Tag Archives: tai chi chuan

Finding and Maintaining Health through Martial Arts!

Duc Tape and WD40 in the Martial Arts

A fellow once told me that the two most important things in life
are duc tape and WD40.
This is because everything is either falling apart,
or getting smunched together.
Makes sense, eh?

So I’ve been working on a Neutronics book
and I realized a couple of things.

There are three problems in life.
For a body it is inflammation.
For a mind it is tension.
For a spirit it is lies.

On the body level it is inflammation.
Well, actually it is inflammation or compression.
Inflammation is when your body has an illness of some sort.
Inflammation is generally a germ,
but it could be food, DNA, or whatever.
Compression is when you get in an accident.
Compression is you took a wrong turn,
were in the wrong place at the wrong time,
and that fellow in a Ford smacked you.

On the mental level,
all problems come from two terminals opposing.
Two terminals opposing could be a push or a pull.
There are A LOT of potentials
when applying this to the mind.
You disagree with others,
you disagree with ideas,
you disagree.
The basic problem here,
when you break it down enough,
is that since the mind is nothing but a bunch of memories,
there is a conflict between memories and reality.

On the spiritual level
all problems come from a lie.
Lying creates tension in the mind,
and can cause the body to get sick.
this distracts one from the truth of the spirit.

This makes life hard to live.

These three things are interconnected.
And the results of dealing with these things
on a neutronic level can be interesting.

You can handle inflammation with certain herbs and such,
and sometimes drugs.
You can handle compression with surgery.

Handling the body in this way will usually work,
unless you go off and die,
but it ignores the tension in the mind
and the distraction of the spirit.

You can handle your mental turmoil
by getting rid of problems.
This can be done on the surface,
but the real handling is going to take place deep in your mind.

Handling the mind in this way usually works,
unless your mind is really messed up.
but it ignores the fact
that the spirit is still messed up.

If you didn’t allow the spirit to become distracted,
which includes concepts such as:
tension, splintering, shattering, etc.,
and usually means a lack of integrity or wholeness,
you would rarely become ill
or even confused in your life.

To handle the spirit is the easiest of all,
yet almost no one does it.
To stop lying you must be ruthlessly honest with yourself.
You must tell the truth at all times,
and develop virtues such as
compassion, kindness, patience, and so on.
You should find a list of virtues and start practicing them today.
That’s it.

If you handle the spirit,
if you stop lying,
then the mind is no longer stressed
and the inflammation is cured,
and you have a harmonious person.

This is actually pretty important stuff.
And I figured it out simply from observing the world,
talking to people,
and Matrixing.

When you do the martial arts
it tends to handle the body.
A handled body handles the mind,
a handled mind can handle the spirit.

If the martial art is messy
it takes a while,
and can even fail.

If the martial art is matrixed,
which is to say logical and aligned,
the body is aligned and won’t suffer inflammation so easily.
the mind refuses the tension of opposing terminals
and ceases being distracted,
and the spirit becomes harmonious.

If this doesn’t make sense you should read
this newsletter over a few times.

Doing a Matrixed Martial Art
aligns the data of motion.
This aligns the mind so it stops distracting,
and the spirit becomes harmonious.

Obligatory ad for this wonderful bit of wisdom…

The Last Martial Arts Book: Nine Square Diagram Boxing

GET THE EDITION WITH THE 5 HOURS OF VIDEO LINKS!

This is a complete and matrixed art,
Applicable on the street,
as meditative as Tai Chi Chuan,
and modular in construction like Pa Kua Chang.

Give yourself a present for Christmas,
and don’t forget to give me five stars!

Another Neutronics book will be here in a couple of months!

Have a great work out,
and HanaKwanMass to all!

Al

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)

Little Tai Chi Gimmicks to Build Chi!

Adding Chi to Tai Chi Chuan!

