Episode 618 - Shihan Kendall Buhl
Shihan Kendall Buhl is a Martial Arts Practitioner and instructor. He is the founder of The Dojo, Salisbury, Massachusetts.
I’ve always said to my students, to be a martial artist, in particular if you aspire to black belt excellence, what that means is that you should be a person who could move forward under any circumstances…
Shihan Kendall Buhl - Episode 618
After a decade of being persistent to train in martial arts, Shihan Kendall Buhl found stillness and focus as a young man who has ADHD. From there, Shihan Kendall Buhl never looked back. Having lived in Asian countries such as China, Taiwan, as well as Hong Kong, Shihan Buhl did not waste any chance to train there. Armed with skills such as Shaolin Kempo, Shihan Buhl comes back to the USA, and later on founded The Dojo with his wife in Salisbury, Massachusetts. Listen to this episode to hear more of Shihan Kendall Buhl’s journey.
Show Notes
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's going on everybody? Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, Episode 618. My guest today is Shihan Kendall Buell. I'm Jeremy Lesniak, I'm your host for the show, founder whistlekick, where everything we do is in support of the traditional martial arts. If you're interested in what we're doing to that end, check out whistlekick.com, it's our online home. And it's the place to find our store and the code, PODCAST15 is going to get you 15% off anything you find in there. Now, this show gets stolen website whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, we release two brand new episodes each and every week, all with the purpose of connecting, educating, and entertaining, traditional martial artists throughout the world. If you want to support the work that we do, if that means something to you, well, you can do a number of things, you can make a purchase, share an episode, check out our social media, you could tell a friend, leave a review, grab a book from Amazon, head on over to whistlekickprograms.com and check out what we got there. Or you could support our Patreon. If you think the new shows that we bring you are worth 63 cents apiece, well, then you might consider supporting us five bucks a month. On top of that, we're going to give you extra stuff that we don't release anywhere else go to patreon.com, patreon.com/whistlekick to sign up. And if you do, well, there's a very, very good chance you're going to be overwhelmed with the amount of good stuff we throw your way. Over the last few months, I've had the opportunity to get to know she humble a little bit. But in this conversation today, we get to go deeper, I get to hear stuff from him I've never heard before. He is an amazing storyteller absolutely was transfixed at historic I have a feeling you will be as well, we probably could have done another hour, maybe two to really unpack all of his story. But we didn't. We gave you this powerful, meaty conversation that I'm sure you're going to enjoy. So, let's dig in. Kendall, welcome to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio.
Kendall Buhl:
Thanks, Jeremy, real treat to be here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's a pleasure to have you here. We've had the opportunity to talk about a few things, but it's a pretty narrow set. And so now I get to do kind of double duty and get to know you better, as you know, as a martial artist, as a person. And I'm kind of pumped for that. Yeah, I've been looking forward to this. Well, you know, here we are. It's a beautiful, I'm assuming you're not that far away from me. So, I'm assuming the weather is just as gorgeous, maybe even a little nicer where you are.
Kendall Buhl:
Massachusetts. And it's absolutely beautiful.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, these are the days and for listeners, you know, you're here I am in central Vermont. It's 75 degrees, it's sunny with just enough cloud cover to break it up. And it's just one of those days. That is perfect. These are my perfect days. And there are a few things that I would be excited to step inside for on a day like this. And it's I'm not blowing smoke. I'm not lying. I love what I do. Doing this show is one of those things. I'm like, I get to go do this.
Kendall Buhl:
You know, one of the great things about days like these, the first really beautiful warm days of the season is it puts everybody in a great mood. And on top of that happening when it's happening, because right now, Massachusetts, this is where we have finally been told when the last of the most stringent COVID restrictions are going to be lifted and when we're going to be back to normal as his business and a school. And that has around here in a really good mood too.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So yeah, but parade started as it seems.
Kendall Buhl:
It feels like everything's a parade right now. So, yeah, a great day. And but yeah, a nice way to spend the afternoon, Jeremy. So, thanks for having me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Of course, absolutely. You know, I've gotten to know you in your business a little bit over the last few months. And that's been a lot of fun, but I don't know you. And you know, sometimes we start this way. We don't always but this is how we're going to get going. You know, let's, let's rewind, let's rewind to the beginning of the taper, your Comic book origin story or episode one of your TV shows, whatever we want to think of it as. And, you know, what was your first experience with martial arts?
