Bruce Lee Podcast

“Do not pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” Sometimes this quote is misunderstood—out of context it seems like Bruce is encouraging you to toughen up because winter is coming. But these words are not about praying for the strength to fight against a hard life. Within the context of Bruce Lee’s philosophy of harmony, the “strength” Bruce is referring to is one of calm and flow. An easy life is not something you get because you pray for it or fight for it, the ease comes when you practice self-actualization and achieve peace of mind. If you only look at Bruce Lee as the ripped warrior, it is easy to misinterpret this quote to be about getting tough and developing physical strength to defend against a difficult life. When you understand who Bruce Lee was as a total human being, you know he could not have had the negative mentality that life was a constant struggle to be defended against. Bruce Lee was about keeping the mind on the positive and being in the flow. Endurance is

“Defeat is a state of mind; no one is very defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality. To me, defeat in anything is merely temporary, and its punishment is but an urge for me to exert greater effort to achieve my goal. Defeat simply tells me that something is wrong in my doing; it is a path leading to success and truth.” Bruce defines defeat not as a mistake or failure, but as an attitude of giving up or a depressive attitude, a loss of energy. We all get knocked down and experience moments where things go wrong. It is important to process your feelings about that failure, but you cannot dwell there. Failure is merely temporary and if you accept defeat then you stay knocked down instead of getting back up. You must accept defeat to be truly defeated. The answer to your problem is within the problem itself. What is it you’re trying to do? Why weren’t you able to do it? Was it something that was within your power to control or was it outside of your control? What can you learn from this? When somethin

Director John Alan Thompson joined us to discuss the film project we worked on together, “One Family.” John discovered he wanted to be a filmmaker at 15. A video production class in high school and seeing “Apocalypse Now” propelled John to start experimenting with filmmaking. His teacher told him about a competition that AFI was hosting for students, and his senior year John created a short film that ended up placing. After that first taste, John dove into filmmaking. John still mostly works in short formats, creating music videos, commercials, and short films, including the short film he made with the Bruce Lee Family Company “One Family.” This project came to John during a time when he was feeling creatively depleted and filled doubt about some life choices. When he started reading Bruce’s philosophy, it was exactly what he needed to hear at that moment in his life. John absorbed from Bruce that fundamental part of living is finding that true essence inside of you and expressing it to the world. For the “On

We had a great time talking with Bruce Lee Podcast Challenge winner Michael R. about his experience with the challenge. Michael first discovered Bruce Lee when he was 12 and first started studying martial arts at a martial arts school. An older student recommended “The Art of Expressing the Human Body.” After that, Michael was hooked on Bruce Lee. He discovered the Bruce Lee Podcast when he was looking for podcasts to listen to as he was remodeling his family’s apartment. Struggling with depression due to lack of job opportunity, Michael knew he wanted to make a change in his life, but felt trapped. When the challenge was announced, he decided that this was an opportunity to reframe how he perceived his world and that would give him a way out. Michael shared with us a few of his affirmations: Recognizing that emotions are both positive and negative and that I can select how I act with their influence, I will dedicate my reasoning to draw out and accentuate the positive emotions and transfigure the negative in

This episode we had the pleasure of chatting with another Bruce Lee Podcast Challenge winner, Katrina R. Katrina knew about Bruce Lee as a kung fu master, but it wasn’t until she was browsing youtube one day that she came across an interview Shannon did with NextShark. This interview sparked her interest in learning more about Bruce’s philosophy. After finding the podcast, the Bruce Lee Podcast Challenge popped up and she decided to do the challenge and found it to be extremely rewarding. Katrina is a single mom who works 40+ hours a week and didn’t get out much. Her mom passed away suddenly a few years ago, and Katrina just put away her feelings and stopped living her life. For this challenge Katrina decided to take a big step towards loving herself again. Her affirmations she repeated every morning revolved around self-love. “Some of them as simple as "love yourself", "always look at problems as lessons, not mistakes" and "everyday is only as good as you make it" One of Katrina’s affirmations was to ask her

