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)

The Evolution of the Shaolin Martial Arts!

Most people say the Martial Arts

came from the Shaolin Temple.

Undoubtededly,

the Shaolin Temple is a big influencer.

But,

my own theory is slightly different.

Originally

I wrote a short column about ‘Og and Bog.’

Og steals Bog’s apples by conking him on the head,

Bog imagines a defense for getting conked on the head,

and we have a technique

and the birth of the martial arts.

Which is to say

from the very first time

one man raised his fist to another,

martial arts have been developing.

Verbal history,

not a reliable thing,

says that Bodhidharma came to Shaolin from the east,

trained the monks in meditation,

and when they proved too weak to meditate properly,

he gave them the martial arts.

But when you look at the exercises credited to Bodhidharma

they look like calisthenics.

So how do simple calisthenics

become martial arts?

Let’s create a possible scenario

to present my theory.

Warlords reigned,

they conscripted peasants,

and taught them how to fight.

How to use the spear,

how to do basic ‘boxing’ (kung fu).

The peasants who survived the battles

might retire to home,

and go to a temple to pray,

maybe even feel a bit of remorse

 about the deaths they caused

and join a temple.

At the temple they want to stay in shape

so they use the basic calisthenics they used in the military.

They even use some of the fighting routines.

But the essence of the temple isn’t in fighting,

and if one is in daily meditation

and begins a regimen in fitness,

it is conceivable that the exercises they did

begin to take on the form of meditation.

No, not every monk is a warrior,

but if even one soldier takes refuge at the temple

translates his military exercises

into meditation…

that might have great influence.

So we have a sort of a criss cross here

between meditation and physical combat.

It’s a maybe,

but a logical sort of a maybe.

Now let’s talk about what happens if a person

 practices a routine for years,

and especially in conjunction with meditation.

He becomes aware through meditation,

and as he focuses his meditation on his calisthenics,

he achieves a different type of awareness in his calisthenics.

He starts to feel this thing called chi,

a ‘breath energy’ circulating through the body.

He finds this thing called chi is difficult to explain,

but if a person is dedicated to motion,

and to the calm and breathing techniques of meditation…

he can achieve a certain degree of awareness of,

and control over this somewhat invisible energy called chi.

And all this backs up various religious theories.

The interesting thing is that Shaolin happened,

and it is so far back

that all we’ve got is theories.

But we have another art that isn’t thousands of years old.

It is influenced by Shaolin, but…

Tung Haichuan

back in the 1800s

apparently knew some kung fu.

He went into the mountains,

met some monks,

and they taught him how to meditate by walking the circle.

Tung Haichuan supposedly combined

the circle walking and the kung fu

to make Pa Kua Chang.

People immediately invested PKC

with all sorts of religious theories.

The eight trigrams,

all that sort of thing.

A good example of a ‘calisthenic’ being adapted to kung fu,

and kung fu becoming more meditative,

just as what probably happened

thousands of years ago at the Shaolin Temple.

And!

If you look at Karate,

it was a martial art designed by and for palace guards.

Heavy duty self defense

and hard core fighting.

In just a bit over a hundred years it has become

heavily infused with zen concepts.

A martial art expanding awareness

through dedicated and repetitious motion,

until it becomes,

in its purest form,

a source of enlightenment

and spiritual development.

AND…

A good question here is

could MMA become spiritual?

I would guess probably not,

and this simply because the techniques are

more dedicated to destruction than control.

The practitioners might even laugh if 

a student wanted to find the zen

behind an arm bar.

Hey,

it may have taken MANY generations

for Shaolin to become more than

a physical calisthenic for ex-warriors,

and to become a method of awareness and control

and not simply an excuse for destruction.

So that’s my theory,

if you feel it is full of holes,

or you feel some other possibility is probable,

leave comments.

I do want to say that when I developed the 

The Last Martial Arts Book: Nine Square Diagram Boxing

I was trying to create movements

that would have meditative aspects

as in  Tai Chi Chuan and Pa Kua Chang.

I wanted to create a degree of spiritual awareness,

and yet have the art be totally workable on the street.

I want the meditation, the control, the spirituality,

but not at the cost of losing the destructive potential of the art.

Check it out on Amazon,

and if you decide to get it,

make sure you…

GET THE EDITION WITH THE 5 HOURS OF VIDEO LINKS!

Give yourself a present,

and don’t forget to give me five stars!

Have a great work out,

and have a great and profitable New Year!

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)

Republished a Martial Arts Book!

I republished Chiang Nan as a video course book.

