He Was Crazy…And He Studied Korean Karate With Me.
[I:http://www.aikido-judo-karate.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/AlCase7.gif]I doubt whether most schools, be they Kung Fu or Wudan or Aikido or whatever, have ever had a crazy guy in their school like Mud Car. We called him Mud Car because that’s what it said on the license plate on his car.That car, more than anything else, summed up Mud Car.
He had tied parachute webbing across the insides of his car because he felt that that material was best for holding his car together on the inside. He had fire extinguishers fastened to every surface on the inside of his car. He had a dial on his dashboard to give extra power to his tail lights, and he turned it whenever he faced away from the sun so that drivers behind him could see when he braked.
This was just the surface of Mud Car, though. The most impressive thing that Mud Car did was commit to memory the times of all the stop lights in the whole town of San Jose. He could travel across that large town without ever having to stop for a light.
Unfortunately, when it came to the karate, he was just as crazy. He couldn’t stretch his limbs, couldn’t control what his body was going to do, and, because of this lack of control, it hurt to work out with him. Just being in his presence you could feel the firecrackers in his mind exploding into the universe.
One day he interrupted the instructor to complain about a pain in his leg. “It doesn’t hurt me that much, but it keeps nagging at me, do you know how to make the pain in my leg go away?” My instructor looked at me with murder in his eyes, I suppose he didn’t want to look at Mud Car because he would kill him, and he blurted, “Hit your leg with a lead pipe…that’ll make the pain go away.”
I suppose the ability to drive other people insane is the deciding point in this matter of whether a person is goofy or not. Because of this Mud Car never made it to Black Belt. He just didn’t have the mental maturity that is the mark of a black belt.
One day, however, a new instructor came to the school, and Mud Car was promoted to Black Belt within a month…and then he left the school. He had achieved his goal, and that was all he wanted, and the new instructor knew that was the best and most efficient way to get rid of Mud Car. Yet, I missed Mud Car.
He was crazy, but so is the guy who attacks you on the street, so if you could last a session with Mud Car without getting injured, you knew your art was effective. Furthermore, there was a shift of standard here, for Mud Car was promoted because he could drive people nuts, not because he was good. Finally, I think that is where the True Art started disappearing…schools, even schools like Tae Kwon Do or Kenpo or classical karate, did not administer soothing discipline to the insane, they just promoted them to get rid of them.
If you want to go crazy through the martial arts…drop on by Punch ‘Em Out. If you want to go sane through the martial arts…try Monster Martial Arts. 2
New Technology Destroys Kung Fu!
[I:http://www.aikido-judo-karate.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/AlCase9.jpg]I saw the beginning of this over forty years ago while studying Kenpo Karate/Kung Fu, and it is still going on. In fact, it is worse than ever, and corrupts the majority of arts to a great degree. I will give you a couple of examples, and hopefully you can see to repairing the martial art that you study.
I was studying Ed Parker Kenpo Karate, and we began using pads. At first, the pads were only used to help fellows with knee problems, or that sort of thing, but the assortment of pads quickly grew. Soon pads were used on the shins for bruises, on the feet, on the shins, on the elbows and wrists, and so on.
Suddenly, people figured out that there was money in this padding thing. School owners realized that selling pads upped the revenue, and began pushing them to every student for every class. The selling of protective devices became a million dollar business that infected every school.
Now, you might be wondering why this is so bad. We’re just protecting little Johnny, right? But this is part of the school owner propaganda, and part of the selling gimmick.
When you wear pads you think your punches aren’t going to cause enough damage, and so you begin punching harder. Thus, the protective gear actually encourages less control and more violence. When you think about it, if you have to be aware and responsible so that you don’t get hurt, you start to control yourself and learn the true art.
The true martial art has to do with learning how to control yourself, you see. If you learn how to control your actions, then you start learning about yourself, and this makes you a better individual, on and off the matt. If you think you have to punch somebody harder and harder to make it work, then the people you fight are going to be more in danger.
Now, I saw this type of thought process infect the martial arts world back in the sixties. I also saw the introduction of fake weapons, so that people wouldn’t hurt themselves, which also decreases the need for learning control, and for the true appreciation of one’s own art. And, now people must wear mouthpieces, chest protectors, cups, and whatever else they can be scared or forced into buying.
The people who invented the martial arts, who passed them down through the generations, did not use such things, and I suspect they would have laughed at them. Bear in mind that I am not asking people to put themselves at risk, I am asking that people practice martial arts with no accoutrements, so that they can take responsibility for what they do, and not be cushioned against learning about themselves. Whether you study Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu, traditional Karate, or whatever, you should follow Ed Parker’s advice…’I come to you with empty hands.
You can find out about all sorts of things that corrupt the martial arts, you can even learn how to fix your own art at Monster Martial Arts. Pick up a free ebook about matrixing while you’re there. 7
I Used Martial Arts To Cut Open His Chest…And Found The Real Me.
[I:http://www.aikido-judo-karate.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/AlCase29.jpg] I had been studying the martial arts about twenty years when this happened. I had studied Ed Parker Chinese Kenpo and Kang Duk Won Korean Karate, Wing Chun and Aikido, and lots of other things. I was working in a door factory, and some of the fellows knew that I studied the martial arts.
One lunchtime, one of my coworkers asked me to show him some martial arts. We went into a room at the rear of the factory. It was hard to see and quite noisy, and we had to really concentrate to hear each other.
I was showing him suburito, which are basic Aikido sword exercises. I was showing him how to stand a certain way and hold the sword straight up in a ready position. Suddenly, I felt a huge force grab a hold of me; it was like the hand of a 100 foot tall giant.
I couldn’t stop the sword, and it sliced down behind me. A guy named Eddie had been sneaking up, and the sword cut through his shirt and into his chest. It was a ragged slice, blood poured out, and he staggered back against a stack of pallets and grabbed at his chest.
It was time for first aid, and we were going to have to take Eddie to the hospital and get his chest sewn back together. While we were waiting for a car, trying to stop the blood, I queried Eddie, “What were you doing?” He shook his head and said, “I was going to get you, man.
I was going to grab you. It was just a joke, I thought it would be funny.” Sensing something under his words, I asked him, “What were you thinking, right when it happened?”
He muttered, “I thought I was going to get you. Right when I was starting to jump I thought, ‘Aha…got him!’ And then you cut me open!”
The skin is a fence, and the eyes and ears are like searchlights watching what goes on beyond the fence. With the martial arts you start moving energy around inside the body, and you start to become more aware. Eventually you start to become aware outside the fence. You perceive without the eyes and ears.
And, you become aware that you are more than just a body, you are a 100 foot giant spiritual being. The point here is that whether you study Kenpo or Karate, Kung Fu like Wing Chun, or something else, the answers are there, the martial arts can help you find the real you. You just need to work out hard enough, and in an art that is logical and efficient.
This really happened, and the method Al used is called Matrix Martial Arts. You can find out about it at Monster Martial Arts. Al has forty years martial arts experience.
