Tag Archives: karate punch

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)

The Proper Use of Muscles in the Martial Arts!

The Two Muscles in the Martial Arts!

There are two ways of using the muscles in the martial arts
One is to use the muscles,
the other is to not use the muscles.
I know, sounds like zen double talk.

The first method is to tighten the muscles,
specifically upon impact.

The second method is to ‘empty’ the muscles,
to just flow energy through them.

When I first began training in 1967
I was taught to use muscles,
to ‘focus’ the muscles by tightening
everything at the point of impact.
When I went to the Kang Duk Won
(not American KDW)
I was taught,
and mostly through experience and not words,
to tighten only the fist.
Eventually I stopped tightening the fist entirely,
merely sticking the bones of my arm
into the opponent’s body.
This required almost no muscle.

There are several things to be understood here.

If you tighten the muscle energy doesn’t flow through the body.
This leads to inefficiency,
energy loss,
and so on.

It is important to go through the tightening of the muscle phase,
lest you don’t understand what a punch really is.
This is why TCC sometimes doesn’t work,
the student doesn’t understand the reality of combat.
If the student does understand the reality of combat,
TCC is one of the better and more effective arts out there.

The ‘unbendable arm’ (Aikido)
is the best example of an ‘empty arm.’
Or an arm through which energy flows.
Aikido doesn’t develop this for combat,
but rather uses it almost as meditation
and for show.

I use the ‘unbendable arm’ in all movements.
I move my slightly bent arm with only a bit of
expansion and contraction.
The less I move,
the more ‘flow’ I create,
the more subtle are my movements,
my power,
my effectiveness.

When adapting the ‘unbendable arm’
to arts such as Karate,
One MUST understand how to sink the weight,
how to push with the legs,
how to turn the hips,
and how to move all body parts in harmony
so as to strike with the entire body weight.

I still have snap,
but it is subtle,
and designed around the delivering
of the whole weight of the body
into the target.

By developing the ‘complete energy’ of a strike
into the ‘no energy’ of a strike
one loses his tendency to be jumpy,
to respond with violence,
and attains a very calm mind,
one that doesn’t set up fights through mental attitudes.

The odd thing is that this sounds like mysticism,
but it is really hard core science.
It just goes beyond the ‘Newtonian’ science
we have been raised on.

Hey,
Happy Thanksgiving!
Take advantage of the time off
to do extra work outs,
and don’t forget to check out
my books on

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

(There is a version with five hours of video
but you have to hunt for it on Amazon)

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.

Matrixing the Hurricane Punch!

Matrixing the Hurricane Punch!

Happy Hurricane!
That’s right,
I live in Florida and I just lived through
terror and despair and fear.
That’s right,
I watched the news and survived.

So let me tell you what really happened
with the hurricane where I lived,
it makes for a delightful bit of matrixing
and may give you ideas for how to apply matrixing
to the world.

It is easy to matrix a hurricane,
a hurricane is like a big old punch to the gut.
So I’m watching all these complex charts,
and the news people are talking statistics
and,
of course
HEAD FOR THE HIGH GROUND!
YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!
THE HURRICANE IS COMING TO GET YOU!

Except I looked at the maps
the simple ones showing the path of the hurricane
and I immediately saw what was wrong.
The hurricane passed over Cuba,
then veered right
and headed for Tampa on a straight line.
Do you see what is wrong?
Nature abhors a straight line.
Nature,
except for a few stupid trees shooting for the sun
does not happen in straight lines.
Only men, with their buildings and jabs,
create straight lines.
And here this hurricane was on a straight line for me.

Heck,
Something was wrong with this picture
and I began to apply matrixing.

Matrixing is all about the analysis of force and direction.
That’s all it is.
So here is a straight punch hurricane
and what are the forces that will act on it?
Only two.
There is the surface the hurricane travels over,
and there are the ‘masses of air’ to the sides of the hurricanes.

