Getting Started in Jeet Kune Do Classes
Dress the same way you would if you went to the gym. We train barefoot but you can also wear socks if you have nasty stank feet. Seriously though foot hygiene is a thing.
• A positive attitude, a mind hungry to learn, a smile / handshake.
• Payment via cash, Venmo, PayPal, credit / debit card, or check.
• We train barefoot or in socks if you prefer.
• A water bottle and a towel is optional.
• If you have any martial arts gear such as training knives, sticks, guns, boxing gloves, shin protectors, etc. feel free to bring them but we probably won’t need them most of the time. I have a lot of that equipment already.
• We have no uniforms so wear comfortable exercise or street clothes.
• If you are a minor bring your legal guardian to sign paperwork for you.
Our Jeet Kune Do classes are designed for beginners and experienced folks alike. Most of our students started as beginners to martial arts so they know what it is like to be nervous and apprehensive.
The drills we do in class scale to your proficiency level. You will only ever train at a pace that you are ready for. For instance if we are blocking punches we will show you how to defend them and then throw them very slowly at you until you get the hang of it. Then as you get better the punches come faster. Regardless you will always feel like you are making progress and will not be overwhelmed or beat up.
One day when you are the experienced fighter and a new person starts you will be the one slowing down and helping your new classmate build confidence.
Iron sharpens iron.
The first day can be nerve racking for most people. Finding a new location, seeing new faces, learning new complicated things. Wondering if you will get hurt, wondering if people will be cool or a-holes.
But don’t worry – we want to make sure your experience is a good one. After all we want cool people to be part of our class.
First off unlike some martial arts schools I never throw people under the bus and expect them to be good at martial arts right off the bat. Both myself and your fellow students will treat you with respect and like a friend and expect the same in return.
If you are new to martial arts training expect to feel just slightly overwhelmed and that’s ok because you are learning something new. Each class you will improve at your own pace and will continue getting better and better as you consistently attend class. It’s just like riding a bicycle.
Everyone you do drills with will slow down and make sure you understand what the drill is about and why we are doing it.
We won’t beat you up, humiliate you, or make you feel stupid.
You do not need to be fit or in shape. However if you are very out of shape or have a lot of joint pain / dysfunction please talk with Brian first to review options.
Also consider joining the optional Kettlebell Fitness / Train with Brian Classes.
Yes. Please email or call me so I can make sure that you are a good fit for our Jeet Kune Do classes.
What is Your Jeet Kune Do / Realistic Martial Arts Training Like?
At Progressive Combat Systems we don’t beat people up. We understand that you have a job, family, etc. and don’t need bruises, black eyes, and missing teeth. Well you might get some bruises occasionally.
A high-contact martial arts school caters to the young and dumb… sorry but it’s true. I’m here to teach people how to fight and avoid getting beat up. That doesn’t mean you won’t have punches thrown at you… in fact once you get good enough we will throw full-speed punches at you but you and your partners will always train in a safe manner so accidents don’t happen.
Contact sparring demands the use of safer sport techniques and eliminates the most effective striking and other responses that are illegal in sports such as Brazilian Jujitsu or MMA. Don’t get me wrong I will teach you BJJ and MMA but in a more street-based model with the intention of ending the fight quicker using more effective means.
I train people the same way Paul Vunak taught me and countless others. Slow = Smooth = Fast = Powerful
The most successful fighters in the world like Georges St-Pierre, the Cuban national boxing team (country with the most gold medals in boxing), famous Muay Thai schools in Thailand, and many more UFC fighters opt out of hard contact sparring in favor of more relaxed drills mixed with some light contact. Success leaves clues – Tony Robbins
We begin with a fun energizing warm up for your joints and visual system.
Next we practice gun disarms and usage. (If you have a CCW and carry you WANT THESE SKILLS)
Often but not always we do some knife fighting drills.
We always work on fundamentals of stand up fighting: boxing & kicking skills, footwork, entries into the RAT (Rapid Assault Tactics)
Next we move into the trapping range and work on Thai clenching drills, takedown defense, and terminating the fight up close.
We usually do some ground fighting using street-modified Brazilian Jujitsu drills.
