‘Outlaw Karate: The Secret of the One Year Black Belt,’ was one of the first books on Matrixing. Actually, it was written before matrixing became ‘officialize.’
This is the first book to put forth the concept that people could actually earn a real Black Belt in Karate in a year of less.
This new edition includes a glossy cover. The original material, five star rated on Amazon, is intact.
The glory of this book is that it goes belt by belt, describing all the experiences, detailing what the student should be going through, and showing all the forms and applications. Thus, the reader has a much better chance of getting through the material without error; it is actually possible to get to a Black Belt within one year.
The book is based on the author’s synthesis of two martial arts, ‘Kang Duk Won’ and ‘Kwon Bup.’ All duplicate material has been discarded, along with fluff material such as poser techniques, unworkable techniques, and so on.
The result is an extremely hard core, street workable system.
The book includes detailed instructions on such items as:
how to create power
six ways to translate a block into totally different techniques
promotional requirements for every belt
what a student goes through on each belt level and why
the actual written tests for each belt
and TONS more.
The book is 166 pages with 212 images. In includes the complete system, with all the forms, applications, and methods of freestyle.
To find out more about Outlaw Karate: The Secret of the One Year Black Belt, click on this cover…
Click on the cover to go to Amazon and find out more…
This book is a complete system. It includes all the forms and form applications, along with methods of freestyle.
Yes, the martial arts killed Christmas. In fact, it was me, with my martial arts that killed Christmas. Killed it dead. Dead a poisoned rat in a trap dropped in a well. Here’s how it happened.
click on the cover!
Back in 1974, I had just gotten my Black Belt. I was in phenomenal shape, the martial arts had turned on all sorts of abilities for me. I had a sixth sense open up, I could feel when people were going to do things, I could sense things around me, I moved through the world a warrior unbound.
My wife and I lived in a small house in Redwood City. There was an upstairs and a downstairs. It was so compact that the bathroom was under the stairs.
One night I awoke, felt the need to relieve myself. Half asleep, stumbling through the dark, I descended the stairs. I turned through the living room and headed for the bathroom.
Suddenly, a shape rushed at me! It was dark, but I could feel the motion. I spun into a classical move, and chopped with perfect form. The intruder crashed against the wall. One chop, and he was down and out! Now that’s good martial arts, I thought, and I turned on the light.
The Christmas tree lay a ruin. Every ornament was flung from the tree, little bulbs lay in shards, scattered across the floor
The lights, needless to say, no longer worked.
The cheery, little angel that had topped the tree was smacked against the wall and lay in ruins.
Half asleep, I had snagged the Christmas tree cord with a foot, and pulled the ‘intruder’ down upon myself.
Still, I had defended myself rather adequately, don’t you think?
I remember a time in an Aikido class, when the instructor had talked about using the sixth sense to protect oneself, but not being so violent, that Grandma had to worry, when she walked up behind you and tapped you on the shoulder.
Well, I understood that one. And I understood that I had a lot more to go, a lot more to learn, past black belt.
Heck, getting a black belt is just the start. That’s like graduating from high school, and there’s all sorts of college ahead of you, advanced studies in rare fields.
A lot to look forward to.
Unfortunately, there are those that quit the martial arts after getting their black belt. They have nothing to look forward to. Or at least didn’t, until the Matrixing courses came out.
Now, even if it’s been a few years since you worked out, you can jump back in the game, study those rare fields of knowledge. Learn Shaolin, figure out this ‘chi’ business, study weapons.
And you can do it logically, without all the mystical bullstuff that infects most martial arts.
Well, up to you. It is Christmas (HanaKwanMass) however, so you might think about getting yourself a nice present. A present like a whole martial art. How about Shaolin?
Speaking of matrixing, the martial arts, and evolution…
I came across an interesting thought
the other day
I was reading some old yogic scrolls,
and the claim was made
that an hour of yoga
caused a thousand years of evolution
in the person doing the yoga.
Interesting claim.
The most important Martial Arts book ever written.
And,
it’s not right,
though it does act like it is right.
After all,
when you evolve,
you are not growing,
you are reclaiming yourself.
So it’s true,
but…not really.
Which brings us to Matrixing.
