Oakland Years

By June 1964 Bruce Lee decided to give up his studies at the University of Washington and moved to Oakland, California to open a second school of martial arts. His, now steady, girlfriend Linda dropped Bruce off at the airport and despite Bruce's promise to return she was not entirely convinced that he would.

However, after several months of letter writing, Bruce Lee flew back to Seatle and asked Linda to marry him. Despite desperate last minute efforts by Linda's family to stop the wedding, the couple were married on the 17th August 1964.

By this time the Oakland Gung Fu Institute had become a busy hive of activity with a full roster of students. However, Bruce's insistence on teaching non-Asians soon attracted some trouble when in December 1964 Bruce received a message from the elders of San Francisco's Chinatown. They were unhappy with the idea of Bruce Lee teaching kung fu to the gwei-lo (i.e. Caucasians) and ordered Bruce to stop teaching all non-Asians immediately. Bruce ignored the message, but within a week Bruce received an ornate scroll from the elders which challenged Bruce to fight one of Chinatown's best kung fu experts, Wong Jack Man. If Bruce lost the fight, the scroll declared that he was to either close down his martial arts institute or stop teaching Caucasians.

A furious Bruce Lee accepted the challenge without hesitation and the fight was carried out under the watchful eyes of the Chinese elders and some of Bruce Lee's own students. As with his previous fight, Bruce quickly felled his opponent with a flurry of straight punches and a powerful kick to his opponents head. Bruce Lee was never bothered by the Chinese elders again.

Despite his victory, Bruce was extremely unhappy with his how the fight went. There are conflicting accounts of how long the fight with Wong Jack Man lasted. One thing which is certain however, is that Bruce Lee felt that the fight lasted too long and he was immensely troubled by the belief that it should have been over much more quickly. Although he was already fit and very strong, Bruce now took his martial arts training to a level which seemed beyond fanaticism. His training became obsessive and intense to the point of being legendary! Some sources suggest that Bruce Lee later went on to fight Wong Jack Man a second time and that this time the fight was over much quicker. However, there is not enough documented evidence for Bruce Lee Central.com to confirm this as a fact.

In his intensive training regime, Bruce Lee focused on the development of his upper body strength, paying particular attention to his abdominal muscles and developing his explosive power. Many observers have commented that Bruce Lee's training during this period of his life would have put an Olympic gymnast to shame! He would regularly perform one finger push-ups, on one hand. He would execute extended V-sits for long periods of time. He could cannonade an opponent several feet back from a punch delivered from only one inch, and his side kicks became so powerful that, in the words of one recipient, "they feel like being hit by a car". Late on in the year Bruce gave a demonstration of his "super human" abilities at the Long Beach Katate Internationals. The audience was mesmerized.

By early 1965, Bruce Lee's obsession for martial arts had also become his burden. His Oakland Gung Fu Institute, which had got off to such a good start, began to dwindle in terms of numbers and in financial success. This turn-around in fortunes was mainly due to the fact that, by now, Bruce would only accept the most committed of pupils as students of his school. There was however, one piece of joyful news for Bruce and Linda at this time- the birth of their son Brandon. Sadly though, this joyful episode was all too short for Bruce- his father, Hou-Cheun, sadly died at the age of 64- only one week after the birth of Brandon. Bruce began to consider the idea of abandoning kung fu as a way of earning a living altogether.