Episode 644 - Sensei Angel Lemus

Sensei Angel Lemus is a martial arts practitioner, publisher, and instructor in various dojos such as Zenseikai Karate Kobujitsu Renmei in Hawaii.

Doing a solo form, you really do need to have somebody explain it to you because they're very deceptive. It's like seeing a painting. But then, when you try to paint and you don't know how to paint, it's going to look really bad...

Sensei Angel Lemus - Episode 644

Being insecure is one of the greatest challenges that we encounter as we grow up. Sensei Angel Lemus, on the other hand, didn't let that stop him from pursuing a career in martial arts. Instead, he converted it into a source of fascination, and he involved himself in various martial arts experiences such as Judo and Karate kata. As a result of this, he gained confidence and made his way through Martial Arts. 

In this episode, Sensei Angel Lemus shares his Martial Arts journey that started from hesitation to training with different groups and how he didn’t settle with half-answers or half-truths. Listen and join the conversation! 

Show Notes

Check out Sensei Angel Lemus’ magazine at bugeisha.net and his YouTube Channel: Oneminutebunkai

You may also check out Sensei Lemus at these websites: www.zentokukai.com, koshinkan.org, zkkrkarate.com

Show Transcript

You can read the transcript below.

Jeremy Lesniak:

What's going on everybody? Welcome. You're tuned in to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio Episode 644. With my guest today, Sensei Angel Lemus, I'm Jeremy Lesniak, I'm your host here for the show I founded whistle kick. Well, because I love traditional martial arts and I wanted to get more involved in the traditional martial arts community. And that's why we do all the things that we do. And you might be saying, well, Jeremy, what are all the things that you do? That was okay, well, you got a whistlekick.com, you're going to see. And you know what, if it's your first time going over there, you might be overwhelmed. We do a lot of stuff. In fact, sometimes my friends write to me, and they say, how do you do all these things? Well, with a really awesome team, I want to thank everyone who's involved, in big part, in little part, mostly for the support, because if it wasn't for the support of all the martial artists and the friends, to people who care about our mission, to grow and retain martial artists, in martial arts, we wouldn't be doing any of the things that we're doing. If you want to support us, tuning in is honestly, it's the number one thing you can do to show in support in that way. But if you want to go deeper, why don't you go over to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, get on the newsletter, check out some back episodes, and maybe find one that you think a friend of yours would appreciate. Share it, as the show grows. So do the other things that we do. Like our Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick, we bring you exclusive content, some behind the scenes stuff, some merch, some bonus material, a lot of really cool stuff going on over there.

And how do I know it's cool? Well, one, because we're making it to, because when people join the Patreon, they very rarely leave. And that says something to me. So, I figured we're doing some right. Let's talk about today's episode. When I talk about traditional martial arts, and how much I love it, how strongly it's impacted my life in a really positive way. And connected me to amazing people all around the world. You know, people like today's guest, Angel Lemus, who is doing some really cool stuff in his own right for traditional martial artists. And we have a great conversation, you know, we kind of bounce all over the place, as you might expect on this show. But the thread throughout is a quest for knowledge, a quest to find more, and whether you want to think of it as answering a question or scratching an itch. I think those are both really apt analogies. As we go through in our conversation. Honestly, I had more questions than I had answers not about our guests, but about my own training. And that's something that I really think is a hallmark of a good interview on this show. If it leaves you asking questions about your own training, and what martial arts is for you. I think that's a good time. So, let's go. Angel, welcome to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio.

Angel Lemus:

Thank you, it's an honor to be here.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Hey, it's an honor to have you. I love what I do. I love that I get to talk to martial artists from all over the place doing some cool stuff. You're doing some cool stuff. And I know, we're going to get into it and I'm excited. But I want to talk about the past stuff. You know, we don't always run a real time on you know, it's not always chronological what we do here, but let's rewind the tape. If your life was a comic book, what would that first issue be? You know, when you discover your martial arts powers.

Angel Lemus:

An 11-year-old boy is being pulled by the ear by his mom to go to enroll in a judo class. Because he is chunky and overweight, bottom heavy, and he's very insecure. So, when he was young, he was always made fun of his fake legs. And by the other kids in the physical education class, as you know, back. When I was in elementary school, it was used to wear these very short shorts for your physical education class. So, you know, everybody has skinny legs, and here I am. But the moment I stepped on the Judo mat; people couldn't futz with me. And I it was very easy for me to sports week them. So, I discovered my strength.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Hmm, did she know that was going to be a strength in that context?

Angel Lemus:

I don't think she knew.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Wow, that's pretty fortunate.

Angel Lemus:

I think it was because it was a craze of the kung fu theater movies of the time, you know, and of course, you know, she saw me watching all those movies and some little kid and you know, put posters on the wall, and so I figured I got to do something with this kid.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Super cool. Did she have any understanding of the differences between different martial arts? Did she select Judo or just say, you know, here's the thing, here's a martial art.

Angel Lemus:

I have no idea how she found it. It was just being offered as an after-school activity. She just told me one day you're going to go to Judo class and I said, what?

Jeremy Lesniak:

You were resistant then.

Angel Lemus:

I wasn't really resistant. But I was just surprised. And I was terrified of just doing that, because I didn't think I could do that. Because I was, like I said, I was very, very insecure, little boy.

Jeremy Lesniak:

And what was that first class like? Do you remember?

Angel Lemus:

A lot of apprehension, not knowing what was going to happen, but the teacher was a very kind person, the atmosphere seems not to be overbearing, or a lot of pressure. And as I just went through the moves, and learning how to fall, and it took about maybe two or three classes before, I really started to discover my strengths, because of a low center of gravity, the way I'm built. And then I started to realize, Hey, I'm pretty good at this. And I can do things that I never thought I could do. And I'm proving to myself that I'm pretty good at it.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Two or three classes. So, at 11 years old, in the span of you know, just a few hours of training, you went from anxiety to some confidence. And that's a pretty big turnaround in a short period of time.

Angel Lemus:

It sure was, I mean, of course, you have to consider when I say I was pretty good, that's from a total beginner at a lower rate. But compared to the other kids, I was doing things that looked much closer to what the instructor was expecting us to do. Because they just couldn't make it work on me as well.

