[I:http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/extras/pics/bowzerimage14.jpg]One of the less spectacular feats in the martial arts, and yet one of the most important, is how to put out a candle. Interestingly, with just a little bit of practice almost anyone can put out a candle, it is that simple. Unfortunately, most people reach the point where they can do it, then stop, but that is where they should begin their study, for doors are about to be opened.

The basic principle of putting out a candle is to let the woosh of air drain oxygen from the flame by stopping your fist an inch from the candle. There is much higher ability available, however, if one continues to pursue this simple trick. One can, for instance, put out a flame from across the room.

When you stop the fist you are learning to focus your muscles, and thus it is on a physical level. To pursue the technique to a higher level you must not concentrate stopping the muscles, but on letting the mind go. By letting the mind go you unloose your intention, and that is the key to real higher ability.

Try stopping your fist two inches from the candle. The air is not be effected because your fist is too far away. Now, to make the candle flicker and go out, you must rely on intention.

Actually, it is better to start this second stage of training at about a foot, although you may have to experiment, even up to a dozen feet or more, to find the distance that is best for developing your intention. When you flick the fist you must watch the candle. Do not watch it hard, but rather increase your relaxation. Relaxation is the key to making this trick work.

Your real body is the bubble of world that you perceive, it is not the fleshy envelope you are wearing. Thus, you must learn to desire to effect what is outside your body. And, just like a light in a bulb, perceptions work best through space.

Through space, a vacuum, nothingness, emptiness. Not air, or even brick or wood, or other things which, though they appear real, are merely ideas held in place to support the idea of your real body.

What I have said here is alien concept to most people, and it even frightens some, for it strikes to the heart of the matter of our existence in the cosmos. The heart of the matter of our existence in the cosmos aside, space, that nothingness in which we place the universe, is the most important thing…behind the structure of the universe. So place the candle across the room, still the mind until it is as peaceful as a coal mine at midnight, and practice launching your relaxed and certain intention, and a few dozen hours practice will enable you to see what I am talking about.

[I:http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/extras/pics/bowzerimage22.jpg]Nobody else knows about this, but it is the best kick I know. This is an amazing kick, but it’s true,and I never see anybody else use it. Not in tournaments, not in the MMA, not even in good, old commercial school freestyle.

This kick is as fast as thought, but if I don’t pull it and merely plant it gently upon my opponent’s body, I’m going to break a bunch of his poor ribs. This kick is probably the most powerful kick in you will ever see. Every time I use it, I tell you, I get the point.

The replacement spin side kick is what I call this kick–but I simply refer to it as the Pop Kick. When I use it I turn my back to my opponent, I can’t even see him. Yet, the kick shakes his ribcage every single time.

When you make this kick, you first have to be able to fight out of a horse stance. This is easily done, but there is a weakness to it. Obviously, you have turned your side, and your body is half closed.

So when I set fight out of a horse stance, I make it very temporary. I usually let myself be bullied into turning my body, and thus lulling the opponent. This undoubtedly helps the surprise of the kick when I deliver it.

Now, the trick is to be able to switch feet. So,to practice for this switch, I simply take a horse stance and let the energy pop from the tan tien. I make it like snapping the fingers–very important–make the switching of the legs like the snapping of the fingers.

Now, take a stance before a wall, breath easily, relax, and practice, when switching the feet, making the foot coming around the back to plant upon the wall. One foot lands on the floor, and the other foot lands on the wall, and they must do so at the same time. The key here is to visualize the kick, see it in your mind, relax, and just let it pop, a simple popping thought.

Do you see what kind of magic we are creating here? By practicing kicking at the speed of thought the kick becomes virtually instantaneous, like the movement of a magicians fingers when he dazzles the crowd. I am helpless in a weak stance, the other fellow is convinced that he’s shutting my body to the side, and whamo jamo,the side kick pops in from the wrong side. The unexpectedness of it all, the instant coordination, the pure strength of the side kick, the sudden drop of the weight, they all combine to make a mofo kick that is a real heart stopper.

[I:http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/extras/pics/bowzerimage20.jpg]Karate arrived in the United States some 60 years. Advertisements of the time claimed that a slight woman could defend herself against a grown man, showed men killing bulls. It was said that even a child properly trained in Karate, was capable of astonishing ability

So why didn’t it all happen? The reason is that so many people wanted the art that there weren’t enough teachers to teach it. And what, you might ask, does a person need to teach Karate?

When Karate first was being taught in the US, guys were getting their black belts in three years, and then opening their own schools. But it took a dozen years to master the art, and a master doesn’t even have the information that an instructor needs. Knowing the data, and being a master, doesn’t mean that you can teach somebody else.

Now we come to modern times. You’ve got guys with thirty years experience saying they are teachers, and they’ve mastered the art, but, like as not, they don’t really know how to teach. A master can be made by simple experience, it is true, but an instructor needs more than simple experience.

To be an instructor requires specialized data. He doesn’t just need boot class to get tougher, he needs to find out the reasons why things work, and be able to get other people to understand those reasons. It is a matter of a real education, you see.

