The Equipment Manager
by George Lee
One of the things that set Bruce Lee apart from other martial
artists of his day was the bevy of unusual homemade training
devices he had at his disposal.
While other practitioners were training on conventional
apparatuses, Lee was designing his own state-of-the-art equipment
to give him that added edge. George Lee, who was Bruce's close
friend and sometime training partner, was the man responsible for
developing most of Lee's sketches and blueprints into working
devices. What follows is George Lee's personal account of his
working relationship with "The Dragon."
Much has been made of Bruce Lee's unusual training devices. While
I built many of them, it was Bruce who actually designed them. He
would make sketches, and then mail or give them to me, and I
would bring them home and make the items.
He didn't use much of the traditional training equipment. At that
time, there wasn't much on the market anyway. Being a machinist
by trade, I was able to make his items in my shop in Northern
California. It was something I was able to do for my friend
Bruce. Whatever Bruce wanted, I did it. He was one hell of a nice
guy.
Some of the more difficult devices made were the tombstone, the
gripping machine and the shoes. These items took a little longer
to make, mainly because Bruce was very particular, and I had to
perfect them before they were acceptable to him.
I would make one device and send it to him, and he would say it
wasn't right. He would give me his input, and I would go back to
work on it. He was always improvising. He would want me to
improve it. Some of the devices would take a little longer than
the simpler ones. Much of the other training equipment I made for
Bruce was pretty simple, like nunchaku and the three-section
staff.
Bruce brought his own wing chun dummy in from Hong Kong; he
didn't make that. The leg stretcher, nunchaku, three-section
staff, wrist roller, and the isometric training device to
strengthen the forearms were some of the more popular devices I
made for Bruce. And the tombstone was certainly one of the most
popular items that I made.
The more difficult devices often Took me up to six weeks to
complete. The easy ones usually took maybe a week to finish. I
put a lot of time into this effort. All of the kicking shields
and punching bags I made took time. I made three kicking shields
for him: a round one, one that looked like a shoe, and an oblong
one. Bruce did not pay me for the devices; I did it as a favor to
my friend. A lot of times, he would invite me to his home in Bel
Air, California. He would show me a few extra fighting moves that
he hadn't taught anyone else. That and his friendship were worth
it for me.
Bruce's favorite device that I made was the finger-jab bowl. He
would fill it with rice or sand or pebbles, and then he would jab
his hand into it to straighten out his fingers. He used the
punching bags a lot too. There were about seven or eight
different ones that he put in his schools.
I still have pictures of all the things I made for Bruce. Most of
the items were sold at the auction [of Bruce Lee memorabilia] in
Beverly Hills, California, last year. But I still have copies [of
the sketches] of all of them.
Designed by Ovidiu Semenea
