Where did Ed Parker get his training?
When I first started studying with Ed Parker in 1957, I asked him what title we should use when we addressed him. His answer was very simple: Ed. Not even Mr. Parker; that made him feel old. Just Ed. And that is the only way I ever addressed him, right up to his death in 1990. When Ed was about eight years of age his father got him started in Judo. The next endeavor for Ed was Boxing. Most boxing was done at the YMCA and Boys Clubs. As a teenage boxer Ed remembered there was always someone older, bigger and more experienced who wanted to use you for a punching bag. Ed told me they did not let him come back to boxing when one of the big guys would not back off so Ed took him down to the ground – gloves and all – and choked him out. Ed remembers what a tough neighborhood he came from. Years later he told me that of his group, only he and Bo Bo Olson – the great middle-weight Boxer – were still alive. Ed’s father had been quite a “boxer” and “scrapper” when he was younger and wanted Ed to
