My Hero...

Everyone right from their childhood has a hero, and just like all children, I too had many heroes, from whom I used to draw inspiration, strength and power. There were always some people who used to give me dreams, in which I used to vanquish the evil forces of the dark world of miseries and rescue the universe from extinction.

Superman, Spiderman, He-Man, you name it, and I`ve been a fan. As years pass, and interests change, I too have seen a lot of changes in my taste and liking.

But there is this one Hero, who I shall always like, whom I shall always adore.. whose movies I never like to miss.
Yes!, I was talking about the legendary Bruce Lee. Thanks to his famous movies, today the world is not ignorant of him.

But yet there are not many who know, that Bruce Lee was not just an actor, who knew kung-fu and acted in movies and that he was also a great exponent of Wing-Chun which he learnt in Hong Kong. It is to be noted that however he was born in San Francisco.

He was more than just a fighter and it is not known to many that he had majored in Philosophy and was a properly learned man.He has authored many books on Kung-Fu and other martial arts and was also a great teacher.
This man, truly had power in him and had real mental strength in him.

If you visit the site brucelee.com, there is an 18 page Documentation on Jeet Kun Do ( a philosophical martial art form) which is written by BruceLee himself. In the first few pages of this passage, he details a small incident of how a learned man had once visited a Zen master. As the Zen master spoke, the learned man frequently kept interrupting him, saying "Ah. Yes, I`ve heard of that". Finally the Zen master started filling the learned man`s cup with tea. He continued to do so, even after the cup had been filled to the brim and had started overflowing. On seeing this the learned man immediately remarked, that the cup was overflowing, to which the Zen master replies, " If you don`t empty your cup first, then how will you taste, my cup of tea.?". Here Bruce Lee has stressed, upon how important, it is that you have to unlearn things, which you have learnt before and start fresh each time. He has stressed upon the open-mindedness needed in the learning of Martial Arts.

This post of mine, would be truly incomplete, if I were not to talk about how good a fighter Bruce Lee really was. Just because of the fact that, unlike the movie stars of today, Bruce Lee could actually fight with any one who would try to rough him up and then win.

Here, I include an excerpt from another site, I visited.
"...The question remains in many people's mind: What made Bruce Lee so famous? There are several Martial Arts movies; why is Bruce the one remembered for Chinese Gung-Fu. Bruce would work himself very, very hard, until he perfected what he was working on. He was a perfectionist. Another aspect of his success is his ability to really kick some ass. Bruce remains undefeated throughout his life, except for a lost fight when he was 13 years old (this prompted Bruce to begin taking Martial Arts lessons). People jealous of Bruce, or people just thinking they could beat him, would frequently approach Bruce, tap their foot on the ground (this symbolizes a challenge), and they would begin to fight. Once during the filming of Enter the Dragon, an extra aproached Bruce, tapped his foot on the ground, and they began to fight. The extra had some real skill, but instead of trying to beat Bruce, he was really trying to hurt him. When Bruce realized this, he began to unleash his lightning quick speed and powerful moves; he smashed the guy right agains the wall. Bruce later said that he had never kicked a guy so hard before. He really beat the guy up. But unusually, after the fight was over, Bruce told the extra to get back to his spot and act. He never fired him....."

It is of course, very sad and unfortunate, that such a great guy should have so many rumours surrounding his death. But of course, death is not something which bruce lee really feared. He was a brave fighter. He was a true man who stood for the truth and was frank in his style and understanding of Martial Arts.

He was My Hero and he is my Hero and shall be my Hero...