How to Tell if A Martial Arts School is Any Good!

Newsletter 775
How to Tell if A Martial Arts School is Any Good!

Good afternoon
Perfect afternoon, actually,
because I get to work out!
how about you?

New Book on Yoga. Click the cover!

Sorry i am getting behind on the newsletters,
just have a lot to do.

I was thinking the other day
about how people can tell whether a martial art school
is good or bad.
I mean…
how do you tell?
Trophies don’t mean much,
loud mouths don’t mean much,
so how?
And i realized there was one way to,
if not tell how good a school is,
at least to elevate it to good consideration.
Simply go in and chat,
and look around,
and see how many injuries there are.
Do students talk about getting their fingers broke?
Toes?
Loose teeth?
This is the sign of a bad school.
A good school,
with the techniques practiced properly
will not have many injuries.
Yes,
lots of bruises,
maybe a bloody lip,
maybe a mouse,
but no broken bones.
No hip replacements,
broken noses,
or other signs of people out of control.

The martial arts are all about control.
Can you control the other fighter?
Or do you have to hurt him to control him?

Hurting to control is not control at all.

Here’s the thing,
you practice the martial arts not to beat people up,
but rather to learn how to control yourself.
Once you learn how to control your own body,
the second stage is to control the other person’s body.
That’s what the martial arts are really all about.

When I was practicing Kenpo,
back in 67,
I broke a toe,
I broke a finger,
and I was always going slow
because of pulled muscles,
and other sorts of things.

When I joined the Kang Duk Won
we fought three times harder,
easily,
and I never broke anything.
I got more bruises,
but less injuries.
The students knew they could hurt each other,
so they didn’t try,
they tried to control themselves well enough,
so that they could control the other person.

It’s not about fighting.
It’s about the discipline of self control.
You don’t fight,
you scientifically analyze,
you break down the techniques,
and apply them carefully,
so the other person is not hurt,
but is controlled.

That’s the whole thing,
right there,
in a nutshell.

So think about it,
stop lusting for power,
and start searching for control.
It is so much more satisfying,
and will take you to the true martial arts.

Okay,
check out The Master Instructor Course
Only one of its kind,
the actual physics
of how to control your own body,
or somebody else’s body.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4-master-instructor-course/

I keep pushing this,
because it is so unique,
so important,
and will change your martial arts,
and all martial arts.
Period.

Now,
have a great work out!
Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4-master-instructor-course/

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

The Perfect Martial Arts Body

How to Get the Perfect Martial Arts body

Some guy looks like an elephant, another guy looks like a twig, another guy is lifting weights like they are going out of style. Some guy is working on speed, another guy is working on power, and another guy is working on technique. And the question here is…what is the best type of body to have in the martial arts. What is the perfect martial arts body.

For the perfect Martial Arts body download ‘Yogata: The Yoga Kata.’ Click on the cover above…

Do you want a body that is filled with muscle, and so strong that if it gets hit it doesn’t hurt? Do you want a body that is lean and lithe and able to be flexible out of any situation? What is the best kind of body to have in the martial arts?

The solution lies in comparing and contrasting types and attributes. A body with lots of muscle has fast strength, but it is usually short on endurance. Carrying those muscles around costs something in the length of energy.

A body that is too lean has flexibility and speed, but sometimes you need mass and weight to make a punch potent. A punch depends upon transferring weight, you see, and if the body doesn’t have the weight, the punch will suffer. The trade off here is that if your body is skinny you can increase your speed, which will increase weight, but that is not always reliable in a fighting situation.

So this is what I want you to do to solve the conundrum. First, give up all fast food and soda drinks. This stuff is pure killer, and that is easily proven if you just look at the people coming out of the doors of your local hamburgery.

Second, give up all pasta, bread, and that sort of thing. Your body doesn’t digest synthetic food easily, and the food tends to congest and make the body fat. Really, examine all the foods you eat, and avoid anything that is manufactured.

Okay, you’re saving truckloads of money by eating veggies with a bit of protein every day. The protein could be hamburger patties, portions of chicken, turkey, fish, and so on. Red meat should be rationed out gently.

What you are going to observe is the weight will drop off easily and smoothly. You’re body is going to become lean and muscled and last long and have tons of extra energy, and this will start happening almost overnight, at the least, you will notice differences within a week or two. Combine this with your martial arts work out and you will shortly find that your body begins to assume the perfect shape, bulk, mass, speed, and everything else, for you are now eating what nature designed for it.

Kick start yourself to the Perfect Martial Arts body with Yogata: the Yoga Kata.