When you study a martial art
that has been matrixed,
the art is logical,
and therefore the you accept it.
you like things to make sense,
to be logical.
when you matrix a martial art
you accept this logical method
of looking at and handling the world
at a much faster rate.
The difference between studying a martial art,
and matrixing it
(making it logical through your own efforts)
is the difference between driving a car
and building a car.
The fellow who builds the car
will understand that car far better
than the fellow who simply drives it.
Mind you,
in the end,
you get to where you are going.
But the fellow who makes his own vehicle
will,
in the end,
get there faster.
Now,
that said,
there are several things that will happen,
as you matrix,
that will occur.
I don’t think I have ever laid out these results,
described this path,
so here goes…
First,
you will tend to look at the world in a logical manner.
You will become better at solving problems.
You will become a better worker and boss.
You will become an artist.
Click here to get the whole story on Matrixing the Martial Arts
Everybody sort of knows this,
most martial artists experience this,
so let me take you where most people don’t know.
Second,
you must put aside emotion.
This is an interesting thing.
People will put emotion on you,
and you will feel the need to respond with emotion.
But the Neutronic definition of emotion:
emotion is motion inside the head.
Thus,
you must still the emotion,
stop the motion inside your head,
and not respond with emotion,
BTW,
there is good emotion,
love, happiness, etc.
And there is bad emotion,
hate, fear, sadness, etc.
So the specific emotion you must not respond to
is the bad emotion.
Good emotion okay.
Bad emotion you must uncreate from even beginning.
Think about it,
emotion is merely the automatic response
of one who is overwhelmed.
You must not become overwhelmed,
you must view the world in logical terms,
so that nothing can surprise you,
nothing can overwhelm you.
Third,
you must defeat the distraction of memories.
You must not respond because any conditioning
you may have received.
This includes any familial conditioning,
any educational conditioning,
any conditioning of any kind.
Instead,
you must create yourself in the moment.
For instance,
your father laughed at certain types of jokes before you,
do you laugh at the same kind of jokes?
Don’t you realize that he laughed at jokes in his moment?
And that you have an entirely different moment?
That will change the type of jokes you might laugh at.
For instance,
school might train you to think like a physicist,
and you will analyze the world as a physicist,
when you should analyze it as a unique being,
not trapped by an education.
(Mind, I am not saying you can’t be a physicist
and be in the moment, too)
For instance,
do you view the world through a religious viewpoint?
It would be much better
to study all religions,
to understand all religions,
than to choose one religion over all others.
Don’t become the only thing in the universe
willing to kill over a belief system.
This is simple after you have evolved a few hours…
Fourth,
you must separate yourself from other people,
without losing your humanity.
Simply,
you must be immune to the attitudes
of your fellow man,
but you must love your fellow man
all the same.
This one is incredibly tough.
No matter how far you evolve,
there will always be some idiot
telling you what to do,
thinking he is smarter than you,
and so on.
Can you accept and even use this fellow?
And put aside your certainty
that he is an idiot?
Interesting problem, eh?
Fifth,
and this one is a toughie,
don’t view the world as a fantasy.
This is probably the toughest,
for you become enlightened through the things
I have previously mentioned,
then you might think that,
because you are so smart,
the world should be as you say.
For instance,
you make a battery powered car,
to save the world from pollutants,
and don’t ever consider
that someday the battery will have to be disposed of,
and that the battery might be worse
than all the oil pollutants of a gas car.
Oddly,
this is one of the most dangerous things
you will ever to confront
on your way to self-sufficiency
as a spiritual being…
on your way to your ultimate evolution…
on the way to the ultimate truth of yourself.
Though people haven’t discovered
the earlier truths,
they don’t know how to look at the world logically,
or control their emotion,
or control their responses to people,
they will still try to rule the world through their fantasy.
Have you ever met a fellow without an opinion?
And yet I am asking you to be one.
Toughest problem you will ever encounter.
Anyway,
this is the truth of matrixing
and where it leads to.
First,
you learn to look at the world logically
through the matrixing method.
You put aside the distraction of memories,
then you put aside emotion,
other people’s thoughts,
and even fantasy.
Then you find the truth of yourself,
and you start manipulating the universe
the way it should be manipulated.
