Bruce Lee would have been 72 years this past Tuesday.
He was born Lee Jun-fan on November 27th 1940, in San Francisco, and died known to the world as Bruce Lee, on July 20th 1973 in Hong Kong.
Lee found Martial Arts as a collection of countless strictly organized and controlled contradictory sets of beliefs and practices, each of which believed itself to be clearly superior to the others. It was, truly, a field in which everyone was better than average.
He left a legacy that truth in unarmed combat lay outside of fixed systems. He showed the world a contest with fighters in fingered gloves, using strikes, takedowns, and tapping out to submissions on the ground.
In short, he left a world that was ready to embrace Mixed Martial Arts.
When MMA came along, a new system was created for the refining of technique. It is as simple as wheels on luggage – to figure out if something works in a fight, just fight. If a technique doesn’t work for you, you’ll know, because you will get hit in the face.
The name Bruce Lee gave to his approach – Jeet Kune Do, or The Way of the Intercepting Fist – captures that reality.
If there was no Bruce Lee, would there be the modern world of Martial Arts?
Its a difficult question. He is looked at by a vast amount of people as the godfather of Mixed Martial Arts, breaking all the rules and strict boundaries of cross training to blend and create a superior combat fighter. One thing Bruce never did though, was loose his the true essence of being a true Martial Artists.
Either way Happy Belated Birthday Bruce Lee and Thank You!
-Rome
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Bruce Lee
