by Kensei » Tue Jul 07, 2009 4:22 am
Bruce was a great martial artist, in a martial art that was very limited! His style of fighting was limited by the types of martial arts he was exposed to. he had wing chun training ( only 3 years by some accounts) but he studied Boxing, Judo and TKD by reading books only. He formed his style of JKD based on his 3 years of wing chun and his practice time with the other styles, but if you read lots of his diary pages and the like you see were he is frustrated by not being able to beat specific techniques and having to adopt them. he had VERY limited grappling experience. Some Judo from books and some wrestling with students that were wrestlers, but he even stated in one of his books (got it at home not here at work) that because of his frame and size he had to stick to striking and left the grappling training kind of out. I KNOW I could beat Bruce Lee...guy has been Dead for 30+ years, If I can find enough of him to wrestle I would do it! When he was alive I was a punk kid in a Karate club with Sambo training and some Judo. Actually I think I started Judo the year he died!
Their is a big difference between club sparring and a MMA match, in club sparring you can stop...back up and retry something and not get a penalty, in MMA if you stop you probably have lost. IN a real fight if you stop you have lost, and more than just a match...probably your teeth! Bruce was never in a tournament under controlled settings and his street fighting is listed but sketchy in his books. His brother said he left Hong Kong because he was getting into fights and getting picked on because he was a child actor. He says his father sent him away because he was hurting people in street fights, Something tells me he was real good at marketing even back then.
Most good fighters I know of were bouncers or did it in the ring. I have tones of friends in the martial arts who are great in the club, but put them in the street and I am not going to bet on them winning a fight! Being good at forms and doing controlled sparring with little to no contact is very different from getting hit in the face and wrestling around with someone or actually trying to hit a guy. I will post a few of my funny stories in the other part of the forum tonight if I can grab a few minutes.....My point is that many good martial arts guys cant fight their way out of a wet paper bag, they are still great at martial arts, good technques...fast and powerful, but come time for a real fight and they mentally shut it down!
My point, and I am not a big BJJ nut hugger here is that Helio did what Bruce talked about. In a fight Helio was good at taking it to the ground and tapping or snapping or making a guy nap! bruce talked about it and even wrote a book or two about it. Helio took on all comers no matter what weight and what style, he prefered no rules, no pads or gloves and he had a very good record of NHB fights, he got the crap kicked out of him and did not flintch. He created a martial art that was very good in one specific thing, ground skills. bruce on the other hand never had a documented fight in his life. the one that he talks about in his book for the right to teach us round eyes his style of kung fu is and always will be pure fiction. His wife even came out and said it was not true, it was dramatic enough to base a part of a movie on however. In his biography he states he got kicked in the back and that is how he hurt himself, not true...he hurt his back doing weights. In the book...made into a movie...he says he came back and destroyed the guy in under a minutes at Ed Parkers tournament.....not ture...he was at parkers tournament but he only demo'd his art with a student holding a pad.
To compaire Helio Gracie to Bruce Lee is a bit like compairing Ali to Will Smith...hell at least smith played Ali at one point. Yah, Lee created this very snappy and smart style that draws from many sources to create a cohesive style...but the end result is that Lee vs Gracie is not a fair fight, Gracie knows what he will do when he gets hit in the face and Lee does not.
End result, Lee may KO Gracie with speed and power, but the smart mans money would be on a bloodied up Gracie comeing back and snapping Lee like a twig and Lee wondering what the hell just happened....
Even monkeys fall out of trees!
