Workshop September 7th

 

So you always wanted to try out Jeetkunedo, here's your chance. If you live in Devon, UK or are willing to travel there, we're holding a workshop on September 7th.   For more info or registration visit www.facebook.com/junfanjeetkunedodevon  and send us a DM or via the contact form on our website at: www.junfanjeetkunedo.co.uk .

Walk On!  

RIP Bruce Lee

 

Bruce Lee 27-11-1940  — 20-7-1973

Your inspiration continues to guide us towards our personal liberation!  

Walk On! 

The Risk of Grappling

 

This one is sure to cause some controversy, it shouldn't though, please read on and you hopefully see why.... 

In today's MMA/UFC you see a lot of grappling being employed, very succesfully too at times!

It is also clear that grappling can be a very effective skill to have.  It is for these reasons that a lot of (budding) martial artists are seeking out grappling arts, most commonly Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). 

However there's a time and place for everything, and the one place that grappling definitely doesn't belong is on the street!

The illustration (thank you sifu Richard Torres for sharing this), illustrates this to a degree.  The danger is that whilst you are on the ground wrestling with your opponent, there's others ready to jump you when you least expect it.  Grappling is very much a one on one art! The problem is that you lose your situational awareness very quickly, you have lost your mobility (so you can't evade, move, run away etc) and so you have severely handicapped yourself in the process.  I haven't even mentioned the surface you'd be grappling on, which can be concrete, wooden floors, gravel, sand, tarmac etc. In any case non of it is going to be very comfortable, to say the least. As such it further enhances the risk of injuries! Bumping your head or grazing your skin is a very real risk here. And lastly, because of that loss of situational awareness, you also won't notice that your opponent might just reach into a pocket and take out a knife or worse...you won't see it, you might not even feel it due to the adrenaline pumping, but you very soon will get a little giddy and lose consiousness when you realise (much too late) that you've just been mortally stabbed , multiple times....

Sadly, I see in many places that people are really into grappling, it being the end all to everything, totally engrossed by it because they see it all the time, on TV, in the ring/octagon, and at their local gym! At the time of writing ,MMA is probably the most popular martial art /combat sport people are taking up, but please don't forget it is a sport! It has rules, and rules mean limitation.   

Let me give you a wake up call, on the street there is NO referee, no one that will stop the fight, and there are NO RULES! 

Don't get me wrong, I wrote in the beginning that grappling can be a succesful tool, but approach it from the point of learning just enough about it, to be able to recognise an impending grappling attack or when you are finding yourself on the ground, how to get out of it as quickly as possible, get back on your feet, regain that mobility and situational awareness. Train anti grappling moves, but don't spend too much of your valuable time on it. Some argue that 70% of the fights end up on the ground. I argue that 100% of the fight start on your feet!  The chances are that any fight you end up in on the street, won't include a high level proffesional grappler, but someone who's seen a few moves on the TV, a complete amateur with at best a bit of basic knowledge, more likely non at all... So learn to deal with the grappler, without grappling taking up too much of your valuable time. (unless you are preparing to step inside an MMA octagon). For the street, you are much better off to train for the common opponent, particularly if you can't spend 24 hours a day on training, because life... etc...  

Train wisely, don't get caught up in the hype, stay alive.

Walk On! 

Simplicity is the Key!

In Jeet Kune Do, we are taught that everything we do needs to be simple. In this post I'd like to explain why that is, in case you didn't know.

As you may know, JKD was primeraly developed for use 'on the street', in a self defence situation, where there are no rules, any thing goes! This is what we train for.

To understand Self Defence training, we need to understand what generally happens. I am not describing a particular scenario here, but rather what happens to almost anyone that has ever been attacked.

What happens?

Everyone is familiar with the phrase: ‘I froze up, I didn’t know what to do’.   It is often heard that victims of an attack froze, ‘panicked’ and didn’t know how to act.

This is quite normal, due to elevating fear / panic the brain very quickly loses its ability to think rationally.  The longer it goes on, the bigger this influence becomes. When reaching absolute terror levels, it is not uncommon that people lose control of their bowels, faint, etc…

If you are interested in the science behind this, I’ve put an illustration in this article, showing how this all works. 

What is important?

It makes no sense to learn complicated, difficult to remember and execute series of moves.

Your response needs to be able to be executed fast and efficient, without much thought, as if in a reflex, therefore it needs to be simple to learn & lead direct to the desired result. Remember above where I mention you will lose the ability to think rationally in a stressful situation?

About Jeet Kune Do:

Bruce Lee developed his art, Jeet Kune Do, with exactly this in mind and that is why it is so effective for self-defence.  

Whilst he is most famous for spectacularly choreographed action scenes in his movies, remember that this is done for cinematic effect. On the street, this will rarely work. (you may not have the space, not wearing the right clothing, and these moves are very noticeable to the opponent).

Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do (literally translated, the way of the intercepting fist) is designed to be able for you to recognise an imminent attack and learn to intercept your attacker (this doesn’t mean you have to wait for him to physically start moving, you will learn to recognise a threatening situation and may be able to land a ‘pre-emptive’ strike.) The ultimate goal is to prevent a fight, but if one threatens to develop, it should be stopped before it can develop in a full-on brawl… The concept is sometimes referred to as ‘defensive offence, or offensive defence’.

In the beginning the emphasis of training is on tool development and mobility.  In a self defence situation, the best way is still to ‘run’, get out. There are however plenty of instances that this is not possible (you’re with someone else you are trying to protect, there are obstacles, etc ) Staying on your feet and to be able to regulate the distance between your attacker and yourself is very important.  This distance keeps you safer, but it also buys you time, your attacker will have to move towards you in order to reach you. This gives you time to respond and the opportunity to ‘intercept’ him.

What we won’t do (much) off:

In part to the rise of sports such as MMA, there is also a huge interest in grappling arts, such as Judo, or Jiu Jitsu (often Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ)).  Whilst some grappling knowledge is good to have, we approach this differently. Regarding grappling, we approach it from the perspective of ‘prevention’ and how to get up when you find yourself down.  Going to the floor on the street is a very bad idea.  Whilst you are potentially busy trying to subdue someone (or trying to fend of someone that is doing it to you), it is not unlikely that a bystander jumps out of the woodwork , unrelated to you and proceeds to kick you whilst down, all in the name of a few minutes of ‘fame’ on a social media platform.   Therefore, when possible, avoid ‘groundwork’ and leave that to law enforcement officers, your job is to get out, fast!

From a practical perspective, in general men tend to be bigger and stronger, so any attempt to wrestle a male attacker often leads in women getting hurt (or worse).  There are obviously exceptions, but in this class we deal with the ‘normal’. Chances are you won’t be attacked by a professional fighter, but rather an opportunist, in 99% of the cases.

This is why we train the way we do:

Tool development, and mobility (as mentioned earlier) is learning how to punch, kick, parry and evade and control the distance. We do not have a huge arsenal of different kicks and punches. Bruce kept this simple. Only those that according to him are most efficient, were kept. The following quote aptly explains another reason: ‘I fear not the man who practices 10.000 kicks once, I fear the man who practices one kick 10.000 times’. 

 In other words, we spend time to learn the few kicks and punches really well, in order for them to become so natural for you to execute that you don’t have to ‘think’ too much, which leads us back to the beginning of this writing.  When attacked, we just need to be able to instantly respond, without thought, as if it were a reflex.  

Finally:

Some of you may have heard the following quote which is often wrongly attributed to Bruce Lee (it actually originates from chairman Mao, but Bruce did write it down in a book dedication to a friend of his, which is where the confusion stems from).

‘Research your own experience. Absorb what is useful; Reject what is not, add what is specifically your own’.

Simply said, be critical of your learning experience, try to find what works well for you (we all have different attributes, strengths and weaknesses), focus on those rather than those that don’t work so well for you.

The ‘adding’ does not mean look elsewhere and start adding other techniques etc. (you'd be going away from the aim of keeping things simple)  Rather look within, put in your own heart and soul, your own spirit and tenacity, and as Bruce Lee would say, ‘express yourselves honestly, as a human being, not lying to oneself’.  

Martial arts will lead to self-discovery, self-expression, self-confidence and all these elements will help tremendously in all other facets of life. 

Walk On!

Workshops and Seminars

 Training with others is always a very enjoyable and educational process.  Other instructors and sparring partners have ideas you may or may not have thought about, have a different way of explaining, showing details you hadn't considered before, possibly point out little mistakes you've been making that others hadn't picked up on etc etc, so whenever you get the chance, try and participate in one. 

I did just that this weekend, joining US instructor Sifu Richard Torres in Leiden,  the Netherlands for a workshop on the finer points found in JKD techniques/mechanics.  A great time was had by all.

Walk On!

You can't hit what isn't there!

 Seems obvious doesn't it?  Yet so many martial artists neglect their footwork, they rather spend their time training all kinds of fancy kicks and acrobatics, than endlessly working on their mobility, footwork. 

Yet footwork is the engine of a good fighter.  Footwork get's you in the right position to strike, it get's you out of range when attacked, it helps tremendously in the powerful delivery of your blows, so why don't you work on it, it should be part of every training you do!  You don't even have to do it hours on end, a  couple of minutes daily, just focus on your feet, go through the basic steps, move backward/forward, left right, pivoting etc. you should 'glide' effortlessly, not stomping like a heard of elephants.Your head should also remain 'level' , no hopping up and down with each step (unless you are shoulder rolling/ bobbing & weaving). 5-15 minutes, that's all! 

Move your upper body loosely, move your lead and rear hand / arm slightly but never deviating too far from your on guard so that you remain well covered, but at the same time are elusive, and learn to strike from these motions and where the 'tools' are, never first reset to your 'perfect' on guard and strike from there, strike from where the tools are, and they become much harder to read by your opponent.  But don't always practice footwork including strikes (so you'd be shadowboxing), sometimes just focus on just your feet (whilst keeping a good on guard of course), move from the balls of your feet, rear heel raised slightly higher than your front one when in motion, so you can burst fwd at a moments notice and propel all that body weight forward and into your attacks. 

