I am Bruce Lee

How getting knocked on my ass got me some wisdom.
One night when I was about twelve years old my mother and father took us to the Kokusai theater in Seattle's International District for the typical Monday night Chinese film program. It was the early 70's. I hoped it was not another sappy tearjerker or silly comedy. I lived for the sword and sorcery movies.

A movie came on that changed my life forever. It was an early Bruce Lee film, "The Big Boss." When Bruce Lee came on the screen, an electricity shot through the theater and a collective epiphany took place. Here was a man, a marvel, a charismatic, humorous, wise and honorable lethal weapon who righted wrongs and kicked the shit out of people doing it. And he did it with style. Soon the entire audience was cheering wildly at the screen. Kids like me were standing in the
aisles jumping up and down. Moth- ers were trying to control their sons who in that moment discovered our masculinity and what it could mean to be Chinese and be respected and yes, even feared.

Of course, my next move was to beg my parents to enroll me in the local Kung Fu school. If "Be Like Mike" was a motto for young ballers in the 90's who emulated Jordan in his heyday, to be like Bruce was nearly a requirement for his young Chinese fans in my youth. What added to the mystic of Bruce Lee for us in Seattle was the fact that he had lived in our city, gone to school here, worked in a Chinese restaurant here and even met his future wife in a local high school. We were a part of Bruce Lee's le- gend and we had to hold up our end of the mystique. At age twelve I was
small, pimpled, wore thick glasses and had a constant rash due chronic eczema. Braces on my teeth didn't help. The overall aura I emanated was Asian nerd-ness to the extreme. Not Bruce Lee material, but I was determined.

During my upbringing I was the lone Asian kid in all all White Catholic grade school where I tried to remain unseen. Being sent to Catholic grade school wasn't a religious choice on my parents part, but rather an immigrant family's instinct after seeing that the best education in Shanghai was to be found in western Christian schools. If you could afford it, you sent your kids to the priests and nuns for an education. However, the drawbacks of being a minority of one were sometimes tough to handle. Getting
gang tackled, beaten and then thrown into a filthy leaf pit near the baseball fields every autumn from fourth grade to seventh grade while being mistakenly accused of being a "dirty Jap" only added to the humi- liation. Those little White Catholic kids sure had themselves some fun.

Kung fu class was a new world of strict rules, martial discipline and unfamiliar physical demands. It was also a place of camaraderie, for many other local Asian boys had heard the calling of the Bruce Lee faith and also joined. We would talk about him and about how we would forge ourselves in his image as we progressed. Our master was humor- less, strict and he drove us hard. Upon entering the studio, we were first to remove our street shoes and bow to the portrait of his master on the wall before we entered the
training room, we were to keep silent, change into our loose cotton pants and shirts and put on our flat cotton shoes that had rope soles.

None of us looked much like Bruce Lee as we stood before the wide mirror performing out warm ups, kicks and punches. After the group warm up, we would be divided into small groups: beginners at the back of the room. Intermediates at the middle, advanced students at them front. In the beginner group we were given simple combinations to work on along with the basic form every aspiring student had to know. The style we were studying was Wu Shu, a streamlined and synthesized form of kung fu that combined elements of northern, southern and other more esoteric styles into an umbrella that eventually became the national style of Chinese kung fu practiced all over the world.
Over the next few months I worked hard at the various forms and tech- niques assigned to me. I relished Saturdays and the studio. Getting there early was important to me, as I liked hanging around with other students and listening to our master tell stories of his own training and life. I watched the advanced stu- dents work through their elaborate forms and dreamt of when I too would achieve that kind of ability.

On occasion our master would sit us in circles and invite two students out to spar. Most of the time he paired students of equal skill with each other, but sometimes he would intentionally have an advanced stu- dent spar with a lesser opponent. In this way we would always be striv- ing to improve and could quickly see where our weaknesses were. Head gear, padded gloves and foot coverings as well as protective ath-letic cups were always worn during sparring, as kicks and punches were not pulled and even with protection, blows could be quite painful.

The first few times I was called on to spar, it felt like I had stepped into a syrup of slowness and a fog of indecision. My kicks were labored and ineffective and my simple com- binations easily defended. When my opponent got through my feeble defenses I got my first taste of real martial punishment. Being punched and kicked by another person, even with padding on, stokes a kind of primitive fear. Your body and mind tell you to leave this situation im- mediately, but your pride and your will urge you to take it and move forward.

I suppose many young men and

young women know what this

experience is. Perhaps it is a rite
of passage in this world, or just a vestige of our innate barbarism that makes interpersonal violence such a typical occurrence while we are young. We students of martial arts are taught to respect life, pursue peace, practice respect but when it is required, deliver justice with punishing finality. Watching Bruce Lee live this credo on the big screen was a revelation to us.

A year into my training I was told it was time for me to attend my first tournament. I would be entered into a beginners form competition and a beginners open sparring competition. I was thrilled and terrified. In the weeks heading up to the tournament I worked hard in the studio. My form got better and so did my sparring. I was able to dispatch a few beginners in the ring
with my fighting technique and my master nodded and said my basic form wasn't horrible to look at. I was ready.

The day of the tournament I observed the advanced students and tried to mimic their behavior. I acted casual, joked around and tossed a casual sneer or two at rival groups. There were only a handful of martial arts studios at that time. Some taught Korean Tai-Kwon Do, some Japanese Karate. There were a couple of other Chinese Kung Fu studios as well: the southern style Tiger Crane School and the Shaolin school. As the Wu Shu school we prided ourselves on being the na- tional school of China and therefore believed we were a cut above the rest. Our blue cotton uniforms were distinct and we wore them with pride.
I performed my form with a pounding heart and a sweating brow. Nervousness prevented me from having and real sense of how I did, but I scored well and was in the hunt for a trophy after the first round. Then it was time for the sparring event.

