Jeff Speakman
Jeff Speakman (born November 8, 1958) is an American actor and a martial artist in the art of American Kenpo and Japanese Gōjū-ryū, earning black belts in each. Between 2008 and 2018, he was President of the International Kempo Federation. Early life Speakman was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, where he was a springboard diver at John Hersey High School and achieved All-American status. He graduated from Missouri Southern State College. He has said that the television show Kung Fu got him interested in martial arts, and he began by studying the Okinawan martial art of Gōjū-ryū until achieving black belt rank. His instructor then recommended that if he was really intent in pursuing martial arts as a lifestyle, then he should go looking for Ed Parker, a friend of his master. Speakman sold his car to pay for the moving expenses and met Parker at one of the latter's tournaments. Speakman spent years training in American Kenpo under his principal instructor, Larry Tatum, as well as under the system's founder Parker. Speakman received his first-degree black belt in American Kenpo in 1984. He was promoted to ninth degree in kenpo karate by Mills Crenshaw and