There are no limits?

[Xue Sheng]

I realize Bruce Lee (if he did actually say this) said this no later than his early 30s, and likely, in my early 30s, I would have agreed, but in my early 50s I am not so sure.

If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. - Bruce Lee

Do you feel that you can do anything if you truly set your mind to it? That the reasons you cannot or will not all come from self imposed limits?

 

[Dirty Dog]

When people claim that nothing is impossible, I usually invite them to ski through a revolving door while dribbling a football.


Sent from an old fashioned 300 baud acoustic modem by whistling into the handset. Not TapaTalk. Really.

 

[Xue Sheng]

When people claim that nothing is impossible, I usually invite them to ski through a revolving door while dribbling a football.


Sent from an old fashioned 300 baud acoustic modem by whistling into the handset. Not TapaTalk. Really.

PFFHT!!! I do that all the time.

But he did not say "nothing is impossible". He is saying there is no limit to what we can do, the only limits are those we place upon ourselves. It is somewhat of a Buddhist thought actually. But sitting here and typing with an arthritic hip says my days of kicks over my head are over and I think that is an actual limit from a medical condition, not a self imposed limit.

But still there are limits I tend to place on myself based on age that may or may not be a true limitation

 

[Dirty Dog]

PFFHT!!! I do that all the time.

But he did not say "nothing is impossible". He is saying there is no limit to what we can do, the only limits are those we place upon ourselves. It is somewhat of a Buddhist thought actually. But sitting here and typing with an arthritic hip says my days of kicks over my head are over and I think that is an actual limit from a medical condition, not a self imposed limit.

But still there are limits I tend to place on myself based on age that may or may not be a true limitation

Video, or it never happened.
And the statement remains false. Physiology and physics place limits on us.
It's a nice philosophy, absolutely. But it's not true.



Sent from an old fashioned 300 baud acoustic modem by whistling into the handset. Not TapaTalk. Really.

 

[Danny T]

I believe it is more a conceptual thing. Just over a hundred years ago man could not fly.

 

[hoshin1600]

of course some things are impossible but you may be taking the quote out of context. we do limit ourselves so much more than we realize.
"what ever the mind can conceive and believe the mind can achieve" Napolean Hill author of Think and grow rich.
"99 % of all failure is due to giving up, i dont give mental recognition to the possibility of failure" Paul J. Myers
i could mention 100 successful people who say the same thing over and over, that most things we think we cant do we actually can, its just that we limit ourselves and our thoughts therefore we cant do it.
i think it depends on what you are talking about ..and yes someone somewhere probably could ski thru a revolving door dribbling a football, they would just have to come up with a plan on how to do it and then follow that plan, given enough time and resources it could happen. Paul J Myers became a top ranked tennis player while in his 60's with no prior tennis experience ..just because someone told him he couldnt be a tennis pro and he wanted to prove that yes you CAN do anything.

 

[Xue Sheng]

of course some things are impossible but you may be taking the quote out of context. we do limit ourselves so much more than we realize.
"what ever the mind can conceive and believe the mind can achieve" Napolean Hill author of Think and grow rich.
"99 % of all failure is due to giving up, i dont give mental recognition to the possibility of failure" Paul J. Myers
i could mention 100 successful people who say the same thing over and over, that most things we think we cant do we actually can, its just that we limit ourselves and our thoughts therefore we cant do it.
i think it depends on what you are talking about ..and yes someone somewhere probably could ski thru a revolving door dribbling a football, they would just have to come up with a plan on how to do it and then follow that plan, given enough time and resources it could happen. Paul J Myers became a top ranked tennis player while in his 60's with no prior tennis experience ..just because someone told him he couldnt be a tennis pro and he wanted to prove that yes you CAN do anything.

I tend ot agree, we do limit ourselves much more than we realize. And I am beginning to believe that these limits, although self-imposed, come from a social belief as to what we can, or should be doing or not doing at certain stages of our lives. Example, in China, if you are retired and you are playing basket ball, or baseball or soccer...well your crazy, you're to old for that..... but it is ok to be training Changquan into your 90s.

