Bruce Lee's Whole Shtick

He was a real kung fu master, he was trying to teach you something.

He didn't just make kung fu movies and become known as a handsome Chinese American actor.  He never actually sparred or competed in any combat sport, but that doesn't matter.  What he did was invent a theory, a philosophy, and a method of self realization.

What he did in the movies was Tae Kwon Do.  But that is garbage.  In real life, he invented a martial art called 'Jeet Kune Do' which means 'The Way of the Intercepting Fist'.  It is also called Jun Fan Gong Fu after his actual Chinese name, Jun Fan.  Bruce Lee was the anglicized name a nurse gave him in the hospital he was born in.

What Jeet Kune Do was about was, that boxing has a more realistic training methodology than Karate, Judo, and Kung Fu.  Martial Arts is largely an exercise about zen culture and ethics and not how to knock a man out.  Bruce Lee was about reality self defense, not theories or philosophies. 

But he also had morality, and saw things from a wholistic viewpoint like most Chinese people.  Jeet Kune Do is not just punching.  It is not just punching and kicking.  It is a complete karate with an answer for everything.  It involves punching, kicking, trapping, and weapons grappling.  It is a lot like other Chinese martial arts like Wing Chun and Tai Chi.

But one thing he was trying to teach humanity was, that if you are too dangerous to spar, you are delusional and just talking out of pride.  A boxer gets in the ring and he fights.  He doesn't overthink it.  A boxer is conditioned, experienced, spars, competes, wins, loses, and doesn't complain.

But boxing alone is not a streetfight.  It is a fight with gloves on.  Without the gloves and the rules, you can do a lot more.  Bruce Lee once said, 'If Jeet Kune Do was a sport, it would be similar to Muay Thai.' 

Muay Thai means Thai Kickboxing.  It is not just punching with gloves on.  It involves kicks, knees, elbows, and clinch wrestling too.  The Thai fighters are extremely conditioned and spar and compete regularly.  Most will live and die poor, but some will be rich celebrities.  Muay Thai is the eastern concept of 'boxing'.

Even punching and muay thai is not a complete system.  A real martial artist can do more than punch and kick.  He also knows how to wrestle standing up and grapple with weapons.  In Chinese, wrestling is called 'Shuai' and weapons grappling is called 'Chin Na'.  A complete martial artist knows all four elements of hand to hand combat, not just one or two. 

So whether you are doing  Tai Chi or Chin Na or San Da or Wing Chun or Dragon Boxing, you must have answer for everything or you are not a real martial artist.  There is wholistic martial arts like there is wholistic medicine.  That is the Chinese worldview.  Having a comprehensive view not a partial vew.  The Chinese are not stupid.

So Bruce Lee was a great innovator and his movies were just stupid kung fu flicks.  He invented a new martial art, coached many kickboxers in the USA, married a white woman, had biracial children, and ultimately, he died because a doctor gave him the wrong meds.  What a tragedy.

Bruce Lee had more merit than most actors.  He wasn't just some guy on a movie screen.  He could do what he said.  In my life, I trained Muay Thai and JKD principles in a gym near my house and this empowered my to do sparring and Combat Sambo.  I am not just a judoka and grappler.  Jeet Kune Do principles work in any combat sport you do, as long as it involves striking with gloves on.  That includes boxing, muay thai, Combat Sambo, and MMA.  There are even Jeet Kune Do principles in wrestling and aikido.

So he wasn't a fake.  Even now, over 40 years after his death, people still honor him as a hero.  There are no Bruce Lee jokes, because he wasn't a joke.  He was telling you the truth.

A real master of kung fu can punch, kick, trap, and grapple.  Chinese martial arts don't teach groundfighting because groundfighting is an exercise.  In the end, Chinese martial arts are better than Japanese martial arts.  But China despises the west and Japan loves fooling the west.  They sell us all their crap, like sushi and karate and Sony and Toyota and manga comics.  Japanese are more sneaky, the Chinese just call us barbarians. 

