Category Archives: goju ryu

Why We Wear Martial Arts Uniforms…

To Gi or not to Gi, that is the Martial Arts Question…

I put on my first gi back in 1967. It was pretty cool, my school had actually found a company that could supply us regularly. Very difficult to find sometimes, back then. We didn’t mind the $15 we had to pay.

It was yellowish, too short, looked ridiculous, but I found something interesting: it taught you how to focus. When you punched right it ‘popped!’

So I made everything I did pop, every kind of kick and punch and even block that I could…I popped.

I bought my first Tokaido, and it was a day in heaven. I’m not a clothes hound, but when I stepped on to the mat in that Tokaido, I felt…BIG!

And, my techniques were better. It took more power to pop, the material was thicker.

Of course, I had to buy the Tokaido, I had been made into an instructor, and I was told to look the part, or else!

I wore that uniform til it literally disintegrated. I went through the ‘don’t wash’ period, for a couple of weeks. Then the smell made me realize that I wanted to wash it, and I used to wash it and press it and fold it with absolute devotion and respect.

Yet I knew, always, that it was always in my mind. It was my uniform, my way of ‘preparing’ for my mock combat, my lessons in mortality and immortality.

Don’t want to wear one? That’s cool. Choice.

But look inside the uniform first, look under the skin. Check out to see whether you have the requisite pride, and in the proper degree and form, before you hold them in disregard.

As for me, they’ll have to pry my gi from my cold, dead…body.

Have a great work out! Al from monstermartialarts.

Check out the new Kenpo Karate book!

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.

How to have Chi Gung Power by the Barrelful!

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.

Download Martial Arts, 500 Articles, Instantly!

Download Martial Arts Articles Instantly!

Monster Martial Arts has just released a single volume containing 500 martial arts articles.

The volume is a massive undertaking which took years to write. Consider that it has over 600 pages, and nearly 250,000 words, and one quickly realizes that it is one of the largest martial arts books ever written. It is even larger than many dictionaries.



The instant download is nearly 6 Megabytes alone!

The 500 articles were written by Al Case over the last half dozen years, and were intended to bring attention to his Monster Martial Arts website. That they succeeded is obvious, as the website has become extremely popular, as have the martial arts courses on the site.

The courses cover a broad range of fighting disciplines, including karate, aikido, kung fu, pa kua chang, tai chi chuan, weapons, and more. The courses are designed to teaching one how to matrix the martial arts. Matrixing introduces a new form of logic which makes the martial arts easier and faster to learn.

The 500 articles also cover a broad range of interests. Consider the following titles.

4 Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li: Who‘s the Better Martial Artist?

37 Download the Martial Arts into your Brain like Neo!

60 How to Fight in the Dark

82 How to Tell if a Martial Art Instructor is Any Good!

124 Kung Fu Master…and the Secret of Light Kung Fu!

179 The Greatest Training Device in the Martial Arts Isn’t So Great!

209 The Fastest, Hardest Kick In The Martial Arts

250 I Beat Eight Ninjas in a Barfight Using Spetsnaz Karate Techniques!

276 Flux Theory and the Secret of Negative Tai Chi Chuan Chi

297 Martial Arts Breaking Techniques: Boards with a Single Finger

346 Five Martial Arts Exercises Make You Five Times More Stronger, Faster And Powerful!

369 Tony Jaa Threatens to Kill Himself, then Becomes a Monk!

402 Karate Kick Harder with These Seven Simple Tips

418 Take a Punch and Walk Away Smiling with One Simple Exercise

447 Karate Freestyle and the First Few Seconds of a Street Fight

456 The Yoga Kata

488 Is This the Most Powerful Punch in the Whole World?

The release of the 500 articles coincides with the upcoming ‘Great Matrixing Tour.’ The purpose of the tour is to bring Matrixing to the Martial Artists across the United States.

People who purchase the book will be contributing directly to the tour.

Again, the book is an instant download, and a complete viewpoint of the martial arts, including history, techniques, personalities, and event he new sciences of Matrixing and Neutronics. People interested in purchasing the 500 Martial Arts articles should go to:

http://churchofmartialarts.com/bookstore/500-martial-art-articles/

 

Chi Power through Unique Martial Arts Breathing Practice

Martial Arts Breathing and Chi Power

The capacity to generate beams of energy, though I have actually never ever seen nor become aware of it went over, is at the heart of martial arts breathing practices. I feature pressor or tractor or any other sort of beam in this conversation.
A beam is a line of energy drive outward from the body of the martial performer, and this beam is normally built upon a line, though it need not be.
martial arts breath

