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.
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?
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.
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.
How Ignorant People act in Kenpo and Karate and Other Martial Arts
March, what a wonderful month. I’m going to work out every single day, right into April. You do, too!
I was checking my stats on Amazon, and reading the reviews people write about me. Interesting reading. But crazy. Let me explain.
I’ll get two reviews for a book, one is a five star review,
VERY Interesting.. and I like the “creation” theories and methods… JUST what I was looking for. and one is a one star review.
Waste of time if you are a serious martial artist…poor illustrations…bad
The five star talks about interesting ideas. The one star just says ‘stupid.’ Hmmm.
How could one book provoke two such dissimilar reviews?
Well, let me tell you.
I received an email a while ago, the fellow said: I don’t understand all the writing, but when I see the pictures (videos), then I get it.
Well, of course, a picture is worth a thousand words. BUT the real key here is that he didn’t understand the writing.
Here are some frightening statistics.
50% of adults can’t read at 8th grade level. 45 million people are functionally illiterate. and, one that is very important, 6 out of 10 households don’t buy a single book in a year.
Let’s consider the implications of these statistics as they relate to my books.
Out of the 50% adults that can’t read at 8th grade level, there are going to be a substantial number who are passionate about the martial arts. They are going to read what some people see as five star material, but because they don’t understand it, because there aren’t enough pictures, they are going to perceive it as worthless. At best, they are going to sense that something just passed them by, and they are going to be pissed. Pissed enough to give one star.
Out of the 45 million that are functionally illiterate, some are passionate, they live in blogs with small words, and they are, again, angry. A rich life is passing them by, and though they feel that something is happening, they can’t see it.
But here’s the kicker, 6 out of 10 don’t buy a book in a year. But they do read on the computer, and they are vocally upset, when they don’t understand what somebody has said.
This is the defense mechanism of the ignorant: get upset when you don’t understand something.
Now, why do I bring this up. Because I get a few low reviews, that discourages others from buying, and the vey valuable knowledge that is in my books, is then removed from the hands of the consumer. The intelligent consumer who needs to know, but is being waylaid by the ignorant.
Feel free to give a review. I prefer nice, but honest will do.
When you see a bad review, especially if you have read the book, and disagree, answer them. I can’t, but you can. Set the record straight.
And, make sure you are literate, that your children are literate, and that knowledge can be passed down.
This world is not Rep v Dem, it is not haves v have nots, it is ignorant v intelligent, and if the intelligent don’t set the ignorant straight, then the intelligent lose. So do you want the world to get more intelligent? Or more ignorant?
Here’s the book which received the reviews I listed above.
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.
It’s hot here in LA, and you can really sweat those toxins out. The best way to sweat? Work out!
I was driving down the street the other day, and I saw all sorts of martial arts studios. MMA, Muay Thai, Boxing, Karate, Kung fu, Kenpo, Judo, Aikido, Taekwondo, and on and on and on.
When I began, in 1967, which is near 50 years ago, there was judo, which was taught in a few places, and there was Karate. Interestingly, Karate was undergoing a boom. This was just before Bruce Lee, and the Tracy Brothers had breathed fire into marketing, and Karate schools were opening every where.
I began Kenpo, went every day, became an instructor, and so on, and I had a lot of questions, and nowhere to get the answers. The only magazine was Black Belt, and they sort of circled the arts, talking about, but never delving in.
And there weren’t many books. There was the outlandish Super Karate Made Easy, Ed Parker had a book out, Robert Smith wrote his book on Shaolin Temple boxing. But these books were either techniques books, or they talked in mysteries, and there was no way to understand what the heck the martial arts were all about.
Then I came across a book called Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. I had left kenpo by then, and was in the Kang Duk Won, and this book was a Godsend.
Not a book about technique, not a dissertation of mental tricks, rather questions and tales that made you blink, and look for the real you.
One of my favorites was the old question, ‘Who were you before you were born.’
Now you might be wondering, how can an art built of physical routines answer that question?
