Defeating Distractions to Find the True Martial Art

Newsletter 810

Good afternoon!
Special day tomorrow,
I’ll tell you about it down the page,
but before we get to it,
remember this:
the only way to celebrate this special day is to…
work out!

Okay, hope your interest is piqued,
but before we talk about that special day,
let’s take a moment to talk about emotion.

Ultimately,
you don’t want to have any emotion in your martial arts.
You don’t want to cry,
or feel fear,
or anger,
or any kind of emotion.

Emotion is a distraction.
It gets in between the thought of what you are going to do,
and the reality of what you do.

There is this thing called emotional content,
Bruce Lee mentions it in ‘Enter the Dragon,’
but even that,
ultimately,
is a distraction.

To get to the pure state
where you can read the mind of the attacker,
see what he is going to do before he does it,
and move with perfection,
you must get rid of ALL emotion.

There is a problem,
however.
The problem is that nobody really knows what emotion is.

If you can stick with me through a couple of points
I can help you understand,
which is to say that I can help you understand
something that nobody understands.

Here’s the dictionary definition for emotion:
a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others: she was attempting to control her emotions | his voice was low and shaky with emotion | fear had become his dominant emotion.

But that doesn’t tell you what emotion is.
That is like saying electricity goes through wires,
but there is no mention of where electricity came from,
what a generator is,
or how electricity ‘flows’ through a wire.

It is an inadequate definition.

Here are three more definitions:
1 she was good at hiding her emotions: feeling, sentiment; reaction, response.
2 overcome by emotion, she turned away: passion, strength of feeling, warmth of feeling.
3 responses based purely on emotion: instinct, intuition, gut feeling; sentiment, the heart.

Again,
these don’t tell you where emotion comes from,
what has generated it,
and how it really works.

So,
here we go,
here is what emotion actually is.

Emotion stems from motion inside the head.

And here is a truth,
there are only people in this universe.
Everything else in the universe,
all the objects and non-living things
(or ‘low living’ like animals)
are the effect of motion in the universe.

A bug sits on a stalk,
a frog sees the swaying stalk and must flick his tongue.
A coyote sees the motion of the tongue,
and is compelled to eat the frog.

The universe happens like dominoes.
And,
the ONLY thing in the universe
that can upset the dominoes,
can change the path of the falling dominoes,
can change cause and effect,
is a human being.

A human being has choice,
and that ability,
that decision making ability,
is apart from the universe,
and can cause the path of the universe
to change and change and change.

So a human being can change the universe,
but how does he change it?
by having a thought first.
So he thinks,
and does what he thought about,
and what he thought about comes to be.

But,
in between the thought and the accomplishment,
is emotion.
Think about it:

A man wants to accomplish something,
he sets out on the task,
then he gets angry,
or fearful,
or otherwise emotional,
and his ability to make accomplishment is lessened.

He was distracted.

Which brings us to the crux of the matter,
why does man create these (his own) distractions?
Why does he create emotion
and waylay himself?
Why?

What happens when you squeeze an lemon?
Juice squirts out.
Gets in your eye and you cry.

So a man creates emotion when he is squeezed,
like a lemon,
and ‘things’ squirt out.

things like fear,
anger,
hate,
and so on.

And these things disrupt the mind,
cause distraction,
and obscure the basic thoughts that one may have.

When I was a child I was spanked,
which is to say I was squeezed.
I experienced fear,
and pain,
and anger,
and that stuff,
because I didn’t know what it is,
it stayed with me for a long time.

It would even be fair to say that,
like dominoes,
certain of those emotions
caused me to study martial arts.
How weird.

So when you feel pain and anger
and all those unpleasant things
just say ‘no’ to them.
Just refuse them.
Refuse to dwell on that emotion,
refuse to have motion inside your head,
refuse to feel the lingering effects of being squashed (squeezed),
and go about your life.
Refuse the distraction
and accomplish your thoughts.

