The Real and Mystical Truth About Why I Didn’t choose Shaolin Kung Fu for Matrixing!
Matrixing, to give you the definition right from the start, is the analysis and handling of force and flow. Every object, every particle in this universe has a direction, and everything in the universe has lots of potentials for collision. Thus, the study of Matrixing becomes the single most important thing one can learn if one is going to understand things like Shaolin kung fu.
Now, to set this article up in the proper manner, let me say that the martial arts are taught through the memorizing of random strings of data. This is like somebody memorizing a dozen pieces on the piano, and thinking he is the next Mozart. Obviously, one has to break through the memorizing process and start finding the structure of his art, and how to arrange that art before he can lay claim to being a master artist.
So, let’s talk about Shaolin. Shaolin has a few thousand years of history, and this has resulted in every kung fu monk and his brother adding to the mix, and thus the logic and organization of the art has become thoroughly and totally mixed and muddled. There is a mountain of random data, you see, and there is no set of principles with which to define it.
If one studies Shaolin kung fu like Choy Li Fut or Hung Gar, one thinks that the art is filled with deep horse stances, windmilling arms, and a mangling of concepts which pop out at you at the oddest times. One thinks that one must beat up students right up to the head abbot if he is going to find the sacred scroll, and one must meditate and beat his fists into heated iron pellets for a dozen years to get the real kung fu. The sad fact is that this is a small subset of concepts, and it does not penetrate the True Art in any meaningful fashion.
If one studies Wing Chun, one thinks that he has to stand squarely, close the eyes, and absorb attacks with antennas called forearms. Three sequences of mystical data, a daunting wooden dummy to beat your arms, and never the idea that everything is just random strings of data, and not the True Art. Thus, Wing Chun is phenomenal, amazing, gives true ability, yet it just touches lightly upon the True Art.
Then, of course, there the subset of art called the Praying Mantis, speaking of antenna arms that manipulate an opponent to his doom and disgrace. If you really consider the structure of these arts, however, it is almost like Hung Gar or Choy Li Fut and Wing Chun have been choped out of the same pie. Thus, the principles waggle and interbreed into new bastards, and the True Art is obscured in a dense fog of fascinating ability and amazing art.
This all said, Matrixing could easily organize Shaolin, in the various forms of Hung Gar or Choy Li Fut or Wing Chun and come to the truth of the true art. But I chose Karate to present the principle of Matrixing, and to expose the world to the concept of logic through analysis and handling. Simply, the history was shorter, the mountain was smaller, the obscuring fog more transparent, and karate was easier to define.
And here is the blessing, learn how to matrix karate, and you can use that matrixing as a template. All you have to do is plug the basics of Shaolin into the template provided by Matrix Karate, and you have true art. Too much mountain, too heavy a fog, and yet it can all be resolved into nice, tidy, little, easy to learn packages of True Art, and thus assembled into the whole of The True Art.
Al Case has taught martial arts for forty+ years. He has written hundreds of articles for the magazines and had his own column in Inside Karate. He is the originator of matrixing Technology. He offers a free ebook on Matrixing at Monster Martial Arts.
Tags: choy li fut, free martial arts, fut ga, hung gar, karate, karate master, kung fu master, online martial arts, praying mantis, Self Defense, shaolin, wing chunPosted in
