Let me just say this to start out, this isn’t necessarily just his fault. It’s fault of many Jeet Kune Do practioners and around the country. In Jeet Kune Do, we talk about four ranges of fighting: punching, kicking, trapping, and grappling. Technically wrestling falls in-between trapping and grappling and is both at the same time. That’s what we call a subsection of a range. Unfortunately, it’s an area that has been overlooked by most Jeet Kune Do practioners and teachers alike.

Jeet Kune Do practioners do so much trapping, which has caused a quandary. We have inadvertently given ourselves a hole in our own style, the wrestling game. Now, in the street this wouldn’t’ be a problem, because wrestling in the street is a bad idea (for reasons I won’t get into in this article). But, none the less the basic Jeet Kune Do user will be ineffective in the wrestling range without the right kind of training.

So what happened to our good friend Philippe Nover, he was not well enough trained in the wrestling range because of the focus on trapping or ground fighting. Both sides of this game are solid for Philippe but he still lacks the wrestling game he needs to be competitive in MMA. Although he has tremendous power and a very good ground game, he still cannot be a champion until he fixes this problem.

Philippe Nover, will learn more wrestling and dominate his competition in the future, but for the time being, he is not the Ultimate Fighter (yet). So, if you go to a Jeet Kune Do school for mma (again street self defense is something completely different) you want to find one that teaches stand up, ground, and wrestling. That way you’ll have the best chance of winning.

Scott Buendia teaches Jeet Kune Do under Paul Vunak in Hillsboro Oregon. You can find his Hillsboro and Tigard martial arts and mixed martial arts school by clicking here.