Does Jeet Kune Do get there kicks from Tkd

[Despoja]

I have always been curoius where Jeet Kune Do gets there kicks from?

I have always throught that they inherit it from Taekwondo (due to his powerful sidekicks) , so am i right?

If Not, Could someone also tell me if Bruce Lee even knew anything about Taekwondo, did he even know who General Choi is, ????. (which is the founder of taekwondo...)
where they friends at least

[pgm316]

Not TKD I don't believe!

BL originally studied Kung Fu, so I'll say Kung Fu!

Although JKD can incorporate anything, I know many JKD ppl take Mua Thai because its damn effective.

[BlackRaven]

Surely as JKD(c) is about taking what works for the individual, then the kick would come from whatever works best for that particular individual. If not, I would say Jun Fan Gung Fu.

Yoda is the best person to answer this one I think.

[pesilat]

Yup. I'm sure Yoda can give a more definitive answer than I can ... but here's the situation as I understand it.

BL took some kicking from KF, some from Savate, and some from MT. But, if I understand things correctly, he was drawing more on the methodology than the specific techniques.

However, I think he was also friends with Jhoon Rhee and probably got some influence from him.

Mike

[YODA]

Mike's got it basically correct - he was a good friend of Jhoon Rhee and took a lot of his theatrical kicks from him. The stuff he actually taught, however, was pretty much Gung Fu / Savate / Thai influenced.

[Greg-VT]

Originally posted by pgm316
Not TKD I don't believe!

BL originally studied Kung Fu, so I'll say Kung Fu! ....




No... I don't think it would have been Kung Fu.... The Kung Fu Bruce studied did not have any / many kicks above the waist.

[pesilat]

Originally posted by Ving Tsun
No... I don't think it would have been Kung Fu.... The Kung Fu Bruce studied did not have any / many kicks above the waist.

While Wing Chun was the only thing BL formally studied, it wasn't the only thing he researched or drew from. He also incorporated things from various other KF systems from northern and southern China.

Mike

[Kwan Jang]

-Actually, Bruce was not very fond of muay thai as he felt it was "not very sophisticated". It was Danny and the later generations who realized the value of muay thai. Bruce in the early days was against high "theatrical" kicks. Later, after his training with both Jhoon Rhee and Chuck Norris, he realized the benefits of having more targets available to choose from. While Bruce still preferred (as do I) the lower-level kicks for self-defense, he came to the conclusion that if you attack to more angles of attack(crossing quadrants) it was much harder for an opponent to defend against. Bruce would look at the actual mechanics of any technique and come of with the most effective way to use it, regardless of style. "Use what works, discard the rest" was one of his favorite sayings on the subject.

[Andrew Green]

Does where Bruce got his kicks matter? No one here is Bruce.

[Greg-VT]

Originally posted by pesilat
While Wing Chun was the only thing BL formally studied, it wasn't the only thing he researched or drew from. He also incorporated things from various other KF systems from northern and southern China.

Mike

Really? I was not aware of it. I thought the only Kung Fu he studied was WC. Anyway, thanks for pointing that out.




And Andrew, Despoja was curious. And usually when that’s the case, you ask a question. Have ever asked a question out of curiosity before?

[pesilat]

Originally posted by Ving Tsun
[B]Really? I was not aware of it. I thought the only Kung Fu he studied was WC. Anyway, thanks for pointing that out.

Depends on your definition of "studied." WC was the only thing (KF or otherwise) that he ver formally studied. But he was exposed (via training partners and academic research) to a lot of other stuff. As I understand it, prior to his death, he had compiled one of the most extensive libraries of martial arts related material that anyone's ever seen (before or since).

Mike

[Andrew Green]

Originally posted by Ving Tsun

And Andrew, Despoja was curious. And usually when that’s the case, you ask a question. Have ever asked a question out of curiosity before?

And I gave an answer. It doesn't matter.

Two different questions:

Where did Bruce get his kicks?

and

Where does JKD get its kicks?

The first is irrrelevant to the second IMO, and everything Bruce wrote about JKD seems to support that.

[Greg-VT]

Originally posted by Andrew Green
And I gave an answer. It doesn't matter.

