Bruce Lee has Died

As a long-standing aficionado, of Bruce Lee it is my sad duty to convey that Bruce Lee has died. Oh very clever, you say, we know he died in 1973, but he didn’t, did he? He passed on, but his legend began with his physical death and the explosion caused by ‘Enter The Dragon’ to become the biggest martial arts icon ever. But, in 2006, to who?

Is it the band of fans that still go to the Conventions and buy the magazines with Bruce on the cover or each ‘new’ DVD release? I’d agree he still has a large fan base, but so does Jim Reeves. Many of you will ask who is Jim Reeves? And these days, you’ll get the same reaction from many teenagers and children, even a lot of people in their twenties, if you mention Bruce’s name. They know Jackie Chan because he’s a cartoon. Did you see the crowds at last year’s SENI when the Power Rangers were teaching? It was biggest queue of the weekend – forget Royce Gracie. Jet Li they know, maybe even Tony Jaa (of Ong-Bak fame), but Bruce? For the great majority you have to tell them who he was.

What about martial artists? The seminar scene is awash with Jeet Kune Do seminars. Still the biggest draw is Dan Inosanto – ask Joe Public though and they don’t know who you’re talking about. Richard Bustillo and Larry Hartsell both have their methods established in the UK, but students attend because of who they are, the ‘Bruce Lee factor’ is very much diminished. Second generation students like Cass Magda and Ron Balicki are now attracting people to their seminars because of their skill, teaching style and the passion and commitment of their students, namely Dave Carnell and Matt Teasdale respectively. In the 1980’s the words ‘Jeet Kune Do’ and ‘Bruce Lee’ almost guaranteed a good attendance at a seminar – now we need a lot more to get people to part with their time and money. Seminars have to be an experience, to be an extended class is no longer enough. Students need to experience the ‘wow’ factor or they won’t attend next time. This may mean personal time with the seminar instructor, or a particular training method that is unique or a special atmosphere. In other words, the ‘unique experience’ comes from the teacher and not through a connection with a long dead icon.

How about the name ‘Jeet Kune Do’? I have put this name on posters for beginners’ classes and got no-one. However, put ‘kickboxing and self defence’ and people come flooding in. Is it product identity then? Traditional martial artists will say that JKD practitioners are ‘jack-of-all-trades and master of none’. I don’t believe this to be true. Rick Young is a clear example of a competitor at the highest level in grappling competitions and one of the leading JKD figures in the UK. There are the JKD players that have become World Champions in Sport-Eskrima. Neil McLeod was a Stick-fighting World Champion and Vale-Tudo competitor. There are many more examples. But what do any of these people have to do with Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do? It is part of their Jeet Kune Do. They practice Jeet Kune Do, they have lineage, but they have evolved, in their way, to find their own Jeet Kune Do. And herein lays the paradox. In order to find your Jeet Kune Do you have to become liberated from Bruce Lee, as he said you must, and if you do that you literally leave Bruce behind.

A whole generation has grown up with him not being around. The same is true of Elvis and yet he scored three Number 1’s last year. James Dean and Marilyn Monroe are still 20 th Century icons. As is Bruce. It has been reported recently that the city of Mostar, Bosnia is to erect a statue of Bruce in their city as a symbol of racial harmony (?!), but when it comes to martial arts training Bruce doesn’t draw the crowds.

Why? Perhaps because for years it has been said that Jeet Kune do isn’t a style, it is a ‘concept’ – a way of thinking. Have you ever tried selling that to a beginner that comes into your class on a draughty night in February? He, or she, will think you’re bonkers. And they would be right. Jeet Kune Do was Bruce Lee’s expression of fighting, with a philosophical adjunct. I market my classes as a mixture of kickboxing, self defence, weaponry and wrestling. Beginners have a look at my JKD class and can see I’m telling the truth. It’s rare when students come looking for ‘Jeet Kune Do’ and if they do, they have had training before.

