Though she’s proud to claim Dan Inosanto as a father,
Bruce Lee as an "uncle,"
and Brandon Lee as a dearly remembered friend, Diana Lee Inosanto is first
and foremost her own person.
Archives
Martial Arts Related Articles
Diana Lee Inosanto: Finding Her Own Way, By Martha Burr
Originally published in World of Martial Arts Magazine
Every
martial artist evolves in his or her own way, through different and sometimes
intertwining paths of determination and coincidence. It was fate that made
Diana Lee Inosanto the daughter of Dan Inosanto, as well as a symbolic daughter
in the charmed circle of Bruce Lee. One family photo shows a young Diana
with her mom Sue, as her father kicks and Bruce Lee stands by. On the back
of the photo one parent has written, "Dan Inosanto and Bruce Lee working
out at the Inosanto’s house. Diana is underfoot and 2 years old."
It is not a terribly clear photo, but it somehow captures the southern California
sun and summer shadows pouring onto a young girl still oblivious to the
gung fu heritage she would later have the choice to embrace or let go.
Diana chose to remain "underfoot," one might say, in the martial arts community. "My heart’s been in acting my whole life," she says, "And at first I didn’t want to use martial arts. I was Dan Inosanto’s daughter-it was a hard act to follow. It was intimidating. People judge you." Trained as an actress from high school on, Diana pursued the straight side of acting, taking time off to have her son, Sebastian. As an extra on "Moonlighting," Diana broke through to a minor role and got her Screen Actors Guild card and a better paying gig. Even so, acting is a difficult profession for the most talented and hardworking, and love for the martial arts was still in Diana’s heart, if not her blood. Through stunt work she began to dovetail acting and martial arts, paving the way for a solid career in action movies. "‘Barb Wire’ was my first stunt job, where I was a customs official doing a fight scene with Temeura Morrison. That started the momentum. Then I went on to work on the ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer series’, and ‘Walker, Texas Ranger,’ which I’ve been on for the past two years." Diana has also worked on some of Hollywood’s better action films, including John Woo’s "Face/Off" and the upcoming Wesley Snipes feature "Blade."
"John Woo was one of the only directors I’ve worked with who would come up every time we did a scene to see if I was OK. He was so warm, so patient. It was great experience both personally and from a filmmaking perspective."
Early Training
Martial arts has permeated Diana’s life as long as she can remember. "From when I was a baby until I was around five it was more like play," she recalls, "but at five or six my Dad started in with my serious training. He was adamant about how important that it was I train. He wanted me to be able to defend myself. Sometimes I would cry; I didn’t understand why I had to work so hard. As a child I wanted to seize the moment and play with toys. But when he said I had to train, I had to.
"Unfortunately," Diana continues, "there was some racial tension in my neighborhood in those days, and one day some girls scratched up my face quite badly. I had scars for years. I came home crying, and that’s when I realized my Dad was right. I said, ‘Dad, I really want to train.’ We had this huge gym in our backyard and I got right out there. People would come over and look in back and ask [about it], and my Dad told them, ‘I’m training my daughter because she got into a fight.’"
Training with her father also meant participating in the martial arts world surrounding the Inosanto's. Diana recalls, "I hated doing demos in front of audiences. My Dad would call me up on stage and tell the audience he was going to have his daughter demonstrate. I was terribly shy; I loved acting, but doing martial arts in front of an audience really scared me when I was nine years old. Then one day he called me up to demonstrate a technique-I didn’t know what it was going to be-and he put me in an arm lock. My response was just instinctive from what I’d been taught: In a second I elbowed him in the face and kicked him in the groin. That was the last time he ever did that to me."
Diana
continued to train, remembering summers in Aspen at her Dad’s training
camp as the purest, most idyllic memories of childhood. Then, as she entered
high school her interests began to broaden. "I studied a lot of dance,"
she says. "Jazz, and modern. I was captain of the cheerleading team."
She was crowned prom queen, and her interest in the martial arts began to
wane ever so slightly. When she was twenty she was training sporadically,
and began to study a little bit of wushu, "to explore the artistic
side of martial arts."
A Voice
Diana was married for a short time and had her son Sebastian. But soon she was a single mother, and when he was three her son was diagnosed with mild autism. "I was lonely," Diana recalls, "post-divorce, a single mom. The martial arts suddenly became a voice, calling me back, out of the darkness: ‘This is your culture, this is your family.’ My Dad was very supportive, and continued to build my foundation. He had a lot of his students train me as well, which is eventually how I met my husband. But at first it was a re-adjustment getting back into it. My Dad had combined a lot of the arts-Jun Fan, Thai boxing, Savate-and molded it together for me as a child. He was applying a lot of principles of JKD, and his wisdom, onto me. He chose what was best for me of the styles. As a child I had had private training, but as an adult I was allowed to train with the other students. I finally got to see what style was which."
