WEBVTT - How Bruce Lee Worked 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:14.560 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:19.759 There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry Roland, and this 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:24.240 is Stuff you should Know. I couldn't think of any um, 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:28.480 non problematic nicknames for us to use. Well, you could 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:33.199 probably just go, yeah, that's what I'm talking about? Is 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.400 that probably figure that? I'm sure yes, we would probably 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:40.080 here about the man that's uh. You watch any great 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:44.080 kung fu movie and they all make that great, great 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:47.440 sound after a good death punch. Did you ever take 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:49.080 kung fu when you were young or any kind of 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:53.440 martial arts? No, I'm notoriously have zero interested in martial arts, 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:55.480 and my biggest fears that my daughter is gonna want 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:58.240 to do it. I oh really, well, I mean, will 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:00.000 you tell her to sweep the leg at a tournament 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:02.240 as she ever does? Yeah? Sure, I mean I wanted 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:05.560 like to be able to protect herself, so that sounds 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:07.800 like a very selfish thing. But as far as like 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:12.080 going to martial arts tournaments kind of like uh, just 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:15.360 you know, kill me. Now, what you should get her 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:18.960 interested in, like, um, wielding a knife or something? It 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:21.760 would be really cool or just being a good person, 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:27.160 so people don't pick fights with her? Yeah, is that 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:31.720 how things work? No, not at all. So I'll tell 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:35.640 you somebody who liked to pick fights, not just would 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.800 get into fights and accept the challenge, would actually pick fights. 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:42.440 And it turns out that person also happens to be 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:47.480 the person we're talking about today, one Mr Bruce Lee. Yeah, 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:50.600 Bruce Lee. I mean, I'm sure, like me, you spent 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.559 the past couple of days watching a lot of Bruce 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.720 Lee stuff. But my question is were you into this? 0:01:57.760 --> 0:01:59.960 Did you watch kung fu movies and Bruce Lee movies 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:05.080 only in so far as like the whole nineties like 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.520 throwback thing. You know. I would have him on every 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:10.000 once a while and watch him, but I was never 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:14.240 super into my friends that were super into them. I remember, 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.840 of course, I underwent extensive ninja training under since a 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.160 Tommy Roper as a much younger person. This is in 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:24.360 the eighties. Um, but I was never really into kung 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:30.560 fu or or martial arts movies. Um. Outside of that, UM, 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:36.400 I will say though, watching Fist of Fury last night, UM, 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:41.160 I was just absolutely blown away like that. Yeah, the 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:45.360 whole things I think black Belt Karate Dot com pirate 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:47.839 of the movie and put it on YouTube, the whole thing, 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:51.480 and it is just really good. Like the fighting in 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.960 there is astounding and it gives you, like a really 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.840 good like appreciation. It's hard not to appreciate what you're 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.760 seeing with Bruce Lee when you when you watch it. Yeah, 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:04.520 I have still not seen many of those movies. But 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:10.160 for a movie Crush episode, one of my guests, um uh, 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.760 Stuart Wellington of the flap House podcast, one of my 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:18.080 favorite other podcast on movies, he had me watch his 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:22.400 favorite movie, which is Ricky, Oh Colin the story of 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:26.680 Ricky and Dude. You have to see this movie. It 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:31.800 is the gory, over the top crazy martial arts movie 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.280 to beat all over the top gory crazy martial arts movies. 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:38.920 It is when was nuts? When was it made? Well 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:43.160 ninety one, but it seems like seventy eight. Um it's 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:48.360 it's amazing. Was there a shot where some guy jammed 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:53.280 his fingers into his opponents testicles and then they cut 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:57.920 to a view from inside his screwed them and you 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.680 see the fingers wiggling. Did that happened? Because I saw 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:02.760 a martial arts movie that had that and I was like, well, 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:06.120 there it is. But that is the thing I've ever seen. 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:07.920 It's got a lot of stuff like that. But I 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:10.800 don't think that was from Ricky. Oh, but it's You're 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.160 on the right track there, as far as you know. 