7 Lessons I Learned from Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee got me started in martial arts. But not for the reasons you might think.

When I was a kid, I thought martial arts were stupid. Every kung fu and ninja movie I saw on TV was ridiculous. I never wanted to be Chuck Norris, Sho Kosugi, or a young Chinese man wearing robes and a fake white beard.

It didn’t help that my brother and his friends would swing nunchakus and throw ninja stars at me every chance they got. To me, the whole martial arts thing was a joke.

But then I saw Enter the Dragon.

I saw Bruce Lee.

And my life changed.

It wasn’t the movie that changed my life, per se. The fact is, even though Enter the Dragon was a big step forward for chop-socky films, it’s still pretty silly.

It also wasn’t Bruce Lee’s fighting moves that changed my life. Even though the man was clearly a fighter, Bruce poses a lot, backflips, knocks everyone out with one super punch or kick, and has a habit of making crazy faces and goofy noises.

So, what made such a huge impression on me? One simple thing–body control.

Bruce could hold his leg in the air! Climb a rope! Sneak around like a cat! And when Bruce took off his shirt, he made a statement: “I am not like you.” Combine all that with his supremely cocky attitude and this teenage boy was hooked.

If Bruce Lee used martial arts to get those abs and that swagger, so can I!

I asked my mom to drive me to the local boxing supply store where I found a series of books entitled, Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method. I ate them up. Running, lifting weights, footwork drills…I did it all. But it wasn’t enough.

Two months later, I bought the Tao of Jeet Kune Do, a compilation of Bruce’s personal notebooks assembled posthumously by his wife and students. This was it! There was no pesky co-author to deal with this time. I could hear the man speaking in his own words!

To my delight, the book held much more than kicking drills. Bruce was a philosophy major in college, so there were pages and pages of deep thoughts. Even though many of these deep thoughts did not originate with Bruce, I give him credit for introducing them to me.

Thanks to Bruce, I came to realize that martial arts weren’t so stupid after all.

For a couple of years, that book was all I needed. I figured there was no need to join a school to learn how to punch and kick like Bruce–I just needed to practice. I had a garage, a heavy bag, a couple of friends to spar with, and the will to improve. It wasn’t until I saw Steven Seagal in Above the Law that I realized there was more to martial arts than just punching and kicking. But that’s another story.

For today, my point is this–when I finally ventured out of my garage, I carried many of Bruce’s lessons with me. Even now, decades later, I still hear words from the Tao of Jeet Kune Do in my head.

I’d like to share seven of those lessons with you.

1) “While being trained, the student is to be active and dynamic in every way. But in actual combat, his mind must be calm and not at all disturbed. … His behavior should not be in any way different from his everyday behavior.”

I’m not a big guy or a macho guy. When I saw tough guys in the movies or at school baring their teeth and puffing up their chest, I was intimidated. I saw myself more as James Bond than Conan the Barbarian. But James Bond used guns and gadgets to survive and I didn’t have either.

Neither did Bruce Lee. Seeing a role model of male toughness who was thin, calm, and smart was a revelation. Bruce’s persona suggested that being clever and in control were also weapons in winning a fight, not just size, strength, and rage. Bruce made me believe that if I put in the work, I could be a different kind of tough and cool…just like him!

So, thanks to Bruce, when I train, I train hard. But I also work on being relaxed, thinking strategically, and sharpening my focus. My goal is to fight the same way I live.

Years later, I found the same advice in Musashi’s A Book Of Five Rings. Yes, life is a constant struggle, but that doesn’t mean you have to always be a snarling animal on the attack. You can also fight from a place of peace and balance. Especially for an underdog, keeping your cool may be the only way to win.

2) “Too much time is given to the development of skill and too little to the development of the individual for participation. Training deals not with an object, but with the human spirit and human emotions.”

I take two lessons from this quote. The first is that physical fitness is its own self-defense technique.

No matter what you know, if you’re not in shape, you won’t be able to do it… even if it’s just running away form danger!

In the martial arts, you can spend a lifetime learning and experimenting with new ideas. You can be fooled into believing that knowing 1,000 techniques makes you invincible. I call that the “mystique of technique”.