I’ve also noticed a marked decrease in people phoning me up and asking about Bruce. They’ll ask the normal questions about price, the type of training they’ll learn, how many in a class and such-like, but Bruce rarely comes up. It’s the same in the class. My students, in the main, aren’t interested (initially) in knowing that much about Bruce Lee; they want to train with me. This isn’t arrogance, this is true of all instructors; people come to train with the main instructor. They like the person, his skill level and the atmosphere that he creates (this can of course be applied to a woman) and that’s who they want to train with. In most cases the students don’t care that much about who the instructor has trained with either. It is all the above that keeps them coming back for more.

What, then, is Jeet Kune Do today? It is whatever the instructor deems it to be, within the parameters of the Lee-Inosanto-Bustillo teaching method. If your instructor is a second generation teacher such as Cass Magda or Chris Kent then it will probably follow similar lines. The fact is that the art has had to evolve. Bruce’s art was developed to beat street-fighters and classical Karate-types. Even though you still get these today everything has moved on. If Bruce was ahead of the game in 1973, he is behind in 2006. If he’d stayed alive I’m certain he would have kept up, but he didn’t and nor did classical Jeet Kune Do. It’s the reason why Bustillo and Inosanto introduced the Filipino Arts. It’s why Inosanto incorporated Silat. It’s why first Shoot-fighting and later Brazilian Ju-Jitsu was incorporated. It had to in order to keep up or to stay ahead. But what many of us practice today is our art flavoured by our immediate instructor and although we’ve trained in Bruce’s art what we teach today isn’t Bruce’s art. It’s ours.

I also think that another important trend since the early 1990’s has been the introduction of street-fighting strategy. First with Geoff Thompson and Peter Consterdine and later with Mo Teague, as well as others. Without strategy your art is directionless. To understand adrenal dump is a basic, to incorporate the ‘fence’ and ‘talking hands’ are essential and to understand where the lessons were learnt is vital. Bruce would have loved this stuff, but he wasn’t around.

And before any Bruce Lee fans think I’ve forgotten about Jun Fan Gung Fu, I haven’t. In order to teach Jeet Kune Do you have to know this part of the art. It is the core of the physical training as is Bruce’s philosophy. However, this isn’t what this article is about. It is about the impact of Bruce Lee on today’s generation of martial artists, not the ‘fans’, but the people who train and come into the martial arts to become more confident, fitter, etc, etc. Put simply Bruce Lee is no longer the marketer’s dream because for the youngster of today Bruce doesn’t exist.

This begs another question, namely is Bruce’s name worth promoting or even the art of Jeet Kune Do? I believe it is. I think that what made Bruce special was his willingness to promote the arts in a way that they had never been promoted before. Namely through the world of the movies and by controversial articles in magazines like ‘Black Belt’ back in the 1960’s. Let’s not forget that his fanatical training methods made him who he was and helped to develop the art of JKD, as it became. The art of Jeet Kune Do has now taken on a life of its own. From the simple, direct, effective art that Bruce envisioned it is now a blend that varies from instructor to instructor. Again, I think this is good. As long as the core of the Jun Fan arts and Bruce’s philosophy are in place then the art can be called Jeet Kune Do. If it doesn’t then it becomes another ‘mixed martial art’.

This leads to one of the most common criticisms of Bruce. Namely that he didn’t compete so therefore a lot of JKD is theoretical BS. Geoff Thompson and Mo Teague are today’s self protection/reality experts and yet neither is known for their competitive background. Would it be appropriate to aim the same criticism at these two? My question would be, did Bruce leave behind an effective martial art? I think for the 60’s, it was the Brazilian Ju-Jitsu of it’s time. As I said earlier though, it has had to be updated to deal with the (fight) technology of today. That’s not to say that the original Jun Fan isn’t effective at certain ranges. It’s that in this day and age there are more questions to be answered and Jun Fan doesn’t have the answers. For example, in K1 these days you have 7’ 23 stone giants fighting – how do you cope with? If your answer is the stop kick to the knee you don’t understand adrenal dump. There is a greater availability of drugs than the street-fighters of the 60’s came up against. Plus there is the more widespread use of weapons, particularly edged weapons. Jun Fan’s answers to these issues were inadequate – as I said earlier, it’s why Inosanto and Bustillo introduced the Filipino Arts to the Jeet Kune Do curriculum.

