Category Archives: karate

Horse Stance Meditation Karate to Get Out of the body

Good Lard is it a beeootifull day for a horse stance!

Good day to work out, limber up the muskles, knock the fat off yer frame…a karate horse stance. Get healthy. Ya know? Are ya ready to talk?

One of the karate drills I hated the most, but got the most out of, was the simple horse stance. We would spread the legs, get the thighs down to where they were almost parallel to the floor, and put up one high block, and extend the other hand to the side in a chicken beak, and look at our finger tips. We called this karate horse stance position Kima Chasie. Horse Meditation.

karate horse stance

Focus awareness,, get out of the pain…get out of the body.


And we meditated on the pain it would cause us.

Now, forget the pain of the karate horse stance, forget the stronger legs, forget everything but the real purpose of it. Get out of your body.

After a couple of years of dabbling with the karate horse stance Meditation I decided to do it right. I decided that pain wouldn’t cause death (in this instance) and that I should just do the exercise until I got what it was all about.

So, I hit the stance, looked at my fingers, and concentrated on breathing. Time passed. Minutes seemed like hours. My mind began to still, the world slowed down. Seconds seemed like hours.

And, suddenly it all stopped hurting. No pain at all. The whole universe was one peaceful concept that i could live with forever.

how long did it take me to get there?

Five minutes.

That’s all.

Zingo bingo, instant enlightenment.

Now came the problem. When I tried to move, I couldn’t. My whole body had locked up. Man, I was freaked. Tried to wiggle backwards, couldn’t move, couldn’t even rock. Tried forwards, ah, there we go, I could fall for…oh shit…ah! Landed on my face.

So, enlightenment is possible through the old training methods, but sometimes it can be weird, freaky, and even as significant as a punch on the nose.

Hey, any of youse guys feel like coming over to see me, I live on good old Monster Martial Arts. Brings your friends, the doors are open, leave your old life outside.

See ya.

Al

This has been a page about karate horse stance meditation, and here is a great page about breaking heads with your board…uh, breaking boards with your head!

Martial Arts Meditation Unleashed!

Don’t Make the Mistake of Asking the Question!

Good morning to you!
A work out morning!
A morning where you get stronger,
smarter, quicker, faster…
More aware.
Because that’s what a martial arts workout does.

martial arts meditation

The Secret of All motion is…No Motion.

The secret of meditation,
and life,
is to clear the mind of distractions.
Distractions are the bushwah probs and dialogues
and such that you carry around with you.
What did so and so say about me?
Guy in the next department pisses me off.
I need a drink.
And so on.

The martial arts clears the mind of distractions through one simple method:
You learn to focus your awareness on one thing.
I’ve suggested that you hold up your index finger and look at it,
Until you understand what I mean,
but that’s sort of mean.
it’s frustrating because it is the truth, and it is advanced,
and one should really have a proper build up
before they do the single finger meditation.
So here’s the proper build up.

Mind you, i went through this stuff for years,
one piece at a time,
before I figured it out and experienced an empty mind,
but I didn’t have the instructions you are about to get.

When you stand in the room, stand squarely,
that means you don’t lean in any direction.

When you have finally found your balance,
don’t lean (or sway or anything),
just ask yourself the question,
how do I unbalance myself
so that I can move.

It’s true,
the secret of motion from a balanced position is to unbalance yourself.
Walking is the process of learning how to fall in a direction,
and catch yourself on a leg just enough
that you keep falling and catching yourself.

The problem here is that we are not walking.
We are falling to a stance.
And we must fall as fast as we can
to a balanced (front stance) position.

So look at your options.
Do you bend and push with the legs?
What part of the body do you unbalance first?
How do you unbalance it?
Do you move muscles inside the body?
Do you push your body with a hand of energy from outside the body?
Do you pull your body towards an object/direction?

It’s an interesting question,
and one that will drive you half mad
before you finally figure out
how you actually move your body.

Let’s say you move the body with a contraction of a leg muscle
which lowers the body so you can push with a (set of) muscle on the other leg.
What mental command are you giving that first muscle?
Where is that command coming from?
Your mind?
Who told your mind what to do?
Do you understand?
It’s frustrating, and it tends to really mess you up.
But, when you finally work your way through this,
and figure out how, exactly,
you are moving your body,
It will change you as a martial artist.
Heck, it will change you as a human being.
Big time.

