Episode 551 - Extreme Martial Arts
In this episode, Jeremy and co-host Andrew Adams talk about Extreme Martial Arts and it's relevance in competitions.
Extreme Martial Arts - Episode 551
Weapons, more athleticism, showmanship, and more can be part of the extreme martial arts competition. In this episode, Jeremy and co-host Andrew Adams talk about the importance of extreme martial arts and try to debate whether practicality or showmanship is more important. Listen so you can join the discussion!
Show Transcript
Jeremy Lesniak: What’s happening everybody? Welcome, you’re tuned in to whistlekick martial arts radio episode 551. Today, we're talking about extreme martial arts. I'm Jeremy Lesniak, I'm your host for the show, founder here at whistlekick where everything we do is in support of the traditional martial arts. What does that mean? Well, if you want to know what that means go to whistlekick.com you're going to find everything that we're working on over there from our products to our projects and if you find something in the store that calls your name use the code podcast15 that's going to give 15% off, everything. Programs, shirts, if there's sparring gear over there you can get that at a discount to, it’s all available. And if you want to know more about this show, well it's got its own website whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, we put out two shows every week all with the goal of connecting, educating and entertaining the traditional martial artists of the world because yes, we are global. And if you want to help us out and maybe you're not ready to make a purchase you still got lots of ways you can help, you can share an episode, you can leave a review on Google or Facebook or Apple podcasts, we don’t have podcast reviews lately help us out with those, help people find the show. You could buy a book on Amazon you could support the patreon, patreon.com, if you think the new shows that we're doing are worth a whole $0.63 apiece, well, then you could support us at the $5 here and you're going to get exclusive audio, as well as behind the scenes on the episodes in a whole bunch of stuff and we have tears that move up from there the more you're willing to throw our way the more we're going to give you back in exclusive content.
Well, today, I am joined once again by my illustrious cohost Andrew Adams, how are you?
Andrew Adams: I'm great. How are you doing today, Jeremy?
Jeremy Lesniak: I'm doing well, thanks. This is a fun topic, extreme martial arts, and we probably need to define it first because, well, anytime you're going to discuss a subject, you should probably define what you're talking about. Otherwise, you risk debating different things.
Andrew Adams: Yeah, sure, absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak: So, when I say extreme martial arts, what does that mean to you?
Andrew Adams: For me, it's martial arts with like gymnastics and acrobatics and lots of jumping around off the ground and you know with a lot of the extreme martial arts I've seen have been Kobudo or weapons stuff, so, throwing your bow in the air and having a spin around 3-500 times and then catching it behind your back and—
Jeremy Lesniak: or two Bō.
Andrew Adams: Yeah, or two Bō. So, it's all of that stuff but there's a big emphasis on showmanship. Like what really looks—to me that’s what extreme martial arts is which I have very little if any experience with personally.
Jeremy Lesniak: So, can we define it as a priority on the presentation rather than the practicality?
Andrew Adams: Yes.
Jeremy Lesniak: Is that a reasonable showmanship?
Andrew Adams: Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak: Because you know I appreciate the aesthetics of martial arts and when I perform forms in a competition not that it happens often, but it used to happen fairly often, I wanted it to look good
Andrew Adams: sure
Jeremy Lesniak: And I would make some small changes to my forms with my instructor’s permission that made it look better in competition, but that didn't mean that the entire form was designed from the ground up to be tournament presentable. Now, when you've gone to competitions you know to--let's say percentage wise, you know, what percentage of competitors that you've observed would you say are extreme with their martial arts?
Andrew Adams: I've only been to tournaments in New England and only a dozen or so total and I would say from what I’ve experienced there is only been maybe 5%
Jeremy Lesniak: Yeah, and it's probably what I would agree with. It's certainly the minority and it's hard to say whether it's more popular now in competition or less, I think it depends dramatically on what competitions you're attending. In my experience, the Naska world tour tournaments have a higher percentage of what I think Andrew and I would define as extreme and let's note here, there's no criticism, I'm not criticizing, are you criticizing it?
Andrew Adams: No, I'm not criticizing extreme martial arts for what it is, no.
