Cowboy Bebop, Jeet Kune Do and Aikido

Hey all, was just watching my favorite episode of Cowboy Bebop (session 7, waltz for venus, great great episode) and just noticed Spike using very similar (at least to my untrained eye) principles and techniques to what I percieve as aikido being like somewhat.

So I decided to look into what martial art Spike in fact uses and found that he is supposed to be a master of Jeet Kune Do, the style bruce lee created.

So here's the question, anyone here studyed or know much about jeet kune do and agree that they seem somewhat similar or have some comparisons or whatnot? Or is the way bebop portrays Jeet Kune Do totally off? Or maybe it's just spikes twist on it because of his personality that makes it seem so "soft" and "fluid"

Jeet Kune Do philisophically, is just taking the best moves (whats best for YOU) in many arts and disposing of what doesn't work for YOU. This is basically what Bruce did. There are certain characteristics that make JKD JKD though. Read the "Tao of Jeet Kune Do" for more info. on it.

some of the things he (spike) says in that episode are taken straight out of the book in the post above this.

simular, but not the same.

Studied JKD under the late Ted Lucaylucay (check out the family tree). As already said, IMHO JKD is a compliation with an emphasis on the pricniples. That said, you can see it everywhere.

Better late than never.

Well, JKD has helped me a lot in my aikido (e.g. footworks, atemis, parrying, etc.). Essentially the late Bruce Lee took the best of the best and made those movements for economical. Our JKD emphasizes on speed.

Regards

On a side note, I always find it funny whenever I read the Tao of Jeet Kune Do or the Tao of Aikido. It's like saying the way of the way of the intercepting fist. It's kind of redundant.

I just watched a special on Bruce Lee the other night. I was surprised that a lot of what he says relates to Aikido. I wonder where his art would have evolved had he lived to be a old man?

That was a great episode of Cowboy Beebop. They get better and stranger.

Ross Lewandowski (ross_l) wrote: I wonder where his art would have evolved had he lived to be a old man?

Geriatric Jeet Kune Do ?

Ross Lewandowski (ross_l) wrote:

I wonder where his art would have evolved had he lived to be a old man?

My guess? It would have evolved into something like a filpino escrima footwork style or would have concentrated more on grappling techniques. But I recalled Bruce Lee saying "better finish off the fight with 1 punch rather than entering into grappling mode"... Well, we'll never know would we? Maybe Dan Innosanto could answer this question.

I honestly never would have expected to see a thread titled this. Cowboy Bebop's great, isn't it? Waltz For Venus has got to be one of my favourites.

I have a friend who does kung fu, and when I visted him we practiced some techniques together, him kung fu and me aikido. I was shocked at the amount of similarities his art had to aikido, especially the chin nas (sp?). There was even a movement nearly identical to ikkyo.

You could probably trace the history of the softer arts of Japan to China, and find some sort of common history between them. In any case, if it's found that a movement works, then you're probably going to see different variations of it in different martial arts, right?