The truly odd thing is that this path
often starts with a simple motivation:
the desire to defend yourself.
The wish to become physically safe
through simple exercises and drills.
Where this path leads,
though,
is sublime.
Now,
the one caution:
People think they can do this through any martial art.
Yet nobody has ever succeeded.
Indeed,
the people who think they have
are merely manifesting their fantasy of the world.
They are still mired in the muck,
and don’t understand that they have no logic.
They have only the fantasy of logic.
They have only an opinion and no facts.
So it has to be a matrixed martial art.
It can’t be a Chinese fire drill of a martial art,
it has to be a logical (matrixed) martial art.
Then it will work,
and then you can experience something like…
a thousand years of evolution
through a simple hour of exercise.
Okay,
Matrix Karate starts the matrixing process.
Study the courses as you need to,
until logic outweighs fantasy in your mind.
Then you will be off and running.
And if you’re not ready for Matrix Karate,
then at least check out the ‘Binary Matrixing in the Martial Arts’ book,
or the ‘How to Matrix the Martial Arts’ book.
They are available on Amazon.
(leave a good review!)
Relaxing is the only way to find the True Martial Arts
I remember reading of Koichi Tohei,
many years ago,
and some scientists asked if they could test his ki.
Like, on machines.
Click on the Cover
Now this isn’t a smart idea.
Ki is an energy motivated by thought,
sometimes the energy can be registered,
but the thought never can,
so science often proves there is no such thing as ki.
Can’t be measured…doesn’t exist.
Which is the same reasoning
that kept the world flat for so many centuries.
They just don’t what to measure,
and there isn’t a machine in existence
that can measure thought.
That said,
the test went round and round,
they couldn’t explain what Koichi was doing,
and they couldn’t figure out the readings they were getting,
and he,
probably with a diabolical sense of humor,
told them he could slow his heart down.
They said nonsense,
a human being couldn’t control the nervous system in that way.
So he did it.
He dropped it some 30 beats,
then sped it up again,
then slowed it down.
And the scientists were really confused.
So let’s talk about what you are supposed to do
with your mind in the martial arts.
First,
forget it.
It’s just a bunch of memories.
Get rid of the past,
at least ignore it,
and you are more in the present,
and then you can better control your body.
Logical, right?
But too simple.
People have a hard time buying into this simplicity.
So,
in Karate,
we trained so that the mind
didn’t become excited,
and so that we kept looking,
and ignored emotion.
Ignored the emotion of fighting.
Didn’t feel the anxiety,
or panic,
or sudden beating of the heart
as the world devolved to chaos.
Note that I am moving at the same time.
When somebody throws a punch at me
I actually slow down.
My mind looks right past any memories,
and I focus on the moment.
I stop reacting,
even to my own training,
and start moving with the person.
In real time.
Now,
there are MANY examples of this in the world.
The baseball player,
for instance,
the guy way out in the field,
takes off…AT THE CRACK OF THE BAT!
Not before it,
not after it,
but at the same time.
AND,
he moves intuitively to where the ball is going.
He attempts to ‘meet’ the ball,
at some specified time and place.
But how did he know where the ball was going…
at THE CRACK OF THE BAT!
There are other examples,
but this is my favorite,
probably because everybody knows what I am talking about.
Especially if they have played baseball.
If you have ever had a sixth sense,
known when something was going to happen before it happened,
felt somebody walk behind you (hairs on end),
that is you,
putting aside memories,
and perceiving directly.
In Karate,
it happened about the time I got to Black Belt.
When I got there I began to focus,
without excitement or distraction,
on what was happening.
And it really screwed people up,
when I displayed no reaction time.
Reaction comes from ‘react’
which means you are so immersed in memories (or training)
that you can’t perceive directly.
Signals have to travel through the body to create motion,
instead of you,
apart from your body,
just creating motion.
Okay,
I’ve talked long enough,
probably left as much confusion as enlightenment.
But here’s the trick…
You have to train with people
in a system which understands this.
In which the techniques support this,
the forms are aligned and orderly.
The freestyle is not a fight,
but a procedure of learning how to look.
Not getting excited,
not getting distracted by emotions,
but calming yourself
so that you don’t get excited.
I’ve done the best I could
to give you a good system.
