Bruce Lee

[Pheurton Skeurto]

Thanks, I enjoyed watching that, and I watched some other you tube videos of JKD. I can see Bruce taught very well, and the footwork, locking and fast movement punching I saw all look a lot like Yueng Chuan, but there's one thing I didn't see in the JKD videos, and that is the blending, yielding, and balance stealing that Yueng Chuan has. I suspect Bruce could do that too, but wonder if he did and if he taught it. Are there any examples of JKD that show a soft blending and balance stealing aspect?

 

I'm glad that you enjoyed it. It was put together by Sifu's niece, but actually wasn't supposed to end up on YouTube... but there it is.. haha. Freeeakin' YouTube...

 

I will urge you to be wary of the other "JKD" videos on YouTube. It is mostly Concepts and Jun Fan Gung Fu being tagged as JKD (or worse yet, some guy doing Muai Thay and claiming it's JKD). I will state for the record that Muay Thai is badassed, but it's not JKD.

 

If by "balance stealing" you refer to "drawing" your opponent to the point where he mistakenly feels as though he has to overreach or overstep slightly to get to you then yes... that is taught in JKD. But if it's push-hands (or even Chi Sao) and all of that stuff, then no... it's not a part of JKD. It was a part of Jun Fan Gung Fu, but not JKD.

 

 

I think the balance stealing is part of the tai chi and bagua that is blended in to Yueng Chuan. It's kind of like melting around the punchers fist, very sinuous and softly, so feminine, slinky coiling up their arm so softly they can't tell, melting into them and embracing them; so that about the time they expect their fist to hit your face your face is in their face, with you usually off to the side or behind them, with your hands around their neck or arms or poised for organ popping one inch strikes.

 

Well, this vaguely sounds like stepping out and hitting simultaneously. And landing the strike before the foot touches the ground. Which is JKD. However, your description is far too romantic.... there is none of that in JKD.. it is far too practical for that. JFJKD pretty much has 98% of the esotericism sucked right out of it. JKD is based on pure physics and the most efficient body mechanics possible. Now note that this is keeping to the realm of Newtonian physics and Euclidian geometry.

 

If you want to talk Qi, well then we're getting into quantum physics and Riemannian geometry. The two levels can co-exist happily... but JKD didn't use any Dan Tian or any mystery forces. Only torque, force, speed, and power.

 

Does JKD have any of that kind of stuff or did Bruce teach it?

The locking up of the puncher is what you do if you're their friend. After you explain to them all the different ways they are dead while you're holding them locked up they tend to loose the desire to try a second punch. However if you aren't their friend you can skip the locking part and just follow through with the application of choice and one is stealing their balance and making them 'fall'. They can be blasted down on the concrete at 100mph head first or let down easy.

 

Bruce didn't ever teach any of that stuff to his later students who learned Jeet Kune Do. Some of the movements of which you speak may have been a part of Bruce's curriculum early on... and could likely be confirmed by going over Bruce's "Chinese Gong Fu" booklet (actually written by him). The "Tao" wasn't a book written by Bruce, per se. It is only a compendium of his notes and it's pretty much left up to the reader to sort out what is what. The "Tao" was released after his death. So it gets pretty easy to see why there is so much confusion about what JKD is and is not.

 

In your above statement, are you talking about trapping? Because if so, that's a whole other ball of wax.

 

I will also state that anyone saying that Bruce's students regularly hit him in sparring is out of their minds. No one, and I mean freaking no one (who tried), could touch Bruce. I honestly don't think that people these days can actually fathom how good Bruce Lee was. They just say, "oh whatevs" because there are currently like five people alive who are anywhere near Bruce's skill level (semi-publically) and those people aren't out there playing MMA either.. As a result, no one has a living specimen immediately at hand to use as a comparison.

 

Anyway, I'd be interested to know what you mean about the "locking up" stuff...

