Category Archives: aikido

Reaction Time in the Martial Arts vs Mushin No Shin

Martial Arts Reaction Time…

I find that there is vast misunderstanding in the martial arts as to what mushin no shin is…people usually and incorrectly compare it to reaction time.

Now, to be precise, when people talk about mushin no shin they mix it in with not just reaction time, but especially muscle memory. The idea they are coming from is that if you do something long enough then it becomes intuitive, and even ‘on automatic.’

martial arts reaction time

Mushin no shin is far beyond muscle memory…it is the other end of the spectrum.


Mushin no shin means mind of no mind. Another way of saying this would be time of no time.

Which is to say that there is no mind, or memory in this case, involved.

When you train in reaction time, when you build ‘muscle memory,’ then you are building memory, and memory is based on time.

But mushin no shin refers to no time…to perceiving things as they are, and not through the artifices, or demanding the reaction time, of muscle memory.

Now, the real world difference is this.

You feel a tap on the shoulder, you spin, you chop, your grandmother, who was offering you a plate of cookies, goes down for the count.

That is reaction time. It is not intuitive, it is knee jerk reaction.

Or, you feel a presence behind you, or, better yet, without feeling the presence behind you, you turn in concert with the tap of the finger to your shoulder.

There is no contact because you have merged with the action. There is no reaction; there is no moving after the fact, or moving violently because of something.

That is mushin no shin.

The first time I ever experienced mushin no shin I was 16. I was at a bowling alley, and one of the bowlers put a pencil on the slanted desk, and it started rolling.

I watched it, and watched it, and time started to stretch out and become inconsequential…I was ‘in the moment,’ free from reaction time.

The world glowed, and I felt this delicious sense of freedom. I realized that I had total control over the flight of the pencil. I could move any way I wanted to, and there were no boundaries or limits.

The pencil fell, and I reached out and plucked it out of the air.

A fellow there said he had never seen such fast reaction time in his life.

But it wasn’t reaction time…I was moving in between moments of time. I wasn’t using muscles to make motion, I was making motion directly, as an Awareness, as an ‘I am.’ And this was without any martial arts training; years before I ever started training in the martial arts.

Now, a quirk of the moment, was that experience, and the real problem came when I tried to make it happen at will. Couldn’t do it. I needed the training.

And, even with the martial arts training, it took me nearly 20 years before I started experiencing these things as a matter of course.

The point here, however, is that it is not muscle memory, or reaction time. Muscle memory trains the body, but not the awareness, and that is knee jerk out of control. Reaction time means something has to happen before you act. Neither of these are mushin no shin.

Mushin no shin is when you are aware of life as it happens, without the interference of muscle memory, or reaction time, or training, or anything.

People who are asleep use the term muscle memory, or reaction time, to describe phenomena they don’t understand.

What makes it really confusing is when you get some fellow who trains for years, then tries to explain what he is experiencing. in the western world we fall back on the inadequate descriptions provided by science, a science which, I might add, has never adequately explained such concepts as are manifested when a person is showing mushin no shin.

Terms such as ‘reaction time,’ and ‘muscle memory,’ are offered by western science for concepts they do not understand.

The term mushin no shin is used to describe a person who is free from muscle memory, has no reaction time, and is in a realm beyond the simple physics of the universe. He is in a second set of physics, the physics of sixth senses and intuition and dreams and all sorts of things.

Mushin no shin is used when a person is not confined by his memories, and other such limitations to the human spirit.

Here are some articles which touch upon the procedure for waking the person mired in Martial Arts reaction time, and endowing him with muslin no shin.

Martial Arts Makes Mind Go 3D

How Matrixing Martial Arts Makes Mind Start to Work!

To understand how matrixing martial arts makes the mind open up and work right, you have to understand that  the universe is nothing but rocks and stuff. A bunch of debris floating around. That body you’re in? It’s just a conglomeration of stuff that runs into things. And things run into it.

