Category Archives: tai chi chuan

Controlling Your Mind in the Martial Arts

Newsletter 1009

Making Your Mind Behave…

Good morning! Good morning!
I made it to Clearwater, Florida,
and am advertising for students.
Yippee!
Back in the saddle again.

So how are you guys doing?
Do you work out every single day?
I do.
Can’t stop.
Even if I’m beat and battered,
then I simply work out slowly,
tai chi style.
Tai Chi is a wonderful art,
and outside of matrixed martial arts,
it is one of the two most powerful classical arts I know.
(the other is karate)

Unfortunately,
most people think it is for health,
and old people,
and not much use for self defense.

I’ll tell you something interesting,
I don’t think I really began to truly understand
martial arts and self defense
until I began to delve into Tai Chi.

Oh,
I could beat people up.
But not if they were better and faster than me.
But once I learned Tai Chi
I began to relax in combat,
to see what people were going to do
before they did it.

The trick,
of course,
is to develop the patience.
When you are first doing that slow ‘ward off’ move,
you ask,
how can this work?
Aside form being slow,
it doesn’t have much application.
But the secret of learning
is to keep looking at something
until you understand it.

So I looked and looked
and went slower,
and…here it comes…
FORCED MY MIND TO SLOW DOWN!

Yes,
your mind is an errant child,
throwing distractions at you.
But if you MAKE yourself move slowly,
and MAKE your mind accept a different mode of thinking,
then everything becomes understandable,
and even those weird moves suddenly make sense.
And you find the applications.
And you find out that there is a vast world
of balance and sensitivity
of perception and appreciation.

Unfortunately,
if you don’t do this,
if you don’t MAKE your mind behave,
you miss out on all this wonder.
And you actually miss out
on a lot of the true meaning of the Martial Arts.

Just saying…

So here’s the Tai Chi Package.
Will help you look,
will help you MAKE your mind behave,
will show you some of the incredible self defenses,
that other arts miss out on.

2ca Tai Chi Chuan Package

If you’re here in Clearwater I hope to see you some day,
And…
Everybody have a great work out!!

Al

Making the Martial Arts Intuitive

Newsletter 843

Intuition in the Martial Arts and a BIG win!

Good evening
and…
HANAKWANMASS!

monkey boxing lineage

Click on the cover!

Got lots of things today,
including a PHEEEnominal win from a Monkey Boxer.
So…
LET’S START!

First,
it is the month of HanaKwanMass,
and I should explain that to all you newbies
who only joined the newsletter in the last year.

HanaKwanMass stands for…
Hanukkah, Kwanza, and Christmas.
Political correctness is for idiots,
if somebody says Happy Kwanza to me,
I say Happy Kwanza back.
Skin color, religion,
those are just distinctions for the ignorant.
We all bleed red,
and I don’t care what you call your viewpoint
of the Supreme Power.
So
HanaKwanMass,
I reach everybody,
or offend everybody,
and the heck with political correctness.

Second,
the path of the martial arts
involves making a person intuitive.
So they don’t have to think,
but do the right thing,
without thinking about it,
automatically.
What matrixing does is do this FAST.

Look,
there’s a lot to matrixing,
and that’s because the martial arts have had a lot done to them.
People,
well meaning instructors,
have obscured the real arts.
They have hidden the path to intuition.
Matrixing merely cleans up the field,
derails mysticism
with scientific observation,
and heaping helpings of logic.

One of the first things I ever wrote about Matrixing…

If you want to teach somebody how to count,
you wouldn’t say…
4, 7, green, 5 elephant…and so on.
You would say…
1…2…3…4…
and so on.
The martial arts, because of politics,
religion, nationalism, personal interest,
and so on,
are a mixed mesh up of…
4, 7, green, 5 elephant…and so on.

Matrixing returns the art to the logic of 1…2…3…4…and so on.

But there’s so much more,
there is the intense scrutiny of basics,
the rearranging of form,
the alignment of techniques,
and the presentation of a scientific philosophy
so that people no longer get lost in the mysticism.

Unfortunately,
people who aren’t too smart,
can’t let go of the mysticism,
and they resist matrixing.

Invariably,
they haven’t studied it,
but they sure know how to badmouth it.

So,
third,
here’s a win.
It is a spectacular win,
comes from a Monkey Boxing student.
And I should say something about this.

Matrixing presents the logic,
can be applied to any art.

Monkey Boxing is me teaching.
I use matrixing,
and all the tools at my disposal.
You might see a drill I learned in the Kang Duk Won
45 years ago.
You might see a translation from Wing Chun to Aikido,
that I worked on 40 years ago.
You might see something I made up yesterday
to help one student make the leap
from the hard grind of repetition
to the joy of intuition.

It goes this way and that,
an intuition of teaching,
and I have no way of judging
whether my instincts are correct.
So to get a win like this
really makes my day.
Here’s the win…

Al,

I don’t have room here to say this big enough or joyfully enough— but if I did, I’d put a HUGE big “Whoopee!!”

