Episode 456 - Shihan Ninja Nguyen
Shihan Ninja Nguyen is a martial arts practitioner and instructor from Boston, Massachusetts. He is the founder of Xtreme Ninja.
I feel like for me it's like, I have a martial arts gym but at the same time I still have to evolve. I still have to learn. I still have to perfect my kick.
Shihan Ninja Nguyen - Episode 456
Learning martial arts when your family is in a complete uncertainty if you will survive is practically what Shihan Ninja Nguyen experienced. Having experienced the Vietnam war, his family was a refugee and part of the boat people who escaped during the war. He learned martial arts as a diversion when his family members are trying to escape. Today, Shihan Nguyen is a martial arts instructor at his own gym, Xtreme Ninja in Boston. His life is founded on resilience and courage which is why he has a lot of wisdom to share. Listen to learn more.]
Show Notes
You may reach Shihan Ninja Nguyen through Xtreme Ninja and find out about his book Step on the MatIn this episode, we mentioned Rocky DiRicio
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below or download it here.
Hello, everyone and welcome! This is whistlekick martial arts radio episode 456. Today, my guest is Shihan Ninja Nguyen. My name is Jeremy Lesniak. I'm your host here for martial arts radio, founder of whistlekick and a guy who loves martial arts and that’s why I do all the things that I do and that’s why we here at whistlekick do what we do. If you want to see everything that we’ve got going on, go to whistlekick.com. One of the things you'll see there is our store. You pop in there you'll see some apparel, protective equipment, uniforms, whole bunch of stuff and if you use the code, PODCAST15, that will save you 15% off every single thing in there. If you want to find more about this show, go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. From either site, you can sign up to the newsletter and that will keep you spun up on everything that we’ve got going on because we do a lot more than this show which we do twice a week. It's all for free and all with the goal of connecting, educating and inspiring traditional martial artists the world over. Shihan Nguyen comes to us today to talk about gathered path but it seems pretty clear to me that, early on, the tone was set by martial arts, the trajectory was set with martial arts. We talk about the ups, the downs and everything in between so let’s do it. Shihan Nguyen, welcome to whistlekick martial arts radio.
Ninja Nguyen:
Hi, how are you?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm doing great. How are you?
Ninja Nguyen:
I'm excellent. I also want to say thank you for the opportunity to be on your show and I listen all the time so it's an honor to be on your show.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm always honored when I get the opportunity to speak to someone who listens to the show because as I've said many times in the past, if no one was listening I would just be a crazy guy with a microphone talking to himself or maybe to one other person but it's been quite the ride and getting to meet and talk to people who listen to this show is crazy. We’re not here to talk about me as much as that would be easy to do. We’re here to talk about you. this is about your journey, your story as a martial artist so let’s start in the most white belt of ways. How did you find the martial arts?
Ninja Nguyen:
When I first discovered martial arts, I was like 4 years old in Vietnam and my dad, he was basically was a fisherman and he was trying to smoke my brother out during the Vietnam war so what happened was as a young child, for me, I was basically asking a question. How come today, I see my brother? The next couple days, I don’t see my brother. So, where does he go? My dad was trying to keep me busy in some way so I don’t ask the questions so what happen was he put me in Vietnamese martial arts so at that time, when I discovered martial art was basically training for better health, better focus and better discipline. That was it and at that time, we didn’t discover belt or anything like that because we came in as a poor persons. We’re coming in just regular uniforms and that was it and there is no mat, there is no rug, there is just concrete in somebody’s backyard so that was how I discovered martial arts and during that time, it was fun because every day you learn new things and then you challenge yourself by understand and working on more, what I call that time was a young child more listen and focused, put it that way and then, continue training my martial art to that until 1978 and then I was coming, basically, left Vietnam to go escape to America and then, at that journey, I was in basically up in that camp as a Malaysian camp. For 6 months at that time, same thing in the camp was basically everyone was a refugee and every single day, we do was we go to class, we go church and then we go to basically, a group of person teaching martial arts in the camp and then, throughout that 6 months and then they brought me to another camp in the Philippines and that’s when I discovered was learning another martial art but at that time, I was like, I would say about 10 years old, 9, 10 years old. Stayed there for another year and then, I came to United States in 1980 so at that time, I come over here basically kind of like a kid, Vietnamese kid don’t speak any English, going to school and basically, don’t understand the language. At that time, every single day, I go to school and I pass by the martial art gym. At that time, there was a Shotokan gym and as you know when you train in Shotokan, I think they still do now but back then, the teacher would speak Japanese so everything you learned is punch, kicks in Japanese and when I go to school to learn English, I ask myself, I’m already struggling in English already, now I'm going to learn Japanese, learn how to punch and kick in Japanese? So, I didn’t go to that school. I went to another school who is an American guy