Episode 928- Sifu Dwight Woods
In today's episode Jeremy sits down and chats with Sifu Dwight Woods about his martial experiences training JKW with Dan Inosanto as well as much discussion on Bruce Lee.Sifu Dwight Woods - Episode 928
SUMMARY
In this episode, Jeremy is joined by Sifu Dwight Woods to discuss his training with Dan Inosanto and his journey in martial arts. They talk about the influence of Bruce Lee, the philosophy of Jeet Kune Do, and the importance of being open-minded in training. Sifu Woods shares his experiences training with Dan Inosanto and the impact he has had on his martial arts journey. They also touch on the misquotes and misconceptions surrounding Bruce Lee's teachings. He discusses the criticism and detractors of Bruce Lee, particularly regarding his lack of a fight record. He mentions John Little's book, 'The Real Fights of Bruce Lee,' which documents the fights that Bruce Lee did have. Sifu Woods emphasizes that Bruce Lee trained like an athlete and was always combat-ready, even though he didn't have an official fight record. The conversation then shifts to the handoff from Bruce Lee to Dan Inosanto, highlighting Dan's willingness to advance what he learned from Bruce and his contributions to the martial arts world. Dwight also shares his own approach to martial arts, focusing on learning how to learn and absorbing what is personally suitable. He discusses the importance of going deep into techniques and constantly evolving one's understanding. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the symbiotic relationship between Bruce Lee and Dan Inosanto and the impact they had on each other's training and development. In this final part of the conversation, Sifu Woods and Jeremy discuss the online debates and discussions surrounding Bruce Lee's legacy. They emphasize the importance of focusing on training rather than arguing online. They also talk about Dwight's podcasts, the I Love Jeet Kune Do broadcast and the Jeet Kune Do dialogues, where he interviews Jeet Kune Do practitioners from different lineages. Dwight shares his philosophy of inclusivity and the importance of learning from different perspectives. They also discuss their experiences with influential figures like Dan Inosanto and Dan Kennedy.
TAKEAWAYS
• Training with Dan Inosanto and the impact he has had on Dwight's martial arts journey
• The philosophy of Jeet Kune Do and the importance of being open-minded in training
• The misquotes and misconceptions surrounding Bruce Lee's teachings
• Speculating on what might have happened if Bruce Lee had lived Bruce Lee's lack of a fight record does not diminish his impact on martial arts and personal development.
• Dan Inosanto's willingness to advance what he learned from Bruce Lee is what sets him apart.
• Learning how to learn and constantly evolving one's understanding is crucial in martial arts.
• The symbiotic relationship between Bruce Lee and Dan Inosanto greatly influenced their training and development. Focus on training rather than engaging in online debates and arguments.
• Dwight Woods hosts two podcasts: the I Love Jeet Kune Do broadcast and the Jeet Kune Do dialogues.
• Dwight emphasizes the importance of inclusivity and learning from different perspectives in martial arts.
• Both Dwight and Jeremy have had experiences with influential figures like Dan Inosanto and Dan Kennedy.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction and Overview
02:02 Training with Dan Inosanto and the Influence of Bruce Lee
07:25 The Philosophy of Jeet Kune Do and Open-Mindedness in Training
26:47 Speculating on the What-Ifs: If Bruce Lee Had Lived
33:36 Bruce Lee's Fight Record
45:06 The Handoff: Bruce Lee to Dan Inosanto
57:18 Learning How to Learn: The Key to Martial Arts
01:06:16 The Symbiotic Relationship: Bruce Lee and Dan Inosanto
01:11:35 The Futility of Online Debates and Arguments
01:13:48 The Importance of Inclusivity in Martial Arts
Show Notes
Contact Sifu Woods:
Facebook.com/dwightdwoods
Instagram.com/dwightdwoods
Twitter.com/dwightwoods
YouTube.com/@theilovejeetkunedobroadcast
YouTube.com/@thejeetkunedodialogues
YouTube.com/@miamijeetkunedo
✅Subscribe to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio on the following platforms:
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✅You can find whistlekick on all social media platforms using the handle @whistlekick or visit our website at https://www.whistlekick.com or https://www.whistlekickmartialartsradio.com
Show Transcript
Jeremy (00:00.598)
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome. You're tuned in to another episode of Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. And on today's episode, I'm joined by Dwight Woods. My name is Jeremy Lesniak. Welcome to the show. Thanks for spending some time with us. If you're new to what we do, two places I'm gonna urge you to go. First is whistlekickmartialartsradio .com. Everything that Dwight and I talk about today, we're gonna have over there. We're gonna have a transcript from this episode. We're gonna have links and photos and videos and...
You know, if we talk about things, we'll throw all that stuff over there and make it easy for you. And then if you want to go the full depth of all the things that we do to connect, educate and entertain the traditional martial artists of the world, that's whistlekick .com. Lots of great stuff over there. You can use the code podcast one five to say 15 % on any of our products. But Dwight, Dwight Woods, you're here. Thanks for being here. I appreciate it. Dwight with one syllable. I'm not even going to tell the audience why that's funny.
Dwight Woods (00:47.48)
I am. My pleasure, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Dwight with one syllable, yes.
Jeremy (00:56.886)
That's just gonna be for you and I.
Dwight Woods (00:58.552)
Okay
Jeremy (01:00.31)
But I appreciate you being here and I don't, where do we start? We could start in so many ways. Where do you think we should start? This is an episode about you.
Dwight Woods (01:08.888)
well, I was in Denver, Colorado, well actually Greenwood Village, Colorado, last weekend with my teacher, Dan and Osano. And, yeah, how you like that? Right. If you're going to, Hey, if, if you, if you're going to start, why don't you start with as heavy as you can. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy (01:21.11)
There's a bit of a name drop.
He is such a cool guy. You might as well, yeah, you're coming out swinging for the fences, all right.
Dwight Woods (01:34.776)
And so he called me up and he had me demonstrate in for the, for the, the attendees and what have you. And he just keeps, keeps making me go and go. And he goes, that's the Dwight I remember. Right. Cause I've been with him for 40 years. Yeah. Yeah. So.
Jeremy (01:51.67)
That's quite a compliment. You know, it's funny. In my mind...
Dan in a Santo is almost a litmus test for martial artists because if you know who he is, it says a lot about the training you've done, how long you've been training. And I think even your attitude because here's a guy who, I mean, is there anybody who is less afraid to put on a white belt and learn new things? And that's what I love about him so much.
Dwight Woods (02:22.328)
Precisely, yeah.
Dwight Woods (02:26.52)
Actually, it's interesting that you say that, Jeremy, because yesterday, I think it was, I put up a post. So I have a screenshot of Bruce Lee's Day Timer from July of 1967. So it's actually in Bruce Lee's handwriting.
Jeremy (02:40.726)
Okay. To the kids, a day timer was a planner. It's like a Google calendar, but on paper. All right, please continue.
Dwight Woods (02:48.76)
Okay, and so because it's on paper, it's written in Dan's birthday, 8 .30 p LA Chinatown surprise birthday party.
right? Now, the reason why I thought of that is because of what you just said. So there are some people commenting on Facebook and they're like, who's Dan?
Jeremy (03:04.31)
That's cool. Yeah.
Jeremy (03:15.19)
Dan who? Who is this Dan guy?
Dwight Woods (03:16.504)
Right? Yeah. Who's Dan? And then one guy who is somewhat of a noted martial art historian asked if it was Dan Inosano or Dan Li, because yes, there were two Dan's who are Chinatown students of Bruce Lee's, right? But I just thought it was interesting. In fact, I met Dan Inosano in 1983 on his birthday, Sunday, July 24th, 1983.
Jeremy (03:29.27)
Hmm.
Jeremy (03:43.83)
How does that happen?
Dwight Woods (03:45.624)
I went out to UFC Irvine for a camp. Yeah. And it just happened to, you know, camp started on Monday the 25th and we flew in and it just happened to be his birthday. I wasn't aware of that at the time, but yeah, that's, he was, you know what? yes, I think, because I think that camp was.
Jeremy (04:03.35)
He was teaching on his birthday.
Dwight Woods (04:14.904)
four weeks long and I flew in on week number two. So he had been at Irvine campus for a week already, yes. So he had taught, yeah.