It’ll be available on Amazon in a day or two.

It has links to about five hours of video.

So far I have several books repub-ed as ‘video course books.’

How to Fix Karate 1

How to Fix Karate 2

Shaolin Butterfly (the butterfly form) (Kindle)

Shaolin Butterfly

Nine Square Diagram Boxing

Hidden Techniques of Karate (Chiang Nan)

Sales are good, and I thank you.

and I’ll be doing more books,

and writing new ones.

I have a couple of hundred hours of video

that have never seen the light of day,

so I’m looking forward to that.

And,

the courses are still the best source of information.

They have all the videos,

the best videos,

and all the bonuses.

Anyway,

I had a fellow asking about the usage of the hips in the martial arts.

The hips are the cornerstone of the martial arts,

because that is where the major weight of the body resides.

If you hit somebody, 

try to get your whole body behind the strike (block)

If you have to move out of the way,

you have to move the hips to effectively move the body.

Unless you want to bend at the hips and be out of balance.

We used to have an exercise.

We would hold a broom stick across the front of hips

then slam the hips back and forth,

pivoting from one front stance to another.

We would judge out effectiveness

by how well the tips of the broom stick

would snap into place.

Really got us centered down.

But here’s the funny thing,

each art has a specific to the hips.

Consider that there were only three directions that the hips can go,

forward, down and rotational.

In karate you thrust.

You drive the hips forward and align them with the strike or block.

In Pa Kua Chang you rotate the hips.

In Aikido you rotate the hips.

But in all arts you must sink the hips.

Sinking the hips connects with the ground,

braces your technique on the earth itself,

and you might consider a small study in physics

concerning the idea of grounding.

Understand what a ground is in electronics,

what it is in architecture,

and so on,

and suddenly you have the idea.

You see most people don’t understand

that their body is a machine

and that it must function as a machine.

Instead, they get emotional,

they start putting their attention (intention)

on their head,

and the body becomes up rooted easily.

One of my big kicks

was to show somebody how to ground.

I would push on their shoulders

and show them how to let the force

go through their bodies and into the ground.

Then,

when they had it,

I would simply say ‘look up,’

and they would fly away.

The col thing was that after I had done that a few times,

people started learning how to put their intention down,

and not be distracted by up.

In other words,

they learned not to be dependent upon their eyes.

They learned intention

without the distraction of the earthly senses.

Very interesting.

Want to know something REALLY interesting?

I would take a student and deliver strikes and have him give the blocks.

Easy peasy, he’s got it in no time.

Then I would have him close his eyes and I would say,

‘I am striking you slowly,

block when you feel it.’

Sometimes my strike would touch them.

Sometimes they would feet it coming too soon.

But eventually, and we’re talking about an hour or so,

even spread out over a couple of classes,

they would feel me coming and get it right.

Blew their minds.

You don’t need your eyes.

You don’t need your ears.

You just need to know where you are

and forget about what is happening.

It’s that easy,

and it changes everything you do.

It’ll change the way you move.

It’ll change the way you fight.

But don’t believe me.

Try it, you’ll like it.

But you should practice your forms a whole lot

before you try it.

The forms enable you to learn control and discipline,

and control and discipline

is what the martial arts are all about.

Anyway,

I’ll talk more on this stuff some day,

but for now,

check out my books from above

and have a great day.

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…

Fighting Without Fighting!

I want to talk about 

fighting without fighting,

but first…

Thanks to everybody for making How to Fix Karate a Success!

It’s on Amazon.

Now then…

Fighting without fighting.

First, you have to learn to fight.

Nothing stops a fellow from trying to mug you

like him knowing you’re going to come out on top.

Get your black belt,

get zen confidence,

nobody is going to bother you.

You learned to fight so you don’t have to fight.

This is the crux of the second amendment,

for those of you who wondered.

So, 

somebody STILL wants to fight.

This is the one that it took me years to figure out,

and that nobody knows.

I figured it out while figuring out Neutronics.

In this universe there are only objects that move around.

So you’re sitting there peacefully,

and some guy starts moving towards you

and he wants to conk you.

I simply say,

‘you’re coming towards me.’

And he goes away.

Isn’t that weird?

His body is part of the universe,

and his motion has been detected,

and let me tell give you a little bit of data.

The guy that wants to hit you

doesn’t want to be hit.

Except for the truly insane,

nobody wants to be hit,

and the insane don’t really want to either,

if you dig into them a bit.

So you can defeat anybody

simply by observing that they are coming towards you.

