Happy Birthday Bruce

[jesper]

Today Bruce Lee would have turned 70
So happy birthday and rest in peace

[Syn7]

Today Bruce Lee would have turned 70
So happy birthday and rest in peace

wouldve been interesting to see what wouldve happened if he backed off on the training a bit and lived.... would he even practice any cma at all, ya think??

[David Jamieson]

wouldve been interesting to see what wouldve happened if he backed off on the training a bit and lived.... would he even practice any cma at all, ya think??

He'd be a nobody without it, so, no, I don't think he would have left it behind.

[Syn7]

yeah but near the end he was increasingly critical and in some cases str8 up hostile towards tcma... i agree, he should remember where he came from... no doubt... biut still, i noticed a gradual trend in his later years... the cross training seemed to really change his view on tthe whole game...

[GeneChing]

For more on what's happened in honor of Bruce's 70th, check out our Bruce Lee Memorials thread. (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42950)

For more on his impact, check out my interview from last year with his daughter - Shannon Lee on HOW BRUCE LEE CHANGED THE WORLD (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=821).

[David Jamieson]

yeah but near the end he was increasingly critical and in some cases str8 up hostile towards tcma... i agree, he should remember where he came from... no doubt... biut still, i noticed a gradual trend in his later years... the cross training seemed to really change his view on tthe whole game...

Maybe that's a perception?

He couldn't draw any context to himself at all without referring to it, his entire career was based around it and I reiterate, he would have been an absolute nobody without tcma.

maybe he was critical because despite his desire, it was the classical mess that interested people more than his shoddy acting abilities? lol

[sanjuro_ronin]

Without Bruce Lee I would have never take up MA, I never would have though about exposing myself to different MA and I never would have got into kung fu movies:D.
He was a cool dude that, regardless of his MA skill, did more from MA than anyone before him or after him.
No matter where you go in the world, people know the name Bruce Lee.

[David Jamieson]

I attribute my interest in martial arts to Cassius Clay/ Muhammad Ali, the Greatest!

Man, that guy inspired me and still does. I have a huge poster of him still with "Impossible is nothing" blazing across it.

Bruce Lee though? Not so much.What can I say? :p

[Syn7]

I attribute my interest in martial arts to Cassius Clay/ Muhammad Ali, the Greatest!

Man, that guy inspired me and still does. I have a huge poster of him still with "Impossible is nothing" blazing across it.

Bruce Lee though? Not so much.What can I say? :p

say my name sucka... whats my name!!!!

[sanjuro_ronin]

I attribute my interest in martial arts to Cassius Clay/ Muhammad Ali, the Greatest!

Man, that guy inspired me and still does. I have a huge poster of him still with "Impossible is nothing" blazing across it.

Bruce Lee though? Not so much.What can I say? :p

I assume boxing was your first love of MA.

[David Jamieson]

say my name sucka... whats my name!!!!

other than an obscure chemistry reference, I have no idea what your moniker is about. lol

[David Jamieson]

I assume boxing was your first love of MA.

yes, yes it was.

[sanjuro_ronin]

other than an obscure chemistry reference, I have no idea what your moniker is about. lol

I think he is referring to what Ali said when he changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhamed Ali and then in a fight with ( I forget who) who said that he woudl always be Clay to him, Ali beat him and taunted him to "say his name".

Or something like that.

[GeneChing]

Bruce would have been 72.

And Jimi would have been 70.

Both are buried in WA.

[Syn7]

other than an obscure chemistry reference, I have no idea what your moniker is about. lol

Well done... That is a part of it. You are the first one here to catch that.


But no, I was quoting ur hero.

Sorry I'm a few years too late.

[Jimbo]

I never watched a Bruce Lee movie until the late 1970s and I'd already been MA training for years. His movies were re-released in theaters after that patchwork film Game of Death came out.

But I do remember when Enter the Dragon first came out, my older bro and cousins were excited about it. Because for the first time in movies, they were seeing an Asian hero. I'm talking about a major international movie, big in the States at that time. It may not seem like such a big deal to some people, but if you understand the time period, that was a very big thing. Although we aren't Chinese, we are Asian, and for the first time one was portrayed in an American movie as a kick-@ss leading man and not as a passive servant or flunky.

But I didn't become interested to see his movies until years later. So I can't give him credit for inspiring me to start MA. I had much more immediate reasons.

In 1985, during my first visit to Hong Kong, I saw a re-release of Way of the Dragon in a big theater (one of the Golden Harvest theaters), and I was surprised by how many people were in the audience; it was maybe three-quarters full, 12 years after his death. That said a lot.

