Ever since I was 13, I had thought a lot about the teachings of Bruce Lee. I watched Enter The Dragon on a boring summer night, and was blown away by the way he did his martial arts. Before that time, I had primarily thought of martial arts as pretty much just chop socky-kung fu grip-hiyah stuff, not seeing the true passion behind martial arts. When it came time to graduate middle school, each student was required to give a presentation on a topic of their choosing. I remember hearing a lot of judgment on his death, especially since it's still a mystery especially after the release of that biopic that was about 30% correct. I'll probably rant a little on that topic too by the way.
When most people think Bruce Lee, they assume a kung-fu powerhouse movie and practically nothing else. Most people give him credit where it's totally not due. But I give him major props for him opening my eyes to the reality of life and having a go-for-it attitude. His philosophies were truly something else:
I don't think of him as a savior towards life. But a good majority of his teachings made me think better about my life, and have ultimately kept me on a steady path, even though it has been rocky. The point I'm trying to make is that I never thought I'd come as far as I have... Today I was certified in Lee Jun Fan (his real name)'s martial art of Jeet Kune Do. Like I was saying, I did a project on him in eighth grade, and had done two papers on him in high school. The last part of my exit project was to continue with the learning of the topic you chose, and ultimately I think I did some righteous justice by doing so. Originally, I thought JKD schools had been extinct, because after my project, I looked for a school in Bellingham and some in Seattle. Nothing came up.Fast forward a decade later, I had forgotten all about 8th grade, and lots of other things, and I needed a release so I decided to re-jump into the martial arts. When I signed up at where I do martial arts now, I was hoping to do some straight up MMA and Muay Thai; blood and fighting galore. I had no idea that JKD was taught there, and I am overall glad that I did sign up at where I am.
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story was a good film, but overall hard to watch because most of it isn't true, and I think it gives off the wrong impression of him. The film is told from what I would guess is Linda Lee's memoirs of him, because the lot of the film was romance. I could go into a majority of detail what was wrong with it but, I'll save that for another time (probably). But I'm a tad disappointed that many key people weren't focused on, such as: Dan Inosanto, Judo Gene Lebell, Kareem-Abdul Jabaar, and Chuck Norris among others. A better and more accurate re-telling of his life might be a long story, but it would make for a good one. (RANT OVER)
No comments:
Post a Comment