JKD and Korean martial arts

[fenwick99]

howard

Since you gentlemen are familiar with Howard Williams, can you tell me if it's true that Sifu Williams's right lead travels at 110 mph, and can he sidekick a large man back 15 feet? Also, he was planning to make some videos a few years back; what happened?
Thanks.

[Happy Cat]

Inosanto Martial Arts is a good name. As you know from my previous posts I am strugaling to find name for the art that I know. It is JKD, but JKD is such a big unbrella now that the name means diferent things to diferent people.

Oakland JKD is a possability, but even diferent branches of oakland have diferent interpretations. Origonal JKD is not good, because it sugests stagnation, while our art has evolved. And as we sugested above, there may have been more than one "origonal." Just Gung Fu works for me, but that name hides more than it reveals.

Sure, fair enough.

I tell you where I come out. I abandoned the name Jeet Kune Do some time ago. Never have three words generated such pointless debate, from all sides. I never met Bruce Lee, so I don’t personally know what he did and didn’t do, or say, or want. I have tried to pass on the understanding of events given to me by Mr Inosanto and others who were there, but in the end that just turns into a “my dad knows more than your dad” debate.

So as far as I’m concerned, if there is a group of guys out there whose main purpose is to insist that they own JKD – then they can have it, they are welcome to it. I study and teach Inosanto Martial Arts, and I am extremely proud to do so. I look at the teachers, artists, athletes, fighters and students in the Inosanto family and I realise that it doesn’t matter jack shit what you call it, I just know this is where I want to be.

You follow your path sir, call it whatever you will, and good luck to you.

[Happy Cat]

Just to clarify, I have not studied with HW. I train with a diferent branch of the tree.

In my vier JKD is a puzzle. Bruce did not teach any two people the same thing. I think part of it was customizing it for each individual. But another part was that bruce did not want anyone to have it all. At least not while Bruce himself was on the world stage.

James Lee had a diferent aproach, and his methodology influenced Oakland down one path just as your sifu influenced LA.

IF these guys would get together we could work out some of the pieces. But that can not hapen. The philisophical and ego devide is too great.

So I will be an Oakland School "kid" who tries to remain open to the knowledge of the other two schools. Though I am less open to kali

[Happy Cat]

By the By: The title of the Oakland curruculum is: Jeet Kune Do: Karate

The term Karate was used because it was a word that was known to Americans, not because Karate formed any part of it.

The same with the words Kick Boxing in LA. Kick Boxing was a name that was used becauce people in LA had heard of kick boxing (acording to the Wednsday night Group), not because it was part of what was being taught. I would like to see the LA document you refer to, but from your description, it sounds like Sifu Dan was already taking his JKD doun a road that was far diferent to what was hapening on Oakland. I know my Sifu's view of this. It would be interesting to hear from HW or Al Novac to gain their perspective.

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.

[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.

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]

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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[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]

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.

[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.