- Jerry Beasley
- May 7, 2024
- 9 min read
Updated: May 15, 2024
A surefire way to start a controversy is to create a top-10 list — in any field. Similarly, if you want to start an argument in the martial arts community, try telling a Bruce Lee follower who is and isn’t qualified to teach jeet kune do. You can relax. This article doesn’t attempt to do any of that. Rather, my intent is simply to identify individuals who have contributed and are still contributing to the ever-changing world of JKD instruction.
Early Days
Lee considered himself a “scientific street fighter.” He spent countless hours researching other arts, not to replicate their moves but to discover the best ways to counter any form of aggression offered by those styles. He also understood the importance of strength and conditioning and proceeded to build his body to maximize his abilities. Most important, he tested each technique in full-contact fighting to determine which ones to keep and which ones to discard.
The end result of Lee’s research was JKD, a martial art that really isn’t a style. It’s meant to be a personal expression of the individual’s ability. The more he engaged in R&D, the more confident he became that the art of fighting was best taught one-on-one or in small groups. Although he once envisioned owning a chain of schools, he came to realize that JKD was not meant for the masses. In January 1970, he closed his schools and, in his own words, “disbanded the teaching of jeet kune do.” Regarding his reason for stopping, he said he feared that “students would take the agenda for the truth and the program as the way.”
Lee continued to move forward, however — so much so that the JKD of the 1970s didn’t mirror the JKD of 1967, when the term was coined. One of his personal students, legendary screenwriter Sterling Silliphant, recalled that Lee was constantly developing his system, “which he continued to evolve right up to the time he died.” Because Lee taught different things to different people at different times, interpretations of JKD can and do vary. Those who like the jeet kune do/kali/silat blend tend to favor the Inosanto method.
Those who prefer the strong wing chun influence often trace their lineage to the likes of Jerry Poteet and Steve Golden. Those who follow in the footsteps of Ted Wong or Joe Lewis typically have less association with wing chun and focus on the latter-stage kickboxing approach with an emphasis on testing via full-contact sparring. Now let’s look at those lineages and the people who propagate them.
First Gen
JKD as an art might have perished had it not been for Dan Inosanto. He was Lee’s trusted teaching assistant at the 628 West College Street school, where he taught most of the lessons. Lee preferred to teach privately and had amassed a following of dedicated students, however, so when enrollment at the Chinatown school declined toward the end of 1969, Lee decided to close it. Inosanto petitioned for permission to continue to train the remaining students.
In Bruce Lee 1940–1973, a tribute released by Rainbow Publications in 1974, Inosanto recalled that Lee once told him, “Only have six students, Dan.” Inosanto went on to explain, “In all of his teachings, [Bruce] never taught more than six students at a time.”
After Lee died in July 1973, Inosanto taught JKD to small groups in his backyard. In early interviews, he said he couldn’t do JKD like Lee — but who could? Inosanto remembered that Lee had instructed him to research and discover his own jeet kune do. Inosanto’s genius was in creating his own expression of JKD, and it resulted in massive growth of the art around the world.
In 1974 Inosanto partnered with fellow first-generation student Richard Bustillo to open the Filipino Kali Academy in Torrance, California. It became the home for Filipino martial arts and JKD. This has prompted some to argue that Bustillo was as important as Inosanto when it came to preserving and propagating Lee’s system. Best-known for his expertise in boxing and JKD, Bustillo traveled the world to teach martial arts and was inducted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame in 1989. He passed away in 2017. Back to Inosanto: As seminar offers poured in, Dan Inosanto in the mid- 1970s was torn between his promise to teach only groups of six and his need to placate promoters who wanted him to disseminate Lee’s methods to the masses. To solve the dilemma, Inosanto coined a new term: JKD concepts. It emphasized the research methods Lee used to discover his own JKD and conveyed them to students. JKD concepts encompassed kali, silat, muay Thai and boxing. Eventually, the “Inosanto blend” would expand to include Brazilian jiu-jitsu, savate and a host of other arts. Even though he’s 85, Inosanto continues to teach JKD concepts around the world. It’s no surprise that he’s been inducted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame.
