Category Archives: Uncategorized

Original Karate Technique!

Hidden Techniques of Karate!

I originally published this book as Chiang Nan.
I added several hours of video links
and renamed it
‘Hidden Techniques of Karate.’

Oddly,
The version called Chiang Nan
without the video links
has five star ratings.
Hidden Techniques, however, has no ratings.
Weird.
You’d think I would have more and even better ratings
for a book that includes several hours of videos.

Anyway,
I want to discuss the first technique.
It’s the third move in Pinan one (Heian One)
the move with the rolling fists.
On the surface it is stupid, as I will show you.
But when you see what it is really is
it really makes sense.

Pay attention to the way ‘old masters’ do this technique.
It will demonstrate how even the guys
who supposedly know so much have been bamboozled.
My way is best,
and if you do it right,
and the guy doesn’t let go his grab
a little practice
and you can break his wrist with your strike.

Here you go.

If the link doesn’t work try copy and paste into your browser.

Okay,
the book is
Hidden Techniques of Karate
It’s a video course book.
It’s got hours and hours of video
forms and applications,
and it is a valuable lesson in the right way to do martial arts.

Here’s the website link…

Hidden Techniques of Karate

Or if you want to just go to Amazon just type
‘Hidden Techniques of Karate’ in the amazon search box.

Now,
have yourself a funomenal day!
And a great work out!

Al

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

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.
(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)
My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them for 5 stars.
‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings
so hopefully you’ll find the book that works for you.

How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Two Volumes)

New book on Nine Square Boxing!

New Book on Nine Square Diagram Boxing!

What a beautiful day!
For me, what mades it so is the one form I do.
I start off the day with this form,
and I end the day with this form.

Oh, I still do Sanchin (including Seisan)
and my matrix forms,
but the one form that geets my full intention
day after day,
is in my new book

Advanced Tai Chi Chuan for Real Self Defense!

In this book I get rid of ALL the mystical bushwah,
and I focus on the dozen postures.
The moves that actually work, and can be used in freestyle.

The form is done on the nine square pattern,
it is short,
and I do it with closed eyes.
This aids in visualization
and really starts the energy flowing.

There are about 30 techniques taken directly from this form,
and I have a section on Lop Sau,
which helps understand how the moves can be translated from
the perfection of form
to the discipline of application
to the chaos of freestyle.

The book is 108 pages,
has included some matrixing theories,
and…
I do it every day.
Rain or shine.
I do it slowly,
Tai Chi style,

And it is the only form in the art of
Nine Square Diagram Boxing!

SO,
check it out…

Advanced Tai Chi Chuan for Real Self Defense!

And have a GREAT work out!

Al

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

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.
(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)
My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them for 5 stars.
‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings
so hopefully you’ll find the book that works for you.

How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Two Volumes)

Making Karate Real

Posers in Martial Arts!

Last newsletter I talked about the basic poser technique,
a technique where the attacker has to wait
while the defender does the technique.
That’s the basic thing you’ll see
that makes a technique useless and unworkable.

A secondary poser would be one where
the defender has unrealistic hand speed.
The attacker throws a punch or two,
and the defender’s hands are a blur,
almost invisible.
But is it realistic to assume
that you will be that much faster than your opponent?

In a fight everything speeds up.
Your attacker is going to speed up.
And that includes doing unorthodox things
that you won’t see on the mat.

So the idea of you being incredibly fast
and the opponent reacting in an exact, prescribed manner,
is false.

So,
solution.
Don’t practice techniques where the other guy waits for you to do the technique.
That was my first advice from the last newsletter.
AND…
practice techniques that are simple and basic,
and rely mostly on basics,
until you go out of your body.

This happened for me
right before I got to black belt
on applications from the form Botsai.
(Bassai, other spellings)

We did the three blocks
right at the beginning of the form,
and I knew I couldn’t keep up with the three attacks.
Month after month I practiced,
Trying to do something I knew I couldn’t do.
With endless practice I started to economize my motion,
and I started to use my body as one unit.
What I call CBM,
or Coordinated body Motion.

