50 Years Ago the Martial Arts were Different

Newsletter 988

Martial Arts Changing Over the Last 50 Years

When I began martial arts,
back in 1967,
things were different.

At this point you expect me to say something to the effect of…
we were more ‘dedicated,’
we were willing to suffer bruises and breaks,
we walked 20 miles,
barefoot,
through the driving snow,
uphill both ways.

Nope.
Has nothing to do with that.
You see,
I have been in modern schools,
I have seen people train until they couldn’t stand,
I have seen people suffer injuries and keep going.
I have seen that uncommon degree of dedication
that the martial arts create in individuals.

I am talking about knowledge.
Let me give you an example.

Do you do the horse stance?
Can you do Teki 1 for an hour?
Can you hold a ‘horse meditation’ pose
for an hour?

Nope.

Most modern schools no longer practice the horse stance.
At least,
I have never seen them.
They don’t force themselves to do low stanced forms.
And in this they are different than
the way we did things fifty years ago.

So,
why is the horse stance important?
It’s just a weird squat, right?
so what’s the big deal?

Okay,
here we go,
see if you can stay with me.

If you stand on straight legs
you don’t work.
Your legs don’t work.
You can stand on two legs for hours,
no prob.

If you stand in a deep horse,
legs bent,
you work like a mofo.
You sweat and strain,
and…the tan tien has to produce more energy.

The tan tien starts to work.

So you do it again.
And you last a half a minute longer.
And you do it again,
and again,
and over a month or so you start to notice weird things.

By breathing deeply,
and imagining that you are breathing to the tan tien,
a ‘place’ a couple of inches below the navel,
you are able to stand in a horse longer.
Your legs don’t shake as much,
and you begin to feel the energy coming out of the tan tien.

You realize that your legs are working harder,
so your tan tien is working harder,
and you are experiencing a weird sort of body energy.
An energy that Joe from the western world doesn’t know exists.

And,
here it gets interesting,
you start moving differently.
You brace in stance and people can’t move you.
Your arms become unbendable as you wish.
You stop using muscle and start using energy,
as from the tan tien,
to do certain types of work.
Most of all,
you move differently,
energy courses out from the tan tien,
goes through the arms,
becomes an unstoppable force
that is directed through and out from
your well structured karate form.

What is happening is
if you practice low stances,
doing karate forms,
that little thing called a tan tien
will ignite.
and…

THE MOTOR OF YOUR BODY WILL TURN ON.

It will change the way you move,
the way you treat life,
the way life treats you.

But,
most schools no longer practice the deep stances,
and especially the deep horse stance.
And,
here is the sad thing,
if the instructor insists on it,
students leave in flocks and droves.
Don’t want to work.
Aren’t willing to make the sacrifice.
Can’t put up with a little pain.
It’s not fun.

So…the martial arts are different
than when I first began them 50 years ago.
People are still willing to suffer,
but they don’t understand things like the horse stance,
so they end up fighting,
going to tournaments,
softening the experience with padding,
and they never get the true karate.

And,
here is something really weird.
Gichin Funakoshi,
some 50 years ago,
said much the same thing.

He said that the karate he saw
was not the karate he learned….50 years before.

Did he just observe the same thing I did?
Or was there some super secret that they were doing
that I missed.

Uh oh.

I recommend Outlaw Karate,
because I took the most important techniques
from the two most workable systems I have ever seen,
and combined them in one system.
It really works,
and you will have an opportunity
to work that horse stance the way I recommend.

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

Have a great work out!

Al

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

The Truth of the Horse Stance!

Newsletter 741
The Truth of the Horse Stance!

Beautiful Sunday.
Just Beautiful.
I have to go work out again,
but before I do,
I thought I’d share some thoughts on the horse stance.

I originally was told
that the horse stance is for learning how to fight
while you’re on the back of a horse.

Then I was told it was for fighting side to side
while standing in rice paddies.

My own idea was that it was
for fighting on the sides of space ships.
There’s no gravity,
and you hook your feet under handles
so you can fight without flying off into space.