“The times of drastic change are times of passions. We can never be fit and ready for that which is wholly new, we have to adjust ourselves and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem. We undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. A population subjected to drastic change is thus a population of misfits and misfits live and breathe in an atmosphere of passion.” When you hear the word “misfit” it usually has a negative connotation, but Bruce Lee recasts misfits as unique individuals who are moved by their passions as he was. These misfits are passionate about ideas which society hasn’t created space for yet, so the misfits are doing pioneering work by exploring their passion. Bruce Lee was a misfit in many respects. No one knew what martial arts were in the west, no one had seen an Asian man represent masculinity like Bruce, he was mixed race, and he was in an interracial relationship when it was illegal. Bruce received much negative feedback for his misfit way of living life, but that didn’t disco

“Research your own experience. Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is essentially your own.” The idea of constantly researching and refining your own experience was key to Bruce Lee’s way of life. When Bruce decided to break away from traditional martial arts, he wanted to know what really works in combat and how to train your body for real conflicts. Bruce only incorporated what was useful to him and left the rest behind. This quote is the recipe for finding your path in this world and the first step is “Research your own experience.” Be neutral, be the researcher, understand what’s going on with you from a neutral place. Notice what you normally gravitate towards and notice what you enjoy in the tasks you already do in life. Take note and journal your experience. The second step is: “Absorb what is useful.” After researching and noticing, pull out the things that resonate with you and that are working for you. These are the things that you keep and take with you. The things that bring us

The idea of True Flow comes directly from Bruce Lee’s physical study of martial arts and specifically from his art of Jeet Kune Do, which literally translated means "the Way of the Intercepting Fist." One of the core tenets behind Jeet Kune Do is that there are no separate movements of offense and defense, they can happen simultaneously and flow quickly together. This is an idea that can be applied to our movements in life, bridging the gap between happenings so that you can flow easier from one thing to the next. If we collapse the space between two separate movements, the result is flow--and when you’re in flow everything moves more quickly and smoothly without much effort. Forward movement becomes quicker when you don’t force or strain--you adapt and adjust in real-time, all the time. Gentleness and Firmness are also work together to bridge the gap. There is an interplay of movement between them, they are not separate motions or ideas. “Gentleness alone cannot forever dissolve away great force, nor can she

When Bruce talked about confrontation he was talking about it on two levels, physical confrontation and then confrontations between people in everyday life. As you become ore rooted and secure in yourself, the natural tendency is to feel that you can more easily avoid confrontation, that you don’t need to prove yourself. What Bruce has learned from being challenged is: What is your reaction to being challenged? How does it affect you? If you’re secure then you treat it lightly. Part of being able to handle confrontation is self-work. “Wisdom does not consist in trying to wrest the good from the evil, but in learning to ride them as a cork adapts itself to the crests and troughs of the waves.” “The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of an engagement, you ought not to be thinking whether it ends in victory or defeat.” A lot of times confrontation has nothing to do with you and has to do with the other person being wrapped up in something that triggers them. “A struggle of any nature can never be settled

Choiceless Awareness is a path to peace of mind. It means having awareness in the moment as things are unfolding but not making a choice or judgment one way or the other about whether it’s good or bad. Bruce talks about how, “There is an awareness without choice, without demand, an awareness in which there is no anxiety and in that state of mind there is perception and it's perception alone that will resolve our problems.” Choiceless Awareness is about being the objective observer, standing back from the situation a little bit and not assign any blame one way or the other. Just say, “Here’s what’s happening, I’m perceiving what’s happening, now what am I going to do?” This not easy because you have to battle the “shoulds”--what you think should or shouldn’t be happening in the situation. Remember, Bruce Lee used “No way as way.” “Just watch choicelessly, and in the watching lies the wonder. It is not an ideal end to be desired, but watching is a state of being already and not a state of becoming.” If in this

