Bruce Lee

Recognize this guy?

I was a huge Bruce Lee fan in the 60's and 70's (still am.) I recall when "The Green Hornet" came out on TV, I was totally mezmorized whenever Bruce Lee was on the screen. He played Kato on the show and he had an amazing fighting style that I had never seen before on TV. Too bad the series didn't last long...

Then, back in the mid-70's, I was introduced to Tae Kwon Do by a high school friend named Pete. Pete was really into Tae Kwon Do and a few months after he started taking lessons, I signed up at a local Tae Kwon Do school and took lessons too. During our lunch hour at school, Pete and I would sneak into the gym's wrestling area to practice. He attended a different Martial Arts school than I did, but that was ok because that gave us different things to share with each other. Later, other Martial Arts students joined us and we'd all sneak into the gym to practice. Luckily, the high school never found out because I'm sure they would have stopped us. Liability, you know...

I recall when the movie, "Enter The Dragon" came out, I went to see it on opening day with my dad and brother. We were among the first to see the movie and we even got movie posters because of that. After our first screening of the movie, I went to see the movie again with Pete, my brother and another friend named Steve. This was Steve's first time seeing a Bruce Lee movie but the rest of us had seen other Bruce Lee movies before and we were all huge fans. So before the movie started, Pete said to Steve, "Hey... do you want to stay and watch the movie twice through?" Steve just looked at him like he was crazy.

Well, after the movie finished, Pete turned to Steve and asked, "Hey, do you want to stay and watch the movie again?" To our surprise, Steve said, "Sure!" Apparently, he became a Bruce Lee fan too!

I've seen "Enter The Dragon" many times over the years. It's still my favorite movie. I've seen it so much that I think I can recite most of the lines in the movie!

I have an uncle on my mother's side who actually trained with Bruce Lee back in Hong Kong. Back then, Bruce was learning Wing Chun Gung Fu from Sifu Yip Man. My uncle remembers working out with Bruce and I thought it was really cool that I knew someone who actually practiced with him. By the way, KUNG FU is really pronouced "Gung Fu" in Chinese. I think the name got "westernized" and turned into Kung Fu... Also, Sifu means "teacher" in Chinese.

I'm still into Martial Arts. I think it's a great form of exercise and it has a practical application as well for self defense.

I think I'll go watch "Enter The Dragon" now... Let's see... how many times does that make it??

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Edit Note: Oh... had to mention... there was an episode of "Batman" on TV in which The Green Hornet and Kato appeared on the show. In one scene, Batman was fighting the Green Hornet (ok... perhaps evenly matched) and Robin was fighting Kato. NO WAY was Robin a match for Kato!!! But of course, since it was Batman's show, they made it look like Robin and Kato were evenly matched. I don't think ANYBODY could have believed that Robin was an even match against Kato! I'm still steamed over that to this day! LOL