who teach, they teach basically to punch, kick and I'm familiar with the sport and I put two and two together. That’s how I actually perfect learning English throughout my school years so because of that, I fell in love with it even more because each day, I can't wait to finish my day school and then go straight to karate school because I can learn English and I spent all my time over there so throughout that, I basically have a rank but because, back then, when you have one sport of karate, you have a belt, you go to another system, you have to restart again and so, because of that, I restart as a white belt, same thing and I go start training and then, throughout that, I start to compete but back then was point fighting was always point fighting. There's no full contact, anything like that but I love the sport. It helped me speak in English, learning the language and then I can learn to have more fun, basically so that’s how I kind of like discovered the martial arts.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, one of the things that you didn’t bring up that I remember from the early 80s was that there weren’t a lot of children training.
Ninja Nguyen:
No, no.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, I imagine that you're in this school, one of, if not the only kids training?
Ninja Nguyen:
We were in there, the instructor, and two of them his kids and then, at that time, it was like a mixed class. What I mean mixed class is you have the adult with the kid together but like the kid, when you line up, you can't line up where the adult is. In the class, at that time, the fundamental is basically you coming in, you do the warm up stretching and then you do drill and then, all the time that we’re doing is just punching in the air. Kick in the air, punch in the air but at that time, it was like, I feel like at that time, losing a lot of kid into martial arts really. it's like a lot of adults for sure and because of that, I don’t really, what do you call, I learn to be more like the…fight more with the adult, I would say, because at that time, I don’t really know how to kick and punch so for me to kind of fit in was kind of easy and then, because I fell in love with the language, all I want to do was just learn the language.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right, it's got to be an interesting time. I'm a little younger than you. I started in the early 80s and I remember the martial arts climate there and I know how hard it was as a kid coming up in traditional martial arts but I didn’t have these added barriers of language and coming from a different country.
Ninja Nguyen:
I think, for me, it was more fun because I remember the first time when I went to school, to the English school, I discovered I got detention going fast because one of the kids teaching me how to say hi by giving me the middle finger so I got detentions knowing that I didn’t learn the language so because of that I fell in love with the language because the only place that I can learn to kind of put the meaning in together because when you throw a punch, it's very simple. It's like my language, they keep the punch and because of that I kind of understand the meaning so because of that, I basically, every day, when I get out of school, that’s all I've been. Just go there, finish my homework, while doing my homework, watching the class while they speak and because of the sport, everybody was very helpful. I didn’t understand, I remember, I didn’t understand I was doing the English project and I was basically trying to put noun and verb together and there was somebody there who was actually happened to be a teacher and she helped me out so it was kind of fun for me but at the same time, I remember martial arts back then was very strict because you can't laugh in class, you can't joke around. I remember my teacher saying there's no crying in karate and when I went home, I told my dad. He’s like yeah, karate is supposed to be, martial arts is supposed to be very disciplined and because of that, I trained each day, every single day I was training. Go to school, come back home, that’s all I was and I was so excited to just be in the group. At that time, they went to tournament, I went and watched and I fell in love with it. Because of the martial arts, it changed my life but at the same time, gave me some, I would say, insight. I think I was the baddest person in the class so I thought it was fun, the journey of the martial arts was fun and I remember, 1987, I opened my first martial art gym when I graduated high school and I was like, I had 500 bucks in my name and I opened a school. Back then, the rent was cheap and I didn’t even remember that, I know from the fact that, I didn’t even have instruments back then and I opened a school. I remember it was challenging. Not a lot of students but at the same time just basically, I just jumped and did it and because of that, all I did every single day was learn the sport and train the student. The student get good, I spar with them and the whole thing was, at that time, I opened the dojo because benefit of me. So, in other words, I hoped to get a lot of students so, by that way, I can train them, I can spar with them so I can get better, they can get better but reality was all about me so I did that for 2 years and then, I had to close up because my dad said to me, when you open a dojo, you open a martial art gym, you're supposed to teach the student. You're supposed to be there, empower them, not for your need. So, because of that, my dad asked me to close up and I remember coming in and closing the door and half of my student was just, couldn’t even look at me because of how I was. I told them that’s what happened and so, was heartbroken for me and at the same time, the experience for me, learning that, you have to be honest with yourself.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Your father seems like he's been a pretty powerful influence. What was his relationship to martial arts?
