The Tao of Jeet Kune Do (yes again)

[PizDoff]

lol, i just wanted to start another thread due to my boredom, please share your thoughts on this book


well i just got it today, i'm not a Bruce Lee fan really....so maybe i'll just check out what he has to say....

so some exerpts that i found interesting in my 5 min of looking at the damned thing


From the intro-
"Hopefully, this book will be used as a source of ideas for all martial artists, ideas that should then develope further. Inevitably and regrettably, the book may also cause a rash of "Jeet Kune Do" schools, headed by people who know the reputation of the name and very little about the movement."


from The Formless Form

"Please do not be concerned with soft versus firm, kicking versus striking, grappling versus hitting and kicking, long range fighting versus in-fighting. There is no such thing as "this" is better than "that."

--
Hard work, Patience, Dedication.
http://www.fightauthority.com/

" I'm pretty good when the gi tops come off." Posted by Crimson Tiger

[Boyd]

Is it anything like Bruce's other JKD book, where the entire thing is organized into increasingly nonsensical musings, overly-obvious statements, and lists full of acronyms he never explains?

THIS IS BOYD WHEN HE'S RUNNING FROM THE SCHOOL YARD AFTER GETTING BEAT UP: boydrunner, beep beep, that coyote's after you, beep beep, boydrunner if he catches you, your through. --Jamoke, winning the hearts of children worldwide

[FingerorMoon?]

It was the first book I bought on martial arts when I decided to take it up.

I knew nothing, and sections like what you've reprinted above steered me toward a nonMcDojo school that was light on the forms and heavy on conditioning and the sparring at all ranges.

The book was money well spent.

[baltasargracian]

A good book, it certainly has been popular.. I wonder if his intent was to eventually turn it into a book, ( eg. structure, format etc.).

Unfortunately, for me, it wasnt the first book I bought on martial arts, and when I eventually read it, I realised how mcdojo-ed i'd become.

I put it right up there with other 3rd rate plagiarised modern works (read - pretty much anything martial arts aside from musashi, sun tzu and a few others), as it has spawned a thousand other similarly uncreative and poorly sourced pseudo-academic 'works of genius'.

Well formatted, obsessively detailed, and has some great one-liners to say before delivering that final stomp/choke/strike/lock to your opponent.

[BIGBANGSingh]

"Bruce Lee did not respond in his book, Tao of Jeet Kune Do, to the weaknesses I mentioned earlier. Bruce Lee did not write that book. He had compiled, over years of research, an extensive amount of notes, primarily of his thoughts during a time of transition. Someone took this transitional phase of research and put together a very uninformed, unstructured text, gave it a name, and made Bruce Lee the author. Bruce was not ready to write a book. He still had a great deal of unfinished research to complete. He told me this many times.

Sometimes in history, a writer is fortunate enough to sit down and, on his first try, draft a masterpiece. Such was the case when Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address. However the so-called Tao of Jeet Kune Do was at best, a very primitive beginning of a work in progress. If the words, Tao of Jeet Kune Do means the way of Jeet Kune Do, I consider this an insult to Bruce Lee. Of course, if you do your publishing homework, you'll discover that this manuscript sold hundreds of thousands of copies and to date is by far the largest selling martial arts book in history.

Imagine what it would be like had Bruce Lee completed his ultimate masterpiece. Instead, we have a bunch of unstructured, misleading notes put together by one publisher's financial greed, who was capable of convincing the Lee family to relinquish and submit Bruce's research.

It would be foolish to expect it possible to take an engineer's designs of a racing car designed back in the 60s, and expect it to outperform the best cars racing today. Likewise, it's a bit ridiculous to make critical assessments from notes Bruce Lee drafted during the 60s and expect them to be free of faults under the scrutiny of today's knowledge. In truth, a fair assessment would be to take Bruce Lee's notes from the 60s and to compare them to what else existed at that time. I promise you Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do research would make everything else, except for a few boxing manuals, appear like a joke by comparison."