All ideas were probably a part of the truth,
which brings us to the real truth,
or at least as much as I can surmise
in the infancy of my ancient years.

Here’s part of a letter I wrote to a fellow
who asked me about the horse Stance.

Well, we differ here. The full data is somewhere in the Master Instructor Course, but, if you have a fellow stand with the feet shoulder width apart, feet out 45 degrees, and push across his shoulders, he will fall over. If you have him turn his feet straight, or even better, slightly in (hourglass stance), then he won’t fall over.

This gets very interesting, as you can have him feet out, feet in, again and again, and watch the results, and he loses confidence in the feet out stance and gets worse, and the feet in stance gets better. But he goes through some head gyrations trying to figure this all out.

Now, in a horse stance, because you are pushing down on the fellow he may not fall over, even if he has his feet pointing 45 degrees out, but he definitely doesn’t have as much root.

And, if a fellow is experienced, he may be able to drive his ground through a foot out stance and get away with it. But he is having to work way too hard to do it. Proper grounding requires no effort, no energy, you just drop the weight, align the body, and sink your thoughts.

Interestingly, I once heard a high level Gojo practitioner explain the foot out stance. Goju has those 45 degree foot out horse stances, you know.

He said the purpose was to make the small of the back softer. I have no idea what he meant. And, for that matter, there are a lot of things that Goju, and other arts, do that defies physics.

It often sounds like they are making up reasons without having any clue at all.

Anyway, speaking of physics, how I came up with this idea of foot in and foot out body testing came from when I was a kid. I used to examine medical pictures of the foot, and I examined my own foot, and I tried to understand how the thing worked.

Why was there an arch (spring), how should you run (walk)…with the feet straight so that foot could react in an anatomically correct manner. So you could best use the spring.

And this morphed into the reverse of spring, into proper grounding.

So it was an examination of the the foot, with physics and medicine (anatomy) in mind.

As opposed to softening the back for whatever reason.

Now, that all said, choose for yourself. Maybe there is something I don’t understand. I just try to present my viewpoint, and realize that I don’t know everything, that people have to come to their own conclusions.

And that is my official reasoning…
for now
viewpoint of the horse stance.

But the real truth,
aside from what I say,
or what anybody thinks,
happens when you do the horse stance
for a few years.

Do the Tekki forms.
Funakoshi is supposed to have spent ten years doing them,
and he highly recommended such practice.

I know in the Kang Duk Won
we practiced something called
Kima Chasie,
which meant ‘Horse Meditation.’
We would sit in the horse stance,
one hand in a high block and the other hand extended to the sides
with the fingers hooked around in a beak to the rear.
We would stare at the beak
and try to forget the pain,
focus on our breathing,
and just stay there.

Really worked.

Here’s a clip of the horse form.

https://youtu.be/gZKLoCDL54Y

And if you’re interested in more
of that sort of training,
Check out Temple Karate
on MonsterMartialArts.com.

Guaranteed good stuff.

Have yourself 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

The Truth of the Horse Stance!

Doing the Horse Stance the Right Way

I originally was told
that the horse stance is for learning how to fight
while you’re on the back of a horse.

Then I was told it was for fighting side to side
while standing in rice paddies.

Kima Chasie ~ Horse Meditation

My own idea was that it was
for fighting on the sides of space ships.
There’s no gravity,
and you hook your feet under handles
so you can fight without flying off into space.

All ideas were probably a part of the truth,
which brings us to the real truth,
or at least as much as I can surmise
in the infancy of my ancient years.

Here’s part of a letter I wrote to a fellow
who asked me about the horse Stance.

Well, we differ here. The full data is somewhere in the Master Instructor Course, but, if you have a fellow stand with the feet shoulder width apart, feet out 45 degrees, and push across his shoulders, he will fall over. If you have him turn his feet straight, or even better, slightly in (hourglass stance), then he won’t fall over.

This gets very interesting, as you can have him feet out, feet in, again and again, and watch the results, and he loses confidence in the feet out stance and gets worse, and the feet in stance gets better. But he goes through some head gyrations trying to figure this all out.

