Jeet Kune Do has two parts.
And Each one will not work properly without the other.
Like our feet. Left and Right works together,
and without the other, we won't be walking, we will be hopping instead.
For us to be able to walk and run, we need both the left and the right.
JKD is the same.
We have the PHILOSOPHY of JKD.
and then we have JKD as a fighting method.
The Philosophy of JKD is briefly summarized by these principles.
RESEARCH YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE
Bruce Lee taught his students that in order to learn how to swim,
you need to get wet :) Therefore in order to learn how to fight, we need to spar and engage ourselves in drills that mimic real street attacks.
We are not to just engage in "dry swimming" or just doing Kata, Poomse or Taolu.
We really need to get with a training partner and spar realistically.
How do we do it without killing each other? By using protection;
Headgear, mouthguard, body armour, groin guard, knee and shin guard, gloves.
By doing so, we can train without the fear of killing our friend.
Without armour, we will end up doing what Karate fighters used to do, no-touch sparring. Looks fun but without truly hitting your sparring partner, how do you know if your moves are actually working? And if you don't know, how do you trust your techniques when it matters most in a street fight or self defense situation?
During this process, you will begin to formulate your own style of Jeet Kune Do.
That is why each of Bruce Lee's original student's styles are unique.
They may be similar because all went through the same journey in
JUN FAN GUNG FU, but ultimately, each one, based on their body type and personality ended up creating a style unique to themselves. Ultimately, each of us will have to do the same.
JUN FAN GUNG FU is Bruce Lee's own martial art. And for a person to really say that he studies JKD, he must start with Jun Fan. It is a martial art that is just like any other art out there with its own system of progression. Jun Fan Gung Fu is the martial art side of Jeet Kune Do. Efficiency, Directness, Simplicity and Non-Classical Movement is the core of this martial art.
Absorb what is useful
In your journey, you will realize that some techniques work really well for you. Others, you have to struggle to master. This is because each of us is unique. We each have a unique body type and we all think differently. No two person is exactly the same. Even twins aren't. Each person is unique. Yes we maybe similar in some things, and in special cases be 90% similar. But no one is 100% the same.
So therefore, in your journey, as you spar, as you do drills, as you study JKD and other arts, you will have to absorb techniques, tricks, and whatnot that works well for you, creating your own unique JKD style.
You should also Reject what is useless to you
Like I said, you will realize that some techniques work really well for you. While others, you may have to struggle to do. Then some, just don't work. Reality presents itself when you really practice fighting. All the fantasy moves disappear into thin air when you have an opponent who actually hits back.
People who don't spar and instead spends all their time doing fantasy training will have a rude awakening when their skills are truly tested. If there is a referee, then great! Someone can save them from their foolishness, but what if it was the street where there are no rules and no referee to save them?
So it is very important to really spar regularly and safely.
When we spar, it is not to show our classmate that we are better than him.
There is no ego involved here.
Our goal during sparring is to overcome our own weaknesses.
So don't go fighting as if you are UFC fighters competing for the championship belt.
Don't aim to knock out your training partner. Aim to master interception and other skills instead.
Now about discarding techniques, before you discard, make sure that the technique didn't work because it was flawed and not because of your own limitations.
Sometimes, a head kick seems useless because it is slow to deliver. But maybe, it seems slow to you because you lack flexibility or do not have enough muscle development to whip your foot the way Sijo Bruce Lee did.
In practice, you can kick as high as you can because you are training, you are learning. But in the street, keep your kicks below the belt.
Finally, you must ADD what is specifically your own
Your journey in JKD, must start with mastery of what is natural to you first, then work on your weakness and make it strong as well. You want to be functional as soon as possible.
Then after you are done mastering both your strengths and weaknesses and mastering JUN FAN GUNG FU, you can start branching out into other arts as well as experimenting on tricks you can further add to your arsenal.
