The Joe Cowles Interview
Conducted By Paul Bax
Joe Cowles first started training with Bruce Lee in early 1960. He never imagined that Lee would someday be the most famous martial artist who ever lived. Be that as it may, Cowles was not at all suprised when Bruce became as famous as he did. A retired postal worker, Cowles has stayed true to Bruce's wishes not to commercialize his art of gung fu. Besides practicing Lee's art as it was originally taught to him, he has also added techniques from Jujitsu to form an art he calls "Wu Wei Gung Fu." This martial art has been praised as an effective system of self defense by many martial artists. In his first interview ever, Cowles recalls the early years with his Sifu, Bruce Lee,and his training experiences with him.
HOW DID YOU FIRST MEET BRUCE LEE, AND WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION OF HIM?
JOE COWLES: To the best of my remembrance I met him in early 1960 when I was working at the Seattle post office. I was a beginning student in Judo at the YMCA under a second degree black belt. There was a black belt I used to talk to, and one day he came across an announcement about a demonstration that Bruce was giving at a housing project in Seattle. We both went to watch it. We had never heard of Bruce Lee, and we had hardly heard of gung fu in those days. We had heard of karate a little bit, and I had bought a book on karate, but we hadn't heard of gung fu. Anyway we went to the demonstration that Bruce was giving and he had a small group with him. As we were preparing to go into the locker room to congratulate Bruce and his students on what we had seen, a man who claimed to be a fifth degree black belt walked up to me and started to tell me he had challenged Bruce to fight him, but Bruce wouldn't fight . I don't know why this man was even approaching me since I neither knew him or Bruce. After he finished his story we went into the locker room to talk to Bruce and his students. That week I called Bruce and asked him if I could join his class. At the time I was really interested in Karate, but there weren't any schools around like you see today. Bruce told me to meet him in Chinatown, so I went down there I stood where I was supposed to meet him, and I saw this young Chinese man walking around like he was looking for somebody, and I was looking for Bruce, but I had only met him once and I wasn't real sure if this was the same guy. Finally he walked up to me and said, "ARE YOU JOE COWLES?" I said "yes" and we went to Mercer Island across the lake from Seattle and trained in one of his students yards'. It was during that time that I started this Sum Sing exercise with a older student who's arms weren't really tempered to withstand hard blows. My arms were fairly tough from being a mail handler, so he quit before I did. Bruce didn't like the fact that this older student quit before I did. I wasn't trying to put anyone down, it just worked out that way. Like all beginning martial arts students I was ignorant of the way things were supposed to go, and the proper way to act, but I wasn't trying to be a smart aleck, or anything. Anyway, Bruce walked up to me and said, "Let's see how long you can go with me". We started banging our forearms together, and pretty soon I noticed he started going harder, and harder but it wasn't bothering me. All at once his hand flew up and struck me in the temple very hard. He really walloped me pretty good. Bruce said I didn't get my hand up in time, but I know today he was just teaching me a lesson. I realized I'd better stop, after a few more minutes. Bruce looked at me, and said, "Don't be a hero. If it hurts - stop, or I'll break your arm!" He then just stared at me kind of coldly. Later on after class he took me to the TAI TUNG cafe in Seattle's Chinatown. He took my spiral notebook and drew some gung fu pictures for me...stances, and things like that. He explained gung fu to me to a certain extent. Then he stuck his hand across the table to arm wrestle me, and I took his hand. We did this without our elbows touching the table. He put me down so fast it was amazing. I felt like my arm would break if I didn't go with his strength. It all happened so fast. Later on I told a friend of mine named Lee Norman that I bet he couldn't beat Bruce Lee in arm wrestling, so he tried it and came back and told me Bruce let him get his hand way over to give him the benefit of the doubt, but Bruce still put him down easily. Norman exclaimed, "That cat is dangerous!" On the way back from Mercer island I asked Bruce how long did it take to learn gung fu, which is obviously a beginners question, and he said, "You never quit learning until they close the lid on your coffin." Some years later they closed the lid on his own coffin. It was kind of a self fulfilling prophecy, because he himself never quit learning until his death. I'll always honor him as my teacher, as I'm sure all of his students do too. I appreciate everything he did for me.
BACK IN THE SEATTLE YEARS HOW MUCH PHILOSOPHY DID BRUCE INCLUDE IN HIS CLASSES?
JC: Not much. It was mostly working out. He was the kind of guy that made you want to give one hundred and ten percent. At least he did me. He did mention the ying and yang in his teachings, and that the Chinese had made a religion out of it, but all he cared about is that it worked in gung fu. Of course he was talking about the negative and positive movements that exist in martial arts. At that time he was pretty wrapped up in Wing Chun. He was an innovator even then, but not as much as in JKD. Very little actual philosophy was used other than a few things he would mention from time to time. He was pretty much a realist.
WHEN THE SEATTLE SCHOOL DISBANDED WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD BECOME OF BRUCE?
(Note: A special audio interview transcribed by Paul Bax from Joe Cowles is also included in the book.)