November 25, 2008
Bruce Lee Plays Ping Pong with Nunchucks
Andrew sent this, unable to post, from the airport. Holy. Fuck.
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26 Responses to “Bruce Lee Plays Ping Pong with Nunchucks”
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Andrew sent this, unable to post, from the airport. Holy. Fuck.
26 Responses to “Bruce Lee Plays Ping Pong with Nunchucks”
Leave a Reply
This is great Andrew; and thanks for the assist, Deron. Lee was the only person like him that I have ever seen. Back when I was involved in martial arts I knew people who were world champions who went to work out with him and came away after a few minutes wide -eyed and shaking. They said he was like a person who could slow time down for everybody but him. This clip demonstrates very clearly why they would think that.
I love this, too, Andrew. I love Bruce Lee. Even clad in that ridiculous Game of Death jumpsuit.
Thanks, guys.
I admit to having a thing for Bruce Lee.
Well, before he died.
I can play ping pong with my Wii Remote Nunchuck…
Am I the only one who thinks this clip might be a well-done fake?
Very well done if it is. And then there’s the matter of his having demonstrated similar things in other films that are known to not be fake. I once saw some out -takes from Enter the Dragon that were cut because his actions were too fast for the 24 frames per second cameras. One of the shots of a head kick was shown frame by frame, and the whole action was completed in three frames. He also used to do a trick in which he placed a penny in a person’s palm and told the person to close his hand to keep him from snatching it from several feet away. When the hand closed, the holder always thought he had kept Lee from taking the coin because he could feel it in his closed hand. But then the person’t hand would open–and show that the penny had been replaced with a dime.
Oh, Daryl, I love it that you mentioned the business about Lee’s moves being too fast for 24-FPS capture. I have always loved that.
He sure was the real deal, yes?
Sheila: yes he was. He was one of those rare people who could live up to the legends. 5′ 7″ and 140 lbs and he could hit you yesterday. When I think of Bob Beamon, the long jumper who hit 29 feet in Mexico City, I think–that was what Lee was like, consistently, to everybody else who hoped to do what he could do.
Weird aside: Just imagine if Lee had been at Roman Polanski’s house That NIght, as he might possibly have been, given various personal connections?
I know. I know. Sometimes I imagine curious things. But they’re not altogether without foundation. Just imagine.
Helter skelter, indeed.
I met Bruce Lee as a kid, summer of ‘67, out in LA; my father often traveled for work. We were outside the office where my father had met a colleague when he suddenly pointed behind me and said, “Look, *Doc*, Kato!”
Walking up the street was a slender Chinese man, not all that tall. He might have been Kato, but mostly Kato wore that mask, right? But he stopped and said hello to my father and his colleague.
Anyhow, supercilious snot that I was, I asked him if what he did on TV was a fake. He just smiled and the next thing I knew the tennis ball (white – the only color made back then) I had been bouncing against the sidewalk was being batted this way and that by Lee’s hands, fists, knees, feet and head, almost too fast to see. To this day I’ve never met anyone with faster hands (and I studied in the Norris system in San Diego later on, even meeting and taking a lesson from Norris before he got too Hollywood.) As a finale, Lee let the ball drop into his right hand, and he sort of bowed, with the ball outstretched toward me. As I reached out to take it back, Lee suddenly popped in into the air and struck it with his fist. The damn thing popped. I mean, I walked over and picked it up and it was ruptured in a straight line. I believe everything ever written about him.
…when I was studying in the Norris system, the one time Norris came to our dojo, he got to talking about different martial artists (this was in the hey day of ‘kung fu’) and I told him my little story and he responded that Lee had taught him, Lewis and someone else (may have been Superfoot; maybe not) for a while, right before they started on a tear of championships. He was pretty plain that what Lee taught them pushed them to that ‘next level’.
Doc, that is a great recollection. Absolutely great. Thank you.
Sheila: I think that kind of thing too! Maybe it’s part of my interest in alternate-history fiction. But I think ole Bruce would have done some really wild shit right there. What a movie that would make: Bruce wakes up on an alien spacecraft, and is used as a sort of gladiator–for the amusement of his captors–by being inserted into historical situations. When things don’t go well he is put back together like new, and–back to work!