I remember when I first heard about Tai Chi.
Quite fascinating stuff.
Over the decades it became more fascinating,
and I learned how to differentiate
the myth from the reality.
In this newsletter
I want to list a few of the things I do
that helped me figure out Tai Chi.

Do remember that these things take time,
even with matrixing.
They also demand a certain amount of belief
that you are going to get to where you’re going.

Move the hands like the hands of a clock.
They move evenly,
at the same rate of speed.
It helps if you watch them
and get a little removed from your body.

Breath as if to the tan tien,
and keep the tan tien taut.
Don’t flex the muscles of the abdomen,
especially over the tan tien
(Tan tien ~ ‘The one point’ ~
the center of the body)
Like you’ve got an unbendable arm,
just running energy through it,
keep the tan tien taut, not tight.

move the arms into the posture
and keep them unbendable
while you turn the waist
and shift the weight.

Push with the legs,
you can feel the weight,
and alternate with weightlessness in the legs.
Synchronize the parts of the body
so they begin motion at the same time
and end motion at the same time.
this is CBM
(Coordinated Body Motion)

The energy in the tan tien
will duplicate the motion of the hands
if you have a taut belly and unbendable arms
and synchronize all motion.

Feel the air when you move the palms through it

Imagine yourself above your head
as if looking down from above
imagine yourself as if pulling the strings
attached to the parts of the body
like a puppet.

Now,
here’s the thing,
this will cause energy to flow
help you enter a meditative state
and even understand the physics involved.
BUT
it is worthless if you don’t practice applications.
This means you should understand the hard style first,
and you should train yourself to handle attacks
without using force.

Make your body as if a glove
into which the opponent puts his fist,
then adjust the glove to unbalance him.

No contact
except the brush of skin on skin
and unbalance the opponent.

Practice push hands,
and especially the Lop Sau
that I have created.
Not the traditional,
which is merely a piecemeal drill,
but the whole drill I developed.

There’s lots of other things you can do,
the classics are full of stuff,
but you need to understand the hard arts,
then practice A LOT!

But these things should help you.
Check out the tai chi courses on Monster Martial Arts

And,
if you want to learn the Tai Chi concepts about ten times faster,
check out

The Last Martial Arts Book:
Nine Square Diagram Boxing.

Make sure you look for the version with five hours of video included.

And don’t forget to give me five stars!

Have a great work out!
Al

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)

The Proper Use of Muscles in the Martial Arts!

The Two Muscles in the Martial Arts!

There are two ways of using the muscles in the martial arts
One is to use the muscles,
the other is to not use the muscles.
I know, sounds like zen double talk.

The first method is to tighten the muscles,
specifically upon impact.

The second method is to ‘empty’ the muscles,
to just flow energy through them.

When I first began training in 1967
I was taught to use muscles,
to ‘focus’ the muscles by tightening
everything at the point of impact.
When I went to the Kang Duk Won
(not American KDW)
I was taught,
and mostly through experience and not words,
to tighten only the fist.
Eventually I stopped tightening the fist entirely,
merely sticking the bones of my arm
into the opponent’s body.
This required almost no muscle.

There are several things to be understood here.

If you tighten the muscle energy doesn’t flow through the body.
This leads to inefficiency,
energy loss,
and so on.

It is important to go through the tightening of the muscle phase,
lest you don’t understand what a punch really is.
This is why TCC sometimes doesn’t work,
the student doesn’t understand the reality of combat.
If the student does understand the reality of combat,
TCC is one of the better and more effective arts out there.

The ‘unbendable arm’ (Aikido)
is the best example of an ‘empty arm.’
Or an arm through which energy flows.
Aikido doesn’t develop this for combat,
but rather uses it almost as meditation
and for show.

I use the ‘unbendable arm’ in all movements.
I move my slightly bent arm with only a bit of
expansion and contraction.
The less I move,
the more ‘flow’ I create,
the more subtle are my movements,
my power,
my effectiveness.

