Episode 259 - Martial Journal
In this episode, Jeremy talks about a special website where martial artists can write their ideas, the Martial Journal. (martialjournal.com)
Martial Journal - Episode 259
Have you noticed that most sports has their special sections on major websites like Yahoo or MSN? However, none of them have a section dedicated to martial arts. This is the idea behind Martial Journal— to provide platform for martial artists to share their thoughts so that other martial artists or even martial arts fans can read them anywhere in the world. Listen to know more about Jeremy’s thought on the Martial Journal.
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below or download here.Jeremy Lesniak:Hey what's going on everybody. This is Jeremy from whistlekick, this is episode 259 and you are listening to whistlekick martial arts radio. Thanks for tuning in, thanks for checking us out on whatever day your listening. It brings me so much joy, I guess is the word, to know that you're spending time listening to my voice. It's kind of cool knowing that when I talk into this microphone in an empty room that there people out there later who are going to listen and based on the feedback, we get most of you the vast majority of you enjoy listening to what I say and that's really cool. On today's episode were going to do sort of double duty, were gonna to talk about our new website that we soft launched and I’m ready to really push out to the world now, but also why it's out there, the gap that's filling and how that relates to the wider martial arts realm. If you want to check on the other episodes that we have you can find them at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com and you can find all of our products from our great sparring gear to our apparel to recently we launched kicking targets, paddles and those are out there and we got limited stock on those but there, it's a great product. You've got different colors on both sides which expands your option for running drills with them. Were always trying to make things just you know at least better 30 percent better is my rule. If we can't make it 30% better than what's out there, were not gonna do it. And for those of you that are part of our wholesale program, yes those are available on wholesale and retail whistlekick.com and wholesale.whistlekick.com. If you're a school owner and you’re not signed up for wholesale programs, you should check it out because we have no minimums and free shipping.Alright, let's talk about the heart of today, why I am on the microphone at this moment. Today I am pleased to really push out to the world that we have a website that we have sort of sponsored, you’re not gonna see whistlekick mentioned all over it or really, hardly anywhere on it and its martialjournal.com and this website came for my personal desire to spend more time reading the thoughts of martial artists. Not specifically to one style and not specifically from one person, but something broader. If you think about the homepages for something like msn or yahoo or you know, pretty much any sport or passion out there, there's a website that is dedicated to giving people a voice and a lot of people a voice and in the martial arts world, we didn’t really have that. We have some magazines that have websites and we have some digital magazines there fairly closed in who they will allow to write for them and I want that. I wanted a website where, if I had a thought and I wanted to spend the time of writing it out and really working that thought for others that I could post it. Now that doesn't mean that martial journal is just for anyone to just kinda slap their opinions out there, you know, we have standards. And if you look at the website right now you will see a single thing from me because I’ve been doing the editing on the back and that's taking the time that I have available that I would be writing but what you will see is a number of folks many of whom who have been on the show with their writings and their thoughts on the martial arts as it relates to their lives and their training. In fact, if you enjoy this show, you are likely to enjoy the writing on martialjournal.com. Because it really is an extension, the very same spirit that we have of conversation, of self-reflection, of personal growth, is what's showing up in the articles over there. And that's not intentional it's just what's happened because of who's involved. We are of course looking for more writers and whether you want to be someone who contributes regularly or you just have one thing you want to put out there, that's fine.Now full disclosure none of these folks are getting paid. There is no advertising on the site, but it's a group of martial artists who are in a sense collaborating to give you other martial artists more content. We are reading each other's work, were referencing it in the works that we write and it's so cool. It really is fun and I’m lucky because just as I get to speak with all of these folks on the podcast here, I get to edit, I get to be the first one to read all of the articles, all the commentary that's coming out at marshalljournal.com so I hope you will check it out. And let me tell you about why I think it's important that we have something like this. You’ve likely heard someone say that the internet is a democratizing force, it gives people a voice. Well, in the martial arts we know that we have a few magazines and there out there and some of them are great and I’m not to name names you know, I don’t want to include or exclude anyone. You might have some that you used to read or you still read or maybe read them online and I’m not taking anything away from those folks. But what I have found as I’ve tried to advance whistlekick is that most of those magazines are not really interested in having new writers come on. The major exception is taekwondo life. They happily publish the things that I send into them and I built a great relationship with the editor over there, Mark Zirogiannis, great guy, were trying to get him on the show and if you're listening mark, really want to have you on the show so let's make that happen. But I want martial artists to have a voice and as the show has grown, it is not uncommon, any of you that have recorded with me for an upcoming episode know that quite often those episodes are booked out months in advance and I’m realizing that in, we release on Mondays, 52 Mondays a year, we can only get the thoughts of 52 martial artists per year and there are so many more of you out there and so many more people with opinions and thoughts and great contributions to the arts that I want to be able to showcase, that I want to read personally and that I’m sure so many of you want to read as well. How do we do that? We looked at adding additional days you know do we have an interview episode come out multiple times per week and excuse me some of you were fine with that, you know, we did kind of an informal poll. Some of you said you know I have trouble keeping up with twice a week, but on top of that it was my own time contribution. When we record an episode that several hours of my time booking, conducting the interview, the after affects all of that stuff happen, even with having help from someone whose editing, shout out to Julius, we need, we need time right? And as whistlekick is growing I’m finding I have less and less of that. So, the obvious solution became something in writing, something that require little bit less time and as it grows, I won't be doing all the editing but what it's led to is this really fun, really wonderful with website of just great content. So, I hope you will check it out, I hope you'll share it, I hope you will consider writing. If you know someone that you think is appropriate to have write, that what you think would want to write, yeah let's do it. And the standards it's really around quality it's not so much about content so if you just wrote a book and you want to talk about the book that you just wrote, let's get a piece on there. If someone at your school just came back from a competition and they want to tell that story, let's get it on there, because the entire back end of this site is going to push up the posts that get the most traction and that allows us to have a lot of stuff going. We have you know if you post a week going right now it's great content, I want to see more, I want to see a few a day. So, asking for your help in spreading the word in writing, in whatever way seems best, let's turn this into a wonderful platform for martial artists around the world to contribute their thoughts, showcases what we were all doing and you know, let us burn some time. You know, a lot of us read stuff on the internet just to kinda burn some time at lunch or in between things well, let's burn some time reading about the wonderful things going on in the world of the martial arts and you know maybe you can find some new people you want to follow new people you want to train with at seminars, I mean there's a lot going on out there and @whistlekick we will always put our resources because yeah, even though you're not gonna see whistlekick's name all over this, it's a whistlekick site were paying for it, 100% of the expenses are coming from whistlekick and it's because I believe this needs to exist. So, let's just help it grow.If you have questions or feedback about martialjournal.com or anything else you can reach out to me directly jeremy@whistlekick.com you can follow us on social media @whistlekick Instagram, Facebook and twitter are the places we are most active. You find our products at whistlekick.com, you can find the other episodes for the show whistlekickmartialartsradio.com and once again martialjournal.com. That's all for today, thank you for listening, thank you for your consideration, your contributions, I love the feedback that comes in, makes my day. And until next time, train hard, smile and have a great day.