Wing Chun

The largest influence on Lee’s martial arts development was his study of Wing Chun. Lee began training in Wing Chun at the age of 13 under the Wing Chun teacher Yip Man in 1954, after losing a fight with rival gang members. Yip’s regular classes generally consisted of the forms practice, chi sao (sticking hands) drills, wooden dummy techniques, and free-sparring. There was no set pattern to the classes. Yip tried to keep his students from fighting in the street gangs of Hong Kong by encouraging them to fight in organized competitions.

After a year into his Wing Chun training, most of Yip Man’s other students refused to train with Lee after they learnt of his ancestry (his mother was half Chinese and half Caucasian) as the Chinese generally were against teaching their martial arts techniques to non-Asians. Lee’s sparring partner, Hawkins Cheung states, “Probably fewer than six people in the whole Wing Chun clan were personally taught, or even partly taught, by Yip Man”.However, Lee showed a keen interest in Wing Chun, and continued to train privately with Yip Man and Wong Shun Leung in 1955.

Bruce Lee early life

According to the Chinese zodiac Lee was born in both the hour and the year of the Dragon which in this cultural tradition is considered a strong and fortuitous omen. His father Lee Hoi-chuen, was fully Chinese, and his mother Grace Ho, was half Chinese and half Caucasian. Grace Ho was the daughter of Ho Kom-tong and the niece of Sir Robert Ho-tung, both notable Hong Kong businessmen and philanthropists. Lee was the fourth child of five children: Phoebe Lee, Agnes Lee, Peter Lee, and Robert Lee. Lee and his parents returned to Hong Kong when he was three months old.

Legendary Bruce Lee

Name: Bruce Lee

Born: 27 November 1940

Died: 20 July 1973 (aged 32)

Occupation: Martial arts instructor, actor, philosopher, film director, screenwriter, and martial arts founder

Years active: 1941–1973

Bruce Lee was born on 27 November 1940 at the Chinese Hospital in San Francisco’s Chinatown, he was a Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, founder of Jeet Kune Do, and the son of Cantonese opera star Lee Hoi-Chuen. He is widely considered by many commentators, critics, media and other martial artists to be the greatest and most influential martial artist of all time, and a pop culture icon of the 20th century. He is often credited with changing the way Asians were presented in American films. Lee’s parents from Hong Kong and was raised in Kowloon with his family until his late teens. Lee returned to San Francisco at the age of 18 to claim his U.S. citizenship and receive his higher education. It was during this time that he began teaching martial arts, which soon led to film and television roles.

His Hong Kong and Hollywood-produced films elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity and acclaim, sparking a surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West in the 1970s. 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. He is noted for his roles in five feature-length films: Lo Wei’s The Big Boss (1971) and Fist of Fury (1972); Way of the Dragon (1972), directed and written by Lee; Warner Brothers’ Enter the Dragon (1973) and The Game of Death (1978), both directed by Robert Clouse. Lee became an iconic figure known throughout the world, particularly among the Chinese, as he portrayed Chinese nationalism in his films. He initially trained in Wing Chun, but later rejected well-defined martial art styles, favouring instead the use of techniques from various sources, in the spirit of his personal martial arts philosophy, which he dubbed Jeet Kune Do (The Way of the Intercepting Fist). Lee died in Kowloon Tong on 20 July 1973.

Lee is commonly referred to as “Hong Kong’s Favorite Son”