When adapting the ‘unbendable arm’
to arts such as Karate,
One MUST understand how to sink the weight,
how to push with the legs,
how to turn the hips,
and how to move all body parts in harmony
so as to strike with the entire body weight.

I still have snap,
but it is subtle,
and designed around the delivering
of the whole weight of the body
into the target.

By developing the ‘complete energy’ of a strike
into the ‘no energy’ of a strike
one loses his tendency to be jumpy,
to respond with violence,
and attains a very calm mind,
one that doesn’t set up fights through mental attitudes.

The odd thing is that this sounds like mysticism,
but it is really hard core science.
It just goes beyond the ‘Newtonian’ science
we have been raised on.

Hey,
Happy Thanksgiving!
Take advantage of the time off
to do extra work outs,
and don’t forget to check out
my books on

How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Two Volumes)

(There is a version with five hours of video
but you have to hunt for it on Amazon)

And don’t forget to give me five stars!

Have a great work out!
Al

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.

Pushing Hands Applied to Combat!

The Five Armies of Tai Chi Chuan!

I say Tai Chi Chuan,
but these five armies. are usable
in every martial art.

The five armies are:
the wrists
the elbows
the shoulders
the waist
the feet

It’s pretty simple,
actually.
If you understand a little push hands
it will really make sense,
but even if you don’t,
there is a logic here that can’t be denied.

If somebody grabs your wrist simply roll it.
This escapes all wrist grips,
and provides wrist twist counters,
and opens up a LOT of other doors.

If somebody pushes on your forearm,
simply fold it back.
The idea is to let the person fall past
and circle your arm to strike him.

If the person is closer
and pushes on your shoulder, or your upper arm
so that it affects the shoulder,
circle the shoulder.

If somebody is pushing on your body,
turn the waist.

If somebody has penetrated past the waist,
simply shift back,
let him pass.

Okay,
this is designed for push hands,
but push hands is designed for martial combat.
So you don’t have to be in push hands mode,
if somebody is pressing an attack
on one of the five areas,
or zones,
or whatever you want to call it,
just use one of the five armies.
Shift back and:
roll
fold
circle
turn
shift.

If you can do all of them that is great.
That is applying CBM
(Coordinated Body Motion-using the body as one unit)
to the technique.

Now,
if you stop thinking about him coming in,
and start thinking about you moving forward,
you end up with the total strike.

You push with the feet
as you turn the waist
and circle the shoulder
and unfold the elbows
and snap the wrist.

So you can apply the Five Armies concept
to defense or offense.
Or any combination of attack and defense.

This concept is demonstrated for Tai Chi
in my

Five Army Tai Chi Chuan course

I would also recommend,
if you are more into Karate or the striking arts,
my book on

Chiang Nan

The point isn’t that this stuff hasn’t been done,
it’s just never been explained in a clear and concise manner
the way I do it.

Check them out,
and have a fantastic work out!
Al

How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Two Volumes)

(There is a version with five hours of video
but you have to hunt for it on Amazon)

And don’t forget to give me five stars!

Have a great work out!
Al

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 that useful
find the book/course that is right for you,
and matrix your own martial arts.

Muscle Memory in the Martial Arts!

Muscle Memory in the Fighting Arts!

Good morning!
Every kata is a prayer.
It is a moment in time
in which I summon up energies
built by the repetition of moves
over over 55 years.

Let’s talk about muscle memory.
One trains to make the muscles move in a certain way.
This is a path, a circuit of nerve impulses.
A to B to C to…to Z.
As one gets better and better
he stops using this ‘muscle memory’ path
and goes from A to Z.

You see,
if you subscribe to the muscle memory theory
then you are saying that your body is doing the fighting.
But it is you that is doing the fighting.
The muscle moves
because the impulses travel through the nervous system
and who gives the nervous system the command to move?

