Hidden Techniques of Karate!

I originally published this book as Chiang Nan.

I added several hours of video links

and renamed it

‘Hidden Techniques of Karate.’

Oddly,

The version called Chiang Nan

without the video links

has five star ratings.

Hidden Techniques, however, has no ratings.

Weird.

You’d think I would have more and even better ratings 

for a book that includes several hours of videos.

Anyway,

I want to discuss the first technique.

It’s the third move in Pinan one (Heian One)

the move with the rolling fists.

On the surface it is stupid, as I will show you.

But when you see what it is really is

it really makes sense. 

Pay attention to the way ‘old masters’ do this technique.

It will demonstrate how even the guys

who supposedly know so much have been bamboozled.

My way is best,

and if you do it right,

and the guy doesn’t let go his grab

a little practice

and you can break his wrist with your strike.

Here you go.

If the link doesn’t work try copy and paste into your browser.

Okay,

the book is 

Hidden Techniques of Karate

It’s a video course book.

It’s got hours and hours of video

forms and applications,

and it is a valuable lesson in the right way to do martial arts.

Here’s the website link…

Hidden Techniques of Karate

Or if you want to just go to Amazon  just type

‘Hidden Techniques of Karate’ in the amazon search box.

Now,

have yourself a funomenal day!

And a great work out!

Al

Don’t forget to check out the interview

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.

(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)

My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them  for 5 stars.

‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.

‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.

‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.

My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings

so hopefully you’ll find the book that works for you.

How to Fix Karate:

A Karate Training and Workout Book

 (Two Volumes)

Only Eight Martial Arts Techniques!

Yep,

there are only about eight martial arts techniques,

everything else is fluff and stuff.

Of course there are a thousand deviations,

and they are valuable for your overall education,

but,

when you get to the down and dirty,

there are only eight techniques.

Now,

this is not boxing.

This not padded gloves to dissipate force,

and eliminate grabs.

This is somebody strikes

or is going to strike,

and you either slab and grab his arm,

or you shoot straight in

going for the one punch knock out.

One strike one kill,

you know?

Of course,

as everybody knows,

a plan only works until the fight starts.

SO,

once you have tried to stick your fingers in his eyes,

and MAYBE tried a follow up body shot…

you will find yourself on the inside of his arm

or on the outside of his arm.

You don’t have time for a poser,

he’s not going to wait while you do all your tricks.

You only have one chance.

And,

derivation here,

what I am going to tell you works best,

and perhaps at all

if you ‘shock and lock’ him.

Which is to say,

you simply distract him with a slap or an elbow or something

so that you have an opportunity to  apply one of the eight techniques.

If you have twenty years experience

you can consider not doing the ‘shock and lock,’

but that’s at your own risk.

If you are on the inside of his arm

elbow the head and push his arm up into a ‘chicken wing’ elbow lock.

Or, elbow the area under the armpit and snake your arms around

to a ‘figure four’ armlock.

Either of these can deviate out to arm bars or splitting techniques

(lower body goes in the opposite direction of the upper body)

or spinning him around and angling him up to what I call

a ‘vertical arm pin.’

that’s two techniques with a few deviations.

third, foot sweep,

can be deviated into knee to groin

or various kicks,

but you want to pull his leg viciously

and make him face plant

so you can walk on his neck.

Four,

if you haven’t locked in that body shot,

do it now.

Reverse punch,

and I often teach the ‘pubic punch,’

which is angling the punch down towards the hip joint.

He collapses on the ground and it takes no special force or effort.

Now,

if he strikes,

and you end up on the outside of his arm,

cool.

Inside means you have targets,

but you have also presented targets.

Outside means you have less targets,

but have presented almost no targets for him.

Slap and grab,

or perhaps just let him punch between your arms.

First technique is simply an arm bar,

or an elbow roll deviation.

Second technique,

elbow to the head and extend your arm in front of his face,

and slide your leg behind him to split him.

(top goes one way, bottom goes the other)

Third technique,

elbow under the arm,

split him by going under the arm.

