Martial Arts Injuries in Brazilian Jujitsu!

Recently read an article that claimed

Brazilian Jujitsu was causing lots of injuries.

I find this fascinating.

When I started Kenpo Karate back in 67,

within two years I had broken my toes twice,

my hand once

and needed to repair a cracked tooth,

and I attributed these injuries to two things.

First,

poor instruction.

Can’t argue with that.

Second,

protective gear.

Our instructor came out to the freestyle class one day.

He had a couple of large boxes filled with protective gear.

“Okay, guys,

now we can fight without getting injured.”

Oh, Lord, the injuries piled up.

Everybody thought they could hit harder,

everybody thought they had to hit harder.

They stopped learning control

and started punching harder.

When I went to a classical school

(Kang Duk Won)

I learned what power was. 

By learning what real control was.

This school was ten times harder than the Kenpo school,

I ended up with so many bruises I couldn’t press the clutch pedal.

But I never received an injury.

Good instruction and no protective gear.

We learned to be protective of our partners,

and to be precise in our control.

We learned the consequences of poor control

through the ministrations of our ‘gentle’ seniors.

in other words,

if you showed poor control

a higher belt would step in and show you consequences.

But they did it with good control.

It was actually a very humane lesson.

Brazilian Jujitsu has lots of injuries.

There is no arguing that. 

I have seen good schools with lots of injuries.

Especially to the hands and wrists.

Poor instruction?

Maybe.

But I would tend to think it is young turks

getting over excited by the action.

But here’s the thing…

if you do jujitsu correctly

if you find the angles

and use gentle force,

it works.

That’s what the name means.

Jujitsu means ‘gentle trick.’

But I see people,

especially in the cage,

where victory is more important than your opponent’s body,

who use full force

and crank to the max,

and who,

in rare matches,

can’t even be pulled off their opponent.

It is interesting,

we live in degraded times,

where honor is not as valuable as a punch in the face.

Thus, there aren’t many voices asking for

more rules to protect the fighter.

To be truthful,

I am not fond of rules.

Rules are needed in contests

where the participants might be out of control.

they don’t have self control,

and there is a need for ‘other’ control.

such as referees,

fines and punishments like being banned.

It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out.

But,

in the meantime,

I’ll stick with the classic arts

who preach honor and virtue,

over ‘winning at all costs.’

Okay,

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and enjoy the rest of this winter.

It’s almost spring,

and that is training time in my book!

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 the book that works for you.

How to Fix Karate:

A Karate Training and Workout Book

 (Two Volumes)

Duc Tape and WD40 in the Martial Arts

A fellow once told me that the two most important things in life

are duc tape and WD40.

This is because everything is either falling apart,

or getting smunched together.

Makes sense, eh?

So I’ve been working on a Neutronics book

and I realized a couple of things.

There are three problems in life.

For a body it is inflammation.

For a mind it is tension.

For a spirit it is lies.

On the body level it is inflammation.

Well, actually it is inflammation or compression.

Inflammation is when your body has an illness of some sort.

Inflammation is generally a germ,

but it could be food, DNA, or whatever.

Compression is when you get in an accident.

Compression is you took a wrong turn,

were in the wrong place at the wrong time,

and that fellow in a Ford smacked you.

On the mental level,

all problems come from two terminals opposing.

Two terminals opposing could be a push or a pull.

There are A LOT of potentials

when applying this to the mind.

You disagree with others,

you disagree with ideas,

you disagree.

The basic problem here,

when you break it down enough,

is that  since the mind is nothing but a bunch of memories,

there is a conflict between memories and reality.

On the spiritual level

all problems come from a lie.

Lying creates tension in the mind,

and can cause the body to get sick.

this distracts one from the truth of the spirit.

This makes life hard to live.

These three things are interconnected.

And the results of dealing with these things

on a neutronic level can be interesting.

You can handle inflammation with certain herbs and such,

and sometimes drugs.

You can handle compression with surgery.

Handling the body in this way will usually work,

unless you go off and die,

but it ignores the tension in the mind

and the distraction of the spirit.

You can handle your mental turmoil

by getting rid of problems.

This can be done on the surface,

but the real handling is going to take place deep in your mind.

Handling the mind in this way usually works, 

unless your mind is really messed up.

but it ignores the fact

that the spirit is still messed up.

If you didn’t allow the spirit to become distracted,

which includes concepts such as:

tension, splintering, shattering, etc.,

and usually means a lack of integrity or wholeness,

you would rarely become ill

or even confused in your life.

To handle the spirit is the easiest of all,

yet almost no one does it.

To stop lying you must be ruthlessly honest with yourself.

You must tell the truth at all times,

and develop virtues such as

compassion, kindness, patience, and so on.

You should find a list of virtues and start practicing them today.

That’s it.

If you handle the spirit,

if you stop lying,

then the mind is no longer stressed

and the inflammation is cured,

and you have a harmonious person.

This is actually pretty important stuff.

And I figured it out simply from observing the world,

talking to people,

and Matrixing.

When you do the martial arts

it tends to handle the body.

A handled body handles the mind,

a handled mind can handle the spirit.

If the martial art is messy

it takes a while, 

and can even fail.

If the martial art is matrixed,

which is to say logical and aligned,

the body is aligned and won’t suffer inflammation so easily.

the mind refuses the tension of opposing terminals

and ceases being distracted,

and the spirit becomes harmonious.

If this doesn’t make sense you should read

this newsletter over a few times.

Doing a Matrixed Martial Art

aligns the data of motion.

This aligns the mind so it stops distracting,

and the spirit becomes harmonious.

Obligatory ad for this wonderful bit of wisdom…

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This is a complete and matrixed art,

Applicable on the street,

as meditative as Tai Chi Chuan,

and modular in construction like Pa Kua Chang.

Give yourself a present for Christmas,

and don’t forget to give me five stars!

Another Neutronics book will be here in a couple of months!

Have a great work out,

and HanaKwanMass to all!

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)

How to Learn the Key Karate Relaxation Technique

Key Karate Relaxation Technique

In Karate, or Kung Fu or any martial art, relaxation techniques are the key to success.

If you are relaxed you can move faster. If you are relaxed you can more easily summon rigidity. If you are relaxed you can better perceive what is happening around you.

Practicing Relaxing in 1974.

The first and most important thing in utilizing this key karate technique is to control your breathing. This means you breath in when contracting the body, and you breath out when expanding the body, or getting struck or when striking (blocking, etc.)

Now, that is the basic, and it is just the start of it all. The real key is take the significance out of any motion you make, or any technique you do.

You see, most people get all wound up, try to get totally rigid and think about power, power, power. But power doesn’t depend on how rigid you get, it depends on how much relaxation you have before you get rigid.

So you have to relax, not think about hitting, or power, or how much damage you are going to do; you have to relax your mind.

Let me give you a weird but totally spot on analogy about this.

You are going to propose to your girlfriend, you are nervous, this is a big step, you take her to dinner, try to get everything just right, and you’re down on one knee, and your mouth turns to mush. You stumble and blither and words are all confusing.

Well, that was a very significant moment.

But what if you had a beer, you were laughing and joking with another couple at a pizza hall, and one of your friends says, ‘Hey, when are you guys gonna tie the knot?’

You look at your girl and laugh, and there is a look in the eyes, and you quickly and easily pop out with, ‘This saturday?’

Well, it wasn’t significant. No problemo. And everything turns out just right.

Now, you are facing king kong, big match for the championship, you edge in, you want to move fast, but you are just a little too tense…and he points you.

Well, too much significance.

So how are you going to take the significance out of the moment? How are you going to step up to the plate and hit a home run, instead of an out?

By mentally relaxing.

And how do you mentally relax when all the chips are on the table?

By being professional.

I know, I promised you a key technique, and this is more than a technique, but I need you to understand something.

Relax, dedicate yourself, learn to laugh at your mistakes, and practice so much, do your moves so many times, look at the technique so often, that it just doesn’t have any significance.

Your instructor can point you, but he is a professional, he has practiced that move till it has no significance, and he has trained so many people on it that he thoroughly understands it. So when you face him, he can see you coming a mile away.

He is professional in his training, and that has made him relaxed in his viewpoint.

Can you train that long and that diligently? Can you do that simple technique a million times, and therefore lose the significance of it, mentally relax, and just do it?

Guaranteed, being professional in your attitude, in your training, in your approach to the martial arts and people…that is the key karate relaxation technique, and it will make everything else in your life work.