Jeremy Lesniak:

What kind of an impact did that start to have on you? Well, did it change how you felt in, in gym class, and PE class?

Angel Lemus:

It sure did. I started to not worry about being insulted or being cold, you know, fat legs, or whatever the kids were seeing at the time, it started to change how I perceive the external stimuli, whether good or bad. I just started, I started to care less about that, because I was just completely obsessed with Judo, I just consumed that I started to look at videos, and I started to buy like black belt magazine, and karate illustrated, and I just started consuming this stuff, and I became engrossed with it, and that I just kept my attention on the art and the process in on what everybody else thought.

Jeremy Lesniak:

When did you? Do I want to ask this? So, if you've had some awareness of martial arts films, you knew that there were different kinds of martial arts? Maybe not? Definitively, but you recognize them? Sure, at some point, hey, you know, they're punching and kicking each other. We're not doing that in judo. I would imagine. Go ahead. Sorry.

Angel Lemus:

Well, yeah, I mean, I did notice those specific differences, you know, and there was karate, and there was kung fu and Judo and jujitsu and things, but I wasn't that, you know, educated as far as like, well, you know, once comes from specifically from China and Japan and Okinawa, it was all like a big blur of geographical uncertainty at that point.

Jeremy Lesniak:

And then you start immersing yourself reading magazines, and maybe reading books. And I would imagine, went pretty deep, right, that age group when they find something that they like they are all and I remember myself as an adolescent, as an early teen, if there was something I was into, that's all that mattered.

Angel Lemus:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, the consuming.

Jeremy Lesniak:

And so, what was the result of that immersion? Well, it's stuff were you digging into becoming interested in and well, let me ask question a little a little bit differently. I found over the years of the show, that when we talk to someone who goes all in at that age, it tends to have some pretty significant foreshadowing of where they end up a decade or two later. And I'm wondering if that's true for you.

Angel Lemus:

It's an interesting question, because there's no way that I am going back to my Early teenage years. I would never have thought that I would be where I am today. Having been doing this stuff non-stop for 49 years. But it did consume me to the degree that all of a sudden, I started to save pennies and quarters and dollars here and there so that I could collect the mass sum of $120 which was the fee for the life membership for the United States Judo Association. So, I was so engrossed with it that I didn't want to pay $20 a year. I wanted to become a life member. And when I did collect it, when I became a life member, when I received my little plastic, you know, three and a half inches by two-inch card that says your Judo USGA life member, it was number 1128. It was just fantastic. I loved it.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Talk about a good deal. Oh, yeah, he paid out well on that bargain. Yep. When did things start to, let's say open? Because I know that what you do now is broader than judo. So, at some point between then and now, you became acquainted with other things, you started to do other things. What did the genesis of that door were doors opening look like?

Angel Lemus:

When I got to high school, there was a police officer assigned to the high school through the Coral Gables police department in Miami, Florida. And he was a judo person. And because he was a police officer, he had practice other things. So, in addition to whatever they teach at the Academy, and because he found out I did judo, or somehow, we found each other, he would get together and talk, you know, here and there. But he started to invite me to help him as a partner in his women's self-defense classes. So, he would hold these classes from time to time at a community center. And so, I went a few times, and I just was working as a partner. And so, because I could fall, he could throw me and it's a good example of finishing techniques or whatever. But then I started to notice all the strikes in these things. And these kicks are pretty cool. And we don't have those in Judo.

I mean, I knew they weren't there, and they existed, but I just didn't really practice it at that time. So that kind of got me thinking. And then because I was connected to that youth center, participating his classes, there was also a Judo class that started there with a Japanese Judo champion who was early 20s. And the guy was phenomenal, who came in and did a class for a few, a couple of years, and he didn't speak any English. But because I was so involved in this youth center. This was around the time I was like 17 years old. There was a gentleman named Manny Saavedra, who was a student of Peter urban the guy you know the Peter of USA Goju Ryu fan from New York, he came to Miami. He moved back home and then he started to teach at that. So, I was doing Judo and right after there was this karate class so I said “hey, you know maybe I should try this”. These guys all look pretty good at what they're doing. So, I joined that class and that's my karate journey began as well.

Jeremy Lesniak:

What was that experience like starting to incorporate karate into what you did because you you've been all in on Judo you for a teenager to buy a lifetime membership to anything. That's that says something it says something about the way that you valued, judo. Did your exposure to karate change how you saw Judo?

Angel Lemus:

Oh, it didn't change, it just reconfirmed the value of it for me because, of course, I was terrified because like, I didn't know how to punch and kick and these guys would do kind of like what you see in sports type of sparring. And I really didn't know how to spar. I just knew how to close in and grab. So, what would happen is like if I kept my distance, of course, you know, they're throwing punches and combinations, and my reflexes weren't yet built to be handling that kind of stuff. So, I did what was natural as soon as they threw a punch and I could sort of part it and grab. I would grab them and at that point they shut down. Because these guys had no Judo training. They had no close quarter type of work. So, it was so easy for me too. Don't get me wrong, they kick, punch me all the time, which was natural, but every once in a while, I would grab them, or I would just cover up, you know, like a turtle and just walk into them. Because that's all I knew how to do as a 17-year-old, and then here's these guys that are either my age or you know, in their 20s and 30s, they'll have like, fourth and fifth times, or whatever. But every once in a while, I would get in there, and once I grabbed them, they didn't know what to do, and I owned them.

Jeremy Lesniak:

That must have felt really good. It certainly did. I mean, here, we can kind of plot these points on your timeline. Now, you know, very quickly, at 11, you go from feeling kind of bad about your legs to recognizing that they are the source of your power, and you train for years, and now you're taking out fourth and fifth downs at 17. You must have been lying.

Angel Lemus:

Well, it was interesting, but I was still very insecure, because I just, you know, it was like starting over. And these people were so good at what they did from my perception of the point of where they were in that particular style, with what they were doing. But it all these things for me were always an uphill struggle. Nothing came naturally. Had to work really hard at it, and a lot of practice a lot of repetitions. But, you know, it never occurred to me like, “Oh, this is too hard. Maybe I should give up”. But it was just like, this is just how it is, you know, you just stick with it. And it's just been my philosophy. I don't know what happens when something sticks to you. Like if you love music or piano or whatever activity you do, at what point does it become part of your DNA that you say to yourself, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life, then at some point, it never occurred to me that I would ever find a reason to stop it. So, it was just the thing to do, it was always there.

