Massive Karate Encyclopedia!
Hi Guys, I have released ‘The Ultimate Karate Encyclopedia.’
I began Martial Arts in 1967. I studied every martial art I could, became a writer for the mags, had my own column in Inside Karate, and over these years (nearly fifty now) I kept notes, compiled books, researched systems, and so on.
One of the things I did was go through an evolution of Karate. This included five specific martial arts, which are presented in the following five volumes.
Pan Gai Noon ~ From Kung Fu to Karate (Volume One)
Kang Duk Won ~ The Korean Contribution (Volume Two)
Kwon Bup ~ American Power (Volume Three)
Outlaw Karate ~ Secret of the One Year Black Belt
Buddha Crane Karate ~ The Birth of Matrixing.
During this time I experienced a variety of writing and graphic styles.
I actually began my first books when black and white photos were cheap, and I cut the photos out and pasted them by hand.
In Buddha Crane I used an Appleworks software program, which mean that I drew hundreds of figures using nothing more than lines and arcs.
And I traveled through a progression of Poser programs.
This will give each volume a distinctive, and sometimes historical flavor.
And, to be honest, a sometimes messy flavor. Sorry about that, but that’s history.
Martial Arts wise, I didn’t study those arts in that specific format. I studied them haphazardly, then put them together so that they made sense.
You will have seen some of the work in some booklets I published many years ago, but not too much. Most of this stuff has either been available only in PDF, and usually is bundled into one of the courses I sell at MonsterMartialArts(dot)com.
You will find that the material does progress nicely through form and technique, presenting an fairly accurate evolution of form and technique. It starts out with Kung Fu inspired Karate, and travels all the way through to Matrixing concepts.
When you look at the books, choose wisely. If you are a long time practitioner of Karate, for instance, you might find the Kang Duk Won interesting, but, then again, you might have done enough that it isn’t.
That all said, I recommend starting with Pan Gai Noon and moving forward. It is a solid start, and as you go through the books – and I expect you to do, not just read – you will find yourself evolving with the art, and understanding MUCH more about the martial arts.
And, I want to caution you, this is not an encyclopedia of form and technique. It is NOT, except where VERY pertinent, a bunch of talk.
As I said, five volumes, and taken together there are 820 pages, 79,000 words, and 1,618 graphics.
That’s a lot of writing, and a lot of information, and should keep you busy for a while.
You’ll have to look the volumes up separately on Amazon, I don’t have a central page for them all yet. Type in the name of the book + Al Case. For instance ‘Pan Gai Noon Al Case.’
That should work.
Have a great work out!
Al Case
Matrix Martial Arts 