Creating Your Own Footwork in the Martial Arts!

Newsletter 1074
What I used to do was play with footwork.
I knew all the classical forms,
practiced them daily,
and one day started playing with the footwork.

Mathematically,
the theory was sound.
A line, to a triangle,
to a square, two an arrangement of squares…
the four square pattern
and the nine square pattern.
Lots of other patterns,
but I followed that logic.

I walked on a line,
used a two by four laid flat
and did the four things you can do,
step, shuffle, pivot, turn.
When I got good I turned the two by four on edge.
Try that for a kick.

I didn’t use the triangles much,
because that was for working applications on.

I used the square on top of four cinder blocks laid flat.
Then, when I could do my classical forms on the cinder blocks,
I turned them on end.
It was fun falling,
and lifting your feet so you could land without breaking something.

And that brought me to variations on four squares in a bigger square,
and the nine square pattern.
That was the point at which I saw
how the nine square could be used in conjunction
with walking the circle out of Pa Kua.

And I became aware of something.
When you use a muscle you train it in a sequence.
For instance, doing the squats doesn’t translate into the horse stance.
You’re using different parts of the muscles.
So I started looking for the sequence of motion
that used the most parts of the muscle,
and failed.
You need a bunch of different motions.
Although I did succeed in the form in Yogata,
but that was yoga, and not martial arts.
I wrote that up in a book,
‘Yogata: The Yoga Kata’
But, to continue,
when I failed finding a karate series of movements
that energized all parts of the muscles,
I put together what I had learned in

The Last Martial Arts Book: Nine Square Diagram Boxing

So check it out if you want,
maybe you’ll see something I missed
and create a form that energizes every muscle.
Or maybe not.

If you want to examine some of my other works
that utilize the nine square foot pattern,
or other types of footwork,
check out MonsterMartialArts.com

have a great work out!
Al

Don’t forget to check out the interview
https://anchor.fm/dale-gillilan/episodes/S1E10—Al-Case-e12e3np

How to Fix Karate! (volumes one and two)

volume one is at

And volume two is at…

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 11 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 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 5 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 that useful
find the book/course that is right for you,
and matrix your own martial arts.