Tag Archives: tai chi chuan

Finding a New You Through Martial Arts

Newsletter 810

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.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/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.

It will help me,
and it will help you.

Thanks.

Now…
HAPPY WORK OUT!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/matrix-karate/

go to and subscribe to this newsletter:
https://alcase.wordpress.com

Remember,
Google doesn’t like newsletters,
so this is the best way to ensure you get them.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/matrix-karate/

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

The Monster Martial Arts Newsletters

Newsletter 802
What’s Happening in the Martial Arts!

Good afternoon!
Think I’ll do a Tai Chi workout,
those always make me feel so large.
It’s funny…
large on a peaceful scale.

Got an email today,
asking where the newsletters have been.
Here, read for yourself…

Hey Al,
Haven’t heard from you in a while. Are you okay? I miss your newsletters. I’m sorry you’re catching flak from a bunch of little cowards spouting their worthless and unqualified opinions from the safety of their mother’s basement. I’ve been playing this game for a long time (since 1978), and I see you as nothing less than an innovator (if for no other reason than your unique ability to systemize that which has always been chaotic). We live in a unique time where the sharing of information is easier than ever. It’s easy to put people on a pedestal and idolized those who went before us as more than men. But the truth is, they only had a narrow perspective and worldview, and while they did the best they could with their extremely limited access to information, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are deserving of worship. Just like grade school, only about 5 people out of a hundred actually studied hard and put in the work. The rest either ostracized them, or agreed with them and parroted their phrases to appear more intelligent. I think this phenomenon is seen in the Bible, with William Shakespeare, & in the martial arts. Five percent actually understand what the hell they’re reading (or have read it at all). Most of us do not understand or have not read it, so we agree with those who have and praise the brilliance of the work. The rest think it’s just a bunch of bullshit. My friend, you are among the 5%… No, you are one of those that the 5% study. The difference, is that we have access to more tools than any of our predecessors have had. There will always be  the few that create change, and the lazy masses  that first  violently oppose, and then  blindly  parrot. You can’t be extraordinary  by being ordinary. Keep on pressing on. I value and appreciate your perspective.
-Sean

I thank you, Sean,
from the bottom of my heart.
So let me explain what,
exactly,
has been happening,
and why I am so slow these days.

When I came down from Monkeyland
I was pretty broke.
No place to live,
no job…
no prospects.

Well,
it’s against the law to whine,
so I took on a bunch of jobs.

I drive Uber in the morning,
tutor kids in the afternoon,
do the martial arts in the evening,
and have a janitorial business on the weekend.

And I make sure I work out every day,
and multiple times a day,
if I can.

So that’s what’s been happening.
Survival on the stupid level.
the need for petty, crass cash.

A couple of things happened because of this,
a person gets tired if he isn’t doing what he loves.
So I’m tired all the time.
Poor me.
Whine…whine.
But,
there will come a time when I can shift everything back around,
focus on the martial arts,
and keep going.

After all,
at the end of the road is Monkeyland.
A place where people can go to study martial arts.

Anyway,
it’s not the small people who whine about what I am doing.
There is one common factor in these people:
they have never read what I am doing,
never seen a tape.
They offer opinion without facts.
They think they know everything
based on their own experience,
and they don’t need no durn facts.

So how can I get upset about a bunch of fellows
who offer ignorance as their stock in trade?

It’s sort of like listening to fourth graders
whine about how tough math is,
when the truth is
they just just don’t want to do the work.

And,
the root of the matter,
I’m just stuck in a boring spot,
should be out of it one of these days,
and doing more martial arts.

Then my chi kicks in,
my energy swells,
and life is great.

So that is what is happening.
That is why I am slow in coming out with the newsletters.
It’s my own durn fault,
for putting myself in this situation,
and it continues to be my fault
until I figure out how to right the situation.

So I thank you Sean,
and all the others,
the fifty,
and even the passersby.
Thanks for writing me the email,
encouraging me,
and even chastising me.

I apologize for being a lazy…fellow,
and I guarantee it won’t last forever,
nor probably even long.

In the meantime,
it is up to you.

Work out every day.
Don’t make ignorance your comfort zone,
but delve in,
buy books and videos,
enlarge your cranium with the swell of martial arts.

