Bruce Lee (My Idol)

Bruce Lee (27 November 1940 – 20 July 1973) was a Chinese martial artist, philosopher, instructor, martial arts actor and the founder of the Jeet Kune Do combat form. He was widely regarded as the most influential martial artist of the twentieth century and a cultural icon. He was also the father of actor Brandon Lee and of actress Shannon Lee.
Lee was born in San Francisco, California, and raised in Hong Kong until his late teens. His Hong Kong and Hollywood-produced films elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity and acclaim, and sparked the first major surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West. The direction and tone of his films changed and influenced martial arts and martial arts films in Hong Kong and the rest of the world as well.
Lee became an iconic figure particularly to the Chinese, as he portrayed Chinese national pride and Chinese nationalism in his movies. He primarily practiced Chinese martial arts (Kung Fu).

Early life
Lee Jun Fan was born in the hour of the dragon, between 6–8 a.m., in the Year of the Dragon according to the Chinese zodiac calendar, 27 November 1940, at the Chinese Hospital in San Francisco’s Chinatown. His father, Lee Hoi-Chuen (李海泉), was Chinese, and his Catholic mother, Grace (何愛瑜), was of Chinese and German ancestry. Lee and his parents returned to Hong Kong when he was three months old. He was an American citizen by birth.

Education and family
At age 12, Lee entered La Salle College and later he attended St. Francis Xavier's College. In 1959, at the age of 18, Lee got into a fight and badly beat his opponent, getting into trouble with the police. His father became concerned about young Bruce's safety, and as a result, he and his wife decided to send Bruce to the United States to live with an old friend of his father's. Lee left with $100 in his pocket and the titles of 1958 Boxing Champion and the Crown Colony Cha Cha Champion of Hong Kong. He relocated to the United States through his citizenship to earn an education. After living in San Francisco, he moved to Seattle to work for Ruby Chow, another friend of his father's. In 1959, Lee completed his high school education in Seattle and received his diploma from Edison Technical School. He enrolled at the University of Washington and studied philosophy, drama, and psychology, among other subjects. It was at the University of Washington that he met his future wife Linda Emery, whom he would marry in 1964.
He had two children with Linda, Brandon Lee (1965–1993) and Shannon Lee (1969-). Brandon, who also became an actor like his father, died in an accident during the filming of The Crow in 1993. Shannon Lee also became an actress and appeared in some low-budget films starting in the mid 1990s, but has since quit acting.

Names
Lee's Cantonese given name was Jun Fan (振藩; Mandarin Pinyin: Zhènfán). At his birth, he additionally was given the English name of "Bruce" by a Dr. Mary Glover. Though Mrs. Lee had not initially planned on an English name for the child, she deemed it appropriate and would concur with Dr. Glover's addition. However, his American name was never used within his family until he enrolled in La Salle College (a Hong Kong high school) at the age of 12, and again at another high school (St. Francis Xavier's College in Kowloon), where Lee would come to represent the boxing team in inter-school events.
Lee initially had the birth name Li Yuen Kam (李炫金); Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Xuànjīn) given to him by his mother, as at the time, Lee's father was away on a Chinese opera tour. This name would later be abandoned because of a conflict with the name of Bruce's grandfather, causing him to be renamed Jun Fan upon his father's return. Also of note is that Lee was given a feminine name, Sai Fung (細鳳, literally "small phoenix"), which was used throughout his early childhood in keeping with a Chinese custom, traditionally thought to hide a child from evil spirits.
Lee's screen names were respectively Lee Siu Lung (in Cantonese), and Li Xiao Long (in Mandarin) (李小龍; Cantonese pengyam: Ley5 Siu Long; Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Xiǎolóng) which literally translates to "Lee the Little Dragon" in English. These names were first used by director 袁步雲 of the 1950 Cantonese movie 細路祥, in which Lee would perform. It is possible that the name "Lee Little Dragon" was based on his childhood name of "small dragon", as, in Chinese tradition, the dragon and phoenix come in pairs to represent the male and female genders respectively. The more likely explanation is that he came to be called "Little Dragon" because, according to the Chinese zodiac, he was born in the Year of the Dragon.

