Bruce Lee Podcast

During one of the busiest times in his life, Bruce Lee wrote a letter to himself titled “In My Own Process”. When Bruce wrote this, he had just halted production on Game of Death was in mid-prep for Enter the Dragon which included re-writing script pages, creating fight choreography, and being a producer. He was moved to pause and write several drafts of this letter to himself—each version was an evolution of the ideas he began pondering. Through the different versions, you can witness his thinking and creative process—adding, building and refining with each iteration. He wrote: “At the moment I’m wondering for whom am I writing this organized mess? I have to say I am writing whatever wants to be written.” “I have come to the realization that sooner or later what it really amounts to is the bare fact that even an attempt to really write something about ones self demands, first of all, an honesty towards oneself to be able to take responsibility to be what we actually are.” “What it boils down to is my sincere

This week we discuss a typical day in the life of Bruce Lee, his habits and activities on an average day when he wasn’t filming. The Wing Luke Museum in Seattle has an exhibit called “A Day in the Life of Bruce Lee” and you can make your own “Day in the Life” infographic here. Bruce Lee believed in the restorative powers of sleep, typically getting about 8hrs a night. He went to sleep around 11pm and got up at 7am. In the mornings he would stretch and go for a jog. Bruce liked to use jogging as a form of meditation. Following his morning workout, Bruce had breakfast then played with the kids. Then he would usually teach a private lesson in his students’ backyard or in his own backyard. Between the hours of noon and 4pm he would have lunch and then either teach or work on his writing. Then, he would have an hour and a half for his own personal training (his second workout of the day!) Bruce spent his early evening hanging out with the family and playing with the kids. For the rest of the evening, Bruce would h

When Bruce Lee was 21 he wrote: “I feel I have this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision, it is all these combined. My brain becomes magnetized with this dominating force which I hold in my hand. Whether it is the godhead or not, I feel this great force, this untapped power, this dynamic something within me. This feeling defies description and no experience with which this feeling may be compared. It is something like a strong emotion mixed with faith, but a lot stronger.” This energy is something that Bruce Lee talked about a lot, and energy is also often how we talk about Bruce Lee. Bruce would talk about energy in relation to his willpower, vital life-force to create, to move, to accomplish, and to motivate. He talked about it as a creative and spiritual force within himself and also talked about not wasting this force but using it for good. “A creation uncontaminated by thoug

This week we sit down with Bruce Lee superfan, and self-professed Bruce Lee geek, W. Kamau Bell! He’s a comedian and TV host. He hosts CNN's United Shades of America, and podcasts Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period and Politically Reactive. Kamau Bell became a Bruce Lee fan as a kid watching 70s martial arts films on TV. He thought Bruce Lee was in tons of movies because of all the knock-off Bruce Lees on TV. It wasn’t until he was 13 when he went to the video store and found “Enter the Dragon” that he realized that the real Bruce Lee was the real deal. He watched the VHS tapes over and over and sought out Bruce’s other film. That’s when Kamau became a superfan. He bought all his movies, got Bruce Lee posters, made his own iron-on T-shirt of Bruce and converted his friends to fans. He even created a petition at his high school to get Bruce Lee a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He studied Wing Chun because Bruce Lee studied Wing Chun and took a bus all the way across Chicago to stud

When Bruce Lee spoke about the Art of Dying, he did not mean dying in the literal sense, but as a metaphor for letting go of the past and things that limit you, so you can be a fluid human in the present moment. “Like everyone else, you want to learn the way to win, but never to learn the way to lose. To accept defeat, to learn to die, is to be liberated from it. Once you accept this you are free to flow and to harmonize. Fluidity is the way to an empty mind. You must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying.” Bruce was constantly practicing this idea of dying because to him it meant returning to beginners mind and neutrality. He even had an art piece tombstone created which stated, “In memory of a once fluid man crammed and distorted by the classical mess.” This was a physical reminder to let go of anything that keeps you rigid or limits growth. “To understand and live now, there must be a dying to everything of yesterday, die continually to every newly gained experience be in a state in choiceles

