This is borrowed from Burton Richardson’s JKD Unlimited. Because our philosophy mirrors his, there’s no point reinventing the wheel. I am merely copying and pasting these articles and giving full credit to guro Burton, where it belongs.
1. WE TRAIN FIRST AND FOREMOST FOR STREET SELF-DEFENSE.
We train to be effective in the street environment, then make adjustments to the training for students who wish to enter sporting competitions. Not the other way around. Actually, we are not a competition oriented group, so there are no adjustments to be made. It’s wise to know this in advance.
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2. WE TRAIN WITH PROGRESSIVE RESISTANCE.
A real attacker is going to resist your effort 100%. If you want to learn how to fight, you have to practice fighting against someone who is fighting back. Progressive resistance allows everyone, regardless of experience, to do this in a safe, fun training environment.
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3. WE TRAIN AS COMPLETE SELF-DEFENSE ATHLETES:
We train to be prepared for almost any situation: all the ranges (standing, clinch, ground), multiple opponents, weaponry and a variety of environments. We want each student to actually train in as many self-defense scenarios as possible so that if a student gets into a bad situation they already have experience in that particular situation.
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4. HAVE FUN!
I am planning to train for the rest of my life, and I assume that my students will do the same. If we are going to spend this much time working on developing functional skills, we should be having fun doing it. If you are training for a competition, you have to grind and do a lot of very uncomfortable and painful training. If you are training for self-defense, you should work very hard at times, but it should not be a big grind. The training sessions should be so enjoyable that we look forward to each class. Our classes in Honolulu, Hawaii are held in a very relaxed but disciplined atmosphere. Lots of laughing and joking while training hard. As Bruce Lee said, “You should train seriously, but don’t seriously train.” Well said!
