Which is more important to Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee's philosophy or his technique?

Discuss

 

Wouldnt he use some philosophy do describe something thats ever changing, and how one must addapt to change, then use that philosophy to teach technique flow and change in response to the situation.
With the freedom to alter technique to addapt to the individual, then tech is not set in stone.
So they are almost the same thing, i find it hard to seperate the two and choose one of more importance for that reason.

 

The two contradict each other. I like his technique personally. But probably his philosopy is more important

 

Technique is just the starting point, the philosophy is how you make it your own.

 

I've never trained in Jeet Kune Do. My opinion of Bruce Lee is based on his words, his reputation, and the praise of people like Joe Lewis.

My understanding is that Lee made two major contributions to the practice of martial arts. The first is that he called for fluidity when many advocated martial arts remain rigid and static. The second was his devotion to the study of efficiency of motion which has grown into a style of it's own. I find the duality of Lee's contributions almost contradictory as his philosophy seemingly rejects traditions while continued practice of his style establishes one.

It's for that reason that's I'm interested in what the practitioners of his style have to say in response to my question.

Not having a first hand knowledge of Lee's style I can only reflect on the influence his words have had. I think they've had a very positive impact on those that understand what he meant.

 

I can imagine him at this point moving closer to you and saying "stop this hit"
When you could not he would say, "what style was that?" (refering to how you got struck)
As you went to perhaps make a comment he would interupt and tell you "No style hit you, i hit you".

Anyway, i dont practice Jeetkunedo so I'll leave this thread to those that do.
cheers

 

Come on guys... I was really hoping to have a good conversation here. Bruce Lee was a great speaker with very well expressed thoughts, so do him justice by speaking up and expressing yourselves...

We don't all have to agree. I just want to understand what kind of perspectives Jeet Kune Do'ers have on their guy, his thoughts and his art.

 

I agree in as much as the practise of making JKD an individual style turned out to be pretty contradictory in the first place whilst its philosophy has pretty much been taken up as the philosophy of modern martial arts ( a good thing in my opinion) what with the advent of MMA and the prevalence of pro-cross training attitudes over the stylistic dogma of the past. I think this is something many martial artists overlook when detracting Bruce lee, as it has become kind of fashionable to do amongst many people now, even though as said detractors often point out there were people trying to advance this philosophy throughout the martial arts hundreds of years before Bruce his contribution can not be over looked.

 

The only thing contradictory to JKD is adding more and more techniques before you know for a fact that you cannot make the ones you already know work in as many senarios as you can. The only reason Bruce wanted to get away from style was his philosophical readings while he was in hospital. Some say he might have grown out of them as well. Unfortunately things he said was taken the wrong way and people thought its OK to just add and add whilst what they had was still sloppy and they had not evaluated why it was sloppy before jumping the wagon? or learning things for sentimental (rather than practical) reasons

 

I'm not sure that there's a useful way to choose one over the other. The physical motions are clear examples of the principles he espoused. And the principles are used to shape and guide both the selection and application of movements. The two are tied closely enough together that it's kinda meaningless to say "I think doing the straight lead and jeet tech are more important than the idea of using the longest weapon to reach the nearest target." Two sides of the same coin.

I suppose it is possible to take his concepts and apply them to material that Lee himself didn't deal with. I mean, people do it frequently. Some more successfully than others. Guro Dan applies the methodology to FMA, even given that Lee's relationship with FMA was cursory at best. Same with silat.

Now, you could argue (endlessly) that FMA and silat are not, in fact, expressions of JKD. Even when interpreted and performed by Guro Dan. Which mostly illustrates the problem with concepts. They offer overarching guidance. But they're subject to interpretation. And interpretation can go a lot of different ways. The openness of interpretation of Lee's ideas are responsible for both the vitality and the crippling infighting (and I'm not talking about trapping) present in JKD.

Whether that makes the philosophy more important, I leave up to you. It could be construed as important, even if it's not always beneficial.


Stuart

 

For me personally the techniques are patchy, and in many instances dated. His notes on ground fighting for example are great in that they show his desire to master all the ranges and situations that a fight can take place in but the actual techniques he describes are pretty poor. No reflection on him of course, it was a different age, but that still doesn't make them good techniques.

His philosophy on the martial arts on the other hand is for the most part wonderfully expressed and is, in my opinion, timeless. The views of many martial artists, including some on this very forum, show just ahead of his time he was. Some people STILL haven't caught up yet!

 

Which is why I recommended you actually work with a legitmate JKD instructor like Tommy Carruthers, or at least a certified WNG instructor because the sources you have read about what you think are the techniques are as patchy as your evaluation of them. You may actually find the techniques are not only still ahead of their time from a street fighting perspective, any technique matters much less than what you do to get into the position to execute them.

You will also find that they differ depending on whom he taught what to. For example Bob Bremer was taught a slightly different and in some perspectives more damaging straight lead fist than most other instructors. Those particular methods however would not have applied to people whom he taught to fight in the ring with gloves on because the alignment of the fist and knuckles had less significance for them. You will only get a picture of what he taught by learning from people who learned from him or his first generation students ....... not books and pages edited by people!

