Martial Arts Illustrated – January 2018

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33

shortly afterward my perspective on the

matter shifted. Why? Because I came to

the realisation that one of the major

philosophical foundation stones underlying

JKD was the principle or concept of doing

away with the notion of ‘styles’ entirely, and

instead simply looking at things scienti¿ cally

from the perspective of ‘combative motion’.

This may be a diɤ cult concept for some

people to grasp because since we were

children we have been entrained to

categorise and label things we see and do.

That is why when you see someone observing

a JKD training session you will often hear

comments such as, “Oh, they’re just doing

Wing Chun,” or “That’s just Thai Boxing.”

This is not a case of ignorance on the part

of the observer, but rather it is simply the

frame of reference through which they are

viewing things, based on their conditioning

or background. If they have little or no

understanding of martial arts at all, they may

not have anything with which they can relate

what they are observing to.

Therefore, now my perspective is that as

opposed to À owing from one art to another,

an individual should simply À ow from

motion to motion and express themselves

combatively using a kick, an elbow, and a

sweep. Not a ‘Savate’ kick, not a ‘Thai’ kick,

not even a ‘JKD’ kick, but simply a kick. In

the end, I guess the old saying, “A punch is

just a punch, a kick is just a kick,” is a truism.

„ Chris Kent

CHRIS KENT



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re-published in
2008 and re-titled,
Jeet Kune Do -
The Textbook, we
wrote that in JKD
one should have
the ability to À ow
from one martial
art to another, and
then listed several
photographic
sequences as examples, such as À owing from
a JKD hook kick to a Thai elbow to a Silat
sweep.

Personally (and I cannot and would
not speak for Tim), I now believe this
to be incorrect and that it can lead to
misperceptions regarding what JKD is all
about. My intention was to ask for it to be
removed from the re-printed version of the
book, but it did not happen.

When the book was originally published,
the idea of being able to À ow from art to art
was one of the prevalent frames of thought
being forth. Moreover, yes, I was guilty of
putting the idea forth myself. However,

Ñ Bob Bremmer, Chris Kent,

Tim Tackett - JKD Brothers

Ô Thai elbow

Ò Thai Kick