Let's talk about JKD

[scottnshelly]

I've read a few of Bruce Lee's books and have all of his movies. I don't claim to know JKD though. I have a question for those of you who are more knowledgable than I.

 

I know that JKD is supposed to be the styless style, or style with no limits. My question is, i've seen in writing that JKD - or at least in the beginning - was created of a definite amount of other styles, seems like it was about 23 or something.

 

Seems like a style that doesn't limit itself to techniques from only certain styles would be better fit to be called the 'styless style'.

 

I'm sure that i'm wrong on this, just need some clarification.

[Drunken Monkey]

not style-less.

 

just not sticking to style as religiously as it was done at the period (during which he was initially learning/training).

 

it was his belief that to say you are of a style is to deny yourself any of the credit, as it were.

 

what he

 

(based on wing chun teaching methods of yip man i should add)

 

realised is that the individual has to learn not only to do the moves as shown be it in a drill or a form/kata but to know why/how they work and more importantly how to make it better to suit yourself.

 

this is where the formless bit comes in.

 

that idea doesn't mean you don't practice forms or that you don't practice any set moves.

 

to say so is a gross misunderstanding.

 

it is not no form

 

it is supposed to be no-form

 

i.e you fight/move not like the style but to do things according to the underlying principles of the style.

 

in a way, it is suggesting you learn the things that the creators of the style did.

 

far from saying that you only learn what you can get to work and ignore the rest, it is actually saying you need to learn a whole lot more than is taught these days.

 

you have to kinda go back to the things that the creators of the styles did before they devised their system;

 

you have to understand everything.

 

that implies that before you get to the stage of no form you have to learn proper form; to understand why things work.

 

when you know how/why things work,

 

you can then do things free from the actual physical moves you learnt in training and start to use the hows and the whys.

 

that is the 'limitless' that jkd talks about.

 

you are not limited by the movements taught if you understand why you move like that.

 

a bit messy but that is the difference between no form and no form

 

which is why i get annoyed when people say that you discard moves in jkd.

 

you don't discard.

 

if you're going to discard it, why learn it in the first place?

 

*insert nice story about ice cube in a glass of water.....*

 

this is where it gets really messy.

 

jkd principles has always been taught as a philosphy; a way of thinking.

 

it is in fact, nothing new.

 

everyone who is learning a martial art should be doing it in their training.

 

i.e we don't all just imitate things like a (drunken) monkey.

 

doing it isn't enough.

 

as people like funakoshi, yip man and more recently, iain abernathy have been trying to get into us;

 

to copy the forms/kata isn't enough.

 

being able to perform a kata isn't 'knowing' the kata.

 

it is this 'knowing' that jkd is pressing us to understand.

 

so really, it doesnt matter how many styles you go through in your learning process;

 

it can be one or two or twenty two.

 

the point is, you don't just copy the moves.

[delta1]

DM, you must be off the sauce lately- that was a good reply!

 

After the disruption and advancements in communications and travel post WWII, the martial arts were going through some radical changes everywhere. Also, many people had just seen the necessity of good self defense first hand, and many were moving away from the self improvement aspects to the martial aspects of the arts. In this period Bruce Lee, Remy Presas, Ed Parker and a lot of others flourished. JKD was a dominant philosophy at that time, and Bruce Lee both defined and popularized it.

 

That it was later formalized into a system (mor like many systems) doesn't seem so oddd to me as it does some. The real trick, though, is in how well the variouse schools understand and integrate the concepts of the arts they blend.

 

A lot of people use Beuce Lee as an excuse not to learn forms. Bruce Lee never said they were worthless. But any dead practice, including just walking through forms, is of little value. You have to understand what you are doing, and practice as a dynamic art.

[Master Jules]

Those are two very good posts.....

 

Bruce Lee's words and concepts have been interpreted and misinterpreted over the years to no end.....

 

As Delta 1 said.....Bruce Lee never said that forms are worthless.....his main point was that practicing a form without knowing the applications and how to apply them effectively was a waste of time because you would essentially just be "going through the motions".....You must put your heart and soul into every technique that you perform, and since it is a form of art, which makes it open to individual interpretation, his point was that you learn to express yourself as an individual.....thats not to say that you can have the standpoint that whatever you do is fine because you are expressing yourself in your own way.....but that modifying a bonafide technique to better suit your personality so to speak is not only acceptable, he encouraged it. JKD itself was in a constant state of flux as it was being created, simply because Bruce Lee's own personal philosophies were as well.