So what are we left with? Really the legend of Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee the movie star. This is the way that the next generations are probably first going to learn who Bruce was. For many that will be as far as it goes. I was once in a shop and overheard two shop assistants talking about ‘The Crow’ that was on TV that night. One was telling the other that Brandon Lee was the son of Bruce. The other took a lot of convincing that her friend was right. Those of us who are involved in these arts and who are at least in their thirties don’t realise what the public perception of Bruce Lee is.

It maybe true that he still sells magazines when he is on the cover. I’m sure it’s also true that people will buy yet another rehashed version of ‘Fist of Fury’, but honestly how many more times can we ask the ‘fans’ to spend more money on what is basically the same product? It’s great to have the films on DVD and uncut. I think it’s also good that there are commentaries on these films and the package of ‘Game of Death’ was exceptional, but I don’t think there has been anything original since John Little’s ‘A Warriors Journey’ five years ago.

What you can’t take away is the dedication of a person like Andy Staton who has battled for decades now to keep Bruce’s name in the public eye. He also produced one of the best documentaries with ‘Bruce Lee - Martial Arts Master’. I’d give him credit for badgering the film companies to bring the films out on DVD, but the only way that new students will know about Bruce Lee now will be the through the growing group of JKD instructors. We have to explain how this art came to be. That Bruce was much more than a movie star, he was a man of his time – a man of the 60’s and early 70’s, but we must also recognise that time marches on and for Jeet Kune Do to flourish we must know who we are and what our JKD is. We must recognise that the art died in 1973 when Bruce Lee stopped breathing and from that moment on it became encapsulated as a ‘style’. The ‘concept’ of JKD is to continue to grow, to know your roots and your history, but to grow.

So now I come to my conclusion. The idea of Bruce Lee bringing new students into martial arts is mostly false. In 2006, new students come into martial arts because of K1 and UFC on the TV. They come in because of ‘Tae-Bo’ or the acceptance that in any action film these days the hero must know martial arts. Martial arts are now part of the establishment. We’re up there with football, darts, snooker and fishing. The people who come and train tend to be different from your average darts player, but for most, these warrior arts are what people do as a hobby. Our schools are places that our students see as a place they go twice a week for fitness and for the social life as well as for self protection. The stories from the 70’s of Karate classes packed to the rafters because of a film by an iconic figure are now history. When ‘Dragon’ came out in 1993 I thought it would spark a resurgence of interest in Bruce and JKD, but nothing happened. There was a brief hiatus with the formation of the Bruce Lee Educational Foundation and Nucleus, but with the fall-out with the Nucleus’ collapse and the parting of John Little from the organisation the public perception (general and martial arts) is of Bruce the movie star.

As a film star Bruce will rate alongside many fallen icons – James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and River Phoenix - as one of those who died too young. To those of us who feel that he has a place in martial arts folklore then it is up to us to teach our students who Bruce really was and we have a task on our hands. With the passing of time Bruce becomes more of a legendary figure and it is almost difficult to believe that he once walked this world as an ordinary person. The same is true of Elvis and John Lennon. The difference is that these two seem to have more of a back catalogue to promote. Bruce Lee has the students of his students – the thirty, forty, fifty-something’s teaching Jeet Kune Do and promoting a martial art that has probably had more press than any other and yet finds itself at the crossroads of its development. With the next generation coming through and not relating to the founder we have to help his name to stay alive. Not in the world of entertainment, of that he is assured, but in the world of martial arts where his ‘honest expression of himself’ came to be. Without that promotion then Bruce Lee really will die.