Jeremy Lesniak:

What did your mom think, at this point?

Angel Lemus:

She was happy that I was involved. You know, they supported me. Well talk about support, oh my god. So, I was training with my Judo instructor at one school, and then I found out that he lived like 20 miles away, and another area in South Florida. And he had another class later on. So, this is now in junior high. I continue with him through the whole time. So, I'm like, I know where this is going. So, I said, “hey, you know, what about if I go to the other class, is that okay?” So yeah, he said, “Fine”. Jeez, I don't have no way to get there. So, it turned out that he drove, I drove with him twice a week. And he would drop me off at the other Junior High Elementary, which was like two blocks from where he lived. So, he would drop me off there and the school is empty. It's just few janitors, and people. This is like an after-school activity. So, we would get there may be like around 5:30 in the afternoon, and I would just do my homework. And then around 6:30, the other kids would start coming in, we'd roll out the mat, and I will have a class, my parents did this for four or five years where they would drive the 20 miles and pick me up twice a week. So, I have them to thank for just their support for doing that.

Jeremy Lesniak:

That's huge. When we talk to anybody who spent time training as a team competing as a team, you know, the parents eat, whether it's explicit support, like what you're talking about, where they're going out of the way to do things, or even just kind of implicit support where, you know, they're offering encouraging words. I mean, it sounds like you had quite a routine if you were able to do that much training, and get your schoolwork done. I mean that requires a lot of dedication. Did you remember any conversations that they had with you where they are concerned about that level of immersion in an extracurricular?

Angel Lemus:

I don't really recall any kind of concern or that they just knew that I that I loved it, and they just supported me and the funny thing is, is that once I once I started to get to know the kids over there, there happened to be these two brothers that I became friends with everybody in the classes is normal. But it turned out that all of a sudden, one day, they said why don't you come over for dinner? So, instead of my teacher dropping me off at the high school at the junior high, he dropped me off at their house, which is like still two blocks away. So, I went over there and I had dinner that night. And then it turned out, I had dinner the next day. So, for a couple of years, he would drop me off. And my friend, John and Rocky's house. And I sort of, with their dinner guests for two years, and two or three years in a row, until, you know, that whole episode ended.

So, it was really rewarding in that sense that I bonded with some really just wonderful friendships. And I competed with these guys at the local state, and we even went to USJ nationals in Illinois one year. So, it was just a really wonderful episode of camaraderie and a friendship that developed through martial arts. And that has always been one of the factors. That I mean, the martial arts by themselves are fascinating, but the bonds and the camaraderie and the friendships and the Brotherhood's and sisters that you develop, I strongly believe say, well, definitely are sometimes stronger than blood.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah, for sure. It's funny as you're talking about having meals there repeatedly. I haven't thought about this in a very long time. But there was something similar, I had a friend getting off the bus at my house. And my mother would make sure we both had a meal. And then she also trained but would drive us to karate. Hmm, I haven't thought about that in a very long time. But it forges. You're right, there's this collective upbringing within the martial arts, and we see parents who are in these communities, you know, just kind of grabbing and raising kids in you know, where I see it, a lot now is in competitions. You know, parent who barely knows this kid, but has had two or three conversations with his other parent over here, sees the kid doing something that they know they shouldn't, and just grab up, you know, in ways that you wouldn't do that, outside of a martial arts circle, you'd be afraid to get in sued or whatever, you know, and it's your right, it's the bonds, these bonds that we develop from trusting each other so much, you know, throwing each other around punching each other in the face. I mean, without trust, you really can't learn at a deep level.

Angel Lemus:

Oh, absolutely. Imagine the injuries and the damage that we would have inflicted upon each other and you know, they did happen from time to time, but you had to have that kind of tremendous trust in the element of the of the boodle was there. And that was, I guess, a great psychological lesson, to learn to develop trust in others. And I think that's probably one of the reasons why those friendships and bonds were developed, because, you know, it really all starts with trust, where you may not trust other people, but you know, you trust your dojo mates and your martial arts, buddies.

Jeremy Lesniak:

So, we've talked about up to 17. I'm assuming you left high school at some point shortly after, what was that transition?

Angel Lemus:

I had a weird high school experience, because my dad is an architect in the construction industry in all our lives, like right after the Watergate thing. There was an opportunity for working in Caracas, Venezuela, so I finished my high school year, my senior year in an international High School in Venezuela. So, I had an interruption in my training for about eight months where I finished my second half of my senior year. But that was a very interesting scenario, because there were other kids that were doing martial arts down there and in this international High School, so he gave me an opportunity to sort of compare what people were doing from different places and, and some of them local to that country. So, it was just sort of an interesting thing, but it wasn't like I had a teacher and I was training regularly. At that point, I was doing what kids were doing in 1977 where it was the disco craze. There was a lot of partying and clubs and dancing and you know, but it was interesting, but when I moved back to Miami, Florida then I reconnected with my karate group and I continued, you know, this is about 1919 1979 or so.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah, we completely missed the part where you were a kid training at a time when kids really didn't train me you Kids around you doing Judo but, you know, just from what we've picked up on the show over the years, there were very, very few kids training in the early 70s.

Angel Lemus:

I guess, you know, everybody was watching kung fu movies, and everybody was sort of like doing their goofy stuff at home. Mimicking, you know, I distinctly remember that I was with a group of other kids from I forgot what age is level, but everybody was sort of like an armchair expert saying, well, a blue belt in karate could beat a brown belt in Judo, and Kung fu white, and it was like, everybody was just talking about all this stuff. And it was like, it's so silly to think about it now. But it was sort of like this national obsession with martial arts from the age group that I was in, because everybody was engrossed in the movies. And, I mean the Bruce Lee craze, of course, blew everything, massively popular. And so, there was just all there was a lot of... A lot of hacking and a lot of activity in that area.

