Jeet Kune Do

[RAYNYSC]

Heres a article that was written by Guro Dan Inosanto on Jeet Kune Do under the same title.

What is Jeet Kune Do?

In the past many have tried to define JKD in terms of a distinct style: Bruce Lee's Kung fu, Bruce Lee's Karate, Bruce Lee's Kickboxing, Bruce Lee's System of street fighting. To label JKD "Bruce Lee's martial art" is to completely mistake Bruce Lee's & JKD's meaning. JKD concepts simply cannot be confined within a single system. To understand this,a martial artist must transcend the duality of "for" & "against," reaching for that point of unity which is beyond mere distinction. The understanding of JKD is the direct intuition of this point of unity.
According to Bruce Lee, knowledge in the martial arts ultimately means selfknowledge.

Jeet Kune Do is not a new style of kung fu or karate. Bruce Lee did not invent a new or composite style, nor did he modify a style to set it apart from any existing method. His concept was to free his followers from clinging to any style, pattern, or mold.

It must be emphasized that jeet kune do is merely a name, a mirror reflecting ourselves. There is a sort of progressive approach to JKD training, but as Lee observed: "To create a method of fighting is like putting a pound of water into wrapping paper & shaping it." Structurally, many people mistake JKD as a composite style of martial art because of its efficiency. At any given time jeet kune do can resemble Thai boxing or Wing Chun or Wrestling or Karate. Its weaponry resembles Filipion escrima & kali,in long rage application it can resemble Northen Chinese Kung Fu or Savate.

According to Lee, the efficiency of any style depends upon circumsatnces and the fighting range of distance: the soldier employs a hand grenade at 50 yards, but he chooses a dagger for close-quaters combat. A staff, to take another example, is the wrong weapon to take a fight in a telephone booth, a knife would again be the most appropriate weapon.

Jeet Kune do is niether opposed or unopposed to the cocept of style. We can say that it is outside as well as inside of all particular structures. Because JKD makes no claim to existing as a style, some individual conclude that it is neutral or indifferent to the question. Again, this is not the case, for Jkd is at once "this" and "not this".

A goood Jkd practitioner rests his actions on direct intuition. According to Lee, a style should never be like the Bible in which the principles and laws can never be violated. There will always be differences between individuals in regard to the quality of training, physical make-up, level of understanding,enviromental conditioning, and likes and dislikes. According to Bruce, truth is a "pathless road", thus JkD is not an organization or an institution of which one can be a member. "Either you understand or you don't & that is that, "he said.

When Bruce taught a Chinese system of kung fu(it was shortly after his arrival in the U.S.), he did operate an institute of learning, but after that early period he abandoned his belief in any particular sysytem or style, Chinese or othewise. Lee did say that to reach the masses one should probably form some type of organization, for his own part, he dismissed the notion as unnecessary to his own teaching. Still, to reach the ever growing numbers of students, some sort of preconceived sets had to be established. And as a result of such a move by martial arts organizations, many of their members would be conditioned to a prescribed system, many of their members would end up as prisoners of systematic drilling.

This is why Lee believed in teaching only a few students at any time. Such a method of instuction required the teacher to maintain an alert observation of each student in order to establish the necessary student/teacher realationship. As Lee so often observed, " A good instuctor functions as a pointer of the truth, exposing the student's vulnerability, forcing him to explore himself both interally and externally, and finally intergrating himself with his being."

Martial arts like life itself is in flux in constant arhythmic movements, in constant change. Flowing with this cahnge is very important. And finally, any JKD man who says that JKD is exclusively JKD is simply not with it. He is still hung up on his own self enclosing resisitance, still anchored to reactionary patterns, still trapped within limitation.Such a person has not digested the simple fact that truth exists outside of all molds or patterns. Awareness is never exclusive. To quote Bruce: " Jeet Kune do is just a name, a boat used to get one across the river. Once across it is discarded and not to be carried on one's back.

In 1981, the JKD concept was taught in only three places: the filipino Kali Academy in Torreance, California, in Charlotte, North Carolina( where Larry Hartstell taught a few select students) & in Seattle,Washington (under the direction of Taki Kimura). The bulk of the JKD concept is taught in torrance, where the school is under the direction of myself & Richard Bustillo. It is organized in accordance with the premise that a JKD man must undergo different experiences. For example, in Phase 1 & 2 classes at the Filipino Kali Academy, students are taught Western boxing & Bruce Lee's method of kick boxing-Jun Fan.

I deeply feel that students should be taught experiences as opposed to techniques, In other words a Karate practitioner who has never boxed before needs to experience sparring with a boxer. What he learns from that experience is up to him. According to Bruce, a teacher is not a giver of truth, he is merely a guide to the truth each student must find.

The total picture Lee wanted to present to his pupils was that above everything else, the pupils must find their own way to truth. He never hesitated to say, Your truth is not my truth, my truth is not yours".

Bruce did not have a blueprint, but rather a series of guidelines to lead one to proficieny. In using training equipment, there was a sysytematic approach in which one could develop speed,distance,power,timing,coordination,endurance and footwork.

