Tag Archives: bagua zhang

The Evolution of the Shaolin Martial Arts!

Posted on January 4, 2024 | Leave a comment

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)

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , ,

Little Tai Chi Gimmicks to Build Chi!

Posted on November 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

Adding Chi to Tai Chi Chuan!

I remember when I first heard about Tai Chi.
Quite fascinating stuff.
Over the decades it became more fascinating,
and I learned how to differentiate
the myth from the reality.
In this newsletter
I want to list a few of the things I do
that helped me figure out Tai Chi.

Do remember that these things take time,
even with matrixing.
They also demand a certain amount of belief
that you are going to get to where you’re going.

Move the hands like the hands of a clock.
They move evenly,
at the same rate of speed.
It helps if you watch them
and get a little removed from your body.

Breath as if to the tan tien,
and keep the tan tien taut.
Don’t flex the muscles of the abdomen,
especially over the tan tien
(Tan tien ~ ‘The one point’ ~
the center of the body)
Like you’ve got an unbendable arm,
just running energy through it,
keep the tan tien taut, not tight.

move the arms into the posture
and keep them unbendable
while you turn the waist
and shift the weight.

Push with the legs,
you can feel the weight,
and alternate with weightlessness in the legs.
Synchronize the parts of the body
so they begin motion at the same time
and end motion at the same time.
this is CBM
(Coordinated Body Motion)

The energy in the tan tien
will duplicate the motion of the hands
if you have a taut belly and unbendable arms
and synchronize all motion.

Feel the air when you move the palms through it

Imagine yourself above your head
as if looking down from above
imagine yourself as if pulling the strings
attached to the parts of the body
like a puppet.

Now,
here’s the thing,
this will cause energy to flow
help you enter a meditative state
and even understand the physics involved.
BUT
it is worthless if you don’t practice applications.
This means you should understand the hard style first,
and you should train yourself to handle attacks
without using force.

Make your body as if a glove
into which the opponent puts his fist,
then adjust the glove to unbalance him.

No contact
except the brush of skin on skin
and unbalance the opponent.

Practice push hands,
and especially the Lop Sau
that I have created.
Not the traditional,
which is merely a piecemeal drill,
but the whole drill I developed.

There’s lots of other things you can do,
the classics are full of stuff,
but you need to understand the hard arts,
then practice A LOT!

But these things should help you.
Check out the tai chi courses on Monster Martial Arts

And,
if you want to learn the Tai Chi concepts about ten times faster,
check out

The Last Martial Arts Book:
Nine Square Diagram Boxing.

Make sure you look for the version with five hours of video included.

And don’t forget to give me five stars!

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)

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , ,

‘Empty and Be’ in the Martial Arts!

Posted on July 18, 2023 | Leave a comment

The Biggest Secret in the Martial Arts!

Yes,
breathing, grounding, relaxing,
they’re important.
body alignment and synchronization,
very important.
But the most important thing is
where you put your intention.

So here’s a nifty, little trick.
Having trouble touching your toes?
Especially that first bend or two?
Try these two things.
First, arch your back and touch the sky behind you.
Really stretch,
relax,
let the back bend backwards.
Now,
LOOK AT THE GROUND
as you touch the ground.

Suddenly you can reach the ground easily
and with no effort.
Good martial arts never takes effort,
it takes relaxed intention.

Look, the reason you can’t bend forward enough
is because the back is tight
energy is locked,
or at least unmoving.
So you have to move it.
But the back is like the string of a guitar,
it doesn’t just bend in one direction,
it’s got to bend in both directions,
and when you bend in both directions
all the energy that is locked up
can start to move.
Bend only forward and the back is only half bending,
and the other half is fighting you.

And when you look to the ground your intention is freed,
it is no longer distracted by your half moving back,
and your body can go where your intention directs it.

So,
how do you put intention into your strikes and blocks?
The other side of the guitar string,
in this instance,
is emptiness.
Mentally empty your body,
just relax and breath,
even forget about what you are doing,
then direct your intention into your hand
imagine it being in the new position.
Pop!
What was empty is now full.

People talk about focus,
and they are right,
but it’s not just filling the muscle,
it is emptying the muscle before you fill it.

Want to punch faster?
Want to assume deeper posture?
Want to do away with reaction time
and be in the moment?

the secret is intention.
And the secret of intention
is to be empty before you be full.

