I feel that there's nothing to really improve upon in JKD, I've just found from experience that my personal "style" is very effective, but painful to learn. I am planning on opening my own school in a couple of years, but getting some assistant teacher experience in the mean time at my karate school. I've taken traditional karate for 6 years, something called Taiyoku Jiu-Jitsu Kickboxing or Taiyoku Martial Arts (In my searches though, I've found Taiyoku isn't a real word, the applicable word, I think, is taiKyoku, but that's not how it's spelled on the certificate, maybe it's a personal interpretation thing)for four years, bare knuckle "backyard" boxing and "dirty" wrestling with my friends all my life. I've done a lot of self-taught breaking in which I've never actually injured myself (I don't consider bloody knuckles or sore wrists an injury until a certain point, which I've never reached as of yet). I found the key was to start slow and work my way up, and to do lots of Iron palm and makiwara training. I also train with 10lb burlap sand-bags which I hit myself all over with psychologically toughen mysef up.
I'll describe my style and fighting philosophy to you:
I have an "Irish fistacuffs" stance with my dukes way up high, my elbows pointing out at nose level and my feet a comfortable distance apart. My reasons for this are:
-Leaving my midsection open is a lead. I'm well aware of my midsection being vulnerable, and either they'll try to capitalise and get punished, or they'll clue in and not attack my torso.
-If someone attacks my head I'm allready in perfect position for a hook block, and if they throw a straight or an uppercut, even if they do get past my elbows, I'll headbutt their hand/fist.
-It makes it look like I'm not a wrestler/grappler, which I am
-My hands naturally fly really fast from this position
-I can always tuck if I need to
-They can't see where I'm looking (usually below the collarbone)
-I'm better off with a short stance, from which I can go to a long stance if need be, move around a lot faster/dodge etc. and, again, it's a lead for "footsweepers" to try to capitalise on and get jammed.
I like to use my breaking experience to hit people really hard in their guard.
-After a couple of bruises, and being hit in those bruises, the pain makes them not want to block anymore, but quite often they've learned to "keep their dukes up". There's a conflicting psychology at work here and which ever choice they make will be the wrong one. The right choice is to not fight.
-It toughens my knuckles. Extra training for me.
I don't concentrate too hard on doing anything a certain way. Instead, I concentrate on the fight at hand and let my body take care of itself.
-I don't have a really set style. It leaves me more fluid and capable of adapting.
-The softest thing cannot be broken.
I try to beat myself up harder than anyone else will (within reason).
-To develop pain tolerence and willpower
-To ingrain an instinct of the stop hit or "headbutt the fist approach"
-To be able to take a hit to the face and look at the guy and give him a choice, if I sense he didn't know what he was getting himself into. I'm not so nice to a dangerous person.
Did I mention "sack of antlers"?
-unless they know what they're doing, they'll feel there's no way to attack me without a weapon
-I like to punish them for every move they make and every inch they get
-It's good for playing football
I LOVE elbows! Knees are good too.
-elbows are great for breaking bones
-they get me closer to the "wrasslin' distance"
-they are, to my experience, the best fight enders, especialy the roundhouse elbow to the side of the jaw
-best defense against a knee is to elbow the thigh just above the knee and charley-horse them so bad thay can't stand on it (from my experience, mind you)
-They're the hardest part of my body short of my forehead
When I wrestle I get instantly desperate.
-My adrenaline shoots through the roof and I'm capable of much greater feats of strength and speed than normal
-I have long limbs and a high center of gravity. I'm also skinny. Combine that with my usual stance and they figure I'm better at striking than grappling, this is knowledge they don't have, which I like to use to my advantage.
-I learned from my dad. He was a canadian champion in high school. He's also a natural scrapper. He loves Bruce Lee too!
-I feel even less pain
I bite in a streetfight if I get the chance. Some people think that I might catch a disease doing this. But I weigh "death now" to "death later". In a street fight I assume they're trying to kill me.
Eye gouge, knee/foot stomp, "heisting the jewels", hair pull, throat punch/palm/grab etc., "whiskey kiss", ear pull/rip are all an essential part of any self defense program in my opinion. As are improvised weapons 101.
I might train in and have some knowledge of karate but it's just not my personal style. I take it because I enjoy it. When it comes down to it, anything I do is JKD. I've taken few things from karate and actually added them to my repertoire of self defense. I prefer the karate "cross-face" to the wrestling version and I use makiwara a lot.
I'm 24. I'd like to be ready to open up my own school by 30. I think I'll call it "Blood, Sweat and Tears" because of the training involved. I realise that I'm going to have trouble getting and keeping students, but if I can encourage them to get over that willpower and endurance hurdle, I think there's a little masochist in all of us. I do believe in proper anotomical training methods, seeking breaking advice from a proffessional before I teach others and extensive, proper warm ups, and to teach that "karate (or any other martial art for that matter)is for self defense only". I would also like to take that chance to encourage environmental, social and charitable intiatives to my students. I hope I don't sound too cocky. I'm really actually pretty meek and timid. I just enjoy what I do What do you think?