They know you see them,

and they don’t want to get hit,

so they leave.

Now,

here is the truly amazing thing about this,

it works against almost any sentient thing.

I’ve used it when a dog wanted to bite me.

A couple of times.

I’ve used it against salespeople.

Isn’t that a kick in the head?

But salespeople who seek you out,

or are a little too much in their sales pitch,

are trying to bully you into something you don’t want.

you just look at them and say,

“You’re coming towards me.”

I’ve used it against people who were bullies.

I’ve used it against people who simply bugged me.

I’ve even used it against those most dangerous of souls…Karens!

However, 

it might not work if you haven’t studied martial arts

and gained that peace of soul

that is the end result of the real martial arts.

And I would be careful in a combat zone.

People in riot are not sentient,

take a look at the Kyle Rittenhouse situation if you doubt.

You can use deviations.

‘I see you’ is good.

And there are others.

But the main thing is to see them,

and let them know they’ve been seen.

Okay,

hope you have fun with this one,

and here’s the obligatory ads,

this for the two two volumes I just published…

How to Fix Karate! (volumes one and two)

volume one is at

And volume two is at…

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…

Beat Corona with Martial Arts!

Newsletter 996

Two for One Corona Martial Arts Special

Hey! hey!
How you all doing?
Lot of people got some time off
and you know what that means…
Training Time!

It’s funny,
I get people who ask me
if I’m worried about the Corona virus.
“Why?” I ask.
“You’re over 70!
You’re at risk!
One out of 10 people over 70…DIE!”

I’m gonna die,
okay,
I’ve known that all along,
everybody dies…
so what?
What is important is not that I’m going to die,
but the quality of my life before I die.

Did I work out every day?
Did I use the lessons of the martial arts?
Was I polite?
Did I make friends instead of enemies?
That’s the important stuff.

And,
news flash for the bozos
who want to get into the death stuff…
after working out every day
for more than 50 years,
I’m in fair good shape.
In fact,
I would put me in the 10-20 age group for risk.
That’s what happens when you work out.
That’s what the martial arts do for you.

So,
let me ask you…
have you worked out today?
Did you work out yesterday and the day before and…so on?
And, if you didn’t…
why not?
Why the F not?
What good is your life
if you don’t make yourself strong,
compassionate,
and learn how to enjoy your life
and the lives of everybody around you?

I guess you can see where this is going.
Yep.
Anybody who orders a course
between now and March 21
can get another one of the same or lesser price.
Two for one.
Yep,
the Corona Martial Arts special,
to encourage all you lazy couch potatoes
to be all the Bruce Lee you can be.

Just put in an order,
then email me at aganzul@gmail.com,
tell me what course you want,
got to be of equal value.
You order a $30 course
you can’t order a $50 course as your second course,
got to be a $30 course (or less).

This is my present to those of you
who want to survive not just the Corona thing,
but for life!
If you want to be stronger,
smarter,
have more friends,
be the one people look to in an emergency….

Two for One until March 31st.
April 1st and i will just write you back and say…Don’t be an April Fool!

Here’s a link

2e Kung Fu Package

Have a great work out!
Al

2e Kung Fu Package

Finding Your Soul Through the Martial Arts

Newsletter 983

The Windows to the Soul of the Martial Arts

I’ve talked about where you put your eyes before.
So let me say it again,
and give you a rather phenomenal martial arts drill.

My first school,
kenpo,
held the belief that you should focus on the chest,
develop peripheral vision when fighting.

My second school,
kang duk won korean karate,
was of a similar opinion.
My instructor,
the best martial artist I have ever known,
took it a step further.
‘Don’t look at the eyes,’
he said.
‘They will fool you.’

Well,
both schools were wrong.
Even the best martial artist I have ever known was wrong.

The eyes are the windows to a man’s soul.
The eyes are nothing but devices.
‘binoculars’ for the spirit that drives a man to look through.
What does the looking is the ‘I am.’
The spirit.
Who you really are.

I find it absolutely fascinating
that so many martial artists will hold to caveman theories
of watching the body,
and refuse to see who they really are.

So,
I get newbies pretty regularly,
and I teach them martial arts,
and I teach them to freestyle.
Shortly after they begin freestyle
I always do the following drill.

I have them stand with their back to the wall.
I tell them to look me in the eyes.
They are always staring away,
looking elsewhere,
it has become hard for man to look his fellow man in the eyes.
Used to be easy.
I met old timers and that is all they did.
Eye to eye,
a firm handshake seals the deal,
an honest day’s work,
that sort of thing.

