Category Archives: kenpo karate

Should Karate Student Learn Pa Kua Chang

Marital Arts Cross Training…Karate to Pa Kua Chang

Well, we all believe in cross training, but isn’t karate and Pa Kua Chang trying to mate the dog and the cat? I mean, they are different martial arts, are they not? One is the straight line, and the other is the circle, and never the two should meet. Right?

bruce lee workouts

I like to learn ALL Martial Arts!

 


Well, an interesting bit of martial arts history might be appropriate at this time.

Karate was put together over hundreds of years on Okinawa. There was a heavy Chinese influence on this development.

One of the four major karate systems that came to Okinawa fairly intact and wasn’t put together, was an art called Pan Gai Noon. This art became known as Uechi Ryu.

If you examine the history of Uechi, and of Pan Gai Noon, you come up with three distinct animal (concepts). These are the tiger, the crane, and the dragon. And, you come up with the influence of several Chinese martial arts, among which is…pa kua chang.

So, should a karate student study Pa Kua Chang? He should if he wants to know more than the surface techniques. He should if he wants to delve into the background and history and actual source of his art.

And, the pa kua chang student might be advised to learn karate. After all, to know only the circle is to know only half the art. One should know both the circle and the line if they are to consider themselves complete.

The true martial artist must know both the circle and the line, the hard and the soft, both the internal and the external, if they want to make it to the top of the martial arts world.

This, incidentally, is one of the reasons I wrote The Neutronic Motors of Pa Kua Chang. To help martial artists to be complete. The book is a study in how to develop chi power int he martial arts. To be exact, it is a complete system, and it is the absolute fastest and most efficient method for building chi power in the world.

So, if you are a karate student, you should study pa kua chang, and vice versa, and my book is a wonderful way to make this happen.

bagua zhang

It was Unique Karate Back Then

Unique Karate, that is the name for it

The reason it was unique karate was because it hadn’t flipped for the solely physical.

I remember going to class and doing karate exercises. I was quite fascinated when I had my first student go out on his on and tach, and when I visited his class I found him teaching calisthenics.

Robert J. Babich

Bob Babich


Push ups and sit ups. Running around the room.

I don’t think I ever did a sit up or a push up in karate class. Karate was a calisthenic in itself, you didn’t need to do calisthenics to do karate calisthenics. Heck, lifting the knee to do the kick a few hundred times was better than sit ups, so why not just do the kicks?

Karate got americanized in there somewhere.

People started thinking about how they wanted their body to look, instead of what they could do with their body. And they certainly lost sight of the mind and the spirit.

It became calisthenics and fighting.

This isn’t true for all, of course, but virtually all have been corrupted in this fashion.

I guess we had push ups and sit ups in PE in school, so we figured we’d make this karate thing better with good, old American know how.

Didn’t work.

And the result has been a downslide in such things as timing, speed, and things that the karate calisthenics build naturally.

Instead, we have people taking supplements so they can beef up.

What does that have to do with Karate?

Weird.

My advice, to somebody who wanted to learn karate the old way is simple.

Stretch, and do the classical forms.

The only other thing would be to study Matrixing, because that would help you understand what you are doing.

Well, it’s interesting. Because if somebody did actually manage to learn karate the old way they would find that other arts didn’t work too well against them.

You’d find Karate making a come back in mma training. You’d find people studying the linear, hip twisting loose-tight punch of Karate.

If somebody could get over how they looked, and would start obsessing on creating a unique karate again.

unique karate

Kung Fu Freestyle is the Next Step!

Accelerating Karate into Kung Fu Freestyle

Good morning!
A happy work out to you.
Lots of happy work outs to you.

krate freestyle

The True Power of Karate!


Thanks for the response to the Rolling Fists video,
this newsletter is going to be about Rolling Fists,
but let me meander a bit,
there’s a lot of stuff on the course,
and I want to make sure people understand
what I am doing on it.
Here’s the URL,
before I go on.
http://www.monstermartialarts.com/Learn_How_to_Fight.html

It’s funny,
I’ve got large martial arts sites,
have been selling courses for half a dozen years,
and this is the first course to really go into fighting.

Yes,
just about every course has its freestyle method,
and Matrix Combat is a very thorough overview,
but…it was time I did this.
I probably need to do this for each step
of the freestyle method
outlined in Matrix Combat.

Incidentally,
before I go on,
Matrix Combat is offered free
when you order Rolling fists.
The first few orders it will be mailed separately,
but it is all coming together now.

Anyway,
The problem with most freestyle methods
is that they devolve into fighting,
people get jumpy,
and how you going to learn
when you don’t trust your partner?

So,
let’s go…

Most important,
learn to do freestyle
in a method which builds trust,
doesn’t fall into a contest,
then data can be exchanged,
and absorbed,
and the learning process can take effect.

