?Wild Horse That Had Been Tied Up?: Bruce Lee?s Brother Once Described the Martial Arts Legend?s Disorder During Childhood

Writer Matthew Polly wrote the book Bruce Lee: A Life over four decades after the martial arts master’s untimely death. Polly wrote a definitive account of the Little Dragon’s life. The award-winning author recounted Lee’s childhood in act one of his book. Born in the first year of the second world war, Bruce Lee faced several hardships. However, after the occupation of Hong Kong ended, his father regained much of his lost fortune.

“The illness and frailty that haunted Bruce during the occupation lost its grip after the liberation,”?Polly writes in his book. However, Lee would soon develop a habit that his brothers described as a disorder.

Bruce Lee never ceased to question things

Once Bruce Lee gained the freedom to roam around without the fear of the occupiers,?“He became hyperactive.” Polly said that Lee became so hyperactive he couldn’t sit still for too long in one place. In fact, his family nicknamed Lee “Never Sit Still,”?the author wrote in his book.

“He was forever jumping, talking, playing, or moving,”?Peter told Polly. If for some reason, the Little Dragon sat quietly in one place for a long period,?“His mother thought he must be sick,”?said Peter Lee.?“He almost had a disorder,”?said Robert Lee, another of Bruce Lee’s siblings.

The disorder?“filled him with too much extra energy, like a wild horse that had been tied up,”?recounted Robert Lee in Mattew Polly’s Bruce Lee: A Life. The Little Phoenix was like a “whirlwind of chaos,” leaving knocked-over furniture in its wake. He also questioned everything his parents told him.

READ MORE | ?What?s the Point of Taking Part in This??: Bruce Lee Once Refused to Participate in a Popular Show Despite Excelling in It

It didn’t matter if they scolded him, praised him, or instructed him to do something, Lee would ask,?“Why?”, which soon earned him another nickname, “Why Baby.”?Even punishments stopped working on Lee. However, there was something that helped calm the Little Dragon down.

The antidote that proved super-effective

“His parents discovered the only way to calm Bruce down?his ‘off-switch’? was to hand him a comic book,”?wrote Polly. Before television arrived in Hong Kong in 1957,?“books and magazines, like The Children?s Paradise, were a major form of entertainment,”?explained the author. If fact, comic books introduced Lee to the world of Kung Fu.

Lee started reading Kung Fu comics and “graduated to sword-and-sorcery martial arts”?comics. In fact, the Little Dragon read so voraciously his mother believed it made Lee nearsighted, disclosed Polly.

Watch this story | Bodybuilding Legend Arnold Schwarzenegger?s Build Compared to Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan

Before Bruce Lee started learning Wing Chun under Ip Man, he was hyperactive, and only comic books could calm him down. However, they intrigued Lee and set him on a path of martial arts mastery.