Did Bruce Lee reach the level of Grandmaster?

[bawang]

its highly inappropriate to compare bruce lee to musashi. musashi killed people and fought in a war. bruce lee screamed high pitched noises in movies.


bruce lee made zero impact on martial arts. in the 1800s the most popular ma were catch wrestling and judo and boxing. its still the same sh1t in 2011.

what bruce lee did do is make a freakshow out of kung fu and adding one more way to humiliate chinese people.

[Lucas]

Musashi is my martial arts hero.

[Lucas]

Hey KJW Google an online PDF book titled 'Unsettled Matters' for additional insight into Bruce Lee's life. I'm on my phone or I would link. Its a good read, any Bruce Lee fan should read it for perspective.

[PalmStriker]

Aside from the given "if his students are teaching their own, then he is grand master"........how does one reach a "GRAND MASTER" level? What determines whether you are or not?

welcome to the forum.......

You have to be old to be a GrandMaster. Old and deadly. Bruce, like Jimi died young.

[lance]

Hi

I'm new to these forums so please forgive me if I'm asking things that have been asked before.. I was just wondering whether anyone knew whether Bruce Lee achieved the level of Grandmaster? I know that he started out with Wing Chun under the great Yip Man, but did his skills surpass those of his teacher?

I'm a big fan of Bruce Lee but my Grandmaster is always quite derogatory about Bruce Lee, saying things like he was one legged and that generally he wasn't as good as he was made out to be.. Despite this I still find myself admiring his abilities and the lengths he went to in order to achieve the level of physical fitness that he did. I find it hard to believe that anyone could have anything other than admiration for someone who was obviously incredibly driven and dedicated to his art.

What are your thoughts on Bruce Lee? Am I buying into the whole mythology that surrounds him or was he as great as I and many others like me believe he was?

Kevin

Not really kevin , there are some people who like bruce lee as the way he was , and there were some people who did ' nt like bruce lee at all . I ' m just sharing my thoughts with you . Bruce lee ' s life , martial arts training , carreer , was always in the center of controversies . We ' ve had aguments about him on this forum . That the moderators of this forum , have decided to close the bruce lee topic . I myself was involved in those bruce lee topics . But , I ' m a bruce lee fan , kevin go to The Bruce Lee Collection. com And you ' ll find souveniers and memorbilias about bruce lee . And you know people will always criticize bruce lee all they can .

Bruce was ' nt a GrandMaster or a master , he was just a student of wing chun kung fu . But also had training in various types of martial arts in general . But to me bruce developed himself and evolved himself as a martial artist . Kevin overall no matter what people say about him , he was the greatest martial artist who ever lived , but besides him , there were Ed Parker , Chuck Norris , Joe Lewis , And many other masters of the martial arts . Just like Dan Inosanto when he got his blackbelt in the Ed Parker system of Kenpo , dan went onto train with bruce , infact a majority of Ed Parkers' students went onto train with bruce . To research bruce lee get those books written by Jesse Glover , you can get it through Warriorvideos.net . Which is what I did , it ' s true he ' s dead but his legacy still lives whenever people talk about him .

Do your own research through books kevin or get some information on this topic thread too , concerning bruce himself . You can talk to people but , you still have to verify the information you have now with them .

In the world of the CMA , if you ' re very proficient in your own skills then the Grand Master will promote you into sifu . But lets say your Grand Master will retire , and only has you to carry on the teachings of your art . Because , besides you there is no one else . Then your GM will eventually pass on the torch of GM to you . And from there hopefully , one of your student becomes skillful that , he gets promoted by you , to the next level . Every school of kung fu has it ' s own tradition of promoting from student into advance level , master , grandmaster .

Every martial arts master will in turn have there own way of promoting there students into the next level until they reach master and GM level . Provided that your skill in the martial arts is similar to your GM .


Kevin , if you checked out the JKD book that bruce wrote himself , you can tell that he did his own research towards the evolvement and development of his own JKD . To me other martial artist did ' nt mind learning martial arts from bruce ,
because they knew that he was the best . But the masters who talk bad about him , probably are jealous of him . Because what took other martial artist many years of their lives to reach mastery level , it took bruce only a short period of time to master a technique . Bruce was a non traditionalists who did ' nt like tradition , although he respected tradition . And he did ' nt believe in styles anymore as times went by for him . He just took the techniques that was useful for him and reject what was less essential . Overall to me he was the man .

[Northwind]

I have not read post but I have to say that in answer to the question no and you're severely mentally limited if you think anything close to yes.

[Scott R. Brown]

Bruce Lee was neither a MASTER, nor a GRANDMASTER!

He WAS an excellent Showman!

We do not know what kind of a fighter he was, but from his movies we can deduce his level of skill. His skill was above average for his time, but he was not advanced nor excelptional in ability.

His philosophical and theoretical thinking was not particularly advanced either. He merely reintroduced to a more modern audience questions, theories and philosophies that have been in the minds of Martial Artists for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

He read alot and took what he liked from what others had written for his own personal use. There is nothing wrong with this, however this ideas only appear deep to those who are unfamiliar with these ideas, theories and philosophies, NOT to those who are familiar with them and their originators.

He was neither an innovator, nor a originalist! He was a popularizer through his unique approach to film production and fight choreography which was designed to MAKE HIM LOOK GOOD!

