teri tom straight lead

Discussion in 'Jeet Kune Do' started by tel, Mar 6, 2006.

  1. DaeHanL

    DaeHanL FortuneCracker

    exactamondo.
     
  2. Tim McFatridge

    Tim McFatridge Valued Member

    This whole thing is BS and really ticks me off. Sorry but thats my feelings on the subject. I have never understood why the media/people (magazines and others) always seem to lift up certain people and proclaim them as experts when they have done nothing to prove they are experts. I just don't get it. Who is Teri Tom anyway...? besides a student of Ted Wong? Has she trained with any of the other original students of Bruce Lee or just Ted Wong? As far as I know she has only trained with Ted Wong so what makes her an authoritative voice on Jun Fan Gung Fu? I have trained with Dan and Larry and a few others but by no means do I consider myself an expert or an authority on the subject.

    Sorry for the rambling here but this really drives me crazy. The fact is that Sifu Dan and Sifu Larry both know what they know and they do not lose any sleep over what some less knowledgeable people say about what they do. I know from talking to Larry that yes Ted Wong was the last private student of Bruce Lee. However that only means that he was the last private student accepted by Bruce Lee. Ted would train every Saturday morning at Bruce's house in Bel Air California... along side Dan Inosanto, Larry Hartsell, Richard Bustillo and a few others. Yes, Ted also trained with Bruce one on one but he was only a student for a short time. Then Bruce left for Honk Kong to make movies and never returned. Ted may be an expert on the material that Bruce taught him but not on the entire system of what Bruce had taught Dan and James Lee and Taky. These guy were there from early on and went through all the changes with Bruce as the system changed over the years. Dan trained with Bruce starting in 1964 how can Teri Tom have the nerve to come out and say anything at all negative about Dan or anyone associated with Dan? She can't if she is truthful with herself and her readers.

    Sorry guys I will put my soap box away now...

    Have a great one
     
  3. Tim McFatridge

    Tim McFatridge Valued Member

    I agree...in the words of Rodney King... "can't we all just get along"
     
  4. windtalker

    windtalker Pleased to return to MAP

    nearly everyone in my class has read that damn book. until we grew tired of rehashing the subect it was a popular topic after jkd class. there was almost this ritual of pointing out technical errors and her bad manners with that all knowing attitude. did she not expect any backlash after making those grand assumptions and throwing insults toward other jkd instructors?

    maybe she will eventually train with some other jeet kune do instructors and realize they know far more than she does. someday that arrogance will pass and maybe a sensible jkd book will get written. until then we have found plenty of good uses for that book. thus far it makes a good doorjam, coaster, paper weight and provides material for starting up the grill. why did black belt magazine let her start a new article? they must enjoy heated debates.

    by the way i didnt care for the straight lead by terri tom.
     
  5. wingchundo boom

    wingchundo boom New Member

    I do wing chun do gung fu and I agree, fighting is fighting.
     
  6. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    *inhales deeply and counts to ten....*

    You didn't check when the last post in this thread was did you?
     
  7. mick shore

    mick shore Valued Member

    Good book until the inosanto bashing starts---anybody read her new book-any good?
     
  8. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    Cannot bring myself to read anything she has to say - probably blinkered on my part but I refuse to put money in that witches pocket
     
  9. pinklady6000

    pinklady6000 Banned Banned

    I loved teri tom's book "the straight lead."
    I understood all of it and can apply it.
     
  10. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    Are you actually just spamming the JKD threads now?

    Frankly if you have just read books your understanding is still basically zero
     
  11. FlailingIdiot

    FlailingIdiot New Member

    I read the book. I'm primarily a muay thai striker, and I trained myself in this one bloody technique. It works as described. I don't know anything about Inosanto or Wong, and I don't care. The book itself aside from some weird tangent rant of a chapter at the end, argues very well the rationale and science behind the technique.

    I have to say, whatever the "crystalized" forms these techniques or schools have become, in my experience having adapted the straight lead, strong side forward into my own fighting, I'm sold on the author's knowledge.

    If people are whining about how some inexperienced student is talking smack about their hero, maybe stop worshipping that hero? Didn't Bruce do the same? Question the supposed knowledge of established masters of styles?
     
