Tag Archives: shaolin kung fu

The Sorta Mixed Up History of Kenpo Karate

A Book on Five Martial Arts!

Three things today!

First, more books republished.
There’s a list of them at the bottom of this newsletter.

Second, I’m back on linkedin.
Somebody stole my site
and I had to jump through hoops,
but it looks like it is under my authorship once again.

Third,
here’s an article I wrote a while ago,
which has not been available
except through buying
The Biggest Martial Arts Lesson of All!
which is a ten volume collection of my articles.
Lord,
I’m going to have to republish the whole ten volumes!
But,
enjoy this one,
and I’ll be putting them in the newsletter.

Here go…

Hey Mate! What’s Yer Kenpo System?

Maybe you remember that great scene in Enter the Dragon where the bad guy asks ‘What’s yer style’ of Bruce Lee? As over the top as that statement appears, it points up the differences of arts, and how confusing such a thing as lineage can be. In no art is this as true as in the art of Kenpo.
Many people think Ed Parker created the style of Kenpo, but he actually only popularized it. And, to be honest, he more than likely added to the confusion of the art. He created something like five different versions, and he drew from Karate and Kung Fu and whatever happened to be on his mind that day.

Kenpo got its start in Japan. There is some confusion as to the correct spelling, some people saying Kenpo, and some saying Kempo. Kenpo usually refers to martial arts stemming from China, and Kempo refers to the more Japanese oriented arts.

There is confusion on this point as there is not agreement. Further, there is not always common lineage. That said, Kenpo, although believed to mean ‘Fist Law,’ is actually ‘Quanfa,’ which means Kung Fu.

The main types of the Kenpo in the USA come from James Mitose. Master Mitose is sometimes a controversial teacher, for he was tried and convicted of murder and extortion. He served his time in Folsom Prison.

Mr. Mitose taught William Chow, who taught Ed Parker. Mr. Parker, as has been described, popularized the art of Kenpo. Students of Mr. Chow include Adriano Emperado, Ralph Castro, Sam Kuaho, and others.

Names of the arts taught by these people include Shaolin Kenpo, Kajukenpo, American Kenpo, Kara-Ho Kempo, and many other arts. There is an abundance of secondary students who were taught by these people. Kenpo has also continued to grow conceptually, drawing from many other arts for kata, self defense applications, and so on.

Though Kenpo grew at a tremendous pace, and though the lineage is sometimes difficult to follow, as is the art itself, there is much value in it. Many people ‘wet their feet’ in the convenient ‘Strip Mall Dojos,’ and then continue their studies elsewhere. Still, to define the true system of kenpo, and to list the roots and influences that resulted in that art can be a daunting task.

Matrix Kung Fu…Monkey Boxing, simplifies and condenses Chinese Kenpo Karate. Head on over over to Monster Martial Arts and make sure you pick up a free book while you’re there.

HAVE A GREAT WORK OUT!

Al

PS ~ you should sign up for the blog at
https://alcase.wordpress.com

It’s expensive to pay Mailchimp and I want to cancel it.

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

You can find the following books on such places as Thriftbooks, Barnes and Noble. If you can’t find them there they will be on Amazon.

The Last Martial Arts Book
A book on Nine Square Diagram Boxing. You won’t need another martial art after this one! Five hours of video!

Advanced Tai Chi Chuan for Real Self Defense!
Another book on Nine Square Diagram Boxing.

How to Fix Karate! (1)
Analyzes and presents the original self defense techniques of Karate! Five hours of video between book one and two.

How to Fix Karate! (2)
Analyzes and presents the original self defense techniques of Karate! Five hours of video between book one and two.

Five Martial Arts
The forms, two man forms for five different arts, shows how the arts progress from one to another.

Black Belt Yoga
Arranges the asanas in the correct order. Makes the art quickeer and easiere to learn.

The Book of Matrixing
Includes three books describing exactly what Matrixing is and how to use it. This is the science behind the martial arts.

The Book of Neutronics
Includes five books which describe exactly how Neutronics works. This is the science behind the science of matrixing.