I ask people this sometimes
and they give me some amazing answers.
‘My brain.’
That’s a common answer,
and it shows that people don’t understand the brain.
The brain is, at best, a switchboard.
And if the brain moves the nerves moves the muscles,
who commands the brain.
‘My mind!’
That’s a great one.
Except the mind is just a bunch of memories.
It doesn’t do anything except react.
And if one is going to get to the heart of the martial arts
one must do more than react.
They must act.
And,
to get to the heart of the matter,
who gives the mind the command
to make the switchboard brain
tell the nerves to work,
to make the muscles move?

Okay.
The answer.
‘You.’

And here is the secret of the martial arts.
If you do your ‘prayers’
(your martial arts moves)
long enough…you will go back through
these body and mind systems
and find…you.

You are the creator of your life.
You make the choices.
You are not meat muscle,
you are not nervous twitches,
you are not the switchboard brain,
or the memory mind.
You are you.

And,
obligatory advertisement…
you’re going to find you a lot faster if you matrix.

Try
‘The Last Martial Arts Book’

It has the meditation of Tai Chi,
the power of karate,
the easy and simple modular method
of pa kua chang.

(And, by the way,
get the one with the five hours of video included!
The one without the videos has all the five star ratings,
but $5 more gets you five hours of video instruction.)

End of advertisement,
so get back to your ‘prayers.’

And have a great work out!
Al

Don’t forget to check out the interview
https://anchor.fm/dale-gillilan/episodes/S1E10—Al-Case-e12e3np

How to Fix Karate! (volumes one and two)

volume one is at

And volume two is at…

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 11 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 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 5 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 that useful
find the book/course that is right for you,
and matrix your own martial arts.

Great Win for Pa Kua Chang!

Speaking of PKC…

A fellow wrote in a great win
after taking the Pa Kua Chang course.

Michael McCoy

Sir, I had to reach out to you and share this.
I’m a disabled vet so I’ve got time on my hands, lol.
I’ve watched some Pa Kua videos before on YouTube. I found Pa Kua intriguing, but out of my reach due to the apparent complexity,
I worked through your Butterfly Pua Kua Chang program today, I made a circle on the floor and started walking it with the 10 Hands while thinking about the points you say to concentrate on. I broke a sweat!
After that, I went back and looked at some Pua Kua videos on YouTube and low and behold, I could figure out the nuts and bolts of what was going on! It totally makes sense to me now, thanks to you. You…are an excellent teacher and a great innovator! Thank you Mr. Case!

Michael McCoy

Do you know why Pa Kua is such a great art?
Because it is already modular,
and that means it lends itself to matrixing perfectly.

This is the matrixed version of the art.
It has a hard core logic
that illuminates the classical.

Furthermore,
just walking the circle
improves the student so much,
and Matrixing PKC builds
energy in the legs,
a meditative state of mind,
an easy way to get out of the body
And once you understand them
the self defense is actually pretty incredible.

I’ve always thought of the Pa Kua self defense as
‘dark Aikido.’
But we can talk about that later.

So well done, Michael,
and thanks for your win.

Here’s the link to:

Butterfly Pa Kua Chang!

That’s…

2b Butterfly Pa Kua Chang

have a great work out!
Al

Don’t forget to check out the interview
https://anchor.fm/dale-gillilan/episodes/S1E10—Al-Case-e12e3np

How to Fix Karate! (volumes one and two)

volume one is at

And volume two is at…

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 11 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 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 5 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 that useful
find the book/course that is right for you,
and matrix your own martial arts.

What is Fake Karate?

What is the difference between fake karate and real karate?

I taught a karate class in Ukiah.
And, one of those students taught a class in Willits.
And, as time passed,
other students took over the class.

Now,
I taught real karate,
as it had been taught to me.
Forms, applications,
making those applications work,
translating the thing into freestyle,
and a zen mind at the end of it all.

My student taught calisthenics
and half the forms.
a lot of freestyle
Not much about applications.