The answer to that wonderment lies in the simple fact that we were not distracted. Karate was not infected by boxing, throws weren’t an active part. And so on.
On the surface, looking back, reading these words as I write them, I can understand why people might wonder, how can you call that an art? How can you think of that stripped down sapling as a wondrous forest of spirit?
Easy. We weren’t distracted, and we practiced those few techniques we knew until we could make them work.
Enlightenment is when you do one thing without distraction, until you see the truth of that one thing.
You have heard people like Bruce Lee say, in the end, a punch is just a punch, a kick is just a kick.
But, here’s the bad news, if you haven’t found that out through doing a simple kick, or punch, without distraction, for tens of thousands of times, then the truth of the statement evades you.
You know about water, but you’ve never been wet.
That is why, except for a few logical changes, and the nudging of matrixing, the karate I do now, is virtually the same as the karate I did way back when.
Pinan one through pinan five, the iron horse, a few others, I do them almost the same as I learned them. And, here’s the interesting thing, the way I learned them was only a couple of generations removed from the way they were taught before Funakoshi.
I go into modern schools and I don’t see what I learned. I see forms infected by boxing, distracted by MMA, slanted by tournaments and kick boxing. I see techniques discarded because people can’t make them work. I see people fighting, instead of painstakingly being taught the drills that lead to…not fighting, to scientifically assessing an opponent and shredding him without waste.
Most of all, I don’t see the calm of mind, the calm that comes not from knowing about lots of arts, but from knowing one thing well. And, in these modern times, if people do know one thing well, it has been slanted by ‘reality fighting,’ by the desire to beat up your fellow man, not to calm yourself, and find the truth of yourself.
Not to find out who you were before you were born.
Here’s the art that I was taught, unchanged except for a few logical tweaks, and the ‘de-slanting’ of matrixing.
Newsletter 796
Sleight of Hand in the Martial Arts
Good morning!
It’s a balmy day out here in LA,
absolutely perfect for working out.
You just let the wind push you into the next move.
Hey,
here’s something interesting,
did you know that people don’t know how to use their bodies?
They do sports,
various gimmicks,
and they catch the ball cool,
but they are using the body at about 1/100 of its potential.
True.
And,
interesting enough,
I am not talking about instances of high adrenaline
as being the optimum.
In fact,
you should be using less energy
to create more effect.
Here’s the neutronic low down,very simple,
on this phenomenon.
If you study math,
the very first thing you learn to do is measure the universe.
After a couple of years of working with this fact,
which is used because it is undeniable,
you can’t argue with a ruler,
you learn to think in abstracts.
You learn to follow formula,
and you leave the necessity for measuring.
So,
two specific stages,
measure the universe,
follow formula.
The devising of new formula is considered the higher,
most creative mathematics.
That is what every professor shoots for.
Okay,
understanding this,
let’s discuss how it parallels the martial arts.
The beginner is taught to measure himself.
How fast he can run from point A to point B,
how much he can lift,
and so on.
This is the first stage,
the measurement stage,
the stage where you measure yourself in universal terms.
But you are not the universe,
you are awareness,
and to realize your true potential you have to find
the abstracts of motion.
Here is a very simple example of an abstract of motion.
The magician holds up the deck of cards,
you choose a card,
insert it back into the deck,
and the magician,
even though he doesn’t know what card it is,
pulls it out.
Whoa!
As Po would say.
But the magician has only used sleight of hand.
He has trained his hands to make a motion
that escapes the eye.
He doesn’t measure himself,
he grades himself according to how many people he can fool.
Can Joe Blow do this mystical faster than the eye can see motion?
With practice.
But here’s the point:
What if you trained your whole body to move
faster than the eye can see.
There are ways,
you know.
Here’s one.
Practice walking the circle out of Pa Kua for a few years,
until you feel the ‘lightening’ in your legs.
When somebody punches,
you move your hand in one direction,
and step down and under in the other direction.
It will be as if you disappeared.