Jeremy Lesniak:

And it's barely changed. We have the same arguments. The specifics are different. You know, we probably talk about Muay Thai more now than we did then. We're certainly talking about BJJ more now than we did then. But it's the same arguments.

Angel Lemus:

Similar. Yep. Hmm.

Jeremy Lesniak:

You would have thought we would have gotten past that by now?

Angel Lemus:

I guess not.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Okay, so you come back from the International High School, you reconnect with your group, and then what?

Angel Lemus:

Well, I continued. It was sort of like an interesting scenario, because I became sort of like the roving kata expert in the group. I always pay more attention to Kata than the Komite. I did Komite. I did fairly well, I wasn't like the best guy. It's probably because I just didn't really care for it that much. So, but I was obsessed with Kata. And I was obsessed with applications. Because a lot of people were just concerned with a Komite. And because applications weren't really taught, which is a whole another large subject we can talk about. But I was obsessed with it. Because I grew up in Judo. And in judo, you either do it or you don't pretend you do it. You either choke, you armbar, you throw and you slam, and you have to do it. It's not like you can throw to one inch of hitting the mat, suspended in midair, like in karate, you're supposed to pull it one inch, and hey, well, I would have hit you if I Komite.

So, there was that kind of a very unpleasant. It was an unfinished product to me. And I felt like you know, I understand why you can't hit. But I understood the value of these of these punches strikes. One of the things that fascinated me, it's like, well, Judo requires all this stuff. And you have to grab enough balance and entry and execute and blah blah blah, but Jesus, if I can just punch you in the nose and knock you out. That's a lot easier than going through the whole thing. I was fascinated with the strikes as to the effectiveness of pugilism and impacting, you know, as a form of fighting. So that fascinated me just as much as the Judo parts. And he just sorts of became, you know, okay, here's another cog in the wheel that I'm working with. So, he just became that new aspect of obsession.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Now, I'm going to guess and you kind of let us in this direction and I know a little bit of your background so I'm fairly confident. I'm guessing as you started doing Kata with this Karate group, you started doing some Bunkai, the application stuff and I'm going to guess that at some point, you found something in there that was best explained from your Judo time rather than your Karate time.

Angel Lemus:

Well, I began to see similarities because at the time you know, throws were not necessarily considering a part of karate because nobody did them. If you look at the old Funakoshi from the night early 1920s there are pictures of him grabbing somebody. There are throws and this and that but you know, as you begin to see the movements of karate and you start to put two and two together, there's things that look exactly like Judo throws in applications of Kata there and you know, kung fu and so, it really is, it all really boils down to a soup where all the ingredients are put in a blender. But they may come from different disciplines, but they appear everywhere, and they overlap tremendous. It's just that back in those days, it was very compartmentalize, well, in karate, you do this in judo, you do this now it's like, no, you do it everywhere. But if you know how to find it and how to apply it.

Jeremy Lesniak:

And it sounds like you didn't necessarily accept those hard lines between the two, even in early days that maybe that's retrospect, but that's kind of what I heard in your words.

Angel Lemus:

Well, I was always curious as to like, why are the applications so difficult to find out or learn. I mean, we all know what happened was, you know, certain individuals go to Japan or Okinawa, and they come back, they don't know, they trained with a very limited time, a few years, they're not taught the inner workings of how this stuff works. So, they come back, and then they have, they have a very small partial curriculum. But then they fill in the rest with drills and exercises or exotic philosophies to, but still, you're going through all these Kata movements. Now, we know that when you do a punch in a kata, or a backfist, or a kick, we don't have to have anybody interpret what that is. But then what happens when you do a high block or a middle block or a down block or a double handed movement, or the hands are open and distant, this posture, none of that was ever explained. Well, except that if somebody is going to club you with the head, you throw your arm up, and that's supposed to be a high block. Or if somebody's punching you in the chest, you, you do what we can call outer block or middle block. Those were sort of like the nobody needs that to be explained that anybody can sort of figure that out. But they sort of like the what you see is what you get. But all these other things that are sort of not that, well, why are you doing those movements in the contract?

So, it always occurred to me that if the contracts are so important, then what are all these movements for, and there was never an explanation, because when you went to apply it in the only form that we knew at the time, which was the sports type of Komite, none of that came into play. There were no high blogs, there were no middle blocks, it was just sort of like a game of tag. And it became a matter of, you know, who can bounce around and who can move more like a boxing match where you just bounce around and move and apply reflexes and duck and jive, and that kind of thing. So, it was like, there was just a huge gap missing in what was being taught at that time. And I think it's was pretty much across the board. And the sad thing is that what I believe nowadays is that it wasn't that Americans or other Westerners going to Japan and Okinawa were purposely not taught this. And a lot of cases they didn't know it as well, either. So, you know, it was a whole day. It was really a very interesting discovery. Disappointing result.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah. All right. So, what's coming next? You're the Kata the guy. And then well, I guess what was the next thing transition?

Angel Lemus:

I bounced around. I went to different Dojos. I trained with it with everybody within our organization. I enjoyed it. We had this guy come from South Africa. His name was [00:33:40-00:33:42] he was a Lebanese guy who trained in traditional Okinawan Goju Ryu in South Africa. He came to Miami, Florida, after going to New York and trained with urban. And he found us through a newspaper ad. And we began to learn the Okinawan versions of the Goju content, which we were not doing... We were doing the Peter urban, American Goju, Kata. And that sort of became an enlightenment for me, because I always wonder what were the Okinawan Kata is like, and I had no idea what they look like, because there was no YouTube at that time. There were no videos.

Jeremy Lesniak:

So, how different was it?

Angel Lemus:

Oh, like night and day.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Really?

Angel Lemus:

So, it was like night and day. And then all of a sudden, once I it took about six months to meet this guy, me and another person from the Greek. Another person who was interested in Kata as much as I was, we met with him on Saturdays every week. And then we finally learned everything from [00:34:37-00:34:40] and in between. And then, when we started to use those contests in the regular tournaments, tournament circuit in South Florida. It was it was a time when we started to win first place in the heart, men's heart style contract. So, at that time, there was no traditional Okinawan Goju ryu In South Florida at all none. It was just the urban, it was just saturation of Peter Urban Goju. And because I was so interested in Kata that's what I participated in.

