Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

Bruce Lee said that Jeet Kune Do was the first Chinese nontraditional
martial art. While he had respect for the traditional martial arts and past
fighters, Lee challenged the status quo, believing that students often lose
their own sense of self when rigidly adhering to tradition because that is the
way it was done for hundreds of years. He writes, “If you follow the classical
pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the
shadow—you are not understanding yourself” (Lee 1975, 17). Furthermore,
Lee felt that styles tend to restrict one to perform a certain way and
therefore limit one’s potential. While a style is a concluded, established, solidified
entity, man is in a living, evolving, learning process. Lee said that
“man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important
than any established style or system” (Lee 1986, 64).
Lee put a miniature tombstone at the entrance of his school in Los Angeles
Chinatown, inscribed with the message: “In memory of a once fluid
man, crammed and distorted by the classical mess.” This stone symbolized
that the stifling traditions and formalities of the past, which have little or
no relevance today, are contributing to the “death” of independent inquiry
and the complete maturation of a martial artist. Lee argued, “How can one
respond to the totality with partial, fragmentary pattern” (Lee 1975, 17).
Furthermore, Lee believed that one develops a totality of combat not
by an accumulation of technique, but by simplification. True mastery is not
daily increase, but daily decrease. Hacking away the nonessentials was the
order of the day, so that students would respond naturally according to
their own personal inclinations, without any artificial restrictions imposed
on them. Lee felt that martial artists could function freely and totally if they
were “beyond system” (Little 1997c, 329). By transcending styles and systems,
they could approach combat objectively, without any biases, and respond
fluidly to the particular situation at hand. “Unlike a ‘classical’ martial
art, there is no series of rules or classifications of technique that
constitute a distinct jeet kune do method of fighting. JKD is not a form of
special conditioning with its own rigid philosophy. It looks at combat not
from a single angle, but from all possible angles. While JKD utilizes all
ways and means to serve its end, it is bound by none and is therefore free.
In other words, JKD possesses everything but is in itself possessed by nothing”
(Lee 1986, 66).
According to Lee, a true martial artist does not adapt to his opponent
by adopting his opponent’s style or techniques, but rather he adapts his
own personal arsenal to “fit in” with his opponent to defeat him. He told
his students to be like water, formless and shapeless, continually adapting
to the opponent. Lee wrote, “Jeet Kune Do favors formlessness so that it
can assume all forms and since Jeet Kune Do has no style, it can fit in with
all styles” (Lee 1975, 12).
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