OF THE FIVE WAYS of attack, perhaps none generates more controversy among modern-day Jeet Kune Do practitioners than Hand Immobilization Attack (HIA). This way of attack is based upon the deployment of trapping hands, which Bruce Lee modified and adapted from the classical gung fu art, Wing Chun. Some Jeet Kune Do practitioners do not train or teach HIA because they do not believe in its effectiveness against street fighters and contemporary martial artists. While they may acknowledge that one can become a decent trapper with enough time and experience, they believe that there are other methods that can help a student become proficient at close range more quickly and more effectively. Others continue to believe in the efficiency of the trapping methods employed in Lee’s original art. They study it, practice it, become proficient at it, and pass it on to their students. Still others accept a compromise between the two positions, holding to the basic concept of trapping, but in forms different from those taught by Lee.

Whatever one may believe about the usefulness of trapping, one thing is certain: HIA is definitely an integral part of Jeet Kune Do, as practiced and taught during Lee’s lifetime. Therefore, to learn and understand Jeet Kune Do completely, as well as to pass it on to future generations, a student must study the methods associated with HIA. This is not merely for historical reasons, either. As we shall see, trapping can be very effective against certain opponents under the right circumstances.

The Historical Origins of HIA

A brief historical review is useful in helping the Jeet Kune Do student understand the roots of the trapping hands technique and the reasons for its prominent place in the evolution in Jeet Kune Do. When Bruce Lee was growing up in Hong Kong, he began to study the art of Wing Chun at a school operated by Yip Man, the head of the system at that time. While its forms were not fancy or elegant, Lee liked the high value it placed on practical combat.

Wing Chun is largely a close-quarters system that emphasizes fighting through the sense of touch. Unlike other gung fu systems that stress striking from a nontouching position, Wing Chun teaches students to attach their arms to their opponents’ arms. This allows students to feel the energy of their opponents’ movements and thereby read their opponents’ intentions. By being aware, through touch, of what an opponent is doing, a student can trap, or immobilize, the opponent’s arms.

Trapping the opponent’s arms accomplishes several objectives. First, you can remove a barrier that might prevent you from striking. Second, you prevent your opponent from using the trapped arm to strike you. Third, it enables you to more easily control your opponent.

Lee studied Wing Chun diligently for several years. He became so proficient at it that he became part of a small band of Wing Chun practitioners who fought other gung fu stylists. Although Lee did not complete the entire curriculum by the time he left Hong Kong for the United States, he attained a high level of skill in the art.

After arriving the United States, Lee continued to practice Wing Chun. During the first few years, the martial arts that he taught were a mixture of some of the Wing Chun trapping and other gung fu methods that he had picked up. Over time, he modified the trapping, so that it was no longer Wing Chun in its pure form as he had learned it. However, this new hybrid, which he called Jun Fan, his Chinese name, maintained trapping as its core.

As Lee continued to change his art, adding Western boxing, medium-range kicks, and fencing principles, trapping remained an essential part of the art, although no longer the primary focus. Nevertheless, HIA was still important enough to take its place as one of the five ways of attack in Jeet Kune Do. The curricula at his three schools in Seattle, Oakland, and Los Angeles all included basic trapping methods. However, Lee’s version of trapping assumed a more aggressive nature than in Wing Chun, largely as a follow-up to kicks and punches.

During the latter part of the 1960s and through the early 1970s, Lee himself no longer employed trapping as much in his training. Although he did not abandon it, he greatly de-emphasized it because he found that he no longer needed to use it. Lee became so adept in closing the distance and in other fighting methods that it became unnecessary for him to employ trapping techniques. In fact, at one point he told Taky Kimura, his assistant instructor in charge of the Seattle group, that chi sao, a sensitivity exercise from Wing Chun, was “out.”

Since Lee’s passing, his students have preserved the trapping aspects of Jeet Kune Do. While some have trained more and some less, the first generation of Jeet Kune Do practitioners and their students are making diligent efforts to ensure that current practitioners can learn, appreciate, and use HIA.

Elements of HIA

The Jeet Kune Do fighter’s objective is to hit the opponent. Generally, it is only when your opponent puts up a barrier or obstacle—such as a front-arm block to prevent you from striking—that trapping comes into play. The purpose of trapping, at that point, is to remove the obstacle so that you can continue your strike. In most cases trapping does not occur because you seek it. Rather, it occurs accidentally or incidentally, as you try to hit your opponent. So trapping is not an end in itself, but rather a means to an end, namely hitting.

There are certain elements that must be in place in order for HIA to work. These are as follows:

Sensitivity Drills

To help students develop their tactile awareness—that is, an ability to feel and read their opponents’ intentions—Jeet Kune Do utilizes sensitivity drills. These exercises were taken from classical gung fu systems, primarily Wing Chun and praying mantis. When practicing these drills, two students work with each other. They present specific hand and arm positions to each other, and project certain energies, to train their capacity to respond in an appropriate manner. While it is difficult, if not impossible, to fully understand the drills merely by reading about them, the following descriptions can provide an idea of the types of drills that are used.

Simple Traps

When a Jeet Kune Do fighter employs one trap to facilitate one strike, that is known as a simple trap. You begin training in HIA by learning various simple traps. Initially, you train on these traps from a reference point, that is, from a touching position in which you assume that your partner has already blocked your punch. This is to help you learn the proper structure, mechanics, and distance required for the trap. As you become more proficient, you open up the distance and fire a punch from medium range, run into a barrier, then trap from there. Later, you can open up the distance even more and begin with a kicking-to-punching combination to move you into range to trap. In that way, you are able to employ trapping when moving from other distances and other ways of attack.

The following are simple traps you will learn when training in HIA.

