Episode 711 - Training and Defending While Not at Your Best
In this episode, Andrew and Jeremy talk about Training and Defending While Not at Your Best.
Training and Defending While Not at Your Best - Episode 711
Let’s say that you've caught the flu or something that makes you less than 100% and you need to go out and buy groceries and suddenly a stressful situation comes your way. Can you rely on your mental capacity when you are physically weak? In this episode, Andrew and Jeremy talk about Training and Defending While Not at Your Best.
After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section down below!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Andrew Adams:
Hi and welcome. You're listening to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. And today, Jeremy and I are going to be discussing how to train and defend yourself when you're not feeling your best. Which you may have heard a little grunt there. Jeremy, maybe prepped. You became a method actor for this one today.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes, that's exactly what's going on.
Andrew Adams:
Excellent. Excellent. So obviously, my name is not Jeremy Lesniak. I'm Andrew Adams. And here at whistlekick, everything we do is in support of traditional martial arts. If you want to see everything we do, check out whistlekick.com. That's the place where you can learn all about products, projects, things we're working on, it's kind of our online home. It's also the easiest way to find out about any new things we have going on. And if you do, go and purchase something, you can use the code PODCAST15 that's gonna get you 50% off anything that we've got there in the store. This show however, it's got a separate website, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. We bring the show to you twice a week. And your goal here at whistlekick is to connect, educate and entertain traditional martial artists throughout the world.
If you want to show your appreciation for what we do here, there's a lot of ways you can do that. You can make a purchase, follow us on social media, @whistlekick everywhere, you can also join us on Patreon. With patreon.com/whistlekick that's patreon.com/whistlekick, a place where you can post exclusive content. And if you contribute as little as $5 a month, you'll get access to so much other stuff that we have here going on. If you want a list of all the ways you can help as well as a constantly rotating mix of behind the scenes stuff and other fun content. You can check out whistlekick.com/family, you got to type it in. There's no link, direct link, you have to type it in. So Jeremy, yeah, how are you feeling buddy?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Terribly.
Andrew Adams:
What's going on, man?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm sick. And I think we need to say. I don't know why. Because I'm sure there are people out there that are like, oh, should I be listening to this show? What if Jeremy has the dreaded plague? You can't get it through body or video? Yeah, don't worry. And do you know why? If I was not sick, I could better explain immunology.
Andrew Adams:
It's because both of our computers have virus protection.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, yes, that too.
Andrew Adams:
So you know, we don't have to worry about anybody getting sick. Listen to this episode, right? But you're feeling a little under the weather?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I woke up this morning. And I was like, oh, this is not good. So I'm rescheduling and canceling as much as I can. But we needed to record an episode. Yeah, I have a philosophical approach that problem is also the solution of the problem is that I'm feeling like death. The solution is, let's do an episode about martial arts and feeling like death. Yeah, because it's sometimes been addressed. People get sick.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yep. We've done episodes of training, when you're hurt, you're injured. You know, we're sore not feeling well, you know, in that regard as from a physical capacity. But you know, and you know, you are physically sick, but you're not hurt, you're not injured. And that's different.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know, it is a dramatic difference. You know, when we talk about a physical injury, it's generally acute, there is a region of the body that is injured. And your approach tends to be how do I let that go and focus on other parts of my body? But what about right now when I can't think straight, I can't talk? Well, my whole body aches. I'm cold and I want to go back to bed. Yeah, yeah. And we think about the opportunism of someone who might be mugging someone or trying to take advantage of a target. Oh, pretty good target right now.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. And, you know, there's something to be said for adrenaline, right? If you were approached on the street and mugged right now. Adrenaline would likely kick in. But the reality is, you're not going to be 100% no matter what.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Not even close. No, I think when we factor in everything. I'm probably at 50 to 60 for that right now. Adrenaline might give me another 10 points. But my concern right now is that adrenaline would just make my brain cloudier. You know, we've all had an adrenaline response. We know what that feels like. And we don't think clearly under adrenaline. I'm already not thinking clearly. For all I know, adrenaline would cause me to give the person my wallet. There you go. And my shoes. Yeah, yeah. You want me to do your taxes. So I'm ridiculous.
