Funny that the Rangers used to use Ninjitsu plus BJJ/Judo. The NZ head of the whatever the BJJ association here is called is a 7th dan Bujinkan/Hatsumi Ninpo-Taijutsu guy who incorporates BJJ to inprove their ground game… [/B]
Actually Michael Gent is only the head of Bujinkan as far as I’m aware. He’s affiliated with John Will along with a couple of guys down the line, and is iirc a purple. Geoff Aitken in chch is acutally the most senior of the Will affiliates.
Having said that there are more advanced people round. There are now a few Brazzillian black belts teaching in Auckland and one brown belt. They’ve made a federation of sorts which ran the first BJJ Open in Auckland a few months back. The ninja’s didn’t attend, possibly because it was put together by the Brazillians in the country and I’m not sure how widely they publicised it outside their own organisations (although we did get some people come across from Oz)
Not to hijack the thread, but there seems to be a few people from NZ here. What’s it like? Worth a plane trip from the US to check it out? I like what I’ve seen so far. Of course my only exposure is from TV, movies. and watching the All Blacks kick ass!!!
“In the early to mid sixties Bruce worked against takedowns. Later, he became very intrested in grappling and worked out with different people, including Gene Labell. Gene told me Bruce wanted to bring grappling strongly into his jkd. You may recall that in the beginning of “Enter the Dragon” Bruce defeated the monastery monk with an armbar”-Patrick Strong
“Bruce did take Judo from one of my teacher at the Uof W. He liked some of the throws. Fred Sato taught him some Judo and so did I.”-Jesse Glover
Originally posted by judoka-san Not to hijack the thread, but there seems to be a few people from NZ here. What’s it like? Worth a plane trip from the US to check it out? I like what I’ve seen so far. Of course my only exposure is from TV, movies. and watching the All Blacks kick ass!!!
Depends what you like in a holiday I guess. The good thing about NZ is there’s alot of contrast in a fairly small area. So you can go from the sunny natural beaches and countryside of the north to the picturesque beauty of the mountains in the south and everything in between in a week if you want to. If you like outdoors stuff, skiiing, surfing, bungee, camping etc etc it’s worth a look. Just like it’ll be worth a look to see the All Blacks crush the Springboks tonight…
I did an interview of a local judo guy with a grat reputation, named Fred Sato. He knew Bruce and talked about his and Bruce’s conversations. Bruce did judo in the Seattle area. I am not sure if this was his first contact, but I think so.
Originally posted by DANINJA
[B]“In the early to mid sixties Bruce worked against takedowns. Later, he became very intrested in grappling and worked out with different people, including Gene Labell. Gene told me Bruce wanted to bring grappling strongly into his jkd. You may recall that in the beginning of “Enter the Dragon” Bruce defeated the monastery monk with an armbar”-Patrick Strong
“Bruce did take Judo from one of my teacher at the Uof W. He liked some of the throws. Fred Sato taught him some Judo and so did I.”-Jesse Glover [/B]
I would add Lee also learnt some Hapkido techniques when working on The Game of Death movie.
Actually Michael Gent is only the head of Bujinkan as far as I’m aware. He’s affiliated with John Will along with a couple of guys down the line, and is iirc a purple. Geoff Aitken in chch is acutally the most senior of the Will affiliates.
Yeah, came to the same conclusion last night rechecking the website. Was showing it to a mate of mine who trained with MG (3rd Dan Bujinkan or something like that now) and a JJJ/BJJ/NHB guy.
Was an interesting evening, and they are both keen to come to the throwdown when it gets sorted (shouldn’t be too far away, just waiting to hear back from some contacts). They rolled a bit later on in the evening, and the ninpo-taijutsu guy tapped the BJJ guy in about 10 seconds. BJJ guy was very surprised as hasn’t been beaten in quite a while. I’ll look forward to rolling with them when we can get access to some mats.
If Bruce was exposed to guys like Lebell it would make a lot of sense as to why he reassessed his base in WC. Probably the easiest match up to show the deficiencies in what he had been taught in terms of lack of grappling.
Put that into the same category as the rickson 4000000 - 0 claim.
The next claim will be Kimura studied bjj and Helio invented Judo.
Bruce DID study under Gene (Gene mentions it on his site and can tell you quite a bit in person) and Bruce also referred to Gene as the “toughest man of the 20th century”.
Originally posted by Vile
[B]Yeah, came to the same conclusion last night rechecking the website. Was showing it to a mate of mine who trained with MG (3rd Dan Bujinkan or something like that now) and a JJJ/BJJ/NHB guy.
Was an interesting evening, and they are both keen to come to the throwdown when it gets sorted (shouldn’t be too far away, just waiting to hear back from some contacts). They rolled a bit later on in the evening, and the ninpo-taijutsu guy tapped the BJJ guy in about 10 seconds. BJJ guy was very surprised as hasn’t been beaten in quite a while. I’ll look forward to rolling with them when we can get access to some mats.
. [/B]
Yeah some of the ninjas are actually quite good. i wasn’t too sure cause the school I’ve been going to semi regularly has got lots of newbies who are pretty much your typical ninja wannabes who I can pretty much own at my low level. The teacher of the club seemed to have some game but doesn’t really spar so it’s hard to know for sure.
Then this weekend I went to a seminar they ran with John Will. Actually more like a 5 hour class, there were only about 10-15 people on the mat with him so it was as you would expect, brilliant. And they’re more experienced guys have definately got some game.
From reading that interesting article I can believe that he incoporated Boxing from Gene LeBell as well but during that time Bruce was so fast he didn’t really rely on the “Bobbing and Weaving” style of method, It said Bruce Lee lost due to because of Gene LeBelle’s grappling…In my opinion Gene Lebell would lose to stand up or up and up fighting against Bruce Lee. Unfortunely I think it was like grappling type of sparring.
Originally posted by Guy Mendiola From reading that interesting article I can believe that he incoporated Boxing from Gene LeBell as well but during that time Bruce was so fast he didn’t really rely on the “Bobbing and Weaving” style of method, It said Bruce Lee lost due to because of Gene LeBelle’s grappling…In my opinion Gene Lebell would lose to stand up or up and up fighting against Bruce Lee. Unfortunely I think it was like grappling type of sparring.
Bruce would also have learnt some grappling when he was learning Wing Chun as a kid. There’s no groundwork, but armlocks & trip/legsweep type throws are practiced quite a bit in the system.
Originally posted by Freddy I would add Lee also learnt some Hapkido techniques when working on The Game of Death movie.
Yea, He learned it from that Hapkido master who threw Bruce Lee’s partners down when they would strike him, It’s funny the first time I saw Game of Death I thought that was like a Tang Soo Do practitioner.
Originally posted by wingchunnewbie Bruce would also have learnt some grappling when he was learning Wing Chun as a kid. There’s no groundwork, but armlocks & trip/legsweep type throws are practiced quite a bit in the system.
Actually dude theres some ground work. But not extensive until more recently. In one of my old JKD Bruce Lee books theres drawinsg made by Lee on various ground work techniques and some judo moves etc. Lets put it this way he learnt from alot of guys through out his life. Its hard to tell what he learn from whom. Alot of techniques tend to over lap from different styles.