The surface over which a hurricane travels over
is either flat (the ocean)
or rough (trees and houses and things)
Just by surface alone,
because it has to be a circle,
I could see that the hurricane was going to loop.
As big as the hurricane was,
and considering the surfaces over which it traveled,
I figured it would hit land above clearwater (where I live)
I blew it.
The hurricane skated over the water
and hit land over a hundred miles south of me.

Why did it hit 100 miles below me?
Because there was a HUGE mass of air to the north.
The hurricane simply ran into a wall and turned.

I saw a bigger map later,
and saw the HUGE mass of air to the north,
and that was why it had missed me.

The news media had this information,
So why were they all shouting

HEAD FOR THE HIGH GROUND!
YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!
THE HURRICANE IS COMING TO GET YOU!

Because that’s how they ‘sell newspapers.’
They create fear
and it’s like a roller coaster.
Everybody wants to get on for the scary ride.
So everybody watches the news.

Once I saw the media was wrong
I decided not to evacuate.
Police drove through my park every few hours
telling me I had to leave.
In essence,
they were yelling…

HEAD FOR THE HIGH GROUND!
YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!
THE HURRICANE IS COMING TO GET YOU!

Why would the police do this?
One, because they believed the news people.
Two,
more important,
because if people are scared they need the police,
it justifies the police
and gives the police more money.
Period.

So the real irritation
of the big hurricane punch
was that I had to turn off all the lights in my house
and let the police pass by.
Chances are they would do nothing,
but they might do something,
and they could give me a ticket.

Can you dig it?
A thousand dollar fine
for defending myself against
the big hurricane punch?
So the police are now put in the position
of potentially becoming the enemy,
interfering with my right to defend myself.

The winds howled,
the rain splattered,
I heard things go bump in the night,
things like pieces of branches hitting the ground.
Midnight my carport started flapping.
Horrendous racket.
I had no rope,
so I wrapped a piece of electrical cord
around one of the supports,
and ran my car over the cord.
Saved my carport.
And it was fun to be out there in shorts and a tee
fighting the elements.

And for all you people who scream
‘what if the wind blew you away?’
‘What if your house collapsed?’
‘What if the police tried to save you and died!’
‘What if…what if…what if…’

I say:
STOP LIVING A LIFE OF FEAR!

I was working off matrixing.
I knew the dynamics of a punch.
I KNEW the hurricane punch was going to miss.

And if I had known that it was going to hit
I would have headed for my son’s house,
a couple of miles away
and hunkered down.
He lives on the high ground.

That’s right.
I was so sure of my matrixing
that instead of heading a couple of miles to a ‘safe’ house,
I stayed home
drank an adult beverage
played on the computer,
and was so very happy.

And,
for those people who got slammed by the punch,
my sincere thoughts and prayers.
But,
did you know what happened
when the news and the police and the politicians all yelled.

HEAD FOR THE HIGH GROUND!
YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!
THE HURRICANE IS COMING TO GET YOU!

All the people in my area drove a 100 miles to get away.
They drove to (drum roll) Fort Meyers
and Orange county.
That’s right,
they drove right onto Ground Zero.
Because they listened to FEAR,
because they listened to the news,
because they followed the directions of the police,
they took the Great Hurricane Punch
right in the flippin’ gut!

Too bad they didn’t know matrixing.
Too bad they didn’t know the martial arts.
They could have stayed home.
They could have had popcorn and chocolate,
maybe an adult beverage,
been safe with their kids
playing board games
and making up scary stories.

Now,
I suggest you study the martial arts
and study matrixing,
and do it quick
before Twitter and Facebutt and all those guys
convict me of ‘spreading disinformation.’
After all,
they don’t want me to interfere
with their money making business.

And the next time somebody starts yelling FEAR!
Look at the situation,
analyze the potential forces and flows,
and put them out of your mind.
A person who works off of fear
is not able to analyze
and ALL his opinions are worthless.

Don’t bob and weave,
don’t side step and block
if the punch is going to miss.

Okay,
enough about the dreaded and terrible Hurricane Punch,
let’s talk about fun!

