All martial arts have something valuable to offer the open minded and dedicated student.
Finding a martial arts school or teacher that fits well with your goals can often be challenging and if you’re in the market to learn Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do, the challenges increase exponentially.
To start, it’s important to establish your primary reasons for training in Bruce Lee’s JKD. Are you looking to get fit or develop confidence, or are you drawn by Eastern philosophy and spirituality? Generally, anyone seeking JKD will have a mixture of all these goals intertwined by a fundamental desire to connect with the inspiration and legacy that the Bruce Lee phenomenon has created.
If you’re interested in finding authentic JKD instruction, here are a few important elements to evaluate in an instructor:
1 Purpose: find out why the instructor is teaching. Regardless of whether classes are taught commercially for profit, it is important to understand whether an instructor teaches out of a love and appreciation of Jeet Kune Do and perpetuating the knowledge, or whether he is teaching out of self interest and vanity.
2 Lineage and authenticity: if authentic Jeet Kune Do is what you’re looking for, the first and foremost priority should be establishing a clear lineage from a particular instructor back to the founder, Bruce Lee. If in doubt, ask look for references from other credible instructors. Do not rely on information found solely on the instructor’s website. Always look for credible third party references.
3 Skill: there are two elements here in that the instructor should be able to demonstrate and apply a high level of technical skill in addition to being able to teach and guide students to develop their own skill and ability. Look for someone with the level of skill and development that you would like to have. In many cases, an instructor may have high level students or junior instructors teaching, in which case the same applies.
This is an important starting point in the process of finding a good Jeet Kune Do school or instructor. Regardless of whether the instruction comes in the form of online training, books, videos, or seminars, these points will help you to distinguish between posers and true JKD flag bearers.