Belt Hall of Fame four times.
Many of the students at Lee’s Chinatown school went on to build reputations for excellence in teaching. Daniel Lee and Steve Golden fall into that group. Daniel Lee was officially the first student admitted to the school in 1967. He was a black belt in kenpo, a former Golden Gloves boxer, a tai chi practitioner and a credentialed scholar. Often a speaker at Bruce Lee events, he was a highly regarded member of the JKD community until he passed away in 2015.
Golden is a kenpo black belt, as well as a student under Lee and Inosanto. He’s taught JKD for years and never fails to impress audiences with his hand speed. Combining that with the sensitivity he developed, he became a well-known proponent of JKD trapping.
Larry Hartsell was another prominent first-gen student. He started a JKD class in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1974 and continued to teach until his death in 2007. Hartsell concentrated on JKD transitions from modified wing chun to kickboxing. Inosanto had encouraged him to research the grappling that was identified in Lee’s personal notes, and Hartsell dedicated much of his career to teaching grappling methods that could be blended with the JKD principles he’d learned from Lee and Inosanto.
Hartsell is best-known for founding the Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do Grappling Association. He was inducted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame posthumously in 2007. His next generation of students include Dick Harrell, Michael Brown and Reuben Griffith. Jerry Poteet trained under Lee in the Chinatown school. In 1967 the curriculum there consisted mostly of modified wing chun and a sparring method that was used to test the individual’s techniques, skills and stamina. Poteet stayed true to that original wing-chun-based formula until his death in 2012.
Because Poteet was renowned for teaching exactly what Lee had taught him, he was selected to train Jason Scott Lee for the 1993 film Dragon, The Bruce Lee Story. Poteet groomed two prominent protégés: Octavio Quintero and Fran Joseph, his widow. The Jerry Poteet Jeet Kune Do Association tends to the needs of their followers.
Second Gen
Two of Inosanto’s best-known students are Chris Kent and Tim Tackett. Kent has authored several books and instructional videos about JKD and travels extensively to teach. He launched his JKD career in Inosanto’s backyard in the mid-’70s. His best-known student is David Cheng, author of Jeet Kune Do Basics.
Tackett is perhaps the most prolific JKD writer today. Having penned, among other titles, Chinatown Jeet Kune Do and Chinatown Jeet Kune Do, Volume 2, his contributions to the preservation of Lee’s art have served a wide audience. Inosanto has called Tackett the “most eloquent spokesperson for jeet kune do.”
Before he died, first-generation Bruce Lee student Bob Bremer partnered with Tackett to create the famous Wednesday Night Group in Redlands, California, an effort designed to raise the next generation of JKD proponents. So far, it’s produced Dennis Blue, Jeremy Lynch and Vince Raimondi, among others.
Another famous instructor from the Inosanto tree is Paul Vunak. He first gained notoriety in the 1980s with a series of instructional videos that taught popular topics from the Inosanto academy. The founder of Progressive Fighting Systems, Vunak went on to develop his Rapid Assault Tactics program based on what he taught the U.S. Navy SEALs.
Fellow Inosanto academy member Burton Richardson, who’s based in Hawaii, has garnered attention by training UFC fighters and expanding the principles of JKD as they apply to the Indonesian art of silat. Richardson is also an instructor of kali, muay Thai and BJJ.
Also in the Dan Inosanto lineage we find his daughter Diana Lee Inosanto. She learned JKD and other arts from her father and has had success transferring her considerable skills to the film industry. At first, she did stunt work and choreography for major motion pictures. Now she’s moved up to directing and producing. Along the way, she married and teamed up with former law-enforcement officer and bodyguard expert Ron Balicki, and they continue to spread the martial legacy of Bruce Lee.