In fact…systemS.
But you have to work,
and work hard.
You have to get the idea that I’m talking about in your mind.
You have to force yourself to calm,
to put aside excitement,
and become cool and machinelike in your actions.
Good luck with this,
in spite of all the simplicity of my systems,
it is still hard.
It’s hard to restrain emotion,
put aside memories,
memories that you sometimes don’t even recognize as existing,
and function on a high level.
Newsletter 815 ~ Sign up now on the Free Books page!
New Karate Black Belt Test!
Good morning! Wonderful morning. I just did a whole bunch of forms, I feel like a million.
The most important Martial Arts book ever written.
Hey, there’s lots of stuff happening, so let me start with… CONGRATS! to Peter Carmody
Peter passed his Matrix Karate Black Belt test.
The test was done on video, and Peter went through having to repeat the test, doing all the corrections, and making all the matrix karate material work.
And he made it look good!
Video testing is interesting. You could probably film yourself on an iPhone, don’t wear black against a black wall, white against white, and so on.
Have some sunlight, or a few bulbs glowing.
You don’t need lots of space as long as I can see your whole body.
Have a partner.
Be willing to fail once or twice, at least.
And here’s the thing, Matrix Karate is pretty darn unique. You see, most karate systems were developed for specific reasons, bodyguarding, the element of being grabbed, having to deal with weapons, etc.
Not saying you won’t encounter these things today, you need some awareness of these things, but the real factor is that we are a fist culture. If you are in a fight the usual weapons will be fists. Then something that can be used as a cub, then a knife, etc.
But fists are the base of it all. And, if you can handle a fist, it is just a short step to a knife, if you have enough brains to adapt.
Anyway, Matrix Karate is designed around the structure of the body, it is a complete art, taking into account all angles of attack and defense. But it is SIMPLE! Because the posing and the unnecessary techniques have all been weeded out.
You have to learn about mistakes, but the essence is in the logic where one move leads to the next, with no circus moves.
It’s funny, I remember one of the first wins I ever received, this was about ten years ago. The guy wrote that he had gone to a martial arts school, and the first technique they taught him was a cartwheel into a jump kick. Not how to block and punch. Not even the basic kicks, but a jumping kick off a whole body contortion.
Can you see why matrixing was so desperately needed? A little common sense? And every system, no matter how classical or developed, benefits from the direct infusion of logic that matrixing provides.
Anyway, well done to Peter, and I recommend Matrix Karate and the Master Instructor Course (you need both of them to test). Whether you are accomplished and have a black belt, whether you are a raw beginner, whether you are just in the middle and need to get going, Matrix Karate is the easiest, the best, the most efficient and completely rounded karate on the planet. Period.
Gonna be a 100 degrees this week!
It’s time to really sweat!
So turn off that air conditioner
and get ready to ROCK!
Release of final volume of Matrixing Karate Series! Click on the Cover!
Let’s talk about matrixing.
In fact,
let’s talk about the big bugaboo of the martial arts…
MISTAKES!
Mistakes are not actually mistakes.
If you block something wrong,
for instance,
it’s not because you made a mistake,
it’s because you made a calculation,
a computation,
based on your current data.
When all the input finished,
when you finished calculating
the trajectory of the fist,
the angle of the block,
and so on,
and got hit in the face,
it is because you did what you trained yourself to do.
You didn’t make a mistake,
you responded according to your training.
This is actually true of everything in life,
but since martial arts are a microcosm,
a small classroom,
let’s look at the martial arts potentials here.
A student is trained to do a block.
He practices and practices,
until it is ingrained.
Until it becomes the intuitive response.
Then an attack happens,
and it is the wrong intuitive response.
This,
incidentally,
is why so many arts fail.
Take Kenpo,
for instance,
two arts,
the art of the technique,
and the art of freestyle,
and they have nothing to do with each other.
The training,
you see,
has left reality.
Then it takes twenty years or so
to make the intuitive work.
Maybe.
So here is the question:
How do you create a correct intuitive response…
EVERY TIME!
And that brings us to matrixing.
In matrixing a mistake is never a mistake,
it is an opportunity to learn something.
So consider this.
A right fist to the face can be blocked four ways.
Use your right hand to push it to the right
Use your right hand to push it to the left
Use your left hand to push it to the right
Use your left hand to push it to the left
I know,
there are lots of potentials here,
lots of other blocks.
But we are keeping it simple.
You can apply what I am telling you here
to other techniques and arts later.
So you practice the first one:
Use your right hand to push it to the right
and you practice it because it is the right one.
It is the one that works best.
And you practice and practice,
and then,
one day,
you are attacked,
and it doesn’t work.
WTF!
The reason it didn’t work might be anything,
a slight curve on the punch,
a delay in timing,
a sneaky distraction,
who knows and who cares.
What we care is the solution.
Instead of practicing just one defense,
you have to practice all four.
And practice and practice.
Sometimes,
if one of the potentials almost works,
you have to practice it a lot.
Sometimes,
if the potential is a disaster,
you just have to practice a little,
every once in a while,
just enough so that you realize…
here it comes…
WHAT DOESN’T WORK!
You see
it’s not enough to know what works,
you have to know what doesn’t work.
Not to make what doesn’t work intuitive,
but so that you can see what doesn’t work in the middle of combat.
This is a different level we are talking about.
We are not talking about being cause and effect,
we are talking about causing the cause and effect.
We are talking about a ‘master viewpoint.’
When somebody punches you shouldn’t react,
you should move with them,
in tune with them,
developing the block or counter or whatever
in the middle of the moment.
This is mushin no shin,
or mind of no mind.
This is when your memories
memories that you might have implanted yourself,
don’t distract you.
This is when you do purely and truly.
And it is really amazing
when you find yourself in the middle of one of these moments.
I was working out with a couple of fellows the other day,
using sticks.
These two fellows had worked out for years,
knew each other well,
knew the material well,
but when it came time to demonstrate,
the teacher turned to me,
because he could feel that I was more ‘in the moment,’
and showed the technique on me.
Simply,
I didn’t hesitate,
or make mistakes,
I just stayed with him,
moving in time with him,
moving in tune,
and even when he started deviating the technique,
there I was,
sticking with him,
making it work.
So you see,
you can’t just practice the martial arts,
you have to understand them.
You can’t just practice a technique,
you have to practice ALL of the techniques,
all variations.
You can’t train yourself to just respond,
because then you are training yourself
to be effect to the other guy’s cause.
Instead,
you have to train all the potentials,
even the mistakes,
then mistakes won’t fool you,
or otherwise trip you up.
The best place to do
what I have told you about here
is the Matrix Karate Course.
The Matrix of Blocks,
which is just one small item on this course,
goes directly to the heart of this.
You will then understand how blocks work,
how they work together,
and how to define what mistakes are
so they never trip you up.
May you have the best work out of your life. Really.
Cover of volume 1 of Kindle version of Matrix Karate ~ click on cover to find out more
Speaking of blocks… When I was in my teens I was studying Kenpo. I learned all these neat tricks, was excited about fighting, and I kept having these weird ideas about strategy and how the martial arts were shaped. Oddly, I couldn’t make these strategies work. I could fight well, but these things I was thinking about, they just eluded me in combat. And it was because there wasn’t much in the way of blocking, in Kenpo.
In my twenties I joined the Kang Duk Won, I bashed my arms for years, and I learned about pain. I learned that pain is a warning device. And it was all because of blocks.
Funny. Most people won’t use a real block in freestyle. I can, and do if I am teaching somebody and there is a lesson in it. But it’s easier to just hit the other fellow than it is to block.
But I never would have learned how to slide in and hit somebody if I hadn’t learned how to block.
I always remember the specific technique where it all came home. It was the technique from the first move of Batsai. Batsai is spelled a few different ways, but it means ‘defending a fortress.’
In that technique I had to do three blocks. And I had to do these three blocks with hips twists, I had to twist the hips to align the body so it could support the impact without collapsing. And I had to do it faster than somebody could throw three punches at me.
For months I tried to get that technique. I would practice it and practice it, get guys to give me that attack, but I just couldn’t move my body fast enough.
One day, I did. Just like that. One second I couldn’t, and the next second I could. Like a switch had been thrown. But here’s the interesting thing: I felt like I was behind my head. I felt like I was out of my body, just a little bit, and watching my body move without me.
