Bruce Lee: Sifu, Friend and Big Brother. Doug Palmer
at all odd to me when Bruce, a few years later, began to study films of some of the classic boxers, watching them over and over and mining them for practical insights to perfect his own approach to the martial arts. He would play films of Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Archie Moore and Muhammad Ali, among others, and comment on the moves to me or my brother Mike, who was also a boxer. (I later met and observed Muhammad Ali during the course of two different business dealings. The first occasion was while I worked in a law firm in Tokyo, in the spring of 1972, about six months before the last time I saw Bruce. Ali was also an iconic figure, similar to Bruce in a number of ways. Although they never met, I think they would have gotten along.)
But at that point in my life, in the summer of 1961, I was drawn whole-heartedly into the world of gung fu.
ALTHOUGH I WAS impatient to get right into the fighting techniques, the first thing I had to learn in Bruce’s class was the salutation. Since it was as elaborate as an intricate dance step, it took a little time until I could execute it effortlessly. I also had to learn the bai jong (ready stance, with the right hand forward), so that I would have a platform to deliver the fighting techniques.
I was able to immediately participate in the various warm-up and strengthening exercises. As a skinny teenager who boxed reasonably well, I thought I was pretty flexible. I quickly realized, however, that I wasn’t particularly flexible in the ways that mattered for gung fu. The stretches were designed mainly to loosen and strengthen the ligaments and tendons behind the knees and at the elbows, very important for the snapping kicks and punches. Otherwise, one could easily hyper-extend and tear an elbow or knee ligament.
The main exercise to stretch the tendons behind the knees was to have a partner hold your outstretched leg at hip height with one hand and press down on your knee with the other, while you grabbed your calf and attempted to touch your forehead to your knee and hold it there without bending your leg. At first I couldn’t bring my head within a foot of my knee with the leg in that position, and even doing that made the tendons underneath the knee feel like they were being detached from the bones. But every night at home I would put each leg in turn up on the dining room table and bob my torso up and down with the leg straight out, until finally after several weeks I was able to touch my head to my knee and hold it there. At the time, I assumed the leg stretches were standard Wing Chun stretches, not realizing that Bruce himself had only developed such flexibility a year or so before.44
The other exercises I remember were also intended to limber us up. There were frog hops, where we would squat and proceed to hop like a frog around in a big circle; and an exercise where we would extend the arms straight out with the palms facing outwards and stretch the elbow joints, then raise the arms slowly up above our heads, interlock the fingers with the hands rotated upwards and stretch the elbows again. Other exercises included rotations of the neck in circles, and a form where we used the gung bou (“bow stance”) to pivot the hips and waist and upper body as far in each direction as we could while keeping the legs in the same position. We also used gung bou for a kicking exercise. We would swing the back leg up at full extension in a long arc to head height, then slap the opposite palm against the inside of the foot. Since we never used that particular kick in actual fighting techniques, presumably the exercise was mainly for the purpose of stretching the various tendons and ligaments around the hips.
Many sports use stretching exercises to warm up before a practice or a game, to minimize muscle pulls and other injuries. However, the gung fu exercises went beyond just warming up; they seemed designed to build up the strength and resilience and enhance the extension of the tendons and ligaments that anchored the muscles, rather than the muscles themselves. None of the exercises seemed aimed at building up muscle strength per se, or endurance. The unstated premise appeared to be that the muscles would take care of themselves if their foundation was strong.
Bruce’s own view of training changed over the years, and he later engaged in weight training and ran for endurance, but he didn’t over-do it to the extent that he sacrificed speed or flexibility.45 One thing that struck me when I returned to the school in Seattle that was directly descended from Bruce’s, run by Taky Kimura, several years after Bruce’s death, was the change in the warm-up and conditioning exercises. Some of the same ones were used, but in addition there was a heavy emphasis on push-ups and sit-ups.
AFTER THE EXTENSIVE warm-up and conditioning exercises, the classes in 1961 practiced techniques. For some of them, like the basic straight punch, we might practice them all facing Bruce (or one of the assistants who Bruce sometimes had lead the class). We would snap out a hundred straight punches, left-right, left-right, as fast as we could, starting with both fists held one above the other around the solar plexus, then punching with the upper fist straight out to full extension, bringing it back below the other fist, then punching with the second fist, and so on.
For most of the techniques, however, we formed into two lines, facing each other. If we were practicing kicks, the first person in one line would count out to ten in Cantonese and the whole line would kick to the count while the second line blocked the kick, after which the lines would switch offense and defense. There were two main kicks we practiced this way. One was the straight kick, delivered by the lead foot to the opponent’s groin, which the opponent blocked with a palm slap to the top of the midfoot. The second was the side kick, aimed at the opponent’s side, which the opponent blocked with a sweeping forearm. Although we aimed the kicks to land a few inches in front of the groin (in the case of the straight kick) or to the side (in the case of the side kick), it was important for the defenders to block sharply, both for the practice and in case of a miss.
The kicks could be aimed at other parts of the body—for instance, the straight kick could be aimed at the knee or shin—but we practiced kicking to the groin so that the defender could practice blocking. (A kick to the knee or shin couldn’t be blocked the same way; in combat, one needed to stay out of range, then close the distance before such a kick could be delivered.) There were also other kicks we learned (such as a kick using the rear foot, delivered to the knee, and a double kick which started with a straight kick to the groin, then rolled into a higher kick to the head when the groin kick was blocked, as well as others), but we didn’t practice them as much.
We also practiced hand techniques in two lines, each line alternating attack and defense. After each side had practiced both, those on one side would move down one place, so each person could work out with opponents of varying sizes and speeds and levels of ability.
The basic hand techniques we practiced this way almost every day were paak sau, laap sau and chaap choi/gwa choi. For techniques where the English translation was obvious, like for the side kick or straight punch, Bruce would use the English equivalent. But for the techniques where the English translation was not evident, such as the three hand techniques just mentioned, he would use the Cantonese terms, which we all learned.
Paak sau literally means “slapping hand.” With both rows standing in the basic Wing Chun stance, the attacker would use his left hand to slap his opponent’s leading (right) forearm aside and at the same time deliver a straight right punch over the opponent’s defense. The defender would block the straight punch with his open left hand.
Laap sau means “pulling hand.” As its name implies, the attacker uses his lead (right) hand to grab the opponent’s lead wrist, pulling him forward and off balance while simultaneously delivering a straight punch with his left hand. The defender would block with his left.
Chaap choi/gwa choi was a combination technique, a knuckle fist (chaap choi) delivered under the opponent’s lead arm to the ribs, followed by a back fist (gwa choi) to the jaw or temple when the opponent blocked the first blow. The defender would block the knuckle fist with a sweep of his right arm, which the attacker would then slap and trap while delivering the back fist.
After practicing the basic techniques, Bruce would often demonstrate a new technique, or a form, which