I’ve finally been through the first few videos of the Monkey Boxing course.  I have a habit of watching all I have- this from a learning technique I picked up years ago called “super-learning” and it basically says to learn anything- first skim over the material, which creates a ‘sense of familiarity’ to the information.  I’ve done that.  I have been left on CLOUD 9.

I was injured in an accident in 99– got mashed between two HUGE trucks– my 16 ton tow truck and a 9,000 pound Ford Excursion SUV…. and after that, I took almost 3 years to learn just to walk semi-normally again and I still limp.   Lately, I’ve had more “arthritic” effects and stiffening as a result. The other effect it had on me is, for some reason, and no doctors have been able to tell me why- I’ve lost a LOT of memories of my life.  I can put all my past memories probably in a two or three hour video if I could transfer my thoughts to video.   My 5th degree black belt in Kenpo- for instance– is GONE.  I know it did it, and every so often get a little “glimpse” of things but doesn’t stay with me.  My bodyguard years- I have a few memories of that- and even the last few years since the accident, most of the past part is just not there.

I’m telling you this because I wanted to get back into a martial art- more for self- defense than the “art” part.  I’m 60, not in good health at all, but want to learn to take care of myself.

What I found, just watching the first 14 videos (for some reason I missed 13- which I’ll get when my internet is back on- my data limit ran out).. was that it IS exactly as you said– SO INTUITIVE!!  It’s a truly NATURAL grouping of actions and motions- and I easily flow with it.   I’m So excited, I could scream– probably will a bit later!! 🙂

I have begun, and will have to work consistently and SLOWLY, and let it build on its own.   I can see myself doing it all- very slowly- and with dynamic tension to get the motions correct and build the muscles for that particular move as the same time- then over time the drills will build the motion back into my muscle memory (which hopefully will stay with me since they ARE natural- logical  motions).   I don’t know how long it will take me to learn and get really good at this- and don’t really CARE– because I KNOW it works- my “spirit” says it WORKS… and my mind KNOWS it works- because it is NATURAL/LOGICAL and REAL. I’ve already put my Kenpo books, cds., and other stuff I was looking at BACK in storage– and won’t be needing them.  I’m not interested in spending another 5+ years just learning something that is NOT right for me anyway.   And I love that just doing the Forms is the only realy “workout” I need.   I DO a workout- have begun recently- called 7 miracle tiger moves.. which is dynamic tension in motion.. and LOVE them- they are very effective and are working.  I can just AD this system to my routine and learn Monkey boxing while “working out” at the same time!!  I LOVE this.

You can’t possibly KNOW just how happy this has made me.   I have no one to work out with–and the forms will take care of that.   Later, once I’m settled where ever I go- I want to get a dummy and stuff to work out on.  I’ll probably teach it to someone close by once I get settled too.

I DO have a lousy internet right now, though– it’s wirless through Net Zero– which is a good service– but the “hotspot” I got from them is crappy.  It’s a pad that I use for hotspot- and most of the time it kicks out right in the middle of whatever I”m doing- and I have to shut everything down and start over… and the signal strength is weak- so it doesn’t pick up well at all when it’s cloudy.   I’m ordering a better “hotspot” later- like Jan.  (my check this time is already spent on my truck).. Until then- I’m hoping all the videos you post are ARCHIVED– because I will miss from now to about the 5th…  That is why I want to DOWNLOAD them all to my hard drive– because I use up “data” limit time watching them directly and can’t do them over and over like here at home.

I thought I would have loads of questions– but don’t- because it IS so “intuitive” and natural (or maybe the kenpo and tai chi is still in there helping with that somewhere- just unconsciously).. and I just LOVE this..  I was seriously looking at JKD online, and Wing chun online– etc.– but not now– I’m Doing MONKEYBOXING totally!!  Forget all that other long time stuff!! 🙂

Anyway-  hope this wasn’t too long- but just wanted you to know- I have FOUND my “niche” in this!!!   THANK YOU.

David C

pS– There’s NO WAY I can possibly do the Monkey in a Box for a bit– I have trouble getting up and down out  of a regular chair lately… but I’m working on it..  and I’ve always had this “feeling” in me that there was “an answer” or a “secret” to ALL martial arts– and this is it!!

David,
thank you very much for the win.
Thank you for allowing me to share this,
I know it will inspire people.

And,
for all you guys and gals.

David’s points are very simple…

anybody can learn it,
it is intuitive,
it can be learned fast…
or slow.
Depends on what you need and want.

And,
I don’t wish to replace anybody’s arts,
but that sometimes happens.
I actually prefer that you take my material
and revitalize your own art of choice.

Here’s the key,
matrixing breaks apart and rebuilds,
it makes logic, and logic becomes intuitive.

Monkey Boxing is me teaching.
I teach matrixed art,
and I draw on ALL my experiences
to get the student to experience ALL of his abilities.