What’s fascinating is to apply this,
to do this long enough
that you start assuming a viewpoint outside your body,
empty and fill your body,
figure out when the energy is going through which leg,
and out through which arm.
Empty and Be.

And,
eventually,
your mind is empty,
virtually cleansed,
and you have freedom of motion in all directions,
and in all directions of your life.

Okay,
so,
obligatory ad.

First,
go here

The Last Martial Arts Book

It’s been rated at five stars, then go here…

The last Martial Arts Book w video

Same book, five dollars more,
but…
FIVE HOURS OF VIDEOS!

And don’t forget to give me a good review!

Okay
guys and gals,
remember
every form is a prayer, so…

have a great work out!
Al

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

How to Fix Karate! (volumes one and two)

volume one is at

And volume two is at…

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 11 ratings for 5 stars.
(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)
My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them for 5 stars.
‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars.
My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings
so hopefully you’ll find that useful
find the book/course that is right for you,
and matrix your own martial arts.

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , ,

Pa Kua Chang and the American Indian

Posted on October 15, 2016 | Leave a comment

Newsletter 833 ~ subscribe now!

Pa Kua Chang and Indian Stealth Skills!
part one

Good evening!
I just finished teaching,
2 1/2 hours of bliss,
and I am in heaven.
Let me share a little of that heaven with you.
Here’s one of the things I was thinking about,
which relates to the martial arts.
Specifically,
how Pa Kua Chang relates to the stealth skills
of the native American Indians.

The most important Martial Arts book ever written.

The most important Martial Arts book ever written.

Incidentally,
I am going to write five articles on this subject,
so if you want all five,
subscribe to the newsletter.
The other four articles will be coming out over the next month.

The American Indians were arguably
the greatest light infantry in the world.
They could outrun horses,
they had thoroughly mastered such weapons as
bows and arrows, knives, hand to hand, and so on.
And, they were masters of stealth.

Think about this:
to put food on their table
they had to be able to sneak up on wild animals.
This meant they walked with no noise,
don’t rustle a leaf,
or step on a twig.
Do it so well that a deer won’t hear you.
Have you ever seen how big a deer’s ears are?

The way they walked was very specific.
They did not walk heel to toe,
they did not place their heel down first,
the placed the front of their foot down first,
so they could feel a twig,
or any other surface that was going to cause noise
sufficient to alert an animal.
So they placed the front of the foot down first,
then rolled to the heel,
and they were aware,
feeling with their feet,
sensitive to whatever they were walking on.
And they walked fast enough to close on an animal
before the animal went elsewhere to feed,
and without alarming the animal.
That takes incredible skill.

Interestingly,
this method of walking is very similar to the way
students of Pa Kua Chang walk.
The precise way of walking in Pa Kua Chang
is to place the whole foot down,
gently,
sensing the ground through the feet.
This eliminates slippage on icy, grassy, wet whatever surfaces.
Further,
it breeds silence.
Further,
it enables the student to grip the ground.

This method of walking
is commonly called ‘Mud Walking.’
Walk so you won’t slip in mud.
Walk silently,
with no wasted (as in audible) energy.

There are differences here,
but here is the point:
both methods are used to build awareness.

It is awareness that makes a better martial artist,
not muscles,
not speed,
not anything else.
It is awareness,
of environment,
of the opponent,
of whatever is going on around you.

It’s funny,
when I hear people refer to Indians as savages
I have to suppress laughter.
They adapted to their environment,
they built a technology
that made them possibly the finest warriors in the world.

If you just study them,
if you consider how you might use their methods,
how you might improve your awareness,
you will find that they were geniuses of combat.

Now,
let’s be honest,
I haven’t studied Indian combat methods in depth,
but I have studied methods that closely align.
Here’s the link to Pa Kua Chang.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/butterfly-pa-kua-chang/

Think about what I’ve said here,
and then bury yourself in some Pa Kua,
it will be well worth the journey.

Stay tuned for four more articles
concerning the martial arts
and the stealth abilities of the American Indian.

and have a great work out!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/butterfly-pa-kua-chang/

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

Leave a comment

Posted in external martial art, qigong, taekwondo, weapons

Tagged , , ,

The Most Impeccable Martial Arts Warrior in the World!

Posted on January 25, 2014 | Leave a comment

The Ultimate Martial Arts Warrior!

I am currently living atop a mountain, caretaking a ranch, and putting together a ‘dojo in the sky.’

