Kajukenbo Okayama: Tell us about yourself.
Tom Theofanopoulos: My name is Tom Theofanopoulos, and I own and operate Oakdale Mixed Martial Arts Academy and Sonora Mixed Martial Arts Academy.
I started in Kajukenbo at the end of 1975, beginning of ‘76, right around there, with James Juarez. It was down at the old Foothill school.
What’s interesting is I had known about the school while working at my Dad’s restaurant, Prings, before I started training, and every time someone would ask me if I knew of any place to go train I would send them there. I was sending people there before I went [laughs].
So finally in November of ‘75 I tried out a class, and formally joined at the beginning of ‘76. Frank Wohler was there, and he had been there maybe about a month before me. He taught me the first three blocks in Pinon number 1.
I’ll never forget it. I was just a kid, 15, 16 years old. Wohler was this great, viking-looking guy with a full set of red hair, big red beard. Very intimidating, y’know?
KO: You said you were pushing people towards the school before you even started training there. Why? What did you know about the place?
Theofanopoulos: There was a buzz about it. It had just started, and there was a reputation people knew, about James Juarez, and about that school. Plus, there weren’t that many schools around, to be honest. When people talked about martial arts, that was the place to go.
At the time, I didn’t know anything about martial arts - just what I saw on TV. Just like everybody else back in those days, in the ‘70s. I didn’t know the difference between Kung Fu and Karate, y’know? None of that. I just thought everybody wore a belt. The first time I heard the word Kajukenbo, I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know of any specific styles. We had heard about Karate, about Kung Fu, maybe even Tae Kwon Do, but nothing real specific.
Kajukenbo black belts, including Tom Theofanopoulos (far right, bottom), Frank Wohler (far left), and John Bono (left of Tom Theo).
KO: Over the years, how has your Kajukenbo evolved?
Theofanopoulos: Hm. That’s a good question. Well, initially, like everybody else, I think it was pretty rudimentary. As I matured in the martial arts, I started to recognize reality-based combat.
I started to get involved with Judo in about 1988, because when I moved to Oakdale, there was a guy named Bob Gonzales, who trained with Wally Jay and Willie Cahill. Willie Cahill was the olympic coach at the time. Bob was maybe a year or two older than I was. He moved to Oakdale around the same time I did, so I invited him out to my school.
What I saw was…I was so displeased at the lack of throwing ability, not just at our school but all Kajukenbo schools, that I asked him to come and train with us. So he was teaching a Judo class there twice a week, and that was my introduction to Judo. He didn’t stay long, but he was there for years.
My second Judo instructor was Tom Prada, who was a 4th or 5th degree in Judo. And then about 10 years ago I started working with Sensei Christine Lincoln-Penick. She had won the world championship like 10, 11 times or something like that. She was the first African-American woman to do it.
She had wandered into my school, wanting to learn Brazilian Jiu-jutsu. When I found out who she was, I asked her to stay, and now she teaches Judo every Friday.
In 1995, I had started Brazilian Jiu-jutsu. It was a couple of years after I saw the first UFC, where Royce dominated. He was the smallest person in the competition, and yet he dominated everyone, all the larger opponents, and ended up winning the competition.
I thought “Y’know, it’s not the same Jiu-jutsu that we have in Kajukenbo”, but at the same time I had a love for grappling that had never diminished since I had been a wrestler, which I started when I was 12 years old. I had stopped wrestling because of a tremendous injury to my head. But I saw Brazilian Jiu-jutsu and I thought “this would be a good thing to come back to”.
Even though it wasn’t Danzan Ryu Jiu-jutsu (the branch of Jiu-jutsu that helped form Kajukenbo), it was what was available to me. So I started training in Bjj in ‘95. At the time I wasn’t looking to gain rank in any of those systems. I just wanted to better my Kajukenbo. That was my desire. But eventually, as I got deeper in those arts, I felt an obligation to study them more deeply.
In ‘95 I just started by buying a bunch of DVDs to learn BJJ. And then right around that time, maybe ‘96, a guy walks into my school with a blue belt and white gi, and says “Hey, my name is Patrick, I’m a blue belt in BJJ, and I want to know if you guys want to learn.”
