The question for today is: Is Bruce’s philosophy of finding the best tools for yourself as an individual, still relavent in the days of UFC and MMA? It seems that we have gone past the need for a Bruce Lee - martial arts is already evolving in the direction of combining styles, rejection of forms, jumping in the water and swimming, daily reduction of techniques. Has modernization eliminated the need for a Tao of Jeet Kune Do? Should Bruce be recognized as the founder of MMA, or did he just have insight into what is now obvious?
Yeah, I have to agree, he was a good dancer.
err…wait, sorry. I think Bruce was one of the fathers of modern day martial arts training. His philosophy, while I don’t think it was new, was def. a radicle one in many respects, esp. for the time.
I think It was an inevetable change, he just speeded things up.
His ‘water’ philosophy although borrowed, was a very radical concept for the time as has been said. By taking risks he helped mould MMA.
If you think about it ‘finding tools for yourself as an individual’ is what UFC fighters use, the most ‘effective’ moves to bring their opponents ‘down’. Visions of MMA where shaped by MA rolemodels like bruce lee, helping make it popular in the US and the world. He helped ‘shorten’ the distance between hong kong and the US.
I think we need a ‘Bruce lee’ type of figure in the UK to help speed things up, especially kung fu wise as we are about 20 years behind the US in terms of facilities, and any positive role model would surely bring us closer to US standards.
(Bigger schools, Better training facilities due to more funding, etc)
Miyamoto Mus… I mean, Bruce Lee’s philosophy definitely sparked today’s modern MMA.
I read all of the John Little Bruce Lee re-writes and, from what I read, Bruce Lee was just expressing a thought. He didn’t write that he wanted to create a style, so I would say that UFC/MMAers are the ultimate expression of Lee’s philosophy of JKD.
I would say that if you perceive Lee’s books as how-to manuals, then they would be outdated. If you read them as expressions of dynamic martial thought or as a practical philosophy in how to apply a given martial art, then they will never be outdated.
He ends up being Luke’s evil father, who then turns to the good side to save his son. I don’t think he was Sammy Jenkins either.
The Tao Of jeet Kune Do should be used as every real martial artists bible.
:eek:
My favorite line from The Dragon is “*****s can jump high huh!?”
**** funny.
I think Bruce Lees message was a more general message about self expression then it was about how to train your Martial Arts. He also died very young, which is very sad, because there is no doubt that he would have continued doing whatever it was exactly that he was doing, and made some more kool kung fu movies.
People were practicing MMA long before Buce whether they knew it or not. He did start the tradition of studying fiddy different styles and mashing them together though, succesfully making a complete mess out of everything.
I think bruce lee was a sham. The only thing he did was make the philosophies of cma public. Any good martial artist knows that by leanring a traditional style you are taking shortcuts to getting better as a fighter. These styles have been developed over many centuries, some of them anyway and do you really believe that the people who developed them would plan for anyone learning them to become stagnant and not grow? Get real.
Bruce was angry because he couldnt learn what he wanted as fast as he wanted in wingchun. He couldnt beat WJM so he decided somehting must be wrong with everything but himself.
Bruce just called and told me to tell you guys to quit making such a big fuss over him.
Ryu
ummmm. Bruce Lee is not the father of modern MMA. Royce Gracie is the father of modern MMA. Royce did not create it but he is the reason that it is so popular now. Royce won the first UFC and the several after it. Rorian Gracie is the one who invented the UFC but he sold it to a company and the Gracies don’t own the UFC anymore.
And the concept of mixing grappling and striking is not new. It was done all the way back in the time of Greeks with pankration wich is actually the closet thing to modern MMA that ever happened.
Bruce Lee was not a good fighter. He lost to some chinese guy named Jack. Jack was just some no-name ordinary kung fu guy. Bruce Lee also lost a fight and got a back injury from a fight with a no-name amatuer Muay thai fighter. He supposedly won some sreetfights but when two sucky people fight one has to win. I’m not saying that Bruce is sucky i’m just saying that someone has to win a fight. Winning a streetfight doesn’t mean you good. It just means the person you beat was worse than you. Bruce made movies and wrote books and taught martial art classes. He’s sort of like Chuck NOrris. Chuck Norris probalby is an “OK” fighter but would be cremated if he fought a UFC guy.Chuck has made his reputation on movies, not fights. Same thing with Bruce Lee.
