Tag Archives: karate

How to Defend Against Dogs with Martial Arts

Martial Arts Defense Against Killer Dogs

Is this going to be a GREAT week or what?
Eh?
I mean,
the stars are in alignment,
the tea leaves are propitious,
and,
if that isn’t enough…
you get to work out!

best karate kung fu chi training manual

Click on the cover!

Of all them prophetic devices…
only the work out is the sure thing,
so I think I’ll work out twice!

Oinkly doggie.
Let’s leap right into the good stuff,
let’s talking about taking out attack trained,
killer vicious curs called…
guard dogs.

I was ten years old,
was cutting across a neighbors estate on my bicycle
and a big, old weimaraner
who I had known and played with,
attacked me.
Dragged me off the bicycle
and I managed to steer the falling bike
towards the property line,
and I fell into the street.
Off the property.
The guard dog,
who I had known and played with,
petted and wrestled with,
growled and snapped at me,
but was stopped by the property line.

Okay.
Guards dogs gone wild.
you know?

So I was afraid of dogs after that.
Then,
when I was eleven,
my older brother gave me his paper route.
And,
on one of the streets,
you guessed it,
a dog.
Not a guard dog,
but he would run into the street
and chase me.
I would peddle and cry.
And I asked my brother what he did about the dog.
“I kick it.”
It’s got to reach you,
so when it jumps,
I kick it.

I envisioned kicking,
even practiced it a bit,
and,
the next day,
I was delivering papers,
and,
you guessed it,
the dog comes chasing after me!

Man,
I stomped that sucker right in the face.
He yipped and ran.
And,
a half hour later,
I rode past that house again.
I was feeling a bit proud,
maybe even a bit blood thirsty,
hoping that dog would attack me again
so I could nail his face with my
Sunday go to meeting shoes.
(They were the only hard soles I had)

There were teeth on the ground!
I had actually knocked his teeth out!
HAHAHAHA!

And,
over the years,
I think about the A$$whole
who owned that dog.
Cause it’s the owner that should be kicked,
not the dog.
I’ll bet the owner thought it was funny,
his lights were on,
he let the dog out,
laughed when the paper boy ran.

Well,
he was feeding that dog mush with a spoon now!

Okay.
That sets us up.
Let’s talk about Monkeyland.

We have dogs up here.
Truth,
I LOVE dogs.
I hike all over with them.
I throw sticks.
I even swim with them!

Nothing is better than a big, old mutt
with a wet, sloppy tongue.
Nothing.

So we’ve got three dogs.
One is a hundred pound lab.
Big frigging tongue on that boy!
The other two are Mallenois.
Mother and pup.
Mallenois are like under sized german shepherds.
And,
they are highly prized as guard dogs.
My partner brought them up,
introduced the mother,
who was highly trained,
as a killer.

Well,
that’s not really what we’re about at Monkeyland,
but he’s my partner’s,
so now we have a highly trained attack dog.

Here’s the bad news.
The mother is loving,
one of the most loving dogs I have ever seen.
It is…
over loving.
Frantic.
Desparate.
You can’t go outside without the dog leaping on you,
hugging you,
trying to curl around your feet,
prostating itself and
…just wanting love.

The trainer,
you see,
has done a number on her.
Probably a good trainer.
My opinion,
however,
is that the dog will protect instinctively.
Doesn’t need to be trained to harm a human being.
In fact,
I think the training,
to harm another human being,
is a crime.
And what it has done to that poor dog…
Lord.
That poor dog is just out of its mind.

It’s always the owner,
in this case the trainer,
you know?

Anyway,
before I rant on a$$wholes who train dogs,
let’s talk about taking out a dog
that has been trained to harm human beings.

I went out on the front porch to do a work out.
Beautiful out there.
A mile of green valley and blue skies.
High, puffy clouds wafting across the sky.
A hint of breeze to cool off the work out
and let it go even longer.

Paradise,
you know?

BUT,
the dog wants love.
Is desperate for love.
And it crawls under my feet,
tries to jump on me.
So I practice my footwork,
anticipating directions,
and the dog is falling into space,
can’t keep up,
even falling down.

Hey!
This is fun!
BUT,
somewhere in there,
the attack responses are triggered.
The dog leaps at me.