My number was called and I stepped into the circle. In our studio there would be a dozen or so fellow students sitting around the circle watching and encouraging. Here at the tournament here was at least forty or fifty students from various schools, their friends and relatives and they were not there to wish me well.

My opponent stepped into the circle. He was a a karate student. His white uniform had a logo of a Dragon on the back. Karate
students tended to fight in straight lines: their forward, backwards and side steps were quick but predict- able. Our style emphasized circular movement and fluid, dynamic changes of angle and position.

I felt confident I could out position my opponent if I was smart. The round began. The winner would be the first to score three clear hits as determined by the referee. My opponent got a good fist through for one, and I got a good sidekick in to even the score. I recall anticipating my opponents straight line charge and he obliged, allowing me to score a punch to his side as I circled to his right. He then threw a kick which got through my defense.

We were tied two-two.

We circled each other as the watch- ing students egged us on. I was in some other state of being, my
thoughts becoming a whirlwind of fragments: be ready, light on your feet, what am I doing here, I am terrified, I didn't know there was this much adrenaline in my body, breathe, what, how, NOW.

Out of nowhere I launched a com- bination round click, side kick fol- lowed by a reverse punch and then a jumping back fist. My opponent was caught off guard, but recovered and backed away. As I prepared my back fist to strike him in the head, he stepped back and sideways and delivered a full power spinning back fist of his own to the side of my head.

Blue lights sparked in my eyes and my feet suddenly jumped towards the ceiling while my head dove for the ground.

I was down. The referee stopped

the match and declared him the
winner. There was the sound of far off cheering but mostly I heard a ringing sound. My fellow students picked me up and dragged my out of the circle. They sat me in a chair and gave me water. I sat there, head hanging low. A medic came by, shined a light in my eyes and checked my pulse, declared I was okay, just stunned. The tournament went on without me.

That knock was a moment that brought me back to reality. My Bruce Lee dreams were dashed. My vision of being a Chinese vigilante of justice and a hero to myself faded. I did not tell my parents or anyone else outside the studio what happened at the tournament. The spinning back fist that laid me out taught me one thing: I did not ever want to get hit like that again, I envied my fellow students who could shake off something like that
and go for more. Was I a coward? What was wrong with me? I recalled our master saying to us that if we were afraid to get hit we should quit because we could never improve with fear.

Over the next few months I went through the motions at the studio. I went to class, practiced, put on a brave face and hid my crisis from everyone. What was this new fear of pain? I had had my typical kid's share of hurts and bumps up to now: a fall off a bike, a bad scrape, a lump or two on the forehead. This fear of being punched out was different. I didn't understand it. Soon the day came when I spoke to our master and told him I would be leaving the studio.

I lied and said I was behind on school work and also needed to do more chores at home to earn
some cash. He nodded, his look saying he had heard this story many times before. He knew that for the past months I was checked out. I was hoping for some ancient Chinese wisdom, saying, blessing or parting words from him. He just said: "Make sure you take all your stuff with you. Don't leave anything behind or I'll throw it in the trash."

For me, the Bruce Lee period of my life was important because I learned that I could get knocked out and get back up again. While I don't recommend this as a method to self-awareness, I am grateful for what I found in the Wu Shu studio: giving over to a form and discipline that is bigger than yourself in turn make you grow as a person. Al- though I was weakened by fear after being floored at the tournament, that fear over time somehow turned to confidence and even strength
later on.

As I matured, I learned that some- times you had to stand toe to toe in certain circumstances and damn the consequences. This wasn't the traditional Chinese mentality I was taught as a child, but a learned out- look on life that made a difference for me.

It was always bit of a search to find men like Bruce Lee to admire from afar. Professional sports in America was not a venue for Asians. Neither was Hollywood, television, advert- ising or any other mass image- making industry. Rather there were many examples of kowtowing, scraping, gibberish speaking and feeble Chinamen for me to see as I grew up. Not having any role mod- els, especially after Bruce Lee died, an alchemy of influences slowly shaped my inner person.
There was my father's admonish- ment: "You have to do better, be smarter and outperform White people, because they will always see you as a Chinaman first. This is America." There was my mother's request that we "be humble, polite and don't make trouble." There was my own experiences being singled out in grade school for bullying and humiliation.

But most importantly, I had learned something about myself.

My awareness that I had intelli- gence, a creative impulse and a small amount of mental and phys- ical resilience from my experiences in Wu Shu helped me. All these elements and more eventually came together to inform my worldview as me, I would succeed at whatever challenge was placed before me and excel beyond expectations. I would
not display any outward animosity or agenda as I rose in the world. Although I could not be stronger and faster, I could be smarter and relentless. I would tough out the disappointments and knock outs to come because I could.

Say what you will, but I think a little yellow chip on my shoulder was a valuable asset in my career. I was never a social warrior, but I was very aware that I was probably the only Asian prime time director in Hollywood during the 'Must See TV' era of the 1990s and I was the only Asian professor in the dramatic arts at the university I was tenured at later. Life became my marital arts tournament and I was ready to step into the circle again and again without hesitation. In the end, that is the lesson I learned: it doesn't matter if you win or get knocked on your ass. You just have to be willing
to step into the circle.

Thanks, Bruce!