Do you see how you’ve been victimized by the universe? Was that a rock that hit me? What was that? Was that a rock?

martial arts makes calm minds

Martial Arts makes calm minds…


You see, you are a black and whiter living a world of color. You can’t see the color. Your perceptions have been stunted.

Want to unstunt your perceptions? Want to see the world in color? Martial arts makes that happen if you have matrixed them.

Matrixing is a way of getting that instant depth perception in the universe that enables you to see, oh…color…that stuff is…color!

I realized this through studying the martial arts, through studying the fact of fists colliding with my body trajectory in the universe. Studied it a bunch, tried to see all the potentials, came up with a matrix. Matrix enabled me to see more…more…

And, I was matrixing back in the eighties, long before the movie.

Matrixing, you see, is a way of describing three dimensions on two dimensional paper. I’ve figured out how to take it out of the computer and put it into the universe, to write the truth of the universe on a mind currently working in two dimensions.

The great thing is it doesn’t work just for the martial arts, though that is the template. It works for everything! Simply, you can measure and put order into anything in the universe with matrixing. Things you didn’t even know needed ordering get ordered.

Things you didn’t know suddenly pop out at you, make you blink, and become instantly resolved.

The only reason a matrix wouldn’t work, to be honest, is because if the mind was so stunted that it couldn’t conceive of the matrix except as in black and white. If you look at a matrix and it is black and white, stay away. Your mind isn’t ready.

Well, the door is open, the choice is yours.

This has been a page about how Martial Arts makes the mind function, here’s a series of articles dealing with this phenomenon.

Martial Arts Meditation Unleashed!

Don’t Make the Mistake of Asking the Question!

Good morning to you!
A work out morning!
A morning where you get stronger,
smarter, quicker, faster…
More aware.
Because that’s what a martial arts workout does.

martial arts meditation

The Secret of All motion is…No Motion.

The secret of meditation,
and life,
is to clear the mind of distractions.
Distractions are the bushwah probs and dialogues
and such that you carry around with you.
What did so and so say about me?
Guy in the next department pisses me off.
I need a drink.
And so on.

The martial arts clears the mind of distractions through one simple method:
You learn to focus your awareness on one thing.
I’ve suggested that you hold up your index finger and look at it,
Until you understand what I mean,
but that’s sort of mean.
it’s frustrating because it is the truth, and it is advanced,
and one should really have a proper build up
before they do the single finger meditation.
So here’s the proper build up.

Mind you, i went through this stuff for years,
one piece at a time,
before I figured it out and experienced an empty mind,
but I didn’t have the instructions you are about to get.

When you stand in the room, stand squarely,
that means you don’t lean in any direction.

When you have finally found your balance,
don’t lean (or sway or anything),
just ask yourself the question,
how do I unbalance myself
so that I can move.

It’s true,
the secret of motion from a balanced position is to unbalance yourself.
Walking is the process of learning how to fall in a direction,
and catch yourself on a leg just enough
that you keep falling and catching yourself.

The problem here is that we are not walking.
We are falling to a stance.
And we must fall as fast as we can
to a balanced (front stance) position.

So look at your options.
Do you bend and push with the legs?
What part of the body do you unbalance first?
How do you unbalance it?
Do you move muscles inside the body?
Do you push your body with a hand of energy from outside the body?
Do you pull your body towards an object/direction?

It’s an interesting question,
and one that will drive you half mad
before you finally figure out
how you actually move your body.

Let’s say you move the body with a contraction of a leg muscle
which lowers the body so you can push with a (set of) muscle on the other leg.
What mental command are you giving that first muscle?
Where is that command coming from?
Your mind?
Who told your mind what to do?
Do you understand?
It’s frustrating, and it tends to really mess you up.
But, when you finally work your way through this,
and figure out how, exactly,
you are moving your body,
It will change you as a martial artist.
Heck, it will change you as a human being.
Big time.

And this is just learning how to unbalance the body to fall into a front stance.
Now you get into which muscles are you actually catching yourself with?
What are you doing with the arm?
What torques your body as you fall?
What muscles do you use to align the arm with the action?
Does the arm resist motion to make motion?
Are you using the planet to push yourself?
Or just moving the leg over the surface without sinking your weight?

