Tim Tackett
06-18-2010, 08:58 AM
At last year's camp we decided to become a more organized group. There were 2 main reasons for doing this:
1. Bob Bremer is now 85 years old and Jim Sewell and I will be turning 70 early next year, Jim in Jan and me in Feb. We both will be accepting presents. Some of the senior instructors felt that they wanted our group to continue after the 3 original founders are no longer around to teach.
2. We felt at the meeting that we should come up with a structured curriculum with levels so that any student, whether in Europe or the USA, would know exactly what he had to learn to progress in our version of JKD. We also decided that our version of JKD should include as much material as possible.
It is natural in an art like JKD which was constantly changing and growing that some of the original students of Bruce Lee would have a different approach to the art. There are 2 main reasons for this:
a. Different eras:
A student who learned JKD as part of the Seattle era will be more apt to use more of a modified wing chun structure.
A student from the Oakland will still have a lot of the modified wing chun elements but may focus more on the boxing and kickboxing aspects of JKD. A student from the Chinatown era will look more like the Oakland group, but will have added Western fencing principles. While all of our instructors have focused on the Chinatown era we want to to also be able to teach the main drills and techniques from the other 2 eras.
b. Personal preferences:
It is natural when learning an art like JKD to focus more on what feels natural to the the person learning it. While all of the Chinatown students were learning the same basic things they tended to concentrate on different ways to express their JKD. Some concentrate on crashing the line and blasting; some on gaining an attachment and trapping and hitting; some on keeping the fighting measure through footwork and intercepting an attack.
The same is true with our own instructors. It is natural for the students to favor the same structure and techniques that his teacher does. For example, while there are 3 ways to do a leg obstruction a student may only have learned 1 way, which in his mind is the correct way. That's what Bruce Lee mentioned as the danger of "taking the agenda as the way".
While my main JKD influences are Dan Inosanto and Bob Bremer I have spent a great deal of time with most of the 1st generation guys to be at least familiar with what they do. At the same time, we are fortunate in that many of our instructors have spent a great deal of time with some of them and know more about what they teach than I do.
Our 1st order of business is to make sure that all of our instructors are teaching all the ways but are not bound by none. In others words, they should teach all the leg obstructions but the student is free to express himself with which ever one works the best for him at that particular time and place.
Each of our instructors will be receiving a copy of our curriculum, and it is his responsibility to learn what is on it. Most of our instructors will already know most of it, but will now have a guide to teach what is on it. There will be no new testing of any of the instructors that we already have, but those who want to get a more advanced instructor level will now know exactly what to learn.
We are also planning to have an official membership in our group. We now have a Board of directors, and I am pleased to announce that I am not in charge of the organization. The Board consists of 9 members. Vince Raimondi is the Chairman Of The Board. I am just one of the members, and my vote counts the same as any other member.
We realize that not all of our instructors will be interested in being part of a more organized group and that is understandable. With that in mind we will have 2 basic organizations, the new one and an affiliated one with instructors who still want to be a part of the group and will continue to teach our brand of JKD.
The Wednesday Night Group:
More than 1 person has commented that the name of our group is somewhat silly and does not define who we are or what we do, which was the point of naming ourselves that. At the time I started JKD I was already a martial art teacher. At the end of 1964 right after I returned to the USA from Taiwan and left the US Air Force, I opened a kung-fu school but called it "The School Of Chinese Karate" because hardly anyone had heard of kung-fu. I opened the school to help me pay my way through college. When I started graduate school in 1968 I only had the time to teach at most 1 day a week. The only night that I could rent a room in a good location was on Wed. After I got my degree I started taking JKD in Dan Inosanto's backyard. After a few years I got permission to teach a few people JKD. Since no one at that time wanted to teach JKD openly, I moved my small group to my garage on Wed nights. To give ourselves a name that did not have JKD in it, we just called it the Wed group and did not advertise what we taught. It's been that way to this day. We've grown a lot since those early days and now have instructors in the USA and Europe. We've been blessed in that almost all of the people that we've certified as WNG instructors are also high ranking martial artists in many other arts. We feel that it is foolish not to take advantage of any their knowledge that we find useful and fits with our philosophy and structure. This is one of the main reasons that we've started our new organization, as the WNG will now be offering JKD, grappling, and weapon training. To differentiate our JKD from the other curriculums to be taught we decided to call our JKD "Old School JKD":
Some people have said that our new WNG Old School's name will not attract very many people as it is too "old school" and sounds old fashioned. We really don't care if we attract very many new people or not, as we are more interested in working with the students we have. By "Old School" we take it to mean that our curriculum will be mainly original JKD and anything we might add will be not labeled JKD.
