Episode 495 - Martial Arts Radio LIVE (Episode 7)
In this episode, Jeremy brings us the seventh Episode of the Martial Arts Radio Live.
Martial Arts Radio LIVE (Episode 7) - Episode 495
Martial Arts Radio LIVE (Episode 7)
Today's episode is the seventh installment for the Martial Arts Radio Live. Jeremy answers questions and reads stories from the listeners as well as giving out some cool trivia. Listen to find out a lot of surprise announcements and more!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below or download it here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, let's start. This is the seventh installment of martial arts radio live. Let's dig back into the archives a little bit. Let's go back to the last episode, the March episode to some of the highlights. If you had to boil it down, what are the three most important aspects of being a good or successful martial artist? Some of the answers included humility, persistence, passion, determination, effort, self-control. And then somehow, we got into this fun conversation, what aisle of the grocery store contains the best defensive weapons? And the answer is included everything from frozen ham, pineapple, pots and pans, knives, brooms, mops, and vinegar and a joke; what's a boxing Pirate's best move? His left hook. Oh, this is going to be great, I love it. Ah, no that can't go there. Can't go there. Comments coming in in the chat and there's a, there's a delay, but it's not quite as bad as it used to be. All right. So one of the things that, that Gabe sends over and hopefully can everyone hear me while I'm doing this? Yes, they can. They should be able to. You know, I think it was last time or the time before we try to do all this graphical stuff and me holding it up on my tablet and it just didn't work, but now I can show you this stuff, and yet it's in a word document, so it's not, you know, it's not fancy, that's okay. But I liked this Gene Wilder meme and all the great things that we've seen come of it. Oh, you took karate classes when you were 10? Please tell me about how you're such a dangerous fighter. See, and then I can transition back, isn't that great? Really good stuff. I know it's not really that impressive and I'm sure all of you are, are feeling very unimpressed with that, which is impressing me, but that's okay. Adam, in the chat saying, “We just had a zoom meeting for our small Aikido club. Best we're doing now is sharing videos and discussing various topics. Hope everyone's doing well out there.” You know, there's a lot of really good stuff going on and I got, I got pages of content and I don't want this to become, you know, the corona chat. What are we running right now? 30 seconds back. I don't want this to become, you know, another coronavirus episode cause that's all anybody's doing right now, but at the same time, I don't want to be so avoidant of it that it makes people feel like I'm ignoring it, cause I'm not, it's a big deal. It's impacting me, it's impacting family, it's impacting everyone. I mean, we, I think what would be more impressive is to know if there's someone who this isn't affecting. All right. All right. So what does that mean? Does it mean that I'm actually giving up on it? No, I'm … it means I'm tired. It means it's impacted me. It means I'm not at my best. It means I'm going to do what I can. Been doing a lot of content, I feel like this is all I do. Had an insane conversation with a guest today, someone who, the stories, the stories, it's going to be a few weeks before this one comes out but I think you're going to know when … if you listen to this one, there is no doubt in my mind you'll say. “This must be the one Jeremy was talking about on life, because these stories are insane.” All right, what's the next thing we had? We had another meme in here? Anybody who knows me, knows I'm a fan of the karate kid and that's a great one. Mr. Miyagi saying, “Wax on, wax off. That car better, better sparkle son, Mr. Miyagi, don't play.” You know, all I could think of when, when those cars came up in the movie, was how he afforded them. He didn't have that much. Where did his money come from and, and where, why was he spending that money on cars? It just didn't really add up for me. Hopefully it's all working. You still got people. Yeah, this is working fine. What's the next thing we had? We got, we got YouTube videos. Where are they? There we go. I gotta make, I gotta check this thing. Oh, you've probably seen this one. Guy's sparring with his dog. It's good times. I spar with my cat, she doesn't like it and doesn't actively participate, but if I do this in front of her face for some reason, this really irritates her and she'll attack my hands. And not like, I don't think she's playing around, I think she's actually trying to eat me. And we had some other videos, what was this one? Is this the one? I think it is. There was a commercial. Come on commercial. Skip. Does anybody watch YouTube ads? I haven't seen this one, this is not what I thought it was. So I can fight in a bear. I feel like, I feel like the bear is going to win. I haven't seen this before. See, I probably should not be posting videos that I haven't seen before. I don't know how to feel about this. I mean, I'm