Now,
those of you who have signed up for Monkey Boxing,
you’ll get a Monkey Boxing newsletter shortly
giving you the heads up on the new videos,
and other things that are happening on the site.

Here’s two links…

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/matrix-karate/
starts the matrixing path…

and…
http://monkeyboxingnow.com/internet/
a page I’m trying out
to gear to ads on the internet.

Now,
HanaKwanMass,
and a Happy Work Out to All!

Al

http://monkeyboxingnow.com/internet/

http://www.amazon.com/Binary-Matrixing-Martial-Arts-Case/dp/1515149501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437625109&sr=8-1&keywords=binary+matrixing

go to and subscribe to this newsletter:
https://alcase.wordpress.com

Remember,
Google doesn’t like newsletters,
so this is the best way to ensure you get them.

You can find all my books here!
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/

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

Indian Stealth Skills in the Martial Arts

Newsletter 835

Martial Arts and Indian Stealth Skills!
part three

Happy work out to you!
Which is the same as saying,
be strong and well,
be smart and sharp.
Be kind.

This is the third part of a five part series.
Subscribe to the newsletter to find the other parts

The most important Martial Arts book ever written.

The most important Martial Arts book ever written.

In the first two articles
we have discussed why
the native American Indian
was the best light infantry in the world.
This included a discussion of their hunting prowess,
and their devotion to silence,
all of which combined to make truly great silent warriors.

In this part I want to discuss
motion.

To begin,
for most people
walking is a process of unbalancing.
Simply,
people are standing like clumps, and to begin moving,
they unbalance their body
and fall in a direction.
Stick out a foot,
unbalance themselves,
fall in a direction.
I can’t even begin to tell you how inefficient this is.

At rest you should be able to move in any direction,
and without the need for unbalancing your body.

Now,
consider how the Indians were raised.
The woman cared for the child until the age of six.
At six the brave took over.
The child was trained to be totally and utterly silent,
and to move with extreme awareness.
Punishment for transgression in this fields was simple:
go hungry.
If the child didn’t master the skills,
then he didn’t bring home the meat,
and he went hungry.
And the family went hungry.
No excuses.
This attitude went towards hunting,
which was the main duty of the warrior,
and which led directly to combat.
No excuses.
You learned to use a knife the right way,
or you went hungry,
or…
died.
Harsh methods,
but they resulted in amazing warriors.

Here’s something that many people don’t understand.
The white man didn’t beat the Indians.
He infected him with disease.
It’s true.
The Indian had no defense for this kind of ‘germ warfare,’
and he eventually succumbed.
He didn’t lose in battle
so much as die out from disease.

Now,
that all said,
I liken the Indian hunting techniques to Tai Chi Chuan.
To sneak up on a wild animal
you had to move so slowly,
as slowly as the wind moved a tree branch.
You had to blend with the motion of nature.

You had to have a strong body to support this slow motion.
And you had to stand in a manner
in which you were still capable
at any moment,
of moving in any direction
as if sprung from a spring.
Not falling uncontrolled,
but legs loaded and ready to shove off,
in any direction.

Okay,
if you want to move with total silence,
and yet be so balanced
that you can move in any direction
without the need to unbalance yourself
and fall uncontrolled,
check out Five Army Tai Chi Chuan.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/five-army-tai-chi-chuan/

and make sure you subscribe to the newsletter
and read the first and last parts
of this scholarly treatise
on the methods of the finest guerrilla warriors in the world.

Have a great work out!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/five-army-tai-chi-chuan/

http://www.amazon.com/Binary-Matrixing-Martial-Arts-Case/dp/1515149501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437625109&sr=8-1&keywords=binary+matrixing

go to and subscribe to this newsletter:
https://alcase.wordpress.com

Remember,
Google doesn’t like newsletters,
so this is the best way to ensure you get them.

You can find all my books here!
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/

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

Zen and Indian Stealth Skills in the Martial Arts!

Newsletter 834 ~ Subscribe now!

Were the Indians Masters of Their Own Brand of Zen?
part two

What a GREAT day!
Of course,
if you don’t work out,
you probably don’t really know what I mean.
Grin.

This is the second of a five parts series.
Subscribe to this newsletter to get all five parts.

Last newsletter I made the point
that the American Indian
was probably the finest warrior in the world.
To back this up,
simply consider their attitude towards that great zen concept…
silence.

In zen you create a silence so absolute
that your spirit can manifest,
that the truth of you becomes apparent.

Indians had this zen attitude towards silence.

The mere fact of walking,
as described in the first part of this series,
can be used to create silence.
But that is only the first stage.
Perhaps some of you remember an old adage
that only fools whistle?
A bit harsh,
a happy person should whistle,
but when you are hunting game,
or sneaking up to a battle,
you can’t whistle.

Instead,
you have to master the sounds of nature,
the tweet of a bird,
the call of a wolf,
the actual sound of shifting sand,
or wind in the rushes.

To master such sounds requires an appreciation of silence itself.

