Bruce Lee and Mixed Martial Arts

Jeet Kune Do, the martial art system developed by Bruce Lee, is essentially mixed martial arts. Anyone who knows about Bruce Lee knows that he studied Wing Chun kung fu under the famous Yip Man, but he also studied many other diverse styles as well.

The first style Bruce was taught was Tai Chi. He learned that from his own father. Over the years as he grew, he also learned Hung pugilism, Choy lay fut, Judo, internal and external boxing, Western boxing, Shaolin kung fu, and Jit-kune. After he came to America, he compared what he knew with that of Western boxers, Karate experts, Judo experts, and Tae Kwan Do experts. He couldn't seem to get any advantage so he evaluated his own skills in order to find out his weaknesses. He concluded that the Southern Chinese kung fu styles that he had learned were lacking in soft and skillful kung fu. He immediately picked up the book "Fundamental Training on Martial Arts" by Tsai Lung-yun and began training himself. Bruce also learned escrima and nunchaku from Dan Inosanto and Tae Kwan Do from Jhoon Rhee.

Bruce recognized that all martial art styles have their strong points and weak points; therefore, no one style is better than any other style. He took all the strong points from the various styles that he learned and combined them to create Jeet Kune Do. The theory of Jeet Kune Do became "Taking no form as form; taking no way as way."

I have to wonder what Bruce Lee would think of the modern sport of MMA.