Training JKD requires dedication perseverance passion and will.

This is not only a question of liking Bruce Lee; This is a question of being involved in the style and embrace it as a way of life.

Perseverance is required, understanding that this will take time before you can consider yourself good at it.

I am not  the only woman training  TWJKD  in Europe but as far as I can see,  I am the most  involved at that level.

I started 2004 at Stefan´s School and 2005 privately with Micke so I  have now some years of experience, I evolved a lot and I am involved in the style in all aspects.

This is the dedication I am talking about,  I have a long way to go, but because of my dedication and seriousness, I will get there and I have never considered quitting or doing anything else.

So why aren’t there many dedicated women training TWJKD and lasting  ? Apart from Teri who is an instructor, you have me in Europe and you have Amy Kelly in the US. Amy started JKD one year ago. She is training privately with TWJKD Instructor Tom Harvey.   Lisa Root is also another of our girls, she is training with TWJKD Instructor Mike Gittelson.

Private Training with your Instructor is a real big advantage , we get more time and closer attention. Micke is spending a LOT of time on my training and he also pushes me to my limits in order for me to improve.

I have seen other girls starting JKD and all of them quit at some point, I think because they realised the work they had in front of them. It takes more than coming down to the school once or twice a week , the personal work at home and on yourself is huge, if you don’t have that  dedication,  it does not work. TWJKD sets the bar High, you cannot get any certificate easily and becoming Instructor or coach  is ( for most of us :-)),  just a dream and it should be because it requires many years of practice to earn it , that is what Quality is all about!

I believe this also has to do with the fact that there are almost only men training JKD , this can discourage the girls and here too is a question of dedication, but I understand it at some point.

At the beginning I felt myself really frustrated when I “graduated” from the girls group and entered the first level where there were only guys. I was quite annoyed by them unwilling to spar with me or showing total lack of respect and considering I could not be hit because I was a girl.

This changed when I started with Micke, I took some punches and kicks in the head, I almost passed out a couple of times but you know what, it made me where I am today. JKD is a fighting Art, you need to be tough and sparring is the only way.

So not having many girls training TWJKD is not a problem if you ask me, It makes us being special!

How do you apply in the real life situations ? situations that have nothing to do with  Martial Arts ?

I mean situations where you need to be in control of your emotions in order to react quickly and correctly and not let yourself go over to a panic stage which leads to nothing good.

One more time I see the impact of JKD in my life.

In regards to a recent event,  I mean Simon the cat who was hit by the car before me yesterday.  I was able to react and take over the situation. The guy who drove on the cat had no clue or no intention to do anything.  I immediately took over ,  took the cat in my car and drove away. I kept control of myself all the way even when I noticed he had stopped breathing, when I arrived at the hospital and they told me he was gone,  it is when I lost it. 

JKD really changed me. because of a difficult childhood I had behaviour problems, a tendency to act defensive and difficulty to trust people. A couple of years ago I would have been hysterical unable to control myself, take a decision or act quickly.

Today I am thinking about the way I handled it and even if I am very sad about not being able to save him, I am proud of my capacity of reaction and taking the matter in my own hands without hesitation. I would have done the same for a dog or a squirrel, whatever, I love animals and I deeply respect life .

Regarding Simon, I could not have done anything anyway but I am thankful for having been given the chance to take the cat in a safe place, put him on a warm blanket and give him affection before he went to heaven, at least he did not have to die alone on the side of the road and I made sure of that.

yesterday was my day off, I actually have only rope and stretching on my program for mondays, but I could not sit still. I did some  footwork , rounds on the heavy bag and footwork again.

Some days I feel I have too much energy and I just need to hit the bag.

the thing is I cannot stop thinking about JKD, yesterday while explaining to my colleagues that we took some pictures during sunday training , I saw them looking at my legs , I wondered why and I found myself standing in on guard position  ! .

Good, so I am ready if something happens 🙂

But seriously, I need to relax a bit, sometimes I involve myself a bit too much. There are things I find unfair, talented people not recognized and unexistant talent rewarded …  if this is the way it is gonna be I will have to distant myself from it and concentrate on my training instead. I know where the quality is and this is the most important.

Anyway, in San Francisco we will meet Mike from  Colorado and  Jari from Spain, this be really good, I look forward to meet them as well as other people coming to the event, it will be nice to  meet people that we talk to over the internet. Apparently there will be a seminar in Montreal next year , which is interesting because I had planned to move there a couple of years ago …   We are also talking about going to Colorado in July next year !

Lots of great things to look forward to…

I get often irritated by people bragging, in my opinion people bragging about things they don´t master is very irritating and this is often the case.

We see lots of crap on the internet, people with no skills making money on Bruce´s name, girls in shorts with no JKD skills whatsoever (!) claiming they are instructors, give me a break , this is a disgrace for those who are training seriously!

I will not go further in that debate or I will write 100 pages … I just wanted to point it out.

And returning to the main subject regarding bragging,

Well just go back and look at what people said about Bruce, he bragged.

YES BECAUSE HE COULD and he proved it numerous times! He was the best at what he did, so if you ask me yes, I think it is Ok for someone like him to do it.

Let me quote Muhammed Ali: “It is not bragging if you can back it up ! ”

But people who are good at what they do should not be referred as braggers, they tell you what works because they KNOW and they DO, the question is: Are you skilled enough to recognise who they are?

Most of the time, it is a question of jealousy or not accepting change and new people, this is a pity but it is how the world is.

