I was chatting this morning to my teenage daughter about a Bruce Lee documentary I’d recently watched, and she had no idea who I was talking about!
So this prompted me to write a post inspired by the incredible man who invented the martial arts movie genre, and who is arguably the grandfather of mixed martial arts and yet died so tragically young. If you’ve never heard of him, he’s worth learning about – the documentary I watched was “I am Bruce Lee” and it was excellent and a great primer on his life.
One of the many fascinating things about Bruce Lee is that he created his martial arts philosophy, Jeet Kune Do, a “formless” fighting style that embodied all of his principles.
In particular, it is much more fluid than other traditional styles of king fu, not requiring its practitioners to rely on specific stances or moves, and brings together different styles.
For example, Bruce Lee was a big fan of Muhammad Ali and incorporated his foot work. He was also a Cha Cha Cha champion and you can see it in his craft! The key concept is that it is “formless and fluid”, allowing you to adapt to whatever your opponent is doing.
Which brings me to the point of this post, one of the key underpinnings of his approach, which is best captured from an interview gave:
👉 “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.”
I love this idea of “being like water”, being formless, not allowing ourselves to be trapped in a fixed mindset – we should be fluid enough to adapt to different situations and grow as a result. The Growth Mindset is such a power concept, and I think this is a great build on it.
Much of this thinking is derived from the Chinese philosophy Taoism, which takes the water metaphor further:
👉 “Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.” – Lao Tzu
🌟 So there you have it – listen to Bruce Lee, and be more like water my friend 🌟
Be fluid, adapt and evolve, grow and overcome challenges!