[Kickbox]

I did a search of the 26 arts of JKD articles. It was written by Paul Vunak in the 1980's for Inside Kung Fu. This article is confusing and proabably not true. I met Ted Wong at a seminar in VA and he said Bruce made up JKD from boxing, wing chun, fencing and tai chi. Bruce took lessons from Wally Jay and Jhoon Rhee and he worked out with the great champions Joe Lewis and Chuck Norris. Jerry Poteet teaches the exact jeet kune do that was taught to him by Bruce Lee. He doesn't teach the 26 arts, that's make beleive. That stuff is to make you think that JKD is some kind of impossible to learn style. If you can box and do wing chun and you can apply the 5 ways of attack that came from fencing you have the foundation of JKD. Now all you have to do is work out about 8 hours a day like Bruce Lee did, study Kristumurti philosophy and in a few years you'll have it. Go to https://www.joelewiskarate.com for info. Mr. Lewis was the best fighter ever trained by Bruce Lee. He says JKD is simple to understand. The problem is you have to work out, meaning fight, a few thousand rounds in order to learn what works and what doesn't work. That's the only way to find out what to absorb and what to reject.

[Master Jules]

Love that signature

 

"Ill be your huckelberry"

 

Wasnt that Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in "Wyatt Earp" ?

[Kickbox]

True. I liked the movie and the attitude.

[Kickbox]

Here's my take on "having no form". Having no form can be that you lack form as a beginner. Bruce feels that having no form relates to the fact that his art JKD has no form in that it has no limitations. JKD can look like a punching art one time and a grapling art the next time. You have to flow with your opponent which means you can't be stuck in one style. JKD techniques are not limited to one style and they do not maintain a form that resembles only one style. As DR.Beasley says all styles are about limitations. We can identify a style only because it has boundraies. A TKD kick is performed only like a TKD kick and never like a Thai kick. Two arts ,two sets of limitations and conventional forms/katas are all about making the individual trade his freedom for security so he fits in to a style. JKD can look like TKD or Thai or neither. It has no form. Remember Kurt Russel in the THING ( movie). The ailen was JKD..it had no form but could take the form of its prey. Humans confined to their form could not understand how the alien could be like any one of them. JKD is hard to understand by anyone that has a form ( which means style).. Bruce says be like water because water has only the form of the object which contains it. Diferrent object ,different form. JKD has no form. Like Dr.Beasley explained at his seminar everyone wants to understand JKD in terms of their own limitations but Bruce thought JKD was beyond limitations. Problem is that the people that teach JKD are limited to what they can perform. That's why Bruce closed his JKD school in 1971 ( read John Little). JKD is just a philosophy. When you make it an art it is no longer JKD.

[street fighter]

Hey ya'll, JKD never studied a stand alone system but have studied and practiced the concepts of JKD and Wing Chun, I have used it as opportunity for entry and destruction, I am (if it means anything) an instructor in Paul Vunak's PFS and I do find parts of it useful but not as a stand alone. I do find the wooden dummy training to be great for limb harding and for reflex in CQC but have not been able to employ it in full contact to any satisfing degree, that maybe because I stink, but the concepts of JKD and the mind set as I was taught are good in a self defense situation. So I say learn the concepts and understand what makes the sytle if you will work then adapt it to your abilities, do this in all styles and systems and you will be alot more comfortable in almost any situation. Thats my opionon

[Kickbox]

I read somewhere that a company called the Bruce Lee Foundation has fileded for a trademark on jeet kune do and won. The Bruce Lee Foundation is owned by Shannon Lee who is Bruce Lee's daughter and legal heir. A web site forum had info that said Guro Inosanto has taken down all the Bruce Lee photos from his school and website and started calling his style mixed martial arts. Even Paul Vunak's advertisement uses the MMA style name. I've heard that the BLF is going to check to make shure people that teach JKD teach the real JKD designed by Bruce Lee and not just the new JKD/MMA from California.