Larry Hartsell Jeet Kune Do – Close Range Combat

For years, martial artists have associated Larry Hartsell with two ultra-effective fighting concepts: grappling and jeet kune do. Bruce Lee’s system will forever stand at the forefront of martial arts popularity, and now that proponents of Brazilian jiu-jitsu have focused the world’s attention on the effectiveness of ground fighting, grappling is in vogue. This naturally brings us to Larry Hartsell — an expert in both ways of fighting — as he twists Black Belt into a knot and chokes us into submission. At the mercy of his elbow lock and hook punch, we bring you the following interview. Could you begin by discussing your martial arts background? My first martial art, in 1958 or 1959, was judo. At the same time, I was a high-school wrestler in the light-heavyweight class. I had a football scholarship and went to Wingate Junior College and got involved in tang soo do when I met a Korean foreign-exchange student. After that, [the college] dropped the football program, and I became enthusiastic about the only martial arts books they had out in 1960: books by Masutatsu Oyama [of kyokushin karate], Ed Parker of kenpo karate and Hidetaka Nishiyama [of shotokan karate]. I got interested, so I moved to California, where I started shotokan at the University of California at Los Angeles with Nishiyama. Later, I rode by Ed Parker’s kenpo karate school on Santa Monica Boulevard and looked in. Dan Inosanto was teaching the kenpo class. I said, “This is what I want.” I became a student of Dan and Ed. I met Bruce Lee in 1964 at Ed Parker’s just before I got drafted into the Army. I was home on leave later in 1964 before I went to Vietnam, and that’s when I really came to know Bruce. We became friends, and after I got out of the Army, I came back and studied with him. From 1967 to 1970, I studied with Bruce and Dan and taught at Ed Parker’s. When you went to Ed Parker’s, did you have to drop things you learned from Bruce Lee? Yes, I did because Bruce had adopted boxing then. He [mixed] it with wing chun kung fu. Also, there were grappling techniques he picked up from Gene LeBell and some stuff from Wally Jay’s small-circle jujitsu, which he added to jeet kune do.