Now, in a horse stance, because you are pushing down on the fellow he may not fall over, even if he has his feet pointing 45 degrees out, but he definitely doesn’t have as much root.

And, if a fellow is experienced, he may be able to drive his ground through a foot out stance and get away with it. But he is having to work way too hard to do it. Proper grounding requires no effort, no energy, you just drop the weight, align the body, and sink your thoughts.

Interestingly, I once heard a high level Gojo practitioner explain the foot out stance. Goju has those 45 degree foot out horse stances, you know.

He said the purpose was to make the small of the back softer. I have no idea what he meant. And, for that matter, there are a lot of things that Goju, and other arts, do that defies physics.

It often sounds like they are making up reasons without having any clue at all.

Anyway, speaking of physics, how I came up with this idea of foot in and foot out body testing came from when I was a kid. I used to examine medical pictures of the foot, and I examined my own foot, and I tried to understand how the thing worked.

Why was there an arch (spring), how should you run (walk)…with the feet straight so that foot could react in an anatomically correct manner. So you could best use the spring.

And this morphed into the reverse of spring, into proper grounding.

So it was an examination of the the foot, with physics and medicine (anatomy) in mind.

As opposed to softening the back for whatever reason.

Now, that all said, choose for yourself. Maybe there is something I don’t understand. I just try to present my viewpoint, and realize that I don’t know everything, that people have to come to their own conclusions.

And that is my official reasoning…
for now
viewpoint of the horse stance.

But the real truth,
aside from what I say,
or what anybody thinks,
happens when you do the horse stance
for a few years.

Do the Tekki forms.
Funakoshi is supposed to have spent ten years doing them,
and he highly recommended such practice.

I know in the Kang Duk Won
we practiced something called
Kima Chasie,
which meant ‘Horse Meditation.’
We would sit in the horse stance,
one hand in a high block and the other hand extended to the sides
with the fingers hooked around in a beak to the rear.
We would stare at the beak
and try to forget the pain,
focus on our breathing,
and just stay there.

Really worked.

Here’s a clip of the horse form.

And if you’re interested in more
of that sort of training,
Check out Temple Karate
on MonsterMartialArts.com.

Guaranteed good stuff.

Have yourself 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

How I Got the Ultimate Karate Punch in the Face

It’s the wind up, it’s the karate punch, it’s the…oops!

Good Lard is it a beeootifull day, especially for the ultimate karate punch..

Good day to work out, limber up the muskles, knock the fat off yer frame. Get healthy. Ya know? Are ya ready to talk martial arts?

Click on this guy to get the ultimate karate punch.

Click on the book to find out about the man who killed Kenpo Karate.

One of the drills I hated the most, but got the most out of, was the simple horse stance. We would spread the legs, get the thighs down to where they were almost parallel to the floor, and put up one high block, and extend the other hand to the side in a chicken beak, and look at our finger tips. We called this position Kima Chasie. Horse Meditation.

And we meditated on the pain it would cause us.

Now, forget the pain, forget the stronger legs, forget everything but the real purpose of it. Get out of your body.

After a couple of years of dabbling with horse Meditation I decided to do it right. I decided that pain wouldn’t cause death (in this instance) and that I should just do the exercise until I got what it was all about.

So, I hit the stance, looked at my fingers, and concentrated on breathing. Time passed. Minutes seemed like hours. My mind began to still, the world slowed down. Seconds seemed like hours.

And, suddenly it all stopped hurting. No pain at all. The whole universe was one peaceful concept that i could live with forever.

How long did it take me to get there?

Five minutes.

That’s all.

Zingo bingo, instant enlightenment.

Doing the Horse Stance Form and techniques at 61.

Now came the problem. When I tried to move, I couldn’t. My whole body had locked up. Man, I was freaked. Tried to wiggle backwards, couldn’t move, couldn’t even rock. Tried forwards, ah, there we go, I could fall for…oh shit…ah! Landed on my face.

So, enlightenment is possible through the old training methods, but sometimes it can be weird, freaky, and even as significant as a karate punch on the nose.

Hey, any of youse guys feel like coming over to see me, I live on good old Monster Martial Arts. Brings your friends, the doors are open, leave your old life outside.

