JKD: Minimum Curriculum?

arnisador

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Most people will tell you that JKD isn't a style and doesn't so much have techniques as it does an "adopt what is useful" strategy.

Yet, if you go to a JKD school, they're teaching something--and that something is highly likely to include pak sao/lop sao, the straight blast, HKE, finger jab, jab, cross punch, and a few other specific techniques.

Are there specific techniques that, despite the "absorb what is useful" paradigm, you feel simply must be in a school's teaching if they are indeed to be said to be teaching JKD? Please interpret this question both literally and also in a "gut feeling" sense--that is, you may well feel that JKD is about an approach and not a specific set of technqiues, but how would you really feel about a JKD school that had no boxing/savate/Wing Chun/Muay Thai style techniques but instead had "absorbed what is useful" out of Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido, and Tang Soo Do? Would that seem out-of-whack to you?
 

James Kovacich

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Originally posted by arnisador
Most people will tell you that JKD isn't a style and doesn't so much have techniques as it does an "adopt what is useful" strategy.

Yet, if you go to a JKD school, they're teaching something--and that something is highly likely to include pak sao/lop sao, the straight blast, HKE, finger jab, jab, cross punch, and a few other specific techniques.

Are there specific techniques that, despite the "absorb what is useful" paradigm, you feel simply must be in a school's teaching if they are indeed to be said to be teaching JKD? Please interpret this question both literally and also in a "gut feeling" sense--that is, you may well feel that JKD is about an approach and not a specific set of technqiues, but how would you really feel about a JKD school that had no boxing/savate/Wing Chun/Muay Thai style techniques but instead had "absorbed what is useful" out of Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido, and Tang Soo Do? Would that seem out-of-whack to you?

Very hard to answer correctly. So "correct" may be in the eyes of the beholder. I think the biggest "pushers" of the pure concept without the underlying art are the self taught newbies that justify "their" self taught JKD.

JKD does have an underlying structure which is used to teach the concept/art of JKD. We can borrow from other arts and still follow the concepts but these other arts in their "whole" do not fall within the concept.

Most first and second generation JKD students learned Jun Fan. I don't think that Dan Inosanto would certify anyone that he did not "expose" to Jun Fan. His student (second generation) Paul Vunak learned Jun Fan. Why was this "art of no art" included in the curriculum? Because it falls within the "concepts" and it is a "proven" method of teaching JKD.

From what I've seen most of the third and fourth generation students today teach less Jun Fan and some teach none. So is their curriculum JKD? Yes, because they went through the "process" of learning JKD and were given "approval" by their instructor.


I think that Bruce must have known that eventually their would be little of his original art left but I can't imagine how the "art of no art" can be continually taught (when it is only a concept), it is quite often very differant and usually always has the same name.:D

:asian:
 

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Economy of motion. Interception. Stop-hit. H/FIA, SDA, SIA, PIA, ABC. Basic physical fitness. Non-telegraphic motion.

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When I studied for a short time, they were basically teaching Jun Fan.
 
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Mormegil

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I'm no instructor, but I've read a few books and documentaries.

I think one of the reasons there is controversy about what JKD is, is because I think JKD represented 2 different thinks to Sijo Bruce Lee at different times.

After his Chinatown fight with Man, he developed a fighting system or style based on intereception - and called it Jeet Kune Do, the Way of the Interecepting Fist.

Later as he progressed, he stated he no longer believed in styles (note: "no longer" so he did at one point). At this point Jeet Kune Do became a term for his new philisophy or expression of martial arts - using no way as way and such. The term "Jeet Kune Do" stuck, because it's only a term, and was already synonymous with Sijo Bruce Lee.


So, just during Mr. Lee's life, JKD already meant two different things (not mutually exclusive, as you can obviously use the JKD style in your personal JKD expression).

So when somebody says it's not JKD, because it doesn't have trapping, they're right and wrong. It's not the JKD style, but it can be somebody's no way way (or no style style) expression.

Just my 2 cents worth.
 
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IFAJKD

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Basic minimum requirements..............Interesting thought. Basically because Bruce Lee died leaving us with only logic and speculation. I Personally taught basic following from a JKD concepts/FMA approach. I would list the following:

Kicking Range:. stop kick, low line kicking, oblique kick, savate style round kick, hook kick, inside and outside crescent kick, side kick, side thrust, front snap, Thai round kick, axe kick, include side knee, side up knee, straight knee flying knee hook knee,

Boxing range: jab, straight punch, cross, hook, shovel hook , upper cut, back fist spinning backfist, hammer fist, straight blast, morphed blast, eye jab (very very important) knife hand (used on soft tissue ie throat, groin etc) overhead punch

Trapping range: pak sao, lop sao, sut sao, biljee, kwon sao, bong sao, jut sao, gum sao, tan sao, gunting, many many destructions such as sipa, siko, heiata, elbows knees and headbutts, eye gouges, bites, wrenches, breaks, manipulations, clinching, shivers and (dumog type) pushes and pulls.

