Category Archives: ed parker

Indian fighting Ability in the Martial Arts

Newsletter 835

Martial Arts and Indian Stealth Skills!
part three

Happy work out to you!
Which is the same as saying,
be strong and well,
be smart and sharp.
Be kind.

This is the third part of a five part series.
Subscribe to the newsletter to find the other parts

The most important Martial Arts book ever written.

The most important Martial Arts book ever written.

In the first two articles
we have discussed why
the native American Indian
was the best light infantry in the world.
This included a discussion of their hunting prowess,
and their devotion to silence,
all of which combined to make truly great silent warriors.

In this part I want to discuss
motion.

To begin,
for most people
walking is a process of unbalancing.
Simply,
people are standing like clumps, and to begin moving,
they unbalance their body
and fall in a direction.
Stick out a foot,
unbalance themselves,
fall in a direction.
I can’t even begin to tell you how inefficient this is.

At rest you should be able to move in any direction,
and without the need for unbalancing your body.

Now,
consider how the Indians were raised.
The woman cared for the child until the age of six.
At six the brave took over.
The child was trained to be totally and utterly silent,
and to move with extreme awareness.
Punishment for transgression in this fields was simple:
go hungry.
If the child didn’t master the skills,
then he didn’t bring home the meat,
and he went hungry.
And the family went hungry.
No excuses.
This attitude went towards hunting,
which was the main duty of the warrior,
and which led directly to combat.
No excuses.
You learned to use a knife the right way,
or you went hungry,
or…
died.
Harsh methods,
but they resulted in amazing warriors.

Here’s something that many people don’t understand.
The white man didn’t beat the Indians.
He infected him with disease.
It’s true.
The Indian had no defense for this kind of ‘germ warfare,’
and he eventually succumbed.
He didn’t lose in battle
so much as die out from disease.

Now,
that all said,
I liken the Indian hunting techniques to Tai Chi Chuan.
To sneak up on a wild animal
you had to move so slowly,
as slowly as the wind moved a tree branch.
You had to blend with the motion of nature.

You had to have a strong body to support this slow motion.
And you had to stand in a manner
in which you were still capable
at any moment,
of moving in any direction
as if sprung from a spring.
Not falling uncontrolled,
but legs loaded and ready to shove off,
in any direction.

Okay,
if you want to move with total silence,
and yet be so balanced
that you can move in any direction
without the need to unbalance yourself
and fall uncontrolled,
check out Five Army Tai Chi Chuan.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/five-army-tai-chi-chuan/

and make sure you subscribe to the newsletter
and read the first and last parts
of this scholarly treatise
on the methods of the finest guerrilla warriors in the world.

Have a great work out!

Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/five-army-tai-chi-chuan/

http://www.amazon.com/Binary-Matrixing-Martial-Arts-Case/dp/1515149501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437625109&sr=8-1&keywords=binary+matrixing

go to and subscribe to this newsletter:
https://alcase.wordpress.com

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so this is the best way to ensure you get them.

You can find all my books here!
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

How the Ignorant Defend their Ignorance

Ignorance in Kenpo, Karate, and other Martial Arts

March,
what a wonderful month.
I’m going to work out every single day,
right into April.
You do, too!

I was checking my stats on Amazon,
and reading the reviews people write about me.
Interesting reading.
But crazy.
Let me explain.

I’ll get two reviews for a book,
one is a five star review,

VERY Interesting.. and I like the “creation” theories and methods… JUST what I was looking for.
and one is a one star review.

Waste of time if you are a serious martial artist…poor illustrations…bad

The five star talks about interesting ideas.
The one star just says ‘stupid.’
Hmmm.

How could one book provoke two such dissimilar reviews?

Well,
let me tell you.

I received an email a while ago,
the fellow said:
I don’t understand all the writing,
but when I see the pictures (videos),
then I get it.

Well,
of course,
a picture is worth a thousand words.
BUT
the real key here
is that he didn’t understand the writing.

Here are some frightening statistics.

