The following words have extreme importance for a True Martial Artist. “There are five trees in paradise and they do not change, summer nor winter, and their leaves don’t fall. Whoever knows these trees will not taste death.”
No matter which art you study, Kung Fu, Taekwondo, Ninjitsu, or whatever, you must be able to perceive the idea behind any attack. I have written about this subject since I began writing in the martial arts magazines over thirty years ago. I find it bizarre that nobody else writes about it.
Most people don’t have a clue where the chi Energy comes from comes from in Taekwondo, Kenpo, Kung Fu, or any other martial art. That there is chi is plain to see, one just need take note of a real martial artist move to know that he is doing something beyond simple muscles. The problem is that most teachers don’t take the time to explain the exact growth of chi in the martial artist.
I’ve been waiting for the definite proof that Matrix Martial Arts doesn’t work. Glad to say, there is no proof. All the proof seems to indicate that it does work, and better than people expect.
The name ‘Aikido’ is produced by the grouping of three characters in the Japanese language. ‘Ai’, which signifies ‘joining’; ‘ki’, which means ‘spirit’ and ‘do’, which which means ‘way’. These three words in fact actualy do encapsulate the essence of Aikido as a type of martial art: ‘the joining of the spirit to find the way’. It was only in the period from 1930’s to the 1940’s that the name Aikido was formally accepted as the name of this martial art type.
Let me pose question. Why can a young child run under a table and not have to grunt and groan? There is a reason for his agility, you know, and this reason infects the martial arts…and all of life.
I was talking with one of my students the other day, and we were discussing condensing body calisthenics into maybe a half dozen simple motions. Think about it, five martial arts exercises that help you be stronger, faster and more powerful. All you need to do is these five exercises!
There are only eight techniques in the martial arts. This sort of flies in the face of people who study arts with a thousand self defense techniques, but that is not its intent. In fact, one should learn those thousand techniques before they actually consider something like the club catcher technique I’m going to give you here.
I saw the Night of the Living Dead way back in the sixtes (I wasstarting Kenpo Karate back then) when it first came out. It was lots of fun, but an attack by zombies can never happen, right? Well, fast forward some four decades, and the answer might surprise you.
The sphere of Martial Arts is one of the most important gifts of Asia to the world. Who will not remember Bruce Lee and the fact that he was first and foremost a martial arts competitor before being a film star? Martial arts films are a huge hit with the escalating popularity of Asian movies like ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ and more recently ‘The House of the Flying Daggers’.