Well, it was moving because I had mastered the thought pattern behind the blocks. I had practiced that mental circuit until it broke, and what was left was me.
From there I moved into other things, hitting without blocks because, darn it, I had gotten so good at them I didn’t need them. And I moved into concepts of how to move the energy in my body just by thinking about it. Which is understandable if you realize that learning how to block had taught me how to influence my body with just thought.
I began to be able to accomplish all those odd ideas I had had way back in Kenpo. Which led to Matrixing.
Nowadays people don’t practice the blocks. And if they do, they don’t practice them with the proper hip movement, the proper alignment, the proper breathing and thought.
I know this because when people come to me for lessons, they show a complete lack of understanding, no knowledge of the drills, of how blocking works.
The thing is there is a whole realm of thought that goes with learning how to block. You learn all sorts of things, and it builds a springboard for moving into other concepts.
Think about it, you can box, and learn how to take a punch, but that doesn’t teach you how to run energy through your body.
Nothing wrong with boxing, it’s actually pretty good stuff, fills in a few gaps that are in the martial arts, but it just doesn’t have the energy theory that goes along with the martial arts.
Anyway, I’m working on the Matrix Karate for a Kindle version. Kindle is very unfriendly to photos, so I have to take some out, and rewrite the thing. It’s be good, but not as good as a book, or a video. Heck, even the other electronic readers are better, because they take PDFs easily.
But one of the things I focus on to make up for that lack, is the specific blocking in the forms. Not the matrix of blocking, which provides a logic which blasts one to intuition, but the old way, learning the blocks, making them work, until the art does you, and you become the art.
You guys are lucky. You understand something the Kindle readers may never understand. You get everything on these courses. On the other hand, the kindle readers may understand something you don’t because they will be seeing the art in a more bare bones viewpoint, that will let their mind fill in the blanks, which is very healthy for a student. Well, who’s to say. The real lesson is in the work out. Getting the material and doing it, thousands and thousands and thousands of times, until it becomes you, and you become it. That will teach you the art, no matter which of my books or courses you get.
Gorgeous day.
Absolutely gorgeous.
And that means it is an absolutely gorgeous day for a work out.
So get going!
Was teaching this morning.
We were doing Promised Fights,
and my partner was grimacing,
and finally backed off.
“Ow,” he said.
And we got into a long discussion.
Heck,
he was hurting,
I had to let him recover,
give him some data,
and then hurt him some more.
Right?
First,
I started out with the old
‘Do it a form a thousand times and you know it.
Do it ten thousand times and you’ve mastered it.’
My student did exactly the right thing,
he said,
‘So if I do it 20 times a day,
then in fifty days…’
“Yep,” I said.
“You could know it.
You could be expert in 2 months.
But you have to do it right.
You have to understand the alignment,
how the feet work and why,
and you have to know the Promised Fights…
otherwise you could do it forever and not know it.”
Second,
we went into proper body alignment,
which is covered on the Master Instructor Course,
and how the feet must align properly,
and how the particular form we were doing had to be done
to make this all work.
I ended up saying,
“align your body,
make it a single unit,
then he won’t hit your body parts,
he will hit a single, integrated unit,
and it won’t hurt you.
Energy flows through a body that is a single unit,
it doesn’t flow through body parts used in individual fashion.
This is especially important in a Promised Fight.”
And,
came the look I had been waiting for.
I had been using the term Promised Fight,
and I knew he would eventually ask about it.
“What is a Promised Fight?”
A Promised Fight,
or a Promise Fight,
is a piece of the form applied.
A form Application.
It is a self defense movement.
It is bunkai.
It is the working part of the form.
But,
it is more.
In fact,
if a person doesn’t understand what I am about to tell you,
he/she is not doing karate.
They are just fighting themselves.
I asked my instructor what a Promised Fight was,
and he said,
‘The Promise of a Fight.’
And,
while the study of PFs gave great abilities,
and the answer he gave me was correct,
it was terribly incomplete.
To understand what a Promised Fight is
I need you to look up the word ‘Postulate.’