Consider this bit of zen:
it is not the sound you must hear,
but the silence.

Or,
as I am fond of telling students,
a candle in a coal mine
is brighter than the sun at noon.

Consider this when you are doing Tai Chi,
and don’t make a sound.

Consider this in Aikido,
and don’t let your circles make a sound.

Consider this in Karate,
or Tai Chi,
or other arts,
and quell the sound of your motion,
of your technique,
it is not just wasted energy,
but it distracts the mind
from the silence necessary
to manifest the spirit.

Here’s a link to Tai Chi,
which is a great art for pursuing silence.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/five-army-tai-chi-chuan/

and have a great work out!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/five-army-tai-chi-chuan/

http://www.amazon.com/Binary-Matrixing-Martial-Arts-Case/dp/1515149501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437625109&sr=8-1&keywords=binary+matrixing

go to and subscribe to this newsletter:
https://alcase.wordpress.com

Remember,
Google doesn’t like newsletters,
so this is the best way to ensure you get them.

You can find all my books here!
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/

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 Arthritic Martial Arts Punch

Newsletter 820

Arthritis and a Martial Arts Punch!

“It’s not how hard you can hit,
it’s how much weight you can deliver.”
Al Case

I just received a great letter,
a fellow name of Damian,
said Yogata helped his arthritis,
and he talked about how
he sometimes had trouble with a fist because of arthritis.

yoga martial arts style

Click on the cover!

I recommend Yogata,
or any form of yoga,
but I really want to talk about punches,
which may impact on concepts about arthritis.

Arthritis is an interesting condition,
doctors sometimes lump everything
under the term arthritis,
and there are a lot of causes
behind arthritis.
It’s all sort of generic,
but generic with a bite.

So here’s the thing:
injury leads to inflammation.
The body is swelling.
Sometimes the swelling is obvious,
sometimes not,
but the pain,
or lack of usability,
is real.

Many, many years ago
I realized I wasn’t a breaking kind of guy.
My instructor was,
many people are,
there is something seductive
about Power,
and power is often associated with breaking things.

But I figured out that it’s not how hard you hit,
it’s how much weight you can transfer into the opponent.
So I thought about it,
and I realized something:

“you don’t have to tighten the fist.”

This is weird,
we all tighten the fist,
and it is important…for beginners.

Tightening the fist upon impact
teaches focus,
introduces one to concepts of power,
but,
at a certain point,
you don’t need to tighten the fist.
Here’s something to think about”

take a stick and poke it into a watermelon.

Did the stick get ‘tight?’
No.
It just had to be aligned,
and it required a certain amount of ‘quick’ weight.
Although,
when you think about it,
you could puncture a watermelon with a stick
using ‘slow’ weight.

So I started working on the idea
of poking the bones of my arm/fist
through an opponent’s body
without tightening the fist.

Having the idea of puncturing the body
in my mind.

It worked.
No fanfare,
no big deal,
just relax,
align the bones,
feed a little energy into the structure
to keep everything in line,
relax and throw the body.

Worked like a charm.

And…
I started holding thumbtacks in my fist
and breaking things.

And…
here is the kicker,
the more I relaxed,
the better I was able to thrust my
thumbtack holding bones
through an object.

There’s all sorts of things to think about here.
My favorite is this:

if you threw 20 pounds at somebody it would hurt.
(especially if that 20 pounds
had 200 pounds of body behind it)

So when you tighten the arm,
when you focus the fist,
the tightening of the muscles actually holds the strike back.

That’s very zen,
very tai chi,
very true.

BUT,
don’t stop practicing with a tight fist,
you need a certain degree of focus to develop internal power.
And hitting with just the bones,
as I describe here,
is not the only strike,
and focusing the energy is VERY important.

In fact,
I would say that it would be VERY difficult
to learn how to strike with a relaxed fist
if one doesn’t first gain an understanding
of how to focus the energy with a tight fist.

Anyway,
those are my thoughts,
and I want to thank Damian for making me think,
and sharing his win with me.

If you have arthritis,
or ANY condition,
there are ways to keep training.
You just have to relax your thinking,
look around,
and find what works.

And you can find what works
in Yogata,
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/yogata-the-yoga-kata/

in The Punch
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/hard-punch/

and if you think I’m just talking,
check out the video on this page…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4c-matrixing-chi-power/

Take care…and
have a great work out!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4c-matrixing-chi-power/

go to and subscribe to this newsletter:
https://alcase.wordpress.com

Remember,
Google doesn’t like newsletters,
so this is the best way to ensure you get them.

You can find all my books here!
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/

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

Karate Blocks Make the Man!

Newsletter 807

How Karate Blocks Make You Better

May you have the best work out of your life.
Really.

earn black belt karate

First Volume of Matrix Karate ~ Kindle version

Speaking of blocks…
When I was in my teens I was studying Kenpo.
I learned all these neat tricks,
was excited about fighting,
and I kept having these weird ideas about strategy
and how the martial arts were shaped.
Oddly,
I couldn’t make these strategies work.
I could fight well,
but these things I was thinking about,
they just eluded me in combat.
And it was because there wasn’t much
in the way of blocking,
in Kenpo.

