I dislike giving out lists of techniques. Sometimes students will ask me, “Why don’t you give us a list of all of the punching combinations, so that we have them.” My response to them is, “If you want a list, you can write one yourself, but I’m not giving you one.” Here is my reason for telling them that. As is often the case, when you give students lists of techniques, that is all the student looks at or uses. While lists may initially serve a somewhat useful purpose, in many cases they become a form of limitation.

In the lyrics of his song by the same name, legendary rock guitarist, Jimi Hendrix wrote, “Are you experienced? Or have you ever been experienced?”…

To truly comprehend Jeet Kune Do, as a practitioner it is vital that you develop the proper mindset toward training. I call this mindset, for wont of a better term, the “JKD attitude.” At various times on my blog I will include what I consider to be essential ingredients in developing a full and clear understanding of Jeet Kune Do.

Take two individuals who are both learning to play the guitar. Person A takes a  lesson once a week, and does nothing with the guitar the rest of the time. Person B takes a lesson, and then also spends 10-15 minutes everyday playing around on the guitar, going over what they learned in the lesson and experimenting on their own.  Now putting aside individual differences, which person do you think is going to make better progress and develop their guitar-playing skills faster? The answer is obvious. The same is true with regard to martial art training.  Class training combined with personal training will give you much better results than class training by itself.

As I was thinking about what to write for my latest blog, I received the following message from one of my friends on Facebook who is a JKD practitioner --

“Hi Sifu, I was informed by my uncle to check out JKD Federation. I sent off my martial arts history and they honoured me with an full instructors certificate, is this valid?”

When I began training in JKD in Dan Inosanto’s backyard gym, on one of the walls of the school was a small set of curtains underneath which was a small plaque containing the words, “The Secret of Martial Arts.” When you pulled back the curtains, you found yourself looking into a mirror, across the bottom of which was written the words, “You Are It.” The point is simple and clear. When it comes to Jeet Kune Do there aren’t any “secrets.”  There is only your willingness to work hard to develop yourself and cultivate your innate ability to the highest level. The first step in this process is preparation. If you wish to actualize your full potential and achieve excellence, you need to prepare yourself adequately. In his book, “Body Mind Mastery” author Dan Millman wrote, “Preparation is to the athlete as the foundation is to a house…. Strong foundations are the first and most important step toward success in sport and life.”