Guru Inosanto 'Academy of Martial Arts'

n the next nine years of training with Bruce Lee, Dan learned the reasons for his frustrations and adapted what he had previously learned to Bruce's philosophy of combative efficiency.Mists cleared and curtains lifted as he began to apply the principle of what would become known as Jeet Kune Do to the Judo, Karate, and Escrima that was a part of him already. While he was studying with Bruce, he continued to work with other instructors, Ark Wong among them. He could study different arts at the same time because, as Bruce taught him, the basis of his own personal "style" came from within. With the background he had in the martial arts and with

Bruce Lee as a sounding board, he was able to "take that which is useful and discard the rest."
With perhaps the exception of a modified version of Western boxing and Chinese Wing Chun, Kali was the art he adhered to most. Perhaps he favored Kali because the principle involved were so closely aligned or easily adaptable to the principles in Jeet Kune Do.
When Bruce Lee died in 1973, Dan was still working with a small group of martial artists that Bruce was teaching before he went to Hong Kong in 1970. Men from the group, Daniel Lee, Richard Bustillo and Jerry Poteet among them, gave Dan the opportunity to continue his Escrima, Kali, Arnis and JKD training and develop a personal "style" of movement found nowhere else in the world. Since one teaches from what one knows, Dan's JKD students today study Kali as part of their regular training, but the principles they are taught don't confine them to any martial art or style. Any one of them may choose another way and Dan will smile in the middle of a conversation and say, "If it works, use it; whatever you want."
Jeet Kune Do - the literal translation is "way of the intercepting fist" - was conceived by Bruce Lee in 1967. Unlike many other martial arts, there are neither a series of rules nor a classification of techniques which constitute a distinct Jeet Kune Do (JKD) method of fighting. JKD is unbound; JKD is freedom. It possesses everything, yet in itself is possessed by nothing. Those who understand JKD are primarily interested in its powers of liberation when JKD is used as a mirror for self-examination.
In the past, many have tried to define JKD in terms of a distinct style: Bruce Lee's kung-fu; Bruce Lee's karate; Bruce Lee's kickboxing; Bruce Lee's system of street fighting. To label JKD "Bruce Lee's martial art" is to completely mistake Bruce Lee's - and JKD's-meaning. JKD's concepts simply cannot be confined within a single system. To understand this, a martial artist must transcend the duality of "for" and "against," reaching for that point of unity which is beyond mere distinction. The understanding of JKD is the direct intuition of this point of unity. According to Bruce Lee, knowledge in the martial arts ultimately means self-knowledge.
Jeet Kune Do is not a new style of kung-fu or karate. Bruce Lee did not invent a new or composite style, nor did he modify a style to set it apart from any existing method. His concept was to free his followers from clinging to any style, pattern, or mold.