Jeremy (04:28.278)
That says a lot about this man. I have not had the pleasure of training with him. And in a moment, I'm going to have you tell the audience, just give a quick synopsis of who Danis Inosanto is, because there are people who don't know who he is, and we don't want them to feel lost. But this is a man. I look up to a lot of people. And when you consider certain aspects of their personality or their training or whatever, I look up to.
pretty much everybody in some way, everybody's doing some cool stuff. But when I look at someone like Bill Wallace, why do I love Bill Wallace? Because he's still training and he's still trying to get better. And he's sharing what he knows. And you can say the same thing about Dan Inosanto. He's still training, he's still trying to get better, he's still sharing what he knows. And I think, you know, because he's what, 82 now? Three?
Dwight Woods (05:04.952)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Dwight Woods (05:20.248)
Bill Wallace or Inosano? Dan Inosano will be 88 this year.
Jeremy (05:21.174)
No, Dan, I know something.
Jeremy (05:25.846)
Okay, I'm off. I'm off. Okay, 88. And he's still going. And how many people are still going at 88, let alone alive. But they still have that itch to keep training getting better sharing their knowledge.
Dwight Woods (05:27.512)
Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Dwight Woods (05:40.792)
What's funny is that in 1983, I also met Bill Wallace at that camp because, yeah, because...
Jeremy (05:48.342)
Here I am, I'm four, and you're having the time of your life.
Dwight Woods (05:50.616)
Hey, I was 14. Right? Yeah. So, yeah, because what we would do at camp, like, so whoever you signed up to train with, you would train Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and then Thursday was Switch Day. So on Thursday, I got to train with Bill Wallace.
Jeremy (05:54.23)
But still, you know, 14 is pretty early to get to hang with those guys.
Dwight Woods (06:19.608)
And who else did I train with? I forget. And then we would cut training at noon and go to the beach for the rest of the day and then come back later on in the afternoon.
Jeremy (06:32.726)
Camps like that don't exist in
Dwight Woods (06:34.968)
I don't know if they do.
Jeremy (06:36.534)
I've never heard of a camp where people are just, you know, where the hanging out is worked in in that way. That just, that sounds awesome. How, 14? How did you pull that off at 14?
Dwight Woods (06:44.152)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, and there were, there were, that's, no, that's not true. I'm kidding. I was 14. But people always try to work out how old I am. And the truth is, I got confused. I got confused because it's either when I was 23 or 32, my students threw me a party and they switched the candles.
Jeremy (06:53.11)
Okay, okay
Jeremy (06:57.558)
Yeah.
Jeremy (07:04.054)
Okay. Okay.
Dwight Woods (07:11.032)
So I have been confused ever since. Yes, I have been confused ever since. I have no idea how old I am anymore.
Jeremy (07:11.829)
Just to mess with you?
Jeremy (07:19.574)
Awesome. Then you can't use age as a crutch.
Dwight Woods (07:24.664)
exactly, exactly. It cannot be an excuse, you know? So it is, it's incumbent on you to do the best you can at the seminar. And this is something that he talks about even in classes at his school. And I won't remember all of them, but he does talk about the six S's of martial art and included in that is skill and strength and speed and stamina and spirit.
And I forget one of them. But what he's saying is, no, no, it's more, I don't want to say it's like technique or whatever. It's more of mindset and approach to things. And he's, see, here's the thing, Jeremy. Dan Inosano has been on the seminar circuit, essentially.
Jeremy (07:57.398)
Is stance wonderful?
Dwight Woods (08:23.704)
for the past 44 years. Okay? So, let's say I did start training with him at 14. It means that I was 58 years old training with him last weekend. So the crowd that attends an Inosano seminar now, almost every gathering he goes through and he goes, okay, who here...
is over 20 and he goes all the way up to over 70. Yeah, because there are people over 70 years of age who are attending his seminars. Why? Because a lot of them have been with him for over 30 years. Yeah. You know, so when he talks about that, he's very often talking to the more mature individuals, right, at the seminar.
Jeremy (09:20.565)
Mmm.
Dwight Woods (09:22.776)
Because yeah, because some of us have been with him for four decades.
Jeremy (09:29.302)
I promised the audience that I would ask you this. So if you had to sum up who Dan Inosanto is in a couple sentences, how would you describe it?
Dwight Woods (09:39.96)
He's most famous for being Bruce Lee's premier disciple.
Jeremy (09:47.19)
But he didn't just stop there. He's not parading the Bruce Lee flag. Yeah, yeah. No, you're right. That is why he became most famous.
Dwight Woods (09:49.112)
No. Yeah, but I tried to give it to you and I tried to give it to you in one sentence. Right.
I would say that, so we have a saying that I co -opted from some of the other podcasts that I watch, non -martial art podcasts, right? And my saying is, I came for Bruce Lee, but I stayed for Dan Inosano. You see, because like millions of other people around the world, I was...
influenced to take martial art more deeply because of Bruce Lee. And so when the opportunity to go meet and train with this guy who had spent time with Bruce Lee, as a Bruce Lee fan, I took advantage of that. But then, and my initial intention was to go spend two weeks, one week with Dan Anasano, Bruce Lee's premier disciple.
and a second week with Francis Fong, a Wing Chun instructor, because I knew that Bruce Lee had formally studied Wing Chun and Dan Inosano was his top guy. So I figured I'll go out, I'll spend two weeks with these guys and then I'll go back home to Barbados and I'll show my guys there what I learned. And that was gonna be it. But it didn't turn out that way.
I went home and I talked to my supervisor and I got a few more days off and I called Jay DeMato, who was the organizer of what we called California Martial Arts Academy. That was the name of the camp. And I called Jay and I go, Jay, how much will you charge me if I can come back out next week? He goes, Dwight, you came all the way from Barbados to California.
Dwight Woods (11:57.368)
If you can get back out here, don't worry, I won't charge you anything. Boom. So I went back out, spent a third week. And then that just started a whole series of traveling back and forth from wherever I lived because I traveled from Barbados to California as much as I could. And then three years after meeting Dan in the Sano,
I did flirt with the idea of moving to California to be able to train with at his school, but that would not have worked out on the, on the professional side because my, my, my, my line of work, I would not have gotten a shift where I could train with him. So I did the next best thing, which was to move to Miami because I was very, very comfortable.
in Miami, cause I had been flying there for training and for work. I had been flying to Miami. So I moved, I w I was in the airline industry. Right. So, so I moved to Miami because we had, we had two, if not three daily non -stops Miami to LAX. So I could jump on one of those anytime I wanted to, or I could even, I could fly, I could connect through Atlanta.
Jeremy (13:00.054)
What do you do or what did you do?
Dwight Woods (13:23.48)
you know, or something. So I did that. And so literally for 41 years, I have been traveling to train with him.
And so it started in 83 and my most recent trip to train with him, we came home Sunday night, this past Sunday night.
Jeremy (13:47.446)
I know we're going to dig in more to you and Jeet Kune Do and Bruce Lee and Dan Inosanto and the subjects that come with that. But I want to go back to the before Dan Inosanto. Smaller chunk of your story, but I'm guessing just based on what you've put on the table, so to speak, you started training martial arts and Barbados. How did that happen? What did that look like? Why? All those questions.
Dwight Woods (14:00.696)
Okay? Okay?
Dwight Woods (14:10.072)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dwight Woods (14:15.576)
Well, I'm from the era of kung fu films. And Hong Kong, British colony, Barbados, former British colony, we were fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of one of Hong Kong's major exports, AKA kung fu films. So in my time, I had every couple of weeks,
There's probably six new kung fu films that we could go watch. So I grew up on that stuff. And then one day, I go to the movies and Bruce Lee starts fighting in The Big Boss. And I sit up in my chair and I go, what's this? completely different. Completely different, right? Later on, I came to find out.
Jeremy (15:06.902)
There was something different about them. You could tell right away.
Dwight Woods (15:14.84)
that the action director, the fight choreographer for the big boss called back, because they filmed in Pak Chang village in Thailand, right? They called back to Hong Kong to Raymond Chow to complain about Bruce Lee that he didn't want to fight.
the way everybody else was fighting in Kung Fu films at the time, what I call long fist style, right? Because all the movements were big and all the fights were like 13 minutes long, right? And Bruce Lee goes, no, man, I'm going to hit the guy once and he'll be out. And so they called, this is my understanding, they called Hong Kong to complain and Raymond Chow says, do it his way.
and the result was Big Boss and proverbially, the rest is history.
