My Early Christmas Gift for You

If it’s the season of giving, I guess you could say I’ve gone over the top.

After nearly 20 years of SELLING my internationally acclaimed, Combat Conditioning, you can now download it for no charge whatsoever.

Yes, I’m GIVING it AWAY.

But only for a limited time.

Think I’m joking?

Then go to CombatConditioning.com and see for yourself.

Cheers,

Matt Furey

Yesterday I spoke to a 17-year old baseball player who’s been lifting weights for the past couple years in order to improve his performance.

He’s been stuck, so his father hooked him up with me in the hopes of making him a better, bigger, stronger, faster player.

At first the boy was resistant. He’d bought into the silly idea that weight training is the key to athletic success, regardless of the sport.

And being he’s surrounded by weights and people espousing the glories of them everywhere he goes, it’s only natural for him to “buy into” the “it must be right because everyone else is doing it” mentality.

Anyway, I taught the boy a series of bodyweight exercises that are NOT in Combat Conditioning (but will be in a forthcoming book). I didn’t tell him to stop lifting weights. I just left that topic alone.

Well, waddya know?

The boy went from deadlifting 315 pounds wherein he thought he might hurt himself (due to lack of flexibility), to an easy 425-pound deadlift, with no fear.

Now, I never bothered telling the boy that deadlifts are far and away the WORST exercise you can do to improve your baseball. Same goes for tennis, golf, or any other coiling action sport.

If you play a coiling action sport, what in the hell are you thinking when you prescribe push-pull exercises? It’s the dumbest, most insane prescription I’ve ever heard or seen.

Years ago I was sitting in a restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, in between rounds of the Arnold Classic. At the table with me were a few other notables, one of whom was a world champion kick boxer. Another was a fitness author who proudly proclaimed, “Deadlifts are the very best single exercise anyone can ever do.”

I turned to the world champion and asked him if he’d ever done any deadlifts.

“Never,” he said.

“Then how’d you generate the power to knock people out?” I continued.

“A kick is a whip,” he replied. “It’s not a deadlift.”

My Cheshire Cat grin can still be seen on the walls in that restaurant, me thinks.

A kick is a whip. So simple. So true.

It’s coiling action at its finest.

But the “old stuff” is out-dated.

Bring in the ‘roid boy trainers who’ve never thrown a pass, ball or javelin (at least not well); who’ve never hit a golf ball square, much less a tennis ball or ping pong ball; who’ve never knocked someone on his ass with a punch, kick or slap.

Meanwhile, el Furecat sits around watching the rate of injured athletes accelerate, especially injuries to the tendons and ligaments.

It’s scary stuff.

Yet, when most people look back at all their serious injuries, it’s hard to find one of them to a muscle.

So tell me, how you going to prevent injuries to tendons and ligaments? By building your muscles?

That’s not going to do it, my friend. It’s not going to do it.

In fact, the more you shorten and tighten the muscles, the MORE likely you are to cause injuries to the tendons when playing a sport BECAUSE you tightened the tendons, too.

Hmmm, I’ll be dawg-goned.

Here endeth the lesson.

Matt Furey

MattFureyInnerCircle.com

P.S. By the way, the exercises I taught the ballplayer, in total, took him five minutes a day in the beginning. Now he spends 10-15 minutes. He’s throwing and hitting the ball harder than ever, too. Just imagine what would happen if he gave up the deadlifts.

I’m thankful for the little things that are so easy to overlook,

Such as my skin, bones, tongue, teeth, and fingers shaped like hooks.

I’m thankful for the breaths I take, the coming in and going out,

And for the feelings of happiness, yes, even an occasional pout.

I’m thankful for the friends I have, even those I never see,

And for the people who write kind words, and do it naturally.

I’m thankful for the hair I’ve lost and the ankles that I’ve sprained,

As for my feet and toes, my knees and nose; I better not complain.

Then there’s the books I read, the Holy and the wholesome,

Who along with family, keep me from being lonesome.

I’m grateful for the bloodstream that moves inside my veins,

And for the water and dopamine that runs around my brain.

I’m thankful that I’m grateful, in body, heart, mind and soul,

And I give praise to the Creator, who makes all this possible.

Matt Furey

P.S. I’m thankful for the people who say or write, “Happy Thanksgiving” and don’t add, “if you celebrate it.”

No, that’s not what I meant.

I’m talking about longer, faster, flexible and explosive muscles.

Not thicker, slower, non-functional beach muscles.

The other day, when a FB friend saw a video of me doing a bodyweight exercise called “the Plough” – he remarked that he was surprised by my flexibility. This in spite of having flexibility programs on the market for over twenty years.