His student taught an even more reduced curriculum.

And his student,
taught fighting.
And he called it Karate.

It wasn’t karate.
It was calisthenics
for the purpose of fighting.
No theory about forms,
nothing about the structure of the body,
nothing about the actual physics of karate…
it was now boxing, (kick boxing)
and not very good boxing at that.

So I’ve seen how the art degrades first hand.
I’ve seen how the art can be corrupted.
I’ve seen karate go from real karate,
as taught by the bodyguards of Okinawa,
to…fake karate.

Isn’t it fake if you’re just fighting?
And not learning?

Now,
a LOT of people
are going to disagree with me.
This is because they’ve invested their time and trouble,
and they think they are doing karate.
Sorry.
I was second generation to the people who brought karate here.
And here is the way I define karate,
and fake karate.

Real karate
forms and applications
applications made to work
limited freestyle but no protective gear
Learn control

Karate
forms and applications
applications are posers that don’t work
freestyle with protective gear

Fake karate
calisthenics
emphasis on fighting with protective gear

I know,
there are some people out there that really don’t like this.
And,
I know there is a lot more to this.
Each of the three levels has much more to be considered.
But this does sum it up.

Let me make a couple of points.

Fighting is not karate.
Karate is learning not to fight, but to control.
Karate was designed,
or at least highly adapted to,
controlling people who had weapons and armor.
Real karate doesn’t bounce around like Bruce,
who was dancing around like Mohammed Ali.
Real karate teaches one to fight…
by teaching one how to not fight.
This is a very zen thing,
but it is at the heart of not just karate
but all real martial arts.

And,
a final word,
if you use what I have said here
to ‘prove’ another art (or person) wrong,
then you have missed the point entirely,
and you are doing Fake Karate.

If you want to fix your karate
and make it real,
I suggest my book,

How to Fix Karate

Two volumes ~ FIVE HOURS OF VIDEO INSTRUCTION!
four hundred pages
800 images
applications that are not posers
all the missing pieces found
and the garbage thrown out
sections on matrixing
sections on fighting

You don’t have to be the victim of poor instruction,
you can make your karate real karate yourself.

Enjoy the summer and
have a great work out!
Al

Don’t forget to check out the interview
https://anchor.fm/dale-gillilan/episodes/S1E10—Al-Case-e12e3np

How to Fix Karate! (volumes one and two)

volume one is at

And volume two is at…

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 11 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 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 5 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 that useful
find the book/course that is right for you,
and matrix your own martial arts.

Get a FREE Martial Arts Course (BOGO)

BOGO Martial Arts!

What a fantastic morning!
Especially for a work out!
I haven’t said it recently,
but I’ve always felt that
a form is a like a prayer.
It just cleans out the body,
soothes the spirit,
and makes the mind sharp!

So,
you all know what a BOGO is, right?
That’s right.
Buy On Get One (free)
I’ve always felt that they should include the F
BOGOF.
But then people would read it like
Bug Off!
So…BOGO.

If you buy a course,
you get another one
(of equal or lesser value)
FREE!

The way it works is this…
you head over to MonsterMartialArts.com
and select two courses.
I don’t care which two
as long as they are about the same in price.
Then you order one of the courses,
and email me at aganzul@gmail.com
and tell me what your second course would be.
Email me if you have questions…

So,
why am I doing this?
Why am I giving stuff away free?
Because it’s the end of an era.
The newsletter,
in its present form,
is ending.

No big deal,
to get the newsletters all you have to do
is sign up for my blog
https://alcase.wordpress.com

You know,
I’ve got over 1060 issues of the newsletter.
That’s a lot of newsletters.
I’m sure I’ve written a few clinkers,
maybe offended a few people,
but I’m pretty proud of the quantity and quality of the newsletter.

I’ll put out a couple of more issues,
just to let everybody know.

