Category Archives: shaolin

An ‘Energy Free’ Karate Punch

Newsletter 820 ~ Sign up now!

Arthritis and a Martial Arts Punch!

“It’s not how hard you can hit,
it’s how much weight you can deliver.”
Al Case

I just received a great letter,
a fellow name of Damian,
said Yogata helped his arthritis,
and he talked about how
he sometimes had trouble with a fist because of arthritis.

yoga martial arts style

Click on the cover!

I recommend Yogata,
or any form of yoga,
but I really want to talk about punches,
which may impact on concepts about arthritis.

Arthritis is an interesting condition,
doctors sometimes lump everything
under the term arthritis,
and there are a lot of causes
behind arthritis.
It’s all sort of generic,
but generic with a bite.

So here’s the thing:
injury leads to inflammation.
The body is swelling.
Sometimes the swelling is obvious,
sometimes not,
but the pain,
or lack of usability,
is real.

Many, many years ago
I realized I wasn’t a breaking kind of guy.
My instructor was,
many people are,
there is something seductive
about Power,
and power is often associated with breaking things.

But I figured out that it’s not how hard you hit,
it’s how much weight you can transfer into the opponent.
So I thought about it,
and I realized something:

“you don’t have to tighten the fist.”

This is weird,
we all tighten the fist,
and it is important…for beginners.

Tightening the fist upon impact
teaches focus,
introduces one to concepts of power,
but,
at a certain point,
you don’t need to tighten the fist.
Here’s something to think about”

take a stick and poke it into a watermelon.

Did the stick get ‘tight?’
No.
It just had to be aligned,
and it required a certain amount of ‘quick’ weight.
Although,
when you think about it,
you could puncture a watermelon with a stick
using ‘slow’ weight.

So I started working on the idea
of poking the bones of my arm/fist
through an opponent’s body
without tightening the fist.

Having the idea of puncturing the body
in my mind.

It worked.
No fanfare,
no big deal,
just relax,
align the bones,
feed a little energy into the structure
to keep everything in line,
relax and throw the body.

Worked like a charm.

And…
I started holding thumbtacks in my fist
and breaking things.

And…
here is the kicker,
the more I relaxed,
the better I was able to thrust my
thumbtack holding bones
through an object.

There’s all sorts of things to think about here.
My favorite is this:

if you threw 20 pounds at somebody it would hurt.
(especially if that 20 pounds
had 200 pounds of body behind it)

So when you tighten the arm,
when you focus the fist,
the tightening of the muscles actually holds the strike back.

That’s very zen,
very tai chi,
very true.

BUT,
don’t stop practicing with a tight fist,
you need a certain degree of focus to develop internal power.
And hitting with just the bones,
as I describe here,
is not the only strike,
and focusing the energy is VERY important.

In fact,
I would say that it would be VERY difficult
to learn how to strike with a relaxed fist
if one doesn’t first gain an understanding
of how to focus the energy with a tight fist.

Anyway,
those are my thoughts,
and I want to thank Damian for making me think,
and sharing his win with me.

If you have arthritis,
or ANY condition,
there are ways to keep training.
You just have to relax your thinking,
look around,
and find what works.

And you can find what works
in Yogata,
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/yogata-the-yoga-kata/

in The Punch
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/hard-punch/

and if you think I’m just talking,
check out the video on this page…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4c-matrixing-chi-power/

Take care…and
have a great work out!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4c-matrixing-chi-power/

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so this is the best way to ensure you get them.

You can find all my books here!
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

Zen Promised Fights of Karate

Newsletter 805
To Promise a Fight

Beat Google!
Sign up for the newsletter at
https://alcase.wordpress.com

Gorgeous day.
Absolutely gorgeous.
And that means it is an absolutely gorgeous day for a work out.
So get going!

Was teaching this morning.
We were doing Promised Fights,
and my partner was grimacing,
and finally backed off.
“Ow,” he said.
And we got into a long discussion.
Heck,
he was hurting,
I had to let him recover,
give him some data,
and then hurt him some more.
Right?

First,
I started out with the old
‘Do it a form a thousand times and you know it.
Do it ten thousand times and you’ve mastered it.’
My student did exactly the right thing,
he said,
‘So if I do it 20 times a day,
then in fifty days…’
“Yep,” I said.
“You could know it.
You could be expert in 2 months.
But you have to do it right.
You have to understand the alignment,
how the feet work and why,
and you have to know the Promised Fights…
otherwise you could do it forever and not know it.”

Second,
we went into proper body alignment,
which is covered on the Master Instructor Course,
and how the feet must align properly,
and how the particular form we were doing had to be done
to make this all work.
I ended up saying,
“align your body,
make it a single unit,
then he won’t hit your body parts,
he will hit a single, integrated unit,
and it won’t hurt you.
Energy flows through a body that is a single unit,
it doesn’t flow through body parts used in individual fashion.
This is especially important in a Promised Fight.”

And,
came the look I had been waiting for.
I had been using the term Promised Fight,
and I knew he would eventually ask about it.

“What is a Promised Fight?”