 

Cheers,

 

/R

 

I think you're on to something here. I studied Wing Chun in Baltimore. My teacher's teacher was William Cheung. Cheung visited us from time to time and I was usually his driver (not many of my classmates had cars). A a result I got to spend a fair amount of time with him. He was good friends with Bruce as kids and told me that he was the one that introduced Bruce to Yip Man and managed to get him accepted into the school. He described Bruce as being a very quick learner but much more interested in a career in movies than in fighting. Cheung said that Bruce was not as good a fighter as he was assumed to be in the US. He only learned a relatively small part of the Wing Chun curriculum before being asked to leave the school because of problems with other students. At least that's what Cheung told me (as best I can recall - it was about 20 years ago). Soon after, he came to the US, studied other arts and synthesized all of that into JKD. When you look at his history, though, it seems to me that acting was always his great love since childhood and was probably the inspiration for his martial arts training and dedication.

 

 

???

VT/JKD

[Starjumper]

Yes, by locking up I meant trapping, I guess, if when you trap someone you get their arms locked so they can't move, and sometimes their legs too.

 

If by "balance stealing" you refer to "drawing" your opponent to the point where he mistakenly feels as though he has to overreach or overstep slightly to get to you then yes... that is taught in JKD. But if it's push-hands (or even Chi Sao) and all of that stuff, then no... it's not a part of JKD. It was a part of Jun Fan Gung Fu, but not JKD.

 

The reason I was wonderinng about these things is I'm trying to find out how similar JKD and Yueng Chuan are because JKD looks external while Yueng Chuan is similar but has the internal added to it..

 

I wasn't referring to drawing when I said balance stealing. Balance stealing is something you do during their punch which makes them loose their balance, and holding them on the edge of balance, which makes them helpless. If their arms are free they'll be waving those around in circles trying to regain their balance, and they make a sound like "erk" every time.

 

It's like when someone goes to push open a heavy door and someone else opens it from the other side, the first person will almost fall on their face. That's stealing their balance, sometimes we call it "making them fall in the hole". Once a super strong person with huge muscles tried to punch Dave. Dave made him fall in the hole, and the guy's reaction was to jump back twenty feet. Dave didn't even need to add a push, but that's when the push is added (in tai chi), when they recoil backwards. 20 ft may be a bit of an exaggeration.

 

It's kind of like your description of drawing, in a way. It doesn't make them feel like they will have to over reach, it actually makes them over reach by blending with and assisting their movement.

 

Alternately, you can steal their balance and use it to drop them right where they are. Balance stealing is a priority, because once you do it you can control the other easily.

 

So, maybe it's like JKD but sneakier.

[Wayfarer64]

You may be referring to a different person.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cheung

http://www.cheungswingchun.com/

William Cheung has always spelled his name with an "e" and told me personally that he and Bruce were close childhood friends. He can't speak to the veracity of his statement, just the fact that he said it. To my knowlede he's never lived in the states and I've never heard anyone call him Bill. I always called him Sigung as did the other people with us the few times we were together.

 

 

well it is still ap retty small world - but no that is not GMC... I know how Roseanna Danna must have felt- never-mind!

[doc benway]

well it is still ap retty small world - but no that is not GMC... I know how Roseanna Danna must have felt- never-mind!

 

 

I hate it when that happens...

Cheers!

[Pheurton Skeurto]

Yes, by locking up I meant trapping, I guess, if when you trap someone you get their arms locked so they can't move, and sometimes their legs too.

The reason I was wonderinng about these things is I'm trying to find out how similar JKD and Yueng Chuan are because JKD looks external while Yueng Chuan is similar but has the internal added to it..

 

Trapping is always a sensitive topic in "JKD". Everyone knows that Bruce had his base in Wing Chun. It is also no secret that WC is heavy on the trapping and the Chi Sao. So since Bruce had many elements of WC in his Jun Fan Gung Fu (and subsequently in the transition period between JFGF and JFJKD), JKD Concepts people will argue to the DEATH that trapping is Jeet Kune Do. Which is hilarious because there is documented proof that Bruce did away with trapping fairly early on in JKD's evolution. However, when you are sold an Apple, and you want to tell people it's an Orange.. you'll do everything including painting the orange red in order to save face.

 

Bruce wasn't backing trapping because he began to realize that it was not at all efficient. Firstly, your opponent has to give you their arm/hand/wrist in order to get the trap sequence going. And I don't know about anyone else, but if you've ever been in a bar fight, no one is handing you anything (except maybe your own ass if you don't have your wits about you). Plus by the time the punch comes, you train (in JKD) to slip it, duck it, distance yourself back from it, and lastly block it. As is said, in JKD: No block is the highest level of blocking.

