Lol, I think he meant Guro, which is Filipino for teacher.Originally Posted by Syn7
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Lol, I think he meant Guro, which is Filipino for teacher.
I'm your Huckleberry
**** you TC!Good information Lance, thankyou. Actually, in my limited research I found little info suggesting BL learned Bagua or Hsing-I except through books. Have you heard otherwise?
And yes, as Syn7 pointed out, its usually spelled Guro.
You beat me to it...
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lance:
I don't want to say Bruce Lee lost because, at the time, they had agreed not to talk about it afterwards and Bruce Lee never publicly mentioned Wong Jack Man's name. Here are some things you might want to consider though:
1. It was not supposed to be a fight more than a sparring match that was related to correcting one’s belief in Wu De (Martial Ethics). (Note: This incident had nothing to do with teaching outsiders or were the Triads connected in any way.)
2. If it was a fight, it would have ended after five moves.
3. BL asked WJM for a re-match after 10 years and WJM agreed.
4. WJM was well known before the incident and was still well respected after the incident.
5. WJM is a strong believer in Wu De and he would have stopped teaching if he had lost.
6. If WJM had lost he also would have lost face and either learned BL’s style or closed his school and moved out of the Chinese community.
7. BL did close his school and move out of the community. He also changed his style significantly after this particular match.
8. At the time of the incident, WJM was regarded as a Master in the TCMA community while BL was just an upstart with about 10 years of CMA experience.
There's the possibility, as TopCrusader has said, that he learned the Jing Mo forms before 1964, but one thing is for sure, he called Wing Chun "insufficient" and basically changed his whole outlook on the martial arts after this match. Who would do this if they had won? Have you ever known a martial artist to change their style and call it something different after winning a fight? I have met and trained with many great stylists and masters and this is the only example I have ever seen of this.
I don't understand the part about forms being for "traditional purposes." The applications of any given style can be found in the forms. When I was younger I remember this being one of the first things I had disagreed with when it came to BL's methods. You're supposed to train with the forms as if you are applying the techniques. It's like shadow boxing. Because BL seemed to be just too ADD or impatient, he threw them out completely. That was his choice. But he was wrong when he said they were a waste of time or like "learning how to swim on dry land." Why learn TCMA in the first place?originally posted by lance
The reasons why bruce lee was against forms was because people would ' nt know what they were for . Because in the chinese martial arts world , you have the forms for traditional purposes and the applications which are the techniques you really going use against the attacker should the situation arises .
And Syn7, I think you're wrong in saying that Bruce Lee sucked as an actor. He was probably the greatest action movie star of all time. THAT'S the problem when it comes to how people view his abilities. Magazines like Black Belt and Inside Kung Fu call him "the greatest martial artist of all time." Why? I think it's because he looked good. Beyond looking good, he showed that he did have some real skills. But was his credibility as a martial artist based on make believe fights more than actual fights, that is the question.
Last edited by Siu Lum Fighter; 04-04-2011 at 06:46 PM.
The three components of combat are 1) Speed, 2) Guts and 3) Techniques. All three components must go hand in hand. One component cannot survive without the others." (WJM - June 14, 1974)
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Siu Lum Fighter,
Thank you for the reply. There is no doubt that the Wong Jack Man fight upset Lee. By all accounts at the end he felt he was not sufficient enough for his own likings. I am not sure this has ever been published, but I have heard that Bruce told Dan Inosanto two main things after the fight; one that he was very winded, and two that his hands hurt (from vertical fist) and that he should have changed up his hand strikes.
A point of debate is as to why the fight took place. The typical story is it took place because BL was teaching non-Asians. Of course the "Wong Jack Man crowd" are going to deny or change this part of the story because it kind of points out the fact they are racist. So of course they will change that part of the story to it actually being over ethics, morals, Lee being a *****, or whatever else.
However, if the fight was about ethics or because Bruce Lee was too outspoken (which was true!), then he obviously never changed that after the fight. As of 1964/1965 , Bruce was still largely traditional gung fu. It wasn't until ~1966 that Lee "started training more realistically" as he told a Wing Chun senior (either William Cheung or Wong Shun Leung, I forget which!), and started really criticizing the traditional Chinese arts.
Inosanto has said (ive personally heard him say this) that when Inosanto first started training under Lee, forms were still part of the curriculum. However, basically 2 months later according to his recollections, Lee told him that they were no longer going to learn forms.
It is true Lee moved away from Oakland, but he opened a Jun Fan school in Chinatown Los Angeles soon after! His moving to Los Angeles was due to his entertainment career, specifically for Green Hornet. And he never closed the Oakland school. James Lee continued to teach Jun Fan /JKD up until his death in the early 1970s.
Also, if Lee did lose the fight, then the Chinese community sure didn't follow thru to make Lee close his school. You would think they would have kept pestering him after the WJM fight, but I don't think Ive ever heard any stories of that being the case.
There is no doubt the WJM fight rattled BL. Knowing his personality, he took the fight very hard and it forced him to rethink himself. Quite honestly, I feel the WJM fight made him research/change his conditioning methods especially. Running, Jump Rope, Weight Training, and other such Cardio exercises became a staple of Lee's personal regiment and I think it is directly linked to what he saw as his poor cardio/conditioning for the WJM fight.
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no one supports wang ze ming because in their eyes hes just another faceless chinaman.
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Well, as a member of the "Wong Jack Man crowd," I don't have to deny or change the reasons why they fought for anyone. That's because I know for sure it wasn't over race. Out of all of the people I know who trained under Wong Sifu, more than half of them are non-Asian. He didn't pass on flawed or incomplete knowledge either. I've had the honor of training with some of these guys and they're among the most skilled and experienced martial artists I have ever known. One of his students, Peter Ralston, was the first non-Asian to win the full-contact World Martial Arts Tournament in China in 1978. Perhaps it's true that some of the masters in San Francisco's Chinese community were against teaching westerners, but this didn't seem to be a big issue for most teachers and it certainly wasn't for Wong Sifu and his friends. So the Chinese community as a whole wouldn't have pestered Bruce to close down his school. The Tongs could have harassed him but why would they have bothered? His school was in Oakland and they were mainly concerned with the bigger Chinatown in SF. I could only see it being a problem if Bruce were connected to the Triads and they were ****ed at him or something. Out of the two of them it was actually Bruce who knew more of these types of people.
The thing people don't realize is that all of this stuff about the match being over racism came from Linda Lee's biography. She may have embellished this part of the story because there probably were people criticizing Bruce for teaching non-Asians. It definitely made him seem even more iconic then he already was and it could only have helped her book sales. But from what I've heard from people who were around back then, Wong Jack Man and Bruce Lee weren't really enemies at all. Soon after the match there definitely was some tension when Bruce started blabbing about how he beat some "kung fu cat," but, unlike how it's told in "Dragon," they weren't life-long enemies or anything. They even shared some mutual friends. Bruce was a real hot head and when he first came to the U.S. there were a number of martial artists who thought he was a real @sshole but I think he mellowed out in time. Too bad the rematch never materialized. Maybe if he'd laid off the hash brownies a little and the muscle building electrodes.
Last edited by Siu Lum Fighter; 04-09-2011 at 04:37 AM.
The three components of combat are 1) Speed, 2) Guts and 3) Techniques. All three components must go hand in hand. One component cannot survive without the others." (WJM - June 14, 1974)
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Thanks for the input Siu Lum.
As much as Lee influenced me growing up and such, I can see more truth in your version. It paints him as an actual person, and not as a mythlogical being possessing god-like powers.
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I took your post seriously until the last sentence.Actually, I somewhat agree with you on the possibility that Linda Lee changed the story for the biography. After all, only Bruce, Linda, and James were present on that "side" of things. I also agree that there could have been no major problems between BL and WJM. However (and maybe Im incorrect), wasnt WJM basically told to go challenge BL by somebody else in the Kung Fu community?
Unfortunately, points such as these possibly being true (the fight wasnt over racism, etc) doesnt remove the problem about your earlier statements about when Shiu Hon Sang trained BL and what he trained him in, etc. Either Shiu Hon Sang was lying in those 1976 interviews or you were given the wrong information. Thats what your original point was in this thread, was it not? That Bruce secretly learned the art of WJM after his fight from Shiu Hon Sang and also learned some Northern KF kicking routines from a video of WJM? And that Lee abandoning Wing Chun after his fight? The funny thing is, as well all know, Jeet Kune Do is about liberation from the "classical mess" and all that other stuff. Why would Lee turn to further classical systems and forms of all things after his fight with WJM? Would that really be the answer to his problems in his fight? The discrepancy between what Shiu Hon Sang has said in interviews and what you were told still has not been clarified. Do you have a rebuttal or are you still sticking to your old story and info such as this:
"Bruce Lee was so impressed with Wong Jack Man's skills that he wrote to WJM's teacher and requested lessons. GM Ma Kim Fung turned him away, But Bruce Lee found and convinced Shui Hon Sang, who was an older classmate of GM Ma. GM Shui taught BL at least two sets, Kung Lick Chuan and Jie Chuan (Jeet Kuan)."
