Episode 258 - Shifu Chris Friedman
Shifu Chris Friedman is a Shaolin Kung Fu practitioner originally from New York but now living and training in Shaolin, China.
I didnt have a whole lot of guidance basically. So, if I don't have Martial Arts in my life, I would guess there's a good possibility that I'd be dead, I could've went to prison, I could've became a criminal. So, just doing Martial Arts just gave me something positive outlet.
Shifu Chris Friedman - Episode 258
Many martial arts practitioners found their appreciation of the martial arts through watching classic kung fu movies. Shifu Chris Friedman is one of them.He fell in love with martial arts as an athletic young child and made it his motivation at school so he can train. His love for the arts didn’tstop there because he went to live in China specifically for martial arts training. Listen to Shifu Chris Friedman’s story and you’ll certainly come away inspired.
Show Notes
On today's episode, we mentioned:
Show TranscriptYou can read the transcript below or download
.
:
Hey! What’s going on? Welcome Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio Episode 258. And today, we’re welcoming Shifu Chris Freidman to the show.If you’re new to what we do here, you can check out all of our episodes at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. We release episodes twice every week. On Mondays, we put out an interview with an interesting or famous or honestly, an average martial artist because we’re trying to showcase that regardless of what you train in, where you come from, and the differences that we have, we all have much more in common than we do separate. And I, and so many of you, take a lot of inspiration from those similarities. On Thursdays of course, we have topic driven shows and we’re always looking for suggestions from you as to what you want to hear me talking about. Sometimes it’s not just me, sometimes we bring in other folks on those Thursday episodes. It’s really your opportunity to help guide the show and have some say, in what we’re talking about.Here we are a minute in and I haven’t introduced myself. I apologize. My name is Jeremy Lesniak. I am the founder whistlekick sparring apparel. You can check out all the stuff we make at whistlekick.com and I’m the lucky guy that gets to interview all of these amazing martial artists and make talking about martial arts a huge part of my job. Talk about lucky, right? Awesome! I can’t believe it! Here we are, hot on the heels of 2018. In fact, when you listen to this it’s going to be 2018 as I’m recording it, it’s just a bit before.. Actually you might be listening to it far in the future. Who knows? I thank you for listening. Thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing in my Martial Arts journey, the journey of whistlekick, and sharing your experiences with us, with others, shall continue to grow. Whistlekick continues to grow and it’s thanks, in no small part, most of the part to all of you.Our guest today is a Kung Fu practitioner who has an unquestionable passion for Martial Arts. He started young when he saw a Bruce Lee movie and that set him on a path that would encompass the next few decades. Shifu Cris Friedman wanted to be a Martial Artist and his dedication to the arts didn’t stop it just wanting. He went on to continue his journey in China, where he continually lives, training in the mountains of Shao Lin. He’s truly an interesting guy. So let’s welcome him.Shifu Chris, welcome to whistlekickmartialarts radio!
Chris Friedman:
Hi Jeremy! Glad to be here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I’m glad to have you here. How are you today?
Chris Friedman:
I’m doing okay. I had a rough day. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning, couldn’t fall back to sleep, then I had this killer tooth pain but other than that everything’s good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I’m sorry, I’m sorry to hear that. Well, I appreciate you powering through. You know, this is towards the end of your day and the beginning of my day. So this has been a long day for you.
Chris Friedman:
Yeah, pretty much.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Alright, well thanks for accommodating that. We’re excited to have you and I’m sure the listeners are looking forward to hearing more from you.
Chris Friedman:
Yeah, man.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let’s go back. It’s a standard question, it almost seems like a boring question but it’s the way we got to start. How did you find the Martial Arts?
Chris Friedman:
I got started when I was 9 years old. I saw a Bruce Lee movie and right after I saw the movie, I became a fanatic for Asian Martial Arts and Asian Culture. I wanted to learn Martial Arts after that but my father made a deal with me. He said “you got to get a certain grade in school and then I’ll send you to A school. So it took me two years to get that grade. There was only one Martial Arts school in my hometown which was a Karate school, Tangsedo Karate. So, two years later I finally got the grade. My dad said he’ll send me to this school and that was Tangsedo Karate Center. And then it was just crazy after that. My family, my mother, my father, came from dancing backgrounds. So, you know, I kind of have it in my blood to be a movement type of person. That was it. That’s what got me started on Martial Arts.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What was that Bruce Lee movie? Do you remember?
Chris Friedman:
That I couldn’t tell you. *laughs*
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. No? No. It’s funny that whatever that movie is, for so many folks, that tends to be the, especially when we’re talking about Bruce Lee films, the one that people go back to from time and again. For me, Enter the Dragon was my first Bruce Lee film. It’s my favorite. Maybe because it's Enter the Dragon but, from talking to folks on the show, most likely because it’s the first one I saw. It’s the one that sticks to my head the most.
Chris Friedman:
Yeah, totally.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What was it about watching Bruce Lee or watching that movie that made you so interested?
Chris Friedman:
Good question because I don’t have a really clear memory at the time. I mean I was 9 years old, I’m 46 now. I know was a really active kid. I mean I was pretty athletic. I was not into sports, I never liked sports, I never liked group sports but I could you know, run and climb like a monkey. I was really athletic and full energy. I kind of liked fighting. I didn’t get into street fights but you know, I was agile. I had a older brother who’s a big strong guy, he used to beat the hell out of me . I don’t know what it was. I would have to guess that it was the fact that my father and mother, when they were in their early twenties, they were professional dancers. So I think it’s just genetics that inclined to do this type of activity. I don’t remember like even seeing or hearing the word Martial Arts before I was 9 years old. My vague memory was I saw the Bruce Lee movie and this was my first introduction to Martial Arts and I was like, “Woah! What is this? I got to learn this stuff!” and that started the journey.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And that’s the story for so many others, they get this exposure to Martial Arts and just think, “Man, I have to do that” but I’m curious, was dance ever part of your life?
Chris Friedman:
Yes but that was after I started Martial Arts. I started Martial Arts when I was 11 and the only time I ever took a break, then till now, was when I was 13 years old and the whole hip-hop scene came to Long Island and New York. I was really into break dancing. So about my 2 year break dancing career, I took off from Martial Arts and after that faded out, I got back to Martial Arts again.
Jeremy Lesniak:
One of the things I find fascinating about break dancing is that so many folks involved in break dancing don’t realize how Martial some of those movements are. Anybody that has watched Capoeira, I mean you’rewatching break dancing with two people.
