Cross Training by Guro Dan Inosanto
Expand the quote, it may be easier to read than the linked page, the entire thing is in yellow
Hi Xue,
I'm going to go down the controversial route here, and go through the essay from Guro Inosanto bit by bit, and cover how, to my mind, both he and Bruce Lee were, simply, wrong. Let's have some fun, eh?
Cross training is a term that has been long used in the athletic community Coaches, whether amateur or professional, have long acknowledged the benefits of exposing their athletes to training methods, concepts and strategies of sports other than those they are training their teams or athletes in. From my early school days through my college sports, cross training was not only accepted, but encouraged. However, this was not the case in the very traditional and close-minded martial arts community of the 1950s and '60s. There were few martial artists who dared to look into arts other than the one they represented. Among those who did see the value of cross training was Mr. Ed Parker, my Kenpo karate instructor. My Sifu, Bruce Lee, was another.
Okay, here's my first issue with the presentation.
Dan is talking about apples and oranges.
I'll explain. When it comes to athletic cross-training, the meaning there is to have different training methodologies in order to strengthen different aspects of the athletic performance, always related back to the primary goal. If there is no flow-over benefit, they wouldn't do it either... but, in this sense, we're actually talking about cardio being the dominant training methodology, but then cross-training in strength training as well to act as a support for the cardio itself. Obviously, this has it's limits as well (you're not going to get a body-builder style approach for someone working on running marathons, for example... it adversely affects the type of cardio required by adding a lot more weight to carry for long periods... which then highlights that cardio itself changes between, say, marathon runners and sprinters as well). But, importantly, what is being trained are various physiological traits, and really nothing beyond that. And everything is geared towards the primary goal itself. Martial arts simply don't work that way.
Martial arts are, as I mentioned in another thread a moment ago, a form of physio-psychological conditioning and development practice, not just a physiological trait development. This means that the physical activities are not so much about the physical traits, but are a way of inputing mental and psychological behaviours, strengthening and creating very particular synaptic connections in the brain in order to generate a holistic, unified manner of engaging (tactically, psychologically, physiologically) with the world around you. The idea of looking to other arts to add to yours is fraught with potential issues and dangers, being more likely to weaken your primary study, or at least distort and dilute it, while adding on aspects that are, by necessity, altered from their optimum form in order to try to shoehorn it into the pre-existing concepts. Literally the only way to do it is to end up not doing any of the various arts, but to end up with something different entirely... but we'll get there.
Decades ahead of his time in his fervent pursuit of martial arts knowledge,
No, he wasn't. He was, at best, centuries behind.
Let's take just one example, shall we? The founder of Takagi Ryu Jujutsu studied naginata from his father, sword from Yagyu Ryu under Ota Jirouemon and Yagyu Ichinoshin, Kyochi Ryu Sojutsu (spear) from Danemono Muto, Ito Kenko Ryu (sword, spear, bo, kodachi, and so on) from Ito Kii Morisatada, as well as studying Gungaku (military strategy), Shinmon (spiritual teachings), Kahojutsu (cannon), Jutte, Kusarigama, and more from a variety of other teachers. This was then combined with a rough jujutsu form derived from sumai (older, combative sumo) into the initial Takagi Ryu. His successor then studied Takenouchi Ryu, and used that to reconstitute the jujutsu portion into Takagi Ryu Jujutsu. His successor then encountered a practitioner of a line of Kukishin Ryu Bojutsu, which was also incorporated into the school, creating Takagi Yoshin Ryu Jujutsu Kukishin Ryu Bojutsu, which continued as a unified lineage from the 4th generation onwards. In this one school, the founder studied under some 10 or 12 different teachers, and the next two generations continued to develop the school with outside influence, each time essentially creating a new (version) of the system they were practicing.
We can look at the fact that, in the Edo period, many daimyo would reward their retainers (samurai) with armour, horses, weaponry, increased income etc for gaining licence in multiple schools... the more schools you studied, the higher the reward, as it added to the status of the daimyo and reflected well on them. If anything, I would say that modern arts have become a bit more insular in terms of the way training outside your school is viewed, but I also think the reasons for that need to be thoroughly understood, which, here, they just aren't. By either Bruce, or Dan (or Ed Parker, for that matter... there are reasons for this, of course).
