A New Master Instructor!

And a new video!

Good morning!

And congratulations to 

Master Instructor Craig Palenzuela

Here’s part of Craig’s win from doing the course…

-Thank you for writing this! I found this easy to follow and understand. I’m very happy I took a chance this.

-This course was a win! The biggest win I had in this course is it solidified for me that I have been right all along in my methods than others “more experienced” because of a “rank.”

-The reality is, a lot of the material I already knew. However I never had anyone explain it in a technical and mechanical way. The examples of the 4 powers and the 6 tools to me were damn near mind blowing. It was the smack on the forehead “oh yeah that’s right” moment.

It cleaned up a lot of the “clutter”. Now, as I mentioned a lot of this material I knew. I was very fortunate to train with Master John Wesley Shepherd who was trained by the late GM Sherman Harrell who was directly trained by GM Tatsuo Shimabukuru, the founder of Isshinryu. He used to explain things in a similar fashion. Sadly, he was never around enough and we were mostly taught by his big brother Billy who is an excellent practitioner but as a teacher………. you get the idea.

We spent a lot of the times teaching ourselves. Because of this, maybe we ourselves stumbled onto these lessons when you combined grown men from different occupations and backgrounds. Fast forward years later after our school closed down, I begin training in Escrima de Cuerdas, an art founded by a simple carpenter the late GM Liborio Heyrosa who couldn’t read or write. He was subsequently trained directly by the late GM Venancio Anciong Bacon (founder of Balintawak) and Nene Rosales a famous Filipino fencer.

– It (this course) helped me tremendously because regardless that the Philippines is a former U.S. Commonwealth, sometimes there is a bit of a language barrier. Some of these lessons did not translate. Your lessons created the bridge. Now everything made sense. The part that also helped tremendously was as we were all taught that it should be one continuous motion or no wasted motion but you explained it and demonstrated in a way that made sense…

The other thing that opened my eyes the most was the body testing. In Isshinryu for us this is common…….when performing Sanchin. I’ve never seen this done while throwing a basic straight punch. Heck, I never even thought of it myself. This to me is the highlight of the read/videos. I’m sure some will say I’m nuts but that’s what it was to me. I can’t wait to try this on everything but it also helped to perfect every technique within a kata. I now see each movement as unique.

Can’t wait to download the Matrix Karate Course! And also, thank you!

Thank you, Craig.

And well done.

Interestingly,

Craig says he knew a lot of the material before,

he is exactly the SECOND person who has said this about the course.

This is after me selling the course for 15 years.

what is of interest is that Craig says

they ‘spent a lot of time teaching ourselves.’

This is actually one of the reasons I figured this out.

My instructor hardly ever said anything,

and in the silence I had to figure things out.

My father was an engineer

and I was raised with an eye towards physics and mechanics,

and that is probably my secret.

You see the martial arts have been handed down

mostly through oral tradition,

and that is a fine way to build up mysticism.

The result is teachers use examples that are unique to their culture,

and fail to impart the actual mechanics and physics of the art.

Anyway,

Again,

congrats to Craig,

and well done.

Now,

thank you to those who have purchased the book courses on Amazon.

I’ve got two of them up right now,

How to Fix Karate

and

The Shaolin Butterfly.

These are books,

but with links to the videos from the actual courses included.

This is a real step forward for saving money,

and for getting the full course.

And,

I’ve included a video this week.

I’ve got hundreds of these snippets. 

I once sold them as a course which six whole people purchased.

So I’ll probably pop them into the newsletter,

won’t be any order,

but they’re a lot of fun,

and pretty educational.

So have fun and enjoy,

and if you like these snippets make sure

you subscribe to the blog at MonsterMartialArts.

(upper right hand corner of the page)

Here you go…

HAVE A GREAT WORK OUT!

Al

And don’t forget to check out the interview

BTW

I’ve got nothing but five star reviews on 

The Science of Government.

It’s really nothing more than applying matrixing to politics.

Matrixing + Politics = Sanity

I told you matrixing works with anything.

Here’s the link…

How to Fix Karate! (volumes one and two)

volume one is at

And volume two is at…

Billy Jack, Green Beret Martial Arts, and Real Knife Fighting.

Knife Fighting: the Wrong Way and the Right Way

Billy Jack, stoic Indian with Green Beret Martial Arts training, was one of the first movie heroes to beat up bad guys with karate/kung fu/taekwondo/whatever.

Interestingly, I met a real Indian war hero who told me what it was really like. He was a chubby fellow from Northern California, and he had been a Navy SEAL. At least so he said.

Blinding Steel is part of the complete Matrix Kung Fu/Monkey Boxing Package. Click on the monkey!

