The Great Dan Inosanto

Recently, I had the privilege of spending some private time with the legendary Bruce Lee protege Dan Inosanto. For those who might not be aware, Sifu Inosanto was hand chosen by Bruce Lee to teach Jeet Kune Do in Lee’s Los Angeles “Chinatown” school. In fact, he was the only person ever chosen by Bruce Lee to be an instructor in JKD and Lee had given Sifu Inosanto the highest ranking in JKD to an individual at that time.

To this day, Dan Inosanto remains the highest ranking instructor in JKD and in my opinion if you can spend even just a little time with him, you will quickly see what Bruce Lee saw in him. Not only does Sifu Inosanto have great skill and an encyclopedic level of knowledge in technique, he also possesses a deep philosophical understanding of martial arts. He has a philosophical understanding that transcends beyond mere combat and applies martial arts to day to day living for success and happiness. One example of this was back in the Oct 2009 issue of Black Belt Magazine nine well known JKD instructors where asked a simple question. They were asked what was the single most important thing that Bruce Lee taught.  Every response, with one exception, was about some technique Bruce Lee taught. The Straight lead was mentioned by several, etc... Only one instructor mentioned the deeper philosophical aspect of Jeet Kune Do. That instructor was Dan Inosanto and he alone had the  great insight to say the deepest thing Bruce Lee taught was "self-expression through self-discovery". 

I really don’t understand how some people claim the Inosanto Academy doesn’t teach pure JKD. That might be an interesting article unto itself. Perhaps greedy people trying to make money by claiming they are the only source for JKD? Anyone that questions Dan Inosanto should go to his school and spend time with him. If they did, they would find he does teach JKD in its original form. The Inosanto Academy teaches JKD in its pure form, but by invitation only. He is not teaching JKD mixed with Kali. The Kali class and Muay Thai class, etc… are completely separate. This is because Dan Inosanto is keeping his promise to Bruce Lee, the promise to not exploit JKD for money. The other thing to keep in mind is Dan is the most honorable and decent person in martial arts today. That is a realization that anyone can come to with just a little investigation. Linda Lee, the wife of Bruce Lee, wrote that Dan was offered a lot of money right after the death of Bruce Lee to open a string of JKD schools. Sifu Inosanto turned it down because he chose to honor his promise to Bruce Lee to not exploit JKD. Wow, how many people could walk away from a fortune just to keep their word, keep their word to someone that’s not even alive?

The reality is that for most of us, the ultimate way we can know what Bruce Lee taught is by reading everything Bruce wrote and by talking to those who knew him. That’s it. Dan has proven that being honest is more important than money, so based on his amazing honesty; I feel it’s only logical that we should trust what he says about JKD.