Put them to work with your friends.
Understand that their is perfection of the spirit
in the study of martial arts,
and that it makes the world a better place.

It calms the spirit,
it undoes undue excitement,
it gives lazerlike insight into the problems of the world.

I’ve been around for a while,
and I will go away,
but the martial arts are your true teacher,
they are the liberator,
the educator,
the enlightenment.

They last forever.

Enjoy.

Now,
I’ll try to work a bit harder,
and stop being a lazy…fellow.

And you go have a great work out!

Al

hHeere’s a course that undoes ignorance…

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

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

The Importance of Earning a Black Belt

Newsletter 798
The Importance of a Black Belt in the Martial Arts

Good afternoon!
Absolutely stunning day.
Absolutely perfect for a work out.

Hey,
I had somebody ask me,
the other day,
what belt I was.
It’s a legitimate question.

I received my black belt in 1974.
It was in a classical karate system,
the Kang Duk Won.

And,
a few years ago,
a bunch of my black belts decided
I should be an 8th black belt.
I had some forty years training at the time.
But it was sort of interesting.
we had a wall,
and everybody who made black belt
got a plaque on the wall.
We had a dozen or so plaques,
and somebody noticed there wasn’t one for me.
So they got together and got an 8th black plaque for me.

The funny thing is I didn’t notice it
for quite some time.

Here’s the deal.
I’m proud of my black belt.
But,
shortly after I received my belt,
I lost all interest in belts
and promotions
and such.
(Though I did appreciate
what my black belts did)

Simply,
I became addicted to the information,
the the art,
to the development of myself in a spiritual sense.
But that’s me.
For those who have just begun,
you should be very concerned
with earning a legitimate black belt.

A legitimate black belt carries with it
the realization,
the knowledge,
that you have just begun to learn.
If you earned a black belt,
and you didn’t get that thought,
then there is a good chance that you aren’t legitimate.
You haven’t CBMed,
made the art into yourself,
inverted your viewpoint of the world,
haven’t understood that reality is the illusion,
and yourself is the projector.

Now,
the real point of the martial arts is this:
Does it work.

First,
does it work as self defense.
Can you defend yourself?

Second,
does it make you grow spiritually?
Do you understand your worth as an ‘I am,’
do you see yourself as a point of awareness,
do you understand how your thoughts control the universe?

I suppose,
analyzing my own preferences,
that is why I prefer Karate first,
and Tai Chi second.

Karate works.
It makes my bones hard,
puts snap in my muscles,
and gives me long life.

Tai Chi works also.
It makes me sensitive,
removes me from illusion,
and gives me long life.

And,
interestingly,
Tai Chi,
learned effectively,
is one of the most incredible
self defense styled martial arts
I have ever experienced.

And,
they provide me with a ‘hard and soft’ progression of art.
After you do a bit of matrixing,
you can see how karate can become tai chi.
And how tai chi enhances Karate.

All very interesting.

If you are experienced with the hard,
I recommend the soft.
If you are experienced with the soft,
I recommend the hard.

It’s the only way to be sure
that you really understand
all aspects of the martial arts.

The trick,
of course,
is to make sure you matrix BOTH martial arts.

Here are the Matrix links.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/matrix-karate/

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/2ba-matrix-tai-chi-chuan/

Have a great work out!
Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/matrix-karate/

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/2ba-matrix-tai-chi-chuan/

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

Moving the Body Faster than the Eye Can See

Newsletter 796
Sleight of Hand in the Martial Arts

Good morning!
It’s a balmy day out here in LA,
absolutely perfect for working out.
You just let the wind push you into the next move.

Hey,
here’s something interesting,
did you know that people don’t know how to use their bodies?
They do sports,
various gimmicks,
and they catch the ball cool,
but they are using the body at about 1/100 of its potential.
True.

And,
interesting enough,
I am not talking about instances of high adrenaline
as being the optimum.

In fact,
you should be using less energy
to create more effect.

Here’s the neutronic low down,very simple,
on this phenomenon.

If you study math,
the very first thing you learn to do is measure the universe.
After a couple of years of working with this fact,
which is used because it is undeniable,
you can’t argue with a ruler,
you learn to think in abstracts.
You learn to follow formula,
and you leave the necessity for measuring.