Bruce Lee started writing poetry when he moved from Hong Kong to the U.S. at age 18. He wrote poetry to express his feelings of contemplativeness, love, melancholy, and oneness with nature. The poetry was a way to process and understand his own feelings. Bruce also wrote poems and letters to his wife Linda expressing love and gratefulness for her. Linda says that she can still feel the warmth of his love through his writing. Bruce Lee was a masculine man of action who also had a very integrated feminine side. He was always cultivating both Yin and Yang. The Dying Sun The dying sun lies sadly in the far horizon, The autumn wind blows mercilessly. The yellow leaves fall From the mountain peak two streams parted unwillingly. One to the west one to the east. The sun will rise again in the morning, the leaves will be green again in the spring but must we be like the mountain stream never to meet again? Love is like a friendship caught on fire Love is like a friendship caught on fire, In the beginning a flame, very

The Yin Yang symbol is circle with two interlocking teardrop shapes in complimentary colors with a dot on each side. It’s used in popular culture, but it is a core Chinese philosophy. The Yang side represents positivity, firmness, masculinity, substantiality, brightness, day, and heat. The Yin side represents negativity, softness, femininity, insubstantiality, darkness, and coldness. Excerpt from Book 1 Chapter 28 of the Tao Te Ching: “Know the masculine, but keep to the feminine. And be a valley to the realm….If you are a valley to the realm then constant virtue will be complete and you will return to the uncarved block. The uncarved block is cut into vessels wise men use them as rulers of vessels, the great cutter does not cut away.” Read the full version here Bruce Lee could take heady philosophy and physicalize it, giving it a purpose in a human context, and illustrating it in an entertaining way. Instead of viewing the Yin and Yang as opposites, Bruce would say that they are complimentary to each other.

Bruce’s wife and Shannon’s mom Linda Lee Cadwell joins us again and she shares more stories about Bruce, telling of his spirit of generosity and charity. And for the first time she shares stories about their son Brandon Lee. When Linda first visited Hong Kong in 1965, it was a tough time for many Hong Kong people. There were a lot of very poor people and many would stand on corners asking for donations. Bruce never passed up anyone without giving some coins and saying a kind word. He had great feeling for those who were less fortunate and was always willing to give his possessions and time to those in need. For most of their marriage, Linda and Bruce never had two dimes to rub together, but Bruce was always generous with his money, time and expertise. At a time when the country was still mired in racial tension, Bruce’s studio was filled with people of all races and backgrounds. He taught movie stars and regular people in the same way. Bruce himself faced discrimination again and again, so it was of utmost im

11/27/16 is Bruce Lee’s birthday and he would have been 76 years old today. In honor of his birthday we are reposting the Be Water, My Friend episode (#2) with a special birthday message from Shannon Lee. To honor Bruce, take a moment for yourself today to listen or re-listen to this episode. It’s filled with great tips on how to center yourself, clear your head and move around obstacles you have in your life. "Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

At the request of fans, this week we discuss Bruce Lee’s approach to nutrition and fitness! Nutrition and fitness were ongoing obsessions for Bruce during his life, and we can’t cover everything, so we’ll discuss the big ideas on this episode not specific regimens. Bruce Lee was constantly experimenting on himself and seeing what worked for his body. There was cardio, weight training, martial techniques, teaching as training, nutrition from diet to supplements, meditation, and reading books. Often Bruce would be found doing several things at once, such as stretching and reading, using his time efficiently. Bruce’s diet varied, but he consistently drank protein shakes and juices from their commercial grade juicer, an unusual household appliance in the 60’s. Bruce Lee explored many diets, including one with organ meats because of their high mineral content. He drank tea every day and put supplements into his tea such as ginseng and royal jelly. He was also a big proponent of getting enough sleep, getting 8hrs a

