First…
pick up the free book,
RAT SYNTHESIS: SOUL RANGE: THE ART OF VICTORY: BECOME A DHARMIC WARRIOR
It is by Matt Russo.
and it is free for a week,
so check it out.
Second…
I was thinking the other day,
how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys?
It’s easy to say stay away from bad guys,
but how do you tell who is a bad guy,
and who is not?
When I was in high school
I was studying world history,
the teacher said that Hitler attacked every country.
He went to Poland, then continued attacking countries
in a circle, until he got to Russia.
He just attacked everybody.
And,
when he started losing,
he attacked his own people,
blaming the German people for being too weak.
So my criteria for identifying bad guys is
looking for the guys who attack people.
Obviously, you can have differences of opinion,
even big, old arguments,
but when an actual attack occurs,
there’s the fellow you should look at,
he might have just made a bad decision,
but he might also just be a Bad Guy.
And,
you can further identify a bad guy
by the magnitude of his attack…
does he bring a gun to a fist fight?
And,
you can further identify a bad guy
by how many people he attacks.
Does he pick fights with lots of other people?
And,
a very important element,
does he attack people who are smaller than him?
What gets interesting is something like
the weigh in at UFC.
There is trash talk,
good to generate audiences.
Then one of the guys slaps the other guy,
or some other action.
Oops. Bad guy.
There are also all sorts of key phrases that identify bad guys.
For instance:
‘That guy studies at a McDojo.’
‘If it doesn’t work in the ring it isn’t a real art.’
I know I’ve stepped on some toes here,
and there is a lot of room for opposing opinions,
shadings of some of the things I’ve said,
and so on.
Just because a guy says one thing,
or does one thing,
doesn’t paint him forever.
Guy might have just had a brain fart.
But you can generally identify bad guy remarks because
they have one common factor:
opinion over facts.
Okay.
Think about it,
argue,
find fault,
think about your politicians…
andleave comments at MonsterMartialArts.com
and don’t forget to check out Matt’s book.
Have a great work out!
Al
And thanks to everybody who picked up my book,
Advanced Tai Chi Chuan for Real Self Defense!
Don’t forget to give me five stars.
Those ratings help my sales.
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)
Good morning!
It really is.
I don’t have a central theme today,
so just let me give you a couple of things
that I have been thinking about
in the recent past.
Emptiness.
I first began to understand emptiness
when I realized that I had to relax totally,
being in one position,
then I had to be in another position.
I didn’t move from within the body,
I moved from without the body.
I realized this way back in Kenpo days (1967-68)
Who stops you.
Two people can stop you.
Either yourself,
or somebody else.
But for somebody else to stop you
you have to let them.
You do not move the hips
You move the legs,
and the legs move the hips.
This is the secret of ‘pulsing power.’
You push with the legs,
turn the hips,
strike.
When a sniper shoots
he relaxes,
and lets his breath out.
When the breath is totally gone,
everything will be still.
In that stillness
he should make the crook of the finger
the smallest thing in the universe.
This is the secret of the martial arts.
There is motion
easily seen,
there is emotion
easily felt.
The secret is to see the motion
and ignore the emotion.
To do this,
however,
you must negate emotion within yourself.
Anybody who approaches you wants something.
When you approach somebody you want something.
And,
let me give you a bigger slice of thought.
One of the most important things I ever read,
came out of a paper written on yoga (raja?)
back in the twenties.
The writer said a human being is encased in sheathes.
There is an emotional sheath.
There are cultural sheathes.
There are sheathes for beliefs,
for education and work and what people tell you…
and so on.
He mentioned several specific sheathes,
and I understood that these sheathes were the filters
through which I viewed the world.
I had understood something of the concept previously,
but this presentation was unique
made me look at the world differently,
and I started doing karate (and the martial arts)
with the idea of breaking sheathes,
of destroying those things which surrounded me
made me what I am
and imprisoned me.
I found this paper on Gutenburg,
but I sure don’t remember anything more about it.
I was watching videos
of people doing karate on the internet.
This included demo teams,
old masters,
and whoever,
and I was struck
by wrong they are doing karate,
by how they didn’t really know karate.
The funny thing is
karate is one of the most powerful arts I know,
yet everybody is doing it wrong.
Let me give you one example.
Watch a video on youtube,
watch a demo team for karate.
They are fast, powerful, explosive.
It is not good karate.
Why?
Because their arms and legs move back and forth
in a linear manner,
stopping and starting.
Real karate is liquid,
it does not stop and start.
At the end of every movement there is a circle,
often too small to be easily seen.
this circle avoids the stopping and starting of the muscles.
It takes effort and muscular exertion
to stop and start muscle motion.
When you have a small circle
somewhere in the end of the motion,
which leads into the beginning of the next motion,
you are doing real karate.