Kendall Buhl:
My first experience with martial arts came at the first opportunity I got and about a decade after I wanted it to happen. I was always asking my parents when I was growing up to take karate lessons. It was just something I knew I wanted to do something I knew would be right for me. And something that they were absolutely unwilling to entertain you. I'm 50 years old. So, if that kind of, you know, dates, what the time that we're talking about. We're talking about the late 70s and through the 80s. And obviously people's perception of the martial arts, what it's all about. And what it can do for people has really evolved in that time, you have to remember that back then, there was still the perception that it was purely about fighting purely about the violence. And I was a kid, quite frankly, with poor impulse control. So, I guess my parents just thought it was socially irresponsible to introduce a kid with poor impulse control a kid with your, you know, now we know it to be ADHD. But back then, you know, my teachers just considered me as FAS. I guess they thought ironic, though, right, you know, with what both you and I know it teaching. Exactly. And I think that's maybe one of the martial arts were calling me. I think I understood back then, that I was going to find a stillness and a focus that eluded me as a young person. But my parents, again, no matter how many times I asked them, did not think it was a good idea for me to be learning any fighting skills. So, when I was 18 years old, and I went away to college, first chance I get I enrolled in a class that was a Taekwondo class that was being offered as Phys ed credits at the college, I went to Michigan, Kalamazoo college, I grew up in Detroit. And from there, I never looked back. A few years later, I was a foreign student studying in Beijing. I studied Tai Chi and Chung Swan, Wu Shu. I ended up spending the next several years in the greater Asian area. I when I was in Hong Kong, and I lived in Taiwan as well as a reporter. I dabbled in martial arts. It wasn't until though that I got back to the United States in 1999, my wife and I had had daughters. So, we were definitely starting to settle down. We started to set roots, and I decided to get very serious about my practice. And it was at that time that I found Shaolin Kempo. Karate, which is what we teach at the school. I know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, the maybe the obvious question, but I feel like I have to ask it, were the travels to Asia, related to the initial interest in martial arts?
Kendall Buhl:
I wish I could answer that question, Jeremy, because it's something that I have always wondered, I felt a pull to that region of the world. It's throughout my childhood, and through my teen years. And it seemed to be Kismet because I went to college and my freshman fall was the first semester that's the college I was at. Started offering Mandarin Chinese courses. Everybody had Kalamazoo college. It's why I went there did a foreign study. And they told us that my class would be the first class with the opportunity to go study in Beijing. And here I am a person who always felt that there was something in that part of the world, that was there for me that I could that I was meant to learn. And certainly, the martial arts were a part of that. Part of my awareness of Chinese and Japanese culture and, and part of the draw, but I wouldn't say I wanted to go to that region, purely to study now.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, I'm doing some math. And if I'm doing my math correctly, you're showing up in China was the timing of that was is really interesting to me, because there was some really big stuff going on then.
Kendall Buhl:
Yeah. Your math is good. Yeah. So, it was my junior fall that we were scheduled to go there. And it was in my sophomore spring that the student protests cropped up in Beijing and specifically in gentleman square. I remember. We actually had a symposium at the college. There were a number of well renowned Chinese scholars at my school and in some other schools who had come in. And they talked about the historical background of what was happening there, as well as the current events, what was going on there. And all of these experts on China, Chinese culture, the Chinese governments, they all kind of took a stab at trying to predict what was going to happen with these student protests. Nobody saw what was coming. And as a matter of fact, a couple people said, there is no way with the world watching that the communist government is going to forcefully put down these protests. And it was only within I think we can have two weeks later, of course, June 4, that's the tanks rolled in to the square and hundreds, perhaps 1000s of people were killed, we still don't know. And that was a major eye opener and a major learning point for me to as I was preparing to go live in in Beijing, I'll be it for only six months, that here you had all these experts on that country and its government and its culture, and still none of them could predict exactly what was going to be happening. And it certainly was a time of upheaval, and it put our own plants in a certain amount about people. But we decided that we were going to go ahead with the with the exchange, it was me and four other students from my school. And, frankly, by the fall of 1990, when I did go to Beijing, things had calmed down quite a bit. And I was able to after, after several months, of making some friendships and nurturing a couple of close relationships with people that I met over there, I was able to talk and have some candid conversations about what that whole experience had been liked, for the people who live through it. So, it was very much a very interesting time to be there in the aftermath of what had happened in gentlemen square, and at the beginning of a real opening up in westernization of People's Republic.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, I'm curious, your parents didn't want you to practice martial arts as a child, but how did they feel about you going to [00:12:55-00:12:56]?
Kendall Buhl:
You know, it's funny, I've been thinking about that a lot lately, as my own kids are 22 and 24, my daughter ended up going to Kalamazoo college again, for Foreign Studies, she went off and studied in Senegal, my son decided to that he wanted to study abroad, he is actually enrolled in University of Edinburgh, he's out over in Scotland right now. And I could not be happier that they're doing it. But at the same time, it's very hard for me to see them go away, I worry particularly my daughter living so far away and in a third world country that had me concerned and it really gave me an appreciation for what it was like for my parents to see me go to a very strange place in a very uncertain time and to give me their unconditional support. But now I know, you know, as a parent myself that it was a tough thing for them. But I will say this, both of them, my parents and they're not married, both my parents and step parents made the trip over. And in stayed for a couple of weeks. And we got to travel around together and I got to show him around. So, for them, it was a great opportunity to see that part of the world too.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I'm sure I think you mentioned while you were there, you did find some opportunity to train and was that in my... Did I hear that correctly? First off, was that opportunity easily available? Or was that something that they were culturally resistant to Westerner's learning?