So,
two specific stages,
measure the universe,
follow formula.
The devising of new formula is considered the higher,
most creative mathematics.
That is what every professor shoots for.

Okay,
understanding this,
let’s discuss how it parallels the martial arts.

The beginner is taught to measure himself.
How fast he can run from point A to point B,
how much he can lift,
and so on.
This is the first stage,
the measurement stage,
the stage where you measure yourself in universal terms.

But you are not the universe,
you are awareness,
and to realize your true potential you have to find
the abstracts of motion.

Here is a very simple example of an abstract of motion.

The magician holds up the deck of cards,
you choose a card,
insert it back into the deck,
and the magician,
even though he doesn’t know what card it is,
pulls it out.
Whoa!
As Po would say.

But the magician has only used sleight of hand.
He has trained his hands to make a motion
that escapes the eye.
He doesn’t measure himself,
he grades himself according to how many people he can fool.

Can Joe Blow do this mystical faster than the eye can see motion?
With practice.
But here’s the point:
What if you trained your whole body to move
faster than the eye can see.
There are ways,
you know.
Here’s one.
Practice walking the circle out of Pa Kua for a few years,
until you feel the ‘lightening’ in your legs.
When somebody punches,
you move your hand in one direction,
and step down and under in the other direction.
It will be as if you disappeared.

I first heard of this disappearing act
when my instructor was being checked out by a high ranking Korean stylist.
The Korean did a series of stretches,
then,
noting that Bob was just standing and sipping a drink,
asked when Bob would be ready (for a proposed freestyle match).
Bob put his drink down and faced the Korean.
“I’m ready.”
The Korean jumped into the air with a perfect spinning kick.
When he came down Bob was nowhere to be seen.
In fact,
when the Korean turned his back Bob just walked behind him,
in conjunction with the spin.
The Korean was shocked to find Bob behind him.

I was not as fast as Bob,
I have a bigger body,
but I found that by moving my hand in one direction,
and my body in the other,
just as I described earlier,
that people would follow my hand and lose sight of me.

This is simple stuff,
but it takes immense practice.
And it takes a dedication to graduating from the simple measurement of self
into the abstract of measuring the other person.

It takes concentration,
focus of mind.

And,
in my case,
in addition to all the karate I did,
it took decades of Tai Chi and Pa Kua
to understand the enrages involved.

But,
with matrixing,
it doesn’t take that long.
It takes intense effort,
but if you understand what you are trying to do
before you do it,
then you can cut the time down by MUCH.

Mind you,
the path is different for everybody,
because everybody is different,
bodies are different,
and the mind and spirit is definitely different.
But,
if you understand what I have said here,
and are willing to dedicate yourself to the work,
then you can go beyond the measurement of the universe.
You can go into these things that,
before matrixing,
were considered mystical
and reserved for special people.

There is no reason why,
with understanding the matrixing concepts,
and a little hard work,
you can’t be special.
There is no reason why you can’t use your body
to its full 100% potential.

Here’s the Pa Kua page for any who wish
to choose that as a part of their journey.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/butterfly-pa-kua-chang/

Have a great work out!
Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/butterfly-pa-kua-chang/

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

Knife Fighting: the Wrong Way and the Right Way

A Knife Fight Goes Bad…

Billy Jack, stoic Indian with Green Beret Martial Arts training, was one of the first movie heroes to beat up bad guys with karate/kung fu/taekwondo/whatever.

Interestingly, I met a real Indian war hero who told me what it was really like. He was a chubby fellow from Northern California, and he had been a Navy SEAL. At least so he said.

green beret martial arts

Can you handle ANY weapon? Click on the image…

He told me that the Navy had been looking for people who were extra sneaky and mean, and they tried him and a few other Indians.

He told me they would sneak around the bush, sneak up on the VC, and kill everybody they could.

He said that one night a couple of his friends came back from a mission laughing. They had apparently snuck into a VC barracks and sliced the throat of every other man. They thought it was going to be a great joke when the survivors woke up and found that the men on each side of them had been killed.

And, he told me of a knife fight he had had when he was a teenager.

He got into it with some other good, old boy, and they were rasslin’ and stabbin’ each other when the cops pulled them apart and arrested them.

