CLF and NSL in JKD?

[chen zhen]

i read on this forum a while back that bruce lee
took something from northern shaolin and
choy lay fut into jeet kune do.
is this true? cos then i want to ask:
what techniques/strategies/principles did he take?
and to what extent did bruce learn these styles?

[DragonzRage]

There is no real Northern Shaolin or Choy li Fut influence in Jun Fan Gung fu. Those are two arts among many that Bruce observed and did research on, but it doesn't mean in any way that they were really incorporated on a technical level in his art. Wing Chun was the only kung fu style that was truly incorporated in the Jun Fan style. You could argue that Bruce's kicking techniques were influenced by Northern Shaolin, but Bruce also worked with Chuck Norris, Jhoon Rhea and looked into Savate as well. So you could just as easily say that his kicks were derived from karate, TKD and Savate. You can't really put an exclusive label on front kicks, sidekicks and hook kicks because they are so generic and common among a great number of different martial arts. In character, I would actually say that the Jun Fan kicks resemble Savate the most. But all the evidence suggests that Bruce basically picked up the common kicking techniques from general experience (no one exclusive source) and developed a specific way to apply them on his own.

[martialdoulos]

I agree with previous reply.

Also, it should be noted that bruces principles of application fundamentally stemmed from 3 major sources, and those were Western Boxing (hands, body movement, power generation), Fencing (footwork, lead hand framework, angulation) and Wing Chun (hand immobilization, fist position).

People say that he synthesized 20 styles or whatever, but his goal was never synthesis. It was alteration (of wing chun) in the beginning, and eventually total transformation into his own approach, which had its own organizing principles.

Many techniques are generic, as with the kicking -- ie parrying, footwork, etc. They are fundamentally generic BECAUSE he was driving toward simplicity, which generally removes what we consider the "stylistic" elements of given techniques.