In his interview for the book, “Jeet Kune Do Conversations” by Jose Fraguas (Unique Publications, 2001) Dan Inosanto was asked about Bruce Lee’s quote “Absorb what is useful, Reject what is useless, Add what is specifically your own.” In his response, Dan stated that, “He [Bruce Lee] said that you had to capture the essence of each art. The essence is not the three thousand techniques you learn from white belt to black belt. Whatever he absorbed from a system, it had to fit in to his personal base system…”

There’s an old saying which states that “The more things change the more they remain the same.” As I look about the JKD world today I see various JKD factions or groups arguing and disagreeing about the very same things I saw groups arguing over thirty years ago. Things such as who is right and who is wrong about JKD, who is doing JKD correctly and who isn’t, who gets JKD and who doesn’t. It’s the same stuff, just a different year and a whole new crop of people.

“A good JKD man has no technique; he makes his opponent’s techniques his techniques.”

                                                                                                                               - Bruce Lee

Take one of Bruce Lee’s personal day-timer diaries and lay it next to any JKD school class curriculum. It doesn’t matter whether it is the curriculum from the Seattle school, the Oakland school, the Los Angeles school, or any JKD school for that matter, you will see quite a difference. The class curriculum lays out a basic structure of the training program for the particular school. Lee’s notes on the other hand, record a continual personal refinement of the various combative tools and skills (such as throwing 18,000 punches in a single month) and the development of his body to support and enhance the use of those tools and skills. One is an example of “class” curriculum and the other an example of “individual” curriculum.