Episode 759 - Rapid Fire Q&A #20
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 #20 - Episode 759
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 some of the questions they tried to answer:
What’s the most beneficial requirement you’ve heard as a part of testing requirements?
How do you tell if a technique just needs more practice or if it’s just not a good match for you?
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.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome to a special Live episode of Martial Arts Radio. This is our 28th installment of the question and answer format, joined as often by Andrew Adams. How are you, Andrew?
Andrew Adams:
I'm great.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm glad to hear it. I'm Jeremy Lesniak, host for the show founder of whistlekick, where everything we do is to support traditional martial arts and artists. Our mission statement is to connect, educate and entertain the traditional martial artists of the world. That's why we do a variety of things, go to whistlekick.com, to find all of those things that we do, whether that's podcast stuff, or product stuff, or event stuff, there's a ton, how do I know how much stuff there is? Because I am a very tired person.
Andrew Adams:
That is one way.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, we do this. The other way I know is that if people ask me all the things that we do, I always forget some of them.
Andrew Adams:
It's because we do so much.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We do a ton. And it's far more than me or just us there is a broad group of people dedicated to this mission. But in today's Q&a, you have a variety of questions that people wrote in or listened to. They wrote in the email and then messaged you, and if they want to get a hold of you for the 21st q&a, how would they submit a question?
Andrew Adams:
So they can always shoot me an email to Andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. You know, we often make a joke that we're not really good at naming things, you know, like free training day, it's a full day of training.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We named it creatively as the company whistlekick is a cool name. Everything else we do is like the vanilla ice cream of names. But you know what you get? It's there. It's good stuff. It doesn't have to be named creatively.
Andrew Adams:
Yes, right. That's right. So andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. You can also find me on Facebook, I'm not that hard to find. If you're really looking for me, shoot me a message and you can get your question asked during one of these live episodes. We also have Mark Warner in the chat here saying good morning.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Morning, Mark, I intentionally have the chat closed in case the question comes in. Now that you choose to ask, I closed it up on my end.
Andrew Adams:
Nice. So if you guys, can ask questions in the chat and I can add them and we can ask here. Do you want to get going? You want to know just banter a little bit more.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I just want to remind people if they want to support us and what we're doing the three big things that we ask people to do. We have the code PODCAST15 to buy anything. I've got four boxes, of sparring gear going out today, like I woke up to two orders overnight, like our sparring gear is top-notch. And people are figuring that out. So that's cool.
We have apparel and a bunch of other cool stuff. It was okay.com We've got a Patreon that starts at $2 a month, I uploaded a brand new episode, an exclusive audio episode yesterday to the Patreon. And if you want the whole list, because sharing episodes and reviews, there's a ton of stuff we give you instructions on that whistle kick.com/family. And there's also bonus content there. We try to make it valuable to people you're willing to participate.
Andrew Adams:
So before I ask her our first question, we do have Stacey in the chat she says Dennis is running to his next meeting. He just wanted to pop in and send some love to his whistlekick family. That's nice to hear from any dentists. And so that is awesome. And then Carl is here from New Jersey. That's great. Looking forward to all of them.
Jeremy Lesniak:
See all of them very soon at Free Training day Northeast.
Andrew Adams:
That's right. So the first question is actually from Stacey. So it's great that she is here in the chat right now. And I'll put the question up on the screen and I'll add something.
Jeremy Lesniak:
you know, I'm tempted, we won't, but it would be far more fun if I could see her face when I say this. But maybe we shouldn't make Stacy ask the question live on the air.
Andrew Adams:
Except I messed up. I switched questions.
Jeremy Lesniak:
She would not like it.
Andrew Adams:
No, she would. But I lied. And I'm sorry, Stacy. It's not from you. This one's actually from Jenny. I had so many come in. I was looking at the wrong one.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But I'm glad you remember when we started this and it was like pulling teeth to get questions.
Andrew Adams:
Believe me. It's still pulling teeth to get questions. Is it really? Yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, maybe you all can help Andrew out and please do you know just sit down and come up with a bunch of questions that he can answer. Yeah, it won't be, you know, someday, maybe when we hit episode 50 of the q&a.
Andrew Adams:
Maybe. All right. So here's the question. From Jay, what's the best/most beneficial requirement you have heard of as a part of the testing requirement doesn't have to be just for Black Belt. And she also added some examples that she's seen, which, you know, what I'm not gonna read, I'll wait and read that after.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think the best requirements are those that permit individualization. For example, I have seen tests that require someone to develop a thing. I trained at a Kempo School, where, you know, quite often Kempo uses the term technique to describe a sequence. Whereas a lot of other martial arts, you know, a punch is a technique, whereas in a lot of campus schools, a technique might be six movements in, in a group, right, what a lot of other schools might call a combination.
