World Of Swords

The wins students get from true Shaolin Kung Fu training are absolutely unbelievable. The key to these wins is to train correctly. After all, you could have the nicest cut of ribs in the world, but cook it incorrectly and you'll have a charcoal mess.

When one is studying Kung Fu one should always move the body as a single unit. Six Harmonies Boxing preaches that one should move the hand at the same time as the foot, the knee with the elbow, and the hips with the shoulders. This is a technical viewpoint, which tends to separate body parts even as it unifies them.

As for the hands and feet, one should step or twist into a stance in conjunction with the starting and stopping of the hand movement. For the knees and elbows, one should properly align the body when doing any movement. For the hips and shoulders, move them together and you will be putting all your body weight into whatever motion you are doing.

The second of the three secrets of Shaolin Kung Fu training is to use the waist when turning the body. This is something that people begin to learn naturally after understanding the points about moving the body as one unit. The advice here is to use the waist to make the body turn, don't turn the arms first and expect the body to follow.

If you move the arms to initiate an action the body weight is going to be trying to catch up, instead of projecting weight and energy, and this tends to take weight out of a movement. Taking weight out of motion will take real power out of a move. If one studies this principle they will end up building the true chi power inherent in Shaolin Kung Fu.

Last of the three advices has to do with proper breathing. There is a general rule that one should breath in when the body contracts, and out when the body expands, but there is more to it than just that. One must breath, and use that breath to guide awareness into the body part being used.

To make this occur one should 'swim with awareness' when doing the motions of kung fu forms. One should push the hands through the air as if they are moving great weights, this can give one the appearance of swimming through molasses. This tends to be truer in the internal forms and styles of Shaolin Kung Fu training, but that is fine.

In conclusion, these are three very important items that many people neglect, or simply just don't understand. Yet they are key to ones real progress in the martial arts disciplines. Harmonize the body parts, use the whole body, and put breath awareness into your movements, that is the simple and obvious secret of true Shaolin Kung Fu Training.

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Matrixing, to give you the definition right from the start, is the analysis and handling of force and flow. Every object, every particle in this universe has a direction, and everything in the universe has lots of potentials for collision. Thus, the study of Matrixing becomes the single most important thing one can learn if one is going to understand things like Shaolin kung fu.

Now, to set this article up in the proper manner, let me say that the martial arts are nothing more than random strings of data. This is like somebody memorizing a dozen pieces on the clarinet, and thinking he is the next Pete Fountain. Obviously, one has to do more than memorize a few pieces, one must find the structure of his art, and how to arrange that art before he can lay claim to being a master artist.

So, let us consider this thing called Shaolin. Shaolin has a few thousand years of history, and every master and his sister has made their contributions, and thus the logic of the art has become mixed and impenetrable. There is a vast variety of these strings of random data, you see, and there single arrangement of principles with which to make sense out of it.

If one studies Shaolin kung fu like Choy Li Fut or Hung Gar, one thinks that kung fu is deep stance, windmilling arms, and a collidoscope of concepts which pop out at you. One thinks that one must beat up students right up to the head abbot to get promoted, and one must meditate and beat his fists into heated iron pellets to get the real kung fu. The sad fact is that this is a small subset of concepts, and while the true art is touched upon, it is not penetrated.

If one studies Wing Chun, one thinks that he has to stand squarely, achieve balance, and absorb attacks with the antennas of the forearms. Three forms, a wooden dummy, and never the idea that everything is just random strings of data, and not the whole. Thus, Wing Chun is phenomenal, yet it just touches upon the True Art, and never embraces it.

Then, of course, there is the Mantis, if we wish to speak of antenna arms, and circling motions that manipulate an opponent to his destruction, and so on. But, if you look at it, it is almost like Wing Chun and Hung Gar or Choy Li Fut have been combined. Thus, the principles wallow and intermingle and intermarry and interbreed into fresh bastards and the True Art is obscured in a fog of amazing ability and astounding art.

This all said, Matrixing could easily organize Shaolin, in the various forms of Hung Gar or Choy Li Fut or Wing Chun and come to the truth of the true art. But I chose Karate to present the principle of Matrixing, and to expose the world to the concept of logic through analysis and handling. Simply, the history was shorter, the mountain was smaller, the obscuring fog more transparent, and karate was easier to define.

There is a true blessing in my selectio of karate as a matrixng vehicle, however, for if youmatrix karate, you can use that matrixing as a template for Shaolin. All you have to do is plug the pieces of Shaolin into Matrix Karate, and, voila, you have instant true art. Doesn't matter how much fog, who cares how tall the mountain is, it can all be resolved into an easy to learn slices of True Art, and thus open the door to the whole of The True Art.

Al Case has researched martial arts for 4O years. He has written hundreds of articles for the magazines and had his own column in Inside Karate. He is the originator of matrixing Technology. He offers a free ebook on Matrixing at Monster Martial Arts.

I don't care if you study shotokan or kenpo or Uechi ryu or whatever, you're going to need a powerful fist. I don't care if it is tae kwon do or boxing or Krav maga, you're going to need a fist that knocks them down the first time! Even if you're in Aikido or Tai Chi, you're going to need to understand what power is so you can properly handle it.

The funny thing is that a powerful punch is can easily be had if you follow a couple of easy steps. You don't have to slam your poor mitts against a telephone pole. You don't have to thrust spear fingers into boxes of sand.

As with most things in this world, once you know the knowledge behind something, that something is easy to understand and do. Thus, the first thing you need to know in developing a killer punch is simple. That one thing you need to understand is...weight.

This universe has only objects flying through space. When objects collide there is the sensation of weight. The more weight involved in the collision, the more effect there is going to be.

You hit somebody, and your fist flies through space and collides. Now, if the body your fist is colliding with weighs 200 pounds, then you are going to have to have a two hundred pound fist. Well, you could multiply the 20 pounds of your fist by ten times the velocity, but there is an easier way.

The easiest way is to get your body behind the punch. Your arm may weigh 20 pounds, but if you can add your legs and your torso and even your head to the equation, you can weigh, especially when you times your weight by velocity, 200 pounds. Heck, if you can get a hundred pounds of body weight into a punch, and then multiple it by a simple ten, you are going to have a thousand pound punch.

First, do lots of push ups, and when your arms get strong and able to absorb the shock, start jumping your push ups into the air. Second, do your form slowly, looking at the pieces of your body, and learn to assemble them into one movement. Three, set up a six foot tall box, pad it, make it weigh 200 pounds, and practice shoving it across the floor with your punch.

The funny things is that this method is so simple that nobody has ever really stumbled across it. And, to be truthful, the importance of delivering weight in the martial arts has been totally overlooked. But, whether you do pa kua chang, tai chi chuan, Shito ryu, Hung gar, or any of the forms of classical kung fu, you need to understand weight, and you need to implement some form of the training method I have detailed here if you want The Most Powerful Punch on the planet!

Al Case has taught the martial arts for 4O+ years. He has written hundreds of articles for the magazines. You can find out more about The Most Powerful Punch on Earthh at Monster Martial Arts.