Category Archives: wado ryu

Zen Promised Fights of Karate

Posted on April 17, 2016 | 1 comment

Newsletter 805
To Promise a Fight

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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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In the Best Karate Training Drills the Eyes Have It

Posted on July 9, 2013 | Leave a comment

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.

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How to have Chi Gung Power by the Barrelful!

Posted on June 12, 2013 | 1 comment

Chi Gung power That Works!

Chi Gung power is very easy to develop in the martial arts, but it also has a tendency to be subtle. You sometimes have it, chi hung power sometimes has built up within you, but you are unaware of it. Here’s a quick primer on exactly how to build Chi Gung power. No matter if you do Karate or taekwondo or Aikido or Tai Chi Chuan, this method will work. Heck, it is nothing but a logical examination of the classical methods for building chi gung power.

First, make sure you are rooted solidly to the earth. We call this grounding in Matrix Martial Arts. The point is to focus your attention downwards in such a manner that even if somebody pushes on you (into your stance, not sideways across your stance) you can just relax and direct the energy through your body and into the ground.

chi gung power

Second, Turn the body into the martial arts movement. This can be confusing if it is necessary that a body part go in opposition to the forward motion. But the idea is to move as many body parts as possible, and at the same time, into the martial arts movement. The term for this is CBM, which means Coordinated Body Motion. This is the key, and should be put into every move you do. No matter whether you do a Karate kata, kung fu form, Taekwondo pattern, you should analyze the motion of your body for CBM.

Third, move the body into the block or strike. This is to thrust or lunge the entire weight into whatever you are doing.

Now, there is a percentage thing that must be taken into account when you do martial arts moves with these three things. How much percentage do you put into the sinking of the weight, how much into the rotation or thrust? You’ve got to figure it out for every single move in your martial arts forms and techniques.

Now, here is the glory, these three things will create Chi Gung power by themselves. But, when you put all three together, when you work this concept called CBM, Coordinated Body Motion, into your technique, and combine all three concepts, then you are going to have HUMUNGOUS amounts of chi hung power start to build. Guaranteed, it will drip off your hands, glow from your body, and permeate the very air about you.

People, when you do this Chi Gung practice for any extent of time, will start to see that you are a brighter, happier person, and they will respond to the chi hung glow coming off you. They may not even see it, but they will respond to it.

But the real joy, as far as this martial artist is concerned, is that your Martial Arts will glow like the dickens. Your Martial Arts will become filled with Chi Gung power that will make your techniques hard to beat!

Here’s a great piece of writing called Chi Energy Defined. You can also look at the book  on generating Qigong Power, it is called Matrixing Chi and it is at Monster Martial Arts.

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How to Lose Reaction Time When You Do Kung Fu

Posted on February 19, 2013 | Leave a comment

Reaction time, when you do kung fu, is a fascinating monster. I say monster because it is the one thing people have that they should get rid of. It is one thing that can get you killed faster than a bomb in the diapers.

Reaction time is reaction, which means that it is something occurring after something else has happened. Do you understand what this means? If you possess reaction time, you are moving second and behind whoever is launching a punch at your face.

Now you are forced to move, and this because of the attacker’s move, rather than in keeping with what you want to do. That means you are the target, and you must get out of the way, build a good block, or whatever. It means you are not doing what you want to do.

The easiest way to understand this situation is if there is attacker A on the A spot. And a defender B on the B spot. And a third spot, maybe off to the left, which we will label spot C.

The time it takes A to move to B, B can move to C. But B MUST move at the same time. If B moves after A, then he is going to get clocked.

And, if B moves because of something he learned in a class, or because of an exercise, or because of anything else, then it is like he is moving yesterday. B must watch A ‘in this moment,’ and he must move as he wishes and not because of what A wishes. This is the only way for B to actually live to fight another day.

There is, oddly enough, how A sees this situation, and of actually being able to hit somebody. If you have seen how many misses there are in the mixed Martial Arts fights, then you will understand what I am saying. Simply, A is punching to where B is, but B is no longer in that spot.

In other words, for A to actually strike his opponent, he must strike not to where B is, because B is going to move, and spot B is where he used to be. And he must not attempt to change mid strike, for that will destroy his base and take power out of the strike. The trick is merely to understand and analyze the one sentence: in the time A attempts to move to B, B can move to C.