Acting career
Lee's father Hoi-Chuen was a famous Cantonese Opera star. Thus, through his father, Bruce was introduced into films at a very young age and appeared in several short black-and-white films as a child. Lee had his first role as a baby who was carried onto the stage. By the time he was 18, he had appeared in twenty films.
While in the United States from 1959–1964, Lee abandoned thoughts of a film career in favor of pursuing martial arts. However, after Lee's high-profile martial arts demonstration at the 1964 Long Beach Karate Tournament, he was seen by some of the nation's most proficient martial artists—as well as the hairdresser of Batman producer William Dozier. Dozier soon invited Lee for an audition, where Lee so impressed the producers with his lightning-fast moves that he earned the role of Kato alongside Van Williams in the TV series The Green Hornet. The show lasted just one season, from 1966 to 1967. Lee also played Kato in three crossover episodes of Batman. This was followed by guest appearances in a host of television series, including Ironside (1967) and Here Come the Brides (1969).

In 1969, Lee made a brief appearance in his first American film Marlowe where he played a henchman hired to intimidate private detective Philip Marlowe (played by James Garner) by smashing up his office with leaping kicks and flashing punches, only to later accidentally jump off a tall building while trying to kick Marlowe off. In 1971, Lee appeared in four episodes of the television series Longstreet as the martial arts instructor of the title character Mike Longstreet (played by James Franciscus). Bruce would later pitch a television series of his own tentatively titled The Warrior. Lee's concept was retooled and renamed Kung Fu, but Warner Bros. gave Lee no credit.Instead the role of the Shaolin monk in the Wild West, known to have been conceived by Bruce, was awarded to then non-martial artist David Carradine because of the studio's fears that a Chinese leading man would not be embraced by a then vastly white American public.
Not happy with his supporting roles in the U.S., Lee returned to Hong Kong and was offered a film contract by legendary director Raymond Chow to star in films produced by his production company Golden Harvest. Lee played his first leading role in The Big Boss (1971) which proved an enormous box office success across Asia and catapulted him to stardom. He soon followed up his success with two more huge box office successes: Fist of Fury (1972) and Way of the Dragon (1972). For Way of the Dragon, he took complete control of the film's production as the writer, director, star, and choreographer of the fight scenes. In 1964, at a demonstration in Long Beach, California, Lee had met karate champion Chuck Norris. In Way of the Dragon Lee introduced Norris to moviegoers as his opponent in the final death fight at the Colosseum in Rome, today considered one of Lee's most legendary fight scenes.
In 1973, Lee played the lead role in Enter the Dragon, the first film to be produced jointly by Golden Harvest and Warner Bros. This film would skyrocket Lee to fame in the U.S. and Europe. However, only a few months after the film's completion and three weeks before its release, the supremely fit Lee mysteriously died. Enter the Dragon would go on to become one of the year's highest grossing films and cement Lee as a martial arts legend. It was made for US$850,000 in 1973 (equivalent to $4 million adjusted for inflation as of 2007). To date, Enter the Dragon has grossed over $200 million worldwide. The movie sparked a brief fad in the martial-arts, epitomized in such songs as "Kung Fu Fighting" and such TV shows as Kung Fu.
Robert Clouse, the director of Enter the Dragon, and Raymond Chow attempted to finish Lee's incomplete film Game of Death which Lee was also set to write and direct. Lee had shot over 100 minutes of footage, including outtakes, for Game of Death before shooting was stopped to allow him to work on Enter the Dragon. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a student of Lee, also appeared in the film, which culminates in Lee's character, Hai Tien (clad in the now-famous yellow track suit) taking on the 7'2" basketball player in a climactic fight scene. In a controversial move, Robert Clouse finished the film using a look-alike and archive footage of Lee from his other films with a new storyline and cast, which was released in 1979. However, the cobbled-together film contained only fifteen minutes of actual footage of Lee (he had printed many unsuccessful takes) while the rest had a Lee look-alike, Tai Chung Kim, and Yuen Biao as stunt double. The unused footage Lee had filmed was recovered 22 years later and included in the documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey.

