A couple of days ago I saw a herd of cows coming up the road to Monkeyland.
Now, I’ll teach just about anybody, but I won’t teach cows. Cows eat the crops, eat the bark off of carefully tended trees, drop their crap everywhere, and are good for nothing but rib eye.
Are you seeking enlightenment?
So I went to the porch and gave them a kiai.
They froze in place, stared up at me.
“Do not come up here!” I boomed. Echoes of my voice rounded the valley, burning my stereophonic instructions into their bovine brains.
They stood, in a quandary, unsure as to what to do.
I repeated my instructions. Again and again.
And the cows went up the other road, away from Monkeyland.
My wife laughed. The idea of me treating cows like…like politically correct morons, and getting away with it.
Only in Monkeyland.
So last night we heard the coyotes howling.
We can’t have coyotes in Monkeyland. They eat the cats, and then the mice don’t get eaten, and the mice then crawl up under the engines of our machines and eat the wires. So, no coyotes. I won’t teach them, and I certainly won’t have them eating our cats.
In a flash I was out on the porch, three in the morning, nekkid, booming my kiai howl across the hills. Dog stood beside me and stared up at me in wonder.
Echoes faded out and a deep silence filled the valley.
The coyotes had been warned, and that by the Pope of Monkeyland.
Satisfied, I went to sleep.
Well, almost satisfied.
I have driven off the cows and coyotes, I am making a place fit for martial arts students of the finest caliber.
So, in my best, booming kiai…COME!
BTW ~ check out pages on friends and donations and products on this site. You can contribute to the greatest undertaking in the martial arts since Shaolin!
I have people asking me, every once in a while, for an example of Matrixing in the Martial Arts. This is something I don’t want to give, and there is an exact reason for me refusing. Let me explain this reason.
The mind is a bunch of memory. That’s all it is. An animal mind has very short span. A goldfish forgets within three seconds. That’s it. Simply, the goldfish is a being that lives within three seconds, and then moves on.
Are you ready for Matrixing?
Man is a rather longer memoried beast. It would be nice to go into this more, but this is not the time and place. So let it suffice to say that you can remember virtually anything. This lifetime alone, you can recall the most minute memories.
Now, mental abilities are something else, and they have absolutely nothing to do with the mind. Mental abilities, such as the ability to create problems, intuition, telepathy and telekinesis and all that sort of thing, that are not born of memory…they are what the awareness of the individual can do.
Separate them: mind is memory, and mental ability has nothing to do with the mind. Mental ability is what you, the human being, can do in your wildest dreams.
When you do the martial arts you memorize patterns. You memorize techniques. You memorize muscle motion.
You put all this into your mind.
But what can you do?
Well, you can do whatever is in your mind, but that has nothing to do with what you, the human being, can do in your wildest dreams.
You see, all this stuff you memorize into your mind is nothing more than…circuits. Just like an electrical circuit, bound by nodes and boards and such…everything is on a set path.
But you can only trap a human being so long. Eventually, be it a few seconds or a million years, the human being is going to say, ‘wait a minute! I recognize this place! I see what I’ve been doing! I see this memory!’
At that second the circuit is blown, the pattern disappears, and you become free.
Now freedom is relative, and that’s an absolute, and this is another one of those things I should skirt during the course of this essay.
So the point is this, when you blow a circuit you enter into mushin no shin. Mind of no mind. Or…a place where there are no memories telling you what to do.
Here’s a couple of things that go along with that phenomenon.
Mushin no shin can be achieved through the necessity of the moment…because of the need for survival. A fellow on the battlefield may experience it. Time slows down, he develops other perceptions rather instantly.
I remember reading of one fellow who survived Viet Nam because he could ‘smell’ Viet Namese. We could argue whether he actually detected by odor, or whether the human being sensed and attributed this ability to his nose, but the fact remains, he survived through an ability ‘grown’ for the moment.
Mushin no shin might last for a brief instant…then the memories come flooding back in. Still, that experience, that ‘aha’ moment, will open up a human being and let him or her know that there is a lot more to him, and life, than is ever written in a book, any book, in western society…or eastern.
Indeed, it is near impossible to describe this moment except in general and almost cartoonish terms.
The world glows. You understand God. You can see forever. These are descriptions of something that cannot be described.
And there are other phenomena connected with mushin no shin, or as I have segued into…enlightenment.
The difference between mushin no shin and enlightenment may be merely one of degree, or perhaps depth of understanding. Or perhaps the type and size of circuits blown.
But let’s return to the martial arts and why I don’t give examples of matrixing.
The martial arts are a series of memories. They are patterns. They are circuits implanted in the mind through hard work. And here is the bugaboo.
If the martial art is sufficiently illogical, there will be no mushin no shin, except by the severest accident. There will be no enlightenment.
One example of this is boxing. There are no examples that I can think of where a boxer suddenly threw off his gloves and said, ‘I understand that the essential nature of the universe is a golden vibe which we call God.’
There are a few boxers who have been pounded into believing in God, but this is not enlightenment, this is worship by the beaten.
Another example would be kenpo.
To be plain, I love Kenpo, I have loved it since I encountered in 1967, but I was not able to matrix it for a variety of reasons.
It doesn’t create a connection with the earth through serious stance work. It is a put together, a real conglomeration, of everything Ed Parker encountered and thought about: it is the memories, jumbled and reconstructed in a desperate effort to make sense, of one man. It is five evolutions of thought as one man went through life without ever encountering mushin no shin, or an ‘aha’ moment.
Nothing against kenpo, it just best exemplifies illogic in the martial arts.
And what it specifically exemplifies is the basic training method, which is memorization, or implantation of training sequences in the mind.
When I developed matrixing it seemed like an accident, but it was really my search for logic in a universe that is rather slipshod and haphazard and put together by whim and shamble.
Why me, why the martial arts, why the million and one experiences that set me free, I don’t know. Call me a cosmic accident.
But the fact remains, I tripped over a form of logic, described briefly in Boolean algebra, that puts order to ALL the jumbled up strings of random motions that we have been memorizing and calling the martial arts for a zillion years.
Now, if I could, in one word, or simple sentence, describe matrixing, I would, but you wouldn’t understand it.
Here is that sentence:
For something to be true the opposite must also be true.
Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
But it will if you do a few hundred hours of logical work in the martial arts.
Mind you, you could do a few thousand hours of work, a few million hours of work, and get nowhere. You would merely be trying to make sense of the insensible, the stored up memories in your mind.
You see, without the logic, without matrixing…the mindless mass of memorized circuits that are the martial arts just won’t make sense.
And, without the martial arts, with only the logic, you are left with:
For something to be true the opposite must also be true.
A simple phrase that means everything, and nothing, and is sort of like a zen koan, and doesn’t describe any sort of logic you have ever experienced.
So, it is impossible for me to give you an example, your jumbled up memory of a mind just won’t accept it. You will translate it into gibberish.
And, here is a cruel trick, when somebody gets close to understanding they say, ‘Oh, we’ve got that in our system.’
Simply, they have latched on to some simple point, and they do have it in their system, but their mind has slid right off of Matrixing the way teflon slides off bacon and eggs.
So you are caught. You are trapped in your own hard work, trying desperately to justify it, and refusing any example of real logic I could give you.
And your only real solution is to dig into the martial arts, and dig into matrixing that you might hope to understand the martial arts.
And, nobody really understands the martial arts.
True. Sad, but true.
They think they do, and they explain the martial arts by saying something like, ‘a punch is just a punch,’ or, ‘a kick is just a kick.’ Or some other pithy saying after a few decades in the martial arts.
Nope.
That’s just more teflon sliding off the pan.
The real martial arts are a thought.
Not meat, not mind circuits, not even freedom.
They are a simple thought.
And the only way you will ever understand the thought that is the martial arts is through matrixing. I say this because the martial arts have never been understood in the history of mankind. Ever. Not on any planet, not on any plane of existence.
If they had been understood they would have, like one of those circuits, disappeared, and we would have a civilization without war and disease and the general corruption of mankind.
This essay has been written by Al Case, the discoverer of Matrixing. You can read more concerning matrixing and martial arts at Monster Martial Arts. If you are more interested in the type of thought process described in this essay, you should go to the Church of Martial Arts.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter, download any free books, press the FB like button, and donate (order matrixing materials).
This has been a page about why there are no examples of Matrixing in the Martial Arts.
There is a secret to Martial Arts Meditation, and this secret should be understood before one attempts ANY kind of meditation.
First, meditation, Martial Arts or otherwise, is very poorly defined. Ask any number of priests, buddhists, taoists, or any other religious person about meditation, and you will receive a variety of quite different answers. These answers may differ greatly and lead one in a variety of odd directions
Listen…
This writer’s introduction to meditation, for instance, was that if a person could focus his attention on one object for three minutes he could conquer the universe.
