One thing that always blew my mind was how Bruce Lee was always exposing traditional martial arts flaws but as his popularity grew people flocked to traditional martial arts schools everwhere. For many years not so much today people would ask there teachers if they were learning to fight like Bruce and the money hungry liers would say yes. Anyway I do believe there are a few good things to learn in traditional MA, but why would you go looking threw a garbage can for something good.

I think TKD schools fed off Bruce Lee's fame more then anything. Seems like all the TKD fighters (That I've met) worship Bruce Lee, yet not his style.


“One thing that always blew my mind was how Bruce Lee was always exposing traditional martial arts flaws”

I believe, Bruce Lee was able to find “flaws” in traditional Martial Arts because he spent his time investigating them to the best of his ability. Therefore, in order to say something is useless, you must discover it, first hand, before you can discard it.

“Anyway I do believe there are a few good things to learn in traditional MA, but why would you go looking threw a garbage can for something good.”

I believe that every single traditional Martial Art has something great to offer a student. If you look at all these hybrid styles of fighting (including JFJKD), you will find bits and peaces of tradition... you want to know why? Because we are all human beings with two arms and two legs, unless we become mutants with four arms and four legs, the techniques will never change (Bruce Lee type quote). However, there may be personal expressions in performing a certain technique, mostly due to how an individual is conditioned or how disciplined he is to the form in a certain technique. A traditional Boxing jab is still useful to this day, if it works, then there is no need to change it. A Choke hold was probably one of the first hand-to-hand combat techniques ever taught and learned in human history, this to me, is part of the Traditional arts of fighting.

"One mans garbage; is another mans treasure."

Personally, I like traditional Martial Arts, they teach about a warrior’s code that was passed down from the generations, and these timeless ethics and ways of thinking are still applicable to this day (Art of War). Also, traditional Martial Arts open the student’s minds to different cultures and traditions that may expand their thoughts on their way of living and to see their environment from a different light.

Martial Arts, is not just learning how to fight. I can spend the rest of my life training for 30 seconds of mayhem, that may never come... or I can spend my life learning, experiencing and becoming the Sage Commander destined for greatness.



Phases ®

I like the cultural side of martial arts too. One mans garbage is another man treasure or one mans garbage is anther mans garbage. I don't agree with teachers teaching bogus technique that will not work. I've seen too many teachers teach something that won't work. I have been to to many schools where some of the students told me they didn't think this or that technique would work at which point I said alot of the things we learn here won't work. A good street fighter could walk in off the streets rip there black belt from there waist and choke them out with it. To a large degree the whole thing is a house built on sand, and yes if you study BL he did criticize Traditional martial arts which was my original point.

In a way, I agree with both of you. Though I haven't taken Aikido in a long, long time, I really wanna get back into it. Will Aikido teach me how to defend myself? No, not at all. But I like the tradition of it, I like the neat looking throws, I like wearing a gi, and I like the camaraderie of a big martial arts school without ego. There's really no ego challenges to worry about because there's very little competition, (if any). Thus, you can go and have a GREAT time learning traditional stuff as nothing more than a life enriching experience.

I really miss Aikido. Ya know, [Super Asskicker] actually started out taking Aikido in NYC as a boy. Can you believe it?

When Bruce passed .There was not many places a person could even try to learn JKD. And M/A schools did enjoy more students learning. It has taken many years for JKD to grow to the place it is today. And yet. Still there is not as many places to train. As for traditional Arts It boils down to what you want and what is avalible in your area . And yet It also remains the person that becomes able to apply what they learn. Just some Arts can say They help create a faster development. The rest is up to you