  12. Botta Dritta

    Botta Dritta Valued Member

    Firstly +10 points for necromancing a dead thread. Hannibal - destroyer of nonsense, last posted in 2016, so well done. I had this book before I even properly started martial arts, as I thought I could I could learn something new from Bruce Lee's approach to take into fencing, seeing that so many of his notes were cribbed from mid 20th century Fencing masters such as Aldo Nadi,Julio Martinez Castello, and Roger Crosnier, all who had their writings modified, or lifted verbatim when The Tao of Jeet Kune Do was written after his death. His Personal library had 68 books on fencing alone.

    His original interest in fencing came from his older brother Peter Lee, who was Hong Kong Colonial Champion at arms/ Master at arms (basically the average best fencer all three disciplines Foil, Epee and Sabre- most fencers can manage two disciplines including yours truly).

    For a nice article see:

    Bruce Lee - The World’s Most Famous Fencer? - Academy of Fencing Masters Blog


    Who also was part of the Hong Kong Fencing team at the Commonwealth (then British Empire) championships in Cardiff, Wales 1958

    Hong Kong Fencing Association

    There is a myth circulated I think by Jesse Glovers Between Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do's, book that Peter Lee was a Commonwealth champion. That's not quite correct - that honor goes to Hung Hak Yau or not....wiki is contradictory on this. Regardless it might be interesting if the chap at the end of this clip epee bout is Bruce Lee's brother or one of his Team mates



    Sometime after the fight with Wong Jack man he decide to modify his personal take on Wing Chun by adding Boxing Power Generation (he was a school boxing champion), and Fencing footwork and Tactical Principles to his arsenal of self expression. (Not sure who influenced his later take on kicking - Jhoon Goo Rhee? Theres hints of Savate in there too Maybe some Mapper would like to chime in on that one)

    When I first read Teri Tom's book I was fascinated and somewhat proud that someone had finally placed my sport in its rightful place as one of the three main pillars (influences) of Bruce Lee's Original Jeet Kune Do (OJKD). So much of his notes read like a fencing textbook.

    However with the passing of years however I've come to believe the book is limited by her own bias and loyalty to her own Ted Wong lineage. Her reductionist take on Bruce Lee's techniques led many to claim that she had reduced JKD to just kickboxing. Also I think she overstated fencing's influence. Its certainly there but a closer inspection of the text show that Bruce lee had a great understanding of the principles of fencing but not the differences in approaches between Crosnier, Nadi and Castillo, who have different pedagogical backgrounds. (It's hair splitting for us fencers but its there)

    Now there's nothing inherently wrong with OJKD: its fine and admirable to tread in Bruce Lee's on steps to find truth in combat, up to and including the concepts of power generation he developed combining boxing's power generation with Fencing Lead/Footwork timing But her assertion that he had totally abandoned Wing Chun is completely off base. A simple glance at the last Los Angeles curriculum developed showed that he had pared it down but it was still integral to his trapping range with some sense that he would teach it when students reached a certain proficiency ( which leads to the question : was there different emphasis on Wing Chun in the Oakland, Seattle Los Angeles schools?)

    But much like the reason he closed his schools, I think he took the Wing Chun/Boxing/Fencing paradigm as far as it could go: It was his own personal expression limited by his background and history. He wanted to go further and develop a no-style concept that mirrored his developing thinking. Unfortunately he died early leaving us with his philosophy (A mix of Krishnamurti/Spinoza and Taoism), but no practical blueprint as to how to practically achieve this.

    Enter Dan Inosanto, who was one of Bruce Lee's instructors. But much like Bruce Lee expressed JKD through a lense of Wing Chun (and arguably his background in High School Boxing and Peter Lee's Fencing), thus Inosanto expressed JKD through his own personal lens of Escrima - his own background. How could he not? JKD is after all self expression, not channeling your instructor/Mentor.

    Now Escrima probably loomed larger in the next generation of practitioners as an integral part of JKD than Teri and other OJKD may have been comfortable with, considering how little material on it Bruce had notes on (any?) but from what I understand Dan Inosanto always made clear that his Escrima seminars would be used as a platform to allow others to discover JKD principles, not that Eskrima was integral part of the original JKD itself. After which they were free to explore and in the timeless dictum: take what is useful, get rid of what didn't work for them, add what was specifically their own.

    I enjoyed the book and it had some fine ideas. But I felt she unnecessarily demonised the JKD concepts crowd by accusing them of something they were not guilty of.
     

Share This Page