Category Archives: kwon bup

What You don’t Want to Do to A Karate Black Belt!

Karate Black Belt is Looking Good!

I earned my karate black belt in 1974. Back then we didn’t have all the karate equipment and martial arts supplies and stuff.

I was in Chinese Kenpo Karate at first, and we received neat, new belts with each promotion. I had an Orange Belt and a Blue Belt and Green Belt and all the other rank symbols.

karate black belt

Peter Urban properly dressed

 


Then I went to the Kang Duk Won, and belts weren’t the issue there. Knowledge was the point of it all.

I had gotten a white belt with my uniform, and my sensei told me, when I got my first promotion at the Kang Duk Won I was told to dye it.

So I put it in a pot, added dye, and the thing shrank a litte, but it was still workable.

For some belts we had to go into ladies fabric shops (blush) and get iron on strips of cloth.

By the time I reached Black Belt I had a beaten up short strip of belt that looked like it had been through the ringer.

So, I admit it, I bought my first real belt. It was long enough, it looked good, but it was…stiff.

Well, I had done enough already, actually buying a belt was a bit proud, so I just worked out hard and hoped nobody noticed the overly prideful guy with the NEW belt.

And it eventually work it’s way into a comfortable rag.

Speaking of rags, I should tell you about the artificial aging of belts. Some guys bought belts, and to make them look old, they would take a razor blade and shred the edges of the belts. They would have half a dozen belts, all artificially aged and cool looking.

Unfortunately, the karate these guys practiced wasnt’ aged, and it looked artificial.

And there were guys who would drag their belts in the dirt, scuff them by walking on them, and so on, just to look cool and official and aged.

I actually don’t wear a belt anymore. And my classes are so small that I don’t need to have people wear belts. So we actually practice in street clothes, which is what we would wear if we were attacked on the street.

Still, I remember my bouts with pride, and my first karate black belt, and the honor it was to wear it.

If You Think Your Mind is a Mess…Try the Karate Mind!

The Karate Mind is a Way to Fix the World!

Speaking of the Karate Mind, a friend of mine recently made the observation that his mind was a mess. But I knew that he had got it wrong.  You see, it’s the world that is a mess, and the mind is just reflecting that mess. Actually, his mind was doing a pretty good job of reflecting what was out there.

karate mind

The Karate Mind Can Fix the World!



So how do you get rid of the mess ‘in your mind?’ People think there is something wrong with their minds. Uh uh. Not even. My mind is fine, and don’t you go playing around with it.

But, if you do want to make your mind reflect accurately, and without being disturbed by the mess it is reflecting, then you should learn karate.

A heaping helping of forms and freestyle will go a long way. You learn to concentrate, to focus your thoughts, and, interestingly enough, the mind starts to become immune to the mess that is the world.

You focus your attention, you still see the world the way it really is, but the world doesn’t matter. You get the power to say no to car salesmen, yes to good looking girls, no to that one drink too many, yes to that adventure that is right around the corner and is going to change your life.

And, interestingly enough, as you change your mind, you will notice that the world changes along with you. The world, you see reflects you….once you take charge of your mind.

So if you think your mind is a mess, I suggest you reconsider. The mind is not the mess, it is the world that it is a mess. You can, however, gain control over your mind, and make it work better, by simply practicing martial arts, and that will change the world.

Sports are good, theater is fine, but only in the martial arts do you really face real problems. You face that punch and learn not to look away. You feel that destructive energy, and you ward it off and move on in. Now that is the way to handle life, the mind, and just about anything else that comes your way.

This has been an article on fixing the world by achieving the karate mind.

 

First Time and Only Time I Ever Struck Somebody with a Karate Punch

You Don’t Want to Use Your Karate Punch Like This!

A Karate punch can be a terrible thing. Proper Karate training and you can shatter slabs of ice, stacks of boards and bricks, and even kill 1000 pound bulls. You can also make bad errors, such as I will point out in this martial arts article.

karate punch
I had been training for over two decades, striking the makiwara (punching board), practicing with friends, and even writing karate books on what I had discovered in the martial arts. Interestingly, in all that time I had never actually struck another human being. I knew I had a powerful punch, I had just never been in a situation where I had to use it.

I was in charge of a hotel in Los Angeles in one of the poorer sections of town. One day I leased a room to a pleasant appearing fellow, and shortly discovered that I had made a deal with the devil. This fellow had a second business of pushing drugs. Now, aside from actual medical marijuana cases, because of my martial arts training I don’t stand for drugs.

