Livre par Bruce Lee qui parle de l’Identité spirituelle et qui commence par l’Adage du Jeet kun do
Highlights
INTRODUCTION (1975)
To put the heart of the martial arts in your own heart and have it be a part of you means total comprehension and the use of a free style. When you have that, you will know that there are no limits.
INTRODUCTION (1975)
Absorbing a martial art is like the experience of Buddhism. The feeling for it comes from the heart. You have the dedication to get what you know you need. When it becomes part of you, you know you have it. You succeed at it. You may never fully understand all of it, but you keep at it
IT’S JUST A NAME
Self-knowledge is the basis of Jeet Kune Do because it is effective, not only for the individual’s martial art, but also for his life as a human being.
IT’S JUST A NAME
Learning Jeet Kune Do is not a matter seeking knowledge or accumulating stylized pattern, but is discovering the cause of ignorance.
IT’S JUST A NAME
The control of our being is not unlike the combination of a safe. One turn of the knob rarely unlocks the safe; each advance and retreat is a step toward one’s final achievement
IT’S JUST A NAME
It is doubtful whether there is such a thing as impulsive or natural tolerance. Tolerance requires an effort of thought and self-control. Acts of kindness, too, are rarely without deliberation and “thoughtfulness.” Thus, it seems that some artificiality, some posing and pretense, is inseparable from any act or attitude which involves a limitation of our appetites and selfishness.
IT’S JUST A NAME
Pretense is often an indispensable step in the attainment of genuineness. It is a form into which genuine inclinations flow and solidify.
IT’S JUST A NAME
It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
IT’S JUST A NAME
It is usually safe to predict that the fulfillment of an excessively cherished desire is not likely to still our nagging anxiety.
IT’S JUST A NAME
The propensity to action is symptomatic of an inner unbalance. To be balanced is to be more or less at rest. Action is at the bottom—a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one’s balance and keep afloat. And if it is true, as Napolean wrote to Carnot, “The art of government is not to let men grow stale,” then, it is an art of unbalancing. The crucial difference between a totalitarian regime and a free social order is, perhaps, in the methods of unbalancing by which their people are kept active and striving.
IT’S JUST A NAME
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. Yet, it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents as well.
IT’S JUST A NAME
Action is a high road to self-confidence and esteem. Where it is open, all energies flow toward it. It comes readily to most people and its rewards are tangible. The cultivation of the spirit is elusive and difficult and the tendency toward it is rarely spontaneous, whereas, the opportunities for action are many.
IT’S JUST A NAME
So, we acquire a sense of worth either by realizing our talents, or by keeping busy or by identifying ourselves with something apart from us—be it a cause, a leader, a group, possessions or whatnot. The path of self-realization is the most difficult. It is taken only when other avenues to a sense of worth are more or less blocked. Men of talent have to be encouraged and goaded to engage in creative work.
INTRODUCTION (1975)
as you progress, you know the true nature of the simple way. You may join a temple or a kwoon. You observe nature’s simple way. You experience a life you never had before.
Tao of Jeet Kune Do
Into a soul absolutely free From thoughts and emotion, Even the tiger finds no room To insert its fierce claws. One and the same breeze passes Over the pines on the mountain And the oak trees in the valley; And why do they give different notes? No thinking, no reflecting, Perfect emptiness; Yet therein something moves, Following its own course. The eye sees it, But no hands can take hold of it— The moon in the stream. Clouds and mists, They are midair transformations; Above them eternally shine the sun and the moon. Victory is for the one, Even before the combat, Who has no thought of himself, Abiding in the no-mind-ness of Great Origin. —A Taoist Priest
ON ZEN
To obtain enlightenment in martial art means the extinction of everything which obscures the “true knowledge,” the “real life.” At the same time, it implies boundless expansion and, indeed, emphasis should fall not on the cultivation of the particular department which merges into the totality but rather on the totality that enters and unites that particular department.
ON ZEN
The way to transcend karma lies in the proper use of the mind and the will. The oneness of all life is a truth that can be fully realized only when false notions of a separate self, whose destiny can be considered apart from the whole, are forever annihilated.
ON ZEN
Voidness is that which stands right in the middle between this and that. The void is all-inclusive, having no opposite—there is nothing which it excludes or opposes. It is living void because all forms come out of it and whoever realizes the void is filled with life and power and the love of all beings.
ON ZEN
If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.
ON ZEN
Nothingness cannot be defined; the softest thing cannot be snapped.
