Tag Archives: goju ryu

Linking Karate Techniques to make Better Martial Art

Newsletter 883

Interlinking Martial Arts Forms

Here’s an interesting little trick for you,
one that will open your eyes and expand your art by ten…

I did Kenpo back in 67,
I noticed right away that the forms
were built simple to complex.
Actually,
simple to hard to understand.

You learned your basics with the first two forms,
then everything went haywire,
the forms were lists of techniques,
no real logic behind the sequence of the forms,
or even the relationship of the forms to themselves.
Mind you,
it was fun,
but it was HARD to really learn anything.
You ended up just memorizing,
and doing the martial arts like a dance.

Then I went to the Kung Duk Won
learned the classic Karate forms.
It was still a list of techniques,
but the forms had more meaning,
the arrangement from basics to complex
took on a different meaning.

Before I go on,
here’s a clip from Pinan Five
Give you an idea of how some of this karate stuff works…
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=Sz1asLo9ktc

Anyway,
before we were so rudely interrupted by the video…
I noticed there was a general trend,
from white belt to black belt,
and the trend went like this…

block then counter
two block and counter
three block and counter
block and counter simultaneous

Do you see the progression?
While it looks like a progression of numbers of blocks,
it was actually a progression of time,
but you might have to see the actual techniques
to understand that particular thing.

One of the things I did
when I started ‘pre-matrixing,’
was make huge lists
of all blocks and counters,
and arrange them according to belt level.
Man,
did that make things easy.

But,
there was something else I noticed at the Kang Duk Won.
The forms expanded on the footwork,
and there was a link between the forms.
Pinan two and four were similar in certain ways.
And Pinan three and five were similar.

This,
again,
I utilized in matrixing.
Not just arranging the numbers of blocks and counters,
but sequencing the blocks and counters in time,
and then…
arranging the forms to accurately represent this linkage.
Zingo bingo,
there was the roots of real matrixing.

So,
go ahead,
do it.
Take your forms,
ask yourself about simplicity and workability,
arrange the techniques,
then arrange your forms,
or rather,
as you will probably have to do,
create new forms to contain
the much more logical and easy to teach techniques.

Guaranteed,
you’re going to twist your head on this stuff,
it took me decades to figure this out,
of course,
I didn’t have the simple things
that I have laid out for you here.

And,
there is an easy way.
Instead of pounding your head in frustration,
instead of doing something with your head
that heads are not well built to do,
just take a gander at

Matrix Karate.

It’s all there.
The linkage of techniques,
the linkage of forms,
freestyle methods to go with belt levels,
AND A BONUS COURSE ON KICKING
with the forms,
the techniques,
and everything in logical order.
AND…
all the distractions of other arts,
arts that do not match up with the basic concepts of karate,
have been eliminated.

Makes for a VERY pure path.
And a very QUICK path.

But don’t believe me.
Twist your head for thirty years,
and then come up with what I already did.

Here’s the link.

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

Have a great work out!

Al

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

http://www.martialartsinstructortraining.com

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

Remember,

Google doesn’t like newsletters,

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

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

Remember,
Google doesn’t like newsletters,
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

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

Real Shotokan Karate versus Beavis and Butthead

The Case for Real Shotokan Karate

I practice real Shotokan Karate, and the rest of the world doesn’t.

Don’t you just love a knucklehead statement like that? I mean, the fellow who makes it has broken rule number one: he thinks he is the only one, and therefore he is knee deep in loco.


shaolin kung fu
That said, let me give you a rundown on real Shotokan Karate, and what the rest of the world is practicing.

If you are learning a tradition with respect, no matter who the teacher is, no matter what the argument is between form and function, you are learning real Shotokan Karate. And, hey, while we’re at it, this statement extends to such arts as Karate and Taekwondo and Kenpo and whatever.

And, to put it another way…are you learning, or are you fighting?

Now, here comes the part where I offend people. The UFCers and the MMAers are fighting, so they are not doing a martial art. They are doing a martial sport.

A lot of people get upset with me when I say something like this, they take it as a personal attack,and then explain how their school is different.

And that is the dividing point, is their school teaching, or is it promoting fighting?