Thanks for buying
How to Fix Karate.
Do you know why How to Fix Karate is so different?
Every book out there
talks about the way the old masters did it.
They make photos of their system
and THEY NEVER consider whether their system is right.
How to Fix Karate takes each step
of each form
analyzes each step
for workability,
asks whether it is right or wrong,
and offers reasons
as to how and why something might be wrong,
and offers alternative solutions.
No other book does that.
All other books
treat Karate like a sacred cow,
never touching it.
How to Fix Karate dissects the sacred cow,
takes it apart like a 50s car
and shows you how to put it back together…
SO IT WILL WORK!

Anyway,
here’s a little clip for your entertainment,

MB 149 Two Man Punch Drill.mp4

and don’t forget to check out

HOW TO FIX KARATE

Remember,
it’s not a little book.
Two volumes for over 400 pages,
a thousand images,
and it is not designed to be read,
it is designed to be scrutinized,
to be poured over,
to make you THINK!
This is not simple Hurricane Punch,
it is the real thing.

Have a great work out!
Al

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

BTW
I’ve got nothing but five star reviews on

The Science of Government.
It’s really nothing more than applying matrixing to politics.

Matrixing + Politics = Sanity

I told you matrixing works with anything.

Here’s the link…

How to Fix Karate! (volumes one and two)

volume one is at

And volume two is at…

A Summer of Martial Arts!

Newsletter 1045 ~ Don’t forget to subscribe!

A Summer of Martial Arts!

Yeah, baby.
Set your work out up,
do it every day,
see if you can learn a whole art in one summer.
That’s the game!

And,
I came across a VERY interesting fact the other day.
And I could kick myself for not having the link for you.
But the essence of the article was this:

If you turn your wrist when punching you break bones in your hand.
If you keep the punch stable,
for instance use a vertical punch,
the bones don’t break in the hands.

Now this guy had done a job of research,
went back through boxing and martial arts
and really backed the idea up.

About twenty or thirty years ago
I made the point with my students,
practice the twisting punch to learn to snap,
then forget it,
don’t do it again,
go to a vertical punch
and use the snapping closure of the hand for your snap.

The reason i said this wasn’t because I noticed broken hands,
it was because logically speaking
if you twist the hand on impact it is unstable
and weight can’t be properly transmitted it.

There are a few twisting punches,
but they are really rare and mystical.
And I hold that mysticism can be cured by understanding the basics.
Just saying.

So,
that’s my two cents for the week.

And,
the book is getting closer,
It’s getting edited,
about 3/4s done,
and I’m really glad I decided to get edited.
I’m learning a lot,
and the book is going to be a LOT cleaner when it is done.

So,

Let’s repeat the obligatory ad from last week…

Blinding Steel!

4a Blinding Steel (Matrixing Weapons)

Because your opponent will probably have a weapon!

Okay, everybody,
summer is around the corner, so start now!
HAVE A GREAT WORK OUT!

Al

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

BTW
I’ve got nothing but five star reviews on

The Science of Government.
It’s really nothing more than applying matrixing to politics.

Matrixing + Politics = Sanity

I told you matrixing works with anything.

Here’s the link…

The Rather Nifty Pubic Punch!

Newsletter 1029

An interesting type of Punch

I’m not much into hitting pressure points.
Oh,
they work,
but the skill required,
and the time required to master,
better spent perfecting your punch,
the angles of your form,
etc.

But,
there are certain angles which I pursue.
Passing a punch can I put a finger
on a fellow’s shoulder and take him down?
Can I body bump somebody so they fly away?
And,
one of my favorites,
the pubic punch.

You block,
then you place your fist on his waist
POINTING DOWNWARD…
and you push down.
His legs collapse,
just like they have no muscle at all,
and he falls all the way to the ground.

If you examine this move,
it’s almost like a low block,
which tells people that a block
can be a hell of a lot more than a block.

Now
A BIG AND HUGE WARNING.
Be careful.
Don’t punch,
don’t cause impact.
The top of the leg is a small bone
that fits into the hip ‘socket.’
If you break this,
we are talking BIG surgery
and 6 months before any walking.
So you don’t punch down,
you gently push down.
Unless,
of course,
you really want the guy’s lunch money.

