Tag Archives: kung fu training

Martial Arts Work Outs That Change You!

Newsletter 935

Why Do a Martial Arts Work Out?

Good and HOT day to you!
It’s over a 100 here in so cal,
And PERFECT for working out!

Hey,
Can I get in your face for a moment?
How much do you work out?
The whole purpose of this newsletter
is to encourage the work out.
So how much do you work out?

To me,
A work out is like a prayer.
I work out EVERY day.
Rain or shine,
Hot or cold,
In good health or poor.
Heck,
Because of working out I’m 70,
and feel like a 25 year old.
I think that makes it all pretty important.

When I work out I get in touch with me.
My thoughts are clearer all day,
Bushwah that bugs me
Suddenly recedes,
Becomes unimportant.
Problems become easy.
People who are difficult suddenly become…easy.
So how much do you work out?

Let me tell you something…
When I was working for my black belt
All those years ago,
I didn’t work out as much as I should.
I just worked out at the school,
Thought that was the only place to work out.
Boy,
Was I dumb.
Then,
Over the years,
I became aware of how much martial arts was doing for me.
I began obsessing.
Reading everything,
Studying everything,
Working out until the wee hours.
But,
You know,
I always have this little niggle inside.
I had wasted time.
I had not worked out obsessively back in the beginning.
I had only worked out at the school.
What wasted opportunities.
When I was fresh and full of vim and vigor,
I relaxed.
I wasted.
What a dope.

So that’s the message of this newsletter,
Now and always…

WORK OUT!
Agree with me or not,
Disagree or not,
The fact is that this is a reminder.
Nothing more,
Nothing less.

Here’s a recent win to encourage you.

Al,

I have gone through many of your courses and am currently going through blinding steel and eventually on my way to forty monkeys. I recently went through your book Matrixing Tong Bei. Several things clicked and the martial arts universe opened up after finishing that book.
Respectfully,
Tyler K

Come on,
Guys and gals,
Work out and make the universe open up for you!

Have a great work out!

Al

Here;S the Blinding Steel course, in it you learn how to matrix ALL weapons!
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/3a-blinding-steel-matrixing-weapons/

A Fantastic Ving Tsun Wooden Dummy Training Partner

Better Martial Arts through Ving Tsun Wooden Dummy Training!

The Ving Tsun wooden dummy is a great piece of martial arts equipment. It strengthens the arms and the fists, and even the legs, and it is an opponent that never quits but always loses. The cost of a wooden playmate is sometimes high, so here are a couple of alternatives to help the wooden dummy aficionado meet his opponent.

wing chun wooden dummy

Logic...Karate Style...Resolves All Body Motion!

 


The Ving Tsun Wooden Dummy is popular in many martial arts, but the main art is Ving Tsun Gung Fu. This art has practiced with the wooden man for the longest, and even has a complete form for dominating it. Other arts, however, use the dummy, also.

This writer recalls seeing the Ving Tsun wooden dummy in Jackie Chan’s wonderful kung fu flick Rumble in the Bronx. Seeing the air fill with dust when Jackie lays into it is a great moment. Possibly the best flick to demonstrate the wooden figure is Ip Man, with Donny Yen.

In the beginning the martial artist will become adept at beating on kicking bags and speed bags, and perhaps strengthening the hands on the makiwara. It won’t be long, however, until the karateka or kung fu student puts a couple of rug samples on a pine tree and moves into tougher hand conditioning. The trick, however, is to get the wooden limb to fly out at you so you can block it.

This writer made a simple striking tool by wrapping a towel around a pole, and then having people jab at him with it. This rapidly turned into an advanced form of freestyle, where the block had to be done, and the distance to the pole holder closed. It is quite challenging to dash three or four feet in a moment to negate the distance the pole offers.

From there one might consider mounting a pole on some sort of swivel device. Bury a four by four in the ground, then place a moveable pole atop it. On can block the arm, and block it again when it swings around, and even get into ducking and blocking against the thing.

Eventually, one will want to get a piece of a log, drill holes through it, and set up some arms and even legs. One can then move around, palm the wooden limbs, and pretend that one is fighting a real attacker. What is really nifty is to put some large springs on the limbs so that they become more lifelike.

The cost of wood being high, or perhaps the difficulty of procuring a log when you live in in a city, one might consider different materials. There is PVC, if one can find thick enough material that won’t break, or perhaps even some sort of metal. This type of dummy and limbs would require towels or other material being wrapped around it to protect the hands and feet.

In closing, there are many ways to set up a fake opponent, and the martial artist is limited only by his imagination. Watch movies, read books, and start inspecting the materials available to you. Guaranteed, a Ving Tsun wooden dummy will go a long way in your martial arts training.

Learn more about <a href=”http://www.monstermartialarts.com/Art-Dearming_the_Arm.html”>Kung Fu Wooden Dummy</a> kinds of training. Head to <a href=”http://www.monstermartialarts.com/Master_Instructor_Course.html”>Monster Martial Arts</a>.

First Time and Only Time I Ever Knocked Somebody Down with a Kung Fu Punch

Karate Punch Gets Me in Trouble!

A Kung Fu punch can be a poweerful thing. Proper Kung Fu training and you can shatter slabs of ice, stacks of boards and bricks, and even mutilate half ton bulls. You can also make bad errors, such as I will illustrate in this martial arts article.


kung fu punchI had been training for over two decades, pounding on the makiwara (punching board), practicingfreestyle with friends, and even writing martial arts books on what I had discovered in the martial arts. Interestingly, I had never actually used my martial arts on another human being. I knew I had a powerful punch, I had just never put it to the test.

I was in charge of a hotel in Los Angeles in one of the shabbier parts of town. One day I leased a room to a pleasant appearing fellow, and quickly learned that I had made a deal with the devil. This guy had a second business of selling illegal drugs. Now, aside from actual medical marijuana instances, because of my martial arts training I won’t put up with for drugs.

One sunny day I climbed the stairs and confronted the guy, and told him that he had to stop selling drugs. At first he wiggled around a it, tried to change the subject, but I kept after him. Finally, he just laughed at me, “The police don’t care what I do, there’s nothing you can do about it, so mind your own business.”

Shocked, I blurted, “I want you gone…now!” He just kept laughing at me. “It’ll take you a half a year to get me out of this apartment.”

The world suddenly went calm, and that is not a good thing, for it meant that I had been pushed too far. I dropped my body into an hourglass stance, power surged up my body and pulsed out my arms, and I hit him in the chest with two Kung Fu trained fists. What happened then blew me away.

Having never struck another person I had no clue what it would feel like, or about the back effects. First, I felt this enormous weight traveling back along my arms and through my body and down to the ground…it was much more mass and resistance than I had considered. Second, a long second later–that’s right, there was actually a delay before the effects of my Kung Fu strike were realized–he began to lift up and sail through the air.

He flew up and over the bed and smacked against the wall, and he slowly rose to a standing position, rubbing his chest his hands, his eyes wide open, “You can’t do that!” That just made me even more angry, and I started to cross the room towards him, then realized that he had told me something that I should be listening to, “Why not?” “Because I’ve got a friend in the closet!

I went to the closet door, opened it, and a nude man stood there shivering in terror. That’s right, the drug dealer was a homosexual, and his boyfriend had come to see him, and…what the heck had I just done? In using my Kung Fu punch I had abused my martial arts training, I had struck another human being, and was left with a very sick feeling in the pit of my stomache.