impressed that that kid's taking that bear. Oh, we're not going to watch. Oh, Oh, I kind of missed the title on this. That's kind of an important title. It's not an MMA show, but that adds a lot, way more context. I have a much better understanding of what's going on in that man's head now, after seeing this video of him fighting a bear. Wow! I mean, it still really impressive. That's crazy. And then, because we have to, because the ponds right there, stand back or I'll beat you with my bare hands. Oh, so I've got a question here. “What was your best light hearted April fool's day prank or joke?” I feel like April fools was just not, like it didn't happen this year. I didn't see anybody talking about pranks. I saw people talking about not wanting pranks, I saw people speculating on if there was even room for a prank that wouldn't be so over the top and ridiculous then … would, you know, that would be inappropriate and there's a lot of discussion, but I didn't see any consensus. I will quite often just drink tonic with lime, there doesn't have to be gin with it. It means, it's hot, my hands are all sticky. It's better with gin, but it doesn't have to be there. People are sending me messages. Matt, I can't, I can't look at that video right now because I need, I need, I need Gabe to vet my stuff. If you want … if anybody's sending stuff in, you got to send it to Gabe, because I can't, I can't do it. I can't do it while I'm out here. What's next? All right. Stay at home, training, corona virus related stuff. Don't let this time away from your martial arts school dampen your spirits. You can modify your training so you can work out at home. What have you done or will you do to adapt your training to your current situation? What are you hoping to accomplish while you're stuck at home? And I offered up, I think a lot of people know that I kick things constantly as I'm walking around my house, I'm constantly playing with distance and angles. Can I kick that cabinet door and then go immediately into a hook kick on the refrigerator door handle, you know, where does that foot have to be that I can make both of those kicks happen? And that's a lot of what I've … what I do and I've been, I've been separate up. Jenny says, “Luckily I married one of my instructors so I am still able to learn curriculum while the school is closed. I am well aware of the privilege I have and I have no shame.” And Gabe [00:09:25] and in that, that he and his wife Jenny know that feeling as well. Darren says, I train with my 10-year-old daughter, she typically comes to class with me twice a week, we've decided to keep the same schedule in the name of normalcy and I trained with her in the basement. We're lucky enough to have some space to do Kata and Kihon, so we do a full class together with warm-up and cool-down. In addition, I've been looking for some good equipment free strength training workouts to replace my gym sessions as best I can. Suggestions are appreciated. That's funny because that, to me that was completely unplanned, Gabe, I don't know if you plan that. So the first thing I would say to Darren, is that good on you for trying to keep the normal schedule. I think one of the things that's getting a lot of people in trouble is that because things are so loose, it's really easy to just kind of let things run away from you. You know, do you … do you do 15 minutes here and 10 minutes there and you know, when you finish that project or do you set it a day at a time? I would say if you're used to … excuse me. If you're used to go in the class at a certain time, you should still train at that time. If you want extra motivation, you've got Rob [00:10:39] doing 30 days of martial arts and I think that's the hashtag, 33 of days of martial arts, Instagram, I think Facebook as well. And you know, there are a lot of people … we're all in this boat. I … how many … have martial arts schools open right now? I don't think so, maybe in some countries, not in the US. So we need that motivation to train. Now the, the part that I was joking about, was the last part here where, where is it? Here switch … We're Darren says, “I've been looking for some good equipment free strength training workouts.” You … clearly, Darren doesn't know but we rolled out our own strength and conditioning program. Oh man. There's like, there's tonic on the keyboard tray. It's very unfortunate. I have to … where is it? I have to find it. Somebody needs to clean this set. Here … we …This went out … when did we, when did we put this out? A week ago? I think it was just over a week ago that we've we finally rolled this out, Gabe say, “It was not a coincidence.” Well, good choice. Good, good opportunity there. Gabe, and here we go. The whistlekick Strength and Conditioning Program. This went live like a week ago, debut price, 1999, so if anyone wants to check that out. It is equipment free, it is … you get lifetime access, including all the improvements, we've already made some small improvements from the very first version. Honestly, I don't think anybody bought it before I made that change so don't worry. It requires literally zero equipment. Your body, a wall and a floor, and if you don't have a wall on a floor, you don't have a house or you're in space, and if you're in space, strength training is probably not your biggest concern. Adam says, “Yeah, weight training gear is sold out everywhere. I'm on the board of our local non-profit gym and we closed as well till at least early next month. I got a good weightlifting set up at home at least.” I used to, and I sold it to a friend because I never used it and in the last couple of weeks, I've kind of regretted that but I'm going to really wanted to, he would let me go into his garage, I'm sure. Evan is here, hello Evan. If it was not for Evan, I would not be having the flashbacks I'm having right now to college. He'll get that. He'll get that reference. What else we have going on here? Last time on martial arts radio live, we talked about how much a person could really learn from online training but with the stay at home order, a lot of us have a whole new perspective on that, don't we? What advice do you have, do I have for training and for all of you for those training and teaching from home? Now, some of you may have seen if you subscribe to the podcast, you know that last week I did a couple of bonus episodes on training at home, you know, what to do as an individual and then I offered up some advice for school owners, what to do and it's all under the heading of massive action. But I'd love to hear from those of you in the chat, you know, what, what are your thoughts on, on online, remote distance, virtual training, whatever you want to call it. What do you think, if you've been participating, how has that been comparing? Are there any pros to go with the cons of not being there in person with your training partners and your instructor? If you're an instructor, are there any pros, are there things that you're finding are working better versus others, is this something that you might keep at least some of when things go back to what's call it normal. Hello, CJ. What kind of delay we got? 20 seconds? Yeah, I've seen worse. I'm seeing a lot of schools do, you know, standard zoom classes and that's great, but I'm also seeing some schools that are creating more, two-way engagement, they're getting their students to make videos and send them in to post things on social media and tag them, and I think that's the way to do it. Martial arts and … and martial arts education is not a one way. I can't just do this, I can't just push that information out to you, you have to participate in it and give me feedback, right, if I'm teaching you, and that's what makes this show, this episode, our live episodes different because it's an opportunity for you to contribute till it … this becomes a conversation just as martial arts and learning martial arts, teaching martial arts is a conversation. So I want to give a shout out overall to those instructors who are making it more of an experience and not just trying to simulate what happens in a regular class, but make it interesting, make it fun, by getting people involved in different ways in using some of the advantages of the medium that we have available to us. Mindy says, “We like using the zoom classes, but teaching new stuff is hard.” Absolutely! I think if I had a school, this would not be the time I was teaching things that were new, I think I would be holding pretty steady with stuff I'd already taught. Andrew says “It works.” Is it as good as in person? Of course not. Sometimes the internet is iffy. I think we've all experienced that plus side. No one swears on me. Oh, sweats! Oh! that's just as funny, don't want sweats on you. Wow! Look at the comments coming in. This is crazy. All right, Craig says, “We have found some great success. …” Here. Let me do this. Craig says, “We have found some great successes in the way we're teaching at the moment. Obviously, in person is ideal. We are doing private training, group training for adults and a huge amount of other things too … Oh, to encourage participation. So far, we've had really positive feedback and I find that kids are practicing at home even more than before. That's huge, everybody. Anything you can do to get people to practice at home, do that. So I hope, I hope those of you that are instructors or have say over curriculum. I hope your … Here we go, I’ll switch back here, that's not working the way I wanted to. Thanks. I hope you see the opportunity in this. I hope you adapt and evolve, there we go, so what I was looking for, I hope you evolve as we move forward. Jenny says, “Too many different abilities mixed into one zoom class at the moment, our instructor spent more than half the class trying to help the folks who were struggling and I ended up just practicing for most of class instead of working Joel's new material.” And you know what I would say, very small group classes or, you know what I think is even more important than that, I think even better? Classes on very specific subjects. This class we're going to work this form, this class we're going to work white belt curriculum basics, or this class we're going to work yellow belt curriculum basics. If you took the same amount of time and, and I'm not convinced that this is a better way to do it, but I think, it’s at least worth voicing. I think I would be trying that. I think I would have, you know, if I was used to having six to 