Jeet Kune Do (JKD) is the name Bruce Lee gave to his combat system and philosophy in 1967. Originally, when Lee commenced researching diverse fighting styles, he gave his martial art his own name of June Fan Gung Fu. However not desiring to make another style that would share the limitations that all styles have, he instead gave us the method that created it.
JKD as it survives today - if one wants to view it "refined" as a product, not a technique - is what was left at the time of Bruce Lee's death. It is the result of the life-long self-defense skills development process Lee went through. Bruce Lee stated that his concept is not an "adding to" of more and more things on top of each other to form a system, but rather, a winnowing out. The metaphor Lee borrowed from Chan Buddhism was of continually filling a cup with water, and then emptying it, used for describing Lee's philosophy of "casting off what is useless". He also used the sculptor's mind-set of starting with a pile of clay and hacking away at the "unessentials" ; the final result was what he considered to be the bare combat necessities, or JKD.
One of the concepts of JKD is a fighter should do whatever is critical to defend himself, irrespective of where the methodologies come from. One of Lee's goals in Jeet Kune Do was to break down what he told were limiting factors in the coaching of the traditional styles, and seek a fighting thesis which he thought could only be found in the reality of a fight. Jeet Kune Do is presently seen as the genesis of the modern state of half-breed martial arts.
The idea of cross-training in Jeet Kune Do is like the practice of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) in modern times - Bruce Lee has been considered by UFC president Dana White as the "father of mixed martial arts". Many consider Jeet Kune Do to be the precursor of MMA due to its syncretic nature. This is especially the case with respect to the JKD "Combat Ranges". A JKD student is anticipated to learn varied combat systems inside each combat range, and so to be useful in all of them, just as in MMA.
Visit the official jeet kune do website
JKD as it survives today - if one wants to view it "refined" as a product, not a technique - is what was left at the time of Bruce Lee's death. It is the result of the life-long self-defense skills development process Lee went through. Bruce Lee stated that his concept is not an "adding to" of more and more things on top of each other to form a system, but rather, a winnowing out. The metaphor Lee borrowed from Chan Buddhism was of continually filling a cup with water, and then emptying it, used for describing Lee's philosophy of "casting off what is useless". He also used the sculptor's mind-set of starting with a pile of clay and hacking away at the "unessentials" ; the final result was what he considered to be the bare combat necessities, or JKD.
One of the concepts of JKD is a fighter should do whatever is critical to defend himself, irrespective of where the methodologies come from. One of Lee's goals in Jeet Kune Do was to break down what he told were limiting factors in the coaching of the traditional styles, and seek a fighting thesis which he thought could only be found in the reality of a fight. Jeet Kune Do is presently seen as the genesis of the modern state of half-breed martial arts.
The idea of cross-training in Jeet Kune Do is like the practice of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) in modern times - Bruce Lee has been considered by UFC president Dana White as the "father of mixed martial arts". Many consider Jeet Kune Do to be the precursor of MMA due to its syncretic nature. This is especially the case with respect to the JKD "Combat Ranges". A JKD student is anticipated to learn varied combat systems inside each combat range, and so to be useful in all of them, just as in MMA.
Visit the official jeet kune do website
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