What is JKD?

JKD? i'd like to know what all you out there think JKD is all about. the history? Bruce Lees thoughts about it? his ideas?. i have my ideas on it i'd like to compare it...............

Well firstly, JKD isnt about Bruces thought or ideas. Its about expressing the self through action. The freedom of choice an of knowing the self. Its about simplification and returning to original freedom.

The most important aspect of it is knowing the self. Realizing that nothing is more important than the self.

if it wasn't for Bruces thought or ideas we wouldn't have JKD.

You don't "have" JKD. It is not something that can be had.

oldman

[QUOTE]Originally posted by FCFS:
if it wasn't for Bruces thought or ideas we wouldn't have JKD.[/QUOTE]

Why wouldnt we? Even Bruce said himself that JKD is nothing new. Nothing he ever said was original, it was all said before, he simply made it mainstream.

The art of Jeet Kune Do is simply to simplify.

clever philosophical response: "that's for you to figger out." Serious answer? In the 1960's a man named Bruce lee developed theories of a scientific approach to street fighting. Unfortunately, he died, and jkd was left as his unfinished symphony. Ever since, people have been continuing his journey in their own unique way. We study what he studied, and we take the advice he left, but eventually we must all rise above his written words and begin discovering on our own, our own truths of combat.

JKD "is" the pursuit of truth as it applies to fighting. Not theoretical postulation mind you, but what YOU (the individual) have determined through experience, the truth to be.

Lee said, "research your OWN experience..."

That's where you find the truth. Now the question becomes, HOW does one research his/her own experience and WHERE does one do the research?

Any takers???


-John

Everywhere, without exclusion or cessation.

I tend to have a deeper meaning of these things, because i appreciate the philosophical part of it in my everyday life.

Even Bruce did a lot more than just act and spar in MA.

[This message has been edited by Neonomide (edited 03-06-2005).]

But there was another part to the question. HOW do we research our "own experience, as Bruce Lee advised?

-John

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JKogas:
But there was another part to the question. HOW do we research our "own experience, as Bruce Lee advised?

-John[/QUOTE]

Through alive training and the close observation of our performance during pressure testing

I'll have my own take on your interesting question. Please, let me tell a bit from my culture to explain my position in this.

I myself live in Finland, which is highly rationalized western society with very high emphasis on social values and utilitarism. Our form of democracy is very humanistic by western European standards and our education is ranked the best in the world at the moment. I'm talking now as an university student, as an representative of OUR form of culture, OUR set of values, OUR way of thinking.

We are pretty much rationalistic in our everyday lives. Dreams are not so important, myths are totally out of order. In Finland, one can get about 12 years of prison from a murder at tops. There has never been a death sentence on use after II WW and generally people are getting hand-fed if they cannot work or have no money. If one fails to get to the school one wants, he/she can always try it later. Schools are practically free and every student gets monthly study-fee from state.

People here get super education, they are taught to think everywhere, about anything. Questioning is the point in everyday conversation and in politics we have almost ten parties of from 5 to six have most of the political power. Objectivity in all information is encouraged through all medias, we get next to none political influence through them. News are spit at our faces as "real" as they can be. About all imaginable problems in our society are being discussed daily by researchers, far less by politicians. Politicians are just underdogs, who need to prove their motives in relation to scientific knowledge regarding the subjects that are discussed. It is impossible to avoid to constant reanalyzing of our society and it's values. Everyone is very much conditioned to think humanly about things. People are not only getting sued if they don't help people that are in serious danger and attitudes largely condemn such ignorant behavior.

Army remains compulsory for men because of our long borderline with Russia and the second WW, yet people aren´t concerned too much about confronting violence in our everyday lives. People tend to do martial arts for health, making friends and for sport only. Not heck of a lot self defence based MA is resident here. Jeet Kune Do is taught in one place in the whole country, for example. Violence rates on street are minimal, even though we have one of the highest rates of household violence towards women.

Please forgive my (possibly excess) priming of my points. I do not think the same way like, say American individual because I don't need to. It may even be harmful in this culture. In terms of martial arts, making them more philosophical doesn't feel natural. I mean that when you cannot eat it, why think about it? Making martial arts seem interesting in academic perspective is hard to sell, because our culture depicts all forms of physical violence as condemnable as other. There is no an easy way to make using violence intelligible here, lutherian ethic just doesn't back up it. If a person gets beaten on street fight, he may get far worse sentence than the attacker, depending on the outcome.

Our self defence "philosophy" really centers the notion of getting away safely. If I kick my attackers knee so that breaks, or if I shoot an obvious thief with a gun, the attacker/thief can sue me for using too much force. I don't know an exact phrase for expressing it, but this forces people to think before acting. Hurting the attacker meaningfully is very risky here. I honestly do not know how this influences the attitudes of commoners towards other people, since I do not have a parallel from other cultures, their perspective.

As a human being, rather than a citizen of a country of Finland, I have to think about more profound truths. I must, in a way, think of myself as a cosmopolitan. So how can I analyze and utilize the way of Jeet Kune Do to fit the framework of what I am? Hongkong cinema expert Bey Logan explained that "In Bruce Lee's days, people that worked as stuntmen were part-time stuntmen ja full-time streetfighters (or vice-versa). They'd been in the kind of throwdowns that the American martial arts champions (with the exception on Gene LeBell) couldn't imagine." Judging by the fact that Lee grew up in environment where racistic behaviour was accepted as a natural way to survive, I bet he wasn't too much concerned about HOW to survive. He just had to find a way to get over it. Martial arts gave him chance to rethink his own role in active manner.

