A flat palm frond shoots toward a student’s face and stops abruptly just before hitting his forehead. The student focuses his eyes on Ryan Kelly, the Jeet Kune Do instructor holding the frond, and awaits further instruction.
Kelly is teaching beginning Jeet Kune Do, a form of martial arts founded by Bruce Lee, which incorporates Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling and even Pilates, Kelly said. It can also involve weapons.
Jeet Kune Do is designed to overcome the limitations, or weaknesses, of different cultural styles of martial arts and blend the best of each into the ultimate style of martial arts, he said.
“Everything that I do in life I use the Jeek Kune Do perspective,” Kelly said about not accepting cultural or physical limitations.
Kelly said he looks beyond our society’s limitations by observing how people from other cultures eat, exercise and practice religion. He then works toward making his life more eclectic by intermixing these styles, like Jeet Kune Do does.
“People tend to eat what everybody else eats, wear what everybody else wears and believe what their parents and teachers have told them,” he said. “I think most people in our culture drive through the Burger King drive-though and order their food because that’s what everybody else does.”
Although he now subscribes to the philosophy behind martial arts, Kelly initially began practicing 24 years ago because his father enrolled him in classes for the physical exercise and to help build his confidence and focus, Kelly said.
“When I was in high school, I realized martial arts was something I really wanted to focus on,” he said.
Kelly trained under Dan Inosanto, a well-known Fillipino-American martial arts instructor, who was a top student under Bruce Lee and became the spokesperson for Jeet Kune Do after Lee’s death in 1973.
“When I was competing and doing competitions I was training six days a week, eight hours a day,” Kelly said, who still trains six days a week but for less time.
While Kelly said he prefers to watch Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, because of its complexity, he likes how Jeet Kune Do incorporates different cultures and styles.
“We look for ways to improve ourselves in all these areas,” Kelly said. The four aspects to Jeet Kune Do are physical, intelligence, emotional and spiritual, and all follow the philosophy of “having no limit for limitations.”
Currently, Kelly teaches beginning Jeet Kune Do and beginning and advanced Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at the University Student Recreation Center.
“When will we have another chance to be a student of Bruce Lee’s concepts?” said Jose Ramos, a University junior in Kelly’s Jeet Kune Do class. “It’s a critical twist to martial arts.”
Kelly hopes to continue practicing and teaching into old age. That’s part of the beauty of the sport, he said.
“My whole goal is to be able to do it until the day I die,” Kelly said.
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