Episode 595 - Choosing a Martial Arts School (Part 2)
Choosing a Martial Arts School (Part 2)
In this episode, Jeremy along with Kris Wilder and Jason Brick talk about Choosing a Martial Arts School.
Choosing a Martial Arts School (Part 2) - Episode 595
When choosing a Martial Arts school, there are important factors that should be considered. In this episode, Jeremy along with Kris Wilder and Jason Brick talk about these factors that may affect you in Choosing a martial arts school for yourself or your children. This episode is the second of 2 parts and you can find the first part here.
Show Notes
In Episode 105, Jeremy covered the same subject
Know more about Sensei Kris Wilder visit his website: https://kriswilder.com/martial-arts-and-life-podcast/
Choosing a Martial Arts School (Part 2)
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey! What's going on everybody? Welcome! This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio episode 595 and today we've got something special for you. This is actually part 2 of a longer conversation, a longer episode that I did with Jason Brick of Family on the Block and Kris Wilder of Martial Arts and Life. And we did a whole episode on choosing a martial arts school and as you might imagine, 3 podcasters getting together. We have some great conversation. Bring in a lot of interesting concepts back on each other, little bit of disagreement on some things. It was an awesome time. Had a lot of fun. You can find part one of this on Jason's channel. Best place to go for that is YouTube, Family on the Block. On YouTube, you'll find it. And of course, if you're here, there's a good chance that you know what we do. Some of you skip the usual intro and outro stuff. We just encourage you to check out what both of these gentlemen are doing. They're doing awesome stuff. Jason's been on our show. Kris is coming on our show. Had a lot of fun collaborating. So, here we go with part 2 of the conversation on choosing a martial arts school.
Kris Wilder:
Jeremy, I put words into your mouth today. Is it okay?
Jeremy Lesniak:
But you did a really good job, I'm going to see some things. In a slightly different way and connects some other dots. You know points of information we had earlier. If you roll back, we've talked about styles being all but irrelevant and you know, we're kind of in the midst of that conversation now. And why is that? It's because the other things are what makes it important. Especially for children. It's those fences and ditches, boundaries, parameters whatever you want to call them. MMA. The majority of people who seem to get into MMA and want to launch an MMA school. It's the dissolution of those boundaries. Well, I trained in this thing and also this thing and this thing and this thing and I inherently don't like the fact that those are separate. I want to mash them together. I want to create this very fluid open system. That's fun. But you have to have some life experience in context to understand we're the inherent boundaries as a human being why. And by definition as a child, they don't have that. We're raising them. What is the goal of the parent? It's to raise an adult. Not to raise a child. You don't want them to remain a child for their entire lives. So, we have to give them that structure somewhere now. Are there any programs out there that provide those boundaries those structures and systems to foster that developed without a doubt? In my experience, many, I don't know if I want to say most my gut tells me most but I'm not willing to go to the mat on it, is that most of many of those programs are either adjacent to or operated by traditional martial arts programs. You know, I think of the people that I know who have competed in MMA. And many of them have backgrounds in traditional martial arts, just like you are. Right? And when I go in to support them and I've been to amateur fights, I can tell who trains at MMA school quite often and who trains at a karate or taekwondo. Where at least started in those sorts of environments you can see it. Now, we've been trained in a while. We might have an easier time picking it out and there are always exceptions. I'm not saying these are hard and fast rules but if I had to randomly rolled the dice between a karate school or let's just one traditional martial art together and put my kid in a random TMA school versus a random MMA school, I'm going to TMA 100 times out of 100.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, it boils that a lot of those cultural aspects. We're talking about is not the style that matters, is that the culture of the schools is different or is more competition oriented. it's a little more thuggish. It’s a... They celebrate the violence a little more and it's not necessarily a bad place but it's not as what. To point what Kris is making, there's certain... When our children change from children to young adults, late teens young adults they’re sometimes that that person can really benefit from in a program for a while. Sometimes they need it and we're all the certain age where we have a least one friend of the head and join the army, they'd be in jail.
Jeremy Lesniak:
For sure.