Challengers on the set

Lee's celebrity and martial arts prowess often put him on a collision course with a number of street thugs, stunt men and martial arts extras, all hoping to make a name for themselves. Lee typically defused such challenges without fighting, but felt forced to respond to several persistent individuals.
Bob Wall, USPK karate champion and co-star in Enter the Dragon, recalled a particularly serious encounter that transpired after a film extra kept taunting Lee. The extra yelled that Lee was "a movie star, not a martial artist," that he "wasn't much of a fighter." Lee answered his taunts by asking him to jump down from the wall he was sitting on. Bob Wall described Lee's opponent as "a gang-banger type of guy from Hong Kong," a "damned good martial artist," and observed that he was fast, strong, and bigger than Bruce.
Wall recalled the confrontation in detail:

"This kid was good. He was strong and fast, and he was really trying to punch Bruce's brains in. But Bruce just methodically took him apart." "Bruce kept moving so well, this kid couldn't touch him...Then all of a sudden, Bruce got him and rammed his ass into the wall and swept him, he proceeded to drop his knee into his opponent's chest, locked his arm out straight, and nailed him in the face repeatedly."

After his victory, Lee gave his opponent lessons on how to improve his fighting skills. His opponent, now impressed, would later say to Lee, "You really are a master of the martial arts."

Hong Kong legacy
There are a number of stories (perhaps apocryphal) surrounding Lee that are still repeated in Hong Kong culture today. One is that his early 70s interview on the TVB show Enjoy Yourself Tonight cleared the busy streets of Hong Kong as everyone was watching the interview at home.
His moment of birth is often used as a modern cultural proof of the existence of the Four Pillars of Destiny concept, having been born in the year of the Dragon, in the hour of the Dragon, along with other astrological alignment.

Martial arts training and development
Lee's first introduction to martial arts was through his father, Lee Hoi Cheun. He learned the fundamentals of Wu style Tai Chi Chuan from his father. Lee's sifu, Wing Chun master Yip Man, was also a colleague and friend of Hong Kong's Wu style Tai Chi Chuan teacher Wu Ta-ch'i.
Lee trained in Wing Chun Gung Fu from age 13–18 under Hong Kong Wing Chun Sifu Yip Man. Lee was introduced to Yip Man in early 1954 by William Cheung, then a live-in student of Yip Man. Like most Chinese martial arts schools at that time, Sifu Yip Man's classes were often taught by the highest ranking students. One of the highest ranking students under Yip Man at the time was Wong Shun-Leung. Wong is thought to have had the largest influence on Bruce's training. Yip Man trained Lee privately after some students refused to train with Lee due to his ancestry.
Bruce was also trained in Western boxing and won the 1958 Boxing Championship match against 3-time champion Gary Elms by knockout in the 3rd round. Before arriving to the finals against Elms, Lee had knocked out 3 straight boxers in the first round. In addition, Bruce learned western fencing techniques from his brother Peter Lee, who was a champion fencer at the time. This multi-faceted exposure to different fighting arts would later play an influence in the creation of the eclectic martial art Jeet Kune Do.

Jun Fan Gung Fu
Lee began teaching martial arts after his arrival in the United States in 1959. Originally trained in Wing Chun Gung Fu, Lee called what he taught Jun Fan Gung Fu. Jun Fan Gung Fu (literally Bruce's Gung Fu), is basically a slightly modified approach to Wing Chun Gung Fu. Lee taught friends he met in Seattle, starting with Judo practitioner Jesse Glover as his first student and who later became his first assistant instructor. Before moving to California, Lee opened his first martial arts school, named the Lee Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute, in Seattle.
Lee also improvised his own kicking method, involving the directness of Wing Chun and the power of Northern Shaolin kung fu. Lee's kicks were delivered very quickly to the target, without "chambering" the leg.

