World Of Swords

Bagua Kung Fu training began for me four decades ago. I was involved in Chinese Kenpo Karate, fascinated by martial arts, and I found this little martial arts book, and...four decades later I still walk in circles. Circles, of course, are the secret of good bagua.

You walk in circles you rotate your arms you pivot and...breath. It really is the easiest martial art to learn, yet one of the most amazingly complex. In spite of these contradictions, it has the most wonderful and far reaching benefits of any Martial Art that I have ever seen.

Anyway, what this bit of writing is about is that back in the 90s I decided to construct a Bagua training hall. I didn't want a thing of wood and beams, however, I wanted an open air location where I could assimilate the purity of environment that the ancients had. So I looked out my back door and over to the top of a mountain.

Actually, it wasn't much of a mountain, more of a hill, but there was a charm to it. Prying eyes wouldn't be able to see me, and permeating everything was the sweet smell of giant sage plants, and this wilderness training hall would be open only to those who liked to do a little climbing. All in all, it looked like Paradise had found a home on earth.

I built the entry to my mountain kung fu training hall by selecting a path behind a large, bushy plant. I used a sharp edge shovel, and I chopped steps up the side of the mountain. When I reached what I deemed to be the perfect location, I began to scrape and level a twelve foot circle.

The first time I walked my bagua circle was heaven. I breathed deeply, felt space expand around me, and I could--I swear--feel the spiritual fires awakening, coursing through my frame, herding me along the path of the ancients. Unfortunately, heaven proved to be a quick trip.

Insects. Millions of swarming gnats, a herd of eternal bugs surrounded me, tried to fly into my mouth, actually tried to crawl up my nose. And bees, and wasps, and big, fat black monsters with stingers that made a noise like the exhaust of a racing motorcycle.

I tried masks, I tried citronella pots, I tried everything, but it was no use. My Bagua Kung Fu was no match for their 'bug-wah' communism. Over the years I have continued my practice, and have experienced profound abilities, revelations, benefits, and more...but I have done so from within the confines of one of those darned, infernal, man made contraptions called a house.

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This is going to be the oddest article on tai chi you have ever read. I've never had a lesson in the art of Tai Chi Chuan, you see, but my tai chi is the best. I don't mean to be self serving, but let us see if you can argue with me after you have read how I came up with my tai chi.

I began learning tai chi out of a book, Modified Tai Chi for Health by Lee Ying Arng, back in 1976. Every night I spent hours going over the form, trying to figure out how to apply it, trying to figure out the meaning. And, to behonest, it didn't mean much.

So I went through books by Chen Man Ching, and I read Chen and Yang and Wu and Sun, but they all spoke this gobbledegook that didn't make sense. So I began doing my Karate, I had near ten years experience in Kang Duk Won karate, and the thing started to resolve. I was using good, old karate power to juice up the form, and it worked, and then I was able to make what was happening into Tai Chi power.

More important, I was throwing out all the mysticism and bushwah philosophy I read in the books and using something called physics. The martial arts, you see, as transmitted with eastern methodology, are taught through the memorization of random strings of data. In physics you look for a reason, and you find a logic, and you look for a concept.

Now, ancient stories claim tai chi was created in a dream by san feng after he watched a bird and a snake fight. Or, it was started by a general in a village, who was retired from war and wanted to make up games for the children. Neither of these concepts have much verifiable validity, but we can't just discount them out of hand.

Maybe the general in Chen village couldn't do the martial arts the way they should be done, and maybe he actually came up with something unique. And the vision of the snake and the crane, though I am a true believer in physics I would not speak ill of visions, for visions are the dreams and inspiration of the human race. Still, whether rehabilitation of the broken warrior, or the stuff of dreams, tai chi does not make sense without the application of physics.

So I want you to get a book on physics. Make it a simple book, with big, simple illustrations. It would really help if you found a simple one describing a motor.

Now, read that book, and start asking yourself what terms are the same as in tai chi. Rooting is grounding, where is the generator, and so on. Do that, and when the face and guts of your tai chi chuan start to alter, do not come whining to me.

Al Case has studied martial arts 4O years. He began Tai Chi Chuan in 1974, became a writer for the mags in 1981, and originated Matrixing Technolgy, which is the study of physics in the martial arts. You can get a free ebook on Matrixing at Monster Martial Arts.

The common attitude towards the martial arts is that they are a rite of passage. Rite of passage is a common concept amongst societies. But, modern society doesn't really need rite of passage, rather, it needs a logical approach to make the martial arts easier to learn and more effective.

This, of course, means that the bully boy attitude of many instructors is going to have to go on the skids. The idea that you have to be a man to do something needs to be re-evaluated. Really, to grow up in this society means that you have to learn how to think.

There are three stages in this martial arts related thinking process, and, unfortunately one of them is unknown. The three stages are Coordinated Body Motion (CBM), matrixing, and mushin no shin, which I shall explain later. Of the three, nobody even knows what Matrixing is.

CBM is the concept of using the body as one unit. This means that all parts of the body must be used at the same time, starting motion at the same time, and stopping motion at the same time. Mystical in the past, one need merely evaluate the range of motion and the mass of the body part and so on of the various body parts and go about integrating them through analysis of simple motions inherent in the martial arts.

Matrixing is the analysis and handling of force and flow (direction). Matrixing relies on a simple graphing procedure, and it reveals all the things that one doesn't know in the martial arts. Hidden techniques and mysterious moves all come to light once one starts to Matrix his martial art.

Mushin no shin is Japanese for Mind of No Mind. I have also referred to it as Time of no Time, and it means that the person has managed to ignore all the chaos and static of the human mind and begun analyzing reality as it is, and in the here and now. Interestingly, in spite of the fact that Matrixing has been unknown, a rare few people have managed to achieve Mushin No Shin, but they have been unable to pass it on, for there has been no logic or science to perpetuate it as a logical method.

Matrixing is incredible important, as it stands as a way for the human being to overcome a faulty mind and perceive, and have doings with, reality as it is. No more illusions about what is actually happening in life. And, this means that you don't have to beat somebody up through a rite of passage to get him to learn something that, the faulty mind put aside, would be obvious.

Interestingly, I came across the graphing method of matrixing by making long lists of martial arts techniques, and searching for the most efficient method for crossing the lists and discovering all the tricks of the martial arts. What I didn't know was that I was going to uncover all the potentials of motion that I did not know existed. Well, at this point you know ten times what I did before I began my study of matrixing, so give it a try, and let me know how it works.

Al Case has learned the martial arts for forty++ years. He has written dozens of articles and had his own column in Inside Kung Fu. You can learn more about his Matrixing Method in a free ebook available at Monster Monster Martial Arts.