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.160 It's not for everybody. I gotta check it out, man, 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.200 it's pretty fun. You had me. You're on the right 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:23.360 track there. Um. So, Bruce lee movies were not nearly 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:25.960 as violent, but for the time they were, they were 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:29.600 exceedingly violent, it seems like, and Bruce Lee laid the 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:31.800 foundation that people said, well, I want to top that. 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:35.520 I want to top that. Um. And while maybe Gore 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.520 there was plenty of like blood in in Fists of Fury, 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:43.880 at least in other movies that he made, but um, 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.640 it wasn't anything like what we just talked about. But 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:50.279 the I think the larger point for Bruce Lee is 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:55.320 that he laid this foundation, like he introduced the United 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.040 States in the West to the idea of not just 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:05.680 kung fu movie but of like Asians being heroes, like 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:10.840 like protagonists, like like tough. You know, because up to 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.279 that point, not necessarily exactly up to that point, but 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:18.440 awfully close to it. Um, especially in the West. Uh, 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:24.640 the people from China Japan seemed very docile, cerebral. I 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:28.839 saw um not at all like Bruce Lee. And Bruce 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:33.600 Lee changed all of that basically singlehandedly, especially as far 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:37.920 as America is concerned with a single one inch punch. Basically. 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.320 So let's talk a little bit about his early life, 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.960 because he had a pretty interesting background, uh, pretty interesting 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:49.280 genetic family tree. Um, because you know, we all think 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:53.000 of him as Chinese, and he was certainly, he certainly 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:57.080 was Chinese. But um, if you if you poke around 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:59.880 his lineage and you will learn that his maternal great 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:04.000 and father was Dutch Jewish, which is really interesting. He 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:07.160 was a merchant, his name was Moses with a z 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.840 hard dog Boseman, and he went to Hong Kong in 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.480 the eighteen fifties as part of the Dutch East India Company. 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:18.239 Became the Dutch ambassador to Hong Kong, had six kids 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.600 with his concubine, and then one of those kids, one 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:25.800 of his sons, Ho Kam Tong. He became a very 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:29.440 rich man. He had a wife, thirteen concubines and a 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.520 British mistress, and then he had a daughter with a 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:39.480 British mistress, and that was Bruce Lee's mom. Yeah, that's 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:43.880 it sounds more convenient. Yeah. Yeah. So Bruce Lee was 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:49.320 part Jewish, part British, um and lots of Chinese mixed together. 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:55.559 His father was Chinese Han Chinese um and his father 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:59.120 was born poor. But he actually worked his way up 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:06.400 to fairly sizeable celebrity in Hong Kong um or was 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.880 it China? I don't remember if if Bruce Lee, if 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:12.840 Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee's father lived in Hong Kong or China. Well, 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.320 it was kind of both. He was a Cantonese opera 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:17.920 star and an actor. Uh and then I think of 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:22.560 visually they did settle in Hong Kong. Okay, all right, 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.640 so um, but he was like very well known, like 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:28.960 he was in movies, he was on TV, like he 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.280 was a pretty famous guy. He was probably I would 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:42.000 liken him to uh two, Jerry Orbach. He was the 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:47.760 Jerry or Bach of his time and place. No, but 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.080 he was like everywhere, he was in everything from dirty 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.720 dancing to murder. She wrote, you know, like he was 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.440 all over the place. And he was multi talented too. 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:58.720 Don't try to tell me Jerry Orbach is not multi talented, 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.320 because he is sure, but he was no opera star. 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:04.760 Do you don't know that you're right? You're right. I 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:08.080 could be I could be a martial arts expert. Jerry 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.160 Orbot could be an opera star. Right, we could be 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:13.600 whatever we want to be in our mind's eye. But 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.240 so Bruce Lee's father was the Jerry Orbach of his 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.720 time and place. That's right. So uh he was touring 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.400 the US when Bruce was born. He was born in 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:25.840 San Francisco in nineteen forty uh, and his parents named 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:28.640 him Lee June Faun and apparently a nurse said you 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:32.520 should call him Bruce for his English name. He said, 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:36.320 what what did you say exactly? Did you hear what 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:42.000 we named him? Originally? She's like, yeah, Bruce Len Bruce. Uh. 