And this is just learning how to unbalance the body to fall into a front stance.
Now you get into which muscles are you actually catching yourself with?
What are you doing with the arm?
What torques your body as you fall?
What muscles do you use to align the arm with the action?
Does the arm resist motion to make motion?
Are you using the planet to push yourself?
Or just moving the leg over the surface without sinking your weight?

I used to do my forms for hours,
one move at a time,
looping that move,
grinding that move,
searching for the answers of body motion.
And let me make a point here.

You may think it is silly,
all this frustration for…for what?

But I came across one of my own neutronic quotes this morning,
one of the Master Instructors puts it as a signature at the bottom of his emails. Here is the quote…
“Man learns by his mistakes. Without a mistake a man never learns. Stop a man’s mistakes and you stop a man. Watch a man’s mistakes and he’ll learn every day of his life.”

Now,
consider that when you lose balance it is a mistake.
Of course it is a mistake (grin).
You were perfectly balanced,
and then you went and ruined it!
But that is the process of life.

You are fine,
then you mess it up,
then you find fine again,
then you mess it up,
and so on.

So the procedure of doing a form
is a constant method of finding balance in your form,
messing it up to get to a new point of balance,
then messing it up again to find a new point of balance,
and so on.

And if you don’t ask the questions I have posed in this newsletter,
if you don’t find out how to mess it up…to unbalance…to make yourself make a mistake and fall forward as efficiently as possible. then you are doing the martial arts like a monkey.

Monkey see monkey do, with never a thought as to what causes motion…and what causes life.

You simply must ask the question, else you will never be aware.

Now,
if you want to look at your finger until you are enlightened,
it is possible.
Very possible.
But you simply must go through this concept of unbalancing to find new balance,
of making mistakes to find awareness.
You must.

You must…workout.
A lot.
With these questions in your mind…until there is no question in your mind.
Until your mind is freed from distractions.

Now,
let me add one thing,
the Master Instructor Course is the result of what happens
when you ask yourself these questions
for thirty or forty years.

It IS the perfection of human form,
and it IS the perfection of martial arts technique.
And it has never been done before.
Period.
The stuff in the Master Instructor course has simply never been written about,
and if it was ever stumbled over in a conversation,
there was no point to it all,
no way to relate all the parts
of what I tell you on this course.

So let me ask you a question…
do you want to go through the frustration of asking yourself questions for decades?
Or do you want to get the truth about how to use your body
and how to make your martial arts perfect…right now?

Look, I’m not the first person in history to ask these questions,
but I am one of the few to come up with the right answers,
and I am the only one to ever put down the answers on paper.
Plain English.
Understandable.
Not only no mysticism,
but the death of mysticism.
Because mysticism dies when you replace it with knowledge.

So,
heres the URL,
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4-master-instructor-course/

And have yourself the BEST workout you can!

Al

PS ~ you can subscribe to the Monkeyland Gazette and find out about the Church of Martial Arts at the top of the right sidebar at Churchofmartialarts.com.

Why Does It Take Years and decades to Learn Martial Arts?

It Really Shouldn’t Take So Long to Learn Martial Arts

The bully charges out of the alley and tosses a whole, darned trash can at you! Do you ask him to take that garbage can back because you’re only on your ninth Karate lesson and haven’t reached the deflecting the garbage can lesson? Or do you ask him go away because, here it comes, you forgot to pay your dues at the local dojo?

learn martial arts

There is a point to all this silliness, why do the martial arts take so long to learn? You can teach a guy to fly a jet, get in a dogfight and get shot down, spend time in a concentration camp, get released and run for political office, and become a senator, and retire, in the time it takes to learn some systems of the martial arts. I heard of one system that it takes seventeen years to get to Black Belt in!

Some people will make the excuse that you’re learning more than self defense. You’re solving martial mysteries and its all about the lifestyle and you need to invest in your old age, you know? But you’re still lying under that trash can and the guy is pulling out a knife, and no matter how many lessons you’ve taken, you have to do something!

One of the old sayings that I heard, long time ago, is garbage in, garbage out. The sad fact of the matter is that if something is hard to put into your head, then it might not be easily accessed and used. Maybe it would be appropriate to find an art that is as easily absorbed as track, or boxing.

It is true that the Martial Arts are not a sport, they are an art, but they can still be learned easily and quickly. They just have to be taught not by one mystical technique after another, but rather by understanding concepts behind them. Those endless techniques that you memorize, to be truthful, are random data, and, often as not, they don’t really relate to one another.

That is a problem, to be sure, even if you learn a thousand techniques, you might not have enough data to be able to make sense out of the whole thing until you reach one thousand and one. And, let’s face it, a hundred years is to long to become competent. And then go to heaven.

The solution is that the martial arts must be taught on a conceptual basis. Instead of having a fellow memorize endless strings of tricks, have him learn the rather simple principles behind those tricks. Have him learn conceptually and he’s suddenly going to be able to figure out those thousand techniques without any need for endless memorization.

Give him an acorn and throw in the watering pot, that’s what I believe, and then watch the oak shoot upwards. Most martial artists, and I don’t mean to be mean in this observation, are lost in the limbs of the trees. The real way to teach, however, is to show the guy the principles, then have use those principles, and, faster than a rabbit on steroids, you’ve got yourself a fast and competent martial artist.

Master of Karate Defeats a Mugger!

How Gichin Funakoshi Dealt with a Mugger!

Good Morning USA, and world, and, uh, guess I’ll throw in the universe.

Never can tell, some gloopy alien with three eyes might be keeping track of those strange critters on earth. Might be reading this article right now making sure we’re not being contentious and guilty of sedition to the alien galactic empire.

alien

Hello, Gloopy Alien.

I wonder if he knows what this here finger of mine is for? Hah.

Speaking of weird and Gloopy Aliens, the founder of modern Karate, Gichin Funakoshi, was about 80 years old, and was out for his nightly walk. The night was ominous, Japan was in an unsettled state, and he saw a mugger waiting on a street corner.

Gichin knew, deep in his heart, that that mugger was going to try to mug him. Hey, you think a mugger’s going to risk picking on somebody who is big? Nope, muggers want to get on with their work with the least amount of personal risk, you know? Smart guys, these muggers are.

Anyway, Gichin keeps on walking makes sure he looks feeble, and as he passes the mugger and the mugger leaps at him he whirls and grabs the mugger.

Now, you might be wondering where he grabbed the mugger. A death lock on the carotid–a specialized nerve center that immobilizes totally?

Well, uh, he didn’t do any of those things.

He grabbed him by the, um, cajones. The apples, you know..the coconuts. He grabbed him by the children he might sire some day, by the future, by his only source of fun on those long, lonely nights that frustrate a mugger when he is all by himself and can’t find anybody who even remotely likes him.

Now the founder of modern Karate has a mugger by the embarrassment, and what is he going to do next?

Does he flick a set of knuckles to the throat and crunch the Adam’s apple…cause it to swell up and stop the mugger from breathing? Does he launch a spear hand thrust to the chest and yank the mugger’s very heart out and take a big bite while the terrified mugger watches in terror? Or does he just start to close his hand. Close his hand slowly, and watch the life blood drain out of the mugger’s face, and the very life right out of his quaking and pain infested body, and the happiness out of his future? Squeeze, until the nutty pulp runs out from between his gnarly, old fingers. Squeeze, until a loud popping sound fills the night air. Squeeze, until the mugger screams like a little girl and falls to the pavement, never to enjoy the feel of loving again.

Gichin called for the cops. Yep, he stood on that corner and held that man and called for help.

And the mugger was totted away to think about his crimes, and the terror of having his manhood held by another man.

An interesting lesson for a mugger, eh?

Another interesting lesson would be if you looked up the real meaning of the word testament and where it comes from and all that.

Anyway, the point of all this is this don’t walk down that dark alley. Yep. My students have heard me say this, and they know what I mean. When you have a choice of a long walk down a lit street, or a short trip through a dark alley, take the long way.

You can tell you’ve made it, that you do understand what the martial arts are all about when you can see a dark alley before you reach it.

