The Legacy of Grandmaster Paul Mills

THE KENPO TAUGHT AT MOJO KENPO

The instructional line is clear: Senior Grandmaster Ed Parker → Grandmaster Paul Mills → Professor Sean Carey → Head Instructor Jeremy K. Lucas and Mojo Kenpo.

That line is more than a list of names. It carries principles, methods, questions, standards, and a responsibility to understand what was taught well enough to pass it forward honestly.

SENIOR GRANDMASTER ED PARKER

Senior Grandmaster Ed Parker founded and developed American Kenpo as a modern, systematic martial art. His work provides the foundation...a method of studying practical self-defense through principles, motion, timing, distance, targeting, positioning, and adaptation.

This page is not intended as a history of Mr. Parker. His essential place is at the beginning of the Art and lineage studied at Mojo Kenpo.

GRANDMASTER PAUL MILLS

Grandmaster Paul Mills is the emotional and instructional center of Mojo Kenpo's lineage. He began his study under Mr. Parker and received his first-degree black belt in 1981. Through decades of training, teaching, refinement, travel, and exchange, he developed a Kenpo marked by precise mechanics, powerful movement, honest timing, and an insistence on understanding why technique works.

Mr. Mills and his wife, Deon, created the American Kenpo Karate International after Mr. Parker's passing. The organization provided a home for sharing and developing his Kenpo, including hundreds of camps and seminars where he selflessly shared his knowledge and experience. The organization itself is no longer active. Its teachings, relationships, and influence continue through the people entrusted with them.

THE MAN WITHIN THE ART

Technique alone does not explain why Grandmaster Mills matters to Mojo Kenpo and the thousands of students who'vetrained with him. Those who trained with him remember his warmth, humor, humility, generosity, and respect for the people standing in front of him. His Kenpo could be exacting and powerful without requiring him to make himself larger than the Art.

His words remain an appropriate guide for those traveling their journey in Kenpo, “Have faith and believe in yourself, have courage, create and always be humble.”

Grandmaster Mills passed on February 18, 2024. His legacy is carried by those individuals and schools who've shared in his training.

FROM PROFESSOR CAREY TO MOJO KENPO

Professor Sean Carey carried Grandmaster Mills' teaching to Jeremy K. Lucas. Mr. Carey is a large part of Jeremy Lucas' personal story and, for better or worse, primarily responsible for Mojo Kenpo trying to honorably carry Grandmaster Mills' kenpo forward.

Mojo Kenpo is an independent school. The Mills Family has officially retired the AKKI as an organization,  so Mojo Kenpo does not claim a current organizational affiliation or endorsement. It does, however, state its instructional heritage without hesitation...the Kenpo practiced here descends from Senior Grandmaster Ed Parker and honors the teachings and influence of Grandmaster Paul Mills.

Lineage is gratitude joined to responsibility. The point is not to live in the past. It is to carry forward what remains useful, demanding, and true.