Keeping a system pure

[Guest guest]

All this talk of keeping a system pure brings to

mind another discipline. That is Bruce Lee's theory of

Jeet Kune Do. Mr. Lee realized that all these various

martial arts systems that had been passed down from

generation to generation and had remained pure and intact

suffered from a flaw. In the case of the martial arts this

flaw was a prescribed set of movements or katas in

which to prepare against an attack (plkease forgive the

readers digest version here). Bruce realized that one

cannot truly predict how an attack will come and thus

the fighter must be ready to defend himself in any

number of ways. It was out of this realization that he

gave birth to Jeet Kune Do. Truly an amalgamation of

techniques from many styles as diverse as western boxing,

fencing, muay thai, the phillipino art of kali (which Dan

Inosanto adapted to JKD) , wing chun, grappling, among

many others. At the time when he created this, Mr. Lee

was highly criticized. But, once the effectiveness of

his JKD theorys was revealed, he has thus been

credited as probably the greatest martial artist ever.

Some may debate that. And that is fine. I'm not here

to defend Bruce Lees credibility. My point is,

sometimes systems need to grow and change in order to

become better. There are those who are resistant to

change and fight it every step of the way. If change

comes out of sound reasoning and not just for changes

sake, then perhaps its worth considering.

<br><br>Remeber don't mistake change for progress, but then again

there is no progress without

change.<br><br>Respectfully,<br><br>ishogun

[Guest guest]

I know what you are saying and I agree. But I

wouldn't waste my energy trying to help those (you know

who you are) out there to see the light. There will

always be those poor souls who glom on to a system/guru,

who think it is the end and be all, who will fight to

the death to defend its purity, who are so weak

minded that they can't live without some guru telling

them how to live. I will say a prayer for them.