Bruce Lee the ultimate Martial Artist

I remember many years ago when I was studying traditional martial arts.     I was going through the belt system of Taekwondo under a very serious Korean master. He demanded absolute perfect form; every position of the body had to be in the correct place. If a thumb were so much as slightly out of place while holding a stance, he would quickly come over and correct you. In fact, it seemed a lot of his time was spent going around correcting the form of each student.  This kind of drilling makes a lot of sense early on and I can see it having a lot of value when you are teaching a large military group. Actually, this concept of making everyone adhere to the same pattern has made Japan a great country for manufacturing cars. They have the perfect reference and everyone must hold to it and no deviation is allowed.  However, would you call someone in a car factory an artist?

The problem develops when we call ourselves artists.  The term artist has always had the connotation of someone who is creative. Forcing someone to never deviate from the ideal form in Martial Arts is like forcing someone to paint by the numbers.  Bruce Lee was a true martial artist because he was able to be so creative in the development of his personal martial art system.  He was able to honestly express himself and encouraged everyone else to do likewise.  We are all different people with different body types and attributes.  As Bruce once said, trying to force everyone to blindly fit in one form is like trying to force everyone to fit in the same size suit!  A core philosophical idea in JKD is, know the principle, follow the principle, and dissolve the principle. Yes, its important to learn the form at the beginning, but latter you should creatively adapt it to fit you. Then you are a true martial artist.  

                                    Jeet Kune Do Power Strikes

Bruce Lee had the amazing ability to flow from very fast precision striking with a kind of light “flicking” energy from a long distance to tremendous power that could shell shock your body in close quarter combat.  It all came down to what we call in JKD, his body mechanics.  Knowing how to focus your entire body weight and muscle strength into your blows is a key to the JKD striking power.  Once learned, a small person can easily generate enough power to inflict a debilitating blow to an attacker. Bruce Lee was 5”7 and weighed only 128lbs! 

The analogy I like to use is, imagine you have a sack with 10 small rocks in it and you are trying to ward off an attacker. From a far distance it might make sense to pull one rock out at a time from the bag and throw it at the attacker, similar to the JKD strategy of eyes jabs and groin shots. However, from a short or closer distance that method will more than likely be ineffective.  It would make more sense to keep all the rocks in the bag and swing it with all your might to disable your attacker in one or two power blows.

How do we start to train our body mechanics for power? Here is where the practice of Kali helps our JKD.  Paul Vunak with the help of Dan Inosanto isolated six important moves with the stick.  These six moves will force the body to move and twist in such a way as to help develop power in your close quarter combat range.  Power in your blows in close quarter combat is crucial, because if you can’t hit hard, you are just going to make your attacker angrier!  Just remember anyone can learn to hit hard if they are given the know-how.  A 5’ tall person weighing 90lbs can develop a devastating blow if they learn how to impact all 90lbs plus into their strike and in my experience the average street thug can’t recover from that!

                                        Secret Killing Moves!

Most people that come to me to learn self-defense skills often make the mistake as seeing this as nothing more than the acquisition of various techniques.   Secret moves that will make them invincible to any attack.  Unfortunately it’s not that simple. Actually I should say fortunately it’s not that simple, because if it were, then everyone would be walking around with secret deadly moves. 

It has become a common theme in self-defense circles to trash traditional martial arts as a waste of time to learn for practical street self-defense.  Go to any so called reality based self-defense seminar and all you will hear is “this or that” martial arts doesn’t work in a street situation.   My opinion concerning this is statements like that couldn’t be further from the truth!  I am sorry to contradict all those self-defense instructors out there, but I have seen traditional martial arts used successfully in street fights! 

People who understand the spirit of Jeet Kune Do never trash another art by claiming it has no value as practical self-defense.  The reality is all arts can be made to work if you spend enough time and develop enough skill.  Some concepts can be learned and used quickly while others might take years to master. Also, the more difficult the skill, the more perishable that skill becomes.  So the questions to ask yourself in this day and age, how much time are you able to devote to learning practical self-defense?  Most people can’t devote themselves to living in a temple and practice martial arts hours and hours every day like a Shaolin monk.  Most of us need to focus on the most efficient skills that will stay with us for years.

One of my favorite Bruce Lee stories concerns an incident that happened in his school with one of his students.  A new student came to class that had a background in traditional martial arts.  This student was sparring with an older more experienced JKD practitioner.  The new student began doing a very fancy move, I think it was a reverse spinning kick. The Bruce Lee student stopped the new guy and began telling him very authoritatively why that was such a bad move and would never work in “real life”.  Bruce overheard him and walked over to the JKD student and asked him to explain why it wouldn’t work.  Then Lee began doing the very same technique with blazing speed and precision “nailing” his very own student over and over!  Lee’s point was any technique could be made to work and it really comes down to your own attributes and time you desire to perfect it.  “Honestly expressing yourself” ,something often quoted in JKD circles, also means to be honest with yourself!  If you feel a technique doesn’t work, then you should discard it, but before you do, answer honestly as to why it didn’t.