One of our evolving martial artists, Arnuld, commented in response to our Bruce Lee Mythology post. He asked if Bruce Lee invented the ideas of having no style and formless technique. Here are some thoughts:

Lee’s Influence

Bruce Lee was influential in modernizing traditional martial arts through his Jeet Kune Do philosophy. He was innovative, though not original, in his modern expression of ancient Chinese thoughts. As an iconoclast, Lee was critical of orthodox secrecy and exclusiveness, anachronistic training methods, forms and lack of realistic sparring. While he popularized martial arts, Lee used more creative rearrangement than invention.

Wu Men, Wu Pai: No Style

Bruce Lee was an avid reader of Chinese martial art pop fiction, known as knight errant tales (wu xia xiao xuo).  A common theme is a mysterious swordsman who appears out of nowhere to save the day, with unorthodox fighting  referred to as “wu men, wu pai.” This translates as “no style, no system”. The master is expressing the Daoist idea of the martial art zenith, beyond form, system and technique. It is the ability to move naturally and spontaneously in the way (the Dao) of movement. This may have influenced Lee.

Wu Xing: Formlessness

All of Bruce Lee’s “modern” ideas are rooted in ancient tradition. They are taken from Zen Buddhism and in particular, his ideas echo Daoism, China’s spiritual philosophy of nature. The motto of JKD, “use no way as your way and to use no limitation as your limitation” is classic Daoist thought. When Lee expounds on being shapeless and formless (wu xing) and to “become like water” as a metaphor for expressing technique and strategy, he is paraphrasing famous verses from Lao Tzu’s 2,500 year old text, the Dao De Jing.

Dao – The Way

Daoism teaches mastery of life and all of its disciplines through the discovery of, and adherence to, the Way (Dao). The Way means taking a path that follows natural laws. According to Lee’s interpretation of the Dao, this meant that both forms and styles are unnatural and unnecessary. While traditionalists would agree that the ultimate goal is transcendence of form, forms are first taught as an essential foundation — believing that you cannot transcend what you have not experienced.

To Lee, this ultimate stage of having no style justified his rejection of classical systems and form training, the very methodology of kung fu. Lee’s philosophy, though subjective, has liberated the arcane elements of classical martial arts. It brings to mind that “there is nothing new under the sun.” Or in this case, under the Dao.

What do you think about this question and our answer? You can read Arnuld’s comment under our Bruce Lee Mythology post. And visit his website

Lawrence Tan & Toni Josephson

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