On Health, Fitness & Jeet Kune Do

“The straight punch is the core of Jeet Kune Do” - Bruce Lee

I recently purchased Teri Tom’ s book “The Straight Lead” (I know, I’ve been a little slow on reading the latest JKD literature), and I’ve been reminded of how vital straight attacks are in the fighting arts, yet how underrepresented they are.

Thinking back to last year’s UFC 79, and more specifically Chuck “The Ice Man” Liddell versus Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva (you gotta love the nicknames), we have a perfect example of the pinnacle of modern punching. These two former champions are perhaps the most vicious and feared strikers in the industry yet their fight reminded me of Karate Kid II (Yeah, you know you love it!) in the final scene when Daniel uses the “drum technique” to defeat Chozen.

It seems that straight punching has become a bit of a lost art as strikes continue to de-evolve into cave man swings.

Sure, there is no doubt that these guys throw devastating haymakers but their technique leaves something to be desired.

Modern scientific physical conditioning methods are helping to produce more powerful and agile bodies but I fear that if fighters and trainers alike are emulating the movements of today’s champions we are headed towards an uphill battle in putting the “science” back into scientific fighting.

–
Nhan-Esteban Khuong, L.Ac.
www.SGVJeetKuneDo.com

Dan Inosanto holds the highest of the two Jeet Kune Do certifications that were ever awarded by Bruce Lee.

Why then, does it appear that most of Sifu Inosanto’s certified instructors do not teach Jeet Kune Do as Bruce Lee taught it . . . the “original” stuff? This is extraordinarily perplexing.

Is Sifu Inosanto teaching the actual “Jun Fan” Jeet Kune Do in all its simplicity and biomechanically efficient glory?

From what I have seen in his videos and the videos of some his top students like Paul Vunak and Ron Balicki, they just seem to be teaching a mixture of wing chun, kickboxing, grappling, stick fighting, and knife fighting without emphasizing the core principles of simplicity, directness, and efficiency.

I don’t know about you, but this phenomenon was very confusing for me in my early training days. It was not easy to separate the supposed “concepts” material from the concrete historical stuff. I was being taught one way in class, while the material that was publicly available from the JKD Concepts clan was showing something else.

Applying the JKD concepts to other martial arts is fantastic, and I would like to see more of that (especially in sport fighting) but I am not seeing this in much of the “Concepts” material that I come across.

Also, I understand that it was Bruce Lee’s wish that commercial jeet kune do schools not exist and that jkd training only be conducted privately and in a low numbers but high quality format. Could it be that sifu Inosanto is still honoring that request after all these years?

If this is the case, I can certainly understand. Yet I feel that most the Concepts people are doing Jeet Kune Do a terrible disservice by watering down the crown jewel of modern self defense.

Other martial arts are great, I have studied and continue to respect all martial systems, but to teach something other than JKD yet claim it as authentic Jeet Kune Do is a shame.

If anyone has some information regarding this matter, let me know!

In Health,

–
Nhan-Esteban Khuong, L.Ac.
www.SGVJeetKuneDo.com

UPDATE:

OK, so it turns out that there are JKD instructors certified by Sifu Dan Inosanto who are teaching Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do and doing their part to preserve the original material as taught by founder Bruce Lee. Tim Tackett and Yori Nakamura just to name a couple do teach the original stuff. Both of these men also have videos and books verify this. Of course, like all of us involved in JKD, they have continued to develop and add their own flavors and adaptations to their system, but the essence remains.

–
Nhan-Esteban Khuong, L.Ac.
www.SGVJeetKuneDo.com

OK, so there really isn’t an actual “JKD Nutrition Plan” but there should be.

For those who may not know, Bruce Lee was a huge proponent of optimal health and performance via careful and deliberate nutrition. He experimented heavily with vitamins, protein shakes, and other health supplements; he even explored the latest fads, quickly dismissing nonsense and keeping what worked for him.

In the spirit of Jeet Kune Do, I’ll clear up a few myths and outright fallacies of modern nutrition so that you may “absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is uniquely your own.”

I warn you however, that what you read here will probably go contrary to everything you think you know about nutrition.

Let’s begin . . .

Myth: Your diet should include small amounts of polyunsaturated oils and no unsaturated fats.

