Bob Bremer studied with Bruce Lee as soon as the Chinatown school opened and stayed until it closed. He worked with Bruce at Lee's house on Sunday when Bruce was free and called Bob to come over. Bremer later trained in Dan Inosanto's backyard until he moved to the high desert and had to get up too early go and train. After retiring, he began working with the Wednesday Night Group. In 1996 he joined the BLEF as a board member and stayed with it as long as it was in business. He never cared to teach, but liked to get together with a small group and work with one or two others (that's why the WNG appealed to him since they kept classes small). Bremer taught at all the BLEF seminars, but didn't enjoy it since there were too many people there, and he sometimes got too nervous. He later became an advisor to the BLF and continued to do so until his health deteriorated and it was too difficult for him to travel. He co-authored, "Chinatown JKD" with Tim Tackett. Bruce Lee's chief assistant instructor, Dan Inosanto, called Bremer "the Chinatown ass-kicker". During his career in martial arts he was more interested in learning how to survive in a real street fight than teaching.

From Tim Tackett
I first met Bob Bremer when I joined Dan Inosanto's backyard group early in 1971. I was already owned a kung fu school and thought I knew how to spar. I had first met Dan Inosanto in November of 1967 at Ed Parker's school. When I called Dan about training and bringing my first student, Bob Chapman, with me, he told me that there were only about 10 guys in the class so he had room for two more. He also told me to bring 16 ounce boxing gloves. When we got to the class Dan greeted us warmly. Class went well and I was having a good time learning something that was totally new to me. Then Dan said that it was time to spar. I ended up with a guy about 40 years of age. When we started to spar he did what I later learned was a leg obstruction. He then left his leg against my front leg and just grinned at me as if to say, "Now what are you going to do". It turned out that I could do nothing against him. This was my introduction to Bob Bremer. During the years that followed we became good friends. After Dan Inosanto closed his backyard school and opened the kali academy, I sort of lost touch with Bob. He had moved out to the high desert about 40 miles from my garage school, but as a crane operator he had to get up at 3am and go to work in L.A. which was quite far from where he was now living. Every now and then he would come by the Wed class if he didn't have to work the next day. Finally about 25 years ago he retired and started coming every Wednesday night. For a while he just sit and watch. Bert Poe was there teaching with me and when I would show something that I was learning, Bert would then show me why it wouldn't work in a real fight. After a while Bremer told me that he sometimes wanted to chime in on how it wouldn't work and what he would do, but he didn't want to interrupt. I told him to go ahead and just blurt it out. He did and the WNG was born. Bob then stated sharing his version of JKD. Some of it was the same as what I had learned at Inosanto's but some was unusual. He told us that Bruce wanted him to be one of the main guys who would spar any who came to the Chinatown school to see if JKD was any good. Bob then broke down to us exactly how to punch and kick in great detail. He also showed us some things that were new to us like the hammer principle and the leg obstruction. All in all we learned about 14 new things from him. Everything from Bruce's favorite way to trap to how to make trapping work more efficiently in a fight. Bob was also responsible for bring Sonny Bygum into our group as well as Jim Sewell. Last year we had a party for Bob at a Chinese restaurant some of the WNG teachers came from back east as well as Bruce's wife were there. She told us how much Bruce enjoyed working with Bob. You can hear what she said by going on our website: www.jkdwednite.com and click on videos.

While Bob's health is no longer good enough for him to come to class, every Wed we pay homage to him by teaching something he showed us. Our Wed Group is much better for having known Bob. Bob is a humble man who always wanted to be in the background. Bob never wanted to teach and he only kept what he learned from Dan Inosanto and Bruce Lee things that worked for him in a real fight, as he was known to hang out in some of the toughest bars in the L.A. area. While he never wanted to teach he was a lot like Bert Poe in that he didn't want us to teach nonsense that would not work if we had a real opponent in front of us. We are grateful and honored that he decided to share what he learned with us, and we are better JKDers for it.

Thanks, Bob
Tim Tackett and rest of the WNG
www.jkdwednite.com
www.jkdtalk.com

The Bob Bremer Interview
Conducted by Paul Bax

I have my questions ready…
Bob Bremer: Don’t just get me into trouble with people that I expose. It’s too late in the game to be making enemies. These liars have been lying so long…like Herb Jackson says they have been lying so long they begin to believe what they say.

