From Al Case at Matrix Martial Arts…

Bruce Lee was a Phenom, wasn’t he?

I have always been a fan of Bruce Lee, guy was incredible. Moral, honest, driven to perfection, a martial artist of the first tier. When I came across this 700 pound bag story, however, I had to laugh.

The original story was in an interview done for a martial arts forum. In it, the interviewer asked a fellow who had trained with Bruce to tell him about the 700 pound bag. The story was embellished, and ended with Bruce hitting the bag and falling down.

Now, there were write ups done in the martial arts magazines way back when, and I remember one done shortly after Bruce died. It concerned his kicking bags.

Bruce liked training with a regular bag, by certain accounts. There are movies of him training with James Coburn in which he kicks a pretty regular looking bag to the ceiling. He did, however, take a running start at it.

This aside, he apparently ordered a 300 pound martial arts kicking bag. As I recall, the writer at that time thought it was a 400 pound bag. At any rate, I don’t think it was completed before Bruce died, and they didn’t know what to do with it afterwards.

The skinny on this is that :Bruce Lee was an innovator, and he went through a variety of martial arts kicking bags, and of martial arts equipment. He had small bags, big bags, in between bags, bouncy bags,stiff bags…heck if he had a grocery sack he would have puffed it up and told somebody to hold it for him.

But a 700 pound martial arts kicking bag? I want you to think about something? What was it stuffed with? 700 pounds is a lot of stuffing. And, how were the seams hold together? 700 pounds is a lot to ask a seam to hold. And, when you get right down to it? How was it supported? What house beam, what tree limb, is going to hold firm for a 700 pound bag. And was it held with chains or ropes? And, BTW, who mounted it? Did Jose and Castor come along with a ladder and tack the sucker up? I mean, it would take an industrial forklift (are there any other kind) to lift the darned thing.

So, guys, I am a fan of The Little Dragon. Big Time. I used to perch in front of the TV to watch each episode of the Green Hornet. I’ve read the Bruce Lee JKD books and inspected martial arts videos teaching the variations of his fighting Kung Fu, but a 700 pound kicking bag?

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