JKD is the best right???

[jkd friend]

I truly know it is the best but I personally don't see it alot. Can any body tell me where I can see it in a tournament like setting.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Andrew Green]

Well, some might argue that mixed martial arts is JKD.

To others it is a copy of Bruce Lee's system.

To others it is a collection of arts that should be blended (Kali, Wing Chun, Boxing, etc)

To say it is the best is meaningless, and to even try to call it one thing is rather odd.

 

[exile]

I truly know it is the best but I personally don't see it alot. Can any body tell me where I can see it in a tournament like setting.

JKD friend, can I offer you some friendly advice? I have yet to see a thread that focused on whether some established fighting system was the `best'---or even `better than [name of some other established fighting system goes here]'---go anywhere constructive. As Andrew G. correctly says, it's essentially meaningly to ask whether X or Y is best/better---because (i) you can't make any judgments about these systems in the abstract (well, you can, but unless everyone shares the same criteria for evaluation, you're not going to get anything like consensus, ever) and (ii) you can't judge it by on-the-ground results because in any given contest, the participants demonstrating X and Y respectively would have to have perfectly equal fighting ability---and how likely is that?? Since it's just as likely that the winning X-fighter won because s/he was just better than the losing Y fighter, you can't draw any conclusions about X and Y themselves from the outcome of the match. This point has been made on a hundred different MT threads...

The issue of whether JKD `itself' appears in tournaments is separate, and also problematic (Inosanto doesn't look to me anything like Lee when they execute MA moves, but both are doing JKD). The main point is, it's not going to be productive to start your query with a statement which has a good chance of turning into an unresolvable and eventually angry quarrel. We get into enough trouble with the mods as it is! ;-)

 

[jkd friend]

Well, some might argue that mixed martial arts is JKD.

To others it is a copy of Bruce Lee's system.

To others it is a collection of arts that should be blended (Kali, Wing Chun, Boxing, etc)

To say it is the best is meaningless, and to even try to call it one thing is rather odd.

I mean no harm but sifu bruce lee said to have no form is the way to assume all forms and the same with styles so how can disrespect someone by saying JKD IS THE BEST but sorry anyway

 

[exile]

I mean no harm but sifu bruce lee said to have no form is the way to assume all forms and the same with styles so how can disrespect someone by saying JKD IS THE BEST but sorry anyway

It's not a matter of disrespecting anyone. The problem is that the statement you made---`JKD is the best'---is in principle impossible to verify---how would you do it?? The fact that Bruce Lee said something hardly makes it true, right?---maybe he was mistaken! But even if he were right, does that necessarily translate into superiority between systems? Lee's style was based heavily on Chinese fighting systems (and I believe that he also had done some TKD); Danny Inosanto's foundational fighting sytems are Filipino MAs. But both are JKD, right? It's entirely conceivable that if circumstances had been a bit different, the inheritor of Lee's mantle would have been someone else, a Tang Soo Do practitioner ( or Goju Ryu or...) Lee, as I understand him, regarded JKD as an approach, not a separate system unto itself. I think, based on his own writings. that he would have been the very last person to accept the validity of any claim that any one system is better than any other system, regardless of what those systems were.

 

[jkd friend]

I say this only because JKD includes so many things it's not that it is over all but that it is all in a sense-------------------------------------------------------------------------jkd friend----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[exile]

I say this only because JKD includes so many things it's not that it is over all but that it is all in a sense

But you know, a lot of people in the `classical striking arts', e.g. various varieties of karate/TKD, believe that if kata are correctly interpreted, and if those interpretations then guide the MAist's training, those classical systems also contain a much larger number of things than is generally taught. What I think is the heart of the matter is not the technical content of the system, which for any of these classical arts is too rich to be mastered in a single lifetime, but how one trains in it and how far practitioners are willing to push their investigation into the resources of their art to discover the fighting method it offers at all ranges of combat.

 

[arnisador]

I say this only because JKD includes so many things it's not that it is over all but that it is all in a sense

How people do JKD varies a lot. For some there's a heavier boxing influence, for others more Kali, and so on...it depends.

 

[matt.m]

You guys are bringing up some great points. Kudos to all who have posted before me. Look, the way I can decide what is best is to do the following: What do you want to learn, how do you want to go about learning, what art incorporates what you want? The best art is in and of itself contradictory, in fact the best art is the art that is best suited for the practioner taking part in the arts cirriculum.

Recently, I had to retire from hapkido for medical reasons. I will never formally partake in hapkido class sessions again. So to me hapkido is not the best art. It is highly effective due to a broad spectrum of cirriculum however, I cannot practice it any longer.

Now, the perfect art to me is Tae Kwon Do. I can participate in that art and partake in it's cirriculum, which I have been doing so for some time.

Everyone get my point?

 

[exile]

You guys are bringing up some great points. Kudos to all who have posted before me. Look, the way I can decide what is best is to do the following: What do you want to learn, how do you want to go about learning, what art incorporates what you want? The best art is in and of itself contradictory, in fact the best art is the art that is best suited for the practioner taking part in the arts cirriculum.

Yes, absolutely! There's no question that there may be one art that's optimal for a given practitioner---and that's really the only sense in which the notion of `best art' can be meaningful.

