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One of the most prolific Martial Artist of our time Dan Inosanto, continues to be an influence and inspiration for many martial artists seeking to find “there way” of personal expression in the art of Jeet-Kune-Do. One of those people inspired greatly by his experience is Paul Vunak. Paul Vunak, who although teaches the concepts of Jeet-Kune-Do, teaches his own special “way” of the art that was passed down from Bruce to Dan and Dan to Paul. Today, Paul heads Progressive Fighting Systems, an Organisation dedicated to the preservation of Bruce Lee’s Art, Jeet Kune Do and the continual growth of his Organisation, P.F.S. The following in depth Interview will hopefully give an insight into one of J.K.D.’s premier fighters.
Firstly Paul, I’d like to thank you for having us once again here in your home in sunny California. I’d like to start off by asking you, for the Australian reader’s, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background in the Martial Arts?
Starting from when?
Right from the beginning.
I’d say I was 9 and I started in Kenpo Karate. I trained for 4 to 5 years and got a black belt and I wanted to get into kick sparring and I remember seeing Tae Kwon Do people, so I got into that and I spent a few years there and got a black belt in that. Then I opened my own school, and I had that when I was 15 and it went for a year and a half and when I couldn’t stand teaching kids any more, cause I had a hundred kids and they were scratching each others ass when I was teaching and pinching each other and I was sitting there shaking and I said THAT’S IT, I’m closing the kids class down. So I closed the kids class down and the school closed because that was where the money was, so I was 16 and didn’t have a school and that’s when I stumbled on the Kali Academy, it was 1976, November 22nd actually and I started with Dan then.
What was it that inspired you to take up Martial Arts?
A crazy Italian mum (he laughs). I honestly don’t know I was 9 years old and I just stuck with it.
You’ve got a great deal of respect for Dan Inosanto, could you tell us about your relationship with Dan and the J.K.D. he taught you in that time period?
What time period?
Well, when you were in the Kali Academy?
Cause I’m still studying with Dan right now ok and so we go through different transitions.
Right from the beginning, your relationship with Dan and the J.K.D. he taught you in that time period when you first met him?
In 1976?
Yes.
Actually, in 1976, for the first year I was studying with Richard Bustillo and I was boxing very heavily, then I moved up to another phase to get into Dan’s class, I didn’t start off in Dan’s class. I remember having my first private lesson with Dan and having him tell me there’s another art out there better than punching and kicking and I didn’t know what he was talking about so traps and everything we talk about so freely now, just weren’t that way, we didn’t talk like that back then, the information just wasn’t given out, it was all held pretty nit tight and I said what’s traps?, and he said well put on a pair of gloves and he had me put this chest gear on and poke out some punches at him and that was the first time in my life I had ever been straight blasted.
Dan straight blasted me straight into Bruce’s wooden dummy, I mean I felt my arms being slapped in my chest, I didn’t know what a Pak Sao was, I felt being pulled, pushed, jerked and then he would straight blast and then head butts, knees and elbows. I just remember going home that day and it took me like 3 hours to get home, I was driving in shock, just lost, driving on the freeway in a coma thinking, what just happened to me? what animal did I just see?
Dear God, this is something I had never seen before and from then on out, I said I would really like to get good at that. Boxing was fun, the one thing that I always new about boxing or kick boxing is that there’s always someone out there bigger and stronger and I really liked the idea of what Dan said, cheat!! he’s bigger and stronger, get in there and knee his balls, thumb his eyes and headbutt his face, that’s the equaliser. So that concept just fit right in with my mentality.
You mention you still train under Dan, could you tell us about that?
Tell you about it, well, Dan just perpetually gives me pointers, advice, concepts, keeps me updated on the latest philosophies of where he is at and corrects anything that I am doing body mechanic wise, that I could be improving . He’s my Mentor, my Teacher, he does everything for me.
What does J.K.D. mean to you?
J.K.D. means to be able to adapt ok. If I was to put an analogy to that, it would be to be like a RAT. They can survive anywhere, anytime, during a nuclear war, a rat will survive. Drop them out of a two storey building, flush them down a toilet, rats are everywhere, everywhere in the world, RATS, not buffalos or kangaroos, rats because they are survivors ok. There is always somebody bigger and stronger so your not thinking tiger or lion you want to be thinking survive any situation. When Bruce said Using No Way As Way, and having No Limitation for Limitation, nobody quite understood what he meant ok.