So that was my start. So a lot of what I did was self -training. Now, let's see, are you old enough or well -informed enough to recognize the name Bruce Tegner? Okay, so when you're from my generation, it's kung fu films and Bruce Tegner books that you either steal or borrow or buy from the bookstore. There was a thing called a bookstore.
Jeremy (16:26.678)
Hehehehe
Dwight Woods (16:44.664)
All right, for all you kids.
Jeremy (16:46.934)
It's like a kindle, but with dead trees.
Dwight Woods (16:52.984)
So yeah, so that's how I started. And then because I needed to have training partners, so I joined a local establishment called Wushu Kwan. And I trained there and I lasted about six months because they got annoyed because every second word out of my mouth was Bruce Lee. And they didn't...
They didn't quite like it. So like I said to them, I go, well, we pay $20 a month to train here, but all we ever do is kick and punch the air. And Bruce Lee says that you got to have, you know, like five different types of things when you hit. You got to have a heavy bag. You got to have a paper target. You know, you got to this, you got to that, right? You know, and the thing is that on my own at my house in my backyard, I had made.
a makiwara because even though I ended up being a huge Bruce Lee fan, I was a martial artist. It wasn't just, okay, my viewpoint is so limited, it's just Bruce Lee. No, I was a fan of martial artists. So I had Master in Karate by Masutatsu Oyama. I had...
karate beyond empty hand by Shigeru Okami, right? If I have the names right. I mean, I ended up with books on taekwondo, everything that I could get my hands on. Yes, yes, yeah. Because there was, I got the sense from the beginning, yeah, Bruce Lee did his own thing, but Bruce Lee was never saying,
Jeremy (18:33.046)
You, you, you, it was all good. You wanted all of it. Yeah.
Dwight Woods (18:46.552)
It's just my thing. That's all that matters is my thing. No, no, no, no, no. That wasn't it. Exactly. Right. So, so from the get go, it was about being open minded. It was about seeing what was out there that could be of personal benefit to you, no matter where it came from. Exactly what he said in the fight scene at the opening to the first fight scene in Way of the Dragon when...
Jeremy (18:51.798)
He said the opposite.
Dwight Woods (19:15.544)
the restaurant kid says, that's foreign. I'm only interested in Chinese boxing. And Bruce Lee says, if it can help you to protect yourself in a fight, then you should study it no matter where it comes from. So he did what he could to insert those important messages into the movies as well.
So yeah, so that was it. I forget the question now. Okay. Okay.
Jeremy (19:48.47)
It's okay. The questions aren't super relevant. Your answers are far more relevant than the questions. So you're training at this school and you're asking too many questions about Bruce Lee and you leave?
Dwight Woods (20:02.36)
Well, no, I wasn't asking questions about Bruce Lee. I was telling them what Bruce Lee had said, what he had written, because I was in the magazines, I was in the books, you know, and what have you. And so they asked me to retake.
Jeremy (20:06.678)
Okay, you're.
Jeremy (20:16.406)
And what happens then? Because obviously you didn't say, I guess my martial arts career is done.
Dwight Woods (20:21.144)
No, my backyard became the meet -in place for people from all the different styles on the island. Yeah, yeah, right? And I used to go down to the Shotokan place and sit and watch their... yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there was one guy who came over to me one time and he said, you're here more often than people who are members, why don't you join?
Jeremy (20:39.862)
Stay Let U.
Dwight Woods (20:50.104)
And I said, well, you know, it's not. What did I tell him? I think I said something like, I wasn't ready, right? And he said something like, you think you're better than us and this and that. And I'm like, man, you don't even know my name. I, on the other hand, do know your name. All right, OK. So how dare you try to tell me who I am or what I think. You don't even know what my name is. So that.
But one of the reasons why I was there was because I actually had sparring partners who were members of the Shotokan school. So I used to meet with them on Sunday mornings before class started. And out of respect, so we were the first people there. We got there like two hours before class started and we would spar. But I never sparred them on their training floor.
we sparred in the bathrooms because to me it would have been disrespectful, right, as a non -member of their Shotokan school to be up on their training floor showing their people my stuff. So we relegated that to the bathrooms.
Jeremy (22:09.334)
This sounds like such a fun, maybe that's not even the right word, but that's the word I'm going to use, a fun time for you. Because this is, you know, we've, over the course of the years with the show, we've had, you know, we've had plenty of people who were training in the sixties. I've read a bit about the folks training in the fifties, seventies, you know, all the way up through. And what seemed to have been happening and it...
started to fade towards the late 70s was this openness of what he got. You know, that very open and accepting, hey, you got something cool to share? Let's share it. I didn't realize until many years later that, you know, when I started training as a young kid in the 80s, my school was very much like that. And so that that's a lot of where that philosophy for me comes in. And it spiders into whistle kick and all the things that we do that, you know, I don't I don't care. I don't care if you're Shotokan or Jeet Kune Do or
you know, catch wrestling. Like if you've got something to show me, I want to learn it. It sounds like that's what you were doing down in Barbados.
Dwight Woods (23:11.64)
I think because that openness is built in to the JKD approach. That's part of the G. Kendo philosophy. So you'll go on the internet and you'll see sometimes it's incorrectly worded, but you'll see absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own, and that quote will be credited to Bruce Lee.
Jeremy (23:20.614)
Right sure
Dwight Woods (23:41.304)
which is incorrect. Bruce Lee never said that. Never. No. That actually, and it doesn't start at absorb what is useful. There's actually a sentence that precedes that, which is research your own experience. Okay. Now, there's a part of the story that I might not have correct.
Jeremy (23:59.606)
Mmm.
Dwight Woods (24:10.776)
Apparently there is there's an edition of Sun Tzu's art of war in which those words appear and they are taken from a book on warfare by Mao Zedong and so the part of the story that I'm not sure is how it ended up being a
Jeremy (24:28.566)
Hmm.
Dwight Woods (24:39.352)
not a discussion, but an exchange between Dan Inosano and Bruce Lee. So I think I've heard that Bruce Lee gifted a copy of The Art of War to Inosano. And Inosano, in reading it, came across those words and thought, this exemplifies Jeet Kune Do. And so he had a sign made.
And you can see it in various documentaries and what have you. And it said, the truth in combat is different for every individual in this style. So that's at the top of the sign. And then there's the big Jeet Kune Do symbol in the middle. And then on the bottom, it says, research your own experience, absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own. And so that became, I actually call, I named that.
the four tenets of Jeet Kune Do. But it's not actually an original Bruce Lee statement. He didn't say it. It could be more attributed to Dan Inosano than to Bruce Lee. But just like there's another one online, very famous Bruce Lee quote, to hell with circumstances, I create opportunities. That's incorrect, right? The correct quote is circumstances, heck, I make circumstances.
That's actually the actual one. But for some reason, it ended up.
Jeremy (26:10.326)
He's one of the most misquoted people. And in the early days of Whistlekick...
Dwight Woods (26:12.92)
Aw man.
Jeremy (26:19.222)
And actually I haven't heard from him in a while. Richard, if you're out there, you know, I'm talking to you. Wonderful gentleman. He's been on the show and he would, he would check us. He's like, Bruce Lee never said that. And I would get emails with screenshots. Bruce Lee didn't say that. So it's, you know, you could take pretty much anything that's imagined to be wise or philosophical and put his name on it and people will trust it because he's, he's still held up, not just in terms of.
Dwight Woods (26:32.632)
Yep. Yep.
Dwight Woods (26:46.232)
Because, yeah, because, right.
Jeremy (26:47.126)
physical ability just seen as just this, I guess profit is probably the best word.
Dwight Woods (26:52.152)
Yeah, yeah. And you know, look, there's like most things in the world, there's good and bad to that because what's good about it is that the philosophy gets out there. What's bad about it is when people start thinking that all of this originated with Bruce Lee. OK, so I did find it. All right. So let me show you this. All right. So can you read that?
Jeremy (27:21.494)
Circumstances. Hell, I made circumstances.
Dwight Woods (27:24.984)
Yeah, that's the original quote. All right. Now, since we're talking about people assigning stuff to Bruce Lee, do you know this book? Who Wrote the Dow? Okay. So this is written by James Bishop. And James Bishop, I think Who Wrote the Dow might be his third Bruce Lee book. And so what happened is in 19...