Kendall Buhl:
So, l it was very interesting. So, my first experience there and was the first week there I was determined that as soon as possible. I was going to start to doing some sort of training, and I talked to the teacher who had been the point, person of contact for our particular foreign study program there at the Beijing Language Institute. And he said, yeah, so meet me in this square, tomorrow morning at 6:30. In the morning, there's a Tai Chi Class. And so, I showed up there very, very eager and I imagined that he was going to introduce me to the teacher, and that I was going to get an introduction to Tai Chi. And what happened was, I met him there, and he showed me a spot. In the back of this class, the class being I would say, probably about 60-70, people never met the teacher, the teacher was way up front. And I just followed along. I was both thrilled and frustrated. Frankly, just following along without kind of being given a context for what we were doing without being given a foundation of the basics, obviously, as we know, is just not a great way to learn. But it really also seemed to be what a lot of other people who were in the back of this massive group, were also doing. So, I still felt like I was a part of something. And I enjoyed it immensely. But when I heard that some of the other foreign students there were taking a style of wool shoe called chunky one [00:16:55-00:16:57], I was very interested in that. And there was a young teacher there who actually happened to be from Puerto Rico. And he had been living in Beijing, and studying at the sports college for a number of years, he had found a kung fu teacher there who had really kind of taken him in. And he was just making ends meet by also doing some classes on the side. And he had gotten permission to teach [00:17:37-00:17:39] to some of the foreign students at the Foreign Language Institute. And I got in with him, and it was just it was very informal arrangements. You know, you'd say, pay me what you can, which I did. And I showed up for every single class and I was practicing all the time. But what we were doing is we were doing forms, essentially, we were working basics, and we were practicing forms. And a couple of the guys that I was taking the class with some buddies of mine. Both Russians, actually Soviet Union still at that time, they started to get restless. And finally, they asked this teacher they said, “when are we going to learn fighting? When are we going to start sparring?” And the Russians, I do love fighting. I mean, we get a couple shots of vodka and next thing you know, we must wrestle bouncing along the tour. But the teacher explained to him that was part of the deal with the authorities there with the administration, when he got permission to teach was that you would not be teaching us actual fighting skills, there would be no application to the kicks and punches that we were learning it would be really for fitness only and really the arts side of it so I never got to learn the fighting side. And my impression from what this teacher was telling us was that this was just the case. In any school around there that yes, it was okay to share these arts to teach these various martial arts to foreigners not the fighting part of it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now you were there for six months, you mentioned Taiwan and working in Taiwan. I've got a guess that you came back here in the States graduated, did some stuff here and then went back there.
Kendall Buhl:
Graduated and you've got a great waited bought a one-way ticket to Hong Kong. Which, at the time still, it was still British college. Yeah, it was, you know, kind of like, you know, burning the ship when you get there and didn't have a solid plan. I just figured that I was a communications major. And everyone was telling me I should go into business if I wanted to be around China, because it was really starting to open up at that time, there were a lot of opportunities that didn't interest me. I wanted to continue in communications to some part, I had done a lot of radio at my college radio station, there are a bunch of English language radio stations in Hong Kong, it was still a British colony at the time, so I thought maybe that was a good avenue to go. And, and again, you know, talk about Kismet a lot of doors, Jeremy, just seems to open for me whenever I started heading in that direction. And sure enough, the first three days I was there. I met the morning drive editor for the all-news, English language all-news station in Hong Kong. And he sent me up with an interview. And within a week and a half of landing in Hong Kong. I had my first job in radio news. And that was something that I still, I still do part time at UBC in Boston. That's something that I've been doing for 29 years now.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Awesome.
Kendall Buhl:
Yeah, I feel very lucky.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, yeah. It Kismet really does seem to be the right word, then. You know, I'm sure some will listen to this and think, Oh, it's coincidence. But I've got to say that, you know, feeling that draw to that area that draw to martial arts and following that path where you felt drawn, it seems to make sense to me when I think about the good things that have happened in my life, I felt drawn in some way to something that led me to that was an accident. It wasn't someone forcing me to do it. It was there was some element of me trusting my gut, the universe, however you want to phrase it, and ended up being good.
Kendall Buhl:
I'm curious, when you when you start thinking of your life and your plans? How far ahead do you plan? I mean, do you have a five-year plan?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I've got a day plan a week, month, year, quarter. And then as I once I get beyond quarter and year, it gets a little bit vaguer. But I do have some two-, three- and five-year plans. Yeah, they're there. They're really 800-foot view. How about you?
Kendall Buhl:
Um, well, you know, just the way things have turned out for me, I'm sure I look into the future a little bit and say, “Boy, I'd like to be here, I'd like to school”. Mostly when I think about the future. It's thinking about our school. And I do say “okay, this is where I would like to be. This is the direction any way that I want ahead”. But just the way that my life kind of opened up in front of me kind of unrolled in front of me. I've realized that making plans is you know, there's limited use to it. Because the world kind of the universe kind of seems to have plans for you. I don't know if I'm getting too cosmic there or not.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But I you can get as cosmic as you want. And longtime listeners know that you're not even close to the end of that spectrum of conversation, right? We've gotten very cosmic on this show we've had. We've had some interesting discussion, for sure.