Whether you split him by going under or over his arm

is often dependent on the relative height 

of your opponent.

You can add sweeping to this,

because there is an inherent sweep in the split.

fourth technique, punch.

Hard.

Break things in his body.

So that is the list of eight techniques,

which eight lead to a variety of deviations,

if you enter one of the eight,

the deviations become apparent with practice.

He punches and you are inside.

1) elbow head and elbow lock over his arm

2) elbow armpit and elbow lock under his arm

3) Punch (pubic preferred)

4) Sweep w leg options

He punches and you are on the outside

5) break and/or arm bar/elbow roll

6) split above the arm

7) split under the arm

8) punch

Now,

I know there are going to be all sorts of objections here.

Some of the objections will be that you simply don’t understand my terms,

but if you examine the description of the techniques,

you will find them in your art,

or your art is severely lacking.

Some of the objections will be that you have a thousand techniques in your art

and you simply can’t give them up.

But I am not asking you to give up your data base.

I am merely asking you to focus on that first punch in a fight

and do some real karate.

Some of the objections will be because there are no pictures

and it is difficult to mock up these techniques in your mind.

Why don’t you kick?

Kicking is for when you are far away

and kicks take time to become ‘one strike one kill,’

and you want to close and break or disable

as much as you can in a direct and short period of time.

Karate is not a far away polite business.

It is mean and nasty and as brutal as you can make it.

Why are you not making the split one of the techniques on the inside?

Because you have to go through the closure of distance,

and that is the progression of closing distance after the fight starts

What the heck is ‘shock and lock,’ and do I have time for it?

It is hitting on the way in,

and the way I have set it up there is extreme fluidity of motion

that will make the progression from slap and grab to shock and lock

 and to the final technique incredibly fast and virtually unavoidable.

What about wrist locks?

They are there,

but it is difficult to grab a fist in the middle of a fight.

It is easier when he is there,

and maybe trying to back out of his predicament.

And there are other objections.

But if you study what I said here,

and just drill the eight techniques for a short time,

and just explore your position…

everything will become apparent.

Incidentally,

what I say here is in all my courses,

but I never really talk about it

except as the technique progresses.

But it really is the essence of my Monkey Boxing.

I really should write a book on this little thing I have said here.

But…time. Sigh.

Okay,

guys and gals,

hope you got something out of all this,

and feel free to look at…

How to Fix Karate:

A Karate Training and Workout Book

 (Two Volumes)

(There is a version with five hours of video

but you have to hunt for it on Amazon)

And don’t forget to give me five stars!

Have a great work out!

Al

Don’t forget to check out the interview

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.

(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)

My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them  for 5 stars.

‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.

‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.

‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.

My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings

so hopefully you’ll find that useful

find the book/course that is right for you,

and matrix your own martial arts.

Newsletter 1036

What is ‘Fake Karate?’

Good morning!

One of the main things wrong

with karate today

is bunkai.

It’s funny,

I have heard people who believe in 

the more combative methods,

talk about how worthless Bunkai are.

And, 

I have seen a LOT of schools that don’t even practice bunkai.

so people don’t practice making karate work,

and,

as a result,

they don’t know how to make it work.

when I was training we didn’t call the form applications ‘bunkai.’

We called them ‘Promise Fights.’

It was the ‘promise’ of a fight.

But,

as time went on,

it was more.

It was the postulate of a fight.

A postulate is an idea.

If you practice promising enough,

the idea works.

It is that simple,

and that complex.

First,

many of the applications are worthless,

they are either dancers or posers.

Second,

they don’t fit the form.

But the forms have been really screwed up,

so that is understandable.

Third,

when we did the form applications,

or ‘Promise fights,’

as we called them,

we had 1/3 to 1/2 of the class time to do them.

We would face each and get ready,

we stepped forward with an attack,

and the defender did his promise fight.

Class after class,

year after year,

and a strange thing happened.

Because it was the same every time

we began to see where a body would move

before it would move.

