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fenwick99 · 01-17-2008, 03:55 PM

Even if Bruce was not influenced directly, he was certainly influenced by Norris and other Korean stylists. In a way there is a kinship between JKD and TKD. If you look at certain arts, boxing has five techniques that you perfect.
Tae Kwon Do has many "hyung" but you only use two punches and 5-8 kicks in sparring. The original kempo of Professor Chow was a pared-down streetfighting system with only a few dozen techniques and no kata. Parker exhausted all of the Chow material by 1960, and he sought out Chinese martial artists like James Wu to teach him a variety of forms and techniques. That means that only 1/10 of "chinese kenpo" is street and 9/10 is "stuff to teach."
By contrast, eclectic Korean styles like HKD, HWD, and KSW have 4000+ techniques and are proud of it. Bruce's mother art of wing chun has only 116 techniques, not counting the weapons. To me, the issue is one of practicality. Parker himself once said, in response to a question on teaching,
" teach him two kicks, two strikes, and two blocks!" This means that 10 techniques absolutely mastered are better than 10,000 half-learned.

01-17-2008, 03:55 PM	#10 (permalink)
fenwick99 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 182	re Even if Bruce was not influenced directly, he was certainly influenced by Norris and other Korean stylists. In a way there is a kinship between JKD and TKD. If you look at certain arts, boxing has five techniques that you perfect. Tae Kwon Do has many "hyung" but you only use two punches and 5-8 kicks in sparring. The original kempo of Professor Chow was a pared-down streetfighting system with only a few dozen techniques and no kata. Parker exhausted all of the Chow material by 1960, and he sought out Chinese martial artists like James Wu to teach him a variety of forms and techniques. That means that only 1/10 of "chinese kenpo" is street and 9/10 is "stuff to teach." By contrast, eclectic Korean styles like HKD, HWD, and KSW have 4000+ techniques and are proud of it. Bruce's mother art of wing chun has only 116 techniques, not counting the weapons. To me, the issue is one of practicality. Parker himself once said, in response to a question on teaching, " teach him two kicks, two strikes, and two blocks!" This means that 10 techniques absolutely mastered are better than 10,000 half-learned.