If your a boxer, you have limitations if you meet a wrestler. If your a kicker, what do you do against a boxer. If your all ground game and you fight 2 people, what are you going to do? ok. What if somebody picks up a weapon? So what does J.K.D. mean to me? it is to be able to adapt so what ever circumstance I am in, I can handle myself. If it’s 1 on 1 and we are standing up fine, if we end up on the ground that doesn’t blow my whole day. I can survive. If it turns 2 on 1, I know what to do. If all of a sudden 2 bottles get broken, I know how to knife fight. If 1 bottle gets broken and I don’t have one, I know which way to run and which way the door is, you know what I’m saying, that’s being a Rat. That’s J.K.D.
I believe you also train under certain members of the Gracie Ju-Jitsu clan, could you tell us about that?
I have trained with all of them. I started off training with Rorion in his garage and Royce and then they opened up a school and then I trained with Royler for a year and a half, then Royler went back to Brazil and then I started training with Rickson and I have been training with Rickson for the past 4-5 years I guess. So I’ve trained with all of them. They all have something unique but Rickson’s God , I mean he’s the Bruce Lee of the ground… period.
Paul, there seems to be some tension between the so called pre 73 J.K.D. people and the J.K.D. concepts people. What are your thoughts on that?
I think that’s a bunch of horse shit, honestly, I think that’s a bunch of petty arguments. The last statement the man gave us before he died is “it’s just a name, don’t fuss over it.” I think it’s ironic that that’s the one thing everyone is doing, is fussing over it. When your in a street fight, somebody is going to try to hit you, that’s a fair bet. If you intercept him before he hits you, that means Jeet Kune Do. If you do the most economical thing after you intercept him, straight blast right down his center line and head butt, knee and elbow him, that’s J.K.D. period.
I don’t care if its 1961 or if it’s in China or Indonesia, it’s an immutable principle just like the moon, is that a Filipino moon or is that an Italian moon? You know what I’m saying. When your talking about pre 73 or all of the stuff Bruce did in his youth, we are talking about Bruce when he was at an embryonic stage compared to the later years and what Dan did afterward. What Dan did was put in the missing piece of the puzzle of the J.K.D. plan that nobody could get. Everybody could do or imitate Bruce’s moves but nobody could pull it off, and the reason is, they didn’t have Bruce’s attributes.
Dan watched certain Filipino Masters, guys like John Lacosta, Ben Largusa, Floro Villabrille, Leo Giron and the Canete brothers doing things that are just phenomenal, just unbelievable that only Bruce could do in terms of sensitivity and he said to himself, the only way I could ever get my attributes or any of my students attributes anywhere close to being able to do what Bruce did, intercept people and generally straight blast if that’s appropriate, which is probably 90% of the time, they have to bring weapons into play. So Dan added the weapons to put in that missing piece of that puzzle called attributes, that made the techniques work that everybody imitates Bruce do.
So people that don’t have the weapon element or the kali flavour, have all techniques that they’re not able to pull off and I can speak for myself, when I first started training my traps, I couldn’t trap anybody. I took my gloves off, I got into class and they’re all kick boxing trying to hit the shit out of me, and I couldn’t really hit them because I had my gloves off. So I’d come in and try to straight blast and Pak Sao and trap and I remember getting the shit beat out of me by certain guys and man, I’d look at Dan and I’d have a bloody nose and the next week, I’d get in and try to trap and I’d look at Dan and go out with these big headaches and then one day he goes, come here, look do you want to learn how to trap?
I’d go Yeah, and he says quit sparring and get into my weapons class, now this was like 1980, I don’t really remember but I wasn’t really into weapons back then and I said oh God, you mean that stick shit Dan, that Kali stuff, knives and stuff oh I don’t want to learn that and he goes, do you want to learn how to trap? I said yes and to make a long story short I got into the Kali class and spent 6 months there and just put my whole heart and soul into weaponry for 6 months. Then one day Dan walks up to me and says, now jump back in the kick boxing class and go and spar with your old compardriates, try to trap. Arthur, I was trapping people right and left. I didn’t know why, I didn’t understand it, I couldn’t believe it.
