Jeet Kune Do Institute, Orlando

**izdemon** · Posted On: 12/30/2010 10:32am

All classes are taught by Sifu/Guro Tim Motter. According to the website, Sifu Motter is a senior instructor under Sifu/Guro Richard Bustillo, Sifu Motter is the highest ranking JKD instructor in Central Florida. Their website also lists a guy by the name of Sifu Brian Catanzaro as an associate instructor but I have never seen that guy at the gym.

7 Aliveness: The striking drills are all done on Thai pads and are delivered full strength. They don’t just do repetitive strikes in the air at an imaginary target. However, the times I have been there, we did not do any actual sparring just pad work. We did some light contact drills but not sparring.

The grappling portion of class is full on and you are trying to beat your classmate/opponent. It is not compliant drills. Every class we would learn a new technique or review something we already knew then we take turns matching up against a classmate. You can go as many times as you want and against as many different people that are willing to grapple against you.

With the Escrima, you get paired up with someone when going through the various drills. You go as hard and fast as you feel comfortable with without losing control of your baston/stick and breaking your training partner’s knuckles. A few bumps and bruises are expected but I never witnessed anything serious.

5 Equipment: Nothing fancy here. Basic floor mats, Thai Pads, a couple heavy bags and Escrima sticks all show signs of heavy use.

6 Gym size: Training is in a warehouse that has been converted to a training space. There is adequate room but it’s not huge.

7 Instructor/student ratios: The small class sizes help to get the instructor around to every student. A typical class is less than 10 students.

8 Atmosphere/Attitude: I liked everyone I met at class. No one was a douche, everyone was approachable and very friendly. The senior students were always helpful.

6 Striking instruction: It was adequate nothing overly intense. The average student is able to keep up and not fall behind. We covered kicks, punches, knees, and elbows. It was not as good as what you’d get at a Muay Thai or boxing gym but it was good enough for the average person.

7 Grappling instruction: The grappling was good. A few guys competed in local competition with some success. This seemed to be everybody’s favorite part of class. I was able to pick up a few techniques and apply them in full contact sparring with the other students.

4 Weapons: I’d like to give this a higher score but it seemed, in my observations, that the instructor tended to ignore this portion of class and focused more on the guys that were grappling. He would show us which drill to work on and then we were kind of on our own after that. With his credentials, I would have expected him to focus more effort than he did. One of the reasons I left was because I didn’t feel like I was getting enough attention during this portion of class. It was the Escrima training that originally drew me into this school.

Overall this is a decent and inexpensive place to train. I would recomend it over any of the local karate schools.

**izdemon** · Posted On: 12/30/2010 1:54pm

Perhaps this needs to be moved to the section for "other"? I originally posted it here because I was not sure if the Muay Thai/Kickboxing and grappling instruction qualified it to go here and the students do compete, at least locally.

**Permalost** · Posted On: 12/30/2010 2:01pm

7 Aliveness: The striking drills are all done on Thai pads and are delivered full strength. They don’t just do repetitive strikes in the air at an imaginary target. However, the times I have been there, we did not do any actual sparring just pad work. We did some light contact drills but not sparring.

I was able to pick up a few techniques and apply them in full contact sparring with the other students.

So do they spar or not? 7 for aliveness is high for a school that mostly just drills (with the exception of the grappling I guess).

**izdemon** · Posted On: 12/30/2010 6:50pm

The second half of every class included grappling. I can adjust the score down if thats not enough to warrant a 7.

Edit to add: The grade I have given for equipment may no longer apply. I just learned they have upgraded all the mats and possibly some of the other items. My review is based off what I seen a few months ago when I attended classes there.

**jnix** · Posted On: 5/12/2011 12:16pm

izdemon, just wondering, how many classes have you attended?

**SevereMC** · Posted On: 6/02/2011 4:05pm

I know I'm a noob here but I wasn't expecting a review of a JKD school. If you read Bruce Lee's book on Jeet Kune Do, you would learn that he didn't want people to make JKD schools and the people who would inevitably make them are not using the knowledge of JKD how Bruce Lee intended it to be used.

**progressivetkd** · Posted On: 9/27/2011 5:40pm

If Bruce Lee didn't want people to teach Jeet Kune Do, why did he give Dan Inosanto and Taky Kimura teaching certificates? Why did he even give it a name? How did he intend it to be used? The idea that he told people not to teach Jeet Kune Do is a myth. He didn't give clear instructions for the future, it's not like he planned to die.