Ground fighting: mount side mount, guard, half guard, north south, side headlock, transistions, chokes, submissions, falls, stomps, bites, gouges, breaks

Weapons: single stick, double stick, stick and knife, single knife, double knife, interceptions, deflections, passes, disarms, many drills,

Sparring: weapons all double vs single, double vs double, knife vs stick, etc it goes on and on. empty hand, envrionmental, bottles, pool cues, helmet training with the blast, etc. It is all trained.

Concepts: five ways of attack, economy of motion, interceptions, closing the gap, attribute development, spatial awareness, line familurization, speed, power, timming, distance, sight, legal,

This was my cirruculum for openers. This is what would be covered your first year. It's just mine. influenced by people like Vunak, Inosanto, O'Melia and others. I know it's a concept type of approach, I know that Bruce Lee did not teach many thingas here and I know that others do it differently. There are many good people out there and many not so good. I believe that anything can be made to be functional if trained correctly. The essence of JKD is in it's function not it's techniques. Not sure if this adds any clarification or not. good luck in the search and Arnisador......Glad to hear you are still posting these days. Much respect for you.

:asian:
 

Cthulhu

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HEY!

Long time no see, IFAJKD! How've you been?

Cthulhu
 
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IFAJKD

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Many changes in my life over the last two years. I will have to drop you an email. Life is however GREAT and at times I am overwhelmed at HOW great it really is ya know. How are you and your family ?. Administrator huh :cool:
 
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arnisador

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Originally posted by IFAJKD
Many changes in my life over the last two years. I will have to drop you an email. Life is however GREAT and at times I am overwhelmed at HOW great it really is ya know.

I'm glad to hear that! I hope we hear more from you!
 
I

IFAJKD

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Hey Arnisador : How are you my friend ? Please send me an email to [email protected] as I may have lost both yours and Cthulhu"s Glad to hear you are still hard at it.
 
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arnisador

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Thanks for your thoughts on the curriculum issue. I am still trying to resolve the general theories of Bruce Lee--formlessness, absorbing whatever one finds useful, etc.--with the fact that most JKD people are doing relatively similar techniques.
 
I

IFAJKD

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Try NOT to think about JKD or any style or system. Spar and when you spar focus on two techniques. Now do whatever it takes to land those techniques. Film it and then start with the concepts you are familure with and look to see h0ow you applied them. You will do this without thinking more and more and with more and more diversity and competence. Arnisador.....Remember that the Filipino warriors were applying these same concepts in every conflict or teaching experience they had. In the Philipines, developing a functional system was highly reveered. It was also a necessary evil given their culture. Subsequently many systems were developed from the same styles. Most other styles and cultures around them frown on this. Bruce Lee did what the Filipinos did and for the exact samew reasons...He, in a traditonal atmosphere had to as well, apply names and explinations to those things.
It is really quite simple until we complicate it. I will email tonight.
 

7starmantis

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Originally posted by Mormegil
Later as he progressed, he stated he no longer believed in styles (note: "no longer" so he did at one point). At this point Jeet Kune Do became a term for his new philisophy or expression of martial arts - using no way as way and such. The term "Jeet Kune Do" stuck, because it's only a term, and was already synonymous with Sijo Bruce Lee.

I think this is true, however I think that when Bruce said he didn't believe in style he didn't mean what alot of people take it as. Its obvious he believed in some style because when training he used wing chun movements. I think the meaning to what he said, and Linda has said the same thing in some interviews and her book, was a philosophy of not using any certain technique. If you enter into a fight thinking of the technique you will use, you have allready limited yourself to those techniques. Bruce said your mind should be empty of technique. You must let your opponant dictate what you will do.

Bruce was searching for the truth and in the begining he studied wing chun. Then he began a search for the "truth" of the advanced techniques, or the "it" many are searching for. He began scraping away basic stuff to find the true applications. Then later in his life, he began coming back to the basics. Like he made a circle. He returned to learning the "feel" that so many train hard to find. My sigung says he was almost there, if he hadn't died so early he would have found it and understood it completely.

Anyway, enough rambling, I just think we take the "no style" comment to a point where he didn't mean it to go.