It is a simple question, with a simple answer, and Beavis and Butthead can’t answer it.

You know Beavis and Butthead? They are the fellows with bad grammar who go to forums and sites and drop comments like UR STOOPID! (note the misspelling), and F*** U! (No asterisks)

Brilliant fellows these, and they don’t study real Shotokan Karate. They study ca ca humor and eat with their mouth open and it’s really important who won the fight.

But it’s not important who won the fight. What’s important is whethere an individual is actually learning, becoming more disciplined and aware, exploring the manifestations of spirituality that a human being is.

The real fight, you see, is not between the gladiators in the ring, it is between the edification of the human spirit, and the degradation of the human meatball.

That’s why I study real Shotokan Karate, and that is the dividing line one must find in their own art if they are to win the martial art war.

 

Martial Arts Quiz to Find your Martial Smarts!

Take the Martial Arts Quiz now!

This Martial Arts Quiz will let you know how much you know in the martial arts. The questions cover a range of martial arts, and instructions for grading are at the bottom. Begin now and write down the answer to each question.

karate quizWho was the Chinese movie star named ‘The Little Dragon?’  What was the significant Samurai martial art learned by the founder of Aikido? What was the name of the brothers who built a national chain of Chinese Kenpo Karate studios?

Who was the founder of the Chinese martial art wherein the practitioner spends his time ‘walking the circle?’ Who was the first American President to take Judo instruction? What was the title of the movie that Bruce Lee didn’t finish before his death?

Which Karate system received the official blessing of Master Gichin Funakoshi to spread his style of karate (it was not Shotokan)? What is the name of the World Taekwondo Headquarters in Seoul? Who was the Taekwondo instructor behind the martial arts in ‘Billie Jack?’

What is the title of the book penned by the Samurai who killed sixty people and lived the last years of his life in a cave? What martial art trains one in the use of the weapon called a Parang? Who was the first owner of Black Belt magazine?

What length of time did it take Bill ‘Superfoot’ Wallace to achieve the rank of black belt? Which athlete did Bruce Lee watch the movies of in a mirror to make sure he got the movements of on both the right and the left sides? What was the title of the first book the founder of Chinese Kenpo wrote on the martial arts (listed in wiki)?

Who was the ‘spy’ who wrote the first book on Shaolin to receive widespread attention in the US, and what was the name of the book that he wrote? What was the name of the first chop sockie flick to really make it big in the United States? Who was the Chinese actor to kill a villain in a Chinese movie made in the late 70s, and then play that same villain in the movie ‘Kill Bill?’

To find any answers you don’t know do a google search. To figure out your score take the number of questions you answered correctly and divide by 18. Don’t worry if you didn’t score high, for now you know all the answers to this martial arts quiz and are a smarter person.

martial arts quiz

Learn Karate By the Simple Trick of Flipping The Matrix

Learn Karate the Right Way!

To learn Karate or Taekwondo or Kenpo, or to learn any martial art, there are many different methods. Unfortunately, most training methods work in limited ways. There is one training tool, however, that can be used in any martial art, and drives the learning curve straight up the wall.


Most methods of learning, you see, rely on monkey see monkey do, which is pretty much the slowest and most inefficient, martial arts method in existence. The fastest and most up to date method for learning a martial art is by the science of matrixing. No offense, but if you live in some out of the way place and haven’t come across matrixing, you could probably do a quick google search on matrix karate, or matrix aikido, and find out what it is.

At any rate, there are some rather simple methods one can use if one decides to learn by Kung videos, learn taekwondo online, or whatever. The first method, though it is still of the monkey see monkey do variety, is to learn a form or martial arts kata. The learning curve starts to take off, however, when one realizes that they can practice the form facing in any of the four directions of the compass.

One faces in a certain direction when learning a form, maybe because they are watching a martial arts video, gets used to the direction, even uses key things in the environment to orient themselves. So to start facing north instead of south is actually a good thing. One quickly discards environmental cues and starts inputting the form without need for external reference points.

