The Power Hour Martial Arts Show

Interview on the Martial Arts Power Hour Show!

Hey,
speaking of martial arts power,
I was interviewed on the
Martial Arts Power Hour show!
The show is done by Israel Velez,
and is quite a good show.
They interview martial artistsa,
go into important martial arts happenings,
and provide a real contribution to the martial arts.

This guy did the Yogata Course! Click on him to find out more!

Now,
I am not much of a public speaker.
I can run a class,
but the funny thing is
standing up in front of people and public speaking
is sort of unnerving.
BUT,
Israel is quite a powerful individual,
he knew what to ask,
kept me going,
and it turned out to be a really fascinating experience!

We talked about matrixing,
how it got started,
moved into various things in the martial arts,
and by the time the show was over
I felt really comfortable.

And,
most important,
I learned.
I learned a lot.

If you want to hear the show,
it is episode 67,
and the URL is

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=78795&cmd=tc

If you like it,
make sure you shoot Israel an email and let him know.
Oh,
and not to forget,
Bob Choate came on,
and that was a blast.
He was ordering Matrixing courses
right after I put monster together,
an early matrixing student,
and we had talked by email over the years.
It was a real joy to finally be able to talk to him person to person.

So,
that’s the Martial Arts Power Hour,
done by Israel Velez.

AND,
if that isn’t enough,
I was asked to do a book signing.
This was mostly for my novels,
but that was a real learning experience, too.

Like I say,
I haven’t done much public speaking,
and I spend most of my time
isolated in the clouds of Monkeyland,
but it was really incredible
to talk to people,
to have to explain my books,
to hear what they had to say about my books.
Really interesting.

So I am going to have to push myself on this
and get better at public speaking,
interviews and so on.

If I’m going to be interviewed,
I have to do my best
not to let people down.
I have to present matrixing in a good light,
and novels would definitely get me good exposure.
So,
it’s interesting times,
and thank god for the martial arts.

Look,
when some novel reader asks me a question,
one I never thought of,
one that requires a precision answer
with no bushwah,
the martial arts enables me to face those people,
to grin even in uncomfortable situations,
and to stand my ground.

When some fellow asks me a question on the radio,
I have to,
again,
stand my ground,
go mushin no shin,
get right in the moment,
allow no distractions,
and have a good time with that fellow.

I know you know what I am saying.
When you bow and face your opponent on the mat,
it teaches you to bow and face
ANYBODY
in life.
When somebody is upset at you,
you stay calm,
the lessons of the mat stay with you.
When the boss gets pointed in his instructions,
the martial arts enables you to face him,
give him the right answer,
and do your job without being distracted.

So think about it.
Never look away from a problem or person.
Don’t flinch.
Don’t duck or avoid,
and treat that problem or person
just like you would treat somebody on the mat.
Accept the attack,
block it,
or divert it or whatever,
and move forward with your own initiative.

It’s funny,
people think martial arts is nothing but fighting.
But fighting is the last thing it is about.
It is not about fighting,
but how to stand your ground in life
and handle everything without fighting.
The guy who gets in a fight
has already lost.
That is something that real martial artists know.

When I was getting interviewed,
right towards the end,
we were talking about the best martial artist in the world.
It’s an interesting back and forth we had,
I think you will really enjoy it,
but it made me think of something.

As martial artists we tend to judge ourselves by freestyle,
by winning fights.
But,
in the end,
in the final analysis,
the real martial artist knows it is not the fights we get into,
but the fights we avoid
that make us who we are,
that we should be judged by.

So,
was Myamoto Musashi the greatest fighter?
Got in 60 fights and never lost one?
Or is the guy who went through life
meeting incredibly difficult situations,
and didn’t get in any fights…
is he actually a better martial artist?
It’s something to think about, eh?
Sort of an upside down statistic,
if you get what I mean.

Anyway,
I recommend checking out
The Martial Arts Power hour
with Israel Velez.
Episode 67 is me,
and it gave me a lot of stuff to think about.
Mostly,
I just need to get better.
I don’t want to let anybody down in spreading this matrixing thing.
The Martial Arts really needs
this comprehensive logic,
so I have to come through.
It’s a fight I have to win.

Now,
you guys and gals,
remember,
it’s summer,
plan out your work outs,
make a plan,
set a goal,
and make it happen this summer.

The summer of 2014.
The summerm that you get where you’re going.
Nice sound to that, eh?

Have a great work out!
Al

If you need a little help getting stronger,
rehabilitating an injury,
beating encroaching old age,
try this…

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/yogata-the-yoga-kata/

It is a REALLY nifty
Martial Arts way
of doing Yoga.
Will really help you focus your awareness.

Thanks again,
Israel and Bob.

How to Learn Rattlesnake Kung Fu

Rattlesnake Kung Fu

Good morning!
A Fantastic Work Out to You All!
Every Day.
For the rest of your life.

How Matrixing Came to be…click on the cover!

I was driving along the road up here,
far side of the valley,
and all of the sudden,
out of a ditch about thirty feet to the right,
I see this hulking,
bulky,
gargantuate shape.
Looked like a gargoyle or something,
and it was moving,
and,
suddenly,
it spread wing
and the biggest darn gold eagle i have EVER seen,
lurched into the air.
His body looked thicker than my 100 pound labbie,
and the wing spread,
GAWD!
It was majestic,
awe inspiring.
It flew in front of the car,
six feet off the ground,
wheeled across the valley
and disappeared over a ridge.
Absolutely incredible.

Ben Franklin said the national bird
should be a turkey.
Said eagles were scavengers,
turkeys were much more noble.

