my opinion on jkd,and people.

[J.K.]

first off, if you look at a ucla wrestler your looking at someone that is practically a professional in the sport of wrestling. Have a wrestler who only has 5 years of wrestling fight someone who has 10 years of kali and see who wins. If you match that same wrestler up with someone who has spent the same amount of time in martial arts - the situation would be different. Look at the UFC - wrestle yes they do well - but they often get beet by people who have crossed trained. A wrestler who crosstrains is definetly extremely dangerous. I am not disputing that BJJ and Thai are extremely effective arts - thats why a lot of JKD people have incorporated those arts into their training.

As I said before - do your research before spending a ton of money on an instructor who is a product of some mass production instructorship program. Insted, as you suggested - find someone who is legit. Your are pointing the fingure at JKD for doing this but look at Karate, BJJ, TKD or any art with belts. You will find people that climbed through the ranks and still have no concept of how to defend themselves. There are frauds in every system.

Your senerio of you loosing to the wrestler - you are comparing sport to real life. You put yourself in the wrestlers world. Had you had a grambit would you still have lost. Kali/wing chun where neaver meant to be a sport. They both have deadly techniques that are effective. If you study either of those arts - for six months you should be able to defend yourself in a street situation.

I don't really look at martial arts as sport as it appear you do. I think of it as more as a means to protect myself in a comprimised situation. If I where going to fight in a ring - I would focus on my cardio and do plenty of groundwork and standup. The ground work would be comprised of bjj, wrestling, shoto, judo, and any other ground systems. Stand up would be comprised of Thai, kali,boxing, and other multi-range standup.

[Jari]

Originally posted by PentjackSilat
If you put someone in Karate, and someone in Thai, the Thai Boxer would whoop ass.

Another instance showing my point: karate techniques don't work outside of their doctrine. Their doctrine is for situations, where you are usually standing unassumingly and get attacked by a street thug without pre-warning. Pre-arranged fights where fighters lift their hands up in protection and start dancing around is not the environment where karate techniques were designed to be used (this is why tournament sparring has widely been the death of traditional karate - it doesn't work on that turf! People had to modify karate methods to work in the alien environment and making the erroneous judgement that traditional methods don't work at all.). Thus they don't work optimally in that environment. See karate punch for instance! Who in their right minds would tell a thai boxer that he should load his fist to his hip before punching? Nobody! That is for the situation where you are holding someone in a lock or hold, revealing an unprotected neck or other vital area, and then punching - often with the hand that first held the lock or hold (example: you take a wrist lock with right hand, you assist/punch with left hand, then left hand grabs shoulder or sleeve, right hand releases wrist and punches. There is a place for the punch from the hip!). Now, take these karate techniques and modify them so you hold the hands up high like in thai boxing and go try your stuff on the thai boxing turf. End result? Disaster! You tried to use a fishing rod and line to catch a deer in the woods, when you should have used a hunting rifle. The fishing rod is for when you want to catch fish from water.

This is what I was talking about when I meant that different techniques are based on different concepts (fishing rod vs. hunting rifle) and though you might catch some fish with the riffle, you'd be better off with the rod. And when in the woods, leave the rod and bring the rifle.

Another example: Wing Chun methods work when your whole fighting is based on the concept of controlling the centre line. All your techniques are designed to either work on the centre line, or regain lost centre line. Now, try to mix your Karate with Wing Chun. Karate techniques are designed to work under a whole different concept. Often they don't care squat about the centre line. Now if you know Wing Chun well, then study some karate to add to your skill set, the result may be a disaster. When you use a karate technique within your Wing Chun concept, you will usually lose the centre-line. Then you seem to be losing and have to regain the centre line. Then whenever you use karate techniques again, you lose the centre line again. You may quickly decide that karate techniques don't work. But the problem is that it was just a case of your fighting concept mismatching that of karate. The same karate techniques work wonders for the other guy who is fighting within the karate concept of tactics.

This is why, to try add something from another art to your skill set, you NEED to understand enough of the art itself that you know what concept doctrine it is based on and how (if at all) can you make those methods work within yours. You cannot just "pick a technique and start using it outside of concept".

[thekuntawman]

to say that sparring with your martial art if you want to test the effectiveness and develop it as a useful skjll, to call this "sport" and have nothing to do with fighting is a cowardly way to avoid testing yourself. it is the closest thing you can get to the real thing, sparring, and unless you are in the street fighting with people you dont know, there is no drill you can do that is better than a match.

if you practice the philippine martial art, you are going against what makes the philippine martial art practical by avoiding matches. do you thing every manong around only fought in the death match? no way, they had to have matches around with other fighters to developed his skill before he tries to fight a real match. trust me, if sport is not good for fighting ability, those silly drills are worser.

