Customer Reviews

Unlimited (Jeet Kune Do)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book was not designed to be a manual for self defense. It was written to show how martial artist can apply the principals and philosophy of Jeet Kune Do to their art and this book accomplishes this feat perfectly. This book will help martial artists of any style and will hopefully teach them to forget about the limitaions of conforming to one specific style and will encourage them to intergrate all they can into their training to make themselves well rounded fighters who have an answer to every combat situation.

I think that this book is great for martial artists of all levels. I wish that I had this perspective when I started training. The book gives a great outline of what martial arts is about, along with lots of photos that illustrate how to adapt to different attacks. Very good!

Sifu Burt Richardson breaks down the concepts of Jeet Kune Do so that martial artists of all disciplines can better understand the holistic approach to the study of martial arts. Burton starts with philosophy and tactics, then gives a detailed explanation of the five categories. He concludes by illustrating how these concepts can be applied through hundreds of photos. This book in not about a particular system, but how the individual martial artist can practice more efficiently and with greater understanding than ever before.

The first half of this book does a pretty good job of scientifically breaking down martial arts and training. The book starts off showing different symbolic jestures in the martial arts, such as bowing, and then explains the meaning of Bruce Lee's JKD symbol, then Richardson's JKDU symbol. Whoopie. Next is a list of the tennets of JKDU's philosophy, as well as it's fighting philosophy/tactics. Interesting that the two should be separate. There's actually some good stuff here, though. Next, the five ways of attack are explained, as well as the three ways of defense; all very scientific, and all are included in any good JKD book elsewhere. Mr. Richardson then gives his seven ranges of combat. There are four empty-hand ranges and three weapons ranges. I've grown out of the whole range concept thanks to "Mastering Jiu-Jitsu" by Renzo Gracie, and I'd recomend that book to any martial artist. Six different postures are then classified; this does little more than make you aware that your body can be in at least six different possitions. Then there's three pages on how there are billions of techniques, and a good bit about techniques as words, and how you learn to write your own sentences. Different methods of training are classified next, including a section on spiritual training. Once again, this is more or less to classify what you are doing. Then, from pages 56-137, there is nothing but crap. Not really crap, just a bunch of techniques to show you how much the author knows, really. There wasn't much here that was related back to JKD principles. If you don't know a lot of techniques, then this section might interest you. Overall, though, I didn't see anything really new on the JKD front, and it seemed like the author just wrote this book to promote himself and his "style", not to help others grow in the martial arts. Nothing at all like the other JKD books out there. It's a shame, because I do like Mr. Richardson's articles in IKF, and I hear that he's a good instructor. Shame none of that showed in this text.

This is a fair-good book that shows some good techniques for a variety of attacks. However it should outline sections on takedowns, blocks/parries, and finishes. If you know little about defense then I suggest that you get another book/video first.

Not the best work on JKD. Padded with pictures this book does convey the essence of JKD Concepts but I was looking for more of a techniques oriented text. Try Entering to Trapping to Grappling by Hartsell if you're like me and want to see some techniques you can add to your repetoire.

In my opinion no one can express what jeet kune do is really about except the master Bruce Lee himself since he never really got into the hardcore aspects of it before his tragic death. All these people who think they know Jeet Kune Do have no idea that what they do know could be no more then the 2nd class of it. The real tragic part is no one alive knows the full art of Jeet Kune Do since his son passed away. He hadnt taught anyone long enough for anyone alive to know all of Jeet Kune Do.