Newsletter 796
Sleight of Hand in the Martial Arts

Good morning!
It’s a balmy day out here in LA,
absolutely perfect for working out.
You just let the wind push you into the next move.

Hey,
here’s something interesting,
did you know that people don’t know how to use their bodies?
They do sports,
various gimmicks,
and they catch the ball cool,
but they are using the body at about 1/100 of its potential.
True.

And,
interesting enough,
I am not talking about instances of high adrenaline
as being the optimum.

In fact,
you should be using less energy
to create more effect.

Here’s the neutronic low down,very simple,
on this phenomenon.

If you study math,
the very first thing you learn to do is measure the universe.
After a couple of years of working with this fact,
which is used because it is undeniable,
you can’t argue with a ruler,
you learn to think in abstracts.
You learn to follow formula,
and you leave the necessity for measuring.

So,
two specific stages,
measure the universe,
follow formula.
The devising of new formula is considered the higher,
most creative mathematics.
That is what every professor shoots for.

Okay,
understanding this,
let’s discuss how it parallels the martial arts.

The beginner is taught to measure himself.
How fast he can run from point A to point B,
how much he can lift,
and so on.
This is the first stage,
the measurement stage,
the stage where you measure yourself in universal terms.

But you are not the universe,
you are awareness,
and to realize your true potential you have to find
the abstracts of motion.

Here is a very simple example of an abstract of motion.

The magician holds up the deck of cards,
you choose a card,
insert it back into the deck,
and the magician,
even though he doesn’t know what card it is,
pulls it out.
Whoa!
As Po would say.

But the magician has only used sleight of hand.
He has trained his hands to make a motion
that escapes the eye.
He doesn’t measure himself,
he grades himself according to how many people he can fool.

Can Joe Blow do this mystical faster than the eye can see motion?
With practice.
But here’s the point:
What if you trained your whole body to move
faster than the eye can see.
There are ways,
you know.
Here’s one.
Practice walking the circle out of Pa Kua for a few years,
until you feel the ‘lightening’ in your legs.
When somebody punches,
you move your hand in one direction,
and step down and under in the other direction.
It will be as if you disappeared.

I first heard of this disappearing act
when my instructor was being checked out by a high ranking Korean stylist.
The Korean did a series of stretches,
then,
noting that Bob was just standing and sipping a drink,
asked when Bob would be ready (for a proposed freestyle match).
Bob put his drink down and faced the Korean.
“I’m ready.”
The Korean jumped into the air with a perfect spinning kick.
When he came down Bob was nowhere to be seen.
In fact,
when the Korean turned his back Bob just walked behind him,
in conjunction with the spin.
The Korean was shocked to find Bob behind him.

I was not as fast as Bob,
I have a bigger body,
but I found that by moving my hand in one direction,
and my body in the other,
just as I described earlier,
that people would follow my hand and lose sight of me.

This is simple stuff,
but it takes immense practice.
And it takes a dedication to graduating from the simple measurement of self
into the abstract of measuring the other person.

It takes concentration,
focus of mind.

And,
in my case,
in addition to all the karate I did,
it took decades of Tai Chi and Pa Kua
to understand the enrages involved.

But,
with matrixing,
it doesn’t take that long.
It takes intense effort,
but if you understand what you are trying to do
before you do it,
then you can cut the time down by MUCH.

Mind you,
the path is different for everybody,
because everybody is different,
bodies are different,
and the mind and spirit is definitely different.
But,
if you understand what I have said here,
and are willing to dedicate yourself to the work,
then you can go beyond the measurement of the universe.
You can go into these things that,
before matrixing,
were considered mystical
and reserved for special people.

There is no reason why,
with understanding the matrixing concepts,
and a little hard work,
you can’t be special.
There is no reason why you can’t use your body
to its full 100% potential.

Here’s the Pa Kua page for any who wish
to choose that as a part of their journey.

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

Have a great work out!
Al

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

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