But,
right now,
remember this offer…

BOGO
Buy One and Get One (free)
monstermartialarts.com

Have a great work out!
Al

I beat you this month, Kumar.

Don’t forget to check out the interview
https://anchor.fm/dale-gillilan/episodes/S1E10—Al-Case-e12e3np

How to Fix Karate! (volumes one and two)

volume one is at

And volume two is at…

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 11 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 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 5 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 that useful
find the book/course that is right for you,
and matrix your own martial arts.

What is ‘Fake Karate?’

One Thing Wrong with Karate…

Good morning!

One of the main things wrong
with karate today
is bunkai.

It’s funny,
I have heard people who believe in
the more combative methods,
talk about how worthless Bunkai are.

And,
I have seen a LOT of schools that don’t even practice bunkai.
so people don’t practice making karate work,
and,
as a result,
they don’t know how to make it work.

when I was training we didn’t call the form applications ‘bunkai.’
We called them ‘Promise Fights.’
It was the ‘promise’ of a fight.
But,
as time went on,
it was more.
It was the postulate of a fight.
A postulate is an idea.
If you practice promising enough,
the idea works.
It is that simple,
and that complex.

First,
many of the applications are worthless,
they are either dancers or posers.

Second,
they don’t fit the form.
But the forms have been really screwed up,
so that is understandable.

Third,
when we did the form applications,
or ‘Promise fights,’
as we called them,
we had 1/3 to 1/2 of the class time to do them.
We would face each and get ready,
we stepped forward with an attack,
and the defender did his promise fight.
Class after class,
year after year,
and a strange thing happened.

Because it was the same every time
we began to see where a body would move
before it would move.
We weren’t fighting,
we were looking,
and we would suddenly see the dip of the shoulder,
the turn of the foot,
the glaze of the idea,
and we knew what was coming,
before it was even launched.

So damned simple and workable,
yet it has,
in many schools,
been put aside.
And even if bunkai are practiced,
they don’t make sense,
they don’t fit the form,
they dance and they pose.

Our applications were VERY workable.
No posers,
no dancers.
They looked like the forms,
but they were VERY functional in combat.

I’ve talked about how the upper students
could actually make them work in freestyle.

And people have given up doing applications
across the arts.
It is easier to have a fellow punch a bag,
than think about the turn of the hip,
or the wrist,
year after year.

The sad truth is that most people
think that karate,
and other martial arts,
are all about fighting.

May I coin a phrase?
If people think that,
they are not doing karate,
they are doing…
‘fake karate.’

And here’s an interesting little item,
the people who say,
‘my art is better than yours,’
are manifesting a fight,
and they are guilty of…
‘fake karate.’

And,
believe me,
Fake Karate is every bit as bad as fake news.

Okay,
just to let you know,
I’m working on a book,
and it’s a big one.
Might even come in two parts.
But it is proving…difficult.
Usually,
when I write a book
I sit down and write it,
takes maybe a week or two.
But this one is just beating me up.
I have rewritten it,
broken it into pieces,
recombined it,
and it is just being stubborn.
So,
my apologies for making you wait,
but,
you might want to make sure
your matrix karate is ready for when this is released.
You are really going to need
to have your art down,
because this is going to expand it.
Severely.

The book is about what happened to karate,
and i am specifically speaking of the applications.
The bunkai, if you will.
Full of history,
full of applications,
full of matrixing.

So,
I’ll keep working on it,
but you should look into either

Matrix Karate
or
The Master Instructor Course

In fact,
I really shouldn’t do this.
there’s no reason to,
except that I’m a nice guy…

Buy one and I’ll give you the other.
Just buy one,
then email me at: aganzul@gmail.com
and I’ll send you both courses.

This is good until October 31st.
Happy Halloween!

Now, have a great work out!
Al

And don’t forget to check out the interview
https://anchor.fm/dale-gillilan/episodes/S1E10—Al-Case-e12e3np

BTW
I’m always pushing my novels,
did you know I write other stuff?
If you want to know the truth about government,
why we have riots and why idiots keep getting into office,
why the government seems to do the exact wrong thing
almost ALL the time…
then check out:

THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT!