Of course,
it is not always easy to do that.
Sometimes what is big in your head is greater
than your ability to ignore.

That is where the martial arts come in.

The martial arts train you to accomplish an attack,
no matter the distraction,
and the heck with emotion.

No other practice on earth does this
more efficiently or to greater effect.

You face your partner on the mat.
He growls,
people yell,
you are tired,
but because you have endured training,
and pain and other distractions,
and gotten to your black belt,
you are able to ignore the distractions,
move forward,
and accomplish the thought of the strike,
or the lock,
or the takedown,
or whatever.

You simply train yourself to ignore
the motion inside your head,
to ignore anything in the universe that tries to stop you,
and you accomplish your thought.

Here’s a cruel trap,
people who start the martial arts,
then quit,
were distracted.
They let something squeeze them,
and they quit.
And the cruelty is that if they had kept going
they would have found the ability
that would have enabled them to ignore distractions,
and accomplish their thoughts.

Catch 22.
Yes?

One last thing I want to say about this.
There are many people who fail,
and,
there are many people who are studying something
thinking it is a martial art,
when it isn’t.

You have to study the true martial arts.
You have to find forms that work,
and you have to make them work.
You have to cleanse your techniques
so they become pure
and can show the thought that created them.

That path creates the discipline.

Just fighting does not.
Fighting teaches you to fight.
Doing the real martial arts,
practicing techniques until you can make them work,
that is the discipline of ignoring distractions
and getting yourself to the point
where you can make your thoughts work.

The best method,
because incorrect movements
(which are distractions)
have been removed,
is Matrix Karate.

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

Okay,
that special day I was talking about.
For me it is the most important day in the universe,
for it is when I decided to have physical presence on this planet.
Birthday.

And,
if you have been following this blog
for the last couple of decades,
then you know I always ask for one, specific present.

Forgive me.
If I have sent out the wrong order,
didn’t answer an email,
didn’t answer an email quickly
said the wrong thing,
didn’t understand something,
failed in some way,
if i have done
ANYTHING
that might have offended you,
or caused you ANY sort of distraction…

Forgive me.

Help me clean up my universe,
help me not have the distractions
of bad service,
poor communications,
or ANYTHING else.

It will help me,
and it will help you.

Thanks.

Now…
HAPPY WORK OUT!

Al

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

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Google doesn’t like newsletters,
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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

Opening the Door to Secret Martial Arts

Newsletter 808

Arresting a Thug Using Martial Arts

Good afternoon!
Man,
is it good!
Go on,
work out,
you’ll find out!

Hey,
I received an interesting win.
Here you go…

Click on Cover to find the secret of Matrixing the martial arts.

Last night I arrested a thug at work.  I lost count of how many times I have done this over 25 years, but get this…  We use Aiki-jitsu (the late Bob Koga brought this to us and other law enforcement) as our tactics base.  Very watered down it works OK at best.  Last night I used a straight arm bar take down.  Usually a distraction technique, shuffle pivot hands on and gravity is how the magic starts.  Unfortunately some of these thugs learn through misadventures how to counter what we do.  To make a long story shorter.  I found myself doing a Buddha palm from a natural indexed stance and moved to the side.  My end position happened very fluid and I found his wrist and elbow on the transition of arm positions (during BP), reverse it with a modified arm bar take down stepping back and it was something else.  Not sure what the percentage of luck was but I think all my hours practicing clicked.  Pretty awesome! My partner was in awe! ~ KB
Thank you KB!
I love a good win!

Here’s an interesting little tidbit.
In Karate,
or other martial arts,
I sometimes talk about the space between the techniques.
I talk about this space as being crucial.
This win highlights why.

Put your hands together
in front of your face
as if praying.
Now circle one hand around
until it scoops
and is basically palm up pointing at the elbow
of the still praying hand.
That is the Buddha Palm position.
Now,
as you go back and forth,
circling the hands so that first one hand is praying,
then the other,
you find the ‘hidden’ technique.
But it’s not hidden,
it is one of those ‘spaces’
that you will find simply by doing the form.

