The methods of training that Bruce was advocating back in the late 60s is similar to the training methods seen today in MMA.Maybe not as detailed in the grappling dept but the concepts of alive training,conditioning,weight training and contact sparring none the less all have the same flavor.He was willing to train outside the pandora box in different training methods ,something that was unheard of in the traditional arts during that time period.
You can walk into any bookstore or a video store today and buy 40 different movies or books about him that are sold just for profit in oder to capalize on his fame.Some of the movies about him are not even really him.In most movies along with most books they are not even authorized by him or his family.So if you just got into the arts say 15 years ago and you go looking for material on him...... good luck.You might get a real warped view of his true ideals and beliefs if you don't know what to look for.
As someone mentioned earlier he was a movie star that became very famous but anyone that personally knew him and this includes movies stars and elite martial art practicioners of that era will tell you that he was a devoted practicioner bordering on a fanatical mindset when it came to personal training and combat effectiveness.
Also if you don't understand algebra2 because you never did it or you never went outside your sheltered world to expereinced it,how can you know how to evaluate the effectiveness about what he is talking about?YOU HAVE NO MEASURING STICK.
I like it when a person that's been in the traditional arts for over 25 years in only one single art or very similar arts debunks the bruce lee ideals by simply refferering to them as beggining or novice ideals when in reality that person has maybe never even stepped foot inside a boxing ring with a qualified boxer in order to realize what bruce was talking about when he reffers to rigidness and being not being evasive.Maybe they never tried to train outside of their comfort zone inorder to make a valid opinion on certain issues that bruce represented.
The truth of the matter is that bruce could not have possibly come up with his fighting ideals without really experiencing it firsthand.That's the only way in most cases that one understands different true principles about combat and contact in a realistic setting.The people that don't appreciate his talent for being so advanced for that time period maybe are just not that advanced today in 2006.
I see it all the time a guy trains in his comfort style or world with out ever exposing himself to other training methods or different interpretations of fighting,then one day they open themselves up to other ideals for whatever reason and experiments with other method of training,then bingo algebra 2 all the sudden makes sense because without experiencing it,it just did not sink in.You might as well have been speaking cantonese.
If his ideals about fighting are really that begginer or novice in thought then most everyone that believes this can simply walk into most MMA gyms(that adhere to most of his principals anyway) and put a friendly !!! whooping on all of these begiinning novices that simply don't know anything about fighting because they don't practice kata.