Episode 690 - Professora Bernadette Robinson

Professor Bernadette Robinson is a Martial Arts Practitioner from Manchester, NH.

I wasn’t giving up Judo, I was just learning more about Martial Arts. The mind has to open because the World presents us with many challenges, different ways, and perspectives. Why would I stay in one perspective forever? Why not explore other perspectives and see it from another point of view?

Professora Bernadette Robinson - Episode 690

Being born and growing up in the civil rights movement era, Professora Bernadette Robinson suffered a lot from racism and bullying. Professora Robinson started her journey looking at stick figures on books to practice Judo techniques to just not feel helpless anymore. Martial Arts gave her the confidence that she didn’t need to be afraid anymore.

In this episode, Professor Bernadette Robinson talks about how she started her journey into martial arts and her different perspectives of the art. Listen and join the conversation!

Show Notes

In this episode. we mentioned Jimmy Pedro and Jean Kanokogi

Show Transcript

You can read the transcript below.

Professora Bernadette Robinson

Episode 690

“In many ways, it’s intertwined, even if I didn’t get on a mat, the thinking, the being of it, is intertwined in who I am. The arts are intertwined in who I am.”

Jeremy Lesniak: What's happening, everyone? Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio episode 690. My guest today, Professora Bernadette Robinson.

My name is Jeremy Lesniak, host for the show, founder at whistlekick, where everything we do is in support of traditional martial arts. If you love what we do, maybe you should check out whistlekick.com. It's the place that we drop all kinds of cool stuff, all of our products and our projects, and if you find stuff over there you want to pick up – maybe a training program, a shirt, hat, something like that – use the code PODCAST15, save you 15% helps us connect some dots on the back end, knowing that what we put out here with the show means something to people.

If you want to check out the show, and go deeper on this or any other episode, we've got a separate website, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Two episodes each week, all under the guise, all with the hope of connecting, educating and entertaining traditional martial artists, globally. If that means something to you, maybe you're willing to support us in our mission. There are a lot of ways that you can help us out. You could share this episode with someone. You could pick something up in the store, like I said. We've got a Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick. But if you want the whole list, whistlekick.com/family. We don’t link to that. In fact, that is something you've got to type in. Why? Because we want to make it worth your while. So, if you're willing to take that small step, we know that you're really committed to what we're trying to do here. And in exchange, we post bonus content, exclusive discounts. There's a bunch of stuff that goes into that page, and it's changing weekly. We're trying to do some big things. We need your help.

Now, today's episode. We haven't done in person episodes with a guest in a long time, but five minutes in, I was wishing we'd done this with this episode. A powerful episode with someone who I barely knew before. I recognized her, I could pick her out of a crowd and say hi. That was about it. I came away from this episode feeling like I knew her, like we'd known each other for years. It was such a powerful conversation, and I hope that you have a similar reaction. I hope you enjoy it. So instead of waiting, here we go.

Bernadette, welcome to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio.

BR: Thank you very much for having me. Thank you for thinking of me.

JL:  You know, I've wanted to have you on the show for a long time. And I don't know all of the guests before they come on the show. In fact, I would say most of the guests over the last few years, I haven't met in person before. I was trying to remember when you first came on my radar. I think it was at Terry’s, at Terry Dow’s, you teaching at the Symposium, and just remembering, in a sea of chaos … Anybody who’s been to that event, it's a wonderful event, but it is chaotic. In a sea of chaos, everybody training with you was always glued to you. There was always something about the way you were there, and that stuck with me. It's been years since I first observed that. I'm glad that maybe through our conversation today, I'll get to understand a little bit about why you have that commanding presence and why people glue to you.

BR: Okay. We'll see.

JL: We’ll find out.

BR: It may not be something that I can describe. You may have to ask them, but let's go for it.

JL: We'll see what happens. Before we started the recording here, you mentioned that if we kick off with your origin story, we might get into some stuff. You know what? Let's do it. Let's go there. When did you start training?

BR: Well, there's an official year, and then there's the non-official year. What people probably don't know because this is radio is that I'm 60 years old, I'm a black woman, and I live in Manchester, New Hampshire now, but I was raised on Long Island, New York. When I went to school there, obviously it was in the 60s, so we were there during the Civil Rights Era, and in time of much “love you hate you,” that “love you, hate you” era in the time of changed. There were a lot of things that were racially motivated in an area where there weren't many minorities, but minorities were starting, teeny weeny slowly, to move in. Many of the times, my brother and I were the only black children in the school, and definitely the only black children in our particular classes. There was a lot of harassment. Sometimes it was physical, or attempted to be physical, and sometimes it was verbal. Then it was the unseen, the things that were said and felt that no one actually said out, and that included adults. I became very self-conscious, and literally, what people don't know is I actually at one point stopped talking. Period. There would only be tears, because I was in a world that would, no matter what, accept me as human being in their space. 

JL: How old were you? 

BR: Anywhere from kindergarten, the first time I stepped in school, I realized that I can tell you the first incident of sitting in a classroom in kindergarten, and I can tell you her name, too, but I won't say it here so that we don't cause embarrassment. This is how old I am. The big boxes of Crayola with the sharpener in the back, that was the first time that we had seen them, and she promptly stood up in class and said that everybody can choose one of my crayons and use her crayons, “except for you,” and the teacher didn't stop it. That was, in memory, was one of the points of “I’m not safe in this world.”

