Episode 1: Master Huzon Alexander
Master Huzon Alexander: Episode 1
Today's interview is with Master Huzon Alexander, a martial arts instructor from southern Vermont. I first met Master Alexander 20 years ago when we were both competing on the New England martial arts circuit. I stepped away from competition for a while, but when I came back to start whistlekick, he was one of the first people to offer his support. It only seemed fitting that he be the first guest on whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. In this episode, we talk about Master Alexander's martial arts history, especially his time in the competition. He's competed in more martial arts disciplines than anyone I know and had tremendous success. It's an inspirational interview with an inspiring man. I hope you enjoy it.
You can also catch Master Alexander on Episode 164 as we discuss Martial Arts Competition with another past guest, Mr. Richard Osborn.
Show Notes
Movie Picks - Bloodsport, Kickboxer, CyborgTwin State Martial Arts Association home page
IPPONE Martial Arts Circuit home page
Email Master Alexander - alexanderstkd@live.com
Phone Number - 802-824-4216
Team Rapidforce (sponsored by whistlekick) on Facebook
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below or download here.
Jeremy Lesniak: Hello, and welcome to the inaugural episode of whistlekick martial arts radio. Yes, this is episode 1 and we hope to have many, many more. My name is Jeremy Lesniak, your host for the show and the president of whistlekick sparring gear and apparel. On today's show, we have Master Huzon alexander, a long-time martial arts competitor from southern Vermont. I’ve known Master alexander since we were kids on the tournament circuit back in the nineties, he’s doing great things for the martial arts in New England, so I thought he'd be a good choice for our very first episode. He's got some exciting stories to tell and I had a wonderful time hearing them. I hope you enjoy them too.
Jeremy Lesniak: Master alexander, welcome to whistlekick martial arts radio.
Huzon Alexander: Thanks for having me.
Jeremy Lesniak: Well, really excited to have you on today. You’ve got quite a bit of history, so let’s just jump right into it. Tell us about your past with martial arts.
Huzon Alexander: Well yeah, I started young my instructor Grandmaster Ed Budd did an after-school program here in a small-town Londonderry, Vermont and I got started in first grade when I was five. And I was his first ever blackbelt out of an after-school program and I also trained in his Winchester school as well but that's where it came from just an after-school program in Londonderry Vermont. Later to take it over from him when I was 16.
Jeremy Lesniak: Wow ok so what about the 11 years in between that?
Huzon Alexander: I did the like I was on his junior national team after the AKL and PKL faded away there I was on the AKL junior national team and then they kind of disappeared and my instructor started the "budd lights"
Jeremy Lesniak: I remember that.
Huzon Alexander: Yeah. And we traveled across the country. Had a lot of fun experiencing the united states and Canada, we went up to Canada and competed in a bunch of tournaments and really enjoyed what martial arts brought to us as a family. You know, of course, my immediate family, my parents were at a lot of those events. But even when they weren’t between my instructor and the rest of the team, they were like brothers and sisters. We spent so much time together.
Jeremy Lesniak: Sure
Huzon Alexander: It was a lot of fun. A lot of fun in the competition world and training. A lot of times, we stop and do demos, Mr. Budd would have demos and seminars set up, and on our way to Bangor Maine and we'd swing into a high school or college that he had lined up and we do a little bit of a demo for one of his students that has a school in the area or what have you. So, very busy incorporating martial arts into everyday life.
Jeremy Lesniak: Okay, so, let’s keep going a little bit. There you are, you're sixteen, and you’ve been competing all over for a few years. You take over a martial arts school, you’re still in high school, I assume at that point so you’re balancing running a business long before pretty much anybody does.
Huzon Alexander: Yeah, the funny thing was I had to have, my mother, used to come and sit in on classes cause I had to have an adult present for insurance purposes. So, my mother would come and sit in on classes. I was renting right here on the londonderry04:02 plaza. The guy that owns the shopping market here, was nice enough to help me get started and we worked off a percentage, rent was a percentage of the students that paid tuition. Started out as one class a week, and then broke it up to two classes a week and opened up, I took over I should say, an after-school program in Chester as well. So yeah, I was going to school during the day and a lot of times id get out of school a little bit early to come and teach and then go back during soccer season and hit up varsity soccer and then leave soccer practice a little early to go and teach another class.