And we said “well, hell yeah, we wanna learn Brazilian Jiu-jutsu.”
He had gotten his blue belt from Carley Gracie, in San Francisco. What Patrick was looking for was a local group that he could train with and better himself with, so he wouldn’t have to drive all the way down to San Francisco so often.
One day, after some time working with us, he says “Look, I wanna go get another affiliation. I wanna go to Brazil. If I find one, I want to know if you’d be interested in helping me bring the guy over here.” And I said “Yeah, of course.”
So Patrick left…this was probably around ‘97, I wanna say…he left, went to Brazil, was gone for a couple of months. When he came back, he says “I found the family we’re gonna train with. I’m gonna bring a guy here named Sylvio Behring.”
I said “Why him?”
And he goes “Because out of everybody, Behring had a cookie-cutter system.” Y’know, you could tell the family was involved since the beginning. Everybody was doing the same thing. They had a very particular system. It wasn’t a hodgepodge of people doing different techniques. It was their father’s system and everybody was doing the same techniques.
So we brought Sylvio over here, but then after many, many years of Sylvio coming he had an issue with his visa. He wasn’t able to come to the US for awhile. So he sent his father Flavio Behring to come and to teach us. Flavio was a direct student of Hélio Gracie, who was the father of Rickson, Royler…the famous Gracie brothers. I ended up gaining a connection with him.
He started coming out, and eventually we just stayed with Flavio because of that connection.
It’s interesting…every time somebody asks me “What would it take for me to learn under you? What would it take for you to come and teach us? What would it take…?”
Tom Theo (right) with Grandmaster Flavio Behring (left).
And my answer’s always “a relationship”. Because once you establish that connection with your teacher, that life-long relationship is the common denominator, in my opinion, for learning from that person.
Seminars are one thing, but when you have that connection with your teacher, he/she’s gonna divulge their teachings, their “secrets”, everything. That’s not just for martial arts, but life as well.
So, through Grandmaster Flavio Behring, I also learned how to be a gentleman in the martial arts, and how to teach.
KO: How important is BJJ for people who aren’t in their 20s anymore?
Theofanopoulos: BJJ for me is kind like getting in water, like swimming. When I’m on the ground I’m able to move much better then if I’m standing up and trying to throw a kick [laughs]. I’m 61 now, right? I noticed that if I try and do Pinon number 8, where we start with a side kick, front kick, back kick…oh my God…it’s not the same as maybe even 10 years ago. I’m not kidding. It’s not the same.
So, I’m even finding myself wanting to just punch more when I’m sparring. Less kicking, because I’m falling off balance. I’m more interested in boxing than kickboxing now, for the same reason I’m more interested in BJJ. Because I can move my upper body well, but the minute my leg comes off the ground I’m just off balance.
The BJJ is also easier on my body, because I can control the damage in training with a simple tap. If I tap, the person will let me go. In sparring, you can’t control what the other person is throwing at you. Your blocking becomes less efficient, your timing starts to be off a little bit, and now you’re getting blasted in the nose and you can’t control that.
A kick to the leg is gonna cost me in the morning when I try to get up [laughs]. Where as with BJJ it’s just not like that.
KO: Who are some of your noticeable students?
Theofanopoulos: Michael McDonald was absolutely the most talented martial artist I’ve ever seen in my life. He could have been at the top if he chose to pursue a fighting career further. Even as a kid, at 15 years old, he was knocking out adults.
I remember the first time that he competed in a kickboxing match, there was a school that I’d called to get a match for him. They said “We have this 16 year-old kid that would like to fight Michael.” I said “No, I’d prefer an adult.” He goes “Why?” and I go “‘Cause this kid is knocking out adults.”
The guy got offended. He goes “No, we’ll bring the 16-year-old.”
So when they fought in the ring, Michael knocked the crap out of him, to the point where the 16-year-old starts yelling out obscenities. So I jump in there and say “Hey man, quit cursing. We have families in the crowd.”
