Episode 598 - Sensei Seth Adams
Sensei Seth Adams is a Martial Arts content creator, practitioner, and instructor who teaches in North Carolina.
There’s so many people who I took Karate with as a kid that reached out to me now that said, “Man, I wish I would’ve stuck with it, I wish I would’ve just kept doing it”. Once you reached that age, you are kind of heavily influenced by your peers and their thoughts, and then once you become an adult, you realized that none of it matters… And you just wish you just kept doing Karate.
Sensei Seth Adams - Episode 598
Having good memories of your training in martial arts makes it so easy to come back to it. Sensei Seth Adams got out of training when he played college football, and returning to training came naturally. In this episode, Sensei Seth Adams tells us his journey how he started training with a memory of watching martial arts movies as a child, getting out of it to pursue his own thing, and then coming back again. This is a fun-filled, pun-filled, joke-filled episode so make sure to listen!
Show Notes
You may find out more about Sensei Seth Adams on Instagram and Youtube
Sensei Seth Adams has a website that you can visit here where he provides online courses for martial arts
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey there, you're tuned in to whistle kick martial arts radio episode 598. My guest today is Sensei Seth Adams. I am Jeremy Lesniak, I'm your host here for martial arts radio founder whistle kick, and I love martial arts, and that's why everything we do at whistle kick is in support of their traditional martial arts. If you're interested in what we're doing to that end, hop over to whistlekick.com that's our online home. It's also the easiest way to find the stuff that we sell because yeah, we got to pay bills to make this thing happen, and you can save yourself a little bit of money, help us know that the work that we're doing, leads to a sale here and there, once in a while, maybe a little more frequently than that podcasts 15 to 15% off. Now the show, it has its own website, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com longtime listeners know if you go to that website, you're gonna find a lot of really cool stuff and if you're not checking that out. You're not getting the full experience and show you're not getting everything that you could out of what the guests are sharing with us.
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Speaking of a good deal, I had a good deal of fun, there's a transition for you and Sensei Seth. If you know this guy, if you know the content that he puts out you know that he's charming, he's positive, he's fun and he's built quite a reputation by doing those things and being a solid martial artist all at the same time. Well, I was absolutely honored that he said yes when we invited him to come on the show.
And here he is, it’s a wonderful conversation, I had a blast. We get into some cool stuff, some crazy stuff, and some stuff you'd expect and stuff that you wouldn't. So, let's do it. Sensei Seth, welcome to whistle kick martial arts radio.
Sensei Seth:
What is up, how you doing?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm doing great. How about yourself?
Sensei Seth:
Oh I'm fantastic.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Fantastic? You're not leaving much room for it to get better. I can only bring you down from here,
Sensei Seth:
I don't know how I feel, well, you know, I've done a crick in my neck
Jeremy Lesniak:
We're getting better, you're leaving some space, I appreciate that. Did you have anybody grown up that first thing in the morning remember back when you're, maybe you didn't take a school bus I took a school bus. I had this one friend, and it was, we were far enough from the high school that it was dark part of the year when we were picked up, and he would get on the bus, and he was just beaming and of course you know, teenagers rolling, And he was just so excited for life and everybody just know we need to build through the day we can't start here with you because there's only down
Sensei Seth:
03:24 Yeah, right, where else do you go from there. No, I also lived about 30 minutes away from the school. But, but my mom drove me late a bunch of siblings so it was, we pretty much had a rhombus but I just slept, that was me, and I pretty much got ready to fall asleep again. And then I would really get ready once I got to school.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I get it. Yeah, we were depending on the bus route which changed from time to time at least 45 minutes sometimes an hour. Romaine, how it goes? Now we're not here to talk about, well, some aspects of childhood but a little more focused than what happened on buses or school transportation or sleep habits. 04:11
Sensei Seth:
I was kind of hoping this was going to be a fully bus podcast. It will be now but it's fine now.
Jeremy Lesniak:
04:16 it won't be 04:17 how much content could you feel talking about school buses? I think I might tap out in about 10 minutes.
Sensei Seth:
I think anything less than an hour be a bus.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So right now with that single statement, everyone either got really excited, or just before they turned it off?
Sensei Seth:
Rolled their eyes back into their ears.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I love it. I love when we get somebody on who's got personality and is a lot is willing to just let it fly they're practiced with it and, you know, of course, there are people listening who know who you are because of things that you do when you know. 05:00
Sensei Seth:
That surprises 05:00
Jeremy Lesniak:
Kind of your style isn't?
Sensei Seth:
Yeah I would say it's much more my style, you know, dad jokes, pawns, you know, martial arts, that is designed to be mostly just learning.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's your best martial arts pond that you're willing to to open up with here?
Sensei Seth:
My best martial arts 05:19 joke. You know, I don't even necessarily have specific jokes designed for martial arts, like I don't like obviously like there's the pork chop when everybody knows pork chop one.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don't know the pork chop one.
Sensei Seth:
I almost don't even want to say it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, now you have to I don't know this one.
Sensei Seth:
Okay. Oh really.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Sensei Seth:
What's the pig's best karate technique for a pork chop?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Pork chop?