He told me that the Navy had been looking for people who were extra sneaky and mean, and they tried him and a few other Indians.

He told me they would sneak around the bush, sneak up on the VC, and kill everybody they could.

He said that one night a couple of his friends came back from a mission laughing. They had apparently snuck into a VC barracks and sliced the throat of every other man. They thought it was going to be a great joke when the survivors woke up and found that the men on each side of them had been killed.

And, he told me of a knife fight he had had when he was a teenager.

He got into it with some other good, old boy, and they were rasslin’ and stabbin’ each other when the cops pulled them apart and arrested them.

The other guy went to the hospital, where he might not make it through the night.

My friend sat there, waiting to see if he was going to be charged with fighting or with murder. And he wiped some blood off his shirt. Talk to the cops. Wiped some more blood off. Talked the cops. Wiped some more…”Hey! I’m bleeding!”

Apparently the other fellow had managed to stick him in the gut, and the fold of skin had compressed while sitting and the blood only seeped out, which made it look like he wasn’t really injured.

So he went to the hospital, the other guy lived, and he joined the Navy to avoid charges for assault and battery, which was the way they did things back then.

Anyway, I don’t know the truth of his story, he could have been telling me a big windy, but I do know something about knife fighting.

You can stab, or you can slice. Bad idea to throw, ‘cause there’s no smarts in throwing away your weapon. How you hold the knife depends on what you want to do, unless you go in without a plan. not a good idea. Everybody should be trained, and that training should have an idea for every possible situation.

Anyway, I’ve written a complete course, with a few hours of in depth video instruction, on how to handle knives and other bladed weapons. The course is called Blinding Steel, and it is available at Monster Martial Arts.

But the thing about knives is this: it is the most common weapon you will meet in a fight. After all, knives, for the most part, are legal.

You can carry a Bowie knife, or any large knife, even a machete.
You can carry knives openly, or even concealed.
The only knives you can’t carry are things like dirks and ballistic knives and daggers and stilettos.
You can’t carry knives that look like something else, like a tube of lipstick or a pen or something like that.

But you can carry a knife, and bad guys will resort to a knife as their weapon of first choice. After all, past a gun, which is illegal for the most part, in spite of all constitutional guarantees, a knife is easy, quick, and visually frightening.

But, if you study a real martial arts course on knives, like Blinding Steel, then you won’t have much to worry about. With Blinding Steel knife course you learn how to use anything for a weapon, and you can even take a knife away from some idiot and insert it where there isn’t much chance of getting a sunburn.

That’s Blinding Steel, at MonsterMartialArts.com.

Killing Knife Attackers with Triple Flip Martial Art Techniques!

Ya gotta love it. A guy with a Knife does an overhead stab at you, so you fall to the side and kick him in the groin. This is the Martial Arts technique I saw in a martial arts book the other day, and a surer route to getting yourself killed has never been.
Well, perhaps it has been. Lotta bonehead people out there. You know they are bonehead because they buy this guys book, right?
Which book is that, you ask?
Not gonna say.
You can go get your chuckles somewhere else.
Look, if somebody is coming at you with a knife it makes sense to jump, dodge, get out of the way. But if you fall down so you can kick somebody you are losing all your mobility. And, if your kick isn’t perfect, and you haven’t practiced that technique a thousand times a month for ten years, then that knife weilding maniac is just going to fall on you, and…end of game. You’re gonna get your guts stabbed out!
So, yes, move to the side. Look for something to block or wrap his knife arm with. Keep moving. Try some quick kicks to his knees and groin, but don’t fall down, don’t try to wrestle with him, stay away from the blade, and make up your mind to take some real martial arts lessons so stuff like this won’t happen to you, and so that you will have some real self defense techniques to defend yourself with.
You know, I sometimes call self defense moves like this by a variety of names, somersaulting tricks, triple flip defenses, or just stupid.
Anyway, if you want to learn some real martial arts techniques, head on over to Monster Martial Arts. Basic Karate will give you a plan and a foundation, and you can advance from there. Knife fighting techniques in particular I teach in Blinding Steel, which is the Monkey Boxing course. Check it out, and get the free ebook offered on the front page. Here’s a short clip of some Monkey Boxing (Blinding Steel) knife fighting techniques that work.

If You Can’t Take a Gun to a Knife Fight, Monkey Boxing Will Work Just Fine!

