Joe Lewis talks about Bruce Lee and kickboxing

sort of work with Bruce Lee 1967 he was a kung-fu martial artists or gum fruit whichever word you want to use I've been an American fighter we didn't think much of kung fu fighters because most of them didn't fight did it a lot of that what we call finger paints type moves you know moving the hands around like finger painters there was a black belt magazine Washington DC complaining about how they had misspelled my name in the magazine and Bruce Lee was there in the office at the time so when I left the office I walked out to park allowed to go back home and Bruce Lee comes running outside hi Joe Joe Joe let me talk to you for a second and he stood in front of me in for about thirty minutes he was trying to explain to me why his JIT kundo style JIT kundo means way of the stopping fist he was telling about instead of throwing a horizontal punch like this she threw a vertical punch instead of put your power side back like a box with standing you put your power side forward and you explain many of the principles and tactics it she can dope demonstrated or utilized which may disappear to the way we were doing karate at that time and it just all went in one ear and out the other later in 1968 early 68 I was doing a nightclub act with myself Bob wall he Bob wall with co-star of that film end of the Dragon and Mike stone we were kind of like buddies at that time my fat Bob and I were living together we business partners at the end of each nightclub at Mike Stone and I would do a little demonstration karate match and then I noticed his style had changed and he started telling he was working out with his Chinese guy named Bruce Lee and he said Bruce Lee wants to work with you you should go down and start taking lessons with probably less Allah so eventually I took his advice and Bruce Lee and I got contact with each other and once a week I would go there and take a pride with Bruce and spend the whole rest of week working on what he would show and it actually in a great way improved my fighting style I'd say its main quality was a his charm he can charm anybody here's here's a tip hook us up I would every day I'd walk into his house first thing he had to do it Oh Chuck Elmo's gonna come on Nestle yeah and they go oh yeah job on for sure you always had to show some part of his body working on I remember one day wakes up at 75 pound barbell he locks down a position in standing positions starts on his chest he sticks it straight out like this slow motion but holds it sustains try try would half that way and then you know what 75 pounds feels like and I know guys who can benchpress 500 pounds they can get it out but they can't hold their goal is not and since gets how they fall yes so he's it was pretty strong he was a great artist and his very fast he could sketch out some through fur I remember him drawing a leopard he was going to do this role called south flute the scylla fought and he were doing together and one of the parts he was gonna play the leopard man [Music] the leopard man does boob it's like a leopard so for example if I'm going to through a strike like a snake I'll make a hand like a snake and I move about the snakes and now if it's going to be like a crane I'll make a move like a crane I'll strike the Adam's apple you know the brachial plexus I'll strike the eyeball see now if I'm going to move like a leopard shield leopards have claws okay bear has a circle all Tiger has another type of a claw follow me so Guerra would hook the wrist in this way was a tiger would keep it all straight and the rip inside out or watch a line going to Buffalo some they grab the belly this way and rip it open see Bruce would talk to you about those kinds of things now although I was already an amateur world champion and a two-time national champion for started work with Bruce I think he helped accelerate my career helped me defeat all the top guys in competition at that time and helped me go back and think about getting away from porn fighting put full-contact back on the map let me explain and point fighting threw a punch and you stopped let's say two three inches or sometimes maybe an inch from the target or you can make light contact except for the face and that's what point fighting is called they're trying to find each other out to make the other man turn defense isn't coming close it has a side crust in the kitchen I never understood point fighting cause to me the purpose of a punch the purpose of a cake is to do damage how you do damage if you missing the target I always felt accuracy was the holy grail of just about any sport and I came back to this country of throwing punches and kicks not making contact and then you got to fight some little bitty guy he just waves his foot at your head of something and they give in to victory so that made me well enough to bad taste my mouth forgets the sport gentle soul Bruce Lee kind of got me back into the full context of because we studied a lot of old boxing films like Willie Pell pull out in Chinese Field is pound for pound best fight of all time some people told Shiva at Robinson is would watch Willie