What do you guys think about Bruce Lee?

I'm just curious what the members on MAP think about Bruce Lee in general. Is he a personal hero of yours? If so, why? Do you think he's overrated? If so, why?

Just write a bit about what you think of Bruce Lee.

 

No. Possibly because I was born after the 70s kung fu boom.

Yes. From a purely technical point of view, his kicks weren't great. There are so many top level taekwondo, karate and kicboxing guys (and gals) who eclipse him several times over. Was he a pioneer? Sure. But not the uber street fighting god all the Internet fanboys make him out to be.

 

I guess I'll go ahead and write my answer.

Bruce Lee is a personal hero of mine even though I was born in the 90s, and the reason is that I really came to admire his martial arts philosophy and his contribution to fitness and training. He was the first martial artist I came across that preached the gospel of no style and the desire for the abolition of rigidity. He was the loudest promoter of training every aspect of your body and mind of his day and had an obvious impact on the modern era of athletic diet and fitness. To this day pretty much all of his ideas resonate with the martial arts world in undeniable ways.

In his movies Bruce portrayed himself as a master striker who couldn’t be touched, but in real life he actually was a very well rounded and realistic martial artist who studied all he could get his hands on. He learned quite a bit of Judo from Gene LeBell back in the late 60s and found a passion for the clinch and ground games in general after coming to the US; he spent a lot of time learning wrestling and submission fighting in his later years after he realized Wing Chun by itself was sub-par at best and that most fights end on the ground. The notion that one MUST cross-train and use what works while rejecting what doesn't despite tradition is probably the most influential idea in martial arts history, and while this concept wasn't bread by Lee, it was certainly popularized and improved on by him.

It’s fun to read Bruce Lee history and watch how his "Jun Fan Gung Fu" kept evolving from his days with Ip Man to his interest in boxing, to the founding of his first two schools and how his interaction with the big wigs of the MA circles in the US made him to realize that he had always been too rigid and was limiting himself as a martial artist. He learned the fundamentals of Karate, Taekwondo, Judo, submission wrestling, Fencing and other stuff to incorporate into his personal fighting repertoire – and done so under the tutelage of some of the best of the best in the world at the time, who he obviously impressed considering their words of admiration.

And of course everyone knows that he beat 3-time British boxing champion Gary Elms at the 1958 Hong Kong inter-school amateur boxing championships by way of knockout – not to mention the previous fights he won - and was pursued for a pro contract according to some sources, although that part is hard to confirm.

In real life Bruce didn’t like high kicks and wild and crazy acrobatics he enjoyed peppering his movies with. Blending western boxing and East Asian knees and low kicks, with footwork inspired by the French and Americans - with the clinch and ground games of Judo and wrestling, was what Bruce Lee was all about outside his movies and it’s actually very well documented.

Lee also had a lot of real fights. We’ve all heard of the crazy fight stories associated with the real life Bruce (the fight against Wong Jack Man, the one against the Judoka at the YMCA, the one on the film set of Enter the Dragon, the one where the guy tried to break into his house, all the street fights he had in Hong Kong, etc), but surprisingly these feats are pretty well corroborated; albeit all of it being first hand eye-witness testimony and not captured on film unfortunately (as far as I’m aware, but there are many hours of his training footage online which is cool to examine). Regardless, the man (both young and mature) had what seems like a substantiated reputation for real life physical abilities and street fighting skills (exhibiting a pretty decent level of skill according to the testimonies of his onlookers) and just a lot of experience with full contact and chaos. One of Lee's legacies is his advocation of full contact a la vale tudo and constant sparring. His amazing speed and devotion to focus on leverage and accuracy and strength conditioning is well documented as well. The man was ahead of his time and able to hold his own.

It is undeniable that a lot of people are caught up in the myth of Bruce Lee though, and like Van Zandt said, there are a lot of fanboys who claim he was a god or unbeatable or could have beaten anyone nowadays, or that his movie-style Kung Fu is completely realistic, etc. That’s silliness and they all know it – humans have this terrible tendency to embellish people they want to idolize and become part of a cult mindset. But at the other end of the spectrum, a lot of people don’t give him enough credit due largely to their ignorance about his non-acting, actual martial arts life, training, and career. Bruce Lee was first and foremost a martial artist and second an actor (in his own words). He had planned on being nothing but a martial arts instructor when he came to the US until he was discovered at the Long Beach IKCs where movie execs saw him and changed his life. Bruce Lee was not a god nor was he “just an actor”. He was a pretty legit martial artist whose contribution to the MA sub-culture, philosophically and mechanically, was/is pretty large and deserves a lot recognition. I don’t know which claim is more annoying: “omzg bruce lee was the best and will always be the best ever he was a fighting god” or “dude bruce lee was an actor and not much more”.

