Trend to mix JKD with FMA (Kali, Escrima)

[Liberty]

I meant experience in martial arts, not the amount of "kids" youve had trouble with.
By JKD being a mix of martial arts i mean that it draws from different systems.


FMA makes a part of most JKD curriculum, its not something new, or a current trend.

I've related some of my martial background before - street fights, boxing since I was 8, and pankration the last 5 years. And being stabbed (twice), shot at, busted in the face with a beer bottle is not simple trouble with kids.

Again, you oviously know little about the ugliness some kids end up in nor the experience it gives one at being able to handle oneself. I regret those experiences, both on the dishing out and recieving end. I am grateful fot the insights though, that it has given me.

And pancration (what I had access to in place of JKD instruction) is similar in some limited respects to JKD, so I am not some kid who has no clue about things. Sure, I wish our version were more like the European kids on this tape when I was their age, so I'd take it to the streets and would at times find myself in some nasty situations. Still, I doubt even these guys (link below),when they reach 17 would qualify to meet whatever "extensive experience" standards some of you here claim you're looking for.

In the end, we cannot, nor will we agree on everything. I find myself each day moving more and more toward Ted Wong's camp, for example. Not from "internet readings" alone but that and my on ongoing martial evolvement.

Many claim Lee was developing a martial art and so forth. Taking from this and that. First of all that is unnatural, not the way life comes at you. My own personal experience disagrees with that. Rather, you find yourself unsure as to what direction to go in and it finds, it develops you - not the other way around. Like that darn spinning top, affected by it's context.

The simplicity of this fight is a case in point - to me, at least.

Look at these little warriors - you really think us young people have no awareness of what works or not because of our age!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4_YKS4V5kM

[Ghost]

Many claim Lee was developing a martial art and so forth. Taking from this and that. First of all that is unnatural, not the way life comes at you. My own personal experience disagrees with that. Rather, you find yourself unsure as to what direction to go in and it finds, it develops you - not the other way around. Like that darn spinning top, affected by it's context.

ill look at the youtube link when the thing finally manages to load, i have very slow net access at the moment.
This statement where you say Bruce wasnt making a martial art. Would you say he was though developing a martial art that worked for him, his personal way. Not the way everyone else should train?

[g-bells]

I dont personally agree that JKD has to have Jun Fan as its base. My interpretation of JKD is as a basic philosophy of training different martial arts and applying what works for you, no more, no less.
"Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it."

If this means i dont do JKD then thats fine. Ill say i do mixed martial arts instead.

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

[imstriker]

.......................................
imstriker it sounds from your 2nd post above that you already knew this, but were looking to spark the ongoing debate between JKD factions.
.......................................

No sir. I did not know this. My background is in Taekwondo and Fencing. The thread was a request for information about a specific situation that I ran into and not an opportunity to spark a raging debate. I leave the job of starting and fighting those debates to others.

After reading this thread and another thread on this forum about "original" and "concepts" JKD it seems like the answer is that it all depends who you train with. That answer is good enough for me. I have also seen this in fencing. Fencing instructors teach what they were taught and promote their fencing master's specific style.

In my particular case I am running into a situation where I see everyone who attends the first hour of the JKD class also attends the second hour which is focused on FMA. That particular program seems to be a very tight integration of JKD and FMA which I did not expect. Now I know better.

I appreciate everyone's very informative answers. You have all made good arguments and you have all been helpful.

Best regards,
imstriker

[Ghost]

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

IM not as qualified as some other on this thread in JKD. In JKD specifically i have no qualifications, though i do in other systems.

Im stating my understanding of JKD. I consider myself to practice JKD and have trained with a couple of the better known instructors in the JKD world but nothing to the extent that Michael,Mike,Tim have.
This is why i say if my interpretation is incorrect then i will happily not say that i study JKD but that i study X system and Y system. or say i do MMA.
However im after mastering a couple of systems not taking a little of this and a little of that. I guess i could say i spend the least amount of time directly in the JKD world as i do compared to escrima and muay thai which are my two main systems with mt being the core for me. I have dabbled in other systems as well but nothing more than a couple of years in one or another, nothing extensive though i do still use elements of these other systems.
I have fairly succesfully, i believe, blended escrima and muay thai and used elements from the unarmed FMA aspects and encorporated them into my standup game. Working with JKD instructors has facilitated this greatly.
To me this is the essense of JKD. of course i may be wrong!

