The two major divisions are between “Concepts” and “Original.” “Original” is advocated by the “Nucleolus of JKD” and “Concepts” is advocated primarily by the students of Sifu Danny Inosanto. The concepts group is much larger and I dare say that most posters on this forum are concepts people. Concepts believe that JKD is about finding what is best and using that. Institutionally it has focused on Kali and Ju Jitsu, but it is not limited to those arts.
If you read Sifu Bruce’s “Tao of Jeet Kune Do” you will not find many techniques there that are used in a concepts class, but they do follow the spirit of his teachings.
The Nucleolus on the other hand believes that JKD should be limited to the techniques that Sifu Bruce himself used and taught. They do not add other techniques.
There is another group, which I belong to, and which has no organization. We practice JKD as it was taught by Sifu Bruce and Sifu James at the Oakland School, but our art is not stagnant. It is in perpetual development to address contemporary changes in the threat environment, it also adapts to individual students and their needs and ability.
As Michael Wright knows from another thread, I have stopped (am trying to stop) using the name JKD for this art form because that name is usually used to describe the two other groups. We call our art “The Way of the Intercepting fist.” This is just an English translation of the words “Jeet Kune Do.” But it helps differentiate what we do. I think this is what BL intended, that is, for the art to continue to evolve as a self contained system.
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