Jeet Kune Do
and its influence on me
- Hanshi C
I began my study and deepest interest into Jeet Kune Do in 1981 and continued through to 1984. Like everyone else in the early 1980s, and before that even, and even now, the name Bruce Lee is still prominent and brings about many responses. At the time I began my interest and study into it, I was actively training in Chito Ryu Karate. I started my studies at New Brunswick Community College in St John, NB and one of my classmates, Randy Ferguson, was a student of Fu Lynn Chi Kung Fu and was also training with some Jeet Kune Do folks out of the St John location. So, he and I cross trained and that was the beginnings of my study, interpretations, and research into Jeet Kune Do. Since then I've had the opportunity to either through books, videos, or seminars or all of that, had the chance to be influenced positively by folks like James W. DeMile and others.
When I was training with Randy Ferguson, my fellow student at NBCC St John, his instruction and tutelage was linked to Dan Inosanto’s line if you follow the dots. However when I began to do my own research and then become influenced by as I said earlier; James W. DeMile, and researching Ted Wong, I found that those two are the only ones really doing some or much of Lee’s original techniques. And it was Demile that referenced The Bridge, which is relevant to the elbow of your arm and how you align your striking arm with your body. The Bridge was something I was aware of in another system I trained in which was Aikido. In Aikido, they call it the unbendable arm. Six of one, half a dozen of another LOL. But what I find in Jeet Kune Do today as I did then, that many practitioners of Jeet Kune Do with their hand techniques, are doing Western boxing. They had gotten away from, or weren't even taught Bruce Lee's methods of punching, which employed the vertical fist and through my research later and able to identify it through the limited videos of him that there were hitting a heavy bag and so forth, that Bruce Lee was utilizing also the bridge at the point of impact when he was punching. Specifically the straight lead and the rear cross. But if you are innovative enough you can make the bridge work for other punches, like the hook, but the hook in that methodology would have to be more of a longer range strike than what you would normally see in boxing.
When you try to look at the lineage of Bruce Lee, and more appropriately and more specifically, the lineage of Jeet Kune Do. It's non-contiguous. What James W Demile is doing and moreover what Ted Wong was doing, are completely different especially with the hand techniques and other things, as to what the Inosanto line of Jeet Kune Do was doing. In order to see the lineage, you pretty much have to treat it like a puzzle yourself and put it together. Then I think you can understand better what and how Bruce Lee was doing his techniques. Unfortunately, as I said, today, most of Jeet Kune Do with regards to hand techniques, it's Western boxing. Horizontal fist and so forth. And I think for one reason it's that way, is to do it the way Bruce Lee did it, with the vertical fist and the bridge, it takes more effort. To do it Western boxing style, it's easier, but far, far less effective.
James DeMile: He was Bruce Lee's first non-Asian student really at the time he started teaching in 1959 in Seattle Washington. In fact, DeMile is featured in Bruce Lee's first book: Chinese Gung Fu. And you can look up for yourself the biography on James W DeMile. But when you look at the lineage lines anywhere if you research on the internet, you don't see DeMile’s name. I can offer my own opinions, but that's all they'll be, my opinions. It seems rather to me obvious, that the early students of Bruce Lee like Ted Wong and James DeMIle, when Bruce Lee started getting into movies and having more interest in his technique looking good for film and not for combat, that's really when the previous mention names, DeMile and Wong, really exited from Bruce Lee and his path. Others like Inosanto stayed with him and of course now Inosanto is considered really the heir to the system and the top of the pyramid. That was more an action taken by Bruce Lee's widow Linda Lee, and putting Inosanto as the head of everything. I will say that Ted Wong was a true representation of Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do when it was very functional and combat ready. Jim DeMile, his influence and training with Bruce Lee and that timeline, was really the build-up to Jeet Kune Do, the building blocks, and that's why specifically the bridge is seen prevalently in James DeMile’s system of Wing Chun Do.
Ted Wong- Master Wong from what I could see and tell, stayed primarily on course with what Bruce Lee was doing. Wong's Jeet Kune Do exemplified what Bruce Lee's JKD was and looked like when Bruce Lee was alive in many, many ways. Sadly, we lost Master Wong he passed away in 2010...
Now I will state right here that much of my comments on this page of this website are my own opinions and observations. And who knows, I could be talking out of my ass. But you don't need a building to fall on you to figure something out. And if you just look at the historical facts as they are laid out and how the timelines go and so forth, you can postulate, I feel, a similar observation and result that I have come up with. That's what I think.
And sticking with that, what I think, my observations on Jeet Kune Do as follows: Now I have been in martial arts for over 40 years, and counting, though this whole covid-19/Chinese virus garbage has seriously curtailed my teaching, and for me I think these protocols and covid-19 will be with us for a long time if not forever (Thanks a lot China!), so whether I teach publicly again I do not have that answer. But regarding the comments I'm making here about JKD, I feel I'm allowed to do so, because I've been doing martial arts, a lot of them including JKD, for over 40 years, and I'm really only giving my observation. Just as easily, you could give your own. If you have a source code of experience to at least back it up. So, even when Bruce Lee was doing JKD himself and teaching it, propagating it, I find all of Jeet Kune Do, was/is comprised of mostly sparring techniques, yes fighting techniques but still mostly in the line of sparring, there is nothing to facilitate what I call First Contact. That's the moment before any physical confrontation. When an assailant may come up to you with verbalization. a threatening manner, or whatever... But it's before the action starts. That's when you need to learn how to strike from a non assuming stance or from what I also call it, a nothing stance. I don't find anything in the core of Jeet Kune Do curriculum that addresses that, so for reality training and I hate that phrase, reality training, but it is the best I got right now (Actually, I should use the phrase, Modern Training. As it is best to train for how people fight TODAY and NOT one hundred years ago!!!), adaptation is definitely required in addition to JKD so it can address First Contact. But that will be a supplemental action on your part, the practitioner, because I find and do not see, any substance to JKD, that would answer to First Contact situations past or present. Through all of his books, and any appearances via video, or public comments in general, Bruce Lee was very much into boxing and other sports> combat sports. Much of his training was based on aerobic ability, physicality for competition really. Where competition exchange with a assailant well actually it wouldn't be an assailant, it would be either a "partner" or "combatant" I guess would be a good description. In a sports situation, the timeline could be as long as minutes or longer. In a violent situation, an assault, it's only going to take seconds. If you read his Tao of Jeet Kune Do, Lee references a lot of sport oriented action and thinking on his part. There's a big difference between training for sport and training for a real-life violent assault. I refer you to my page on this website entitled: How you train is how you will fight.
- Hanshi C
When I was training with Randy Ferguson, my fellow student at NBCC St John, his instruction and tutelage was linked to Dan Inosanto’s line if you follow the dots. However when I began to do my own research and then become influenced by as I said earlier; James W. DeMile, and researching Ted Wong, I found that those two are the only ones really doing some or much of Lee’s original techniques. And it was Demile that referenced The Bridge, which is relevant to the elbow of your arm and how you align your striking arm with your body. The Bridge was something I was aware of in another system I trained in which was Aikido. In Aikido, they call it the unbendable arm. Six of one, half a dozen of another LOL. But what I find in Jeet Kune Do today as I did then, that many practitioners of Jeet Kune Do with their hand techniques, are doing Western boxing. They had gotten away from, or weren't even taught Bruce Lee's methods of punching, which employed the vertical fist and through my research later and able to identify it through the limited videos of him that there were hitting a heavy bag and so forth, that Bruce Lee was utilizing also the bridge at the point of impact when he was punching. Specifically the straight lead and the rear cross. But if you are innovative enough you can make the bridge work for other punches, like the hook, but the hook in that methodology would have to be more of a longer range strike than what you would normally see in boxing.
When you try to look at the lineage of Bruce Lee, and more appropriately and more specifically, the lineage of Jeet Kune Do. It's non-contiguous. What James W Demile is doing and moreover what Ted Wong was doing, are completely different especially with the hand techniques and other things, as to what the Inosanto line of Jeet Kune Do was doing. In order to see the lineage, you pretty much have to treat it like a puzzle yourself and put it together. Then I think you can understand better what and how Bruce Lee was doing his techniques. Unfortunately, as I said, today, most of Jeet Kune Do with regards to hand techniques, it's Western boxing. Horizontal fist and so forth. And I think for one reason it's that way, is to do it the way Bruce Lee did it, with the vertical fist and the bridge, it takes more effort. To do it Western boxing style, it's easier, but far, far less effective.
