Does Bruce Lee represent Wing Chun?

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Does Bruce Lee represent Wing Chun? I was curious what the Wing Chun population thinks.

Jkd groups will differentiate greatly. Some will say Wing Chun was the basis of Bruce's JKD.
Even though there is a high influence of western boxing, fencing principles, savate, etc... depending on
who you talk to they will include little as 3 arts some up to 23.. some even more. Esp. Since Bruce looked at many different styles of martial arts. Some people will say he took from various arts......put them into his Jeet Kune Do. Others will say that it's basically that he looked at various arts to basically learn how he could develop his Jeet Kune Do to beat all other arts. And it was not a collection of parts of styles. So there are a lot of opinions.

One thing is true. Bruce never learned the complete system. And some people say he moved away from Wing Chun. Although his personal work out log shows him training Sil lim tao daily. Some will say that he gave up on Chi Sao cause he couldn't get it to work with Karem. Some JKD people will say he moved away from Wing Chun and forms etc... and went with his own approach. He was done with the "Classical Mess" as he put it.
So I will say that the opinion within the JKD community varies. Many people will say various aspects.
One thing seems pretty evident. He maintained a lot of the Wing Chun Principles

What does the Wing Chun Community say? I have heard many times that people in different families have various opinions in general. Who's lineage is better. How energy is used.
So I am curious.
How does the Wing Chun family look at Bruce Lee? Is he a representation of what Wing Chun is? I have heard people say JKD is a deviation of Wing Chun. Or sometimes...."The Bastard of Wing Chun". What is the thought.?
Bruce Lee never completed the art. Never learned all the forms. He didn't know the dummy form. Only pieces of it. And he ended up producing a JKD version.(Or it's rumor'd that he produced it or it was a Collection of his students that watched him on the dummy that put a form together to organize what Bruce did on the dummy).

Does Bruce represent wing Chun? Or is Ip Man, Ip Ching, Ip Chung, William Chung, etc. better representations of the art?

Just curious....
 

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He started with wing chun but you can't say he represented it because he moved away drom it and completely changed his stance and his guard to look more like a boxer and added moves from other styles so you can't say he was a wing chun stylist. I started in boxing but now I've trained in kickboxing, Muay Thai, jiu jitsu and kenpo karate. My main style now being kenpo so you can't really say I represent boxing same thing with Bruce lee
 

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I guess I sort of count as part of the WC community, even though it's a secondary art that I've only been studying for a bit over a year.

I would say that Bruce Lee is much less representative of WC than the other names you mentioned. However many people (including many martial artists) are rather taken with celebrities and movie stars. For that reason it seems many WC schools will make a point of mentioning Bruce Lee in their promotional materials.
 

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I guess I sort of count as part of the WC community, even though it's a secondary art that I've only been studying for a bit over a year.

I would say that Bruce Lee is much less representative of WC than the other names you mentioned. However many people (including many martial artists) are rather taken with celebrities and movie stars. For that reason it seems many WC schools will make a point of mentioning Bruce Lee in their promotional materials.

Yeah you just reminded me of a friend who opened a wing chun school and made a website nothing but Bruce lee on it, pictures videos and quotes. And in his school he had a huge mural with the words grandmaster lee under it. Now I'm no expert but I'm certain was never a wing chun grandmaster especially since he was 32 when he died and started training wing chun when he was 16 and then left Hong Kong when he was 18 and didn't train under anyone else.

Simply I think people worship the man to much and consider him a god. Sure he was very very talented but people get confused with his movie characters and say he was unbeatable no doubt in my mind he could absoloutely be beaten
 
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For clarification.... I am a JKD guy for years. Also did about 5 years of Fu Jow Pai..., Tae Kwon Do and grapple and also have made it a mission to learn more of the Wing Chun art for a personal goal cause of studying JKD. What do I represent.? hmmm Tough... cause I see pieces of each art that I studied in my every sparring. But I teach JKD. So I will go with the idea of representing JKD. Although I will show my students many times how a typical TKD person kicks... or moves... Or how a lot of boxers throw punches and stand and move since I did a lot of boxing. Is that who I am? I probably represent JKD more than anything.
 