A second way to learn self defense forms is to simply do them on both the right and the left side. Everybody comes across this one pretty quickly. To do the Kung Fu forms, or the karate techniques on both the right side and the left side tends to ‘wake up the brain,’ and to make the student consider martial arts moves in new lights.

learn karate onlineThe third way of studying martial arts forms is to do the moves in reverse. Do your Karate kata backwards-not just the order of blocks and kicks and such in reverse order, but reverse motion the moves themselves-and the martial arts are quickly going to open up. Not many people have experienced this little trick, it is hard to do, but man…does it work!

Now, we have actually left most martial artists behind with the last thing we did, and that’s too bad, because things are about to come undone. Once one learns how to write a matrix on a martial art-be it karate or kung fu or whatever martial art they practice-they think they have opened up wide new horizons of martial arts. They have only scratched the hide of the monster, however, for there are two other things that one can do that are simple and yet have profound results.

First, one can put matrixes together; just as the matrixes use basic techniques to open up other techniques, one can use whole matrixes to open up other matrixes. Second, one can actually flip, or reverse, matrixes, and this one opens up the mind and causes massive amounts of data to unfold. Of course, one has to learn how to write a matrix first, and then do a few of them, but once they have done this they will be able to reverse the matrix and learn martial arts faster; they will be able to learn Karate or taekwondo or any martial art they want faster than Neo can play hop scotch.

Learn Martial Arts, learn Karate or Kenpo or whatever, by learning the fastest and most efficient training method in existence. Mouse to Monster Martial Arts.

This page has been about how to learn karate through the fastest and easiest methods known to man.

Martial Arts Book Deal and Merry Christmas to You!

Got a great Martial Arts Book Offer for you.

It’s my way of wishing Merry Christmas to every Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, Scientologist, or whatever religion you happen to be. This is a special day for somebody somewhere, so we should all party, we should all be glad that somebody has found an excuse to be kind on this war torn, economically deprived, stupid planet.

It’s not your particular special day? Tough. Party anyway, and pray, chant, light a candle for world peace.

Screw the politicians…let’s have fun!

Click here to see the special  martial arts book offer!

The Big Thing Wrong with Classical Karate Training

You know, Karate sometimes gets a bad rap these days. You see all the MMA guys trashing their opponents, and you wonder why, if Karate is so good, you don’t see it in the octagon. The reason, of course, is the problem with Classical Karate training methods.

In traditional karate classes students are lined up in a mass, and they kick and punch and do everything as one unit. This is fine, for beginners. The sad fact, however, is that one rapidly travels through being a beginner, and then needs to have a different teaching method.

Class exercises are fine to warm up, but there is no real exchange of information going on between teacher and student. Oh, you think that everything is in the forms, that you just need to do the forms and enlightenment will burst upon you? Well, true to a certain extent, but there is also the fact that if you hold to this opinion too hard you are saying that karate is for stupid people.

Oh, I’m serious. Look, Karate, be it goju or shotokan or uechi ryu or whatever, depends on physics. And, once a person has mastered the first set of physics, there is a second set of physics pertinent to the mind and the spirit. But, because of antiquated training methods, methods that were used to control unruly children (not teach them) nobody in the martial arts really knows what the second set of physics is.

Let me take one point and blow it up a bit. I had a student who had the most terrible form, and he had taken a year of classical martial arts training. He was terrible, but-smile in the eyes of his teachers-he was rigid.

So his shoulders overextended, his body was always turned the wrong way, his punches wouldn’t hurt a six year old girl, but he was deemed good because he was rigid. All his muscles locked into place at the execution of technique. And, you can see this same tendency on any number of youtube Karate videos.

Now, one of the first rules of combat is, ‘a sitting duck is a dead duck.’ Heck, the reason that bully told you to stand still and face him was because he wanted a stationary target. And this goes against the real karate somebody would learn if they could get past the rigid, no information instruction that is offered in nearly every karate class in the world.

Real Karate is liquid, and the focus points are so short they can’t be perceived, and the karateka is able to move in any direction without preparation or telegraphing. True Karate is like a whip, and only the fist tightens, and that momentarily when it smacks through some fool’s face. Karate is a study in motion, not in rigidity, and that is just one of the problems with Classical Karate Training.