ON ZEN
I’m moving and not moving at all. I’m like the moon underneath the waves that ever go on rolling and rocking. It is not, “I am doing this,” but rather, an inner realization that “this is happening through me,” or “it is doing this for me.” The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.
ON ZEN
The localization of the mind means it’s freezing. When it ceases to flow freely as it is needed, it is no more the mind in its suchness.
ON ZEN
The “Immovable” is the concentration of energy at a given focus, as at the axis of a wheel, instead of dispersal in scattered activities.
ON ZEN
The point is the doing of them rather than the accomplishments. There is no actor but the action; there is no experiencer but the experience.
ON ZEN
To see a thing uncolored by one’s own personal preferences and desires is to see it in its own pristine simplicity
ON ZEN
Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.
ON ZEN
The perfect way is only difficult for those who pick and choose. Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference and heaven and earth are set apart; if you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between “for” and “against” is the mind’s worst disease.
ON ZEN
Wisdom does not consist of 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.
ON ZEN
Let yourself go with the disease, be with it, keep company with it—this is the way to be rid of it.
ON ZEN
An assertion is Zen only when it is itself an act and does not refer to anything that is asserted in it.
ON ZEN
In Buddhism, there is no place for using effort. Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water and, when you’re tired, go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.
ON ZEN
Do not run away; let go. Do not seek, for it will come when least expected.
ON ZEN
There is no fixed teaching. All I can provide is an appropriate medicine for a particular ailment.
ON ZEN
Buddhism’s Eight-Fold Path The eight requirements to eliminate suffering by correcting false values and giving true knowledge of life’s meaning have been summed up as follows: 1. Right views (understanding): You must see clearly what is wrong. 2. Right purpose (aspiration): Decide to be cured. 3. Right speech: Speak so as to aim at being cured. 4. Right conduct: You must act. 5. Right vocation: Your livelihood must not conflict with your therapy. 6. Right effort: The therapy must go forward at the “staying speed,” the critical velocity that can be sustained. 7. Right awareness (mind control): You must feel it and think about it incessantly. 8. Right concentration (meditation): Learn how to contemplate with the deep mind.
ART OF SOUL
The aim of art is to project an inner vision into the world, to state in aesthetic creation the deepest psychic and personal experiences of a human being. It is to enable those experiences to be intelligible
ART OF SOUL
Art is an expression of life and transcends both time and space. We must employ our own souls through art to give a new form and a new meaning to nature or the world.
ART OF SOUL
Art is never decoration, embellishment; instead, it is work of enlightenment. Art, in other words, is a technique for acquiring liberty.
ART OF SOUL
Art calls for complete mastery of techniques, developed by reflection within the soul.
ART OF SOUL
All vague notions must fall before a pupil can call himself a master.
ART OF SOUL
The artless art is the art of the soul at peace, like moonlight mirrored in a deep lake. The ultimate aim of the artist is to use his daily activity to become a past master of life, and so lay hold of the art of living. Masters in all branches of art must first be masters of living, for the soul creates everything.
ART OF SOUL
Art is the way to the absolute and to the essence of human life
ART OF SOUL
The aim of art is not the one-sided promotion of spirit, soul and senses, but the opening of all human capacities—thought, feeling, will—to the life rhythm of the world of nature.
ART OF SOUL
Artistic skill, therefore, does not mean artistic perfection. It remains rather a continuing medium or reflection of some step-in psychic development, the perfection of which is not to be found in shape and form, but must radiate from the human soul.
ART OF SOUL
The artistic activity does not lie in art itself as such. It penetrates into a deeper world in which all art forms (of things inwardly experienced) flow together, and in which the harmony of soul and cosmos in the nothing has its outcome in reality.
ART OF SOUL
It is the artistic process, therefore, that is reality and reality is truth.
JEET KUNE DO
To understand Jeet Kune Do, one ought to throw away all ideals, patterns, styles; in fact, he should throw away even the concepts of what is or isn’t ideal in Jeet Kune Do.
JEET KUNE DO
Can you look at a situation without naming it? Naming it, making it a word, causes fear.
JEET KUNE DO
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.
JEET KUNE DO
The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or in defeat. Let nature take its course, and your tools will strike at the right moment.
JEET KUNE DO
Approach Jeet Kune Do with the idea of mastering the will. Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain.
JEET KUNE DO
Jeet Kune Do teaches us not to look backward once the course is decided upon. It treats life and death indifferently.
JEET KUNE DO
Jeet Kune Do avoids the superficial, penetrates the complex, goes to the heart of the problem and pinpoints the key factors.
