Why Can’t I just Kill With One Strike!

Newsletter 929

For the People Who REALLY Want to Kill somebody with One Martial Arts Technique!

I get this every once in a while,
somebody wants to find the ‘magic technique,’
the technique that works for everything.
Somebody wants to study just one thing
and be able to kill anybody with it.

Now,
I am not going to teach you how to spell comic book,
and for a simple reason,
there actually is a technique,
a perfect technique,
that will do this.
And,
not to be mystical,
or obfuscate,
it is the last move at the end of Seisan.
Go ahead,
find it,
see what it does,
figure it out,
and practice just that one technique.

BUT,
that having been said,
I want to describe the philosophy behind
why you have to learn a whole martial art,
spend years studying,
instead of just buying a gun.

Okay,
first,
let’s consider celestial navigation.
You want to take your rocket ship to Arcturus.
You blast off,
you’re sailing away,
but…where is that durned star?
You’re confused by the time you reach Jupiter.
There’s the big dipper,
bunch of stars over there,
and the seven sisters,
and..Beetlejuice?

Wish you had a map, eh?

Now,
let’s compare that to taking somebody DOWN!
You punch for the throat,
except he’s punching too,
so you shift, and he misses, but you miss.
But his arm is there,
so you go for an elbow roll,
except he’s twisting in response,
but your foot is…

Do you get the idea?
The same as going for a star without a map,
there is amazing confusion in a fight.
So you have to make a map.
You have to make it with your experience.

You punch,
he strikes,
but you’ve studied slipping in JKD,
the elbow roll comes,
he shifts,
but you know about shifting from Tai Chi.
he strikes,
but you know about dropping an elbow from karate,
and you finally strike him in the throat,
AND…manipulate him,
AND…take him down.

Now,
the analogy may not be quite clear,
so let me elucidate.
You find arcturus by your knowledge of what and where the other stars are.
AND…
you achieve your takedown by navigating a map of the human body,
by knowing where the joints are and how they turn,
by understanding leverage,
by subtle shifts of anatomy,
his and yours,
and you navigate to the final strike and takedown.

So when you study a whole art,
instead of buying a gun,
or searching for that mystical one finger technique
that reverse spirals the energy
so that the chakra explodes
in the fourth lumbar…
what you are doing is studying
a method for navigating the body.
No star will confuse you,
no motion or joint will confuse,
and you will find your way to…
better health,
understanding that common folk don’t have,
and the certainty that martial arts bring.

So, the best map for understanding the body,
because it can be applied to ANY martial Art!
Is
The Master Instructor Course.
You learn how the body works.
You learn how techniques work.
You can make any art work,
any technique work,
you understand forms better,
and…and it just gets better.

Here be da link!
http://www.martialartsinstructortraining.com

Have a great work out!
Al

Here’s the link for the ‘One Terrorist, one bomb, one martial arts technique… http://www.sooperarticles.com/sports-articles/martial-arts-articles/one-terrorist-one-bomb-one-martial-artist-1657952.html

http://www.martialartsinstructortraining.com

A Very Nice Martial Arts Win

Winning in the Martial Arts!

Hey,
I received the following win from Will S in the email.
Wins like this make my day.
It is just guys like you and me
figuring it out,
living good,
and spreading the energy.
Here go.

Find out the truth about real samurai swordfighting

Hi sensei Al

How are you sir? This time, how unusual…I don’t want anything from you. Just to say thanks for everything and I hope you are in great health and your shoulder has healed up well. Of course I practice and teach my matrixing and  duly read and ponder on the newsletters, most of them indeed are very stimulating to deeper thought and research, others are informative nonetheless. Some grind my gears in the best sense of the word, those that make me think and go aha! or even worse, spark and explosion of sudden realization in body and mind. Usually sits quite deep and ends up as something that becomes part of oneself or ones way and to pass on to the postulants…try to define energy? What is energy? I mean really? So I guess, you sowed very well because it seems there is something growing, that encompasses the realm of physical understanding or trying to make sense of a move.
I think this is why I am at the point where I am now. A work in progress, not there yet, but definitely no longer where I once was either. A lot of it was distorted, wobbly and shaky, but in the end, there was coherence, there was sense and there was logic. There was truth. As we know, for something to be true its opposite must also be true. In this case, you pushed me with my nose onto it, gently yet diligent and patiently. Thank you. You are a hell of a martial artist and an amazing teacher.
I am glad you are around, sensei Al. All the best to you my friend,
happy workout, and new videos are coming soon.