1a Matrix Karate

1d Master Instructor Course

The Essence of Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune

Newsletter 1028
The Essence of Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do

I wrote
a couple of newsletters ago
about the essence of Bruce Lee’s Art,
Jeet Kune Do.

Let me expand just a bit on that.
Bruce was concerned with the initial point of contact,
the entry into the fight.
So he figured out that there were five places
where you could ‘attack an attack.’
And that one concept
really sums up
The Way of the Intercepting Fist,
right?

You can interrupt an attack before it starts,
you can stop an attack on the way in.
You can attack and attack at the point of contact.
You can attack when the attacker is on the way out.
You can beat an attacker after the attack.

Obviously, each one of these points
has certain considerations.
Number five, for instance,
attack after it is over.
That’s like saying start anew,
but i fully understand Bruce putting it
with the five points of attack.

Now,
his attack could be summed up
with three steps,
kicking, punching and kneeing/elbowing.
So his basic drill was
kicking,
punching the pads on the way in
and closing for the knee elbow.

Now this is simplicity,
and it is genius for its simplicity.

So where do I differ from him?
I analyzed lots of arts like he did,
but I decided the essence of the martial arts
was not to obsess on attacking.
Yes,
you have to throw the punch
or do the throw,
but you should see it coming
before it happens.

This idea,
seeing something before it happens,
was a product of the karate style I studied.
It’s very zen.
I often wonder
if Bruce had studied Karate,
I mean in a ritualistic setting,
he would have come up with similar idea.
Maybe.

But the point is this,
I decided that the time to handle the attack
is when it reaches a certain physical point,
and that point would be when it enters ‘slapping’ range.

I structured Monkey Boxing around this idea.
Don’t charge in a fight,
rely on the sla[ping distance.

Part of it was that I’m 6 foot and 200 pounds,
so I encountered smaller guys
who were faster.
When I stopped trying to get them,
and relaxed and waited for them,
then I started winning.
I was no longer the big ‘sitting duck,’
but a guy who’s punches they ran into.

Now,
obviously,
there are many different ways
of looking at this matter of fighting.
Bruce isn’t right or wrong,
neither am I.
We’re just people with strategies,
tactics,
and preferred methods.
And the real point is that you
have to look into each art
and play with the techniques
until you understand the concepts,
then put what works for you together.

The martial arts are not a set in stone methodology.
They are a changing, adapting tactic.

Now,
obligatory ad…

4a Blinding Steel (Matrixing Weapons)

My method.
amongst all my other studies and methods.
It sets you up for weapons, hands and feet and takedowns.
Check it out.

Okay,
one last thing…
I get wins from people all the time,
and ometimes I like to share them,
hope somebody else’s wins
can inspire oyu.
So here is Justin Harris…

I just had a hell of a workout with my Matrix Karate forms plus House 1, House 2, and Moon form. The interesting thing about a matrixed form is how well it stays in memory. I hadn’t practiced these in a while but I busted em out today and let me tell you they are so natural and intuitive, they just flowed right out of me. I can’t remember many classical forms I learned years ago. But the interesting thing is that the logic of a matrixed and organized form sticks in the mind and body better than random stuff. Not saying classical forms are bad, I do quite a few of them sometimes but logic and a clear sense of how to make the art True makes things so much easier.

Many thanks!

Sifu Justin Harris
Dragon Palm Tai Chi and Kung Fu

Thanks, Justin,
I appreciate the kind words,
and I love it when Matrixing works for people.

Now…everybody…
have a great work out!
Al

And don’t forget to check out the interview

BTW
I’m always pushing my novels,
did you know I write other stuff?
If you want to know the truth about government,
you will find some startling matrixing going on in

THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT!