JKD and Korean martial arts

[imstriker]

Did Bruce Lee include any of the techniques from Korean Martial arts such as Taekwondo or Hapkido into JKD?

I have read that he was friends with the Taekwondo master Jhoon Rhee and he looked at kicks in Taekwondo. On the other hand I have heard from a few JKD practitioners that JKD does not incorporate any high kicks from Taekwondo.

By the way, I am not referring to the incorporation of high kicks into some of Bruce Lee's movies which were for theatrical and stage combat purposes. I would like to know if any of the Korean arts are a part of the standard JKD curriculum.

Regards,
imStriker

[Happy Cat]

In short, no. Taekwondo kicks incorporate the consept of chambering. That was rejected by Bruce as leading to delay and telegrephing. The JKD side kick does have some similarities to TKD, except for the chambering and the targeting and the foot work for set up.

That is not to say that there is not some contenuity. If you have mastered the TKD kicks, the JKD kicks will be very easy for you and you should be able to aply many of the same motor skills. My very basic TKD was helpfull to me when I started on the pathless path.

Just my opinion.

[Happy Cat]

One other thing. The JKD side kick does incorporate a roll of the hip. Wing Chung does not. I do not know if Bruce may have learned that from TKD, or from some other source. Others here will probably have some better knowledge of the early history

[Happy Cat]

Yes Bruce tried everything. And he did a lot of things in the movies. But what he tried, what he did in the movies, and what he taught as June Fan and JKD were very diferent.

Now in JKD consepts, everything goes. TKD, checkers, whatever.

[imstriker]

imstriker,
First, your question insinuates that there was a "standard JKD curriculum." I don't know that there is such a thing. I was not a Bruce Lee student, but I have it on good information that Bruce Lee both studied with and incorporated material from many of the best in his era, including people like Jhoon Rhee.

I have been away for a week and I just got back reading some of the answers.

NO, I am not "insinuating" or suggesting anything about JKD since my background is not in JKD.

I guess if you are dealing with a standardized art such as Fencing then answering a simple question such as mine would be very easy.

[Aikia]

Jkdtkd

Yes of course. Chuck Norris influenced bruce to kick high. Jhoon Rhee taught bruce to break a hanging board and to perform the spinning hook kick. Ji Han Jae taught Bruce the basic hapkido takedown. Bruce was influenced by Korean arts.

[Happy Cat]

There are plenty of people who will tell you that Bruce looked at 22 different martial arts and that he combined them to make JKD. That simply is not true. But it has been repeated so many times that people believe it

Bruce looked at every art that he could. He studied the forms and the history to learn how to defeat each system and to gain insight into the "essence" of each method.

the Original JKD was not however a conglomeration of these systems. It was and still is, in the few schools which still teach it, an original art developed by Bruce and James Lee. It was strongly influenced by Wing Chung and possibly other forms of Kung Fu through James, Western Boxing and Fencing.

Bruce and James were well informed about other systems, but it is not true that they took a little of this and a little of that and called it JKD.

Significantly, Both Bruce and James were amateur Boxers early in their history.

As for TKD, TKD is a sport. I like TKD and in fact I was a TKD student some years back. But as Bruce pointed out sports have rules and the rules influance the play and the techniques. As a result, such tequniques have severe restrictions and dangers when used in the real world. For example, when was the last time someone grabed your foot when you executed a TKD kick. Never, because that is against the rules. But use that same kick on the street and you will learn why they made up the rule.

[fenwick99]

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.

[Happy Cat]

Bruce trained and practised with Norris. he was influenced by Norris, and by the world at large. As you sugest, 4,000 tequniques is a weakness not a strength.

But Bruce had a great copacity for learning. His method was to study, and then discard what was not useful. My wife is a former KSW student, and I a former TKD, so I have respect for these arts. Bruce respected all who trained in any art and who were humble. He felt that the names of the styles seporated us from one another and from the truth.

He was corect of course, but that wisdom also contained the seeds of distruction for JKD because it was itself a style. The internal conflict in JKD eventualy resulted in the great split between the so called Origonal and the so callled Consepts.

[Jujujason]

You know Happycat, I think it's hilarious how all of you 'original' types stick to this notion of how jkd is just wing chun, boxing and fencing. Maybe you guys need to reread the Tao because I can see tons of sijo's own drawings of wrestling, judo/jujitsu, muay Thai and savate techniques. He comments on things like the clinch, arm-drags, takedowns and submission holds. Last time I checked, NONE of those things (outside the clinch in boxing) are in ANY of the arts that you 'original' types maintain are the basis for jkd. Additionally, in wing chun (the only art of the three you quote that employs kicking) there is only one kick. Where did he get the rest of his kicking arsenal? Surely not from boxing and fencing, right? Last but not least, the argument that our side has repeated something so often that it now is considered truth can also be made against your side, constantly repeating that jkd is ONLY wing chun, boxing and fencing. You might want to consider that the next time you decide to put finger to keypad and type something really stupid.