So I have this fellow standing back to the wall,
I make sure he is looking at me,
and I punch him.
The first dozen punches are easy.
I swing roundhouses.
I punch fast,
but they are easy to see.
Frequently the student will close his eyes.
I do this easy method until he is able to keep his eyes open.
Then I speed up.
I spin and back fist,
I throw an occasional kick,
I have good control,
but the student’s eyes usually open up
as I put a little steam on the strikes.

He blocks them all.

That’s right.
the newbie student blocks virtually
EVERYTHING
I throw.

Why?
Because open eyes create intuition.

If a guy is looking away he is not seeing
and he might as well be unconscious.

If his eyes are open,
if the spirit of the man is actually watching,
there is no limit to what he can do.

From that point on I can teach him anything.
He will learn everything.
And easily.
And if he doesn’t,
I put him to the wall
and open his eyes again.

But…
don’t believe me.
Do it for yourself.
Put some bozo back to the wall,
go slow throw lazy rounders
and make sure he is watching,
that he doesn’t go to sleep with his eyes open.
Guaranteed,
you will have a fast learning student
who will staring looking at the world
in open eyed wonder.

This little drill has been brought to you
by the same fellow who gave you Matrix Karate

1a Matrix Karate

The totally scientific martial art
that opens eyes everywhere
and makes all martial arts quick and simple to learn.

Have a great work out!

Al

A WIN!

Creating Awareness Drills in the Martial Arts

Newsletter 975

The True Martial Art of Awareness

Got a student here,
having a rough time with Tai Chi.
When doing the form
she wants to go to a posture,
strike the posture,
and that’s all.
But the problem is one of awareness.

When I was doing a lot of Pa Kua,
one of the drills I made myself do
was walk the circle
while staring at my finger.
Focus on the finger.
And the point was this…
DO NOT GO UNCONSCIOUS!
In other words,
grow more aware.

When you strike a pose,
this is common in Karate and kung fu,
you have a moment of awareness.
When you follow the finger
as you walk the circle,
you create awareness at all times.
So striking a pose might result in 10% awareness,
but you need to achieve
100% awareness.
Awareness at all times.

If you go to a party,
and you are aware 10% of the time
and a fight breaks out,
there is a 90% chance
you will get struck.

But if you are aware 100% of the time
you will probably avoid getting struck at all.

People think the martial arts are about fighting.
Or building the body,
or quickness or strength,
or winning tournaments,
or making an image to impress the girls.
Martial arts,
TRUE martial arts.
have nothing at all to do with that.
They are about building awareness.

You have to break through the obsession with the body,
then even put aside energy,
and just become aware.

When I walk the circle in Pa Kua
I hold a finger and stare at it without break.

When I do a Tai Chi form I create circles
around my body with my hands,
and I never have a corner,
never pause or speed up,
just hold awareness in every motion I do.

When I do a freestyle drill,
the point is NEVER to beat the other person,
it is to create awareness,
to create a shield of awareness around myself
so that nobody can penetrate,
so that I can deal with anything
because I am aware.

And,
forgive me for the obligatory ad,
but if you are interested in Tai Chi especially,
but any art,
Matrix Tai Chi creates awareness
about ten times better than the classical form.
It is a simple matter of applied logic.
Maybe I’ll go into this in a later newsletter,
but for now,
remember this…
if you want your martial arts to be true
you must create awareness.
Period.

Here’s the link…

2ba Matrix Tai Chi Chuan

Now have a GREAT Fourth of July!
Al

A WIN!

Al, Very early this morning I downloaded the Matrix Tai Chi package and wow! I read through the manual and am very impressed. I cant wait to start practicing what I am reading. The posture matrix and the application matrix, it makes so much sense. It took me a long time to learn the Yang short and long form as well as the Cheng Man Ching 37 form. Using the matrix I could have learned that all much quicker. I also glanced at the form video that came with the download and it reminds me of both Yang and the Cheng Man Ching forms run together but it all makes such perfect sense having read over the manual. I will read the manual over and over as I go through the course. I did the 5 Army Tai Chi course first and love it but I am seeing a lot more in the 5 Army form now having read the manual and all this after a quick read! This is great, I cant wait to get heavy into this program. I will keep you posted and as always, Thanks! ~ Kurt

“If you want to learn to swim jump into the water.
On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you.”
– Bruce Lee

Five Ways the Martial Arts Became Degraded

Newsletter 949

Five Steps of How the Martial Arts Failed!