This week we talk with Bruce Lee Superfan Steve Aoki. Steve is a Grammy nominated Electro house musician, DJ and record producer. Steve’s unique musical life is the subject of a new Netflix documentary called “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead," Steve has been a die-hard Bruce Lee devotee since he was a kid. When he was taking karate classes, and he emulated all of Bruce Lee’s moves and became obsessed with watching every Bruce Lee movie repeatedly on VHS. Aoki looked up to Bruce Lee as an Asian man who “made it” when there weren’t any strong Asian role models. Having a strong, kick-ass Asian man like Bruce Lee as a role model helped Aoki build confidence even though he experienced racism growing up in Newport Beach. As a teen, Aoki and his friends studied Bruce’s interviews and read the Tao of Jeet Kune Do together. This practice became the basis for his lifelong love for Bruce Lee’s philosophy. The Bruce Lee quote that Aoki always uses is “Be like water” and he adds “...by any means necessary.” He also uses: “Someti

“Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.” From a very young age Bruce Lee was a rebellious thinker with a keen awareness that established systems could restrict the full development of a human being. One event that sparked this questioning was the discrimination he faced at his Kung Fu school in Hong Kong. He was ultimately kicked out of that school because he wasn’t 100% Chinese. He learned that the institution favored an arbitrary rule over his passionate devotion to study martial arts. This made no sense to him--even as a young man. Bruce Lee eventually called classical martial arts styles “organized despair” because he felt that the rigidity of the styles limited people from discovering themselves and their personal style of martial arts. “Why do you as an individual depend on thousands of years of propaganda? Ideals, principles, the ‘what should be’ leads to hypocrisy.” He said “you do not have to become a robot,” in any system. In

In this week’s episode we are finishing up our 3-part discussion of Bruce Lee’s affirmations with the 7th and final affirmation: Willpower. Affirmation 7: “Recognizing that the power of will is the supreme court over all other departments of my mind, I will exercise it daily when I need the urge to act for any purpose, and I will form habits designed to bring the power of my will into action at least once daily.” Bruce believed that, “A self-willed man has no other aim than his own growth. He values only one thing – the mysterious power in himself, which bids him live and helps him grow. His only living destiny is the silent, ungainsayable law in his own heart, which comfortable habits make it so hard to obey but which to the self-willed man is destiny and godhead.” Bruce Lee didn’t view willpower as the voice in your head forcing you into action, but more as the energy of mastery over one’s soul.Being a self-willed man is about tapping into your heart, your life force, that power within you, that thing that

This week we continue our discussion of Bruce Lee’s Affirmations with three more concepts: Emotions, Reason, and Conscience. Even though we are discussing each affirmation individually, Bruce Lee used all 7 together to help achieve wellbeing. 4th Affirmation: Emotions “Realizing that my emotions are both positive and negative, I will form daily habits which will encourage the development of the positive emotions and aid me in converting the negative emotions into some form of useful action.” 5th Affirmation: Reason “Recognizing that my positive and negative emotions may be dangerous if they are not guided to desirable ends, I will submit all my desires, aims, and purposes to my faculty of reason, and I will be guided by it in giving expression to these.” 6th Affirmation: Conscience “Recognizing that my emotions often err in their over-enthusiasm, and my faculty of reason often is without the warmth of feeling that is necessary to enable me to combine justice with mercy in my judgments, I will encourage my con

This week we discuss Bruce Lee’s affirmations. These are 7 ideas he wrote on small note cards and carried with him always: Memory, Subconscious Mind, Imagination, Reason, Emotion, Conscience and Will Power. These 7 ideas are part of a whole system of well being and self-cultivation Bruce developed. And they work together as a harmonious ecosystem. Today we discuss the first three ideas: Memory, Subconscious Mind, and Imagination. 1st Affirmation: Memory “Recognizing the value of an alert mind, and an alert memory, I will encourage mine to become alert by taking care to impress it clearly with all thoughts I wish to recall and by associating those thoughts with related subjects which I may recall to mind frequently.” Bruce Lee on memory: “Not memory for memory’s sake, not accumulation of knowledge, but synthesis and application.” 2nd Affirmation: Subconscious Mind “Reorganizing the influence of my subconscious mind over my power of will, I shall take care to submit to it a clear and definite picture of my majo