I always think about that.
Was he pulling our chain?
I try not to think about the politicians in Washington
when I think about that.
I would opt for the turkey.

But,
that bit of humor aside,
I wondered about the eagle.
He hadn’t gone up,
just sailed sideways,
and i wondered if he was sick.

I have heard that birds prey upon snakes,
I don’t know,
seems sort of dangerous.
I’ve heard the story about the tai chi bird fending off the snake,
or the other way around,
but how would the bird kill the snake?
Take it into the air and drop it?
Watch it splatter on the hard rocks a thousand feet below?
Take that, snakey fellow…grrr.
Hmmm.

Anyway,
I had been walking on that same stretch of fire trail,
more like cow path,
a month ago,
and I had killed my first rattle snake up here.

I had always wondered about killing a snake.
What do you do if you have no weapons?
Some of the things I had heard…

you just drop a rock on the head.
But there had been no big rocks around.

you shoot it with snake shot,
which is really bird shot,
but I didn’t have a gun with me.
Besides,
one of the neighbors,
a mountain man name of George,
said he shot a snake once,
and he missed the head and hit the body,
aznd the snake had charged him,
actually chased him down the road.
Hmmm.

So how do you kill a snake
when you have no weapons?

When I was a child of 4
I had seen some teenagers kill a snake.
It was back in Ohio,
I think a black snake?
I don’t remember much,
but I do remember this kid
grabbing the snake by the tail
swinging it around his head,
and cracking it like a whip.
Snapped its brains right out.
Hmmm.

Did I have what it took to grab a rattler by the tail?
Double hmmm.

But when you see a snake up here
you HAVE to kill it.
It’s survival.
That snake will bite you,
and it will bite your dog,
and it will cause slow, agonizing death.
If you’re a liberal greenie…
take a hike.
Animals will be harmed in the making of Monkeyland.
And animals will be saved,
and we will have a preserve,
and it will be happy…
IF we kill the snakes.

So I’m walking along the road this day,
and I see a three foot rattler crawling across the road.
All the stories go through my head,
rocks and snakeshot and snapping a whip.
I had no tools.
I had to kill the snake.
So I grabbed a two foot length of board
that was laying on the side of the road,
and a stick,
and I laid the board across the snake’s neck and stepped on it.
The snake hissed and snarled.
Opened his mouth and looked at me,
showed it’s fangs.
Didn’t rattle,
interestingly enough,
but the sight of the fangs,
and the way the snake looked at me,
I knew I had to be successful,
or Mr. Snake was going to be chasing me down the road.
So I took the stick and bashed its brains in.

Heck,
the head was soft,
a big rock would have worked.
A snap of the whip would have worked.
But for a beginner,
a board and a stick worked.

And I wondered,
could I jump up in the air and land on the snake’s neck?
If I was wrong,
the snake would bite me.

The smaller the snake
the more deadly.
And snakes are fast.

But I could swing a stick,
maybe a pail if I was carrying water or lunch,
and…
hmmm.

Top of the food chain here.

Anyway,
I think about Snake kung fu.
I watch the movies.
I see people training,
the way they go still,
the way they coil,
tense up and get ready to thrust.

Huh!
that’s humans acting like they think a snake would act.
A little right,
a little wrong.
When you’re standing on a board,
with a snake snapping at you,
you know the right and the wrong.
Interesting.

But,
the solution,
whether your training is movie oriented or not,
is to practice that stillness,
practice opening your eyes,
because the key is to see it before it sees you,
and the key is to remain calm and do what you have to,
because the key is to see the tension in the body
before the strike,
then you can strike before the strike.

And,
the truth,
never pick a snake for a friend.

Okey dokey,
life is grand up here at Monkeyland,
at the ‘sky dojo,’
my temple in the clouds.

You know,
in the fifth book of
‘Matrixing Karate: Master,’
I list the concepts of Matrixing,
and how they were seen and accumulated and included
in the science of Matrixing.

Here’s the URL…
http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Karate-Master-Volume-5/dp/1496198425/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401894457&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=matrixing+karatethe+sereies

Now,
you guys and gals,
the dojo awaits,
whether it is down the block, in your backyard,
or next to your computer…
so hit it,
and have a GREAT work out!
Al

The Real Shaolin History That Nobody Knows!

The real Shaolin History is one of those animals that’s difficult to pin down. One reason for this is that the communist regime controls all history, and rewrites it to suit the state. Another reason is that the current history is of an oral tradition, and therefore quite open to mythicizing.

The real history starts with Bodhidharma taking the long journey to China to see the emperor. This tends to build up Bodhidharma at the expense of the emperor, and this isn’t right. The Chinese ruler, you see, was encouraging Buddhist monks to translate texts from sanskrit to Chinese.

The emperor believed that if he saw to the translation of these religious texts the general public would be enabled to study this religion. He believed this would allow him to enter nirvana. Bodhidharma told the emperor otherwise, which gained him nothing but a swift kick in the pants right out the emperor’s doors.

Bodhidharma then sought refuge at a local temple to meet up with other monks, and was turned away. The head abbot apparently thought him a trouble maker, or maybe he just didn’t want to rub elbows with somebody the emperor found wanting.

The temple he was refused entrance to was constructed in an area which had been razed, or burned down, and the emperor’s gardeners had planted new trees. Thus, the temple was named Shaolin (young forest). Nowhere to go, Bodhidharma began living in a cave.

Eventually Bodhidharma gained admittance to the temple, and legends have it that it took nine years, he bored a hole in the cave with his eyesight, he cut off his eyelids and planted them, and all sorts of other rather ludicrous legends. No one knows why he was admitted to the temple, but it was a good thing he was. The monks were in bad physical shape.