Jeet Kune Do
Jeet Kune Do originated in 1965. A match with Wong Jack Man influenced Lee's philosophy on fighting. Lee believed that the fight had lasted too long and that he had failed to live up to his potential using Wing Chun techniques. He took the view that traditional martial arts techniques were too rigid and formalistic to be practical in scenarios of chaotic street fighting. Lee decided to develop a system with an emphasis on "practicality, flexibility, speed, and efficiency". He started to use different methods of training such as weight training for strength, running for endurance, stretching for flexibility, and many others which he constantly adapted.
Lee emphasized what he called "the style of no style". This consisted of getting rid of a formalized approach which Lee claimed was indicative of traditional styles. Because Lee felt the system he now called Jun Fan Gung Fu was too restrictive, it was developed into a philosophy and martial art he would come to call (after the name was suggested by Dan Inosanto) Jeet Kune Do or the Way of the Intercepting Fist. It is a term he would later regret because Jeet Kune Do implied specific parameters that styles connote whereas the idea of his martial art was to exist outside of parameters and limitations.
Lee directly certified only 3 instructors. Taky Kimura, James Yimm Lee (no relation to Bruce Lee), and Dan Inosanto, are the only instructors certified personally by Lee. Inosanto holds the 3rd rank (Instructor) directly from Bruce Lee in Jeet Kune Do, Jun Fan Gung Fu, and Bruce Lee's Tao of Chinese Gung Fu. Taky Kimura holds a 5th rank in Jun Fan Gung Fu. James Yimm Lee (now deceased) held a 3rd rank in Jun Fan Gung Fu. Ted Wong holds 2nd rank in Jeet Kune Do certified directly by Dan Inosanto. James Yimm Lee and Taky Kimura hold ranks in Jun Fan Gung Fu, not Jeet Kune Do; Taky received his 5th rank in Jun Fan Gung Fu after the term Jeet Kune Do existed. Also Bruce gave Dan all three diplomas on the same day, suggesting perhaps that Bruce wanted Dan to be his protege. All other Jeet Kune Do instructors since Lee's death have been certified directly by Dan Inosanto.
James Yimm Lee, a close friend of Lee, died without certifying additional students. Taky Kimura, to date, has certified only one person in Jun Fan Gung Fu: his son and heir Andy Kimura. Dan Inosanto continued to teach and certify select students in Jeet Kune Do for over 30 years, making it possible for thousands of martial arts practitioners to trace their training lineage back to Bruce Lee. Prior to his death, Lee told his then only two living instructors Inosanto and Kimura (James Yimm Lee had died in 1972) to dismantle his schools. Both Taky Kimura and Dan Inosanto were allowed to teach small classes thereafter, under the guideline "keep the numbers low, but the quality high". Bruce also instructed several World Karate Champions including Chuck Norris, Joe Lewis, and Mike Stone. Between all 3 of them, during their training with Bruce they won every Karate Championship in the United States.

Jujitsu
At 22 Lee also met Professor Wally Jay, and began to receive informal instruction in Jujitsu from him. The two would have long conversations about theories surrounding the martial arts and grew to be longtime friends.

Physical fitness and nutrition
Physical fitness
Lee felt that many martial artists of his day did not spend enough time on physical conditioning. Bruce included all elements of total fitness—muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance, and flexibility. He tried traditional bodybuilding techniques to build bulky muscles or mass. However, Lee was careful to admonish that mental and spiritual preparation was fundamental to the success of physical training in martial arts skills. In his book The Tao of Jeet Kune Do, he wrote:

Training is one of the most neglected phases of athletics. Too much time is given to the development of skill and too little to the development of the individual for participation." "JKD, ultimately is not a matter of petty techniques but of highly developed spirituality and physique

The weight training program that Lee used during a stay in Hong Kong in 1965 at only 24 years old placed heavy emphasis on his arms. At that time he could perform bicep curls at a weight of 70 to 80lbs for three sets of eight repetitions, along with other forms of exercises, such as squats, push-ups, reverse curls, concentration curls, French presses, and both wrist curls and reverse wrist curls. The repetitions he performed were 6 to 12 reps (at the time). While this method of training targeted his fast and slow twitch muscles, it later resulted in weight gain or muscle mass, placing Bruce a little over 160 lbs. Lee was documented as having well over 2,500 books in his own personal library, and eventually concluded that "A stronger muscle, is a bigger muscle", a conclusion he later disputed. Bruce forever experimented with his training routines to maximize his physical abilities, and push the human body to its limits. He employed many different routines and exercises including skipping rope, which served his training and bodybuilding purposes effectively. Lee believed that the abdominal muscles were one of the most important muscle groups for a martial artist, since virtually every movement requires some degree of abdominal work. Perhaps more importantly, the "abs" are like a shell, protecting the ribs and vital organs.
He trained from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., including stomach, flexibility, and running, and from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. he would weight train and cycle. A typical exercise for Lee would be to run a distance of two to six miles in 15 to 45 minutes, in which he would vary speed in 3–5 minute intervals. Lee would ride the equivalent of 10 miles in 45 minutes on a stationary bike. Lee would sometimes exercise with the jump rope and put in 800 jumps after cycling. Lee would also do exercises to toughen the skin on his fists, including thrusting his hands into buckets of harsh rocks and gravel. He would do over 500 repetitions of this on a given day.

