Bruce Lee - The Legend

The Chinese New Year are upon us with a long weekend coming up. Bruce Lee was born in November 1940 in San Francisco, The Year of the Dragon and what can be more befitting to remember my childhood hero and a true Legend. To me and my friend Gatoe, Bruce Lee was like a God during our teenage years. Our room walls had the posters, we watched all his movies multiple times, imitated his fight moves and even made our own Nunchaku's which caused lots of self inflicted bodily harm while trying to perfect our own skills in using them.

He started making movies at the tender age of six while living in Hong Kong with his parents. His early movies were mostly playing the role of problem children and he even made a movie with his farther. His earlier movies include Beginning of a Boy, My Son Ah Cheong and The Orphan.

At the age of 18 he returned to the USA to claim his citizenship and started his own martial arts school teaching the art of Jeet Keen Do (JKD). This was a style of martial arts perfected by him and translated it means The Way of the Intercepting Fist. His students included famous people like Steve McQueen and James Coburn. Acting was however his biggest passion and he managed to get a role in Television series called The Green Hornet which did not receive good ratings and was cancelled after one season.

His career came to a halt when he did not get the role in the Kung Fu series which was ultimately played by David Carridene. Kill Bill for those who do not know him. He reluctantly moved his family back to Hong Kong to make the movie called The Big Boss and the rest is history. He became an overnight success and is without a doubt the Best Martial Artist that ever lived. Who can forget his most famous fight scene with Chuck Norris in the Colosseum in Rome? They never fought each other  in true life and trained together for years as friends.

He is famous for doing push ups with one arm using only his thumb and one finger. He invented the 1 inch punch and after a live demonstration his opponent said he was bruised for more than a week and had difficulty breathing. To receive one of his famous side kicks would cause his opponents to fly back and they said it felt like being hit by a speeding car. He could side kick a 300 pound punching bag straight up into the ceiling. Many of his movie fight scenes had to be slowed down to compensate for how fast his actions actually was.

Things that are not so well know about him is that he was a excellent Cha Cha dancer and won the 1958 Hong Kong Championships. He did not drink any alcohol, loved motorcycles and only had one love scene in all his movies where a girl made him drunk and he fell asleep. All his movie enemies were foreigners and he always had to be "taunted" before fighting.

Until Bruce Lee came along all martial arts competitions were "no contact" which he did not belief in and over time it changed to incorporate his full body contact style. He was the first Martial Arts Master to allow non Chinese students in his school much to the dismay of the Grand Masters and he was challenged to a duel and if he lost would loose the right to continue to do so. He won the fight.

Tragically he died at at the very young age of 32, as a result of cerebral adema, an allergic reaction to medication and is buried in the Lake View cemetery in Seattle, Washington.

Your Legend Lives on my Hero.