I first heard of this disappearing act
when my instructor was being checked out by a high ranking Korean stylist.
The Korean did a series of stretches,
then,
noting that Bob was just standing and sipping a drink,
asked when Bob would be ready (for a proposed freestyle match).
Bob put his drink down and faced the Korean.
“I’m ready.”
The Korean jumped into the air with a perfect spinning kick.
When he came down Bob was nowhere to be seen.
In fact,
when the Korean turned his back Bob just walked behind him,
in conjunction with the spin.
The Korean was shocked to find Bob behind him.
I was not as fast as Bob,
I have a bigger body,
but I found that by moving my hand in one direction,
and my body in the other,
just as I described earlier,
that people would follow my hand and lose sight of me.
This is simple stuff,
but it takes immense practice.
And it takes a dedication to graduating from the simple measurement of self
into the abstract of measuring the other person.
It takes concentration,
focus of mind.
And,
in my case,
in addition to all the karate I did,
it took decades of Tai Chi and Pa Kua
to understand the enrages involved.
But,
with matrixing,
it doesn’t take that long.
It takes intense effort,
but if you understand what you are trying to do
before you do it,
then you can cut the time down by MUCH.
Mind you,
the path is different for everybody,
because everybody is different,
bodies are different,
and the mind and spirit is definitely different.
But,
if you understand what I have said here,
and are willing to dedicate yourself to the work,
then you can go beyond the measurement of the universe.
You can go into these things that,
before matrixing,
were considered mystical
and reserved for special people.
There is no reason why,
with understanding the matrixing concepts,
and a little hard work,
you can’t be special.
There is no reason why you can’t use your body
to its full 100% potential.
Here’s the Pa Kua page for any who wish
to choose that as a part of their journey.
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.
Newsletter 793 The Truth of the Old Martial Arts Legends
Man, this is an absolutely perfect day. Absolutely perfect. You know what makes it perfect? I just worked out. If you ever want to make NOW better, just work out. The more you work out, the better NOW is.
I remember hearing old stories, old legends from China, and so on.
The fellow who practiced jumping out of a one foot hole. Then, the second year, a two foot hole. Three years a three foot hole. After ten years he was jumping ten feet up. Could jump on and off roofs. And twenty years…
Then there was a the fellow who lifted a calf on his shoulders. Did it every day. When the calf grew into a bull, his strength was prodigious.
And so on.
Interesting stories. Sort of like comic books. Keeps the young kids interested.
But there is truth to those old legends. The truth is different, however.
You do a form for a couple of years, you train your body to move quick and fast, any direction, any combination of techniques. Then, without really understanding what is happening, you move into the realm of the mind. Maybe ten or twenty years. Your thought process becomes quicker, faster, more intuitive. Then, without really understanding it, you move into the realm of the spirit. You stop looking at your body, for you understand it. You start looking at the attack, and you aren’t a sequence of nerves and twitches and muscles and stuff, you just go to where you are supposed to go, without the muscular fanfare, without the mental thinkingness. Your body just moves through space without effort.
The thing is… you make this happen not by measuring yourself, but by dedicating yourself. Not by thinking about it, but by just doing it, spending the years, doing the forms over and over, until the body gets tired of working, until the mind gets tired of thinking about it, until the spirit takes over and just does it.
Think about it like this: You are digging a hole, you are digging into the earth, but that is just a vehicle to make strong the body. You dig and you dig, the body gets tired, but you know you are getting close, you have to keep digging, so you steel your mind, and you make your body keep digging. And when the mind gets tired, you know you are closer than ever and all that keeps you going is your spirit. You ignored the protests of body and mind and you keep digging, and, at last, you reach it. It seeps out of the bottom of the hole, seeps into your feet, up your legs, invigorates your body, mind and spirit. You have found gold. Not the gross gold that is shiny rock, but the pure gold of refined spirit. The gold that makes you immortal, that makes you a pure and ever shining spirit.