10 hours of class a week, I think it would have 15 hours of classes a week broken up into probably 15 or even 30-minute segments (that of course I'd record an upload to YouTube) of different subject matter so the people that come in, everybody's working the same thing. But because you've got a lot of different options and they're not really long classes, it gives people the option of kind of combining, making their own curriculum through their own classes for the week. Minnie says, “They have tutorials up on their site for students only.” Gabe, “Doing online classes has allowed us to reconnect with some families who haven't been able to make it to classes regularly and I think this is a key point.” I think those of you out there with schools who are trying to compete with other things, nobody's bringing soccer home, nobody's bringing basketball home, but they can bring martial arts home. Remember that. And I think it's a, I think it's a wonderful retention tool, I think it's a wonderful recruitment tool. Tommy’s saying, “They're finding the kids are practicing more as well.” Greg, “We've also had some fantastic bloopers and outtakes … (I could attest to that, I've seen some of them) … from the pre-recording sessions for drills to accompany private training for kids and teens slash adult group training.” One of my core philosophies in life and in business, you know, many of you know, I do some consulting, when I'm working with my clients, it's about, how do we take the negative and how do we flip it into a positive? I had a call today. I had a call yesterday where I'm, I’m saying this over and over. So what's the negative? The negative is you're not there in person. What's the positive? People's expectations are different. You can deliver different things. You can engage with people in a very different way, and if you choose to do that, you have the ability to give people more, and by giving them more, you become more important. They learn better. Martial arts become a more important part of their lives. Yeah. All right. This is good stuff, everybody. All right, I'm going to move on. What else I got here? This video, you may have seen this video, this one is absolutely brutal. It makes me cringe; I've seen it like a dozen times. Oh! that is rough. Let's watch that again. Oh! Oh! Oh! I could watch that over … I keep trying to pause that on the wrong screen. I could watch that all day because I know how much that hurts and it's not my shin doing it. I feel like the tape was starting to shake and he knew better but you know, he made a choice, you live with your decisions. Adam asked “Anyone else having fun getting weird looks from neighbors and people driving by when practicing forms in their driveway, at the very least, I'm in plain clothes when I do this compared to my uniform. Awesome. We should have some kind of martial arts bingo challenge. In fact, we're kind of working on that right now, but it could be all ridiculous things like “Go practice your forms in the driveway” and “Score a point for every person that does the double-take” and if they happen to crash while they're watching you, you get 10 points. Since we can't go to classes, what kind of training are you doing at home? What online material would you recommend? Jenny says, “Our chief instructor has been sending assignments for us to do as part of our at home practice time. He allows us to send him video of our techniques so we can offer advice and feedback.” And I think that's critical, that that feedback part. “Personally, I'm keeping up with my yoga practice to help maintain my flexibility. I'm pregnant, so I'm eliminating my strength and endurance training to protect the baby but I sprinkle a few of those types of drills into my practice time as my health allows.” Awesome. And she recommends using the two-minute martial arts program every day, which is found on Facebook. It's all over the place, Facebook and Instagram. Training.whistlekick.com. We've got, I don't know, a year of those? Quite a, quite a few of them. Shout out to Justin for doing all the great stuff with two-minute martial arts. Andrew, “He’s not getting looks for him, he's got a home dojo in the back.” Jordan, “Tom Poe training from kickboxer …” Yeah. Oh, “… kicking that palm tree.” More home dojo’s good stuff. This is fun, I'm having fun. You know why? Because I've got my mic, this is much more comfortable I've got a desk, this isn't bad. Maybe we'll even adjust how we set this up. I don't know. I don't know. Still figuring it all out. At the time of this posting, some gatherings were still allowed. In the craziness that is today, many schools have suspended classes and are doing online … more online material while others have continued or increase the number of classes, but limited the size, both out of a heart to help. What can the martial arts community do to not only help ourselves and each other, but also the general public? Daniel says, “Using our grappling, take down general fighting skills to get to the toilet roll for an elderly neighbor.” I, I don't understand how people don't always have a hoard of toilet paper. Cause if I go to Costco and I buy toilet paper, it's like a year supply. It's an insane amount of toilet paper. I'm just one