I’m thinking holy shit I’m out of shape, I’ve been doing this stupid weaponry shit, now I’m going to get gloves eaten in my face, oh my god and then it happened. I was getting in and I was straight blasting and I was trapping people, because I was lacking the attributes necessary to pull those traps off. So when you compare early J.K.D. to late J.K.D. I don’t think it’s so much what year ok., I think it’s who is it that your talking about training under.
You run an Organisation called Progressive Fighting Systems. Could you tell us something about it and what it’s purpose is?
Progressive Fighting Systems just started with a group of people that Dan and I both started working with and certain people wanted to get more into the raw end of street fighting and Dan would say, go to Paul, he would sought of get the guys over there with me and I would teach these guys. That was sought of my end. In other words, if Dan teaches in two methods, self preservation and self perfection ok, I had a proclivity for the self preservation end. So people that were more into the hard core of street fighting, that’s the nucleus of what Progressive Fighting System is about.
Do you cater for both male and female gender’s and if so, do the females follow the same curriculum?
Yes, I cater for both males and females and no, I would not train them the same, just like I wouldn’t train two guys the same. No way, I wouldn’t train two people the same way, let alone a man and a woman the same way. A man and a woman totally have different morphologies, obviously ok. Both have advantages and disadvantages, so they have to be emotionally trained different, mentally trained different and physically trained different. They’re all still headed under the immutable principles of Jeet Kune Do but, it’s suited for each individual. Obviously I would emphasise eye jabs, groin slaps a different mentality, a different surprise element with women. Generally, men don’t get up with women and get in a stance and move around and start throwing jabs, so that’s their advantage, and then there’s their disadvantages, which is size and strength.
Paul, your Organisation has spread world-wide. How many countries actually represent P.F.S?
Gosh, I have people, through videos and what not, people have gotten to view my stuff and I have friends all over the world. I like to regard them as my friends, you know what I mean. When I think of Organisation, I think of Kentucky Fried Chicken where there is a whole franchise. This is not an Organisation of business, it’s an Organisation of friends and the only thing that I ask of my Instructors, is that I get to see them once a year, to maintain contact with everybody and keep my Organisation in tact.
It’s pretty well known that your the hand to hand combat Instructor for the U.S. Navy Seal Teams. How did you get involved with that?
Not a very exciting story. I was just sitting around watching t.v. one night and a couple of guys came knocking on my door and they were all dressed up in suits, and I thought “oh shit” now what did I do, (he laughs), then they just started asking me a bunch of questions and one guy said, “well, we’d like you to move to Virginia and spend a year training with my guys.” I said I can’t do that, I have Seminars, this and that. We worked around it. I eventually moved to Virginia, I can’t remember the year, 1988/89 and I spent three years there. I have no idea how they knew about me or got a hold of me or why they wanted me or why they chose me. I have no clue. Since the Gulf War, once the Gulf War was over and Clinton got into Office, basically, they haven’t had any need, at least on the East Coast which are the people I teach, haven’t had any need for empty hands from my end.
What other specialised groups have you worked with in the past?
I still work with many specialised groups, I’m not allowed to mention all their names. I’ve worked with most of our groups in the United States, FBI, CIA, DEA, Alcohol, Fire Arm and Tobacco. Different Groups, they’ve wanted me.
Do you have any special curriculum when teaching these Groups?
Well, I never teach the Cops any good shit (he laughs). No, just Kidding. No not really, I teach everybody the same, I don’t care what Organisation their from or what nationality they are, or what they look like. Well, I do care what they look like, that depends on how I would teach them, if they’re big, they’re fat or they’re skinny. I teach everyone the same way, it’s got to fit the individual. See, a lot of these Organisations, they bring people in and they think that they can come to class and bring some guy in who’s 200 pounds over weight and sucking on a camel and expects me to teach him how to do Martial Arts because he’s from some fancy Organisation. Usually, I just laugh at them and tell them to go home.
As far as your own Personal Training goes, do you have a special routine that you follow or do you work things randomly?
