American Indians and Pa Kua Chang

Newsletter 833 ~ subscribe now!

Pa Kua Chang and Indian Stealth Skills!
part one

Good evening!
I just finished teaching,
2 1/2 hours of bliss,
and I am in heaven.
Let me share a little of that heaven with you.
Here’s one of the things I was thinking about,
which relates to the martial arts.
Specifically,
how Pa Kua Chang relates to the stealth skills
of the native American Indians.

The most important Martial Arts book ever written.

Incidentally,
I am going to write five articles on this subject,
so if you want all five,
subscribe to the newsletter.
The other four articles will be coming out over the next month.

The American Indians were arguably
the greatest light infantry in the world.
They could outrun horses,
they had thoroughly mastered such weapons as
bows and arrows, knives, hand to hand, and so on.
And, they were masters of stealth.

Think about this:
to put food on their table
they had to be able to sneak up on wild animals.
This meant they walked with no noise,
don’t rustle a leaf,
or step on a twig.
Do it so well that a deer won’t hear you.
Have you ever seen how big a deer’s ears are?

The way they walked was very specific.
They did not walk heel to toe,
they did not place their heel down first,
the placed the front of their foot down first,
so they could feel a twig,
or any other surface that was going to cause noise
sufficient to alert an animal.
So they placed the front of the foot down first,
then rolled to the heel,
and they were aware,
feeling with their feet,
sensitive to whatever they were walking on.
And they walked fast enough to close on an animal
before the animal went elsewhere to feed,
and without alarming the animal.
That takes incredible skill.

Interestingly,
this method of walking is very similar to the way
students of Pa Kua Chang walk.
The precise way of walking in Pa Kua Chang
is to place the whole foot down,
gently,
sensing the ground through the feet.
This eliminates slippage on icy, grassy, wet whatever surfaces.
Further,
it breeds silence.
Further,
it enables the student to grip the ground.

This method of walking
is commonly called ‘Mud Walking.’
Walk so you won’t slip in mud.
Walk silently,
with no wasted (as in audible) energy.

There are differences here,
but here is the point:
both methods are used to build awareness.

It is awareness that makes a better martial artist,
not muscles,
not speed,
not anything else.
It is awareness,
of environment,
of the opponent,
of whatever is going on around you.

It’s funny,
when I hear people refer to Indians as savages
I have to suppress laughter.
They adapted to their environment,
they built a technology
that made them possibly the finest warriors in the world.

If you just study them,
if you consider how you might use their methods,
how you might improve your awareness,
you will find that they were geniuses of combat.

Now,
let’s be honest,
I haven’t studied Indian combat methods in depth,
but I have studied methods that closely align.
Here’s the link to Pa Kua Chang.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/butterfly-pa-kua-chang/

Think about what I’ve said here,
and then bury yourself in some Pa Kua,
it will be well worth the journey.

Stay tuned for four more articles
concerning the martial arts
and the stealth abilities of the American Indian.

and have a great work out!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/butterfly-pa-kua-chang/

http://www.amazon.com/Binary-Matrixing-Martial-Arts-Case/dp/1515149501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437625109&sr=8-1&keywords=binary+matrixing

go to and subscribe to this newsletter:
https://alcase.wordpress.com

Remember,
Google doesn’t like newsletters,
so this is the best way to ensure you get them.

You can find all my books here!
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

The Secret of a Real Karate Punch!

Newsletter 822

What is Behind a True Punch!

The first time I ever actually hit someone I was shocked.
I had trained for 20 years, and I actually had no idea
what it was like to hit somebody for real.
Then I had to,
and it totally changed me.

The most important Martial Arts book ever written.

Here’s the deal:
to understand what I am about to say
you have to understand one thing:
what is a punch?

People say it is how hard you hit somebody,
they say all sorts of things,
but I haven’t heard anybody tell me the one thing
that I experienced on the day
I actually had to hit somebody.

Go on,
google it,
see if you can find out the truth
of what it is like to hit somebody.
I’ll wait…
.
.
.
.
.
Okay,
you’re back,
here’s the truth of a punch.
A punch depends on the transference of weight
from one body to the next.
It’s not how hard you hit.
It’s not how fast,
or anything else like that.
It’s how much weight you deliver.
Now,
those other things can enter the equation.
But,
the truth is…
how much weight can you put on the sucker’s body?
Can you put so much weight the other guy’s body breaks?
Can you control the weight so it is a push and not a punch?
Are you stuck in push,
instead of punch?
Does air punching really work?

Interesting questions,
especially once you have tried to do a real punch.

When I struck this fellow
I felt weight go through my wrists.
Because I was grounded he flew back,
went over a bed and hit the wall.
Thank God for grounding.
Thank God I had practiced aligning my bones,
because if I hadn’t I might have broken my wrist,
I might have flown away from that guy from my own punch!
I just didn’t understand.

BUT,
that one punch,
and I understood.
So,
try this special exercise.
We used to do it back in the sixties,
had no clue what it meant,
and it wasn’t until I actually had to hit somebody
that I understood what the drill was for.

Assume the push up position.
Go from the hands to the fists.
Just a little push,
like you’re going to clap your hands,
but then land on your fists.
Palms,
fists,
palms,
fists.

Don’t do too many at first.
Build up a little.
Do it from a knees down push up at first,
if you have to.

What happens here is that you get
the sudden shock of weight
going through your fists and wrists,
and that is what it is like to hit somebody.
A sudden shock of weight in the wrists…
and through the rest of the body.
You ground,
you root your stances,
so that you are braced upon the earth,
and he will fly away,
and not you.
You have a straight bone line in your wrists
so you can absorb the weight.

The actual weight here is going to depend on who weighs the most.
If he weighs more,
you will fly back.
But,
even if you weigh less,
if you ground,
if you are braced upon planet earth,
then he will fly away.
Or,
if you punch with speed and snap,
the impact will ripple through his body
(imagine slapping a pond of water with your hand)
and cause great damage.

Here’s a matrix Karate Kick

Try that,
adapt it to other parts of your practice,
and let me know what happens.

And,
got something else to talk about here…
new book coming out.
This one,
the working title is
‘Tiger and Butterfly’
is a condensation,
a blend,
of Matrix Karate and the Shaolin Butterfly.
The story behind it is interesting.

I walked into a martial arts school,
asked the guy if I could help,
and he said yes.
The school is pretty good.
Probably real good,
but they were teaching martial arts without forms,
specializing in freestyle.
The freestyle was,
depending on which class was taught,
points, MMA, or Jujitsu.
Quite interesting.

So I started helping,
and eventually came up with an interesting idea:
how to teach with fewer, smaller forms.
I used the shorter Butterfly forms,
and the Houses from Matrix Karate.

So far,
it is REALLY working.

Mind you,
I always advise the complete art,
in this case the complete Matrix Karate,
or the complete Shaolin Butterfly,
but considering that the school was established,
considering that I didn’t want to change things,
just enhance them,
you can understand what I was doing.

Anyway,
the book should be out in the next week or so.
Tiger and Butterfly.

Keep your eye out for it,
and,
in the meantime,
check out this book…

http://www.amazon.com/Binary-Matrixing-Martial-Arts-Case/dp/1515149501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437625109&sr=8-1&keywords=binary+matrixing

It’s one of the most important books ever written.
It describes what the martial actually are,
how they are grown,
and ties together all sorts of loose ends.
It should definitely change the way
people think about the martial arts.

Now
have a great work out!

Al

http://www.amazon.com/Binary-Matrixing-Martial-Arts-Case/dp/1515149501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437625109&sr=8-1&keywords=binary+matrixing

go to and subscribe to this newsletter:
https://alcase.wordpress.com

Remember,
Google doesn’t like newsletters,
so this is the best way to ensure you get them.

You can find all my books here!
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

Earning a Black Belt through Video Testing!

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.

Here’s a link to how to video test…

https://alcase.wordpress.com/martial-arts-video-testing/

Have a great work out!

Al

https://alcase.wordpress.com/martial-arts-video-testing/

go to and subscribe to this newsletter:
https://alcase.wordpress.com

Remember,
Google doesn’t like newsletters,
so this is the best way to ensure you get them.

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

How to Put Zen into the Martial Arts

Newsletter 805
The Promise of a Fight

Beat Google!
Sign up for the newsletter at
https://alcase.wordpress.com

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.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/temple-karate/

Now,
have a great work out,
and schedule yourself for twenty times a day,
and send me your wins in two months.

