The Taky Kimura Interview
Conducted By Paul Bax
When I first started investigating Bruce Lee and his art of Jeet Kune Do, I remembered an old Lee saying, "If you understand the root, you understand all of its blossoming." With this in mind I decided to dig up some roots that have never been exposed before. Those roots, or more properly, that person is Taky Kimura. Mr. Kimura was Lee’s first instructor when Bruce opened his first official school. Obviously Bruce saw the same qualities in Taky that he did in his other instructors James Lee and Dan Inosanto. Those qualities were extreme humility, respect for their sifu and the fact that none of them would ever commercialize his art of Gung Fu. Taky has been happy to go about his business in Seattle and leave the limelight to others. In his first interview ever, Mr. Kimura sheds some much needed light on the Seattle years, talks about the woman behind the superstar - Linda Lee, and expresses his sorrow over the death of Brandon Lee.
HOW DID YOU FIRST MEET BRUCE LEE?
TK: I met him in 1959 when he first came to Seattle. He first landed in San Francisco, but Ping Chow had been in Bruce’s father's theater presentation and I think they owed the Lee family some favors so they said they would take care of Bruce. That's probably why he came here.
WERE YOU IMMEDIATE FRIENDS OR DID YOUR RELATIONSHIP SLOWLY GROW?
TK: No, actually Bruce was working in Chow’s restaurant and every morning he would go down a street called Broadway which took him down to the Edison Vocational School. He bumped into his first student Jesse Glover and I met Bruce through the group of guys Jesse Hung out with.
AT THE SEATTLE SCHOOL. DID BRUCE INTEGRATE OTHER ARTS AT THAT TIME OR WAS IT STRICTLY WING CHUN?
TK: Well, Bruce was well endowed in a number of styles such as Hung Gar, Choy Le Fut, Preying Mantis, all these different arts. He was very knowledgeable with all these different arts, but I think that he probably found that he identified most with Wing Chun as being more realistic in his eyes prior to leaving Hong Kong, so he did concentrate on more of a modified Wing Chun version to my knowledge. At that time I really wasn’t knowledgeable with tall the different aspects of styles. Looking back that’s my assessment.
SO EVEN THEN, HIS ART WAS A MODIFIED FORM OF WING CHUN, NOT THE TRADITIONAL ART?
TK: That’s right. Bruce was a very keen minded fellow that could just look at something in a moments time and translate it in his own mind as to what works and what doesn’t. That was sort of his make-up. Every style has a lot of classical motions as well as the more realistic, simplified things and so I think he picked out what he thought was more realistic and that’s what he taught us.
SINCE YOU WERE IN CHARGE WHEN BRUCE COULDN’T BE THERE, WHAT DID HE STRESS TO YOU TO STAY AHEAD OF THE REGULAR STUDENTS?
TK: Well, he was always on the scene pretty much, but there were times when he was involved in his school work, so he actually let me lead the class to begin with, but he always came into the class before it was over to make sure we were doing things right. Prior to each session he would take me aside and we would rehearse different things that we would be working on for the next class. It wasn’t as if I was doing something on my own. Everything I did was very realistic and what he wanted me to do.
BRUCE WAS FAMOUS FOR HIS ONE INCH PUNCH. WERE THE MECHANICS OF THIS PUNCH TAUGHT OPENLY AT THE SEATTLE SCHOOL?
TK: Oh yeah. The consensus is I guess if you teach someone, you teach them seventy five percent of what you know, so you have that other twenty five percent in reserve in case he turns on you (laughs). He was very free with his knowledge and if he looked at you and felt you were trustworthy and sincere, he taught you. He didn’t care what race you were. He taught me the one inch punch and I try to follow through and show my students. The one-inch punch was always one of the things he demonstrated at tournaments.
CAN YOU RECALL BRUCE’S FIGHT WITH THE KARATE BLACK BELT IN KARATE?
TK: Well, I can tell you as much as I know. I actually wasn’t on the scene when it happened. This guy was a second or third degree Black Belt from Japan. His first name was Yoechi, but I can’t remember what his last name was now. This guy was a fanatic about what he thought he knew. He was on the scene here and of course both he and Bruce were going to the same school. Whenever Bruce would demonstrate something this guy took it personally, like Bruce was trying to put him down but that wasn’t the case at all. He would pop up at exhibitions and he would get and challenge Bruce openly on the stage. It finally got to the point where Bruce had to tell him if he kept this up they would have to settle this thing. Of course the karate guy was ready to go immediately then. Bruce said, "Let’s get this straight, your challenging me, right?" The guy said, "Yes, I’m challenging you." Then they decided to go down to the local handball court and locked themselves in there. When they got started the karate guy opened up with a kick that Bruce blocked and then he just straight punched him all the way down the length of the handball court. When he bumped into the wall and he was falling, Bruce kicked him. The whole thing was over in eleven seconds. After that this guy wanted to become a member of our class. He wanted to become Bruce’s disciple. To show you what kind of guy Bruce was, he actually let him in our class for awhile.
HOW LONG DID THIS GUY LAST IN CLASS AFTER THAT?
TK: Well, he was in class for maybe a month and them he kind of petered out. Maybe he felt he was humbling himself too much. It’s kind of hard to say.
EVEN BACK IN THOSE EARLY DAYS, PEOPLE USED TO SAY THEY BEAT UP BRUCE. DID YOU HEAR THAT A LOT?
TK: Yeah, I used to hear all kinds of things, but obviously...(laughs). You’re still hearing things like that now.
WEREN’T YOU SEVERELY INJURED IN A DEMONSTRATION WITH BRUCE?
TK: It was a demo during a routine class workout. The group of students were to the far right of us and he was facing me to the left of the group and was telling them that the force of the punch had to be something that penetrated through rather than stopping at the point of impact. I was wearing glasses at the time and he was looking over to the students, so then he let go with this wicked punch that got me in the eye. It broke my glasses of course and I had glass splinters all through out my eye. It almost knocked me out. They took me to the hospital and I was okay. That’s the only time he ever missed. He used to throw the nunchaku’s around my head and I could just barely feel them touch my hair. After that particular incident I started to worry. He was keenly able to use those things (nunchaku’s). It never bothered me because he never missed except for that one time.
DID JESSE GLOVER (LEE’S FIRST STUDENT) GET KNOCKED OUT AT A DEMONSTRATION?