Quote Originally Posted by piebaldpython
Nah, it wasn't him teaching non-Asians.....sheesh, plenty of American servicemen have learned the Oriental fighting arts since at least the 1940s. Robert W. Smith learned from a whole host of Asian teachers on Taiwan in the 1960s.

What got Lee into "trouble", was saying that just teaching "forms" was not really beneficial for a student. The "form" in and of itself was just a dance and didn't necessarily impart fighting techniques. Glorified and gussied up phys ed that served as a money making machine. "Forms" can be a good thing in the hands of a dedicated teacher. The Form teaches certain physical characteristics not noted in prior or related forms. There is fighting application, but if a teacher doesn't reveal it, then the student is just doing a dance.

Lee didn't teach "forms"......he taught techniques and concepts and so his students were motivated to learn more, to search, to relate everything to fighting.
Of course, you're right. The whole "classical mess" that Lee railed against.

But I still think there was some prejudice against Lee teaching Chinese arts to non-Chinese. The Chinese were notoriously guarded about teaching their martial arts even to their own. Many times a prospective (Chinese!) student had to work very hard to be accepted by a teacher. I think that Lee freely teaching Chinese martial arts to non-Chinese probably ruffled a lot of feathers in the Chinese martial arts community.

Smith was kind of an anomaly. He was very good about getting Chinese martial arts experts to open up and reveal at least a little about their arts. It seems to me that most of the servicemen learning martial arts in Asia were learning mostly judo/karate/tae kwon do and not the more esoteric Chinese arts. Although there is some speculation that back in the 1930s, Fairbairn learned some Chinese arts which became the basis of his WWII hand-to-hand combat system while working as a policeman in Shanghai.

I owe a big debt to Smith, it was his book Pa-Kua: Chinese Boxing for Fitness & Self-Defense that got me interested in baguazhang.