THE MARTIAL ARTIST?

The debate over whether Bruce Lee was a real fighter, just a martial artist or merely an actor has been a topic of hot debate over the years. To the uninitiated, his lack of tournament pedigree of record automatically places him into either of the latter two categories, so what is the “truth”? Does it even matter if he was the “greatest” - as the hyperbole would have us believe – or does his innovative thinking and influence matter more, and is of greater significance?

JUN FAN GUNG-FU

There were three Jun Fan Gung-Fu Institutes in Bruce Lee’s lifetime, but what was taught under the auspices of his senior instructors were not necessarily the same. There are many who believe that the most effective version of his art was the one he shared with his first friends in the U.S. – the so-called “Seattle Group” – before he became known within American martial arts circles as the leading advocate for Chinese Gung-Fu. These were the formative years when many who knew him well, argued was his period as a fighter, more interested in the “martial” than the “art”.

JEET KUNE DO

Outside of Bruce Lee’s mysterious death, Jeet Kune Do is probably the most misunderstood aspect of his life and work – and even the man himself seemed ambivalent about the perception he had created in his last years. The publication of his collection of notes and private thoughts as the TAO OF JEET KUNE DO posthumously only served to cloud the issue more, as the direction of his art, like Lee himself, was a constant work-in-progress and defied easy answers to questions we are still asking today.