A centipede walked along in the forest, going about his business.
He came across a man, who asked him in passing: “How do you walk so fast with so many legs?”
As the centipede thought about the question, he tripped and fell.
For a moment, the centipede lay on the ground, confused. But he quickly forgot the incident and was back on his way.
In 1967, Bruce Lee gave an interview to the Springfield Union News. He told them a variation of the above story. The point was to illustrate the ideal of fluidity any Kung Fu student should strive for.
“Gung Fu means an empty mind. Not just thinking about nothingness, which still implies thinking,” Lee said. “Life should be a natural process, in which the development of the mind is not allowed to throw the natural flow of life out of balance.”
A centipede can run at the human speed-equivalent of 67 kilometers per hour—but not while he’s thinking about how to do it. There’s a time to think, and a time to flow. Don’t try to explain the magic while you’re performing it.
