Power Tae Kwon Do Kicks in Five Logical Steps

 Martial Arts  1 Response »
Feb 012010
 

It makes no sense to let an attacker get close enough to use his hands. If he’s got a knife or club, or just a fist that is fast, the best strategy is to kick low and keep him at a distance. The problem is that many Martial Arts schools do not teach the right way to use the legs.

A couple of things to remember before we get into making your kicks into powerful tools of destruction. Practice kicking high so you have strength and flexibility, but keep your kicks low in a real fight so you don’t get a leg grabbed and tossed. And, the best strategy is to avoid the fight altogether.

Practice kicking over a chair or object of similar height. This will train you to raise your knee high for the proper execution of the kick. When your knee is high your foot can go straight in and deliver the goods, and rise in an arc up the side of the body.

Turn your hips into the action of the kick. Always turn, or tilt, your hips so that the weight of the hips is driven into the action. This will also give you a little more reach, and it will help commit the whole weight of the body into the action.

Always try to kick with the ball of the foot. I know many people like to kick with the instep, but if they miss they end up spinning around out of control. Kicking with the ball of the foot forces the artist to be an artist, and it concentrates more weight into the smaller area of the ball of the foot.

Bring the foot all the way back. Snap that foot back so that an opponent can’t grab it. This also tends to leave more power in the target.

Practice planting your foot on the target, then pushing. This usually means you will alter the kick, for this exercise, so that you can place the heel on the body of your partner, then push. This trains the exact muscles needed at impact.

Kicks are your first line of defense, and this makes them extremely important, so don’t just practice your kicks ten or twenty times and forget about them, practice them hundreds of times a day for each kick. Whether you are training in Karate, or Tae Kwon Do, or Kung Fu, or whatever other art, a well placed kick cancan make the difference between winning and dying. So practice, and look at your kicks, study the physics of a kick so that your kicks are effective and end the fight before the opponent even gets close.

Al Case has analyzed martial arts for over 4O++ years. A writer for the magazines, he had his own column in Inside Karate for many years. You can find out how to have the most powerful punch on the planet, or how to have the strongest kicks on the planet, by picking up his free ebook at Monster Martial Arts.

How to Strike Harder than Mike Tyson!

 Karate  No Responses »
Jan 132010
 

Wham bam! Iron Mike Tyson, back in the day, was knocking them down faster than they could stand up. Twelve of his first nineteen fights ended in the first round, and always with the opposing fighter laying face down like a drunk that had been massaged by a tractor!

No other fighter was knocking people out like Iron Mike, also known as Kid Dynamite, and there were a lot of strong fighters out there. So there had to be something that Mike was doing that nobody else was doing. There simply had to be a secret behind his incredible, dynamite filled, slobber knocking punches!

The secret actually comes in two parts. The first part of the secret is that he was shorter than everybody, therefore he was automatically ducking under the incoming fist, and rising up with his own. This meant that he had to use his legs, he was perfectly situated, so the push of his legs was part of his punch.

Because he was coming up from under, he learned how to push with his legs and use his hips so they assisted the angle of his punch. He just happened to be the proper size that enabled him to arc his punch at exactly the right angle, to pop that chin at exactly the right spot. Every opponent fought him in similar fashion, he defended the same way, and he didn’t start losing until opposing fighters analyzed him correctly and actually boxed!

The other part of the secret has to do with the way he was living his life. He was winning fights as long as Cus DAmato was training him, because Cus DAmato was keeping him in hand, caring about him as an individual, working with him as a person. When Cus died, however, everything changed for Iron Mike Tyson.

After Cus died Tyson came under the influence of nefarious individuals such as Don King. His marriage went sour, and he eventually began taking prescribed psychiatric medications. The mental edge that had carried him so far went away, and other fighters were no longer coming in in exactly the right manner to be taken apart by him.

So the secret of Mike Tysons unbelievable knock out punch had to do with taking advantage of his height to use his legs and come up under his opponent. It also hinged upon the discipline in his lifestyle which was enforced through the friendship of a man who cared about him as a person. And everything changed when fighters figured him out and he no longer had a trainer who could help him solve the issue.

The lesson here is that when you train in the martial arts, be it boxing or whatever, you must assess your body truthfully, and learn how to avoid its weaknesses and exploit its strengths, not an easy thing to do, but rather requiring an honest and truthful approach to oneself. The second thing you must do is live your life the right way, staying away from people who say they love you, but who act otherwise, this is seen easily if you look at how they treat people in their past. Anybody who utilizes these two principles, being accurate in your assessment of your body and living a good lifestyle, has a chance to develop the hardest punch in the world.