Thank you, Will.
And,

listen to all of you guys and gals out there.
Yes,
I push matrixing,
but as Will says in the first sentence,
you don’t have to want something.
You can chat,
share win,
gripe if you want
(you just need to do more work outs)
or whatever.

But here’s the thing…
you can’t change unless you seek to go outside yourself.
Yes,
change comes from within,
but that change must be prompted by external forces.
But before the external forces can work,
you have to want.
You have to look for those external forces.
They won’t act on you otherwise.

And,
of course,
if the external force is me calling for more work outs,
that is excellent.

A world of happy,
stable,
doing well
martial artists.

That’s the goal here.

Listen,
when I started,
way back in 1967,
I was involved in an art that I thought
WAS THE BEST MARTIAL ART IN THE WORLD!
Heck,
the instructors said so,
my classmates believed it,
so…?

Then one day I met a fellow,
and he showed me something,
and I changed.
I quit the school
(found out it was sort of a McDojo),
gave up being a teacher,
and started over as a white belt.

The point is that no matter how good you are,
there is something more to be learned,
but you have to be willing to let that learning touch you.
You have to open the eyes and ears,
and be willing to redefine your belief system.
You have to go outside yourself.

The point isn’t to have the best system in the world,
the point is to make logic out of the chaos,
and make the best system in the world. for yourself.
Every person’s system will,
in some way,
be different.
But you have to be willing to seek to find it.
You have to be willing to change things,
you have to be willing to make things work.

Okay,
‘nuff preaching.

Check out Blinding Steel

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

Blinding Steel is not just weapons,
it is a complete progression
from weapons to hands to takedowns.
It has eight drills which encompass all motion,
and which can be adjusted to
hands once you have given up the weapon,
to takedowns once you have closed sufficient to negate hands.

So check it out,
works well with any system,
and really opens the eyes.
Provides the external stimulus to change,
if you get what I mean.

Now…
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

New Pan Gai Noon Black Belt!

The Value of Pan Gai Noon

Good morning!
Hmm, afternoon.
Well, good whatever.
It’s easy to lose track of time,
you just sink yourself into a work out and
zingo bingo,
where did the time go.

Before we talk, I want to announce
Will Stockinger!

Will completed studies on Pan Gai Noon.
I think he might be the first
Pan Gai Noon black belt
I’ve awarded.
He’s been sending me videos for a while now,
and he made it look good on the videos.
So well done Will!

A word about the PGN.
Karate is my base art,
I collected a lot of systems over the years.
As I went through these systems
I began to understand certain things
about how Karate evolved.
I understood these things
not from people writing about them,
but from doing the forms myself,
and feeling the changes.
Mind you,
there were a lot of holes,
but Matrixing enables one to find
and fill up the holes in a martial art.
Anyway,
long ago I came across the saying,
that if you don’t know sanchin
you don’t know karate.
And it’s true.

Once I realized this I began to research sanchin.
I collected the various forms of it,
and I realized something:
Uechi Ryu sanchin is for dynamic tension.
Goju sanchin is for breathing.
Shotokan sanchin is for technique.
As you can see,
this represents how sanchin developed from China.
And I began to wonder,
what sanchin looked like in Pan Gai Noon.
But I couldn’t find much on it.
So I relied on matrixing principles,
and set the thing to concepts
which are in buddhist belief systems,
and I wasn’t doing sanchin as a karate form any longer.
Yes, there was still the pop and power,
but there was also flow and emptiness,
and this made the form different in a lot of ways,
opened my eyes to a lot of different concepts.

One of the things I realized
is that you don’t need people to pound on you
to make your form work.
You need gentle pressure
that will make the chi in your body respond.
Pounding doesn’t make the chi work,
it makes the muscles work.
But if you do body testing
the way I describe in
The Master’s Handbook,
then it is different,
and the form is different,
and,
here’s something interesting,
the techniques become different,
and you start to see a logic of technique
that I haven’t see in any other art.
The techniques flow,
and there is a progression of technique
that is startlingly matrix-like.

