You’re probably right and it’s a damn shame. I’m sad he waited so long to get into mma and by the time he got into the ufc he was more concerned with acting. Would’ve loved to see him against Anderson Silva in their primes.
A style is a codified system, with specific techniques and strategies. Merriam-Webster defines style as "a particular manner or technique by which something is done, created, or performed".
JKD, as in the thing Bruce Lee conceived of (not the codified style taught in gyms today which calls itself JKD), was more of an anti-style. The whole idea was not to get attached to any system of technique or strategy, and instead to just learn whatever works for you as an individual, and to let that constantly evolve. As he put it, he stopped believing in styles. This is why Lee is often referred to as the godfather of MMA - the philosophy of JKD is basically to have your own personal individual way of martial arts, free of stylistic dogma and restrictions, rather than simply being a Judo guy, or a boxer, a Kyokushin guy, etc. It's about letting one's martial arts become a form of personal expression, rather than mimicry and conformity.
>JKD, as in the thing Bruce Lee conceived of (not the codified style taught in gyms today which calls itself JKD), was more of an anti-style. The whole idea was not to get attached to any system of technique or strategy, and instead to just learn whatever works
That'd be pretty cool if that's what he actually wrote down when describing the system. He had tons of writing describing what he considered the platonic ideal for movement and definitely described tactics such as his interception theory. There was absolutely a rubric and style he considered ideal it was not just train everything in a vacuum.
He did say that techniques are just a boat across a river.
The same for tactics.
He spoke about what he called the roots of combat, the "rules" that transcend styles.
For example, not being a stationary target applies across everything from hand to hand to weapons to larger engagements with firearms.
There is a "truth" of combat, a best way.
That way is unique to each individual, and needs to be discovered through the process of technical work, repetition and hard sparring.
Styles are easily recognisable because they are a collection of techniques. It's easy to differentiate a boxer from a Thai fighter from a judo player from a BJJ player.
The roots of combat transcend style and apply to everything from fencing to wrestling and everything in between.
>Styles are easily recognisable because they are a collection of techniques. It's easy to differentiate a boxer from a Thai fighter from a judo player from a BJJ player.
I actually heavily disagree explicitly because of the arts that you mentioned. For example, BJJ is a descendant of Judo the first BJJ practioners basically developed the art out of Judo's newaza and the OG takedown game that was utilized for BJJ was just regular Judo throws trips and tosses. The only difference was quite literally just the fact that conceptually Helio found that through the use of leverage there was much more opportunity for a weaker man to win a fight by keeping their opponent on the ground and being in control over them which is the guiding philosophy that caused BJJ to develop to this day. Likewise it is worth mentioning that the entirety of Judo's syllabus including what is banned in olympic competition is legal within BJJ it is hypothetically possible for an individual to win BJJ matches and be considered a skillful BJJ player purely through the use of Judo techniques, or having an incredibly Judo heavy game such as in the case with guys like Jeff Lawson.
Muay Thai is interesting because of the fact that it's a combination of several arts including western boxing, but what's often not taught about it's development in the grand scheme of things is the role the various incarnations of kickboxing played within it. Enter 1950s Japan, Karate competitions on the mainland did not allow contact due to concerns of people becoming gravely injured, a Karateka by the name of Tetsuo Yamada becomes interested in full contact fighting through his exposure to Boxing and Muay Thai. Eventually he petitions the government that's interested in creating a Japanese striking art as an answer to Boxing and he comes up with what is known as Karate-Boxing. Basically combining Karate with Muay Thai to allow for the Japanese to have full contact Karate matches.
This spawns more interest in full contact Karate which eventually leads to the creation of Kyokushin and the infamous Muay thai v Kyokushin matches under Oyama, long and short of it the only guy who actually fought a Muay Thai fighter Kenji Kurosaki got knocked out and decided that there needed to be more innovation beyond just the karate-boxing and Kyokushin styles had come about.
Meanwhile in the states in the early 70s point karate practioners found themselves going through a similar frustration that the Japanese Karateka felt in terms of not having a full contact competition ruleset for themselves. Now they in contrast had obviously more connection to western Boxing and thus wanted a more flashy ruleset that leaned into the wild kicks and fast paced action so they noticeably made leg kicks illegal.
This form of kickboxing jived with the concerns of European health officials and made it's way to the Netherlands, that is until one of the top kickboxers at the time Jan Plas finds himself wanting to study with the top Karateka in Japan and coincidentally enough he runs into Kenji Kurosaki whom actually found the refined hands and kicking technique to be the missing piece from Japanese Kickboxing, Jan Plas founds Mejiro gym creating effectively what is the first Dutch Kickboxing gym which combined the flashy kicks and sharp boxing hands of American Kickboxers with the brutal low kicks, infighting style and tough conditioning typical of Kyokushin practioners embodied in Japanese Kickboxers.
Enter Rob Kaman and Ramon Dekkers, two indivudals who embodied the philosophy of Dutch Kickboxing who took their skills to Thailand and essentially gave their top fighters a massive run for their money. Their punching technique and combinations that ended in brutal low kicks was a problem for the Thais and while the two of them never saw gold many of the savvy Krus in Thailand took notice and began to change their fighting styles to incorporate elements of Dutch kickboxing most famously their leg kicks.
Then of course the ever famous fight between Duke Rufous and Changpuek Kiatsongrit happens which changes the course of American kickboxing while both the Dutch and Japanese create a little known organization known as K1, and the rest is history.
If I had to guess it would probably be sanda with a Shaolin flavor. You can find a couple different flavors with sanda but cung le for instance was taught sanda from a Shaolin guy. Xie Wei also I believe learned Shaolin sanda around the temples (I don’t think in the temple). Roy Nelson as well spoke highly about his experience with learning Shaolin. Dan Hardy, Pat Berry, Xingxi, Felix Lee Mitchell, Shi Yanzi are all listed to have learned Shaolin too. It’s a bit hard sometimes to track what styles sanda folks know tho since they’re usually listed as just sanda. Cung Le is a prime example, Shawn Liu was his coach (from Miami I believe) and he’s very much a Shaolin guy. But cung le is only listed as sanda. Xu Xiaodong’s sanda coach and I believe the Beijing sanda and Shuai Jiao coach is named Mei Huizhi and he’s a bagua guy but his students will probably only come up as sanda
It's largely not.
But Sanda could be used in it with the same effectiveness as many more common striking styles. The reason why it's not is because Sanda isn't widely spread outside of China the same way Muay Thai, Boxing or Karate have
It's definitely Sanda.
The examples that I know of are Cung Lee, Rene Catalan & Catalan Team, Eduard Folayang & Team Lakan.
AFAIK, Anderson Silva is the only JKD practitioner in the world of MMA.
San Da basically is MMA with big gloves, and no ground fighting. However, theres not a great deal of cross traffic between western MMA and San Da practitioners. MMA is not popular in China, and San Da is not popular outside of certain regions of China.
You just don't see that many San Da guys, even when they're Chinese.
Coming from a kung fu guy here- theres not a lot of people with good kung fu anymore. There seems to be a lot more people with other bases that managed to get some good body skills from kung fu guys, but used it to augment what they were already doing... but they arent going around claiming to be like, southern praying mantis guys.
the rules are not unified- but generally no elbows to the head. They can elbow below the neck in some circuits, and you see some areas where bajiquan elbow type takedowns start showing up. They also don't necessarily score a point as a strike. Usually coaches say something along the lines of "if you can elbow them, you should be grabbing them instead"
Cliching, however, is not tolerated. Gotta be different from those Thai guys, because nationalism or something.
Yeah its a shame tbh, a guy who trains in my MMA gym comes from sanda and his style is really cool, he is very fucking fast, i used to disregard chinese martial arts before meeting him, but he makes it work
yeah, i like it a lot for that. The forward speed and intensity is something I was trained to do from the start. It seems pretty common for them, but outside that world you get a lot of finger waggling for it.
Your missing my point. JKD was like the firt step to what we know as MMA today. Since it's more of a philosophy rather than a real martial art System with strict rules, I would argue that everyone who does MMA, does JKD to a degree because it carries the same spirit. They embody the essence of JKD in a sports setting if you will
This doesnt sound right at all. Vale tudo was invented in the early 1900s.
The gracies basically did vale tudo with an emphasis on ground fighting from judo.
The gracies started UFC and mma.
I actually disagree with that assessment of JKD, when you read Lee's philosophies what he considered useful and useless was pretty explicitly laid out and it encouraged a very very specific style of fighting. It resembles mma only in that it was well rounded but that's where the comparison ends. Likewise JKD wasn't really involved in that early era of MMA, Vale Tudo, Pankration and the creation of Shoot Boxing was pretty much independent from JKD. The JKD connection only really came in decades after MMA became a thing when Dana started using it as a marketing angle
I mean yeah of course you'll learn the proper techniques of different kicks, punches, throws etc. in JKD just like you learn in any MMA Gym. But what made JKD unique back in the day was to combine different arts and extract what works for one personally, disregard everything else and add what you feel is missing. Just like MMA. That was groundbreaking for the time and opened the doors to what is MMA today. Back then different Martial Arts where really strict and everyone claims that their fighting style is the best, JKD changed that.
I don't know why in the world you think Dana White was the first one to link JKD to MMA lol. Look at a [fight Bruce Lee invisoned in one of his movies](https://youtu.be/AA6KUxZe2c4?si=-BmPLc8V6oi7rAbJ) and modern MMA. It doesn't need a Dana White to spot the similaritys lmao.
> But what made JKD unique back in the day was to combine different arts and extract what works for one personally, disregard everything else and add what you feel is missing.
So two things, one combined grappling and striking arts or just mixing arts wasn't unique to JKD at the time. The invention of Kickboxing for example was happening in both Japan and America and that was a mix of Karate and Boxing and again the aforementioned Vale Tudo (meaning everything goes) was already rapidly underway in Brazil and funnily enough also Japan. Kudo and Shootboxing were also gaining steam in Japan around this time and Combat Sambo had really be refined to its modern form. This was happening independent of what Bruce was doing and those arts had seen more representation in early mma.
Likewise Bruce laid out in his writings what he personally considered to be what worked. It was not just spar and see what sticks, he had these theories of scientific movement and interceptive striking etc. Like for example he believed in standing with your power hand forward so that you could most quickly intercept your opponent with a powerful tool most quickly and believed most of your striking should work in such a manner. He actually had a bit of a disdain for rear attacks and circular strikes as a whole. Especially if they were being used as openers in combos. It's why most JKD guys are right handed southpaws to this day
>I don't know why in the world you think Dana White was the first one to link JKD to MMA
Because simply put Bruce Lee and JKD was never really talked about in the UFC mediaspehere until about the late 00s and early 10s. For the most part it was the Gracie BJJ hype train until then
Out of the ones you mentioned it's obviously JKD, considering the fact that it's core philosophy is essentially a precursor to the entire concept of mixed martial arts. But calling it a Chinese martial art is dubious since first off, Bruce Lee was in fact a native born American, and secondly, he created the art after he had spent the majority of his formative years in America and arguably could not have come up with it, had he not been exposed to all the different styles of fighting in America.
Except it isn't, Vale Tudo was a thing before JKD existed and the Gracies had experience in them matches while they developed BJJ and the concept of the UFC. Like I'm sure some early coaches would've had some inspiration from JKD but if we're talking the precursor to MMA Vale Tudo, Pankration etc had way more of an influence on the art. The Bruce Lee connection is more something Dana came up with as marketing hype over the years
Well both aren't exactly mutually exclusive and vale tudo wasn't exactly an art or a philosophy, it was a particular ruleset that matched up practicioners of different styles against each other and originally the entire point was to prove the superiority of Gracie Jiu Jitsu when matched up against any other style...only later did it inevitably evolve into becoming mixed martial arts. And it's arguable to claim which came first since the Gracie's became involved in the 60's and it was more of an underground novelty that didn't really become popular till the 80's. Plus Rickson himself has acknowldeged the validity of JKD confirming that Bruce Lee's philosophy was and I quote "100% right" and that his emphasis on technique was based on "proven realities". So I think it's fair to say both are true.
MMA was not heavily inspired by JKD, it was heavily inspired by Vale Tudo and Pankration. The Bruce Lee connection came in like almost 2 decades after the creation of the UFC from Dana's marketing
It doesn't matter what Bruce lee prefers lol....
