Bruce Tegner

**blankslate** · Posted On: 2/05/2004 9:22am

Of course. he was the real first MMAer. Studied and wrote about ten different styles before anyone else. he's not even on the poll.

**Ronin** · Posted On: 2/05/2004 9:38am

I will put him on the Top Western Martial Artists

**X_plosion** · Posted On: 2/05/2004 9:54am

The guy was a hit back in the 'early days' of karate in America. I have read some of his books. When they were published, they were a gold mine of information, because there were few other works on the subject. Better books have been published since then (Of course that was expected, being that it's been around 20 years! ;) )

Some say that he probably wouldn't stack up to today's crowd. However, I believe that many of today's group of martial artists got into it at least partly as a result of the publicity generated by his work. So, credit where credit is due.

The last I heared of him, he wrote or contributed to the entry for "Martial Arts" in a 1980's edition of a well-known academic Encyclopedia (I think it was Grolier's).

**Freddy** · Posted On: 2/05/2004 1:20pm

I still have many of his books. I havnt a clue what happen to him. But he was a revolutionary for the widespread of martial art books for his time.
I dont know what happen to Al Thomas either of "American Budojujitsu". He was a top notch teacher as well.

**Pandinha** · Posted On: 2/05/2004 1:39pm

My first books on the MA were by Bruce Tegner.

Judo, and Self Defense.

I can say, that after reading his books back when I was 8 started the real fire to train. Well that and getting my assed kicked.

**milwaukee cop** · Posted On: 2/05/2004 3:44pm

i still have ALL of tegner's books and quite a few articles

**RockTiger** · Posted On: 2/07/2004 6:09pm

That's really interesting... I found an old paperback Tai Chi and Kung Fu book (Chinese Karate and Exercices) in my grampa's shack/garage (it was my uncles probably before I was born.

I mentioned his (Bruce Tegner) name to the Shaolin Kenpo guys in the "United Martial Arts Studios of Self Defence" or whatever's dojo and they thought I ment Bruce Lee. They do a lot of cardio kickboxing and teach a lot of retarded kids how to fight with exotic shaolin weaponry.

And that's the truth.

I might try and read some of his other (better) books... I kinda skimmed through most of the book. (I skipped over kata forms and whatnot)

**RockTiger** · Posted On: 2/07/2004 6:35pm

I think that there are so much better martial artists in San Diego than I think considering we have an olympic training center out here in Chula Vista and of course Frank Shamrock lives here I think (my sister is a friend of his son and I met him there is no doubt the resemblance, physical ability, and some traits is enough to convince me)

The martial arts "Blue Dragon Karate" school that I have my eyes on almost brought tears of joy to my eyes as I see the kids class doing groundfighting and I hear a few "ows" and I see the head man correcting this kid's armbar as it was incorrect and sorta scolding the kid's partner who wasn't tapping and later briefly lecturing the class that saying "ow" means stop and that you are tapping too late if it hurts. Not to mention of all things it is indeed a karate school that I am thinking of going to. Of course I will have to check his resume (I am going to check his training with Frank Shamrock and the judo olympian first and if I get good results well ^_^).

**jukado1** · Posted On: 3/29/2004 9:32pm

My name is Bob Rosenbaum, I'm a black belt in jukado self-defense from Bruce Tegner, i trained with Bruce from 1959 till he closed his school in 1967, and stayed in touch till his death in 1985. Bruce was a black belt in judo and was the Calif. state judo champion at 17, he than retired from competition. to concentrate on teaching. both of his parents were black belts in judo in an era when judo was not just the sport , but a total martial arts system, think atemi waza/ karate, jiu jitsu/aikido, and self-defense, think world war II, close combat. he had a school in Hollywood ca. then in 1959 he started writing martial arts training books, with to goal of introducing martial arts and self-defense to the general public, not just the few who wanted to make m/a their life. if you read the judo/karate and self-defense books, you'll see that what was written is still valid to this day, the aikido and kung fu books used his name but the work that was shown was done by individuals with rank in those arts.