Andrew Adams:
And you're probably not likely to think of the example of like, just coughing on them makes them sick, you know?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, she's me. Oddly enough, that is probably my greatest defense right now is if I walked around, given what has happened the last few years, very few people would come near me. That is true, I would get a lot of really dirty looks now. I'm not leaving the house. But if I was to do so if I had to, for who knows what, some kind of emergency. But the illness that I have is the type of illness that I have, which again, we don't know exactly what it is, I don't believe it's a thing. Sometimes there are milder versions. Maybe I'm not 50-60%. What if I'm 85-90%? Yeah. 75%? Why are 85% still gonna work? Even 75%? You know, there are a lot of people out there who have jobs where you don't get sick time.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah. Depending on what your “sickness” is, some people will still train, and we're not talking about the thing that's been going on the last couple of years, we're talking like you have a flu, you've got a cold, and you're not feeling your best, still going in training, or doing some training.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Potentially, to be doing some training?
Andrew Adams:
Absolutely. I was home all of last week, quarantining myself at home. And I still worked out because I felt fine. You know, like, I was sick, I wasn't gonna go out in public. And I wasn't good enough to go to school and do training with other people. But I was still able to work out on my own. But it's because I felt like it was not going to make things worse. And I think that's an important distinction.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I think we all know that, depending on the severity of an illness, movement can help you feel better. So finding, you know, as, as any. As with anything, the right dose makes sense. You know, walking through some form of slowly, could be a good idea. Hitting a Makiwara for an hour? Probably not.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah. And it's important to understand yourself enough to know that you have the mental capacity at the time to be able to do that stuff, you know, even though you are physically not 100%. Right now, you also are aware enough that you're not mentally 100%, either. And so trying to run through things in your brain is not going to work.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, which of the two things should we really dig into first, the training or the defending?
Andrew Adams:
I think we should jump into the defense because I think it's a little more, I think it'll be a little easier to figure out. You know, the reality is, you're not gonna be at your top. And that'll mean you right now, just in general, if you're not feeling 100%, you're not going to work, your body's not going to cooperate with yourself at 100%.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And so what am I going to do with that? If I am, literally or figuratively pushed into a corner and I have to respond? I'm going to be using the simplest things I can in an effort to get away. I'm probably going to handle things a little bit differently. My voice is kind of short. rockabilly yell for help right now. But it's going to be a lot of really rough gross. I poke your poles, throat pinches, rolling strikes, I would say you are more likely to do things.
Andrew Adams:
Okay, how do I say it if I was approached on the street, I would work hard to make sure that I didn't kill the other person, right? Putting it bluntly, right? I'm gonna not want to kill the other person. I'm not going to be working necessarily, I'm not gonna be thinking about fishhooks and things that are really going to hurt the other person. But if I'm not at 100%, I might have to think about that kind of stuff. If my brain can handle that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, the rules of self defense remain, you're trying to take care of yourself, your safety is the priority over the attacker. And you have to work within the reality of the situation. The reality of the situation is that you're pulling tools out of your bag that maybe you wouldn't normally, because that's what you've got to do in the given situation. And when you do that.
Andrew Adams:
Exactly, exactly. And, you know, we had a great couple of episodes with Sergeant Jason Hamilton, about appropriate use of force and there's so many factors that go into that and, you know, your physical ability to continue to defend yourself is one of those factors. I think it needs to be taken into account that if that's all you can do in order to keep yourself safe, then that's what you need to do.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I agree.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I don't think there's a whole lot else there. You know, we can really talk about it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We hinted at it a bit tongue in cheek, but I think we should declare it a little more bluntly. Coughing on people is perfectly acceptable.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know, licking your hands and wiping them out of, you know, there's nothing off limits about being gross. The moment someone's trying to harm you, you do, you've got to do. And so use your assets if the asset is concerned over their well being because you are ill, by all means.