50% of adults can’t read at 8th grade level.
45 million people are functionally illiterate.
and,
one that is very important,
6 out of 10 households don’t buy a single book in a year.

Let’s consider the implications of these statistics
as they relate to my books.

Out of the 50% adults that can’t read at 8th grade level,
there are going to be a substantial number
who are passionate about the martial arts.
They are going to read what some people see as five star material,
but because they don’t understand it,
because there aren’t enough pictures,
they are going to perceive it as worthless.
At best,
they are going to sense that something just passed them by,
and they are going to be pissed.
Pissed enough to give one star.

Out of the 45 million that are functionally illiterate,
some are passionate,
they live in blogs with small words,
and they are,
again,
angry.
A rich life is passing them by,
and though they feel that something is happening,
they can’t see it.

But here’s the kicker,
6 out of 10 don’t buy a book in a year.
But they do read on the computer,
and they are vocally upset,
when they don’t understand what somebody has said.

This is the defense mechanism of the ignorant:
get upset when you don’t understand something.

Now,
why do I bring this up.
Because I get a few low reviews,
that discourages others from buying,
and the vey valuable knowledge
that is in my books,
is then removed from the hands of the consumer.
The intelligent consumer who needs to know,
but is being waylaid by the ignorant.

Feel free to give a review.
I prefer nice,
but honest will do.

When you see a bad review,
especially if you have read the book,
and disagree,
answer them.
I can’t,
but you can.
Set the record straight.

And,
make sure you are literate,
that your children are literate,
and that knowledge can be passed down.

This world is not Rep v Dem,
it is not haves v have nots,
it is ignorant v intelligent,
and if the intelligent don’t set the ignorant straight,
then the intelligent lose.
So do you want the world to get more intelligent?
Or more ignorant?

Here’s the book which received the reviews I listed above.

http://www.amazon.com/HowCreateKenpo-Creating-Kenpo-Create-Karate/dp/1500930245/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457201795&sr=1-7&refinements=p_27%3AAl+Case#customerReviews

Have a great work out!
Al

 

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

Karate Before You Were Born

Zen Karate Summed up by One Question

It’s hot here in LA,
and you can really sweat those toxins out.
The best way to sweat?
Work out!

I was driving down the street the other day,
and I saw all sorts of martial arts studios.
MMA, Muay Thai, Boxing,
Karate, Kung fu, Kenpo,
Judo, Aikido, Taekwondo,
and on and on and on.

When I began,
in 1967,
which is near 50 years ago,
there was judo,
which was taught in a few places,
and there was Karate.
Interestingly,
Karate was undergoing a boom.
This was just before Bruce Lee,
and the Tracy Brothers had breathed fire into marketing,
and Karate schools were opening every where.

I began Kenpo,
went every day,
became an instructor,
and so on,
and I had a lot of questions,
and nowhere to get the answers.
The only magazine was Black Belt,
and they sort of circled the arts,
talking about,
but never delving in.

And there weren’t many books.
There was the outlandish Super Karate Made Easy,
Ed Parker had a book out,
Robert Smith wrote his book on
Shaolin Temple boxing.
But these books were either techniques books,
or they talked in mysteries,
and there was no way to understand what the heck
the martial arts were all about.

Then I came across a book called
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.
I had left kenpo by then,
and was in the Kang Duk Won,
and this book was a Godsend.

Not a book about technique,
not a dissertation of mental tricks,
rather questions and tales
that made you blink,
and look for the real you.

One of my favorites was the old question,
‘Who were you before you were born.’

Now you might be wondering,
how can an art built of physical routines
answer that question?

The answer to that wonderment
lies in the simple fact
that we were not distracted.
Karate was not infected by boxing,
throws weren’t an active part.
And so on.

On the surface,
looking back,
reading these words as I write them,
I can understand
why people might wonder,
how can you call that an art?
How can you think of that stripped down sapling
as a wondrous forest of spirit?

Easy.
We weren’t distracted,
and we practiced those few techniques we knew
until we could make them work.

Enlightenment is when you do one thing
without distraction,
until you see the truth of that one thing.

