Martial Arts Geometry!
My initial thoughts on the martial arts,
the stuff that led me through to matrixing
was all geometric.
For instance,
way back in Kenpo I realized
the body has two halves.
A line right down the center,
with each side approximating the other.
Easy peasy.
This led me to one of my first questions.
Why didn’t the techniques I was learning
work on both sides of the body.
I was doing Kenpo,
and the fellow would attack with the right hand
and I might use a right handed defense
but if he attacked with the exact, same hand
in the same manner,
the mirror of my defense
the left handed version,
wouldn’t work.
That frustrated me.
Why didn’t Ed design the techniques
so they worked on both sides?
This,
incidentally
is what I call a ‘universal technique.’
This led me to simplify techniques
and focus on the basics.
Kenpo-ists thought it was sacrilege,
but it made me rethink everything
in a more traditional and classical karate mode.
In other words,
Ed was moving away from the classical,
and I was simplifying
and reverse engineering
to get back to the classical.
This was probably one of the reasons
I found the classical to be such a breath of fresh air
when I finally moved over to it.
It makes no sense to memorize 200 techniques
for the right hand
(opening the opponent)
and 200 techniques for the left hand
(closing the technique).
How are you going to remember which of 400 techniques
to use for two sides of the body?
Why not just use a small number of techniques
that worked no matter if you were opening the opponent,
or closing him?
Mind you,
I didn’t discount or neglect my learning in Kenpo
when I switched to the classical.
There were things I learned in Kenpo
that made my studies easier.
There were things I knew
that my fellow classical students didn’t know.
Which is why I tell people
you can’t learn just one martial art
and think you know the martial arts.
If a guy has a black belt in one art,
he is an expert in one range,
or one geometry of the art.
He is, for instance,
a black belt in Kenpo,
but not the martial arts.
If a guy has black belts in several martial arts,
then he could call himself a black belt of all martial arts.
This is why I tell people
a couple of times a year
to pick up a new art.
I do it at Xmas.
I do it when the season changes.
I especially do it when summer is here.
People have more time during the summer.
The days are longer,
the mind set changes in a subtle manner.
You will find the results of my initial research
in the books
How to Fix Karate (Volume One)
How to Fix Karate (Volume Two)
Just make sure you get the versions of these books
with over 5 hours of video links.
How to Fix Karate will fix your martial art,
show the simpler and more universal methods I developed,
some of which were realized only because I knew Kenpo,
or other martial arts.
And,
if you only know one martial art,
this might be the second one.
Have a great work out!
Al
And thanks to everybody who picked up my book,
Advanced Tai Chi Chuan for Real Self Defense!
Don’t forget to give me five stars.
Those ratings help my sales.
Don’t forget to check out the interview
https://anchor.fm/dale-gillilan/episodes/S1E10—Al-Case-e12e3np
‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.
(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)
My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them for 5 stars.
‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars
That’s a lot of good ratings
so hopefully you’ll find the book that works for you.
How to Fix Karate:
A Karate Training and Workout Book
(Two Volumes)
