Tired of the Bruce Lee myth: lets look at the facts.....

[rogue]

As far as Lee sparring with many people I do that too. My master and others say I have good technique and knowlege but they still kick my butt.

[rogue]

I just finished reading the article and I don't think Lee really understands or gets what traditional MA, katas and the whole "classical mess" are about. He makes some good points but he's being critical of things that he's seen only the surface of or heard about. Notice how Lewis and Norris didn't dump their arts to follow Lee.

I'm just learning things about my kata that I never knew and it's given me a lot more appreciation for the traditional arts.

All in all Lee comes across trying to sound deep but it just doesn't hold up. Good thing for Lee that Inosanto was the one to carry the JKD name forward or else it'd be a total joke today.

[GinSueDog]

Just wanted to point out that both Lewis and Norris crosstrain and research other arts, so maybe they did get the message after all. In fact Norris is a BJJ purple belt no small thing for a guy over fifty. What I got from the message was style isn't what is important, training and free thinking are what are important.-ED

"The grappling arts imply most fights end up on the ground...take them there. The striking arts imply all fights start standing up...keep them there. The mixed martial arts imply any fight can go anywhere...be ready and able to go everywhere."-a mix martial artist

[mantis108]

I am not a fan of Bruce Lee. I don't see him as an idol. Having said that, it doesn't take away his place in the martial art world.

There are lots we can learn form that man as a martial artist. He single handedly urshed in a new era. Bruce Lee paradigm is the genusis of the Mixed Martial Arts and the Cross Training era. Although Bodhidharma (Shaolin) paradigm is still going strong, Traditional Martial Arts are not without serious reflections and reinventing, i.e. the birth of San Shuo. It is not the first time that people attempted to "Kill the Buddha to become Buddha". Frankly, I am not impressed with Mr. Hess's article. Using sports' perspective, which is partial and mostly physical, to judge a martial artist's ultimate strength, which is more indepth and complete, is hardly an adequate measurement. Personally, I wonder since when moral behavior becomes an important part of sports? If that's the case, we would not have the wild spread substance abuse (performance enchancing or not) problem in the sport community. The Snowboarding kid (Canadian? A disgrace to me eventhough he talked his way out of being stripped of his gold medal) was a farce to testify that there is no such a thing as moral correctness in sports. All I am saying is don't let your likes or dislikes cloud your judgement. Scholarly talk and fancy words are, after all, another personal opinion.

I hear your frustration, Jo, and I hold high value of your opinions. I agree Bruce Lee is but a man, not the demi God. Yet, discarding him as a martial artist and his methodolgy as a valid martial art alternative might narrow your path too much. I have no intention to change anyone's view. Just hoping that we all keep an open mind and learn from either good or bad example.

Mantis108

Contraria Sunt Complementa

[3BladesFighter]

Hahahaha, forgive but i guess you didn't listen to my post, Jo. Can you give me one GOOD reason why you're hating on Bruce?! What, pray tell, the hell are you hating on a human being in the first place? I think you disrespect the concept of live, dogg.

You live, you have fun, you die. It's natural, but you just pushed hating on Lee. Now, again i hold you in high respect, though on the contrary it may seem.

If you hate Bruce so much, why share with other people if you KNOW it's gonna start some major junk, bro. If you were a true Martial Artist, then you would hold respect instead of hate, dogg. that's how life is; without respect, you are going nowhere, my friend. Seeya and please change, man.

Build from the past, live in the present, and ignore the future. What you do now determines what happens later

[NorthernMantis]

I don't think jojitsu hates bruce at all.I think what he is trying to say is that bruce lee is not invincible.No one is.He was a man like all of us.
Not only that but he was saying that people take the image of bruce lee and exagerated to an unbelievable extent.

I had uncles tell me that bruce was the real deal,that he could break through walls and jump ten feet high plus all that other stuff.The truth is that he was a matial artist exploring new ways for himself trying to perfect his fighting ability just like anyone else.I myself can never say he was really good,but I cannot deny that he wasn't.Like someone else said I'm not a fan of bruce lee.I do give him some credit though for he was a martial artist.I heard that he was a slacker and I heard how he was so good,a very tough fighter.It's hard to say.


Was Bruce Lee a martial artist?yes

Was Bruce Lee an actor?yes

Did he try to perfect himself?yes

WAs he invincible?no,because no one is.

I can't say anything more since I do not know more than the average person about him.

"Always be ready"

[rogue]

You're right GSD, but they didn't switch over to do what Lee was doing. Also Norris hasn't rejected TSD the way Lee rejected his base art, but has added to it. Lee also didn't invent crosstraining. Bruce Lees greatest contribution was kicking over the MA can, disrupting things a bit, in much the same way the Gracies did in the 90's.

The problem with taking Lees quotes or what he was doing and basing your MA beliefs on it is that it was like he said, a process. He wasn't finished. Wasn't he was closing down his school and shutting the door on JKD when he died? No one knows where he might have ended up, he might have revisited his roots and found things there that he might have missed the first time through.

[GinSueDog]

Did Bruce really reject Wing Chun, was that his message? If it was then why did he still have so much Wing Chun in his style of fighting and why did he still train it and practice it with other Wing Chun stylist up to his death? I think you are missing the point and I think Norris and Lewis got the point. Do your own thing, question what you do and how you do it and then do it better. I think the only thing Bruce Lee rejected was blind faith. I didn't see anything in that article that stated he rejected Wing Chun, nor did I see anything that stated you had to do it his way. If you ask me Lewis and Norris got the message and are doing there own thing call it whatever you want but now you can't really name the style they do anymore and that's the point, is Norris a TSD stylist, or maybe a Ed Parker Kenpo stylist, or maybe a BJJ stylist, or could he be a Thai Boxer, etc. :D -ED

"The grappling arts imply most fights end up on the ground...take them there. The striking arts imply all fights start standing up...keep them there. The mixed martial arts imply any fight can go anywhere...be ready and able to go everywhere."-a mix martial artist

[HuangKaiVun]

I remain unconvinced that Bruce Lee truly hated forms.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have been friends with so many kung fu men.