Now,
those who don’t understand will argue,
that is okay,
they will remember
and eventually come around.
For those of you who are frowning,
standing up and checking to see
if you have a little loop on the end of a punch or block
(both ends)
the truth is dawning.
Karate is not linear.
It is not a rigid piston effect,
it is a looping,
neverending effect.
And,
what do you get out of it?
The loop helps change one move into the next
the loop saves energy and is more efficient
it is faster
your body becomes more liquid,
more fluid,
you start to develop ‘pulsing power.’
Pulsing power is when you…
push with the legs
turn the hips
throw the punch.
Not exactly together,
but one…two…three,
so fast that the punch becomes one motion,
each action lending power and energy to the next action,
and yet becoming more and more fluid.
Now,
I read of this concept originally
while reading books on Chinese martial arts.
And,
I observed my instructor,
who was quick and whippy,
fluid like a striking snake.
And I read about a more fluid karate in Shotokai
(not shotokan)
which is supposed to be the style
funakoshi handed down his lineage to.
And I thought about it,
and developed it,
and came to realize the truth of it.
So take your time,
practice your forms,
and search for places where you can
add a loop at the end of a technique.
Maybe it is in the motion of the hand,
maybe it’s a turn of the hip,
a sink of the hip,
and flip of the shoulder.
Whatever it is,
you’re now on the path to true karate.
And,
all these guys doing wrong karate?
They are phenomenal,
not to be disrespected,
but it is a simple matter of physics
that reveal them to be expert beginners,
even master beginners,
who haven’t made the transition past beginner,
into the real thing.
When I teach karate to newbies
I usually let them work on the piston effect.
But when they are starting to remember everything,
I shift them to the looping effect.
Now,
I don’t talk about the whiplike effect much,
I instead recommend people do Matrix Karate,
but if you have matrix karate under your belt,
you could look at Temple Karate.
I do more advanced forms there,
and you can probably,
if you have a quick eye,
see how I add the teensiest of loops
to make my karate fluid.
But your eye has to be quick,
because the longer you train,
the smaller your loops become
until no one can see your loops.
Following is a great win that shows one thing…you aren’t going to get the answers, you are going to get the questions, the questions that lead you to understanding your own martial art. Do you have the kind of mind that can do this?
A WIN!
I picked up Matrix Karate from you; and I definitely get it. My area of study is Kajukenbo; and based on watching the Matrix Karate DVD last night, I am reasonably sure that matrixing Kajukenbo would be very straight forward. Time consuming, yes, difficult no. I think it would be best to break Kajukenbo into its 7 arts (Karate, Judo, Jiujitsu, Kenpo, Boxing, Kung Fu, and Escrima), and matrix each of those. My questions are: do you think that is the right approach? Is there a particular order you think these should be taught in? Do you teach each matrix’d art to completion, then move to the next? And, how does sport karate fit in? And finally; for the traditional forms, would those be one entire section? Or would you recommend splitting them into each sub-section of the art?
One time I was down at the offices of CFW,
which published the Inside Karate mag,
which I wrote articles and a column for.
One of the guys,
in charge of video,
suddenly called to me.
‘Hey, Al! Got something to show you!’
I went into the video room and he put on a tape.
The tape was a half hour long,
but within a few seconds I knew what it was.
The guy on the tape was a perfect Bruce Lee imitation.
He swooped wooped,
he swung the nunchucks
EXACTLY
as Bruce had swing them in his movies.
Move for move.
He spoke lines from the movies,
and it was eery,
it was almost as if he WAS Bruce!
But,
of course,
he was just a copy cat,
a guy without much of a life,
a guy who didn’t know who he was,
so mimicked others.
That leads us into this weeks subject…
I am very big on people creating their own martial arts.
There is a simple reason for this.
If you just learn what has gone before,
then you are only a copy cat.
But when you create your own art,
when you alter the moves to fit your frame,
when you craft energy to fit your situation,
when you rearrange pieces of arts
to fit changing situations…
then you are an art.
Would Michaelangelo be an artist
if he merely copied everything Davinci did?
Same thing is true for the martial artist.
Yes,
you should learn,
and that usually implies at least getting your black belt,
in Shotokan,
or Aikido,
or whatever art you study.
But,
at a certain point you have to step outside your art.
Keep the original the same as you learned,
but create your own separate art.
Now,
that all said,
let me slide into a connected but different thing.
I subscribe to something called Quora.
On that platform people ask questions,
and answer questions.
You get a wide cross section of what people are thinking,
you get answer,
a whole host of different answers,
to questions mundane and bizarre.
Recently,
a fellow asked the question:
What’s a good name for a fictional karate style that a flow state fighter would use?
This is a very interesting question.
I have had a LOT of people ask me about naming their art.
Since I am about the only one telling people how to be artists
a lot of artists end up up sending me this question.