How to Create a Motor in the Martial Arts

Here an old post that deserves a new read…

One of the more profound mysteries in the martial arts is the concept of Chi. Chi is a mystical energy that pervades the universe in mysterious ways. And, chi is supposed to be a mystical energy that after a lifetime, you can use to do superhuman things. Unfortunately, proof seems to be sadly lacking for these claims concerning Chi. Maybe there are a few people who can do things, but most people can’t, and just a few exceptions here and there don’t prove the truth of certain theories concerning the subject of Chi. Fortunately, there is a theory that will result in Chi, that is not mystical, and that will work. A motor is two terminals which result in tension. Everything in the universe can be defined as a motor. Every tension in the universe is the result of a motor. An atom has a proton and electron interchanging to create energy. A cell has sodium and potassium interacting to create energy. Everywhere in the universe that you find two terminals opposing, you will find energy, and you will find a motor. And, when you take a martial arts stance with the human body, you have increased your weight, and this causes energy to move between the body and the planet. When you shift the weight from leg to leg, from stance to stance, the weight moves up and down the legs, and this excites the tan tien, a spot two inches below the navel which generates energy for the body. Thus, there is energy, and the body is a motor, and you can call this energy chi. Here’s the problem: everybody concentrates on making the body strong, and so creates only the low level chi required to operate the body. What people should be doing is focusing awareness on the procedure. If you build the awareness it takes to create the energy, you will build the energy that will result in the ‘superhuman’ potential that people look to Chi for. Thus, do your form, build awareness, and concentrate not on the violence of action, not on building the body, but on becoming aware of what you are doing. Feel the energy going down and up your legs, feel the energy building in the tan tien, and feel your connection with the planet. Do this and you will shortly become aware of energy building in your body in a surprising way. Energy that tingles a body part just by thinking of it, energy that warms the palms upon mere thought. Energy that can be channeled throughout your body and into the various body parts, and can even be felt outside your body. Once you have started building energy in this manner, then you can start searching for more spectacular ways to use it.

How to Create a Motor in the Martial Arts

One of the more profound mysteries in the martial arts is the concept of Chi. Chi is a mystical energy that pervades the universe in mysterious ways. And, chi is supposed to be a mystical energy that after a lifetime, you can use to do superhuman things. Unfortunately, proof seems to be sadly lacking for these claims concerning Chi. Maybe there are a few people who can do things, but most people can’t, and just a few exceptions here and there don’t prove the truth of certain theories concerning the subject of Chi. Fortunately, there is a theory that will result in Chi, that is not mystical, and that will work. A motor is two terminals which result in tension. Everything in the universe can be defined as a motor. Every tension in the universe is the result of a motor. An atom has a proton and electron interchanging to create energy. A cell has sodium and potassium interacting to create energy. Everywhere in the universe that you find two terminals opposing, you will find energy, and you will find a motor. And, when you take a martial arts stance with the human body, you have increased your weight, and this causes energy to move between the body and the planet. When you shift the weight from leg to leg, from stance to stance, the weight moves up and down the legs, and this excites the tan tien, a spot two inches below the navel which generates energy for the body. Thus, there is energy, and the body is a motor, and you can call this energy chi. Here’s the problem: everybody concentrates on making the body strong, and so creates only the low level chi required to operate the body. What people should be doing is focusing awareness on the procedure. If you build the awareness it takes to create the energy, you will build the energy that will result in the ‘superhuman’ potential that people look to Chi for. Thus, do your form, build awareness, and concentrate not on the violence of action, not on building the body, but on becoming aware of what you are doing. Feel the energy going down and up your legs, feel the energy building in the tan tien, and feel your connection with the planet. Do this and you will shortly become aware of energy building in your body in a surprising way. Energy that tingles a body part just by thinking of it, energy that warms the palms upon mere thought. Energy that can be channeled throughout your body and into the various body parts, and can even be felt outside your body. Once you have started building energy in this manner, then you can start searching for more spectacular ways to use it.

The Difference between Fixed Zen and Martial Arts Zen

Getting Your Zen Together with Martial Arts

One of the most important things

you can do in the martial arts

is get your zen together.

 

Fixed Zen will Expand your Moving Zen

Now,

I am going to swing wide on this,

so stay with me.

 

In the book

Zen and the Art of Archery

by Eugene Herrigle (spelling?)

the author travels to Japan to study zen.

But they won’t let him.

All the priests turn him down,

they say that his western mind won’t be able to absorb it.

They tell him,

instead,

to study something ‘with’ zen.

Like the tea ceremony,

or flower arranging,

or…archery.

 

He chose archery.

And,

he experienced zen,

and the book is quite fascinating to read.

Go get it if you wish,

but let’s us take a quick side step.

 

When you do Karate,

or any martial art,

you get a certain amount of zen.

 

The word zen translates as ‘meditative state.’

So you do Karate and you enter into a sort of meditative state.

I say sort of because we are talking broadly,

not about matrixed martial arts

where you get your zen together

right from the get go.

 

But what is this meditative state?

Is it the sound of one hand clapping?

Is it learning to be attentive?

Is it one of a thousand other things?

 

Yes, it is,

and no, it isn’t.

 

Zen is learning to focus your awareness on the moment.

You can slice that into a thousand different pieces

and end up with a thousand different zens,

all of them valid.

 

When you do Karate you focus on the punch,

on the block and the kick,

on the doing in practice,

in the receiving in freestyle,

and this all jacks up your awareness.

 

But if you practice only freestyle,

then you lose half your zen right from the get go.

And you know the old saying,

half a loaf of zen doesn’t deserve any butter.

Okay,

I just made that up.

Sorry.

 

but the point is this…

Good martial arts makes for awareness.

Zen makes for awareness.

Martial Arts is a moving awareness,

and zen is a fixed awareness.

 

You have people that like one but not the other,

and they are being half loafed about it.

 

You simply MUST have both

if you are to have all.

Do you understand?

 

If you study Karate you won’t have the tai chi.

If you study Tai Chi you won’t have the karate.

You can’t study yin without the yang,

and vice versa,

because that won’t give you the whole yin yang.

That is an absolute and don’t even try to argue because I’ll just call you stupid.

Or blind.

 

But let’s expand this from karate and tai chi,

to martial arts and zen.

 

Now,

personally,

when I began my studies of zen

I didn’t last too long.

Boring.

Sitting.

Doing nothing.

No directions.

Waiting for the lighting of the Cosmic All to strike me.

No joy.

 

But that moving zen stuff,

that karate,

and then shaolin and wing chun and aikido and, and, and…

and all the other martial arts I studied,

they really worked for me.

But,

though I had a high degree of zen

I knew I hadn’t really gotten into fixed zen.

So I put Yogata together.

Number one,

it is like a kata.

It is motion.

But it is so slow,

and you can drag it out,

that it is fixed.

And it does a lot more for your body.

You learn to relax your mind

no matter what the tension on your body.

And,

you get to the point where you can sit int he zen

and not be bored.

 

So I got my fixed zen together.

 

If you have beaten and bruised, and sometimes even broken, body

then yogata enables you to relax it back together.

 

If you are stiff and rigid,

and you know there is truth in the old saying

that a relaxed muscle is a strong muscle,

then yogata can do that for you.

 

If you just want a warm up,

yogata can do that for you.

 

But,

if you are at the highest reaches of the martial arts,

and want to expand from moving zen to fixed zen,

if you want to expand your awareness

beyond what it is capable of through martial arts…

 

yogata can do that for you.

 

Here’s the URL…

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/yogata-the-yoga-kata/

 

Or,

if you really want to get into it,

here’s the website I have been playing with

dedicated to yogata

and yoga stuff in general…

 

http://yogata.org

 

Oinkley doggie,

time for me to get my morning work out in,

(and that always includes a bit of Yogata)

and start this day off like a rocket!

 

Have a  great work out!

Al

 

 

BTW,

I’ve been publishing some of the old articles and newsletters,

here’s three interesting ones.

 

Combat Strategies in Shaolin Gung Fu!

https://alcase.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/combat-strategies-in-the-shaolin-butterfly/

 

Energy Beams in the Martial Arts

https://alcase.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/energy-beams-in-the-martial-arts/

 

Mental Martial Arts

https://alcase.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/mental-martial-arts/

 

Press the FB LIKE button.

Mental Martial Arts

A Silent Mind and Monkeyland…

Good morning
and a GREAT work out to you!

Is it better to feel up or down?
up, right?
And a work out causes you to go up,
to feel better,
so,
I repeat…
a GREAT workout to you!

Now,
the big news is Monkeyland.
I’ll talk about it in a minute,
but first,
I wanted to share a thought
on what happens to your mind when you matrix.

First,
there is relief.
All the jumbled up techniques suddenly fit together.
You can see the blank spaces, where techniques were missing,
you stop hesitating and intuition starts to kick in.
Simply,
the techniques you have been memorizing suddenly make sense,
and become accessible without thought.

This thing of doing without thinking is incredibly interesting.
A baseball player takes off at the crack of the bat.
He’s all the way out in centerfield,
how did he know how to run at the crack of the bat?
He hasn’t had time to study the trajectory of the ball,
yet…he knows where the ball is going.
That is a zen moment.
That is a moment of intuition.
And the question here,
really,
is how do we make our entire lives into a zen moment?
Why do we have to leave the zen moment and return
to the old knock on wood world?
Why do we have to go back to thinking?

This is the purpose of the martial arts,
this is what they are all about,
to take us out of the reaction time, apple falls on head world,
and to put us in a zen universe,
a world where our every action is instant and intuitive.

Now,
as I said,
when you matrix the martial arts you feel relief,
the more martial arts you know,
the greater the feeling of relief,
but the real cool stuff starts happening when your mind starts getting silent.

After you matrix your mind will relax and you will start to experience mental silence.

When you walk down the street
your mind is usually filled with junk.
Thoughts about what you’re going to do,
does he or she like me,
contemplations on work,
and all sorts of other things.
Simply,
you are thinking ALL the time.
The mind just won’t stop…
it just won’t shut up.

After you matrix you feel relief,
but something else has started,
your mind has started to calm down.
It is talking because it is confused,
is one way to look at it.
But,
any way you look at it,
calmed down,
the mind starts to go neutronic.
It starts to shut up,
and you start to look at the world
without having all this thinking crap going on in your mind.

It is a blessed silence.

