Jeet Kune Do - Way of the Intercepting Fist

 

Jeet Kune Do is an eclectic/hybrid style of no style and philosophy of life founded by martial artist Bruce Lee with direct, non-classical, and straightforward movements. Due to the way his style works, Jeet Kune Do practitioners believe in minimal movement with maximum effect and extreme speed. The system works on the use of different 'tools' for different situations. These situations are broken down into ranges (kicking, punching, trapping and grappling), with techniques flowing smoothly between them. It is referred to as a "style without style" or "the art of fighting without fighting" as said by Lee himself. Unlike more traditional martial arts, Jeet Kune Do is not fixed or patterned, and is a philosophy with guiding thoughts. It was named for the concept of interception, or attacking your opponent while he is about to attack. However, the name Jeet Kune Do was often said by Lee to be just a name. He himself often referred to it as "The art of expressing the human body" in his writings and in interviews. Through his studies Lee came to believe that styles had become too rigid, and unrealistic. He called martial art competitions of the day "Dry land swimming". He believed that combat was spontaneous, and that a martial artist cannot predict it, only react to it, and that a good martial artist should "Be water, my friend." and move fluidly without hesitation.

Bruce Lee was born November 27, 1940, in San Francisco, CA. Lee passed away at age 32 on July 20, 1973, the result of hypersensitivity to a pain medication he had taken to alleviate a headache. At 23, he was well on his way to becoming one of the most prominent martial arts figures in history.

JKD's roots can be traced to Bruce Lee's first martial art style of Wing chun Kung fu. Lee adopted many facets of the Wing Chun style. However, Lee made so many modifications over the years, it is sometimes difficult to see the similarities between the two systems.

Literally, Jeet Kune Do means "The Way of The Intercepting Fist". Jeet Kune Do was formally named as such in the Late 60's. It was the culminaton of years of study, by Bruce Lee, in science (phsysiology), philosophy, and theology.

Bruce Lee's evaluation of existing martial art styles found that they were not practical in actual combat. This was the inspiration for the concept of Jeet Kune Do. It was designed to be applicable to real life situations. JKD revolves around the central theme that there are no techniques or styles, only expressions that you yourself define from the basic tenets of Jeet Kune do. Everyone has their own interpretation of the concepts illustrated in Jeet Kune Do. Use what works for you, throw away what doesn't. There is a definite distinction between Jeet Kune do itself and a students own personal exploration of martial arts. In fact, a true student of JKD could not truly call themselves such as their journey will be different than any others.

JKD does not try to mold or train the student to a specific system. The ultimate goal of Jeet Kune Do is not attaining mastery of the concepts held within, but to modify, adjust, and transform JKD conecpts until JKD or any style, system or technique is dissolved and there is no system at all.

Interestingly, in Jeet Kune Do there exists no formalized ranking system such as the traditional colored-belts or sashes. Bruce Lee recognized that belts were non-essential to martial art training. While he initially did establish a ranking system for Jeet Kune Do, he discarded it because he believed that the motivation for meaningful improvement lies within the will of each individual as opposed to chasing after external accessories such as colored belts. In many cases, the “chasing after” the next belt or stripe often becomes more important to the student than the self-knowledge and personal growth they acquire through training.  The JKD ranking system was not belts or sashes, but rather a series of various colored Yin/Yang symbol patches (see above).

The origins of the colored-belt ranking system came about when Dr. Jigaro Kano, the founder of Judo, wanted to get the art taught in public schools in Japan. In order to do that he had to create some form of standardized ranking that all the schools could use. In China, within the martial art school, family titles such as “older brother” and “younger sister” were used instead of rankings.

Teaching a training process without a belt system shocks many people because they tend to judge or label a person by the belt they wear -- “Oh, he’s only a green belt, he only knows this or that” -- And if you don’t have a belt then you cannot be any good -- “They don’t have belts so they must not be any good” -- These people have been entrained to think that way by the martial art industry, media, etc. When those who practice JKD discuss the subject with such people they always remind them that Bruce Lee never possessed a belt or sash. Does that mean that he wasn’t any good or didn’t know anything?

The bottom-line is that colored belts and sashes are tradition-based and have nothing to do with reality. When it comes to martial art, you can either apply the technique in a combative situation if necessary, or you can’t. It doesn’t matter how many belts you have, if you are not comfortable with it, and your ability to execute it when necessary, that you can do it reflexively, you can have as many belts that say the contrary, it doesn’t mean it’s true.