The Shaolin monks spent all their time hunched over books (scrolls, etc.) and were a sickly lot. So Bodhidharma taught them a series of movements based on hatha yoga and raja yoga. These movements were based on the 18 main animals of Chinese-Indian iconography, and this was doubtless the source of the five Shaolin animals.

This was the true origin of shaolin kung fu, though it is difficult to say when body conditioning was transformed into actual martial arts. The region was preyed upon by bandits, and it can be safely assumed that somebody whose body is in good physical condition is going to stand a better chance of survival than somebody whose body is not. At any rate this real Shaolin history has more legitimate sources than the various myths and legends which currently abound.

Real Shaolin History means nothing if you don’t study the martial art itself. Head to Monster Martial Arts for the most efficient Shaolin Teaching in the world!

Martial Arts EffortlessEnergy Through Neutronics

How to Attain Effortless Martial Arts Technique through Neutronics

How to strike with no effort, how to throw without using muscles, these are hallmarks of the highest level of art, but how does one do them?

Back about 1974, when I was undergoing some rather profound realizations, one of the things I realized was that the universe is backwards.

Incredible new Martial Arts Book! Click on the Cover!

I was involved in building power. Raw, crackling, tan tien exploding, face smacking power. With a capital P.

Then I watched my instructor, who was the most powerful person I have known.

No raw surge of energy from him.

No tan tien exposion.

No muscular exertion.

Yet his strikes would drop you with a touch.

Not a punch, but a mere touch.

So what was he doing?

He was creating silence, and here is the key.

The beginner, young and dumb and full of stuff, builds power.

But power is an illusion, it is temporary, it is something insecure people chase.

Real power depends on building space. Stillness within. Stillness without. A context that is the true power.

Which is there more of, suns or space?

The answer is that a candle in a coal mine is brighter than then sun at noon.

So I began going backwards, figuring out how not to make my punch stronger, but to make the silence around my punch greater.

This is a very interesting concept, and one that is TOTALLY ignored by today’s martial artists.

The obsession with tournaments, or belts, or money, and telling the student to punch harder, punch harder.

Where is the zen? Where is the ‘empty’ in Empty Hands?

So here is the point: the human body is a machine. On the beginning levels of the martial arts you overwhelm the machine by impacting upon it. On the advanced levels you merely unbalance the energy in it.

Unbalance, with a touch, to throw.

Or touch with a strike so soft that the idea of the strike, not the weight of the muscle bound arm, but the concept of being struck, goes between the two machines and ‘infects’ the target body.

This is how you get past the muscle theories currently infecting todays martial arts, and develop the true martial arts which require less and less effort, and accomplish more and more effect.

If you want to learn more about Matrixing go to Monster Martial Arts. If you want to learn about the Neutronic Theory behind such arts as Karate, Aikido, Gung Fu, and so on, go to Church of Martial Arts.

How to Find a Martial Arts Pressure Point

Martial Arts Pressure Points

Good goldurn morning!
Or evening,
or whenever it is!
But you know that whenever it is…
all you have to do is work out.
Work out,
and the mysteries of the universe
unfold before you.
Mysteries,
such as…
pressure points.

I had an email today,
in it was a question about pressure points,
and I get this question every once in a while,
when am I going to do a book/course on pressure points.

Heck,
why write a whole book
when I can explain pressure points right here?

To understand pressure points
think electricity.

Points are like wall sockets,
for instance,
there is a pressure point
on the elbow.
It is called the funny bone,
but it’s not a bone,
its just where the nerves pass close to the surface,
and you can strike that point,
or grip it,
and cause some pain.

Then there are nerve clusters,
like switchboards.
For instance,
there is a cluster of nerves right near the armpit.
Stick a finger in there,
and you cause a severe reaction.

Now,
we could get into energy,
electricity is an analogy for electricity,
and where the lines of energy run,
and which way they go,
and so on and so on.

But you don’t need all that stuff.
And,
if you think about energy the way I am describing it here,
and what I am going to tell you to do,
then you will learn about pressure points faster
and with better result
than if you spent twenty years
examining how the meridians effect the kidney
if you strike the second toe
of your left foot
twice at midnight.

You must learn to look with your hands.

I spent about three years at the Kang Duk Won,
and during that time I hit people,
and I got hit.
Nice,
perfectly controlled strikes.
A few bruises,
a cut lip or a mouse,
but,
generally speaking,
we were practicing pretty darned fine control.
And,
we were learning to look through our fists.

Listen,
if somebody gave you a box
and asked what was in it,
you might shake it.
You could tell if what is inside is hard or soft,
liquid or solid,
and,
if you shook it long enough,
swear to god,
you could probably tell the color
of whatever is inside the box.

I know,
sounds weird.

But I kept hitting people,
and,
like most,
I could tell when I was hitting bones or muscle,
soft tissue or hard,
and I could gauge the reaction of people to these strikes.
And I could tell by my reaction
when people struck me
what was inside the body.

It’s like radar.
consider this analogy…
You come up to a house and knock on the door,
you listen.
You can hear the echo of your knock
resounding through the house.
Now,
knock so that you get the best echo,
you get that really hollow pitch
that reaches all-l-l-l the way
through the house.
Now,
knock on your partner’s chest.
Listen.
Listen to the reverberations.

Listen to the changes as you knock
on different parts of the body.
What does it sound like
listen to your fist
when you knock on a bone?
What do the lungs sound like?
Heck,
it’s like a doctor’s stethoscope,
except that you are using your own enhanced senses.
And you can tell what is in the other person’s body.