So here are some things to think about
to help you come to grips with this silence,
and to make it happen quicker.
Mind you,
the things I say will work for martial arts that are not matrixed,
but they will take twenty or thirty years to happen.
With matrixed minds,
everything happens faster.
Logic always works faster.

First,
have you ever engrossed yourself in a good book?
You put it down and suddenly wonder where the time went.
Your mind wasn’t thinking,
because it was busy generating a world
out of the words you read.

when you do a form,
you want to get that feeling,
of investing yourself in the form,
of creating emotion and movement so intently,
that you stop thinking.

Simply,
you are so busy concentrating on one thing,
that you forget about the world.

Try standing and holding your arm out
with the index finger raised.
Stare at that finger.
Every time your thoughts start to wander,
every time you lose focus and start to think,
examine the finger.
Look at the sworls, the curves, the nail…
examine it,
lose yourself in examining your finger.

The point here is simply to learn how to focus your attention
so that your mind doesn’t generate a bunch of crap.
This is a simple exercise in how to remain focused and attentive,
but on what you want…
not on what your mind wants.

Guaranteed,
after a while you will experience the blessed silence.
You will be face to face with the world,
with no bushwah thoughts getting between you and the world.
It is a very special place,
it is a very zen place.

And it will happen faster if you matrix.

Here’s the first course…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/matrix-karate/

You do Matrix Karate,
you learn Karate if you don’t know it,
or you finally understand Karate if you have already been studying it.
Now,
take whatever art you wish,
plug it into the matrix.

Take the high block in your rare and esoteric system of Golden Fu,
put it where the Matrix high block is.
Do the same for all the blocks.
Put your blocks into the Matrix forms, high for high, low for low, and so on.
Do the Matrix of blocks,
plugging your blocks into the thing.

Zingo bingo,
your art is matrixed.
You still have a complete classic art of your own,
but it suddenly becomes understandable.
Techniques that were hidden pop out at you.
Gaps in training routines become visible,
and you can fix them!

And your mind will start to become silence,
and you will finally see the world
that the chattering of your mind
has stopped you from seeing.

Oinkey donkey,
Monkeyland.

I’ve got a complete list of things to research…
garden boxes,
how to keep animals out of the garden boxes,
morphing them into green houses,
green houses into meditation rooms.
Interesting stuff,
with an overall aesthetic to it all.
A plan.

And, the thing I’m working on this week…how much is chicken feed?
How do I generate food for chickens without paying out money?
Because everything has to eventually be self sufficient.
Everything has to go natural as soon as possible.

And,
I’ll be honest,
I’ve never done anything like this before,
so I am confused and dazed and…quite enthralled.

But,
the real plans are in the martial arts programs.
I’m figuring out plans for seekers (postulants), novices (novitiates), monks, and so on.
How much art do I give for each level,
how do I tie it in with neutronics, and so on.

And,
Monster has to stay afloat,
because there are going to be people who are more interested in martial arts
and don’t want any religious bushwah infringing upon them.
I understand and empathize.
They are the recruits from which I will draw
after they have had some matrixing,
and have realized that they can make the world into a zen universe.

So in addition to terracing the hilltops,
making work out places for every art,
I think about things like libraries,
and living quarters,
and everything.
And I am really concerned about making a curriculum
that really works.

Now,
that said,
as you might expect,
price of courses will be rising.
Heck,
you all know I’ve been too low for too long,
and I’ve got a temple to build,
unless,
of course,
some happy millionaire out there
wants to donate a million bucks.
That would certainly help out.

Anyway,
you’ve got about a week,
then I’ve got to raise the prices,
so take advantage while you can.
And you might consider starting with Matrix Karate.
It’ll be the first course for Postulants (seekers),
and people will be expected to know it before they even get invited to Monkeyland.
Here’s that URL again…

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/matrix-karate/

Now,
I’ve spoken enough,
got to get to work,
got to make this thing happen.
And I thank everyone who sent in their well wishings and congrats to me.
I appreciate all of your thoughts
and will try to live up to them.
Thanks,
and have a great work out!

Al

Chi and the Truth!

Chi and the Truth! Chi, a mysterious energy which surrounds us, constructs us, is us, and…what is it?

To understand what Chi is it is necessary to define exactly who and what we are.

To define who we are it is necessary to analyze the shape of our true body. Your immediate body is the body you are currently in, the one which is playing the guitar, typing the keyboard, talking to friends and using of the six senses.

We are the eyeball and the eardrum and the hair and throat and toenails and everything that is in between and has organic sensation. We journey about the planet and have fleshy existence, and we pursue fleshy pleasures. The body we really care about is the body that is constructed of Chi. This is the body as far as we can perceive, and note that I don’t say experience through the senses.

Indeed, to experience the larger body of yourself you often have to put aside concepts of the six senses, you have to experience life beyond the immediate body. This brings us to the concept that if everything is our body, then what is this thing called Chi?

Chi is the organic thing you have presence in, that thing you call a body, and everything else, too. It could be a wavelength, or an idea, it doesn’t really matter as long as we understand that it is. How do we take control this thing we call Chi?

I mean, if you can move an move your limbs and walk about, why can’t you move that cloud or make the seas surge…if they really are part of our True Body?

