Episode 744 - Capt. Frank Bogyos
Capt. Frank Bogyos is a martial arts practitioner and a former Pilot.
The doctors were so surprised when I was undergoing the Aviation Medical Examiners at the time, they said; man, your blood pressure is so low. Man, look at that heart rate, how do you stay so relaxed? Well, I’m doing martial arts a couple times a week.
Capt Frank Bogyos - Episode 744
What do pilots and martial artists have in common? For Capt. Frank Bogyos, being a pilot and a martial artist at the same time enables him to become the best in what he does.
In this episode, Capt. Frank Bogyos his journey to the Martial Arts and how it threads into his life. Listen to learn more!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey, what's going on? You're listening to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio episode 744 with my guest today, Frank Bogyos. I'm Jeremy Lesniak. I'm your host here for the show. I founded whistlekick, because I love martial arts and said, “Hey, let's make a show”. And let's make some things. What things? Well go to whistlekick.com, see all the things. Some of them are things you can hold in your hand. Some of them are virtual things, digital things, things that, frankly, have a lot more value to plenty of people. But either way, if there's stuff that we have, a lot of it's free. In fact, our best stuff is free. But we also offer other things that you might be interested in. And you can use the code podcast one five to save 15% on any of those things.
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That's our goal to overwhelm you with so much value that you are excited and recognize that you get far more than what you pay. That's our whole business model. And if you want the entire list, including the multitude of free ways that you can support us in our mission, get some additional value back, go to the family page whistlekick.com/family is the spot for that. I've had the pleasure of knowing today's guest for a few years. We've had the opportunity to train together.
I met him through Superfoot Wallace. He's a great guy, he's become a good friend. And I really, really appreciate getting to know him better in this format. It's funny, I have my friends on, and I learned stuff about them no matter how long I've known them. And that's one of my favorite parts of what we do. Here we go with my conversation with Captain Frank. Frank, it's good to see you again.
Frank Bogyos:
Jeremy, also good to see you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, I saw you in April and March at Terry's.
Frank Bogyos:
Yeah, yes, I was. It was very, very good. In fact, I sat by Terry there, and we went to the one show.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Show this weekend.
Frank Bogyos:
We're mostly at a super show this weekend. But we took a Vegas show. And we searched to select the legs when they had the ladies wrapped around in a ribbon hanging from the ceiling doing their gymnastics, just like Terry did at the seminar.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's the stuff that people can do and socks blow my mind. I think I first thought on a cruise ship was like the physics of this. And obviously the physics works. But it just seems fake. The combination of their strength in those what are essentially long curtains just continues to blow my mind.
Frank Bogyos:
Yeah, a lot of them, I guess from what I hear were former gymnasts. And so they started out, you know, four or five, six years old. They probably went the college route, after college, possibly Olympics, whatever. And now they run out their career because they change their career by the time they're 26/27 years old, they're ready to retire. From what Rudy always told me out there, it's a tough way to go. So cool. I like martial arts where you can continue to do it into a later stage of your life. You may not be able to kick as high but you can still kick.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I think that's likely to be a recurring theme in our conversation is this notion that martial arts is or at least can be for anyone at any stage in their life. But it doesn't mean that it's always the same implementation. What and how I train can be just as valid as what and how you train even though what and how we train might be completely different. And even within Superfoot stuff, we don't do it the same way.
Frank Bogyos:
No, exactly. And I mean, you're not going to kick a course, you're not going to kick up to the ceiling, like a 16/17 year old girl or guy or whatever, straight up. But as Grandmaster Wallace said, Hey, there's no target up there, get that. Keep the knee up and get the kick down, you know, out and back out and back, out and back.
But no, it's like, you know, I guess if you're a younger person, you can train six, seven days a week, five days a week, no problem. As you age, of course, you have to give your body a little bit of recovery time to be effective. So you don't, you know, damage yourself. And your body can usually talk to you. And you know what I'm talking about. As you get older. Your body gives you indications that, hey, it's time to take a day off?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Absolutely. How often do you train?
Frank Bogyos:
I train weights three days a week with weights? And then with taekwondo. I work out with Grandmaster Wallace every Wednesday night, the wall of stojo. We call it Wednesday. And then I usually do a formal class, Mondays, Tuesdays Thursdays, and then sometimes Saturdays, oh, class in taekwondo at my dojang where we train.
You're active. So yeah, and if it gets to be where, hey, this knee is acting up a little bit, or maybe because comes and goes, information comes and goes, it comes and goes with the weather. And if I need to take a little day off, then I take a day off. But of course, I'll always continue doing my stretching, which is important.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The mindset that not only allows but encourages time off for recovery, recognition that continuing to push it isn't a good idea. Is that something you've always had? Or did you have to learn that with age.