All parts of the body begin motion at the same time.
All parts of the body end motion at the same time.
All parts of the body contribute to the motion
according to the various percentages
of muscle, mass, etc.

One day I was doing the technique,
and suddenly it was as if I was behind my head,
not looking through my eyes,
but seeing everything without blinking.
My hands moved,
perfectly CBMed,
and my ‘whole body speed’ was faster than the attack.

That was a major point for me.
My body working as one unit,
being apart from my body,
and my body moving in response to my thought,
and not because of ‘reaction times.’

I often hear people talk about muscle memory,
and that is a silly concept.
Your muscles don’t remember sequences.
They remember pain,
but the real ‘memorization’
is a circuit in your mind.
And that circuit is enacted by you.
The human being.

And if you practice long enough
the circuits tend to delete
and you move without the need for circuits.
Which is seen as you being apart from your body.
Moving in…’the now.’

So good martial arts is liberating,
imparts a certain freedom of the soul.
And that is why you have to stay away from posers of ALL kinds.
Unfortunately,
most arts are so filled with posers
they rarely impart this freedom of the soul.
But almost any art can work
if you simply get rid of posers,
Focus on techniques that rely on basics
and a true estimation of time and speed of hands and so forth.
I would recommend applying Matrixing to your art
to make this happen.
Matrixing is the only scientific analysis of the martial arts.

Remember this:
Science only measures.
Matrixing provides solutions.

Obligatory ad coming up.
check out

The Last Martial Arts Book: Nine Square Diagram Boxing

GET THE EDITION WITH THE 5 HOURS OF VIDEO LINKS!

This art has the meditative aspects of Tai Chi,
the simple, modular approach of Pa Kua,
the workability of GOOD karate,
and goes from block and punch
the closure of distance
to grab arts.

Incidentally,
I’m almost ready to publish a book on advanced Nine Square techniques,
including the only form in Nine Square Diagramming.
Stay tuned,
sign up for the newsletter if you haven’t,
and…

Have a great work out!
Al

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

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.
(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)
My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them for 5 stars.
‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings
so hopefully you’ll find the book that works for you.

How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Two Volumes)

Making Martial Arts Techniques that Work in a Fight!

Poser Martial Arts Techniques!

What makes a good martial arts technique?
Actually, it is easier to ask what makes a bad martial arts technique.
I think I’m going to write a bit on this on future blogs,
but let’s start with what I call a ‘poser.’

First, before I give you the facts,
go on youtube and ask for bunkai,
or martial arts techniques,
or form applications.
Now,
have that page open while you read this newsletter.

The prime example of a poser technique is
when the defender punches,
then waits for the defender to do his technique.

This flaw,
this ‘stop-motion’ in the middle of a technique
is the quintessential definition of a poser.
In a real fight people don’t throw one punch and stop.
Does a fellow stop in the ring after he punches?

Now,
take a look at the technique open on youtube.
Does the attacker stop motion after a punch?
If he does,
no matter what,
no matter how august the art,
or prestigious the artist,
that is a poser technique.

If it’s a really bad poser,
if the attacker is frozen for a long time
it’s fun to take a stop watch to him.

Now, here comes the bad news.
Film yourself doing techniques,
or just watch other students do them.
How many of your techniques are posers?
The answer is a lot.
Most arts are about 90% poser.

In my art we train extensively
with a matrixed form of Lop Sau.
In this perfect exercise
the techniques we practice are in use.
They are not slices of a form
designed to teach you something abstract
that is not necessarily useful in a real fight.
We train so that you segue directly into counters,
so you can handle the secondary attacks that MUST happen
because of the body position you are in
and the techniques you are using.

Anyway,
the point is that you must examine your art
no matter how much you love it,
and define and eliminate all poser techniques.
To not do this is to invite a beating.

Okay,
obligatory ad.
If you are curious about my lop sau,
my ‘perfect drill for fighting,’
check out

The Last Martial Arts Book
Nine Square Diagram Boxing

But DON’T get this version.
Look around and find the version with over FIVE HOURS of video links!

