Newsletter 893
The Original Karate
Thanks, guys,
Both the ten book series
‘The Biggest Martial Arts Lesson of All,’
and
Professional Martial Arts Instructor,’
are selling.
Thanks.
Okay,
had a real interesting email the other day,
BW had some interesting observations and expeeriences,
regarding heat in the body,
chi circulation,
and so on.
So here is the skinny on all this…
Chinese martial arts have been around a long time.
And,
they have evolved into Tai Chi,
among other internal forms.
All of which says…martial arts evolve.
When they begin,
they frequently use muscle.
Nothing wrong with that.
Except energy is more efficient,
much stronger.
Ever have a baby clutch your finger?
Won’t let go?
Their ‘strength’ is all out of proportion
to their size and development.
They haven’t developed muscles,
so they use energy,
which needs no development to use.
Before you go crazy on that last statement,
let me make a point:
when we learn muscles (as we grow)
we give up energy.
We simply lose that intuitive ‘chi strength’
that we are born with,
or at least know before we get muscles.
Then,
if we want energy,
we have to learn it all over again.
And this means attaining the understanding that a baby has.
What understanding does a baby have?
He understands how to relax.
Energy,
of course,
flows better through what is relaxed.
Which brings us around
to the idea of Tai Chi.
Learn to relax.
Now,
BW was more concerned with experiencing heat in the body.
Karate was giving him much heat.
Here’s the difference…
Tai Chi is slow,
it is ‘suspended’ energy.
You suspend your body in space,
and that takes a very slow drool of energy
which I call ‘suspended energy.’
Karate explodes.
Both types of energy,
suspended and explosive
create heat.
But Karate creates it faster.
Although,
if you wish,
you can dedicate your TCC to the production of heat,
and your body can get amazingly hot.
Okay,
we have two points here,
relaxing and creating heat/energy.
Let me get to the point.
When Karate came from China
it was taught with an eye to chi power.
People relaxed more in the form,
figured out how to make the tricks work effortlessly.
Then, as the martial arts grew,
people and schools lost that ability.
The Japanese in particular
were obsessed with power,
and that often meant muscular power,
and not chi power.
And example of this is actually given,
though inadvertently,
in the book ‘Moving Zen,’
by CW Nicol.
Mr. Nicol relates the story of a TCC man
who was pounding on a pillar under a huge house.
The house shook,
the karate men couldn’t make it shake with their punches,
and there is a conclusion in there.
But you have to have an open mind to make it.
Anyway,
speaking for myself,
How do I know that what I tell you here is true?
Because I learned a style of Karate called Kang Duk Won.
And it was only a couple of generations removed from China.
Byung In Joon to a couple of Koreans to Bob Babich to me.
Not a long time for it to get corrupted.
Mr. Babich, in particular,
was incredibly light and whippy.
He was like a father that weighed a thousand pounds.
The other people in our school used muscle,
and were in awe of Bob.
I watched Bob,
and tried to figure out what he was doing that was different.
I probably wouldn’t have figured it out,
except that I read a lot of books on zen.
And the secret was:
emptiness.
Space.
Doing nothing until nothing is left undone.
To relax,
even in the middle of form,
even in the middle of technique,
even in the middle of freestyle.
And,
when you relax…
chi flows.
And Chi can create,
among other things…
heat.
Now,
the final thing I want to say,
give you a chance to grok all this,
has to do with being ‘on,’ or ‘off.’
BW observed the difference between his art
when it worked light and whippy,
and…other times.
When you relax your body totally,
when you make ONLY the fist tight,
then you will get a result snap that is incredible,
and different from the art
that all the power mongers out there
want to sell.
But it takes patience,
no resistance,
an emptiness of the mind.
It’s easy to do,
but so easy it’s hard.
Seems like there is always something there to distract you.
Okley dokely.
Nuff said,
I wish you success.
You can check out the Kang Duk Won in my book of the same name,
it’s on Amazon.
Or at the KangDukWon.com site.
Or you can check out what I’ve done with some of the forms here…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/temple-karate/
Temple Karate has an amazing amount of material on it,
including some data on how the art was really formed,
and what for,
and how it was really meant to be used.
So have a great work out!
Al
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/temple-karate/
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
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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
