SIFU LAMAR M. DAVIS II

I have been actively training in the martial arts since the age of ten, and will soon be fifty-two years old, so forty-two years at the time of this interview. There were two shows on TV that I watched all the time as a kid where there was some kind of martial arts used in every episode. One of those shows was the Wild Wild West, and the other was the Green Hornet. It was seeing Bruce Lee as Kato in the Green Hornet that really made me want to learn martial arts. I was determined from an early age to learn whatever that was that Kato was doing in every episode! Basic Shotokan karate and Kodokan judo. I decided a long time ago that I wanted to be a Jeet Kune Do Instructor. My problem was, being in Alabama, I might as well be on the other side of the world from all who could actually train me! I started working on a strategy for gaining the instruction that I so desperately wanted. I would sponsor seminars for original students of Bruce Lee, getting different pieces of the puzzle at different times, but learning surely and steadily. I also managed to travel to Los Angeles and Seattle a few times, getting bits and pieces that way. In the early 90’s, I formed an organization called the United States Jeet Kune Do Alliance. I got members from all over the United States, and started travelling and teaching seminars. I started getting requests for membership from people in foreign countries, so I decided to change the name of the organization to be more fitting. It became the Jun Fan Fighting Arts Association. Within a few years of making the change, I had members all over the world. When the Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do organization, the Bruce Lee Educational Foundation (also know as the “Nucleus”), was started, I joined immediately and went to all of their major training events, which were held in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Las Vegas and Holland. I was officially recognized at one of these events as a legitimate source of learning Bruce Lee’s original teaching, training and fighting methods, Jun Fan Gung Fu and Jeet Kune Do. This organization disbanded shortly after the event held in Holland due to internal problems. Continuing my training with various original First Generation Bruce Lee students, I eventually became certified as a Full Instructor by five of them. No one else has ever accomplished such a task! In the year 2000, I had a book published, and to date have had over one hundred articles published in martial arts magazines all over the word. I have written five more books, to be published over the next few years. I have been inducted into the World Martial Arts Hall of Fame twice, Martial Arts Living Legends Hall of Fame, and the Universal Martial Arts Hall of Fame. I have forty-five instructional DVDs in release worldwide, with more to come. Due to squabbles with the Bruce Lee estate over their trademark of the words Bruce Lee, Jun Fan and Jun Fan Gung Fu, I was forced to change the name of my organization one more time. This is when the Hardcore Jeet Kune Do Chinese Gung Fu Association was founded. Today we have members worldwide, and we are still growing! The entire time that I was training in Jun Fan Gung Fu and Jeet Kune Do, I was also involved in an in-depth research of the Wing Chun Gung Fu system, as I realized that Wing Chun was definitely the foundation of the Jeet Kune Do method. This eventually led to the co-founding of the International Wing Chun/Jeet Kune Do Alliance with Sifu Tony Massengill, of the Ip Man Wing Chun lineage. In my mid to late teen years, I participated in point tournament fighting. I either won or got disqualified from every event that I participated in. The disqualifications were for excessive contact. I am certified as a Black Belt/Full Instructor of several martial arts, but since I do not actively participate in those arts anymore, I feel that it is unfair to claim those ranks. My important qualifications in Jun Fan Gung Fu/Jeet Kune Do are my Full Instructor certifications from five of Bruce Lee’s original First Generation students. Hardcore Jeet Kune Do is my total approach to teaching, training in and preserving Bruce Lee’s original martial arts methods of Jun Fan Gung Fu and Jeet Kune Do. I also emphasize a heavy amount of Wing Chun Gung Fu training, as I feel that is the foundation of Bruce Lee’s methods. Explosive power comes from learning to relax and explode! Through training in Jeet Kune Do, you learn that relaxed motion combined with good form in a technique can lead to great speed. Combine that speed with the proper tensing and relaxing of muscles in the correct sequence, and you have true explosive power! Through training this, you develop what is referred to as body feel. You learn to feel that all is as it should be. You no longer have to look to see whether or not you are in the proper position, but instead you feel it. In other words, you simply act! Trapping is the art of shutting down one or more of an opponent’s limbs, leaving them unable to attack! In Jeet Kune Do, we have what is referred to as Bruce Lee’s Five Ways of Attack. One of the five ways is HIA, or Hand Immobilization Attack. That is trapping. Trapping comes from the Wing Chun Gung Fu system, and is something that most arts do not have, or at least to the extent that Jeet Kune Do does! Parrying is the redirecting of incoming force, as opposed to blocking, which is using physical force of your own to stop an attack. Jeet Kune Do prefers the parry, due to the fact that you can very easily launch an attack of your own simultaneously with the parry. Why oppose force with force, when you can simply redirect the incoming force? I combine a program of weight training and stretching, along with some cardiovascular training. However, diet is one of the most important, yet often neglected, parts of the equation! You need to keep your diet clean, avoiding things such as sugar, fried foods and foods with high fat content. Eat a wide variety of lean meats, fresh vegetables and whole grains. Drink at least eight glasses of water per day (preferably purified or filtered for drinking). Also, it is important to compliment your diet with the most advanced nutritional supplements! At the very least, you should take a Vitamin C, Vitamin B Complex and Vitamin E supplement daily. The minerals potassium and zinc are also very important to the martial artist’s diet. I also take glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM for my joints, as joint health is extremely important to martial artists! Protein is also very important, and you should be getting one half to one gram of high quality protein per pound of bodyweight every day, and up to two grams per pound if you are trying to put on some serious muscle! Follow these rules and you will be in much better shape, and reach your fullest potential to be the best martial artist that you can possibly be!