Remember that dog I played with?
And who dragged me off my bike?
Man,
here it as,
all over again.

Not quite vicious,
but the line between love and hate,
usually large,
has been slipped over.
The dog leaps at me,
snapping at my wrists.
I realize that this is one of the devices
that the trainer must have used.
Play,
slap around,
get it to go lightly vicious.
A game,
you know?

But the A$$whole trainer
obviously didn’t know martial arts.

I was doing Tai Chi at the time,
the first move,
ward off.
The dog leaped,
I shuffled back slightly,
bowed my belly in,
and held my arms out,
the dog was in my space,
and I lowered my arm so that the forearm was at the neck,
turned my hips,
and threw the dog.

Man,
you have never seen such a quick and efficient throw.
That dog just flipped on its side.

It leaped at me.
I did golden rooster,
a simple knee,
and the dog bounced off the point of the knee and fell back.
Yipping!

I smiled,
cocked my head,
and held my hand out and motioned to the dog like Bruce Lee.
Come on.

The dog went for the feet.
I was wearing soft shoes,
so I merely stepped in front of my left foot with my right,
then,
when the dog was fooled,
slapped it in the head with a left sole behind the right leg.
Came right out of nowhere,
rocked that momma like there was no tomorrow.

Now,
I was being incredibly soft.
I LOVE dogs.
Even attack trained vicious guard dogs.
It’s the owner,
you know?

But I moved across that porch,
befuddling,
confounding,
confusing,
and threw that dog this way and that.
Didn’t use any force.
Just slipped and turned,
gave the dog the target,
then withdrew it.

And,
after a while,
the dog wasn’t sure what to do.
In the game it had been trained in,
it won,
got a cookie for savaging a wrist or ankle.
Got loving for biting the padded mid section.
Here,
there was no midsection.
And the ankles bit back and were gone.
And the wrists,
oh Lord,
going for the wrists
was a fool’s errand.
That always resulted in a disappearing target,
and a dog body flipped on it’s side,
and a series of Karate punches to the belly.
Soft punches.
And,
grin,
I avoided any of the Tai Chi strikes.
I didn’t want to kill the dog.

So,
that’s how you handle an attack trained
vicious,
killer guard dog.

Karate will work fine,
or any other art,
but remember that it is play here,
and that you are,
in essence,
undoing what the dog has been trained to do.
And,
remember,
it is always the owner.

The guard dog,
any dog,
is just one of God’s critters,
and we are charged with taking care of them.
Not using them against our fellow man,
beyond their natural protectiveness.

And,
it makes me think,
there are a few people I’d like to ‘de-train’
a few politicians.
Hmmm.
Maybe that’s a story for another time,
eh?

Have a great and glorious work out!
And don’t forget to pet your dog,
and play with him every day.
especially if he’s been attack trained.
Grin.

Al

Here’s the link for Matrix Tai Chi Chuan.
That’s the stuff I use,
and I recommend it HIGHLY!

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

Is it Possible to have Perfect Martial Arts?

Chess and the First Move in the Martial Arts

I recently wrote on article on ‘Beyond Western Muscles and the Martial Arts,’ and in that article I mentioned an idea I had come across many years ago: that in a perfect chess game white will win for the simple reason that it moved first.

This has obvious implications in the martial arts. Two combatants edging towards each other, the perfect gunfight, searching for that threshold of distance wherein they can strike first and without getting struck.

Some people didn’t agree with this. I thought it a simple matter of extrapolating Einstein’s theory of relativity, and the resulting corollaries in subatomic physics, but, alas, I guess I was not…the first to move.

Then I had an interesting email wherein the fellow said that if two tai chi masters fight, the one who moves first will always lose.

Lord! Now I didn’t know what to think!

Except (aha!), if one understands that the perfect state of consciousness (awareness) is to consider oneself the center of the universe, and that everything revolves around oneself, and that there is no proof that anything (or entity) exists, except as is created by the being at the center of the universe.

This theory holds up to the concept that at the center of all motion is motionlessness. This theory finally achieves the concept of perfection in the martial arts, and in the whole universe!

In this realm thought ceases to be motion, and becomes the ultimate no motion.

Which brings us to the grand conclusion.