Things go on, all kinds of things, and that time happened, most of which I don't remember, except for having a bunch of extreme, extreme, extreme anxiety and fear, and I wouldn't say paranoia, but as a child I would be paranoid not knowing what to trust and not to trust in my environment. We did have one black teacher. She was the gym teacher, Mrs. Dodd, so I remember her. That was it. There were two women, one was a girl and one was a woman, and then my brother was somewhere running around school. It was a lot, but I didn't know the world … The only world I knew was from a toddler up where my mother had us immersed in the churches that were mostly black, but we lived in a white neighborhood. I heard all of those words that our nice hosts in other radio shows use, and even more than that, and physical attack.

Around sixth grade, we had this thing called the Weekly Reader, and you would be able to go into the Weekly Reader and pick your book. They had a girls’ section and a boys’ section – that’s how old I am – and you could only pick from your section. I promptly did not pick from my section. I picked up a book called Every Boy’s Judo, and I circled it, and it comes in a paper bag, so no one knew what I had. From that point, I took it home. That was in sixth grade “-ish”, because back then sixth grade was still part of elementary school, and then we moved into middle school in seven. In sixth and seventh grade, I remember putting up – I lived in the basement, my bedroom was in the basement – putting clothes up in my closet on hangers, and trying to do the moves that they were showing, which were nicely penciled. They didn't have this big illustration. And we didn't have YouTube or anything. You were literally reading it, looking at stick figures, or poorly-drawn things, and trying to figure out technique, which at the time, I didn't know as technique, but I knew it was something that I could do if someone touched me here or there. That's how I practiced.

JL: You’re sixth grade, so that's about 12, and you're…?

BR: Yeah, I was 11, and I turned 12 In sixth grade.

JL: Okay, and you're practicing hip tosses with other clothes that are hanging up? I mean, that's ingenious. I've never heard of anyone doing that, but you've got infinitely manipulatable limbs. You can get in position. I love it.

BR: For me, it's funny, because was I practicing? Yes, but what was happening on the flip side as I was starting to build confidence that I didn't have to always be afraid. The technique, probably not so good with a hanger and a shirt, and no feet, but the idea that I wasn't and didn't have to be helpless forever, was the main idea. I probably did not know that at the time, but in hindsight, I definitely understood that to be.

JL: Do you think there was something, because again, it wasn't something conscious, but do you think there was an unconscious instinct drawing you in that direction? It sounds like you had to jump through some hoops. You had to pick from the boys’ section, you had to get this book, you had to construct your own training dummy. Those are obstacles. A lot of kids at 11/12 years old, aren't going to try to overcome those obstacles, so there must be a reason somewhere. If it wasn’t conscious, do you think it was unconscious?

BR: Fear.

JL: Fear? Okay.

BR: Fear. If you walk through life, fearing that you are going to be eliminated from life, or elimination at some points feels like it's better than continual torture, so was I being tortured? No, I was in the middle of a crisis that the entire country at least was in, but for a little body and a little mind, it felt like torture. Your friends are limited. Your words are limited. You can on some days walk into people's house and other days, you can't, depending on who is looking at their house. You can be friends with someone one day, you can't the next day, depending on who was criticizing their family. The context is so wide. I almost can't describe it. Then the idea of needing to have a bit of perfection find its way in, because if you're less than perfect, then you just keep rolling closer to the bottom of the heap of what people consider trash.

JL: What were the conversations like, at home around physical self-defense? You probably, I’m guessing, didn't use that word self-defense at that time, but was there conversation within your family about staying safe? Did that enter into any of this?

BR: There were several conversations in that time period that I remember. Now, that depends on if you're talking about family on Long Island or family in Brooklyn. The majority of our family lived in Brooklyn, New York, and in a black community, black and Hispanic community. That was it. When you go there, it's better not to lose that fight. If somebody hits you, you hit them back. You better not lose, you better put up your fist, or you get your butt kicked by me. There was some of that. It was mostly for the boys, but I was listening hard. In the neighborhood with my grandmother – I call her my grandmother – it was very much, “Don't say too much. You keep your head down. When people send out Valentines to everybody. You don't send them, you don't send those little cards to little boys, because they will come and burn this house down,” there are opposing things in that world.

In one world, when I went to the city – I called it the city – when I went to the city, you talked like a white girl, and over here, I was the “N” word all day, or, “This cute little thing, isn’t she so well behaved?” That's not how you talk to other people, but that's how you talk to my mother when you see me? “Oh, she's so clean.” Of course I'm clean. You pick up on these things, and it shapes and colors what you think you need to defend yourself against and when you can feel free, and living caged, even if the cage isn't around you like a jail or a bird cage, there's still a cage, and the idea to be free is always … For me, I'd say it's always on the front porch and it's always looking up. It's what I see in the sky. Before street lights, when you could actually see stars and shooting stars.

JL: Now, that sounds like the unofficial start.

BR: Yes.

JL: Where's the official one?

BR: The official start was in 1979 at a place called Kutsher’s Sports Academy in Monticello, New York. I signed up there to be a Track and Field Assistant Coach with … It was big, it was a very rich area. I guess the area was rich, but it was rich people from all over, from Tel Aviv, from everywhere came to go to this camp. European, and not many dark people, but from other parts of the world that were, and they came there to work with the best coaches in the world, and I was a runner. Originally, I was a sprinter, and I was good, so I got hired to there.

JL: Is this after high school? Sounds like right about there?