And there are so many of those, people questioning, challenging, criticising…

Criticism is Ok if it comes from people who know what they are talking about, and good if you ask me, because it is how we learn from each others.

But criticism from people who have no clue or good argument or skill, is just a waste of our precious time!

I quoted this before and I will do that again and again because I will never forget what Ted told us

“ don´t waste energy on other´s negativity”

And One of mine:

Discussing with empty brained people is no use, don´t lower yourself to their level.

I try to be creative myself 🙂 no advanced techniques here, I  just put our outline behind our Group Logo.

I must say I really like it , we decided to have it printed on the back of some hoods.

Sometimes I wonder where I would be today if I hadn´t started with JKD. I just turned 30 + something 🙂 , I must admit either than JKD , I haven´t  done much with my life.

I feel very frustrated sometimes and sometimes I think it is good, it is the way my life is supposed to go. Well, I chose my path some years ago  and from that decision it influenced the years hereafter. I don´t regret it but I should  have done some things differently , pay more attention to important beings that I lost before I could do something about it.

I put my whole self into JKD and let the rest of my world pass me by. I will never regret starting with JKD because today , this is my life , this is all I am about and I am so proud of it . I would never want to go back to the life I had before but the rest is  not there,  I just have to do something about it. 

JKD brought me so many things and much more than a fighting ability and I don´t think it will end there. One thing is for sure,  I will never give it up and if it means I have to sacrify other things so be it , I start to get too old for those other things anyway but I won´t give it up without a fight.

I strongly believe that life is what you make of it, and JKD gave me the opportunity to get strong enough to know and decide what I want out of it.

It is about time …!

Do you need one ?

This is the question I have been asked today my answer is:  NO, I don´t NEED one

do I want one ? well by ONE what do you mean ? in my eyes there is only one possible certificate in JKD and it is the Instructor certificate but it is hard to get and it should be !  If I get good enough to deserve one of those it would mean something to me of course.

But nowadays I see all kind of ranking in JKD , did we forget what Bruce said ? 

The legacy that  Ted is trying to keep ?

“KEEP THE NUMBERS LOW AND THE LEVEL HIGH ”

( and don´t get me started on those who are making a business out of it!)

 The question here is why do I train JKD ?

It started because I always wanted to train JKD, because it was Bruce Lee´s style, because there are hardly any women training proper TWJKD nowadays and because of the opportunity I was given .

But it  went deeper  when I met Micke. He taught me another way of thinking, another approach and I became another person. It is all about my personal achievement, I don´t need to tell people , to try to explain, this is personal and private because JKD changed my life, changed me. I believe I became a better person and I feel I have achieved something, I am proud of it and I do not need a certificate to prove it to myself.

There is no certification or ranking in JKD, some students better than others , this kind of competition is banned from our group. We train together as equals not towards certification but towards personal achievements .

The only thing I need is to train more in order to get better,  I want to be a good JKD fighter, I need to feel I am good,  this is what  I need  because JKD is for me a way of Life.

When I started my private training with Micke,  we almost only trained on pads because I had to build the technique first. When the guys started with us, we added some serious sparring sessions together as a group but I always have private training where I  most of the time, want  to focus on the technique on pads because I still need some serious work and those sessions a precious to me. This is where my technique is corrected and it gives me some advice for my own training at home afterwards, I can then try to apply this during the next training session with the guys.  

 I remember in the begining it was difficult for me , I had not the same level as the guys and I felt a bit outside the group. I got better on pads but useless in sparring because I did not sparr enough . When they all left for military duty I got the opportunity to close the gap a bit, the goal was to try to reach their level in their absence. I trained more with Micke and focused on my technique / own training and applied on sparring sessions more often.  I got better because of this and when the guys came back, the sparring sessions became more intense and I have  to say it is thanks to sparring in real conditions with those guys who never treated me like a girl that I am where I am today. I am so thankful for this team.

I am so happy when I see this.

On Facebook , Our friend Mike Shen from Saint Louis Missouri posted a video from you tube today :

 In Paris at the 2010 Martial Arts Festival,   A french stunt team ( Cascade Demo Team ) openned the show with a exibition / remake of a fight scene from Fists of Fury.

 37 years after his passing, Bruce is still  impacting generation after generation, this is so great to see. 

Thanks Mike for posting 🙂

Today we had a “guest star” training with us . Seth Engström is a  Swedish Magician, he is very  inspired by Bruce Lee ´s philosophy and is using it in his own way to develop his art.

I asked him today what he meant by using Bruce ´s philosophy in his art and he said,  quoting Bruce:

“Having no way as way, having no limitation as limitation, not going after rules, finding your own way, the way that works for you”.

He said he recognised himself in what Bruce Lee writes because he has that way of thinking and has been living his life that way. He has been practising with cards since he was four years old and at the age of 16 ( I hope I got the age right 🙂 ) he was asked in an interview : Who is your inspiration ? and he answered : Bruce Lee. Seth  is really interested in the philosophical aspect, he  finds a lot of inspiration in Bruce ´s writings.  He reads all books and everything he can about Bruce,  especially from trusted writers like John Little .

Seth is actually a very busy man practising card tricks up to 10 -12 hours a day … but I would be very interested if Seth himself  would like to write about how Bruce Lee inspires him and how he applies it….

For more information on Seth please visit his website http://www.trollkarlen.se/ or check him out on you tube.

…

Today we introduced JKD to Seth, starting with basics. We found him very dedicated and intrested and keen on learning. We certainly think he has some potential and are very pleased to welcome him for more sessions.