If one doesn’t move first, then one will win. This fulfills the highest goals of the the martial arts, defines the highest attributes of an individual, and results in the cessation of all wars for an everlasting reign of peace on earth.

After, of course, one puts a big juicy, raw steak on his eyeball.

If you want perfection in your fighting abilities you have to matrix your martial arts. Go to Monster Martial Arts and find out what Matrixing is.

If you like martial arts humor you should check out the Case Histories column at Monster Martial Arts.

The One Thing That Makes Me Mad About Martial Artists

‘Just one thing makes you mad about Martial Artists, Al?’ you ask.

Yeah, really, just one thing.

Do you remember back when you were first starting, and you would encounter the attitude that ‘my school is best/my art is best.’

martial arts anger

I’m so mad I could hit…the air!

 
Now, after having done a few martial arts you have the overall picture, and you know that not one art is best.

And, if you are pretty savvy, you understand that people need to think their art is best, at least in the beginning. It is a mark of loyalty, of fanaticism that is necessary to truly immerse yourself in your studies.

You need that degree of commitment if you are really going to learn anything.

Martial Arts are tough, and it takes a person with zeal to make it through them.

Now, having said that, what is the one thing that makes me mad about Martial Artists?

Well, interestingly enough, it is an extrapolation of that stupidity of which we are all necessarily guilty.

It is an attitude that, since we have done martial arts we know everything.

It is a stopping point that happens after somebody has learned something significant, and then doesn’t know how to proceed, and thus doesn’t want to proceed, and falls back on, here it is, ‘I know that/we have that in our system.’

Yep, it is the refusal to move, the inability to learn more, and simply because we think we know it all.

But if you knew it all you could make an orange appear in your hand. Out of nothing.

Or vaporize a rock, into nothing, without the pesky atomic explosion that might accomplish such folderol.

Now, I encounter that attitude more than most, and this because I have gone past it. There is a residue, you see, which accumulates. And this residue of which I speak insulates those who wish to know, but don’t know how, who have succumbed to the one thing that pisses me off about martial artists.

So, you don’t know everything, and I say, ‘Look, here is this matrixing thing, and it can show you what you don’t know! Doesn’t matter if you don’t know what you don’t know, it works for everybody, and it finds out what you don’t know, even if it is different from what everybody else doesn’t know!’

Most people are polite, think I am just drumming up a little internet business with an internet gimmick, and they simply slide over my claims of a science…and the fact that I have over 600 pages of testimonials, and almost no detractors.

Well, I have a few detractors, but the odd thing–every one of those detractors has never taken one of my courses!

But to return to the sane ones, most martial artists smile, relax in their hard won competence, and say, ‘Oh, yeah, I understand what he’s saying, so I must have that in my art. No need to look.’

But if asked if they have ever seen a matrix graph? Whether they have ever come across something called a matrix of blocks? Whether they have seen the martial arts listed as a geometrical arrangement? They can’t say that they have.

Or, sad, if they have, the graph or arrangement is wrong. It is just a compilation of kenpo (or other) techniques that, given enough techniques, will invariably slide one to the other.

Not a logic, but a happenstance when one has information overload.

Not a slim, streamlined way of understanding all arts, of accessing all arts, but a jumble of everything piled in a bucket so you can’t see the bottom.

Well, there you go, that’s the one thing that makes me mad about Martial Artists. The fact that they have reached the top, and don’t understand it is a beginning for a whole new thing. A relaxation into self-satisfaction, and the end of the climb.

An inability to learn because they think they know it all.

Head over to Monster Martial Arts to find out more about how to start your learning curve upwards again!

Spirit Shouting as a Martial Arts Weapon

The Secret of the Kiai (Spirit Shout)

A work out at sunrise!
What a way to go, eh?
Perfect weather,
perfect environment…
perfect work out.
Really charges me up.
And I trust you had one, too?
And, if you didn’t,
get your butt out there
and start working out!

karate kiai spirit shout

Yell when you strike!

 
I was cruising the net the other day,
and came across a most interesting discussion
on the value of Kiai.
You know,
when you yell so loud
the other fellow loses control of his functions.
Heh.

Interestingly enough,
many people said they didn’t kiai,
and they indicated
by their remarks
that they didn’t even know what it was.