Jason Brick:
I think this some of my kids and my older son is turning 21. So, I got a couple friends in MMA and they didn't have that specific outlets. I think they would be in jail but especially we're talking about our, in its. Yes, yeah. The risks are like Chris talking about the culture. Like you're talking about Jeremy. Yes, less appropriate. So, that's not necessarily a red flag but something to consider putting the decision matrix. Yeah, but what are some straight up red flags things where you hear this you see this yes both eyebrows up with interest in alarm or yeah, I think yeah, we're headed now. Almost immediately.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yelling at kids and I don't mean the discipline yell. I mean the angry yell. I don't have control over this class anymore and I don't know what else to do.
Kris Wilder:
Yeah, that's huge but I would not if that happened. We're leaving now, it's not like we'll finish this class and we'll talk about it. Now, we're done. We're going home and we're going somewhere else. I want to sort of dove tail on to that. This I think is a little more subtle but before you head out of the park, that was a home run. Yeah, when you see that loss of control and that anger, that's a wild thing. I’ll tell you a quick story. One night, I held up the class, was out of control and I couldn't bring control and so, you know, I tried... I want to call my “stadium voice”, which is stern and loud and authoritative and it wasn't working. And so, I went over to turn the lights off on the room and you know, it didn't stop and I've never experienced this before and I finally said, okay, we're done for the night. You guys are going home. You're done. Get out of my dojo. You just disrespected the dojo. You're going home and I made him stand outside in front of the window while the parents started picking them up and I'm thinking to myself, I'm done. I'm not going to have a student in the A. L... Well, there were 2 kids that I left in the dojo when one of them was had a Japanese father. I said then I looked at him and I said
“I think I don't have any students left”. And he said, “I don't think they understand the idea of dojo. It's like “okay, great”. Well, the next class, everybody was there and I had multiple parents come in and say “this is precisely why I'm bringing my child here”. It was like okay well now, that could have gone really fast, Jeremy to what you were talking about is losing that, you know, complete yelling and so forth. So, yeah. Red flag. We're done, we're going home. The thing that might be a line underneath that is that I watch to see if the instructor is focusing on negative or positive. It is literally how they use their words instead of saying don't put your fists there, put it here. They might say something more along the lines of your first goes here. That's neutral. It's not negative and so, when I start looking for that and I called the one-inch Sensei. That's that one-inch Sensei that comes walking by and reaches out and grabs your fist and moves it that far and declares that good. It's like get away from me. You know that's the one-inch Sensei. If that doesn't sound derogatory enough, please understand that it is completely a derogatory statement, pejorative, is meant to be condescending. And that's that one-inch Sensei, that one inch here, one inch here. Let's focus on the negative speaking in the negative don'ts, cant’s, won't, shouldn't instead of being positive and there are times to be able to say “hey, don't do that. It's not safe. That's fine. That's perfectly fine but if your ratio is not like 15 to one, you're doing it wrong. I don't mean to make it sound like it's all unicorns and balloons and candy canes because it's not there. There are rules or expectations and those will be met but negative is so bad. It's so horrible and what it does? It places that instructor in that ultimately that uber superior position. I don't know man, maybe you're having I don't know what your life is like but if you're coming here to run a school to bolster your ego and you’re using that negative reinforcement, you’re the one-inch Sensei. I'm not getting anywhere near you.
Jeremey Lesniak:
No, I don't have the academic background to say with full confidence what I'm about to say but my gut tells me it's right. So, I'm curious what you guys think if the majority of the boundaries, fences, ditches, parameters that we put in front of children when they are very young are all negative? They will inherently seek out those negative checks on what they can and can't do as they progressed relaxed. They will look for people to kick them back in a negative way because that's what they've been brought up to believe.
Kris Wilder:
Well, I would say that. Yep, so no. At a certain point before they're really even old enough to be in the dojo, it is negative. Don't do that, that hurts, that stings, that burns but then it starts to become more subtle. It's like you're going to a better benefit if you do your homework before you play your video game. Here's why and they start to get contextual and so forth. So, you know, I'm going to say that I think Piaget would agree with you that you know that's what will happen and it's not a good thing and I would argue that each one of us could probably look back in our lives and without malice, look out a negative gift that was given to us by our parents that was well intended. But has kind of been a little bit of a sticky wicket for us as adults and we've had the kind of go and “not so much anymore. I understand what you were saying, I get it and you were common with good intent but that doesn't serve me anymore”. Well, it would be nice to not shackle children with that and I'm not talking about participation trophies. I know you're not either but...