In summation, let me say that many people talk about timing and slipping strikes and that sort of thing, but they usually don’t really understand the equation I have given you here. To understand this equation-in the time A moves to B, B moves to C-you should write it out, along with every fight situation you can imagine, on a piece of paper. No matter what martial art you study, Kenpo, Kung Fu, Aikido, or whatever, this piece of data will enable you to shorten and even get rid of your reaction time, and elevate your martial art to a much higher level.

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Knock Out Somebody with a Good Kung Fu Punch

Posted on June 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

Kung Fu Punch Knocks ’em All the Way Out!

If you would like to knock out someone Kung Fu is a great device, however it does take a bit of understanding.

Hardest punch

A Tight Fist is a Heavy Fist!

 


Initially, you can easily knock someone out with a Kung Fu punch to the body, and I in fact encourage it. I’ll go into that very first, and explain the very first knock out procedure.

85 % of the people toss a right hand to the face. This is generally an ill become pregnant round home punch, and it is predictable and quickly stopped. So you establish for a really good, challenging punch to the face, then you drive a straight line to the intestine.

Mind you, this is a thrusting punch, and you wish to lock your arm and go all the way with the fellow.

Many fellows do not have exceptional conditioning, and so the body support system collapses, and they are down, and can also be entirely unconscious. It takes a heck of a wallop, however it can easily work. Practice driving your punch with a heavy bag every day for an hour. Get the idea that you can not be ceased. Watch the bag bounce away.

The additional and more confident knock out, is the punch to the head. When you punch the head you are attempting to rattle the mind inside the head. To in fact make it slosh from side to side so challenging it flattens out on the inside of the head, and the fellow you hit drops unconscious.

And, yes, you can easily thrust through the head, the same as if you thrust through the body.

However, the far better strategy is the light flick of the Kung Fu fist. It takes no energy, is mounted by a solitary clear and to the point notion, and it explains the ‘invisible punch,’ that Mohammed Ali made use of to knock out Sonny Liston. Individuals thought that the punch didn’t connect, that Liston took a dive, however, actually, Ali simply flicked a fist easily, you can easily see Liston’s head duck down somewhat, then he is merely falling.

To do this punch you need to be light and easy. You must hang a rate bag and float by it, and simply snap your hand like you were snapping a dish towel. You desire the bag to rattle from side to side like rocks in a can. The fellow will not see it coming, or he will definitely dismiss it as light in weight since there seems to be no mass behind it. However, when it connects, bingo, lights out!

In closing I will certainly point out that it takes work to make this kind of speed punch work, and I might advise that one find out ways to break bricks with excellent Kung Fu punches if they would like to truly master this Kung Fu trick.

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He Was Slow and He Didn’t Want to Be A Karate Instructor!

Posted on May 31, 2012 | Leave a comment

Karate Instructors and Slow People

Way back in 1967 I wanted to be a Karate Instructor. I had started at Chinese Kenpo, and we wore white uniforms and the Instructors wore black. I wanted to be a Karate instructor. I wanted to teach Karate. I wanted…badly.

karate instructor

Martial Arts Knowledge is the Key!



A year passes, a year filled with immensely hard work, where I NEVER missed a class, where I studied EVERYTHING I could, and I was  a Karate instructor. Then, one day this fellow comes in and signs up for some lessons, and I was given him to teach.

He was physically slow. He wasn’t stupid, he just had a body that moved slowly. There was nothing I could do to make him faster. I tried everything I knew, from stop watches to contests to whatever. He had a slow body.

The problem was that he didn’t understand how to move the body. I could tell he was sitting way back inside his head, firmly ensconced, knew that there was nothing but meat to him. He wasn’t even up to the point where he cold isolate muscles in the arms…he was just meat.

I thought of him many times over the years, and I tried to figure out ways to make people faster.

Speed is an interesting thing. In the beginning, speed is bound by your belief in the necessity of muscles to move. In the end…it is an illusion. Something you control by thinking at people and making them accept your viewpoint of reality.

The best and most efficient method for increasing martial arts speed is to be in one place, relax, and be in another place.

Don’t try to be fast, just visualize your body where it is, forget about it, then visualize the next position.

Don’t bother with the inbetween.

I am here…….I am there.

And that’s all there is to it.

And, you can use feedback of your body if you have a rough time doing this.