Sifu Bruce Lee literally left "no art unexamined and researched."
No, he didn't.
I can probably list 50 arts off the top of my head he would have been completely ignorant of even existing, let alone having "examined and researched" them. Even more importantly, all Bruce did was a generalist form of "examination and research"... not the actual martial arts, just the overview of a categorisation of a subset of a martial approach. Actually studying, examining, and researching arts (particular) themselves is, simply, not something he had the time to have been able to do, nor was it something he really grasped (the distinction between them).
Sifu Bruce had the most extensive martial arts library of anyone I have ever met. Not only did his collection consist of martial arts books, but also of body building, nutritional and philosophical publications.
Okay. This is, obviously, purely a subjective appraisal by Dan himself, but, even then, I can think of a number of martial arts libraries that would have easily dwarfed Bruce's... they just won't likely have been in English, or accessible from a Western perspective in the 70's. Thinking now? My personal library, which is far from exhaustive, would likely be, if not larger, probably similar in size from the accounts I've read and seen.
During my training with Sifu Bruce Lee, he was always introducing me to various books that would help my growth in the martial arts and in my personal life. One of these books was The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which contains many principles and concepts that are still valid today.
Ah, Dan... you were introduced to Sun Tzu, and think this was some kind of specialised text? This has been a standard text for Japanese society since at least the Heian period of the 10th to 12th Centuries... of course, how much was really understood (in its context and in its application) is another question entirely...
In this book, Sun Tzu states, "Some people are intelligent in knowing themselves, but stupid in knowing their opponents and with others it's the other way around; neither kind can solve the problem of learning and applying the laws of war".
Well, that's one way of expressing it... it's more commonly "if you know only yourself, and not the enemy, you will be successful only half the time. If you know the enemy, but not of yourself, you can only expect to win the other half. If you come to understand both yourself and your enemy, you will win even 1,000 battles, and should you not know yourself or the enemy, you will fail in every military endeavour."
Of course, it's important to actually get what he means, and how that applies to martial study...
If you only know yourself and the system you practice, you are only 50% prepared. Sifu Lee knew that, to understand and deal with combat, you must know what other styles and individuals practice and specialize.
Because this isn't it.
This is, instead, a kind of fear response. It's a form of paranoia, a feeling that there is something "unknown" out there that you have to learn in order to be able to beat it. This is a fool's errand, a time-suck that promises impossibilities, and feeds into a simplistic, and un-nuanced view of martial arts, their structure, their depth, their intent, their application, and their purpose in the first place. You just, simply, cannot learn every single martial approach on the planet just in case you happen to come across someone who just so happens to train in and use that particular martial approach, as that is not only deeply impractical, it also denies the reality that the majority of "real world" encounters will likely be with someone who is not trained in any particular martial approach whatsoever... so why are you wasting the time with that idea in mind?
What it actually means is that you need to have an ability to come to an understanding and assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of both yourself, and the opposing force(s). It is written with the idea of pitching large-scale (for China circa 2,000 years ago) battle, with massed forces on each side, not for the idea of individual, one-on-one combative encounters in "self defence" or competition. This can mean employing information gathering and scouting runs, honest assessment of yourself, a familiarity with the terrain, the offensive and defensive capabilities of each force, and so on. You don't need to train in the enemy camp, but having an idea of how their army is arrayed, where their fortifications are, what their supplies are like, and where the supplies/reinforcements are coming from, where they are putting their strength (archers? cavalry?), which lines are going to be easily broken, which have stronger defences, and so on, as well as taking an honest look at your own forces in order to know where to expect an attack, how you can shore up weaker points, and so on. Can this be translated to inter-personal combat scenarios? Yep. But that doesn't mean you have to train the other system. A good martial art won't need to know what the attackers methods are, in that sense.
During my course in training with Sifu Bruce, he was always researching and experimenting with different tactics and modes of attacks. Sometimes Sifu Bruce would have me attack him in a method from a system or style he was unfamiliar with, to see what response he would instinctively react with.