Sensei Seth:
Yeah of course. I find that's my best one, I'll just leave it like that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's solid. You know, what I like about dad jokes that sort of humor, it's approachable, and almost universally received. Very few people think they are the height of comedy, what everyone kind of will smuggle. Alright, you get a little bit of a chuckle and so we can all share in that there's some humor there. And, you know, some 06:14
Sensei Seth:
The best part about them is, even when they're bad, they're still good because of how bad they were.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Exactly, if you've got that collaboration, they're kind of like a really bad martial arts movie.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, well, very similar.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because their and despite their poor quality badness.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah. 06:40 yeah, right, it's so bad it's good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Exactly. Well, let's go back. Let's roll back; we're hitting rewind on the VCR that is your life. And if we press and play, we're going to see the first connection that you have to martial arts, whether that's your first class or maybe you watched movies or a friend or whatever it is. So I press play, what do we see of you as your first connection with the arts?
Sensei Seth:
So my parents both taught me from a super young age, you know, mom and dad opened a dojo before I was even born. And then if you press play, you would probably find me like running around naked somewhere in the dojo, while my parents were trying to like scoop me up and put me back in the back office. Yes, so for me it's been pretty much lifelong in the dojo at some point. My dad taught me throughout, pretty much until I was around 18, I played sports in between so like there was years off and there was, you know, time off and stuff like that for the most part, I mean, it has been Karate ingrained into my system since probably I was, I mean, could walk really.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's your earliest memory of Karate?
Sensei Seth:
My earliest memory of karate would probably have to be, we would have these like flip overs in the dojo. My dad would make pancakes in the morning but mostly the most important part was we would watch three ninjas and warriors of virtue. As soon as they got dark, I think that was the first thing that I can remember was watching those stellar martial arts movies.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What was your first favorite martial arts?
Sensei Seth:
It's got to be Three Ninjas and specifically Three Ninjas High Noon Omega Mountain, which is the worst one.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Why that one?
Sensei Seth:
I don't know. I really don't know. It's probably because of the entire super over the top Chios, maybe. But I don't know why, that one always just was just one of my favorites, I think it was just so colorful, and it was like at an amusement park. And it had Hulk Hogan, so that's a plus, a huge plus. Yeah, I mean literally a big person plus.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Is there any industry that is more self-selective or or internally argumentative about quality that turns out, lower quality cultural representations we argue amongst ourselves about the tiniest little nuance and yet we put out things like three ninjas.
Sensei Seth:
Like three ninjas, yep, right, I would say probably art to be honest, like I'm not super huge into art but every time I look at art, and I hear people talk about it, I'm like, no, that does not look like our, like to the average person, I'm like, that looks like, you take the banana to the wall, because they did 09:44
Jeremy Lesniak:
09:45 200,000
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, something crazy, something absolutely ridiculous. But yeah, no, I'd say anything that's like, well what happens is that when you don't use martial arts it literally just turns into art for most people, and I guess that makes sense, because the less you use it, the more you're just looking at it for performing and for creating it.
So then it becomes like, you know, bias towards different people's opinions, the creators, the people who enjoy it, and the people who don't enjoy it. I guess that makes sense right it doesn't more I talked about it, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm with you. Alright see you grow up, you start running around, and I'm laughing at the naked running around the dojo because I've witnessed this multiple times, and multiple children multiple dojos, so I can appreciate that. And you're kind of brought up along now at some point along the way, you become old enough to form your own opinions of whether or not this is a thing that you're either going to do, or, depending on the parents either not do, or regretfully resentfully do.
And quite often, when we talk about, excuse me, children who grow up being immersed in something from an incredibly young age because it's something that parents are very passionate about. They reject it and then come back later, or have you been in from the beginning?
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, no I definitely had had a moment. So, when I, when I was growing up like I took karate, but I was going to play professional football. So like half my dad's side. You know my dad was the Karate teacher after a certain point, then my mom's side, my uncle, my grandfather played football.
So it was like this constant back and forth of what was I going to do. And then I was a well football here being a college football can maybe pay bills someday, you know karate, it's a little more difficult because kind of the only option at the time for karate was to open a school that was kind of it, you know, like, the odds of becoming like the other options or maybe a movie star, like that's really the only two options like there's either you run a dojo or it's like something crazy like that.
So I was like, ah let's go football so I went there was probably I think I quit once when I was a teenager, for maybe a year. You know, after you take it for like 10 years. You feel like you kind of know everything, especially when your teammates definitely 12:22
Jeremy Lesniak:
12:23 feel like you need those exact words, yeah.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah. So that led to one quitting and my dad was like, okay, you know, that's, I get it. And then I came back, maybe a year later. And then I took it till I was maybe 18 and then once I turned 18 I got my second degree black belt. And I was like okay, I just couldn't so then I moved to undergrad, played football in undergrad, and then, you know obviously couldn't take it anymore I couldn't do anything else other than get knocked in the head by large people.
And then funny enough, I stumbled back into karate when I was in grad school and I was like, What am I going to do for work, you know, like nothing. None of this stuff that I do is fun, that's in school, I was like I wish I could just teach Karate, I was like oh, I guess I could. I guess I have that option, and that's how I kind of got back into it in a different timeframe, so there are two main types that I stopped, and then restarted.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That first time that you stopped, you said you were, I don't think you said your age when you stopped for a year. How old were you?
