Jeet Kune Do

Sijo Bruce Lee's Bio
Bruce Lee Timeline
Bruce Lee Filmography
*All Courtesy of the Bruce Lee Foundation

On the morning of November 27, 1940 (In the Chinese year of the Dragon), Lee Jun Fan was born in San Francisco. At the time, his father was performing a popular Chinese opera in New York and had brought his family state side.

Soon after Sijo(Founder) Lee was born the family returned to Hong Kong. Sijo Lee started training in the martial arts mainly to overcome his fear of being humiliated in a street fight. Under the great master Yip Man's Wing Chun teachings, Sijo Lee became a proficient martial artist, not to mention a skilled street fighter. As time went by his enthusiasm towards martial arts was more apparent.

At the age of 19, Sijo Lee was becoming more and more involved in street fighting. In 1959 his parents decide to send him to live with family in the United States. While he was staying in Seattle, Sijo Lee finished high school and went on to college. By day he attended the University of Washington and nights he was working in a restaurant. After a few months of this, he decided that this lifestyle was not for him. He quit his job at the restaurant and began teaching Gung-Fu. At the age of twenty-two, Sijo Lee authored an extremely unique text, which he titled "CHINESE GUNG-FU: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense."

Sijo Lee felt that martial arts were becoming outdated and ineffective. In his words "a classical mess". Drawing upon his Wing Chun background as a base, Sijo Lee began cultivating knowledge from various styles, in particular the western boxing style, and the foot work of European fencing.

The fruit of his labor was originally to be named Scientific Streetfighting. Sijo changed the name and the style went through a couple different versions before becoming what is still known as JEET KUNE DO (The way of the intercepting fist). Sifu Dan Inosanto was the only Instructor under Sijo that he gave ranking in all three versions of the style. One other of his original students was given the rank of instructor in Jeet Kune Do, Sifu James Yimm Lee.

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Sifu James Lee was athletic by nature, a weight lifter for the YMCA team, holding- the lifting record for his weight division. He was also an iron palm practitioner and amateur boxer.

During World War II while working as a welder in Hawaii, Sifu Lee studied judo.
After the war James Lee began his study of Sim Lum Kung Fu. Three and a half years of study he left in disgust . "I wasted three and a half years performing kata. Not once during those years did I see the students spar. We were told that this type of training would eventually lead to deadly internal strength. I realized later that the whole repertoire was just a time killing waste to collect the monthly fee".

In 1962, through his brother, James met his future instructor and friend Bruce Lee. Sijo Bruce Lee first instructed James Lee in Wing Chun where he attained assistant instructor status. To help in his own, Bruce's and the other students training, James Lee constructed unique training devices. His skill in this field was remarkable.

During this time Bruce started training James and select others in Jeet Kune Do, while still developing the system. In time James received Instructor status, and took to training a select handful in his Oakland Basement. James Lee continued to train and teach and later became the head instructor for Sijo's Oakland school until his untimely passing just 6 months before Sijo Lee.