Bruce Lee Podcast

You may not have heard of Shannon’s guest for this episode unless you follow badass female martial artists or the ancient Hawaiian martial art of Lua but this woman is a fierce warrior through and through. Michelle Manu is the only woman to be given the designation of Knight’s Commander by the Royal Order of Kemehameha 1 for protecting and promoting Hawaiian culture through the Lua, the indigenous warrior art of Hawaii. Michelle dedicates herself to helping women by teaching self defense and passing on her knowledge. She also happens to be a lawyer, holds credentials from Harvard Business School, is a grandmother to twin boys, and is an expert in Polynesian dance. Right before Shannon and Michelle sat down to talk, Shannon looked out her window and saw a massive hawk sitting in her backyard. What a symbol to bless their conversation! And Shannon wants to encourage everyone who is listening to head on over to the Youtube video of their conversation where you can see Michelle show us some Lua hawk technique in honor of their pre-conversation visitor. But for now, please sit back and enjoy this deep and wonderful conversation Shannon had with Michelle Manu.

Show notes & episodes on Brucelee.com/Podcast

The “On Guard” position is what Bruce Lee called his resting stance in JKD. This is the optimal stance from which movement can initiate. The On Guard stance can be used as a metaphor for having the proper stance and orientation in life. With this stance you are poised to initiate movement in your life.

Bruce’s On Guard stance was a strong side forward stance. For Bruce, he wanted his strongest weapon out front. His stance was a natural step apart and his rear heel was lifted like a “coiled snake, ready to spring."

“The on-guard position is that position most favorable to the mechanical execution of all the total techniques and skills. It allows complete relaxation, yet, at the same time, gives a muscle the tension most favorable to quick reaction time. The on-guard position must, above all, be a ‘proper spiritual attitude’ stance.”

Bruce believed that this position was the most favorable for the execution of action.

What is the stance for you that gives you a feeling of centeredness, knowingness, and confidence, that would allow you to move through your life with the most ease and power?

The way that we stand and move about physically in this world projects and broadcasts our ideas and spiritual mindsets. Our body is an expression of our spirit.

The on guard position is, “A simple and effective organization of oneself mentally and physically.”

What would it take for you to be organized in your mind and your body so that you can move through your life most easily?

“Balance is the most important consideration in the on guard position.”

“The position adopted should be the one found to give maximum ease and relaxation, combined with smoothness of movement at all times.”

It takes a lot of self-work, self-discovery, and practice to understand what your effective ready position is and how you operate best.

“Proper posture is a matter of effective interior organization of the body which can be achieved only by long and well-disciplined practice.”

It does not matter how well polished your performance is on the outside, if you are not in harmony and balance with the spirit inside then you will become depleted and break down. It takes a lot of effort to keep up a performance.

“Fundamental positioning is the foundation.”

What is your foundation? Where is your set point from where you start and stop? You can start by examining how you begin and end your days.

“Practice instantaneous explosion from neutrality and retain neutrality in commitment, all into one constant smooth flow.”

“Practice constantly to apply ALL tools from the on-guard position and return to the on-guard position with all possible rapidity. Shorten the gap time between position and execution more and more. Ease, speed, relay.”

It is impossible to always be in a state of neutrality in whatever we encounter in life, there will be times where circumstances knock us out of our neutral zone or we are required to have fast action. But it is how quickly we can return to our neutral foundation that is important, and then we can reflect on what happened with more clarity. If it takes you a long time to return to your foundation then that is important information to have about yourself.

“Do not be tense, but ready; not thinking, but not dreaming; not being set, but flexible. It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware, and alert; ready for whatever may come.”

Notes: BruceLee.com/podcast

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“Using no way as way; having no limitation as limitation.”

The idea of being limitless was a core tenet of Bruce Lee’s approach to his art and his life. He lived the philosophy of being limitless and took action.

The idea of being limitless is a mindset and a sense of freedom within one’s own life; it does not mean that you have no boundaries or that you are negligible of your environment or others around you.

