Author: Ashe Higgs

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Bruce Lee’s “Like Water” Quote Hidden Meaning

Water is always an excellent example to follow for martial arts; as Bruce Lee famously said, “Be water, my friend.” However, Lee’s famous quote needs to be better understood, even by long-time martial arts students. So let’s explore Bruce Lee’s most recognized inspirational quote more deeply.

Key Takeaways

  • “Be water, my friend” was a line from an episode of Longstreet
  • water has no mind; it just follows nature
  • to flow, you must be mindful
  • “full” & “empty” is simply a matter of pressure
  • like a tsunami, we can “crash” if we have enough power
screenshot of Bruce Lee saying "be water my friend" on the Pierre Burton Show
This article is an installment in our series about Bruce Lee.

The Origins of Bruce Lee’s “Be Water My Friend”

In September 1971, Bruce Lee appeared in an episode of Longstreet titled “The Way of The Intercepting Fist” as the character Li Tsung. However, those words became iconic after his interview with Pierre Burton later that same year.

In the episode, the titular character Mike Longstreet, a blind man, hires Li Tsung to help him learn how to fight so he can defend himself. After complaining to “Li” that there was “too much to remember,” Li scolds Longstreet telling him “if you try to remember, you will lose!”

The sagacious Li then offers his seminal advice:

“Empty your mind.
Be formless, shapeless, like water.
You put water into a cup; it becomes the cup.
You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle.
You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot.
Now water can flow, or it can crash.
Be water, my friend.”

Bruce Lee’s Longstreet Episode – Way of The Intercepting Fist.

What Did Bruce Lee Mean By “Be Like Water”?

I spoke about Bruce Lee’s inspirational quote during one of my Zoom classes.

“Water has no mind; it simply follows nature or Tao 道 (the natural order of existence). By default, water is present, formless, and neutral; it simply obeys pressure and tension.”

We should pause here to discuss the concepts of “no mind” and “present, formless and neutral” in more depth.

No mind, or mushin 無心, is an essential concept in Zen philosophy with clear applications to martial arts. Mushin is a state of wordless awareness. It is a state of no thinking, but no thought doesn’t mean a state of blankness like a sleepwalker. On the contrary, it’s a state of deep knowing. One can clearly see the differences from one moment to the next, but without an ongoing internal dialogue or mental narrative.

When you can see and change with change without any sense of either attachment or aversion, we call this “flowing.”

So we want to develop that quality of being “like water” so that point of contact tells me, “if this is full, I flow around. If it’s not full, I just flow in,” or “I already know that I have enough power that I can just crash through full or empty, it doesn’t matter anymore, I can just attack it directly.”

And again, this pressure is already there; it’s just a matter of whether or not you can observe it to know full and empty. And to know whether you can just attack it, attack the fullness, or you need to flow around.

So it’s how we want to tune our minds as we train.

The Secrets of Bruce Lee’s Workout Revealed
Bruce Lee’s Philosophy

Mind & Body As One

On the physical side of training, we have our diagnostic checklists. We have a checklist of the “six physical principles.” We have the checklist of the 13 points to scan ourselves to observe the balance of the internal tension between the yin and yang muscles, and because we’re talking I Liq Chuan, we’re talking about mind and body.

So on the mental side now, we have the three mental factors to constantly guide our training; so that I can observe my mind while I train, “am I present and formless”; am I acting like water right now? Is my mind like water?

I simply observe the pressure and the tension. Am I harmonizing with the pressure and the tension, or am I trying to fit a square peg into a round hole? So in many martial arts, they talk about “intent” or “will,” but in I Liq Chuan training, we talked about the yi 意 as just being attention, like the mirror, right?

Still water has no image of it’s own, it simply reflects on it’s surface. As Bruce Lee said “empty your mind, and be water my friend.”

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Are Breathing Exercises Good For You?

A Look At Breathing Exercises Benefits & Limitations

We’re going to take look at one of the most important ways breathing exercises can be good for us. We’ll also consider some of the limitations. This post is a follow-up of last week’s article on the “four quarters of breathing,”

As always, it’s important to be clear that I am not a doctor. Nothing in this post meant to be considered medical advice. I only share my own practice and motivations for others to consider. Always consult with a licensed and credentialed functional medicine practitioner before making any changes to your exercise and lifestyle routine.

Deep Breathing Exercises Can Be Improved By Providing Resistance

Allow me to introduce you to my newest toy:  the Breather Fit. This tool allows you to add variable resistance to both the inhale and exhale.

Yes, it does look exactly like a crack pipe. 

Breather Fit

There is a free app meant to be used in conjunction with this piece of equipment, but in my experience, it’s not necessary and not very high quality or interesting to use.

So, why would we want to bother adding resistance to our breathing?

In one word: reserves.