I am over 1/2 a century old, have old injuries that I still feel from time to time and arthritis. Now I do have limitation based on that, but I am beginning to believe not all the limitation I have placed on myself are true limitations but more a limitation based on what society believes I should and should not due based on age, injury and conditions.

 

[FlowingFist]

I liked the philosphy about balance which I think was from Chen Village
'IF YOU ARE TOO SOFT YOU DON'T PROGRESS AND IF YOU ARE TOO HARD YOU GRIND YOURSELF DOWN'

 

[Xue Sheng]

meanwhile I'm still thinking.......

All of this has got me thinking

 

[Xue Sheng]

After much thinking about this I realize I had a big self-imposed limit I placed on myself when I stopped Xingyiquan because I was to old and to beat-up to continue training with without injuring myself. So I took a long look at what I was doing and how I was doing it and decided to approach it differently so I put Xingyiquan back in and so far so good. I also think my interest in Yiquan has something to do with it as well. But it is interesting, I took Xingyiquan completely out of my training and I stuck with just Taijiquan and I would work on Taijiquan and learn and enjoy it but things have been feeing different overall (another thing I attributed to age), Slowly adding Xingyiquan back in and I have more energy during the day, want to exercise more, eat better and overall just feel better (which is something any addict would say). It seems to have impacted just about every part of my day in one way or another in a positive way..... Strange

 

[mograph]

Overestimating our limits?
Learned helplessness - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[geezer]

I liked the philosphy about balance which I think was from Chen Village
'IF YOU ARE TOO SOFT YOU DON'T PROGRESS AND IF YOU ARE TOO HARD YOU GRIND YOURSELF DOWN'

This is so true. The trick is to find that balance. Personally, I tend to vacillate between extremes. First, I left the MA completely for many years, and devolved into a couch potato. Eventually when I was in my early fifties, I got fed up with being heavy and in poor physical condition and began running and hiking, lifting, and practicing MA again. After about six months I became "addicted to training" and within a year or so, I got stronger than I'd been in years.

But after a couple of years I was overtraining to the point of repeatedly injuring myself. Injured hands and elbows from punching the wall-bag up to 5,000 times a session, injured shoulders from trying to bench over my own body weight with dumbells and things like doing up to 50 pull-ups and 130 push-ups in each set, and so on.

Well here's a reality check. Your body does have limits. If you ignore these, you will pay the consequences. Especially as you move into your mid fifties and beyond. I ended up with some serious joint issues, and herniated disks in my back. I ended up selling my weights and had to give up running. My knees and ankles are not in good shape and, regarding the ankles, three top specialists have basically told me that there's nothing to be done. Either exercise or sit around on my duff. Either way, I gotta live with the pain.

In fact I got so disillusioned that I got fat and out of shape again ...up to a point. I'm still determined to advance in both the Martial arts I now train, and if time permits I'd still like to get into BJJ if I can work around my physical limitations. I'm NOT old, but I am 60 and have to work with that.

Regarding limits... don't set limits in your mind, but do work respecting the physical limits of your body. Sometimes those physical limitations can actually help you in unexpected ways. As a sixteen year-old kid, I assisted my older brother teaching a summer rock climbing class at Dartmouth College where he was a student. I remember him pointing out how one of his best students was a girl with limited upper body strength. Unlike some of the strongest guys in the class, she had to use good technique, flexibility, and leg strength to master certain bouldering problems. Same works for the Martial arts. Sometimes your "handicaps" can be the key to your strengths.

 

[punisher73]

Alot of Bruce's "philosophy" ideas sound good, but in reality don't exactly match reality.

This from the same person who said that only about 1 in 10,000 could do his art.

 

[hoshin1600]

Alot of Bruce's "philosophy" ideas sound good, but in reality don't exactly match reality.

This from the same person who said that only about 1 in 10,000 could do his art.

I think I mentioned before that you can't take something that someone says and pull it out of context. Without context anything someone says can mean whatever you want, good or bad. In the media it's called "spin". I wouldn't take a quote on face value I would always ask...what did he mean by saying that.

