Lineage

Our Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do lineage traces directly back to its founder Bruce Lee via his first-generation student, the late Taky Kimura of Seattle, Washington USA.

While Bruce Lee had numerous first-generation students, many of whom later taught their own interpretations and versions of his art, Lee himself only ever officially certified three of his students to teach his art of Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do: Taky Kimura, James Yimm Lee (no relation) and Dan Inosanto. These three first-generation students were his Assistant Instructors of the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute branches in Seattle, Oakland and Los Angeles, respectively.

Taky Kimura, in addition to being one of the three officially-certified Instructors, was also Bruce’s best friend and highest-ranked student. After Bruce passed away in 1973, Taky moved Bruce’s first US school, the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute of Seattle (“Institute”) to the basement of his Shop Rite grocery stores near Seattle’s Chinatown International District until 2001 when he retired from work and sold his stores. In 2002, the Institute resumed operations in a renovated horse barn and Sigung Taky’s long-time students Michael Hilow and Abe Santos became the regular Monday and Wednesday night Instructors there until the Barn closed in late 2016.

Sigung Taky himself only ever directly-certified four Full (Rank 5) Instructors in his lifetime; Abe Santos and Mike Hilow are two of these individuals, and of those four, only three are still teaching today.

Sifu Leong Lim is an Instructor under Sifu Abe Santos and Sifu Mike Hilow. He was also directly-instructed by Sigung Taky while training at the Institute between 2011-2018, becoming certified as a Senior Student and serving as the Institute’s Demo Team Lead for several years. This is shown in our lineage diagram as a broken line from Sigung Taky to Leong.

Sigung Taky, Sifu Abe and Sifu Mike, each with their unique styles as Instructors and practitioners, have imparted Leong with a deep knowledge of, and appreciation for, the technical, functional and practical aspects of Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do.

Our Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do lineage is illustrated in the diagram below.