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Bruce Lee This page is about the martial artist and actor Bruce Lee. For information about the British arsonist, see Bruce George Peter Lee. (November 27, 1940 — July 20, 1973) was a Chinese American martial artist and martial arts actor regarded as one of the most influential martial artists of the 20th century. Lee's movies, especially his performance in the Hollywood-produced , elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of quality and popularity. Lee would use filmmaking to prove and to demonstrate his fighting theories in Jeet Kune Do. Lee's pioneering efforts paved the way for future martial artists and actors such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Chuck Norris. Bruce Lee movies sparked the first major surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West. The direction and tone of Bruce Lee's movies have forever changed and influence martial arts and martial arts films in Hong Kong, China, and the rest of the world. Lee became an iconic figure particularly to Chinese; as he portrayed Chinese national pride and Chinese nationalism in his movies.span as well as developing a high degree of martial arts and hand to hand combat skills. Bruce Lee's evaluation of the traditional martial arts doctrines is nowadays seen as the first step into the modern (李振藩; Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Zhènfán), literally means "invigorate San Francisco (三藩市)"span . At birth, Bruce Lee was given the English name "Bruce" by Dr. Mary Glover. Mrs. Lee had not initially planned on an American name but deemed it appropriate and concurred with Dr. Gloverspan . Interestingly the name "Bruce" was never used within his family until he enrolled in La Salle College, a Hong Kong high school, at 12 years of agespan (李炫金; Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Xuànjīn) given by his mother, as at the time Lee's father was away on a Chinese opera tour. After several months, when Lee's father returned, the name was abandoned because of a conflict with the name of Lee's grandfather. Lee was then renamed (細鳳, literally "small Phœnix"), used throughout his early childhood in keeping with a Chinese custom traditionally thought to hide the child from evil spirits.

; Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Xiǎolóng) which literally means "Lee Little Dragon." These were first used by director 袁步雲 of the 1950 Cantonese movie 細路祥 in which Lee performed. It was very likely that the name "little dragon" was chosen based on his childhood name "small phoenix". In Chinese tradition, dragon and phoenix come in pairs to represent the male and female genders, respectively.

Bruce Lee was educated both academically and in the field of martial arts. His studies of Kung Fu sparked his enthusiasm and understanding of martial arts in the development of Jeet Kune Do. Later Lee studied Karate, Judo, Jujitsu, Western Boxing, and other s of martial arts.

Lee received his early education and Kung Fu training in Hong Kong. Because of his father's fame as a Chinese opera actor, Lee had the opportunity to appear in several Hong Kong movies as a child. He studied the Wing Chun of martial arts at a young age and learned English, Cantonese, and Mandarin.

Having seen his father practice Tai Chi Chuan, Lee was enrolled in Wing Chun under Sifu Yip Man. Wing Chun would later formed a base for his later development and evolution of martial arts and the development of Jeet Kune Do.

At age 14, Bruce Lee entered La Salle College, a high school, under the wing of Brother Henry. In 1959, Bruce got into a fight with a feared Triad gang member's son, and his father worried, so he and his wife decided to send Bruce to the United States to live with an old friend of his father's. All he had was $100 in his pocket and the title of 1958 Crown Colony Cha Cha Champion of Hong Kong. After living in San Francisco for awhile, he moved to Seattle to work for Ruby Chow, another friend of his father's.

In 1959, Lee completed his high school education in Seattle and received his diploma from Edison Technical School. He enrolled at the University of Washington as a philosophy major. It was at the University of Washington that he met his future wife, Linda Emery, whom he would marry in 1964. Lee had two children: a daughter, Shannon, and a son, actor Brandon Lee, who was tragically killed during a film set accident in 1993.

A few credits short of graduation from the University of Washington as a philosophy major, Lee headed to San Francisco and then Hollywood.

In 1964 at a demonstration in Long Beach, California, the soon-to-be-famous Lee met Karate champion Chuck Norris. Lee would later introduce Norris to portray one of Lee's opponents in , which ran from 1966 to 1967 and afterward opened up his own Jeet Kune Do school. Later Lee would use filmmaking to demonstrate his fighting theories.

In 1971, unable to find acting roles and faced with stereotypes regarding Asian actors, Lee returned to Hong Kong with his family. There, he starred in martial arts movies, earning $30,000 for his first two feature films, cementing his fame.