But the truth is knowledge on its own is worthless. That’s why Bruce later said–

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

So, run, stretch, train, sleep, eat clean, and strive to be healthy. A fit body is your first line of defense.

The second lesson goes a little deeper. Right after Bruce tells us to practice more than just skills, he says, “Training deals not with an object, but with the human spirit and human emotions.”

That gave me a heads up that it’s never a technique that saves you, it’s YOU that saves you.

A technique is just a tool. The big question is who is using that tool? If you’re a quitter or a whiner, it doesn’t matter what style you study or what technique you think you know, when the pressure is on, you’re going to quit and make excuses.

Think about it this way. You are a person first. Second, you’re either a fighter or you’re not. Third, you’re a student of the martial arts. That means the type of person you are is far more important than what style you study or how long you practice your techniques. Just because you can throw a powerful punch doesn’t make you a powerful person.

So, if you want to defeat the “mystique of technique,” don’t just focus on the physical part of your training, focus on the psychological and emotional parts as well. Ask yourself the difficult questions…

Do you feel like a loser? Do you think you know it all? How do you handle criticism and corrections?

Do you have anger issues? Is your temper out of control? Or are you too quiet? Do you have a hard time speaking up for yourself? Do you feel uncomfortable with confrontation?

Wait! Don’t stop there. Go deeper.

Are you a quitter? Do you hate making mistakes? Are you afraid of asking questions? Are you a good listener?

Are you ashamed of your past? Are you comfortable in your own body?

Are you clear about what you would fight for? Are you capable of causing someone pain or even taking a life if you had to?

Serious questions. But exactly what I think Bruce Lee was talking about when he said we should be training “spirit and emotions.”

3) “To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.”

This idea slapped me in the face. I’ve never been a very social fellow, which I always believed to be a strength, not a weakness. Self-knowledge, I reasoned, came from spending time alone, not with others.

Wrong! You can believe all kinds of things about yourself living in isolation, but until you engage with others, it’s all wishful thinking. Your beliefs are meaningless until they are tested.

You think you’re fast until you meet someone faster. You think you’re tough until you meet someone tougher. You think you’re forgiving until you meet someone who hurts you. You think you’re tolerant until you meet someone who’s intolerable.

For more on this idea of building self-knowledge through relationships, check out Why I Practice Martial Arts and Not Yoga. For now, here’s the big idea–you can’t learn about yourself by yourself. That’s why even though I’m still not a very social fellow, thanks to Bruce, I engage with others every chance I get.

4) “Feel yourself in a balanced state. … Feel the difference by putting yourself in balanced and unbalanced positions.”

For years, I only applied this lesson to physical techniques. To develop good form, I purposely practiced bad form.

Rather than only learning what to do, I also practiced what not to do. Bruce gave me the permission to make mistakes, fall down, and fail. He let me know there was as much to learn in being imperfect as there was in being perfect.

Bruce also spoke of balance this way:

So, balance might mean being able to throw one’s center of gravity beyond the base of support, chase it, and never let it get away.

Over time, I came to appreciate how this lesson applied to all areas of life. Throwing yourself beyond the base of support simply means stepping outside your comfort zone. Stepping up to a new challenge. We should never be afraid of trying something new.

You don’t grow by playing it safe. You don’t move forward by standing still. Throw yourself off-balance on purpose so that when life throws you off-balance, you’ve got the skills to regain your center and get back on track towards your goals.

5) “Let yourself go with the disease, be with it, keep company with it, this is the way to be rid of it.”

When I was a kid, my mom would give me a baby aspirin or spread some Vicks VapoRub on my chest when I got sick. But as I got older, I got the idea in my head that taking medicine was a sign of weakness. I preferred to tough it out. Even now, I don’t like taking medication of any kind if I can avoid it. Here’s my rationale–

Denying pain only makes it worse.

For example, if I hurt my knee and take a painkiller to dull the pain, I’ll forget it’s injured, walk on it, and damage it further. I need to feel the pain to remind myself of my limitation. It’s only through feeling pain that I ensure my healing.

Yes, I understand that some medicines assist in healing, like anti-inflammatories or antibiotics, but in general, I agree with Bruce that the best way to overcome discomfort is to accept discomfort.