Al Case has researched martial arts, and the science of striking, for over 40+ years. A writer for the magazines, he is offering a free ebook on the martial arts. You can also visit Punch Em Out if you want a 100 page book which has the secrets of the hardest punch in the world!

Which Martial Art is Going toWin, Karate or Aikido?

 Karate  No Responses »
Dec 012009
 

I know, the question is a bit bogus, as one should be comparing arts such as Karate and Aikido merely so as to make them compliment each other. Thus, with that statement made, let us discuss how the fist should wiggle into the glove. No pow and bam, just an honest, up front viewpoint for your edification and enlightenment.

Karate is supposed to be a linear martial arts, and Aikido is supposed to be designed for the purity of the circle. Yet, if one looks at Karate one will see that perfection of linearity is loose, at best. If Karate could actually adhere to the linear concept, considering how the bones, joints, muscles and so on fit together, the body would probably explode, or, at least fall apart from stress.

And, on the other hand, if Aikido tried to adhere to the perfect circle, except in the most theoretical of classes, the art would not work. And, to be honest, aikido is not your best art for down and dirty combat. While Aikido is pure and wonderful, and can evolve the practitioner to high levels, one should use a martial art like Karate to enter the fight, then apply aikido.

The way to look at it is like this, distance collapses in a fight. The circle being made by stepping and circling the arm, and the lever of the extend arm is too long and unwieldy. However, Karate creates a perfect method to work your way to the inside of the fight, where you will find a shorter lever.

Instead of stepping in and tying a three foot arm circle to a wrist twist, try a hard middle block, slide in and turn the waist. As you turn the waist, bring the arms up to a short position and catch the elbow, shove your shoulder in and go with the flow. Go ahead, try this technical adaptation with a friend, even gaze at a little youtube to get the idea of the arts involved, and you are going to find an instant blend of karate, even the hardest of karate, like Kyukoshinkai, with even the purest of Aikido, even the soft taught by Morihei Uyeshiba.

Now, the above technique being attempted, the big weakness of Karate is that it is limited, in most modern classes, to destruction. It has been altered to fit the tournament, gloves are used for more violence, and freestyle is given over to fighting for fighting sake. But, maybe you have heard me say it before, while there is an art to destruction, the true art is in control.

Thus, a study of Aikido, tempered by the things I have written here, will enable you to confront the fiercest violence, and alter that violence into the simplest of workable techniques. You kick, you punch, then you simply embrace your opponent and go with the flow.

A last word about all this, don’t mistake the throws of Aikido for the throws of judo or jujitsu. While techniques of the ju variety are quick and workable, we want to move from hard to soft complete, and a certain amount of hard is still needed to make most ju techniques work. That all said, I wish you the best with your new art, whether you call it…karido…aikate…your choice.

Al Case has dissected Karate and Aikido, and other arts, for 40 years. A writer for the magazines, with his own column, since’81, Al is the originator of Matrixing. You can learn more about combining arts, and Matrixing, by getting his free ebook at Monster Martial Arts.

What Happens When You Have No Reaction Time!

 Aikido  No Responses »
Nov 182009
 

Reaction time is one of theterrible, if not the most terrile, scams ever foisted upon human beings. The idea that you must wait for somebody else to move before taking action will get you killed, and it is a trick of a blinded mind. The whole concept, and I dont care if you are a practitioner of Wing Chun or Hung Gar or Shotokan or whatever, is designed to make you a victim.

Now, the problem is that this concept of reaction time has infested all arts, and basically corrupted those arts from the get go. One of the reasons is that the martial arts have been designed to teach children, and children dont have enough control over their bodies to deal with reaction time except in the most victim manner. Thus, you have to avoid classes taught for, or evolved for, children.

Another problem is that the mixed martial arts phenomena that is currently sweeping the globe has driven people to training methods that utilize nothing but muscle and brute force. How much muscle do you have, how fast are you, and not how can you harmonize with your opponent. Again, the method creates victims of time, martial artists who have moved after somebody else has moved, and it does not create people who move in the time that is now.

For example, watch one of the latest UFC bashes, they miss as much as they hit, yet the time involved should be faster than somebody can move their heads. The reason this is happening is because people are moving in response. Or, and this is really worse, they are moving without having any real idea of where they are moving, not sure where they should be striking, just striking out blindly and hoping to win the lottery.

