Is kenpo better than jeet kune do?

Answer 1

No; modern day Kenpo has deviated so much from its mother art Shaolin Kung Fu, that it is barely recognizable as a relative of the art. Kenpo does not even look like Kung Fu anymore.

I would say that both arts are great for self defense, but do not look pretty, but practical self-defense does not look pretty to begin with. Kenpo has been modified over the years, for example one of the original techniques I had seen uses an arm bar, while the modified technique simply breaks the arm with a hammer fist. Jeet Kune Do is great because it adds a great deal of boxing, and wing chun techniques that are not really used in Kenpo, as well as Jiu Jitsu. The great thing is that both of these arts add and modify techniques, for example, most Jeet Kune Do and Kenpo schools now teach more grappling today compared to 20 years ago. It is important to remember that Dan Inosanto, who is the person to go to for JKD, was a practitioner of Kenpo before training with Bruce Lee, and I believe that Bruce Lee noted that a Kenpo stylist named Steve Muhammed had the fastest hands in Karate that he had ever seen. Lastly, it is important to realize that a Martial Arts effectiveness also depends on the person, and also that studying both styles would not hurt, especially since JKD, or JKD Concepts anyways, always teaches its students to seek knowledge, absorb what is useful, and discard what is not.