Jeremy Lesniak: Wow. So, you were a busy kid in high school weren’t you?
Huzon Alexander: It was busy yeah, kept us out of trouble though.
Jeremy Lesniak: That’s good. So, what about after high school? Did you keep doing that? Did you go away and come back?
Huzon Alexander: No actually I had the opportunity, I was pretty good at soccer, I had the opportunity to get a full scholarship to Franklin Pierce College and play for them over there but I hadn’t my three schools going here at that point in time. One is bells falls, one in Chester, and then one here in Londonderry. And I just had a really, really hard time saying yes and dropping those students and going away to college for four years or whatever, pursuing the soccer dream of all about me. If I was to do that, there wasn’t anybody else coming to Londonderry, Chester, Bellows Falls, Vermont to teach people martial arts. So, they would’ve been, their martial arts life would be over. So, it was really challenging but I ended up I think making the right decision.
Jeremy Lesniak: It sounds like you did, do you ever look back in do you ever have regrets?
Huzon Alexander: I don’t know about that, I don’t know about regrets I mean who wants to play for Team USA in the Olympics or something you know?
Jeremy Lesniak: Right, nobody
Huzon Alexander: Who wants to be in world cups
Jeremy Lesniak: Right
Huzon Alexander: I wouldn't say regrets though, I definitely I’d think about it and especially since my son's 6 now and he's a pretty good athlete and we're messing around outback with a soccer ball you know and I played some men's league soccer when I could when I wasn't teaching or away at a tournament with the team or something. But I kind of gave up that competitive soccer and you know messing around with my son outback I’m like man I don’t know maybe I should've but I look at everything that it's done martial arts itself is done for me and the people that I’ve met and things I’ve had the opportunity to do and be a part of and you know I don’t, I don’t think pursuing soccer would've been as you know exciting as you might think. Not compared to what I’ve been able to accomplish here
Jeremy Lesniak: Sure, sure, so I know that you've spent a lot of time competing I mean we didn't even really get into the competition that you've done in once you got into your 20s and in your 30s with the full contact stuff and in all the travel that you've done. Any great stories out that you might want to pull?
Huzon Alexander: Yeah, I had, you know the biggest thing for me was I was always, I always wanted to be challenged. You know I was competing on the, you know the national level going around the tournaments and one of Kyle Gilbert was one of those hard nose competitors he and I, I’d get first, he'd get second, he'd get first I’d get second. You know we've got kind of back and forth pretty consistently for a while there and then I was 08:12 fifteen and then the tournament, the school came up and I realized how much more it was to see a student get 4th place than it was for me to have win grands. So, I stopped competing and really focused on trying to give them that opportunity to win a trophy and feel good about their hard training and accomplishment you know I did that until I was 18-19 and I didn't compete maybe once or twice a year there I’d throw the gear on jump in and compete and then I got an invitation to go to US KBA championships down in new jersey it was down in Newark new jersey. And so, I’d thought about it and say oh I’ll do some training and see how it goes, so I’ll basically train myself to do full contact and I went down there and competed in a continuous, won the continuous middleweight division and then I started late heavyweight division and then I won the middleweight full contact division. You know I had my cousin who knew nothing about fighting as my corner guy, give me some water in between rounds and I’ll take care of the rest. But you know that was a lot of fun doing that I was able to bring some family with me down their cousins and stuff and they hadn't really been out of Vermont so for them the ride down to Newark new jersey they definitely got a culture shock.
Jeremy Lesniak: A little bit of a different area for sure
Huzon Alexander: A little bit of a different area, yeah you know around here we had a tough guy quote unquote gangs with their hats backward and then you go down to Newark new jersey and you actually see one.
Jeremy Lesniak: Right
Huzon Alexander: They were definitely into a culture shock and then from there I got Paul Rosner the president of the US KBA and Bruce Marshall who was the martial arts promoter, sports martial arts promoter in the Revere area, Revere Massachusetts he started promoting mixed martial arts and kickboxing and he got me a new England title shop so I thought Ricci Feliciano who's a cop from down long island area and fought him he was the new England title holder in the super middleweight division, fought him and beat him a unanimous decision to win the new England title
Jeremy Lesniak: Wow, no I think we might have caused over a piece here where you really didn't have a whole lot of full contact experience at this point am I right? You grew up doing point fighting you know a little bit more traditional point fighting and just jumped in two feet to this full-contact kickboxing stuff.