Interestingly
there are A LOT of these ‘hidden’ techniques
in classical Karate.
You just pick two moves
and go forward and back
forward and back,
until you see what the motion is trying to do.

Unfortunately,
a lot of these ‘secrets’ are garbage.
They are just motion
nothing to be found in them.
But,
there are also the little gems
that you will find here and there.

Unfortunately,
most people only do the forms one way.
Straight forward,
they never look at the other side,
or going backward from move to move,
and look at what the motions really have in them.

And,
it is really fun to go through these
with a partner,
and look for ‘secrets.’

But,
no partner?
Just do the form forward and back,
forward and back,
move by move,
and you will find them.
Or,
as in the win that started this newsletter off,
they will,
if you throw yourself into the practice,
pop up when you need them.

It’s true.
And this is one of those things I refer to
when I say that
the art will do you.

Thanks again,
KB,

And for everybody,
start looking,
there aren’t any secrets,
there are just people
who don’t look at the forms,
who don’t throw themselves into the art,
until the art does them.

Here’s the link
for the ‘easiest to find’ secrets

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

Have a great work out!

Al

Like this newsletter?
go to:
https://alcase.wordpress.com
Remember,
Google doesn’t like newsletters,
so this is the best way to ensure you get them.

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

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/

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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

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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

About the Monster Martial Arts Newsletters

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.

And you go have a great work out!

Al

hHeere’s a course that undoes ignorance…

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4-master-instructor-course/

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

Find the Zen of Karate…and the Zen of You

Karate, and Who You Were Before You Were Born

It’s hot here in LA,
and you can really sweat those toxins out.
The best way to sweat?
Work out!

I was driving down the street the other day,
and I saw all sorts of martial arts studios.
MMA, Muay Thai, Boxing,
Karate, Kung fu, Kenpo,
Judo, Aikido, Taekwondo,
and on and on and on.

When I began,
in 1967,
which is near 50 years ago,
there was judo,
which was taught in a few places,
and there was Karate.
Interestingly,
Karate was undergoing a boom.
This was just before Bruce Lee,
and the Tracy Brothers had breathed fire into marketing,
and Karate schools were opening every where.

I began Kenpo,
went every day,
became an instructor,
and so on,
and I had a lot of questions,
and nowhere to get the answers.
The only magazine was Black Belt,
and they sort of circled the arts,
talking about,
but never delving in.

And there weren’t many books.
There was the outlandish Super Karate Made Easy,
Ed Parker had a book out,
Robert Smith wrote his book on
Shaolin Temple boxing.
But these books were either techniques books,
or they talked in mysteries,
and there was no way to understand what the heck
the martial arts were all about.

Then I came across a book called
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.
I had left kenpo by then,
and was in the Kang Duk Won,
and this book was a Godsend.

Not a book about technique,
not a dissertation of mental tricks,
rather questions and tales
that made you blink,
and look for the real you.

One of my favorites was the old question,
‘Who were you before you were born.’

Now you might be wondering,
how can an art built of physical routines
answer that question?

The answer to that wonderment
lies in the simple fact
that we were not distracted.
Karate was not infected by boxing,
throws weren’t an active part.
And so on.

On the surface,
looking back,
reading these words as I write them,
I can understand
why people might wonder,
how can you call that an art?
How can you think of that stripped down sapling
as a wondrous forest of spirit?

Easy.
We weren’t distracted,
and we practiced those few techniques we knew
until we could make them work.

Enlightenment is when you do one thing
without distraction,
until you see the truth of that one thing.

You have heard people like Bruce Lee say,
in the end,
a punch is just a punch,
a kick is just a kick.

But,
here’s the bad news,
if you haven’t found that out
through doing a simple kick,
or punch,
without distraction,
for tens of thousands of times,
then the truth of the statement evades you.

