Martial Arts Illustrated Interviews Paul Vunak

Articles - From The Archive

This interview was conducted by Dave Carnell for Martial Arts Illustrated in 1992 and was first published in the June 1992 edition.

Dave Carnell: Paul, when did you first start your martial arts training?
Paul Vunak: I was nine, and started in the Tracy Karate system - it was Kempo Karate.

We have also heard that you've trained in taekwondo too. Is this true?
Right.

Was that right up until you started your training with Dan?
I started my training with Dan in '76 and I had about eight years, roughly, in Kempo Karate before that. I started at Tracy's and then I wanted to balance up the hands so I went to taekwondo.

How did you first become interested in JKD?
Through knowing Bruce Lee - knowing of Bruce Lee, I should say, and just naturally gravitating toward wanting to know one of the best disciples of Bruce Lee, knowing that he was the best.

So it was Bruce that originally attracted you?
Right.

What did you first think of Dan Inosanto when you first started to train with him?
Same thing I think now, that he's just awesome, just unbelievable. Someone I am just in awe of and I always will be - you know, just in awe of this person.

What kind of things did you practice and work out in back then in the early days?
I entered a lot of tournaments, a lot of karate tournaments. I was more a competitor in tournaments back then.

What about when you got into the JKD?
When I got into the JKD in '76, for the first couple of years I boxed golden gloves. I segregated into full contact boxing and then I just emphasised the trapping after that, finding my limitations in boxing.

I understand that you are also a qualified instructor in Savate. What kind of qualities did you get from your Savate training?
Savate is the way that they throw their weapons, the flicking motion, the speed, the fast twitching, the fast tensing. If a Savate kick goes out at fifty, H comes back at one hundred. It's a fast, stinging, flicking kick as opposed to a thrusting, locking kick like a taekwondo kick. It would almost be the exact opposHe of taekwondo. One is a flicking, jabbing kick; the other is locking, thrusting and structurally slow in comparison.

You've left the nest so to speak to form Progressive Fighting Systems. How did this come about, and why?
Just a natural evolution of my own personal growth. I'm still with Dan, I still train with him. I am loyal to Dan and always will be, but I gravitated toward doing seminars and developed a lot of students around the country and around the world, and eventually the students formed into teaching other people and we formed a corporation called Progressive Fighting Systems. I'm not very much into politics, so that's why I wanted to have my own thing and my group of guys and to get on with it without worrying about who does what, where and why.

Do you have your own ranking system in Progressive Fighting Systems?
Yes. Very intricate and very complicated! I have two ranks apprentice and full. That's it - you're an apprentice instructor or a full instructor, or a student! So it keeps it real simple.

Do you still keep in touch with Dave or any of the other instructors from the academy. Do you still get together?
All the time regularly, yes.

I know that JKD is about being a all-rounder, but do you specialise in any particular area, or is there an are you like best?
Right now I'm working on my ground work. That's my weakest link, so I like that the best for myself, right now. But prior to that it's been trapping range.

We've heard that you've just finished training with the US Navy Seals. Can you tell us about any of your experience with them?
I'm currently still with them, and the air force, with both branches, and I have a contract for four years with the military. As far as what I can tell you, I am showing them the quickest way to immobilise somebody, empty-hand wise, most effectively. I have a bunch of intense Seals that like to train in that.

Obviously, this must allow you to take it into the overkill stage?
Sure, because I'm like a kid in a candy store, I have a group of genetic specimens with a lot of big heart!

At present which areas or martial arts are you training in?
I'm a student of Gracie Ju-Jitsu. I've been doing that for about a year.

Just to round off, could you enlighten us on your personal view of what JKD is for you?
J.K.D. for me is the ability to cope with any situation, so it starts on a physical level and it should also be able to overlap into an emotional level hopefully, someday spiritual, but I won't talk about that because I'm not there.