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Absorb What Is Useful

In the next nine years of training with Bruce Lee, Dan learned the reasons for his frustrations and adapted what he had previously learned to Bruce's philosophy of combative efficiency.Mists cleared and curtains lifted as he began to apply the principle of what would become known as Jeet Kune Do to the Judo, Karate, and Escrima that was a part of him already. While he was studying with Bruce, he continued to work with other instructors, Ark Wong among them. He could study different arts at the same time because, as Bruce taught him, the basis of his own personal "style" came from within. With the background he had in the martial arts and with Bruce Lee as a sounding board, he was able to "take that which is useful and discard the rest."

With perhaps the exception of a modified version of Western boxing and Chinese Wing Chun, Kali was the art he adhered to most. Perhaps he favored Kali because the principle involved were so closely aligned or easily adaptable to the principles in Jeet Kune Do.

When Bruce Lee died in 1973, Dan was still working with a small group of martial artists that Bruce was teaching before he went to Hong Kong in 1970. Men from the group, Daniel Lee, Richard Bustillo and Jerry Poteet among them, gave Dan the opportunity to continue his Escrima, Kali, Arnis and JKD training and develop a personal "style" of movement found nowhere else in the world. Since one teaches from what one knows, Dan's JKD students today study Kali as part of their regular training, but the principles they are taught don't confine them to any martial art or style. Any one of them may choose another way and Dan will smile in the middle of a conversation and say, "If it works, use it; whatever you want."

Jeet Kune Do - the literal translation is "way of the intercepting fist" - was conceived by Bruce Lee in 1967. Unlike many other martial arts, there are neither a series of rules nor a classification of techniques which constitute a distinct Jeet Kune Do (JKD) method of fighting. JKD is unbound; JKD is freedom. It possesses everything, yet in itself is possessed by nothing. Those who understand JKD are primarily interested in its powers of liberation when JKD is used as a mirror for self-examination.

In the past, many have tried to define JKD in terms of a distinct style: Bruce Lee's kung-fu; Bruce Lee's karate; Bruce Lee's kickboxing; Bruce Lee's system of street fighting. To label JKD "Bruce Lee's martial art" is to completely mistake Bruce Lee's - and JKD's-meaning. JKD's concepts simply cannot be confined within a single system. To understand this, a martial artist must transcend the duality of "for" and "against," reaching for that point of unity which is beyond mere distinction. The understanding of JKD is the direct intuition of this point of unity. According to Bruce Lee, knowledge in the martial arts ultimately means self-knowledge.

Jeet Kune Do is not a new style of kung-fu or karate. Bruce Lee did not invent a new or composite style, nor did he modify a style to set it apart from any existing method. His concept was to free his followers from clinging to any style, pattern, or mold.

It must be emphasized that Jeet Kune Do is merely a name, a mirror reflecting ourselves. There is a sort of progressive approach to JKD training, but as Lee observed: "To create a method of fighting is like putting a pound of water into wrapping paper and shaping it." Structurally, many people mistake JKD as a composite style of martial art because of its efficiency. At any given time Jeet Kune Do can resemble Thai boxing or wing Chun or wrestling or karate. Its weaponry resembles Filipino Escrima and kali; in long-range application it can resemble Northern Chinese kung-fu or Savate.

According to Lee, the efficiency of any style depends upon circumstances and the fighting range of distance: the soldier employs a hand grenade at 50 yards, but he chooses a dagger for close-quarters combat. A staff, to take another example, is the wrong weapon to take to a fight in a telephone booth; a knife would again be the most appropriate weapon.

Jeet Kune Do is neither opposed or unopposed to the concept of style. We can say that it is outside as well as inside of all particular structures. Because JKD makes no claim to existing as a style, some individuals conclude that it is neutral or indifferent to the question. Again, this is not the case, for JKD is at once "this" and "not this."

A good JKD practitioner rests his actions on direct intuition. According to Lee, a style should never be like the Bible in which the principles and laws can never be violated. There will always be differences between individuals in regard to the quality of training, physical make-up, level of understanding, environmental conditioning, and likes and dislikes. According to Bruce, truth is a "pathless road"; thus JKD is not an organization or an institution of which one can be a member. "Either you understand or you don't - and that is that," he said.

