WHERE DID "ABSORB WHAT IS USEFUL & REJECT WHAT IS USELESS "COME FROM?

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Mixed Martial Arts
21

I wish I was going,

I am going to Trinidad ina few weeks to do some training in an obscure Afircan art called Kalinda Kalinda,

Then I am coming back for a Larry Hartsell seminar…

Then I am heading down to do a private with Vu and maybe do one or 2 with Demi Barbito while I am there…

back up here to make arrangements for an up coming Matt Thronton Seminar

plus 2 or 10 other things I am missing…

It will be a very very bust year for me…

How about you guys any plans for the near future…

Thanks for stopping buy my web site I shall be updating it regurlarly from here in so stop back once a week or so…

And I will be sending out copies of the Urban Combat Newsletter…If you want to be on the list e-mail…

take care,
Ian

22

Hi Ed,

No offense taken at all. I’m just offering my take on things. Guess we don’t agree on this one. Take care.

23

I just thought I might like to try and make a point. First let me say I recently started reading this particular forum out of Curiosity, and interest. I’ve not been disappointed this thread in particular I have found very informative and the debate at the end is very interesting and seems a common idea here. So here’s my $.02. I agree with seeker on the forms being a valuable training tool. I think all who said otherwise made some good points, however, I think they spoke of doing forms the wrong way. From my point of view formed after speaking with and listening to my sifu for the last few years, and now doing lots of reading outside just the system I have been studying I think that it starts with forms. They are no substitute for sparring or drilling with a live opponent. When you do a form though, to just do the motion and refine the technique is ok, but it doesn’t get you much. I think the real benefit comes from the visualization. It comes from seeing your opponent there, and practicing on him. It doesn’t stop once you get good at that form though, because it’s only one situation. From there you work on doing it left handed and backwards. Then start mixing it up, jumping around out of order, play mind games like “if I do this how can the bad guy hurt me?” or “what if he does this instead? Can I use the same technique to stop it? How do I have to adapt?”. I don’t think forms were ever intended for less, they are like tools for remembering the techniques and philosophy of a system, but you have to take them apart to find it. Again, it’s good to spar and practice with live opponents, but for those times you don’t have one, forms are can be a great aid. So what do you think? is there any merit in what I said?

– MG

24

That was one hell of a post there Guy.
Now as for what you said in your last reply whether it having any merit or not?

Let me be the first to say what you said about forms holds more merit then what most people choose to believe & that’s just a fact.

PEACE LESTAT33

LESTAT 33

[This message has been edited by LESTAT33 (edited 02-03-2000).]

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Come on guys! No one would dare claim to be an originator of a statement sooooo basic! Did you learn to eat potato chips but throw away the wrapper from Mr Lee’s 6000 page journal?

Any way if you want to learn martial arts I suggest you find an instructor whose alive rather than hunting around a dead man’s diary

26

Dear Rocklizard,

You have a point, of coarse we should find a live instructor who can teach us.

But there is a very very old saying that goes

“Learn from the past and look to the future!”

There is nothing wrong with looking at Bruce’s notes or any other dead person’s work as long as you don not make it the end all be all of your existance…Why study the notes of Shakespeare or Plato or Einstein or Newton or Krisnamerti…

These men have all made significant contributions to our ways of thinking and acting and being…the more we understand each other the more we understand ourselves…

Hey I am not saying become a Bruce Lee junkie like I have seen so many people become…

All I am saying go through Bruce’s Notes (or anybody else for that matter that might be onto something, living or dead) then…

“Abosorb what is usefull, reject what is useless and add what is specifically your own..then walk on”

Ian B.

27

Hi there Ian!

I agree it’s important not to focus on the person be it Netwton, Einstine or Lee, rather evaluate the subject matter for it’s merits.

However, I feel that those old saying is more of a truism rather than genuine words of wisdom.

After, all that’s how technology developed anyway from stone age to today! In fact the traditional way of KF involved a lot of research & development in a battle field context. I feel that the developers of those traditional styles had much more experience than Lee or any of us today. That’s why I tend to wonder how much Lee has added to KF or was he mostly a subject of mass media?

28

Hey Rock:
Look at it this way I know as most of the people out there that have some idea of what (TRADIONAL GUNG FU IS ABOUT.) Know that the masters of the past had a hell of lot more knowlege then BL when it came to fighting. All you got to do is see it for what it is.

BL took what what he learned from Wing Chun & any of the other art’s that he learned thrugh trading idea’s with other master’s being through GUNG FU or his cha cha lessones.

To make up for his short comming in the Wing Chun System.

The way I see it if BL had completed his WING CHUN TRAINING he would not have had to go out of the WC SYSTEM as gifted as he was.

LESTAT 33

[This message has been edited by LESTAT33 (edited 02-06-2000).]

[This message has been edited by LESTAT33 (edited 02-06-2000).]

