Salutations!  My name is Vincent Benitez and welcome to www.thejerseymonk.com.  For most of my life, writing has been a great outlet for me.  My earliest memory of taking writing seriously was in grade school.  Yup, that young.  I somehow started writing short stories.  What type of short stories?  I purposely forget.  Eventually, the short stories led to poetry.  Yea, poetry.  After I discovered the love of Hip-Hop music in the early 90s, my poetry became "rhymes" or what society calls "raps".  Corny, I know.  I later on had the opportunity (well, many opportunities) to recite those "raps" in front of audience in different venues.  I recorded a couple of freestyles and wrote 3 original songs.  However, In 2004, my passion of "rapping" ended and I started to pursue something else...martial arts. 

I started in Kung Fu, specifically in the Long Fist form.  Why Kung Fu?  The movie, "36 Chambers of Shaolin" starring Gordon Liu.. that's why!  After a year and something of forms, I injured my lower back.  Ouch.  After a trip to the Operating Room and a very long recovery, I searched for a martial art that didn't have forms.  After a couple of months or so, my search finally ended.  Jeet Kune Do, "the way of the Intercepting Fist", a martial art that was discovered by the late Bruce Lee, caught my interest.  I found an instructor that taught authentic Jeet Kune Do... 50 miles away from where I live.  Yea, you read it right.  Since 2007, I've been under the guidance of Sifu Richard Torres, a JKD Instructor certified under Ted Wong (Bruce Lee's last private student and close friend). 

Although, my dream of being in the music industry ended, my passion for writing didn't.  I displayed my writings on major blog sites like Xanga and Blogspot but felt my writings were not represented properly.  So in early 2008, I started www.thejerseymonk.com to exhibit my writings on my own terms.  Since I was in full control of my own website, I started to provide information about Jeet Kune Do and of course Bruce Lee.  Just in case anyone was intrigued, you know?  Speaking of Bruce Lee....

Bruce Lee has been one of the great influences in my life.  I admire his thought process.  I feel that his memory and the legacy he left behind should be preserved.  It's sad to see that in the 21st century, a great number of people STILL do not know who he is or was.  Just to be clear, I am not a renagade writer that will force feed Bruce Lee to the world.  Yes, I do hold great respect for him, but I will never tarnish his character by using him as an excuse to be brash or irresponsible.  I would also like to add that I am NOT a teacher or have the authority to teach jeet kune do.  I AM only a student of the art.  I just like to blog.  My blogs are just MY view of how I SEE things, MY opinions of what I concluded.  Take whatever I write "as is".  Nothing more.