Chris Friedman:
Totally. I wrote an article about that. It’s on
delay.com.
Hip-hop Kung Fu connection. If you watch the documentary about the origins of breakdancing, you’ll see them as the same thing. Part of their influence was from the old Kung Fu movies.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, so much fun in you know, probably why I enjoy watching either someone who’s very skilled in the Martial Arts or someone who’s very skilled in break dancing, other styles of dance don’t really resonate with me in the same way but I’ll watch break dancing all day.
Chris Friedman:
Yeah, it’s good stuff man.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Obviously you started Martial Arts, obviously you were hooked, stepped out, you came back, you’re still going so there’s something you found in Martial Arts training that maybe was missing or at the very least, really struck you. What was that?
Chris Friedman:
For me, I always feel like this. I mean, I do Martial Arts every single day of my life. Pretty much. I don’t look at it as a career although I do plan to run a school one day, professionally. I don’t look at it as a hobby really. As a way of life, maybe. To me, it’s like an animal. I feel like I’m an animal and I feel that this is my natural instinct to do this. It just feels like a natural thing for me to do and if I don’t do it, I feel angry, I feel uncomfortable, I feel hostile. It’s just a natural thing to do, you know. For example, on my Facebook page is a lot a friends who are in to Martial Arts and they see where I’m coming from. I live in Shaolin
.
I’ve been in China 10 years. I’ve done a whole bunch of interesting stuff. Sometimes I feel that some people get envious or jealous. I’m not trying to show off how cool I am or “Hey, look at me, I’m a Kung Fu guy, I’m a Martial Arts guy”. It’s just something that comes natural to me. Not something I put a whole lot of thought in to. I just do it. I’ve been doing it my whole life and I love it, of course but it’s not something I consciously decide I’m gonna do this. It’s just a part of who I am. You know what I mean?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I do because I feel the same way. I understand and I think at least a large portion of the folks listening, certainly a good number of the guests that we’ve had on the show have felt the same way. It’s hard to separate who you are as a person from Martial Arts. In fact, long time listeners will know early on that we had a question that we asked, “What would you look like without Martial Arts?”. We abandoned that question because the answer was the same overtime. It was “I don’t know. I can’t even conceptualize of that”.
Chris Friedman:
I think if I had to answer that question I would say that I’m sure I would be obsessed with some other art form. If I wasn’t a Martial Artist, I would be obsessing about something else. Maybe. Sports, maybe.
Jeremy Lesniak:
When we think of art in a conventional sense I mean painting, drawing, etc, does any of that strike a chord for you?
Chris Friedman:
When I was younger I was in to writing, writing music. I did music for a long time but I don’t do that anymore. Now I write a lot. I write articles, I’m working on a novel, I wrote a screenplay, that’s my artistic outlet these days.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It seems like those of us that are in the Martial Arts, if we weren’t doing Martial Arts, as you said, there would be some creative, artistic pursuit in there. I think people underestimate how creative Martial Arts truly is at the heart. What do you think?
Chris Friedman:
Yeah. I mean, I worked in America, I worked as a personal trainer for about a decade. I didn’t really love the job but it was better that the other options I had. When I exercise here, let’s say for example yesterday I was working for the guandao
,
it’s
like a big staff with a big blade at the end. I have a light version and a heavy version. The heavy version, I’m not sure how heavy it is but I’m going to guess it’s about 45 pounds. It really feels like a lot when you’re swinging it around and jumping in the air and doing all these things. It’s intense amazing workout. I haven’t finished out the form yet actually and I’m thinking “Okay, this is, you know, at the root at what this is doing to you, this is conditioning. It’s like strength training, you’re also working your balance and coordination. You know I could be doing this amazing form with this amazing weapon with this beautiful art form or I could be in a gym holding a dumbbell, lifting my arms up and down.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Here on Martial Arts Radio we tell our story through other people’s stories. You’ve moved from US to China, you’ve changed arts, you’re writing books, I’m sure there are stories about all of those aspects and a ton more. I’d love for you to tell us your favorite Martial Arts story however that question works for you.
Chris Friedman:
Okay, I have several good stories but if I had to choose one that I think would be the most interesting for the listeners, it’s a time, not the only time but a time when I used my skill in a confrontation. This would be the last time I used it which was a year and a half ago in
something, Shaolin.
This story might make me some enemies or maybe some people like this story but it happened and I’m gonna tell it as it is.Okay so what happened was, where we lived before, my wife and I, it was kind of a hotel but more like a homey hotel type of thing. So this is like a rural village here and sometimes you just have dogs running around. My wife at the time was teaching Chinese, she’s Chinese, Chinese and English to our teachers’ students, full time Kung Fu students. She would come home around 3:00 in the afternoon. So it’s down a dirth
path to get to where we live. There’s these very big stray dogs that hang around this area so I would give my wife a staff to walk around with. I told her that if the dogs ever come near you, just point it to their face because that worked for me before. Most of these dogs don’t attack you but they’ll harass you. And she’s a tiny little thing and she’s scared to death to these dogs. So, I was home in the yard, we have a outside yard, just like one of those Kung Fu movies type of yards, and I’m practicing. I didn’t realize the time but I hear “Woof! Woof! Woof!”. I hear the barking of the dogs. It didn’t register in my brain right away and then about 20 to 30 seconds later, I realized they’re still barking, it’s 3:00, my wife’s coming home, the dogs are harassing my wife. So, I grab a bottle, there was an empty beer bottle, like a big 40 ounce type of bottle, it wasn’t mine, in the yard. I ran out the back door of this place I was living and I see her sure enough in the corner. The three dogs are around her growling and she’s frozen stiff with fear. So, I’m running towards the dog, I tossed the bottle in the direction, it lands on the ground, shatters, the dogs ran off. I ran up to my wife, I grabbed the staff, and I started chasing the dogs as fast as I can with the staff. One of the dogs turns right, I turn right, then BOOM! This farmer steps in my face. Now, I’m 46 and I’m gonna guess he’s maybe 40, 41, 42. He’s a little shorter than me but stocky, strong build and he’s in my face, chest up in my face, blocking my way like a foot away from me. So I’m telling him in Chinese, “The dogs are trying to bite my wife” and he’s saying something, they have a strong dialect I can’t understand what he’s saying but I think what he’s saying is the dog won’t bite your wife, they will just harass her but they’re not gonna bite her. So I’m waving my arms around, I have a staff in my hand, and yelling at him “Get the hell out of my face! I’m protecting my wife! There’s 3 dogs surrounding my wife, growling at her. What am I supposed to do? You’re going to step on my face at this moment?”