Doc: What a great story about the tennis ball! Thank you. I never got to meet Lee, but many of the people I knew as I was coming up in the martial arts knew him, and a few had worked out with him. One such person was Skipper Mullins–three time world light weight champion (perhaps you knew him too). Skipper had long legs and was fast with them. You know how at tournaments they used to get a couple of people to do a points demonstration, to show mere spectators how points would be scored in the finals? Skipper would get up there and do a front leg spin kick that you couldn’t see. There would be a guy standing there as the dummy, and all you could see would be his his hair fly back from the air produced by the kick. Anyway, he worked out once with Lee, and, like Lewis, whom you mention, he came away saying that Lee could hit him any time and in any way he wanted to, and there was nothing he could do about it. He also said that Lee could punch with more force than a much larger person could generate in a step-across side kick. The only other person I knew who approached his ability in some ways (though not with the same level of power) was a man named Raymond McCallaugh. He was wounderfully inventive in the way he fought, and could get away with it because he was so fast. I saw him once at a Nationals tournament, when a person he was lined up to fight walked over and tried to intimidate him prior to the match. The gist of his comment was that he had seen Raymond’s “flippy-dippy” kicks and hoped Raymond would try that with him, since he would break the leg off and shove it up his ass. Raymond just smiled, which was not something anybody wanted to see. Raymond was highly adept with his hands and feet, but when the match started, it was clear that he had decided to do nothing but use his front leg spin kick. He played with the guy for a bit, hitting him in the face three or four times before dropping his leg. Then he just started hitting the man time after time with the same strike, increasing the power each time. With a few seconds left in the match (these were matches that had no automatic stop for a high point spread reached, so the score was about 30 to nothing), he knocked him out with–you guessed it–that “flippy-dippy” front leg kick.
Lee, of course, could kick high faster than anybody, but he always said that there was no point in risking such strikes since you could do all the damage you needed to without ever kicking above gut level. Break a person’s leg and then a stomp will do the same thing.
Daryl, I’ve always enjoyed reading about that very pragmatic approach of Lee’s with respect to fights. The old poke in the eye, the stomp — the point presumably being to disable the person swiftly and surely.
I used to watch Daryl back in the days when he taught Tae Kwon Do. I objected to the whole thing at the time–or, more precisely, I appeared to object to it: the violence, the testosterone fueled men all wanting to best each other. But something in it fascinated me, and I’d peer up from whatever literary journal I was reading to watch Daryl sail through the air and, on more than a few occasions, knock the shit out of people who didn’t play fair. He was so fast and so limber that people would come into the dojo just to watch him. They called him Rubber Band Man. Over time, I came to appreciate the sheer beauty of it all, the discipline, the duende of the best fighters. I now love the martial arts (although I think I’ve come around to loving boxing even more).
I’m pretty sure that Daryl could still kick the shit out of anybody, although it would probably take a lot out of him.
Daryl –
i never rose above red with stripe in the Norris system. later i moved back to the bay area and moved into jiu jitsu & wushu, notably 3 emperor chuan, where i achieved black in the 2nd. it seemed to fit my body, you know?
but that was much later; i discovered early on that the best players (and, anecdotally, i found this true of golf, also) tend to be somewhat long and lanky, Lee being the notable exception.
hell, Lee was the notable exception to the universe.
besides, i kept breaking toes, which if you reall, smarts.
now, in my dotage, work do tai chi forms morning and night just to keep the stenosis at bay.
aging sucks
Doc– Man, aging indeed sucks. I’m glad to hear you are doing the tai chi. I can’t do much of anything anymore; I have bad disks in my back and every time I try to get going with some training, there it goes, and I’m walking around with a stick for several weeks. I would love to be able to do some Aikido, which really suits me more than the hard styles I used to do. Say–do you still have dreams in which you are at peak performance again? That’s a good and bad experience, all at once.
The Norris style was Tang Su Do, wasn’t it? I met him a couple of times at tournaments (after he had retired from competition). Sad to say he was aloof in a lofty kind of way–a kind of “hey, how’s it going” to people delivered without looking at them.
Did you ever work with Danny Inasantos out in California? Great man with the stick fighting he learned from Lee.
Cindy, it is no accident, I think, we refer to physical mastery as a kind of genius.
Sheila -
my apologies – i fogot to thank you for the kind words.
