Newsletter 976
Formless like Bruce Lee
There is a quote by Bruce Lee…
“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.”
Now a lot of people refer to this quote.
It is held up as an iconic concept,
a golden standard.
Be formless.
And it is almost entirely misunderstood.
I heard one fellow say,
I don’t want to study karate
because I want to be formless.
But how can you be formless if you don’t have form first?
Do you think Bruce didn’t study forms?
He studied Wing Chun,
which has forms.
And he studied the forms of the drills,
the form of the Sticky Hands.
The guy was a living,
walk and talking
form.
Then he was formless.
First comes form,
then comes formlessness.
I want you to google Fred Astair.
Old time dancer.
Probably the most graceful man who ever lived.
His secret?
He makes every thing look effortless.
Do you know how much effort it took
to make his moves effortless?
Now consider that same concept with form.
Do you know how hard Bruce studied
how hard he worked,
how he must have visualized and sweated
to become formless?
Fortunately,
you can choose from a lot of arts to study,
and you can choose from a lot of forms.
You can choose the ones which intrigue you,
which fascinate you,
which seem to be the best for self defense,
or whatever your goal is in the martial arts.
Here are some of my favorite forms.
They are incredibly simple,
very short,
very easy to translate into formlessness.
(Read the win below…)
Have a great work out!
Al
A WIN!
Al,
I’ve sped through the Shaolin Butterfly, am learning the Five Army Tai Chi Chuan and the Butterfly Baguazhang. It seems to me that now I can look at classical forms and simply understand how to do them correctly. It’s absolutely amazing. The practice and learning process basically infuses a student with the basics to make anything work. To correct the whole of an art simply by looking at the forms and playing around with them. I’ve applied this to many classical forms I learned years ago. Thanks so much for the master key to all the martial arts right in my hand. ~ Justin
“The stillness in stillness is not the real stillness;
only when there is stillness in movement does the universal rhythm manifest.”
– Bruce Lee
