Ojkd Vs Concepts

[NHBMARK1]

Hello,
I'm not really that up on the whole controvery.
Can some one please fill me in on what this OJKD
VS CONCEPTS thing is all about?
I asumed Bruce would have wanted to evolve although
I hear he wanted to delete not add. Any & all posts
would be appreciated..Thanks!

[gungfuhero]

Most people in the "concepts" camp train Bruce Lee's original material (Jun Fan Gung Fu) as well as other systems to supplement and complement their training. By cross training they can get a broad education and continuously "absorb what is useful, reject what is useless and add what is specifically [his] own." It's not so much adding clay when you look into a new system, but rather finding a completely new area that needs to be shaped (sorry for the philosophical plug).

just my $0.02

[Rocco]

I'll settle this debate.

JKD "concepts" = GOOD

"original" JKD = BAD

[NHBMARK1]

Wow that took guts!
Can you be more specific?
Thanks again for the honestly...

[sikal]

Originally posted by gungfuhero
Most people in the "concepts" camp train Bruce Lee's original material (Jun Fan Gung Fu) as well as other systems to supplement and complement their training. By cross training they can get a broad education and continuously "absorb what is useful, reject what is useless and add what is specifically [his] own." It's not so much adding clay when you look into a new system, but rather finding a completely new area that needs to be shaped (sorry for the philosophical plug).

just my $0.02

I'm certainly no expert (and I try to avoid the politics as much as possible) ... but I'd agree with this with one tangential expansion of a point you made.

To "reject what is useless", one must first examine, experiment, and gain some depth before one can actually evaluate whether it is useless. Also, a lot of people fall into the trap of "if it doesn't work for me, it doesn't work for anyone" ... this is not always (or even usually) the case. What is "useless" for me may work just fine for someone else.

JKD ... whichever camp one claims to be in ... is about *self* exploration and improvement.

Your clay analogy is good. You can't start a sculpture with a statue. You start with a block and remove the excess ... but you first have to have that block.

What I think cross-training is about is this:
When I need body work on my car, I don't take it to a transmission shop. I take it to a body shop. The mechanics in one may be just as competent and good as in the other ... but they have different specialties.

A good example is where I am now. With my background in Kali and Silat, I've got good striking, good weapons, and good sweeps/takedowns. I've got fair joint locks and grappling. So now I'm training with a group of guys who specialize in joint locks (Daito Ryu influenced by Small Circle and further influenced by extensive trial-and-error). I'm training with these guys to fine-tune the joint locks that I do have. I could have went to a Karate school to learn joint locks ... they have them, after all ... but why go to a transmission shop for body work when I can go to a body shop?

There are other reasons for cross-training, of course ... but that's the one I'm currently doing.

Of course, I'm also just interested in any martial arts training I can get my hands on because I love learning about the history, focus and specialties of various martial arts ... even ones I don't really have any interest in officially training in. A good example of this for me is Savate. I'm not much of a kicker and don't really have any interest in training in Savate. But I enjoy reading about its history and learning things about its focus and specialties.

Regards, Mike

[gungfuhero]

Good call Sikal (cool name too). The only way one can really determine if a technique is useless-which is very subjective-is to really train it hard and gain an educated understanding. It's all too easy to say that something that isn't instantly functional is useless. Granted, simplicity is what we strive for, but you can't say that something doesn't work. From a statistical view point you can pontificate on what is more likey to work (you're pretty much better off alloting the majority of your training to things that are likely to happen rather than things that require a very specialized situation), but to say that a technique doesn't work is way too broad a generalization. That is what makes JKD such a personal thing. Body type, attributes, influences and attitude do a lot in shaping one's personal expression of combat

[sikal]

Originally posted by gungfuhero
Good call Sikal (cool name too). The only way one can really determine if a technique is useless-which is very subjective-is to really train it hard and gain an educated understanding. It's all too easy to say that something that isn't instantly functional is useless.

I can't take any credit for the name. It's what my instructor calls what he teaches and what he certified me to teach. As I understand it, he originally got the name from Guro Dan Inosanto :-)

Anyway, good points. Yes, something that doesn't work for me now may work for me 5 or 10 years from now. Or it may work for someone that I'm training. Or it may work for someone I'm fighting (so having some counters would be nice).

One of the analogies I like to use (for myself, anyway ... I've actually got several favorites that I pull out from time to time :-) is that training is like stocking a storage shed. You put the stuff you frequently use and rely on (either for fighting or for teaching) at the front where it's easily accessible. You put the stuff that you enjoy using but isn't quite as practical behind that. You put the stuff that doesn't work for you, per se, but you think is very valuable behind that (so it's pretty accessible when working with others). Etc ...

Of course, every so often you'll want to go through the shed and rearrange things as your needs change.

And, of course, you can't fit everything you see into the shed. But you've got to be very picky and thoroughly investigate the pros and cons of throwing something out before you actually discard it :-) You never know when you might actually need that whatchamacallit that you threw out last summer on a whim because you *never* thought you'd need it :-)

As with everything, one has to be careful not to go too far either way (i.e.: throw away valuable things on a whim ... or be a packrat and have so much you can't find anything when you need it).

Regards, Mike

[JKDMAN]

I am really enjoying this thread. No one seems to slam one side or the other. Thank you so much, I personally am a concepts guy, but I have attended a few JF seminars and learned alot. The main thing to be looked at is that we (concepts and JF) have the same goal the propitiation of Bruce's ideas and the spirit in which he felt all people should be approached. He trained all kinds and never judged anyone even when his open door policy pissed off some people and caused him grief. I think that JF and Concepts if you really look at it are not different arts they are the two sides of the same coin. I know that as for me, my view of JKD would not be the same if I had not attended the JF seminars I did. Sifu Lamar Davis Jr. was an excellent intro into JFJKD and I have attended a few others. As far as I know, both sides claim Goru Dan as their leader and I think both are correct. I once read a letter from Mrs. Linda (Bruce's widow) that criticized the feud between the two camps. She listed points each side gets right that the other misses. Her point and mine is that to truly say that one is right is futile. They both understand aspects of JKD that I believe all people on both sides could learn from. We need to realize that we all love JKD for what it is and realize the wisdom in what Bruce once said about JKD. He said (paraphrased) That Jeet Kune Do was only a name. (which he regreted ever giving it a name) If anyone ever fussed over the name they missed the point and the name should be done away with.