Jason Brick:
We sent our kids up for karate to find out who they can become.
Kris Wilder:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jason Brick:
Can't speak what can they become.
Jeremey Lesniak:
That's such a good expressing it.
Kris Wilder:
Yeah. Done, done. Next question.
Jason Brick:
That actually brings to mind and the absence of this is not a deal breaker but it's one of those is [00:12:12-00:12:15] mind trick where you can hear is fooling around. And they're not fully disciplined. You don't jump on him but you compliment the kid right next to him who is doing it right. And it's amazing how much quicker the one whose force around a bit gets in place as compared if you jumped on it. Oh, sure. There are little mind tricks. Teacher who's on the deck to serve the kids as opposed to stroke their own ego will employ as oppose them very disciplinarian drill sergeant vibe. That’s about their ego or even about being annoyed they got saddled with the kid's class.
Jeremey Lesniak:
Yep, kids want attention and they're generally going to choose positive attention over negative attention given an opportunity to earn positive attention and I'll take it.
Kris Wilder:
Yeah, I give them an opportunity to earn positive attention that over-arching statement. Right. Addresses all of the tools in the teaching tool box. It addresses every one of them. It sharpens every one of them. You're no longer swinging a doll hammer. You've got the right tool for the right thing. That's a great over-arching statement that just covers it all. Right. There, done. Okay, I guess we're going for coffee now.
Jeremey Lesniak:
Sounds good.
Jason Brick:
So, another place I think we find some red flags is some business practices. There was in the nineties specially moving into 2000s there was a kind of shift in how the consultants admires martial arts schools to run their businesses. And that led to some, “predatory”, might be a strong term for the practices but I'm going to go ahead and use it for example. Get a 6-year-old and a yearlong contract. Again, not a deal breaker but definitely a check in the negative call. Another example that I found is there are schools will try to sell you a heavy-duty gear for your 8-year-old even though the light duty gear is super cheap. Will last for as long as it will fit that child.
Jeremey Lesniak:
They are growing more than wearing it out.
Jason Brick:
Exactly. What are some other little things like that to pay attention to especially as a starter roll their sales pitch that don't tell you that? Maybe their hearts' not in the right place.
Jeremey Lesniak:
Well, I want to poke at what you said about the contract because we run the risk of not bringing some clarity to that. There's nothing wrong with contracts. Where I think we're going to agree it's wrong is when on day one that 6-year-old is expected to commit for a year, that's a problem. If it's an 8-year-old and they've been coming every class for 3 years and they love it and the parents are going to save 10/20/50 Bucks a month by committing for a year, that's an awesome opportunity.
Jason Brick:
No, I agree.
Jeremey Lesniak:
Again, it's a possibility. [00:15:20-00:15:22] Yeah.
Jason Brick:
That early pressure to sign on any that’s I think a red flag. You know what? I'll say this. I sat down and decided how I was going to have my tone for my school. I mean it might like... I opened up my first school in 1982. Right. And I didn't come to this conclusion at the beginning. I mean it was just the love of the art. Everybody once they get a whiff of this, they’ll stop standing there with their arms folded, sniffing and they'll get on the floor and will be joy. It'll be wonderful and I am not so much about realistic but that's weird. But what I came to was that I wanted to be the corner Delhi. If you want that smoked black forest ham for your Christmas dinner, you come see me 6 months in advance. I'll take care of you. I'll get you that black smoked ham. I do it every year. You're on the list, don't worry. I got you covered. I know you like the 10 pounds, it's done. Or you can wait until Christmas Eve and go down to South Safeway or Ralphs and you know buy the ham off the shelf there. So, it's not really boutique but it's just a different approach. So, with that kind of approach, you become almost kind of unreasonable in how you serve the people of your community. Now, notice I didn't say that serve the people of my community. I want that vibe and so, yeah and I use that corner Delhi thing all the time in my mind to say “hey, you know somebody's here with their kids. Let's give them a little slice of this smoked Turkey because they're a kid. You're right about the heavy-duty gear. And it's like, “hey, you know you don't need that. You don't need to... Do we do tournaments? Well, we actually don't really do it. We have a couple tournaments that we go to that are small tournaments that we like to support but we don't do that because as you know, you're going to pay 280 Bucks for the pads and 75 Bucks for the day and you're going to sit the gymnasium for most of the day. And watch your kid flying out in the first round. I think that what you have to be is to be relentlessly. I'm reasonably helpful. And you know sometimes people are like “oh, wow. My kids are really excited. They want to do this cycle of here. Take the gear and they go well. We didn't bring any way to pay. We were just visiting like take the gear, it's okay. I haven't gotten paid for some of those but I'm okay with it because the excitements there and the kid wants to do. And it's like okay, if you're comfortable with that, I'm comfortable with that all. I'll see you Tuesday, bring a check whatever that is. That's that corner Delhi sort of attitude. There is an appropriate message for all of those roles. There is more like Jeremy said, there's an appropriate place for a contract because that's the way the world works. If you don't want to run a business then you should go teach at the YMCA or the family center. And there's not a thing wrong with that. Please go right ahead but I have commitments. I have insurance payments. I have rentals. I have power. I have a triple net lease. I help these kinds of things and all the effort that I put into it if some day, I should decide to transfer the business or sell or move away. If I don't have any of those things, I have nothing. So, there is another side of version of that but it doesn't stop you from being unreasonably and relentlessly helpful. You can balance those things quite easily. I just have to have the right focus and attitude to do it. And they're in depth the second lesson.
