Finding Something Wet and Sticky in Self Defense

Closing Ceremonies and True Self Defense Concepts

Guest blog by Alaric Dailey

During the closing ceremony of class, Sensei would often read stories from some of the martial arts books.  Tales of the masters of Myamoto Musashi, Mas Oyama, Jigaro Kano, Morihei Ueshiba and Gichin Funakoshi were common.  Other times it was simple wisdom such as the following.  He gave this recitation many times, varying it each time.

Self-defense, most of you started karate to learn to defend yourself.  If you are here at our little hole-in-the-wall dojo, you doubtless looked at other schools.  It isn’t like this place is easy to find. What you found here is not sport karate, we do not compete in the popular tournaments with pads and touch-and-stop.  By now you know that when we compete, we compete in full-contact tournaments.  However, karate-do is much more than simply punching and kicking, it is a way of life.

Self-defense is more than karate though as well.  You can learn to punch and kick, but what if the bad guy is in a car? More than that, what if your health is bad?  You can’t very well defend yourself, if you are out of shape.  What about your eyes, it is much harder to defend yourself if you can’t see.

Truly, self-defense is less about defense, and more about taking care of yourself and others.  Making sure you stay fit, means you will be able to fight and endure should the need arise.

Never eating until you are “FULL” means your body will be able to react at any time without sluggishness.  You will find that simply slowing your eating, and eating only until you are two-thirds to three-quarters full, you will even out your weight, and be able to respond in any situation.  You should eat according to the needs of energy throughout the day, thus breakfast should be your largest meal, lunch medium, and a small dinner.  These simple rules will help your body regulate and you will have better energy all day.

Self-defense is even more than simply thinking as a healthy fighter.  You should also be aware of your surroundings, and avoid putting yourself in dangerous situations.  Don’t go to bars, and you will avoid bar-fights.  Avoiding a dangerous situation is far superior to having to fight.
To this wonderful and insightful narrative, I’d like to add a few statements. In our modern world, blood-borne disease is a reality.  If you must fight, you aren’t likely to be wearing a hazmat suit, so you may want to look at your techniques, and adjust to avoid making your opponent bleed. Avoid any techniques that may open you both up.   This is something to keep in mind especially when thinking about rape defense. Making the bad-guy bleed is always preferable to letting yourself get opened up.  Pretty much, the EMS rule applies to every facet of life these days “If it is wet, sticky and not yours, don’t touch it”.

About the author: Alaric Daily began practicing the martial arts in 1992. Martial Art she has studied include Pangainoon, Karate, Kenpo, Wing Chun, Krav Maga, Judo, Jujitsu, Aikido, Bagua Zhang, and Tai Chi Chuan.

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Karate Throws That Nobody Knows…

Karate Throws to Warm Your Heart!

Speaking of Karate Throws…
It used to be
people learned Karate
so they could one punch a sucker.
Put him to sleep for a week.
Then,
people couldn’t do it,
and by the time the nineties rolled around
they were ready for Mixed Martial Arts.
Ready to throw and lock,
ground and pound,
smash and trash,
and all that.

Best Karate Throw

Now,
first,
you can one punch somebody if you do it right.
It has to do with depth of punch,
time of actual contact (impact)
and delivering an idea.

But,
this is not about that one punch idea,
this is about throws,
and a lot of people gave up their karate training
because there weren’t any throws in it.

My, my.
Ain’t we silly.

Gichin Funakoshi got together with Jigaro Kano.
Gichin was asking about throws,
Jigaro taught him some.
Then Gichin did a throw
that he had not been taught by Jigaro.
Jigaro was surprised and asked him about it,
and Gichin replied…
‘Oh, we have throws in Karate.’

We have throws in Karate,
what an interesting statement.
Yet the whole world thinks we don’t!
Yet the founder of modern day Karate says we do.
So why don’t we see many throws in Karate?

One reason is because it is easier to teach punches
to huge classes.

Another reason might be
the Japanese had throws,
so why teach them what they already had?

Another reason might be
the Okinawans didn’t want to teach their samurai busting techniques,
to the culture that created the samurai.

Heck,
there could be a lot of reasons.
My personal favorite reason
the Okinawans didn’t teach a lot of throwing techniques in Karate
(they did teach some),
is that the specific physics of Karate
don’t favor the particular mechanics of the body
when doing throws.

The reason I say that
is I learned a few throws,
but they relied on violent karate style motion,
and we didn’t have any ‘judo techniques’ style of motion.

Anyway,
consider all that as you wish,
let’s talk about throws.

In Pinan Three.
The spear hand technique,
you can translate that into an arm wrapping technique,
and take a guy down easy squeezy.

Or,
in Pinan Three,
when you are doing the foot raise
elbow and backfist
on the way back down the center of the form,
you can slide into an opponent,
insert yourself under his arm,
and effectively ‘split’ him.
Bottom half goes one way,
top half goes the other.
And, voila…a throw.

