The Wing Chun/Jun
Fan/Jeet June Do Connection |
| Most well-informed people consider
the late Bruce Lee to be one of the greatest martial artists who ever lived. Even as a
teenager he had quite a reputation as a fighter in the streets of Hong Kong. It is a well
known fact that Bruce Lee trained with Yip Man, the late Grandmaster of the Wing Chun
system of Chinese gung fu. It was the simple, direct and powerful movements of the Wing
Chun system that made him such a formidable fighter as a young man, and formed the basis
for the system that he later became the founder of, Jeet Kune Do. Jeet Kune Do means"Way of The Intercepting Fist" and the idea is to intercept the opponent with a strike at the earliest possible moment and end the conflict quickly and efficiently! The primary systems involved in the formulation of Jeet Kune Do are Wing Chun gung fu, western boxing, European fencing and modified kicking techniques from northern Chinese gung fu systems. There are elements of other systems involved, but it is easily safe to say that these four systems form the bulk of the Jeet Kune Do curriculum. All training in Jeet Kune Do is for self defense in the streets and it has often been referred to as"scientific streetfighting!" Only from such a practical, direct and effective method of fighting such as Wing Chun could such a system be born! Bruce Lee was very proud to be a product of the Wing Chun system, made no effort to hide it from anyone, and always gave the Wing Chun system credit for making him a fighter! Bruce Lee's martial art went through three distinctive stages of development. He had three schools in the United States during his lifetime. Each of these schools, which were located in Seattle, Washington, Oakland, California and Los Angeles, California, represent a different stage of development. All three schools were referred to as the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute. Bruce Lee's Chinese name was Lee Jun Fan. Since the art that he was teaching when he first came to the United States was not pure Wing Chun, he called it Jun Fan Gung Fu. The first Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute was located in Seattle, Washington. There Bruce continued to develop his method of teaching. It was this stage of his art that most closely resembled Wing Chun. It would probably be safe to say that at least 80% of it was straight Wing Chun gung fu. The second Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute was located in Oakland, California. Here Bruce continued to develop his Jun Fan gung fu until there was a conflict with a rival martial artist. This man showed up at Bruce Lee's school" with a challenge from the Chinese martial arts community. They were apparently not pleased that Bruce was accepting non-Chinese people as students! The fight that ensued was not a pleasant experience! Although Bruce won the fight, he was excessively winded and physically drained afterward. He felt that the fight had taken much too long! This caused him to look into changing his method and implementing more physical conditioning into his personal training. This new approach to training and fighting became known as Jeet Kune Do. Bruce Lee had a brother who was a champion fencer. He liked the way that the fencer economically closed the gap to strike with the sword. He decided to apply this same movement to the empty hand. Putting his power side forward and using the Wing Chun vertical fist punching structure, this gave him an economically structured punch with knockout power that was nearly impossible to stop! In fact, Bruce could close a gap of several feet and hit most people before they could even begin to move. Bruce even noticed that there were some similarities between fencing and Wing Chun. Fencing has four quadrants. Wing Chun has the four corners. Both Wing Chun and fencing use economical parrying motions and direct, straight line strikes. In the formulation of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee took footwork, offensive and defensive theory from fencing. Another method of fighting that Bruce Lee drew heavily from was boxing. He liked the way that boxers moved lightly and quickly, yet still managed to get maximum power in their blows. He also liked the way that the boxer slips, ducks, bobs and weaves to avoid blows. So he incorporated some of the footwork, punches and evasive tactics from boxing into the framework of Jeet Kune Do. The last Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute was located at 628 College Street in the Chinatown district of Los Angeles, California. At this location, the art and science of Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do flourished. Although by this time it didn't resemble Wing Chun as much, Wing Chun still remained the nucleus of the system. Unfortunately, after the death of Bruce Lee, the art of Jeet Kune Do became surrounded by much confusion and controversy. His students were left to basically interpret his teachings in their own way. A few of them went in their own direction, but most of them chose to continue to train and teach the art as it was taught to them by the founder. Today you have two groups of Jeet Kune Do practitioners. One group, who refers to their training and teaching method as Jeet Kune Do concepts, prefers to train in many different martial arts, using Bruce Lee's ideas to enhance their skills. The other group, known as Original Jun Fan/Jeet Kune Do, prefers to train and teach the art just as it was taught to them by Bruce Lee. While Jeet Kune Do concepts bears very little resemblance to Wing Chun, Original Jun Fan/Jeet Kune Do still maintains the strong Wing Chun base taught by Bruce Lee. As an instructor/practitioner of Original Jun Fan/Jeet Kune Do, I am well aware of the curriculum from the Seattle, Oakland and L. A. Chinatown kwoons. In future issues of Wing Chun Today, I will discuss the similarities between Wing Chun and Original Jun Fan/Jeet Kune Do. It is my belief that we have more in common than you may realize! If nothing else, maybe it will help you to better understand Bruce Lee and what made him the awesome martial artist that he was! Until then, keep training hard! ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sifu Lamar M. Davis II has been a practitioner of the martial arts for thirty years. He has trained with over a dozen of Bruce Lee's original students, and is considered to be one of the leading second generation Jun Fan/Jeet Kune Do instructors in the entire world. He is the Executive Director/Senior Instructor of Jun Fan/Jeet Kune Do International and the Jun Fan/Jeet Kune Do Trapping Association. He has been inducted into the World Martial Arts Hall of Fame twice. In 1991 as the Jun Fan/Jeet Kune Do Instructor of The Year and in 1995 with the Master Instructor Award. He has thirty-five instructional videotapes on Jun Fan/ Jeet Kune Do currently in release, with more to come. He has written articles for Inside Kung Fu, Black Belt, Wushu Kung Fu, Inside Karate, Jun Fan Journal, M. A. Training, Karate International, Fighter, Combat and several other magazines. He travels all over the world teaching seminars on Bruce Lee's original methods. His school, the Jun Fan Gung Fu Academy, is located just outside of Birmingham, Alabama. To contact him for membership, instructional video or seminar information, write to: Jun Fan/ Jeet Kune Do, 267 West Valley Avenue, Suite #223, Birmingham, Alabama 35209. Used with permission by Lamar Davis. |
Designed by Ovidiu Semenea