Often the immediate association with the word “Faith” is a religious one, but that’s not the type of faith we are talking about in this episode. The definition of faith in the dictionary is: "complete trust or confidence in someone or something." That’s how Bruce Lee interpreted “faith," to have trust and confidence in ones self and abilities. Bruce’s definition of faith is: the spiritual power of man’s will. Your will is your driver, something you can put effort into, but faith is the trust and confidence from the spirit. “Optimism is a faith that leads to success.” As is enthusiasm and as is confidence. Having optimism, enthusiasm and confidence means that you have a certain amount of faith in what you’re doing and who you are, and that things are going as they should. “True faith is faith back by action. Faith backed by action is applied faith.” Sometimes when we think of faith, particularly religious faith, we think about surrendering to a higher power. Which has its time and place, but in this instance B

We were overwhelmed with the responses for the Bruce Lee Podcast Challenge and found it impossible to pick just one winner, so we’ll be having several winners join us as guests on the podcast. This week we welcome our first Podcast Challenge winner, Kyoko @Jinjabrew! She lives in LA so Kyoko was able to join us in the studio for this special episode. Kyoko didn’t grow up watching Bruce Lee films, but discovered him through activism and research in Asian-American history and politics. While studying the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s, Kyoko wondered where the Asian Americans were in the movement. She started doing her own research by reading books by Fred Ho and learning about activist Yuri Kochiyama. It was a chapter in the book “Everybody was kung-fu fighting” by Vijay Prashad that introduced her to Bruce Lee’s influence on the Afro-Asian cultural connection and this made her want to find out more about Bruce Lee. At the time she was reading this book, she was moving from Boston to LA, driving solo and lo

“All knowledge ultimately means Self-knowledge.” For all of his adult life, Bruce Lee was on a journey to understand the truest essence of himself. We remember him as the ultra confident movie star with martial arts mastery but even Bruce Lee was a work in progress. Self-knowledge is not a static idea of “who I am” but it's a forward motion pursuit of understanding your root. It is lifelong pursuit of knowing yourself. “Know the cause of your ignorance.” “Instead of establishing rigid rules and separative thoughts, we should look within ourselves to see where our particular problems lie and our cause of ignorance.You see, ultimately all type of knowledge simply means self- knowledge. You must look for truth yourself and directly experience every minute detail for yourself.” Anytime in your life when you’re mired in confusion, uncertainty, or a recurring upset, you’re holding onto ignorance about something. It's a great place to start examining and learning about yourself. Often it's difficult to look at these

We had our first live taping of the Bruce Lee Podcast last Thursday, July 20th celebrating the podcast’s one-year anniversary and honoring the 44th anniversary of Bruce Lee’s passing. When we started the podcast a year ago, on July 20th, it was to commemorate that day with a beautiful remembrance of Bruce Lee and the gifts that he left behind for all of us. The podcast format allows us to discuss Bruce Lee’s philosophy more in-depth and share his legacy with everyone for free. Special guest Osric Chau joined us for the event and shared his experiences completing the Bruce Lee Podcast Challenge, shared his thoughts on Bruce Lee, and gave an #AAHA shout-out. Osric Chau was born in Vancouver, his father is from Hong Kong and his mother is Malaysian. He trained in Wing Chun for many years and wanted to be a stuntman, but was discovered and his first film was Kung Fu Killer (2008) with David Carradine. Since then he’s been in 2012, What Women Want, The Man with the Iron Fists, and was in recurring roles in Superna

We are having our first live event tonight, Thursday, July 20th, at 6pm at the Central Library in Downtown Los Angeles. It’s first come first serve with limited seating so try to be there by 5:30pm! This episode marks our one-year anniversary for the podcast! We created this podcast to honor and celebrate Bruce Lee's philosophy and share it with the world. Thank your for listening and going on this journey with us. We wanted to celebrate the one-year anniversary and recognize the 44th anniversary of Bruce Lee’s passing by completing the Bruce Lee Podcast Challenge for two weeks. When we shared the challenge, we worried that people might not participate, but so many of you completed it. We got such an overwhelming response to the challenge that it’s taking us much longer to go through all the entries, and we won’t be able to pick just one winner. Your accomplishments, roadblocks, and leveling up have truly astounded and moved us; you blew us out of the water. We applaud you Bruce Lee Podcast Community! Since w