[fire cobra]

I've related some of my martial background before - street fights, boxing since I was 8, and pankration the last 5 years. And being stabbed (twice), shot at, busted in the face with a beer bottle is not simple trouble with kids.

Again, you oviously know little about the ugliness some kids end up in nor the experience it gives one at being able to handle oneself. I regret those experiences, both on the dishing out and recieving end. I am grateful fot the insights though, that it has given me.

And pancration (what I had access to in place of JKD instruction) is similar in some limited respects to JKD, so I am not some kid who has no clue about things. Sure, I wish our version were more like the European kids on this tape when I was their age, so I'd take it to the streets and would at times find myself in some nasty situations. Still, I doubt even these guys (link below),when they reach 17 would qualify to meet whatever "extensive experience" standards some of you here claim you're looking for.

In the end, we cannot, nor will we agree on everything. I find myself each day moving more and more toward Ted Wong's camp, for example. Not from "internet readings" alone but that and my on ongoing martial evolvement.

Many claim Lee was developing a martial art and so forth. Taking from this and that. First of all that is unnatural, not the way life comes at you. My own personal experience disagrees with that. Rather, you find yourself unsure as to what direction to go in and it finds, it develops you - not the other way around. Like that darn spinning top, affected by it's context.

The simplicity of this fight is a case in point - to me, at least.

Look at these little warriors - you really think us young people have no awareness of what works or not because of our age!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4_YKS4V5kM

Remembering back to my early teenage years life does just spin you round,at 13,14,and 15 years of age i was fighting with hells angels regularly,saw and took part in fights of 200 people(gangs) had knives pulled on me,hit with bottles etc etc,i had a dam sight more fights in those days than i ever had in my adulthood.

Liberty mate it does get better and easier,you do start taking charge and control of your own life brother.

Using the Bruce Lee philosophy helped me at your age(17) imensely,
so regardless whether you practice JKD or JUN FAN the philosophy of Bruce Lee,his positive "i can" mentality
"use the stumbling block as the stepping stone" etc is the way to go imho.

Walk on young brother.

[Guest]

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.

[Liberty]

ill look at the youtube link when the thing finally manages to load, i have very slow net access at the moment.
This statement where you say Bruce wasnt making a martial art. Would you say he was though developing a martial art that worked for him, his personal way. Not the way everyone else should train?

No and yes. I say it was developing him. I posted the link of the two young Pancrationists, for example, because it reminded me of the simplicity Lee speaks of that's meant so much to me. I'm finding the man was right, you end up not adding on, you end up reducing, hence it develops you. In that sense, yes, it does work for you, your personal way.

Even street guys I've known who've survived show that quality. The street's mistakes refining their approach, developing them, stripping them of what they thought was essential and leaving them with what really is. That is natural.

I guess it's a difficult concept to explain. Imean that, I'm not trying to be vain or anything.

[Liberty]

Remembering back to my early teenage years life does just spin you round,at 13,14,and 15 years of age i was fighting with hells angels regularly,saw and took part in fights of 200 people(gangs) had knives pulled on me,hit with bottles etc etc,i had a dam sight more fights in those days than i ever had in my adulthood.

Liberty mate it does get better and easier,you do start taking charge and control of your own life brother.

Using the Bruce Lee philosophy helped me at your age(17) imensely,
so regardless whether you practice JKD or JUN FAN the philosophy of Bruce Lee,his positive "i can" mentality
"use the stumbling block as the stepping stone" etc is the way to go imho.

Walk on young brother.

It's fascinating how we as human beings interpret things though we are speaking a same language (American English). Still, thanks wiser brother. I hear you. Likewise.

Say, what's one thing you'd say you learned out there where the real warriors are. I mean, you know, that stands out, that refined you, stripped away from you any notions of what works and what doesn't?