That’s five hours of video training
for the price of two books.
That is THE BEST deal anywhere!
And it will make your karate technically correct
and give you all the real techniques!

Okay,
guys and gals
thanks for being martial artists
you make the world a better place…

Have a great work out!
Al

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

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.
(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)
My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them for 5 stars.
‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings
so hopefully you’ll find the book that works for you.

How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Two Volumes)

Injuries Grow in Brazilian Jujitsu!

Martial Arts Injuries in Jujitsu!

(sign up for newsletter!)

Recently read an article that claimed
Brazilian Jujitsu was causing lots of injuries.
I find this fascinating.

When I started Kenpo Karate back in 67,
within two years I had broken my toes twice,
my hand once
and needed to repair a cracked tooth,
and I attributed these injuries to two things.

First,
poor instruction.
Can’t argue with that.

Second,
protective gear.

Our instructor came out to the freestyle class one day.
He had a couple of large boxes filled with protective gear.
“Okay, guys,
now we can fight without getting injured.”
Oh, Lord, the injuries piled up.
Everybody thought they could hit harder,
everybody thought they had to hit harder.
They stopped learning control
and started punching harder.

When I went to a classical school
(Kang Duk Won)
I learned what power was.
By learning what real control was.
This school was ten times harder than the Kenpo school,
I ended up with so many bruises I couldn’t press the clutch pedal.
But I never received an injury.
Good instruction and no protective gear.

We learned to be protective of our partners,
and to be precise in our control.
We learned the consequences of poor control
through the ministrations of our ‘gentle’ seniors.
in other words,
if you showed poor control
a higher belt would step in and show you consequences.
But they did it with good control.
It was actually a very humane lesson.

Brazilian Jujitsu has lots of injuries.
There is no arguing that.
I have seen good schools with lots of injuries.
Especially to the hands and wrists.
Poor instruction?
Maybe.
But I would tend to think it is young turks
getting over excited by the action.

But here’s the thing…
if you do jujitsu correctly
if you find the angles
and use gentle force,
it works.
That’s what the name means.
Jujitsu means ‘gentle trick.’

But I see people,
especially in the cage,
where victory is more important than your opponent’s body,
who use full force
and crank to the max,
and who,
in rare matches,
can’t even be pulled off their opponent.

It is interesting,
we live in degraded times,
where honor is not as valuable as a punch in the face.
Thus, there aren’t many voices asking for
more rules to protect the fighter.

To be truthful,
I am not fond of rules.
Rules are needed in contests
where the participants might be out of control.
they don’t have self control,
and there is a need for ‘other’ control.
such as referees,
fines and punishments like being banned.

It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out.
But,
in the meantime,
I’ll stick with the classic arts
who preach honor and virtue,
over ‘winning at all costs.’

Okay,
obligatory ad.
If you want to know the right way to do Karate,
check out

How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Comes in Two Volumes)

These are the real techniques behind the forms,
techniques that can be used on the street,
and even in the ring.
The books have over FIVE HOURS of video links!

That’s five hours of video training
for the price of two books.
That is THE BEST deal anywhere!
And it will make your karate technically correct
and give you all the real techniques!

There it is,
check it out,
and enjoy the rest of this winter.
It’s almost spring,
and that is training time in my book!

Have a great work out!
Al

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

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.
(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)
My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them for 5 stars.
‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings
so hopefully you’ll find the book that works for you.

How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Two Volumes)

Evolving in Tai Chi Chuan!

Accelerating Your Speed of Learning in Tai Chi!

I was always trying to figure out
how to make Tai Chi Chuan happen a little quicker.
Just as i didn’t want to take years for a black belt in other systems,
I didn’t want to take years to get the real benefits of Tai chi.

When I put together the Nine Square Diagram Boxing
I was addressing this directly.
I figured isolating the working moves,
increasing repetition,
and focusing on the meditative aspects
would get me there.

