Bruce Lee is, of course, famous for introducing and popularizing Chinese martial arts in the West, much to the chagrin of traditionalists. In understanding his philosophy, it would be helpful to understand some Chinese words he often used. Like the Hebrew and Greek of the Bible, they have both a superficial and deeper meaning.
Wu: This character represents martial skill, whether personal or military. It is a combination of the character gwa, which is the symbol for a spear or halberd, and ghi, which is literally a foot being put down, as if to control or stop something, much like our red circle with a line through it. The idea is violence, but controlled, focused, and properly harnessed. This is why martial artists will sometimes salute each other with a fist covered by the opposite palm – same meaning.
Wu Wei: This means doing without intention, related to the Japanese Zen term mushin, or “no mind.” Think of it this way. As Miyamoto Mushashi, the greatest swordsman who ever lived, would tell you, if you are in a duel and you have to think “if he slices to my left I will block and parry with an upward thrust,” you are already a dead man. Here is Bruce in a scene from Enter the Dragon where he is trying to impart this to his student Lao.
Jeet Kune Do: This translates to “way of the intercepting fist.” It was the style Bruce invented for himself, and it was not intended to be mimicked the way one would in a traditional martial art. Its principles were no fixed style, economy of motion, and formlessness or fluidity. As an example taken from the name, a block or parry can also be a strike in the same motion. Bruce most famously said:
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…. Be like water, my friend.
Or, as our U.S. Marines put it, “improvise, adapt, overcome.”
This is not to be achieved by slavishly following Bruce’s path or anyone else’s. Take the path of self-discovery: “Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own,” he taught. He also stressed focus. He could put a fist an inch away from your chest and send you flying across the room. In a much less impressive example, this is me breaking boards many, many years ago for my son’s Boy Scout Troop:
How can such principles benefit us beyond the martial arts? Here is a personal example from our daughter, who studied various styles since she was little, went on to West Point, and was deployed as a battalion S2 (intelligence officer) in Iraq. This is from the personal statement she sent, with her successful application to Harvard Law School: “Half a dozen soldiers gathered around the truck as it came through the gate and came to a stop. The radio had given the “heads up” that it contained a wounded comrade. It would be his second purple heart the latest in a series earned by the battalion, and not the first inflicted by an RKG-3 grenade…
“Half a dozen soldiers gathered around the truck as it came through the gate and came to a stop. The radio had given the 'heads up' that it contained a wounded comrade. It would be his second purple heart the latest in a series earned by the battalion, and not the first inflicted by an RKG-3 grenade…
‘Sir, may I have a word?’
‘Sure, Jen, what’s up?’
Sir, what if I could tell you where the man is who sold the RKG-3 will be tonight?
‘I say we go for it!’…
“As one progresses in the martial arts, the unessential and the inconsequential are stripped away, and what remains is simplified, refined and focused. So too is raw intelligence gathered, and then pared and shaped into a useful product…
How does the skilled lawyer apply a statute or a case to the facts at hand? The irrelevant is discarded, the commonalities established and the results expressed effectively… I have done this before. I am good at it, and I enjoy it.”
That very night of the wounded soldier’s return, my battalion conducted Operation Black Rain… captured the RKG-3 dealer and brought him to justice. At the conclusion of the deployment, I was cited for the Bronze Star.”
Does Bruce Lee have anything to offer the Christian? If by “Christian” we mean someone who has made the Lord sovereign in his/her life, then the answer lies in the “walk.” As you grow in your spiritual life you will increasingly walk naturally with the Lord, thinking less about it and just doing it. In a sense, it is wu wei because it is no longer your intention or will that guide you, but His. Seek His unique purpose for your life, and learn the joy of striking at it with the force and focus of Bruce Lee’s one-inch power punch!
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