Drunken Monkey

the guys name. something like lam gee cheung. bad perm. dodgy moustache. but then it was the 80s.

um, i eat tripe..... there's a chinese dish that uses the stuff. it's great with a good plain soup noodle. mmmm, love that hexagonal stuff....... and er, i know i've denied it in the past but i think some people here know me to be a bit of a geek too. can't deny it forever. i can go on and on and on and on..... anyway. good brit food? puddings. bread and butter pudding. summer fruit pudding. sticky toffee pudding. spotted d1ck and custard. apple crumble.

......not entirely unrelated during my art school years, i for some reason started to throw scapels about. swann number 3 with a 10a blade. i'm quite accurate up to 10 feet. i'm pretty good with a deck of cards too.

no. in general, (modern) laws are quite sensible. it only goes horribly wrong when someone picks them apart and looks for loopholes.

the song. it's called the general's mandate. as i said before, (or was that in a PM???) it's called the general's mandate and was recorded as a 'pop' song by a guy with a really dodgy moustache in the 80s. whether or not he wrote the song+drum/music, i have no idea.

but in answering that your sect is from yourself you are acknowledging that there is a sect. just as when you say that it is 'my style' you are acknowledging that there is a style. that is why i say it is not quite right.

your signature. it's not quite right. the answer to the first question should be: i belong to no sect. the answer to the second should be: i have no style.

dang...... sorry.

i was addressing him. sorry for the confusion. what i mean is, i think first of all he should address what he is doing, then he should go about seeing why he is hurting. after all, if he is saying he is doing shadow boxing when he isn't, that needs to be 'fixed' first.

shadow boxing is a little more complex than just punching and kicking. what you are doing just sounds like you punching and kicking in the air. not the same.

hero is different. that was more the directors film. it could've been me in that role and it still would've came out good..... maybe. well, you get the idea.

i am saying that james joyce used jkd principles in his writing before bruce lee was even born. he might not have 'created' jkd as you know it but he was undoubtedly using jkd principles. anyway. 'there is no jkd' that might be the most accurate description of jkd yet.....

exactly. but an apple pie is relatively dead compared to something that is ever changing like a martial art and applications of. which all goes back to needing someone to show you how to do things to begin with........ once again and for the last time; who would you put your money on. the guy who tried to work things out on his own or the guy who had dan inosanto to help answer his questions? **edited a typo**

kinda. well, actually you brought it up by mentioning writing. it recalled something about jkd principles being principles for learning. and yes, it can be applied to everything that needs to be learnt. y'know, before you can make your apple pie, you have to learn how to make an apple pie. in fact, you can insert almost anything in place of apple pie and it still is valid. but yeah. i would say james joyces writing follows jkd principles.

the writing style. breaks every rule on literature. or it might just be total rubbish....

well, the next time you're in a book store, pick up a copy of "finnegans wake" by james joyce and you will see..... or should that be see the nestimes yore in a book stares, pucker up a corpses of "finnegans wake" by james joyce" and you will and no, i've not gone crazy......

what am i? not sure. i'm just a guy who stumbled across something and is trying to find out what i can do with it. along the way i've learnt other bits and pieces but i still use them in the way i've learnt originally. so while my base hasn't really changed, the new things have been 'modified' to fit with my base. what does that make me? also, i have trained quite comprehensively in two styles. but not at the same time. as i was learning, i was learning that one thing by itself. but during sparring, i do whatever works best. (which normally turns out o be wing chun or things turned into wing chun.....) am i a dual or single style guy? or none of the above?

If I am not mistaken (correct me DM), the instructor has to be the foundation or the base to start you on your path. The same as anyone that taught you how to read, write, dress, drive, etc. that is exactly it. before you go and compose your 500,000 word work of modern literature breaking every 'rule' of composition, you first have to learn what it is to write, to spell, to construct a sentence, to form a plot..... in fact it just came to me. bruce lee didn't create jkd. james joyce did. have a look at "finnegans wake" for an even earlier example of jkd principles in action! wow.... can't believe i didn't see it earlier!

