Strengthening Your Weak Points

‘Training for strength and flexibility is a must. You must use it to support your techniques. Techniques alone are no good if you don’t support them with strength and flexibility.’ ~ BRUCE LEE

In Bruce Lee’s book ‘The Art of Expressing The Human Body’, the late-great martial artist was lauded by his wife, Linda Caldwell-Lee: ‘The greatest talent Bruce Lee brought to realizing his dreams were intelligence and curiosity, dedication and perseverance, and focus.

This book shares Bruce Lee's complete strength and conditioning workouts, including how he developed his muscularity, speed and agility.

Weaknesses, by definition, can be a potential source of distress when these cripple you. Athletes learn from painful experience, that weaknesses need to be addressed early during rehabilitation or training, or they manifest themselves as major disappointments. A weakness limits us, and prevents from reaching our full potential. It can impede, restrict and affect range of your movements. Thus, our flexibility is curtailed and we care sidelined by injury, resistance and immobility. The same goes for the responsiveness of others to our behavioral weaknesses and inflexibility.

Photo-credit: Runevent Shots (Catching up from behind my pack: Weeks of strength-sessions on the saddle seemed to give me a salient edge)

I have shared with you how I have focused on my two major weaknesses in recent years: my swimming and my riding. Focused attention on correcting my swim techniques and specific strengthening drills/workouts seems to be addressing my concerns when I am in the water. With specific strength training, I have begun to enjoy a higher average speed, as well as fresher legs on the run. Strength gains come fast or slow, depending on your current level of conditioning. Some make incremental gains while others experience exponential gains.

Photo-credit: Runevent Shots (Here, I am seen leading my pack in Sunday's TRI-Factor Cycling race)

How you strengthen your weakness also reflects on the strength of your values: purpose, resolve, commitment and determination. As you consciously exercise your body to become stronger, you are in effect strengthening your mind and spirit to strengthen these values, and your character.

The Tao of Innovation

I have been watching the complete, 50-episode, CCTV production of The Legend of Brue Lee. It is an introspective look into the lives of Lee and his wife, Linda Caldwell. Their daughter Shannon was closely involved in the production (as executive producer) that enhances the authenticity of this television bio-epic (screening on Sundays, 11.00am-1.00pm, MediaCorp 8, Singapore).

The Tao of Jeet Kune Do was martial-artist and actor, Bruce Lee’s only book he authored. He co-wrote it while he was recovering from a severe injury that left him almost paralysed. He experimented with electro-muscle stimulation (EMS), which is widely used today for rehabilitative purposes. He diligently performed his rehabilitative exercises, and more. His wife, Linda supported him – physically and mentally – through his personal ordeal as his voice of conscience and shadow.

Lee’s daily routine involved a 10km morning run. He followed this with drills that worked on his whole body. He would analyse, review, reflect and synthesise his evolving thesis of Jeet Kune Do (JKD). He would bounce ideas off his close aide, a Japanese academic on martial arts.

Lee studied various martial art forms, and adapted the philosophy and essence of each martial art form, and formulated his philosophy of JKD, the way of Intercepting Fist. His teacher, Ip Man who taught him the Weng Chun style also misunderstood Lee as being insubordinate. Lee convinced the wise Ip Man that his intentions were pure and genuine, and that he did not mean to upsurp Ip Man as his teacher. Like most martial art teachers at that time, the prevailing paradigm was to not teach martial arts to foreigners. Lee challenged that thought as he felt that extinction was the inevitable pathway to martial arts if it was hoarded and taught selectively.

Leadership Lessons: Invention is the mother of necessity. Innovative practices come from constant experimentation and research. Be knowledgeable, and add on to the body of knowledge. Test existing theories. Test your own theories.

[Photograph from CCTV set of pre-release stills]