Royce Gracie got his reputation from making movies too. But Royce’s fights were not fake movie fights, they were real fights with ball grabbling legal and real bones breaking and people really goping unconsious. Look at Gracie Jiujitsu in Action series or the early UFC’s.
I have more respect for Minotauro, or Randy Courture fighting skills than i do bruce lee. Mino and Couture actually fight people who are world class wrestlers, Strikers, ect. on a regular basis and win. Bruce lee got beat by no-name Wong Jack man.
This from a schmuck who wussed out on a test for a yellow belt.
To quote the great Ralph Wiggum “Hi Liar!”
This isn’t to disrescpect Bruce Lee. This is to disrespect all the people who over inflate him as some kind of Martial arts master.
It sort of goes back to the argument of training with sparring or with forms.
The sparring person actually fights and developes his skill in the cauldron of actuall real blows being thrown trying to KO each other.
The forms person just simulates a fight and throws moves into the air or does drills and coreographed stuff with a partner who just stands there.
Similarly Bruce Lee didn’t acutlly gain his reputation by fighting the world’s best fighters and kicking a$$. He gained his reputation the “forms” way by making movies and simulating a perosn fighting world class fighters.
Name one fight that Bruce lee won. Against someone that was at least known a little bit.
Chang Style Novice. When i did shotokan karate i was only like 9 years old. And it was intense hardcore training. I had to run 1 mile becuase i put my hands in my pockets (didn’t have a gi). I actually stuck to it for 2 years. I never tested because i was afraid i would fail. I wanted to be as good as possible before i tested. And i passed when i finally tested and got my yellow belt. I still remember the very first kata a little bit.
Even the one step sparring was scary. If you didn’t block or get back you got hit. And the intructor had this bamboo stick and would hit the older people’s legs if they weren’t deep enough in a stance.
Although the training was hard the techs are still stupid. Now that i’m all grown up i see that deep stances and shet do not work in real fights. Sure you can make yourself feel extreme pain by doing forms till you drop and shet but that’s just exercise, not fighting.
Basically shotokan is an “excersise” style. It’s really good for exercise or something like that. But for fighting you don’t want to be in a deep stance or chamber punches at your hip.
My memory is better than that, schmuck. It’s one of the many advantages of not being a lying moron.
And every once and a while the instructor’s intrucotr from japan would come. That was my favorite time becuase he couldn’t speak english very well.
Please quote the quote.
I’m not lying. go ahead and quote anjytnign i said in the past.
I used to do shotokan karate. I did not “wuss out” of the yellow belt test. I purposly didn’t test for a long time becuase i was afraid i would fail. So i purposly stayed a white belt becuase i was afraid to test. I was only 9 years old. The idea of a test really scared me.
Ralek, Chuck Norris was the heavyweight kickboxing champion during the late 60’s and 70’s, and is a brown belt (I believe) under the Machados. He has studied Machado jiu-jitsu for a long time now.
Bruce trained with many of the biggest names of that times including Gene Lebell, Chuck Norriss, Mike Stone, and Joe Lewis. I have pics of Bruce in a judogi practicing harai goshi, various newaza, etc. During his later years he was really getting interested in ground grappling.
Bruce spent most of his time sparring. In fact he was very adament about combining martial arts with heavy sparring and gear.
All in all though, you know this. 
Which is what makes you so funny.
Ryu
As i stated before, I feel bruce lee just speeded up something that was going to happen by popularising his style and ‘freestyle’ fighting in the west, he just made a break through with his films.
HE IS NOT THE FATHER OF MMA, but nor is he some1 who just sat back while kung fu and many MA’s got ‘big’ in the west, he had abit to do with it i think. He had the cinema side of it while the ‘Kung FU’ TV series did alot of the other work as far as bringing Kung fu over went.
(which bruce was asked to play the lead in, but as you know declined)
Of course you had many westerners who studied CMA already but those on TV brought it to a wider audience literally all over the world, which must have inspired alot of people to get into it or just try it.
Broadening the horizons of MMA but NOT creating it
Of course it is impossible to link to your posts from the old board, Schmuck, but you said you were going to test for Shotokan yellow belt but never did because you were too afraid.
Go back to Bovine University, where you belong.
edit -
anybody want to take over here? I’m bored with the punching bag, time to work on something else.
Am i the only guy here who never liked Bruce Lee films?