Look it up for yourself,
get all the nuances,
where it came from,
and all that,
but for this newsletter,
the short and inadequate version is this:
suggest or assume the existence, fact, or truth of (something) as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or belief
Assume existence,
put forth the truth,
as a basis for belief.
If you understand the hint here,
you should be diving for a big old Oxford Dictionary,
wanting to know why a simple karate move
becomes the basis for truth in this universe.
So let me break it down a bit,
from the viewpoint of 50 years of training.
A postulate is a thought,
which if worked on,
becomes true.
Worked on,
as continually done in a work out.
As in a piece of the form,
practiced again and again and again.
Now,
let me back up a bit,
a form is a circuit,
a pattern of moves that you practice and practice
until you just do it without thinking about it.
You strengthen the body,
you remember the applications,
you get light and quick,
and all those sorts of things.
When you do a piece of the form,
over and over and over,
you condense the circuit,
and you get rid of thought,
and suddenly there is nothing but the move.
Somebody punches,
and you don’t exist,
you just track the incoming,
and the Promise Fight,
the postulate of moves,
pops out of you.
And it works.
You punch him,
and he falls down.
And he doesn’t understand what hit him.
But here is the truth of it all…
a thought hit him.
A Postulate of thought hit him.
A Promise Fight,
clean and simple,
without distractive thoughts,
hit him.
And there is nothing purer in this universe.
Now,
I am always so busy trying to get people to understand,
offering all sorts of methods,
that i sometimes forget to go into this factor.
BUT,
in Matrix Karate there is the Matrix of blocks.
These are like mini-Promise Fights.
Very important to get these,
to understand them,
it is important to learn the small PFs
before you get to the big ones.
The big ones are on Temple Karate.
There isn’t talk of a matrix there,
because it is assumed you have done the groundwork of Matrixing first.
And the form applications are VERY pure Promised Fights.
They REALLY result in a zen frame of mind,
and the ability to hit somebody with a thought.
If you get Temple Karate
and you haven’t done Matrix Karate,
then you are taking the long route.
It will take you years,
and as distractions mount,
you can be knocked off the path
and never get there.
So you should do Matrix Karate,
work on the Matrix of Blocks,
make inroads and discover what a PF is.
And,
you can always take the pieces of the form,
they are pretty obvious,
and work on them to make real Promised Fights.
Then you do Temple Karate,
get into the classical forms,
and really go to town on the Promised Fights.
Matrix Karate is pretty simple,
it presents the movements that are pure karate,
no distractions from other arts.
It aligns you,
and sets you up for the broader moves of Temple Karate.
It is a real Closed Combat System.
You can do it by itself,
or you can do it,
then move into the classical,
and see what kinds of things
the old guys who came before us were into.
Temple Karate is a larger assortment of tricks,
it broadens the education,
and digs you to new depths.
Anyway,
that is the story on Promised Fights.
Dig ‘em…they are the real zen of Martial Arts.
Here’s the link for Temple,
if you have already done Matrix Karate.
You can just go to MonsterMartialArts and find Matrix Karate,
it is one of the first arts presented on the home page.
Newsletter 803 Make Your Day with a Martial Arts Win!
Great Afternoon!
I was teaching this morning, and it is almost impossible to describe how wonderful one feels after sharing the martial arts.
Sharp, quick, strong, happy.
Hey, I thought I’d share a win. I get wins all the time, and if I’m a little busy, so what… I can still share a win, right?
Before I do, however, google is figuring out how to send newsletters into Spam folders. So put me in your contacts, or just go to https://alcase.wordpress.com and sign up. The newsletters always end up there.
Now, here comes a win from Jason W.
I’ve trained on two continents officially hold 1 black belt, and unofficially am that level in 2 others. I am currently working through the purple belt level in your Kang Duk Won course. I have to say that the workout is as tough as anything I did in Hapkido, but I am slowly getting there. The KDW material is filling in all the holes I had in my training. It’s really amazing how much stuff the instructors leave out or don’t even know. About a year ago I was at the place where you started in developing matrixing. I was looking for ways to bridge all my training into a logical system apart from the individual styles. I am lucky I found your site. I saved myself about 40 years of headaches! Just keep up the good work.
Thanks, Jason. I appreciate kind words, I love your win.
Newsletter 802
What’s Happening in the Martial Arts!