Kiai means ‘spirit shout.’
And let me tell you an interesting story.

I practiced for years and years
and part of every class
was a kiai,
or a ‘ki-yup’
as the instructor said
when counting off the forms.

And I loved it.
I could feel the explosion come together,
I loved how it made the body peak,
brought out more energy.

One day I was walking down the street,
this was in Santa Rosa,
and this bum comes shuffling towards me
and he says,
‘Got some change, man?’
Interestingly,
it was not the usual whine,
but a more forceful request.

‘No,’ I said,
no nonsense.
This guy was young,
could go out and get himself a job,
no need to beg.
Some people are helpless,
this guy wasn’t.

So I get about ten feet past him,
and all of the sudden I hear him say,
‘No? What are you, some kind of pussy?’

Seriously,
a new kind of begging.
If people don’t give you money,
you threaten them.
Maybe it worked for him,
but then he hadn’t run into anybody
who had practicing his kiai
for near twenty years.

‘No?’ I kiai-ed, turning back towards him.
Then I walked towards him,
shouting in full kiai,
filling the street with my voice,
and telling him all sorts of things,
about his character and personality.

Well,
you could see him leaning backward,
it was almost like watching that commercial
where the guy sits in front of a massive speaker
and his hair blows back.
And he finally manages to turn,
and stumble away.
Honestly,
he had lost control of his feet.
Didn’t know what to do.

Then the truly interesting thing happened,
I looked around the street,
there were maybe twenty or thirty people around,
walking along the street,
looking in windows,
and none of them were looking at me.
They were all shaking,
afraid to even look around.

My kiai inspired shouting,
my ‘spirit shout,’
had done that.

Now,
sounds a little too good to be true,
doesn’t it?
So how about if I tell you the secret
of what I did?

First,
I spent some seven years or so
training in the Kang Duk Won.
And we did Kiai’s there.

But any system of Karate will work,
if you remember a couple of things.
Go on,
use
the search box
on Matrix Martial Art
(alcase.wordpress.com)
Search for CBM,
or Coordinated Body Motion.
I learned that in my seven years.
Of course,
when you apply this data to your own karate system
you have to make sure you have
the three elements of power in alignment.
That’s on the Master Instructor Course.

Easy secret, eh?
Just understand what I am saying,
and do it.
Your kiai will grow like nobody’s business.

But,
let me explain,
exactly,
what happens,
so you will really understand
what we are doing here.

But,
before I explain this,
please get yourself a dictionary or something,
cause what I am going to tell you is out there.

You don’t look with your eyes.
You look through your eyes.

You don’t listen with your ears,
you listen through your ears.

Your eyes and ears are meat.
You are the awareness looking through the meat perceptions of your body.

Okay,
if you can handle that,
then we just reverse engineer that concept
to understand the kiai.

You don’t yell with your voice,
you yell through your voice.
If you can yell not as a meat body,
but as an awareness,
then you will have it.
You will have a kiai,
and a personal presence,
that can shatter crowds.

You,
as an awareness,
fill up the lungs and the voice box and…
the entire world.
You fill the world with your presence.
It’s easy to do if you have seven years of GOOD karate,
or…
here we go,
if you practice forms with matrixing,
if you matrix your body with the master instructor course,
if you just understand what you are doing
by understanding the simple things I say here.

And it is simple,
isn’t it?

It’s hard to take…
(I’m not [choke] meat?
I’m not a body?
I’m an…awareness?
I am an ‘I am,’
and that is a the spiritual nature of things?))

But if you can understand that you are awareness,
then you can shift your understanding
away from the mystical martial arts approach
and start to understand the science I am proposing.??Then you won’t need seven years to get there?(if you are lucky,?and actually have a good system)?You can get there in a few months.

Oinkly doggie.
Here’s the URL for
The Master Instructor Course…

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

Remember,
you are an awareness,
an ‘I am,’
the center of the universe,
and the martial arts are a way to know that.
And the Kiai,
the spirit shout,
is a great way to start knowing that.

Now,
have a GREAT work out,
and HanaKwanMass!

Al

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

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.

Karate Improves Chances of Survival in a Real Fight!

Karate Will Help You Survive a Real Fight!

I came across these statistics about being in a real fight the other day, and they are pretty interesting.