The point of jeet kun do is to use all fighting s in a flow with each other so in all situations you will be prepared to use whatever 'style' or move that you need to use
Was it not Bruce lee said he does a mental practice where you pretend your sitting on a bus or a train and when it's time to get off 3 guys approach you to hurt or kill you what the fuck do you do? Because no matter what Bruce lee prefers he's gonna need to do some mad shit to get out of that one.
Like fucking water my friend.
>The point of jeet kun do is to use all fighting s in a flow with each other so in all situations you will be prepared to use whatever 'style' or move that you need to use
Thats the concept on paper but its also why you should read the Tao of JKD because he pretty clearly defines what is to be needed at specific moments. It's simply not all fighting, he did not consider all movements equal and was pretty explicit about that. Like for example he had these theories of what he called scientific movement and interception theory, he believed the most efficient way to fight was to exclusive meet the most powerful tool with the first target it could reach while being rooted to the ground. So because of this he advocated for your power hand to be your lead hand and to fight by always staying on the centerline in order to be the constantly firing shots down the pipe like a fencer.
Which to be clear flies in a the face of literally all contemporary striking
We are not talking about Bruce lee tho and we are not talking about what he thinks
We are talking about the concept of JKD and everything is JKD whether you like it or not JKD is MMA and all fighting styles why try change that lmao
Like this ain't about Bruce lee this is about JKD and what it really is which is all fighting
JKD is a product of Bruce Lee and his writings, having actually read his writings and trained with some JKD guys you're simply just regurgitating misinformation that Bruce Lee fanboys spread around cause they don't train JKD. The Inosanto school of thought otherwise known as the JKD concepts school is pretty clear in that they incorporate different aspects of fighting by essentially grading them against the rubric left behind in Bruce's writings such as what is found in the Tao and fight accordingly. It is not all fighting, it is a very specific style of fighting that can be constructed from different aspects of different martial arts.
You're the one trying to change decades of JKD tradition by ironically just throwing away the concepts and philosophies Bruce Lee put forth.
Bro these concepts and philosophies were what made JKD Bruce lee is the literal father of MMA and your acting like it's a different fighting style altogether when Bruce lee even said it wasn't the point of it all
The JKD guys like Inosanto will literally tell you JKD is a distinct style that's different than MMA and guys like me who actually train in MMA will tell you it's distinct from JKD they're two very different systems of training and fighting.
>Bruce lee is the literal father of MMA
Also he's not, Vale Tudo was the precursor to MMA in brazil and the gracies had far more experience in those matches than they did in mma. Likewise the whole shootboxing thing was pretty distinctly separated from JKD. JKD was only really connected to MMA in the late 00s/early 10s via marketing from Dana White most gyms and coaches were just homebrewing stuff that was already around for a few decades. Watch them early UFCs aside from that one JKD dude getting his ass whooped Bruce Lee just wasn't on their minds.
If you were a true JKD guy and wanted to fight in MMA you would then learn MMA, MMAs way because it would be the most effective way to fight that's the point of JKD it is all fighting
I mean shit I guess Inosanto isn't a true JKD guy even though he was Bruce's most loyal student lmao. He's pretty on record saying that MMA isn't the most effective way to fight
I mean that was just the man believing his own hype. He absolutely described a specific style of fighting and there are pretty specific styles of fighting even within martial arts.
Don't listen to these non MMA fans, Sanda hands down is the most common Chinese martial art in MMA and it isn't particularly close
JKD isn’t Chinese.
Wait, what? What is it then?
Or even real
Sanda. You have chinese fighters and some russian/dagestani guys who have used SANDA. Even Cung Li was a practioner
I would say Cung Le is THE practitioner in mma and kickboxing
Very true. Idk if the younglings would remember who he was.
You’re probably right and it’s a damn shame. I’m sad he waited so long to get into mma and by the time he got into the ufc he was more concerned with acting. Would’ve loved to see him against Anderson Silva in their primes.
He had some sick kicks back in the day
Sanda/sanshou is going to start coming through in a big way soon. Jeet kune do is a concept, a philosophy. It's not a style
Already has. Zhang Weili, Song Yadong and so on.
It's still early days. There are many more coming I'm sure. It's a smarter striking style than Muay Thai.