Jeremy (27:38.582)
wrote the downloader. No! No, I don't know that.
Dwight Woods (27:54.872)
1975 I think is the original, 1975 is the original publication date of the Dalla G. Condole. I think it's 75, let me see. Yep, yeah, because this is from 1975. And so what happened is that in the first printing, I forget who it was, but somebody pointed out to the publishers that a lot of what was contained,
is not originally written by Bruce Lee. It was actually Bruce Lee's notes taken from other publications. And so they had to insert acknowledgements into subsequent printings of the Dao Jikendo. Well, years later, James Bishop tracks down 85%, probably more by now, 85 % of the origins of
Bruce Lee's notes. Okay? So you can read who wrote the Dao and put it on the table next to the Dao of Jeet Kune Do and you can just cross -reference like this. Right? Yeah. So it's a...
Jeremy (29:07.03)
That's fun. So you can track it back to the original source material and get closer to Bruce's understanding.
Dwight Woods (29:11.704)
Yes. Yeah.
Right, see, so now the downside of that is that then the Bruce Lee detractors want to say, well, he never had an original thought, but that's not true because his thoughts are his. Now, how many of us have had a thought that was never influenced by something that somebody else said? Right, okay. Now, the thing about the stuff in the Tao is that Bruce Lee was making notes of stuff.
for his personal use, his personal consumption. He didn't know he was gonna die at age 32 and posthumously become an international superstar and that people would be clamoring for everything they could get their hands on. And so decades later, John Little is able to produce what we refer to affectionately as the Bruce Lee Library because John Little was given access to
I dare say all of Bruce Lee's notes. So these notes were taken from other sources, but it was for Bruce Lee's personal use, not for publication. That was never his intention. That just happened to happen because he died, became a celebrity, and there's people like me who you put out, I don't care what it is, this is my latest acquisition.
I have opened this. I have owned it for two weeks. I have opened it three times. Okay? Because I'm not particularly interested in what's in it. I'm just interested in owning it because... I'm just interested in owning it because it's a Bruce Lee book.
Jeremy (30:54.102)
You're a collector.
Jeremy (31:03.222)
Let me, let me, I want to ask you a question because I think more than anybody else who's been on the show, you know, we've had, I mean, Bruce Lee's come up a million and one times years ago. I was fortunate enough to have Matthew Polly on the show. We had a great chat and we've speculated often what might have been if he hadn't passed early.
And I'm sure that's a question you've asked yourself and you've probably talked about with other people, but I'm really interested to know your answer.
Dwight Woods (31:38.52)
So this is my guiding principle for what I call the what if questions. Do not insert or inject your personal preferences into your answer about Bruce Lee and what if. So let's say I am a huge fan of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
My answer to what if Bruce Lee, one of my answers to what if Bruce Lee had lived it all, he definitely would have trained with the Gracies.
What is that based on? Nothing. Right? Now, if we think about Bruce Lee's lifestyle, Bruce Lee didn't go anywhere to train with anybody. People came to him. So if you're gonna play the what if game, then to me it's more logical to say, well, the Gracies probably would have gone to see Bruce Lee.
Jeremy (32:17.366)
speculation.
Dwight Woods (32:38.84)
as opposed to, right, he would have, but again, none of us know. None of us know, right? So that's one part of the what if. Then there's another aspect of the whole what if Bruce Lee had lived where I think the phenomenon is known as presentism, where you judge someone in the past based on present day standards. So.
That's where you get another group of Bruce Lee detractors. any middleweight in the UFC would have torn him to pieces.
Based on what? Based on a guy who died in 1973. So you're going to look now at all the advancements in technology, all the advancements in training, and you're going to take his 50 -year -old ability and put it up against modern day.
Jeremy (33:35.862)
and assume that the most open, potentially at least one of the most open -minded martial artists of his era would have ignored all of those things.
Dwight Woods (33:44.536)
Yeah, right. So yeah, so that is something that I get. I'm asked that fairly often and I do have to deal with the Bruce Lee detractors, which is fine. I get it, right? It's a different era. You know, for a lot of people, Bruce Lee was an actor. You know, it's like, well.
What's his fight record? Because today, since 1993, August 1993, and I think the debut of the UFC, everybody has grown up where, well, you only matter if you have a fight record. If it's martial arts, right? The only thing that matters is your fight record. So what's Bruce Lee's fight record? he didn't fight in uncompetit - right. Now -
Jeremy (34:40.662)
Zero and zero.
Dwight Woods (34:43.288)
to his credit.
I thought what I would do is position myself with some of my library right next to me. Just...
Jeremy (34:53.814)
I could tell what you were doing. You've got, you've, you've got resources off camera. It's like we're in a debate and you're, you're ready to just bam. I win.
Dwight Woods (35:01.4)
Right, so to his credit John Little recently put this out right the wrath of the dragon Right wrath of the dragon the real fights are Bruce Lee, right? Okay. So like James Bishop John and James have done incredible amounts of research right in order to get to the truth behind a lot of
Jeremy (35:08.438)
okay. For the listeners. Wrath of the Dragon, The Real Fights of Bruce Lee by John Little.
Dwight Woods (35:31.448)
Bruce Lee stories and what have you. So John Little made a record of fights that we know that Bruce Lee did have. And then I think in the end, let's see, I think at the back of it, he does like a, I think he does a fight record, like a scorecard or something. Let me see. Let me see. See if I was a real Arden.
Bruce Lee historian I would know for sure. But I think it's on... I know, right? I know. I know it's terrible of me. So yeah, so here it is. Let's see. It's towards the back of the airport, the back of the book, a snapshot of Bruce Lee's fighting and sparring record. Right? And so it details, it gives you the date and the outcome and what have you. Yeah.
Jeremy (36:03.446)
How dare you not have all these books memorized? Why...
Jeremy (36:16.414)
Okay, yep.
Jeremy (36:28.79)
Yeah.
Dwight Woods (36:30.008)
Right? So it's like, it's in 19, let's see, here's a good one. 1958, he's 17 years old. He's a Wing Chun stylist. He fights a guy named Robert Chung in a place named Mirador Mansions, and he knocks him out. Right? And so John Little does that from 1952.
to all the way up to...
Let's see 1973. All right. And so his record is 34 and one. And then there's another thing where it's a sparring matches that he had with different people. Right.
Jeremy (37:22.39)
A few weeks ago on the show we had a conversation, we released an episode about Joe Louis and Joe Louis's legacy and we talked a little bit about his relationship to Bruce Lee and how...
Dwight Woods (37:31.672)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm. That was the Bill Wallace episode, correct? Yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy (37:37.942)
Yeah, it was Bill Wallace and Danny Dring were kind enough to talk about Joe and because, you know, of the people that I'll never get on the show because they passed away. Joe Lewis is probably the one that I'm saddest about because I have so many friends who thought so highly of him. But to talk about their relationship and how so much of what Bruce believed was, you know, kind of passed to Joe to implement. On a high level in the ring, you know, it's just it's.
I think, and I understand people's desire to break someone down to a fight record.
And maybe you'll disagree with me, but I think to boil Bruce Lee off to a fight record to either justify or detract from what he did, I think that does him a disservice. I think it does the world of martial arts a disservice because martial arts isn't just fighting. Right? Like if you want to learn to be the best fighter you can be,
Dwight Woods (38:36.744)
Right.
Jeremy (38:43.542)
stepping into any traditional martial arts class is probably not the most efficient way to go. And if all Bruce Lee was was a fighter or a near fighter, would we still be talking about him 51 years later?
Dwight Woods (38:58.263)
Not at all. Not at all. So I don't take any of that stuff seriously. When somebody is like, Bruce Lee didn't have a fight record, I say, OK, fine. Doesn't mean anything to me. Doesn't diminish his impact on my life, my way of thinking for the past 50 years. Not at all. OK?
I think it's cute that we can take John Little's book and when somebody says, Bruce Lee didn't have a fight record, we can flip to the pages and go, actually his record was 32 and 0. And they go, what do you mean? I go, well, and then you go into a mini dissertation on John Little's book. I think that's funny. I think that's cute, right? That you could, that you, I could actually respond that way to someone. But.