Okay, controversy time.
Bruce was a junior student at best.
Look, he was immensely talented, physically gifted, dedicated, driven, hungry, and charismatic... but he was largely uneducated when it came to actual martial arts practice. He was a student of Ip Man for maybe 3 years, and only completed the first two forms of the traditional structure, did not study the mook jong man (wooden dummy training), nor the weaponry aspects, or any number of other areas. His training was often with a couple of senior students, with reports stating that he was more interested in combative applications than the actual martial drills and exercises, which means that he would have missed a lot of what goes into making those applications work within the framework of Wing Chun itself. So I find it absolutely no surprise that he was then trying to fill the gaps in his knowledge and understanding by looking to other, accessible sources. He simply didn't know himself well enough, so he sought to know the (imagined, and not realistic) enemy. He missed the real lesson of Sun Tzu there.
As far as Dan attacking with "a method from a system or style he (Bruce) was unfamiliar with", the biggest question there is, naturally, how familiar with the other system/style was Dan himself? Because, unless it was something he was genuinely fluent in, all he could have done is a poor aping imitation of what he thinks the other system was trying to do, likely without understanding either the how or why of it all... which, again, renders the entire process rather meaningless other than to inflate Bruce's idea of how well he was doing things.
When I first started training with Sifu Bruce, he was in the midst of creating a "system" of combat that centered around a modified form of Wing Chun -- a blending of his modifications and ideas on the strategies of Western boxing, and then using the principles and tactics for Western fencing. He took kicking from different systems, including Chinese and non-Chinese systems, then customized it for himself.
And that's what needs to be the end result, as I said earlier. It's not so much cross-training with the idea of knowing all systems, as implied above, as that is, simply, beyond impractical; instead, additional knowledge and outside experiences, when put on a (fairly) solid base (in this case, Bruce's incomplete study of Wing Chun), and adapted to match the underlying principles and concepts, creates a new system itself. There just isn't another way. You don't switch from wrestling to boxing to judo to aikido to muay Thai to TKD and so forth. You may take some concepts from an art, and figure a way to work it into your existing system, but just transplanting them is, well, stupid.
He was into investigating every known system that he was exposed to during that time period.
Which, naturally, begs the question of what he was exposed to... and how much exposure did he get. As you well know, Xue, "kung fu" isn't one system of martial arts, the same way that "jujutsu" isn't a single system, same as FMA isn't a singular system, and so on. What separates different systems within a categorisation of martial systems can lead to immense variation... and, even when seemingly similar (on the surface), the underlying reasoning, what we call the ri-ai in Japanese arts, as well as the base principles, tactical mindset, and intended application can be wildly removed from each other.
More to the point, Bruce, at this point, was living in Oakland, in the mid 60's... just how much variety of martial art was around for him to be exposed to? At his university, there was a wrestling team... there was quite likely a boxing group, potentially a fencing club, and so on... famously, Bruce was challenged by local CMA teachers over his teaching of non-Chinese, so how much of those systems were genuinely accessible to him? Judo and karate had been introduced to the US really only in relatively recent times at that stage (the 50's and 60's, really), so there wasn't much of that around, and what there was wasn't of great quality. Aikido was pretty much unheard of in most areas, having been introduced to the mainland in 1956, but not spreading to much of the country until at least the mid-60's... other arts attributed later have similarly problematic sourcing and exposure questions for Bruce.
During this time, he even taught me different sets and forms from a few Chinese systems. He then moved away from this type of training.
The only forms that we know Bruce was genuinely taught/exposed to are the first two forms for Wing Chun, Sil Lum Tau and Chum Kiu. He never learnt the third, Bil Gee. There are references to him studying Taiji with his father when he was young, but no other account of him training in any other CMA form that I have come across.
The idea, though, of "moving away from this type of training", I presume refers to form-style training. He's not the first, or last to do that, but I always wonder what would have been if he had understood what the form training actually does...
I have read in some martial arts publications that he didn't practice the Filipino martial arts such as Eskrima and Kali, and he therefore didn't integrate these arts into his personal system of Jeet Kune Do. While this is true, he was exposed to Filipino martial arts many times by me and, although he may not have put it into his personal system of combat, he did on many occasions practice with me the single stick, double stick and olisi toyuk (nunchaka).