So these old guys,
back in China,
had designed a system over the decades
and centuries,
that described a closed combat system
that had an inherently matrix-like
progression of techniques.

Mind you,
the student wouldn’t see it,
it’s hidden in the form.
But if you do it long enough,
then it sort of pops at you,
and you start doing the principles of the martial arts,
and not just the techniques.

So that is how I structured
my Pan Gai Noon.
to represent the principles,
to establish the more matrix-like
progression of techniques.

And I wrote about this
in a variety of places.
The Matrixing Chi book
uses Sanchin as the starting point
for developing chi.

I’ve also done a video course,
which is available as part of
‘Evolution of an Art,’
at Monster.
I think this is the only place
where I’ve recorded Sanseirui.

Then there is the book
‘Pan Gai Noon.’
I think it is based on the course book,
with a few things added.

And,
there are lots of places
where I’ve touched upon the art,
written articles about it,
and so on.
Here is one of the best…

http://monstermartialarts.com/three-secrets-pan-gai-noon-karatekung-fu/

So there is a lot of things you can do
to examine my work,
and make up your own mind.

At any rate,
I do consider Sanchin,
and the other two forms,
seisan and sanseirui,
as extremely important.

Okay,
if you’re interested,
I recommend the Evolution of an Art course,
it’s got three arts in it,
Pan Gai Noon, Kang Duk Won, Kwon Bup.
That’s three books,
and three sets of video tapes,
for the price of one course.
And the books on those courses,
are also in the books I’ve
put upon Amazon.

Here’s the link
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/evolution-of-a-martial-art/

And,
that all said,
oinkly donkey
time to move on.

Again,
congrats to Will,
thanks for your hard work.
Yours is an amazing journey.

And,
to everyone…
HAVE A GREAT WORK OUT!

Al

PS
Have a great Superbowl sunday!
And don’t forget to work out
after you pig out!

Five Martial Arts Books Written over Twenty Years Make an Encyclopedia

I Wrote an Encyclopedia of Martial Arts

There are five books in the Martial Arts encyclopedia, and they cover Karate from China to America, from the first transmutations of Kung Fu to the latest scientific innovations.

Pan Gai Noon, is on of the more important Chinese Arts that influenced Karate

Kang Duk Won is a pure form of Karate before the Japanese went power crazy on it.

Kwon Bup is an American version, very powerful and straight forward.

Outlaw Karate is the record of my attempts to create a style of Karate that could be done in one year. A black belt in one year really is a heady concept.

And the last book, Buddha Crane Karate, begins going into matrixing concepts.

I haven’t listed as an encyclopedia (though I did at one time), and that is because these five books were written over a twenty year period. They have different software programs, different technologies, and, taken together, they are ragged. So I list them as separate books, but they are an encyclopedia of Martial Arts. They are all technique, not a lot of words, just the actual moves.

You can find the Encyclopedia of Martial Arts on this page.

http://alcasebooks.com/martial-arts-books-2/encyclopedia/

Behind the Shaolin Butterfly Gung Fu System

A Better Way of Doing Shaolin Gung Fu

I was getting nowhere studying Kung Fu.

I had twenty plus years of Karate, knew aikido and a bit of Wing Chuna nd Northern Shaolin, but I wanted the temple stuff!

I wanted the things you saw in those great Shaw Brothers movies!

I wanted unique training methods wherein Kung Fu would burst over me and I would suddenly know the secrets of the universe!

One day this fellow walks in, gives his name as Richard, and wants to take Karate.

But I knew he knew something. His attitude, the calm in his eyes…he knew something.

So we talked, and it turned out he knew Tai Chi and Pa Kua, and…Shaolin.

Real Shaolin. Fut Ga Shaolin, which is ‘Five Monks,’ and is so named after the five monks who escaped the burning of the Shaolin temple hundreds of years before.

Now, why did he want to study Karate?

Well, actually, he didn’t. I mean, a little, but what he really wanted was a place to work out.