The other guy went to the hospital, where he might not make it through the night.

My friend sat there, waiting to see if he was going to be charged with fighting or with murder. And he wiped some blood off his shirt. Talk to the cops. Wiped some more blood off. Talked the cops. Wiped some more…”Hey! I’m bleeding!”

Apparently the other fellow had managed to stick him in the gut, and the fold of skin had compressed while sitting and the blood only seeped out, which made it look like he wasn’t really injured.

So he went to the hospital, the other guy lived, and he joined the Navy to avoid charges for assault and battery, which was the way they did things back then.

Anyway, I don’t know the truth of his story, he could have been telling me a big windy, but I do know something about knife fighting.

You can stab, or you can slice. Bad idea to throw, ‘cause there’s no smarts in throwing away your weapon. How you hold the knife depends on what you want to do, unless you go in without a plan. not a good idea. Everybody should be trained, and that training should have an idea for every possible situation.

Anyway, I’ve written a complete course, with a few hours of in depth video instruction, on how to handle knives and other bladed weapons. The course is called Blinding Steel, and it is available at Monster Martial Arts.

But the thing about knives is this: it is the most common weapon you will meet in a fight. After all, knives, for the most part, are legal.

You can carry a Bowie knife, or any large knife, even a machete.
You can carry knives openly, or even concealed.
The only knives you can’t carry are things like dirks and ballistic knives and daggers and stilettos.
You can’t carry knives that look like something else, like a tube of lipstick or a pen or something like that.

But you can carry a knife, and bad guys will resort to a knife as their weapon of first choice. After all, past a gun, which is illegal for the most part, in spite of all constitutional guarantees, a knife is easy, quick, and visually frightening.

But, if you study a real martial arts course on knives, like Blinding Steel, then you won’t have much to worry about. With Blinding Steel knife course you learn how to use anything for a weapon, and you can even take a knife away from some idiot and insert it where there isn’t much chance of getting a sunburn.

That’s Blinding Steel, at MonsterMartialArts.com.

The Problem with Bruce Lee

The Mistake of the Little Dragon

I remember when Bruce Lee Died. It was a shock that went through the soul. Here was an icon,the best martial artist in the world, in perfect physical condition…dead.

How? Why? What happened?

kenpo karate instruction book

Final volume of Matrixing Kenpo! Click not he cover!

Interestingly, one of the first theories I heard as to the cause of his death came from a friend who was studying Tai Chi Chuan. The one word summation was: balance. And, the one sentence explanation was Bruce Lee was lacking balance.

I tucked this opinion away, collected facts, but it was literally decades before I matured enough as a martial artist to understand, and to accept, this opinion over the facts.

Let me say, before I continue, that I like facts. It could be said that only fools deal in opinions, and in most cases, this would be correct.

The person offering this opinion, however, was basing his opinion not on the facts of Bruce’s death, but upon the facts of the martial arts. It wasn’t until I was firmly matrixed in my approach to the martial arts that I understood this.

One of the facts that I continuously came across was that Bruce had an allergic reaction to marijuana, which was in tea he had drunk.

This is interesting, I have never read a study on this, is there marijuana in Chinese tea?

Another fact I came across is that Bruce had, again, an allergic reaction, this time to aspirin. But I think that the aspirin was given to him after he complained of a headache. And, I know it’s possible, but I just don’t hear of a lot of people, or any people, dying of allergic reactions to aspirin. Doesn’t mean it’s not possible, but…hmmm.

And, the third of these ‘facts,’ Bruce had a reduced fat content in his body. Now this is dangerous. And this could result in death. And this has much more substantiation in fact than the previous two theories.

Mind you, in saying this I realize that it is still opinion, and the only real fact we have is that we will never know. But this one fact, considered in light of the theory of ‘balance,’ really resonates with me. What was Bruce Lee doing that would result in a loss of balance, and which could possibly result in death? For the answer to that let’s consider how the martial arts are accumulated.

In matrixing one isolates the specific arts, and simplifies them to workable levels, and does not mix martial arts. In matrixing one studies the smaller pieces of the individual martial arts until they (eventually) blend into a larger and comprehensive whole.