Again, you can't hit what isn't there! Foot work, foot work, foot work!

Walk On!  

Should I train everyday?

Conventional training methods state that you should take rest days between training sessions, to have time for recovery and avoid burn out etc.   

However, a JKD practitioner isn't conventional (he/she would have chosen MMA, or whatever else is popular at the time, and follow the masses...) so it stands to reason our training can be unconventional too.

What?!  Let me explain.  

It is absolutely true that fatigue will happen and recovery etc is hindered if you do the same training , at the same intensity, every single day!  It is important that the muscles (and nervous systems) do not get the exact same impulses every day.  Also remember that training in martial arts is more than just martial arts.  You need to make sure that the body can perform all the actions involved and to aid in that, you need to work on your cardio, strength, flexibility  seperate from your JKD training. Supplementary training in other words. 

However you should do so smartly, so that this dreaded burnout/fatigue doesn't occur and muscles get time to recover.  Even Bruce Lee already knew this so he set up a daily planner to train different things at different times/days of the week.   You should do to.  The image just shows his routines for his fitness program, he had similar planners for his martial arts training. 

Depending on the ammount of time you have or are willing to commit to your training,  devide it up in sessions. They don't need to take up several hours, a couple of minutes here and there can be effective.   Do always keep your goals in mind.  As a martial artist, you're not training to run a marathon, fighting is about short bursts of moderate to high intensity, your supplementary training needs to be designed to support that. 

Some examples:  Monday: 30 minute jogging (depending on your fitness levels, this can start off at walking with short jog intervals, building up to high intensity runs with sprints etc). Tuesday: 5 minute foot work drills + 10 minute bouncing tennis ball of a wall (hand eye coordination)+ gentle stretching.

Wednesday: JKD class! , Thursday Body weight training (push ups, sit ups, squats, etc etc) work on some punches, Friday 20 minutes heavy bag (or if you don't have one, several rounds of shadow boxing), Saturday, 30 minute jog + work on your kicks, Sunday , stretching/flexibility, 2x set of sit ups, 2x set of push ups, 1 or 2 rounds of low intensity shadow boxing.  Eat, Sleep, JKD, Repeat ;-) 

Again, these are just examples, you can do anything else but important is that if on one day you really hammered your legs, then do something the following day that is perhaps more focussed on the upper body, and only light on your legs.  It still means that your heart rate will increase, circulating the blood and aid recovery in other areas by doing so.  If you have (a) dog(s), then going out for a walk somewhere where you can let them run and you can throw a ball, then that is also (light) exersize (and you get fresh air too!) , you can even take the opportunity to throw some shadow boxing in whilst your pet(s) are running and playing by themselves.  Vary the intensity if you have a certain drill that you repeat two days on a row, one day intensive, the other lightly (again to aid recovery but still doing something)  Just learn to use your time effectively.  Practice footwork, or throw a few jabs whilst the kettle is boiling! Waiting for the bath to fill up? do a few pushups!  A rest day doesn't have to mean do nothing at all, but do something different or at light intensity. (read a paragraph of the TAO whilst doing a couple of dumbell curls ;-) )

Many people go to a martial arts class  and  if that class is held 2-3 times per week, all activity they do is just that hour training 2-3 time each week.  Nothing on other days.  Not in JKD! (or at least not typical). 

JKD training in many places is traditionally only done 1x per week in a formal class, usually one and half to 2 hour sessions.  The practitioner is expected to train at home, independently (or with a partner) in between sessions. This is a great way to build discipline, so look at the class as a session to get a lesson and then homework is set.  They don't expect to be taken by the hand and told what to do, do research, read the TAO, find areas you are weak on and work on those, test them out next session if the opportunity is there, ask the questions! Not only do you get the answers, but you will also keep your instructor sharp and engaged. If your instructor doesn't like tricky questions, leave! He / she should have the courage to say I don't know, if he / she hasn't got the answer right away, there's no shame in that and we all grow. If someone get's defensive/upset, then you are not in the right place! 

In short, work out a plan based on your available time, stick to it for a few weeks, see how you get on, tweak it, or change it up completely for variety, if your personal / profesional life changes, try and adjust around it, still ensuring that the exersizes and drills you do support your martial arts training. 

That is if you want to of course. 

Very simply, do not expect Bruce Lee like results, if you don't put in Bruce Lee like time and effort! And don't think because you are not Bruce Lee, it makes no sense for you to train in that way. Also you'd be doing it for the wrong reason, you are you, so train to make a better version of you!  

So determine how much time you have available and are willing to devote to your training, and set up a plan and stick to it! Make it realistic, don't set goals you know you can't acchieve, and if you do acchieve them, set new ones, change things up!

Walk On!