See ya.

Al

Here’s a great article on how to be Karate tough. If you can take it. Grrr.

Karate Horse Stance Meditation to Leave Body!

Karate Horse Stance Meditation!

Good day to work out, limber up the muskles, knock the fat off yer frame…a karate horse stance. Get healthy. Ya know? Are ya ready to talk?

One of the karate drills I hated the most, but got the most out of, was the simple horse stance. We would spread the legs, get the thighs down to where they were almost parallel to the floor, and put up one high block, and extend the other hand to the side in a chicken beak, and look at our finger tips. We called this karate horse stance position Kima Chasie. Horse Meditation.

Horse Stance Meditation from Classical Karate

And we meditated on the pain it would cause us.

Now, forget the pain of the karate horse stance, forget the stronger legs, forget everything but the real purpose of it. Get out of your body.

After a couple of years of dabbling with the karate horse stance Meditation I decided to do it right. I decided that pain wouldn’t cause death (in this instance) and that I should just do the exercise until I got what it was all about.

So, I hit the stance, looked at my fingers, and concentrated on breathing. Time passed. Minutes seemed like hours. My mind began to still, the world slowed down. Seconds seemed like hours.

And, suddenly it all stopped hurting. No pain at all. The whole universe was one peaceful concept that i could live with forever.

how long did it take me to get there?

Five minutes.

That’s all.

Zingo bingo, instant enlightenment.

Now came the problem. When I tried to move, I couldn’t. My whole body had locked up. Man, I was freaked. Tried to wiggle backwards, couldn’t move, couldn’t even rock. Tried forwards, ah, there we go, I could fall for…oh shit…ah! Landed on my face.

So, enlightenment is possible through the old training methods, but sometimes it can be weird, freaky, and even as significant as a punch on the nose.

Hey, any of youse guys feel like coming over to see me, I live on good old Monster Martial Arts. Brings your friends, the doors are open, leave your old life outside.

See ya.

Al

This has been a page about karate horse stance meditation, and here is a great page about breaking heads with your board…uh, breaking boards with your head!

Martial Arts Training Gives a Great and Hard Body!

Martial Arts Training is the Way to Go!

The truth is that Martial Arts Training will put you in the best physical condition you’ll ever be in.

Doesn’t matter if it’s kung fu or karate or taekwondo, or whatever, the fact is that physical conditioning is part of the program.

I’m 61 in the above vid…and martial arts makes me young and fast!

So, do you want to grow old? Or are you ready to get good!

Now, here’s the key: when you do Karate kata, or Kung Fu forms, or whatever, you are doing physical conditioning. Take a look at the first Kata in Karate: Pinan One. When you do that form you are doing some twenty forward stances. That means you are doing twenty lunges! Furthermore, by doing the lunges on either side, and with the body balanced different ways for different punches and blocks, you are going to get different muscle groups working.

Now, beginners might repeat the form ten times. That’s 200 lunges!

And, when you figure in the different stances, a horse stance is a squat, a kneeling stance is a different type of lunge, and so on, then you end up with an amazingly well rounded and powerful set of legs!

Want to improve the upper body? Hold weights while you do the punches and blocks.

Now, here is the glory that traditional martial arts have, you can do them and do them and do them, and the risk of pulling muscles or otherwise injuring yourself is greatly reduced.

And, IT IS NOT BORING! I can’t tell you how many times I have heard guys complain about the long, boring work out. Well, it’s not boring in a martial arts training center! It’s exciting! Furthermore, in this day and age, you need the self defense training that comes along with this type of conditioning!

I tell you, this type of training will put you in the best shape of your life, and the competitive edge martial arts builds is absolutely cutting edge!

And, here is a great, little bonus! If you don’t feel like going to the gym, you can get yourself some martial arts training videos and really pump up the volume! You can not only work out and get in the best shape of your life, but you can experience all sorts of different martial arts training routines and patterns. Kung Fu, Karate, Aikido, or whatever.

And, here’s something you might like…the best martial arts training videos are available at MonsterMartialArts.com.