"sport", if you want to call it, that gives you the chance to see if you can take a punch. if lets you see how hard it is to hit a guy who doesnt want to be hit. it also gives you the chance to learn how to think fast, because in a streetfight you dont know if you are going to have to fight one guy, if he has a weapon, how will he fight you, standing up or on the ground, etc. sport gives you all these benefit, that anything you can do in a classroom cannot.

the important thing is to fight with a large variety of people, many who are very very aggressive. your classmate aint going to do that for you, or your friends. you need the stranger to be in front of you to develop your courage. classroom sparring is to comfortable, even full contact. thats why the best trainers bring guys from outside to fight his fighters. see this is where the seminar is losing you guys, too much technique and "simulated", too many excuses why your shouldnt fight (sport is unreal, UFC has to many rules, etc). THESE ARE EXCUSES.

the warrior way is to test himself in combat, and as a warrior you have to find combat today, and the sparring match is the best place and safest place to find it.

[doubleouch]

Amen brother! The most sensible thing I've heard in awhile.

[PentjackSilat]

If you are referring to my earlier posts, then you have completely misundertstood me! If you are not, then I apologize for what I am about to say.
Nowhere in my post did I ever say not to test yourself through fighting. As a matter of fact if you look at my profile you will see I am an amateur thai boxer who fights all the time. Call me a coward all you wish! Do you step in the ring and fight?
Let me tell you a little bit of why I am only amateur. Because I use what Bill Murray called "Baby Steps" in Where's Bob? Step one: Amateur Muay Thai. Step two: Pro Muay Thai. Step Three: Beginner submission matches. Step Four: Intermediate Submissions. Step Five: Advanced Submissions. Step Six: Amateur NHB. Step Seven: Pro NHB. Step Eight: Go into a bar and piss some people off.
I firmly believe that you must compete to increase your skills. What I don't agree with is people who think that fighters who stop at Step Seven are the end all of the discussion in self protection. Yes! Pro NHB is the closest way to safely test yourself. Once you have mastered that, then you go further. Too many people mistakenly believe that just because you can do Pro NHB, you can whoop everyone in every street situation. Pro NHB is a means to learning to defend oneself. Too many white belts and Pro NHB fighters see it as the end. That once you can roll for ten minutes on a mat and not be tapped, you are the sh*t. That is so wrong. For instance, just because I can whoop ass in amateur Thai, doesn't mean I can whoop ass in amateur NHB. Well guess what Matlock? NHB and Street are about as different as amateur Muay Thai and amateur NHB!

[wcskgh]

missed again

ok, dont go to a ucla wrestler, go to any divison college, the guy usually wrestled for three years in high school, and a few in college, this makes them pros? also your reference to me losing because it was sport, is not true, we went balls out, real fighting,and i got picked up time after time. sure i landed some, but not enough. and your comment on a krambit, GOOD LUCK. do you always carry a krambit? and yoiu you really able to cut everyone you fight, that concept is a joke, thats like the non martial arts guys who say" i'll just shoot you, then wears your karate" but most of these guys dont have a gun anywhere

[Ryu (JKD?)]

Just for humor's sake I once worked with a little bodybuilder guy in a GNC once. He always had a smile on his face when bigger guys would talk about fighting and MA. I once asked him about it. He said that his self defense was in his gun.
I smiled and asked "Do you have your gun with you now?"
He smiled back and said "Yep, right here." Then lifted his shirt to show a holstered colt 9mm! LOL!! Opened my eyes.

Even though my training is very much similar to NHB these days, I still carry at least a tactical folder with me wherever I go. But I will use it for other jobs unrelated to fighting.
Knives aren't the be all end all, but they're definitely out there, and you gotta watch it. But other than that I agree with sparring realistically and staying away from the "it's a sport" argument.
But having said THAT (man this fence is starting to hurt my butt) the street has its own type of atmosphere. What you need to be preparing and learning for OTHER than athletic training is first strike set up and defense, de-escalation principles, semantics, visual awareness, reading body language, etc. Sometimes when someone comes up nose to nose to you and you strike first without warning and follow up with heavy combos the fight will be over before it starts. The guy might even be a better fighter than you, who knows? He won't get the chance to find out. Real streetfighting is not honorable, sneaky, and unfair.
HOWEVER.... being able to fight athletically is a prerequisite. Who do you think would have a better "first strike"? A trained boxer or someone who punched air all his life?

