3 Back to the States

Chapter 2 Back to the States In 1954, Bruce began studying kung fu under a famous instructor in Hong Kong named Yip Man. (Bruce always wrote "gung fu," which is the way to spell it in the Cantonese dialect in China.) As a result of this kung fu training, Bruce was learning to protect himself, but he wasn't learning to avoid fights—not yet, anyway. He still got into many fights at school, and after school.

Bruce fought so much that one teacher suggested he enter an inter-school boxing

tournament in 1958. Bruce did—and he won! He easily defeated several opponents by knocking them out in the first round. Then he fought a British student named Gary Elms in the final. Elms had won the tournament three years in a row, but Bruce knocked him out in the third round and won the championship. Bruce's strength and quickness made him an excellent boxer. His smooth moves and footwork made him an excellent dancer, too. At about the same time that he won the boxing tournament,

he was also a cha-cha dance champion in Hong Kong. When he was eighteen, Bruce got into a

serious fight. The police were called. They knew Bruce and showed up at the door of the Lee family's apartment. "If he gets in one more fight, I'm going to have to put him in jail," one of the policemen warned. Bruce's parents knew something had to be done. It wasn't an easy choice, but they decided to send him back to the United States. They believed it would keep Bruce out of trouble with the gangs in Hong Kong and that he would get a proper education there. Lee Hoi Chuen had a friend in Seattle, Washington, who owned a restaurant. He agreed to let Bruce stay in a room above the restaurant and work as a waiter. In April 1959, Bruce boarded a ship headed for San Francisco. From there, he made his way to Seattle. He enrolled at the University of Washington. A counselor at the school suggested that he study philosophy, which is the study of basic understanding and wisdom, because of Bruce's curious nature. Influenced by his study of philosophy, Bruce began to ask himself lots of questions. He asked, "What comes after victory? Why do people value

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