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Martial Arts
Wing Chun, Jeet Kune Do

With Bruce Lee, he is forever connected as a cult icon in his movies, but what you see in the movies that Bruce Lee did, is martial arts that the Chinese practise. From an early age, Bruce Lee was practising Wing Chun with sifu Yip Chun. Later on in his life, Bruce devised a new Martial Art called Jeet Kune Do which means The Way of the Intercepting Fist in Chinese.

Wing Chun

In southern China, during the fall of the Ming dynasty, the Buddhist monks of the Shaolin temple (Sil Lum Jee) drew upon the most advanced techniques of the existing Shaolin Kung Fu (Sil Lum Gung Fu) styles and developed them along a middle path which combined both internal and external methods.

Sil Lum master Ng Mui utilized the principles of simplicity, practicality and economy of motion to devise an efficient and lethal martial arts system . After developing the art Ng Mui taught her new gung fu system to a young girl named Yimm Wing Chun, who then ingeniously refined the techniques into an even more efficient fighting system.

Created over three hundred years ago by Buddhist monks, Wing Chun Gung Fu is a very effective self defense system which teaches students to tune in to the more instinctual side of their nature.

Many people are familiar with the art due to the spreading of Wing Chun to America in the 1960's by the late Bruce Lee. Wing Chun Gung Fu is a complete martial arts system with excellent application for self defense and development of body, mind and spirit.

Jeet Kune Do

Jeet Kune Do--the literal translation is "way of the intercepting fist"--was conceived by Bruce Lee in 1967. Unlike many other martial arts, there are neither a series of rules nor classification of techniques which constitutes a distinct Jeet Kune Do (JKD) method of fighting. JKD is unbound; JKD is freedom. It possesses everything, yet in itself is possessed by nothing. Those who understand JKD are primarily interested in its powers of liberation when JKD is used as a mirror for self-examination.

Jeet Kune Do is not a new style of kung-fu or karate. Bruce Lee did not invent a new art composite style, nor did he modify a style to set it apart from any existing method. His concept was to free his followers from clinging to any style, pattern, or mold.

The total picture Lee wanted to present to his pupils was that above everything else, the puplils must find their own way to truth. He never hesitated to say, 'Your truth is not my truth; my truth is not yours'.

Bruce did not leave a blueprint, but rather a series of guidelines to lead one to proficiency. In using training equipment, there was a systematic approach in which one could develop speed, distance, power, time, coordination, endurance and footwork.

But Jeet Kune Do was not an end in itself for Bruce -- Nor was it a mere by-product of his martial studies; it was a means to self discovery. JKD was a prescription for personal growth; it was an investigation of freedom--freedom not only to act naturally and effectively in combat, but in life. In life, we absorb what is useful and reject what is useless, and add to experience what is specifically our own.

No art is superior to any other. That is the object lesson of Jeet Kune Do, to be unbound, to be free: in combat to use no style as style, to use no way as the way, to have no limitation as the only limitation. Neither be for or against a particular style. In other words, Jeet Kune Do 'just is'.