The title of this post is JKD. No, I did not mess up the initials JFK because I was rushing and made a typo. The acronym stands for Jeet Kune Do, or in english, the Way of the Intercepting Fist, is a “martial art” created by Bruce Lee. I put martial art in quotations because Jeet Kune Do is more of a martial arts philosophy than an actual martial art.
The philosophy involves combining multiple displaces to form something greater than the sum of its parts. It differs from Mixed Martial Arts in that MMA takes entire arts (a standup and ground art) whereas JKD takes pieces of different stand up martial arts—though a ground one could certainly join in accordance with the philosophy.

So what exactly is the philosophy? On the Jeet Kune Do emblem are Chinese characters that translate into, “Using no way as way” and “Having no limitation as limitation.” First grade stuff Spongebob. Having no one focused martial art opens up an individual to take in many. The goal should be to not limit yourself to the confines and teaching of one master, or one style. Opening up the mind to multiple possibilities as opposed to a rigid philosophy in turn frees up the body to do different things.

For Bruce Lee, his JKD consisted mainly of Wing Chun, Karate, Taekwondo, Muay Thai, Fencing, and boxing. Bruce Lee, most notably, trained under Ip Mann to learn Wing Chun, and learned the others from different teaches. Karate is what made him famous, and a member of Bruce Lee’s family was an Olympic fencer. Up to the end of his Bruce Lee worked on perfecting his JKD. He took the best parts of each art he knew and studied. He did not simply mash and stack things together.

I was first introduced to Jeet Kune Do at my dojo at home. My sensei used the same JKD system that Bruce Lee developed as a base from which to teach his students from. However, he encouraged exploration to develop our own system, our own JKD. We practiced basic Wing Chun traps and sensitivity—the bigger emphasis was placed on Wing Chun—Muay Thai Thai Kicks, Head movement from boxing and Muay Thai, side kicks, elbows, knees, eye jabs, groin attacks, and a plethora of other things. It is a whole bunch of fun. My prior experience fencing, and the little bit of boxing I knew helped me a lot with the learning. The fencing was most helpful because the stance was the same, minus the hand position, and my foot work was already down pat. My style of fencing is also heavily influenced by Wing Chun, so a lot of the concepts were already very familiar to me. I just had to learn the moves and the less familiar chaining of those lives together in a coherent strategy.

Jeet Kune Do May sound complicated, but once you understand the concept of it, and the concepts of the pieces you add to it, it seems so simple. It is a very effective system that I highly encourage everyone to try out. If you want to know more, Bruce Lee’s book Tao Jeet Kune Do outlines everything in his own words.

Sparring is an essential aspect of martial arts training. It is one thing to learn the technique, it is another to actually apply it. Whether it is bag work, partner drills, or a lesson with the instructor, anyone can do something in practice. But then when they put it into practice everything falls apart. This is where sparring starts to come into play.
Drills are not stressful. That is why it is so easy to do them well. Sparring however, adds a lot more stress to the training. Someone is actually trying to hit you with a limb or weapon, or actually trying to choke or joint lock you. Sparring replicates, as best as it is possible to, actual combat or competition.

Sparring is the best way to get good fast. It is also much more dangerous. You learn quickly because everything that is learned is immediately applied with the added incentive of imminent bodily harm. The bodily harm part is where the danger is. Because sparring involves live fighting, even if reserved in power, people can get hurt if mistakes are made. This is especially true for beginners as they have much less combative experience.
Aside from the risks and rewards that are associated with fighting and sparring, it’s just fun.
The first experience I had with sparring was through fencing. Practice had a mix of drills, live bout (fencing match is called a bout) scenarios, and just straight fencing. The fencing and scenarios helped me more than anything when I started. I would learn stuff and then practice using it so that it would work in competition.
The first day I walked into the dojo I was sparring (in jiu jitsu it’s called “rolling”). The class starts with rolls to warm up, goes into a class lesson, and ends with more rolls. The philosophy of my sensei and his teacher is that rolling and practicing live is necessary.
For fencing and jiu jitsu, it’s much easier to spar because it is safer than for something like muoi thai. Fencing is no longer fought to the death or first blood, and you wear a lot protective equipment. Jiu jitsu is a very controlled art. The pressure and power applied to chokes, locks, and positions is easily controlled. This makes the open rolls relatively safe compared to striking arts.
Striking martial arts are a lot harder to control. Even the most restrained fighters can still hurt each other by accident. A light strike at an opponent who is stepping forward can still knock that person down. When I started muoi thai I immediately started sparring. It is a lot of fun and helps me learn just like with fencing and jiu jitsu.
I strongly encourage anyone who wants to do any martial arts to start sparring as soon as possible. It may be intimidating at first, but is really fun. You will learn a lot about the fight, reacting and thinking under stress, and controlling your body’s responses of fear—thus placing the mind in more complete control of the body.

Weight lifting is one of the most common forms of exercise in the United States and around the world. However, martial arts have traditionally placed much more of an emphasis on weight training; the emphasis was placed on body weight exercises. However, both are important in being able to advance past your natural limitations.

Weightlifting obviously makes you stronger. It does so by targeting specific muscle groups, or physical actions, and gradually increasing the weight–which acts as resistance. Unlike body weight exercises, there is no real limit to the amount of weight that can be applied. Body weight exercises do the same thing, however, they are limited to the weight of the individual and focus more on endurance than shear strength. Weight lifting therefore increases strength at a much faster rate than body weight exercises, but sacrifices the endurance the later provides.

The increase in physical strength is very helpful when fighting, whether with a weapon, empty handed, on the ground, or on the feet. The physical strength increases the force that can be put into a strike. For example, lifting weights to build the strength in my triceps and forearms made it far easier to wield my fencing sabre; allowing me to block attacks more easily, and make blade actions that I would have otherwise been too weak for. Leg pinch is a vitally important action for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It is required for many different submissions in order to immobilize a limb, or do a choke. A friend of mine has a ridiculously strong leg pinch. It can get someone to tap without him even having to do the actual submission. One of his favorite submissions is the triangle choke, which is done with the legs pinching together. That too is very strong with him. This is because of weight training to build up the muscles on the inside of the thighs that contract.

Lifting weights also increases muscle mass. This extra mass provides defensive benefits to the fighter because, well, that is one of the primary jobs of muscle. It cushions the blows, and can become rigid to block strikes. The build-up of mass is also the great downside lifting weights. If too much muscle builds up the strength and defence sacrifices speed. Large bulky muscles are not very agile and are not the fast twitch muscles required for quick movements. Because of this it is important to find a balance with how you train. Body weight exercises are just as important as weight training.

There are three types of muscle “white,” “red,” and “pink.” White is fast and enduring, red is strong and big, and pink is the perfect balance of the two. The goal should always be to build pink muscle, which would be dense and more or less result from finding the middle ground between powerlifting and bodybuilding (high weight, low rep., and low weight, high rep. respectively). While everyone is different, a good lifting program will work for most everyone because of the theory behind how lifting works. So go out and try it out.