 

Hmmm? I’ll take a "Crack-Ca-Pow" at it... Well it's like saying which came first, the chicken or the egg... Oh, wrong story... Well joking aside, I don't know if I would call "IT" a technique... As I always say "technique well get your azz killed"... Now one does have to learn body composition, by understanding how "your" body moves in softness & hardness... Once an individual starts to understand this, about this time they are starting to develop their own "personal philosophy"... Then along comes the "one of the same" understanding... At this point "IT" just does the job at hand, problem solving is over within the moment... Simplicity is just that simple, call "IT" what you like...

 

I did a search and liked the WNG videos. They're a group of guys who've been training for years, they're good. And they've obviously improved the techniques massively in that time. Nothing on ground fighting though, which is the example I used. Any vid to that?

There are many ways to climb Mount Fuji.

 

If you look at "The art and philosophy of Bruce Lee" By inosanto there is clear evidence of the chinatown schools as well as his early institutes doing drills where people had to fight from the floor. Ground fighitng is not exclusive to grappling. Of the traditional Arts "Dog style Kung fu" ( a syllabus of white crane ) is an example where fighitng from the ground is the focus..again very little grappling. But that belonged to a different terrain and geography.

Some say Bruce did not give time to research it. Others said He had already researched it and it was of low priority to him as the objective of his methods was to never be in that position anyway. People like Tommy Carruthers and Pete Jenkins teach how to counter takedowns with dirty techniques. Many MMA takedowns are not taught in a manner to protect against these dirty counters. WNG focus on intercepting the takedown in the first place. Out side the JKD circle I hear Paul Vunak (formerly concept JKD) is much more focused now than ever on countering on the ground (Dirty MMA he calls it). but I have not seen much of his recent stuff. It sounds like you'd probably be more into that....Let me know how you find it if anyone has seem any. What I love about the JKD way of climbing mount Fuji is to find the quickest... using the least baggage.

And Yes there are many ways up to the mountain Peak. ....but the wise few who reach the top see the same moon....

 

I order to be able to counter a take down you must first know how to do a take down. In order to counter grappling you need to know how to do it and how it works otherwise you are just trying to counter something you think ( but don't actually know for certain ) You know how it works.

Best regards
Pat

 

Grappling is the ability to control and manipulate someone at close range. Being good at it is essental, both in terms of stand up and being on the ground, to a serious martial artist. But the idea of being able to ground fight without being able to grapple is complete nonsense.

I've done two separate and very different forms of traditional White Crane kung fu, and at one time watched pretty much every video of white crane kung fu, I could find and I've NEVER heard of Dog style being anything to do with any style of White Crane. I find this idea extremely dubious.

I've heard mention of Dog style kung fu before but never seen any evidence to suggest its in any way a traditional style. I think its was invented in the 'wu shu creative period'.

I'm not sure where geography comes into this???..

He made a lot of notes about it. I personally believe he'd have refined and improved his skills in that area had he lived. Like he did with everything else. Don't forget the wonderful wonderful techniques that are so readily available to us today weren't nearly so easy to dicover, or usually so refined, in his day.

Impractical, that approach won't work under pressure.

Whats an MMA takedown? There is no such thing as an MMA takedown. In the sport of MMA there has been literally almost every concivable variety of takedown employed at one time or another that it is possible for some person to perfrom on another. The term MMA takedown means literally nothing.

I'll have a search, thanks for the tip.

Thats certainly the theory, in practice it seems alot of 'JKD'ers seem to positively relish the baggage they struggle on with.

 

I used to think that way once but now I don't believe that is necessarily true or even practical.
If there are 70 odd takedowns in Judo why would I have to learn every single one of them to counter them. that will be unrealistic. JKD evaluates what works in more different ways. Not to play the opponents strenghts because that would be suicide and a waste of time.

What would substantiate my knowing how to do a takedown? Just going through the motions? Mastering it? being able to do it against a champion? which take down?

Evaluation of something doesn not imply doing it or mastering it. That would be paradoxical to The process of daily decrease.

 

I would class them as former JKDers. Trust me bro! mastering the Jun Fan JKD skills are a struggle enough as it is, which is why many give up on it. The Goal is to intelligently choose what you believe wholehearledly is worth the struggle depending on your objectives. There is nothing wrong with discarding something that is useless, too specialised or unessential. Infact THAT IS THE IDEA!

 

Of course you don't have to master 70 or so take downs from Judo. If you look at Judo properly you will find that there is not 70 different takedowns but rather just a few with several variations on the same theme.

But you do need to know how to do good takedowns against a resisting opponent so you can apply them properly and effectively otherwise you can't really show anyone how to counter a takedown simply because you cant show them the takedown in the first place.

Its like saying this is how you counter a jab cross when you jab cross is like a wet lettuce. If you show how to counter bad technique your counter to good technique will be bad.

So yes you do need to know how to do it before you can effectively counter it.

Its ok you saying well I would not grapple a grappler I would stay out of his range and do this or that. In a perfect world ok no problem but it is not a perfect world and if the grappler gives you no choice and you end up in his comfort zone you better have your act together and you better know what he is doing or you are going to counter absolutely nothing. And if you don't believe me there is only one way to find out.

Unfortunetly too many so call