JEET KUNE DO
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
The art of Jeet Kune Do is simply to simplify. It is being oneself; it is reality in its “isness.” Thus, isness is the meaning—having freedom in its primary sense, not limited by attachments, confinements, partialization, complexities.
JEET KUNE DO
Jeet Kune Do is the enlightenment. It is a way of life, a movement toward willpower and control, though it ought to be enlightened by intuition
JEET KUNE DO
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. He must feel as if nothing critical is happening. When he advances, his steps should be light and secure, his eyes not fixed and glaring insanely at the enemy. His behavior should not be in any way different from his everyday behavior, no change taking place in his expression, nothing betraying the fact that he is engaged in mortal combat.
JEET KUNE DO
The tools, your natural weapons, have a double purpose: 1. To destroy the opponent in front of you—annihilation of things that stand in the way of peace, justice and humanity. 2. To destroy your own impulses caused by the instincts of self-preservation. To destroy anything bothering your mind. Not to hurt anyone, but to overcome your own greed, anger and folly. Jeet Kune Do is directed toward oneself.
JEET KUNE DO
the force of intuitive or instinctive directness which, unlike the intellect or the complicated ego, does not divide itself, blocking its own freedom. The tools move onward without looking back or to the side.
JEET KUNE DO
Absence of thought as the doctrine means not to be carried away by thought in the process of thought, not to be defiled by external objects—to be in thought yet devoid of thought.
JEET KUNE DO
True thusness is the substance of thought and thought is the function of true thusness. To think of thusness, to define it in thought, is to defile it.
JEET KUNE DO
Bring the mind into sharp focus and make it alert so that it can immediately intuit truth, which is everywhere. The mind must be emancipated from old habits, prejudices, restrictive thought processes and even ordinary thought itself.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Scratch away all the dirt your being has accumulated and reveal reality in its isness, or in its suchness, or in its nakedness, which corresponds to the Buddhist concept of emptiness.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
the instinct to follow and imitate seems to be inherent in most martial artists, instructors and students alike. This is partly due to human tendency and partly because of the steep traditions behind multiple patterns of styles. Consequently, to find a refreshing, original, master teacher is a rarity
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Thus, instead of “being” in combat, these practitioners are “doing” something “about” combat. Worse still, super mental power and spiritual this and spiritual that are desperately incorporated until these practitioners drift further and further into mystery and abstraction. All such things are futile attempts to arrest and fix the ever-changing movements in combat and to dissect and analyze them like a corpse.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
When real feeling occurs, such as anger or fear, can the stylist express himself with the classical method, or is he merely listening to his own screams and yells? Is he a living, expressive human being or merely a patternized mechanical robot? Is he an entity, capable of flowing with external circumstances, or is he resisting with his set of chosen patterns? Is his chosen pattern forming a screen between him and the opponent and preventing a “total” and “fresh” relationship?
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Stylists, instead of looking directly into the fact, cling to forms (theories) and go on entangling themselves further and further, finally putting themselves into an inextricable snare.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Discipline must conform to the nature of things in their suchness.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Maturity does not mean to become a captive of conceptualization. It is the realization of what lies in our innermost selves.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
When there is freedom from mechanical conditioning, there is simplicity. Life is a relationship to the whole.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
The man who is clear and simple does not choose. What is, is. Action based on an idea is obviously the action of choice and such action is not liberating. On the contrary, it creates further resistance, further conflict. Assume pliable awareness.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Relationship is understanding. It is a process of self-revelation. Relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself—to be is to be related.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Set patterns, incapable of adaptability, of pliability, only offer a better cage. Truth is outside of all patterns.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Forms are vain repetitions which offer an orderly and beautiful escape from self-knowledge with an alive opponent.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Accumulation is self-enclosing resistance and flowery techniques strengthen the resistance.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
The classical man is just a bundle of routine, ideas and tradition. When he acts, he is translating every living moment in terms of the old.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Knowledge is fixed in time, whereas, knowing is continual. Knowledge comes from a source, from an accumulation, from a conclusion, while knowing is a movement.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Learning is never cumulative; it is a movement of knowing which has no beginning and no end.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
The additive process is merely a cultivation of memory which becomes mechanical
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
In martial arts cultivation, there must be a sense of freedom. A conditioned mind is never a free mind. Conditioning limits a person within the framework of a particular system.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
To express yourself in freedom, you must die to everything of yesterday.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
To realize freedom, the mind has to learn to look at life, which is a vast movement without the bondage of time, for freedom lies beyond the field of consciousness. Watch, but don’t stop and interpret, “I am free”—then you’re living in a memory of something that has gone. To understand and live now, everything of yesterday must die.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Freedom from knowing is death; then, you are living. Die inwardly of “pro” and “con.” There is no such thing as doing right or wrong when there is freedom.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
When one is not expressing himself, he is not free. Thus, he begins to struggle and the struggle breeds methodical routine. Soon, he is doing his methodical routine as response rather than responding to what is.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the routine, the tradition, the shadow—you are not understanding yourself.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
How can one respond to the totality with a partial, fragmentary pattern?
