Who is Wong Jak Man? I heard something about him and Bruce getting into a fight, who won and what happened after that?




Swordfish
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During the Oakland period that an incident occurred that changed the way Bruce Lee trained and fought. Bruce Lee would accept anyone who had a serious desire to learn as a student. The members of the Chinese martial arts community in the San Francisco area did not care for this, as they felt that the art of gung fu was only for the Chinese. They issued a challenge to Bruce. If he lost the fight, he lost his right to teach the gwai lo (foreign devils). If he won the fight, he earned the right to teach anyone he wanted to!

The day that the challenger, Wong Jak Man, showed up at Bruce Lee’s school, Bruce, his wife Linda, and James Yimm Lee were present. Although the fight lasted only about three minutes, Bruce felt that it took him way too long to defeat his opponent, and he was unusually winded after the fight was over. This caused him to look into more serious methods of physical training, and also forced him to see some flaws in his method of fighting. Thus the idea of Jeet Kune Do, the Way of The Intercepting Fist, was born!

Bruce Lee researched deeply into several methods of fighting to find the answers to the problems he had faced during the challenge match. In an early letter to one of his students, he describes a system of gung fu that he is planning. It consists of Wing Chun, boxing and fencing. He was talking, of course, about Jeet Kune Do.


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Some alternative versions of the story:
http://www.lakungfu.com/sifujackmanwong.html
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/99vs66/1980.html

I don't really know the truth but I like these quotes:

"[Sifu Wong Jack Man]'s so powerful. Very famous for his kindness to all people."

"Sifu Wong had a multi-racial class that he delighted in. In 14 years of being in his class, I never saw him engage in any sort of behavior other than a willingness to share his art with any honorable, interested student, regardless of race."


Wong Jack Man is alive I believe, if you're serious you can probably track him down in San Francisco. Last I checked this is the contact info:

"Jack Man Wong. Tai Chi and Northern Shaolin for robust health, high spirits, rational thinking and self-defense." Please contact Fort Mason Foundation, Building A, Fort Mason Center, SF, CA. 94123-1382 for more information. Or you may phone Fort Mason Center at 441-3400 for further details."

I don't know the truth either. But I would like to point out a few things about the posts on Wong Jak Man.

A person's current, or even more current attitudes and race don't necessarily reflect their prior attitudes. People change (we still have lots of senators around today that voted against desegragation - I hope they've changed their minds by now). Wong Jak Man was a recent immigrant at the time, and came from a pretty homogenous place. He may have had a different view at the time.

Secondly, his fight against Bruce Lee never stated that he personally was against teaching non-Chinese. Just that the "elders" were, and he was appointed for the fight.

As to how the fight really went? Who knows. I don't even trust people's memories of the event, unless they wrote it down soon after. You have to judge things on people's personal biases of how they viewed things (how many times have you disagreed with a ref's call against your team, compared to how many times you disagreed with a call against the other team). Add in 30 years worth of time to either forget, or indulge.

"his fight against Bruce Lee never stated that he personally was against teaching non-Chinese. Just that the "elders" were, and he was appointed for the fight."

Where did you get this from? Did you read the article?
Bruce Lee and Wong Jak Man fought because Lee had stated he could beat anyone in SF. A MUTUAL FRIEND organised the fight. It's very simple, nothing to do with race.

My teacher is Chinese, he was told by his teachers not to teach anyone other than chinese. He refused. They did nothing. Why? Because it is the right of any martial artist to teach who they like, what the student does with that is not their responsibility, they must choose those who they believe to follow their principles of life that is all they can do. I suspect that was the case with Lee. Hell Who in SF was his teacher, that they could demand such a thing. This whole story stinks of legend making lies. Linda Lee and co have made millions from such myth making and others are still doing so. It is disgusting that martial artists feel the need to disgrace another martial artist in such a manner, without even having been there to verify the truth.

I hope any of you who feel th urge to write books on Lee's life can stick to facts not myths and refrain from destroying annother mans reputation.

Respect your bro

Question everything, Know nothing.