What is mental control?

What I would describe as mental control would be one’s ability to extend your mind from only focusing on the physical aspects of martial arts to focusing on the slightly mysterious aspects of martial arts.  The Shaolin Monks truly display the mystery of martial arts by their slightly freakish abilities. When men show themselves applying pressure  to spear heads with their necks and bending the poles, or breaking stones with their hands, you have to wonder how.  Answer: Their ability to control their mind and body a.k.a chi flow, allows them these abilities that most normal individuals can’t fathom.  This of course takes years of training that makes any form of army training look like pre-school.

The Origins of Kung Fu

The term Kung Fu does not stand for one thing, instead it stands for a very broad topic. To shorten up what otherwise would be a long description, Kung Fu is martial arts.  When someone practices Kung Fu, he is essentially practicing every martial art ever created. Before martial arts came to China, the Shaolin Temple originally didn’t practice fighting style, they simply were monks dedicated to their religion.

Their lack of knowledge in defense made them vulnerable to attack from thieves, which happened often.  It was a man from India who came and taught them the fighting methods that his people had created. The monks easily picked up on the man’s teachings, seeing as how their training in meditation gave them the perfect amount of focus needed to master the art of fighting. For the next 4,00 years, the Chinese would continue to develop this idea into something that has completely changed the world.

The Styles

Some of the most popular styles that make up Kung Fu are the five animal styles.

1. Tiger
2. Crane
3. Snake
4. Mantis
5. Monkey

These styles were developed after a monk or an outsider to the temple would watch an animal with the mentality that something can be learned from the way they fight. Each style exemplifies an idea or strength to achieve a combative goal.

Tiger style was designed to have the most strength out of all of them. It focuses on strength in the fingers and palms, seeing as how it must transform  a man’s hands into claws.  This means that the style itself requires a great deal of iron palm training.  This requires you to hit a sack with metal beads in a way that helps strengthen your hands and fingers.  It is the strongest style, which of course has some of the most tedious training.

Crane is one of the more graceful styles of Kung Fu.  It’s strength does not lay in the shear striking ability, but instead it relies on the surprise of someone attacking you in the manner that a bird would.  But seriously, the point of crane is the point you form with your hands.  This style reflects a bird, thus you will utilize your hands as a bird attacks with it’s beak and wings.  The stepping of crane is also important.  It takes advantage of complex angles of attack and it utilizes very flashy and flamboyant hand movements to throw off your attacker.  It’s interesting to say the least.

Snake style is one that involves complex movement around an obstacle to reach a certain goal.  This means that it targets the object which it plans to strike by slithering around and then striking in the same fashion that a snake would.  The fingertips are the main striking points in this style, and wrist flexibility plays a large part. Considering it is based off of the movement of a snake, it is incredibly sporadic and quick. It’s not an easy style to master, thus i wouldn’t recommend it to beginners.

Mantis is in my opinion the most affective style in the five animal Kung Fu system. Why? This style incorporates all of the good aspects of the other animal styles and places it nicely in one package for the artist to utilize.  It’s quick strikes are unparalleled by any other style, and it focuses these strikes on specific pressure points to break apart your enemy’s defense.  With mantis, all parts of the hands and feet become weapons.  It’s focus is broad in that it doesn’t restrict itself to one aspect of fighting, which the other styles often do. Those who use it are best known for their ability to spar seeing as how they don’t telegraph their motions, and they move in angles that are awkward for the opponent to handle.

Monkey style is by far the weirdest style that is so openly accepted in the Kung Fu world.  There are other styles which are weirder, for example frog style, but those are obscure and no body cares about them. In my valuable opinion, monkey should be incorporated into everyone’s curriculum. The style itself isn’t very practical, but the skills that are tagged onto it are valuable to any martial artist.  It requires a great deal of acrobatic ability, which in terms of physical understanding is good for all people to have. That’s about all I have to say about that.

Tricking is a combination of martial arts kicks, flips, spins, acrobatics, jumps, and any other kind of unnatural movement a person could possibly do.

I’ve been doing this for about six years now, and the reason why i started was because it was just fun.  It’s funny though, because as I progressed, what was once fun has now become a possible career path and lifestyle.  This year at ASU, my friend and I have successfully started a tricking group called Devilish Tricks for those who partake in this activity.  Thus far it has been an incredibly rewarding experience getting to know new trickers, and helping them progress on their journey.

The most interesting thing about tricking is the fact that it exists almost everywhere in movies, yet the general public has no idea that it exists.  For example, the movie Tron, which will be hitting theaters soon, is filled with stunts done by Anis Cheurfa, one of the best trickers on the planet.

Where Does One Go to Trick?

