Martial History Team

 Welcome to the April 2023 book survey, part three. I decided to break this month's survey into three posts. The themes for this month are kendo/swordsmanship, Bruce Lee, and Jun Fan/Jeet Kune Do. This is part three. Part one is  here . Part two is here . Introduction In April 2023, I (Richard) continued my reading plan. This post surveys books on Bruce Lee's fighting style of Jeet Kune Do. I bought all of these books in the middle and late 1990s. Jeet Kune Do: Entering to Trapping to Grappling, Larry Hartsell, 1984 My copy of  Jeet Kune Do: Entering to Trapping to Grappling  is a paperback measuring 7 inches by 10 inches with 200 black and white pages. The publisher is Unique Press. Linda Lee wrote a foreword for this book, and Dan Inosanto wrote an introduction. This book offers a nice collection of techniques, although the photos deserve to be better. I also got a "Japanese Jiu-Jitsu" feel from some of the content.  Update:  This book is on the Internet ...

   Welcome to the April 2023 book survey, part two. I decided to break this month's survey into three posts. The themes for this month are kendo/swordsmanship, Bruce Lee, and Jun Fan/Jeet Kune Do. This is part two. Part one is here . Introduction In April 2023, I (Richard) continued my reading plan. This post surveys books on Bruce Lee's fighting method. Bruce Lee's Fighting Method Volumes 1-4, Bruce Lee and M. Uyehara, 1976-1977 I bought my copies of the four volumes of Bruce Lee's Fighting Method in the 1990s. Mine all bear reprints with dates of 1994 and 1995. Each book is a paperback measuring roughly 5 1/2 inches by 8 1/2 inches with 128 black and white pages each. I'm not sure why all of the titles are not exactly the same size. These specific editions are out of print (due to the next title) but they are all available on the Internet Archive . The introductions in each book are slightly different. The introductions each say that the book was "in the mak...

 Welcome to the March 2023 book survey, part three. I decided to break this month's survey into three posts. The theme for this month is Kung Fu. Part one is  here . Part two is here . Introduction In March 2023, I (Richard) continued my reading plan. This month I surveyed a number of books on Kung Fu.  Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense, Bruce Lee, 1963/1987/1988/2008 This is one of the few books in the MHT catalog that has an entire web site devoted to it -- Bruce Lee Chinese Gung Fu Book  by Steve Palmer. Mr. Palmer has done the definitive research on this book, which was the only title published during Mr. Lee's lifetime (1940-1973), regardless of what the Dragon movie depicts : My print copy is a 1996 twelfth printing of the 1988 third edition. It is a paperback measuring 5 1/2 inches by 8 1/4 inches with 102 black and white pages. There is a digital copy of a twentieth printing of the same edition from 2005 on the Internet Archive . I also o...

   This book should change how everyone thinks of Bruce Lee. Introduction Last month I learned of a new book titled Who Wrote the Tao? The Literary Sourcebook for The Tao of Jeet Kune Do , by James Bishop. I also watched a few  YouTube videos featuring the author. I quickly ordered a copy direct from the author and read the book. In brief, it's shocking. At least 85%, and probably more, of "Bruce Lee's" Tao of Jeet Kune Do is derived, and in many places directly copied or traced (in the case of "Bruce Lee's" drawings) from other authors. The Bruce Lee Library To arrive at this conclusion, Dr. Bishop hunted down the hundreds of books in Bruce Lee's library, digitized them, and then began searching them for phrases found in Tao . One of his sources was the many pictures of Bruce Lee in front of his book shelves, as shown in this Art of Manliness article : Dr. Bishop first pioneered this hunt for the titles in the library in his 2004 book Bruce Lee: D...