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A Day with Dan Inosanto, Interview by Jose Emiliano Alzona
Originally printed in December 1990 issue of Black Belt Magazine
Dan Inosanto was both lucky and unlucky enough to study with the most famous
martial artist of all time. Lucky because the relationship matured and
enhanced his own skills and helped him make him one of the most highly
respected and sought-after instructors in the world. Unlucky because he must
forever live in the shadow of a ghost, forever mentioned in one breath with
his former mentor, the late Bruce Lee.
Although Dan Inosanto makes no outward attempt to cash in on his association
with Lee, his friendship with, and constant comparison to, the "Little
Dragon" certainly hasn't hurt him financially. Today, at age 54 and recently
remarried, Inosanto leads an exhausting life-style that finds him traveling
across the globe to conduct seminars 52 weeks a year. Although he does not
seek the limelight, it finds him His Marina del Rey, California school is a
mecca for martial artists the world over (seven arrived recently from West
Germany just to train with him).
There have been rumors that Inosanto is moving away from the teachings of
Lee and along his own path, and Black Belt thought it was therefore time to
tough base once again with the legendary Kali, Jeet Kune Do, and now Silat
expert to see if there was any truth to the whispers circulating throughout
the martial arts community. So here, once again, is Inosanto to tell you in
his own words about his relationship with Lee, his recent venture into the
area of Pentjak Silat, his explanation of Jeet Kune Do, and his future
goals. -Ed.
BLACK BELT: Although you are still primarily known throughout the martial
arts community as a Kali/Jeet Kune Do instructor, haven't you recently
branched out into other styles, particularly Silat?
DAN INOSANTO: I promote four martial arts: Pentjak Silat, Muay Thai, the
Filipino martial arts, and what I call the Jeet Kune Do Concept as it was
handed down my Bruce Lee. We teach a curriculum of different disciplines at
the Inosanto Academy, and where I'm not efficient, I bring in people who
are. We have a Boxe Francaise (Savate) teacher and a Jiu-Jitsu instructor.
We brought down a Bando instructor to help us understand that Burmese art.
We've brought in people to teach the African martial arts. So we get a
perspective of the whole martial arts movement.
BB: Many people have the impression that you've started to move toward Silat
and away from the arts that made you famous, like Jeet Kune Do and Kali.
INOSANTO: Oh no no no no. People get that idea because they don't understand
Jeet Kune Do. Jeet Kune Do does not mean to take Bruce Lee's material and
say "Okay, this is what Bruce wanted." Jeet Kune Do is nothing but research
and development. But to do research and development, you have to start
somewhere, you need a base system. We use the base system of Jun Fan (Bruce
Lee) Gung Fu, so I still teach the original material of Bruce Lee. But then
I might go on and show some of the routes you can take from there, routes
that fit in with the Jeet Kune Do Concept, because like Bruce said, "Unless
you join me in your research, you cannot understand me."
BB: People tend to confuse Jun Fan with Jeet Kune Do. But if Jun Fan isn't
Jeet Kune Do, what is Jun Fan?
INOSANTO: It's the base system Bruce gave us of Jun Fan techniques. We start
with it and we grow from it, and different people will go off in many
different ways as a result of their own research. But now there's a movement
calling itself "the original Bruce Lee techniques." Well, we still teach the
original program of Bruce Lee, but if you compare it with the curriculum
that Bruce handed down, you'll find we've expanded on it. The base system
comes from him, but we try to find out when one particular aspect of his
training is more valuable, at a certain time and place - the environmental
aspect of it. That's what we try to teach now.
BB: What do you mean by "Jeet Kune Do is research and development?"
