Bruce Lee, Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do

Most people are of the belief that Bruce Lee found out how limited Wing Chun was and decided to break away from it to create Jeet Kune Do. However, the more I've researched over the last 16 years, the more I've found just how important Wing Chun was to Bruce Lee. In fact, Bruce Lee's considered his Wing Chun skills to be his most advanced skills keeping them secrets to nearly all of his students. But Bruce didn't learn all of Wing Chun. If he did, he may never had invented Jeet Kune Do.

Here are some quotes I've gathered on Bruce Lee, Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do.

Wing Chun forms the nucleus of Jeet Kune Do
"Wing Chun Gung Fu basically forms the foundation of Jeet Kune Do! ... There are those who train in Jeet Kune Do today who claim that Wing Chun is not that important to our structure! Those practitioners don't know what they are talking about! ... In fact, it is my belief that Wing Chun forms the nucleus of Jeet Kune Do, and without it, the Jeet Kune Do practitioner can never reach his or her fullest potential! Only with a base such as Wing Chun Gung Fu could JKD's Founder develop such a simple, direct, effective, streetwise, economical system of self defense such as Jeet Kune Do!" (Bruce Lee) "practiced the sil lim tao form five to eight times every day! This proves how important the Wing Chun structure is to Jeet Kune Do! Anyone who says it is not is simply ignorant, lazy or mis-informed!"
-Lamar Davis, Founder Hardcore Jeet Kune Do

Is Jeet Kune Do MMA?
"Jeet Kune do is often described as a mixture of several different arts, much like the contemporary MMA. It is the belief at the Bruce Lee Foundation that Jeet Kune Do is NOT MMA... JKD is not made up of the best ingredients from 26 different arts. In fact, JKD as an art consists of a very small arsenal of weapons and prides itself on simplicity and economy of motion. If we look at the most direct influences on JKD, we see the influence of boxing, fencing, and Wing Chun."
-Bruce Lee Foundation

Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do

"There were 13 things I could teach... He used to say that under no circumstances could I teach: Double pak sao(slap block), Pak Sao bil jee (slap block/finger jab), Pak sao lop sao (slap block/grabbing hand) were big big secrets. He was the head man, so I kept it exactly the way he wanted me to teach it."
-Dan Inosanto, Bruce Lee's student (NOTE: All of the restricted techniques were Wing Chun)

In Bruce Lee's Words
"I did not mean to create another style. JKD started out as my expression of Wing Chun's Lop Sao exercise."
-Bruce Lee to Hawkins Cheung

"The foundation of Jeet Kune Do is Wing Chun."
-Bruce Lee

Why Bruce Invented Jeet Kune Do
"Someone who is doing Ving Tsun and has not spent enough time with a teacher, will not know enough footwork. He will not understand the mobility involved in Ving Tsun, the angles of attack, the kicks in all situations. He will therefore want to add kicks for all situations. He will therefore want to add something else to Ving Tsun that he thinks is better for the sake of not knowing."
-Wong Shun Leung, Wing Chun Grandmaster and life-long friend of Bruce Lee

The Core of JKD is Wing Chun
"JKD is quite simply Bruce Lee's own expression of Wing Chun "thinking" and this is what many in the JKD world fail to realise - the CORE of JKD is Wing Chun, and if you don't have Wing Chun at your core, you CANNOT reach anything like the level that Bruce Lee achieved."
-David Peterson, Senior student of Wong Shun Leung



Adam Williss is the founder of Dragon Family Wing Chun and Program Director at The Dragon Institute. He was a 2010 inductee into the US Martial Arts Hall of Fame. 

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