Yes, I realize that looks can be deceiving. Genetically, I was given a stocky body to work with. For many years I thought the ideal was to make a stocky body even stockier. But for the past 20-some years, I’ve been all about lengthening my muscles, loosening my joints and gaining more and more FUNCTIONAL and USEFUL STRENGTH.

Today, I’m all about lengthening life, energy and muscle – simultaneously.

Why shorten your muscles and tendons? So you can tear them?

Lengthen and strengthen. That’s the message.

And as you lengthen your muscles in the proper way – you also strengthen them.

You strengthen your muscles as well as your life force.

Provided, of course, that your approach to this is the correct one.

Extreme methods are not for me.

If you agree, then wrap your mind around the concept of longer, leaner and life-giving rather than thicker, slower and stodgier.ey

Here endeth the lesson.

Matt Furey

P.S. You can view some teaser videos on Instagram – @mattfureysays – as well as my Facebook group – Matt Furey Combat Conditioning+.

Then to get the explanations and master keys become a member of the Furey Faithful.

Sifu Shi Yan Ming is a Shaolin monk who came to the United States in 1992. He was the most skilled and beloved monk who participated in the first-ever demonstration of Shaolin kung fu on American soil.

He toured with his fellow monks, performing before sold-out crowds in several cities.

After the team’s final performance ended in San Francisco, he told his government handlers that we was going outside for a few minutes to snap a few pictures. Once outside he hailed the first taxi he saw – and was G-O-N-E.

He disappeared into the night.

The taxi driver soon realized that his passenger not only didn’t speak a word of English, he also had no idea where he was going. As destiny would have it, the driver took the master to the police, who took him to a Chinese restaurant. From the restaurant the monk contacted a friend in Chinatown, who helped him hide in his home for about a week.

The monk’s next move was a flight to New York City – and from there he worked on getting green card status. Months later he opened his own version of a Shaolin Temple in New York, and from there he altered some of his lifelong, supposedly “spiritual” habits.

First, he no longer practiced celibacy. That’s understandable.

And second, he began to eat beef – a definite no-no for Buddhist monks.

Sifu Shi Yan Ming jokingly refers to beef as “American tofu.”

Don’t you just love the imagery of that?

To the master, every day is Happy New Year.

Life is so good that he wants you to live life with gusto eight days a week; 366 days a year. Yes, you read that correctly.

Having a sense of humor is just as important as having a sense of purpose.

Life is worth living, every minute, every second, of every day.

Just as I’ve been saying for quite some time, Sifu Shi Yan Ming says that meditation is movement. Yes, you can mediate while sitting, but what if you made everything you do part of your on-going daily meditation.

Every exercise you do is performed with awareness of your breathing, your mental images, your self-talk.

Each day you’re looking for the humor within the agony. You’re looking for ways to transcend silly rules and ideas that may have been forced upon you long ago, even from well-meaning adults who were simply following the follower.

Every time I replay the words, “Beef is American tofu,” I laugh. The phrase is absolutely perfect.

It’s so good, in fact, that when I give a video update in the days ahead, on the way I’ve been feeding myself lately, and the incredible results I’ve been getting, I am definitely going to incorporate “American tofu” into the discourse.

At 55 years young, I’m getting younger, despite the white whiskers in my beard.

Eating spongy, estrogenic tofu is definitely not on my menu. You couldn’t pay me enough money to eat it. I prefer beef – and by that, I do not mean the leaner, lower-fat variety.

Give me the fattest of the fat.

Again, I’ll be covering my story very soon. I’ll even refer you to some hot-shot beef-guzzlers who can advise you, if you so choose. I will not be advising. I’ll only be telling my story.

It’ll all be going down on my Furey Faithful member’s site sometime next week. Be there.

Here endeth the lesson,

Matt Furey

Instagram – @mattfureysays

Here’s the latest from Furey Central.

I’m eating more fat than ever before.

Not fats from so-called healthy oils, either.

No.

I’m going straight to the animal itself.

And my joints and muscles are loving me for it.

My flexibility runneth over. People half my age are ready for the scrap heap.

I’m not an expert – nor am I giving expert advice.

So don’t follow me or what I’m doing personally.

But for those who are curious, I will be telling my story in detail on the Furey Faithful member’s site very soon, just for the fun of it. Not to advise.

I’m also putting up videos of me doing insane things at age 55.

If you follow my exercises alone and ignore all this crap about eating fat that I’m talking about – you’ll do wonders for yourself.

Finished.

Kick ass – take names!

Matt Furey

P.S. Follow me on Instagram – @mattfureysays

A few weeks ago I wrote about eggs and chicken, and how I was ridding myself of eating them.

Well, I am here to report that I have not eaten either in five weeks – and damnit, I feel good.

My reason for giving up both eggs and chicken was simple. Chickens are nervous animals, which is exacerbated by feeding them soy, perhaps the worst food ever fed to any living critter.