I used to do my forms for hours,
one move at a time,
looping that move,
grinding that move,
searching for the answers of body motion.
And let me make a point here.

You may think it is silly,
all this frustration for…for what?

But I came across one of my own neutronic quotes this morning,
one of the Master Instructors puts it as a signature at the bottom of his emails. Here is the quote…
“Man learns by his mistakes. Without a mistake a man never learns. Stop a man’s mistakes and you stop a man. Watch a man’s mistakes and he’ll learn every day of his life.”

Now,
consider that when you lose balance it is a mistake.
Of course it is a mistake (grin).
You were perfectly balanced,
and then you went and ruined it!
But that is the process of life.

You are fine,
then you mess it up,
then you find fine again,
then you mess it up,
and so on.

So the procedure of doing a form
is a constant method of finding balance in your form,
messing it up to get to a new point of balance,
then messing it up again to find a new point of balance,
and so on.

And if you don’t ask the questions I have posed in this newsletter,
if you don’t find out how to mess it up…to unbalance…to make yourself make a mistake and fall forward as efficiently as possible. then you are doing the martial arts like a monkey.

Monkey see monkey do, with never a thought as to what causes motion…and what causes life.

You simply must ask the question, else you will never be aware.

Now,
if you want to look at your finger until you are enlightened,
it is possible.
Very possible.
But you simply must go through this concept of unbalancing to find new balance,
of making mistakes to find awareness.
You must.

You must…workout.
A lot.
With these questions in your mind…until there is no question in your mind.
Until your mind is freed from distractions.

Now,
let me add one thing,
the Master Instructor Course is the result of what happens
when you ask yourself these questions
for thirty or forty years.

It IS the perfection of human form,
and it IS the perfection of martial arts technique.
And it has never been done before.
Period.
The stuff in the Master Instructor course has simply never been written about,
and if it was ever stumbled over in a conversation,
there was no point to it all,
no way to relate all the parts
of what I tell you on this course.

So let me ask you a question…
do you want to go through the frustration of asking yourself questions for decades?
Or do you want to get the truth about how to use your body
and how to make your martial arts perfect…right now?

Look, I’m not the first person in history to ask these questions,
but I am one of the few to come up with the right answers,
and I am the only one to ever put down the answers on paper.
Plain English.
Understandable.
Not only no mysticism,
but the death of mysticism.
Because mysticism dies when you replace it with knowledge.

So,
heres the URL,
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4-master-instructor-course/

And have yourself the BEST workout you can!

Al

PS ~ you can subscribe to the Monkeyland Gazette and find out about the Church of Martial Arts at the top of the right sidebar at Churchofmartialarts.com.

The Pa Kua Chang Mystery

There is a Pa Kua Chang Mystery, and here’s how You Solve It

Pa Kua Chang, as many people know, is that martial art where you walk in a circle endlessly. Circles where you find loops within spirals within circles. To explain this really weird thing that happens in Pa Kua Chang, let me explain a couple of things first. Understand these things, and you will find that weird is normal in this universe, and normal is weird.

pa kua chang mystery

Do Pa Kuua Chang long enough and you will solve the pa kua chang mystery.


Okey dokey?

The circle must consist of eight steps from beginning to end. This is about one good leg sweep, or six feet in diameter. And, of course, the beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning, and so on.

Long time Pa Kua Chang students claim that if you explore various positions of the palms as you walk the circle, that the positions stand for various phenomena. Fire palms, water palms, lightening palms, thunder palms, and so on. By following this analogy they have created a separate and entire universe. While this universe can occupy a student for a lifetime, there hasn’t been a good explanation for what is happening, up till now.

When you create this Pa Kua universe, you should understand that the body is a machine. Just like alternating current, power goes down and up the legs. You should confirm it with a good dictionary, at this point, that power is energy, and energy is the capacity for work, and the capacity for work is how much weight you can lift.

