The little man in (real) action

Discussion in 'Jeet Kune Do' started by Gray, Oct 3, 2005.

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  1. MarcoPolo

    MarcoPolo New Member

    Helio wasn't so youg at that time... even if you figure 1965, Helio was 48.
    I think Carlson (who would have been 30 in 1965) would have beaten Bruce
    Lee handily.

    (Again, not to turn this into a X vs. X thread.. just talking about those who
    could have sparred against BL during his time.)
     
  2. robertmap

    robertmap Valued Member

    Hi All,

    I think the point is Bruce was THE BEST - why? NOT because of his fighting ability - speculating on if he was the baddest bad ass is a complete waste of time - But Bruce was the greatest - WAY greater than any other martial artist of his time - because - of all the millions (and I do mean millions) of people who were inspired by watching his movies to either take up martial arts or to train just that little bit harder so as to be like Bruce...

    The fact of the matter is that even today there are still WAYYYYYY more people who know the name of Bruce Lee than probably any other of his contemporaries.

    Bruce is da man!!!!

    All the best.

    Robert.
     
  3. MarcoPolo

    MarcoPolo New Member

    Comparing Kimura (One of the greatest Judoka of all time, and a guy who SIGNIFICANTLY outsized Helio) to how Bruce would fare is apples to oranges.
    I would venture to say that there is a negligible size difference between Helio and Bruce, and that Bruce doesn't have nearly the ground game as Kimura (which I think we would all agree on.)

    Not to play semantics here, but Helio is credited (by all) as the founder of
    GJJ (trademarked, Torrance, "Clear Water" version). Although I don't think he ever claimed to, and I wouldn't personally credit him for founding BJJ in general.

    I think to say Helio had "no standup" would be a misnomer. Helio had very good Judo skills (throws).

    I would also take issue with saying that he wasn't a great fighter of his time. Imagine someone nobody in the boxing community had ever heard of, from some "out there" modern boxing camp challenged
    Roy Jones, Jr. (from roughly 3 weight classes lower) in his prime. Jones wins, but the other guy fights well enough for RJJ to say "Wow, that guys has skills. I'm impressed" and asks him to come and teach other fighters in his stable.
    That's what happened.
     
  4. SouL

    SouL Valued Member

    I just dont think that helio was as great as everyone thinks he is and he does claim to be the creator of the gracie version of bjj. If you credit it for him then he must of created since you were their right? well the only people who know the truth are him and his brother carlos i dont side with anyones opinion. Ive read what rorion carlos jr and helio have said on it and i cant agree with either.

    All i was saying with the kimura point was that he wasnt even the best grappler of his time. You can say he got outweighed or was younger but the fact is he lost. Also you must remmber that if helio like he so frequently says system of bjj is so superior to that of japans then how comes he cudnt draw at the very least afterall his system is suppose to be survival vs bigger oppentes. Kimura was a man of honour and not surprised he asked helio to help teach. I didnt say he wasnt good i just said not the greatest of his time as other people were better at what he did well.

    Look at the present and you see that world is catching up on bjj, training in it since groundwork is important and aslo help counter it thats why you seeing bjj guys having to learn stand up in order to survive in mma. This is bruces philosphy and no doubt in my mind he would have crossed trained in it if he wud have seen its effectiveness. I could see bruce beccoming a good bjj fighter if he trained in it maybe even great, dont see helio becoming a good wing chun fighter mianly becus of his ignorence to acknowlege its advantages.

    Bruce never fought helio so the winner is merely a matter of opinion obviously. When i said no stand up skills i meant kicking and punching and helio himself admits if he gets hit hes going down for the count. He just belives that percentage wise the bjj fighter will close the gap 9 out of ten and not get knocked out. Bruce had gene lebell who was a grappler as a student so he had some knowlege of groundwork and he bites the guy in fist of fury when he gets put in arm bar lol which was funny. Compare his groundwork to helios is a joke just as compare helios puncing and kicking abilitie to bruces.

    Helio vs bruce who knows? you cant say either without having legitmate arguemnts layed against you pointless debate. All im going to say is bruce deserves to be a contender for title of greatest of his time for reasons guy in previouse post mentions, greatness can be seen in a individual who captures the hearts of millions not just pure raw techicnal skills as fighter.

    I would credit royce as a contender for modern great not becus hes the best techinal grappler but becuase he introduced bjj to the world with a big bang that will never be forgotten where as helio was a brazilian legend not world. Id say without royce people would be saying outiside of brazil whos helio?
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2005
  5. Pat OMalley

    Pat OMalley Valued Member

    I think you will find that Bruce was a student of Gene Lebell not the other way round, just as Bruce was also a student of Wally Jay (Small Circle Ju Jitsu) so yes he had some knowledge of grappling and locking but he was the student, not the teacher in this portion of his skills.