- Joe Lewis

Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism
http://www.aynrand.org/
Objectivist Center -- Reason, Individualism, Achievement, and Freedom
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/

[Phoenix]

"Bruce Lee did not respond in his book, Tao of Jeet Kune Do, to the weaknesses I mentioned earlier. Bruce Lee did not write that book. He had compiled, over years of research, an extensive amount of notes, primarily of his thoughts during a time of transition. Someone took this transitional phase of research and put together a very uninformed, unstructured text, gave it a name, and made Bruce Lee the author. Bruce was not ready to write a book. He still had a great deal of unfinished research to complete. He told me this many times.

Sometimes in history, a writer is fortunate enough to sit down and, on his first try, draft a masterpiece. Such was the case when Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address. However the so-called Tao of Jeet Kune Do was at best, a very primitive beginning of a work in progress. If the words, Tao of Jeet Kune Do means the way of Jeet Kune Do, I consider this an insult to Bruce Lee. Of course, if you do your publishing homework, you'll discover that this manuscript sold hundreds of thousands of copies and to date is by far the largest selling martial arts book in history.

Imagine what it would be like had Bruce Lee completed his ultimate masterpiece. Instead, we have a bunch of unstructured, misleading notes put together by one publisher's financial greed, who was capable of convincing the Lee family to relinquish and submit Bruce's research.

It would be foolish to expect it possible to take an engineer's designs of a racing car designed back in the 60s, and expect it to outperform the best cars racing today. Likewise, it's a bit ridiculous to make critical assessments from notes Bruce Lee drafted during the 60s and expect them to be free of faults under the scrutiny of today's knowledge. In truth, a fair assessment would be to take Bruce Lee's notes from the 60s and to compare them to what else existed at that time. I promise you Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do research would make everything else, except for a few boxing manuals, appear like a joke by comparison."

- Joe Lewis

Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism
http://www.aynrand.org/
Objectivist Center -- Reason, Individualism, Achievement, and Freedom
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/

That's very insightful. I had not even considered that.

Le Grill?? What the hell is that?!! - Homer Simpson

[BIGBANGSingh]

People have been doing all sorts of things since there were people. Yet there are new innovations all the time - just look at the world of science.

"It would be foolish to expect it possible to take an engineer's designs of a racing car designed back in the 60s, and expect it to outperform the best cars racing today. Likewise, it's a bit ridiculous to make critical assessments from notes Bruce Lee drafted during the 60s and expect them to be free of faults under the scrutiny of today's knowledge. In truth, a fair assessment would be to take Bruce Lee's notes from the 60s and to compare them to what else existed at that time. I promise you Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do research would make everything else, except for a few boxing manuals, appear like a joke by comparison."

People have been fighting since thre were people. Nothings new under the sun.

"There's no love in your violence." Kakihara

Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism
http://www.aynrand.org/
Objectivist Center -- Reason, Individualism, Achievement, and Freedom
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/

[BIGBANGSingh]

I agree to some extent, but I'm saying that as the context of knowledge grows, techniques can be made more effective and efficient, and occasionally new ones can be discovered. I mean compare the TMA's to today's MMA's, and then tell me that nothing's new.

True, but there are things to discover in science. In this case, youre born in youre body. Youll die in youre body. You shuld know how to use it. Thats half right there. Also, theres always been violence. Do you think that the Gracies were th first to use the gaurd? Ive seen people fight all types of ways. Lee himself said that to create a new style you had to go spinning 3 times on your head before attacking. or something like that. He acknowledges that there no such thingb as a NEW style.

"There's no love in your violence." Kakihara

Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism
http://www.aynrand.org/
Objectivist Center -- Reason, Individualism, Achievement, and Freedom
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/

[MMA_Phil]

I think it's a good book, I think that what Bruce wanted to create is what MMA has become. Maybe some of his ideas are outdated or obselete, but if he was around today I think he would of course have accepted the MMA evolution, and gone with it.

[Blad3]

PDno2 STFU. Biatch.

"Wrestling is the Martial Art of America";
"If you don't know how to wrestle you don't know how to fight, that's the prerequisite to fighting" David Tank Abbott