I can actually use this in freestyle.
I’ve have used it.
Very difficult,
requires exact positioning,
and you have to know what the guy is going to do
before you do it.

And,
I call this
‘THE PUBIC PUNCH.’

But,
the good thing,
once you have this technique down
the skill required offers itself to other techniques.

Anyway,
try it,
let me know if it works for you.
And let me toss the obligatory ad in here.

There are a lot of cool things like this
in Tai Chi Chuan.
Tell the truth,
I ransacked TCC for techniques
to use in Karate.
Quite interesting,
very beneficial.
So,
here’s the course that shows
all sorts of subtle moves
that will really work in freestyle.

Five Army Tai Chi Chuan

Now…
have yourself a great work out!
Al

And don’t forget to check out the interview

BTW
I’m always pushing my novels,
did you know I write other stuff?
If you want to know the truth about government,
you will find some startling matrixing going on in

THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT!

Making a chi power karate punch

Newsletter 1024

Supercharging Karate Strikes

There is one drill
I have never seen anywhere else.
We used to do it in the Kang Duk Won
back in the sixties,
and it was part of Pinan Two,
and other forms,
but it has disappeared from classical karate,
one more example of the ‘dumbing down’ of the martial arts.
We didn’t have a name for it,
and I just call it ‘supercharging.’
It is used to increase the power of a punch, kick, etc.
And,
do it for a while
and you’ll totally understand and have chi power.
So here is a clip.
If the video doesn’t show up in this article/newsletter,
Put an H in your browser, then add the rest of this link…
ttps://youtu.be/PSeEBq21yjU
Once again Apple refuses to talk to other computers, so I had to list it this way. Sigh.

 

Now,
the way this technique works is simple.
You simply raise your leg
then stomp your foot as you strike.

The mechanics behind it are equally as simple.
Weight equals work equals energy.
(Wt = Wk = E)

This is why you do low stances,
so you ‘feel’ more weight,
and have to create more energy,
which energy can be directed into your strike.

But stomping the foot
(and not so hard that you damage your foot)
creates a quick shot of power,
the tan tien works harder,
more energy goes out,
and you simply synch the energy explosion with the punch.
Voila,
instant ‘chi power.’

Now, as I said,
it is in parts of the classical Pinan forms.
But you won’t see it today.
I have examined virtually every example
of pinan two on youtube,
and it isn’t there.
The technique is about the 5th move in the form.
You have just done the side to side blocks in the beginning,
and you are about to do a simultaneous block and kick to the rear,
then turn 180 degrees and do a knife block to the front.
In the modern version
the student simply turns and takes a stance with a knife block.
In the real version
you kick,
then,
you turn 180 degrees
and stomp the foot as you knife block.
It was hard to twist 180 while you were stomping,
but it taught a higher degree of body control.

There were other examples in other forms,
other ways of doing this ‘supercharging,’
and I have developed it over the years.
As you will see in the clip,
I use it for chops and punches and kicks.

The clip is from the course I put together.
The Nine Square Diagram R & D course.
That course is around 180 video segments.
It is a monster,
and it is FILLED with things like this.

And,
if you’re unsure,
it is a lot of money to invest,
you can always check out one of the other courses on the site
and make sure it is what you want.
Here’s the link…

Research & Development Course

Now,
since I have told you the secrets of the universe,
and done the obligatory advertising,
there really is nothing more to say,
except,
of course…

HAVE A GREAT WORK OUT!
Al

And don’t forget to check out the interview

BTW
Have you checked out my novel?
Monkeyland?

The Easy Way to Punch 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.

The totally scientific martial art
that opens eyes everywhere
and makes all martial arts quick and simple to learn.

Here’s the obligatory ad…

4d The Punch

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

Great Martial Arts Knock Outs

Newsletter 911

(In)Famous Knocks Outs in the Martial Arts

You’ve all seen clips of great knock outs.
Whether its Muhammad Ali,
Connor Gregor
Holly Hombs…
you can see great knock outs all over the net.
But here are some knock outs you haven’t seen,
and,
hopefully,
never will.
They are from my own personal trove of experience.