MORE COMING!

Back in the Beginning of Kenpo…

A Bit of Kenpo History

I began studying Kenpo in 1967. 

It was so unknown that it was called Kenpo Karate so it could be identified with the art of Karate. Not that that many people knew what karate was.

Kenpo was born in Japan. There are many lineages, but the specific Kenpo that is so widely known these days came from James Mitose, Thunderbolt Chow, Ed Parker, and finally, an instructor near you.

Martial Arts were not studied widely at the time, and usually it was fellows who were tough, who looked forward to the street fight, who studied them.

Kenpo came from Okinawan Karate and Japanese Jujitsu. There were other sourcss, many and varied, but the American style Kenpo you might study was likely based, at least in the beginning, on these arts.

Right from the outset Americans realized that Kenpo could be marketed more easily through tournaments, so we studied our freestyle rabidly, and we looked forward to the weekend trips.

For such a violent art, the participants at these tournaments proved to be a polite bunch. Schools were located a distance apart and there wasn’t much competition. Instructors actually looked forward to seeing each other, to comparing notes, and even learning a ‘secret’ technique or two.

And, outside of school, fights did happen. Proud warriors, Kenpo stylists, all martial artists, were happy to step up to a challenge, take umbrage at a veiled insult, trade fists with a goon.

We were more rabid back then. We didn’t do ten or twenty kicks and think we were done, we would do a couple of hundred and chide ourselves for being lazy. We would do forms by the hour. See if we could do 60 forms in an hour.

In short, we would exhaust ourselves. We would go for a run, do some weightlifting, and then freestyle for a couple of hours in class, and know that we were doing it right.

Mistakes? We made a ton of them. But over time we fixed them; the martial arts tend to be self fixing; the turn of the foot, the line of the wrist, the physics of the universe corrected us and were our teachers.

And now, near fifty years later, all we wish is one thing: to do it all again. To do Karate and Kenpo, to throw and kick and punch to our hearts content.

And we feel sorry for all those people who quit early, or who were born too late, or who were just too lax in their training to really find the truth: You are what you do, that is your measure, and that is your worth.

If you want a REALLY good book on Kenpo, consider ‘How to Create Kenpo’ by Al Case. It has the real history, the one you don’t hear much about, plus a section on how to do forms, plus 150 kenpo techniques, thoroughly analyzed so that you can be the best Kenpoka you can be. That’s How to Create Kenpo. The hard work is up to you.

SPECIAL NOTE: How to Create Kenpo went out of print, but it is due to be republished in the very short future.

EXTRA SPECIAL NOTE: Here is a website with the nasty history behind Kenpo. The Man Who Killed Kenpo. The comments are truly amazing!

Don’t forget to join the blog.

 

Finding and Maintaining Health through Martial Arts!

Duc Tape and WD40 in the Martial Arts

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

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

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

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

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

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

This makes life hard to live.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Obligatory ad for this wonderful bit of wisdom…

The Last Martial Arts Book: Nine Square Diagram Boxing

GET THE EDITION WITH THE 5 HOURS OF VIDEO LINKS!

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

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

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

Have a great work out,
and HanaKwanMass to all!

Al

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

‘The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.
(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)
My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them for 5 stars.
‘The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.
‘The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.
‘Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.
My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings
so hopefully you’ll find the book that works for you.

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

Eight Fighting Techniques to Base Your Martial Art On!

Only Eight Martial Arts Techniques!

Yep,

there are only about eight martial arts techniques,

everything else is fluff and stuff.

Of course there are a thousand deviations,

and they are valuable for your overall education,

but,

when you get to the down and dirty,

there are only eight techniques.

Now,

this is not boxing.

This not padded gloves to dissipate force,

and eliminate grabs.

This is somebody strikes

or is going to strike,

and you either slab and grab his arm,

or you shoot straight in

going for the one punch knock out.

One strike one kill,

you know?

Of course,

as everybody knows,

a plan only works until the fight starts.

