Slow Kung Fu is Better (and being faster doesn’t work.)

by Ben Sterling

Why slower?

So, first the training benefits of slower. (we’ll get the martial application in a minute.)

Start slow to learn then speed it up.

Obviously you need to train at medium and fast speeds on a regular basis.

The thing with the Internal Martial Arts is that we’re always adding layers of depth and refining to a higher level.

So, for example, in the Tai Chi section of the Internal Combat Arts course…

www.clearsilat.com/internal-combat-arts

…you learn how to dissipate a punch using movement & softness.

You start slow. That way you learn the skill and no one gets hurt.

Then you have 2 options.

1) Slowly increase the speed until you can do this against a full speed attacker.

OR

2) Refine the skill.

Stay slow or go even slower. Use less movement. Use more softness. While getting even better dissipation of the incoming force.

Of course you should do both.

You also learn a bunch of different ways to generate power in the Internal Combat Arts course. (Around 6 – 8 different methods. I’ll count up exactly how many soon.)

So you learn several of them. Then you have the same two options with each of them.

You use option 2 to continually refine them and increase the amount of power they generate.

Then there’s a third option.

3) Combine.

You take the power methods and the dissipation skill and you start combining them. So they all happen at once. Correctly.

Then we’re back to the first two options… …and of course we do both.

It’s a never ending cycle of refining skills and combining skills.

…and so the ‘start slow to learn’ part of that first statement never ends.

Now the martial benefit of slowness.

We have to assume the attackers are faster than us.

If you don’t make this assumption you are in for a very unpleasant surprise,

…if you ever have to use your art for survival.

So, we must train to use Position, Timing to overcome faster opponents.

(Of course we build speed too.)

The good news is that not only will Position and Timing beat speed.

Position and Timing will continually improve as long as you work on them.

…at some point your speed will decline no matter what you do.

So, if you move faster than your partner you are making a dangerous assumption and building bad habits.

(Moving sooner than your partner is ok. Faster is not.)

Moving at the same speed as your partner(s) is ok.

Moving slower than your partner(s) (and learning to still completely dominate the situation) is better.

The way we often determine speed on slow drills & sparring is:

Go as fast as you can while still being able to see EVERYTHING you and your partner are doing from head to toe. Training this way will rapidly increase the speed at which you perceive everything that is happening around you.

When you start to get good at moving slowly your partners will begin to walk right into things because your position is smarter and they are moving faster than what they can effectively perceive.

So, take all the different push hands games and drills in the Internal Combat Arts Course and spend time training them at an excruciatingly slow speed.

If you put in the time to do that, you’ll find your skill actually increases faster.

One last thing, instead of starting slow and speeding up. Try starting slow and slowing down. This will magnify the benefits discussed above and you’ll get other things out of it as well.

Filed Under: Kung Fu Tagged With: , ,

Lower Training is Better Training.

by Ben Sterling

I received some great questions about the Lower, Slower, Softer training article.

So, Why Lower?

Well, your ability to relax and move well at ‘thighs parallel’ has a direct impact on your power and quality of movement when you are standing up.

One aspect of this is that the stronger your legs are the less effort it takes to support & move your body weight. The less effort it takes to stand and move the more you can relax and be softer.

The stronger your legs are, the softer you can be.

So, even in arts like Tai Chi and Bagua that often (though not always) fight standing up, this low training will greatly improve your expression of the art.

Also, as soon as you start working low, tension and structural errors stick out like sore thumb. Forcing you to correct them.

Low training allows you to use all 3 dimensions much more effectively.

Many Silat systems work from a medium height…

…but can instantly be flat to the floor or standing all the way up.

This freedom of movement not only adds a lot of power,

– It also greatly increases your ability to use ALL the space around you,

– It increases your reach,

– It’s one way to say out of of your opponents reach but keep them within yours,

– and it allows you to capitalize on any stiffness or hole in your opponents range of movement.

Of course it takes time to build this kind of leg strength.

So, you need to start training with things you can use right now.

…with things that work well with the strengths and weaknesses that you have at this very moment.

You DON’T need to spend years training low postures BEFORE you can fight with the art.

This is why we created the 16 week Internal Combat Arts Course. Because we believe you should start these arts by learning how to USE them.

That’s the Kuntao tradition: Function First.

