Tag Archives: martial arts teaching

Tai Chi reality and a Special Offer

Newsletter 997

What Tai Chi Really is and Means!

Before I get started,
remember that I have a couple of specials
available on my site.
Matrix Karate is discounted,
There is a two for one offer on that page
Read this blog for details.

Corona Kung Fu Special!

I do this because lots of people
can’t go to the dojo,
and you need to keep practicing.
A hardy body/immune system
is crucial to beating the Kung Flu.

Okay, let’s talk about Tai Chi Chuan.

Tai Chi Chuan means
‘the grand ultimate fist.’
Some bozos think it is proud brag,
that it refers to Tai Chi being better
than all the other arts.
Nope.
Not the meaning at all.
It’s much more than that.

First,
I have over 50 years in the martial arts.
Probably 45 of them studying Tai Chi.
Lots of Tai Chi.
All the styles.
Read all the books,
and so on.

When I first began Tai Chi,
back about ’74,
I came across a wood carving.
It was old,
a couple of hundred years,
and on it was a bird’s eye view
of the top of a mountain range,
and it looked like a yin yang symbol.

I was like,
what the heck?
How did this carver know what a bird sees?
Well, he was supposed to have studied Tai Chi.
That one concept,
that a person could get so out of his body
that he could look down on the highest mountains,
guided my Tai Chi.
I always had that in mind.
For many years it was just an idea.
Cool, but no progress.
But I persisted.

But changes occurred,
and eventually I began experiencing
what that wood carver must have experienced.

I was doing Tai Chi the other day,
standing in the middle of a road
doing my versions of Tai Chi.
I was higher than the road,
looking down on it
as if from a rooftop.
I mean it was like I was standing
on top of a bowl
that was upside down.
The world just curved away and down from me.
I was up,
the world was beneath me.

So let’s talk about this phenomena.

There is no proof that the world exists.
It’s all just sort of…assumed.
Or,
as I prefer,
imagined.

I mean…you are,
and that’s about all you can say.
But you can’t prove that you are to anybody else.
And,
to be honest,
everything in the whole universe
might be a figment of your imagination.
You know?

BUT…
When you do the Tai Chi form
you push awareness through your body,
which validates your body,
and,
more important,
validates you.

You are the center of the universe,
and by doing the Tai Chi form over and over
(I’ve probably done it 20 or 30 thousand times in 45 years.)
you become aware of this.

Awareness is the crux of reality.
Reality doesn’t exist except as you are aware of it.

Do you understand?

And,
over the years,
Tai Chi makes you more and more real
as the center of the universe.
After all,
it is your awareness that is making your life happen.

This is how a wood carver
hundreds of years ago
can be higher than the mountain tops.

But,
I tell you from personal experience,
it takes time and effort and hard work over time.
And I mean to be redundant.

So,
get started now.
Tai Chi takes less effort than say Karate,
or harder forms of martial arts,
so you can do it longer.

It has direct effect on your body systems.
You will have less colds,
more immunity,
and the hell with this Corona crap.

And,
to help you out,
let me make a special Corona offer.

Order Five Army Tai Chi Chuan
on this page

2c Five Army Tai Chi Chuan

then send me an email

aganzul@gmail.com

and tell me you want the Matrix Tai Chi course, too.
I will do it.

Download or disk,
you get both courses for the price of
the Five Army Tai Chi course.

Okay guys,
hope to see you over the mountain tops,
and…

Have a great work out!
Al

2c Five Army Tai Chi Chuan

True Meaning of ‘Empty’ in the Martial Arts

The Empty of Martial Arts

Gichin Funakoshi changed the name of karate.
It was naha te, which means ‘China Hand.’
He changed it to Karate, which means ‘empty hand.’
There have been all sorts of interpretations
regarding the ‘empty’ in Karate,
and why Gichin did this.
There have also been a lot of interest
in the significance of the word ‘empty’
for the whole martial arts.

I think it is Kenpo that says something to the effect
that no matter if you have a weapon,
I come to you with empty hands.
This is not born out,
however,
because Kenpo, and karate,
and other martial arts
have a lot of weapons.
So what does the word ‘empty’ mean.

Take a look at a sentence from The Tao.

‘Do nothing until nothing is left undone.’

This weird statement of redundancy
and a sort of a ‘double negative’ concept
gives hint to the true meaning.
But to understand the true meaning
one has to study both the hard and the soft.
Study just the hard and you are only studying one half the art.
Study just the soft and you are only studying one half the art.
You have to study both,
then put them together,
then think a lot to figure out the significance
of the word,
of the concept,
‘empty.’

In Aikido,
you empty the space in front of the punch
so that the person falls into the empty.
That’s easy to understand.
Defines a concept of harmony.
though it is sometimes harder than stuff to make work.
But that is the soft side of empty.
Works for Aikido,
Tai Chi,
and other arts, and techniques, of that ilk.
and understanding that kind of empty
leads to a lot of hard to explain abilities.

The empty in the hard side of the art is harder to explain.
First you learn focus.
Your whole body becomes rigid with power
but just for a moment.
Before and after…the body is empty.
If the instruction is good,
or the student is unusually smart,
he figures out that he need not make the whole body rigid.
He makes just the fist rigid,
the rest of the body is empty.
And,
I should add at this point,
the mind learns to become empty to make this step.
It is hard to empty the mind,
to focus on one thing (an opponent)
to the exclusion of all else.
But that is what is needed.
Then,
if the student happens to be blessed,
he figures out that he need not even make the fist empty.
He can just empty his fist
and stick the sticks of his bones
through the watermelon body of his opponent.
You find out all about this,
and all the necessary drills to make it happen,
in The Punch.

And,
to reach this level you have to understand
a few rather incredible things.
Stuff like:
the body is nothing but space…empty.
Or:
the universe is backwards.
But I will leave that for another time.
The truth is that,
unless a person has figured out how to make an ‘empty’ punch,
this stuff tends to be very scary.

anyway,
the subject of ‘empty’
is crucial to the martial arts,
and really needs to be understood
if one is going to get past the pain of bashing,
and into the true sublime nature of the martial arts.

Al

A WIN!

I’ve ordered several courses from you, but didn’t feel like it was time to write in until now. When I first got Matrixing Chi, it didn’t really make sense to me. Then I got The Punch and things started to click. The two flowed together and complimented each other incredibly well. I began to feel energy inside me, and my punches were beginning to pack a bit more power. But it wasn’t until I ordered The Master Instructor Course that things really changed. I began to notice (and fix) mistakes I hadn’t seen before. The most noticeable was the back stance. After correcting it, my punches have become much heavier as I’m able to more efficiently channel energy up my leg, through my arm, and out my fist. ~ Mylan B

“The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.”
– Bruce Lee