The Reality of JKD

[Gladiator]

JKD is not a special concept.

If you seriously think about it, the concepts behind JKD are not startingly special. Don't get me wrong, I don't wish to undermine what Bruce Lee did for the martial arts community. He did a great and necessary thing by expounding his beliefs about the martial arts.

The idea behind JKD, Bruce Lee's motivation if you will, was to re-functionalize something that had become stagnant over generations of formalization, standardization and ritualization. The process of JKD was to reverse the generations of de-volution of the martial arts, and instill them once again with the "martial" aspect. Bruce Lee didn't bring anything new to the martial arts scene, he was just the wake up call to remind us that we were trapped in our ignorance about the arts. Essentially, Bruce Lee put the 'balls' back into martial arts, which at the time had digressed to become nothing more than organized oriental dances.

Bruce's interpretation of JKD, 'The way of the intercepting fist' completely embodies the process of re-functionalization. "To hit the other guy before he hits you" this is the core of his interpretation, requiring an awesome mastery of your own body. His focus was not on the acquisition of cool-looking techniques, but rather, FIRST the development of the most efficient physical and mental state possible, and then SECOND the tools to back up your agenda.

Almost all of his original Jun Fan techniques were linear. No shit, it is the quickest path between two bodies. However, Bruce Lee could pull it off, because he actually trained to hit people that moved out of the way and hit back. His personal attributes, and his emphasis on attribute training are what elevated him above his contemporaries at the time.

It is a known fact that Bruce Lee later on regretted coining the term JKD, because it was slowly becoming exactly what he tried to move away from: an organized system with a core body of techniques. People wanted to fight like Bruce by imitating his technique/system.

The sad thing is that most people fail to realize that JKD is merely a fancy description of what Bruce Lee could do. With his techniques (Jun Fan- his name) and his attributes, he could do JKD (or 'hit you before you hit me'). In the same way if some random unschooled street fighter could train to the point where he will always take you down before you can touch him, or hit you before you hit him, he will be expressing JKD.

Ultimately, my point is that no one particular thing is JKD. The term JKD in fact should not need to exist so long as we keep in the spirit of functionalizing our techniques and keeping ourselves in shape. Boxers are practicing it all the time, as are fencers. Vitor Belfort has clearly functionalized the Wing Chun straight-blast (though I am sure he just thinks of it as 'alot of punches in a row'), and his early UFC fights are clearly an expression of JKD.

A JKD teacher CANNOT be a JKD teacher is he isn't training you to use your own body in the best possible way. Those that keep sparring out of the picture are offenders, however, I am sure that there are other offenders in other areas who neglect the importance of some aspect of physical conditioning.

BJJ training or not, if you are not learning how to optimize your physical performance, you are not really doing JKD. While cross training is useful, JKD is NOT cross-training. Furthermore, while sparring is useful, JKD is NOT defined by sparring.

It is not hard to see how an individual untrained in fighting, but who is exceptionally strong and fast (perhaps through another sport) might rip through a slew of so-called JKD guys. I in fact I had the pleasure of training with a guy who, with 1 hour of training had completely nullified everything I knew technically with his superior attributes. I pride myself in my speed, but this guy was just much faster and much stronger. I am proud to say that I have learned from this, and now I have a goal towards which I can train.


***As a side note: If you really want to see how BJJ might
be completely thrown out of the window, I would highly
recommend getting Paul Vunak's Street Safe 3.

My recommendation for the practice of JKD is to find the fastest, strongest, toughest guy you can find. Train with him until you begin to see things happen. Then, find someone even faster, stronger, and tougher. So on and so forth.

To quote Paul Vunak: "The firstest with the mostest is the bestest."

[Chopstix]

i have to agree with you bro..
he was basically saying what lao tzu was saying, it was basically toaist.. in fact, a lot of the qoutes that he is known to have said, like " no way as way", and " empty your cup" and all that water stuff, and even " a finger pointing to the mooon" stuff, was all budhist and toaist quotes from past philosophers.. there not his, he just quotes them.. this doesnt take anythign away from him, because he actually took those words and put them to use, and did that they were teaching..

[Bau13]

Gladiator my friend...
When you getting back?
We have some SERIOUS training to do!!

[Maxximus]

I tend to agree with you...

Nowadays, with everyone and their grandmother crosstraining to find the most effective all around strategy for themselves, whether or not you term it "Jeet Kune Do" seems to be a moot point.

I hate to say it, but I've come to see JKD as something systemized. Think about it...although JKD is supposed to be strictly an idea or concept, not just anyone can think along the lines of JKD and call himself a JKD man without a bunch of actually affiliated JKD guys jumping on his back. For someone to be characterized as a JKD man nowadays, he'd have to be a freestyle artist with background and training in a JKD curriculum, which involves training under a JKD certified instructor. If you do not have a background in Jun Fan martial arts or Filipino arts or Muay Thai, PFS or a combination of all the above, you probably will not be considered a JKD man by anyone. So you can argue that JKDC has been systemized. Thankfully enough, it has not become stylized since it is still a freestyle type of training and provides a great amount of freedom for the individual practitioners and instructors. But as for the OJKD and whatnot, they have gone as far as stylizing JKD which kinda kills the entire idea, IMO. When you get right down to it, JKD was meant to be nothing more than a simple idea that makes lots of sense. There is really no need to adorn it with a fancy sounding term like "The Way of the Intercepting Fist" and a bunch of poetic passages from the Tao Te Ching. JKD is not an idea that says you have to use Bruce Lee's personal strategy and techniques (Jun Fan). It is simply training with a freestyle mentality without limiting yourself to the confines of one particular strategy and finding the most direct and effective methods for you yourself to win quick. There are now, and have probably always been warriors and martial artists everywhere training in this fashion. Whether you call it JKD, vale tudo, mixed martial arts, or whatever really doesn't matter. Therefore, you don't really need the term JKD at all, do you? I think that was a key point Bruce was trying to make with his philosophy, but unfortunately a lot of people didn't get it. When you think about it, perhaps Bruce didn't fully comprehend the very idea that he was getting at. That's why he at first had to attach some kind of label to it by terming it "Jeet Kune Do". When he finally realized what he himself truly meant, he then regretted coining the term to begin with.

Basically, the only thing that makes something specifically JKD (rather than just freestyle practical fighting in general) is its connection to the training methods, techniques and direct influence of Bruce Lee. JKD is basically an institution. Who cares? I like being a part of that institution.

[Harley]

cool name.
i agree with many of your points, the only thing i want to say is that people need examples of things. they need to see a physical example of a concept to better visualize it and thus be a part of it. they need names to relate to it, and a method of explaining it to others, to explain jkd without the physical examples of jun fan is like trying to guide someone to spiritual enlightenment without teaching them to meditate or pray. jun fan is the physical examples that sijo lee felt at the time to best convey the concepts of jkd. yes he regretted nameing it because of his fear that people would say this "is" the way. OJKD. and understandably so. and yes the NHB and mixed martial arts world of today are finally three decades later catching up to the concepts he was preaching so long ago, but your right, that does not make them jkd, just along a similar path. jkd is specifically sijo lee's expression and the path he laid out for us to follow, do we have to follow him, no. but to follow another path and call it jkd is incorrect, no matter how many truths you also adhere to. if you cook rice, it's rice that's true. but if you cook spanish rice it is not the same rice they cook in china. so therefore, although it "is" rice it's not the same. hope that made sense, it's late.
Harley