The transcript below is from the video “Why Dan Inosanto Is Wrong!” by Greenville Academy of Martial Arts.

Dan Inosanto (Martial Arts Instructor):

… to him. For us, we might have to find another path but for Bruce Lee, that was the path he chose. Things that Bruce Lee did, this is what people have realized, what he did a lot of people can’t do. Like he could really shell shock a person with his Lee jab, a lot of people cannot. We could score with that, we could put the guy off balance, for instance, we might even hurt him but we can’t take a man out. He had tremendous power and we don’t have that, you know. And then there are those people, let’s say, I study Aikido, I study Jiu-Jitsu, I study Karate, I study Taekwondo, all put together and they’ll call it Jeet Kune Do. Is it Jeet Kune Do? It’s Jeet Kune Do for them. So I would say if you did that, put Karate and Aikido and Taekwondo and maybe Wrestling, that could be your Jeet Kune Do. That’s correct.

Sifu Jason (Greenville Academy of Martial Arts):

Hey guys, Sifu Jason here with Greenville Academy of Martial Arts. Thank you so much for watching. Today’s subject is a big one and I want to be careful with it because we are not bashing the great veritable master Dan Inosanto. He has done an incredible amount of good in the world of martial arts and he’s just a fantastic gentleman and a wonderful representative of so much of what is needed today in this day and age where it’s really hard for everybody to get along and he is a great ambassador for goodwill and knowledge and for consistent seeking of improvement.

That being said, what we want to talk about is an air he makes that has massive ramifications for our understanding and our personal development as we can go that we think, educationally, will impair and impede your particular, your personal journey towards self-defense efficiency. So, what is it exactly? Is that he starts from a premise that is flawed. The premise that he says that Bruce Lee could kill people with his Lee jab, he could knockout [inaudible]. He is like a little Marciano, he said. And then, ready? Yeah, that is true. Bruce Lee was extraordinarily hard for his size. Then he says that, well, you can do that, we can do that. So we can do Bruce Lee’s personal Jeet Kune Do and so now we need to go off and do a bunch of different things.

Sifu Jason (Greenville Academy of Martial Arts):

We need to do BJJ, and Muay Thai, and you know, John Wick dead dog avenging, Russian mob boss selling, killing, rip grimes zombie shooting, and you know, Jedi saber fencing, everything. We have to get all these things under our control so that we can find our truth, so that we can absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically our own. There is nothing wrong with cross-training. There is so many of us who do it. The problem is in thinking that that accumulation of stuff is going to make me a good self-defender. That was actually the opposite of what Bruce Lee was doing. Just because you can be and whoever else cannot hit as hard with a Lee jab as Bruce Lee did, doesn’t mean we can’t use the intercepting fist method. In fact, it’s actually in coming upon to do that to make sure we don’t complicate it because we don’t have those attributes., if that makes sense.

Think about it. If Bruce could hit, let’s say a 12 gauge, and you’re shooting a 9mm, it’s still effective. You know, we are talking about a level of degrees here. If you use the right structure, you should be able to land a strike that’s gonna stop them. If that doesn’t stop them, you could move, hit him again, hit him a second time. You could do that twice. You mainly did then and add what is specifically your own, you mainly did use more defensive cover, you mainly did slip more and parry more, or move a little bit more than Bruce but you don’t need a complete jettison the system and the fighting method itself and go into completely contradictory systems. And I don’t mean that the systems are terrible or evil, I just mean the goal and structures of them are different than the goal and structure of Jeet Kune Do and putting them together is no good.

Dan Inosanto (Martial Arts Instructor):

Myself, if I was a person who was still getting better in martial art, I would study under a good Wing Chun teacher. Because I do think that is important. I would study under a wrestler because I do believe they are highly conditioned, they know how to understand sensitivity from another perspective. I would study Filipino martial art and study things like hubad, things of that sort because it’s only gonna make you well…

Sifu Jason (Greenville Academy of Martial Arts):

Ted Wong told me one time, we were having a bite to eat and he said, you know, you wouldn’t put pizza with chocolate in so many cases, a lot of things you wouldn’t just mix together. Just adding something doesn’t necessarily make it better, right? We know that in our personal lives, right? Like, for example, your marriage, if you add another woman, it doesn’t necessarily make your marriage any better, kind of complicate things, it probably attracts a divorce lawyer at some point, you know. Adding a bunch of extra things to your self-defense is a catastrophic mistake because what you need is a brutal simplicity. Don’t complicate things especially if you don’t have more attributes than the other guy. You have to simplify them. Your goal should always be simplicity.

