Philosophical Foundation of China Traditional Wushu

Philosophy thesis of Bruce Lee University-Wu.

Kung fu is a special skill, an exquisite art, not a physical activity. This is a subtle art, and wisdom must be matched with skill. The principle of kung fu can't be learned. Just like science, we need to seek empirical evidence and draw conclusions from it. We must let nature take its course, just like a flower, blooming an idea that is not dominated by feelings and desires. The core of the principle of kung fu is Tao, that is, the naturalness of the universe.

After four years of rigorous kung fu training, I began to understand and feel the truth of using softness to control rigidity, that is, how to eliminate the opponent's strength and reduce the waste of my own strength. All this must be solved first. This sounds simple, but it is difficult to do in practice. Once I hold hands with the other person, it is difficult for my mind to stay awake and undisturbed. Especially after a few moves, I forgot the soft theory, and my only thought was to beat him anyway.

My teacher, Mr IP Man, was the first master of Wing Chun Boxing. He would come to me and say, "Xiaolong, relax and settle down." Forget about yourself, pay attention to your opponent's actions, let your thoughts not be disturbed by any will, and command yourself to fight back completely instinctively. The most important thing is to learn to be detached. " This is it! I must relax myself. But in this way, I am already using my willpower. That is to say, when I say that I must relax myself, the strength needed to achieve "necessity" has violated the definition of "relaxation".

When I have taught myself to a certain extent, the master will come back and say to me, "Xiaolong, let yourself go with the flow without interference." Remember never to let yourself go against nature; Don't face a difficult problem directly, but learn to follow the trend and control the situation. I won't practice this week. Go home and think about it. "I stayed at home that week, settled down and worked hard for several hours. After practicing several times, I decided to give up and go boating by boat instead. At sea, I recalled my training and got angry with myself, so I hit the sea with my fist. At that moment, I suddenly realized that "water", the most basic thing, is not the essence of kung fu? This ordinary water just illustrates the principle of kung fu to me. I use my fist to draw water, and the water has no pain. I will do my best, and the water will not be hurt. I want to catch it, but it's impossible. Water is the softest substance in the world and can adapt to any container. Here it is. I must like the nature of water.

Suddenly a bird flew by and its shadow was reflected in the water. At that moment, another hidden meaning jumped into my mind. When I stand in front of my opponent, aren't my thoughts and feelings like the reflection of a bird on the water? This is exactly what Master Ye called "detachment", not to say that you have no feelings or feelings at all, but to keep your feelings from being stranded or hindered. So if you want to control yourself, you must accept yourself naturally. Lying on the boat, I feel that I have experienced the combination of rigidity and softness, and I am integrated with nature. I just lay on the boat and let it drift freely. Because at that moment I got an inner feeling. All the rebellious consciousness has been eliminated, and there is no sense of contradiction in my mind. In my eyes, the whole world is one.