A Promised Fight,
or a Promise Fight,
is a piece of the form applied.
A form Application.
It is a self defense movement.
It is bunkai.
It is the working part of the form.
But,
it is more.
In fact,
if a person doesn’t understand what I am about to tell you,
he/she is not doing karate.
They are just fighting themselves.

I asked my instructor what a Promised Fight was,
and he said,
‘The Promise of a Fight.’
And,
while the study of PFs gave great abilities,
and the answer he gave me was correct,
it was terribly incomplete.

To understand what a Promised Fight is
I need you to look up the word ‘Postulate.’

Look it up for yourself,
get all the nuances,
where it came from,
and all that,
but for this newsletter,
the short and inadequate version is this:

suggest or assume the existence, fact, or truth of (something) as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or belief

Assume existence,
put forth the truth,
as a basis for belief.

If you understand the hint here,
you should be diving for a big old Oxford Dictionary,
wanting to know why a simple karate move
becomes the basis for truth in this universe.

So let me break it down a bit,
from the viewpoint of 50 years of training.

A postulate is a thought,
which if worked on,
becomes true.

Worked on,
as continually done in a work out.

As in a piece of the form,
practiced again and again and again.

Now,
let me back up a bit,
a form is a circuit,
a pattern of moves that you practice and practice
until you just do it without thinking about it.
You strengthen the body,
you remember the applications,
you get light and quick,
and all those sorts of things.

When you do a piece of the form,
over and over and over,
you condense the circuit,
and you get rid of thought,
and suddenly there is nothing but the move.
Somebody punches,
and you don’t exist,
you just track the incoming,
and the Promise Fight,
the postulate of moves,
pops out of you.
And it works.
You punch him,
and he falls down.
And he doesn’t understand what hit him.
But here is the truth of it all…
a thought hit him.
A Postulate of thought hit him.
A Promise Fight,
clean and simple,
without distractive thoughts,
hit him.
And there is nothing purer in this universe.

Now,
I am always so busy trying to get people to understand,
offering all sorts of methods,
that i sometimes forget to go into this factor.
BUT,
in Matrix Karate there is the Matrix of blocks.
These are like mini-Promise Fights.
Very important to get these,
to understand them,
it is important to learn the small PFs
before you get to the big ones.
The big ones are on Temple Karate.
There isn’t talk of a matrix there,
because it is assumed you have done the groundwork of Matrixing first.
And the form applications are VERY pure Promised Fights.
They REALLY result in a zen frame of mind,
and the ability to hit somebody with a thought.

If you get Temple Karate
and you haven’t done Matrix Karate,
then you are taking the long route.
It will take you years,
and as distractions mount,
you can be knocked off the path
and never get there.

So you should do Matrix Karate,
work on the Matrix of Blocks,
make inroads and discover what a PF is.
And,
you can always take the pieces of the form,
they are pretty obvious,
and work on them to make real Promised Fights.

Then you do Temple Karate,
get into the classical forms,
and really go to town on the Promised Fights.

Matrix Karate is pretty simple,
it presents the movements that are pure karate,
no distractions from other arts.
It aligns you,
and sets you up for the broader moves of Temple Karate.
It is a real Closed Combat System.
You can do it by itself,
or you can do it,
then move into the classical,
and see what kinds of things
the old guys who came before us were into.
Temple Karate is a larger assortment of tricks,
it broadens the education,
and digs you to new depths.

Anyway,
that is the story on Promised Fights.
Dig ‘em…they are the real zen of Martial Arts.

Here’s the link for Temple,
if you have already done Matrix Karate.
You can just go to MonsterMartialArts and find Matrix Karate,
it is one of the first arts presented on the home page.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/temple-karate/

Now,
have a great work out,
and schedule yourself for twenty times a day,
and send me your wins in two months.

Have a great work out!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/temple-karate/

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http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

Winning Martial Arts!

Newsletter 803
Make Your Day with a Martial Arts Win!

Great Afternoon!

I was teaching this morning,
and it is almost impossible to describe
how wonderful one feels
after sharing the martial arts.

Sharp,
quick,
strong,
happy.

Hey,
I thought I’d share a win.
I get wins all the time,
and if I’m a little busy,
so what…
I can still share a win,
right?

Before I do,
however,
google is figuring out
how to send newsletters into Spam folders.
So put me in your contacts,
or just go to
https://alcase.wordpress.com
and sign up.
The newsletters always end up there.

Now,
here comes a win from Jason W.

I’ve trained on two continents officially hold 1 black belt, and unofficially am that level in 2 others. I am currently working through the purple belt level in your Kang Duk Won course. I have to say that the workout is as tough as anything I did in Hapkido, but I am slowly getting there. The KDW material is filling in all the holes I had in my training. It’s really amazing how much stuff the instructors leave out or don’t even know. About a year ago I was at the place where you started in developing matrixing. I was looking for ways to bridge all my training into a logical system apart from the individual styles. I am lucky I found your site. I saved myself about 40 years of headaches! Just keep up the good work.

Thanks, Jason.
I appreciate kind words,
I love your win.

Jason is doing the course at
KangDukWon.com.

I wrote it in attempt
to keep alive all the material
I learned at the original Kang Duk Won.