BR: Last year of high school. That was my camp. Camp meaning that was work. I did the track running for a few weeks, and who eventually became my first Sensei, Ken Freeman and his wife, Ruth were there. He was the judo instructor. He noticed something, because of my confidence. Although he never put it in words – Ruth put it more into words – that they thought that I was vulnerable to being preyed upon by people, men, older boys in the camp, and we were in shorty-shorts back then. That's the day when they put on the almost bathing suit bottoms to run. He said, “Come over here,” and the dojo was right next to the track, and he was like, “Put this thing on.” It looked like a bag, and he was like, “That's what you’ll wear.” Okay. He's like, “Now, you're over here,” and that was it, and I started judo.

JL: Anybody who knows the history of martial arts in the United States knows that Judo had a pretty strong foothold for a long time, but in 1979, it's starting to fade. I'm just blown away by the, whether you want to call it coincidence or good fortune or kismet, that you identify Judo as a thing, and you start practicing it, and seven years, seven-ish years later, you randomly end up at this camp with these people who know judo. I think it's relevant to the story, so I'll ask. Were they white?

BR: Yes, he was from Christ Church Barbados, though, so he lived there, and it's still named for him, the dojo there. It was in Christ Church, Barbados, so yes, he was white, but he lived and ran a school in Christ Church, Barbados.

JL: Okay, so there's another element to whatever we want to call this confluence of circumstances, someone who likely had a better understanding of what your life might be than the average person.

BR: Yes, most definitely.

JL: This is blowing my mind. This sounds like it could only … It HAD to happen that way. It sounds like one of those stories. You described it as a bag. Was he having you put on a gi?

BR: Yes, that was a gi.

JL: Did you recognize it from the book?

BR: I recognized what it was, but it still felt like a bag compared to shorts, and it was hot. That’s in the days when summers were HOT.

JL: Okay, and so how did it go?

BR: Yeah, it went really well. I started to … At first, it was like shock, but the shock wasn't as much … I wasn't worried about leaving the track program, but the shock was that I couldn't believe that someone saw what I already knew could have been the possibility of my trajectory. There are those things that we have in Johari’s Window that are hidden, that we know but other people don't know, but he knew it, and he saw it, and they saw it. They were a couple, and she did not do judo, but they were a married couple. That thing, that loneliness and stuff that may have been hidden from other people, and that whatever is the energy that … and when you talk to people when you're around people and those things … the perception was there.

Now, I'm a perceptive person, so I knew it, too, but at times, when you're 17/18 years old, you go with the flow, and you watch the flow, and you say, “If that's how I'm going to get my attention, I'm going for it.” My foot got in the door before I even got good at it, so my game … I was like, “I can go with this game here. At least I’ll know, people like me, and I can affirm that I'm not ugly, and that I'm not a big lip monster and all the things that I had been called from childhood,” but that foot got in that door was shut. That didn’t go anywhere. Done.

JL: Do you remember what it was like? Because I'm sure there was plenty of overlap in the movements you practiced at home and the movements you're practicing with people. It reminds me of, if you know the story of Pele, he started playing soccer with a ball of rags, and got really good, and then they were like, “Here's a soccer ball,” and he went, “Oh, this doesn't move the same way.” Was it similar for you?

BR: Yes, but I guess I've never thought about it that way. I thought about it as all new, because I think when I was younger, I was wrapped up in the fear of protecting myself and not the technical aspect. The override was I'm doing this, and I'm gaining confidence, but it wasn't technical. It was doing something to gain the confidence. So that's a yes, and it's a yes, both ways, I guess, you could say.

JL: Okay, how did it go? You're in there. Clearly you’re an athlete, so some physical awareness, some context for what you're doing. Did you crush it right off the bat?

BR: If anyone has done martial arts, if anyone has done judo, you will understand that you can run all day and it takes a different something out of you. There's a fortifying experience that comes from hitting the ground. Your body starts to build an armor, and that's not the same. Yes, in running for me, and a lot of other sports, you'll build muscle and things like that, but the muscle and the awareness of hitting and reverberation from the floor, it's not the same.

I don't know how to put it into words, but it's like … All I think of is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, where it builds a shell. There's a shell on the inside, so there's my organs, and then there's a shell, and then there are my muscles, and then there's the skin. It's a different setup that I feel, and knowing that, when I look at anatomy or physiology, it may not describe what I feel in my body, the way that I experience it. The only word I can use is fortified. The mat helped to fortify, being close to the ground helped to fortify my physical body and strengthen my body and my mind and my spirit at the same time. Hence, I also left there and went to Springfield College, which is “Spirit, Mind and Body.” That's their motto. That's what it felt like to me, and that felt comfortable because I felt like I was building another layer of defense against the world. 

JL: How long were you training there? Was it just that summer? 

BR: 1 ,2, 3? I can't remember three, four summers.

JL: Any training outside of the summers? Did you leave and say, “I’ve got to keep doing this?”

BR: Well, yes. You work this summer, and then, Sensei knew I was moving to Springfield College, and he said, “This is who you will train with,” and he is still living. His name is Noriyasu Kudo, Kudo Sensei in Springfield, Mass., and that's where I started training. I did track and field for my scholarship in the day, and then I would walk to Kudo’s and do judo, and Isshinryu – which I don't remember much of – at night. I think I started off two days a week or something like that.

JL: There are so many ways that we could go from here, and I'm trying to move forward while acknowledging that my mind is kind of blown at this set of events. We don't have … Everybody's story is different, and that's one of the things I love about the format of this show, but once in a while we get somebody's story who it feels like there's outside influence, however you want to look at that. What you're saying, it's just that if we were to look at the statistical probability of these things all stacking together, it's insane. It's statistically all but impossible. Wow.

