Bruce Lee and the Invention of Jeet Kune Do: The Theory of Martial Creation

Abstract

and is the co-founder of the Documents Research Network (DRN). He studies martial arts cultures, pedagogies and philosophies from an anthropological and a sociological perspective using a variety of qualitative methods. Most recently, he has researched subcultures of wing chun kung fu, xilam, and the invention of other new Mexican martial arts. He is currently interested in the development of specific theories of creation in martial arts, and is undertaking a dual linguistic ethnography of HEMA and taijiquan.

Blending Martial Arts and Yoga for Health: From the Last Samurai to the First Odaka Yoga Warrior

“…Jennings' ( 2019 ) “theory of martial creation” emerges at the intersection of Mills's ( 1959 ) “sociological imagination” and Shilling ( 2008 ) call for a more pragmatist orientation to the study of the body. The former, a reaction to the structural-functionalism of Talcott Parsons' sociology, is primarily concerned with directing scholars' attention to the manners in which macro-sociocultural processes and historical events intertwine with—and could be studied through—individual biographies; the latter, distancing itself from what it perceives to be the limits of “the dominant traditions in sociology” (Shilling, 2008 :3), rehabilitates the pragmatist notion of “habit” (Dewey, 1922 ) and focuses on moments of crises that stimulate social actors' creativity and actions oriented to social change.…”

“…The former, a reaction to the structural-functionalism of Talcott Parsons' sociology, is primarily concerned with directing scholars' attention to the manners in which macro-sociocultural processes and historical events intertwine with—and could be studied through—individual biographies; the latter, distancing itself from what it perceives to be the limits of “the dominant traditions in sociology” (Shilling, 2008 :3), rehabilitates the pragmatist notion of “habit” (Dewey, 1922 ) and focuses on moments of crises that stimulate social actors' creativity and actions oriented to social change. As Jennings' ( 2019 :62) comments, “[t]aken together, these provide a powerful framework for understanding how and why a person might create a new martial arts system,” and I would like to add—in line with the purpose of this paper—also the specific health philosophies and conceptions of health that are informing a given martial arts system.…”

“…The theory of martial creation proposes “six precise dimensions” that constitute the backbones of the process of creating a new martial art. They are (Jennings, 2019 :65, emphasis in original): Founders must have a background as practitioners in one or more martial art(s). They must achieve a level of competence, confidence , and charisma in order to gather a following.…”

“…In Jennings' ( 2019 :65) words, “these are some of the crucial dimensions that founders of martial arts can be seen to have possessed and hence constitute dimensions that will be present for all who create fighting systems.” As we will see in the course of this paper, the founder's biographies could be equally mobilized in the light of these six points to account for the birth and development of Odaka Yoga. However, contrary to Jennings' focus on the creation of martial arts as fighting systems, I contend that his theory could be also fruitfully adopted and adapted to discuss the health philosophies underpinning specific martial activities.…”

“…This paper is structured as follows: first, I briefly discuss the theoretical and methodological backbones of the paper via a reading of Jennings' ( 2019 ) “theory of martial creation” and a “multimodal approach” (Brown and Leledaki, 2010 ) inclusive of discursive analysis of the school's promotional materials, interviews to the founders, and other key teachers and “observant participation” (Wacquant, 2004 , 2015 ) of practitioners' apprenticeship processes; second, I reconstruct the birth of Odaka Yoga at the intersection of Asian martial arts and yoga, presenting the biographical trajectories of the founders Roberto Milletti and Francesca Cassia, from the world of competitive martial arts and fitness, to yoga; third, I delve deeper into an exploration of Odaka Yoga's conception of health, as chiefly the mixture of a Western biomedical view with the subtle body model of Asian traditions. In so doing, I argue that the conception of health promoted by this school gives rise to the Odaka Yoga Warrior, the ideal-typical practitioner whose body is simultaneously exposed to the “medical gaze” (Foucault, 1977 ) and its imperatives of control, knowledge and manipulation; while it also deifies it, as it is animated by the elusive flows of energy ( qi or prana ) that prolonged practice aims to master; fourth, the paper concludes with a reflection on hybrid conceptions of health and the ubiquitous role of health discourses and narratives across sociocultural domains.…”