So,
have a win,
and share the arts,
and if you have a win,
send it in.

If you want to beat the blues,
read the wins.

Okley donkley,

you guys have a GREAT work out,
and I’ll talk to you later.

Al

KangDukWon.com

And don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter at
https://alcase.wordpress.com

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

Karate Kata…How Good Are They?

Martial Arts Kata, Good or Bad?

in the Martial Arts Kata are often translated as martial arts forms, so I use the terms interchangeably.

Bruce Lee said in “The Tao of Jeet Kune Do” the following about forms:

“Too much horsing around with unrealistic stances and classic forms and rituals is just too artificial and mechanical, and doesn’t really prepare the student for actual combat.”

martial arts karate kataIs this true? Or is it meaningful, do forms actually teach you combat? Certainly looking at Pinan/Heian 1, or Kenpo Long 1, you have to wonder, is this meaningful? Are they honestly expecting me to drop the opposite hand when I block and punch?  And why are they having me drop my hands when in sparring they tell me to keep my hands up?

Even with something so entrenched as Sanchin, or the Sil Lum Tao those that lack correct teaching have to wonder, “how is this teaching me to fight?”.

In stark contrast are kata such as sanseirui, where it is very apparent that the kata is truly a combat scenario that captured and formalized into a form. This is evidenced by the lack of symmetry in the form, you don’t have “do the exact same thing on the other side” or “first do it on the right, then on the left”.

But do any of them provide you with anything useful? Or do they lock you into a routine.

Bruce was an incredible man, certainly what he said must have some value.  Besides, if not for forms, how do we transmit the style, untarnished, to the next generation?

The problem with Bruce, is that he was amazing. He was so amazing that somewhere along the line he seems to have forgotten that you have to explain to a new student how to make a fist, not to punch with the flat part of your fist, to line up the bones, to add CBM.  We can see that he knew this, for he said (paraphrasing here) “before I learned to punch, a punch was just a punch, while I was learning, a punch was much more than a punch.  Now, a punch is just a punch”.  However, he repeatedly wanted to throw away all the tools that are used to learn basics.

To quote my sensei, “you have to have a set of basics before you start learning to break free of the forms”.

I feel that all forms are intended to serve a purpose, but what is that purpose?

Let us start with the so simple that they are obnoxious forms, like the early Kenpo forms and the Pinans.  They are not meant to be combat forms, they are meant to be a way to train symmetry, and to familiarize you with the “alphabet of movement” that your system trains.  Think of the movements in these forms as “this is my footwork, these are my blocks, these are my strikes,  there are many like them, but these are mine”.  Symmetry is important, you need to be able to block, thrust, flick, parry and strike on both sides, these forms teach you exactly that, and they force you to practice equally on both sides.  Bruce may have been so good that he only needed five techniques and only those on his lead side, but that doesn’t account for most people, nor does it address what you are supposed to do if you get injured during combat.

So basic, boring forms have a purpose, even if it is only training.  However, when we go back to the question of dropping the hand, you do have to stop and wonder why practice something that we would never want to do in combat.   This is where I personally feel that some of these forms are less valuable than they could be.

Sanchin appears to be one of these boring beginner forms; however, it is an exceptional kata, Please see the earlier article I wrote on Sanchin (add a link to the other blog post).  My sensei was fond of saying that he could tell your belt level by watching your performance of Sanchin.

The Sil lum tao, is also a form that appears to be on the boring scale, however, it is a very internal form. It is meant to isolate the hand movements used in Wing Chun so they can be practiced separately from any foot movement, and to build Chi power.  These 2 aspects mean that it can be practiced and improved on for the rest of your life, just like Sanchin.

None of the seemingly boring kata teach you to fight, not even sanchin.  They may teach you many critical elements of fighting, blocks and strikes that you can combine, a clear calm mind, the ability to take a hit and continue. These things and more can be learned from kata.

Learning to fight from a kata though?  That is tough, there are people that have been reputed to have done so, I have a very hard time believing that.

In my mind the only way to improve reflexes, and learn to handle unexpected things is to get into sparring (at all contact levels) with as many different people as possible.  Try to get with people of different levels, different arts, and no arts.

In my personal opinion, I feel kata are very important, both for handing down the style, uncompromised. They are critical for training your body to use all the different tools in the styles toolbox.

I do not feel that they are a prison, rather an encyclopedia of motion and much more.  In my mind all kata should give you as many tools as Sanchin, Sil lum tao and Sanseirui.   However, if the form teaches you to do dangerous things, like drop your hands, you might want to re-evaluate the validity of that particular form.

If you want to align and make logical your Martial Arts Kata, check out the Master Instructor Course at MonsterMartialArts.com.

The Difference Between a Martial Artist

Defining the Difference between low level and high level Martial Artists

Speaking of Martial Arts, my brother had possibly the lamest joke of all time. He would ask, ‘What’s the difference between a duck?’ And, the answer: ‘One leg is both the same.’

And, having contributed possibly the lamest entry in the history of martial arts writing, and maybe of writing of all time, let me explain the difference between a martial artist.

difference martial artists

Are you good or bad as a martial artist?