    Bruce trained with many big named martial artists of the time not in order to teach them, but in order to learn from them and develope his own skills. And when Dan Inosanto was training directly with Bruce, Dan was not a well know martial artists he was at the time just another Kenpo guy and was lucky enough to meet the right guy at the right time.

    Best regards

    Pat
     
  6. SouL

    SouL Valued Member

    Bruce offically was the teacher of gene lebell i thk but it can be considered the other way round as bruce did learn from him like u said. I personally would only consider yip man as bruces offical teacher anyone else was ismply someone he exchnaged knowlege with but you can class them as his teachers if u want.

    Bruce taught simply to make a living for himself he says something about he never wanted to be a teacher but it beats washing dishes. He was clver enough to realise the importance of cross training and gaining and exchnaging knowlege with other martial artists afterall this was partly his philosopy.

    Id argue that all of bruces students (freinds) benefited from being associated with him and many regardless of how many world chmaps they won, they wudnt be known by avergae joe without him. I personally didnt know who joe lewis was althoguh hes apparently a legendary karate fighter without me reading somehwree he was a student of bruce.
     
  7. Len

    Len Valued Member

    Wow. That was really rotten of you to say that man. Dan was depressed for a long time after Bruce died. Dan wanted to quit training and let JKD die with the man himself. It was only through the encouragment of Richard Bustillo and a few others that Bruce had such great ideas and the idea that those ideas would be lost forever if Dan didn't carry on his ideas to others that pushed him to finally consent. Also there were chains of phony JKD teachers coming out from the woodwork which forced Dan to not let all these wanna be's be teaching people karate with the title "Jeet Kune Do".
     
  8. Zazen

    Zazen New Member

    I have had read about several real life altercations that BL was involved in, especially when he was younger he was quite the scrapper. Doubtful you'll find any footage on it. Do I think he was any good? Yes, and I'll tell you why. He slept, ate, and breathed martial arts. He was freaking fanatical about training. You dont have that kind of devotation without learning some skills.
     
  9. D.Smothers

    D.Smothers Valued Member

    My father do have tapes of Seminars of Dan but not bruce, not big noisy seminars or anything like that, but quite private seminars. I dont know if there are any real tapes of bruce fighting so. I would think that his family keeps most, My father do have alot of his books as well.
     
  10. Pyro

    Pyro New Member

    That's because while the monk was busy looking pretty in some flowery stance the UFC guy would crash tackle him and smash his face in.
     
  11. KenpoDavid

    KenpoDavid Working Title

    I just spent the weekend with a man who knew Bruce Lee, who was actually the man running the IKC when Bruce gave that famous 1-inch punch demo. He was there when Bruce was with Dan Inosanto and when Bruce was with Ed Parker. Dan Inosanto taught Bruce. Gene Lebell taught Bruce. Ed Parker taught Bruce. Bruce Lee was interested in being a movie star first and martial artist second. He wanted to be Steve McQueen. Bruce had all of about 18 months martial arts training his entire life! Why was he so "good"? Because he had incredible physical gifts. But I understand he was a punk, cocky, and had no respect for traditions of his own culture. That is why none of the chinese masters would teach him! Not because he wanted to teach non-Asians, but becasue he didn't respct the old Asians themselves.

    There is basically no footage of him competing because he didn't compete. Once Ed Parker introduced him around Hollywood he trained more in acting than he did in MA. His training philosophy is based in laziness. He wanted to do what came easy to him and nothing more. Yes he worked hard, trained every day... not that kind of laziness. His idea of "take what works and discard the rest" is IMHO an immature approach to learning.

    I don't hate the guy, I don't love him. I love (most of) his movies! And so he was successful - he is a legendary movie star. His dream came true. I think if he had lived longer the lack of depth to his training would have become painfully obvious.
     
  12. Zazen

    Zazen New Member

    Maybe your friend didnt know Bruce all that well. I think you have it backwards, he considered himself a martial artist first and a actor second. And didnt respect traditions his own culture, huh? Where do you get that from? The old "masters" didnt like him because he was teaching there "secrets" to non-asians. They were probally jealous at that because he was getting all the fame.

    The competition thing is a moot point. What if someone doesnt have any interest in competitng, should they do it anyways just to prove something to you? No. I never considered tournaments real fighting or a judge of a man skills anyways, too many rules and regulations. It just means you can compete well against someone who fights just like you in a very controlled environment. Now "Take what works and discard the rest" implies you throw anything out that isnt working for you, I dont see anything immature about that. It's your kind of thinking that locks people into the same things the same way and never evolving.

    I don't know why some people feel the need to bash a man who is dead and cannot defend himself.
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2005
  13. Shokku

    Shokku Banned Banned

    Would you care to name a living martial artist who would stand a chance against Lee in an actual fight?

