I read sometimes ago that Bruce came back to HK to visit Yip Man. While there at YM’s kwool, the old man had his students tested Bruce’s JKD. Bruce seemed to think that he totally confused and devastated his stationary WC brethrens with his rapid moving footworks and attacks. A WC person living in HK at that time told me that was not possible as Bruce was still a young student of WSL and that his skills were not that advanced yet to defeat his WC opponents (stillness overcomes motion). Was Bruce deluded? And on a side note, why do you favor being stationary or moving in a fight? Just looking for interesting feedbacks and perspectives.
Delusion is all to common in martial arts. Many do not understand when someone is being polite and not taking their head off. Look at Chi Sao how often is a polite stop of the fist a couple of inches away from the face rewarded with a cheap shot hit . This leads to instant delusion he didnt hit me but i hit him mentality that is all to common. Bruce was young and human. Would be surprised if he didnt take this attitude a little.
Chen Zhen, I read the articles before, but they are still refreshing to read now. Thank You.
Hunt1, I think you may have underestimated Bruce. Bruce had somethings new and quite unexpected to most WC people. You can see from the articles above that he mentioned about different kicking and punching angles that most WCers are not familiar with. He also knew the WC mindset well and can manipulate it to his advantages very skillfully. It is plausible that Bruce may have actually fooled Yip Man’s students at the time of his visit considering his fantastic speed that even Wong acknowledged as well as his other powerful attributes and skills. The only reason that he could not do so well against Wong was perhaps Wong knew his game before and thus can expect his unexpected attacks and counters. I’m not sure about the others who don’t know Bruce as well as Wong.
hi guys, that story came, from mito , uheharas book on bruce lee by ohara , i dont think its true, as , in honk kong they dont spar like we would , i mean in the western, way of doing things, also regarding footwork, if you , dont move in a streetfight , you will get your head, knocked off. Footwork is one of the keys, to make your wing chun work. peace and regards russellsherry
Originally posted by hunt1 Look at Chi Sao how often is a polite stop of the fist a couple of inches away from the face rewarded with a cheap shot hit . This leads to instant delusion he didnt hit me but i hit him mentality that is all to common.
This should be printed and handed to every new WC student at the door, before s/he gets a chance to change into uniform for the first time.
As for Bruce Lee, he was a marketer of his own image. I’m surprised there isn’t a copywrite symbol beside his name.
>> Look at Chi Sao how often is a polite stop of the fist a couple of inches away from the face rewarded with a cheap shot hit . This leads to instant delusion he didnt hit me but i hit him mentality that is all to common. <<
Why stop a couple of inches away from the face? Why not just tap them on the chin as a matter of course? Then, if they still dont appreciate that theyve been hit, tap harder. Or explain that you are letting them off lightly.
Hunt1, I think you may have underestimated Bruce. Bruce had somethings new and quite unexpected to most WC people.
hi paul,
Thats the biggest load of garbage ive ever heard in my life! Whats so new about Bruse?? OK so i can agree he was great at what he did. But to say no-one ever did anything like that is totatlly an opinion and NOT based on factual evidence. Who’s to say some guy practicing in the forest in china didnt think of that before???
He’s good, and he’s REAL good…but he’s not GREAT in the way IP man was. IP Man DEDICATED his life to a system and BECAME WING CHUN! He aint no gap filler with what he saw fit. Let face it, generations of analytical study really are somthing we need to treasure and find those hidden gems, they exist if we have the patience and fortitude to discover them.
s.teebas IP Man DEDICATED his life to a system and BECAME WING CHUN
he was also very dedicated to opium so are you going to praise that as well,
they were both just men that feel into the right place and right time in history to have an impact ,
in the grand scheme one would not have shined with out the other , at least not to the level that they are seen now ,
i never stood infront of bruce but by why of watching his body , speed ,power timing and skill were of a very high degree , he simply worked harder and smarter then most ,
all we have from yip are stories ,
either way there realationship inspired millions and that is what counts .
i would be equally blessed to spend time chatting and training with either
The only reason we all think Bruce Lee was so great is because the techniques and concepts he showed were completely unknown to gwailo at that time, but were common knowledge to Gung-Fu practitioners of all styles-not just Wing Chun. Things like simultaneous block/strike, chi-sao, inch power,intercepting intention (jeet), etc. Nothing new. Bruce was definately gifted with physical speed, which coupled with perceptual speed and reactive speed gave the impression that he was superhuman to most kick/punch martial artists, but in Hong Kong, with his Si-Hings, he was just Bruce. Of course he was the real deal, and his movies were groundbreaking in terms of choreography, content, intensity, and camera angles. But as far as real Gung-Fu is concerned, he was certainly no innovator. (That isn’t to say he still doesn’t inspire me, he will always be a hero)
Thank you for your feedback. I like to clarify a point on my quote. If Bruce is alive today, I think Bruce would agree with me that while his stuffs are influenced by WC concepts in their beginning, they have been evolved into some strange mutated JKDish species. Ha! Ha! It is precisely his weird twist on the familiar WC concepts or skills that most WC people are not familiar with. Would you say that Bruce fight like a WC person?