You cannot be stuck in JUN FAN GUNG FU. You have to grow, otherwise you would be going against what Bruce Lee was teaching. He wanted his students to grow. He didn't want them to get stuck in just what he taught them.
Bruce Lee is not a god and JKD is not a religion. It is not a sin to branch out and learn other arts provided that you have mastered Jun Fan Gung Fu already. Bruce Lee taught that JKD is like a finger pointing to the moon.
JKD is just a pointer to truth. But it is not Truth itself. Truth in combat is constantly evolving. What might have work in 1960 may not work as well in 2018.
In the old days, thugs don't know MMA. They do not know double leg takedown or do a lot of ground and pound. It was more of a stand up fight like that of Boxers. But today, you will see a lot of untrained people actually shoot for a takedown or do ground and pound.
If all you have are techniques to counter boxer type attacks, then you will get killed when your attacker uses MMA tactics. That is why you have to evolve as well. Whatever it is, if it works, then add it to your arsenal.
JKD is like a boat, Sifu Rocky told me once. While at sea, it is very important that you stay on it and it may be fatal for you to jump off and try to swim instead. But once you reach land, the boat needs to be left behind not carried on one's back.
While you are just starting your journey, stick to JUN FAN GUNG FU.
But once mastery is achieved, you can start sampling other arts to enhance your current skills.
Many would argue that mastery in JUN FAN can never be achieved, and so therefore we must spend the rest of our lives stuck in it.
While that is true that mastery in Jun Fan Gung Fu is a bottomless well, there will come a time, when you will realize that no amount of repetition of the technique can improve you anymore. Time will come when you will realize that Bruce Lee didn't have all the answers. Like I said, he is not a god and JKD should not be treated like a religion.
Jun Fan Gung Fu for example lack significant amount of ground skills or weapon disarming.
How do you prepare then for a thug who have watched too many UFC fights and know how to grapple? What do you do, when you find yourself in the bottom of the mount receiving a barage of hammer fists on your face? Or what do you do when your attacker has a loaded Glock pointed at you in close range?
Jun Fan is mainly a striking art. That is why Sijo Bruce was researching grappling a few years before his untimely death because he knew the limitations of Jun Fan as he created it then.
The Gracie family proved to the world that even if you have tremendous skills on your feet, all those abilities become useless when you are already on the ground. And unless you are trained in ground fighting, you cannot stop a grappler from taking you down.
Sijo Bruce was really ahead of his time.
Because while the rest of America was kicking and punching, he was already researching grappling. He knew of its effectiveness. He was the one who told Sigung Larry Hartsell to further develop the grappling phase of JKD. Larry was the most adept at grappling in all of the original JKD Students that is why he was chosen by the founder to do just that.
The result is JKD Grappling.
Remember how I said, each of Bruce's student developed their own style of JKD? That is why Larry's style defers from JKD styles of Sifu Jerry Poteet and Sifu Ted Wong which both specialize in JKD as a stand up art.
JEET KUNE DO IS A PERSONAL JOURNEY
We will all pass through the same road, but each of us will see things differently. You may focus on the beautiful sky and clouds, while others will see more of the flowers growing by the side of the road. And after the journey, each of us will report things differently when asked about our journey.
The same it will be for our JKD.
So remember the core principles of Jeet Kune Do,
Research your own experience, Absorbs what is useful, Reject what is useless,
and ADD what is specifically your own.
Jeet Kune Do has two parts,
The Philosophy and the Martial Art.
To be a true student of JKD, you need to know both.
Why did Sijo Lee advocate the use of this stance compared to the traditional stance which is wider or the narrower stance used by some modern boxers?
The answer is Mobility. Sijo taught that we must be agile and quick on our feet when we fight. If we are constantly in motion using broken rhythm, then it will be hard for us to get hit. It will also be easier for us to get into attack range, land a hit, then get out of range and escape our opponents counter attack.
It is also important that we only move when we need to move. JKD is about simplicity and there should be no wasted motions. Every movement we do has a purpose. What are these purposes?