Now,
it is just a quick jump to pressure points.
Take a look at this…

I am working a pressure point.
Now I don’t know where this point came from.
I’ve never studied pressure points,
but I find that I can feel the body
and the points are ALL over the place.
Almost anywhere you touch the body
you can cause a reaction.

So let me explain something.
I just touch the body,
using the ‘listening’ I learned to do with the fist.
I listen with my fingertips,
extend my senses inside his body,
touch with authority,
and,
zingo bingo
we have a pressure point.

Is it a real pressure point?
I don’t know.
Doesn’t matter.
All that matters is this…
practice your techniques and listen with your fists.
Feel the effects as you strike your partner.
Be gentle,
for you can hear more if you are gentle
than if you are distracting yourself with a loud yell
or a huge force of radiating energy.

It’s a matter of focused awareness,
that is all…and nothing more.

But how do you focus your awareness?
Through control.
Through learning control.

and,
sorry to say,
sorry if i step on toes here,
but not through boxing or MMA,
for the purpose in those sports
is to smash and destroy.

Look,
I love to watch MMA,
and there are instances of high control in some of those games
but they are the gladiatorial games of Rome
brought to modern times,
and they don’t teach pressure points
or how to increase your awareness.

Only the classical martial arts teach that,
and those only rarely,
because most of the stuff taught today
is not aligned.
Doesn’t make sense.
Are random sequences of techniques,
and not a step by step journey
to increased awareness.

And with increased awareness
comes a knowledge of pressure points.

So my advice
to anybody who wants to learn pressure points
is this.

Work out.
Do the classical.
Align the classical with matrixing,
so that you actually understand what you are doing
and are on a step by step procedure to awareness.

Do your forms and techniques,
do them with sincerity,
do them with lots of energy,
and do them silently,
learn to listen with your fists.

Do that
and you need no further instruction.
The secret isn’t a secret,
it is just a matter of your learning to focus awareness
in a rather unique manner.

And,
if you are interested,
the video clip was from
Five Army Tai Chi Chuan.
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/five-army-tai-chi-chuan/

but it doesn’t matter which course
you start your matrixing journey on,
all that matters is that you start,
and that you persist,
and that you learn to focus
the precise and exact awareness
that you are.

Have a great work out!
Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/five-army-tai-chi-chuan/

Mad Dog Knife Fighting!

Knife Attacks if You Don’t Know Anything!

Good Lord…
I am living in the Dojo in the Sky!
That’s what it is up here at Monkeyland,
and I wish you could all be here!
But,
if you can’t,
make sure you work out!

Click on the Cover!

Your body is the temple,
so make sure it is pure
and deserving of you!

Okay,
I’ve got the samurai sword book on hold.
It’s just too busy,
too many things happening,
so it will be a few months.

I’ve got an author signing
coming up end of May
down in Santa Maria.
Gonna be fun.

And,
I’m trying to get my books in Barnes and Noble,
that is taking some work,
so I’m too busy to do the sword book.

Heck,
you can’t just snap out a book on
how to handle a samurai sword.

So,
that said,
let me at least talk about knife attacks.
I just wrote a guest blog
for SwordsoftheEast,
and I go into how to handle a knife attack
if you don’t know NUTTIN’

So here are the salient points.

First,
if somebody comes at you with a knife,
back up!
Create some distance!
Throw stuff at him,
knock stuff over so he has to step around,
and YELL.

Especially if he says not to say anything.
Heck,
if somebody tells you not to yell,
they are scared of yelling,
so…YELL!

Second,
if you can,
wrap something around your arm.
Your jacket,
a shirt,
even just hold a pillow.
The idea is you want the guy to cut that,
not you.

Third,
there are many ways to hold a knife,
but the two basic ones are:
with the knife coming out of the ‘thumb end’ of your hand,
the sharp edge down.
Could be down or up,
but down is better for any
up and down motion of the hand.
And:
with the knife coming out of the bottom of the fist,
the sharp edge facing away from your knuckles.

The idea here is to slash back and forth,
as you try to get away,
and if you need to use the knife,
you can just punch,
and the blade is projected as part of the punching motion.

I know,
there are a lot of holes here,
but the idea is to cut without being cut,
to get away,
and remember,
I am offering this
as if you are a novice.

Okay,
here’s the important stuff.
If you can’t yell or avoid,
and if you see the knife fight is going to happen,
then you have to change your mental attitude.

DO NOT become a victim.
Spit in his eyes,
throw the change in your pocket at his face,
and when he flinches,
kick him.
And when he lowers his hands,
poke at the eyes.
And when he protects the eyes,
kick him,
and so on.
Go up and down,
do what he doesn’t expect,
set him up,
and get…MAD DOG!

You have to offset the idea
that he is more deadly
because he has a weapon.
You have to.
So mount some viciousness.
Go after him.
Bite him.
Get…MAD DOG!

I knew a fellow once,
he was jumped by three fellows
while he was moving out of his apartment.
He grabbed a dish,
A DISH!
and he went after those suckers,
screaming and yelling,
chased them down three flights of stairs and down the street.
In his mind,
he was angry,
enraged,
and his dish became larger than their knives!

And that’s what YOU have to do!

Remember,
one fellow doing right in his life,
is worth ANY number of people
who are doing wrong.
That is ethical,
and it is right,
and you have to be willing.

Got it?

Okay.

And,
the last thing…
if you plan for something,
it probably won’t happen.

I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve taught,
who said they were scared,
were in situations,
and after they started,
those situations stopped happening.

So go learn something.
Educate yourself.
Take a class,
even a seminar,
on knife fighting,
or other weapons.