So to understand martial arts is to understand zen.  To be a man who can knock a man out, you must understand the nature of reality and morality first.  It is not just about sparring and competing and anger and aggression.  We do east Asian martial arts not African martial arts.  Black people are the most strong and fast and invent the worst martial arts, and Asians are the smallest and weakest and invent the best martial arts.  It is counter-intuitive.  The soft overcome the hard.  If you are soft and weak and slow, then you must learn to survive by being more efficient, having better timing, and understanding human anatomy and psychology.  A small, weak, slow man can still fight if he knows what he is doing.  Only a punk shoots right away or jumps right in with the right cross.

So Bruce Lee invented something of lasting benefit to society.  I think Jeet Kune Do is better than Judo.  Judo is physical education, Jeet Kune Do is self realization through Budo.  Both have potential to help.  Easy going but tough and humble people do judo.  People into what works in a streetfight and how to become the best version of yourself do Jeet Kune Do.  It is so much more than Olympic combat sports or karate and MMA.  Jeet Kune Do is like a religion and a lifestyle. 

So I might go back to my old instructor and ask him for guidance.  I don't want to stop training all together.  As a martial artist, you are never done training.  You could be black belt and world champion and still have something to learn.  Martial arts is not a gang, it is a form of exercise with a functional use 

So Bruce Lee's whole shtick was self realization through karate.  He was saying boxers actually spar and aren't delusional or overly-confident.  They actually do it while you sit around talking about it.

In my life, I gave up on boxing and switched to takedown sports like Greco and Judo and Sambo.  I am more of a wrestler than a boxer or grappler.  But western people tend to have a limited, partial view of things because they are less intelligent and only believe in tangible results.  There is more to a confrontation than punching and choking.  Some fights end with a takedown or a pin or an armbar.  Some fights involve weapons.  And ultimately, criminals don't fight fair or else they would lose.  Most criminals are weak, slow, have no training, and only want to hurt and destroy you.  So training any martial art or combat sport is about being the better man and not having to prove it. 

I started grappling in 1998 and haven't stopped since.  After 22 years of training, I am not a beginner.  Shootfighting led to Judo and Judo led to Sambo.  Sambo was the best experience of my life.  What I am trying to say in this post is, martial arts is about self realization not self defense.  The whole concept of self defense is stupid.  If you beat someone up in a streetfight, you go to jail for doing the right thing, and if you walk away, they assume you are afraid.  So there is no way to win a confrontation.  The only real way to win is not to get into conflict to begin with.  Combat means stealth and weapons, that is a crime.  Self Defense is for children.  If you are too dangerous to spar, you are delusional.  God is Love.  Love conquers all.

I know I am a great martial artist and I will never stop training and teaching.  I don't care if I am not popular in my part of the world, I am popular somewhere else.  The USA seems to be the most distorted, wicked country on earth.  They got rich by deceiving the world and deceiving their own people.  I am not trying to deceive you. I am trying to help you.

So keep training your style and become yourself.

My Music is Growing

So far, I have produced 6 albums since 2017.  The first one was taken off the internet.  So right now you can see 5 albums on YouTube and Spotify for stream and view.  I think my music is very creative and sounds like my influences.

I started with Nirvana, then went to the Beatles, then discovered the roots of rock n roll.  That is, black men playing guitar.  People like Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Elmore James, Howlin Wolf and others.  The music just comes out of my soul and I write the chords before the lyrics.

I have a presence on Instagram, Reverbnation, and obviously YouTube and Spotify.  I love music more than anything and the money doesn't matter.  I have enough money.  I create the music because I want to touch someone out there.

I don't gig out so I don't know where the streams and views are coming from.  But I know someone out there digs it.  In 2019, I made 5.1k streams on Spotify.  Hopefully, in 2020 I will make more streams.  I am planning an electric album which will be out by the end of the summer.

So as I continue to work in an office, I also do music and books on the side.  I wish I could be a celebrity musician and author, but I realize it is an unlikely dream.  Rockstars are all drug users and authors tend to be intellectuals. 