Ryu

Ryu

[PentjackSilat]

Very good point that a knife isn't the end all. But you know what I like to do for fun. Roll with a training knife. It's a lot of fun, and an eye opener.

[J.K.]

I never disputed wrestling as being a legit form of self defense. But you can't claim one will win over the other - to many variables come into play. I don't hide behind a blade - just making a point that there is a difference between sport and life/death. I don't have a problem with NHB fighting - ive competed in mixed martail arts and I do believe that it does show ones ability to protect oneself. I was just pointing out the possible wholes in your argument that jkd people do not understand the art they train or the practitioners recieve water down/incomplete information. Yes, this happening - like in all arts - their are frauds. But you can't deny the amount of serious practioners who study Junfan. There are plenty of teachers out there that are legit and have plenty to offer. It may be your experience that you have not found a realdeal teacher in the junfan system ( if you wan't I can give you some names of valid teachers - and you can meet with them and then tell me if they have nothing to offer). However, their are plenty of people who train under legit teachers that are achieving goals to be able to defend themselves as well as living a better life. So, I don't want to sit here and argue about hypothetical situations "like a wrestler wins against kali all the time" its silly. I will state that no style is a gaurenteed winner and it is up to the person training - not the style. So if you are a motivated student you will seek out truth and not let the wool be pulled over your eyes by some high priced - mass produced - psedo instructor.

One question if you dislike kali somuch why did you stick with it for ten years and why didn't you just take up wrestling?

[wcskgh]

i get your point, but you missed mine

i dont think our argument was over jkd being functional or not, all i said was that the way its taught today is a far cry from what bruce did. now, instead of doing what bruce did, everyone is just teaching a thousand techniques. i also know very legitimate teachers, i studied with many guys, one decieved me, not all of them. i spoke to vunak yesterday, i consider him legite. but again, its not the art i was saying is wrong, but how its taught. as far as jun fan , i like it, but heres some drills from my notes from a real jkd instructor pak da/biu gee lap da/pak da/lop da
next one is kow sau biu gee step slide round kick cross hook cross,slide step, side kick. on and on. bootom l;ine, this wont work in the street. not that erik paulson or vunak cant pull it off, but for most street fights, i agree with vunak, on straight blast, head buts knees and elbows. again, i love jkd, i just hate to go train at a school, and do 90 million trapping drills, and a little of this and a little of that, and never be explained principles of each and every system, and know why it works. if you dont know principles, you will think a technique dont work for you, but in reality, you may have done it wrong because you dont understand the principles. that was my argument. i like some jkd classes,and i have fun with the art, but the most practical of the jun fan is the kickboxing portion. as far as me learning from real teachers, im now with li tailiang as a private disciple, and learned what a joke my skills from jkd, kali, etc were, after trying anything on him. then from learning about structure and energy,etc in fine detail, i was able to see what was missing in my past training, and i went back and tried to learn more about the principles. jkd guys claim to be all about the street, but alot of the material will not work for a guy that does it in class for a few weeks,and moves on to the next drills. i have friends at dans school, and they love it, its like a martial arts candy store, but they even say, that thai and shoot are the arts that come out, when everyone spars. i hope to train there myself, i just love all the arts. but now that i understand things from a real fighter and master, that took time with me, and laughed at all the materrial i amassed,and mastered so little, i see a big difference in my approach

[gungfuhero]

I have been shying away from internet forums, but it's fun to step in every now and again...

Everybody is so worried about "where it's at." Some think that if it isn't trained by the current NHB athletes that it is crap. Others think that cross training is tarnishing the holy grail of jeet kune do and is a sign of a lack of knowledge in its ways. Some are drill and technique junkies who are on the edge of every trend. These camps all have the same error in their reasoning. They are all still trying to find "THE STYLE." If you boil down their arguments it sounds like a cheesy kung fu flick. "If you train in such and such art you will be unbeatable" or "my sifu has such and such certification and is therefore a badass" or "if you only grasped this one idea you will see the proverbial light." No. It isn't that easy. Rather than speculate on an internet forum, learn the cause of your own ignorance and cut your path. This kind of dungeons and dragons martial arts role playing, which style works stuff doesn't prove anything. It is the same as when every stand up fighter thought he could easily fend of the grappler in the 80's. Rather than argue over stylistic superiority, we would all be better off by rejecting partiality and working on becoming complete fighters.