Bruce Lee began his formal martial arts training at a young age in Wing Chun under Hong Kong Wing Chun master Yip Man. Like most martial arts schools at that time, Grandmaster Yip Man's classes were often taught by the highest ranking student. The highest ranked student under Yip Man at the time of Lee's training was Wong Shun-leung. Lee didn't finish the Wing Chun curriculum.

Bruce Lee's first formal, organized bout came as a teenager at his Catholic school in Hong Kong. He was to fight a young British boxer, a reigning two-time boxing champion. Bruce knocked his opponent out with repeated strikes, using the Wing Chun technique

It would not be until his arrival in the United States, however, that Lee began the process of creating his own , which he would later teach at the martial arts schools he opened first in Seattle starting with judo practitioner Jesse Glover as his first student who later became his first assistant instructor, and the first person authorized by Lee to teach aspects of Bruce Lee's Gung Fu. Bruce Lee was known for his martial art Jeet-kun-do and his extreme skill in fighting.

Then in Oakland and Los Angeles, California Lee opened his martial arts school named the . After studying and becoming dissatisfied with existing schools of martial arts, Lee also created his own ; and Jeet Kun Do, which incorporated elements from martial arts outside of Kung Fu with the intent to create a more streamlined and practical martial art, as well as a comprehensive system of fitness training. He frequently gave demonstrations of his two-finger pushups and his famous "one inch punch" to demonstrate his martial arts.

Bruce Lee saw loyalty to any particular martial arts Jun Fan Gung Fu, which consisted mostly of elements of Wing Chun, with elements of what he knew of Western Boxing, Fencing, and other martial arts. Lee expanded this over time, including elements from Muay Thai, Indo-Malay Silat, Panantukan, Sikaran, Bando, Catch Wrestling, Karate, Judo, Jujitsu, Taekwondo, and other martial arts. It would be much later that he would come to describe his .

Bruce Lee put Jeet Kune Do to its first test by knocking-out Martial Arts Champion Uechi in a record 10 seconds for a 1960 Full-Contact match in Hong Kong. Soon after the still completely unknown Bruce Lee embarrassed black belt Karate champion Dan Inosanto in a martial arts combat fight during a Long Beach Karate demonstration, so quickly that Inosanto asked to be his student. Lee was subsequently sought after for instruction by established martial artists such as Joe Lewis and Chuck Norris.

Lee claimed that, after arriving in San Francisco, his theories about martial arts and his teaching of Chinese martial arts to non-Asian students gave him enemies in the martial arts community. A contest was scheduled between him and Wong Jack Man, a practitioner of Northern Shaolin.

Bruce Lee's deion on the fight was that a rival martial art master named Wong Jack Man challenged him to a duel over his decision to teach Non-Chinese students. Bruce Lee accepted the challenge. Many of people witnessing the fight believed Lee had won the duel, but Lee later thought that the fight took too long because traditional martial art technique were too in scenarios of chaotic street fighting. Thus he decided to develop a system with an emphasis on "practicality, flexibilty, speed, and efficiency."

Wong's version of the story suggested that he had only challenged Bruce Lee after Lee claimed to be able to defeat any martial artist in the city; Lee did not agree with this account however. The numbers of people who attended the fight ranged from 8 to 13span . Wong and another attendee, William Chen, remembered the fight as being more than 20 minutes, and that Wong was on the defensive and Lee was the aggressor. Bruce Lee's deion said that he had chased Wong around the room until finally subduing him. Wong later published his own view on the outcome of the fight in the Chinese Pacific Weekly newspaper and an invitation to Lee for a public rematch. Lee, however, did not publically respond to Wong's invitation. span

The match with Wong influenced Lee's philosophy on fighting. Lee believed that the fight had lasted too long and that he had failed to live up to himself. At this point he decided to start training with weights for strength, running for endurance, stretching for flexibility, plus many other methods of training, which he constantly adapted.

During this time Lee developed his own combat techniques, while demonstrating the infamous one inch punch, of Wing Chun, which he demonstrated during a Karate tournament at Long Beach.

Bruce Lee certified three instructors: Dan Inosanto, Taky Kimura and James Yimm Lee (no relation to Bruce Lee). James Yimm Lee, a close friend of Bruce Lee, passed away without certifiying additional students. Taky Kimura, to date, has certified one person in Jun Fan Gung Fu, his son and heir, Andy Kimura. All other instructors are certified under Inosanto, who acts as a leading instructor and historian of Jeet Kune Do Concepts. Inosanto also teaches and practices other system.