Ninja Nguyen:
Back then, he was in the military and he was training martial art but he wasn’t really active in it because, at that time, when he was mostly, he was training but mostly he was focused trying to bring the family to freedom to America so when he came over here, same thing that he have was very disciplined. He trained at home. He trained martial art with my brother, everyone in my family but at the same time, it was one of thing that family come first that no matter what your need is, you have to forget that. I kind of, in a way, did not like the way that was coming and so, because of that, I actually lost myself into a different life. When I closed the school, I basically was kind of like, instead of going training every single day, I start basically, hang out at the club, work at a club, become a bouncer at the club and then, hang out with bad people. At the same time, one of those things that, as a martial arts teaching me, when you want something or you determine something or when somebody tell you you can't get it, you're going to want to get it because of that, I fell into the other side of a good person become kind of like a time bomb person. It's like I'm badass, you can't get in my way and nobody can talk crap to me kind of like that and I basically become that life. Fell into that life for 20 years.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It wasn’t that long ago that you stepped out of that then, if I'm doing the math right.
Ninja Nguyen:
Yes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What prompted that? How did you get out?
Ninja Nguyen:
Always, and it's kind of funny saying this, always for me was my wife. When she was with me and she said to me I don’t care what type of person you are, I want to be with you and the way how she does is that every single day she doesn’t tell you hey, you can't do that but she do things to kind of empower you to make sure you look at the bright side and because of that, she challenged me to basically change my life by she said to me, she said I will challenge you to basically left what you have and just leave and so, when I left Boston to go to California and Arizona, I ended up in Arizona, I stayed over there and I believe that, when you try to make money, when you make in a fast run or you get the money really fast, no matter what, it will get away from you. That mean that the faster you make the money, the easier it's going away by your passion not into it or you're greedy so when my life start to change was 2006, I basically, 2007, 2007, I invest my money into a couple of small business and the house. In 2007, everything was basically, the house market were dropped, I lost everything. At that time, one person came into my life was my daughter and when I see her face, I could not say anything besides love, compassion, determines leadership and I ask myself, I can't look at this kid and knowing that I cannot, and especially a girl, I cannot teach this girl that I was a punk. I wasn’t in integrity with myself. I wasn’t a great person to raise this baby. So, because of that, my wife said to me, she said I want us to go back with my dad. I said no, I want to go to back in Boston to rebuild myself, to redeem myself and she said to me, she said, no matter where you go you're going to start the same thing. You'll be the same person you are and I said to her, I said a person cannot change only if he can change himself before the environment so when I came here, I basically came back. I helped one of my old friends and student to run his school so basically, 6 months I was at his school, help him and then, build his school and then one day, he said to me, I would love to give you this key so you can have your own dojo and my life was turned after that and it was brought my family together. My wife and I, we united together and after that, now 10 years. I wrote a book last year about Step on the Mat of my Life and the martial arts and so, I always believe that no matter what you do, family, fate, whatever the fate is you got to believe in that and family comes second and third financial and I think that I built my business out of love for my own family and I believe that people, including myself, we all want love. We want integrity, we want honesty, all that I crave for just like everybody else because of that my business was very successful even now and I think, every single day, there's always testing curve to make sure you are in integrity with your character and be truly who you are and because of that, I believe that’s why my community grow and that’s why I love and I love to share and I want everybody to understand when you train martial art, when you step on the mat, it's about friendship, about community, about love, about compassion, honesty like we talk about as a martial art. Because back then, I remember my teacher always say to me no matter where you are, you have to show who your character is. Truly who you are and the martial arts in your life will grow. That’s why I want to share and I love the way your station brought so much about martial art. To me, I feel the same way. I love martial art so much and it's like I sleep, I eat, I talk about martial art. I train martial art. I do every single day and the better, I use my martial art to better my health, my mind, my body and my family because, like a month and a half ago, I suddenly, out of nowhere, have a seizure and it made me realize even more now, ever, no matter what you do, you got to keep your body healthy. You got to keep your mind healthy and you got to share with the community. It's almost like, if you see a movie that is so good, why do you want to share with the community?
