Technically, was Bruce Lee better than his Master the late Yipman?

Question

Popularity doesn't mean he is better technically. He was younger, stronger and faster and probably will win in a fight and his movies make him popular but was he "technically" better?

Answer 1

I should hope so .If an instructor isn't teaching you and pushing you to be better than he is all he is doing is wasting your time while taking your money.

DOCROY  talking about correcting people  NAKAYAMA was not the founder of SHOTOKAN  FUNAKOSHI was.SHOTO was FUNAKOSHI's pen name and when people were asked where they trained they said SHOTO's club group school etc or SHOTO KAN.The official name of his style is DAI NIPPON KEMPO JUTSU KARATE DO.QUITE A MOUTH FULL SHOTO KAN WAS EASIER.

NAKAYAMA was the innovator who created point sparring for competitions as in those days they sparred bare knuckle and had to a install some safety measures.

Answer 2

This is insane!!! REALLY insane!

Yip Man devoted his life to the study and development of his art and BL, who is a beginner, is better than Yip Man???

You are all insane!!!

This is totally ridiculous.

None of you knew anything about Yip Man and his skill level and you have the audacity to make these assumptions??? About BL???

You're all F*&^King INSANE!!!

Corrected? This is not about any of those other people, who incidentally, I don't regard the way others do and yet, Miyagi Sensei never taught Oyama. He learned Gojukai from another Korean who was Yamaguchi's student.

This is about Superman BL and his "mastery". Oyama and Nakayama practiced what they learned for many years before they became masters in their own right.

You just can't compare BL to them.

Correct?

Answer 3

Bruce Lee is better in every way even better than all the try hard think there so cool MMA and UFC fighters today Bruce Lee is the worlds best martial artist.

Answer 4

I honestly don't know if he was better, but I would say that he was perhaps more pioneering because he took Wing Chun to the next level. He threw in elements from other styles, such as boxing, Greco Roman wrestling, Tae Kwon Do, and a couple others to create Jeet Kun Do.

By the way, he didn't get passed over for the role in Kung Fu. He refused to do it because they were going to make him wear a stupid stereotypical braided ponytail.

Answer 5

Who could possibly know that!!!...

Answer 6

Bruce always considered Yip Man to be his instructor and always held him in reverence.  Most non-Wing Chun people, don't realise the amount of changes Yip Man made to Wing Chun over his lifetime. Wing Chun was far more complicated when Yip Man first began training. It had more forms, the existing forms were longer, it had more weapons and, if memory serves, it had an additional style of dummy (Mook).  Most of Grandmaster Yip's early students are now dead but a prominent example was a guy named Black Faced Nam (due to birthmark). I visited China with Grandmaster Ip Chun (son of Yip Man) and met this guy who demonstrated what early WC was like and so can confirm it is pretty different. Yip Man made it more economical and easy to learn.

Was Bruce better than Yip Man? Not at Wing Chun that is for certain. Was he a better martial artist? No, I don't think so. Yip Man was pretty conservative and so would not teach Westerners so when Bruce brought WC to the USA he had not really had the chance to use it in anger against larger Western opponents. He chose to adapt it to work in a different cultural setting. This eventually became his Jeet Kune Do.  They were both great masters in their own way. Yip Man adapted his art to become what he felt was its ultimate goal while Bruce adapted and changed his art using Western influences to create a less stringent, dictatorial martial arts more suited to the 20th century and the West.

great question.

Sensei:

Yet again I have to correct you. I spent three years training under Ip Chun and also Ip Ching (eldest son and youngest respectively) and 35 years studying Wing Chun so please don't say "None of you knew anything about Yip Man and his skill level and you have the audacity to make these assumptions???".

Are you aware that Masatoshi Nakayama the founder of the JKA only studied Shotokan for five years under Funakoshi before leaving for China? Are you aware that Oyama studied under a Shotokan instructor at the Funakoshi dojo for less than 3 years and Goju under a student of Miyagi for five years? Bruce trained for five years under Grandmaster Yip Man which included private lessons as well as additional lessons with Wong Shun Lung.

While Yip Man spent his life perfecting Wing Chun, from what I remember that his son told me, he actually spent less time than Bruce did studying Wing Chun under his Masters. His time with them wasn't regular nor intensive. Bruce was held in high esteem by Yip Man, this can be simply confirmed by looking at a simple point, Bruce when he returned to Hong Kong called on his Master with his young son. There is a photograph of Yip Man holding Bruce's son. Try asking your old Chinese Master if Grandmaster Yip would have done that if he didn't consider Bruce special.

Sensei:

Firstly I said that Oyama studied under a student of Miyagi not Miyagi himself. As for his teacher being a Yamaguchi student, yes that is true but the master (So Neichu) was before that a direct student of Miyagi. Unless I am mistaken, Oyama studied under Funakoshi (who he considered his primary teacher) for about three years and was awarded a 2nd Dan.

What I am trying to say is that most reasonable people don't argue about Nakayama or Oyama and their provenance (obviously you do judging by your comments) but Lee, because he was in the headlines and does have a 'fan' following is open to your (as Dave puts it) 'poison'. Lee trained (according to his fathers records (available at the Yip Man Martial Arts Association) indicate Bruce started training with Yip Man in late 1953 in private lessons, and then classes from 1954 until 1959 when he left for the USA. In Wing Chun, six years is a fair amount of instructor under the likes of Yip Man and Wong Shun Lung. Bear in mind as well that his skill was such that he won the Hong Kong junior boxing championships without ever training in boxing, simply using Wing Chun.

