The transcript below is from the video “Remembering Bruce Lee – Dan Inosanto” by Onionsan.

Dan Inosanto (Filipino-American Martial Arts instructor):

“When Bruce Lee started to teach Westerners, a lot of traditional Chinese didn’t appreciate it and I can understand that because they always thought if they taught it within the Chinese community, they can control the morality problem.  But as Sifu Bruce used to always tell me, you say that morality and good consciousness, all that it’s not really dictated by race.  So he says he felt there are good people all over the east, west, white, black, brown – it doesn’t really matter.

So I understand why they did it in the beginning, to control it because it is a dangerous art.  Martial art can be very, very dangerous but as I said before, morality is not dictated by race.  It’s dictated by a person and there are good people and bad people in all races, in all his films.  Now, I’ve sat down before him.  I wish I can remember it now and if I think long enough, I can remember all the details.

Dan Inosanto (Filipino-American Martial Arts instructor):

But right now, at the time, I mean we know that for sure that he wanted to educate them more and each film had a message in it and a message he wanted to get across, like the way he moved was not static.  A person then in those days would try to criticize him.  “Well, his heel is up while he’s moving around like a boxer.”  A lot of martial artists didn’t move, they were very static.  They stood down in what they referred to was a Gong Bu or a forward stance and then make them think.

So when people looked at, it was educating them subtly.  Either consciously or subconsciously, he said, “Oh wait a minute, he doesn’t have his hand and always at the hip.  Sometimes the hand  up.”  So there were many ways that he could educate the public.  People like Art Wong and Bruce Lee, they opened the door for people.  They allowed people to train in an art that was usually reserved for their race only.

Dan Inosanto (Filipino-American Martial Arts instructor):

There was a time even when Japanese preferred to have strictly Japanese students and then when they came over here…  So, it’s kind of a unit where you can bring east and west, and it’s martial art whether it be karate or kung fu.  It has allowed the blacks, the Latins, the Asians and the Western people to come as one unit because they’re trying to perfect them self in a martial art.  In many ways, it’s brought the races together, particularly, in our thing in Jun Fan Gung Fu it has because we have students of all races.

We understand each other.  We understand the culture better, but even we what we refer to as the Eastern Bloc people over.  So, I think yes, definitely it serves as a vehicle to unite people.  When I was training with him in ’64, it was called Jun Fan Gung Fu.  I believe around ’65, he had this thing called…  I think he said, “I’m going to call it the Tao of Chinese Gung Fu,” which means that it embraces many different aspects of training method.

Dan Inosanto (Filipino-American Martial Arts instructor):

What he was trying to tell me and he always used to say this, “I’m not trying to take a little bit from Choi Li Fut and a little bit from praying mantis and a little bit from Wing Chun, and then put a little Western boxing.”  He said, “I’m going to express myself.  So what I want to get from this method is the essence.  What is the essence of Wing Chun?  What is the essence Chennai?  What is the essence of Western boxing?  What is the essence of Choi Li Fut?  I’m not copying the techniques but the essence, why it’s good?”

He always talked about the essence and I feel that’s basically what he was trying to do.  In the Jun Fan Gung Fu, this is how Jeet Kune Do was evolved.  He says, “I want to utilize always, not just stay within the Chinese method; however, I’m Chinese and it has a Chinese name.”  But Jeet Kune Do as a whole was to absorb what literally was useful.  Reject what was used and add specifically what it was your own.

Dan Inosanto (Filipino-American Martial Arts instructor):

He gave me a book.  It was called Sun Tzu:  The Art of War and in them…  I believe it was for my birthday and I opened it up and there was a lot of the things were underlined.  So I thought it was a used book and he said, “No, no, no.”  I said, “These things are…”  I remember  that.  I think that it comes from Mao Zedong but he got it also from Sun Tzu, which is over, but it went flat.  Zorba’s using them, reject was using them and specifically with regional.

Even as the Ying-Yang symbol, using no way as way and having no limitation as limitation.  Using no way as way, means I don’t use a Chinese way or a Japanese way.  I use no way as a way and I’m not going to be limited by limited.  If you train strictly in a Chinese system, you will use strictly Chinese.  Now, that’s a great culture, great race but there are things to be found within the Chinese system and there’s things to be found in the Western system and the African system and Latin systems.