Being limitless is the ability to make the decision to be and do anything that is centered in your heart and in harmony with you and the world. You do not have to ask for permission or get approval from any outside institution, person, or society.

Most of our excuses or rationalizations for why we cannot do something is us giving voice to a fear we have about it.

Sometimes we limit ourselves because we fear criticism. It is inevitable that we will receive criticism when we follow our hearts, and that can be really hard, but it is important to stay true to our hearts.

“Limitless means infinite mobility.”

When Bruce says, “Having no limitation as limitation,” he is talking about the limitations that we put on ourselves. When we do not put ourselves in a box then we can move in any direction.

Being limitless is to have infinite mobility, not that you have no path or direction. Being limitless means you have the freedom to pursue any direction to create your life in the way that is the best and most enjoyable for you.

We do not have to limit ourselves to one pursuit in life. If we follow Bruce Lee’s example then we can pursue many different interests and be an Artist of Life.

Being limitless is to never feel trapped.

“Be a practical dreamer backed by action.”

Dream something that is achievable, and then go for it.

In order to be limitless you have to be present. You have to be present in your thoughts, feelings, and environment so that you can be infinitely mobile and take action.

“If you are in the now, you are creative.

If you are in the now, you are inventive.”

“Unlimited living is turned into something dead for the sake of security. Pattern = limit. One ought to throw away all ideals, patterns, styles and throw away any concepts about what is ideal. Can you look at a situation without naming it? Naming it causes fear.”

We must be willing to examine things in the present moment. If the path is not working for you give yourself permission to turnaround from it and find a different route.

Being limitless is skillfully and thoughtfully following your enthusiasm in your life.

“The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement. To spend your time sitting in what might be.”

You do not learn anything in the avoidance of difficult situations or choices.

“It is indeed difficult to see a situation simply. Our minds are very complex.”

We want to complicate everything. We want to think of every possible way and outcome and this can carry us away from the center of what we want to do.

When living limitless, we have to be present, and not judge with our preconceived notions, so that we have the freedom to consider that there might be a path to take we would not normally consider.

“To bring the mind into sharp focus and to make it alert so that it can immediately intuit truth, which is everywhere, the mind must be emancipated from old habits, prejudices, restrictive thought process, and even ordinary thought itself.”

“To realize freedom requires an alert mind, a mind that is deep with energy, a mind that is capable of immediate perception without the process of graduation, without the idea of an end to be slowly achieved. Preformations simply lack the flexibility to adapt to the ever-changing. At this point, many would ask, “how then do we gain this unlimited freedom?” I cannot tell you because it will then become an approach. Although I can tell you what it is not, I cannot tell you what it is. That, my friend, you have to find out all by yourself.”

“Create immediately and atmosphere of freedom so that you can live and find out for yourself what is true, so that you are able to face the world with the ability to understand it, not just conform to it. One can tell for oneself whether the water is warm or cold. In the same way, a man must convince himself about these experiences, only then are they real.”

“A mind that has no dwelling continues to flow ceaselessly and ignores our limitations and our distinctions. Do not localize the mind anywhere but let it fill up the whole body; let if low freely throughout the totality of your being.”

Notes: BruceLee.com/podcast

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What does it mean to be healthy in our mind, body, and spirit? Health is not limited to our physical wellbeing, but encompasses our mind, body, and spirit. In order to get to optimal health, we have to be willing to look at the unhealthy parts of ourselves.

Bruce Lee pursued not just his physical health, but also his mental and spiritual health.

“Health is an appropriate balance of the coordination of all of what we are. A healthy person has both a good orientation (sensoric system) and ability to act (motoric system). So if there is no balance between sensing and doing, then you are out of gear.”

We all experience the issue where we know in our heads what we should be doing for our health, but avoid acting on it because it is hard or inconvenient.

“Just as the maintaining of good health may require the taking of unpleasant medicine, so the condition of being able to do the things we enjoy often requires the performance of a few we don’t. Remember, my friend, it is not what happens that counts; it is how you react to them. Your mental attitude determines what you make of it, either a stepping stone or a stumbling block.”

