page_title: Bruce Lee
section_title: 1940 to 1958: Early Roles, schooling and martial arts initiation
hierarchical_section_title: Bruce Lee / Career and education / 1940 to 1958: Early Roles, schooling and martial arts initiation
caption_attribution_description: English: A film still from My Son A-Chang ( 細路祥 , 1950) featuring the young Bruce Lee.
context_page_description: Lee Jun-fan, commonly known as Bruce Lee, was a Hong Kong American actor, director, martial artist, martial arts instructor and philosopher. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy drawing from different combat disciplines that is often credited with paving the way for modern mixed martial arts. Lee is considered by commentators, critics, media, and other martial artists to be the most influential martial artist of all time and a pop culture icon of the 20th century, who bridged the gap between East and West. He is credited with helping to change the way Asians were presented in American films.
  The son of Cantonese opera star Lee Hoi-chuen, Lee was born in the Chinatown area of San Francisco, California, on November 27, 1940, to parents from Hong Kong, and was raised with his family in Kowloon, Hong Kong. He was introduced to the film industry by his father and appeared in several films as a child actor. Lee moved to the United States at the age of 18 to receive his higher education at the University of Washington in Seattle, and it was during this time that he began teaching martial arts.
context_section_description: Lee's father Lee Hoi-chuen was a famous Cantonese opera star. Because of this, Lee was introduced into films at a very young age and appeared in several films as a child. Lee had his first role as a baby who was carried onto the stage in the film Golden Gate Girl. As a nine-year-old, he would co-star with his father in The Kid in 1950, which was based on a comic book character and was his first leading role. By the time he was 18, he had appeared in twenty films.
  
  After Lee was involved in several street fights, his parents decided that he needed to be trained in the martial arts. Lee's first introduction to martial arts was through his father, from whom he learned the fundamentals of Wu-style t'ai chi ch'uan.
  The largest influence on Lee's martial arts development was his study of Wing Chun. Lee began training in Wing Chun when he was 16 years old under the Wing Chun teacher Yip Man in between late 1956 and 1957, after losing to rival gang members. Yip's regular classes generally consisted of the forms practice, chi sao (sticking hands) drills, wooden dummy techniques, and free-sparring. There was no set pattern to the classes. Yip tried to keep his students from fighting in the street gangs of Hong Kong by encouraging them to fight in organized competitions.
  
  After a year into his Wing Chun training, most of Yip Man's other students refused to train with Lee when they had learned of his mixed ancestry, as the Chinese were generally against teaching their martial arts techniques to non-Asians. Lee's sparring partner, Hawkins Cheung, states, "Probably fewer than six people in the whole Wing Chun clan were personally taught, or even partly taught, by Yip Man". However, Lee showed a keen interest in Wing Chun and continued to train privately with Yip Man and Wong Shun Leung. Wan Kam Leung, a student of Wong's, witnessed a sparring bout between Wong and Lee and noted the speed and precision with which Lee was able to deliver his kicks. Lee continued to train with Wong Shun Leung after returning to Hong Kong from America.
  After attending Tak Sun School (德信學校; several blocks from his home at 218 Nathan Road, Kowloon), Lee entered the primary school division of the Catholic La Salle College at the age of 12. In 1956, due to poor academic performance and possibly poor conduct, he was transferred to St. Francis Xavier's College, where he would be mentored by Brother Edward, a teacher and coach of the school boxing team. In 1958, Bruce won the Hong Kong schools boxing tournament, knocking out the previous champion in the final. He was also a cha-cha dancer, winning Hong Kong's Crown Colony Cha-Cha Championship in 1958.
caption: Bruce Lee in The Kid
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