The first one isn’t a knock out per se,
but it sure qualifies for this newsletter.

Back in the late sixties kicks were just coming in to their own.
You see,
we mostly practiced front kicks, side kicks, wheel kicks.
Then Chuck Norris came along and showed us the spinning kick.
Man,
this drove us crazy.
Students at dojos everywhere were trying to spin and kick.
Spin and hook heel.
Spin and wheel.
Spin and whatever.
Out imagination FAR outran our abilities.
So one day this fellow shows me the latest and greatest…
it was a jump spinning rear kick.
And the kick was done with the leg straight,
really snazzy,
Man,
I watched this dude jump up and spin and knock coke cans off a fence…
and I was hooked.
So I practiced,
and practiced,
and in my mind I was a kung fu movie,
knocking down legions of bad guys.
In reality…
I wasn’t so good.
But I was trying…darn it!
I was trying!

One day I was playing baseball with some fellows.
There was a dozen of us,
it was a beautiful day,
and I was playing second base.
The field was a little dusty,
the sun was shining down,
and I waited for some situation to resolve.
A couple of guys arguing about plays,
or rules,
or some such.
And standing there,
my mind wandering,
I began to do spinning kicks.
The guys all knew I did Karate,
I was always doing something like this,
so everybody just stood around
and watched me,
and waited for the game to resume.
I spun and I spun,
and in my mind
I felt I had it.
I could see myself jumping,
soaring,
perfect arc of foot,
perfect balance.
And,
possessed by my fantasy,
I leaped into the air,
spun,
and collided with the ground.
I mean,
on a scale of 1 to 10,
ten being the worst,
I was a ten.
To the guys standing around,
it looked like I had dove into the sky,
jerked into contortions,
and threw myself on the dirt,
as awkwardly as possible.
For a moment nobody said anything.
They just gawked,
then they laughed.
And everybody was laughing.
What i had done was so stupid looking…
even I laughed.
I mean,
I had gone beyond the bounds of embarrassment,
even I could appreciate the heights of my stupidity.
That’s one.

The second knock out was real,
and,
interestingly,
it involved jump spinning kicks.
My instructor was not immune from the desire
to soar through the heavens,
and kick over a regiment of bad guys.
So one day he was practicing,
jumping and spinning,
and he was pretty good.
Except…
for that low hanging tree.
That’s right,
he leaped into the air,
spun beautifully,
and knocked his noggin on a branch,
and knocked himself out.
And he was really out.
He was unconscious for a half hour
before one of the guys found him.
Sprawled peacefully,
visions of spinning back kicks in his head.
That’s two.

And,
first place in this menagerie of misadventures,
goes to me.
You know,
it seems almost sad,
that such strivings for perfection
result in such…imperfections.

One of the tricks my instructor could do
was push ups on two single fingers.
We are not talking about a bend of the fingers,
we are talking about totally stiff index fingers.
A complete push up.
Now,
there were things that were beyond me,
there were things that people could do
that I would never be able.
But…
I knew I could do push ups on single index fingers.
So,
I began practicing.
I practiced regular push ups,
I practiced push ups on fists,
on the backs of my hands.
I imagined a rod of iron going along my backbone.
My visualizations were perfect.
I began doing push ups on half fists.
And,
I began reducing the number of digits.
I got to the point where I could do push ups on single index knuckles.
I began doing push ups on fingers.
Totally straight fingers.
Three fingers.
Two fingers.
It’s interesting,
it’s not strength,
it’s balance,
and it’s a frame of mind that pushes the world out,
and focuses awareness in the fingers.
Perfect balance.
I remember the night I got up on the single fingers.
Man,
what a charge.
I had made it.
Amazing.
I felt like I could do anything in the world.
And,
feeling so good,
I decided to do a couple of more push ups.
But…I hadn’t reckoned on the amazing amount of fatigue.
Focusing the mind like that
really drains it.
If I had waited for the next day,
I would have been okay.
But I was just charged up and ready to go.
I got up on the fingers,
and…
everything collapsed.
All that focus gave way…
as did all of the energy it required to do those push ups.
I felt right smack on my face.
And I actually knocked myself out.
I wasn’t out for long,
probably a couple of minutes.
No more than five.
But I was out.
Like a light.
Sleeping peacefully.
And that’s three.