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, tell us what's different about the way you're training and teaching now versus 20-something years ago.
Ninja Nguyen:
Back then, when I was training, either you do it, suck it up and do it, there is no giving up. Now, I feel like the society now this day, you cannot say to a person like that because if you say something like that, you hurt their feeling and they want to sue you. So now, I teach more to empower the person and you find a way to empower a kid. You challenge them but you want them to do the passion, you give them the opportunity. For example, I have a kid that have, I don’t want to say autism or special needs, I always think of those person just like me. Just the way for me to communicate with them, I have to find ways to connect with them and for example, I have a kid in class doing a front roll and they said they can't do it. I said to them, I said but what if I give you 20 bucks, would you be able to do it? And they know how to do it because the things that now, I have to see is, I have to show them what purpose why they're doing because most of them, you ask to do push up and oh my god, it's too much but I said to them, I said, think about the push up. The purpose of the push up is you have to get your body stronger, you get your mind stronger, your body stronger and it's fun to do a lot of pushups and then, oh, ok, I got it. They do it. it's a little bit different now and I feel, even this year, everyone want to empower someone. Everyone want to be a motivation so it's like you have to find different way and you can't tell them, oh, you can't do it because if you give them exit, say you can't do it, then they say I can't do it but if you give them opportunity and say, you know what? Let me challenge you if you can do one, how about I do it with you? As an instructor, I feel now, when you do things with them, they love it. I tell them it's ok to struggle because I still struggle. There's some movement I still struggle but it's ok because the whole thing is about journey. That’s it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That’s quite the contrast. Quite the difference and I'm curious, how do you feel teaching now versus then?
Ninja Nguyen:
I love teaching because I feel like I'm not teaching really. I feel like I'm more facilitate the class because I feel when you say the teacher, I feel like sometimes the people caught into a title like a sensei, shihan and for me, I feel like everybody can throw a punch of a kick. It's just a great one will take a lot of repetitions so I tell the kid all the time, I would say to them, or even adult, I say look, when you throw a punch, feel the connection with your body and I tell them, I say, think of like your body and you never move before. When I joke in class, it's like a long-distance relationship that you haven't seen for a while and when you see it, it feels uncomfortable some time. At training, you have to kind of find way to empower them and in fun way because I feel like now, because they have so many sports coming out there, everybody’s doing this, doing that, almost like teaching them not so much commitment anymore and I feel like as a martial artist, you have to commit to yourself for you to take years to get a black belt and I think now, it's like even now, it's easy for a kid to come because they have so many sport that they want to do and then, for them, martial art is just a sport and to me, I feel like martial art is not a sport. It's more of a mindset, a life skill, a challenge that we done. For example, goal setting. For example, you set a goal to compete, let’s say, doing form whatever that is and I tell them things that you do on the mat. You're sparring. You find solution. You got kicks, you know why and then, you train to get better. I feel that at a sport, they come with a team. Martial art, you come individual, you shine individual, yes, we’re all in the family together, we cheer together but when you spar, you spar on your own. You may have a bunch of team punching people around you, your brother, everybody cheer for you but when you lose, it's you. You have to do it. The sport, team sport, hey, we lose. Oh, you know what? The whole team so everybody else. The martial art, it will teach you all the skills that you raise as a child in life and I know, for me, personally because for me, getting out 18 years old, didn’t live in America, didn’t speak English that long and I’d been able to open my first martial art gym. Martial art taught me that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you can go back and work with your 18 year old self, opening that first gym, what would you be saying, what would you be advising with the younger you?
