Author: Sifu/Guro Louie Campos
Sifu/Guro Louie Campos shares his understanding of Ted Lucaylucay’s Kali and its place against the Jeet Kune Do framework.
The resounding banging of axe handles resonates throughout the class. The expressive twisting and turning of bodies fluidly moving in time with the drum beat. The intense focus of the martial artists’ gaze, as the impact of the heavy weapons shapes the will as well as the structure of their bodies.
Intensity, realism, feedback, and appreciation of distance, timing, and rhythm, are all cultivated through the vehicle of Guro Ted Lucay-Lucay’s personal expression of Kali.
Based on the Villabrille Kali system, with its emphasis on the heavy weapon, Guro Ted’s Kali is the perfect carrier of expressive and effective use of weapons.
Poetry in motion can describe it. An understanding of motion is what it teaches.
Guro Ted’s Kali systematically initiates a student to the simple motions of weapon delivery, through complex interactive two man training.
Finally, the art culminates in fierce, full force exchanges of the cultivated and precise strikes of an experienced and mature martial artist. This produces an artist who can train realistically, effectively, and finally, safely.
Guro Ted’s association with the Filipino arts is rooted in a blood line of three generations of the Lucay-Lucay family line. From his Grand father through his father and finally to Guro Ted himself. From his first experience as a child, initiated through his father, Ted’s journey continued into adult hood, spurred on through his friendship and association of with Dan Inosanto. The timing was right, as Ted’s growth was fanned by Dan’s own intense search through the fierce arts that their mutual ancestry shared.
The style of no style, Jeet Kune Do, became Dan’s legacy after Bruce Lee passed in the early seventies. Ted’s insatiable thirst for knowledge, now already in full gear, drove him to learn more. He was additionally fortunate to participate in Dan’s experiences with the late Bruce Lee. Guro Ted’s dedication would result in his later becoming one of the few senior instructors in Dan’s organization.
Although conceptual in nature, Jeet Kune Do is semi-structured through the progressive training of the Jun Fan method. Primarily, Jeet Kune Do is concerned with motion and structural integrity, additionally and most importantly, the Jeet Kune Conception of motion can be translated through other systems which posses similar attributes. One method’s structure and motion that closely parallels those in JKD is Kali.
Kali demonstrates effectiveness as well as intelligence. Kali is highly developed and further extends the range and intensity of combat. As Dan himself has said, “JKD opened our eyes to Kali and Kali opened our eyes to JKD.” As a perfect vehicle with methods of development in all the critical ranges of combat, Kali can express JKD seamlessly! With Ted’s family ties to the Filipino arts and as a natural vehicle to express Jeet Kune Do, Ted naturally gravitated toward Kali. Thus Ted’s Kali/JKD.
Blood, sweat, and tears went into the refinement of Ted’s personal expression of the art. It has been refined into eight levels of training. Without going into the details of the levels, particular attributes can be recognized as a signature of Ted’s training methods. Some of the basic attributes are: Base: Associated with weight distribution and momentum in balance and footwork Pivot: Associated with angle of attack, further compliments momentum and maneuvering. Obtik: Associated with delivery of force to the intended target, the final compliment to balance, foot work, and the angle of attack. This is the object of the art. The key to understanding and developing these as well as the other signature attributes,( other signature attributes are Ted’s expressive footwork, angulation, and timing,) , is that all are rooted in the heavy weapons training of his Kali. One cannot claim association to Ted’s art without the ability to express and develop these attributes. Furthermore, distance, timing and rhythm, as well as other Jeet Kune Do concepts permeate the entire curriculum. In the end the Kali and the Jeet Kune Do are one.