One sunny day I ascended upstairs and confronted the fellow, and told him that he had to stop selling drugs. At first he hemmed and hawed, tried to change the subject, but I kept after him. Finally, he just laughed at me, “The police don’t bother me, there’s nothing you can do about it, so leave it alone.”

Shocked, I blurted, “I want you out of here, you’re gone…now!” He just laughed at me some more. “It’ll take you months to get me out of this apartment.”

I suddenly went calm, and that is not a good thing, for it meant that I had been pushed too far. I dropped my weight into an hourglass stance, power surged up my frame and pulsed out my arms, and I struck him in the chest with two gnarly fists. What happened then was truly astounding.

Having never struck another person I had no idea what it would feel like, or what was going to occur. First, I felt this enormous weight surging back up my arms and through my body and into the ground…it was much more mass and resistance than I had realized. Second, a long second later–that’s right, there was actually a gap of time before the effects of my karate strike were realized–he began to launch through the air.

He flew up and over the bed and smacked against the wall, and he slowly struggled to his feet, rubbing his chest his hands, his eyes wide, “You can’t do that!” That just made me even more angry, and I started after him, then realized that he had told me something significant, “Why not?” “Because I’ve got somebody in the closet!

I went to the closet door and yanked it open, and a naked man stood there shivering in terror. That’s right, the drug dealer was gay, and his boyfriend had come to visit him, and…what the heck had I just done? In using my karate punch I had abused all the good things i had learned in the martial arts, I had struck another human being, and was left with a very sick feeling.

 

Karate Kick Harder: 7 Training Tips that Will Put the Power in Your Kicks!

Karate Kick Harder by Kicking the Right Way

Karate Kick Harder doing these seven simple tricks. Most Karate students you see, don’t really understand how to execute a proper leg kick. These students are told to kick air, or kick a bag, and that’s not much of a Karate lesson.

Karate kickFirst, you must lift the knee and thrust the foot in on a straight line when you execute a Karate kick. The foot will then travel into the attacker’s body on a straight line. It’s like hammering a nail into a wall, you have to make sure the force travels straight into the spike.

The second tip is to tilt the hips slightly upward. You don’t have to tilt them a lot, but they have to tilt enough so that energy can run between the tan tien and foot. A good karate kick will have the whole weight of the body in it..

Third tip is that you must rotate the hips slightly, making sure that the whole body goes into the kick. Your Karate kick will be harder, and and it will even be a bit longer. Not turning the hips tends to jam the kick and make it less useful.

Fourth thing you must do is turn the foot you are standing on. Turn it so that the whole body moves as one solid unit. Very important, when doing a karate kick, because using the body as one unit puts more intention into the kick.

Number five on this list is that you must sink your weight down the leg you are standing on and into the ground. Dropping your body weight while doing a hard kick will give you added solidity. The body is a motor, and it must be bolted in place to work efficiently.

Sixth karate training trick, bend the leg you are standing on. People who straighten the support leg are exploding energy the wrong way, actually ‘unbolting’ the motor from the ground. You need to send a ‘tractor beam’ down the leg to fix the body solidly in place.

Last martial arts training tip, relax all of the body except the foot being used. There is obsession with creating rigid energy, but this is a tremendous waste. If one wants to do a karate kick harder they must learn how to use energy in the body, and energy travels easiest through that which is empty.

There is a free kicking course bundled in with the Matrix Karate course, and it will make your Karate kick harder…make it hard enough to knock over an elephant. A big elephant.

Blood Everywhere in a Karate Class!

I started thinking bout the worst martial arts injuries I have ever seen in a Karate class, and one came to the front of my mind.
Mind you, I almost never have injuries in my classes, and this because I follow the Injury Formula: Speed + Ignorance = Injury. Follow this, make your students follow this, and you won’t have injuries either.
Check out this vid of some knife disarms, then I’ll tell you about it.

