The World's Greatest Fighter Teaches You: How to Master Bruce Lee's Fighting System

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: "How to Master Bruce Lee's Fighting System" by Joe Lewis is a surprisingly substantive book that belongs in any Bruce Lee fan's book collection. Not simply a book on martial art technique, "How to Master Bruce Lee's Fighting System" contains bonus chapters written by some of the greatest martial arts contemporaries of Bruce Lee, all of whom knew Lee intimately and many whose stories about Lee have never been told. This book will definitely help Bruce Lee's fans to understand him better and aid the martial artist in perfecting his Jeet Kune Do skills.

Rating:
Summary: Great Work !
Review: Bruce Lee is still the leading hero of martial arts, and rightly so as its chief innovator and practitioner. But Joe Lewis could rightfully claim to be the number two guy. I have deep respect for both, and to have a book that contains the thoughts, teachings and wisdom of both men is more than I could have hoped. And the book lives up to the greatness of the men it covers. (I just ordered a second copy for a martial arts friend.)

If you only order one martial arts book, this MUST be the one. It covers the fundamental tactics and techniques that must be in place to be a great fighter -- teachings not often found in most corner traditional martial arts schools.

Thanks, Joe. You've done Bruce proud.

Rating:
Summary: The World's Greatest Fighter Teaches You: How to Master
Review: Joe Lewis was voted The World's Greatest Fighter by his peers. Martial artists have voted him into over a dozen various Halls of Fame. In his era, Joe Lewis was the Greatest. When some of the greatest legends of the martial arts (Jhoon Rhee, Dan Inosanto, Chuck Norris, Bob Wall, Mike Stone) contribute to his long awaited piece of work and the highly respected publisher Walter Anderson writes a favorable review of the finished product, nothing else really needs to be said...Buy the book, its worth the investment.

Rating:
Summary: This is like three books in one.
Review: Joe Lewis, considered by many to be the greatest karate fighter of all time, has written, with the help of some friends, a nice martial arts text about fighting with an emphasis on Bruce Lee's fighting system known as Jeet Kune Do. This book succeeds where his early work, also reviewed by me, failed. His other book was a sequential photo book with very little written information. Relying primarily on the visual approach, it did not get into the serious thoughts on fighting application.

Further, the biographical section of the latter book also was a little disappointing. This book helps redeems Joe Lewis' efforts. First, the books primary objective is established in the titled and the text gives the reader the information necessary to understand many of the most important fighting concepts. Although the information presented has been presented elsewhere, Joe succeeds in communicating the ideas to where the novice to intermediate fighter can easily understand the material and should be able, with the help of a partner, learn and develop the advice into their own martial repertoire. While there are some photographs displaying some of the concepts the material strength is in the writing and it surpasses other books that have tried to deal with some of Bruce Lee's concepts. The strongest chapters are "The Science of Movement", The Art of Distancing", "The Explosive Initial Move," and "Angular Attack."

The extras in this book are a nice surprise in that they give one a break from the study of fighting material and allow the reader to get an understanding of Bruce Lee and Joe Lewis from the perspective of others, most of whom are great martial artist in their own right. Chapters I particularly enjoyed were by Dan Inosanto, John Korab, Gene Lebell, and Bob Wall. Even some of the contributions I did not necessarily like (Mike Stones' piece) I did think it was honest and fair to put the essay in the book.

This is a good book and achieves what it sets out to do; which is to simply explain some of the innovations and ideas pioneered by Bruce Lee and Joe Lewis.

Rating:
Summary: Chuck Norris was 10 times better than Joe Lewis!
Review: That being said, let me point out that this book is another example of someone cashing in on the legacy and greatness of Bruce. Joe Lewis was just another student of Bruce, and there are others (Jerry Poteet and Dan Inosanto being two of the most well known) who spent much more time training with Bruce than Joe Lewis did. If you want to learn about JKD then you're better off reading the Bruce Lee's Fighting Methods series. Also, in the Art of Expressing The Human Body, author John Little covers Bruce's training routine for Joe Lewis and it certainly wasn't anything extraordinary. Nothing that any pro fighter would do these days. This book is an average read if you've run out of good books on Bruce/Jeet Kune Do. Otherwise, stick to the John Little books because they're written from the notes and interviews directly from Bruce and his (long term) former students.

Rating:
Summary: Trying To Capitalize On A Legend
Review: The book is factual in some sense and adlibbed in others. Bruce Lee is a legend, a true martial artist and was a good human being. Joe Lewis is non of these. I know because I have been around Lewis for many years in the tournament and seminar circuit where I witnessed his is arrogance, his rudeness, his disrespect for women and his total lack for professionalism.

See if you are in the public eye and you represent the 'Bushido Code' then lead from example. Unfortunately he, nor his book, does any justice for the martial arts in my humble opinion. He is not a Bruce Lee and he will never be a Chuck Norris!


Rating:
Summary: Joe Lewis-Simply the BEST!
Review: This is a wonderful read and breaks down many of the myths about Joe Lewis.
He is probably the premiere martial artist of the 20th Century and this book reflects that.

A very tight,concise,clinical,thoughtful,humorous and insightful look at one man's personal art as seen throght the eyes of a true champion.

There are also anecdotes and endorsements from all `JKD' camps ranging from Mr. Dan Inosanto to Mr.Ted Wong.They might have their disputes about how,when and why `JKD' is taught,etc.,but ALL agree on one thing-Joe Lewis is the true star of the martial world.

Heavyweights of the fight world such as Gene LeBell also put down why Joe Lewis is worthy of the utmost respect.

A great addition to your library,and hopefully there will be more volumes to follow that go beyond his association with Bruce Lee.

Rating:
Summary: This is like three books in one.
Review: When it comes to legends in the martial arts, Joe Lewis is on a rare level. His first book is like three books in one.
1. Detailed analysis and breakdowns of what Joe Lewis and Bruce Lee worked on.
2. Detailed photos illustrating the techniques (they're animated on bruceleebook.com)
3. Fly on the wall stories by Chuck Norris, Danny Inosanto (he tells about when he heard Bruce had died), Mike Stone, Bob Wall, Jhoon Rhee, Joe Hyams (great Hollywood stories about Bruce) and, of course, Joe Lewis. This stories work great to break up the book and make it a fun and valuable read that will be on the must have library list for martial arts fans and fighters for many years to come.