The transcript below is from the video “Why Ip Man stopped teaching Bruce Lee” by My Name is Prince.
My Name is Prince (YouTube channel about martial arts, fitness, and mindfulness practices, lessons and experiences of an American expat living in Thailand and travelling Southeast Asia):
The movies always show a Bruce Lee coming to Ip Man as a kid to learn Wing Chun, but they never show how Ip Man stopped teaching Wing Chun to Bruce Lee, or how Bruce Lee had to stop taking lessons at Ip Man’s school.
So let’s take a dive into how Bruce started studying Wing Chun under Ip Man and what led to him being asked to leave the school.
Prince Bell:
Hey man, you won’t want to miss this one.
What’s up y’all? My name is Prince and I’m on a journey to help people find harmony in their life through martial arts, mindfulness practices and tapping into our own internal power. Hey, when it comes to martial arts and tapping into your own internal power, there aren’t many people more inspirational than a guy like Bruce Lee and that’s why we’re taking a look at the life and times of Bruce Lee in this series to separate the man from the midst.
Prince Bell:
“Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” shows Bruce Lee coming to Ip Man as a kid to start learning kung fu, and it basically makes him out to be this child prodigy and trained one-on-one with Ip Man. Almost like he was training to become some kind of Kung Fu Jedi. The Donnie and Ip Man movie has kind of made fun of this because, well, they show Bruce Lee coming to Ip Man as a little kid too and he’s asking for lessons so that he can beat up people that he doesn’t like. Now, look, this doesn’t actually happen but it’s a bit of a tongue-in-cheek joke about Bruce’s real intentions for learning Wing Chun. But before I get into that reason, hey, I have to put down one more myth that Bruce started learning Wing Chun so that he could deal with constant bullying at the hands of the British expat kids in Hong Kong. That, hey, if you remember from last video, it was more like Bruce and his friends who were doing the bullying.
Prince Bell:
So, why did Bruce Lee start learning Wing Chun kung fu from Ip Man? Bruce Lee said in a 1967 interview with Black Belt magazine that he took up martial arts to become a better street fighter. In Bruce’s own words, he took up martial arts because he felt insecure. Remember in the last video, how I talked about Bruce Lee being what was called a “teddy boy” which was this slang term for bad boys who were growing up in Hong Kong in the early 1950s.
Well, Bruce would end up meeting a bigger “Teddy Boy” who was 2 years older than him, a little bit bigger. He was the son of a policeman and his name was William Chung. Bruce couldn’t beat William Chung, so he had to call him big brother. And Bruce’s gang, they had to become part of William Chung’s gang.
Prince Bell:
Well Bruce was determined to get out from under William Chung’s thumb and he learned that William Chung was learning Wing Chun kung fu from a teacher named Ip Man. Now, just to be clear, this is the same William Chung who is the current grandmaster of William Chung’s Traditional Wing Chun School. William Chung credits himself as being Bruce’s friend, who introduced Bruce Lee to Ip Man and this is true. William Chung took Bruce to meet Ip Man and Ip Man sent Bruce to study with his top fighter Wong Shun Leung who was known as ‘King of Talking Hands’, and this was because of his Wing Chun skill and his reputation in the streets as a very skilled fighter. Bruce immediately made a bad impression on Wong Shun Leung because, well, he showed up looking like a Chinese James Dean or Elvis Presley with the slick back hair and his sunglasses. Bruce was a teenage movie star and well, he wanted everyone to know. Well, Wong Shun Leung gave William Chung an earful. And you know how it goes, the stuff rolls downhill because hey man, Bruce didn’t show up dressed like that for his next lesson.
Prince Bell:
Now, from day one, Bruce displayed his competitive spirit and it wasn’t long before he asked Wong Shun Leung how long it would take for Bruce to not only be better at Wing Chun than William Chung, but Wong Shun Leung too. So, in order to get more personal attention and help him improve even faster, Bruce started to play pranks on his other classmates, kind of like, showing up to Wong’s apartment early and then telling his other classmates that classes were canceled for the day. And as soon as Bruce saw everyone catching the bus, he would double back to get an individual lesson from Wong Shun Leung.
Prince Bell:
Bruce’s competitiveness driven pranks would eventually get him out of favor with Ip Man’s other students who were training with Wong Shun Leung at his apartment. Eventually, they’d all go to Ip Man demanding that he expel Bruce from the school due to him being mixed blood or Eurasian. Some sources say that Bruce was 1/4 German but the most recent biography on Bruce Lee says that Bruce’s great-grandfather was a Dutch Jewish businessman, who went bankrupt in China but he later found business success in America. Bruce’s grandfather like many Eurasian, mixed Chinese, would become extremely successful and he went on to become the wealthiest man in Hong Kong. And it is believed that Bruce’s grandfather had a British concubine who gave birth to Bruce’s mother and she was basically disowned by her family when she chose to marry Bruce Lee’s father, who was a poor illiterate stage actor originally from Foshan, the same city as it meant. So, you can see that there was a lot of mixing going on and there were a lot of hostilities towards Bruce in addition to him being a hotshot show-off.
Prince Bell:
So, when Ip Man was confronted with kicking Bruce Lee out of the Wing Chun school, he decided to keep Bruce out of the main school, which was at his house. Bruce was to continue taking lessons with Wong Shun Leung, and this is how Ip Man basically stopped teaching Wing Chun to Bruce Lee
Now, this whole thing is one of many reasons why we’re still talking about Bruce Lee to this day. Students were so upset that Bruce wasn’t expelled that they started to bully him in class. This made Bruce basically become obsessed with Wing Chun so that he could beat his classmates who were literally trying to hurt him in class.
Bruce’s older brother Peter Lee said that Bruce became fanatical with his practice. And William Chung said that after only one year, a lot of senior students had trouble keeping up with Bruce during Taiji practice and in sparring.
Prince Bell:
Now, the other reason this had a profound impact on Bruce is because, well I think, it made him develop a real appreciation for his teacher Ip Man. Ip man was the one who made Bruce take an interest in philosophy and especially in Daoism. Martial arts basically became a vehicle for self-expression and a personal development method for Bruce Lee and this was all because of Ip Man.
Bruce Lee (Martial Artist, Actor, Director, Martial Arts Instructor & Philosopher):
“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless – like water.”
Prince Bell:
Even Bruce is best known saying “to be like water”. Although those lines were actually written by Stirling Siliphant based on conversations had with Bruce during his jeet kune do lessons, Ip Man actually passed on those ideas to Bruce Lee. So, the things we best remember when we think of Bruce, were lessons that he passed on, it came from Ip Man.
Bruce Lee (Martial Artist, Actor, Director, Martial Arts Instructor & Philosopher):
“Be water my friend.”
Prince Bell:
So, hey y’all that’s where I’m going to stop this video, but there’s a lot more to come in this series on Bruce Lee, the man and the myth. And yes, I know that’s a movie starring Bruce playing actor Ho Chung-tao and he’s the best of the Bruce impersonators. But hey, if you haven’t seen it make sure you check out the previous video on why Bruce Lee joined the game when he was growing up in Hong Kong, because hey, it fills in some of the things that I talk about in this video. But hey y’all, what would you like to see next in this series on Bruce Lee?
Let me know because, hey, it just might show up in a future video but okay y’all, that’s all I got for this one, so y’all keep on breathing and I’ll see you in the next video.