But JKD was not an end in itself for Bruce nor was it a mere by product of his martial studies, it was a means of self discovery. JKD was a prescription for personal growth, it was an investigation of freedom, freedom not only to act naturally and effectively in combat, but in life. In life, we absorb waht is useful and reject what is useless, and add to experience what is specifically our own. Bruce Lee always wanted his students to experience judo,jujutsu,aikido,Western boxing, he wanted his students to explore Chinese systems of sensitvity like wWing Chun, to explore the elements of Kali,Escrima,Arnis, to explore the elements of Pentjak Silat,Thai boxing, Savate. He wanted his students to come to an understanding of the strengths and weakness in each method.

No art is superior or inferior to any other. That is the object lesson of JKD, to be unbound, to be free, in combat to use no style as style, to use no way as the way, to have no limitation as the only limitation. Neither be for or against a particular style. In other words, JKD "just is".

Or to use the words of a Zen maxim to describe jeet kune do, In the landscape of spring there is neither better nor worse. The flowering branches grow, some short, some long.

PEACE

RAYNYSC

[RAYNYSC]

Anyone care to shed some insite?.... :D

RAYNYSC

[rogue]

Excellent question!!!

[RAYNYSC]

I feel that it's the individuality of each persons own process of growth not to mention the differences in attributes like size,speed,power,precision,endurance & even age that will determine what makes Jeet Kune Do,Jeet Kune Do... :D

RAYNYSC

[rogue]

So a person could study only BJJ or karate and be considered a JKDoka?

[RAYNYSC]

What's JKDoka?.... :confused:

RAYNYSC

[RAYNYSC]

To answer your question I believe it to be no as BJJ & or KARATE is not Jeet Kune Do!....
Now are there elements of these systems as well as others like: JUDO,JUJITSU,WRESTLING,WING CHUN,WESTERN BOXING,FENCING, SAVATE,THAI BOXING that can be found in Jeet Kune Do? The answer to that is yes there is....

But that dosen't make them Jeet Kune Do!...

As they are what they are a means to express yourself at that given point in time no more no less!....
What matters here is you learn how you deal with the matter at hand no one else not Bruce Lee not Dan Inosanto just you!....

The art of Jeet Kune Do is about an individuals own process of growth no more no less....

In short The art of Jeet Kune Do is simply to simplify.It is being oneself;it is reality in its "isness." Thus,isness is the meaning -having freedom in its primary sense,not limited by attachments,confinements,partialization,complexiti es....
BRUCE LEE

That sounds a lot like having to be able to adapt to the matter at hand with out thought...

How you reach that state is another story LOL!!!!

RAYNYSC

[Martial Joe]

I am guessing Jeet Kune Do makes Jeet Kune Do...

[dunbarj01]

I thought Bruce Lee made JKD what it is. He set the foundation but I don't know who else contributed to JKD not be a JKD person myself.

[handsome]

First someone should post Bruce Lee's picture instead of MR ROGUE's karate post...
at least that's one of million ways to show the world JKD is still alive instead of MR ROGUE...
What do all your JKD people think???

[rogue]

Let's face facts, Bruce Lee wasn't a Kano, Yip Man, Fairbairn, Hellio Gracie or Morihei Ueshiba.


So Ray, according to your post and logic anything could be JKD.

If karate is my means to express myself then it passes that test. If it teaches me to adapt and deal with the matter at hand, which karate can, then it passes that test also.

Don't take this wrong, but even JKD people don't know what JKD is or isn't. Is it simply a concept or an art, it can't be both. If it's a concept it can be applied to any art, if it can't then it's not a concept.

"The art of Jeet Kune Do is about an individuals own process of growth no more no less...."
Well what if the persons process involves by-passing the art of JKD altogether and instead studies Preying Mantis or Lama Pei, all the while sticking with the concepts of JKD.
One of the reasons I left JKD was all the psycho-babble many of the students spouted about JKD vs traditional arts such as JUDO, JUJITSU, WRESTLING, WING CHUN, WESTERN BOXING, FENCING, SAVATE, THAI BOXING. Which I'll point out JKD is dependent on to give it techniques to use, and not the other way around. What new thing outside of the concepts has JKD come up with?

Sadly JKD is on it's way to be a marketing catch phrase and not an art that contributes anything new to the martial arts.



[This message was edited by rogue on 05-01-01 at 08:19 PM.]

[Watchman]

That make you happy, Handsome?

[Daedalus]

JKD is not bound by tradition.
...is not stagnant.
...is not a style.(but rather is the absence of style)
...is not a merely a collection of other martial arts.(JKD assumes formlessness that it may assume all forms).
...is not impractical or inefficient.
...is not set in stone.

[Watchman]

Sounds like a Nike commercial. :D

[rogue]

...is not a merely a collection of other martial arts.(JKD assumes formlessness that it may assume all forms).

No, it's a collection of other martial arts techniques. And sorry to say if you think JKD is formless you better work on your Zen. You quote and follow the teachings of Bruce Lee? You got form. You include certain techniques but exclude others? You have form.

...is not a style.(but rather is the absence of style).
It's a style.


C'mon stop the Jibba Jabba guys and come up with a real defintion.

JKDoka favorite movie is Cleopatra, because she was the queen of de nial. :D

Watchman, where did Yip Man get that really cool JKD training device?
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Adventure is just a romantic name for trouble. It sounds swell when you write about it, but it's hell when you meet it face to face in a dark and lonely place.
Louis L'Amour
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