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, oh man somewhere between, probably like 11 and 13. If I had to guess, but I don't remember exactly.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Which is a common age for people to step out of martial arts anybody who runs a school knows that adolescent phase is, there's a huge exodus, especially among martial arts students who have been training for years what you know, maybe they've earned a black belt or junior black belt or they're knocking on the door, and all of a sudden team sports pop up and they're like, oh, I'm gonna go do this other thing I'm gonna play soccer or whatever, but they don't generally come back, so that's the part I'm curious, you know, a year later yeah choose to come back, why?
Sensei Seth:
Well for me it was a bit easier because I was still in the dojo, because after school programs because of, you know, The fact that that was my dad's job, you know, I was always in there so a little bit easier for me to come back because I could see it, all my friends were in an after school program in the dojo, and then they were taking class I was like oh well I kick your butts.
So, that kind of led me to join back in it's funny you mentioned that because there's so many people who had took Karate with as a kid that reached out to me now. And they're like, man, I wish I was stuck with it. I wish I would have just kept doing it. And, like maybe I even still fitted today. I missed so much, because once people fall off but that young age, and usually they fall off at a young age to be honest because they think it's not cool anymore, because they have other friends who are in group sports who are like, usually have like a quote unquote cooler status than karate does, and what happens is they just never come back into it because you know once you reach that age you kind of are super heavily influenced by your peers and their thoughts. And then once you become an adult and you realize none of it matters, you're like oh I wish I would have kept doing Karate.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, it's an experience that has occurred many times. It's something that I'm surprised at even in Cobra Kai, I'm assuming you've seen Cobra Kai. They hint at that some of these kids are popular in the wider demographics of the school and I'm saying that didn't happen. I did not witness that, now, of course I only grew up once and went to one high school and trained in one, then dojo. But there was, was no situation where advertising the fact that you did martial arts was anything other than pushing you down a few rungs on the social ladder.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, right. Yeah. Now one of the biggest mistakes I made when I was so freshmen, like football orientation 110 of these big burly dudes are in this room and everybody, all the freshmen had to walk up and say one interesting thing about themselves, which is a nightmare. I was like, oh my gosh what am I gonna say what am I gonna say, literally like three days prior I'd got my second degree.
And sure enough I walk up to the front of the room and I say my name is Seth; I recently got my second degree black belt in Karate, and everybody. I could just feel them. Like nobody laughed out loud, but I could, I could feel it. And going back now, I'm like, ha-ha, that's the switch getting out we'll have you work in. You know, I don't know, somewhere, that isn't as cool as what I do. So sucks to be it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I get that, I get it. And now I'm curious because when I, when I talk to people who are teenagers in martial arts or were teenagers, actively training in martial arts, I throw myself in this group. There were quite a few people who would maybe quietly maybe behind their back, maybe to their face, laugh at them, ridicule them, etc. Again, you know, kind of, the bully pushing down sort of thing.
But there seems to be far less initiation of physical violence among in those circumstances, because at the same time, they're ridiculing, but they're also apprehensive about testing the skill, was that yours 17:37?
Sensei Seth:
Yeah. I was always a bigger guy people never really were like super pushy on wanting to get into physical altercations with me in the first place. But people were definitely like, you could like you always get the question you think it could be real. Since you take karate is that what it is. Do you think it could be built? I get that all the time, but very rarely are people like, hey do you want to spar? Very rarely do people want to actually do it, but I'd say it's probably a fair assessment.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, my, I got that question often, do you think you can beat me up the answer was always no, I don't. And that was a no, I can, they didn't. I would just leave it at that because I'm a small guy,
I don't know how many more, five seven on a good day, okay, and that just took the wind out of their sails. No I don't think I can, because that's not what they're expecting. So, yeah, they're expecting that I'm gonna have as much insecure ego come through in my words as they haven't there's no. I really knew that I could do.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, well I know that I enjoyed my time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's great.
Sensei Seth:
They're like oh well I mean I do too. Yeah, no it's weird because there’s not really a lot of other thing. Like, if somebody was a painter, like you would be like, how about paint buttered and you can. Okay, I guess.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What other thing that people aren't experienced less than do they more generally assume that they're good at then, call that.
Sensei Seth:
The only thing that I've seen frequently is like women's sports, but it's like dudes talking about women's sports like sports, specifically baseball and softball. Many times I've seen and heard conversations where people are like, oh you play softball, but I could bet get hit a home run off you think it's like okay, girls pitch. Yeah, we're super close to that, though. Yeah, that's the only other time I see it, you don't really see it too many other times, other than fight like there's this weird human instinct or thing to like make regular non-training humans think they're good at fighting.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Where do you think that is 20:00 is that innate or is that learn culturally?
Sensei Seth:
That was from the other I would imagine it has something to do with like natural like need for dominance. That would be my guess, because it's the one thing that you like don't necessarily have to prove if you talk about it, but unless the other person wants to do that like you could be like well I'm actually really smart. You'd be like, really. Okay, let's test that out. Like that's really easy to test out for the most part, but fighting you'd be like I'm a really good fighter, you don't necessarily want to fight right then and there, like, you know, you might not have my shorts on, Like my shoes might not be ready to kick. It's hard to test that out immediately.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right, and of course, even if you are victorious there still may be severe consequences.
Sensei Seth:
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Some level get that and that's why when we when we think about the typical teenage high school fight, it usually involves a bunch of other people piling on encouraging.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, definitely makes you feel like those things happen from feeling like you have to like secure your place, you know. All right, I've only been in one fight like one human with human fight. And that was in middle school I think I was like one of those very hormonal testosterone teenage boys. You could argue that I didn't start it, but you also could maybe argue that I did. I was playing basketball with my buddies on the bad basketball players’ court, there's like a good basketball players, and there's a bad when I was on the bad one.