 
On the bottom you have sleeping dreams, which are usually just a confusion of memories.
Simply, people without martial arts go to sleep and they have weird dreams as the things they have experienced in life try to fit in with the jumble of their memories.

On the top you have the ethereal universe, or ethereal plane. This has been spoken of, and you can do some research, but you’re in for a real egghead time. So let me just clarify it as simply as I can.

It is a universe not based on memory; it is a universe of thought; it is a universe where human beings have their real existence…before manifesting the thoughts of that real existence on this shabby, little ball of dirt called earth.

It’s where you decide to win the fight with one punch…before the punch is thrown.

Since the idea of deciding to win or lose before the action even takes place is important in the martial arts, let’s explore this concept of dreams and ethereal existence from the viewpoint of emotion.

A person at the bottom has emotion. Anger, fear, rage, and so on. Simply, he is manifesting emotion hopelessly. He can’t deal with it, so he expresses it. He externalizes it in a vain attempt to give it away.

A person who has found the ethereal universe will have no emotion. Having no emotion, however, does not immune a person from such things as joy and love and so on. Joy and love and such things, you see, are an expression of spirit, of the actual soul.
People experiencing emotion think they are experiencing emotion when they encounter joy, for instance. But the actuality is that they have done without emotion and are now experiencing themselves. Brief, but true, and then emotion snags them down again, and they don’t understand the lie that has been perpetuated upon them by their misunderstanding of what actual emotion is…and what the attributes of the human soul are.

By doing the martial arts one learns how to do without emotions and experience life as a joyful experience.
And here is something a lot of people who think they are martial artists, but who aren’t, will not like: if you experience anger, or rage, or similar emotion during fighting, then you aren’t doing the martial arts.
You may be doing martial arts tricks, but you haven’t found the true art which will reveal the soul.

If you experience emotion, and would like to find the true martial art that trains you to control your emotions, and thus reveals the true martial art, then pop on over to MonsterMartialArts.com.
If you would like to explore such concepts as the Ethereal Plane, then head on over to ChurchofMartialArts.com. Be careful, though, because without the discipline of the martial arts you won’t really understand what is being said there. You just think you will.

Things To Know About the Samurai Sword

When Is a Curved Sword a Straight Line?

I’m working on a new book.
How to Matrix the Samurai Sword.
Should be ready in a week or so.
It requires odd graphics on my poser program,
so it might take a wee bit longer,
but,
a couple of weeks is still my guess.

karate movie star

Real men use swords!


 

In my software program,
the hard thing is making a samurai sword.
I could go buy a jpeg,
but I hate getting things that way.
I’m on a budget,
you know?
And then I would still have a rough time turning it in 3d.

So what I do is take a line,
and make it into a pole,
and use the pole for the sword.
The hard thing is moving the pole around
and not having it shape shift on me.
Graphics are not my strong point.
But,
that said,
let me tell you something about graphics.

First,
I have delved into every software program in the last 25 years,
looking for ways to represent the martial arts.
One of the funnest,
but most tiresome,
was just drawing stick figures
with an appleworks program.
I wrote a whole book,
drawing hundreds of stick figures,
all the forms and self defenses,
and it was bizarre,
and it was cool.
And that was only one of the weird things I did,
in the weird world of graphics.

Second,
working on all these programs,
writing all these books,
enlightened me as to one simple fact.
Fortunately,
I figured this out early,
and it made my researching and searching all the easier.
Here is that one simple fact:

Every weapon is a straight line.
Now,
the first thought,
when considering this,
is that it isn’t true.
A samurai sword is curved,
and what about a chain?
Or a sickle?
Or a bullet that drops to the ground because of gravity?

But,
a samurai sword is a straight line that is bent.
A nunchuk is a straight line with a hinge in it.
A bullet falling to earth is a straight line being bent by gravity.
And so on.

I know,
sounds like a quibbling point,
doesn’t it?
But consider what is behind the weapon.
A human being.
Consider how a human being thinks when trying to destroy.
A straight line through the object to be destroyed.
So every weapon follows the thought of the human being wielding it,
every weapon then becomes a straight line at heart.

A sword slashed in a circle.
I am at the center of the circle,
extending a straight line,
and turning.

A bomb.
There must be a trajectory,
a straight line
(often acted upon to create this illusion called a curve),
and when the bomb explodes…
it is straight lines in all directions.

Now,
I don’t discredit other geometries.
But I consider them secondary, and made of straight lines.
A circle can always be cut into smaller and smaller segments,
until it is nothing but straight lines betweens points on the circle.

Weird, eh?

Now,
if you disagree with me,
that’s okay.
You see,
that’s what works for me.
And if you decide to believe that the universe is nothing but circles,
and you can make that work to make your martial art work,
how can I argue?

But let me tell you the real thing behind me telling you all this:

to make people think.

Most people have never considered the structure of a weapon,
let alone the geometry of the weapon,
except in the most cursory
monkey see monkey do manner.

But now you are thinking.

Straight line?
Circle?

And that difference will lead you into deeper considerations
of how to use a weapon.

Okay,
that said,
let me explain something about this new book
that is a coming.