So we ended up trading systems.

I taught him Karate, and he taught me Shaolin.

Form by form, we went through, and the ancient mysteries, well, they didn’t burst over me, they sort of dribbled.

Don’t get me wrong, it was cool, it was exciting, but, it was also not very logical.

Same as any martial art these days, and more than most (it had had a long time to get messed up), the whole thing was made up of random sequences of motion.

Not everything worked.

Took a long time to learn.

I was in heaven, of course, dribble or burst. But I kept looking for the key to the whole thing.

And there, in one of the forms, was a sequence of steps, and suddenly the dribble did burst.

Man, I took that footwork and began matrixing it. Worked it from every angle, and plugged in Shaolin concepts one after the other.

That opened the door, broke the dam, put fireworks in the sky.

I remember spending hours and hours, late at night, working out in the middle of the street. Didn’t have a dojo in the house, so I just went out in the street, stepped out of the way of the occasional car, and worked my way through Shaolin.

Now it made sense!

Now it was EASY to learn.

And I didn’t give up any of the ancient stuff. Same moves are still there, same techniques, but everything is rearranged so that it makes sense, so that the chi still comes from the moves, but the moves come slick and easy and logical, arranged in perfect order.

I renamed what I was doing The Shaolin Butterfly. The footwork, you see, looked like the wings of a butterfly.

And that is how one of the oldest and most respected forms of gung fu, Fut Ga (Five Monks), became upgraded, empowered, and matrixed.

Checkout the Shaolin Butterfly Gung Fu at Monstermartialarts.com.

Defining the Ultimate Karate Form…Sanchin

The Real Truth of Sanchin Kata

Guest Blog by Alaric Dailey

It has been said that if you don’t know Sanchin, you don’t know karate. I suppose there is some truth to this.

Sanchin is taught in many variations, the least modified version of which, appears to be the Pangainoon/Uechi-ryu variation.   This is because of all the Naha-te styles, Pangainoon has been “out of China” the least amount of time.  This also happens to be the version I know, so I will be comments from the point of view of how it was taught to me, and why it is that way.

Release of NEW book on Pan Gai Noon! Click on the cover for more data.

Sanchin means three battles, those three battles are “order”, “form” and “breathing”.  These are the same 3 battles that you fight every time you learn a form.  You learn the order of the moves, how to do them properly, working out how they flow together (the form), and how to extract every ounce of internal and external power, both of which are enhanced with breathing.

Part of the proper form is “loose-tight”, which is quite the trick in Sanchin, since it is a dynamic tension form.  However, you have to loosen, your muscles to strike with force, to block with speed, and to tighten them as you are struck with the body checking.

Part of every form is to clear your mind and attempt to perform it with “mushin”, the “no-mind” of zen.

Truly Sanchin, is a very difficult form.  Pangainoon/Uechi-ryu, teaches it as the first form, and expects you to test on it at every belt, and to improve on it.  Other styles, such as Isshin-ryu, Goju-ryu, Kyokushin, and Okinawan Kenpo treat it as an advanced kata, in some cases styles have made it the shodan (blackbelt) kata.

It is interesting, that you also see the “aikido unbendable arm” as the guard, or Wing Chun stylists would recognize it as Tan-sao. I see many people holding their sanchin arms much lower than I was taught, Sensei always said your fingertips should be eye-level. My Wing Chun Sifu says the same thing about tan-sao, of course NOT holding the tan-sao at this level meant that Bruce Lee found it useless, so he through it out of JKD.

Just for a point of interest, here are a few different versions of the form.

And here is a White Crane form named the same thing that appears to be the same form

 

 

I personally don’t believe that the unaltered white crane form was the one taught to the Okinawans, we see far too much tiger in the Okinawan karate versions, a greater emphasis on external power, tiger claw strikes etc.

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

Beyond Western Muscles in the Martial Arts!

How to Find this Ki Energy in the Martial Arts

When I was in 6th grade
I decided I wanted to be the world’s fastest runner.
Absolutely loved running.
So I started running,
and,
in class,
we had these human body charts.
They had pictures of the muscles,
the bones,
really laid out the human body.
And,
yes,
the page on sexual reproduction
was very worn.