Assimilation of Styles
Diana Inosanto herself has applied JKD philosophy to her own assimilation of styles as a martial artist. She is as swift and precise in explaining her choices as she is at applying her techniques. "For the streets, as a woman, I’d apply a lot of Kali and Thai boxing, based on my strength compared to most attackers. I’d also use a lot of Jun Fan; eye jabs, for instance, are important for defense. And I believe in a good understanding of grappling, which is a part of Jun Fan Gung Fu, and I’m now studying more aspects of shoot wrestling." If Diana is anything she is well rounded, taking full advantage of the Inosanto community. Pencak Silat, Savate, Wushu, and of course, Kali are her preferred styles to translate onto the screen. Which comes around again to what Diana looks at as her dual calling, as both actress and martial artist.
"The serious side of me, the martial artist," she says, "will continue up to old age until the day I die. It’s brought me out of the darkness in my life, helped me find my way, preserved my strength. I want to carry on the tradition. I judge myself very hard, and think of myself as a perpetual student. Yet at the same time I’ve accumulated more martial arts since the time of my birth than most people, and I’m still not allowed a rank, an instructorship in my father’s school. Dad is very honest about this, and tells me frankly, "Diana, you carry my name, you are my daughter. I’m going to be extra hard on you. It’s not as easy [for you] to get an instructorship as for other instructors." He wants more desire and commitment from me. But I can also see why my Dad is concerned and fearful for my safety. As a little girl I remember him being challenged by people who wanted to fight him, who wanted to beat Dan Inosanto because of his name. It scared me as a child, and now as an adult I’ve even been challenged. It’s a delicate balancing game, whether to react or not, and there’s not an easy answer. From that point of view, the acting world’s a little bit simpler."
Bruce and Brandon
Just as martial arts was part of the family heritage, so was the draw of film. Her "uncle," Bruce Lee was, of course, a film star as well as an innovator in kung fu, and Lee’s son Brandon grew up with Diana sharing experiences and nearly identical dreams.
"What I remember most about Uncle Bruce was that he had this aura. I didn’t understand when I was so young that he was famous, but he always had an incredible presence. He was very strong, very assertive, very determined. He was dedicated to his children, to his art, and to those committed to his art like my Dad, and Taky Kimura. Uncle Bruce was a great researcher, so open minded, eager to discover other arts and systems. I’m proud of my father for taking on that role.
"Brandon was clever, precocious, way beyond his years. He would make you look at the minute details in life, the sunset, as it went down, the color of the grass. It was a gift to make you take a moment, make it stand still.
"He was one of my best friends and I looked up to him. He was the other child I knew who was half Asian, half white, a carbon copy of myself. A lot of people in my neighborhood didn’t accept mixed marriages at the time, and seeing Brandon, so confident, so self-assured, I said to myself, ‘if he can be like that so can I.’ He made me more accepting of my mixture and my mixed background. He was one of the bright spots of my childhood years."
Diana and Brandon both shared the desire to act, and they pursued it on separate but parallel planes. Initially they both shied away from their famous fathers. "We were confused about the acting and the martial arts," recalls Diana. "We both said adamantly, ‘No martial arts! We’re both actors.’"
Things changed by the time Diana had her last conversation with Brandon, who died tragically in an accident on the set of his movie, "The Crow."
"By that time Brandon was doing martial arts in his movies," Diana recalls, "and he basically felt it was OK, despite who our fathers were. ‘Let’s not be so hard on ourselves,’ he said. He really approached acting with the same passion his dad did the martial arts. Brandon didn’t care what people said. He encouraged me a lot, and urged me to get experience any way I could.
Continuing a Tradition
Diana’s deep emotional attachment to Brandon was only one of the reasons she went to San Francisco to attend the First Annual Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do Seminar and Bruce and Brandon Lee Memorial Banquet last January. Lately there have been rumors, accusations and miscommunicated facts about Dan Inosanto and his relationship to JKD and the group Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do Nucleus.
"People have said that my father isn’t teaching Bruce Lee’s art, or is poisoning it, but the rumors have all become distorted, pulled out of context," she says. "My father has always stuck to everything he’s been taught by Bruce Lee, and teaches the identical Jun Fan Gung Fu that Uncle Bruce taught him. Yet Dad also practices the principles of JKD, believing everybody must find their own path as a martial artist and what works best for them.
"There has been, unfortunately, a communication gap, and breakdown, between my Dad’s followers and other followers of Uncle Bruce. My father had declined membership in the Nucleus for his own reasons, but I made sure I talked to my father before I went up to San Francisco. He was totally gung ho about me going, and encouraged me wholeheartedly. My Dad has never been hurtful or hateful. I went, and I’m glad I did. It was like a family reunion, though I was saddened that my Dad wasn’t there. I was asked to speak by Linda Lee Caldwell, (Bruce Lee’s widow), and I broke down in tears, but I was happy to be there, and it was a very positive experience. They asked me to become a member of the board, and I’m seriously considering it. I talked with my Dad, and he fully supports my decision. I can see myself joining sooner than later. To be on the board, with Shannon Lee [Bruce’s daughter] and Andy Kimura, I think it would be appropriate, historically, for the next generation, and I will be there to represent the Inosanto saga.