Prior to his death, Lee told his then only two living instructors, Inosanto and Kimura (James Yimm Lee had passed away in 1972), to dismantle his schools. Dan Inosanto was implimenting Filipino Martial Arts into the curriculum, something Bruce told him not to do. He did not want these arts accredited to Jeet Kune Do or the Bruce Lee name. Dan Inosanto asked permission to teach in his back yard, to which Bruce replied "Keep the numbers small and the quality high". Dan Inosanto later started using the Jeet Kune Do name again as Jeet Kune Do Concepts. The Bruce Lee Estate has sued Dan Inosanto to never use the term Jeet Kune Do because of his misrepresentation of the art, suggesting that there are 27 arts that make up Jeet Kune Do, when really, the arts are Western Boxing, Wing Chun, Fencing and some Northern Shaolin kicking.

Many martial arts instructors, in an effort to promote themselves or their martial arts schools, make dubious claims about learning from or teaching Bruce Lee. There are only a few living people who can trace their lineage directly to Bruce Lee, the most famous being Dan Inosanto, Jerry Poteet, Taky kimura, Jesse Glover, Ted Wong, Steve Golden and a few others.

Bruce Lee cared deeply about his physical fitness and he became famous for his physical condition despite his small stature. Lee typically exhibited a muscular and very lean appearance in his films, particularly in his upper . Bruce Lee felt many martial artists of his day lacked the necessary physical fitness to back up their fighting skills."

Bruce Lee used many different techniques and resources in aiding his physical fitness, including the use of electric current as an aid to strength training. However, this muscle stimulator was only one of many pieces of equipment and exercise routines Lee used to achieve his fighting ability. Footage of Lee performing a fighting scene, was often slowed down because it would only show as a blur on screen. Lee developed a trick for showing off his : a person held a coin and closed his hand, and as he closed it, Lee would take it and could even swap the coin for another.

The weight training program Lee used during a stay in Hong Kong in 1965, indicated bicep curls of 80 pounds and 8 repetitionsspan .

Bruce Lee was light because he was more interested in lean muscles and not bulky mass. His exercise routines consisted of a lot of things, for example weights and cardiovascular training. Bruce did not resort to traditional " building" techniques to build mass, he was more interested in speed and power. He developed strategies to increase muscle strength and speed.

Lee believed the abdominal muscles were one of the most important muscle groups for a martial artist since virtually " are like a shell, protecting your ribs and vital organs.

Bruce Lee's washboard abs did not come from mere abdominal training; he was also a proponent of cardiovascular conditioning and would regularly run, jump rope and ride a stationary bicycle. A typical exercise Lee would be to run covering a distance of two to six miles in 15 to 45 minutes.

Another element in Bruce Lee's quest for abdominal definition was nutrition. According to Linda Lee, soon after he moved to the United States, Bruce started to take nutrition seriously and developed an interest in health foods and high-protein drinks. He ate lean meat sparingly and consumed large amounts of fruits and vegetables. In later years, he studied vitamin supplements.

At the invitation of Ed Parker, Lee appeared in the 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championship and performed repetitions of two-finger pushups (using the thumb and the index finger) with feet at approximately a shoulder-width apart. In the same Long Beach event he also performed the "one inch punch," the deion of which is as follows: Lee stood upright, his right foot forward with knees bent slightly, in front of a standing, stationary partner.

Lee's right arm was partly extended and his right fist approximately an inch away from the partner's chest. Without retracting his right arm, Lee then forcibly delivered the punch to his partner while largely maintaining his posture, sending the partner backwards and falling into a chair placed behind the partner to prevent injury.

Here are some of Bruce Lee's real life feats of speed, strength and endurance. This information is taken from various documentaries and magazines.

Bruce would ride for 45 minutes (10 Miles) on a stationary bike, sweating profusely afterwards. (Uhera span