I remember one fellow,
many years ago,
personal student of mine.
He reached the point where he had to go out
and create his own art,
and he asked me about a name.
He was was coming up with names like…
‘The Way of the Golden Fist,’
and so on.
So I told him to call his art…
‘Rick Do.’
The way of Rick.
Fortunately,
he didn’t.
He teaches his arts
with some very fine labels.
Very smart guy.
Smart enough to know when to ignore me.
So,
anyway,
I got this question on Quora,
What’s a good name for a fictional karate style that a flow state fighter would use?
And I gave the following answer.
Interesting.
By fictional you mean to use it in a book/script? Or for own use?
What I used to do, just for stuff and giggles, was find a word, or even a zippy type word, and get it translated by google. Zippy karate, not to be facetious, but just as an example, translates as ‘bibi.’ So ‘Bi Bi Do.’ (The Way of Zippy!) This can get fun, you can have ‘crouching tigers eating unwary hunters’ translated, ‘Dūn fú lǎohǔ chī cūxīn de lièrén.’ Then shorten it up as you wish.
If you want to go more serious than my flippy examples you can certainly do that.
Good luck with it, and have a great work out!
Al from monstermartialarts.com
So there you go,
one of the things I do as an artist,
as an author and as a martial artist.
It is great fun,
makes you think,
and might even be worthless.
But I told everybody on Quora,
and didn’t want you guys to feel cheated,
so I pass it on here.
So try it out.
Make up a name for your art.
Focus in on what principles and tricks you want to teach,
and sum it up.
Then have google translate it into whatever language.
And,
while you’re at it,
You can always check out
the ‘Create Your Own Art’ course on the Monster.
It is old,
the video quality isn’t good,
but you can understand it all,
and the principles are SOUND!
You know,
some people don’t like poetry,
think it’s sort of stupid.
I,
on the other hand,
am a big fan.
Before cell phones…
men would write poetry to their lady love.
I could quote a few limericks
that would make you blush.
There once was a man from kent,
who’s…
But,
no.
I know you don’t want to hear such filth.
But how about this…
Haiku.
Haiku is very rigid poetry,
a precise number of syllables,
a precise number of lines.
And one of the purposes of Haiku
was for a samurai to declare his death.
That’s right,
the emperor says you’re a chicken gut samurai
and you are going to cut your guts out.
OUCH!
But,
before you do so,
you have a night to contemplate,
a night to write a poem to sum up your death.
One last chance to give your life meaning.
What would you write?
Here’s a couple of samples…
old pond
frog leaps in
water’s sound
Or…
the first cold shower
even the monkey seems to want
a little coat of straw
Or…
how many gallons
of Edo’s rain did you drink,
cuckoo?
These are literary samples,
what do you think a samurai would write?
Here are some samples of American students
trying to duplicate,
or at least describe,
samurai.
Brave as a lion
Fights with no fear or any doubt
Heads into battle
Sneaky as a snake.
The way of the samurai.
Meditation helps.
One swift and strong blow.
No motion of his body.
Yet his sword is still clean.
Not bad, eh?
Well, here’s the real thing.
It doesn’t have the same structure,
but these are real samurai haiku…
Minamoto Yorimasa2
1104-1180
Like a rotten log
half buried in the ground –
my life, which
has not flowered, comes
to this sad end.
Ota Dokan3
1432-1486
Had I not known
that I was dead
already
I would have mourned
my loss of life.
Shiaku Nyûdo5
d.1333
Holding forth this sword
I cut vacuity in twain;
In the midst of the great fire,
a stream of refreshing breeze!
Takemata Hideshige6
(After being defeated by Shibata Katsuie)
Shall Ashura
subdue a man like me?
I shall be born again
and then I’ll cut the head
off Katsuie…
Toyotomi Hideyoshi8
1536-1598
My life
came like dew
disappears like dew.
All of Naniwa
is dream after dream.
Uesugi Kenshin9
1530-1578
Even a life-long prosperity is but one cup of sake;
A life of forty-nine years is passed in a dream;
I know not what life is, nor death.
Year in year out-all but a dream.
Both Heaven and Hell are left behind;
I stand in the moonlit dawn,
Free from clouds of attachment.
Okay,
I hope you took the time to read,
and to consider these things.
Deep thought from men on the cusp of battle, disgrace, death.
What are your thoughts,
I repeat,
if you were to die tomorrow morn…
what would be your poem?
What would sum up your life,
and death,
and you only have a handful of syllables to do it in.
And,
consider,
your time in the martial arts,
the long work outs,
the years of sweat and vigor…
they are all but a haiku,
a fleeting moment
in the vagaries of the universe.
So short
make the best
your time is short.
Here’s the obligatory link…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/temple-karate/
It is an old version of karate,
before shotokan,
it was used to defeat samurai in battle.