Educate yourself.
That will get you to the frame of mind you need,
to the techniques and body condition that you need
to survive.

And,
take it from me,
a guy or girl like you deserves to survive.

And,
if you want to check it out,
Blinding Steel is my course on knife fighting.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/3a-blinding-steel-matrixing-weapons/

Now,
that all said,
you guys and gals have a great week.
It’s Easter,
you know,
so it is time to go ninja,
find all the eggs,
and do an extra week of spring break work outs!

Take care.
Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/3a-blinding-steel-matrixing-weapons/

Now,
‘nuff said,
you guys and gals have a GREAT work out.

Al

The Size of the Bullet…the Size of…the Fist?

ANSWERING QUESTIONS OF FORCE IN THE MARTIAL ARTS

The following is a quest editorial by Alaric Dailey

Why is it, that karateka punch with 2 knuckles? why is it, that boxers punch with heavily padded gloves? And why was it unfortunate for Art Jimmerson (the boxer) in the first UFC to wear a single glove. Furthermore, why do big slow bullets have a reputation for stopping power vs smaller faster bullets (specifically the .45 vs 9mm argument).

New book about the fist power of Karate…click on the cover!

It all has to do with penetration vs dissipation, when it comes to force, a martial artist must put as much weight and power into as small of area as possible to maximize its effect. Making the chosen weapon as small as possible, increases its penetration.

Pads dissipate the force, spreading it out over a wide area, and adding a nice soft surface. In the old days people did bare-knuckle boxing, and hitting the head with bare-knuckles is extremely dangerous, and can cause major damage, this is why boxing added gloves. Boxing gloves are huge and bulky, and they still manage to knock each others brains silly, that gives you some idea of how hard they are hitting.

When sparring in the martial arts, we will often wear pads, to dissipate the force, so that we wiggle the persons nose, rather than smearing it all over their face.

Thus when Art Jimmerson went into the first UFC with a boxing glove on, he went in taking away power off his punches and eliminating his ability to grab.

A really great demonstration of this can be seen with an sewing pin and a balloon. Sewing pins have that nice round end, and you can press pretty darn hard with the round end and never pop the balloon, but turn it around and use the sharp end, and it penetrates immediately popping the balloon. The round end dissipates the force, the sharp end penetrates!!! Easy as that to see.

As a related note, bullets travel SO fast that they have the opposite problem, they have a tendency to go directly through the target, rather than imparting that energy and stopping. At subsonic speeds the .45 has the larger diameter and slower speed to impart more of that force into the FIRST thing it hits, where the 9mm has a tendency to got right through the first thing and second. The faster and smaller bullets can pass right through and do LESS damage. This is why you use hollow-points for self-defense, they open up, causing them to slow and impart that energy, or at least more of it. This tendency for over penetration is something to think about when choosing a home-defense round, so when you shoot the bad guy, it doesn’t go through him and harm someone else.

The Mad Monkey Punch

Hitting Softer to Hit Harder

Good evening!
Or morning,
or whatever.
And,
whatever time it is
it is perfect for a work out.

Just think about it.
Think about the way you feel after you work out,
and you can do that any time you want!

Did you know that most fights happen in about an inch.
If you’re good,
then they happen in about an eighth of an inch.
Real inside the phone booth stuff.

See,
the fight starts out with a bunch of talk,
or some undesired collapsation of space.
The sucker is getting closer,
treading on your ground,
invading your space.
Now,
here’s the funny thing,
the closer the space,
the further you can see it coming.
And it translates like this.

If you can knock somebody down
with a punch that takes three feet to deliver,
then you’re probably not a very good martial artist.

Two feet,
you’re getting better,
but…nah.

One foot,
and we’re finally starting to get close.

When you can hit somebody
from one inch away,
then you are good.

The way I test this is to place my fingers on the target,
relax,
and punch.
I only push the fist forward,
closing the fingers before impact.
I do not withdraw the punch
and then push it forward.

I call this finger punching,
or one inch punching.
If I can hit with authority,
really get my body behind it,
in the space it takes to close my fingers,
then I figure I’m doing all right.

Now,
my instructor was probably a 64th of an inch man.
He was that good.
But,
there isn’t really a way to measure this.
I mean,
it’s not distance now,
but how lightly you hit
and create greater impact.

So we have gone from measuring distance
to throw a punch,
to measuring the less and less effort
you use when you strike.

One of the things I did,
and do,
is practice not closing my fist.
I just stick the bones of fist
into the other person,
or the bag.
It’s interesting.
And,
it is only for certain types of strikes.

But,
here’s the neat thing,
when you get down to that level,
your grabs start to REALLY work.

In Tai Chi you just angle it right,
and blow the guy away.
In Karate,
you hit without force,
and don’t even close the fist,
and the guy just crumples.

But,
you have to have the discipline.
you have to practice.
And…
you have to do it right,
which means you have to understand what it is
you are trying to do.

It’s not force,
it’s flow,
and almost a negative flow,
when you strike.

You can get a lot of valuable data about this,
from the book
Tai Chi Touchstones,
by Wile.
BUT,
the data is written weird.
It has been translated into mystical language,
and not the hard core physics
that the martial arts are.

I say physics,
but remember,
there are two types of physics.
There are the physics where the apple falls on your head.
Gravity.

Then there is the physics of thought
and intention,
and flow,
and decisions,
and all that sort of stuff.

Now,
let’s say you’ve spent a few years
pounding on makiwara,
or something like that,
here’s what you do
to practice the effortless punch.

