....talks about Bruce Lee.

[mozfonky]

I read it at all old blog of Bruce Frantzis who mentioned being a former karate expert who became a yogi and then got in to Chinese martial arts.

This was what he said about Wang:

View attachment 1035400




Now I know I know, its a tall tale but it seems like Wang had crazy Kung Fu skills and Tim Ferris mentioned something about Qi Gong mysticism about a master who was doing something with air and this was in the early Rogan podcast.

I've heard those sorts of stories, without more evidence, I'd think they might be some sort of hypnosis. I knew a guy who insisted that someone used his chi to propel him back. Seemed like a good man, honest guy, but I think he may have convinced himself, that's how fanatical he was.

 

[KoreanZawmbie]

He was more of a philosopher than a fighter. His thoughts about fighting and mixing of styles were wayyyyyy ahead of its time.
He specifically stated that he no longer believed in styles and that he was a proponent of taking what was useful and throwing out what wasn't.

Definitely ahead of his time.

 

[Hog-train]

I mean I don't judge him on his fight ability.

I'm judging him by the fact that he was the first to introduce an arm bar on film against Kareem. And basically introduced the whole Western world to Eastern martial arts.

 

[Patrick Jane]

No, he met Norris around 66 I believe, and the back injury was a couple years later. My timeline isn't perfect but I know it was before the injury. As far as Half a cripple, I've heard differing versions on the seriousness of his back injury, from him being told he'd never kick again to it wasn't really that bad. I don't really know how serious it was, only that the movie Dragon was full of shit with the wheelchair and all.

Again, I have to say, you will not get a good opinion on a fighter from another fighter. That's like asking a bunch of bitches their opinion about a super beautiful woman, they already hate her and now you're giving them a chance to spill some of that hate. Dumb.

I always assumed the reason for the stunt doubles in Lee's fight scenes was the back injury, since some of it was such simple front flip stuff that even i can do, so i cannot imagine someone as small and tense as Bruce Lee needing a double for it unless he doesn't want to arch his back.

I don't even understand how the rumor started that Chuck Norris talked badly about Bruce Lee. None of the clips i have seen even remotely showed something like that. The only people i have ever heard Chuck Norris talk bad about were Steven Seagal and Barrack Obama.

I'm judging him by the fact that he was the first to introduce an arm bar on film against Kareem. And basically introduced the whole Western world to Eastern martial arts.

When did he do an arm bar on film against Kareem?

 

[mozfonky]

I always assumed the reason for the stunt doubles in Lee's fight scenes was the back injury, since some of it was such simple front flip stuff that even i can do, so i cannot imagine someone as small and tense as Bruce Lee needing a double for it unless he doesn't want to arch his back.

I don't even understand how the rumor started that Chuck Norris talked badly about Bruce Lee. None of the clips i have seen even remotely showed something like that. The only people i have ever heard Chuck Norris talk bad about were Steven Seagal and Barrack Obama.

Bruce was an incredible athlete, I'm sure the reason he used the tumber was because that just wasn't his back ground. His back injury apparently did bother him for the rest of his life but he was still able to execute what we got in the films so it wasn't a limitation on him I don't think, just a painful issue. Who knows how much that may have factored in to his drug use.
I don't think I've ever seen anything egregious from Chuck but I read some between the lines. Like the above interview, hes tactfully saying he was a real fighter and Bruce wasn't. In the Curse of The Dragon docu he says something like, "he wanted to be a star and I'm sure he would have been". He was you dumb fuck, exactly what is your definition of a success? That's the shit that just rankles me.

Also, my mentor told me he'd heard or read interviews where Chuck said that if the fight in Way Of The Dragon was real the outcome would have been different. Now, I never saw those types of interviews but I'm pretty sure, with 50 years of yapping, he's said stuff like that.

 

[KBE6EKCTAH_CCP]

no, chuck has always had ambivalence over Bruce. Chuck was a champion of non-contact, that's just where the sport was then, it looks pitiful today and it's nothing to really be super proud of. He has a ton of skills but in those days, if you chose to compete, you generally had to play the game that way.