Enjoy
You Can Walk Through a War Zone with Martial Arts and Never Fight!
One of the things I realized, after 22 years in the martial arts, which was almost 30 years ago, was that there must be a thought before there can be an action.
Now, while you’re grokking that, let me take it to the logical conclusion: a fight cannot occur unless you make the decision that it can so occur.
Lots of people are going to argue with this, but that is simply because they don’t see thought before action, and so can’t understand what I am saying. They have invested too much time in fighting, and not enough time in the martial arts.
I have, just for the heck of it, walked through a riot without receiving a ding. Nor even a curse word, Nor even a bad look. I did this shortly after the Rodney King riots.
I was simply curious concerning what had happened, but more important, I was curious about my ability to walk through a ‘war zone’ without being attacked.
So I drove down to South Central Los Angeles, sauntered across Normandy and Florence (the flashpoint of the riots), drove around, got out and examined businesses that had been destroyed and so on.
No problem.
Simply, I hadn’t made the decision to get in a fight.
Even if I had run into an insane person…I was safe. An insane person, you see, can’t have an effective thought (before an action). They can’t plan. Period. That is part of their insanity.
And, to tell the truth, I had played with this concept before this occurrence.
Once, in the army, I had a fellow stand in front of me, totally enraged, and tell me he was going to beat the holy you know what out of me.
I said, “No thanks,” and watched him.
He didn’t hit me, he just got madder, and louder, and finally some other fellow in the barracks got pissed at the noise and came over and fought him. While they were rolling around on the floor I went to the movies.
Now, this brings us to the most important point of this little epistle. How do you reach the point of being able to make a decision, or not make a decision, concerning people beating you up?
People who practice fighting, and think that that is martial arts, don’t see the thought before the action. They just get mad (frustrated) when I say things like what I have said here.
People who practice the martial arts, which includes forms (concepts) techniques (plans) and freestyle (translating perfection into chaos), can reach the point of being able to see the thought before the action. They usually don’t, however, because though their art is classical, it is random. Not logical. It hasn’t been matrixed.
So the classicists who achieve this ability of being able to see the thought before an action are few and far between. They usually end up being virtually worshipped. If they make the decision to get worshipped. Usually they prefer to live a quiet life. It is just so much more efficient and pleasurable.
When you matrix your art you put it in logical order.
Never been done in any martial art in the history of the world.
A few people have pushed concepts, and that tends to align an art, and that gives people a chance to break through. But the pushing of the concept usually dies with the founder, and the art becomes a legend, and the movements of the art become rote, then confused, then dispersed.
That’s just the way it is. Logic brings one to a pinnacle, but without the concept of logic (which is different than the concepts in the martial arts) the art descends, and usually pretty rapidly. It is not uncommon to see an art self destruct within a generation of the death of the founder.
So this matrixing thing, this logic, is of crucial importance.
It will not only align your art, make it logical and intuitive, but it will safeguard against the destruction of your art.
Watch, the simple drills and forms I developed through matrixing are going to be around forever. They can’t be improved on because they aren’t so much martial arts as a perfection of logic. People will discover them, do them, and find that, while they are an art unto themselves, and incredibly effective, the real joy is in seeing how the art one does, apart from Matrixing, suddenly rears its head and achieves the goals…and concepts…of the original founders.
And, the only other thing I have to say on this matter is this: it is important to learn an art solely so one can create one’s own art. If one doesn’t create their own art, they really haven’t learned the martial arts.
And all this, seeing the thought before the action, creating your own art, understanding the arts as one art, is only possible through learning the logic of matrixing.
Hello sir. It’s going well. Really well. Once I was able to connect Buddha crane with shuri ryu, the pieces began to fall into place all by themselves. The Buddha crane is the foundation of the kihon waza, ippons waza and came into their own flow drills(taezus naru waza). Making changes to the Kata isn’t as easy, but I have done the first few Kata. Even crazier, I found someone who has already blended shuri ryu with something. So, it came rather easy. Upon showing him how I’ve made changes opened his eyes and he’s asking me to give him pointers on how to make his karate be more ‘alive’. My shuri ryu master is dead and I never got the chance to get my black belt. So, I’ve gone thru these people I’ve run into and just from what I showed them they are willing to bring me to the black belt in shuri ryu. I’m not sure if that’s even important now, being that I matrixed the whole art, but I do hope to bring this understanding of shuri ryu to the table. Thus, starting a new (sub) ryu to the family. I couldn’t have done it without you. Osu
Thank you, Timothy, and well done!
And for everyone, please take note of a few things here.
The classical is not suffering, drills and exercises have more flow, which comes from increased understanding.
Making changes isn’t always easy. Aside from the fact of understanding the potentials of the martial arts enough so that you can make intelligent changes, you have to force yourself to change something that you have come to believe in.
