Is it ok to create your own style??

I want a refund

 

Doesn't mean it IS total crap either.
I'm pretty sure I could take what I know from TKD, add some of what I learnt in BJJ, Thai, Arnis, Knockdown Karate and Hapkido and come up with something of equal merit to the base TKD style I started with. Certainly not something of less merit and maybe...shock horor...more merit!
And maybe it'd be something new or different enough that perhaps it would no longer be TKD (that would be debatable of course)? I'm pretty sure most TKD associations wouldn't deem it to be TKD anymore.

 

Really? Then by that simple standard countless people should create their own style. Bruce Lee was a good communicator, a charismatic person and knew how to do moves that a lot of other people also knew how to do. Kicking fast is not a Bruce Lee thing. Cool push ups are not a Bruce Lee thing. Watch a demo by Shaolin Monks and you will see lots of cool stuff. You will see every move Bruce Lee showed the ability to perform plus much, much, much more.

His philosophy on martial arts is also nothing new, even at that time.

You seem to ignore the other factors that contributed to Bruce Lee's reputation. His fame isn't due to him being a good martial artist. It's due to him being a very famous movie star that at that time showed you something you weren't used to see in american cinema.

Nowadays nobody would take him seriously because people are a lot more educated about martial arts and are much more difficult to impress.

Now, you say that he was a great martial artist...well...there are a lot of people out there who can do amazing moves and would get smashed in a real fight. To me being a great martial artist isn't simply being able to do great stunts.

Let me remind you Bruce Lee talked a lot about effectiveness. He was obsessed about finding out what would work best in a real fight. It's not like he was training something for cultural reasons. He was about effectiveness and real fighting. But yet, we have no proof that he was really that capable. Nowadays that wouldn't fly.

 

Oh, but you think Bruce Lee was exceptional enough in order to justify the creation of a style? Why? You keep missing the point. That's maybe because you're not interesting in getting what i'm saying. You're only interested in your opinion. Bruce Lee was an actor and a stuntman. That doesn't make him an exceptional Martial Artist. That doesn't make him better than all the other people you think shouldn't create their own style. Bruce was great at promoting himself and since he arrived to the USA he was already teaching a style of his own, with a name made up by him.

 

Sure why not?

 

If you want to know how good Bruce was look at his students - Guro Dan alone shows you exactly how good Bruce must have been, simply by virtue of the way he still speaks on his old teacher and the stories....in fact in many ways it would be to his advantage to focus on his OWN abilities (as he has forgotten more than most of us will ever know), but instead he still speaks of Bruce in utter reverence and awe

Also you may need to read this -

Emphasis mine

If you are speaking polemically about JKD, learn what it actually is first

 

I don't care about anecdotal evidence. I already told you this. I'm not interested in listening to his students. Name any instructor in the world, and you could probably find people claiming he is great. You have schools where dozens and dozens and dozens of students pretend their instructor have super powers. For something to be accepted as a fact, you need a lot more than "someone told me". The fact here is that you have absolutely zero proof that Bruce Lee was a truly competent fighter.

 

What would you like as proof? To see it with your own eyes?

Given the time period, the technology, and the fact that he's been dead for over 40 years - that's difficult. However the footage we do have (whether movie, tv or home video) shows someone who would be regarded by most as having a high technical skill level.

A fight record?

Well that establishes how good someone is at performing within a certain ruleset. It's not necessarily a good measure of overall skill or ability or knowledge. It's also not in the interests of a professional actor to focus on competing. We only have the limited (good) record of the few public fights he engaged in.

So what do you have left as measures?

Written records produced by Bruce Lee indicating his understanding of classical teachings and other related knowledge. Pictorial records indicating technical skill and training methods. Video footage. Student and peer anecdotes.

Given what we have of the above, and the quantifiable skill level (you can train with them or view their fight records) of those who sparred with him and rate him highly, I'm happy to take that as proof he was a good fighter. If you aren't that's your choice, but it's not a logical evidence based choice.

I've just received two very nice looking new books on Bruce Lee for review from Tuttle, so I'm looking forward to getting stuck into them over the next two months.

