I'm not seeking inspiration more so guidance. He talks about the disadvantages to the usual approach and mentality I carry around.
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Mmm, the man who was against following strict traditions and saw forms as making for stiff predictable fighters. My father has a bit of an obsession with his teachings so naturally I heard the name on and off for years when I was younger. He was even an early example of cross training martial arts and dancing without having to tie it in with tradition to excuse it, going further as to make everything in his life a lesser form of training so that no time felt wasted.
He made for quite an impact on media and martial arts alike, a person where life being changed across the world is hard to deny. Even with his death came a long, long list of imitators trying to rob the coffers of his success once he finally died. He was a powerful force of law for his own means of self control and philosophy while seen as a force of chaos against organized martial arts, something that's difficult for me to not respect on some levels.
"Mmm, the man who was against following strict traditions and saw forms as making for stiff predictable fighter."
Through what I've read he highly emphasizes that having a strict form in anything isn't effective. In a rough quote summary he presses that one should just go with the flow, even in combat. He takes fondly to Taoism which focuses on being true to ones nature and not allowing yourself to be subconsciously biased by your environment. He takes it serious enough to even consider someone being influenced by his notes with the very first line being "I cannot guide you, only help you explore yourself"
But then he starts making the link between combat/skill into the mindset and how they spill over into each other, saying a trained and disciplined mind is also a closed one.
I'm really getting interested in this considering how he derails almost all the approaches I've thought as successful in the past.
"The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded, conceptualized and squeezed into a pattern of systems. We realize that manipulation and control are not the ultimate joy in life--to become real, to learn to take a stand, to develop one's center to support our total personality, a release to spontaneity.
I do my thing, and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I. If we find comfort in each others company it is beautiful if not onto our separate paths, it cannot be helped.
Once you have a character, you have developed a very rigid system. Your behavior becomes petrified, predictable and you lose your ability to cope freely with the world with all your resources. You are predetermined just to cope with events in one way, namely as your character prescribes. So it seems a paradox when I say that the richest, most productive, creative person is a person who has no character. In this society we demand that a person have a character and especially a "good" character, because he is then predictable and viable to be pigeonholed and so on."
- Bruce Lee
You left out his most famous quote:
Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
Naturally his approach made a lot of traditionalists angry, but to that I say "fuck them", combat should be shared and improved upon instead of hidden away to die with the passage of time. He mixed all he'd gathered and became a beast because of it, plus sparring is far more interesting when you're not just fighting carbon copies of one dude.
"I'm really getting interested in this considering how he derails almost all the approaches I've thought as successful in the past."
He still preaches a philosophy of strict focus and dedication, but his approach is a delightfully stubborn one despite being less rigid. His obsession wasn't exactly healthy at points, but I can't really argue with the guy that made that much of an impact.
His methods translate somewhat more readily to me for teaching as well, but that could be because of my own advantages vs disadvantages when it comes to focus and how I see things. I was lucky that my first martial instructor was more freeform than the later ones I'd found.
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