Bruce Lee's symbolf for Jeet Kune Do. Photo credit: mma-academy.co.uk
Like a many other
martial artists, I owe my martial arts career largely to the inspiration,
charisma, and talent of Bruce Lee. It was his incredible, dynamic energy that
drew me in; an incredible mixture of ferocity and tranquility, of
strength and intellect, warrior and philosopher. Lee wasn't a hulking brute--in fact he was almost exactly my size--but nor was he some mystical monk with a flowing fu manchu and seemingly supernatural powers. Lee was logical, scientific, and straight-forward about his study; he achieved great mastery through hard training and open-mindedness. He was adamant that anyone else coudl do the same. Like so many others, I was inspired by his modern philosophy.Though I had always been more bookish and intellectually inclined, it was not until I learned about Bruce Lee that I began to take physical endeavors more seriously. It started with lifting weights and physical conditioning, then moved on into reading his books, and progressed into an insatiable appetite for training; whatever style, technique, or school would take me. Whatever art or system I studied after that, Bruce Lee’s philosophies, the core ideas of Jeet Kune Do, were always in the back of my mind; simplify, keep what is useful, discard what is useless, use whatever is effective, and don’t be limited by rules, have “no style” so you can match with “all styles”; don’t limit yourself with rules, orthodoxies, or barriers.
In all my time studying martial
arts I received only very limited direct training in Jeet Kune Do, starting
with less than a year of infrequent classes with a private instructor
who had been teaching a friend, and later former JKD students I met through
other martial arts. While I studied the arts I had the time and resources to
practice throughout college—primarily Aikido, Tang Soo Do, and bits of
wrestling and Brazilian Jiujitsu—I was constantly tucking things away in my
mental arsenal, assessing what parts would work best as part of a more total
system. As I gained more knowledge and experience, I was able to start teaching
myself from Lee’s books without the fear of learning totally incorrectly, and
gradually refined techniques with experience. Through all this, I have eagerly
awaited a chance to train at a genuine JKD school.
Jeet Kune Do has always been the
“sought after” system for many martial artists; it is—with the exception of
Bartitsu—the first popular fusion of Eastern and Western martial arts and
philosophies, and has gained almost mythical status from the legendary prestige
of its founder. Yet, with a focus on self defense instead of competition, it
did not gain nearly the popularity of the Mixed Martial Arts; besides this, Lee’s
untimely death left a dearth of qualified teachers, which makes good schools
even harder to find.
It’s not hard to imagine my excitement when a friend of mine at Princeton University mentioned that his
girlfriend was studying Jeet Kune Do at a school in town, and that when I came
to visit I was welcome to attend a class. I was beside myself with excitement,
and was browsing the web for the school’s website days in advance of my trip. The
school, Princeton Academy of the Martial Arts (PAMA) featured lessons in nearly a half-dozen styles ranging from Muay Thai to Kali. The head
instructor, Rick Tucci, had certifications in more martial arts than I had ever
heard of, and most importantly had direct lineage to Lee himself, through one
of Lee’s most well-known students, Dan Inosanto.
By the time I walked in the door on a rainy evening in Princeton with a pair of friends, my excitement had been blended with nervousness; would my “dream art” be all I had imagined it to be, now that I could study with professionals? Would techniques I practiced years ago, or taught myself independently deliver when I put them to the test?
My friends and I met one of the assistant instructors, who explained to us that though Sifu Tucci was out of town, they would have instructors to teach a basics class for my two friends, and if I liked I could attend the advanced class. We then got a tour of one of the most impressive schools I have ever seen. Not only did their facility host two large training floors, a small store, offices, mens and womens locker rooms, a kitchen, and a weight room, but the entire place was beautifully decorated with cultural icons that I’d expect to see in a traditional school in nearly any other Asian country. Buddhist statues and calligraphies, traditional weapons and shrines from Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Thai, and other cultures littered the walls, interspersed with pictures of students and teachers, certificates. I was particularly thrilled to see a reprinted photo of some late 19th century gentlemen practicing Bartitsu. One wall in the main training room sported a huge image of the Beatles, and another in the lobby displayed the daunting array of Sifu Tucci’s rank and teaching certificates from at least a dozen martial arts associations.