Ninja Nguyen:
I would say, number 1, is to be honest with myself. Integrity with myself knowing that I opened the dojo to share the sport with other people to make the sport grow. Not for individual need and in some way, at that time, I was more like I'm using you so I can be better. It's almost like going opposite what martial art is about so I think like, if I was going back to that, I would say be accountable and be a great character especially integrity and sincerity in myself.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It sounds like it's a growth curve from that until now. I can hear quite the difference. One of the hallmarks here on martial arts radio is story-telling. Of course, we hear the story of the guest and then, I often ask them to tell a story and you’ve been telling a story since you came on, stories of things that you’ve experience. If I was to ask you for your favorite story, however you want to interpret that, what would be your favorite story from your time as a martial artist?
Ninja Nguyen:
I would say 1980, the Kung Fu theater was on. Bruce Lee was on and I remember, every single day, waking up in the morning, eat breakfast and watch Kung Fu theater and practice, doing pushups and throwing nun chucks watching Bruce Lee so I thought that was really fun as a child growing up and then, many times after that, as you know, the ‘80 and ‘90 was Ninja Turtles and all that. It was really fun growing up knowing that I didn’t really stuck in video game or iPad or anything like that. I was waking up, the whole family watching movie together so I feel like, as a grownup now, it's not so much that family always eat breakfast together and hang out together and watch the same show so I thought it was the best story in growing up I had.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We’ve talked a little bit about your father and that he didn’t train formally but how about other members of your family? Did anybody else train?
Ninja Nguyen:
All my brothers trained. My brother was in taekwondo. They trained in Taekwondo and I think, when we get together, my brother and I, we still train but I feel like, as the martial artist, for me, because I'm so active in it and I love it and I always tell them, why don’t you come back and train but I feel like, for them, well, I'm older and I got to take care of my family and I said to them, I'm older, I'm taking care of my family but at the same time, I still train. For them, the martial art is almost like a phase coming in and now, I'm older now so I don’t need to work out, really. It’s a little bit different and that’s why the connection between people training martial art, they should keep it active no matter what so by that way, they can be healthy for themselves.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I agree. There's always something you can do. I don’t care how old you are, if you can stand up, even if you can’t. I know several martial artists who are restricted to their wheelchairs. If you can breathe, you can train.
Ninja Nguyen:
That’s why I hope that everyone can take the opportunity to just practice because if you can do one move and be healthy, why not?
Jeremy Lesniak:
We haven't talked much about your instructors. We’ve talked a little bit about the Shotokan school.
Ninja Nguyen:
Right now, I have basically, my first teacher was karate back then in Vietnam. His name was Hong and then, when I came to the US, the guy that actually brought me in his dojo was a guy named [00:32:11] and he was open like American Karate and my Japanese teacher, I went back to my Japanese teacher, was Master Yuro and for a while, he was really great and then, we went back to Japan. That was it. We lost him. I've been looking for him for a while now. My American Kenpo Karate was, you probably heard his name, it was Rocky DiRico.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Of course, he’s been on the show.
Ninja Nguyen:
So, I've been with him. Right now, I'm training basically, I went to Thailand and trained in Muay Thai and I came back and I met my teacher in Las Vegas and now, he moved over there Master [00:33:02] and then, now I'm training with one of the teacher right now that mentally and next year, I'm actually going over there to train with him with Master [00:33:15]. He’s really big in Muay Thai there but I feel like, as a sport, I feel there's so many sport out there and I feel as karate, kicks, punch, it's always simple style. Just different of who brought it up a certain way. It's almost like if you go Mexican food, American food, they all have rice and meat into it, pasta, but depends on who’s making it so I feel like the sport, I hope that one day, all the sports come together and have a big tournament and everybody, after the tournament, everybody have a cookout and just have fun with, talk.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That sounds awesome! I’ll be there.