Try it. Light a candle or place an object on a shelf, or just have an image in your mind, and look at it and think only of it for three minutes. Hold that focus and do not allow any distraction; think only of that object. It is interesting.
One can achieve more focus in their awareness, and this can help you in life, but doesn’t it seem like there should be more instruction?
What should one focus on?
How does one object relate to all the universe?
Are there tricks to help one focus awareness?
Is this really meditation? Or just a mental trick?
One just feels that there is a truth to be understood here, but there is not enough data to make that truth obvious, even with three minutes, or three months, or three years, or three lifetimes!
So the secret of martial arts meditation is to listen.
Sit and listen to what is happening in the world around you.
Mind you, this is martial arts meditation because in the martial arts one analyzes the force and flow of objects in the universe, and in this simple listening exercise one is listening to the force and flow of objects in the universe.
The one thing that may happen is that you will find yourself focusing on, becoming aware of, tension around the eye area. This is likely because the eyes are the predominate tool of perception, and you are not using them. They are antsy and want to be used. So you have to force them to relax, tell them to relax, and focus on listening.
Do this simple martial arts meditation for three minutes; just listen, without interruption or distraction; when you can do this without break you will find yourself quite enlightened, and quite ready for the next step of meditation.
Do you know the 24 Neutronic Principles? That would give you 24 meditations after you have learned to listen.
Martial Arts Discipline is pretty crucial when it comes to finding God, or defining any spiritual aspect of life. To understand this we must first define exactly what God is.
Most people agree that the concept of God as a white-haired old man is pretty far out there. That is man making the idea of God look like himself as a patriarch.
The answers are in your hand…if you have the discipline to look.
When you read the bible, or the Tao, or various books on Zen, you come across the idea that God can’t be defined.
What is the one thing in life that can’t be defined? Or, for that matter, seen, felt, or touched in any way?
Awareness.
Emotions, or abstracts such as emotions, can all be defined, and even experienced by looking at a sculpt or a painting, or even reading a good book.
But awareness can’t be touched or perceived.
So God is Awareness.
We all have awareness, and it is a good bet that we are all joined by a greater awareness, though we aren’t usually aware of this.
We could call this greater awareness…Greater Awareness.
And we could say that the universe is constructed of this Greater Awareness.
Read your bible now, substituting awareness and Greater Awareness for God in the appropriate places, and the thing makes a fair amount of sense.
Now comes the question: how does one increase awareness.
There are actually several methods.
One could meditate, which is to listen, which is to attempt to penetrate through to the divine through various mental methods.
One could study scripture and pray.
One could ignore the world in an attempt to find the Greater Awareness.
These methods work, but they are suspect to interpretation, and they don’t really define the universe.
To define the universe is the martial arts method.
Consider that the universe is nothing but objects flying through space. So one can study martial arts and become more aware of these objects. And thus more and more aware of the Greater Awareness.
One is using one’s awareness to define the universe, you see, and using one’s awareness leads to more awareness, and thus to the Greater Awareness of the universe.
Thus, the discipline of the martial arts becomes the most defined and easiest and surest method for discovering one’s own Greater Awareness, and even to discovering the Greater Awareness of his fellow man.
Indeed, a person without martial arts awareness is at a severe disadvantage in handling the universe, life, or understanding the concept of God.
Do Men and Women Really Understand the Purpose of the Martial Arts?
I posed a question for a martial arts forum a couple of weeks ago, self defense I think it was, and it got a lot of interest. The precise question I asked was: You Killed Him…Do you Turn Yourself In.
A lot of interest, and let me tell you, what I say here may seem cruel, but that is not my intention. It’s just that I was struck by the responses of some very intelligent people, and my conclusions may seem harsh.
Are you seeking enlightenment?
Let me preface this piece by recounting an incident that happened to me back about 1974.
A bunch of us black belts were sitting in a bar called ‘The King’s Table.’ Wonderful place for winding down after intense work outs where you were pushed past the limit…of spirituality.
One of the fellows asked my instructor, a fellow name of Bob Babich, what Karate was really all about.
Bob didn’t even hesitate, ‘Karate is about survival.’
We all sat and sipped our drinks (no sissy beer for us) and pondered his answer.
Oddly, though he had been fast in his answer, I didn’t think it was the kind of thing he ever thought about. He was a fellow who did. Didn’t talk much. And I just didn’t think he had thought about it, and I realized that this was likely one of those rare instances when you saw the forms at work. Simply, his intense study of Karate, especially through the forms, had afforded him that intuitive, innate answer.