What’s interesting is that the very next Monday, the kid’s mother brought him into our academy. I was wondering what the hell they were doing there. She says “I was so impressed with you wanting my kid to not swear that I’m changing schools. I want him to come to you.” That kid went on to turn pro and became a very good fighter as well.
His name is Eloy Garza, and I’m proud of him. He became very close to me as well, and became a great fighter.
Tom Theo (left) with Angel DeAnda (right).
Also, Angel DeAnda. He fought the best in the world. He ended up fighting Tyrone Spong. Spong had just won some major kickboxing titles and was looking to do mma. Angel fought him for a main event, and man it was a good fight. But Spong had really good leg kicks and won by decision.
Another is Randal “Buddy” Wallace. Buddy is on the fast track right now to UFC. We’re waiting for the call. He’s one of the best I’ve seen. I think he’s gonna do really well in UFC. He’s won so many major titles, but this is the next big step for him.
Rolando Velasco was our first champion in mma. He’s a four-time belt holder, world champion.
Tom Theo (left) with Rolando Velasco (right).
Rolando had actually gone to the UFC tryouts in Vegas. He passed everything except the interview. He passed the mitt work, the grappling…but the last thing was the interview. He’s very mild-mannered, very quiet. He plays piano, he’s a research scientist, a geneticist. He’s got not one tattoo on him. Later, I called his manager to find out why he failed. He’s so clean-cut that they cut him because there was no drama in his life. They wanted guys with drama, who talked a lot. They wanted a McGregor.
That’s why he didn’t make it, but he beat guys that went on to fight in the UFC, like Darren Uyenoyama. That was the guy he beat for the first title in an organization called “Caged Combat”. Darren was the poster boy. He was the guy they expected to win. The show was called “Undefeated”. Darren had an undefeated record, Rolando had an undefeated record, so they expected us to go out there and lose, and Rolando just beat the crap out of him. Darren later went on to the UFC.
He beat the “who’s who” and they’re in the UFC, but he’s not [laughs].
Another one, Justin Smitley, was probably the most underrated fighter in California. Extremely talented, but he just never got a shot. And Salvador Becerra. He started with me at 14 years old, a very talented fighter with a great record that should go on to the UFC.
KO: You are very proud of your Greek heritage. Did it have an impact on your love of the martial arts?
Theofanopoulos: Yes. In fact, Juarez had given us a paper on the history of the martial arts when I first started, and it went back all the way to the last stand of the 300. It talked about the history and why it was significant in today’s martial arts. It surprised me because my parents would tell me these stories, y’know. I’d hear them through my culture, and here he’s giving out papers talking about the possibility of Alexander the Great spreading the martial arts through India, then from India to China, China to Japan and Okinawa, and then the Hawaiian islands, and then the US. I was thinking “could the martial arts have really gone all the way back to the Greeks”? [laughs]
But they did. They of course had boxing, wrestling, and the art of Pankration, which was the first mma. The word pankration means “all powers”, and that refers to, y’know, kicking, punching, wrestling. All of it.
My latest endeavor, over the last 10 years…Juarez kinda introduced us to boxing, which has roots in Pankration. We would do mitt work. A lot of the mitt work was boxing-type drills. Basic combination. And what’s cool is that he gave us that base to be able to add to it and become better at it. So, for the last 10 years or so I’ve been really intrigued with boxing. Probably because of my lack of kicking ability now [laughs].
So I’ve been studying a lot of the newer fighters coming out, boxing-wise. And so, it motivated me to actually open up a boxing gym. And that’s what we’re doing right now. We took one of our buildings back in Oakdale, which is next to our current building. Our current building is like 8,500 square feet. The older building, which we had been renting out, is 5,500 square feet.
Because we’re so packed in our current building, I decided to take that building back. We’re moving Kajukenbo classes to the other building, along with Judo and wrestling. We’re gonna add a huge boxing program.
We get a lot of people coming in and just asking for straight boxing, and up until now we’ve only been able to offer kickboxing. But, we have a very large Hispanic community here, where they feel, culturally, that they just wanna do straight boxing. So, we’re gonna do that, and we’re gonna leave the kickboxing and the Bjj in our current building.