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.520 They moved back to Hong Kong when he was a baby, 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:47.120 and he grew up there, but he grew up with UM, 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:52.000 going to English schools, English language private schools. Yeah. So um. 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:55.600 He always kind of had this this UM I don't 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.439 want to say split identity, but his his identity, a 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:03.840 sense of self was deaf and divided between America and UM. 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:08.640 I believe the UK to an extent, and also obviously 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:12.200 Hong Kong UM and then of course his ancestry in China. 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:16.160 Like he he he seemed to have UM not necessarily 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:19.079 like felt spread all over the place, but in in 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.319 a different sense, he was more open to influences wherever 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.840 he found them. I saw somebody somebody say that Bruce 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:30.680 Lee learned from everybody, everyone that he came in contact with, UM, 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.400 including people who he had to fight, who fought of 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.959 different styles. He he was always open to learning something 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:39.760 he didn't. He was very cocky, he was very arrogant 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:43.280 by a lot of people's estimations, but he also was 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:47.480 humble enough to want to learn wherever he thought he 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:50.120 could learn something new. Uh. And I think that that, 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.880 according at least UM to again named Matthew Polly, who's 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:57.600 known as one of his UM better biographers. Uh. That 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:01.120 that really kind of underscored that that UM, that his 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:05.680 personality just kind of being divided among different places around 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:09.480 the world and having different influences. Yeah. So well, we'll 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:10.960 take a little break here and we'll come back and 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.160 talk about UM some of the early formative years of 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:40.720 young Bruce Lee right after this and shock. Uh, alright, 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.240 So little Bruce was born not only in the Year 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:47.000 of the Dragon, but the Day of the Dragon, and 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:51.560 his nickname was Little Dragon. When he became a child actor, 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.080 if you only know Bruce Lee from his martial arts work, 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.319 his kind of short career in martial arts films, he 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.920 he was actually on screen as a baby. Um, but 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.640 his real first kind of role was I think when 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.559 he was like ten years old. Uh. Yeah, he was 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:12.040 in a movie called The Kid, Yeah, which I watched 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.600 some clips of this. I'm sure you did too. Um, 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:16.600 it's you know, it's a cute little Bruce Lee. He 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:18.600 does he kind of throw a lot of child abuse 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:22.960 and was it really Yeah, He's like, he offers he 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:24.840 has some money, so he offers to help his uncle out, 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:29.480 and his uncle just basically deafens him in one ear. Well, yeah, 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:33.679 I didn't see that clip. I would call that child abuse, chuck. No, two, 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.120 I didn't see that clip. You're like, yeah, well, I 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:38.640 guess if it's your definition of child No, No, not 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:39.839 at all. I just didn't see that. When I just 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:41.800 saw the one where he was kind of did that 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.720 famous Bruce Lee sort of uh you know, thumb across 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:48.679 the nose and throw his little shirt open. I know 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.000 that's crazy that like he was that young ten years 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:54.840 old and he's already like laying the groundwork for the 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.440 things that we're going to make him famous in the future. Yeah, 0:11:57.480 --> 0:11:59.839 and he was a little guy. He um, I think, 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:02.280 you know, as a as a full grown adult. He 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.240 he reached five seven, about a hundred and thirty pounds. 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.520 He was not very big when he was a kid. 