FINAL-PHASE: JEET KUNE DO

HOW TO USE NO WAY AS YOUR WAY!

- JERRY BEASLEY, ED.D., AND TYLER H. BEASLEY

After coining the term jeet kune do in 1967, Bruce Lee continued to evolve his style and his thinking, so much so that the jeet kune do of 1967 would not closely resemble the jeet kune do of the early 1970s. “Jeet kune do is the art not founded on techniques or doctrine, ” Lee wrote. “[It] is not a matter of petty technique ... [nor] a matter of seeking knowledge or accumulating stylized patterns but discovering the cause of ignorance.”

Ted Wong noted that the original curriculum (which included chi sao, bai jong, the pak sao/lop sao patterns and so on) developed for the Chinatown and Oakland branch schools drew heavily on Lee’s early wing chun technique modifications. However, by 1970, he’d determined that the curriculum should no longer be taught as JKD.

In a 1971 phone conversation with Daniel Lee, Bruce unapologetically stated, “That’s why I’ve disbanded all the schools of jeet kune do — because it is very easy for a member to come in and take the agenda as the ‘truth’ and the schedule as the ‘way.’ You know what I mean?”

He recognized the fact that the original JKD curriculum had become stylized. Further, he didn’t approve of identifying the curriculum as JKD. To set the record straight, he wrote in the September 1971 issue of Black Belt: “Let it be understood once and for all that I have not invented a new style, composite or modification. I have in no way set jeet kune do within a distinct form governed by laws that distinguish it from ‘this’ style or ‘that’ method.”

In effect, Lee had officially distanced himself from the original curriculum, which he believed had been crystalized into a style. Jeet kune do had entered a new phase.