How to Do The Classical Karate Horse Stance Form

The Iron Horse Kata

Tekki One, also called the Iron Horse, and other names, is considered a pivotal form in Karate.

Gichin Funakoshi, who is considered the father of modern day Karate, thought the form good enough that he spent ten years doing it.

Sure, he did other forms, stayed well rounded, but his real focus was on endless repetitions of the Tekki Form.

Power in a Horse Stance

The Iron Horse is not a long form. Maybe a dozen moves, depending on your variation or school, but it is an energy heavy form.

All that time spent in the horse stance builds amazing amounts of pure energy. Simply, being that low, the legs have to work, and the tan tien has to work, and the result is oodles of energy, or ki power, as they call it.

The iron Horse is also not a technique heavy form. Actually, the techniques are just an assortment of odd blocks, useful in odd situations. The real thrill, however, is learning to go sideways in stance.

This is actually pretty important, as one should be able to move fast, and still drive his weight into the  ground, if he wants to develop any serious combat abilities with the art of Karate.

The things to remember when doing Tekki are simple.

First, keep your stance low and your weight down.

Second, keep the hips low and level.

Third, let the hips turn when you move, don’t jam up the body by trying to move the legs sideways without the benefit of aligned hips.

Fourth, focus on breathing.

Fifth, focus on the loose-tight aspect of the hands.

And, there’s a lot more, but these other factors will become apparent if one just focuses on these beginning five concepts.

Now, as to where the form came from, that’s an interesting question.

My instructor told me that it was so people could fight in rice paddies, so they could move side to side in the slick earth. I think that’s a pretty good one, but probably a myth.

Another one I heard is simply to enable a student to fight while on the back of a horse. But horses were scarce back then, and, hmmm. Sounds a bit mythical, too.

Personally, I think the form just evolved, maybe from some instructor who had limited room to work out in.

You can pick up Tekki One, and a thousand variations on youtube. These versions, however, are usually tailored to tournament, and will lack a lot when it comes to instructions. My advice is to pick the simplest version you can find, and stick to the basic principles I have outlined here.

The Eternal Horse Stance Meditation of the Joss House

Went to Weaverville in North California yesterday, and did horse meditation outside the temple. See the following martial arts pic.

Now, you might be wondering why I was doing this stance outside the temple, instead of inside. I was outside because they closed the durned thing! The oldest Buddhist temple in the US, or someting like that, and they are only open Thursday and Saturday! How the heck is anybody going to worship?

Well, they don’t worship there anyway…they use it for a museum. Instead of seeking spirituality, they charge the tourists. Hang you head, God, you been downsized!

Well, people are still spiritual beings, whether they realize it or not. And whether that durned place was closed or not, I had a good time. Walked in the snow, threw a snow ball at my wife, and generally enjoyed the martial arts day.

If you want some funtastic martial arts, head over to MonsterMartialArts.com. If you can handle the more spiritual martial arts, then go to churchofmartialarts.com.

Have a great work out!

Thsi has been a page about horse stance meditation.

 

Doing Martial Arts Over the Edge

Doing Martial Arts the Right Way

I want to talk about making things effortless.

I talk about effortless,

about how it is so important,

but how does one actually make

physical activity effortless?

Let me explain the how and the when.

I used to be the beginner,

the newbie,

and I was always in awe

of these guys who made everything look easy.

I was working like a dog,

but it never looked easy.

I remember one fellow,

a skinny, tall fellow,

looked like a hippie,

and he had the strongest kicks

I had ever felt.

He used to say

that he did a couple hundred kicks per kick

every day

without fail

and that was just the start of his workout.

Too much for me.

I eventually left the school where Ted trained,

started with the Kang Duk Won.

These guys were even more fanatic in their training.

Still,

I would do ten kicks per kick

in the beginning of class,

do the forms,

and I was tired.

And this went on for years.

I was,

I’ll be honest,

pretty wimpy.

Still,

I kept going,

doing my wimpy work outs.

i think the big break through came

from doing the horse stance.

I would do the horse stance

deep meditation,

for a minute,

then shake and ache

and quit.

One day,

I was near black belt,

I decided that I had to do something about it.

