Jeet Kune Do, abbreviated
JKD, is an eclectic and hybrid style fighting art heavily influenced by the philosophy of martial artist
Bruce Lee, who founded the system in 1967, referred it as "non-classical", suggesting that JKD is a form of Chinese
Kung Fu, yet without form. Unlike more traditional
martial arts, Jeet Kune Do is not fixed or patterned, and is a philosophy with guiding thoughts. It was named for the
Wing Chun concept of interception or attacking while one's opponent is about to attack. Jeet Kune Do practitioners believe in minimal movements with maximum effects and extreme speed. The system works by using different "tools" for different situations, where the situations are divided into ranges, which is kicking, punching, trapping, and grappling, where martial artists use techniques to flow smoothly between them. It is referred to as "a style without style" or "the art of fighting without fighting" as said by Lee himself. As in the screenplay of the Warner Brothers 1973
Enter the Dragonmovie, in which he replied to a challenging man who was asking him, "What's your style?" to which Lee replied, "My style?...You can call it the art of fighting without fighting." Thus one may also ideologically define JKD simply as the Bruce Lee Kung Fu or the Bruce Lee style of Kung Fu. However, the name Jeet Kune Do was often said by Lee to be just a name. He himself often referred it as "the art of expressing the human body" in his writings and in interviews.
Through his studies Lee came to believe that styles had become too rigid and unrealistic. He called martial art competitions of the day "dry land swimming". He believed that combat was spontaneous, and that a martial artist cannot predict it, only react to it, and that a good martial artist should "be like water" and move fluidly without hesitation. In 2004, the Bruce Lee Foundation decided to use the name
Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do (振藩截拳道) to refer to the martial arts system that Lee founded; "Jun Fan" was Lee's
Chinese given name.