Huzon Alexander: Yeah, I mean full contact was definitely the better place for me, you meet Mr. Budd Mudaquan style taekwondo but I’m not built for taekwondo at all I mean I had a really adapt myself to be a taekwondo stylist I mean I’m more a Shotokan, stand there and hit them hard type person, I move quickly but you know that fancy jump and spin I had to work really hard to get all that stuff into my repertoire. For me, it’s going great now and it really helped me a lot in a full contact world because that's what people would assume when we step between the ropes was that I was this you know this big puncher big kicker nothing fancy and you know I did have that fancy in my bag of tricks so yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak: Alright, coolI had a whole lot of experience but it worked out
Jeremy Lesniak: When we were talking about your time in high school doing soccer training teaching students you know with your own school. You hinted that there was a lot that martial arts had done for you and that you wanted to make sure that you were giving back. Can you tell us a bit more about what would you say martial arts have done for you?
Huzon Alexander: Yeah, I mean the biggest thing that martial arts did for me, is you know it taught me that self-control as a kid growing up my parents wanted to get me into martial arts because had a very short fuse you know somebody a kid would bump into me on a bus and I’d just grab right hold of him. You know very very short temper and you know I’d some hard lessons classes I wasn't able to attend, I used to have to sit and watch which was absolute torture and something that I use in my school today when parents' child misbehaves and isn't following the rules of my school I strongly encourage the parents to have them suit up and sit in the back of the class cause if you're not there and you don't see what's going on it doesn't bother you as much but when you have to come to class see what's going on and you really want to be participating and you can't participate it really tears at you especially us martial artist that absolutely loves every piece of it. You know so I think the biggest thing for me was the self-control, I was a very good athlete in most everything I did so the confident stuff, it definitely helped with some of the confidence but I never really had the worst you know I was never the worst batter, or I was never the worst soccer player, never the worst thrower, so I never lacked that kind of confidence that martial arts bring to a lot of people but you know the ability to be able to play because I wasn't in trouble for fighting or for back talking and being disrespectful you know that self-control was a huge piece and I see it in a lot of students, they come through my door today and just you know say here I am and there's hope.
Jeremy Lesniak: I think it’s great that you bring up two different facets that people often ascribe to the martial arts the self-control the discipline but also the confidence in that when I look at martial arts when I talk to parents about martial arts and why maybe their child should be in martial arts why they themselves should be in martial arts there are so many different aspects to martial arts and not everyone's going to need everything that the martial arts can provide
Huzon Alexander: Right
Jeremy Lesniak: But everyone can see some benefit and usually tremendous benefit from spending some time with the martial arts so I think it's great that you make that distinction there. How about you know we talked about a lot of positive stuff, how about a low point, was there something in your life at any time where you can look back and say you know I was able to handle this differently or the outcome was different because of my experience in martial arts.
Huzon Alexander: Not really sure. I mean I think one of the lowest points that I had was probably when I was like, eight. Not that I remember it like it’s yesterday but I remember still struggling with that, the temper and sitting out for three classes in a row because of my behavior in school or what have you. And be like, you know what? I don’t need this, I don’t want to do this anymore because I can’t do it anyway, but with the help from my instructor and my parents saying, you’re good at this, we need to make sure that you are able to continue to do this and your behavior is preventing you from being able to. You know, so as far as you know, all that, teenage to a young adult midlife problem I was able to persevere through, I think it happened when I was eight. I mean I definitely have been in some boxing matches where I was hit real hard and had to use some of that martial arts, nothing like my black belt test mindset you know to struggle through that last 30 seconds and clear the cobwebs in between rounds, I’ve definitely done that. I had to use my black belt test as my own personal kick in the butt so to speak. It’s my black belt that Mr. Budd used to make us go through was pretty intense and grueling.
Jeremy Lesniak: Want to tell us a little bit more about that? I know in some schools you can’t talk about it if you are able to share anything more.
Huzon Alexander: Yeah, we used to start, when I tested when I was eleven for my black belt, my test was no different than Miss Rulo's when she went through it. Grand Master Rulo or a twenty-five-year-old just getting out of the 18:25, I went into the same exact test. And you start off with a two-mile run, back then you had to be done in twenty minutes or less. From there you came into your 500 pushups, you couldn’t move on to anything else till your pushups were done and 500 sit-ups and 750 sidekicks with each leg, then you sat down to a two-page written test, and then you'd start your up and down the floor with all your hand techniques and then your kicks and your jump spin kicks. Then into your forms, obviously with a black belt board asking to see anything they wanted over again. From forms moving onto hand-to-hand self-defense and takedowns, into board breaking, and then finishing the day with sparring. One-on-one against everybody on the board then 2 on 1 then 3 on 1 and then board on the tester. When you break it, your test is over.
Jeremy Lesniak: Wow. Now when you did your test, was it just you, or were you in a group?
Huzon Alexander: I was actually, I was supposed to be testing with, at that point in time he was the head of the king swat team sniper coach but something serious came up and he was able to test that day so ended up testing by myself that day.
Jeremy Lesniak: So, you’re solo with all those different, like very difficult elements, I mean it’s very easy to quantify 500 pushups, a little bit harder to quantify forms. But how long did that test take?
Huzon Alexander: We started at 8:00 am, I remember looking at the clock but I know it was dinner time when we were done. Somewhere in the four to five and if you wanted a break to take a sip of water or go to the bathroom, bow out and we'll try this again another day. You know, very hard-nosed test, but it was you know, times are different. Now you could never get away with that, there’s no way that you could, as we’ve developed as human beings and realize how important staying hydrated is to the function of the brain and the body, taking that quick rest it’s not healthy to do what we used to do.
Jeremy Lesniak: Not physically that’s for sure.
Huzon Alexander: Not at all. But again, like I used to use it in my fights, this is nothing compared to my black belt test and I live through that so let’s go come on you get two more rounds, suck it up.
Jeremy Lesniak: I do the same thing when I had a difficult part in my life and I think that the intention was that our instructors gave us that gift to say, hey if you can make it through this, you can make it through anything.
Huzon Alexander: Right, exactly. As I say to my students, right now you think that you’re going to die when you’re at a four. You still got a ten in you, your four, you’ve just never been pushed beyond it. You always give up first or take a break first. You know, our blackbelt test introduces you to what you are really capable of digging deep into, finding another gear, and pushing forward. You thought you were done at level four but you got to ten. There is a ten in there, you got to know that it’s there and until you feel it until you've been it, a part of that, you don’t know.
Jeremy Lesniak: I once heard one of my instructors say that the test, your blackbelt test didn’t start until you wanted to quit.
Huzon Alexander: That’s right. Yeah, I like that.
Jeremy Lesniak: So, let’s move on. You’ve mentioned quite a few names of people that you’ve trained with or trained under that helped you get going but could you identify one of them of course the obvious answer would be Master Budd, the man that got you started. So, let’s take him out of the mix. Someone that was instrumental in your martial arts upbringing?
Huzon Alexander: Yeah. Mr. Budd out huh? There has been a lot. I think it’s tough because I’ve been you know worked with, guys in the military with combative and ground fighting and that’s where my jiu-jitsu came from, not from a traditional jiu-jitsu school but through the combative of the military. Not that I was in the military but I worked with them, worked with the military instructors.
Jeremy Lesniak: Sure.
Huzon Alexander: The boxing, Jimmy Farrell was my boxing coach. He was huge and made the stars align. The guy used to train with Cus D'Amato, Mike Tyson’s trainer and that’s a punch system that I know, the same punch system that mike does. He used to use the pendulum head moving system that’s all the Cus D'Amato system that I used when I fought.
Jeremy Lesniak: So, if we were to get some tape of you and get some tape of Mike Tyson and watched them side by side, we'd see some similarities?
Huzon Alexander: Most definitely, especially if you list 24:25 cause Cus had a different punch number system. So, when you say, instead of saying jab straight, it was 7-2 where most people 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, it was 7-2. The Cus D'Amato system is 7-2 for the jab straight. You know so, numbers are a lot faster to write often they are jab straight. "7-2-1, 7-2-1" wide open look at "7-2-1" there you go, throw the six, you know.
Jeremy Lesniak: So how did you get a chance to hook up with him?
Huzon Alexander: It was an absolute freak accident. There was this tavern hotel uphill in a magic mountain, the ski area because Londonderry is right here in the middle of Stratton, Okemo, Bromley, magic, and jimmy's very good friend bought it and asked jimmy if he would manage it. So, jimmy was up here and we were in the tavern one night and he came up to me and I was talking about kickboxing and one of his fighters was there getting ready for an espn2 fight. Martin Thornton, a guy from Ireland was going to fight Bobo Starnino on espn2 and they didn’t have much sparring up here in Londonderry so he's like, would you be interested in giving martin some sparring, I’m like, never boxed I kick boxed but no that was self-taught. Cause at that point in time I’d already defended my new England title and given Feliciano a rematch but I knocked him out the first time which gave me the next step to fight for US title but that’s a different day. So, anyways, I agreed to it and we went down here to my school in Londonderry and I went five rounds with Thornton who was a heavy puncher, he was number 2 middleweight in New England when the New England, it was a new England pro boxing rating and Thornton was number 2.
Jeremy Lesniak: So how did that go?Horrible.
Jeremy Lesniak: You got knocked around a little bit?
Huzon Alexander: A lot. Got knocked around a lot but jimmy told me afterward that Thornton drops everybody in the gym. He said that his goal is to make sure that he drops you when he's sparring. That what’s his goal is and I wouldn’t go down. So, I wish you would’ve told me that on the first round, I would’ve taken a knee and it would’ve been an easier day, but I was just I agreed to this and I’m not going to let him think that I can’t handle this. So, I kept on gritting it, and yeah. After that Thornton and I probably sparred a hundred and fifty rounds.
Jeremy Lesniak: That’s great. So, you proved yourself and earned his respect. You got some coaching out of it.
Huzon Alexander: Yeah, jimmy said you want to box. He said I could get you some fights, I can get you a fight right up here, and advertise and we ended up, my first fight was actually at doing stiles there at magic out back in the tennis court. We threw a ring up then, I remember the guy's name we came up from the Boston area somewhere. He was 3-0 or something and I ended up getting a referee stoppage, in the second round, on that one. And that was my first fight before the golden gloves.
Jeremy Lesniak: Wow. So, just to be clear, the referee stopped the fight because you were hammering him. Yeah. I had him up against the ropes.
Jeremy Lesniak: There's a bit of a pattern here for you if you, I’m sure you’ve seen it, and I’m sure the listeners are picking up on it. You try something and you do well at it.
Huzon Alexander: Yeah well, I think, but the thing is, I don’t like to not be good.
Jeremy Lesniak: Well, I think it’s that warrior spirit, the warrior will, whatever you want to call it. Different people call it different things and it’s pretty clear that you have it and it’s coming through as we’re talking, it’s very clear that anything you’re going to set your mind to, you’re going to come out having accomplished it. You know whatever your goals are. And I think that’s great, that’s really inspiring for the rest of us to listen to you talk.
Huzon Alexander: Well I think the biggest thing is, I looked at everything as, you know one of my really good friends, ross powers, is the first us Olympic snowboarder to a medal and then the next Olympics he won gold. When we had a three-medal sweep in the men's half-pipe. You know, I would look at little Vermont and little Londonderry, Vermont, and see what he was able to do at a world level at that point in time, I was coming up through in the full contact ranks, I won the New England title, defended it, got a shot for US title and won that, so I was on my way up through there, he was all over tv, all over the newspapers and you know, whenever he drives by my house if I was outside, he was swinging in and were talking, we played a lot of golf together. We played on the men’s league together and he and I would ride up and play eighteen holes before the actual nine-hole men's league started and we talked a lot about that. How it’s just a, you know that never say die mentality attitude. You say I can’t do it okay, well watch this. You know pull up a chair.
Jeremy Lesniak: Yeah. I think that’s awesome and I think that that’s something that comes through a lot with martial arts. You know a lot of martial artists, I know a lot of martial artists. Most people listening to this show are martial artists, and it’s something that most of us have seen multiple times is that attitude and it’s something that I think is conditioned through the martial arts and it’s one of my favorite things about the martial arts is that, that lifting up to the next level of attitude of perseverance, whatever you want to call it but that focusing on a goal and getting it.
Huzon Alexander: Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak: So that’s awesome. That new movie is just coming out right now, if you can believe it you can achieve it or something right?
Jeremy Lesniak: Yeah.
Huzon Alexander: Thought that I like that. Hits the martial arts right on top.
Jeremy Lesniak: Absolutely. 31:39 so you’ve trained with a lot of people, but if you could train with anyone that you haven’t, be they living or dead, who would that be?
Huzon Alexander: That’s tough too. Again, it’s like that, if it was boxing, it'd be, I’d love to train with Muhammad (Ali) in his prime. If it was kickboxing, I’d love to get in there with benny the jet. You know, again not just training and having them hold mitts or tell me how to hit the bag, I want to spar with these guys you know. In the point of martial arts, I’d like to spar with Bill Wallace in his prime, Chuck Norris, Josh Smith those guys in their prime would just be awesome.
Jeremy Lesniak: Yeah. I also would’ve done all those things but I think you would’ve stood a much better shot at not getting your block taken off
Huzon Alexander: I don’t know about that, you weren’t too shabby yourself.
Jeremy Lesniak: Well thank you. How about a favorite martial arts flick? Are any films that pop into mind?
Huzon Alexander: Yeah, I mean, how can you go wrong in Bloodsport and kick-boxer on top? I have to say. Like those two van Damme films, not just about watching it but knowing a little bit more about the history between, I mean, van Damme got 1500 dollars I think was the number for three films.
Jeremy Lesniak: That’s it?Yeah. Three film deal. It was bloodsport, kickboxer and I want to say cyborg was the third one
.Jeremy Lesniak: Oh, I forgot about that one. That was old. That was a little bit rough.
Huzon Alexander: Yeah. But bloodsport, they weren’t even going to do, they weren’t going to release it. He went in and he spent four days straight re-editing the whole thing and then he brought it back to them and they said they’d do it.
Jeremy Lesniak: Well. So, is he your favorite martial arts actor?
Huzon Alexander: I don’t know. I mean, he was a great actor and I think he really helped show people the side of martial arts that wasn’t Steven Seagal. I like Steven Seagal because he is so true. He’s not going to do the van Damme jump split kick into the head so your head hits the tomb or whatever. Seagal's going to grab you, grab you by the hair take his thumb, and stick you in the eye. You know I mean, that's what you would really do if you were defending yourself. Grab your eye a little forearm break, nothing Jackie Chan-ish but that’s all got its place and I think van Damme was the one that kind of broke through to that and showed that martial arts are just absolutely amazing. Not just to defend yourself but some of these techniques, when they’re done correctly, look awesome. I think van Damme was the one that kind of broke that out. That’s where the Jackie Chan-s and the Jet Li-s came from. Fancy martial came from van Damme breaking through with it.
Jeremy Lesniak: I would agree, absolutely. So, we’re going to start wrapping up now, but one more question for you, do you have any goals? Any martial arts-related goals for the future that you would be able to share with us?
Huzon Alexander: Uhm, yeah. I'd say, physical goals no. I don’t have any physical goals right now. I’m not looking to compete again if I did get the phone call from de la Hoya saying "hey, we'd like to put you in, we got you in for a pay-per-view fight, a real-life rocky story, take a look at the numbers on this check, I might take it.
Jeremy Lesniak: That'd be hard to say no to, wouldn’t it?