person. I don't know. Anna says, “My studio's resorting to online lessons and more Kata-based learning, we can also study and train even if it's solo. Also, we have this opportunity to use YouTube for additional knowledge, cross training.” I added that part. Want to learn a fan dance and bring it back to your school? I say do it. Have a testing come up? Find something new and creative to bring back and share so everyone can learn. I think we're going to look back on the internet as being a huge boon for martial arts. As with everything else, I think we're going to go through a phase where everything gets really blurry and then from that, people take a step back and say, Hmm, will probably yawn like I just did. If you're watching this video, I wonder how many of you I just made yawn. But they'll start to realize, you know, there is some benefit to having some things codified in saying, “This is, or this is not part of what we do.” Doesn't mean it can't be flexible, but having some … having a framework, I think makes sense. Paul Reed has been putting up some excellent short videos on Tai Chi and Qigong over the past couple of weeks, if anyone's interested. Awesome. Andrew says, “I've started teaching my students a new Kata from a different system.” That's great. Ah, here's a great question coming in from Jared, coming in as a Marshall thoughts podcast, as if we didn't know it was you Jared. Shout out to Jared, good friend, really appreciate his support. What martial arts skills can you not learn from the internet? I would say, anything that really … I think you could make a case that you can't learn new material, but I don't know that that's completely true. I think it's not the easiest way. I think learning in person is much, much easier for most of us, but I would say what you can't learn at all is anything involving reacting to a partner in a freeform way. So if, if we're talking about sparring, you know, I have to learn how to adapt, how that, how, how do I handle that punch or that kick or that you know, that, that passing of guard, whatever it is, how do I try to react to that free form intent when it's just me? I mean, I could, I could zoom spar with someone, you know, you could be there, we could be here and we could, you know, we could try to mix it up, but it's not going to be the same. If anyone who has trained while has played any of the arcade fighting games that not the ones that just mimic, you know, punching kick butt, like the boxing ones we have handles and in theory, you're using your, you're moving your hands to strike and I've seen a few different variations of that. You know how different it is versus having real feedback. The last time I played one of those years ago, because my hands went too fast and it didn't register the techniques. Now that's not saying that my hands were going that fast, but the machine was meant for people who did not know how to punch quickly, so that was frustrating. Greg is currently teaching a kata that I taught him to his adult's. Awesome! Greg, was that Saison? I feel like that was Saison. The issue Isshin-Ryu reversion of Saison. Adam says, “Without the subtleties of an instructor correcting us in person, with online sifts, there could lead to some bad habits forming.” Absolutely! I don't think anyone disagrees with that. I think a lot of us are kind of letting things slide or looking beyond that because we don't have a choice right now. Gabe Megan comment, “[00:29:35] fast hands and Craig says “Yes” It was that form. I like the Isshin-Ryu version of Saison. Not a simple form, but the first form in Isshin-Ryu. Hold on. No, it punches! There we go, bang, bang, bang! There we go. It's that part. All right. And we're going to end there. “It's hard to bridge the gap between knowledge and application without interacting with others.” Very, very well said. I think we've … see, I don't know what videos people see. I don't know how often you all see silly things and joking things … we got going on here. This was good stuff. And you're probably not getting the audio from it, but I don't know that that matters. See, I look at a lot of these and I wonder who wasn't doing these before? That's absolutely how I've ever always used every public toilet and I do that with public sinks and I don't wash my hands like that cause that's silly, still very silly. That's kind of silly. See, he just put his hand all over the paper towel holder and then he still [00:31:27] Good times, this is good stuff. It goes for another minute; we're not going to watch the whole thing. “Teaching virtually has been an incredible way to teach new instructors teaching skills, specifically communication.” Ah, so let's go back to my comment before, the negative can be turned into the positive. What if the focus right now is not on specific technique? What if it's on the ability to teach and the ability to learn, because being a student requires a skill, being a teacher requires a skill and getting better at those skills is important, it's relevant.” So don't be afraid to get better at it. Matt just clapped at that comment. Good. A quote we held over from last time, from [00:32:28] Spirit first, technique second. Yes. I think a lot of people get bogged down on technique and nuance and as Gabe says, “I feel like this is pretty easy to understand when it comes to self-defense and even sparring, but how do you apply this to forums, basics, or other aspects of the martial arts? Spirit, intent, what you're, what you're putting into it, matters more. Which would you rather see, someone executing perfect technique with a blank look on their face bored out of their mind or someone who's passionate and no, their techniques not very good, but they're having a good time and they're trying to learn and they're trying to get better? I would watch that all day, comparatively. I don't want to see that all day, that's what refereeing at a tournament is, but spirit first, technique second. Completely agree. What do you think? Come back, come back video feed, there it is. There it is. There are a lot of people out there who just look for reasons to criticize someone's technique. It could be passionate, great spirit, maybe it's a move with a, with a yell or Ki-Hup, Key Up and it … that's powerful and loud and you know, Oh, you know, your, your, your shoulder came up too much, you know, your shoulder, your punched and your we're here instead of here. Okay? There's always something that can be corrected, right? That's the beauty of martial arts, it can always get better. But I think quite often, we don't evaluate people's spirit. We don't praise them when they're putting their all into something. Anyone who works with children knows that the more you reward effort versus results, the more you build positive lifelong habits. If all you ever compliment are results, you are likely to develop people with issues on one side of the spectrum or the other. If I can't do it well, it's not worth doing, or the other side of the spectrums, you know, a little bit, a little bit of a self-identity here. Working so hard on things to achieve results, that is to the detriment of a balanced life. Spirit, intent. I'm reminded of that beginning scene in Enter the Dragon, “We need emotional content.” Couldn’t agree more, Adam. There are weird things happening on my screen, I don't know what that means. What is, what is this? There's this thing here. I don't know why it's here. I don't want it there. Very weird. All right. Moving on. “What is your favorite martial arts quote?” Frankwood, it's a tie between these two quotes. First, “I practice martial arts, not to win over other people, but to win over my own heart,” - Tony Jaa. And “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water.” Probably know who this is already. “If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.” - Bruce Lee. Probably one … is that his most famous quote? It might be his most famous quote, if not, it's up there and it's one that I think a lot of us know, and I think even a lot of people outside of martial arts know that quote because it's, what is it telling us to do? It's telling us to be adaptable, to be flexible, to give into the situation. Think of the hardest things in the world, the most rigid materials. No one is going to say that they're softer than water and yet water, because it's persistent accomplish those things. It is such a wonderful model philosophically and I think that's probably why it's been used so much by so many people. I just watched a movie with my kids where the hero didn't kill the villain when he had the chance. Why do you think our heroes are portrayed this way in today's movies? The older movies used to show the good guy killing the bad guy. Why do you think this has changed? Cultural differences? I think we're less comfortable with violence, I think we're less comfortable … Hmm actually, I take that last one. I don't think it has anything to do with violence. I think we are less comfortable with the idea that killing someone is okay. I think that there is a larger portion of the population that wants to see the good guy only do good things and not create real characters who have flaws and learn from things and make mistakes. It's a, it's a difficult … it's got to be a challenge to make any massive market media these days, whether that be book or movie or music, because people look for reasons to be upset, they look for reasons to be angry and, and cancel culture has gotten so big and it's disappointing not because there aren't legitimate reasons out there, I'm not saying that at all, but because people's default is to look for things that are wrong and I see it every day on social media and it bums me out. Gabe says, “There's a Russian proverb that says, ‘Ice is stronger than steel.’” Actually, I had a post on my personal Facebook page today that just kind of going into my thought process in that a large … very large number of people on my friends list right now have had the hide for 30 days button pressed on them because it's, it is warm in here. The trouble with this room is that it is the warmest room in the house and now there's a line from my hat. We're going to put that back. Maybe if the camera wasn't like directly down on it. I've been hiding people for 30 days left and right because there's so much negativity and so many people just looking for things that are wrong, looking for things to complain about, and it's exhausting. I can't do it, I can't do what I do if I'm