youtube transcript - Bruce LEE

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transcript from youtube video

When I was 18, I faced a fight that changed me forever.

My opponent wasn’t particularly strong or skilled, but I was consumed by anger, by the need to prove myself.

Despite all my training, all my physical preparation, I won. But I felt defeated.

My techniques were perfect. Yet, my victory felt hollow. I had let my emtions mastered me instead of mastering them.

You see, everyday, millions of people go through life I did then. Physically capable but mentally imprisoned. Their minds race with doubt, fear and anger. They try to fight external battles while a war rages within.

I spent years studying the greatest fighters, thinking they would teach me the secret of true power, but the real secret was in understanding this : your body can achieve what the mind believes, and not an ounce more.

I discovered that mental mastery isn’t about suppressing thoughts or controlling emotions, it’s about understanding them. Like understanding the flow of energy in combat. When you face an opponent, tension makes you rigid, makes you predictable. The same happens in life. Your inner tensions, your mental resistance, they make you blind to opportunities, deaf to wisdom.

Do you know why water is unstoppable ? Because it has no mind of its own, no preconceptions about where it should or shouldn’t flow. It simply is. This is the state of your mind must reach. Water, my greatest teacher.

In my countless hours of training, I observed its nature. In stillness it reflects reality perfectly, showing truth without distortion. In motion it adapts instantly, never struggling against obstacles, yet wearing away the hardest stone. I remember a fight that taught me this deeply. My opponent was stronger, heavier, his attacks like a mountain bearing down on me. Instead of meeting force with force, I remembered water. When he struck high, I flowed low. When he was rigid, I became fluid. Not just my body, my mind became like water.

well, kung fu, the best example would be a glass of water. Why? because water is the softest substance in the world, but yet it can pentrate the hardest rock or anything, granite, you name it. Water also is insubstantial, by that I mean you cannot grasp hold or it. You cannot punch it and hurt it. So every kungfu man is trying to do that : to be soft like water, and flexible and adapt itself to the opponent.