So I am not worrying about the future.  I am living in the present.  God understands the past, present, and future.  We only know now.  So we are limtied.  God is greater than mortal man.

I just want to promote my music and poetry and do what I want to do.  I can make money.  It's easy.  When I was in TCM school, one practitioner said, 'when you are done doing what you have to do, do you have the energy to do what you want to do?'. 

The main thing in life is to be happy and productive.  It is not about results or more money and women.   If you are miserable now, then that is all you have.  Live in the here and now.

Music and Sport

I am learning to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

My two educations were in Acupuncture and Graphic Design.  A typical acupuncturist in this part of the world makes 100 dollars per hour.  A typical graphic designer makes 15 or 16 per hour.  The difference between a licensed profession and typical office work. 

But now, Acupuncture is no longer an option.  I don't even have an active license anymore.  I have a graphic design job, so I am an actively working graphic designer.  It is a good career path.

The main thing in work is trading time for money.  It is a lot like high school and college.  You are rewarded for good behavior, consistency, and conformity.  They want you to do what they say.  It is not that hard to make and spend money.

So Graphic Design is my job.  But what I really love is my hobbies.  I have been doing guitar since 1995 and grappling since 1998.  I spent 5 years doing Shootfighting, 15 years doing judo, and 6 months doing sambo.  I also have boxing experience.  I am a trained combat athlete.  The belt rank and medals mean nothing, it matters that you have sparring experience and the conditioning of a trained fighter.  85% of men can't fight.

So I have a job, two hobbies, and I have enough money to get by.  Now that I have a good paying gig, it will lead to others.  It is called building your resume.  When one job is about to end, start looking for another one.  When you find a near ideal job, then you stay there a few years.  But I just do graphic design for the money, if there was no money involved, I wouldn't do it.

But this it the real world.  Without money, you don't get to enjoy any worldly power or pleasure.  Money is power, women are pleasure.  You need both, unless you are a Buddhist monk in a monastery.  They don't enjoy much power and pleasure. 

I have 5 albums on YouTube and Spotify.  I listen to my own music a lot.  I think it is genius.  People don't really listen to rhythm and blues and rock n roll much anymore.  But I sound like what I listen to, and I listen to the old stuff.  I don't like hip hop and heavy metal.  I see the black hip hop music as having more creativity in it, but I am not from the Bronx so it doesn't interest me.

I can also do judo in a diminished capacity since when I was in my twenties.  Since 2008, people don't do doubles and singles anymore.  Without leg attacks, I can't really wrestle. I am a te-guruma expert.

Now that I am older, past 40, I am middle aged and more mature.  I think boxing is better than judo.  I think the music industry is better than Hollywood.  I think porno and MMA is not showbusiness, but a kind of drug you can get addicted to.  I am into reality not fantasy.  Americans have distorted values and the media is too liberal and anti-Christian and anti-Semitic.  Jews are always outcasts wherever they go, which shows how holy they are.

This world is worthless and the whole premise of the Hindu lifestyle is to be in the world but not of it.  As long as we have physical bodies, we are prisoners.  At least while you are alive, you can enjoy what you can enjoy and do the right thing.  Part of life is work.  Doing productivity for others not just yourself.  There is no life without work.  But when you are done with work, then you have the money and time to do what you really want to do.

I like music and sport.  Rhythm and Blues and Judo.  It is a bit old fashioned but I like it.  I don't like boxing and hip hop.  I am not a Jamaican guy from Brooklyn.  I'm a Syosset Jew.  But don't hold it against me.

So as time goes on, I will do what I must do to get to what I want to do.  If you were smart, you would check out my music on YouTube and Spotify.  It is free to you and it makes me 7 dollars for every 1000 streams.  It is old-fashioned music, but some people like this stuff.  At the very least, it is an exploration of the music of the climax.  The 1960s was a time when white kids and black kids were brought together with music.  Nowadays, black and white is more segregated than ever. 