Bruce, on the other hand, was doing a hybrid of the martial arts; he was doing, for one specific example, Wing Chun and Boxing.

I know, there was a lot more, he had 26 different arts at one count.

But consider the differences between just those two martial arts. Wing Chun controls the centerline and works on straight punches. Boxing moves laterally and has roundish punches.

Yes, a simplification, but bear with, for there are different concepts of chi power here.

In boxing, there is no focus on chi power, everything has to do with muscles.
In Wing Chun, hoever, the focus is on chi power, and there is major emphasis on generating energy from the tan tien.

Could this mix of martial training, taken to the extremes that Bruce took them, result in an imbalance in the body? Could this have resulted in Bruce’s death?

Unfortunately, as with the other theories, there is no proof, and likely never will be, and we all never know. But it is something to consider.

The mix of the martial arts you study is definitely worth considering. Not because of the risk of death (Bruce was a singular and extreme case), but because mixing the various martial arts, and especially without simplifying them through the matrixing process, causes confusion, and results in a slower learned and less effective martial arts.

In closing, the point of this article has been to ask, not to state definitively, and that in an attempt to understand Bruce Lee. It is only through understanding, not through mindless worshipping, that we are going to reap the true benefits of this incredible person’s martial arts and existence.

Take the first step in learning how to Matrix with Matrix Karate. For information that might be more specific to the theories presented in this article examine The Master Instructor Course. Both courses are available at MonsterMartialArts.com

‘Matrixing Karate: Master’ is on the Bookshelves!

Releasing the Fifth Volume of Matrixing Karate: Master

This is the official announcement that ‘Matrixing Karate: Master,’ has been released.

It was actually finished a couple of weeks ago, and it has had time to get up on Amazon, and it is in the createspace bookstore, so it’s time to make it official.

Release of final volume of Matrixing Karate Series!

Release of final volume of Matrixing Karate Series!

 
The first volume of this pivotal Karate series was dedicated to fixing basic movements. Volumes 2 – 4 were aimed at explaining matrixng principles, introducing matrixing graphs, and so on. Volumes 1 – 4 were based on the Matrix Karate course available at MonsterMartialArts.com.

The fifth and final volume is a bit different. It is based on a series of manuals written over the years, and upon the ‘Create Your Own Art’ video course.

The thing that makes this final book so important, and sets it apart from even the books it was based upon, is that it goes through the history and concepts of Matrixing and details exactly where each concept came from.

Thus, you are taken on a journey, from the first martial art studied by the author, Kenpo Karate, through each and every martial art he studied. This includes detailing concepts from separating two arts successfully (Kang Duk Won and Kwon Bup) and developing a third based on those two. (Outlaw Karate: The Secret of the One Year Black Belt). It goes into the exact influences that resulted in the development of matrixing, including the original matrixing lists from the 70s and 80s, and leads right into the creation of the Matrix graph.

One thing that may be surprising to students of the martial arts is that the author developed matrixing without the matrixing graph. Instead, he used lists of techniques, reworking the lists for every concept he encountered. This actually entailed, literally, thousands of lists. Thus, the development of the Matrixing Graph is a bonus to the martial arts of unparalleled value.

The book may be found on Amazon. It is paperback, and students of the martial arts are encouraged to get the earlier volumes first, that they may better understand the import and significance of this volume.

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The Most Impeccable Martial Arts Warrior in the World!

The Ultimate Martial Arts Warrior!

I am currently living atop a mountain, caretaking a ranch, and putting together a ‘dojo in the sky.’

If you have lived on a ranch you know how rough it can be. The wildlife is hard at work surviving, and even the tame livestock can be pretty fierce.

lady tai chi

The ultimate warrior in ALL the martial arts!

 
The mice, for instance, will crawl atop your warm motor and chew on the wires. Thus, we need cats, fierce cats, to control them.

But the cats are risk from coyotes, so we need fierce dogs to protect them.

My dog happens to be ‘city stupid.’ He wants to hide in the cabin all night and snooze. And even if he did go out and patrol the property, Mrs. Coyote is liable to give a yodel and lure him out…a fresh plate of coyote food.

So I talked to my partner about the situation, and he said, “Al, I’ve got just the dog for you,” and a couple of weeks later he brought out a pregnant Malenois.

