Bruce Lee is considered one of the greatest martial artists of our time. With using movies to express the feelings for many of the martial arts, Lee converted an entire world to the conclusion that martial arts needed a touch of sublime evolution. After Lee died, many would take heed to the ideas Lee tried to get across. The question is if we have stepped in the wrong hole of what he was saying in the first place.
Bruce Lee began his Wing Chun training in 1953 under Ip Man. The year would be 1958 when Bruce Lee would return to the United States to claim his rights to U.S. citizenship. During this short stint of martial arts, Bruce Lee was an avid boxer and fencing athlete. Bruce Lee also learned, what seemed to be, Yang Tai Chi Chuan from his father Lee Hoi Chuen. Lee Hoi Chuen, starting Bruce Lee early, would bring his son to the forefront of the Hong Kong Film Industry before the age of one.
As Bruce Lee was training in Ip Man Wing Chun, Lee would not have much time for the training with making films. Some would actually say that Lee would have at least two years worth of true training out of the five years. Ip Man would also have to send Lee to Wong Shun Leung to train further. Lee never finished his Wing Chun training. Even Bruce Lee would have to find connections, with other systems, to fulfill his nature of combat.
Jun Fan Gung Fu or Bruce Lee Gung Fu would be introduced to many students in the 1960s. One of them, Jerry Poteet, is considered one of the foremost authorities on the system of Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do. This statement, however, is not without giving credit to other foremost authorities like Dan Inosanto, Taky Kimura, and even Ted Wong. As it is true that Bruce Lee cross-trained with Tae Kwon Do legend Jhoon Rhee, Lee would tell Poteet something very astonishing. “Bruce Lee said, in actual application, he would never kick above the waist.” Many of you read this and figure this to be almost a lie or hypocritical since you have seen Bruce Lee do high kicks. You have seen Bruce Lee do flying kicks. Why would he tell his students one thing and do another? Bruce Lee told his students that you often lose speed and power when kicking to the head. The other truth to this is the upper body has to compensate for high kicks. Compensate, in this case, means that your human body must lean back. When you pull anything back, forward force can not be used to the maximum. Two extremes can not coexist or we can not serve two masters. This is especially true with the idea of inertia and gravity with the human body.
When using Wing Chun, it is a poor example of the idea of kicking high. The reason is that Wing Chun was created for high level self-defense. Abbess Wu Mei, the original monarch founder, had high kicks. She had used an Embroidery kick, which is a toe kick to the throat area, to finish off several opponents. When passing down her best knowledge, she taught Yim Wing Chun, for whose name is tagged to the fighting system, the low kicking methods. Abbess Wu Mei had traveled all over to many temples. The Northern Shaolin temple was known for high/flying kicks based on the mountain ranges. Bandits would not be able to defend against the kicks due to their fear of the mountainous ranges. When you think about Abbess Wu Mei being good at the Northern Shaolin System as well, to choose low kicking must have a profound reasoning behind it.
There is a principle everyone should understand. Just because and does not mean are the two best phrases because they put someone in a place of thinking for themselves and seeing options. Here it is: Just because you do a kick does not mean you are kicking to strike the opponent. The best example is the stop kick of Bruce Lee. It is the heel kick of Wing Chun. It is a low kick. If you use a fighting stance, like in Tae Kwon Do or Karate, and use the back leg to use this maneuver, it does not hurt the opponent worth a lick. So, what is it good for? The move is used as exactly how Bruce Lee expressed in the JFJKD system. It is used to stop the opponent from moving towards you at varied angles. If you were to high kick for this same issue, you would exhaust your kick and exhaust the footwork with it. This means your time to be clobbered has come.
