Episode 120 - Hanshi Bruce Juchnik
Bruce Juchnik, Hanshi, is a lifelong martial arts practitioner with ties and stories to nearly every martial artist you've heard of.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik - Episode 120
But you've gotta always be willing to accept that maybe your views, or the views of your teacher, might not be correct.
Bruce Juchnik
Karate Sparring Boots
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik is a living encyclopedia. When you talk about the most famous martial artists - Joe Lewis, Robert Trias, Chuck Norris, Bill Wallace, James Mitose - he's right there in the mix. In some of the stories, he's on the fringes, but can tell you about the major players and what really happened. In others, he takes center stage and helps connect the dots on some of the most important elements of our past.And history is very important to Hanshi Juchnik. He knows where he came from and he believes you should, too. As important as punching and kicking is, that's how important knowing your lineage is to Hanshi Bruce Juchnik. It was a pleasure to have him on the show and connect many of the different stories we've already heard, as well as point us in the direction of some guests we'll be having on in the future.
Enjoyed this episode? Why not buy the book? Five Faces of Kempo.
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Show Notes
Bruce Juchnik
On today's show, we referenced one of Hanshi's students, Sensei Terry Dow, as well as Bill "Superfoot" Wallace.We had the chance to record Hanshi Juchnik interviewing Superfoot at the 2017 Martial Arts Symposium, and it's available in both audio and video. You can watch or listen to that interview here.The annual martial arts gathering Hanshi mentioned has a website for more information.[gallery type="slideshow" ids="2147,2156,2154,2155,2153"]
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below or download here.
Hello everyone, it's time for another episode of martial arts radio. The show that brings you the amazing stories of the world’s best martial artists and today, we’re talking with Hanshi Bruce Juchnik and this is episode 120. At whistlekick, we make the world’s best sparring gear and here on martial arts radio, we bring you the website’s top podcast on the traditional martial arts twice a week. Welcome, my name is Jeremy Lesniak and I'm the host and founder of the company, whistlekick. Thank you to the returning listeners and welcome to those of you checking us out for the first time. If you're new to the show or our great products, please have a look at our sparring boots. No toe straps to slip on, double reinforcement, extra ventilation, durable materials and a comfortable design. If you're used to other foam sparring boots, you'll be shocked at how much better these are. Available in quite a few colors, you can find our gear at whistlekick.com or on Amazon. If you want the show notes, including photos and links to everything we talk about today with Hanshi Juchnik, you can find those at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. If you're not in the newsletter list, please sign up. We send out exclusive content and it's the only place to find out about upcoming guests for the show. As a thank you for joining, we’ll send you our top 10 tips for martial artists, an exclusive podcast episode. Sign up for the newsletter at any of the whistlekick websites. Hanshi Bruce Juchnik is a living encyclopedia. When you talk about the most famous martial artist, John Lewis, Robert Trias, Chuck Norris, Bill Wallace, James Mitose; he’s right there in the mix. In some of the stories, he’s on the fringes but can tell you about the major players and what really happened. In others, he takes center stage and helps connect the dots on some of the most important elements of our past. It was an honor and pleasure to have him on the show so please, help me welcome him. Hanshi Juchnik, welcome to whistlekick martial arts radio.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Oh, thank you very much.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thank you. I'm looking forward to hearing your stories and learning more about you and certainly, I've heard bits of your stories from others and you know a lot of people so I'm sure that we’re going to have some names make some appearances in your stories and looking forward to all that but we get started in pretty much the same way in every episode, with every guest and we ask them how did you get started in the martial arts so how about you? How did you get started?
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
You know what? Sometimes I don’t remember but when I got started in martial arts, martial arts were not that really available. As a matter of fact, most of the times, at the end of the school, you don’t know that many kids in martial arts and I was actually pretty young to be able to get going and start moving. A lot different than what it is today and so, I guess I was always, at that time, I was dabbling. I ended up making a living in music and the rest of the time, what I was doing is doing martial arts. I love to fight. I used to enjoy fighting so I got in for all of the wrong reasons so I look back and think now, I think boy, you were crazy but that’s why. I loved contesting, fighting, sport and just loved it so that’s why. I started with Tangsoodo [00:03:57], from Tangsoodo, I went to Shotokan, from Shotokan I went to Kenpo Karate, in Kenpo Karate I stayed for many years and I studied from 1973, for a period of about 4 to 5 years, I was on a quest. I had a martial arts school at the time and I would get up every morning at about 3 AM, drive down to San Francisco and study from a guy named [00:04:26] and at least, Tai Chi and Northern Shaolin, left that class, watched the sun come up in Chinatown and I went and working with a guy named Brendon [00:04:38], that was [00:04:41] and from there, I drove to another part of San Francisco and study with a guy named George Wallace and that was White Crane and I got introduced in Filipino Arts in ’73 by a friend of mine, oh, not a friend but somebody that came up and trained me in the arts with me is Remy Priesas and he happened to be a close friend of Dan Inosanto and Danny introduced us to Filipino arts. Danny had started probably about 6 months of my studying and study with that so I came back to study in San Francisco with this one guy. At the same time in the Bay Area, I was working with a guy named Professor [0:005:21], went back to my school in Sacramento, go all the way up to Stockton and had a class and Silat eskrima with [00:05:31] so it's been a journey.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, it sounds like you're a pretty busy man with all of your training.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
I loved, like I said, I loved to compete. I got into Chinese arts, after seeing a couple of people in the tournament, the guy that got me into Chinese arts is through George Wallace. He was actually the White Crane practitioners of his would compete in tournaments and the karate tournaments, I was watching. I’ll never forget the one I saw in San Francisco and white crane guys came up and fought karate and of course, he didn’t score any points because all the judges say no power but I'm watching their karate from the ring, these guys hit with their whole forearm. I got, I need to try this and so, I went and at that time period, the Chinese really didn’t want to open up to Caucasians that much and I talked to Sifu [00:06:42] told me he's not going to teach me to fight, he’s just going to teach me forms so I trained with him in Tai Chi and northern Shaolin but George Wallace, he was a fighter. He’s a guy that was punishment and I enjoyed it so yeah, that on that. I’ll say, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Nothing wrong with that. Something that, certainly, a lot of our previous guests have said and maybe those words to a time and something I can relate to.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Probably a lot who you talk to, if I talk to them probably would all admit that we’re all a little bit crazy.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Absolutely, I think it takes a little bit of crazy to do what we do to get out and someone said this, just in an episode recently that we get out there with complete strangers and we trust them to not hurt us. I think that takes an element of crazy. We don’t do that anywhere else in the world so…
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Well, actually, when I started, it was kind of like, I would feel guilty when I walk down my class without bruised ribs or [00:07:56] I got an opportunity when I first worked with my first Kenpo teachers, I go to Texas here in a little bit and he now wants to study with me and under me and I haven't seen him in years and I told him, Mike, I say, listen, when I see you in Texas, I'm going to sue you. He said why? I said dude, you hurt me a lot. He goes I don’t remember any of that. Of course, you don’t because you hurt everybody and so, it was a whole different world. It's different now. It's not the same but it is what it is so some of these old guys, that’s why what you're doing is a really good thing. You're asking questions and you're asking some seniors of the art and that information is important for the youth today to go on and understand that hey, some of these people did things that maybe they hadn’t done or maybe other people haven't and that’s what really made a lot of these people at that time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, there aren’t a whole lot of pursuits where we get to talk to, maybe not the earliest founders but that second generation. Certainly, there are still plenty of 1st generation martial artists in the united states that we’ve had on. Folks such as yourself that can connect so many dots and I think that that’s, not only important but a lot of fun. There aren’t a lot of other things out there, or if someone’s passionate about shooting, you're not going to be able to go back and talk to Samuel Colt or anyone that did when he was making his weapons or any of the other passion that you have and I think that there's an obligation for us, as martial artists, because we have that opportunity to hold on to that history as long as we can.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Sure. Exactly, exactly and that information is that’s why it's really important for people entering the arts to pay attention to who is around you and learn to sit down and ask questions because if you don’t, that ends the journey of who you want to talk to, you might find other problems too. Some of these seniors, now I'm going to bring some of these names up, some of these seniors don’t realize that what they did was really a contribution to the arts and sometimes they're all that’s no big deal and the person I'm talking about, you know real well as Bill Wallace. Every time I see Mr. Wallace, I go Bill, you need to record all of the fights that you have and what happened and he says no, I don’t think that’s right. It's important because you walked the road at that time you were able to walk a road was very, very important for the youth today to understand it and I think, at least the last time I saw Mr. Wallace, he says yeah, yeah. There's someone that needs to go and do this. It needs to. Really good guy.
Jeremy Lesniak:
He’s a humble man. He’s about as humble as it can get and I think that the interesting part of that, we’ve have a lot of accomplished, well-respected martial artists on this show and most of them, the vast majority of them are pretty humble.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
That’s what we call age. As you get older, it kind of humbles you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Not all aged martial artists are humble.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Yeah, unfortunately. Those are the ones that might not have grown up.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right, I think that that’s sad. I think, my theory, and I think we’ve posed this on the show before, my theory is that those that have been able to really accomplish something and kind of do their personal work through that, everyone knows Bill Wallace accomplished incredible things and continues to, he doesn’t have to pin his ego on his rank or his name or anything is because he knows what he’s done.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Sure, sure. This is one reason I’m gathering as well. It's kind of important because I get a lot of…I just come out of this. I explain to people all the time, listen, man. If you want to sit down and talk to somebody, you need to talk to these guys. You need to pay attention and my particular students do. Well, they don’t have a choice and I tell them, look, there's a gentleman sitting right there. That’s [00:12:48] and he has probably beaten everybody in the tournament circuit in the early ‘70s, ‘80s, and so on. He’s sitting right there and I’ll have somebody go who’s that? You need to go talk to him and then, he’s going to be sitting in the same table with the guy named [00:13:07] He and I go way back. We kind of helped found kickboxing in the United States and when Norris started the team competitions, just won the PKA, it was kind of off that but later, no, not PKA, WKA and so, [00:13:34] and some guys, Danny Anderson’s coming off to my area this year. Those guys just sitting together and talking is going to be a trip and I tell my guys, you see those guys together? Get nosy. Open your ears and listen and talk to them. Talking of the guy about [13:55] one of his guys, was here actually, Rick was a tough guy, man. I remember Rick in my school one time, we suited up and I slipped a kick into Rick, a headshot, didn’t make contact and he, I mean I didn’t mean it, he looks at me and he goes, [14:18] and I thought oh my god. Sure enough, I felt his knuckles all the way to my ribs and beautiful guy, man, beautiful guy.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, a legend.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Yeah, the guys are bringing him out. I talked to him 2 days ago. He met me, this was when kickboxing was going. I had a team in Sacramento. He had 1, he had the [14:45] and started stuttering when his guys were do I know you and we were like no, no. There's probably a storm. Let’s get out, train. We like to fight. You know this guy? I named him Shark Boy. You know how you used to practice your balance? You can go out to the Saline Islands and feed the great whites with a kayak. Isn’t that nuts?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Wow. That’s a whole other level of nuts.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
That’s a whole breed, man. There's a whole breed of people in the arctic like that and I think if Wallace know him, he’d probably go out on a kayak with him so I’ll shut up on that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, obviously, you’ve got a ton of stories, great stories and you just gave us some bits in there but if somebody said tell us your best one, what comes to mind as your best story?
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
My meetings of certain people and certain teachers I had as I was studying with. Of course, James Mitose changed my whole view in the arts. I would’ve quit if I haven't met him.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Really?
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Oh yeah, oh god, yeah. He changed my whole way of doing things and it was in a very difficult place. I was the last person who's seen Mitose alive. Due to his influence and I spent years trying to save his life. Another person who was very instrumental and who I consider one of my mentors was Robert Trias. Robert Trias was in charge of the USKA and it's the Karate Association which is the largest organization ever, at one time it boasted 600,000 members. A lot of people don’t know about this and I and Mr. Wallace, sorry, I should stop talking about Bill. When Bill and I were talking about how we met Trias. He heard about Trias, Bill Wallace, a lot of people know he was a practitioner. I'm a practitioner of Shorin-Ryu and he studied under, he was in Shimabuku and Bill loved kicking and so he wanted to develop his hands and he went to train with Trias in Phoenix, Arizona and Trias’s fighters, those guys are hard to beat, man. They don’t move back. They just stay right and stay their ground and they are fighters and Trias, so anyway, Wallace goes down there and how he earns making his living was in the Green Ice and he could go down to Trias’s dojo and workout. Trias’s, is who I considers today as his top guy, named Bob Bowles, he's out in Indiana now. Bowles and I were talking about Wallace and say what do you think? Oh, Bruce, this guy Bill shows up. He’s all into his kicking so we, he means the Trias guys, wanted to teach him a lesson and beat the crap out of him, show him what we do and I said well, how did it work? And he says, you know what? That guy could kick! He could kick, man! The reason I bring that up because there's a mutual respect and love for both practitioners who’ve been through it. We don’t see the ego go into that, those guys, it's a brotherhood and that kind of what Trias, Trias’s phenomenal. One of my favorite stories about Robert Trias is one time, I went to his, he had an international black belt summer. It was held with 600 black belts. I show up and Trias says to me, a whole bunch of things happen but he comes up and he says there's someone who would have lunch with you. Ok, so he takes him out because he knows of my dedication to Mitose and a lot of people don’t know this about Trias but Trias was the very first guy to work for Mitose from Hawaii. Before Chow, before Young, before any of these guys. I did not know that but Trias sat there and he gave me a lecture. He said you know Bruce, because you're…I want to give you some advice on running an organization and well, ok. You never notice when I say jump people ask how high? I'm going oh no. I'm thinking this oh no, I'm in the middle of an egomaniac. I'm going to tell you why. Because they know I love them more than they could ever love me and I went oh wow. He says you got to remember this, when it comes to respect, you don’t demand it. you earn it. you do that to too, you absorb love and Trias was a powerful guy. Also, he was a character but I listen to this guy then he’s the one that got me going on really knowing everyone. we talked history in the martial arts and that guy probably knew every single bit about everybody in the arts and I'm thinking wow, he spoke many languages. I mean, that’s something to be. I mean, you can be a fighter but it has to be on an intellectual level and so, that was one and another one, Thomas Young who was Mitose’s top student in Hawaii. Mitose turned things over to me and Trias is the one who says you must go see Thomas Young so I did. I went up to Hawaii and Young was probably what every person would want to grow up and be like. Sweet, beautiful man and here’s a real quick story about Young. One time, I kind of hung out with Young for probably 11 years and he called me up and he said Bruce, I want you to come to Hawaii and I'm going to show you how I train now so what would we be thinking, Jeremy? We’d be all oh, wow, wow. That’d be cool, wow. I flew all the way to Hawaii. You know what he did? He took me ballroom dancing and I go and as I'm watching it, I go, I got it. If you ever look at the dance floor, you can have 150 people in a small area, all dancing, not one of them will bump into each other. They blend. You got 150 martial artists on a small area, they're falling over or all over each other. They don’t blend. Now, the only difference between dancing and fighting is the stance. For instance, on shinai, I won’t bring up Bill Wallace, I'm sure Bill Wallace feels like he is just dancing when he’s on the floor and it's not a fight dance and it's kind of that way with me. Now, if I have to change oil in a car and end up with oil all over myself and so, it's intent and that’s what Young taught me and one time, I was in, I won’t bring this up, I go back to Hawaii a lot. I just went back last year and around all the seniors, I was asking the seniors I said well, if you had, I'm going back to Kenpo in the 1940s, that year Thomas Young had to fight this individual, very well known, tough guy, who would have won? You know what they’ll say? Thomas Young. I'm thinking, then how come nobody pays attention to him? Nobody pays attention to gentlemen. They only pay attention to anger and, if you look at the news, same stuff, right? Thomas Young’s memorial service, I'm the one that gave the eulogy and what I said was true. I said this guy, 80 years of life, he never had an enemy and that’s true. That’s another influence and my Filipino teacher, Remy Priesas. The one that got me kind of going all over the country and Remy was something else. He was another guy. He taught me a lot about strategy and how to deal with people so it's been a wonderful life. It's been great. It's been great! I can go on and on and on.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I want you to. I want to go back and talk about Robert Trias in a second. Early on, it was, I think over a year ago, we had Grandmaster Victor Moore on the show and we got to hear about Robert Trias from his perspective and of course, plenty of other things. It's a great episode, episode 20, and anybody who’s had the opportunity to speak with Grandmaster Moore knows that he is a passionate person who will tell you how he feels about anything and I have a lot of respect for that but one of the things that has kind of lined up for me while talking to him and just the research that I've done is that the caliber of students that came out from under Robert Trias seemed like they were all ahead and above everyone else.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
They're machines.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You spoke highly of him, his intellect and his skill. What was it about him and his training or teaching methods that made everything so great?
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
He was classically traditional and I told my guy yesterday, you see all these guys today, I'm a 10th degree, I'm a 5th degree, I'm this, I'm that, I'm this, I'm that and you go, what? For instance, my title is a job description. You're in charge of watering a tree. That’s my work. That’s got nothing to do with a rank. It has to do with how you work and what your obligations are. The students are there. Trias has that same love for people. His training methods, man, like I said, the one international seminar I went to, he lined up with a type of kumite where he made it for point-sparring where you actually point where you're going to hit and if you don’t hit it and you would not have made major damage to the part, the other guy gets a point so this guy was set and when they move, they move but they don’t move back. They are machines. A good friend of mine with the Trias organization, trying to come up with this guy, Verbino. Verbino knows and this guy talks in that other seminar I went to, they had this kumite session and I was lined with a guy [26:51] and he hit me with a reverse punch, dude, and I'm positive I was knocked out. I just didn’t fall. I just went oh my god. If this guy comes near me, I don’t care what tools are on him, I’ll hit him with everything that I can. They were machines. They were karate machines and when you talk about Vic Moore, I knew Victor Moore. Actually, a bunch of martial arts I stayed in, one time in a dumpy place in Baltimore, probably where fights were, Vic Moore, he was a fighter, man. See, when I knew of Vic Moore, I can't fight him. He was in really good shape, I'm in good shape. Not so much now but Victor Moore was one of the Trias guys. They all had their hands within USKA. Every good martial artist sought out USKA so I tell my guys this, you know what? In those days, if you were a 1st degree black belt under Robert Trias, you probably put more sweat, blood and tears into that 1st degree than most people today that are 7th and they were machine or they are machines. You see some of them. A lot of these guys, I mean, I have a very close relationship with many of the Robert Trias people and their training methods are some of it crazy. Trias used to have a, this I heard from Bob Bowles, he used to have, and so did Victor Moore, matter of fact, Robert Trias at his house, because that’s where the training was in Phoenix, a lot of it, he used to have a pet baboon and he would put the baboon in one of his shoulders and they would have to practice going in steps like you're doing a slide and if they bump, the baboon would hit him in the head. Trias didn’t mess around, man, and he did a lot of [29:12] and so I was asking Bob Bowles, I was asking so what happened with the monkey? He said that was [29:19] so they had to give it to a zoo. I think Vic Moore might have gotten his monkey idea from that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, I was thinking that as you were saying it that he’s pretty, and I think I would be too, he’s quite proud of teaching a monkey karate.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Okay, here’s what. Victor Moore had taught that monkey how to bow and Trias came out, I heard this from Bob Bowles, Trias came out to this tournament or whatever it was and Moore has the monkey walk out and bow to him so Trias bows to the monkey and he says I just bowed to a damn monkey. Yeah, that’s something else. These guys, they all know more. A lot of people in the Jiu Jitsu world all know more. I've buried a lot of very close friends over the last few years that people aren’t even aware of. There's a lot of people who don’t know who Bruce Lee is. [30:31]coming it, they saw James Lee, the guy who opened up the [30:39] in Oakland. That’s how the problem was solved between Chinatown and Bruce Lee. [30:49] who passed away about 3 years ago now, he was the one that escorted Bruce Lee into the apartment along [30:59], he was a judge and it was Ming’s personality that Bruce used in the movie Enter the Dragon so all those guys that went out had the opportunity to meet these guys. They were icons. We’re losing them.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That’s why I'm happy we have this show. It's why we’re trying to talk to everybody, make sure we capture as much of this as we can. So, what are you doing when you're not training or teaching? What are your passions outside of martial arts if you have time for any?
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
I don’t have that much time. You wake up in the morning, that’s martial arts. If you bathe, it's martial arts. My passion is I love the arts because I love talking how the arts can enhance people’s lives so I spend my time doing that. I do a lot of travelling, seminars and clinics and I meet a lot of people and have a lot of friends and what we do in life is you can be something, live that life working it and live that life enhancing somebody else’s. It's all it was and this has been my vehicle of doing that. I talk to people, they go oh, you're like that, I'm jealous. What do you do this week? Oh, I played something. I went dancing. I like to do a lot of dancing so you know when somebody had so many years in his life and now, I got a good vehicle to reach out and that’s what I enjoy. I love history. I'm a history buff. I can sit down and talk history, talk on issues and left and right and one of my pet peeves is that if you are doing the martial arts and you don’t look and study your history and where you came from and you don’t see where the dots connect with other systems, you're missing the boat and a lot of people do not care. I keep bringing up the guy, we started like a hall of fame. It's called the Wall of Legends and you come out and see these 2 big walls with pictures about 200 of them and every year I add 5 people. They're all people, they're getting their hall of fame, they have to be seniors and every year, I will go through each one of those names and tell stories about every one of those people. The thing is they're not Kenpo guys aren’t easy at all and I don’t need a script. I look at them and I know who they are. A lot of them were friends but if you can't trace the one that did that to me, made me want to understand that, hey, that’s important so that history is why I want to do the best I can and make sure that people look at it and study and practice it and some of the martial artists up on that wall, we all have flaws, we all screw up but we all are able to do good things and they love to do good things because they are accomplished. In the East Coast, there's one of the guys up on my wall [34:45] who did a lot of good. He's really good, helped a lot of people. His son is doing things but there's a lot of practitioners out there. A lot of guys, there's so many of them and what I want to do is encourage practitioners within a style. You know a style in martial arts can actually hinder your growth? What I would do sometimes, I'm sure we get paranoid. Maybe my stuff is not as great as this guy. Why don’t you learn something from him? It's all good. I encourage all of my people, I say you got the opportunity to learn something, get off your butts and go learn it and don’t compare notes so yeah, that’s where I spend my time. I'm a romantic and that has been in the arts. Sounds kind of corny.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, not at all. It kind of lines up, it doesn’t kind of, it exactly lines up with my personal philosophy and the philosophy of so many people who have been in the show is the idea that any one style is right or absolute just doesn’t resonate for me because if you go, if you know the history, as you do infinitely better than I do, but if you go back to those early, early days, all those pioneers, their styles developed out of putting together pieces from other people.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
I know based on laws and principles. You look at the way to generate a kick, if you don’t have a certain understanding of the laws and principles of the body, that’s why your kicking isn’t going to be as good and you got the timing issue. You got distance. Same thing with hand movement, hand technique and unfortunately, a lot of times when I go places, I have to listen to this stuff. I’ll tell you another thing, one guy that is up on my wall, in Shotokan, and I taught a seminar alongside him and I think [36:56] was there and it's the first time I met him but this guy was in Shotokan and I'm walking by, I got him doing my thing and I stopped and I looked and I went back and I stepped out and watched his whole gig. He came up and said to me, you watch me do something. He said nope. His name was Lionel Royal. He’s gone now and I said Lionel, I am enjoying what you're doing so I'm teaching reverse kumite so yep, and you can split me with that punch, my friend and I had so much respect for that guy with one movement and then Lionel passed on and he was on of [37:44] top people and about 5, 6, 7 years ago and I walked in a Shotokan school, it's actually up on here but it's not his school, it's another place, walked in Shotokan and I looked at him and he says, you must know Lionel Royal. How did you know? He’s my teacher so the student, you get the imprint of his punch and you can see signatures of all these practitioners and so, if you study your history and you know things like this, you can sort of appreciate the lines but you got martial arts that you're learning has caused you to have blinders, you're not whole. I can look at anything, any practitioner and know beauty when I see it and it doesn’t matter what style, doesn’t matter what system. If it's sound, it has good principles, it's good. Usually the ones that have problems doing stuff because of ego. You got to avoid ego, man. You got to enjoy smelling the flowers. I got to say I might be a little prejudicial with music but don’t tell me this is the same chords. You got somebody using the piano and so my passion is the arts. I love the arts.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You’ve mentioned so many names, so many people and I know that the list of people that you trained with is so much longer even than those you’ve mentioned but if I asked you to pick out one or two that really, let’s take Robert Trias out because we’ve heard about him, but pick 1 or 2 that really changed the way that you looked at martial arts. Who would those be?
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
All of those guys that I talked about. Mitose, Mitose definitely. Mitose is the one that made me see over the ego that I have and he blew me away and also, what had happened to me. I found myself trying to save his life. You know why he passed on, right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don’t and if you could tell us that.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
When I heard about Mitose, it was from a student of mine and I was kind of on a textbook of the history of karate and I teach schools with those things and a lot of these things come from these guys and they say who? Sensei, he’s not dead. What? He’s in prison and dealing with a murder charge and I waited for a little bit and told this guy, listen, I want you to try and arrange a meeting with him and it started a journey throughout 1977 to 1981 when he died and I would go out to him sometimes once a week, three times a week, sometimes more than that and that changed a lot. Walked out and I'm expecting to see this and his crime was murder and extortion was the root of the crime. He ended up using it as his classroom and then I got myself involved in trying to help him because I had an attorney friend to look into his situation. He says Bruce, you got to get him out. He's not guilty. Here’s a wild story, man. I didn’t want to get into all that so I’ll keep this brief. When I first went out to him, I was this big tough dude. Nobody would mess with me. Back then, my philosophy was if you see something you don’t understand, kill it. That’s what I thought and he changed that. He changed that. When I saw him again, I walked out, I see this hardened criminal, instead I see Yoda walking out. Real short Japanese guy and the first thing he did, he had 2 settings involved. You don’t talk to a cage. I had to listen to that a lot. You know how you got these movies where you had a cafeteria setting, a lot of these guys would come out and Mitose was loved by the warden and loved by everybody and when I walked out, I see this little short guy come out and he looks out at me, cocks his head, offers me a chair and took my hand to his forehead and says I'm a humble man. I went wow. First thing he says was you think you have fast hands? Obviously, you're my backup. I went there and I was thinking because I went there to see him and compare notes. He says you're slow. You hit the wrong side of the body. Huh? I wrote a book on this. Every day I will go back to my school, I'm looking at my students and I'm thinking oh my god, he told me everything you do, I probably can't pronounce this [43:30]. WHAT? And proved it to me. He proved it to me and he taught me conceptually and I would go back to my dojo and it just blew me away but I've got 2 lessons. 1, he wasn’t bitter. 2, he was humble. People say what would he been like? I don’t know. I worked very hard to try to get him out. A lot of it was set up and it's my belief system. I don’t want to get too much into that but he changed me, man. I wasn’t the same person. I would have quit following that, would have quite and then I started my journey and Trias contacted me. He knew about what was going on, the reason that is because Trias started studying with Mitose so seeing Mitose, he fought anybody in Hawaii and a lot of students kept track. He knew and that’s how Sensei Trias and I became very, very close. He had a lot of respect for what I was doing. I went through a lot of controversies and a lot of people were really uptight over Mitose because a lot of the stuff that was done shouldn’t be done and then, he informed me on how Kenpo is. Kenpo is not a style. It was never intended to be and if you trace that term, you go back with the term, it's where most martial arts come from. It comes from [45:45] which is vulnerable, clenched fist of the Buddha and that’s the right and the left. Study of the physical and spiritual stuff. it's not a style and if you look at Korean art, the term for Kenpō is kunbap. In Indonesia, it's called kuntao. In China it’s called chun-fa and it deals with self-study so many of these styles coming out, there's a someone who specializes in this or in that but it's already made it. I didn’t know all of that and so, I'm walking around and he was explaining to me these things and it blew my mind. I thought I was this big tough Jose and the worst thing he ever did to me physically, he asked me what time I had. Everybody, like I said a lot of guards that we meet, there's some of them, one time he asked me he says you hit me as hard as you can. I'm going oh come on. I'm doing this one thinking you little shrimp with this big tough dude. I went to hit him and I tried and guards watching us, he moved very slow, moved untied, grabbed my nipple, twisted it, pinched it, dropped it to my knees, strike me on the head and said you're stupid. Now, if you would have punched me I’d be all oh yeah. No, the dude pinched me. That made a compression and it showed me the idea that dude, you got some stuff to learn and that started a lot more in my journey. I started dissecting, started all the different Kenpō related arts because they all stemmed from the original teachers. It's just a lot of them didn’t…I started out on a journey. I'm reading [47:26], a lot of times going to Hawaii, watching, meeting all of the people, what's going on in Hawaii and a lot of the guys in Hawaii, some of them will seek me out to help them out with their history because they don’t, Hawaii has got a mixed culture that sometimes what happens is they lose the culture. They don’t understand it and he blew me away. My time with [47:55] and all the eskrima guys and then Priesas. Priesas was, Remy was a gypsy and I see a lot of the guys that have to ring into it and split but I just had to work more of the Kenpō but I probably started Filipino arts before a lot of these guys were hooked into it. Remy taught strategies. Remy is a fighter. He was a fighter and one other thing. I had 2 teachers. I didn’t figure this out until 5 years ago. I didn’t figure this out until 5 years ago, 2 teachers were fighting, I'm going to say indirectly, over my attention. One was Remy and I was kind of, I helped Remy get things started and the other one was Mitose. When I go see Mitose, he goes to say why do you do Filipino arts? Japanese much better and Remy will say Bruce, you know that Mashida sensei whose regimented troops sent to Philippines and they never returned out of the jungle so Remy would teach me ways to try to defeat the Japanese and Mitose would teach me ways to try to defeat the Filipino. A drill I teach guys in the octagon would screw up, would be honest and one day, as I was teaching 5 years ago, I go wait a minute, they were using me to kind of fight each other and they never got, Mitose was probably more prejudicial than Remy. Remy would also have a plaything so both those guys, they are great. Remy taught me about the importance of fighting which is when he was in the Philippines, he said Bruce, you told me to become number 1 in the Philippines because that happened at that time here, Ferdinand Marcos is in charge and so, if a lot of the top people in the Filipino Arts, some of them were wealthy land owners and the guy that had a big rep was a land owner so Remy had gone there who wanted to fight this guy and Remy comes from Negros against the guy who is a distant cousin and he worked around the place and all these stuff so one day, he attended where all the dignitaries of Marcos and everyone else over there and Remy, somebody asked a friend if he could play with the other guy, play means fight and so because the guy’s his cousin, he said sure. So Remy said he defeated him solidly but then, I lost on purpose. This is because if he won, he had an army that will shoot you so what he did was defeated the guy and made an excuse and left town and that’s how he had gotten to know the Philippine Airforce, and they all thought, he protected his ego. That’s why he said it's always important to be number 2, not number 1. You're number 1, number 2 will shoot you. that makes a hell of a lot of sense because when you see this, in every walk of life, people are out there, what happens if you have a football, everybody wants you, right? So that’s the way it's advantageous to have a football and understand eating peanuts.
Jeremy Lesniak:
People always have their eyes on number 1, never number 2.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
That’s right. Well, anyone. I got some of those stories.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, and these are great stories. These are awesome. Now, you mentioned that early on, your attitude towards the martial arts was a bit different than it is now and certainly, some of these names that you're talking about were big competitors. Was competition a big piece of your training?
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Oh yeah. I used to compete all the time. I enjoyed competition for the sake of competition. Winning trophies I had, I looked at them and saw that they were collecting dust and so, I stopped doing tournaments. I used to give those away. I didn’t care. I hit the tournament circuits really hard. I went to a lot of different tournaments, a lot of competition. Successful sometimes, sometimes not. I was more of a brawler than a tournament fighter. A lot of competitions, an awful lot. All the time, it was almost every week. We used to join before a fight, you get the energy drinks out, you eat a bunch of desiccated liver tablets, suck on honey and suck down a bottle of ginseng with the root and all of it while we get ourselves pumped out and go out and fight and yeah, international. There were long weeks in El Salvador, that time I had a motorcycle and I would go down and fight and yeah. did a lot of it, did a lot but one of my forte is probably into learning and I've been in a lot of fight. I probably competed in about 120, 130 tournaments.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Certainly quite a few. Any memorable match ups with anybody that might ring a bell for the audience?
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
I competed one time and I fought Jim Kelly. I don’t remember how it happened. I was brown belt. I know one time I was, it was in Stockton, if I would have won one or 2 more fights, I would have had to be paired off to Joe Lewis and I remember, Bill Wallace will agree with me on this, I think; Lewis has a side kick and back kick that was incredible. His side kick was very dangerous. I know this and that tournament was in Stockton and what year was that? I can't remember but it was the ‘70s and I remember looking at Lewis and I kept thinking, God, I hope I lose. Thank God I did! Fortunately, I never had that situation.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's funny that as amazing a kicker as Bill Wallace is, side kick is his kick. It's the kick he used majority of the time. He won most of his knockouts with it but when people talk about who has the best side kick, it was Joe Lewis and I've heard some stories from even Terry Dowd who introduced you and I.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
You know what happened, I think, when Joe Lewis came into the kickboxing world, Lewis had a side stance and you’d see him ripple. It was almost like a rocket getting ready to go off and you actually see him ripple. I think it was a tournament. I'm trying to flashback but one person was trying to antagonize Joe Lewis and this one guy, he’s a Korean guy, Byang Yu, and Byang Yu, he would get Lewis at that time, he had this, everybody had a tube of honey. Every guy is sucking on a honey. Everybody was doing it. I'm sure Wallace probably did it and Byang Yu was antagonizing and says I'm going to break your nose, Lewis. I'm going to break your nose and Lewis kind of looked at him down on the floor. First shot, chin up, broke Byang Yu’s nose and the thing about them is we had competition. The judges were little loose. The nose shot, all the judges didn’t see it. Everybody else did and I know Byang Yu felt it. that’s the way life works, man. You don’t have to be a dumb bitch about it. But Joe Lewis, man, that guy was a powerful, powerful dude. He was powerful and he was like a Greek god. He’s a great dude. I’ll tell you when I competed in the vicinity, I'm talking about the ring and I'm maybe in the next ring. I was on heavy weight. There was another fighter that bested me [57:51] and he was a Kenpō guy and he was the one that made the spinning elbow famous so I'm seeing this guy with a sweeping hand go at him, he did a sweeping elbow and go pow! Matter of fact, [58:08] it was one of my first tournaments, 2nd tournament, I have no idea who it was and [58:17] was there. I didn’t know he was competing because he was in street cars and I was walking by and this is the old me, he bumps into me as we’re walking. I say hey, watch it. He looks at me and he’s got no teeth and his beard and I thought, I'm going to walk off that night with a grand championship. I can't remember if it's [58:45] who's a big guy. Two of Wallace’s guys and I’ll agree I hit [58:54] with a spinning back kick to the head. We didn’t really pull that stuff back yet, not that much [59:03] moved his head, grinned and beat the heck out of them and we’re fighting for grand champion, I remember bumping into him and I'm thinking Oh Bruce, you dummy and so, you look at some of those guys. He’s still along and have him on my gallery. These guys, they were all great, great fighters and I loved doing this. I see Wallace and I try to probe him. I say in your opinion, ok, I’ll say it this way, in my opinion, if you compared the hitting power of old school karate tournament fighters compared to even the MMA fighter, the old school tournament fighters are harder hitters and the reason is no gloves. When they worked on a side kick or a back kick, they worked on it a long time, or a punch, they worked at it a long time and the competition, I mean, the standard back then was you go for the body, go full contact. No one’s going to know. You go to the head, try not to cause blood but they had to really work and that type of sparring that I told you about the Trias guys? Same thing. [01:00:38] if they have a half box in his school, no mats, the floor was, I didn’t train with [01:00:49] but I knew guys that worked with him and fighters these days, they say who should we watch out for, I say watch out with this USKA guy, watch out for guys with broken noses. Why? They're rimbo guys. They’re Ron Martinez’s. They don’t hold back and Ron had his half box that if you're competing, one of his fighters when his foot went beyond there, you can count on your head getting bounced off the concrete and that’s how rough these guys were. They were worse punchers. They could punch and so, that’s the thing about Lewis. I think when Joe went to a fight stance and stuff, I think that took away that power, that sidekick because he lacked that launch. That launch was a scary sucker. I remember watching Lewis fight before and I was up in the stands one time watching and I just said oh my god, I don’t want to get in the way of that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, a bull coming at you. I mean, it was so fast. Before you knew it, it was there.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Oh yeah, and he took his time. He took his time and he delivered it. He delivered it. It was something else and of course, Bill Wallace is a fox. He was a fox. You had to work it. A lot of great artists at that time. You had Skipper Mullens, you had Fred Ren, a lot of great people. You got Lewis Delgado who was on the East Coast. Remember, Delgado was a fighter and he was a great fighter and he was Gōjū-ryū. A lot of people back then. You know why they were so good? They didn’t have all these rules and regulation. You go to a tournament now, you have to do all these, what the heck? I was asked to judge in a tournament, I won’t say what it was and I should know. I watched 20 points and yeah, it's just different, different.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's definitely a different game than it was, for sure.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
And all of these guys that played the game, they're all getting too old. I remember Bill and I were teaching in Texas once. He says you know Bruce, I'm so tired of this stuff. I go someplace I want to teach, all they want to do is spar me, some 70-some years old. I don’t want to spar everybody. It's all about learning and he’s right. Everybody wants the coach to do all the playing in the football game.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You're certainly a big advocate for learning your history and certainly passionate about the martial arts. How about more of the cultural side, like the movies and whatever. You at all a fan of martial arts films? I wonder where this is going.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
When Norris came out with his movies, what was it called, god. What was the first movie he did? Because it is when Norris had the LA stars, I want to say twins, a group in Sacramento got down there and I planned the kickboxing group here, one there, all of them around here. What the heck is that movie? The first one he ever did.
Jeremy Lesniak:
He had a bit part in Enter the Dragon.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
No, not that. Enter the Dragon, everybody loved but this movie, it was so bad. It was so bad and I remember calling him, I left a message that you just cured me of martial arts movies so I'm going to go see a western. Yeah, I think it was horrible but I still watch a lot of Kung Fu movies. Lot of times, go to Chinatown and watch some of it there. Looking at technique and stuff. The movie industry is something awesome and I brought in Rick Alemany one time, now, Rick Alemany had some of us go down and he was doing a bit movie, a low rated movie. So, he went down to try out for parts and you remember [01:05:50] Kenpo guy.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, I've heard the name.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
[01:05:55] is a powerful guy. He benched how many times and the guy in charge of the movie was James Woods. You know who he is, the actor?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I do.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
James Woods was on the low end of the scale of life and he was trying to dig his way up and he was the one directing this movie that was supposed to be famous like on a roller ball movie so we were all trying out for bit parts and then there's Wood watching and [01:06:29] says Hey Bruce, I got an idea. I weighed a lot less then and he picked me up over his head and I was like Steve, come on, man, put me down. So, we’re trying out for this movie and then, the budget went out of it. It turned out to be a karate, I didn’t take a bit more to say too much, it turned out to be a karate vampire movie. I have no idea what happened there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, I would love to see that.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
I never took part in a film. I just went eh. Like I said, that kind of stuff never really pushed my stuff. You go down to LA today, you got a few martial artists that want to be movie actors and those guys have shifted a little bit more to where they come from. Definitely drives me nuts. I go to the martial arts school, I say you do that art? They say yeah, you know about these things? I say oh yeah, I do Shotokan. Who do you study from? Oh, this one guy. Where did he come from? I don’t know. I go what? That, I suspect, is a lot between that. Shotokan? Well, the guy that started tournaments actually, I think, it was on kumite and [01:07:57] Japanese goju and that’s called sanban kumite but a lot of people don’t know their history and they don’t know where that comes from. That’s the thing that bugs me. If you're going to teach martial arts, have enough respect for the culture and enough respect for the art and a little bit kinder and some research and some history and know it and you'll probably perform it better. You know what I'm saying?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I do.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Have you ever seen [01:08:27]
Jeremy Lesniak:
Water world, the Kevin Costner movie.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
No, Water’s World. The guy goes on and he interviews people. First person was college grads. Who was the first person that became the president of United States? Abraham Lincoln.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, right, right, this thing.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
I look at this and I'm thinking, if we do that kind in martial arts, maybe you'll know martial arts than don’t know where it comes from. I can talk to a practitioner, I’ll probably know more about his history than he is and I'm just going, come on, that’s a sin because I have a great respect for practitioners and what you're doing on this is very good because what you're doing is getting people aware of other things but I just hope that it gets across to people that hey, you got to study. that’s why Terry, he’s got to make sure that he gets ahold of Bill to make sure that that stuff gets recorded. I always keep pushing Bill Wallace on that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I’ll let you make that push. I'm not there.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
You can do it now. Terry’s coming again and I’ll say Terry, [01:09:50] That’s right, Terry, I’ll have you kick a bunch of guys. It’d be fine.
Jeremy Lesniak:
He’s such a good mine. Let’s say we’ve got somebody listening and you’ve convinced them how important history is and maybe they're feeling a little bit overwhelmed saying where do I start? Of course, I'm going to suggest that they listen to all the episodes of this show from the beginning because there's so much that gets mixed in especially with some of the folks that have been around and have been training for 30, 40, 50 years but beyond that, are there any books that you would encourage people to pick up?
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
I just started and if they want to, try to look me up on the internet and also, I don’t even…I have a web thing going now. It has everything to do with movement, history, technique, history but what they want to do, if you want to put it all you’ve got, you'll give them my phone number, I’ll tell them who to go to. You're in the East Coast, there's a lot of people in. the east coast. In the Kenpo world, you got Nick Cerio who did so much stuff.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I mean, his influence is still felt today.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Nick Cerio and I did some very good friends, very close and Professor Cerio and then you had [01:11:20] I think Nick did more for Kenpō at that time than him but you have an up north, the Japanese art lineage, another pioneer named Peter Urban. Okinawan Goju-Ryu. You have a lot of guys. A lot of bunkan, a lot of ninja in this country but they got a lot of pioneers out there. there's a gentleman who comes out to my event each year. He’s coming out this year, Rudy Duncan. You know Rudy?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don’t.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Rudy goes to [01:12:03] every time, every year and Rudy and I became really good friends but Rudy is very open minded and if I'm doing a clinic, he’s been around a long time and so, there's a lot of history that took place in places like New York, up in New England, a lot of stuff. Professor Cerio, you have Valary, Valary came from Cerio but you got all that stuff but you got to ask the right people and talk about history. People from, if I can help them out, I’d be more than happy to. Have them do their research and it’s not that hard, my god. Today, you got internet. I got my research in the Kenpo arts after meeting Mitose. I had to fly back and forth to Hawaii, fly all over the country and I did that and I literally met most of the Kenpō systems. It's close to 200 and somewhat systems that started from Mitose and these guys all know about each other. I can go someplace logistically. If I can go to Arizona and I see a guy who does Kenpō, oh, you do Kenpō, do you have a boxer set? You have a boxer? You come from [01:13:27] that’s more dominant now there or you go to Ohio to do Kenpō. You do it a short while and short T, oh, you came from JT Will or a guy says something else that’s never heard of before. Oh, that’s [01:13:44] because of his made up Kenpō systems or that is, who is the other guy who’s back there? There's so many different styles and people don’t even know where they come from. It's kind of crazy. A lot of organizations got a lot of stuff. It does take you along. One road leads to the next but you got to always be willing to accept that maybe your views or the views of your teacher might not be correct. When I saw Thomas Young, I could have gone there and Thomas Young could have looked at me, because Mitose had passed on and say you know Bruce, what you're doing is wrong. You know what I would have done? Accepted it and said would you teach me? That’s the problem with these guys. That’s why they scared to find out. It's not their view and you can learn from other people’s views and it's all ok and there's nothing wrong with it. That’s the neat thing about martial arts. You level up, it would be nice and you enjoy the process and be willing to say you're wrong. Students, you got to be willing to let your teacher be wrong. There's nothing wrong with that. It's called growth.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, completely agree. Now, you’ve mentioned your gathering a few times and this show is going to come out right about the same time but I know it's an annual event so spend a minute, tell people what you’ve got going on and how they would learn more about it.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
About the gathering, they can look up, we have a webpage, it's called collectivesociety.com and you can look up the gathering. There's all kinds of photos, see these teachers that were there and since I started the gathering, we’ve lost about 35 instructors. They’ve passed on. You talk history, you're going to lose them and the problem is looking for the next person. If they look that up and people go to this gathering because it is a historical event. They get to work with several people, tons, like each student is going to be able to work with 65 to 70 instructors from all over the world and the best thing is we have a banquet and Terry does this, Terry got, I think, he stole a lot more ideas from me and we got some line dancing coming off from San Francisco, we got a lot of different people coming out. I stole a thing from Terry, the medieval fighters coming up this year.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh those guys are cool.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
I know it's kind of cool. You get these karate guys the things that they can punch and something, punch that armor there, if it doesn’t make you grow up, I don’t know what will but yeah, the gathering started sometime 7 years ago and I did it for the reason of history but you are working for 3 or 4 or 5 instructors, I try to bring it down to 3 for each class. This year, we got James Lee teaching alongside Leo Fong who’s pioneer of the arts and they're going to be working on a lot of the original Bruce Lee stuff. That was before what we see now as oh, I know JKD. Eh, you might not and got that. Rory Goldberg is coming [01:17:44] from New York [01:17:45] 3 arts before aikido. We have a lot of different teachers. Filipino arts, my god, we got a ton of them this year. Silat, eskrima, Dose pares, we got all of these different guys coming out so I encourage these guys to work. We have [01:18:07] and we got some people from Bujikan like I said, the ninjutsu. What happens with that, what did last year to pick up from my class, because the one thing I don’t like about martial arts is sometimes, the ego goes and they start taking yourself seriously. Don’t take yourself seriously. So, what I did last year which was a really genius move, I'm patting myself on the back. I have a picture taken of my mug and we made a whole bunch of copies. We put them up on a nice bunch of flying targets and they get thrown mugs of me and I had little girls coming up saying, Hanshi, can I have your autograph on the picture I just stabbed? Sure, little girl! You got to be able to do that, you know? Don’t take yourself seriously. You're a martial artist. You know what that means, you never got a real job. Go get a job! Otherwise you got to level it up because if you don’t, well. The gathering is about that. the gathering is people come together and they get to sit, they get to banquet, they got to talk, they got to eat together, they got to spend time. I encourage people like hey, you know what, this guy in this room we’re talking history and after the event, so you have different martial artists repping. Michael B. Alba comes up or [01:19:47] which is a Korean system based on Jo Bang Li. These guys all have history. I tell these guys go talk to them and laugh about what they do and my students will say, you guys don’t talk to me, go talk to them and so, that’s why. That’s why they should look up the gathering. Next year, it will be the same weekend, the first weekend of October. It's called the Lionscape. They can see all the photos. It's an elaborate, classy event. There's always a film presentation, it's a big deal. I was a little bit worried about it and I checked with the hotel and everything’s booking up so it should be good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It sounds like a great event and one that I've heard is great from other people as well. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it this year but I'm glad it's that same weekend every year because it's going on my calendar as soon as I'm done recording this with you, for next year, for 2017.
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
I hope you enjoy it. You know what I like with what you do out there?
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's that?
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
All I got to do is leave you alone. You show up at that room and you get one teacher after the other and then, too glad you're not visual because then you go out to visual talks.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Who knows what happens in a year, right? the show continues to grow so and of course, the information for that, for anybody that might be new to listening, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. It's where we have links of stuff we talk about today and this has been great and I’d like to ask, for just one more thing as we kind of fade here. We always ask our guests for one piece of advice, some parting words of wisdom if you will for those who are listening and what would your words be?
Hanshi Bruce Juchnik:
Practice hard, practice harder, practice harder and enjoy the process and pay attention, not to yourself but to the arts. That’s the most important. Don’t make it about you. Make it about the arts and you know what that’s going to do? You will go far.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You can tell that history is very important to Hanshi Juchnick. He knows where he came from and he believes that you should too. as important as punching and kicking is, that’s as important, knowing your lineage is, at least to Hanshi. That was my takeaway. It was a pleasure to have him on the show and connect many of the different stories we’ve already hear as well as point us in the direction of some guests we’ll be having on in the future. Thank you, Hanshi Juchnik for your time. Over at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, you can find photos and links to everything we talked about including some great photos and the link to his annual gathering. You can follow us on social media. We’re on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest and Instagram and our username is whistlekick. If you want to know what's going on behind the scenes of the show, check out our sort of not quite secret Facebook group, whistlekick martial arts radio behind the scenes. We’re always open to new guests on the show so if you want to throw your hat in the ring, or perhaps your instructor or someone else, head on over to the website, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, if you have any feedback, we’d love to hear that too so fill out the form over at the website or hit us up on social media. If you like the show, make sure you're subscribing and you know we’re always asking for reviews and that’s cause they help spread the word of the show, move us up in the ranking, help new people find us and helps us grow so we can bring the show to more people and that’s really what it's all about for us. If you like what we’re doing, this is really the best way to help. iTunes, Stitcher, post something on your blog, anything you do like that, we would really appreciate and remember the products you can find at whistlekick.com like our awesome sparring boots. If you're a school owner or a team coach, remember wholesale.whistlekick.com. That’s all for today so until next time, train hard, smile and have a great day!