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.679 He was very small. He was fairly weak because of 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:16.000 food rations because Hong Kong was occupied by Imperial Japan 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:18.760 at the time and they were rationing food out there 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.959 was a cholera epidemic. He had one leg shorter than 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:26.079 the other. He had an undescended testicle, which actually ended 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.480 up keeping him out of Vietnam. So a little bit 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:32.599 of a silver lining there. Uh. He had glasses, he 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:37.079 had acne. I think his biographer said that he and 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:38.880 this is the only person I really saw say that, 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:41.240 but he said he'd probably be diagnosed with a d 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:46.120 h D today. I looked for other places to find that, 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.040 and no one. I don't think he's on record of 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.560 saying that, but it did seem like that could be 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:55.559 possible because he was very active, had trouble with focus, 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:58.960 but could also hyper focus. Uh, and like he you know, 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:00.320 like you said, he would kind of picked fights with 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.480 people because he was a little kid, and that's a 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:04.200 lot of times little kids will do that if they 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.240 want to, you know, they want to prove that they're 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.640 strong and have value, they'll pick fights and try and 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:10.640 beat people up. Not not the way to do with 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.600 their kids, no, but I mean, like, like, he was 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.719 well known in Hong Kong as being like this kind 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:20.319 of local tough who would start fights um and frequently 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.600 won them, but sometimes would lose them too. Um. But 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.600 there was one fight in particular that he lost around 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:30.240 the age of fifteen or sixteen UM to a kid 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:34.960 who had been studying h kung fu style called wing chun. Yeah, 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.360 wing chun um, And that is where his famous um 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.800 like one inch punch comes from. That style of fighting. 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:46.200 It's really good for close quarters type fighting where your 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:48.439 opponents right in front of you and coming at you. 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:50.920 Wing chun is very good for that. So that was 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.040 the kind of dude that Bruce Lee was, even back 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.280 when he was a little hot shot fifteen year old, 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:58.200 he lost a fight to somebody and he wanted to 0:13:58.200 --> 0:13:59.959 know how that person had beat him, So he went 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.840 and learned it and that UM actually formed the basis 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:06.440 for his UH. His formal education and martial arts was 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:11.120 entering into the Wing Chun school UM at age fifteen. Yeah, 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.080 and I looked a little more into Wing Chung to 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:15.360 see what it was kind of all about. And apparently 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.560 there's two sort of main tenants, which is the center 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.760 line theory and then stand and guard UH. And the 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:25.080 center line theory is basically, you draw a line from 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.080 the center of your body to your opponent's body and 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:32.560 that is the quickest route to strike. So if you've 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:35.040 got someone coming at you, like you know, if you 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.080 go throw a punch like American boxing style, like a haymaker, 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.000 you're going up and around towards the jaw, to the 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:45.320 side of the jaw. If you're practicing wing chun, you're 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.440 standing right in front of that person, and as you're 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:52.520 throwing your haymaker, you've gotten a very quick straight punch 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.680 to your solar plexus and you're like, what just happened? 0:14:56.560 --> 0:15:01.760 That is basically the essence of Bruce Lee's as super 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:06.360 lightning fast would take advantage of you while you thought 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.320 you were about to strike him. He used that against you. 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.960 Whatever flaw there was, and what you were doing to 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:15.680 to hit or kick him or come at him, he 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.480 would he would take advantage of it and hit you 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.680 within that time. And and like if you watch any 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:23.760 of his movies, you can see it quite clearly. But 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.080 he'd been working on that. I didn't realize that was 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:29.560 necessarily wing Chun. I thought that was his own style. Um, 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:33.280 but it would make sense because again that was wing Chun. 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.400 Is the is the foundation for his style of kung 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:41.480 fu that he ended up coming up with. Right. So, Um, 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:46.160 Like we said, his dad was fairly famous. Bruce's in 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.000 the Jerry or box level famous. Don't forget Bruce's in 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:50.520 this movie when he was ten years old, called the 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:54.160 kid that was a big success. And then they said, hey, 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.280 let's sign this kid up to do some sequels. And 0:15:57.360 --> 0:15:59.040 his dad said, no, no, no, no, no, My kid's 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:00.880 not gonna be an actor. He's going to be a 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.040 doctor or a lawyer or something like that. Um. And 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:05.880 he's always in trouble in school, so I'm not gonna 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:09.160 let him be in uh sign this contract. Uh. He 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.000 ended up being in some movies kind of off and on. 