Others, unless they have done the digging, cannot see it. But what others know doesn’t matter. What matters is what you know. And you know the truth of you.
This is the truth behind the legends. Superhuman deeds are possible, but they are not what you think. They are not comic book, they are real, but they are not normally visible, and they are not what people usually expect.
But, regardless, you won’t really understand this unless you start working out, and don’t stop. Work out until you are an old man. Until the body is tired, but you are not. Until you realize the flesh is frail, but the spirit is not. That is the only proof I can offer.
Rain is coming in So Cal! Of course, I can always work out in the house. Simply draw a shoulder width square on the floor and do your forms on the square. Easy squeezy. Teach you all sorts of things about motion in a closed space.
I am fond of telling people that martial arts happen in a phone booth. This is because you don’t need big, swinging punches. You need short, little effective punches. Consider the following facts.
If one punch comes from six feet away, and the other comes from six inches away, they will have the same power if they have equal weight upon impact. Of course, you can see the one that is six feet away, and it is easier to block. The one that is six inches away, that one is hard to block.
The power of a punch is measured not by speed or weight of arm, but by how much weight is transferred to the other body upon impact. Understand this, and you will have to drastically rethink the value of muscles, the angles inherent in the arm/body/etc., the value of speed, and so on.
This last point was amply illustrated by a fellow name of Matt Hamill. Matt was a fighter in the UFC. He was deaf, and he wasn’t fast. In fact, he was slow. But his punches were devastating, they contained more weight than faster fighters. Faster fighters would hit him, but eventually he would land one of those hands of his, and the other fighter would fold.
People think it is how hard you hit. No. It is how much weight goes into the target. Weight is not dependent upon speed. Yes, you can increase weight by increasing speed. But speed as the sole factor doesn’t equate. So there is something more than speed. What? Intention to travel through a target. Intention to deliver weight to the target.
What is Intention? What you desire, especially as evidenced, proven, by a plan.
So when you train, and especially when you do your forms, pay a lot of intention to the plan of the form: to increase body weight by grounding your weight, by aligning all body parts, and so on.
And, it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, one of the goals of matrixing, one of the plans of matrixing, is to educate you as to the construction of your body so that you can use it as one unit.
Man, this will really build your intention, and really increase the weight of your punch.
Remember, it’s not power you seek, but efficiency in transferring weight. Odd concept, but if you think it through you’ll find the truth of the martial arts.
Great morning to you! A great work out to you. A year full of great work outs to you!
Here’s a few martial arts thoughts to start off 2016
I asked this question last year, and I’m going to ask it again. Where do you want to be at the end of 2016? What martial arts do you want to be expert in? How far do you want to go?
Mastery comes from two factors, hard hard you work, and how scientifically correct is your art.
To make yourself work hard, put notes up around the house. Make yourself do fifty punches before you open the frig. Do two forms before you go outside. And inside. Practice your applications as you walk to the bathroom. And so on.
Heck, do your forms before you eat, before you sleep, and upon waking.
If you want to make it this year, if you want mastery, you need to be dedicated.
And, here’s something to think about. I was talking to somebody about the difference between fighting and the martial arts.
You can be a fighter but not a martial artist. You can’t be a martial artist without being a fighter. You can’t be a good martial artist without giving up fighting. It’s true.
It’s also true that in a sport you attempt to defeat the other person. In a martial art you attempt to control yourself.
You should know a minimum of two martial arts. One with lots of force, one with lots of flow. Do that and your mind won’t be trapped by being compelled to move in only one direction.
To win a fight the first thing you must do is control the distance. While there is an art to fighting, the true art is in control.
When it comes to augmenting your studies… Some people learn best from a video. Some people learn best from a book. The best people learn from both.
One thing you should do, if you really want to make it to mastery this year, is sit down and make a list of polite things you can do. Fighting is easy, being polite, especially when somebody wants to fight, is not always so easy. But it is the way to the true martial art.