Daryl –
sorry about the disks; herniated l4/l5-l5/s1 myself few years ago and it took me 6 mos of rehab to get back in “shape”. i still don’t lift anything but my kids.
as for the dreams, you know it. i dream about being still able to run a 57 sec quarter mile; about running a 4:10 mile; about playing sets and sets and sets and sets of tennis in tennis in 90 degree heat/90 % humidity; about being able to close the gap on the receiver and either intercepting or teaching him how to call his momma; about being able to halo drop and then hump all day all night all the next day w/o a break and still deliver at the end; about a whole bunch of slow twitch muscles that allowed me lock a joint and pitch you headlong before you relized I had avoided your thrust…hell, i still dream of flying!
; ‘ )
aging does suck; perhaps more so for those of us who were ‘natural’ atheletes than ‘normal’ people. and i trust here you realize i’m not disparaging anyone – it is what it is…
i would have to dig out the belt certis, but, yeah, Norris called his style Tang Su Do for a while, then something else. last i heard he was calling it wang chuck or some such nonsense; it was a mishmash of 3 or 4 things really. and you’re right – the one time i talked with him he was aloof enough to almost be dismissive, not ‘humble’ in any sense of the word….
no, can’t say i got to work with Inasantos, but knew of him – who didn’t? he was out by Venice Beach and while that’s not that far away from SD, I didn’t much care for LA and avoided it.. tell you what, though, i do wish i had learned kempo from someone, i’d feel better about the rudimentary stick skills i do have and my cherry walking stick…
; ‘ )
Doc. Daryl: Have either of you had any contact with the Martial Arts History Museum (the outfit that recently moved from Santa Clarita to LA)? Just wondering. If so (or even if not), probably more appropriate for email conversation, but I’d be interested to know.
Lee was an absolute genius of the physical, no doubt. But I stil don’t believe the video. It is an advertisement, for starters. An advertisement. Lee’s display with the nunchucks is incredible enough on its own. I simply don’t believe the nunchuck could be used to direct accurately, again and again, a ping pong ball. In addition, there is something so contrived about the match: two sweating non-entities helpless before the god-like Lee — at one point he seems to rear as he holds his hands above his head directing the ball with insane accuracy downward at the table. And it is wise to remember a nunchuck can break bones! I’m sure it could easily break a ping pong ball.
Jon– The matter of accuracy is worthy of reflection, but if I were to doubt this clip it would be on other grounds, namely: why are we just now seeing this footage when several biographers have apparently not seen it? It may well turn out to be contrived, but it’s great fun to see it anyway and I think he surely could have done–and did do–many things that would have astonished all in equal measure.
Sheila: I haven’t seen that museum, but if we are ever out that way I will surely take it in. Thanks!
Sheila –
no, i had not heard of it, as I certainly wouldn’t be a member.
; ‘ )
if i ever get out tro the left coast again, i’ll drop in.
Jon –
i tend to buy the clip; he was being fed, at times, “softballs” by his opponents, allowing him to slow down, speed up as necessary, yes – but i don’t see the hallmarks of film/video manipulation in this. if it’s a fake, it’s a george lucas-class fake. and to what avail?
I love watching all those old Bruce Lee movies. Even so, I never did want to take karate or tai kwon do or whatever. I don’t like being hit or kicked. Also, I was too afraid that if I actually really kicked someone that I’d end up apologizing all over the place.
Smiling a lop-sided smile here, Doc. I’ll drop you an email and share the gist of my exchange with Daryl.
Sheila –
*brrrrrrap!* oh, excuse me – still full from yesterday.
…love to hear the gist. at your liesude.
Doc — We obviously see this clip through different glasses, though I find your choice of words telling: you ‘buy the clip.’ Which is precisely my point about the clip being an advertisement: a form that should immediately raise our critical awareness. Why would an ad make such a connection, between consumerist technology and a pop culture icon? Well, I would guess, on some level, the advertisers want us to believe that the coolness Bruce Lee demonstrates in the clip will become available to use if we buy their product; whether the ad is successful in making this connection is another matter. Your question — ‘To what avail?’ — suggests to me the ad is a failure, though it is tremendously entertaining. (I especially enjoyed Lee’s spin and high-kick combination.) As for the supposed ’softballs’ that are fed to Lee: maybe, maybe not. Or perhaps certain shots had to be slowed down in order to better co-ordinate with Lee’s motions and so forth.