Nutrition
According to Linda Lee, soon after he moved to the United States, Lee started to take nutrition seriously and developed an interest in health foods, high-protein drinks and vitamin and mineral supplements. He later concluded that in order to achieve a high-performance body, one could not fuel it with a diet of junk food, and with "the wrong fuel" one's body would perform sluggishly or sloppily. Lee also avoided baked goods, describing them as providing calories which did nothing for his body. Lee's diet included protein drinks; he always tried to consume one or two daily, but discontinued drinking them later on in his life.
Linda recalls Bruce's waist fluctuated between 26 and 28 inches. "He also drank his own juice concoctions made from vegetables and fruits, apples, celery, carrots and so on, prepared in an electric blender". He consumed green vegetables, fruits, and fresh milk everyday. Bruce always preferred to eat Chinese or other Asian food because he loved the variety that it had. Bruce also became a heavy advocate of dietary supplements, including:

• Vitamin C
  
• Lecithin granules
  
• Bee pollen
  
• Vitamin E
  
• Rose hips (liquid form)
  
• Wheat germ oil
  
• Natural protein tablets (chocolate flavor)
  
• Acerola — C
  
• B-Folia
  

Physique
Lee's devotion to fitness gave him a body that was admired even by many of the top names in bodybuilding community. Joe Weider, the founder of Mr. Olympia, described Lee's physique as "the most defined body I've ever seen!" Many top bodybuilding competitors have acknowledged Lee as a major influence in their careers, including Flex Wheeler, Shawn Ray, Rachel McLish, Lou Ferrigno, Lenda Murray, Dorian Yates and eight time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney. Arnold Schwarzenegger was also influenced by Lee, and said of his body:

"Bruce Lee had a very—I mean a very defined physique. He had very little body fat. I mean, he probably had one of the lowest body fat counts of any athlete. And I think that's why he looked so believable."

A doctor who knew Lee once claimed that he was "Muscled as a squirrel, and spirited as a horse" and fitter than anyone he had ever seen. Lee was known to have collected over 140 books in his lifetime on bodybuilding, weight training, physiology and kinesiology. In order to better train specific muscle groups, he also created several original designs of his own training equipment and had his friend George Lee build them to his specifications.

Physical feats
Lee's phenomenal fitness meant he was capable of performing many exceptional physical feats. The following list includes some of the physical feats that are documented and supported by reliable sources.

• Lee's striking speed from three feet with his hands down by his side reached five hundredths of a second.
  
  
• Lee's combat movements were at times too fast to be captured on film at 24 frames per second, so many scenes were shot in 32fps to put Lee in slow motion. Normally martial arts films are sped up.
  
  
• In a speed demonstration, Lee could snatch a dime off a person's open palm before they could close it, and leave a penny behind.
  
  
• Lee could perform push ups using only his thumbs.
  
  Lee would hold an elevated v-sit position for 30 minutes or longer.
  
  
• Lee could throw grains of rice up into the air and then catch them in mid-flight using chopsticks.
  
  
• Lee performed one-hand push-ups using only the thumb and index finger.
  
  
• Lee performed 50 reps of one-arm chin-ups.
  
  
• Lee could break wooden boards 6 inches (15 cm) thick.
  
  
• Lee could cause a 300-lb (136 kg) bag to fly towards and thump the ceiling with a side kick.
  
  
• Lee performed a side kick while training with James Coburn and broke a 150-lb (68 kg) punching bag.
  
  
• In a move that has been dubbed "Dragon Flag", Lee could perform leg lifts with only his shoulder blades resting on the edge of a bench and suspend his legs and torso perfectly horizontal midair.
  

Philosophy
Although Lee is best known as a martial artist and actor, he majored in philosophy at the University of Washington. He was well-read and had an extensive library. His own books on martial arts and fighting philosophy are known for their philosophical assertions both inside and outside of martial arts circles. His eclectic philosophy often mirrored his fighting beliefs, though he was quick to claim that his martial arts were solely a metaphor for such teachings. He believed that any knowledge ultimately led to self-knowledge, and said that his chosen method of self-expression was martial arts. His influences include Taoism, Jiddu Krishnamurti, and Buddhism. Lee was an atheist. When asked in 1972 what his religious affiliation was, he replied "none whatsoever," and expressed disbelief in God. The following quotations reflect his fighting philosophy.

• "Be formless... shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, and it can crash. Be water, my friend..."
  
  
• "All kind of knowledge, eventually becomes self knowledge"
  
  
• "Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it."
  
  
• "Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there."
  

This interview is very famous