I’ve spoken before of this,
some of my advertising is aimed at this,
so let me detail some of the exact steps
of how the martial arts degraded.

FIRST,
PROTECTIVE GEAR
One day the head instructor walked in
had a box of protective gear.
So we geared up,
and started hurting each other.
But we hadn’t been injuring each other
before!
Simply,
putting on the gear made us think
that we had to hit harder to have effect,
and,
we thought,
‘oh, we can hit harder,
they have protective gear on,
so it won’t hurt.’
But it did hurt,
and we started getting sprains and deep bruises,
even breaks,
so the protective gear didn’t work,
but the head instructor kept demanding we wear it.
Protective gear meant more money for him.
Interestingly,
protective gear works now,
but that’s because people aren’t teaching the real art,
which you will understand
as you continue with this little essay.

SECOND
EXPANSION
When I started martial arts,
there were maybe a dozen schools.
As the number of schools multiplied,
hard core martial artists stopped coming together
in the few schools,
and were spread out in the many schools.
in the whole SF bay area.

THIRD
KIDS
As the number of schools grew
instructors couldn’t pull in enough people,
but parents were willing to enroll their kids
at an astounding rate.
The art was quickly watered down,
drills were changed,
and protective gear was sold.

FOURTH
TOURNAMENTS
Tournaments were a wonderful way
to enroll people and keep them enrolled.
Unfortunately,
a technique that wins in a tournament
bears little resistance to a real technique.
Also,
there was grown a false sense of ‘penetration’
when it came to striking people.
My own instructor took the to a tournament
this was back in the late sixties,
and walked out mid-tournament.
The techniques were simply so degraded
he couldn’t encourage his students to learn them.

FIFTH
POLITICS
Back in the very early 70s
my instructor was sitting at his desk,
and two Koreans walked in.
They told him that
The Korean Martial Arts Association was being disbanded,
and if he joined the new Taekwondo association
he would be promoted two belts
(he was sixth black at the time)
and every black belt in his school would be promoted one belt,
and they would all get to learn brand new forms!
Forms that would replace the old ones,
which, according to these two Koreans,
were old and didn’t work.
Interestingly enough, this same association,
since that time,
has gone through two or three new sets of forms,
and there are even people who have returned
to those bad old forms
taught at schools
such as the Kang Duk Won.
This was politics,
TKD, sad to say,
was an invention by a military general
so Korea could have its own
more national art.
And so what if it didn’t work.

SUMMARY
So,
that’s the truth.
If I have stepped on toes,
sorry,
but I was there.
I saw this stuff first hand,
I experienced this stuff first hand.
It really happened.
And if you don’t like what I have said,
do some research,
if you can find histories that weren’t written
by some school for advertising,
you will come to the conclusion
that I am not kidding.

Now,
does that make the martial art bad?
No.
People have overcome bad training,
politics,
tournaments,
and other misfortunes.
The art is about people,
and the deeper a person delves into an art,
the more sure it is
that they will find the truth of the martial arts.

But there are systems which are ALL messed up.
and which are being sold as the next great thing.
And they CAN be fixed.
But you need a bit of matrixing.

But,
I don’t want to push matrixing here,
I want to push history,
I want to push actual,
physical martial arts.

I wrote five books,

Pan Gai Noon
Kang Duk Won
Kwon Bup
Outlaw Karate
Buddha Crane Karate

You can find them on Amazon.
Or,
better,
if you go through the website
you can find video courses in which I show these arts.
These courses often have the books (in PDF)
bundled in with the videos.
That’s your best deal.

Now,
I am not pushing remembering dates,
who taught who and why it matters.
I am pushing an actual progression through history,
China to Okinawa to Japan to America…
…to matrixing.
You can actually do the very techniques of which I speak,
you can see how they evolved from art to art,
country to country,
concept to concept.
Kung Fu to Karate to Matrixing.
And that is better than reading a thousand encyclopedias.
This is a PHYSICAL history of the martial arts.
This is the martial arts being written on your bones,
not a bunch of significant words on paper,
which may or may not be important,
but are definitely slanted to whoever writes them.
Better to do than talk about.

Okay,
end of push,
thanks for listening.

Here’s a list of some of my books,
including the ‘historical’ encyclopedia.

Karate Books

Have a great work out!
Al

Karate Books

Here’s a great win…

A WIN!

Al,

I have gone through many of your courses and am currently going through blinding steel and eventually on my way to forty monkeys. I recently went through your book Matrixing Tong Bei. Several things clicked and the martial arts universe opened up after finishing that book.

