OJKD this, Concepts that...whatever...
Hi all,
As some of you know, I trained in and taught OJKD for many years, so it is safe to say that I have somewhat of an understanding of it's training methodologies and techniques. I am not an expert of course, but I gave it more than it's 'due'.
Being functional at any range is the goal, and the simplest way of seeing that path that needs to be taken to reach that goal is through alive training. If and when you train in an alive training environment, it becomes blatantly clear what works, and what simply does not. This goes for technique, strategy, training methodology and more.
It is the “Alive training” that dictates what and how you train, when you train, you will see and feel exactly what you are lacking in. You will see what tools are needed, and (the scariest part for some is) that you will see that many of the techniques that you’ve been training in for years…are near useless in stressful conditions.
Let’s get away from Bruce Lee and JKD for a moment as it seems to generate emotions in some people, let’s look at make believe art I will call Madigan-Jitsu…cool? Ok, now if I say to myself “I am going to start training Madigan-Jitsu in an alive manner, and make it work for me under stressful conditions I will soon see that most of what I am training in simply doesn’t work, and much what does work…could have been done in a much simpler way. I will also see that my ‘new’ Madigan-Jitsu strangely resembles bad boxing, bad wrestling and even worse BJJ. So why try and transform the Madigan-Jitsu into what it is not in the hopes of making it functional? It is much more realistic to train in delivery methods that is based in alive, real training and good form…Boxing, Wrestling and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I don’t have to transform the training methodology, or techniques of these arts to make them alive…they already are.
It’s the same with JKD. When I was training in OJKD, I would read Matt’s post on the net (and the posts of the guys that trained with him) and I was convinced that I needed to see what this was all about. When I looked into it, my first idea was to start changing how I was going to train in, and teach OJKD. I was going to turn OJKD Alive! LOL Sorry, but it just doesn’t work out that way.
I started training with people outside of my little circle of OJKD friends and noticed very quickly that even though we had great “JKD footwork” we were taken down by collage wrestlers almost at will. Why? Well, you can say that our footwork and distance control were lacking…maybe, but it really came down to the fact that we were not aware of what was being used against us, and we had no idea how to deal with things that were common place in alive sparring. I soon realized that if I wanted to ‘hang’ with people that take me down, I had better become very familiar with takedowns, how they work and how to counter them. Now, what was I going to do…look for these answers in OJKD...where they didn’t truly exist? Or, should I train with a collage wrestler and ask him/her for help. See what I am getting at here? It was the results of my training in an Alive manner that told me that I had to train takedowns aggressively to understand them. This of course has nothing to do with OJKD.
Have I scrapped everything about OJKD? No, but most of it is completely gone from what we do. Hey, there is only so much time in the day for training, and that time can not be wasted on drills and training methodologies that are near useless. I want the highest percentage of realistic results from my training. It just makes sense to only train in drills that will give me positive results now…not 30 years from now.
Anyway, this is some of my thoughts on this.
|