[Liberty]

IM not as qualified as some other on this thread in JKD. In JKD specifically i have no qualifications, though i do in other systems.

Im stating my understanding of JKD. I consider myself to practice JKD and have trained with a couple of the better known instructors in the JKD world but nothing to the extent that Michael,Mike,Tim have.
This is why i say if my interpretation is incorrect then i will happily not say that i study JKD but that i study X system and Y system. or say i do MMA.
However im after mastering a couple of systems not taking a little of this and a little of that. I guess i could say i spend the least amount of time directly in the JKD world as i do compared to escrima and muay thai which are my two main systems with mt being the core for me. I have dabbled in other systems as well but nothing more than a couple of years in one or another, nothing extensive though i do still use elements of these other systems.
I have fairly succesfully, i believe, blended escrima and muay thai and used elements from the unarmed FMA aspects and encorporated them into my standup game. Working with JKD instructors has facilitated this greatly.
To me this is the essense of JKD. of course i may be wrong!

How do those two work together for you; the FMA/Muay Thai? Seems like an interesting mix. By the way, I have a friend who always pronounces it as "thigh" rather than "tie." Me and the other guys crack on him for it. But it always fascinates me how people just differ on things. He has this notion they (Thais) are some sort of cool culture and can't sand it when I say something like, no they're not. Dude they're just as smart, just as petty, and all that as the rest of us. But he knows I'm just giving him a hard time. We're cool about it.

Say, where were some of you guys at 17 or so?

Mr. Wright, right on to most of your post. Hopefully by the time I'm older phoney martial arts training posing as the real thing will have been outlawed or something. I mean, it is so rampant it's criminal.

Ghost, check out this other clip I forgot to attach. It's so clean, it almost looks staged. Such simplicity, such pristine moments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP0XP92av0Q

[Ghost]

How do those two work together for you; the FMA/Muay Thai? Seems like an interesting mix. By the way, I have a friend who always pronounces it as "thigh" rather than "tie." Me and the other guys crack on him for it. But it always fascinates me how people just differ on things. He has this notion they (Thais) are some sort of cool culture and can't sand it when I say something like, no they're not. Dude they're just as smart, just as petty, and all that as the rest of us. But he knows I'm just giving him a hard time. We're cool about it.

Say, where were some of you guys at 17 or so?

Mr. Wright, right on to most of your post. Hopefully by the time I'm older phoney martial arts training posing as the real thing will have been outlawed or something. I mean, it is so rampant it's criminal.

Ghost, check out this other clip I forgot to attach. It's so clean, it almost looks staged. Such simplicity, such pristine moments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP0XP92av0Q

Mixes quite nicely after a while. The kicking from escrima mixes easily with thai boxing. I use knee, elbow and kicks etc from thai boxing but with sticks in hands. Its not really anything new as such.
One of my JKD instructors is a thai boxing and escrima instructor as well and he has helped me mix the two well.

If you look at things like the "black eagle society" you will see how it can be put together, i dont think there are any good videos out there though, most of what is there is pats stuff which is only the spin off group from the original, but still good. i trained with the original black eagle society and there is only one video of that that i know of. there may be more, i dont think so though, and its a private video.

Basically we do everything goes with sticks. so you do sticks on the ground, standing, punch kick knee grapple ground fight. We try out things to see what works, work new ideas that we bring up in sparring and test to see if it works and either accept it or reject it as a group in a full contact environment.
Sparring is fencing head gaurd and cricket gloves, nothing more.

I just focus more on the stand up part of all that more than anything because its what i like.


To me its JKD to others it might not be, what you call it is really irrelevant in the end and im not bothered tbh, but thats what i do outside of my main focus of muay thai.

[g-bells]

[QUOTE=Michael Wright;285298]g-bells, Ghost is more than welcome to argue. Rank and certification is not a pre-requisite to offer a point of view.

mr wright,

i was not questioning his rank, all i was stating is that his understanding is'nt the same as mine.i gave my understanding as did those more qualified than myself.