Changing a belief system is often the hardest thing a man can do.
He shows his changes to another fellow engaged in changes, and he becomes the authority. Simply, he isn’t just changing, he has the knowledge, and this is something that people really respect and will adhere to.
Upon showing his changes to others he is recognized as expert, or having the ability to be expert. Osu to you, Timothy.
And, finally, here is a very interesting question: how important is the black belt at this point? People going through these changes, are gaining knowledge and that is senior to black belt.
Maybe one out of a thousand people that start karate get to black belt.
But how many have the knowledge to put together their own system or subsystem?
I encourage everybody to get to black belt, but I encourage knowledge more. Understanding is the most important thing you can ever get. Period.
Thanks, Timothy, your win is fantastic, and I hope people understand the trials and tribulations here, and the incredible passion you have for the arts.
Here’s how I analyze forms. I do this for every move. Check out video courses at MonsterMartialArts.com. This particular technique is from Temple Karate.
Now, I know Timothy has other courses and books on Matrixing, but he mentions the ‘Buddha Crane’ book. So let me explain something about that book.
That was the last book I wrote, I believe, before starting on Matrixing proper, before doing all the matrixing courses. As such, I was using matrixing concepts hard and fast, and I was developing a whole art out of what I knew. You can see me reworking techniques, reworking forms, trying to bring everything into a new slant, or, to be proper, a ‘de-slanting.’ A truth.
Here’s the funny thing, the book was actually just a ‘toss in,’ a bonus, on the ‘Create Your Own Art’ course. I wanted to show how I was creating an art, give an example to back up the theories I was pushing. The book is PDF on the Create Your Own Art Course.
You can, I believe, get it on Amazon, if you look around you can find it. You can also get it here…
That’s my publishing company, so I get a bigger royalty if you get it there.
That page I just gave you has a complete write up on what is in the book. And, the Createspace version is paperback, which most people prefer, because it’s easier to walk around with the book, than carrying a computer around while you practice.
And, a final word, the illustrations are most interesting, I wrote it on an old mac, and the software was something called Appleworks. What this means is that I drew the illustrations, hundreds of them, one line at a time. I drew figures, patterns, techniques, everything, with lines. Interestingly, I remember, at the time, not being frustrated by the slowness of it all, but being excited, because I felt like I was, by doing the illustrations in this slow and laborious way, learning something about the human form, writing what I was doing in a new way in my mind. By the time I was done I felt VERY changed inside.
So, that’s it.
Again, thanks Timothy, I hope people appreciate your win, and I hope they take the time to look at the book, and get their own wins, take a stab at understanding, and even changing, their own carefully crafted belief systems.
And everybody, it’s summer, have fantastic work outs!
This is turning out to be the best summer ever! The reason is simple…I’m teaching again.
150 Kenpo Techniques matrixed ~ Click on the cover!
It feels so good, after the shoulder injury and surgery, to get back out on the mat. If you don’t recall, I fell off a skateboard and killed a ligament, and the whole shoulder went south.
BUT, doc said surgery would get me back to 99%, and he was right. He was really right, because he had no idea of the rigors of the martial arts.
What I did, when I decided the time was right, was go to a place in town, walk in, and ask if the guy needed help.
He said yes, and after a few classes of helping, I am sometimes being handed the class and told to have fun.
And, as all you guys know, there is NOTHING as fun as the martial arts.
Here’s the interesting stuff, the martial arts have totally changed since I learned them. I don’t consider all changes bad, but there are things I have to accept if I want to teach. And, there are things that have stayed the same, which leaves a huge door for me to introduce stuff that is so old it has been forgotten.
It is fascinating to pull out an old drill, hand it to the students, and watch their eyes bulge.
But, I have to present the drill differently than how it was handed to me.
When I was learning, the teacher gave you something and you were expected to do it. Didn’t matter if it hurt. I mean, so what if it hurt? You’re here to learn karate, so don’t waste time sniveling, just do the drill.
And we would do the drill with manic intention.
Now, when I teach those drills, I have to make them soft, and very, very gently lead the student to harder versions and real workability.
Currently, I am working on a series of drills to bring fighters in freestyle closer together, to cut down reaction time, and make sure that blocks work, and punches have the desired effect.
All without giving nary a bruise.
But, I can’t tell you, it is more fun than I have had since…since I don’t know. After being sidelined for a couple of years, limited to nothing but forms, the feel of working techniques on real bodies is absolutely and totally and utterly exhilarating.
So, I get letters sometimes, from people who can’t find workout partners.
I tell them: teach your wife, work with your brother, or cousin or nephew or whoever. Put up a flier at the local gym, or the Y, or just be seen working out in the park.
There are 7 billion people on this globe of dirt, all will turn their head to a car crash, many will become instantly fascinated by martial arts, and you are telling me you are alone. That nobody cares.
