Category Archives: shotokan

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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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

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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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Gichin Funakoshi and Martial Perfection

Newsletter 794
Perfection in the Martial Arts

Gichin Funakoshi talked about seeking perfection in the martial arts.
He also wrote a poem.
The two come together in a most interesting way.
Here’s the poem.

To search for the old is to understand the new.
The old, the new
This is a matter of time.
In all things man must have a clear mind.
The Way:
Who will pass it on straight and well?

So here’s some stuff to think about…

What is ‘The Way?’
The way is a method.
Specifically,
it is the method of the martial arts.
Done correctly,
it leads to a lessening of distractive thoughts,
and the ability to focus one’s spirit.
Unfortunately,
all too often the method changes
according to the whim of the teacher.

The key is in the words ‘straight and well.’

If you look up the word ‘perfection,’
you will find references to being free of flaw.
Free of flaw means scientifically true.
The problem is that nobody knows how to use the body in a ‘true’ fashion.

I remember being in the sixth grade,
looking at medical charts,
trying to figure out the best way to place the foot
so I could run faster.
Analyzing the arch as a spring,
and pondering how best to activate the spring.
Tracing the muscles on the legs,
trying to figure out which way to turn the legs
so that the muscles were best utilized.

I took this same method of analyzing with me into the martial arts.

This isn’t some branch of kinetics,
for kinetics studies the body without considering ‘chi.’
This isn’t western science,
though it is quite empirical.

The funny thing is that in the end
I came up with a simple method,
one that takes mere moments to understand,
and to utilize,
and one can utilize this method throughout the forms.
This illuminates the forms,
and makes them perfect.

So perfection is attainable.

And,
the good news,
I describe and show the method in
The Master Instructor course.
I even show the seven specific ways of breaking this method down
for the individual parts of the body.

So perfection of art is possible,

Real simple stuff.
But nobody has ever written it down anywhere.
But here’s the thing.

If you walk with your feet turned out,
or inwards,
you wear the heels of your shoes in odd patterns.
Maybe the inside of the heel wears down,
rendering the shoe useless long before it is due to wear out.
Maybe the outside.
What you have to understand is that this wearing effect occurs
on the inside of the body, too.

Have you come across martial arts masters
who have knee replacements?
Or hip replacements?
Or worn out shoulders?
Or other malfunctioning body parts?
This is because they were doing the martial arts
without understanding the correct way to use the body.
All the western ‘kinetics’ they study,
doesn’t do a bit of good if you haven’t analyzed how the foot places,
how the muscles are arranged.
And people can actually tear their bodies apart.

The Master Instructor Course fixes this.

Simply,
you start using the body in the right way,
according to the seven things I tell you about the body and using chi.
You start using less energy,
and having more impact.
This is true economy of motion.
Ultimately,
the body starts working like a well oiled machine,
you start aging slower,
your skin stays clearer,
you have full range of motion,
full strength,
you just resist aging in the most delightful way.

Some martial artists have stumbled upon this,
and they age well,
but they don’t understand why.
They simply used their body in the correct manner
without understanding or analyzing why.
thus,
even though they had the truth,
they were not able to teach the way…
straight and true.
The way Gichin,
and others,
wish it to be taught.

Well,
enough.
You either want the true art,
or you don’t.
Sup to you.

Here’s the link for the Master Instructor Course.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4-master-instructor-course/

check it out,
think about whether what I say makes sense,
and then take a mont back guaranteed chance.

Have a great work out!
Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4-master-instructor-course/

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

Unique Method of Martial Arts Strength Training

Suspended Strength Training in the Martial Art…

And Who is Ernie Pyle?

Before I get into a rather interesting discussion
of real strength in Martial Arts,
and offer a different viewpoint
and training method
for strength training in the martial arts,
let me offer an anecdote of good wishes
and quality of life for this Thanksgiving.

how long does it take to get a black belthow to kill bookNot many people know who Ernie Pyle was,
but he was a war correspondent during WW2.

Now,
try this one,
Ernst Hemingway.
Everybody knows who he is.
and many even know
that he was…
a war correspondent during WW2.