Two different questions:

Where did Bruce get his kicks?

and

Where does JKD get its kicks?

The first is irrrelevant to the second IMO, and everything Bruce wrote about JKD seems to support that.

Yea, but some could confuse them (2nd to 1st) to be one and the same.

[Cain]

Sorry for being off topic, but it's been a while since I seen you Mike, where you been? :D

|Cain|

[pesilat]

Originally posted by cain_charlie
Sorry for being off topic, but it's been a while since I seen you Mike, where you been? :D

|Cain|

If I'm the Mike you're referring to, then hi :) I've been around some, but not posting much. Been pretty busy lately traveling a lot to teach/train.

Mike

[Nimrook]

From my understanding, though I don't claim to be a JKD or TKD expert, Bruce Lee first thought of making JKD a small, measured, kicking style untill he met the [then] reigning TKD champion, Chuck Norris.
After training with him for a few months Bruce Lee decieded to put more into kicks then his original design.
Mind you this is only what I have read, and seen in documentaries of Bruce Lee. If any JKD practitioners have a inside view that differs from mine I will bow to their knowledge on the subject.

[Vrax]

bruce also worked out with joe lewis and mike stone, both karate champions. bruce exchanged techniques with many of his students/peers making it pretty much impossible to be sure where he drew his kicking from. i think the best answer is "from within".

on the other subject of bruce's training, his father exposed him to tai chi at a young age. bruce also studied bok pai and demonstrated its forms on some videos. not only were his theatrical kicks from tkd and savate but some also came from bok pai.

[pgm316]

Originally posted by Ving Tsun
No... I don't think it would have been Kung Fu.... The Kung Fu Bruce studied did not have any / many kicks above the waist.

I don't think his fighting style had many kicks about the waste, or at least head height! Don't confuse his martial art with his films ;)

Nimrook

From my understanding, though I don't claim to be a JKD or TKD expert, Bruce Lee first thought of making JKD a small, measured, kicking style untill he met the [then] reigning TKD champion, Chuck Norris.

I don't believe he intended JKD to be a kicking art, intending his art to have been anything so specific would have gone against his philosophies completely.

Did BL study TKD or Chuck Norris :confused: :eek: :D

[Nimrook]

good question

[Greg-VT]

Originally posted by pgm316
I don't think his fighting style had many kicks about the waste, or at least head height! Don't confuse his martial art with his films ;)


Wha?!? :D.

Man, you've lost me, soz. I never mentioned his films.... Or head height.....

EDIT: Ahh right. Yep, I gotcha.

[aikido man]

When bruce Lee created this style, he intended to fix all the problems he found with traditional kung fu, there fore he took the best of all the martial arts he knew of and created Jeet kun do. He purpsely made it with no set techniques or stances to fit real life situations because he felt in a real life situation, no one in going to wait for u to get into position before u fight

[aikido man]

so yes, it does include some tea kwon do

[Tireces]

Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do has quite a few set techniques, and one stance, designed to be universally capable of different methods of attack, so as not to give the opponent beforehand knowledge of what he is up against. He may know he is working against Jeet Kune Do, but that it all. Because Jeet Kune do does not place any over-reliance on countering, punching, kicking, grappling, or whatever one might come up with. To ask where certain techniques were derived from is to expect a good list of answers. You'll find most of the basic kicks are ones that are universal to almost every martial art that incorporates them. These kicks vary from art to art mostly due to the stances they are thrown from, and by their names. For example, what is known as a "front leg hook kick" may be a "front leg roundhouse" to someone else, but it's the same kick, for the most part. What I have never seen from another art is the motion known as the "pendulum", which delivers the kicks. It deviates a great deal from your standard "step in", not only delivering the kicks very quickly, but also very powerfully, using quick motion of the hips. At the same time, it can also be used to extend your effective range, and also facilitates a VERY fast recovery if one "pendulums out", which is simply reversing the pendulum back into your stance, at the exact location you began at, or somewhere else, depending on how well you can manipulate the movement. I could really go on forever on all these principles, and this is why one shouldn't try to "master" Jeet Kune Do by training in every martial art they can get their hands on. Jeet Kune Do is based heavily on the idea that there is infinite room for improvement, but not an infinite amount of time to improve in. There is no "mastery", even Bruce would tell you that. The reason why the core system has been broken down to just a few simple techniques as compared to other arts, is so you can work on the myriad of intricacies involved in using them effectively, rather than working on incorporating new moves and techniques all the time. Its precisely the same reason why you'll never find kata or forms being practiced in a good JKD class. Many people reject the core system Bruce setup, but what they don't consider is that it makes a good foundation for what works. Even within its simple confines, one can find people developing preferences. My own Sifu prefers to simply teach the entire system, not what he himself likes, so that other techniques that he finds not so useful, but someone else might find invaluable, are not lost. So, after my unnecessarily long first post, I'm going to have to answer, if you want to find where Bruce got Jeet Kune Do's kicks from, you can find them in almost any martial art. with the differences I mentioned earlier. If you want to see the principles behind them, they're likely either scattered across all sorts of different styles of martial arts, or ones Bruce formulated himself. But if you want an art that combines them all beautifully, Jeet Kune Do is likely your only option.