You know about water,
but you’ve never been wet.

That is why,
except for a few logical changes,
and the nudging of matrixing,
the karate I do now,
is virtually the same
as the karate I did way back when.

Pinan one through pinan five,
the iron horse,
a few others,
I do them almost the same as I learned them.
And,
here’s the interesting thing,
the way I learned them was only a couple of generations
removed from the way they were taught before Funakoshi.

I go into modern schools
and I don’t see what I learned.
I see forms infected by boxing,
distracted by MMA,
slanted by tournaments and kick boxing.
I see techniques discarded because people can’t make them work.
I see people fighting,
instead of painstakingly being taught the drills that lead to…not fighting,
to scientifically assessing an opponent and shredding him without waste.

Most of all,
I don’t see the calm of mind,
the calm that comes not from knowing about lots of arts,
but from knowing one thing well.
And, in these modern times,
if people do know one thing well,
it has been slanted by ‘reality fighting,’
by the desire to beat up your fellow man,
not to calm yourself,
and find the truth of yourself.

Not to find out who you were before you were born.

Here’s the art that I was taught,
unchanged except for a few logical tweaks,
and the ‘de-slanting’ of matrixing.

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

Hope you enjoy getting back to the ‘zen’ of it all.

Have a great work out!
Al

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

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

A New Master Instructor!

Good morning to all!
And a happy work out!

Congrats to new Master Instructor Danny Mcauley
Here are parts of his win…

Dear Master AL Case
I’ve recently completed my study of the Master Instructor Course and would like to share with you some of the wins I got and also what I’ve learned and gotten from the course…
…while training at a local gym lately I had opportunity to get a practical example of and put to use  one of the Three Rules and the Greatest Strategy from your Master instructor Course
I was practicing my Karate Kata and also Training in some techniques of striking on the heavy bag keeping myself to myself, in walks a pumped up MMA stylist. I can feel his eyes burning into the back of my head, but I chose to pay him no attention until he eventually asks “What is it you do?” meaning what style do I practice. To which I reply Karate he goes on to tell me how Karate is a useless martial art and how much better MMA is and how much tougher MMA fighters are compared to traditional martial arts practitioners.
I could sense he was just looking for an argument, or maybe even a contest of martial skill, as he was rather aggressive and pumped up in tone and attitude. So I decided to put the Greatest Strategy to work.
I began to talk to the guy in a relaxed and calm soothing tone of voice and began to talk to him about martial arts in general and how I like to train mainly as a hobby and for enjoyment and also that it keeps me reasonably fit and healthy and that in no way could I do what he does in the cage that he must be very brave and tough, and that I admire him for his devotion to his art. As we began to talk I noticed how his demeanor changed from confrontational to now a more relaxed open friendly talkative one I could see that he no longer saw me as any threat to his ego or toughness, and that he could see I’m a really calm peaceful friendly kinda guy with no ego. We began to talk about the fact he had trained in Karate when younger and other things, and we parted as friends.
Later on in the day I was going thru the Master Instructor Course when I came across the The Three Rules and The Greatest Strategy and it Hit Me that was what I had learned today by being egoless and calm and relaxed and being of a friendly manner I had avoided a confrontational argument or any kind of macho showdown or contest of ability and instead made a friend that day and that to me was a Win 🙂
I’ve learned so much from this course and know it will be a part of my own study and practice and teaching of the martial arts for many years to come, again AL I give you a big thank you for such great instruction all your books courses etc have helped me in being the best I can be thank you.
Best wishes
Danny Mcauley

There was more to his win,
but I really wanted to emphasize what he had done.
He used the greatest strategy and
defused a potential fight,
and made a potential friend.

All by not responding the fear
that was in some other fellow.

That’s right,
FEAR!

The reason people pick fights is because they are scared.
But here’s the trick,
if you’re not scared back,
which is to say,
if you don’t respond to their fear,
and their aggression,
and their attempt to fight,
everything fritters out
and communication can take place.

