Tag Archives: boxing

Punching Ten Times Harder with Martial Arts

Newsletter 984

The Easy Way to Punch Hard in the Martial Arts

Most people don’t understand how easy the martial arts are.
Take, for instance, a good karate punch.
It will generate more power than any other punch in the world.
And takes less energy.
Don’t believe me?

I was watching a fellow punch the bag the other day.
The guy was maybe 25,
much experience in boxing and other arts.
The bag jumped and bent a little,
and that was it.

I stepped up to the bag.
I’m old…71.
I put my fingers to the bag,
then,
without retracting the arm,
I closed my fingers and thrust my arm out.
Freakin’ bag went to the roof.
You could feel it say ‘OW!’

So why was my ‘old’ punch stronger than some young turks?
Because I used less energy.

What is energy?
Go ahead,
give it your best shot.
Nope,
it’s not that.

Energy is the capacity for work.
Go on,
look in the dictionary.
That is the physics definition.
Physics,
if you don’t know it,
is the stuff we made up
to measure the universe.

So how do you measure work?
Here’s where it gets tricky.
You can measure work with…
watts, ohms, pounds, gallons per minute,
and so on and so on.
How you measure work depends
on what you are measuring.

So how do you measure work in the martial arts?
Here’s what nobody knows,
and why punches are so spectacularly lacking in horsepower.

You measure work by weight.

When that young Turk was punching the bag he was punching with his arm.
Twenty pounds of weight.

When I punched the bag
I moved my 71 year old body into it…
200 pounds of weight.

20 pounds versus 200 pounds.
I was literally punching ten times as hard as he was.
And,
I’ll tell you this,
it was easier for me to move my 200 pounds an inch or two
than it was for him to try to punch as hard as me
using his 20 pound arm.

Now,
I’ve given you all the clues,
how you going to put them together?
How are you going to make your body work ten times easier
than some guy nearly 50 years younger than you?

Well,
I’ll tell you,
it took me a while.
Fortunately,
I wrote it all down.

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that opens eyes everywhere
and makes all martial arts quick and simple to learn.

Here’s the obligatory ad…

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But I’d be careful before I go there.
Sometimes it hurts to learn something,
you have to give up what you thought you knew.
Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Have a great work out!

Al

What is the Real Reality of Boxing and the Mixed Martial Arts?

Is there a Disconnect in Boxing and Mixed Martial Arts?

Boxing and Mixed Martial Arts? A disconnect? Something tells me I should stop right now, before people get mad at me.

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The most important Martial Arts book ever written.

Except, there might actually be something in the question.

When you box, or perform Mixed Martial Arts, you wear gloves. You don’t wear such gloves on the street.

When you do the ‘Sweet Science,’ or battle in the Octagon, there are ‘fences,’ which means a cage, or ropes, to enclose the fight. There are no such barriers in real life.

When you are down, there is a referred to save you. No ref on the streets, bro.

When you fight in a public venue, such as i have mentioned here, the rounds end and you have a chance to recoup in your corner. No end of round, no corner, no recoup on the street.

I know, this is all unfair, I’m picking on your favorite gladiatorial sports.

Except, I’m not.

Look, I’m not saying these things are bad, I’m just saying they are.

The real disconnect is when you train for things that are, and they might not be. If that makes sense.

The real disconnect, when you study boxing or the Mixed Martial Arts, is merely the ability to break away from your training when you have to.

Training is to enhance the martial artist, it is not to imprison him.

So don’t object to what I say, just consider it, and come up with plans for times when you have to defend yourself and you are not in the ring, in the Octagon, doing Mixed Martial Arts or Boxing.

If you want a real slice of reality, check out ‘Binary Matrixing in the Martial Arts.’

And, if you want real training for reality, check out ‘Blinding Steel.’

Al Case has been studying martial arts for 50 years.

The Problem with Bruce Lee

The Mistake of the Little Dragon

I remember when Bruce Lee Died. It was a shock that went through the soul. Here was an icon,the best martial artist in the world, in perfect physical condition…dead.

How? Why? What happened?

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Interestingly, one of the first theories I heard as to the cause of his death came from a friend who was studying Tai Chi Chuan. The one word summation was: balance. And, the one sentence explanation was Bruce Lee was lacking balance.

I tucked this opinion away, collected facts, but it was literally decades before I matured enough as a martial artist to understand, and to accept, this opinion over the facts.

Let me say, before I continue, that I like facts. It could be said that only fools deal in opinions, and in most cases, this would be correct.

The person offering this opinion, however, was basing his opinion not on the facts of Bruce’s death, but upon the facts of the martial arts. It wasn’t until I was firmly matrixed in my approach to the martial arts that I understood this.

One of the facts that I continuously came across was that Bruce had an allergic reaction to marijuana, which was in tea he had drunk.

This is interesting, I have never read a study on this, is there marijuana in Chinese tea?

Another fact I came across is that Bruce had, again, an allergic reaction, this time to aspirin. But I think that the aspirin was given to him after he complained of a headache. And, I know it’s possible, but I just don’t hear of a lot of people, or any people, dying of allergic reactions to aspirin. Doesn’t mean it’s not possible, but…hmmm.

And, the third of these ‘facts,’ Bruce had a reduced fat content in his body. Now this is dangerous. And this could result in death. And this has much more substantiation in fact than the previous two theories.

Mind you, in saying this I realize that it is still opinion, and the only real fact we have is that we will never know. But this one fact, considered in light of the theory of ‘balance,’ really resonates with me. What was Bruce Lee doing that would result in a loss of balance, and which could possibly result in death? For the answer to that let’s consider how the martial arts are accumulated.

In matrixing one isolates the specific arts, and simplifies them to workable levels, and does not mix martial arts. In matrixing one studies the smaller pieces of the individual martial arts until they (eventually) blend into a larger and comprehensive whole.

Bruce, on the other hand, was doing a hybrid of the martial arts; he was doing, for one specific example, Wing Chun and Boxing.

I know, there was a lot more, he had 26 different arts at one count.

But consider the differences between just those two martial arts. Wing Chun controls the centerline and works on straight punches. Boxing moves laterally and has roundish punches.

Yes, a simplification, but bear with, for there are different concepts of chi power here.

In boxing, there is no focus on chi power, everything has to do with muscles.
In Wing Chun, hoever, the focus is on chi power, and there is major emphasis on generating energy from the tan tien.

Could this mix of martial training, taken to the extremes that Bruce took them, result in an imbalance in the body? Could this have resulted in Bruce’s death?

Unfortunately, as with the other theories, there is no proof, and likely never will be, and we all never know. But it is something to consider.

The mix of the martial arts you study is definitely worth considering. Not because of the risk of death (Bruce was a singular and extreme case), but because mixing the various martial arts, and especially without simplifying them through the matrixing process, causes confusion, and results in a slower learned and less effective martial arts.

In closing, the point of this article has been to ask, not to state definitively, and that in an attempt to understand Bruce Lee. It is only through understanding, not through mindless worshipping, that we are going to reap the true benefits of this incredible person’s martial arts and existence.

Take the first step in learning how to Matrix with Matrix Karate. For information that might be more specific to the theories presented in this article examine The Master Instructor Course. Both courses are available at MonsterMartialArts.com