The Warrior Within: The Philosophies of Bruce Lee

by John Little and John Little

Book Overview

During his lifetime, legendary martial artist Bruce Lee formulated a complex personal philosophy--a synthesis of Eastern and Western ideals--that extolled the virtues of knowledge and total mastery of one's self. However, most of his philosophical writings could be found only within the personal library of the Bruce Lee estate--until now. The Warrior Within is the most comprehensive volume of these teachings, meant to help you apply Lee's philosophies...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809231948
• ISBN13: 9780809231942
• Release Date: April 1996
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Only for passionate Bruce Lee fans

The best part of this book isn’t until Chapter 12 where author John Little relays Lee’s belief about the highest human achievement being a commitment to honest self expression. “What else can you be but real,” says Lee. This, of course, requires radical acceptance of whatever feelings are presenting and relinquishment of robotic mindless responses because whenever humans think and behave robotically they’re not being real. I sincerely wish Little would have led with this profoundly important insight and that he would have organized his content around it. Instead, unbelievably, Little’s material on Lee has a flat, unengaging and hard to follow quality. I mean, seriously, how can you take an interesting one-of-a-kind guy like Bruce Lee and make him boring? Somehow Little manages to pull this off! Little’s writing style of attempting to explain Lee’s philosophies through interpretive quotes from Nietzsche, Watts, Wittgenstein, Durant and many many others got in the way and just didn’t work for me. All that said, there’s considerable content from and about Bruce Lee that you won’t find elsewhere, and die hard fans will appreciate this book.

Timeless

I would like to thank the authors for presenting such useful information. A few things that really impacted me were: 1. Bruce Lee felt that to strike back to people who are aggressive shows weakness. 2. He really worked his stomach. I have worked out for years and once I read about his stomach work I felt the affects immediately. 3. I love his thoughts on stress managemnt. I always kind of knew when I ate junk food that it was somehow related to stress. Now that I practice stress reducing excercises, I eat less junk food and I have no desire to eat it. 4. I appreciate his philosophy on total health. Like I said, what I read has totally changed my ideas on a lot of things. Thank you for an awesome book!

Excellent book that changed the way I see.

The book basically describes concepts of how Bruce Lee lived his life, and John Little shows how you can apply them to your life. The main concept in the book is to 'be yourself'. It is about easing up, and not adding complication to things that should occur naturally, such as in breathing. Do we think about how we breathe, and how to take a breath in and how to breath out? No, it is a natural process, and works its best when done naturally. The primary concept Bruce applies is the empty mindedness concept. Instead of theorizing how to drink each time he drank, ie. hold a cup, tip it slightly, sip, Bruce says to learn to do this naturally. As in, you might have to learn it mechanically at first, but to truly drink or do anything successfully, you have to integrate it into a natural process, without you thinking about it. A quote that I made to sum the book up: "A man's purpose is to find himself and then become totally unconsious of himself."A story used to illustrate that example is one of a centipede. If a centipede thought about all 1000 of its legs, and which one should go in front of the other in order to walk, he would be forever stumped. This applies to other areas too, such as fighting, etc. If you always think about how to throw a punch each time you threw one, you wouldn't be trusting yourself, and your thoughts would slow you down, it probably would be too late to throw the punch anyhow. The book is about freedom, as in using what works for you, and not following in his or any other person's footsteps. How can you be unsatisfied when your goal in life is to learn about yourself? Among the only goals in life that can't be achieved is learning about yourself. This is, why in fact Bruce didn't leave an extremely extensive journal of all his techniques, because he wanted everyone to find themself, as he got to where he was at by not copying anyone else. He particularly disliked styles, because it prohibits true expression. A style only lets one to get good to the epitome of that style, yet learning and developing is ever constant. You don't use elementary math for high school algebra, as you don't use fighting skills that were developed for hand to hand combat in a war with guns.My favorite part about the book was in accepting yourself. If you accept yourself, then you won't worry about what other people will think of you, or what to do here and there. Everything is much more natural and A LOT more stress-free for me. I read this book in about 3 days, and learned more from it than any other book I've read, and hopefully it can inspire you all as much as it has me. A few days prior to reading the book, I was struggling with an idea on how to do things. I let my mind clutter my head with excessive thoughts that prevented me from doing things such as speaking my desires or anything else that was on my mind. Reading the book, I've learned to accept myself, and I stopped being so self-conscious and act on my natural self. I've been able to spea

A "MIND-OPENING" BOOK

This book proves that philosophy can be both powerful and relevant to everybody's life! I'm a teenage girl who has suffered from low self-esteem but Bruce Lee's teachings have opened my eyes to a whole new way of looking at life! Now I see and..more importantly.. understand that we are all the same and that looking at others as "different" or "better" or "worse" than us is truly the mind's worst disease. John Little is a masterful philosopher himself to have seen and presented such a deep philosophy in such an enjoyable manner. And with this book, he has shared Master Lee's brilliant and penetrating observations on love, relationships, racism and life. What a mind-opening book. I call it "therapy for the sane!" Read this book and really get to know about life.

Excellent In Every Respect!!!

Excellent book by John Little to capture the essence and philosophical thoughts of Bruce Lee. His explanation of the way Lee thought and lived through his own personal study of Chinese and Western philosophy is made very clear in this book. Not only does the author explain Lee's thinking, but also puts in layman's terms as to how you can apply these same principles in your own life. Great examples are given throughout the book as to how Lee used philosophy to realize his own personal growth both in his own life and that of his fighting art of Jeet Kune Do. After reading this book, one comes to learn that Lee wasn't only a great martial artist, but also an extremely intelligent man whose mind was very sharp and keen. Until this book, I was not interested in philosophy, but after reading this, I'm very much interested in it, especially Eastern philosophy and the way that it can enhance my life and those of others around me. Excellent book by all means!

Thoughtful, insightful, and succinct.

For those of you who are drawn to the charisma of Bruce Lee that transcends physical skills, I highly recommend this book.It is easy to see that John Little has a great deal of respect and gratitude for Lee. This book is a unique blend of Bruce Lee's thoughts, references from other philosophical sources, and realistic illustrations of how we, as readers, can understand and apply the teachings in our own process.I think we all find ourselves here (contemplating buying this book) because we are ready to read it.PS: If anyone knows how I can obtain a copy of the Mandarin version of the Big Boss, I would appreciate your information. Thanks!