When James Mitose began his teaching in 1942, at the encouragement of the late Robert Trias, he had no idea how martial arts, and specifically Kempo, would be viewed by people in the future. If he had known, his decision to teach may have been different.

When I met James Mitose, my purpose was to verify that what I was doing was legitimate Kempo. After training with him, I realized that the techniques that I was doing and the curriculum that I was developing were not Kempo at all. They were merely a reflection of techniques that were created in a textbook written in 1955 by James Mitose. I had no understanding or realization that Kempo was not a style.