[GeneChing]

We should be celebrating Bruce's Bday with Bollywood starlets, not just a ttt here. :o


:Bollywood Martial Art experts Yajness Shetty Celebrates Bruce Lee’s 72nd Birthday with Film & TV stars (http://www.washingtonbanglaradio.com/content/114572312-bollywood-martial-art-experts-yajness-shetty-celebrates-bruce-lee-s-72nd-birthday-)
Wed, 11/28/2012 - 11:26
By Sanjay Sharma Raj

http://imageshack.us/a/img59/9018/shamasikanderkasmirasha.jpg
Shama Sikander and Kashmira Shah

Mumbai, Nov 28, 2012 (Washington Bangla Radio) Chitah Yajness Shetty, the Bollywood martial arts trainer and chairman of chairman of Chitah Jeet Kune Do Global Sports Fedration, on Tuesday 27th November 2012, celebrated the 72nd birth anniversary of Bruce Lee at Game Hall of Andheri Sports Complex, Andheri (w), Mumbai with glamor and sweat.

The glamour that assembled during the day included Kashmira Shah, Shama Sikandar, Krishna Abhishek,Claudia Ciesla (Big Boss,Khiladi 786fame),Ashay Sethi,{Saural Genda phool fame},Hanif Hilal(zor ka zatka,jalak dhiklaja fame),Shama Sikander (ye meri life hai fame) ,Ayush Tandon( life of pi fame),Gilbert D’soza .

As a dedicated student of Yajness, Claudia Ciesla arrived and left early for her other promotions.

This is the fifth consecutive year of Bruce Lee’s birthday celebrations by Yajness Shetty. While the assembled stars thanked their master and trainer, Chitah Yajness Shetty said “it was an honour celebrating Bruce lee’s birthday year after year. Bruce less has given so much to the martial arts forms and was the greatest martial artist ever. I have celebrated his Birthday every year for past five years and intend to celebrate it in coming years too.”

On the occasion he organised 2nd Chitah Jeet Kune Do National Championship this year too.

Martial artists from 20 states sweated it out in the event and the winners were awarded certificates.

The event also saw the release of a 2013 calendar featuring Bruce Lee’s 72 philosophies like focus, meditation etc; and has some rare Bruce Lee photos. A big statue of Bruce Lee was also inaugurated. Celebrities cut a cake to celebrate Bruce Lee’s Birthday.

http://imageshack.us/a/img803/4108/s72birthdaycake.jpg
Akshay Shetty, Ayush Tandon, Shama Sikander, Kasmira Shah, Krishna Abhishiek and Yajness Shetty cutting Bruce Lee's 72nd birthday cake.

[GeneChing]

He would've been 78 today.


Happy Birthday Bruce Lee: 9 Lesser known facts about the action god (https://newsroompost.com/lifestyle/happy-birthday-bruce-lee-9-lesser-known-facts-about-the-action-god/416629.html)
By Newsroom Staff - November 27, 2018

New Delhi: Bruce Lee needs no introduction. He was the first Asian-American actor to ever have a lead role in a Hollywood film. Bruce Lee is a film and martial arts legend known for his lightning-quick fighting style, his grunts and facial expression he made while fighting, his pithy philosophical statements and more.

1. At 18, Lee was so good at dancing that he won a competition to become the cha-cha champion of Hong Kong

https://newsroompost.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Lee-1.jpg

2. Bruce Lee started young. Not only did he begin martial arts at age 13, he was also a child actor, and appeared in over 20 films in Hong Kong

3. Bruce Lee had the ability to snatch a dime off a person’s open palm before they could close it, and leave a penny behind.

4. Despite his quick reactions and insightful precision, Bruce Lee actually had terrible eyesight.

https://newsroompost.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Lee-2.jpg

5. Bruce Lee’s kicks were so fast that while filming for one scene in Enter the Dragon, they had to re-film it in slow motion (34 frames) so that it wouldn’t appear fake.

6. Bruce’s sister, Agnes, was the one who first started calling him “Little Dragon,” a nickname that stuck with him in Asia throughout his life.

https://newsroompost.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/lee-5.jpg

7. When he was seventeen years old, he won a boxing tournament put on by twelve Hong Kong schools even though he had no formal training in boxing.

8. Bruce Lee never intended to become an actor, and dreamed instead of opening up martial arts schools across the US.

Hold the phone. I only count 8 facts. And I knew all of them, except for #8, which isn't quite right. Lee already had several films under his belt before he aspired to open a martial arts school as a child actor so that 'fact' makes no sense. :rolleyes:

[GeneChing]

Bruce Lee: 10 more things you probably didn’t know about the Hong Kong martial arts superstar (https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3039222/bruce-lee-10-more-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-hong)
To celebrate Hong Kong kung fu legend Bruce Lee’s birthday, here are 10 lesser-known facts about the cultural icon
Find out why he was called ‘Chicken Legs’ at school, why he took up kung fu and what car he bought when he first came into some money
SCMP Reporter
Published: 10:00pm, 26 Nov, 2019

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Hong Kong martial arts superstar Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (1973). Photo: Alamy

Hong Kong martial arts superstar Bruce Lee was born on November 27, 1940. Here are 10 things you probably didn’t know about him.

