I was wondering what was Elvis Presley's level in kenpo before he passed away?

8th Degree Black Belt

Elvis actually trained with several famous instructors while stationed in europe before he studied under Ed Parker in kenpo: a German shotokan stylist named Juergen Seydel, private lessons with Tetsugio Murakami - another , shotokan stylists, and a few other fellow soldiers who had trained in karate.

However, he did not receive his shodan from Ed Parker but from the legendary Hank Slomanski who may be the first American to have received a black belt in Japan. Slomanski taught chito-ryu and he was also an airborne ranger, green beret who taught karate the old fashion way: brutal full contact. It was not unusual for trainees to get broken or dislocated bones and it was Slomanski's requirement that a black belt must also know how to set a broken or dislocated bones.

To receive a shodan from Hank Slomanski was no small feat. Kumite in his school means no protective gears of any kind, full contact and no weight class. That assumes you didn't get weeded out by Slomanski because he did not believe in wasting time with whimps so on the first day of class he or one of his senior trainers would break a couple of your ribs just to see if you come back.

He was judan, something like that-remember he did give the sensei a Caddy.