These are some quotes from Bruce Lee's friends about his feats of strength: span "Bruce was only interested in strength that he could readily convert to power. I remember once Bruce and I were walking along the beach in Santa Monica. All of a sudden this huge builder came walking by, and I said to Bruce "Man, look at the arms on that guy" I'll never forget his reaction, he said "Yeah, he's big, but is he who stood above everyone else. It's not that the other martial artists weren't good. It's just that this guy was "The biggest problem in designing equipment for Bruce was that he'd go through it so damn fast. I had to reinforce his wooden dummy with automobile parts so he could train on it without breaking it. I had started to build him a mobile dummy that could actually attack and retreat to better simulate "Live" combat, sadly Bruce died before the machine was built. It would have been strung up by big high-tension cables that I was going to connect between two posts, one on either side of his backyard. The reason for the machine was simply because no one could stand up to his full force punches and kicks, Bruce's strength and skill had evolved to point where he had to fight machines."."He never trained in a gym, he thought he could concentrate better at home, so he worked out on his patio. He had a small weight set, something like a standard 100lb cast-iron set. In addition, he had a 310lb Olympic barbell set, a bench press and some dumbbells, both solid and adjustable"."Bruce used to beat all other comers at this type of wrist wrestling and even joked that he wanted to be world champion at it"."Bruce and I were training out on my patio one day, we were using this giant bag for side kicks, I guess it weighed about 150lbs. Bruce looked at it and just went Bang, it shot up out into the lawn about 15ft in the air, it then busted in the middle. It was filled with little bits and pieces of rag, we were picking up bits of rag for months"."When he could do push ups on his thumbs and push ups with 250lbs on his back, he moved on to other exercises"."The power that Lee was capable of instantly generating was absolutely frightening to his fellow martial artists, especially his sparring partners, and his speed was equally intimidating. We timed him with an electric timer once, and Bruce's quickest movements were around , his slowest were around eight hundredths. This was punching from a relaxed position with his hands down at his sides from a distance between 18-24 inches. Not only was he amazingly quick, but he could read you too. He could pick up on small subtle things that you were getting ready to do and then he'd just "Bruce was gravitating more and more toward weight training as he would use the weighted wall pulleys and do series upon series with them. He'd also grab one of the old rusty barbells that littered the floor at the YMCA and would roll it up and down his forearms, which is no small feat when you consider that the barbell weighed 70lbs". for his size. He could take a 75lb barbell and from a standing position with the barbell held flush against his chest, he could slowly stick his arms out, lock them and hold the barbell there for 20 seconds, that's pretty damn tough for a guy who at the time only weighed 138lbs. I know 200lb weight lifters who can't do that."" I never stood in front of another human who was a quick as him. He not only had the quickness but he had the inner confidence to muster the conviction to do so. I've seen others who had the speed but lack conviction or vice versa. He was like Ali, he had both.I stood before both of these men, so I know.""Bruce always felt that if your stomach wasn't developed, then you had no business doing any hard sparring".

Bruce Lee's death was officially attributed to cerebral edema.

On July 20, 1973, Lee was in Hong Kong, due to have dinner with former James Bond star George Lazenby, with whom he intended to make a film. According to Lee's wife, Linda, Bruce met producer Raymond Chow at two p.m. at home to discuss the making of the movie . They worked until four p.m., and then drove together to the home of Betty Ting Pei (丁珮), a Taiwanese actress and Bruce Lee's alleged mistress, who was to have a leading role in the film. The three went over the at her home, and then Chow left to attend a dinner meeting.

A short time later, Lee complained of a headache, and Ting Pei gave him an analgesic. At around 7:30 p.m., he laid down for a nap. After Lee didn't turn up for the dinner, Chow came to the apartment but could not wake Lee up. A doctor was summoned, who spent ten minutes attempting to revive him before sending him by ambulance to Queen Elizabeth Hospital. However, Lee was dead by the time he reached the hospital. There was no visible external injury; however, his brain had swollen considerably, from 1,400 to 1,575 grams. Lee was thirty two years old. On October 15, 2005, Chow stated in an interview that Lee was allergic to Equagesic, an analgesic formulation containing meprobamate, aspirin and ethoheptazine. When the doctors announced Bruce Lee's death officially, it was coined as "Death by Misadventure".

However, the exact details of Lee's death are controversial. Bruce Lee's iconic status and unusual death at a young age led many people to develop many theories about Lee's death, such as a murder involving an ancestral curse, triads, gangsters, and so on — none of these have ever been proven.

Lee starred in a leading role in a total of five major films, two of which (Plays "Tang Lung". Fights crime in Rome, Italy. Released after Enter the Dragon in the U.S. hence the title.Plays Shaolin Monk "Mr. Lee". Fights an ex-monk turned drug lord in Hong Kong to avenge his sister.

Note: The English titles for the first two films were swapped by the U.S. distributor. The title due to the drugs theme of the story.

