pardon the ignorance

[Little Apple]

What's the difference between MMA and JKD?

[m_calingo]

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) as it's commonly used these days usually is usually thought more as a sport than as martial arts. The UFC brought the concept to the U.S. in the early nineties, where fighters of various backgrounds squared off. The winner of that bout would then wait for the winner of the next bout, and this process would repeat until a final winner was determined in the final match.

Royce Gracie took the honors in the first three UFC matches easily defeating other fighters who had backgrounds in wrestling, karate, kung fu, and boxing.
He did this so easily that it created a stir in the martial arts world and interest in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu took off.

Due to Gracie's success in the early UFC matches, subsequent fighters in the UFC (America) and Pride (Japan) have studied BJJ in addition to their own martial arts to be competent fighting in the ring, or octogon, while on their feet or on the mat.

Jeet Kune Do (JKD) was a name coined by Bruce Lee for his art, "The Way of the Intercepting Fist." Lee had studied Wing Chun Gung Fu during his early years in Hong Kong. When he returned to the U.S. for a number of reasons, he had found that while Wing Chun had merit, it also had limitations. Being the supreme innovator that he was, he began to incorporate elements of Wing Chun, with fencing, and western boxing to form what some folks today call Jun Fan Gung Fu, Jun Fan being his Chinese given name.

What's interesting is that as Lee continued his journey in the martial arts, he was continually tweaking, adjusting and tinkering with his gung fu. If you ask his students from Seattle, they'll tell you how Bruce Lee taught them gung fu. If you ask Bruce's students from San Francisco where he moved next, they'll tell you that Bruce taught them differently.

And, if you ask Bruce's students from Los Angeles, they'll tell you that Bruce's JKD was different from that taught at Seattle and San Francisco.

This basically means that Bruce was never, never merely satisfied with what he was taught, and what he was teaching. He always wanted it to be better.

There's probably more here than can be explained in a single post, but based on my reading, Bruce Lee was interested more in the reality of SD on the street rather than winning prizes in a match.

Whether Bruce would have spent time on BJJ is a matter of conjecture only because it wasn't popularly known during his lifetime. Bruce's motto was to keep what worked, and discard what didn't, so IMO he would have followed developments in BJJ and excelled in it as he did with the other martial arts he studied.

So, to recap: MMA=BJJ and wrestling and MT mainly for sport.

Jeet Kune Do (JKD)=some Wing Chun, western boxing, fencing, and whatever else works for you...mainly for self defense.

Of course, the applications of MMA can be used for SD, and the principles of JKD can be applied to sport martial arts also.

[Tim McFatridge]

Mma / Jkd

Just wanted to chime in here on the topic. Yes the UFC brought about MMA as we know it today. I agree with alot of what m calingo said...I also wanted to say that Bruce Lee did study Ju Jitsu(Jiu-Jitsu, however you like to spell it) under Professor Wally Jay (Small Circle Jiu-Jitsu) and even picked up some Judo from "Judo" Gene LeBell. When he died he had 33 formal grappling moves that he would teach to his students. If you do not believe me then pop in a copy of Enter the Dragon and check out the armbar he does. Yes, you can apply the priciples of JKD to MMA or any art for that matter BUT that does not make it JKD. I have to point this out because I have seen people who train in multiple arts and try to sell it as JKD. You can not do JKD with out knowing and understanding and doing Jun Fan. MMA is mainly a good striking art (Boxing, Muay Thai etc.) mixed with a good grappling art (BJJ, freestyle wrestling etc.) This is all these guys do and most of them are damn good at it. It is great for the street as well as the ring. I would like to say however, that it is the person that makes the art not the art that makes the person.

Train Hard, Train Smart

[treelizard]

From what I understand Bruce Lee also did a little bit of the five animal forms.

[Thai Bri]

MMA was forged out of tough sporting contests, where only the useful techniques survived. No, it isn't the same as streetfighting..... but it is pretty tough and pretty practrical. If something didn't cut the mustard it was left out because, if not, it left the fighter open to a beating.

JKD was formed out of the concept of one man. A fine concept of absorbing what is useful But it was not forged in such a punishing environment. They rarely won anything in MMA tournaments, but tag along trying to claim that MMA is merely another version of JKD.......

[silence_sucks]

How very asinine. Your saying tough contests were and therefore made mma tough, that what worked was all that was kept. Except your not defining WHERE it worked. It evolved in the ring and is for ring fighting and as so far as no holds bared ring contests go it is the best. But to suggest that it is some how tougher than jkd, to be specific everything taught under jkd - inosanto kali, penjak silat, mauy thai, not just jun fan - is just petty.

