New Opportunities

 Occasionally change happens on your journey.  Sometimes this starts off as a negative, but often you can turn this into a positive.  

For a while now, life has become more expensive and I was starting to get a little worried about the cost of operating the training classes.  However, after some searching things might turn out for the better.  One door closes, another opens basically. 

I've agreed to start renting another space for a more affordable tarrif starting in June 2023. 

The venue is a little bit smaller than what I currently use, but the training will instead be at a dedicated Martial Arts school!  The venue is tailor made, has all the equipment available we could possibly need and more.  We'll be training at the facilities of Newton Abbot Martial Arts

All in all, that gives me hope for the future, and the environment hopefully works inspiring to the current members.  It will hopefully help in additional exposure to the art and perhaps result in new members over time. 

Onwards and Upwards. 

Walk On!

Ving Tsun Book

 I know, this blog is primarily about Jeet Kune Do.  I would do you a disservice if I didn't briefly touch upon the imminent release of a great new book on the martial art of Ving Tsun (also spelled Wing Chun). 

Bruce Lee trained in Ving Tsun from age 13 under Ip Man, but it was one of Ip Man's senior students who did most of the teaching to Bruce, Wong Shun Leung.   

Now a book on this art in Wong Shun Leung lineage is being published, co written by my own Jeet Kune Do instructor, James ter Beek.  

How do I know it's a great book if it's not even published yet? 

Aside from the fact that I know he's a good teacher, I've also helped a little bit in proof reading some of the text etc so I have had first glance on the content ;-)  Believe me, this book will have pride of place in your library.  Pre-Order here.

https://www.vtkf.nl/vingtsunbook?lang=en 

Walk On! 

Taking a hit

Taking a hit. . .

Taking a blow to the head in actual combat, without the protection of gloves, body armour, head guards, shin pads and a mouth guard, is probably not what you're looking forward to. It is never pleasant to get hit, even if you are an advanced practitioner, although you are more used to it. Sparring without hitting each other is the other extreme and as such you don't prepare yourself for a real confrontation with an opponent. Punches are usually made to the head because that's where you're most vulnerable.

By sparring you learn to deal with being hit. In training, punches are controlled and measured. It is not a competition, although the element of competition between practitioners can never be completely ruled out. As a result, there is no question of winning or losing. Of course you would like to be the one that 'hit's and your training partner to be the one who 'gets hit'. Unfortunately, that is not the reality. Coming out of a fight on the street completely unscathed is a utopia. That is why it is important to learn to switch quickly during training and to assume in advance that you will also be hit yourself. Then you are already ahead of an opponent who does not do this.

You take a punch not only physically, but also mentally. Can you deal with that and carry on? Or do you block and give your opponent even more advantage? During our classes, sparring is always supervised under the close supervision of a trainer. This is a safe way of training. Emotions can certainly arise when sparring, especially if you are still inexperienced. Learning to control that is also an important learning process of your total development.

It can be frustrating to accept this, but it's a fair way to train. When you never do sparring and only exercises where everything goes according to plan, you can compare it to making swimming movements in the sand with the ocean next to you. As Bruce Lee would s
ay, you're practicing dry land swimming! In order to make the strongest possible development, we have a large selection of drills in JKD that varies from individual training such as footwork drills, mirror exercises equipment training, but also many partner exercises and eventually also sparring with contact.

The link to absorbing setbacks that come your way in daily life is easily made. Learning to take it physically also makes you stronger mentally. The first goal during sparring is to remain calm and not get angry. After that, the goal is to apply the concepts you learn JKD during sparring. This is not so easy, also because your training partners are getting better at it. As a result, the training will continue to challenge you. Remember to always stay humble, stay open to learning and continue improving!

Walk On!

OPEN Jeet Kune Do Workshop

Announcing an Open Jeet Kune Do workshop to be held on May 6th 2023. This workshop is open to everyone over the age of 14 with an interest in Martial Arts. Prior experience is not required, but obviously useful. This workshop will cover Bruce Lee's development of the art of Jeet Kune Do, and will teach you some of the basics of this art, so you will actively participate in a variety of drills and basic principles. Experienced Martial artists will also be catered for in that we'll endeavor to cover some more advanced topics in a seperate group during this event.
Teaching will be James ter Beek and George Sirag. They came into contact with Ted Wong in the early 1990's and trained with him until he died in 2010. Ted Wong was Bruce Lee's private student, sparring partner and family friend. He may not be the most well known student, as he had no commercial interest in teaching, but from all students, he spend the most time with Bruce Lee, more than anyone else. The information and insights shared during this seminar will be as close as you could get to Bruce Lee, if he was still alive! Visit: http://www.junfanjeetkunedo.co.uk and go to the contact page to register! 