Yuen Lo (Later to become action super star Jackie Chan), was a member of the Seven Little Fortunes he was a stunt double for the villian Mr Suzuki in Bruce's Fist of Fury at the time it was a record as he fell 15 feet without the aid of safety equiptment. Also, during filming of Enter the Dragon Jackie was hit in the face by Bruce's feared nunchucks

Yuen Wah, also a member of the Seven Little Fortunes, and later to become a well known actor in his own right (notably starring in 2005's ), was Lee's stunt double in Lee's last few films.

David Carradine played the characters written for Lee in the 1978 version of

Although Bruce Lee is best known as a martial artist and actor, Lee majored in philosophy at the University of Washington. Lee's books on martial arts and fighting philosophy are well-known both for their philosophical assertions both inside and outside of martial arts circles. His philosophy often mirrored his fighting beliefs, though he was quick to claim that his martial arts were solely a metaphor for such teachings. His influences include Taoism and Buddhism.

The following are some of Bruce Lee's quotes on that reflect his fighting philosophy, primarily derived from Jiddu Krishnamurti's teachings.span "If I tell you I'm good, you would probably think I'm boasting, If I tell you I'm no good, You KNOW I'm lying.""Be formless... shapeless like water. If you put water into a cup it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, and it can crash. Be water, my friend...". Using muscular tensions to try to "do" the punch, or attempting to use brute force to knock someone over, will only work to opposite effect.""Mere technical knowledge is only the beginning of Kung Fu, to master it, one must enter into the spirit of it.""There are lots of guys around the world that are lazy. They have big fat guts. They talk about chi power and things they can do, but don't believe it.""I'm not a master, I'm a student-master, meaning that I have the knowledge of a master and the expertise of a master, but I'm still learning, So I'm a student-master. I don't believe in the word master, I consider the master as such when they close the casket.""Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there.""Unfortunately, now in boxing people are only allowed to punch. In Judo, people are only allowed to throw. I do not despise these kinds of martial arts. What I mean is, we now find rigid forms which create differences among clans, and the world of martial art is shattered as a result.""I think the high state of martial art, in application, must have no absolute form. And, to tackle pattern A with pattern B may not be absolutely correct.""The other weakness is, when clans are formed, the people of a clan will hold their kind of martial art as the only truth, and do not dare to reform or improve it. Thus they are confined in their own tiny little world. Their students become machines which imitate martial art forms.""Some people are tall, some are short. some are stout, some are slim. There are various different kinds of people. If all of them learn the same martial art form, then who does it fit?""Ultimately, martial art means honestly expressing yourself. It is easy for me to put on a show, and be cocky so I can show you some really fancy movement. But to express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, and to express myself honestly enough; that my friend is very hard to do."With his ancestral roots coming from Gwan'on in Seundak, Guangdong province of China (广东顺德均安, Guangdong Shunde Jun'An), a street in the village is named after him where his ancestral home is situated. The home is open for public access.In 2001, LMF, a Cantonese hip-hop group in Hong Kong, released a popular song called "1127" as a tribute to Bruce Lee. The lyrics include: "We only want you to become a Chinese you can be proud of. Learn from others; Need not copy. Use your heart to digest the knowledge of others. Try asking why there are so many failures here who do not support each other and always pretend to be like the other. [Chorus] We had Bruce Lee teach us we are not the disease of Asia. Though having yellow skin, we can still be ourselves. Do not follow, copy, and be like the other. Do not look down upon ourselves.... The spirit of Bruce Lee will never die and the Chinese will never forget that."In September 2004, a a BBC story stated that the Herzegovinian city of Mostar was to honour Lee with a statue on the Spanish Square, as a . After many years of war and religious splits, Lee's figure is to commend his work: to successfully bridge culture gaps in the world. The statue, placed in the city park, was unveiled on November 26, 2005 (One day before the unveiling of the statue in Hong Kong, below).In 2005, Lee was remembered in Hong Kong with a bronze statue to mark his 65th birthday. The bronze statue, unveiled on November 27, 2005 honoured Lee as

There exists numerous references to Lee in popular culture, which are covered in a separate article.

Using computer graphics technology, a South Korean filmmaker Chul Shin is making a $50 million movie called Dragon Warrior that will be the first to feature a long-dead Bruce Lee in a leading role[24]. Film company ShinCine have the approval of Linda Lee Cadwell and Shannon Lee [25].

Unique Pub. Editors, CFW Enterprise UNIQUE PUBLICATIONS, U.S. (1980) First Printing, ISBN 0865680094