Many people say I taught him the olisi toyuk (nunchaka), single stick and double stick. I like to say I shared with him and demonstrated and practiced with him. We also experimented with light sparring with single stick, double stick and olisi toyuk. So, in my opinion, he practiced the Eskrima and Kali on a small scale to research it, and to put elements of the nunchakas, double stick and single stick in his movies.
Okay. This is Dan's account, and there is no reason to doubt it. I will say that it follows the pattern of only looking at the surface of a system (weapons, techniques), rather than any real attempt to understand it or study it in earnest, which then means that the only thing that can be brought across are the surface level aspects.
You will also read in martial arts publications that Sifu Lee only used Chinese martial arts. Again, this is incorrect. Techniques he modified, equipment he used and principles and concepts he utilized were from many different disciplines and systems.
So... is taking technical methods (typically removed from the context and reasoning in the original system) really the same as utilising different disciplines? I would say no.
The best eight examples where Sifu Bruce drew techniques,
Okay, let's look at what we know about where Bruce came into contact with these.
strategies, principles, concepts, tactics, training progressions and training exercises are:
Hmm. Before we get too far that way, maybe we discuss exactly what is claimed to be included.
Strategies.... not so sure about that. Strategic thinking (overall game plan) is based on context. The strategy in tennis is to win the game. In a tournament, it's to score more points than the opponent, or otherwise gain success. In military conflict, it's to advance the position, and defeat the enemy. In self defence, it's to protect yourself and escape when possible.
Principles. These will be based in the context, and cultural expression. Transplanting principles from one system to another without those contextual and cultural aspects leads to just superficial "techniques", not in any way a genuine application of the principles.
Concepts. Well, that's a vague term... a concept is basically an idea... so, what do we mean by "ideas" (or concepts) being brought in? The idea that punching is effective? Honestly, this word is often thrown in without any real meaning...
Tactics... ah, now we get interesting... tactics are the specific game plan, if you will. Strategies are overall aims, but tactics are how those aims are intended to be carried out. In other words, if the strategy is "win the tournament", the tactic would be "get my opponent to tap out to an armlock or a choke" (a la Royce Gracie in the first UFC... that was his stated tactical thinking). But, here's the thing... the tactic itself is dictated by the strategic aims and goals, which, themselves, are dictated by the contextual situation. Can you just take tactical ideas from one system, for a particular strategic aim, in a particular contextual situation, and bring it to a completely different one? Maybe, with some adaptation, but in many cases... no. Bring the wrong tactical approach to a competition, and you get beaten, or disqualified.
Training progressions? I would posit that a training progression is pretty consistent, starting with foundational actions, moving through options and applications, and ending with more refined and deeper aspects. Not sure how that's something borrowed...
Training exercises. This, really, is the heart of actual cross-training... but, as mentioned at the beginning, cannot be in a vacuum. It needs to be applied within the context of being of benefit to the primary training system.
Okay, let's look at the various influences.
Bruce was a part of the boxing team at his school in Hong Kong, and won a tournament in 1958. This was the same time he was training in Wing Chun.
The fencing influence is said to have come about around 1967 or so, as this is when it turns up in his writings. There is no reference I've come across about if he studied it formally (he may have with some of the fight choreographers for the Green Hornet series he had begun working on), but it was likely highly rudimentary.
This one is rather confusing... savate wasn't known to be taught in the US until the 1980's, so it's most likely either a brief encounter in Hong Kong, or purely reading about it.
Bruce met "Judo" Gene LeBell during the filming of the Green Hornet series. The two were said to be fairly close, and would exchange training ideas together.
Leaving off the spelling issue, I would be quite surprised if Bruce ever encountered anything like actual Japanese Jujutsu (specifically talking about classical arts, as that's really the vast majority of what is truly Japanese jujutsu). More than likely, it was more "unorthodox", or "dirty" judo from Gene, who was known for such things.
Likely at his university, probably cross-trained with his early students.