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…or maybe Bruce Lee realized that the only way you can ever learn the martial truth was through action. You guys can be really insulting sometimes, you like to take credit for his abilities but you look down upon his deeds. Enough with the excuses. Many of the truths he talked about came from some of your own Kung Fu arts. Have you lost the ability to see and think for yourselves, can you not accept that there maybe other ways, that the truth of fighting is everchanging and that we must be able to adapt and think for ourselves inorder to continue to be effective? I am here to exchange ideas not to listen to insults or excuses. Peace all.-ED

30

Hi Edwin,

Martial arts through action (I guess you mean actual combat) was exactly how the styles were developed in the first place.

Sure we could think for ourselves but we also lack the actual combat experience that’s why I feel that it’s important to learn a traditional style that has been battle tested.

No matter what style we learn, practitioners will invariably apply the concepts in a slightly different way- just like no 2 tennis players hit the ball the same way! We don’t need Bruce Lee to tell us that!

I understanding that Mr Lee put a lot of effort creating a style and that’s great! but I feel that a practitioner would cover the JKD cirriculum plus more in a traditional style.

31

A good friend of mine went to Korea to study TKD…

He says despite what you might think there isn’t I repeat isn’t a TKD school on every corner like there is in the US or Canada.

he also says most of those guys who do TKD out in the open and own shops are frauds and just in it to make a buck off silly westerners or milk money from their own people…

He did say however if you find a real TKD instructor you would be surpirsed by what you see…

he said the vast majority of the instructors that he saw had no belt system or if they did the belts represented actual time in the dojo not gradings for say…like a white meant rookie year a purple meant 4 years etc etc …

he also said that for a time he thought they were doing JKD or NHB style fighting because they did the kicking,punching, clinching and ground fighting plus weapons…

Now he says that in talking to others that real TKD guys and even Karate and Kung Fu guys are truly all around fighters however we in the west have bastardized the art and packaged it into something sellable…
Real martial arts training over in the orient is for the eliote minded people, people who can take punishment for mind and body…

This is a little off topic but i though it might shed some light on some people’s statements that Kung Fu and other sister arts are not as unrealistic as many of us would have you believe it is only our lack of training methods and lack of understanding that make it seem so artlike and mot martial like…

Ian B.

32

My point being is simple, this is not about traditional this or that or even JKD. It is about one simple fact, we fight the way we are trained. What may work for one person may not for another for whatever reasons. The only way though that we will discover this is by asking questions and trying these techniques and concepts first hand. I really do not think Bruce wanted everyone to become JKD fighters, in fact he had closed down all his JKD schools long before he died. What I think he wanted was for people to discover on there own the “martial truth” through whatever art or style or system. To realize that in the course of time information can become misinformation and that not everything works the way it appears. Peace all, and remember it is not the number of techniques you know that shows a good fighter, it is how well you fight.-ED

33

Hello everyone:
I would like to start this post by saying what I said on an other thread dealing with JKD.

Which is JKDcan be found in any SYSTEM,STYLE OR FORM OF COMBATIVE FIGHTING THERE IS that’s just a fact!!!

Even BL realized this & knew the truth about what he coined to be the CLASSICAL MESS OF MARTIAL ARTS.

Which in turn mean’s at least the way I see it to be is that he felt THE TRADITIONAL WAY OF TRAINING & LEARNING ONE’S CHOSEN MARTIAL ART,STYLE,OR SYSTEM.

Should not become more important then the INDIVIDUAL BECAUSE IF IT DOES ONE WILL NOT KNOW HOW TO TRUELY EXPRESS HIMSELF IN HIS CHOSEN ART.Unless one wanted to train most of his life if not all of it to learn how to do so.

What BL did was nothing new at all to the MARTIAL ARTS,AFTER ALL THE TRUE ESSENCE OF THE MARTIAL ARTS IS TO HAVE THE ART/STYLE/SYSTEM BECOME A PART OF YOU & NOT YOU A PART OF IT!

Look in short what I’m trying to say is JKD is meant as a way for one to be able to flow in & out of the different range’s of combat & be affective in a shorter amount of time.

After all it was BL himself that said a man doesn’t have his whole life to learn how to fight. HENCE THE BIRTH OF JKD A WAY OF REACHING ONE’S END AS HE BELIEVE’S IT TO BE.(MEANING YOU & ME)

What do you guy’s think I mean I could be wrong about the the way I see JKD to be but!

Then agian maybe I’m not?

The real question here is whether you see it the way I do at least to some point I mean I don’t believe all of us will agree on every point all the time RIGHT!

PEACE.

LESTAT 33

[This message has been edited by LESTAT33 (edited 02-08-2000).]

[This message has been edited by LESTAT33 (edited 02-08-2000).]

[This message has been edited by LESTAT33 (edited 02-08-2000).]

[This message has been edited by LESTAT33 (edited 02-16-2000).]

34

But again Lestat, What is JKD? The man died before anyone could truly see it for what it was.
could there be a slim chance that we, (not I of course) are lamenting over a ‘style’ that never really saw the light of day?
I mean Inosanto teach something that could be called JKD, but is it truly what Bruce intended it to be.