Rumors were, they actually did spar and Chuck was left embarrassed, how true that is who knows but I was always always suspicious of a guy who seemed to get his hackles up every time Bruce was mentioned, even though Bruce helped his career. Story was that Chuck and the rest of the martial artists around were mainly scared of Bruce when he was alive. After he died? well..., Also, as I always mention, you don't get good perspective from anyone in the same line, that's just not how it works. Would Joe Frazier say a lot good about Muhammad? No, even though Muhammad beat him to a pulp the last time they fought, that's just how it works. Same in music and maybe even worse, the wannabes take shots at legends and claim they are better, if they are, they never made it work out for them.

NGL that sounds like a bit of mental gymnastics right there. Pro fighters may have this rivalry but this is not what this is about. This is about whether or not an actor actually knew how to fight.

 

[Patrick Jane]

Bruce was an incredible athlete, I'm sure the reason he used the tumber was because that just wasn't his back ground. His back injury apparently did bother him for the rest of his life but he was still able to execute what we got in the films so it wasn't a limitation on him I don't think, just a painful issue. Who knows how much that may have factored in to his drug use.
I don't think I've ever seen anything egregious from Chuck but I read some between the lines. Like the above interview, hes tactfully saying he was a real fighter and Bruce wasn't. In the Curse of The Dragon docu he says something like, "he wanted to be a star and I'm sure he would have been". He was you dumb fuck, exactly what is your definition of a success? That's the shit that just rankles me.

Also, my mentor told me he'd heard or read interviews where Chuck said that if the fight in Way Of The Dragon was real the outcome would have been different. Now, I never saw those types of interviews but I'm pretty sure, with 50 years of yapping, he's said stuff like that.

The thing with reading between the lines is that there are often infinite ways of interpreting something into statements.

Even with the quote you've given about him wanting to be a star it's nothing necessarily wrong, as it just seems to reference his early death. I once mentioned Bruce Lee at my workplace and my coworker confused him with Christopher Lee.

 

[mozfonky]

The thing with reading between the lines is that there are often infinite ways of interpreting something into statements.

Even with the quote you've given about him wanting to be a star it's nothing necessarily wrong, as it just seems to reference his early death. I once mentioned Bruce Lee at my workplace and my coworker confused him with Christopher Lee.

Chuck is pretty clear in some of his quotes.

 

[mozfonky]

NGL that sounds like a bit of mental gymnastics right there. Pro fighters may have this rivalry but this is not what this is about. This is about whether or not an actor actually knew how to fight.

Your opinion, fighters almost never say a good word about another. Just the way they are. It's not just chuck-bruce.

 

[Flower2dPeople]

He was more of a philosopher than a fighter. His thoughts about fighting and mixing of styles were wayyyyyy ahead of its time.
He specifically stated that he no longer believed in styles and that he was a proponent of taking what was useful and throwing out what wasn't.

Definitely ahead of his time.

Nah. Musashi has a conservative kill count of 17 in 60 duels which he all won. Not pretend fights. A proponent of cross training and practicality in which he actually applied and not just hypothesized. Some of Bruce Lee's famous quotes are eerily similar to Musashi's. I'm not saying Bruce plagiarized the book of five rings but Musashi did it first.

“You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

“Do nothing that is of no use”
― Musashi Miyamoto, Book of Five Rings

“You can only fight the way you practice”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

“To know ten thousand things, know one well”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

 

[KBE6EKCTAH_CCP]

I read it at all old blog of Bruce Frantzis who mentioned being a former karate expert who became a yogi and then got in to Chinese martial arts.

This was what he said about Wang:

View attachment 1035400




Now I know I know, its a tall tale but it seems like Wang had crazy Kung Fu skills and Tim Ferris mentioned something about Qi Gong mysticism about a master who was doing something with air and this was in the early Rogan podcast.

LOL, when I read the screenshot I thought it was to ridicule someone but apparently this is some kind of validation.
It's interesting how many covert weirdos we have here. Unless your post was ironic in which cass I am an idiot.

 

[KBE6EKCTAH_CCP]

Your opinion, fighters almost never say a good word about another. Just the way they are. It's not just chuck-bruce.

You are somehow equating peer to peer rivalry within that peer sport with dismissing some actor who many believe is a fraud as a fighter. Kind of like when people in the standup forum use "it's not the art it's the fighter" to implicitely validate shitty TMAs that have been debunked for almost two generations.

 

[mozfonky]

You are somehow equating peer to peer rivalry within that peer sport with dismissing some actor who many believe is a fraud as a fighter. Kind of like when people in the standup forum use "it's not the art it's the fighter" to implicitely validate shitty TMAs that have been debunked for almost two generations.

