# Frank Shamrock coments on Bruce Lee



## Jai (May 31, 2008)

I just started watching the EliteXC fights on tonight. In the opening 5 minutes Frank Shamrock made this statement.

"Bruce Lee saw, back in 1975, over 30 years ago, the coming of Mixed Martial Arts. Bruce Lee is the godfather of MMA."

Your thoughts on this? Looking back and having read Bruce Lee's Tao of JKD I would actually have to agree with Frank on this one.


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## Nolerama (May 31, 2008)

If you sit and think about it, then yeah, there's some truth in what Frank Shamrock is saying. JKD mixed a variety of MAs. So does MMA.

But then again, there's TV truth.

I'm watching the same thing. Frank Shamrock looks like an overtanned mannequin. His explanations of MMA terminology is kind of ironic, especially when talking about knees to the head. He got disqualified against Renzo Gracie for that same thing. They even showed that fight in particular.

"Fighting and making money and bringing home the bacon. Now THAT's sexy!"
-Frank Shamrock


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## Jai (May 31, 2008)

Yeah that was um lame?

"Now I'll explain the do's and dont's"

Yeah he's a good one to explain how to get tossed in a fight.


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## Jai (May 31, 2008)

And the more Frank talks, the more I wish he'd get back into MMA so someone would break his jaw and shut him up.


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## MA-Caver (May 31, 2008)

Jai said:


> And the more Frank talks, the more I wish he'd get back into MMA so someone would break his jaw and shut him up.


Mebbe Ole Frank is channeling Dux??


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## Jai (May 31, 2008)

It's getting worse as the night goes on. The fights haven't even been that good. Barely watchable so far.


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## FearlessFreep (May 31, 2008)

Who the heck said: "'Capitulate' is not in [his] vocabulary"  ?


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## Blindside (May 31, 2008)

Jai said:


> "Bruce Lee saw, back in 1975, over 30 years ago, the coming of Mixed Martial Arts. Bruce Lee is the godfather of MMA."
> 
> Your thoughts on this? Looking back and having read Bruce Lee's Tao of JKD I would actually have to agree with Frank on this one.


 
Historically many many lineage founders mixed arts, Bruce Lee just got famous because of movies, he wasn't a pioneer at it.  

I'd say he is more of a pioneer for MMA because he showed up in a speedo and those leather JKD gloves about 20 years ahead of everyone else.

Lamont


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## Makalakumu (May 31, 2008)

IMO, Bruce Lee intended JKD to become MMA.  There are all sorts of "organizations" that "codify" JKD based on what Bruce was doing 35 years ago.  He never would have wanted that.  A cursory look at the Tao of JKD makes this obvious.

IMHO, MMA is JKD. It's martial arts applied to a certain rule set.  One finds what works best for them and then goes for it.

That is the essence of what Bruce Lee intended...


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## Andy Moynihan (Jun 1, 2008)

Jai said:


> I just started watching the EliteXC fights on tonight. In the opening 5 minutes Frank Shamrock made this statement.
> 
> "Bruce Lee saw, back in 1975, over 30 years ago, the coming of Mixed Martial Arts. Bruce Lee is the godfather of MMA."


 

Wow, looks like ol' Bruce was holding out on some of the abilities he'd developed, bein' as he "saw, back in 1975" what would happen when he died in '73.......:erg:


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## Jai (Jun 1, 2008)

Andy Moynihan said:


> Wow, looks like ol' Bruce was holding out on some of the abilities he'd developed, bein' as he "saw, back in 1975" what would happen when he died in '73.......:erg:



omg Andy I didn't even notice that. Good observation.


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## allenjp (Jun 6, 2008)

The thing about JKD is that while it was never intended to conform to any set "style" there were certainly unique concepts behind it. One of them is implied in its name: Jeet Kune Do means "the way of the intercepting fist". This is based on the theory that it is best to intercept an opponents attack with your own attack on their "weapon" (wether that be their arm, leg, or whatever). He was said to have learned this concept from european fencing. Also, a lot of the stand up punching techniques are pretty obviously derived from wing chun, where as you rarely see those kind of techniques being used by mma fighters in the ring. I also haven't seen any JKD practitioners training real ground techniques too heavily, they do train grappling, but not a lot of *ground* fighting. That is half of the game in mma.


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## sgtmac_46 (Jul 22, 2008)

Several guys caught the MMA trend ahead of their time.....Bruce Lee, Gene Labell.....Jim Arvanitis.........oh, and the ancient Greeks.