Jeremey Lesniak:
I think it's all going to wind up, right? If we wanted to apply some standard. Some rubric to different schools were going to see that the ones that tend to lead with negative energy are often going to be the ones with predatory contracts and financially motivated. And I don't financially motivated. [00:20:13-00:20:15] helping people versus why are we here? We are here to help people. We deliver the best possible product. We're going to get paid. There's going to be a line out the door. People are going to want to be here. Will foster a great community and people are going to be out there who respond better to negative motivation and that's okay but overall, I think people do better when they're in a positive environment as we've been discussing. I think I cut you off, Jason.
Jason Brick:
Yes.
Jeremey Lesniak:
My apologies.
Jason Brick:
No, that’s okay. Basically, what I had in mind is that you're walking in and you can again. It’s that “hey, man. Feel out the vibe” but you can tell we're sitting down to talk about contracts. About... Are they doing that contract because they’re a little bit afraid to get up quite early and then they're not going to make the rent or whatever or are they sitting down to talk to you and figure out what you and your child need most? And in this case, this contract is going to save you a couple a thousand dollars. And hope to help you get into the car at 7:00 in the evening because you said how busy you are, how stressed you are and they think honestly this is the best deal for your family. And if it wasn't, they wouldn't put it on the table. You can tell that you can feel that.
Jeremey Lesniak:
If you can swap out the words martial arts training for car and the conversation makes sense, you're probably not in a good school.
You just keep coming up with these things which are put on T shirts.
Jeremey Lesniak:
I used to joke about that I needed a T shirt printer at hand at all times.
Jason Brick:
So, Car salespeople. Here's another one that I consider a big red flag and that's a promise of a black belt. Promise in the black belt timeline. Pressure for a black belt. All those things just really part of my Spidey sense.
Jeremey Lesniak:
Yellow flags for me. Those aren’t red because in order for me to get really bent out of shape about those and I have to feel that there is a standard for what a black belt means. And there isn't any more there used to be. There used to be but just culturally now, black belt doesn't always mean the same thing in different places. I could imagine that there are schools out there. Fewer of them but I could imagine there are schools out there where, actually, I do know some, we're you are a black belt really easily but you learn good stuff. All the other things wind up and that's why it’s the yellow flag for me because if the other stuff is done right and you've got you know a fifth-degree black belt, I think it's weird. But if that program is made that kid a better kid, I'll take it.
John Brick:
[00:00:23:20-00:23:23] you Chris? What do you think?
