Tag Archives: tai chi chuan chi

Making Oneself Aware to Find the True Martial Art

Newsletter 975

The True Martial Art of Awareness

Got a student here,
having a rough time with Tai Chi.
When doing the form
she wants to go to a posture,
strike the posture,
and that’s all.
But the problem is one of awareness.

When I was doing a lot of Pa Kua,
one of the drills I made myself do
was walk the circle
while staring at my finger.
Focus on the finger.
And the point was this…
DO NOT GO UNCONSCIOUS!
In other words,
grow more aware.

When you strike a pose,
this is common in Karate and kung fu,
you have a moment of awareness.
When you follow the finger
as you walk the circle,
you create awareness at all times.
So striking a pose might result in 10% awareness,
but you need to achieve
100% awareness.
Awareness at all times.

If you go to a party,
and you are aware 10% of the time
and a fight breaks out,
there is a 90% chance
you will get struck.

But if you are aware 100% of the time
you will probably avoid getting struck at all.

People think the martial arts are about fighting.
Or building the body,
or quickness or strength,
or winning tournaments,
or making an image to impress the girls.
Martial arts,
TRUE martial arts.
have nothing at all to do with that.
They are about building awareness.

You have to break through the obsession with the body,
then even put aside energy,
and just become aware.

When I walk the circle in Pa Kua
I hold a finger and stare at it without break.

When I do a Tai Chi form I create circles
around my body with my hands,
and I never have a corner,
never pause or speed up,
just hold awareness in every motion I do.

When I do a freestyle drill,
the point is NEVER to beat the other person,
it is to create awareness,
to create a shield of awareness around myself
so that nobody can penetrate,
so that I can deal with anything
because I am aware.

And,
forgive me for the obligatory ad,
but if you are interested in Tai Chi especially,
but any art,
Matrix Tai Chi creates awareness
about ten times better than the classical form.
It is a simple matter of applied logic.
Maybe I’ll go into this in a later newsletter,
but for now,
remember this…
if you want your martial arts to be true
you must create awareness.
Period.

Here’s the link…

2ba Matrix Tai Chi Chuan

Now have a GREAT Fourth of July!
Al

A WIN!

Al, Very early this morning I downloaded the Matrix Tai Chi package and wow! I read through the manual and am very impressed. I cant wait to start practicing what I am reading. The posture matrix and the application matrix, it makes so much sense. It took me a long time to learn the Yang short and long form as well as the Cheng Man Ching 37 form. Using the matrix I could have learned that all much quicker. I also glanced at the form video that came with the download and it reminds me of both Yang and the Cheng Man Ching forms run together but it all makes such perfect sense having read over the manual. I will read the manual over and over as I go through the course. I did the 5 Army Tai Chi course first and love it but I am seeing a lot more in the 5 Army form now having read the manual and all this after a quick read! This is great, I cant wait to get heavy into this program. I will keep you posted and as always, Thanks! ~ Kurt

“If you want to learn to swim jump into the water.
On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you.”
– Bruce Lee

Kenpo, Karate, Kung Fu, Destroyed by the Information Here…

Newsletter 887

Things that Destroy Karate, Kung Fu and Aikido

Good hot afternoon!
109 degrees out here in la la land,
and we have two choices:
hide in air conditioning,
or…
WORK OUT!

I opted to work out,
the rest of this day is going to be SOO-O-O cool.

Okay,
things that destroy Karate, Kung Fu, Aikido,
or ANY other martial art.

Building reaction time.
Which means feeding the concept of ‘muscle memory.’
Muscle memory is a psychological concept,
and it means that you think you have to train your body,
much the way Pavlov trains a dog.
Think about that when your grandma
shuffles up behind you
taps you on the shoulder,
and you spin around and chop her frail old head off.
Her head lies,
bloody and cock-eyed,
staring up at you in hurt and dismay
while her body crumples into a pile,
and you did it all out of ‘muscle memory,’
knee jerk reaction.
This type of thought is based on the idea
that there is no you,
that there is only your body,
and you don’t have to be aware of what you are doing.
Or responsible.

Whenever I find a student building ‘muscle memory,’
I tell them what a circuit is,
then I begin changing their training
so that they realize they must have choice.
They must be aware,
and able to choose from options.

Another thing that kills Kung Fu, Taekwondo, Kenpo,
or ANY other martial art,
is fantasy.
The student is taught to fantasize their movements
as a destructive dance,
where hordes fall beneath their lightening fists.
Yikes!
The danger here is that fantasy is not reality.
When I see a student falling in love with fantasies,
or false realities,
I elect myself as their dummy
and keep injecting things like
punches in the middle of their deadly dances.
Why doesn’t my fantasy work? They moan,
rubbing their chests tenderly.
Try looking at reality,
I cheerfully offer.

Probably one of the most terrible things
that REALLY destroys the martial arts,
such as Jujitsu, Tai Chi Chuan, and Shaolin,
is the simple lack of relaxation.
People seek power,
and ignore the spaces between the techniques.
They never learn to see the hidden techniques,
and they become seduced by
power (domination)
muscles (image)
and other things.
The simple fact of learning to relax
while doing the martial arts,
will do miracles.
In fact,
all the tricks of the ancient masters
become obvious and easy.
You learn to unbalance others with a breath,
to strike with a finger
and leave a coconut-sized bruise.

Anyway,
think about it,
and think about the seven corrections
in the Master Instructor course.
These are the seven things you have to do
if you are going to have perfect form.
These seven things are so powerful
that people just read them,
and their art is changed.
They simply can’t do their art wrong anymore,
not when they know the right way to do things.

Okey fiddley dokey.
Here’s a link

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4-master-instructor-course/

and have a GREAT work out!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4-master-instructor-course/

http://www.amazon.com/Binary-Matrixing-Martial-Arts-Case/dp/1515149501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437625109&sr=8-1&keywords=binary+matrixing

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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