Martial Arts, or any athletic endeavor - basketball, volleyball, football, to name a few, can be a metaphor for life. Sure, there are people who are naturally physically-gifted, but athletic endeavors look past natural talent, and instead, place a premium on skillful execution of required movements within a given sport. Within Martial Arts itself, however, is an explicit/implicit code honor. Of note, is loyalty to the art and teacher.
In the last five years, where to place my loyalties has been a juggling act for the best, and worse. My journey in Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do™ involved ten years of research, and five years of training. Throughout my research phase, I scoured message boards; emails back and forth; random IMs to former Bruce Lee students; and actually visiting Martial Arts schools. While this was happening, I had stepped deeply into the politics of the Bruce Lee™ world. The primary source of this was the Concepts-based Jeet Kune Do™ battle against "Original" Jeet Kune Do™. Basically, the former utilizes principles and philosophies of the art to build their own martial art. The latter, on the other hand, tries to preserve the art taught by Bruce. They maintain not only the same tenets driving the conceptual version, but retain many of the tools taught during his lifetime.
I personally subscribed to the "Original" camp because I believe there was a uniqueness to it driving others to flock to it from other arts. What I wasn't prepared for, were the politics within the "Original" camp itself. The fight within involved who had the right JKD™. Many arguments were sprouting about who had the material; who had the most time with Bruce; who got the most from him; and so on. Brushing great detail aside, I rolled into the Ted Wong Jeet Kune Do™ camp in March or April of 2005.
The first two-and-a-half years were an absolute high. I found what I had spent decades hunting for, and the hunt was well worth it. Ted Wong's presentation of JKD™ made the most sense out of all the other presentations I came across prior to that point. Its premise was extremely simple, only featuring five primary punches; and three primary kicks. Everything else focused on variations on utilizing those eight given tools. Every movement had a rhyme and reason to them. I got to meet Ted Wong himself when he taught a seminar in L.A. Chinatown weeks after I started going there for training. Throughout this time, I aligned myself with great people, friends I still keep contact with as much as possible. But, it's this aspect of the JKD™ community that started to change things.
Loyalty to the art itself is rather easy. But, people have to understand, we're humans equipped with free will. Throughout the aforementioned span of time, I've felt, and still feel, I progressed in understanding of JKD™. Part of the credit has to go to an individual, for whom, I have the utmost respect for. This respect is based on the fact he was open and willing to answer any question after class. He inspired me to think about the art in ways I probably wouldn't have, had I not gone under his guidance. Additionally, his friend and head of the organization under which the Chinatown group fell under, was a very abstract thinker that allowed me to accelerate my thought process within the art. These men were very good at what they did and, yet, didn't receive due credit, recognition; or worse, falsities about them were said.
After feeling the highs I had then, things got murky because of one conversation I had with another individual - another student of Ted Wong's. This individual, in short, tried to sell me the idea of connecting closer to Ted. I basically replied, saying neither of the men I trained under did anything meriting a detachment from them. Until I made my way out to see the said individual months later, most of the conversations consisted of my defense of the two people in question.
My loyalty to these two lead me down a path of no return. Because of transpiring events during the latter part of 2007, going into 2008, my instructor had to stop teaching on Sundays due to a change in his work schedule. In addition, the same events eventually led him to leave the JKD™ spotlight for good. In a way, I was without a teacher. Sure, an assistant was around, but the vibe of the training, wasn't the same. Maybe, I'm being sour. But, I had an idea of the ideal in terms of training the art. I know, I'm being smug when I say this but, the reasons why we trained things in a certain manner were clear. During this time of absence, I trained only occasionally. All the while, I retained contact with my instructor as much as possible. During our conversations at the time, I grew to understand, and appreciate, his new found direction caused by his being a student again.
These conversations; and a bitterness towards the art I spent half my life looking for, lead me to switch my Martial Arts loyalties to the overriding goals I felt I needed to pursue at the time. I realized then, and still agree with now, the preservation of JKD™ was in good hands. This said, it was time to progress myself as a martial artist on the whole.
Though, I started taking up some grappling classes on and off in conjunction with JKD™ training, I never trained these skills outside of a JKD™-based context. From the conversations my instructor and I were having, he kept pushing the idea of training for context. An example would be the training of, what is now known as, Reality-Based-Self-Defense (R.B.S.D). Fueled by my agreement with this paradigm; and the aforementioned bitterness I felt, I was ready to embrace this direction when my instructor would make a brief comeback in the New Year of 2009. Part of this embrace would be based on, a now, foolish abandonment of JKD™. In a way students need to let go, or unbind themselves, of their past knowledge to gain deeper appreciation of new knowledge.
Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts took my instructor from teaching again and I was at a crossroads. This was because of an email, wherein, he said he wouldn't be teaching on Sundays for the foreseeable future. In time, the class started going back to a JKD™ focus. This is understandable because neither of us had the background necessary to carry on the material we were just beginning to cover.
Since then, it's been a struggle to come to grips with what direction I should head into. I had made a decision to leave JKD™ behind at the time, and try to get in touch with the R.B.S.D. scene, but to no avail. Throughout this time, I had good friends unknowingly prying me back into the JKD™ scene. I tried to shake em off as much as possible, saying none of that stuff mattered to me at the time. I wouldn't want to even to obtain a ranking in the art. I just wanted to share it with anyone I wanted; and, I didn't want to pass myself as a bona fide instructor, either.
As things would have it, I did test for ranking in JKD™, and still wonder if it was the right thing to do. I still embrace the RBSD paradigm today, despite JKD™ being the bulk of my training these days. Even then, I can see things much clearer now: I shall be totally loyal to the new paradigm I decidedly embraced. I value JKD™ for what it is; how it guided me; what it has to offer; etc. I'll still continue to train it; share it with those interested; let it be my compass to filter out BS in whatever art(s) I come across. But, I'm excited for things to come. I feel liberated from having let all this out. I can't wait to get into the grappling phase of my overall development. Until then, see more professional rants, here.
Oo, interesting reading! :) For whatever it's worth, I applaud your ability to keep an open mind and your willingness to seek out other forms of training. I can see it still weighs much on you ideologically.
ReplyDeleteThink I understand why you might feel conflicted at times as you work to evolve in your training while struggling to remain dutiful to your original craft and it's principles. Seems loyalty can appear and feel both gratifying and restricting at the same time, yea? Don't much like to get hung up on politics and paradigms, they too present a narrow range of thought imo; and in times such as these, almost anything can be justified.
I believe that was Bruce Li's take even then. The idea that he fought to teach not only outside the realm of conventional martial arts but outside the Chinese community to a wider ethnic spectrum can be seen as both defiance of a code of honor or a revolutionary break from tradition. But that controversy appears to have died with him and as you mentioned in your blog has since been overtaken by yet another dispute regarding the most effective approach to his well established Jeet Kune Do doctrine. I can't really comment on that, except to say that Bruce Li himself is said to have described his creed as the 'style of no style.' It's just unfortunate that through his publication of Jeet Kune Do's guidelines, he would unknowingly create another system while attempting to do away with the whole systematic perception lol ^.^ Even so, evolution was the basis of his philosophy, so I would think even the master would encourage martial arts students to branch out, continue to learn, and make it work for them. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors, Lester!