Energy of the body is credited with being created by the tan tien. The tan tien is a point a couple of inches below the navel. The tan tien sends the energy down and up and the legs and back into the tan tien. What happens is that the body becomes a capacitor, a storage device, and the energy can be stored for later use. But also, and most interesting, is that after walking the circle sufficient with the idea I’ve detailed here, you will experience actual lightening going up and down your legs.

You will also, as you explore the potential of the palms in conjunction with the storing of the energy, experience a barber pole type energy swirl up and down your arms.

Pa Kua Chang is not mystical, it is common sense physics, but it does take a dedicated practitioner and a calm mind to experience what I have explained here. For the body to start acting as a capacitor one must tell the body to do so enough times and with enough sincerity, and this while walking the circle enough times. If one learns to believe that this universe is not a trap, but a journey, what I have told you here is not only possible, but even easy.

Check out the butterfly Pa Kua Chang…it is the fastest, most efficient Internal Martial Art on the planet.

A Real Church of Martial Arts!

Monkeyland…Here We Come!

Great Day in Paradise!
Monkeyland may be as little as two weeks away.
Man,
that’s worth a dozen work outs!
So here is the URL so you can take a look at this gem in the wilderness.

http://churchofmartialarts.com/the-church/

Give the page time to load,
there’s a couple of large pictures.
And make sure you hit the FB LIKE button at the top of the page!

church of martial arts

The Church of Martial Arts!


Now,
let’s talk about Monkeyland.
Let’s talk about how it got started,
how it developed,
and how it is going to progress.

First, I wrote a book,
and it is called Monkeyland,
and the tagline is…
‘Another word for Freedom!’

It is a story of war and corruption and disaster and man’s inhumanity to man.
Yet,
after five books,
there is a sublime message,
one that forgives the thought of war
if we can only understand ourselves,
transform ourselves…
mankind has hope.

And,
I kept working out,
developing matrixing,
nibbling into Neutronics,
and I started thinking about a real Monkeyland.

A place where people were free to be themselves,
without the regulations and intrusions of government,
without the interference and distractions of evil people.
A place where the martial arts could flourish,
and people could experience what the true martial art was like.
A place where people could be free.

And I used to sit and wonder,
How the heck was I supposed to pull this off?
How could I make this happen?
And I mentioned Monkeyland in the newsletter.

Frank was one of the first people I ever taught matrixing to.
Back about 1984 we locked ourselves in the dojo
and worked out until he was a black belt.
Frank read the newsletter,
and he had his own bad case of good dreams.
He wanted a place where, among other things,
he could escape the grind of a society going bad,
where GMO could be defeated,
where solid stock, animal and human both,
could be raised.
And our dreams were going in the same direction.

It took a couple of years, some very intense negotiating,
a bunch of hoops to jump through,
but within a couple of weeks we will be on the land.
Monkeyland.
A ranch free from the contaminations of society.
A Church where people can be encouraged to plumb their depths,
find the true art that is within themselves,
is their inherent nature,
just waiting to come to the surface.

Of course,
there is going to be an immense amount of work,
but,
we are in the right time,
and the right place.

Did you know that people actually love to work?
The country only gets depressed when people aren’t working.

Did you know that people love to solve problems?
With a government telling them no,
with a society of political correctness,
where you have to ask permission to pee in ocean,
people are miserable.

But set them free,
tell them to build something,
tell them that nobody is going to stop them,
and you have paradise each and every single day.

Did you know that some people love the martial arts?
Yes, it’s true,
the brighter and more industrious members of mankind all LOVE the martial arts.

What better gift to the best on earth
than to give them a place where they can let loose their talents,
change the path of mankind,
elevate ALL martial arts!

So,
more to come,
I’ll probably have to set aside a separate section of the newsletter
just to deal with the happenings at Monkeyland.

But,
remember this…
if you are a true martial artist,
if you want to find the truth of yourself,
and if you are willing to work your fingers to the bone,
then you have a bed up here.

