Be Water

Recently I was watching late night TV and saw what I now believe is possibly the definitive guide on how to play Diplomacy well: "Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey". If you haven't seen this documentary, find it and watch it.

Twice.

"Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey" is a hybrid production, half Bruce Lee's life story and half a presentation of 35 minutes of footage from the unfinished movie "The Game Of Death" which Lee had been working on at the time of his death in 1973. For a Diplomacy player the really interesting thing to learn was that Bruce Lee was very interested in philosophy, and in particular how philosophy could be applied to martial arts. Martial arts often are a framework for living one's life within. The discipline of a martial art gives structure to one's life. The martial art shapes the way you eat, the way you interact with other people and the way you interact with your environment. The martial art becomes your way of life.

A good friend of mine, current World Diplomacy Champion Rob Stpehenson, is particularly fond of the saying "Diplomacy never stops". I guess that is another way of saying 'Diplomacy becomes your way of life'... In my opinion the thing that separates Rob from other Diplomacy players is that he is probably the best people watcher I have ever met. What he means when he says "Diplomacy never stops" is that you should always be watching other Diplomacy players. You should constantly be making mental notes about what makes them tick... what makes them angry, what makes them laugh, how their behaviour changes when they are tired, when they are drunk, when they are winning and when they are losing. Knowing these things about other players will equip you so that in a game situation you have the tools to be able to manipulate them, to push their buttons when you need to, and to get them to react the way you want them to at crucial times.

Bruce Lee was a bit of a renegade in the US martial arts scene in the 1960's and early 1970's. It was common then for people to follow one style of a given martial art... some styles concentrated on kicks, some on throwing, some on punches, some on evasion... there was a lot of tradition, and a lot of honouring of the 'correct' way to do things. Now I am not an expert on any particular martial art, or on the history of martial arts, but from what I understood watching "Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey" Lee basically came to the realisation that these styles, or "ways", were stifling and claustrophobic. He advocated the use of whatever style best fitted the situation, putting emphasis in the value of flexibility.

I have often said that the best Diplomacy players take this approach. I regard Paul Windsor's article "What's Your Point?" as one of the best articles about how to analyse your opponents. In that article Paul writes about what he calls 4 typical 'Player Personalities': The Classicist, The Romantic, The Club Player and The Deviate. In my experience good players can play all four of these 'Player Personalities' when they need to, and the really great players are the ones who are best at picking the appropriate times to employ each approach, or shades of several of these approaches. Diplomacy is not a game where there is a 'One Best Way' to play either the game, or even play any given situation. The skill that separates the great players from the bunch is the ability to not only play whichever style is best suited to a situation, but to be able to pick which style is going to be best suited to a particular situation.

Flexibility is the key.

While I was writing this article The Pouch's Editor, Edward Hawthorne, pointed me to two articles written by David E. Cohen: "Diplomacy and the Way of the Warrior" from the F1999M issue of The Pouch, and his follow up article "Diplomacy and the Way of the Warrior II" from the S2002M issue. If you like this article, I strongly urge you to read both of these articles. They preach the same message, perhaps more comprehensively than I manage to do so here.

Lee dismissed doctrine and adherence to tradition for tradition's sake, and instead taught his followers to use all styles whenever appropriate. He said martial arts should be about expressing yourself, getting in touch with the real you and letting you instincts flow through your body. He set up three schools in San Francisco, L.A. and San Diego where he taught his new approach to Gung Fu (which has been anglicised to Kung Fu) which he called Jeet Kune Do, or "The Way Of The Intercepting Fist"... the premise of which is that the best way to overcome your opponent is to use the intercepting fist... when your opponent moves against you you intercept their strike, and turn it against them... the concept is they are most vulnerable when in the motion of attacking... and if you intercept a strike with a devastating counter strike, perfectly timed, placed to the most vulnerable spot when your opponent is most over committed and most off balance, this will result in the best attack you can make.

Think about that in the context of Diplomacy - it's one of the best summations of how to play winning Diplomacy I've ever read, and is very similar to the point I was making in the conclusion to my article "Playing The Bigger Picture In Face To Face Diplomacy", where I wrote:

"The key to what I've said before is trying to make the mental leap from deciding your orders at the start of the turn and then going out to convert the board to your way of thinking, to allowing the board's way of thinking to influence how you want to move. It's about identifying resistance to your planned routes of expansion, and opportunities to expand while staying onside with your neighbours, and taking the path of least resistance and therefore the most gain."