Yet, I thought the answer wrong. At first I didn’t know why, but upon reflection over his answer I finally, after many months, realized what it was.
I believe that Karate is to seek existence as. Survival is fine, but that doesn’t necessarily lead anywhere. Animals survive. We should expect more of ourselves as men.
So I came to believe in Karate, and the martial arts, as a method to seek existence as…as awareness.
Decades later I posed the question for a forum: You killed him…do You Turn Yourself In. The responses reminded me of that long ago conversation, my purpose in the martial arts (to create more awareness). The responses to my question in the forum were often of two varieties.
The ladies engaged in a deep discussion regarding teaching people with ADHD. Very interesting. Not Bob’s purpose, not my purpose, but a purpose intended to aid thedisadvantaged. Noble, but…interesting. But it made sense because women are of the nest, and men are of the spear. A generality, I know, but a truth of mankind. Though I should say that this generality held true more before the introduction of the pill.
The men seemed to slant off into what the law was.
Fighting? Or freedom?
But the intent of the question I posed included the condition that law had broken down and was not to be trusted.
But the men kept spouting things about what the law required, and so on.
I was struck by how far from survival the Martial Arts had become, and dismayed by how far from ‘to seek existence as’ (awareness) they were.
Now, you can check out the discussion on linkedin, it is quite interesting, and you can see if you reach the same observation as I did, or even dare to make the same conclusions as I.
But let’s get to the point of this little diatribe. Or, prepare for the left turn.
We can divide mankind into three classifications.
Sub human.
Human.
Superior human.
A subhuman is going to be a criminal type, one without morals. Very unaware, except as to how to twist the moment to his own advantage, and then he might or might not be incredibly brilliant.
A human is your average go to work oaf. He makes payments, he votes as he is told to, and he is mired in normalcy bias (loosely – hold to the least threatening path). The odd thing is that, because he removed from the immoral survival level of the subhuman, he is often (but not always) less aware.
A superior human is going to be a fellow or gal with morals, an upward plan, and the personal drive to make that upward plan work. He is going to be aware, or at least on the path to awareness. Enter the Martial Artist.
Now I don’t have much argument with the ladies. They rise above culture and its expectations, and though I think the martial arts used to reach ADHD students is far afield, who can fault their motivation?
But the men…when the question posed calls for survival…they argue over what the law says. And here is a point of fascination for me.
The law is a bunch of made up rules so men can get along. To temper their ‘spearlike nature,’ as it were.
Now I know this could possibly just be my disagreement, and you are certainly free to hold to your own opinion as to what the purpose of Karate, or whatever martial art you study, is.
And you could even attack me for being anachronistic…having trained with men who dated women ‘before the pill.’
There would even be cause for that.
But to allow yourself be bound by any law can become immoral itself.
Yes, law is a bunch of rules to allow warlike oafs to live in some semblance of peace. But laws can be immoral, or immorally applied, as was implied in my article. In which case it is actually one’s duty to rise above the law.
Not in mob, but in individual initiative and action.
Can you see yourself achieving perfection?
Anyway, while you grok with that concept, or not, let me return to my thesis, my purpose, that the purpose of the martial arts is to seek existence as.
My specific, as intimated, is ‘to seek existence as…awareness.’
When one does a Karate Kata, or a Gung Fu pattern, or any such type of exercise, one is building a circuit in the mind.
Done not long enough, and the circuit is binding, actually slows one down, mires the person in automated responses that are not always even logical. This, incidentally, is why many people attack Karate, or like arts, as unworkable…it simply has not been done long enough to work.
Done long enough, however, and the circuit pops…disappears, and the person achieves enlightenment.
The enlightenment is sometimes qualified, slanted to a particular method of art, but it is enlightenment, and there is more awareness. Thus, one has sought, and achieved, existence as…awareness.
My problem is that if a person is a knock on wood, solid citizen, concerned with the law, that he is bound…and that means that he has not achieved the enlightenment offered by the martial arts.
And here is the tragedy, a person can be VERY advanced in the martial arts, and unable to break the binding, unable to pop the circuit, unable to reach enlightenment.
Why? Poor training. Poor instruction. Not enough time being instructed by a qualified person.
Usually achievement of enlightenment has to do with one of these three items.
Poor training, of course, includes any slant of the martial arts, such as for tournaments, for the training of children (sorry, ladies), commercialism, and so on.