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## sgtmac_46 (Jul 22, 2008)

allenjp said:


> The thing about JKD is that while it was never intended to conform to any set "style" there were certainly unique concepts behind it. One of them is implied in its name: Jeet Kune Do means "the way of the intercepting fist". This is based on the theory that it is best to intercept an opponents attack with your own attack on their "weapon" (wether that be their arm, leg, or whatever). He was said to have learned this concept from european fencing. Also, a lot of the stand up punching techniques are pretty obviously derived from wing chun, where as you rarely see those kind of techniques being used by mma fighters in the ring. I also haven't seen any JKD practitioners training real ground techniques too heavily, they do train grappling, but not a lot of *ground* fighting. That is half of the game in mma.


 At the time of his death, Bruce Lee was incorporating more and more grappling in to his game, ala the influence of Gene Labell and others.......had he not died I have little doubt he'd have hooked up with the Gracies in the mid to late 70's........but that didn't happen.


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## thetruth (Jul 22, 2008)

I'm not sure Bruce Lee intended JKD to become MMA.  Granted JKD is a blend of arts as is MMA but MMA is a sport and I doubt Bruce ever intended JKD to become a sport.   MMA is as real as it gets in a sporting arena but is a world apart from street defense.  Just my 2 cents.   

Cheers
Sam:asian:


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## tshadowchaser (Jul 22, 2008)

Bruce was trying to develop a fighting art that had no boundaries in what was studied under it. The IF it works use it concept was what he wanted people to recognize and use.


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## sgtmac_46 (Jul 23, 2008)

thetruth said:


> I'm not sure Bruce Lee intended JKD to become MMA.  Granted JKD is a blend of arts as is MMA but MMA is a sport and I doubt Bruce ever intended JKD to become a sport.   MMA is as real as it gets in a sporting arena but is a world apart from street defense.  Just my 2 cents.
> 
> Cheers
> Sam:asian:


 The original intent for the UFC was the same as Bruce Lee's.......if we remember WAAAYYYYY back in the pre-historic era of the sport that many current fans probably aren't even aware of! 

Well, that and to showcase Grace Jui-Jitsu......but same concept.  But it's clear that Bruce Lee was a couple of decades or so ahead of his time.  One can look at the Dog Brothers to see some other trends in that direction that have a DIRECT linkage to Bruce Lee, via the Inosanto academy and it's students who went on to form the Dog Brothers.


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## thetruth (Jul 23, 2008)

sgtmac_46 said:


> The original intent for the UFC was the same as Bruce Lee's.......if we remember WAAAYYYYY back in the pre-historic era of the sport that many current fans probably aren't even aware of!
> 
> Well, that and to showcase Grace Jui-Jitsu......but same concept.  But it's clear that Bruce Lee was a couple of decades or so ahead of his time.  One can look at the Dog Brothers to see some other trends in that direction that have a DIRECT linkage to Bruce Lee, via the Inosanto academy and it's students who went on to form the Dog Brothers.



No the original intent was to have one art fighting another and for the Gracie's to educate the world on the need for ground skills (as you mentioned).  The fighters realised that they had to develop skills in all ranges of fighting if they were to be successful and hence mma has developed to where it is today.  Bruce Lee's concept of JKD may have been similar to where mma is today but mma developed out of necessity not out of foresight as JKD did and as I said mma is a sport, JKD isn't and was never intended to be this


Cheers
Sam:asian:


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## Laoshi77 (Jan 27, 2010)

Regardless of whether you like Frank he's correct. Many other MMA fighters cite Lee as a pioneer: Ortiz, Couture, A.Silva, Florian, Jon 'Bones' Jones, Ben Saunders the list is endless.

Larry Hartsell once remarked that Lee had intended to create a form of fighting competition and market it as something similar to what the UFC is doing now.

The time Hartsell made these remarks I believe was late-eighties before the popularity of MMA even became remotely prominent so it's not like there is any claim of 'jumping on the bandwagon'.

Maybe Gracie read the same article?


Namaste.


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## punisher73 (Jan 27, 2010)

Laoshi77 said:


> Regardless of whether you like Frank he's correct. Many other MMA fighters cite Lee as a pioneer: Ortiz, Couture, A.Silva, Florian, Jon 'Bones' Jones, Ben Saunders the list is endless.
> 
> Larry Hartsell once remarked that Lee had intended to create a form of fighting competition and market it as something similar to what the UFC is doing now.
> 
> ...


 
Gracies had been doing Vale Tudo long before the UFC.  That was where Rorion got the idea.  Yes, the early UFC's were also handpicked to highlight Gracie JJ.

As far as BL doing anything new, he was just the biggest and most famous mouthpiece.  BL spent alot of time with Ed Parker (who was also a Judo BB and familiar with Danzan Ryu JJ and in the beginning had more ground techniques in his style)  and exchanged ideas with him and introduced him to alot of other people.  Parker spent a short time with Emperado in Hawaii where they had already created Kajukenbo which was a mixture of different styles and recognized the need to have all ranges of fighting from stand up to groundfighting.  It seems highly unlikely that BL came up with his idea in a vacuum when he spent so much time with people already doing it.

