Kajukenbo Okayama: Tell us about yourself. What do you do, and what lines of work have you done?
Ron Esteller: My name is Ron Esteller. I run a martial arts school in Pleasanton, California. I formerly was in San Leandro, for many years: from '84 to 2015. I then turned that school over to my son, and now I just run the one school in Pleasanton.
Ron Esteller (center) with his son DJ and daughter Rachel.
Lines of work...I've been a grocery clerk, bagboy, night crew, sales manager, retail clothing sales manager, an industrial radiographer working non-destructive testing…worked with the telephone company doing different things, from working on the last cordboard in the Western United States to working with the original mobile operator to keeping the 911 system up and running. Being a telephone service technician was the last "real” job that I had. I left that in 1995, and I've been teaching out of my own dojo steadily since then.
Oh! There's also all those years as a disco D.J. too.
Ron Esteller at Aurthur's Disco in 1979, in front of his disco booth.
KO: What was that like?
Ron Esteller at his Pleasanton school, 2016.
RE: '77 to '81...They were interesting times…I can't say much without getting myself in trouble.
KO: (Laughing) That is a lot of jobs you mentioned. Is there any reason your have such a long list?
RE: (Laughing) I don't like to work and I don’t take authority well. Now I work for myself, so if there’s an asshole boss I only have myself to blame.
KO: What’s your history with Kajukenbo and the martial arts?
RE: I started in the martial arts in 1967 with the Tae Kwon Do program at Chabot college. I was taken there by a friend of mine, Dave Batalana, who I'd just become friends with, in 8th grade. I had just started school in the area, and he was one of my first friends there.
He'd asked me if I wanted to go, and I said "yes, absolutely". At the time I had a paper route, and I'd gotten jacked for my bike.
I went to classes with him for...I don't know…6 to 8 months? Then he stopped going, and he was my ride, so I stopped going. That's when I looked for a martial art school closer to home.
Ron Esteller (far right) in 1979 at Grandmaster Juarez’ school.
And that's where I found the Kajukenbo school there in San Leandro. It was called a "Kenpo-Kung Fu” school and it was pretty much the only martial arts school there...well, actually there was another one there called Karate Ways, which was an Ed Parker Kenpo school and one of the first of the McDojos.
I think I did a two-week, $19.99 program at Karate Ways and then they wanted three hundred and something bucks. That was in 1968...three hundred something dollars was a lot of money back then, so my mom said no, can't afford it. I cried and cried and cried, 'till she took me to the Kajukenbo school.
She didn't really want to take me there. There was some history there with my family…with my father's side of the family, who I did not know. She didn't want information about me getting back to my father.
That was on Macarthur Boulevard, in San Leandro, and it's where I met Jim Juarez. Charles Gaylord had just moved to Fremont, so he wasn't really there anymore. The Pallen brothers were under ranks there at the time, but they eventually became instructors as well.
Basilio Pallen, one of the better fighters of the day, was one of my first mentors...he kinda took me in under his wing.
And of course Jim Juarez would just come in, beat the hell out of everybody and go home. That was what his classes consisted of. And it was fun. He would also have us over in his garage, and we would work out in his garage on the weekends.
When Juarez broke off, I went with him. I had actually left the dojo for two years, so I think I was gone from '73 to '75. Then he opened up in Castro Valley in '75, and I attended for a short while there, but it got in the way of the disco.
Disco was very important to me back in those days and that was right at the beginning of those disco days. It was kind of hard to go through one of Juarez’ workouts and then think about going out and partying until 2 in the morning.
You know...we all have our priorities.
Then I rediscovered Jim again in…I think '79. I've been with him since.
1985.
1978.
KO: What was it like growing up in the Bay Area martial arts scene?
RO: Well, I started out living in Oakland until I was about 8, I think. I moved out to Central California. Not the Central Valley...Central California, which is down the Bakersfield side. I lived there 'til I was 12. So I moved back to the Bay Area in 1967, like right in the middle of the Summer of Love.
Ron Esteller in Central California, 1964.
Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, the hippies and all that. Here I come back from Central California, wearing my button down cowboy shirt, my big belt buckle that said "Ron", and cowboy boots.