Jeet Kune Do, as I understand it, centred around reacting to your opponents moves... reading their body language and whatever other signals they give out to predict what would come next, and then using whatever style, way or move that was best suited to intercepting their strike.... In a 1971 episode of "Longstreet", Bruce Lee is playing a martial arts instructor teaching a colleague of detective Longstreet's how to protect himself:

"Now what exactly is this thing you do?" says the colleague.

"In Cantonese," replies Lee, "Jeet Kune Do, the way of the intercepting fist".

"Intercepting fist???"

"Or foot", adds Lee. "Come on, touch me anywhere you can". As his opponent steps forward to throw a punch, Lee snaps out a low side-kick to his kneecap. "You see", explains Lee, "To reach me, you must move to me. Your attack offers me an opportunity to intercept you. In this case I'm using my longest weapon, my side-kick, against the nearest target, your kneecap. It can be compared to your left jab in boxing, except it's much more damaging". "I see", says the friend, "Well speaking of a left jab!!!" But Lee blocks the sudden punch, having read the intention a split second before the punch is thrown. "This time I intercept your emotional tenseness. You see, from your thought to your fist, how much time was lost".

Bruce Lee said there were no boundaries to the disciplines of martial arts. In addition to studying a wide range of writers in philosophy he studied boxing, greco roman wrestling and fencing to find things which he could use to improve his art. This was something that previously was just not done in martial arts which tradition dictated were purely 'Eastern'.... Lee believed in reading and researching as many subjects and disciplines as he could and bringing them all to bear. I believe Bruce Lee would have been a brilliant Diplomacy player.

Rob Stephenson's "Diplomacy never stops" mantra is another way of saying there are no boundaries to the disciplines of Diplomacy. As well as understanding the different styles of Diplomacy player as outlined in Paul Windsor's "What's Your Point?" you should strive to watch other players and understand them not just at the Diplomacy board, but at every opportunity. Do not be bound by the traditions of Diplomacy. Be flexible. Bring whatever discipline you can to bear on the problem of becoming a better Diplomacy player....

Later, Bruce Lee abandoned "The Way Of The Intercepting Fist" and closed down his three schools because he realised it was merely another Way, or Style, and it therefore suffered, or would suffer from the same doctrinisation problems, the same traditions and other weaknesses that he found so frustrating with other Styles... so then he professed the Way of No Way...

This is what Lee's final movie, "Game Of Death" was about. It's climatic scene involved a 5 level pagoda with a guard on each level, and the big prize at the top... Lee and his accomplices had to fight their way to the top level and retrieve the treasure there (there's actually a whole lot of plot around the 'why' of this, but it's not relevant for this discussion). Each guard on each level specialised in a certain style (or way). Bruce Lee was dressed in a yellow one piece track suit... it was yellow on purpose, to demonstrate no affiliation to any established 'way', and it's one piece was to allow for maximum flexibility (The Way Of No Way). He fought his way to the top using all sorts of different approaches on each level, along with some very prophetic soliloquies about flexibility, philosophy, and the power of The Way Of No Way, which was startlingly displayed on the top level of the pagoda when 5'7" Lee fought 7'2" Kareem Abdul Jabbar. At the end of "Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey" there is a sequence showing these scenes in the pagoda from A Game Of Death as Bruce Lee intended it to be shown.

All Diplomacy players should watch this documentary... The Way Of No Way, the virtue of flexibility - that is the essence of good Diplomacy play.

Water is infinitely flexible. It can be seen through, and yet at other times it can obscure things from sight. It can split and go around things, rejoining on the other side, or it can crash through things. Water is the embodiment of 'The Way Of No Way'...  It can erode the hardest rocks by gently lapping away at them...  just like Diplomacy, it never stops. In the episode of "Longstreet" discussed above, and in numerous other interviews in the later part of his life Bruce Lee gave what is, I believe, the ultimate Diplomacy quote:

Brandon Clarke
(bjc@stevensons.co.nz)