by Michael Pearce
(Venice, CA USA)
Like so many others, Bruce is my personal hero, and i’ve studied everything i could ever find about him, facts and questionable opinions alike, but there is one important thing people tend to overlook, and that is he never discovered anything new, and never claimed too either, he was merely sharing knowledge learned only through rigorous training and simply loving what youre doing enough to study. Combining useful techniques from various martial arts is old news, a true martial artist is someone who loves the subject from all angles and is not prejudice, and is open to what works best for the individual, true martial artists from rich roots knew that, Bruce was the just the first to bring it to the public in this country full of “karateUSA” students,he may have been considered an idealist on the subject of martial arts but he also had a deep respect for the power that was acheivable from knowledge gained through hundreds of years of traditional practice, and as far as proving himself through combat, He was the hong kong boxing champion at age 19, but he had also been an actor his entire life and had a career to focus on, Bruce was a hot head when he was younger but probably didnt feel the need to prove himself through combat when he grew up a bit, because martial arts is more about peace than violence, and most traditional philosophies tend to discourage prideful acts like combat competition,,,,,, but dont get it twisted, Chi energy and developement is very real, and some of that crazy stuff people think is magic is actually unexplained science, and if Bruce wasnt taken from us so young, im sure he would have gone back to his roots and spent the years of chi gong meditation it would have taken him to become histories greatest martial artist, but i believe that title goes to Morihei Ueshiba, the father of modern Aikido, whose philosophies on peace developed the style to blend with an attack to prevent injury to both you and your opponent, much like Bruce’s philosophy “be like the nature of water” ,,, Bruce was definately one of the greatest though,,, he gave himself the right amount of credit,,,, and then we all followed up and gave him more than he asked for,,, he said it himself, he met people who were much faster than he was, we’ll never know their names, cuz they dont seek fame, they avoid it, Bruce wasnt the best ever, but he was a part of a rare breed of true martial artists, he just happened to be actor as well, all he did was be himself and it showed the whole world how amazing traditional chinese martial arts really is, and i do believe that was his main goal in life