Frank Bogyos:
I think you'll learn it with age because your body speaks to you and tells you that, hey, I've got it even when I picked up martial arts again 28-29 years ago, when I started back up again, you know, I was in my 40s. And it wasn't your body, even though you're in your 40s. If you're stretching and you're working out and you're using it, it's not as bad as you're just sitting lethargically at home doing nothing.
So I mean, it's kind of how I would say, it's kind of slowed up the aging process for me that I noticed some of my friends, it's hard for them to get up out of a chair, hard to do this, hard to do that, where I have a little bit more. It's a little bit easier for me to go in and out of the sports car. Of course, in the morning, you're stiff, just like everybody else is stiff, you know, and you stretch in the morning, in so forth, stretch out your back, do your toe touches and everything. But I just feel that it's really allowed me to be a lot more productive by continuing into martial arts. And like I said, your body's not like it was 20 years ago. But I think it staves off old age and keeps it at bay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Someone you said 20/29 years ago, you started again, started back up, which suggests that there was at least one stint before that. Well, let's get there in a moment. But I'm most interested in why and the reason why people do things rather than the what, why did you start back up?
Frank Bogyos:
I started back up at the time, I was going through a divorce. And I started talking to my friends and they said hey, just start doing some physical activity. And I go okay, and so I thought, well, martial arts again, let me go let me go to the local martial arts places. So I went to a couple different places, not that I knew what to look for, but I finally settled on one that was fairly close to my house for 10-15 minutes. And they appeared to have a good program. They go do a lot of tournaments, they've got a lot of activities. And I've talked to some of the students and you know, it's a good it's not a belt factory by any means where you're going to go in there and you know, they've got a lot of 10 year old second third degrees running around. So it seemed like legit school so I started it and went through a divorce.
Of course, you know, it's not the best thing you can go through but you have to kind of muddle through it. Is it stressful? Absolutely. It's stressful. But I found out that by starting to do martial arts again, just starting up and going gave me a mental break, where when I'm sitting there punching the bags, kicking the bags, doing floor drills and stuff. The last thing on my mind was A divorce attorney or my house payment?
Or how am I gonna pay for this or it's just like a cleansing for an hour each day that I went. And I tried to go at least three, four days a week. In fact, I designed my flight schedule, right? I had enough seniority, where I could bid trips that got off early enough in the day that I could make the sessions in the evenings, or vice versa. They have day sessions also.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, so the flight schedule. So this is where we should. I know you will of course, and this is where we shall let everyone know you work because you are officially retired now a commercial pilot.
Frank Bogyos:
Officially retired. Yeah, the government says you have to retire at age 65. From the airline flying ie the Delta American United flying to big jets for what they call a part 121 air carrier. You can however, if you want to go back into private flying, and fly the private jets around rock groups, executives, that type of thing. But when you for the most part, go into employment with one of those companies, you're kind of at their whim for probably about 20 or more days a month, where it would be like, hey, I'm going to go up to Terry's up to this seminar.
And I get my car Friday, start driving if the beeper goes off or not the beeper beepers years ago, but the phone rings into your boss, and they want to take some clients down to Nassau, Bahamas or something. And you can't say no. So you can't say no, because it's your job. So I mean, you know, once you get 65, I'm 60 going to be 68 years old now. I've been retired for almost three years. So I could go back to that work. But I have enough with my martial arts, which is my hobby. And I have a farm out here I run part time with in New Jersey.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do you miss flying?
Frank Bogyos:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It would be like telling Bill Wallace, you can't kick anymore.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We both know what Bill would say to that.
Frank Bogyos:
I know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We're not going to repeat it. But we know.
Frank Bogyos:
He wants to put up with that. But anyway, just telling Terry doubt. Terry, you're 65 years old right now, you can't throw any more jabs, no more kicks for you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How do you know knowing that I know these two men and knowing how difficult it would be for them. That must be really difficult for you. And how do you manage that?
Frank Bogyos:
Well, it is we're talking and I talked to you and Andrew about it is like when you get into a group of like minded people. As such as aviators, it's a real camaraderie, a real Squadron, if you will, and you get to know these people over the years, you fly with them, you are stuck in that little tin can for six, seven hours at a time. Even longer. If you're going like Mumbai, or something for 14 hours, you're living in this little you know, a pot with these people, he had very strong bonds, and after, you know, 30 years, a quarter of a decade or whatnot, several decades, involved with these people, he developed a real bond with them.
And so all of a sudden, at age 65, the government says you can't fly anymore. The president of the United States at 80 if you want but you can't fly anymore. So all of a sudden, you don't pick up and put your uniform on anymore in the morning. You don't put your sparring gear on anymore. You don't go to the dojang or dojo, you don't throw your stuff in the bag, throw your belt in there, throw your water and throw your ghee in there. You don't do that anymore. And it affects a lot of people that you know, I've lost this, this emotional support that you've had with these people. And now you don't have that anymore.