Often we will drill real-world scenario drills utilizing all of your skills and implementing Rapid Assault Tactics (RAT).
We do specialty months where we might focus on multiple attacker drills, car jacking, etc.
We also go into legal issues, deescalation skills, how to acquire witnesses, what to say to 911, police, etc.
The goal is to make you a well-rounded warrior capable of dealing with anything that comes your way. Not just a 1-on-1 fair fight against someone your own size, gender, and weight class.
Mixed Martial Arts is a sport. Sports are designed for entertainment and competition. Competition has rules and as such it has particular tactics that work best for that sport. However the street has different rules. Violence starts differently than does a match in the ring and the tactics are different.
Tony Blauer said it best, “sport fighters are fighting for real but they are not in a real fight.”
We can learn a lot from sport fighting including MMA but we must always remember that our opponent(s) will not be in our weight class, gender class, will possibly be armed, will probably have friends who jump in to help AND there are legal consequences to fighting. I teach you to fight for self-defense not for glory and ego!
As Paul Vunak has said, “you have heard of dirty boxing? Well we do filthy MMA!”
I will teach you how to win against all 3 fights
1) The fight before the fight – your confidence, awareness, and preparation
2) The actual fight – simple, aggressive, and direct
3) And I will teach you to do the right thing to avoid the legal consequences
BJJ is ground fighting only and Muay Thai is stand up fighting only. Both are sports and thus have rules that don’t apply to the streets.
Neither BJJ nor Muay Thai teach you how to deal with multiple attackers, knives, guns, or people bigger and stronger than you. Some people will argue against that last point but if they did then why do they both have gender and weight classes?
God-forbid I teach a 125-lb female to kickbox against a 225-lb man when her life might depend on it. That would be impractical and unethical.
We integrate BJJ and Muay Thai because they have very effective techniques. However we modify the techniques and tactics to be real-world ready. We also wrap everything into the context of Rapid Assault Tactics; the program created by Paul Vunak for SEAL Team 6.
Krav Maga was created by Imi Lichtenfeld a Hungarian-born Jew and is technically the fighting system of the Israeli Defense Forces. Krav Maga was designed to work in street fighting scenarios and to be direct and effective.
I would say that what I teach and real Krav Maga are cousins. The similarities are our aggressiveness, directness, mindset to win, straight-forward attacks, and real-world approach.
Having said that… I can only speak to what I have heard from some of my students who have taken both Krav Maga and my training and that is that many Krav Maga schools are a sloppy blend of intense cardio exercise mixed with bad MMA training. They are good at turning profits which means they sign you up for long-term contacts so that they keep making money long after you quit going due to being burned out from the intense training.
A far cry from the intention of Imi Lichtenfeld. If you find a great Krav school then that is great. But then again finding any good martial arts school is pretty tough, even a good Jeet Kune Do school.
I’m sure there are amazing Krav Maga schools out there and if you find one and enjoy the class then of course you should stick with it.
Great question. The fact of the matter is that Jeet Kune Do is actually not a style at all. In the book Tao of Jeet Kune Do Bruce Lee lamented over having given JKD a name. He said that to give it a name was to put a limitation on it and Bruce Lee’s ideal was to have no limitations.
Jeet Kune Do is a concept. That means that Jeet Kune Do is formless, it is meant to adapt to the individual (you) and your needs.
For instance in the 60s when Bruce Lee was developing his martial arts guns were not nearly as prolific as they are in today’s violence. As such the Jeet Kune Do that I teach has evolved to help us deal with the real possibility of gun violence and using our own firearms if you choose to carry one.
Now if JKD is formless then it can look like a mess of nonsense without some structure behind it. This is where I combine many of the most functional martial arts styles and blend them into a system that is flexible enough to allow you to modify it to suit you and your particular needs.
Some styles that I pull from are: Jun Fan Kickboxing (Bruce Lee’s style), western boxing, Muay Thai, Brazlian Jujitsu, Wing Chun Kung Fu, Filipino Escrima, Krav Maga, MMA, Wrestling, modern combative handgun training, Kino Mutai, and a few others. And everything is formed around Rapid Assault Tactics; the systems that Paul Vunak created for SEAL Team 6.
