Jeet Kune Do & Wing Chun

Jeet Kune Do is the martial art philosophy developed by Bruce Lee. It means the "Way of the Intercepting Fist". The book, "The Tao of Jeet Kune Do" is a collection of Bruce Lee's personal notes and thoughts on life and martial arts.

Bruce Lee trained in Wing Chun under Yip Man in Hong Kong. He also trained with fellow Wing Chun students Wong Shun Leung and William Cheung. At first, Bruce Lee called his art, and what he taught, Chinese Gung Fu. Later, he renamed it Jeet Kune Do.

Why did Bruce Lee create Jeet Kune Do?  He couldn't make Wing Chun structure work for him. So he used footwork from boxing and fencing to help him in the areas he couldn't apply his Wing Chun.

Most of today's Wing Chun teachers have the same problem. They don't understand enough about the development of Wing Chun structure in order to put in the proper training to make it work for them. In other words, they haven't learned enough in order to train the right way.

Here are three developmental areas of Wing Chun. They are listed in order of what must come first in your development.

  1. Structure/Root - This is your root or your alignment. Basically, it is your bodies solidity to through its connections to the ground.
  2. Sensitivity/Awareness - This is your chi or ability to feel and sense for openings.
  3. Power - (In Cantonese, Lik) Your application of shocking ability. This is last on the list. Trying to develop this too soon will ruin your entire development.