Bruce Lee: Encyclopedia II - Bruce Lee - Martial Arts Training and Development

Bruce Lee - Martial Arts Training and Development

Bruce Lee - Wing Chun

Bruce Lee began his formal martial arts training at a young age in Wing Chun style of Kung Fu under Hong Kong Wing Chun master Yip Man. Like most martial arts schools at that time, Grandmaster Yip Man's classes were often taught by the highest ranking student. The highest ranked student under Yip Man at the time of Lee's training was Wong Shun-leung.

Bruce Lee's first formal, organized bout came as a teenager at his Catholic school in Hong Kong. He was to fight a young British boxer, a reigning two-time boxing champion. Bruce knocked his opponent out with repeated strikes, using the Wing Chun jik chung chuy.

Bruce Lee - Jeet Kune Do

It would not be until his arrival in the United States, however, that Lee began the process of creating his own style, which he would later teach at the martial arts schools he opened first in Seattle starting with judo practitioner Jesse Glover as his first student who later became his first assistant instructor, and the first person authorized by Lee to teach aspects of Bruce Lee's Gung Fu.

Then in Oakland and Los Angeles, California Lee opened his martial arts school named the Lee Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute. After studying and becoming dissatisfied with existing schools of martial arts, Lee also created his own styles of martial arts: Jun Fan Gung Fu, a Kung Fu style; and Jeet Kun Do, which incorporated elements from martial arts outside of Kung Fu with the intent to create a more streamlined and practical martial art, as well as a comprehensive system of fitness training. He frequently gave demonstrations of his two-finger pushups and his famous "one inch punch" to demonstrate his martial arts.

Lee modified his martial arts style, which consisted mostly of elements of Wing Chun, with elements of Western Boxing, Fencing, and other martial arts and named it Jun Fan Gung Fu. Lee expanded this style over time, including elements from Muay Thai, Indo-Malay Silat, Panantukan, Sikaran, Bando, Catch Wrestling, Karate, Judo, Jujitsu, Aikido, Tae Kwon Do, and other martial arts. It would be much later that he would come to describe his style as Jeet Kune Do or the Way of the Intercepting Fist, a term he would later regret because Jeet Kune Do implied a style.

The reason why Bruce Lee later regretted giving a name to his fighting style, Jeet Kune Do was because Lee believed it made it a single "martial art style" and therefore had limitations. Instead Bruce Lee calls his fighting style, the style of no style, or the art of fighting without fighting which implies no limitations. Lee saw loyalty to a particular martial arts style as having limitations. This and Lee's other ideas about martial arts and his teaching of Chinese martial arts to non-Asian students gave Lee many enemies in the martial arts community, culminating in many challenges by other martial artists which Bruce Lee poignantly answered.

It took a violent confrontation to start Bruce Lee's adaptation of his art. Many believe that Lee was issued a challenge by Chinese elders in the region in response to his teaching "secrets" Chinese martial art techniques to Westerners. However, it may have been more likely that Bruce was challenged because he was new in town and was very harsh on the current methods of teaching martial arts.

A contest was scheduled between him and another martial artist in the area. The instructor who fought Bruce was Wong Jack Man, a practitioner Shaolinquan. According Michael Dorgan, writing in Official Karate, in the July 1980 issue, the numbers of people who attended the fight ranged from 8 to 13. Wong and William Chen remembered the fight as being more than 20 minutes, and that Wong was on the defensive and Lee was the aggressor. Lee and his wife claimed that Lee had chased Wong around the room until finally submitting him. Wong, however, later published his own description of the fight in the Chinese Pacific Weekly newspaper, along with an invitation to Lee for a public rematch. Lee did not respond to Wong's invitation for unknown reasons.^[3]

Bruce Lee - Beyond Jeet Kune Do

The match with Wong influenced Lee's philosophy on fighting. Lee believed that the fight had lasted too long and that he had failed to live up to himself. At this point he decided to start training hard: weights for strength, running for endurance, stretching for flexibility, plus many other methods of training, which he constantly adapted as he grew as a martial artist.

During this time Lee developed his own combat techniques, while demonstrating the infamous one inch punch, of Wing Chun, which he demonstrated during a Karate tournament at Long Beach.

Prior to his death, Lee told his then only two living instructors, Dan Inosanto and Taky Kimura (James Yimm Lee had passed away in 1972), to dismantle his schools. He no longer wished to call his art Jeet Kune Do or have his students associate what they were learning as Bruce Lee's style. His last wish was that Dan Inosanto never use the name Jeet Kune Do again. Though there are many who claim to teach Jeet Kune Do around the globe, Dan Inosanto, following Lee's request, still refers to the Bruce Lee curriculum taught at his school as Jun Fan Gung Fu.

Perhaps a reason for Lee himself later regretting even giving a name to his fighting style/philosophy was that it became just another "martial art style." Lee saw loyalty to a particular martial arts style as having limitations. This and Lee's other ideas about teaching martial arts made him many enemies in the martial arts community of the 1960s/70s.

Many contemporary martial arts instructors, in effort to promote themselves or their martial arts schools, make dubious claims about learning from or teaching Bruce Lee. This was a major reason why Bruce Lee, and later Dan Inosanto, put rigid standards forth to earn certification in his martial arts. As a hybrid-style of martial arts, Jun Fan Gung Fu/Jeet Kune Do Concepts boasts being composed from 27 different styles of martial arts.

There were three certified Jeet Kune Do instructors: Dan Inosanto received the highest certification in Lee's art (a notable exception is Taky Kimura, senior most instructor in Jun Fan Gung Fu) and is widely regarded as the most senior JKD instructor. All other instructors (again except Taky Kimura and the late James Yimm Lee [no relation to Bruce Lee]) are certified under Dan Inosanto. Even Bruce's other original students, Taky Kimura, to date, has certified only one person in Jun Fan Gung Fu, his son and heir, Andy Kimura. James Yimm Lee, a close friend of Lee's, never certified anyone before his untimely death. Dan Inosanto often serves not only as the leading instructor and historian of Jeet Kune Do Concepts; he also teaches and practices other styles such as Kali, Silat, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jujitsu and others martial arts styles, some of which were already incorporated into the Jun Fan Gung Fu system.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Martial Arts Training and Development", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki