Christopher Marasigan giving me lessons on Kung Fu.
Oh, and by the way, he's not only a kung fu instructor, he's
also an art director, broadcast designer, creative digital artist,
motion designer, and photographer.
As we enter into the Chinese new year of the Dragon, I find it fitting to talk about Bruce Lee for three reasons.
First of all, the year of the Dragon reminds me of Enter the Dragon- the movie that turned Bruce Lee into the legend which he is today.
Secondly, being an avid fan of mixed martial arts, I look up to Bruce Lee for the passion and dedication he had in learning, developing, and teaching the martial art of kung fu.
And thirdly, as a psychotherapist trained in Gestalt therapy, I am thrilled by my recent disovery that Bruce Lee's philosophy in life was significantly influenced by his readings of books by Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt Therapy.
A philosophy major and voracious reader, Bruce Lee is said to have had many psychological books in his library, spending many hours reading books including those on Gestalt Therapy.
In fact, in the book entitled Bruce Lee: Artist of Life, he made many handwritten notes on his reflections on Gestalt Therapy and Kung Fu.
Below are a sample of his handwritten notes (capitalizations are his):
Below are a sample of his handwritten notes (capitalizations are his):
Bruce Lee on Gestalt Therapy:
@ Gestalt therapy is the first existential philosophy that stands on its own feet. Gestalt therapy tries to be in harmony, in alignment, with everything else, with medicine, with science, with the universe, with what is.
@ NOW = EXPERIENCE = AWARENESS = REALITY
@ An organism works as a whole. We are not a summation of part, but a very subtle coordination of all these different bits that go into the making of the organism- we HAVE not a liver or a heart. We ARE liver and heart and brain and so on.
@ Once you have a character, you have developed a rigid [personality] SYSTEM. Your behavior becomes petrified, predictable, and you lose your ability to cope freely with the world with all your resources. You are predetermined just to cope with events in one way, namely, as your character prescribes. So it seems a paradox when I say that the richest person , the most productive, creative person, is a person who has NO CHARACTER. In our society, we DEMAND that a person have a character, and especially a "good" character, because then he is predictable, and he can be pigeonholed, and so on.
@ MANY PEOPLE DEDICATE THEIR LIVES TO ACTUALIZING A CONCEPT OF WHAT THEY SHOULD BE LIKE, RATHER THAN ACTUALIZING THEMSELVES. The difference between SELF-ACTUALIZING and SELF-IMAGE ACTUALIZING is very important. Most people only live for their image.
@ We are infantile because we are afraid to take responsibility in the now. To take our place in history, to be mature, means giving up the concept that we have parents, that we have to be submissive or defiant, or the other variations on the child's role that we play. MATURATION IS THE DEVELOPMENT FROM ENVIRONMENTAL SUPPORT TO SELF-SUPPORT.
@ The basic phobic attitude is to be afraid of what you are.
Bruce Lee on Gung Fu:
@ Gung Fu is so extraordinary because it is nothing at all special. It is simply the direct expression of one's feeling with the minimum of lines and energy. Every movement is being so of itself without the artificiality with which we tend to complicate it with. The closer to the true Way of gung fu, the less wastage of expression there is.
As we enter this year of the Water Dragon, may Bruce Lee's teaching on "water" inspire you to live as passionately as he did: "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.”