There was a guy from the United States Shuri-te Association. His name was Andy Horn. Both have a fantastic martial artist, he passed away recently sadly. But he used to continually get first place. So, when I first started to use the Okinawan Goju Ryu kata, it was the first time anybody in our group won first place in men's hardstyle kata. So that's sort of started a transition where this group has started to switch over to the Okinawan Kata. And that was really interesting. Because all of a sudden, there was a whole new interest in what we were doing, because nobody had ever seen the Kata before.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Did this spark something in the way you were approaching? I guess the philosophy the underpinnings of these forms?

Angel Lemus:

It did because the movements are so different, there was just something about the movements that had a little bit more rationality, a little bit more logic, they seem to have some kind of reason potential behind them. So, I was starting to just really focus on these forms. The group that I was with, a lot of them didn't care for those. So, there was two camps that some of them who knew the Okinawan Katas, and the other guys continued to do the Peter urban stuff at the Peter urban group, which is mostly focusing on the competition, and I started to grow less and less interested in competition because these concepts started to shift me in a different mindset. So eventually, I just sort of grew out of it. And during this time, there was a gentleman named Tim Rogers, who would go to the go to tournaments from time to time, who eventually became my shorter real instructor. And I used to meet with him and talk to him at the tournaments while I was doing the Goju-ryu. And he used to wear a traditional white gi and he was just a very exotic individual, but he would always look at me.

He said you're different in some way, you know, then a lot of these other guys, especially when I started to do the Okinawan Kata. And I would secretly go to him and say, “Hey, Sensei, you know, you do Okinawan karate? Can you give me any pointers? How did I do in my Kata?” So, you know, we had a very amicable relationship. But you know, he was from the other camp, he was from a different style and the peter urban group was kind of very, very tribalistic and such. So, I was sort of like, be the black sheep who would go talk to these other guys. But eventually, when I grew out of the interest of the whole complete sports thing, one day, I just decided to go. And I asked Sensei Rogers, “can I train with you?”. He says, “Come on in”. And after that, you know, that was it. I switched over to Okinawa, and showed him to you.

Jeremy Lesniak:

What was now, I don't want to say at this point, you've trained with plenty of people doing different things. And I would imagine you've got enough context to recognize the right home for that step in your training versus maybe remaining in your comfort zone. What was it about this new instructor that you said, I need to be here, I need to be with him?

Angel Lemus:

Well, number one, he was an honest individual with me. He never blew smoke. He always told me the truth. He gave me sound advice. He never tried to switch me over. He never recruited me. He just saw me for who I was. And like to I was, and I mean, I felt like tickled that he would even give me the time of day. So that was very interesting, because I was not part of his group. And you know, at that time, when you're young and dumb, kind of like, at that age, you know, there's this tribalism. I'm a martial arts group that was much more so at that time then than it is today. And you sort of hung out with your crowd and you don't mingle with other because they're your competition. You're not supposed to be friendly with them. But so, the other thing was, is that Tim Rogers was a scary individual. He had an air about him now. I find out eventually. Then he did three tours in Vietnam. You have been involved in martial arts since he was 12. He was an FDA officer doing the, you know, cocaine days in Miami, where there were all kinds of things going on.

So, he had seen more action than probably everybody combined. And, you know, everybody that I knew at the time, and he knew how to use karate in a way that I had never seen before. He wasn't playing around; he had a switch. He was either on or off. There was no Komite in his dojo, he did not do Komite. He did everything possible not to destroy you, when he was demonstrating his blocks in his punches were so hard that I literally would even with my thick, strong bones in my legs, when he would block you, it would feel like “Oh, great”. He did not fracture my bone this time. But the hematomas and the black and blues were so it would be like, “Hey, you know what? Mine's bigger than yours. Look at this”. One is, it's got more colors than yours. But you know what? I absolutely love that because it reminded me of the Judo days where you had sprained ankles, and dislocations, and fractures. And you know, you had to take your toes because your toes were crushed.

 It was that kind of physicality that I strive for, that reminded me of my early Judo days, and that physicality that was missing in sports Kata there. So that gave me the realism that I was looking for. Even so, as good as he was the applications, and the bingo card was still missing to some degree. Now, because of his situation, it's just that, again, it goes back to Okinawa. And then I finally, you know, started to see the writing on the wall that the ignorance of this goes back to the source, it wasn't that, you know, they decided not to teach him. And then I started to realize, “Wow, there really is a missing link here”. So, he was a fantastic fighter. And he knew a lot more applications than things, but they were sort of like, the things you would expect to see, without having any the true study of applications. And what happens, you know, underneath the surface.

Jeremy Lesniak:

What I'm hearing as we move forward in time is a louder and louder question, ruling for you. And it sounds like you kept looking for the answer and finding pieces, but it sounds like those pieces you were discovering, were only fueling the volume of that question. And however, you want to slice that question, you know, but essentially, it sounds like it's Kata. And it's Bunkai. It's application within forms. And so, a risk of fast forwarding through the timetable. Let's open it up. At some point. You said, I need a stronger answer. I need to find this information. It sounds like it was a quest for you. How did you answer this?

Angel Lemus:

Because I was able to roam. When I was in the urban Goju-ryu group. I did a lot of exploration that others didn't do, because they were just focusing on that. But I visited other dojos I even visited some of the Kung Fu instructors in the South Florida area. I had a friend of mine who was training and Wing Chung. And I had another friend of mine who is training in home guard kung fu and I did a lot of exploration with them. And I learned some forms and visited some of the schools. And of course, at that time, I began to collect my book collection which I still have to this day and started to read and find out. So, I kind of knew I understood a lot more about historically what the different martial arts were and I started to see. Well, the Chinese martial arts have seemed to have a lot of stuff in there that it's just you don't see in the in the karate books.

For example, the famous and very well-done Nakayama series of Shotokan the JKA series of little books that had like on beside etc. And then they had the application books, those applications were sort of very simplistic, very sort of like low level applications, but then when I would see somebody coming from the Chinese side, what's all his grappling stuff, it was all his Jiu Jitsu, Aikido where your hands are being twisted and you're being locked in. And you know, all these different things. So there, it seemed like, you know, the Chinese martial arts had like 10 pounds worth of application knowledge and history in the Japanese looking at one side had like a couple ounces. So, that started that started to point the way. Well, I need to look more into this Chinese stuff or any art that I could find.