Jeet Kune Do Curriculum:
Our curriculum will be divided into 4 sections:
1. Primary Techniques
This will consist of those techniques that our instructors feel are the most essential JKD techniques, and will be the ones we spend the most time working on.
2. Secondary Techniques
These will consist of those techniques that are not used as often, but still are important for the higher levels to have.
3. Historical Techniques
These are things that Bruce taught but are not that well known, but we feel that all our teachers should know them so that they won't lost to future generations. They include things like:
a. Some of the early energy drills
b. The 4 beginning kicking sets done both classically and non-classically
c. The JKD kicking set (Pete Jacobs taught this set at one of the BLEF seminars)
d. The 1 hand set
e. Some of the early wing chun sliding leverage drills
f. The shadow-boxing set
g. Some of the more unusual kicks
h. The wing chun dummy set.
i. etc
4. Supplemental Techniques, Drills, and Exercises
This will probably be the most controversial part or our curriculum as we will be going outside of JKD for some of what we do. Every time we get together as a group and share information someone will come up with something that he learned from another art that really adds something to what we do and makes us better martial artists. For example, when teaching the leg obstruction, one of our instructors, who had a lot of savate training, countered it with a savate kick without thinking. It is now one of our basic defenses for the leg obstruction. Should we not teach it because it is not original JKD, or should we teach it and make sure that our students know that it is savate? We feel that by doing this we are still sticking to original JKD but still growing. Anything that we add must be stated as not JKD, but at the same time must stick to JKD principles and structure.
Here's a few more examples:
a. The heavy palm strikes that I learned from hsing-i and tai chi in Taiwan are very valuable tools, and are quite easy to learn
b. Some of the basic Thai Boxing pad training and their knee and elbow techniques
Part 3 will discuss our WNG Grappling Curriculum.
c. Some of the energy drills from hsing-i and tai chi
d. The JKD wooden dummy set
WNG Grappling Curriculums:
We feel that it is very important for us to add grappling to what we do. While we have always done this, we now feel that we need to set up a curriculum for our instructors. While no one will be bound to a particular curriculum, they will have to learn the WNG one to become certified in as a grappling instructor in what we do. We do not feel that we should call what we do "JKD Grappling as there is already a JKD Grappling Association which was started by my friend, Larry Hartsell. We have decided to call what we do "WNG Grappling" We are fortunate that we have some very knowledgeable grappling instructors as a part of our group. For example Jim McCann is a former "Grappling Quest" gold medalist, and Richie Carrion was named the NAGA Instructor of the Year a few years ago and has pioneered using JKD principles in mma.
WNG Grappling will consist of 3 curriculums:
1. Grappling for the ring
This will be designed to try to fit in with the rules set by the various mma associations while sticking to JKD principles.
2. Street Grappling with no rules
Anything goes with emphasis on avoiding the takedown and getting us ASAP.
3. Close Combat:
While simular to #2 above the close combat curriculum will be modeled on what we learned from some of the warriors that we have worked with. They are:
1. Bert Poe - former Marine Raider
2. Sonny Bygum - 1st Navel Seal Team - Vietnam
This curriculum will be put together by:
1. Tim Tackett
2. Dennis Blue - Silver Star winner - Army Special Forces - long time student of Bert and Sonny
3. Carl Lewis who has done a lot of research into WWII combatives after being inspired to do so by Bert.
We may add later more to it as some of our instructors also teach personal protection so we may add that later.
Some may want to be certified in all 3 curriculums or just one or 2. The final details will be decided at the camp.
It must be noted that all of this is just a work in progress and nothing is set in stone yet. We are open to any suggestions that you might have.
Weapon Curriculum:
Some of our instructors have had a lot of experience with weapon training. Everything from combat experience with firearms to many other weapon arts. A lot of our instructors are also experts in various styles of Filipino martial arts as well as other arts like Korean sword fighting. We've decided to try and take advantage of these instructors and come up with a curriculum that utilizes this knowledge. We will attempt to come up with a basic weapon curriculum for both learned to defend against being attacked with a weapon as how to attack with them. We will start by working on how defend against a edged weapon attack at this year's camp.
So we have 3 separate curriculums:
1. Old School JKD
2. WNG Grappling
3. WNG Weapon Training
The 1st thing a teacher needs to do is work on the basic JKD curriculum, as it is the JKD principles that will be starting point of the the other 2. We would like all our instructors to be able to understand the WNG grappling to be able to teach how to defend against the takedown as well as methods to get back on their feet ASAP. If some want to be certified in WNG grappling that will also be possible.
How we will deal with weapon training will be discussed at camp.
Nothing is set in stone yet. At the present time it is still a work in progress and will take a lot of work and time to put it all together. We are always open for suggestions.