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For clarification.... I am a JKD guy for years. Also did about 5 years of Fu Jow Pai..., Tae Kwon Do and grapple and also have made it a mission to learn more of the Wing Chun art for a personal goal cause of studying JKD. What do I represent.? hmmm Tough... cause I see pieces of each art that I studied in my every sparring. But I teach JKD. So I will go with the idea of representing JKD. Although I will show my students many times how a typical TKD person kicks... or moves... Or how a lot of boxers throw punches and stand and move since I did a lot of boxing. Is that who I am? I probably represent JKD more than anything.
Why do you have to represent anything. You're training is for you not anyone else. If you teach it's for you (as a business) and your students not the art. If I ever opened a school I wouldn't open a American kenpo school or a boxing club or a kickboxing club. I'd open my own place and teach a variety of everything I know and maybe offer separate classes for each style but all this representation stuff....I don't like it it's to much traditional almost cult like stuff in my eyes. All I ever want to do is train martial arts not sign my allegiance to anyone or any club. A lot of the politics of martial arts these is about that kind of nonsense and I think it'd be a lot better without it
 
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Yeah you just reminded me of a friend who opened a wing chun school and made a website nothing but Bruce lee on it, pictures videos and quotes. And in his school he had a huge mural with the words grandmaster lee under it. Now I'm no expert but I'm certain was never a wing chun grandmaster especially since he was 32 when he died and started training wing chun when he was 16 and then left Hong Kong when he was 18 and didn't train under anyone else.

Simply I think people worship the man to much and consider him a god. Sure he was very very talented but people get confused with his movie characters and say he was unbeatable no doubt in my mind he could absoloutely be beaten

I agree... There are some great fighters out there. I am sure there has been someone along the lines of his skill. Since Bruce has had fights but nothing really in the public. A lot was back in China when he was a school kid and fighting on roof tops. Nothing in the public eye. We really have no idea. The only basis we can go on is people who trained around him. They talk of his incredible skill. His speed... his power. I think the best that someone can go by is talking to professional kick boxers and boxers that worked with him while he was alive. Joe Lewis mentioned to me that he was a tough bastard. Fast. Powerful. Joe Lewis was a Kick Boxer full contact. A lot of the Ed Parker students might also attest to his ability. But most people will go by the fame of movies.... tv etc.. Oh.. Chuck Norris is another person who worked with him.
 

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I'm not sure what you mean when you ask "does Bruce Lee represent Wing Chun?"..... His JKD is not Wing Chun and therefore doesn't represent Wing Chun. However, Bruce had a solid grounding in Wing Chun in a legitimate lineage and his Wing Chun basics were pretty good. So I would say that the Wing Chun that Bruce was doing when he moved to the US and starting developing JKD was representative of basic Ip Man Wing Chun through about Chum Kiu level. When he started changing things around then it was no longer representative of Ip Man Wing Chun. But I'm not sure that's what you are asking?

I definitely think that JKD was built on a foundation of Wing Chun. But it is interesting that different JKD teachers today incorporate Wing Chun to widely varying degrees....some a lot and some none at all! I also think it is interesting that you can have two direct and long-time students of Bruce Lee say different things. Dan Inosanto has always maintained that Wing Chun was part of JKD and taught JKD that way to his students. He even invited various Wing Chun instructors into his school to teach his students to make sure they were getting a good foundation in Wing Chun to help their JKD. And then you have Ted Wong who told people that Bruce had completely discarded his Wing Chun and that western boxing was the foundation of his final version of JKD.

I would say the JKD does not represent a version of Wing Chun. As to whether Bruce Lee represents Wing Chun, you would have to qualify that by stating which stage of his life you are talking about!
 
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Why do you have to represent anything. You're training is for you not anyone else. If you teach it's for you (as a business) and your students not the art. If I ever opened a school I wouldn't open a American kenpo school or a boxing club or a kickboxing club. I'd open my own place and teach a variety of everything I know and maybe offer separate classes for each style but all this representation stuff....I don't like it it's to much traditional almost cult like stuff in my eyes. All I ever want to do is train martial arts not sign my allegiance to anyone or any club. A lot of the politics of martial arts these is about that kind of nonsense and I think it'd be a lot better without it

Yeah... Totally agree. Hence why I have worked in many different arts. I use to do more traditional arts... but I moved away from that. What works for me.... what works for the individual.
 