I mean, pretty much you look at Indonesian salon, you look at, you know, any of the Southeast Asian arts and of course, the vast history of Chinese martial arts. And then you start to see martial arts systems that are extremely realistic, that have a have a tradition of knowledge that has not been broken, and that the teachings have been maintained. I mean, we can get into the history of why I think that the Okinawan karate systems, you know, like this, but you know, a lot of it has to do with the history, World War Two, you know, the animosity between the Japanese conquerors and the Okinawans, who were conquered and all the secrecy stuff, and there's a whole another chapter there.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Sure, probably a series of books more so than a chapter.

Angel Lemus:

But basically, and because of my experience in Judo that I had a matrix to be able or a primer to be able to understand what made sense to me, because in Judo is so simple, you are thrown or you're not thrown. And it was black and white for me, you either know what you're talking about, or you're just making stuff up, or you're coming up with excuses. Every single martial artist who grew up in my area has heard this line, “the essence of the technique will magically appear after you do it 10,000 times, you will understand the applications”. That's one line that you that we heard, or I heard. Another line was. “if I teach you the application, because there's so many of them, but if I teach you one, then your mind is going to be locked into one and you will miss out the potential to understand all the other applications”. That is an illogical statement to me. Because you're going to show me one way that means that my brain is incapable of having an open mind to say, well, there's variation 1 Point A, 1 point B, 1 point C? No, I mean, we're capable of understanding that. But that is the excuse that people give when they don't have an answer. And they don't want to say I don't know. And that was always a reason that so many instructors, because they just didn't want to seem silly and foolish. In front of a bunch of students who asked the question, instead of saying, I don't know the answer to that, they would say you're not ready. I'm sure. I'm sure you heard that too.

Jeremy Lesniak:

I have heard that along the way.

Angel Lemus:

That doesn't mean that a teacher cannot say to a student, you're not ready. But they were using it for a different reason, not because the student wasn't ready, and they had the answer. And they had the technique. You know, so there's two ways to use that.

Jeremy Lesniak:

For sure, okay. As you discovered stuff as you started adding these pieces to your toolkit and learning more of diverse martial arts and approaches, which, you know, it sounds like we're probably on the same page that they have more in common than they do different. Where did this all start to coalesce? I know you're doing some things now with application and putting out some content. What do you feel like you've answered this big question for yourself? And they were just the question keeps getting louder and you keep to it almost. And I don't mean this in a disparaging way. It reminds me of the way people talk about addiction, you know, just keep charging and looking for you know, where is the answer?

Angel Lemus:

I think I've found what I'm looking for at this point.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Cool. How would you describe that to people? You know, we've been on a ride with you today. You know, what is that? What does that answer look like?

Angel Lemus:

It's a combination of things, is finding teachers and styles that this knowledge has been kept intact, for as intact as possible. I figured out that it's all the same thing. From the perspective that when you come across teachers who know and styles that have the answers, the applications are there. Oftentimes, they're not clearly visible to the naked eye, when you see the forms being done, you can sort of guess what they are, oftentimes you may guess correctly, or you may guess part of it, but you really do need to have somebody explained to you because they're very deceptive, doing a solo form. It's like seeing a painting with them, when you try to paint and you don't know how to paint, it's going to look really bad. So, one step would be, you find paint by numbers, book. So, you know, it tells you what color to put in this little area, and then you start to figure that out.

That is when you're being shown applications. And you're so when this happens, you do this, when this happens, you do this, that would be like base level, start to get your brain to think but you can't fight with a predetermined set of outcomes that you have to think about, well, if he kicks me, I'm going to do this. So, it takes you to a level where you have to sort of be like a jazz artist where you don't know what you're going to do. You just react to it. But your training gives you all the tools that you'll need. And they'll come out the way that you would use a database query where all the elements are spread out individually, but when you open up a webpage, all these elements show up in this pretty picture. So, you have all the tools you have everything. I know I diverted a little bit from that.

Jeremy Lesniak:

So that's okay. The questions I asked are really irrelevant. It's your answers that are what's most important. But what you did in there, you actually gave the two best defenses against people who say forms are irrelevant. And the first one being paint by number, this idea that painting by number is the end of your artistic education. And that if you paint by number, you're not an artist because, you know, there's nothing, you haven't done anything more will, innocence. But it's meant to be a tool along the way. And kind of, you know, you talked about it as jazz, it would be like ending it, learning how to play scales.

Angel Lemus:

Exactly.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Until you can put it together. And you know, I'm sure I don't even have to ask I'm sure you're as frustrated, maybe, as I am with people who point to forums and say that they're pointless, because people will pick out these certain aspects, you know, their remaining in the paint by number or the musical scale level. And assuming that that's all there is.

Angel Lemus:

Well, the interesting thing is that we have people doing martial arts by the millions, I don't think martial arts. Well, my teacher would say Karate is for everybody, but not everybody for Kata. And I believe that, or martial arts in general, because there are people who just cannot put this puzzle together. And no matter how hard you try; their brain is just not wired to go that extra step where you can just really become that jazz artists that can react without thinking. That's when the whole motion thing comes in. And Japanese philosophy where you know, mind and you know, the Tom Cruise Samurai movie where you just empty out your mind and then your stuff comes out. There's a lot of people who will remain stuck in pain by the numbers now, don't get me wrong, paint by the numbers. If they do this, you do this, that you can still defend yourself to a fairly good degree, stuff will still come out of your instinct instinctually that you're very, very limited in what you can do. And if the situation changes slightly, then you don't know how to go along with it.

So, for example, a jazz artist, you know, if the drummer changes the beat, then the guitarist has to listen to the drummer. And then everybody has to sort of go along. That's the same thing. If you expect an attack to come in one direction and you're ready for it, but then the guy's switches and does something else. If you don't know how to dance and go along and switch to what he's doing. Then you're going to get stuck, you're going to get defeated or you're going to fail at what you tried to do. So, it is an evolutionary step for you go paint by numbers and until the point where you can just say to somebody, well punch me in the head, and I'm going to show you what I'm going to do. Okay, and then you say to them, hit me, and I'll show you what I do. That means you're ready to take anything on. You don't have to have preparation; you don't have to have any coordination or choreography. That's when you get to a level that you are confident that whatever happens, you have plenty of tools in your toolbox to take care of it.

Jeremy Lesniak:

For sure, so why don't you tell us about what you're doing now, I know you've got some cool stuff happening. I'd love to hear about it.

Angel Lemus:

I met with this Chinese Kung Fu group, with a teacher, James Walters is somebody that I met in the 90s when I was doing obligation magazine and the practices of Chinese system that's very interesting. And I have found that there's no lack of knowledge or in any of the areas of knowledge. And it's been a very interesting ride because I hooked up with him in 2019, before COVID when I visited Southern California, to see my wife's parents, and that got me interested back into what he does. He taught me Okinawan form called Shinsu. And that got me very interested because it was the first time ever that I learned a complete form, and was given a primer to understand the applications. A whole set of theories and lesson plans for that form, what it was supposed to teach you. And then we spent about five hours that evening going through every application, the meridians, the points, the Denmark, it was like, wow, I took about 15/20 pages of notes. And what he started to do is started to really give me the ability to start putting all this stuff together in a way that I had never had the opportunity because I have plenty of books about Denmark, and the meridians, and the points and all that. And trying to memorize that out of context. It's like reading a dry, boring medical book, where you have to memorize medical procedures.

But when you learn the applications and the points, and what they do, then every single time you go through that content, you're you know, when I do this, that's what I'm hitting here, I'm hitting here, I'm heading here. And then the ability to memorize the points, the ability to understand what the effects are, becomes much easier process to sort of start to understand. Now, that is still sort of painting by the numbers. But what it does, it gets you to learn what the points are. So, every time you do a block, you could be hitting spleen 10, in the inner side, not necessarily blocking a kick. So, every time you look at the inner side, okay, I know that point. And I know what it does, it'll collapse your leg and you'll drop. So, you start to put these things together in such a way that it makes it so much easier, if you have the ability to sort of comprehend and put all these pieces together. So that has been a tremendous next step up. But what I found with this group is that their forms are just phenomenal in that it everything they do is covered under this umbrella of a complete package of understanding from every angle because there's throws there's locks, there's breaks, there's tears, there's the entire package of understanding the meridian points and then marking and what kills and what means and what hurts you after a few days, and how this affects the different organs of the body.

And geez once you get this knowledge in your head what I tell people is like you're not any more shooting blindly arrows to try to hit the side of a barn at 100 paces, you know, some of the arrows will hit some of them we'll go over in this once you understand this knowledge and then you become a train sniper. And you don't have to waste arrows. Every strike you make is hitting a specific area and you know what it's going to happen and what it's going to do. So, there's no guessing anymore. There's a tremendous amount of wasted effort and, energy that is no longer draining your resources. So, you become a much more efficient martial artist. Of course, with this knowledge comes the confidence that you gain on your skills and your ability to perform. So that makes you a better martial artist, because you're going to be much more effective than when you sort of knew what you were doing. But you weren't sure. And sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not, it's a much better state of mind to be in. When you have a deeper understanding of what it is you're doing, so that you can, you know, be highly focused in the outcome.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Very cool. If people want to start getting into this stuff, I mean, you've got some of your stuff, online, don't you?

Angel Lemus:

Well, I started a project called the one-minute Bunkai, which was a bunch of little videos that I do in, usually under a minute. It's on YouTube, it's called Oneminute Bunkai. And that was an effort for me to share some information with some of my brothers in my organization that I ended up just putting in putting it online, because I just feel, let's just share it with everybody. So that has been an interesting project, where I try to do applications that are not necessarily what you see, that is commonly thought of I try to do things that are a little bit differently portrayed.

So, for example, there's one that I show of a high block. Look at most karate books, a high block is when you get punched in the nose, I show a high block, that is actually a very effective and very, very dynamic flow where you basically throw the guy on his butt. Well, how do you do that with a high block? Well, that's the thing that I tried to do, because I don't want to rehash what other YouTube channels where wherever somebody shows the same application, I mean, what's the point of me doing what has been done in the past? So, I try to look at these things from a different point of view, and show it from how I perceive it that sometimes it is not what you see is what you get, sometimes there's a completely different way of looking at it.

Jeremy Lesniak:

And you've got something else that you're working on that personally. I'm pretty pumped about that. Listeners might be surprised because it's a magazine.

Angel Lemus:

Well, I started working on bugeisha in 1996. It ran for two years, and we had seven issues. It was a traditional martial arts magazine, we tried to do something that was not what black belt, and others were doing, which you know, you had Hollywood movie stars, semi martial artists. And of course, Bruce Lee on every other cover. Not that there's anything wrong with having Bruce Lee, but it's like, we weren't going to do that we wanted to do something more traditional with, you know, the traditional characters and in history. So that magazine lasted for a couple of years, then the trouble with the magazine printing industry, especially in coverage of martial arts is that there's very little money to be made. Because there's hardly any advertising. So, we tried to go as long as we could. And it ended with issue number six, and then issue number seven was never published. So, it's been around there and out in PDF format here and there. But I decided to bring it back, because I should have done it a long time ago. But I'm a graphic designer by trade. So, I do a lot of work with other clients. And I put their books up on Amazon. And they occurred to me, why don't I bring blog Asia back and I can self-publish in Amazon. And basically, what it took a team of about 10 people to do, I can do myself. So that's what I started to do at the beginning of actually, the first issue came out in late 2020. So, I'm working on issue number four right now, which will be coming out in early September.

Jeremy Lesniak:

And, you know, I'm sure as you taking advertising, if there are people listening who want to support this in some way.