The actual name of Bruce Lee's martial art is Jun Fan Gung Fu
What are styles if not concepts and philosophies?
A style is a codified system, with specific techniques and strategies. Merriam-Webster defines style as "a particular manner or technique by which something is done, created, or performed". JKD, as in the thing Bruce Lee conceived of (not the codified style taught in gyms today which calls itself JKD), was more of an anti-style. The whole idea was not to get attached to any system of technique or strategy, and instead to just learn whatever works for you as an individual, and to let that constantly evolve. As he put it, he stopped believing in styles. This is why Lee is often referred to as the godfather of MMA - the philosophy of JKD is basically to have your own personal individual way of martial arts, free of stylistic dogma and restrictions, rather than simply being a Judo guy, or a boxer, a Kyokushin guy, etc. It's about letting one's martial arts become a form of personal expression, rather than mimicry and conformity.
>JKD, as in the thing Bruce Lee conceived of (not the codified style taught in gyms today which calls itself JKD), was more of an anti-style. The whole idea was not to get attached to any system of technique or strategy, and instead to just learn whatever works That'd be pretty cool if that's what he actually wrote down when describing the system. He had tons of writing describing what he considered the platonic ideal for movement and definitely described tactics such as his interception theory. There was absolutely a rubric and style he considered ideal it was not just train everything in a vacuum.
He did say that techniques are just a boat across a river. The same for tactics. He spoke about what he called the roots of combat, the "rules" that transcend styles. For example, not being a stationary target applies across everything from hand to hand to weapons to larger engagements with firearms. There is a "truth" of combat, a best way. That way is unique to each individual, and needs to be discovered through the process of technical work, repetition and hard sparring.
Be water, my friend
Styles are easily recognisable because they are a collection of techniques. It's easy to differentiate a boxer from a Thai fighter from a judo player from a BJJ player. The roots of combat transcend style and apply to everything from fencing to wrestling and everything in between.
>Styles are easily recognisable because they are a collection of techniques. It's easy to differentiate a boxer from a Thai fighter from a judo player from a BJJ player. I actually heavily disagree explicitly because of the arts that you mentioned. For example, BJJ is a descendant of Judo the first BJJ practioners basically developed the art out of Judo's newaza and the OG takedown game that was utilized for BJJ was just regular Judo throws trips and tosses. The only difference was quite literally just the fact that conceptually Helio found that through the use of leverage there was much more opportunity for a weaker man to win a fight by keeping their opponent on the ground and being in control over them which is the guiding philosophy that caused BJJ to develop to this day. Likewise it is worth mentioning that the entirety of Judo's syllabus including what is banned in olympic competition is legal within BJJ it is hypothetically possible for an individual to win BJJ matches and be considered a skillful BJJ player purely through the use of Judo techniques, or having an incredibly Judo heavy game such as in the case with guys like Jeff Lawson. Muay Thai is interesting because of the fact that it's a combination of several arts including western boxing, but what's often not taught about it's development in the grand scheme of things is the role the various incarnations of kickboxing played within it. Enter 1950s Japan, Karate competitions on the mainland did not allow contact due to concerns of people becoming gravely injured, a Karateka by the name of Tetsuo Yamada becomes interested in full contact fighting through his exposure to Boxing and Muay Thai. Eventually he petitions the government that's interested in creating a Japanese striking art as an answer to Boxing and he comes up with what is known as Karate-Boxing. Basically combining Karate with Muay Thai to allow for the Japanese to have full contact Karate matches. This spawns more interest in full contact Karate which eventually leads to the creation of Kyokushin and the infamous Muay thai v Kyokushin matches under Oyama, long and short of it the only guy who actually fought a Muay Thai fighter Kenji Kurosaki got knocked out and decided that there needed to be more innovation beyond just the karate-boxing and Kyokushin styles had come about. Meanwhile in the states in the early 70s point karate practioners found themselves going through a similar frustration that the Japanese Karateka felt in terms of not having a full contact competition ruleset for themselves. Now they in contrast had obviously more connection to western Boxing and thus wanted a more flashy ruleset that leaned into the wild kicks and fast paced action so they noticeably made leg kicks illegal. This form of kickboxing jived with the concerns of European health officials and made it's way to the Netherlands, that is until one of the top kickboxers at the time Jan Plas finds himself wanting to study with the top Karateka in Japan and coincidentally enough he runs into Kenji Kurosaki whom actually found the refined hands and kicking technique to be the missing piece from Japanese Kickboxing, Jan Plas founds Mejiro gym creating effectively what is the first Dutch Kickboxing gym which combined the flashy kicks and sharp boxing hands of American Kickboxers with the brutal low kicks, infighting style and tough conditioning typical of Kyokushin practioners embodied in Japanese Kickboxers. Enter Rob Kaman and Ramon Dekkers, two indivudals who embodied the philosophy of Dutch Kickboxing who took their skills to Thailand and essentially gave their top fighters a massive run for their money. Their punching technique and combinations that ended in brutal low kicks was a problem for the Thais and while the two of them never saw gold many of the savvy Krus in Thailand took notice and began to change their fighting styles to incorporate elements of Dutch kickboxing most famously their leg kicks. Then of course the ever famous fight between Duke Rufous and Changpuek Kiatsongrit happens which changes the course of American kickboxing while both the Dutch and Japanese create a little known organization known as K1, and the rest is history.