Why can’t you stop that volcano, or make it rain when the crops need it, or pull the plug on the those filthy politicos that keep wasting all our resources?

The first reason we can’t make our true Body work is that we are not used to making it work. We are used to sitting around and being made stupid by pills and TV and the things that lull our senses, and our sense of our True Body, into unconsciousness.

We can undo that by turning off the TV, or any type of programming that does not allow honest exchange, and by practicing a discipline. The discipline you practice must make you look at your immediate body, unbind your senses, excite your imagination, and open you up to the idea of your True Body.

The discipline you practice must cause you to examine your immediate body until there is no mystery to it, and so that it is not merely an exercise in scientific examination.

The discipline you practice must make full use of your senses until you step beyond your senses, outside of your immediate body, and experience your True Body. If you are still unable to perspire the rain and wave the clouds at will, then you must understand that the True Body you are occupying is also being occupied by everybody else on the planet. Thus, to make your True Body move, you must make everybody else turn off their TVs and stop taking pills and let go of their unconscious and freezing hold on the True Body. You do this by helping them find a True Discipline that will take them beyond their immediate body and awaken them and take them.

Yoga Healing and the Inertia of Pain

Yoga Healing the Right Way!

There once was a young man, only sixty or seventy, and he had started thinking he was old. Now thinking that one is old entails a lot of misery, and the old fellow started thinking that his joints were stiff, and so they were stiff. And, he thought maybe he had diabetes, so he had diabetes, and a lot of other stuff.

But, that was okay, reasoned the fellow, he had lived a good life. It was just a fact of life that he get old and miserable. That’s the way it had been through the ages, so why would it be different for him?

We do Yoga all-l-l-l the way around here!

So he hobbled through the streets of life, becoming more and more bent over, feeling the aches and pains, and eventually he started thinking that maybe it was time to forget about life. Go on from the body. Die.

And, after one particularly brutal day of dealing with his pain, feeling his impending mortality (and – truth – being glad of it!) he went to bed. Maybe tonight he would get out of his body and waft away.

The night stretched, the idle chatter of minds subsided, and the old man was stunned to find himself standing in a throne room, and sitting on the throne was Buddha!

Tears streamed down the old man’s face, and he hobbled towards the throne.

“Oh, Great Buddha!” rejoiced the oldster, “You have come to take me away!”

Buddha raised his head, ceased his eternal meditation (a meditation, it might be described, in which he kept total and constant tabs on ALL beings in the universe, and all the universes ever) and opened his eyes.

Golden light washed over the old and half crippled man, and he fell to his knees under the onslaught of pure bliss.

But Buddha said, “It is you who came to me. Besides, what use do I have for a cripple?”

Shocked, the old and near dead senior citizen type dropped his jaw and opened his eyes.

“But…but…”

Buddha stood up and glared down on the kneeling one. “I’m not a butt…I’m a Buddha, and it would be well to remember that!”

Pure bliss turned to terror, and the old man shriveled and cringed.

But such an action was not what the Lord Buddha wanted, and he took pity on the poor creature kneeling before him. He descended from his mighty throne, lifted the man to his feet, and they were both instantly transported to Buddha’s eternal garden.

There, in paradise, song birds trilling gently and flowers spritzing their elegant perfume into the heavenly air, Buddha walked the old man.

“Old fellow,” said the Buddha kindly, “You have misconstrued.”

They stopped while Buddha shone his heavenly light upon a baby deer. The mother deer immediately bounded over a nearby leafy shrub and nuzzled the baby deer lovingly.

“Life is not to be an inertia of pain until you give up…it is to be a healthy joy of living, of experiences and friends and discovery of the truth.”

“But, Lord Buddha, I don’t understand!”

“Then think upon this simplicity: you have two tools. One is your integrity, and the other is your imagination. Your integrity is intact, you lived a good life, didn’t kick dogs or shave cats, so that is not the problem. The problem is that you have come to believe in the inertia of pain, and that it cannot be solved.”

Light began to seep through the old fellow’s age bound cranium, and his eyes flickered in dawning awareness. “I think I understand, but…how can I use the imagination to…to undo the inertia of pain?”

“That is the problem, isn’t it? I suggest you use whatever the discipline you have used throughout your life.”

Buddha disappeared. The garden evaporated as if it had never been (though it would be forever in the old fellow’s mind). Only the scent of eternal flowers remained, and that as if a distant memory.

The old fellow lay on his bed. It was three o’clock in the morning, and he knew the truth: it was always darkest before dawn.

But how could he find that dawn? How could he imagine himself back to the good health that the Lord Buddha expected of one?

For several, long minutes the old fellow lay in the dark. He felt his pains. He felt the pain of arthritis, of low blood sugar and all the ailments that went with it.

His integrity was intact, he just had to use his imagination, and he suddenly understood something about imagination. It was what you made up. And, if you made things up good enough, you could change things. If you imagined…you could change life. The trick was to have enough discipline to do that.

So what was his discipline?