7. Muay Thai elbow and knee
This is probably from Dan himself. The first recorded muay Thai instructor in the US, Ajarn Chai, taught out of Dan's studio from around 1968 onwards. The first established association wouldn't eventuate until the late 70's.
8. Head bun of Burmese bando
Bando was first taught in the US in the early 60's in Washington, DC, rather than Washington State, where Bruce was. I haven't found anything to state it being taught close to him at that time, however it was mentioned in the writings of Donn Draeger at the time, which may be where Bruce became aware of it. How much exposure he had is another question.
An uneducated person may not recognize these elements in Sifu Bruce's personal system because he blended it so well for his personal expression of his Jeet Kune Do.
I would posit that, regardless of education, a person may not recognise these elements as they are completely removed from being what they were (or what they were intended for) in the first place. At most, some superficial aspect may remain, but, at the end of the day, they don't really "exist" in the JKD approach in a real sense, as that would rob any benefit for inclusion.
To me, he is like one of those Smoothie juice drinks in a health food store. All you can see is the Smoothie and not all the vitamins, amino acids, or protein powder that might have been mixed into it.
This analogy I like, but it's more like not being able to either reconstitute or locate the banana in the smoothie. You may detect some of it's flavour, depending on how much is there compared to other ingredients, and it helps with the consistency, again, dependent on how much other material is used, but there's no way you'd say you can get the banana back out again. It's ceased to functionally be a banana in this sense.
A martial artist may not recognize the Judo and Jiu-Jitsu element in it because he enters differently using the Western Boxing and Wing Chun to flow into the throws of Jiu-Jitsu, Judo and Chin Na, and then flowing into the submission jocks and chokes.
If you're not using judo entering then you're not doing judo, and there's no judo to recognise. That's the point. And thinking that "throws = judo", or "locks = aikido", or "kicks = savate or tkd" is to completely and totally misunderstand the very design and structure of martial arts in the first place.
There is no "cross-training". There is no "judo" in JKD. At the most, there is judo influence in JKD, depending on lineage and instructor (JKD is fun that way).
Sifu Bruce was constantly evolving. When I trained with him in 1964, he didn't possess the alive footwork that he later used. This came about through experimentation and constant practice. I remember when he coined the terms for his foot work, such as step and slide advance, step and slide retreat, etc.
Bruce was driven, and talented. That tends to lead to frustration, particularly when the education side is lacking (as it was with him... not by his own fault, of course, but it needs to be acknowledged to get at what he did, and why).
Sifu Bruce Lee practiced what he preached, living by his own creed:
1. "Jeet Kune Do utilizes all ways and is bound by none."
Yeah... gotta say, this is a recipe for inconsistency and failure. Simply, there needs to be constraints and boundaries. Otherwise, there's no way to have anything tangible. I get the idea that this is supposed to promote ("I'm not held back by anything like dogma or doctrine, I can do whatever I want, and I'm free!"), except it just doesn't work that way. There are always boundaries, and there is no way to utilise "all ways", as many will be contradictory to others.
In other words, this is an idealistic statement that doesn't hold up to reality.
2. "Jeet Kune Do is finding the cause of your own ignorance.
Is it? How? What I mean is, how does JKD help you find the cause of your ignorance? I can see the argument that it highlights your ignorance, but finds the cause? A bit outside the box for the system, I would say.
But, here's the thing. Thinking you need to cross train in different systems in order to fill perceived gaps (ignorance), to me, means that you don't understand your own system well enough. After all, each system is a process of engaging with threats, put in a particular context, and shaped by cultural influence and expectations. In that sense, no art is lacking anything... unless all you do is look at lists of techniques and think superficially.
3. "Using No Way as Way" and 'Having no limitation as limitation."
While very similar to the first quote, what I would point out here is that, simply, this is just a rewrite of Musashi's Gorin no Sho, where he admonishes to not think of adopting any particular position, to move as is appropriate to the situation, and so on. The thinking is that of a tactician, rather than a simple technician. Which, at the end of the day, is the same in any other art. The techniques are really just a consistent way to get to that manner of thinking, not a constraint to hold you to only the techniques as written.
4. '"Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless and add what is specifically your own."