Well-known on YouTube, Dwight Woods is an Inosanto protégé who hails from Barbados and now lives in Florida. In addition to having conducted interviews with dozens of JKD instructors, he provides jeet kune do and kali instruction in person and on the internet. Also a product of the Inosanto and Vunak lineages is internet sensation Harinder Singh Sabharwal of California. He recently teamed up with Black Belt to produce an online course titled Jeet Kune Do for Black Belts.
Lamar M. Davis II is another popular YouTube instructor, as well as an author and an in-demand seminar instructor from the Steve Golden and Jerry Poteet path.
Private Students
While the Chinatown school has gained much attention over the years, Lee preferred to teach students privately. Two JKD instructors were members of that school at one time, but most of what they learned was acquired in a private setting: Ted Wong and Joe Lewis.
Because Lee and Wong spoke the same language, and perhaps because Wong demonstrated an extraordinary eagerness to learn, he was invited by Lee to become his primary training partner at his home. They discovered that they shared an appreciation for boxing and spent hours watching fights and deciphering the methods used by the champions. Wong was privileged to witness firsthand the transition from jeet kune do as a wing-chun-based style to jeet kune do as an individual expression that was free of the limitations of a designated style.
“When Bruce changed his stance to be more speed oriented, he pretty much eliminated the trapping,” Wong once said. “If you understand his JKD philosophy of simplicity and directness, you can understand that trapping was complex and not very direct. It also included a lot of passive moves — for example, taking several moves to get the job done.”
Wong was on the front lines of the original-JKD movement that began in the 1990s, and he continued as the top representative of this interpretation. He was inducted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame in 2006 and passed away four years later. Among Wong’s next generation of students are Tommy Carruthers; Bill Mattucci; Lewis Luk; Zee Lo; Tommy Gong, author of Bruce Lee: The Evolution of a Martial Artist; and Richard Torres.
Joe Lewis earned his black belt in Okinawa after only seven months of training. He won repeatedly on the tournament circuit but grew bored with competition and started training as a boxer in the Los Angeles gym owned by Sugar Ray Robinson. Lewis met Lee in 1967 after winning the Jhoon Rhee Nationals. He said he was impressed with Lee’s speed and went on to become a private student that same year. For the next 18 months, Lewis and Lee trained together, during which Lewis credited Lee with having coached him to win 11 national and world titles. Lewis referred to Lee as his primary mentor during the early years of his career. After meeting him, Lewis said he abandoned his karate practice in favor of JKD.
Wong, who often met Lewis at Lee’s home, once said, “Joe Lewis was the jeet kune do test tube.” Lee would develop a plan and Lewis would execute it in competition. Some have observed that Lee never competed— but his protégé Joe Lewis offered proof that JKD works in the ring as well as on street.
Tournament champions Jerry Piddington, Darnell Garcia, John Natividad, Jay T. Will and Jerry Smith were often present when Lee accompanied Lewis to sparring sessions at Southern California karate schools and tournaments. Piddington said, “Bruce didn’t spar, but he was actively coaching Joe, and Joe was unstoppable.” Smith recalled, “It was pretty much understood that Bruce was training Joe to be a lead instructor should Bruce open a chain of schools.”
Linda Lee Cadwell, Bruce’s widow, said: “Joe and Bruce were like two peas in a pod. They were research partners.” Lewis’ first Black Belt Hall of Fame induction was in 1975. He died in 2012.This survey sheds some light on the scope of Bruce Lee’s creation and the sad fact that many of its best-known adherents have passed. Other skilled instructors, however, are still spreading JKD. It’s comforting to know that the seed Lee planted will continue to grow thanks to the work of these dedicated martial artists.
Jerry Beasley, Ed.D., is a member of the Black Belt Hall of Fame and a professor of health and human performance/Asian martial arts at Radford University in Virginia. He trained privately in jeet kune do under Joe Lewis for 20 years. Beasley holds the distinction of being the only person authorized by him to teach the Joe Lewis Jeet Kune Do Method. For information about Beasley’s free online course covering that method, visit TheKarateCollege.com.
This article originally appeared in a 2021 edition of Black Belt Magazine
