Bruce Lee’s martial art has gone through a lot of changes over the last thirty years. All of the original Bruce Lee students are doing their own specialty art except for Jerry Poteet who has stuck with what he was originally taught.
You might say that this is a good thing and you might be right but I believe that no one can do an original art other then the originator.
Bruce Lee had many natural talents and one of these was the ability to learn complex physical things very quickly. I don’t know about you but that does not describe me or most people who study martial arts or any sport for that matter.
Bruce was also obsessed with martial arts training , physical fitness & studying. You might even say he had obsessive compulsive tendencies.
I never had the opportunity to train with Bruce because I was to young but I have trained with two different first generation instructors under Sifu Bruce and am certified as a full instructor under Paul Vunak who is a second generation instructor.
Danna White said recently that Bruce Lee was the father of modern MMA, and I have to agree with him. Cross training in the martial arts has been around for hundreds of years if not longer but Bruce created a scientific street fighting style, a theatrical fighting style and a sport fighting style.
Joe Lewis was one of Bruce Lee’s most famous and successful sport fighters that he trained. Joe was one of the most successful Karate tournament fighters and the first heavy weight kickboxing champions in the U.S. and he did all this after he trained with Bruce.
I’m not taking anything away from Joe because he was a winner and a great athlete before he trained with Bruce but the principles and strategies that he learned made him complete.
One of the strong benefits of training in JKD is that it teaches you to fight at all ranges, but better than that it teaches you to transition and flow from one range to another seamlessly. It also teaches you to fight your fight and not your opponents. This is something that many of the UFC fighters should learn.
Fighting even in sport is NOT about how much abuse you can take or how tough you are its about winning and staying injury free for a long as possible.
With each new person and generation that trains in Bruce’s art there will be modifications and even improvements in the art. One example is knife fighting.
Bruce did not put much focus on weapons training except for in his movies. This influence can from guru Dan Inosanto who was chosen as Bruce ‘s successor after he died.
Filipino martial arts has been a great addition to my Jeet Kune Do training and has given me true combative street skills. I know that if someone pulled a knife or improvised weapon on me I would have a fighting chance to survive and come out of it victoriously alive.
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Bruce Pahl is the owner of Immortal Martial Arts & and Delaware Combat University. He is a certified Full instructor in Jeet Kune Do & Filipino martial arts under Paul Vunak of (PFS). Has a second degree black belt in Shorite Ryu Tai Jutsu under Dr. Christian Harfouche. He has a basic instructor cert. in Combat Ju-Jitsu under GM Michael DePasquale Jr. He earned his Black belt in 1997 in Chinese Kenpo Karate and was inducted into the Action Martial Arts Hall of Fame for excellence in teaching in 2007. He is a certified Battling Ropes® coach under founder John Brookfield, was certified in Circular Strength Training (Clubbells®) under Scott Sonnon, and is a certified instructor in FlexBands & Ultimate SandBag L.I.F.T,2010.