Point your hand at a wall,
preferably one with a pad of some sort,
from an inch away.
Going forward,
only forward,
never back,
strike first the fingers,
then the first set of knuckles,
then the fist knuckles.

I call it the ‘Mad Monkey’ punch.
Saw it in a movie of the same name.

But,
movie or not,
you don’t hit hard,
you just touch,
touch,
touch,
and your fingers get stronger.

Another one I used to do
had six strikes,
with five different knuckles.

From an inch away,
Middle finger,
Index finger,
middle first knuckle,
index first knuckle,
fist.
and then I would do a fist again.
I would create a rhythm
like a congo rythm,
or something.
Bump, bump, bump, bump (pause) bump.
Musically,
that would be something like
C, C, B, B, C (pause) D.
Nifty, eh?

Anyway,
I practiced it,
and I soon found that I couldn’t do it to sheet rock walls,
they would just dent.
And hard wood hurt too much.
So I looked around for pads.
Maybe three or four rug samples,
and OI tried to find a midway point
of not too soft and not too hard.

Do that type of thing long enough,
not with force,
but just thinking about
your bone alignment and your timing,
and your punch is going to get harder,
while getting ‘easier.’

Or softer.

The idea is to do it so your intention engages,
so that your awareness focuses,
and not your muscle,
or some kind of brute force.

Awareness is ALWAYS more powerful than force.
I sometimes say flow is more powerful than force,
same thing.

Okay,

I republished the books I have been putting out,
renamed them
‘The Ultimate Karate Encyclopedia.
So they might have been off the shelves for a day or two,
but they should be back up pretty quick
if they aren’t already.

Five steps,
Kung Fu to Karate,
Korean Contribution
American Power
One Year Black Belt
Birth of Matrixing.

Or,
Pan Gai Noon
Kang Duk Won
Kwon Bup
Outlaw Karate
Buddha Crane Karate

The thing is,
I was doing these arts,
over about a forty year period.

Actually,
I was doing a lot more,
but these happened to be the ones
that I put down on paper.

So there is a tremendous amount of work here,
tons of forms and techniques,
and you can,
if you do them,
experience the differences.
You can evolve yourself
exactly as Karate evolved.

Honestly,
I don’t see how somebody
who has only studied one or two systems
can say that they know Karate.
You know?

Anyway,
it is a lifetime,
it’s on Amazon,
or should be pretty quick.
Just type in the name of the art and ‘Al Case’
should be able to find it.

Okay,
got to go,
there’s going to be a whomper stomper of a storm up here,
I’ve got to nail stuff down,
weather proof everything,
and get prepared to spend long,
lonely hours
staring at the rain,
and…
working out!

You guys and gals work out, too!
Al

Here’s a link to ‘The Punch,’
if you want to explore some of the things I’ve said here
in depth.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/hard-punch/

The End of the World and the Martial Arts

What Martial Art Would You Study if The World Ended?

I will talk about the end of the world towards the end of this newsletter,
but I really want to start just by talking about
an old movie I was watching the other day,
an old classic from the eighties called
‘Heroes of the East.’
You might recognize it from a different title,
Challenge of the Ninja,
or Shaolin against Ninja,
or something like that.

In it
a young Chinese master gets married,
and his wife is Japanese,
and she is tearing the house apart
by kicking and punching everything
from walls to statues,
and the young master tries to get her to stop.
That leads to misunderstandings
which lead to a score of Japanese masters
coming to China
and challenging the young master.

Now,
on the surface,
it is Chinese arts are better than Japanese arts.
Which they had to do
because it was a Chinese film.
But,
it is done so delightfully,
so tongue in cheek,
and the hero,
Gordon Liu,
ends up making friends with all,
and everybody agreeing that all arts should be shared
and people should get past their misunderstandings
and get along.

Now,
Gordon Liu,
if you recall,
is a Chinese film star
who is actually a real Shaolin Master.
And in an interview on the disk
he talked about getting along
with the Japanese masters
and what it was like to work out with these guys
and how they all learned so much from each other.

They didn’t even speak the same language,
but they managed to have the time of their lives,
and to communicate on VERY deep levels
just by doing the martial arts.

So,
here’s something to think about
when you think about martial arts masters,
the real ones want to keep learning.

They don’t tear each others arts apart,
they ask questions
and trade techniques,
and keep learning.

One of my favorite stories came from
the daughter of Dong Hai Chuan
the founder of Pa Kua Chang.

Common stories had him fighting
the founder of Tai Chi Chuan for three days,
-imagine that,
fighting for three days,
without getting tired.
Hmmm.-
but she said that their house
always had visiting martial artists
sitting around
talking and exchanging ideas,
every once in a while one of them showing a technique,
and the others offering suggestions,
and analysis.

Not fighting.

Rather,
thinking about
and talking about,
and…
sharing.

I remember when I was learning Kenpo,
and the teachers encouraged such thought as,
our belts were always one belt better than…
insert the name of another school here.

And,
Shotokan practitioners
were looked down on
as mindless robots
with their endless three step punching drills.

And,
kung fu was too flowery
-that from kenpo,
who have the biggest flowery,
circular hands theory
in the world!

And
judo was only good for sport,
and only a fool would allow himself
to be taken to the ground,

And,
what good was kendo
because you can’t carry a sword with you
on the street.

And…
you get the drift.

Now,
this wasn’t a bad kenpo school,
it was actually pretty good,
with a VERY good martial artist
at the head.

But,
there is money to be made,
if you can convince people
that other schools are bad,
and yours is good,
and it all starts from your own students,
and selling them a bill of goods.

And,
if you think kenpo is the worst in this,
think again,
my favorite bad mouthing
of all time,
is the Japanese stylist who claimed
that western people couldn’t learn karate
because it took three lifetimes.