Don’t make me sigh.
Just get out there and do it.
And, as this newsletter indicates, you can always just walk into a school, ask if you can help out. You won’t make money, but you can do the martial arts, you can play with other people, and the information will trade back and forth like magic! That is a supreme blessing, on this planet or any other.
Here’s the obligatory page that you DEFINITELY need to go to…
Man! Aren’t summer work outs the best? You cleanse yourself through the purity of plain, old-fashioned sweat. Glorious!
Click on the cover!
Okay, let’s talk about how Karate was messed up. I’ve talked about how Karate was mangled by people with vested interests, power hungry students, nationalism, religion, just about every thing under the sun. So let’s talk about one specific way Karate, and this is going to touch upon just every art there is, was truly messed up.
When Karate was developed people wore armor. They carried swords. And to use your fists, to get your fists dirty on the body of an enemy was downright disgusting. Think about it, this is simple: karate was developed to handle samurai, with their swords and armor. Karate was empty hand.
So, do you crack armor with an empty hand? Maybe, but while you’re doing that, the fellow is using his sword.
Do you block that sword with an arm? Nope.
Do you get the point? Now, here is where it truly gets messed. When the American servicemen were taught karate they were taught a random variety of throws, of defenses for weapons, of specific techniques for specific attacks.
And not many of those attacks were real for this modern age!
So some instructor taught a student how to disarm a sword. But when you look at the technique, there is no sword, and the fellow the karateka is defending against is punching the crud out of him.
Punches.
Here’s the funny thing, Karate rose to the occasion. All the arts rose to the occasion. They managed to make fast punches and kicks, and adapt to striking.
Even though striking was a small part of the whole art.
So Karate, and other arts, became skewed to meet the demands of a punch crazy society.
okay, summation: Karate was designed for complete combat, but then shrunken and warped to fit the precise punches of a different culture and time.
And that’s why Karate, and many other arts, just don’t work.
It’s like using metric wrenches on a 1950 Chevrolet.
So, Karate, and other martial arts, are broken. Mismatched. Outgrown. And here comes the funny part: what was the solution provided in America and in other parts of the world?
The solution was to teach boxing and call it Karate. Go on, visit a few schools.
You will find people doing boxing, or kick boxing, or some other thing, and calling it Karate.
I went to a school the other day, the instructor had the children hold their hands in boxing position. They were taught to bob and weave. It was not Karate. There were no stances, no blocks, a few kicks, including fancy ones that looked so cool, but would get a person killed on the street.
But it said ‘Karate’ on the front window! Big letters, too.
And there are other solutions, some pretty bizarre, some effective, but all deviating from what karate really is. And, deviating from kung fu, or other types of arts.
What was my solution? My solution was demanded by the fact that I could not box and call it Karate. I couldn’t leave behind the energy, the subtle throws, the powerful way of developing the mind and body, not to mention the spirit.
So what I did was rearrange everything, made it 1, 2, 3 logical, so that one step led to the next. So that one didn’t learn a punch, then a fancy hold, and let’s throw in a cartwheel kick here, cause people would really dig it!
I arranged the blocks so they made as much sense as 1, 2, 3… and everything is adapted for striking.
But I didn’t throw out the locks and throws. Instead, I teach the strikes, classical strikes using energy, and you end up in a specific position, and then I show how each position ends up in a lock or throw, if you just continue the motion…logically.
Everybody else is teaching the classical forms, trying to adapt them to strikes, when they were not meant to be adapted to strikes. Strikes were only a small part.
When you do Matrix Karate you learn everything logically, and that includes the throws which have been put at the end of the strike.
Think: in a fight distance closes. The kicks and punches are done, the bodies come together, and that is where the throw should be, when the distance collapses.
I don’t teach how to fight from six feet away with a lock or throw. I teach how to logically close the distance, using the punches and kicks logically, and then do whatever throw you are in position to do.
And this is an important point: after a strike or block, you will find yourself in a specific position, and there are only a couple of locks or throws possible. That is true for every position. So you don’t search through your mental database, ransack your memory, looking for a throw, or trying to figure out how to throw from an awkward and not appropriate position. Instead, you move forward logically, and the result is a flow.
Maybe you’ve read some wins people have sent me from doing some of my forms. People talk about there being a specific flow to the forms and techniques. This is the result of logic.
Anyway, I could talk forever, but it’s all written down, all video’d, in Matrix Karate. And if you don’t see the throw, you can find all the throws, logically, so they fit into specific positions of any art, in Matrix Kung Fu (Monkey boxing.
So, ‘nuff said. You guys have a great summer work out, three months working hard in the heat, sweating your b***s off.
Defeating Distractions to Find the True Martial Art
Good afternoon! Special day tomorrow, I’ll tell you about it down the page, but before we get to it, remember this: the only way to celebrate this special day is to… work out!