Kendall Buhl:
Things have always just kind of, in my experience, the way I've seen it, and I'm not talking about the universe as a special plan for me. But things have always just as long as I've been keeping my eyes open. Some interesting opportunities have presented themselves. I had no idea that I would ever own a martial art school. I did have a real sense that martial arts were going to be part of my life. That would be a lifelong thing. When I began training, something clicked for me. A something that had felt missing. It was kind of like the piece of the puzzle just fit in there perfectly. But even at that time, I just thought it would be a passionate hobby. I could have imagined myself, you know, being a teacher after I'd had enough experience and I was overjoyed when my Sensei, the first Shaolin Kempo school that I went to, asked me if I wanted to help teach. But certainly, I never thought that I was going to open a school. And here it is, 16 years later.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And so how do we get from you being surprised that he invites you out teach to you opening the school? Were you? Were you genuine? Let me ask that differently. We've had plenty of people on the show, who have said, you know, from class number 135, somewhere early on, I knew this was going to be my life and, in some way, it was going to be my career. Did you have those Inklings?
Kendall Buhl:
No, not at all. It really happened in the flesh. I will say this, I realized early on that I was good at teaching. And here's the thing to understand. Someone listening to me say that all my life, I'd wanted to do martial arts that when I found martial arts, that it seemed to be a part of me that it spoke to me, they might get the impression that I'm a naturally gifted martial artist, and that nothing could be farther from the truth. I grew up in you know, the last person picks in pick up teams for any sport that you can imagine, the kid who rode the bench and, you know, on the flag football team, the soccer team, all that. Just a klutzy kid, no athletic abilities whatsoever. My proficiency, and then if I even dare use the term mastery of martial arts, came purely out of out of stubbornness. I loved it, I wanted to be good at it. And so, I just rolled up my sleeve I tucked in, and I got to work on it. And I practiced relentlessly. And you know, started to see the changes in myself. So, when I say that, I found that I was a good teacher. That was a little bit of a surprise at first. But looking back now, to me, I think it makes a lot of sense. I've always said that. My greatest asset as a martial arts teacher is how klutzy I was, how hard my biggest asset as a martial arts teacher, was how hard I had to work at it to get good. You and I both know, I'm sure people who are just naturally gifted, it's like they came out of the womb with doing flying sidekicks. And some of them are very good teachers. But I have also observed a lot of people who, for whom everything seemed to really come easily, who just are not particularly good teachers, because I don't think they can understand what it's like for someone for whom it does not come easy, who does not have that natural athletic ability, whereas having to have had to work so hard myself to understand the moves to commit them to muscle memory. I think that I'm able to help other people who struggle, I think I'm able to help just about everybody along the spectrum. And I've learned to, you know, give useful instructions to people who are naturally gifted.
So, when I realized that I was good at it, and my teacher realized I was good at it. I started teaching more and spending even more time at the dojo and at one point, my teacher, Mark Warner, he started telling me that I really should open my own dojo and the thought of that I didn't even entertain the idea of opening my own business, just absolutely terrified me. So much uncertainty. And what were you doing professionally at that point, I had a morning drive radio talk show. And I did for many years, until new ownership and I got fired. And around that time, I picked up another job really quickly doing a part time traffic reports for a lot of the radio stations in Boston, I had a conversation with the general manager at WBC radio in Boston. And he said he was very interested in hiring me. But that conversation went on for a year during which I was doing traffic reports, I wasn't particularly gratified by the work in radio that I was doing at the time it was it was enough to pay the bills, but I wasn't having a whole lot of fun. I was frustrated with my conversations with the boss over WBC, who said that you wanted to bring me on board, but kept on saying that the time was right. And I was getting frustrated, waiting for somebody else to tell me when the time was going to be right. So, I spinning my wheels a little bit. And it happened that at that time, the Tokyo Joe's system of schools, of which Mark Warner was a part at the time. It was at this point seven schools across Southern New Hampshire and in northern Massachusetts, they would have blackbelt chests twice a year. And all the schools would get together and test their candidates. And it was in April of 2005. That it was the very first black belt test at which somebody who I had taught, or I had known anyway, as a white belt had gone up to receive their black belt. It's about a three-year process, three and a half years, in our system of schools. If you are going continually through about three and a half years from the time you start until the time that you get showed up. And I just remember feeling so proud that I had played a small part in this person's accomplishments. Guy by name is [00:32:57-00:32:58].