Kris Wilder:
Well, I'll put it this way because I think that Jeremy really hit on something that's great. If you are a student or parent of a student and your focused on is just the black belt, I don't hold you in any kind of odd light because that's the system that we have. You go to kindergarten, go to first grade, you go to 30 you got you you're done at 12 and when we when you finish high school. You don't go back. You've graduated. You don't go back. So, you know we all know the stories of... I mean I've had them. I've had black belts that I never saw after the test. They were there for 6 or 7 years. The day that black belt test occurred was the last day. And I remember, standing... We had this examination and you know the parents had brought in a cake. It was really nice and I mean good people and everything. One of the guys that I've been training with since the early eighties, he just leaned over and goes “we're not going to see him after this” and it's like “no, nope”. Did he get what he needed? Yeah, he got what he needed. So, when people are saying gosh, I want to get that black belt, I want to do... Well, what? Why wouldn't they? This is the environment we have. Of course, they say this. So, I don't hold that in any kind of bad light. If it metastasizes then that's a different thing. But I have a tendency to sort of think about experience more than I really do timelines. And anybody that knows me and knows that I have Gantt charts on the walls of my office would say you're a liar. But I have ability to balance and I don't take it quarterly of some parents says “hey, it's been a while since little Devin got a chance to test inside”. Yeah, you're right. I'll take a look at that. I'll take a look at that. We'll talk on Tuesday. We’ll, take a look and see where they are and then we'll figure out what we need to do. That's a reasonable set assessment other than to say “absolutely, you're right. Let's do that test tomorrow”. Yeah, but we have a different environment. I mean just to get a little weird about history here for a moment. For most of human existence, time, as we know, it didn't exist. It was the season's times. Time was held in the village. You look at the sky. You can walk from one village to the other and you could be in a different time zone because the village had a different case about it. And for whatever reason and so. But here, we structured in. We've added it. We put it together and everything. And so, that is the environment. We have certifications and level 5s and engineer 2s and this and that and the other thing. And I got a plaque on my wall and I got the... Yeah, of course. If you rail against that, you might as well go out and try and beat up the ocean because you can't. So, going with the flow with that and try and make it work. Balance it.
Jeremey Lesniak:
Yeah, I'm with you.
John Brick:
Again, it seems to be coming back to that. Some instructors will be using that in a bad way. So, we'll be using in a good way and that way to open up get a little hippie and feel the vibe. Now, there is a... And I'm not going to name the organization because they have much better lawyers than me. And also, there are some excellent dojos within that organization but you guys know exactly what I'm talking about. That the entire system, nationwide, worldwide organization is basically an MLM. Where they try to sell you a black belt. And they try to sell you a school. Right.
Jeremey Lesniak:
Jason, what you're talking about.
John Brick:
Okay. You know, that organization has excellent schools within where the culture’s right. All of the teachers teaching for the right reasons but there is that business pressure on top of that. In some cases, it ends up with the school where the person in charge of the training for 2 maybe 3 years. And so that's a warning that exists out there. Sometimes you can end up in a bad situation because they on the larger organizations' schools.
Jeremey Lesniak:
Sure, this is where I think it's important that rapidity with which is going to enroll a child. In any program, I think it should be a little bit on the slow side. Before I went when I moved to Vermont, when I check out of school, when I checked out the couple schools that I ultimately joined. I research them online where I could. One of them still doesn't have a website. I went and watched an entire class start to finish. And then I participated. And then I was willing to commit. Because there are things that you're going to observe better watching their things. You're going to observe better doing things. You're going to observe better. Third party research. And I've pulled the plug, right. There was one school and I'm not going to put containment but anybody local to me probably knows I was there for 3 months. It wasn't a fit now. That was the first time I started training that might be a bummer because I might think “oh, this is how it's always done”. And so, when you talk about an organization, a system some kind of environment where maybe you end up somewhere it wasn't a great fit. Doesn't mean that the next place isn't a good fit. And I think we've all seen that. I tried martial arts. I tried karate and you know my instructor was just a jerk or this happened or that happened. So, you stopped. Yeah, because why would I do that to myself again? It's like randomly picking up music. I turn on Spotify or whatever. I flipped through the radio depending on how old we want to pretend we are and go pick up a random station. And you know, Glen Campbell isn't for me. So, I'm just never going to listen to music. And Glen Campbell could be Megadeth, could be Eminem, could be Selena Gomez.
John Brick:
It's like deciding you're never going to date again just because you broke your heart.
Kris Wilder:
We've all done that.
John Brick:
Well, that's true. It was temporary. You were usually drinking a little...
Jeremey Lesniak:
At best, only one of our romantic relationships I've ever worked out.