Answer 7

NO. This is an easy one to answer as it is very hypothetical. Bruce never finished his training in Wing Chun with Ip Man. Ip man was very old when Bruce was his student so if Bruce had continued to train he would of course at some point probably excelled beyond his master. It is every good masters wish to have his student be better than him. Movies and fighting are not equivalent.  Not to detract from the legend, yet we must remember Bruce was investing a lot of his time to movie stunts and acting in the last few years of his life.

Answer 8

better what?

martial artist? (presuming wc was trained realistically, because yimman was the pioneer i'm presuming it was and that forms the entire basis for this answer- I'm not getting into a wc legitimacy debate here)

probably not, better fighter, HIGHLY likely so.

this is for the simple fact that HE WAS YOUNGER and yip man was an old man. its one thing to be able to defeat a slightly younger opponent, or with a few decades difference, its quite another for a realy old man to defeat a young man in thier prime REGARDLESS of the old man's skill.

(of course weapons changes this, but you are talking about unarmed)

it depends on the age and deterioration of the older man's abilities due to age.

this also brings out a common misconception so many people have with thier arts.

namely "if your teacher/coach is old you SHOULD be able to beat him/her".  this is because they are training you to, if you can't, then there is something wrong with you or with thier teaching ability.

the notion that the teacher is the best fighter in the gym is c**p- it can be true (depending on your individual teacher) but it not necessarily and when he/she gets older is should NOT be true.

your teacher doesn't need to kick *** anymore- those days are over, your teacher only needs to have enough ability to demonstrate how to properly do the technique and play around a little bit in order to teach- they shouldn't be sitting on thier duff but its pretty realistic that a 50 or 60 year old can't hang with a 20 year old.

maybe some can but age hits people differently, yipman would be no different.

Answer 9

maybe since Bruce Lee is more popoular

Answer 10

I say yes, Bruce was technically better. He studied most styles strengths and weaknesses including his own. He was a martial artists first and later an actor. Don't downplay Bruce or any martial artist for that matter for acting in movies. Bruce Lee didn't just scratch the surface, he put a hole in that barrier between styles/ disciplines. And now every martial artist is doing it, just calling it MMA.

Katana, for someone who hasn't accomplished squat in your own Life, you sure do talk alot.

Answer 11

Bruce Lee studied Wing Chun under the late Yip Man for less than four years.  He was not better than Master Yip Man by any means of the word.

Bruce Lee constantly re-invented his martial arts as he worked on his acting career.

When Bruce Lee left Hollyweird in a snit over being passed over for the role of Kwai Chang Caine, the chinese director Run Run Shaw did not think much of Bruce Lees martial arts skills.  In China, Bruce Lee was considered a mediocre martial artist.

Answer 12

Bruce Lee is a much better ACTOR than Yip Man, and a much better business person.

Bruce and Linda Lee were very successful in selling and hyping his image that people believe the whole 'greatest martial art ever' myth too much.

If Hollywood is your source of who's the best Martial Artist, then yes Bruce Lee is better than YipMan.

Other than that, the answer is no, it's not known since they never fight.

Answer 13

depends what you mean by technically. Probably, Yip Man was much MUCH tehnically better in Wing Chun. However his style limited him because he always did "if A, then B." Bruce Lee developed his style a great deal and came up with very good combat philosophies drawing on many martial arts. Still, Yip Man was certainly "better" than Bruce Lee at traditional Wing Chun. Neither was "better" overall, but they were both "better" than the other at what they did best.

Answer 14

Contrary to what Blogbaba... said, Bruce Lee did not reach the pinnicle that all Martial artists strive for. Bruce Lee never touched more then the surface in any one style, except for maybe wing chun, and he definetly was not a master of it. Some martial artists want to learn everything they can about one style, and gain an in depth knowledge of it, not just know some of one style and some of another.

That being said is not meant to take anything away from Bruce Lee. He was a very good martial artist, and he did have a lot of influance on spreading martial arts through his movies, but all the tales of his prowess are exagerated to the point of getting ridiculous. Yes he was a tremendous physical specimen, and by all official accounts was a very accomplished martial artist, but remember he was also an actor, and that has a lot to do with the fact that he is just not another name in martial arts history.

There have been and will be many martial artists who are technically better then Bruce Lee, and I would include Yipman in that, at least as far as Wing Chun goes.

A lifetime of study of one art vs some training in that style? It does not take a genius to know what the answer to the question is, if you take out all the hype and fantasies, as to who is more technically superior in that style.

I am not slamming Bruce Lee in any way, I truly admire what he accomplished, just providing an objective view.

I am sure all of the bruceholics will thumbs down me, but it doesn't change reality.

Edit for trev- i have accomplished a lot in my life, maybe not in the public eye, but a lot. feel free to e-mail me and i will give you a short biography.

To the asker of the question- 4 years in one style just about means you ar really ready to learn correctly, and maybe have the basics down,

Answer 15

i agree with the bloke before me.

Answer 16

"poor is the student that does not surpass his master"

Answer 17

This is a case where the student far surpassed his master.  Martial arts extends to all facets of the practitioner's life, and Bruce, for that short time he was with us, far surpassed most.  Almost forty years after his life ended, he is still the pinnacle of what all martial artists strive for.

Technically, I am sure that there were ping pong players, and Wing Chung artists more accomplished at there chosen sports, odds are good there are people who took better short hand and could knit sweaters faster than Bruce could as well.  But over all Bruce was what the rest of us strive to be, a superior martial artist, and a superior human being.  Lee's life accomplishments far surpassed that of his esteemed and respected teacher.

Answer 18

bruce lee is a monster. If he was still alive, he will be the best fighter