This is perhaps the biggest misunderstanding in nutrition. Unlike what the FDA has lead the public to believe, fat is your friend. In fact, fat is an absolutely essential nutrient that has received a lot of abuse from the media and so-called diet and nutrition gurus over the years.

Polyunsaturated fats like canola oil have been hailed as healthy oils due to their low saturated fat content when the opposite is actually true. “Vegetable” oils like canola and corn oil actually have a high potential of harming the body simply due to their unstable molecular structure. These “polyunsaturated” oils are highly susceptible to oxidation and formation of toxic substances (such as acrylamide) under heat. Furthermore, oxidized oils create a whole host of problems including harmful free radical cascades arterial plaques (analysis of arterial plaques show their composition to be primarily oxidized polyunsaturated fats, not cholesterol as everybody seems to think).

Saturated fats like organic coconut oil and butter, on the other hand, are nutritional powerhouses. Taken raw, their health benefits put them in the class of super foods with their immune boosting and gut healing properties. These fats are also much healthier options for cooking due to their higher molecular stability.

Similarly, mono unsaturated fats like olive oil, hemp oil are more stable than their polyunsaturated cousins and also have positive health promoting properties of their own when taken raw.

Remember that most of the fats in our own body are actually saturated, not to mention that medium chain fatty acids (like coconut oil) make an excellent energy source comparable to carbohydrates. In fact, saturated fat is the primary source of energy for the heart.

Why all the negative hype in the media about saturated fats? Most likely, this is due to the advent of trans fats in margarine and other hydrogenated oils. Hydrogenation, being a process that artificially saturates an oil, thus making it more stable for longer shelf life in stores.

Consider trans and hydrogenated fats as public enemy number one and avoid at all costs. Used as a preservative, nothing eats hydrogenated fat . . . not even mold and bacteria, and neither should you.

The final, but no less important, element in dietary fats concern essential fatty acids. These are a class of fats that the body needs but is unable to produce and therefore, must get out of the diet. Omega three fatty acids are really the only ones you need to be conscious about as they are less abundant than the others (ie. omega 6). Just make certain that the omega three in your diet is coming from an animal source such as fish and egg yolks, as omega 3 from flax and other plant sources is inadequate. Again, as an unsaturated oil, it is better taken raw and with plenty of anti-oxidants to preserve its healthful state.

This is only a rough guide to dietary fats, but will none-the-less produce extraordinary health benefits in the long run.

For in-depth information about nutrition and healthy fats, visit the Weston Price Foundation

Stay tuned for Part II of this series where I’ll be covering dietary protein.

In Health,

–
Nhan-Esteban Khuong, L.Ac.
www.SGVJeetKuneDo.com

There has been a good amount of discussion about the effectiveness of Jeet Kune Do and why we don’t see much of it in the UFC and other Mixed Martial Arts competitions.

For those of you who have not yet seen UFC 81 in February of this year, check out the Tim Boetsch vs David Heath fight. You’ll see that Tim Boetsch does, in fact, opt for a very “JKDesque” approach including the on-guard position, a few interceptions, and his boxing like upper body elusiveness.

I would have liked to see more use of lead weapons (especially the straight lead and side kick) and less overhand swings. I don’t know if he is left handed, but hopefully he is also using his strong side forward.

Overall a great fight and an excellent example of JKD principles used in sport fighting.

–
Nhan-Esteban Khuong, L.Ac.
www.SGVJeetKuneDo.com

What is the point of learning self defense, or any fighting art for that matter, if you don’t develop the physical conditioning to apply it?

Granted that the average self defense student may not be interested in training like a competitive athlete, but it is still vital to have the capacity of going all out for a few minutes without collapsing into a defenseless moaning heap of flesh.

You may not be engaging in a raging fist fight (in fact, a street encounter shouldn’t last more than a few seconds), but what if you need to run for help? What if the attacker’s buddies show up and you have to make a mad dash for cover? What if a friend, family, or innocent bystander is injured and needs to be moved out of danger? What if you decide to give chase? What if you’re on sinking ship and need to swim to safety? What if what if what if . . .? You get the point.

So how do you prepare for this?

The most common answer to this question is running . . . or some other kind of aerobic training. This way of thinking, however, is actually steeped in tradition and could use a Jeet Kune Do using-no-way-as-way-outside-the-box approach.

