This is an excerpt from a letter grandmaster Lee wrote to bok fu do black belt, brandi piacente, in 1991. Enjoy!

“Growth is a process of responding positively to change.grappling with hardships, trouble and calamity. Facing adversity in a spirit of loving determination and courage, not being crushed by broken hopes, having done our best – this is growth.

The power to hold on is spite of everything, to endure – this is the winner’s quality, black belt thinking. Persistence is the ability to face defeat again and again without giving up – to push on in the face of great difficulty, this is black belt thinking. And it means taking pains to overcome every obstacle, to do all that’s necessary to reach our goals. Successful black belt men and women keep moving. they make mistakes, but they don’t quit.

If i had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that i regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, i would pick the trait of persistence, determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, “here goes number seventy-one.”

I do not think there is any other quality as essential to a black belt and success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature. success seems to be largely a matter of handing on after all others have let go.”

BOK FU FITNESS

Warm Up:

2 times:

2 minutes of jogging in place, after every 20 seconds do a 10 second sprint

50 jump rope jumps (5 push ups for every time you stop)

50 alternating leg jump rope jumps

10 Around the world (with staff)

10 Pass through (with staff) (bring staff in front of body and then behind keeping arms as close together as possible)

10 Horse Stance Squat Jumps

Workout:

AMRAP 12 minutes:

10 Mountain Climbers

8 Push Ups

6 V Ups

4 Bok Fu Burpess

2 Techniques from belt all out

Warm Down:

5 minutes belt stretching for hamstrings/groin

5 minutes ball torture for shoulders