My friend Keith Allan
I met Keith Allan in March of 2015 at the open house for a new location of EP Martial Arts.
Ty and Keith had been partners in a gym in Pawtucket 20 years earlier and Ty always spoke highly of Keith. Keith had been his JKD and Kali instructor as well as his partner.
Keith came to our open house to support us and I remember meeting him for the first time. He was interested in Krav Maga and we talked about Filipino martial arts, JKD and boating which was a big part of his life.
I didn’t see Keith again until several months after I went to Israel for Krav Maga training two years later. I had an epiphany while I was training in Israel. There were about fifty students and seven instructors. Each instructor taught self defense in the context of Krav Maga training. There were tough warm ups and tough work outs and we were tired before any techniques were even taught.
There was boxing training, ground fighting, there were handgun disarms, edged weapons training with swords, knife defenses. I found the Kali training compelling. Guy Rafelli was demonstrating and teaching limb destruction and strikes , as well as Dumog, Filipino grappling. Guy also demonstrated some nasty round kicks on me and I was limping for the next few days.
I survived the tough workouts and the night beach training and an mma fight which was part of our final test. I went home with a new appreciation of how different techniques and systems can be incorporated into Krav Maga training.
Back at home, I got back into the routine of my training in Krav Maga , karate and judo. I kept thinking about the devastating Kali techniques I had seen and realized I didn’t have to go back to Israel or to the Phillipines to learn Kali because Keith Allan lived 10 minutes down the road from me!
I hadn’t been in touch with Keith at all since our grand opening the year before so I got this number from Ty and called him out of the blue. He remembered me and we set a time to get together at his house.
Keith shared his old red beach cottage with his girlfriend Shalyn. I arrived at the house which was one street from the water and found him in the one car garage, an old beat up looking garage about 15 feet from the house. The garage had an overhead door that hung way too low to swing a Kali stick unless you were in the exact right spot! There was a beautiful wooden dummy for Wing Chun practice in the back of the space and a Filipino flag as well as momentos from his years training around the country and around the world. He had a worn heavy bag leaning against a wall and a bunch of old boxing gloves and focus pads on shelves, and his sticks. He had everything he needed.
We hit it off immediately he was friendly and interesting to talk to. He was smart and funny. He had an offcolor and offbeat sense of humor that made me like him right away even though it was often at my expense! I made fun of him back and he always took it well.
“Everything works and nothing works”
Keith was an internationally known JKD and Kali instructor from East Providence, Rhode Island! Keith learned from high level disciples of Bruce Lee including Tim Tackett and Burt Richardson.
Keith was a very good instructor. His classes were full of great techniques which he demonstrated with amazing speed. They were also packed with wisdom. Once when I asked Keith his opinion regarding the comparison of two different techniques he answered; “Everything works and nothing works.” Of all the many interesting thoughts he expressed I think this was the most profound to me.
Keith taught at EP Martial Arts in East Providence RI for the last year of his life. He was my friend and my Filipino martial arts instructor for 4 years.
Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated, you can contact me at info@kravmagaprovidence.com
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