Jeremy Lesniak: And so why does this become a subject? Why might this be something we even want to talk about? I think it's an interesting academic discussion because of the definition that we gave it, showmanship versus practicality.
Andrew Adams: Well, the question would be, is it—I don't know if fair is the right word –but to be a judge in a ring, judging a tournament, does it make sense to have a traditional martial artist doing a form versus an extreme martial artist doing a form, those things are they apples and oranges? Are they different varieties of apples?
Jeremy Lesniak: they’re different varieties of Apple and I would say one of them is a purpose grown, we’ll say you know very shined up maybe even has a little bit of a wax spray put on it so it glistens under the grocery store lights versus a wild organic maybe even forgotten about Apple. Both will nourish you, both can taste really good, one takes a lot more time maybe I don't want to go there with that part but my analogy is falling apart I wish I hadn't even said it. They’re for different purposes, right? like I don't expect that any extreme martial artist is going to step out and say ‘you know what I'm going to use this 720, you know a double revolution kick of some sort, self-defense on the street. And I think that is the number one criticism I see from people who are anti extreme martial arts. Well, it wouldn't work on the street. They don't think it would work on the street, but it also doesn't mean that they don't know standard quote unquote “standard techniques”
Andrew Adams: But again, that goes back to ‘should those two apples be judged against each other in a tournament?’
Jeremy Lesniak: And this is really hard and for anybody who's had to referee in a ring that has had this you know it had a lot of larger tournaments and even some not so large tournaments they will separate this out, but sometimes they don't and in fact in my experience, most of the time the competitions I attend, they don't. So, what do I do when I'm in the ring? If I have a ring that is mixed between traditional and extreme or flashy or gymnastics or whatever you choose to call it, I will hone in on the things that are universal. A backflip is not universal, but when you throw a kick there are things that are universal about that kick. Are you going to fall over if that kick is applied? I don't mean if you throw the kick in the air, but if are you off balance in an unintentional way to me that's going to show up in your score. If you throw a punch, if your hand is half open, that's going to affect your score and so I try to strip away the non-practical movements in an extreme form when I'm judging them against a traditional form.
Andrew Adams: Yeah, that makes sense.
Jeremy Lesniak: But if I'm judging a ring that it has you know is entirely extreme, then I have other criteria I'm looking for. Is it creative? Is it athletic? the moment you're going to open the door and say this is the way I do my form; you better bring it. You better show me something, right? Otherwise, you stay with your traditional stuff
Andrew Adams: But you wouldn't know that ahead of time, correct?
Jeremy Lesniak: No, you know the moment they start
Andrew Adams: No, but what I'm saying is, if you're a judge and you've got 15 competitors and you might not even know that you have 15 you’re just sitting up there and waiting for whomever is coming up next and it's a traditional and then next is traditional and you're judging them each time and then an extreme martial artist comes up and does something you wouldn't have necessarily known or you know, so how would you be able to compare, or let's say it's the opposite let's say it's the first 5 competitors are extreme martial artists and doing lots of flips and jumps and kicks and you're judging them ‘okay on this and I'm judging them on how creative it was and this person’s flip was better or whatever’ and then you have a traditional martial artist come up who's not doing those things, it's difficult at that point unless you know ahead of time that this is what I'm going to be judging my criteria on.
Jeremy Lesniak: If there are 15 people in a mixed division, at least one of them is going to be traditional. So, it being a generally accepted as traditional division, right? the promoter made the call to not open up in extreme division they have to have the same rules. I can't up, I can't judge the traditional student with extreme rules it doesn't work that way, but I can judge the extreme student with traditional rules. And so if they are in a mixed bag, it doesn't matter if the first 14 come up and present in extreme form that they are all in—this is how I do it and that has led to I felt the most fair things because what does an extreme form tend to have that a traditional form may have a harder time with? Energy and intensity. These are things that I look for in traditional form as well. So, it's not easy, this is not easy, this is why so many people that sit in chairs AKA referees, judges and I don't use the word judges but referees, this is why they're so happy when those divisions are separate.
Andrew Adams: Absolutely, I think it makes a lot of sense. In every other group of events and taking a step outside of martial arts, if you want to do motocross dirt bike racing, you can do that they have competitions, and you can go around the country and do the circuit of doing that sort of stuff but if you're going to be doing extreme motocross stuff, they have a totally separate events for you and I think that makes a lot of sense.
Jeremy Lesniak: It does. It absolutely does. Now, how about the line? Where do we draw the line between something that's extreme and something that's traditional? We talked about the intent you know, designed for showmanship versus not but it's not always that easy to define and it's going to be different, different schools.
Andrew Adams: Absolutely, and you know I consider myself a traditional karate kata, but my school does Roundhouse kicks and if you're going to get super traditional Gishu Funakoshi wrote in his first book he listed out the kicks that are required for karate and Roundhouse kicks not there it didn't show up until the 2nd book. And so that's not traditional you know, most traditional kicks wouldn't have ever left the ground but yet there are many quote “traditional karate kata” that have jump kicks.
Jeremy Lesniak: And so where does that line go? It's like everything else I've said on this show for as long as it's been around. It's in the eye of the beholder.
Andrew Adams: It's very—that line can move from person to person
Jeremy Lesniak: Yeah, and I think that that's okay. Now, one of the things that I find interesting when the subject of extreme martial arts comes up is the ridicule that some will heap on top of it. And I think that that's for a few reasons, one, I think sometimes it comes from people who are jealous, they wish they could do those movements, and this is me as someone who is very much not in extreme martial artist, but I look at some of those movements and yeah, I would love to be able to do some of those I mean there's some people doing some amazing stuff and really pushing the limits. Then, you've got other people who maybe they think it would be easier to retain teenage students if they had a program for that.
Andrew Adams: I hadn't thought of that but sure.
Jeremy Lesniak: And there are programs out there to help you teach that stuff even if you're not someone who is able to do it and there are plenty of ways to incorporate it into our curriculum you know, I think back to what I experienced as a child and our instructors gave us some freedom on some things, you know we would challenge each other you know. If you think of you know playing a basketball game of horse, you know trying to make shots that other people are making and try to land kicks that other people are landing, and you challenge each other and it's so much fun
Andrew Adams: Absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak: And maybe I'm not able to do a backflip into a kick and land in a split followed by a back roll handstand, but if a friend of mine down the line in class can do that, I'm going to cheer him on.
Andrew Adams: I'd be happy just being able to do a split.
Jeremy Lesniak: Yeah.
Andrew Adams: I think a lot of controversy comes as well from those that don't think it's a martial art which is difficult because how do you define what is a martial art, I mean what is martial? what is art? you know
Jeremy Lesniak: I'm going to be honest; I don't know anyone who is an extreme martial artist that does not have what do we call traditional martial arts fundamentals. Just because you don't see them doing rising block reverse punch, doesn't mean they don't know how to do it. Just because they don't do a standing in place front kick but rather do, you know, a jump double side kick followed by a front kick and then land doesn't mean they don't know how to do those movements independently. If I go to a tournament and I see someone doing their thing, I'm assuming that they are putting forward the material that they know best and enjoy most and have spent the most time practicing. And that doesn't matter whether they're doing extreme or hyper traditional movements
Andrew Adams: I would agree but that is an argument I've heard that it's not a martial art, martial being in quotes.
Jeremy Lesniak: Yeah, well for me, I take it back to everything we do in martial arts is not one to one correlated to practicality. If I spend time doing pushups in my martial arts class to make my students stronger that helps, doesn't it?
Andrew Adams: sure
Jeremy Lesniak: Actually, I put a shirt up on the website last week ‘stronger people were harder to kill’, right? If you have the ability to do a backflip or to do a split or to jump in the air and do three kicks before you land, I would imagine that you have greater flexibility and an increased ability to generate power which to me has a direct correlation on how you're going to fare on the street.
Andrew Adams: And I'd be willing to bet your balance is probably pretty good.