So,
three knock outs
(two knock outs and a knock down)
that you will never hear about.
But,
you know,
that’s life.
That’s what happens when you go for something.
And the trick,
as we all know,
is not to accept it,
but to get back up,
keep going,
and really learn the martial arts.
That’s a life goal worth having.

Have a great work out!
Al

Get your black belt this year…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/black-belt-course/
It’s the ultimate video course,
over 100 lessons,
at a price you won’t believe.

http://monstermartialarts.com

Hit Harder with Martial Arts Power

Newsletter 875

How to Hit Harder in the Martial Arts without Hitting Harder

Excellent!
It’s friday.
It’s end of the week work out day!
Get all set up for working out all weekend.

Hey,
great title, eh?
So let’s start at the beginning.

My first experience in resistance was a kicking bag.
Kicked the crap out of it.
Bounced it up to the ceiling,
day after day after day.
Yet,
it wasn’t right.
It didn’t feel right.
Hit it,
kick it,
it didn’t feel like a human body.
But I practiced it for power,
then kicked bodies for control.
Worked my techniques,
practiced my freestyle,
but knew there was something lacking in my reality.

Then they came up with kicking shields.
Excellent.
Much better than a bag.
You had to hit it right,
in spite of the fact that your partner could flinch and twist.
You had to figure out how to move his weight,
without sending him through a wall.
A lot better.

But the interesting thing was that the old drills,
drills I had been doing for years,
began to connect.
I began to ‘feel’ inside my opponent’s body
with my fist and foot.

Look,
this isn’t strange.
If you put your hands on somebody’s arm
you can feel the biceps.
You can feel the striations,
you can feel the bone underneath,
you can feel the nooks and crannies,
you can feel how the arm works,
and you can feel what it takes,
and where,
to damage it.

That’s with your fingers,
but you can feel with your fists.
You can feel with your feet.
And here’s something interesting.
The universe is mostly space,
and this includes the human body.
So if you knock on a door
you can listen,
and ‘feel’ (become aware of as if through radar)
And if you knock on the human body
with your fist or foot,
you can listen,
feel the space inside,
as if radar,
like thumping on a watermelon to see if it’s ripe.
It’s easy.

And,
when you can do this
an interesting thing happens.
you can hit softer,
put more awareness into he strike,
and cause more damage.

It’s true.

And here is why:

you begin to believe in your punch,
and your belief is so strong
that your opponent believes in your punch.

It is so fascinating,
to ‘nick’ somebody with a punch,
and watch them feel the pain.

But you have to be very careful.

But the more you experience this
the more you believe
the stronger your punch gets
and the softer you punch
the more effect it has.

Fascinating.

So keep hitting that bag,
build your reality,
but study the punch,
feel it,
build a belief in it,
after a bit of time,
not a great amount of time if you matrix,
your punches are going to be amazing!

Real gorilla stoppers.

Here’s all the data on punching…

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/hard-punch/

Now,
have yourself a GREAT 4 of July,
do a bunch of extra work outs,
and celebrate the freedom
and the second amendment,
that allows us to practice our killing art.

Have a great work out!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/hard-punch/

http://www.martialartsinstructortraining.com

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

Making the Body Hard Enough to take a Punch in the Martial Arts

Newsletter 857

Armor in the Martial Arts (part two)

It’s Saturday!
Time to work out ALL-L-L-L day long!

Hey, look at the title,
Armor in the martial arts…part two?
I thought I’d written everything I wanted to,
then thought about it,
and realized I was only half done.
You can check out part one on MonsterMartialArts.com (the blog)
But let me finish the article right here.