The important things to remember
are to shift the weight back and forth,
loading the legs with energy,
pushing that energy into the tan tien,
which is the energy generator for the body.

Also, to keep the belly taut, but not tight.
This focuses on the tan tien and not the muscles.
Very important to realize that
if you focus on the muscles
you isolate body parts
instead of putting them together as one unit.

And, to keep the arms filled with unbendable energy.
Aikido definitions are best to understand the ‘unbendable arm.’
But very little flexing,
keep the arms at their most optimum bend
and work on subtle pulses
that work off the push of energy in the legs.

Doing the Nine Square in this way,
or doing Tai Chi in this manner
will up your speed of learning,
and the accumulation of energy in your body.

Simply shift back and forth
and feel the ‘slosh’ of energy in your body.
It may take a while,
but it is faster than traditional Tai Chi by ten.

But what REALLY helped me
is doing the Nine Square with my eyes closed.
I did this with Tai Chi and it helped,
but with the repetition and focus of Nine Square
it magnified everything tremendously

I was feeling like I was holding a ball of energy.
I was feeling the energy building so fast
that I was compelled to move into the hard style
and snap everything with power.

that’s why I talk about doing the Nine Square two ways.
One soft and one hard.

When doing the Nine square soft (or Tai Chi)
don’t work against yourself.
Let the power build by being patient.
Know that you’re working for more than simple self defense.
Know that you are building yourself spiritually,
building and using energies
that normal people are not aware exists.

Ground the legs,
taut the belly
unbendable arms
close the eyes and let the power build

Do the hard style separately.

Here’s the link to the book,
make sure you…
GET THE EDITION WITH 5 HOURS OF VIDEO LINKS!

The Last Martial Arts Book: Nine Square Diagram Boxing

It’s a new year,
so have a great work out,
and do all the martial arts you can!
It’s good for your soul.

Al

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

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.
(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)
My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them for 5 stars.
‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings
so hopefully you’ll find the book that works for you.

How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Two Volumes)

The Evolution of the Shaolin Martial Arts!

The History of the Shaolin Martial Arts

Most people say the Martial Arts
came from the Shaolin Temple.
Undoubtededly,
the Shaolin Temple is a big influencer.
But,
my own theory is slightly different.

Originally
I wrote a short column about ‘Og and Bog.’
Og steals Bog’s apples by conking him on the head,
Bog imagines a defense for getting conked on the head,
and we have a technique
and the birth of the martial arts.
Which is to say
from the very first time
one man raised his fist to another,
martial arts have been developing.

Verbal history,
not a reliable thing,
says that Bodhidharma came to Shaolin from the east,
trained the monks in meditation,
and when they proved too weak to meditate properly,
he gave them the martial arts.

But when you look at the exercises credited to Bodhidharma
they look like calisthenics.
So how do simple calisthenics
become martial arts?

Let’s create a possible scenario
to present my theory.
Warlords reigned,
they conscripted peasants,
and taught them how to fight.
How to use the spear,
how to do basic ‘boxing’ (kung fu).

The peasants who survived the battles
might retire to home,
and go to a temple to pray,
maybe even feel a bit of remorse
about the deaths they caused
and join a temple.

At the temple they want to stay in shape
so they use the basic calisthenics they used in the military.
They even use some of the fighting routines.
But the essence of the temple isn’t in fighting,
and if one is in daily meditation
and begins a regimen in fitness,
it is conceivable that the exercises they did
begin to take on the form of meditation.

No, not every monk is a warrior,
but if even one soldier takes refuge at the temple
translates his military exercises
into meditation…
that might have great influence.

So we have a sort of a criss cross here
between meditation and physical combat.
It’s a maybe,
but a logical sort of a maybe.

Now let’s talk about what happens if a person
practices a routine for years,
and especially in conjunction with meditation.
He becomes aware through meditation,
and as he focuses his meditation on his calisthenics,
he achieves a different type of awareness in his calisthenics.
He starts to feel this thing called chi,
a ‘breath energy’ circulating through the body.
He finds this thing called chi is difficult to explain,
but if a person is dedicated to motion,
and to the calm and breathing techniques of meditation…
he can achieve a certain degree of awareness of,
and control over this somewhat invisible energy called chi.