Or,
Pinan Three,
at the end,
when you do the horse stance,
punch over the shoulder.
Perfect for a grab from behind,
you grab his arm,
sideways movement with an arm throw.

Now,
that’s just three off the top,
the truth is,
I could easily find a dozen throws in that form alone.

However,
I don’t bother.
I was interested,
I looked,
I saw,
but I found that it was much better
to matrix the body,
isolate specific lines of energy,
and therefore to isolate the throws and present them as a matrix.

I don’t teach big massive arts,
I don’t teach Karate with all the techniques of all the other arts,
I teach karate as a specific and ordered set of principles,
as a science and not an art,
and then I teach throws
as a specific and ordered art
in Matrix Kung Fu (Monkey boxing).

To try to teach all the arts
through one particular art’s viewpoint
is how we got in the mess in the first place.
Somebody learns a concept,
say it is the clinging energy of Mantis Kung Fu,
then they try to include every single concept
they have ever learned
under the mantle of preying mantis Kung Fu,
and suddenly they are trying to teach the elephant style of Mantis.

And it doesn’t make sense!

All the concepts don’t fit together
if you try to teach them from a single viewpoint!

But,
if you teach each martial art
from the unique viewpoint of that art,
then the arts become small and bite sized.

The problem,
of course,
is that people have never really isolated
the specific concepts of their arts.
Karate is ‘hard,’they say.
But that’s not the unique concept of Karate!
That is a generality,
it points to art,
and not to science!

‘Tai Chi Kung Fu is soft,’ they say.
But all kung fu is not soft,
and so there is misunderstanding,
concepts are mushed together,
and people are left to dig their way through the mess.

Do you understand?

For an art to be considered as a science it must be made logical,
pried apart form other arts,
aligned within itself,
kept separate form other influences.

Then,
when it is understood,
it can be put together with the other arts,
which is to say,
other arts can be taught in similar fashion,
and put together
and made into a whole.

Studied as a mush,
it takes decades to lifetimes
to master the martial arts.
Taken as small, bite sized, and logical matrixes of information,
the whole art can be absorbed quickly and smoothly.
Mastered in a couple of years.

But,
don’t believe me.
Try Matrix Kung Fu,

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/matrix-kung-fu/

See for yourself.
Matrix Kung Fu is virtual all the standing up takedowns in the martial arts.
If there is a takedown not there,
it is invariably able to be figured out
from the throws that are there.

Oinky donkey,
nuff said.
I hope I’ve said enough
to bring you out of the dark ages,
because the golden age of the martial arts
is about to open.

Matrix Martial Arts shows you where the doorknob is,
and all you have to do is turn and enter.
That simple.

Now,
before I go,
Check out The Map.
It’s on the menu of Monster Martial Arts.
I used to have one of these a long time ago,
and I’ve brought it back,
very interesting,
especially if you are on it.

Okay,
remember…

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/matrix-kung-fu/

And I’ll talk to you next Friday.

Al

How Long Does It Take To Become a Black Belt?

Students Ask, How Long Does it Take to Become a Black Belt?

The question, “How long does it take to become a black belt,’ is a good one. It is a valid question in any martial art, be it karate or aikido or taekwondo, or whatever. Here are some interesting facts I put together in answer to this question.

The United States army takes Joe Ordinary and makes him a soldier within two months. Two more months and Joe can be trained to be a technically trained specialist in a vast variety of fields. In addition to basic and rudimentary hand to hand combat training, the US military has extensive programs, applicable to the battlefield, and they don’t take decades to do.

The question of how long does it take to become a black belt apparently didn’t occur to Chuck Norris, and didn’t bother Korean Martial Arts Masters. While in the army he took Tang Soo Do classes in Korea. He earned his black belt in a year and a half.

One of the best tournament fighters ever, a fellow name of Mike Stone, didn’t bother asking this question either. He trained hard and long. He earned his black belt in six months.

One of my favorites for ignoring the question of how long does it take to become a black belt is Joe Lewis. Joe Lewis made black belt in a year. Actually, he earned black belts in three different styles in under a year.

The idea of taking four years or more to earn a black belt actually came to us within the last few decades. It was begun by Chinese Kenpo instructors who structured the art around automobile sales contracts. Before then it took a couple of years at most.

The whole idea of a belt system actually is relatively new to the martial arts. Belt systems were started by Jigaro Kano, the founder of Judo. He lifted the idea from a classification system for swimmers.

The above all being said, when you ask the Martial Arts instructor you are thinking about taking lessons from how long it takes, don’t think less of him if he has bought into this idea. Just throw yourself into your studies and get where you are going faster because you try harder. Education, hard work, a dedicated attitude, that is the real answer to how long it takes to become a black belt.