KO: Does the Greek history continue to have an impact on you outside of the boxing connection?
Theofanopoulos: Yes. Absolutely. That paper that talked about the history of the 300…I remember reading about it, and it talked about how on the last day of battle, their shields were broken, the spears were broken, they had lost their swords, and they were literally fighting tooth and nail. They were fighting hand-to-hand combat. Biting, ripping, punching, kicking. They died to the man, and that was just very interesting that Juarez would relate that information to Kajukenbo.
KO: Is that connected to the name of your fight team? The “Last Stand” fight team?
Theofanopoulos: Yes [laughs]. Yes.
A lot of the people who come and just want to fight are learning the sport combat aspect of the martial arts. Not the “art” part of the martial arts. The art, which has to do with the katas, the pinons, the pre-arranged movements…the “arts” part seems to attract more analytical people, who want an art, or just want to get into shape. The people who are doing sports combat stuff are coming in and doing the Muay Thai, the kickboxing, the Bjj, the Judo, the wrestling. The arts that require an opponent that is resisting 100%. Arts that are governed by rules, because in those arts you can’t kick to the groin, you can’t strike to the throat, you can’t gouge an eye. Those are Kajukenbo things.
So we kinda had to separate them.
Wanting to come up with a name for the fight team, I thought “Y’know…what would cause a fighter to fight tooth and nail? To fight to the death? Well, if he/she were…if it were their last stand, and it was either victory or death, than that makes sense.”
And the word “Spartan” was so commonly used…like the San Jose Spartans. You got all these teams named “Spartans”. I didn’t want to use that “Spartan” cliché.
I thought “Last Stand…” It says everything that I believe a fight should be. If you’re fighting like it’s your last stand, you’re gonna fight to the death. I thought it was appropriate.
KO: How have you seen Kajukenbo change as an art, over the years?
Theofanopoulos: I can’t speak for Kajukenbo in general, but I can speak for my own journey. Initially when I first got involved, the back of our shirts had the Kajukenbo emblem…the reeds, the clover, the yin and yang…and it had on their “Kenpo-Kung Fu” [laughs].
Of course I later learned that it was Kajukenbo, and people didn’t really know what that was. So this was why we advertised as “Kenpo-Kung Fu”. At the time…I’m not exactly sure how Juarez got the information…I think he was going out of state to train with Dacascos.
This was before I came into the picture. The Ch’uan Fa branch of Kajukenbo had been started by Al Dela Cruz and Al Dacascos. Emperado sent Dacascos to the mainland to teach the mainland teachers (mostly in the Bay Area of California) the Ch’uan Fa, which is a Chinese-influenced version of the original Emperado Kenpo system.
It was the “Chinese” version of the art. Not the internal version - don’t get it confused with Tum Pai. That came later.
At the time, in the ‘60s, Emperado was really intrigued with the Chinese martial arts. A lot of Kung Fu movies around, that sort of thing.
He allowed Dacascos and Dela Cruz to bring in more of a Chinese influence. I think that’s when the black uniforms came into existence for most schools. I don’t know if you know this, but in the Chinese operas good guys wear black (or red). It’s opposite to the western view. The good guys wear black and the bad guys wear white.
When Dacascos came here, a lot of the guys were open to the changes, but some people, like the Reyes camp, were not open to it. Reyes asked Emperado if he could stay hard-line Kenpo, the original Emperado method, and Emperado said yes.
Most of the other methods switched to the Ch’uan Fa. Charles Gaylord, who was the start of our Kajukenbo branch, was one of those who switched over. I don’t know that Gaylord was really that involved in learning the style, but I think Juarez was. He went and learned the 10 forms. Fu Hak, Plum Blossom, Sil Lam 6, all of those. Then he started teaching us those forms.
When I left, in ‘88, I had learned four of those forms. I was getting ready to learn some of the higher ones, but I had learned Sui Won (“Siu Wan Kuen” or “Xiao Huan Quan”), Sil Lam 6, Plum Blossom…
Since then I’ve forgotten most of them [laughs]. I really like Sui Won, but I never really liked the others.