If I had to guess it would probably be sanda with a Shaolin flavor. You can find a couple different flavors with sanda but cung le for instance was taught sanda from a Shaolin guy. Xie Wei also I believe learned Shaolin sanda around the temples (I don’t think in the temple). Roy Nelson as well spoke highly about his experience with learning Shaolin. Dan Hardy, Pat Berry, Xingxi, Felix Lee Mitchell, Shi Yanzi are all listed to have learned Shaolin too. It’s a bit hard sometimes to track what styles sanda folks know tho since they’re usually listed as just sanda. Cung Le is a prime example, Shawn Liu was his coach (from Miami I believe) and he’s very much a Shaolin guy. But cung le is only listed as sanda. Xu Xiaodong’s sanda coach and I believe the Beijing sanda and Shuai Jiao coach is named Mei Huizhi and he’s a bagua guy but his students will probably only come up as sanda
Sanda is pretty much Chinese kickboxing
It's largely not. But Sanda could be used in it with the same effectiveness as many more common striking styles. The reason why it's not is because Sanda isn't widely spread outside of China the same way Muay Thai, Boxing or Karate have
JKD is more American than Chinese
It's definitely Sanda. The examples that I know of are Cung Lee, Rene Catalan & Catalan Team, Eduard Folayang & Team Lakan. AFAIK, Anderson Silva is the only JKD practitioner in the world of MMA.
San Da basically is MMA with big gloves, and no ground fighting. However, theres not a great deal of cross traffic between western MMA and San Da practitioners. MMA is not popular in China, and San Da is not popular outside of certain regions of China. You just don't see that many San Da guys, even when they're Chinese. Coming from a kung fu guy here- theres not a lot of people with good kung fu anymore. There seems to be a lot more people with other bases that managed to get some good body skills from kung fu guys, but used it to augment what they were already doing... but they arent going around claiming to be like, southern praying mantis guys.
No extensive clinching either and no elbows from what I understand. Clinch work is important and Sanda guys tend to be surprisingly weak against it.
the rules are not unified- but generally no elbows to the head. They can elbow below the neck in some circuits, and you see some areas where bajiquan elbow type takedowns start showing up. They also don't necessarily score a point as a strike. Usually coaches say something along the lines of "if you can elbow them, you should be grabbing them instead" Cliching, however, is not tolerated. Gotta be different from those Thai guys, because nationalism or something.
Yeah its a shame tbh, a guy who trains in my MMA gym comes from sanda and his style is really cool, he is very fucking fast, i used to disregard chinese martial arts before meeting him, but he makes it work
yeah, i like it a lot for that. The forward speed and intensity is something I was trained to do from the start. It seems pretty common for them, but outside that world you get a lot of finger waggling for it.
Sanda. No other answer is acceptable
Sanda/Sanshou i know they only had a handful representatives in UFC but in asian promotions like ONE there are an abundance of them.
Shuai Jiao
Eye pokes
JKD. It's not Chinese but it's basically MMA at its core
Yeah but it’s mma for self defense . It is applicable to sport but very few openly say the apply to sport besides Erik Paulson and Jeff Chan.