And all this backs up various religious theories.

The interesting thing is that Shaolin happened,
and it is so far back
that all we’ve got is theories.
But we have another art that isn’t thousands of years old.
It is influenced by Shaolin, but…

Tung Haichuan
back in the 1800s
apparently knew some kung fu.
He went into the mountains,
met some monks,
and they taught him how to meditate by walking the circle.
Tung Haichuan supposedly combined
the circle walking and the kung fu
to make Pa Kua Chang.
People immediately invested PKC
with all sorts of religious theories.
The eight trigrams,
all that sort of thing.
A good example of a ‘calisthenic’ being adapted to kung fu,
and kung fu becoming more meditative,
just as what probably happened
thousands of years ago at the Shaolin Temple.

And!
If you look at Karate,
it was a martial art designed by and for palace guards.
Heavy duty self defense
and hard core fighting.
In just a bit over a hundred years it has become
heavily infused with zen concepts.
A martial art expanding awareness
through dedicated and repetitious motion,
until it becomes,
in its purest form,
a source of enlightenment
and spiritual development.

AND…
A good question here is
could MMA become spiritual?
I would guess probably not,
and this simply because the techniques are
more dedicated to destruction than control.
The practitioners might even laugh if
a student wanted to find the zen
behind an arm bar.

Hey,
it may have taken MANY generations
for Shaolin to become more than
a physical calisthenic for ex-warriors,
and to become a method of awareness and control
and not simply an excuse for destruction.

So that’s my theory,
if you feel it is full of holes,
or you feel some other possibility is probable,
leave comments.

I do want to say that when I developed the

The Last Martial Arts Book: Nine Square Diagram Boxing

I was trying to create movements
that would have meditative aspects
as in Tai Chi Chuan and Pa Kua Chang.
I wanted to create a degree of spiritual awareness,
and yet have the art be totally workable on the street.
I want the meditation, the control, the spirituality,
but not at the cost of losing the destructive potential of the art.

Check it out on Amazon,
and if you decide to get it,
make sure you…
GET THE EDITION WITH THE 5 HOURS OF VIDEO LINKS!

Give yourself a present,
and don’t forget to give me five stars!

Have a great work out,
and have a great and profitable New Year!

Al

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

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.
(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)
My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them for 5 stars.
‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings
so hopefully you’ll find the book that works for you.

How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Two Volumes)

Finding and Maintaining Health through Martial Arts!

Duc Tape and WD40 in the Martial Arts

A fellow once told me that the two most important things in life
are duc tape and WD40.
This is because everything is either falling apart,
or getting smunched together.
Makes sense, eh?

So I’ve been working on a Neutronics book
and I realized a couple of things.

There are three problems in life.
For a body it is inflammation.
For a mind it is tension.
For a spirit it is lies.

On the body level it is inflammation.
Well, actually it is inflammation or compression.
Inflammation is when your body has an illness of some sort.
Inflammation is generally a germ,
but it could be food, DNA, or whatever.
Compression is when you get in an accident.
Compression is you took a wrong turn,
were in the wrong place at the wrong time,
and that fellow in a Ford smacked you.

On the mental level,
all problems come from two terminals opposing.
Two terminals opposing could be a push or a pull.
There are A LOT of potentials
when applying this to the mind.
You disagree with others,
you disagree with ideas,
you disagree.
The basic problem here,
when you break it down enough,
is that since the mind is nothing but a bunch of memories,
there is a conflict between memories and reality.

On the spiritual level
all problems come from a lie.
Lying creates tension in the mind,
and can cause the body to get sick.
this distracts one from the truth of the spirit.

This makes life hard to live.

These three things are interconnected.
And the results of dealing with these things
on a neutronic level can be interesting.