We weren’t fighting,

we were looking,

and we would suddenly see the dip of the shoulder,

the turn of the foot,

the glaze of the idea,

and we knew what was coming,

before it was even launched.

So damned simple and workable,

yet it has,

in many schools,

been put aside.

And even if bunkai are practiced,

they don’t make sense,

they don’t fit the form,

they dance and they pose.

Our applications were VERY workable.

No posers,

no dancers.

They looked like the forms,

but they were VERY functional in combat.

I’ve talked about how the upper students

could actually make them work in freestyle.

And people have given up doing applications

across the arts.

It is easier to have a fellow punch a bag,

than think about the turn of the hip,

or the wrist,

year after year.

The sad truth is that most people

think that karate, 

and other martial arts,

are all about fighting.

May I coin a phrase?

If people think that,

they are not doing karate,

they are doing…

‘fake karate.’

And here’s an interesting little item,

the people who say,

‘my art is better than yours,’

are manifesting a fight,

and they are guilty of…

‘fake karate.’

And,

believe me,

Fake Karate is every bit as bad as fake news.

Okay,

just to let you know,

I’m working on a book,

and it’s a big one.

Might even come in two parts.

But it is proving…difficult.

Usually,

when I write a book

I sit down and write it,

takes maybe a week or two.

But this one is just beating me up.

I have rewritten it,

broken it into pieces,

recombined it,

and it is just being stubborn.

So,

my apologies for making you wait,

but,

you might want to make sure

your matrix karate is ready for when this is released.

You are really going to need 

to have your art down,

because this is going to expand it.

Severely.

The book is about what happened to karate,

and i am specifically speaking of the applications.

The bunkai, if you will.

Full of history,

full of applications,

full of matrixing.

So,

I’ll keep working on it,

but you should look into either

Matrix Karate

or 

The Master Instructor Course.

In fact,

I really shouldn’t do this.

there’s no reason to,

except that I’m a nice guy…

Buy one and I’ll give you the other.

Just buy one,

then email me at: aganzul@gmail.com 

and I’ll send you both courses.

This is good until October 31st.

Happy Halloween!

Now, have a great work out!

Al

And don’t forget to check out the interview

BTW

I’m always pushing my novels,

did you know I write other stuff?

If you want to know the truth about government,

why we have riots and why idiots keep getting into office,

why the government seems to do the exact wrong thing

almost ALL the time…

then check out:

THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT!

1a Matrix Karate

1d Master Instructor Course

The Basic Rules of Muscles in the Martial Arts

Newsletter 863 ~ Don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter and get some FREE BOOKS!

The Secret of Strong Muscles in the Martial Arts

And there is a secret.
Before get to it,
let me go over the basic understanding
of how muscles work in the martial arts.

First off,
the forms are calisthenics.
The horse stance is a squat,
the front stance is an almost lunge,
and so on.

And,
every time you snap the muscles,
close them violently to a focus,
you are using plyometrics,
plyometrics is contraction and expansion of muscle
designed to increase strength.

And everybody knows
how studying the leverage of muscles,
and using those muscles,
when throwing people around
is fantastic exercise for the body.

After a lifetime of doing forms,
tossing people around,
striking and kicking,
I am in top shape.
I shake my head in dismay
when I see people younger than me,
tottering around on canes,
clutching walkers,
hauling oxygen bottles.

All that stuff could be avoided.

A little fun in the martial arts every day.

Just playing tag with your fists,
gotcha with kicks,
and a little grab and toss with bodies…

And, it’s not too late!
You can eat right,
exercise right,
and turn your age back.

Anyway,
I promised you a secret.
and it’s good one.
One that I’ve never heard anybody talk about.

At first,
you work out hard.
You build your strength,
you push yourself until you can do those techniques
without any problem.

And,
when it isn’t any problem
you stop working so hard.
In fact,
you start to go backwards.
you use less and less muscles.

The work outs you do won’t be as hard,
but the mental focus is greater,
until you don’t use muscles at all.