SO,

once you have tried to stick your fingers in his eyes,

and MAYBE tried a follow up body shot…

you will find yourself on the inside of his arm

or on the outside of his arm.

You don’t have time for a poser,

he’s not going to wait while you do all your tricks.

You only have one chance.

And,

derivation here,

what I am going to tell you works best,

and perhaps at all

if you ‘shock and lock’ him.

Which is to say,

you simply distract him with a slap or an elbow or something

so that you have an opportunity to  apply one of the eight techniques.

If you have twenty years experience

you can consider not doing the ‘shock and lock,’

but that’s at your own risk.

If you are on the inside of his arm

elbow the head and push his arm up into a ‘chicken wing’ elbow lock.

Or, elbow the area under the armpit and snake your arms around

to a ‘figure four’ armlock.

Either of these can deviate out to arm bars or splitting techniques

(lower body goes in the opposite direction of the upper body)

or spinning him around and angling him up to what I call

a ‘vertical arm pin.’

that’s two techniques with a few deviations.

third, foot sweep,

can be deviated into knee to groin

or various kicks,

but you want to pull his leg viciously

and make him face plant

so you can walk on his neck.

Four,

if you haven’t locked in that body shot,

do it now.

Reverse punch,

and I often teach the ‘pubic punch,’

which is angling the punch down towards the hip joint.

He collapses on the ground and it takes no special force or effort.

Now,

if he strikes,

and you end up on the outside of his arm,

cool.

Inside means you have targets,

but you have also presented targets.

Outside means you have less targets,

but have presented almost no targets for him.

Slap and grab,

or perhaps just let him punch between your arms.

First technique is simply an arm bar,

or an elbow roll deviation.

Second technique,

elbow to the head and extend your arm in front of his face,

and slide your leg behind him to split him.

(top goes one way, bottom goes the other)

Third technique,

elbow under the arm,

split him by going under the arm.

Whether you split him by going under or over his arm

is often dependent on the relative height 

of your opponent.

You can add sweeping to this,

because there is an inherent sweep in the split.

fourth technique, punch.

Hard.

Break things in his body.

So that is the list of eight techniques,

which eight lead to a variety of deviations,

if you enter one of the eight,

the deviations become apparent with practice.

He punches and you are inside.

1) elbow head and elbow lock over his arm

2) elbow armpit and elbow lock under his arm

3) Punch (pubic preferred)

4) Sweep w leg options

He punches and you are on the outside

5) break and/or arm bar/elbow roll

6) split above the arm

7) split under the arm

8) punch

Now,

I know there are going to be all sorts of objections here.

Some of the objections will be that you simply don’t understand my terms,

but if you examine the description of the techniques,

you will find them in your art,

or your art is severely lacking.

Some of the objections will be that you have a thousand techniques in your art

and you simply can’t give them up.

But I am not asking you to give up your data base.

I am merely asking you to focus on that first punch in a fight

and do some real karate.

Some of the objections will be because there are no pictures

and it is difficult to mock up these techniques in your mind.

Why don’t you kick?

Kicking is for when you are far away

and kicks take time to become ‘one strike one kill,’

and you want to close and break or disable

as much as you can in a direct and short period of time.

Karate is not a far away polite business.

It is mean and nasty and as brutal as you can make it.

Why are you not making the split one of the techniques on the inside?

Because you have to go through the closure of distance,

and that is the progression of closing distance after the fight starts

What the heck is ‘shock and lock,’ and do I have time for it?

It is hitting on the way in,

and the way I have set it up there is extreme fluidity of motion

that will make the progression from slap and grab to shock and lock

 and to the final technique incredibly fast and virtually unavoidable.

What about wrist locks?

They are there,

but it is difficult to grab a fist in the middle of a fight.

It is easier when he is there,

and maybe trying to back out of his predicament.

And there are other objections.

But if you study what I said here,

and just drill the eight techniques for a short time,

and just explore your position…

everything will become apparent.

Incidentally,

what I say here is in all my courses,

but I never really talk about it

except as the technique progresses.