Ninja Nguyen:
I'm hoping one day or so.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We’re certainly getting closer. I don’t think we’re getting further but I do believe we’re getting closer to that and I hope that we get there soon because I want to see it. I don’t want to say it's uncommon. I think I can say that. it's not terribly common for someone who is training and has their own school to have several instructors and to really dedicate to their own training but I'm starting to hear more and more martial artists that are doing both. They're teaching and they're training under others and the training isn’t an afterthought. Talk about the importance of that.
Ninja Nguyen:
I think the number 1 thing, for me anyway, you can tell the student to keep training knowing that you limit yourself so, for example, I remember several of my friends, they go to some school and their teacher just like never really learned anymore so it's just like they stayed where they are and the student went higher on their rank, whatever, and then they just feel like they stopped and I feel like for me, it's just like, yes, I have a martial art gym but at the same time, I still have to evolve. I still have to learn. I still have to perfect my kick. I still have to, and then, the other things that why I train from so many different people, to basically, it's just like a different dictionary. For example, one person is going to say well, no you got to punch this way. The other person got to say, punch this way. I have to be open-minded because now, I can't have a kid coming in and say, for example, I have one person coming in. he can't really do balance. His coordination is not really great so I have to figure out a solution so by that way, empower him instead of saying, well, there's only one way. As instructor, for me, I always believe that you should share. If I have a table and all my brothers coming through and different styles come over and we share different ideas so by the way, we can perfect better and by that way, we can empower other student coming in to be better because, end of the day, I always believe, for me, is that the sport, you can carry so far but your mindset is stay where you are, the sport cannot grow.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well-said. Talk to us about your life outside of martial arts. We don’t always get to hear that from people. What are you doing when you're not training?
Ninja Nguyen:
For me, spend time with my wife, my kids. We do stuff, for example, we go hiking, we go beach. We do things like catching up fatherhood and being a husband because I feel like a lot of times, people work, work, work, and they forget their life itself so for me, I always put a sign that I have time for my gym, I have time for clients but I have to have time for my family because at the end of the day, if I don’t have time to spend with my family, I always believe like this: you cannot grow as a person in love in a relationship because end of the day, you have a business, you have relationship with your client and to me, I don’t look at client. I look at them as partnership because every single one of them, when they pay a membership, they have basically own a timeshare in some way so I can be the guy who pay the bill but they are basically the partner so I have to basically treat them just like how I treat my wife, my kid. With respect, with love and share and I think a lot of time, my business grow that way. I can't say about other people but my business grow that way so that’s why no matter what, I always have time for my wife and my kid and away from business because I can't go hang out with my wife and talk about business. I can't hang out my kid talking about my business because my kid doesn’t want to hear it. I have to make sure, no matter what, I have to be present with my family and that’s what I do. I don’t really, that’s what my joy, my love and joy. I don’t really need to do anything outside without them and I feel like this life for me is fulfilled by just that, that need.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you could train with any martial artist, somebody you haven't, anywhere in the world, anywhere in time, who would you train with?
Ninja Nguyen:
I would say Bruce Lee.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Why?
Ninja Nguyen:
He was actually the one I was looking up to as mentor at that time because when I went to school, I got picked on and I was basically stood up on my own because of Bruce Lee who I watched a movie with how he portrayed himself and the other guy, I would say, the Godfather because when I was growing up Bruce Lee and Godfather, I was watching a lot. For me, was about how to challenge myself, creativity and knowing that loving everything I do and I think Bruce Lee does that. Bruce Lee, he does everything, he talk about it and he live by it. So, I would say that’s a person.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do you have a favorite Bruce Lee movie?
Ninja Nguyen:
I do, Enter the Dragon.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm curious and we talked about this on the show, my theory, was that the first Bruce Lee movie you saw?
Ninja Nguyen:
That was the first movie I saw, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, yeah. It's always the first one. Whatever the first one was, that’s the one. That’s the one! What about today’s movies? You watch any more martial arts movies?Ninja Nguyen:
Today movie, I do. I watched a lot. The other person that I have crossed paths but I never really hang out with anything like that, I would say Donnie Yen.