BR: I’m going to put that in my words, and I don't know if it's what you mean, but I come from, with all of its deficits and joys, I come from a family of ministers. There's a hand guiding. There's a trajectory, and if you say your life is blessed, or God has his hand on you, or whatever, I was chosen for a direction for a reason. I could have been a drug addict to escape the pain. I could have been working on the streets when there was not time … times that I didn't have money and didn't know how to get … to go from place to place. I could have been in a psychiatric hospital, because I allowed my mind to go to places where they should not go and thought about ending my life, because there was not a place for me in this world, so I understand very clearly that I am blessed.

JL: That is personally how I look at things like this, but this is your story, not mine, so I'm trying not to lay my own context, my own perspective on there.

BR: That's okay, I laid it out there.

JL: By all means, do it. Alright, so training in the summer, training at school training, training, at some point you graduated. You’re four years into organized training at that point. I would imagine that if you kept doing it, alongside what you had to do for your college scholarship, it wasn't just a thing that you did casually. I watched a lot of people when I went to school, had hobbies, and most of those hobbies fell away unless they were super passionate. I think it's fair to say probably graduating college super passionate about your training. 

BR: Yeah.

JL: What next?

BR: For me also, it was a life-saving measure, in a sense. It was a defense against the world, so why would I give it up? The people who care, outside of my mother – I don't want to go down that avenue today – but outside of a very few people, they were the people who knew if I were missing. There wasn't anyone else that knew. If I didn't show up, I just … Where was I? I could have been anywhere on the earth or not here anymore. Kudo Sensei wants to know where I am, and get in here and do this thing, and the idea of not … and it's not a very direct thing, so it's not like you see on TV, “You can't quit, you can’t quit,” but the idea of being in the present says that you can't quit, that you're worth fighting for, that your life is worth fighting for. If this is how it's to be done, fine, and that you can also be a really good athlete in this thing, and you can be a good competitor in this thing in ways that may not have happened in other areas of life.

JL: Were you competing in judo? 

BR: Yeah.

JL: How did that come about? 

BR: Alright, Kudo said, “Here’s your application.” Whatever.

JL: He said, “We’re going, you're going?”

BR: Yup. It was part of the game. You know?

JL: How did that go? Was that something you enjoyed?

BR: I had a lot of anxiety. Most of the people that were there were of the same mindsets of we're not far out of the history, of this inequality. Oftentimes, you're still the only black woman standing there, or the only black girl standing there, and people say things and, and you just do it anyway. It's not my phrase. It comes from someone else I've heard say, “You do it afraid.” You step on that mat afraid, and it's okay. Even if you don't win it that time, you've already stepped on the mat, so the next time you will have less anxiety stepping on, because you understand what will happen. You do it afraid, and you allow your stomach to turn upside down, and to feel like you're going to faint, like you have to pee 100 times, and you can't drink water. and you do it anyway.

JL: Now, here's … I think we can go here, I'm taking a gamble. I would imagine that judo competition was probably the first time you had permission across the board to respond. Anybody who's ever grappled/trained knows that there's a varying degree with how much force has to go in to make it work. You can make it work or you can put something extra on to it. I would imagine some of those people saying things to you in competition were people in your own division, whether they were genuinely trying to … whether it was trash talk, or whether it was something more, I wasn't there and I don’t think it matters.

BR: Yeah, I think it was mostly coaches. Most competitors I found very respectful, but it was a weird phenomenon where after people would do judo with me, they … in a couple of cases, I should say, not all the time, they would cry. Then someone on the sideline, and I can remember specific – and I'm not going to name names – other martial arts people would say, “You're a bully.” I'm trying to survive like the other person. You put us in the cage together, via Gladiator, and you say whoever comes out wins, but if I win, I'm the bully. 

JL: Was that statement in response to, and this wraps in with my question, and let me ask it in a different way. Were you throwing them harder than you needed to? 

BR: I have no idea. I was getting the job done, so I was saving … There’s this backstory that people don't talk about. People talk about, “Win or lose, it's all fun.” People feel embarrassed when they lose. There's a bit of humiliation that walks with you. There's a bit of eyes down. It's not automatically, “Okay, Coach, what did I do and help me.” You’ve got to get to that point. Right, you don't just jump right into it when you get off the mat. There's a sense of failure that you're overcoming, but that permission was literally … literally is not the right way, but I think it was taken from opponents whose coaches jumped in to tag me as something other – a bully. Not cheating. Doing the same thing. Ippon is ippon, but I'm a bully. They don't get to go through their process of saying, “This was fair. I didn't do well. What do we need to go back and do,” because they get dismissive at …

JL: It was a way of dismissing what you did.

BR: Right, and for them, dismissing their loss as some kind of a cheat. How do they get to move to the next level? If their opponent is seen, without saying the words cheating, “They're cheaters. That's why you lost.”

JL: They don’t have to say anything.

BR: It doesn’t help any of the process. That’s not all the time, but these are the things that stand out in my head now being 60. Like, yeah, you probably didn't do that person much good in their longevity and being in a sport, because when they don't have an excuse, what are you going to do? What have you taught them? What are their next steps?

JL: I think about a year ago we had Jean Kanokogi ,whose mother, Rusty, was instrumental in bringing women's judo forward. Were you still competing in those years? Were you able to come up with that?

BR: I don't remember the years, so if you give me the years, I can tell you.

JL: When did women's judo hit the Olympics?

BR: It was after I was in college.

JL: ’84? ’88?