Back in 1976
my father died,
and the house went into legal entanglements,
and I had to live there for a year
while the thing got settled.
And,
I was out of work.
The company I was at was under investigation
for using certain cancer causing chemicals.

I tell you,
it is weird to be working next to somebody
who is apparently in great health,
young and full of it,
and have them fall off a ladder,
and be dead the next week
because of some kind of cancer that works in a week.

So,
I was out of work,
living rent free,
got a little social security,
and…
what was I to do?

I decided to learn the sword.
I had haunted the movie houses around the area,
from San Francisco to San Jose,
seen all the one armed swordsman movies,
all the baby carriage movies,
all the things that that people
who only saw Bruce Lee
missed.

So I went to Chinatown and bought a sword.
It was a cheap piece of stuff,
but it did for me.
I began drawing the sword,
and cutting,
and thrusting,
and had friggin’ clue at all
as to what I was doing.
I tell you,
you would have laughed.

But,
I had a solid base in Karate,
and I understood the value of basics,
and the foundation of matrixing was in my mind,
so,
after a couple of months,
things weren’t looking so bad.
Then I came across the suburitos,
and things changed.
The suburitos (spelling?) are a series of basic exercises,
and I started matrixing them,
making long lists of potential techniques,
considering them against other weapons and methods
(straight line v circle?)
and just looking for the logic of it all.
And then I started coming up with foot patterns,
and principles that guided me into complex moves,
and,
by the end of a year,
I knew the sword.

Oddly,
it wasn’t that tough.
Matrixing, you know,
but the main thing was you had to forget a lot of other martial arts,
and let the shape of the sword guide you.

To state it Neutronically:

The secret of the sword
is in understanding the exact notion
that constructed the weapon.

Yes.

Okay,
this has all been interesting stuff,
unless,
of course,
you have no interest in weapons.
But if you do,
I would suggest checking out Blinding Steel.
Get the knowledge of ALL weapons,
and get ready for the extreme specialization
of the samurai sword.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/3a-blinding-steel-matrixing-weapons/

I don’t care if it is a pencil in your hand,
or a ten foot long can opener,
when you learn blinding steel,
you learn the truth about extensions of yourself.

Now,
have a great week,
and a great bunch of work outs,
and get ready for Hanakwanmass.

Oh,
you don’t know what hanakwanmass?
Well,
stay tuned,
I’ll tell you next newsletter.

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/3a-blinding-steel-matrixing-weapons/

Tai Chi Chuan Totally Broken Down with Western Logic

Matrix Tai Chi Chuan

Speaking of Tai Chi Chuan,
I have just released Matrix Tai Chi Chaun.

ancient tai chi

Learning Tai Chi Chuan with western logic ~ click on image above!

I actually released this some years ago,
but I stopped selling it.
The reason
I was not happy with the book.
So,
being on a mountaintop
head above the clouds,
I was able to see what I had done and not done,
and I was able to write
one of the best matrixing books I have ever written!

Matrixing a posture
matrixing the postures
how to matrixing the techniques so you get 50 plus applications
matrixing the footwork so you get 25+ silk reeling exercises!
Two matrixes,
one for hard tai chi applications,
and the information so you can change that into hard and soft applications!

And here is something you’re really going to like…
I always talk about the blank spots one finds by using a matrix,
how you can find out the data that was hidden,
glossed over,
made mysterious,
forgotten…
In Matrix Tai Chi I really show how this happens,
and how I compare two matrixes to find all sorts of stuff!

And here’s something you should know…
Matrix TCC is based on this principle…
A beginner learns hard applications
an intermediate learns hard/soft applications
An expert learns soft applications.

Do you understand?
All the TCC boys and girls out there are pushing soft apps,
expecting people to jump from the floor to the roof!
They are missing the basic and intermediate steps!
No wonder TCC can get so messy and misunderstood!

In Matrix TCC you get all three steps.

You’re going to be able to do hard TCC within a couple of weeks,
and then start working on the hard/soft apps for a couple of months,
and then you’ll be capable of the REAL Tai Chi Chuan!

Now,
a couple of things.

If you ordered the old Matrix TCC,
and there was only a couple of you,
send me the third page of the matrix TCC book I sold you,
and I will send you the new Matrix TCC book.

The video is the same,
no need to replace that.
It is me and Nehemiah going through
the lines, applications, footworks, form and freestyles.

So if you ordered before,
you get the book for free.
Just follow the instructions above.

Now,
what is the difference between Matrix TCC and Five Army TCC,
a little and a lot.

Matrix TCC breaks it all down.
You even get a quick breakdown of the form.

But,
it is not as in depth and comprehensive
as my breakdown of the form and applications of the form
on Five Army TCC.

It’s a matter of time,
and how much I could pack on the course.

Matrix TCC has matrixing,
breaks TCC down like it has NEVER been broken down before.

Five Army TCC I go into the form in depth and detail,
so if you like what I am saying and doing on Matrix TCC,
then you are going to want to get the finer detailed analysis.

So you can now get Matrix TCC by itself,
or you can get the package of both Matrix and Five Army TCC,
and save a few bucks.