The key to high intensity, explosive, endurance is actually anaerobic training. This means working the body in short intervals that cause heaviness and burning in the muscles. The burning sensation is due to lactic acid build up, and the goal is to make the body more efficient at producing energy without oxygen and then cleaning up the byproducts (lactic acid) so that the muscle can continue to operate at peak performance.

Besides, anaerobic training, in my humble opinion, is more interesting than the ol’ rat-on-a-wheel routine. Unless you are specifically training for an endurance event like a marathon, or triathlon, or twelve rounds of boxing (which actually has a lot of anaerobic stress as well), you are better off keeping your workouts short and sweet (aka intense).

Happy Training,

–
Nhan-Esteban Khuong, L.Ac.
www.SGVJeetKuneDo.com

I’m sure you’ve all heard the statistic that 95% of all fights go to the ground, right?

This has been an ongoing hot topic of debate since the ground game became popularized by the UFC, or specifically the Gracie Brazilian Jujitsu family. So where did this statistic come from and does it hold water?

Here is an article from the January 2007 issue of the Journal of Non-lethal Combatives by Chris Leblanc that answers this question quite well:
http://ejmas.com/jnc/jncframe.htm

In short, the “95% of fights go to the ground” statistic is a misinterpreted police survey statistic of physical altercations between civilians and law enforcement officers. According to Leblanc, ” it is better put that the LAPD data says when officers physically fought with suspects (versus simply encountering minor resistance or non-compliance which required a minor use of force, but did not escalate into an altercation), 95% of the time those fights took one of five patterns, and 62% of those five types of altercations ended up with the officer and subject on the ground with the officer locking and handcuffing the suspect.”

This data certainly sheds some light on the 95% statistic, but it does not adequately address the issue of whether street fights between civilians end up on the ground given that law enforcement officers generally act with the intention of subduing, controlling, and arresting (as opposed to knocking the opponent unconscious).

I took this question to an experienced street fighter (now 58 years old and living peacefully as a personal trainer and drug counselor) who grew up on the streets of Pittsburgh.

The answer?

Essentially two untrained fighters will swing wildly, struggle with stand-up grappling, fall, then continue on the ground. Two experienced/trained fighters will stay on their feet unless one or both combatants prefers grappling, in which case the fight could move in either direction.

Not having much personal experience observing live street fights myself, the above assessment sounds solid and also holds true for sport MMA fights.

With this in mind, I would also add, that staying on your feet keeps your options open and allows for greater awareness and utilization of your environment.

The take home lesson?

For self defense situations, work on your diplomatic skills and your stand-up skills but be prepared to defend against and deal with a take down/ground fighting situation. For sport fighting . . . well, it’s entertainment, so do whatever suits your fancy.

In Health,

–
Nhan-Esteban Khuong, L.Ac.
www.SGVJeetKuneDo.com

As Bruce Lee said, “The art of Jeet Kune Do is simply to simplify.”

Seriously, what is so difficult to understand about this concept?

I haven’t been very up-to-date on Jeet Kune Do politics until recently, but now that I have begun spreading the word about JKD on a larger level (namely the internet) I’m seeing a JKD community that could really use a timeout and reassessment.

I have a healthy respect for all martial art forms and I am happy to see that the rise of the NHB (no-holds-barred) type of organizations like the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Mixed Martial Arts has truly opened the world up to the exploration and experimentation of other fighting systems. With this in mind, there is also a trend of so-called Jeet Kune Do practitioners transforming what they call JKD into an ever growing and complicating hybrid system.

So what’s my point? I’ll be blunt. Jeet Kune Do is not MMA and it is not an amalgamation of endless martial arts systems.

Jeet Kune Do is a scientific bare bones approach to the art of self defense. In essence, it is martial arts filtered through a medium of efficiency, directness, and simplicity in the laboratory of human biomechanics. Less is more.

Sure, you can apply some Jeet Kune Do principles to other fighting systems to make them more efficient and effective, but this does not make that system JKD. I already see the counter argument that is so often used in this situation. It would be claimed that this rigid blind-faith standpoint of protecting the “Original” JKD is exactly what Bruce Lee was trying to avoid. As good intentioned as this argument is, the key element that is being missed is the fact that, as Bruce Lee stated, “unless human beings have 3 arms and 3 legs, then we will have a different way of fighting.”