INOSANTO: Well, join me in some verbal research. Consider a side kick: how
does a Japanese stylist counter a side kick? How does a Chinese stylist
counter it? How does a streetfighter handle it? How about a wrestler? First,
you look at all these different ways. Then you have to pick one for
yourself, and the key ingredients, like Bruce Lee said, are timing and
rhythm, and not so much the technique itself. That's who a person can use a
technique that's not optimally efficient, but if he has the timing and an
understanding of the structure, he can make it work. For example: in
basketball, if you make 30 percent of your shots from one part of the floor
and you make 90 percent of your shots from another part, you would take most
shots from the latter. What Bruce Lee was trying to say is this: find the
movements that will work for you in combat 90 to 100 percent of the time,
but remain open to other arts to see what they do, because unless you
understand what they do, you cannot really understand total combat. When
Silat stylists go down to the ground in a cross-legged sitting position,
that is foreign to the boxer, because how's he going to jab or cross a guy
that's on the ground? And it's foreign to Wing Chun also, because how are
you going to deliver a pak sao, lop sao (slapping hand/grabbing hand)
technique to the opponent when he's on the ground? Now a grappler will deal
with that stance because he's used to the mat, but to people who are not, it
would be hard to handle. But today, many martial artists will say "My style
is A, and I'm not even going to consider B because A is better." Their minds
are already closed.
BB: Do you encourage your students to choose techniques from a variety of
arts that may not harmonize with one another?
INOSANTO: I'll use this analogy: it's like interior decorating; you can only
put furniture into your house if it fits. You can only extract knowledge
from another system if it fits your mode. Understanding how your body works
is the key. If you can adopt a particular wrinkle into your system, fine.
What Bruce was saying is have an appreciation of other arts, even if you may
not use them. When I teach the Filipino martial arts, I apply the Jeet Kune
Do Concept. I'm not teaching Jeet Kune Do, but I apply the concepts so
students can absorb what is useful. If you're sharp, you can go in and out
of different disciplines or systems and find what is useful to you. That's
research. Once you do research and development, you will go beyond systems.
You can flow from one discipline to another if you have the understanding.
BB: Is Silat your primary system now?
INOSANTO: I consider myself a Silat practitioner. I firmly believe in giving
credit for where the knowledge comes from, and I do that. But I never never
said that Silat was Jeet Kune Do, and I never ever said that Muay Thai was
Jeet Kune Do, and I never ever said that Kali was Jeet Kune Do. What I said
was this: I use the Concept of Jeet Kune Do to work on the material. And
that Concept can be applied to any martial art, because it's nothing but
research and development.
BB: So actually you haven't left Bruce Lee's teachings behind?
INOSANTO: No, but people often misunderstand what I do, and many times
magazines misquote you.
BB: How would you like to be quoted on the subject this time?
INOSANTO: That Jeet Kune Do is research and development, and it allows you
to grow in any direction that you want. There is a Jun Fan Gung Fu polity,
and a Jeet Kune Do Society run by Richard Bustillo, and this may have led to
some confusion. See, many people don't know this, but when Bruce died, he
actually had three systems. One was Jeet Kune Do, and JKD was to be passed
on only by him. His other method was the Tao of Chinese Gung Fu. Again, you
had to be personally taught by him. So the certificates I award to my
students read "Jun Fan Gung Fu and Jeet Kune Do Concept." I want to adhere
to what Bruce started, that only he could give out JKD certification.
Shortly after he coined the term "Jeet Kune Do" in 1968, Bruce was sorry
he'd done that. He felt that the name itself would be a limitation, that it
might imply some sort of Chinese martial arts style. Bruce felt that JKD was
beyond limitations of nationality and culture.
BB: So where does Dan Inosanto go from here?
INOSANTO: I would like to take these arts and teach them in different parts
of the United States, then put a representative in each state, and hopefully
in each European country.
BB: Are you planning to build an organization?
INOSANTO: No, because organizations always have politics. Look at any major
martial arts organization - differences of opinion, splits. I like to use
the term "family," and not "organization," for what we have.
BB: After nearly four decades of training in various styles, do you consider
yourself a martial arts "master?"
INOSANTO: For me there is but one master, and that's the Creator. All the
arts come from him.
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So, has Dan Inosanto moved away from JKD - apparently not. |
