![]() ![]() Heck, Elvis was so persuasive and you wanted to help him so much.I would have probably done the same thing. In the days that followed, however, the promotion took place. "You see, in order for this to take place, we would have to vote Kang Rhee his eighth-degree belt. He said, 'Elvis wants his seventh-degree belt. "One day, Kang Rhee called a meeting of the black belts and brought up this dilemma. Trouble was, Kang Rhee couldn't promote him higher than he himself was. "Elvis, who believed seven was his perfect number (there are numerous instances in the Bible to this being God's number), really wanted his seventh-degree black belt. ![]() "That was impressive to all of us, since there weren't many karate practitioners in the country with as many years in the art."ĭespite this, the book still casts some doubt on Elvis's seventh-degree honors. He was Elvis, the Black Belt, with 15 years' experience," Carman writes. "In martial arts, he wasn't Elvis, the Entertainer. Most of all, he remembers Elvis as a passionate martial artist. Most everyone used wooden guns, but not Elvis"). In it, he documents how he met Elvis and brought him to the dojo ("Elvis wants some of his security people to learn the nunchakus"), Elvis's quirks ("He was the only person I ever saw wear boots into the dojo"), and his peculiar training methods ("When Elvis.practice self-defense demonstrations, he insisted on using real firearms. Wayne Carman trained with Elvis under Master Kang Rhee in Memphis and wrote an entire book about the experience, Elvis's Karate Legacy. After Presley passed, Slemansky told Parker, "The kid ain't pretty, but he's tough and he's a Black Belt." (Which is an odd thing to say because Elvis was, in fact, very pretty.) Because of this, Slemansky put Elvis through a rigorous six-week training program to justify his belt. This apparently culminated when Ricky Nelson-who was, by all accounts, terrible at karate-was given one by instructor Bruce Tegner. It's also worth noting, however, that Elvis tended to surround himself with pro-Elvis people (and disparaging Elvis just don't fly, mama).Īl Tracy, one of Ed Parker's pupils, writes that Hank Slemansky really forced Elvis to earn his black belt because of a rash of phony celebrity black belts during the late 1950s. Whenever doubt is raised, people who knew or trained with Elvis always defend him. There's a little bit of a debate within the karate community over The King's skills and the veracity of his seventh-degree black belt. Later, Elvis trained in a Memphis dojo under Master Kang Rhee, who bestowed upon him a seventh-degree black belt, before Elvis opened his own center, the Tennessee Karate Institute. In Memphis, Presley earned his first-degree black belt in 1960 under Chito-Ryu stylist Hank Slemansky. The two became friends, and Parker taught Elvis on and off until Presley's death in 1977. Upon returning to America, he met Ed Parker, a kenpo master, at a karate demonstration at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. But was he actually any good at it?Įlvis's decades-long karate biography goes like this: He first started training while stationed in Germany (Army Elvis, 1958-'60) with a man named Juergen Seidel. ![]() Whereas some of these identities were contrived or merely parts he played, Elvis had a legitimate love of and passion for karate. ![]() There's Rockabilly Elvis, Army Elvis, Cowboy Elvis, Hawaiian Elvis, and, of course, Karate Elvis. Unlike the rest of us, his stages are crisply defined like action figure special editions. Like all of us, Elvis Presley's life was marked by different stages. ![]()
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