APA - Unifying the Disciplines
By Alan Martin, Senior Instructor and Founder of APA-USA.
http://www.martial-arts-dallas.com/
Host Hu Gua Alan Martin Koen Witters Laurent Soloman Chris Mar
(Photo - APA on National Taiwan Prime Time TV)
Unify the disciplines of physics, biology, mechanics, engineering, geometry, physiology, thermodynamics, and calculus. Apply those to combat motions, and you’ve just begun to understand the conceptual basis for the APA system. Refine and implement the principles of two bodies about to undergo violent collision and the evolution of its methodology and inherent strategy come into focus.
Our persistent solution search for continuous improvement along the martial path leads to perceiving commonalties between differing ‘styles’. You, as a martial arts practitioner, no doubt, too, came to similar realizations. But lacking was the lucidity of mind to integrate all skill classes under an arrangement of an exacting logic, a complete method of thinking and training, if you will. I had finally found a single coherent process which completely eradicated the logical inconsistencies I had wrestled with in other traditions. Herein contained was not just the rudiments of kicking, boxing, trapping and grappling, but I had somehow stumbled upon a way to enhance every aspect of the martial domain all under one roof.
This unification has been and continues to be the function of Chief Instructor Chris Mar, a gentleman scholar of the highest order whom I have had the privilege and honor of studying under for ten years in Taipei, Taiwan. Of the many teachers I’ve encountered, masters in their own right, I have yet to meet his equal. Through his experience, his ‘always push the threshold in any environment’ mindset, he has been empowered with a clarity both enduring and endearing, a man as sensitive as he is fierce, creative in every undertaking and inspiring to everyone he encounters. Though called among local police as ‘the man with daggers for eyes’, in my brief but intense education under him, I had yet to find the limitations to how far he would go for a friend.
The extent of my insights prior to my indoctrination into APA was merely adaptability. The ability to adapt to any opponent necessitated a proficiency in skills and most importantly, a command over psychological resistances. Skill enhancement generates a need to add to available weapons as well as to force the processes to become instinctive. Methods of optimizing such aspects as power and speed seemed limited to a mere question of putting in the numbers, incidental not priority. As for psyche demands, I figured experience was the best teacher, ‘acclimation to the adrenal state’ was a concept from another dimension entirely. What I learned the day I was introduced to Instructor Mar was I had no dedicated approach, no goal. Although inclusive to our survival tools, we are not looking to lock ourselves in an event of constant adaptation. APA seeks to control.
Despite your roots, there are only eight basic punch trajectories, eight zones of coverage, that is torso/arm proportions of defense where attack trajectory will probabilistically occur and only three fundamental kick trajectories. Knowing this, what remains is developing a comprehensive means to most effectively train the physical components of the body to deliver requisite motions. Everything else is just variation of root. And from my experience excessive variation leads away from practicality and only deepens the clutter of pseudo-instinctive options from which to ponder when violent circumstances clearly warrant the utmost keenness of mind. After all, lives are at stake.
You must then arrive at certain conclusions. What steps can be taken to enhance overall performance in this physical machine we call the body into a better working whole? How can one optimally transmit the harmonious working of my physicality into the most efficient strike? It is a question for engineers and mechanics. It is a question of superior leverage through physiological proportions, opponent positioning, and psychological focus. It was a question Instructor Mar answered with APA.
In physics, mass and acceleration are components of any body in motion. Then the manipulation of these components are essential towards understanding the control of momentum and the cultivation of skills. As in so time-critical an environment as combat, to be prepared for the spontaneity of hostile situations there is nothing faster than simultaneous. This single philosophy is the first step in an eternal process of mastering the APA system. Every other philosophical, physiological, or psychological means is sourced from this simple orientation; simultaneity in every motion.
We derive then a means by which time, speed over a distance, can be optimized. Thus training in range constricted shortens the position to position relationship between opponents and increases the effectiveness of in-tight weaponry (done through reducing telegraphic motion by compressing weapons forward- a kind of spring load to reduce the lag of weapon extension), but we also relativize what little time is available through dynamic mental training; a high pressure, zero time preparation to hone the mind toward instantaneous response.
Most remarkable of the mental exercises is APA’s unique meditative technique. Its breathing alone based on the energy flow of thermodynamics, it is a multifaceted approach to cultivate creativity, expand awareness of surroundings, as well as deepen one’s sensitivity to the awarenesses of others. This, in order to better understand people, whether friend, stranger or opponent and to prepare for and acclimate to engaging in volatile high impact motions/ high stress situations. Like the expansion of ripples on water, the mind grows into larger areas of effectuation.
As in any discipline, scientific or otherwise, with its own set of rules and reasons, we embark upon a path by learning the process-specific language. In APA the core physical elements, the subtlest of positions and motions are first separated into distinct units. Through Chief Instructor’s Mar’s guidance, we establish a common means of referencing all angles and positions. Postures both static then dynamic, linear to angular, we are trained to re-align and synchronize skeletal proportions for proper functioning, how to condition muscle memory to stabilize overall structures, maximize energy transfer and initiate protective (strike/defend) cycles.
In other words, we discover the parts, how they work independently, how they work interdependently, reinforcing and complementing the whole. Hence this is a system of common denominators, those root moves prevalent in any martial art. All proceeding skill levels build on the initial foundation and are not discarded during advancement. Even the more complex of skills are root to those subsequent.
To adequately characterize APA, I would define it as a lesson in interpersonal communication, an exchange of verbal and non-verbal energies through the source of oneself. Designed specifically as an instructors training course, the conceptual approach facilitates its learning and its sharing, skill retention is more efficiently maintained as it is easily accessed from memory. Every conceivable aspect of protection, from physical and psychological posturing to how the opponent may perceive such posturing is addressed in lectures and ingrained in practice sessions.
Every motion has its proper posture, every posture has its consistent logic, every logic has its sequence and each sequence its progression, every progression a threshold. Each phase is designed for a goal. And each goal orients toward attaining the highest probability of control. The strict guidelines leave nothing to ambiguity, yet takes nothing from personal creativity. Instructor Mar veils nothing in mystery. I have learned more under him than I could have in a thousand lifetimes from dozens of teachers, and still he would say, “Don’t think of me as Master, just the most senior student.” Focusing only on the tasks at hand yet with no loss to classroom protocol, he dispenses with formalities; we simply call him Chris.
And the search goes on…