I Am Bruce Lee Page #3

He was just so ahead of the times.

He'd go to Ed Parker's events in Long

Beach and they treated him like a god.

When he did his one-thumb push-ups,

you could hear a pin drop.

He showed his speed,

showed his power,

showed his one-inch punch.

People say, "Bruce Lee

is the fastest person on earth. "

He did these things

so realistically

that people didn't know if it was

show business or the real McCoy.

When Bruce

did the demonstration in 1964,

before he had even come back to Oakland

where we lived at the time,

I had received a phone call

from William Dozier's office.

Jay Sebring, the famous

hair stylist, happened to see my father

at the Long Beach internationals,

and he cut the hair of William Dozier.

He said, "You have to see this guy.

He's amazing. "

When Bruce came home, I said to him,

"You need to call this guy back,

William Dozier. "

"He's a producer in Hollywood

and he wants to see you. "

That was the first inkling that,

"Wow, I might be able to do something

in Hollywood. "

Look directly into the camera.

Very dapper. He's got the suit

and the tie, you know, white shirt.

He's so elegant.

But he feels like a coiled cobra.

- You've just had a baby boy?

- Yeah.

And you've lost a little sleep over it,

have you?

Three nights.

He was 24,

and he went in there, it's almost like,

"You're lucky that I'm here

auditioning for you. "

There is the finger jab

There is the punch.

Just the poise he had said it all.

There is the back fist and elbow.

Even in conversation,

you could feel his explosive nature.

Of course, then they use legs,

straight to the groin or come up.

That's a special kind of star power.

Or, if I can back up a little bit,

we stop at the...

and then come back.

- Alright.

- This kind of works.

He never had any intention

of going into show business.

His passion was his martial arts,

so he had a school in Seattle

and a second school in Oakland.

His plan was to open many, many schools

all over the county.

Obviously he started with the classical

Chinese arts, which is wing chun.

And then everyone knows about the fight

in 1964 in Oakland.

There's the famous story

about how he was challenged

by the Chinese community in Oakland,

and he had to defend the right

to teach his art to non-Chinese people.

You and this entire society are useless

in this country. You are archaic.

And you're a fool to think

that you can break away from us

merely because you choose to.

To prove Bruce Lee was wrong,

he was a fake and a fraud,

the Chinese traditionalists

sent somebody over to fight him.

The Chinese sent someone

to shut down the school.

Shut down or thrown down,

and Bruce chose throw down.

The fight was to be held

at Bruce's school.

If Bruce lost the fight, he would have

to stop teaching non-Chinese people.

Anything that forces you

to review your dogmas,

most people don't respond

too well to it.

I was there,

eight months pregnant with Brandon,

and these elders arrived

from San Francisco,

led by Wong Jack Man, who was going

to be the opponent in this challenge.

They came and they had this big match.

I didn't have a shred of a doubt

about how this would come out.

Wong Jack Man started to run around

the room trying to get away from Bruce,

and it took three minutes for Bruce

to get him down on the ground

and say, "Do you give UP?"

So Wong Jack Man

and those people all left.

And I remember so clearly

in my mind's eye

Bruce sitting on the steps

in the back of the studio

with his head in his hands.

And she said, "What's the matter?"

That was the fight that he realised the

classical arts were not working for him.

He should have

put that guy down sooner.

Bruce Lee doesn't beat him fast enough,

so he goes off to rethink it all,

and these tales all had the structure

of myth and fantasy.

Little parables about the master.

He said, "My training

in wing chun, my classical art,

didn't prepare me

for this kind of a battle. "

That was the beginning of the evolution

of his own way of martial arts.

If you read the notes that he left

behind, 1965 he starts to write,

"My style is Western fencing,

Western boxing and wing chun. "

He said he owe our knowledge

to the wing chun,

but we're gonna go beyond the wing chun.

Bruce Lee took a lot from boxing.

He felt boxing was more realistic

in that you were trading blows.

He likes the boxing footwork.

It's alive, it's moving and it changes.

He was totally invested

in watching boxing films,

going way back to Jack Johnson,

Gene Tunney, Dempsey.

What he took from Dempsey

was the kinetic chain,

how to generate power,

the importance of a good jab.

There's a lot about the alignment

of the body.

Bruce had a huge collection

of boxing films

and he thought the world

of Muhammad Ali.

What he would do was very unique.

I once came in, lights were all out.

And he's watching this 8mm film

and he's watching it backwards.

Ali had a left-foot forward

stance and Bruce a right foot forward.

So he would run the films backward

in the film editor

and study them meticulously.

He would stretch and read

and review on 8mm film of a boxer

at the same time.

According to John Saxon,

his co-star on Enter the Dragon,

John asked him, "Why do you have

all these boxing films on Ali?"

And Bruce said,

"Because one day I'm gonna fight him. "

If I was to fight Bruce Lee,

Bruce Lee was so quick, so smooth,

but the one thing that negates speed

on a fighter is pressure,

and I was a pressure fighter.

With Bruce Lee,

you gotta go inside, smother him

and outmuscle him. But you can't fight

a dude like that outside.

I see Bruce leading off

with some long-ass kicks

and Boom Boom gets pissed off

and tries to give him some body punches.

And when you get close,

then Bruce, I'm sure,

would be trying to bring knees

and high head kicks,

and I'd throw an upper cut,

bring the elbow across.

And he's gonna be trying to counter me,

so I have to bob and weave inside.

Bruce gets it to the ground

and arm-bars him or guillotines him.

It would have been a good time.

People are watching this going,

"He took more shots than we thought. "

"He absolutely has lost his mind

thinking he can do that

against Bruce Lee. "

Ray was good to the body. Then

he'd eventually get that hook on you.

Bruce wouldn't know how to stop it.

Why? Because he never did it.

Was Bruce Lee a real fighter?

Bruce was a brilliant fighter. I saw him

beat up a guy on Enter the Dragon.

It was a gang banger, a tong member,

who started giving him a bad time.

Pound for pound, I think

he's probably one of the best fighters.

He had tons of street fights

and with that speed and footwork,

he'd be a hell of a 135-pounder.

He was a 130-something-pound

lethal weapon.

He has all the attributes

that make a good fighter:

The agility, the balance,

the coordination, the dexterity.

People say was he

the toughest man that ever lived?

He was 130, 135 pounds.

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