Have a great work out!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/temple-karate/

Don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter at
https://alcase.wordpress.com

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

Winning with the Martial Arts

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.

Jason is doing the course at
KangDukWon.com.

I wrote it in attempt
to keep alive all the material
I learned at the original Kang Duk Won.

So,
have a win,
and share the arts,
and if you have a win,
send it in.

If you want to beat the blues,
read the wins.

Okley donkley,

you guys have a GREAT work out,
and I’ll talk to you later.

Al

KangDukWon.com

And don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter at
https://alcase.wordpress.com

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

Sleight of Hand in the Martial Arts

Newsletter 796
Mystical Martial Arts Made Easy

Good morning!
It’s a balmy day out here in LA,
absolutely perfect for working out.
You just let the wind push you into the next move.

Hey,
here’s something interesting,
did you know that people don’t know how to use their bodies?
They do sports,
various gimmicks,
and they catch the ball cool,
but they are using the body at about 1/100 of its potential.
True.

And,
interesting enough,
I am not talking about instances of high adrenaline
as being the optimum.

In fact,
you should be using less energy
to create more effect.

Here’s the neutronic low down,very simple,
on this phenomenon.

If you study math,
the very first thing you learn to do is measure the universe.
After a couple of years of working with this fact,
which is used because it is undeniable,
you can’t argue with a ruler,
you learn to think in abstracts.
You learn to follow formula,
and you leave the necessity for measuring.

So,
two specific stages,
measure the universe,
follow formula.
The devising of new formula is considered the higher,
most creative mathematics.
That is what every professor shoots for.

Okay,
understanding this,
let’s discuss how it parallels the martial arts.

The beginner is taught to measure himself.
How fast he can run from point A to point B,
how much he can lift,
and so on.
This is the first stage,
the measurement stage,
the stage where you measure yourself in universal terms.

But you are not the universe,
you are awareness,
and to realize your true potential you have to find
the abstracts of motion.

Here is a very simple example of an abstract of motion.

The magician holds up the deck of cards,
you choose a card,
insert it back into the deck,
and the magician,
even though he doesn’t know what card it is,
pulls it out.
Whoa!
As Po would say.

But the magician has only used sleight of hand.
He has trained his hands to make a motion
that escapes the eye.
He doesn’t measure himself,
he grades himself according to how many people he can fool.

Can Joe Blow do this mystical faster than the eye can see motion?
With practice.
But here’s the point:
What if you trained your whole body to move
faster than the eye can see.
There are ways,
you know.
Here’s one.
Practice walking the circle out of Pa Kua for a few years,
until you feel the ‘lightening’ in your legs.
When somebody punches,
you move your hand in one direction,
and step down and under in the other direction.
It will be as if you disappeared.

I first heard of this disappearing act
when my instructor was being checked out by a high ranking Korean stylist.
The Korean did a series of stretches,
then,
noting that Bob was just standing and sipping a drink,
asked when Bob would be ready (for a proposed freestyle match).
Bob put his drink down and faced the Korean.
“I’m ready.”
The Korean jumped into the air with a perfect spinning kick.
When he came down Bob was nowhere to be seen.
In fact,
when the Korean turned his back Bob just walked behind him,
in conjunction with the spin.
The Korean was shocked to find Bob behind him.

I was not as fast as Bob,
I have a bigger body,
but I found that by moving my hand in one direction,
and my body in the other,
just as I described earlier,
that people would follow my hand and lose sight of me.

This is simple stuff,
but it takes immense practice.
And it takes a dedication to graduating from the simple measurement of self
into the abstract of measuring the other person.

It takes concentration,
focus of mind.

And,
in my case,
in addition to all the karate I did,
it took decades of Tai Chi and Pa Kua
to understand the enrages involved.

But,
with matrixing,
it doesn’t take that long.
It takes intense effort,
but if you understand what you are trying to do
before you do it,
then you can cut the time down by MUCH.

Mind you,
the path is different for everybody,
because everybody is different,
bodies are different,
and the mind and spirit is definitely different.
But,
if you understand what I have said here,
and are willing to dedicate yourself to the work,
then you can go beyond the measurement of the universe.
You can go into these things that,
before matrixing,
were considered mystical
and reserved for special people.

