He had attached parachute webbing across the insides of his car because he felt that that material was most excellent for holding his auto together on the inside. He had fire extinguishers screwed to every surface. He had a dial on his dash to give extra juice to his brake lights, and he turned it whenever he faced away from the sun so that drivers behind him could see when he braked.

This was all surface stuff, though. The most impressive thing that Mud Car did was memorize the times of all the traffic lights in San Jose. He could traverse that large town without ever hitting a stop light.

Unfortunately, when it came to the karate, he was just as crazy. He couldn’t stretch his limbs, couldn’t control what his body was going to do, and, because of this lack of control, it hurt to work out with him. Just being in his presence you could feel the firecrackers in his mind exploding into the universe.

One day, in class, he interrupted the instructor to complain about a pain in his shin. “It doesn’t hurt, but it keeps bothering me, do you know how to make the pain in my shin go away?” My instructor looked at me with rage in his eyes, I suppose he didn’t want to look at Mud Car because he would murder him, and he said, “Hit your leg with a lead pipe…that’ll make the pain go away.”

I suppose the ability to drive other people insane is the deciding point in this matter of whether a person is goofy or not. Because of this Mud Car never made it to Black Belt. He just didn’t have the mental maturity that is the mark of a black belt.

One day, however, a new sensei took over the training hall, and Mud Car was promoted to Black Belt within a short time…and then he left the training hall. He had gotten what he wanted, and the new instructor knew that was the best and most efficient way to get rid of Mud Car. But the truth is…I missed Mud Car.

He was nuts, but so is the guy who goes after you on the mean streets, so if you could last a session with Mud Car without getting hurt, you knew your art was working. Furthermore, there was a shift of standard here, for Mud Car had been promoted to black belt because he could drive people nuts, not because he was a competent martial artist. Finally, I think that is where the True Art started disappearing from the martial arts training halls of America…schools, even dojos like classical hung gar or Parker Kenpo or classical Aikido, did not administer soothing discipline to the insane, they just promoted them to get rid of them.

If you want to go crazy through the martial arts…drop on by Punch ‘Em Out. If you want to go sane through the martial arts…try Monster Martial Arts. 3

If you can lower the volume of the spooky music for a moment, I’ll explain. The out of body experience I am talking about is possible through Horse meditation, what we used to call Kima Chasie. In this article I am going to tell you exactly how to do that exercise, and what is going to happen

Back in the early seventies I was working on my black belt, and I was frustrated with this horse meditation thing. We would stand in the horse stance, one hand in a high block, the other hand in a horizontal, hooked back beak hand. We would concentrate out awareness on our clenched fingertips until our legs shook and sweat burst forth upon our innocent foreheads.

Yet, I knew the two minutes we were doing was insufficient. I had heard the stories of guys who would stand in the stance for two hours, and how they became superhuman. And, not to reveal my adolescent dreams, I wanted to be superhuman.

The way to be superhuman, to be honest, is just to go ahead and do it. So I began doing Horse Meditation during evenings. I would stand in horse meditation until the ache became too great, and then break, and know that I had failed.

I decided that I had had enough, I was going to make it. I was going to become the most incredible, superhuman martial artist in the world…uh, other than Bruce Lee. I mean, I would be a God, but…Bruce is Bruce, you know?

So I settled into the deep horse stance, and when the pain attacked, I told myself one thing…it isn’t going to kill me. Sweat, shakes, dire thoughts of having my legs explode from the pure chi of it all. But, having made the decision that I was going to succeed, and not even death could stop me…POP…I did it.

I floated above my head, disembodied, the world brilliant and forever, the source of immortality revealed. I had succeeded in using the martial arts, call it karate or kung fu or whatever, in realizing that I was a spirit, and that I was immortal, and that bodies were temporary things that you put on or take off as simply as one puts on a coat, or takes it off, or pants, they go on or off, too, and shoes, and socks, and…I was myself. Then, after a few minutes that seemed like an eternity, I decided to get back into my body, so I did, and I lost control, my stance fell forward, and I couldn’t figure out how to move my body quickly enough, and I fell right, smack dab, square…on my face.

Al has forty years in the arts, and is a writer for the magazines. You might not get out of your body, but you can get a free ebook if you pop on over to Monster Martial Arts.