You have heard people like Bruce Lee say,
in the end,
a punch is just a punch,
a kick is just a kick.

But,
here’s the bad news,
if you haven’t found that out
through doing a simple kick,
or punch,
without distraction,
for tens of thousands of times,
then the truth of the statement evades you.

You know about water,
but you’ve never been wet.

That is why,
except for a few logical changes,
and the nudging of matrixing,
the karate I do now,
is virtually the same
as the karate I did way back when.

Pinan one through pinan five,
the iron horse,
a few others,
I do them almost the same as I learned them.
And,
here’s the interesting thing,
the way I learned them was only a couple of generations
removed from the way they were taught before Funakoshi.

I go into modern schools
and I don’t see what I learned.
I see forms infected by boxing,
distracted by MMA,
slanted by tournaments and kick boxing.
I see techniques discarded because people can’t make them work.
I see people fighting,
instead of painstakingly being taught the drills that lead to…not fighting,
to scientifically assessing an opponent and shredding him without waste.

Most of all,
I don’t see the calm of mind,
the calm that comes not from knowing about lots of arts,
but from knowing one thing well.
And, in these modern times,
if people do know one thing well,
it has been slanted by ‘reality fighting,’
by the desire to beat up your fellow man,
not to calm yourself,
and find the truth of yourself.

Not to find out who you were before you were born.

Here’s the art that I was taught,
unchanged except for a few logical tweaks,
and the ‘de-slanting’ of matrixing.

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/temple-karate/

Hope you enjoy getting back to the ‘zen’ of it all.

Have a great work out!
Al

http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/temple-karate/

http://www.amazon.com/Matrixing-Tong-Bei-Internal-Gung/dp/1507869290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423678613&sr=8-1&keywords=tong+bei

Basic Karate Kata Revolutionizes How to Teach Karate!

Basic Karate Kata Introduces New Teaching Method!

Let’s face it, most basic karate Kata are boring, and couldn’t boredom be the reason many people quit their karate class early on?

With this in the back of my mind, I decided to make a better basic Karate Kata. Simply, I wanted my karate class to be fast and fun. I wanted a karate form that would include all the basics, and actually involve the student.

best karate form

Does your karate form look like this?

 

Before we get into the form itself, consider that most forms are basically step and block drills. Step and strike. A piece of a karate technique, and not the whole thing. Thus, in addition to being boring, the forms have little value except for indoctrination into how to learn things rotely.

Can anybody spell second grade? How about behavior modification? Both good reasons to put aside long used teaching methods and find a better way of teaching Karate, or kung fu, or whatever your martial art is.

beginner karate

Or does it look like this?

In making the basic Karate Kata called ‘House’ I decided to use three basics, the low block, the outward middle block, and the high block. Those are easy enough for a beginner to learn quickly, and real enough for simulated fighting.

I then placed these blocks on a line, and put a punch after each block. Thus, there is stance change, weight shift, basics, and the idea that you can actually block and then offer a karate punch, or martial arts counter of some kind.

Now, to be honest, Chinese Kenpo, as presented by Ed Parker, had a good idea in their short one basic karate kata. The unfortunate fact is that while the idea of facing all four directions was good, it needlessly complicated the basic function of this kenpo form.

So, in line, three blocks, strikes right after each of the blocks, and you have something that works in real fight simulation, and can be learned quickly and easily, and, here’s an important element, can be upgraded into a more difficult variation.

Let’s say you begin the student on the first step, a low block and punch, and he can’t quite get it. That’s okay. The martial arts are new to him, and he’s confused by all the data. Let him be confused, drill him only on that one move until he gets it, then give him the second piece. Then, drill him on the first and second movements till he gets them, his own confusion will keep him entertained, and, finally, he can progress to the third move.

Thus, the karate student learns the whole kata.