I didn't exactly fit in.
I faced what would be considered "bullying” now...kids made fun of me. One kid particularly was always on me...he'd kick me when he saw me in the hallway.
As it turned out, he was bullied himself. We talked about it later in life. Now I'm okay with him and he's okay with me. He apologized for that, but there was nothing to apologize for. We were kids, you know?
But at the time it prompted me to want to take the martial arts. That was another factor in that.
So anyway, training at the Macarthur Boulevard studio was rough. We had some...we had some rough characters there. There was blood on the floor. There was Juarez kicking everybody's ass. There was a guy named Nate Willborn, better known as the Tasmanian Devil. And then all the Pallen brothers. It was a tough school. It was known to be an army.
In fact Jimmy Lee, Bruce Lee's business partner, used to bring his boys, his Jeet Kun Do boys, over to spar with us because we sparred like them. You know, hard and nasty.
I was young, but I still got in on some of those sparring sessions. I also got to watch them get the crap beat out of them by Juarez and the Pallen brothers. That was quite interesting.
Never got to see Bruce, though I was told he did come by one time.
Ron Esteller with Great Grandmaster Gaylord, circa 1985.
KO: Tell me about your time dancing. Did it effect your martial art?
RE: Oh yeah, absolutely. First off, I was a bouncer during my disco days too. It helped keep my skills sharp.
But also, I think the timing, the rhythm…I think dancing and fighting compliment each other. My forms were much better after my time dancing. I competed and did very well in kata divisions, although I would always fight as well. Sometimes I would do 4 or 5 different divisions at the tournaments (i.e. kata, sparring, self defense).
It gave me more chances to compete, more chances to test myself, more chances to...how can I put it…represent both Kajukenbo and my instructor, Jim Juarez.
KO: What's the best music to play for a workout?
RE: Santa Esmerelda. (Laughing)
KO: I knew it.
RE: Anything upbeat, 4/4. That's why I use a lot of my disco music. It has that hard driving 4/4 beat. It's why the health clubs use techno music, which is a grandchild of disco. It has that same driving 4/4 beat.
Now, some martial arts schools don't play music at all. I came from a school where Jim Juarez loved music too, and he just always had some music playing in the background.
Ron Esteller teaching at the MACE (Martial Arts Cultural Exchange) in 2017.
Maybe not as much as I do. I make it an intricate part of how we train, and play different kinds of music as we train. Everything from disco to traditional taiko drums to Hawaiian music…you know, whatever.
I play my music for me. Everybody else is along for the ride.
KO: Sounds familiar. Why do you choose certain types of music for certain parts of the class?
RE: For the beginning...for the long strides, for the pushups, for the striking drills...for all the cardiovascular work…I want that hard 4/4 count.
Before that, when we're stretching, I'll play things line Kool & The Gang, Summer Madness, 'cause it has a very slow, methodical tune to it. So it's great for stretching, it's great for clearing your mind. And then from there we'll go right into whatever else we're gonna go into.
I seem to play a lot of J-Lo too…
KO: Kajukenbo is said to work self defense, tradition, and sport. How important is the self defense aspect of Kajukenbo for you?
RE: It’s 100％ everything. It's the only thing that's really important. Everything else is just making it the "art” that it is. When it started out there were no forms. There were just 5 guys beating the hell out of each other until they figured out what they wanted to do when someone tried to hit 'em. That was all self defense.
It was thought of for self defense, it was developed for self defense, it was first trained for self defense. The art developed out of everything else.
When Charles Gaylord came to California, I'm not sure he had all the curriculum. I think he filled in a lot of blanks. And that was fine because his “blank-filling” still hurt. I've seen some of the original stuff, I've seen the stuff that he's done…
Ron Esteller with Benny "the Jet” Urquidez.
Some of the original stuff is better, and some of the stuff that he came up with was better. And I think Sijo was okay with that, because I think he wanted Kajukenbo to grow and to develop and to be expanded upon. And it’s done that through the years.
KO: Is all the evolution good?
RE: Well, if we're not careful, it can turn into a tournament art.
