Break Your Chains (part 1)

Bruce Lee stood on stage, eyes sweeping over the packed rows of kung fu masters and students at the Sun Sing Theatre in San Francisco’s Chinatown.  

All eyes were on him. He took in a deep breath and stepped forward, planting on his lead foot. He pivoted sharp and chambered a kick, launching it high and hurling it down in a fatal arc, like a headsmans axe.

He turned toward the crowd, a sly smile tugging at his mouth. 

“Why would you kick so high?” he asked, voice cutting through the hush. “You leave yourself wide open for a counter.” 

He repeated the motion, but this time his assistant darted in, closing the gap and driving a mock strike straight into the liver. 

Before the crowd could even react, his hands and feet flashed in a blur. “Instead, kick low, then punch high!” The air almost popping as his strikes stopped millimeters before his assistant's face.  

The air grew tense as the crowd began murmuring amongst themselves. He’d done this before. At previous expos, he imitated a traditional technique perfectly, then dismantled it, inch by inch, explaining its rigidity and why it wouldn't work in a street fight.  

He turned back to face them.

“Most of what they teach you in traditional martial arts is nonsense. These old tigers, they have no teeth” he said.

The tension turned into anger, and the people in the front row started chucking lit cigarette butts at the stage. 

“That isn’t Kung Fu. You don’t know Kung Fu!” A man in the crowd yelled.  

“Anyone else want to volunteer?” Bruce replied. 

“I will.” said a young man wearing traditional kung fu robes.  

Bruce smiled and motioned for him to come up. 

The man walked towards the stage, glancing at the stairs. He shook his head, loaded his hips, and leapt onto the stage, drawing several woops and whistles from the crowd.  

Bruce approached him. 

“I'm going to stand seven feet back, close the distance, and tap you on the forehead. You can use your hands to block. Simple, right?”  

The young man nodded, looking smug, like he knew something Bruce didn’t.  

Bruce stood back, made his mark, closed the distance... but to his surprise, the young man blocked it? 

The crowd started jeering and heckling. 

“Loser!” one of them shouted in Cantonese.  

Bruce shrugged the insults off, taking in a sharp breath, like the kind you take before you break something. Then then he exploded off his lead foot, feinting with his lead hand, causing the man to drop his guard. 

With his other hand, he pushed his finger into the man's forehead sending him stumbling backwards. The man’s face grew red, and he raised his fists into a fighting stance. 

The theatre erupted into a shower of angry shouts and boos.  

“You can’t do that!” someone screamed.  

Even more lit cigarettes rained down. Bruce even caught one between his fingers, which enraged them further.  

The theatre was boiling; he thought they might rush him! But he didn’t run. He bowed slightly to the challenger. “Thank you.” Then he straightened, voice slicing through the chaos. 

“Anyone who wishes to research my style can find me at my school in Oakland.” 

The crowd silenced. The old masters looked at each other, aghast.  

Did he really just issue a challenge, to our faces? 

David Chin, a student of one of the traditional masters was furious. As he left the stadium, he went to the masters and urged them to do something.  

“We can't just let him insult us like this. If we don’t make an example of him now, he’s going to keep disrespecting us” he said.  

But the masters wanted to let it go. Keeping the peace in Chinatown was the highest priority. They remembered the Driving Out years, when white mobs burned shops and forced Chinese families into the streets. Open violence would bring attention they couldn’t afford.  

Plus, to them, Bruce was a nobody. In 1964 he had a small school with just a handful of students. In their eyes, everyone would forget this kid in a few months.  

But Chin couldn’t let it go. He wanted to put this upstart in his place.

At a Chinatown café, he gathered a few allies and sat down with Wong Jack Man—a staunch traditionalist of Northern Shaolin. Wong wanted a school, and beating Bruce would give him students and favor with the masters.  

Together they drafted a formal letter. Wong signed it, sealing Bruce’s challenge in ink. 

David Chin hand delivered the letter, and Bruce happily accepted the challenge. They would fight at Bruce’s school in Oakland in November.  

When Chin’s posse entered, they sensed the hostility immediately.  

“This is...” Chin started 

“You shut up. You've already gotten your friend killed.” Bruce said, cutting him off.  

“Were you at the theatre?” Bruce asked, directed at Wong.  

“No” Wong replied, “but I heard what you said” towering over Bruce.  

Chin walked between them “Alright, this will be a friendly match. Light sparring. No strikes to the face or groin…” he said 

Bruce waved a hand, cutting him off once more.

“No. You challenged me. This isn’t a game, this is a fight, I’m going all out.” 

The posse conferred, and Wong Jack Man, looking game, nodded and took his position.  

Wong extended his lead hand. Bruce saw the opening and surged forward like a tidal wave. He slammed his heel into Wong’s shin, cracking bone into bone. Then he lunged forward and speared Wong’s orbital bone with a four-finger strike, then shot a series of chain punches like a machine gun tearing through steel.

Wong stepped backwards, windmilling his arms, batting away strikes. Then his nervous system shorted out. His guard splintered. Panic narrowed his vision until Bruce became three. He turned his back and bolted for the door, flailing like a drowning man. 

Bruce sprinted after him, like a predator locked on prey. Wong burst through a doorframe, wood splintering. In a moment of pure desperation, he spun around and dropped his hail mary, a knife handed chop across Bruce’s neck.   

Surprised, Bruce staggered for a split second. He felt warmth and touched his skin, inspecting his fingers. Blood. Wong had smuggled in a studded bracelet, concealing it under his sleeve.  

Bruce bellowed in anger, charging forward like a raging berserker tearing through space. The studio still bore its old upholstery-shop bones, with platforms by the windows. Backpedaling, Wong slammed into a display cabinet, glass exploding, and fell, slumped at a 45-degree angle. Bruce swarmed him, raining punches like a monsoon.  

“YIELD! GIVE UP!” Bruce roared between strikes.  

“Thats enough!” Wong’s team said, sprinting to break up the fight.  

A few minutes later when both fighters had cooled down, Bruce approached Wong.

“Don’t speak about this fight. I don’t want word getting out. Better to keep it between us.” 

“Agreed”. Wong replied, rubbing a damp cloth to his face.  

What class. Most of us would have gloated. 

After the discussion, the San Fransico crew left, dejected; the ride home quiet as a graveyard.  

When Bruce sat down, he hunched forward still catching his breath. The fight was only three minutes, but he was exhausted.  

Any longer and I’d be finished he thought. 

Bruce won the fight, but he sat there grieving, like he knew this was the end of an era. His mother style had failed him. The rapid-fire chain punches of Wing Chun crumbled against Wong’s reach. Worse, Wong had fled, forcing Bruce to chase, something alien to him.  

What if the man across from him had been a boxer? Or a kickboxer? 

He inhaled sharply and stood up, neck throbbing. The truth was clear, written in blood: tradition had failed him. 

This was a long time coming. He had always experimented with his art, but the time for experimentation was over. Now was the time for creation.   

His eyes lit up and he grabbed his notebook. I have work to do.