BR: Because I was in college. I graduated college in … ’82? ’83? I don’t remember any more. ’82 or ’83, and it had not yet. It was coming, so I think it was somewhere around ‘84 to ‘88.

JL: Did you keep competing after college?

BR: Yes, but not as frequently?

JL: Okay. Were you still in Springfield, or had you moved on?

BR: I  was in Springfield a little bit, then I was in San Diego, California, and I went to the San Diego Judo Club just for a little bit. It was … weird.

JL: Are you willing to say more?

BR: Yeah, it wasn't from … It was nothing about race. It was I was from somewhere else. I wasn't from California. I was like, “This is weird.” It was very much, again, if you come in and you're winning … and technical styles are different, so if one sensei thinks that this is the way you do a technique, we think there’s one way to do everything – which is ludicrous to me, but – then you're doing it wrong. I was like, “I’m done.” By then, I was a little older, I was trying to be a professional person in the world, so I probably did less Judo around that time in a formalized way, but I would always find people to train with, like at … I can't remember if it was YMCA, or Boys and Girls Club, or something like that.

JL: What did the arc of martial arts look like for you after that? It sounds like we've got these cycles of up and … frequent and less frequent. You came into this, maybe a less frequent cycle, but at some point, because I know some of the more current aspects, at some point it came back up. What did the next few years or so look like?

BR: Well, in there, we're talking about marriage, kids, and all of that stuff, but I still … even through my kids, I still did judo. When I moved, to … What year … Terry was 2? I moved to New Hampshire 32 years ago. My oldest son is 34. I continued. I went right away into finding judo once I got to Manchester. I was in Lebanon for a few months and that was not … there was nothing there. I wound up in Manchester, working, and I found judo. There was … A guy named Art Clement, I believe, was the first one, and he's long gone, but he worked as a high school science teacher in Hopkinton, New Hampshire. He had some mats up on a stage in the gym, so I did judo with him. Then I moved to Cal Potter at Portsmouth, very famously the Portsmouth Judo Club in Portsmouth. Cal passed recently. Within the last year and a half, I think, he passed away, but I would drive from Manchester to there, so I was doing three days a week. I did a lot of judo.

JL: For people not from the area, that's not two towns over. 

BR: Yeah. At the time, the roads were not good either, so it was about an hour drive to Portsmouth back then, and in the middle of the night, and one of my kids did judo. It's a time when Jimmy Pedro and the Pedros were very connected down there.

Yeah, I still trained and competed, went to Am-Cans and all that stuff, all the way through. I trained a lot in the early parts of motherhood, after the … I trained a lot, and I took my kids in strollers to train. We put the sleeping bags down and I trained, and by that time, it was a part of me. It's intertwined. In many ways, it's intertwined. Even if I didn't get on a mat, the thinking, the being of it, is intertwined in who I am. The arts are intertwined in who I am.

You're talking about moving. I had a hip replacement in … elbow was ’01, I think ’02 was Am-Cans, and then I had a hip replacement in ’03 … is when I started. I started earlier in that, dabbling in the grappling here in Manchester at the … it used to be Gold's Gym, with a kid who I still work with. We'd gotten back together now. He was 17 at the time, and now he's 42, and we train two nights a week. We run classes together in Nashua, New Hampshire. He showed it to me. I had done a little bit of wrestling. I wasn't allowed in college, to wrestle, really, but I could do the intramurals with the boys, because back then it wasn't … girls wrestling wasn't there. I was like, “What are you guys doing?” I said it looked like some kind of Judo or something. He was like, “Oh, no, we're doing grappling,” and that was it. We rolled out the mats on the gym floor, the wrestling mats on the gym floor in Gold's Gym, and never turned around from then. I thought it was … not that it was a better option, because I still did judo, and I still do judo, just not in as much of a formalized way, because with the hip replacement, I had to be careful for a long time. You don't want that thing to pop out.

JL: If I'm doing the math, depending on how you want to look at it, you're finding … you're calling it grappling, but maybe I'm foreshadowing here, was it Jiujitsu? Was it Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?

BR: If was very on the cusp. It was, yes and no. NAGA was around, with Kip Kollar. NAGA was around, but it was mostly no-gi stuff, but then they had gi stuff. Then the tide started to turn. More people started … the Gi stuff started coming more, so yes and no. There were people from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu there. As a matter of fact, in that time is when I met Roberto Maya, and I started traveling to Watertown to do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu because there wasn't anything, I don’t think, around. That's why I traveled to Watertown in the middle of the night. It had a mix. It was kind of grappling, and then gi grappling, and then Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was coming stronger from Brazil and other areas, and being formalized at the time. A lot of people, I remember, were speaking just Portuguese, but they were learning English, so it all kind of came … I was right in there in that time period.

JL: You were there at almost the … maybe not the beginning, but the early … some early periods here.

BR: In this area. It may have been in other places, and the gi was more comfortable for me. I had been in the gi for my life, you know? I was 36 when I started Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

JL: What was it like having two decades of judo under your belt, literally, and seeing … I guess we could say seeing combat, or seeing that partnered human engagement in a certain way, and then … You mentioned some injuries and wanting to be respectful of your body, but it's a whole different language. Grappling versus Judo is a different language. Do you remember what you were thinking, as you started seeing this? You expressed it as a better option at the time, but there must have been some light bulbs popping up for you because it was similar enough to relate but different enough that it's a whole different thing.