He had been a contractor. Built houses. Put in swimming pools. Built hotels. Fixed things. And…wait a minute! He fixed things? So all he had to do was imagine himself fixing his body!

So thinking, excited over his epiphanies, the old man closed his eyes.

He imagined himself in his body. He imagined the body as space, and the flesh as encasing walls. He imagined the contours of his body from the inside.

Since he was lying down it was pretty easy to walk around inside his body, so he walked over to one shoulder.

The shoulder had been bothering him a lot, so he climbed onto the bones and began really looking. Huh! There was some black stuff slathered around the joint! That must be the arthritis! And, as soon as he realized that, he imagined a bucket of goo in his hand, and a brush in the other hand.

He slathered on the goo, knowing that it would eat at the black slime, and, sure enough, there was a bubbling, and the black slime was loosened.

He imagined a towel and began blotting up the arthritis in his shoulder. When he was done, me tossed the towel away, and it disappeared while it was still in flight.

Then he looked down the leg. Poor circulation. Toes hurt, felt inflamed. He walked down the length of one leg and reached the foot. Such a strange shape, the foot, and he saw that it had a bunch of curves that were good for catching…stuff. And, sure enough, stuff and gathered in his toes, and the swirling energies of his body had began swirling around, instead of through the toes.

He pulled out a power drill with a big, ball shaped, fluffy drill bit. He inserted the drill bit in his toes, and he began drill out the stuff, the calcification or whatever it was, from his toes. He drilled quickly and efficiently, and the ball-shaped drill bit flared, and soon his toes were empty, and the energies of his body began to circulate. And he knew that as the energies circulated, so did blood and good health.

Finally, done with all ten toes, feeling like tap dancing, he stood back and inspected his work. He was satisfied with his workmanlike job, but why had such obnoxious material gathered in his toes in the first place? How had the calcification, or whatever it was, come to gather in–

He blinked. To imagine the question was to get the answer, and he saw the culprit. His pancreas!

He walked out of the legs and went into the room of the fleshy machine that was his internal organs.

The organs were laid out in a circle, each one leading to another, with minor connecting lines running this way and that over the floor of his back. He stepped over the lines and stood over the pancreas.

The pancreas lay there, weak and quivering, gasping and dying, and the old fellow knew that he had been remiss. So he gave his pancreas CPR. He bent and massaged the faithful organ, bent it over and patted its back, hugged it.

The pancreas began to respond. Though it had no eyes, it emitted gratitude. And it began to exude from its hide the correct balance of sugar.

Suddenly, the old fellow realized it was near dawn, almost time to awake.

He had done a good job, and he knew he would be feeling better the next day.

Yes, he might have to turn contractor and fix his body on the following night, might have to do it several times, but then…he might not.

After all, imagination was a pretty powerful tool. With a little integrity that tool could be used to chisel, blot, hack, slather, put up ladders to hard to reach places, and do anything in the universe.

And, so thinking, he suddenly found himself awake. He opened his eyes and sunlight flooded through the window. He sat bolt upright.

“Dear?” asked his wife next to him, “Are you all right?”

The old fellow moved his shoulders, stretched, yawned, and said, “Actually, I feel pretty good.”

The wife was glad, for the old fellow had been feeling so much pain recently he had been, shall we say, less than pleasant?

“That’s good,” she said, and relief was in her voice.

The old man rolled out of bed and sauntered to the bathroom and a shower.

The wife sat upright at his activity. “Are you all right? Where are you going?”

The old man ignored the first question, and responded to the second by saying, “I heard there was aYoga class down at the Y. Got to go do a little yoga-lizing. Got to bend that old pancreas and make it work.”

“Yoga?” The old lady got out of bed and followed her husband into the bathroom. While he sudsed and sang, she pondered, and when he opened the door she asked, “What’s got into you? I haven’t seen you this energetic in years!”

The old man smiled, kissed her and gave her a hug, and he said, “You’re just imagining things.”

If you want to know more about Yoga, and the fastest most bestest Yoga on the planet, head on over to Yogata.

The Light of the Lunatic Yogi’s Eyeballs

The Yogi’s Eternal Light

I wrote a little fable to celebrate the release of Black Belt Yoga. Here it is, and if you like it, visit Yogata.org and look at the blogs for other stories. 

Once upon a time there was a Yogi. Now this Yogi was a bit of a fanatic. On one hand, this was good, as it drove him to become superior in technique and advanced as a spiritual being. On the other hand,it wasn’t so good, as it drove him to do things that were, shall we say…ill-advised?

One day he was sitting in a cave meditating. The cave was bare, nothing but a few cavemen on the side wall sticking spears in an animal that was not around much anymore.  And, of course, his rug.

Don’t be afraid to be yourself!

His original prayer rug that he had bought a couple of hundred years previous, when he was but a child of 80 or 90. Truth, it was the last, expensive purchase he had ever made.

To gird his loins he depended upon the courtesy of passing pilgrims to toss him a hankie, or be offended by his omnipotent but dangling state.

So he sat in the cave, buttocks immune to feeling by virtue of two hundred years of resting them on his threadbare rug, conversing with whatever spirits happened to stumble upon his cave.