Listen to the sound of your uniform popping. Listen to the sound of the fist closing. These, and others, are good ways to travel through that inbetween land from slow to fast.

Eventually, with practice, you will be fast. It is just a matter of dedicating yourself, and cultivating proper thought.

This has been a page concerning one of my experiences as a karate instructor.

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Your Martial Art Doesn’t Work, And Then The Hells Angel Showed Me

Posted on December 13, 2011 | 1 comment

A Martial Art and a Hells Angel

outlaw martial art

I had studied Chinese Kenpo Karate for two years. I was an instructor, and I had written the training manual for my school.Then I ran into a Hells Angel.

The story actually started when the restaurant I was working at hired a geeky looking kid. I didn’t like him much, but then one day I saw him kick a wall. The wall shook like the 1906 earthquake, and I knew that he knew something I didn’t.

So I got to know him, and he said he studied Kang Duk Won Korean Karate. He said he didn’t know it well, which I found hard to believe because I had seen him kick a wall harder than a donkey kicks a pervert. He said, however, that his brother knew a lot more than him, and let’s go talk to him.

So that night we drove to Sunnyvale to meet his brother. As we pulled up Alex turned to me and said, “I should tell you that my brother is a Hells Angel.” I blinked, but, heck…I knew Chinese Kenpo Karate, right?

His brother was just under six feet tall, a little shorter than me, but he had the outlaw look in his piercing eyes. We talked about Karate for a while, and then he stated, “Your Martial Art doesn’t work.” He twisted two of the gnarliest fists I had ever seen into my shirt and told me to work my best technique on him.

I went into action. I locked his fists with one hand and brought my other hand up to break his elbows, I struck his wrists with my radial paralyzing downward chop, and when I went to chop him in the throat he threw me through a wall. Yep, all the way through a wall.

He laughed and gave me a hand up, and then he told me to grab his shirt front. I did, and he showed me the self defense technique that he learned at the Kang Duk Won. He reached over and popped a fist into my chest so hard that…that’s right, I went through the wall.

This is a true story, and being tossed through a wall twice changed my life, definitely changed the way I was learning martial arts, and prompted me down the road to other martial arts and how to really make them work. I spent over a half dozen years at the Kang Duk Won Korean Karate school, worked alongside all manner of people, including hells angels and other outlaw bikers. Included in my education was why a martial art doesn’t work.

The things that martial arts instructors add to their martial art, the slant towards tournaments and making money, there’s no end to the gimmicks that have messed up the art. That’s why I came up with Matrixing, so martial arts instructors could fix all that kind of stuff. Click to Monster Martial Arts and see what I came up with.

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What is a Karate Sensei Trying to Teach?

Posted on November 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Not many people understand what a real Karate sensei is trying to teach. Too often people sign up for a karate lesson, learn to bow and call the teacher Sensei, and don’t even know what the word means. This is true not just of karate, but of other martial arts, such as Kenpo or Kung Fu. To understand what the word sensei means, however, is to change the student’s mind about what the martial arts are all about.

In Japan there is a three year ‘task’ for monks during their training. During this time they must live by the kindness of their fellow man. They sit in places where people pass by and hold their cups out and beg without speaking.

One of the places for these monks is at crossroads. People travel by, flip a coin in the cup, and walk on. And, occasionally, people ask where a destination is.

The monk, who after a time of living in such a manner looks rather shabby, merely extends his finger and points down the road. Thus, the word sensei means: ‘He who points the way.’ And this term has been taken and used by people who are guiding others to a specific destination.

Now, the unfortunate fact is that many martial arts instructors don’t understand this. Martial Arts have exploded across civilization so fast that proper teachings have been all but forgotten. Thus, many karate sensei are in it solely for the ‘domination factor.’

Thus, real teachings are put aside, and the teaching method has been geared for the person who wishes to control people. But a real martial arts teacher doesn’t control people; he teaches martial arts. And there is a huge and vast difference between these two things.

The fellow who teaches people is looking for money, to dominate, to make sure he is the leader of the pack. The fellow who teaches martial arts doesn’t care about being leader of the pack, he just wants to give information that will lead the student down the correct path. The question is…what is the correct path?