I have a special routine that I follow but it changes randomly, I don’t know about randomly but it changes when I’m done with the routine. The ground game for me is most interesting, it is my weakest link ok, there are four ranges of fighting, kicking, punching, trapping and wrestling and of the four ranges, my personal weakest is the ground. So that’s why for the past 8 years I’ve been working the ground heavy and that’s still my weakest link. So I enjoy working my weakest thing, I enjoy being a student when I can. So I find people on the ground that are much better than me and that’s not difficult. There are wonderful ground people all over, you just have to look. It’s not hard at all and train with them. Rickson is my main teacher and when he’s not around, I work with anyone I can. My main ground teacher is Rickson.
Could you tell me about your conditioning program?
Physical conditioning?
Yes
Well, in my opinion, physical conditioning is based on wind, is based on strength, is based on endurance ok., and if you put them all together, it means your able to explode in a street fight and then recover, that is what your really trying to do. To explode and recover, if you run, your getting your wind, but your not necessarily getting your strength. If your doing weights, your getting your strength but not your aerobics. If you do all the ground game only, you have a tendency for what I call the melting syndrome, you melt away.
I mean I weigh now what I used to weigh in High School and I’m 36 years old, because I’ve done so much ground work and it just burns so much calories, so what I try to do is I try to blend so I don’t do too much of one thing ok, the wind with the strength with the ground game and of course the punch and the kick, I try to put them all together. You’ve got to break your training down, there’s different kinds of conditioning, that’s something that was evident to me back in High School. I had track friends that would run the marathon and they would play two games of basket ball with me and be exhausted and then they’d say, get your ass out on the track Vunak and after 1 mile of running, I was exhausted racing with these guys because there is just so many types of conditioning.
You might take a kick boxer or a boxer that can go 15 rounds and get him on the mat and he can’t go 15 minutes or conversely, get somebody on the mat and then put a pair of gloves on his hands and have him punching and swinging against a real boxer standing up and having to move, he would get tired. So conditioning is very specific and it’s important that you cover all of them because your going to use all of them in a fight.
What makes a good fighter?
It is a combination of the attributes that God gave them, or his parents, (however that works). If you have somebody with wonderful attributes and they have absolutely no sense of how to fight, then you teach somebody who has absolutely no attributes and give them all technique, I would give it to the guy with attributes. So ultimately, the best situation obviously, is that you have a student with wonderful attributes and then he finds an art that’s wonderful and then he becomes a wonderful fighter and that’s how it works.
I’ve seen genetic specimens, just guys that could just be wonderful in any field they chose and they choose a martial art that’s so restrictive of them, that it would be like putting a lead ball on both of their feet and having say now, lets have you use the attributes that God gave you. So, martial arts can hurt attributes in such a way, and this is when Bruce used to preach freedom and relaxation and not being bound by one structure and the individual is more important than any established style or system. These aren’t just phrases that we’d stick on walls arbitrarily and throw them up and see if they stick, they’re absolutely made for a meaning.
What is Killer Instinct and how do we develop it?
I wish I never ever coined that term, or I didn’t coin it, Dan helped. I heard it through Dan first and I helped popularise the term ok., and to this day, I wish I never did, because in a street fight, killer instinct is only needed a fraction of the time. The majority of the time in a fight, you need to relax. That is the single most important thing. In fact, I would like to come up with another video called “Killer Instinct 5, How To Relax.” (You know what I mean), because there’s only one range when your standing up that you can punch and be uninterrupted, uninterrupted by his punches once you’ve got your roll flying, and that’s trapping range.
If your boxing and slugging out with this guy, he can be boxing and slugging out with you. But once you have his hands trapped up and you start blasting down his centre line, you can hit with impunity. That’s when you turn on “Killer Instinct.” It does you no good to turn it on in a range that your not hitting him, all that does is tense up all your antagonistic muscles, slows down your prime movers and gets you tired sooner, and that’s how most fights are lost. So 90% of the fight is relaxation.
If your on the ground, same thing, most of your fight has to be to relax. The only time you turn on the “Killer Instinct” is when you can either bite or punch uninterrupted - (like if you have the man in the mount or if you held on to him and you could bite). That’s when you turn on “Killer Instinct.” Otherwise, you turn on “Killer Instinct” while your just arbitrarily struggling, it does you no good. So again, “Killer Instinct” is only used regardless of whether your on the ground or standing up, it’s only used a portion of the time.. What was your question about it?