And, not to embellish this situation, but his cave was hidden deep in woods that had overgrown the attempt of any machete anywhere.

So he was sitting there, open to the universe, and an idea suddenly came upon him.

What if he opened his eyes, actually stopped his current meditation (only ten years along, day and night, no holidays, no time off for good behavior) and opened his eyes, and stared holes into the cave wall.

After all, he hadn’t been outside for a number of years, depending upon a trickle of drops of water that dampened the cave wall opposite the cavemen, and the fall of seasonal berries from a bush standing sentry just outside the mouth of his cave, and…why not?

Call it a picture window, call it a telescope to the infinite (or microscope, or whatever), he would actually be able to see outside without moving, and thus become that much more independent of the outer world. Now that was a great idea if ever there was one!

So our overly faithful Yogi opened his eyes and fixed his gaze upon the far wall.

In the darkness of the earth, he stared. His inner light bored outward, and the rocks began to tremble under his assault.

Weeks passed, then months. He grew ever more fierce in the emitting of his eternal light source, and the rocks trembled ever more.

Years passed, and one day, a single bit of pebble, not much more than a mote, cracked under the pressure of his eternal gaze. It…wafted into nothingness, was transferred into the infinite, ceased to be as hard universe, and came to be the soft nothingness of the eternal spirit that permeates and has construction of this universe.

More years passed, and more motes of rock shivered and shimmied…and then ceased to exist as if from their very imagining.

Berries trickled across the floor occasionally, and our fanatical Yogi lessened his staring meditation only long enough to scoop the errant berries into his mouth. To drink, he merrily moistened his lips and sucked the moisture off them.

More years, more hard staring, more eternal light, and, in the end, after many decades, the last bit of rock wafted into non-existence, and light slammed into the cave.

After so many years of meditating, after so many years in the darkness, the touch of light was a physical assault unimaginable.

The harsh light of the sun burned through our Yogi’s eyes, scorched the retina, blasted back up the nerves, atom bombed the brain, and…the Yogi was burned from this plane of existence.

Scorched into nothingness.

Withered.

No more.

The spirit, freed from the grasp of shrinking but still clinging flesh, bounced around the cave for a while, then drifted into rock, was caught in mountain for a couple of millennium, and, finally, burst onto the surface of planet earth, found a baby body, and was born.

If you are ever in an overgrown jungle, somewhere on the spiritual side of the world, hidden from the staunch temples that stand for a few thousand years and then degrade unto dust, or are simply made into shopping malls If you happen upon a berry bush that is weak and fragile, its berries no longer being offered for human consumption and that berry bush no longer having reason for existence. If you look behind that berry bush you will see a hole…not much more than a rabbit tunnel…and if you crawl into that hole and wiggle your way down a few yards, around a turn and down a few more yards, over the corpse of berries that have rolled there over the years, you will come to a cave.

If you are in that situation and circumstance, look around, for on the left wall you will see, about three feet above the floor of the cave, the exact height the eyes of an ancient and meditating yogi would be, two holes.

Look into these holes, search for sunlight, and hope that the outer earth hasn’t shifted and covered this one yogi’s testament to the fragility of the universe.

If you like this little tale, pop on over to http://yogata.org. There are a few more yoga fables listed in the blog.

Now Starring Black Belt Yoga!

Now Starring Black Belt Yoga!

TGIF

because you get to work out!

Saturday, Sunday and forever…

you get to work out!

Is that a big you,

or what?

Okay,

I told you this Friday was going to bring something big,

and it is.

I am now releasing

for broad, public consumption

Black Belt Yoga!

That’s right,

I’ve pretty much completed the matrix on Yoga,

and I’ve restructured the thing,

made it logical and easy to do.

Now,

I’ll tell you all about it,

but let me point out something first.

I know this is martial arts,

but it is body we use to do martial arts.

And there are ALL sorts of reasons to study Yoga,

because it is REALLY good for the body.

First,

to warm up and cool down,

which will keep your muscles working,

and your body free from injury,

so you can work out more

and longer

and harder.

Second,

if you have injury,

Yoga is often a good place to start rehabilitating.

Once the bone is knit,

or the illness conquered,

once the doctor visits are done,

you are going to want to rehab yourself,

seek your good physical conditioning,

and Yoga is a GREAT place to start.

Third,

this is a tough one for some people to get,

your body is going to thank you

for all those cool downs and warm ups,

for rehabbing,

and for just enhancing your physical condition

with spiritual awareness.

You may not think much of this now,

but come forty years,

you are going to offer blessings.

Okay,

Black Belt Yoga.

When you read the web page I wrote,

it sounds so simple,

but you guys,

especially you fellows who have been following the newsletter for a few years,

know that it ain’t simple.

At least,

it ain’t simple until the matrix is complete.

Once done,

sure,

looks like anybody could do it.

But,

in the middle of it,

holy moly schmoly

brain busting excedrin headache number 89!

But,

I ain’t gonna whine for myself.

I’m just going to explain what I did.

I matrixed the postures

and put them to belt levels.

Now you can simply do 15 postures,

and when you can do them,

you move on.

Yes,

you can slice and dice them,

and look into them seven ways from go,

but…smaller steps.

Easier bites.

And…better progress.

Faster progress.

If you have done a matrixing course or two

you know I mean business.

I don’t hand you a form and say ‘Work on it for a year.’

I hand you an art and say,

‘See you next month!’

So you can do Yoga quicker and faster.

Now,

in the martial arts

the problem is doing enough work

so that the muscles buy into it

and intuition starts up.

In Yoga

there is the same problem,

you have to do it,

not talk about.

Or,

to be impolite,

GET MOVING YOU LAZY SUCKER!

(I know some of my personal students are grinning widely now!)

But,

‘more important than muscles

is the problem of Awareness.

Yoga,

having less motion,

is concerned with more awareness.

So the bigger problem was not just structuring the postures,

the bigger problem was translating awareness.

Have you ever heard of the Patanjali?

Patanjali is the name of the fellow who,

a few millennium ago,

collected all the sacred books on Yoga

and compiled them.

Not the postures,

but the awareness,

the concepts of light and dark,

what a human being is,

what the universe is

how to get out of your body,

end obsessions (with things like drugs, sex, and so on),

and

ALL sorts of stuff.

He collected this information in four books,

and this collection of works is called after him.

Patanjali.

Now,

too many people who study Yoga

are mere contortionists.

They study the thing so they can have good bodies,

so they can run around and enjoy eating,

have better sex,

and so on.

Well,

okay.

But,

if you read the Patanjali

things get different real fast.

Patanjali is the actual straight goods.

It is the truth about you and the universe.

Here’s the problem,

just like the martial arts,

the Patanjali has been

twisted through barriers of language,

mangled by transference to other cultures,

invested with self interest,

and so on and so on.

But,

at the heart,

if you can understand it,

it is the truth,

and it has massive and deep effect,

changes you forever,

makes you more you,

opens you up to your true worth and potential.

So,

I translated the Patanjali into logic.

That’s right,

I used Neutronics principles

to understand the thing,and I rewrote it so it makes sense,

no mysticism.

No bushwah.

The truth.

And,

maybe I’ll sell the thing someday.

I mean,

it sits in my computer and gathers electronic dust,

so…

why not.

But,

until that day,

I have used Neutronics

to splice the Patanjali

into Black Belt Yoga.

So,

you get the matrixed viewpoint of Yoga,

and you get the actual awareness that results from doing Yoga,

belt by belt

translated from the original source,

the Patanjali,

and inserted into Black Belt Yoga.

Now,

it reads simple,

but,

let me tell you,

it warn’t.

But,

I have to pat myself on the back.

I did a good job.

It meanders a bit,

but consider what I was doing…

matrixing, martial arts, patanjali, neutronics, yoga…

I was doing a lot of stuff,

but I succeeded,

and the book works.

Yoga has been officially matrixed.

Now,

you all know that I am putting together a temple.

Monkeyland.

Church of Martial Arts.

And Black Belt Yoga,

accompanied by ‘yogata: The Yoga Kata,’

will be a definite part of the curriculum.

No,

one doesn’t have to do Yoga to get into the temple,

to do the classes,

but,

I usually do Yoga

in some form

to start the classes.

And I help people do it if their body needs it for some reason.

And,

I encourage people to study the subject on their own.

Look,

I am about the martial arts.

And,

the simple truth,

Yoga enables one to do more martial arts,

better martial arts,

to have a younger body longer,

and,

to gain a certain and massive amount of wisdom.

So I do Yoga

to help my martial arts.

So,

Yoga and martial arts,

hand and glove.

Now,

I put Black Belt Yoga up on a site you may not know about.

I have been working on this for a while,

and you will find it quite interesting at:

http://yogata.org

Look around,

check out the posts,

visit the pages,

go to Yoga resources,

scroll to Black Belt Yoga,

and there you go.

And,

I have a separate page there

for people with medical probs,

and I have offered a couple of deals,

to encourage you.

Look,

it isn’t the postures,

it isn’t the forms,

it is the knowledge.

I am proud of pointing out

that you can order my courses and get forty years of knowledge.

Not just the body moves,

but the knowledge that doing those body moves

for forty years

 can bring.

I offer the same thing in Black Belt Yoga.

A faster method for doing the discipline,

and the actual and exact knowledge that doing that discipline brings.

So,

here is the exact URL…

http://yogata.org/yoga-resources/black-belt-yoga/

Go,

look around,

and I hope you recommend it to some friends

(I’m still working on the social buttons)

Buy or not,

at least get the viewpoint

and take advantage of the basic info on the site.

The book is over 250 pages long (Whew! Wipe the brow.)

40,000 words, 130 graphics.

And an entry into the COMPLETE discipline of Yoga,

Yoga restructured so it really works…and works FAST!

And, a way to REALLY enhance your martial arts,

or just fix up your body from those injuries over the years.

You guys and gals,

thanks,

and have a GREAT work out!

Al