Who were some of Bruce Lee’s students?
During Bruce Lee’s rise time, he came into contact and befriended many people ranging from the average guy who may have been a student to popular actors of the time. Bruce’s first student is Jessie Glover in Seattle, she trained with Lee for about 5 years, sometimes more than once a day, and is considered an authority on Lee’s training style.
When he started teaching his Jeet Kune Do style of martial arts, Lee only personally certified 4 people as instructors. These 4 are; James Yimm Lee, Ted Wong, Dan Inosanto, and Taky Kimura. Dan Inosanto has trained most Jeet Kune Do instructors after Bruce Lee’s death.
Inosanto certified instructors for over 30 years, which gave all of them direct lineage contact with Lee through him. Inosanto and Taky Kimura were allowed to teach only small groups of students after Lee’s death. Other students of Bruce Lee were Chuck Norris, Joe Lewis and Mike Stone, who were already martial artists.
We all know that Chuck Norris was Lee’s opponent in the movie Return of the Dragon in the famous colosseum fight. Norris was already an accomplished martial artist when he met Lee, having learned Tang Soo Do in Korea while in the Air Force and competing and teaching in the US.
Actor James Coburn could be found hanging out with Lee and was one of his students. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a basketball star in the ABA and NBA, was a student and was in Bruce Lee’s Game of Death as the last of the characters Lee fought while climbing the pagoda. Steve McQueen brought his son to Bruce for martial arts instruction. Chuck Norris had also tutored his son.
