Tag Archives: shaolin kung fu

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

How to Become Truly Creative in Your Martial Arts Training!

Newsletter 934

Outside the Martial Arts Box!

I used to ask my instructor
what he did to get better.
What did he work on?
What were his training methods?
He answered me:
‘I just do the forms.’
But he could stick his index finger
through a board and leave a hole.
Obviously,
there had to be something more.
It took me a while,
but I figured out the ‘extra ingredient.’
Going outside the box.

For instance,
I’ve written about his kicking bag.
We couldn’t go to a store and buy a bag back then,
we had to make our own.
I bought a duffle bag,
packed it with sawdust,
used it for a while.
It was a true piece of…stuff.
But it worked,
and I practiced,
and my kicks got better.
He did the same thing,
sort of.
He was able to find the canvas ‘sleeves.
He filled it with sawdust,
and the thing was too light,
didn’t pack right,
fell out of shape after a few hundred kicks.
So he experimented,
going ‘outside the box,’
and packed it with sawdust and water.
It got moldy.
He tried adding bleach.
Got soggy,
and he tried other methods.
His stroke of
outside the box
genius?
He cut newspapers in circles,
and stacked the circles in the bag.
Rock hard,
never fell out of shape,
light enough to hang without bending the rafters,
and so on.
This is true ‘out of the box’ thinking.
He did something totally unique,
nobody had EVER done anything like this,
and likely haven’t since then.
But his kicks were truly…
outside the box.

So,
let me describe the trap you are currently in,
which stops you from thinking outside the box.
I came across a fellow on the net,
and he was talking about if bags get too hard
you can’t kick them.
And he’s going into the physics,
and how it is physically impossible
according to the rules of the universe,
and so on.
If my instructor had ever paid attention to the physics…
he never would have made that bag.
He would have been trapped by,
not the physics,
but the belief system surrounding physics.

I was once told that a bumble bee can’t fly.
His weight is too much,
his wings too stubby,
according to physics,
the bumble bee can’t fly.
Thank god the bumble bee doesn’t know physics.
Thank god the bumblebee has his own belief system.

And we get all these athletes
training by physics,
eating the food,
using the training devices,
following regimens described by people
who know physics.

Before the four minute mile was cracked,
it was considered impossible.
No human could ever do that.
Now,
on the top tier of runners,
you’re sort of a wannabe
if you can’t break the four minute mile.
But the physics didn’t change.
What changed was people’s belief in physics.
Or,
they didn’t accept the physics,
and they went ahead and broke the rules.
Went outside the box.
Did something that nobody believed they could do,
just because,
in their supreme moment of ignorance,
they believed in themselves,
and ignored the idiots.
They went outside the box.

When my instructor kicked that bag,
it was too hard,
he should have broken his foot.
But,
he figured out how to kick the bag a little,
and his foot got stronger,
but more important,
his belief that he COULD kick that bag got stronger.
And,
as he kept kicking that bag,
his kicks slowly improved,
and his belief system,
his idea of what it was possible for him to do,
changed.

So that is how you go outside the box.
You get an idea,
you chip away at it,
you look at it,
and you expand your belief system
beyond the belief system
of those that are trapped by belief systems.

Now,
you don’t have a unique idea?
Yes,
you do.
When the instructor has you do ten kicks in class,
do eleven.
Go home and do a hundred.
I noticed that the fellows in my school
who had the best kicks,
were practicing 200 kicks per kick per side.
So I went home and started practicing
250 kicks per kick per side.
And,
man,
am I glad I did.
I’m 70 now,
and when I practice with these young kids,
my front kick is still faster,
and they really don’t like blocking it,
it hurts them to block it.

And,
what about forms?
Do you do your forms twice or thrice
and then call it?
How about doing your forms ten times?
Or,
have you ever done a form100 times in a row?
It changes you.
It changes the way you think about forms.
It changes your belief in forms.
Something I used to do,
I was practicing Tai Chi,
and I decided to pile stance it.
There are about 108 moves
in the classical form,
I took a full minute to do each move.
Took me two hours to do one form.
But,
Lord,
I was different after that.
My Tai Chi was different,
and I started to really understand
what the old Tai Chi masters were talking about.

Anyway,
I hope this gives you an idea on how to think outside the box.
The only advantage you’ve got is your imagination,
imagination IS thinking outside the box,
so put in a little extra sweat,
and put yourself outside the box.

And,
obligatory ad,
The book,
Chiang Nan,
is definitely outside the box.
I combined Karate and Tai Chi,
and got some interesting results,
results not covered by the fellows spouting their physics.
Here’s the link.

https://www.amazon.com/Chiang-Nan-Al-Case/dp/198767765X

Have a great work out!

Al

Here’s a link for an article about when I first started doing this book on Kenjutsu.
I intended to finish it quickly, but it’s actually been five years!

New Book About the Samurai Sword is Coming

Translating Karate into Tai Chi Chuan!

Newsletter 922

RELEASE OF A NEW MARTIAL ART VIDEO COURSE!

I haven’t released a martial arts video course for a while,
but it is worth the wait.
This is going to be one heck of a state of the art course!

The title is

How to Translate Karate into Tai Chi Chuan

The course is on 6 DVDs.
That’s over 5 hours of video instruction.
Plus,
if you wish,
you can order the book (PDF) along with the course.
I haven’t even published the book!
But you can get it,
and it will be cheaper than it you buy it separately.
The offer is on this page…

http://monstermartialarts.com/how-to-translate-karate-into-tai-chi-chuan/

Now,
here’s something incredible,
this course is three in one.

First, there is:

How to Translate Karate into Tai Chi Chuan

Second, there is:

my attempts to resurrect the original form
from which all karate grew.
Didn’t even know there was an original form, eh?
The story of this form is on the web page.

Third, there is:

the secret bunkai of karate.
And, yes, they are secret.
The old masters of Okinawa,
when karate began to be exported,
held a meeting and made a secret pact
that they would never reveal the real forms,
that they would never reveal the real techniques.
Sheesh!
What a bunch of boneheads!
Can’t tell you how much damage they have done to Karate.
So this is a look at what those techniques would be.

In writing this book,
I used matrixing,
my experiences in karate,
my experiences in kung fu,
my experiences in separating and making pure
a variety of different martial arts.

So,
that’s the skinny.
Check out the web page,

http://monstermartialarts.com/how-to-translate-karate-into-tai-chi-chuan/

let me know what you think,
and…

Have a great work out!
Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/how-to-translate-karate-into-tai-chi-chuan/

http://monstermartialarts.com