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About Cornerstone
Don’t Be A Copy – Become An Original
We aim to equip students with the right theory and practice so that they can achieve Bruce Lee-like results from this amazingly simple, logical, and devastating self-defense method. Our articles, books, and videos are all efforts to help you – personally – gain better self-defense skill through JKD. We aren’t a Bruce Lee fanboy organization and we don’t care if you look like Bruce when he was in his ready position. We care if what you’re doing works for self-defense. Period. And Jeet Kune Do does! It’s your life, after all. Don’t be a copy – become an original through understanding the true foundations of Lee’s fighting method. What are those foundations…the cornerstone? Easy: Ip Man Wing Chun, old-school boxing and fencing. Clearly, JKD is its own method and not merely those things or else there’s no need to study it in the first place. But the mechanical structures (i.e., straight hits), and tactical principles (like attack & defense of weak targets, footwork, etc.) were derived from Lee’s study of those methods. CORNERSTONE JKD recognizes this and aims to build up a new generation of outstanding martial artists (warrior-scholars) who understand what we call the “iceberg of JKD” – that is, the brutally sweet and swift application that you see in action, which is the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface are the foundations. Or, to switch the analogy, the cornerstone (“Iceberg JKD” just wasn’t a good name lol).
About Jeet Kune Do
The True Jeet Kune Do Concepts
First, we want to clear away so much nonsense about what JKD is and isn’t. It’s not doing whatever Bruce Lee did in the blind attempt to put it all together and yell, Dr. Frankenstein style, “it’s alive!” That’s a straw-man/perversion of what’s called the original method. We’re unabashedly an Original Jeet Kune Do organization. But this doesn’t mean we copy Bruce. Instead, we study the core ideas, techniques, and drills that get us Bruce Lee-like results. This approach isn’t mindless copying, but careful study of and adherence to the true foundational principles of self-defense, which we believe are expressed logically in the way of the intercepting fist method developed by Bruce Lee. Our aim is to help you become the warrior-scholar that Bruce Lee was – understanding and able to apply JKD’s intercepting/stopping philosophy. Again, this approach avoids doing exactly what Bruce Lee did, just for the sake of it. That’s just a bunch of hooey…(a technical term, that). No. The goal is to learn, understand, and apply the core concept of interception of an attack.
And JKD isn’t just a concept either. Notice that the people who teach this never actually get around to defining what that concept is, in fact. Is the JKD Concept efficiency? Well, then, Toyota is doing JKD when it makes an efficient engine. Is it adaptability? Then a BJJ guy is doing JKD when he adapts his grappling to work in an MMA fight. You see, that’s nonsense too. The primary thing to know is that CORNERSTONE JEET KUNE DO isn’t about giving you the techniques and drills only, but the correct ideas too. JKD is a philosophy and science of self-defense. It’s that simple. Jeet Kune Do will teach you to defend yourself in the event of unavoidable violence. It’s a systematic fighting method based on sound philosophical ethics (you have a right to defend yourself against immoral aggression) and logical fistic science rooted in the interception, straight hitting, attack and defense of soft targets and rapid, smooth footwork. This takes all the confusion out of it. This avoids saying vacuous things that sound wise like, “JKD is just a philosophy” without ever defining exactly what that philosophy is. Or that it’s just a “concept” without ever getting around to telling you what the concept is (it’s the interception of the immoral aggression with a scientifically superior straight, non-telegraphic attack at the nearest, most vulnerable target). CORNERSTONE JEET KUNE DO is your place to find clarity of mind and body in the pursuit of the no-nonsense self-defense philosophy of Bruce Lee’s brilliant fighting method.
Fighters and Philosophers
Bruce trained in Ip Man Wing Chun and, as we point out in some of our articles (and detailed in the book (JEET KUNE DO FOUNDATIONS) seeking to better apply his Wing Chun principles in combat, he went on to add old-school boxing to his method. This wasn’t just any old boxing, be warned, but fencing influenced, British style, vertical fist, bare-knuckle boxing.
Ted Wong told us that Lee found this in the work of the great Welsh boxer, Jim Driscoll. Peerless Jim, as he was known, was one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters of all time. Driscoll won 600 boxing matches in the old “fairground booths” before ever turning pro…often using just one simple punch! The straight-lead. Please let that sink in for a moment. Bruce was interested in results and he knew that results came from proper principles and practice. Driscoll, like Lee’s Wing Chun mentor, Wong Shun Leung (Ip Man’s top fighter who had around 100 witnessed challenge fights in which he was undefeated!) was an accomplished fighter. And again, Driscoll did it all with virtually one hand – using his straight left to deadly effect. These weren’t fellows with lots of certificates and seminars; they were fighters and philosophers. Ip Man, Wong Shun Leung, and Jim Driscoll are Lee’s fathers in martial arts and we’ll introduce you to their ideas and tactics so that you can see them for yourself. Their ideas and foundations are baked into the cake of the Original JKD approach. Yes, JKD is its own thing. It’s not merely a modification, but a brilliant self-defense systematic based on shared foundations with those methods.
So, JKD should be no great secret. It’s simple, but not easy. And we aim to provide anyone interested in it the true road map to Bruce Lee-like results, absent the hero worship and politics. Jeet Kune Do is a specific street fighting method developed by Bruce Lee and founded on the true and tested principles, tactics and techniques of Ip Man Wing Chun and Driscoll era (fencing based) boxing. JKD is not merely a nebulous concept, never clearly defined, nor is it only what Lee himself physically practiced. It is Lee’s brilliant and ingenious method of counter-attack based on the long straight-lead, footwork, non-telegraphic striking, elusiveness, and deceptiveness. It isn’t merely Wing Chun or boxing/fencing but an altogether brilliant adaptation of the principles found within those systems.