First: Attacking = We move forward in order to attack.
Second: Evasion = We move back, or to the side to get out of our opponents attack range.
Third: Confusion =We move to confuse our opponent, make him commit a mistake so we can have an opening for our own attack. We make them believe we are going low when actually we are aiming high.
So you see, there is purpose in every movement that we do. We flow like water. We don't stand stiff like a rock. How hard is it to hit water? Very hard isn't it? That should be just like you when you fight. Make your opponent miss and spend energy unnecessarily. Soon he will tire out and you can come crashing in like a Tsunami and defeat him.
A learned man once went to a Zen teacher to inquire about Zen. As the Zen teacher explained, the learned man would frequently interrupt him with remarks like, “Oh, yes, we have that too. …” and so on.
Finally, the Zen teacher stopped talking and began to serve tea to the learned man. He poured the cup full and then kept pouring until the cup overflowed.
“Enough!” the learned man once more interrupted. “No more can go into the cup!”
“Indeed, I see,” answered the Zen teacher. “If you do not first empty the cup, how can you taste my cup of tea?”
I hope my comrades in the martial arts will read the following paragraphs with open-mindedness, leaving all the burdens of preconceived opinions and conclusions behind. This act, by the way, has in itself a liberating power. After all, the usefulness of the cup is in its emptiness.
Make this article relate to yourself because though it is on Jeet Kune Do, it is primarily concerned with the blossoming of a martial artist — not a “Chinese” martial artist or a “Japanese” martial artist. A martial artist is a human being first. Just as nationalities have nothing to do with one’s humanity, so they have nothing to do with martial arts. Leave your protective shell of isolation and relate directly to what is being said.
Return to your senses by ceasing all the intervening intellectual mumbo jumbo. Remember that life is a constant process of relating. Remember, too, that I seek neither your approval nor to influence you toward my way of thinking. I will be more than satisfied if, as a result of this article, you begin to investigate everything for yourself and cease to uncritically accept prescribed formulas that dictate “this is this” and “that is that.”
On Choiceless Observation
Suppose several persons who are trained in different styles of combative arts witness an all-out street fight. I am sure we would hear different versions from each of these stylists. Such variations are quite understandable, for one cannot see a fight (or anything else) “as is” as long as he is blinded by his chosen point of view, i.e., style, and he will view the fight through the lens of his particular conditioning. Fighting, as is, is simple and total. It is not limited to your perspective or conditioning as a Chinese martial artist. True observation begins when one sheds set patterns, and true freedom of expression occurs when one is beyond systems.
Before we examine jeet kune do, let’s consider exactly what a “classical” martial art style really is. To begin with, we must recognize the incontrovertible fact that regardless of their many colorful origins (by a wise, mysterious monk, by a special messenger in a dream or in a holy revelation), styles are created by men. A style should never be considered gospel truth, the laws and principles of which can never be violated. Man, the living, creating individual, is always more important than any established style.
It is conceivable that a long time ago a certain martial artist discovered some partial truth. During his lifetime, the man resisted the temptation to organize this partial truth, although this is a common tendency in a man’s search for security and certainty in life. After his death, his students took “his” hypothesis, “his” postulates and “his” method and turned them into law. Impressive creeds were then invented, solemn reinforcing ceremonies prescribed, rigid philosophy and patterns formulated, and so on, until finally an institution was erected. So what originated as one man’s intuition of some sort of personal fluidity was transformed into solidified, fixed knowledge, complete with organized classified responses presented in a logical order. In so doing, the well-meaning, loyal followers not only made this knowledge a holy shrine but also a tomb in which they buried the founder’s wisdom.
But the distortion did not necessarily end here. In reaction to “the other’s truth,” another martial artist, or possibly a dissatisfied disciple, organized an opposite approach — such as the “soft” style versus the “hard” style, the “internal” school versus the “external” school, and all these separative nonsenses. Soon, this opposite faction also became a large organization, with its own laws and patterns. A rivalry began, with each style claiming to possess the “truth” to the exclusions of all others.