If you believe the media, it is white overclass and black underclass and Arabs are the enemy.  But this is just a delusion of the media.  They are lying to you.  All the problems in the world come from the myth of Aryan Supremacy.  If you don't believe in God, you think you are God.  And that is sin.

There are Latinos, Asians, and Jews who practice clean faith and live humble lives.  They are the real Israelites.  I hope I can grow my fanbase in South America.  I am sure I am a popular musician there.

So Music and Sport is what I enjoy.  So I will keep doing the work to get the play I want.  That is all I am trying to say.

It's Raining Cats and Dogs

It is fair to analogize that men are like dogs and women are like cats.  The counter-intuitive thing is always true.

Dogs are lovers, peaceful, gentle, and strong.  They are guardians.  They only fight if they have to, to defend their territory or protect their family.  A good man is like a dog.

Cats are by nature warlike.  They fight everyone, feel less emotion, hunt, kill, eat only meat, and spend a lot of time grooming and sleeping.  Cats are warriors.  If you move towards them, they run away, because most good warriors avoid violence unless they have no choice but to defend themselves.

The counter-intuitive thing is always true.  Cats are better fighters than Dogs pound for pound, but dogs are so big that cats seem like a joke in comparison.  But a 50 pound minx can eat a 50 pound pit bull.  Dogs are not a warlike species.  They are guardians, they are primarily designed for protection and living in a group.

God is love.  Dogs are better than Cats.  Dogs were the first domesticated animal, and cats were the last.  So Cats are the most wild.  They are the closest thing to nature in the modern world. 

Men should be like dogs.  Women can't help but be like cats.  They have power.  They don't actually fight with their fists, but they compete in nonviolent ways.  Women compete through appearance, through the status of their boyfriends, through money, through their job, and in other ways.  Women don't dress up to attract men, they dress up to compete with other women.

Women are losers.  But we need them.  In all manners, women are more barbaric than men.  Men are more obvious, they punch you in the face or they tell you fuck you.  But that is kid's stuff.  Women control sex and choose the man.  So we are all just competing for women.

Love is the best feeling in the world.  There is no true love, but there are good relationships and terrible relationships.  The woman chooses the man.  Porno and strippers is just an illusion, where the man chooses the woman and uses her like a lump of meat.

Dating is nothing like porno, sexchat, and strippers.  That is why I haven't dated much.  I can't beat women.  I don't understand their psychology.  Good lovers know how to manipulate women and win the war of the sexes. 

So if I want to learn how to date, I must learn female psychology.  These girls aint loyal.  I am tired of evil sex.  I am ready for a real relationship.  The fulfillment of life is the ideal marriage.  Not perfect, but ideal.  You will never find anything perfect. 

This blog post was an analogy and a study in duality.  I am trying to understand things.  I don't know why I post to this blog, I get nothing from it.  But at least people who read this blog get some education in morality and moral reasoning. 

If I was smart, I would promote my music and books and shut up.  But I am not smart.  I just want to have a ball.

How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying

The secret is to do a little bit every day. 

You must incorporate work into your daiy life.  We are not living in Paradise, you have to work.  Nobody gets a life of leisure.  It doesn't even feel good.  Life is about building up tension, releasing it, and letting it accumulate again.

The main skill in work is not how talented you are.  Talent does not matter.  The main skill is socializing.  If you can network, convince people you are important, make new friends, garner interest in what you are doing, etc.. you will be rich.

I have said this before.  Someone with intermediate talent but advanced business savvy will be rich.  Someone with master talent but no business savvy will die penniless and heartbroken.  That is what happened to Van Gogh. 

The main thing is business savvy.  And it is mostly about socializing.  If you are blunt, lack tact, too straightforward, or just confrontational you are not going to make it in business.  A businessman should be tactful and polite.  Kill 'em with kindness.

So it is possible to succeed in business.  Just find where your talents and the needs of the world intersect.  But you must be able to socialize.  With the internet, it has made socializing much easier.  You dont' need to be good looking, have a nice voice, or even be in the same room as a person to reach them.  Through social media, one can reach people in other parts of the country or world and create relationships.  Business is about creating relationships.