Now, want to keep him learning? Want to make sure he does the form enough to get the deep down essence of the moves? Have him drill it in two man fashion. This is just like one step blocking movements done at the beginning of a traditional Karate class, except that it is a two man form, and the reality of the movements, that is to say the form, is being re-inforced with every single strike. More important, it takes no excessive teaching, you just have the student do the basic karate form and feed it strikes. He will have realization within minutes concerning how to do this, and he will be off to the races!

The Karate student thinks he knows it? Ask him to speed up. Ask him to do it without stepping,  while standing in place. Ask him to do it with a (rubber) knife or stick!

The possibilities are endless, and this simple, basic karate Kata is suddenly opening doors that are refused to students who learn in the same old same old mass education manner.

If you would like to do this form yourself, click on Basic Karate Kata, if you would like to learn an entire karate system taught in this manner, go to Matrix Karate at Monster Martial Arts.

He Used Karate Kumite to Beat Me Up…and I loved It!

Karate Kumite in Yer Eyeball!

My first experience in real Karate Kumite was back in 1967 in a Chinese Kenpo Dojo.

I had signed up for five lessons in Kenpo Karate, and I had liked it, but it was pretty much dry instruction. Still, it was pretty heady, I was going to be able to stop kidneys, squash adams apples, and end the life of any fool who messed with me. I was, you might surmise, a bit young.

karate kumite

Karate Freestyle is a special type of discipline

 


For youth, a good lesson in hard fists is always the best antidote.

My sixth lesson, i had signed a contract, and the instructor lifted my hands up and said, ‘Don’t try to hit me, just see if you can stop me from hitting you.’

Well, that was a blinker.

And he proceeded to wail the tar out of me.

Great control, the bruises wouldn’t even show, but…there were bruises. There were especially bruises to my 19 year old ego.

You mean…I can get beat up? I am not immortal?

And, when some fifteen minutes of me being pummeled around the mat ended, we sat and talked, and that was when the real lesson commenced.

Learning how to puncture lungs and stop hearts from beating is fine, but that is just the anatomy lesson. The real lesson was in learning how to move, and…learning how to be polite.

He beat me up, without really damaging me, and smiled gently the whole time. He knew he was changing my outlook on life. He had gone through it. It was time for him to pass the message down.

Sure, you can hurt somebody, but what’s it going to cost you? And, wouldn’t you rather get along? Be on the same path? Share a brewski at the end of the day?

One of the saddest things I see, these days, is when people are taught how to freestyle in the wrong manner. The instructor doesn’t take the time to give the lesson thoroughly, and with understanding.

Instead, kids are thrown into karate tournaments and told to win, win, win.

The real lesson is in the back of the dojo, when few are looking, and it consists of sweat and bruises, and learning that there is a real human being on the end of your fists. Both ends.

If you wish to learn how to freestyle the correct way, I suggest Matrix Combat. It’s a short course, but has all the progressions of freestyle presented, how to do them, and–here’s the bonus–how they fit together so that you know when to do what. That is something that NOBODY goes into.

I do , and it’s an inexpensive way to get to the back of the dojo and get that friendly, little fists on education in Karate Kumite.

A Guy Who Knows Karate Kung Fu-ed (Not)

Karate Kung Fu is Cool!

I got my Karate Kung Fu-ed the day this kung fu guy came to work for my company.

karate kung fu

Karate Freestyle is a special type of discipline


This was back in the seventies, and martial arts were all the craze. Chop sockies were hitting the drive ins, and stores were popping up with ‘Karate Kung Fu’ written on their faces.

Now, to be sure, I had been doing Karate for six or seven years, and all these new guys were coming in off the Bruce Lee craze. Some of them would stick, some of them would drift.

Anyway, I walked up to where this new guy was talking to the boss. This was a factory and we were all young and loose guys, just working and having fun.

Now, in fairness, I was exuberant. When I placed my hand on the kung fu guy’s shoulder there was a message there. It was friendly, it was silent, but he and I, even though he hadn’t seen me physically he knew who it was, knew it was a friendly ‘what ya got’ type of thing.

He spun, his arms outstretched. It was a windmill sort of kung fu double chop, one hand to my arm, and one arm to my neck.

