- Mark Jacobs
- Mar 24
- 3 min read
Lee’s life read like a novel that frequently found him appearing at the confluence of historical events — from escaping the Communist takeover of China to working on formative flights in the American space program to becoming Bruce Lee's first official Los Angeles student.
The oldest of five children, Daniel Lee was born in Shanghai in 1930. That meant he was destined to grow up under the Japanese occupation of World War II. He briefly studied kung fu as a child, but after being beaten up by a couple of older boys, he turned his attention to Western boxing.
“Shanghai was a very international city, so he went to a YMCA to learn boxing,” said his son Robert Lee. “At the time, I don’t think Chinese martial arts were that well-structured, and my father had a very orderly mind, so the more structured nature of boxing appealed to him.”
Daniel Lee was so good at boxing that he continued to train after the war, and in 1948 he won the National Amateur Championship of China. But the following year, Shanghai fell to the Chinese communists, and Lee was forced to flee on a rickety destroyer that had to evade artillery fire and survive a typhoon in order to reach Taiwan.
A New Chapter in America
Lee’s next relocation would take him to the United States, where he attended Utah State University. While earning a degree in engineering, he continued to box. He then moved to Southern California, and his interest in the fighting arts exploded. Lee wound up studying judo, tai chi chuan, and Ed Parker’s kenpo. In fact, it was at Parker’s famed Long Beach International tournament that he got his first glimpse of a little-known martial artist named Bruce Lee (no relation).
“There were several of us who trained in kenpo and used to hang out together,” Steve Golden said. “We all saw Bruce and were very impressed. Then Danny Inosanto mentioned to us that Bruce was opening a school in Los Angeles and invited us to attend the opening. Dan [Lee] and I started together there on the first day.”
Becoming a Pioneer of Jeet Kune Do
Daniel Lee’s background gave him a leg up in Jeet Kune Do, which incorporated elements of boxing and other arts at a time when few people were actively cross-training. He was considered by some to be the best boxer/kickboxer to come out of the Chinatown School. His diverse martial arts background gave him a style all his own.
“His style of movement was like what you’d see watching old-time boxers, not like most of the other JKD guys,” Magda said. “Dan would put his foot down first and hit with his hip. He had a real power jab, not a fast, flicking jab. He also had a way of covering up where he’d glue his hands to his head and point his elbows out so punches would glance off his forearms. I call it the ‘Dan Lee cover’ and still teach it to my students.”
A Renaissance Man: Martial Arts, Chinese Medicine, and Space Exploration
Daniel Lee’s interest in both martial arts and Asian culture was far-ranging. He began studying tai chi in the mid-1960s, eventually opening a school and becoming president of the National Tai Chi Chuan Association. Meanwhile, he earned a degree in Chinese medicine.
He did all this while holding down an engineering position at the California Institute of Technology’s famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Lee began working there in the early days of the space program and collaborated on many of the unmanned flights that paved the way for men to land on the moon.
“I remember one time when I was little, I asked my mother where Dad was that night, and she just said, ‘He’s working late,’” Robert Lee said. “Then I turned on the TV and saw Surveyor 7 landing on the moon and realized he was in the lab monitoring the telemetry coming back from space.”
Daniel Lee was proud of the fact some of the deep-space probes he helped build are still flying through the outer reaches of the solar system. But he was equally proud of his contributions to the martial arts world, even traveling back to China several years ago to teach a seminar at a JKD school. And when one of the Chinese hosts sought to impress by punching him during a training session, the octogenarian Lee showed he hadn’t lost his touch — he deftly parried the blow and countered with a strike that knocked the younger man’s glasses off his face.
“There are two types of martial arts: the combative and the artistic,” said fellow JKD practitioner Richard Bustillo. “The thing about Dan is that he was like Bruce — he could be combative but also beautiful in his movement.”