The human body can only apply force in so many ways, developing new techniques and variations only serves to entertain those with the impatience to perfect the fundamentals.

Happy Training,

–
Nhan-Esteban Khuong, L.Ac.
www.SGVJeetKuneDo.com

This past weekend I was invited to BreakThruConditioning in Walnut, California for a sample of their unorthodox functional fitness bootcamp.

I have to say that I was impressed. These guys have really done their homework and have put together a serious program that will challenge fitness enthusiasts of all levels. In fact, I was running the same circuit as a middle aged woman, yet due to individual modifications, I was the one having trouble keeping my late breakfast down. (Yes, I underestimated the intensity and finished a heavy breakfast an hour before training — big mistake!)

Ben and Jeremy, the founders of BreakThruConditioning, are full-time engineers by day and high powered martial arts/fitness junkies by night (so to speak). Experienced martial artists with a serious passion for reality based fitness, these two gentelmen are doing their part in revolutionizing the fitness industry.

Founded in October of 2007, BreakThruConditioning focuses on real life movements using sledge hammers, kettle bells, stability balls, medicine balls, rubber bands, tractor tires, barrels, sandbags and anything else you can imagine. Whole body exercises, with lots of rotational, lateral, and explosive movements is the name of the game. As Ben and Jeremy say, people don’t bench press or bicep curl anything in real life so why train that way? You are much more likely to engage in multi-joint and multi-planar movements like lift up your child, carry heavy boxes, or push a stalled car. This is especially true for athletes. It is this type of real life movements that BreakThruConditioning prepares you for.

Whether you’re retired and looking to improve your quality of life with fitness, or an experienced martial artist in your prime looking to jump start your performance, Ben and Jeremy are able to modify the circuits and exercises for all ages and fitness levels. Their routines change on a weekly basis with a diverse repertoire of unique exercises and balanced circuits so be prepared for a fresh approach that will keep your mind and body challenged.

Visit http://www.BreakThruConditioning.com for more information.

Happy Training!

–
Nhan-Esteban Khuong, L.Ac.
www.SGVJeetKuneDo.com

It is commonly believed that sex before a competitive event adversely affects performance. This long standing idea in the athletic world is challenged in this episode of Sports Science by former heavyweight boxing champion Chris Byrd.
Take a look.

–
Nhan-Esteban Khuong, L.Ac.
www.SGVJeetKuneDo.com

Everybody wants a piece of the Bruce Lee legacy.

The man was amazing on so many levels and it is only natural that a following would develop as a result of his achievements. In that following, it is the martial science of Jeet Kune Do that has developed the most debate and controversy. There seem to be endless mutations and interpretations of JKD including modified Wing Chun, grappling, stick fighting, knife fighting, MMA, and so on. All of these different variations may or may not be effective, and they probably do contain JKD elements in varying amounts, but they are subject to the interpretation/modification/development of someone other than Bruce Lee. Discovering authenticity can be a challenge with all the different so-called JKD experts, so here are a few references you can use as a comparison when looking for a solid source of authentic Jeet Kune Do training.

Tao of Jeet Kune Do
Although this is not the end phase of JKD, it is the best written representation available of Bruce Lee’s original martial ideas. The text can be a confusing read as it is a compilation of notes that were not originally written with the intention of publication. However, just by browsing through Bruce Lee’s own hand drawn sketches, and insights, you should get a good sense of what JKD looks like.

Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method Series
This series of books was published posthumously without final approval from Bruce Lee. Keep in mind that these books are actually an early representation of Bruce Lee’s ideas as they were compiled in 1966 but not published until 1978. The actual text is not written by Bruce Lee, but again, the pictures of the founder in action will give you a good idea of what his fighting approach looks like.

Return of the Dragon
This movie has the best visual demonstration of the later stages of Jeet Kune Do performed by the founder himself. More specifically, the fight sequence between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris in the coliseum after Bree Lee is knocked down for the third time. As Jeet Kune Do rich as this scene is, just keep in mind that it is also mixed with movie theatrics.

Learning Jeet Kune Do from Bruce Lee’s books and movies is simply not practical as none of it was intended to teach it. So in your search for expanded JKD material, whether an instructor a video or book, do your research and compare to authentic sources.

Happy Training!

–
Nhan-Esteban Khuong, L.Ac.
www.SGVJeetKuneDo.com