We can complain about the tasks that we do not enjoy, but we enjoy the results. Such as not wanting to do laundry, but enjoying having clean clothes, or not wanting to go to the gym, but wanting to be more physically fit.

In order to maintain good health, where good health is the health of the soul, it is going to require us complete the tasks which stepping-stones towards the bigger picture of what we want.

The aesthetics of physical health are heavily influenced by our society, but even though those ideals are what we think health looks like, if it is not total wellbeing of mind, body, and spirit it is not true health. It is important to take stock of how we feel physically, mentally, and spiritually on our health journeys. Be sure to ask yourself, “What is healthy for me?” Find out what works for your individual health instead of following along with what everyone else is doing.

Pay attention to what your body is telling you because it will tell you what it needs. Do not listen to just what your mouth craves, but what your whole being needs.

Full Notes: BruceLee.com/podcast

Check out our Podcast Bundle on the Bruce Lee Store! Follow us @Brucelee & write us at hello@brucelee.com

“Don’t think, FEEL.”

This line comes from a scene in Enter the Dragon where Bruce Lee is instructing a student. He tells the student to throw a kick, the student kicks, and Bruce says, “What was that? What is this an Exhibition? You need emotional content.”

The student kicks again and Bruce says, “I said emotional content not anger! Try again, but this time with me. Don’t think FEEL.”

When Bruce Lee says, “Don’t think,” he means, “Get out of your head.” When he says, “FEEL,” he means really feel into the situation and sense what is happening here. When you are kicking you are kicking a person who is present, you are not trying to perform the perfect kick. That is what Bruce was saying when instructing the student to, “Don’t think, FEEL.”

Often we are not fully present because we are instead trying to categorize, calculate, and think of the next five steps, or the situation is uncomfortable so we mentally checkout.

When you “Don’t think, FEEL,” you are turning your body into a sensing organism. What you are feeling in that moment becomes useful information about yourself. When you are not focused just on your emotions, but are sensing with your whole body, you are more open to the use of your intuition.

“Don’t think – FEEL. Feeling exists here and now when not interrupted and dissected by ideas and concepts. The moment we stop analyzing and let go, we can start really seeing, feeling – as one whole. There is no actor or the one being acted upon but the action itself. I stayed with my feeling then – and I felt it to the full without naming it that. At last, the I and the feeling merged to become one. The I no longer feels the self to be separated from the you, and the whole idea of taking advantage of getting something out of something becomes absurd. To me, I have no other self (not to mention thought) that the oneness of things of which I was aware at the moment.”

Bruce Lee is saying in this quote that if we feel what is happening in the now, and we do not over analyze it and we stay present, then we can truly feel the whole of the experience. Then, we feel the whole experience instead of segmenting the parts of the experience we want to analyze. If we can do this without judgment, then what we are feeling and experiencing becomes one thing. We are no longer separate from what is happening around us because we are fully present in the experience.

“Freedom requires great sensitivity.”

To actualize yourself, to truly know yourself, you have to feel yourself.

“It is futility the maintaining of a façade to act in one way on the surface when actually experiencing something quite different inside. Being one’s self leads to real relationships and acceptance of self leads to change.”

In our current culture, we often have an automated response when someone asks us how we are or how we are feeling. We will say that we are “fine,” “okay,” or “good”, even when we are not any of those things. We hide our true feelings behind a façade of niceties because it is easier. It is harder to fake it when we are asked if we are truly “fine,” and by diving deeper we can have a more meaningful exchange and conversation, which can be very nourishing.

“We do not analyze, we integrate.”

In order to integrate, we have to let in the information and experience. If we analyze, then we are keeping the experience at a distance. Thinking is linear and feeling is expansive.

A whole universe opens up when you feel into experiences. Feeling into something does not mean that you are hanging out in an exposed, vulnerable space, but instead it can help you decide how to navigate different situations.

Emotions are clues to things we need to examine more closely.

“To express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, is very hard to do.”

Full Notes: BruceLee.com/podcast

Check out our Podcast Bundle on the Bruce Lee Store! Follow us @Brucelee & write us at hello@brucelee.com