Next,
the Freestyle method I do on Matrix Karate
is large,
works at the entering distance of a fight,
builds responses,
and creates intuition fairly fast.
The next problem,
is how to close up the distance,
which decreases the amount of time
one has to respond,
and keep and enhance the intuition.

The way to do this is to build and hold
to a distinct concept.
Concept training is always
ten times faster than normal training.

Normal training you have to repeat something ten thousand times
searching for this thing called ‘muscle memory,’
which is actually a false concept.
To call a reaction a muscle memory
is to say that the body did it.
But intuition is when you do it.

Anyway,
on the Rolling Fists video
we close up the distance,
speed up the hands,
and present the concept.
It is so logical
it is absorbed almost instantly by the student.

Now,
there are lots of things I go into on this course.
The concept
the pieces of the concept
retaining and building intuition.
and so on.

One of the most important things I go into is
is increasing impact by lessening effort.
This is an odd concept
which seems to be the reverse of normal teaching,
but which is the essence of the true art.

Think about it this way…
muscles don’t hit,
you hit.
The key is to get out of the muscles,
get out of the body,
and throw the body at somebody.
Throw the body
and focus the impact in a smaller area.

This is a hard concept for some people,
they have been sold so much bushwah
on the importance of muscle.
Yes,
muscles are important,
nothing wrong with a good,
physical work out.
But remember:
It is the mental game that is most important.

Now
the message here
is that to understand what I have said so far,
you should know more than one art.
Remember,
when I was teaching EW this stuff,
I was teaching him a second art.
I was teaching him
the Shaolin Butterfly.
The thing is,
if you have more than one art,
then you likely have enough the degree of polish,
which means…
the amount of refined control,
to understand and apply this second stage of freestyle.

Make no mistake,
it is an accelerated freestyle.
Once you have done it for a few months
you are going to find that it is pretty extreme.
in the beginning,
it looks like just a simple exercise,
but as your perceptions increase,
as you become more able to see what is happening,
and to use the concepts in ‘regular fighting,’
you will suddenly note
that you have made yourself
a huge and distinct advantage
over Joe Normal,
and even over various systems
that claim to have the best freestyle methods,
but are missing the Rolling Fists piece.

And the Rolling fists is missing.
I named it Rolling Fists,
and avoided the name lop sau,
because it goes so very much further
than that drill ever went.

Guaranteed,
it is a method of freestyle that you have never seen
except on my courses.
And,
guaranteed,
it works ten times faster
to make you twice as good.

All right,
I’ve rambled enough,
hopefully made a few points,
and i thank you for the opportunity
to explain these things.
I hope what i have said is timely,
and encourages you.

So,
have yourself a great and wonderful week,
and here’s the Rolling fists URL again
http://www.monstermartialarts.com/Learn_How_to_Fight.html

and I’ll talk to you later.

Al

kung fu freestyle

 

Learn Monster Karate Now and Live Through the Coming End of Days!

Monster Karate and the Coming Apocalypse!

I just know that if I started a Monster Karate martial arts school I would get incredibly rich. I could teach all the secret martial arts techniques that the lmonsters use to rip the beating and dripping heart out of some fool who can’t run very fast. I could teach people the secret monster karate techniques that…maybe I should tell you where I am going with all this?

monster karate

The True Power of Karate!

My wife just knew that I was totally destroying my sons’ fragile, eggshell mentalities. We would perch on the sofa for hours and eat popcorn and watch monster movies. And then I would show them the secrets of the martial arts.

What she didn’t know was that we were learning several things which were vital to learning the martial arts. Specifically, we were looking at the use of wires and make up. Analyze these two things and it will change the way you look at the martial arts, and it will even educate you as to the less than beneficial effects of Hollywood movie makers.

First, we would spend long hours dissecting the methods by which Hollywood creates its special effects. How did that vampire soar across the rooftops? The answer, we would find, would be wirework, or a blue screen, a trampoline, and invisible platforms pasted onto the background.

This led to attempts to do certain stunts, with me holding onto the back of the pants, assisting the flip, or otherwise seeing if something could be done. This led to the boys understanding the need for people who actually knew how to spot (grin) and proper instruction before trying to do those things they do on television and tell you not to do.

The second special effects factor was makeup, and while we didn’t start roaming the streets dressed in monster drag at midnight, we did get in an educational analysis of how make up could be used to enhance death. If you bent the head just right, put a metal plate against the neck, you could set off a small charge and make it look like a throat was being exploded. Cool!

And, the method for inserting knives, bullets, spears, or whatever the weapon of your choice into the body part of your choice was quite educational. This led to analysis of how the body might really react when various weapons hit it. Nice!