BR: Well, I think there are two things I'll say on that. One is, it's more tools in my tool chest, this tool chest that by now was a little less prominent in my mind of competence, so there were other things to put into that tool chest to take out when I needed to. Secondly, I wasn't giving up judo. I was just learning more about martial arts. People would tell me, “Oh, you have to get rid of that Judo stuff. It doesn't work anymore.” I just sit there and look at them like, “That's because you can't do a takedown.” That's what I'd be saying in the back of my head, but I’d just be like, “Oh, that's not going to happen,” but the mind has to … it's not a BUT, it’s an AND … the mind has to open, because the world presents us with many challenges in many different ways in many perspectives. Why would I stay in one perspective forever, and not explore other perspectives? See it from another point of view?

JL: Make sense to me? Okay. Where did it go from there?

BR: It’s still here. It hasn’t gone anywhere.

JL: Is that because … You were early enough in BJJ, and I'm not going to say specific numbers, but I've seen the stripes on your belt. I’ve never met a woman in the context of BJJ with more stripes on her belt. Was that also a battle?

BR: Baby, if you only knew.

JL: I'm guessing. I'm guessing.

BR: This is the point where, even in class, where I tell people … it's kind of … How do I say it? It's not that it's against martial arts, but don't get too wrapped up in that string tied around you, because every person that's involved, it's not one path. One, it's not one path for each person. It's not always an equitable path, if you are not in the “In” group. It's a path where you can be added to without continuing to work at it. All you have to do is be breathing, and someone gives it to you because you're still alive, so … yeah.

I love it, and I'm glad, and people say it took me longer than the average bear to get it. Was it because of skill? [shrugs] Were there people who started way after me that then rode themselves above me? [shrugs] Let it be, because they're not inside of me, and they could never … Showing that and flapping it around and saying that you're higher than me means nothing. What you have not done is you have not built yourself into being Bernadette Rebecca Robinson, and THAT’S what counts.

What counts is every way that my life has benefited from doing this, from being able to sit here and talk to you now and not crying, from being able in my current job, to being able to be counsel and counsel the counselors on how to counsel other people, to work – when I was working in school – to work with families who have high potential and are held down by the facts of where life are right now, you can't replace that, so I don't care about your belt in many ways. I respect the work that people who really worked for it put into it, but now you could go doop-doop-doop-doop-doop on your typewriter and get on your … sorry. That's how old I am … on your keyboard, and go to an ordering machine, and get you one. I’ll put it right there.

JL: That's as good a response as I think anybody could come up with. This is the point where I would typically ask why, why are you still training, but you've answered that, so let me ask that in a different way. What are you adding to your toolbox? You express something that I've expressed often on the show. People who are longtime listeners know. I don't train karate. I don't train Taekwondo. I'm a martial artist, and it's all different tools. It all goes in the same box. It has applicability based on different situations, and if nothing else, it's fun. I enjoy it.

BR: Yes.

JL: Being that you've trained in a number of things … and don't think I missed the Isshinryu reference.

BR: And the Capoeira? I’m new at that.

JL: I think I was there when you did that at the symposium. That was a blast. I did a little bit of capoeira in college. Yeah, it's all good. It's all fun. It all overlaps at least a little bit. I'm sure there's the fun part, I'm sure there's the health part, I'm sure there's the, “This is something that is core to who I am, I've got to keep doing it,” but I would be shocked if there wasn't also goals laid in there, things that you are … that are driving you. You seem like someone who is motivated by whether it's external or internal pressures, so where is that motivation coming from, and what is it pushing you to? 

BR: I think those might be questions that I ask myself when I think about that. If not me, then who? If not now, then when? Because every person that … We talk about “me, I, my, and mine,” but we're too connected to … and that's because of how our language is set up, but that's not really the entire picture.

My experience doesn't have to be duplicated by someone else, but someone may come in my path and need whatever energy it is, or whatever word or whatever movement it is, to move to their next level, so if not me, then who? What good is it to me to keep it to myself? If not, now, then when? When I can't get up and walk?

There are people who without speaking say … and it's not just about me, but they’re saying to us, the collective people around, “I need you now.” This is the way that I give. This is the way that I learn, and it is me. It's part of me. There are many parts of me, and this is a part of me. What I give and what I share, I also get back, too. It's not a one-way street.

When I have students on the mat, I get from them, too. I don't do a lot of the “holy praise me,” because I'm getting from you, too. Without you, I don't have anywhere for that to go. You have to receive, and I have to receive the energy in you, that you have, to keep me going. I can sit on the couch, and I can do what many people do – no offense to anyone – and not move, and woe is me. Or I can be on the mat with people, most … 99.999 are younger, and be able to absorb their energy, to mimic them sometimes in movement, so that my life continues on. It's a back-and-forth flow. This is not a one … It’s a …

JL: It sounds like an exchange.

BR: It's an exchange. It IS an exchange. War in itself is an exchange. We see it as a win or lose, but it's not. It's more of an exchange. In my mind, it's like a dance of words, that I can't express how much I need this or I want that, and you can't express how much I need to keep it for myself … whatever the situation is. It's an exchange. It's not a one-way street. We can have those exchanges and have people winning and losing at the same time. They don't have to be win-or-lose. They can live side-by-side.

I don't know how to say this, and I don't want to if people, listeners, have fought in wars. I haven't, but I've had my own battles, so I don't want to take away from the fact that … Look at our veterans. I'm just going to put it out there. “We won this.” The question is, where are you now? What demons are you wrestling with now? The win and lose goes side by side. When we talk about these things of turbulence, and war, and conflict, and defense. I don’t know how else to say it.