 

When your speed is that of Bruce's (literally blinding) there is no time to get caught up in a trapping session. Might one happen anyway? Yes. So there are one or two little gems from trapping that are discussed and drilled a bit in JKD. These moves are generally one part (at most two part) traps. I can only think of one 2-part trap at the moment... and about three 1-part moves. That's probably it, truthfully.

 

 

I will also confirm that JKD is as external as it gets. As has been said many times, Jeet Kune Do is essentially a Western Martial Art. Bruce was fiercely proud of his heritage, but he felt that there was a better way to fight "man to man", as it were.

 

However, there are aspects of being a JKD practitioner that I feel cannot be achieved as long as you stay in the realm of the external.

 

I have seen two or three photos of Bruce sitting full lotus, one outdoors in some strangely public location, another inside somewhere, and one on a dock (p. 123 of The Tao Of Gung Fu). However I have gone to a very knowledgeable source and asked about Bruce's meditation habits. From what I have been told, even though it is "highly likely" that Bruce did meditate, it was never discussed... not even with his closest and most trusted friends.

 

I imagine that that is a question that only Linda Lee (or maybe Shannon) could answer. If I ever get the chance, you can bet that I'm going to ask about it.

 

 

 

I wasn't referring to drawing when I said balance stealing. Balance stealing is something you do during their punch which makes them loose their balance, and holding them on the edge of balance, which makes them helpless. If their arms are free they'll be waving those around in circles trying to regain their balance, and they make a sound like "erk" every time.

 

It's like when someone goes to push open a heavy door and someone else opens it from the other side, the first person will almost fall on their face. That's stealing their balance, sometimes we call it "making them fall in the hole". Once a super strong person with huge muscles tried to punch Dave. Dave made him fall in the hole, and the guy's reaction was to jump back twenty feet. Dave didn't even need to add a push, but that's when the push is added (in tai chi), when they recoil backwards. 20 ft may be a bit of an exaggeration.

 

It's kind of like your description of drawing, in a way. It doesn't make them feel like they will have to over reach, it actually makes them over reach by blending with and assisting their movement.

 

Alternately, you can steal their balance and use it to drop them right where they are. Balance stealing is a priority, because once you do it you can control the other easily.

 

So, maybe it's like JKD but sneakier.

 

Ahh yes, well I totally get what you are saying here now. Sounds like an interesting technique, but it's not one used or taught in JKD. The closest thing to that would be, say; the punch is coming, and you snap back just enough to avoid it and, as your opponent's fist is retracting, your body (head, fist, body) is effectively mirroring that motion - by following the fist back the way it came so that as soon as your opponent's fist is retracted, you are already hitting them in the head/body with your own fist. If you are fast enough and your timing is really good, you will hit them before they know what happened.

 

Bruce Lee maintained that he was by far not the fastest martial artist on the block, but that his timing was better than 98% of the people he'd ever witnessed in the fighting arts.

 

Did he develop his timing through meditation? The world can speculate all they want, my only thoughts on that matter are, "if he was meditating, it wasn't hurting his cause."

 

Edited January 19, 2014 by Pheurton Skeurto

[Mal]

Bruce wasn't backing trapping because he began to realize that it was not at all efficient. Firstly, your opponent has to give you their arm/hand/wrist in order to get the trap sequence going. And I don't know about anyone else, but if you've ever been in a bar fight, no one is handing you anything (except maybe your own ass if you don't have your wits about you). Plus by the time the punch comes, you train (in JKD) to slip it, duck it, distance yourself back from it, and lastly block it. As is said, in JKD: No block is the highest level of blocking.

 

Different strokes for different folks. It all depends on what you are trained to do and what you want to do. We trap a lot. They don't "give" you their arm/hand/wrist. But it happens to be connected to the fist trying to land you on your ass

 

edit: if you can't be bothered waiting for them to try to punch you, you can also fish/attract a hand first. Bruce was very mobile so it makes sense for his systemless system to use / prefer slipping and distance.

[Martial Development]

Trapping is always a sensitive topic in "JKD". Everyone knows that Bruce had his base in Wing Chun. It is also no secret that WC is heavy on the trapping and the Chi Sao. So since Bruce had many elements of WC in his Jun Fan Gung Fu (and subsequently in the transition period between JFGF and JFJKD), JKD Concepts people will argue to the DEATH that trapping is Jeet Kune Do. Which is hilarious because there is documented proof that Bruce did away with trapping fairly early on in JKD's evolution. However, when you are sold an Apple, and you want to tell people it's an Orange.. you'll do everything including painting the orange red in order to save face.