Within the month I should have some sort of plans started
to enable visits and instruction and even some possible live in arrangements.

But,
let me say this right now,
study your matrixing.
When you come to visit,
the first thing we’ll do is check out your matrixing.

If you can do your Matrix Karate,
right out of the box,
then we won’t have to spend time teaching you things you should already know,
and we can get right into the deeper teachings.

So here’s the URL for Matrix Karate…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/matrix-karate/

And in a future newsletter
I’ll lay out the complete sequence of study.
But for now,
remember,
it all starts with Matrixing.
Matrixing led me to Monkeyland,
and it’s going to bring you here, too.

Now,
thanks to all,
and special thanks to Frank,
and I’ll be talking to you later.
Have a great work out!

Al

Real Aikido and the Fight with Beavis and Butthead

The Case for Real Aikido

I practice real Aikido, and the rest of the world doesn’t.

Don’t you just love a knucklehead statement like that? I mean, the fellow who makes it has broken rule number one: he thinks he is the only one, and therefore he is knee deep in loco.


real aikido
That said, let me give you a rundown on real Aikido, and what the rest of the world is practicing.

If you are learning a tradition with respect, no matter who the teacher is, no matter what the argument is between form and function, you are learning real Aikido. And, hey, while we’re at it, this statement extends to other classical martial arts, such as karate or tai chi chuan, or whatever.

And, to put it another way…are you learning, or are you fighting?

Now, here comes the part where I offend people. The UFCers and the MMAers are fighting, so they are not doing a martial art. They are doing a martial sport.

A lot of people get upset with me when I say something like this, they take it as a personal attack,and then explain how their school is different.

And that is the dividing point, is their school teaching, or is it promoting fighting?

It is a simple question, with a simple answer, and Beavis and Butthead can’t answer it.

You know Beavis and Butthead? They are the fellows with bad grammar who go to forums and sites and drop comments like UR STOOPID! (note the misspelling), and F*** U! (No asterisks)

Brilliant fellows these, and they don’t study real Aikido. They study ca ca humor and eat with their mouth open and it’s really important who won the fight.

But it’s not important who won the fight. What’s important is whethere an individual is actually learning, becoming more disciplined and aware, exploring the manifestations of spirituality that a human being is.

The real fight, you see, is not between the gladiators in the ring, it is between the edification of the human spirit, and the degradation of the human meatball.

That’s why I study real Aikido, and that is the dividing line one must find in their own art if they are to win the martial art war.

Real Aikido and the Fight with Beavis and Butthead

The Case for Real Aikido

I practice real Aikido, and the rest of the world doesn’t.

Don’t you just love a knucklehead statement like that? I mean, the fellow who makes it has broken rule number one: he thinks he is the only one, and therefore he is knee deep in loco.


real aikido
That said, let me give you a rundown on real Aikido, and what the rest of the world is practicing.

If you are learning a tradition with respect, no matter who the teacher is, no matter what the argument is between form and function, you are learning real Aikido. And, hey, while we’re at it, this statement extends to other classical martial arts, such as karate or tai chi chuan, or whatever.

And, to put it another way…are you learning, or are you fighting?

Now, here comes the part where I offend people. The UFCers and the MMAers are fighting, so they are not doing a martial art. They are doing a martial sport.

A lot of people get upset with me when I say something like this, they take it as a personal attack,and then explain how their school is different.

And that is the dividing point, is their school teaching, or is it promoting fighting?

It is a simple question, with a simple answer, and Beavis and Butthead can’t answer it.

You know Beavis and Butthead? They are the fellows with bad grammar who go to forums and sites and drop comments like UR STOOPID! (note the misspelling), and F*** U! (No asterisks)

Brilliant fellows these, and they don’t study real Aikido. They study ca ca humor and eat with their mouth open and it’s really important who won the fight.

But it’s not important who won the fight. What’s important is whethere an individual is actually learning, becoming more disciplined and aware, exploring the manifestations of spirituality that a human being is.

The real fight, you see, is not between the gladiators in the ring, it is between the edification of the human spirit, and the degradation of the human meatball.