And we're playing and I guess I was just having a bad day and then this kid took our ball and just started running around with it, dribbling it and I was like okay we're in the middle of the game. I'm a very competitive person.
So I went over to kick the ball out of his hands, and I might have kicked him in the face. I might have kicked the ball, which hit him in the face. I'm still not super clear on that and I don't think he was either. Anyway, foot made contact with something, and then he got to punch me in the face, I pushed him away, and we both kind of looked at each other, and like sort of a half stance. And then it just diffuses, it's done then.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Any repercussions?
Sensei Seth:
Not for me. I had a super adrenaline dump and because of all those hormones I had like super high, and then a super low because I wasn't trying to get into a fight. You know, I just wanted to get the ball back. And then I had like this weird moment that I felt like for the rest of the day, either him or his buddies were going to come up behind me and just punch me in the back of the head. So I went home, I was like, I missed out immediately, it was like you're going to play. Like, people who go beat me up know that my grandparents came pick me up, my dad was like, Well, did you deserve it and I was like yeah, probably, is okay. And all the football coaches like, oh man, I wish I would have seen you beat that kid, because they all know about the karate background so that account manager, wish I could have seen, I didn't get in any trouble, I don't think he did either.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It sounds like it handled itself.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah it all fizzled out, I mean, it wasn't that big of a deal. It's just like the only time I've ever been outside of like me getting in a scrap with a deer. The only situation I've been on.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What? Now I thought I was gonna ask this question as a joke. You said you're only human on human fine I was gonna say, well what animals if you've gotten into a fight with and you've kind of taken the wind out of that joke. A deer, what? What's going on?
Sensei Seth:
So, a couple months ago, my girlfriend and I were house hunting, and we've kind of found this house in the middle of nowhere. It was a little bit of beat up house, it was fine though, we're looking at it for a fixer upper, but we pull up and this deer, kind of strolls up on us, with a collar on to its very strange. Deer kinda looked like maybe it had been sheltered.
In my opinion, it looked like he got hit by a car pretty slow, and then became like that car owners, new pet to like shelter back to, I don't know. But it's like that deer is known to be in that area, like people around that area love that deer, but it propped up on us. My girlfriend being the want to be Disney princess she is was like, I'm gonna go pet the deer walks over the deer, immediately, no like, it would be the equivalent if you and I met, and before we even said anything, we just started hugging.
She strolls up to it and starts to she reaches out her hand a pet the deer on the head. The deer stands up on its back two legs and goes, and like tried to swing its front two legs at her like standing up, looked like sort of like what the kangaroo equivalent of kicking.
Okay, anyway, it should take a couple steps back and she's like, me and I actually had this video. And then she took a couple steps back and is like deer stands up again. So it goes, boom, couple left right, left right, goes back down, comes back up with a little bit more of a forward angle now has maybe a little bit more malicious intent and shoot the book in it.
She gets behind me at this point I'm like yelling at the deer. It won't back down now looks like get its antlers pointed at me. So deer in front of me, girlfriend behind me, I've got, you know, I've got to do something. So I started to get into a little bit of a bladed stance, trying to keep my distance, you know, head back a little bit further than usual not trying to get gored my front foot it, I have no choice. It comes towards me antlers forwards, and I side kicked in the head, not hard, but enough to like not get stabbed by eight pointy things.
And I did the job, because the deer like little stunned. I guess I've never been kicked before. And then it just kind of like follows around defaults us around for the rest of the day that we're looking at the house, but it didn't try me anymore.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You pass the toast.
Sensei Seth:
That was good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Okay, one of the best stories we've ever heard on this show. No more martial arts has application in on foreseen, even bizarre circumstances.
Sensei Seth:
You never know when you got to keep your distance, you know, just because it wasn't a human doesn't mean, and I'm not all for kicking animals, you know, obviously.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's not something you practice regularly.
Sensei Seth:
It's not something I practice regularly but funny enough, is something I've thought about long. Like, I have this huge fear of big cats, so that one day I'm there because I go walking a lot, so I'm always worried that like a big cats just gonna stroll up on me. I don't know how, I am in North Carolina, so like sometimes I'll go up to the mountain, down there. Yeah, they're round, so that's always in the back of my head like okay what am I gonna do if a big cat strolls up on me. What am I gonna do, am I gonna outrun it, no. So I always find that was a side kick down the throat, that's my only option. It's my only chance. So it kind of played out a little bit I got a little bit of a test, you know I didn't jump right to the big boss. I got to like play with it see if it worked. So far a little bit of success, but I'm still hoping I don't see the 27:51
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. So, given that you've thought about this quite a bit, what would you do differently now that you've kicked a deer in the head? If you had to confront a big cat versus what you would have done perhaps before your altercation with pointed horns.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, I think I would start wearing boots more often. Like boots to go up maybe even to the knee, not like scandalous. But maybe useful boots that goes up to the knee.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Not like an eight inch stiletto heel?
Sensei Seth:
No, you get chills up to the knee boots, no. I don't think those would help me much, but because the 28:30
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's true too.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, I think that would still be my move the sidekick. And the reason for the boot is because in case they like bite or they latch on maybe to that leg, I can...
