The transcript below is from the video “A Karate Master Challenged Bruce Lee…And Then THIS Happened” by Goldenbell Training.
Goldenbell Training:
Have y’all heard the story about how Bruce Lee walked into a Karate Dojo and beat up the entire school? I mean, I thought that only happened in a scene from the movie “Fist of Fury,” but there’s someone out there saying that this fight scene didn’t only happen in the movies. So let’s discuss it.
What’s up y’all? My name is Prince, and this is GoldenBell Training where it’s my goal to help you guys become better martial arts athletes. This whole idea of GoldenBell Training and teaching Internal Martial Artists to become better martial arts athletes was inspired by Bruce Lee, and that’s the reason why I’m looking at interesting facts about Bruce Lee, his experiences, his views, how he trained, and even the myths created about him. In this particular video, we’re looking at a Bruce Lee myth that I came across from you guys that are watching this channel.
Goldenbell Training:
Now, YouTube has a feature where it shows me what videos people are watching, and I happened to come across this video from the Beerdy Bruce Lee Central channel called “Bruce Lee Traveled to Karate Dojos in the US Beating Everyone Up (yes, this actually happened)” and by the end of the video my chin was on the ground after listening to the story. Have you seen the video, or have you heard about it?
So Beerdy’s video starts out with this statement about how Bruce Lee travelled around the United States from the mid-1960s up until his passing in 1973 and he was challenging Karate students in their dojos to some friendly sparring. The reason for this, as Beerdy says, is that Bruce Lee’s goal in life was to assimilate as many martial arts as possible into Jeet Kune Do, and so to do this, he felt that he needed to fight against many different styles and people in their dojos.
Goldenbell Training:
Now, according to Beerdy, Bruce wanted to assimilate as many martial arts as possible so that he could become the most complete martial artist in the world. Now, this whole thing where Bruce Lee was travelling to these schools challenging people was not something new. Even though Bruce started his fighting road trips in the US from the mid-1960s up until 1973, he was also doing this way back in the day in Hong Kong and in China. Now, this is how Bruce Lee was taught Northern Praying Mantis by the Shaolin Monks. Now, remember this part about learning Praying Mantis from Shaolin Monks because it comes up later in Beerdy’s story.
So Beerdy sets up his story with a clip of Jim Kelly allegedly confirming that both he and Bruce travelled around the US sparring against Karate senseis and their students in their dojos. Now, these Karate road trips were the reason that Jim Kelly was chosen by Bruce Lee to star in “Enter the Dragon,” because not only was he the Karate Middleweight World Champion, but also because Bruce Lee was so impressed with Jim Kelly’s martial arts skills…you know, from them travelling all over the US playing Double Dragon at these Karate schools.
Goldenbell Training:
Like I said, Beerdy plays this clip of Jim Kelly from some convention where he is talking about seeing Bruce Lee spar against some top Karate guys that he will not name, but Jim Kelly never actually says anything about their cross country tour where they beat up all these Karate students in their schools. So this gets into the story of how Bruce exposed Karate and destroyed some McDojo Karate Sensei. So Beerdy says that throughout the lifetime of his channel, he’s regularly contacted by people with stories about Bruce Lee.
Now I can understand that one as I’ve had a few people reach out to me, and I’ve only been doing this for a little over 6 months at the time I’m recording this video. The most recent person was a Jun Fan Gung Fu student who shared with me how his teacher, the late Taky Kimura, let him see some of Bruce Lee’s original writings that he kept in his collection. So Yo man! Salute to you, Mark, for being a real one! But anyway, Beerdy says he gets mail from all over the country from Senseis confirming that Bruce Lee and Jim Kelly were travelling all over the US challenging Karate dojos to sparring matches.