You can handle inflammation with certain herbs and such,
and sometimes drugs.
You can handle compression with surgery.

Handling the body in this way will usually work,
unless you go off and die,
but it ignores the tension in the mind
and the distraction of the spirit.

You can handle your mental turmoil
by getting rid of problems.
This can be done on the surface,
but the real handling is going to take place deep in your mind.

Handling the mind in this way usually works,
unless your mind is really messed up.
but it ignores the fact
that the spirit is still messed up.

If you didn’t allow the spirit to become distracted,
which includes concepts such as:
tension, splintering, shattering, etc.,
and usually means a lack of integrity or wholeness,
you would rarely become ill
or even confused in your life.

To handle the spirit is the easiest of all,
yet almost no one does it.
To stop lying you must be ruthlessly honest with yourself.
You must tell the truth at all times,
and develop virtues such as
compassion, kindness, patience, and so on.
You should find a list of virtues and start practicing them today.
That’s it.

If you handle the spirit,
if you stop lying,
then the mind is no longer stressed
and the inflammation is cured,
and you have a harmonious person.

This is actually pretty important stuff.
And I figured it out simply from observing the world,
talking to people,
and Matrixing.

When you do the martial arts
it tends to handle the body.
A handled body handles the mind,
a handled mind can handle the spirit.

If the martial art is messy
it takes a while,
and can even fail.

If the martial art is matrixed,
which is to say logical and aligned,
the body is aligned and won’t suffer inflammation so easily.
the mind refuses the tension of opposing terminals
and ceases being distracted,
and the spirit becomes harmonious.

If this doesn’t make sense you should read
this newsletter over a few times.

Doing a Matrixed Martial Art
aligns the data of motion.
This aligns the mind so it stops distracting,
and the spirit becomes harmonious.

Obligatory ad for this wonderful bit of wisdom…

The Last Martial Arts Book: Nine Square Diagram Boxing

GET THE EDITION WITH THE 5 HOURS OF VIDEO LINKS!

This is a complete and matrixed art,
Applicable on the street,
as meditative as Tai Chi Chuan,
and modular in construction like Pa Kua Chang.

Give yourself a present for Christmas,
and don’t forget to give me five stars!

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

Have a great work out,
and HanaKwanMass to all!

Al

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

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.
(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)
My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them for 5 stars.
‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings
so hopefully you’ll find the book that works for you.

How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Two Volumes)

Karate as a Filter for Life!

Everything in Life Seen Through Karate!

I think it was Gichin Funakoshi
who said that
‘all life is karate.’
So what does that really mean?

It means that you put a filter over your eyes
and view everything through karate.

As a professional writer I came to learn that
you can compare language to forms.

The motion of the body is a verb
that ends with a punctuation punch.

Basics are letters.
Techniques are words.
Forms are sentences.
I believe Kenpo has also stated this.

Music is particularly well suited to the karate analogy.
Timing is an exquisite sense of how to fool the listener/opponent.
The shape of your hand as you play notes and chords…

Dance…the comparison is obvious.
They are both body motion.

If you ride a bike,
the bike is the form,
the ride is the freestyle.

Running a business
is strict adherence to form,
implementing techniques
with the occasional freestyle
as individuals have their own bright ideas
that aren’t so bright
or somehow go against the master form.

Driving a car,
sailing a drone,
marching, running, climbing trees,
dealing with people so that all win,

Everything in life can be reduced to form,
to technical deviations,
to freestyle applications.

Now,
the cruel trick is this:
all Karate is done wrong.
All karate is based on blocks, kicks and strikes.
Which are good foundations,
but the real secret of karate
is in the ‘slap/grab technique.
That is a technique which precedes all motion.
Yet nobody teaches it.
A few arts come close,
but nobody has ever actually broken down body motion
and understood the subtle implications
in the motions leading up to blocks.

Try it.
Try making slap/grabs in every technique.
You’ll find that the techniques suddenly work.
and they actually work in freestyle.
It wasn’t that the founders hid things,
though they did
in a secret meeting back about 1900.
It was that they didn’t understand this subtle implication
of the motion of the body
before and leading into virtually every technique
in karate,
and virtually all other martial arts.