Commercialism is the big bugaboo, of course, and I constantly wondered at how many of the people who entered into the discussion, who held to the law as so important, even over their own survival, were instructors.
But what were they instructing?
A system based on the memorization of random techniques. Circuits.
Yet they had not broken through their own circuits!
One of the things that matrixing a martial arts does is break through the circuits, and it does this by the simple fact of introducing logic. Putting the techniques in order, causing understanding to happen.
Understanding always breaks a circuit.
But here is the cruel trap. A person still in circuit will hold to the circuit no matter what. He will resist logic and all other intrusions.
Well, of course he will. He has invested time and money in the devil…a belief system. And, believe me, most belief systems are the devil. They are like The Law, binding hopelessly, not to allow men to live together, but to control them.
You’ve heard of the Golden Rule? He who controls the gold rules?
The more insidious cousin is: he who controls the rules rules.
Do you seek to understand yourself as awareness?
That bit of juice observed, and under threat of wandering far afield, let me return to the point of it all.
Normalcy Bias is when a person holds to his path tightly, no matter the signs of impending doom, because…because he can’t deal with the coming disaster.
Yes, it’s a prepper term, but it holds true in this instance because, for person to devote his life to seeking enlightenment, and then to get sidetracked with concern for the law, or tournaments, or commercialism, or even the raising of children, is a tragedy.
Simply, you must not stop seeking existence as (awareness) for any reason. That would be to stunt your growth, and return you to Human, or even Subhuman existence.
A person guilty of normalcy bias will not see his own normalcy bias, and will not complete his search for existence. He has become comfortable as a superior man, without ever making the final leap to that exalted status, and will become nothing more than (he will return ‘down’ to…) a normal, knock on wood, do your job and vote as you’re supposed to oaf.
Thus, I was struck by the responses to my article. Sometimes gratified, even surprised by the depth of perception and the proof that individuals were seeking existence as.
But I was also dismayed by people who held to the rules, could not think outside the box, were obviously still ‘in circuit.’
Final word, remember, Matrixing WILL teach you to think outside the box. It WILL create more awareness. It WILL break the circuits of the martial arts and allow you to understand the martial arts, and life, to an enlightened extreme.
Remember, it takes discipline in the proper method to achieve enlightenment. Random discipline, as in current martial arts, takes twenty or thirty years, if it can be done at all. Logic, through matrixing, can speed up the process by as much as ten.
But to hold to the current course, doing random series of techniques with no logic, and certainly without the understanding that understanding the whole picture that logic brings, is to risk disaster…a lifetime spent spinning your wheels and never achieving enlightenment. Never achieving an existence as…awareness.
Please, if I have stepped on toes, apply lineament and remember that my purpose is good…to seek existence as awareness, and to cause others to find that same purpose.
Have a great workout!
Al from MonsterMartialArts(dot)com.
Old, decrepit, but still searching…and able to put out a candle from over a foot away without using force. This is one of the many incredible things matrixing can do.
Many people have asked me for an example of how neutronics works. The answer, on a person level, is in the book, ‘Neutronics.’
On a larger scale, one effecting all of society, the answer is in ‘Neutronic Prison.’
Criminal law doesn’t work. Neutronics is a better way.
Neutronic prison is about the largest problem our society has…criminals.
We spend immense amounts of money on the incarceration and rehabilitation of criminals. And the money is wasted, as people are not regularly rehabilitated, and they treat the prison like a college to learn new ways to be brutal and violent and break the laws of man.
Neutronic prison offers the only viable option, the best way to reverse this trend and actually create a society without criminals.
Oddly, the book is useful on many levels. The only real monster that man has not been able to slay, you see, is himself, and this book offers a heartfelt example of how simple it would be to control others, and to control the self.
Heck, you could even use it to raise children, and be gauranteed they would not turn to criminal options!
The book is only $10, and it is at the Church of Martial Arts.
I’m here! At Monkeyland! The Church of Martial Arts has actual physical presence and location!
I’m sitting in a small cabin, the wind is howling hard enough to blow monkeys out of the trees, if there were any monkeys in the trees. Heh.
Official Emblem of The Church of Martial Arts
And, I have no clue what is going to happen.
I just knew I had to get here, had to have a perfect place to work out. Had to have a place where there weren’t any low grade human beings, and only the faithful to train.
I know what Mas Oyama felt like when he disappeared into the mountains for two years to train himself.
