In our August/September 2020 issue, Black Belt Hall of Famer Tim Tackett elaborated on jeet kune do’s most important part: its principles. Here, he explains nine more fighting principles you need to know.
Principle No. 1: TAKE WHAT’S OFFERED
“When one person attacks another, the attacker always leaves something open. No human being can extend a limb without leaving an opening. In a fight, think of it as something the other person is offering you — and then take it. This is the whole concept behind intercepting: You detect an opening and take advantage of it.
“Keep in mind that this is a higher-level approach. In contrast, beginners often think, I want to hit that guy with my best technique, which is the side kick, so I’m just going to do it and wherever it lands, I hope it works. In JKD, we prefer to think, I’m going to intercept my opponent by taking advantage of the opening he gives me [before he attacks or] while he’s attacking.
“This is why we side-kick the other guy’s leg as soon as he steps forward and [try to] deliver the kick with enough power to break the leg. We take what’s offered in the ring or on the street.”
Principle No. 2: KNOW THAT THE RING AND THE STREET ARE DIFFERENT
“The main difference between the ring and the street is prior knowledge. If you’re [about to go] in the ring, you’re looking at a video of the guy you’re fighting before you fight. You know that if you do a fake here, he’s going to move there. Or that maybe he’s a runner or a blocker. You can study him and try to come up with tactics and a strategy.
“On the street, however, you don’t know what is going on. Everything you know about the ring goes out the window. You have to clear your mind of it all. It’s true that in a street fight, there are no rules, but more important is that you have no prior knowledge, no clue at all.
“Make sure that your stance doesn’t give away what you know. This is why in JKD we don’t use a traditional stance. We stand in a natural stance with our strong leg forward. From there, we can do a leg obstruction, move forward, move back, or move to the left or the right. You don’t want the other person to think that you know anything.
“Going one step further, you want to train to minimize what you leave open. When I teach, I tell my students, ‘We’re going to work on this technique. When you do it, what do you think you’re offering your opponent in a match? Now, what would you be offering him in a street fight, where he’s free to do anything? Now, how do you avoid leaving all those openings?’”
Principle No. 3: INTERCEPT YOUR OPPONENT’S ATTACK
“I remember Bob Bremer telling me about one time he was working with Bruce Lee. Bremer asked, ‘How can you keep stopping me like that? I’m fast!’
“Bruce told him, ‘I can tell before you punch, before you hit, that you’re going to hit. I can feel it and then stop it.’
“That’s what we call intercepting on intention. This is the highest level of interception. You learn to read the other person’s inten- tion. However, that very seldom happens. That’s way up there with respect to how long it takes to develop.
“At the next level is intercepting on preparation. An opponent usually will have some preparation before he attacks. Maybe he makes a face, maybe he steps forward, maybe he pulls his hand back before he punches. As it’s coming toward you, you move. That’s called hitting him on the half beat. Before the striking limb gets to full extension, you intercept it.
“At the next level is intercepting on attack. You move while his weapon is coming at you. After that is intercepting on completion, when it reaches full extension.
“Then there’s intercepting on withdrawal. The attack has to snap back before the second attack comes, so you get between those two motions. You hit on the half beat, the full beat or the one-and-a-half beat.
“The key here is time. If you have the time and skill to do it, intercepting on intention is the best. If not, intercepting on preparation is great. Almost as good is intercepting as it’s coming toward you. If you have even less time, you can intercept before the follow-up.
“Remember that JKD is about controlling distance and time. If you control the distance, you control the time, and that determines how you can intercept.”
Principle No. 4: FIGHT WITH YOUR STRONG SIDE FORWARD
“This one comes from Western fencing and is essential in JKD. Yes, you can get away without doing it, like they often do in kickboxing, but it’s so much better if you follow this principle because it can enable you to stop a fight instantly.
“You need to stand with your strongest weapon forward. That positions your weaker weapons to the rear, which means they have farther to travel to reach the target — but that’s good because it gives you more time to develop power in your strike [if you decide to use them]. Bruce Lee used to talk about how some of the great boxers who were left-handed would just keep that left lead and then knock out a lot of guys.”
Principle No. 5: AVOID PASSIVE MOVES
“A passive move is when you do something to gain a reaction from your opponent but you’re not actually trying to hit him. Maybe you’re feinting. Maybe you’re moving your head. Whatever you’re doing, it makes it easier for him to intercept. As soon as you move, he hits you.