Now,
instead of Danny or the other fellow
going home with bruises and breaks,
they have a chance to work out together,
to sample each others martial arts.

How the heck do you think I learned so many arts?
Not by going and paying monthlies for years,
but by meeting people,
by sharing freely what I knew,
and picking up whatever they offered me.

That is the secret,
and super kudos to Danny.
Congrats,
Master Instructor Mcauley,
may your stances always reach the ground,
may your fists always be gentle.

Now,
before I close,
I want to say one thing.

The only thing you have of value
in this whole entire world
is…

INTEGRITY

Integrity means being honest,
having good principles.

But it means more.

When you practice CBM
(Coordinated Body Motion),
you make your body into an integral unit.
The more whole and unified you become,
the more awareness there is,
the more energy there is,
the more spirituality you exude.

I suggest you get a good dictionary,
look up integrity,
find out where it came from,
and figure out how
it can become the cornerstone of your martial arts.

How you can hold to your principles,
but never compromise.
How you can exchange and trade,
and never shred your integrity.

And,
of course,
learning the Master Instructor Course,
(and other matrixing courses)
will teach you
how to unify your body
in a mechanical and energetical sense.
It (they) will make you whole.

Okay,
Thanks again to Danny,
and to all…

HAVE A GREAT WORK OUT!

Al

BTW…Hanakwanmass!
(Happy hanukah, Kwanza, Xmas,
or whatever other holiday you prefer)

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4-master-instructor-course/

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

Achieving the Proper Martial Arts Attitude

Proper Attitude

Good Evening!
Time for a great work out!
Get your body revving,
after all,
end of the month you’re going to be stuffing it.
You’re going to NEED a work out!
Grin.

Click on the cover to find the source of the martial arts…

Let’s talk about the proper attitude in the martial arts.

There were a lot of bikers
back at the Kang Duk Won.
independents,
Gypsy Jokers,
Hell’s Angels.
They made things fun.

You’d work a technique,
they’d offer a critique
based on how it worked in a fight.
Interesting stuff.
Kept it all real.

There was one Hell’s Angel,
and he liked to get drunk and run red lights.
He’d do this in a car,
get roaring drunk,
give somebody a ride,
and watch them shriek in terror,
while he laughed uproariously.

Now,
here comes the question,
why wasn’t he ever arrested or killed,
or suffer other tragedy?

Because he had the proper attitude.

Hard to swallow,
eh?
It’s like saying
being a homicidal maniac
is having the correct attitude.
Let’s look at it.

He was playing games.
He wasn’t being mean.
He wasn’t hurting anybody.
He had no intention to hurt anybody.
He’d plow through an intersection
right between the cars,
and…laugh.
No harm,
no foul.

Isn’t that interesting?

So,
what’s your attitude towards life?
I know a lot of martial artists are serious.
No laughing or joking,
this is serious business.
I remember one fellow,
who actually got upset
when I called the martial arts a game.
You ever think about the definition for a game?

‘a physical or mental activity or contest that has rules
and that people do for pleasure’

Or…

activity engaged in for diversion or amusement

Or…

often derisive or mocking jesting

Or…

a physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other

And so on.

So here is this guy,
makes up a game with potential death in it,
but because he laughs and has so much fun,
he never suffers ill consequences.

Now that’s martial arts.

And I want you to think of something:
when you are laughing and joking…that’s when good things happen.
When you are grim and serious…that’s when bad things happen.
And this is a pretty diehard 100% rule.

So I repeat the question:
What is your attitude?

If you don’t understand the point I’m making,
keep doing your forms,
you’ll get there.
That’s where the martial arts take you.

If you do understand,
then how can you achieve this attitude?
How can you learn to laugh at everything?
To hold to the idea that nothing matters,
so you might just as well laugh and have a good time.
Somebody dies,
they’re dead,
so why cry?
Rejoice in life,
because someday it’ll be you lying cold and stiff.

