Can You call yourself a JKDer?

[DavinWest]

Hey!
Quick question, in JKD is there really a right and wrong way to lets say punch or kick? I keep getting told I do everything wrong, but if it works and is usefull, is it wrong? and if you use the principles of JKD and apply them to lets say different karate styles, can you call yourself a Jeet Kune Doer? can you say you study JKD?

thanks!

[SOG]

"[I]s there really a right and wrong way to ... punch or kick?" YES! If you pick-up your rear leg every time you land a punch, just because it feels nature, it is still the WRONG way to punch.

As long as we all have two arms and legs, the mechanics of a hard punch or fast kick are going to be the same for everyone. The goal is to discover the underlying (and shared) physics of fighting like a human.

[Bushido]

Just follow your body's nature. the mechanical aspect of it...

[likuid]

yes, there is a right and wrong way to punch. It depends on the art you are practicing. In reference to JKD, bare in mind that it is first and foremost a philosophy rather than an art. For instance, that is why Guro Dan distinguishes between JKD, and Jun Fan, and Kali, etc.

[Twisted up]

I believe that as long as you are intelligently training in "core" arts like boxing for punching, etc., that you can indeed call yourself a JKD man, if you are adhering to the concepts.

Of course, a name is just a name is it not?

[DavinWest]

very true!

[likuid]

but it's not just about 'adhering', it's about adapting and adopting the learned concepts. In other words, your right cross has nothing to do with JKD. JKD is more about what you do with that information, not necessarily how.

[MikeJKD]

Davin,
Let me ask you this:

Why do you suppose Bruce Lee spent so many hours each day researching and practicing endless repetitions of a particular movement? Why would anyone spend up to 45 minutes every day on nothing but a forward shuffle? Why would he devote the immense time and energy it must have taken to develop that elephant stomping side kick that he had, or the lightning fast punch? If the answer was just in doing whatever your body does on its own, wouldn't all that research and refinement be a waste of time?

The answer lies in the training method. You have to adapt the way you use techniques to your own specific makeup, but there are without a doubt, good, better, and best ways to execute techniques. For example: Assume your goal is to throw a devastating, bone breaking, life altering kick to someone's thigh. Do you ask a Thai Kickboxer to show you how, or do you ask Mike Tyson? Tyson may be able to kill you, but you can bet it won't be with a thigh kick, right? So you seek out the best you can find, you learn all you can, and you make it fit you. But you have to realize that to do that requires learning and practicing the technique or skill to a point of technical proficiency and to a good degree of functional proficiency. If you see an instructor teach a technique once, do it however you want to and then say "I'm doing what he said to do, just in my own way, so it isn't wrong..." then it's an ego problem. Unless you are thoroughly aware of the whats, whys, hows, and whens of a tool or skill, then you're really just being lazy by "modifying it" without really knowing what you're modifying. Do yourself the favor of really digging deep and exploring your techniques to the fullest possible extent. Yes, it means you'll suck at it for a while. We all do. Yes, it means you'll have to train yourself not to rely on that small handful of things that you can get away with on most people. But really, that's what separates the "Greats" from the "Mediocres." JKD, it has been said, is a lot more about experiences than technique. To me that has always meant that we take everything our instructor can teach us about the tools, and we step up and get our asses kicked for a while (sometimes a long while...) learning to make it all work. Experience has to be what makes the tool fit you. It comes from trial and error after error. All I'm saying is resist the tempation to just change things randomly and justify it by saying "I can make it work." The functionality is important, but the experimentation is even moreso.
Mike

[gungfuhero]

Great post Mike!

I think to be a JKD man means to honestly express your self. That means that you are being simple, direct, well versed in the different ranges and your tools are sharp. By honestly expressing yourself I mean that you don't do anything simply because you were told by the high and mighty poobah that this is the way the founder did it; thus, it is the supreme technique, but rather you researched it and put in the flight time to understand the technique and absorbed it. That brings us to the point that what is JKD for each of us changes constantly. That which is going to come out when you fight isn't always the same.

Be yourself in the most efficient way to get the job done and never stop learning and training. That is JKD.