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Accumulation of forms, just one more modification of conditioning, becomes an anchor that holds and ties down; it leads only one way—down.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Form is the cultivation of resistance; it is the exclusive drilling of a pattern of choice moves. Instead of creating resistance, enter straight into the movement as it arises; do not condemn or condone—choiceless awareness leads to reconciliation with the opponent in a total understanding of what is.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
To fit in with an opponent one needs direct perception. There is no direct perception where there is a resistance, a “this is the only way” attitude.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Once conditioned in a partialized method, once isolated in an enclosing pattern, the practitioner faces his opponent through a screen of resistance—he is “performing” his stylized blocks and listening to his own screaming and not seeing what the opponent is really doing.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
We are those kata, we are those classical blocks and thrusts, so heavily conditioned are we by them.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Having totality means being capable of following “what is,” because “what is” is constantly moving and constantly changing. If one is anchored to a particular view, one will not be able to follow the swift movement of “what is.”
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
How can there be methods and systems to arrive at something that is living? To that which is static, fixed, dead, there can be a way, a definite path, but not to that which is living. Do not reduce reality to a static thing and then invent methods to reach it.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Truth is relationship with the opponent; constantly moving, living, never static.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Truth has no path. Truth is living and, therefore, changing. It has no resting place, no form, no organized institution, no philosophy. When you see that, you will understand that this living thing is also what you are. You cannot express and be alive through static, put-together form, through stylized movement.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Classical forms dull your creativity, condition and freeze your sense of freedom. You no longer “be,” but merely “do” without sensitivity.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Acceptance, denial and conviction prevent understanding. Let your mind move together with another’s in understanding with sensitivity. Then, there is a possibility of real communication. To understand one another, there must be a state of choiceless awareness where there is no sense of comparison or condemnation, no waiting for a further development of discussion in order to agree or disagree. Above all, don’t start from a conclusion.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Understand the freedom from the conformity of styles. Free yourself by observing closely what you normally practice. Do not condemn or approve; merely observe.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
When you are uninfluenced, when you die to the conditioning of classical responses, then you will know awareness and see things totally fresh, totally new.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Awareness is without choice, without demand, without anxiety; in that state of mind, there is perception. Perception alone will resolve all our problems.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Understanding requires not just a moment of perception, but a continuous awareness, a continuous state of inquiry without conclusion.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
To understand combat, one must approach it in a very simple and direct manner.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Understanding oneself happens through a process of relationships and not through isolation.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
To understand the actual requires awareness, an alert and totally free mind.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Effort within the mind further limits the mind, because effort implies struggle toward a goal and when you have a goal, a purpose, an end in view, you have placed a limit on the mind.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
This evening I see something totally new, and that newness is experienced by the mind, but tomorrow that experience becomes mechanical if I try to repeat the sensation, the pleasure of it. The description is never real. What is real is seeing the truth instantaneously, because truth has no tomorrow.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
We shall find the truth when we examine the problem. The problem is never apart from the answer. The problem is the answer—understanding the problem dissolves the problem.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Thinking is not freedom—all thought is partial; it can never be total. Thought is the response of memory and memory is always partial, because memory is the result of experience. So, thought is the reaction of a mind conditioned by experience.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Know the emptiness and tranquility of your mind. Be empty; have no style or form for the opponent to work on.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
The mind is originally without activity; the way is always without thought.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
There will be calmness, tranquility, when one is free from external objects and is not perturbed. Being tranquil means not having any illusions or delusions of thusness.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Insight is realizing that one’s original nature is not created.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
There is no thought, only thusness—what is. Thusness does not move, but its motion and function are inexhaustible.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
To meditate means to realize the imperturbability of one’s original nature. Surely, meditation can never be a process of concentration, because the highest form of thinking is negation. Negation is a state in which there is neither the positive nor its reaction as the negative. It is a state of complete emptiness
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Concentration is a form of exclusion, and where there is exclusion, there is a thinker who excludes. It is the thinker, the excluder, the one who concentrates, who creates contradiction because he forms a center from which there is distraction.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Awareness has no frontier; it is a giving of your whole being, without exclusion.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Classical concentration that focuses on one thing and excludes all others and awareness, which is total and excludes nothing, are states of the mind that can be understood only by objective, non-prejudiced observation.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Concentration is a narrowing down of the mind. But we are concerned with the total process of living, and to concentrate exclusively on any particular aspect of life, belittles life.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
The “moment” has not yesterday or tomorrow. It is not the result of thought and, therefore, has not time.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
A so-called martial artist is the result of three thousand years of propaganda and conditioning
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
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.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Because one does not want to be disturbed, to be made uncertain, he establishes a pattern of conduct, of thought, a pattern of relationships to man. He then becomes a slave to the pattern and takes the pattern to be the real thing.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
The second-hand artist blindly following his sensei or sifu accepts his pattern. As a result, his action and, more importantly, his thinking become mechanical. His responses become automatic, according to set patterns, making him narrow and limited.