(compare this to quotes of Shiu Hon Sang in my earlier posts)
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I'm not sure if I should go naming names, but, suffice it to say, Bruce had p!ssed off various people in SF. One of these guys was a mutual friend of Wong Sifu's and Bruce's. During a demo at the Sun Sing Theatre, Bruce punched him pretty hard and he wanted to get him back. He went to Wong Sifu and his group of friends and complained about Bruce. This group included Brandon Lai and David Chin. From what I've heard, and I believe he says this in his KF Magazine interview, it was David Chin who was originally supposed to take on Bruce Lee. In the end Wong got his name on the challenge letter instead and the rest is history. I believe it was determined that Wong Jack Man was the more experienced fighter anyway.However (and maybe Im incorrect), wasnt WJM basically told to go challenge BL by somebody else in the Kung Fu community?
As far as my earlier statements, I'll say that I'm now willing to at least consider it a good possibility that Bruce did learn those Jing Mo forms back in '59. Before this thread I was unaware that Shiu Hon Sang was friends with Bruce's dad. I was also unaware that the black and white footage of Bruce doing the triple kick from Bak Siu Lum was taken before late '64. The only clips I've seen of that were mixed into various compilations on youtube. If you could provide specific proof of this I would greatly appreciate it. Of course, he also does this kick in Enter The Dragon and it is in more than one Bak Siu Lum form including Mo Ngai (which is the one that was supposedly filmed). It should make one wonder when Bruce Lee is seen doing a kick from the vanquished master's style in his biggest movie ever.
I never said BL learned Bak Siu Lum from Shiu Hon Sang. He only learned the two Jing Mo sets from him. Bak Pai Siu Lum was practiced by the fraternity of masters who were connected in one way or another with the Jing Mo school in Hong Kong. These men included Shiu Hon Sang, Yim Shan Wu, and Ma Gim Fung. Ma was especially proficient in Bak Siu Lum Lo Han which was passed down from the mighty Shun Yu Fung. Wong Sifu used techniques from BSL Lo Han and BSL in his match with Bruce Lee. It seems like Bruce still valued Bak Siu Lum enough to include some of it in his movies.That Bruce secretly learned the art of WJM after his fight from Shiu Hon Sang and also learned some Northern KF kicking routines from a video of WJM?
As far as Bruce's views on the "classical mess," it's true, as you said, that it was really around '66 (?) when he really abandoned traditional Chinese methods altogether. But the WJM match was enough to cause him to almost abandon Wing Chun immediately afterwards (even though he didn't learn the whole style). Many people will probably be surprised to find out that Sifu Wong thought Bruce Lee was somewhat right in his views. Wong also felt that many of the traditional styles were a little too "dancey." Wing Chun is actually less so than most, which is why I think Bruce should have stuck with it. But it's the high kicks and the classical stuff that he used in his movies that made him famous so I guess it wasn't all a total mess.
Last edited by Siu Lum Fighter; 05-17-2011 at 04:21 PM.
The three components of combat are 1) Speed, 2) Guts and 3) Techniques. All three components must go hand in hand. One component cannot survive without the others." (WJM - June 14, 1974)
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GUys been dead for almost 50 years now, and people still argue about him.
And that's how martial arts become a big convoluted pile of mish mash, legends, BS, small truths, face saving moves and continually redacted histories.
Bruce never taught me nothing. There is not much to learn from any of his movies as far as kung fu goes unless you want to learn how to use a karate weapon basically.
He never demonstrates any traditional knowledge or forms and shows minimal training shots of wing chun kung fu training.
He was born in america, went back to hong kong, his parents could see he'd have more opportunity capitalizing on his american citizenship so back to america he went.
He like cha cha dancing and was a competitive cha cha dancer.
He learned some wing chun under his sihing in the yip man school.
All the other stuff is completely irrelevant. there is no record of BL ever having learned any Kung Fu system other than wing chun and even then, only part of it and not a full course in it.
It's worth remembering that all the stories that are told by others who were "close" to him are not going to be negative. Many people were blessed with having an actual career because of their interaction with BL.
Chuck Norris wouldn't even have a job if not for BL, same goes for all the rest who made bank off their connection to this guy who had more charisma than martial skill.
Still, almost 50 years later and people who aren't yet 50 themselves are convinced they actually have intimate knowledge of BL's life and his training?
Gimme a break. lol. Thanks.
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Bruh we thought you knew better
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anyone notice how in chinese connection the guys wearing hakama pants have them on backwards? LOL
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almost 40 years...
Bad the Fukc Ass
i killed bruce lee with time travel dim mak.
For whoso comes amongst many shall one day find that no one man is by so far the mightiest of all.
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