But it really is the essence of my Monkey Boxing.

I really should write a book on this little thing I have said here.

But…time. Sigh.

Okay,

guys and gals,

hope you got something out of all this,

and feel free to look at…

How to Fix Karate:

A Karate Training and Workout Book

 (Two Volumes)

https://www.amazon.com/How-Fix-Karate-One-Training/dp/B0B6L5DSD1/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1RWF2LRFTSRZO&keywords=how+to+fix+karate&qid=1699188789&s=books&sprefix=how+to+fix+karate%2Cstripbooks%2C136&sr=1-2

(There is a version with five hours of video

but you have to hunt for it on Amazon)

And don’t forget to give me five stars!

Have a great work out!

Al

Don’t forget to check out the interview

https://anchor.fm/dale-gillilan/episodes/S1E10—Al-Case-e12e3np

The Last Martial Arts Book’ has 12 ratings for 5 stars.

(There is a video version of this book with no stars yet)

My two yoga books have 9 ratings between them  for 5 stars.

The Book of Five Arts’ has 8 ratings for 5 stars.

The Science of Government’ has 7 ratings for 5 stars.

Chiang Nan’ has 6 ratings for 5 stars.

My novel, ‘Monkeyland,’ has 5 ratings for 5 stars

That’s a lot of good ratings

so hopefully you’ll find that useful

find the book/course that is right for you,

and matrix your own martial arts.

The Essence of Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now,
obligatory ad…

4a Blinding Steel (Matrixing Weapons)

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

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

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

Many thanks!

Sifu Justin Harris
Dragon Palm Tai Chi and Kung Fu

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

Now…everybody…
have a great work out!
Al

And don’t forget to check out the interview

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

THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT!

The True Path of the Martial Arts

The True Path of the Martial Arts

In the next couple of months
I’m going to be rewriting the website.
There are a lot of reasons for this.
I basically built Monster Martial Arts
as I progressed as a person.
This resulted in a specific path.
A True Way.
A method that works,
ties all the martial arts together,
and gets the student there FAST.

Unfortunately,
I was just plugging in stuff as I did it.
No rhyme or reason,
just putting it up
and moving along
as fast as I could.

The result is that Monster,
while enlightening,
doesn’t present the path as I envision it.
So I’m going to fix that.
Following is a graphic that I will use
to restructure the website,
and present the art in the correct order.

Now,
the way this works is simple.
The boxes on the left side
are the arts in order.

The boxes in the middle are the courses
specific to the arts.

Obviously,
you would simply do the arts
as I have listed them in the middle boxes.

The box on the right
are supplementary materials.
I will be drawing on those as I see fit,
as they fit into the line up of arts and courses.

Now,
there is much room for jiggling and joggling.
For instance,
just to name one specific,
which should come first?
Tai Chi or Monkey Boxing.

Technically,
Monkey Boxing would be the first.
But culturally,
Tai Chi should come first.
So I chose my order of arts,
but that doesn’t mean you are bound by it.

And,
what about weapons?
TEchnically,
it is at the end,
but we all know that weapons
can be plugged in anywhere.

So you can do the arts in any order you wish.
Although I always recommend Matrixing first,
as that is the core of the logic,
of the science,
of the martial arts.

So,
that is what I am working on,
and I will keep you posted,
and even set up a dummy site first,
and invite you to go through it
and offer comments and criticisms as you wish.

Now,
I know I’m not giving you
the secrets of the universe this time,
although one could say that offering
a completely sane pathway for the martial arts
IS a secret of the universe,
but stay tuned.
The pearls are coming
so don’t be swine.

And,
that said,
here’s a little fourth of July gift for you.

http://churchofmartialarts.com/realstat/mtrixdictinry.pdf

I wrote this back in 2002,
and I put it on almost every course,
and it has even been pirated
and put on the internet,
and I never bothered invoking copyright
because it is so valuable.
The definitions illustrate matrixing,
and highlight the real science of the martial arts.