MMA is awesome and i can admit bbj probably has the monopoly on groundfighting im in no way saying its not tough but it IS ring orientated. JKD is a complete practical street fighting system and it is for just that: street fighting. The purpose of jkd being to taked down your opponent as fast as possible and being able to use the most EFFECTIVE techniques and concepts behind the techniques as the situation demands regardless of the style they come from. This means using eye and trachea shots, downward elbows, ground fighting orientated towards getting up (so you dont get your head kicked in by whoevers backing up the bloke your knocking) and all sorts of other techniques that aren't allowed or not recommended or not needed in the ring.

Two different different systems for two different situations, combat and sport. Simple. To argue against is to argue against facts and arguments about the effectiveness of the systems in respective situations (ie standup fighting in the ring and ground fighting in the street, we all know them).

Anyway in answer to the original question the differences in techniques come from whats effective in the individual situations and circumstances. Some are effective in the ring and not in the street and vice versa.

[Little Apple]

OK, so let's see if I've got this right:
MMA = an evolved art for the ring, containing a stand up striking art and a ground art (usually bbj) at least.

JKD = a half evolved, half deliberate art for SD, containing fencing, boxing, Wing Chun, and Jujitsu at least.
Um...which part of that is Jun Fan? Or is Jun Fan the same as JKD?

[m_calingo]

OK, so let's see if I've got this right:
MMA = an evolved art for the ring, containing a stand up striking art and a ground art (usually bbj) at least.

JKD = a half evolved, half deliberate art for SD, containing fencing, boxing, Wing Chun, and Jujitsu at least.
Um...which part of that is Jun Fan? Or is Jun Fan the same as JKD?

Jun Fan refers to Bruce Lee's Chinese name, Jun Fan Lee.

As I mentioned earlier, Bruce Lee was constantly evovling his art as he moved from Seattle to SF, and from there to LA. The earlier Jun Fan version was when his art more closely followed the Wing Chun system he studied in Hong Kong. Sometime later, when he moved to LA, his art started to change more. Part of this, I suspect, was when he tried applying Wing Chung techniques to Kareem Abdul Jabbar, a pro basketball player.

Bruce stood at around 5'7" whereas Kareem stood at around 7'2." While the Wing Chun techniques normally work within a certain range of size disparity between two opponents, Bruce found that the difference in size between the two men simpley was too much. As such, Bruce sought to develop a system that would work, regardless of the difference in size, etc.

I'm not sure if half evolved sounds right, because he was constantly developing his art until he died.

I also agree with Tim McFatridge in that just studying any combination of martial arts, or MMA alone does not make JKD. There's more to it than that. If you're interested in learning more, I suggest you read the Tao of Jeet Kune Do, written by Bruce Lee himself. I consider it the best starting point to learn more about this subject.

[Little Apple]

Thank you!

[Snowman]

I read that it was in San Francisco that he was challenged by a prominent local gung fu instructor to a fight If Bruce lost he would either close down his school or stop teaching his art to non-chinese. His disregard for tradition in favor of what worked and his willingness to teach westerners pissed of the more traditional sifus in China town. Bruce accepted, and after a long (a couple/few minutes, he had defeated the opposing sifu, who...and this is what I read...started to run from Bruce. Bruce followed, striking him, but the sifu kept running, Bruce then got him to the ground and pummeled him.

This event, reportedly is what got Bruce thinking, that it wasn't until he went completely outside the chinese arts that he was able to do something that could completely stop his opponent (taking him to the ground). He felt that he should have been able to beat him in a matter of seconds rather than minutes with techniques that the other man had not trained for or expected. This was when he really turned the corner and started the change from Jun Fan gung fu to the concepts of Jeet Kun Do.

He moved to LA where he opened a school with Dan Inosanto and they trained hard, very realistic sparring. He wanted to find out what worked by going almost all out and his school built a reputation for being hard. As stated before he worked with Gene LeBell and started incorporating grappling into what he was calling Jeet Kun Do as well as kickboxing, fencing, Fillipino MAs, etc. etc. He liked that fencing used the strongest arm as the lead arm and the main weapon, so he incorporated the fencing stance with your strong side as your lead side as opposed to boxing or kickboxing which uses strong side back. But he liked the mobility and otherwise incorporated the footwork, higher stance and longer range of boxing and kickboxing. He would take complex moves from Kenpo, kickboxing, Gung Fu, Kali, etc., and with complete disregard for tradition, deconstruct them, remove the unneccesary steps and have the same move with increased efficiency. Near the end he all but abondoned the in-fighting and sticky hands drills used in Wing-Chun gung fu. He had convinced his partner in LA that constantly evolving the art and trying new things and really fighting each other with these new moves to see if they worked or not was what JKD was all about, if they worked, incorporate them and teach them.