In my twenties I joined the Kang Duk Won,
I bashed my arms for years,
and I learned about pain.
I learned that pain is a warning device.
And it was all because of blocks.

Funny.
Most people won’t use a real block in freestyle.
I can,
and do if I am teaching somebody
and there is a lesson in it.
But it’s easier to just hit the other fellow
than it is to block.

But I never would have learned
how to slide in and hit somebody
if I hadn’t learned how to block.

I always remember the specific technique
where it all came home.
It was the technique
from the first move of Batsai.
Batsai is spelled a few different ways,
but it means
‘defending a fortress.’

In that technique I had to do three blocks.
And I had to do these three blocks with hips twists,
I had to twist the hips
to align the body
so it could support the impact
without collapsing.
And I had to do it faster
than somebody could throw three punches at me.

For months I tried to get that technique.
I would practice it and practice it,
get guys to give me that attack,
but I just couldn’t move my body fast enough.

One day,
I did.
Just like that.
One second I couldn’t,
and the next second I could.
Like a switch had been thrown.
But here’s the interesting thing:
I felt like I was behind my head.
I felt like I was out of my body,
just a little bit,
and watching my body move without me.

Well,
it was moving because I had mastered
the thought pattern behind the blocks.
I had practiced that mental circuit
until it broke,
and what was left was me.

From there I moved into other things,
hitting without blocks because,
darn it,
I had gotten so good at them I didn’t need them.
And I moved into concepts
of how to move the energy in my body
just by thinking about it.
Which is understandable if you realize
that learning how to block
had taught me how to influence my body
with just thought.

I began to be able to accomplish
all those odd ideas I had had
way back in Kenpo.
Which led to Matrixing.

Nowadays people don’t practice the blocks.
And if they do,
they don’t practice them with the proper hip movement,
the proper alignment,
the proper breathing and thought.

I know this because when people
come to me for lessons,
they show a complete lack of understanding,
no knowledge of the drills,
of how blocking works.

The thing is
there is a whole realm of thought
that goes with learning how to block.
You learn all sorts of things,
and it builds a springboard
for moving into other concepts.

Think about it,
you can box,
and learn how to take a punch,
but that doesn’t teach you
how to run energy through your body.

Nothing wrong with boxing,
it’s actually pretty good stuff,
fills in a few gaps
that are in the martial arts,
but it just doesn’t have the energy theory
that goes along with the martial arts.

Anyway,
I’m working on the Matrix Karate
for a Kindle version.
Kindle is very unfriendly to photos,
so I have to take some out,
and rewrite the thing.
It’s be good,
but not as good as a book,
or a video.
Heck,
even the other electronic readers are better,
because they take PDFs easily.

But one of the things I focus on
to make up for that lack,
is the specific blocking in the forms.
Not the matrix of blocking,
which provides a logic
which blasts one to intuition,
but the old way,
learning the blocks,
making them work,
until the art does you,
and you become the art.

You guys are lucky.
You understand something the Kindle readers
may never understand.
You get everything on these courses.
On the other hand,
the kindle readers may understand something you don’t
because they will be seeing the art
in a more bare bones viewpoint,
that will let their mind fill in the blanks,
which is very healthy for a student.
Well,
who’s to say.
The real lesson is in the work out.
Getting the material and doing it,
thousands and thousands and thousands of times,
until it becomes you,
and you become it.
That will teach you the art,
no matter which of my books or courses you get.

Here’s the full Matrix Karate course.

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

Have a great work out!

Al

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

Don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter at
https://alcase.wordpress.com

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

Insanity in the Martial Arts

Newsletter 801
Sanity and the Martial Arts

Good summer to you!
It’s almost here,
and do you have a plan?
Have you selected what martial art
you want to master this summer?

Hey,
I was talking to this fellow today,
He was a pilot,
used to push B1s around.
that’s right,
he was carrying the biggest bullets known to mankind.

We talked about a lot of stuff,
and veered into politics,
and it was refreshing.
He was from Arizona,
told me about gun laws there,
concealed carry,
the incredible border war that is going on
and that the news media doesn’t cover.
I told him about sanity.

He made the remark,
the old saw about:

insanity is when you keep doing the same thing
over and over,
and expect different results.

I told him that sanity was when you could observe reality.
He blinked,
and said I was right.
Never thought of it,
but I was right.
And I am.

When you do the martial arts,
you practice for some guy coming down at your head with a knife,
and you have to observe the exact reality of it all.
Observe something other than a knife
coming at your head,
and you get cut.
Blood spurts.
You know?

And here is what it all means,
most people deal in opinion.
Opinion is talk without the facts.

Most politicians do this.
They pay no attention to the fact
that every state that has fewer gun laws,
has less crime.
They call for more gun control,
which,
if you observe the reality,
is asking for more crime.