Interesting point, eh?

It’s not Miamoto Musashi,
but it’s very pertinent to our times,
to the type of people that populate the world.

Can you laugh when somebody insults you?
Can you laugh when tragedy hits?
Can you laugh when you lose?

Can you?

Okay,
check out my last two books,
do a search on amazon for them.
‘How to Matrix the Martial Arts,’ and
‘Binary Matrixing in the Martial Arts.’

And,
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

New Pan Gai Noon Black Belt!

The Value of Pan Gai Noon

Good morning!
Hmm, afternoon.
Well, good whatever.
It’s easy to lose track of time,
you just sink yourself into a work out and
zingo bingo,
where did the time go.

Before we talk, I want to announce
Will Stockinger!

Will completed studies on Pan Gai Noon.
I think he might be the first
Pan Gai Noon black belt
I’ve awarded.
He’s been sending me videos for a while now,
and he made it look good on the videos.
So well done Will!

A word about the PGN.
Karate is my base art,
I collected a lot of systems over the years.
As I went through these systems
I began to understand certain things
about how Karate evolved.
I understood these things
not from people writing about them,
but from doing the forms myself,
and feeling the changes.
Mind you,
there were a lot of holes,
but Matrixing enables one to find
and fill up the holes in a martial art.
Anyway,
long ago I came across the saying,
that if you don’t know sanchin
you don’t know karate.
And it’s true.

Once I realized this I began to research sanchin.
I collected the various forms of it,
and I realized something:
Uechi Ryu sanchin is for dynamic tension.
Goju sanchin is for breathing.
Shotokan sanchin is for technique.
As you can see,
this represents how sanchin developed from China.
And I began to wonder,
what sanchin looked like in Pan Gai Noon.
But I couldn’t find much on it.
So I relied on matrixing principles,
and set the thing to concepts
which are in buddhist belief systems,
and I wasn’t doing sanchin as a karate form any longer.
Yes, there was still the pop and power,
but there was also flow and emptiness,
and this made the form different in a lot of ways,
opened my eyes to a lot of different concepts.

One of the things I realized
is that you don’t need people to pound on you
to make your form work.
You need gentle pressure
that will make the chi in your body respond.
Pounding doesn’t make the chi work,
it makes the muscles work.
But if you do body testing
the way I describe in
The Master’s Handbook,
then it is different,
and the form is different,
and,
here’s something interesting,
the techniques become different,
and you start to see a logic of technique
that I haven’t see in any other art.
The techniques flow,
and there is a progression of technique
that is startlingly matrix-like.

So these old guys,
back in China,
had designed a system over the decades
and centuries,
that described a closed combat system
that had an inherently matrix-like
progression of techniques.

Mind you,
the student wouldn’t see it,
it’s hidden in the form.
But if you do it long enough,
then it sort of pops at you,
and you start doing the principles of the martial arts,
and not just the techniques.

So that is how I structured
my Pan Gai Noon.
to represent the principles,
to establish the more matrix-like
progression of techniques.

And I wrote about this
in a variety of places.
The Matrixing Chi book
uses Sanchin as the starting point
for developing chi.

I’ve also done a video course,
which is available as part of
‘Evolution of an Art,’
at Monster.
I think this is the only place
where I’ve recorded Sanseirui.

Then there is the book
‘Pan Gai Noon.’
I think it is based on the course book,
with a few things added.

And,
there are lots of places
where I’ve touched upon the art,
written articles about it,
and so on.
Here is one of the best…

http://monstermartialarts.com/three-secrets-pan-gai-noon-karatekung-fu/

So there is a lot of things you can do
to examine my work,
and make up your own mind.

At any rate,
I do consider Sanchin,
and the other two forms,
seisan and sanseirui,
as extremely important.