I know what people who removed themselves from the world to pursue the ideal of perfection felt.
But, enough about me. I’m not one of those ‘me, me, me,’ personalities. This is about you.
Do you want perfection? Do you want the real martial arts? Do you want…Monkeyland?
So what’s stopping you?
Heck, hop a plane for a couple of hundred, live cheap, work hard, and dedicate yourself to training.
You know, I don’t want to just turn out martial artists…I want to turn out people who can train martial artists.
There’s one of me and millions of martial artists. I need help if I am going to spread the true arts, fix the corrupt arts, and elevate the martial arts to the highest level on this planet ever.
Heck, if you live in California you could come for a weekend.
If you’re out of California you could fly/drive/swim in over the weekend, spend a week in heaven, and leave the following weekend.
Seriously, this is the best deal, monetarily and martial arts wise, you could ever find.
How much does it cost you to live for a month? $1000? So spend half as much and live here!
I’ll work you, I’ll train you, and you will walk out a matrixed human being. You will walk out with a complete system or two, totally jazzed, and wide awake!
So, seriously…what is stopping you?
Here’s a series of articles that will tell you about the Martial Belief system at the Church of Martial Arts.
New Method for Getting Your Matrix Karate Black Belt
Okay, so I’m going to Monkeyland, and top of my priorities is getting people to their Matrix Karate Black Belt.
Now, this is going to be fierce, so hold on to your undies and get ready to make a decision. Here is the first, official program being offered to live in students at the Church of Martial Arts.
Official Emblem of The Church of Martial Arts
To set this up, let me explain something.
Currently it takes about 4 years to get to Black Belt. This time frame has resulted because:
people have added on to workable systems, and thus confused them.
karate has been geared towards tournaments.
karate has been dumbed down for teaching children.
karate has been slanted for behavior modification.
karate has lost control by using protective pads.
karate has been…changed, altered, modified and…corrupted.
But…people like Mike Stone and Chuck Norris were getting to black belt in a year to a year and a half. This was back before Karate became such a financial success, and self destructed.
Now, it is no secret that I was getting people to Black Belt in one year. I detailed the system I used in the ‘Outlaw Karate’ course.
Then I started Matrixing, and things got REAL fast.
Let’s consider the time involved.
Most people take 2 – 4 hours of instruction a week. It they work out an hour a day that is considered a lot.
In a year, the, you are getting some 300 hours of work out.
But how much actual instruction are you getting?
Most people get five minutes of instruction a day, and the rest is sweat with no explanation because ‘the form will teach you.’
But the idea that the forms will teach you is a lousy one. Because the forms have been corrupted.
Have you ever heard the phrase ‘Practice makes perfect?’
It’s a lie.
The real truth here is that ‘perfect practice makes perfect.’
Simply, if you practice a corrupted system, and virtually all martial arts these days are corrupted, then you will simply monkey see monkey do (memorize) a corrupt system.
No wonder Karate sometimes gets a bad rap!
Now, I have brought a person to Black Belt in three months. This is 120 lessons, which was actually maybe forty hours of instruction. Maybe less.
But the instruction was perfect, because it was based on The Master Instructor Course!’
Yes, I had the student do the Master Instructor Course, and I backed it up with my instruction. So he was getting perfect karate…perfectly!
So…30 – 40 hours? Something like that?
So, here comes the Monkeyland deal.
Come live at Monkeyland for a month.
I will do my best to get you to Black Belt in that month.
Mind you, we are talking about maybe 4 hours of instruction a day. This is variable, because there is a lot of stuff that has to be done up there to make it self sufficient.
But, 4 hours a day for 20 days is…80 hours! I say 20 days because I will run classes intensively for three weeks, then I have to gear down and see to other things that are going to be happening.
Do you think I can get you to your Black Belt in Matrix Karate within 80 hours?
I sure do.
Heck, most of you have martial arts experience, and the learning curve is going to be astonishing!
But even if you don’t have martial arts experience, I think I can get you there.
Mind you, I don’t guarantee, but you know that my reputation is on the line, and the reputation of Monkeyland itself!
Simply, I have to make a certificate from Monkeyland mean something.
There are three requirements to being accepted as a live in student.
1) Write a letter (email) to me listing your experiences and why you think I should accept you as a student. Make sure you tell me about your life experiences, jobs you have held, any injuries you may have incurred during the course of your martial arts training.
2) Get and do the Matrix Karate course before you get here.