First, 80% of all real fights had a clear winner. This is interesting because it means that four out of five real fights were taken to the point where one person was incapacitated. This means that people should be studying martial arts which are effective. Tournaments are fine, and one has to learn how to do kumite, but one also has to understand how real a confrontation can get.

real fight

Karate may be the correct answer to this type of attack!

 

10% were broken up and 5% were outright draws. This means that once a real fight starts, it’s not likely that somebody is going to come and save you.

Second, 10% ended up on the ground. Well, there goes the big hype for MMA and Jujitsu and the argument that combatants are likely to end up on the ground. This means that one would be better served by learning a stand up martial art like Karate or Kung Fu.

10% of real fighting started with a punch. But that means that 90% started with…a push? A weapon? something else? But not a kick, as we will see below. Again, the need for combat oriented karate or something that is specific to punching distance, yet adaptable to other types of attacks.

80% of first punches were with the right hand. And, follow this statistic up with the fact that 95% of the right hand punches were to the head. So you have to prepare for a right punch to the face.

And, finally, only 10% of the fights had a kick in them. This statistic deals out Taekwondo.

Now, I have made a few remarks about the statistics here, and I should probably offer some sort of explanation so that there is no misunderstanding. So here’s the conclusion:

A fight can start with anything, but they don’t usually go to the ground, and they don’t contain much in the way of kicks. Thus, you need some knowledge of grappling and kicking, but not a lot. There is grappling and kicking in Karate, but not to the exclusion of other distances or ranges.

These are the statistics of a real fight, not the rare atmosphere of the cage, or a tournament, or any other organized sort of match, and since the average person will get in three fights in his life, it behooves Joe Average to start a study of Karate. I say Karate because it deals with kicks, does have some ground work, but is heavy on fists and blocking punches. Makes it perfect for a street altercation.

Probably the fastest and most efficient way to become competent enough to survive real fighting, be it on the street or anywhere, is at Learn Karate Online. You can get some Free Karate Lessons starting here.

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

Martial Arts Testing and Belts and Rank and All that Stuff…

The Truth About Martial arts Testing and Fees!

I recently came across the most interesting discussion concerning Martial Arts testing for belts. It was interesting because it was well thought out, concerned, and because I disagreed with most of what was said.

Sometimes I will make a comment, but in this case I am prompted to tell the truth about Martial Arts testing. What makes this particularly juicy is that the people involved in this discussion were nibbling at the edges of what I did a lo-o-ong time ago, and which is more in keeping with the true spirit of the martial arts.

real fighting

Is Karate the answer to this type of attack?



Originally there were no belts, which doesn’t mean there were no ranks.

Gichin Funakoshi introduced belts which, I believe, came from the a method used by swimming teams.

The first two belt ranks were white and black. This expanded to white, green, brown and black.

Some fifty years ago ranks and belts exploded. Ed Parker and Kenpo Karate led the way with a rainbow of colors. Taekwondo expanded the colors even further.

Now, this is the way it happened, but, there is an incredibly valuable piece of data missing.

I began studies with Kenpo, and was introduced to the belt system, and found it valuable in encouraging people to study.

Isn’t it interesting that people have to be encouraged to study?

But, when I went to the Kang Duk Won, I wasn’t encouraged to study. We had four basic belts, white, green, brown and black, further delineated by stripes, and nobody much cared.

Simply, people who cared about flashy belts left the school, and only the faithful, the ones who didn’t need to be encouraged to study, were left.

Nowadays people treat the martial arts like a business, structure everything around sales and promotion, and the belt is held up as the goal.

Fact: the belt means nothing.

Fact: knowledge means everything.

But these two facts seem to have become twisted, and the belt means everything, and knowledge means nothing.

I didn’t understand my Kang Duk Won instructors thoughts concerning belts, and I didn’t care. I was one of the faithful. I worked out till I bled, and there was no middle ground. There was no entertainment, and freestyle while recognized as a game, was treated like life or death.

Not to beat somebody else up, but to hone your own skills.

Interestingly, this type of freestyle brought one to mushin no shin (mind of no mind), which is an intuitive method, and it was a science, and it was TOTALLY combat effective. When people say their art is not combative effective, or not useful on the street, I know they didn’t study the real art, but rather an art that entertains children.