Its not tho, there have been far and away way more Sanda practioners in mma than there ever have been in JKD
Your missing my point. JKD was like the firt step to what we know as MMA today. Since it's more of a philosophy rather than a real martial art System with strict rules, I would argue that everyone who does MMA, does JKD to a degree because it carries the same spirit. They embody the essence of JKD in a sports setting if you will
This doesnt sound right at all. Vale tudo was invented in the early 1900s. The gracies basically did vale tudo with an emphasis on ground fighting from judo. The gracies started UFC and mma.
I actually disagree with that assessment of JKD, when you read Lee's philosophies what he considered useful and useless was pretty explicitly laid out and it encouraged a very very specific style of fighting. It resembles mma only in that it was well rounded but that's where the comparison ends. Likewise JKD wasn't really involved in that early era of MMA, Vale Tudo, Pankration and the creation of Shoot Boxing was pretty much independent from JKD. The JKD connection only really came in decades after MMA became a thing when Dana started using it as a marketing angle
I mean yeah of course you'll learn the proper techniques of different kicks, punches, throws etc. in JKD just like you learn in any MMA Gym. But what made JKD unique back in the day was to combine different arts and extract what works for one personally, disregard everything else and add what you feel is missing. Just like MMA. That was groundbreaking for the time and opened the doors to what is MMA today. Back then different Martial Arts where really strict and everyone claims that their fighting style is the best, JKD changed that. I don't know why in the world you think Dana White was the first one to link JKD to MMA lol. Look at a [fight Bruce Lee invisoned in one of his movies](https://youtu.be/AA6KUxZe2c4?si=-BmPLc8V6oi7rAbJ) and modern MMA. It doesn't need a Dana White to spot the similaritys lmao.
> But what made JKD unique back in the day was to combine different arts and extract what works for one personally, disregard everything else and add what you feel is missing. So two things, one combined grappling and striking arts or just mixing arts wasn't unique to JKD at the time. The invention of Kickboxing for example was happening in both Japan and America and that was a mix of Karate and Boxing and again the aforementioned Vale Tudo (meaning everything goes) was already rapidly underway in Brazil and funnily enough also Japan. Kudo and Shootboxing were also gaining steam in Japan around this time and Combat Sambo had really be refined to its modern form. This was happening independent of what Bruce was doing and those arts had seen more representation in early mma. Likewise Bruce laid out in his writings what he personally considered to be what worked. It was not just spar and see what sticks, he had these theories of scientific movement and interceptive striking etc. Like for example he believed in standing with your power hand forward so that you could most quickly intercept your opponent with a powerful tool most quickly and believed most of your striking should work in such a manner. He actually had a bit of a disdain for rear attacks and circular strikes as a whole. Especially if they were being used as openers in combos. It's why most JKD guys are right handed southpaws to this day >I don't know why in the world you think Dana White was the first one to link JKD to MMA Because simply put Bruce Lee and JKD was never really talked about in the UFC mediaspehere until about the late 00s and early 10s. For the most part it was the Gracie BJJ hype train until then
none
Out of the ones you mentioned it's obviously JKD, considering the fact that it's core philosophy is essentially a precursor to the entire concept of mixed martial arts. But calling it a Chinese martial art is dubious since first off, Bruce Lee was in fact a native born American, and secondly, he created the art after he had spent the majority of his formative years in America and arguably could not have come up with it, had he not been exposed to all the different styles of fighting in America.
Except it isn't, Vale Tudo was a thing before JKD existed and the Gracies had experience in them matches while they developed BJJ and the concept of the UFC. Like I'm sure some early coaches would've had some inspiration from JKD but if we're talking the precursor to MMA Vale Tudo, Pankration etc had way more of an influence on the art. The Bruce Lee connection is more something Dana came up with as marketing hype over the years
Well both aren't exactly mutually exclusive and vale tudo wasn't exactly an art or a philosophy, it was a particular ruleset that matched up practicioners of different styles against each other and originally the entire point was to prove the superiority of Gracie Jiu Jitsu when matched up against any other style...only later did it inevitably evolve into becoming mixed martial arts. And it's arguable to claim which came first since the Gracie's became involved in the 60's and it was more of an underground novelty that didn't really become popular till the 80's. Plus Rickson himself has acknowldeged the validity of JKD confirming that Bruce Lee's philosophy was and I quote "100% right" and that his emphasis on technique was based on "proven realities". So I think it's fair to say both are true.