You originally signed up at the Chinatown school after witnessing an introductory demonstration designed to recruit students. Describe what you saw at this demonstration and what made you want to sign up.
Bob Bremer: Well it was Bruce standing up there talking and he would have someone come up there every once in awhile and demonstrate and you could see his superiority and it was obvious he was way ahead of a whole lot of people. And so I jumped ship right then. They knick named us the turncoats.

Quite a few of you had left Ed Parker for Bruce Lee…
BB: Yeah… Of course Dan Inosanto was already there. He had been studying with Bruce privately for a year. He was still teaching at Ed Parker’s.

How did Ed Parker feel about his students abruptly leaving?
BB: Well I am sure it probably hurt him a little bit because he had students do that to him before. He was in partnership with Jimmy Woo and when Woo left he took all the Black Belts with him. It was before my time but I heard the story since I took Kenpo for a couple years. It was easy to understand. I don’t think Ed Parker was that easy to be friendly with.

At one time you said Bruce was the closest thing to a magician you had ever seen. Besides his Bil Gee and side thrust kick, what other things did he do to amaze you?
BB: Well he punched way better then a lot of people thought. He punched hard enough that if he hit you in the face he’d break bones. Cause he snapping it, he was putting that in they’re with about an inch or two of penetration and there was a snap. So, that kind of a pop-it makes bones-I was thinking about cheekbones jawbones, you know.

Bruce Lee was famous for his sayings in class. Can you remember some of them and did you have any favorites?
BB: You know, he had about a half dozen different sayings and if you remembered everyone of them you could figure out your own martial art almost. He used to say, “Take your closest shot”. Just little stuff like that. You don’t usually think of that when you are working out but when you think about taking your closest shot your disabling the guy, you’re beating him to the draw. It’s so true and so simple. Its one of those sayings that if you did what he said it had some direction toward being really good.

You had once stated that you often thought Dan Inosanto would be the torchbearer and go on with the art. When you stated this it almost appears that you feel he hasn’t taken up the task. Do you have any comments on this?
BB: Well, he is doing his thing. He keeps learning new stuff. He has to do a seminar every weekend. If he didn’t have new stuff he would feel bad about it and his students would probably feel bad about it also. He has to teach them some new stuff. And he’s doing his thing but I felt that what really needed to be done was to teach Bruce Lee’s stuff just exactly as it was when he left and let you go on from there. If you are going to learn something new your going to figure it out yourself instead of following some guy blindly and learn what he points out.

Have you been to Dan’s school to see what he teaches?
BB: Well I was there before he moved and I don’t think we are welcome over there anymore. Partly its Paula, she runs a tight ship. She has lost a lot of friends for Dan. We don’t come around because they don’t like her. He kind of needed her in the beginning but then she kind of took over. But I can understand this typical Filipino behavior. Maybe its something culturally they do. The woman runs the place and the man ain’t doing much. We get a few turncoats that have studied with Dan a long time and there seeking us out and suddenly there enlightened, “Like God damn, I never seen that before,” you know, some old, old JKD movement- they didn’t get it. They were taught other arts and everything else and they didn’t really learn how to use the JKD thing. That’s one of the problems. I know that it works like a bitch because we have half dozen guys who are good enough to be teachers. And they do teach. These guys are packing some bad gear. In a fight they could go a long way. Even into the grappling mode.

Speaking of which, you have stated that Bruce didn’t teach much grappling. Even Ted Wong has stated that Lee only taught quick takedowns yet some swear that Lee was heavy into grappling. Any comments.
BB: Well, that’s their story.

Did Bruce ever assign anyone to further study grappling to your knowledge?
BB: No. You know I hung around quite a bit. I was lucky enough to be invited to Lee’s house on the weekends. Now there are a lot of people but most of those other people are lying. I can’t believe that people need to bring this stuff up enough to lie like that when they know damn good well that there are people who know different. Herb Jackson was there at Bruce’s house quite often and he would bring him his tea and fix workout dummy’s. He was there a whole lot fixing Bruce’s stuff. He used to bring Bruce his tea and Bruce would wait until he left the room and Bruce would say, “I always wanted a Caucasian house boy”. But he had a good insight as to who showed up and who didn’t. And it was by invitation only. He had a hard fast rule right from the beginning. If you didn’t workout in Chinatown then you weren’t going to be invited to his house. So these guys who have these stories about how they went to his house even they dropped out of the Chinatown thing, that’s a lie. There is so many little fibs going around it fools them. Some of these people, I feel sorry for them. They’re relying on a martial art thing to bring them some income. I can feel for those kinds of people but that’s not where I am at. I don't need any of that money. I have a pension and I been fine and I don't need it. Some of these guys are hustling new seminars all the time to a point where it must be terrible. Dan Inosanto has a seminar every weekend for the next couple of years. Who wants to fly that much? And then dragging that little kid with him. That’s the worst place you can have a little kid with that recirculating air and everything.