Go ahead,
try it.
Find the slap/grab.
Find the slap,
or the grab,
or the slap/grab.
Once you see it,
you’ll be amazed.

And for those who wish to see how
I extrapolated this little motion,
check out the

How to Fix Karate Books

(two volumes, you have to order them separately)
on Amazon.
They’ve got about five hours of video links,
and they show how I use the slap and the grab
and the slap/grab,
all the way through.

Okay,
that said, it’s time to say…

Have a great work out,
and HanaKwanMass to all!

Al

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

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.
(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)
My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them for 5 stars.
‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings
so hopefully you’ll find the book that works for you.

How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Two Volumes)

Martial Arts Spear Hand Revealed!

The Secret of the Karate Spear Hand Technique!

Did you know…
the spear hand is not a spear hand.

When I was at the Kang Duk Won
there were all sorts of people studying.
Glass blowers,
grave diggers,
college students,
and lots of outlaw motorcyclists.
1 per centers.
Mostly Hells Angels.

One day I went to class
and there were about twenty Harleys parked outside.
The Hells Angels were doing a documentary on themselves,
and one segment had to do with martial arts.
So Ted,
a big second black who had joined the HA,
places three boards on a couple of cinder blocks.
He psyches up,
thrusts a right spear hand down,
and the boards don’t break.

Well, they broke,
but not all the way.
Ted lifts up the first board.
Clean break.
He lifts up the second board.
Clean break.
He lifts up the third board…
it’s got a knothole in it.
It was broken, but the knothole
had stopped it from separating.

So Ted replaces the third board,
puts the first two boards on the stack,
and breaks it with a spear hand with his left hand.
Bang.
Clean break,
Cut,
Print,
call it a wrap.

I don’t recall whether he broke his hand,
but he might have.
Or at least a couple of fingers.

Now people used to be able to break boards
pretty easily with their fingers.
Not any more.

I don’t see buckets of sand for conditioning in the dojos,
I don’t see people doing fingertip push ups.
So,
for the time being,
except for a few hardy souls
who believe in ancient training methods,
breaking with fingers is a lost art.

The original finger tip break was probably
for breaking through armor on samurai.
I’m just guessing,
but it sounds logical.

Or,
perhaps it was for inserting the fingers
into the neck,
through the armpit joint of the armor,
or whatever.
Not having seen old Japanese armor
I don’t really know.

BUT…
I do know that while I used to train in the old methods,
and I was able to do a few tricks,
like break a one inch board with fingertips,
I am no longer going to spear anybody.
Just too old.

Which led me to an interesting discovery.

What if the spear hand was not a thrust
to break a body?
What if it was intended to be a grab?

If you look at every spear thrust
in the Pinan (Heian) forms,
and change it to a grab,
It not only makes sense,
and protects the hands…
it leads to some interesting locks and throws.

I detail a few of these in the
How to Fix Karate books.
But you can figure a lot of these out yourself.

Instead of striking,
move the hand deeper and grab.
Look for a way to manipulate the opponent.

What if the move on the way up the center,
in Pinan three,
was not a spear hand to the sternum,
as usually taught?
What if it goes past the neck
and you simply stand up and grab his neck in a headlock?

Think about it.
Try it and see if it works.
See if you need to alter the movement
to make it work.

And,
by the way,
if you want to see the things I came up with,
check out the

How to Fix Karate Books

(two volumes, you have to order them separately)
on Amazon.
They’ve got about five hours of video links.

Okay,
last thing.
It’s almost time for…
(drum roll)

HanaKwanMass!

That’s right!
A combination of Hanukkah, Kwanza and Christmas!
HanaKwanMass!
That way you can offend everybody at once!

Have a great work out,
and HanaKwanMass to all!

Al

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

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.
(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)
My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them for 5 stars.
‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings
so hopefully you’ll find the book that works for you.

How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Two Volumes)