Straight Lead. Teri Tom

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СКАЧАТЬ The Straight Left and How To Cultivate It, p. 27.

      11 Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do (Santa Clarita, CA, Ohara Publications, Inc., 1975), p. 100.

      12 Driscoll, The Straight Left and How To Cultivate It, p. 13.

      All the real champions and first fighters today, American and French, are “straight lefters,” disciples of the old British school. Jack Dempsey, Tom and Mike Gibbons, Harry Wells, Georges Carpentier, Benny Leonard, Mike O’Dowd, Pete Herman, Eugene Leonard, Jimmy Wilde, etc., are all men who hit straight, use the left hand as it should be used, are fully aware of the fact that the feet are as important as the hands in the boxing game, and are first, last, and all the time, boxers first and fighters afterwards. They can fight and do. They would not be champions if they didn’t. But when punching they send all their weight along behind their deliveries

      13 Jack Dempsey, Championship Fighting: Explosive Punching and Aggressive Defence (New York: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1950), pp. 10–13.

      14 Roger Kahn, A Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring ’20’s (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999), pp. 70–71.

      15 Dempsey, Championship Fighting: Explosive Punching and Aggressive Defence, pp. 18–19.

      16 Aldo Nadi, On Fencing, (Bangor, ME: Laureate Press, 1994), p. 9.

      17 Aldo Nadi ed. Lance Lobo, The Living Sword: A Fencer’s Autobiography (Sunrise, FL: Laureate Press, 1995), p. 375.

      18 Nadi, On Fencing, p. 5.

      19 Ibid., p. 51.

      20 Ibid., p. 52. Nadi’s explanation for the impossibility of keeping the left foot flat:

      If a fencer’s guard is a as compact as it should be with feet in their correct respective positions, and legs bent to the proper degree, the left heel usually cannot help rising from the floor. So much so that most people have to practice for some time before being able to keep it as near the strip as indicated. For these people, to keep it down completely would require a terrific strain on the main tendon of the left leg; or else they would have to keep their legs insufficiently bent—and no foilsman can afford that. I insist upon this fundamental difference from the teachings of others.

      C H A P T E R T H R E E

      T H E S T A N C E

      B fore we can even throw the straight lead, we must have a place from which to throw it, and in Jeet Kune Do everything begins and ends with the on-guard position, the JKD stance. Going back to our roots, remember that the physical ingredients are:

      

On-guard positioning

      

Footwork and movement

      

Postures in relaying force

      And always keep in mind that these physical ingredients are determined by the underlying ingredients:

      

Balance

      

Economy of form

      

Efficient mechanics¹

      In the rush to whale away on an opponent, people may think that the small details are trivial matters, and that simply coupling approximated gross movements with brute force is enough. But precision in executing the roots of JKD is everything. As Bruce himself argued, nothing is more fundamental than good form: “Good form is the most efficient manner to accomplish the purpose of a performance with a minimum of lost motion and wasted energy. Always train in good form.”²

      Given Bruce’s emphasis on form, it’s surprising to see so many people fighting with such shoddily constructed stances. Eager to hit things, they gloss over the basics of the stance and later wonder why their technique falls short. Watch a good fighter, and note the differences. Efficient fighters waste nothing. Every motion is streamlined, and that makes them fast. Better fighters are more mobile and more effective at transferring weight into their punches. Chances are that the stance of a good fighter looks a lot different from those of lesser fighters.

      Proper form in executing the physical components of JKD makes the underlying elements—balance, economy of form, and efficient mechanics—possible. The rewards of good form, as you’ll soon see, are increased force production, leverage, mobility, speed, elusiveness, and longevity—to name a few. Everything stems from good form.

      C O N S T R U C T I N G T H E S T A N C E

      S T R O N G S I D E F O R W A R D

      There’s been some dispute over which hand leads, but you only have to go to the source— Bruce Lee’s writings—to find that the right hand is always referenced as the lead hand, because “in this stance, you will attack mostly with the right hand and right foot just as a boxer in his left stance uses mainly his left jab, hook, etc.”³ Of course, you only need to watch Bruce’s films and sparring footage to see that the right hand is the main weapon.

      M I R R O R, M I R R O R, O N T H E W A L L. . .

      Before we get started with constructing the stance, I recommend that you find yourself a reflective surface to practice in front of. As you are learning the basics of the stance, the mirror will give you invaluable feedback. In the beginning, you’ll need it to check your alignment, because your body doesn’t yet know how to achieve the proper form. With the visual feedback, though, you’ll progress much faster. As you train your body, you’ll be able to wean yourself away from the mirror, and you’ll be able to feel when you’re doing things properly.

      Which brings us to the second advantage of visual feedback. As you become more technically proficient, you’ll use the cues acquired from mirror training to visualize technique. You’ve probably heard about the way elite athletes use mental imagery to prepare for competitive events. Our greatest athletes sometimes talk of almost stepping outside themselves and seeing themselves perform. If you train in front of a mirror correctly, your mental imagery becomes that much more vivid. Mirror training, then, is not just for beginners but for fighters of any level.⁴ See Figure 5.

      Figure 5: Until you have proper body feel, checking your technique in front of a mirror is the only way to know your form is correct.

      T H E F E E T

      As I’ve already mentioned, everything begins and ends with the on-guard position. The stance was designed so that the most effective punch—the straight lead—could be initiated from this position with the least motion. To construct the stance, let’s start from the bottom, the feet.

      In the beginning, you’ll want to find a surface like a basketball or squash court that has marked lines. СКАЧАТЬ