The Powerful Ideologies from Chinese Kung Fu

Bruce Lee, the Chinese who brought the word “Kung Fu” to the Oxford English Dictionary and the world, and the person who broke the stereotype from western people to Chinese. He had a lot of different titles, including, martial artist, martial art instructor, founder of Jeet Kune Do which was a kind of hybrid martial arts philosophy, screenwriter, producer, and philosopher. Personally, my martial art career is similar to Bruce Lee’s from starting to learn Chinese Kung Fu when young to winning national or international martial art rewards. In the video, Bruce Lee demonstrates a lot of different types of Kungfu to the movie director from Tai chi, Shao ling to Bai he, and he also compares Chinese Kungfu, the ancestor of any Korean and Japanese martial art, with other countries’ Kungfu such as Taekwondo or karate. Bruce Lee argues that Chinese Kungfu is not only one type of martial art or fight, it includes the ancient Chinese philosophies that teach persistence and the courage to overcome obstacles. I agree with Bruce Lee’s idea because Chinese Kungfu helps me to grow up and become more mature when I am facing an obstacle. Some people might think it is not necessary to learn these philosophies from Chinese kung fu because these ideologies are also in books. However, practicing Chinese Kungfu is one of the best ways to learn it because it requires significant repetitions to become a master of it and during real practice such as fighting, courage will be cultivated.

If we look at Bruce lee’s life as a legend, we can see his persistence in youth and also when he came to U.S. Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco and lived in a Kung Fu family. Bruce Lee’s first Kungfu master was Yip Man. The first time when Yip Man saw Bruce Lee, he asserted that Bruce Lee would die before 40 years old, so he did not want to accept Bruce Lee as his student. However, Bruce Lee’s persistence touched him by going to Yip Man’s house every day at 6 in the morning and starting to teach Wing Chun to Bruce Lee. The process of learning Wing Chun was the first time that Bruce Lee learned the philosophies involved in Chinese Kung Fu. Wing Chun, one type of Chinese Kungfu, emphasizes relative high, narrow stances with elbows to defeat the enemy in seconds and the movements of Wing Chun are very fast and complex. Therefore, Wing Chun, has three different and complex forms, is very difficult to learn and requires the signature of repetitions. . In order to understand the essence of Wing Chun, Bruce Lee stayed with Yip Man every day to practice for three years. At first, Yip Man was not very optimistic about Bruce Lee’s martial art career, because Bruce Lee’s legs had different lengths for each one. However, Bruce Lee never give up and finally understand the essence of Wing Chun, which was the first time Bruce Lee was exposed to the philosophies of Chinese Kungfu.

Bruce Lee’s courage to overcome obstacles and persistence in Chinese Kungfu also let him break the bad tradition in Chinatown and defeat one of the greatest competent. When Bruce Lee came to Oakland’s Chinatown in 1964, Lee had a controversial private fight with Wong Jack-man, because Bruce Lee wanted to spread Chinese Kungfu to white people and teach them, which betrayed the rule in Chinatown, no teaching outside Chinese. However, Bruce Lee thought Chinese Kungfu should not limit to only Chinese people and kung fu masters had the responsibility to bring Kungfu to the world. Therefore, Wong Jack-man wanted to defeat Lee in order to stop him from teaching kungfu to white people. However, Bruce Lee was never afraid of a challenge, and Lee won the fight easily. Bruce Lee’s route of joining Hollywood is also not smooth. Because Bruce Lee is not tall enough and strong enough, the Hollywood director did not think Bruce Lee would be a great fit for the martial art movie. However, Bruce utilizes his strength to prove himself by doing a lot of challenging movements. In 1971, Bruce Lee played his first leading role in the Big Boss and broke the stereotype of Chinese.

I have some similar experiences with Bruce Lee in Kungfu that teaches persistence and the courage to overcome all difficulties, which helps me to accomplish my own achievement, establishing my Kungfu club in an American high school. Growing up, I was always fascinated by Kung Fu movies and dreamed of one day becoming a martial arts master myself. As I was taking a walk at a park near my home one summer, I saw a middle-aged man waving a three-meter stick in the air and moving fluidly through a routine of some sort. I watched and tried studying his moves from afar. After observing him for some time, I finally approached him and asked, “Will you teach me, Kung Fu?” He paused and replied, “Learning martial arts requires 3 things: time, effort, and persistence. None are dispensable. If you still want to learn martial arts, come back to the park tomorrow at 6 am.”

I arrived at the park the next morning at 5:30 am and found the man already sitting on the park bench. He said, “This is the first lesson. Persistence will be essential to learning martial arts.” Practicing martial arts was physically and mentally challenging. However, I continued to meet with my Master every morning after that. Eventually, I started competing and winning championships at martial arts competitions both in China and abroad. Because martial arts was a part of my life growing up, I decided to start a martial arts club at my high school after moving to the United States as a way to not only teach others self-defense but also incorporate a piece of home into an environment that was completely foreign to me.

However, the process of establishing the martial art club is not smooth as Bruce Lee’s career in Hollywood. For the first year, there were only three people in the club, which disappointed me a lot. However, my master’s talking the Kung Fu philosophies was always on my mind. I tried my best to teach these three people and we had a great show in the biggest school assembly. As expected, in the next year, we successfully recruited 20 more people. The philosophies of Kungfu helped me to overcome obstacles and find the way in the lost cause.

Some people could argue doing kungfu is one of the best ways

Some people may argue that it is not necessary for people to practice Chinese Kungfu to understand the philosophies such as persistence and courage in it because these values are also in the book. It is true that the philosophies involved in Chinese Kungfu are already been taught to people since people were still children. For example, the famous anecdote “the race between a torte and the hare” also has the philosophies involved in Chinese Kungfu such as being persistent, and it is a popular story. However, a story is just a story. It is easy for people to understand the essence of the story, but in practice it is difficult and people would just understand the superficial part of these philosophies rather than really being immersed in it. However, practicing Chinese Kung Fu provides a straightforward way for people to understand the valuableness of these philosophies because being familiar with Kung Fu requires a great amount of repetition, which cultivates people’s persistence, and to overcome the strong enemy directly during the fight, it requires the courage. Sometimes, people will be much smaller than their enemies, but they still need to defeat without any consideration or covering therefore, it is not necessary to practice Chinese Kungfu to understand these philosophies, but it is a straightforward way. Being persistent and having the courage to overcome obstacles can be valuable for people’s work and life. For example, as me, when I faced the difficulty of establishing the club, I did not give up and tried to find a way to solve the problem.

The philosophy involved in Chinese Kung Fu inspires Bruce Lee and sets the foundation for him to establish his own martial art style and also inspired him to become a philosopher. It supports me to overcome obstacles in life. Kung fu is not only a type of martial art, but more importantly, it is a powerful ideology that cannot be learned from a book.