Quote:
Originally Posted by tkdtiger
Well I think Bruce Lee believed that one should make the martial art a part of them and not the martial art the man. This means he doesn't mind the traditional ideas that these martial arts bring, but one shouldn't be bound by them. It wasn't just about mixing and matching. It is studying what works and doesn't work for the individual. For example a short person is not going to fight a large person the same way he would a person of equal height.
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Lee often referred to traditional martial arts as a "classical mess."
After a
highly disputed fight with Wong Jack-Man in San Francisco (Lee and his wife said that he won, Wong said that he won, other eyewitnesses said that they don't remember), Lee decided that his Wing Chun wasn't good enough on its own. (It is worth mentioning at this point that Lee's knowledge of Wing Chun was woefully incomplete -- he only learned one-third of the system -- yet chose to blame the style rather than himself.)
Lee developed a high disdain for traditional martial arts after this fight. And his philosophy of "take what works, discard what doesn't" will work for him, but would not work for everyone when looking at future generations of martial artists.
Let's say that a fighter learns a particular style, and finds that he doesn't like joint locks; he'd rather stick to punching/kicking. So he doesn't use them, doesn't train them, and completely abandons them. But what of the fighter's students? They will be denied the knowledge of previous generations, denied the opportunity to learn what does and does not work for them personally.