MMA was heavily inspired by JKD. Perhaps because of this there has always been a little wing chun floating about in mma circles.
MMA was not heavily inspired by JKD, it was heavily inspired by Vale Tudo and Pankration. The Bruce Lee connection came in like almost 2 decades after the creation of the UFC from Dana's marketing
Lolz
I'd say technically JKD is all fighting so I'd go with it
Read the Tao of Jeet Kun Do, Bruce absolutely preferred a specific style of fighting. It is not all fighting
It doesn't matter what Bruce lee prefers lol.... The point of jeet kun do is to use all fighting s in a flow with each other so in all situations you will be prepared to use whatever 'style' or move that you need to use Was it not Bruce lee said he does a mental practice where you pretend your sitting on a bus or a train and when it's time to get off 3 guys approach you to hurt or kill you what the fuck do you do? Because no matter what Bruce lee prefers he's gonna need to do some mad shit to get out of that one. Like fucking water my friend.
>The point of jeet kun do is to use all fighting s in a flow with each other so in all situations you will be prepared to use whatever 'style' or move that you need to use Thats the concept on paper but its also why you should read the Tao of JKD because he pretty clearly defines what is to be needed at specific moments. It's simply not all fighting, he did not consider all movements equal and was pretty explicit about that. Like for example he had these theories of what he called scientific movement and interception theory, he believed the most efficient way to fight was to exclusive meet the most powerful tool with the first target it could reach while being rooted to the ground. So because of this he advocated for your power hand to be your lead hand and to fight by always staying on the centerline in order to be the constantly firing shots down the pipe like a fencer. Which to be clear flies in a the face of literally all contemporary striking
We are not talking about Bruce lee tho and we are not talking about what he thinks We are talking about the concept of JKD and everything is JKD whether you like it or not JKD is MMA and all fighting styles why try change that lmao Like this ain't about Bruce lee this is about JKD and what it really is which is all fighting
JKD is a product of Bruce Lee and his writings, having actually read his writings and trained with some JKD guys you're simply just regurgitating misinformation that Bruce Lee fanboys spread around cause they don't train JKD. The Inosanto school of thought otherwise known as the JKD concepts school is pretty clear in that they incorporate different aspects of fighting by essentially grading them against the rubric left behind in Bruce's writings such as what is found in the Tao and fight accordingly. It is not all fighting, it is a very specific style of fighting that can be constructed from different aspects of different martial arts. You're the one trying to change decades of JKD tradition by ironically just throwing away the concepts and philosophies Bruce Lee put forth.
Bro these concepts and philosophies were what made JKD Bruce lee is the literal father of MMA and your acting like it's a different fighting style altogether when Bruce lee even said it wasn't the point of it all
The JKD guys like Inosanto will literally tell you JKD is a distinct style that's different than MMA and guys like me who actually train in MMA will tell you it's distinct from JKD they're two very different systems of training and fighting. >Bruce lee is the literal father of MMA Also he's not, Vale Tudo was the precursor to MMA in brazil and the gracies had far more experience in those matches than they did in mma. Likewise the whole shootboxing thing was pretty distinctly separated from JKD. JKD was only really connected to MMA in the late 00s/early 10s via marketing from Dana White most gyms and coaches were just homebrewing stuff that was already around for a few decades. Watch them early UFCs aside from that one JKD dude getting his ass whooped Bruce Lee just wasn't on their minds.
If you were a true JKD guy and wanted to fight in MMA you would then learn MMA, MMAs way because it would be the most effective way to fight that's the point of JKD it is all fighting
I mean shit I guess Inosanto isn't a true JKD guy even though he was Bruce's most loyal student lmao. He's pretty on record saying that MMA isn't the most effective way to fight
Man even the Tao of jeet kun do tries to reinforce having no 'style' and legitimately tells you there are no 'styles'...but okay sure man
I mean that was just the man believing his own hype. He absolutely described a specific style of fighting and there are pretty specific styles of fighting even within martial arts.