Effortless martial arts,
putting somebody down with a finger.
Isn’t that a great ‘death strike?’

Or tossing somebody with a shrug,
everybody stares at you and says,
‘What’d he do?’

And what you do is simple,
you use muscles
until you don’t need muscles.

The fact of the matter is
there are three aspects to the martial arts,
Speed…Power…Technique.

Speed and power diminish with age,
but technique done right,
will never fade.
Good technique uses the muscles less and less,
until you don’t need them.
A weak guy can throw a strong guy.
If a guy was actually to stay weak,
after doing some intense martial arts.
Grin.

But that’s the secret,
do your techniques,
put awareness into your techniques,
until you don’t need muscle,
you just know the angle,
and your correct body alignment
lets the energy flow.

Well,
there’s a lot more to it,
I’ll talk more about this stuff on this blog
at MonsterMartialArts.com

In the meantime,
if you’re interested in some very streetwise stuff
that really works the muscles,
fast changes
lots of good, clean fun,
and exercises that will build muscles
until you reach the stage
where you don’t use muscles,
try this:

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/3a-blinding-steel-matrixing-weapons/

It’s a weapons course,
very logical and quick to do,
and, heck,
the guy who comes after you on the street
will likely have a weapon.
Might just as well learn how to swing a little quick weight at his head,
eh?
Grin.

Happy Easter!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/3a-blinding-steel-matrixing-weapons/

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You can find all my books here!

Books

Three Kenpo Techniques for a Street Fight

Kenpo Techniques for Survival

These three kenpo techniques-and you can develop them as taekwondo techniques, or karate techniques, or whatever–will help you survive any attempted mugging. They are quick, they are nasty, and the are built so that you can be the one that walks away. Just don’t use them unless there is a real threat to your life!

Be the winner!

How to Analyze Kenpo Techniques for Real Fighting

To be sure, I developed these self defense techniques in karate tournaments a few decades ago. They can be used in the ring, but only with proper control. Use them on the street however, and you must use them without holding back.

The first technique is to break the fingers right at the beginning of the fight. Many people will have open hands, not always, but enough to where this technique will really work. So when you close the distance, assuming you are not kicking first, you must strike down on his fingers with a good, quick fist.

If you can break his fingers he will have second thoughts about attacking you–injuries do that to a person. In his head he will be going, ‘you mean I’m going to get hurt?’ And if he does continue to fight he will have one hand that isn’t worth much.

Second thing, goes right along with breaking the other fellow’s fingers, is to push his arms down. Force them down, trap them so he can’t use them, and you are going to have a heck of an advantage. This is what Bruce Lee used to do with his ‘Straight Blast.’

Third, you want him to blink. This fits right in with the shooting motion of the hands as you move into him and break his fingers and trap his hands. If you can shoot the fingers all the way to the eyes, and actually strike the eyes, then you are going to be fighting a fellow who can’t see. That is going to be a definite advantage, eh?

But even if you don’t manage to blind the attacker, if he blinks and thinks backward in his mind, then he will already be halfway to losing the fight. He will have gone from attacking you to defending himself. A mugger going backwards is not nearly the threat as one who is aggressively moving forward.

To summarize, the points in this article are break things on the way in, push his arms down, and make him blink or blind him. These three strategies should be the start and heart of any good defense if you want to save your life. So if you practice these karate techniques and I certainly don’t mind if you call them taekwondo techniques or Kenpo Techniques-you won’t be the loser in a street fight!

Do Karate Kata Work? Or Is It a Waste of Time?

Are Karate Kata a Waste of Time?

This story, or what happened to me while learning Karate Kata, is absolutely true.

I was a first brown back about ’72, and one day a bunch of us young belts were talking about whether Karate Kata worked. The instructor, a fellow name of Ron Maletti, who nobody has ever heard of, heard us talking, and he got a tight grin.

Endless blocking drills backed up our Karate Kata.