Tim Tackett
Stay Tuned
1. Bob Bremer is now 85 years old and Jim Sewell and I will be turning 70 early next year, Jim in Jan and me in Feb. We both will be accepting presents. Some of the senior instructors felt that they wanted our group to continue after the 3 original founders are no longer around to teach.
2. We felt at the meeting that we should come up with a structured curriculum with levels so that any student, whether in Europe or the USA, would know exactly what he had to learn to progress in our version of JKD. We also decided that our version of JKD should include as much material as possible.
It is natural in an art like JKD which was constantly changing and growing that some of the original students of Bruce Lee would have a different approach to the art. There are 2 main reasons for this:
a. Different eras:
A student who learned JKD as part of the Seattle era will be more apt to use more of a modified wing chun structure.
A student from the Oakland will still have a lot of the modified wing chun elements but may focus more on the boxing and kickboxing aspects of JKD. A student from the Chinatown era will look more like the Oakland group, but will have added Western fencing principles. While all of our instructors have focused on the Chinatown era we want to to also be able to teach the main drills and techniques from the other 2 eras.
b. Personal preferences:
It is natural when learning an art like JKD to focus more on what feels natural to the the person learning it. While all of the Chinatown students were learning the same basic things they tended to concentrate on different ways to express their JKD. Some concentrate on crashing the line and blasting; some on gaining an attachment and trapping and hitting; some on keeping the fighting measure through footwork and intercepting an attack.
The same is true with our own instructors. It is natural for the students to favor the same structure and techniques that his teacher does. For example, while there are 3 ways to do a leg obstruction a student may only have learned 1 way, which in his mind is the correct way. That's what Bruce Lee mentioned as the danger of "taking the agenda as the way".
While my main JKD influences are Dan Inosanto and Bob Bremer I have spent a great deal of time with most of the 1st generation guys to be at least familiar with what they do. At the same time, we are fortunate in that many of our instructors have spent a great deal of time with some of them and know more about what they teach than I do.
Our 1st order of business is to make sure that all of our instructors are teaching all the ways but are not bound by none. In others words, they should teach all the leg obstructions but the student is free to express himself with which ever one works the best for him at that particular time and place.
Each of our instructors will be receiving a copy of our curriculum, and it is his responsibility to learn what is on it. Most of our instructors will already know most of it, but will now have a guide to teach what is on it. There will be no new testing of any of the instructors that we already have, but those who want to get a more advanced instructor level will now know exactly what to learn.
We are also planning to have an official membership in our group. We now have a Board of directors, and I am pleased to announce that I am not in charge of the organization. The Board consists of 9 members. Vince Raimondi is the Chairman Of The Board. I am just one of the members, and my vote counts the same as any other member.
We realize that not all of our instructors will be interested in being part of a more organized group and that is understandable. With that in mind we will have 2 basic organizations, the new one and an affiliated one with instructors who still want to be a part of the group and will continue to teach our brand of JKD.
The Wednesday Night Group:
More than 1 person has commented that the name of our group is somewhat silly and does not define who we are or what we do, which was the point of naming ourselves that. At the time I started JKD I was already a martial art teacher. At the end of 1964 right after I returned to the USA from Taiwan and left the US Air Force, I opened a kung-fu school but called it "The School Of Chinese Karate" because hardly anyone had heard of kung-fu. I opened the school to help me pay my way through college. When I started graduate school in 1968 I only had the time to teach at most 1 day a week. The only night that I could rent a room in a good location was on Wed. After I got my degree I started taking JKD in Dan Inosanto's backyard. After a few years I got permission to teach a few people JKD. Since no one at that time wanted to teach JKD openly, I moved my small group to my garage on Wed nights. To give ourselves a name that did not have JKD in it, we just called it the Wed group and did not advertise what we taught. It's been that way to this day. We've grown a lot since those early days and now have instructors in the USA and Europe. We've been blessed in that almost all of the people that we've certified as WNG instructors are also high ranking martial artists in many other arts. We feel that it is foolish not to take advantage of any their knowledge that we find useful and fits with our philosophy and structure. This is one of the main reasons that we've started our new organization, as the WNG will now be offering JKD, grappling, and weapon training. To differentiate our JKD from the other curriculums to be taught we decided to call our JKD "Old School JKD":
Some people have said that our new WNG Old School's name will not attract very many people as it is too "old school" and sounds old fashioned. We really don't care if we attract very many new people or not, as we are more interested in working with the students we have. By "Old School" we take it to mean that our curriculum will be mainly original JKD and anything we might add will be not labeled JKD.
