How Did Bruce Lee Impact On Martial Arts

A Research Paper of

Bruce Lee’s Impact

On Martial Arts

Submitted by: Zachary Steiner
Submitted to: Professor Taylor
Submitted on: December 1, 2015 The purpose of my paper is to answer the historical question: what impact did Bruce Lee have on mainstream martial arts? Lee was born in Chinatown, San Francisco on November 27, 1940 to parents from Hong Kong and was raised in Kowloon with his family until his late teens. He was introduced to the film industry by his father and appeared in several films as a child actor. Lee moved to the United States at the age of 18 to receive his higher education at the University of Washington at Seattle. It was during this time that he began teaching martial arts. His Hong Kong and Hollywood-produced
Bruce Lee was trained by Ip Man in the art of Wing Chun, a traditional Chinese martial art. When he moved to America in 1959, Lee began teaching his approach to Wing Chun. He called what he taught Jun Fan Gung Fu (literally Bruce Lee's Kung Fu). In Oakland, California in 1964 at Chinatown, Lee had a controversial private match with Wong Jack Man, a direct student of Ma Kin Fung known for his mastery of Xingyiquan, Northern Shaolin, and T'ai chi ch'uan. According to Lee, the Chinese community issued an ultimatum to him to stop teaching non-Chinese. When he refused to comply, he was challenged to a combat match with Wong. The arrangement was that if Lee lost, he would have to shut down his school; while if he won, Lee would be free to teach Caucasians, or anyone else.1 Though Lee won the fight, he felt he took too long to win using his Wing Chun techniques. This inspired him to create Jeet Kune Do in 1967. Translated as “the way of the intercepting fist” and commonly abbreviated as “JKD”, Jeet Kune Do is a martial art which Lee referred to as "non-classical", suggesting that JKD is a form of Chinese Kung Fu, yet without form. Unlike more traditional martial arts, Jeet Kune Do is not fixed or patterned, and is a philosophy with guiding thoughts. It was named for the Wing Chun concept of interception, or attacking while one's opponent is about to attack. Jeet
While martial arts are still a source of national pride in many Asian cultures, in the 1960’s and 70’s there was also a strong sense of exclusivity. Thus, Bruce Lee had a difficult time even learning Wing Chun. Lee began training under Ip Man in 1957, after losing several fights with rival gang members. A year into his training, many students refused to train with him, after learning of his ancestry (his mother has half Caucasian), however he was able to continue to train privately under Ip Man. After moving to America, he was confronted again with regards to teaching martial arts to foreigners (meaning non-Chinese), which ended up resulting in a fight between him and Wong Jack Man, who practiced in a school not far from where Bruce taught. Despite winning the fight, and continuing to teach all people regardless of race, it was not until long after this that martial arts began to spread widely in the west. Indeed, it was only after his death, which followed shortly after the release of his fourth movie, Enter the Dragon, that martial arts started to become truly mainstream: because Westerners simply weren’t aware of the existence of martial arts until that point2. After that movie, the first martial arts movie to be produced in a Hollywood studio, Westerners became aware of this strange new form of combat and were inspired to become martial artists