He's a really good friend of mine. And also, to have seen his transformation and see everything that his temple practice had brought him to know very well how much it had in enriched my life in every single way. Someone who had always felt insecure about their athletic ability. Now, I felt confident about it. Someone who liked I said had poor impulse control and serious, serious focus issues. I had found some modicum of peace and stillness and focus in my life. It all just came to me at once the transformative power of martial arts practice, the force of good it is in the world. And then I was starting to be an agent of that force and other people's wives. And it was a revelation that I just got so excited about it. And I went home from that. And I I came to my wife, Carolyn, that that very evening. And I said we're Hi. I want to open a dojo. And I think a lot of spouses out there I mean, keep in mind, I hadn't even entertained the idea before. It's certainly nothing that she and I had ever discussed. Right out of the blue I come home from a black belt test in ceremony and say, darling let us sink into opening a martial arts school. How many spouses you know, wouldn't that at least look at them? Their husband or wife a little cross eyed there. She was she training yet? She looked at me. Yeah, she'd started kickboxing. And she said, “Yeah, let's do it”. And I would, you know, afterwards tell her just how amazed I was by her that. That was her response and how grateful I was for. And she would say that she had seen the change in me that my training brought me the peace and happiness that it gave me. I mean, she had known me when I was a much wilder, crazier, perhaps angrier, young man before I got really serious into my training. And she saw the level of conviction I had when I came and, and proposed this to her that she said she knew right then that it was the right thing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So even though she wasn't as, as all in on training, as you were, she was able to recognize she was able to see how impactful it had been on you. And I would imagine being that you were married, she knew this need for you to follow your path, if to honor where you were being called.
Kendall Buhl:
And yeah, go with it. God bless her man. Yeah, yeah, that was that was a major leap of faith on her part. And, you know, we've we both say, it's one of the greatest decisions that we've ever made. Second only to the kids that we've reached, we refer to the dojo is our third kid.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm sure you're not alone in that. Right. Right. And, and so that was 2005.
Kendall Buhl:
That was 2005. So yeah, April, that was that fateful black belt test. And by September, our first class was on September 13 2005.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Wow. Yeah. That wasn't long.
Kendall Buhl:
No, no, it wasn't. After all, this time of, you know, my teacher suggesting it me not even entertaining it. Once I'm made up my mind, once that lightning bolt struck there at that black belt test in April. Just we were all in.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Did the feelings of terror at the idea of teaching, you know, from that day, when your instructor said, “Hey, I want you to help teach”. We think about that time versus day one, September 13. Were you more or less terrified when you started your own school?
Jeremy Lesniak:
More terrified, but it was a different kind of terror. Sure. By that time, I started feeling comfortable in front of a classroom very much. But it's, you know, a very different thing. When suddenly, you're the person who's paying the bills, and you got the rent to pay. And again, you've sunk your savings into it and your family's livelihood is at stake. That is a very different thing. And, you know, I just remember all the work that we put into setting up the dojo and then the schedule and all the promotional stuff that we did. And, you know, I again, this has really been, you know, my life. It's the idea of, okay, what if you throw a great big party, and nobody shows up? And that was it was just an article of faith. Okay, if we do this, people will come. And they'll like, what they see and they'll stick around. And yeah, I always, through throughout life, just really battled lots of lots of doubts, as to you know, whether I was ready for what I was taking on whether I was taking on more than I can handle. I mean, don't let the amount of passion I have for this and the amount of commitment that I described you as far as doing this thing. Let you think that I wasn't riddled with doubts about it, because I was in a lot of sleepless nights staring at the ceiling. But you know, that in itself was something that my practice my training, got me through.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, that really is the story of martial arts, we are given more than we think we can handle but within the context from someone who's been through the process, and recognizes that it's not. And it's only on the other side that we can look at and say, oh, clearly it wasn't I made it through. Awkward. So, talk to me about what you've got going on now. I mean, we just were coming out of probably the most difficult time for martial arts instructors, I mean, not to act like it hasn't been difficult for everyone in all walks of life, but it's a martial art show. So, we're going to talk about martial arts. Last year plus has been the most difficult period, I would say, for martial arts school owners, instructors, that has existed in modern times, and your school is still here. And first off, how did you do that? How, why are you still here?