The mugger is two hundred pounds, and he moves like a cat. He has a knife, and you wish you had a gun, but you don’t. It’s survival time, but fortunately, you just brought some Monkey boxing to a Knife Fight.
Answer these questions…
What’s the weapon you’re most likely to encounter on the street?
What’s the weapon you can legally carry without getting hassled?
What’s the weapon that is in your kitchen and you can grab real quick.
And…do you really know how to use that weapon?
Now, take a gander at this video, and then I’ll tell you a couple of interesting things.

Okey dokey, I’m old, I ain’t the quickest fellow any more, but I can handle those young tigers no prob. I simply know more than they do. And, here comes the meat of this here meal…I know knives, I know how to fight with a knife, and, most important, I can get you to fight with a knife in a week or two.
Now, let’s be honest, a few months if you want to be polished.
But, for hard core data quick, for no nonsense, save your life and the lives of your loved ones…Monkey Boxing is the course.
If you’re a hard core martial artist, I usually recommend other courses. They are designed for martial artists, they take you somewhere, they enlighten you, and so on.
But, for urban survival in these tough times, the fastest, most efficient method I’ve got is Monkey boxing.
Monkey Boxing deals with speed, it trains in all ranges (kick, punch, knive, fist, pole, whatever), and it is incredibly simple to do.
Let me ask you a question: if somebody comes at you, do want to choose a single technique from three or four hundred techniques? And hope it fits the situation? No. That’s only if you’re a gung ho pro martial artist, and then only if you understand Matrixing.
What you want is a simple et of drills that fit into any situation intuitively.
Whatever motion you instinctively start to protect yourself, it will develop intuitively and naturally into one of the Monkey Boxing drills.
So, if you can’t bring a gun to a knife fight, make sure you bring Monkey Boxing. It’s the best, most efficient, most economical (grin) way to learn how to knife fight in the world. The Monkey Boxing program is at Monster Martial Arts, and it is called Blinding Steel.

Nastiest Knife Fighter of All Time! (Monster Newsletter)

Good morning!
The sun is shining,
everybody is getting smarter!
What a great day!

And,
let’s face it…
you get get to work out.
People who don’t know the martial arts
don’t get to experience what you do,
they don’t get to feel what you do.
They don’t get to be
smarter,
faster,
stronger.
You lucky dog.

Okay,
newsletter this time,
journal next time.
And,
I’ve got a question for you.
I have lost a piece of research.
The research is odd,
historical,
and…
odd.

Let me build into my request,
by telling you
about the nastiest knife fighter
of all time.

What do you think is nasty in a knife fight?
I mean,
you cut,
across the belly and the guts fall out.
You slice the neck and the computer
runs out of blood.
You cut off his…stuff,
that’s all mean and nasty,
but,
let’s face it,
you already knew that.
So,
to get to true and nasty,
and my missing research,
think about the quality of the blade.
If the blade is cheap, bumper metal,
it breaks.
Or,
on the same track,
if the blade is too thin,
it will break.
and that brings us to nasty.

Al Capone,
old scarface,
had a lieutenant.
The guy was supposed to be weasel thin
and had the disposition
of a snake in labor.
Mean.

Now,
the story goes,
one time Al Capone tells this guy
go kill so and so.
So the guy,
who happened to be a knife fighter,
grabbed a pair of his cheapest, thinnest knives.
He goes over to the guy he was supposed to kill,
who towers over him,
raises his hands
and stabs two knives to the chest.
Being thin,
the blades went deep,
right to the hilt.
Being thin and cheap,
the knife fighter dropped his weight
and snapped the handles off.

Now,
the victim is running around,
with blades stuck in his chest,
I guess the stabs weren’t to instant kill spots
like the heart,
and the guy is bleeding,
screaming
and trying to get the knives out,
but he can’t.
The handles are gone,
the blood is obscuring whatever little bitty piece of metal
is still sticking out,
and he can’t get ahold of this slick metal,
can’t pull it out of his body,
the body sucks on the metal,
and…
pain.

And,
the knife fighting lieutenant,
went back to Al Capone,
and presented him with the broken off hilts.

Al Capone,
being a jolly fellow
is supposed to have mounted the broken handles
over his fireplace,
laughed at them,
and shared the story behind them
whenever he had the chance.

So,
that is nasty.

Now,
my missing research is
I remember reading this on the web
and now I can’t find it.
I need to find the source,
be able to quote sources,
research it further,
that sort of thing.

The first person to find the source on this
gets a free
Master Books. (Find it at MonsterMartialArts(dot)com

So,
hope you enjoyed the tale,
hope one of you guys can help me out.
(I had no luck on my own search…so good luck…it might be a toughie!)

And,
in keeping with today’s theme,
feel free to click over to the Blinding Steel Course.
It’s the fastest and most efficient method
of knife fighting
in existence.
Period.
I mean,
it really is good stuff.

