Leo Fong
Conducted by Paul Bax
Over the years, many of Bruce Lee’s past students have come forward to claim knowledge in his art of Jeet Kune Do and although Leo Fong could have done the same, he has stayed out of the limelight until recently and remained JKD’s “diamond in the rough.” In this rare interview on his relationship and training days with Bruce Lee, Mr. Fong shares his intimate stories of how he first met both Bruce and his assistant instructor, James Lee and how he witnessed the evolution of both the art of Jeet Kune Do and the man we have all come to know and love as “the little dragon.”
What type of martial arts were you in before training with Bruce Lee?
Before I met Bruce, I had a background in boxing. I had a collegiate and amateur record of 25 fights, 18 by knockout, and four defeats and two of them by knockouts. I know what it feels like getting cold cocked. Boxing was my first martial arts, have self-taught at the age of 12 by reading a Barney Ross, How To Box Book. My formal training in boxing came at 18 years old when I joined the Hendrix College, Conway, Arkansas boxing team. After graduation from college and then Seminary at Southern Methodist University, I came out to the West Coast, Sacramento, California in 1954. My first exposure to eastern martial arts was Judo, under Bob Bendicts and Bill Luke. Bill Luke was one of Bruce Taeger's black belts. From Judo I moved to Kung Fu; Choy Lay Fut under Low Bun and Sil Lum under T.Y. Wong. In 1960 I met Jimmy Lee at the Sil Lum School on Waverly Place in San Francisco. I was fascinated by the way he used dumbbells to perform his gung fu form. We struck up a conversation and he convinced me to join the Sil Lum club. In the early sixties I met a Korean student who was attending Sacramento State University and began training under him while still training in gung fu. Around 1961 or 62, Jimmy had a falling out with Professor T.Y. Wong and left to train in his garage. He invited me to join him, which I did. I developed a friendship with Jimmy from then on. One of the things I had in common with Jimmy was the search for a system that was functional. We were interested in things that worked.
Can you recall why Jimmy had a falling out with T.Y. Wong?
Jimmy had a falling out with T.Y. Wong over $l0.00 can you believe that? Jimmy had helped T.Y. Wong to print his first Sil Lum book. Apparently Jimmy was selling them through his mail order business Oriental Books and T.Y. thought Jimmy shorted him $l0. Jimmy, denied it. Got
upset and left the kwoon forever.
How did you first meet Bruce Lee?
One day Jimmy said there is a terrific gung fu guy who will be demonstrating at Wally Jay's annual Luau. His name is Bruce Lee. When he told me this guy is only 19 years old, I was skeptical. I remember him bouncing on the stage at the old Claremont Hotel ballroom in Oakland, and start a long dialogue on the flaws of classical gung fu. He mimics the moves of different forms and proceeds to explain how practical they were. He then invited anyone in the audience to come up and stop his from hand finger jab. He didn't go for the eyes but did just tap the guy in front of him on the forehead. Of course some big football type jumped on the stage and Bruce would shoot that front hand out like lightning and the guy would either be too soon or too late. Bruce breaks into that little smile and invited others. The second guy met the same fate. My skepticism was wiped out after the demo. Jimmy invited me to his house on Monday evening, said a few people will be there from the martial arts community. It was there on that Monday night that I met Bruce for the first time and talked to him. He further impressed me when he picked someone out of the group and told him to hold a telephone book to his chest, stand behind a couch and hit him with his famous three-inch punch. The guy went bouncing back into the couch and almost did a complete somersault over the couch. Bruce conveyed to him that his martial arts are functional and practical, the classical mess does not stifle him. He asked me how do you fight with forms? His focus in that first meeting was the power he could generate from his Wing Chun and the sticky and trapping range. All this was new to me. My only frame of reference was Western boxing, Tae Kwon Do and Classical Gung fu.
How long did your training and friendship span with both Bruce and James?
I started training with Bruce in 1962 and saw him whenever her came down from Seattle. He later moved in with Jimmy while Linda was pregnant with Brandon. Once he settled in at Jimmy's house I came in from Sacramento once a week, usually on a Friday night and spent four hours, socializing, talking about theory, and training. Our training sessions were not like you stand like this, one, two, three, and etc. It was like whatever subject we happen to be focusing on at the time. Sometimes its how you deal with kicks, or how you can make your front hand jab more efficient.
I saw Jimmy and Bruce from 1962 regularly until after Jimmy died and when Bruce made his first movie with Raymond Chow. I was a minister at a church in Sacramento, later I moved to Vallejo, and then finally to Stockton. When Bruce moved to LA, I came down to see him four times a year and talked to him at least once or twice a week. We wrote each other once or twice a month. I regret my wife threw lots of the letters away when she felt they were cluttering up the bedroom, they had some gems on martial arts. I still have a few letters, some were published in John Little's book. Last time I saw and talked to Bruce was in 1971, we spent two days together while I was shooting the Sil Lum and Choy Lay Fut books for O’Hara. It was Bruce who helped compile the history of Choy Lay Fut.
At this point, how did Lee’s skills and art differ from when you first met him? Did he bring you up to speed with what he was doing in terms of the evolving JKD?