 

Bruce wasn't backing trapping because he began to realize that it was not at all efficient. Firstly, your opponent has to give you their arm/hand/wrist in order to get the trap sequence going. And I don't know about anyone else, but if you've ever been in a bar fight, no one is handing you anything (except maybe your own ass if you don't have your wits about you). Plus by the time the punch comes, you train (in JKD) to slip it, duck it, distance yourself back from it, and lastly block it. As is said, in JKD: No block is the highest level of blocking.

 

"Efficiency" is a not an issue here. What WC outsiders derisively call "trapping" only happens in WC semi-freestyle sparring (i.e. playing around), and it happens when two WC people compete for the line. Even then, "trapping" is a poor description of the action and the intent. This is my experience FWIW.

 

Outside of a training context, WC is not heavy on trapping, it is heavy on beatings. But I'm sure you all knew that.

[baloneyx]

Great discussion, really enjoying reading this stuff, I wish I had something to add myself

 

They just say, "oh whatevs" because there are currently like five people alive who are anywhere near Bruce's skill level (semi-publically) and those people aren't out there playing MMA either.. As a result, no one has a living specimen immediately at hand to use as a comparison

 

Hmm is there any footage of any of these 5 people anywhere you could share with us?

[Wanderer]

As a kid growing up in the 70's Bruce Lee was definitely one of my heroes. I still have a book my brother (also a Bruce Lee fan) gave me for a present by Robert Clouse called 'The Making of Enter The Dragon.' Clouse was the director of the movie. Here's a couple of quotes taken from the book:

 

"I have been asked many times if Bruce was really as fast as people claimed. All I can say is he had the fastest reflexes I've ever seen. In one shot, Bruce was supposed to be in a stand-off with Bob Wall. In order to see his hand lash out and hit Bob, we had to speed the camera to 32 frames. At normal speed it didn't show on film."

 

"Bruce also demonstrated his skill with the palm trick. A person would hold a dime in the palm of his hand, only to have it snatched away before the victim could close his hand. Some said Bruce could leave two cents in change on his good days."

 

BTW here's an interesting article about Bruce's death that I wasn't aware of.

 

http://www.bruceleedivinewind.com/death.html

Edited November 27, 2008 by Wanderer

[Martial Development]

I'd like to take a moment to respond to the anonymous trolls visiting my site, coming from this forum...

 

If you want to worship a false idol, that's OK. If you want to learn about Taoist mind-body cultivation, that is OK too.

 

But if you choose an idol who died at 33, of self-inflicted "misadventure", then you are clearly suffering from cognitive dissonance--and should seek psychological help rather than spewing profanities on the Internet.

 

As Bruce might have said: Don't waste yourself.

[Mal]

But if you choose an idol who died at 33, of self-inflicted "misadventure", then you are clearly suffering from cognitive dissonance--and should seek psychological help rather than spewing profanities on the Internet.

 

Don't know what you are talking about, I think Jesus was cool

 

extra smiles just in case

[Vajrasattva]

There is a lot in JKD that is very good. Bruce drew from many sources. There is infact a lot of "pieces" of Methodology from Xing Yi, Wing Chun, even Tai Chi, and he also trained and absorbed some of the real Silats when he went to Malaysia & when he trained in the US with Paul de Thouars and William Reeders.

 

Bruce was a good gate way for people to get "in" to Martial arts.

 

He speed and ability but he also had the proper "Tricks" to steal steps & make the best of timing & angulation.

 

Peace

S

[Starjumper]

Edited October 19, 2009 by Starjumper7

[CigarCutter]

Bruce was a good gate way for people to get "in" to Martial arts.

 

 

 

That is an excellent way to put it.

[gendao]

[Starjumper]

Cool, thanks for all the great info!

 

I especially like this clip. Very, very clever hands...

 

Yes, and the amazing thing is that his touch is so light that you can't feel it most of the time, unless he wants you to, and if he wants you to it's usually a set up.

 

And I don't doubt Fook Yeung had superior hand skills at the time.

 

He still does.