So he dies (many details left out and depending on your perspective, some of the ones I did mention I may have even mangled). The result is that there are two generally accepted schools of thought on what JKD is. Neither JKD school of thought is accepted by the other.
1. Some people, starting with his some of his students in Seattle and San Francisco, and their students prefer to teach JKD as it was taught before Bruce died...this is called Jun Fan Jeet Kun Do. I suppose the general idea being that no-one knows what direction Bruce would have taken the art and to assume is disrespectful to the man and potentially distorts his art into something Bruce never would have meant for it to be.
2. The other school of thought led by Dan Inosanto and his students out of LA follow the philosophy that JKD was never meant to go stagnant. They figure Bruce would be rolling over in his grave wondering why no-one was checking out this new BJJ stuff and incorporating the submissions that really work into JKD, and what about those elbows the Thais use, and in UFC they do this thing called ground & pound, can we try that? So in following the concept of JKD as an evolutionary art, Dan calls his faction JKDconcepts. It is highly unpopular with JKD traditionalists, because just like JKD was when Bruce was evolving it, the only one who knows "what" JKD is - is the person evolving it and if too many people are doing that and they are not all having monthly meetings or whatever, then what is JKD? But seeing things from JKDconcepts point of view is easy if you read Bruce's writings on JKD...the fact that the way the Inosanto teaches it and changes it and then his top students teach it and change it pisses off the JKD traditionalists, but as Bruce wrote, one of the most important concepts of JKD is that JKD is supposed to discard tradition. The question is...does that extend to discarding what Bruce traditionally taught before he died...hmmmm.

So, it is the second faction and it's splinters that commonly get confused with MMA...and if you believe what Bruce wrote...with good cause. Some feel that instructors three or four or five instructors down from Bruce's partner Dan (who helped form JKD)- take too much license with the things they incorporate into their JKD and it begins to resemble very little of what Bruce taught, has no foundation in Wing Chun and sometimes even throws out the signature strong side lead that Bruce incorporated in favor of the boxing stance. Certainly a pholosiphical debate that has no end.

I am firmly in the Dan Inosanto camp and believe Bruce would have wanted JKD to continue to evolve. But I can also agree that some take too much license and potentially water down and or tarnish the JKD name and legacy.

Anyone who says that JKD was not formed in a punishing environment has not done their research, these guys sparred, extremely hard, with little protective gear. They, (Bruce, Dan, and anyone who trained with them in LA) had a feared reputation for having hardcore sessions and did not go light. Dana White of the UFC credits Bruce for inventing MMA...even he realises that before the sporting aspect of pitting different arts against one another forced them all to learn each other's arts (the ones that worked) Bruce and his boys were already doing that just to be better fighters. And isn't that what it's all about?

So, if you belive the JKD traditionalists (oxymoron) then JKD is quite different from what the hardcore sport MMA (UFC, Pride, etc) has evolved to become. If you believe the JKDconcepts folks then you will see that MMA and JKD can be and maybe(?) should be very similar.

Anyway, if you feel my rambling post was inaccurate or in any way inflammitory, I appologize...there are LOTS of articles to read out there, just google if you want to learn more about Bruce and his philosophy of JKD. Personally I like the direction Burton Richardson has taken JKD (he is a highly respected student of Dan Inosanto, so he is a second generation JKD instructor). I find the articles on his site JKDUnlimited.com to be very informative.

[SnakePlissken]

Pardon me, but you're all nuts. The difference is simple.

MMA is an idea, a concept of mixing two or more martial arts, for whatever purpose, be it sport, self-defence, etc.
With MMA, I could mix whatever styles I want, Wing Chun with TKD, Kali with BJJ, Kempo with Ninjutsu, whatever.

JKD on the other hand, is more of a single cohesive idea, a selection of techniques and theories created by one man and taught in schools with a uniform curriculum, as opposed to MMA, where two different schools could teach two completely different things. With a JKD school the only discrepancies you'll get is between the Original JKD branch and the JKD Concepts branch.

JKD also follows a set of five main principles, as can be found on the Wikipedia entry on JKD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JKD

Of course, the guidelines allow you to personally tailor your JKD to your personal style.

In order to claim to practice JKD, it's generally accepted that you have to adhere to those guidelines, in MMA, you do not.

