JKD is Self-Defense, MMA isn’t! Seriously
January 17, 2026
Don’t take MMA if you want to learn self-defense. Learn Jeet Kune Do.
Seriously.
No kidding.
Jeet Kune Do is a self-defense science by virtue of helping smaller people defend themselves against what’s usually a larger and stronger attacker.
It does this by the brilliant integration of the ready-position, footwork, and straight non-telegraphic hits from the leading (power) hand and foot. Not only that, but these hits are specifically used to target the enemy’s weakest areas. Defense and offense are one unit – the footwork, parries, slips, traps, feints, jams, checks…all support the interception concept so as not to fall prey to oversimplification.
The goal is, in other words, to keep yourself as safe as possible in the event of unavoidable violence via the simple, yet comprehensive, intercepting systematic of Jeet Kune Do. The primary strikes are the eye jab, leading straight punch, snap/hook kick, and side/straight kick. Those strikes target, importantly, the enemy’s weakest targets: eyes, nose, groin, knee. There is simply no way to toughen those targets through conditioning. The JKD ready-position is “ready” to fire those specific tools at those specific targets. Of course, there are other auxiliary tools one can use but these are primary due to the brutal logic of combat: attack the enemy where they are the weakest.
The footwork of Jeet Kune Do is used to maneuver the ready-position. Movement isn’t for the sake of it anymore than a good writer just adds words to a page and calls it a book (Hemingway would be appalled!). There’s a purpose to all movements and the idea of footwork in JKD is to move the defender to where they’re safe and the enemy is not. Notice the non-contradictory integration of the elements: ready-position that’s ready to fire those non-telegraphic straight hits at the nearest, most vulnerable target and the footwork that moves that ready position. All other movements in JKD such as head movement, parries, traps, etc., are in the service of this primary scheme. They are consequences of a brief challenge to the primary interception/countering goal of Jeet Kune Do and not the primary actions.
A swift, brutal kick to the knee that sends the patella to a place God didn’t originally put it is a bonafide self-defense winner. And whether you kick an angry attacker’s knee in Greenville, South Carolina, Tokyo, or Moscow, the physics are the same. An eye jab on Main Street in Greenville is the same as one in Baghdad. Eye balls and knees are very much like an immature person…very averse to significant pressure.
Oh, but there’s the footwork to consider too. A dude can’t hit what he can’t reach. Again, if I’m in Greenville and you throw a punch at me from London, it won’t score. It won’t score if you’re just outside of arm’s reach either. Whether you’re in London or a wee bit too far away in Greenville, you can’t hit me. That’s always a fact and that’s why Jeet Kune Do is a science of self-defense. Footwork is key because it allows the self-defender to control the range. If you can’t counterattack right away (the stop-hit) you simply use footwork to negate the attack and then you counter. What if the “punch” you were evading is a knife? Or brass-knuckles are involved? It doesn’t matter because the enemy can’t reach you.
MMA does none of this. And that’s why it isn’t a self-defense system. It’s a combat sport, not self-defense.
On a host of issues, MMA fails to logically practice self-defense. This isn’t a small distinction but one that can save, or end your life. It attacks “legal” targets, leaving the defender at the mercy of having to win, when their life depends upon it, a “fair” fight in which they’re likely facing a stronger, larger opponent.
Let’s say you’re a NASCAR driver. You drive a car in those races designed specifically for that task – to win the race. There’s no doubt that a car that wins a NASCAR race is very fast. That’s not in doubt. Likewise, there’s no doubt that an MMA champion is a fine athlete. But taking the family on vacation to grandma’s house is sort of hard to do in stock car. It’s difficult to fit the kids and all the luggage in the back of a Camaro. For that sort of trip one needs something like an SUV. Are we saying SUV’s are better than stock cars? Absolutely not. The question needs context to be properly answered.
An SUV is objectively better than a Camaro for a family vacation. The stock car is clearly superior to the family vehicle in the Daytona 500. Context is king.
Also, are we saying that a NASCAR driver can’t drive to grandma’s house? In the immortal words of former president Biden, “c’mon man!” Of course he can drive well. We’re just saying he’s not driving his race car and, important to note, he’s not driving the way he does on the track (unless he’s driving in Atlanta…just saying).
We need to look at MMA and all sport fighting this way. The goal of “prize fighting” is undeniably different than that of self-defense. To conflate the two, as many have erroneously done, leads to all sorts of issues downstream. MMA lacks a systematic approach to the attack and defense of the body’s weakest targets. This leaves the MMA trainee at the mercy of their attributes. In other words, they must be the superior athlete in order to use their training to survive a self-defense scenario. Don’t get us wrong: strength, speed, and weight certainly matter in any physical altercation. The issue here is that a self-defense system like Jeet Kune Do trains to overcome deficits of these via the aforementioned systematic. MMA completely ignores such a critical issue.
And what of weapons? There are no guarantees that the JKD fighter can swiftly avoid the knife lunge and successfully counterattack. They might fail, but there’s no contradiction in the approach. MMA, though, is literally built to fail in the event of weapons due to its sport-based systematic. A double-leg takedown is a bad idea if the enemy is armed. Or has opportunistic friends that might take the opportunity to play Beckham on your head.
Again, for the intellectually hard of hearing: we aren’t saying that Jon Jones can’t make adjustments to use his skills for self-defense. What we are saying is that Jones is a superlative athlete not represented in the rest of the population and that he’d have to abandon key elements of his training in order to succeed at self-defense. The question isn’t whether a champion like Jones can defend himself with MMA, but can you? Or me? Or are we better suited to learn a specific self-defense system like Jeet Kune Do? We’d say the latter, of course.