That’s why I study real Aikido, and that is the dividing line one must find in their own art if they are to win the martial art war.

Cheesy Internet Ads and the Martial Arts!

Unlock the Inner you through…Martial Arts?

martial arts style

Find the Real You!

Speaking of Martial Arts, I just read an ad, one of those cheesy internet ads, about unlocking the inner you.

You’re only using 10% of your brain, and wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could unlock the other 90%? Continue reading

New Master Instructor!

A New Master Instructor, Plus…

Why We Study So Many Martial Arts…

Happy first day of the week!
Happy first workout of the week!
Make it a good one,
lose yourself in it,
and your whole week will glow.
True.

Okey doke,
thanks to all who are on the Kang Duk Won course,
don’t forget to set aside time each day,
whittle away at the art,
make it your own.

And,
congrats to Master Instructor Wilhem Stockinger!
Here’s his win…

I had a breakthru in the master instructor course yesterday, man the pieces finally came together…I was…screaming in ecstasy and joy…you are a genius master Al! I am so much more grounded and aligned in movement, it’s fantastic.
I finally got the missing pieces to what was once 6 years of Iu ryu jujutsu, 2 years of Gracie jujutsu,a few years of Muay thai kickboxing, and some Krav Maga and so on…I know I never mentioned my background since it fades away against yours and I was not enrolling into your course to talk about my past but to learn. And I did learn a tremendous amount, which not only corrected my faulty basics in form and execution, but also gave me understanding of form. Sensei, the 6 secrets, man, this is all Jujutsu theory I’ve been trained in for years, but nobody ever explained the principles, unless by practical example, but never the principles behind it. The why and how, not just the what. It was so enlightening. I am starting all over, but now the proper way. Thank you so much. I finally got the crack of technique over strength, of body mechanics over brute force. I am excited to be in the martial arts again. You are the real deal Shihan Alton Case. God bless you!

No,
thanks to you, Will.
Breaking through,
sharing your win,
somebody else is going to be
encouraged to make it, too.

And,
for everybody,
it’s easy,
it’s just how to fix your thinking.
Which makes it the hardest thing you’ll ever do.

Like Will says,
everybody talks about it,
without ever talking about it.
They talk about the surface
and never go into the depths.
They never go into why things work.
Endless drills,
endless techniques,
without ever telling you why.

So,
thanks again Will.
Persistence and tenacity in the martial arts,
that’s what you represent,
which are characteristics of good martial arts.

Okay!
I’m going to write an article on this,
it follows along with what WIll says above,
but I thought I’d mention it here, first.
I like to talk to the intelligent first,
then the masses.
Grin.

Do you know why I teach so many Martial Arts?
Why I am always open to new arts?
Why I listen avidly
when my fellow martial artists talk,
instead of opening my own yap?

It’s true,
like as not,
when the talk starts
I find it much more educational
to listen.

Well,
the reason is this.
If you were drilling a well,
you would need a stable base,
so you could build a high drill,
so you could drill deeper.
When you learn more martial arts,
when you toss the techniques around in your head,
compare and contrast,
fit them into the matrix of all techniques,
then you are building a wide database,
and you can then build a high drill,
and drill deep into your soul.

Data holds you together.
The more data you have,
the more held together you are.

Or,
think about it this way.
If you were going to build a telescope
to see to the furthest star,
then you would need a solid base,
so the telescope wouldn’t be shaken by wind or rain,
or any other force.
Then your sight would be solid and true,
and you could see to those far stars,
without them shimmying and shaking
and being a blur to your sight.

Do you understand?
The more you know,
the deeper you can dig into yourself,
the more of yourself
you can understand.

Simple,
eh?

Yet,
the work to make a wide database
especially in the martial arts,
with all the technique and styles and opinions and…
it can get pretty tough.

And,
it can get tough to keep it all in order,
which is one of the blessings of Matrixing.