7sm
 
I

IFAJKD

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I think that is a fair statement...Bruce Lee in fact encouraged people to train in any style they could find. You HAVE to have a foundation. I do however think Bruce Lee did get it. He WAS there.....I am not sure that any of his students, with the obvious exception of Dan Inosanto, ever made it there.
Bruce died so young and offered a limited amount of knowledge and material. What is there has been hashed over so much. I think that at times, trying to squeeze that little extra out, individuals take his teachings to an area it was not meant to go. OR worse yet....they "interpret" and go with the "if Bruce Lee were alive today this is what he would be doing" .....................
Bruce Lee also said "saddly we place more confidence on what we imitate rather than what we create"......
For the record...I am not being disrespectful by leaving a title off in reference to Bruce Lee. I heard Guru Dan Inosanto state that he found it funny because nobody ever referred to Bruce other than by his name and "Sifu".
 
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arnisador

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Originally posted by IFAJKD
Bruce Lee in fact encouraged people to train in any style they could find.

Let me ask this question again, then:

how would you really feel about a JKD school that had no boxing/savate/Wing Chun/Muay Thai style techniques but instead had "absorbed what is useful" out of Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido, and Tang Soo Do? Would that seem out-of-whack to you?

It's hard for me to imagine JKD based off of TKD. I don't mean that as a slam against TKD--I just mean it's very hard for me to envision such a mix.
 

Cthulhu

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Originally posted by arnisador
Let me ask this question again, then:



It's hard for me to imagine JKD based off of TKD. I don't mean that as a slam against TKD--I just mean it's very hard for me to envision such a mix.

I think that's one of the difficulties of teaching JKD. The art is so personal. It's hard to teach someone to be an individual. The thing is, there could be a JKD instructor who has come from a TKD background and can use his own personal expression of the martial arts efficiently. However, how then do you transmit your discoveries from applying JKD principles to TKD to someone who has never studied TKD...or maybe never studied another martial art at all.

I think IFAJKD can answer this better...you had a TKD background, didn't you?

Cthulhu
 
I

IFAJKD

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My answer would be that clearly it is not JKD. Here's why. Although you rae applying concepts of JKD to your personal training, JKD does still have a set core group of techniques that are central to JKD. Bruce Lee still did have his techniques that he taught for specific reasons. Yes, there were no students that could pull it off as he did but they atill remain a staple of JKD. ALSO to legitimately claim "JKD Instruction" they had to come from a certified JKD Instructor. This person had to be trained in "JKD" and as such his student Instructors should be teaching that same cirriculum. Although they will add their own spin to it.
I also think that this is exactly what happens in all arts. Tae Kwon Do today does not look like it did in 1962. We cannot duplicate without effect of our personal interpretation and attributes.
For example....We teach a technique that is not our strong suite so maybe we teach it poorly from there we have students performing this technique poorly. THEN some other Instructor comes along and corrects it and bam the whole technique and its application has changed.

JKD is more than an amalgam of techniques and concepts. You cannot simply train in other styles and call it JKD.
I also think..........and this is the hard part...........that Bruce Lee expressed his wishes clearly however what he DID do was create a style. Like it or not. this IS what he did and people embraced it. If you are taking from elements that are not a part of JKD core, AND your core does not include this JKD training....then you are simply creating your own system and should take some ownership of that.

Example .....You are self trained in several arts and you are sparring.......You hold your hands poorly and try to initiate from a set stance. Needless to say you are gettingg killed. so after one hit in the face, your hands come up. Is this person doing JKD ?
NO...he's just getting lite up and is trying to adapt......Now he goes back to training and he throws punches from a better hand placement but he is just involved in a "slug fest". He is hitting more and his style so to speak has changed...is he JKD ? NO he is just experimenting.
Then while sparring he begins to see openings and starts to hit just before the completion arc of an attack.....is he doing JKD ? Spomeone watching might say "oh hey, single direct attack or attack by interception" But he is not doing JKD. He just borrowed a concept avalible to everyone.
Needless to say, he is getting better because he is sparring more. NOW he meets a JKD Instructor and he is introduced to concepts, methods, techniques, trapping low line attacks and trains for better attributes. He NOW looks nothing like he did when he was sparring before, Is he JKD ? Now he can be if he chooses to be. He had to have this core. Otherwise he is reinventing the wheel (and not very well mind you) and just flailing around the hard way.
Hapkidio can look like Tae Kwon Do but it isn't. It employs the same type of kicks right down to it's instruction on executing them but yet it is not. JKD people should be able to adapt to anyone's fighting style and fight them in a way that minimizes their opponents use of their best tools. There are also techniques and teaching methods that are in direct conflict with JKD instruction. This point alone would prohibit someoen from training in the way you mentioned and calling it JKD.
Hope this helps some.
Arnisador, please pass my email onto to Cthu as I do not have his address either.
 

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