pubs footwork we will watch the explosiveness of some of Jack Dempsey's fight films we watch the stationary position of the great jewelers when he got on the inside like end up in the pocket we'd watch the distancing and mobility tactics of a of a Muhammad Ali and it kind of got me interested in the full-contact as opposed to the the stationary kind of you hit me I hit you back you returned my turn type fighting so I got tired and I got kind of really disgusted with what they called point fighting and so I decided I'm going to go in and and create a new sport and just call it full contact or something so so around 1969 I started really drifting out of the point fighting tournament scene think 68 was my best year I won 11 consecutive grand championships without a loss and I think that's still a record to this day 1970s a stuntman named Lee Faulkner you know one of my students calls me up and he wants to do a World Team Championships I agreed to fight on the West Coast team which consisted of myself Mike stone Chuck Darcy and my business part of the time lose Bob wall Bob watch and talk to people into putting him on the team so I told promoters to look the only way I'll fight on this team because I'm tired and sick disappointing fighting stuff is if you give me a match where after wear boxing gloves and we go at it for real he said okay if I get you a match were you doing I said fine so so he asked me who do I want to fight well I didn't like the Shotokan fighters the Japanese fighters are very arrogant so I started with the very top I went down the list and everybody said no until I got down to this kid who was a California state champion big black kid his name was Greg Baines and he changed his name to own so I called him up he's in Northern California asked him would he do a full-contact match and he said yeah I'll be there jack but I knocked him out three minutes another fighting myself a lockdown [Music] as I walked into the ring that night the announcer he says alright lady inches gentlemen we're getting ready to watch for the first time kickboxing and that's where the word kick box has started here in America he used it so in the record books they made me the father of American kickboxing you actually went seven different world titles but only claimed one once you're world champion what does it make whether twenty time world champion or at one time we're chat I am proud of this fact I was the first martial artists in the world to win a World Championship Tudor in sports I went to work title in karate and also kickboxing I won 7 different titles some of them were amateur titles some in professional times some of them were no no holds bar like you could throw elbows I was never knocked down in my life so I'm kind of proud of that I was dazed one time that was in a training session Joey or Beals I take 65 Ring Magazine radium the fifth-ranked headway at all time he his sparring partner at that time was Kidd Norton now at that time he had thought she was voted the greatest boxing coach of all time in a 23 world champion he was training both of them and durable used to knock Ken Norton up every day almost when they sparred with a liver Shawn and joy wanted to show me the boxes were superior to karate guys so he got me in the ring one day we were sparring he popped me or that liver shot and I saw what we call the white light you know just this flash of this huge white light and you back arches back because electricity goes through your body and it just locked you up and that as soon as that white light disappears you see all these hundreds of thousands of little bitty white sparkling lights coming down and you can't move and you can't yell because you're in such great pain there's no air left in your lung and pardon my french way he steps back says boom I'll hit you again and he looked at me I could see the rage 90 wants to draw blood you know that and then he yells at me hugged and and so I started side seven look blade they have taught me earlier I don't know how I'm about half dead but I can move you know and he came over and I started keep moving and now rods you don't care how much pain you're in as long as you can move it's harder for your opponent to finish you off if you're moving target then if you're stationary and that's why I going back to full contact that's why I like the kickboxing because it was real and there's no greater pleasure in the world on the sports mellowing hit somebody in you and here go and you look in her eyes you see you just see their eyes and I want to go see my mommy when I said leave

Channel: MarktheMartian

Views: 1,762,148

Rating: 4.7940707 out of 5

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Id: AXdG577px94

Length: 10min 49sec (649 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 21 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Zelcium]

This seems less about Bruce Lee and more about how great Joe Lewis thinks Joe Lewis is.

[u/Martial_Lee]

Thanks for sharing!

For sure Bruce influenced me as a kid starting back in '93. Got my hands on a couple books and going strong side forwards always seemed super natural to me.