Of course, I’m not a doctor. And I don’t think Bruce was talking about physical pain anyway. But the lesson is the same for all pains and shortcomings. By accepting disease, discomfort, and disappointment, you can move forward with a realistic sense of capability. Just as engaging with others leads to deeper self-knowledge, so does engaging with your pain.

As discussed in Thank You, Pain, working within a limitation also offers an opportunity to discover or develop a strength you might have otherwise missed. So, play it smart and welcome pain and discomfort as you would a friend and teacher.

6) “We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate.”

Bruce was an iconoclast. He made many enemies criticizing other martial art styles and speaking his truth. But all the haters missed an important point–he was only speaking his truth.

To my mind, Bruce wasn’t critical of people who held opinions different from his own, he was critical of people who repeated other people’s opinions as their own. Bruce was a self-made man and he challenged everyone around him to do the same.

In martial arts and most endeavors, people tend to draw their confidence from the accomplishments of others, instead of from their own accomplishments. They allow their purpose in life to be assigned rather than created. They trust the voice of an authority over their own voice.

Bruce made it clear that your personal truth can not be passed down, it must be pursued and developed. Teachers are not sources of knowledge, they are merely guides to discovering knowledge on your own.

It’s like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all the heavenly glory. Enter the Dragon

The more you work, the more you realize the great teachers and masters were people just like you who had done the same thing.

In doing the work of the masters, you become your own master.

Of course, as Bruce points out in his notes, it’s human nature to doubt our own mastery. I know when I discover a new technique on my own, I usually wonder, “Is this any good?”

My first instinct is to call my teachers and ask, “Have you ever done this?” If they affirm my discovery, my confidence soars. If they don’t, my spirit sinks. But that doesn’t mean I throw away my discovery—it means I go back and run a few more experiments until I prove it to myself.

Which is a good thing!

That’s why in Master Teacher, I recommend that teachers allow students room to make predetermined discoveries, instead of just showing them what to do. By making students do the extra work, they will build true confidence, not the shallow confidence that comes with parroting someone else’s knowledge.

7) “If people say Jeet Kune Do is different from ‘this’ or ‘that’, then let the name of Jeet Kune Do be wiped out, for that is what it is, just a name. Please don’t fuss over it.”

This is the last line in the Tao of Jeet Kune Do. To hear someone as famous as Bruce Lee minimize his own work took me by surprise. Here was a man with a huge ego and a worldwide fanbase. Where he could have easily turned his students and worshipers into a cult, he chose to free them instead.

Bruce understood how tempting it is for a student to copy their teacher. He knew how students prefer to be told what to do rather than figure it out for themselves. But to his credit, Bruce discouraged that sort of behavior. He wrote as a teacher, not a cult leader.

A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence.  Bruce Lee

Still, despite his blatant warnings, many students today study “Bruce’s art”, Jeet Kune Do, and copy his every move. They hear his words but miss his message.

Sure, I admit it–I started out trying to be like Bruce Lee, but it soon became obvious I would never be Bruce Lee. Thanks to his notes, I knew that was a good thing! I knew he approved of me doing my own thing.

That’s why I never get caught up in the sacredness of martial arts, or the cult-like allegiance between certain teachers and students, or the politics of different associations. Yes, I believe in showing respect to my brothers and sisters in the arts and making alliances whenever possible, but ultimately, I know no one is guiding my learning and growth more than I am.

Same goes for you. Copying will only get you so far. Do your own thing…or do someone else’s thing your way.

In the same spirit, I realize Bruce’s notes are just that–Bruce’s notes. That’s why I only flip through the Tao of Jeet Kune Do once every few years. I don’t fuss over it. My time is better spent reading and writing in my own notebook.

Even then, I don’t even fuss over what I’ve learned, because I’m still learning! Improvement is a lifelong process. I’m always changing, so clinging to what I learned yesterday only holds me back from learning something new today. Bruce helped me understand that.

So, take it from the Little Dragon…

Live your life. Learn your lessons. And don’t make a fuss.

This article is a summary of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “7 Lessons from Bruce Lee.” Listen to the full episode here.