Bruce Lee’s fighting style relies heavily on kicks, because they are long ranged, they are powerful and they can used to hinder opponent’s rhythm. The images I share here are very valuable, showing the postures of Bruce Lee himself and his drawings.

JKD Kicking Power

The reasons to use kicks includes:

1. Legs are more powerful than hands

2. Legs are longer, therefore it is the first choice weapon

3. It is very difficult to block kicks, especially kicks to the lower body parts like ankle, shin, knee and groin.

Bruce Lee is good at his unique way of kicking. It is different from a traditional side kick. The traditional side kick has power but no speed. Traditional side hook kick has speed but not enough power. JDK side kick has both advantages. Snap kick or front kick do not have enough strength to cause damage or hurt, either.

Characteristics of JKD Side Kick

Bruce Lee’s JDK sidekick has 3 characteristics:

1. When Bruce Lee executes a full power sidekick, the first action is to left up his right leg a little bit (about 12 inches) above the ground. And then he steps it on the ground powerfully and uses the reaction force to rebound his right foot. All these actions are done in the balance of the whole body with on guard position.

2. Just before the impact, he twists his waist (coxa) with his upper body bending away from the target. This produces extra momentum (counter angular momentum) for the kick. This maximizes the impact force like snapping a strap. Great impact force damages the target.

3. At the moment of impact, both legs extends to the maximum. This increases the time of contact which maximizes the accelerating force acted on the target. The accelerating force

would push the target and send it fly off a long distance. That’s why we see people who are kicked by Bruce Lee fly several meters away.

These points can also be applied to other kicks. The most critical point of a successful kick is timing and speed. Rear kicks are not as useful as the front kicks because of the long distance and time needed to arrive on the target.

 
Watch this Guy use it in MMA:

You can watch all the fighting scenes of Bruce Lee here.

Wooden Dummy is a Wing Chun training apparatus. Ancestors of Wing Chun trained Wing Chun on a Red Ship and they had no partners for training. And hence they invented a way to train themselves in a limited space like on the ship.

Wooden Dummy routine is the last routine or form taught in a Wing Chun bare hand combat system. It incorporate moves from Siu Nim Tau, Chum Kiu and Biu Ji. Therefore, it gives people a false impression that there are secret moves of Wing Chun hidden in the wooden dummy routine. But in fact, if it is so, we won’t need to learn the previous 3 routines from the beginning. Wooden Dummy routine is putting the moves taught in the 3 routines into application and a smooth flow. It allows the student to repeat the moves in a continuous sequence and by repetition trains the muscle memory of the fighter.

There are 108 moves in the traditional wooden dummy form. But now there are many different forms taught by different disciplines of Wing Chun masters. Some forms consist of more than 200 moves. However, number is not important. What is important is whether the teacher and the student truly understand the form and the moves and gain the ability to use the move in real fight through the wooden dummy training.

Wooden Dummy can help refining the sleight of hand and positioning of the body. It is a supplementary exercise of the other trainings of Wing Chun, like Chi Sao. Remember, the dummy is dead but the opponent is alive.

A very direct and practical form of JKD. These guys had experienced real street fight situations. They will tell you why a Wing Chun Taan Sao block can’t properly defend against a powerful hook and how you should do it with a simple and effective solution. A technique called ‘Pop up’ is also described which I personally have ever seen something like that. I think it is very simple yet powerful, especially against people on the street who are big, aggressive and without formal combat training.

The objective of Jeet Kune Do steps is to gain practical result and speed using the minimal movements.

Bruce Lee thinks that step utilization is composed by 4 different parts:
1. ability to feel the opponent
2. a energetic and natural flow
3. intuition of distance
4. balance at initiation and ending of movements

Bruce Lee said, “The art of movement is the essence of real combat. Good steps can help you defeat and opponent attacks.” Therefore, Jeet Kune Do is the key to overcome any attack.

The step of Jeet Kune Do is a kind of step movement of dynamic fighting strategy. Good footwork is a set of purposeful movements that allows you to easily choose various angles for attack and at the same time able to provide you the power for your ultimate blow. In conclusion, besides dodging and escaping, footwork helps you move rapidly to successfully execute a sudden attack and pull back from a difficult situation and restructure your counter attacks.

In real combat, you should consume your opponent’s stamina and maintain yours. But any footwork movement requires stamina. Therefore, any movement must be backed by the purpose to win or avoid eating punches.

Jeet Kune Do is a scientific art of self defense that stress on real combat principles and techniques. On Guard position is its signature stance. It is the support and start of real combats. It is the still position that hides the intention of the fighter. It is also the most efficient position that allows both attacks and defenses to be made. Moreover, it is the best position to remind good balance in the movements of forward and backward or from side to side.

Jeet Kune Do focuses on real combat, therefore the classic on-guard position must be done by putting the strong side hand and leg in the front. This is because they are the most powerful weapons in combat; they must be put in the foremost so that they are closest to the opponent. This concept is the same as fencing but opposite to the boxing sport.

Jeet Kune Do stresses that the on-guard position as the correct fundamental position. The body weight should be evenly distributed on the two legs or put a little be more on the main leg. The right leg controls the stance of the whole body and directs it towards the centerline of the opponent. The right hand (the main offensive hand) should be near shoulder height. During an attack with punch, the rear leg must support the body like a spring while it shifts the center of gravity quickly to the fore leg.

Jeet Kune Do stresses that the most important aspect of the on-guard position is the dynamic balance. The ideal form of on-guard stance should enable the person to move one leg very quickly to any direction and empower the attacks to that direction while it enable another leg to maintain perfect dynamic balance which is capable to resist any sudden attacks and empower the counter. The stance of Jeet Kune Do is clearly different from the traditional stance.

Bruce Lee believes that Wing Chun Chi Sao (Sticky Hands) is one of the best drills to develop two-hand coordination and dynamic balance. He changed the straight front stance into side stance. Although Wing Chun is still different from JKD but it is the closest.

For a martial artist to win a real combat, there must be two elements present, skill and stamina. They are like Yin and Yang. It will be hard to succeed without one or another. Comparing the martial art practices of Bruce Lee and his senior Wong Shun Leung, they both treated sandbag training very seriously. But Wong stress on skills and Bruce Lee stress a lot on physical training.

The secret of Bruce Lee’s success in martial art, rely heavily on his harsh physical training. That is the only path to success. Everyday he trained himself physically. He insisted on aerobic trainings like running and rope skipping which are essential for the fundamental of Jeet Kune Do. This is because the body can be trained with the critical balance feeling from these drills.

Bruce Lee can finish running 4 kilometers within 24 to 25 minutes. Also, he would do various additional requirements like changing the rhythm and speed or punching during the run.

He thinks that the human body is a tool that he has to maximum its destruction power. Therefore, he is very serious about fundamental physical trainings like punching the sandbag. He can do up to 1000 punches per day.

He believes that punch is one of the most important aspects of combat. Hence, he did a lot of resistance training like training to strengthen the abs muscle. He even used equipment to help increase the level. All these made even Wong couldn’t stand.

Bruce Lee focused on large amount of exercise. He is also strict about the preparation warm up that help his body to relax before everyday’s harsh training. He had a serious injury because of a training and then he learned the importance of doing things step by step.

Bruce Lee teaches a formless martial art. That is based heavily on serious physical training to make the body a weapon which can give natural reaction to defend or attack out of reflex. Training Jeet Kune Do sleights without the heavy physical training Bruce Lee himself went through is like building the world trade center without a foundation.

Punching Skill does not only mean throwing out a fist and hitting the target. Accurate, fast and powerful punching is only one aspect of punching technique. Besides this, thorough punching techique also includes the body pose and position during a punch, the path of executing and retreating the punch and the power generating skill.

In Jeet Kune Do, the most frequently used punch is the forehand straight punch. This punch is fast because it takes the shortest path to the target. This punch is accurate because it follows a straight path. The punch is energy efficient because it does not makes you lose body balance.

The forehand straight punch is fired from the ready position. The movement path of it is a straight line in front of the nose. Punch directly to the direction where your nose points to.

One big advantage of Jeet Kune Do is that you can do a grea forehand straight punch while having a good protection of yourself. You can protect your body and restore the original position quickly in case of misses.

In contrary, traditional martial arts punch from the waist. This action would expose the body which may be attacked. After the punch is done, it stops on one side of the body while the other side, especially the face, is exposed while the fist is retracted to the waist.

In the diagrams, you can see the differences between the punches of Jeet Kune Do and traditional martial arts. For Jeet Kune Do, the hands can protect the face, as well as both the left and right sides of the body. For traditional martial arts, only the right side is protected. And the Jeet Kune Do punch is faster than the traditional one. In action photographies, we can see that the Jeet Kune Do punch is completed while the traditional punch is still in the process.

Bruce Lee demonstrated that Jeet Kune Do punch is much faster than the traditional punch because of the much short distance between the punch and the target.

While punching, the fist should be kept vertical rather than horizontal like traditional martial art. By doing this, the punch is able to hit further away. In the photos, we see that Bruce Lee has hit the opponent while the opponent couldn’t even touch him.

The jab of Jeet Kune Do is the main weapon, it is fast, accurrate, long range, does not disturb the body balance and provides good protection.

Below are some quotations from Bruce Lee about Jeet Kune Do.

Punch and Kick are the most powerful weapons of self defense. They are natural instincts of human.

Some of the martial art disciplines claim themselves to be the best and deny all others. They usually take perspectives that are advantageous to themselves and interpret the goods of others with that twisted bias. They steal the skills for their use but later dumb them aside after ruining them.

This is the quality of most of the martial art organizations. But these kinds of behavior exactly contradict the way for real combat. The result of this is merely confusion.

All they do is to simulate real combat with useless glamorized forms which have the structure that are doomed to fail. This kind of organization members are not in the middle of the vortex of real combat but only the edge.

Even worse is that they mystify real martial artists and claim that they possess supernatural power.

It is completely meaningless to standardize the unpredictable reality and try to analysis it like anatomy.

Real combat which is the unpredictable situations in real life is organic. It is a total waste of energy trying limit the dynamic situations with fixed forms or katas.

Let’s look at forms or katas.

For example, speaking of real circumstances, if the opponent is a human, he or she must have emotions like anger and fear. How much can a kata express about this? If the answer is negative, then katas are only mechanical forms. Kata is the stumbling rock of marital artist which stop the lively exchange of reality.

Jeet Kune Do techniques must not be superficial. It must be as penetrative as water, arriving the most complicated essence, handling the core of problems and finding the true solution.

Jeet Kune Do fight has no forms, therefore it is able to absorb essence of all kinds of martial arts. Martial artists should not focus on unpractical flourishes but pursue the fundamental nature of marital art. Jeet Kune Do is able to use any kind of skill to arrive at victory. The best thing about Jeet Kune Do is simplicity which is to be able to honestly express oneself freely without bias.

Having the bias of disciplines would only limit your perspective. Like some disciplines prefer curves, but stubbornly follow disciplines would only limit yourself. Therefore, you must be able to observe without bias.

First attack is the most important. When the opponent dodge by turning waist and shoulders, slip steps and execute an attack followed by full contact attacks. Observe the strength of the opponent. Use fake moves to trick the opponent. Pretend to attack his certain part and attack another part when he tries to block. When facing opponents who are good at defense, focus attacks on hands to force them away. When space is created, step forward quickly and use close range attacks. If it is failed, repeat for another round of attacks.

Second attack means attack that is grapping opportunity before the opponent and adjusted accordingly. Catch the opportunity when opponent executes an attack and stop his attack. Predict the target of the opponent, catch the moment of punch and stop the attack. And then counter attack. Catch the moment when opponent almost finishes an attack and execute counter attack. This kind of counter attacks are called second attacks.

Jeet Kune Do training start with the core offense and defense techniques, like simple attacks, brave and careful forward and backward movements, lightning steps and body balance and both left and right blocks.

Practice these moves until the memory is stored in the muscles. Therefore, when facing enemies, you are able to total focus on the fighting strategy.