no technique to bring home his so-called “killing stroke”? On top of that, bricks and stones do not move and fight back. Thus, the system should be the thing considered, and, as mentioned before, a system should not be mechanical, intricate, and fanciful, but simply simple.
What if the “master” does not wish to show you his style? What if he is “too humble” and firmly guards his “deadly” secret? One thing I hope readers should realize regarding Oriental humility and secrecy is that although it is true that highly qualified teachers do not boast and sometimes do not teach gung fu to just anybody, the fact remains that they are only human beings, and certainly they have not spent ten, twenty, or thirty years on an art in order to say nothing about it. Even Lao-tzu, the author of the Tao Teh Ching, and the man who wrote “He who knows does not speak. He who speaks, does not know,” wrote five-thousand words to explain his doctrine.
In order to be able to pass for being more than their ability, the honorable masters, professors, and experts (in America, especially) say little. They certainly have mastered the Oriental highest way of humility and secrecy, for it is definitely easier to look wise than to talk wisely (to act wisely is, of course, even more difficult). The more one wants to pass at a value above his worth, the more he will keep his mouth shut. For once he talks (or moves), people can certainly classify him accordingly.
The unknown is always wonderful and the “fifteenth-degree red belt holders,” the “experts from superadvanced schools,” and the “honorable masters” know how to gather around them a mysterious veil of secrecy. There is a Chinese saying that applies to these people: “Silence is the ornament and safeguard of the ignorant.”
Source: An essay from Bruce Lee’s handwritten manuscript for the book The Tao of Gung Fu, originally drafted in 1964 and reprinted in Volume 2 of The Bruce Lee Library Series entitled The Tao of Gung Fu: A Study in the Way of Chinese Martial Art, written by Bruce Lee, edited by John Little, published by the Charles E.Tuttle Publishing Company, Boston, (c) 1997 Linda Lee Cadwell.
1-H
THE UNITY OF GENTLENESS/FIRMNESS
Many times I have heard instructors from different schools claim that their systems of gentleness require absolutely no strength (strength has become an ugly word to them), and that with merely a flick of one’s little finger, one can send his 306½-pound helpless opponent flying through the air.
We must face the fact that strength, though used in a much more refined way, is necessary in combat, and that an average opponent doesn’t charge blindly with his head down (not even a football tackler will do that). Some instructors, on the other hand, claim that with their superpowerful system, one can smash through any defense. Once again we must realize that a person does move and change just as a reed of bamboo moves back and forth in a storm to “dissolve” the strong wind.
So neither gentleness nor firmness holds any more than half of a broken whole, which, fitted together, forms the true Way of gung fu. Gentleness/firmness is one inseparable force of one unceasing interplay of movement.They are conceived of as essentially one, or as two coexistent forces of one indivisible whole.
So neither gentleness nor firmness holds any more than half of a broken whole, which, fitted together, forms the true Way of gung fu. Gentleness/firmness is one inseparable force of one unceasing interplay of movement. They are conceived of as essentially one, or as two coexistent forces of one indivisible whole.
If a person riding a bicycle wishes to go somewhere, he cannot pump on both pedals at the same time or not pump on them at all. In order to go somewhere he has to pump on one pedal and release the other. So the movement of going forward requires this “oneness” of pumping and releasing. Pumping is the result of releasing and vice versa, each being the cause and result of the other. The movement will then truly flow, for the true fluidity of movement is in its interchangeability.
Any practitioner of martial art should consider both the gentleness and the firmness of equal importance, and not as being independent of one another. The rejection of either gentleness or firmness will lead to separation, and separation runs to extremes.
Gentleness and firmness are not isolated but are complementary as well as contrastive, and in their interfusion they make up the “oneness.” Always remember this fact, and if you do not favor so much on the side of either firmness or gentleness, you can then truly appreciate the “good/bad” of them. Gentleness versus firmness is not the situation, but gentleness/firmness as a oneness is the true Way.
Any practitioner of martial art should consider both the gentleness and the firmness of equal importance, and not as being independent of one another. The rejection of either gentleness or firmness will lead to separation, and separation runs to extremes.
Source: Bruce Lee’s handwritten notes entitled “The Tao of ‘Jeet Kune,’The Way of the ‘Stopping Fist,’ Chinese Boxing from the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute,” circa 1967, Bruce Lee Papers.
1-I
MY VIEW ON GUNG FU
Some instructors of martial art favor forms, the more complex and fancy the better. Some, on the other hand, are obsessed with super-mental power (like Captain Marvel or Superman). Still some favor deformed hands and legs and devote their time to fighting bricks, stones, boards, and so forth, and so on.
To me the extraordinary aspect of gung fu lies in its simplicity. Gung fu is simply the “direct expression” of one’s feeling with the minimum of movements and energy. Every movement is being so of itself without the artificialities with which people tend to complicate it. The easy way is always the right way, and gung fu is nothing at all special; the closer to the true Way of gung fu, the less wastage of expression there is.
Instead of facing combat in its suchness, quite a few 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” and “nonclassical.” Instead of going immediately to the heart of things, flowery forms and artificial techniques (organized despair!) are “ritually practiced” to simulate actual combat. Thus instead of “being” in combat, these practitioners are idealistically “doing” something about combat. Worse still, supermental this and spiritual that are ignorantly incorporated until these practitioners are drifting further and further into the distance of abstraction and mystery, until what they do resembles anything from acrobatics to modern dancing, but not the actual reality of combat.
All these complex messes are actually futile attempts to “arrest” and “fix” the ever-changing movements in combat and to dissect and analyze them like a corpse. Real combat is not fixed and is very much “alive.” Such means of practice (a form of paralysis) will only “solidify” and “condition” what was once fluid and alive. When you get off sophistication and whatnot and look at it “realistically,” these robots (practitioners, that is) are blindly devoting themselves to the systematic uselessness of practicing “routines” or “stunts” that lead nowhere.
Gung fu is to be looked through without fancy suits and matching ties, and it will remain a secret when we anxiously look for sophistication and deadly techniques. If there are really any secrets at all, they must have been missed by the seeking and striving of its practitioners (after all, how many ways are there to come in on an opponent without “deviating too much from the natural course”?). True, gung fu values the wonder of the ordinary, and the cultivation of gung fu is not daily increase but daily decrease. Being wise in gung fu does not mean adding more, but to be able to do away with ornamentation and be simply simple—like a sculptor building a statue not by adding, but by hacking away the unessential so that the truth will be revealed unobstructed. In short, gung fu is satisfied with one’s bare hands without the fancy decoration of colorful gloves, which tend to hinder the natural function of the hand.
Art is the expression of the self. The more complicated and restrictive a method is, the less the opportunity there will be for the expression of one’s original sense of freedom! The techniques, though they play an important role in the early stage, should not be too restrictive, complex, or mechanical. If we cling to them we will become bound by their limitations. Remember,