Now,
obligatory ad…
Got an injury?
Want to get more flexible?
Try this…

4b Yogata (The Yoga Kata)

Now,
have some great fire works and…
BLOW UP EVERYTHING!

Have a great work out!
Al

And don’t forget to check out the interview

BTW
Have you checked out my novel?
Monkeyland?

Increasing Power in the Martial Arts with Formulas

Newsletter 1012
The Formula for Power in the Martial Arts!

Good morning!
Happy Mother’s Day!

I thought you might like to look at
formulas in the martial arts today.
This is actually pretty hefty stuff,
and you might want to have a dictionary at hand,
especially when I talk about things like
mass, energy, and other physics terms.

First,
energy is the capacity for work.
Work is the amount of weight lifted.
So the deeper the stance,
the more weight your muscles feel.
The more weight you feel,
the harder you work.
The harder you work,
the stronger you get.
This strength is channeled to the tan tien
and then to the rest of the body.

Second,
when practicing,
I move slow.
Moving slowly increases the amount of time
I am lifting the weight of my body.
Thus, I am lifting more,
thus, I am getting stronger.

Third,
when doing forms,
I use dynamic tension.
Dynamic tension is when you use
muscles against muscles,
and even
muscles against themselves.

Fourth,
when doing applications
I increase speed,
because
speed times mass increases the mass.
100 pounds of punch at one second
becomes 200 pounds of punch at 2 seconds.
And so on.

Fifth,
I try to make sure my body is properly aligned.
This creates a connection from the fist to the planet,
or the technique to the planet,
so when I hit somebody,
it actually feels like I am hitting them with the planet.
And when I get hit,
it feels like they are hitting the planet.

Sixth,
I try to use CBM
‘Coordinated Body Motion,’
all body parts move at the same time
starting at the same time
ending at the same time,
contributing appropriate to their
size, mass, angle, and so on.

Seventh,
I try to CBM all the formulas.
Putting them together when appropriate,
focusing on specific formulas when appropriate,
and so on.

And,
of course,
I practice all the time.
The more I practice
the more these formulas and concepts work.

So that’s it.

Oh,
there are lots of other formulas in Matrixing.
But these are pretty specific to action and movement.
And they should help you
when you analyze what you are doing and why.
They should really make your art POP!

Now,
here’s the thing…

I learned the first formula from doing Karate
I learned the second formula from doing Tai Chi Chuan.
I learned the third formula from doing Pan Gai Noon.
I learned the fourth formula from Karate.
And so on.

So you have to study a lot of different arts
to get all this.

You know what?
Evolution of an Art has three arts on it.

Pan Gai Noon
Kang Duk Won
Kwon Bup

It’s a good place to start.
The price of a night on the town
and it will feed your mind and spirit for years.
It will certainly help you make serious inroads
into the formulas I listed here.

Here’s the link…

Evolution of an Art!

Now,
go get your mommy some flowers!
And have a great work out!
Al

Evolution of an Art!

BTW ~ have you read my novel…Monkeyland?

Controlling Your Mind in the Martial Arts

Newsletter 1009

Making Your Mind Behave…

Good morning! Good morning!
I made it to Clearwater, Florida,
and am advertising for students.
Yippee!
Back in the saddle again.

So how are you guys doing?
Do you work out every single day?
I do.
Can’t stop.
Even if I’m beat and battered,
then I simply work out slowly,
tai chi style.
Tai Chi is a wonderful art,
and outside of matrixed martial arts,
it is one of the two most powerful classical arts I know.
(the other is karate)

Unfortunately,
most people think it is for health,
and old people,
and not much use for self defense.

I’ll tell you something interesting,
I don’t think I really began to truly understand
martial arts and self defense
until I began to delve into Tai Chi.

Oh,
I could beat people up.
But not if they were better and faster than me.
But once I learned Tai Chi
I began to relax in combat,
to see what people were going to do
before they did it.

The trick,
of course,
is to develop the patience.
When you are first doing that slow ‘ward off’ move,
you ask,
how can this work?
Aside form being slow,
it doesn’t have much application.
But the secret of learning
is to keep looking at something
until you understand it.

