Jeet Kune Do is just a name

Jeet Kune Do is just a name

 

On the last page of the Tao of Jeet Kune Do the last stanza says: “If people say Jeet Kune Do (JKD) is different from ‘this’ or from ‘that,’ then please let the name of Jeet Kune Do be wiped out, for that is what it is, just a name. Please don’t fuss over it.”

For those of you are not sure of the timeline of when the Tao was written, it was written after Sijo Bruce Lee died. He left a huge void not only in the martial arts world but also within his own system. He didn’t name a successor to his legacy. And really, at 33, how many of us think that far ahead? I am 32, and I can say that I don’t.

The purpose for our blog posts at Synergy Martial Arts is to give factual information. Great care and deliberation went, and continues to go, into the creation of our website www.synergyma.com, our promotional material, and this blog. We wish to put information that is credible and can be referenced so that we are held accountable for the information we pass on.

I have been training JKD since 1994 and am certified to teach JKD by Sifu Paul Vunak (www.fighting.net). I also have been training with Sifu Dave Hatch (www.attributivemartialarts.com) who has been certified by SiGung Dan Inosanto (www.inosanto.com) since 1995.

The point of all of this is that I have seen, for years, misinformation regarding the Inosanto lineage and its instructors. The most recent is the World Jeet Kune Do foundation (http://www.leejkd.com/home.htm) and its President Carter Hargrave. Here are two major points from his website that are incorrect:

The second branch of the lineage is called Jeet Kune Do Concepts and is mainly available in California, as most of its teachers were based there—the most notable being Dan Inosanto. This branch has mainly Philippine stick and weapon fighting as its basis instead of the Wing Chun, Western Boxing, and French Fencings of the original.

 The main point that people make is that SiGung Dan Inosanto does not teach JKD the way that Sijo Bruce Lee taught it when he was alive—that he mixes Filipino Martial Arts (FMA), BJJ, Shoot wrestling, Silat and other arts into his program. That is incorrect: When one trains at The Inosanto Academy (http://inosanto.com/pages/academyinfo_curriculum.html), there are different segmented classes for each range or discipline. And when someone is certified as an instructor in JKD, FMA, or Silat he or she receives separate certifications for each. Also, not many know that the most difficult certification to achieve, and progress in rank within, is JKD. Why? Because SiGung Inosanto wishes to preserve the high level required for instructorship in JKD that passes on the information that was passed to him. The Inosanto lineage spans the entire world: it is not regional.

When I contacted Mr. Hargrave about these inconsistencies, he responded to my in an email with the following:

“All of the information on our websites is correct. Guro Inosanto and Sijo Lee had disagreements with each other about concepts.”

Well, if you’ve read this far, you can see in my references this Mr.Hargrave’s assertion is not correct. I said nothing referring to concepts in my email. I was speaking purely about the information on his site regarding SiGung Inosanto.

So where does this confusion begin? It begins with instructors like myself who don’t see the need to separate JKD from the rest. Yes, I am calling myself out on this point. The reason that I don’t separate it—JKD—is the techniques that you learn from the “traditional” JKD can be learned in any number of martial arts systems; the thing that I believe that makes JKD unique is its training methods. The five ways of attack, Sijo Bruce’s heavy emphasis on clean mechanics etc., are things that most great athletes do in one way or another but lack the explanation Sijo Bruce or SiGung Inosanto provide.

Does an attack by combination (ABC) only exist in the “traditional” JKD? No, of course not. And it is not limited to JKD; you can have these things in JKD, FMA, BJJ or baseball: what do you think a double steal is?

So, when you are looking at JKD or any other martial art, please do your homework and check references for factual information. It may be a bit of legwork in the beginning, but it will save you from making a choice based on someone else’s misinformation.

God Bless,

Shawn