Tactile awareness and energy sensitivity can play an important role in the use of any hand immobilization action, be it an attack, counterattack, or as a defense, and as such, should be an integral part of a JKD practitioner’s overall training program. Tactile awareness relates to the sense of touch and energy sensitivity deals with understanding and relating to the force given against your arms by an opponent.

A beginning student is throwing side kicks against a kicking shield being held by his training partner. He is well-muscled and looks in good shape, but after throwing twenty kicks he is tired out, breathing hard, and his kick have diminished to lightweight taps against the shield. Forgetting that he currently runs two miles three times each week and spends thirty minutes on a stationary bike another two times per week, he glances over at a skinny student who, now on his fiftieth kick, is kicking easily and powerfully and thinks, “Man, I thought I was in good shape, but my endurance is crap. I’ve gotta improve my cardio.” Such is not the case. In reality it is a matter of skill conditioning rather than physical conditioning. While a person’s level of physical condition may be an integral component in their overall martial art training, martial art training is primarily neural -- how to do the techniques or actions correctly, how to move, etc. “Laying down a neural groove” so to speak.

When people ask me what I think of the new, re-published version of the Tao of Jeet Kune Do, I tell them that I like it, and that I think the company did an admirable job on it. What surprises many of them is that when they ask me what my favorite part of the book is, I tell them that it is, and always has been, the “Introductions” written by Linda Lee Cadwell and my friend and training partner, the late Gil Johnson.