A malenois is a small version of a German Shepherd, it has smaller jaws so it won’t break bones and cause lawsuits.

This particular Malenois earned a quick reputation as ‘The Hell Bitch.’

First, it rolled my Labrador over, introduced the poor, loving smurf to the matriarchy.

Then it went after the cats.

Cats! But it was supposed to protect the cats.

My partner said, “I‘ll bring you a couple of feral cats.”

But we had feral cats! And The Hell Bitch had made short work of them!

My partner didn’t think about that; didn’t consider that he was just bringing up more ’dog food,’ and a couple of weeks later he brought a couple of feral cats to the ranch.

“These guys are extra vicious,” he promised, and he let the first one go.

ZING! The Hell Bitch was on that cat like a rocket, and the cat disappeared into the wilderness.

My partner just smiled. “She’ll show up later,” then he released the second feral cat, and that was when I met the ultimate martial arts warrior.

Before I tell you about this warrior, however, let me tell you an old story.

Two samurai decided to see which one was better. So they exchanged invitations and arranged a meeting.

One morning they both arrived at a clearing.

They circled, and then stepped towards each other.

They drew  their swords, and they edged closer and closer. They arrived at striking distance, and became motionless.

Hour after hour they stood there, each waiting for the other to make a mistake, to leave an opening.

Finally, just before dusk, they backed away from each other, sheathed their swords, and bowed.

One of them had made a mistake, an internal flinch, a moment of lost concentration, and the other had seen it. They never acknowledged who was the better, but they both knew who had won and who had lost.

So my partner released the second feral cat.

“Mew.”

He was white and orange, and he crossed the yard, coming straight for The Hell Bitch.

The Hell Bitch. whose name was Bel, gathered her legs, prepared to leap upon the cat.

“Mew.”

The cat walked right past her.

Bel growled and barked.

The cat ignored her, came to my wife and rubbed up against her leg.

Bel circled, snarling and snapping, waiting for the moment of weakness so she could charge in and tear the tabby apart.

“Mew.” The cat walked past me, up the steps to the house, and went in.

Bel followed her, looming over her, drooling and moaning with the desire to fight.

The cat jumped up on a chair and curled up.

Arrrooo! Grrrr! Bark!

Drool and slobber foaming out of her mouth, Bell snapped her jaws over the hair of the cat.

The cat rolled over and went to sleep.

Two days later, totally defeated, her whole DNA betrayed, her pregnant bitchery stymied, Bel took sick. She nearly died before my partner could come get her, hook her to an IV and drive her to an animal hospital.

The cat, you see, never showed a weakness. Did not hesitate or falter, and entertained no thought of resisting, of cringing, of shrinking, of reacting to the mad, foaming, insanely rabid hound.

The cat manifested, exactly, the attitude of Daniel in the lion’s den.

My question is this: how many of you have this concept in your martial art? How many of you can claim to have ever demonstrated even a fraction of this kind of behavior?

And, can you see this type of attitude emanating as a result of your training?

You are advised to examine Matrix Martial Arts if you want to develop yourself into the ultimate martial arts warrior. Make sure you pick up a free martial arts book.

An Example of Matrixing in the Martial Arts

Why People Don’t Understand Matrixing

I have people asking me, every once in a while, for an example of Matrixing in the Martial Arts. This is something I don’t want to give, and there is an exact reason for me refusing. Let me explain this reason.

The mind is a bunch of memory. That’s all it is. An animal mind has very short span. A goldfish forgets within three seconds. That’s it. Simply, the goldfish is a being that lives within three seconds, and then moves on.

matrixing in the martial arts

Bound by your own logic, matrixing sets you free.

 
Man is a rather longer memoried beast. It would be nice to go into this more, but this is not the time and place. So let it suffice to say that you can remember virtually anything. This lifetime alone, you can recall the most minute memories.

Now, mental abilities are something else, and they have absolutely nothing to do with the mind. Mental abilities, such as the ability to create problems, intuition, telepathy and telekinesis and all that sort of thing, that are not born of memory…they are what the awareness of the individual can do.

Separate them: mind is memory, and mental ability has nothing to do with the mind. Mental ability is what you, the human being, can do in your wildest dreams.

