Karate Dojo Mural Finished

In May 2016 I started working on a mural at Crestview Kenpo Karate in North Austin, TX (Open date TBA). Kenpo dates back to ancient China. Read about American Kenpo history and/or sign up for classes here. This mural took about 40 hours. We started with a school patch kind of like this one:

Except the tiger and dragon were in the positions of the mural itself. The image was very basic, pix-elated and somewhat incomplete. Over a couple months I worked with the owner of this new dojo, David Duvall (who trained in Kenpo for 30 years), to create this new school's mural and patch to make it exactly how he wants. (It became more than we ever envisioned!) After many hours of tedious tweaks, we came up with this:

The tiger represents physical strength, circling the wise dragon that is spiritual strength. In martial arts, one learns both. Tigers are easy to depict because they're real animals. That dragon was a lot more challenging to get right since we were making him up.

The dragon is holding the Universal Pattern for American Kenpo Karate.

It was created by Master Ed Parker (who also created the American version of Kenpo in the 1960s). It represents every move one can make in the martial art along with many other teachings. Read about them here.

Kenpo Creed:

"I come to you with only karate, empty hands. I have no weapons,

but should I be forced to defend myself, my principles or my honor, should it be a matter of life or death, right or wrong; then here are my weapons,

KARATE, MY EMPTY HANDS."