Jeet Kune Do training, for those who are interested in what Bruce Lee was actually teaching as opposed to other martial arts with vague JKD “concepts” being applied, is simply not easy to find.

Now it is, as Jeet Kune Do University opens its doors as the first online based JKD organization designed to offer a training experience that most closely simulates the progression of an actual training group and an experienced instructor.

This has been a project more than two years in the making that began with a passion for martial arts and a desire to make available a powerful tool for self development that was once almost exclusively available to private closed door training groups.  The founder himself closed down his commercial schools in favor of private and backyard style training.

Bruce Lee never wanted his system to be commercialized and preserved as a martial “doctrine” but he also did not foresee the enduring inspiration for evolution of thought and self empowerment that his legacy would catalyze.

The martial arts phenomenon that has fascinated people for nearly four decades after the the founder’s passing, yet has remained elusive to the general public, is now available to all anywhere and anytime.

The purpose of Jeet Kune Do University is not to crystallize JKD into the be-all-end-all of combative expression, but rather to offer you an authentic, proven, time tested framework and point of inspiration from which you will launch your own personal Jeet Kune Do and path to self knowledge.

See you in class!

Bruce Lee called his Martial Art, Jeet Kune Do and he was teaching a system with concrete techniques and strategies, yet he also lay the foundation of his methodology under the directive of “Using no Way as Way” and publicly stated that he did not believe in style.

Is it possible to learn the style of no style?

There is an abundance of confusion about Bruce Lee’s fighting method, the source of which derives from two fundamental and opposing ideas:

1. JKD is the established compendium of knowledge that Bruce Lee originally taught and, therefore, is static and cannot change.
2. JKD is an evolving, living martial art engineered to adapt uniquely towards what works best for the individual.

Both statements are true and mutually exclusive, hence the never-ending debate about what the martial is and is not.

The fact of the matter is that Bruce Lee did name his system Jeet Kune Do and made many references to it being a style. We also know that he died unexpectedly without a successor to carry on his methodology. Hence, from a concrete, historical perspective, JKD is the established collection of techniques and strategies that he passed on to his students roughly between 1965 and 1973. This is the period of time generally accepted as being the JKD era.

With this in mind, it is also very clear that the founder’s intention was not for his methods to become dogmatic. The individual is encouraged to evolve, adapt and add to the art what is uniquely his own.

Of course there is a catch.

The caveat being, if the original material is changed by the individual, it ceases to be Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do, now becoming the individual’s personal expression of Bruce Lee’s martial art system.

And so we arrive to the crux of the matter: Can Bruce Lee’s personal combative expression be learned from another’s personal expression of Bruce Lee’s expression.

Confused?  The answer is simple.

In short –no.

Let me explain.

Every modified iteration of a subject loses some of the original quality, therefore trying to learn Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do from John Doe’s Jeet Kune Do, is really just a difficult and practically impossible, round about thing to do.

If you want to learn JKD, learn the original body of knowledge that Bruce Lee taught to his various students, now known as Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do. Then, spend a few years developing a solid foundation of skill and application based experience. As you attain certain levels of mastery and intuitive knowledge of the art of combat, begin exploring your own interpretation of Bruce Lee’s living art.

This is real Jeet Kune Do. Self exploration on a combative medium and established foundation of conscious awareness.

For those who want to take the training to it’s greatest potential, pass on the knowledge. Use your base of experience and personal interpretation to help the student, yet maintain the integrity of Bruce Lee’s original teachings. In this way, Bruce Lee’s methods remain intact and his living, catalyzing martial arts philosophy can live on and continue to inspire others in it’s original form.

Sifu Wong rarely makes appearances, except for the occasional martial arts workshop and the rare Bruce Lee Educational Foundation event.

Lately it seems, he has been focused on working to restore the authentic Bruce Lee fighting methodology. Here is a recent documentary.

Why then, does it appear that most of Sifu Inosanto’s certified instructors do not teach Jeet Kune Do as Bruce Lee taught it . . . the “original” stuff?  Yet, they still call their material Jeet Kune Do?  This was extraordinarily perplexing.

Is Sifu Inosanto teaching the actual “Jun Fan” Jeet Kune Do in all its simplicity and biomechanically efficient glory?

From what I have seen it seems that many of his certified students who claim to teach Jeet Kune Do seem to be teaching a mixture of Wing Chun, Kickboxing,  Grappling, stick fighting, and knife fighting without emphasizing the core principles of simplicity, directness, and efficiency.

I don’t know about you, but this phenomenon was very confusing for me in my early training days.  It was not easy to separate the supposed “Concepts” material from the concrete historical stuff.  I was being taught one way in class, while the material that was publicly available from the JKD Concepts clan was showing something else.

Applying the JKD concepts to other martial arts is fantastic, and I would like to see more of that (especially in combat sports) but I am not seeing this in most of the “Concepts” material that I come across.

Also, I understand that it was Bruce Lee’s wish that commercial Jeet Kune Do schools not exist and that JKD training only be conducted privately and in a low numbers but high quality format.  Could it be that sifu Inosanto is still honoring that request after all these years?

If this is the case, I can certainly understand.  Yet I feel that most the Concepts people are doing Jeet Kune Do a terrible disservice by not giving students a chance to learn what Bruce Lee originally taught and evolve their own personal expression from there.

Other martial arts are great, I have studied and continue to respect all martial systems, but to teach something other than JKD yet claim it as authentic Jeet Kune Do is a shame.

If anyone has some information regarding this matter, let me know!

ADDENDUM:

I wrote this post a few years ago when I first started to write about JKD on a public level. My understanding about some of these historical/political points has broadened since then, so I’m adding some additional information for those who are experiencing a similar confusion as I did earlier on.

Although my main point about preserving the original Bruce Lee material still stands, it seems that Sifu Inosanto was, in fact, still honoring the founder’s wishes to not teach Jeet Kune Do publicly.

Inosanto continued to teach Jeet Kune Do to a small private group of students whereas on a public level, in order to help preserve the spirit of Lee’s work, he talked about the “concepts” behind the JKD system while drawing parallels and applying them to the Kali and the Filipino arts he was helping to preserve.

The intention behind teaching the concepts behind Bruce Lee’s methodology was to maintain his friend’s legacy while still holding true to spirit of JKD.

The unfortunate consequence resulting from this is the misinterpretation for Inosanto’s purpose and thus the rise of a specific “Jeet Kune Do Concepts” branch. As far as I understand this was not Dan Inosanto’s desire. In fact an examination of his website will reveal no connections whatsoever to the “Concepts” movement.

The conclusion?

Jeet Kune Do Concepts as a branch of the JKD family was not intentionally created by Dan Inosanto, but rather is the product of misunderstanding, ignorance, and exploitation.

Bold words, I know, and I may even be wrong but mistakes often have to be made for the truth to be uncovered.