I realize some who read this will write me to say, “Stick with exercise. You know nothing about nutrition.”

And to them I say, “Thank you very much. You are correct. I know nothing about nutrition and am not advising anyone in any way.”

With this in mind, I might actually be telling a tall-tale when I say that soy is estrogenic. And eggs that come from chickens that are fed soy, well, perhaps those eggs aren’t too good for you.

That’s my “theory.”

Yes, I realize I can get chicken and eggs from organic, non-soy fed farms, but I chose to experiment to see what would happen if I stopped eating both, regardless of the source.

My anecdotal evidence causes me to believe ’twas a good choice. For me.

Now, a few weeks after I gave up eggs and chicken, I decided to make some other changes – and anecdotal evidence once again suggests that this was a major positive.

I’ll be covering some of these changes with Furey Faithful members very soon. If you’re already a member, be sure to take a look at the most recent videos I put up on Persian Pushups and much more.

Also, although not instructional, you can get some clues by scrutinizing my videos on Instagram – @mattfureysays – just keep in mind that whatever you see me doing and whatever you THINK I”m doing, is FAR from being the whole story.

At 55 years of age, I am kicking ass and taking names at a level that most will never accomplish – especially if they’re eating soy, hehe.

In closing, I’d love to encourage you to join the Furey Faithful, but that might upset some snowflakes on this list, who joined it thinking that all I would ever do is give out a ton of free information so they could live off the dole and never have to pay nuthin for no-thing.

So, I guess I’ll cower in fear and not tell you to become a superhero in your neighborhood. Or the person everyone wants to ask, “Hey, how’d you transform your body over the past couple months?”

Moral of the story: Be who you are and see who hangs around. Those who stay – awesome. Those who leave – so much the better.

Now go Kick total friggin ass – and take names!

Matt Furey

Copyright, 2018, M

When you first begin to learn the Way of Hindu Squats, you may be surprised to hear that the breathing method reversed.

When Karl Gotch taught this to me, for a moment, he was no different than a tai chi master. Why? Because he told me that the most important part of the exercise is the breathing.

Breathing is primary – even though proper technique is still incredibly important. Focusing on the inhale and exhale, though, helped make the technical aspects much easier. This is something that virtually no coaches in western sports understand – to this day.

Reminds me of the words of Laozi, from the Tao Te Ching:

“The space between heaven and earth is like a bellows.
The shape changes but not the form.”

There are many reasons for utilizing a reverse pattern of breathing when you do Hindu Squats – as well as when you do Hindu Pushups.

One is because this method gives a deeper massage to the internal organs, helping them do their job more effectively,

Another reason is that reverse breathing is believed to increase internal power.

Yet another is the idea that it will help you “turn back the clock.”

Perhaps most importantly, it clears the mind and helps you to relax and flow.

This past weekend I shot a couple new videos that detail the “ins and outs” of reverse breathing – and the way to easily apply it when doing the Royal Court, as well as many other exercises I teach.

I did this because everything I’ve ever read on the subject of reverse breathing and how to do it, either explained it improperly or left out essential details.

Luckily, due to the training I’ve received in China, I discovered a Way to help people get the feel and hang of this method quickly – and to do so without strain.

Come and get it at the Matt Furey Inner Circle. You’ll be blown away by the difference it makes in your life.

Matt Furey

P.S. The newest videos on this deep breathing methodology will be going up later this week.

30 years ago I was sitting in a Zig Ziglar seminar, as he exclaimed, “You need a check up from the neck up.”

This meant that you needed to change your thoughts from negative to positive.

Well, today I’m here to tell you that a lot of negative thinking will “just go away” if you exercise your neck in a natural way on a regular basis.

The brain fog will often clear as well – along with feelings of tiredness and fatigue.

You may start feeling as though you’re ON TOP OF THE WHIRLD.

The key word to keep in mind when it comes to training your neck is “natural.”

This means, unequivocally, that machines are out. Neck machines are ridiculously dumb.

All you need to effectively train your neck and thereby energize your brain and body, is your own bodyweight.

And if you’re unable to do the bridging exercises I have in Combat Conditioning, or cannot do so due to a medical condition, then you may be incredibly delighted to hear that the neck training I currently teach requires no bridging whatsoever.

Yes, bridging is great for you, provided you’re orthopedically sound, but it is also limited in terms of the number of directions you can train your neck. This means, as great as it is, I now teach something ever better, that you can add to your bridging – or do on its own, for your entire life.

It’s called Neck Qi Gong. It’s on the Matt Furey Inner Circle member’s site.

Go get some.

You’ll be damn glad you did.

Matt Furey

P.S. By the way, if you’re only on this email list to get free tips and have no intention of ever getting a product, or you are offended by the fact that I have something to sell, then just go away. Believe me, I won’t mind at all.