Uh,
yeah.
Two more to go for me,
right?

So,
have we dispensed with this ignorance?

Not quite.

The good thing is that students are loyal to their school.
This is a good quality.

The bad thing is that they are so loyal
they refuse to look outside their school.

If the martial arts had stayed the same,
and everything was closed combat,
and systems stayed pure,
and represented the actual evolution
and accumulation of art
over decades,
then maybe I would say don’t go outside your school.

But,
the arts have changed,
and the closed combat systems are not so pure anymore,
so if you are going to make it
you have to learn, learn, learn.

Look everywhere.

Read every book.

Watch every movie,
every video,
go to demonstrations,
meet people,
learn,
and be willing to trade martial arts
with the most polite and inquiring mind
you can have.

Okay,
let’s talk about the title to this newsletter,
Martial Arts and the end of the world.

If the united states fell,
was invaded,
suffered civil war,
what martial art would you use
to defend yourself,
to take into the new world order?

It’s an interesting question,
isn’t it?

Up front,
I would wish I had the discipline of a classical martial art.
The fact is that discipline,
of itself,
enables one to exist through anything,
to survive,
and to get better.

Discipline is the gold here.

But,
if we are talking about choosing a single art
to make work against soldiers or mobs,
in any situation and against any weapon,
then I always go to Blinding Steel.

Now,
Blinding Steel is the name of the course,
but…what is it actually?

Blinding Steel came about because of
one of the first things I ever matrixed,
Matrix Kung Fu.

You’ve read the story
of how i laid thousands of business cards
with all the techniques I knew
on the backs of them
across my living room.
I had techniques from half a dozen systems of Kenpo,
several systems of Pa Kua,
aikido,
all sorts of kung fu,
and LOT of good, old Karate,
tons of tai chi,
and so on.

And I sorted through this mess,
drove myself near insane,
and finally saw the truth of the martial arts,
and finally had my big matrixing break through.

Now,
Matrix Kung Fu
is a study of joint locks,
and
it is the ABCs of takedowns.
Trip and throw,
lock and slam,
it is the world’s first look
at how to scientifically arrange
stand up takedowns.

In a way,
there is a heavy kenpo influence,
but…
without the Kenpo.

Odd, eh?

But,
here‘s the thing,
I didn’t provide for entry techniques.

Don’t get me wrong,
each technique has a way to enter the throw or takedown,
but
there is no way to set up a master flow
that will enable you to move into any of the techniques.
A little experience,
and you can figure things out,
a little work,
and you can make it work in any situation.

But,
I wanted more.
I wanted to include weapons,
and I wanted to include distances,
and methods of attack
that led into the throws.

By the oddest quirks
I had amassed an assortment of techniques
which didn’t seem to fit into matrixing.
But I kept working,
and I was into analyzing and matrixing
Indonesian weapons systems,
and it hit me,
and I saw how I had been playing in a different culture,
and how I could put it all together.

So Blinding Steel is an analysis,
a matrix,
of Indonesian systems,
that use weapons,
go into hands,
and slide into takedowns.

And,
here is the rub,
just as Matrix Kung Fu was good,
but I wanted to expand it to include more,
The Blinding Steel was phenomenal,
but there was no deep analysis of throws
on the end of it.

So the two went together,
hand in glove.

And I had started by called one of them Matrix Kung Fu
because I had matrixed throws that were very kenpo in nature,
and I had named the other Blinding Steel
as a great name for a study of weapons,
but,
together,
I called them
‘Monkey Boxing.’

This because I used to do them
while listening to a lot of Bob Marley type music
and moving more like a monkey,
especially on the set up and entry.

So,
if I had one art to take into the end of the world,
and I had little time to learn it,
but I wanted it deep
and able to encompass a LOT of martial arts,
it would be
Matrix Kung Fu
and Blinding Steel.

Matrix Kung Fu is $25
we are talking instant download here.

Blinding Steel is $35.
Again,
I am talking instant download here,
this deal isn’t for the physical disks,
I live on a mountain top
and it is hard to get to the post office,
so,
if you want ten bucks off the instant downloads,

Go to:

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4ab-blinding-steel-package/

Now,
remember,
this is an INCREDIBLY FAST system.
You get weapons,
and you get the transition to empty hands,
and you get the COMPLETE data
on how to matrix those empty hands
into the throws and takedowns of Matrix Kung Fu.

A complete system
which teaches you how to make a weapon out of anything,
and how to disarm anything,
and it is the FASTEST course I actually have.
It is so darned logical,
but,
more important,
it puts a logic
into ‘flowing.’

Okay,
there you go.
My good deed for the day,
and I sure hope the world doesn’t end,
but,
if it does
you will have the means to survive
and to bring the highest quality martial arts
in the whole wide world
into a brand new future.

Okay,
you guys and gals have a MOST glorious day,
check out that movie if you can,
Heroes of the East,
make sure you talk to other martial artists,
and trade data
so that you both learn,
and don’t forget,
Ten bucks off
on the Blinding Steel package.

Have a great work out!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4ab-blinding-steel-package/

Beyond Western Muscles in the Martial Arts!

How to Find this Ki Energy in the Martial Arts

When I was in 6th grade
I decided I wanted to be the world’s fastest runner.
Absolutely loved running.
So I started running,
and,
in class,
we had these human body charts.
They had pictures of the muscles,
the bones,
really laid out the human body.
And,
yes,
the page on sexual reproduction
was very worn.

But,
I took off my shoes in the middle of the class,
took off my socks,
and started looking at the pictures
and comparing them to my foot.
Very interesting.
Until the girls all said EW!
And held their noses.