ORGANIZED DESPAIR
Self-expression is total, immediate, without conception of time, and you can only express that if you are free, physically and mentally, from fragmentation.
THE FORMLESS FORM
The height of cultivation runs to simplicity. Halfway cultivation runs to ornamentation. In combative arts, it has been the problem of ripening. This ripening is the progressive integration of the individual with his being, his essence. This is possible only through self-exploration in free expression and not in imitative repetition of an imposed pattern of movement.
THE FORMLESS FORM
Jeet Kune Do is a technique for acquiring liberty; it is a work of enlightenment. Art is never decoration or embellishment. A choice method, however exacting, fixes its practitioners in a pattern. Combat is never fixed and is changing from moment to moment. Working in patterns is basically a practice of resistance. Such practice leads to clogginess; understanding is not possible and its adherents are never free.
THE FORMLESS FORM
There is “what is” only when there is no comparing and to live with “what is” is to be peaceful.
THE FORMLESS FORM
No abode means that the ultimate source of all things is beyond human understanding, beyond the categories of time and space. As it thus transcends all modes of relativity, it is called “having no abode” and its qualities are applicable.
THE FORMLESS FORM
The fighter who has no abode is no more himself. He moves as a kind of automaton. He has given himself up to an influence outside his everyday consciousness, which is not other than his own deeply buried unconscious, whose presence he was never hitherto aware of.
THE FORMLESS FORM
Expression is not developed through the practice of form, yet form is a part of expression.
THE FORMLESS FORM
Having “no form,” then, does not mean having no “form.” Having “no form” evolves from having form. “No form” is the higher, individual expression.
THE FORMLESS FORM
Do not deny the classical approach simply as a reaction, for you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there.
THE FORMLESS FORM
Many a martial artist likes “more,” likes “something different,” not knowing the truth and the way is exhibited in the simple everyday movements, because it is here they miss it. If there is any secret, it is missed by seeking.
TRAINING
Training is one of the most neglected phases of athletics. 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. It takes intellect and judgment to handle such delicate qualities as these.
TRAINING
Training is the psychological and physiological conditioning of an individual preparing for intense neural and muscular reaction. It implies discipline of the mind and power and endurance of the body. It means skill. It is all these things working together in harmony.
TRAINING
Training means not only knowledge of the things which will build the body, but also knowledge of the things which will tear down or injure the body. Improper training will result in injuries. Training, then, is concerned with the prevention of injuries as well as first-aid to injuries.
TRAINING
“Everyday Opportunities for Exercises • Take a walk whenever you can—like parking the car a few blocks away from your destination. • Avoid taking the elevator; climb the stairs instead. • Cultivate your quiet awareness by imagining an opponent attacking you while you are sitting, standing, or lying down, etc.—and counter that attack with various moves. Simple moves are the best. • Practice your balance by standing on one foot to put your clothes or shoes on—or simply stand on one foot whenever you choose.”
WARMING UP
Warming up is a process which elicits the acute physiological changes that prepare the organism for strenuous physical performance.
WARMING UP
IMPORTANT: To gain the greatest benefit from the warming-up procedure, the exercises should imitate as closely as possible the movements which are to be used in the event.