When you do the martial arts you memorize patterns. You memorize techniques. You memorize muscle motion.

You put all this into your mind.

But what can you do?

Well, you can do whatever is in your mind, but that has nothing to do with what you, the human being, can do in your wildest dreams.

You see, all this stuff you memorize into your mind is nothing more than…circuits. Just like an electrical circuit, bound by nodes and boards and such…everything is on a set path.

But you can only trap a human being so long. Eventually, be it a few seconds or a million years, the human being is going to say, ‘wait a minute! I recognize this place! I see what I’ve been doing! I see this memory!’

At that second the circuit is blown, the pattern disappears, and you become free.

Now freedom is relative, and that’s an absolute, and this is another one of those things I should skirt during the course of this essay.

So the point is this, when you blow a circuit you enter into mushin no shin. Mind of no mind. Or…a place where there are no memories telling you what to do.

Here’s a couple of things that go along with that phenomenon.

Mushin no shin can be achieved through the necessity of the moment…because of the need for survival. A fellow on the battlefield may experience it. Time slows down, he develops other perceptions rather instantly.

I remember reading of one fellow who survived Viet Nam because he could ‘smell’ Viet Namese. We could argue whether he actually detected by odor, or whether the human being sensed and attributed this ability to his nose, but the fact remains, he survived through an ability ‘grown’ for the moment.

Mushin no shin might last for a brief instant…then the memories come flooding back in. Still, that experience, that ‘aha’ moment, will open up a human being and let him or her know that there is a lot more to him, and life, than is ever written in a book, any book, in western society…or eastern.

Indeed, it is near impossible to describe this moment except in general and almost cartoonish terms.

The world glows. You understand God. You can see forever. These are descriptions of something that cannot be described.

And there are other phenomena connected with mushin no shin, or as I have segued into…enlightenment.

The difference between mushin no shin and enlightenment may be merely one of degree, or perhaps depth of understanding. Or perhaps the type and size of circuits blown.

But let’s return to the martial arts and why I don’t give examples of matrixing.

The martial arts are a series of memories. They are patterns. They are circuits implanted in the mind through hard work. And here is the bugaboo.

If the martial art is sufficiently illogical, there will be no mushin no shin, except by the severest accident. There will be no enlightenment.

One example of this is boxing. There are no examples that I can think of where a boxer suddenly threw off his gloves and said, ‘I understand that the essential nature of the universe is a golden vibe which we call God.’

There are a few boxers who have been pounded into believing in God, but this is not enlightenment, this is worship by the beaten.

Another example would be kenpo.

To be plain, I love Kenpo, I have loved it since I encountered in 1967, but I was not able to matrix it for a variety of reasons.

It doesn’t create a connection with the earth through serious stance work. It is a put together, a real conglomeration, of everything Ed Parker encountered and thought about: it is the memories, jumbled and reconstructed in a desperate effort to make sense, of one man. It is five evolutions of thought as one man went through life without ever encountering mushin no shin, or an ‘aha’ moment.

Nothing against kenpo, it just best exemplifies illogic in the martial arts.

And what it specifically exemplifies is the basic training method, which is memorization, or implantation of training sequences in the mind.

When I developed matrixing it seemed like an accident, but it was really my search for logic in a universe that is rather slipshod and haphazard and put together by whim and shamble.

Why me, why the martial arts, why the million and one experiences that set me free, I don’t know. Call me a cosmic accident.

But the fact remains, I tripped over a form of logic, described briefly in Boolean algebra, that puts order to ALL the jumbled up strings of random motions that we have been memorizing and calling the martial arts for a zillion years.

Now, if I could, in one word, or simple sentence, describe matrixing, I would, but you wouldn’t understand it.

Here is that sentence:

For something to be true the opposite must also be true.

Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

But it will if you do a few hundred hours of logical work in the martial arts.

Mind you, you could do a few thousand hours of work, a few million hours of work, and get nowhere. You would merely be trying to make sense of the insensible, the stored up memories in your mind.

You see, without the logic, without matrixing…the mindless mass of memorized circuits that are the martial arts just won’t make sense.

And, without the martial arts, with only the logic, you are left with:

For something to be true the opposite must also be true.

