Chapter 25 – Contemporary JKD’s Progression
As stated before in our previous articles, mixed martial arts has boiled down to really two arts, Thai boxing, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And as mentioned before, we were aware of this revelation around 1985. And since that time, we have had plenty of years to devise ways to improve this Thai boxing – Brazilian jiu jitsu cocktail. Adding Kinamutai was our first priority. The single most important thing that we wanted to do, was defeat another person that also knows Thai boxing and Brazilian jiu jitsu, and happens to be bigger, stronger, younger, etc… Kinamutai filled this hole, next we found that by injecting Wing Chun, we were able to control the opponents center line, trap the opponents hands, and even apply follow up arts. Some of these follow up arts can include, but are not limited too, savate, dumog, tai-chi, etc…
When two people are trading blows, in a typical MMA fashion, and all of a sudden somebody enters with a Pac Sao, and the perhaps a Lop Sao, and then if they were to go to a double leg takedown, continuing the match on the ground, we would see a visceral response of most of the audience sitting up in their chair, extremely impressed, in deed this scenario has actually occurred once in the UFC.
Joe Rogan, perhaps the most sophisticated man on planet earth, when it comes to knowing fighters, was blown away by Vitor Belfort’s Straight Blast on Vanderlai Silva. In fact, Joe actually got up out of his chair, and declared at a very high decibels, did you see that he, “Wing Chuned him”.
Once this perfectly timed Wing Chun entry occurs, and you have Pac Saoed and Lop Saoed your opponent, controlling his center line, there is a brief window in which we can actually flow to the enigmatic but functional art of Tai Chi. Picture the opponents hands crossed, and you square up your body and sail him, straight across the octagon, or perhaps a street fight, sailing the opponent into a 65 Chevy. Now we have a contemporary JKD person, able too trade blows in the world of Thai boxing, able to trade counters in the world of jiu jitsu, yet also able to put more sophisticated and sublime arts in, that are more germane to the street, again weather these follow up arts are Wing Chun or Tai- Chi, or locking, or throwing, there main purpose, is to add to the potential degree, of violence, necessary to win the encounter.
Training Drill:
Step 1: Get your Thai boxing and jiu jitsu skills as high as possible.
Step 2: Integrate the Pac Sao as a Portal to enter.
Step 3: Make sure you can perform said Pac Sao on the retraction of any punch or kick.
Step 4: Trap the rear barrier (Wu Sao).
Step 5: Once the students are able to get all the way up to this final point, add the two basic Tai Chi shoves.
Step 6. Add Foot sweeps
Step 7: Add Dumog
Step 8 : Add Savate
Step 9: And now finally by step 9, we should see our students, looking very similar to two MMA cats sparring in the Octagon. They should be trading blows, not too dissimilar from Thai Boxing. Integrating Ground Fighting, integrating biting, indeed if we could for a moment, lets shut our eyes and picture this one combination.
Thai Kick – Pac Sao -Lap Sao - double leg takedown - ground and pound - sweep occurs from the bottom person - the sweeper comes to his feet, with a blitzing straight blast, and a Tai-Chi Sail into the Octagon, concluding with a knee strike.
In conclusion when one can seamlessly integrate, tai chi, locking, biting, with Thai boxing and jiu jitsu, they can fight out of their weight class by 70 pounds, when they are 70 years old.
Please check the Table of Contents for links to other chapters of this Online Book.