Here’s the link for Matrix TCC..
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/2ba-matrix-tai-chi-chuan/

And here’s the link for the TCC package…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/tai-chi-chuan-package/

I haven’t had time to expand the larger Kung Fu package
but I will int he future.
If anybody is interested in that, let me know.

Anyway,
Matrix TCC is one CD and two DVDs,
Five Army TCC is four DVDs
Together, that’s about one CD and six DVDs
or a book and almost FIVE HOURS hours
of a new logic
presented one on one
in a very hands on format
so you can’t not understand!

AND YOU SHOULD KNOW
I always recommend the instant download,
because being on a mountaintop
I don’t get to the post office every day.

The videos are on youtube
and it is the simplest thing in the world
to find software to download videos from youtube for free.

If ever a disk or download doesn’t work
just let me know at aganzul@gmail.com
and I will see to fixing it as quickly as I can.

Now,
that’s about it.
I’ve been working hard on this,
didn’t even put out a newsletter last Friday,
but…this is the gold.
This course,
and especially the book
really puts the cap on Matrixing.
All the way from hard to soft,
so you can understand EVERYTHING,
and even turn around and teach it.

And in the shortest possible time.

Think about it,
people spend a couple of decades
to get what I’ve put together,
and then what they’ve got is slanted towards one art,
spotty,
messy,
filled with illogic and blank spots.
And you can get ALL the martial arts,
understand EVERYTHING
and within a couple of years.
Three or four months for each Matrixing course,
and you get DECADES of knowledge
without the mistakes and missteps.

So,
if you’ve just been reading this newsletter
it’s time to get your stuff in gear,
it’s not just…’be all you can be.’
It’s…’become more than anybody imagined!’

And if you’re ready for Matrix TCC,
the gloves are off!
Come and get it!

Don’t just have a great workout…
Have yourself a most spectacular journey!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/2ba-matrix-tai-chi-chuan/

A Real Church of Martial Arts!

Monkeyland…Here We Come!

Great Day in Paradise!
Monkeyland may be as little as two weeks away.
Man,
that’s worth a dozen work outs!
So here is the URL so you can take a look at this gem in the wilderness.

http://churchofmartialarts.com/the-church/

Give the page time to load,
there’s a couple of large pictures.
And make sure you hit the FB LIKE button at the top of the page!

church of martial arts

The Church of Martial Arts!


Now,
let’s talk about Monkeyland.
Let’s talk about how it got started,
how it developed,
and how it is going to progress.

First, I wrote a book,
and it is called Monkeyland,
and the tagline is…
‘Another word for Freedom!’

It is a story of war and corruption and disaster and man’s inhumanity to man.
Yet,
after five books,
there is a sublime message,
one that forgives the thought of war
if we can only understand ourselves,
transform ourselves…
mankind has hope.

And,
I kept working out,
developing matrixing,
nibbling into Neutronics,
and I started thinking about a real Monkeyland.

A place where people were free to be themselves,
without the regulations and intrusions of government,
without the interference and distractions of evil people.
A place where the martial arts could flourish,
and people could experience what the true martial art was like.
A place where people could be free.

And I used to sit and wonder,
How the heck was I supposed to pull this off?
How could I make this happen?
And I mentioned Monkeyland in the newsletter.

Frank was one of the first people I ever taught matrixing to.
Back about 1984 we locked ourselves in the dojo
and worked out until he was a black belt.
Frank read the newsletter,
and he had his own bad case of good dreams.
He wanted a place where, among other things,
he could escape the grind of a society going bad,
where GMO could be defeated,
where solid stock, animal and human both,
could be raised.
And our dreams were going in the same direction.

It took a couple of years, some very intense negotiating,
a bunch of hoops to jump through,
but within a couple of weeks we will be on the land.
Monkeyland.
A ranch free from the contaminations of society.
A Church where people can be encouraged to plumb their depths,
find the true art that is within themselves,
is their inherent nature,
just waiting to come to the surface.

Of course,
there is going to be an immense amount of work,
but,
we are in the right time,
and the right place.

Did you know that people actually love to work?
The country only gets depressed when people aren’t working.

Did you know that people love to solve problems?
With a government telling them no,
with a society of political correctness,
where you have to ask permission to pee in ocean,
people are miserable.

But set them free,
tell them to build something,
tell them that nobody is going to stop them,
and you have paradise each and every single day.

Did you know that some people love the martial arts?
Yes, it’s true,
the brighter and more industrious members of mankind all LOVE the martial arts.

What better gift to the best on earth
than to give them a place where they can let loose their talents,
change the path of mankind,
elevate ALL martial arts!

So,
more to come,
I’ll probably have to set aside a separate section of the newsletter
just to deal with the happenings at Monkeyland.

But,
remember this…
if you are a true martial artist,
if you want to find the truth of yourself,
and if you are willing to work your fingers to the bone,
then you have a bed up here.

Within the month I should have some sort of plans started
to enable visits and instruction and even some possible live in arrangements.

But,
let me say this right now,
study your matrixing.
When you come to visit,
the first thing we’ll do is check out your matrixing.

