(I know it's old news, but I just got a copy of
the event, and recently got a chance to study it.)
<br><br>I first heard about the results of the event from
Sifu Armando. After reading the results on his email,
the email said something at the end that has stayed
with me since: grapplers must know how to strike (see
Silva vs. Sakuraba), and strikers must know how to
grapple (see Vovchanchin vs. Telligman) in order to
survive. I know it has been common knowledge for JKDers to
be well-versed in all ranges for a long time
now...but nothing has brought it home more devastatingly
than this recent event. It's not enough to be a KO
artist (Vovchanchin), or a bjj prodigy (Gracie or Goes)
anymore. You have to sharpen all your tools in ALL ranges
in order to survive an event that is as close to
total, empty hand combat that Pride is. <br><br>But,
there's another interesting phenomenom that I could not
overlook. Quite a few of the fights that ended standing
(Inoue vs. Mezger in particular)...ended AFTER A CLINCH!
And some of the fights that ended on the ground
(Coleman vs. Goes, Sakuraba vs. Silva), ended with STRIKES
ON THE GROUND! What happened to groundfights ending
with submissions? what happened to stand-up matches
and their clean KO's? What does this mean to us, as
practitioners of JKD?<br><br>Well, on one level, the answer is
obvious: learn to strike on the ground, and be able to
grapple while standing, because the reality of combat
demands it to be so. Pure and simple<br><br>However, on
another level, it means that we cannot be bound to any
fixed notions of what could or should happen in a
particular range, because literally ANYTHING can happen in
that range. Sure, on the ground, you can choke, apply
locks, etc...but you can also punch, knee, headbutt, and
bite!! And, while standing, of course you can kick and
punch, but you can also use a wrestler's clinch, or a
muay thai plumb!! The flip-side to all this is that
your opponent can do the same to you. <br><br>Being
well-versed in bjj doesn't make you invulnerable to strikes
on the ground anymore than wing-chun can make you
invulnerable to clinching while in trapping range. Combat, as
Bruce Lee has been known to say, is a MULTI-DIMENSIONAL
affair, and has little to nothing to do with fighting
styles. A fighting style can certainly FAMILIARIZE you
with a particular range, and most assuredly help you
develop ATTRIBUTES for that range...but no style can ever
prepare a fighter for the TOTALITY of that range, let
alone the totality of combat. <br><br>So next time
you're sparring, and you find yourself in "kicking"
range, don't immediately go to "savate" mode; or, if
you're on the ground, don't immediately think "a ha! bjj
mode!" If we think of each range as a problem to be
solved by assuming a certain "mode" or "style", we'll
only be cheating ourselves to whatever possibilities
that range has to offer. In the end, we'll only be a
collection of styles, and that's not what we're after as JKD
practitioners. An accumulation of branches doesn't make a
tree.<br><br>To paraphrase Bruce Lee: "For every way, there is a
limitation. When you have found a way, therein lies your
limitation."