He lined us up and freestyled us, one at a time, and said he would only use applications from the Pinans. For the next fifteen minutes he hit us, kicked us, threw us, using nothing but EXACT applications of the form. Maybe a wiggle of motion to set up his response, but he used only applications exactly as we practiced them.

Then he said, “This is too easy. Name a karate kata.” So when we freestyled we would bow, name a form, and he would defeat us using an exact application from the form we named. Pinans, sip su, kima chodan (horse form or tekki), or whatever, he knocked us down and laid us out, and at the end of the time he wasn’t even breathing hard. And two things to note: one, he had maybe five or six years experience, and was a third degree black belt. And, he wasn’t the best upper belt in the school. He just happened to be the one to hear us in our heresy.

So, do karate kata work?

They do when they are taught properly by people who know what they mean, who know the drills that go along with them, who are dedicated to learning the system and don’t bother with all the new stuff coming along. Unfortunately, I don’t see the martial arts being taught in this manner, and people have pretty much forgotten the drills and real applications. Guarenteed, this is a true story, it happened to me personally. Have a great work out! Al from MonsterMartialArts(dot)com.

That’s the way it was at the Kang Duk Won, and that’s the system this site is dedicated to. The real system that resulted in real power, fantastic fighters, the ability to take a strike anywhere…and it was, is, FUN to do!

Click here to check out why you should study karate kata.

Learn Zombie Kung Fu Now and Survive the Coming Apocalypse!

Zombie Kung Fu is Coming!

I bet that if I started a zombie kung fu martial arts school I would get fabulously rich. I could teach all the secret martial arts techniques that the living dead use to rip the beating and oh, so juicy heart out of some fool who can’t run very fast. I could teach people the secret monster karate techniques that…maybe I should tell you what this article is about?

My wife was positive that I was destroying my sons’ fragile, eggshell mentalities. We would sit for hours and eat popcorn and watch monster movies. And then I would teach them how to do the martial arts.

What she didn’t know was that we were studying several factors which were crucial to learning the martial arts. The main thing we got into was the use of wires and make up. Learn these two things and it will change the way you look at the martial arts, and it will even undo the less than beneficial effects of Hollywood scriptwriters.

First, we would spend hours dissecting the methods by which Hollywood does its effects. How did that zombie leap from one roof to another roof? The answer, we would find, would be a lift with a wire, or a blue screen and an invisible platform pasted onto the background.

This led to attempts to duplicate certain stunts, with me holding onto the back of the pants, placing a hand under the back, or otherwise seeing if something could be done. Interestingly, this led to the boys appreciating the need for people who actually knew how to spot (grin) and proper instruction before attempting those things they do on TV and tell you not to do.

The second special effects thing was makeup, and while we didn’t start roaming the neighborhood dressed in monster drag, we did get in severe analysis of how make up could be used to enhance slaughter. If you bent the head a certain way, put a metal plate against the throat, you could set off a small charge and make it look like a throat was being slaughtered. Intense!

And, the method for inserting arrows, bullets, swords, or whatever the weapon of your choice into the body part of your choice proved educational. This led to analysis of how the body might really move under severe impact. Quite fascinating.

I know this is a weird bit of writing, and I know that people will not like me for the way I raised my kids. But my kids are not taken in by Hollywood special effects, don’t get upset by fake blood, appreciate good film making, know that no actors were harmed in the filming of this movie, and understand better how reality functions. So I think you better learn a little Zombie Kung Fu, that way maybe you’ll stand a chance of surviving when the zombies come to your neighborhood.

Tai Chi Principles and the Art of Going with the Flow

I was a reading a book a long time ago, can’t remember the book, but the author was into zoology, and he recounted an incident he had with snake. The snake was a healthy 8 foot boa constrictor, and it was late at night, and the snake got a little too loving.

The Tai Chi practictioner started to get alarmed, the snake squeezed harder, and then Tai Chi kicked in. Wherever the snake pressed, the Tai Chi-ist relaxed.

Now, here is a truth of the universe…when a snake squeezes, relax, and the snake will relax.