. So the guy tries to snatch the staff from my hand and he had a little bit of an attitude like he’s trying to show me who’s the boss or something. So you know, my adrenaline was pumping. I’m a nice guy, I’m a humble guy but I also put out a temper under the right circumstances. He tries to grab a staff from my hand and I’m not giving it to him so we’re playing like a tug of war up here. We’re both in kind of like a horse dance pulling at each other. So I tried to pull the staff out of his hands, you know with the technique you see, you whip it out of your hand but this guy’s a farmer and in this area, you farm wth tools. They do this all day, outside, winter and summer, they have hand tools in their hands so they grip is strong as hell. And he probably grew up around here so he might had some Kung Fu training. So he’s not letting go so I’m furious at this point. So I’m thinking, I’m not giving into this guy. I’m not letting go of the staff. Whatever, whatever. I’m gonna get this guy off me and off my staff. Now at the time I had little injuries all over the place. My back hurt, my knee hurt, my neck hurt so I’m thinking what’s the easiest way to get this guy off me? So at the distance we were at I just started flicking my fingers in his eyes. I wasn’t trying to flicker his eyes, I wasn’t trying to blind him, I was gonna just pop him enough to make him let go. So I’m flicking my fingers at his eyes, and for some reason, they’re not connecting or this guy is just really though that he’s not showing any pain or something. So then he’s holding on, at one point he lets go and we’re yelling at each other again and then he goes again and tries to pull the staff away from me. So again we’re playing tug of war and again I started flickering his face and at one point I tried to kick him in the groin and that also missed his target. So finally I’m determined, I’m gonna get this guy off me and out of here. He’s messing at me at the wrong time. I’m protecting my wife. He doesn’t need to be stepping on my face and getting physical with me when I’m protecting my wife from 3 stray dogs. So, BOOM! I pounce my finger off his eyeball. He doesn’t yell or scream or anything, he lets go of his stick, turns around and walks towards his house. Now my heart is beating a mile a minute here. I turn around, I started heading back to where I live, my adrenaline’s pumping. I look at my hands and my middle finger is pointing at the wrong direction. It’s 45 degrees in the wrong direction so I must have hit his forehead somewhere along the line that disconnected my finger. So I grab my finger, and as I’ve seen in the movies before, I pulled on it, I popped it back to where its placed. Now I rushed back to where I live, close the gate, I’m in the yard, I’m scared, are these people gonna run after me? I don’t know what’s going to happen. So I go up to my roof, I do some exercise. I sit down and meditate on the roof and it’s really a beautiful scenery over there and I’m just sitting there meditating, I’m trying to calm down, I’m trying to get my adrenaline to go down, my heart beat to slow down, and my wife, she knew what happened, I told her before I went up to meditate. She sneaks up there with a camera for some reason, and snaps a picture of me meditating on the roof. So I like the picture, I put it on my Facebook page and it’s interesting the response I got, the response.I got was “Wow! This is so amazing! You’re living such a peaceful life! In such a crazy world!”, and all this stuff about how peaceful my life is and they had no idea that I had this crazy fight with 3 dogs, and throwing bottles at them, stabs, groin kicks, eye pokes and dislocated fingers. They just say how peaceful my life is and how everything is amazing in my life. So that picture’s on my Facebook page and it has the date of when this all happened. I think that was an interesting story.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There’s a lot of substance in there of course and you eluded beforehand that there were some folks who are thrilled with this story but I love it because it’s very real. I think often times in Martial Arts, we try to pretend that we’re not human, that we don’t have emotion, that we don’t get upset, that we don’t feel protective of the people that we love. And of course we spend all of our training time, the majority of our training time, talking about what we would do as relates to confrontations with human beings but here you’re presented your situation with dogs. I don’t know how to handle that situation. I had a not anywhere close to serious but I had a similar run in with a dog and I didn’t have a stick in my hand but I reacted in nearly the same way. So I can certainly understand what that emotional response is and I didn’t even have someone that I was protecting.
Chris Friedman:
I got some slack about this on a message board that I discussed this topic with and you know, I can understand people think okay, it wasn’t a serious situation where you had to attack the groin and eyes but the reason why I chose to do those techniques and first of all, I wasn’t trying to injure the guy. I was trying to get him off me as quickly as possible. I had lots of injuries all over my body. I had reconstructed surgery in China, I didn’t have therapy after that, and I’m still training daily at 46. The guy got physical with me. I didn’t get physical with him. If I saw a guy running after wild dogs, I wouldn’t step in his face. That’s the first thing. It’s common sense. I wouldn’t step on a guy’s face, you don’t do that. If a guy’s frantic and you know, chasing these dogs, he has some reason for doing that. I just wouldn’t approach him that way at that time. Second of all, I told him the dogs were trying to bite my wife. Okay so if I see a guy running crazy, he’s protecting his wife from 3 dogs, I’m not stepping on this guy’s face. I don’t think that’s like a common sense thing to do. Then he’s gonna go and get physical with me, grab my stick and pull it out of my hand. I mean, if I was doing this because I was being a punk then you know, I could see him stepping in my face and grabbing on my hand and I’m protecting my wife from 3 stray dogs and he’s standing up with three stray dogs. So, you know, it's a matter of principle here. I'm not handing over the stick and saying, "Yes sir, here you go. I won't protect my wife from three stray dogs." They might have been his dogs, I'm not sure. But those dogs should not be on the road, harassing people when they go home, you know what I mean? I don't think he should be stepping on my face when I'm protecting my wife. Again, it was a matter of principle here. I'm not handing over the stick to you. You stepped to me, you got physical with me, I'm protecting my family so, no, I'm not gonna give into that. The techniques I used, I just want to get this guy off me as simple as possible. I saw the guy couple of week later, he was okay. He didn't have any injuries. I wasn't trying to injure him. I wasn't trying to hurt him enough to do any serious damage. I was just trying to get the guy off and it worked. I injured myself in the process but I don't think I did the wrong thing, some people might. In my opinion, what I did was justifiable.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well I love that, to me, new self-defense technique. The idea of trying to flick someone in the eye or near the eye or in the forehead and cause him to kind of pull back. I think that's a great one, I mean. You put your finger -
Chris Friedman:
I did actually land the last strike in his eye. I felt my fingers bounce off his eyeball. So it did connect and that's what made him turn around. Another thing is, this guy is so tough here. His lifestyle in Songshan, Shoalin is very, very primitive. They go the whole winter with no heat, day and night time. And it can get down to 20 degrees. People live with no heat. Most of them still had outhouses outside, they farm with hand tools so they're tough. These people are tough. If someone poked me in the eye, I would be on the full screaming, I think. I would have just turned around, walk away. But as far as strategy of fighting goes, if you wanna analyze this whole situation based on the fighting situation, it was definitely Kung Fu fighting strategy. First of all, we didn't go the ground, well I didn't let it go to the ground. That's number one in Kung Fu, to have good stances and not topple to the floor. Two, I went for vital areas, groin, and eyes. There was even a staff involved so that was totally a Kung Fu fighting situation.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You mentioned the environment that you're in. You know, how simple the life of so many of these folks are living. Why have you chosen to live there?
Chris Friedman:
Purely for the Martial Arts experience. I lived in China for 10 years. At first, I lived in Beijing that was also for Martial Arts. I lived there about three years. I studied Baguazhang
,
Chinese wrestling, Shuai Jiao
.
Those two systems, Baguazhang, Shuai Jiao. I did those styles there. And then, I didn't like the life in Beijing. The weather is nasty, it's the environment. It's just strict and I didn't like the place. So eventually I moved to Shenzhen which is in HongKong, in Southern China. It's a beautiful modern city, just a beautiful place. And I could teach English and make money. I did acting jobs about once a week. No, not once a week, once a month. The life was really easy, I had a nice little studio but there was barely any Martial Arts training there. Because it was a very modern city, the people, they couldn't care less about martial arts. So I had one teacher who was two hours away from where I live and I would see him once a week. I had to travel two hours on the bus, there and back. So in total, four hours of training. It was a private lesson so I had no partners to train with. So my reason to coming to China wasn't just to live in a beautiful city and have an easy life. It was to do martial arts. So I started taking trips down to Shaolin, took two trips. On the second trip, I met my current teacher. He suggested, "You should come down here. If you're really into martial arts, this is the place to be." I loved the environment here. Cause, I mean, I've lived in a lot of cities. I lived in New York City, I lived in Brooklyn and Queens. I lived in cities in China. There was a point my life where I really wanted that but at this point in my life, I want the opposite. I want to be totally alone as possible. So here, where I live right now, which is the village outside of Shaolin, called Songshan, Shaolin, I can, you know, walk down the street and just see beautiful views of mountains. If I had the time I could go train, just find a spot and train. I can go train with my shifu. There's another school I train at where I do Chinese kickboxing with some young fighters. Once a week I go there, they train me. The environment for martial arts training is amazing. The next step in my life is to open a school outside of China, maybe couple of years later. So this whole experience here is just the ultimate martial arts experience. If I have to live like eat simple food, don't have heat half the time, and there's nothing to do but train. I mean, the whole thing, if you're a Shaolin Kung fF practitioner or teacher, this is part of the experience. This is part of the mental discipline and the training. Toughing your body, and this is part of the training.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How was your perception, opinion of Kung Fu as you're training it now, how has your view changed since you've been there?
Chris Friedman:
In China or--
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, I imagine it with this level of immersion in the homeland, so to speak, and just being in it and practicing so much in this location, I've got to imagine that that's had an impact on not just the physical training and what you've gotten out of it but, I think there are probably a number of folks listening, thinking, "I would love to do that". They have an idea of what it would be like. And you certainly had an idea of what it would be like before you did it. But I found that ideas and reality are generally at least a little different. So I'm curious if anything is noticeably different from what you had expected.
Chris Friedman:
Well, okay. That's a good question. If I think about that, it'll take me back to when I was starting out in karate and I used to watch the old Kung Fu movies on Channel 5 in Long Island, New York. You know, Channel 5 at Saturday, 3 o'clock and after that, I would dress up in my gi, go in my backyard and do my Kung Fu and stuff and pretend I was in the Kung Fu movies. Okay, let me get this clear. So, okay, have you ever seen the old Kung Fu TV show, Kung Fu with David Carradine?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, for sure.
Chris Friedman
:Okay. Like in those episodes, he always did something that made it seem like he had some magic powers or amazing mental control, right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Chris Friedman:
Okay, I remember in one episode where he was wrongly accused of stealing something and they threw him in this outside prison. He was in there with another prisoner and it was freezing cold and that was part of the torture. All night in the freezing cold, outside the cell. So the other guy looks at him and goes, "How come you don't feel the cold, China man?" And he teaches the guy how to meditate. And then in the morning, when the guards come to open the door and expect to see them half dead, they're just sitting there peacefully meditating. So it gives them almost like magical power or something. But in reality, it is like that but that's not the reason why it's like that. Because, like I said here, the people lived with no heat including all the Kung Fu students. There's a bunch of full time Kung Fu student here. In various schools and inside the Shaolin temple, and the whole year round, they have no eat. They eat three basic meals a day, really basic meals a day, drink only water. They don't have Coke or juice or anything, just water, three simple meals a day, they sleep in casks. They have no heat. They take a shower maybe once a week. They train all day long and you can shower once a week. They just get unbelievably tough and used to this. They don't have a choice. It's a poor neighborhood. They're just used to this lifestyle. So me and my wife, we're going back to America at the beginning of the year. She had never been there before. From here to Florida, where my dad lives, we had to first, go to Beijing and then we had to get in a hotel, get up in the morning, take another plane. The whole thing took two days of travel. The flight itself was like 17 hours and we got off the plane feeling fresh like, okay! And the reason why we could put up with all that insanity and still feel good is just cause we had such a tough lifestyle here that when you leave, everything feels easy. Part of the training here is that, just living in this environment and this lifestyle makes you tough so, that's part of it. But as far as like in the old Kung Fu movies that had all these different chambers, and amazing training methods, it's a little bit different than that. Basically, the training in Shaolin, in Songshan Shaolin and in all the schools here is like this. They have basics which are punching and kicking drills. They have acrobatics which the younger kids do, they do flips and stuff. They have the forms, the empty hand forms, the weapon forms. They have fighting which is Sanda, Chinese kickboxing. They have traditional applications and they have specialty skills. Which is like, sometimes you could say it's like the strongman feats where like this guy's specialty is iron hand and he breaks bricks. One of my teacher's specialty is heavy weapons. He does the shirsoa which is similar to like a kettle drum but has a whole routine. It's square in shape and they throw it around, lands on his fists, lands on his elbow, just throwing
it around, does this really amazing routine. And then another one is big, like a hundred pound weapon, that he swings around. So, the heavy specialty skills. You'll see a lot of stuff and performances that they do, strictly for performance. So, the training is a little different. The training is great, in my opinion, but it's not like you couldn't get this training in New York
.
There's tons of great Kung Fu masters in New York who could teach you pretty much the same thing. But the environment here is what makes it so special, in my opinion. I mean, you're in the mountains here, you see people training full time, there's nothing else to do. You live in this simple, tough lifestyle. I think that's the main difference.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There's a romantic element to it, certainly.
Chris Friedman:
It's the lifestyle. The lifestyle is different. If I was in New York right now and I was taking Kung Fu classes, I could learn the same form as if I went to a Shoalin Kung fu school. I could learn the basics. I could learn the specialty skills. But I wouldn't have this environment, where I live now. They train here outside, all year round. They train all day long, full time students. That's an unusual thing to be around people doing Kung Fu all day long as like their full time endeavor. They train all day long so, that's really an inspirational environment to be in. So I think the difference is the environment, and the lifestyle here. The training is not all that different than it would be back in the States if you had a good teacher.
Jeremy Lesniak:
One of my favorite questions to ask all of our guests is about the harder challenges of life. Martial artists, we have this broader skills set. We have physical skills, we have emotional skills, mental skills, that seem to be able to overcome pretty much anything. I'd love for you to tell us about a time when things weren't going well and how you were able to use your martial arts training to get through it.
Chris Friedman:
Okay. I would have to say that that's been my whole life story starting from my childhood because my upbringing was not the smoothest upbringing. My parents were divorced when I was five years old, didn't see my mother after six, my dad was busy working all the time. We didn't really spend a whole lot of family time. My brother dropped out of high school, spent a year in jail. There was a lot of drugs going around. I was a musician at that time. I didn't have a whole lot of guidance, basically. So if I didn't have martial arts in my life, I would guess there's a good possibility I would be dead. I could've went to prison, I could've became a criminal. So, just doing martial arts gave me some positive outlet. It helped through all my times. I've had depression back in the States, I had pretty bad depression. Just doing exercise, doing martial arts has helped me out with that. But I'm still struggling to this day. I mean, I'm 46 years old and I've sacrificed basically what most people live for to live this lifestyle. I don't have a car, I don't have a great career, I don't have a house, I don't have a whole lot of money in the bank so, I'm struggling daily. I'm still struggling daily. But for me, it's not really so much an option. I think it's just like karma or fate to be put into a certain body and to have a certain lifestyle. It just comes natural. But if I didn't have martial arts in my life, if I wasn't obsessed with some other art that was helping me out emotionally, I would have definitely ran into some really serious situations in my life.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I've often heard older, much smarter folks than I say that we tend to find what we need in life whether that's a person or a practice like martial arts and it sounds like you've found what you needed. And now you've ended up where you need to be.
Chris Friedman:
Guess you can say that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. As you look back through all the folks that you've trained with under, if you had to pick one of them out to say, "This was the most influential person for me as it relates to my martial arts," and I suppose the answer doesn't even have to be a martial artist. Who was it that's made the strongest impact on your training and just kinda your view on martial arts?
Chris Friedman:
I can't really pinpoint a particular person but if I had to look at it from the self-defense fighting aspect, I would say my older brother. He is about three and a half years older than me. He's about the same height as me, which is 5' 9", but he's about, he varies from 185 to 205. I weigh about 165 pounds so he's a lot bigger than me. And he's very strong, very aggressive, very crazy, and he used to wrestle in high school. So when we grew up, which was a pretty wild household, sometimes he'd beat me up. It wasn't anything serious but he'd beat me up like all the brothers beat up their younger brothers. And then later on, we have our sparring matches. When I started doing karate, we used to have our sparring matches. And every single time we have our sparring matches, it ended the same way. Cause I was doing Tangsudo at that time, which is mostly kicking. So I would kick him a few times, he'd close the gap, grab me, tie me up on the ground helplessly. This was before the first UFC. Before 1993, even. So I started coming to this conclusion like, "Okay. Now, what if this was a street fight? What if some guy grabbed me and tied me up? He's not gonna just let me go." So I started realizing, "Okay, there's something missing from my training. I gotta learn how to grapple because kicking doesn't always work." So that led me to my second martial arts which was the Bujinkan Tasuro Taijitsu, also know Ninjitsu. It was already about the 90's, I think, by the time I got into Ninjitsu
.
I was already interested into that stuff, reading books from Stephen Hayes and Ashida Kim. I listened to the both of their casts, that was really cool. So I found a teacher in Long Island when I was living there at that time. One of the first questions I asked them was, "Is there any grappling in the system?" and he said, "Yes, about 60% grappling." So I went up training in that system, eventually getting a black belt in that system. And that changed our sparring matches, my brother and I. After that, I knew how to handle myself if he grabbed me. I would do some nasty Pakua or something to him. So that led me to learn how to grapple, and that was before. I didn't learn by watching the UFC, though that was necessary. I learned from my older brother who's bigger, stronger, and wrestling-trained that you needed to know how to grapple. He influenced me to learn how to grapple. But I've had so many teachers and I've studied from so many systems. And my philosophy these days is, I need a teacher, yes. Do I need several teachers? Yes. But I don't need a master. I don't feel like there's any more to learn. I need someone to guide me, to show me the way. I feel like I have 35 years of experience and I'm learning all the time. I have a lot to learn. But I don't feel like someone's got the secrets that I need to know. I just feel like, this is what I want to learn, this is what I like so, I'm gonna go to this person and learn it. That's pretty much my view of things these days.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's flip that question on its head. If you could train with someone that you haven't, anywhere in the world, anywhere in time, alive or dead, who would you wanna train with?
Chris Friedman:
Right now, I'm happy with my training. I'm happy right where I am, the teachers I have. But if I went back in time, maybe like, let's say, 10 or 15 years ago, I think I might pick Royce Gracie. I liked his style back in the day. Cause he was a small guy and he could defeat bigger guys using techniques. And also he wore the gi. I considered him a traditional martial artist cause he wore the gi. And I liked his style cause he wasn't super aggressive. He used good technique and he strategized and gets to his opponent and just beat them with technique and superior strategy. So, I liked that way of thinking. I wouldn't do that now because I have reconstructed knee surgery and I don't like rolling on the ground anymore. I feel scared and I don't want to twist my knee. I still do some throws and stand-up sparring but I don't like too much doing on the ground work. But if I had to pick another person to train with, I have fans I have, but I don't know if I want to train with them. I'm pretty satisfied with my training, right now.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Fair enough. Let's talk about competition. It tends to be a bit of a polarizing subject. Is competition something that you've engaged in?
Chris Friedman:
I have, yep. Not to a really large extent but I have done some. When I was doing the Tangsudo, the school I was training at went to a... Towards the end of my training in Tangsudo, they went to some kind of national competition. It was a huge Tangsudo competition they held once a year. So I participated in that twice and that was point fighting and I got disqualified both times in point fighting
for excessive contact. I think part of the reason for that was, I've never really been that into competition. I was sort of a martial artist for self-defense. And the way you fight in a competition, for me, is not the way I would fight in a street fight. Because I've always looked into the opposite of what the person's doing. If they want to kick me, I'm gonna do something else. I'm gonna outsmart them. So the competition, it was a good, good, you know, experience and a good training tool but I didn't think it was like the ultimate goal for me. Because there's people stronger than me, there's people bigger than me, there's people in better condition than me. But I believe if they back me up in the corner, I'd do what I gotta do to get out of it. No matter who it was, I think if I'm forced to defend myself seriously, even if they can kick my ass in the ring or they can kick my ass in a tournament or tap
me out or whatever. I still think I'd get out of that somehow. I would figure out a way. Anyway, so I did those two Tangsudo tournaments, I got disqualified. I was cross
training at that time also. This is an interesting story if you want to hear it. I was going -
Jeremy Lesniak:
Please.
Chris Friedman:
It was actually a little bit before the competition. I was training in this nice little Dojo in a nice neighborhood and I had gotten my yellow belt. About 20 minutes away was a little rougher neighborhood and they had a community center. They had karate lessons in the community center so I wanted to check out the community center karate classes, too, and do some cross training. So I went there, and was almost free,
it was like $20 a month and the teacher was a stocky Spanish guy with a bald head and a Fu Manchu moustache and his name is Sensei Jose. So started taking classes there, at both schools. And I made the mistake of wearing my yellow belt, I was really proud of this, and nobody in the school had a yellow belt. They all had white belts. The second class I went to at this school, the teacher, Sensei Jose, had his friend come down from the Bronx. He had a school in the Bronx. And these tough ass street kids, you know, coming down from the Bronx to train with us. I was like, maybe 12 years old, I think, from a nice little suburban neighborhood. So we train with them and we're doing like arm banging, and stuff and at the end of the class, we all line up in a kneeling position, facing each other. Their school versus us. So we're in kneeling position, they're in front of us. My teacher was in the middle and he would call somebody up, boom! They'd jump to their knees, go to the other side, call somebody up, jump to their knees, come to the middle, get into their fighting stance then, boom Just go at it. No gloves, nothing. So it's my turn, he calls me up, and I had this kinda small Mexican guy who was my opponent. I remember, I was kinda getting the best of him cause I was a little bigger than him. But he was really tough and he was coming at me, I'm going for his. So then, okay. Our match finished and then there was a couple more matches. And then I remember there was a match from one kid from our school and one kid from their school, and they were about, I'm guessing, this was a long time ago, 16 years old, maybe. So two black kids, alright. They were sparring, and the kid from our school kicks the one kid in the ribs, and the kid's going down. This kid was so fast, he does this spinning hook kick while he was falling down. It catches the guy from our school. He gets kicked, he's falling down, boom! He whoops out a spinning hook kick while he's falling to the ground and catches the other guy. And everybody was amazed and stuff. So then, okay, there's another match or two. So our teacher's looking down their row, he picks that kid again. 16 years old, okay. And then he looks up and down our row, gonna choose somebody from our school, and my heart is beating. Like there's no way he can pick me to fight this kid. I was 11 years old, this kid was 16. He was twice my size. So, "Okay, Chris. Let's see what you got." Boom. I jumped up to my knees and I'm scared to death cause you're 11 years old, you're fighting a 16 year old. There was like a huge difference. So anyway, the kid went in, kicking me in my nose and my eyes were watering. They were like filled with water and I'm worried about if I blink, some tears are gonna fall down my face. After that, there was these two other white kids that came into the school. There's me and two other white kids, everybody was Spanish and black in this kinda tough, ghetto type neighborhood. The one kid was kinda big kid, the one white kid. And he was like teasing me, "Ah, yellow belt! Yellow belt!" An then he found out who my older brother was. They were both at high school together. He was scared to death at my older brother. And after that, he was the nicest guy in the world to me. He's like, "Oh, you know,it's a different style!" But that was an interesting experience. So I did the two Tangsudo tournaments then maybe a couple years later, I was working full time at school in my hometown and they taught eclectic system called Universal Martial System
.
So I was a full time instructor there for three years. And as part of getting a black belt in that system, you have to compete at least once. So I did another point fighting tournament, I lost that one fair and square. And the about eight or nine years after that, I had this desire to do some competition. I felt like I didn't do enough. I was cross training and grappling. So I did a Judo competition, one. I did a Jujitsu competition, one. I mean, I didn't win the competition. I did one Judo competition and I did one Jujitsu competition. I didn't win anything but I did one of each. And then I got into push hands which is a Chinese Kung fu thing where you basically try to off-balance the person from a stance and you're trying to control their limbs and control your balance and disrupt their balance. That was the first time that I actually took it serious and train to win. And the first competition I fell and tore my knee, tore my ligaments, and I was in therapy at that time for about four months. After that, I started training again. I found my new teacher. My new teacher's the first person who ever took me to China. So if I didn't tear my knee, I wouldn't have met my new teacher who took me to China. I wouldn't be living in China for 10 years. After that, one year later, I competed again and in push hands, I won first place. And then I competed another, two times, winning one silver medal on that. My entire competition career consists of four push hands tournaments, three point fighting karate tournaments, one Judo tournament, and one Jujitsu tournament. And that's the extent of it. But that's never been my goal to be competition champion. I like the experiences a lot but it's not my goal in training, really. But I do think it was a positive experience. If I look back, before I tore my knee and if I a little younger, I should've done at least one kickboxing match, maybe full contact kickboxing match. That would've been nice. But, anyway, it was a good experience.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Alright. Certainly some diversity with the styles that you've competed in. Most folks compete in, you know, one, maybe two, types of competitions but I heard you rattle off four there and that's pretty impressive. It shows an ability to adapt and look at thing differently and, I like that.
Chris Friedman:
Yeah, I didn't mind losing either. When I went to the Judo tournament, I was training once a week. I just said, what's the worst thing that happened? The guy tosses me or pins me. I got pinned. I had two matches that day. One guy I had to wrestle to with as he pinned me. I looked at the match I had on video tape, I could've got out of it but I kinda hesitated. But it was a great experience. The other guys was from the same school as me and I had tapped him out on the floor in our Dojo. But he was pretty good with the throws and he beat me slightly on points. And the Jujitsu tournament, also. I was cross training a little bit in Jujitsu but not seriously. And I went in there and I had one match, I lost the points. But it didn't matter if I lost or won. It was just a really good experience.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think when a lot of folks think about China, and specifically the Shaolin area, they're probably thinking back to what they've seen in martial arts movies. So they're probably thinking that everybody's in a fight, all the time, and it’s these dramatic, flashy martial arts movements 24 hours a day. I know that's not the case. But when you think of martial arts movies, are there any that you enjoy? You're kind of in this interesting area where you're training so much that I'm not sure martial arts movies hold entertainment value for you.
Chris Friedman:
When I was younger, I loved them. But as an adult, I never watch them anymore. It's like work. When I was younger, I had enough of that stuff. Nowadays, I just can't get into it anymore. I watch comedies, horror movies, thrillers, but I can't get into martial arts movies anymore.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I understand. How about books? You mentioned that you're a writer and that you're working on some books. We'll talk about your writings in a moment, here. Are there martial arts related books that you enjoy, that you might recommend to the listeners?
Chris Friedman:
That's another thing that I haven't really been into for a long time. I can speak Chinese, it's not great, but I can speak Chinese. But I can't read like a book in Chinese. You can't find any English books. Someone actually did gave me two English books recently, not too long ago. One's on Shaolin Kung fu which, I told myself I was gonna read but I never did. And another one's on Buddhism but I'm not a Buddhist so, I wasn't all that interested in that. But when I was younger, I had tons of these books and magazines, VHS tapes. If I have a martial arts book, I would read it, yes. And I would like to have access to a book. But when I order them on Amazon, they usually get lost in the mail. If I had access to them, I would be into them. But usually, these days, when I start reading a book, I feel like, been there, done that. There's nothing to say I don't know already. I mean, that's not to say I know everything but, there's always so many things they could talk about. It's either, I feel like it's a theory that I may or may not actually believe is as valuable as they say it is or it just seems like I've been there, done that, already for some reason.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, ten years and training significantly greater hours across those ten years than most people are going to train in a lifetime, for some of us, multiple lifetimes and being in the area that you are, I can imagine that you were exposed to a lot and you have time to practice and consider a lot. So, the books that may have scratched that itch for you as a child that would hold some value to me, you've created this environment for yourself, living there that the books are trying to help us step into for a time and you're living it. So, it makes complete sense to me.
Chris Friedman:
I'd like to get some hold of books like some real life experiences of somebody's ancient master. There's like Yamaguchi or something, hear how they trained and went through. I would totally be into that. I could get my hands into that. But I don't like the instructional books. I don't like to read a book saying, "Put your leg here, hit 'em on the throat." Those just bore me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure. Completely understandable. I think that we've had that discussion on the show a number of times. The idea that there are two sorts of martial arts books, how-to-do and kinda why-to-do. And most of our guests seem to resonate stronger with the why books, the conceptual books, rather than the physical application. But I might make a suggestion of getting your hands on a Kindle so you can order Kindle books. I'm assuming that would work for you?
Chris Friedman:
Yeah, I was looking into that tonight, actually. I'm gonna go ahead and do that. I'm gonna download some software or something, right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Ah, you can do that. Amazon has a free reader that you can get on pretty much any phone or tablet. I'm a fan of my actual Kindle just because it's easier on my eyes. It's not back-lit in the same way a phone or a computer screen is. But once you're set up for that, you should be able to jump right through them. And I think, I don't know if it's available for you but, here in the U.S., there's a program where we can pay, I wanna say it's like 10 or 20 dollars a month, and it's all the Kindle books you can read. You know, some unlimited access which is kinda neat.
Chris Friedman:
Yeah, I'll look into that, man. That's a good idea.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We've talked today about how passionate you are about martial arts. For a lot of people, that passion fades but here you are. You've mentioned your age several times, 46, and it sounds like you are at least as passionate about your training as you've ever been. I'm gonna guess more so. Which makes me ask why. And I don't mean that in any kind of skeptical way. But for most folks that are training that hard, there's a reason. There's something motivating them. And I'm curious what it is for you.
Chris Friedman:
For me, it's not really a financial thing although I do want to run a school someday, not to be a champion fighter. I do like to know I could defend myself. I don't know, maybe cause I had a rough childhood. I also believe in karma and reincarnation cause I've been into Hinduism for a long time. So I think, as far as reincarnation goes, maybe, this may sound weird to some listeners, but I believe in this stuff firmly. Like I could have been in a war in my last lifetime, be in Vietnam or something, and this is just left over from my last lifetime. But I always feel like this threat, I know there's no threat, and that's another reason why I believe in this leftover karma from my last lifetime, maybe, because there's no threat. I go outside, there's villagers, there's no crime around here at all. If there is, it's some petty crime not violent crimes. So there's no threat. There's no reason for me to feel this, "I need my knife by my side when I go to sleep and I've got to be this master killer." There's no reason to feel it, really. There's really not much danger here. But I've always felt that way. There's something inside me that feels like I have to know how to life or death fight, if I have to. So that's one thing. That insecurity feeling like I always have to know how to fight. And there's also the feeling like I have lot of energy that I gotta get rid of. And if I don't get rid of this energy, it's gonna come out in a negative way. I'm pretty shy in real life, I'm pretty humble to people I meet. I never, in my life, go out and start a fight. But I have a slight temper. If someone victimizes me, someone wants to go out of their way and pick a quiet shy guys and choose me as a target, I feel like it violates me and I feel angry. So if I don't train in this fighting art, I feel hostile. And I have to get rid off this hostility. This is the positive way to get rid of it. It's just like a nature balance thing for me. It's not a goal. It's not like I have to sit here and think about it, why am I doing this? What is my goal in the future? It's just natural. It's just coming natural to me and just doing what I have to do. It's just like I have no choice, man. It's just who I am in this lifetime.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Like eating, sleeping, breathing, water, training.
Chris Friedman:
Totally, man.Just like that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's what I'm hearing, yeah. We hinted it at your writings, now's a good time to talk about what you've written, where people could find that, your website, if you have any social media, you know. Commercial time. Promote yourself. C'mon, don't be shy.
Chris Friedman:
Okay. So, my martial art writing, I write for two sources which is Kung Fu Tai Chi magazine. They have a website, kungfutaichimagazine.com. They have print articles, I think it's every other month. They have print issue coming out. The current issue right now is the Special Shaolin Edition. It's out right now, you can go to Barnes and Noble, find it in the Sports section, you can order it. I don't know where else they sell it. But it's a special Shaolin edition which comes out once a year. I have two articles writing in that right now. They're not about Kung Fu. They're about the life here in Songshan, Shaolin. What is it like to come to Shaolin and train. And if anybody here is interested in coming and training, they could contact me in my website which is shaolinwithchris.com and they can study with my teacher here. Stay for as long as the visa would let you stay. You know, you can train here. It's pretty reasonable, the prices. And they can have a normal hotel, the normal bathroom heat, and they can train. So that's an option. And I also write for jetli.com. jetli.com is pretty new, I think it's less than a year that they've been open. You can go there. There's all kinds of articles there. If you go onto Google and type my name, Chris Friedman,
author, there'll be a link to all my
online articles. But if you go to the website, you'll have to search through it. If you put search Chris Friedman, doesn't come up for some reason. You go to Google, put my name, Chris Friedman,
author, you'll see it. About a dozen articles there. Also, Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine also has online articles, which I write for. I have one coming out soon, Chin Na versus Knife. Chin Na is Chinese grappling. How to defend against a knife using that. I have a little video with it. Free online article. It'll be out about a month or two. Those are my martial art writing. I also wrote a book, Kung Fu Grappling Strategies by Chris Friedman. That's available on Amazon, Kung Fu Grappling Strategies by Chris Friedman. A lot of beautiful pictures in there. A lot of true stories in there about the times I and my teachers have used this stuff in real life. Right now, I'm writing a novel which is True Crime Novel, based on a true story. I don't want to give out too much information because I haven't finished copyrighting it yet. I'm scared someone's gonna steal this one cause it's a no-brainer. It's a true story about a serial killer who's never caught. And what's interesting about it is, that I'm filling in the gaps of who this guy is in real life and giving him a personality in a day to day life. Which in real life, we don't know what that was like. I wrote a movie script, a Kung Fu movie script. And I don't where that's going but my wife is translating them to Chinese right now. We have somebody, I have a famous MMA fighter friend here and he knows some people in the movie business, maybe. Maybe someone will be interested in that. So that's as far as my writing goes. If anybody wants to contact me, they can find my email address or they can look me up on Facebook, Chris Friedman, and my website is shaolinwithchris. That's about it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Alright. And of course, as always, we're gonna link all these stuff in the show notes, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. So if you're driving or on a treadmill, you won't need to jot notes onto you hand or risk bodily harm to jot this stuff down. whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Well, I appreciate being here tonight, and I have one more question for you. What parting advice would you give the folks listening?
Chris Friedman:
Uhm, can you say that again? I didn't hear it clear.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure. What wisdom, what parting words, would you offer to the folks listening tonight?
Chris Friedman:
As far as martial arts training goes?
Jeremy Lesniak
:Yeah. Training, life.
Chris Friedman:
Well, as far as martial arts training goes, I think there's a trend these days going on where they focus only on fighting. I think that's a mistake because there's a lot of valuable things you can get from martial arts training. If you're only training to fight without discipline and respect, it's causing more violence to society. That's not the goal of martial arts. The goal of martial arts is not to make society more violent. If you're gonna be a sport fighter, fine. But do it with respect. And the goal of martial arts, in my opinion, is not to be the toughest guy in the world and to prove to the world that you're the toughest guy in the world. And that seems to be the trend these days. I mean, I see a lot of stuff on YouTube and on different message boards where the people are challenging each other to fights, and all that "Oh, your style sucks." It's not this style, this style, this style, so you don't know how to fight. That's not necessarily true. There's people, great fighters from all styles. And in my personal experience, I've used traditional martial arts more than a few times in real life, successfully. My goal is not to be a fighter but, all these things, for example, discipline and tolerance. Tolerance is a really more important, I think. Especially for America. I've been out of America for 10 years now and I'm Facebook every day. I'm watching what's going on. I see policemen, I mean, at the drop of the hat, they're beating on someone. They're twisting their wrists, putting them in cuffs, spraining their knees
.
At the drop of the hat, all you gotta do is say two words, ask a question and boom, they're on you like that. That doesn't show tolerance at all. I was watching the documentary recently and they showed a 911 call and the lady was frantic. Someone in her house was shot to death and she's crying and screaming, "Oh my God." And the lady on the other end of the line saying, "Uh, excuse me, calm down or I'm gonna hang up." And this is an emergency phone call and they're not tolerant enough to understand this person's frantic and they're threatening them to hang up the phone. So tolerance is something that society really, really needs right now. If someone says something wrong to you and you trained in some style, and you're choking him out, beating his face in within seconds, that's not showing tolerance, that's not showing discipline, that's not showing respect. That's just showing a tough thug who knows how to fight and I don't think that's what we need in society right now. If you're gonna go into martial arts, do whatever style suits you, yes. But don't neglect the important aspects of discipline and respect, tolerance. And that's the key right there, in my opinion.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Shifu Chris Friedman is awesome. He's a multi-talented individual with a lot of skills and a dedication to his training that goes far beyond most. Shifu Friedman's journey is something that's special because when you really think about it, he chose his training over a lot of other things. He's made it his life. Shifu Friedman, thank you for sharing your story.If you want to check out the show notes with some photos, links, other things that we talked about during the episode, head on over to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. You can sign up for the newsletter, you can get links to whistlekick.com, you can see the other episodes, you can get a hold of us on social media. We're @whistlekick. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are our favorite ways to communicate with our friends and our fans. And of course, you can see all the wonderful products that we make at whistlekick.com. That's all for today, until next time! Train hard, smile, and have a great day!