Carter Hargrave Fouder American Kempo

Carter Hargrave is a teacher, educator, sport enthusiast, entrepreneur, business owner, Association President.

He manages most of his companies in Tulsa Oklahoma. Hargrave Martial Arts Systems is a division of Tulsa Karate and Tulsa Martial Arts.

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Carter Hargrave is a martial art film maker, and author. His works are distributed by Hargrave Media located in Oklahoma. He has produced over 20 films and three books one an international best seller.

At his school Hargrave Martial Arts, Carter Hargrave or Grandmaster Hargrave (10th Degree Blackbelt), teaches students two distinct martial arts systems out of the seven black belts that he holds.

How do you join a private Martial Art School?

First of all you need to decide what exactly you need from your karate style and school. More specifically you will need a goal or desired outcome for your martial art training. If you have no idea what you want in your art, you will get just that. 

A right choice must be made. If not, you will be simply wasting your time and money. We will help you make a conscientious decision through our website application and information on many different styles as well as the two systems that we actively teach. Hargrave Martial Arts Tulsa Karate and Jeet Kune Do will help you organize your life; we will make you stronger spiritually and physically. The Hargrave Martial Arts private school will help you find the right way.




1992, Carter Hargrave founded an original martial art style. He named it American Combat Kempo. Countless schools all over the world now recognize this and the US marines are using some of its techniques. In what concerns the style, Carter Hargrave has the title of Grandmaster. Additionally, he is Grandmaster in Kun Fu and Ju Jitsu.

This new style was born because at the time Carter was training in four styles and was also experiencing others. Keeping them separate turned out to be hard, but he managed to meet the expectations of his teachers. He then noticed that people were interested in self-defense and in learning self-defense skills in order to protect themselves at work, at school and even on the street.


Their needs remained unsatisfied because no school was teaching this kind of stuff at that point in time. Carter Hargrave saw the opportunity and created this new style by modifying two existing martial arts systems. He also included weapon fighting and customized the techniques to real world situations. Besides traditional okinawan weapons, like sai, bo, tonfa or katana, he also introduced modern firearms. He thinks that if you are not superior to your attacker, you don’t stand a chance and he considers that superiority needs to be achieved by all means they are fair or unfair.

The original arts that stand at the base of American Combat Kempo are not recognizable any longer, after Hargrave modified them. It wasn’t simply a matter of combining styles it also involved creativity. World Kempo Association is now promoting the principles of this new style worldwide. Hargrave is its president and head instructor. As well as his other organizations, this one is also staying away from the political area.


In order to spread his knowledge to all those interested in it, Carter Hargrave also wrote three books on martial arts. “The Original Jeet Kune Do Training”, which was an international hit. It is the first Jeet Kune Do manual released on the market and photos for a better understanding of the information presented also comes along with it.

The other two books are “Japanese Kempo Karate Manual” wherein the author tackles the American Combat Kempo system and “Japanese Kempo Karate Entrance to Secrets Manual”, for those interested in advanced training.


Carter Hargrave’s achievements were recognized worldwide. In 1995 he received the Instructor of the Year award. He was the youngest person to be promoted to Professor of martial arts at age 33.

In 1995 he was chosen as an Executive Director World Martial Arts Hall of Fame Board Member. The same year he was also selected as Director United Kung Fu Federation of North America. One year later, in 1996, he received the award for Best Martial Arts School in the United States. The US Congress and the United States Senate recognized his achievements.

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