It can be pointed out that your martial art is not a real martial art unless it creates the capability to produce a beam of energy at will.
Many martial practices on world globe are aspired towards constructing muscle, or the shabby pretext of stimulating body parts. The function of this post is to awaken the reader to the capacity of developing beams of energy.
The first thing to be recognized is that the body is absolutely nothing more than just an appliance. It is a natural machine built of meat and bone and several connecting systems. Definitely, to the individual unused to a body, it can easily appear like a Rubic’s cube, however, in fact, it is remarkably straightforward to make use of.
To utilize the body as a beam power generator one need to engage in classic forms, and comprehend the value of classic postures.
To engage in the classic postures needs work, which work demands the production of energy in the Tan Tien, which is the one point, which is absolutely nothing more than just an energy power generator on a body/machine degree.
This work must be supplemented by breathing in accordance with the development or contraction of the body.
To posture, to work, to breath, to focus interest along the course of the arms, to envision. It is creative imagination that sets us apart from the beasts, and it is creative imagination that is required to produce the concept of a beam of energy coming out of the body. You need to engage in till the mind is calm then it will definitely have the ability to picture.
To check your capacity to beam it is essential to make use of an easy and frequently over looked trick. Set up a candle and face it, punch, and cease your fist an inch from the flame.
Do not trick flick the flame by leaving the line of the beam, however focus, and keep the line of the beam as straight as feasible. With success over time, cease your fist 2 inches from the flame, then further. Enhance distance till you can easily put out the flame from throughout the area. At some point, with fantastic persistence and want, you will certainly have the ability to just examine the flame and make it go out.
There are those that laugh and such practices as detailed right here are of little value, and there are those that will definitely not linger, however look for the instant gratification of easy battling. Then there are those that will certainly find out the depths of their being with this easy activity.
The distinction between the two is faith, view in yourself, and the need to awaken your real capabilities, and therefore awaken yourself, and this is at the heart of the Neutronic idea behind generating a beam of energy through Martial Arts breathing.

Keep Your Pants On…It’s the Deadliest Martial Arts Weapon

Deadliest Martial Arts Weapon my…!

I discovered this Martial Arts weapon many, many years ago. I had studied Chinese Kenpo Karate, and eventually earned my black belt in the Kang Duk Won, and I had hefted all manner of weapons.

kung fu master

I had used the sai and the sword and and the nunchucks and the staff and on and on…I even had my own samurai sword!

Then, one day I was over at a friend’s house, he was my Karate work out partner and we were talking weapons, and he suddenly grinned. You’re wearing the deadliest martial arts weapon in existence, and you don’t even know it.

“Wha…?”

So he took me outside, we walked across the street into a big orchard, and he asked me for my belt.

It was a thick belt, had a big, old, heavy buckle on it. Just the kind of thing a young man needs when he wants the world to know he has to keep his pants on.

He dangled that belt from the fist, holding both ends. The buckle tight, and the other end in one loose finger. He picked up a rock, put it in the fold of the belt, and told me to watch a tree some fifty feet away.

WHIIII! He let go the end, and the rock flew like a guided missile. It was a big rock, and he actually broke a small limb off the tree.

Holy %%%%!

I knew I could use the buckle for a flail, but I had never thought of the David and Goliath thing.

To this day I wear a heavy belt, one I can whip out and use to bash or beat, whip or snap…or use as a sling.

And, I keep a supply of steel balls. You can get them off amazon pretty cheap. I’m not pin point in my accuracy, mind you, and my friend admitted that he got in a lucky shot. But, still, I am fairly accurate, I can hit a three foot target from fifty feet, and what I hit stays hit. I tell you, a steel ball will go right through plywood, easy as a .22,  when you do it just right.

If you want to learn more about weapons, I suggest popping over to my Blinding Steel course at Monster Martial Arts.

deadliest martial arts weapon

Slow Martial Arts for Fast Martial Arts Students

Slow Martial Arts make for Fast Minds

I hear people, every once in a while, speak derogatorily of ‘slow martial arts’ like Tai Chi Chuan, Pa Kua, and that type of art. It’s not often, mostly just Beavis and Butthead types on youtube or etc.

slow martial arts

The fact of the matter is that it takes a lot of muscle to hold the limb up, or the body in a tai chi pose. This creates a unique type of strength I call ‘suspended strength,’ or ‘suspended energy.’

Of course, the Chinese masters of Tai Chi tend to call it all Chi, and they wouldn’t be wrong, but Chi tends to be a catchbasket phrase that describes too much stuff.

Even if I am slightly off in my definition, at least it separates the data into recognizable pieces.

The real kick on this slow martial arts thing is that after you have practiced long enough, you turn into a real fast martial arts practitioner. All that suspended energy becomes real usable.

It’s interesting, the explosive energy, the fahjing stuff, is incredibly fast and efficient. I think Karate has more fast, but the Chinese are more efficient, and the training methods are more body friendly.

Two peoples, two different methods, how fun.

And, not to change subject, just to slide off a bit, the Tai Chi Chuan does seem to elongate life span, make for better health. I think the Okinawans have a longer life span, but they likely have a better diet than the Chinese. It’s an interesting thing comparing and contrasting the various martial arts and martial artists and styles.

If you really want to compare and contrast, however, you need to matrix things. It’s the only martial science in the world that teaches you how to combine martial arts.

Karate and Tai Chi are basically the same, but the confusion over terms, jealous instructors, small minded students, they make it difficult.