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:14.640 I think he ended up being in about twenty different 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:19.000 movies that before his kung fu movie days, but it 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.320 was never like he never turned into the big kids 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:24.440 star that they were trying to get him to be 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:27.480 with that first contract. I think, yeah, apparently he would 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:29.920 have been had his father not directly intervened to make 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:33.400 sure that didn't happen, which is pretty interesting. But he 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.400 can't sign a contract without daddy saying so and mommy 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:38.880 saying so. Well, yeah, you definitely need to have your 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:43.440 parents support like that for sure. Um. But so his 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:45.400 father like stepped in and said, no, you're gonna You're 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.200 gonna do something else. And um that was at age ten, 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:53.320 I don't know, I think at least eighteen at the latest. 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:57.960 But at some point he um had kind of gotten like, 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:00.400 like I said, he had a reputation as like local 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:05.639 tough street fighter in Hong Kong. Um, and I guess 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:09.800 he fought another kid and and beat him quite badly. 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.720 And the kid turned out to be the son of 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:16.199 a local mob boss. I don't know if he's a 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.960 boss or a connected mob guy, but it's a member 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:23.879 of the triad. It does sound like a movie. And um, 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.240 that between that and the Hong Kong police basically saying like, look, 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:29.639 your kid is totally on our radar and it's a 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:31.919 real problem and he's going to end up in jail 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.840 or dead if he keeps this stuff up. And by 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.240 the way, the local the local mob now wants to 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:40.240 kill him because he beat up one of the one 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:45.560 of the boss's sons. Um his father was said, you're 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:48.760 out of here. You're going to America. Um. Which again 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.679 this wasn't like a complete out of the blue place 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:53.679 to send Bruce Lee. This was the land that he 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.040 was born. He was he had an American passport, he 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:59.040 was an American by birth, and he also had family 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:01.640 there too, But this is the first time that he 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.280 was living on his own. From what I saw, his 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:06.840 father gave him eight hundred dollars, which is pretty substantial 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.479 back then, said here the addresses of some family in 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.560 the Pacific Northwest. Head on out to San Francisco. And 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:16.840 he started in San Francisco and ended up in Seattle 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:21.560 pretty quickly, I believe, Yeah, Seattle in the um. In college, 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:25.720 he went to you dub and he you know that 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:27.959 money obviously would run out, so he had to get 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:30.040 a job. He worked as a bus boy in a 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:32.600 Chinese restaurant, actually lived in the restaurant, kind of a 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:37.720 closet type of deal, and everyone started hearing about his 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:40.040 his martial arts skills and the fact that he was 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:42.399 pretty good at this stuff. So he started teaching a 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.119 little bit on the side in that Wing chun style, 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:48.240 and he met Linda there, who would go on to 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:52.000 be his wife. She was a fellow student of his. Um, 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:55.200 Linda got pregnant and they got married. They were very young, 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.600 they were still in college, and they had little Brandon Lee. 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:02.120 Uh well, we'll talk about him later on, and then 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:07.119 a daughter named Shannon. Yeah. Um, so, all of a sudden, 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:11.560 Bruce Lee, who is a bus boy at a Chinese 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:15.439 restaurant and also teaching um kung fu on the side, 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:20.679 has a family, a wife, kid, then kids, and um 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:24.760 he's got He needs money now more than he ever 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.600 did before. And he has a pretty good idea he's 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:32.000 going to start opening of a franchise of martial arts studios. 