Nearly every martial arts teacher I’ve had in my almost 40 years of study has recommended the philosophy embodied in the famous Bruce Lee quote “Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.” Be yielding and supple, they say, roll with the punches rather than meeting them head on. This idea predates Bruce Lee, and he probably adopted it from the Taoist philosophy which formed the basis of his early theories on martial arts. The idea of bending in the wind is a popular one, and not only among martial artists. Business leaders and self help gurus often quote it, and there are even entire countries who base their foreign policy on this very concept. The phrase has become almost cliched, and few today question it. Yet, as someone who is by nature a bit more rigid, both physically and mentally, there is something in the idea behind the bamboo bending philosophy that doesn’t ring entirely true to me. So, I decided to look a bit deeper into the actual metaphor, both from a literal and philosophical perspective. If dear reader, you’ll indulge a little hyper literalism for moment, you might be surprised at what the different trees reveal about the best way to deal with life’s storms.
In a secluded corner of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, far from the famous dinosaur fossils, exquisite gems, and taxidermized wildlife, is a slice of a giant sequoia tree which lived for 1400 years before it was cut down. I first encountered this amazing piece of wood on an elementary school trip to the museum where it was used to show us how each ring in the wood represented a year in the tree’s life, and how the thickness of the individual rings revealed the climate and weather conditions over the years. At that point in my life, I had been camping with my dad a few times, but, being an urban, east coast kid, I had never seen a tree nearly the size of a California redwood. I remember being awed by that tree as much if not more than I had been by the T-Rex skeleton or the giant meteorite which highlight the museum’s collections.
It was this slice of sequoia tree that first led me to question my teacher’s advice to be like bamboo. The sequoia is a mighty tree, which lives a really long time, but it is hard and rigid. Surely, a tree that lived for a nearly a millennium and a half survived a few storms along the way.
But, perhaps, the sequoia is an outlier. It is, after all, not only the biggest tree in the world, but it also has a fire resistant bark, and it’s wood naturally preserves itself according to the Natural History Museum. It possesses singular advantages which set it apart from other trees. Another common martial arts saw is that there will always be someone bigger and stronger than you, and, in the realm of metaphor, surely the sequoia would represent that ultimate opponent.
What tree then would make a could foil for bamboo? Perhaps the oak tree, which has long born the Homeric epithet “mighty” in literature and proverbs. Oaks were voted the United State’s national tree, according to the Arbor Day Foundation, largely because they are the most common hardwood in the country.
The oak tree is known as mighty because it is strong and resilient, and because it, like the sequoia, is a hardwood, a tree that is rigid and which stands tall. The fact that it is a common tree and that it possesses these qualities make it a great foil for the bamboo tree for the purposes of this exercise.
Well, I looked it up, and it turns out the lifespan of the average oak tree ranges from 100-300, a far cry from the 1400 years of the AMNH sequoia. There are some shorter and long-lived species, and the lifetime of any individual tree may, of course, vary, but most oaks lives for centuries.
The average stalk of bamboo, on the other hand, lives a mere 7-10 years. A grove can live over 100 years, but if we’re using a grove, then we should be comparing it with a deciduous forest, which can last for thousands of years. Even the willow, which Bruce Lee mentioned along with the bamboo, lives 30-50 years, on average, much less than the oak tree.
If we’re taking things literally, it would appear that over the long run, one would be better off imitating the oak than the bamboo or the willow. While the wind and lightning may crack an individual tree before its time, but over the course of a lifetime, the more rigid trees seem to survive longer.
Of course, the above analysis is intentionally misunderstanding the quote to prove a point. There is a value in flexibility, especially in a situation like a fight where one may be overwhelmed by an opponent of greater power and force. But there is also a value in strength and conviction, in standing one’s ground and reaching toward the sky through the adversity. As I’ve written continuously in this space, there is always more than one way to succeed.
One’s natural attributes and predilections, along with the specific situation in which one finds oneself, will determine what the best path is for each one of us, and, of course, it will likely shift depending on the specific situation as well.
Bruce Lee knew this, too. In “Bridging the Gap Between Yin and Yang” he writes that his vision of gung fu “is always the ceaseless interplay of the two forces of gentleness and firmness. They are conceived as of essentially one, or as two coexisting forces of one individual whole.”
Even the bamboo retains some stiffness in the wind. It holds its shape and snaps back to its position after the wind is gone. Even the most rigid tree still have branches and leaves which sway in the wind.
The key is, as always, to find the measure of each which will allow you to succeed. And always question anything which is presented as dogma.
A. A. Rubin 