If you can do your Matrix Karate,
right out of the box,
then we won’t have to spend time teaching you things you should already know,
and we can get right into the deeper teachings.

So here’s the URL for Matrix Karate…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/matrix-karate/

And in a future newsletter
I’ll lay out the complete sequence of study.
But for now,
remember,
it all starts with Matrixing.
Matrixing led me to Monkeyland,
and it’s going to bring you here, too.

Now,
thanks to all,
and special thanks to Frank,
and I’ll be talking to you later.
Have a great work out!

Al

Congrats to New Master Instructor

Taken from newsletter 625,
Subscribe to the Monster Martial Arts Newsletter Now!

Hello and great day to you ALL!
And a great work out,
which will make you smarter and faster and stronger
and lead you to your dreams.
It’s true.

martial arts instructor
Congrats to Master Instructor Luis Lista!
Here’s his win…

Hi Al,

Thank you for this amazing course!

I had to watch the DVD 3 or 4 times, and I realize there are still a
lot of things that I understand intellectually but have to practice
further to make them natural.

But your statement was true. One cannot watch this DVD and read the course book seriously without having some huge realizations about the Art, and the way to practice it.

I’ve been able to correct my own stances and sharpen my “good
reflexes” in a dramatic way! I still have a lot to learn and
practice, but wow what a change, a true “mind-shifting process”!

And frankly that is not the best of it. I share the practice of your
Matrix Karate System with some people of my neighborhood, and I noticed that I can now see way better their eventual mistakes AND I’m able to propose simple and direct solutions AND show them why and how they work. That is fantastic!

At my small scale this as been the most beneficial course for helping people learning the Art… and for helping me structure the way I share the practice.

I even could make some valuable suggestion to a friend who is a master in a traditional Japanese Koryu… even I was surprised! Suggestions came by themselves because I was just seeing things you showed and explained in your course.

And I now this is a course that will follow me trough time, I’ll have
the opportunity to return to it and evaluate and learn regularly from it… what a joy!

Al, I must sincerely thank you for your wonderful work of
dissemination of Martial Arts!

Luis L.

Thank you, Luis!
and thank you for sharing with others.

Sometimes I don’t think people truly appreciate teachers,
but teaching others is how mankind actually progresses.
No teachers = no evolution.

You know,
I’ve said it before,
but perhaps it is time to say it again…
how,
exactly,
I came up with this course.

I studied,
and I wrote things down,
and I made connections,
and I thought everybody was doing the same things as I.
I didn’t think I was doing anything unique,
I thought everybody did the martial arts the way I was doing them,
I thought everybody had the same realizations,
understood about how the physics worked,
and so on.

I think the first person who abused me of this was Mike Baron.
He was my partner in one of my schools,
and actually pushed Monster into happening.
He said,
‘You know, Al, nobody else is doing the things you’re doing.’
As I recall,
I just grinned.
I thought he was just unaware of everybody else.
Then we released a couple of courses,
among them was the Master Instructor course,
and the wins started coming in.
It blew me away.
Far away.
People with lots of experience,
were telling me how
they finally understood the martial arts,
how everything had been obscured and mixed up and jumbled,
and they were finally able to see how the martial arts worked.

I was surprised,
to say the least,
and it changed the way I was doing things.

And,
it is changing the way other people are doing things.

So,
thanks Luis,
and thanks to all for being part of the martial arts.
And,
that said,
let me explain something about the martial arts.

The Martial Arts are the only field
that deal with the actual force and flow of the universe.
School and religion certainly don’t,
they just talk about dry facts,
or esoteric theories,
but don’t relate to the fact that everything in the universe
is an object that has trajectory.
And,
Martial Arts are the ONLY field on this planet that actually deals
with the force and flow of objects,
and thus with the whole universe.

This leads directly to awareness.
People who don’t study the martial arts are car crash victims.
Life happens to them,
and they don’t understand why.
Martial Artists see the way objects fly,
from the fist to the car to the whole darned planet,
and they are trained to handle the flow of objects,
and the potential collisions.

And,
even more importantly,
the martial arts provide a discipline
which leads down the path
to greater awareness.
This happens no where else.

Go to school and your intelligence actually goes down.
This is true by actual, tested statistic.
People in school study facts
until the flow of objects in this universe is obscured.

But people who do the martial arts
have quicker and cleaner intellects.
They have good health,
they handle problems as they come,
stay away from drugs,
help people learn how to be aware.

Do you understand how valuable you are?

Well,
forgive me for ranting,
but it is true,
and you really should know how special you are.

So thanks to all,
and thanks to Luis,
and here’s the URL for the Master instructor Course…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4-master-instructor-course/

And everybody have a great work out!
Al

Mas Oyama and the Kang Duk Won

Behind the Scenes at the Kang Duk Won

This post concerning Mas Oyama, Don Buck, and other early pioneers in American Karate, was actually written by Master Instructor BJ. I didn’t know some of this, and there is no way I can compete with the original words presented here. I suggest you do a little googling of the names involved to pad out what you’re about to read. It is well worth it. The original post appeared on KangDukWon.com.