Edited October 19, 2009 by Starjumper7

[Starjumper]

I saw this on the internet and so ...

 

 

I've been to Bruce's grave a few times, there are usually flowers there.

[Pheurton Skeurto]

"Efficiency" is a not an issue here. What WC outsiders derisively call "trapping" only happens in WC semi-freestyle sparring (i.e. playing around), and it happens when two WC people compete for the line. Even then, "trapping" is a poor description of the action and the intent. This is my experience FWIW.

 

Outside of a training context, WC is not heavy on trapping, it is heavy on beatings. But I'm sure you all knew that.

 

haha.. for sure. I know some pretty proficient WC practitioners and they are not pushovers. Regardless, a lot of trapping is pushed, now and in the past, as an aspect of self-defence. Also, keep in mind that just because Bruce effectively did away with trapping doesn't mean that I can say that it's pointless to trap (or to bother learning some counter-trapping measures). However, it would be rather short-sighted to think that once a person is in a fight situation that they are bound to start using "all of that great trapping we drilled in class!". That's just not a realistic way of going about things. Most of the trapping that we see is related to WC, so once you start to connect the dots, the semantics just take a person down the Wing Chun road.

 

I just wanted to be a bit more precise on this. But I think that most of the people reading this are following the thinking here anyway...

[Starjumper]

I think trapping is most useful mainly in situations which aren't really deadly. In other words if you show the other person that you can trap them easily then they might quit with no one getting hurt. Other than that, if we're talking about the same thing, in a serious deadly fight it can be used for just a split second to immobilize the other person and to set them up for the technique which takes them out. Other than that it's more like a game, like push hands. Also, everything has a counter.

 

Phuerton, do you live in Seattle?

[Pheurton Skeurto]

(irrelevant info)

Edited January 19, 2014 by Pheurton Skeurto

[Wayfarer64]

I think trapping is most useful mainly in situations which aren't really deadly. In other words if you show the other person that you can trap them easily then they might quit with no one getting hurt. Other than that, if we're talking about the same thing, in a serious deadly fight it can be used for just a split second to immobilize the other person and to set them up for the technique which takes them out. Other than that it's more like a game, like push hands. Also, everything has a counter.

 

Phuerton, do you live in Seattle?

 

I agree with this assessment. Trapping is best used to subdue an apponant rather than take them out of the fight. Tho one system I learned included breaking bones while trapping which will generally take the fight out of most antagonists... becomes...

 

But somethings done as traps do not get countered-because they are successful, & because they happen first to thus end the situation...Any move or counter move relies on timing as much as skill of execution, maybe more so...Used at the right moment -particularly if a bone feels like it may get broken- will end it as you stated...

 

It is what you have in mind as the best out-come of a fight that has to be decided first... and even that may change if the intent of one's adversary changes... From a mere show of force to pushing an advantage if they feel superior or conversly from strongly adversarial to "I was just kidding" as mentioned in the origanal scenerio-

 

As usual change is the only constant-

[h.uriahr]

Bruce Lee kicked Chuck Norris' ass....You know the guy who can slam a revolving door shut! The guy who can punch you in the back of the face! The guy who knows the end of pi!! The guy who can count to infinity!! Yea that guy! Bruce kicked HIS ass.

[Pheurton Skeurto]

Damn rights he did.

[gendao]

He still has superior hand skills even though he's in his upper nineties now.

The fact that he's in his late 90s and still agile...is more impressive to me than martial ability. Longevity and preserving your health against the ravages of time is the far bigger threat we all face today. By that criteria, very few people even make it to their 90s today, much less while still active.

 

I think trapping is an intermediate stage between hitting and qin na. Like hit first, trap second and qin na last. Although ideally you may never need to go past hitting...

[Pheurton Skeurto]

The fact that he's in his late 90s and still agile...is more impressive to me than martial ability. Longevity and preserving your health against the ravages of time is the far bigger threat we all face today. By that criteria, very few people even make it to their 90s today, much less while still active.

 

I think trapping is an intermediate stage between hitting and qin na. Like hit first, trap second and qin na last. Although ideally you may never need to go past hitting...

 

I wholeheartedly agree with all of the above.

 

Also, for anyone who's been following this - some cool news from HK:

 

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090107/...ruce_lee_s_home

Edited January 8, 2009 by Pheurton Skeurto