So I looked and looked
and went slower,
and…here it comes…
FORCED MY MIND TO SLOW DOWN!

Yes,
your mind is an errant child,
throwing distractions at you.
But if you MAKE yourself move slowly,
and MAKE your mind accept a different mode of thinking,
then everything becomes understandable,
and even those weird moves suddenly make sense.
And you find the applications.
And you find out that there is a vast world
of balance and sensitivity
of perception and appreciation.

Unfortunately,
if you don’t do this,
if you don’t MAKE your mind behave,
you miss out on all this wonder.
And you actually miss out
on a lot of the true meaning of the Martial Arts.

Just saying…

So here’s the Tai Chi Package.
Will help you look,
will help you MAKE your mind behave,
will show you some of the incredible self defenses,
that other arts miss out on.

2ca Tai Chi Chuan Package

If you’re here in Clearwater I hope to see you some day,
And…
Everybody have a great work out!!

Al

Justin Earns 4th Black Belt!

Newsletter 1003

A New Fourth Black Belt!

Happy Covid!
Hope you’re enjoying your vacation,
and that all is well with your friends and families.

Haven’t been writing much lately,
well I have,
actually I’ve been writing 8 hours a day,
but it’s been in other fields.
Simply,
I need to make some money.

That lame excuse out in the universe,
let me say…

CONGRATS TO JUSTIN HARRIS
Justin just earned his black in Shaolin Butterfly,
which, with the other arts he has studied
earns him a fourth degree black belt.

WELL DONE!

Now that’s a guy who takes advantage of the Corona crisis!

Okay,
Since I haven’t been writing much lately,
you can always catch up on old writings.
First,
the inexpensive way,
just go to
https://alcase.wordpress.com
and start reading the blog.
There’s probably
a 1000 blogs there.

Or,
if you want to go a bit more in depth,
I compiled all my articles in a ten book series.
The Biggest Martial Arts Lesson

That’s a lot of articles,
near a thousand,
and they cover EVERYTHING!
Or,
you could just start ordering courses,
stop reading about and start experiencing.

You know,
I came across an interesting question today.
It was something to do with how many defenses you need
to really protect yourself
I started to chuckle,
cause the guy had it backwards.
You don’t worry about how many things you can do,
you just worry about what he is going to do.
If you are worried about what you will do
you are introverting,
and not looking out,
to where the danger is.
So look outwards
and learn to analyze strikes.

Do you know how many punches there are?
Six.
That’s all.
So let me cover this in more or less logical (matrixed) fashion.

There are two punches left and right
There are two types of punches straight and circular
There are two modes of punches snap and thrust

When you matrix these, and toss out things that don’t work (you don’t snap a circular punch, for instance) You end up with six possible strikes. Of course they could sail in fron odd directions, but still, only six…

left straight snap
left straight thrust
left circular
right straight snap
right straight thrust
right circular

So,
first, watch for the kick.
No danger from punches or other strikes,
maybe from weapons,
but you will usually see if there is a weapon pretty quick.

Second, as you step in
the kick gets jammed,
easy to handle with a retreat or a turned hip, etc.
Now you have to worry about the punch,
but worry introverts,
so you just watch him.
I know some people say you have to train
for punches from the rear,
yes,
but as soon as you turn to him he is in the front,
so front training is where the punch is coming from.

Watch his feet to see if he is angling for a punch
watch his shoulders to see if he is loading
sidestep slowly,
always being ready,
and always moving so he can’t quite fix on you.

Third,
don’t worry about knees and elbows,
he has to close to use those,
and that is so obvious it is ridiculous.

And there it is.
Fighting is easy,
reading an opponent is easy.

Of course,
it all means nothing
if you don’t spend some time
hitting things so you can feel what it feels like
practicing forms so your body is in top top shape,
and just training like your life depends on it
because,
darn it,
it does.

Anyway,
that is sort of how you apply simple logic (matrixing) to fighting.

