Bruce Lee

The martial art legend that is Bruce Lee.

Founder of Jeet Kune Do.

Bruce Lee is probably the most influential martial artist of the 20th century. He is a man responsible for thousands of people becoming martial artists, including some of the greats.

Early life of Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee was born 27th November 1940 - Year of the Dragon in San Francisco. His father Lee Hoi-Chun was Chinese and his mother Grace Ho was Chinese and partly German. He was the fourth of five children. His siblings were Agnus, Phoebe, Peter and Robert. Although born in the United States, Lee returned to Hong Kong when he was only three months old.

Bruce's introduction to martial arts

At the age of 13, bruce lee was introduced to Master yip man, a teacher of wing chun gung fu. Bruce studied under Yip Man for five years and considered him a master teacher and wise man.

It was in high school where Bruce's graceful moves began to shine where he won his interschool Boxing championship under the Marquis of Queensbury rules were no kicking was allowed. Bruce was also known as a terrific dancer, and in 1958 he won the Hong Kong Cha Cha Championship. He was thought to have studied dancing as assiduously as he did gung fu.

Sifu Bruce -the beginning of his teaching

Bruce started teaching gun fu to support himself whilst attending the University of Washington. He and a few of his new friends would meet in parking lots, garages or any open space and play around with gung fu techniques. In the late '50's and early '60's, "gung fu" was an unknown term; in fact, the only physical art that might be listed in the yellow pages was Judo.
Even the name "karate" was not a familiar term. The small group of friends was intrigued by this art called gung fu. One of the first students in this group was Jesse Glover who continues to teach some of Bruce's early techniques to this day.

It was Bruce's small group of friends that encouraged him to open a real martial art school and charge a nominal sum for his teaching, in order to support himself. Bruce rented a small basement room in Seattle's china town, he decided to call his school the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute. In 1963, having established a dedicated group of students and having given numerous demonstrations at the university, Bruce thought he might attract more students by opening a larger school at 4750 University Way where he also lived in a small room in the back of the kwoon.

Evolution of Bruce Lee's martial art

Bruce continued the process he had started in Oakland in 1964, the evolution of his way of martial arts, which he called Jeet Kune Do, "The Way of The Intercepting Fist." He read and wrote extensively his thoughts about physical combat, the psychology of fighting, the philosophical roots of martial arts, and about motivation, self-actualization and liberation of the individual. Thanks to this period in his life, which was at times frustrating, we know more about the mind of Bruce Lee through his writings.

Bruce was devoted to physical culture and trained devotedly. In addition to actual sparring with his students, he believed in strenuous aerobic workouts and weight training. His abdominal
and forearm workouts were particularly intense. There was rarely a time when Bruce was doing nothing—in fact, he was often seen reading a book, doing forearm curls and watching a boxing film at the same time. He also paid strict attention to his food consumption and took vitamins and Chinese herbs at times.

Source: Bruce Lee Biography