I knew the horse stance wasn’t going to kill me,

I just had to do it

and get through the pain.

My first step was to do the horse stance

through the commercials

while i was watching TV.

Man,

that was brutal,

two minutes.

Yikes!

And I did that for a few weeks,

and realized I was going to have to step it up.

I would have to do the horse stance through the programs.

So I did,

and quit around two minutes,

and then I got pissed off at myself.

I turned the dang tube off,

hit the horse stance

and decided that I was going to stay there no matter what.

Heck,

it wasn’t going to kill me.

I could do it.

I just had to do it.

A minute passed,

and the legs ached.

Two minutes,

and the shaking started in.

Three minutes,

and the pain was unbearable.

I had to quit!

I had to!

But I didn’t,

and suddenly something weird happened.

The pain totally went away.

My mind suddenly went calm.

I was possessed of a clarity of thought

I had never before experienced.

I was there.

I stayed there for a few more minutes,

realized that I had done it,

that there wasn’t any more to prove,

so I decided to stand up.

But what I didn’t know

was that I was a little out of my body

and I couldn’t figure out how to make my body work.

I lurched,

tried to make the legs do something,

and they wouldn’t.

I was frozen.

So i tried to lean.

I leaned forward

and suddenly my body fell over.

Bang.

I hit my nose.

But I could move again.

Now i had a little pain,

but not much.

I wasn’t scared of pain anymore.

Now,

at that time

I worked in a big plastics factory.

Made heat shrinkable tubing.

I would work like the dickens,

get my machine running,

then,

while I was supposed to be watching it,

I would stand behind some big cable spools

and work out.

And,

having fallen on my face out of an eternal horse stance

I upped my work out.

No longer ten or twenty kicks per leg per kick,

I started doing a couple of hundred kicks per kick for each leg.

This was what Ted had done.

This was what I read about in the mags and books.

This was the level of fanaticism I knew I needed

to really make it in the martial arts.

And,

the kicks became effortless,

I didn’t think about them,

I just did them.

This was when I finally realized

that i needed the strength of my legs in my arms,

and the agility of my hands in my legs.

Anyway,

the point here is this…

you need to make up your mind,

and do it.

Maybe not in the horse stance,

or for kicks,

but in some area that you know

would make you a better martial artist.

You need to go beyond yourself,

put aside the designer water

and everybody’s ideas

about scientific limits.

You see,

the body doesn’t define the spirit,

the spirit defines the body,

and unless you aren’t willing to invest the spirit,

go beyond the body,

then you aren’t going to make it.

That is the secret of how to be effortless

and a whole lot more in the martial arts.

Okey dokey,
the above all said,
my recommendation
is to put yourself into punching.
Because punching is crucial to the martial arts.

Here’s the URL
http://www.monstermartialarts.com/The_Punch%21.html

Learn the truth about punching,
set yourself up a schedule,
and go for it.
Maybe breaking five bricks every day every day.
Or,
Iron and Silk, (book and movie)
punch a metal plate a thousand times a day.

Whatever you do,
don’t settle for being less than a fanatic.

Now have a great work out.

Al

The Iron Horse…Force v Flow!

Good morning and halleluah!
 It’s time to work out!
 Just a word…
 I had sore knees the other day,
 my back stance was hanging up because of it,
 so I started doing some quick deep squats.

Keep the back as straight as possible
keep the feet flat
touch the fingers to the floor
and straighten up.

Zingo bingo,
no knee probs.
The only saw of
‘use it or lose it’
comes to mind.

Do It Until You Don't Die!

And,
the truth of the martial arts is this:

what you think is what you get.

Or,
to explain it simply,
if you think you are tired,
out of breath,
can’t do something…
then you are tired,
out of breath
and you can’t do something.

I first realized this while doing Kima Chasie…
Horse meditation.
You sit in a deep horse with a high block,
extend your other arm to the side
turn it so your chicken beak is pointing behind you,
and stare at your fingers,
and breath.

I was doing it,
so many years ago,
and my exact realization was…
‘If I think about the pain,it hurts.
If I think about breathing and relaxing,
there is no pain.’

