Bruce Lee: The Emergence of Styles

Last week I relaunched a series of commentary-posts on the section of Bruce Lee's Tao of Jeet Kune Do entitled "Organized Despair" - the entirety of which may be read here. Each post in the series stands on its own, though I will definitely cross-reference posts, and explain the progression. 

As noted before, this is not a "pure" commentary, in which I merely elucidate Bruce Lee's words. Instead, my goal is to explain his teachings and share some examples of how they have influenced my life as a teacher, a learner, and a gamer. 

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Bruce Lee: The Emergence of Styles

After discussing the instinct to follow and imitate, Bruce Lee moves on to discuss the natural outcome of this instinct: styles. There are many styles of martial arts: Karate, Aikido, Judo, Jujitsu, Taekwondo, Krav Maga, Boxing, Wrestling, and many more. 

This diversity of styles is present in all crafts and arts: teaching, parenting, painting, dancing, trading, psychoanalysis, and so on. Within each of these crafts there are a multitude of different styles, even if not all of them have specific names, official "canons," or large followings.

As we read and analyze this next excerpt, think about your own crafts and their many styles. For example, if you have spent some time learning talmud, think of the different darchei ha'limud (methodologies of learning). Likewise, think about the different ideologies and approaches within Judaism itself. After all, the Torah, itself, is a craft, and there are clearly a wide variety of styles that have developed over the past few millennia. 

Having said that, we are now ready to read the second paragraph of Organized Despair: 

Each man belongs to a style which claims to possess truth to the exclusion of all other styles. These styles become institutes with their explanations of the “Way,” dissecting and isolating the harmony of firmness and gentleness, establishing rhythmic forms as the particular state of their techniques.

In my opinion, the best explanation of Bruce Lee's usage of the term "style" was given by Bruce Lee, himself, in the first draft (out of eight) of his essay, Jeet Kune Do: Toward Personal Liberation. Here is his explanation:

Before we look into JKD let's find out what exactly a classical style of martial art is. To begin with, we must realize the absolute fact that man created style. Disregard the many colorful histories of their founders – by a wise, mysterious monk, by special messenger in a dream, in a holy revelation, flooded with golden light, and so forth, and so on. A style should never be the gospel truth, the laws and principles of which can never be violated. Man, the human being, is always more important than any style.

The founder of a style may be exposed to some partial truth, but as time passes by, especially after the founder has passed away, "his" postulates, "his" inclination, "his" concluding formula – we constantly learn, we never conclude – become a law. Creeds are invented, reinforcing ceremonies are prescribed, separative philosophies are formulated, and, finally, the institutions are erected, so what might have started off as some sort of personal fluidity of its founder is now solidified, fixed knowledge – organized and classified response presented in logical order – a preserved cure-all for mass conditioning. In so doing, the well-meaning followers have made this knowledge not only a holy shrine, but a tomb in which the founder's wisdom is buried.

If we honestly look at the reality of combat as it actually is, and not as we would like it to be, I am sure we cannot help but notice that a style tends to bring about adjustment, partiality, denials, condemnations and a lot of justification. In short, the solution being offered is the very cause of the problem, placing limitations and obstacles on our natural growth and consequently obstructing the way to genuine understanding.

Of course, as a direct reaction to "the other truth," another founder or maybe possibly a dissatisfied disciple would "organize" an oppositional approach – as in the case of the soft style versus the hard style, the internal school versus the external school, and so forth – and pretty soon it, too, would become a large organization with its own set laws and its chosen pattern. So begins the long struggle with each style claiming to possess the "truth" to the exclusion of all others. So whereas the human being is total and universal – while a style is a partialized projection of an individual and therefore is blinded by that chosen segment and is therefore never the total – the style has long become more important than its practitioners. Worse still is the fact that these styles often are opposed to each other – because they tend to be separated in thoughts form each other; consequently, styles separate men rather than unite them.

This is why Bruce Lee was opposed to styles - a theme we will explore in the upcoming installments. For now, I'd like to focus on the theme that he dealt with in the excerpt above, namely, the cycle by which styles emerge. According to Bruce Lee, that cycle can be divided into six stages, which I will now summarize:

(1) Insight: A man is exposed to a partial truth - a glimmer of the Total Truth which is the object of his craft. The pursuit of this insight will take him off the beaten path and into unexplored territory.

(2) Development of Style: He begins to develop his own unique style on the basis of that partial truth. This style is highly personalized, since it emanates from his own perception of the Truth.

• If he remains fluid, this style will continue to develop in a dynamic manner and will lead to further discoveries and insights. 

• If he becomes enamored by his own discovery, then his style will solidify and his growth will cease. But at least he will have paved a path and taken a step or two towards the Truth.

(3) Followers: Along the way, he attracts followers who latch onto the superficial aspects of his style. Unlike the founder, who remains in a fluid and dynamic pursuit of the Truth, these followers are rigid. They are governed by a single principle: strict imitation of their leader.

(4) Systematization: When the founder dies (or, in some cases, even during his lifetime), the followers take over. They create a rigid doctrine and system out of the follower's final formulations (which only became "final" due to the interruption of his life). They treat these teachings as gospel and regard any deviations as heresy.

(5) Divergence: Inevitably, disputes arise among the followers. Different followers apprehended the teachings of their followers in different ways, and these differences result in different systematizations. Naturally, these systems compete with each other, since each of them claims to possess "the Truth" to the exclusion of the others.

(6) Followers of Followers: Soon, the founders of these movements die and the process repeats itself. The major difference is that this time, the followers are following other followers, and the original, creative founder is absent from the picture altogether. 

It is easy to see the connection between the topic of styles and the previous topic of the instinct to follow and to imitate. It is this instinct which makes this entire "Life-cycle of Styles" possible. 

Elsewhere, Bruce Lee provides an excellent description of the mentality of the follower, whom he refers to as a "secondhand artist": 

The second-hand artist, in blindly following the teacher, accepts his pattern and, as a result, his action and, above all, his thinking becomes mechanical, his responses automatic according to the pattern - and thereby he ceases to expand or to grow. He is a mechanical robot, a product of thousands of years of propaganda and conditioning. The second-hand artist seldom learns to depend upon himself for expression; instead, he faithfully follows an imposed pattern. So what is nurtured is the dependent mind rather than independent inquiry.

This is the problem that Bruce Lee saw in the proliferation of martial art styles. This is what prompted him to develop his own "way" (not "style") of martial art, which he called "Jeet Kune Do" (The Way of the Intercepting Fist). Bruce Lee viewed Jeet Kune Do as the "style without style." He explained: 

I have not invented a "new style," composite, modified or otherwise that is set within distinct form as apart from "this" method or "that" method. On the contrary, I hope to free my followers from clinging to styles, patterns, or molds.

But we will reserve our discussion of Jeet Kune Do for later posts. For now, it is sufficient to understand it as the "style without style" - that is, the approach which emerges from a rejection of all rigid styles and a never-ending pursuit of absolute fluidity.  

In light of all this, Bruce Lee's earlier words ring true with a greater urgency: "The need for a Pointer of the Way echoes." A teacher who succeeds in being a Pointer of the Way will naturally make it difficult for a style to emerge among his followers. And if he is really successful, his followers will not be second-hand artists at all, but will be able to discover their own unique paths.

As I wrote in my last Bruce Lee post, I am thankful to have found a mentor like this at the outset of my teaching career, and I am even more thankful that my rabbeim have shown me by their example how to learn from a master and simultaneously develop one's own unique style.

I hope that I am able to do the same for my own students.