Bruce Lee is my preferred Martial Art master and sportsman. You can see here my version of him that I drew.
I especially love that quotation from him:
Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and 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.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms ; to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
– Victor Frankl
That powerful quotation is from the excellent and life-changing book Man’s search for meaning, by the Jewish psychiatrist Victor Frankl.
That article is to help you, people, I know among my readers there are people who are happy and successful, and others who suffer, have doubts and change jobs all the time, or worse.
I hope that after reading this on my blog you will feel not only recharged, but also will watch life from another perspective.
That book is exceptional, the writer, Victor Frankl, a famous Jewish psychiatrist, invented a doctrine of psychological survival.
And not based on theory. But on real practice. Victor Frankl survived for 3 years 5 Nazi concentration camps, including Aushwitz and Dachau.
He lost his parents, his pregnant wife and his brother in the Holocaust.
Victor Frankl survived one of the most inhuman treatment in human history.
Inside those horrible camps he was not only unbroken but even found a way to psychologically survive to all the horrors he was living.
His way of survival I am going to try to explain it to you briefly here. It is a doctrine that he invented in those death camps, it is called Logotherapy.
1) People must find meaning in their lives.
Searching a purpose and meaning in life is the only way for people to endure hardship and suffering.
Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the harshest ones.
Victor Frankl tells about prisoners who wanted to commit suicide and finally didn’t. How? They simply found a big reason to continue to live. Like a child to take care of in a foreign country or an important work to do.
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”,Yo
Friedrich Nietzsche
People deepest desire is to find meaning in their lives. If someone can find that meaning in his life he can survive anything. That’s Frankl doctrine.
Even in the worst situation possible, man always has the freedom to choose his attitude towards life.
2) For Victor Frankl there are 3 ways to find meaning in life
Love – caring for someone else.
Work – doing something significant.
Courage during difficult times.
Victor Franklin also explains that each person is unique, and has a unique task to do in that world that no other can fulfill.
If a man can not find meaning in his life he can develop mental problems.
Frankl describes prisoners who died more by lack of hope or lack of reason to live than by lack of food and medicine.
3) Suffering is meaningless, it is how we react to it that is important.
Victor Frankl explains that people are more than the result of their environment.
For him everyone can choose, not matter what circumstances are, what will become of him mentally and also spiritually.
He writes that the kind of person you are is a result of your own decision rather than your situation, and that suffering with courage is a real achievement.
“It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and personal.”
Man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or theShema Yisraelon his lips.
– Victor Frankl
Victor Frankl method helped him to survive hell on Earth. He transmitted it to us so we can live better lives with meaning.
Bruce Lee followed a strict diet plan that any fitness freak would be proud of. If you want to follow his healthy lifestyle, then this article is for you.
Who has not heard of Bruce Lee, the legend of martial arts, a warrior and high-level sportsman and movie star!
Bruce Lee is a legend, decades after his death he remains an icon of popular culture.
Do you know he is the most popular Chinese man in China today, after Confucius?
In the world of martial arts he is still admired and adulated. He even invented his own martial art the Jeet Kune Doo.
His diet was based on Chinese food, protein shakes and vitamin supplements.
In order to remain fast and muscled with a low body fat Bruce Lee didn’t eat junk food.
Bruce Lee diet Tip 1: eat Chinese food
Bruce Lee favorite food was Chinese. Asian dishes are more balanced and put the emphasis on carbohydrates from rice, noodles and vegetables while western food is too much about proteins and fat.
Bruce Lee preferred dish was beef in oyster sauce.
Check out that book on Amazon for easy Chinese food recipes.
Eat Chinese Food like Bruce Lee!
Bruce Lee diet Tip 2: Don’t eat empty calories
Bruce Lee referred to refined flour as empty calories. He didn’t eat cakes, biscuits and pastries. He only ate calories useful to his body.
Bruce Lee Diet Tip 3: Avoid dairy Food
Bruce Lee hated dairy Food like many Chinese. He didn’t understand how people in the western world can eat cheese. Lee used powdered milk for his milk shakes.
Bruce Lee diet Tip 4: smaller meals more often
Bruce Lee would consume four or five smaller meals a day instead of three large meals in order not to gain weight.
He would also eat fruits throughout the day to boost his metabolism.
Bruce Lee diet Tip 5: protein shakes
Bruce Lee was drinking a protein shake every morning, proteins are essential to build muscle mass.
His milkshakes were made with the following ingredients :
Royal jelly is the queen honey, a very powerful aliment with 18 different amino acids among other good things.