Look,
people study,
they get a thousand techniques,
and it can take twenty years to sort it all out,
to learn to think about things in a way
that it all makes sense,
so that all of the data is at your fingertips,
instead of buried in the mass of
thousands of techniques.

So,
instead of lumping everything together,
and training like crazy.
You just put your techniques into a matrix,
fit that matrix to a larger matrix of all martial arts,
and the procedure gets REAL fast.

Oh,
like Will said above,
it can take time,
but not as much,
but,
the rewards once it all clicks,
there’s nothing like it.

It’s not just studying hard forever,
that is taken for granted…
it is making sense out of it quickly,
as fast as you input data and techniques,
that’s how fast you have to make sense out of it all.

Oinky Doinkey!
That‘s about it,
got nothing left to say,
and,
besides,
I’d rather work out than talk.
I’d rather dig deep
than open my yap.

My time of day…
workout time of day!

Don’t forget to straighten out your art…

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

Believe me,
it’s nothing but fun
when everything works
the way it is supposed to work.

Have a Great Work Out!

Al

How Not to Be A Paper Tiger

How to Avoid Being a Paper Tiger

A Paper Tiger is a person who has a certificate and no real knowledge.

To be precise, it is a person who has bought a certificate, or otherwise convinced some fellow to give him one, and he can’t really do the things listed on the certificate.

We used to call this idea, of bought certificates instead of earned, as ‘Paper mills.’ Some guy would just charge money and send paper, and it was just a money making scheme.

Paper tiger is a literal English translation of the Chinese phrase zhǐlǎohǔ (simplified Chinese: 纸老虎; traditional Chinese: 紙老虎), meaning something that seems as threatening as a tiger, but does not withstand challenge.

A Paper tiger is something that seems as threatening as a tiger, but does not withstand challenge.


And, it was pretty cruel, because it misrepresented the martial arts, and it misrepresented the individual with the cert in hand.

Now, I don’t particularly like the notion of Paper Tigers. So let me define what is happening here, and what I decided to do about it.

Some fellow goes to a martial arts school, then stops. Maybe he should stop, maybe he shouldn’t, but he is still left halfway through the ranks, he still wants what he was working for, he still wants to earn his black belt.

Or, even worse, a fellow that never went to a martial art school, but still wants the diploma.

Sometimes these fellows look for the short cut.

Sometimes the head rationalization is massive.

‘Oh, I knew what he (the instructor) was talking about.’ Or, ‘I can fight good, I deserve it.’ Or, ‘well, I’ve been practicing, sort of, so I’m at that rank.’

Do you see all the potential variations here?

But the fellow hasn’t done the work!

Now, I’ll be honest, there will always be people who manage to get away with this. Sometimes they’ll just print up their own certificates.

But I want my signature to mean something when I put it on a certificate. So I did several things.

One thing I did was eliminate ‘poser’ techniques from my courses. These are techniques where the attacker has to wait, to pose, while the defender makes the technique work.

Another is to align the techniques so they are more logical. This makes them easier to learn and make work.

And, then there is video. I can tell when a person is faking it. I can spot even a mental hesitation and ‘think’ in the middle of the form.

And it is easy to see when a technique isn’t working.

And, because of The Master Instructor Course, I can give a person spot on instruction that will help him make it work.

I don’t care if a person comes to me and isn’t quite competent, I only care if I can’t make him competent. I just want to make him into a real tiger!

So by the structure of my courses, and video testing, and the VERY high worth of the art I am teaching, I’ve had good results, and, as far as I know, no Paper Tigers.

See, the thing is this, let’s say a guy comes to me with head rationalizations, and he wants a certificate…when he sees the logic, when the error is pointed out without making him feel bad, then the Paper Tiger becomes…a Tiger.

That’s what I want, martial artists who are real tigers, and, truth, that’s what the people who sign up for courses want. They WANT to be real martial artists. And it is my duty to get them there.

The reason I tell you this is so that when you sign up for the Kang Duk Won Karate Course, the Best Online Karate Course in the World, you will know that you are in good hands.

This has been a page about making a real tiger out of a paper tiger.