Bruce Lee pioneered branching out and not restricting your potential by limiting your approach to the specifics of a given style. Everyone is built differently, with unique strengths and weaknesses, and every style is built upon a dogmatic foundation prescribed by its creator. It becomes a disservice to the martial arts when the inexperienced and uneducated latch onto specific statements by famous martial artists without understanding the context of the quoter’s intent and the historical, practical, intellectual, and spiritual significance of the principles of a complete martial art style.
Bruce Lee had a complete traditional style upon which his philosophical approach to kung fu was based. This is the context behind his statement. Having a complete style as your foundation and then building upon it by expanding your knowledge within areas that suit you and interest you is vastly different than starting from scratch and studying a hodge podge of techniques to make yourself a better fighter.
It is time to reclaim what it means to be a martial artist and not let the term become a generic label to denote people who train to fight. Kung fu is over two thousand years old. It would be a tragedy if we allowed its definition to become reduced to something associated with ego, testosterone, and violence during our watch.
“Art calls for complete mastery of techniques, developed by reflection within the soul.” - Bruce Lee (1940 - 1973)
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