Bruce Lee: Sifu, Friend and Big Brother. Doug Palmer

TOWARD THE END of the evening at a Seattle street fair during the summer of 1961, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I stopped and turned around. A young Asian man stood there, a pace or two away. The circulating crowd parted and flowed around us.

He leaned slightly back from the waist, his eyes hooded, a neutral expression on his face. “I heard you were looking for me,” he said.

I realized it was Bruce Lee. I had wanted to meet him after seeing him give a demonstration the week before, and had asked around to see if I could wangle an introduction. But I had heard nothing further until that evening.

The street fair, Bon Odori, sponsored by Seattle’s Japanese-American community, was one of a number of ethnic neighborhood events every summer leading up to Seafair, a weekend of hydroplane races and air shows. In those days, the races were sometimes overshadowed by the general bacchanalian atmosphere, where participants lugged coolers of beer to the shores of Lake Washington to watch.

Bon Odori featured Japanese folk dances on a blocked-off street in front of what was then the main Buddhist “church.” A milling crowd surrounded the dancers, watching or listening to the music blaring from loudspeakers, sampling kori (flavored shave ice) or fried noodles from booths set up on the fringes, or just checking out the action. A friend had asked me earlier in the evening if I was still interested in meeting Bruce. I told her that I was, then forgot about it as I enjoyed the atmosphere and chatted with other kids I knew.

Facing Bruce, I was initially nonplussed. On a subconscious level, I understood that his stance, although un-menacing and not overtly martial in appearance, was one from which he was prepared to react to whatever I did. Later, I realized it was a variation of the way he taught us to stand if faced by a potentially threatening situation. The idea was to be in a position where one could defend or counter-attack instantly, yet not appear to be hostile. It gave the appearance of alertness without concern, confidence and readiness without aggressive intent. As I later found, it could indeed project the desired attitude and prevent an undesired physical confrontation.

I took Bruce’s tone of voice to imply that I had been actively seeking him, perhaps for a challenge of some sort. In retrospect, I realized that in the world he came from, challenges were a part of life. Not knowing who I was or what I wanted, perhaps he thought that was a possibility.

I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. But in doing so, I purposely refrained from stepping closer to him. Rather, I leaned forward from the waist, extending my hand out for a long awkward handshake. I told him that I had seen his recent demonstration in Chinatown, and was interested in taking lessons.

He thought it over, then shrugged noncommittally and told me when they practiced. “Drop by sometime, check it out,” he said. “If you’re still interested, we’ll see.”

He melted back into the crowd. I had no idea where they practiced, or how I was going to get there. But I was ecstatic. One way or another, I would find a way to show up.

AT THE TIME, I knew next to nothing about Bruce Lee. Only his name and a first impression from the demo of Chinese martial arts I had seen the week before at another street fair, in Seattle’s Chinatown.

The demo was performed on a stage erected on one of the blocked-off streets by Bruce and three of his students. He called the martial art gung fu,¹ a name I had never heard before.

I had just finished my junior year in high school. I had boxed since fifth grade, with a bout early on as a paperweight on a TV show called Madison Square Kindergarten. When I saw Bruce’s demonstration, my latest bout had been as part of a team that boxed the inmates at the state reformatory in Monroe. I had friends who practiced judo and had heard of karate—as a kid, I had even bought a bogus book on karate I’d seen advertised in the back of a comic book. But gung fu was a total unknown. At the time, I was unaware that it had a long history in China, or that it was then taught in Chinatowns across the U.S. only to Chinese.

When Bruce stood up there on the stage in his black gung fu uniform, he didn’t seem all that impressive at first. He looked rather slender, smaller than a high school running back, not even a welterweight. The three students who assisted in the demonstration, one black, one white, the third Asian, were all older and more imposing physically. But once Bruce moved, he commanded the stage.

When he moved, he literally exploded. His hands were just a blur; the power in his snapping fists was palpable as he missed his students’ noses by millimeters. As a boxer, I appreciated the moves he made with his hands. But the legs added a whole new dimension. The need to defend against kicks to the shin, knee or groin, or higher, signaled what seemed like a total fighting system. I was blown away.

Two other aspects of the demonstration also made an impression. One was the exotic grace of a praying mantis form he executed. It was quite unlike anything I had ever seen before. The second thing that stuck with me was the demonstration of chi sau, or sticking hands. Once he closed with his opponent and their wrists came in contact, he deflected all attempted blows and launched counterattacks with his eyes closed. I had never seen anything like that, either.

Much later, I found out that Bruce had given a demonstration over a year before I first saw him, at a function where I had boxed one night, but I never saw him then. The function was a Fight Night put on by a Seattle University fraternity in the university gym, just a few blocks from where Bruce was then living—a “smoker,” as such nights of boxing matches were then called. I was in the first of six bouts. According to the program, a copy of which someone showed me decades after Bruce died, the first six matches were followed by an event called “JACK MONREAN wrestles THE UNMASKED KNIGHT,” followed by another boxing match, and then by a “Chinese Boxing—Judo Demonstration” featuring Bruce against some judoka named Masafusa Kimura. After that

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