Thursday, March 19, 2009

Bruce Lee's Seattle History



Here's a great little snip of a Bruce Lee documentary with a focus on the early days in Seattle. It takes a few seconds to get rolling, but is well worth viewing. The narrator is James DeMile, one of Bruces first students along with Jessie Glover who is still a Seattle-area resident. DeMile went on to write the famous booklet on the "One Inch Punch", which I have buried in my collection somewhere. He also trained Ron Ogi, whose seminars provided our Dojo with valuable training drills. Ogi now owns some of the original training dummies that Bruce Lee used, and were passed down by DeMile. These dummies are mounted on walls in his house, and all have different functions. Some have re-breakable arms, others slinky-like arms, and all are said to be articulated and move in various ways.
This video is a nice little bit of Seattle history, and lends insight into how Lee developed his fighting style.

2 comments:

Dan said...

Wow, thank you for pointing out this video. I'm a beginning Wing Chun artist, and to be able to see Bruce Lee doing the forms and drills is inspirational. I just never thought to look on YouTube for Bruce Lee :) Now I know, and have found all kinds of good stuff. Thanks again.

The Basement Guitarist said...

I had the opportunity to spend about a year training at Sijo DeMile's Wing Chun Do school about 15 years ago. I also had the opportunity to be on the other end of the phone book when he demonstrated the one inch punch. Seeing the first modifications Bruce Lee had made to his Wing Chun training was fascinating, and incredibly instructive. Thanks for bringing up some great old memories. :-)