Hey, a sunny street in the heart of town might be a dark alley if there’s some idiot waiting for you. And you should have developed the extra perception, through those endless hours of practice, to know the difference between a dark alley and a well lit street.

Here’s the best Karate course in the world!

Making the Zen Mind in the 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

Karate Improves Chances of Survival in a Real Fight!

Karate Will Help You Survive a Real Fight!

I came across these statistics about being in a real fight the other day, and they are pretty interesting.

First, 80% of all real fights had a clear winner. This is interesting because it means that four out of five real fights were taken to the point where one person was incapacitated. This means that people should be studying martial arts which are effective. Tournaments are fine, and one has to learn how to do kumite, but one also has to understand how real a confrontation can get.

real fight

Karate may be the correct answer to this type of attack!

 

10% were broken up and 5% were outright draws. This means that once a real fight starts, it’s not likely that somebody is going to come and save you.

Second, 10% ended up on the ground. Well, there goes the big hype for MMA and Jujitsu and the argument that combatants are likely to end up on the ground. This means that one would be better served by learning a stand up martial art like Karate or Kung Fu.

10% of real fighting started with a punch. But that means that 90% started with…a push? A weapon? something else? But not a kick, as we will see below. Again, the need for combat oriented karate or something that is specific to punching distance, yet adaptable to other types of attacks.

80% of first punches were with the right hand. And, follow this statistic up with the fact that 95% of the right hand punches were to the head. So you have to prepare for a right punch to the face.

And, finally, only 10% of the fights had a kick in them. This statistic deals out Taekwondo.

Now, I have made a few remarks about the statistics here, and I should probably offer some sort of explanation so that there is no misunderstanding. So here’s the conclusion:

A fight can start with anything, but they don’t usually go to the ground, and they don’t contain much in the way of kicks. Thus, you need some knowledge of grappling and kicking, but not a lot. There is grappling and kicking in Karate, but not to the exclusion of other distances or ranges.

These are the statistics of a real fight, not the rare atmosphere of the cage, or a tournament, or any other organized sort of match, and since the average person will get in three fights in his life, it behooves Joe Average to start a study of Karate. I say Karate because it deals with kicks, does have some ground work, but is heavy on fists and blocking punches. Makes it perfect for a street altercation.

Probably the fastest and most efficient way to become competent enough to survive real fighting, be it on the street or anywhere, is at Learn Karate Online. You can get some Free Karate Lessons starting here.

A Real Church of Martial Arts!

Monkeyland…Here We Come!

Great Day in Paradise!
Monkeyland may be as little as two weeks away.
Man,
that’s worth a dozen work outs!
So here is the URL so you can take a look at this gem in the wilderness.

http://churchofmartialarts.com/the-church/

Give the page time to load,
there’s a couple of large pictures.
And make sure you hit the FB LIKE button at the top of the page!

church of martial arts

The Church of Martial Arts!


Now,
let’s talk about Monkeyland.
Let’s talk about how it got started,
how it developed,
and how it is going to progress.

First, I wrote a book,
and it is called Monkeyland,
and the tagline is…
‘Another word for Freedom!’

It is a story of war and corruption and disaster and man’s inhumanity to man.
Yet,
after five books,
there is a sublime message,
one that forgives the thought of war
if we can only understand ourselves,
transform ourselves…
mankind has hope.

And,
I kept working out,
developing matrixing,
nibbling into Neutronics,
and I started thinking about a real Monkeyland.

A place where people were free to be themselves,
without the regulations and intrusions of government,
without the interference and distractions of evil people.
A place where the martial arts could flourish,
and people could experience what the true martial art was like.
A place where people could be free.

And I used to sit and wonder,
How the heck was I supposed to pull this off?
How could I make this happen?
And I mentioned Monkeyland in the newsletter.

Frank was one of the first people I ever taught matrixing to.
Back about 1984 we locked ourselves in the dojo
and worked out until he was a black belt.
Frank read the newsletter,
and he had his own bad case of good dreams.
He wanted a place where, among other things,
he could escape the grind of a society going bad,
where GMO could be defeated,
where solid stock, animal and human both,
could be raised.
And our dreams were going in the same direction.

It took a couple of years, some very intense negotiating,
a bunch of hoops to jump through,
but within a couple of weeks we will be on the land.
Monkeyland.
A ranch free from the contaminations of society.
A Church where people can be encouraged to plumb their depths,
find the true art that is within themselves,
is their inherent nature,
just waiting to come to the surface.

Of course,
there is going to be an immense amount of work,
but,
we are in the right time,
and the right place.

Did you know that people actually love to work?
The country only gets depressed when people aren’t working.

Did you know that people love to solve problems?
With a government telling them no,
with a society of political correctness,
where you have to ask permission to pee in ocean,
people are miserable.

But set them free,
tell them to build something,
tell them that nobody is going to stop them,
and you have paradise each and every single day.

Did you know that some people love the martial arts?
Yes, it’s true,
the brighter and more industrious members of mankind all LOVE the martial arts.

What better gift to the best on earth
than to give them a place where they can let loose their talents,
change the path of mankind,
elevate ALL martial arts!

So,
more to come,
I’ll probably have to set aside a separate section of the newsletter
just to deal with the happenings at Monkeyland.

But,
remember this…
if you are a true martial artist,
if you want to find the truth of yourself,
and if you are willing to work your fingers to the bone,
then you have a bed up here.

Within the month I should have some sort of plans started
to enable visits and instruction and even some possible live in arrangements.

But,
let me say this right now,
study your matrixing.
When you come to visit,
the first thing we’ll do is check out your matrixing.

If you can do your Matrix Karate,
right out of the box,
then we won’t have to spend time teaching you things you should already know,
and we can get right into the deeper teachings.

So here’s the URL for Matrix Karate…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/matrix-karate/

And in a future newsletter
I’ll lay out the complete sequence of study.
But for now,
remember,
it all starts with Matrixing.
Matrixing led me to Monkeyland,
and it’s going to bring you here, too.

Now,
thanks to all,
and special thanks to Frank,
and I’ll be talking to you later.
Have a great work out!

Al

Martial Arts Testing and Belts and Rank and All that Stuff…

The Truth About Martial arts Testing and Fees!

I recently came across the most interesting discussion concerning Martial Arts testing for belts. It was interesting because it was well thought out, concerned, and because I disagreed with most of what was said.

Sometimes I will make a comment, but in this case I am prompted to tell the truth about Martial Arts testing. What makes this particularly juicy is that the people involved in this discussion were nibbling at the edges of what I did a lo-o-ong time ago, and which is more in keeping with the true spirit of the martial arts.

real fighting

Is Karate the answer to this type of attack?



Originally there were no belts, which doesn’t mean there were no ranks.

Gichin Funakoshi introduced belts which, I believe, came from the a method used by swimming teams.

The first two belt ranks were white and black. This expanded to white, green, brown and black.

Some fifty years ago ranks and belts exploded. Ed Parker and Kenpo Karate led the way with a rainbow of colors. Taekwondo expanded the colors even further.

Now, this is the way it happened, but, there is an incredibly valuable piece of data missing.

I began studies with Kenpo, and was introduced to the belt system, and found it valuable in encouraging people to study.

Isn’t it interesting that people have to be encouraged to study?

But, when I went to the Kang Duk Won, I wasn’t encouraged to study. We had four basic belts, white, green, brown and black, further delineated by stripes, and nobody much cared.

Simply, people who cared about flashy belts left the school, and only the faithful, the ones who didn’t need to be encouraged to study, were left.

Nowadays people treat the martial arts like a business, structure everything around sales and promotion, and the belt is held up as the goal.

Fact: the belt means nothing.

Fact: knowledge means everything.

But these two facts seem to have become twisted, and the belt means everything, and knowledge means nothing.

I didn’t understand my Kang Duk Won instructors thoughts concerning belts, and I didn’t care. I was one of the faithful. I worked out till I bled, and there was no middle ground. There was no entertainment, and freestyle while recognized as a game, was treated like life or death.

Not to beat somebody else up, but to hone your own skills.

Interestingly, this type of freestyle brought one to mushin no shin (mind of no mind), which is an intuitive method, and it was a science, and it was TOTALLY combat effective. When people say their art is not combative effective, or not useful on the street, I know they didn’t study the real art, but rather an art that entertains children.

When I became an instructor I awarded rank according to forms and techniques learned.

As I progressed I realized the inadequacy of that, and I stopped giving out belts. For years I gave no martial arts tests, simply gave a person a black belt when he had the knowledge.

This thing of knowledge is quite interesting.

The number of forms learned, of techniques done, has no relationship to martial arts knowledge.

And I could ascertain the depth of knowledge a person had by simply looking at him.

Just to mention a couple of the actual criteria:
how deeply does a person ‘screw’ himself into the ground when doing his forms and techniques.
Or, what level of intuition has the student progressed to.

And there are other criteria, all coming from the removal of the student from his body.

I know, sounds crazy, but the awareness that is a human being becomes removed from his body through the method of doing the martial arts forms and techniques correctly.

Emphasis on ‘correctly,’ as it requires an experience of physics beyond the normal ‘fist in the face’ ‘apple falls on the head’ physics. This is an entirely different set of physics which I have seen only a few dozen people demonstrate, and none of whom actually understood.

Now, fees. I charge little, if at all. The rationale here is: how can I charge somebody for what he already knows? What he already paid for, and not just in money, but in sweat and blood?

Yet I had one fellow come to me and said he was required to pay $800, plus plane fare to Japan, plus lodgings and meals and all, to take a martial arts test.

For what?

Three old guys would sit behind a table and watch him demonstrate for an hour, then pass or fail with NO comment on why he was passing or failing!

Obviously, these guys loved themselves…and wanted his money. And they called themselves masters.

Anyway, as time went on I got back into giving not belts, but checklists, and then I would just work people to the bone, making sure they screwed themselves into the ground during form and technique, that they reached intuitive levels of freestyle, and other things.

And, eventually, I made these checklists public, selling them as courses, and here an interesting thing happened. Knowledge became able to be transcribed on paper.

Yes, the student still has to work, and those students in it for the entertainment or the belt and so on will have problems.

But a student who actually reads the courses, does the courses, gets the knowledge.

And they usually stop needing to be entertained and become the faithful.

This became an immense and tremendous boon to ANYBODY who possesses these courses.

It eliminated guesswork. It gave workable knowledge.

It enabled the true art to be passed on even if the instructor didn’t have all the knowledge, as it passed on the knowledge to all involved.

Then I come across discussions on how to test.

Man, there are hundreds of theories out there, but all passed on being able to monkey see monkey do a form, and none having to do with the perception of knowledge, of how to actually increase the students awareness.

So I say this: stop entertaining. Get brutal. Search for knowledge and not belts. Award rank for knowledge and not memorized skits.

This is the only way to the true art, and it is the way martial arts testing should be.

Here is a page that will tell you how to find out your true rank without Martial Arts testing.

Congrats to New Master Instructor

Taken from newsletter 625,
Subscribe to the Monster Martial Arts Newsletter Now!

Hello and great day to you ALL!
And a great work out,
which will make you smarter and faster and stronger
and lead you to your dreams.
It’s true.

martial arts instructor
Congrats to Master Instructor Luis Lista!
Here’s his win…

Hi Al,

Thank you for this amazing course!

I had to watch the DVD 3 or 4 times, and I realize there are still a
lot of things that I understand intellectually but have to practice
further to make them natural.

But your statement was true. One cannot watch this DVD and read the course book seriously without having some huge realizations about the Art, and the way to practice it.

I’ve been able to correct my own stances and sharpen my “good
reflexes” in a dramatic way! I still have a lot to learn and
practice, but wow what a change, a true “mind-shifting process”!

And frankly that is not the best of it. I share the practice of your
Matrix Karate System with some people of my neighborhood, and I noticed that I can now see way better their eventual mistakes AND I’m able to propose simple and direct solutions AND show them why and how they work. That is fantastic!

At my small scale this as been the most beneficial course for helping people learning the Art… and for helping me structure the way I share the practice.

I even could make some valuable suggestion to a friend who is a master in a traditional Japanese Koryu… even I was surprised! Suggestions came by themselves because I was just seeing things you showed and explained in your course.

And I now this is a course that will follow me trough time, I’ll have
the opportunity to return to it and evaluate and learn regularly from it… what a joy!

Al, I must sincerely thank you for your wonderful work of
dissemination of Martial Arts!

Luis L.

Thank you, Luis!
and thank you for sharing with others.

Sometimes I don’t think people truly appreciate teachers,
but teaching others is how mankind actually progresses.
No teachers = no evolution.

You know,
I’ve said it before,
but perhaps it is time to say it again…
how,
exactly,
I came up with this course.

I studied,
and I wrote things down,
and I made connections,
and I thought everybody was doing the same things as I.
I didn’t think I was doing anything unique,
I thought everybody did the martial arts the way I was doing them,
I thought everybody had the same realizations,
understood about how the physics worked,
and so on.

I think the first person who abused me of this was Mike Baron.
He was my partner in one of my schools,
and actually pushed Monster into happening.
He said,
‘You know, Al, nobody else is doing the things you’re doing.’
As I recall,
I just grinned.
I thought he was just unaware of everybody else.
Then we released a couple of courses,
among them was the Master Instructor course,
and the wins started coming in.
It blew me away.
Far away.
People with lots of experience,
were telling me how
they finally understood the martial arts,
how everything had been obscured and mixed up and jumbled,
and they were finally able to see how the martial arts worked.

I was surprised,
to say the least,
and it changed the way I was doing things.

And,
it is changing the way other people are doing things.

So,
thanks Luis,
and thanks to all for being part of the martial arts.
And,
that said,
let me explain something about the martial arts.

The Martial Arts are the only field
that deal with the actual force and flow of the universe.
School and religion certainly don’t,
they just talk about dry facts,
or esoteric theories,
but don’t relate to the fact that everything in the universe
is an object that has trajectory.
And,
Martial Arts are the ONLY field on this planet that actually deals
with the force and flow of objects,
and thus with the whole universe.

This leads directly to awareness.
People who don’t study the martial arts are car crash victims.
Life happens to them,
and they don’t understand why.
Martial Artists see the way objects fly,
from the fist to the car to the whole darned planet,
and they are trained to handle the flow of objects,
and the potential collisions.

And,
even more importantly,
the martial arts provide a discipline
which leads down the path
to greater awareness.
This happens no where else.

Go to school and your intelligence actually goes down.
This is true by actual, tested statistic.
People in school study facts
until the flow of objects in this universe is obscured.

But people who do the martial arts
have quicker and cleaner intellects.
They have good health,
they handle problems as they come,
stay away from drugs,
help people learn how to be aware.

Do you understand how valuable you are?

Well,
forgive me for ranting,
but it is true,
and you really should know how special you are.

So thanks to all,
and thanks to Luis,
and here’s the URL for the Master instructor Course…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4-master-instructor-course/

And everybody have a great work out!
Al

Mas Oyama and the Kang Duk Won

Behind the Scenes at the Kang Duk Won

This post concerning Mas Oyama, Don Buck, and other early pioneers in American Karate, was actually written by Master Instructor BJ. I didn’t know some of this, and there is no way I can compete with the original words presented here. I suggest you do a little googling of the names involved to pad out what you’re about to read. It is well worth it. The original post appeared on KangDukWon.com.

The Story of the Kang Duk Won in America

Sifu Al, you probably know this already but when teenage Don Buck started training with Duke Moore in 1946 fresh out of the US Navy where Don was the US Navy Pacific Fleet 137lb Champion and also wrestled and studied Combat Judo & Defendu.

From the Hawaiian Karate Museum, John D. Pell collection. John Pell, Don Buck, Mas Oyama, Gosei Yamaguchi.

From the Hawaiian Karate Museum, John D. Pell collection. John Pell, Don Buck, Mas Oyama, Gosei Yamaguchi.

By the Mid-50s Don Buck was a Body Building champion and San Francisco Cop in addition to being a black belt in Moore’s Judo & JJ.   Buck & Moore started studying Shorinji Ryu Karate with one of Duke’s teachers, Richard Kim.  One of Kim’s Korean student’s came to the US to work as a Pro Wrestler.  Of course I’m talking about Mas Oyama.