If you have lived on a ranch you know how rough it can be. The wildlife is hard at work surviving, and even the tame livestock can be pretty fierce.

lady tai chi

The ultimate warrior in ALL the martial arts!

 
The mice, for instance, will crawl atop your warm motor and chew on the wires. Thus, we need cats, fierce cats, to control them.

But the cats are risk from coyotes, so we need fierce dogs to protect them.

My dog happens to be ‘city stupid.’ He wants to hide in the cabin all night and snooze. And even if he did go out and patrol the property, Mrs. Coyote is liable to give a yodel and lure him out…a fresh plate of coyote food.

So I talked to my partner about the situation, and he said, “Al, I’ve got just the dog for you,” and a couple of weeks later he brought out a pregnant Malenois.

A malenois is a small version of a German Shepherd, it has smaller jaws so it won’t break bones and cause lawsuits.

This particular Malenois earned a quick reputation as ‘The Hell Bitch.’

First, it rolled my Labrador over, introduced the poor, loving smurf to the matriarchy.

Then it went after the cats.

Cats! But it was supposed to protect the cats.

My partner said, “I‘ll bring you a couple of feral cats.”

But we had feral cats! And The Hell Bitch had made short work of them!

My partner didn’t think about that; didn’t consider that he was just bringing up more ’dog food,’ and a couple of weeks later he brought a couple of feral cats to the ranch.

“These guys are extra vicious,” he promised, and he let the first one go.

ZING! The Hell Bitch was on that cat like a rocket, and the cat disappeared into the wilderness.

My partner just smiled. “She’ll show up later,” then he released the second feral cat, and that was when I met the ultimate martial arts warrior.

Before I tell you about this warrior, however, let me tell you an old story.

Two samurai decided to see which one was better. So they exchanged invitations and arranged a meeting.

One morning they both arrived at a clearing.

They circled, and then stepped towards each other.

They drew  their swords, and they edged closer and closer. They arrived at striking distance, and became motionless.

Hour after hour they stood there, each waiting for the other to make a mistake, to leave an opening.

Finally, just before dusk, they backed away from each other, sheathed their swords, and bowed.

One of them had made a mistake, an internal flinch, a moment of lost concentration, and the other had seen it. They never acknowledged who was the better, but they both knew who had won and who had lost.

So my partner released the second feral cat.

“Mew.”

He was white and orange, and he crossed the yard, coming straight for The Hell Bitch.

The Hell Bitch. whose name was Bel, gathered her legs, prepared to leap upon the cat.

“Mew.”

The cat walked right past her.

Bel growled and barked.

The cat ignored her, came to my wife and rubbed up against her leg.

Bel circled, snarling and snapping, waiting for the moment of weakness so she could charge in and tear the tabby apart.

“Mew.” The cat walked past me, up the steps to the house, and went in.

Bel followed her, looming over her, drooling and moaning with the desire to fight.

The cat jumped up on a chair and curled up.

Arrrooo! Grrrr! Bark!

Drool and slobber foaming out of her mouth, Bell snapped her jaws over the hair of the cat.

The cat rolled over and went to sleep.

Two days later, totally defeated, her whole DNA betrayed, her pregnant bitchery stymied, Bel took sick. She nearly died before my partner could come get her, hook her to an IV and drive her to an animal hospital.

The cat, you see, never showed a weakness. Did not hesitate or falter, and entertained no thought of resisting, of cringing, of shrinking, of reacting to the mad, foaming, insanely rabid hound.

The cat manifested, exactly, the attitude of Daniel in the lion’s den.

My question is this: how many of you have this concept in your martial art? How many of you can claim to have ever demonstrated even a fraction of this kind of behavior?

And, can you see this type of attitude emanating as a result of your training?

You are advised to examine Matrix Martial Arts if you want to develop yourself into the ultimate martial arts warrior. Make sure you pick up a free martial arts book.

Leave a comment

Posted in chi power, karate, kenpo, kung fu, mixed martial arts, ninja, taekwondo, ultimate fighting championships, weapons

Tagged , , , , ,

The Pa Kua Chang Mystery

Posted on October 5, 2013 | Leave a comment

There is a Pa Kua Chang Mystery, and here’s how You Solve It

Pa Kua Chang, as many people know, is that martial art where you walk in a circle endlessly. Circles where you find loops within spirals within circles. To explain this really weird thing that happens in Pa Kua Chang, let me explain a couple of things first. Understand these things, and you will find that weird is normal in this universe, and normal is weird.

pa kua chang mystery

Do Pa Kuua Chang long enough and you will solve the pa kua chang mystery.