Some other Jeet Kune Do schools teach “Original Jeet Kune Do” which is technically Jun Fan Kickboxing – a fine style by the way – but is not real Jeet Kune Do.
My influence of Jeet Kune Do comes from the lineage of Bruce Lee > Dan Inosanto > Paul Vunak > me. I learned JKD directly from Paul Vunak in his garage in Mission Viejo, California and with his permission I have modified it and made it even better.
We use training pistols, rubber and foam knives, focus mitts, escrima sticks on occasion, heavy bag, kicking shield, but most of our training is done without equipment just focusing on applying correct techniques and tactics with your training partner(s).
No, no, no, and only if you ask.
Kettlebell Fitness / Train with Brian
An optional class immediately after the JKD classes that focuses on improving your strength, muscle, joint health, flexibility, and athleticism.
If you are looking to be the best warrior you can be then this adding this class to your JKD training will turn you into a beast.
In the class you follow the same or similar program to what Brian uses.
You do not need to be fit at all. Your fitness will be built here. It is absolutely ok to start regardless if you consider yourself weak or out of shape.
If you have some minor joint pain it will probably be ok to start here as most of your aches and pains will go away by doing the exercises in the class.
However if you have some pretty significant pain or joint dysfunction then please talk with Brian first about options.
Also if you are very overweight please talk with Brian about options.
Everyone in the fitness industry has their favorite dogmas about how you should exercise but I base mine on the research and what has been proven to work in the real work with athletes of various kinds.
We select exercises and training methods that build muscle and strength, improve the health of your joints, and improve your flexibility (active range of motion).
All of the training is individualized to your current level. You will not be keeping up with the rest of the class, instead you will have your own weights and do your own workout based upon the customizable template.
You will always be in charge of your own rest breaks and how much total work you do. As your fitness improves you will be able to do more which will improve your gains.
General Questions
My youngest client is 14 and my oldest is 75. We train adult men and women. We train responsible mature teenagers as well. Our training is not going to be appropriate for children until they get to the age that they can stay focused and want to improve.
Just the worst kind of people. Dads, moms, husbands, wives, single people, adults with jobs, responsible teenagers, police officers, security guards, doctors, lawyers (ok maybe some bad apples), etc.
We don’t go for anyone trying to rough other students up. Everyone is respectful of their training partners.
We foster an environment where you feel safe, respected, have fun, and get just the right amount of pressure to help you improve.
If you are one of these people then you have found your home.
Brian (owner, instructor, me) usually arrives about 10 minutes before class. Prior to that the door will be locked and the lights off or one of my renters will be teaching their clients (Tae Kwon Do, Yoga, etc.).
Feel free to arrive about 15 minutes early to find the place and if Brian is there feel free to come on in, otherwise hang out and wait.
For those who also want to build muscle, get strong, become more athletic, improve joint health and resilience I offer a class immediately after the Jeet Kune Do classes. It is an hour-long fitness class where you more or less follow along to the program I use to keep my ancient self looking better than 99% of all 20-somethings.
If you give me your commitment and patience I will coach you to have an athletic, lean & muscular, injury-resistant body… and the best looking body at the pool.
Questions About Jeet Kune Do
Jeet Kune Do is a philosophy or concept about how to best modulate martial arts in order to meet the needs of the individual. It is not a set style of martial arts such as Tae Kwon Do, Shotokan Karate, or Wing Chun Kung Fu.
Traditional styles cling to the old ways believing them to be superior and a great one-size-fits-all approach to self-defense. Sport styles such as Mixed Martial Arts, Brazilian Jujitsu, etc. are restrictive in the sense that they have rules, weight classes, and gender classes. Clearly telling a 15-year old girl to fight a grown male attacker the same way you would tell a grown male MMA fighter to fight his counterpart for his upcoming heavy weight fight if foolishness.
True Jeet Kune Do asks the question, “is this the best way for me to win this fight?”
In Jeet Kune Do we have no restrictions on rules other than legal, moral, and ethical constructs that we must work around. You don’t want to overreact and wind up in jail.
