Meeting Bruce Lee
A hero dies, time flies. It’s been thirty six years since on a visit to Hong Kong, I stopped Bruce Lee as he came out of a restaurant. We talked for a few minutes as movie executives waited for him in a limo. Several months later in Boston Chinatown as I went to Kung fu class, a friend sitting on the steps said softly, “Bruce Lee’s dead.”
How Bruce Lee Changed the World, a new documentary commemorating his death will premiere on the History Channel on May 17. I am anticipating this documentary since Bruce Lee, a global icon has been an inspiration for so many of us. And for me, as a martial artist. Ultimately, martial arts became an avocation for me — where you love it, you must do it, and you make a living doing it.
Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self Defense
In 1963, I chanced upon a tiny advertisement for a book on Chinese kung fu in Popular Mechanics magazine. It must have been fate, because that was the first and last time that I read that magazine. I sent away for the book, along with my five bucks. Several weeks later it came in the mail: a small, self published book. I was already a martial arts student, yet Bruce Lee’s Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self Defense also connected me to the spiritual roots of a rich Chinese philosophical heritage.
Beyond his superior physical skill, it was also who he was as a thinker that influenced my life. In a brief essay he introduced the symbol of the yin and yang as it applied to the often neglected intellectual component of kung fu. It was a seed that grew over the years on my own journey from student, to teacher, to mastery, shaping martial arts for me as an integrated path. Daoism, Zen, and the wisdom of the Chinese classics, such as the Art of War, were sources of Lee’s martial philosophy.
The sophistication and subtleties of these universal ideas take a life time of discovery. They have a presence in the TanDao system I created. After over a half century later, I realize that true mastery transcends physical excellence. The Evolving Martial Artist is more than a skilled warrior — one also incorporates a scholar and a monk. It came by way of Bruce Lee. And I happened on the book in a magazine I still wonder why I picked up. Yes, it was worth the five bucks.
Lawrence Tan
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Tags: bruce lee, history channel, how bruce lee changed the world, lawrence tan, Martial Arts, tandao, tandao system
Warrior, scholar, monk. Those three words keep coming up. It’s a nice reminder. And, Lawrence, very well written post about Bruce Lee. I totally can see what you mean. Just having physical energy, power, strenghth and skill is not enough. There has to be the mind, spirit thing going on as well. Otherwise the physical would be raw energy with no direction.
Thanks
Rose
it’s been 36 years…as a fan who wasn’t even born when he was living it is amazing to look at how much of an impact he has had and more amazing giving that his career was ended so shortly.
But thinks for bringing up the documentary I didn’t know about it until know about it until know, but I will be on the look out for it.
Bruce Lee wrote the The basic theory of Yin and Yang, in the art of kung fu . Firmness must be concealed in gentleness , and gentleness in firmness, and that is why a gung fu man must be pliable as a spring.
Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or will bend with the wind. So in Gung Fu one must be gentle yet not giving away completely; Be firm yet not hard. This is a challenging stage of kung fu
Studying with Sifu Tan has been a journey of finding the way to balance the opposites.
Its the one of the best posts I ever read on TanDao.
Its not only because you wrote about Bruce Lee. Its because of your connection with Kung-Fu.
i want to see the doc, but can’t find it online.
What doc are referring to? So we can point you in the right direction.