There is no reason why,
with understanding the matrixing concepts,
and a little hard work,
you can’t be special.
There is no reason why you can’t use your body
to its full 100% potential.

Here’s the Pa Kua page for any who wish
to choose that as a part of their journey.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/butterfly-pa-kua-chang/

Have a great work out!
Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/butterfly-pa-kua-chang/

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

Martial Arts Legends

Newsletter 793
The Truth of the Old Martial Arts Legends

Man,
this is an absolutely perfect day.
Absolutely perfect.
You know what makes it perfect?
I just worked out.
If you ever want to make NOW better,
just work out.
The more you work out,
the better NOW is.

I remember hearing old stories,
old legends from China,
and so on.

The fellow who practiced jumping out of a one foot hole.
Then, the second year, a two foot hole.
Three years a three foot hole.
After ten years he was jumping ten feet up.
Could jump on and off roofs.
And twenty years…

Then there was a the fellow who lifted a calf on his shoulders.
Did it every day.
When the calf grew into a bull, his strength was prodigious.

And so on.

Interesting stories.
Sort of like comic books.
Keeps the young kids interested.

But there is truth to those old legends.
The truth is different, however.

You do a form for a couple of years,
you train your body to move quick and fast,
any direction,
any combination of techniques.
Then,
without really understanding what is happening,
you move into the realm of the mind.
Maybe ten or twenty years.
Your thought process becomes quicker,
faster,
more intuitive.
Then,
without really understanding it,
you move into the realm of the spirit.
You stop looking at your body,
for you understand it.
You start looking at the attack,
and you aren’t a sequence of nerves and twitches and muscles and stuff,
you just go to where you are supposed to go,
without the muscular fanfare,
without the mental thinkingness.
Your body just moves through space without effort.

The thing is…
you make this happen not by measuring yourself,
but by dedicating yourself.
Not by thinking about it,
but by just doing it,
spending the years,
doing the forms over and over,
until the body gets tired of working,
until the mind gets tired of thinking about it,
until the spirit takes over and just does it.

Think about it like this:
You are digging a hole,
you are digging into the earth,
but that is just a vehicle to make strong the body.
You dig and you dig,
the body gets tired,
but you know you are getting close,
you have to keep digging,
so you steel your mind,
and you make your body keep digging.
And when the mind gets tired,
you know you are closer than ever
and all that keeps you going is your spirit.
You ignored the protests of body and mind
and you keep digging,
and,
at last,
you reach it.
It seeps out of the bottom of the hole,
seeps into your feet,
up your legs,
invigorates your body, mind and spirit.
You have found gold.
Not the gross gold that is shiny rock,
but the pure gold of refined spirit.
The gold that makes you immortal,
that makes you a pure and ever shining spirit.

Others,
unless they have done the digging,
cannot see it.
But what others know doesn’t matter.
What matters is what you know.
And you know the truth of you.

This is the truth behind the legends.
Superhuman deeds are possible,
but they are not what you think.
They are not comic book,
they are real,
but they are not normally visible,
and they are not what people usually expect.

But,
regardless,
you won’t really understand this
unless you start working out,
and don’t stop.
Work out until you are an old man.
Until the body is tired,
but you are not.
Until you realize the flesh is frail,
but the spirit is not.
That is the only proof I can offer.

Here’s the course for the week.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/temple-karate/

These are the ways I do the forms.

Have a great work out!
Al

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

Three Things to Think about in the Martial Arts

Three Interesting Things About the Martial Arts

Man,
what a great Saturday!
deep horse,
meditate,
glow all day.
You know?

I want to say something,
you might find it interesting:

Everybody on this planet is insane
because there is war on this planet.
If ONE person understood this,
war would end,
and the planet would be sane.

I came across this idea many years ago.
Found it interesting,
thought I’d pass it along.
Let you guys think about it.

And,
I want to say something else,
I’ve been working a lot,
newsletters are fewer,
but,
if I don’t answer an email,
or say something that doesn’t quite work,
let me know.
I make mistakes.
But a mistake is wasted if I can’t learn from it.