Let’s look at the graphic below, which illustrates lung volumes, and corroborates my premise that a full breath cycle should have “four quarters.”

http://www.pathwaymedicine.org/lung-volumes

Failure to maintain adequate reserves is the physiological equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck. It’s all good until you find yourself in a high-demand state. We want to keep as much money in reserve as possible to cover those unexpected bills.

Our bodies are constantly adjusting to the signals it receives; if all they ever receive are weak signals, our bodies adapt towards weakness.

The Last Word On Why Breathing Exercises Are Good For You

When’s the last time you heard somebody complaining they had too much time in the day? Technology hasn’t saved us any time in our day-to-day lives, but it has saved us energy. It generally takes much less effort to complete tasks today than in the past. That reduced effort translates into reduced messages to our bodies. Without these signals from our environment, we won’t maintain our strength or the ability to meet our oxygen demands.

In the 21st Century, we must seek opportunities to expose ourselves to healthy physical stress regularly. If we don’t, our reserves dwindle to the bare minimum necessary to support us while sitting indoors in central air and artificial lighting. It leaves us unprepared for the inevitable unexpected challenges of life.

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The Four Quarters of The Breath

GM Sam Chin likes to say “if it’s a circle, it has a center.  If it has a center it has four quarters.”


We tend to think of breathing as simply inhale and exhale, but I began to notice during my breathwork a year or so ago, one full breath cycle should also have four quarters.

Each inhale and exhale has two phases; an active phase and a passive phase separated by a neutral point.

The neutral point is when the diaphragm is completely relaxed and there is no movement of either inhale or exhale because the relative pressure inside the lungs matches the external pressure.



If we inhale from here, the inhale is active, requiring some effort from muscles like the external intercostals of the ribs, and if done properly the rib cage expands as the lungs fill with air.  At the very top of the breath, we reach maximum pressure inside the lungs.

From here we can simply relax and the built-up pressure will cause the air to rush out of our lungs until we reach the neutral point again.  This is the passive phase of the exhale.  Below the neutral point, we can use some effort to continue to exhale actively, which should cause the waist and rib cage to continue to condense by activating muscles like the internal intercostals and transversus.

At the bottom of the active exhale, we’ve built up some negative pressure inside the lungs;  if we simply relax, the vacuum will draw some air into the lungs until we reach neutral, and this is the passive phase of the inhale.

We need to acknowledge and actively train each of the four phases to some degree.

Why? Like anything else, it’s “use it or lose it” as we age.

Lung function declines by almost 40% over the lifetime of an average individual, more so in men than women.



Most people develop a shallow, “vertical” breathing pattern that involves too much involvement of the neck and shoulders as their activity levels decline, spending most of their time breathing at and just above the neutral point.

This lack of excursion (change in diameter) causes ossification in the rib cage. As the rib cage becomes increasingly stiff, we’re forced to take more breaths to maintain our normal 5-6L of air per minute. Heart rate and sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system activation are directly linked to our diaphragm, this increased number of breaths per minute shifts us into mild chronic physiological stress.  

The alveoli, the tiny sacs in our lungs where O2/CO2 are exchanged, become deflated and increase dead airspace within the lungs reducing our ability to take in fresh oxygen.

Respiratory muscle strength decreases with disuse, impairing effective airway clearance leaving us prone to infection.

We’re also left with less and less reserve to meet our needs during high demand states like when we’re fighting off a bear (or pneumonia).

Pulmonary (lung) function measured as a function of forced expiratory volume has been shown to be a reliable indicator of life expectancy.

We also have research that shows that breathwork can and does improve lung function in older adults, so if your over 50 and you haven’t been doing breathwork your whole life, you don’t need to throw in the towel.

Start today and do what you can, with what you have where you’re at.



Here’s what to do

  • become more mindful of your breathing all the time. Make sure you’re spending time breathing in all four quarters throughout the day.
  • incorporate max inhales and exhales during your breathwork.  Reach both hands above your head, inhale to your max and try to flare your ribs as wide as possible like the hood of a cobra
  • Ball your hands into fists and pull arms down close to your sides and exhale as much as possible.  Feel your rib cage and waist get as small as possible. Repeat 10x. (bonus, if you’re training a martial art like I Liq Chuan, when you fajin, you’re already training your forced expiratory volume!)

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Marrow Washing – Can You Breathe Your Way To A Healthier Brain?

A new scientific study potentially sheds some light on how the practice of bone marrow washing qigong may work. At its core, all qigong essentially boils down to coordinating your breathing and movement with focused attention: yi dao qi dao li dao 意到氣到力到 (attention arrives, energy arrives, power arrives).

Shaolin is famous for two sets of qigong in particular; the yijinjing (易筋經) and xisuijing (洗髓經) (although you’ll be hard-pressed to find any two teachers who agree on exactly what either of them should look like).