Recently, I had to retire from hapkido for medical reasons. I will never formally partake in hapkido class sessions again. So to me hapkido is not the best art. It is highly effective due to a broad spectrum of cirriculum however, I cannot practice it any longer.

Ouch... I'm really sorry to hear that, Matt.

Now, the perfect art to me is Tae Kwon Do. I can participate in that art and partake in it's cirriculum, which I have been doing so for some time.

Everyone get my point?

Yes, and you're right on target. It's just too bad that you were kind of forced out of your first chosen art for reasons totally beyond your control... but at least TKD was available to you. That's a nice bit of `silver lining'.

 

[zDom]

I'm sorry but you are mistaken. Hapkido is best.

Just ask me.

 

[still learning]

Hello, The best is not about styles,system,.....it is the individuals who trains hard ,becomes best at what they do.

If you are talking about what schools offer the best training for self-defense? again it is what each individual takes from the training and is able to apply them.

No two fights will be the same,no two attacks will be the same, each time may require a different self-defense....if you train very hard and practice daily...any MA system will/can work to save you.

So far learning to running away usually works.....along as you can out run the attacker.

If a bear is charging you and your friend....(all you need to do is out run your friend!)

Learn to run "my friend"..........Aloha

 

[bigfighter16]

You guy are right, there is no such thing as the best martial art. I am a major fan of JKD and also a new student of JKD. But it all depends on the person.

 

[exile]

You guy are right, there is no such thing as the best martial art. I am a major fan of JKD and also a new student of JKD. But it all depends on the person.

It's really strange how complicated everything gets so quickly. No one seems able to agree on anything. I was looking over a JKD thread earlier today where someone (probably working for the publisher) was using MT to push a lot of hype about what Bruce Lee `really' thought, etc. etc., the effect of which was to make it seem as though JKD was just another martial style of the usual kind. Fortunately, a lot of good heads jumped on the post and the discussion made it clear that Lee had always thought of JKD as an approach to combat which, just as you say, depended a lot on the particular fighter and his/her strategy and the tactics used to back up that strategy (though BL's personal implementation was obviously influenced by Chinese MAs primarily). But there is this temptation to rank MAs in absolute terms... my little boy is nine and keeps asking me stuff like, was Beethoven greater than Mozart? I try to get across to him that at that level of genius, the notion of `greater than' doesn't mean anything. I guess my view of the MAs is similar. All of these arts are brilliant and it doesn't mean anything to rank them... compare and contrast, sure. But `better'????

 

[Robert Lee]

Any type of self defence training. Is a step to learning. Structured training. The street fighter with no training learned from what they did in a fight. A big key is having the heart to go on. with out this you fail. No one art has all the answers. or even close. Each art has a method to train by some seem more realistic in method some do not. But in the end what you can do and how you can apply it .That is what is to be counted on. Skill times heart thats seperates many people. With both you can effectively handle yourself in a fight situation Often people find there self with structured knowledge they can not apply because its not instinictive knowledge That is not skill that is more or less programed knowledge. So to look at any style and say this is the best is not seeing that only you can take from the method what you can get working for you. that part has but one name the name is you Say you have trained the JKD method it has certion structures to its learning. Then you absorbed keys that improved yourself towards a better way of defending your self. That is really not any longer JKD its you how you can use the given tools you absorbed no name at all anymore. Yes you continue to train JKD it helps to hone and improve your base. But when ever you ever need your tools you simply just use them and hopefuly have the heart to effectively get them working. End goal to any M/A is you the person not the name of a art.

 

[zDom]

I'm sorry but you are mistaken. Hapkido is best.

Just ask me.

Since somebody obviously took my comment seriously enough to send me (unsigned) negative rep , I'll come out and say it: it was a self-deprecating joke meant to convey that there are a lot of people out there that think their martial art is the best.

The truth is I don't think there is a "best" martial art.

IMO, it is up to each individual to determine what art is best for them. And for most areas that don't have dozens of schools around, it often comes down to "what is the best available."

 

[DeLamar.J]

I truly know it is the best but I personally don't see it alot. Can any body tell me where I can see it in a tournament like setting.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think the JKD philosophy is great, but to say it is the best way, would be going against its philosophy. To say it is the best, and the only way, would close a persons mind to much.

 

[exile]

Since somebody obviously took my comment seriously enough to send me (unsigned) negative rep , I'll come out and say it: it was a self-deprecating joke meant to convey that there are a lot of people out there that think their martial art is the best.

The truth is I don't think there is a "best" martial art.

IMO, it is up to each individual to determine what art is best for them. And for most areas that don't have dozens of schools around, it often comes down to "what is the best available."

zDom, the humerous intent of your post would have been obvious even if you hadn't put in the nudge-nudge-wink-wink emoticon to drive the ironic point home. Someone made a serious error of judgment in taking your note the wrong way. So I'm going to try to do my bit to compensate for them by giving you a positive rep; maybe some of the other readers on this thread would join me?

 

[exile]

I think the JKD philosophy is great, but to say it is the best way, would be going against its philosophy.

That's it in a nutshell.

 

[arnisador]

maybe some of the other readers on this thread would join me?

As opposed to the alternative, which is not treating it as a thread for jokes and complaints about reputation but instead using it to talk about JKD?