Jeet Kune Do. Teri Tom
formulaic, devised around a curriculum of modified Chinese kung fu, necessary to impart discipline on a large group. But the class bore no similarity to Lee's private lessons. There, Lee was in a different zone, teaching a kind of free form, experimental course in his developing art. Increasingly, he was content to instruct privately. Seeing the school's curriculum as outmoded and unrelated to his work, he closed the school. He did not care about establishing a commercial venture, but instead, turned towards achieving a discipline.
In private instruction, Lee completely oversaw the dissemination of his theories and techniques. Some students received different levels of instruction than others, different degrees of what he knew. Evolving rapidly, he demanded precision from himself and expected students to follow without argument. He explained little, and had scant patience for repeating what he demonstrated. If you didn't get it quickly, then you were out. As he expanded his techniques, Lee kept most of the mechanics in his head, always reserving something for himself—a knowledge that made him the "master of the art." He was not about to impart "the keys to the kingdom" without their being justly earned.
Lee's mechanics were as much rooted in the intellectual as the physical. To fight like Bruce Lee, one had to learn to think like Lee. I was one of very few people taught by him directly—training, sparring, and "hanging out" for seven years. By listening closely and watching attentively, I began to be aware of the underlying precepts of JKD. For 15 years after Lee's death, I continued to study the structure of his form. And for 15 years after that, as I implemented what I learned, I discovered even more. JKD consists of few techniques and is without a lot of show or flash. Kicks and punches are concise, defined with form following function. During his life, I admired Bruce Lee and deeply appreciated the skills that he taught me. Since his death, I have honored him. Every lesson I teach, I ask myself, "Would he approve?" With every problem I encounter, I ask, "how would he approach this situation?"
I deeply regret that at the time of Bruce Lee's death all his students did not come together to pool knowledge and form a united front to continue his work. Sharing, discussing, perhaps arguing, we might have arrived at some common ground to go forward, and attempt to systematize JKD at that time. The force of Lee's personality had connected us when he was alive, but when he died, we all went our separate ways. Since then, I have seen wildly inaccurate interpretations of JKD. Some stray from and others even contradict Lee's intentions. It pains me to see his legacy undermined by perspectives skewed or self-serving. Never, in the time I knew him, did I see him collaborate with anyone, nor did I see him base his work on elements from other martial arts. Today, there are all sorts of schools and all sorts of instructors who claim to be teaching Bruce Lee's method—there is nothing in them that I recognize as his.
I hold fast to what I learned; I vividly remember Lee's words and actions. Though I have never advertised, or had a school, I have been a private instructor for more than thirty years. Individuals from different countries and backgrounds have sought me out for instruction because of my direct line to Bruce Lee, and I have shown them the essence of what I was personally taught by him.
As I was Lee's devoted student, so I consider Teri Tom my student—my top student. For over ten years, she has spent more time learning, discussing and investigating the fundamentals of Lee's art with me than any student with whom I have worked. Her attentiveness in developing the discipline accurately, and her devotion in seeing it raised to the level that Bruce Lee envisioned in his life, heartens my belief that through her, the art I learned and teach will be passed on to future generations.
It is tragic that the art that defined Lee—one he nurtured, guarded, and methodically shaped and executed—continues to be misunderstood by so many. It is my deepest hope that Lee's art, as he taught it, will once again, with Teri Tom's excellent new book, be studied and appreciated. She has explored Bruce Lee's writings and examined the sources of his inspiration. Here she offers an impeccably researched, thorough and realistic presentation of Lee's art and its application insuring that the discipline he developed in his short life, will not perish from misguided egos, insincere motives, or plain stupidity. By placing Lee's art in proper perspective, Tom challenges all the absurdities being espoused in his name. I believe Lee would see in her, as I do, an intelligence, resolve and courage similar to his own. Plainly stated what Bruce Lee taught and practiced is contained in this book.
—Ted Wong, November 2008
AUTHOR'S NOTE
A s you may already know, the volume that you now hold in your hands was preceded several years ago by a little book called The Straight Lead: The Core of Bruce Lee's Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do®. Through the study of a single technique, I traced the evolution of Bruce Lee's martial arts development out of Western boxing and fencing. I thought it important to come right out of the gate with an argument for the technique that is really the cornerstone of Jeet Kune Do, or more precisely in Bruce Lee's own words, "the core of Jeet Kune Do." All other aspects of the art—other punches, evasive techniques, even the stance—were selected and developed around delivery of the straight lead.
While we briefly cover the lead punch in this book, we don't have enough room here to go into its history and origins. Nor do we have the space to cover some of the finer details of the mechanics. For a full understanding of the art, then, I recommend your reading this book's predecessor, as the material you are about to read is a natural progression from The Straight Lead. I've taken some of the basic mechanics and strategies covered in that book and applied them to the rest of the JKD arsenal.
The purpose of both volumes is to fill in some of the instructional gaps between the Fighting Method series and the Tao of Jeet Kune Do. As we noted in the last book, Bruce Lee did not intend for the Tao to be published as an instruction manual. It is merely a collection of his personal notes, most of which were taken from other sources. It is not a how-to book—nor is the Fighting Method series. Unfortunately, Bruce Lee was never able to assemble what became the Fighting Method series as an instructional manual, and much of the material had become outdated by the time of his death. The photos that would comprise the Fighting Method books were taken early in the development of JKD in 1967. If you compare them to movie stills from Game of Death in 1972 and Enter the Dragon in 1973, you'll see that he'd made some very important modifications in the interim.
This is where we are so fortunate to have Ted Wong's powers of observation and analysis. As I've mentioned elsewhere, Ted Wong spent more time in private instruction with Bruce Lee than any of Lee's other students. Unlike many who claim to know Bruce Lee's art, Wong may be the only one truly qualified to make that claim. He was there. This is on record in Bruce Lee's own Day-Timer® notes.1, 2 Even more important than the frequency of sessions, though, is the time of those sessions. Wong had the fortune to study privately with Bruce Lee more than anyone else, but he also did so during the last stages of JKD development, right up until Lee's death in 1973. He is the most frequent, if not the only—and this is documented as such in Lee's own handwriting—witness to JKD in its most advanced stages. Without his tireless study, Bruce Lee's life's work would be lost forever.
What you will find in the following pages are a lot of the small details that Ted Wong had observed during his time with Bruce Lee and his own discoveries as to how and why they work. You might think of this book as providing the information that connects the dots found in the Tao. Those small, nuanced movements—like footwork, feinting, weight transfer, and the sequencing of those elements—and how they're used to transition from movement to movement make all the difference. But they are not discussed in the Fighting Method series, which for the most part, just catalogs the techniques of JKD. Nor are they illustrated in the Tao. This book should be considered a supplement to both.
I've argued many times that Bruce Lee was and still is light years ahead of his time. In most sports, it's now a given that coaches incorporate principles of biomechanics into their training. For some reason, this shift has not occurred to the same degree in the martial arts. Lee, however, was already looking into biomechanics in