KUDOS to Mike for the awesome videos!

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Charles Troglen
(Team Draculino)

Bruce Lee is the man!!!!!

His style of "the intercepting fist (or foot)" was so effectively displayed.

*WAHHHH!!!!!*

Hey Guys! Great thread! I would like to add my 2 cents here. I am a Full Instructor in Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do under Sifu Lamar M. Davis II. I have also studied extensively with one of my friends who is a Full Instructor under Paul Vunak. I have been doing the martial arts for over 25 years now, with most of that being dedicated to Jeet Kune Do. I have had the fortune to have trained with a couple of Bruce Lee's original students, and I am friends with a couple of others.

First, Bruce Lee was challenged by the Oakland Chinese martial arts community when Bruce Lee was teaching his version of Wing Chun, which he coined "Jun Fan Gung Fu". It was very modified from what he learned from Yip Man in Hong Kong. Bruce opened his doors to anyone who wanted to train, Americans, Japanese, Chinese, whoever! That was what spawned the challenge. They told Bruce "either stop teaching Americans and non-Chinese, or close your school down" Bruce's response was "I am an American citizen, and I can teach whoever I want, but since you challenged me to fight, let's do it, right here and now" Bruce was very mad! The 'community' chose their fighter, Wong Jak Man, and they squared off. Bruce charged at him and Wong Jak Man, basically ran from Bruce. Eventually, Bruce caught the guy, dragged him to the ground, and began to pound the guy til he gave up. Bruce beat the guy, but as Mike said, he was not happy, mainly because he was out of breath, and because he didn't feel what he did was effective enough. Thus was born Bruce Lee's addiction to weight and cardio training, along with the birth of Jeet Kune Do!

As to the point of the thread. It is so difficult to say how anyone would do on any given day in a fight, much less a sportive one like the UFC, Pride, or K-1. But, it would be ignorant to think that had Bruce Lee lived, that he would not be friends with the Gracie's and be picking their brains about effective combat on the street! I don't think Bruce would play too much into the whole belt ranking system, but I am sure he would be all over the ground training as a compliment to his already deadly arsenal! One of my friends trained with Bruce Lee in Seattle, and then in LA. He also trained with Rickson Gracie for many many years, long before the UFC was born. He confirmed that Bruce would love the Gracies and they him. He told me that the only person on earth close to "Bruce like" martial arts qualities, was Rickson. He meant that in the way that Rickson is the consumate martial artist, and on a level, both phsically and spiritually, that Bruce was on.

Yes, Bruce Lee was ungodly fast! My friend said "Unless you were there to see it for yourself, I cannot describe to you how fast he was, it boggled the mind"

Thanks for the AWSOME response and insight! I can see you will add a lot of valuable information to the martial arts section!

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Visit USFK Classifieds, the FREE classifieds in Korea!

Thanks Mike! I love to do what I can, especially when it comes to Bruce Lee and JKD!

Full Blast JKD,

Thanks for all your knowledge, seems you have become our subject matter expert........ Rickson is a very good martial artist, one of the tops in my book.
Thanks for joining our forum............... Add him to the list Mike !

I'll be leaving this saturday and heading for Texas, have to receive my Blue Belt in Jiu-Jitsu..Yeah Baby! Now I have something to hold my pants up with.

I will also be cross training with some friends of mine at the Carlos Machado Academy, so if you guys need anything from stateside....just text.

Charlie

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Charles Troglen
(Team Draculino)

Hey Charlie, thanks for the kudos, I really appreciate it! And I am thrilled to hear you are heading to Texas to train with the guys at Carlos'. Carlos is my primary BJJ instructor. I just ordered some videos from him last week, in fact. If you see any kickass patches, or any cool shirts in XL, I would gladly front you the $$. I will go up to $60 on anything you see that is cool. I am not picky when it comes to patches, and I don't have any of his newer shirts, especially anything in black.

Also, if you get any chances to train at Robert DeFranco's place, don't pass it up. It is super cheap, and there are two of Carlos' black belts there, Robert, and James Brown. It is located at Mockingbird Ln. you can get the directions at www.dfwgun.com I believe that's the right website.

In any case, I hope you enjoy your time there! If you do see Carlos, tell him Bryan Smith says hello from Korea!

charlestroglen@yahoo.com

stay in touch Brian-san................

ps do you read the txmma.com website? if not, you should.
my on line name is HURTLOCK for txmma.

pss our US Combatives Team, Korea is in need of a new instructor POC is Henry Jung, 011-9904-2277 - ring em, and come roll with the crew on saturdays. lots of osanites and cp humphrians come on saturdays.

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Charles Troglen
(Team Draculino)

Wow! That was some great insight on Bruce Lee...worth way more than 2 cents! Thanks!
Oh, and welcome to the forum !

I will get up there one of these days and roll with you guys, I need all the help I can get! I don't know about being a Combatives instructor, I was under the impression us Air Force types were not allowed.

Eddie, thanks for the kind words! I have a TON of insider info on Bruce Lee and JKD. If you guys want, I can post regular stories that I have heard over the years and things that I know about Bruce and JKD.

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Bryan Smith
Fullblast Performance Systems
Jeet Kune Do
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu