Newsletter 848

Monkey Boxing Workability

Here’s one of the Monkey Boxing newsletters,
there’s a video clip link half way down.
Enjoy…

More vids up.

The thing one has to remember
is that the martial arts are founded on workability.
Not how pretty you look.
Not how many forms you can sail through.
Rather…
how quickly and efficiently
you can take somebody out.

I remember doing Kenpo forms,
back in the 1960s,
and it was how graceful we could make the form look.
Then classical karate in the 1970s,
and how powerful we could look.
But it wasn’t ‘looks’ that were important.
It wasn’t looking graceful,
or looking powerful.

As time went on I kept trying to find
the shortest distance,
the least effort.

I needed to take people out before they took me out,
I needed to do it effortlessly.

I always remember telling a class
about fighting ten people.

If you fight ten people,
are you going to fight ten times as hard?
You’re going to run out of energy real quick.
No,
the solution is to fight one tenth as hard.

Hence,
I started working on effortless takedowns.

Mind you,
I had very violent and efficient takedowns from Karate.
I had amazing technical data on takedowns from Aikido.
So I was blending.
How do I put the technical into the violent?

If you look at the Head Catcher vid,
Monkey Boxing Video 37,
you will see a vast economy.
And,
you will see an efficiency in the grab.

There is nothing wrong with a rear choke,
hands locked,
forearm under the chin,
like they do on TV.
But,
remember,
these are pros,
and do you want to go to the street
and struggle looking for that perfect choke?

When I do it in the vid,
I just grab the whole body by the head,
and I tweak.

This is much more efficient.
You can look for the beautiful choke later,
nothing wrong with it.
But for Jihad’s sake,
close the distance,
grab the whole body,
and…CRACK!

Fast as you can.

What I run into,
the problem with teaching this technique,
is that you have to warn students,
drill students,
to be gentle,
it is that strong.

AND,
students are afraid to grab other students
in so impolite a manner.

It is that political correctness thing,
you know.
People have been trained to respect others.
You actually have to overcome that bull stuff,
that ‘be nice’ crap
that parents and teachers hand out.

So I grab a student,
throw him half to the floor,
let him feel the total loss of his body,
how helpless he is…
I tell him that his body is now mine…
then I lay him out.
Gentle.
I just grab him like a gorilla,
and lay him down like a baby.

And if he doesn’t grab his partner like a gorilla,
then I show him how again and again.

‘Your partner is here to learn
how to fight
how to survive,
and if you don’t show him the truth of brutality
you are cheating him.’

GRRR
I grab him like a gorilla,
spin him down so he knows I could slap him on the floor
like a fly on a windshield…
than I lay him down gentle.

Again and again,
until he does it.

No more political correctness.
Instead…
brutality with a gentle ending,
until the student understands.

Survival doesn’t come with a pillow.
And neither does effortlessness.

Anyway,
I hope I have ranted and raved enough.
Be gentle with those guys,
but make sure they know what reality is.

Enjoy the vids.
We’re starting to get into
the real stuff now,
the basics are pretty much laid out,
make sure you practice them enough
so you can absorb the real meat.

Any questions or clarifications
send them to:
aganzul@gmail.com

Al

aganzul@gmail.com