where did inosanto train and what level of knowledge did he attain? Say Master Toddy and I'll be sick.
He doesn't know your background, does he Hannibal? Man, it's gonna be a blast when he finds out. This is more fun than Christmas.
When he does I will probably get fed the "oh that's not D3h r34lz" line Pearls before swine ssometimes bro!
He trained with Chai Sirisute, founder of the Thaiboxing Association of the USA (http://www.thaiboxing.com/about_ajarn_chai). I don't know to what level. But then, I've never seen Guro Dan claim to be any sort of expert in muay thai either.
As far as I was aware, he does profess to teach thai technique at his garage/gym. The problem i have with JKD and many of its exponents is that they seem to think they can pick and choose what works and mash it all into THEIR style of JKD before they actually have a basic fundamental understanding of the arts in question. People decide they want to add the "thai kick" to their arsenal, but are attempting to do it from mental stances, crazy guards AND are doing their own crap version of it. The dont see how most arts are like a house of cards - that everything is built on everything else. They all connect and it's not as simple as saying you want to add something else to your arsenal. A "thai kick" for example, simply doesnt work as it should from a side on TKD-esgue stance. with all that in mind, its why id like to know to what level inosanto has trained in muay thai specifically as its my art, though id also like to know which, if any other arts, he's attained a respectable level of knowledge in before professing to amalgamate it into "his vision of TKD".
I actually agree with you in principle. Guro Dan is primarily known for JKD, kali, and (I'd say) silat. He's responsible for furthering the cause of muay thai in the States, even if he himself isn't an expert nak muay. Whether you think that's a valid pursuit is obviously up to you. But I think it's a valid observation to say that the round kick is delivered differently in muay thai. And that you don't have to be an expert in muay thai to garner some benefit from trying it that way. I don't suspect that you're going to see this precisely the way I do. And that's cool. I'm a big muay thai enthusiast (despite having very little training in it myself), so I can understand your concern.
Dont get me wrong, I don't have some sort of "MINE MINE MINE" type attitude about people from other arts trying to adopt a thai style kick into their arsenal. I'm merely pointing out that someone from a pure thai point of view knows full well that the stance, the guard, the balance etc. ALL have a huge effect on the actual body mechanics of the kick and hence affect it on a basic fundamental level. Thats the kind of understanding however that only comes from properly training in and dedicating yourself towards learning an art. It's why most decent, if not ALL, decent MMA fighters train in a handful of arts extensively then have one session a week where the figure out how to mix it all together. The bulk of their training is made up from art specific training, not MMA.
I can only speak from my experience, but when we "add" something from muay thai we are generally expected to train in muay thai. Same for jits, same for anything really Dan is actually ranked by Chai I believe. As for other arts in JKD he is the highest ranked, Black belt BJJ. He is highly ranked as well in Silat, FMA and Shooto.
Not long ago I tried complaining about how at least two of the local JKD schools have changed thier training so much based on the popularity of MMA that what is taught currently is more MMA than JKD. Gone is the influence of Kali/Escrima. Same for the Wing Chun and Savate techniques. What these schools are doing looks no different than a MMA gym. Could this be what the OP was refering to?
Who knows? By his own admission he is not a JKD player, yet feels he has a definitive outlook on it that we should all subscribe to The lack of the arts you mentioned could be a product of their training method and approach to their JKD...or a quick cash in!
I have mixed feelings on the MMA/JKD connection. But I mostly support it. I'm the least competitive person. Never had much to do with sports. But I feel like, as a platform for establishing proof of concept (and JKD can be heavy on concept), the MMA format is really, really valuable. That doesn't necessarily require giving over entirely to the pop-culture cage fighting model. But the basic format is pretty close to ideal. Stuart
I think I mentioned it elsewhere, but at PFS we pretty much operate out of an MMA framework. Vu says that if you take Wanderlei Silva and add the refinement of WC & Kali then you get Anderson Silva I have to say that for me Anderson is a close to a JKD stylist as I think you would ever see in the cage (Erik Paulson aside of course - He is THE man!)