The yijinjing, loosely translated, means “muscle/tendon changing classic.” This is the set that Master Jiru teaches as part of his approach to “mindfulness of feeling.”

Xisuijing – Marrow Washing Qigong

Xisuijing means something like “marrow washing exercises”. Dr. Yang Jwingming writes “Xi means “to wash” or “to clean.” Sui includes Gu Sui , which means “bone marrow,” and Nao Sui , which refers to the brain—including the cerebrum, cerebellum, and medulla oblongata. Jing () means “classic or bible.” This work is commonly translated “Marrow Washing Classic,” but “Brain/Marrow Washing Classic” is a more accurate translation.”

In I Liq Chuan, GM Sam Chin teaches that “expand and condense” helps to cycle the qi from the center of the bones (the marrow) out through the ligaments, tendons, and skin and back and considers this training to be xisuijing.

Other systems of kung fu, like Little Nine Heavens, teach specific exercises using weights tied to the genitals as a major component of, if not the singular focus of xisuijing.

The Purpose of Bone Marrow Washing Qigong

<—WARNING: long, but relevant tangent ahead—>

In his book “Qigong, The Secret of Youth” Yang, Jwingming translated many old documents detailing the practice of xisuijing, and while there were exercises that involved the testicles, no mention was made of swinging weights from them, therefore I’m inclined to think that either only certain schools adopted this practice as part of their specific approach to marrow washing, or over time the practice was abandoned by most schools.

Remember the semi-mythical founder of Zen, Bodhidharma, was an Aryan prince turned monk who’d traveled to Shaolin from India around the 5th century AD, where he found the monks in poor health due to lack of exercise (they spent all their time translating sutras from Sanskrit into Chinese).

Learn More About Qigong

Bodhidharma, aka Damo or Daruma.

As the story goes, Bodhidharma taught the monks various yogic practices, which became the foundation of Shaolin’s qigong and kung fu. There are Indian yogis who also practice hanging weights from their genitals, so it almost certainly pre-dates its practice in China, and potentially was an important part of the original xisuigong.

<—/tangent—>

In his article on the purpose of xisuijing, Yang Jwingming writes
“Most important of all, the practitioner of Brain/Marrow Washing Qigong is able to lead Qi to his brain to nourish it, and to raise up his spirit. To the Daoists and Buddhists, Brain/Marrow Washing Qigong is the path to reach the final goal of enlightenment or Buddhahood.”

How does one lead the qi? With focused attention: yi dao qi dao li dao.

“Where the attention goes, the energy goes.”

New Science Meets Ancient Practices

Now that we’ve established some background on marrow washing and the role of focused attention and breathing in qigong methods let’s take a look at some recent discoveries that support the premise that we can use intentional breathing exercises to optimize the health and function of our brains.

Our brains are our most metabolically active organs; they account for only about 2% of our body weight yet consume ~20-25% of all the calories we eat; as a result, it produces large amounts of metabolic waste products. Accumulation of these harmful substances, like amyloid plaques, is associated with cognitive decline as seen in Alzheimer’s, and one of the most important functions of sleep is clearing out waste from the brain by circulating (i.e., “washing”) the CSF, or cerebrospinal fluid. Breathing, however, also plays a role in the process!

A recent study published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports showed that slow breathing had a considerable impact on the flow of CSF.

How Slow Breathing Helps Clean Your Brain

frame rate is faster than real time

The volume of CSF circulated was four times greater from breathing than from heart rate, and this was for a “normal” breath rate of 15 breaths per minute.

On Instagram, Dr. Steven Lin writes “During an inhale and exhale the chest rises and falls. The change in pressure flows upward to the CSF dynamics around the brain.
​
​Here’s how it works:
Breath in (inspiration) – Lowers chest pressure and empties the venous plexus. CSF flows down the spine.
Breath out (expiration) – Increases chest pressure and fills the venous plexus, pushing CSF up the spine into the head.”

Slower breathing, like that used in qigong and breathwork, can be 5-6 breaths per minute (or less).

In an article from Science Norway, study author Vegard Vinje explained why fewer deep breaths have a greater impact on the flow of brain fluid than faster, shallow breathing. Essentially, the longer waves that result from deep breaths can carry more volume. He compares it to ocean waves hitting the land.

“Imagine a beach with rubbish. A long wave will remove garbage and clutter on a beach more efficiently than a short one,” he said.

Although there is a certain risk of trying to shoehorn modern data to fit into ancient practices, I believe that the old masters developed deep insights into the inner workings of their bodies and minds, and modern imaging technology is finally allowing us to see and measure what they were feeling all along.

Join us and unlock the secrets of the Old Masters!

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Grip Strength & Martial Arts [VIDEO]

A video of me demonstrating a feat of grip strength by tearing an entire deck of cards in half.

