett had produced some of the best fighter in Kenpo Karate. 

 

The legendary fighter, Joe Lewis, who was at the event, stood up and said “That statement was not completely true.”  Joe went on to say “Dick Willett had produced some of the best fighters anywhere period”.  We were all humbled by that statement coming from the Joe Lewis.  Congratulations men!

I am pleased to announce that I was among three black belts (John West, Victor Hervias and John Zimmer) that were nominated and inducted into the Kenpo Hall of Fame this last weekend in Chicago! Dick Willett’s American Kenpo Karate board selected us to go the the Tracy’s Karate – Gathering of Eagles 2009.

John West, Victor Hervias and I (John W. Zimmer) were all students of Dick Willett at Tracy’s Karate. Later we amicably split off from Tracy’s Karate and Dick formed American Kenpo Karate.  In this post I will give a brief bio of each of us and speak more on the Gathering of Eagles 2009. Here is a picture of my instructor, Richard “Dick” Willett and myself.

Dick Willett & John Zimmer

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