Kris Wilder:
You know it, yeah. All right want to take this. I'm a big believer in the Goldilocks rule. Not too hot, not too cold. Just right because parables in myths are distillations of truth. Universal truths of human experience. And so, we like stories and that's what your web, you know, your podcast is about as you journey, the stories of martial arts. And this is going to sound kind of odd but it is about the movie dodgeball. Globo gym, an average Joes. Neither one of those are satisfactory resolutions to the goal of health and fitness. Neither one of them. And there have to be extremes to make a good movie. But the point is that everything that we're talking about is always coming back to balance. Not too hot, not too cold. Be just right. Have some of that flavor of average Joes. Where the owner is actually walking through the facility and slap people's backs and asking about their children. But then, have other aspects like the global gym which is how really nice equipment be clean. So, everything that we've talked about I think really comes back to that Goldilocks rule. Whether it is your contracting or not contracting or how those instructors behaving. How the children are experiencing it or the adults. So, the height depth and width of this entire conversation has been about the Goldilocks rule and can be capsulized in that one classic movie, the Gone with the Wind of our times, Dodgeball.
Jeremey Lesniak:
You just compared Gone with The Wind to Dodge ball.
Kris Wilder:
No.
Jeremey Lesniak:
Okay. So, if in Gone with the Wind, who is Ben Stiller. Who’s Ben Stiller and who’s Vince Vaughn in that classic. Jason, you might want to move on before you find a point on that you lose.
Kris Wilder:
I could do a good solid 20 minutes on it okay.
Jeremey Lesniak:
Maybe we should do an addendum. I would listen to that.
John Brick:
Well, that'll brings up. One piece of advice not given most often which is most schools these days we'll have some kind of intro program. If they don't, that's another yellow to red flag word. Yeah, you get a month of classes if you buy the gear or you get a free gift, you buy a month of classes or just show up for a couple weeks of talking about money in a bit. Whatever happens to be. And the best advice is to do that with 3 or 4 schools within 20 minutes of you if you live in an area. That's got 3 or 4 schools, within 20 minutes and then make a decision. Not found a lot of parents have a little trouble because that's a lot of complexity in the life of the average parent. But for me, I cannot overemphasize how valuable that is.
Jeremey Lesniak:
There's nothing wrong with taking the kids to intro lesson at 3 or 12 different schools. And then having a conversation with depending on the age of the kid after. What do you think? That some place you like to go was fun. The last place we want to.
Kris Wilder:
You know one of the things that I think is a great way for parents to do this is, it rarely does it just spring out of a child's mind “I want to take karate”. I mean it happens but it's rare. Usually, they've got some experience. They watched Cobra Kai, their friend down the road, you know, whatever it is. They've got to. And so, the first thing and I think it's really important to do is to just simply stay to the parent. You're taken someone in so to hear why now because kids are pack animals and you know, if they're able to walk on the floor and go “hey, I know Roger you know, he's in my... These are my class”. There's a rapport there. So, we're going to have a good experience more than likely. So, the web is a nice place to start. People say start there but I guess, I'm going to go kind of old school and manually turn the channel on the television, click, click, click. And talk to somebody whose child is already doing that. And they're going to... if they say something like yeah, I think we're going to drop it. Let's talk some more.
It's been fantastic. We've really had a great experience. Great. Let's talk some more. Yeah, yeah.
John Brick:
[00:00:35:21-00:36:23] this is a trick from any kind of background check and they can reference checking. If you can find it by talking to that person, find a family that has quit. And have a quick conversation with them. You know wasn't just a matter of money, wasn't matter of that. Johnny decided he was more interested in being a BMX racing or was there an incident or situation and then again just like most of the other fights we talked about, is it the kind of thing that bothered them? But would be fine for you or was it just serious issue.
Jeremey Lesniak:
Yeah.
John Brick:
What about the subject we can talk to the subject for the rest of the day?
Jeremey Lesniak:
We probably...
John Brick:
I think we've talked at it largely to death but I want to leave with. So, here’s a situation. You're in airports, you’re doing your layover and you have bumped into a friend of yours in college. He's got 3 kids and sa I really want to put them in karate. What should I do and you got 2 minutes to tell them? The best advice you can before they run off their flights never see you again. What do you tell them, Kris? Two minutes.
Kris Wilder:
I can do it less than 2 minutes.
John Brick:
Excellent.