A martial art teacher who lacks understanding will point to trophies, to being in charge, to winning no matter what the cost is. A martial art instructor who has not journeyed upon the way himself will push people, call for discipline, and make people monkey see monkey do what he is showing them, no matter that he doesn’t understand it himself. A true Karate sensei gives the teachings, then removes himself from the path of the student.

Fortunately, there is a course that is not monkey see monkey do, but actually works the way old time martial arts instruction. Karate sensei everywhere, if they want to be true to the art, should look to the Martial Arts Instructor Course at Free Martial Arts Online.

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Win a Street Fight Using One of These Three Karate Techniques!

Posted on October 7, 2011 | Leave a comment

I have used these three karate techniques for decades, and I find them invaluable. In fact, I am one hundred per cent sure that these are the three martial arts techniques you must master if you want to win a street fight…and I mean any street fight.

matrix of blocksMind you, I figured these things in tournaments years ago, and they can be used in tournaments, but only if you use proper control. Use them on the street however, defend your life, and you must use them full out.

The first technique is to break the fingers when you are closing in. Many people will have open hands, not always, but enough to where this technique should be paid attention to. So when you close the distance, assuming you are not kicking first, you must slap down on his fingers with a backfist. If you can break his fingers he will rethink everything, and he will have one hand that is pretty much useless.

Second thing, goes right along with breaking fingers, is to force his hands (arms) down. Push them downward, so they are trapped and he can’t use them, and you are going to have a heck of an advantage. This is actually the theory behind Bruce Lee’s famous ‘Straight Blast.’ He would literally ruin at people, sprint at them, shooting punches so that they rode over the arms and forced them down, so that his punches would be unimpeded on the way to the face.

Third, make him blink his eyes. This fits right in with the shooting motion of the hands as you go for broken fingers and trapping hands. If you can shoot the fingers to the eyes, and hit the eyes, then you are going to be fighting somebody who is blind. What could be sweeter, eh?

But even if you don’t manage to blind the mugger, if he blinks his eyes, thinks backward in his mind, then he will be pulling your strikes to his face and not even thinking about defending himself, or even countering. Now, these techniques I discovered in tournaments many decades ago. And you can still use them, but be careful. You don’t want to break your partner’s fingers, but you do want to slap his hands down. And you don’t want to blind him, but you do want him to blink his eyes.

So practice these karate techniques, learn how to use them, and you will never lose a street fight.

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The Hard Punch That Will Knock Over an Elephant

Posted on October 3, 2011 | Leave a comment

You know, I talk about the hard punch a fair amount, wrote the book on it, but there is one thing that I don’t say, but that I should. Now in the book I talk about the methods, and one should practice these methods, and it should get them started, and within a couple of months one should have a hard strike that will kick just about anybody on their keister.

hard punchThis knowledge is invaluable, never been written down before. But the reason I wrote it is not to give the comic book reader a way to steal lunch money, but to get people to dedicate themselves for a few months. If they do that, then they can see the benefit in devoting a lifetime to the martial arts, and here comes the one thing I should have told people.

You don’t need to do the punch a thousand times a day, but you do need to do it a thousand days. Sure, you’ll get the power in a couple of months, but that is just a shadow of the real power you can get. That’s just a teaser.

One of the fellows who first taught me didn’t have any method, he just heard that you could break bricks with your hands, so he set up a brick and hit it fifty times a day. He had to be careful not to bruise his hands, but he practiced, and he just kept practicing. When he couldn’t practice on the brick anymore, he would just practice in the air, and visualize the brick breaking.

He used to take a brick and place it on a fence post, upright, no brace of any sort, and snap a half fist into it. It didn’t just break…it shattered. I mean, the sucker almost exploded! And that was with four years of playing with it.

Can you imagine what that punch would have done to a person?

I had another instructor, and he would place a brick on a step and shear it off. He said the trick was in the timing, that you lift and lower ever so slightly so the brick was actually hitting the cement step at the moment of shear. Some trick, it still takes an immense amount of focus and concentration.

Concentration, that is the key, and that is why you do these tricks. No, Bruce was right, bricks (boards) don’t fight back. But the mental focus you gain in being able to shatter them stays with you your entire life.

Anyway, I recommend you get my book, The Punch, and get all the data. That way you won’t be flying blind. And then think about what I’ve said here. Put it together, then practice, slowly and surely, and within a couple of years you will be doing more than knuckling over elephants. You will feb shattering bricks with your hard punch.

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