BTW, Mas Oyama’s Karate and Masahiko- Gracie JJ Defeater- Kimura Judo workout partners in the Early 1950’s were Tak Kubota and Taiji Kase!  In fact the gnarled hand on one of Mas Oyama’s early books- ghost written by Don Draeger- was actually Kubota’s.

After WWII Kimura worked as a Pro Wrestler in Europe and N&S America.  He hooked Mas Oyama up with some wrestling promoters here in the US and Mexico so Oyama could make some money.

Mas Oyama set his US base up in San Francisco where he could continue his training with his Sensei Richard Kim.  While not wrestling Oyama lived with Kim’s JJ student Duke Moore and taught/worked out with Duke Moore and Don Buck everyday he was in San Francisco for 4-6 hour workouts.

After a little over a year Mas went back to Japan and promoted both Duke Moore and Don Buck to their Shodan ranks.  Buck opened his own Dojo in 1957 where he only taught Kyokushin Karate making his Dojo the first Oyama Style Karate Dojo to open in the US.  ***Please note that Bobby Lowe has the distinction of opening the first Kyokushin dojo OUTSIDE of Japan.***

kang duk won break

Mas Oyama breaking bricks.

When Don Buck opened his Dojo doors in 1957 one of his first students, and Black Belts, was one Robert Babich. A year of two later Richard Kim had a skinny Korean Black belt fresh off the boat from Korea show up at his San Francisco Dojo.  As Kim was about to leave for Japan so he sent the young Korean to his student’s, Duke Moore, Budokan dojo where Moore promptly sent the Korean to Don Buck.

The young Korean didn’t speak much English but Don Buck told him to go change into his Dogi.  When the Korean returned Buck noticed a patch with a fist on the Korean’s uniform.  Don Buck asked what the patch said and young Korean replied something like, “Kang Duk Won Kwon Bup Kong Soo Do.”

After sparring and defeating Buck’s students he squared off with Buck himself.  Buck knocked the Korean down a few times but the Korean kept getting up and he finally knocked the much bigger and stronger Buck across the dojo floor and down.  Buck got back up smiling and told the Korean, “Your hired! What is your name?”  The young Kang Duk Won fighter said, “Norman Rha” and bowed slightly to Buck!

Buck was opening a couple of new Dojo locations and he hired Rha (Rha Jong-nam) and assigned Robert Babich to assist Rha with running the new Dojo.

However, the soft whip-like Tong Bei style punching and much deeper Chaun Fa stances of Rha’s Kang Duk Won Kong Soo Do were so much different than Oyama’s power punching that sometime after Babich earned his Shodan from Don Buck it was decided that Babich should open just his own dojo with Rha so as not to create differences of style with the Kyokushin students.  So they left Don Buck’s American Kyokushin Dojo’s to open their own KDW school.

As Rha was a poor Medical School student he and Babich shared an apartment with the agreement that Rha would teach Babich KDW in return for help learning English.  It should be noted that anytime in the 60’s and early 70’s Babich promoted students to Black Belt the Tracy Brother’s would try to hire the new KDW black belts to run one of their Tracy Brother’s Chinese Kenpo Schools.

The Tracy’s only hired the BEST fighters, both as teachers and Association School Coaches (Joe Lewis & Al Dacascos for example),  as school challenges were common and they didn’t want to loose their schools students, $$$, to another challenging school.  Babich’s KDW academy in San Jose, CA had a reputation of turning out some of the toughest fighters on the West Coast.

It is interesting to note, at least for me,  that Babich didn’t include Sanchin or Tensho in his Kwon Bop Karate that he taught in the 1970’s and 80’s until he closed down his San Jose Dojo.  Why I don’t know???

Note:

Thanks, BJ, for this wonderful bit of writing.

The reason Bob didn’t include Sanchin and Tensho, in my opinion, is that there are two styles of Karate, one fixed and one fluid, or Shorin and Shorei. Bob was not a large man, he was thin and whiplike, and the heavier sanchin style stances didn’t suit him, perhaps even worked against the fluid motions he was developing through the Kang Duk Won.

If you want to find out what the truth behind the Kang Duk Won, check out the first Karate form and applications, and the bonus material on historical uses of Karate.

This has been a page about Don Buck, Mas Oyama, and the early beginnings of the Kang Duk Won Karate.