WARMING UP
Warming up reduces the viscosity of a muscle, its resistance to its own movement. It improves performance and prevents injury in vigorous activities by two essential means: 1. A rehearsal of the skill before competition commences fixes in the athlete’s neuromuscular coordinating system the exact nature of the impending task. It also heightens his kinesthetic senses. 2. The rise in body temperature facilitates the biochemical reactions supplying energy for muscular contractions. Elevated body temperature also shortens the periods of muscular relaxation and aids in reducing stiffness. As a result of these two processes, there is an improvement in accuracy, strength and speed of movement, and an increase in tissue elasticity which lessens the liability to injury.
WARMING UP
The duration of the warm-up period varies with the event. In ballet, the dancers spend two hours before the performance, commencing with very light movements and gradually increasing the intensity and range of motions until the moment before their appearance. This, they feel, reduces the risk of a pulled muscle which would destroy the perfection of their movements.
Stance
Positioning suggests: 1. A state of movement as opposed to a static position, an “established” form or attitude. 2. Repositioning, especially with small phasic movement, resulting in further disorganization of the opponent’s sustained watchfulness. 3. Adaptation to opponent’s watchfulness.
COORDINATION
Training for skill (coordination) is purely a matter of forming proper connections in the nervous system through practice (precision practice). Each performance of an act strengthens the connections involved and makes the next performance easier, more certain, and more readily done. Likewise, disuse tends to weaken any pathways that have been formed and makes doing of the act more difficult and uncertain (constant exercises). Thus, we can attain skill only by actually doing the thing we are trying to learn. We learn solely by doing or reacting. When learning to form pathways, be sure the actions are the most economical as well as the most efficient use of energy and motion.
COORDINATION
To become a champion requires a condition of readiness that causes the individual to approach with pleasure even the most tedious practice session. The more “ready” the person is to respond to a stimulus, the more satisfaction he finds in the response, and the more “unready” he is, the more annoying he finds it to be forced to act.
PRECISION
IMPORTANT: Do not practice finely skilled movements after you are tired, for you will begin to substitute gross motions for finer ones and generalized efforts for specific ones. Remember, wrong movements tend to supervene and the athlete’s progress is set back. Thus, the athlete practices fine skills only while he is fresh. When he becomes fatigued, he shifts to tasks employing gross movements designed principally to develop endurance.
ENDURANCE
Endurance is developed by hard and continuous exercise which exceeds the “steady” physiological state and produces near exhaustion, temporarily. Considerable respiratory and muscular distress should develop.
BALANCE
Endurance is lost rapidly if one ceases to work at its maintenance.
BALANCE
Balance is the all-important factor in a fighter’s attitude or stance. Without balance at all times, he can never be effective. Balance is achieved only through correct body alignment. The feet, the legs, the trunk, the head are all important in creating and maintaining a balanced position. They are the vehicles of body force. Keeping the feet in proper relation to each other, as well as to the body, helps to maintain correct body alignment.
BALANCE
The secret of a proper balance in the proper stance is to keep the feet always directly under the body, which means they should be a medium distance apart. Either the weight is balanced over both legs or (as in Western boxing) it is carried slightly forward over the lead leg. The lead leg is fairly straight and the knee is loose and easy, not locked. The lead side of the body forms a straight line from the lead heel to the tip of the lead shoulder. This position permits relaxation, speed, balance and easy movement, as well as a mechanical advantage, making possible tremendous power.
BALANCE
Postural habits: 1. Lower the center of gravity. 2. Keep a base with lateral width. 3. Keep weight on the balls of the feet. 4. Knees are rarely straightened, even in running. 5. A center of gravity kept under delicate and rapid motion are characteristic habits of athletes in games that require sudden and frequent changes of direction.
BALANCE
Balance is the control of one’s center of gravity plus the control and utilization of body slants and unstable equilibrium, hence gravity pull, to facilitate movement. 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.
BALANCE
One should seek good balance in motion and not in stillness.
GOOD FORM
The education of neuromuscular skill: 1. The first step is to acquire the feeling of relaxation. 2. The second step is to practice until this feeling can be reproduced at will. 3. The third step is to reproduce that feeling voluntarily in potentially tension-creating situations.
GOOD FORM
The ability to feel contraction and relaxation, to know what a muscle is doing, is called “kinesthetic perception.” Kinesthetic perception is developed by consciously placing the body and its parts in a given position and getting the feel of it. This feeling of balance or imbalance, grace or awkwardness, serves as a constant guide to the body as it moves.
GOOD FORM
Kinesthetic perception should be developed to such a degree that the body is uncomfortable unless it performs each motion with a minimum of effort to produce maximum results (apply to posture, too.)
BODY FEEL
To conserve energy by using the least possible amount of energy to achieve a given result, eliminate the unnecessary motions and muscle contractions which fatigue without accomplishing any useful purpose.