Because of my wrestling experience, I wasn’t really into the Gung Fu part of it. I was intrigued by it, but I wasn’t impressed by it. I thought it was too flowery, y’know.
When I started teaching on my own, I emphasized more of the hard-style. The katas, the first four katas, were what I started teaching beginners. If you can get past those katas, then we would start Pinan 1, Pinan 2.
Now all of a sudden, you notice more of a Chinese flair in the pinans. Like the peacock blocks and strikes.
Tom Theo (right) with Gustavo Guerrero (left).
In ‘88, I was teaching the four soft forms I had learned. But eventually, I started to just not teach them anymore, except Sui Won. Sui Won means “small circular fist”, and I thought out of all of them, that was the most practical. I still remember that one, but that’s the only one. (laughing)
So, my Kajukenbo, because of the Judo and Jiu-jutsu influence, started emphasizing more of the grappling, and less of the Gung Fu.
I’m not a big fan of the Gung Fu. A lot of it is practical, and a lot of it is too flowery, not practical anymore. I’m a bigger fan of Karate if I have to look at the Asian martial arts, and an even bigger fan of the FMA, the Filipino Martial Arts.
KO: What parts of Kajukenbo training are the most important for most practitioners, besides yourself?
Theofanopoulos: I think anything that has to do with contact is the most important. I think forms, like the pinans or kata, are gonna teach you your balance, your conditioning, your cardio…to do these forms for an hour takes a lot. Also conditioning, strength-wise, a lot of these forms build tremendous leg strength, with the low stances.
But I think sparring, whether it be, y’know, kickboxing or whatever…
I’m not into the point fighting by the way. I stopped that when I first moved out here. I did one tournament and got disqualified for what they called “malicious intent”. That was around the time I met Melchor Chavez, and I realized his training style was what I wanted to go into.
I really hated the hands-down, one-touch, turn your back to your opponent as you walk away with one hand up “I got my point” attitude…I didn’t like that. At all. I didn’t feel it was practical.
So I started to gear my martial arts towards contact, grappling, y’know…anything that had to do with 100% resistance from an opponent. We’re still controlled when we’re sparring, but I feel those were more important for me than the forms.
Even with the punching attacks. I still have problems with the punching attacks. Your opponent standing there with his arm extended while you’re doing everything you wanna do. So now, in my head, I had to think to myself “Do I believe that this stuff is gonna work?”
To explain my view of the punching attacks to my students, I say “a punching attack is simply a study of the weak points of a person’s anatomy. This is the weapon I’m striking with.” It’s an introduction of using the strong points of your body to attack the soft points of your opponent’s body, explaining where you would hit and why you would hit.
KO: So you trained with Chavez?
Theofanopoulos: Yes. When I first met Great Grandmaster Melchor Chavez, we had all gone to his home in New Mexico for a tournament. It was the first introduction I had to his big red mat. To see the ring, to see the full-contact heavy bags there…we didn’t grow up with that! We were Kenpo-Kung Fu [laughs].
To see the full-contact world, and to see his kickboxers, with Muay Thai shorts, and to see how they were training, intrigued me. I came back with a whole new vision of what I wanted for my training and my school.
So what I did, I started going back there and training with him. Later on, when K1 and all of those organizations started coming up, I started to look at Dutch style a little bit. I went to various places in Europe. I even trained with one of my best friends in Greece, who was doing Dutch style.
I came back and started to establish my own kickboxing style, based on our experiences in mma. So, we don’t teach traditional Muay Thai, although we have Muay Thai elements in our kickboxing, as I learned them from Great Grandmaster Melchor Chavez. The clinching that we do, a lot of the patterns that we used and learned from him…along with a lot of the Dutch style I learned in Europe, along with the boxing I’ve been studying for the last 15 years, along with a lot of the stuff I learned from Gaylord…
All that mixed together, we call it Last Stand Kickboxing. So it’s a mixture of American-style, Kajukenbo, boxing, Dutch Style, and the traditional Muay Thai. If you look at my fighters fight, they’re more of a traditional boxing style. Not a Muay Thai style. Because the problem with Muay Thai is that you’re gonna get taken down very easily in mma. So our style is geared more towards mma.