What is “Killer Instinct” and how do we develop it?
Ok, so I wanted to preface it with that ok! Now I’ll get to your specific question.
“Killer Instinct” is an attitude that you have to absolutely destroy anything that’s in front of you with total impunity ok, that’s what it is. Ethics, morality, nothing comes into play. Somebody has crossed your line, whatever your line is and I’m not out to judge anybody’s lines. If somebody does something to one of my loved ones, their going to “you know there’s an old saying, you f..... with a bull, you get the horn ok.” So that’s “Killer Instinct.” The problem is too many people have anger and they confuse anger with killer instinct.
Yelling, screaming, facial contortions, anger, none of that has anything to do with “Killer Instinct,” all that does is serves as clouding your judgement on how to intercept your opponent. You never get angry at your opponent, ever! If anything, it’s a more sadistic attitude. The more attitude to keep playing with him when you hit him and watch the blood, then you hit the spot again, then you fake that spot and watch the hands fly and you kick the other spot and you build momentum until your momentum builds and builds and builds then boom, you pick your time and you blast and the fight is over.
Paul, your a veteran of many a street fights, what are your thoughts on the Ultimate Fighting Championships (U.F.C)?
I think it’s neat to watch, I think it is educational for most martial artists’, its fun to watch, (anyway I have fun watching it). I think a lot of martial artists’ that are still in convoluted stances doing “X” blocks and “jump spinning reverse crescent kicks” hopefully it woke their minds up a little bit . So in that sense, if it serves to educate people, I’m all for it. As far as street fights, you know, there aren’t many street fights one on one (he laughs).
Most street fights I’ve been in, you know, you go out with your friends and somebody gets in a fight with one of your friends, somebody else jumps in, so you’ve got to know how to fight more than one person, and then there’s always somebody who brings a bottle into play ok, and if you do end up on the ground, his friend comes along, you better learn how to get up quick, learn kinamutai and biting. So street fights are just being able to adapt and being like a rat, throwing bottles and sticking an ashtray in somebody’s teeth and running the other way while picking up cue balls and start throwing them, straight blasting one guy right out the window and run the other way and turn into a psychopathic rat that people think is on PCP running around except, in its mind, it is totally relaxed and calm.
It sees everything going in slow motion. That is a street fight and there are certain people who can in what I call in a “fog of war,” when the bottles are flying and the fists are flying and you don’t know who’s your friend and who’s your enemy. There are certain people who have worked on it, who have the ability to be cool and relaxed and choose all the right moves.
You don’t stick a bottle in somebody’s face if it’s one on one and if somebody picks up a bottle, you don’t try and fight him, and one simple wrong decision could lose your life or put you in a graveyard motel, and neither one I choose to pick. It’s a question of keeping a cool head under the “fog of war” and when your in pain and pain increases, your adrenalin and the hypothalamus and pituitary glands are secreting adrenalin, and the more pain and punches you receive, the more adrenalin comes out and to be able to breath into it and still be able to be getting hit at the same time, and being able to assess the situation and make the right moves. These are all elements that have to do with fighting and when we get stuck in just one element, ground fighting, boxing or kicking, you lose the essence of what Bruce was trying to tell us.
Where do you see P.F.S. 10 years from now?
I want to open a school on the top of Mount Everest and I want everyone to call me “Grand Pooba” ok., from now on, no more Paul it’s “Grand Pooba” (he laughs). No! If P.F.S. 10 years from now is exactly where it is right now, I would be just as proud of it because we have two purposes in our Organisation, always have, always will. Number 1, we want to perpetuate Bruce Lee’s Art in an ethical way and Number 2, we want to maintain our love and our loyalty and our respect to Dan because without Dan, it would be nothing, no Paul, no P.F.S., no J.K.D. Most of the Kali that’s been shown around the world, nobody realises the contribution that man has made. Without him, this conversation wouldn’t even be here. So that’s the two purposes of P.F.S.
Ok Paul, I’d like to thank you very much for sharing your time and your thoughts for the Interview… Thank you very much.
Right on. Thanks Arthur. |
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