Sijo Bruce Lee: From Classical to Non Classical

Gianfranco Mento was born in Italy on August 25, 1975. Since his childhood, he became fond of and took the path of martial arts. He followed different masters in different martial arts, spe¬cifically, Japanese Karate and Chinese and Vietnamese Gung Fu. From the beginning, he combined practice with theory and was interested in the histories of the different martial arts and then be-came infatuated with Bruce Lee’s myth. He decided to investigate Bruce Lee’s true martial path, and, in particular, his Gung Fu. His re¬search led him to study philosophy, science, and history and to meet important people (friends of Bruce Lee). In 1995, he met Master Dan Inosanto for the first time, and since then, has followed him in his stages both in Italy and at his Inosanto Academy of Martial Arts in Los Angeles. In 1997, he met Master Gianfranco Russo, allowing to become a teacher at NPIAMA (Nino Pilla International Academy of Martial Arts) under Sifu Nino Pilla, representative of the Inosanto school in Italy and Australia. His research led him to Seattle and meet Master Taky Kimura, an important person in his research, that led him to San Francisco and Oakland, studying, with the help of various ex¬perts and old masters of Gung Fu from San Francisco, the periods in which Bruce Lee’s life was in this area. For thirty years now, he has been immersed in the world of mar¬tial arts and has been recognized and appreciated by so many Gung Fu masters worldwide as a historical and tireless researcher of Bruce Lee’s background, who has given value to the old traditions of Gung Fu. Not stopping at the surface of information obtained by Sijo Bruce Lee’s direct students, he wanted to travel to the East to China, Foshan, Hong Kong, Macau, and the Philippines, to track Bruce Lee’s Gung Fu as much as possible. Since then, he has continued to study and improve himself with Sifu Nino Pil¬la and other respected teachers of Dan Inosanto and Taky Kimura’s schools in Jun Fan Gung Fu and Jeet Kune Do. He has studied different styles of Gung Fu with Sifu James Valenti¬no Santi, representative of Sifu Leo Fong, mastering techniques and forms that are part of Sijo Bruce Lee’s Tao of Chinese Gung Fu.