There are no forms in the course,

just a whole bunch of fighting methods and internal principles

(and a few Chi Kung exercises.)

www.clearsilat.com/internal-combat-arts

Filed Under: Kun Tao

Greatly Improve Your Kung Fu Training in 3 Simple Steps

by Ben Sterling

Here are 3 simple ways to greatly improve your Kung Fu training.

Apply them to your form, your techniques, your applications and especially your drills & sparring.

Just a word of warning first. Simple does not mean easy.

1. LOWER

Everything you train today should be a little lower than it was yesterday. And make tomorrow a little lower than today.

Keep at it until your thighs are parallel to the floor.

Don’t compromise structure or softness.

Once you can move as comfortably, easily and softly at thighs parallel as you you can standing up then your work here is done.

2. SLOWER

How slow can you train without stopping?

Now work on going slower.

Make sure to maintain constant, smooth movement the whole time.

No starts and stops.

This is especially important training for partner drills and sparring.

3. SOFTER

There’s no end to this one.

Sigung Clear is much softer than I am and he’s still working at it.

His teacher’s, in their 60’s, 70’s & 80’s are much softer than he is and they’re still working at it.

So relax more and deeper and more completely.

…and then become even softer.

Lower, Slower and Softer.

These are not fun to work on.

…mostly because progress feels slow and the more you improve the more you realize how much more room for improvement you still have.

Don’t get discouraged.

Kung Fu training is supposed to taste bitter. Internal Kung Fu even more so.

Even a little bit, done consistently will produce great results…

As long as you have good training methods to start with.

Like the stuff in the 16 week Internal Combat Arts Course. If you join that program and practice the material you’ll get a lot of great stuff out of it.

But if you train that stuff AND apply Lower, Slower, Softer the benefits will be greatly enhanced.

http://www.clearsilat.com/internal-combat-arts

 

Filed Under: Kung Fu Tagged With: , , , ,

The Kung Fu Con Exposed by Martin Luther King, Jr.

by Ben Sterling

This very important quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. has been around for a while.

…but martial artists seem to have missed it for some reason.

I guess they’re just too busy quoting Bruce Lee and Mister Miyagi to notice this ‘secret’ hidden in plain site.

If they had paid attention it could have saved them a lot of time and effort.

Here it is:

“Justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

This means if something takes too long, it’s worthless.

…but we’ve been trained and conditioned to think otherwise.

Over and over we’ve been told that these arts…

…that Internal Kung Fu, takes a lot of hard work over a long long time before you can use it.

Everytime you hear that remember:

“Skill too long delayed is skill denied.”

Sure, SOME things take a while to learn, and others take a while to master.

However, FUNCTIONAL SKILL can be developed very quickly.

The old Kuntao masters knew this.

They also knew that if their students couldn’t fight very well and very quickly, the students wouldn’t be around long enough to learn anything that took a while.

That’s why these methods are so powerful.

It’s why they’re so effective.

I’m surprised more people don’t teach this way.

I’m surprised more students don’t expect this from their teachers.

There’s so many people out there stumbling around in the dark, learning form after form, memorizing abstract sayings and studying classic texts…

…when they could be out there learning to USE the art they love instead.

Our goal is to help people make that transition from abstract form and theory to practical functional skill.

If you’d like to join the our other students who have made that transition, go check out the Internal Combat Arts Course.

http://www.clearsilat.com/internal-combat-arts

…and the other cool thing about developing functional skill quickly is that it builds a much more solid foundation for advanced skill later on.

Filed Under: Kung Fu

Argh! I know less now than I did yesterday!

by Ben Sterling

The Facts keep changing.

Everytime I turn around the things I know are wrong.

First meat is bad soy is good. Then Soy is unhealthy, use whey protein. Now protein is overhyped by the supplement industry & is possibly linked to liver issues, kidney issues & bone loss?!

WE DON’T EVEN HAVE 9 PLANETS ANYMORE!

(RIP Planet Pluto)

…and that’s just scientific facts. I don’t even know where to begin with all this Internal Arts mumbo jumbo.

How the hell am I Supposed to learn anything when the facts keep changing!

Ok, Take deep breath.

Relax. Flow with the changes.

Every time you’re WRONG,
…you get one step closer to being right!

We love the eclectic approach to these arts because having a wide range of teachers and influences is incredibly useful.

You can cross check, reference, verify & fill in the pieces.

…and you get a much clearer picture of where these arts begin and end, where they overlap and where they differ.

This research & study is what Sigung Clear has been working hard at for over 30 years now.

(…and I see no indication that he’ll slow down for at least another 60 years or so.)