Nobody wants to buy things from a stranger.  Their resources are limited.  They want to create a relationship with the businessman.  A good businessman is like a Samurai, serving the communal good.  He wants to create a good reputation and keep them coming back for more. 

So it is easy to succeed in business these days.  Remote work, the internet, social media, the Adobe suite, and lots of other technologies makes our lives easier.  But it is not all improving.  Morally and Spiritually, we are more crapulent than ever.  Just because you have more stuff doesn't mean you are more happy.

So the future is not making more money and being more rich.  That's easy.  The future is moral education and spirituality.  This is what Tesla was aiming at when he invented all the technology we now take for granted.  He wanted people to have more time for philosophy and moral reasoning.  He didn't want more porno, MMA, weed, streetfights, and fatherless boys.  That was not his aim.

It is possible these days for anyone to succeed in business.  The internet is a great tool.  But don't let it consume your life.  You still need to eat, exercise, get out of the house, and interact.  The good side is, even socially limited people can work now.  I myself don't like dealing with people but find social media to be fun.  It is fake socializing. 

So it is possible to succeed in business without really trying.  First, you must be educated in the basics like English and computers.  Then you need a skill or hobby.  And finally, you need to learn how to schmooze.  If you can't socialize, you can't work.  Learn to socialize and sweet-talk people.

And then the money will come.

Work/Life Balance

This is what it is all about.  Once you turn 18, you are no longer a child and must make your own money.  It took me twice as long to reach maturity.  But that is not my fault.

In the real world, it is about money.  Money is worldly value.  Money has no intrinsic value, so the world has no intrinsic value.  But worldly life, about money and women, starts with generating income and managing your resources. 

I am starting to learn how to make money, budget, socialize, do self care, and do chores around my apartment.  I am becoming independent.  These skills were rudimentary until the past three years when I started publishing albums, selling articles, writing books, and publishing a nutrition blog on WordPress.  You got to start somewhere.

The secret to success is to do a little bit every day and never give up on yourself.  If you do something one hour per day, every day, for twenty years, you will be the master.  Twenty years is a generation, and also how long it takes to master something.  I mastered music and Judo. 

Now that grappling and combat sport is no longer age appropriate, I have to move on to other things.  Of course, I need a day job to pay the bills.  My degree is in graphic design, and that is why this blog is titled lioravnidesignwriter.  I write the designs and design the writings.  I am the author of what I create, when I create something, it is a product of my imagination.  That is what I like about creative work, it is productive and you are judged by how good what you create is, not what you are esteemed as.

Reputation doesn't matter in graphic design or music.  It does in TCM and Judo, but not in creative work. 

I am seeking work/life balance.  Nobody gets through life without work.  If you have done more than eat, sleep, and shit, you have done work.  And any skill can be monetized, even cooking a meal or driving a car.  I learned to drive at age 16 and I started cooking in my twenties, as an aside.

I began guitar lessons in 1995, and I began grappling in 1998.  But even before that, I have been writing all my life.  In the 1980s, when I was just a boy, I would write constantly, as if I carried something over from a previous birth.  My soul is very old.  My writings seem inspired.

When I was young, I liked GI Joe and knights in armor and King Arthur.  But as I entered teenage years, I began to like music and pornography and sports like judo and swimming.  Maybe the meaning of life is to come full circle and end where you started.  Youth is the most important part of life.  At the beginning of your life, you are weak and helpless and vulnerable, and also at the end.

So all of life is just a journey, and you end where you started.  That is why everyone loves music.  It is like a poem that starts at one place, goes through a bunch of changes, and ends on the one.  You end where you started.  The purpose of life is not to acquire more stuff, you will die anyway.  The purpose of life is to enjoy the journey. 

