Interview
Interview
Lee, every working day on the set, his admiration grew for him: " In a scene in which I was not involved, although I had to remain on the set, I was quietly sitting in my chair while Bruce was fighting in my office, after beat up my bullies, I saw him leap in the air and break with his foot a lamp that was hanging from the ceiling. I hadn ' t seen anything like that in my whole life, I just couldn ' t believe it, I got petrified by the power of his kick ". It was not the only time that Bruce Lee amazed him with his kicks; on this issue John still remembers a joke Bruce played on him: " On another occasion, I was smoking my cigar, waiting for everything to be ready for the next scene, Bruce was standing next to me but I din ' t realize, then he threw a kick and nudged the ash of my cigar, just the ash, the rest did ' nt even move. He had such self control, he could kick near your face- and you would feel the air move- without even touching your nose with his foot."
Once he gets started, John just can ' t stop eulogizing the Little Dragon: " Bruce was an amazing guy. Physically he could carry out incredible things. He liked to show off, he was the best and he knew it. Just for boast, he ' d do hundreds of push-ups on two fingers, performe hundreds of kicks... what I think he liked most was going beyond the limits. He had a gym at home with a lot of training equipment, most of which had been designed by him.
While in the filming set, sometimes over eight hours a day, he practiced push-ups and trained between shots; when we were through, he went home and trained some more hours in his gym. He was never still. I remember he had a device, a special box that he himself had designed with several holes, the largest of 4 inches wide, and the other ones of 3, 2 and 1 inch repectively. The hole edges were sharp and cutting. He threw his fist in the larger hole, and on touching it a lamp would turn on. He used to do it very, very quickly, then he ' d do the same with the other holes, using three fingers, two and finally one. Failure meant to cut yourself with the edges. Every time Bruce touched the device, he received a small electric shock. That made his reflexes so fast. The movie cameras had to slow down his movements because no one could believe his fantastic speed. I think that this device had much to do with the speed he had."
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