And of course, JKD is seen as a more combative art, rather then a sport oriented practice that one could claim MMA is. That's not to say that MMA can't be used as a viable street art, but JKD includes several techniques that aren't legal in the competition or ring fight, such as eye gouges, trachea attacks, overhead or downward diagonal elbows, knife finishing moves and the Filippino biting components as well as the idea that groundfighting and submission wrestling is an unwise move and the only reason to go to the ground is to get back up make it the more aggressive and viseral of the two, arguably better suited to the street fight situation.

[Little Apple]

That's very interesting, I think I have a halfway decent grasp on the difference now. I find it interesting that most of you alluded to JKD as having an intrinsic phylosophy, and that that phylosophy was just as much (or in some cases more) what made it JKD as what styles you did or did not mix.

What about lieniage then? Could some dude get really good at the base styles, internalize the phylosophy and then say he did JKD? Or is it generally accepted that for you to call it JKD, you need an instructor decended from Lee?

[Snowman]

Of course, the guidelines allow you to personally tailor your JKD to your personal style.

In order to claim to practice JKD, it's generally accepted that you have to adhere to those guidelines, in MMA, you do not.

And so the line becomes blurry then, within those guidelines, I can tailor it, and it doesn't have to be what you described as a uniform cirriculum.

Here is a quote from Bruce about the "uniform cirriculum" of JKD:
"Jeet Kune Do favors formlessness so that it can can assume all forms and since Jeet Kune Do has no style, it can fit in with all the styles."

Although MMA does not have the same general guidelines as JKD it also has a set of generally accepted guidelines from which one can deviate to personalize their style. You mentioned the most basic inherent in the name, that it is a blend of 2 or more arts. But it is also generally accepted that you one must be a stand-up art (boxing, Muay Thai, etc.) and another must be a ground based art (Sambo, BJJ). So in the respect that they are a blend of arts and they both have guidelines from which to deviate, they are similar.

But why argue, I understand your point...If you are training in a blended art like Kajukenbo or JKD under a teacher professing to know the "style" of that name, then you should know it as being distictly that and shouldn't confuse it with Someone learning Muay Thai from one instructor and BJJ from another and then sparring using both. Although they all are learning takedowns, submissions and striking, there shouldn't be any confusion for anyone about what they are studying, so in that regard, I agree, the difference is simple, oh, and I can't speak for everyone that you called nuts, but speaking for me personally, I'll agree to that too.

[Snowman]

That's very interesting, I think I have a halfway decent grasp on the difference now. I find it interesting that most of you alluded to JKD as having an intrinsic phylosophy, and that that phylosophy was just as much (or in some cases more) what made it JKD as what styles you did or did not mix.

What about lieniage then? Could some dude get really good at the base styles, internalize the phylosophy and then say he did JKD? Or is it generally accepted that for you to call it JKD, you need an instructor decended from Lee?

It sounds wierd to say you need an instructor decended from Lee...but ummm...yeah, that's pretty much what it's gonna take for it to truly be true. Learning the base styles and trying to blend them on your own to call it JKD would not do the trick IMHO. Sure, you could buy some JKD DVDs and study it in your garage as long as you had some training partners to spar with, try the throws on, etc. and say you are a JKD stylist...but how would you feel about someone who only ever watched boxing videos and boxed with their friends...are they a boxer? All of this is very subjective.

[silence_sucks]

Hey what snakepliskin meant by uniform curriculum was that in a school that teaches any of the arts recognized in jkd and the concept of jeet kune do such as the Inosanto academy etc there are set techniques taught, drills etc.

"Jeet Kune Do favors formlessness so that it can assume all forms and since Jeet Kune Do has no style, it can fit in with all the styles."

This is true JKD isn’t just a mix of arts slapped together but saying that by teaching a set curriculum cant be jeet kune do because of it is ridiculous, in order to do ANYTHING you have to learn techniques, concepts, principals this is why we are taught a set curriculum. You’re getting mixed up with the actual concept and what is taught in jkd academies. You could learn anything and put the jkd title over what you do but it isn’t practical if it doesn’t have at least jun fan and intercepting elements. There is a difference between the actual concept and what Bruce Lee taught. Sifu lee said “absorb what is useful and discard what is useless” the focus is on using what is effective and learning and building on what he taught is the key. This is why we are taught a set curriculum so we can eventually go on and develop whatever we want on top of our base knowledge. For example Larry Hartsell has continued to develop the dumog portion of the fma and wrestling and ground fighting elements of jun fan but of course that’s an extreme case.