Dan Inosanto (Filipino-American Martial Arts instructor):

They all work.  So he’s not going to be limited.  Jeet Kune Do came about as a sincere effort to abolish system and style and then he was going to make interest on about six months.  He said, “No, I made a mistake.  If I make it into a style, ” he says then, “It’s going to lose the effect.”  So that’s where he came upon Jun Fan Gung Fu as the base system in which we grow.  If you learn Jun Fan Gung Fu personally from Bruce Lee, then he referred to it as the Tao of Chinese Gung Fu.

Jeet Kune Do is man’s liberation from system and style.  He’s truly expressing what works for him because what works for one individual, it may not work for another individual.  That’s the bottom line.  I don’t care if your teacher’s the greatest fighter.  What worked for him may not work for you.  During this time period in the 60’s, when no one made contact and this actually was originally used for football.

Dan Inosanto (Filipino-American Martial Arts instructor):

So, what we did is take the air shields and the foam shields that they use in football because football makes contact and at that time, karate people was mainly point karate.  They didn’t make very much contact and they made me kick the air.  So he liked to kick objects and one of his favorite tools used was the foam shield, which he liked.  He used the air shield.  This was very, very new to the karate world.

Now, in any martial art magazine will sell two or three different types of this but at that time period, no one used it.  I introduced the air shield to him and the foam shield because he was always looking for different training methods.  He wanted to kick in different surfaces.  I said, “Well, we know we use this in football.  We block it.  We sometimes hit it, tackle it.  Let’s try punching and kicking it?”

Dan Inosanto (Filipino-American Martial Arts instructor):

He says, “Nah,”  Well, at first he said he didn’t think he was going to very good but when I came back the next day, he had all these drills that you could join, the air shield and the foam shield.  The reason why, he says, “Sometimes the person kicks, you really can’t tell if there’s substance in it.”  At that time period, everyone kicked at lockout side kick or they did that round kick and the Ji-Pop.  When they did the sidekick and the round kick, people mistook that for power.

He was sort of, “Sometimes when you check,” he says, “You got to see the results and when you kick the air shield and you kick the foam shield, there right away it revaluates your power, your direction of the kick.  So that’s why he liked it so much.  If you look up here, this is the sign or the plaque where we had, this is “THE TRUTH IN COMBAT IS DIFFERENT FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL IN THIS STYLE.  1.  Research your own experience.  2.  Absorb what is useful.  3.  Reject what is useless.  4.  Add what is specifically your own.

Dan Inosanto (Filipino-American Martial Arts instructor):

This here used to hang in the Chinatown school along with other albums.  This one hanged in our backyard.  That would place it at 1970.  This of course is the pictures of Sifu Bruce to people that is referred to as a Sai-fon, and this thing I heard from Sifu Bruce.  This is actually was in the Oakland Branch, Bruce Lee’s Tao of Chinese Gung Fu, using no way as way.  That literally means that he doesn’t use any particular way, whether it’s a Chinese way or a Japanese way or Okinawan way or a Korean way.

He uses no way as his way and having no limitation up there means that he doesn’t limit himself to one particular style or one particular discipline or one particular system, or one particular way of using no limit as his limitation.  This up here is a sign that hung in the, the first time we opened up publicly 1974:  Man.  The living creature.  The creating individual.  Is always more important than any established style or system.”

Dan Inosanto (Filipino-American Martial Arts instructor):

This is the code he gave back in 1968.  This here is another quote.  He says, “My followers in Jeet Kune Do.  Do listen to this…  All fixed set pattern are incapable of adaptability or pliability.  The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.”  He’s talking about drills.  He’s talking about styles.  He’s talking about systems.  It didn’t matter what art you took, as long as you can express yourself.

I’ve always believed that really a person if he’s really good and really talented and he’s very athletic, it doesn’t matter if it’s a Japanese system or a Korean system or an Okinawan system, or a Chinese system – you are truly expressing yourself.  So you don’t really fight like the system that you’ve been brought up.  You are expressing yourself although the system will help in your training.  You’re really expressing yourself.

Dan Inosanto (Filipino-American Martial Arts instructor):

So whether he comes from a Thai system or an Indonesian system, you express the Thai element in it and the training in it but really down deep, you’re expressing yourself.  You being by yourself, you’re truly expressing yourself, not the system.  I think that’s what he was trying to say.  You want to express yourself, not so much if it’s a Japanese system or a Chinese system.  Be yourself.”