[nbotary]

I'm prepared for all the hate mail...

Can someone for the love of all that is martial arts, please tell me how the hell someone can open up a school and claim to teach JKD? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isnt' JKD a philosophy? I could swear that the last time I read my copy of Bruce Lee's Tao of Jeet Kune Do, he specifically stated that JKD was not a style. So how is it that so many people are claiming to teach JKD? If I understand the book properly, Bruce's whole point, througout the book, was not to limit yourself to the confines and absolutes of one traditional style, but to learn other styles and take what works for you and throw away the rest. Again, how can you take multiple facets of different styles and teach them as one style? This is a complete contradiction! Let's look at an example...

If someone has a black belt in Aikido, JuJitsu and Tae Kwon Do, but only practices what is useful to them, then they are following the philosophies JKD. This person can honestly say, I practice the JKD philosophy.

However, if they decide to teach and only teach what they have been practicing themselves, leaving out everthing else they learned in their other styles, they cannot claim to teach JKD. What works for one will not necessarily work or another. Yet, so many schools are claiming to do this.

I have studied JuJitsu, Yang style Tai Chi, Shaolin Long Fist Kung Fu, some Shaolin White Crane Kung Fu, some Drunken Kung Fu and have learned some Wing Chun Kung Fu and some Tae Kwon Do. I can honestly say that when I spare, I don't use, nor would I use, a some of what I have been tought becuase to me some things won't work and are not practical. However, some of my fellow students and my instructors use the things that I don't. Yet not one of us says that we are taught JKD.

I have spoken to several people on this and the only people who can actually claim to teach JKD are Bruce's original core students, two of which are very well known - Dan Inosanto and Jerry Poteet. If Bruce's original students give their blessings upon someone and say they teach JKD, I respect and accept that becuase they are the last remaining authorities on Bruce's philosophy.

I look forward to reading the responses....

[dscott]

I never thought about it that way but I completely agree with you 100%.

The philosophy is to use what is best for YOU. Therefore, everyone's idea of JKD will be different, no?

[nbotary]

Thanks for the support! My intent is not to start a fight with everyone, just to have them question what they are actually learning and why they are learning it. It kind of falls along the lines of my post about calling UFC fights MMA when in fact nobody is really using the techniques they learned as a martial artist unless they studied a grappling art.

[Hengest]

You make some good points nbotary. However, I think you maybe misunderstand what most JKD schools try to do. From my experience at least, when you attend a JKD school, you are not taught a curriculum of JKD techniques. You're not taught "this is how you do a JKD side kick" or "this is a JKD hip throw". What most schools offer is classes in various styles, e.g. Jun Fan, kali, muay thai, savate, BJJ, etc. The students are encouraged to go to as much of these as they can. They then also attend a "JKD concepts" class, which teaches them how to bind all this together, using the principles Bruce laid out in the Tao and his other teachings. For the most part, JKD teachers aren't teaching JKD as a style. Well, the JKDC and FJKD guys aren't. The OJKD guys are, but then I've always felt that they don't really grasp the point of JKD anyway...

[Tease T Tickle]

If you go to a building and train combatives, whether it be a boxing gym, a BJJ studio or a traditional karate dojo, then you are going to a school. If you go to a school, you are learning something.

If you, for whatever reasons, feel that Jeet Kune Do is the best way to train, then the school you open should teach Jeet Kune Do. Yes, there is no such style as Jeet Kune Do just like there is no such field of study as business, but you still go to a business school if you want to engage in that side of industry.

When you set foot in a Jeet Kune Do school, and I want you to think this way from now on, you are training yourself to fight just like if you went to a boxing gym, a BJJ studio or a Wing Chun kwoon. What you are learning are techniques and tactics not limited by any sense of style, but that encorporates anything from any style and you test it using the methods perscribed by Bruce and his followers; drills to master the mechanics and heavy amounts of sparring to understand how to use them properly.

You aren't learning or studying Jeet Kune Do, just like no one learns or studies science, but you are learning through the method of JKD like millions learn through the method of science. In that sense, you are going to a Jeet Kune Do school, a school that teaches the ability to fight through the methods of Jeet Kune Do.

I'm waiting for Danny Inosanto and the rest to start setting up firing ranges and flight simulators so they can convince me that they teach people in every aspect of combat.

[nbotary]

Guys, thanks for all the great feedback! It's great to have a lively discussion with others who are open minded and not "stuck" on their own point of view. I can see where all of you are coming from and I agree with and respect all of your points of view.

I guess the biggest problem that I have with someone "claiming" to teach JKD is that it can come across as false advertising. It just seems that a lot of people have jumped on the band wagon and tried to make a buck off Bruce's name by advertising they teach JKD. If you look in the Houston, TX yellow pages, I can't begin to tell you how many martial arts schools there are. You can drive down the street and see at least 2 Karate and 3 Tae Kwon Do schools within a 2 mile radius of each other. Some even advertise JKD by itself. To me that is wrong, but that's my opinion.

If some kid hears that Bruce Lee taught JKD and sees some school that only advertises JKD on the marquee, how disappointed do you think he'll be when he learns that it's actually a Tae Kwon Do/Hapkido school and not an actual JKD school?

Now I am a FIRM believer in the fact that if they did not do their homework and ask questions before they signed up, then that's their fault, not the fault of the school. I just don't feel it's right to advertise JKD unto itself if the curriculum is actually something else. It's fine to say that the school incorporates JKD's principles, but I don't agree that it should be advertised as the only form of curriculum.

[blkghost]

i really like what you had to say and i agree to it 110%, i just have a question. let's say you don't have any black belts in any art but you train hard every day crafting your style could that person claim to practice the jkd philosophy ?? if not why ?? some believe that you don't need a belt label how skillful a person are so why would it matter ??