Anyway, outside of a cut lip or bloody nose, and one cracked rib, injuries don’t occur in my classes. One of my instructors, however, wasn’t so fortunate. He insisted on doing a knife disarm technique with a real knife. He was fast, quick, and one of the best martial artists i have ever seen. But he decided he was going to teach this technique using a real knife.
The guy came in, he moved, and the knife cut all the way up the fleshy part of his forearm.
Man, talk about blood. It didn’t spurt, which was fortunate, and it didn’t cut any tendons. So it was shallow, and it was long, and it bled like a stuck pig.
So, because of that one experience, didn’t even happen to me, I never use real knives in class. I encourage people to handle and train with knives, but not with each other.
I tell them to use rubber knives, which are cheap and who cares if they break, or wooden knives, but never real steel. That’s what I learned because of that karate class, and that’s the recommendation I use when I teach people Blinding Steel, which is the fastest and most efficient knife training course int he world. Check it out at Monster Martial Arts. And make sure you pick up a free martial arts book while you’re there. Actually, I’m giving away two books, though I don’t mention it on the website. Got to change that. Have a great work out.

The Secret of Real Karate Power is Fanaticism!

I chuckle when I see these young kids train. They look so good in their karate uniforms, they are so proud, yet I wonder how many of them can be crazy enough to really learn the real martial art, and actually get some real karate power.
Check out the vid, then I’ll tell you more.

Look, if you want to saw a piece of wood, you don’t take a half a dozen cuts and then stop, you watch the cut, make sure it is happening right, and you continue, no matter how sore you get, until the wood separates.
Now, if you want to break a brick, a simple trick, you simply set it up and start hitting it. And you hit it and hit it, and you focus on it until you don’t even see the rest of the world, and the brick eventually separates.
Now, there is more to it, you want to be able to break that brick with one chop, but the message here is that you have to give yourself over to a fanatical mindset.
You have to dedicate yourself, and do it and do it and do it, and have the firm knowledge that you will not quit, that you will squash any ideas of quit, that you will get where you are going.
It’s funny, I see some martial artists from other countries, and they are actually a little more rabid than USers. Well, there mommie didn’t let them stay home from school if it was raining. She didn’t bring them milk and cookies and console them if the homework was tough…she told them to dry up and get the durned job done.
That’s how it used to be in America, and thats why we achieved greatness.
We can have greatness again, even if you were coddled as a school child.
Simply dedicate yourself, be a fanatic. Tell yourself you are going to do that form a hundred times a day every day for one year,a nd then do it. Belive me, you will understand that Kata, and you will have abilities that you never even dreamed of when you were a lazy school kid. It’s up to you, but you have to give yourself over to fanaticism, and that is the secret of real karate power. If you want to learn more about this mindset, pop over to Monster Martial Arts and pick up a free book. It’ll tell you how to arrange your martial arts so the fanatical mindset can really bite.

Half a Year of Karate!

Do you know how much you can get done in Karate in a half a year?
The reason I say this is because the year is half over. So if you can remember what you were doing at Christmas, or New Years, and any resolutions or things, then you could have made a lot of things happen since them.

If you are studying a classical art, you could have gone through a belt rank or two. You could have a couple of martial arts forms, had a ball doing lots of kumite, and generally be fit and healthy, and your mind would be calm.
Now, if you had been studying my Matrixing program, you could actusally have your black belt by now. Serious. It’s a three month program, but it takes a lot of work. But six months is enough time to do a lot of work. So you could actually be there.
And, here’s something interesting, if you slacked off a little the last few months, maybe been distracted by the news or something, you can realize that every moment you live and don’t do what you love is a moment wasted.
Hey, if it’s not Karate, then what is it? Kung Fu? Yoga? Ballet? If you love it, then why aren’t you doing it?
Got a dream? You’ve had six months to pursue it. Didn’t do it? It’s not too late, so get yer fanny in gear and get going!
Don’t you understand? I’m telling you to ignore everything that gets in your way, everybody that slows you down or distracts you. I’m telling you that you should pick a goal, and having a black belt is an absolutely incredible goal, and GO FOR IT!
Now, do you want to go waste another night drinking beer, or do you want to be somebody? Do you want to be strong and fit and quick in the mind?
Okay, I’ve enjoyed this rant, and especially because I know it is so right and valuable. So spend the time between now and the end of the year working out and finding the real you. If I can help you reach your goals in Karate, if I can help you get to Black Belt, drop by my site, Monster Martial Arts. My email is there, and I answer all emails. See ya.

The Secret Behind the Hardest Punch in the World!

