Bruce Lee Ted Thomas Interview Part 1

I am not and have never been a big fan of Bruce Lee as I didn’t like his movies, I must be one of the extremely few who have trained Wing Chun not due to become Bruce Lee or being a fan of him. My favourite martial artist where high level world champ Kyokushin fighters from the days with no weight class, as I knew how extremely painful it is to fight several fights at elimination tournaments in the same day, plus the gruelling fight test for getting a new belt, my last fight test was horrible as I was only 16 years old and to get my 1 kyu I had to fight 7 persons, full knock down rules, the last fight was against the former K1 champ Nicholas Pettas, with only a 5 minutes break after the fitness test that is extremely hard, the seniors get a day to recover and I was the first one for the fight tests, I could hardly sit down as the pain in my legs and the rest of the body was way too high, since I assumed it was a standard grading I pushed myself 100% all the way expecting a days rest. My Sensei wanted to prove that I could do the impossible and changed the test, I was a lab rat to see how far a kid could be pushed, I did get my belt and felt pride to have survived that hell that no other had ever done before or after, to have survived what most seniors would never be able to do, but later couldn’t handle that others got their belts with a days rest and protective gear in their fights. That was one of the reasons I left the club and searched for a new martial art, as I felt it had turned from a typical hardcore Japanese insane torture mentality to pure McDojo.