A simple phrase that means everything, and nothing, and is sort of like a zen koan, and doesn’t describe any sort of logic you have ever experienced.

So, it is impossible for me to give you an example, your jumbled up memory of a mind just won’t accept it. You will translate it into gibberish.

And, here is a cruel trick, when somebody gets close to understanding they say, ‘Oh, we’ve got that in our system.’

Simply, they have latched on to some simple point, and they do have it in their system, but their mind has slid right off of Matrixing the way teflon slides off bacon and eggs.

So you are caught. You are trapped in your own hard work, trying desperately to justify it, and refusing any example of real logic I could give you.

And your only real solution is to dig into the martial arts, and dig into matrixing that you might hope to understand the martial arts.

And, nobody really understands the martial arts.

True. Sad, but true.

They think they do, and they explain the martial arts by saying something like, ‘a punch is just a punch,’ or, ‘a kick is just a kick.’ Or some other pithy saying after a few decades in the martial arts.

Nope.

That’s just more teflon sliding off the pan.

The real martial arts are a thought.

Not meat, not mind circuits, not even freedom.

They are a simple thought.

And the only way you will ever understand the thought that is the martial arts is through matrixing. I say this because the martial arts have never been understood in the history of mankind. Ever. Not on any planet, not on any plane of existence.

If they had been understood they would have, like one of those circuits, disappeared, and we would have a civilization without war and disease and the general corruption of mankind.

This essay has been written by Al Case, the discoverer of Matrixing. You can read more concerning matrixing and martial arts at Monster Martial Arts. If you are more interested in the type of thought process described in this essay, you should go to the Church of Martial Arts.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter, download any free books, press the FB like button, and donate (order matrixing materials).

This has been a page about why there are no examples of Matrixing in the Martial Arts.

My Martial Arts are the Slowest Martial Arts in the World!

Martial Arts Training at its Best!

Okay, heres a shocker for you to think about–you are learning the martial arts using the slowest method of education in existence in the world. Its true. And it is propagated through the mysticism and awe of attaining something that, should you use an updated method of learning, would speed up your learning up by a factor of ten.

The martial arts work on a method that has worked for the history of the world, for monkeys. This is the monkey see monkey do method of education. Using the monkey see monkey do method of education, you are trained to memorize random strings of data.

Thats absolutely right, random strings of data. In fact, to be perfectly accurate, it is random strings strings of random data, and everything is tied together through mystical concept. Not logical concepts, but mystical concepts.

That system of kung fu you’re practicing, the one based on an animal–I have never heard of an animal being logical. Oh, you fight like an animal would fight, in concept. What youre saying is that the movements that resemble how an animal would move have been gathered together so you could copycat them.

Copycatting is not a concept, and it is not being logical in any sense.

Copycatting is doing what youve been shown…or, in the martial arts world, sold. Lots of money in selling copycat methodology, because you can just keep rearranging the strings of data and fooling people into thinking they are getting something scientific.

Now, you might think that I am down on martial arts because of what I have said. The opposite is the real truth, however–I am so in love with the martial arts it is unbelievable. I dont, however, believe in learning through antiquated methods.

What I do is take the mysticism of the martial arts, utilize logic to line it all up, and learn ten times faster than the next guy. This method, a vastly different than any method you have ever seen, is called Matrixing. Matrixing is an actual scientific method–it is not the latest fake-scientific-wordage (cyber cranial digitation, neural brain synapses, and that sort of made up so on) that internet marketers use to sell their gimmicks.

The inquiry I often get is how does it work. Consider: if you had 4, 5, 3, 8 and a shaved donkey, you wouldnt know how to count. If you had 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on through all of your digits…you would know how to count.

What I do is align the martial concepts in the correct sequence, so there are no missing numbers, no out of order numbers, and no ridiculous concepts tossed in. When people learn the martial arts in this fashion it is possible to learn, as I said, as much as 10 times faster. Of course it all depends on the person learning, and whether they have a basic education, and etc.

The above all being said, it was not an easy thing to figure Matrixing out. In fact, it took me over 30 years, as there was no precedent for what I was doing. The job is completed, however, and martial artists the world over need no longer be trapped by–the slowest method of learning in existence.

Here’s a great article on a more brutal form of martial arts training using…a Tiger!