Within the Karate Punch is Great Spirit

I remember reading that Chuck Norris had 600 pounds per square in in his kicks. I always use this kind fo data when trying to figure out the secret behind the hardest punch in the world, or the hardest kick, or whatever.
You see, the idea is to get more weight in a smaller area.
If you swing a mallet with a big head, maybe three inches across, you are putting weight to nine square inches. So if you put ninety pounds into your swing, and you get ten pounds per square inch. This dissipates the force, spreads it out, and weakens it. You swing a screw driver, and maybe put only thirty pounds in it, but the force is into an eighth inch square. That means 64 times 30 pounds, and you are striking with 1920 pounds per square inch!
That’s why a screw driver penetrates, while a mallet flattens.
Now, you think there would be more to it than this, and, you’d be right. You see, time also enters into the equation, and you’ll find that this has a lot to do with a punch.
The longer the amount of time a fist is in contact with a target, the more some of that weight will go back up the arm.
So, if you punch somebody and the punch is a thrust, and travels through, and is in contact with the striking surface (his face) for a long time–let’s say a full second, which is not real, but it is a good number to illustrate what is happening–then one second times 60 pounds of weight equals sixty pounds of impact.
That’s cool.
But if you are in contact for 1/2 second, 1/2 times 60 = 120 pounds of impact! And if you get down to 1/8 of a second, then you have 1/8 times 60, which equals 480 pounds of impact! The force of the punch, you see, has less time to travel back up the arm, and more weight is left in your poor opponent’s ugly face!
Now, that is the physics, and that is the secret of the hardest punch in the world. All you have to do is understand these physics, and then do the exercises in The Punch (a book I wrote) and your punch is going to be able to knock down a freakin’ elephant! The physics are the secret, you see, but they are just the start. There is so much more to them, and so much you can do with them, once you understand them and what you are trying to really do with your punch. So check out The Punch at Monster Martial Arts. You’ll be glad you did.

The Worst Karate Dojo in the World…the Best Martial Arts Training Hall on the Planet!

He ran the Best Martial Arts Dojo on the Planet!


I often tell people about this, got reminded of it in a newsletter recently, and I want to talk again about the worst dojo in the world.
It was cold in the winter, and we had no heat.
It was hot in the summer and we had no air conditioning.
The bag was ripped and stitched together until it looked like a child of Frankenstein.
The mat was made of sail, and it was ripped and stitched and duc taped until it looked like Frankenstein’s rug.
The front windows had big cracks in them, and duc tape held them together.
There were no back windows, just bars and a shallow alley.
There was a hole in the corner of the ceiling in the changing room and rain poured in.
The toilet was slanted 30 degrees, and it was old and corroded.
Now, that was the bad. Here is some good.
The teacher knew his martial arts. There was electricity in the air when he taught.
He could get us to know his martial arts.
The students were all supremely dedicated.
Lot of hells angels, they made sure everything was kept real.
No girls or kids. They had separate classes.
No contracts, everything conducted on handshake.
The classes were so crowded we had to learn how to survive in a mob. (Imagine thirty people in a car and a half garage)
No talk about theory, just sweat until we couldn’t walk.
I frequently couldn’t press the pedals in my volkswagon, my shins were that bruised from blocking. I would drive home ‘clutchless.’
There was a golden glow to it all. This was chi energy, and it was pushed into every student there. It was irrefutable.

I stayed at that school for some five years. Got my black belt, and my life was changed.
If you want that art that I studied, it was Karate before Funakoshi came along. Check it out at Kang Duk Won.

Most Powerful Punch Karate Training Methods!

Good Karate Training will Give You the Most Powerful Punch!


I always liked the karate training methods for making the most powerful punch. Some of them worked…and some of them resulted in injury to the student. Here’s a quick rundown on them.
Bashing the fist against a tree. Damages the fist, sometimes badly, requiring even years to heal.
Punching a Makiwara. Okay, long as you don’t over do it. Fifty punches per hand is recommended by some.
Thrusting fingers into cauldrons of heated iron pellets. Right out of the kung fu movies. The real sequence is to thrust spear hands into sand, build up to pellets (over months and even years), and finally thrust them into iron pellets.
We used to spear hand the sand, and it worked, but it took time. I haven’t met anybody who has reached the iron pellet stage of training, but hey, go for it! Just make sure you use plenty of dit da jow hand curing herbal solutions.
Push ups on palms, then fists, then half fists, then outstretched fingers, then thumbs, then two fingers, then one finger. Fantstic training method. Works lke a charm. Takes the brute out of force and teaches that the secret of true muscularity is in balance.
And, there are others, but this should hold you for now. Gonna take a while to get on top of that single finger, right? Happy work outs to you, but this karate training method is guaranteed to give you the most powerful punch. BTW, pick up a free book while you’re on my site.