Was there a specific group of backyard students?
BB: Yeah, that’s the way it started out but right after that it got going and these guys all dropped out. Everybody dropped out but Dan Lee and me and he couldn’t go on Sunday. He had to go to church. All these other guys, Steve Golden, Jerry Poteet, even Pete Jacobs found some reason they couldn’t make it. I think Bruce felt sorry for me because I was the only guy hanging around and the whole group dropped out. But I used to get invited to his house on Sunday and it was like all Sunday afternoon just playing around. When you get to a one on one, like I can give you lots of information that you can’t get so easily in other ways. That’s where I got the Bil Gee from. He had covered that in the early days in Chinatown and then it kind of slipped away. He gave me a one on one with that and I still didn’t do because there’s other ways of sticking your fingers in people’s eyes without using blinding speed. Finally when I finally started to teach it at Tim’s I found out I couldn’t teach it very good until I learned how to do it myself and suddenly you hit it, “bam, oh that’s the way that works” and suddenly your able to get a couple feet back from your opponent and hit him them in the head before they can blink. And you’re practicing non-telegraphic movement. Bruce was like that. If you stepped out in the alley with him his first shot would be the eyes. You never had seen anything like that before. He would beat you so bad and then he would have that little Chinese grin and be smiling at you. The guy was phenomenal. There was no great trick to what it was. It was practice, practice, practice. He really studied you when he was looking at you for the Bil Gee. He used to say, “There’s a split second when you are not with me and somehow I seem to know when that is”. So I checked him out and he knew when that was. I would find my concentration slipping a little bit and then bam, he’d hit you. So you wonder, how did he know that I was losing my concentration? So he was the closest thing to a magician.

Some people say he trained in hypnosis. Did you see any evidence of that or did he teach you any of that?
BB: I knew more about hypnosis then he did that’s why I could tell when he knew when that moment was when you weren’t quite there.

So how long did the backyard group last?
BB: Well it wasn’t a regular thing. He would give you a call and if you could make it you would buzz over. That’s the way it worked with me. I used to feel pretty good because I would be leaving his house and he would talk about some of these Hollywood people he didn’t particularly care for and he would charge them $500.00 an hour and I thought damn I am with him all afternoon for nothing. He didn’t charge me a thing. He never mentioned any money or anything like that. He acted like he was a millionaire and I found out later he didn’t have that much money back then. Of course he was playing Kato on the Green Hornet and was making $2000 a week. That was better then what I was making (laughs). I heard later that they were not loaded with money.

Dan Inosanto received three certificates from Bruce Lee. Of these certificates one was a JKD certificate. To your knowledge did this certificate represent something more then a Jun Fan Gung Fu or Tao Of Gung Fu certificate?
BB: It’s all the same. There was one thing. I don’t know why they keep trying to say, “this was Jun Fan” or some other thing, it was all the same. He wasn’t labeling it in different piles. I got three certificates from him and I almost through them away and my old lady picked them up and kept them from being thrown out. Bruce used to say what good is a certificate if someone kicks your ass. You always have to do it for real.

Can you think of any reason why Dan would receive three certificates on the same day?
BB: On the same day…

Have you ever heard of JKD being made up of 27 different arts?
BB: I don’t know how they counted that up. That’s a joke.

So in Chinatown there was no Kali?
BB: Dan was starting to play around with sticks and they didn’t even know what kind of sticks to play with. They kind of looked like pick handles. So that right there should tell you that he was interested in going on and learning other things when he really hadn’t mastered JKD and he never did. The punches look bad and sloppy. You know it’s the physical being that you are going to fight. But he was never interested in who was going to win; he was more interested in, “Gee, this is how they did it a thousand years ago”. You see he is not interested in who is going to win the fight. That’s the problem. We have a few people who are interested in who is going to win the fight (laughs).

Did you ever work out with Chuck Norris, Mike Stone or Joe Lewis?