In the United States, there are multiple places that act as focal points for talent in the tricking community.  Now all of the focus has shifted to a school by the name of  the White Lotus Martial Arts Center, which started as a simple Kung Fu studio.  People like Jeremy Marinas, Anis Cheurfa, and Daniel Graham all teach there now specifically for those who wish to trick.

It’s located somewhere in L.A. and has proven to be a machine that produces nothing but talent.  I posted a link to their youtube channel, which helps shows the best of the best in this community.  Many people like myself travel there for about a week at a time to train with these guys, and learn as much as possible.  I’ll actually be going there this winter with my good friend Spencer.

Advice to New Trickers.

When I first started tricking, I always did it with my best buddy Carter Harris.  Every Friday we would go and bounce ideas off of each other.  Something that I have come to find is that the more people you trick with, the faster you are able to progress in skill.  It’s not the idea of competition which should drive you, but instead it should be the idea of progression in life itself.

Mindset is interconnected with everything you do in life, and the same applies to tricking.  I’ve always found that a positive attitude even when failing will in some way always lead to success.  Your mind and body learns through trying, and at some point in time something will click, and it’s as if you’ve just unlocked a new ability in a video game.  It’s a weird feeling.

I tell everyone who is starting that they can do everything, it is simply their mind telling them otherwise.

Basic Tricks to Begin With.

It’s best to try out some of the less complex moves first which you then build upon.

• 540 kick
• Butterfly Twist
• Corkscrew
• Flash Kick

This is for starters.

Karate is an Okinawan way of fighting that utilizes all parts of the body.  The style itself derived from Chinese Kung Fu, but slowly migrated over to Japan, where it developed into what it is now.  The term Karate means “open hand” and it places a heavy emphasis on hard strikes that deal much external damage to the opponent.

Karate requires a lot of bone conditioning and muscle strengthening in order to be successful in the style.  A hard style requires a hard body, which takes time to attain.

Most everyone takes Karate as a child only to find themselves bored and ready to move on to the next attempt at a decent activity to take up ones time.  The issue with this is that most people aren’t willing to try things they believe they have already tasted, even if for a brief moment as a child.  My advice to those looking to get into martial arts is to start off doing Karate.  Having done this myself, it has proven to help me now as I progress through the advanced styles of Chinese Kung Fu.

Why everyone should begin with Karate

Simply put, Karate is simple.  All those who enter martial arts for the first time should at least try out Karate. It’s absolutely necessary.  The style is straightforward and does not present the artist with any complex angles of movement that other styles often will punch you in the face with.  The most important thing for a martial artist in general is to have a solid foundation built at the infant stages of learning and Karate is good at this.  This particular style will give you everything you need to progress.

I give a great deal of credit to Karate seeing as how everything I learned in this style translated over to both higher martial arts, and life in general.  My teacher was a man by the name of Henry Calantog and he was an instructor for the Depalmas School of Karate.  I started when I was in 5th grade, and since then I have actively pursued martial arts, thanks to the foundation that this style set in the first two years of training.

The style itself follows the guidelines of hammering basics and stances in the early stages.  There are also a few weapons integrated into the style, some of which are the nunchaku, bo staff, and tonfa.  These weapons are all derived from the Okinawan origins of Karate, when the Japanese first banished swords from civilians.

The point of weapons is to develop a sense of external control.  If a practitioner is able to accurately hurl nunchucks around with ease, then he surely can throw a successful and strong punch.

Karate and Martial Arts are about understanding yourself.  The only thing holding you back from anything is yourself, which is why we all must master ourselves.  The trick is being able to do so in harmony with your growth as a martial artist.  These two ideas are completely connected.

I often find myself incredibly frustrated as the bastardization of martial arts continues as this fad grows.  The very virtues that define martial arts such as patience, perseverance  and loyalty are slowly being forgotten, and instead we martial artist are finding our community riddled with tapout wearing self absorbed baboons.  This was made evident to me by my experience simply interacting with others.  Young boys are quick to categorize themselves as martial artsists, when in reality they just attend gyms and learn how to punch a bag really hard.  That’s not martial arts, it’s learning how to punch a bag really hard.

It is my job to guide you through all of the unnecessary evils that taint what is a truly honorable and beautiful art.

Some guidelines for entering into the martial arts community involve making an intelligent decision as to what style you will eventually associate yourself with.  The choice of style is the toughest decision to make, and it is one that must coincide with your personality.  Every style has a feeling that should sync with personality to enable yourself to achieve absolute fluidity in your ability.

To name a few styles that stand above the others are…

• Wing Chun
• Shaolin Kung Fu
• Kenpo
• Hung Gar
• Aikido

It is in this sense that you must be careful for your first initial choice.  After a time your first style will become the base of all things to come, and your mentality will change to the point where the idea of style disappears completely, and what is left is only martial arts.

It is in this sense that I hope to offer some sort of guideline.