The Story of the Kang Duk Won in America

Sifu Al, you probably know this already but when teenage Don Buck started training with Duke Moore in 1946 fresh out of the US Navy where Don was the US Navy Pacific Fleet 137lb Champion and also wrestled and studied Combat Judo & Defendu.

From the Hawaiian Karate Museum, John D. Pell collection. John Pell, Don Buck, Mas Oyama, Gosei Yamaguchi.

From the Hawaiian Karate Museum, John D. Pell collection. John Pell, Don Buck, Mas Oyama, Gosei Yamaguchi.

By the Mid-50s Don Buck was a Body Building champion and San Francisco Cop in addition to being a black belt in Moore’s Judo & JJ.   Buck & Moore started studying Shorinji Ryu Karate with one of Duke’s teachers, Richard Kim.  One of Kim’s Korean student’s came to the US to work as a Pro Wrestler.  Of course I’m talking about Mas Oyama.

BTW, Mas Oyama’s Karate and Masahiko- Gracie JJ Defeater- Kimura Judo workout partners in the Early 1950’s were Tak Kubota and Taiji Kase!  In fact the gnarled hand on one of Mas Oyama’s early books- ghost written by Don Draeger- was actually Kubota’s.

After WWII Kimura worked as a Pro Wrestler in Europe and N&S America.  He hooked Mas Oyama up with some wrestling promoters here in the US and Mexico so Oyama could make some money.

Mas Oyama set his US base up in San Francisco where he could continue his training with his Sensei Richard Kim.  While not wrestling Oyama lived with Kim’s JJ student Duke Moore and taught/worked out with Duke Moore and Don Buck everyday he was in San Francisco for 4-6 hour workouts.

After a little over a year Mas went back to Japan and promoted both Duke Moore and Don Buck to their Shodan ranks.  Buck opened his own Dojo in 1957 where he only taught Kyokushin Karate making his Dojo the first Oyama Style Karate Dojo to open in the US.  ***Please note that Bobby Lowe has the distinction of opening the first Kyokushin dojo OUTSIDE of Japan.***

kang duk won break

Mas Oyama breaking bricks.

When Don Buck opened his Dojo doors in 1957 one of his first students, and Black Belts, was one Robert Babich. A year of two later Richard Kim had a skinny Korean Black belt fresh off the boat from Korea show up at his San Francisco Dojo.  As Kim was about to leave for Japan so he sent the young Korean to his student’s, Duke Moore, Budokan dojo where Moore promptly sent the Korean to Don Buck.

The young Korean didn’t speak much English but Don Buck told him to go change into his Dogi.  When the Korean returned Buck noticed a patch with a fist on the Korean’s uniform.  Don Buck asked what the patch said and young Korean replied something like, “Kang Duk Won Kwon Bup Kong Soo Do.”

After sparring and defeating Buck’s students he squared off with Buck himself.  Buck knocked the Korean down a few times but the Korean kept getting up and he finally knocked the much bigger and stronger Buck across the dojo floor and down.  Buck got back up smiling and told the Korean, “Your hired! What is your name?”  The young Kang Duk Won fighter said, “Norman Rha” and bowed slightly to Buck!

Buck was opening a couple of new Dojo locations and he hired Rha (Rha Jong-nam) and assigned Robert Babich to assist Rha with running the new Dojo.

However, the soft whip-like Tong Bei style punching and much deeper Chaun Fa stances of Rha’s Kang Duk Won Kong Soo Do were so much different than Oyama’s power punching that sometime after Babich earned his Shodan from Don Buck it was decided that Babich should open just his own dojo with Rha so as not to create differences of style with the Kyokushin students.  So they left Don Buck’s American Kyokushin Dojo’s to open their own KDW school.

As Rha was a poor Medical School student he and Babich shared an apartment with the agreement that Rha would teach Babich KDW in return for help learning English.  It should be noted that anytime in the 60’s and early 70’s Babich promoted students to Black Belt the Tracy Brother’s would try to hire the new KDW black belts to run one of their Tracy Brother’s Chinese Kenpo Schools.

The Tracy’s only hired the BEST fighters, both as teachers and Association School Coaches (Joe Lewis & Al Dacascos for example),  as school challenges were common and they didn’t want to loose their schools students, $$$, to another challenging school.  Babich’s KDW academy in San Jose, CA had a reputation of turning out some of the toughest fighters on the West Coast.

It is interesting to note, at least for me,  that Babich didn’t include Sanchin or Tensho in his Kwon Bop Karate that he taught in the 1970’s and 80’s until he closed down his San Jose Dojo.  Why I don’t know???

Note:

Thanks, BJ, for this wonderful bit of writing.

The reason Bob didn’t include Sanchin and Tensho, in my opinion, is that there are two styles of Karate, one fixed and one fluid, or Shorin and Shorei. Bob was not a large man, he was thin and whiplike, and the heavier sanchin style stances didn’t suit him, perhaps even worked against the fluid motions he was developing through the Kang Duk Won.

If you want to find out what the truth behind the Kang Duk Won, check out the first Karate form and applications, and the bonus material on historical uses of Karate.

This has been a page about Don Buck, Mas Oyama, and the early beginnings of the Kang Duk Won Karate.