When I became an instructor I awarded rank according to forms and techniques learned.

As I progressed I realized the inadequacy of that, and I stopped giving out belts. For years I gave no martial arts tests, simply gave a person a black belt when he had the knowledge.

This thing of knowledge is quite interesting.

The number of forms learned, of techniques done, has no relationship to martial arts knowledge.

And I could ascertain the depth of knowledge a person had by simply looking at him.

Just to mention a couple of the actual criteria:
how deeply does a person ‘screw’ himself into the ground when doing his forms and techniques.
Or, what level of intuition has the student progressed to.

And there are other criteria, all coming from the removal of the student from his body.

I know, sounds crazy, but the awareness that is a human being becomes removed from his body through the method of doing the martial arts forms and techniques correctly.

Emphasis on ‘correctly,’ as it requires an experience of physics beyond the normal ‘fist in the face’ ‘apple falls on the head’ physics. This is an entirely different set of physics which I have seen only a few dozen people demonstrate, and none of whom actually understood.

Now, fees. I charge little, if at all. The rationale here is: how can I charge somebody for what he already knows? What he already paid for, and not just in money, but in sweat and blood?

Yet I had one fellow come to me and said he was required to pay $800, plus plane fare to Japan, plus lodgings and meals and all, to take a martial arts test.

For what?

Three old guys would sit behind a table and watch him demonstrate for an hour, then pass or fail with NO comment on why he was passing or failing!

Obviously, these guys loved themselves…and wanted his money. And they called themselves masters.

Anyway, as time went on I got back into giving not belts, but checklists, and then I would just work people to the bone, making sure they screwed themselves into the ground during form and technique, that they reached intuitive levels of freestyle, and other things.

And, eventually, I made these checklists public, selling them as courses, and here an interesting thing happened. Knowledge became able to be transcribed on paper.

Yes, the student still has to work, and those students in it for the entertainment or the belt and so on will have problems.

But a student who actually reads the courses, does the courses, gets the knowledge.

And they usually stop needing to be entertained and become the faithful.

This became an immense and tremendous boon to ANYBODY who possesses these courses.

It eliminated guesswork. It gave workable knowledge.

It enabled the true art to be passed on even if the instructor didn’t have all the knowledge, as it passed on the knowledge to all involved.

Then I come across discussions on how to test.

Man, there are hundreds of theories out there, but all passed on being able to monkey see monkey do a form, and none having to do with the perception of knowledge, of how to actually increase the students awareness.

So I say this: stop entertaining. Get brutal. Search for knowledge and not belts. Award rank for knowledge and not memorized skits.

This is the only way to the true art, and it is the way martial arts testing should be.

Here is a page that will tell you how to find out your true rank without Martial Arts testing.

Martial Arts Testing and Belts and Ranks and All that Stuff…

The Truth About Martial arts Testing and Fees!

I recently came across the most interesting discussion concerning Martial Arts testing for belts. It was interesting because it was well thought out, concerned, and because I disagreed with most of what was said.

Sometimes I will make a comment, but in this case I am prompted to tell the truth about Martial Arts testing. What makes this particularly juicy is that the people involved in this discussion were nibbling at the edges of what I did a lo-o-ong time ago, and which is more in keeping with the true spirit of the martial arts.

real fighting

Is Karate the answer to this type of attack?



Originally there were no belts, which doesn’t mean there were no ranks.

Gichin Funakoshi introduced belts which, I believe, came from the a method used by swimming teams.

The first two belt ranks were white and black. This expanded to white, green, brown and black.

Some fifty years ago ranks and belts exploded. Ed Parker and Kenpo Karate led the way with a rainbow of colors. Taekwondo expanded the colors even further.

Now, this is the way it happened, but, there is an incredibly valuable piece of data missing.

I began studies with Kenpo, and was introduced to the belt system, and found it valuable in encouraging people to study.

Isn’t it interesting that people have to be encouraged to study?

But, when I went to the Kang Duk Won, I wasn’t encouraged to study. We had four basic belts, white, green, brown and black, further delineated by stripes, and nobody much cared.

Simply, people who cared about flashy belts left the school, and only the faithful, the ones who didn’t need to be encouraged to study, were left.