 

[JohnnyEnglish]

I realize Bruce Lee (if he did actually say this) said this no later than his early 30s, and likely, in my early 30s, I would have agreed, but in my early 50s I am not so sure.



Do you feel that you can do anything if you truly set your mind to it? That the reasons you cannot or will not all come from self imposed limits?

I think what Bruce Lee means by this sentence is not that your human body has no limits, what he means is, that you should always try to ignore your limit to advance your actual limit.

For example: You are doing Push-ups, and you say, uhhh I can't do more than 50 pushups, it hurts. You start and you actually stop by 50 because you think you can't take the pain anymore, Bruce Lee wants you to NOT accept and not see this limit, you should still do more pushups, until you are seriously NOT able to do more. Same for martial arts, train as hard as you can, not as hard as you want.


Well, this is my personal understanding of this sentence. Sure I could understand it totally wrong.

 

[JowGaWolf]

The truth about limits is to recognize which ones you control and which ones are out of your control. A blind man cannot see but it doesn't mean that he cannot read. Martial arts is the same way. A person may not be able to do the high kicks or flips at the age of 50 but it doesn't mean that he cannot do Martial arts. Too many times we limit ourselves by defining one element as the whole, people say things like, "I can't do martial arts because I'm not flexible." without understanding that flexibility by itself does not make a martial art. People are the same way with technology and instantly say that they are two old to understand so they get their kids or grandchildren to do it. The fact is that it can't be too difficult because kids are using it. The reason we can't do most things is because we get in our own way.

 

[greytowhite]

After much thinking about this I realize I had a big self-imposed limit I placed on myself when I stopped Xingyiquan because I was to old and to beat-up to continue training with without injuring myself. So I took a long look at what I was doing and how I was doing it and decided to approach it differently so I put Xingyiquan back in and so far so good. I also think my interest in Yiquan has something to do with it as well. But it is interesting, I took Xingyiquan completely out of my training and I stuck with just Taijiquan and I would work on Taijiquan and learn and enjoy it but things have been feeing different overall (another thing I attributed to age), Slowly adding Xingyiquan back in and I have more energy during the day, want to exercise more, eat better and overall just feel better (which is something any addict would say). It seems to have impacted just about every part of my day in one way or another in a positive way..... Strange

Yeah xingyi is great for getting some yang back in the mix. I find that I have to modify how I practice considerably from how my gong fu brother does. Sifu is perfectly OK with this because no one else knows my body as well as I do. My steps are far shorter and stances higher than sihing's as my knees and back are that of a much older man's. Once my gong fu brother bitched at me that I wasn't going as low and my response was, "Try that without a ligament on the side of your knee and get back to me."

 

[Xue Sheng]

Overestimating our limits?
Learned helplessness - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

FLASHBACK!!!!!

Reminds me of a college Psychology course I took with a rat study...... so..... you're saying I'm a rat then...is that it

 

[Xue Sheng]

Yeah xingyi is great for getting some yang back in the mix. I find that I have to modify how I practice considerably from how my gong fu brother does. Sifu is perfectly OK with this because no one else knows my body as well as I do. My steps are far shorter and stances higher than sihing's as my knees and back are that of a much older man's. Once my gong fu brother bitched at me that I wasn't going as low and my response was, "Try that without a ligament on the side of your knee and get back to me."

My problem is I learned the lower stances and I used them for a long time. But I work slowly these days to train myself to higher stances and to pay very close attention on alignment. And I have discovered that with proper alignment and rooting the height of the stance does not matter, you can produce the same power in a properly aligned higher stance.

Did Xingyiquan 5 elements with power last night in a very different order (Heng, Beng, Pi, Pao, Zuan) than originally taught (Pi, Zuan, Beng Pao, Heng) and it was great. I do have some minor right knee and right hip issues this morning but I am not jumping to conclusions like I have done in the past, keeping in mind the "There are no limits" way of looking at this. So I am waiting to see if this knee and hip issue is strengthening or damaging, but either way, I'm not pushing it. Just taking it slow.