Anyone heard of S.C.A.R.S?

[Valraven]

Blackjack, I see where your comming from and let me explain.
It seems that people (especially in this country)have a deep seeded desire to make something they can call their own. Every one with a blackbelt and a 12 hour seminar in another style wants to be the founder of his own system.

SAFTA and the like are repackaged TMA. Nothing new
and not nearly as effective. As for JKD...

JKD is a concept. This term was coined by Bruce Lee and Dan Inosanto to identify Bruce's martial philosophy. Most people who claim to train JKD today are nothing more then collectors of drills and techniques. More confused then enlightened.

When Guru Dan Inosanto wants to
"look at" a martial art, he seeks out the best instructor and submerges himself in the system.
He LEARNS the whole style. He MASTERS its techniques. Only at that point does he "Take what is useful and add what is specifically his own".
He is extraordinary.

Most students (certainly not all) under him, do not do this. These individuals are missing
the boat. But even these guys are lightyears beyond anything the SAFTA type guys can ever hope to produce.

By the way I started Kali/Jun Fan Gung Fu way back in 1988. It was this that eventually lead me to Shuai-jiao.
This is just my take.
Valraven

[Black Jack]

Hi Valraven

If this is your take on the situation than I respect that but I do not agree with the JKD aspect of your post in some degrees.

Yes JKD is a concept, at the core it is a personal way of expression...JKD transcends style and is a concept of self improvement for the individual to explore his limits and work beyond them.

It is the students responsibility to develop and work themselves towards an unlimited potential.

JKD is not a "way" that develops techniques in a iron clad and restricted set of guide rules. It is more of a process of stripping away what is there...to find or rediscover those things that have been lost by misguided manipulation or by everday life conditioning.

We train in all of the ranges of combat, with and without weapons, against one or multiple armed or unarmed opponents, in a variety of enviroments and against uncooperative attackers who are serious about there training.

As for the collectors of drills and techniques out there, well thats not how we train and the same can be way more than stated for the countless CMA, KMA and JMA gyms that collect and work static forms and outdated training methods that involve none or hardly any hard sparring, two person drills (shells of expression as I like to call them),mass attack situations, pragmatic armed weapon and unarmed defense work, psychological outlooks on combat and how the intergal relationship all of the ranges have together and how important it is to be able to move through each of them.

Remeber that is not to say that I think all of them have this problem but it is true that a major number of them in any given city or town do.

I have been through a few traditional CMA schools and out of those very traditional schools a few had some good things to offer and one was excellent in its goal at directing its students to be aggressive fighters in a street situation (this school did nothing else but train you how to maim and kill your attacker)but after four years it still did not fit my needs and only opened up more questions for me in the terms of better modern day training drills and practical weapon, stance and range flow work.

I have nothing against traditional CMA's by any means, I enjoy all of the arts traditional and hybrid as long as they have something to offer and very much enjoy talking about martial arts with any MA who wishes to do so.

Its the training issues that I have the problems with and those that focus on the mystic and not the fighting work that needs to be done to have a edge in a street situation.

I am glad that you have found a art that you enjoy, from what I have heard is that Shuai-jiao is a pretty brutal art that works on throwing techniques and grappling, I am sure that I could find a wealth of information in such a system to help increase my takedowns.

From a personal side I have a deep affection for the fighting sciences of the Filipino regions and I am curious to see how you felt with whatever you took for that arena.

Its all about self-perfection vrs. self peservation.

Set patterns, incapable of adapability of pliability, only offer a better cage, truth is outside all patterns- Quote

By the way did you ever work with Carrenza to express your self with the stick and knife (FMA shadowboxing)

Regards

[rogue]

Don't take this the wrong way Black Jack, but your post is repeating the same stuff that every JKD guy, myself included, says.

"Yes JKD is a concept, at the core it is a personal way of expression...JKD transcends style and is a concept of self improvement for the individual to explore his limits and work beyond them."

You can call JKD a concept all you like but it is now an actual style. I've been a student at three JKD schools, one instructor was taught by Vunak himself, and they all taught the same exact thing. I have several tapes by JKD guys and they all contain pretty much the same material. I'll believe that JKD is a concept when I see a JKD instructor use either all Japanese, Chinese or Korean martial arts for their hand, stick and blade work instead of boxing, Muay Thai, Kali and Wing Chung.

"Set patterns, incapable of adapability of pliability, only offer a better cage, truth is outside all patterns"- Quote
I'm guessing that's a Bruce Lee quote. Bruce was a much better fighter than philosopher. Avoiding patterns can become a pattern. Nature is full of patterns, every oak leaf is different but I can still tell it's an oak leaf.