[FISH]

WC primarily along with TKD,Karate,and Muay Thai.

[inosanto1]

Most of the JKD kicks come from Thai boxing,Wing Chun and Savate.

Originally there were no high kicks in JKD(only what you see in Bruce's films.

The whole point of JKD is to minimise on energy, hence no high kicks

[YODA]

Originally posted by inosanto1
The whole point of JKD is to minimise on energy, hence no high kicks


What if a person's particular mix of attributes, prior training & genetics are condusive to fast, efficient high kicking?

Surely "the whole point of JKD" is that there is no one "way?"

[bite]

Hi Yoda,

There are instances wherein Bruce sparred with a TKD stylist showing off his high kicks during sparring.

It all depends on the individual if he could kick high (fast enough). After all, the book "Commentaries on the Martial Way" favors any level of kicks.

The question remains if the teacher concerned would allow his student to do it. I know some OBLS guys that allows it since they believe that it depends on the individual concerning training.

From the bite

[bite]

Pgm316,

I beg to disagree, try reading an interview of Paul Bax with Ted Wong (last private student). The last evolution of JKD had a lot of kicking involved.

Originally posted by pgm316
I don't think his fighting style had many kicks about the waste, or at least head height! Don't confuse his martial art with his films ;)

I don't believe he intended JKD to be a kicking art, intending his art to have been anything so specific would have gone against his philosophies completely.

Did BL study TKD or Chuck Norris :confused: :eek: :D

[Yama Tombo]

Jeet Kune Do is not the martial art part, it was the philosophy or guide to strip away the unessentials. Bruce Lee practice Gung Fu not Kung Fu. And Bruce focused on his legs the most; TKD was one of many arts he studied, what he liked about TKD was it's kicking. Though he said it "lack liveliness","Grappling", "Eye poking", and so forth.

[LS]

uh... my friend .. kung fu and gung fu are the same thing: just that gung fu is cantonese and kung fu is mandarin.. Jeet Kune Do is a martial art .. .it has a complete structure that one can go by and then transcend it...

[Yama Tombo]

Ok, Let me track myself, I'm tired. The actually reason why I said gung fu is not kung fu, because both are actually the same. Gung Fu is chinese then Americans turned it into Kung Fu. But Jeet Kune Do is not a Martail Art, and the Tao of Jeet Kune Do was uncomplete guide.

[SteveJKDUK]

"Kung Fu" or "Gung Fu" are the same thing. It should be pronounced as "Gung Fu" but when the Cantonese language was romanised (probably by the British many moons ago), they mistakenly called it "Kung Fu."

Bruce Lee (and everyone that speaks Cantonese) would agree it should sound more like "Gung Fu."

That is another reason why there seems to be 20 million ways of writing "Wing Chun" in English! :D

[SatchSRV]

There was a documentary about BL on two days ago...cant remember the channel. I think it was HBO or MAX? Anyways, Chuck Norris said that BL originally taught and believed that all kicks should only be low and below the waist. After training and talking w/ CN, BL started to change his philosophy and started teaching higher kicks and saw the benefit of them.

I'm not claiming to be an expert on the matter, just stating from what I heard in the documentary from CN.