And,
while you’re thinking about that,
let me talk about the point of this newsletter.

The most important thing you can do is practice.
I’ve been practicing for near 50 years.
I do forms for maybe fifteen minutes at a time.
So let’s say 15 minutes a day,
365 for 50.
So I have done 273,750 minutes of forms.
Or over 4500 hours.

Now it helps if you are doing the forms matrix style,
with perfect form.
But still,
even if your form is all messed up,
that is 4500 hours of controlling my body.
Which means 4500 hours of learning to control my mind.
Or 4500 hours of refining my spirit.
Of polishing myself.

And,
of course,
I have so much more to go.

But it’s a start.

I just wish I had matrixed forms right from the get go.

Now here’s an interesting thing.

People stop doing a form,
stop repeating a form,
because they feel they aren’t getting anything out of it.
But a form is how you control your body,
which takes control of the mind!
So you are getting humungous amounts of benefit.
It just takes a while to feel it.
To understand and appreciate it.

People stop at Black Belt.
Short sighted.

Martial Arts are not a quick school,
you graduate and never have to do them at all.
They are a long school.
You might learn them fast,
but that should be to teach you how to do them
for the rest of your life.

When I was having shoulder surgery.
I couldn’t do my forms.
But I visualized them.
Doctor’s ready to cut me,
and I am far away,
perfectly relaxed,
occupied with important things.
With the control of my mind.
With learning to be me.

And,
people stop doing forms because they think they know them.
How silly.
You might know what a glass looks like,
but that’s not the same as pouring liquid into it every day,
washing it,
using it,
appreciating all the different tastes of life.

All right.
I could go on forever.
Literally.
For a form opens the door to you,
and you last forever.

But,
I need to go do them,
not just talk about them.

So,
have a fantastic day
and a great work out!
Al

BTW
Next book is almost done.
‘How to Matrix the Martial Arts,
and the universe and life and everything else.’
Until then,
get this one…

http://www.amazon.com/Binary-Matrixing-Martial-Arts-Case/dp/1515149501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437625109&sr=8-1&keywords=binary+matrixing

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

Karate, Kung Fu and Aikido Against Voodoo Martial Arts

 Martial Arts: a Destructive Method as Opposed to a Real Method

What you are really trying to do, in martial arts such as Karate and Aikido, and the various types of Kung Fu, is to increase observation while decreasing distance. This is not an exactitude of martial arts practice, but it is the accurate analysis of what we are trying to do.

So you have a beginning martial arts student from one of these classical disciplines, and you launch a slow attack from six feet away. And, as a the months go on, you speed up the attack, and the student gets better and better, faster and faster, and once he reaches a certain point of comfort – that it is comfort is very important, you shorten the distance.

So you launch the attack from three feet away, and you do it slowly, and again, you speed it up over the months. The student gets ‘comfortable’ – remember that word – and you shorten the distance again.

And, you keep shortening the distances until the student is able to stand and observe, not flinch back, and see what is happening, and he is simply becoming more aware.

It’s funny, the martial arts, such as aikido, kung fu, karate, especially the classical ones, are one of the few methods for increasing awareness on this planet. Things like school actually decrease awareness. They jam facts and figures into the head, and it is a rare student, probably a non-existent student, who comes out smarter than when he went in.

But that’s because education doesn’t deal in the real world, except for the sciences, which most people shy away from, and which schools, to remain viable, allow them to. Poor, little darlings (keep writing the check Mommie!)  we’ll get them through something tough, like music appreciation.

Anyway, sorry for that aside, but it is important that you understand the importance of the martial arts on this planet and in your life, so let’s get back to time and distance and awareness.

Awareness is how much of the world you see. And in the martial arts you present a motion, make the student look at it until he is comfortable, then cut the time and make him see more. Cutting the time will enable him to see more.

Now, here is the trick, some of the more modern martial arts, arts based on reality training and so forth, don’t take the time to go through this method, or any other similar working method for increasing awareness.

What they do is increase reaction time.

Now, the student may become more aware in a certain realm, but it is out of his control, he is not able to summon awareness at will, and his body and senses are at risk.

It is the procedure of going to war and depending upon the fact that you are in deathly danger to raise your awareness. It is not a tried and true and scientific method.

It works, but how are you going to teach it without hurting people?