What a lot of people miss is that Bruce Lee trained like an athlete. You see, that's what they, so yeah, he never competed, but that doesn't mean that he didn't, that he wasn't competition ready at all times because he understood the value and the importance of being combat ready. And so when, you know, when his path crossed with people,
like Joe Lewis, like Mike Stone, like Chuck Norris, like Louis Delgado, guys who were at the top of the martial art competition world. They saw something in Bruce Lee and they sought him out. And then I think to a man, each of them would say, yes, the time I spent with Bruce Lee definitely helped me in my competitive years.
Jeremy (40:59.286)
One of the things that I've found myself saying over the last few years is that there are, if you consider the instructor side of things, there are two kinds of martial arts instructors, those who pass on what they learned and those who advance what they learned. And I think when you, when you look, if that's your dichotomy, it's very clear why Bruce was special. It's very clear why he is still so memorable. You talk about the detractors and
You know, okay, fine. Maybe you are an amazing fighter. Maybe if he was to be resuscitated, cloned or something and brought now, maybe you would be a better fighter. But you know what? You can go just about anywhere in the world, show a silhouette of this man, and he will be recognized and nobody knows who you are. And that to me suggests an impact that is very difficult to describe.
Dwight Woods (41:53.368)
Yeah, yeah, it's because.
Bruce Lee is the one one in a million for the martial art world because he happened to come along at a time in the history of the world where people had started to question all of the established entities. Bruce Lee hit the scene in 1966 with the Green Hornet.
Okay? And so when he did the interview with Pierre Bertone in 1970, I think it was, or 71, now I forget, right? And so Bruce Lee was a product of the 60s. And so all of the profound utterances influenced by thinkers,
like Watts, thinkers like Krishnamurti, influence Suzuki and the Zen philosophy and that type of stuff. Bruce Lee's personal library at the time consisted of over 2 ,500 books. You can find, yeah, and I think through the efforts of people like James Bishop, you can find most of those titles.
Jeremy (43:18.358)
It doesn't surprise me.
Dwight Woods (43:28.984)
I think you can find most of them online, but maybe not all 2500, maybe not, but a substantial amount of them you can find online. And you'll see, right, there was obviously, I would say the majority of them, the highest percentage was martial art books, but then there were books on filmmaking, there were books on personal development, there were books on...
finances, right? All that type of stuff. Because like Linda Lee said in an interview, he was a self -taught man. He was a self -created man. Which is why part of his philosophy is what? That Jikendo, one of the purposes of training in Jikendo is to use it as a vehicle towards personal expression. To use it as a vehicle towards self -actualization. That's the key.
That's why we talk about him 50 years later because that's part of his message as opposed to, yeah, beat up as many people as you can and make a name for yourself, right? Doing that. Eh, not so much.
Jeremy (44:43.83)
Let's, I mean, we could spend all day talking about Bruce Lee, especially because I know it's, I can see, right? You're smiling now. It's a subject that is one of your favorites. But I want to talk about this sort of, I'm going to call it a handoff from Bruce Lee to Dan Inosanto because...
I think, you know, when, if you look at the two of them through that dichotomy that I offered, you pass on martial arts or you advance martial arts. Bruce Lee advanced martial arts. Few people would disagree with that.
Dwight Woods (45:20.28)
Yes.
Jeremy (45:24.086)
But when you have someone who is that one in a million in any industry, there are a lot of people who take a very simple path and they kind of ride on the name of the person who made them who they are or at least got them started. I think it is again a rare person who says, Bruce Lee got me started. I was his chief disciple and I'm not simply going to...
compartmentalize what he gave me. I'm going to continue to advance things. And I think that speaks to the rarity of the type of person that Dan Inosanto is. And, you know, at some point I'd love to have him on the show, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, if you can help make that happen. But as the person who is closest to him, who has been on the show.
Dwight Woods (45:54.872)
Mm -hmm.
Dwight Woods (46:07.)
Hehehehe
Jeremy (46:13.078)
Can you speak to your understanding of this man and why he was willing to?
to take what was passed to him and not leave it alone. Because I can only imagine there were times early when, you know, Bruce Lee's name is here and Dan Inosanto's name was not as prominent that people said, why are you doing this? Why are you changing what this man did?
Dwight Woods (46:37.784)
Well, let me make sure I understand what you're saying. So you said Bruce Lee's name was prominent and Dan Inosano's name was not?
Jeremy (46:49.11)
I'm imagining in 1973, you know, there's quite a gap between the two of them in terms of how people saw them. Maybe I'm wrong, you know, this is before my time, but I'm guessing.
Dwight Woods (47:00.088)
Well, I'm trying to, shoot, this one I didn't pick up. No, no, no, I'm trying to think.
Jeremy (47:06.006)
I wasn't trying to stump you.
Dwight Woods (47:12.76)
Dan Inosano's first appearance in Black Belt Magazine. I don't want to get this wrong. I don't want to get this wrong. I think he appeared in Black Belt Magazine before Bruce Lee passed away. I think. I think there might have been, there might have been, I could be wrong about this, Jeremy. I could be wrong. But I think there was an article.
Jeremy (47:30.294)
Okay, okay, so maybe the gap wasn't as wide as I'm imagining.
Dwight Woods (47:41.944)
uninnocent
Dwight Woods (47:46.488)
keeping the flame in 72 before Bruce Lee passed away. I could be wrong, right? But so there were people in the martial art industry who were aware before Bruce Lee passed away of Dan Inosano and his connection because...
Dwight Woods (48:13.432)
The LA Chinatown school opened up after the cancellation of the Green Hornet because Green Hornet lasted only one season. So after the cancellation of the Green Hornet, they opened up on College Street in Chinatown in Los Angeles. And Dan and Santa was put in charge. So he led, so the way he says it,
It's like he taught 90 % of the classes, Bruce Lee taught 10 % because Bruce Lee would come in like on the weekends or what have you and check upon people and spar people and what have you. So Inosano taught 90%, Bruce Lee taught 10 % and Inosano assisted him in the 10 % that he taught because Inosano never missed a class during the two years or so that the Chinatown school was open.
So this is 1967 up until 1970. So in the martial art world, there definitely were people who associated the two of them. Now, when Bruce Lee leaves the LA and goes to Hong Kong, he says to Inosano, well, take the most dedicated people, train them in your backyard. So that was going on also. So again, within the industry,
there would not have been any separation. And then that means that there was a limited number of martial artists who were also aware of the connection. So Joe Louis, Louis Delgado, Mike Stone, Chuck Norris, all those guys would be aware of the Dan and Osan O 'Bruce connection. In fact, I told you I worked in the airline industry. So when Chuck Norris started to become popular, he was on the way, he was coming through Miami, heading down to...
the Puerto Rico area. And I worked in what was called special services. And so my supervisor says to me, he goes, okay, you're a karate guy. When Chuck Norris comes in, take him to the ionosphere club, which is like the lounge for the first class passengers and what have you. And just stay there with him until it's time for him to board his connection. So I meet Chuck Norris, I take him to the lounge.
Dwight Woods (50:41.976)
And we sit down and we start talking martial art, right? And he's kind of like, I got to talk to this kid, whatever, whatever. And then I mentioned that I'm Dan Inosano's student. Changes, changes completely. Changes completely because of that. Right? That happened to me again in 1993.
Jeremy (50:57.91)
And it changed for him.
Dwight Woods (51:10.328)
when Mark Dacascos came to town to do a movie called Only the Strong. Okay? When he discovers that I'm Dan Inosano's student, takes me off and we're out having a conversation by ourselves, right? Because Mark, yeah, Mark and I actually almost met eight years previously in Trinidad.
Jeremy (51:15.574)
Love that.
Jeremy (51:28.342)
You have the golden ticket.
Dwight Woods (51:39.064)
He was supposed to come down to Trinidad to be part of a demonstration, and you might recognize this name, for G. Anthony Joseph.
Jeremy (51:51.99)
Hold on a second.
Dwight Woods (51:52.184)
Yeah
Jeremy (51:54.518)
Do you know this is happening?
Okay, are you psychic? So to the audience, that's my next interview.
Dwight Woods (52:02.68)
Hahaha!
Jeremy (52:05.462)
Okay, apparently you know things that I don't know. So that's fine, keep going.
