Thread: jeet kun do
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Old 08-29-2004, 10:19 AM   #19
Tharis
Dojo: Chicago Aikikai
Location: Chicago, IL
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 78
United_States
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Re: jeet kun do

Quote:
Dan Guthrie wrote:
Imagine this: you go into a bar and put your sweater on your stool. You go to the men's room and when you come out your sweater is gone and you can see a drunk walking out the door with your sweater. How many JKD kicks does it take to get your sweater back? A simple sankyo gets the drunks attention and your sweater back. JKD sends the drunk to the hospital and your friend to jail. Aikido gives you the ethical option of a nonviolent response.
JKD breaks bones on purpose.
IMHO....

I've a friend who studies JKD and makes it really clear that they use stages of escalation, which may include bone-breaks, but not necessarily. I see your point about aikido, and agree with you that it's better at de-escalating conflict, but I don't think it's wise to start knocking other arts in the process.

Regarding the original point, and my friend, he seems to agree with the referred JKD that Aikido isn't a very "practical" art to study, in terms of pure self-defense. He still trains in aikido, I think, because he enjoys it and thinks that it teaches things that he could learn from it (this of course being my interpretation, and thus possibly suspect). I think we disagree somewhat on this point, but it's not a big deal. He's great guy to train with and I think I've learned a lot looking at his style/approach to MA.

So, let skeptics be skeptics and focus on what you can learn from them and what they can learn from you, basically taking what you can use from their style and making it your own. I think this is actually one of the tenets of JKD (please correct me if I'm mistaken, anyone who knows better). It's a good principle.

Last edited by Tharis : 08-29-2004 at 10:23 AM.
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