So you want to take karate, and you walk into a school and observe a teacher. Is the teacher explaining why things work? Or is he merely asking people to mimic him?

Yes, the first stage is Monkey see monkey do, but it only lasts a short while. The real real reasons for how and why something works must be inserted, or what is being taught will become nothing more than memorization. And when the fist comes out of the darkness, do you want to remember how to defend yourself, or do you want to have the instantaneous intuition that is available if you don’t just memorize, but know and understand the how and the why of why the moves are what they are?

So that’s the story. Karate could do all it claimed, but it was reduced by quick black belts who wanted to make money, and who didn’t really know why they were doing what they were doing. I trust this information will help you when you seek an instructor, and when you are actually learning the art.

Zork, Pow and Shazaam! If you could download the martial arts into your brain like Neo, you would be better than Bruce! I hope you you don’t think that it only happens in the movies!

Of course, the mainframe hasn’t gone looking for Zion, yet, and we are not currently trapped in the matrix, so we’re going to have use other methods to accomplish the download. Let’s see, how about accupuncture to the phrenology, or maybe if you licked that USB port. Or, hmm, what’s this thing called Matrixing!

Most everybody know about Matrixing by now, and it seems liek everybody is using it to implant whole martial arts into their minds, but what’s the trick here? I mean, the mainframe really isn’t up and runninng line, so what’s the skinny on it all? how do we accomplish cranial downloads of the zip kind?

The trick is easy, it is called logic. You simply have to take a martial art and put logical order into the thing. Of course, since the martial arts look pretty much like a Chinese fire drill, this is sometimes hard to do.

When taking your art apart for matrixing you should understand that the martial arts are taught by the slowest and most inefficient method of instruction on the planet, which is monkey see monkey do, which is. The techniques of the martial arts, are not assembled in a logical and conceptual order, and it can take decades to memorize enough strings of thsi random data so that the whole thing can make sense. And when the home intruder is knicking down your front door we all know that decades of instruction is a little slow.

So, you make lists of your basics, put them all in order, simplest to most difficult, then the data is like a stream. Of course, the fact that the data is all mixed up, big, old conglomerations of multiple different arts all smushed together, doesn’t help. Obviously, we need a better solution.

What we need is a method for separating the data and putting in order according to art. If we can do that, then we can not only resolve our individual art, but start to mix and match all the arts, and still retain sense of what it is all about. Really, it’s just a big software problem, which, unfortunately, hasn’t been done before.

So these are the problems you’re going to need to handle to download the martial arts into your mind in quick fashion. The secret of learning the martial arts at vast speeds is to zip data, and to avoid all confusions. This is the theory behind Matrixing, and if you get it, then you can download the martial arts in direct and usable fashion into your brainpan.

[I:http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/extras/pics/bowzerimage10.jpg] You shouldn’t try to eat anything that’s got bigger teeth than you. When it comes to words of wisdom I know that isn’t much, but there is a certain undeniable truth here. Especially when a student offers the complaint that he is tired.

“Al, I’m too tired to continue.” Observing the youngster I knew that he wasn’t really tired, he was just being a bit childish. The that he had chosen to do so right in the middle of my karate class was, however, a problem.

When one of these hopes for our future stops my class for such foolishness I am not particularly pleased. I am suddenly beset by the desire to pick up that large stick with a nail in it that I keep in the corner of my dojo and…but I don’t. Instead, I make them listen to the story of the tiger, which is an interesting tale from another culture.

One day two monks were traveling through the jungle to distant temple. One monk was old and the other one was young. “I’m tired,” the younger whined, “can’t we stop?”

“Not yet,” said the older monk. The old monk moved a little faster. He wasn’t in the mood to hear complaints from the younger generation.

“I can’t go on. I’m too tired to walk. I’m stopping,” and the younger monk sat down at the side of the trail and began to fan himself.

“We’ll never make it to the next temple if you insist on stopping. Get up and let’s continue!” The older monk commanded the younger man, but his words had no effect.

“No way. I’m just too tired to go on!” The younger monk fanned himself tiredly.

The older monk, seeing a tiger sleeping in the bamboo, picked up a rock and threw it at the tiger. The tiger jumped up and chased the two monks. The monks ran like…well…like a tiger was after them.

The monks managed to get away from the tiger. When they were safe the younger one turned to the older monk. “Why’d you do that?”

The older monk chuckled, then began to laugh outright. “I thought you said you were too tired to walk?” The younger monk had no rejoinder in the face of such superior wisdom, and he began to laugh, too.

There is a bit of wisdom to be had from such a story as this. The monks, you see, were running for their very lives. The tiger, on the other hand was only running for a little dinner.

Which brings us to my words of wisdom. Do you treat every day like it is a run for your life? Or do you pretend everything has bigger teeth than you?

And the child in my class who complains about being tired? After I tell him the story about the tiger…if he still complains about being tired I get out the stick. And it really does a have a nail in it!