Anyway, to close the ramble, Bruce is one of my personal martial arts heroes. Not for his MA prowess, surreal body movements, or the goodies that came with his wild action movies (all of which I love too of course), but he’s a hero to me because of his philosophical outlooks (which helped pave the way to the sport of MMA and the notion of cross-training for better real life combat that we all take advantage of today), his cultural impact and racial stereotype breaking and resultant spread of MA in North America (both artistically and realistically), and his contribution to fitness and training. The guy was pretty cool and is one of the biggest symbols against McDojos and fake martial arts (although ironically the badassery of his movies is perhaps the biggest contributor to the fake MA movement in the US). In my opinion Bruce Lee and the Gracie family are the biggest and best things to happen to the world martial arts. If most martial artists followed Lee’s example, we’d be among more peers that not only were capable of real self-defense and mental discipline, but were better people and teachers as a whole.

 

In what way did Bruce impact fitness, diet and training? I'm quite sure men have been training like beasts to fight better using whatever the most modern thinking of the time to do so.

 

Honestly he didn't bring anything new to the table, nor was he even mediocre as a fighter.
Some of his ideas were good but the difference between him and those who could actually apply them was that he was famous for his movies, and therefore everyone ascribes some pretty common sense things to him like he invented them.

Have you seen him on the heavy bag?

 

I hear his bagwork mentioned a lot, but in fairness to his heavy bag work he looked identical to Jack Dempsey who certainly COULD fight

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aObGLTfJa1w"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aObGLTfJa1w[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJkiwu_04dw"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJkiwu_04dw[/ame]

 

Remember this thread about Wing Chun and Boxing?

http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120626

Here is what the Wing Chun guy has to say about Bruce Lee.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgeZoPpGLO4"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgeZoPpGLO4[/ame]

 

Here is the same Wing Chun gut after meeting a real JKD'er....

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuFgM8I6K2c&list=UUmBOVrS6zyEnKcr-VPCl0DQ"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuFgM8I6K2c&list=UUmBOVrS6zyEnKcr-VPCl0DQ[/ame]

 

I feel Bruce lee was a cultural Icon at one stage, had a few fights in real life, and translated the exoticness of Kung fu and his impressive fitness level and Charisma into an acting career that would make the whole world interested in Martial arts. He may have been in a few fights in his time, but then so have alot of people I know.

But when he is on screen, you want to watch, because he had that something about him, that the greats have. Like Sean Connery, young charlton heston and Yule Brenner, Steve MCqueen and James Dean. He was a star of Cinema.

 

Bruce Lee had some very interesting ideas. Sure he was a movie star, but he did so much more. He presented different philosophies. - JDK (his martial art) was basically the prototype for modern MMA. He did allot.

 

I think Bruce Lee was a man, and that's the gist of it. You can't deny he helped bring MA into the main stream, regardless if you think his methods were the most effective or not (I don't). His legacy for me isn't so much about fighting as it is about bringing MA to the masses, which is a pretty big thing to achieve! I tend to view everyone as capable of being shot in the face or blown up, no matter their prowess and fighting ability. The biggest thing to develop is the mind and critical thinking, and apply those to fighting. Like everything else we stand on the shoulders of giants, and like it or not Bruce Lee was a giant in the MA world.

 

Oh come on, those aren't particularly similar, let alone identical. Dempsey is moving his feet and his head the whole time trying to catch the bag on the angle, not just standing there blasting at it. If you watch the Willard fight you can see exactly what he's practising there.

 

Aside from the fact he has the space to move where Bruce doesn't, they are pretty much doing the same style of punching

"Blasting in" is an appropriate description for what Bruce is actually doing - pressure punching in

 

Bobbing and ducking your way in whipping overhands punches != karate 1-2s with your chin in the air

 

I believe Bruce was heavy into Taoist philosophy and it shows in his writing and style. Its kind of like the Taoist parable about a butcher who never had to sharpen his knife. He used exactly the right amount of pressure in exactly the right place. He said the meat showed him where to cut. Sounds familiar doesn't it.

 

Gary Elm... did he even exist?
According to people investigating he was a school kid in hong kong...
http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=67615&page=3
bruce lee didnt have a verifiable boxing record...

 

He definitely had at least one boxing match as a schoolkid - that's about all that can be proven

 

Im sure kung fu wouldnt be in the shape it is today with out brue either, whether thats a good or bad thing is another matter

Out of interest are these the same people who said his roof top fights were also brutal and nasty, and then we actually got to see some of those fights....