But,
I took off my shoes in the middle of the class,
took off my socks,
and started looking at the pictures
and comparing them to my foot.
Very interesting.
Until the girls all said EW!
And held their noses.

Anyway,
I was obsessed,
and I started examining how the foot arched,
I figured out that the arch was a spring.
I looked at which sides of the legs the muscles were on,
and then angled my stance
so I could get the fastest start.
I pointed my toes,
so to make certain my feet
made the most
of muscles and springs.
I was careful not to run
on one side or the other of the foot.

And,
when I reached the seventh grade,
and decided I wanted to be
the best baseball player in the world,
I started the whole process over again
but analyzing which muscles swung the bat,
why you had to shift the weight with the swing,
how to set myself
so I could follow the ball
the best and easiest way possible.

And so on through a lot of sports.

In 1967,
I found Kenpo Karate,
and I did pretty good.
They made me an instructor,
I wrote an instruction manual,
and I thought I was the cat’s meow.
All that study of the muscles and the body and all that
helped me out pretty good.

Then I went to the Kang Duk Won.
Imagine my surprise
when they said,
‘Gonna take a couple of years.
You look good, but…’
But what?
Fortunately for me,
the martial arts were proving a lot harder
than sports.
I mean,
the muscles and the angles and all that
there was more to it in the martial arts
than any sport I had ever done.
And,
I started to realize something.
Being able to use muscles
had nothing to do with ki.
All of my American sports
were concerned with muscles.
Karate was concerned with…something else.
What was this ki thing?

So I went through Karate,
and then I started playing around with Wing Chun,
and found this extra sensitivity
in Sticky Hands.
Not reacting,
but sensing when somebody was going to do something
before they did it.
A mental telegraph through the arms.
An ESP that traveled through the body
when it was in contact with another body.
His mind was my mind,
as long as I had physical contact.
Cool!

Then I went to Aikido,
and I found something truly spectacular,
this extra sensory perception
didn’t need physical contact!

Now,
I had had glimpses of this phenomena
in Karate.
And I had experienced a more scientific method
and had several very intense experiences
in Sticky Hands.
And then figured out the truth about this stuff
in Aikido.

And I was slow,
because it wasn’t part of my culture.

But,
I was faster than most guys
because I had analyzed the body so thoroughly.

And,
here’s the funny thing,
you can figure this stuff out
in most any art,
if you understand how the body works.

But,
there’s a catch.
You don’t analyze the body
from the viewpoint
of the muscles.

That’s what screwed me up at the Kang Duk Won.
They wanted me to use mental energy,
intention,
ki.

I was used to using muscles.
But muscles are last in the chain.
They are reaction time.
Reaction time is action
after something else has happened.

It means you’re not in the moment,
but you are after the moment,
always responding to,
afterwards.

Think about it this way,
there is a rule in chess,
if two people each play a perfect game,
white always wins.
That’s because white makes the first move.
And that’s true in the martial arts.

So you can’t analyze the body from the viewpoint of muscles,
you have to analyze it from the viewpoint
of energy.
Second on the chain,
and closer to the moment,
to the thought that creates the action.

Now,
here’s the trick,
nobody has ever analyzed the martial arts
from the viewpoint of energy.

They haven’t.
That’s the truth.

So why do you think I get such great wins
from the people who take the Master Instructor course?
Because they have analyzed the muscles,
or at least used the muscles,
and then…nothing.
There is no place for them to go!
There is no second step!
And then they find the Master Instructor course.

The instructors of the martial arts
in the united states,
for the most part,
just sort of wallow.

The Master Instructor course,
however,
offers the second step.
When you go into the six secrets
and learn how to make any technique work,
then mysticism dies a quick death.
It is killed off by logic and physics.
But the real joy is when
you learn how to do your forms
from the viewpoint of energy.
I use a simple trick,
show how the body works,
and,
suddenly,
energy flows.
Instantly.

You won’t go back to the old ways,
you can’t,
because that would mean doing the martial arts wrong.
You can’t argue with what I’ve said,
because it is the truth.
Proven by the fact that it is simple,
and because it is different
than what anybody else is doing,
and the simple knowledge I present
makes it happen!

You can go become a doctor of sports medicine,
you can study nutrition and biomechanics and all that,
you can study the body till you’re blue in the face,
but it won’t tell you the extremely simple truth.

Oh, you’ll learn lots of little truths,
but they won’t have anything to do with energy and intention.

muscles are the first level.
Energy is the second level.
Intention is the third level.
Western science stops on muscles,
the body,
nutrition,
push ups and sit ups.

Then,
there’s no place to go.
I show you energy,
and,
a little work on that level,
and the third level,
intention,
the spirit,
the truth,
just opens up.

And you don’t have to struggle
and use large amounts of energy!
Rather,
you have to relax,
and learn how to use
smaller and smaller amounts of energy.
That’s how you open up the third level.

Okey dokey,
I’ve said as much as I can.
You can lead a horse to ki…

So,
got a new book out.
This is the book on Pan Gai Noon,
and you can check it out at the Monster,
if you simply click on the book cover in the right column.
Or do a search for Pan Gai Noon on Amazon.

Now,
this book is part of the evo of art course,
you can get it as part of that course,
but it will be electronic.

This is a real book.
Pages.
Print.
A neat smell to it.
I love books.

So,
two things you can do this week.
think about the Master Instructor Course,
it’s available at MonsterMartialArts.com
under the courses.

And,
get yourself a very interesting book
on Pan Gai Noon.

Remember,
PGN connects Karate to Kung Fu.
It is a connection to Chi.

So,
you guys and gals have a FUNtastic work out!
And I’ll talk to you later.

Al

Pan Gai Noon Instruction Manual

The Dangers of Coiling Energy in Tai Chi, Pa Kua Chang, and Pan Gai Noon

It’s odd how these concepts roll around and collide with each other. I see them in all arts, but they seem strongest in the arts of Tai Chi Chuan and Pa Kua Chang and Pan Gai Noon. What’s not funny is how you can endanger the body as you cross engineer certain concepts. Check out the video, then I’ll tell you about it.

The first concept was exploding energy. That’s the simplest one, and it pops up through all arts quickly, and I found it in Karate. Unfortunately, I found that at a certain point it was causing me severe migraines; I was suffering whiplash from the power I was exploding through my body.

Normally, most people not studying the martial arts long enough, people won’t find this. But if you are a long termer, like myself, then you will tend to get a little out of your body, and that’s when energy starts to bite back. The solution was simply to hit softer, and put more intention in your strike; do less and intend more, that’s the key, and it is a matter of developing willpower.

Coiling power came about after exploding power, and through my study of Tai Chi Chuan. Quickly, I realized that I could use this power in Pa Kua Chang. The stances and the lengths of time, however, kept the power under control.

And, I found that Karate was similarly long in stance, and didn’t force too much power through the frame. Where I found problems was with Pan Gai Noon. The stances are short, hourglass stances, and you explode, and then twist, the power up the frame.

The power moves through the body like a freight train, and the body just can’t handle it. It took a couple of months, but I started having weird tingles in my body, and my back started hurting. I knew intuitively what was happening.

Corkscrewing the power through my compacted stances was popping bones out of my spine. Again, the solution was simple. All I had to do was back off on the power, create more space in my frame, and lessen the snap. The result was a more mental approach to the martial arts technique and concept.

It’s funny how we all love power, are enamored by power, want more and more sheer power. Greedy gluttons that we are, we don’t realize that true power comes not from the magnitude of energy, but from the degree of softness within. To create true power, and to make it past the barriers established by the finiteness of our bodies, we need to create more space, before and after our martial arts movements, and within our tempered bodies, and that is how you avoid the danger of coiling power in Tai Chi Chuan, Pa Kua Chang, and Pan Gai Noon.
Click over to Monster Martial Arts if you would like to learn more about energy and how to use it in such arts as Tai Chi Chuan, Pa Kua Chang, Pan Gai Noon, and other martial arts.Pick up a free book on the home page.

Building Blocks and Powerful Punches that Break Hearts!

Here is an oddity, building blocks will give you powerful punches. Check out this Pan Gai Noon video, and then I’ll tell you a story of real pain.