Kendall Buhl:
It was a real quick turnaround, in my attitude back in the days when we first started hearing about this virus. Having, you know, having lived in Asia, and you know, having seen SARS in Hong Kong, and, you know, in Canada, and H1N1, of course, I thought that this was going to be something that was a little scary at first, but that was going to die down. And I wasn't feeling too concerned about it. But that changed very quickly and started to realize that yeah, this was going to get serious. And I think we all have that experience to one degree or another. When it looks when it looked like things, were going to get serious. I took my team out to dinner, my wife and I did well grab some Mexican couple Margarita has. It was our instructors, our office manager, my wife, and a student of ours who is absolutely a computer genius, who was very passionate not only about her training, but about our community and had offered her services before computer related website related before and I wanted her input on this. So, I asked her to come along to. And I said, I think there's a very real possibility that within a couple of weeks, we are going to have to close down for a bit. And my team knows that I go out of my freaking mind if we have to close for a snow day. And listen, don't get me wrong. I love curling up under a blanket, you know, with a hot toddy as much as next person, but I hate the idea that I've got students who love their training, that I've got families who pay us every month. And the idea of canceling classes. And that's one day. So, I said, “Listen, I think there's a very real possibility that we are going to be closed for a couple of weeks. How do we continue to deliver instruction during that time?” Here's what I propose. And what I laid out was that we put all of our curriculum on video into a video library. We had done that to a certain amount on our website for our members. When I realized that people were having some difficulties, for instance, practicing their powders at home because you know how it is you learn your latest moves on the dojo mat, you're feeling good about it, you go home and practice and you're like, “Oh, crap, how does that go again”. So, we had already done that to a limited amount putting our curriculum on video for our students to access but I said let's do everything. And we'll do it modular Lee so that we can put together classes. So, we'll take a warm up video, we'll take an instruction on basic say, a couple of different kicks, couple of different hands strikes, one of our blocking systems, we'll take a module on self-defense and a module on kata, and we will prescribe that as this day's class. Great. So, they've got something to watch into to work along with at home but it was also important to me that we have interaction with those students as well. How do we do that? and zoom wasn't even on my radar at that point. I wasn't familiar with that particular platform. And the experiences I had with video conferencing before it just had left me very unimpressed. So, I was not even thinking about that at this point. I was just thinking about how do we, you know, relay instruction to our students? And how do they communicate back with us.
So, we came up with this idea that the students would watch these videos would practice along with them, do some extra practice, and then they would have assignments, okay, record yourself, doing these kicks, this combination and this part of this kata. If you're a particular belt, give me some insight. Send us the video. And within 24 hours, you're going to get a video back from one of your instructors with personalized feedback on what they saw. And this Leann, this genius about a computer person actually made the platform that made this possible, which still blows my mind. How did the students respond? What did they think? Within the first week, we had hundreds of submissions. Wow, I was just, I was blown away. I was so excited. And but again, this, the timing just seemed to be just right. So, this was a Thursday evening, Jeremy that we had this. And we decided that this was our course of action. And then things started happening much quicker than we thought. The next day, classes were canceled at the local schools. That evening, on a Friday evening, one of my students who I was preparing to test for black belts, who was supposed to meet me with other black belt candidates at sunrise on Saturday morning, on what we call the rail trail and old railroad track where we would start our boot camps running, emailed me and said, Shihan, I'm really concerned about this. I'm not coming to boot camp tomorrow, because I really feel like everybody starts needing to take these measures to social distancing flattened the curve. And these were new terms at the time, and already they were starting to plug it. It drove me crazy that these new buzzwords are flattening the curve, social distancing. And I was actually annoyed by this email at first, I think more annoyed by the suggestion that our routine was going to be disrupted that our training was going to be disrupted by the intrusion of this virus. I still think, a little bit in denial mode. But I woke up early, early, early on Saturday, pre-dawn, and had slept on it and said, Oh, my god, she's right. And canceled classes for that day. That was Saturday, March 14 2020. And Jeremy was the only day that we did not have instruction for our students. And I couldn't be prouder of our team. At the time that that very long weekend I referred to it as our own personal Manhattan project. We got everybody together, you know, instructors and assistant instructors, and you know, all the people who did anything with the dojo, and we spent the weekend putting together this video library, and Leann put was put together the platform on it and made it all possible so that we could do this. I mean, everyone was just, you know, burning the midnight oil over this very long weekend. And on Monday, the 16th, we debuted what we call the Romo dojo, and like I said, our students just took to it right away.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Amazing. I mean, it's amazing. I've heard a lot of anecdotes about what the last year has been for martial arts schools. And we've heard from a number of people on this show, we've heard some of the really good stuff we've heard, you know, we've all heard stories about schools going under. But one of the things that I came out and said very early on, I think you and I have talked about this. I know I've talked about this on the show because we released some bonus episodes. And I was very clear. I think this is last March. For the schools that are willing to really embrace this as an opportunity and step up and deliver extra value. When things come back to normal. You will be blown away at the support you receive from your existing students in your community. And you and I, of course have talked outside of the show, but is that what you're experiencing? Absolutely.
Kendall Buhl:
Certainly, a lot of goodwill from it, because as it is to my life and into yours, Jeremy, the martial arts play such an important role in, in those of our students of our dojo community. And so, they were looking for something to stay steady to stay grounded to, we're looking for some peace, and a very scary and upsetting time. And the fact that we could still provide that for them, they were extremely grateful for it. And it's funny. I've heard that from our community, over and over again, it just seems like every single family that that's a part of our dojo family has it at one time or another, if not multiple times. And thank you so much for doing this. We're so grateful, so amazed. And it always strikes me as funny when they say that, for two reasons. One is, I'm the one who's grateful. Thank them. So, I am so grateful to them, that they were willing to embrace these innovations and these very, very strange and very far from perfect ways to train. But I also think it's funny that they think it's, it's amazing that we would do this, because what was our option? We were, we were literally fighting for our survival. 15 years, we had built up this school, Caroline and I and then the people who have come along over those 15 years and become part of the family invested themselves into building this this remarkable dojo community. And suddenly, we were faced with the very real possibility that it could all come crashing down. There is no greater motivator in the world and terror. And so, we were just trying to stay alive. And I'm so grateful that we had the team that had the passion and the commitment, and the talents to do it. But just as much, if not more, so the community of students that were willing to go along this really crazy ride and, and say, “Okay, this might seem kind of weird learning martial arts by watching videos and sending a video of myself to you. And now you're going to send a video back to me, this is how we're doing this now”. But they jumped on, and they did it. And they did it again. And again. Because as you know, anyone out there who runs a school, and who survives through the pandemic, I'm sure you know, experienced over this past year, we were constantly reinventing ourselves. Yeah, the remote dojo worked great.