Ginseng is a popular Chinese drink which has many purposes. It is vitalizing and stimulating the body, and helps to recover more quickly.
Bruce Lee main drink was tea.
Bruce Lee diet Tip 8 : drink fruit and vegetable juice
He would put carrots and vegetables in a blender. That kind of juices is very rich in vitamins and nutrients.
Fruits were also used for the same reason.
As you can see after reading my article, it is not for nothing that Bruce Lee not only looked extremely fit but was also the best in martial arts and a movie star.
He was so disciplined and dedicated to his art that even the way he ate reflected his way of doing things.
A perfectionist, everything he ate had to help him in his training, otherwise it was simply not eaten!
He was way ahead of his time, in the 60’s and 70’s his methods were unorthodox.
Bruce Lee remains one of my preferred characters, his self discipline, courage, extreme fitness and mastery in martial arts made him the legend he is today.
Dan Assuied
Bruce Lee eat like him with those 8 tips. An exemple if fitness and strength.
How do inmates train? It is impossible not to notice the excellent physical shape of most of the inmates in the US prisons.
There is even a fashionable “Convict conditioning” manual to teach how to train like them.
I must specify that my article is about the prisoners in the United States, prisoners in third world countries eat so little that they can not even hope to remain healthy, let alone gain muscle.
Many weightlifters often wonder and ask in forums questions like “how do prisoners become so muscled, what is their secret?”
After all they are locked up all day, their food is not great, they do not take supplements, some prisons do not even have barbells and they workout every day with no days off.
In fact what these prisoners do is exactly the opposite of what is recommended in the bodybuilding magazines and in the gyms !
Those magazines advise to eat at least 1 gram of protein per kg of body weight, not to train more than 3 or 4 times a week and to take supplements.
They also add that you should exercise only one or two muscle groups per workout and once a week.
If the advice of these magazines was so good then why we don’t see muscular guys everywhere?
That proves that the training advice of those magazines is wrong.
American inmates do NOT follow any of these bodybuilding magazines advice, yet their excellent results speak for themselves!
With money it is possible to buy drugs and even steroids in prison. Of course not openly, but for the wealthiest prisoners it is possible. Nevertheless most of the inmates can’t afford it, and not every prison has corrupted staff.
Now that you read my article you know what to do to get in top shape!
Barney Ross was one of the greatest Jewish boxers of all time who also met Al Capone and became a hero of World War II.
What a life! That’s not for nothing that today on my blog I decided to write about him!
He was not supposed to become a boxer.
His father was a Rabbi and Barney Ross ambition was to become a Yeshiva student but his life changed forever when he became an orphan.
His father was murdered by a thug in the hold up of his small grocery store.
His mother then suffered a serious nervous breakdown and Barney brothers and sisters were sent to an orphanage.
At the age of 14 Barney Ross decided to provide for himself and his family.
He began to hang out with the tough guys in his neighborhood and became a street brawler.
He even tried to work for AL Capone, who sent him home because he did not want him to become a gangster.
The goal of Dov Rosofsky (Barney Ross) was to make enough money to reunite his family.
So he chose boxing for that because it was a very popular sport then, and began to train.
Barney Ross terror of the rings and world champion
Dov Rosofsky chose the name Barney Ross because he did not want his mother to know that he was boxing.
Thanks to his speed, strength and determination to save his family, he won fight after fight, became a pro and the terror of the rings at the age of 19.
The 1930s were the era of Hitler the monster and his Nazis.
Barney Ross then decided to box with a star of David on his shorts to show the world and the Nazis that the Jews know how to fight.
Barney Ross became world champion in 3 weight classes, which is very rare in the history of boxing.
In 81 fights he was never Knocked Down. Ross stopped his boxing career with 72 wins, 4 losses and 5 draws.
He won 22 fights by knocking down his opponents.
He was recently chosen by the very prestigious Ring Magazine as number 21 among the 80 best boxers of the last 80 years !!! A legend!
Barney Ross retired from the boxing world at the age of 32. But his story is not over.
Barney Ross in the Marines
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Barney Ross decides to join the US Marines to fight for his country.
The Marines, because he was famous, did not want to send him to fight. They wanted him to stay in the US to train the Marines.
Barney Ross insisted to be sent in combat. He knocked out a Marine officer who had made an anti-Semitic remark.
Court martialed he was not punished but sent to fight. Exactly what Barney Ross wanted …
Barney Ross fought with the 8th Marines in the very hard battle of Guadalcanal against the Japanese army in the Pacific.
It was one of the toughest battles in the history of the Marines and the US Army.
One night Barney and three comrades were on patrol when they were attacked by Japanese soldiers.
His three comrades were wounded and Ross put them in a shell hole and protected them all night.
During this long and bloody night, he fired 200 rounds at the enemy who kept attacking.
When his cartridges were finished, he threw 22 grenades at them, all alone and in the dark night.
He was so sure he was going to die that he kept saying the Hebrew prayer “Shema Israel” all night long while fighting and shooting at the same time.
In the morning the Marines coming to help found him alive, with the bodies of 22 Japanese soldiers that he killed in battle alone against them all !
Two of his colleagues died during the night from their wounds, and he saved the third one by carrying him on his back.
For his heroism he won the Silver Star, the Purple Heart, and a Presidential reward.
Drug addiction defeated
He was sent to the hospital for injuries he sustained during the night and because of the malaria he got, he was treated with morphine.
He became because of that medical treatment a morphine addict back in the US. And spent $ 500 a day to take drugs.
He succeeded thanks to his iron will to beat his drug addiction.
Barney Ross then sent weapons to the young state of Israel fighting for its independance and decided to go there to fight for it.
The State Department didn’t let him do that.
Barney Ross died of Cancer in his hometown Chicago at the age of 57.
His greatest pride was that he succeeded in reuniting his family.
People often tell me that they never saw a muscled writer. My answer to them is that they never saw Yukio Mishima, writer, bodybuilder and modern samurai!
He spent the last fifteen years of his life lifting weights and working out.
When he was ready he made photos of him with a sword in hand to show the world the results.
But Mishima was a skinny and boring Japanese writer…
WRONG !
An ex-skinny guy who, thanks to bodybuilding his passion that he practiced 3 times a week became muscular and fit.
He went from wimp to stud ! Look at his photo!
Yukio Mishima the writer transformed his body thanks to bodybuilding.
Mishima was one of the greatest Japanese writers of all times and his books are tranlated in many languages.
He also had a private army of 100 men!
He wanted Japan to leave that wimpy modern world and become again a Samurai society!
He joined the Japanese army also, but I won’t tell you more about his fascinating life, I don’t want to spoil the excellent biography about him.
Yukio Mishima also changed himself inwardly thanks to bodybuilding. He explains here in his excellent book Sun and Steel why bodybuilding changed his life.
With courage and tenacity this ex-skinny guy managed to become a beast!
“But I have bad genetics!”
So what?
Stop finding excuses for doing nothing. Mishima also at the start was nothing like an Arnold !!!!
For all the discouraged guys who read me and cry and think they are too skinny to progress, if Mishima managed to turn into a muscled guy you also can !
Look at his photo he is well built and a natural bodybuilder.
Mishima loved bodybuilding so much that when he get married he told his wife before the wedding that she mustn’t bother him 3 times a week when he goes to the gym!
Follow his example for fitness the will power is more important than genetics. He was the living proof for that.
He trained like a beast to make such a progress.
Mishima and bodybuilding … without bodybuilding he would never have developed his physical and mental strength and wouldn’t have become a modern samurai!
Now go to train!
No more excuses!
No, the dumbbells will not get lifted by themselves!
Don’t you see? The dumbbells make fun of you they think you are a lazy and fat slob unable to lift them!
They say he will never lift me, he’s watching TV all day eating ice cream instead.
So lift them! Again and again, clenched teeth, suffer in silence.
Add push ups , and pulls ups, one more, and another, again and again.
Think of Mishima, from skinny and frailed guy to that beast, a Samurai!
Edward Limonov what a life! underground poet in Russia, penniless artist in New York, trendy writer in Paris, politician and prisoner in Russia! Discover the life of this magnificent bastard and writer.
Do you know Edward Limonov? He is a Russian writer, the best I’ve read, the other Russian writers make me want to sleep, too old-fashioned.
I read almost all his books but you do not care and you’re right.I’m going to talk about him instead on my blog that’s more interesting.
Limonov, underground poet in Russia
He was a thug in his teenage years, Limonov grew up in the city of Kharkov his hometown in the former USSR, Russia today.
At that time it was an Empire that scared the world.Limonov wrote about his years of delinquency in “Self-portrait of a bandit in his adolescence”.”A little bastard” tells about his years as a worker in a foundry and his love affairs are always a little gloomy and not sincere.
Limonov, delinquent, underground poet under Brezhnev and dissident, is expelled from his homeland by the authorities, to the despair of his parents whose father was an officer in the Russian army.
Limonov, years of trouble in New York
So here is Edward Limonov in exile in NYC with his wife, an icy Russian beauty, for those who love that kind of women.
His wife does not support poverty, and not her husband either, she even dumps him. And here is our Edward in New York broke, living in a dirty and filthy hotel, drinking cheap wine that burns and eating onky cabbage soup every day, because it is cheap and can be stored without a fridge.
He wrote inspired by his memories and years of struggle in New York “Le poète russe préfère les grands negres” which made him famous and allowed him to get out of his hard life. He also wrote the unforgettable “Journal of a missed ” .
He spits his hatred in often magnificent pages, of the ultra-capitalist Western society that turns people into robots who think only of making money.
Limonov consoles himself with less brilliant amours, tanned and wearing only white clothes, handsome and elegant although completely broke. But always with a knife in his boot, a habit of his years of delinquency in Russia.
He lives his poverty with class and elegance, and gets a tan by lifting weights on the roof of his building, living from meager American allowances and continuing to write.
Limonov trendy writer in Paris
He is refused by all the American publishers but one day luck smiles at him, and Paris takes him by the hand.
Why Paris? Because it is in my hometown that he found a publisher! And here is Edouard Limonov living in Paris, in a room in the Marais.
Quickly he becomes the darling of Parisian intellectuals and is even invited him to TV shows.
Limonov, always provocative, arrives at the TV show, dressed in the uniform of his father as an officer of the Red Army.
The intellectuals adopt it, his books are sold. He becomes overnight a trendy writer in Paris!
Very disciplined, he imposes himself every morning one hours of push ups and dumbbells, before writing every day 7 hours in a row. Then walk around Paris.
Limonov support for Serbia
Edward Limonov could have remained like that, stay in Paris and enjoy his media glory and continue to live from his pen.
Well no.
Faithful to himself and to his convictions as an adventurer and man of action, he chose in the midst of the war in Yugoslavia, to take sides with the Serbs.
We can even see him on the spot, shooting with the Serbian army with a heavy machine-gun.
Watch it here on Youtube.
The cameras of the French television film it. It will cost him his Parisian career, because the intellectuals there, anti-Serbs, will not forgive him his muscular pro-Serb commitment.
Limonov returns to Russia, political commitment
Edward Limonov, full of contempt for the Parisian nomenklatura, returns to Russia, because as the USSR collapsed, he sees a national destiny there and creates his own national political party.
He will even be arrested by Putin, who does not stand his competition, and thrown in prison for arms trafficking, attempted coup in Khazakstan and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
In prison, despite his age, Edward Limonov continues his daily routine of pushups and even writes some books inside the jail including “My prisons”.
He will come out of prison after 2 years and not after the required 14 years.
In France Edward Limonov well forgotten and whose books were selling 1 euro in the Latin Quarter (yes I bought them there) became popular again thanks to the biography of Emmanuel Carrère “Limonov”.
His new books are even translated into French, and the untraceable old ones are republished.
Edward Limonov, happy, finally took his revenge on the small Parisian world that boycotted him since his support for Serbia.
And I’m happy, I’m proud to have told you about one of my favorite writers.
Barney Ross était un des plus grands boxeurs juifs de tous les temps qui a connu le gangster Al Capone et est devenu un héros de la deuxième guerre mondiale.
Barney Ross (Dov Rosofsky) était un boxeur pas comme les autres dans les années 1930 car absolument rien ne le destinait à devenir boxeur.
Son père était un Rabbin qui a émigré aux États-Unis après avoir survécu de justesse à un pogrom en Russie.
Il nourrissait sa famille grâce à une modeste épicerie qu’il avait ouvert à Chicago dans le quartier juif de la ville.
L’ambition de Barney Ross était de devenir un étudiant en Yeshiva mais sa vie changea pour toujours lorsqu’il devint orphelin.
Son père a été assassiné par un voyou dans le hold up de sa petite épicerie.
Sa mère effondrée de chagrin fit une grave dépression nerveuse, fut hospitalisée et les frères et sœurs de Barney placés en orphelinat.
A l’âge de 14 ans Barney Ross devait subvenir seul à ses besoins et à ceux de sa famille.
Il commença à fréquenter les durs de son quartier, devint un bagarreur de rues et un voleur.
Il essaya même de travailler pour AL Capone, qui le renvoya chez lui en lui disant qu’il ne voulait pas qu’il devienne gangster comme lui.
Le but de Dov Rosofsky (Barney Ross) était de gagner assez d’argent pour pouvoir réunir sa famille.
Il choisit donc la boxe par nécessité plus que par choix car c’était un sport extrêment populaire à son époque, et commença à s’entraîner.