I know this is a strange bit of writing, and I know that people may not like the way I raised my children. But my kids are not taken in by Hollywood special effects, don’t get bothered by a little fake blood, appreciate good movie making, know that no actors were harmed during the making of this movie, and understand better how reality functions. So maybe you should think about learning a little Monster Karate, that way maybe you’ll stand a chance of surviving when zombies rule the streets.

The Secret of Light Kung Fu and How to Walk on Water

Light Kung Fu is one of those ancient myths that has a lot of substantiation. There are directions in old textbooks concerning the discipline, and every once in a while you see something really astounding that makes people think that such things are possible. This article is going to be concerned with directions for reaching that high Kung Fu ability.


light kung fu

Creating the Sphere of Chi Eneregy

Basic instructions for learning light kung fu, and being able to do martial arts techniques like jumping six feet straight up, are usually childish, or esoteric. The childish are usually consist of directions like, ‘dig a hole and jump out of it one thousand times. Take one cup of dirt out of the hole every morning, and in ten years you will be able to jump out of a twelve foot pit.

Let’s see: one inch a day, 365 days times ten years, 3650 inches divided by twelve…guy should be able to leap over 300 feet vertically. Maybe it was a cup of dirt every week? But that would still be over near 30 feet vertical.

The more esoteric directions consisted of things like breath to the tan tien while you do the dragon farts move. The second chakra must be engaged on year three, and the sixth chakra will awaken on year eight. Meditate to Mohammad constantly while you do this.

The childish and the esoteric out of the way, more confusion is often introduced by scientists. I came across the following directions for light kung fu on a karate forum. Gigong is just the ability of transition of body weight between the two feet in such a way that the body weight never gets enough time to rest its fullness on to any of the legs in any period of time…and the paragraph goes on to analyze shortening the cycle of stepping.

This last description is most interesting, but there is always a problem when somebody tries to describe something that is beyond physics with…physics. What I mean by this is that physics describes how the universe works, but it doesn’t really tell you how the mind can manipulate it. I know scientists will argue with what I have just said, and try to inflict their reasoning on the phenomena, but science can’t define the supernatural, such as light kung fu, raising the dead, or, say, walking on water.

I had a student who managed to walk on water. His method was to run across the corner of a swimming pool. He would get a running start, do a couple of things with his mind, and run over the surface of the water without dropping into the drink.

What is of interest is what he was doing with his mind. Gravity can be measured, of course; it can be described by science, but it is still an idea that you must believe in for it to function. We are raised up to make physics work (trained by schools slanted towards the scientific method), but the secret of light kung fu is to untrain your mind, to overcome the idea of gravity, and that takes a lot of kung fu discipline.

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.

 

Make Your Own Karate Weapon!

Home Made Karate Weapon!

Say Karate weapon and people usually think of nunchucks and tonfas and that sort of thing. The truth of the matter, however, is that almost anything can be adapted for urban combat.

So let’s talk about some simple, easily made karate weapons for self defense and home protection. I’ve got three doozies that you might want to think about. The thing that is nice is that you can make these yourself.

Before I continue, however, I want to make a disclaimer. I do not advocate violence, nor the making of illegal weapons. What I offer here is solely for a time when law has broken down and you must fight for survival.

The first karate weapon I like is a Kubotan. These are nifty, little keychains attached to a small bar of plastic. You can make them with wood dowels (try spacing nails on the sides) and they can be used to stab, slash, bash, and even do a jointlock or two.

Second in the karate weapons line up is a tool that is great for older folk, but can be used by anybody. Take a cane, drill a hole in the bottom, insert a nail, put a hose clamp on the end, place a cork on it. This is for keeping legs away and stabbing feet when they get too close.

My third martial arts weapon is the belt. If you wear tight pants (don’t want them falling down) you can whip that sucker out and use it for a flail, or a whip, or a basher of indiscriminate nature. If you sharpen a heavy buckle, or have some projecting points on it, you have got a first class, medieval weapon.

Now, I have built these weapons, for cheap and quick, and I even practice with them occasionally. I sure hope the world comes to its senses, I hope the idiots in charge of governments come to an understanding that war destroys society, it doesn’t help it. But, when the food is scarce on the shelf and mobs of hungry people are roaming about, robbing and stealing for a crumb, the smart people will have quick and sneaky urban weapons of the type I have mentioned here.

In closing, let me say that when it comes to Karate Weapons I recommend Blinding Steel as the ultimate Martial Arts Weapons course. You learn all distances, all weapons, and in a matter of hours. That is the best way to be prepared if you actually have to use one of these Karate Weapons I have described in this article.

It was at a Karate School that I Learned to Fart on Your Food!

Karate School…and Learning How to Be Politically Incorrect!