[J.K.]

i agree with you on getting a ton of techniques thrown at you and then trying to apply it is next to impossible. I have only experienced this at seminars - where there is no time to isolate. You get exposed to a ton of techniques and drills in a short period of time. THats where your notebook comes in handy. Write down the drills and practice and isolate on your own. As far as the drills you mentioned not working in a street fight - you forgot the operative word -drills. Drills were not meant to be applied verbatum on the street - the are a way of developing one self through repition.

Anyways - i am seeing your point. There are a ton of seminar hopers who attend a couple of 8 hour sessions and get exposed to a million techniques and cant apply one of them. Isolation is key - to ones developement. Isolate your week areas and make them strong.

I also agree that thai and jj seem to come out the most in sparring. This has been my experience. I try to stay in the clinch/close quater and use pumbling techniques,headbutts,knees, and elbows.

I to had a teacher that I spent a lot of time (8years). I left the state and began exploring different styles and realized tht my prior teacher wasn't all I thought he was. I had to relearn a lot of techniques the right way and gained new understanding. Like I said you have to do your homework before choosing a school/teacher.

[wcskgh]

thanks guys

i only have about a half hour a day, to be on the net, and mainly because im injured, but i really enjoy talking with you guys,and exchanging opinions. my thread took off, and it was fun, i learned from you guys, and appreciate that. anyone wanting to exchange tapes or anything also, feel free to e mail me.

[J.K.]

wcskgh

Hey, I saw from your profile that you are an acupunture student. Do you know any good natropathic remedies for allergies? I used to see an acupunturist/natropatbic specialist and he gave me some green herbal pills for my allergies - I don't recall the name and the guy moved out of state. My allergies are starting flare up now that spring is hear and I need a safe cure. LMK

[Bruce_Fan]

WORDS OF THE MAN HIMSELF!

Hey Wcskgh,

I've followed this discussion. Some of it I agree with, and some of it I don't.
You mentioned tapes for exchanging. I'd be interested in exchanging JKD tapes. MY email is listed.


As far as the Way JKD is taught today: I think it'd depend on who your teacher is. I am sure Vunak, Inosanto, or Burton would teach it differently than many others.

As for Trapping: Like Paul Vunak said in his interview, Trapping is a RANGE. You see it in UFC too. When two guys get in a clinch, some are very good at throwing uppercuts and knees. Some don't do it at all, and I wonder why they don't in such a great opportunity. (Off the top of my head, I remember a couple of fighters throwing some good and effective uppercuts in the clinch.)
That is trapping!
---------------------------

Do you have the book called "Bruce Lee, The celebrated life of the Golden Dragon"?
It is edited by John Little in a series of books he did on Bruce.
This book has MANY EXCELLENT QUOTES BY BRUCE HIMSELF!
I think anyone who wants to understand JKD Better should read these quotes of Bruce.

One day, I should sit down and type all this quotes. Here are some excerpts from BRUCE LEE:

".......On the Contrary, I hope to free my followers from Styles."

"Therefore, to define JKD as a particular system (gung fu, Karate, etc.) is to miss it completely."

"Drilling on routines and set patterns will eventually make a person be good according to the routines and set pattern, but only self-awareness and self expression can lead to the truth.................. The INDIVIDUAL is always more important than the system. "

"JKD rejects all restrictions and imposed by form and formalities and emphasized the clever use of mind and body to defend and attack."

"However, I began to lose faith in the Chinese classical because, basically, all styles are products of dry-land swimming, so my line of training [moved] more towards efficient street fighting with EVERYTHING GOES ; Wearing headgear, gloves, chest guard, shin/knee guards, etc. I changed the name of the gist of my study to Jeet Kune Do."

"Anytime other writers write about JKD, they write it according to their knowledge. One cannot see a fight "As is" say from the point of view of a boxer, a wrestler, or anyone who is trained in a particular method, because he will see the fight according to the limits of his particular conditioning. Take for instance the boxer: He will probably criticize the fact that the two fighters are too close to allow for crispy punching room. On the hand, the wrestler will complain that one of the fighters should crowd and smother the other's "Crispiness," and thus be close enough to apply grappling tactics. So a split second between the above two statements, the boxer could have switched into grappling tactics when there is no crispy punching room. The wrestler, when out of distance, could have kicked our punched as a man to bridge the gap for his specialty."

"Remember well my friend that all styles are man-made and the man is always more important than any style. Style concludes. Man grows.

Those are words from the man himself. Take from what it what you will. I think in times of confusion, it's good to go back and see what it was that Bruce intended.

Bruce_Fan