Jeremy Lesniak:
That make sense.
Sensei Seth:
You know, not immediately get torn to shreds. But yeah, I think that would be the move still, I still feel pretty confident, long, strong technique, pretty quick to just kind of jammed down, you know, kind of just toward whatever is happening.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I hope it never comes to that.
Sensei Seth:
Oh yeah me too, for sure. But you know what, if it does, I hope I get it on video, that's what's important.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, so I'm curious how you're filming this, this altercation with the deer.
Sensei Seth:
Oh the deer, the deer video stopped. So, I started recording because I was like well, if she does pet this deer and everything goes right, and we're really cute I'm gonna look like a good guy if I get it on video, totally. And then as soon as it charged the second time I had to stop recording, so the recording shuts off was maybe right beforehand, you know, trying to like reason with the deer, I guess, was my thought process.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Can you share that video with us.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, of course.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'd love to put that in the show notes.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, I'm sure it will be super fun, I can definitely find it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That'd be great. Okay, so we're covering martial arts and involvement and fighting and everything. And, you know, let's go back so you're in college, and I'm assuming still dreaming of playing football?
Sensei Seth:
In undergrad, yes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, and you would take a break from training at least, more or less. And when did you connect or regardless of time. When did you say you know what football's not gonna happen.
Sensei Seth:
Oh, that's a good question. I was probably about to start my junior year, so I take in a whole bunch of college credits in high school and I was intent on getting my MBA, within five years of starting college life period. And then they dropped my grad school program that I was going to, they dropped the MBA program at my college that was an undergrad for.
So I played two seasons worth of football. I was about to go into the spring of my sophomore year. They announced that over Christmas break and like oh crap, what do I do now, so I was about to graduate that semester from undergrad and I was like, you know, to be honest with myself, the position that I play the people who go pro are like three to four inches taller than I am. I knew I wasn't going pro so it was just a matter of how much longer did I want to enjoy playing.
And at that point I was like well I don't really enjoy playing in the first place. It was just kind of an honest, you know conversation that I had with myself about how much more damage I wanted to take compared to how much fun I was having, compared to how much I thought I would miss it in the future. I was like, I would miss the games, I would miss my buddies, I wouldn't miss practice. And I would only miss for two years. I might as well move forwards and try and get my next degree.
So yeah, I made what at the time felt like the smarter decision. I do miss, you know, having some of those years, but at the same time, it ended up working out.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The way you're sharing that now it sounds like it was an easy decision but I'm guessing it wasn't that trivial.
Sensei Seth:
I didn't have too much time to make it easy or hard decision, it was like they had announced it, maybe seven days before I had started school backup that semester, so I was like, what am I gonna do now. Well, guess I'll just stop playing football, which means to me in the back of my head, I'd always kind of thought about not wanting to play anymore. The reason that I still enjoyed it was because the camaraderie and other than that, I didn't really have a lot of incentive to play, you know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, make sense. So you're making this transition in your, you know, second half of undergrad, and you slowly step back into training or jump back in both feet, I'm down let's commit.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, from what I remember, I had been moved to Texas to start grad school, I can't remember how quickly I got back into it. I think it started off by me playing rec league basketball and I met a buddy of mine, who is now in the UFC Funny enough, or Kennedy 33:25 he's an awesome guy is huge dude, he's like, maybe 6'3" 33:32. But we started talking about it while you're playing basketball, we became friends and I was like, I want to start training again.
So I got into, I started trying a different couple, a couple different Jiu Jitsu places. I was like this is fun. So I did that for a couple months and then they had kickboxing classes so I was like, obviously this is what I'm going to do more often, and I stopped doing Jiu Jitsu so much.
And so I started doing that more often and ever since then, for the most part, I had done more of a super broad kickboxing training than I had Karate training, aside from a year or two when I moved back to Virginia and I got my third degree. But other than that, it was a buddy of mine who I met who was fighting, and I was like, oh yeah I should, I could do this stuff again. I forgot how much I miss this.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oftentimes kickboxing is presented as martial arts but maybe without some of the trappings of martial arts quite often, no uniforms, no ranks, a bent towards fitness was this that sort of kickboxing?
Sensei Seth:
It was more so like kickboxing. That was some mix between Muay Thai and Dutch style. So it was kickboxing with intent of maybe make up, making you a better striker. I think that's the best way I could work, because people were like doing competitions but then there were also people who were just like, there for fun. It was much more of like a recreational, like I want to play fight. Rather than I want to burn some calories.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Gotcha.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, which is fun.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Did the differences between that and what you had grown up with was that contrast enjoyable or did you find yourself missing what you would started with?
Sensei Seth:
To me, I've always had the most fun doing sparring, and that kind of stuff in the first place. So, that was sort of like, the most of what I did enjoy other than like the people that I knew back home like my dad obviously right. So that was the actual training what they were training, I enjoyed a lot. It was difficult to get used to because of the difference in stance. And, I mean obviously like the uniformity of if that's a word of karate, like everybody standing in line, you know, shadowboxing punches 1,2, 3, 4 upstanding, you know, that was a little bit different because now we're like on a heavy bag, and then we're shadowboxing and nobody's telling us what to do. And then we're like really repping out a whole bunch for a full class, and I'm like, Okay, this is interesting, because I kind of had to jump back and forth based off schedule like I feel like everybody has to go through this where they have to take some beginner classes and they get to take some advanced classes when they moved to a different area.