Simple but true.

So on one side we have the relative insanity
(all sanity and insanity is relative)
of opinion.
On the other side we have the relative sanity
of observation.

The thing is,
it is actually pretty easy to be sane.
Just practice your forms,
and practice the techniques in your forms,
and toss out the bushwah,
the stuff that doesn’t work.

But,
and this is an example of insanity,
many people don’t do that.

Look at the chat rooms,
everybody has an opinion.
One or two have the facts,
and the other 98 or 99 has an opinion.

That,
incidentally,
is why I don’t bother going to chat rooms,
and have even,
thus far,
eschewed a chat room of my own.

So,
here it is again,
if you can observe what is real,
you can be sane,
and the martial arts help you observe what is real.

If you can’t observe what is real,
you can only speak in opinion,
and the more opinion you have,
the more insane you are.

Well,
think about it.

And think about getting the Outlaw Karate course.

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

I was doing the Outlaw Karate course,
and tossing out bushwah techniques,
and trying to find EXACTLY what worked.
It really helped me to discover matrixing,

And,
what martial art are you going to learn this summer?

Have a great work out!

Al

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

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

What Matrixing in the Martial Arts Really Does

Newsletter 800
What is Actually Happening With Matrixing and the Martial Arts

Good morning!
The sun is shining,
and then it is raining,
and shining and raining,
and so on.
that makes it THE day for working out!

To injure an opponent is to injure yourself. To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace.

To injure an opponent is to injure yourself. To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace.

I just received several emails.
Some fellow was bashing me on his blog.
He was a long time martial artist,
quoted me,
then proceeded to ‘dissect’ me.
And,
if anybody spoke up for me,
he bashed them.
Nice guy.

Anyway,
I thought this made for a wonderful opportunity
to explain about bad people in the martial arts,
what really makes them,
what you do about them,
and…what is really happening with matrixing.
So here we go.

Here is a scenario.
You are in the seventh grade,
and you are charged with teaching a fourth grader,
you have to teach him how to multiply.
You lay out the problems,
you show him,
and show and show him,
and he just doesn’t get it.
You get mad.
Stupid kid.
Teacher comes up,
she doesn’t get mad,
she just sort of straightens everything out.
Now,
here is what happened:
you had never taught anybody.
You didn’t know all the tricks.
The teacher has seen it all,
she knows all the tricks.

Now,
the people who attack me,
who attack matrixing,
they are like seventh graders.
They have done some martial arts,
but they don’t know all the tricks.
Or,
in this specific,
they don’t understand
how all the arts fit together.
They don’t understand the underlying principles,
the real philosophy behind it all.
So,
they get mad.

And,
think about it,
they have spent their lives doing martial arts,
and here I come along and say:
oh, that’s not right,
you should do it this way.

Man,
am I a threat.
So they strike back
against what is threatening them,
threatening their carefully cultivated view of themselves,
of their construct of how the world works.

And,
here is a proof for what i am saying:
If they knew the truth they wouldn’t get mad.
I don’t get mad…because I know the truth.
I know how the arts fit together,
I know all the tricks,
the gimmicks and methods,
the way it all works,
so I don’t get mad
when these fellows speak ill of me
on blogs and chatrooms and so on.

If you know the truth you don’t get mad,
you can look down to their level,
and see what it is they don’t understand.

The problem is…
you can’t make them understand
if they don’t want to understand,
that is to say,
if they are holding to the small bits of truth
they did manage to accumulate,
to the methods and things that they constructed
to try to make sense
out of the martial arts
which don’t always make sense.

Now,
the specific fellow who was attacking me,
was dissecting one of my Kenpo books.
And it gets very interesting.

For instance,
he claimed I wasn’t a serious student of Kenpo,
which,
in the book,
I explained that i wasn’t a serious student of Kenpo,
that I was applying matrixing principles
to what i had learned decades ago.

For instance,
he said my work needed more depth,
which,
in my book,
I set forth the idea that this was a beginning,
and that somebody should come along
and exploit my principles
to look deeper.

Do you get it?

He was saying things I had already pointed out in my book.

He was criticizing me
using points i had already used to criticize myself.

Not very creative,
especially for so called critical thinking.

But,
here’s the kicker.
in his attack he made an interesting statement, he said something to the effect that he had read my books,
and that at a certain point he came face to face with

a different way of seeing things.

This was the effect of matrixing.

And he immediately pushed it aside,
which is to say,
he held on to his carefully constructed world,
and was unable to evolve.

And,
I will say something else.
In my books I tell people, very plainly,
that they can’t just read the books,
they have to do the techniques,
then they will understand,
then they will get what I am talking about.

I gauran-forking-tee he did not do this.
He was a seventh grader,
thinking he was a teacher,
and he read the book without doing ANY of the techniques.
Without experiencing what I was really saying.

If he had done the book,
instead of reading it like a comic,
he would have been changed,
that different viewpoint would have popped out,
nice and neat and gently overwhelming,
and he would have evolved.