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:36.600 Because martial arts was already known in the United States, 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:40.399 but typically it was kept within the whatever Asian community 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.560 that practiced it. Right, so like if it was kung fu, 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:49.320 you would find almost entirely Chinese people learning it UM 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:51.680 that you know, immigrants to the country, or they're the 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:55.639 children of immigrants. Um, it's taekwondo. It would be like 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.800 Korean families. UM. And Bruce Lee said, you know what, 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:02.800 I want to kind of explode that. There's a lot 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:04.919 of talk about whether he was the first person in 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:07.919 the United States to come along and open up martial 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.120 arts to anybody who wanted to learn of any race, 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:13.159 any ethnicity, women, men. From what I saw, that's not 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:18.040 necessarily true, but they that is UM often credited as 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:22.880 UH as evidence of just kind of how UM cocky 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:27.960 and unconventional and and um disrespectful. I guess of norms 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:30.520 and traditions just for the fact, you know, or just 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.800 for norms and tradition's sake. UM. And And I don't 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:36.600 know if he was the first person to teach just 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:39.920 anybody who wanted to learn, UM, but it definitely fell 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:45.600 within his UH persona, his outlook of martial arts, which is, 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:48.560 you know, I'll take what I'll learn whatever I can 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:50.960 and put it in to my fighting style so that 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:54.159 I survive. And UM, that would make sense to kind 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.920 of flip it on the on the other way and say, well, 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:58.359 you know, I'm going to teach his fighting style to 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:01.080 whoever wants to learn it. Yeah, and it turns out 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:04.120 it was just as he ended up learning Wing Chung 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.840 because of a fight he had early on. He also 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:12.200 expanded his fighting style because of another fight. Um, which 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:13.879 this sounds like it. I mean, I think there are 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:15.840 a lot of legends and tall tales around Bruce Lee 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:19.679 as well. This story. The story sounds a little dubious, 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:24.680 but maybe it's true. It's it is. It's not dubious. 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.240 It definitely happened, but there, it was close to the public, 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:30.880 and there were only three eyewitnesses there and to one 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.600 gives a conflicting report from the other two to a 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:39.480 large degree. But it's been so thoroughly studied and researched 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:42.080 by some people like that Matthew Pauly guy spent a 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:46.359 year just researching this fight alone. There was another guy 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.880 named m Charles Russo who wrote a book called Striking Distance. 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:52.400 He spent a decade on that book and he interviewed 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:55.840 a hundred people just for that to for that fight alone, 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:58.560 because it's the one of the most legendary fights that's 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.280 ever happened in the history of a world, and only 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:03.920 three people were there to see it besides the fighters. 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:07.480 Yet they interviewed a hundred people about what they heard 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:10.640 what happened. Basically, yeah, I mean, that's as close as 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:13.080 they could get, aside from the people who were there, 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:15.840 who were again saying, you know, this is kind of conflicting. 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:20.639 But overall, what seems to be the ultimate upshot of 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:23.480 it is that it was at least a draw. It 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:26.080 seems like it was a draw. Yeah, he thought a 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.439 man named Wong jack Man, and apparently it was a 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:33.000 pretty brutal fight, like you were saying, very legendary and 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.880 uh yeah, conflicting reports. Let's just call it a draw. 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:41.200 Let's be magnanimous here. But at the end of this, 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:43.600 you know, the sort of upshot is it was that 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:47.240 Bruce was like, I have limits now with Wing Chun, 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:51.199 and I need to, uh like, I need to be 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.359 able to best larger opponents because I'm a small guy. 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:56.960 I need to I need to really kind of ramp 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:01.040 up my study if especially if I'm a teacher, and 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:04.199 and kind of get better. Basically, so he came up 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:08.840 with his own jam and that's called Jeet Kun do 0:23:09.800 --> 0:23:12.879 the way of the intercepting fist, and this was a 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:14.960 little bit. He was a really really good boxer. I 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:17.800 don't think we've mentioned that yet. Um. If he had 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:21.720 only boxed and dedicated himself to being a boxer, he 0:23:21.800 --> 0:23:25.320 probably could have been like a belt holding boxer, uh 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:28.800 and like an Olympic champion. Um. So he incorporated elements 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:31.199