Kenny Kuch

I was interviewed recently by a martial arts magazine. They asked me to supply a bunch of photos for the article. While searching through my boxes for shots I hadn’t posted before, I came across a team shot, taken at some long forgotten tournament. Fighting on our team was Ken Kuch, who everyone called Kenny.

Kenny Kuch (left) and Tom Sadowski, one of my first black belts.

Kenny Kuch was not one of my students. He was one of Sensei Ron McCausland’s, his top black belt, in fact. He and Ron ended up having several things in common. Kenny had had a very challenging fight at the same nightclub where Ron had worked as a bouncer, which I talked about in one of my previous posts. And, like his sensei, Kenny died far too early.

I first met Kenny when he was a colored belt and living in Sacramento, where Ron had his dojo. He was one of those people who put everything he had into everything he did. He was a tough fighter, even back then. You could see immediately he would become a great martial artist if he stuck with it. And he did.

Size wasn’t one of the things he had in common with Ron. Kenny wasn’t very big when I first met him. He was relatively short and almost skinny. To better prepare himself for the street, he asked Ron if he could get him a bouncer job at the same nightclub where Ron worked. They were glad to have him. Almost everyone who met Kenny, liked him immediately. He had a big, infectious smile and an easy, playful manner that always cheered everyone up.

One night he had to deal with an especially rowdy club customer. The man refused to leave. It escalated into a fight, which ended with a roundhouse kick to the customer’s head. The man went down. As Kenny was keeping an eye on him, to see if he planned to continue, Ron yelled “Look out!”

Kenny turned his head just in time to see a knife slashing straight for his throat. He leaned back, away from the blade. Instead of his throat, the knife sliced across his deltoid muscle on his upper arm and cut clear across his chest, clear to the bone. The slasher scrambled through the crowd and outside, where he got away.

When the police interviewed Kenny soon after the incident, they asked for a description of the slasher. Kenny told them he had no idea as it had all happened so fast.

Kenny spent a good deal of time in the hospital. The damage done by the cut took hundreds of stitches and a couple of surgeries to repair. It took months, maybe an entire year, for him to heal.

The next time I saw him, he had a huge scar across his arm and chest. But he had been doing a lot of weight work and stepped up his karate training. And, as a result, he had bulked up tremendously. When I asked him about his increase in size and more intense training regiment, he just said he didn’t intend for anything like the slashing to ever happen to him again.

Ron soon moved to LA in order to train again with Soke Kubota and Kenny followed him down. He trained in LA for many years before his untimely death last year.

The following is not based on anything Kenny ever told me directly or I know for fact. It is based only on what I heard from others who knew him better than I did. And knowing Kenny as I did, it wouldn’t surprise me if it were true.

According to the story, Kenny had actually gotten a good look at the slasher or had seen him before and recognized him. He had told the police he couldn’t describe him because he didn’t want the guy in prison. He wanted him on the street, where he could serve justice to him himself. Friends said he had intentionally bulked up in order to be able to better punish the man when he tracked him down. As I said, I don’t know if this part of the story is true or false or, if true, if the guy ever got what he deserved. But part of me hopes so.

Kenny Kuch was a great guy and great martial artist who left us far too early. He was a bright spot in a sometimes very dark world.

I'll be getting back soon to our discussion on Instructing Children in the Martial Arts. Thanks for reading.