Andrew Adams:
Well, and I think you've said this at least once. Nobody wants to fight crazy. Yep. You know, if you come off as crazy, crazy, doing things that you wouldn't necessarily people in general would not ordinarily do. That is off putting to other people. Yeah, so maybe that's the way to go. Now, let's talk about training the other side, you know, like, not not being on the street and getting confronted, you're at home right now. Maybe you were planning on going to the gym today to work, either workout or go to your school and do some training.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's talk about what happened.
Andrew Adams:
To you, it's not happening because you are low enough at a low enough point. That would be bad.
Jeremy Lesniak:
When we consider self defense. So what self defense means, in this context, it means getting healthier as quickly as possible. Training for me is unlikely to help me heal faster. What will be embedded?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah. And let's take out of the let's take out of the equation, working with other people and getting them sick, right? Like, that's off the table. You wouldn't want to get other people sick. But you know, maybe what you have isn't something that's super contagious, right? You just have a sickness, right? You're not feeling 100% working here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Here's a great example.. Here's a great example of chemotherapy. That yeah, perfect, cool. Yeah, perfect. You know, like you're gonna get other people sick. I've trained in plenty of schools, or someone who has been in, you know, early stages of cancer treatment, and they want to come to class and they want to do what they can. Yeah. Until they can.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yep. And there gets to be a threshold, a level where your body is just not going to function correctly. And you actually could do yourself harm by trying to better yourself, right? You'regoing to class because you want to be better. You know, you're trying to better yourself. But in that process, you can actually be doing your body some harm.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And if nothing else, you are likely conditioning your body to remember repetitions of exercises that are not at your best. Yeah, if you want to get faster, you have to do techniques, fast. If I train, fast, “fast techniques”, slowly, I make myself slower. And the same thing would apply to every measurable or subjective quality to our martial arts. If I'm doing forms. And let's say, you know, I've got a tournament coming up. But it's been weeks out of practice. Yeah. Unless I'm trying to practice remembering it. Maybe I don't know it. Well. I can work that part. But if I know it really well. Right now, I'm not working on that.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah. It doesn't doesn't make sense. You're not doing you're certainly not doing yourself any good. Now, how do we as individuals know where that's where that level is? That's the question.
Jeremy Lesniak:
On the side of caution. If you're unsure go low, right. I would imagine most people have been ill often enough. They know what illness feels like. They know oh, I feel like crying. I'm going back to bed. I don't think too many people are waking up knowing I feel like I'm gonna go to the gym. Yeah, you know, nobody feeling like I'm feeling is going anywhere. But it comes back to your Why. Why do you want to train? What's your condition? And being conservative, being honest.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, being honest with yourself and not trying to cheat yourself, you know, give your body the opportunity to heal, you know, it needs to recuperate, you know? And that can't happen if you're continually pushing your body when it's not in a state that's ready to be pushed.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Very true. Yeah. Anything else?
Andrew Adams:
I don't think so. I mean, I can't think of anything else I know you can't think of. I definitely can't think of anything. So, you know, there we go. I mean, kind of a shorter episode today, people will, you'll understand why, you know, Jeremy's not feeling well, it happens. But we whistlekick, it's important to talk about this stuff. And this led to a great thing to think about. If we missed anything, you're listening, and you're like, hey, guys, you didn't think of this? Let us know. Tell us something. Yeah, it happens. You can contact Jeremy at Jeremy@whistlekick.com You can contact me, Andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com.
You know, you can either comment on the YouTube video, you can go in a Facebook group, which you should join if you're not a member of you can check out show notes for this episode at the website whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. You can find video links and social media pictures, in this case it is just video. But if you're down to support us and all of our work, you've got so many options to do you might consider buying one of our Amazon books, telling others about the show supporting us at patreon.com/whistlekick. You can use the code PODCAST15. Get 15% off anything we sell. Am I missing anything? You can hit us on social media we are @whistlekick. Pretty much everywhere.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, you're not missing anything.
Andrew Adams:
Well, I can't think of anything at all.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I can't think of anything.
Andrew Adams:
So all right, so that's what we got, guys. Until next time, train hard, smile. Have a great day.