I realized what he was doing, it was very different than how I had been trained, and I stepped back.

He managed to get my arm, and missed the neck, but he took it was a win. And it was. It was Karate Kung Fu-ed, and that was okay with me.

Heck, if I hadn’t been trained I would have been dead meat.

As it was, I had more experience, I could figure things out, I didn’t have that momentary gap of thinking when figuring out things, but he displayed good kung fu form, good kung fu technique.

So we grinned, I knew he would go back and tell his sifu how well his martial art worked, and that was fine.

And, as for me, I was struck by the difference of kung fu to karate. Over the years I would study kung fu, lots of it. Shaolin, pa kua, tai chi, exotic styles one nevers about. But I would always hold to Karate as a base art. As a fighting art it was superior. It is more explosive, straighter, and more efficient. There are other things to be gleaneed form Kung fu, and these things can’t be found in Karate, the way energy works, odd technqiues that make a difference.

Still, I hold to karate for basic self defense and fighting. That first experience, me, my karate kung fu-ed (not), has proven true over the decades.

Karate Instruction Takes a Turn for the Better!

Karate instruction on the Upswing!

Karate instruction, for years, has been on a down path. Back in the fifties people came to America and called themselves black belts, and started instructing, when they were but brown belts, or worse. The premier example of this is Ed Parker, but he is not alone.

karate instruction made easy

Good Karate Instruction Can Be Hard to Find


Over the years people sought higher standards, but it was sort of a losing game. After all, the people of America wanted to learn to fight, and they didn’t seem to understand that fighting is not what the martial arts are really all about; the martial arts, and Karate specifically, is about scientifically taking your opponent apart. When one has this type of efficiency and competence, they aren’t usually interested in fighting anymore. What a delightful martial arts catch 22, eh?

The worst example of this point of love of fighting, I hate to admit it, is the UFC, MMA, and that sort of thing. People gather round the tube and cheer for trash talking head bonkers who present the art in the worst light. What is really wrong with this is that some of the top fighters are polite, hard working, and they get painted with the ‘beavis and butthead’ brush stroke. Sheesh!

Anyway, shove all this aside, there is hope for karate instruction int he united states, and all other martial arts instruction. Generally speaking, the flashy advertisements give way to the search for competence. Some guy who makes a good video on youtube will be found out as a fraud once people start taking his techniques apart.

And, speaking of the internet, probably the most efficient and glaring success in the martial arts home video field is Monster Martial Arts. Monster presents a series of videos which reveal the true martial art in depth. Whole arts are taken apart and dissected for workability…whatever the art ‘matrixed’ (Monster’s particular choice of martial technology), the results are quick, efficient, and free from politics and bushwah.

Hey, does it work? That is the main and real question Monster keeps asking, and keeps answering.

Anyway, because of websites like Monster MArtial Arts one can say that America is overcoming the poorly trained martial arts instructors, the glut of people who just want to fight, and other similar bad influences. The result is a higher class of good karate instruction.

Your Martial Art Doesn’t Work, and the Hells Angel Threw Me Through a Wall

Does Your Martial Art Work?

outlaw karateI had studied Chinese Kenpo Karate for two years. I was an instructor, and I had written the training manual for my school.Then I ran into a Hells Angel.

The story actually started when the restaurant I was working at hired a geeky looking kid. I didn’t like him much, but then one day I saw him kick a wall. The wall shook like the 1906 earthquake, and I knew that he knew something I didn’t.

So I got to know him, and he said he studied Kang Duk Won Korean Karate. He said he didn’t know it well, which I found hard to believe because I had seen him kick a wall harder than a donkey kicks a pervert. He said, however, that his brother knew a lot more than him, and let’s go talk to him.

So that night, I think it was a Tuesday, we went down to a house in Sunnyvale to meet his brother. As we pulled up Alex said to me, “I should probably tell you that my brother is a Hells Angel.” I blinked, but, naive me, heck…I knew Kenpo, right?