At best, styles are merely parts dissected from a unitary whole. All styles require adjustment, partiality, denials, condemnation and a lot of self-justification. The solutions they purport to provide are the very cause of the problem because they limit and interfere with our natural growth and obstruct the way to genuine understanding. Divisive by nature, styles keep men apart from each other rather than unite them. Truth Cannot Be Confined
One cannot express himself fully when imprisoned by a confining style. Combat “as is” is total, and it includes all the “is” as well as “is not,” without favorite lines or angles. Lacking boundaries, combat is always fresh, alive and constantly changing. Your particular style, your personal inclinations and your physical makeup are all parts of combat, but they do not constitute the whole of combat. Should your responses become dependent upon any single part, you will react in terms of what “should be” rather than to the reality of the ever-changing “what is.” Remember that while the whole is evidenced in all its parts, an isolated part, efficient or not, does not constitute the whole.
Prolonged repetitious drillings will certainly yield mechanical precision, and security of that kind comes from any routine. However, it is exactly this kind of “selective” security or “crutch” that limits or blocks the total growth of a martial artist. In fact, quite a few practitioners develop such a liking for and dependence on their “crutch” that they can no longer walk without it. Thus, any one special technique, however cleverly designed, is actually a hindrance.
Let it be understood once and for all that I have not invented a new style, composite or modification. I have in no way set jeet kune do within a distinct form governed by laws that distinguish it from “this” style or “that” method. On the contrary, I hope to free my comrades from bondage to styles, patterns and doctrines.
What, then, is Jeet Kune Do? I am the first to admit that any attempt to crystallize jeet kune do into a written article is no easy task. Do remember, however, that “jeet kune do” is merely a convenient name. I am not interested with the term itself; I am interested in its effect of liberation when JKD is used as a mirror for self-examination.
Unlike a “classical” martial art, there is no series of rules or classification of technique that constitutes a distinct jeet kune do method of fighting. JKD is not a form of special conditioning with its own rigid philosophy. It looks at combat not from a single angle but from all possible angles. While JKD utilizes all the ways and means to serve its end (after all, efficiency is anything that scores), it is bound by none and is therefore free. In other words, JKD possesses everything but is in itself possessed by nothing.
Therefore, to attempt to define JKD in terms of a distinct style — be it kung fu, karate, street fighting or Bruce Lee’s martial art — is to completely miss its meaning. Its teaching simply cannot be confined within a system. Since JKD is at once “this” and “not this,” it neither opposes nor adheres to any style. To understand this fully, one must transcend from the duality of “for” and “against” into one organic unity that is without distinctions. Understanding of JKD is direct intuition of this unity.
There are no prearranged sets or kata in the teaching of JKD, nor are they necessary. Consider the subtle difference between “having no form” and “have no form.” The first is ignorance, the second is transcendence. Through instinctive body feeling, each of us knows our own most efficient and dynamic manner of achieving effective leverage, balance in motion and economical use of energy. Patterns, techniques or forms touch only the fringe of genuine understanding. The core of understanding lies in the individual mind, and until that is touched, everything is uncertain and superficial. Truth cannot be perceived until we come to fully understand ourselves and our potentials. After all, knowledge in the martial arts ultimately means self-knowledge.
At this point you may ask, “How do I gain this knowledge?” That you will have to find out all by yourself. You must accept the fact that there is no help but self-help. For the same reason I cannot tell you how to “gain” freedom, since freedom exists within you, I cannot tell you how to “gain” self-knowledge. While I can tell you what not to do, I cannot tell you what you should do, since that would be confining you to a particular approach. Formulas can only inhibit freedom; externally dictated prescriptions only squelch creativity and assure mediocrity. Bear in mind that the freedom that accrues from self-knowledge cannot be acquired through strict adherence to a formula. We do not suddenly become free, we simply are free.