    And as for the above post - it's really annoying hearing everyone whine "If he was so good, why didn't he compete more??"

    I wanna slap these people...

    Could it be that even with full armor (which wasn't required in tournaments then, was it?) he would kill them? Or that his 'art' wasn't meant to be used in competition? That it was made to be effective in actual combat? *sigh*

    Also related to the above bost, Lee wouldn't need to defend himself even if he were still living - odds are, he was a better fighter than anyone on this forum will ever be.
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2005
  14. Shokku

    Shokku Banned Banned

    I'm not even going to bother expounding on the sheer ignorance of the rest of your post, but that quote...

    First of all, he was better than you are, and always will be - even if the sole purpose of your life was to become better than he was, he'd still have been better. Now that we've clarified that...

    "Research your own experience. Absorb what is useful, eject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own."

    I can see how an ignorant, close-minded person could see this as lazy...

    Lee trained in a range of styles - he held and enormous amount of knowledge. ENORMOUS!! :eek:

    Let me explain it like this... if you knew every technique of the martial arts, and everything involved in hand-to-hand combat (which is psychologically if not physically impossible, but let's just say you did), a great deal of it could be replaced with something better. Why fight less efficiently than need be?

    Learn the techniques that work and forget the techniques that work, but work less efficiently. This comes somewhere near touching on what he meant...

    In any case it is in no way immature.

    EDIT: Wait... I missed that... I was blinded by your stupidity...

    Lack of depth?? LACK OF DEPTH?!!

    Maybe if he hadn't died before he had a chance to further develop his art-

    What right have you to judge? Do you study JKD? No. Do you have any real knowledge of the art? Apparently not.
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2005
  15. Pyro

    Pyro New Member

    I think Wanderlei Silva would give him a run. Bruce is one of my fav fighters of all time but I have to remind myself he was still a man, not some unbeatable God that people often make out. The greatest single thing he ever did for his martial arts ability was to die. Dying young is a sure fire way to make people remember you as bigger and better then you were. I love Bruce, but just like all deaths before their time, people build them up more then they were.
     
  16. KenpoDavid

    KenpoDavid Working Title

    "My friend" knew him very well, before he was famous. I'm telling you, I heard these things from a man who not only was there at the 1-inch punch demo - he was RUNNING THE EVENT. What are you basing your statements on? What you have read in books or on the internet?

    If you think these old guys, like Ark Wong and others in SF an LA china towns were jealous of Bruce Lee's fame, then you are not thinking clearly. See, their rejection of him happened BEFORE he was famous. BEFORE he met Ed Parker and BEFORE Ed Parker got him into Hollywood show business. Bruce Lee wasn't teaching the secrets of Chinese MA because HE DIDN'T KNOW THEM. These old sifus didn't care about fame! You are contradicting yourself: how could they be mad that he was "teching their secrets" and want to be famous at the same time??? He did not know their sercets and that's not why they rejected him.

    Where do I get this from? I already told you - from the lips of somebody who was there, training with Ark Wong, before Bruce ever came to America. Did you know any of the people who would not teach Bruce Lee? Did you ask them why they would not? I haven't either but the man I was with, did.

    I agree competition is not important, but that was the topic of the thread... footage of Lee in action.

    What I mean by an immature idea is, there is a lot of depth to the martial arts (some of them anyway) and with only 18 months of training, I don't think anyone could have not only learned an art like WC to its full depth, but certianly would not have the experience to be able to dissect it and discard pieces and be left with something better than the whole. it just reminds me of a high school students saying "I hate history, when am I ever going to need to know this stuff". My kind of thinking is - before you judge something you need to fully understand it. If you think that is preventing me from learning or evolving, then I suggest that you don't really understand it.

    I'm not bashing him, I'm just relating what I was told by somebody who knew the man. Get over your hero worship, put aside the popular myths... there are people still alive who knew him and have no vested interest in perpetuating the myths - like his wife, or Dan Inosanto, or every JKD teacher on earth... the mythical status of BL puts money in their pockets. (Dan I. is an amazing martial artist who would be just as amazing had he never met BL.)


    I never said he I was better then anyone, and my skill level at anything is completely irrelevant. Why do you feel the need to insult me? You called me ignorant, close-minded, stupid... sorry I hurt your feelings. Why is your ego so tied up in the supremity of Bruce Lee?

    The idea of "Research your own experience. Absorb what is useful, eject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own." is valid. What was lazy was his inability or lack of desire to study any art to any level of depth. Nobody disputed that Lee had only about 18 months of training under all of his teachers combined. Yes he trained in a wide variety of styles. Because he couldn't control his EGO enough to stay with any teacher for very long.

