my thoughts on jkd
I think in some ways Bruce Lee is getting a raw deal. It was never his intention for JDK to become a “style” rather it was meant to be a theory.
Bruce wanted martial artists to constantly eliminate what was useless or impractical in a real fight (the principles of simplicity and daily decrease). But this wasn’t a blanket thing. A techniques usefulness depended on the individual practitioner’s own abilities.
Furthermore, and i feel this is lost in modern JKD, Bruce wanted EXPERIENCED martial artists to apply this theory. The goal was to be unencumbered by tradition and to distill your style into its most effective form for you. After that a practitioner was supposed to use his experience to evaluate what techniques were lacking in his arsenal and search out compatible techniques from other styles to supplement it.
From what i understand Bruce lee liked teaching and training with experienced martial artists, not necessarily masters, but people who were ready to adopt this philosophy. These individuals had the ability to evaluate their techniques and eliminate the impractical. From that point it became about discovering the techniques of others that may fill the holes in the artist’s system. However, that did not mean that one ought to continue borrowing techniques from other martial arts ad nauseum. The person was supposed to eliminate constantly whenever he or she found anything more effective. For instance, imagine at the genesis of wing chun people were using both straight chain punching and hook punching. It would not take long for them to figure out that the chain punches were getting in faster and that the hook was impractical for them (based on the other principles and strategies of their style). Contrary to this, western boxing has a place for the hook as it has proven to be effective in their style because of how it is used by the boxer. JKD says that both of these are correct, the boxer should keep the hook and the wing chun practitioner should lose it.
Today though, in some schools (from what i’ve heard and gleen from browsing through JKD magazines) all many JKD stylists do is add to their bag of tricks. Somebody on this forum has the tag line (and im going to paraphrase it pretty badly) “i dont fear the 10 000 kicks you know, but i do fear the kick you’ve practiced 10 000 times”. Ultimately, if a martial artist could use one type of punch,1 kick and 1 grappling move and never be defeated then that is all he or she should know and that would be the ultimate expression of the JKD philosophy.
The problem is that JKD is a theory that should be taught to martial artists, ones who have a base in some system, and not to individuals with no experience. The martial artist only has to distill his or her art into its most effective form for him/her and add several techniques to complement that but the novice has to develop a whole martial art from scratch (AND they have INSUFFICIENT backgroung in fighting to allow them to evaluate what to include!!!). The novice accumulates moves from different styles never disgarding nearly enough. This was not bruce lee’s intention as i understand it.
As well i have seen JKD instructors who are proudly displaying techniques from other styles in magazines. Who’s to say that they have the nuances right?? I saw Jerry Poteet demonstrating Bong-lap da in a mag this month and his bong elbow was high over his shoulder! I dont know about the rest of you, but anytime i see someone with their elbow over their shoulder in the bong position im happy to get under it and throw them off balance. Im not saying that Jerry Poteet isnt a great fighter, i dont know, im just saying that the movement he is showing is wrong based on my experience. That said, a JKD practioner has to be very careful as to the source of his/her new techniques. My sifu once said that if you practice a technique 100 times wrong all you’re better at is performing it wrong.
All in all, i think every experienced martial artist should practice a little of the JKD philosophy to trim the fat from their personal interpretation of their own respective system.
Sorry about the length of this post, everything said in it is my interpretation (so blame it on me if you disagree),
take care,
jason