[Happy Cat]

WOW. You might want to get a clue. The fact that all of the origonal JKD students say the same thing might lead some to think that it has merit.

But that does not fit in with your "consepts', so you reject it. I can't make a horse drink water, and I cant make you face the facts. Sure the Tao looks at a number of arts. Perhaps you did not fully read the posts above, and perhaps you do not know of how the Tao was created after Sifu's death as a compilation of his notes.

But you are not the first seaker of fiction here.

[Happy Cat]

What you seem to be confused by is the fact that Bruce studied many arts. If he was alive today he would still be studying. But too manyn people like you want to stroke their own ego by claiming that bruce used their art to create JKD.

By the by, if you think WC has only one kick, you might want to ask for your money back from that internet based course you were taking.

[Guest]

Without entering into any mudslinging, I would like to present some facts:

In the summer of 1964 Bruce Lee and James Yimm Lee finalised plans for Bruce’s second school, in Oakland. The art being taught at the time was Jun Fan Gung Fu. I personally studied the Oakland method of Jun Fan Gung Fu during 1995 to 1998, from a student of Howard Williams. I still have the curriculum that was provided to me, and the majority of that curriculum is taken from a modified form of Wing Chun, Western Boxing, and the concepts of Western Fencing. This was the Jun Fan Gung Fu at that period of development in 1964 to end of 1965.

In 1966 Bruce Lee moved his family to Los Angeles and opened his school in Chinatown, later moved to 628 College Street in 1967. The name Jeet Kune Do was not even conceived until 1967 in Los Angeles, three years after Bruce and James Yimm Lee formulated the content of the Oakland teaching outline. Therefore, to argue that the Jeet Kune Do from the Oakland period is this or that is nonsense, the concept of Jeet Kune Do didn’t even exist during that time frame. You are referring to Jun Fan Gung Fu, and this is an art that developed immeasurably over the next five years.

Written by Bruce Lee and Dan Inosanto, I have the Jun Fan Gung Fu curriculum from 1967 to 1972, passed to me by Guro Inosanto. The latter day material is almost unrecognisable to the material I have from the Oakland era. It is essentially a Kickboxing structure, hence the term often applied to the latter day LA period is “Jun Fan Kickboxing”. Gone is the Wing Chun structure, the emphasis on Boxing is still very prevalent, as are the concepts taken from Fencing in terms of Progressive Indirect Attack, Attack By Drawing etc. Jujujason is exactly right, there is material in the curriculum from Judo, Ju-jitsu, Muay Thai, Savate and also a small amount of Filipino Martial Arts. The actual amount of arts present in the curriculum I have is 26, not 22, but that’s not a big deal because it changed all the time.

So, here for me is the most important point. This entire curriculum is not for Jeet Kune Do, there is no Jeet Kune Do curriculum, I don’t have one from Oakland (it didn’t exist) and I don’t have one from Los Angeles (it also didn’t exist). The curriculum is Jun Fan Gung Fu. Jeet Kune Do was Bruce Lee’s personal expression of the martial arts, and to argue over what it was and wasn’t is a nonsense. Nothing exists that will ever prove you right or wrong, because the gentleman in question is unfortunately no longer with us.

[Happy Cat]

Sorry Mike, but it does exist. I was looking at an original 1971 Oakland JKD curriculum just last week. Part of the confusion here may be the fact that different things were taught in Oakland, even in 1971, than were taught in LA.

Glad to hear of your HW lineage. I have been training in the Oakland school, and have not had the benefit of studying under LA. It would be great to compare notes some time. But my sense is that the JFGF that you know is an early form of Oakland JKD. JFGF may be vary different than LA JKD, but Oakland less so.

From what I have seen of HW, he likes the longer range. In OJKD, as it has evolved in my lineage, there is more of an emphasis on the close range, and thee is still a lot of Wing Chung influance.

[Guest]

OK now I see where you are coming from. Yes I do know that until his unfortunate death in 1972, James Yimm Lee was kept up to date with how the art of JFGF was progressing. I understand.

My point, and I will be frank my friend it really matters not, is that the art James Yimm Lee taught even beyond Bruce Lee's move to LA, was JFGF. James Yimm Lee and Guro Inosanto were the only men who received a grade in JFGF equal to that of Bruce Lee, but the only person who received rank to teach Jeet Kune Do was Guro Inosanto.

You know Happy Cat I am way past caring about any of this, I think as you and I discussed before I don't even use the name JKD anymore. But I guess when I see two people getting tangled up in a historical argument I just pitch in what I know.

The bottom line to all of this I guess is that Jujujason and I, as students of Mr Inosanto, run with what we have been told. You run with your knowledge from Mr Williams and his students. The shame is the bickering, of which I have been party to before. It would be cool if we could all just get in a room and do some good training - which I think ALL sides agree was one of the founding beliefs of all the men we talk about and respect.