On the other end of the scale are the artists who dont miss their strikes, who are aware even while somebody is trying to knock their block off, and come out of the battle unmarked and yet with a knock out to their credit. Watch the fight in which Anderson Silva bashes Forrest Griffin. Anderson seems lazy, awareness in his eyes as Forrests fists brush his very throat, and yet he is never touched, and instead loops a lazy, little punch that knocks Forrest into stupidland.

But Forrest was already out of the fight! Forrest, you see was trying to hit a Anderson without knowing where the man was, which is obvious if you analyze the trajectory of his punches. Forrest was caught by reaction time, he was not able to predict in any fashion where Andersons head would be.

So here is the question that I have been building to, if a person is in reaction time, punching after the action and not in concert with the action, where is he? It doesnt matter where he is, what matters is that he is not Now. He is not in charge of his life, he is living in reaction time, he is living in the immediate past, he is not living Now.

Well, it is obvious that the world is crazy, and we all knew that, but we can make it not so crazy by undoing this silly thing called reaction time. Simply, you must seek out training drills where you move with somebody, and because he moved. Whether you study Kenpo or Krav Maga or Choy Lee Fut or whatever, you must research what reaction time is, and remove it, through intensive training, from your existence.

Al Case, 4O years martial arts, hundreds of articles for the mags and his own column, has designed methods which will undo reaction time and de-corrupt entire martial arts. You can take advantage of his free report at Monster Martial Arts, and you can see him moving without reaction time at Blinding Steel.

The Secret Behind Real Kung Fu Fighting!

 Karate  No Responses »
Nov 182009
 

When you learn real martial arts fighting, there are certain truths about how to survive. One of the truths is that the human mental apparatus doesn’t usually work well when it is getting bashed, and survival mode kicks in. Fighters who survive by the amount of adrenaline kicked in would have you believe that this is the point of it all, but it is not, it is the worst thing that could happen.

As a species we don’t have claws, or smells, or quills, or jaws, or any particular physical attribute that would help us survive, except that beasty we call a mind. It is the mind that solves problems, it is the mind that helps us adapt to any situation. It is this thing called a mind that we must learn how to control if we are to reach our full potential as humans in the fighting mode.

One must control fighting distances, by controlling distances we have choice as to what weapon we can use. The way to do this is to attach a string from your belt to his, and practice moving so that the string stays stretched but never breaks. Now, practice moving in this manner, and within a short time your body will move in concert with the other persons body because it likes the fact of harmony.

Second, we must control the harmony of the leg movements. The best leg positioning is when the legs match, which is to say his right leg is forward and so is yours, the second best position is when they oppose, which is to say his right leg is forward, and your left leg is forward. The way to train yourself to always have matching stance is merely to walk with the string, and practice matching your stance to his.

We must control how the arms move, again, in a matching or opposing sense. No string needed for this particular exercise, but you do have to be aware of distance, you have to match the movement of your partners arms as he closes distance. The way to do this is merely to control the set up of the stances and to practice matching arm motions.

We must analyze movement and positioning and discover what techniques work best for matching and for opposing. Yes, you want to have a matching stance, but whatever happens, you should be able to train yourself to work from within the situation. The trick is in a basic matrixing principle, to realize that whether you are in a matching or opposing mode, your arm will be either inside or outside of his, and you must find that technique that your positioning can grow into.

We must make everything work as if it was designed to work in unison. This would appear difficult, except that if you have worked on the individual exercises I have described here, then the whole thing comes together easy squeezy. The body, you see, even while it is being put upon, likes to work as a well oiled and harmonious unit.

Control the distances of a fight, control the arrangement of stance through positioning, control arms by understanding whether they are inside or outside, this is simple stuff, but entirely overlooked by todays MMA fighters. But if you do understand what I have said in this article, however then you will rise to the front of the pack, for you are putting awareness and the ability to think into reality. Whether you study Uechi or Krav Maga, kenpo or tae kwon do, Aikido or Arnis, the truths in this article, the hint of matrix martial arts that I have shared, will make you a better fighter…an immensely and fantastically better fighter!

Al Case has studied martial arts for 40 years. A writer for the magazines since’81, he is the originator of Matrixing Technology. If you want to learn how to fight like a thinking maniac visit Al at http://blindingsteel.com. If you already know how to fight, take advantage of his free ebook at Monster Martial Arts.

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