Okey dogley. That’s enough for now, but think about spending a whole year doing nothing but accumulating wisdom. That’s going to give your martial art real legs.
Have a great work out, and don’t forget to check out the video on this page
Go to the Testimonials in the menu and do a search for your martial art!
Hi Sensei Al!
(On the Black Belt Course) Everything is working great! Thank you for the quick responses. I am enjoying the one on one videos. It may be cliche, but I do feel like I'm there. I also like the conversational style and the way you explain how you're teaching and why. You've got a new student for life. Thank you. ~ Daniel
What's interesting about Al Case's writings and teachings is there isn't any emphasis on 'the unknown' or 'mystery' behind martial arts. Al will slam this information in your face! Quite frankly the data isn't hidden, you'll find you're blind. ~ WG
Al Case is a powerful presence to be around, but if you can confront it, then you will not be sorry, for there is no one like him, and it is an extreme privilege and honor.
I used to read your articles in Inside Karate and was excited when I found your web site. ~ RV
As an old timer with thirty-five years of experience I was really bored, but your works have peaked my interest and shown me that there is much more to learn. I Thank You Again, Sincerely ~ CC
Where was this information 24 years ago? This course is one of the best things to ever happen to me. Thank you Al Case for the gift of knowledge!
Be blessed my teacher, ~ Rev. Ernest R
I bought the Infinite Fist tape YEARS ago and you know? I Keep going back to it! ~ KS
You are a master. You have opened me up to things that I have never thought of before. ~ KFM
I purchased your course on "Create Your Own Martial Art" and absolutely love it. I believe that your matrixing system is very unique. ~ DW
In my entire experience twenty years as a student and an instructor since, no one has contributed more to my martial arts education than you have. I started following your works twenty years ago and although I was young then I knew you had the True Art it was obvious to me even then. ~ Charles C
Students will know longer be slaves of poor instructors and practitioners. ~ Lonnie M
Win from Master Instructor Course
Let me start out by saying thank you. Thanks from all the martial artists who asked why. Al, I'm in the Security and Law enforcement field and carry Instructor credentials, so effective methods in combat and teaching them is what I constantly look for.
Win from Matrix Aikido
I just had to write to you to say WOW. Your INSTANT AIKIDO is great!!! ~ SD
My students have started coming up to me after class telling me how much more they are enjoying it, and that the classes have stopped being so ridged and now flow in a kind of give and take between me and them. I have stopped being a task master and started having fun and letting them teach me as well.
I did the Master Instructor Course and it hit me. The Basics that are so concisely communicated in this course including the Matrix principle IS the solution. It doesn’t matter what “style” I call my art, because all styles follow these same principles. It doesn’t matter how hard I train or how many repetitions I do if I don’t train the right way. And I would never become a master if I didn’t know how it all fits together. Now I do! I can honestly say that I am now on the path that I have always sought as a martial artist. Thank you Al!
I conducted a Matrix Aikido training class for a Security Team at a local manufacturing plant. I tailored the training according to their Use Of Force policy. As you know they need control and takedown skills. I knew Matrix Aikido would be the answer. The training plan you shared was boss. The class went so smoothly. The participants learned very quickly. By the end of the class you could see techniques of Monkey Boxing coming through. They were also able to create their own techniques. There was one female officer in the class who asked to become my private student. She was throwing, locking and taking down guys twice her size. The Security Supervisor wants me to come back and with more participants! I'll keep you posted. ~ L M
Have found your books and dvds excellent. My background is mainly in medical qigong but I practice Sun Style Tai CHi, BaGua and HsingI as well as Eagle Claw, Snake Style Kung Fu and several Wudang weapon styles. This is the first time I have had the underlying principles so clearly explained and in a way that they are immediately workable and demonstratable. I have worked through the Master Instructors Course, Aikido and Butterfly Bagua and have started to breakdown the Sun Hsing I using your matrix method. I was even able to teach a 70 year old friend of mine with no martial arts background your instant aikido where she was able to do some very accomplished locks and throws after the first lesson
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