Several comments for you. first the only people that claim to teach JKD are those that stand to make money by using the term as if it is a style. Bruce Lee said JKD was a philosophy, not a style. People argue that he taught technique so it is part of the style. But the fail to acknowledge that first the philosophy could not be taught if the student had no techniques to apply the principle of the philosophy to. so JKD is not a style but must have some techniques from some where to be put to use. Bruce Lee never recanted his claim that JKD was not a style, so it is settled. Anyone that claims to teach JKD may or may not be teaching valid fighting techniques.

As to the levels.... Bruce Lee did use a sort of rank system at one time. He used an empty circle as the first rank and the last rank. The levels in between them were represented by a Yin Yang symbol. Each new level had different colors.

Personally I'd be wary of anyone that claims to teach JKD. There are many out there that are trying to use Bruce Lee's fame to gain themselves students. Some are good martial artists, others are nothing but con artists. With any martial art or fighting art it is left up to you to investigate the instructor and his background in order to know how legitimate he is. Failure to do this has been common and means that there are a lot of students that trust instructors that are not worthy of that trust.

Best of Luck!

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I agree as well. Sounds like a scam. Finding a qualified teacher is really tough. Dan Inosanto (in his 70s!) still operates a school on the West coast... I think a couple of Lee's first-gen students are still running around...

But there are an awful lot of phonies..... Anyone can hang out a "JKD taught here" shingle.

I always recommend the same thing. Obtain copies of all of Lee's written material. Get The Tao Of Jeet Kun Do, and Lee's five-volume "Fighting Technique" books. I think the Fighting Technique is available compiled into one volume now.....

http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-Lees-Fightin...

Yep, not even expensive.

With that in hand, you can at least check out anyone claiming to teach Lee's principals and decide if what they're doing is half-ways authentic or total rot.

Bear in mind that Lee has been dead for 40 years and who knows where he might have gone by now? JKD was only in the beginnings of development when Lee died; he mentions in the Tao that he needed to "look into" various grappling styles and he wanted to produce an 11-volume book series on his ideas.

I agree with pugpaws2 here, Lee detested "styles", and JKD is a philosophy he applied to his martial art.



JKD is applicable to all martial arts, and every practitioner more or less follows that line of thinking. Keep and use what works, reject what doesn't.



I have applied this thinking to shotokan for years. Does that make my style JKD or Shotokan?



It is pure shotokan, with the principle of JKD applied.

I am TaeKwondo learning from last 1 Year. but now i am intrested in JKD. so i found a instructor near my town place he told me minimum 4 year requried to acheive first level of JKD and JKD has 5 Levels so i need total 20 year to learn it complete. i want to know is it true because i couldn't found total levels of JKD or how much minimum time required to learn it