• Pak Sao: This is known as slapping hand. The basic idea is that, when your partner’s arm blocks the forward movement of your punch, your rear hand removes the barrier by slapping the arm forward and out of the way. This enables your punch to continue on its path toward the target.
   Typically, when you first learn pak sao, you start at a high reference point. This means that you and your partner have your front hands up, touching on the outside just below the wrists. This is to simulate the situation in which one partner’s lead punch to the face is blocked by the other partner’s front arm.
   As you touch, your front arm should apply forward pressure against your partner’s front arm, which should provide some resistance. With your rear guard up, you shoot your rear hand forward at your partner’s forearm and slap it away. You must ensure that you slap the arm forward toward your partner’s centerline. You should brace the arm against your partner’s body to keep it trapped so that your partner cannot use that arm. If you incorrectly slap it downward, your opponent can disengage it and counter with a hooking strike.
   The moment that you immobilize your partner’s arm, your lead punch should fire (see Figure 17-1). These movements should be coordinated with push shuffle advance footwork, because you will need to close on your opponent in order to land your punch. As you move in, you must ensure that you maintain the structural integrity of the lower-body baijong position. You should not end up with both feet closer together than before, but keep them at the same distance. You should not lean forward into your punch, which will disrupt your balance and possibly allow your partner to pull you.

• Pak sao can also be trained from a low reference point, in which both you and your partner are touching with your hands facing downward. This simulates your position if you tried a punch to the midsection, but your opponent’s front arm did a downward block of that punch. In this scenario you step forward with push shuffle and use your rear hand to trap your partner’s arm. As you do so, your lead hand swings back and upward into a backfist to your opponent’s face (see Figure 17-2).

• Lop Sao: This is known as grabbing hand. The idea is that you immobilize your opponent’s arm by grabbing it near the wrist and pulling the arm toward you. As you do so, your other arm can land a punch. Simultaneously yanking your opponent in your direction while firing a punch toward the face increases the power of your strike.
   Usually you learn this trap by starting at the high reference point with your partner, who provides either stiff resistance or forward-moving energy. When you feel this energy, you turn your hand to grab your partner’s wrist. You should rotate your waist as you pull your partner’s arm, yanking it toward you. At the same time you fire a rear straight punch to the face, extending your rear shoulder so that you can reach your partner with the punch.

• Jao Sao: This is known as running hand. Your front hand disengages from an attached position and moves to another position. For example, you can travel from a high line to a low line, from an outside line to an inside line, or an inside line to an outside line.
   You train in a basic jao sao by starting at a high reference point with your partner. You disengage your front hand by moving it underneath your partner’s front hand. You then shoot your front hand forward toward your partner’s head. As you do so, your rear hand should move up to pick up your partner’s front hand, to keep it from striking you. Then, if your partner’s rear arm blocks your front hand, you can disengage your front hand and execute a front groin smash with your front palm.

• Jut Sao: Known as jerking hand, this is a quick, abrupt motion used to move one or both of your opponent’s arms out of the way of your strike. You can use it to clear the arms so that you can strike at an open target area, or you can jerk your opponent’s body downward as you execute a head butt or upward knee strike.
   You can jut sao either one arm or both arms. There are different types of exercises that beginning students can practice to learn the jut sao. For a single-arm jut sao, you can start with your lead hand touching the outside of your partner’s front arm as you stand in unmatched lead. You can employ the jerking motion to clear the lead arm and return with a lead straight punch. Or from a matched lead, you can jerk down the rear arm while firing a rear straight punch at the same time (see Figure 17-3).
   For a double-arm jut sao, you start with both of your hands in contact with the outside of your partner’s arms. You can jerk down on both arms at the same time, clearing the line for different follow-ups. For example, you can execute a head butt as you jerk your partner’s arms. Another option is to jerk the arms and then push the shoulders with the palms of both hands. You may choose to jerk the arms down as you fire a front knee strike to the chest. An additional option is to trap both arms with one of your arms and fire a punch with the other arm.

• Huen Sao: This is also known as circling hand. It is a disengagement of your hand from the outside of your opponent’s arm to the inside, or vice versa, by circling your arm either over or under your opponent’s arm. The purpose is to move your hand into a position from which you can execute a desired strike.
   You can train for this by having your front hand on the outside of your partner’s rear arm and your rear hand on the outside of your partner’s front arm. You can circle your front hand over your partner’s rear arm and clear it, so your front hand ends up on the inside position. From there your rear arm can trap both your partner’s arms as your front hand fires a lead punch at your opponent.
   In a variation of this drill, you distract your partner as you execute your huen sao. You do this by firing a rear punch at your opponent while you move your front hand to clear your partner’s rear arm (see Figure 17-3). You then continue as before.

Compound Traps

When a Jeet Kune Do fighter uses two or more traps in sequence, that is known as compound trapping. There are many compound traps that Jeet Kune Do students can study and execute. These drills help students learn to flow from one trap to another according to an opponent’s responses. The basic idea is that, after you apply an initial trap and strike, if your partner obstructs the strike with another parry or block, you must trap that secondary barrier in order to strike.

Students will normally not learn compound trapping until they have become proficient in simple traps. The following are a few examples of compound traps taught in Jeet Kune Do.



There are many more compound trap sequences that you can learn, but these give you a flavor of how one trap can flow into another trap, depending upon how your opponent responds. In a real fighting situation, often one or, at most, two traps will be sufficient to allow you to strike your opponent.

In most circumstances you are not looking to trap, but to hit. HIA comes into play when you run into an obstruction as you try to hit your opponent. Therefore, as you train in HIA, remember that it is not an end in itself, but rather a means to an end. It is another useful way of attack that you can apply when your opponent gives you the appropriate opening.