I told you the secret of taking punches
was easily learned by just doing the forms,
doing techniques out of the forms,
and practicing breathing.
Let me splain.

When you breath,
you breath out when the body expands,
and in when the body contracts.

Or,
you breath out when you strike somebody,
or when you are getting struck.

This is simply aligning the
in and out’ of breathing
with the expansion or contraction,
so to speak,
of the body.

But it is a major alignment.

Just remember that you must breath as if to the tan tien.
The tan tien is the energy center an inch or two below the navel.

Now,
oxygen will not reach the tan tien,
it will go to the bottom of the lungs and stop at the diaphragm.
But…this starts a sensation of energy
that continues downward from the diaphragm
and condenses into the tan tien.

When you breath like this,
hold out your arms in a relaxed manner,
and you will feel a tingle in your finger tips.
This is an indication that
as you focus on the tan tien
it creates energy,
and this energy can be cycled through your body.

Now,
we come to the interesting part.
You can,
by just being aware of a body part,
direct energy to a body part.
Become aware of your right index finger,
and you will feel a sensation in your right index finger.
If you don’t,
you just need to practice directing your awareness
until you do feel the sensation.
I spend a lot of time,
quite serious here,
just thinking about my right index finger,
then my left,
then my right,
and so on.
Just feel the awareness wake up the finger,
making it tingle,
and begin to glow with energy.

When you practice forms,
by breathing like this,
you are putting energy into the body part
used in the form.
The fist,
the foot,
the block,
etc.

When you do the forms
you learn how to breath.
when you do the techniques,
and somebody strikes you,
you become aware of the place being struck.
Again and again and again.

First you tighten the muscles,
but,
because of proper breathing,
you are directing energy into the site.

Eventually the energy you are pushing through the body
goes there automatically.
First into the fist,
or foot or whatever,
then into the body part being struck.

Somebody hits you,
and the energy just slides through the body.
Sometimes you can feel it moving.
Sometimes it just sort of erupts into a shield,
a deep sort of shield,
that stops the strike.

It usually takes a while to get this ability,
but it won’t take long if you know what I am saying here.
When I learned
nobody told me,
took me years.
But by the time I made black belt
(about 3 1/2 years)
the energy was moving,
going to where I was going to get struck.
And the pain of getting struck totally stopped.
People would hit me
and there was literally no effect.
Other guys in the school just accepted this.
They were going through it, too.
People on the street were sort of amazed.

It is not the same as taking a punch in boxing.
In that discipline you tighten the muscles.
In the martial arts,
probably because of the kind of strikes we were taking,
the muscles would tighten,
but the important thing was
the energy moving under the surface.

Okay,
that is the other half of the article,
what I should have told you yesterday.
Better late than never, eh?

So,
if you have a copy of the book I wrote,
the ‘Kang Duk Won,’
(amazon or, possibly, the Monster website on one of the courses)
then you can pick it up,
do the forms,
do the techniques,
and you’ll get there.
You’ll have to practice,
ignore fellows who say,
‘You won’t see that on the street!’
Because you are going deeper,
looking for other abilities.
And,
to be honest,
you can make that art work on the street,
but you have to commit yourself to the art,
you have to work to make it work.

But the Temple Karate course is better.
I give you more forms,
forms aimed at that building this sort of ability,
plus a few other abilities.
The forms are slightly tweaked to be more efficient,
and I show you how to make it work.
You see me do it on video.

But,
up to you,
either way is excellent.

And,
if you think you have enough data,
you could just try to apply stuff I’ve said,
including today’s blog,
to other arts.
Karate works best,
but there is usually too much degradation of form.
The Kang Duk Won,
as I studied it,
bypassed the Japanese influence,
stayed with some of the chinese internal practices,
and is about efficient as it gets.
Kung fu,
I don’t know.
That is really going to depend on a lot of factors.
But there you go.
That’s the way,
all you have to do is dig in and commit yourself.

Have fun,
Have a great work out,
and I’ll talk to you next.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/temple-karate/

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

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