Goldenbell Training:
And this one particular person who is, as Beerdy describes,”a true Karate icon” who wants to remain anonymous contacted him about this story where Bruce Lee visited his dojo. He says that if he mentioned his name, everyone would know who he is, but this guy wanted to tell the story before it’s too late. Of course, later Beerdy says that the guy didn’t want to tell the story, but for some reason he does anyway and then Beerdy makes the video. Also, the identity of the guy telling the story changes a few times as Beerdy is telling everything that happened in his video.
So Beerdy starts out saying this guy is the Sensei of the Dojo. Bruce Lee drops in for a visit, and there’s no mention of Jim Kelly even though Beerdy spent 5 minutes convincing us that Bruce Lee and Jim Kelly travelled all over the country sparring with these Karate students at their schools, but whatever…I guess that was to squeeze out more watch-time for the video. So like I was saying, Bruce goes to this dojo and asks if he could spar with their strongest student. The Sensei replied “You’re not going to spar against my best student, you’re going to spar against me.”
Goldenbell Training:
Now by this time, word got around what Bruce was doing, he was showing up to dojos asking to spar with the students there. So the Sensei wanted to fight Bruce Lee himself because he felt that Bruce was embarrassing the sport of Karate. So Beerdy says that the fight didn’t last long. Bruce humiliated the Sensei, and the students there, they did not like it.
Now question – if you’re the Sensei retelling this story, do you really say “yeah, I got humiliated by Bruce Lee. He finished me in a couple of seconds.” I mean, it’s possible. Look, one time Chuck Norris told his entire school that he took an L to Bruce Lee, and he said that Bruce Lee’s skills were superior to his own. And that’s a true story, too. I’m working on a video to tell y’all all about how that went down, so stay tuned for that one.
Goldenbell Training:
But here’s why I pointed it out in this story that Beerdy is telling in his video. It’s because the next thing he says is that a student went to help his Sensei up off the floor, and it was the student helping the Sensei up who told the story. So I mean, I’m just saying, like, which one is it? Who told the story, was it the student, or was it the sensei? But anyway, well, as the student is helping the sensei up off the floor, 8 other students decide that they don’t like what just happened, so they are going to defend the honor of their teacher by jumping Bruce Lee.
One guy attempted to tackle Bruce Lee to the floor, but Bruce jumped over the guy. He then saw the other 7 students attacking from the side. And then Beerdy says, “What happened next is really interesting.” The person telling the story said that Bruce Lee went into a stance. Beerdy says that “Bruce Lee didn’t use stances. He would only use a stance if it was a serious fight.” I mean, at this point, I’m looking at my screen like “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Bruce Lee didn’t use stances? So, I mean, like, what do you call Orthodox? Southpaw Boxing stance? The Basic Jeet Kune Do stance? Nope, apparently, Bruce Lee only used a stance if it was a serious fight, and guess what stance Bruce used when the stuff hit the fan?
Goldenbell Training:
Now, remember how Bruce Lee trained with Shaolin Monks in China who taught him Northern Praying Mantis? Yeah, when Bruce got serious, he pulled out the Northern Praying Mantis on his opponents. Now the guy telling the story didn’t know what Northern Praying Mantis was, but Beerdy, being the Bruce Lee expert that he is, is 100% sure that Bruce used Northern Mantis because he was facing multiple opponents. So of course, that’s what you use.
Beerdy also guessed that Bruce used Northern Mantis because the person telling the story said that within a matter of seconds, all 8 guys were on the floor grasping their necks as if they could not breathe. And Bruce was standing there holding up 2 fingers. Now Beerdy, being the expert on all things Bruce Lee says “they weren’t actually gasping for air, in actual fact, they got hit in a pressure point in the throat. It was a pressure point that incapacitated them. It’s a well known point, if you’re a Kung Fu specialist like Bruce Lee.”
Goldenbell Training:
So I guess Bruce Lee walked into this school and knocked out 8 Karate students using some special technique that he learned from the Shaolin Monks in China, or from his good friend, George Dillman. Beerdy went on to describe the encounter using a Dragonball reference. He said it probably looked like Goku fighting Trunks with 1 finger at the start of the Android saga. I mean, bro, I’m friends with Geekdom101, who is probably the top person on YouTube covering Dragonball. My guy got a personal message from Akira Toriyama about the next Dragonball movie. I mean, if he heard that Bruce Lee is fighting like Goku in Dragonball Z nonsense, I already know what his response would be….”C’mon Bro!” Like the only thing I could think as I’m listening to this story is…you’re clearly lying. This Jim Kelly and Bruce Lee buddy trip thing to challenge Karate students all over the country? That would make a good movie, but bro, I don’t think Bruce Lee even met Jim Kelly before he showed up in Hong Kong to shoot “Enter the Dragon.”
Goldenbell Training:
Jim Kelly wasn’t even the first choice for the role as Williams. Rockne Tarkington dropped out of the role, and Jerry Weintraub found Jim Kelly running a dojo in Compton and he had already done a film. Bruce may have played a part in Jim getting the part, but I don’t think they were exactly homeboys prior to them meeting on set. Jim Kelly said that Bruce saw him fight once in a tournament and he was fighting under Mike Stone, who was one of the 3 Karate champions that really did train with Bruce.
Now, I don’t doubt that Jim Kelly has some stories about Bruce that he didn’t want to tell publicly. I mean, I’m just saying, they had to hire real prostitutes for Enter the Dragon as no Hong Kong actresses were going to be cast in that role. I’ll let y’all figure out where I’m going with this. Also, I bet Jim Kelly did see Bruce sparring with some of his students, and maybe some other stunt men on the set of Enter the Dragon.
Goldenbell Training:
I have 1 question for Beerdy, though – Hey bro, how come the same interview that you used to support this fake story you’re telling, is the same interview where Jim Kelly said that he never met Bruce Lee before Enter the Dragon?
This entire story about Bruce Lee travelling across the country to challenge people – there is some truth to that, but it’s not because “Bruce wanted to assimilate all martial arts to become the most complete martial artist of all time” or whatever it is the claim that you are trying to make. You’re just adding to these myths around Bruce Lee that just aren’t true.
Goldenbell Training:
I mentioned your video in my video about why Bruce did not like Tai Chi when he was younger, and I said Bruce actually did go to other schools and issue these challenges. But you’ve twisted that story that either you heard wrong, or you just ran with it and spun it into something it was not. Now, I mentioned in the Bruce Lee and Tai Chi video something about how these open invitations which some people saw as challenges is what led to the Wong Jack Man fight. Bruce would basically say “I’ve got an open door policy for anyone who wants to come see me.” So, did he mean, “Yeah, dawg, you can come see these hands,” or is it “I’ve got an open door policy to drop in for a lesson at my school.”
Bruce did travel across the country possibly doing this, but he wasn’t going into Karate dojos asking to fight the best students. Bruce was being invited to present at these seminars and at these Karate tournaments across the country. The thing is, he wasn’t being paid for hitting these tournament and seminar circuits. So, I’m just saying, if Bruce is supposed to be travelling the country fighting these Karate students, how is he getting paid? He’s got a wife and a kid at home.
Goldenbell Training:
That’s why this story doesn’t make sense. I mean, besides the part about how Bruce was going around Hong Kong and China challenging martial arts schools and learning Praying Mantis from a Shaolin Monk. Bruce never challenged martial arts schools in Hong Kong. He had maybe 1 rooftop fight against a Mantis student that lasted 2 rounds, 4 minutes at the most. Bruce probably never set foot on Mainland China, and I doubt there were any Shaolin Monks just out there teaching Praying Mantis just before the start of the Cultural Revolution. Also, Bruce didn’t speak Mandarin, he spoke Cantonese.
