Jan 28, 2023
Parsons: “What’s your style?”
Lee: “You can call it the art of fighting without fighting.”
Parsons: “The art of fighting? Without fighting? Show me some of it.”
Lee: “Later.” —Enter the Dragon
The origins of this scene comes from a famous samurai tale. This is a scene that Bruce Lee probably added and wrote himself being dissatisfied with the original script. Peter Archer plays Parsons.
The Sword of No Sword
Bruce Lee was familiar with samurai stories. And some parts of Tao of Jeet Kune Do come from zen books about samurai. In Daisetz T. Suzuki’s “Zen and the Samurai,” while in a rowboat crossing Lake Biwa, the samurai Tsukahara Bokuden was approached by another “arrogant” samurai. The samurai noticed that Bokuden seemed calm, and he asked him about his art.
Bokuden replied, ” My art is different from yours; it consists not in defeating others, but in not being defeated. “
“What is your school then?”
“Mine is know as the mutekatsu school” (which means to defeat the enemy “without hands,” that is, without using a sword).”
“Why, then do you yourself carry a sword?”
“This is meant to do away with selfish motives, and not to kill others.”
“Do you mean to fight me with no sword?”
“Why not?” replied Bokuden
The two went toward an island in the distance. The braggart jumped off the boat first to prepare for the battle. Bokuden then quickly pushed the boat away from the island and yelled:
“This is my ‘no-sword’ school.” (74-75).
Works Cited
Suzuki, Daisetz T. Zen and the Japanese Culture. New York: Princeton University Press, 1959. 59-86.
Notes by Wayne Stein, Ph.D., University of Central Oklahoma
Doc White Tiger Nirvana
AKA Professor Wayne Stein