Okay, hope your interest is piqued, but before we talk about that special day, let’s take a moment to talk about emotion.
Ultimately, you don’t want to have any emotion in your martial arts. You don’t want to cry, or feel fear, or anger, or any kind of emotion.
Emotion is a distraction. It gets in between the thought of what you are going to do, and the reality of what you do.
There is this thing called emotional content, Bruce Lee mentions it in ‘Enter the Dragon,’ but even that, ultimately, is a distraction.
To get to the pure state where you can read the mind of the attacker, see what he is going to do before he does it, and move with perfection, you must get rid of ALL emotion.
There is a problem, however. The problem is that nobody really knows what emotion is.
If you can stick with me through a couple of points I can help you understand, which is to say that I can help you understand something that nobody understands.
Here’s the dictionary definition for emotion: a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others: she was attempting to control her emotions | his voice was low and shaky with emotion | fear had become his dominant emotion.
But that doesn’t tell you what emotion is. That is like saying electricity goes through wires, but there is no mention of where electricity came from, what a generator is, or how electricity ‘flows’ through a wire.
It is an inadequate definition.
Here are three more definitions: 1 she was good at hiding her emotions: feeling, sentiment; reaction, response. 2 overcome by emotion, she turned away: passion, strength of feeling, warmth of feeling. 3 responses based purely on emotion: instinct, intuition, gut feeling; sentiment, the heart.
Again, these don’t tell you where emotion comes from, what has generated it, and how it really works.
So, here we go, here is what emotion actually is.
Emotion stems from motion inside the head.
And here is a truth, there are only people in this universe. Everything else in the universe, all the objects and non-living things (or ‘low living’ like animals) are the effect of motion in the universe.
A bug sits on a stalk, a frog sees the swaying stalk and must flick his tongue. A coyote sees the motion of the tongue, and is compelled to eat the frog.
The universe happens like dominoes. And, the ONLY thing in the universe that can upset the dominoes, can change the path of the falling dominoes, can change cause and effect, is a human being.
A human being has choice, and that ability, that decision making ability, is apart from the universe, and can cause the path of the universe to change and change and change.
So a human being can change the universe, but how does he change it? by having a thought first. So he thinks, and does what he thought about, and what he thought about comes to be.
But, in between the thought and the accomplishment, is emotion. Think about it:
A man wants to accomplish something, he sets out on the task, then he gets angry, or fearful, or otherwise emotional, and his ability to make accomplishment is lessened.
He was distracted.
Which brings us to the crux of the matter, why does man create these (his own) distractions? Why does he create emotion and waylay himself? Why?
What happens when you squeeze an lemon? Juice squirts out. Gets in your eye and you cry.
So a man creates emotion when he is squeezed, like a lemon, and ‘things’ squirt out.
things like fear, anger, hate, and so on.
And these things disrupt the mind, cause distraction, and obscure the basic thoughts that one may have.
When I was a child I was spanked, which is to say I was squeezed. I experienced fear, and pain, and anger, and that stuff, because I didn’t know what it is, it stayed with me for a long time.
It would even be fair to say that, like dominoes, certain of those emotions caused me to study martial arts. How weird.
So when you feel pain and anger and all those unpleasant things just say ‘no’ to them. Just refuse them. Refuse to dwell on that emotion, refuse to have motion inside your head, refuse to feel the lingering effects of being squashed (squeezed), and go about your life. Refuse the distraction and accomplish your thoughts.
Of course, it is not always easy to do that. Sometimes what is big in your head is greater than your ability to ignore.
That is where the martial arts come in.
The martial arts train you to accomplish an attack, no matter the distraction, and the heck with emotion.
No other practice on earth does this more efficiently or to greater effect.
You face your partner on the mat. He growls, people yell, you are tired, but because you have endured training, and pain and other distractions, and gotten to your black belt, you are able to ignore the distractions, move forward, and accomplish the thought of the strike, or the lock, or the takedown, or whatever.
You simply train yourself to ignore the motion inside your head, to ignore anything in the universe that tries to stop you, and you accomplish your thought.
Here’s a cruel trap, people who start the martial arts, then quit, were distracted. They let something squeeze them, and they quit. And the cruelty is that if they had kept going they would have found the ability that would have enabled them to ignore distractions, and accomplish their thoughts.
Catch 22. Yes?
One last thing I want to say about this. There are many people who fail, and, there are many people who are studying something thinking it is a martial art, when it isn’t.
You have to study the true martial arts. You have to find forms that work, and you have to make them work. You have to cleanse your techniques so they become pure and can show the thought that created them.
That path creates the discipline.
Just fighting does not. Fighting teaches you to fight. Doing the real martial arts, practicing techniques until you can make them work, that is the discipline of ignoring distractions and getting yourself to the point where you can make your thoughts work.