Whatever you put your attention on,
that is what you are going to get.
And this truth holds true through life
to every aspect,
to every nook and cranny,
to everything.

What you think is what you get.

Of course,
the kicker is this…
to change your mind
and be able to focus it,
to make this truth work the way you want it to,
you need discipline.
Discipline such as in
horse meditation.

When you stop whining
and get down to business,
your mind gets serious,
and you focus it,
and your intention starts to pop,
and you get what you want.

Discipline.
That’s the key.

Now,
having said all that,
let me share a win.
I got this from one of my students.
He studied for a year,
moved away,
and occasionally drops me an email.

I realized recently after watching/rewatching some of these DVDs I have from you that doing that year-plus of Martial Arts with you actually had a definite and noticeable positive impact on my life. It’s something that becomes a part of you, how you move, how you act, and absolutely a part of how you consider physical threats. Actually, it’s funny: I’ve never needed to fight much in my life, but since doing Martial Arts with you I’m completely unconcerned about it. First of all, because I know I won’t have to. And behind that, because I know that I could. And that I would win (not overconfidence but calm assured certainty; I don’t have to prove I can fight.) But the odd thing is, even though I’ll never have to, and I can just not get into any fights in the first place…I don’t think I could have achieved that state so well, without having first gained the certainty that I can fight and win. You have to move up through the ability to face force, before you can disregard it. And I didn’t have that certainty before. So thank you, very much, for that. (And I wrote this paragraph so you can throw it in a newsletter if you want to, or stick it on your site or whatever.)

Keep up the good work, big guy. (And don’t forget to answer my questions 😉

Have a great workout today!
–Mike

Thanks Mike.
I can honestly say
I really enjoyed beating you up.
Grin.

The point that he makes
that I tell people
and try to make them really understand
is this:

you can’t fight what you can’t face.

This has many different applications,
but the specific one I’m thinking of is…
if you can’t face force…
then you won’t be able to handle it.

Yes,
the soft arts are superior.
But they are useless
if a guy can’t confront a fist flying at his face.
If he can’t do a hard block.
Grab and throw.

You see,
learn to do it,
no matter what,
handle the force…
then you can make it subtle,
go soft,
get effortless.
But first…
make sure you can do it no matter what.

Force…
then flow.

Brute force…
then intelligence.

And,
I certainly hope
nobody is thinking I am dissing one art,
or preferring one over the other.

Hard and soft are like right and left shoes.
You need both.

If you’ve got your hard arts down,
look into the soft arts.

If you’ve got your soft arts down,
look at the hard arts,
and make sure you are at the point
where you can handle force
no matter what,
and not in just the polite situations
contrived in the dojo.

Onky ka-donkey
I think we’ve pretty well covered it.
however,
I want you to remember
HanaKwanMass is upon us.
Nail a giant burrito to the wall,
let it drip and season,
it will bring joy
to all the little ones.

And,
the newsletter before Xmas
will be the rendering of
the Monster Night Before Xmas.
So put the logs under your computer,
get out that bag of hard marshmallows from Independence Day,
get some toe wash,
and prepare to boost your feet up and be entertained.

Oh,
and don’t forget to get a Monster Course
for that bratty kid brother of yours.
It’ll make a man out of him.
Yeah!

http://www.monstermartialarts.com

Now,
go kick that bag!
Make the stuffing bleed!
Have a ball!
And I’ll talk to you soon.

Al

BTW
here is a great link

http://cdnapi.kaltura.com/index.php/kwidget/wid/0_04vzdsr5/uiconf_id/5590821

And here’s an ad…

I came across some great military axioms from somebody name of Ric Hunter/fighter pilot. Appropriate, I think, for great and awesome martial artists. Enjoy…
“Sometimes I think war is God’s way of teaching us geography.”
– Paul Rodriguez

“A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least
expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what’s left of your unit”
– PM Magazine, the Army’s magazine of preventive maintenance.

“Aim towards Enemy” – Instruction printed on US Rocket Launcher

When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.

If it’s stupid, but it works, it isn’t stupid.