Look, algebra is mathematics, and there are ways to combine them. The same holds true for the various martial arts. Unless you have opposing concepts, like the linear stances of shotokan karate and the circular hands of Chinese kenpo, almost everything can be made to fit together. It’s just a matter of knowing how, of knowing the devious little, hard to figure out tricks. But those are all in the first matrixing course, Matrix Karate.

Anyway, I have gone too far afield, this has been a page about about slow martial arts and fast martial arts students, and you have a great day.

 

Using the Karate Kiai to Discover the True Power of Kotodama

Can Karate Kiai Actually Cause Death?

Karate Kiai is a Japanese idea meaning ‘spirit shout,’ and it is the deadly yell that karate practitioners scream when chopping an opponent’s head off. Well, maybe I went overboard with that description a bit, grin, but there is a truth to the karate yell that is unarguable and leads to some rather mysterious knowledge. I am referring to subject of Kotodama, or ‘Word spirit.’

martial arts yellThe notion behind a Karate kiai is to commit all  of ones energies into one moment, one karate technique, and thus to enhance the power of the strike. The idea of scaring a somebody is somewhat secondary, but not to be discounted. Both of these concepts lead to rather interesting belief systems and mysterious realities.

Kotodama is the practice of creating soothing sounds, which sounds can engender a more spiritual feeling in a person. There is, of course, the flip side, the bad word phenomena, in which a sound is used to hurt another person. Either way, kotodama results in the practice of kotomuke (soothing speech to bring peace), and kotoage, which is producing magic.

My first experience with kotodama came from a decades long study of karate, kung fu, and various internal martial arts. This gave direct experience with the power of screaming at an attacker and rendering him impotent. In one case I drew upon the karate kiai to vanguish a would be mugger…he turned around shambled down the street, his body shaking and shivering.

Experiences like this, which were brought about by the faithful repetition of karate patterns with correct attention to Karate kiai, brought me to a profound appreciation of the subject. Of interest in this is the way of speaking of salesmen and mentalists, and other individuals of that type. Watching how such people conducted themselves, the tones they employed, the pitch of sound they utilized, brought me to the notion that we are talking about vibration.

Vibration is generally understood to be the source of the universe. Between the notion of an Eternal Spirit and the solid life of objects (of which the universe is made), is vibration. This concept holds true on the atomic level of protons and electrons, and on the gigantic scale of spinning galaxies and whole universes.

What we are more interested in, however, are the vibrations we can make in our day to day lives. Is it possible to cause a vibration which can move the universe? The answer to this is as simple as the phenomena of an opera singer projecting a tone that cracks a glass.

The way of achieving this ability is just as simple. First, one has to realize, through the projection of virtue into their lives, that they are spiritual in nature, and that they can create vibrations which not only break glass, but which can shiver other objects, and, more easily, cause comfort or discomfort to their fellow humans. Second, one has to discover and follow exactly the disciplines which bring one to this ability…then the result is that a simple Karate kiai can translate into Kotodama can morph into a mystical spell or chant which has the power to harm or heal as one sees fit.

 

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

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.

Old Man Knocked Out…Is It Time To Study Kung Fu?

Everybody is going to realize it is time to Study Kung Fu when they see this video. It takes place on a Chicago subway platform, some old dude is walking along begging for change, and he runs into the wrong crowd. Google ‘Elderly Man Attacked on CTA Platform (Chicago).’

Now, time for some serious thought about what just happened. You see somebody old and helpless, almost dazed, definitely doesn’t have a clue, get the sense knocked out of him. So what is it about him that drives a bunch of young criminals to violence?

He isn’t a threat, not any way you look at him. He’s not threatening people, doesn’t really look like he knows what he is doing. So there is no reason for his mugging, and let’s consider the young punk who did the deed to him.

The guy is young and arrogant, probably doesn’t work, and doesn’t look like he wants to. He’s got his crowd of homies, all as full of themselves and as criminal as him, and they are cheering him on. So here’s the question: is this what is happening to the United States?

Or, maybe the question we should frame should be, are you going to do anything about it? There aren’t any police around, and no one comes to protect the old dude. People just run get out of the way and act like doped up people at a rock concert.

And, here’s the point I want to make: nobody knows Kung Fu. Nobody knows Shaolin or Wing Chun or even Tai Chi Chuan. Nobody, even after the fact, goes after the kid and takes him down and holds him for the police.

Now, with America going the way it is going, people out of work, or, like this kid, not even wanting to work, there is obviously going to be violence on the streets. We see the protestors and the mobs, and we hear the rumors of food riots on their way, and do you know any kind of personal self defense? Have you ever had a martial arts class, learned a karate kata, done a few taekwondo kicks?

Maybe it’s time to do something like that, you know? If the future is filled with what you just saw on that Chicago subway, maybe it’s time to learn how to take somebody out with a good swift kick, a poke to the eyes, some, old fashioned Kung fu self defense moves. Well, while you think about whether you are going to survive the coming years, I’m going to find a training hall where I can study Kung Fu.

It’s really to study Kung Fu. Head to Monster Martial Arts for the most efficient Kung Fu you have ever seen.
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