How Bruce Lee felt about martial arts

Discussion in 'General Martial Arts Discussion' started by Isaiah90, Aug 15, 2019.

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  1. Isaiah90

    Isaiah90 Member

    I read Bruce Lee's "the Tao of Jeet Kune Do." He spoke the bold truth. I love this book.

    Bruce: "In the long history of martial arts, the instinct to follow and imitate seems to be inherent in most martial artists, instructors and students alike. This is partly due to human tendency and partly because of the steep traditions behind multiple patterns of styles. Consequently, to find a refreshing, original, master teacher is a rarity. The need for a “pointer of the way” echoes.

    Each man belongs to a style which claims to possess truth to the exclusion of all other styles. These styles become institutes with their explanations of the “Way,” dissecting and isolating the harmony of firmness and gentleness, establishing rhythmic forms as the particular state of their techniques.

    Instead of facing combat in its suchness, then, most systems of martial art accumulate a “fancy mess” that distorts and cramps their practitioners and distracts them from the actual reality of combat, which is simple and direct. Instead of going immediately to the heart of things, flowery forms (organized despair) and artificial techniques are ritualistically practiced to simulate actual combat. Thus, instead of “being” in combat, these practitioners are “doing” something “about” combat.

    Worse still, super mental power and spiritual this and spiritual that are desperately incorporated until these practitioners drift further and further into mystery and abstraction. All such things are futile attempts to arrest and fix the ever-changing movements in combat and to dissect and analyze them like a corpse.

    When you get down to it, real combat is not fixed and is very much “alive.” The fancy mess (a form of paralysis) solidifies and conditions what was once fluid, and when you look at it realistically, it is nothing but a blind devotion to the systematic uselessness of practicing routines or stunts that lead nowhere.

    When real feeling occurs, such as anger or fear, can the stylist express himself with the classical method, or is he merely listening to his own screams and yells? Is he a living, expressive human being or merely a patternized mechanical robot? Is he an entity, capable of flowing with external circumstances, or is he resisting with his set of chosen patterns? Is his chosen pattern forming a screen between him and the opponent and preventing a “total” and “fresh” relationship?

    Stylists, instead of looking directly into the fact, cling to forms (theories) and go on entangling themselves further and further, finally putting themselves into an inextricable snare.

    They do not see it in its suchness because their indoctrination is crooked and twisted. Discipline must conform to the nature of things in their suchness."
     
  2. Dead_pool

    Dead_pool Spes mea in nihil Deus MAP 2017 Moi Award

    To claim to teach JKD, you need to have some training connection to JKD, watching master Wong videos in your bedroom/Dojo doesnt count.
     
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  3. Xue Sheng

    Xue Sheng All weight is underside

    :rolleyes:

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    Last edited: Aug 15, 2019
    axelb and Dead_pool like this.
  4. pgsmith

    pgsmith Valued dismemberer

    Makes me think of all the business people that refer to the Book of Five Rings. :)
     
    Xue Sheng likes this.
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