And,
next newsletter I’ll probably have a journal ready.
Until then
have a great week,
have a great work out,
and I’ll talk to you later!
Al
=o)

Man Defeats Bear with Karate Spearhand into the Mouth!

I’ve always wondered at the effectiveness of this as a defense for an attacking bear. Before I continue, however, let me say that I love animals, and I in no way advocate cruelty to one of my furry friends.

Most people, you see, try to avoid the snapping jaws. After all, we are talking about inch long knives clamping down on your hand, or arm, or throat…yikes!

But, following the tenet that in the greatest strength you will find a weakness, what if you jabbed your fist, and that might be a spearhand, straight down the animal’s throat when he bit?

There is no set up, as he is coming to you. But your timing must be utterly and exactly perfect.

If you do have the timing, and there is no other choice, when he opens to bite, you push your hand in and scrape your fingernails against the roof of his mouth, try to grab the tongue, and general make the bear believe he is trying to eat a cactus.

Now, the normal reaction, when being bit, is to jerk your hand away, which would cause the teeth to hookinto the flesh. But if you are pushing in, you won’t get hooked,and the bear might actually spit you out.

Now, normal cautionaries, though I don’t see why they would be needed. I mean, someb ody out hunting a bear with just a spearhand is somebody trying to jump out of the gene pool. But, avoid bears and other creatures. Don’t try to pet a porcupine. Don’t try to kiss a ratlesnake. Don’t even think about petting that polecat. They are, after, living critters, and they are best left to nature.

That all said, though this post is sort of a WTF and scratch your head, who knows…it might come in handy. A dog might try to bite somebody, and maybe having a plan will enable one to not get bit, or to extract themselves from a bad situation.

Have a great day, drop my website, Monster Martial Arts, and check out the knife fighting section, and I hope you never have to even think about using a Karate spearhand to fight a bear.

Here’s to the Martial Arts Monkey Perched on Your Back

There are several reasons why people start studying the martial arts.

Here’s a snip before we get into it…it’s from my Monkey Boxing course. I need to take out the print, but here it is.

One, your mommy brought you to the dojo so you could get a little discipline.’  Make you well behaved. ohm you bad boy (grin).

Two, you got together with some friends. Had a good time, and now you’re studying more seriously.

Three, some free, or nearly so, class got you going. YMCA, college, whatever, but you’re on the way now.

Four, you just gravitated to it. Watched movies,found yourself wondering, saw some moves on youtube, and you walked into a school somewhere.

Doesn’t matter how you started, the monkey is now on your back.

It’s a good monkey. Weighs a lot, takes a lot of feeding, but it’s a fun feed.

Carrying a monkey that big (more like a gorilla , heh!) tires you out, but in a good way, makes you sleep at night.

Carrying a monkey that big makes you strong and tough, so you can get the job done.

Calms you down, and you meet some mighty interesting people. It’s fun looking at the monkey on their back. Different kinds of monkeys.

And some of these monkeys carry weapons, some of them can do wild things.

But, that’s okay.

You can to.

Here’s to the Monkey on your back.

Learn about Monkey Boxing and Weapons.

I’m sorry to have to relate this one, but several army fellows were standing in a group, discussing the state of the world. The US is about to go broke, people are starting to hoard food, and what ya gonna do about it?

One fellow’s solution was stated simply…’I’m not going to store food. I’m just going to store an extra box of shells. Smaller, easier to carry, and I can take anything I want, including the food that people store.

Well, isn’t that interesting. What is more interesting is that the other soldiers said nothing. They just nodded their heads, grunted, or thought about it.

Well, the world ain’t going belly up. If the government goes broke, life goes on. It always has, and always will. After all, if the politicians can’t pay themselves, why should that mean the farmers can’t sell beef and veggies, and the clothes makers can’t make clothes, and so on.

Heck, the government going out of business would be good for business, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, the point of this is that when times get tough, you need to get tougher. You should be cutting your bills, making your purchasing count, having a little extra food, or even a box of shells on the back shelf, and…get yourself physically fit and able to defend yourself.

The best thing I ever did, when it comes to learning fast self-defense, is probably the Monkey Boxing program. I used to call it Blinding Steel, and it is all about knife fighting (the weapon of choice when it comes to fit hit the shan situations), taking away knives, and learning how in the fastest possible time.

This program is so quick and efficient that a person can near double his speed in a week, beat anybody in a knife fight in two weeks, and take anybodys knife away in three weeks.
Of course you’d have to study like a maniac. But isn’t the martial arts really about being a maniac? Grin.

Anyway, check out the Blinding Steel program.

Got to go now. Love ya. See ya.