Bruce Lee, was an extremely joyous person who loved to laugh. It’s an often overlooked part of his personality but he loved to joke and play around, and make other people laugh. He also thought of happiness as a synonym for well-being. Linda Lee Cadwell, Bruce’s wife, tells us about Bruce’s humor and how much she laughed during their years together. Bruce was also quite a prankster on set and with friends, and he loved a good pun. His playful character also created a fun-loving energy in his home. Brandon Lee, Bruce’s son and Shannon’s brother, seemed to have inherited his father’s jokester personality. Shannon shares how Brandon would pull pranks and how their family was filled with a sense of play, lightness, joy, and laughter. For Shannon, laughter is an integral part of who she is and she considers laughter the best medicine. Bruce Lee distinguished “being happy” with “happiness.” Being happy was just about passing moments while achieving happiness over a lifetime involved being productive towards ones go

In this week’s episode we have a special guest Linda Lee Cadwell, Bruce Lee’s wife and Shannon’s mom. Linda shares stories of her life with Bruce, how they first met and what it was like to be married to and in a partnership with him. She said that Bruce considered his greatest accomplishment was being a father. She describes what kind of father he was to Brandon and Shannon, and how his unusual schedule allowed him to spend more time with his kids than other fathers at the time. Every day was different for Bruce with teaching, traveling, training or filming. Linda shares some daily rituals that grounded Bruce—he drank tea with honey and ginseng every morning, and throughout the day to maintain his energy. We also discuss the unique path Bruce decided to take in his film career. After facing discrimination in Hollywood, he chose to go to Hong Kong to create his own production company and make the films he wanted to make. “You need to know yourself, you need to believe in yourself, you have to have faith in yo

“The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the very beginning but I did not take it. My ailment came from within myself, but I did not observe it until this moment. Now I see I will never find the light unless, like a candle, I am my own fuel.” This quote is very close to Shannon’s heart. When her brother Brandon unexpectedly died in 1993 on the set of the Crow, Shannon was overwhelmed with intense pain and grief. It was on her journey to find healing from her grief that she started to delve into her father’s writings for the first time and she found this quote. Bruce’s words helped his daughter find space to heal and process Brandon’s death. Shannon is motivated to share her father’s writings and quotes because his words personally helped her get through the toughest time of her life. After discovering her father’s writings, Shannon experienced her own #BruceLeeMoment of self-awareness and the call to be on a path of self-actualization. She quit acting and decided to dedicate her life to spreading h

“Walk on.” There’s a story behind this famous quote. In 1969, Bruce severely injured his back during a routine training session because he didn’t warm up properly. He was told he could never practice martial arts again and may never walk normally. Devastated by this news, Bruce became a researcher of his injury, his body and ultimately created his own path to healing. The journey was long and there were many ups and downs. At one point he took one of his business cards and wrote “Walk on” on the back. He put this card where he could see it to remind him every day to move forward with his recovery. No matter what anyone else said, he would always “Walk on." It is from this year-long recovery period that produced much of Bruce Lee’s writing. Since he was confined to his bed, Bruce would read and write constantly to stay active. In one of his writings Bruce says: “Whether I like it or not, circumstances are thrust upon me, and being a fighter at heart, I sort of fight it in the beginning. But soon realize that w

In this week’s episode we talk about the three core tenets of Jeet Kune Do: Simplicity, Directness, Freedom. Bruce Lee applied these tenets to martial arts, but also to everyday life. Shannon shares the story of the pivotal fight that led Bruce Lee to develop his own martial arts philosophy and way: Jeet Kune Do. In Bruce Lee’s words: “The art of Jeet Kune Do is simply to simplify. Jeet Kune Do avoids the superficial, penetrates the complex, goes to the heart of the problem and pinpoints the key factors. Jeet Kune Do does not beat around the bush. It does not take winding detours. It follows a straight line to the objective. Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points. Jeet Kune Do favors formlessness so that it can assume all forms and since Jeet Kune Do has no style, it can fit in with all styles. As a result, Jeet Kune Do utilizes all ways and is bound by none and, likewise, uses any techniques or means which serve its end.” Essentially: Taking what is useful and rejecting what is useless. You h