And this method, of forcing increased awareness, of a sort that can be erroneously compared to a real discipline, by putting people in harm’s way usually relies on such terms ‘adrenaline dumping,’ or builds a terminology that is scientific in nature, but psychological in fact. And, the sad thing, psychology is not a science, but merely a voodoo accumulation of whimsical tricks and that sometimes work, if you blunder along long enough. The simple fact of the matter is that psychology, while it has enabled some people under mental stress to go on with their lives, it has never gotten to the bottom of why they weere under stress int he first place, except in the most superficial manner, i.e., some bizarre explanation of wanting to have sex with their mother or father, it’s some one else’s fault, and so on.

The real key here is in the concept of ‘comfort’ under stress.

If your martial art, if  your karate or aikido or kung fu, or even your eclectic discipline, is causing you to relax, to be ‘comfortable,’ when the fist flies towards your face, it is a true art.

And, if you are relying on adrenaline dumping, or touting the fact that you must, simply must try it all out in reality, in a real situation or real fight, to make sure it works, then you are practicing one more savage method, thought up by savages, to retain their savagery.

Savage methods, voodoo training theory, they are a poor excuse for increasing awareness by relaxing, for seeing more of the world simply by applying yourself and making yourself grow through hard work and forcing yourself, I say ‘forcing yourself,’ to see more of the world by learning how to relax under stress.

While the martial arts theory  presented here is pure, it is not practical to apply except in specific exercises; the process of matrixing is the accumulation of many of these specific, and scientific, methods. Further, by being an actual science, and by addressing the actual fact of increasing awareness through such theory as described above, matrixing increases speed of learning by up to ten times, and this in ANY martial art, be it karate, kung fu, aikido, or whatever.

You can find specific Matrix theory and methods at Monster Martial Arts. This includes exact matrixing courses such as Matrix Karate, Matrix Kung Fu, Matrix Aikido, Matrixing weapons, and so on.

 

How to Break Through to a Real Black Belt

What is the difference between a Black Belt and a ‘real’ Black Belt?

Interesting question, eh?

To explain this let me make a statement, and then explain how that statement works.

The statement is that a real black belt does less to create more.

Now, back in China, there were people who could do less to make more. They learned this over millennium, and it became a part of their cultural teachings in many of the martial arts.

The art trailed to Okinawa, and the concept tried to hang on. In some respects it did, in others it didn’t.

Then the Japanese (among others, they weren’t alone in this, just more efficient) came along and they said, ‘We want power!’ So they made the work outs brutal, putting force above intelligence, or awareness, and they succeeded in deep sixing the already dying concept of ‘doing less to create more.’

And, they are not the only ones who did this. Americans are guilty of going along with this, not just as students, but as ‘power seekers’ on their own.

Now, power is fine, for a beginner. But when you train in the martial arts you progress to a point where you get tired – that’s as good a way of putting it as any – of working so durned hard.

Part of this realization may come from finally seeing through the blinders of power to the fact that a little bit wisely and judiciously applied accomplishes just as much, and more, than a lot blindly applied.

But you finally realize the truth, that it is not how much power you can create, but how smartly you focus your awareness to create and apply that power. Thus, the more you become empty, before and after the focus, relaxing to do the technique, the less power you actually have to summon up.

You do less, and create larger effects. You punch lightly, and it hurts more. You relax and throw more efficiently.

You are not building muscles now, but rather awareness; you are learning to focus, to use, awareness as a power. Call it chi, if you wish.

This concept had millennium to take root and develop in China, and teachers would teach it from the get go (before the Great Cultural Revolution). Now people only attain it rarely, and not if they stick to the power seeking commercial schools that have come to reign.

Here’s the interesting thing: you measure force, the power of a beginner, with physics. But you cannot measure chi with physics.

For you cannot measure awareness, especially when used in this manner.

Now, the hallmark of the real black belt is not how much power he has, but how light and liquid he is; how empty he is; how measured and sure he is of his position in space. How aware he is.

Learn to do more by using less (force, impact, energy, whatever) and you will be a real Black Belt.

You can subscribe by going to the top of the sidebar…

A god example of physics and real martial arts is my Pan Gai Noon book, available in paper or kindle on Amazon.