Nowadays people treat the martial arts like a business, structure everything around sales and promotion, and the belt is held up as the goal.

Fact: the belt means nothing.

Fact: knowledge means everything.

But these two facts seem to have become twisted, and the belt means everything, and knowledge means nothing.

I didn’t understand my Kang Duk Won instructors thoughts concerning belts, and I didn’t care. I was one of the faithful. I worked out till I bled, and there was no middle ground. There was no entertainment, and freestyle while recognized as a game, was treated like life or death.

Not to beat somebody else up, but to hone your own skills.

Interestingly, this type of freestyle brought one to mushin no shin (mind of no mind), which is an intuitive method, and it was a science, and it was TOTALLY combat effective. When people say their art is not combative effective, or not useful on the street, I know they didn’t study the real art, but rather an art that entertains children.

When I became an instructor I awarded rank according to forms and techniques learned.

As I progressed I realized the inadequacy of that, and I stopped giving out belts. For years I gave no martial arts tests, simply gave a person a black belt when he had the knowledge.

This thing of knowledge is quite interesting.

The number of forms learned, of techniques done, has no relationship to martial arts knowledge.

And I could ascertain the depth of knowledge a person had by simply looking at him.

Just to mention a couple of the actual criteria:
how deeply does a person ‘screw’ himself into the ground when doing his forms and techniques.
Or, what level of intuition has the student progressed to.

And there are other criteria, all coming from the removal of the student from his body.

I know, sounds crazy, but the awareness that is a human being becomes removed from his body through the method of doing the martial arts forms and techniques correctly.

Emphasis on ‘correctly,’ as it requires an experience of physics beyond the normal ‘fist in the face’ ‘apple falls on the head’ physics. This is an entirely different set of physics which I have seen only a few dozen people demonstrate, and none of whom actually understood.

Now, fees. I charge little, if at all. The rationale here is: how can I charge somebody for what he already knows? What he already paid for, and not just in money, but in sweat and blood?

Yet I had one fellow come to me and said he was required to pay $800, plus plane fare to Japan, plus lodgings and meals and all, to take a martial arts test.

For what?

Three old guys would sit behind a table and watch him demonstrate for an hour, then pass or fail with NO comment on why he was passing or failing!

Obviously, these guys loved themselves…and wanted his money. And they called themselves masters.

Anyway, as time went on I got back into giving not belts, but checklists, and then I would just work people to the bone, making sure they screwed themselves into the ground during form and technique, that they reached intuitive levels of freestyle, and other things.

And, eventually, I made these checklists public, selling them as courses, and here an interesting thing happened. Knowledge became able to be transcribed on paper.

Yes, the student still has to work, and those students in it for the entertainment or the belt and so on will have problems.

But a student who actually reads the courses, does the courses, gets the knowledge.

And they usually stop needing to be entertained and become the faithful.

This became an immense and tremendous boon to ANYBODY who possesses these courses.

It eliminated guesswork. It gave workable knowledge.

It enabled the true art to be passed on even if the instructor didn’t have all the knowledge, as it passed on the knowledge to all involved.

Then I come across discussions on how to test.

Man, there are hundreds of theories out there, but all passed on being able to monkey see monkey do a form, and none having to do with the perception of knowledge, of how to actually increase the students awareness.

So I say this: stop entertaining. Get brutal. Search for knowledge and not belts. Award rank for knowledge and not memorized skits.

This is the only way to the true art, and it is the way martial arts testing should be.

Here is a page that will tell you how to find out your true rank without Martial Arts testing.

Martial Arts Testing and Belts and Rank and All that Stuff…

The Truth About Martial arts Testing and Fees!

I recently came across the most interesting discussion concerning Martial Arts testing for belts. It was interesting because it was well thought out, concerned, and because I disagreed with most of what was said.

Sometimes I will make a comment, but in this case I am prompted to tell the truth about Martial Arts testing. What makes this particularly juicy is that the people involved in this discussion were nibbling at the edges of what I did a lo-o-ong time ago, and which is more in keeping with the true spirit of the martial arts.

real fighting

Is Karate the answer to this type of attack?



Originally there were no belts, which doesn’t mean there were no ranks.

Gichin Funakoshi introduced belts which, I believe, came from the a method used by swimming teams.