I think what he really meant to say was that doing forms without fighting would not help a person get better at fighting.

Otherwise he would never had allowed his first book to have stayed in circulation.


Jojitsu27, I'd still take Lee over any of those guys in a streetfight, where eyejabs, biting, and all sorts of evil tricks that you can see in Lee's eyes but not in his print are permissible.

You do WC. You can SEE that Lee has the eyes of a KILLER.

[yamato_damashii]

Actually, the Shaolin temple was a FORUM for cross-training. Famous fighters came from all over China to teach and be taught by the monks--which is why we have so many styles with the name "Shaolin" in them.

I believe that Bruce was a capable fighter, but I don't believe that he was all that some would crack him up to be. According to Joe Svinth, when Lee returned to Hong Kong after his Hollywood dreams petered out, he went back to Yip's studio and got his ASS handed to him by the senior students.

Taking what is useful is all well and good, but you have to stay with a style long enough to FIND OUT what is useful--a year or three don't cut it (well, maybe for tae kwon do). There are hundreds of years of research in a good martial art, which are not usually handed out freely.

And mixing martial arts was hardly a Lee innovation. Americans just hadn't had martial arts long enough to try it yet. How many martial arts MASTERS can you name who only study one style?

Jason C. Diederich

<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/shaolinninjamarine/" TARGET="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/shaolinninjamarine/</A>

[Ky-Fi]

"Taking what is useful is all well and good, but you have to stay with a style long enough to FIND OUT what is useful--a year or three don't cut it (well, maybe for tae kwon do). There are hundreds of years of research in a good martial art, which are not usually handed out freely."

That's my take as well. As far as the Chuck Norris example--I admit I don't know much about the ranking system of BJJ--but I assume that Chuck didn't just train BJJ for a short while and then claimed to have taken the best from BJJ. I'm guessing that he humbled himself, started at the bottom, and worked hard over a long period of time learning the basic, intermediate and advanced techniques and strategies, until knowledgeable BJJ people granted him a high official rank--exactly the same way he learned Tang Soo Do. That's the way to crosstrain, in my opinion.

[Kevin73]

The problem is(as I see it) that we are looking at what Bruce Lee did through historical hindsight. Nowadays everyone advocates cross training and street applicability.

Back then you took one style and many times you would have been kicked out for going to another school to learn at the same time. Also, many schools today realize that different body types will perform the moves differently, back then everyone did it the same way ("Do" vs. "jutsu").

From what I have read (I claim no expertise) JKD wasn't so much for a new beginner as it was for an experienced martial artist to further expand what he knew by filling in the gaps of his base art. Again, back then everyone's art was "THE ART" to study and was invincible. Bruce realized that all arts had strong points and weak points and to find ways to fill in the weak points.

Having said that I agree with his concepts of that. I feel that today too many people don't have a base system that they have a GOOD foundation in to realize where the weaknesses might be. I know for me the more I study the more I realize that it has answers to areas I thought were lacking just because I wasn't there yet in my training. In this months blackbelt there is an article where the guy states to only study a style for 6 months before moving on because you will learn the most applicable techs in that time. WHAT???

To me this is the Bruce Lee mess that was left by what he started and never finished because he died.

"There are many who talk of the Way, but few who walk the Way."

[jojitsu27]

I think everyone here who thinks I hate Bruce Lee or am just trying to bash him in some way are missing my point.
I don't hate Bruce Lee, I don't hate anyone! Hate is not a part of my belief system.
I just don't think Lee was the great God of fighting that many here make him out to be.
If you want to idolize fighters, idolize the real ones like Sakuraba.
Lee was a great Movie Star, Martial Artist, and thinker. Let's leave it at that!
-jojitsu27

[GinSueDog]

With the Concepts of JKD in mind, there really is no base art or style if you really think about it. There is only what works and what doesn't, where you get it doesn't matter as long as it works. Those that study JKD under a JKD instructor are basically using those instructor's experiences as a guild post. Most JKD instructors often study other arts on there own, in fact most hold ranking in a number of other arts, one of the instructors I trained with, an original Bruce Lee student, not only was certified by Dan Inosanto, but was also certified with the Olympic Training Center as a coach and official with USA Boxing, and a Kru in Muay Thai, recognized by the Council o Grandmasters of the Philippines as Ninth degree Black Belt (Grandmaster) in Doce Pares Eskrima, not to mention a blue belt in BJJ. Many spend years researching other systems from Savate, to Muay Thai, to Judo, to whatever interests them. Hell, Burton Richardson went all the way to Africa to research tribal fighting systems. I stopped officially studying under a certified JKD instructor just over a year or so ago and have been researching things on my own, but whatever it is, BJJ, Muay Thai, Shooto...I still consider it my own personal favor of JKD. What you guys are failing to see is that you need to stop seeing things as this style or that style and maybe just look at it as what works for you and what doesn't. One of the problems with JKD that messes it all up, is that Bruce and then his followers had to call it something.-ED

"The grappling arts imply most fights end up on the ground...take them there. The striking arts imply all fights start standing up...keep them there. The mixed martial arts imply any fight can go anywhere...be ready and able to go everywhere."-a mix martial artist

[LEGEND]

JOJITSU...you missed the whole point I posted...I've seen your post in UG and several other post...and you do RAG on BRUCE...as much as trolls be ragging on RICKSON! Just let it be...

A