Dwight Woods (52:07.8)
Okay, all right. So, yeah, Mark Dacascos was supposed to be part of that demonstration that Dan Inosano was flown down for. And they flew Dan Inosano down on my airline, right? And in those days, to get to Trinidad from Miami, you had to stop in Barbados, okay? So I went down to Trinidad to be part of that demonstration.
with my teacher and that's where I met G Anthony Joseph in 1985. Yeah.
Jeremy (52:45.43)
You, you? So, here, I wanna shift gears now, because I, you know, we've spent just enough time together now, I can, I feel pretty comfortable saying, you're a humble person, right? And the number one way I can tell is when someone makes it about everyone else, which I think is common in the martial arts, but you're paying so much respect to these people who have come before you and singing their praises and.
really honoring them and I appreciate that and I'm sure most of the audience does as well. But I want to make sure we get some time talking about you. Right? We've talked about your connections with these people, but I want it.
I wanna talk about what makes you tick. I wanna talk about, you said, I think you said you came back Sunday from training with Dan.
Dwight Woods (53:35.8)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy (53:38.742)
When you come back, you're thinking about things and you're doing things. And I suspect you're also working to advance what you've been given. So talk to us about that side of you. Your contributions to the martial arts world, your thought processes. If I was to come train with you, if I was your student, what would you be teaching me?
Dwight Woods (54:09.784)
I'm gonna borrow this phrase from the guy I refer to as my favorite Jeet Kune Do senior. And this is a guy named Cass Magda. And Cass Magda, yeah, so just as Dan Inosano is unique in the martial art world, as Bruce Lee's premier disciple, Cass Magda is unique in the Jeet Kune Do world because he spent eight years
Jeremy (54:24.086)
I've heard that name.
Dwight Woods (54:39.736)
16 hours a day with Dan Inosano. And so we were at, my training partner and good friend, Ron Goldstein and I were at Cass's Sila camp last month or the month before, I forget when. We traveled a lot. We were on the road like at least once a month. And I asked Cass, what would you say is the most important thing you got from Inosano? And Cass said,
learning how to learn. Okay? So, what makes me tick? I absolutely love...
Dwight Woods (55:20.92)
working on ways to take from pile A and pile B and bringing them into what I'm already doing. How does this thing enhance? So really it is as literal as possible the application of the four tenets of Jeet Kune Do. Research your own experience, absorb what is useful,
My other favorite G Condo senior, Chris Kent, Chris called, I mean, he does follow the wording exactly, but he has, at times he has said, instead of absorb what is useful, more like absorb what is personally suitable, right? Reject what is personally unsuitable instead of absorb what is useful. But see,
Jeremy (56:13.846)
a little more specific.
Dwight Woods (56:19.)
In doing that, Chris is actually applying the Jeet Kune Do philosophy. Because nothing in Jeet Kune Do is supposed to stay exactly the way it was back whenever. We are all supposed to take it in, absorb it. So it's like, it's the difference between absorbing something versus adopting.
See, adopting is not absorbing. So it's like, I like that technique. I'll adopt it. All right, I'll put it into what I'm doing. That's not absorption, you see, because you don't absorb a technique. You absorb the art that that technique comes from. It's the whole thing about going deep into something. That's what Dan Inosano has done. That's what Cas Magna has done.
That's what I try to do as much as possible. You go as deeply as you can. Now, I don't have the access that Dan and Osano has to different systems under the top notch instructors in those systems. So I'm not able to go as deeply as you can. But what I can go deeply into is my own mind based on the information.
Right? And the learning that I have gotten from my instructors, I can go as deeply as possible into my own mind. So, for example, one of the things I got from C .A .F .S., so that whole learning how to learn, it means drill down, drill down, drill down, drill down until you have gone so far down, you've gone so deep, there's nothing else that you can think about.
And you could do that with one technique.
Dwight Woods (58:22.52)
Okay. Didn't you, you could do that with, so, so now here, here's what you do. Here's, here's a template. Everybody knows about Bruce Lee's famous, five ways of attack. Single, simple direct attack or simple angular attack, attack by combination, attack by drawing progressive indirect attack and, immobilization attack.
Okay, all right, now let's limit ourselves to empty hands training. So we've got five ways of attack and we have four skills of empty hands. There's kicking, there's punching, there's trapping, there's grappling. Okay, so now we start, personally I would not use Excel because I hate Microsoft Excel, simply because I don't know how to use it and my brain just doesn't, but.
But you do that. So now you look at your kick in arsenal and you're starting to determine what kicks are good as an attack, as an entry technique. So we've got five ways of attack, we've got four skills of empty handed combat, and then we have what I call the stages of combat, the three or four stages of combat. Entry, follow up, finish.
So now we got these. So this is how we build a template. This is how you learn to be creative in your own right. So I'll give you another aspect of the template. Okay. So we have five ways of attack, four skills of empty handed combat, three stages of combat. And now we have the element of this. You can change the timing.
You can change the angle. You can change the weapon. Okay? Right? There's one more. Now my mind draws a blank. Because I'm talking too much.
Jeremy (01:00:31.958)
That's okay. That's okay. No, you're you've got to talk. Otherwise, I otherwise it's been.
Dwight Woods (01:00:36.728)
Right? The placement, time in, tool, angle. Yeah, that's it. Placement, time in, tool, angle. Now, using those four guidelines.
People could come up with so much stuff and that's just empty hands.
Now take that and do it all over again with weaponry.
This is what Cas Magna means. This is what he got from Dan Inosano. Learning how to learn.
This is what I also got from that because I walked into that training room on Monday, July 25th, 1983. And the way I remember it, Dan Inosano and Cass Magda started doing double stick and I was like, that's it. That's what I want.
Dwight Woods (01:01:37.784)
It wasn't, whoa, I thought he's Bruce Lee's number one. Why isn't he doing what I saw Bruce Lee do in the movies? Because I wasn't there for that. I was there to hang with the guy that Bruce Lee appointed, right, as his top guy. I just wanted to see what that was about.
Jeremy (01:02:04.182)
So I'm going to attempt to answer the question I asked you earlier, because I think you've given me the answer. The question was, what was it about Dan Anasanto that he was comfortable, he was willing to continue to advance and not remain? And what I'm hearing from you is, because that's what Bruce taught him to do. That what...
Dwight Woods (01:02:30.104)
Yes.
Jeremy (01:02:31.638)
Bruce Lee taught Dan and Asanto that was most special was not the techniques, it was the philosophy.
Dwight Woods (01:02:37.08)
And that was a very nice way of you saying I never answered your question. Right? Yeah. Yes. So now part of the reason why Inosano has, he didn't get himself in trouble, but I'll express it that way because it's a joke for people like me.
Jeremy (01:02:40.886)
Nobody ever answers my questions on this show. That's what we do. It's just, they're not questions, they're conversation starters.
Dwight Woods (01:03:04.568)
One of the reasons why Dhanusana got himself in trouble in the Jeet Kune Do world is because he refused to try to link everything that he did and everything that he is back to Bruce Lee. And the small -minded people criticize him for that because the small -minded people think this.
If you learned from Bruce Lee, you don't need anything or anybody else in the world. Because Bruce Lee, to use a modern day terminology so people know I'm cool, Bruce Lee was the GOAT.
Right? So if you had the honor of meeting him in 1964 and knowing him for almost 10 years until he passed away, how dare you talk about Filipino martial arts? How dare you talk about Penjak Silat? How dare you introduce the world to Filipino martial arts, to Indonesian Penjak Silat, to French kickboxing?
to Japanese shoot wrestling. How dare you? You hung with Bruce Lee. We just want Bruce Lee, more Bruce Lee, more Bruce Lee, more Bruce Lee. What the hell? You think you're honoring Bruce Lee by approaching it that way? Bruce Lee said, be yourself. It's about self actualization. It's about personal experience. How can Dan Inosano's personal expression be?
Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee. But the small minded people, here's what they love to hear. all I teach you is what I got from Bruce Lee. I'm in heaven. All you're gonna do for me is to show me what you got from Bruce Lee.
Dwight Woods (01:05:10.456)
How limited is that?
So there's this whole other vast, this expanse available to you. And the guy whose slogan says, use in no way as way and have in no limitation as limitation, you are going to limit yourself.