Add to all this his mysterious and untimely death at the apex of his popularity and good marketing and we got a phenomenon that inspired generations of young martial artists.

Fascination with Bruce Lee can be a great motivator for a young Marital Artist, that is young in training, NOT young in age. However, if one is still fascinated to the point of worshiping, or blind devotion to the IDEA of Bruce Lee, as they further their Martial Arts experience, then they have not matured adequately.

________________________________

On the matter of a young Master or Grandmaster.....

Age does matter. It is immaterial whether one has trained, 20 hours a day for 15 years and is 20 years or old or not. Ability withers with age, injury and infirmity. It is experience, wisdom and understanding of theories, principles and applications that determine one's maturational classification. 15 to 20 years is NOT enough experience for one to be equated with TRUE MASTERS and GRANDMASTERS, both terms which have been overused to the point of rendering them meaningless anyway.

Now days these terms are used for marketing and one-up-manship purposes.

[RenDaHai]

I always thought Grandmaster was a term made up by McDojos...

I have lived in china a long time and I speak the language.

1. 师父 Shifu is a term given by the disciple not anyone else. If someone chooses to call you Shifu thats his thing. The SHI means teacher, The FU is Father. Teacher father.

2. I use the term ShiYe (YE = Grandfather) to refer to my Master. That is because he is 89 years old... and old enough to be my grandfather. If I was 50 i would call him shifu.

3. I have never heard the word sigung, i assume it is a southern thing.

These are family terms and do not in any way imply the level of teacher. It simply means you are a disciple in the family.

Shifu DOES NOT mean master in the western sense. It means a teacher who is like a father. Master in terms of someone who is expert at their skill is called 'HaoShou'好手 or Gaoshou' 高手 lit. 'good hand' and 'high hand' respectively. You would only use these terms to describe someone and not to address them.

4. We have the term DaShi or great teacher. It implies fame. You wouldnt refer to your own teacher as Dashi. If he was famous and you were a long way below you may use it. It is unusual in wushu and is more commonly used for buddhist or taoist masters.

Dashi is probably the closest to word to grandmaster. But I don't think it would be appropriate for Bruce because he was more famous as an expert than as a teacher.

In China we refer to Bruce as a 'Wulin Gaoshou' An expert of the martial arts. (Wulin means 'the forest of wushu' and refers to the fraternity of wushu experts).

Hope that helps.

[KJW]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm not a Bruce Lee obsessive by the way. In fact for a long time I didn't think he was that good at all. I'm beginning to come full circle now and I am starting to appreciate his skill a bit more as I look around and outside of my own style in order to improve my own skill and understanding as a Martial Artist.
I've been studying a variant Crane Style for about 10 years, I'm in my mid 30's.. I'm thinking of maybe taking up Wing Chun and stopping going to my current school within the next couple of years. Not that I feel I have completely mastered Crane Style (not by a long way) but I think the combination of some of the techniques we apply in my current style and the techniques within Wing Chun would compliment each other and make me a more complete Martial Artist.
Kevin

[PlumDragon]

If you created a system, are the lineage holder of one, are the top ranking individual, etc, then grand master seems to currently be the most common title in use, both inside of CMA and outside.

Bruce Lee would be considered a GM under that definition.

[SPJ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm1W7...&feature=share

if you know your self and your limits, then you are a master of yourself.

if you struggle to maintain or exceed your limits, then you are a grand master of yourself.

did not know italian, but knew hungry and must eat.

ordered 6 items, but they were all soups or creme.

knowing need to find toilet.

one more glass of water, knowing it is too much.

knowing need to find toilet.

know your self

know your limit.

then you are a master of your self.

--

[bawang]

grandmaster is the american interpretation of the japanese ranking system, where humility and humbleness is mistaken for inferiority and submission. hence "master".

[SPJ]

Bruce Lee wanted egg soup or egg flower soup or dan hua tang.

but other soups will work.

learn and adapt--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm1W7...&feature=share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LJPV...eature=related

real fighting involving a group of people, weapon, firearms, tactics and strategy

knowing when and where to advance or withdraw.

when and where to do frontal or flanking the rear assault

--

my point is that

if you know your strength and weakness, and if you know your opponent's strength and weakness

you may "master"---

--

[Jimbo]

its highly inappropriate to compare bruce lee to musashi. musashi killed people and fought in a war. bruce lee screamed high pitched noises in movies.


bruce lee made zero impact on martial arts. in the 1800s the most popular ma were catch wrestling and judo and boxing. its still the same sh1t in 2011.

what bruce lee did do is make a freakshow out of kung fu and adding one more way to humiliate chinese people.

True, regarding Musashi. My only comparison was to point out that he (Musashi) was a MAist (who was almost certainly the most famous) to break from accepted 'traditions' and prove his effectiveness. There are way too many people who think that BL was the first man in history to do that, which is ridiculous. I'm sure as long as MA have been in existence, people have gone outside of the accepted norms and raised the level of MA. I put the people I listed as above (actually, way above) BL in terms of influence in MA.

[XinKuzi]

Bruce Lee was a bit like Steve Jobs (or vice versa) in a way. Neither created anything new, they just made the old look hip and flashy.