Anyway,
I was obsessed,
and I started examining how the foot arched,
I figured out that the arch was a spring.
I looked at which sides of the legs the muscles were on,
and then angled my stance
so I could get the fastest start.
I pointed my toes,
so to make certain my feet
made the most
of muscles and springs.
I was careful not to run
on one side or the other of the foot.

And,
when I reached the seventh grade,
and decided I wanted to be
the best baseball player in the world,
I started the whole process over again
but analyzing which muscles swung the bat,
why you had to shift the weight with the swing,
how to set myself
so I could follow the ball
the best and easiest way possible.

And so on through a lot of sports.

In 1967,
I found Kenpo Karate,
and I did pretty good.
They made me an instructor,
I wrote an instruction manual,
and I thought I was the cat’s meow.
All that study of the muscles and the body and all that
helped me out pretty good.

Then I went to the Kang Duk Won.
Imagine my surprise
when they said,
‘Gonna take a couple of years.
You look good, but…’
But what?
Fortunately for me,
the martial arts were proving a lot harder
than sports.
I mean,
the muscles and the angles and all that
there was more to it in the martial arts
than any sport I had ever done.
And,
I started to realize something.
Being able to use muscles
had nothing to do with ki.
All of my American sports
were concerned with muscles.
Karate was concerned with…something else.
What was this ki thing?

So I went through Karate,
and then I started playing around with Wing Chun,
and found this extra sensitivity
in Sticky Hands.
Not reacting,
but sensing when somebody was going to do something
before they did it.
A mental telegraph through the arms.
An ESP that traveled through the body
when it was in contact with another body.
His mind was my mind,
as long as I had physical contact.
Cool!

Then I went to Aikido,
and I found something truly spectacular,
this extra sensory perception
didn’t need physical contact!

Now,
I had had glimpses of this phenomena
in Karate.
And I had experienced a more scientific method
and had several very intense experiences
in Sticky Hands.
And then figured out the truth about this stuff
in Aikido.

And I was slow,
because it wasn’t part of my culture.

But,
I was faster than most guys
because I had analyzed the body so thoroughly.

And,
here’s the funny thing,
you can figure this stuff out
in most any art,
if you understand how the body works.

But,
there’s a catch.
You don’t analyze the body
from the viewpoint
of the muscles.

That’s what screwed me up at the Kang Duk Won.
They wanted me to use mental energy,
intention,
ki.

I was used to using muscles.
But muscles are last in the chain.
They are reaction time.
Reaction time is action
after something else has happened.

It means you’re not in the moment,
but you are after the moment,
always responding to,
afterwards.

Think about it this way,
there is a rule in chess,
if two people each play a perfect game,
white always wins.
That’s because white makes the first move.
And that’s true in the martial arts.

So you can’t analyze the body from the viewpoint of muscles,
you have to analyze it from the viewpoint
of energy.
Second on the chain,
and closer to the moment,
to the thought that creates the action.

Now,
here’s the trick,
nobody has ever analyzed the martial arts
from the viewpoint of energy.

They haven’t.
That’s the truth.

So why do you think I get such great wins
from the people who take the Master Instructor course?
Because they have analyzed the muscles,
or at least used the muscles,
and then…nothing.
There is no place for them to go!
There is no second step!
And then they find the Master Instructor course.

The instructors of the martial arts
in the united states,
for the most part,
just sort of wallow.

The Master Instructor course,
however,
offers the second step.
When you go into the six secrets
and learn how to make any technique work,
then mysticism dies a quick death.
It is killed off by logic and physics.
But the real joy is when
you learn how to do your forms
from the viewpoint of energy.
I use a simple trick,
show how the body works,
and,
suddenly,
energy flows.
Instantly.

You won’t go back to the old ways,
you can’t,
because that would mean doing the martial arts wrong.
You can’t argue with what I’ve said,
because it is the truth.
Proven by the fact that it is simple,
and because it is different
than what anybody else is doing,
and the simple knowledge I present
makes it happen!

You can go become a doctor of sports medicine,
you can study nutrition and biomechanics and all that,
you can study the body till you’re blue in the face,
but it won’t tell you the extremely simple truth.

Oh, you’ll learn lots of little truths,
but they won’t have anything to do with energy and intention.

muscles are the first level.
Energy is the second level.
Intention is the third level.
Western science stops on muscles,
the body,
nutrition,
push ups and sit ups.

Then,
there’s no place to go.
I show you energy,
and,
a little work on that level,
and the third level,
intention,
the spirit,
the truth,
just opens up.

And you don’t have to struggle
and use large amounts of energy!
Rather,
you have to relax,
and learn how to use
smaller and smaller amounts of energy.
That’s how you open up the third level.

Okey dokey,
I’ve said as much as I can.
You can lead a horse to ki…

So,
got a new book out.
This is the book on Pan Gai Noon,
and you can check it out at the Monster,
if you simply click on the book cover in the right column.
Or do a search for Pan Gai Noon on Amazon.

Now,
this book is part of the evo of art course,
you can get it as part of that course,
but it will be electronic.

This is a real book.
Pages.
Print.
A neat smell to it.
I love books.

So,
two things you can do this week.
think about the Master Instructor Course,
it’s available at MonsterMartialArts.com
under the courses.

And,
get yourself a very interesting book
on Pan Gai Noon.

Remember,
PGN connects Karate to Kung Fu.
It is a connection to Chi.

So,
you guys and gals have a FUNtastic work out!
And I’ll talk to you later.

Al

Pan Gai Noon Instruction Manual