Tag Archives: kenpo fighting

Pushing Hands Applied to Combat!

The Five Armies of Tai Chi Chuan!

I say Tai Chi Chuan,
but these five armies. are usable
in every martial art.

The five armies are:
the wrists
the elbows
the shoulders
the waist
the feet

It’s pretty simple,
actually.
If you understand a little push hands
it will really make sense,
but even if you don’t,
there is a logic here that can’t be denied.

If somebody grabs your wrist simply roll it.
This escapes all wrist grips,
and provides wrist twist counters,
and opens up a LOT of other doors.

If somebody pushes on your forearm,
simply fold it back.
The idea is to let the person fall past
and circle your arm to strike him.

If the person is closer
and pushes on your shoulder, or your upper arm
so that it affects the shoulder,
circle the shoulder.

If somebody is pushing on your body,
turn the waist.

If somebody has penetrated past the waist,
simply shift back,
let him pass.

Okay,
this is designed for push hands,
but push hands is designed for martial combat.
So you don’t have to be in push hands mode,
if somebody is pressing an attack
on one of the five areas,
or zones,
or whatever you want to call it,
just use one of the five armies.
Shift back and:
roll
fold
circle
turn
shift.

If you can do all of them that is great.
That is applying CBM
(Coordinated Body Motion-using the body as one unit)
to the technique.

Now,
if you stop thinking about him coming in,
and start thinking about you moving forward,
you end up with the total strike.

You push with the feet
as you turn the waist
and circle the shoulder
and unfold the elbows
and snap the wrist.

So you can apply the Five Armies concept
to defense or offense.
Or any combination of attack and defense.

This concept is demonstrated for Tai Chi
in my

Five Army Tai Chi Chuan course

I would also recommend,
if you are more into Karate or the striking arts,
my book on

Chiang Nan

The point isn’t that this stuff hasn’t been done,
it’s just never been explained in a clear and concise manner
the way I do it.

Check them out,
and have a fantastic work out!
Al

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 that useful
find the book/course that is right for you,
and matrix your own martial arts.

FREE Martial Arts Videos!

Good morning!
Want a FREE course?
Check out this offer

FREE COURSE!

Now then,
let’s get to the good stuff.

Want to be real smart in the art?
Have you ever considered playing chess?
It’s an oriental game,
a lot of martial arts are oriental,
and there are some incredibly smart comparisons
between chess and martial arts.

I was reminded of this because my wife
wanted me to teach her how to play.
So we broke out the chess board
and I went over some simple concepts for her.

There are eight pieces (plus pawns)
You must learn what each piece does…
and how it relates to other pieces.

The first major strategy is to control
the center four squares on the board.
You can’t win if you sit back in your own space,
you have to go through the center (usually)
to get to the opponent’s area.

There are only two questions you must ask yourself.
Who is trying to get me.
how can I get them.
You ask these before you touch a piece,
and you stay your hand until everything makes sense.

The board is a matrix.

If I was going to teach a computer
to play chess
I would matrix each piece’s potential of motion.

If two people play perfect games
white would always win.

OKAY…
How does this relate to the martial arts?

There are eight basic blocks
and you must learn what each block does,
and how it relates to other blocks (moves).

Controlling the center four squares
is like positioning the elbows precisely
between you and your opponent
so you can extend, retract, guide or block
the incoming attack.

You must ask yourself what weapon is coming towards you,
and position yourself so your weapons are at advantage.

The direction of attacks creates a matrix,
and the defense is defined by a matrix.

If I study hard
and analyze all motion
I enter an intuitive state.
I will be at cause,
and I will see anything he does
before he does it.
(mushin no shin—Mind of no mind)

Do you see the analogies between chess and martial arts?

And,
by the way,
my wife wanted to learn chess because she saw
‘The Queen’s Gambit,’
a series on netflix.
If you watch it,
when the girl begins to see chess pieces on the ceiling
you will understand that
the mind doesn’t figure this stuff out,
the human being does,
without the distraction of the mind.

Now,
don’t forget to click on

FREE COURSE!

By the way,
this newsletter is going out only through blogs.
Sign up at MonsterMartialArts.com.

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.

Geometric Fighting in Martial Arts

The Geometry of Fighting in the Martial Arts!

T-Day is over!
Long live HanaKwanMass!
You’ve been warned! ;0)

Many people think the martial arts are all about fighting.
they are about a lot more than that,
but let’s just consider the fighting aspect.

I was okay as a fighter.
Some people thought I was good,
some people could kick my ass.
It happens.
But I didn’t care about fighting
I wanted to understand.
that was my goal.
I consider martial arts as a way to understand life.

As time went by I became better at fighting.
I was aging,
I didn’t have the strength,
but I found that with intense practice
i could see what people were going to do before they did it.

Then I wrote the Flow Chart.
Take a glance at it below
and then I’ll tell you what it means.

What this weird thing is is an analysis of motion in the martial arts.
The squares are the footwork.
I probably could have used a key,
or better terminology.
But if you think about it
it gets understandable.
You’re standing about where the ‘wing chun’ label is
and you either step out,
or you cross step,
with the right or the left foot.

The oval refers to hand techniques.

I had a lot of fun making this,
trying to make sense out of where i would be
what direction I would be traveling,
which foot or which hand,
and so on.

I was influenced in the creation of this by Eddie Rickenbacker.
He was a WW1 flying ace,
and he would imagine himself in the center of a bubble,
and try to imagine all the directions he could be attacked from
and what he would do for each attack.

My Flow Chart is more concerned
with facing a person,
and imagining incoming directions, motions, hands, feet,
and so on and so on,
and what to do about each possibility.

The take away from this,
was I was able to understand each art
as it relates to each art.

Taekwondo at the kicking distance
Karate at the punching distance
Aikido moving in the direction of a circular punch
Pa Kua Chang against the direction of a circular punch.
What I have said here
is VERY simplistic.
Every art has solutions for every incoming attack.
But by isolating the concepts of an art
I was able to use all arts together.

So I began using these concepts in teaching.
I would freestyle with a student
and restrict myself only to the footwork of a specific art.

Some of my conclusions were:
No trouble with Karate because I had trained
that specific art and was familiar with specific solutions.

We had kicks in karate so I was able to understand
and isolate taekwondo.

I was not able to use Aikido purely,
but it became the most powerful of my tools
when I was able to isolate Karate and Wing Chun
and then put them together
(understand at what distances they could be used
and developed Lop Sau (circling fists)

I was never able to use Pa Kua Chang.
At all.
When I limited myself to X stepping
every student I had,
from the lowest white belt
could kick my ass.

Interestingly,
I would see people use it who had studied only Pa Kua
and it was very effective.
My training methods,
being eclectic,
hurt me in this one instance.

So here’s some ways you can use the Flow Chart
help yourself isolate concepts from other arts.
help yourself understand how concepts
from various arts have become mushed together
and how that interferes with your understanding.
figure out to be more specific in your training and drills.
Do these simple things
and you will find a lot of gold in the Flow Chart.

Okey dokey.
I was looking at Amazon,
and I have some highly rated books.
Look for my author’s page if you want all my books,
but here’s a short list of my highest rated books.

The Last Martial Arts Book has 11 ratings for 5 stars.
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.

And a whole bunch of books have 1 or 2 ratings for 5 stars.
Search for the Al Case author’s page
if you want to examine those,
or the lesser starred efforts.

And,
that’s about it.
HanaKwanMass is coming,
so think about what art you want to gift yourself,
or some one else.

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…