The Artist and the Horse

As related by Steve Golden (Original Bruce Lee Student)

From "Knowing is not Enough", Fall, 1997, Vol. 1, No. 3.

I remember being in class in the Los Angeles Chinatown school one day when Bruce began talking about the Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do principles of directness, efficiency and simplicity. We started practicing a defense for a variety of grabs. He was teaching us to finger jab (biu jee) and kick to the shins as soon as the opponent touched us. Jab, kick. Jab, kick, over and over again – boring! Or, at least that was how it seemed to me.

Since I had many years of previous martial arts experience, I decided to improvise a bit and add a locking technique and a takedown to what he had instructed us to do. It was effective and, I believed, added some variety and I felt comfortable in executing it. This wasn’t lost on Bruce, however. He came over and watched me do my improvised movements and then he told me a story.

:"There once was an old artist who lived in a small village in China. For his greatest piece of art, he wanted to paint a picture of a horse. The most beautiful horse he had ever seen was in his neighbor’s pasture and so he set out his paints and easel and started to paint.

Soon a procession passed on a nearby road. In the procession was a giraffe. The artist had never seen such a strange looking animal; such long legs and such a long neck, and yet, still very graceful. The artist thought to himself, "I must capture its beauty for the animal in my painting!" He then added a long neck and legs to the image of the horse that he was painting. The painting looked wonderful.

Then a man came riding an elephant. "What kind of a creature is that?" the artist wondered to himself, so strong and powerful – and that nose! He changed his painting again to broaden the legs to increase the power of the animal and then he added a trunk in place of its nose. The painting was now even more amazing than before. "I really have it now!" the painter thought to himself.

Just before he could finish up a dragon flew overhead. The artist was astounded to see such a creature! Its body contained all the colors of the rainbow and its wings looked as though they were crafted from the richest silks. The artist quickly added a likeness of the magnificent wings, which he had seen on the dragon. Now, he had finally finished his masterpiece!

Soon the townspeople began to walk by and notice his paintings. All of the people from his village came to see the painting and they all agreed that it was surely the best painting the man ever done. It was perhaps the best anyone there had ever seen. But when they tried to tell the artist, they saw that he was now a profound depression and weeping unabashedly.

"You have created a masterpiece!" they exclaimed. "For what reason could you be crying?" The artist slowly looked up at them and answered softly, "I had forgotten that I wanted to paint a horse."

Bruce then looked at me and a smile crossed his lips. "You must be careful not to add on other systems or techniques simply because they seem interesting or look good," he said. "Each thing must be evaluated to make sure that it does not take away from what your true goal is."

Although any years have passed since that day when Bruce related that story to me, and in those years I have seen many styles and systems and have often felt the temptation to "try something new." But then I always remember Bruce’s story.