Note - The following is the first part of an article I wrote "MAKING BRUCE LEE’S NOTES WORK FOR YOU" which appeared in the August 1999 issue of Martial Arts Illustrated. I will post the complete article in several smaller sections. Much has been written with regard to his notes and where some of them originated. I'm not concerned with that here. My goal when I wrote this article was (and still is) to help people to understand how Bruce Lee's notes might be beneficial and helpful to them in their own growth as a martial artist.
PART 1
Bruce Lee’s intense thirst for knowledge and understanding was a prime factor that led to his growth and evolution as a martial artist. In his never-ending quest for personal development, Lee went to great lengths to gain insight and learning that would aid him in actualizing his full potential, drawing from all forms of combative arts, modern dance, body-building, exercise physiology, kinesiology, philosophy and psychology. And in the years before copy machines, computers and printers were part of the mainstream, Lee put pen (or sometimes pencil) to paper and recorded his thoughts, observations, and ideas on these as well as other subjects, leaving behind countless pages of written and typed notes. Many of these notes have been compiled into books over the years since his passing.
In order to get the most out of JKD it is essential to know how to make Bruce Lee’s
notes work for you—how to bring them to life and use them to help you achieve your fullest potential as a martial artist. Lee’s notes have been likened to guideposts, or clues, that can lead an individual to their own self-expression in the martial arts. But guideposts do a person little or no good if they don’t know how to read or interpret them correctly. So the first thing that needs to be understood is how to study Lee’s notes. This is not as easy as it sounds. When reading Bruce Lee’s notes, three intrinsic principles should guide your study. These principles may, in the beginning, require several separate readings but in time can be done concurrently. The three principles are as follows:
Understand the notes: You need to comprehend thoroughly and perceive clearly the nature of what you’re reading. What are the particular writings or notes you are studying saying?
Interpret the notes: The word “interpret” in this case means, “to bring out or explain the meaning of something.” In other words, what do the notes you’re studying mean? In martial arts it seems that many times people immediately rush to the application stage of Lee’s teachings and bypass the theoretical stage. They want to know what the technique means to them before they understand what Lee intended it to mean.
Evaluate the notes: To evaluate something means to judge or determine its worth or quality. In other words, is the given principle right or wrong for them? Is it valid or not? Unfortunately, many people tend to skip over the first two principles and jump right into evaluating Lee’s notes. They judge a particular concept to be right or wrong before they understand what it says or before they interpret its meaning.
The above three intrinsic principles are, however, by themselves, inadequate. To study Bruce Lee’s notes successfully and get the most out of them, a person also needs three important extrinsic aids. These aids are: Experience, Other Books and Writings, Live Discussion.
(Part 2 will follow soon)
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