JL: I get it. It's bringing to mind concepts around balance, and the idea that you can take without giving, or unbalance over here without the remainder having to go somewhere. Whether you look at it metaphysically or physics it doesn't work. It's got to go somewhere. What I'm hearing is, instead of pretending otherwise, take the opportunity of that.

BR: Absolutely. These days in my life, I believe, and I try to practice being open. It's the hidden stuff with people, with art, that keeps us bound, and I don't want to be that person who's doing the same thing and calling everyone else wrong all the time because it's not the tradition. I believe in traditions, and I do believe in that, but there are times that are difficult for me to watch. I think of it this way. I have two sons. Those are my only children. They're an extension of me, and if one of them is smarter than me, if one of them was doing Jiu-Jitsu and was better than me, I'm pleased. I'm not fighting against them, still calling myself the best thing, because … I think I want to stop there on that one, because I have a lot of feelings about how we do this thing, and we don't do what we say. We just keep trying to hang on and sometimes it looks bizarre.

JL: I suspect a lot of people listening know where you're going, and they're probably nodding along as I am right now. I know where you're going, and I know how sensitive a subject that can be, and how deeply personal it can be because of the relationships that we build in martial arts in this, frankly, bizarre hierarchy that we construct. There's an upside to it, but there's also a downside to it, and it takes a tremendous amount of personal growth, to keep it positive indefinitely. I think a lot of people … What I think I'm hearing you say is that some people run out of steam, and that positive approach doesn't always remain indefinitely. 

BR: Yeah. There's a sadness. When I sit in these big gatherings of the Martial Arts Wonders of the World … which I do believe in all that they should be honored. Their skill may not be where it was, so we're not going to pretend that. They are to be honored. They're not gods. Maybe it's only the places I've been, but inevitably I sit in those big gatherings, and someone comes up to talk about people, and it sounds like sadness. They're saying joy and there's tears, and I sit back and I say, “What are we wrestling with here?” This thing that’s standing up and it becomes this kind of [gasps] I just sit back and I go, “We're wrestling with principalities. We're wrestling with the fact that life changes. We’re wrestling with the fact that our bodies are not the same, and that's okay, because we're beings, human beings, and that's not a negative. We are human beings in the most positive sense of the word.” That's what happens. It is the process, and I love the process.

JL: Growth isn't always physical, and I think a lot of us … We've spent a tremendous amount of time on this show talking about ego, and the failings of the ego, because it's a two-edged sword. Ego can be incredibly motivating, but if unchecked, it can be destructive. In the martial arts, we so often hold up skill, physical prowess as the most valuable element to what we do. I don't, but as a collective industry, we certainly do, and if that is what someone hangs their proverbial hat on, they get older, and now their skill starts to deteriorate, yet they haven't spent time valuing all the other things that they do or could have as a result of their training. We all try to remain the hero in our own story, and those things start collapsing on us. A wounded animal in the corner is pretty darn dangerous. A wounded ego can be just as vulnerable.

BR: Yeah. Yeah, I don't even think people really understand the difference between the id, the ego, and the superego, so that's for another day entirely.

JL: That's another day, yeah. You're throwing me back to high school psychology class.

BR: Yeah. I don't know. I don't do the … Sometimes I've been asked to do … and I don't get asked to do a lot of … I know my stuff. I know I know it, but I don't get asked to do a lot of things in seminars and stuff, but when I do, people ask me, “Oh, list all of your accomplishments,” and I don't do it.

JL: We should have a conversation offline. I understand.

BR: What's accomplished was yesterday. Don't spend too much time in yesterday. I’ve got a life to live.

JL: Well said.

BR: One of the things that … This is actually a work thing, and people take it to say as a martial art thing. You might know the saying. When … How’s it go? When the student comes, the teacher …

JL: When the student is ready, the master will appear.

BR: The master will appear. I was on the beach one day, and I just dissected that to pieces because people just use it, and they use it in like, “You have to be ready, and then the master’s going to come.” I wrote this whole thing on my – and I have a flip phone – on my cell phone of how ego-laden that is for a teacher, or a master, and that, again, one needs the other. You're not a master if there is not mastery over content and person. You're not a teacher if there's not mastery over content and you have a student, a willingness to follow you. You're not a teacher if you have not gone through the process of being a student and gaining your learning first.

Mastery is a powerful word. Continue, continue, continue. It's not an end word. Sometimes, you get into the arts, and the person standing there running the room thinks it's an end game, and it's not. Mastery is continuous. I don’t know, and I could be crazy. I could be nuts out of my mind, but that’s how I see it.

JL: Well, then I’m right there with you. I think so often, when people make that statement, they voice that cliche. They envision it like a movie, that, “I'm going to get to this certain point, I'm going to train so hard, and then this monk is going to walk down the road and knock on my door and say, ‘You're ready,’” and that's not life. That Master isn't necessarily one person. It's not necessarily long term. It could just be this tiny little thing, and to me it’s … I think we're on the same page here. If you just shut up and listen, pay attention to what's going on around you, there's a tremendous amount of educational opportunity, and it's not confined to martial arts.

BR: A little thing about myself I need to tell you. I agree with you in your last … I think we agree in that way. You said monk. All I see when people talk about that is that rat from the Ninja Turtles.

JL: I would love for Master Splinter to knock on my door. That would be amazing.

BR: Splinter! That’s his name!