1. According to Matthew Polly’s in-depth biography Bruce Lee: A Life, Lee’s nickname at school was “Gorilla”. He acquired this slightly derogatory moniker because, as Hawkins Cheung, his school friend at St Francis Xavier’s School, remembered, “he was muscular and walked around with his arms at his sides”.
Most of the schoolkids were scared of Lee, but as Cheung was one of his closest friends, he made up his own nickname for him: he called him “Chicken Legs”, because of Lee’s muscular torso and apparently scrawny legs. Hawkins said that Lee used to get mad at him when he used this name and would chase him around the schoolyard.

2. Although he came from a middle-class home, the young Lee was a tearaway who loved street-fighting.
“As a kid in Hong Kong, I was a punk and went looking for fights,” he told Black Belt magazine. “We used chains and pens with knives hidden inside. Then, one day, I began to wonder what would happen if I didn’t have my gang behind me when I got into a fight.”

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Lee was called both “Gorilla” and “Chicken Legs” at school. Photo: Alamy

This revelation was to change the course of his life, as he started thinking about learning martial arts. “I only took up kung fu when I began to feel insecure,” he said.

3. One of Lee’s early girlfriends was a Japanese-American student named Amy Sanbo. She initially rebuffed his romantic overtures, but he was persistent.
The turning point came when she stepped on a nail in her ballet class and had to walk around on crutches. When Lee noticed Sanbo struggling to ascend a tall flight of concrete stairs, he picked her up and carried her to the top. The two had an on-off relationship for two years after that.
4. Bruce Lee and I is a 1976 feature film that purports to tell the story of Betty Ting Pei, the woman Lee was with the night he died. Bizarrely, Ting starred in the film as herself, and is seen cavorting in bed with Danny Lee Sau-yin, who plays Bruce.
“Betty Ting Pei nearly got the chance to act out her real-life drama in Bruce Lee and I, but the director had other ideas … the director [Lo Mar] decided to make what happened in her bedroom that night look all part of her imagination,” a critic wrote at the time.

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Lee in 1960s TV series The Green Hornet. Photo: Alamy

5. Lee’s on-screen martial arts career didn’t get off to a good start on The Green Hornet, the American TV show which gave him his first taste of fame in the West.
It wasn’t that he performed badly – he just moved too fast for the cameras. After shooting a scene in which he was so fast no one could see the moves he was making, resulting in laughter from the show’s cast and crew, Lee stormed into his dressing room in a bad mood.
After that he modified his approach. “By god, did he slow it down,” said The Green Hornet’s star Van Williams. Lee played the Hornet’s assistant Kato in the series.

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Lee in The Green Hornet. Photo: Alamy

6. Lee really loved cars, but while he was teaching martial arts in the US, he could only afford an unglamorous Chevrolet “Chevy” Nova (the car had a sticker in the back window that read “This car is protected by the Green Hornet”).
A friend sometimes let him drive a supercool Shelby Cobra (called the AC Cobra in Britain), but what he really wanted was the sports car his best buddy Steve McQueen owned: a Porsche Targa.
When Lee’s mother sent him his share of the proceeds from an apartment she’d sold in Hong Kong, he went straight out to buy the Porsche, even though he couldn’t really afford it.

7. Veteran film director Lo Wei, who directed Lee in The Big Boss, made the mistake of telling a newspaper that he taught Bruce how to fight in front of the cameras. Even worse, he dared to call himself “The Dragon’s Mentor”. When he found out, an enraged Lee rushed over to where Lo was filming and threatened to beat him up. Lee only calmed down when Lo’s wife Gladys intervened.

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The Bruce Lee statue along Hong Kong’s Avenue of Stars. Photo: Alamy

8. Bruce’s younger brother Robert Lee Jun-fai was a famous pop musician in Hong Kong. He was lead singer of the Thunderbirds, a successful group of the mid-1960s, and sang in English. He released a posthumous tribute to his brother called The Ballad of Bruce Lee in 1974.
9. When Lee’s first martial arts film The Big Boss was released in Hong Kong in 1971, it beat the city’s box-office record set by a very different kind of film – the musical The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews, which had been released in 1965. The Big Boss was a surprise box-office hit.

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Lee in Enter the Dragon. Photo: Alamy

10. The 1976 “biopic” Bruce Lee: True Story – one of many shoddy films about the star made after his death – depicted a few completely different versions of how he died. One of these endings featured the unusual idea that Lee was not actually dead at all, and was planning to re-emerge in the 1980s.
“[The film] means well and is a briskly paced and slickly conceived effort,” film trade newspaper Variety said in a review at the time, but noted: “there is very little said about the man and his personal life”.

THREADS
HBD Bruce (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?59180-Happy-Birthday-Bruce)
Bruce Lee: A Life by Matt Polly (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?65795-Bruce-Lee-A-Life-by-Matt-Polly)