 

Show me anything that shows Takamatsu could fight...or The Boss

 

Any significant piece of evidence through which i would be able to confirm that he was able to perform his techniques on a trained person willing to resist him, instead of simply playing along.

The "there's no way to prove" argument is the favourite among people who train ineffective styles. Just saying...

I'm not even saying he wasn't good. I'm saying we have absolutely nothing to claim so determinately that he was.

The man was an actor. Sure, he was in good shape and knew a few good moves, so he probably could beat someone up. I can also beat someone up, but i'm surely no superior martial artist. I'm no Mozart of martial arts. Neither was Bruce Lee. If you wanna believe he was absolutely exceptional, that's up to you. But you really don't have anything to use as a convincing evidence of that. It's just your personal belief.

 

But i'm not saying Takamatsu could fight. I've questioned Takamatsu on this very forum. He is another Bruce Lee, like Hatsumi is another Bruce Lee. These are people who claim things but prove very little. The problem is that Takamatsu wanted to preserve a tradition. He was into classical martial arts. Bruce Lee wanted to develop something practical and effective for modern times. That boosts the need of evidence of any sort of fighting ability, because it's no longer about culture or preserving systems, it's about practical fighting.

 

No it's the testimony of highly regarded martial artists who engaged in resistant 'live' training with him by their own accounts. That is convincing evidence. If you can't accept that then it is simply your personal belief not to do so, but arguing against what would be considered as proof by most normal people is effectively trolling in this context.

That is a warning by a forum moderator against trolling.

 

No, it's not convincing evidence. People lie and exaggerate quite often, regardless of their status. Especially when it comes to defending something or someone who might reflect positively on them. Being trained by someone as iconic as Bruce Lee was a big deal. It's also something that a lot of people could use as an effective marketing tool, and still do it to this day.

There's a reason why we have competitions like the UFC, and that's because people's word is simply not enough.

In pretty much every well known style we have a load of people claiming the Grand Master of the style is a bad ass. That means nothing. All styles would be great and super effective if what the students say was actually the truth. And that's not the case.

Sure, everyone wants to claim Bruce Lee was a bad ass and they engaged in hard sparring against him. But...Bruce Lee didn't live 300 years ago. He lived in the 60's and in the 70's. There is footage of him training, there isn't footage of him sparring hard against a really good well rounded martial artist. Or is it?

Believe in whatever you want. I've seen enough, i've heard enough and i've trained enough to know that i should simply not believe in what people tell me.

Now, if you wanna simply claim that he was great at performing cool moves, i would give you that. But there were many others like him. Just watch any chinese Kung Fu movie from the 60's and 70's.

 

Wait, trolling? It seems you're using your mod status to force your way of viewing things on other people.

So, to you, normal people would accept that as evidence? And if they don't, they're trolling? Then go post this on any MMA community and tell me if they accept this as evidence. They won't. And they're not wrong because of that. You're simply deciding they are, but you have zero authority to do it. ZERO! You can ban me if you want to, but i don't have to agree with you, and your opinion isn't more valid than mine just because you want it to be. You're just another person in a forum. Don't forget that.

 

I think people like Chuck Norris and Dan Inosanto have good enough reputations (with accompanying evidence of them being good fighters by most definitions of the word) to say what they like about Bruce.

This thread has largely been derailed into a discussion on Bruce Lee. Let's get it back on the topic of whether it is ok to create your own style.

 

RoninX - if you have an issue with a moderator or any other poster then the proper course of action is to use the report function. Please familiarise yourself with the TOS.

 

Apparently their reputation is not good enough, since a good percentage of the MA community still thinks Bruce Lee is nothing but an actor and stuntman. And like i said, people lie and exaggerate all the time. Not saying Chuck Norris is lying. I'm just saying i don't have to believe him, since i know for a fact that people often say the greatest things about their masters and people they train with.

Plus, what exactly do we know about these sparring sessions? There is really not much to talk about.

 

Ok. I reported you for calling me a troll for not agreeing with your definition of convincing evidence. I guess that's against the rules. Let's see if something happens to you.

 

No problem. That's what the report function is for.