Traveler, there is no path, the path must be forged as you walk
"Traveler, there is no path, the path must be forged as you walk." - Antonio Machado, poet
Last week, Tim Hollenbeck and I received our instructorship under the legendary Guro Dan Inosanto. We spent four days at our first instructor camp at his academy in Los Angeles, California. Guro's school, a training facility/museum hybrid, has walls full of plaques honoring Guro's contributions to the arts, photos of the people he's trained with in his lifetime, and banners of the martial art systems represented at the academy. Guro teaches technique through the lens of a historian. Although he is in his 80's, his sense of humor still peppers his seminars. Over the course of the workshop, he consistently joked about memorizing curriculum. After demonstrating a Muay Thai drill that consisted of 18 counts, he asked, "Is that too much to remember? If so, make it up!"
All of us grinned and laughed at his joke, a good-natured jab at the older instructors, who proved throughout the training to still be as sharp as they are agile. Guro always talks about aging as a practitioner. As time steals our youth, we have to find new ways to move and discover other paths of self-expression that better suit our weathered bodies. So when Guro mentioned that he won't be around forever (a reality none of us wants to think about), the message "make it up" takes on a deeper meaning.
While masked in Guro's lightheartedness, this is his way of telling us: evolve. Not just by adapting our practice across the span of our lifetimes, but by taking the foundation we've been given and creating drills that teach new avenues of movement toward greater self-awareness.
The martial art world has undergone a transformation ushered in by all the pioneers of the JKD philosophy. That's why Guro shares stories about how the original focus mitts were the soles of flip flops or how he and others crossed-trained between arts, a practice that was looked down upon decades ago. These are examples of how he and other martial art leaders pushed against old boundaries into uncharted territories. These are the stories that led to why we train, fight, and move the way we do today. Evolution is Guro's life history and legacy. Now as instructors, it's our charge.
Guro has always encouraged creativity, experimentation, and transformation of and through the martial arts. As instructors, I hope that we can all rise to this challenge. Not just to make up new and different drills for our students, but to encourage them to think and live differently. Creating new connections between unrelated things gives rise to unique expressions of life and elevated levels of consciousness. This is the essence of Jeet Kune Do. "Using no way as a way" is the torch we hold as we forge our path into the future.
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We want to give a special heartfelt thank you to Guro Nick Sacoulas, our sponsoring instructor, for making this dream a reality and for supporting our growth in the arts and as human beings.
Thank you to Guro Ron Balicki and Diana Lee Inosanto for expanding our JKD vocabulary and setting the bar high for martial art couples everywhere. Thank you to Sifu Kevin Seaman for your work about mindset and showing us that contributions to the martial arts can span across communities and generations. Thank you to Anderson's Martial Arts Academy where our JKD journey began. Thank you to our UMA family (Sifu Philip Cruz and Anthony Fontana) for cultivating a community where we can express our best selves.