But suddenly we realize, you know, what, not having in person, actual, real-time interaction with each other. It just sucks. And we got to change that. And, you know, so we educated ourselves on zoom and, and how our streaming class would work. And we upgraded our internet infrastructure at the dojo, which, which was awful. So, we got the premium streaming package, so we could do that. And so now we're doing zoom classes for the first time. And that was a huge learning curve, again, for our team, but also for the community. And then came the opportunity to do outdoor classes. And that's, again, it's just kind of a it was a whole new thing for everybody. So, you know, during this time and all throughout this time, we're doing martial arts without context. And for us, you know, actual self-defense and inspiring and so forth is a big part of what we do. And to try to do that without making contact was just crazy. And it just required deconstructing everything, taking everything, we knew about the practice of martial arts in the instruction of martial arts and taking it all apart and saying, oh, hey, what are the essentials here? And how can we make those work? And what do we have to come up with in order to give somebody as authentic a training experience as possible under these really difficult circumstances. It was constantly doing that. And that is another way, when you talk about how we're emerging from this stronger than ever, I think, certainly there is the goodwill that we're talking about the fact that our dojo, our martial arts instruction, our time spent together, as a martial arts community helped us all get through this crisis. There's a lot of goodwill from that. It's made a lot of people very interested in training. And we've got more new students in the past couple months than I think we've ever had in a couple month period. And there's that too. But another big gain out of emerging from this is the fact that having deconstructed everything we've done and having had to look at everything, and very new, sometimes very strange ways, I think, will ultimately is made us much better teachers has given us a much better understanding of our art, and of how to educate other people are they are,
Jeremy Lesniak:
What you're reporting isn't unique. I'm hearing from some schools, the schools that kind of had your approach, I hate having to cancel school, cancel classes, because of weather, I hate having to shut down, we shut down for one day, you are not alone. And there are plenty of martial art schools out there, that even if it didn't manifest in the exact same way, they had that same feeling, same attitude. And they found ways to continue the effort, because, you know, we could probably have a deep philosophical conversation here. What is what is your job, it's your job is not to open this brick-and-mortar location, your job is to convey information, your job is to teach martial arts, and you got to work with whatever parameters the universe throws at you to meet that goal. And that's what you did, when people understand that.
Kendall Buhl:
And it was also time to in the biggest, most dramatic way possible to walk the walk. And to practice what we've preached on this. Because I've always said to my students to be a martial artist, and in particular, if you aspire to blackbelt excellence, what that means is that you are a person who can move forward under any circumstances. Faced with any hardship, any threats, any sort of chaos, to keep your cool to say, how do I deal with this? How do I not only survive it, but how do I thrive in this, that as a teacher that has no martial artists that has been my mantra all along? That is, to me, the ultimate end of our training is to be that sort of resilient and capable person. So, this was the, as you say, the biggest existential crisis that martial arts schools could possibly face. It was time to walk the walk everything that we've been saying, all this time about who we are, and what we do, and to survive and ultimately to thrive.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And how are things going now, you know, you mentioned tons of new students. But what's the tone like in the school? What are students that have been through all of this? How are they feeling?
Kendall Buhl:
Euphoric, because this is the wonderful thing too. Now we've got to return to making contact with each other and it started get off, it started off small. In February, when the first people got vaccinated, I was among the first. I'm also a first responder. I'm a firefighter. So, I got among the first jabs, and we have a number of people in our community who are in health care, and our first responders. And so, all of us who had been vaccinated, we started doing classes, where we were making contact with each other, and just the looks on people's faces because we're still wearing masks. It was rapturous someone to be blocking real punches and to be, you know, doing throws and sweeps and to be grabbing each other for escapes. It was something that we had been missing so much, and it's something a martial artists can understand what it means to actually trade blows with somebody who you like and respect. You know, hugging your mom after you haven't seen her for a couple years. I mean, it's that kind of all this feels so good for your soul kind of feeling. And now more and more of the adults are vaccinated. A couple weeks ago, I surveyed parents and a large number of them gave permission to for their kids, while still masked to start making contact with each other, more yet gave permission for their kids to make contact with vaccinated instructors. So, our students after more than a year are starting to do their karate training, their self-defense training, the way it's meant to be done. And everybody missed it so much those who were students before the pandemic. And meanwhile, the students who joined us during the pandemic and there were more than I ever thought there would be, and who really liked what it was all about, they're suddenly seeing just this whole another dimension. And they're and they're loving. So, I mean, people are the excitement level right now. I can't imagine anything that I could have engineered, with Jeremy to make people as excited and ecstatic about their martial arts training than then this emergence or reemergence into the world of like, actual contact, self-defense training. That's awesome.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And so, what are you going to do with that energy? We've talked about the now and the before, let's talk about the later what's coming? What are you doing, to capitalize on this and maintain that? I guess that that overall feeling of excitement, that really, it's coming through in your voice? And I imagine that if it's coming through in your voice, everybody's experiencing it when they're on the mats?