Okay? But to each his own. That's the way of the world. So there are people who are gonna be in awe if somebody says, all I do is what I got from Bruce Lee. Well, what if all you do...
is 5 % of the 10 % that you got from Bruce Lee. That's nothing when you consider what the world... Do you really think that Bruce Lee would be... It's so stupid to limit yourself to that. Exactly.
Jeremy (01:06:15.318)
He would have continued to evolve. Yeah. Yeah. Dan and Asanto on his best day at his, you know, whatever his peak is or will be or was is an approximation of Bruce Lee at best. But he's the best Dan and Asanto there will ever be.
Dwight Woods (01:06:36.28)
Well, I'll tell you this, here's something that he never talks about, right? So I talk about it sometimes.
Dan in the saddle.
in college was
I think it's 9 '6". Was a 9 '6", 100 yard sprinter.
Okay? At five foot f... Yeah. At five foot four or five foot five and a hundred and twenty five pounds or whatever, he was the lead in ground gainer for his college football team. Okay? And at five foot four, five foot five or whatever,
Jeremy (01:07:02.55)
Wow. Okay. For people who don't run track, that is fast.
Dwight Woods (01:07:32.472)
He also, what's the phrase, what's the American phrase? Lettered? I think he lettered in basketball. Okay? So, in a sano was a physical phenomenon as well. Now, I am not saying, because somebody will hear this and they'll go, there's Dwight trying to, as we say in the islands, big up in a sano, right? No, that's not what I'm trying, I'm just pointing out that there might have been some,
Jeremy (01:07:40.022)
Okay.
Dwight Woods (01:08:01.24)
for lack of a different expression, attraction between Bruce Lee and Inosanno when Bruce Lee goes, this kid's physical. Right? There's a four year, yeah, there's a four year difference. OK, right. So then when Inosanno hooks up with Bruce Lee and introduces Bruce Lee to track shoes, because Bruce Lee used to wear like these combat boots and what have you. And Inosanno introduced him to
Jeremy (01:08:05.206)
Mm -mm.
Jeremy (01:08:11.126)
Like attracts like.
Jeremy (01:08:28.79)
Hmm.
Dwight Woods (01:08:30.744)
you know, what we would call sneakers, right? Like track shoes, right? In a sano, for training with Bruce Lee, he had the idea, well, these blocking shields that we use in football, let's use those for kicking. Yes. Yes. Yes. Right? Then the focus mips.
Jeremy (01:08:48.758)
Is that where we got that? This was from Danny Anasanto in football. I had no idea. that's super cool. What a riot.
Dwight Woods (01:08:59.448)
Inosano introduced those to Bruce Lee because of the British boxers. In fact, Jeremy, in the early days of Inosano traveling to teach seminars, he used to take a duffel bag full of focus mitts because they were not standard. Yeah. The arm shields that they use also for blocking in football, those became...
the kick shields. In fact, if you remember the back of the restaurant scene when Bruce Lee is introduced, when Chinese Boston is introduced to the restaurant workers, those yellow arm shields that the guy that Bruce Lee kicks, those are the original from LA Chinatown. Right? The air shield that he kicks in that scene also, all that stuff.
Those ideas came to Bruce Lee through Dan Inosano because of his time spent in athletics. So there was a symbiotic relationship between the two. Yes, there was instructor and student. But remember that Inosano is four years older than Bruce Lee, right? So even though there was, it wasn't.
as simple as one's the teacher, one's the student, shut up, nothing, no, wasn't that. They were also friends, right? You know, people talk about, well, it looks like if we look in the notes, this guy was there at Bruce's house more than anybody else. Yeah.
And the reason why it appears that way is because you didn't have to write in that Inosano was there because he was there all the time.
Dwight Woods (01:11:04.632)
So Inosanu didn't have appointments to come over. He was there all the time. So nothing had to be written in. You see? But this is why. Somebody will hear this and they'll think, there he goes again. It's all fun and games for me. The way people get their clothing twisted into bunches over all this stuff. Who cares? Who cares?
Jeremy (01:11:11.158)
just there.
Mm -hmm.
Dwight Woods (01:11:33.976)
The only reason, Jeremy, that we have these online fights and debates and discussions is because Bruce Lee died prematurely and posthumously he became an international superstar. When you realize that that is the cause of it, you stop fighting over him because it's dumb.
Jeremy (01:12:00.534)
When I see people that have that much time to argue online, my thought is you have more time to train, so shut up and get back in the gym.
Dwight Woods (01:12:03.48)
Hahaha!
Yeah, yeah, you know, well, no, now, so I say that, but tomorrow I'll do my weekly Wednesday podcast and then on Friday I'll do my Friday podcast. So, you know, I'm sure there's somebody out there who goes, well, Dwight's a hypocrite because he's always saying that these debates are stupid, but he's somebody who talks about this stuff every week. Yeah.
Jeremy (01:12:18.198)
I wanna make sure we talk about your show.
Jeremy (01:12:35.446)
There's a big difference between investing time and energy in the opinion of someone that you will never meet and you have no interest in knowing who they are as a person on a Facebook post or whatever and trying to convince them of your opinion versus you as someone with knowledge and understanding and access to first person sources talking about.
these subjects that did dramatically different to me. And if someone can't understand that that is not an equivalency, then, then I don't. Yeah, let's talk about your shows. And because I've got a feeling that, you know, quite a few audience members are going to want to check out what you what you're doing. So yeah, let's talk about that.
Dwight Woods (01:13:03.192)
Yeah.
Dwight Woods (01:13:09.4)
You know, the Wednesday podcast, the Wednesday podcast is called. Okay.
Dwight Woods (01:13:19.128)
Okay, well, first things first, we're nowhere near as professional as you guys are at Whistlekick, okay? Yes, because you have audio version, you use Riverside that does chapters. Well, I will, after this. Right? I mean, because I started, I think we're going into our sixth year, and literally all we did,
Jeremy (01:13:24.822)
You think this is professional?
Jeremy (01:13:32.15)
You can use Riverside.
Jeremy (01:13:36.342)
It's a pretty good tool. It's a pretty good tool, yeah.
Jeremy (01:13:44.918)
Nice.
Dwight Woods (01:13:47.704)
was to push Go Live on Facebook. On the iPhone, that was it. So we don't have the audio version. So you can't find us on Spotify or wherever else it is. Not yet. But.
Jeremy (01:13:51.478)
It's a great way to get started. Yeah.
Jeremy (01:14:03.382)
Well, if that's something that you want to talk about offline, I'd be happy to help you.
Dwight Woods (01:14:08.008)
yeah, after hanging out with you guys. yeah. Right. So the I love Jeet Kune Do broadcasts live stream. And again, I live stream because I want to be upfront with people, warts and all, you know? Yeah. Right. So we live stream and on Wednesdays I talked to the camera about something. Right. So,
Jeremy (01:14:10.782)
Yeah.
Jeremy (01:14:25.654)
It's a different kind of format. Yeah.
Dwight Woods (01:14:37.688)
If I can pull it up quickly here if my computer cooperates with me. I think this, tomorrow's episode is going to be, let me see.
Jeremy (01:14:58.998)
And your episode is going to come out in a couple of weeks. So.
Dwight Woods (01:14:59.768)
Yeah, okay, so at the time of recording this with you, it's gonna be, are you Jeet Kune Do confused yet? Right, and here's how I come up with these topics.
Jeremy (01:15:14.358)
You didn't call it G -confused, because that's what I like. I like forcing contractions.
Dwight Woods (01:15:21.24)
Now, when you see that change, when you see that change two weeks from now, right? Everybody will know where it came from. Because I will, Jeet confused. Yes, I will change it to. this is why I'm hanging with you guys. Right. You know, so yeah, so that is the I Love Jeet Kando broadcast on Wednesdays, 6 p Eastern time. I talk on there's a YouTube channel.
Jeremy (01:15:30.262)
Jeet -Kun -Fused. Make a shirt out of it, make some money.
Jeremy (01:15:46.774)
And where do people find that? What is it? Okay.
Dwight Woods (01:15:51.)
called the I Love Jeet Kune Do broadcast. And then it's at Dwight D. Woods on Facebook. Those are where the two live streams go. On Fridays, I do the Jeet Kune Do dialogues, which is like what you and I are doing, where I interview, I refer to them as Jeet Kune Do notables. What I realized when I started this, there were people who actually said to me, well, why do you want to talk to me? I'm not famous.
And I'm like...