Again, your opinion. Many fighters of that era consider bruce the real deal.

 

[GolovKing]

Fighting ability aside. Do y'all think Bruce was really as athletic and fit as people claim he was? I've read he could do like 50 one arm pullups or something crazy like that

 

[Patrick Jane]

Nah. Musashi has a conservative kill count of 17 in 60 duels which he all won. Not pretend fights. A proponent of cross training and practicality in which he actually applied and not just hypothesized. Some of Bruce Lee's famous quotes are eerily similar to Musashi's. I'm not saying Bruce plagiarized the book of five rings but Musashi did it first.

“You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

“Do nothing that is of no use”
― Musashi Miyamoto, Book of Five Rings

“You can only fight the way you practice”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

“To know ten thousand things, know one well”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

The overwhelming majority of Bruce Lee quotes are misattributed to him because he recited a lot.

Especially the Water Quote is extremely common in all types of martial literature though.

Quote from the Art of War (Sun Tzu):

30. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.
31. Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.
32. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.

The earliest example i can think of off the top of my head where it was explicitly used in a 1 on 1 hand-to-hand combat technique context was in an instructional manual about Hadaka Jime by Moshe Feldenkrais.

There actually exists a great source book for misattributed Bruce Lee quotes.

 

[dirtypablo]

Again, your opinion. Many fighters of that era consider bruce the real deal.

And the ones who don't, who actually trained with him? Oh right, they don't count, they were just salty because he supposedly whooped them, despite there being zero evidence of that ever happening.

Boggles my mind that in 2024 people still believe this nonsense.

 

[mozfonky]

And the ones who don't, who actually trained with him? Oh right, they don't count, they were just salty because he supposedly whooped them, despite there being zero evidence of that ever happening.

Boggles my mind that in 2024 people still believe this nonsense.

Bob wall, louis Delgado are two who trained with him to say he was a good fighter. Let your mind be boggled .

 

[Fedorgasm]

I have no doubt that Bruce was a "good" fighter.

He kept himself in incredible shape, practiced frequently, and learned from any style. That stuff alone is enough to handle most street fights.

But he chose to be a teacher rather than a competitor, so IMO he's still untested. Kinda like Greg Jackson or firas zahabi, I'm sure these guys can handle themselves in a fight but they chose to become teachers rather than professional fighters. Are they "good" in a fight? Sure. But they are not invincible and they certainly couldn't beat the UFC champs.

That's how I think of Bruce Lee. People need to stop speculating on who he could beat in a fight, because Bruce never tested himself against the top guys.

 

[Patrick Jane]

But he chose to be a teacher rather than a competitor, so IMO he's still untested. Kinda like Greg Jackson or firas zahabi, I'm sure these guys can handle themselves in a fight but they chose to become teachers rather than professional fighters. Are they "good" in a fight? Sure. But they are not invincible and they certainly couldn't beat the UFC champs.

That's probably some of the controversy. People who don't like Bruce Lee will get the same vibes as with other people who "trained" good fighters while people who like him will consider it evidence for legitimacy.

 

[mozfonky]

Chuck, incidentally, has also said at different times that they sparred and that they never sparred, same for Joe Lewis. Chuck also says in a recent interview that he thinks that he and Lee would both do well in MMA, another contradiction, hmm. Now, students of Lee have said they witnessed Bruce smack both Norris and Joe Lewis, I don't doubt they actually sparred. But, students of Bruce are going to side with him most likely so the opinion really doesn't prove much. Even fights we have on video have been argued for decades, many times, just because of people's biases, so, I don't necessarily believe the accounts of Lee's students other than Norris and Lewis had it out with Lee at some points. Jim Kelly also alludes to knowing about secret fights or sparring sessions where Bruce made fools of top fighters of the day, he wouldn't mention names out of respect but says Bruce was the best and "beyond Jordan" as far as his abilities. Then, the naysayers say, "oh, he drank koolaid". Can't win.

One thing Bob Wall got right though, in an early interview, when he was asked about why Lee didn't fight, he said that to fight you have to lose, that they all lost and Bruce just didn't want to lose but "we all thought he was good enough" to be a champion. That part goes down to Bruce's ego, I think that's true, he just did not want to risk losing and that might be the biggest reason he didn't compete. The other, as I mentioned, most of those competitions were so primitive that they wouldn't prove much anyways.