KO: A quick question about your time point sparring. “Malicious intent…?”
Theofanopoulos: [laughs] Yeah. I hit the guy too hard. Got disqualified.
KO: [laughs]
KO: What are your hopes for Kajukenbo in the future?
Theofanopoulos: I never really thought about it bro. I never really…well, I guess I do have hopes.
I hope for more accountability. There are too many Kajukenbo people out there doing whatever they want. There was an incident a year ago, where I went to the KSDI BOA, to get some closure on a guy who was not a legitimate grandmaster. They couldn’t do anything about it, because the person in question was promoted by a legitimate martial artist. I was very disheartened, and realized that there needs to be some sort of organization…and I hear there’s such an organization in the works…that’s gonna keep people accountable. Especially the high ranks, the professors and grandmasters.
Because there’s too many of them. It seems like there are so many grandmasters now…it’s sad. It’s pathetic.
If you look at traditional Karate, even to have a 6th or 7th degree, it takes 50 years. And now I’m seeing 30-year Kajukenbo guys get their grandmastership. I think it’s an embarrassment. I’m really embarrassed by the whole thing.
KO: Do you think this new organization is going to work?
Theofanopoulos: I’m hoping it does. I’m really hoping it does.
If it does, people are gonna train harder. People are gonna continue to work into their old age. The problem is: grandmasterships are being given to people who have retired for 10 years, don’t even have schools anymore. Just because they’re here on Earth, they’re being given a grandmaster title, or a professor title, or whatever.
They’re getting promoted for not working. I’m embarrassed by seeing guys who can’t even put their belts on anymore because their gut is too big. Guys who haven’t trained in 10 years getting these promotions. I just don’t get it.
A lot of these people aren’t even teaching. Or maybe they have their own school but they don’t have students who have gone on to teach. I don’t think they should be grandmasters. I think they should have achieved something in their life, y’know? What have they done to receive that? It’s disheartening.
Tom Theo with Angel DeAnda.
KO: Do you have any advice for martial artists or Kajukenbo practitioners in general?
Theofanopoulos: Yeah. First of all, be open-minded. Don’t think that your way is the only way or the best way. There’s a thousand teachers and there are a thousand methods.
The second thing is: martial arts is perishable. Everything that we’ve achieved so far is in the past. It does not include today, and it does not include tomorrow.
Because it’s perishable, we need to be doing our exercises everyday, we need to be doing squats, we need to be doing bodyweight exercises, if not weights…
If you look at martial arts throughout history, there was always some sort of conditioning going on. The Japanese and the Okinawans used weighted sandals. Heavy jars to hold on to in their training. Weights put on a bar, made of cement.
Chinese and Japanese used tension exercises. Isometric and isotonic exercises. Dynamic tension it’s called, right? Deep breathing exercises. These are things that are becoming lost in point contact and modern martial arts because people are lazy.
Hand conditioning is a lost art. I try and hand condition at least every other day, if not every third day (if my hands are hurting). Great Grandmaster Juarez’ bruise medicine has probably saved me more times than naught. I use his bruise medicine like I put butter on bread [laughs].
Those are the things I would advise. Don’t rest on your laurels, for crying out loud. Stay active. Be healthy, eat the right foods.
And then: we gotta do better. Whatever our teachers did, it’s called upon us to do even better.
Tom Theofanopoulos is a 9th degree black belt in Kajukenbo, 4th degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-jutsu, 3rd degree black belt in Judo, and has an official 1st degree rank in WAKO kickboxing.
Check out Oakdale MMA at 140 N 2nd Ave, Oakdale, CA, 95361
(209) 847-9406
https://mmaoakdale.com/
Or Sonora MMA at 13760 Mono Way Suite D, Sonora, CA. 95370
(209) 533-3505
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If you enjoyed this interview, check out more writings like it in our recent book, "Blood, Sweat, and Bone: The Kajukenbo Philosophy".
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