I had the luxury of having very strong martial arts. camaraderie with everybody and we have our squadron if you will, people all over the United States people in LA. You know, Herrera, you got Kevin, I get people all over the place all over the country that you form a bond with after several years. And that is my support group now that's where I have my squadron. So I kind of moved over from one from one group even though we were flying now I moved over to a martial arts group.
I get the same emotional support, friendship support, and I still keep in contact with a lot of my flying buddies, but we don't fly anymore. But you know, I can still hang with the martial arts guys, uh, Danny drinks and these people I mean, these are the top shelf people in the United States of martial arts. And it's just amazing the talent that's out there and I get to hang with these guys is my brotherhood, my squadron.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I know that feeling. Certainly. I get the sense that you were aware, as, as that age of 65 was coming up, you were gonna have to step away.
And I suspect knew it was going to be difficult that it wasn't you weren't going to flip a switch and go, oh, I'm fine with this, you know? How did you prepare?
Frank Bogyos:
No, you wake up in the morning. I mean, for the first year, I'd wake up at three in the morning. That's what I used to wake up to do on my flights. And it's like, I get up, and I start, hey, you're not working anymore. You know, your uniforms in the closet, you're gonna go put it on? Nope, I'm done with that. So it is a shift. It's a shift. And you miss doing things. I mean, flying was a great lifestyle.
I mean, I could sit there and plan my flights, around seminars. Superfoot seminar in Houston, Saturday, well, I'll bid my flight schedule, because I was senior enough. I'll take the first flight down to Houston, hop in a cab, go to the seminar. hang around with the guys at night, the next morning, fly back, fly the airplane back with passengers. Stuff like that. I missed the things that you know, and I don't mean to bring up a grandmaster Wallace all the time. But he lived close to West Point, he still does live close in West Palm Beach airport. And I'd fly down there. I'd have an hour and a half on the ground. He'd meet me at the airport, we'd have doughnuts together. Outside the baggage claim and meet, you know. So I mean, I miss little things like that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don't think anybody who has met Bill Wallace will fault you for bringing him up because we all know how impactful he is and how meaningful he is to those who've had the opportunity to train with him. And then you know, for folks like you and I have gotten to know him a bit better. How did you meet him?
Frank Bogyos:
I met him through Anthony Albanese, one of our guys in a brotherhood. Anthony has been a local Martial Artist Series in martial arts since the 70s. He's a grandmaster in Kempo, karate, and he's in the Joe Lewis system. And of course, he's in the Superfoot system. And I knew him from just a couple little seminars and things up here in the New Jersey area 15 years ago or so. And then he said, “Hey, you got to go to the Superfoot seminar about 10-12 years ago, and about 10-12 years ago, went to the super foot seminar, wow, this is great stuff. This is nice. I like sideways stuff, I have to incorporate this stuff.
And then a year or two later, a grandmaster Wallace came back up and did another seminar. And that's when I said, Anthony, I got started coming to more of these things. And he goes, Hey, funny you ask, we're going to be going down to one of the conferences. Great, sign me up, we'll go. So I started engaging at that time, and then started meeting all the different people that are associated with the group. And then like I said, with Grandmaster Wallace with Bill, I started seeing him here and there at the airports. And we started a friendship where I would fly out and, help him with his flights and be his travel director, if you will, sometimes. And we've formed a good friendship.
Jeremy Lesniak:
He's a good man. So, let's rewind the tape. Now, let's go back. Let's talk about your first stint as the hunters. How did that happen? And when and all that stuff?
Frank Bogyos:
Well, the first step, I was out of high school, I started flying airplanes, and went to University Wisconsin, and I was in gymnastics in high school. So I always used to stretch and so forth. And in college, you have to take several credits of physical activity. Jim, if you will call it or whatever you want to call it. I mean, they had hockey, bowling, everything else and they had Shotokan Karate. I said, “Hey, this sounds pretty good”. And at that time, Bruce Lee in the 70s David Carradine and Kung Fu remember that? You probably weren't born. But nobody, but I don't remember. I know. I knew of what you're speaking on the TV, honorable guest speaker. So anyways, that sparked my interest.
So I started taking shorter con karate, twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays and it was great. I did that for several years. and got up to just below the brown belt. And then I started flying at night for a living and I couldn't do it anymore because with the school load and then flying at night I was flying air freight. A company was starting up back then called Federal Express. And we started flying contracts for them. We flew canceled checks, Wall Street Journal's. That's how Wall Street Journal's would get from Chicago or New York, up to Manchester in the morning, are those little airplanes at night when you wake up at three in the morning and you hear and what's the guy little prop airplane doing up at night? Well, that's what he was doing.
So I did that. So I had to kind of not abandon but I had to balance my schedule down and I couldn't do the martial arts anymore. And then of course, career, marriage, kids and so forth. Startup and you're midway in your career and your 30s and 40s building yourself up. And that's what I did. And then when the divorce, which, you know, like I said, it happens, it happens. And he's got to make the best of it. It's just that things don't work out. And that's part of life and you deal with it as you have to deal with it. And that's my thought, hey, I need to do something physical. I talked to some of my friends. They said, “Hey, I want to do martial arts”. Again, this is great.
Okay, because some of my pilot buddies were martial artists. And sure enough, I mean, in the beginning, it was all physical, getting back in shape, and so forth. But then once we started learning, a Kata or a young and started despairing. That was great. That was just like a vacation, a mental vacation where I didn't think of things. And it was such a stress reliever. As a professional pilot, you have to take a physical every six months, EKG blood pressure that it's specifically well related to the FAA, because when you fly, Jeremy, you have two licenses, you have your actual driver's pilot's license, then you have your medical license. And the thing is you can spend all your life it's kind of parallel to martial arts, again, you can spend all your life procuring everything perfectly.
And then you can have a heart problem or a stroke. And all of a sudden, it's taken away from you. And the same thing with aviation. That's why we have the insurance for you the disability insurance, because you can spend all these years four years of college flight school, all of us apprenticeship, and then you get to the airlines, the majors were your major league, and all of a sudden you have a little bit of a heart murmur while you're disqualified. And so you've got those physical exams every six months, which guys usually don't sleep the night before, and then makes me nervous. And you know, because you're, you know, guys start talking about 50s Oh, my God, I only got 20 more flight physicals to do before I retire. You know, but the doctors were so surprised because I was going through divorce at the time of the aviation medical examiners. Man, your blood pressure's low, man. Look at that heart rate.
How do you stay so relaxed? I said, “Well, I'm doing martial arts a couple times a week. And it got to be like it was a haven where not that it was like a drug or anything. But you know, the endorphins and all that stuff is just, you look forward to it. I can hardly wait to get home and go to a martial arts clash. You know, I would sit there. I mean, I remember coming up from Santo Domingo, coming up from San Juan, Puerto Rico over the Atlantic. And I look and I go, jeez, if I land at this time, I'm not going to make my class.
Let's go to a different altitude. The winds. No, I'm serious. The winds are different. So not only am I saving the company money by cutting down the flight time, but hey, if we go at this lower flight level, the winds aren't as bad. They're not, they're coming out of the Northwest. In the wintertime, it's you know, you're flying in the middle Jetstream. Hey, if I go to a lower altitude, I'm going to burn a little more gas. But I'm going to save a lot of time on the airframe. And I'll get back 18 minutes early Miss rush hour traffic make my taekwondo class tonight
Jeremy Lesniak:
So what I'm hearing is those times when I was on a plane and we landed early and there was no good explanation for why because the pilot might have had something to do.
Frank Bogyos:
That's possible or the winds or weather conditions change for a lot of time. Jeremy that you know they can't do everything for you the computers figure out what's the best flight level, what are the best wins? Air traffic comes into play so we're not driving through downtown Manchester, Boston, we're going to go on the outskirts and we're going to save about eight or nine minutes.
So it's the same thing with flying. So once you get up there, there again, it's like martial arts. Once you get on the mat sparring, you have a game plan. But now your opponent is different than what you thought. And you have to change your flight plan, if you will. So the same thing with flying you take off the X amount of fuel, you know what's going on, you know what the weather's like? What are the threats, if you will, and you know, you're always mitigating threats. When you fly, you're off course most of the time.
Because you're always correcting, and things are changing. So it's like sparring. You go in, and you spar, hey, this guy. “Hey, I look like Terry Tao. He's got long legs and stuff, I better stay away from the sky, or a better jam on one of the two.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Had you always wanted to be a pilot, you kind of sounded like there was not only no time, but overlap between college and flying.
Frank Bogyos:
Yeah, my uncle was a pilot for American Airlines. And I saw that lifestyle he had, he had little extra time off than everybody and stuff. And I go, Hey, this is kind of cool. This is kind of neat. Let me try this. And so I went and got my, you know, your solo, if you don't scare the hell out of yourself with your private license. And at that point at your private license, you kind of know that yeah, this is kind of cool doing it for a job.
And the only issue I had at that point in time, is that as you see I wear glasses in my eyes that aren't in the military. They want a 2020 vision. Now it's changed, the airlines have changed now. But back in the 60s 70s and 80s, you had to have a 2020 vision. Once you get hired, your eyes could stray as they will as you age, and there is no property or glasses. So for me a disadvantage was that you'll never make the airline's right, because your eyes are 2100 the yield, they're corrected 2020.
Of course, I can see perfectly, but, and my uncle told me, Frank, you're never gonna make the big airlines because you're 2100. You'll have to fly the smaller jets or this or that you'll have to do this. You'll never make it in at the big airlines. Okay, so as a disadvantage at the time.
Frank Bogyos:
Sure. But the advantage was those people that had small business jets and stuff, and that equipment said, “Hey, here's a young kid, young man”. He's got a four year college degree. He's got a lot of flight time. And if we put a bunch of training money into them, I mean, I talked back in the 80s, you know, 5060 $70,000 with the training, this kid isn't going to get the jet time and go to the airlines. Right?
So what happened to me is, I got a lot of experience, I mean, hundreds of 1000s of dollars worth of experience as a young guy in his 20s. And then the oil industry went downhill. I was flying for an oil company at that time, a big oil company all over the world. We were flying, and I got laid off. And just at that time, some of the smaller airlines were starting up like People Express.
That's where I went, I came up to the New York area, and the airlines at that time, rescinded the vision requirement. And so I was able to have a lot of experience for a 27 year old, and I had experienced a level of a 35/36 year old
Jeremy Lesniak:
Was that difficult for your peers?
Frank Bogyos:
Pardon?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Was that difficult for your peers?
Frank Bogyos:
No no, it was that I had I mean, at that time, at 27 years of age, I had a couple of 1000 hours of you know, jet time and all this stuff.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But if you had the equivalent amount of training and experience of say someone 10 years your senior, and you step into that environment, where the folks who are older resent you as this young kid that was theoretical?
Frank Bogyos:
No, not at all. I didn't go right to Captain, you still have to go to your first officer and, and so forth. So, you know, it'd be like someone coming in, you know, hey, I'm a black belt in Shotokan Karate, and now I'm gonna go try taekwondo. Well, you just started the right belt in taekwondo, but hey, I know what front kick. I know this I know how to punch.
So it's going to be a lot easier for you. But you're still not going right to black belt there. You start out at the beginning. It's like now if they change he said, You can fly into your 70 I want to go back to work. I started at the bottom. Oh, what do you really do? Or if I go to work, if I go to work flying a corporate aviation or flying a private jet, I would start out in the right seat as the first officer co-pilot.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do you think you'd go back?
Frank Bogyos:
No, not now it's been…
Jeremy Lesniak:
There's hesitation there.
Frank Bogyos:
If they change their age, I think they'll change to 67. And that's what I'm doing now going on at 68. But so anyways, it was a disadvantage for me at the time with my glasses and eyes, which boomeranged around. And it gave me a lot of fantastic training at the time. And then those restrictions were lifted, and I was very well qualified. I almost don't want to keep bringing it up. It's like, Grandmaster Wallace, he had a disadvantage, right? He hurt his leg in doing judo, you heard it, and he had to adapt. And he got his own style of flying or fighting martial arts, which propelled him to the top.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Usually, when we have people on the show, and we talk about their martial arts training, and the things they do outside of martial arts, we are talking about how martial arts gave them tools to draw from, to do their other things. But given that, when you stepped back into martial arts, in your 40s, you had decades of flying, I kind of want to flip that around.
Was there anything in your flight experience, your experience with how to learn new, assuming I've heard that learning new planes, it's like its own thing, kind of like a mini martial art style. So I'm, I'm guessing there's something that you drew from your flying that you applied your martial arts to?
Frank Bogyos:
Yeah, it's all a prepping, you have to prep no matter what you do, when you go do a test. When you do a class, you have to prep, you have to be well rested, you have to show up on time, you have to have the proper, you know, sparring gear, if you're going to spar, you have to, you know, so there's that preparation, that of flying, everything's pre fight or pre flight. And now it's pre pre-fight.
So you do have to have some, I'll just say, regularity, and a system that you have when you start martial arts and you do it. And it's like, okay, we're going to start out the beginning of a flight with this. And then we got the middle of the flight up at cruise altitude. And then we've got the termination where we come in for the approach and landing.
And then we got the post brief. And martial arts has been like that. I've incorporated the briefing in a lot of my workouts. And I know some of the people that I've worked out with, they said, hey, that's kind of cool how you did that. Okay, before we workout, let's briefly discuss what we want to do. We're going to work, decide to check, we're going to work, whatever. And we're going to do this and we're going to talk about the mechanics of it a little bit.
And then we're going to go warm up and do our line drills to get calisthenics to get warmed up, and then we're going to take that, do some drills with it. And then once we learn the drills with it, then we're going to incorporate it in some controlled sparring drills, if you will, and then incorporate it into the sparring. That's our flight plan that we're going to do for today. It's like a lesson plan.
And I've always kind of followed that. And then at the end, when you get done, we have a debrief. We don't sit in a debrief room, like the military does and so forth. But you can sit in the cockpit with the guy. Hey, what did we do wrong today? What did we do right today? What could we have done better today? Do we ever get outside the safety envelope? You always want to stay inside the safety envelope? And the same thing I'll have at the seminars hey, is there anything I could do differently?
Am I telegraphing? Am I doing this? What could I have done differently that would have maybe allowed me to get more shots in with you? Was my jab in my stepping out? Or am I telegraphing my jab, my feet or my shifting my feet too much indicating I'm going to kick? What did you see as my opponent and I can tell you what I saw from you, that your eyes start to get bigger when you just before you are ready to kick your eyes wide open.
And things like that. So the debrief after a seminar or whatever a session is very important as it is flying. So if you do a pre-brief, find out how you're going to do your lesson. What are we going to work on today? What's your objective, go do those drills and so forth, incorporate those drills in sparring or whatever, and then have a thorough debrief on what we could do better, what objective did we not make with that technique that we could do better?
Jeremy Lesniak:
The notion of pre and post training or pre and post competition, it's something that I think on an intellectual level everyone understands the value but so few people seem to do.
Frank Bogyos:
No, I agree with you. I agree. when I do that to people oh well. I get you going, you got a minute, hey, just hang on for a minute, what can I do here, especially when you're working with guys that are, I don't want to say better than you, but they are better than you. They've been around. And there's a lot of talent out there not that they've been in the sport longer than you are or whatnot, but they just have the ability and so forth. And they have the personality for it. And you know, you can talk to these guys and ask them and it's just great. I mean, that they're willing to help you out like this and make you a better martial martial artists,
Jeremy Lesniak:
Who was always one of my, I don't want to say favorite, but one of the elements of competition. And once I learned as a kid, it was okay to do. So. I would go to the people who refereed my forum or saw me spar and what advice you have for me, just because you asked for it doesn't mean you have to take it doesn't mean you have to implement it. But to source that information. And if you've got three out of five saying I wanted to see this from you.
Okay, now it's something I've got to at least strongly consider that all advice is not created equal. But I think a lot of people are afraid of hearing the advice. Because it means that they have to do something different, or they have to put in more time or whatever it is. But I would imagine that because I've worked out with you, your quest. And then I never had any idea you started late in life. You know, prior to our preparation for doing this recording, I assume you've been training forever. And to hear that gives me even more respect.
Frank Bogyos:
Because it's not like it's 28 years, it started my early 40s with it. But you know, like I said, it's just what I want to call it when we fly airplanes, we have the you're running the show you the captain's mindset, you have to have the martial artists mindset, which I think has to lend itself to where, you know, I'm here to learn. I'm here to learn everything. Like I said, practice never makes perfect, but makes permanence and you know, as Grandmaster Wallace says. But I mean, and it has so many parallels with what I've done in aviation and martial arts? I don't know, it just kind of blends in with each other. And I think you have the egos, pilots, fighter pilots, I've taught many fighter pilots, I've taught many top guns, and they're drilled in their head, you will not lose your up, there's fighter pilot, you will not lose. And sometimes it's bad for them because they don't want to take criticism.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Were you teaching about martial arts?
Frank Bogyos:
No, I'm teaching about flying. I was an instructor also at okay, I didn't know any airlines, I was an FA examiner, I could give all the federal licenses I could give you a pilot's license and so forth. And we would teach, you know, when you learn martial arts, there's certain things you go through. And as you all know, physical conditioning, learning kata, and then once you learn to punch and kick at night and start sparring, control, sparring, and so forth. And the same thing with flying, you go to ground school, you learn the airplane, you already know how to fly when you come to the airline. But each airplane is so different. It's so different.
He can only fly one type of airplane. That's all he can fly as a 737, or a 747. But you can't fly both, or triple seven or whatever. But so you go to a ground school for about a month of computer based training, then you go into the flight simulators, for about three weeks, just flying a takeoff landing, going through all the emergencies. And after you get done with the simulator, then you go into what they call line flying. So if I have a student pilot with me, the first time he lands, your plane is with people on board. So you could be sitting here in the back Jeremy and his guys, this is the first time actually landing the airplane. And I would never know with myself, the instructor up there, you know, so you have to go through all these different phases as you wouldn't martial arts and come up.
But so to get back to the fighter pilot deal, you've got a guy with that attitude where he's a fighter pilot, and they're great guys are great pilots. But like I said, they're used to flying around in a Porsche or a McLaren or Lamborghini, which means their jet is very responsive. And now you're putting them in, you know, flying buildings with a couple 100 people in the back. And it's different for them. And because now you got to there's a lag with that big airplane, you just don't point one direction and go. Plus a lot of the fighter pilots, they only know how to land in the straight wind. Because when you're landing on an aircraft carrier, you land into the wind all the time while they're landing and it's straight wind.
But if you're going up to Boston, and you get a strong wind out of The West, you can land to the west a little bit, but you always have a little bit of a crosswind. So they are learning all new things. And so their ego sometimes would get in the way. Because you're strong ego people, as you know, not that most martial artists are but you know, we were a group of people, you know? Yep. I get it. You understand what I'm saying? You can walk in and hey, “I know how to do this”. Well, wait a minute. No. Now let's back off a little bit, you know that there are egos in all professions like that. But I think that the macho pilot with the scarf and the goggles, and I'm gonna go off and romantically fly and the dawn patrol, and all this kind of stuff. You have that with a martial artist? Also, I think.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I want the fighter pilots to have a bit of an ego.
Frank Bogyos:
Yes. Oh, definitely. Definitely. Anyone an MMA fighter or someone else going on is going to have a part of an ego to the half to survive in the rings.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you don't, you shouldn't be in there. Because you're really going to get hurt if you don't think that you can win, shouldn't be in that fight, you shouldn't be flying.
Frank Bogyos:
And that's where the parallel between aviation and martial arts is there. Again. It's the ego, which isn't a bad thing, like you said.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We keep coming back to Grandmaster Wallace. And, I know, we both know that's not a bad thing. You had been doing some training. And you had your prior experience training, before you kind of really had to feed in with what he was teaching. Did you find you had to unlearn anything?
Frank Bogyos:
No, absolutely not. I mean, psychic was still a psychic, it's up, I was starting out sideways. And so it was being disguised. It's like, as you've seen in my seminars. Grandmaster Wallace to someone, okay, take your regular Othodox Stance. Let me be a psychic, you had to move your body. Okay, let's do it, how to move your body. So I was able to incorporate that, like, they say it in all the seminars, this is my way of doing it, it's just one way of doing it, everybody's built differently. Take these pieces, or a portion of it, and blend it into your own style, or make your own recipe.
I mean, I know, some people like a lot of pepper on their food, some people don't like pepper, I like a lot of pepper. Well, you know, everybody's different. And, you know, I'll use it in an orthodox stance. But I usually start out sideways, I'll switch to an orthodox stance, do some punching, some kicking, mainly, like a front kick, Axe kick, and then I'll revert back to sideways and get out.
Start sideways, finish sideways. But in between, you know, yeah, get in the pocket. But you know, but like I said, so I think it's really enhanced in the way it's presented. The seminars that he that Mr. Grandmaster Wallace presented this is my way, take what you want from it, most of it and make it your way.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What are you working on now, with your training? You know, quite often I talk to people, what's what's keeping you going? I think what's keeping you going is pretty obvious. You've spoken to that considerably. But I'm curious about, you know, you seem to have a bit of a technical mindset. Which makes sense, given the flying. So I can't imagine you're not with this, you know, pre training, post training approach, that you're not identifying things. I want to get better at this. I want to get better at that. What are those things?
Frank Bogyos:
Mainly, sparring, not telegraphing as much. And that's why these debriefs are so important to me. We're very gifted Jeremy and the group that everybody hangs around with. Yeah, you've got experts in all the different disciplines. I mean, I can go, you can go with Danny Dring, who's fabulous on the ground. But you know, he's also a taekwondo guy. I mean, a very gifted taekwondo guy that can hurt you at any range. But anyways, I mean all the other people that Terry Dow and so forth, hey, look at my kick. What do I need to work on here a little bit? Well, if you do this a little bit, this is going to help you. Pivot to select concentrate on your pivot just a little more.
So working on that, the technical things and the same thing. I mean, a lot of people play golf. I don't play golf. I punch. So instead of playing golf, so instead of going to these different places, you know, ask the experts to ask all these Kevin Hudson's in this, this library of people that we have the experts take a look at my not golf swing, but take a look at my jab. What can I do to improve my jab? And same thing at the seminars, you've met people? What can I do differently or give me your take on it. And, you know, working on that, trying to stretch, I'd like to get full splits. I used to have full splits into gymnasts back in high school. But I'd like to work on that. So I'm trying to start stretching every night just being disciplined with it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So progress is coming.
Frank Bogyos:
Yeah, yeah, it's working. I'm doing you know, like, I go do the Wallace method. Stretching teaches the muscles to relax. I've been also incorporating a little bit of what do you call it? relaxed, stretching, dynamic stretching, and then contracting my muscles, trying to get them tired and contract them to a shape, get them as tired and then let them relax.
So that's the thing, and it's not so much like, you know, that's what they can kick straight up. But flexibility allowed me to maybe increase my range a little bit. And speed. Like I said, I'm 68 years old, not a lot of 68 years old, throwing gloves on and doing this stuff. You know, but you look at our group and you know, you got a lot of guys who are in their 50s you look at you look at the Grandmaster Wallace. It's just unbelievable.
Jeremy Lesniak:
75 now?
Frank Bogyos:
77.
Jeremy Lesniak:
77, just a couple of years. 77 and I still don't want to get hit by anything he throws
Frank Bogyos:
I know exactly.. Till he doesn't throw it hard. He doesn't throw it hard. He just touched Jeremy. And I mean, I've done seminars like eight or nine in a row with him. When he comes up here in January. It's like, “Can I use my other side?” “Why?” And I looked at them. I said, what happened there? I should just your little tap, because this is so quick that it just poof, it's amazing. It is speed just like a towel snapping.
Jeremy Lesniak:
One of the things we watch him and we say, I don't see him stopping. I hope he doesn't. I'm guessing you have a similar mindset.
Frank Bogyos:
I'm of a similar mindset. Yeah, like I said, I still, I still have both my natural hips. I still have both of my natural knees. I'm not a bionic man yet. Knees, like I said, depending on the weather and show foretells they'll act up a little bit, I get a little bursitis in them, my shoulders are the big thing that hurt a little bit.
But not that you work through the pain, but maybe it's a little bit discomfort. But the funny thing about it is, the more weight side lift, I was just gonna say that the weight training helps not the heavier weights I lift, but the more weight training I do, the better it is. And the more weights I lift light during the week, the better off my shoulders and everything is.
So I'm just trying to stave it off by that and hanging around with the group that I do. We're all like minded stuff like that. And it's, you know, physical, and it's a mental thing so it is mental you have to have that. That group of people, that emotional support group that you have. I think that camaraderie, it's very important.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If people want to get a hold of you, if you do, you do weddings in the public, that people can rent.
Frank Bogyos:
It's been private, it's private to this point. But we are now petitioning the township. And now that I'm retired, we formed an LLC. And we'll be starting to do a fundraisers for the military as we've done in the past fundraisers, and we'll be able to do weddings for business now up to this point, it was just close friends like family and that's basically
Jeremy Lesniak:
This will come out before that happens. But when that happens, make sure you let me know what contact information we can put in the show notes. Sure, because this will this will stay up indefinitely so people can go or check out this facility because I've seen pictures you know, to the audience
Frank Bogyos:
Western Jersey here is just gorgeous. That's why, like I said, the net allows me to stay here with higher than normal taxes, as you'd have in Massachusetts or any of the East Coast cities but you know, getting income from the farm really helps out. Yeah, you know, and we hold our martial arts camps here too. We hold martial arts camps where the different schools come out and they do forms in what we call forms in the field, and so forth. And we even do testing and about. So that works out well.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don't think I've tested in ballroom DJ weddings in a barn. Yeah. I've thrown hay in the barn.
Frank Bogyos:
My seats are a clean bar. Clean bar is nice. It was just like, especially during the COVID time when he couldn't work out inside. That's when we invited a lot of the schools. I kept the grass cut short. And we did classes out here on the farm out in the open. Instead of going, you could go to a public park. But then you got to have a reservation for the park. There's a lot of ration regulations. So you don't talk and here, it's in the open, I just cut the grass short. And then we could all do our forms. And you could tell I tell you what, Jeremy, when you form out in the grass, you can tell when everybody's pivoting? Because you got these little round marks all over?
Jeremy Lesniak:
For sure. So let's wind down here. What? What do you want to leave the audience with? You know, what, you've got a tremendous amount of experience? What do you want them to take away from our conversation?
Frank Bogyos:
I just think I mean, I think the things were generations ago, maybe my parents, your parents may not be your parents, your parents, probably my age. But I mean, back in the 50s, and the 1940s, that people grew older, a lot younger, we have a lot easier now physically and whatever. And you know, so I think and I do believe a 50 year old, several decades ago, was like a 30 year old today. Let me back that up the 40s, or the 60s, or the new 40s, the 50s, or the new 30s. I think. And I think that you know, and I know for a fact, if you don't use it, it tightens up, it rushes up, it gets tight, and it's difficult to get going again.
So once you get to a certain age, you're in your 40s and 50s. I've gotten several of my friends in the martial arts at age 60. And it's like getting up to Canada, we're going to spray you all over, you know, like the tin man, but they do a slow stretching, very caught up like punches like bag work. And after about two or three months, it's like, I didn't feel this good. 10 years ago, this was great. And after about three or four months of consistently going, Hey, I haven't felt like this since my 40s. Aerobic ly physically. And I think that's good.
Another thing is that sometimes as you get older, it's easier. Let's see, seven at night to sunsetting. Let me just sit on the front porch, have a beer, relax, watch the world go by now, I got martial arts tonight. And you drag yourself over there. And it's not. If you got to go to a gym and workout, you got to really push yourself, you've got to go and go from weight station to weight station and push yourself.
But when you're in there with your fellow martial artists, as soon as you open that door, and you bow in, and you line up, you're in for your workout, and you're just taken along for the ride, you're on automatic pilot, you're gonna do it no matter what. Whereas if you work out in any kind of other discipline, just going lifting weights, or I'm going to go here, I think you're more apt to not do it or, you know, maybe pass on it. Whereas, when you're in a structured martial arts group, hey, I got to see my friends tonight. Yeah, we'll go out afterwards, have a beer and have a lab of chicken wings or whatnot. But at least there's some structure there with it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you would ask me before I recorded this episode, what do pilots and martial artists have in common? I wouldn't have had any ideas. But I think I've got an inkling now. And it's one of the things I really appreciate about what we do and how we do it. Our format allows people to show us how martial arts threads into their lives, no matter what they're doing, how they're doing, where they're doing it. And this is another example of that. Frank, thanks for coming on. And help us to use you and I know I'll see you soon.
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