When Bruce taught a Chinese system of kung-fu (it was shortly after his arrival in the United States), he did operate an institute of learning; but after that early period he abandoned his belief in any particular system or style, Chinese or otherwise. Lee did say that to reach the masses one should probably form some type of organization; for his own part, he dismissed the notion as unnecessary to his own teaching. Still, to reach the ever growing numbers of students, some sort of preconceived sets had to be established. And as a result of such a move by martial arts organizations, many of their members would be conditioned to a prescribed system; many of their members would end up as prisoners of systematic drilling.

This is why Lee believed in teaching only a few students at any time. Such a method of instruction required the teacher to maintain an alert observation of each student in order to establish the necessary student-teacher relationship. As Lee so often observed, "A good instructor functions as a pointer of the truth, exposing the student's vulnerability, forcing him to explore himself both internally and externally, and finally integrating himself with his being."

Martial arts - like life itself - is in flux, in constant arrhythmic movements, in constant change. Flowing with this change is very important. And finally, any JKD man who says that JKD is exclusively JKD is simply not with it. He is still hung up on his own self-enclosing resistance, still anchored to reactionary patterns, still trapped within limitation. Such a person has not digested the simple fact that truth exists outside of all molds or patterns. Awareness is never exclusive. To quote Bruce: "Jeet Kune Do is just a name, a boat used to get one across the river. Once across it is discarded and not to be carried on one's back."

Dan Inosanto

In 1981, the JKD concept was taught in only three places: the Filipino Kali Academy in Torrance, California; in Charlotte, North Carolina (where Larry Hartsell taught a few select students); and in Seattle, Washington (under the direction of Taki Kimura). The bulk of the JKD concept is taught in Torrance, where the school is under the direction of myself and Richard Bustillo. It is organized in accordance with the premise that a JKD man must undergo different experiences. For example, in Phase 1 and Phase 2 classes at the Filipino Kali Academy, students are taught Western boxing and Bruce Lee's method of kick boxing - Jun Fan.

I deeply feel that students should be taught experiences as opposed to techniques, In other words, a karate practitioner who has never boxed before needs to experience sparring with a boxer. What he learns from that experience is up to him. According to Bruce, a teacher is not a giver of truth; he is merely a guide to the truth each student must find.

The total picture Lee wanted to present to his pupils was that above everything else, the pupils must find their own way to truth. He never hesitated to say, "Your truth is not my truth; my truth is not yours."

Bruce did not have a blueprint, but rather a series of guidelines to lead one to proficiency. In using training equipment, there was a systematic approach in which one could develop speed, distance, power, timing, coordination, endurance and footwork.

But Jeet Kune Do was not an end in itself for Bruce - nor was it a mere by-product of his martial studies; it was a means to self discovery. JKD was a prescription for personal growth; it was an investigation of freedom - freedom not only to act naturally and effectively in combat, but in life. In life, we absorb what is useful and reject what is useless, and add to experience what is specifically our own. Bruce Lee always wanted his students to experience judo, jujutsu, aikido, Western boxing; he wanted his students to explore Chinese systems of sensitivity like Wing Chun, to explore the elements of kali, Escrima, Arnis; to explore the elements of Pentjak Silat, Thai boxing, Savate. He wanted his students to come to an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each method.

No art is superior or inferior to any other. That is the object lesson of Jeet Kune Do, to be unbound, to be free: in combat to use no style as style, to use no way as the way, to have no limitation as the only limitation. Neither be for or against a particular style. In other words, Jeet Kune Do "just is.'

Or to use the words of a Zen maxim to describe Jeet Kune Do, "In the landscape of spring there is neither better nor worse. The flowering branches grow, some short, some long.

By Dan Inosanto

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Elite Jeet Kune Do LLC is an organization dedicated to the exploration/teaching of realistic street self-defense. Elite JKD was formed by renowned instructor