Jeet Kune Do Curriculum:
Our curriculum will be divided into 4 sections:
1. Primary Techniques
This will consist of those techniques that our instructors feel are the most essential JKD techniques, and will be the ones we spend the most time working on.
2. Secondary Techniques
These will consist of those techniques that are not used as often, but still are important for the higher levels to have.
3. Historical Techniques
These are things that Bruce taught but are not that well known, but we feel that all our teachers should know them so that they won't lost to future generations. They include things like:
a. Some of the early energy drills
b. The 4 beginning kicking sets done both classically and non-classically
c. The JKD kicking set (Pete Jacobs taught this set at one of the BLEF seminars)
d. The 1 hand set
e. Some of the early wing chun sliding leverage drills
f. The shadow-boxing set
g. Some of the more unusual kicks
h. The wing chun dummy set.
i. etc
4. Supplemental Techniques, Drills, and Exercises
This will probably be the most controversial part or our curriculum as we will be going outside of JKD for some of what we do. Every time we get together as a group and share information someone will come up with something that he learned from another art that really adds something to what we do and makes us better martial artists. For example, when teaching the leg obstruction, one of our instructors, who had a lot of savate training, countered it with a savate kick without thinking. It is now one of our basic defenses for the leg obstruction. Should we not teach it because it is not original JKD, or should we teach it and make sure that our students know that it is savate? We feel that by doing this we are still sticking to original JKD but still growing. Anything that we add must be stated as not JKD, but at the same time must stick to JKD principles and structure.
Here's a few more examples:
a. The heavy palm strikes that I learned from hsing-i and tai chi in Taiwan are very valuable tools, and are quite easy to learn
b. Some of the basic Thai Boxing pad training and their knee and elbow techniques
Part 3 will discuss our WNG Grappling Curriculum.
c. Some of the energy drills from hsing-i and tai chi
d. The JKD wooden dummy set
WNG Grappling Curriculums:
We feel that it is very important for us to add grappling to what we do. While we have always done this, we now feel that we need to set up a curriculum for our instructors. While no one will be bound to a particular curriculum, they will have to learn the WNG one to become certified in as a grappling instructor in what we do. We do not feel that we should call what we do "JKD Grappling as there is already a JKD Grappling Association which was started by my friend, Larry Hartsell. We have decided to call what we do "WNG Grappling" We are fortunate that we have some very knowledgeable grappling instructors as a part of our group. For example Jim McCann is a former "Grappling Quest" gold medalist, and Richie Carrion was named the NAGA Instructor of the Year a few years ago and has pioneered using JKD principles in mma.
WNG Grappling will consist of 3 curriculums:
1. Grappling for the ring
This will be designed to try to fit in with the rules set by the various mma associations while sticking to JKD principles.
2. Street Grappling with no rules
Anything goes with emphasis on avoiding the takedown and getting us ASAP.
3. Close Combat:
While simular to #2 above the close combat curriculum will be modeled on what we learned from some of the warriors that we have worked with. They are:
1. Bert Poe - former Marine Raider
2. Sonny Bygum - 1st Navel Seal Team - Vietnam
This curriculum will be put together by:
1. Tim Tackett
2. Dennis Blue - Silver Star winner - Army Special Forces - long time student of Bert and Sonny
3. Carl Lewis who has done a lot of research into WWII combatives after being inspired to do so by Bert.
We may add later more to it as some of our instructors also teach personal protection so we may add that later.
Some may want to be certified in all 3 curriculums or just one or 2. The final details will be decided at the camp.
It must be noted that all of this is just a work in progress and nothing is set in stone yet. We are open to any suggestions that you might have.
Weapon Curriculum:
Some of our instructors have had a lot of experience with weapon training. Everything from combat experience with firearms to many other weapon arts. A lot of our instructors are also experts in various styles of Filipino martial arts as well as other arts like Korean sword fighting. We've decided to try and take advantage of these instructors and come up with a curriculum that utilizes this knowledge. We will attempt to come up with a basic weapon curriculum for both learned to defend against being attacked with a weapon as how to attack with them. We will start by working on how defend against a edged weapon attack at this year's camp.
So we have 3 separate curriculums:
1. Old School JKD
2. WNG Grappling
3. WNG Weapon Training
The 1st thing a teacher needs to do is work on the basic JKD curriculum, as it is the JKD principles that will be starting point of the the other 2. We would like all our instructors to be able to understand the WNG grappling to be able to teach how to defend against the takedown as well as methods to get back on their feet ASAP. If some want to be certified in WNG grappling that will also be possible.
How we will deal with weapon training will be discussed at camp.
Nothing is set in stone yet. At the present time it is still a work in progress and will take a lot of work and time to put it all together. We are always open for suggestions.
Tim Tackett
Stay Tuned