Kendall Buhl:
Yes, they are. Well, I wish I could answer that in a more concrete way where I find myself now and it's you know, it's if you're not trying to solve one conundrum, it's you're trying to solve another one. I mean, the existential threat is gone, we've survived it. But that really is the question Jeremy now and I'm not sure I have the answer yet. I do know that. We are actively in when I say we, I mean, Karolina and I and you know, our top instructors are in our top staff, our team, we're starting to talk about what the schedule is going to look like. Now, it has been kind of a restricted schedule. As far as the number of students we can teach the way that we were teaching them the classes are shorter because we had to do such a rigorous sanitizing of our training spaces in between classes. And now we're slowly moving towards the larger classes again, longer classes again, and also armed, like I said, with these new thoughts on best practices. As far as martial arts instruction, so just in an email to everybody yesterday, I referred to it as the great reset. I said, “Look, the last thing that we want to do right now is go back to the way that we were doing things before, simply because that was the way we were doing things before”. There is a ton of things that I love about the way we taught our offerings on this schedule, because we have our core curriculum classes, but we also have a lot of extracurricular classes that are open to all our members, martial arts weapons, sparring, grappling classes, some kind of higher contact, self-defense classes. There are a lot of things that I really love about what we did before. But with these great resets, let's let everything be on the table. Let's say okay, let's consider this you know, the dojo 3.0 if 1.0 was pre COVID, and 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, the iterations that we've had in the year since have been the pandemic area dojo, now we have a chance to almost build this community from scratch with all this wonderful, wonderful material we have. And that includes the instructors, the students, the curriculum, and let's just keep our minds open to the opportunities that this reset has offered us to make something brand new and better than ever before.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I love it. I love it. If people want to find you and your school and the stuff that you've got going on wherever they go, websites, email, social media, all that good stuff.
Kendall Buhl:
We are The Dojo Salisbury. You can find us at thedojosalisbury.com You can find us at The Dojo Salisbury Facebook page. And you'll see a lot of videos of our training or just world class demo team. Our thoughts on training in our martial arts blog and see you see a little bit about what we're about. I know I've ended up visiting the sites in the social media platforms of guests that you've had before and I always find it really fun experience. It's great to see so many different people with the same core passion that you have, who just practice it and express it in so many different interesting ways. I love it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's great. Great. Now you've listened you know what's coming. final words, so I'm going to record an outro in a little while. But for the folks listening this is their last time hearing your voice on this episode. So, what would you say to them?
Kendall Buhl:
At this point in time, consider this your own great reset. This difficult time that all of us went through, really it up ended our routines. It pointed out just how precious are so many of the things that we took for granted in 2019. See this as an opportunity to look at things with brand new eyes. Don't just go back to your pre pandemic life. Don't just go back to doing things the way you did them because that was the way that you did. Look at your life, your routines, your art, your practice, training. Look at it like to beginner, and make it what you want to be
Jeremy Lesniak:
Totally at the top is a great storyteller. And, yeah, if you've stuck around this long, you definitely know, you heard it, and I've got a feeling you all stuck around. What a powerful story. And I think the part that stuck out for me the most was this notion that he was on this path and didn't even realize it. And yet, all these things fell into place, and let him where he is now. And I think we can all identify with that to a certain degree. But it's really clear when you get to see it in someone else's life. So, Shihan Kendall, thanks for coming on. Thanks for talking to me. I know we'll talk again soon. Really, really appreciating getting to know you better. If you want to get to know him better, you want to check out the school or the any of the other things that we talked about go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com hit the show notes Episode 618. That's where you're going to find all the stuff that we do with each and every episode to give you more context, more value. And you can check out all the other episodes that we do that with as well. And if you're up for supporting us, you know, you've got some got some a choice. Here, he could share an episode, leave a review on Apple podcasts, Google, Facebook, you could tell a friend about us, because believe it or not, there are plenty of martial artists still do not listen to this show. Or you could contribute to the Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick. Don't forget we've got these strength training programs speed training program, cardio bike conditioning program, lots of good stuff. Whistlekickprograms.com we're working on new ones constantly. We actually have two in development right now. Don't forget the code PODCAST15 to get you 15% off everything at whistlekick.com. And if you have suggestions for topics for our Thursday shows, guests for our Monday shows. I want to hear him. Email me Jeremy@whistlekick.com That's it. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.