“No great advance has ever been made in science, politics, or religion, without controversy. - Lyman Beecher”
joy Poor form to bring up his personal life… a non sequitur.
and with out the air i couldn’t breath but sometimes the air stinks and this is a reality .
to not accept the entire truth is to believe in a half lie ,
i was just making a point to some one that was trying to dis credit bruces accomplishments and then put yip on a pedistool like his $#hit didn’t stink . well guess what every body is human nothing special and everybodies $#hit stinks .
it’s a persons drive and accomplishments beyond there flaws that gives birth to inspiration ,
and in the inspiriation and accomplish dept yip couldn’t hold a candle to bruce ,
but there is a symbiotic relationship , with out yip there may have never been a bruce .
it goes on through time as a chain of passing on and experimenting with information , no one is greater then the other they were just in the right place at the right time with the ability to fill a need in the general populace
but the true dicredit is to make the person into something he was not , yip was a addict , yet he still left something great behind , he screwed up wing chun by fragmenting how he taught it and custimizing it per certain students , this left room for different interpitations and look at us today pointing fingers and making claims ,
bruce was a ego maniac , with poor eye sight , one short leg , and only one terstical dropped , these flaws drove him to greatness , in 9 short years he changed minds all over the world , about race , training,and how to look at your self and stirde for constant improvement ,
if either of these men would have been born in a different time they might have been over looked . but lucky for us they were not .
so to deny who the were as complete and flawed hman beings is to deny what the scope of there achievements .
heroes are images ,
it’s the real people behind the image that truly inspires .
Originally posted by Alpha Dog
As for Bruce Lee, he was a marketer of his own image. I’m surprised there isn’t a copywrite symbol beside his name.
I’ve been informed that certain Bruce Lee fan clubs have had to shut down cause they didn’t get permission to use his image from his wife, Linda Lee Cadwell. Bit of a sad state of affairs but what can you do in this image-rights obsessed world?
Let face it, generations of analytical study really are somthing we need to treasure and find those hidden gems, they exist if we have the patience and fortitude to discover them.
Question - why are the gems always hidden? Why are the origins shrouded in mystery? Why has the alleged relationship between WC, White Crane, Emei 12 Zhuang always hidden behind a cloud of ignorance and obfuscation?
Wouldn’t the “generations of analytical study” have been much more productive if people just shared what they knew?
IMO patience and fortitude are the gems. The rest of the “hidden knowledge” crap is just marketing and ego, and the fodder of second-rate HK cinema.
If instructors told their students, “there are no secrets, you just have to train the basics REALLY REALLY hard,” they wouldn’t look as cool or have so many starry-eyed disciples, would they?
JKD, BJJ (both mature enough now to incorporate the said “generations of analytical study”) and their ilk are slowly choking TMA out because everything is shared, everything is tried out and proved or disproved in public, and there is none of this “hdden gems” rubbish.
Originally posted by Ernie s.teebas
IP Man DEDICATED his life to a system and BECAME WING CHUN he was also very dedicated to opium so are you going to praise that as well,
Yip Man was an opium smoker by all accounts but it makes you think if drugs are really that bad when his skill level was so high. I bet some of you out there are nowhere near half as good as Yip Man and you’re not even on drugs!!!
i would be equally blessed to spend time chatting and training with either [/B]
Too right. A lot of people have gotten wealthy off the backs of Yip Man and Bruce Lee. All those karate schools in the 1970s full to the brim with students must’ve thanked Bruce Lee many times over!
Hell, Bruce Lee will always be linked with Wing Chun and he got his skill from Yip Man, who got his skill from Leung Bik and Chan Wah Shun (if I remember correctly!). Bruce Lee only ever had one Sifu and that was Yip Man despite claims to the contrary.
Like many others, I was a Bruce Lee fan when I was young and was amazed by his physical attributes and his kung fu philosophy. As I’ve grown up, the amazement has worn off somewhat as you get to see what real kung fu is.
Bruce Lee’s public criticism of martial arts and combining martial arts into his own “system” was new to the West but nothing really new in China - Wang Xiang Zhai, to name but one, did these things before Bruce Lee.
All said and done, Bruce Lee will still hold a special place among my DVD collection!!
Why stop a couple of inches away from the face? Why not just tap them on the chin as a matter of course? Then, if they still dont appreciate that theyve been hit, tap harder. Or explain that you are letting them off lightly.