STRIKING
Zen illustration: Eat, but he is thinking; punch, but he is scared or rushing. Thus, a punch is not a punch
STRIKING
Pay particular attention to the development of relaxed tension. If you tighten up, you lose the flexibility and timing which are so important to successful punches. Keep relaxed at all times and remember that timing is your chief aid in making a blow effective.
STRIKING
Remember to take up power from the ground through your legs, waist and back. Sway all your muscles into your punches (at the same time do your best to cut down motions) and make them drive through. Push off from the ground.
ATTACK!
The Psychophysical Process of Attack 1. Survey: The survey is entirely mental and could be subdivided into two parts. a. Definable: For instance, the estimation of the correct distance between the fighters or the appearance of an opening. b. Instinctive: Whether the opponent will attack or retire. 2. Decision: This is also a mental function, but the nerves and muscles are alerted in preparation for execution. During this phase, the fighter decides how to attack. For example, should it be from a short distance with a direct attack or should he, from a long distance, use a compound attack? Alternatively, he could attack with a second intention or in any other way he considers will be successful. 3. Action: The brain has given the muscles the order which they now execute, but even in the execution, the fighter has to be prepared for the possibility of an interception, counter, etc. Thus, it is both essential and obvious that mental and physical alertness be maintained throughout the fight.
ATTACK!
Conserve your energy but attack decisively, confidently and with a single mind.
ATTACK!
The on-guard position, the alive, controlled parry, the timely simple attack, the sensitive, well-regulated advance and retreat, the blinding lunge and the speedy, balanced recovery must all be learned thoroughly. Acquire the appropriate neuromuscular perception of all these so that they only require passing attention and you may be free to concentrate on your adversary, his ploy and your solution of his attack and defense. Freedom of movement, balance and confidence accompany a practiced certainty of the fundamental movements.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
Jeet Kune Do, ultimately, is not a matter of petty technique but of highly developed personal spirituality and physique. It is not a question of developing what has already been developed but of recovering what has been left behind. These things have been with us, in us, all the time and have never been lost or distorted except by our misguided manipulation of them. Jeet Kune Do is not a matter of technology but of spiritual insight and training.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
One can never be the master of his technical knowledge unless all his psychic hindrances are removed and he can keep his mind in a state of emptiness (fluidity), even purged of whatever technique he has obtained.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
Any technique, however worthy and desirable, becomes a disease when the mind is obsessed with it.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
The six diseases: 1. The desire for victory. 2. The desire to resort to technical cunning. 3. The desire to display all that has been learned. 4. The desire to awe the enemy. 5. The desire to play the passive role. 6. The desire to get rid of whatever disease one is affected by.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
“To desire” is an attachment. “To desire not to desire” is also an attachment. To be unattached then, means to be free at once from both statements, positive and negative. This is to be simultaneously both “yes” and “no,” which is intellectually absurd. However, not so in Zen.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
Action is our relationship to everything. Action is not a matter of right and wrong. It is only when action is partial that there is a right and a wrong.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
Because one’s self-consciousness or ego-consciousness is too conspicuously present over the entire range of his attention, it interferes with his free display of whatever proficiency he has so far acquired or is going to acquire. One should remove this obtruding self or ego-consciousness and apply himself to the work to be done as if nothing particular were taking place at the moment.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
A concentrated mind is not an attentive mind, but a mind that is in the state of awareness can concentrate. Awareness is never exclusive; it includes everything.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
Not being tense but ready, not thinking yet not dreaming, not being set but flexible—it is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
The mind must be wide open to function freely in thought. A limited mind cannot think freely.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
The Jeet Kune Do man should be on the alert to meet the interchangeability of opposites. As soon as his mind “stops” with either of them, it loses its own fluidity. A JKD man should keep his mind always in the state of emptiness so that his freedom in action will never be obstructed.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
The deluded mind is the mind affectively burdened by intellect. Thus, it cannot move without stopping and reflecting on itself. This obstructs its native fluidity.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
When the mind is tied up, it feels inhibited in every move it makes and nothing is accomplished with spontaneity. Its work will be of poor quality or it may never be finished at all.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
When you are completely aware, there is no space for a conception, a scheme, “the opponent and I”; there is complete abandonment.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
When there is no obstruction, the JKD man’s movements are like flashes of lightning or like the mirror reflecting images.
IT’S JUST A NAME
There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and, thus, free ourselves from responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Both the strong and the weak grasp at this alibi. The latter hide their malevolence under the virtue of obedience. The strong, too, claim absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instruments of a higher power God, history, fate, nation or humanity.
