Martial arts are not for fighting, they are for ending conflict. If you think that martial arts are for fighting then you haven't learned any good stuff. The term martial art means warlike practise. War is about killing, ending a conflict as quickly as possible, while allowing as little damage to be done to yourself as possible. Fighting is for suckers.

First of all, how many of you have fighting records. I don't mean memorys of a street fight or sport karate or tae kwon do tag macth point tournoments. I mean a real fight record. Some of you say if you walk into a dojo and beat the instructor then he can not teach you anything. This kind of thinking is stupid. The marital arts is not about competition. According to Bruce Lee himself it is about expressing the human body. It is about truley expressing yourself with out the limitaions of other peoples ideas. Not about competition. Bruce believed that matial arts was a way of life, but should he have to use his art, he was determinded to win. As for wether he was the best I don't know. As for the fact that he could use his skills in a reality situation. I believe so.
He trained harded than any man I have ever met and got to places in martial arts that few people have reached before. As far as fight records go, alot of very talented martial artist don't have their every fight in a book somewhere. I do know that anyone that can spar with Chuck Norris and still be good enogh to train him has to be skilled. He maded JKD as a starting point for martial artist to find their own way and what was best for them. It was not meant to be a guid book on how to beat the crap out of everyone you meet.

muay thai "training and fighting are worlds apart mate" well.. your wrong on that mate! the level of training determines how the person does in combat. and if it is true that the great bruce lee didnt do much sparring who cares. he was said to be a great street fighter and there are many accounts of it. the ancient warriors never had sparring but did mostly kata, and they were great.

I'd say that Bruce Lee,Had gotten his experiance of streetfighting while living in Hong Kong,But i think everyone else is refering to sparring rather than realfighting.
However, IMCO, That fighting & sparring are different as night & day.
So who cares if Master Bruce had ever sparred,ALthough,He did have real altercations<Thats more experiance than most martial artist or MMA will ever have.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe all of the hype about Bruce Lee, But he was one of the early pioneers of the MA.


BTW, Bruce Lee was also a good promoter of the MA. [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/cool.gif[/IMG]

Have any of you put your skills to the real test, hand to hand combat, no tournaments or any of that, wheater or not you make a living for it, if not who are you people to criticize others?

in my opinion Bruce Lee was a great fighter he may not have fought in a large number of street fights or he may have but having read his book and seen his moves in all his movies i would say he is an excellent fighter if you can do all those moves you gotta know how to fight you can lose 15 fights and win only 10 yet still be a good fighter but that is just my opinion i dont know if im right or wrong that is just what i think nobody has to agree with me.

Bruce Lee was a good martial artist anybody has got to admit that but his real love was acting he was in comercials and the like since he was a little kid, and everyone thinks he grew up in china or somwhere in asia but he was born and grew up in San Franciso and he started in martial arts when he was around 13 years old and he didnt create Jeet Kune Do many people believe that also but no he did study it but he only revised it sort of improved upon it, and created the famouse term "you have to be like water" because water can shape into any form and be in a calm flow and sudenly crash down in an instant.

so bruce was born in the USA and did not invent JKD

lol ok

Does anybody recall the fact that proven fighters and Masters who are respected today have acknowledge Bruce as a great trainer, fighter, teacher, etc.? Greats like Joe Lewis, Dan Inosanto, Ed Parker, Bob Wall, and Chuck Norris. People who themselves were great fighters. Training is one thing but practical application is another. Do people really think that people like Joe Lewis or Dan Inosanto trained with Bruce but never fought against him? In your training over the years, have you never actually fought against your instructor or teacher? In doing so, were you or were you not able to gauge their fighting ability? Don't you think Joe Lewis would do the same? Dont you think Chuck Norris would test what he had been taught to see if actually works against the person who taught it to him? If he couldnt fight, would a true fighter respect him or what he had to say? Come on people. Look, I am a parent as well as a martial artist. I know I would not take advice on how to raise my child from some one who isnt a good parent themselves. Do you think a trained, professional fighter would continue to train under someone who they felt could not fight? Highly unlikely. Bruce Lee was the first to see the benefit behind combining Arts. Now, many decades later, you see people outside of JKD blending arts where as before, people taught one style and argued about its superiority. Now you look around, and many of the people respected as leaders in their Arts today praise the benefits of combining Arts. Look at the UFAF under Chuck Norris today. A balance of striking Arts and Ground Fighting. What we are just realizing in the last 5-10 years, Bruce Lee taught almost his entire career. Say what you will but the man's legacy continues today and his former students still praise him and the benefits they gained from him. True fighters giving praise to a man they respected. As a fighter, I only respect you if I know you have skills. I only know if I have tested you or someone I respect has tested you. I respect Joe Lewis, Chuck Norris, Dan Inosanto, and Ed Parker. That's good enough for me.

Razor

I don't think its a question of respect.

Nor its it about the mans conttribution to martial arts.

My questions have only to do with "tall tales" my questions have to do with the rep of guy that claims are made of superhuman fighting ability.

That seems to have actually "fought" no-one.

Which seems odd to me that a guy that is "known" as a fighter--actually seems to have "fought" no-one.

And just an FYI Joe Lewis and others have made public statments that call into question Lee's fighting abilites.

The best respect I can pay to a man is respecting him for what he did--its not respect to belive the myths.