The Way of the Dragon

This is a SERIOUSLY INSPIRING anecdote I got from 'Bruce Lee: The Art of Expressing the Human Body'.. I read this quite a while ago and wanted to post it up earlier, but was too lazy to locate the exact text.. Alas, here it is:

Stirling Silliphant (a student of Lee's) relates an interesting story that perfectly embodies Lee's attitude toward progressive resistance in cardiovascular training, as well as his refusal to let a person - in this case, Silliphant - underestimate his own physical potential:

Bruce had me up to 3 miles a day, really at a good pace. We'd run the 3 miles in 21 or 22 minutes. Just under 8 minutes a mile [Note: When running on his own in 1968, Lee would get his time down to 6.5 minutes per mile]. So this morning he said to me "We're going to go 5." I said "Bruce, I cant go 5. I'm a helluva lot older than you are, and I cant do 5." He said, "When we get to 3, we'll shift gears and its only 2 more and you'll do it." I said "Okay, hell, I'll go for it."

So we get to 3, we go into the 4th mile, and Im okay for 3 or 4 minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I'm tired, my heart's pounding, I cant go anymore and so I say to him, "Bruce if I run any more" - and we're still running - "if I run any more I'm liable to have a heart attack and die." He said, "Then die."

It made me so mad that I went the full 5 miles. Afterward I went into the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know, "Why did you say that?" He said, "Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it'll spread over into the rest of your life. It'll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level."

Thought-provoking, aint it?