This is an interesting one, especially for Western (very especially for American) followers of Bruce, because, well, this ain't originally Bruce's statement. It's something he took from a 1936 essay by Mao Zedong, entitled "Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War", and is his view on how the Communist Party of China should approach political and militaristic thinking, looking to history and outward examples with a critical eye, then "assimilate what is useful, reject anything that is of no use, and add in what is specifically your own".
It is important that a student in Jeet Kune Do have a good foundation in the Jun Fan method of Gung Fu before he expands, explores and "absorbs what is useful" for his own personal system of Jeet Kune Do.
After a student has a good understanding of the Jun Fan method, I feel it is important for the student not to adhere strictly to the techniques, principles, concepts and strategies of Sifu Bruce Lee.
This is my biggest issue with those thinking that Bruce was some kind of revolutionary thinker in martial arts. What is described here is essentially the standard development of any martial artist, except Bruce (and Dan) seem to think that all contexts are the same, or that, perhaps, context itself is something more malleable, and almost irrelevant, that all arts can be changed to the context that they are thinking of.
In all my systems, as the student progresses, they develop their own way of inhabiting the system, understanding and working within it's context, but acting in a way that is uniquely theirs. No two menkyo holders in SMR do things the same way that I've seen. There will be similarities, sure, and the techniques are essentially the same, but they are really only there as containers for the actual art. When you start thinking that the techniques are the art, you've missed the point.
Each student must depart on his own journey to find what is workable for him in philosophy, technique, tactics, strategies and principles in the Jun Fan method and then explore other methods that interest him.
Which leaves people with... nothing.
You have often heard people quote Sifu Bruce Lee saying, "Jeet Kune Do is not the accumulation of knowledge, but hacking away at the unessential." But do they truly understand what they preach? For the accumulation of knowledge and hacking away at the unessential is not a product, but a process. It is a continual process that lasts our entire lives. We are constantly accumulating and eliminating, then again accumulating and eliminating. I practice arts other than Jun Fan and Jeet Kune Do -- such as Silat, Kali, Muay Thai, Savate, Shoot Wrestling, Bando and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu -- so I am criticized by people because they say this is accumulating, and that Jeet Kune Do is an eliminating process. You practice the entire system because it is part of the curriculum and it interests you, but you never embrace the entire system; you embrace what works for you in that system that you are practicing.
This idea of removing unessential aspects is, again, the way all martial arts work, and have done for centuries at least. Bruce is, again, far from ahead of his time, he is behind by centuries, and trying to catch up due to a lack of education. I would also say that, if you never embrace the entire system, then you aren't in a position to really say what is or is not of value, which denies the very idea here in the first place.
In the words of my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor, Rigan Machado, "You don't fit into the Jiu-Jitsu; you make the Jiu-Jitsu fit you." In other words, the entire Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu might not fit you so you must take the parts of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to fit you.
Sure, but you don't start punching people in the face in rolling, or pulling a knife because "it fits you". The parameters of the system are still essential to actually consider yourself as doing the art.
Remember that Bruce Lee was "a finger pointing to the moon," As he said, "Don't gaze on the finger or you will miss all the heavenly glory." I like to think that Sifu Bruce was a really good finger pointing to the moon.
Bluntly, I don't think so. He was pointing to a picture of the moon, unsure of the difference, as he'd never seen the real thing.
I'd like to close with my poem:
We are all climbing different paths through the mountain of life and
We have all experienced much hardship and strife.
There are many paths through the mountain of life
And some climbs can be felt like a point of a knife
Some paths are short and others are long
Who can say what path is wrong
The beauty of truth is that each path has its own song
and if you listen closely you will find where you belong.
So climb your own path true and strong
But respect all other truths for your way for them could be wrong.
A lovely little poem... however, stumbling around blindly may lead you up the mountain, or you could just as easily end up lost. More easily, I would say.
There is no cross-training (in it's true sense), other than when Bruce was bringing in weight training, cardio, running, and other physical exercise methods... and that kind of cross training is absolutely encouraged and approved of. What is being discussed here, though, is stripmining of superficialities and failing to understand even what was present in the first place.