Or, when you relax, the universe relaxes.

And the snake stopped squeezing, and our lovable Tai chi artist was safe.
A little time spent doing the form and push hands will prove this one real quick, and it is a good one to prove.
I am a firm believer in a hard punch, but I am also a firm believer in a soft punch, and in giving way to get, in giving up to win.
Did you know there are ninety minutes of hard core, soft techniques on the Five Army Tai Chi Chuan DVD? Not karate techniques, but soft techniques where you use a twitch, or a press of the finger, and the attacker…relaxes. Grin. Check it out,and make sure you pick up the free book on Matrixing on the home page.

Black Belt Movie is Filled with Excellent Japanese Karate Techniques!

It is Japanese Karate that actually popularized the Black Belt, and it is appropriate that the Japanese make a movie concerning the significance of that rank.
To be sure, the Black Belt in question is an heirloom being passed down, and which of three students should inherit it?
One student is too feisty, one student won’t fight, and the other student is injured.
All of which makes for a good allegorical plot.
Not a good plot, but a good allegorical plot.
There are evil men selling girls, evil generals ignoring the emperor, and…well, that about covers it.
And, there is character conflict that is, uh, wooden and unreal.
But, darn it, there is excellent Japanese Karate!
Good forms, one punch kills, techniques that shrug an attacker to the ground, pressure point strikes that render a villain senseless, and techniques that render a sword wielder…broken.
You munch popcorn through the acting, chuckle a bit, and then the crisp, clean karate techniques blast off.
Don’t confuse them with kung fu, or MMA, or something else. The movie is ‘BlackBelt,’it is available on Netflix, and it is good Japanese Karate, done by good Black Belts, and they the movie is definitely worth while.
Dron by Monster Martial Arts. We have lots of good Karate courses there.

Energy Flux Concept Can Be Used in Kung Fu Self Defense Techniques

This is a very easy and intuitive way to weaken your opponent simply by using an energy flux concept. This concept can be used before you use any of the kung fu self defense techniques, or before karate kumite. You can use it when any confrontation happenswhich is going to require you to use physical force on somebody.

Now, it won’t knock somebody out, I can’t guarantee  that you will win a fight, that is going to depend on the degree of dedication you apply to your normal martial arts training. But it may weaken him in a subtle way, and give you the edge in launching the first strike. I don’t know about you, but even a slight edge is something I want to bring with me to a kung fu fight, or any kind of martial arts fight.

Now, to set this concept up, you need to know something about the body, and about the energy of the body. There is a main pathway for energy which runs right up the front of the body and down the back. This pathway is a main meridian, or channel, for major energy flow in the body.

What we want to do is disrupt this energy for just an instant, and cause the opponent’s body to move more slowly. We are going to do this by reversing the energy flow in the central meridian. This is very easy to do, and will slow the opponent’s body down.

To make sure you knowhow this technique works, have a partner stand with his feet shoulder width apart and his arms straight out to the sides. Now, press down on his hands gently, and you will notice how much force you have to apply. Second, place your finger on his neck and trace a line down the center of his body to the belly button, and now press on his hands.

You should notice that he gets noticably weaker. Now ‘zip’ your finger from the belly button to the neck, and you will notice he is stronger. This quick (1 to 2 seconds) motion slows his energy down, or returns it to normal speed (depending on which way you go), and the result is weaker or stronger.

Practice this with many different people. Don’t tell them what you are doing (until after), just practice zipping and unzipping energy. After a while you will actually be able to stand back and trace the path with your moving eyes, and cause weakness or strength.

Now, depending on you and your dedication to the martial art, this may or may not take a while to accomplish. It will happen sooner if you are a dedicated martial arts fanatic, and you practice your kung fu techniques religiously, and, especially if you have matrixed your martial art and understand how energy flux theory works. That understood, that is how you use the energy flux in any kung fu self defense techniques.

If you want to know more about energy flux theory, matrixing, or the best Shaolin Kung Fu in the world, check out the courses at Monster Martial Arts.