My most unfavorite Karate drill was the Eight Step Blocking Drill. You just did eight blocks in a row, forearm to forearm, bashing your way to bruises.
I loved the rest of the class, but I hated that martial arts drill. Fortunately, it only lasted a couple of minutes, so i would weather it, then continue on with the good stuff.
As I went up the ranks I noticed that this few minutes a couple of times a week was changing my blocks. They were getting harder and harder. Against my own belt level they stayed the same, pain and agony and I hated them. But the few times I was paired up with a lower belt, or had to teach a white belt, I would block and they would cringe.
Now, isn’t that interesting? I thought only the guys ahead of me could hurt people with their blocks!
Time went on, and I noticed that my punches were getting infected with this power. A couple of times I even had to be cautioned about hitting too hard! Me? Punching too hard? But I was just a high school kid and I thought everybody was stronger than me and I shrunk away from the idea of fighting because…because..I could hurt somebody with my punch? Now that was novel!
Now, over forty years later, I have to be extremely careful when I do a Karate block or karate punch somebody. I raise bruises, I threaten to break arms, and my punch seems to go right through…and sometimes I run an arm up the bone in my forearm. I feel all these little bumps, bone bruises that must have calcified, and I know that the drill that I hated the most is responsible for giving me blocks that work, and unstoppable, powerful punches. If you want some mugger busting, thug smashing power in your fists, drop by Monster Martial Arts and have a ball!

The Destruction of Sanchin Kata and the Liberation of Energy Through Circular Flux

Perhaps you have come across the old saying…’If you don’t know Sanchin, you don’t know Karate.’ It happens that this statement is fundamentally correct. It is correct because when done in the proper manner Sanchin kata results in a liberation of fighting energy beyond any form known.

The form came to Okinawan from China, where it was part of a system called Pan Gai Noon. While PGN is no longer in existence, that first kata is taught in such arts as Goju Ryu and Uechi ryu. It has also been altered and presented in arts such as Shotokan under the name Hangetsu.
The original martial arts pattern, as simple as it is, was taught over the course of years. Students would spend hours a night just walking, learning how to sink their weight, before they were shown even the most simple of hand technqiues. This fact, of being taught to sink the weight and stabilize the stance, should give even the dullest karate student a serious hint as to the correct way to execute the pattern.

In Uechi Ryu Sanchin, which is the first manifestation of this form beyond the Chinese Pan Gai Noon, the emphasis is on building muscular tension. Thus, the intent of the sanchin stance is changed from the creation (and dropping) of energy to the creation of muscle. Muscle is temporary compared to energy, and thus the form is changed and made less effective.

In Goju ryu Sanchin the purpose of the form is to learn proper breathing. Thus, the purpose of the form is to create the sensation of energy in the body through martial exercise, but without the emphasis on sinking the weight the reality of usable energy is forsaken. At this point one can see that the Sanchin form has been changed so much that it is but a shadow of what it should be…the story gets worse, however.

In Shotokan, and like systems of classical martial arts, the actual structure of the form has been rendered into simplistic self defense techniques. Mind, there is nothing wrong with this type of martial structure, except that it has nothing to so with the generation of serious intrinsic energy. The form in these later schools is called Hangetsu.

To be done correctly. this incredible form must be returned to simple concepts, and and taught simply. One must toss out concepts of breathing and muscularity and self defense except as they are drawn along by the sheer fact of energy generation. Thus, the simple instruction, “sink the weight, and ‘swirl’ the motion so that it creates a wave of energy which swirls inside the body and shoots out the arm,” is the only concept one should be working on.

Done with this easy instruct, for months and years, the generation of internal energy becomes real, and the internal energy becomes usable. Though the author would not propose combat as a solution, it must be remembered that Kanbun Uechi, the founder of Uechi ryu and a man who had studied the actual Sanchin in the manner recommended in this article, killed a man with one strike. No, don’t kill people, but do realize the true depth and power of the martial arts by practicing sanchin kata by sinking the weight and swirling the body so that energy may be developed and used.

There are free articles and courses on how to return Sanchin Kata to its true power at Monster Martial Arts. Pick up a free ebook at while you’re at Monster Martial Arts.