surrounded by people who are just bitching all the time. It's got to get tiring to be like that. Jeff says, “It's a … he loves the hat, it’s a great representation of WKMA.” Oh! you're reading whistlekick Martial Arts, I don't think I've ever seen anybody do it that way. I'm going to love that comment. Hello to everyone who's coming in and leaving and everything. Look at that 20? I think we've got 20 people live in the chat. I don't think we've ever had that many people in … on the show before, that's fun. Let's see. What's next? From my experience in a small amount of research, it seems there are four stages of training when students re most likely to quit. First stage or first time, a beginner who gets overwhelmed or realizes that it isn't for him. That makes sense … for them, sorry. Second, point in intermediate who was … is the vision or passion because things are getting harder. Yeah. Guess what? Martial arts is not something that everyone's just going to come in and be instantly good at. Number three, in advanced you knew things, getting black belt is too difficult. Kind of the same thing as the second one, but just further on and someone who's just in their black belt. Now I've talked a lot about that fourth one. Courses isn't exhaustive and everyone is different. What are your thoughts on my list and how can we work to improve retention rates? People stop, people do something or stop doing something because of something in business, they call value profit proposition, not my term, but this is how I look at martial arts. Why do people come to martial arts class? Because they believe that it is worth their time and money, that it is the best use of that time and money compared to the other options they have available. Why do parents take their kids out of martial arts class? Take them to soccer? Because they or their kid or for some reason would rather do soccer. It's of more value to them. How do you increase the value? You don't trash soccer, you make martial arts more valuable. If people are leaving your martial arts program to go to soccer, you're doing something wrong. Soccer is doing something right. How do you fix it? One of the problems, part of the reason that people are quitting at these points or ever, it's not just value, but I said it already. We reward results and not effort. We point out results, “Hey, you did great on that test. I saw you work really hard getting ready for that test, how did it go?” If you hone in and praise, (that's the word I was looking for) If you praise effort over results, we know that if you continue to apply effort results come, but how many of us have achieved results without effort? It happens once in a while. It doesn't create good habits. What's that … that Chinese proverb “Man falls down seven time, gets up eight.” Life is, is full of these opportunities to make a decision. Do I keep trying or do I quit? And the more we praise effort, the more people are going to try again and not quit. “If you could be president for a day, what would you do to help the martial arts?” CJ says, “I would set up some sort of governing body of martial arts, not art specific, but an overall governing body to help eliminate fake martial artists and schools. Something where you have to prove legitimate training lineage and rank to open a school. I know there's a lot more to it than that, but that is a start. There'll be a lot that goes into it. Honestly, I don't think it is possible, but if it was, it would be nice.”Jonathan says, that he sees the logic in what CJ is proposing, but then you also run the risk of there being a bias in how it's run depending on what martial arts are present in the governing body. Plus, you have to think, how would you define fake? Definitely would be interesting to see, look at Wushu in China, how some styles are marginalized and aren't included in the official testing material. And Jonathan kind of hits the nail on the head for me. I agree with it in concept, but it's a concept that I do not believe can it be implemented practically because there's bias. Show me any organization of people that has the responsibility of determining whether something is or is not within boundaries and then show me any organization that has not been accused of bias and favoritism. Happens all the time, it's human nature and for that reason, I would much rather have the free market determine what it wants for martial arts. I like this. I'm just, I forgot my word document here and I'm popping up, popping back and forth with the chat and I'm really digging that. Oh, I can have both at once. That was cool. That was much smarter, Jeremy. “Where would you be if you would never …” Oh, we're going to save that for next time. Look at this, we got five minutes left. Killed it with the content today. Good job, Gabe. We're going to, I want to say this one, “Where would you be if you had never found the martial arts?” Will bold that. “If you could only train one aspect of the martial arts for the rest of your life, what would you choose?” Stacy says forms, I say basics, because I can do anything with basics. I can train on my own, I can get creative, I can be boring, I can train for strength, for power, it’s either for speed, for stances. I think it's the most versatile. A forum is just a really long sequence of basics that you don't change. Saving that. Where's a good, good one we can end on. What's a good subject to talk about at the end?All right. We'll end on this. “The usefulness of sparring and self-defense training is debated among practitioners and self-defense instructors. What's your take? Do you think sparring is beneficial for his self-defense program?