But for the most part though it was a whole lot of sparring and a whole lot of like free flowing stuff, which I felt like I could do well because I'd had so much of the basic techniques like super detail oriented karate stuff that I had.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Makes sense. Okay. And what was next? Where did you go from there?
Sensei Seth:
From there, I was working at this place that, like, worked on kids motor skill development, and it shut down. And so I had no job and I was, that's the moment where I was like man I wish I could just teach kids karate, so I looked around different places called up some karate places credit's difficult to teach for somebody other than where you learned it, because so many different styles of karate are unique and different and very rarely are those places even hiring in the first place.
So it's kind of like just like cold calling martial arts schools and be like hey, I can teach what you teach, but just as good. Do you want to pay me for it?
So that was difficult. So from there I started going to like homeschool co-ops daycares, Parks and Rec departments pretty much anywhere I could go that I didn't have to pay a button or rent, and just started like slowly accumulating students, and driving around a ton in the Dallas Fort Worth area, and teaching kids that way.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Makes sense.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah it was that, that was super fun, because it was the first like project that I had that I didn't fail. Not like, not like fail, but you know it was the first thing that I did on my own that like nobody told me what to do. Nobody told me how to do it like in school, they're like, okay, here's the project here's the guidelines here. Okay, here's how much time you have. Here's the reach out to you, here's how you cite stuff. No I was just like, Okay, I'm going to do my best to get people to sign up for karate. And that was the first thing I had like a taste of success in so that felt really cool, but then also like super low profit margins, is enjoyable cuz I got to make one schedule, it was really like a really good first step for me to never want to work for anybody else ever.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And just the way you phrase that, that was the first thing you did kind of on your own, you didn't fail at it should we read something into that is that how you look at things in your past?
Sensei Seth:
I think it was more so I was so worried about doing something that was completely on my own, because there's so many things like as, as you're growing up that are, are pretty much just laid out for you. And it would make sense that they worked like everything you do, adds to a reason that it should definitely work. And when you don't have specific reasons that give you a sort of like a notification that ding this is right.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That validation piece, that confirmation you're at least on the right path if not in the right place.
Sensei Seth:
Right, so I had that fear of, you know, is what I'm doing going to work, you know, and I did have other things later on that like I, that didn't work out so it was like that fear, and then I had a little bit of a taste of that, like we're so I had finally, or not even finally because I was so young. But I had had something that kind of made me not worried about that fear so much, so I immediately jumped all into it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And of course, people that may know you know you from some of the content that you put out. When did that start happening? Was that soon after? Let me ask the question I really mean to ask.
Sensei Seth:
Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
People quite often will put content out in an effort to do something different from what they already do, you know, to have a second stream of income or or a second job, or you have the organization like us, where the content that we put out is meant to be more of a marketing effort to let people know hey we do these other things that you know yeah the contents free. Maybe you want to spend some money on some of these things that we do, of course, which one was your content effort.
Sensei Seth:
Probably more so towards the second one, the first videos I made which are private now, and people won't find it. Good luck and good luck try. We're actually influenced by this YouTube page called corridor crew formerly Sam and Nico, they put out weekly. Might even be bi-weekly, sort of like vlogs, their bigger project was they made these like CGI short skits, but they put together vlogs of like behind the scenes stuff and how they made it and what their week was like and stuff like that.
And that really motivated me to make these, maybe like four or five videos of me teaching kids karate classes and all the cool fun parts to, you know, literally get people to sign up for karate, like that and it was. They got maybe like two views, a piece. And then I was like that was cool. And then I had a big life change which moved me to Virginia and I stopped doing it for a bit.
Actually, no, and then I moved to Instagram, where I started posting like pretty much anytime somebody did something cool I just tried to replicate it, or like add a unique twist, which is where the bottle cap stuff started coming up.
But yeah, the initial start of me on YouTube was like three to four videos of me just trying to market. My kid’s karate classes that are sort of what like just made me really enjoy the video editing process. Okay, but not nearly what I thought they were going to be, but actually funny enough, I had a conversation with one of the guys who was in my, what class was it I don't remember the class but he used to sit next to me and I used to do to like this idea of traveling around the world, and taking different martial arts, and there's something I can't remember what I called it, but it was sort of like, it wasn't specifically, the idea was for YouTube, but it was for like you know just to document. Overall, that whole experience of traveling around and take martial arts classes and he reached out to me the other day he was like Seth you're doing it and I was like what, he's like you're doing exactly that thing that you said you want to do. That's so cool. I'm so proud of you. Holy crap, I totally forgot even mentioned that. Wow, so it's cool how it worked out that way.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's interesting how sometimes we get this idea, and it's pretty deeply rooted and we forget about it consciously, but it's still there, we've still put in the energy to that idea and it finds a way to happen.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, right. I think it speaks to how much I've made my, like I've wanted to make my life around stuff that I enjoy. And what happens is that even after like, you know things change circumstances change. The thing that I enjoyed the most will say the same. So the in pursuit of that enjoyment, I still came up with the same answer.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What is the least enjoyable part of what's called the Sensei Seth ecosystem.
Sensei Seth:
The podcast.