Now,
bear with me,
Ernst Hemingway
wrote about drinking ancient wine
in hallowed corridors,
invading
and living the life.
Midnight samplings,
caviar,
a conqueror’s dreams come true.

Ernie Pyle wrote about people.
He’d talk about lone figures in a line,
marching into the dust,
half of whom wouldn’t come back.
He’d talk about starving soldiers
sharing their last ration with him
sitting in a foxhole,
heating the ration
in a steel helmet
with a candle.
Rubbing his hands together to keep warm
and seeing the look
in the eyes of the soldier with him–
just glad to be alive
and with another human being.

So
caviar dreams,
or humanity.

Well,
Hemingway blew his brains out with a shotgun.

But the soldiers Pyle wrote about
went on to create
the greatest country
in the history of this planet,
a country that believed in and shared
freedom.

And,
for all my friends in other countries,
bushwah aside,
that’s all us United Statians want,
freedom for all,
not because we’re better,
but because we can all be better,
and I hope that this thought,
my Thanksgiving thought for this yar,
can be shared by the world,
next year.

So let’s talk about martial arts.
and Suspended Strength.

The guy who can lift the most
is the strongest.
Grrr!
He wins.

Well,
uh…
have you ever heard of time?

Let’s say a guy lifts a hundred pounds.
He’s a young kid,
and this is a good lift for him.
But,
when you measure the time it took him to lift
he lifted 100 pounds in two seconds.
One second up and one second down.
so,
200 pounds.

Now,
let’s take his twin brother
give him 20 pounds,
and have him lift it 12 times.

Hmm.
240 pounds.
He’s stronger.

Oh,
you don’t like my math?
Well,
I’m just starting.

Let’s take that evil twin brother,
you know,
the one who cheated to become stronger by lifting less,
and let’s have him lift 20 pounds,
but take take 30 seconds to do it.
15 seconds up and 15 seconds down.
Do the math…
15 times 20…
300 pounds.
He’s stronger.

Not only is he stronger,
but because he didn’t stress his body
there is less chance of injury,
pulled muscle,
or even fatigue.

And,
I’m going to tell you something weird,
his strength is going to improve on a sharper curve
than the two second boy.

Now,
you think I’m talking Tai Chi here,
right?

Well,
sort of,
but sort of not.
Other arts than Tai Chi go slow.
And,
hate to say it,
guys who get old or injured
slow their stuff down.

The point here is that
power comes in different speeds.

Yes,
there is explosive power,
great stuff,
recommended if you want your art to work.
But there is also suspended power.
You won’t lift the most,
but you’ll lift longer,
last longer,
not have injuries,
be able to rehabilitate injuries.

I use to work out at karate hard,
an hour felt like eight.
But,
I can’t do that anymore.
But,
I can work out for eight hours
and make it feel like one.

I just do my forms slower,
and work on suspended strength.

Oh,
WARNING!
be careful when doing kicks or extreme positions slowly,
suspending the leg because you could throw out your back.

When you explode,
you see,
you only use part of your leg,
part at the beginning and part at the end (to stop it).
When you go slow you use all your leg,
and this puts stress on body parts
that never knew stress before.

Okay,
if you want to learn slow,
get stronger than an ox who’s been eating good,
then check out the Five ArmyTai Chi Chuan,

Actually,
there’s three systems on the course.
An easy basics system,
an intermediate system that just sort of explodes on the cerebral cortex,
and then there’s the classical eight animals.

Think about it,
three systems,
a book,
the ability to age gracefully,
a complete art,
only ten bucks a disk.
Whoa,
that’s a Fng deal!

Okay,
guys and gals,
you have the greatest week ever,
and remember
every time you work out
it’s one step closer
to the truth of you.
And,
man,
that truth is grand.

Later…

Al

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/

Breathless Martial Arts…Empty Karate…Silent Aikido

The Value of Silence in the Martial Arts

Karate, Gung Fu, Taekwondo…no matter what martial art…they need silence to grow.

My first hint of this was the ‘empty’ in Empty Hands, which is the literal translation of Karate.