His art would have evolved.
He would have become a teacher,
a real teacher,
instead of a seventh grader thinking he was a teacher.

Now,
I know what I have just said
is the absolute truth,
because I have seen it work over the last ten years.

There are thousands of people who have DONE the material I have written.
Who have DONE the forms and techniques.
Who have DONE the drills.
And my wins book is packed with their stories.
Over six hundred pages of thanks yous.
Of ‘how did you ever figure this out?’
Of ‘OMG, I am making my own art,
and it all makes so much sense!’

So that is the point i want to make here.
You can read about,
or you can do.
But don’t bother criticizing what I’ve done
until you have done it for yourself.

Don’t be a seventh grader,
thinking you know it all,
when you only know what a seventh grader knows.
Don’t settle for that.

And,
that brings us to where this matrixing thing is going.
Let me make a few points.
I love the martial arts.
There is nothing i love more than doing the forms,
working out with people,
it is all a ball.
But,
I left the fighting part of the martial arts decades ago.
I lived in a time that has passed
where i was able to accumulate all the data,
and make sense of it,
and I was able to put fighting aside.

And,
the point of matrixing is to help you do this, too.
To learn how to fight so well,
that fighting stops being a game of chance,
and becomes a scientific endeavor,
where you analyze and handle people
like you are a teacher,
and they are seventh graders.

We are talking about actual evolution here.

If you lived fifty years,
you would have fifty years worth of knowledge.
But what if I could give you that knowledge in a year or two?
where would you be in fifty years then?
You would be at a hundred years,
because you would have my fifty,
plus your fifty.
And here is the interesting thing,
the martial arts accelerate beyond that,
once they are matrixed.
It is not just about getting my fifty years of knowledge,
it is about getting thousands of years of knowledge,
all the knowledge accumulated by the ancients
and passed down,
and finally made sense of.

Let me ask you a question:
what step of evolution is it
where you don’t get mad?

You watch the world
and everybody gets mad.
The politicians lie and get mad,
the corporate bosses,
for all their success,
cheat and steal,
and get awfully mad.
People on the street,
they get mad in their cars,
they flip each other off,
they have road rage,
they beat each other up with baseball bats.
Husbands and wives get mad,
they snipe at each other,
and the next thing you know
the man punches out the wife,
the wife does a Lorena Bobbit,
and…

do you get it?

From the playgrounds of our ‘educational’ institutions
to the prisons,
to the businesses and politicis,
we are a raging,
wild beast.

I don’t get mad.
And I am telling you exactly why,
because I have done the martial arts so much
that I have given up fighting.
Because I understand what frustrations
all those seventh graders are having out there.

Do you want to get ‘unmad?’
Do you want to give up anger?
Do you want to understand,
not like a seventh grader,
hopped up on GMO and vaccines and testosterone and all that,
but like a calm, patient teacher?

Do you like a world where you are out of control?
Where you travel from one conflict to the other,
and never partake of the chocolate cake in-between?

That’s what I am selling,
that’s the truth of what Matrixing does.
That’s where you would be,
if you could suddenly ‘evolve’ yourself.
If you could leap past all the minor frustrations
of a society that is dedicated to killing itself.

Now,
the interesting thing is this:
I have often thought about taking all the books off the market
that are attempts to apply matrixing to other arts.
It just seems to cause so much anger.
People think I am trying to destroy their construction,
instead of enhance it.
They think i am attacking their art,
when I am only trying to make it bigger,
better,
more logical.
When all I want is to take them to the end of one street,
and show them a thousand other streets.
When I just want to evolve them.

My consideration is simple.
Are my books causing anger among those unable to understand
because they cannot do more than read,
because they cannot do,
because they cannot understand the instructions?

Something to think about,
eh?

I’ve also thought about,
and even begun work
on setting up lines of endeavor
which can be closely watched.
I made an attempt at Monkeyland,
and still think about the mistakes made I made,
and how i could fix them.

I’ve thought about setting up a website
dedicated to taking people step by step,
but not allowing them to purchase the next step,
until they have completed the previous step.

And there are reasons I haven’t done this yet,
though I have made half starts.
Reasons like I don’t have the time and wherewithal.
Not very good reasons are these, I admit,
but…that is where I am.

Okay,
hope I didn’t bore you,
hope I actually made some sense with this ranting,
but let me just say this…
the most important course I’ve got
is the Master Instructor Course.
I push it more than any other,
because it lays out the way energy works in the martial arts,
it presents how techniques work.
And it tends to divest one of ALL the false reasons
behind the actual martial arts.
It tells you the information you need to instruct.
It opens the door
to the way of becoming
a calm, patient teacher,
and not a seventh grader.
Here go.

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

And,
to all,
happy March,
March is named after the God of War,
so it is your month.
Enjoy it
by working out every day.

