James Yimm Lee once said that a JKD person has "The skeleton key to open other systems and styles, but they have no key to ours." Is that still true today? I mean, with as many non-JKD people out there now as skilled, as versatile as a BJ Penn, a Gina Carano, a Georges St. Pierre? I used to know a young boxer who was constantly testing his skills on the streets. One day, he was killed by some punk gang banger he humiliated in a street fight. When he was alive, he would easily play with the few local JKD people who would take him on. His footwork, hand speed and tactics were something else. Real shame - my boxing coach really had high hopes for that guy. We all did.
I'm going to do a Terminator, travel back in time, and kill the sacred cow's mother! I don't think that statement was ever true. I think there's WAY too much mysticism. JKD is a good solid approach. But it's not unassailable. Nor is it so innovative that someone watching a JKD person couldn't "unlock" tactics to beat them. Styles don't work that way... Neither do philosophies, approaches, or whatever else we wanna call JKD (speaking of sacred cows).
So much mystical BS and psuedo philosophy espoused by the whole Kung Fu crowd and JKD is no different. Everyone trying so hard to be the warrior philosopher and doing little more than coming off as posers. Give a me a break. The whole 'deep issue' thing of key to other systems but... ooooh are you ready for the 'deep angle'... not to ours... what total load of crap. Total and complete. As bad if not worse than the whole golden chi blasting nutsack rubbing KF crowd. Get over yourselves already.
Wow...lol... Hi, Slipthejab... well I guess this answers my question to my private post to you earlier about your thoughts on KF and JKD... lol! Such passion... lol
You completely missed the point of the thread - does James Lee's' statement still apply today. At the time of his words - late 1960's - JKD was way ahead of it's time and that key's application was the reason. Nothing 'mystical' there. A key which has a specific name and application you might want to research before commenting on.
Its certainly not true today. Maybe in the past to an extent given how few people cross trained. Its never really been as simple as that though, you could know every range, striking, grappling, clinching, takedowns, loads of techniques have great cardio and and have a great deal of martial knowledge generally and then get sucker punched by guy with a good left hook and nothing else.
it never was true , it was a way of selling himself to become a movie star. he never realy fought anyone except in stories.
There's no denying your point about a sucker punch. Even Lee himself was sometimes its victim during sparring. Still, who said cross training was that key James Lee was referring to?
lol... as if. You might want to really rethink just how far ahead of it's time JKD was or is that nothing more than simply more touting of the sacred cow? JKD had just as much posturing if not more than many of the KF systems... and suddenly JKD was the new black.
l used to teach chinese kempo years ago in the early days of martial arts clubs when kung fu hadnt been heard of yet. not to the general public . for myself l did hung style and it was to hard for the general student. back then we did what has been termed cross training before bruce lee had been heard of. when he came on the tv in the green hornet clubs grew some became huge. when the jkd thing came along credit was given to him for a lot of things he had nothing to do with. as someone said l believe it came on with its own b.s. baffles brains philosophy and it l believe started the downhill of martial arts . because young people with no knowledge heard this style of no style and other chop suey philosophy . saw him in a movie and thought that was real , not knowing its the same as to-day choreographed . between all of it l believe it did more damage than anything else could have. the book the tao of jkd look up in a library the marqui of queensbury about boxing then read the tao.
True, wielding a spear, holding a horse stance for an hour, or a real knuckle sandwich can be hard on the general student. And Bruce Lee was doing cross training (again, not the 'key' James was referring to) way before he was heard of, so what? As for Kenpo - must be why Kenpo guys Dan Inosanto, Steve Golden, Jerry Poteet and so on were not only in awe of Bruce Lee's martial prowess but ended up trading in their black belts and instructorships in Kenpo for training with him when-he-was-still-a-nobody. Concluding JKD is just a mixed martial art or cross-training is so status quo one has to wonder how many in the art, let alone outside it, know what it's about. It may incorporate same but that is not what distinguished/ distinguishes the art from others. Figure out that "key" James referred to. On second thought, no sense continuing this silliness. Anyone interested further, here ya go: http://www.geocities.com/jkdresources/marticles.html?20081
Would argue it's never been true. Though trite, I think it's true it's not that there's no keys, it's that there's no locks. I think the soul of what he was getting at though, was simply what Dan and etc ad nauseum always remind/admonish- it's not a style, not a system, a concept. Or as one of my trainers always says- it's really a filter. As Ap Oweyn said (wisely as usual), the ideas commonly used in all camps of "JKD" are not unassailable. I think the reason, as I always preach, is that all combative ideas are subject to context, and thus, no matter how solid, will be "wrong" in a specific circumstance.
I'm not a JKD practitioner, nor a practitioner of any of the Asian arts. I'm curious about the discussion that your question has stirred up but I am at a loss as to what you mean by the 'key'--it would appear to me, from what little I've read about the art, that crosstraining may very well be what many consider to be innovative about the art, giving it an edge over other stylists who refused to step outside their particular style. Now others on here have already elaborated that crosstraining, while perhaps not common in the US at the time, was certainly not new. So, if crosstraining is not the key to which you, and Yimm, refer--then what is it? paz, dormindo
At the time of that quote (I guess sometime during the late 1960s), most people out there were very stubborn and didn't look outside their own style. They only sparred with people who trained in the same style as them. I see JKD as a way of seeing what's similar among the various martial arts and not what's different. In other words, looking for the universal truth of body movement. Looking at all the arts and trying to find the essence of each one and applying it to certain core principles. I mean how many ways can you stand and move? We only have 2 arms and legs. Now I know Bruce Lee was not the first person to do this, but he was the first person to make this way of thinking well known to the general public. I admit that there has been a lot of mysticism about Bruce Lee since he died, but there is still a lot of wisdom in the philosophy. That being said though, I don't agree with some of the things he said. There were many things about traditional martial arts that he didn't understand because he simply didn't study them thoroughly. If there is a key to other styles, I think it must be the ability to see the core essence of the style and apply it using your existing JKD as the base. But that is very advanced and most people, including JKD people, lack this ability.
Could you elaborate, as I find your comment interesting, considering James Yimm Lee played a large part in JKD's development.
in answer to a question why did kempo people go to get certified by lee.we always thought after traveling in the us it was because races didnt mix much.l met martial artists from all over doing what they were told was a chinese style whod never met or had a friend who was chinese. what this ment was they realy never met someone from h.k. or china who did a authentic style from china. but where l lived there was a large chinese population as well as from other parts of asia. which ment we had guys doing wing chun whod learned from yip man one of my teachers who learned from a elder of hung style and so on. until talking to a guy who asked me if what he was learning was really what he was told. when l asked why did he not ask around in chinatown before he had spent so much time on it . he told me hed never met or had a freind from china. maybe because we were in a university town we had that advantage and different races werent so isolated from each other . so learninmg from a chinese teacher we werent in awe of bruce lee .
