Some ok leg obstruction stuff there, but overall not very good. for starters, where is ths guys bai jong? Em
I know he learned JKD from Guru Dan, but I thought his main focus was Shoot Wrestling, which is what that mostly looked like to me.
From what I've seen, he's a great JKD guy, there's a load of his instructional stuff on Youtube (in Japanese unfortunately). He's a Shooto champion and I think he teaches Shooto at Dan Inosanto's academy (he taught Erik Paulson if I remember correctly), I've also seen clips of him teaching regular JKD stuff there too. If you look at his clips, you can tell he's heavy into leg interceptions and kick counters. Here's some of his Kali and Silat stuff [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smDrrLppVgc&feature=related]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smDrrLppVgc&feature=related[/ame]
That didn't resemble Shooto in the slightest...that's pure JKD (not even close to Shooto's kicks/stances/anything really). He did start out as mainly a Shootist in the 80s, becoming an instructor after years of 8+ hour days of training (under the creator of the style, Sayama), then was invited to Los Angeles by Inosanto himself. Here he learned JKD, and very quickly, as you can imagine a man that good would, and also taught Guro Dan/Erik Paulsen et al Shooto, and is now the main JKD instructor at the academy (Guro Dan teaches it one night a week as opposed to Yori's four). If you have any doubts about the guy's talent in martial arts, ESPECIALLY JKD, or his knowledge about Bruce Lee, just come to the academy. People come all the time from all over the world for just a week or two to train under Yori and Inosanto; right now there's a guy from North Africa, last month were Austrians, there've been Russians, Italians, Japanese..."Where is this guy's bai jong?"...watch the clip again and just think if Bruce would wonder the same thing.
The Japanese pronunciation of the characters 截拳道 is sekkendo (せっけんどう). I don't know why they don't use the Japanese pronunciation. :yeleyes:
From what I've read here thus far, no one is doubting his talent, nor his knowledge about Bruce Lee, neither of which, along with people coming from all over the world to see him, equate to "pure JKD." His bai jong is off - for starters it's too wide, un-alive and posed (sacrificing greater mobility he'd then be able to tap), his protecting forward knee slightly in is missing, his centerline is completely open, and neither his nor his partner's bai jong are consistent, which for a demo, where forgetting here and there is due both to the pressure of combat and inadequate and sound practice, is non-existant. The fact that he can pull off the kicks and throws, in that clip, that he can, is admirable. He is also obviously very aggressive, which would give him an edge over some JKD practitioners (lacking in sufficient time at solid JKD structure, etc). None of which (great kicks, throws, aggressiveness, talent) equates to sound JKD structure - which, solidly in place, would give him even more of an edge, as Lee had consistently proven. For years, due to a scene in the hugely successful "Enter the Dragon" and Dan Inosanto's huge popularity, people from all over the world had concluded that JKD was two rattan sticks, for example. What did that prove? That they were seeing "pure JKD"? Since when are the masses correct on such things? Only recently has it been proven, and not by "people from all over the world," that no, that was not Bruce Lee's own JKD, but Dan's unique expression of his own JKD (nothing wrong with that in my book). I am not attacking Yuri. Merely looking at those issues. Hopefuly that can be looked at objectively rather than the typical response to "attacking" some JKD idol, what (not who) ever that idol may be. JKD is a solid art with a solid body of science and structure behind it. We should not be overlooking that just because someone - anyone - can execute what they can with great talent. I for one, have yet, nor will I be responding to anything less than objectivity on here. By itself, objectivity is enough of a bitter tasting pill, though needful.
You sound like you know a lot about JKD as Lee explained it, so you know that the 'style' itself should be mobile and fluid/adjustable by the practitioner. While a lot of people IMO make changes that they say suits them better when they are far from experienced enough to decide this appropriately, it can be argued that Sifu Yori is the best JKD practitioner in the world, so if he wants to widen his stance a bit or make any other changes to what some mistakenly think is a fixed Way, it will be for the purpose of giving him even more of an edge.
CP, thanks for your reply. By the same token, how would you reconcile the fact that Lee, a man who exhaustively played out all the angles scientifically, and who, as heavily influeneced as he was by Fencing, did not incorporate it's open toe, wide stance into his On Guard positioning - itself a fencing term! A man who way back then heavily incorporated what we are just now beginning to understand about high intensity interval training, who, at the top of his game, saw fit to expound and spar from, not some wide, karate type stance, but a small-phasic-bent knee, mobile, JKD base of technique execution? I'm not trying to be a smart aleck. I just see that when the science is left out, so is the benefit of even greater efficiency.
I reconcile that with the answer I'm sure we all know: Bruce was a strong proponent of the centerline theory, which is absent in fencing (or at least much less stressed than in Chinese gung fu), so he adjusted the On Guard position to cover this base. Back to Yori...he covers his own centerline fully comprehensively, including turning his lead foot inwards a bit to protect his groin, and if you saw the guy's footwork in action then you'd agree it's lightning quick with unmatched mobility, but per the topic at hand, that being the demo clip displayed above, I'll concede that it can be argued that he did not exhibit the strictest form as taught by JKD schools there. Being a student of his, however, even though for only under a year, I still must defend the man's JKD...it's absolutely unequivocal. Have you seen him in person? It's almost worth the monthly tuition for me to not even participate and just watch the guy in person. What's your JKD background out of curiosity?
