Quote:
Originally Posted by g-bells
now your arguing with multiple instructors of JKD, are you as qualified as them? don't know you which is why i'm asking not a personal attack 
you seem to be like so many others that think " i'll take a little from this and a little from that, which may work, but it is'nt JKD. JKD does have a core and when you add to it , the techniques need to fit into not go against it's principals |
g-bells, Ghost is more than welcome to argue. Rank and certification is not a pre-requisite to offer a point of view.
If I may offer my personal take on this:
For me, it all comes down to whether you are training as an individual for yourself, or whether you are looking to gain from teaching others - this is where the problem starts. Because Crosstraining and MMA are so prevalent now, anyone could say they are doing JKD, but this is 2007 not 1964. I do think at this stage in martial arts that the study Jeet Kune Do is a specific one, and my personal believe is that you should have a base in the Jun Fan Martial Arts and train in the Lee/Inosanto lineage. If not, why call it JKD, just call it MMA - or call it whatever else you like. However, I only believe this to be important if you intend to teach your study for commercial gain i.e. advertising yourself as a JKD school. People can hide behind "yeah but I'm doing what Bruce Lee wanted so I can call it JKD" but not if you then charge someone $100 an hour and make claims that you teach Bruce Lee's system. That is my only beef with the misuse of the name Jeet Kune Do.
If, like Ghost, you are crosstraining in specific systems and using the concepts you understand from JKD to help define your study, then thats great. If you are doing that for your own personal development and not riding on the back of a name to earn money, then call it whatever you want. If something is your own expression of the arts then who cares what you label it, in fact why even feel the need to label it. Do your thing, call it JKD, I'm cool with that.
But to stress again, it is instructors who need to be fair to the man on the street paying his hard earned coin, and that we aren't misleading people. If someone comes to you and says they want to study Jeet Kune Do, don't spin them a line and throw a load of Bruce Lee quotes at them so you can gain from their money. People who genuinely want to study the art of Jeet Kune Do will be looking for the knowledge and practise developed by Mr Lee and Mr Inosanto. If you can't offer them that, at least as a base to grow from, then don't mislead people.
I bet my house that someone is going to throw a Tao of Jeet Kune Do quote at me "If people say that Jeet Kune Do is different from this and that then let the name Jeet Kune Do be wiped out forever blah blah blah". You know what? I'd be cool with that, it would make life a lot easier. But the bottom line is, whether we like it or not, JKD has become a very marketable brand that can be manipulated to extort money from people who don't know better. People say certification is wrong, organisations are wrong, JKD should be open and free. Thats not the world we live in I'm afraid, and the one thing I hate to see is good people who are genuinely looking for the teachings of Mr Lee and Mr Inosanto, being ripped off by people who use the term JKD far too loosely. That, is my only beef - outside of that I don't care what anyone calls their study of the martial arts - thats their business.