Li Xiaolong, the quest for “no style” pt. 2
The shift that is also a return.
Although Lee's newly envisioned style, which he would term Jeet Kun Do, was designed to be free-flowing and unsystematic, the training and knowledge required to bring it into existence required considerable formal education in the fighting styles of the past. Lee's personal library of martial arts encompassed some 3000 volumes, and he himself trained under masters from numerous schools. As Bruce saw it, the only way to push martial arts forward was to radically alter its founding structure, a paradigmatic shift that was also a return to the original purity of combat itself. The return was emphasized in a series of notes he wrote while convalescing from a back injury, entitled "The Tao of Jeet Kun Do". Here are some excerpts:
"The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action."
"Why do individuals depend on thousands of years of propaganda? They may preach "softness" as the ideal to "firmness," but when "what is hits," what happens? Ideals, principles, the "what should be" leads to hypocrisy."
"Please do not be concerned with soft versus firm, kicking versus striking, grappling versus hitting and kicking, long-range fighting versus in-fighting. There is no such thing as "this" is better than "that." Should there be one thing we must guard against, let it be partiality that robs us of our pristine wholeness and make us lose unity in the midst of duality."
The above demonstrates the particular kinship between JKD and Taoism, the mindless mind. Lee strove to learn techniques so that he could forget them on the battlefield. Additionally, he emphasized the importance of physical training and maintenance as the missing component of existing systems.
"One of the most neglected elements of martial arts is the physical workout. Too much time is spent in developing skill in techniques and not enough in physical participation."
"No fighter uses his leg violently until he warms it up carefully. The same principle is equally applicable to any muscles that are to be used vigorously."
"A powerful athlete is not a strong athlete, but one who can exert his strength quickly. Since power equals force times speed, if the athlete learns to make faster movements he increases his power, even though the contractile pulling strength of his muscles remains unchanged. Thus, a smaller man who can swing faster may hit as hard or as far as the heavier man who swings slowly."
This was a philosophy book not born from books but rather life experiments. Lee wanted to find what worked from all styles and strip the unnecessary away. Thus JKD is an ever-changing style, unbound by parameters, and thus open to constant improvisation. Nevertheless, it always followed the principle of reality, of real situations. This feature of Lee's thought would later be appreciated by early hip-hop artists, whose work was based off sampling tracks. They too took what worked, what spoke to them, and appropriated it to create something new. In this way, the art continued, it broke free of its own dogma and age.