James DeMile: He was Bruce Lee's first non-Asian student really at the time he started teaching in 1959 in Seattle Washington. In fact, DeMile is featured in Bruce Lee's first book: Chinese Gung Fu. And you can look up for yourself the biography on James W DeMile. But when you look at the lineage lines anywhere if you research on the internet, you don't see DeMile’s name. I can offer my own opinions, but that's all they'll be, my opinions. It seems rather to me obvious, that the early students of Bruce Lee like Ted Wong and James DeMIle, when Bruce Lee started getting into movies and having more interest in his technique looking good for film and not for combat, that's really when the previous mention names, DeMile and Wong, really exited from Bruce Lee and his path. Others like Inosanto stayed with him and of course now Inosanto is considered really the heir to the system and the top of the pyramid. That was more an action taken by Bruce Lee's widow Linda Lee, and putting Inosanto as the head of everything. I will say that Ted Wong was a true representation of Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do when it was very functional and combat ready. Jim DeMile, his influence and training with Bruce Lee and that timeline, was really the build-up to Jeet Kune Do, the building blocks, and that's why specifically the bridge is seen prevalently in James DeMile’s system of Wing Chun Do.
Ted Wong- Master Wong from what I could see and tell, stayed primarily on course with what Bruce Lee was doing. Wong's Jeet Kune Do exemplified what Bruce Lee's JKD was and looked like when Bruce Lee was alive in many, many ways. Sadly, we lost Master Wong he passed away in 2010...
Now I will state right here that much of my comments on this page of this website are my own opinions and observations. And who knows, I could be talking out of my ass. But you don't need a building to fall on you to figure something out. And if you just look at the historical facts as they are laid out and how the timelines go and so forth, you can postulate, I feel, a similar observation and result that I have come up with. That's what I think.
And sticking with that, what I think, my observations on Jeet Kune Do as follows: Now I have been in martial arts for over 40 years, and counting, though this whole covid-19/Chinese virus garbage has seriously curtailed my teaching, and for me I think these protocols and covid-19 will be with us for a long time if not forever (Thanks a lot China!), so whether I teach publicly again I do not have that answer. But regarding the comments I'm making here about JKD, I feel I'm allowed to do so, because I've been doing martial arts, a lot of them including JKD, for over 40 years, and I'm really only giving my observation. Just as easily, you could give your own. If you have a source code of experience to at least back it up. So, even when Bruce Lee was doing JKD himself and teaching it, propagating it, I find all of Jeet Kune Do, was/is comprised of mostly sparring techniques, yes fighting techniques but still mostly in the line of sparring, there is nothing to facilitate what I call First Contact. That's the moment before any physical confrontation. When an assailant may come up to you with verbalization. a threatening manner, or whatever... But it's before the action starts. That's when you need to learn how to strike from a non assuming stance or from what I also call it, a nothing stance. I don't find anything in the core of Jeet Kune Do curriculum that addresses that, so for reality training and I hate that phrase, reality training, but it is the best I got right now (Actually, I should use the phrase, Modern Training. As it is best to train for how people fight TODAY and NOT one hundred years ago!!!), adaptation is definitely required in addition to JKD so it can address First Contact. But that will be a supplemental action on your part, the practitioner, because I find and do not see, any substance to JKD, that would answer to First Contact situations past or present. Through all of his books, and any appearances via video, or public comments in general, Bruce Lee was very much into boxing and other sports> combat sports. Much of his training was based on aerobic ability, physicality for competition really. Where competition exchange with a assailant well actually it wouldn't be an assailant, it would be either a "partner" or "combatant" I guess would be a good description. In a sports situation, the timeline could be as long as minutes or longer. In a violent situation, an assault, it's only going to take seconds. If you read his Tao of Jeet Kune Do, Lee references a lot of sport oriented action and thinking on his part. There's a big difference between training for sport and training for a real-life violent assault. I refer you to my page on this website entitled: How you train is how you will fight.
- Hanshi C
Sijo James W Demile founder of Wing Chun Do
The Late Sifu Ted Wong, JKD
Dan Inosanto, JKD