Most of BL's Tao of JKD was notes taken from other sources and never cited (it was published as a money maker after his death from his private notes, he probably didn't mean for it to be published).  BL was great at taking what other people did and making it own, but I don't really see him as the "founder" or source for MMA or "alive training" as some groups like to throw out there.

I always wondered where he would have ended up had he gotten older and more mature.


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## K831 (Jan 27, 2010)

*Kajukenbo* is a hybrid martial art that combines western boxing, judo, jujutsu, kenpo karate, Tang Soo Do and kung fu; _"ka"_ ("karate"), _"ju"_ ("judo"/"jujutsu"), _"ken"_ ("kenpo"), _"bo"_ (Boxing and/or Chinese Boxing Kung Fu) it was* founded in 1947.*

*Zen Do Kai* is a freestyle martial art system which was developed in Australia by Bob Jones. I*n 1970 Jones opened his first Zen Do Kai martial arts club *at 48 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne Zen Do Kai takes elements from Boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Eskrima, Judo, Karate and Muay Thai

*Bartitsu* is an eclectic martial art and self-defense method* originally developed in England during the years 18981902*. In 1898, Edward William Barton-Wright, a British engineer who had spent the previous three years living in the Empire of Japan, returned to England and announced the formation of a "New Art of Self Defense"

  Bartitsu was largely drawn from the Shinden Fudo school of _kory&#363;_ ("classical") jujutsu and from Kodokan judo, as well as British boxing, Swiss schwingen, French savate and a defensive la canne (stick fighting) style that had been developed by Pierre Vigny of Switzerland. Bartitsu also included a comprehensive physical culture training system.

To name a few.


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## khand50 (Jan 27, 2010)

i find it interesting that people still think lee was putting together the best of the arts to create a superior art....actually, he was dissecting the arts and creating a superior fighter.   he spoke of studying the other arts,  not so much to learn the art but to learn the delivery system and find out how to defend against the other arts.  he was all about cutting away from the stone and not adding to it.  yes, you have to have a base,  which he did.  but he constantly researched ways to read his opponents and to minimize his being able to be read.  getting rid of wasted motion.  all of that has less to do with any one style and more to do with individual self realization and the understanding of movement. 
personally,  from all that i have read and studied of lee over the past 38 years,  i dont think he would have been as impressed with mixed martial arts or be happy with being called the father of it or the one who inspired it.  truthfully,  i think dan inosanto had more to do with the whole mixed martial arts  scene than lee.  lee wasnt about putting them all together.  he was about taking them all apart, for those who understand.  
i was mixing martial arts in 1969 when i started,  two years before i ever read about lee's ideas.  it seemed natural to me.  if karate was good and judo was good but had different techniques,  why not combine them?  hey, i was ten years old....i didnt have any rules to follow.  just common sense.   so that is what i started out doing.  but as i started to read about lee's approach to jkd i started to realize that missed the mark.  there is a way beyond styles and techniques and adding this art to that art.  it is about finding a proper base and working from there.  it is about using attributes such as timing, speed, distance, spatial relationships, and cutting back the amount of technques and working out of a proper position using simple principles such as the center line theory,  to find the quickest way to defeat the opponent without much wasted motion or energy.  
im not knocking mma or ufc or any of those things.  its fine for people who enjoy them.  and everyone has their own ideas and theories.  ive just shared one of mine in this discussion.  dan inosanto is the man who spent all these years studying other arts and putting them together,  finding the thread that binds them all.  he is awesome at doing that.  but it is a totally different direction than lee took...


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## khand50 (Jan 27, 2010)

i just saw the post before mine...if you study the history of the arts, you will find  that every single art created is a hybrid.   every art was created from other ideas or arts.  there is no such thing, really, as a pure art that was created out of thin air...


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## dungeonworks (Feb 14, 2010)

Laoshi77 said:


> Regardless of whether you like Frank he's correct. Many other MMA fighters cite Lee as a pioneer: Ortiz, Couture, A.Silva, Florian, Jon 'Bones' Jones, Ben Saunders the list is endless.
> 
> Larry Hartsell once remarked that Lee had intended to create a form of fighting competition and market it as something similar to what the UFC is doing now.
> 
> ...




Florian used to train with Mark Delagrotte who is a JKD instructor under Inosanto I believe, Ben Saunders came from JKD early in his MMA career, Couture was with Straight Blast Gym before Team Quest was founded as was Nate Quarry and Forrest Griffin, and Tim Boetsch is or was  JKD guy too.  The link between JKD and MMA is there as I have seen many different JKD tee shirts on figthers at local shows as well.

Honestly, I believe Lee would have had strong opinions on MMA had he been alive.  Just my two.


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