So in JKD we are free to pull from any and all martial arts styles that we see fit to create a hybrid true mixed martial art that encompasses all of the skills and tactics that we need in order to deal with the real world street violence that happens in our society today.
None other than the legendary Bruce Lee. Bruce had trained in a variety of martial arts prior to coming up with Jeet Kune Do including western boxing, Wing Chun Gung Fu, fencing, Judo, Japanese Jujitsu and more.
Bruce was unhappy with the restrictions and limitations of martial arts. If you are a boxer you don’t kick, if you are a kickboxer you don’t grapple, and if you are a wrestler you don’t punch or kick. In today’s world you have Mixed Martial Arts training which punches, kicks, and grapples but it doesn’t learn how to fight with and against knives, guns, multiple attackers or people of different sizes.
Bruce Lee wanted to fill that void. Of course Bruce lived pre-MMA era but Bruce Lee was the original MMA fighter and Jeet Kune Do is the original mixed martial art.
I was fortunate enough to be able to learn Jeet Kune Do (and Rapid Assault Tactics) from the legendary Paul Vunak. Paul is the creator of the Navy SEAL Team 6’s Rapid Assault Tactics (the RAT) and a student of Dan Inosanto who was the person that Bruce Lee chose to take over the reins of Jeet Kune Do.
As a child I read Bruce Lee’s books which include “Bruce Lee’s Fighting Methods” and his book “Tao of Jeet Kune Do.” While I didn’t have access to JKD schools I trained in grappling, boxing, kickboxing, and as I got older MMA.
I continued to expand my understanding of martial arts and how to apply to them to the real world by training with as many people and systems as I could including Krav Maga, Muay Thai, combative firearms with law enforcement and private individuals, and more.
Original Jeet Kune Do as some call it is really the style that Bruce Lee used to teach when he was a martial arts instructor. It is what you will find in the books Bruce Lee’s Fighting Methods. It is not Jeet Kune Do per se but it was the style that Bruce Lee found to suit him the best. Technically it is called Jun Fan Kickboxing.
Jun Fan Kickboxing is a fantastic mixed martial art style. It favors a wider agile stance which is great for entering from the outside. It is a blend of western boxing, Muay Thai, Wing Chun, some various grappling thrown, and some other styles.
Original JKD is promoted by the students of the late Ted Wong. Ted thought that the original stuff Bruce taught (Jun Fan Kickboxing) was the bee’s knees, the cat’s meow, and that it shouldn’t be changed. However this violates the very principle of Jeet Kune Do.
Jeet Kune Do Concepts is not a style but rather a way of looking at martial arts and trying to improve them and modify them based upon what the individual needs. Bruce said that the individual was always more important than any system or style and that style had limitation.
Having said that there is definitely a particular style trend that you will often see in the various Jeet Kune Do schools depending on who the instructor is. A lot of the Filipino martial arts are blending into modern Jeet Kune Do schools. I for one teach FAR less Filipino stick fighting than many other JKD schools because I can’t remember the last time I saw someone get jumped by a guy with an escrima stick and then he pulled his own escrima stick out and started fencing.
So my version of Jeet Kune Do focuses on how real violence goes down in the real world.
Rapid Assault Tactics is a simple and direct combat system created by Paul Vunak for SEAL Team 6. The US Navy Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU) also known as Task Force Blue or more commonly as SEAL Team 6 is a part of the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).
In the 1980s The US Joint Special Operations Command asked Paul Vunak to create the most effective hand-to-hand and bladed weapon system in existence. They wanted something that didn’t take decades to master and would be effective for an exhausted, hungry, dehydrated special operator in enemy territory when all other weapon options weren’t available.
Paul took his extensive knowledge of martial arts which included Jeet Kune Do, Filipino martial arts, Savate, Thai Boxing, Brazilian Jujitsu, and more and created Rapid Assault Tactics (aka the RAT).
The RAT is a simple means by which to create and entry, apply pressure, and terminate an opponent in the most efficient and direct manner possible.
We use the RAT as our base template and then apply Jeet Kune Do concepts to allow us to be unique fighters who can adapt to any situation. Or as Bruce Lee said, “to be water, able to change form and adapt.”