Our marketing intern, Keilin Huang, remembers Bruce Lee:
“In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.” —Bruce Lee
For all you martial arts enthusiasts out there, today is Bruce Lee’s birthday. He was born on November 27, 1940, in San Francisco, CA and would have been 72 years old today. While most people know Bruce Lee as a kung fu master who kicked butt on the silver screen, not many are familiar with his early life.
Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco, but grew up in Hong Kong. It was in Hong Kong that Bruce took an interest in martial arts; he was lucky enough to work with the best martial arts master in Hong Kong, Yip Man. Although Bruce was a talented martial arts student, he sometimes got into fights with the other students at school. Yip Man told him, “You have misused what you are being taught. You are really being taught the discipline of not having to fight.”
Bruce went home and pondered this for a few days. When he returned to his lessons, he sought to understand the key to martial arts: gentleness and yielding, that less is more. He remembered that lesson wherever he went.
Eventually Bruce moved back to the United States, where he succeeded in creating a name for himself in Hollywood with films such as Fists of Fury and Enter the Dragon. He became one of the first actors of Chinese descent to gain visibility in Hollywood. At the time of his death, at the age of thirty-two, he was a star.
Happy birthday Bruce Lee! You inspire us to keep on pursuing our dreams!
Further Reading: The LEE & LOW title Be Water, My Friend: The Early Years of Bruce Lee chronicles Bruce Lee’s boyhood and gives some great insight into his early training.