Empty hands, and empty mind. A zen thing.

kung fu karate

Be silent, my friend, and hear yourself think…

 
Not how many tournaments you can win, not how ‘bad’ you are, but how silent you can be.

A light bulb depends on space to create the spark that lightens society. Is not space emptiness? Silence?

The human being is a light bulb, a machine through which sparks energy. But he blathers so much that there is no silence, thus, he never turns on those extra sensory perception tools like telepathy.

He is left with the sound of his body, a noisy thing that obscures his real thoughts.

A human being must create silence, and then the light bulb can go on.

When there is no sound he can create silence.

When there is no sound he can listen…and hear.

Hear what?

Hear his own thoughts.

Hear the thoughts of others.

When I was in the city I found it difficult to work out. I had done martial arts in such a way, and for so long, that I wasn’t interested in speaking, and the speaking of others disturbed the silence.

Humans are a loud variety.

Their heads actually make enormous noises, but the noises are beneath the human band of hearing. Thus, he is guilty of noise pollution, a machine trundling through life making squeaking gurgling sounds that are deafening to animals, but nothing to himself. He has made sure he can’t hear his own noise.

A polluter.

When you create enough silence the world speaks to you.

You can hear the animals look at you.

Animals are silent. They know how to listen. They never bothered to learn how to speak. Their ‘speech’ is more in action, pose, posture, grin.

Humans are so miserable.

They talk and they talk and they talk, and the world never listens.

Try the martial arts.

Try them blindfolded in a room without lights late at night.

Move by using your imagination.

Do your karate or kenpo or aikido in silence, lessening even the slither of bare foot over carpet, doing without noise.

Until not even your breath can be heard.

Breathless Martial Arts.

When you finally succeed in making perfect silence, then will you hear the true martial arts.

Then will you hear the world.

Then will you hear yourself.

Al Case has been studying the Martial Arts since 1967. Tai Chi Chuan is perfect for creating silence in the Martial Arts.

In the Best Karate Training Drills the Eyes Have It

Best Karate Training Focuses the Eyes

In the best Karate Training drills one should look their opponent in the eyes. This is a very interesting and powerful aspect to Karate training, so let me give you some data about it.

First, I have had a lot of people, during karate drills, ask me where they should look. The common answer that I have found over the years, and this is from Karate school to Taekwondo school to whatever Martial Arts school (style) you are studying, is that you should ‘unfocus’ your eyes on the chest. Look at the center of the body and become aware of all the stuff on the outside.

best karate training

You can’t fight what you can’t face!

 


This actually isn’t bad instruction, you want to see everything, but it stops forward progress for the martial artist at a certain point.

The real advice, if you want to experience the best karate training drills, is to look at the eyes.

The eyes are the windows to a man’s soul; look at the eyes long enough…and you can actually see what a man is thinking.

Look at the body, and you stop looking at the mind, and the martial art becomes a thing of reaction, or, at the very least, slow progress.

So you look at the eyes, train hard, do your forms for discipline, and eventually you will actually pick up on the very thought of the opponent.

Tell me this doesn’t give an incredible edge in combat…to know what an opponent is thinking!

Anyway, the point is this: you can’t fight what you can’t face.

And, as you progress, if you don’t look to the eyes, attempt to see the thought behind the action, then you wo’t make the jump from fighting to handling.

You see, in the real martial arts you learn to fight so you can give up fighting.

You don’t look at an opponent and fight him, you predict what he is going to do by reading his thoughts, and then making moves that undo him rather than harm him.

Can anybody spell the word ‘harmony?’

Only idiots fight all their lives. Smart martial arts students, people who want to experience the best karate training drills, watch the eyes and learn to read the mind.

And, eventually, they experience harmony, and greater control.

Opponents become as children, and as easily handled.

And that is why, when it comes to the best karate training drills, the eyes have it.

Check out this great article on Aikido style throws. Or, you could take a look at this course presenting a more combat Aikido style.

The Truth About Martial Arts Belt Ranking

Martial Arts Belt Ranking Made Understandable!

