I was working in a tubing factory a few decades ago, and wordspread that I was training in the martial arts. A Philippine co-worker came up to me at one point, and he said, “You no study martial arts, martial Arts bad…bad, ” then he shook his head and walked away. From this quick meeting I ultimately realized how the martial arts were invented.

As one might expect, I was quite surprised by my co-workers viewpoint, the Philippines were famous for their martial arts, and so I tracked him down and queried him further. “Why do you think the martial arts are so bad?” I asked. This is the anecdote he told me.

I saw an interesting program today, a couple of fellows were talking about faster reaction time through classical martial arts training. The odd thing is that they were carrying on about muscle memory. They claimed that you train the body to react so fast that there is no reaction time.

But to have a body is reaction time. If you conduct your self defense through a body then you have to have the time it takes to activate that body. It’s going to be there no matter what you do.

I almost feel guilty, giving out a few martial arts dirty tricks, when such things as Karate and Kung Fu really stand for honor and virtue. The sordid news, however, is that if you have to use your martial skill outside the training hall, fighting dirty may save your life. That said, here’s a few nasty, little things I’ve learned over the years that will help you walk away, and make him cry.

When it come to martial arts explosive power one has to consider the concept of Fa Jing. This is the simple gut oomph that makes such arts as Karate, Shaolin, Tai Chi, and other traditional martial arts superior to sports such as boxing. This is not to speak ill pugilism, this is just to say that there is a theory that, if followed, will make an art out of a sport, and will create a superior human being.

Everybody thinks that Martial Arts Power comes from muscular development. Unfortunately, they are only half right. To fully grasp the power we are talking about here we must change our idea of what a muscle is and does.

The purpose of a muscle is to to retract, and thus to make a limb or body part move in a certain direction, or become tense for some purpose. Thus, when somebody works his biceps so he can have a big gun, he is reducing his punching power. Punching power comes from working the muscles on the other side of the arm, the triceps, which cause the arm to go out, which is where you’ll find a punch.

When we consider the best martial arts forms we are considering those martial arts kata that give the most benefit to the student. I usually recommend learning as many patterns and arts as possible, then working on the ones that the student prefers, although there can be oddities in this method. I also hold that one should learn entire arts, first taekwondo, then karate, then kung fu.

The kebons are good, basic forms, and are common to both karate systems and taekwondo systems. Though there are three to five of these, I don’t usually count them as forms because they are learning the important but easy ABCs of the martial arts.

Eight forms is all that is really necessary to earn a Martial Arts Black Belt, and this is in karate, or taekwondo, or kenpo, or even the many shaolin systems and other fighting arts. Of course the kata must be of the correct kind to be effective. A good example of this is found in Karate, which descended from Kung Fu, and from which developed both Kenpo and Taekwondo.