“If your opponent doesn’t fight according to this principle and uses passive moves, you should exploit that. When you’re at the fighting measure, if he does anything, hit him.”
Principle No. 6: TAKE ADVANTAGE OF BROKEN RHYTHM
“Broken rhythm has two parts. You learn to read your opponent’s rhythm, and you learn to break your rhythm. In practice, reading your opponent’s rhythm means paying attention to his timing and trying to catch him between beats. Breaking your rhythm means, for example, that you hit, hit, hit to a steady rhythm and then hit, pause, hit, hit. Box- ers can do this very well.”
Principle No. 7: ENGAGE IN ENVIRONMENTAL TRAINING
“When I trained with Dan Inosanto, one thing we worked on a lot was called environmental training. Here’s one example: We would go to a nearby alley. Positioned in that alley would be four guys with gloves on. One person at a time, we would have to fight our way out of the alley. Doing that entailed sometimes fighting one-on-one, some- times two-on-one, sometimes three-on-one and so on.
“We also would practice in a room with furniture and a training knife lying on the floor. There would be two guys about 2 feet away from the knife. They were free to use whatever techniques and strategies they wanted to survive.
“I don’t think many people still train this way, but we do in the Wednesday Night Group. We don’t do this as much as we used to because training in my garage means there are issues with insurance, but it’s a valuable way to work out — as is training in the dark.
“If your situation permits, think about incorporating environmen- tal training into your martial art. Get creative.”
Principle No. 8: UNDERSTAND YOUR STRUCTURE AND OPPONENT’S
“Think of structure as a base of operations from which the attacks and defenses of a particular martial art [emanate]. To understand any art is to understand its structure. All arts have a specific structure that makes them work.
“Bruce Lee said that to defend against an art, you also must be able to understand its delivery system. The delivery system is how an attack goes from point A (the attacker) to point B (the defender). To a great extent, this delivery system is based on the structure of the attacker’s art while the defender bases his defense on the structure of his art.
“Here’s an example: One of the most powerful tools that Thai box- ers have is the rear-leg round kick. They make it more efficient and cut down on the time commitment by making their stance narrower than the on-guard stance of JKD. Since the JKD stance is wider, our rear-leg hook kick takes a little longer to reach its target and requires more preparation. This is why we stress using this kick as a follow-up kick intended to finish an opponent rather than as an opening move. It’s all about the delivery system.
“As a side note, when Bob Bremer first saw us practicing the Thai rear-leg round kick in my garage, he said, ‘It’s a really great kick — but not on the first move.’”
Principle 9: LEARN BRUCE LEE’S TIME-COMMITMENT THEORY
“I hesitate to mention this because few people know it. I picked it up from Bruce Lee’s notes. He called it the time-commitment theory. Once you understand it, you can analyze any technique.
“Basically, it means that when you throw a punch or kick, you’re committing a certain amount of time. That time starts the moment you launch the technique and ends the moment you return to your on-guard position.
“This tells us that there are two main types of techniques. The first generates force with a snap like the taekwondo round kick or the boxer’s jab. The mechanism is similar to cracking a whip. The second type is a heavier blow, one that uses the weight of the body to hit through the target — like the hsing-i palm strike.
“Time-commitment theory tells us that a snappy technique requires much less time overall than does a heavy one. In terms of tactics and strategy, this means that you don’t want to use a heavy blow as an attack unless there’s a good opening. It simply requires committing too much time. Unless you’re sure you’re going to make contact, it’s better to use a snappy technique. Then, if that hurts him, you can use a heavy technique to finish.
“When you’re learning any new technique, think about how much time you would have to commit to that move in a fight and how you might be able to shorten that time. As I just said, JKD is about time and distance. Remember this, and it will change the way you look at all the techniques of your art.”
(Part 1 of this article appeared in the August/September 2020 issue of Black Belt. To read it, go to blackbeltmag.com.)
Tim Tackett began training in the martial arts in 1962 when he was stationed in Taipei, Taiwan, while in the U.S. Air Force. When he returned to California several years later, he opened a kung fu school. After seeing Bruce Lee in 1967 at Ed Parker’s Long Beach International Karate Championships, Tackett decided to take up jeet kune do. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to begin JKD training until after Lee’s Chinatown school had closed. To fill the void, in 1971 he joined the class Dan Inosanto was running in his backyard. Tackett continued to refine his skills with first-generation JKD student Bob Bremer. He was named Black Belt’s 2017 Instructor of the Year.