Martial Arts Belt Ranking does tend to be a little…strange. There are so many colored belts, what does a black belt mean, what is a master, and so on. In this article i will tell you where belt ranks came from, and what they actually mean.

Martial Arts Belt Ranking came from Japan, where it was originally used in swimming classes.

blind justice

Martial Arts like Karate and Judo picked up on them because it made it easier to arrange the karate class, or judo class, and teach it.

Before then people would join a martial arts school and there were junior students and senior students, and the point was to get your Teaching certificate.

Some people didn’t want to go that far, but the serious students did. After all, why do something half way? And, of course, a person who knew enough to teach would certain have sufficient self defense skills to protect himself.

In 1967 I joined a Kenpo Karate school, and the belt ranks were eight to Black Belt, and then eight after one had achieved Dan ranking, which is what a Black Belt is.

The colors were: white, orange, purple, blue, green, three stages of brown, and black. Black belts usually just put a tip, or a strip of white on the end of the belt for each advanced dan ranking.

Later, 1969, I jointed a classical school, and here was where I experienced martial arts belt ranking as it was meant to be. Sort of.

There were three belt ranks to Black Belt. These were white, green, and brown. But, to be honest, these had been subdivided into an eight and eight system.

The theory (one of the more predominant theories, I should say), was that one started as a white belt, like an unwritten piece of paper. Then one experienced the green of spring, became worn, like autumn, and finally entered winter.

This was an interesting sort of mythos. There was a logic to it, and it did describe the growing process, sort of.

But, what I noticed as the years rolled by was this: Martial Arts belt ranking doesn’t matter to people who have been in the martial arts for a while.

Yes, they are important, if only to spur the beginning student on. And, one should take pride in an achievement. It takes a lot of work, a lot of stick-to-ivity, to progress through the martial arts belt ranking systems.

But the real measure here is whether a person makes it to teacher.

Why do things half way, eh?

And that is the truth about Martial Arts belt ranking.

Here’s a great article on reality martial arts belt ranking. You can get started on Learning Martial Arts right here.

Dragon Gung Fu FollowsTiger Gung Fu!

Tiger Gung Fu Transforms into Dragon Gung Fu

Dragon Gung Fu refers to internal martial arts training, and tiger Gung fu refers to external martial arts systems.

Dragon Gung Fu would include such Chinese martial arts as Pa Kua Chang, Tai Chi Chuan, and so on.

dragon gung fu

Official Symbol of Gung Fu at Monster Martial Arts

 


Tiger Gung Fu would include such systems as Hung Gar, but would go outside the Chinese to such systems as Shotakan Karate (Tiger Emblem), Kyukoshinkai, and so on.

The main difference between the hard and the soft, or the external and internal martial arts systems, is emphasis on muscles in the hard, and emphasis on the growth of Chi from the Tan Tien in the hard.

Though, to be honest, do the Tiger Gung Fu styles long enough, and you will morph into the harder Tiger systems.

Now, most people consider that all you have to do is gear your training to development of tan tien based martial arts, and that will transform you into a dragon gung fu stylist. And this is true. But, there is an easier way, one that works more in conjunction with Tiger Gung Fu styles.

This means that if you do what I am about to tell you, you can easily transform your hard style into a soft style with just a little shift in your training.

To make the transformation from tiger Gung fu methods to dragon, first learn how to make grab arts out of the self defense techniques you practice in the forms.

This can be easily done, and probably the best example of this is the Matrix Aikido method.

Now, here is where the change really starts. You must learn how to use less and less force when doing those grab arts.

Instead of slamming with the hips, learn how to nudge and unbalance, and let the unbalancing technique take its course.

Now, I could tell you dozens of things, but I shant. It would turn into a complex discussion, instead of a conceptual principle.

Heck, take apart those techniques by the thousands, get complex, but always refer back to this principle of using less and less effort.

And that is the way you transform Tiger Gung Fu into Dragon Gung Fu.

Here’s a great article on how to make Dragon Gung Fu out of Tiger Gung Fu, and here’s an interesting online martial arts course on the subject.