MERCEDES — Laurine Rodriguez has taken her two girls to Obie’s Gym karate school every day for the last three years.
Most people wouldn’t know it but the school is the mother school to the American Kajukenbo Association of Texas.
The school teaches the perfected art for street fighting.
“It’s an awesome school,” Rodriguez said. “We’re doing it for self-defense because we have girls.”
Rodriguez said over the three years of karate training, her girls have grown tremendously, learned to give respect and can take care of themselves if they need to use their martial arts training.
In the 1960s Kajukenbo was brought to the United States mainland by Professor Charles Gaylord. His training became known as the Gaylord Method of Kajukenbo.
Gaylord was a student of Adriano Emperado, one of five black belts who formed the legendary Black Belt Society that created Kajukenbo.
Kajukenbo is the first marital arts system to originate in America. It was developed in 1947 in Hawaii.
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