Sifu Jason (Greenville Academy of Martial Arts):

If you can’t hit as hard or as fast as Bruce Lee, the last thing in the world you want to do, not make yourself more complicated. And you listen to Dan Inosanto’s interview and he’s got so much informed things to say about different systems like Muay Thai and Savate, and so on, and it’s all wonderful. But it’s complicated. That takes a lot of time to learn all that stuff and you are supposed to absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own. You are not going to have anything to add because you’re going to be broke using all these different systems. You know, the idea is simplicity. Because of that flawed premise that you are not as strong as Bruce, you are not as gifted physically as Bruce, so therefore you can’t do what Bruce did, he then adds a bunch of complications to it.

Dan Inosanto (Martial Arts Instructor):

I would say that a lot of people would say wrong, the most common I hear is, well, Dan Inosanto has [inaudible] the waters of Jeet Kune Do because he teaches all of that. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. If you like classical music, you should be able to go with the pop, you should be able to the western music, you should be able to go with hip hop, or whatever you like, I don’t know which you like. And I don’t think there is anything wrong in liking classical music and pop music or western or jazz or whatever. I think a person should be able to do that. In other words, it would be like, okay, I eat Italian food, I like it and it is good and that’s all I’m gonna eat. And that’s okay too but you should maybe eat something else besides Italian food no matter how good it is.

Sifu Jason (Greenville Academy of Martial Arts):

I think that’s essential air in the Dan Inosanto philosophy that will infect you and prohibit you, it will impede you from learning to use a very simple and efficacious system of the intercepting fist method. So just think in terms of Boxing history, look at the different ways a jab is used by different boxers; Jim Driscoll, Jack Dempsey, Joe Lewis, look at Ali, look at Liston, look at Foreman. The way Foreman was very fast in [inaudible] and he jammed up the forward lines so people had to go around them and that’s what he nailed them, right? So Foreman was able to out-jab faster jabbers because of his hack. That’s what it means to have no way as well. That was a genius [inaudible] not that he absorbed all of these different martial arts over like a couple of years’ research. It was that he knew exactly what was essential. So, hear that absorb what is useful, you know, in this context, if you hit really hard, you might not need to slip this much. You may not need to forewalk as much as the next guy. You may be able to carry the guard in a little bit different way. You make slight adjustments. It doesn’t mean to try to absorb a bunch of different systems that are in many cases contradictory to one another and then assuming that’s your personal Jeet Kune Do. That is a misidentification of those facts.

So once again, in summation, I hope this helps because I love this system. I love lots of people to get better. Don’t throw it out. Don’t jettison the intercepting fist method because Dan Inosanto said you’re not as strong as Bruce. You absolutely can do it. You should maybe have to do it a little differently. And then lastly, think about it, if Bruce is shooting in the face with a bazooka and you’re hitting a guy with a 45mm, they are still just as dead, they are still just as injured. Just because we don’t have Bruce Lee-like attributes, it doesn’t mean we can’t get Bruce Lee-like results. Other people have done that in so many ways. So hope this helps. I know this is going to open up a kind of [inudible] for people to get mad at me just because I had the audacity, the temerity to say that Dan Inosanto was mistaken or something.

Sifu Jason (Greenville Academy of Martial Arts):

We are not calling him bad names. I’m not criticizing the man, nor adding harm to him. It’s completely on the philosophical and logical extension of those ideas. It is philosophy 101 boys and girls, if you start from a flawed presupposition, you’re gonna end up with a flawed system. And a flawed presupposition is that since you’re not as strong and fast as Bruce, you can’t do Jeet Kune Do, you can’t use the intercepting fist method. You have to do something different and then you have to answer the question of why is adding complexity gonna help somebody who doesn’t have outstanding physical attributes, which is what I think is a real problem for it is that it leads you, the trainee, the student, thinking I’ve got to learn more martial arts for me to find my truth, you know. You have to be specifically brutal and simple with the basics. And you can do that. Even if you can’t do it like Bruce Lee, you can still do it. Find a way to do it.

That’s our message for you. I hope that’s helpful. The spirit isn’t to be mean to anybody, the spirit is to try to educate the folks out there. I know there is a lot of confusion out there. I hear it a lot. I hope this is taken and received in a manner that it is extended. We’ll see in the comments and questions. I used no ad hominem attacks and I used logic with it and hopefully, I was respectful. If I made a mistake, I apologise. I know that Mr. Dan Inosanto’s reputation precedes us and he deserves all the respect he gets in that regard and I tried to extend that to him even though I said I think that he’s wrong with this particular idea. So that’s my speech for today. Hopefully, it’s educational. Please let me know your thoughts and comments below and if you do like it, click the like and subscribe button, you can exercise your finger and we look forward to hearing from you. And I’m sure this will be a robust debate. So thanks for watching.