To my delight, we practiced a
number of traditional Wing Chun techniques, including straight center punches,
parries, and knife hands (the Cantonese for these escapes me) and I loved the
compact, quick, and explosive feel of the movements. I soon gathered, however,
that we were not there to practice Wing Chun; we were there to practice Jeet
Kune Do, and that was an entirely different thing; as Lee frequently described
it, it is a dynamic, active, and explosive art. As the practice continued, I
was reminded again and again of things I had read repeatedly in Lee’s writings,
and was thrilled to see how well the school seemed to adhere to Lee’s
teachings.
(Bruce) Lee spoke and wrote about making
practice “alive” and preventing stagnation by any means necessary; given his
distaste for conventional training, it was said he tended to play music during
his practices to prevent too much navel-gazing seriousness and instead
encourage the type of dynamic action he expected from Jeet Kune Do. Our
practice intensified accordingly as we spent a solid chunk of time practicing freestyle
footwork (Lee expressed in several books that footwork, above else, could not
be overemphasized in its importance) and moving about the space as quickly as
possible, avoiding other students while trying to cover ground, shift
direction, and control our equilibrium. This and the rest of the class went on
to an upbeat soundtrack prominently featuring the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and
I’ll be the first to admit that this rather unconventional training technique
did keep the pace of the class up and prevent too much thinking. Further, it
helped establish what Lee always called “rhythm”, a dynamic awareness of
spacing and timing in martial movements which makes effectiveness without the
need for conscious thought and analysis.
After spending at least ten minutes
on shadowboxing and footwork alone (according to Bruce Lee, two of the most
important elements of good martial art) we broke into small groups and began
practicing striking combinations demonstrated by Mike. I watched Mike’s
hands fly through techniques which combined trapping, beating, and pulling techniques
from Wing Chun with the cross, hook, and uppercut from Western boxing and an array of
snapping and pushing kicks. I was excited to practice mixing techniques from
various disciplines I had studied over the years, and until then hadn’t truly
realized just how confining it felt to be restricted to, say, backfists and
reverse-punches in Tang Soo Do, or just jabs, hooks and elbows in Muay Thai.
Now, we were stringing together
techniques that I had picked up from many arts throughout the years; a
hammerfist might fly out after an uppercut, a snapping heel kick after a cross,
etc. as we practiced what I remembered were key techniques of Jeet Kune Do,
including “jamming the attack”, applying a “stop hit” to counter an incoming
blow, trapping, weaving, and so on. We moved on to padwork next, and I was
delighted to practice techniques from JKD that had been neglected by other
striking arts; above all, a personal favorite of mine, the hopping side kick.
More or less interchangeable with a
back-kick depending on the angle, this particular technique was almost entirely
responsible for drawing me to martial arts in the first place. I’ll never
forget watching Lee send a padholder flying into a stack of cardboard boxes in
“Return of the Dragon”, or the ample footage from demonstrations where he would
use the kick to send a heavy bag flying like it had been hit by a truck. The
directness, the aggressive explosiveness of the movement has always fascinated
me, not to mention the power when used correctly. There is ample footage of Lee
showing the power one can achieve when applying the technique correctly,
putting the whole force of the body behind it.
We finished the class with some
light sparring drills defending from a leg kick. Defense started with the types
of blocks and kick-returns I had learned from Muay Thai, but gradually
progressed to a handful of intercepting kicks to the knee, pelvis and chest.
One of my favorite lessons was in transitioning between ranges; specifically,
we learned to bridge between kicking range to striking range, from striking
range to trapping range, and from trapping to grappling range by applying a
rear naked choke.
The lack of rules, customs, or
limited repertoires of techniques was as liberating and exciting as I think
Bruce Lee would have wanted it. Throughout my time at PAMA, I continually felt
like disparate techniques and movements from my past training in other martial
arts were being brought together and synthesized in a more complete, cohesive
framework. I could see them all in context with one another, which was an even
better feeling than learning an entirely new technique.
When the class drew to a close, we
bowed together as a class and thanked our partners amidst a feeling of camaraderie
and good cheer; the attitude of my fellow students was relaxed and intense throughout,
and when training was over people were eager to introduce themselves and talk
to me about the training. Unfortunately, my friends and I were late for our
dinner plans, and had to leave in a bit of a hurry; I’m already looking forward
to the next time I can visit PAMA. Though many fear that Lee’s art died with
him, I am confident that it lives on in schools like this one, where not only
the skills and techniques but the attitude of the style are preserved. Studying
at the Princeton Academy of Martial Arts, one sees the Way of the Intercepting
Fist as Lee saw it; dynamic, intense, all-encompassing and liberating.