JL: I grew up … We’ve got a couple years between us, but I grew up … I mean, I was HOT on the Ninja Turtle craze. There's a picture we've put up in the past of me dressed as Raphael in a town parade, where I was literally painted green, because that was the best that we could do. Just like head to toe green, and masks, and I was training with sais at the time, so it all worked out, but I think, as unlikely as it would be, and as concerned as I think a human being should be at a large-sized rat walking on two feet, I would probably still be happy to see that happen.

BR: I don't know how … It had probably come from raising my kids in that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle age, that every time somebody says something, the rat shows up.

JL: What could be better than a rat showing up?

BR: I know!

JL: I know you're low-key in terms of contact information. Is there a way people get a hold of you? Are you open to that?

BR: I guess … I think I'm looking at Facebook and it's going out of style, I guess. It looks like less people are on it.

JL: That is true.

BR: I don't have … Well, I didn't think I had Instagram, but someone says I do, because I have people following me. I don't know how it got there. Facebook is probably the best way. I will probably pay more attention to it. My email, I start deleting things if they're not recognizable, so someone might … for now, while Facebook is still in.

JL: People can track you down by Facebook. That’s fine.

BR: Yeah, and track me, not my mother. We have the same name, and not my restaurant because my restaurant also has the same name.

JL: Are there pictures of you in a Gi on those other two pages?

BR: Not even on my page. My page is my son from when he was in Boardwalk Empire.

JL: Oh, cool.

BR: Yeah, my son's an actor. It’s him sitting on a thing with a straw and a thing in his hat, but I'm going to change it soon so you'll probably see me.

JL: Then this feels like a very … Somehow this all … this cliche always gets confined to Chinese martial arts. You're going to have to hunt. If someone wants to get a hold of you, they're going to have to hunt to track you down and do some work. How ready are you?

BR: Well, people really know who I am, and we're gonna go back to the beginning on this one, because they say, “Oh, who's that black lady in New Hampshire that does martial– ” “Bernadette.” That's where it comes up. Maybe there's other people out there now, but that was it, so usually, I'm in the first name or two.

JL: That kind of … not quite, but almost closes a circle. That's a journey. For the people listening who have been on this ride, listened to this journey today, what advice would you give them?

BR: Are we talking about people “martial artists,” or people “anyone?”

JL: You can make it broader, but you know, 99-plus percent of the people listening are going to be martial artists.

BR: It's your own journey. Don't give it up and make it someone else's journey. No one gets to drag you along, or gets to tell you how to have the journey. You are in control of your own joy and misery, so keep an eye on that.

I would say … I don't want to tell … Well, I would say to have some kind of a practice that keeps you in tune with yourself. Bless whatever is serving you really well in the arts, and bless the things that are not serving you well, because those things are going to teach you about you.

Everything that comes in and out is a part of who we are – positive, negative, joy, grief, sadness, sorrow, elation, desire. It is all a part of our beautiful human experience. Allow it to happen. It's our choice whether we want to stop at turbulence and just stay there. I think that is a choice. If you choose that, power to you, but you can make another choice.

There are things that happen in life that are heart-wrenching, and heartbreaking. I will say, even in those times, you can give yourself time out from grief, and allow yourself a moment to breathe and learn breathing, and allow yourself to move forward, unless you're calling it the end. 

A plug for who I am as a person. If you are feeling distressed, have mental health issues, have substance issues, reach out to someone. Know who to trust first and reach out. It's not beyond us as martial artists to be caught up in some of the same scenarios as everyone else in life.

I would say to my ladies out there, mostly, but I will tell you, I've spoken to men, too. If you're in a place that's toxic, which we didn't talk about, maybe I'll have to come back again. If you're in a place that's toxic, and you don't know what the motivation of the people around you are, that is part of your training and your self-defense. You don't have to stay there. Find people that you can go to. Stop your membership. You did not sign up for abuse. There is no school without your money, and you don't have to, nor should be berated into thinking that you're less than other people if you quit. If you quit, that is up to you. I don't choose to quit, but I might choose a different road. And that's okay. We don't all resonate with each other, and that's okay. 

But, if someone is abusing you, if you are experiencing domestic violence within or violence within your dojo, or if you are family connected to domestic violence, you need to seek out help. That is not part of a good martial arts experience. It's not just what we do. Don't let people tell you that lie.

Have fun. I say family first. Someone comes to me and says, “I can’t come to class,” family first, because I'll go away one day, and you still have your children, and if you're married, your husband, and maybe your mother and your aunts and uncles. You still have that. That's your primary. That's your core. All of the rest of this might go away. Look what happened at COVID. There's a teaching in COVID that says who are we without it, and we are still us. When we can't go to the mat, we are still us, those of us. We still carry the values and the greatness of our art with us. My personal mantra is, “Find a way,” and then we find a way to get the work done or as much as we can, even when we can't be on the mat, if that's what we're choosing to do.

I mean, I don't know what else beyond that, what to tell people. 

JL: If you're still here, it means you listen to the whole thing. Some pretty good stuff there, wasn't it? The more I reflect on this episode, the less I have that I can say because I keep feeling more. There's a lot that I feel about this episode, and some of it is positive, some of it is painful, but all of it is powerful. I really want to thank Bernadette for coming on the show, and her willingness to speak so openly on some sensitive and incredibly personal subjects. I'm glad we had the opportunity. I'm glad that you all have the opportunity to listen as well. Hope you enjoy it. Thanks for coming on. I'll see you soon. 

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whistlekickmartiaartsradio.com for the show notes. We're on every social media platform you can think of: @whistlekick. My email is jeremy@whistlekick.com. If you've got guest suggestions or feedback or anything like that, I want to hear it.

Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.