Get and do the Master Instructor Course before you get here.
And, here’s the BONUS…enough students make it to Black Belt I will run a Matrix Aikido Seminar!
This will be a complete seminar, a course based on the curriculum listed in the Matrix Aikido Course. This means grab arts, punches, weapons. If you want to be considered for this course, then you have to get and do the Matrix Aikido course before you get here, and you have to get promoted to Black Belt in Matrix Karate.
Now, this is a tough game I’ve outlined here, and it is for tough people. People who aren’t afraid of work, and who can get the job done.
Here are a couple of things to think about.
If you lie or misrepresent yourself in any way you will be asked to leave Monkeyland.
If you don’t follow the rules here you will be asked to leave. And there won’t be many rules. I’ll write them out in a later blog.
Heck, if you have bad character I’ll probably pick up on that in your letter, and you simply won’t get invited.
And, here’s another thing to think about…
How much does it cost to live for a month?
Let’s see, rent, food, clothes…whatever…can you live for $500?
Heck, $500 might cover your food, if you don’t eat too much.
But you could live here for a month for $500.
Out of work and got a couple of thou saved up?
Why the heck aren’t you at Monkeyland?
Think about it.
Living for cheap, doing martial arts hours a day, and you walk away with a certificate, an official Church of Martial Arts certificate, enabling you to teach Matrix Karate anywhere.
Even if you don’t intend to become a teacher, that is an incredible and fantastic thing.
Now, I am doing this for a very short while, prices will go up, but this will enable me to prove that Monkeyland works. And it will give me a bunch of wins that I can use to get more people up here.
And, let me be plain about it, there is an ASTONISHING amount of work that needs to be done up here.
There isn’t much water, so we need to set up a water catchment system. That means leveling off a mountain top and setting up drainage so we can catch the rain.
The mountain needs to be cooled down. We need to plant rows of shady trees, not to mention fruit trees, and irrigate them (with water that we don’t have because the catchment system isn’t in place yet!) and so on and so on.
The road needs leveling, with a side drain so it won’t wash away.
We need to chip granite off some of the rocks and use it to make the road passable in wet weather.
Simply, you’re going to be getting martial arts up the wazoo, but you’re also going to get worked until you are exhausted.
And you’ll be sleeping where you can, so bring a sleeping bag and a tent.
Sound like fun?
No. It’s more than fun. It’s actually growing up and being a pioneer, and learning a way of life that will change you forever!
And, every once in a while, there will be somebody who will be selected to stay on for free.
Somebody who thrives on the load.
Let’s be honest. Many people will be worn to the bone by the time a month is over. Even with the lessening of the load at the end of the month. It will be soul satisfying to the max…but many people will be ready to return to the work a day world.
But there is going to be that odd duck who says, ‘Gee, chipping granite and running it uphill three miles to make the road passable was fun. I liked it!’ Or, ‘Can we terrace the mountain top and make the water catchment system bigger?’ Or, ‘I like making adobe bricks and stacking them to make a house!’
Yes, there will be those kinds of ducks, and I will search them out, and I will enlist them. They are born monks, and they NEED to be at Monkeyland.
But, whether you are on vacation to make yourself the best martial artist in the world, or whether you are looking for a low paying career that fits your soul, Monkeyland is the place to be.
So, think about it. If it sounds like something you’d like to experience, then make a decision. Write me an email. It’s only a month, but it could be the most important life changing month in your entire life!
Write me at aganzul@gmail.com, subject line: I want to Come to Monkeyland because…
New Info for Seekers at the Church of Martial Arts
I put some stuff up on the site today, about the first and second levels, Postulant (seeker), and novitiate (novice). You can find it in the listings under curriculum.
I will probably split the novitiate level into two sections in the future. One dealing with Temple, and the other dealing with Pan Gai noon. These two arts are really the heart of Karate.
Official Emblem of The Church of Martial Arts
Temple deals with long and low and quick and fast, pan gai noon deals with grounding and building power and holding your ground.
The well rounded martial artist will be able to do both, run and ground.
So there will be complete checklists for each level, and everything is really coming together.
i did want to say something about the requirements for coming to Monkeyland.
Technically, anybody can come. Uh, once they get past me.
So you want to come to Monkeyland, you write me an email. You tell me of your experiences, and why you want to come to Monkeyland, and what you expect to get out of the place.
But, you can bet that if you learn matrixing, as listed on the site, and then do Temple Karate, those are going to be your first and best bets. Then, once you are firmly grounded and understand things, we can open up a bit.