Jeremy Lesniak:
44:40 I already got I've got your sense of humor figured out man and you know what, it's because mine is the same, I'd say the exact same thing if this was reversed.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, that's so funny. I would say the least enjoyable thing, the least enjoyable thing would have to be, it's tough because it's actually a hard answer. I would say the least enjoyable thing, or seeing the negative stories that people have about martial arts, when it comes to like, you know, them being duped over by people, or, or I was having a conversation earlier this morning with this guy in my DMs who was like, I sign up for the school and I feel like they're hoodwinking me, and there's not really much I can do about it. But that happens pretty rare and in between.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So we get people will pop up and they'll, you know, because we are a style agnostic, you know, general supporter of martial arts. Overall, and people come in by instructor X, you know, and fill in the blank with some terrible thing you know either acutely or systemically, and yeah, sorry, we're not we're not the martial arts police we can't fix it, we can't change it. Hopefully you'll try another school this is not the norm, that most people are good people and I think overall martial artists are slightly better than the average population.
Sensei Seth:
yeah. I put up videos for the purpose of hopefully nipping that in the bud, where I've been, like, here's some things to look out for if you're going to sign up for a school, and the guy who messaged me this morning just happened to have watch it after he signed up, which is tough. But at least I know that means there are people who seen before it. 46:33 not because some of them rubbed me the wrong way but because I see so many people who I know it might not affect me but those people aren't just commenting on my stuff. You know it's people who are like, just super against the idea of fun.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's a great way to put 46:53 exactly the comments you mean when you say that.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, just like there's no optimism, there's no, like, oh, that could have been a funny joke if I had gotten it, you know that it's just people who are just in it to have a bad time, I feel bad for him because I wish I could help them get it, but at the same time, the human in me wants to just fire back at them and roast them. So it's a tough process that's been one of the hardest parts about getting, like, into content creation was not being as cool as somebody like Sensei Endo, who's always nice to everybody.
Jeremy Lesniak:
He's a great guy and this is where I want to make a joke at his expense but he's a friend and a good friend, And I don't know that everyone listening would pick up the sarcasm, so I'm not going to do it, but hold on now you have to. He's a good dude. And as a real good dude and he is. In my experience, I mean, he's one of the people that pushes me, and I've told him that for years that when he shows up. He shows up at 100%, he does and he drives me to produce better and better stuff, you know, when we talk about things as a team, you know, he's, he's one of the ones that we look at how, how can we use what he's doing to improve what we're doing, which I think is a martial arts mindset.
Sensei Seth:
It really is. He's one of the guys that I used to watch, growing up, when I had like that thought process of, oh, this is starting to become something that, you know, I watch these people on a regular basis, way before I started making anything, who were like in the back of my head of who should I try and be like, if I want to start creating. Who should I like take notes on, he was definitely one of those guys he's an awesome dude.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We've actually got something fun coming for one of our future episodes, I'm not going to give it away but he's coming back on for I don't know, third, fourth, fifth time. Great guy. Who else do you look up to?
Sensei Seth:
So the first thing that I think of, which seems like a little, maybe cocky a little bit, but the first thing I always think of whenever I hear that question, is like the Matthew McConaughey acceptance award speech. Pretty much what he says is like, you know, I look up to myself in five years. And then he's like five years later if you ask me who I look up to, I would probably still say I look up myself in five years and what happens is, the more that you think that way like you're probably never going to reach everything you truly want to, but it makes it enjoyable, and it makes you confident in yourself and all that stuff. I'd say probably the idea of what I can do.
But obviously you know my father was a big one. My mother was a big one, both these people who created nothing in martial arts, just having something that they really enjoyed and created something that sustains them and you know creates provides a home for a family and stuff like that.
And then when it comes to content creation, you know, Jesse and camp was one of the people that I used to watch all the time. You know, Steven Wonderboy Thompson is a big one, you know, I tried base a lot of my training based off him. I see Mike is one of the guys who first got me in the door there's master cam. There's Grandmaster Jesse former ex martial arts is a huge and there's so many really great creators. Like, I try and steal stuff from all the time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Again, that is what martial arts is you know every style that's ever been put out has been a combination of styles that came before techniques that came before, and we take this from hearing this, from there, and end up with slightly something slightly different in the people that you mentioned, we've had just about all of them on the show so the audience at least longtime listeners are going to be familiar, on some level with these folks. And if you go you check out their video content and check out your content. You can see some influence, just as you could in martial arts lineage, but they're not the same.
There are things that you do better than those folks, there were things that they do better than you and it's that constant push that iteration of okay, how do I improve my weaknesses that not only does it bring you up, it brings everybody else who was looking to you, either as, you know they're following you or maybe they're a friendly competitor.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah, absolutely and there's so much stuff that like we would go back and forth on and talk about, like this thing that you did was really cool. I'm gonna try it. How did you do it because I want to try stuff like it. And I bet you're exactly right. That's exactly what happens with martial arts, like if somebody hit me with a spinning wheel kick in sparring and they did a cool way, I'd be like, how did you do that, that was amazing. I want to do it like somebody else.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, kicking people's great. Especially 51:51 ways that they never saw it coming.