And,
obligatory ad,
you really should look into my courses,
because they are all like this,
simple and thorough,
realistic and fun.

That all said,
don’t worry about the Covid crisis,
because worrying is introverting
and life is out there.
Instead,
train hard and strengthen the immune system,
best medical advice I can give you.

Sensei Case

Have a great work out!

Al

Here is ‘The Last Martial Arts Book,’
Best one I have ever written,

Nine Square Diagram Boxing

How Martial Arts Have changed Over 50 Years

Newsletter 988

Martial Arts Changing Over the Last 50 Years

When I began martial arts,
back in 1967,
things were different.

At this point you expect me to say something to the effect of…
we were more ‘dedicated,’
we were willing to suffer bruises and breaks,
we walked 20 miles,
barefoot,
through the driving snow,
uphill both ways.

Nope.
Has nothing to do with that.
You see,
I have been in modern schools,
I have seen people train until they couldn’t stand,
I have seen people suffer injuries and keep going.
I have seen that uncommon degree of dedication
that the martial arts create in individuals.

I am talking about knowledge.
Let me give you an example.

Do you do the horse stance?
Can you do Teki 1 for an hour?
Can you hold a ‘horse meditation’ pose
for an hour?

Nope.

Most modern schools no longer practice the horse stance.
At least,
I have never seen them.
They don’t force themselves to do low stanced forms.
And in this they are different than
the way we did things fifty years ago.

So,
why is the horse stance important?
It’s just a weird squat, right?
so what’s the big deal?

Okay,
here we go,
see if you can stay with me.

If you stand on straight legs
you don’t work.
Your legs don’t work.
You can stand on two legs for hours,
no prob.

If you stand in a deep horse,
legs bent,
you work like a mofo.
You sweat and strain,
and…the tan tien has to produce more energy.

The tan tien starts to work.

So you do it again.
And you last a half a minute longer.
And you do it again,
and again,
and over a month or so you start to notice weird things.

By breathing deeply,
and imagining that you are breathing to the tan tien,
a ‘place’ a couple of inches below the navel,
you are able to stand in a horse longer.
Your legs don’t shake as much,
and you begin to feel the energy coming out of the tan tien.

You realize that your legs are working harder,
so your tan tien is working harder,
and you are experiencing a weird sort of body energy.
An energy that Joe from the western world doesn’t know exists.

And,
here it gets interesting,
you start moving differently.
You brace in stance and people can’t move you.
Your arms become unbendable as you wish.
You stop using muscle and start using energy,
as from the tan tien,
to do certain types of work.
Most of all,
you move differently,
energy courses out from the tan tien,
goes through the arms,
becomes an unstoppable force
that is directed through and out from
your well structured karate form.

What is happening is
if you practice low stances,
doing karate forms,
that little thing called a tan tien
will ignite.
and…

THE MOTOR OF YOUR BODY WILL TURN ON.

It will change the way you move,
the way you treat life,
the way life treats you.

But,
most schools no longer practice the deep stances,
and especially the deep horse stance.
And,
here is the sad thing,
if the instructor insists on it,
students leave in flocks and droves.
Don’t want to work.
Aren’t willing to make the sacrifice.
Can’t put up with a little pain.
It’s not fun.

So…the martial arts are different
than when I first began them 50 years ago.
People are still willing to suffer,
but they don’t understand things like the horse stance,
so they end up fighting,
going to tournaments,
softening the experience with padding,
and they never get the true karate.

And,
here is something really weird.
Gichin Funakoshi,
some 50 years ago,
said much the same thing.

He said that the karate he saw
was not the karate he learned….50 years before.

Did he just observe the same thing I did?
Or was there some super secret that they were doing
that I missed.

Uh oh.

I recommend Outlaw Karate,
because I took the most important techniques
from the two most workable systems I have ever seen,
and combined them in one system.
It really works,
and you will have an opportunity
to work that horse stance the way I recommend.

3b Outlaw Karate

Have a great work out!

Al

3b Outlaw Karate