What he’s found is that the best way to understand the full breadth and depth of a single art is to study multiple related arts.

The Internal Combat Arts Course is designed around this idea.

To give you pieces that are all too often missing so you can get a Clear picture of how these arts fit together.

…and give you a bunch of hands on, practical stuff you can start using tomorrow.

Go check it out:

http://www.clearsilat.com/internal-combat-arts

Filed Under: Internal Martial Art

HELP! I don’t have a training partner!

by Ben Sterling

Can I study without a training partner?

…is a very common question.

The answer is a clear cut: Yesnosortof.

There is a lot you can do by yourself. I’ll talk about that in a minute.

But first, Having a training partner is very important. There are a lot of skills you simply cannot build without one and a lot more that are much faster and easier to build when you have someone to work with.

The key to finding a good training partner is to start looking and never stop.

Just like your kung fu practice.

Put a little time into it every day.

There are all kinds of online tools you can use. Meetup, Craigslist, etc… Don’t forget about offline tools either. Community bulletin boards and stuff.

Don’t get discouraged when no one shows up on the first day, or week.

Just make this search part of your ongoing practice.

…and don’t stop just because you have 1 or 2 or even 10 training partners. A few more is always a good thing.

While you’re working on that the Internal Iron Body DVD is an excellent way to build power and internal iron.

http://www.clearstaichi.com/iron-body

And you can work on it every day all by yourself.

Filed Under: Internal Martial Art

What has all these Big Bad Martial Artists Terrified?

by Ben Sterling

Want to see a Martial Artist get scared?

…and start backpedaling as fast as they can?

Go find a 15 – 30 year practitioner. Some who’s been there and done that. Trained with the right kinds of teachers. Run schools. Taught workshops.

Go up to them and just start throwing around the word “master.”

More and more I see martial artists start backpedaling as soon as that word pops up.

First they start distancing themselves from the word:

“oh I’m no master. Just a humble student.”

Then they start attacking the word itself.

You’d think master was only spelled with four letters by the way they behave.

What did that poor word ever do to them?

Did they accidentally let it slip on youtube and get a bunch of mean comments that hurt their feelings?

A master is simply an expert at something.

— A person with extensive knowledge or ability in a given subject.

— A worker or artisan qualified to teach apprentices.

Is that so bad?

Isn’t that what we look for in a teacher?

Isn’t the goal of training to master a set of skills?

If they’re just trying to be humble why do they call themselves a Martial Artist?

Is their martial skill so great we should call it art?

I’d settle for a simple expert.

Whether you prefer the term Master or Artist the first step is to start working hard and building a foundation.

Not a foundation of forms & choreography but a solid one based on skill you can use.

Students who complete the Internal Combat Arts Course have that foundation.

…and they’ve built it on a solid understand of how to fight with the internal arts.

You can become one of them if you’re willing to do the work:

http://www.clearsilat.com/internal-combat-arts

Filed Under: Internal Martial Art

3 Must Have Basics of Kuntao Silat

by Ben Sterling

1. Survival Strategy

First and foremost Kuntao Silat is about survival.

You must understand how attacks happen.

Avoidance, Awareness & Deterrence must be trained.

One of the key principles of ANY self defense based martial art is that you DO NOT exchange with the attackers.

  • You do not square off with the attackers.
  • You do not trade hits with the attackers.
  • You do not wrestle with the attackers.

Many many people get this wrong because the art (or the practitioner) is coming from a sport based background, mindset or strategy.

Dirty kickboxing is NOT self defense.

Training to break the rules of an MMA match does NOT make your art a self defense method. Because the underlying principles and assumptions of the method are base on a SPORT environment.

Kuntao Silat Assumes:

  • You are old
  • Out of shape
  • Injured
  • Slow
  • Weak
  • Outnumberd
  • Caught off guard

Ideally none of these are the case. However as a Self Defense art we must assume they are and train to be effective anyway.

An art that cannot be effective under all these conditions at once…

  • Might be an effective military combat method…
  • It might be a winning sport method…
  • It might even be an effective brawling method…

…but it is NOT a self defense method.

So in Clear’s Kuntao Silat we Do Not Exchange with the attackers and we make sure everything bad happens to the other guy.

2. Power: Destroy What You Can Touch

Power without effort is critical.

You must have enough power to take out anything within reach…

…and you must be able to do so with little to no effort.

Because if you are old, sick, injured, etc… you may not have the luxury of putting out much effort to defend yourself.