I'm not sure when I made the conscious decision to shy away from the tournaments. All the time you (Kajukenbo Okayama) were with me, we didn't go to many tournaments. Maybe 2 to 3 a year? But it was before that, even. I think it was toward the end of my Boy's Club days, around when I got married and had children.
I didn't have those free Saturdays anymore, as any new father doesn't. That was part of it. But also...I was just watching Kajukenbo turn into a tournament art. And that's not what it was developed for, and I wanted to bring it back on track and make the self defense aspect of it more important. I wanted to work on it more. And I wanted to expand upon it as well, which is why we brought in the Danzan Ryu Jiujutsu class, and the Escrima, and the Silat, and everything else I've gone out and tried to bring in.
Even if I didn't bring it in, like the Muay Thai, or the Brazillian Jiujutsu, I sent you guys out to get it and bring it back. You know, Eric Coleman brought back the Muay Thai, and Mickey Lopez brought back some Brazillian Jiujutsu, which got us on a track...now we have the Brazillian Jiujutsu class, as well as Danzan Ryu. I can't promote in the Escrima, because I'm not a maestre, but we worked the heck out of those techniques, and we perpetuate a good art, which is what Pidoy Escrima is.
I'm gonna work what I can.
KO: Have you given up on tournaments completely?
RE: No. We're slated to go to three this next year. I'm keeping it to certain tournaments. I really hate...and I mean hate...the "sanctioned" tournaments. The league tournaments. I hate what they've brought to the martial arts with the flippy kicks and the XMA kata with all the tricking and stuff. I'm an old school guy, you know.
1983 at the Juarez dojo.
KO: What are your thoughts on forms in self defense training?
RE: Funny you should ask. As one of the keepers of Kajukenbo knowledge...because Juarez’ group is one of the only ones in our system that have it all…all 15 pinons, all 21 grab arts, all 21 punch attacks…a lot of schools only went up to 12, or 15, for whavever reason…for that reason alone I continue to teach the forms.
Not so much the Chinese forms. I kept the few that I knew, but I didn't learn any more. It's the Chinese forms that I really don't like that much. Me, personally.
Ron Esteller with Kajukenbo co-founder, Frank Ordonez (know as "Uncle Frank") in 2016.
And now, at my age, with my hips, it's hard for me to do them, so it's hard for me to teach them. Then again, I have no excuse because Juarez is older than me and he's still doing them.
So, there is no true excuse there, other than I don’t like them.
If it was up to me I'd dump them, like John Hackleman. I would dump the forms and keep it at pad training, sparring, and self defense.
But then the art goes away. And, it is a martial art. Not a martial sport. It’s just…there's nothing wrong with dancing, but you better do more than dance.
Yeah, it's a double-edged sword. It's what keeps us a traditional martial art, and there are many hidden techniques within the forms, but like all martial arts, traditional techniques don't always translate well to real fighting.
And I didn't say sparring. I said fighting. There's a big difference between fighting and sparring.
KO: Can you tell us more about your reasons to focus on self defense?
RE: In 1979 my 8-year-old cousin was kidnapped, walking home from school, and murdered. So children’s self defense is very important to me, which is why I developed the S.A.F.E.Kids program and was lucky enough to be able to teach it in the school system for the last 20 years now.
An online meme from Sifu Anthony Marhx regarding help for Sifu Ron's SAFEkids program.
Although, last year may have been my last year. It's getting kinda hard to do it anymore without any help. My body’s too old and broken up to run through the program…you know, a three-week process of 40-50 kids per class over 5 to 6 periods of P.E., beating on you while you wear a big suit for the last two days of the program...you've (Kajukenbo Okayama) been in that suit. You know what it's like.
And I just can't do it anymore. And I can't talk anybody else into coming down and doing it for me (laughing).
The program's made a difference in my school, even this last year, because that's where a lot of my students came from. But now I'm not gonna have that entry-level exposure to the arts and to my school in particularly.
Then again, it has been different the last few years anyway. I'm not getting as many students out of it. Martial arts in general just seems to be going by the wayside. Even with the advent of MMA.