Okey dokey?

The circle must consist of eight steps from beginning to end. This is about one good leg sweep, or six feet in diameter. And, of course, the beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning, and so on.

Long time Pa Kua Chang students claim that if you explore various positions of the palms as you walk the circle, that the positions stand for various phenomena. Fire palms, water palms, lightening palms, thunder palms, and so on. By following this analogy they have created a separate and entire universe. While this universe can occupy a student for a lifetime, there hasn’t been a good explanation for what is happening, up till now.

When you create this Pa Kua universe, you should understand that the body is a machine. Just like alternating current, power goes down and up the legs. You should confirm it with a good dictionary, at this point, that power is energy, and energy is the capacity for work, and the capacity for work is how much weight you can lift.

Energy of the body is credited with being created by the tan tien. The tan tien is a point a couple of inches below the navel. The tan tien sends the energy down and up and the legs and back into the tan tien. What happens is that the body becomes a capacitor, a storage device, and the energy can be stored for later use. But also, and most interesting, is that after walking the circle sufficient with the idea I’ve detailed here, you will experience actual lightening going up and down your legs.

You will also, as you explore the potential of the palms in conjunction with the storing of the energy, experience a barber pole type energy swirl up and down your arms.

Pa Kua Chang is not mystical, it is common sense physics, but it does take a dedicated practitioner and a calm mind to experience what I have explained here. For the body to start acting as a capacitor one must tell the body to do so enough times and with enough sincerity, and this while walking the circle enough times. If one learns to believe that this universe is not a trap, but a journey, what I have told you here is not only possible, but even easy.

Check out the butterfly Pa Kua Chang…it is the fastest, most efficient Internal Martial Art on the planet.

Leave a comment

Posted in aikido, bagua zhang, chi power, kung fu, pa kua chang, qigong

Tagged , , , ,

Pa Kua Chang Give Entry to New Universe!

Posted on June 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

Pa Kua Chang Creates a New Universe!

Pa Kua Chang founder Dong Hai Chuan was most likely a Shaolin Gung Fu stylist. Like many martial artists of his TIME, he wandered the land, looking for employment, and looking for opportunities to improve his Chinese martial art.

He would look for OPPORTUNITIES to use his Gung Fu as a bodyguard, fighting off bandits with spear and sword and hand.

Pa Kua Chang

Pa Kua Chang was created by Dong Hai Chuan

One must wonder then, how he became involved with a band of religious fanatics.

It is doubtful whether the monks of this unnamed sect could beat him in  hand to hand combat, but they had to have something, or he wouldn’t have stopped his sojourning for eleven years and studied with them.

For the first nine years, it is said, Dong Hai Chuan walked in circles, possibly chanting religious mantras. He walked and he walked, and one can imagine the unspooling in his mental apparatus. It is invariable that his martial arts would start to manifest along the lines of this new practice he was doing.

Around and around, making gung fu motions with his limbs, bending his legs into gung fu stances, and thinking about how walking the circle could enable him to move better through hordes of bandits.

After nine years of doing these gung fu motions, which would become the basis for his Pa Kua Chang style martial art, he told the monks that he felt that the trees were bending after him, actually chasing him.

Trees Chasing a man? How could that be?

Have you ever caught the eye of somebody sitting on a bus? They are in journey, in a different universe, and for a moment the souls see each other. Across separate universes they touch.

Or, have you ever played in a soccer contest, run next to somebody, and been immersed in your own separate communication with that fellow, created a world that is not the same, that seems stable while the ‘real’ universe of the cheering crowd passes by?

This is the universe that Dong Hai Chuan made. This is the universe he found, a universe so mighty that stout trees bent to the wind of his passing.

The point here, however, is not about Dong Hai Chuan, it is about you. Can you use Pa Kua Chang (also called bagua zhang), and walk in a circle so that the universe bends to your will?

Can you go around in circles and learn the amazing hand motions of Pa Kua Chang until a mob of attackers is confused by your simple walking the circle self defense?

An interesting question, this Pa Kua Chang thing, for it opens the door to a new world, and a new you.

Here’s another great piece of writing about a Pa Kua Chang universe. Monster Martial Arts has a fantastic Pa Kua online martial arts course you can do.

Leave a comment

Posted in chi power, kung fu, pa kua chang, tai chi chuan, wing chun

Tagged , , , , ,