actually, they're not really my points. they're dan inosanto's points. they are things he said regarding what bruce lee has said or things about bruce lee. jkd is a complex thing. it isn't a 'way' as such because to call it a way is to say it is a fixed thing. it is a process. more correctly, it is a process specific to you. you don't follow jkd. you do something that allows you to free yourself from what you are training in. that freedom is jkd but at the same time it isn't beause your freedom is personal to you. there remains the possibilty that your personal jkd ends up being pure wing chun or pure karate or any other singular style because it remains what you do best and you have no need for anything else. the point is, you don't know until you have trained in other styles to see what works for you. again, i go back to needing proper training in a traditional manner to begin with in order to learn properly so taht you can make fair judgement. dan inosanto calls his, as do many others, jun fan jeet kune do because it is based on bruce lee's learning. as such, in that class you are taught wing chun elements in the form of simple drills and chi sau. you are taught silat and kali drills. muay thai. western boxing. savate. everything that bruce lee and his direct students learnt, trained and practiced with. those things are taught to you, properly by qualified instructors so that you can fully understand not what to do, but why you do it and why it works. you learn correct form. as i said earlier; there is a difference between 'having no form' and having 'no form'. the point of learning how and why you do things gives you knowledge of good form. when you know what makes good form, you are free to fight/move without reference to the 'fixed' versions of techniques. that is the 'formless form'. and this is where a lot of people get a little 'jumpy' about the jkd thing. jkd reads like what most martial arts people do anyway, once beyond basic training. look at wing chun. the third form teaches you to break every single rule that is fundemental to wing chun. i.e you learn a set of rules, then you learn to ignore those rules or drunken principles where you disregard previous training about structure and angles? how different is this to jkd principles? in all things you first have to learn what that thing is before you can free yourself it. before freeing yourself from it, you first have to be 'captured' by it. what jkd emphasises is no limitations. don't be bound by any one style or way. i.e don't get stuck in one school or style. you get away from doing a wing chun punch or a muay thai kick and you just punch and kick. but of course, i go back to what i said earlier. these punches and kicks still need good form. which goes back to a qualified instructor. there's a reson why bruce lee took a modifed ying yang symbol to represent jkd. everything goes around. everything flows into each other.

there's this stuff from the tea shop in covent garden. it's also from afrika and it looks like twigs. but it tastes um, strangely like a type of hash i um, came across..... what's rooibus taste like?

things i have read. interviews here and there. and no. i do not have links. but i don't dig too far so they shouldn't be hard to find yourself.

For the most part, students revere their instructors, which is fine. If students have no prior knowledge of martial arts however, they will try to imitate the instructor to as many details as possible. They may become skilled, but will they really have accomplished finding themselves with the exact techniques of another the student revering the instructor is not a problem with having an instructor. it is a 'fault' with the student. what difference is this to your reverence of bruce lee? and this 'imitating' you mention is not of the instructor, the student should be imitating the style. this is the first phase. learning and abiding by the principles. take bruce lee. he learnt the wing chun way of punching. he learnt the wing chun way of standing. he learnt the wing chun way of stepping. he did not copy what yip man did or what william cheung did or what wong shun leung did. he copied what wing chun did. after doing this for a while he began to see how HE could do things better. this is the second phase, you taking control of the movement; dissolving the principle. after doing this you will then 'free'. where you are simply doing your own way that is at the same time wing chun and not wing chun. one thing bruce lee said when asked about what jkd was. his simple answer was 'pak sau and hip'. as bruce lee said. stick to the nucleus liberate fro the nucleus return to the original freedom what you and lot of people do, is miss out that first vital part of learning. jkd isn't about not learning forms and traditional styles. it is about not being limited in what you learn. BUT you do have to learn first as it has been said. jkd is a process. part of that process involves the learning of the traditional.

i'm not bashing bruce lee or jkd. where do you see that? i'm just bringing up the things that a lot of people conviently omit when talking about bruce lee. i know full well what jkd is. bruce lee said there is a difference with 'having no form' and having 'no form'. who can best teach you proper form? a qualified instructor. again. who would you trust to have better form? the guy who learnt from books? or the guy who learnt from dan inosanto? as far as i can see, there aren't any cons with having an instructor.

bruce lee himself said that he could never beat wong shun leung and that as an in-joke, wong shun leung was asked to be the final person at the top of the tower in the game of death. (y'know, so that bruce could beat him for once) unfortunately, wong sifu had other obligations at the time. you might've read that wong sifu was 'unbeaten' in the rooftop fights. no one from any of the schools involved have ever denied this. in fact, he was so respected that he was often referee for these fights.

before you can really start the jkd process, you need to learn 'proper' classical/traditional techniques. the best way to do this is with a proper instructor. once you have learnt the traditional way of doing it, you can then begin to feel for what you don't need to do. then and only then does the technique become your own. before you dissolve the technique and principle you have to learn and abide by the technique and principle. like the jkd tenet goes. remove all excess. first you have to learn, then you can remove from that learning. and unless you're learning the thing properly, you won't really know what it is you are taking awayfrom or if it really needs to be taken away. again. going back to the cloned person example. stick a guy in a roo with a pile of books on silat, kali, wing chun, boxing and kick-boxing and tell him to learn. stick the guy in a room with dan inosanto and tell him to learn silat, kali, wing chun, boxing and kick-boxing. who would you put your money on?