The best method, because incorrect movements (which are distractions) have been removed, is Matrix Karate.
Okay, that special day I was talking about. For me it is the most important day in the universe, for it is when I decided to have physical presence on this planet. Birthday.
And, if you have been following this blog for the last couple of decades, then you know I always ask for one, specific present.
Forgive me. If I have sent out the wrong order, didn’t answer an email, didn’t answer an email quickly said the wrong thing, didn’t understand something, failed in some way, if i have done ANYTHING that might have offended you, or caused you ANY sort of distraction…
Forgive me.
Help me clean up my universe, help me not have the distractions of bad service, poor communications, or ANYTHING else.
Go to the Testimonials in the menu and do a search for your martial art!
Hi Sensei Al!
(On the Black Belt Course) Everything is working great! Thank you for the quick responses. I am enjoying the one on one videos. It may be cliche, but I do feel like I'm there. I also like the conversational style and the way you explain how you're teaching and why. You've got a new student for life. Thank you. ~ Daniel
What's interesting about Al Case's writings and teachings is there isn't any emphasis on 'the unknown' or 'mystery' behind martial arts. Al will slam this information in your face! Quite frankly the data isn't hidden, you'll find you're blind. ~ WG
Al Case is a powerful presence to be around, but if you can confront it, then you will not be sorry, for there is no one like him, and it is an extreme privilege and honor.
I used to read your articles in Inside Karate and was excited when I found your web site. ~ RV
As an old timer with thirty-five years of experience I was really bored, but your works have peaked my interest and shown me that there is much more to learn. I Thank You Again, Sincerely ~ CC
Where was this information 24 years ago? This course is one of the best things to ever happen to me. Thank you Al Case for the gift of knowledge!
Be blessed my teacher, ~ Rev. Ernest R
I bought the Infinite Fist tape YEARS ago and you know? I Keep going back to it! ~ KS
You are a master. You have opened me up to things that I have never thought of before. ~ KFM
I purchased your course on "Create Your Own Martial Art" and absolutely love it. I believe that your matrixing system is very unique. ~ DW
In my entire experience twenty years as a student and an instructor since, no one has contributed more to my martial arts education than you have. I started following your works twenty years ago and although I was young then I knew you had the True Art it was obvious to me even then. ~ Charles C
Students will know longer be slaves of poor instructors and practitioners. ~ Lonnie M
Win from Master Instructor Course
Let me start out by saying thank you. Thanks from all the martial artists who asked why. Al, I'm in the Security and Law enforcement field and carry Instructor credentials, so effective methods in combat and teaching them is what I constantly look for.
Win from Matrix Aikido
I just had to write to you to say WOW. Your INSTANT AIKIDO is great!!! ~ SD
My students have started coming up to me after class telling me how much more they are enjoying it, and that the classes have stopped being so ridged and now flow in a kind of give and take between me and them. I have stopped being a task master and started having fun and letting them teach me as well.
I did the Master Instructor Course and it hit me. The Basics that are so concisely communicated in this course including the Matrix principle IS the solution. It doesn’t matter what “style” I call my art, because all styles follow these same principles. It doesn’t matter how hard I train or how many repetitions I do if I don’t train the right way. And I would never become a master if I didn’t know how it all fits together. Now I do! I can honestly say that I am now on the path that I have always sought as a martial artist. Thank you Al!
I conducted a Matrix Aikido training class for a Security Team at a local manufacturing plant. I tailored the training according to their Use Of Force policy. As you know they need control and takedown skills. I knew Matrix Aikido would be the answer. The training plan you shared was boss. The class went so smoothly. The participants learned very quickly. By the end of the class you could see techniques of Monkey Boxing coming through. They were also able to create their own techniques. There was one female officer in the class who asked to become my private student. She was throwing, locking and taking down guys twice her size. The Security Supervisor wants me to come back and with more participants! I'll keep you posted. ~ L M
Have found your books and dvds excellent. My background is mainly in medical qigong but I practice Sun Style Tai CHi, BaGua and HsingI as well as Eagle Claw, Snake Style Kung Fu and several Wudang weapon styles. This is the first time I have had the underlying principles so clearly explained and in a way that they are immediately workable and demonstratable. I have worked through the Master Instructors Course, Aikido and Butterfly Bagua and have started to breakdown the Sun Hsing I using your matrix method. I was even able to teach a 70 year old friend of mine with no martial arts background your instant aikido where she was able to do some very accomplished locks and throws after the first lesson
Search the testimonials for your martial art!
Free Martial Arts Books
HERE'S SOME FREE MARTIAL ARTS BOOKS, MY THANKS FOR DROPPING BY.
Includes books on Bruce Lee, the Truth About Matrixing, the first Martial Arts book sold in America (It's a real hoot!), and much more!