Angel Lemus:

I am working on an advertising rate sheet. I have been working with some advertisers who are people that I've worked with in the past. But yeah, it's I'll take advertising, you know, in any form that it comes One of the modes of working is like, I barter for editorial. So, if you're an author, if you give me a story, I give you out space, so you can promote yourself, your school, your products and services. And, you know, they get recognition, they get put out there on the world stage and they give him some advertising. But I had to have some other advertisers that are that are paying for ads. But the interesting thing is like, I work on a PDF format, I upload it to Amazon, and Amazon does the entire distribution. So, this is not a subscription-based magazine, which is very different than the traditional model. If it was a subscription-based magazine, I would have to, it would have to survive on ad sales, which is very hard to do on your first issue, because then you have to subsidize that with your own money. So, what I decided to do is, I'm just going to put them on Amazon. And if whoever wants to buy it, they order it Amazon prints, it ships it to you, you pay for the shipping, I get my little cut, and everybody's happy. So, it's an interesting, new way of distributing a magazine. Very cool.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Very cool. What's the website for that?

Angel Lemus:

It’s bugeisha.net.

Jeremy Lesniak:

And you mentioned one-minute bunkai on YouTube, or any other links any social media or email or websites that people should know for you?

Angel Lemus:

Well, there's... I do have a Facebook page for bugeisha that when you see what the URL is, or either that or I can give you all this stuff, and you can link it.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah, yeah, let's do that. I know, we have some of these links, but I've got a feeling that there are more that we don't have. So, if you can send those over listeners, we're going to make sure that we put this up in the show notes. I'm sure most of you know. But it's whistlekickmartialartsradio.com.

Angel Lemus:

Yeah, as far as anything that's sort of like social and, and commercial, it would be the Oneminute Bunkai is just an offering of, you know, what I do, but the navigation magazine has its own website, which explains a little bit about the magazine. And it points to all the Amazon links so that you can see, whatever issue you want to look for, including the first seven issues are in one massive 450-page Collector's Edition. So, if you don't have them, you can either get them, or you can buy them individually. But then every time I have a new one, it gets posted on google.net. So, you can go there, you can kind of get a little bit of a preview of what the stories are like, and then it takes you directly. So, it is sold in a printed color version. And you know, glossy cover, beautiful inside color. And then there's a black and white version, with a color cover black white interior, which costs a little bit less. And then there's a Kindle version. And I wanted to definitely include a Kindle version, because Amazon publishing doesn't cover the entire world. Like they don't have the like South America is not covered. But the Kindle, anybody can purchase anywhere.

Jeremy Lesniak:

That's great. Let's create the more people doing stuff like this, the more people providing quality content to serve the traditional martial arts industry and in various ways, you know, we've got on record, you know, to say that we support everybody, even the people who look like they're competing with us, you know, we try to support them. We'll have other podcasters on the show whatever possible. Because whether you look at as rising tide lifts, all ships or cream rises to the top, you know, that doesn't really matter. You know, we're all in this stuff together, we're all trying to help each other, get better as martial artists. Now, we've got a lot of people listening different backgrounds, different times in training wise, and we've covered a lot of stuff today. But if you were to leave everyone off with kind of a, you know, some final thoughts, what would those be?

Angel Lemus:

If you're not getting what you're looking for? Look somewhere else. Don't be satisfied with half-answers or half-truths. The answers are out there, they may not be easy to find. We have to get away from this tribalism of my styles better than your style or my teachers better than your teacher. I mean, everybody's a human being. There is nobody that there are people who have more highly developed talents than others. Yes, there are some teachers that can do some things. But the point is, wherever you are, in whatever state you are, with whatever teacher you have, as long as your teacher is doing the best, he can with the knowledge that he has. And we applaud that effort. But not everybody has the answers.

So, if you find that something is lacking, I'm not saying leave your teacher and run away in somewhere else but don't be afraid to open up a book, don't be afraid to visit on the door just don't be afraid to, you know, cross train or look at YouTube or buy books, you know get the answers you want because in the end, all this stuff is all the same. The things that separate martial arts are borders, culture, geographical locations, language, and let's call it race. But the martial arts are all the same. Once you remove all those things, Karate, Aikido, Kung Fu, Jiu jitsu, they are all parts of the same body of knowledge that is the entire the complete entirety of martial arts. So don't get bogged down in your style, love your style respected, be faithful, you know, but understand that it may have limitations, not necessarily the style, but maybe the teacher or the organization.

I mean, a clear example is what I did is like I wasn't interested in sports Kata. They so what am I doing in a sports kind of group, I started to look for traditional teachers, and then that got me going at least in the right direction. And then from there has been one complete path of going from one traditional organization to another to another to another, and then they all had little different things. And then it starts to put the pieces of the puzzle where I had a semi completed puzzle. And then every time I go somewhere else, I get a few more pieces, and then I can complete the puzzle, the more your puzzle is complete, then you start to see what the image is supposed to be.

Because that if you have pieces missing all over the place, you know you have a partial visual of what the art is supposed to give you. So don't be afraid, you know, go out and explore because I'm 61 years old, and I hear the clock ticking. You know, what do I have another 10 years where I can do this stuff. There's no time to waste. And you know, if you're much younger, don't waste your time. If you're not happy with what you're doing. Find something else.

Jeremy Lesniak:

I said in the intro that today's conversation left me asking questions. And you might not think that's a positive thing. But then again, if you know me, you know that's about the highest compliment I could give. I really appreciate you coming on the show, Sensei Lemus and just really kind of letting go just like hitting us with the reality of these various points in your life and all the wonderful knowledge that you've gleaned, I felt like I was on the journey with you. So, thanks for coming on. I'm sure we'll talk again.

Listeners, I hope you check out the things that he's working on. I hope you check out the YouTube channel. I hope you check out the magazine you know these are great things I am always up for supporting other martial artists doing cool martial arts stuff and that's part of why we brought him on the show because we wanted you all to see the cool stuff that this man is doing. So, check it out. If you want to check out the links you know we talked about quite a few places today, go to whistlekickmartialarts adio.com or check out the show notes is probably in your podcast app. And you can see all the places you can go to check out since he's where you can also check out all our stuff at whistlekick.com. Don't forget to code podcast one five gets you 15% off.

And you can check out our training programs at whistlekickprograms.com whether it's the strength program or the conditioning program, or those speed development program or the flex program, which by the way is free. You can check out all those things. You want to support us anything that seems to make sense. Just go ahead and do that. We appreciate it. If you want to write to me, jeremy@whistlekick.com. Our social media is @whistlekick. That's it. So, until next time, train hard, smile and have a great day.