Kris Wilder:
“Hey, good to see you.” “Hey, look at...” “Wow, fantastic”. “Great, here”. “You wanted to...” “Okay, yeah. Sure. Here's my card or give me a call and let's talk. Let's talk about your location, where you are because it sounds like you're in the south, south. Okay. yeah, you know, I know a few people. Give me a call, I can help you”. Yeah, that's it.
Jeremey Lesniak:
My response by flip response was going to be similarly as a joke and we recorded an episode years ago that was basically the answer to that and I would say check out episode, whatever. it was... I don't remember the number. But I think if I had to provide something on the spot, you know, if I don't get the chance to talk to them again, I would say forget that it's martial arts. Treat it like you are enrolling them in anything else. If you're going to enroll them in T. ball or soccer or summer academic program or college, anything, you're going to do diligence even though you may not be going to school with them to study computer, science or psychology or whatever. You still know how to evaluate an institute of higher learning. You still know. Well, you know, that kid’s dad is running the soccer program and he's a jerk and I don't like the way that the kid conducts themselves. When I've seen him out at the grocery store, probably not going to put them in that program. I think all too often because martial art is something that is unknown for a lot of the parents, they think that it's a different decision-making process and it's really not.
John Brick:
That's good. All right. Well, thank you all for coming on today and thank you everybody for watching. And we'll see everybody next time. Be safe and have fun.
Kris Wilder:
Thank you, Jason. See you, Jeremy.
John Brick:
All right. That went well.
Jeremey Lesniak:
I agree it was fun. Good times.
John Brick:
So, I got to hear this song Gone with the Wind before we go.
Kris Wilder:
The what? Are you talking to me?
John Brick:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I look it up. The internal problem going to be [00:49:58-00:40:07].
Kris Wilder:
The point is it's not about who played whom or how they played the roles or so forth. It is about its place in the social zeitgeist. That's how that works. And that's all...
John Brick:
Who even got like a cringe-worthy factor to it? A few years down the line. Where you the inherent racism along with the wind and it's a classical relic. And then Dodgeballs got Armstrong and has somebody to look up to. Which makes....
Jeremey Lesniak:
There's a lot in there.
Kris Wilder:
Yeah. You know the thing, I think, you know, Jeremy said something that's really cool and it is essentially wipe away all of the you know martial arts, mysticism, deepness, special nervous, yadda, yadda, yadda and treat it like you do anything else. Am I going to sign up for this true value gift card? My god, am I going to sign up for this community college course? It's all about you proposition. And you know the martial arts people, there is... Look, we're involved in this because we get, we see the value of it but I can't tell you about the value of it. You have to feel it yourself. And that's just what it is. Some aspects of it are ineffable and you can't communicate it. So, yeah but I really like the point of just strip away the lack of a better phrase, the mysticism, etherealness.
Jeremey Lesniak:
It was hard. It was hard to wrap up that part of it. You know, when your clear findings mysticism and theory. Honestly, I just I think most people if they have not trained, they think that martial arts are entirety is something. That is so different than what it really is.
John Brick:
And they let go of a level of skepticism we have for almost everything else. In some ways.
Kris Wilder:
Good point, good point. Yeah, all right. I want to tell you a quick Rory Miller story because again it really... We're doing a seminar there was this aikido guy and he was doing this thing. I looked across the mat, I looked at Rory and I could tell Rory was calling bullshit on this. He’s not... You know, it's like okay and so and I was too but I wasn't reaching a boiling point. And so, the guys like well, you got to have this distance and all this kind of stuff and Rory goes “well, what are you talking about here?” He said, “you know this distance. You're always like a union”. The guy says “well, would never”. Rory stands over next to him goes “okay. So, you're telling me you would never let... Okay, step forward. You never let that guy get this close to you” and he goes “I would never let anybody get that close to me and in front of god and country and the entire seminar”. And we've got like 3:00 hours left in the day. He blows the sky out of the water. It puts his arm around his shoulder and he goes “you just did”.
Jeremey Lesniak:
“Yeah. Yeah, but yeah... “. It’s the only response that he could have. “Yeah, but... What does... Not you... Did... I'm here and I didn't want to be disrespectful but if we were you know if we were everywhere on the street or...”. I love it.
The street.
John Brick:
I just got the highest sign. My brother needs the studio. All right. We'll see you guys later.
Jeremey Lesniak:
I had a lot of fun. Thanks guys again.
Kris Wilder:
Take care.