For those who are experienced and/or teaching Jeet Kune Do...what should a "good" JKD school have to offer? What things would you expect to see that would say to you "this is legit"? Is there a standard curriculum or a standard of material that should be taught at any JKD school, or is that sort of against the philosophy of what JKD is?

I understand the philosophy, and tenets of simplicity, aliveness, and adaptability. I undertstand that it isn't really a specific "style", per say. But I am wondering how one would judge any particular school or gym which says it teaches JKD. They must teach some techniques and curriculum...are there certain techniques or styles that you will always see at a "good" JKD school?

What is “good” JKD… Good question!


Number one on the list would be an athletic training environment! People should be sweating and not standing around. You’ll see a LOT of the no-sweating and standing around in places where a more traditional (compound) trapping approach is done. Run for the hills if you wander into one of those schools.

You should be training (athletically) the fundamentals for each range. Some schools may have a level/phase system and others may not. If they have a phase system, you should still be learning the fundamentals of each range, even in the beginning phase.

The ranges are stand-up, clinch and ground (which include kicking, punching, trapping/clinch and ground)

Thus you should be learning the fundamentals of kickboxing/western boxing for stand-up (how to throw a jab, cross, defense, etc.), the fundamentals of the clinch (positioning, pummeling, strikes, takedowns, etc) and the fundamentals of ground-fighting (upa, elbow escape, etc).

Stylistically, you should see elements of:

*Western boxing
*Muay Thai
*Savate
*Greco-Roman style clinch work
*Jun Fan is often present (and sometimes NOT)
*Brazilian jiu-jitsu ground work

Training should be alive and dynamic. If you’re practicing the fundamentals of kickboxing for example, people should be moving around and throwing punches and kicks to their partners who are defending against them and firing punches and kicks in return, etc. You should see focus and Thai pad work also.

You should see people sparring as well. If there is no protective equipment (gloves, shin guards, headgear, etc.), you should ask if sparring is emphasized (as it should be). Sparring may be isolated to one range, or it may (and should) include ALL ranges. Doing isolation sparring and free sparring mirroring “vale tudo” are necessary (doesn’t mean they’re trying to kill each other though…make sure of that. You don’t want to go into a place where the egos are out of control).

Etc.



-John

No comments on that, one way or another. But I think you should avoid a place that says:

"scrutiny & selection to exclude low socio economic, uneducated"

and groups them in the same sentence with "anti-social elements and those with criminal records"

Overall, I do agree with your comments. However, just because a school may not teach ground fighting within their cirriculum, that does not make it a bad school.

A good JKD school I feel it open to the ideas taught and conceptualized by BL and some (not all) of the ideas and practices from other arts. This also includes the roots of JKD, Jun Fan Gung Fu.

I personally get irritated with the whole original/conceptual debate and I appreciate groups that don't get hung up on what has to be JKD. I think that helps make a good school. Then there are always personal preferences that draws someone to a particular school over another.

Would it be debatable that if BL was alive today, he would not be doing the same thing or teaching the same techniques? Considering how far people like Inosanto, Vunak, Rick Faye, Hartsell and all their students have taken the initial concept, wouldn't it seem more right that JKD is a state of mind, less than it is a school or style?
The thing to keep in mind is that when BL was teaching, very few westerners knew what kung fu, let alone any of it's specific styles were. Kali and BJJ were totally foreign concepts. Given all that, why wouldn't a quality JKD school be measured up to whether it teaches groundfighting or not? I am in no way bashing schools that don't teach it, but I think ignoring ground fighting altogether and just saying "make sure it doesn't go to the ground" is counter progressive and it leaves a huge gap in a vital defensive point in the here and now.

I think that if we are to follow JKD, then we have to adhere to it's concepts. One of those concepts states that we must strive to "float in totality".

How are we to float in totality if we do not practice ground fighting? To eliminate the ground game from a curriculum would be to "semi-float in partiality".

No doubt that Lee would have changed and continued to evolve, just as Dan Inosanto has (a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu).

It doesn't bother me however if people DON'T pursue ground fighting but I do think it should be part of any decent school these days.


-John

A question just poped up in my head.

How can "JKD" be "JKD" if you have restraints and limitations? I mean, it would be incomplete.

I doubt BL would say "No groundfighting" when clearly, he did a lot of research on it even though he was never able to see the great importance of it. I believe groundfighting was something, he thought, original.

-Taison out