JKD = Art

[Vash]

Is Jeet Kune Do the kind of "style" which Bruce Lee so addimently opposed? If not, is it his own path through the martial arts, a training philosophy applicable to all practices, or something else?

[yenhoi]

And in JKDs philosophy, what is useless should be stripped. If an art doesn't follow that philosophy, it no longer maintains martial status.

A subject I have heard Guro Dan talk about many times, and several of his students lecture about (in seminars, at dinner, on forums...)


" Jeet Kune Do Is From:

1. Exploration:
Internally
frpm within yourself
from within your group
Externally
others in your group
outside your group
2. Research
Internally
from within yourself
from within your group
Externally
others in your group
outside your group
3. Experimentation
Knowledge gained through creativity and Discovery. "

What makes JKD?

- Economy tight structure in attack and defense
- Versatile and total kicking and striking weapons
- Broken rhythm, half-beat, and the one or three-and-a-half beat.
- Weight training and scientific supplementary training and all around fitness.
- Direct movement in attacks and counters - non telegraphic nature of training and fighting mindset
- Shifty body and light footwork
- Un-crispyness and Un-assuming attacking tactics (non-classical training methods, "aliveness")
- In-fightings:
-- shifty blasting (angles, awareness, and sensitivity)
-- throwing and takedowns
-- grappling (superior and inferior positions)
-- immobilizations (trapping, even if you dont call it trapping.)
- Full contact sparring, training with resistant partners
- Continuous development of body tools
- Individual expression
- Total understanding of structure (in use, the hand moves first.)
- "Continuity of expressive self" (flow)
- Loose power and powerful thrist-drive as a whole. A springy looseness but not a physically lax body. Pliable and mental awareness (Serious play.)
- Well-balanced posture of exertion during movement, constantly.

If JKD was Bruce Lee's art, then by all understandings of this concept of art and style, only people with martial ineage to Brucee Lee can really be practicing JKD, regardless of what they actually call the practice. Can anyone practice anything but decide that when they fight they dont want to hurt their opponent or themselves and then say they use aikido principles? Sure they can. JKD and other realated philosophies or philosophers stress the creative expression of the individuals. Regardess of whats written down, only actual physical people practice or do anything, and regardless of what they or other people "call it" - its still what they are doing, did or will do.

"A style should never be like a Bible, a set of laws or principles whice can never be violated by any individual." - Bruce Lee

"The word "master" denotes a slave, and style manifests itself in narrow horizons and bondage. It is only when master and style are transcended that true freedom of expression begins." - James Lee

etc.

[yenhoi]

So, sure, you are constantly stripping away the useless, but you are also always accumulating. This is a hint to us who havent made it yet to keep learning and creating, not the opposite.

[Vash]

Any real martial art. Jeet Kune Do's philosophy seems to have the heart of a real combative method, which is something which should be understood in all martial endeavors; the need for refinement.

Also, the concept of fitness training outside the actual performance of the art seems lost on most martial artists today. Perhaps because so many of the hobby artists do their art either for just a hobby or for fitness.

I'm probably being a bit rude when I say this, but if you do a martial art, then it better be to learn to fight. Any other reason is a waste of your and your instructor's time.

[yenhoi]

Its just people spend so much time on the subjects of name, style, art, lineage, when they should be swapping lock-flows and position-flows and looking at each others performance videos.

[yenhoi]

For example

[Vash]

Methinks it's that type of conversation which kills martial practice and turns it to martial theory & verbalization.

I have a name. My style has a name. If my name is to change, or my style's name is to change, I will still be me, and my style will still be my style.

[Qigong]

Jeet Kune Do IS stripping the useless, indeed, but you need some useless to strip before u can use only what u need. Therefore, you need something(a martial art) to base this unessential stripping on. Wing Chun was Bruce Lee's primary martial art for his whole life, until he started to evaluate martial arts, thus creating his own "way of fighting", not "Martial Art". Because if he were to create this as a Martial Art, there would be no use in saying it was created. Because everything that is created is something that has a name, Bruce didn't want it to be anything. He wanted it to be what you need most out of everything you learn. That is why he was hesitant in giving the "art" a name.

In conclusion, this art of Jeet Kune Do is really no art at all, it is "artless art". So yes, it is an art in a way in which it isn't.


-Qigong


dont you love knowledge?

[Vash]

Excellent thoughts, Qigong. Definetly gonna haft think on that one.

*walks away, makes tuna sandwich, drinks a glass of orange Gatorade, walks back to computer*

What of the stuff currently being taught as Jeet Kune Do? Does this curriculum constitute a "style" or "art?"

[yenhoi]

I disagree. You dont need "Martial Art." You dont need titles, names, lingo, specific ways of doing anything, or any real sort of organization.

All that is necessary is a capable teacher and a willing (hungry) student. Discipline…. Regular training, actual work and effort over time. Good attributes make good fighters. The only thing necessary from the "things" that call themselves "Martial Arts" is the simularity of subject material: fighting and fighting training methods. Everything else people attach to "it" to make it "art" and "style" are necessarily un-necessary. Shiny, colorful pieces.

[Vash]

Yenhoi has taken the correct and passed it about like a virgin at a biker party.

[Vash]

"I really think that point is rather moot when speaking of shadow boxing and bag work because they are in fact "dead" activities as well. The aliveness in combat is from adapting and reacting to the outside stimuli such as enviroment and opponent. To be truly alive, there is no room for favorite techniques and angles. They are dictated by the moment. Although at first glance, one may say that shadow boxing is alive, it is actually just what the practitioner "wants" to throw next and is heavily influenced by his own likes and dislikes and is thus in reality as far from alive as forms are. Both are merely conditioning exercises that train both physical and meantal attributes. The path may be different, but I believe the final destination is the same. Can you see what I mean. Do you have experience in a "classical mess."

[rogue]

"A style should never be like a Bible, a set of laws or principles whice can never be violated by any individual." - Bruce Lee

Agree but if you're going to make changes you better know what you're doing and most guys changing things usually don't.

"The word "master" denotes a slave, and style manifests itself in narrow horizons and bondage. It is only when master and style are transcended that true freedom of expression begins." - James Lee

In regards to martial arts James is wrong, master denotes someone who has mastered the art and is and is now a head instructor. And I think it's dangerous to think that fighting is a form of self expression.

Thing is we'll never know where Lee would have gone as a martial artists. Maybe he would quit the MAs and just act and direct or maybe he'd be training a stable of Pride fighters. Was JKD an art, maybe, but an art in it's formative stage.

[yenhoi]

And I think it's dangerous to think that fighting is a form of self expression.

I think its dangerous to think otherwise.

I also think that anyone who wants to call themselves a master is cookoo.

[Vash]

that I think too much.

I can see combat as a method of self-expression, but at the same time, there are some obvious dangers to "finding yourself" in violence. That stuff can end up defining a person. Be better if the person defined their art.