    Here let me throw you a bone. I was also told "Bruce Lee was very gifted. You could show him a technique and the first time he did it, it was almost as good as you did it. The second time he did it, it was just as good. And the third time, it might even be better than you did it."

    But mimicking techniques is NOT the same as learning the depths of an art. Lack of Depth. Yes, absolutely. To you the Tao of JKD seems deep, but maybe that's becasue you don't have anything to compare it to. It might be the deepest thing you've ever seen, but that doesn't mean it's as deep as it gets. It's a lot of info but it is only the basics. My 5 yr old thinks her grandma's pool is deep. Its 6 feet of water. She can't even begin to conceive of the Marianas Trench. I've read that just before Bruce died, he discoverd the idea of nerve strikes and meridians etc. He apparently called his close friend George Dillman (long before Dillman knew this either) and excitedly told him about it, and how was going to have to look into that. If Bruce had such deep knowledge of Chinese secrets, why was this news to him???????

    And aoubt JKD as a style - I thought JKD was a philosophy for guiding your training and studying, for evaluating what you have learned and deciding what works for you. So how can you go into a JKD school and be taught how to block, how to step, how to punch etc??? Aren't you being taught just the pieces that worked for your instructor (or his instructor etc)??? Do YOU understand?

    Judo Gene is still alive. I bet he could beat him. I'd put money on Josh Cummo to beat him LOL. Of course it depends on who was doing the choreography.

    OK, fan-boys, here's some more fresh meat! Come and get it!
     
  17. SouL

    SouL Valued Member

    Bruce bashers bruce lovers are at it again lol.

    Your post seems to be based on one persons opinion of bruce so i find it highly bias. This one person has interviewed old people that wouldnt teach bruce? I thk bob wall, chuck norris, william cheung, joe lewis etc... will all give you their own different perspectives on what they thouhgt of bruce. How long this guy know bruce? just for the event?

    Anyhow i dont see why u critising people for making their opinion from interviews and books when ur basing urs solely on one mans opinion very hpyocritical. Also you say that u read somewhere..... lol

    Bruce was cocky maybe these old teachers didnt like that and the fact that many were racist and would only teach chinese wouldnt help bruce.

    Bruce was kicked out his WC school becuase he was found out to be mix of german. This meant he couldnt learn from yip man anymore. The senior students got him kicked out on these grounds beacuse he kept challenging them and beating them which is against WC code. Bruce never mastered WC that is a fact and no one is saying elsewise. WC is a secret and as soon as bruce was discovered to not be pure chinese his teaching of this secret art was stopped.

    Where you guys get 18 months from? just curiouse i thoguht he did more from what i read. Not saying your wrong just want to know where you get this from.

    This whole jack of all trades and master of none as u said clearly shows that ur missing the point. Anyone who undersatnds what bruce was saying fan or not will say the same thing. From my understanding you do become a master but of your own way of fighting. Bruce never became a master of a particular style because he didnt feel the need and was aginst this way of thinkning he just took what is useful and became a master of his own way of fighting. Depth arugument is interesting but can vary dpedning on individual. Wc guys use the same argument u using to defend aginst bruce saying Wc isnt the be all and end all of fighting. I think we can all see now that it isnt. He critised it heavy on some points i belive and you and all wc guys have a point since he didnt master it so to say so shdunt have judged it harshly although id agree with him.

    Bruce knew the techquies he actaully used in his own way of fighting in depth and i think thats all that matters.

    Helio gracie is a great example of someone who took what is useful modified it to suit his own needs and became master of gracie jiu jitsu. From what ive read he didnt master jiu jitsu then chnage it he did it as he taught and went along. Gracie jiu jitsu is helios reprentation of jkd imo. Replace name with carlos if u dont belive helios story. Also its said helio didnt undersatnd the techquies in depth but later as he practised it and modified it his understanding grew.

    As far as people attacking u you must of expected it. The way u replied shows that you were angry at them calling you stupid even though you clearly missed the point.

    I agree with you on jkd point and i personally dont study it offically with some "jkd teacher" as i feel it cant be done that way and that only one fo bruces students could teach u anything bruce taught. I personally train in diff martial arts so feel that im doing my own jkd and finding my own way of fighting. Tai chi gracie jiu jitsu wc judo aikido and anything else i find interesting.

    p.s your whole story of bruce discovering meridans and all that sounds a bit dodgey kind of like the myths you cant stand of him.
     
  18. Taff

    Taff The Inevitable Hulk

    I'm pretty sure he had more than that in Hong Kong, but that was his only real formal MA training in his life.
     
  19. Taff

    Taff The Inevitable Hulk

    These two paragraphs make you look like a hypocrite.
     
  20. Pat OMalley

    Pat OMalley Valued Member

    Or to make a finer point. It Sounds more like the 'My Dad is bigger than your Dad' Syndrome to me;)
     
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