Jeremy Lesniak:
He’s awesome.
Ninja Nguyen:
Amazing!
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let’s talk about the future. We’ve talked about today, we’ve talked about yesterday. You're still training hard. You still have stuff that looks like you're working towards so what are those things? What are your goals?
Ninja Nguyen:
My goal is next year, I’d like to go back to competing so that’s what I've been training right now. I'm mentally doing that and I’d like to do one of those bodybuilding show next year so I wanted to compete several martial arts and compete in body build shows, just for me because like I said, growing up, Bruce Lee, Godfather and of course, Arnold, for me, was a big influence too.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It seems that we’re about to have a resurgence in bodybuilding. It's something I follow casually. It's based on everything I'm hearing. I think we’re seeing a new wave.
Ninja Nguyen:
Yeah, I think right now, big thing bodybuilding show is very big right now and there's a lot of my friends that’s a lot into it. I think it's just like looking back, to me, growing up, I remember Conan was one of the movie that I have collection on and then The Commando. That was really big for me. It's like growing up I always watched that and I said to myself one day, I'm going to step on the stage for that and then, now, my kids, they remind me hey, I would love to see you be more strong and fit so now, I'm training very hard for them.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I know you’ve got a book so let’s take a moment, let’s talk about that book. Tell us why. Let’s start there! Writing a book is not easy so why did you want to write a book?
Ninja Nguyen:
My wife actually challenged me because I have a bunch of notes and she challenged me and she said, why don’t you put that into action and I always have a big fear of writing a book and knowing that the verb and noun doesn’t line up right so I did that and we hired an editor to actually put that together, make sure that everything’s edited right and then put it into action. When I wrote that book on my mind was, number 1, to prove my English teacher that I could write. Number 2, is one of those things that’s a bit that I die, people don’t really know what martial art is or people don’t really understand why I teach the martial arts, what the lineup, what the concept of it and so, because of that, my wife challenged me so we’re putting that together so when I wrote that book, it took me 6 months and then, when I hire an editor, total was 8 months total together and then, when they released that book, it was amazing because I always grown up looking up Bruce Lee and it was so funny that my book was on the first line up before Bruce Lee so I actually took a big picture in Amazon when they saw that book was a bestseller, my book, and then, Bruce Lee was 2nd so I actually framed that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I would have. Absolutely. Oh, what an honor! Nice. We don’t really talk about what's in it so let’s talk about that. What's in the book?
Ninja Nguyen:
The book has 13 chapters and it's about when you step on the map and the reason why I say step on the mat, no matter what in America now, everywhere you go, you always see a mat. You see a mat at the front door, back door, inside the house. It reminds people as a martial artist, that’s what we do. For example, the concept of the lineup of the classes, the way that I teach the class, it basically, we do, we bow in when we come inside the training mat and then we do, we bow in when we warm up. We do meditation warm up and we do drill and we do partner drill and we do sparring and we do form and we do weapon and we do competing. That’s all the chapters total 13 chapter but it's just the concept of how I was living my life as a martial artist because back then, when I came to United States, meeting people in my culture as an Asian culture, you bow a lot. You don’t hug, you don’t hold hand, you don’t shake hand as I know when I was a kid. Growing up, we don’t hug, we just bow, so we bow in at the mat so for me, bow and the biggest thing was greeting. In my culture, bowing is we acknowledge the other person, greeting the other person so in America, you bow, you can shake hand, you can hug. That’s greeting to a person and then, the other part, the big step is the warm up. Warm up is me and you, I come up into a mat, I bow, I know that I'm going to train however, I see you so I bow to you and I greet you because you are either my partner, my teammate or my instructor. So, I bow and then I ask you question and we warm up. That for me is about communication so martial arts is about that too and so, those process into the class is the same thing how you live my life so I bow the person, I greet the person, I warm up talk to the person and get to know the person and basically, taking the connections with myself or the other person, with myself itself. If I'm just training on the mat with me, just me and I do the same thing. I bow, I acknowledge myself on what going on, what I'm going to do and then, I'm going to do the warm up and then I'm going to do drill and I'm going to do stretching and then I'm going to do basically, basic and then, basic is just punch and kicks but in here, if I'm talking to a person, same thing is basic about common. Hi, how are you? Stuff like that throughout that day so connection between me or the other person or the connection between me and myself throwing the punch and those are the concepts that I was learning on the mat, teaching on the mat and I want to transfer to the sheet of paper so by the way people can read it and they can relate it, not just do martial art but anything they can relate to their other sport.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Can you mention people can find it in Amazon or anywhere else?
