In reading the magazine article by Joaquin Torres on Legacies--the distressing aftermaths of the deaths of the founders of Jeet Kune Do, American Kenpo, and Modern Arnis--I started thinking about the issue of successors. For each of those three arts the lack of a clear successor has had negative ramifications--most notably of the political sort, but also in terms of the Legacy that Bruce Lee, Ed Parker, and Remy Presas presumably hoped to leave.
But is the lack of a successor so bad? Many styles of Tai Chi have no clear leader--one gets an instructor's certificate and then can teach. Modern Japanese systems like Kendo are often run by a council, not a single person. No one is the head of (Western) boxing, wrestling, or fencing, but they're still with us and boxing especially is doing well. Balintawtak Eskrima is still well-respected although there was no named successor.
Beyond that, is it clear that leaving an art to one person is necessarily best? I'm a traditionalist and I like it but, for example, Wally Jay had planned on leaving his art to four separate people who each would have a slightly different take on it. (I understand he's since changed his mind.) This happens anyway; it happened in JKD, American Kenpo, and Modern Arnis without successors, but even in arts with clear successors, how many offshoots does one see? Uechi-ryu has split a few times; I have no idea how many styles of Aikido there now are; Isshin-ryu has a couple of organziations that act independently; Wing Chun is a mess (perhaps it belongs in the category of no clear successor--people disagree); and so on. Splits will happen in any event--and that isn't necessarily bad. It's evolution.
Is American Kenpo better off for having many people each take it in their directions rather than having had only one person take it in his direction? Maybe. I think Modern Arnis will be better and richer for having multiple takes on it. There are certainly many ways JKD has been taken. Maybe in each case some of the ways it was taken are not as good as the original was but in most cases I imagine it's better for someone.
Like I said, I still prefer a clear line of control, myself. But apart from the heartache for those involved--and being heavily involved in the Modern Arnis issues I am not being at all flippant when I say 'heartache'--it's not clear to me that this sort of process isn't a good thing, a 'genetic algorithm' that finds, not the best form of an art, but better and better forms of the art for different people. I wonder is it isn't better in the long run to disperse control of an art when the founder dies and let the top students who choose to do so start their own variants. Especially with a new art, doing otherwise may amount to a negative effect on the marketplace of ideas.
But is the lack of a successor so bad? Many styles of Tai Chi have no clear leader--one gets an instructor's certificate and then can teach. Modern Japanese systems like Kendo are often run by a council, not a single person. No one is the head of (Western) boxing, wrestling, or fencing, but they're still with us and boxing especially is doing well. Balintawtak Eskrima is still well-respected although there was no named successor.
Beyond that, is it clear that leaving an art to one person is necessarily best? I'm a traditionalist and I like it but, for example, Wally Jay had planned on leaving his art to four separate people who each would have a slightly different take on it. (I understand he's since changed his mind.) This happens anyway; it happened in JKD, American Kenpo, and Modern Arnis without successors, but even in arts with clear successors, how many offshoots does one see? Uechi-ryu has split a few times; I have no idea how many styles of Aikido there now are; Isshin-ryu has a couple of organziations that act independently; Wing Chun is a mess (perhaps it belongs in the category of no clear successor--people disagree); and so on. Splits will happen in any event--and that isn't necessarily bad. It's evolution.
Is American Kenpo better off for having many people each take it in their directions rather than having had only one person take it in his direction? Maybe. I think Modern Arnis will be better and richer for having multiple takes on it. There are certainly many ways JKD has been taken. Maybe in each case some of the ways it was taken are not as good as the original was but in most cases I imagine it's better for someone.
Like I said, I still prefer a clear line of control, myself. But apart from the heartache for those involved--and being heavily involved in the Modern Arnis issues I am not being at all flippant when I say 'heartache'--it's not clear to me that this sort of process isn't a good thing, a 'genetic algorithm' that finds, not the best form of an art, but better and better forms of the art for different people. I wonder is it isn't better in the long run to disperse control of an art when the founder dies and let the top students who choose to do so start their own variants. Especially with a new art, doing otherwise may amount to a negative effect on the marketplace of ideas.