To summerize, I'm not downing JKD techniques or training as much as I'm downing the idea that JKD is somehow separate from traditional martial arts, conceptually on another level, it's not. No matter what Lee may have intended JKD to be it's now a style.

I used to be daga

[Black Jack]

Whats up Rogue

I disagree.

I would never try to be insulted by someone's outlook even if I find that outlook to be wrong in my eyes.

My teacher was a student directly under Vunack and has training with Larry Harstell and past Navy Seal instructor Tom Cruise.

I do not consider it a style by any means though I understand how you can say that on the basic level that a number of the different JKD schools Orginal or Concepts have a lot of the same techniques in there school and of course the same concept fighting structure to draw from, such things as Progressive Indirect Attacks and so forth.

The simple truth is that a reason a number of the JKD students use the Filipino fighting arts, Wing Chun, Thai Boxing and others is because these arts have what tools we are looking for in certain ranges that are very efficent.

Why use KMA or JMA or CMA for stick and knife work when to be honest, the FMA arts are at the top of there game for that area of combat, I have never seen any art that can come even close to the comprehensive science that the FMA arts have made stick and knife fighting into, not to mention that they are not lacking in the hand to hand department either.

There are over 30 styles that have been incorporated into JKD concepts in some format throughout the course of its history, so to say that we only use a few arts is not the truth, some just have better tools than others and that is why you see them at the forefront more often in "some" schools.

If you found that a Korean martial art approach honestly worked better for you than a FMA or IMA approach in the weapon department than you are more than free to express yourself with what works for you but I dont think that you would find the KMA approach to be what you needed when you "realy" looked into what was a more weapon efficent combat science. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Concepts like PIA's can be with tools from any martial arts style, kali,silat,boxing,dumog,wing chun,bando or even tkd...its is a non-prejudiced tool that JKD uses to give its self a edge in a street fight.

It would have been nice to hear that you had a better experiance with your touch on JKD, I can sense that you do have something agaisnt JKD though, I do not know where this comes from as it does not seem that you spent a great deal of time with any JKD gym but I can tell you from my point of view is that it allows me to perform at a level that the other arts in themselves have
not given me.

I am not a JKD cult of personality guy, it allows me a freedom from my old restraints and I am on this board to represent what I do as we all are and any other schools of combat I have or still do work in or have knowledge of.

When it comes to defending or explaining my point of view on a MA it does not bother me as long as both sides have "OPEN" eyes on the topic and "THERE" experiances with that topic.

I am more than sure that you have had to defend your chosen expression of combat on more than a few occassions. TKD seems to be the most kicked around fighting style on the planet and though IMHO the title is well deserved, I stated on a few posts back that there is always the exception to the rule and it is the training and not any style that will win the fight.

It just seems kind of odd that a guy who works with one of the most attacked systems around would find a problem with another persons way of combat training.

As always I enjoy your posts


Regards

[This message was edited by Black Jack on 09-30-00 at 12:28 AM.]

[Valraven]

Black Jack,
I will say that one of the best things that I brought away from my JKD experience is the ability to evaluate the merits of a system. For example,
I think the Kali is one the finest arts ever.
I love Kali and still train it today.
However, it is this very lesson that I learned from JKD that makes me feel how I feel.
Most people today who think they live by the concepts that Bruce Lee and Guru Dan outlined are
not doing so at all. Most of the guys out there today just train whatever Dan trains.

When he started Silat under Pendekar Paul De Thours everyone jumped on the Silat bandwagon.

When Dan got into Bando, then Bando was the thing.

Then it was Shoot, then it was BJJ then it was...

Well you get the point. If some guy went to open a JKD school that had a cirriculum of Goju Ryu, Judo, Hung Gar and Fencing, people would call it a fraud. If there's no Inosanto lineage then how could it be real JKD (I've heard respected martial artists say this.)?
Hmmm...Sounds like a style to me.

The funny thing is, Guru Dan is the first guy to tell you to go find your own way. Very few people
do what he does.
Oh, they will practice the same systems, but they seek only to understand HIS way. Not their own.

I recently had a conversation with a very high ranking Jun Fan guy who was upset that someone traded a video of his seminar for a monkey kung fu
video. He felt that this was a joke and way beneath him.
But I'm sure if he was to find out that Dan was secretly practicing Monkey Kung Fu for the last six years it would all be good.

Don't get me wrong. The whole Bruce/Dan movement
is a great thing. Like BJJ, it made us look at how and why we train. But bilnd following is the very thing that started Bruce down this road in the first place.
This is my humble observation made with the utmost
respect for all the styles under the banner at the Inosanto Academy. It is because of these teachings
that I feel good about what I have to say.
Valraven