Jeremy Lesniak: Yeah, yeah. We think about all those things that you're trying to train to make yourself a better martial artist some of these, let's call them tools, of jumping high and spinning and flipping will help you with some of those skills so I don’t see anything wrong with it. Just cause it's not for you doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it.
Andrew Adams: Oh, absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak: No, I was watching pretty much unrelated to martial arts I have a Tiktok account and I watch Tiktok for the animal videos because it is the fastest way to watch a whole bunch of dog videos and it's a lot of fun. Now, Tiktok has started to figure out who I am somehow and they're showing me some things that are not animal videos which you know most of the time it's okay and one of them and I just saw this yesterday it was—it looked like a high school basketball game and you saw two probably early 20s guys run halfway down the length of the gym and do a cartwheel followed by a backflip and then you see a man who's probably weighing in at 275 start running down the gymnasium and there's this collective panic among the people watching going ‘Oh my God’ he executes a perfect cartwheel into a backflip. It was beautiful. Now, why do I bring this up in this context? Because there are a lot of times that as we get older or maybe we're carrying a few extra pounds, we look at some of these athletic endeavors and say I can't do that, and I say BS. I learned how to do a backflip at 33? 34? Having never been able to do one and an unassisted front flip at about six months later. In the world of gymnastics which is where most people learn how to do those things, I was unhelp able. There's no way that was going to work.
Andrew Adams: Yeah, you’re way past your prime
Jeremy Lesniak: Right. But I persisted and I figured it out and not to say that 33 is old, but I just I don't like applying those standards I don't like saying ‘well you're this age so you can't do that’ and I think that's a bunch of crap. If you want to figure it out, you can figure it out and that's why I bring up the story of the rotund man doing the backflip.
Andrew Adams: Yeah, that would be me.
Jeremy Lesniak: You're going to do a backflip?
Andrew Adams: No, but that would be the rotund man trying to do backflips.
Jeremy Lesniak: But how much power does that guy have, right? To do a backflip means you've got a tremendous amount of not just strength but power the ability to apply that strength quickly through the legs. I don't want to get kicked by that guy because now he's got power and a lot of weight behind it. It's going to break through my ribs.
Andrew Adams: Sure.
Jeremy Lesniak: So, to me extreme is, it's a retention tool, it's a training tool and for the right people it's a lot of fun. Do you disagree?
Andrew Adams: No, I absolutely agree. I would like to see it split apart more at tournaments I just think it's incredibly and again I'll preface, I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I just have to imagine as a judge, as ref, as someone having to sit and judge these two apples from each other, I almost feel like they are apples and oranges, and it would be great if tournaments could always have them split. Having said that, we don't live in a perfect world and if you are in a rural community and don't have a ton of competitors, you need to be able to allow people to compete, I get that too.
Jeremy Lesniak: Why do we compete? we compete not for the trophy or the medal, we compete to challenge ourselves
Andrew Adams: Better ourselves.
Jeremy Lesniak: And yeah, give ourselves a reason to train a little bit harder. Anything else to add?
Andrew Adams: No, I'm good I think we unpacked that one well.
Jeremy Lesniak: If you have feedback and I'm sure some of you do, most of you aren't going to write to me, but I hope you do Jeremy@whistlekick.com. Thanks for talking about this one with me, Andrew. Good subject.
Andrew Adams: Absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak: If you want to see more of this show, all the episodes we have ever done, this is 551, there are 550 other episodes that you can listen to. If you haven't go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com you're going to find those episodes, as well as links and videos and photos of the guests, you're going to find transcripts and a sign up for the newsletter. If you're up for supporting us in the work that we do you have some options use the code podcast15 to save 15% off at whistlekick.com. You might also consider buying one of our Amazon Books, telling others about the show or supporting us at patreon.com/whistlekick. And if you see someone out in the wild wearing a whistlekick shirt or hat, make sure you say hello. I'd love to hear you guys suggestions and our social media is @whistlekick everywhere. I mentioned the email address earlier Jeremy@whistlekick.com and so I think that's where we're going to call it for today. Until next time. Train hard, smile and Andrew?
Andrew Adams: Have a great day.
Jeremy Lesniak: Have a great day.