If you're not an MMA school...no one wants to do traditional martial arts anymore. Well, I'm not gonna say "nobody” because there are a lot of flourishing schools, but at least where I am, they're not wanted nearly as much.
But that's a whole ’nother story.
Ron Esteller with Senior Grand Master Ted Sotello at MACE.
KO: Where do you hope to see Kajukenbo go in the future?
RE: (Pause)
In the past, if you weren’t KSDI, you weren’t anybody. You weren't even Kajukenbo in their eyes, I’m sorry to say.
We got treated like dog shit for a lot of years because of Gaylord's…cockiness? He dared to break away and call himself Professor.
There was an article in 1984, Black Belt magazine, where Sijo is going “I am the only Professa! There is no other Professa!”
He was talking about Gaylord, because Gaylord was the only other one calling himself Professor back then.
"There will never be another Professa!"
We all see where that's at now. You can't throw a dime in a room without hitting 15 professors and grandmasters.
So, representing him was always difficult, because…we were looked at as dogshit.
But, this new (Kajukenbo) administration has been very inclusive. The BOA, Sijo's Board of Advisors, a few years ago asked me to come in. I'm now on the Board of Advisors for Kajukenbo worldwide, representing the Gaylord lineage.
At Frank Ordonez’ funeral with KSDI/BOA brothers.
Sometime in the mid 1970s, a gang fight involving 80 people or so broke out on E. 14th Street in San Leandro, Ca. That night, one of those gang members lost this pair of nunchucks. Ron Esteller walked home with them, and he's had them on his wall to this day. Ask Ron for more details.
Just the same as Woody Sims is representing the Ramos lineage, as Cheyenne Corpus is also representing the Ramos lineage, as Rick Kingi is representing the Leoning lineage, and Gary Forbach is representing the Reyes lineage...all the lineages are represented.
At the last Kajukenbo tournament that was in Vegas this last year, the unity was very apparent. It had a really good feeling...one of the best feelings I've had going to those tournaments. I look forward to this next year.
KSDI is not requiring everyone to come under them. But they want us to be unified, together, and for us to think of it as ohana.
That word, ohana, is spread out a lot, but it wasn’t seen a lot in the past. Last year in Vegas, it definitely was seen. And that's what I want.
KO: Are there any martial artists or fighters you look up to our looked up to?
RE: Too many to count. In real life, of course I have to go with my instructors. First and foremost for me is Jim Juarez. He was rated among the top 10 in the nation, both forms and fighting, so I had a good influence in the tournament circuit from the start.
Gaylord because of his leading our organization and...more because, for a cocky man, he was very humble, if that makes any sense at all. He treated us like sons. I can't think of anyone else training his or her people as often, for as little.
He gave us everything of himself. As a family man, maybe a little bit too much.
In cinema: of course Bruce. Of course Chuck. Van Damme not so much (laughing). I really like Tony Jaa.
Ron with Walter "Hoch” Hochheim in 2015.
Also, all the people that stood on the other side of the line from me (in the ring). 'Cause that's kinda how I judge people. If you stood on the other side of that line from me, you hold a whole different place in my heart.
Once you touch gloves with somebody for real, and you're both trying to go at each other, it changes relationships.
Joe Bautista is a great example. We didn't exactly start off as friends. And yet, here I am, godfather to his child. That relationship was built on our battles in that 18’x18’ square. That's where we learn to respect and love each other.
I can say that about Woody Sims, I can say that about Cheyenne Corpus, I can say that about Satch Williams, another one of the guys I really looked up to.
Satch is younger than me, but out on the floor he was the baddest man on the planet at the time. We had mad respect for each other. We did battle a few times, and I was just an old man, but he respected me as an old man and as a fighter, and I couldn't have asked for more from an elite fighter like that. That meant way more to me than a plastic trophy.
Ron Esteller with a group of his black belts, circa 2010.
KO: Is there any advice you have for Kajukenbo practitioners or martial artists on general?
RE: Wear a cup.
Check out Ron Esteller's classes at Esteller Martial Arts: 3283 Bernal Ave #107, Pleasanton Ca 94566. For more information contact Ron at (925)-768-3555.