Gentleness was key to Bruce Lee’s philosophy of life and practice as an artist. Bruce equated gentleness with his idea of emptiness, non-resistance internally, the place in which the moment can happen and where spontaneous action springs from. Gentleness equals life. Gentleness is strength. “The essential unity of the universe, the leveling of all differences, the relativity of all standards, and the return of all to divine intelligence and the source of all things – from all this naturally arises the absence of desire for strife and contention and fighting for advantage. A peaceable temper is bred in man that emphasizes nonresistance and the importance of gentleness.” Gentleness is the coming together, not the coming a part of things. “The assimilation of the tao has its foundation in tenderness and quietness.” Bruce Lee personally struggled with having a temper, but he researched his own experience. He was able to be neutral about examining himself and recognized that he needed to cultivate his gentleness.

What is the meaning of life? “The meaning of life is that is to be lived.” What he means by this is that life is meant to be engaged with, present in, taking action toward; it is not to be conceptualized or only thought about, but actually participated in. Water was Bruce’s metaphor for life, always moving, always changing, always flowing, and you want to be right in the flow of it. “You can never step in the same water twice, my friend. Like flowing water, life is perpetual movement. There is nothing fixed.” “Realize the fact that you simply live and not live for.” “Living exists when life through us- unhampered in its flow, for he who is living is not conscious of living, and in this is the life he lives.” It’s important to fully feel the bad or difficult experiences so that you can let it flow through you and you can let go the negative energy. If you don’t let it flow through you then you end up holding on to and internalizing that pain. “Be pliable, when a man is living he is soft and pliable, when he is

What does it mean to “hack away the unessentials”? “It is not daily increase but daily decrease, hack away the unessential. The closer to the source, the less wastage there is.” Bruce Lee applied this primarily to his martial art, but also in life, heading towards simplicity of movement, thought, and being. “Avoid the superficial, penetrate the complex, go to the heart of the problem, and pinpoint the key factors.” “Do not beat around the bush. Do not take winding detours. Follow a straight line to the objective; simplicity is the shortest distance between two points.” This doesn’t mean take the shortest route, but ask in real life what is unnecessary. “Scratch away all the dirt your being has accumulated and reveal reality in its nakedness.” We accumulate this dirt as protection and security, and it’s not easily shed. There are so many distractions clothed as things to make your life easier, but they distract and clutter instead. “It is not difficult to trim and hack off the nonessentials in outward, physica

The three stages are of learning, technique, and cultivation, have all been touched upon in previous episodes, but this week we dive deeper into each one. The three stages of learning: 1. A punch is just a punch 2. A punch is no longer a punch 3. A punch is just a punch Three Stages of Technique 1. Synchronization of self 2. Synchronization with opponent 3. Under fighting condition “Within all the training thrown to the wind, with the mind perfectly unaware of its own working, with the self-vanishing nowhere, anybody knows where, your art attains perfection.” Three Stages of Cultivation 1. Partiality 2. Fluidity 3. Emptiness “All technique is to be forgotten and the unconscious to be left alone to handle the situation. Technique will assert its wonders automatically or spontaneously. To float in totality, to have no technique, is to have all technique.” “Pride is a sense of worth derived from something that is not organically part of us. While self-esteem is derived from the potentialities and achievements of

Intuition is often described as your “gut feeling,” but Bruce Lee defined intuition in many different ways--as body feel, the root, the creative tide in us, natural instinct, guidance, and free movement of spirit. “What we are after is the root and not the branches. The root is real knowledge; the branches are surface knowledge. Real knowledge breeds “body feel” and personal expression; surface knowledge breeds mechanical conditioning and imposing limitation and squelches creativity.” “The superior man lets himself be guided.” “Don’t think – feel. Feeling exists here and now when not interrupted and dissected by ideas or concepts. The moment we stop analyzing and let go, we can start really seeing, feeling – as one whole.” A truly awake person is using their mind, body, and heart all at once. “Here is natural instinct and here is control. You are to combine the two in harmony. If you have one to the extreme, you will be very unscientific; if you have another to the extreme, you become a mechanical man and no