 

The Purpose of Sparring

Sparring is the closest thing a Jeet Kune Do student will do to real fighting.


This sentence should make it clear that it is different from real fighting, even sports fighting.
Sparring has a different purpose. Rather than winning or losing, the purpose is to learn to move with a non-cooperating opponent, to deal with distance, timing, rhythm, stamina, defence, and offense, etc, in a controlled environment.
A sparring session should therefore not be entered with a mindset of ‘win or lose’, but rather looking at it as an opportunity to improve and get better. After all, if you spar and make mistakes then those will be opportunities to learn and grow.
The purpose of sparring is to learn, not winning or losing. “The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or defeat. Let nature take its course, and your tools will strike at the right moment.” Bruce Lee
Safety:
Obviously to do so safely you need to be wearing the right safety equipment, in our case these are a good pair of gloves, head gear, body armour, groin protection, shin/knee guards, and potentially a mouthpiece.
This equipment is not worn so that you can go all out and beat the ‘you know what’ out of each other, but rather to protect from injury. Good protection can make all the difference in your ability to train the next day or having to take time out to recover for a while, which is never good for anyone’s progress!
Intensity:
Sparring is never all out, but on average at about 50% of your speed/power level and depending on who you are sparring with too.
People with a lot of experience, can go up to 70-80% at times, but never for the whole duration, and never at 100%. The risk of injury to yourself or your partner is just too high, and no one wants to sit at home recovering, or be without a training partner, both situations put a pause to your development!
If sparring with a beginner, you do not go after them, but rather help them get comfortable in this potentially stressful situation and help them gain their confidence, get used to hit and be hit etc. You may want to reduce your intensity to
10-30% in those cases.
Have a plan:
Before you spar, have a game plan to follow.
For example, if you struggle with finding your range for punches, then have a sparring session where you can only throw punches, while your opponent gets to throw everything.
If you cannot time your kicks properly, then have a sparring session where you can only attack with kicks, while your opponent can attack with everything.
Vary your attacks: Don’t be a one trick pony. You may find that you feel very comfortable throwing a left kick over and over, but you will become very predictable, particularly to your regular sparring partners.
Pretty soon they’ll find a way to deal with that attack, so learn to vary your tools and ways of attack (remember the 5 ways!). Think about what else you can do? Clinch, elbows, knees, throws/takedowns, punch, kick? ‘Empty your cup, be formless, shapeless, like water’ ‘Bruce Lee.
Defend well:
Don’t think you constantly need to go on the offensive, but with good defence comes greater offense. Try to employ parries, head movement, footwork etc. and from there develop your counter attacks.
It is important for both you and your partner to give each other space and give each other the opportunity to both attack and defend, so don’t start chasing the other continually, nor should you just stand there and constantly let the other do all the attacking. Overcome the fear to attack, for fear of being countered / hit, but similarly learn to deal with being attacked and remain calm/focussed and not lose your situational awareness!
‘Defeat is a state of mind, no one is ever defeated unless defeat has been accepted as a reality’ Bruce Lee
Find your distance:

Its going to be hard to attack if the distance isn’t right (work on finding your fighting measure!). Taller people might find it easier to stay at longer range to keep your partner at bay, but shorter people may want to get in closer range and attack from there. How to move in/out those ranges is a key skill you’ll learn through sparring. In addition, you will learn which techniques work for you/your body type during sparring and which don’t. ‘Research your own experience, absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own’ Mao.
Leave your ego at the door:
The moment you carry your ego into a sparring session, you are already at a loss. Avoid thinking that you are better than your sparring partner. Accept that you will be hit, and then you will learn a thing or two. ‘Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory’ Bruce Lee
You only improve with the help of others, so be sure to stay humble before, during, and even after you spar. (Also see the paragraph about intensity!)
Do not assume that you know it all and do not think that you’re the boss because it is at that exact moment when you will be schooled during your sparring session. Show respect to your fellow partner. Both of you guys are in the class to learn. If you notice someone carrying their ego to a class, then let them know they should keep it outside the class.
Stay Humble, only then will you continue to learn and improve. ‘flowing water never grows stale’
‘The martial arts are ultimately self-knowledge, A punch or a kick is not to knock the hell out of the guy in front, but to knock the hell out of your ego, your fear, or your hang-ups’. Bruce Lee
Prepare for when you are tired:
Getting tired is a natural process of sparring, but once you get tired you are going to be forced to use ‘smarts’ rather than ‘strength’. Be the intelligent fighter, use moments of tiredness to employ the finer techniques you learn during class, and be the intelligent fighter to prolong the time it takes before you get tired. Fight smart & fight fit.
Stay Calm:
Undergoing your first sparring session can be a nerve-racking experience, that’s why it is important to stay calm. It seems like simple advice, for don’t forget to breathe! If you forget to breathe, you will starve your muscles (and your brain) of oxygen, which will tire you out and lose focus/clarity.
‘Be a calm beholder of what is happening around you’ Bruce Lee
Have Fun!
The most important thing when you spar is to have fun and enjoy the process. It may not be fun to get hit or to miss every shot but try to treat it as such. Have a laugh about it after class, you’ll make new friends too! ‘What is defeat? Nothing but education, nothing but the first step to something better’ Bruce Lee
“It is not a shame to be knocked down by other people. The important thing is to ask when you’re being knocked down, ‘Why am I being knocked down?’ If a person can reflect in this way, then there is hope for this person.” Bruce Lee



WALK ON!

Instructor or Student, what's in a name.....

 Recently I had the honour to be awarded the Full Instructor certification, from my teachers and friends, James Ter Beek, and George Sirag, both 2nd generation certified instructors direct from Ted Wong.

(Ted Wong was Bruce Lee's close friend, private student and sparring partner and for a time practically lived with Bruce, and often on the receiving end of Bruce Lee's experiments and training sessions..) 

So does that mean I'm now done learning?  NO! The journey continues, and possibly my responsibility has just increased by some margin. As a trainer/teacher/coach/instructor you do have the task to transmit your knowledge/skill onto others and guide them in their personal learning process. Teaching in any capacity requires you to not only be able to transmit the material, but obviously thoroughly understand it too. To that end learning never ends, there are always new insights, new nuances to pick up and learning a martial art, particularly Jeet Kune Do, is all about continuous refinement and growth. 

Regarding that learning aspect it is always great to study with others and I participated in a learning/study session that was based on the new book 'who wrote the tao' which goes in depth into the source material that Bruce Lee used for his personal notes (and which became the 'Tao of Jeet Kune Do').   (you can order your copy direct at : www.whowrotethetao.com , and it will also become available at Amazon in due course). We can always find ways to learn more and share that process with others. 

I see my instructorship as having reached black belt level, I now know the basics, but the true journey begins now, so from that perspective I am an eternal student.  Flowing Water Never Grows Stale! 

Walk On!

The cost of living and Martial Arts classes

 You hear it everywhere currently, the cost of living is going up so people are having to budget their spending patterns. There is no doubt about that, and it applies to us too. 

I've heard others comment that their membership has dropped and I see the same. However truth be told, that actually happened due to the pandemic. For some reason or another, since the pandemic people seem to have evaluated their lives and moved to do different things, sometimes in different places.. 

This means that your audience has moved, and whilst your classes might previously have had 20-30 attendees, you're now closer to 10-15 perhaps, or worse.  

Its a bad thing if you previously earned a living from teaching, if you didn't then it's not too bad as long as you can pay for venue rent, insurances etc.. 

But what about from a student point of view. Well for them not much has changed. In my case I didn't increase my prices since 2017, and unless there is a huge increase in venue hire cost, I won't do so either. 

I don't teach to earn a living, I teach because I like to share my passion for the art and hope by teaching that the art is safe for the next generation. What people take from it themselves is something only they can judge.  But anyway as far as costs is concerned: taking inflation into account, my prices have actually dropped over the past 5 years.  

So my question to all of you out there that haven't started training yet but want to, there are some choices to make.  Do you want to spend the money on the latest and greatest phone? Do you want to buy it for extra beers in the pub, or that weekly (or more often) take away meal? Or do you want to train in martial arts, it's up to you, the choice is yours. I'd know which one I'd take!

Walk On!