Tag Archives: karate zen

Training to Relax in the Martial Arts

Newsletter 816

Relaxing is the only way to find the True Martial Arts

I remember reading of Koichi Tohei,
many years ago,
and some scientists asked if they could test his ki.
Like, on machines.

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Now this isn’t a smart idea.
Ki is an energy motivated by thought,
sometimes the energy can be registered,
but the thought never can,
so science often proves there is no such thing as ki.
Can’t be measured…doesn’t exist.
Which is the same reasoning
that kept the world flat for so many centuries.
They just don’t what to measure,
and there isn’t a machine in existence
that can measure thought.

That said,
the test went round and round,
they couldn’t explain what Koichi was doing,
and they couldn’t figure out the readings they were getting,
and he,
probably with a diabolical sense of humor,
told them he could slow his heart down.

They said nonsense,
a human being couldn’t control the nervous system in that way.
So he did it.
He dropped it some 30 beats,
then sped it up again,
then slowed it down.
And the scientists were really confused.

So let’s talk about what you are supposed to do
with your mind in the martial arts.

First,
forget it.
It’s just a bunch of memories.
Get rid of the past,
at least ignore it,
and you are more in the present,
and then you can better control your body.
Logical, right?
But too simple.
People have a hard time buying into this simplicity.

So,
in Karate,
we trained so that the mind
didn’t become excited,
and so that we kept looking,
and ignored emotion.
Ignored the emotion of fighting.
Didn’t feel the anxiety,
or panic,
or sudden beating of the heart
as the world devolved to chaos.

Note that I am moving at the same time.

When somebody throws a punch at me
I actually slow down.
My mind looks right past any memories,
and I focus on the moment.
I stop reacting,
even to my own training,
and start moving with the person.
In real time.

Now,
there are MANY examples of this in the world.
The baseball player,
for instance,
the guy way out in the field,
takes off…AT THE CRACK OF THE BAT!
Not before it,
not after it,
but at the same time.
AND,
he moves intuitively to where the ball is going.
He attempts to ‘meet’ the ball,
at some specified time and place.

But how did he know where the ball was going…
at THE CRACK OF THE BAT!

There are other examples,
but this is my favorite,
probably because everybody knows what I am talking about.
Especially if they have played baseball.

If you have ever had a sixth sense,
known when something was going to happen before it happened,
felt somebody walk behind you (hairs on end),
that is you,
putting aside memories,
and perceiving directly.

In Karate,
it happened about the time I got to Black Belt.
When I got there I began to focus,
without excitement or distraction,
on what was happening.
And it really screwed people up,
when I displayed no reaction time.

Reaction comes from ‘react’
which means you are so immersed in memories (or training)
that you can’t perceive directly.

Signals have to travel through the body to create motion,
instead of you,
apart from your body,
just creating motion.

Okay,
I’ve talked long enough,
probably left as much confusion as enlightenment.
But here’s the trick…
You have to train with people
in a system which understands this.
In which the techniques support this,
the forms are aligned and orderly.
The freestyle is not a fight,
but a procedure of learning how to look.
Not getting excited,
not getting distracted by emotions,
but calming yourself
so that you don’t get excited.

I’ve done the best I could
to give you a good system.
In fact…systemS.

Here are the systems…
http://monstermartialarts.com/courses/

But you have to work,
and work hard.
You have to get the idea that I’m talking about in your mind.
You have to force yourself to calm,
to put aside excitement,
and become cool and machinelike in your actions.

Good luck with this,
in spite of all the simplicity of my systems,
it is still hard.

It’s hard to restrain emotion,
put aside memories,
memories that you sometimes don’t even recognize as existing,
and function on a high level.

But it is possible.
Good work out to you.

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/courses/

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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.