Happy martial arts!
and 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 Importance of Earning a Black Belt

Newsletter 798
The Importance of a Black Belt in the Martial Arts

Good afternoon!
Absolutely stunning day.
Absolutely perfect for a work out.

Hey,
I had somebody ask me,
the other day,
what belt I was.
It’s a legitimate question.

I received my black belt in 1974.
It was in a classical karate system,
the Kang Duk Won.

And,
a few years ago,
a bunch of my black belts decided
I should be an 8th black belt.
I had some forty years training at the time.
But it was sort of interesting.
we had a wall,
and everybody who made black belt
got a plaque on the wall.
We had a dozen or so plaques,
and somebody noticed there wasn’t one for me.
So they got together and got an 8th black plaque for me.

The funny thing is I didn’t notice it
for quite some time.

Here’s the deal.
I’m proud of my black belt.
But,
shortly after I received my belt,
I lost all interest in belts
and promotions
and such.
(Though I did appreciate
what my black belts did)

Simply,
I became addicted to the information,
the the art,
to the development of myself in a spiritual sense.
But that’s me.
For those who have just begun,
you should be very concerned
with earning a legitimate black belt.

A legitimate black belt carries with it
the realization,
the knowledge,
that you have just begun to learn.
If you earned a black belt,
and you didn’t get that thought,
then there is a good chance that you aren’t legitimate.
You haven’t CBMed,
made the art into yourself,
inverted your viewpoint of the world,
haven’t understood that reality is the illusion,
and yourself is the projector.

Now,
the real point of the martial arts is this:
Does it work.

First,
does it work as self defense.
Can you defend yourself?

Second,
does it make you grow spiritually?
Do you understand your worth as an ‘I am,’
do you see yourself as a point of awareness,
do you understand how your thoughts control the universe?

I suppose,
analyzing my own preferences,
that is why I prefer Karate first,
and Tai Chi second.

Karate works.
It makes my bones hard,
puts snap in my muscles,
and gives me long life.

Tai Chi works also.
It makes me sensitive,
removes me from illusion,
and gives me long life.

And,
interestingly,
Tai Chi,
learned effectively,
is one of the most incredible
self defense styled martial arts
I have ever experienced.

And,
they provide me with a ‘hard and soft’ progression of art.
After you do a bit of matrixing,
you can see how karate can become tai chi.
And how tai chi enhances Karate.

All very interesting.

If you are experienced with the hard,
I recommend the soft.
If you are experienced with the soft,
I recommend the hard.

It’s the only way to be sure
that you really understand
all aspects of the martial arts.

The trick,
of course,
is to make sure you matrix BOTH martial arts.

Here are the Matrix links.

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

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/2ba-matrix-tai-chi-chuan/

Have a great work out!
Al

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

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/2ba-matrix-tai-chi-chuan/

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

Tai Chi Chuan vs Karate

Major Difference between Karate and Tai Chi Chuan

One of my work out partners,
way back in the Kang Duk Won,
decided he was going to do Tai Chi Chuan.
He figured it would be easy,
because of his karate conditioning.
He threw his back out so badly
it took him two years to recover.

Soft, flowing Tai Chi Chuan,
and it was too tough for a young karate guy.
What’s wrong with that picture, eh?

What is wrong is simple,
when Bruce, my friend,
did Tai Chi he thought he could just do a karate kick slowly.
But karate is fast and explosive,
the leg is out and back,
in Tai Chi the muscles have to strain to keep the leg up.
And I mean a whole sequence of muscles.
Bruce’s muscles,
though karate powerful,
couldn’t support the leg for an extended period of time,
and the result of his attempting to do such a thing
disrupted the muscles
all the way back to the spine..

Now isn’t that interesting,
tai chi chuan has more ‘weight lifting’
in its moves.
Karate has the fast explosion,
and the muscle tightening (focus)
builds the muscles.
But those muscles are built
at the beginning and end of the move.
In Tai Chi the muscles must support the weight,
throughout the move,
for a long(er) period of time.

A simple difference,
but it leads to an important concept.

Karate is explosive energy.
Tai Chi is suspended energy.

The difference manifests in movements,
in timing,
in focus of concentration,
in emptiness,
in energy.

Now we could actually analyze these differences
from different points of view.
But what I’ve said here is probably the best point to start.

Not speed,
not sensitivity,
though those are important,
but defining how energy is actually used.
Because how energy is used
defines the other terms.
This concept is core.

This is not to discourage you from trying,
but to caution you,
and help you make the transition.

If you do your karate forms slowly,
and round out the edges of your motion,
you can get Tai Chi power.
Just take it easy when you begin.

If you do your Tai Chi forms fast,
you can find Karate power,
and pretty easily.
But you do have to adapt to a different mind set.

Explosive and slow
two sides to a coin,
two sides to the martial arts.
And there are many more sides that these concepts can lead to.

Here’s the link to the Five Army Tai Chi Chuan course.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/five-army-tai-chi-chuan/

Have a great work out!
Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/five-army-tai-chi-chuan/

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