Jeremy (01:16:21.206)
They say that to me.
That was the first 50 episodes.
Dwight Woods (01:16:25.664)
So I tell them, here's what you gotta realize. Every life has a story. Every story has a message. I want your Jeet Kune Do story, your Jeet Kune Do message. Because for me, a guy's Jeet Kune Do story, more often than not, is his life story. Any martial artist's story.
People don't stay in martial art all their lives and it's separate. It's so separate and distinct from what... You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So, and I will talk to anybody from any Jeet Kune Do camp. If you think Dan and Osano is the greatest thing since sliced bread,
Jeremy (01:17:03.382)
You don't make it long doing that.
Dwight Woods (01:17:19.672)
I'll talk to you. If you think that Dan Inosano is the worst thing since sliced bread, I'll still talk to you. I don't hide the fact that I'm a 40 year Inosano student. Everybody knows that. But by being willing to have a conversation with somebody who is not in the Inosano lineage, in the Inosano camp or whatever, I do that so you understand.
what my approach and my instructor's approach is, which is everybody has some kind of merit, you know, and you don't get anywhere just sticking to one way and one thing.
Jeremy (01:18:04.63)
with you.
Dwight Woods (01:18:05.24)
You know, right? It's like my business mentor, the other Dan in my life, Dan Kennedy, says the worst number in marketing is one. You know, if we just have, we have no backup system, we have just one system for producing our podcasts and no backup system, one day you're gonna regret that. Right?
Jeremy (01:18:29.942)
And to the folks out there, if you don't know who Dan Kennedy is, just as, you know, Dwight's here talking about going back to a rigid, you know, we've talked to that, there you go. The No BS Guide to Succeeding in Business. If you want to go back to some of my first person sources for the things that I know and the things that I teach, Dan Kennedy's on that list.
Dwight Woods (01:18:51.8)
Yeah, I spent 10 years with him. Okay. And he and I became, I don't want to say we became fast friends, but at conferences, he would make a point, from the stage, he would point me out, right? Yeah. And before the big,
Jeremy (01:18:57.366)
cool.
Jeremy (01:19:14.838)
that's quite an honor. It's a big deal.
Dwight Woods (01:19:21.048)
conference would start, we'd have a reception and you could very often find me and him off in a corner having these conversations. And one of the reasons was Bruce Lee. One of the reasons was Bruce Lee because here's the thing, right? So for those who know, Dan Inosano, highly influenced by Napoleon Hill. For those who know,
Jeremy (01:19:31.51)
that's really...
Dwight Woods (01:19:49.112)
Napoleon Hill's book, Think and Grow Rich. That's where you get in, well, you get it in Think and Grow Rich, but you also get it in Secrets of Success. The Napoleon Hill concept of definiteness of purpose, otherwise known as definite chief aim. Now, if you've never gone on the internet and done a search for definite chief aim, do it. And I guarantee you,
what will show up is Bruce Lee's copy, his handwritten note entitled My Definite Chief A .I .N .E. So when I introduced that to Dan Kennedy, a Napoleon Hill student, and showed him that Bruce Lee was also a Napoleon Hill student, I was in, just like I was in with Mark Dacascos when I said I'm Chuck Norris, right?
Jeremy (01:20:40.278)
Yeah. You know, you know, when you came on, we're going to start to fade here that we could we could go all day. I know we could. When you came on and, you know, you're Dan and Asanto, I I I just figured, OK, so, you know, there's the home run at the beginning of the show. We'll keep people hooked and, you know, we'll end up talking about Dwight's life. But no, what you've managed to do is work in just about every big name.
You could have and and you're doing something that very few people have done on this show, which is now you're dropping names in other industries. They're like, you know, I hang out with Dan Kennedy. And I say that, go ahead.
Dwight Woods (01:21:20.024)
Yes. You know why, Jeremy? You want to know why? Okay, so you want coincidences? Okay, so dig this. My first live event with Dan Kennedy was in 2006, March 2006 in Denver, where I just came from. Okay? And then two weeks later,
Jeremy (01:21:26.07)
I know why, but I want to see what you say because I've got an opinion.
Dwight Woods (01:21:49.272)
We're in, I think we were in Georgia. And here's what he and Bill Glazer teach from the stage. Look at what's going on in other industries and see how you can apply it to your industry. Hmm, look at what other people do in other martial art methods and see how it can, you see why I was happy?
Jeremy (01:22:17.718)
I do, I do. But here's what I'm going to say about you. You can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep. And if you've been able to maintain a relationship with someone like Dan and Asanto for a long time, if you were able to create a relationship with Mark Dacascos and Dan Kennedy, this more than anything else you could have told us today says something about you. And I'm so thankful that you came on the show.
Dwight Woods (01:22:19.608)
HAHAHAHA
Jeremy (01:22:48.054)
to the audience. Actually, no, before we do that.
Run down all the places people are going to find you. I'll have you do that first. Websites and social media and all that good stuff.
Dwight Woods (01:22:57.656)
So the website is unified martial art dot com. No S, unified, not united, unified. It means to become one. So that's the philosophy. Your training makes you become one. So unified martial art. But don't go there because the website's down for some unknown reason. There's something we're hosting and what have you. So right now, Facebook, Dwight D. Woods, Instagram, Dwight D. Woods, and YouTube, there's three channels.
Miami Jeet Kune Do, the I Love Jeet Kune Do broadcast, and the Jeet Kune Do dialogues. That's about it.
Jeremy (01:23:39.99)
Great, and I really hope folks in the audience take the time to check out your stuff because you're doing really, really cool things and I'm so thankful that you're willing to come on and talk. And I'm gonna throw it back to you in just a moment to close us up, your final words for our conversation today. But audience, go check out Dwight's stuff. And remember, why we do what we do. We're here to connect, educate, and entertain. And the goal overall is to get everybody in the world to train for six months, whatever it is. Because...
If you're like me, you believe that martial arts brings out the best in us. And so the world could use a little bit of betterment. So let's get more people training. Let's keep them training. And if you want to support us in our mission, you've got a school, Whistlekick Alliance. If you don't, maybe check out our Patreon. And if nothing else, go to whistlekick .com and see all the other things that we do besides the show. We've got the show whistlekickmarshallartsradio .com, but we've got a whole bunch of things there. And remember, most of what we do for you is free. And that's it by design.
Dwight, I really appreciate you being here. This has been a ton of fun. And you're making me rethink our format. Maybe we need four hour recording blocks. But my friend, how do you want to close this up today?
Dwight Woods (01:24:39.064)
My pleasure.
Dwight Woods (01:24:49.784)
I'll leave people with this. This is something that I...
when I ran my school, because I ran a school for almost 30 years here in Miami. And through the time spent with Dan Kennedy, I realized that you had to formulate your own messages. And so one message I came up with is this. The art of self -defense is actually the art of self -development.
You see? So, that's one thing. We do that using G Condo as a vehicle for personal development. So if you think about it, self -defense, self -confidence, self -reliance, self -development, self -actualization, all these things. I used to do that with kids that were interested in joining my school.
I'd go, okay, so you're here for self -defense, right? And then I'd write on a piece of paper the word self hyphen three times and give it to them. Come up with three more words that start with the prefix self, right? This is for the kids. I should have done it for the adults too, but I did it for the kids. And then I would say, and if you can't come up with it on your own, mom and dad can help. Invariably, what are mom and dad gonna do?
They're going to put self -discipline, you know it, right? That's going to be one of them. So then I explained to them that martial art training can help to develop these qualities or it can help to enhance. If your kid's already pretty disciplined, training with me, I'm going to enhance that quality in him or her. Right? And then the last thing is in this self -development, this world of self -development, four areas, physical,
Jeremy (01:26:23.254)
There are. Yeah.
Dwight Woods (01:26:49.176)
emotional, mental, and spiritual. And my belief is martial art is, will definitely, physical, that's self -explanatory. Emotional, because we all have the ups and downs. There are some days where as an instructor, you don't want to teach. As a student, you don't want to train. Get yourself in gear. Change your mind, change your thinking. So mental, well besides what you do,
physically, you should read about martial arts, you know, I mean any area, right? You should read and you should think about it. And my theory, unscientific and unproven, is that if you have physical, emotional, and mental development happening simultaneously, then there is a spiritual development of some nature. That's it.