His brother was a couple inches under six feet, a little shorter than me, but he had the outlaw look in his eyes. We talked martial arts for a while, and then he boldly stated, “Your Martial Art doesn’t work.” Then he wrapped two of the gnarliest fists I had ever seen into my shirt front and told me to work my first technique on him.

I began to move. I held his fists in place with one hand and brought my forearm up to break his elbows, I struck his wrists with my nerve paralyzing downward chop, and when I went to chop him in the neck he tossed me through a wall. Yes he did…all the way through the wall.

He laughed and helped me up, and then he told me to grab his shirt front. I did, and he showed me the self defense technique from his martial arts school. He reached over and punched me in the chest so hard that…that’s right, I went right through the wall again.

This is a true story, and being tossed through a wall twice changed my life, definitely changed the way I was learning martial arts, and prompted me down the road to other martial arts and how to really make them work. I spent over a half dozen years at the Kang Duk Won Korean Karate school, worked alongside all manner of people, including hells angels and other outlaw bikers. Included in my education was why a martial art doesn’t work.

Amreican Karate

Gun Kata!

Perhaps you’ve seen the movie, Equilibrium. Great movie, with a ‘gun kata’ in it.
Interestingly, I ran into a fellow one day, and we started talking, and we got on the issue of mechanics and martial arts and gun control. There were some interesting points made, and I’ll tell you about them right after the video.

He described gun control the exact same way I was describing martial arts.
And we were both surprised, because other people don’t understand these types of physics.
A physics apart, and i had run into one of the few people in the world who could understand, and had even made inroads, into the physics behind everything.
Guns. huh.
I’ve seen them in Golf (probably got me started, my dad taught me gold and we had all these mags every month, and in the mags were geometrical renderings of swings and things.) A fe other plaes, but in all places only in bits and pieces.
It seems that the world can only see in pieces.
Anyway, it was interesting.
Gun mechanics.
Gun physics.
The Gun Kata.
Martial Arts.
It’s all he same if you can only put the pieces together.
Check out my further thoughts on the matter of Karate at Monster Martial Arts.

Making the Right Karate Form

I was watching Karate on the youtube last night, and I was struck by how little people know about the correct form of the martial arts. Check out the vid snip right below, This is how I explain how you get good form, then continue with the article.

They turn their feet out at the wrong time, they separate their body into pieces, they do so many things that dissipate energy and lessen intention.
And I am not talking beginners here, I am talking about people with decades of experience.
Now, it wasn’t always that way. When I started the martial arts were fresh to the shores, and we bought everything we could, read everything we could, and were thirsty for day.
And, we thought about what we were learning.
What has happened that has destroyed the martial arts is the fanatic desire to have ritual.
If I do what teacher says, I don’t have to think, and then I will learn.
Do you see the corruption of logic here?
How can you learn if you don’t have to think?
Why do you think colleges are turning out people who can’t learn?
Because they memorize in ritual, instead of learning how to think.
Question, man, you have to have a question.
And not a questino as to the next piece of the sequence of the kata, but a question as to how it works, why it works, what’s the best (better) way to make it work.
Argh!
That’s all I can say, Argh!
Frustration for a society that prefers to go blind.
Well, the way to not go blind is to ask questions, demand answers, and not be satisfied with what you are taught.
I tell you this,
your teachers have already bought into it,
so be careful of your teachers.
If they can’t give you good reasons for what you are doing,
good scientific, sound, logical, technical reasons for why the form is constructed the way it is, the best way to make a technique work,
all the secondary techniques off the first technique, and so on,
then you are following the blind.
And, don’t believe me.
Check out my sites, see if I make sense, and then you will know whether my words here can be believed.
Monster Martial Arts is one site. Got oodles of stuff on it. Articles, courses, everything.
Or, check out Learn Karate Online. Got an actual free lesson or two on it.
Go on, see if I make sense.
I understand why people are leery of the net, there’s so much crap out there. It’s the same old same old. Well, I tell you, this is the brand new brand new, but you aren’t going to see it if you don’t take a look, and you won’t get it if you just shut your mind up and stop asking questions.