The first two belt ranks were white and black. This expanded to white, green, brown and black.

Some fifty years ago ranks and belts exploded. Ed Parker and Kenpo Karate led the way with a rainbow of colors. Taekwondo expanded the colors even further.

Now, this is the way it happened, but, there is an incredibly valuable piece of data missing.

I began studies with Kenpo, and was introduced to the belt system, and found it valuable in encouraging people to study.

Isn’t it interesting that people have to be encouraged to study?

But, when I went to the Kang Duk Won, I wasn’t encouraged to study. We had four basic belts, white, green, brown and black, further delineated by stripes, and nobody much cared.

Simply, people who cared about flashy belts left the school, and only the faithful, the ones who didn’t need to be encouraged to study, were left.

Nowadays people treat the martial arts like a business, structure everything around sales and promotion, and the belt is held up as the goal.

Fact: the belt means nothing.

Fact: knowledge means everything.

But these two facts seem to have become twisted, and the belt means everything, and knowledge means nothing.

I didn’t understand my Kang Duk Won instructors thoughts concerning belts, and I didn’t care. I was one of the faithful. I worked out till I bled, and there was no middle ground. There was no entertainment, and freestyle while recognized as a game, was treated like life or death.

Not to beat somebody else up, but to hone your own skills.

Interestingly, this type of freestyle brought one to mushin no shin (mind of no mind), which is an intuitive method, and it was a science, and it was TOTALLY combat effective. When people say their art is not combative effective, or not useful on the street, I know they didn’t study the real art, but rather an art that entertains children.

When I became an instructor I awarded rank according to forms and techniques learned.

As I progressed I realized the inadequacy of that, and I stopped giving out belts. For years I gave no martial arts tests, simply gave a person a black belt when he had the knowledge.

This thing of knowledge is quite interesting.

The number of forms learned, of techniques done, has no relationship to martial arts knowledge.

And I could ascertain the depth of knowledge a person had by simply looking at him.

Just to mention a couple of the actual criteria:
how deeply does a person ‘screw’ himself into the ground when doing his forms and techniques.
Or, what level of intuition has the student progressed to.

And there are other criteria, all coming from the removal of the student from his body.

I know, sounds crazy, but the awareness that is a human being becomes removed from his body through the method of doing the martial arts forms and techniques correctly.

Emphasis on ‘correctly,’ as it requires an experience of physics beyond the normal ‘fist in the face’ ‘apple falls on the head’ physics. This is an entirely different set of physics which I have seen only a few dozen people demonstrate, and none of whom actually understood.

Now, fees. I charge little, if at all. The rationale here is: how can I charge somebody for what he already knows? What he already paid for, and not just in money, but in sweat and blood?

Yet I had one fellow come to me and said he was required to pay $800, plus plane fare to Japan, plus lodgings and meals and all, to take a martial arts test.

For what?

Three old guys would sit behind a table and watch him demonstrate for an hour, then pass or fail with NO comment on why he was passing or failing!

Obviously, these guys loved themselves…and wanted his money. And they called themselves masters.

Anyway, as time went on I got back into giving not belts, but checklists, and then I would just work people to the bone, making sure they screwed themselves into the ground during form and technique, that they reached intuitive levels of freestyle, and other things.

And, eventually, I made these checklists public, selling them as courses, and here an interesting thing happened. Knowledge became able to be transcribed on paper.

Yes, the student still has to work, and those students in it for the entertainment or the belt and so on will have problems.

But a student who actually reads the courses, does the courses, gets the knowledge.

And they usually stop needing to be entertained and become the faithful.

This became an immense and tremendous boon to ANYBODY who possesses these courses.

It eliminated guesswork. It gave workable knowledge.

It enabled the true art to be passed on even if the instructor didn’t have all the knowledge, as it passed on the knowledge to all involved.

Then I come across discussions on how to test.

Man, there are hundreds of theories out there, but all passed on being able to monkey see monkey do a form, and none having to do with the perception of knowledge, of how to actually increase the students awareness.

So I say this: stop entertaining. Get brutal. Search for knowledge and not belts. Award rank for knowledge and not memorized skits.

This is the only way to the true art, and it is the way martial arts testing should be.

Here is a page that will tell you how to find out your true rank without Martial Arts testing.