Ghost- eitherway you look at it, you seem to be striving to work with different arts and use them to better yourself as a fighter and more, and i have nothing but respect for that! my path is'nt yours and vice versa so all the best to you, and again i was'nt attacking you just .....errr ummm arguing

[Knuckles&Knees]

I've had my share of knife, beer bottle, biting, getting shot at encounters, so no, it's not "just a lot of reading" again. Sorry, video on the matter is the same as yours....

It is ironic you and anyone else assume someone's "experience" in such matters depends upon their age.

I believe someone posted something about you Ghost (or Bri), to the effect that you also came from a rough background. I find it hard to believe you have never encountered "kids" colder, more "street-wise" then all those DVD producing "masters" put together.

I think that was me in a different, past, thread. I was referring to the training and combat sports culture Ghost comes from. I think you have boxing experience so you might know then that the culture is a bit different from novice TKD training. People in cultures such as football or boxing or Thai boxing or folks style wrestling are instilled with the attitude to *seek combat* and endure pain and ignore fear. There are clear battle lines drawn and there can be only one winner - this is the attitude.

The term "street wise" has come to be so over used like the word "good" that it lacks any clear definition and in my opinion can't always be taken to seriously.

People from urban areas like to think of themselves as "street smart" simply because they wish to think of themselves as being more clever, brighter, and *better* than those that come from well-to-do suburbs or from rural areas.

In the late 20th century and in our present early 21st century, "street smart" is essentially being able to muster in yourself high levels of violence, not trusting anyone, being fairly unfriendly, and willing to take advantage of anyone and anything at any turn. That's all it is.

Being "street smart" does not make one a better hand-to-hand fighter. There are plenty of young men from the inner cities of Detroit or the favelas of Rio de Janeiro that would get their butts handed to them in a fist fight in Manchester, England.

Looking at JKD from that, it's "scientific street fighting," principles of energy and striking transfer, leverage, power generation, anges of attack and so forth, and not some mix of martial arts techniques.

In fact, FMA is somewhat like that. In it's focus on angles of attack, for example. Wherein a straight thrust with a fist, foot, knife, pole, what have you, for example, is treated not according to what technique it is but to what angle it is coming from, hence, it is much more flexible and adaptable in that area, than techniques focused arts.

You've obviously never heard of nor encountered "kids" who grow up in, choose, have violent worlds forced upon them, kids as cold as a human being can become - who well know a thing or two we could all learn from where surviving violent encounters are concerned.

I agree with you, there are children or young men and women that have experienced a lot of violence or ill things and corruption in life quite early on - for some their entire life and all they have ever known.

I'm always flabbergasted by the *culture* I read about or view on videos of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro. I mean in some ways they are not much different than the inner city cultures in the USA but in other ways they are so *completely* different. Young people walking around in broad day light *brandishing* assault rifles, young people getting into fairly frequent gun *battles* with the military police in Rio, this is much different than the U.S. ghetto cultures.

Then again, you can encounter some very sensitive and compassionate young people in both the inner cities of the U.S. or in the favelas of Brazil, while in contrast you can find some very *cruel* and cold hearted young people in small town or rural USA or even in well-to-do suburbs.

Lets not forget you have some children in well-to-do communities and families that have cruel or cold parents. Then there are some poor children that have caring and warm parents and family members.

[Tim McFatridge]

Ghost,

I was not saying that you are not doing JKD and was not advocating you stop calling it JKD. I was simply making a point about the core art. I agree with Mr. Wright, if you are going to be teaching people then you need to clarify what you are doing and make sure they understand that you are using the general concepts of JKD but that you are not teaching Bruce Lee's JKD.

That was it brother... like I said no offense intended to you or anyone else. Much love and respect to you on my part. I look at it as we are all part of the same big family. If you train in the martial arts then we are brothers and I will respect as one.

Tim

[Ghost]

Thats cool, i kind of thought it was like that, the only thing i would teach would be thai boxing personally. But thats a little way off, too worried teaching will make me have to stick to one geographical location too rigidly at the moment so im just enjoying the journey.