I said in the last Bruce Lee video that Bruce probably did learn Praying Mantis from his uncle, Fook Yeung, in Seattle. There’s also been a long-standing story that Bruce trained some Jook Lum Southern Mantis from Gin Foon Mark. Bruce had an amazing ability to quickly learn forms and demonstrate them, but just because Bruce could mimic a movement doesn’t mean he knew that style. And this is something that is lost to people who don’t really know about Chinese martial arts, especially the internal styles. Just because I can do the forms, it doesn’t mean I have the body mechanics to use that in a fight.
Goldenbell Training:
This other thing that Beerdy says as he’s telling the story, “The whole point of Jeet Kune Do is that you have to adapt to the situation.” Well, again, this is something else I said in the video on Tai Chi and Bruce Lee. I said that a lot of Jeet Kune Do principles actually come from internal styles and can be found in the Taiji Principles. The whole point of JKD being that you have to adapt to the situation that’s not a JKD thing. That’s the whole point of all of the internal styles that are heavily rooted in Taoism. It’s the flow state. That’s basically the purpose of Taoism – to go with the flow, be in the moment and your response is determined by the situation. It’s why Taijiquan has that name “Taiji” in it, instead of “13 methods” or “8 directions and 5 steps” Boxing.
Also, Beerdy ends his story with this line about how this story describes Bruce Lee at the core – “it’s fighting without fighting. He took out 8 guys and he didn’t even have to fight. He used these pressure points to incapacitate them, and he peacefully walked out of the door.” But, I mean, bro? That’s a fight.
Goldenbell Training:
In Enter the Dragon, when that guy asks to see “The Art of Fighting Without Fighting,” Bruce tricks that guy into getting on the boat by himself. He doesn’t hit him in a pressure point. There is no fighting at all. I mean, you said that when things get serious, Bruce pulls out the Praying Mantis, but then you end the video saying “See, this is who Bruce is, he didn’t want to hurt anyone, he just hit 8 guys in their necks, left them gasping for breath, and peacefully walks out the door.”
Like your story has so many holes in it that I’m actually impressed that you can call yourself “the biggest Bruce Lee channel on the planet” when you’re clearly making this stuff up. I mean, what happened in the video where you said you trained like Bruce Lee for 1-year and you almost died, but there’s no pictures of your results. There’s no videos of you training? How can we know what kind of experience you had when you’re just going on about how you think it proves your hypothesis that Bruce Lee died from overtraining? I should also add that, from what I heard from that video, you didn’t train like Bruce Lee at all, and for a year, maybe you trained like somebody. Maybe you did actually train but it wasn’t following anything from Bruce’s notes that you could have found in “The Art of Expressing the Human Body,” which are now on the internet. The Bioneer actually has videos on how to train like Bruce Lee. And bro, he is in his videos.
Goldenbell Training:
So look y’all, I’m really not trying to hate on Beerdy Bruce Lee Central. I’m not trying to have anyone cancelled like this one person is trying to tell his audience. I had this idea for a thing I wanted to do – what if Internal Martial Arts people trained like Bruce Lee? And somebody told me, “Well, yo man, if you are going to do that, you should also try to teach people about who Bruce Lee really was.” So, I mean, I just want to put out good information on Bruce Lee, and I want to point out the bad information being spread out there. I want to do it even when it’s difficult – like the video I had to take a break from working on to do this one. And, yes, I’m still working on the video about Bruce Lee’s drug letters. I’m hoping to get it out early next week or this weekend, we’ll see. But I literally stopped working on that video to get this one out.
Also, if you want to hear some stories about Bruce Lee actually challenging people that isn’t completely made up, check out this video on Bruce Lee’s experience learning Tai Chi, and why he was not a big fan of Tai Chi when he was younger. You can find out what happened when Bruce Lee challenged a Taiji master in San Francisco. Make sure to check back for the video on Bruce Lee’s drug letters, too. But hey y’all, keep on training, remember to breathe, and I’ll see you on the next video!
