Bruce Lee Ted Thomas Interview Part 2

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.

Bruce Lee by Dan Inosanto RARE

Very rare cut from documentary "Way of the Warrior - Kung Fu, the Hard Way"-Bruce Lee by Dan Inosanto, from early eighties. Guro Dan talk about wing chun influence on Master Bruce Lee,s Jeet Kune Do and he explane energy and trapping. Guro Dan said that JKD is 50% wing chun and other 50% other styles.Very rare cut from documentary "Way of the Warrior - Kung Fu, the Hard Way"-Bruce Lee by Dan Inosanto, from early eighties. Guro Dan talk about wing chun influence on Master Bruce Lee,s Jeet Kune Do and he explane energy and trapping. Guro Dan said that JKD is 50% wing chun and other 50% other styles.

MMA Striking to Takedown

From DamageControlMMA.com

Years ago a great man wanted to see what was possible if the restrictions of classical system and tradition were replaced by the philosophy of “no way as way, no limitation as the only limitation”

That man was Bruce Lee and the sporting permutation of his vision is what we know today as MMA. At the technical level, Bruce Lee’s art is known for its ability to seamlessly transition from one art or range to another. Something that MMA professionals are only now just beginning to realize and incorporate.

One of our favorite nods to the JKD tradition is the use of the shuffle step kick entry. In the members area of our website we elaborate further on the variations and possibilities we like to use but here you can see how we’ve applied the basic concept to the realm of MMA.

The key for using this entry is to consistently mix your dedicated striking attacks using the shuffle kick entry with your compound takedown attacks. Again something we cover at length for our members.

Until next time, “Take what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is essentially your own”. Leave a comment and let us know what you’ve found useful.