Artistic Cross Training in the Martial Arts

One of my favorite things is to mix up the pieces of the martial arts. Take a hand pattern from karate and put it on the Pa Kua circle. Do Karate with flow, as in Tai Chi Chuan. Add Tae Kwon Do kicks to every move of a form. Do a form not designed for weapons with a weapon, and vice versa.

This concept of coming up with something new is often frowned upon by martial artists. Do it this way! Only this way! This is the way my instructor taught me!

But doesn’t this viewpoint truly limit us? 

Consider that the fact of creation is the breakdown and synthesis of the old into the new. So how can you be an artist if you don’t start taking things, breaking them down, and putting them together in new formats? Eh?

Now the official method for doing this is inherent in the concept of Matrixing, which is a method for analyzing and handling force and direction, and which puts the martial arts in logical order.

But if you don’t know matrixing, then this ‘mixing method’ is the next best thing.

Doing things in this fashion, which is considered ‘wrong’ by many instructors, you see, will jolt the system. It will make you blink, make the data re-sort in your head, and suddenly, you may find yourself coming up with something entirely new.

Try this method and you will see your perspective of the Martial Arts start to slide and shift  and change into something knew. You are an artist, you see, and this method will insure that your abilities as an artist come...right...out!

Heck, you might come up with something like...Karaido, or Tae Jitsu, or Box Fu, or Gun Fu. you might become the world’s first ‘Stickador,’ or Turtle Boxer.

Or you might start the art that is picked up by Star Fleet Academy in a hundred years.

Laugh if you want, but your imagination is limited only by you, and this method is designed to unlimit your imagination.