Be water, my friend

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless--like water.

Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup,

You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle,

You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.

Now water can *flow* or it can *crash*!

Be water, my friend.-- Bruce Lee

This is one of the first quotations that i admired a lot. The legendary Martial Artist and a film star, Bruce has brilliantly made use of one element and turn it into a teaching. Well, to be simple, the whole quotation explains the characteristics of water. Water, 水 , as we know is the element of life, an interesting element which can't be cut but can be contained. It can float, and it can also very well sink. To me, water, not being as hard as ice or as formless as steam is the true balance of the two extremes. In Martial Arts sense, balance is the key to all basics in winning a fight. The proper balance of weight, in Aikido, is the determination of the downfall of the strongest enemy one faces. In Karate, one must learn to balance speed and power in order to deliver a lightning-speed yet jaw-breaking strike. In the state of our mind, as a student, keeping the balance between being calm and responsive at the same time is always a battle during exam periods. We tend to be too pressured by the time we have to finish the paper and also be tormented by the questions we are facing. As everybody wants good results, the goal is to deliver answers accurately and fast. Finding the true balance in exams, for me, has not been succesful, to be honest. I sometimes wonder off and spend too much time on patheticly easy questions and find myself in a struggle for time to finish the last few. So in the end, the wrong balance of the two extremes lead to something Bruce Lee calls "crash". Do share your experience on balancing two extreme behavior or any comments on my post. With this i end my post with a wish to all , "Be water, my friend."