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I thought JKD was more a set of principles that could be applied to your own experiences.......so me a Silat guy could apply those principles to my current system.

I think that was the intention of Lee. Did he represent Wing Chun, I think he represented his own experiences and that goes way beyond Wing Chun.
 

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I agree... There are some great fighters out there. I am sure there has been someone along the lines of his skill. Since Bruce has had fights but nothing really in the public. A lot was back in China when he was a school kid and fighting on roof tops. Nothing in the public eye. We really have no idea. The only basis we can go on is people who trained around him. They talk of his incredible skill. His speed... his power. I think the best that someone can go by is talking to professional kick boxers and boxers that worked with him while he was alive. Joe Lewis mentioned to me that he was a tough bastard. Fast. Powerful. Joe Lewis was a Kick Boxer full contact. A lot of the Ed Parker students might also attest to his ability. But most people will go by the fame of movies.... tv etc.. Oh.. Chuck Norris is another person who worked with him.
The thing is though the guys that worked with him...of course they'll say he's good because he's probably one of the main reasons theyre well known. So I'm not talking trash on lee but well without any solid evidence either way I can't say if he was a great fighter, he was obviously a good teacher and was in amazing shape but as a for a fighter who knows
 

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The thing is though the guys that worked with him...of course they'll say he's good because he's probably one of the main reasons theyre well known. So I'm not talking trash on lee but well without any solid evidence either way I can't say if he was a great fighter, he was obviously a good teacher and was in amazing shape but as a for a fighter who knows
Also to add on my statement if anyone said anything bad with lee they'd be met with so much hate from fanboys, there's a video of Michael jai white saying he believed he could beat Bruce lee because he's a lot bigger and has trained more styles and for a lot longer and god the amount of abuse he got was ridiculous when he was simply stating an opinion on a question he was asked
 
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I'm not sure what you mean when you ask "does Bruce Lee represent Wing Chun?"..... His JKD is not Wing Chun and therefore doesn't represent Wing Chun. However, Bruce had a solid grounding in Wing Chun in a legitimate lineage and his Wing Chun basics were pretty good. So I would say that the Wing Chun that Bruce was doing when he moved to the US and starting developing JKD was representative of basic Ip Man Wing Chun through about Chum Kiu level. When he started changing things around then it was no longer representative of Ip Man Wing Chun. But I'm not sure that's what you are asking?

I definitely think that JKD was built on a foundation of Wing Chun. But it is interesting that different JKD teachers today incorporate Wing Chun to widely varying degrees....some a lot and some none at all! I also think it is interesting that you can have two direct and long-time students of Bruce Lee say different things. Dan Inosanto has always maintained that Wing Chun was part of JKD and taught JKD that way to his students. He even invited various Wing Chun instructors into his school to teach his students to make sure they were getting a good foundation in Wing Chun to help their JKD. And then you have Ted Wong who told people that Bruce had completely discarded his Wing Chun and that western boxing was the foundation of his final version of JKD.

I would say the JKD does not represent a version of Wing Chun. As to whether Bruce Lee represents Wing Chun, you would have to qualify that by stating which stage of his life you are talking about!

My question is... Does the wing Chun community identify with Bruce. Or do they feel he does not represent Wing Chun? Some people like Headhunter mentioned how people in a Wing Chun School will plaster him all over the walls. Some schools hate him and refuse to say anything good about him.

In the JKD community there are different views. Some like you said totally follow wing chun... some discard it totally. And yeah some people teach the chi sao... trapping... sil lim tao etc... but not really the complete system. They scratch the surface at best. Dan Inosanto will bring in people like Francis Fong for Wing Chun. But Dan also practices coperia(sp?). He also trains BJJ. So Dan is definitely a martial artists that likes to learn many arts. And spent a life time doing it. A lot of his seminars that I have attended has been mainly FMA. And the Ted Wong seminars I went to have no Wing Chun what so ever. So people in the JKD community argue if Bruce's JKD is hugely a foundation of Wing Chun or not. Long long heated discussion there. So I didn't want to open that can of worms again. Been done so many times.

