Episode 747 - Rapid Fire Q&A #19
In this episode, Jeremy and co-host Andrew Adams take on a special edition of the Rapid Fire Question and Answers.
Rapid Fire Q&A #19 - Episode 747
Jeremy and co-host Andrew Adams tackle a series of questions, comments, and reviews from you, the listeners, and some guests in the form of a Rapid Fire Q&A. Here are the questions they tried to answer:
What do you think of incorporating traditional art into a martial arts curriculum in a more overt way?
What are you excited about the Free Training day?
Listen to the episode for more questions!
After listening to the questions and answers, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section below!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Andrew Adams:
Hey Jeremy, how are you doing today?
Jeremy Lesniak:
How are you? Great to welcome everybody to a live episode of whistle kick martial arts radio. This is in fact a Q&A episode where all of the content is driven by you, the audience. And I don't know about anything ahead of time Andrew collects it and puts it out. And I have five minutes to answer. And we talked about some other stuff while we're doing it. So thanks for coming by. Thanks for being here. And I'm going to turn it over to you, Andrew.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, here we are. We're just chillin. Today, we're here. We're doing it. For those that may be listening, we're actually not in the same location today. So our audio sounds a little different than it normally does. That's why. But yeah, here we are doing another live q&a. I've got a bunch of questions. I have more than four questions about the world. We're going to do four. But we are excited to be able to bring this to you guys live at a scheduled time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
With our first time scheduling this.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Kind of cool. So if you are in the chat, and you want to say hi, feel free, you know, type in the chat. I'll see it. And we can chat about if you have any questions, let me know that I can ask Jeremy. And what else can I tell you?
Jeremy Lesniak:
We've got more people watching live and we usually do at this point. So I think us planning ahead was a good thing.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah. At 12/15 it was like people start their lunch break at 12. They had a couple of times. You're ready.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Now they're grown jelly sandwiches and whatever. Here's the question. If you had to design the worst peanut butter and jelly sandwich, bread, peanut butter jelly. What would you do?
Andrew Adams:
Okay, it would be cinnamon raisin bread. Extra chunky peanut butter. And orange marmalade?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm with you on the marmalade I actually like the other to see, for me, it would be like orange marmalade. It would be like pumpernickel which actually really likes pumpernickel bread but just not for PB and J. Yeah. And then the peanut butter would be like the actual you know, you know it'd be the really crummy like, peanut butter and jelly like the goober in the single jar. Yeah, but it would be some weird version that had marmalade because that's not good peanut butter. And you're just like…
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah. cinnamon raisin bread is just kind of a breakfast thing. Which by the way, so give us here to have breakfast with us?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Nice. [00:02:54-00:02:56]
Andrew Adams:
No, no, I made cinnamon raisin bread. For tuna melt once.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, no.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, just because.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, well, that sounds awful.
Andrew Adams:
All right, all this food. Let's talk about food as Dennis talks about what's a lunch break? Went away with the eight hour workday thanks to the pandemic. Oh, well. All right. So are you ready for your first question?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm ready. Let's do it.
Andrew Adams:
Okay, so your first question is from Stacey and I can show it on the screen here. I love that. Calligraphy, music and writing used to be part of the training within martial arts. What do you think of incorporating traditional art into a martial arts curriculum in a more overt way from Stacey?
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's a great question. The first place my brain goes is capoeira. Because if you know capoeira, you know that in understanding the music, how to construct the music, the relationship between the music, and the practice is critical to a full understanding of what a cover letter is. And I think that that is awesome. I can't speak to it much more than that, because my exploration of capoeira was was fairly limited. And my understanding of the music was minimal because that was sadly not important. At the school that I was attending. It was something that was held back for quite a while. But I think when when we, if we look at martial arts as not a single thing, but a set of skills, one of which being understanding patients creativity, right, we start to see that traditional arts, non martial arts, painting, music, whatever, you have a lot of carryover. There's a lot of value there.
If you can learn how to play a musical instrument. Any musical instrument, you're going to understand timing. Andrew, we've talked about this on the show, your experience, drumming gives you an advantage when it comes to sparring and understanding the timing that people inevitably fall into, because you can pick up on timing. And so that's where my brain starts to go. Is it something that I think people are generally going to be receptive to know. But I do see a lot of value. And I think it's something that if I were to ever implement, it would be something that would be reserved for upper ranks. And there would be some choice in there, it wouldn't be in order to earn this rank, you have to reach a competency level with this with calligraphy, it would be okay.
So if you're going to test for your second degree, I need you to learn a new, extra martial skill outside of martial arts skill, that you did not start until you earned your first degree black belt. You know, I don't want somebody to say, oh, you already knew how to play guitar. So you're gonna play guitar, as an example. But okay, maybe you know how to play guitar, I want you to paint and the focus is not on any demonstrable level, but the willingness to invest the skills developed through martial arts training, and finding a different implementation. Utilization of those skills.
Andrew Adams:
It's a great question that Stacy has. And we've always heard or seen in movies that samurai also did flower arranging and poetry like that. And it's not something outside of capoeira that I typically see. You know, music obviously, is incorporated in that. You know, the only other place you could argue at a scene is in musical forms. that to some degree, it has to be collaborative, but it isn't often the musician making the music or, you know, right, putting it together in that way. So that's interesting. I liked that. And that was a good answer.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thank you.
Andrew Adams:
I'm curious what other people thought of that? Yeah, that's good. Let's talk about, you know, we do have a handful of people watching right now. And you know, people are digging it in order for us to keep doing this sort of thing to keep doing live episodes. And honestly, to keep doing what we're doing. Sad to say it costs money.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What does this cost money? Yeah, internet access, and stream yard and hosting fees, and domain fees. And all of these other things cost money.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, it does. Sorry to say, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Where am I taking this? Which one? Are we talking about Patreon?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, sorry about Patreon.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Welcome to my brain right now. So Patreon has been a lot of fun, because I get the opportunity to do different stuff. Like I put out a video today that I'll be honest, really had very little to do with martial arts. It has everything to do with martial arts, but it wasn't a Martial Arts video. And it's already gotten a bunch of feedback. I don't know if you had the chance to check it out and went live like an hour ago. But that's one of the things that I like about the Patreon. And we're constantly looking for ways to make the Patreon more valuable.
For example, a week from tomorrow we're doing a live zoom. You know, we've tried a few different things looking for a live, semi private sort of a thing. And this is where we've ended up. You know, we'll have a zoom, that's just for the Patreon people only so they can get to know each other better. And we can do questions and just really kind of have a fun time with it. But I think the piece I want to continue to highlight with our Patreon, a lot of you out there are martial arts school owners. We have added enough things in there that you have absolutely zero issue writing this off.
In the two top tiers, you get access to a school owners mastermind, which I administer monthly, and the value that you're going to get coming back from that is going to blow the doors off what you're spending and you get a tax deduction on what you're spending. If you're not a school owner. You get bonus episodes audio video, and at every tier all but the bottom the bottom, you can get it for two bucks a month and you still get access to the zoom. But at $5 a month and up you get merch, stickers and shirts. and hoodies and wall art, exclusive stuff that we don't do anywhere else.
So we had two new people join last month. We very rarely have people drop out. Because we are hell bent on delivering as much value to the Patreon as we can. So yeah patreon.com/whistlekick.
Andrew Adams:
So that there we go. We have a question coming in from a listener that's watching right now. So I say listener, a person that's watching right now, I don't think we have to put this in our official five minute because I think it'd be a little pretty quick to answer but Dennis had a question. Have you ever had to use your martial arts training in a non-self defense scenario?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Depends on how you define training. I think the way most of us would define training, we would answer yes every day.
Andrew Adams:
Yep, I would. Pretty much every winter I slip and fall on the ice. Yep. So I have slipped multiple times in fall. And you know, I use my break from Judo jiujitsu to make sure I don't hurt myself. So I use it all the time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The physical aspects are pretty, pretty tangible. And when you start to think about the mental emotional aspects of martial arts training, it becomes quite obvious that we are using those almost every day. Your world is a tough place. It beats us up, metaphorically, literally. And what better skill set to have access to than our martial arts skills to evade, deflect, overcome, etc?
Andrew Adams:
Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. So our next question. Actually, Dennis did comment before we get to that one falling in the ice was the exact scenario I was envisioning. Break. Fall training has come in handy on more than one occasion. Yeah, absolutely. Why?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I stepped on an endo board. I don't know if you know those balance boards. And it's, I have one that's a little different. And in hindsight, I just stepped on it wrong. And it kicked out from under me. And I went down hard. But instead of racing, I didn't have time to slap because I was sideways. I just kind of tucked in and landed from hip to shoulder on a concrete floor with a thin rug over it. I was fine.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. All right. So here's our next official question from Chris Rickard. You must be excited about each free trading day, but for different reasons. Are they?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm assuming what Chris is talking about is the fact that we have three this year.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
First off, Chris, thanks for the opportunity to talk about free training, because I love talking about free training. For those of you who have been, you get it, and you're probably just going to nod along and maybe even tune out or go get another piece of cinnamon raisin bread to make a peanut butter jelly club sandwich out of it. But for the rest of you, or anybody who wants to listen.
So we've got three this year, this is our sixth time in New England. And we're also hosting one in Atlanta in Portland, Oregon. I am excited for Atlanta and Oregon for roughly the same reasons, the fact that it is the first time we're expanding something that has been so awesome. It's so much fun, I walk around free training day, and I don't participate much because I'm working. But I love being able to see what's going on and just the smiles on people's faces, it just means the absolute world to me. I know that the work we have done that led from free training day up here has been substantial, the connections that have been made, etc. And so I'm excited to see two more, let's call them hotspots of people who are on board with the whistlekick that connect, educate, entertain this style agnostic evaluation of martial arts training, and seeing these people come together in these areas. Not because they're not already.
Excuse me, they're not because we're changing their minds. But because we're facilitating these connections, right? Connect, educate, entertain. We're facilitating these connections. And there was already discussion for 2023 for at least two more as people hear about them. As we do the work. More people hear about it. And they're like, This is amazing. I want this over here. Because there is an ultimate goal of 12. I would like there to be one a month. We'll see if we get there.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I am unable to go to Portland, Oregon or Atlanta, Georgia this year for these events. But if I were going the things that would be exciting to to me, would be connecting with the people that I already knew in the area and meeting the new people, you know, people and you know, that have been on the show that that I will, quote unquote talked to, but just over email, or just over Facebook Messenger as I booked them to come on the show, and being able to like, talk to them in person and see them, I think that would be really cool. And, you know, free training day here, northeast. You know, I'm excited for different reasons, but mostly, it's in my hometown. I love that. That's awesome. I can roll out of bed and I'm there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
One of the things that I think is coolest about free training day is that the majority of people who show up are the quote, right people. And when the right people are there when they meet each other when I meet them, it doesn't feel like I'm meeting strangers.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, and I think, example for me is when I first met Dennis Campo, the Friday night before free training day of last year. I first met Liz, at free training day last year.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. I just feel like you've known those people for 10 months.
Andrew Adams:
Not even close. Yeah, not even close. So, alright, so let me get rid of this banner here, Gabe actually said that he's bummed that I'm gonna miss that he's gonna miss me. We'll connect again, that's for sure. For sure. You know what we talked earlier about Patreon as being a way to help support the show. Something else that also really helps is telling other people about what we do. You know, not just like, “Hey, friend of mine in class, you should listen to listen, click martial arts radio, but you can also help us in the algorithms in the computer world by giving us reviews”.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think people underestimate the value of reviews, I think, because quite often when we're listening to podcasts, we're doing something else, right, we're driving, we're on a plane, we're on a boss, train, whatever. And it might not be a convenient time to leave a review. So it falls by the wayside. And we justify like, okay, you know, I'm not going to do that, it's not that big of a deal. But it is, it's actually a substantial deal. It's something that I know from the work that I do, not just for whistle kick, but for our martial art schools with consulting work, that reviews are massive. So there are four places that we care about this stuff, Apple podcasts, Google reviews, Facebook reviews, and Spotify ratings. Excuse me.
We got two more Spotify ratings in the last month. Thank you. If you don't listen to Spotify, it's easy enough, you just have to put the Spotify app on your device, listen for at least 30 seconds, and then you can leave a rating. We're at a perfect five star rating. I don't know how long we'll be able to maintain that. But I'm hopeful. So there's four places that you can help us out. And when we get new reviews, we read them on the show.
So we've got a new Apple review right here. And this is from Kansas Kempo. Titled honest perspectives. It's short enough. Hello, sir. I've been listening for quite some time. Now. You are my favorite martial arts podcast. That seriously is one of my favorite things that I hear. I've been a camp practitioner for the past 17 years and really enjoy your interviews, thoughts and rapid fire questions. Keep up the good work. I will keep listening.
Thank you.And just as a reminder to everyone, if you leave a review and we read it on the show, and lately if you've left one it's been read on the show. I'd love to see more of them come in. All you have to do is email me jeremywhistlekick.com. I will get you a gift code to the store. Like money and you can buy things for free. So Jeremy, are you bribing people to leave reviews? Absolutely. Without shame, unabashedly.
Andrew Adams:
Yep, absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Alright, what's the whole list of all the ways you can help us out? Whistlekick.com/family.
Andrew Adams:
Yes, it is right there. Find the full list. Whistlekick.com/family. Are you ready for your next question?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm always ready for my next question.
Andrew Adams:
Two more questions for the day. This one is from Mr. Matt Nather. Hi, Matt. And your question is what is the strangest question you've ever been asked as an instructor?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh. I don't know. That's not something that I'm generally going to commit to memory. Bear with me as I try not to fill the space with silence. But also think about things I think most of us know that if we teach kids the strangest questions come from kids. And I know for a fact, I've been asked questions that have no bearing on martial arts, but I don't remember them.
Those would probably be the ones right. And sometimes, like in the fun and friends Group, we'll see people shout out. He often posts things from class last night. A kid said something ridiculous, and he posted in there, and I love reading those.
Andrew Adams:
I got asked once if I poop. And what did you say? I said, yes, everybody poops. too. Good question.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I can't answer this in a, like a clean output sort of way.
Andrew Adams:
Okay, so yeah, it happens.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It does.
Andrew Adams:
That's okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So I suspect Matt has a great answer to this. And I'm hoping that he will contribute to it. Oh, it's important. I'll post it in front of friends.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, and you know, when this episode gets posted in the whistle kick, when this actually gets released, officially, podcasts that we put in our Facebook group, if you're not a member of the Facebook, whistlekick Behind The Scenes group, we actually shed every every episode we get that gets released gets posted in there. And there's all really good conversations that happen in one of the episodes. So please do join that. What's going on Jeremy with products that are okay, anything new coming out.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, as we're recording this, it is Tuesday, August 30. I'm taking the next few days off, to go away and work on the fall and winter product lines. We have admittedly nothing new coming in terms of training products, you know, no new uniforms, no new gear or anything like that. Because we're struggling to deal with the logistical challenges that are afoot. Right now we have another order of gear that supposedly is somewhere between the warehouse and here. I don't know, I haven't gotten an update in a couple of weeks. But who knows.
But what I've found over the last year is that when we make really cool designs, beyond the really generic stuff, like what you and I are wearing, very simple, we tend to get much more interest, and much more interest. I know that I can't just sit down at my desk and be creative. That doesn't work for me, my creative energy doesn't thrive in this environment.
So that's why I'm going away. I'm gonna go hit a whole bunch of different stores. Of course, I have to leave Vermont to do this. And, and put together the line. So people are gonna see some cool stuff coming right now. The best. The new stuff is the free training day stuff. We've got shirts and hoodies and notebooks and patches. With the free training day logo. I'm proud of those logos. They were a lot of fun. And were you the one that came up with an idea or was that me?
Andrew Adams:
No, it was me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, I thought so.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Because we had a discussion on what would be for those. We're going to peek behind the curtain a little bit for you guys. We were trying to come up with a logo idea for a free training day just in general. And for [00:23:31-00:23:34]. And so there was a thought that the man in the mountain is known for New Hampshire, but it fell down a number of years ago and doesn't really exist anymore, wrote his team known for not a lot. I mean, the movie Jumanji with Robin Williams was filmed here. And there's a lot of stuff from the movie that is still here in town. And so if you are in town for a free training day, and you want to see that stuff, let me know I'll tell you where it is.
But like what else is here in town, I found out that Mount Monadnock, which is the next town over from Keene, is the most hiked mountain in the United States. It's actually the second most hiked in the world. According to some sources I found online, the most hiked in the world being Mount Fuji. Mount Monadnock is the second most hike in the world. And the third most hiked in the world. The second in the US is Mount Hood, which is right near Portland, Oregon, northeast Northwest in Portland. So Atlanta, Georgia also has a a mountain that is hiked often though not on the top 10 which is Stone Mountain, right. So it just kind of just kind of made sense.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So we made like three different versions of the logo, one with each mountain.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, but that gave us saying that the logos are all cool, but they have the best mountain hashtag Mount Hood.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think I think anybody would have a hard time disagreeing with that. The profile of Mount Hood is distinctive. I was looking for a stronger word it's it is imposing. Yeah, I just see it in person is is incredible yeah really is all right
Andrew Adams:
Are you ready for your last question?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm ready, let's do it.
Andrew Adams:
All right this last one little bit of levity here from Chris Rickard. What Muppet would be best martial arts instructor and why?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I could go with just about any of them for different reasons. So I think it also depends on the martial art. So if it was a Krav Maga school it would be an animal. Because the animal would just be he would fully embrace the 0 to 60 if you got to hit somebody you dive in and you're just just all over them. And you do it's got to be done and you run away.
I feel like Gonzo could be a really entertaining instructor, probably not Kermit interestingly enough. I feel like Kermit wouldn't believe in anything he was saying. Miss Piggy would be solid. I mean she's the only one that actually does martial arts. I mean she's got the hi yah down pretty well not bunsen or beaker.
The one that seems like they would probably be the best balance overall, but I think would be more limited to kids classes specifically is Ralph. Ralph the dog. Yeah, yeah, I could see him being probably the most solid martial arts instructor I've known, who might as well have been Ralph. They're just less hairy.
Andrew Adams:
Okay, so you're saying we're off the dog and make the best martial arts instructor. But here's my follow up which would make the best practitioner
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think it depends on the art and what is valued in the art.
Andrew Adams:
I'm gonna go with… cuz he's got multiple hands, got multiple arms and stuff.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Who?
Andrew Adams:
The prawn. I can't remember his name. You know, the little little shrimp guy. That's always the round.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, okay. Yeah, like we work through the core characters pretty quickly. There's like six to eight of them that everybody knows. And I was starting to think of the peripheral ones, but I don't remember most of their names.
Andrew Adams:
Craig Wareham has it unsurprisingly? Pepe the Frog?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, Craig. I didn't even know how you did that. That's impressive. But you're not surprised. Are you? No, I'm really not.
Andrew Adams:
Dennis says no, but that can match Elmo's energy
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now it's true. He said muppet. I limited myself to the Muppet Show. Me too. I did not pull from Sesame Street and I could have.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I would make the argument that Sesame Street characters are not Muppets. The argument could be made. I'm not saying that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Wasn't Jim Henson involved in Sesame Street?
Andrew Adams:
That is very well that could very well be the case. And that wouldn't surprise me. But to me, Muppets are in the Muppet verse.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. The fact that you just opened the door on what the Muppet verse isn't is not is probably going to be the most controversial thing we've ever done on this show. Which I find hysterical. It's probably going to be the Matthew poly episode. Which on YouTube gets the most attention. Yeah. And then after that, it's going to be what is a muppet?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Craig also commented that Stacey calls him Ralph.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think that there's a fun mental exercise and looking at any set of people, especially in you know, something fictional. And looking at it through a martial arts lens, just like we just did, because you start to see where people's personalities impact their training, or at least our theories on how they do and I think that's a value.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Dennis loves the Muppet verse.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, unsurprised.
Andrew Adams:
Absolutely. All right, that takes about four questions only one other comment in here we were talking about free training day logos that apparently pro wrestler Jake the Snake Roberts was from Stone Mountain Georgia. Okay, I didn't know that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I did not know that. I know very little about where pro wrestlers are from. That's something Craig also probably knows as well as a big fan of pro wrestling.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. So there we go, this is going to conclude our lives. Yeah, for 90.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And can’t believe we've done it this many times. I want to thank everybody for coming by. If you watch it live, great. If you did not and you want the opportunity to make sure you are following us on Facebook, it's where we post all of our events. The bigger events are difficult to miss as long as you're following us in various places you're going to find out about them. But Facebook is the place it's easiest to orchestrate events.
So that's where we coordinate all of them. If you want to support us, the best thing to do, join the Patreon and buy something at whistlekick.com with the code PODCAST15. Get the full list at whistlekick.com/family. That's a page that you've got to type in. It is not available live. And we do that intentionally. So Andrew, I want to thank you for all your work. setting this up. I want to thank everybody for watching or listening. And until next time, train hard to smile. And have a great day.