Time Magazine named Lee one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, putting him in the company of Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King and Adolf Hitler, among others. What point is does to drive to look Lee's views only from the perspective or real fighting? He knew that real fighting was HIS thing, he trained for that. It was the whole point of his philosophy: survival. Not in limited sense of hypotethical street situation, but as a perspective on living one's life through experiencing. How to experience, that is the question.

"Bend to survive" was Lee's main theme in the movie Game of death. His point was to exemplify the true meaning and nuances of being able to adapt without set patterns or ideas. Central scenes in the film are highly symbolic rather than realistic, Lee's character is forced to adapt his being into difficult situations. He has room to analyze his opponents through observation before physically fighting them. His "friends" may lose because of their inexperience in free-form fighting against the masters in the the pagoda, but also because they voluntarily want the first turn. Lee carefully examines his opponents and when he gets to fight them, he treats his fights as "small plays". He lets his opponent determine his style, he has no own one.

When Lee gets to the highest floor, to the "Temple of the Unknown", he can't utilize his prior knowlwdge to the fight. The opponent is enormous, has far more reach than Lee has and seems to totally ignore if he loses or not. In other words, he is the worst enemy one can imagine, materialized in physical form. Lee's philosophy of interaction came to an ultimate test. How to win an enemy that had so many advantages? Lee's character obviously had to get his hands dirty. He was already tired, bruised and ***ed up, but losing was not an option. The "play" had tuned into reality check. Lee's character had to use every possible way and chance to survive, because he had no choise. Though we are in that position realitively rarely, we all know what it feels like. How does it get to us? What is our reaction to it? What really makes us feel unsecure? How can we be honest to ourselves, without lying? Lee's character had to go past that line, he had to explore his true weaknesses, his being, in alive manner. After he got the victory he realized that the other "unknown warrior" was really the same as he was: a flawed and restricted human being, who had a choice. His opponent choosed to fight even when practically disabled, so Lee went movieland and had to take him out by the "only" way he was able to carry through, as he was already tired as hell. He didn't enjoy it a bit, but the main reason wasn't that he "had to do it", it just was the safest, most economical way at the moment. His way, not necessarily ours. I do not believe in the "warrior ethic", which is one interpretation of the scene.

Lee's fantasy was obviously a movie script that ignores the truth that killing even one's worst opponent is not needed in today's society. We have laws and police for that. What Lee really wanted to say, in my opinion, was that examining and analyzing one's experience is ultimately self knowledge. What we really know about martial arts and how we act in life becomes from what we apply, how we get that knowlwdge in the use.

In real life(IRL), we do not always know the answers. We may theorize things like hell, depend on an authrority and our ego, to make us feel more secure on that a situation, to make the illusion feel more satisfying. What happens if we let go for a moment, let our competitive mind sleep a while and look our life as if not looking it? My looking is still limited. With knowledge of my own interdepency, what can I learn from my opponent? The answer is enormous, not to be spoiled by simple, conclusive definitions of what it is. Rather it Could Be a lot of things. So this inevitably brings down the question: where are the limitations? Maybe I limit myself. So what is the point of seeking liberation? Liberation, freedom is in the beginning. That's where I would start.

Truth is everywhere. I'm not in any way separate from my surroundings, they are part of me. Not all of truth it can ever be put into bottle to be analyzed, theorized, understood. There is always information that we cannot express to other people, so we have to do our own research. Seeking readily made answers from our incredibly complicated and profound forms cultural conditioning can only help us so much. We obviously are results of conditioning, far less in control of our lives than we think we are. So how much one man can do to liberate himself? Obviously man has to know himself. By this way, I'm not just accumulating knowledge in chronological sense.

Instead of accumulation I'm actually trying to understand the world through myself more simpler way. This is not my new "religion", it rather is the way to make my interpretations of life more realistic, flowing, lifelike. I do not analyze it, it analyzes itself by happening through me. In that way, there is no actual conflict to be solved. Problems seem opportunities as experience simply flows me. I'm myself as of not being. The totality doesn't make rules just to be broken by itself, rather it builds something new without depending even on itself. That pretty much forms the meaning for Jeet Kune Do for me.

[This message has been edited by Neonomide (edited 03-06-2005).]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Chen Zen:
Through alive training and the close observation of our performance during pressure testing[/QUOTE]

Concise and right on target.


-John

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JKogas:
Concise and right on target.


-John[/QUOTE]

Took a moment. New job keeps me away for two to three days at a time but thats all going to change with the next check when I get my laptop. Get to travel a lot though.

Quote by JKogas -

[QUOTE]That's where you find the truth. Now the question becomes, HOW does one research his/her own experience and WHERE does one do the research?

Any takers???[/QUOTE]

at recess, of course. thers this kid that keepz pickin on me if i kik him n da scribbles iz that JDK? [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/biggrin.gif[/IMG]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by MattJ:
Quote by JKogas -

at recess, of course. thers this kid that keepz pickin on me if i kik him n da scribbles iz that JDK? [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/biggrin.gif[/IMG]

[/QUOTE]

If you do it with economy of motion, then yeah it might be. [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/biggrin.gif[/IMG]