If you want to see some excellent karate, check out my Temple Karate DVDs. I’m old, I’ve been doing classical karate for over forty years, but I’ve still got some liquid left in me. There are eleven forms, with TONS of self defense applications.

Goju Ryu Karate Weakness and how to Fix Them

Within the Karate Fist is Great Spirit

I was teaching this guy once, it was Kenpo Karate, and he quit and went to Goju Ryu. Hmmm.
At first I thought it was my teaching, and maybe it was, but what it really was was that the guy wanted a more classical approach.
And, I am sure he didn’t want to take privates and spend money, he preferred the small monthly class fees.
I saw him a year later, he wasn’t very good. It wasn’t the fault of the system, he just wasn’t very good.
The upshot of this is that I began examining Goju. I found it interesting.
I found the two man drills quite nifty. I found a couple of things about the system disturbing.
Breathing is important, but you should base the system around it. You should install the breathing, make sure it was being done correctly, and just check it periodically. But in Goju they were breathing and breathing, and it seemed that breathing was more important than fighting. I know I’m overstating it, but the point is there.
And, I found a couple of other things that disturbed me. Specifically, the toe out horse stance.
I heard a high ranking master explain the toe out horse stance once: it makes the small of the back soft.
WTF?
Whoneeds a soft small of the back? What is the point of that? And I’ve never found an explanation for this. PerhapsI shall some day. Perhaps someone will comment on this blog and take me to task. That’s cool. If I learn something I certainly would welcome being taken to task. Until then, the excessive breathing, and the funky horse stance are things I’ve handled in Matrix Karate. In fact, you can take Matrixing and fix Goju ryu, if you wish. Nothign wrong with the system at heart, just needs some tweaks of physics. Anyway, checkout Monster Martial Arts, particularly Matrix Karate. Who knows, you might be the one to fix Goju ryu.

The Real Truth About Goju Ryu Karate and Chojun Miyagi

Goju Ryu Karate is the invention of Chojun Miyagi. That’s right, all you Karate Kid Aficionados, there really was a Mr. Miyagi. Interestingly, however, the real Mr. Miyagi was not a Karate purist.

I’ll tell you about this after the video.

Most people think of the founder of an art as pure, he studied only one style, and never dabbled. This is because of the true believer mentality inherent in many people who learn one thing, and hold to it as the most important thing ever learned in the history of mankind. The founders of martial arts systems, however, are a varied bunch; Aikido, Kung Fu, Taekwondo or whatever, the founders invariably studied many arts before settling on the method they thought was best.

Miyagi’s initial training in the martial arts was under Ryuko Aragaki. a neighbor of his, who was considered quite the fighter. Miyagi must have done well, for Aragaki introduced him to his teacher Kanryo Higashionna. Miyagi had 3-5 years of martial arts training at the time.

For thirteen years Miyagi studied with Higashionna. Higashionna was considered to be one of the foremost Karate men of the time, and he was renowned for his Sanchin Kata. He was fond of standing and letting up to four men push on him, and holding his ground.

After thirteen years Higashionna died, and Miyagi decided that to move on in the martial arts, he would have to study with the people who trained his teacher. Thus, he made the pilgrimage to Fujian province in China, where he studied Shaolin and Pa Kua Chang.

Now Miyagi was accomplished in both hard and soft style martial arts. He returned to Okinawa and taught his system, eventually choosing a name from the bible of Karate, the Bubishi. The name was goju–’hard/soft.’

The Gojo system is thus based on hard karate, but illustrates a development of hard to soft. There are hard blocks, and yet there are drills and concepts which take the student into the softer aspects of the martial arts. Being a full bodied martial art, the style became one of the few Karate styles to rival the mainstream karate of Funakoshi.

In the final assessment, Goju is a strong system. It has resulted in the systems of Jundokan, Meibukan, Shorei kan and isshinryu. But the strength of the system lies not solely in Karate, but in the strivings of a man to understand both the hard and the soft, and who then formulated the Goju Ryu Karate System. If you want to learn the truth about Karate, check out Matrix Karate at Monster Martial Arts.