Traditional martial arts instructors often frown on strength training (or at least the version of it that is most often practiced in the West), and my own teacher GM Sam Chin is no exception; however, one type of strength and strength training is revered by almost all martial artists is grip strength!

When it comes to “lifting weights,” even GM Sam Chin is in favor of training the grip.

Your feet are how you connect to the ground to generate power (not including ground fighting like jiu-jitsu), but the hands are how you connect to your opponent or to a weapon to apply power.

In addition to training with heavy weapons like long spears and poles, maces, and swords, traditional martial arts often used additional grip training methods like “gripping jars” called nigiri game by practitioners of karate and the stone locks of China (similar to kettlebells) to develop multiple aspects of grip strength like crushing and pinching strength.

Most traditional martial arts emphasize four categories of techniques: striking, kicking, wrestling, and grappling, which involves grabbing the opponent’s limbs and essentially “bending and twisting” to either dislocate a joint or break a bone.   All wrestling and grappling require maximum grip strength to be effective.

In more modern times, scientists have even discovered that grip strength is an excellent indicator of your overall health: many studies, like the PURE study, have shown that grip strength is a better indicator of your risk of death in the following 10-12 years than biomarkers like blood pressure!

Whether you want to be an effective martial artist, or just want to be lean, strong, and healthy, train your hands!

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Mind & Body As One

I was thinking about “right effort” last night at the end of our I Liq Chuan class here in Tempe.

Right Effort is something they talk about in Zen as one of the factors of the eightfold path, along with right speech, right action, right livelihood, right intent, right concentration, and right mindfulness. Typically they are categorized as “discipline, concentration, and wisdom.” If you’ve ever gotten an email from me, you may have noticed these three words as part of my signature.

Despite what we want to do with our time, life often gets in the way, throwing a variety of hurdles in our path. As it happens, I’m in the middle of some stuff right now, which is all adding to my “stress bucket”; vehicle troubles, my dad’s health, etc., and my sleep this week hasn’t been ideal, so by the end of class, when we practice our 21 form, I just wasn’t feeling it.

The workshop with Rob Wilson was a good experience on many levels, the most important of which was just validating my experience with training cold exposure up to now, and also helped clarify my experience with the Wim Hof online course; compared to deep meditation methods like Vipassana or Zen which are meant to completely overhaul your mental “operating system”, cold exposure practice is really so simple, there’s not much “how to” to talk about, just do it, and nature pretty much handles the rest over time. The keys are a little bit of intent, and controlling your breathing to manage your physiological state.

Recently I posted about a review paper that detailed some of the relationships between breathing exercises and improvements in immune function and now, we have some more exciting new findings in regards to respiration / breathing exercises and cold exposure from Wayne State University as part of exerting active control over normally autonomic functions in the body. The study is titled “Brain over body”–A study on the willful regulation of autonomic function during cold exposure Here are a few highlights from the study

  •  fMRI analyses indicated that the WHM activates primary control centers for descending pain/cold stimuli modulation in the periaqueductal gray (PAG)
  • The periaqueductal gray (PAG), also known as the central gray, constitutes a cell dense region surrounding the midbrain aqueduct.
  • In addition, the WHM also engages higher-order cortical areas (left anterior and right middle insula) that are uniquely associated with self-reflection, and which facilitate both internal focus and sustained attention in the presence of averse (e.g. cold) external stimuli.

I think one of the more interesting findings from the study was that BAT, or brown fat, played a negligible role in generating heat to maintain core temperature during cold exposure, but instead the muscles of the rib cage, the intercostals, played the chief role by burning massive amounts of glucose.
This helps add some understanding to my own experience with the practice, which is that anytime I’m sleep deprived, or in a fasted state I have a much more difficult time resisting the cold compared to when I’m fed, and rested.

I commonly fast two days a week, and the first three or four days of every month. In a fasted state, core temp drops a bit anyway, and my system may not yet be fat adapted well enough to efficiently keep up with the higher demand for blood sugar through gluconeogenesis. (I suspect this is true, as I still have not recovered 100% of my exercise performance since switching to a ketogenic diet in June of this year). There was also a recent study done that showed blood ketone levels above 2.0 (which wouldn’t be uncommon during fasting) basically results in “ketone resistance”.

 Similarly, cortisol levels are high, and you’re naturally more insulin resistant when sleep deprived, so again, this could potentially play a role in not being able to keep up with the glucose demands of the “inner fire” practice.

If you’d like a  nice animated synopsis of the study and the results, the official Wim Hof YouTube channel released a nice video about it.

 

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References 1. “Brain over body”–A study on the willful regulation of autonomic function during cold exposure
Author links open overlay panelOttoMuzik
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811918300673?via%3Dihub