Now, price.
I’ve dodged this for a bit, thought about it a lot.
For starters, probably a thousand a month. That should cover food, and the price of instruction is priceless, so you are getting a deal.
BUT, I need to get people up there, get some wins on the net, and look for full time monks to come live and play there. So the first few people are going to be paying half price.
They pay for their food, and they can help with the construction, to pay for their lessons.
Their will come a time when we can offer lodgings and charge a pretty penny.
But right now I am more interested in calling the faithful. Finding the people who like to work, who have the kind of mind that charges forward and learns whatever they need to learn as they go.
People who can go elsewhere and open their own schools, maybe even their own temples.
Later on I will have a list of donations, for people who just want to vacation, people who just ant a weekend in paradise, and more complete data on people who want to come up and live the life.
So, think about it.
It’s a chance to really do something with your life. To experience life as they did back when they were building the Shaolin Temple…but with a lot of pluses, from technology to matrixing to …to lots of other things.
And, let’s face it, five hundred bucks is dirty cheap. If you’ve got a couple of thousand saved up,
You could come live for a few months, learn everything I can teach you, and your life will be totally and utterly changed…and changed for the better.
Okay, I could talk for hours, but I won’t. You guys and gals have some input, use the comments below. I’d rather use that because the question you ask, or the comment you make, might be exactly what somebody else was wondering.
Greetings to the Faithful! We are moving stuff up to Monkeyland this week. Lot of fun. 12 hour work day fun! Believe me, it’s a relief to get back on the typer and send out a message.
That said, the message today is…rattlesnakes! We’re up at Monkeyland, talking to the former owner, and now the truth comes out. When he was selling the property it was, ‘oh, we never see snakes around here.’ Now that the property is sold he says, ‘Had a rattlesnake crawl in the house last week. Only one button on the tail, couldn’t hardly hear the fellow. The young uns are the deadliest, you know. They latch on and they don’t know how to let go, just keep right on pumping that poison into you.
Official Emblem of The Church of Martial Arts
My wife is turning white. I’m laughing. This is California. rattlesnakes are old hat to me. Heck, I should make up a rattlesnake kung fu style. Specialize in the ‘one button strike,’ have some real fun.
I used to work at a school, lots of kids at places like that, and I was the official rattlesnake killer. Some kid would hear a buzzing, they’d call me, and I’d go kill the sucker.
Take a shovel and chop his head off.
Oh! How cruel! Unless he happens to bite your child. Then you thank me.
Anyway, you have to chop the head off, and don’t touch the fangs, and bury the head DEEP. Venom has a shelf life of 25 years. My son got stung by a bee when he was two, arm swole up like a water balloon. Doctor said the bee likely landed on a dead rattlesnake, picked up some venom. So my son got bit by a dead rattlesnake thanks to a bee.
And, if snakes aren’t enough, there’s bobcats and bears up there!
But the worst predator up there, the one the former owner made his wife carry a gun everywhere for, was the two legged kind.
Anyway, it is fun, I’m really happy because I don’t care a fig about rattlesnakes or bobcats or bears (oh my!) or even the really deadly two legged varmints. I know martial arts. And here is something interesting… Do you think the original monks at the Shaolin Temple didn’t have to deal with… snakes, tigers, deadly bugs, and all that sort of thing?
Heck! How do you think they came up with their martial arts? Maybe that tiger form is the result of a man who had to kill a tiger with only a knife?
So, come to Monkeyland, and maybe you’ll have to fight off a bear (grin) or tangle with a bobcat (he he) or wake up to find a rattlesnake tangled in your bedroll. (outright laughter)
Look, I’m kidding here, chances are you won’t see anything like that, but I just want to get the idea across, the martial arts are used in life or death situations. And life or death situations are definitely out of the comfort zone. So put aside your ho hum same old same old life, come dedicate yourself to a life and death art where the only distractions are having to eke out a living, and putting up with a two legged varmint like me. (bent over, slap the thigh, guffaw).
You can sleep in a cargo container, cook your food over an open fire, work out in an open faced tin garage, and it will be something you ALWAYS remember.
And, who knows, maybe you’ll like it enough to become a live in monk. Rattlesnakes, bobcats and bears, (oh my!)
Oinkey dokely? Fine and dandy? See ya. Al
If you’ve got the Matrix Karate course, you should look into KangDukWon.com. The more you know before you get here, the sooner you’ll become an official monk.