Good afternoon!
Think I’ll do a Tai Chi workout,
those always make me feel so large.
It’s funny…
large on a peaceful scale.
Got an email today,
asking where the newsletters have been.
Here, read for yourself…
Hey Al,
Haven’t heard from you in a while. Are you okay? I miss your newsletters. I’m sorry you’re catching flak from a bunch of little cowards spouting their worthless and unqualified opinions from the safety of their mother’s basement. I’ve been playing this game for a long time (since 1978), and I see you as nothing less than an innovator (if for no other reason than your unique ability to systemize that which has always been chaotic). We live in a unique time where the sharing of information is easier than ever. It’s easy to put people on a pedestal and idolized those who went before us as more than men. But the truth is, they only had a narrow perspective and worldview, and while they did the best they could with their extremely limited access to information, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are deserving of worship. Just like grade school, only about 5 people out of a hundred actually studied hard and put in the work. The rest either ostracized them, or agreed with them and parroted their phrases to appear more intelligent. I think this phenomenon is seen in the Bible, with William Shakespeare, & in the martial arts. Five percent actually understand what the hell they’re reading (or have read it at all). Most of us do not understand or have not read it, so we agree with those who have and praise the brilliance of the work. The rest think it’s just a bunch of bullshit. My friend, you are among the 5%… No, you are one of those that the 5% study. The difference, is that we have access to more tools than any of our predecessors have had. There will always be the few that create change, and the lazy masses that first violently oppose, and then blindly parrot. You can’t be extraordinary by being ordinary. Keep on pressing on. I value and appreciate your perspective.
-Sean
I thank you, Sean,
from the bottom of my heart.
So let me explain what,
exactly,
has been happening,
and why I am so slow these days.
When I came down from Monkeyland
I was pretty broke.
No place to live,
no job…
no prospects.
Well,
it’s against the law to whine,
so I took on a bunch of jobs.
I drive Uber in the morning,
tutor kids in the afternoon,
do the martial arts in the evening,
and have a janitorial business on the weekend.
And I make sure I work out every day,
and multiple times a day,
if I can.
So that’s what’s been happening.
Survival on the stupid level.
the need for petty, crass cash.
A couple of things happened because of this,
a person gets tired if he isn’t doing what he loves.
So I’m tired all the time.
Poor me.
Whine…whine.
But,
there will come a time when I can shift everything back around,
focus on the martial arts,
and keep going.
After all,
at the end of the road is Monkeyland.
A place where people can go to study martial arts.
Anyway,
it’s not the small people who whine about what I am doing.
There is one common factor in these people:
they have never read what I am doing,
never seen a tape.
They offer opinion without facts.
They think they know everything
based on their own experience,
and they don’t need no durn facts.
So how can I get upset about a bunch of fellows
who offer ignorance as their stock in trade?
It’s sort of like listening to fourth graders
whine about how tough math is,
when the truth is
they just just don’t want to do the work.
And,
the root of the matter,
I’m just stuck in a boring spot,
should be out of it one of these days,
and doing more martial arts.
Then my chi kicks in,
my energy swells,
and life is great.
So that is what is happening.
That is why I am slow in coming out with the newsletters.
It’s my own durn fault,
for putting myself in this situation,
and it continues to be my fault
until I figure out how to right the situation.
So I thank you Sean,
and all the others,
the fifty,
and even the passersby.
Thanks for writing me the email,
encouraging me,
and even chastising me.
I apologize for being a lazy…fellow,
and I guarantee it won’t last forever,
nor probably even long.
In the meantime,
it is up to you.
Work out every day.
Don’t make ignorance your comfort zone,
but delve in,
buy books and videos,
enlarge your cranium with the swell of martial arts.
Put them to work with your friends.
Understand that their is perfection of the spirit
in the study of martial arts,
and that it makes the world a better place.
It calms the spirit,
it undoes undue excitement,
it gives lazerlike insight into the problems of the world.
I’ve been around for a while,
and I will go away,
but the martial arts are your true teacher,
they are the liberator,
the educator,
the enlightenment.
They last forever.
Enjoy.
Now,
I’ll try to work a bit harder,
and stop being a lazy…fellow.
Matrix Martial Arts 