It's nothing new

As much as I love the movie "The Karate Kid" and as much as I love the theory of Mr. Myagi and Danielsan, those relationships of teacher and student are extremely rare if not nonexistent. The old TV series "Kung Fu" introduced us to the blind Shaolin Master and his student Grasshopper. The idea for this show belonged to Bruce Lee. Lee initially trained under a Wing Chun master named Yip Man, who was Lee's only formal instructor. However, Lee trained with many martial artist over the years and meticulously studied every martial arts he could get a book on or learn about through other means. His style of Jeet Kune Do, which by the way was intended to be his personal style of Jun Fan Gung Fu, and not a system to be categorized and taught to others. More accurately students of his were trained in Jun Fan Gung Fu. However, after he wrote Tao of Jeet Kune Do and his sub sequential death, the adoption of the name of JKD rapidly spread. Lee was the first real mixed martial artist. As his system incorporated aspects of Wing Chun, Filipino Martial arts, Boxing, Wrestling, Judo, Fencing, Chin Na, and Kenpo. One of Lee's top students Dan Insanto, who trained with him for about ten years was already a 5th degree black belt in American Kempo Karate when they met. Insanto is of Filipino heritage and introduced Lee to these styles. So whats the point of all this? A few years ago i bought a book about Hapkido, a style I trained in for a year. In the book there are two pages that demonstrate the same technique performed by four different styles. There are subtle differences between the moves, but ultimately the skills are the same. That led me to the understanding that Bruce Lee also came to, "a punch is a punch and a block is a block." Another truth is, you can only bend an arm so many ways. There are several styles that borrow from each other or are influenced by another. Some are due to regional location and others are due to similar philosophies and yet others are due to the ease if insertion of new skills into that style. What you see a lot is the blending together of Kenpo, Filipino Martial Arts, and JKD. This is were the bulk of my martial arts training has taken place. Lets look at these videos and see how they have a similar foundation of movement, but you can see how the primary style influences the motion and development of the skill. The drill is called Hubud, it is a flow drill that has many purposes and variations. We have been doing it in class off of a hook punch instead of the traditional short inward chopping motion.

Here the drill is used with a straight punch that then flows into a Kenpo self defense technique.



Here you see Paul Vunak, a student of Dan Insanto's and a very good martial artist, even though he is a little goofy and eccentric. He is using hubud to move into trapping and then to clinch for a headbutt.



Here we have two Kali (Filipino MA) students that take it into a lock and takedown.



Finally we have two Koryu Uchinadi students. KU is a style based on traditional Okinawan martial arts which uses flow drill extensively to train its students. Take a look at the rank of these two students. you might also recognize a couple of the other drills on the clip, because we have done them. I first was introduced to KU about two years ago. It is a very progressive style. The students here are also doing the drill using elbows instead of the inward chop.



So what does this tell us?
Just as the Bible says..."There is nothing new under the sun."
A lot of people like to take credit for a lot of things, but its usually already being done some place else.