Bruce Lee vs JKD

The first thing I can remember posting on the internet about martial arts was pure unadulterated hatred for Bruce Lee's fighting theory*, from before I ever discovered Bullshido.net. I was livid with the various kumite point fighters I had encountered justifying their unorthodox side stance fighting using Bruce Lee's text. But now that I have had more exposure to martial arts scholarship, and in the last few years have actually trained in Jeet Kune Do (including a touch of Silat and Wing Chun) myself, what I have to say is much more complimentary towards Bruce Lee and much more critical of Wing Chun.

First, my prejudice against Bruce Lee was rooted in the Choy Li Fut (CLF) vs Wing Chun conflict. My first skills in K-1 Rules Kickboxing and Tai Chi were both required parts of my Choy Li Fut training from Sifu Vern Miller, 1st Disciple of Grand Master Doc Fai Wong. Sifu's primary contribution to the Doc Fai Wong's system was applying it to combat sports. Sifu had various successful students, and well known striking champions such as Victor Solier and Maurice Smith would occasionally cross train with Sifu before kickboxing matches. Most notably one of my Choy Li Fut class mates was Margaret McGregor, a female fighter who beat a male fighter in a sanctioned boxing match in 2000.

What is really interesting to me about this prejudice I had has everything to do with Martial Arts Shredded's analysis of Bruce Lee's fighting theory:

But here's an example of Wing Chun:

Wing Chun has a rival martial art called Choy Li Fut. The two arts are opposite in almost every possible way. Wing Chun prefers controlled precise movement, where as Choy Li Fut prefers swift power. Wing Chun has a reputation for being a close range style, Choy Li Fit is known for more long range technique. Wing Chun is known for being as simple and direct and having as few forms as possible, where as Choy Li Fut contains several different fighting styles within it, and more forms and weapons than any one individual can master at one time. Here is what one fighting style within Choy Li Fut looks like:

 

And it turns out that Choy Li Fut was one of the traditional Chinese Martial Arts that Bruce Lee had something nice to say about, UNLIKE Wing Chun:

"Choy Li Fut is the most effective system that I've seen for fighting more than one person. [It] is one of the most difficult styles to attack and defend against. Choy Li Fut is the only style [of kung fu] that traveled to Thailand to fight the Thai boxers and hadn't lost."

Of course there's a lot of side stance unorthodox fighting there that I hate, but that is a debate that happens entirely within the system of Choy Li Fut itself, with Wing Chun we just have that crap we see in the video above. The rival theories on Side vs Front stance in CLF are both venerated by obvious technique in the forms, so that the assumption is you would get good at both fighting stances if you were to master everything.

So though Bruce Lee admired really important styles like Savate, CLF, Muay Thai etc. was Bruce Lee ever able to divorce his theory from the incompetence of Wing Chun? From what I have seen, the answer is a definite "no, JKD is still heavily contaminated with damnably horrible technique from Wing Chun." It doesn't help that non-sparring Silat (one of the few styles arguably more delusional than non-sparring Aikido,) has been injected into many JKD systems. But what really is a problem is Wing Chun's poor sparring (or lack of sparring) practices, reinforced by bad ideas in the forms, which are in turn reinforced by the poor sparring practices.

Wing Chun's concepts are cancerous in my view. Let's take their idea of "sticky hands." For them, sticky hands is the closest thing to sparring most of them do as a regular part of their Wing Chun training. Let's take a look at sticky hands:

Notice how the master keeps turning his jaw sideways making himself vulnerable to getting KOed by a common haymaker. His technique is incredibly uniformed by sparring. Like all other sticky hands fans, he can't seem to make up his mind if it's for parrying strikes or doing takedowns. As a Tai Chi fan you would think I would have more sympathy towards this kind "sensitivity drill" technique found Tai Chi:

But in Tai Chi this "push hands" drill compliments "push hands" sparring, unlike in Wing Chun:

As for Wing Chun's attempt to claim sticky hands is for blocking punches, I have to ask, what kind of punches? Because you see the same blocks practiced with completely superior theory and execution in CLF:

Wing Chun prides itself in being an abbreviated system, the very least Shoulin Kung Fu that can be learned and still be effective, a sort of Shoulin rape-prevention style. Unfortunately Wing Chun fails to deliver on its promise, unlike any established styles of boxing and kickboxing which are even more abbreviated while offering fully actionable technique for self defense. The problem with JKD in today's world isn't so much Bruce Lee's unorthodox side stance theories, so much as it is that they haven't finished removing the cancer that is Wing Chun:

I totally agree with Bruce Lee's critique of traditional martial arts now, as forms/kata seem to take priority over sparring even in most Tai Chi and CLF schools. However Bruce Lee's critique of traditional martial arts is exactly why Wing Chun is the last thing you should study if you want to fight like Bruce Lee. If you want to be able to fight implementing similar concepts to what all of these above styles are trying to accomplish, the healthiest and fastest to get there is Muay Thai, which is most definitely not JKD, least bit Wing Chun:

*I posted this review of the "Art of Jeet Kune Do" on Amazon some time around 2003:

"1 The book is poorly illustrated, badly organized and full of especially foolish ideas when it comes to self defense and fighting in general. 2 Lee says traditional martial arts are too restricting, yet what he suggests instead, "Jeet Kune Do," is even more restricting than most traditional martial arts. 3 He discounts all the credentials of all of the past martial arts instructors, ignoring all of their accomplishments, skills, and fighters. He essentially is saying "I am smarter than all of the other martial artists ever born put together." 4 His material is not new but borrowed from modern boxing, French kickboxing, and Wing Chun. Ironically, any 3 of these arts are a superior form of hand to hand fighting to Bruce's "Jeet Kune Do." 5 The problem with using Wing Chun as an example of a traditional Chinese martial art is that Wing Chun was designed to have a very fast learning curve and has only 3 forms. Most kung fu systems have at least a dozen forms offering an extremely wide variety of grappling, striking, defense and weapon techniques. 6 Bruce Lee's grasp of modern boxing is clearly inaccurate. He depicts all boxers as fighting left handed, with their right foot forward. It's common knowledge that most boxers are right handed and lead with their left foot. He is clearly misrepresenting the art of boxing. It follows then that much else of what he discusses is most likely intentionally misrepresented. 7 Bruce Lee's credentials are? He was in some movies and charged outrageous rates (not something to look for in a source of martial arts instruction.) Claims have been made about how he was the world's greatest fighter, but there's literally no evidence to support this. Even his own accounts of his "fights" differ greatly, and neutral outside witnesses often state that he was not victorious in his various private matches. Bruce Lee was in no position to call himself a martial arts master, least bit in a position to offer the martial arts world a new way of thinking. His new way of thinking? He suggests that you open your mind to his views when he himself was not willing to open his mind to even the most simple orthodox fighting standards." - BFGalbraith "bfgalbraith" on Amazon