I do not believe that one man can duplicate the thoughts of another no matter how hard they tried. And I’m sure that BL never finish on what he started, so would the JKD that is around today, in fact a incomplete style to begin with, if it is a style at all.

Boy am I gonna catch some heat for this post.

Again this is me on too much medication, or maybe too little…time to look at the label.

[This message has been edited by Gojira (edited 02-14-2000).]

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Goijri

Hi there! If you’ve read my post, you’ll probably find that I’ve been expressing these views. Like most developers of new stlyes, Bruce found something that suited him. it is unfortunate that he didn’t code (OK my computing back ground) the main aspects into a form or something.

Although there are many stlyes of traditional KF have lost their “bite”, there’s a chance of rediscovering the concepts as long as the form remains.

There are many Western martial arts in Russsia that have been lost forever becasue they didn’t teach forms.

That’s very unfortunate because Russia is a big place and greatb things would have been developed there!

36

Rocklizard,
I am not a big fan when it comes to dead patterns (forms, katas, and what have you), I also do not discount as a whole, Kung Fu as I feel there are many useful aspects in Kung Fu. As for Ma’s becoming lost over time, I feel that if it was useful and effective then most likely it would still be here, so I really see your point, I just do not agree, also much the russian MA’s are based from grappling and I really can not see how one can convert that to a set of forms or katas. As for JKD being inherantly incomplete, it is like that for a reason, it is up to each individual to complete JKD, through there own experiences and research. What may work for one person may not for another, but we do not base what is effective through dead patterns.-ED

[This message has been edited by Edwin Lyon (edited 02-14-2000).]

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A theory on the kata vs live exercises. If one wishes to play chess against another, one must first learn the moves of his piece. The physical part of martial arts is learning the moves. When one has learned how to move his piece, he may attempt a game. No rule is absolute of course, and some people may prefer to learn their moves ‘on the run’ so to speak. I don’t. I like practicing a move statically before adding other variables. Unfortunately my trainer isn’t like that, so I learn on the run, simply because I can, regardless of preference. The mental part of martial arts can be referred to simply as a game of strategy. Once you can move your pieces where you want them to, when you want them to, all that is left to chance is the strategy chosen. Make sense at all?
Gideon

38

Gojira:
Let me see if we’re reading from the same book? Ok because I’m more then sure that we are not on the same page here.;D

Now let me first state that JKD may never have seen the light of day through BRUCE LEE’S EYE’S IN FULL.

But that doesn’t mean that JKD never saw the light of day!

Just in case you haven’t notice or realized it DAN INOSANTO was the cofounder of JKDregardless of what you or anyone may believe that’s just a fact!

So to come out & say that you believe that no one man can duplicate the thought’s of another no matter how hard they tried is mute. (RIGHT)

No problem I can see where I may agree with you but only to a point after all BRUCE LEE’S JKD was
based on his own personal approach to the martial arts & no one else’s.

That’s why he believed JKD is ment to fit the individual & not the individual to it!

This is why I feel that DAN INOSANTO is the only one out side of BRUCE LEEthat has kept it real.

After all if it wasn’t for him JKD would not have gotten as far as it has.

Yeah I know there are alot of you out there who may feel what DAN INOSANTO is doing may not be what BRUCE LEE intended JKD to be.

But just remember that DAN INOSANTO was there from the start & as much as what BRUCE LEEhad to offer to DAN!

Inosanto had to offer BRUCE.

[This message has been edited by LESTAT33 (edited 02-18-2000).]

[This message has been edited by LESTAT33 (edited 02-18-2000).]

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Hi LESTAT33,

Cool how you can rewrite history like that, you do that for a living, or is it just a hidden talent?

Let’s get something straight, Guro Dan is a fantatic martial artist. He is most likely one of the few men in this world that can teach that many martial arts. His seminars are packed, and the volume of information that he gives at seminars is huge! He can kick, punch, grapple, trap and fight with knives better then most martial artist out there today…however, he was NOT the “Co-founder” of JKD. He was not Bruce Lee’s partner, he was his student. Anything else is just wrong.

All the best,

BIG Sean Madigan

40

Hi there
It’s very difficult to say person such and such deveoped a particular style. JKD is a relatively young stlye and a number of people over time made their contributions to it’s growth.

We have read about how tradition styles developed. It usually involved the melding of styles that were around at that time. For example Eagle Claw is a based on Faan Tzi & Ying Jow. Then you have styles like Bagua that is a cicularised version of long fist. And within sytles there are sub-styles that reflect an emphasis on certain concepts over others.

What Bruce Lee did was nothing new and accordingly I have no problem of accepting that many people are co-developers of JKD and there will be many more to come. I wouldn’t be surprised that there’ll be many variations of JKD sharing the same concepts but each with their unique differences.

The only differnce in terms of the development of JKD and tranditional styles is that, we can see JKD evolution taking place in front of us instead of reading about a style’s 300 year old history from a book.

About what LETSTAT33 said “…fit the individual not the individual fitting the style”. That concept is nothing new, that’s why we have all the different styles today. Lee did not create a new concept but just re-affirm something important that some people may have forgotten in the pursuit of CMA.