Okay,
if you’re interested,
I recommend the Evolution of an Art course,
it’s got three arts in it,
Pan Gai Noon, Kang Duk Won, Kwon Bup.
That’s three books,
and three sets of video tapes,
for the price of one course.
And the books on those courses,
are also in the books I’ve
put upon Amazon.

Here’s the link
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/evolution-of-a-martial-art/

And,
that all said,
oinkly donkey
time to move on.

Again,
congrats to Will,
thanks for your hard work.
Yours is an amazing journey.

And,
to everyone…
HAVE A GREAT WORK OUT!

Al

PS
Have a great Superbowl sunday!
And don’t forget to work out
after you pig out!

Dancing Martial Arts…How Gay!

Better Martial Arts Movements

Happy New Year!
And happy work out…
every day for the next 365 days.
You deserve it.

Here’s something I realized,
which helped me,
hope it helps you.

I was reading a forum the other day,
it was some offbeat subject
on some martial arts forum,
and this guy did a rant on old movie musicals.
We’re talking people like Fred Astair, Gene Kelly, and so on.

This fellow said something like,
“These old black and white movies are gay!
How could anybody watch a guy and a girl,
dance for five minutes!
And there’s even movies where two guys are dancing!
how gay!”

How interesting.
Art is gay.
And he was holding himself up as a martial artist.
Maybe he was too much martial?
And not enough artist?

To be sure, dancing is not martial arts,
there is not much in the way of fist and defense.
But dancing is motion,
and martial arts have motion,
so the two have common ground.
Further,
I have seen many martial artists who were good,
but could have been better,
had they a bit of the poise and grace.

And,
here’s an interesting tidbit,
before I discovered martial arts,
when I was going to high school,
and then college,
I used to be a thespian.
That’s right,
an actor.
And I was in all the plays and musicals
that my schools had to offer.
Loved it.
Good looking girls there, too.
But,
good looking girls aside
(can’t believe I said that!)
one time I was in the play
West Side Story.
I was one of the Sharks.
And we were choreographing the big rumble
between the Sharks and Jets,
and I picked out the biggest guy I could,
and I went to him with an idea.
I hit you,
you hit me,
then I hit and you duck,
and you pick me up and throw me over your shoulder.
Man,
it was great!
We rehearsed it,
went to the director and showed her what we had.
She loved it!
So the night of the play
the rumble started.
I swung and he acted like I had hit him,
then he swung,
and hit me.
Bingo…right on the jaw,
and I was out like a light.
In front of 500 people,
The audience didn’t realize what had happened,
but the director did,
and my partner did,
and somehow,
I don’t know how,
I managed to come to enough to stagger off stage.
But I was knocked out.
So much for dancing being non-violent.

Anyway,
the big hint I wanted to give you has to do with this.
During the holidays they sometimes play old movies on TV.
Find the ones with Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly,
look for some other names,
check out how the masters move.

There was a fellow name of Baryshnikov,
considered the best in the world at ballet,
and he said his favorite dancer was Fred Astaire,
wished he could move like him.

Fred would do things like dance with a standing lamp.
He would roll that thing around,
tilt it and catch it
until you thought the standing lamp was alive!
There is never a hesitation,
never a hint of a stall,
it is actually one of the ONLY examples
of perfection in motion
on this planet.

Now if only a standing lamp was a martial arts weapon, eh?
We’d all be practicing the Fred Astaire Kata.

And,
not to leave out the gals,
Fred had a partner name of Ginger Rogers,
and one time some reporter asked her
if it was difficult to dance with Fred.
She replied,
“Heck, I did everything he did,
backwards,
and in high heels.”

Now that is perfection of motion.

So drive safe tonight,
or just stay home and do your imbibing,
and check out some of these masters of motion
and see if you can pick up anything about balance,
grace and poise,
or anything else
that will help make your kata perfect.

Happy New Year
and have 365 great work outs!
Al

Last day of the Two for One Special!
Read about it here!

https://alcase.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/special-martial-arts-xmas-present/