Barney Ross terreur des rings et champion du monde
Dov Rosofsky choisit le nom de Barney Ross car il ne voulait pas que sa mère sache qu’il boxait.
Grâce à sa rapidité, sa force et sa volonté sans faille de sauver sa famille, il gagna combat après combat, passa professionnel et devint la terreur des rings à l’âge de 19 ans.
Les années 1930 étaient l’époque du monstre nazi Hitler.
Barney Ross choisit alors de boxer avec une étoile de David sur son short pour montrer au monde et aux nazis que oui les Juifs savent se battre.
Barney Ross réussit l’exploit de devenir champion du monde dans 3 catégories de poids, ce qui est très rare dans l’histoire de la boxe.
En 81 combats il ne fut jamais mis K.O et ses combats attiraient jusqu’à 50 000 spectateurs.
Ross arrêta sa carrière de boxeur avec 72 victoires, 4 défaites et 5 matchs nuls.
Il a gagné 22 combats en mettant K.O ses adversaires.
Vous pouvez voir un de ses meilleurs combat ici sur Youtube.
Il a été consacré récemment par le très prestigieux Ring Magazine numéro 21 parmi les 80 meilleurs boxeurs des 80 dernières années !!! Une légende!
Barney Ross prit sa retraite du monde de la boxe à l’âge de 32 ans. Mais son histoire n’est pas finie.
Barney Ross chez les Marines
Suite à l’attaque japonaise sur Pearl Harbor et l’entrée des États-Unis dans la seconde guerre mondiale, Barney Ross décide de s’engager dans les US Marines pour se battre pour son pays.
Les Marines, dû à sa célébrité, ne voulaient pas l’envoyer au combat mais plutôt qu’il reste aux États-Unis et l’utiliser dans des films de propagande pour remonter le moral de la population.
Barney Ross insista pour être envoyé au combat. Il mit KO un officier des Marines qui lui avait fait une remarque antisémite.
Envoyé en court martiale et jugé, il ne fut pas puni mais envoyé au combat. Exactement ce que Barney Ross souhaitait…
Barney Ross s’est battu avec le 8eme Marines dans la très dure bataille de Guanalcanal contre l’armée japonaise dans le Pacifique.
Ce fut une des batailles les plus dures dans l’histoire des Marines et de l’armée américaine.
Une nuit lui et 3 camarades étaient en patrouille lorsqu’ils ont été attaqués par les soldats japonais.
Ses 3 camarades furent blessés et Ross les mit dans un trou d’obus et les a protégé toute la nuit.
Pendant cette longue et sanglante nuit, il a tiré 200 cartouches sur l’ennemi qui n’arrêtait pas d’attaquer.
Quand ses cartouches furent terminées, il leur a jeté 22 grenades dans leur direction, tout cela tout seul et dans la nuit noire.
Il était tellement sûr qu’il allait mourir qu’il n’arrêtait pas de réciter la prière en hébreu “Shema Israël” toute la nuit sans interruption en se battant en même temps.
Au matin ses collègues Marines venant le secourir le découvrent vivant, avec autour de lui les corps de 22 soldats japonais qu’il a tué au combat seul contre eux tous, durant cette nuit mémorable.
Deux de ses collègues sont morts dans la nuit des suites de leurs blessures, et il a réussi a sauver le troisième en le portant sur son dos.
Pour ses exploits il a gagné la Silver Star, la Purple Heart, et une citation Présidentielle.
L’addiction à la drogue vaincue
Envoyé à l’hôpital suite aux blessures qu’il a reçu pendant cette nuit et à cause de la malaria qu’il a attrapé, il a été soigné avec de la morphine.
Il est devenu à cause de ça complément accro à la morphine de retour aux États-Unis. Et dépensait 500 dollars par jour pour se droguer.
Il a réussi grâce à sa volonté de fer à vaincre cette dépendance, et faisait le tour des écoles pour encourager les jeunes américains à ne jamais se droguer.
Il a travaillé sans relâche à essayer d’acheter des armes et à les envoyer pour soutenir le jeune état d’Israel dans sa lutte pour son indépendance.
Il a aussi essayé de créer un Corps de vétérans juifs de la deuxième guerre mondiale afin de les envoyer se battre pour Israël mais ça a été bloqué par le Département d’Etat.
Barney Ross est décédé du cancer dans sa ville de Chicago à l’âge de 57 ans.
Sa plus grande fierté a été de sortir sa famille et sa mère de la misère grâce à la boxe.