Learning is definitely not mere imitation, nor is it the ability to accumulate and regurgitate fixed knowledge. Learning is a constant process of discovery — a process without end. In JKD we begin not by accumulation but by discovering the cause of our ignorance — a discovery that involves a shedding process.
Unfortunately, most students in the martial arts are conformists. Instead of learning to depend on themselves for expression, they blindly follow their instructors, no longer feeling alone, and finding security in mass imitation. The product of this imitation is a dependent mind. Independent inquiry, which is essential to genuine understanding, is sacrificed. Look around the martial arts and witness the assortment of routine performers, trick artists, desensitized robots, glorifiers of the past, and so on — all followers or exponents of organized despair.
How often are we told by different sensei (masters) that the martial arts are life itself? But how many of them truly understand what they are saying? Life is a constant movement — rhythmic as well as random. Life is constant change, not stagnation. Instead of choicelessly flowing with this process of change, many of these “masters,” past and present, have built an illusion of fixed forms, rigidly subscribing to traditional concepts and techniques of the art, solidifying the ever-flowing, dissecting the totality.
The most pitiful sight is to see sincere students earnestly repeating those imitative drills, listening to their own screams and spiritual yells. In most cases, the means these sensei offer their students are so elaborate that the students must give tremendous attention to them, until gradually they loses sight of the end. The students end up performing their methodical routines as a mere conditioned response rather than responding to “what is.” They no longer listen to circumstances; they recite their circumstances. These pour souls have unwittingly become trapped in the miasma of classical martial arts training. Pointing to the Truth
A teacher, a really good sensei, is never a giver of “truth”; he is a guide, a pioneer to the truth that the student must discover for himself. A good teacher, therefore, studies each student individually and encourages the student to explore himself, both internally and externally, until, ultimately, the student is integrated with his being. A good teacher is a catalyst. Besides possessing a deep understanding, he must also have a responsive mind with great flexibility and sensitivity.
There is no standard in total combat, and expression must be free. This liberating truth is a reality only in so far as it is experienced and lived by the individual himself; it is a truth that transcends styles or disciplines. Remember, too, that jeet kune do is merely a term, a label to be used as a boat to get one across; once across, it is to be discarded and not carried on one’s back.
These few paragraphs are, at best, a “finger pointing to the moon.” Please do not take the finger to be the moon or fix your gaze so intently on the finger as to miss all the beautiful sights of heaven. After all, the usefulness of the finger is in pointing away from itself to the light, which illumines finger and all.
YOU WANT TO LEARN Bruce Lee’s martial art, but there are no Jeet Kune Do schools near you. And Even if there is, you don’t have the TIME to attend a regular class, and you don’t have the MONEY for the tuition fees.
The problem is,no one is willing to teach you JKD unless you pay them. And even if you do have the money, they don’t want to teach you privately. They want you to attend the regular class which unfortunately; you don’t have time for that.
But what if I tell you, that YOU CAN LEARN JKD at your own time and place? And what if I tell you, its 100% FREE!! Would that interest you?
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Jeet kune do (way of the intercepting fist) is a martial art created by Bruce Lee during the 1960s. Neither a system nor a method, Bruce Lee didn’t consider his art a style but an aggregate of principles for developing the martial mind and body.
Although Jeet Kune Do’s foundation lies in Wing Chun theory, Bruce Lee liberally borrowed from other Kung fu styles, as well as in French Savate, Greco-Roman Wrestling, Judo, Fencing and Western boxing.
Building on the precept of self-knowledge through self-discovery, the JKD practitioner is prompted to absorb what ideas are useful and discard those that are not. The physical goal is perpetual development of physical speed, timing, footwork, coordination and power.
Since Bruce Lee’s death in 1973, two variations of jeet kune do have evolved: original JKD, which is promoted as the art Bruce Lee practiced; and JKD concepts, which applies Bruce Lee’s concepts to martial arts techniques drawn from various Indonesian, Philippine and Thai styles.
