Prof. Carlos Bunda was born on Nov. 9, 1939. He first became interested in Kajukenbo in 1958 when his first instructor, Ed Parker, introduced him to Sifu John Leoning, the first Kajukenbo instructor on the mainland.

After viewing some 8mm movies that Leoning had from his classes in Hawaii, Carlos was so impressed that he became one of Leoning's students. They trained for 3 hours a night after work. The first hour was exercises, the second hour was basics, and the third hour was techniques. In 1963, after 6 years of training, Carlos was promoted to black belt by Mr. Leoning. For the next few years Carlos became a tournament star, winning several tournaments. He was the first lightweight black belt champion at Ed Parker's International Karate Championships in 1964. He repeated this at the 1965 Internationals.
Carlos was so well thought of as a tournament fighter that Ed Parker put him on his "mainland team" with Chuck Norris, Mike Stone, and some of the other tournament stars on the time. In Hawaii they fought and defeated a team from Hawaii in the "Mainland Vs. Hawaii Tournament". This mainland team was sponsored by Elvis Presley.
After doing a demo at a exhibition before the tournament, Carlos met Sijo Emperado for the first time. Carlos had been introduced to the audience as a kung fu stylist, but Carlos was quick to correct Mr. Parker, and told everyone he was a Kajukenbo stylist.
Sijo told him that he was grateful for the fact that Carlos had told everyone he was a Kajukenbo student and proud of it. Carlos taught many students over the years. The most notable being Prof. Rick Kingi and Prof. Doug Bunda.

Carlos is now retired from competing and teaching, and lives in Los Angeles.

Information found on www.kajukenboinfo.com