Ninja Nguyen:
Yeah, they can find it on Amazon.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And of course, we’re going to have links to that. You sent over some stuff so we’ll make sure that we have links.
Ninja Nguyen:
I appreciate that. I'm hoping the book, my goal is basically is just sharing the concept of and then people can understand the martial art so by that way, they’ll all feel like wow, it's too hot because as a martial artist, there's a lot of people misconcept of martial art so by that way they don’t want to come and train because a lot of time now, people watching MMA or whatever, they feel like everybody just come in and punch each other but it's not about that. You and I both know it's not about that. Other people whose training martial art know it's not about that. for example, I have the class that I have one guy that he’s came in and he said to me, he said, I just don’t want to be the person that feels stupid or I don’t want to be the person that got punched and he’s basically just normal person and I said to him, I said, you have the opportunity as a martial artist, you can train and when you come to a section of, let’s say sparring, you feel like hey, you don’t trust the other person, we as instructors make sure match you right and you still feel not sure of sparring, we have other things for you to do so by that way, to empower you so in the future, well, I want to spar and that’s the other thing going back to you and you were talking about the teaching now is that not a lot of people want to fight. Everybody want to train like a fighter but not a lot of people want to get hit and that’s why, as a martial artist, my book is just to make sure everybody seen the sport and they can challenge themselves or they don’t, however, whatever they choose in or choose out, they have to understand hey, nothing wrong with learning and when you're ready and then you can spar.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, if people want to find you on social media or websites or anything like that, where can they go?
Ninja Nguyen:
They can go on xtremeninja.com with no e in front or they can go on steponthemat.com.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Of course, we’ll link those as I've said. This has been great and I'm going to ask you to send us out in the very traditional marital arts radio way, what parting words or advise or wisdom or whatever you want to throw at the listeners would you give today?
Ninja Nguyen:
I would say there's a phrase that I say over here, I said, don’t get frustrations, get inspirations and I hope that everybody out there know how I feel about the sport and I hope everyone take the opportunity to learn the sport. Not to be a fighter but to me, I think everyone in our life, we fight every single day. We fight to wake up in the morning. We fight the alarm, we fight the traffic so I think everybody has, they fight to live through their life so I would love to see, one day, see everybody train and make the sport grow and I want to thank you everybody for that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think Shihan Nguyen’s story exemplifies that there are bumps in the road. It doesn’t matter where we start or what we do or where we’re going, there’re going to be challenges. There are going to be things that we have to reconsider. Nothing is forever and nothing’s guaranteed but if we work hard enough, we all have that opportunity to put the pieces in place and move forward with the life that we want and that’s what I heard today from Shihan so thank you so much, Sir. I appreciate your support. Thank you for coming on the show. If you want to learn more about the book, about the man, go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, check out the show notes. We’ve got links over there and so much more. Every episode we’ve done over there for free with transcripts and videos and tons of stuff. If you go to whistlekick.com, don’t forget the code PODCAST15, saves you 15% on everything in the store and there's a lot more over there. It's not just the store. There's tons of stuff available for you to check out. If you got a suggestion for a guest, go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, fill out the guest form and if you have the inclination, if you’d like to give us some support, you can make a purchase but of course, you can also leave us reviews. Facebook, Google, iTunes, Stitcher, wherever and you can share this episode or maybe some of our social media content. We’re @whistlekick, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. If you want to email me, my personal address is jeremy@whistlekick.com. That’s all I have for you now. Until next time, train hard, smile and have a great day!