New year testimony

[rick00770]

Just wanted to say thanks to all jkd original and second generation students for carrying on Bruce,s art, i felt more confident after one lesson in jkd then in other things i,d studied. And I'm not putting any art down, I still study many styles for my personal satisfaction and hobby, but when it comes to speed, confidence and efficent and reality, jkd delivers on all points, enjoy reading all posts here and thanks to all

[idaho_jkd_club]

Welcome to the club! I've have always had the belief that you could try any art for six months. Then ask yourself, can I defend myself better today that I could six months ago? If the answer is yes, then stick with it if you enjoy it. I know that after my first six months in JKD, I felt way more confident, and that my self defense skills were a lot better off. I too felt that that it was accomplished quicker than any other art I had studied before. Probably for the fact that we didn't learn a mass of new techniques each lesson. We focused on the basics, drilled them constantly and started light sparring right away. I guess having up to six world class JKD instructors helped a lot too! Thanks WNG!

Take care,
EB

[khand50]

long before i actually trained with a jkd school, i had been studying jkd through books and magazines. i used lee's philosophy to better understand my approach to the arts. and i tried to understand the basic principles he spoke of and apply them to myself. it must have been working because i was sharing my ideas with a kid one day and after we worked out for about two or three hours he told me that he learned more in one day with me than he had in three years of tae kwon do! i was happy that he felt that way but sorry for the negative experience he had in tkd.
within a year i was living in rockford il and teaching a class. i had mostly kids from 8-16 years old. i had a twelve year old girl who had been in my class for just about ten weeks. she came to me after class one day and said she had to quit. her father was taking her out of my class. i asked her why. she told me that he was training in karate for the past six months and they sparred with each other and she beat him! i asked her to have him speak with me. when he did he told me that they didnt do any sparring in their karate class and he had been training six months. he felt that she was progressing too fast, i guess. i asked him what would he rather have, a daughter who could defend herself or a karate student who couldnt? they never came back. i felt bad for the girl because she enjoyed my class alot.
i used these two examples not to berate other arts but to say, even though i had never formally trained in jkd, i was growing and learning from the art. my teaching style back then was set up to pretty much resemble what i have seen in the jkd kickboxing book by chris kent and tim tackett. i added in trapping and basic single stick drills from fma and some applications of kicks based on muay thai and my material was more progressive than most of the schools in the area at the time. it was mid eighties. and yes, thanks to those fellows who have produced books and videos and have conducted seminars in jkd to further the knowledge of bruce lee and spread it to the world. we out here apppreciate all your efforts!

[rick00770]

yea i can relate to that, my instructor in jkd was a former green beret, he taught strick jkd, but on the side he had some stuff he called special forces teqniques , which were knife fighting, and we did some escrima too, unfortunately he moved on to florida, the knife moves were quick and efficent they didnt take away from jkd at all, he was a bruce lee fanatic, which i liked, im trying to get ahead financially right now and hope to get with lamar davis , which is a little ways from me, two hour drive but he has some great seminars too, il probably only train once a week , now, cause im stuck on weekend work, i used to tag people in karate class with side kick cause i brought it straight from floor and didnt cock it like most people taught, instructor was very good had a lot of power, and former kick boxer, also brown belt in judo, had some good joint locks and stuff, enjoyed it and learned lots of basic skills in tang soo do style, forms and stuff,