The Dalai Llama said, 'the meaning of life is to be happy and useful.'  That about sums it up.  If you have little, but are happy with it, and are productive to others besides yourself, then you have everything.  The results don't matter.  Evidence based science is garbage.  Money cannot buy happiness.  More women does not mean more happiness.  But as a human being, you have a body and must fulfill your base desires, like to eat and to have sex.  You also need to sleep and digest your food and excrete it.  But even an animal can eat, sleep, and shit. 

When you develop a desire in your mind, it leads to action, and an accumulation of action leads to experience.  Skill just means knowledge and experience in doing something.

So I aim for work/life balance and living in harmony.  I don't want an excessive amount of money or a multitude of relationships.  I just wan't fulfillment and to feel like I am not a slave.  Freedom is the unconditioned state.

So as I learn to survive, a I see that work/life balance is the ultimate thing.  A person without a job is a bit odd.  Everybody does some kind of work, even if they are limited and can only get money from the government and take care of themselves. 

So I continue to strive and grow.

Getting Along

I am learning how to survive on my own.  For the past 11 weeks, I have been in my own apartment.  I am paying rent and utilities, and with a little help from my family, I am getting along.  Life is not that hard.  The main skills for survival are budgeting and socializing.  It is not self defense.  No one is going to challenge you to a street brawl, and if they are intent on hurting you, they will use stealth and weapons so what can you even do?

Besides budgeting and socializing, one should know self care and chores.  I need to work on that, but I am learning anyway because I must learn.  Keeping a neat appearance, basic hygiene, and keeping a clean apartment makes you feel better about yourself.

Freud once said, "work and love, love and work, that's all that is."  He was right.  You do things for money or you do things for love.  Prostitutes literally make love for money.  But that is the lowest profession. 

I know in my life I can do certain things for money and certain things for love.  Most of all, I enjoy music, but I don't make much money from it.  I also enjoy grappling, especially the traditional kinds, Judo and Aikido.  But that also is not a big money maker. 

I have two degrees, one in Acupuncture, and the other in graphic design.  The typical Acupuncturist makes 100 dollars per hour, the average graphic designer makes 16 dollars per hour.  But Acupuncture is no longer an option.  So I have to take a big pay cut. 

But the good thing about the field of graphic design is, it is versatile, always in demand, there is flexibility in working online or onsite, and there is always continuing education.  It is the only real lucrative use of creativity in the modern world.  Not many people become rockstars or celebrity authors.  That is just a fantasy.

The thing is, success in business is not based on talent or merit.  It is based on guile.  To succeed in business, you must have tact, be able to socialize, be able to fake interest, and conform to society's expectations of you.  So some rich people are worthless punks and some poor people are exceptional geniuses.  This confirms the Christian worldview and tends to disprove Darwin and Evolution.  Success is not based on how good you are.  Nobody cares how good you are.

So I see these times as dark times and I become more religious as I age.  I still need food and sex, I have a body.  But I am becoming more spiritual and religious.  When this Corona virus thing lets up, I am going to the Church or Temple.  That's where the fun is.  In the same place, you can get religion, women, and music.  Just a different kind of religion, women, and music.  There are secular people, there are religious people, and there are spiritual people.

Spiritual people are best.  There is a kind of lived religion.  You don't absolutely need to go to Church to be a good person, but neither do you need to believe in atheism, evolution, Aryan supremacy, or survival of the fittest.  These are all wrong concepts.  And man is not meant to be a vegan.

The world is degrading as we approach Judgement Day.  People are less Christian, more antisemitic, and more tolerant towards Islam, which is a religion of conquest. 

Don't be antisemitic.  Try to understand a deeper Christianity.  And don't tolerate wrong religion like paganism, Islam, and Voodoo.  There is clean faith and unclean faith.  And then there is no faith, which is worthless.

So I am getting along and learning quickly things I should have learned twenty years ago.  But it is better late than never.  I am in my early 40s but look 30.  So I am not doomed.  I just wasted a lot of time.  20 years is a human generation.  You shouldn't waste 5 years let alone 20.  But I know that just like a song, you end where you started, with the rootnote.  So if my life started well, it will end well. 

My life began in zen and will end in zen.  So there is nothing lacking.