Bruce Lee counters Uki-Goshi with Tomoe-Nage

**jkdeez** · Posted On: 5/26/2010 8:02pm

Well I have been taking BJJ for 6 months now and I love it but I suck at it. That is one answer to your question. I love reading but I have a hard time remembering all the details of what I read. There are numerous interviews with Dan Inosanto about how Bruce loved the grappling aspect of fighting.

Isn't the only important thing that Bruce saw the value of grappling? I am looking at a picture of Bruce right now and he is in front of his library. In the top two shelves alone I can count 6 Judo books. I would like to see evidence supporting the claim that Bruce didnt know **** about grappling. While you ar eat it can you also asky Wally Jay why his son Leon thinks chi balls can knock people out?

**Lu Tze** · Posted On: 5/26/2010 8:06pm

I own the Kama Sutra, doesn't make me Ron Jeremy.

Three months isn't really enough time to learn anything about Judo, except which direction gravity works in. He may have respected grappling, but I guarantee he didn't understand it.

**jkdeez** · Posted On: 5/26/2010 8:11pm

Here is a link about Larry Hartsell commenting a little about Bruce and grappling. Larry was a Judo black belt at the time he trained privately at Bruce Lee's home. At the time of Bruce's death there were officially 33 formal grappling techniques in JKD.
http://www.jkdassoc.com/bio.html

**Lu Tze** · Posted On: 5/26/2010 8:21pm

That link states Lee handed off development of JKD's grappling to someone else.

Like I said, there's no way he could understand it with so little mat time, and Lee's own assessment appears to match my own.

**jkdeez** · Posted On: 5/26/2010 8:23pm

Here is my last post on this issue. An interview with Larry Harstell. About 1:30 in he talks about Bruce and grappling. The main part being that Bruce seriously got into grappling after meeting Gene LeBell, Wally Jay, and Hayword Nishioka, sadly that is around the time Bruce Lee passed away. So there you go MTripp I will partly play devils advocate on this one but you are still completely wrong.
YouTube- Larry Hartsell interview

**jkdeez** · Posted On: 5/26/2010 8:27pm

Bruce didn't hand it off to someone else. He died and Dan handed the task of developing JKD grappling to Larry.

**Lu Tze** · Posted On: 5/26/2010 8:41pm

Your source isn't specific about that at all, you have another one?

I stand by my contention. Using your own posts on the subject as a basis, Lee hadn't studied enough Judo to be able to teach it effectively.

**Jim_Jude** · Posted On: 5/27/2010 2:02am

Originally Posted by Lu Tze

Your source isn't specific about that at all, you have another one?

I stand by my contention. Using your own posts on the subject as a basis, Lee hadn't studied enough Judo to be able to teach it effectively.

Exactly.
Larry Hartsell:"Before his untimely passing he was really getting into grappling..."
So, he was "getting into grappling"? Like you're "getting into" BJJ? & by your own admission, you suck at a martial art that you've allegedly been studying for 6months? Do you think that Bruce Lee had 6 whole months worth of grappling training over the course of his martial development? I don't. & even if he did... would he still suck?

Get the point?

**Mtripp** · Posted On: 5/27/2010 5:32am

My last comments on this....

You know, there was a time I took a lot of heat with my comments on BJJ/GJJ, lots of things were said. When I posted my certificates from the Carlson Gracie group, and my membership number was TWO, lots of people looked VERY foolish.

I am not in the mood right now, but I also have my passport which verifies my membership with Larry Hartsells Jun Fan grappling group, stamps with all the clinics I attended, and I can assure you it is an equally small membership number.

As I keep saying, I was there.

Mr. Hartsell did not even publish his book on the grappling concepts of JKD until 1984, a VERY long time after the events we speak of here. His own Jun Fan grappling group was created several years after that. He published one more book on the concepts in 1987. Fast forward to 2002 when another book on the subject is printed by Mr. Hartsell and Mr. Inosanto. Guess what? That's all there is..... A few VHS tapes, none of which was transfered to DVD. So, again, what interest in grappling?

In 1966 Karate had double the numbers Judo had. For about 30 years or so, the number of people in the US doing Judo has been pretty stable at about 30,000. For the entire country! Again, where is the interest in Judo? More importantly, with such a small number, we kinda know who everyone is.

Several times in print, and on television, JKD people, from Bruce Lee to Jason Alexander (on the Letterman show,) have disparaged Judo by saying "To do it you have to grab me first, when you grab me (they then shoot out a lighting fast eye poke,) bang, I take your eye. Then the hands come up with a dismissive shrug. Again, what interest?

Finally, even in the clip that started all this, the guy in the Judo gi that Bruce counters? Its Gene LeBell! The only real connection, along with Wally Jay, that Bruce ever had with Judo. Hmmm... Gene LeBell, stunt man for Green Hornet. Gene LeBell, stunt man on Ironside, oh and Longstreet too. Seems EVERY time Bruce was on a US TV program, Gene was there getting beat up... go figure. We can prove who Gene was, what his Judo background was, and he really did ACTUALLY FIGHT AND BEAT PEOPLE IN JUDO... silly concept I know.

In closing, I want to let all of you know about the purple dragon I have in my basement. I can direct you to several books like Eragon where you will learn all about Dragons. Now, she is very shy so I will not show her to you, but I tell you she is there. Of course I am telling the truth, and if you think I am not, then its up to you to prove that I do not have a purple dragon in my basement. I am required to do NOTHING but make the claim. Proof is up to you....

....should be good enough for a lot of people here, its how they think things should work.

**Kung-Fu Joe** · Posted On: 5/27/2010 5:37am

Even prodigies take longer than six months to become truly adept at grappling.

The quickest white-to-Blue-Belt student we've yet had at Pellegrino MMA took six months to earn his Blue, and was only that quick because he had been wrestling for 20 years, already, and was coming to practice five nights a week.

I just started cross-training in Judo, about a month ago, but even though I've got a few years of BJJ behind me, and I'm working hard toward my Purple Belt in that art, I don't expect to be promoted even to 5th-Kyu for at least six months.

The idea that Bruce Lee could pick up enough grappling to competently meld it into JKD, himself, in just a short amount of time is preposterous. Especially considering the craptastic grappling technique we see displayed in some of his films.