The Dave Hash Interview
Conducted by Paul Bax

When and how did you first start your training in martial arts?
David Hash: When I was 10 years old my dad enrolled me in Karate in the small town I lived in. The style was Shotokan. My Sensei was a real “hard as nails” type of guy. He trained “old school”. I recall doing almost 200 pushups during one class. During another class, he had us doing punches while sitting in a deep Horse Stance for close to 30 minutes non-stop and if we stopped…drop down and do more pushups. Or the times that he walked around with the bamboo Kendo stick and he whacked us in the arms, legs and across the stomachs to make sure our stances were perfect and very strong. This definitely gave me a lesson in discipline.

How did you first hear about Bruce Lee and his art of Jeet Kune Do?
DH: I owe that to my dad, he was into martial arts back when he was younger. I guess he kind of wanted me to get into it too. One day my dad came home from the video store with some movies and called me into the house from playing outside. He sat me down in front of the T.V. and put in this movie. When I asked him what it was, he told me it was a Kung Fu movie called “Enter the Dragon”. The martial artist’s name was Bruce Lee and that he was the best Kung Fu fighter in the world.
Once that film started, I watched it wide-eyed and in awe until the end credits rolled. Then I rewound it and watched it all over again. I was hooked from then on. From that day forward I said to myself, “I’m gonna be like that guy someday!”

What was it about JKD that led you away from traditional martial arts?
DH: I started Jeet Kune Do later in my life, in my twenties. There was no JKD around my area when I was a kid or a teen so I trained in everything else I could get into: Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Boxing, Wing Chun, Judo and Jiu-Jitsu. It wasn’t until 8 or 9 years ago that I found a school that offered JKD.
Most arts have these elaborate and complex fighting sequences that are made up of 3 or 4 sometimes even 5 moves or techniques. Although these arts can be effective, they contain a lot of wasted energy and motion.
When I first got into Jeet Kune Do, I was surprised at the differences between it and the other arts I had studied in the past. Jeet Kune Do took the approach of minimizing its movements but keeping the effectiveness of fighting. Once I saw this I thought to myself, “No more with all of those complicated and fancy arts”.

JKD has gone through a lot of phases over the years due to different theories on how the art should be taught. What is your take on the “Concepts” vs. “Original” controversy?
DH: This is a never-ending debate. My personal view is this: it is either Jeet Kune Do or it isn’t. There is no in-between. If you train in JKD and mix in Kali, Silat and Thai Boxing then you should rename it and call it something else cause you are no longer doing “JKD”. It’s fine if people explore combining different arts, as long as they keep the arts they train in as totally separate entities and don’t call it Jeet Kune Do. For example, let’s say you are a bartender and you take a glass of wine then add some fruit juice to it; are you still drinking wine? The answer is simple – no. You have created a totally new drink so why would you still call it wine? The same goes for the martial arts. A prime example is the combining of Aikido and Jiu-Jitsu, the end result is the art called Aiki-Jitsu. I have no problem with people training in these arts but to support their actions, they shouldn’t start saying stuff like, “Bruce Lee would have wanted it this way!” No one knows what Bruce Lee would have done or what he would have wanted. Too many people have used the name JKD to help sell their style or art and to support their actions. I think that if you can’t stand on your own two feet to walk, then give it up.

You have trained with several original Bruce Lee students. Please list your instructors in JKD and what you have learned from each of them and some of the differences in their teaching styles and their application and interpretations of Jeet Kune Do.