One important fact that I should have mentioned is that Dr. beasley is not marketing his class as a JKD class. What he teaches at Radford is Aikia karate. He talks about JKD about how Aikia is a JKD influenced art, but Aikia, is not JKD. He teaches us the basic traditional karate of japan because Aikia is a multi-faceted art. Not only does it focus on traditional karate, which I feel is important as a basis if not only to know the roots of your art whaterver it may be, but he also teaches his modern trapboxing and functional karate. If there is one way to describe JKD it is "Functional." This is what Aikia embraces. Trapboxing especially focuses on being a functional, non-art, non-traditional system. Dr. beasley explained to us that trapboxing is so good because it is taken from modern boxers, who unquestionably know how to fight, and how to win. They also have the best punching techniques in the world. SO it makes sense to incorporate something that works so well, That is the heart of Aikia, taking what works well from other styles and using it to your advantage, but part of making the most of those techniques is having to know the basics and how they are meant to be used. You could not expect someone to run before they can crawl, or read shakespeare before see spot run. You may disagree with me, but I believe you have to know the basics before you can truly advance or even appreciate an advanced art like JKD. Oh one more important thing is that Dr. beasley teaches that JKD is actually a philosphy and not an actual act or system. It is something that is a guideline to go by, and something to incorporate into your style and to make you a better fighter. |