Respectfully,
Tyler K

Iron Fist, Iron Body…the Truth

Get Yer Iron Fist Right Here!

We’ve all heard the Kung Fu stories, guy hits the master and hurts his hand. Knives are blunted upon the master’s body.

The Age of Kenpo Karate

And, during the Boxer Rebellion, bullets bounced off bodies. And, over the years, most stories have been proven full of crap.

People died in the Boxer Rebellion, victim to bushwah propaganda and fantasy. And, if there are any fellows out there who would like to blunt the tip of my Cold Steel, send me an e-mail and a release form.

However, bushwah aside, there are very real gains to be made from developing iron bodies, fists of steel, and so on.

We all want more effective blocks and strikes, and some of these methods do have incredible value. The question, of course, is which method works the best?

Chinese Kung Fu preach various iron palm potions, if you soak your hands before and after working out, the tissue remains pliable and yet still retains the value of the work out. Thus, you can pound on beans and sand and pellets of iron until your cup runneth over.

My only problem with this method is that I believe in methods which don’t rely on the body, I prefer methods which use the power of the mind. Tai Chi, for instance, speaks of a pliable body which whipcracks with power, soft on the outside, hard on the inside.

I think this is probably preferable to bruise potions, but one would have to spend a lot of time studying the various Tai Chi arts to attain what one is seeking. Be prepared to study Chen for power, Yang for workable posture, Wu for subtle motions, Sun for twisting effects, and so on.

Now, to be truthful, just doing karate forms is going to give you an ‘iron body.’ The problem is that most people do the forms wrong, the actual technology of doing karate forms the correct way has, for the most part, been lost.

But, if you can find the correct way of doing forms, then you can, within the space of about two years, learn how to maximize energy within your body to withstand a strike, and concentrate energy into your hands for striking.

The best way of developing power, not needing esoteric knowledge or magic potions, is simply to set up a stand which supports a brick, and drop the palm on it.

Place a folded wash cloth over it to protect the palm, and don’t strike too hard, and just drop the palm. The trick is to be willing to do it for an hour at a time.

I know people will have other methods, and I am always fascinated by what people prefer in this matter. The things I have said in this article I have formulated over four decades and through a variety of experiences with a variety of arts. So feel free to respond to this article, or to write your own article and offer your own opinion.

About the author: Al Case has near 50 years experience int he martial arts. Check out his book, ‘Matrixing Chi,’ at MonsterMartialArts.com.

Boy Wears Tin Skull Cap to Avoid Shaolin Gung Fu!

Kung Fu Builds Strong Minds!

Yes, unbelievable but true, a young boy, who definitely didn’t want to learn Shaolin Gung Fu, has taken to wearing a tin skull cap.
The boy’s father apparently wanted to teach him good Shaolin, and he would say things like, ‘if you don’t study martial arts you will have a weak mind, then the government will control you with their radio frquencies.’
The boy thought that if he wore a metal cap as protection against the radio waves he wouldn’t have to study kung fu. Which is to say, he wouldn’t have to have a strong mind.

The Best Way to Learn Shaolin Gung Fu! Click on the Cover!

The scientific truth behind this odd tale is that the body is a like a machine, and the brain is like a radio station.
Unfortunately, the radio station ‘brain’ is victim to so much static that it starts to generate its own static. The old ‘garbage in garbage out’ theory.

A study of Kung fu, such as Shaolin, focusing the mind on ‘one thing,’ will train the individual to ignore the static, and the mind will come under control, and then the radio frequencies broadcast by the government will pass right through the ‘empty mind.’

The static that is absorbed by the brain can actually come from several sources.
Drugs tend to unfocus the individual, encouraging a form of static.
The government puts out special frequencies at places across the globe in order to control mankind on a mass level.
Even education is a culprit in this sad saga, as modern education is so lacking in even basic common sense that the result is more confusion among students, rather than competence and clarity, resulting in an ‘educated’ population that will do as they are told, and not what is right.

Thus, the boy’s father was right, and the boy was wrong, but, if he persists in wearing a tinfoil beanie he will doubtless remain stupid and prone to distractions and become just one more ‘mind number robot’ having existence as a human being.

The solution? Study Shaolin Kung Fu, or Karate or Aikido, or any other form of body discipline…for to discipline the body is to discipline the mind.

A good place to start would be the martial arts lessons available at MonsterMartialArts.com. They are very logical, easy to do, and will cause the body, and mind, to become strong enough to resist any form of distraction.
Remember, good Shaolin Gung Fu results in strong human beings.