The ‘little to no effort’ part takes some work. So we’re going to focus on that a little later.

What we can do right away is teach you how to use a bone breaking Tjimande strike and the power of the open hand to add more power to your striking without any extra effort (and probably less effort.)

3. Knives, Machetes & Baseball Bats

You must assume the attackers are also able to destroy anything they can touch.

  • They could have advanced internal power and skill
  • They might just be that much bigger and stronger than you
  • and they might be armed. (or even all three)

Either way, YOU must control every point of contact.

You learn how to use your stance and movement so that the attackers cannot reach anything vital on you…

AND in trying to do so they will have to put themselves in vulnerable positions.

Another important part of Clear’s Kuntao Silat is learning how your defense against a blade is exactly the same as your defense against an empty handed opponent and your use of a blade, stick or improvised weapon is also exactly the same as your empty handed fighting method.

This and more is taught in the Kuntao Silat section (first 4 weeks) of our Internal Combat Arts Course.

Get started now:

http://www.clearsilat.com/internal-combat-arts

Filed Under: Kuntao Silat Tagged With: , ,

Can Silat or Xing Yi be applied in MMA?

by Ben Sterling

MMA is just like any other sport.

If you want win at Tennis, you need to spend most of your time studying and practicing Tennis.

You can use training from other sports and disciplines to enhance aspects of your Tennis game…

…but when you walk out onto the court you’re either playing Tennis or you’re going to lose.

Xing Yi and Silat were designed for a very different setting.

Using the full art in a ring would get you disqualified pretty quick.

(…and that’s assuming they’ll even let you into the ring carrying that machete 😉

An mma fighter could use training from Kuntao Silat or Xing Yi to increase their power, speed and explosiveness…

…but sorting through all the BS that’s out there on these arts and finding a good teacher takes a lot of work and effort.

Until top quality examples of these arts are a lot more common I doubt we’ll see them having much influence on MMA.

Though I could be wrong…

Filed Under: Kuntao Silat Tagged With: , ,

What & Where is The Center in Martial Arts?

by Ben Sterling

Many martial arts talk about The Center.

  • They protect the center
  • They attack the center
  • They move the center
  • They control the center
  • They fortify it, they seize it
  • Some even dissolve the center

So what exactly is the center? and where is it?

It’s a good question.

The Center is the place where someone can be pushed, moved or thrown with almost no effort.

…and if you hit them there it’s a serious problem.

In an external art this is often the physical center of someone’s body. Their center of gravity or leverage point.

…and it’s mostly in the same place every time.

The Internal Arts aren’t so simple.

Now, we’re talking about the center of someone’s intention and energy.

It can move, change and even disappear.

So what’s with this fortifying, moving and dissolving the center?

This is one of the clearer distinctions between the internal arts.

  • Xing Yi fortifies the center.
  • Bagua moves the center.
  • Tai Chi dissolves the center.

If you put your hands on a Xing Yi guy his center is solid. In fact it’s so solid that when you try to push it you’ll just get run over.

When you put hands on a Bagua guy you can try to push his center.

But every time you do it ends up being somewhere else. It keeps moving and twisting and is always just out of reach.

When you put hands on a Tai Chi guy there’s simply nothing there. Like trying to push a cloud.

Why does this matter?

If you only study one style or lineage, it doesn’t.

You don’t need to distinguish between the different influences on your style.

You simply focus on becoming the best imitation of your teacher that you can.

But, if you study more than one art or you want to understand the an art as a whole. sportfogadas tippek

(Instead of just one flavor of it. gaminator játékok )

Then it is absolutely critical to understand the underlying principles that every flavor of the art is based on.

And you must know where that art begins and ends. What it has in common with other arts and what is unique.

This type of understanding takes time. régi nyerőgépes játékok letöltése

Especially with all the convoluted information out there about the internal arts.

Our Internal Combat Arts course is very helpful in this way.

Not only do you learn how to fight with Kuntao Silat, Xing Yi, Bagua and Tai Chi…

…You start learning core internal principles like fortifying the center, moving the center and how to find someones center.

You learn different ways each of these arts generate power.

(and you learn how to combine several of them for some very devastating strikes.)

…and you get a clear look at many of the things these arts share as well as what sets them apart.

So, go join the Internal Combat Arts course:

http://www.clearsilat.com/internal-combat-arts

Filed Under: Internal Martial Art Tagged With: ,
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