My question is what does most of the people in Wing Chun feel.? Do they identify with Bruce? Do they not?
My small circle of Wing Chun instructors that I work with and are friends have varying opinions. Some love the JKD part of what I do. Some bust on me for JKD. Some even refused to work with me... But again... small circle.... Looking here for a bigger picture of how people feel.
 
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I thought JKD was more a set of principles that could be applied to your own experiences.......so me a Silat guy could apply those principles to my current system.

I think that was the intention of Lee. Did he represent Wing Chun, I think he represented his own experiences and that goes way beyond Wing Chun.

It depends on which side of the JKD fence you are on; JKD concepts vs JKD original
 

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I did about as much Wing Chun as Bruce Lee did, all I learned was Siu Nim Tao, so I doubt I am part of any Wing Chun community. But when I did that little bit of training with George, what he was calling Jun Fan, to me, was what I called Wing Chun on Steroids.

I do not think Bruce Lee represents Wing Chun, he came from Wing Chun and went on from there to arrive at JKD. Wing Chun is, from what I can tell. JKD's Base, but it is not Wing Chun.

However I agree with Tony that Bruce Lee is used by some in Wing Chun (and other arts too) for purposes of advertising and bringing in students. Heck, the first time I went to Wing Chun was because I could not find an JKD schools and I knew Bruce Lee came from Wing Chun
 
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I thought JKD was more a set of principles that could be applied to your own experiences.......so me a Silat guy could apply those principles to my current system.

I think that was the intention of Lee. Did he represent Wing Chun, I think he represented his own experiences and that goes way beyond Wing Chun.

Yep... JKD has a set of principles. But JKD is not applying those principles to any art like Silat or TKD, etc. Some arts actually goes against some of the principles of JKD.

What Lee intended is a huge discussion. From my gatherings from his students who trained with him in his schools and back yard, I think Bruce was really all about cultivating himself.
 
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The thing is though the guys that worked with him...of course they'll say he's good because he's probably one of the main reasons theyre well known. So I'm not talking trash on lee but well without any solid evidence either way I can't say if he was a great fighter, he was obviously a good teacher and was in amazing shape but as a for a fighter who knows

Yeah... there isn't a lot of film footage of him in true fights. There are displays... and people who trained with him... and several fighters. Out of those... which is again third hand.... you can only go on that.... and take it for what you feel it's worth.
 
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I did about as much Wing Chun as Bruce Lee did, all I learned was Siu Nim Tao, so I doubt I am part of any Wing Chun community. But when I did that little bit of training with George, what he was calling Jun Fan, to me, was what I called Wing Chun on Steroids.

I do not think Bruce Lee represents Wing Chun, he came from Wing Chun and went on from there to arrive at JKD. Wing Chun is, from what I can tell. JKD's Base, but it is not Wing Chun.

However I agree with Tony that Bruce Lee is used by some in Wing Chun (and other arts too) for purposes of advertising and bringing in students. Heck, the first time I went to Wing Chun was because I could not find an JKD schools and I knew Bruce Lee came from Wing Chun

In fact cause Bruce was not totally versed in the full art of Wing Chun.. He called what he originally taught...
Jun Fan Gung Fu. He wouldn't even call it Wing Chun.

Yeah... I see some school advertise bruce.... and some don't. I am waiting to see from more people... do they identify with him... Or not.
 

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Yeah... there isn't a lot of film footage of him in true fights. There are displays... and people who trained with him... and several fighters. Out of those... which is again third hand.... you can only go on that.... and take it for what you feel it's worth.

Had a guy tell me something about this once, but at this point it is a rumor since I can find no corroborating evidence to back it up. He said during the filming of the Movie "The Big Boss" that Bruce's fame proceeded him and that there were multiple challenges made to him while on set that got in the way of production (and he beat all challengers). And that some of those challenges were on film. However Raymond Chow thought they were a nuisance and of no use to the film so all were left on the cutting room floor and later destroyed.

However, if true, they were destroyed, so there is no proof to back up this rumor
 

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