“ Yes, yes, yes, Yes. Because if someone cannot handle sparring, they can't handle self-defense. They are not mutually exclusive skill sets. The things that make you good at self defense are things that will make you good at sparring. Some of the things that make you good at … or some of there's an there's a Venn … nerd time, right? Venn diagram, intersection, right? My hands are small, but you get it, right? There's a space in the middle. Some of self defense applies sparring, some sparring applies to self-defense. Not all of it, but just because it's not all of it, doesn't mean it's not useful. Who wants to train it 98% all the time and kick people in the groin? It's not fun. Can't martial arts be fun? Can't these drills be enjoyable? It's not Red Dawn. I think, I think people just need to stop worrying about what everybody else is doing and being so insecure about the fact that somebody else might have martial arts skill or knowledge that you don't have. Cool, teach me. That's my attitude. Hmm, that didn't take as long as I expected. “On the last episode, Jeremy mentioned wanting to perform a weapons form using a rake.” That sounds like something I would have said. “… I've thought about using a towel, broom or shovel and I even heard about a guy who actually did a form using a short bench. What household items could you use as a weapon and turn it into a form?” Andrew says he have seen one done with a hoe. Yes, there is a traditional Okinawan weapon that looks very much, it's like some old, small hoe almost looks like a trench digger kind of thing. Kevin says he loves Randori. Yeah. I think this is a great time for that, you know, and let's kind of end off with this, whether or not you understand martial arts weapons, you have a variety of objects in your house. What do I have here? I have a broken light and a red stapler. I could, I could do something with this. And if you, if you want some creative ways of using household objects to murder people, you can go watch the walking dead like I was doing before I came on the air, but there are always ways, what else do we have? Oh, that's kind of obvious. That's a knife. I use it as a letter opener, but go out to your garage or porch and what do you have there? You've got a shovel and a broom and I don’t know, maybe a dust pan. What could you do with a hand broom and a dustpan? You know, you could put it in somebody's eyes and then slash across the face with the dust pan. There's always a way. Play around with that. Maybe, you know what, you know what I would love to see? Let's see if anybody has a stone to do this. I would like to see you and somebody in your home sparring slowly, easily with everyday weapons. In fact, I think that would be a great video. If someone made that and put it on YouTube, I'd be super excited about it and we probably promote it. But if there was some great big battle, like … I seem to remember that there was some stuff like this in Mr. and Mrs. Smith with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie where they're, they're using silly things to fight. Am I remembering, that right? I don't know, but somebody should do that. If I was married, I would definitely do that. That's probably why I'm not married. It's really been an hour? That's crazy. All right, everyone. I want to thank you for coming by. I was hit in the head while sleeping, one's true story weapons are everywhere. Don't discount the shovel, remember the sheller from mystery man. All right, well, everyone, I want to thank you for coming by. I want to thank you for watching the show and you know, ah! no, not yet. I didn't do that … we didn't do that yet. I was gonna, I was going to change this. No, I can't do that yet, apparently. I don't know. I'm still learning the software. If you have questions, if you have comments, drop them below. The show is every first, Tuesday of the month, 8:00 PM Eastern here on Facebook, it'll be up tomorrow night on YouTube and then at some point, the audio version will make it into the podcast feed on a Thursday, but I felt like this was the best one yet. Let's see, we still got bunch of people watching. We've definitely had more people watching this time so I did something right, I'm going to give Gabe all the credit for that. We collaborated, the show gets better because of all of you so if you have feedback, if you have thoughts on how we can make it better, let me know, we'll keep making it better. Thanks for coming by, thanks for giving me something to do on a Tuesday night, because otherwise it'd be spilling tonic all over the place. And if you want more of the same and you feel like waking up early, come join me for first cup. I drink my first cup of coffee live on the air on YouTube 6:30 AM Eastern. I'll be there in nine and a half hours. All right everyone. Take care. I'll see you soon. Bye-bye.