Huzon Alexander: Yeah, but I’m really not looking to compete. I mean, I still train, I work with my MMA fighters, my kickboxers, every night I’m still sparring every night and that gives me just enough taste so I don’t want to get in there and mix it up anymore. My body took a lot of abuse, lots and lots of abuse when I went into the full contact world. I was in there with great guys, some really, really good high-name pros and you know, some of those sparring matches were a thousand times worse than any match that I was in. They were tough, they were really tough. But again, fun stuff being in there, sparring with John Scully, Nick Morgan, Martin Thornton, those guys are really good fighters and I wouldn’t replace it for anything but it took its toll and now I think more of my goals are in the having other people grow. Helping with where I’ve been, who I know, what I’ve done, being able to make those connections so that people can take the reins with the twin state martial arts association working with IPPONE, to help make the sport martial arts world a little bit bigger in Vermont and New Hampshire. My whole purpose for starting twin state martial arts was because I was never a state martial arts champion, there was nothing to say that I was. Was I the best in Vermont, sure maybe, but there was nothing to say that I was the state champion? So, we really needed a circuit for Vermont, for New Hampshire to say you know what, your friend was skiers or tennis players and individually they’re state champions because there was a system in place to recognize that. You know that's what I wanted to do with twin state, give these kids and adults the opportunity to say you know what, I am the twin state champion, I am the best in Vermont for the year 2008. Did I beat everybody, no I didn’t beat everybody but I put the time in to represent it in every single tournament that there was recognizing these people? It’s not like its closed door and we only advertise within two or three schools, twin state is open to anybody, any competitor, and just like the IPPONE Circuit it’s open a competitors so if you want to come in and prove your skills, you're welcome, come on. I think that’s really my goal for the future to just continue finding other ways to help other martial artists broaden their horizons like this podcast here. Hopefully, more and more people tune in to the podcast and start learning some stuff about each guest that you have on there and if they can take a little something away from this interview then, mission accomplished.
Jeremy Lesniak: Yeah, I hope so too. Listeners were going to have links to the twin-state circuit and the IPPONE circuit in the show notes. So, that’s a lot of what you kind of lead into the last question that we have really is what you’ve got going on right now anything else that you want to promote? Anything you want listeners to know about?
Huzon Alexander: Team rapid force, sponsored by whistlekick. This is our first year with team rapid force, world and national teams going to some of these world events at Kananaskis. Right now, it’s my students that wanted to accept the challenge and go out there and broaden their horizons, they’ve proven themselves to be worthy competitors, but hoping that we can branch out here next year and continue to have whistlekick in rapid force as sponsors of the team and get some competitors from other schools and join our force and represent our sponsors.
Jeremy Lesniak: Well you know, I’ll take the opportunity to publicly thank you for allowing us to sponsor team rapid force. It’s a good group of kids and adults that you have there. Watching what they’ve been doing in the circuits and the significant amount of hardware that they’ve been taking home has been pretty impressive. But if somebody wants to get a hold of you whether they think they would be a good addition to the team and they heard something they want to talk to you about, how can people reach you?
Huzon Alexander: Yeah. They can email me, throw the email up there or they can call, and contact the team rapidly force on Facebook. If that’s something they want to do, we can sit down and talk. There's more to it than wearing the uniform there are other criteria that they, as far as being a good respected martial artist, it come a part of that. We're not looking to just have team rapid force uniforms on the podium so to speak, we want and I’m sure as a founder of whistlekick, would much rather have people come up and people say, everybody on that team rapid force is just so respectful, great competitors, fun to be around, just nice martial artists and that’s way more important to us as traditional martial artist and coaches than the person that’s going to get gold all the time but nobody wants to talk to him.
Jeremy Lesniak: Couldn’t agree more. Well yeah, we'll have that contact information in the show notes at the website, whistlekickMartialArtsradio.com so, great, any last thoughts before we sign off?
Huzon Alexander: Go out and get your whistlekick gear.
Jeremy Lesniak: I did not tell him to say that.
Huzon Alexander: The best stuff on earth.
Jeremy Lesniak: Well thank you. I appreciate that, we're trying. Well, Master alexander, really appreciate your time, and thanks for being on whistlekick martial arts radio.
Huzon Alexander: Thank you.
Jeremy Lesniak: Thanks for listening to this episode of whistlekick martial arts radio. A big thank you to Master alexander for appearing on our first-ever episode. Please be sure to subscribe to the show so you never miss one of our weekly episodes. If you like the show, we'd appreciate a five-star review on iTunes stitcher or where ever you get your podcasts. You can check out the show notes at whistlekickMartialArtsradio.com and if you’d like to learn more about what we offer at whistlekick sparring gear and apparel, check us out at whistlekick.com. Train hard and have a great day.