Bruce Lee - Where did he get his grappling?

**TheManchu** · Posted On: 7/22/2004 1:53am

I think one of Bruce's senior guys was a judo practitioner of note. I could be wrong, I don't know a lot about Bruce and JKD.

**chaosexmachina** · Posted On: 7/22/2004 3:56am

In the Tao of JKD, there is a drawing that is an exact copy of a photograph of a catchwrestling hold.

Also, I heard that when Gene picked up Bruce, Bruce said "When you put me down I'm going to kill you..."
Hahah. And THEN they became friends.

**Guy Mendiola** · Posted On: 7/22/2004 5:09am

I always thought that he trained in Shuai Chiao but I guess that's wrong, I think it's said that he incoporated Judo into his Jeet Kune Do then maybe he learned Judo also other than CMA's

**judoka-san** · Posted On: 7/22/2004 9:33am

This is an article that Gene wrote.

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ray.d8/article12.html

As far as military using BJJ? Well, former Soviet Union used Sambo (combat grappling system), Japan uses/used Judo, US used Judo then BJJ. I think they want there guys to be able to grapple if they get in that kind of situation. I know for a fact Iran trains a grappling (from a friend of mine). Pretty common I think.

**DANINJA** · Posted On: 7/22/2004 10:47am

also bruce lees first student Jesse Glover was a judoka

**judoka-san** · Posted On: 7/22/2004 11:03am

Thanks for the insights everyone. That clears it up a bit on my original question. No BJJ training for Bruce Lee.

Proceed with the customary bashing/flaming that ends every thread....Now we just need someone to say something stupid. Where's that tai-gip guy when you need him? :D

**Freddy** · Posted On: 7/22/2004 11:51am

I dont think Lee knew of the existence of BJJ back then. If he did he probably would have trained in it and incorporated it into JKD. Although Lee did have drawings on grappling and ground techniques. I thought that was interesting.

**judoka-san** · Posted On: 7/22/2004 12:13pm

Judo is a grappling art, so my guess is it is possible some of it came from there. Not to make this a BJJ/Judo thread, but many of the tech's are the same, to say the least.

**pst** · Posted On: 7/22/2004 4:03pm

I heard that Bruce knew Wally Jay and learned a few things from him.

**Aristeia** · Posted On: 7/22/2004 5:01pm

Originally posted by Vile

Funny that the Rangers used to use Ninjitsu plus BJJ/Judo. The NZ head of the whatever the BJJ association here is called is a 7th dan Bujinkan/Hatsumi Ninpo-Taijutsu guy who incorporates BJJ to inprove their ground game...

Actually Michael Gent is only the head of Bujinkan as far as I'm aware. He's affiliated with John Will along with a couple of guys down the line, and is iirc a purple. Geoff Aitken in chch is acutally the most senior of the Will affiliates.

Having said that there are more advanced people round. There are now a few Brazzillian black belts teaching in Auckland and one brown belt. They've made a federation of sorts which ran the first BJJ Open in Auckland a few months back. The ninja's didn't attend, possibly because it was put together by the Brazillians in the country and I'm not sure how widely they publicised it outside their own organisations (although we did get some people come across from Oz)