IT’S JUST A NAME
Similarly, we have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything which has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone and we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.
IT’S JUST A NAME
To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are. Whether this being different results in dissimulation or a real change of heart, it cannot be realized without self-awareness. Yet, it is remarkable that the very people who are most self-dissatisfied, who crave most for a new identity, have the least self-awareness. They have turned away from an unwanted self and, hence, never had a good look at it. The result is that most dissatisfied people can neither dissimulate nor attain a real change of heart. They are transparent and their unwanted qualities persist through all attempts at self-dramatization and self-transformation
IT’S JUST A NAME
Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or our worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear. Thus, a feeling of utter unworthiness can be a source of courage. Everything seems possible when we are absolutely helpless or absolutely powerful—and both states stimulate our gullibility.
IT’S JUST A NAME
Humility, however, is not verbal renunciation of pride but the substitution of pride for self-awareness and objectivity. Forced humility is false pride.
IT’S JUST A NAME
A fateful process is set in motion when the individual is released “to the freedom of his own impotence” and left to justify his existence by his own efforts. The individual on his own, striving to realize himself and prove his worth, has created all that is great in literature, art, music, science and technology. This autonomous individual, also, when he can neither realize himself nor justify his existence by his own efforts, is a breeding ground of frustration and the seed of the convulsion that shakes our world to its foundations.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
The knowledge and skill you have achieved are meant to be “forgotten” so you can float comfortably in emptiness, without obstruction. Learning is important but do not become its slave.
CIRCLE WITH NO CIRCUMFERENCE
By an error repeated throughout the ages, truth, becoming a law or a faith, places obstacles in the way of knowledge. Method, which is in its very substance ignorance, encloses truth within a vicious circle. We should break such a circle, not by seeking knowledge, but by discovering the cause of ignorance.
IT’S JUST A NAME
We can see through others only when we can see through ourselves
IT’S JUST A NAME
The autonomous individual is stable only so long as he is possessed of self-esteem. The maintenance of self-esteem is a continuous task which taxes all of the individual’s power and inner resources. We have to prove our worth and justify our existence anew each day. When, for whatever reason, self-esteem is unattainable, the autonomous individual becomes a highly explosive entity. He turns away from an unpromising self and plunges into the pursuit of pride, the explosive substitute for self-esteem. All social disturbances and upheavals have their roots in crises of individual self-esteem, and the great endeavor in which the masses most readily unite is basically a search for pride.
IT’S JUST A NAME
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.
IT’S JUST A NAME
That we pursue something passionately does not always mean that we really want it or have a special aptitude for it. Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have.
IT’S JUST A NAME
In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.
Bookmarks
Highlights Eliott Meunier
https://notes.eliottmeunier.com/3+GARDEN/Ressources/Livres/Tao+of+Jeet+Kune+Do
- The way to transcend karma lies in the proper use of the mind and the will. The oneness of all life is a truth that can be fully realized only when false notions of a separate self, whose destiny can be considered apart from the whole, are forever annihilated. (Location 161)
- Voidness is that which stands right in the middle between this and that. The void is all-inclusive, having no opposite — there is nothing which it excludes or opposes. It is living void, because all forms come out of it and whoever realizes the void is filled with life and power and the love of all beings. (Location 164)
- Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make. (Location 186)
- Let yourself go with the disease, be with it, keep company with it — this is the way to be rid of it. (Location 197)
- Establish nothing in regard to oneself. Pass quickly like the non-existent and be quiet as purity. Those who gain lose. Do not precede others, always follow them. Do not run away; let go. Do not seek, for it will come when least expected. (Location 203)
- Art is an expression of life and transcends both time and space. We must employ our own souls through art to give a new form and a new meaning to nature or the world. (Location 226)
- An artist’s expression is his soul made apparent, his schooling, as well as his “cool” being exhibited. Behind every motion, the music of his soul is made visible. Otherwise, his motion is empty and empty motion is like an empty word — no meaning. (Location 228)
- Art is the way to the absolute and to the essence of human life. The aim of art is not the one-sided promotion of spirit, soul and senses, but the opening of all human capacities — thought, feeling, will — to the life rhythm of the world of nature. So will the voiceless voice be heard and the self be brought into harmony with it. Artistic skill, therefore, does not mean artistic perfection. It remains rather a continuing medium or reflection of some step in psychic development, the perfection of which is not to be found in shape and form, but must radiate from the human soul. (Location 248)