As time went on, I realized that having gone to a Karate School, I was not the same as other people. I don’t think I realized how much Karate had made me different until the day I ran a social experiment where I had a Karate student fart on food. FYI, no food was actually harmed in the conducting of this social experiment…grin.

karate school

Do you have the gumption to actually fight back at what has been done to you?

I knew I was different because I don’t follow the rules of that are generally followed in society. I was always in trouble, always said the wrong thing, and always being the only person laughing and having a good time. The truth is that breaking the rules and having a good time go together pretty well.

And, I noticed that all the people around me were getting older, especially in their personal attitudes. They started thinking that politicians and other fools and liars were significant, and they grew grim lines on their faces. Me, I just kept studying and training in the martial arts.

One day I ordered this fart machine on the web. You press a button and it makes the wonderful sound of flatulence, and most people are easily fooled. Then I had one of my Karate students slip it in his back pocket, and had him back up to a table at a nearby restaurant.

Now, I expected to have to save him when somebody got angry, but I was wrong. It was a sidewalk cafe, and he would back his fanny right over the table, and hit the button. People stopped talking, looked down at their lunch, and kept right on eating.

I was in shock, farts are actually airborne fecal matter, and every person we did this to just looked down at their plates and kept eating. I would have gotten extremely angry if anybody ever did that to me. So why wasn’t anybody getting angry?

I would have gotten angry because I learned Karate and other martial arts, and I am trained to stand up to idiots who do things like that. Simply, I am not afraid, and especially of some fool who lets out a puffer. And all those people whose toast and sausages we were farting over had not learned martial arts.

The people of this nation, you see, have been trained in school, watched too much TV, and had the gumption socially acclimated right out of them. Political correctness has now replaced the instinct to survive, and people just sit around and be victims…they are afraid to stand up and say: that’s not right and don’t you ever pull that stuff again! So go ahead and continue the way you are going, encourage your kids to go to school and learn how to be politically correct, don’t go to a Karate school or learn kung fu or anything like that, and the next time you sit down and hear a strange sound blowing out the back of somebodys jeans…just look down at your plate and keep eating.

Toss out political correctness, click to MonsterMartialArts.com, go to a real karate school on the net, learn true karate…and start undoing what has been done to you.

Karate Kiai and Discovering The Enigma of Kotodama

Karate Kiai Defeats Attacker Without Touching Him!

Karate Kiai means ‘spirit shout,’ and it is the deadly scream that karate practitioners utter when chopping an opponent’s head off. Well, maybe I overstated that a bit, grin, but there is a truth to the karate shout that is unarguable and leads to some rather rare and mysterious knowledge. I am referring to the subject of Kotodama, which means ‘Word spirit.’

spirit shout

The True Power of Karate!

The idea behind a Karate kiai is to put all energies into one moment, one attack, and thus to enhance the power of the strike. The idea of scaring an attacker is somewhat secondary, but still very significant. Both of these ideas lead to rather interesting conjecturings and mysterious realities.

Kotodama is generally directed at the notion of creating soothing sounds, which sounds can engender a more spiritual feeling in a person. There is, of course, the flip side of this subject, the bad word belief, in which a sound is used to harm somebody. Either way, the study of kotodama results in the notion of kotomuke (soothing speech to bring peace), and kotoage, which is a way of invoking magic.

My first experience with the kotodama comes directly from a decades long study of karate, kung fu, and other martial arts. This gave direct experience with the power of screaming at an attacker and weakening him. In one case I used the power of the karate kiai to defeat a would be mugger…and he turned around stumbled down the street, his body shaking uncontrollably.

Experiences like this, which were brought about by the faithful practice of karate forms with correct emphasis on Karate kiai, brought me to a profound appreciation of the subject. Of interest in this is the speech mannerisms of salesmen and mentalists, and others of that sort. Observing how such people conducted themselves, the tones they used, the pitch of sound they used, brought me to the realization that we are talking about the subject of vibrations.

Vibration is commonly acknowledged to be the source of the universe. Between the idea of an Eternal Spirit and the rather short termed and solid life of objects (of which the universe is made), is vibration. This idea is true on the atomic level of protons and electrons, and on the larger scale of whirling galaxies and entire universes.

What we are more interested in, however, are the vibrations possible to us in our day to day lives as human beings. Can a person speak in such a way as to cause a vibration which can move the universe? The answer to this is as sharp and distinct as the phenomena of an opera singer singing a note that cracks a glass.

The method for achieving this ability is just as clear cut. First, one has to know, through the simple practice of virtue, that they are spiritual in nature, and that they can create vibrations which not only shatter glass, but which can rattle objects on tables, and, more easily, cause comfort or discomfort to their fellow human beings. Second, one has to discover and adhere to the exact disciplines which create this ability…then the result is that a simple Karate kiai can become Kotodama, can become a mystical spell or chant which has the power to harm or heal.

 

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