Learning Together
"When I was a teenager," Diana Lee Inosanto remembers, "My Dad lined the entryway of our house with swords and knives. So any time I brought a guy home they would go, ‘oh wow...’ and of course they would never come back."
By the time Diana met Ron Balicki, he wasn’t one to be put off by swords and knives. In fact, a serious student of Dan Inosanto’s for thirteen years, Balicki was rather endeared by them. He and Diana started spending time together when he returned from a trip to Indonesia in 1993 when Diana was entertaining the idea of becoming a police officer. "This was just after the LA riots," she says, "and my Dad was not happy with the idea. Ron had been a police officer in Chicago, so [my father] told Ron to try and convince me what a tough life it was." Ron did convince Diana that sticking with acting was a better choice for her, and then he convinced her to fall in love with him. Two years later they were married.
Today they are both life partners and sparring partners. "We take her Dad’s classes together," Ron notes. "We go do capoeria on the weekends together. Diana does a lot of my shoot wrestling classes too, and we get a lot of training time in together."
Their partnership has not only develop their skills as martial artists, but it has also been fruitful in terms of their professions. Both husband and wife work in film as stunt people, and they are on the road together as much as a dozen times a year, giving seminars all over the United States, Canada and Europe. Ron has also recently produced and released several knife defense videos featuring himself and Diana demonstrating techniques.
Diana credits Ron with bringing her martial arts to an even higher level, with their constant training and his experience and guidance. "In some ways," she says, "it’s like my father gave me my wings, and Ron’s helped me learn how to fly with them."
Her main focus lately, she says, has been on a lot of knife self defense, with the release of Ron’s videos. "It’s Ron’s project; I’m assisting him," she says, when Ron interrupts, grinning, and insisting, "It’s ours."
Diana sees both the seminars and the videos they do together as work that has important and life-saving potential for their students. "As a woman being in there it shows that this is something that applies to women as well as men." Ron concurs. "We took the video to a place where many people stay away from the knife: on the ground. Knife grappling is extremely difficult. Here’s this 110-pound woman with a 175-pound guy grabbing her and throwing her down. We don’t just do everything really nice; when you watch the video you’ll see that there are times when I’m really giving her a hard time."
"We try to train with as much realism as possible in a safe way," continues Diana. "Our prime objective with this video is, hopefully, to save lives. That there will be something that somebody can use, if need be."
Ron likes to talk about Diana as a seminar partner and the reactions they get from different people. "The cool thing about Diana, " he says, "is her size. That’s why I really like to utilize her a lot. The best part is when I watch people who don’t know her and they hold up a Thai pad for her and wham! She snaps that pad, and you can see they don’t know where it came from. It freaks them out a little bit, and it’s kind of cool," Ron smiles.
"We used to do demos a lot," he continues, "and she would have crowds of girls come up to her. It gave them hope. They look at her demonstrating and they see a spark. ‘Wow, she’s different. Look at her.’
"There are times during demos where Diana will literally flip me, from behind and over her shoulder. You see my butt flying over Diana and she’s doing it pretty effortlessly; I’m not jumping for it either. She’s doing it aggressively and I’m not getting away from it. I can’t tell you how many demos where there has been a long line of women and children all trying to talk to Diana."
The seminars they give are intense affairs, lasting from 6-8 hours, ranging in topics from Jun Fan JKD, to shoot wrestling, Kali, Thai boxing, Silat and Wing Chun. Diana remarks, "My area of comfort mainly lies in the Filipino martial arts, Thai Boxing and Jun Fan. Shoot wrestling is a new territory, but I do feel it’s really important for women to understand the ground. You hear of so many cases where women end up on the ground and they don’t know what to do. Martial arts women in particular, like those who have trained in kickboxing, once they go to the ground it’s a new dimension. Especially when you apply grappling with the knife, then it really changes the game. So we’ve been exploring, researching. Right now we’re trying to work on what a woman does when she’s in bed at night, so in case there’s a home intruder [she’ll know] what she can do. In fact, I’m thinking of doing a video of my own geared to home invasions. My prime focus when I do teach is that hopefully I can help save a life out there. Not ‘my art’s better than your art.’ I want to teach the individual that they can turn around victim hood. Martial arts, particularly for women, teach you to have an attitude on the street. Not necessarily one of invincibility, but rather of awareness."
Ron nods, adding, "We do try to teach a culture to the martial arts. I believe in learning forms and everything that goes along with that, but I believe martial arts has another side to it, a real self-defense side. Even with Diana, I’m always grabbing her and making her fight me, questioning her, asking ‘what would you do if I did this?’"
"And if I don’t know," says Diana, "we’ll take the time to research it." Ron grins again, "And if we both don’t know we just run to her father."
Diana adds, "That’s also the process of self-discovery. Sometimes not everything has a simple answer to it, so you have to research it, try things out, decide for yourself what works best. I’m still trying to decide how to spar a 6’2" guy."
For Diana Lee Inosanto, this may be a metaphor for how she takes on life, evoking the essential JKD philosophy that is her own heritage, as she continues to seek the process of her own evolution.