Sensei Seth:
One of the coolest parts about being a credit card that got into other styles of more vague kickboxing was a cool tricks and sparring of people who didn't know the cool tricks were coming, and then you do them, and they're like, what the heck was that, that's the best.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I've bounced around a little bit so you know if I was sparring with karate people I might, you know, flip into more of a Karate or Taekwondo position, and vice versa you know just, what are you expecting me to do I'm going to do something completely different. I'm going to turn front ways and, and, you know, use my little bit of Kung Fu experience,
Sensei Seth:
Or what's even better is when they ask you what you did and you tell them, you tell them how to block it, and then you do something that is completely different. You knew they were gonna block a specific way.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, same sense of humor. Yeah, we're there, we're on the same page. Well, we've talked a lot about the past, present, you know, that brings us up let's, let's talk about the now let's talk about the future, let's, you know, press fast forward on that figure to VCR or, depending on how old you are, you know something more. 53:03
What's coming? If we get back in touch with you in five years, you know, reach out to five year old or sensei Seth, your next influence, inspiration, and say hey, what's happened in the last five years, what would you hope he's going to tell us?
Sensei Seth:
Here's what I'm thinking. I'm gonna buy a huge building and on the front, it's the slogan is going to be how to 100% always win a fight. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna slowly amass a large following of people who all agree with everything that I say. And it's going to, and I'll call it something cool, I haven't thought of a name yet.
And slowly but surely they're going to do everything that I say. And we're not going to be cold, so it's not a cold don't think it is. And they'll all pay me super large amounts of money and never disagree, I'll never get sued. And, yeah, I'll just look comfortable just doing that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sounds great.
Sensei Seth:
No, I think, I think I want to start doing like seminar circuits would be really cool once this whole thing opens back up. I'd love to do that and be able to go around and almost take as many as I teach like I'd love to really teach them stuff I'd love to meet people who for whatever reason, know who I am, which is a weird thing to say, connect with people who have like minds with me, that's a better way to say that I like that.
You know, obviously, like being able to share my knowledge is really fun. But there's plenty of stuff that I don't know so I'd love to be able to teach at seminars that I can also learn from other people that would be a really fun thing to do travel around, I've never been outside the US, like that's been one of my things is I want to make this something that I can travel around with and see new places, meet new people, all that fun stuff. Continue to make content. I'm gonna say it right now. This is my goal, actually. and if it happens in five years. I want you to share this with me and be like hey, remember when you said this, I want to be on Disney plus with a documentary of me traveling around the world, taking martial arts. Okay, that's it. My job, five years.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do it, absolutely, we've talked about this a little bit on various episodes that the success of Cobra Kai, I cannot imagine doesn't have the other streaming platforms, looking around saying what content can we do that is going to fill that sort of niche on our platform.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah right.
Jeremy Lesniak:
especially something that is lower cost. Hack should be able to produce what you're talking about for far less per episode than just about anything else.
Sensei Seth:
Oh, yeah absolutely literally just paid for my travel costs pay me a little bit, but pay for one, maybe two cameramen, that know what they're doing and can help me set up lighting and stuff, heck, I'll edit it, you probably don't want me to edit it, but I will.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There's a lot of there's a lot of fun there you know something's. It sounds similar to what Jesse's doing
Sensei Seth:
Very similar, and also to what. Oh man, what were their names. The big football player in the MMA fighter, fight quest, actually very similar. It was, gosh was the name fight, unblinking, I'm sure a bunch of people are yelling at me what the answer is, but there was a documentary or a series of videos on like the History Channel I think where these people go around and they take these traditional martial arts, Okay and then they squat at the end would be very similar.
So pretty much the only idea that I would be selling is that it would be newer production value of made better and then also hopefully people watch to see me like it would have to be a personality differently.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right and I think you have that, I think you could pull that off.
Sensei Seth:
Yeah I think so, to me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm game to, I don't know, provide emotional support.
Sensei Seth:
Thank you, appreciate that. But that's all the, you know, so we can also,
Jeremy Lesniak:
What do people want to get ahold of you, where are they gonna go?
Sensei Seth:
@Sensei_Seth on Instagram, or if you wanted to hop on the YouTube comments I reply to a lot of them, it is Sensei Seth.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Can make that much easier because you know, well, this is your chance to close it up we're gonna record an outro later but, you know what are your final words to the audience?
Sensei Seth:
My final words to the audience, is to not overthink martial arts, and to have as much fun as you possibly can, because in a lot of situations you won't even really need 58:07
Jeremy Lesniak:
Told you I thought that was gonna be a fun one and wasn't it. Absolutely, a great time talking with Sensei said, what a fun experience. Anytime we get other content producers all week, we seem to be able to just kind of take a couple steps forward we can we can skip ahead a little bit and just get into the fun, and that's not a dig at non content creating guests is just a different experience.
Anytime you put two people in a room, even if it's figuratively, you're going to get something different, based on what they bring to the table and what I thought Sensei Seth brought to the table was really fun, really entertaining, not only do I completely understand even more now, why so many people love the stuff that he puts out, but I felt inspired. Right. Maybe you felt it too I hope you did. What a good guy. Sir, you are welcome back anytime you want to come on, what a blast.
So make sure you check out his stuff, as well as our stuff you go to whistlekickmartialartsadio.com, you can see all the links in the content, the stuff that we put up there, from today's episode, and honestly all the other episodes that we do can go deeper on this and connect with Sensei Seth.
And if the work that we do here means something to you, don't forget you've got a bunch of ways you can support us, you might consider buying one of our books on Amazon or telling someone about the show, or even throwing a couple dollars our way via Patreon patreon.com/whistlekick.
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