That school in order to even test for blackbelt, you had to develop your own technique, or what I would call a combination, and be able to explain it and break it apart. And really, like, know, it, I thought that was really cool, because it allowed people to pull from the different things that they loved. I've seen other schools that require you to make your own form. I've seen other schools that require competitive achievement, or teaching classes, right, this idea that because martial arts is so many different things, and because most of us really resonate with a few pieces, we might accept all of them and see value in all of them. But most of us find, you know, I prefer this and this over this and this.
And so the ability to be able to discover your own relationship with those things, I think is really nice. And that could include I've seen writing projects, you know, write an essay, write up, write a thing, write on what is important to you, or something, whatever the topic might be. But I've also seen that it can be broader, you could write or make a video, I don't know about you, Andrew, but in high school, I had some teachers who were pretty cool, you know, I want you to do this.
Fine art is sort of subjective. things, like, it could be a paper, it could be a video, you know, in this modern era, it could, you know, call it a video game, whatever it is, right, like, and so I think that there are a lot of things that I find to be really great. And it is the thing where people get to showcase the specific elements of martial arts they are passionate about.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah, I love that. And she gave some examples. Complete a log of random acts of kindness signed by a parent, guardian or teacher. I love that it's pretty great. must submit a 1000 Plus word essay on something pertaining to your martial arts journey, which causes a little bit of reflection, which is a good thing. You know, I have a fan like you said of the real individuality of individualization afforded in doing your art, whatever that art is.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Exactly. And I think it becomes more important, the further you progress,
Andrew Adams:
Correct, absolutely. The, you know, design your own Kata is great, or form or whatever, or come up with your own Bunkai for a particular form you like, you know, schools, not all schools, some of them have specific things that they break down their forms to mean, but that could have been something else.
So I definitely enjoy that. And it helps to progress, their ability to grow, which is pretty awesome. You know, one of the things that, you know, kind of goes off in a little different direction here. One of the things that help us grow as a company is supporting our Patreon.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The Patreon is something that I really enjoy about what we do because I've used the word value on this show. So many times, everything we do is rooted in value. And Patreon for me, is a very clear way to figure out what creates value for people. Right? It's the people that are most passionate about whistle kick in the mission and primarily the podcast.
But there are people who have come in that, you know, know very little about the podcast, but like the brand. And when I put things out, sometimes I can put things out that I might not put out across the whole podcast feed or something because I know the audience. Luckily, these are people who think very highly of us. So I don't have to worry that it's going to be taken the wrong way.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I would say it, it can become it is not always the case. But it can become a little more intimate, you know, you know, the audience that you're talking to. And so those members in the Patreon, they kind of do become part of the family. And you can get a little more vulnerable with them in a way that you can't, with, with the global audience,
Jeremy Lesniak:
For sure. And that's why we're starting to do monthly live hangouts on Zoom. And, you know, we're doing all sorts of stuff that Patreon and, you know, we just had, he's gonna hear this and he's gonna feel bad.
I don't want him to feel bad. But we had the first person in months, many months, change their pledge. They didn't stop, they just had to pull it back. Because of some financial goals. Others totally understand.
I'm sure he felt worse about it than I did. Right. And when I look at a statistic like that, the idea that people don't quit Patreon, they don't stop. In fact, far more often, we see pledges go up. In value, we are giving the absolute best weekend to these notes.
Andrew Adams:
So I mentioned earlier that I made the mistake of confusing Stacy with Jenny, it was more like the questions on the sheet were really close. But Stacy does say, Jenny & me, I can easily see how you could confuse us twinning.
Jeremy Lesniak:
They have very similar spirits.
Andrew Adams:
I was gonna say their personalities are pretty, pretty similar. It's pretty awesome. All right. Are you ready for the next question?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I sure am.
Andrew Adams:
Okay, this next question comes from Chris Rickard. I did not mess this one up. This one is definitely from Chris. I know who Chris is. And Chris. So his question is, how do you tell if a technique just needs more practice? Or if it isn't a good match for you?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh.
Andrew Adams:
Five minutes go.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, that's a great question, Chris. It really is. A technique that is not a good match will be one that you find a little opportunity to use. A technique that needs more practice is one that you see the opportunity to use, but it fails. Let's say I'm a passionate competitor, you know, in striking arts.
And my school's curriculum has a handful of throwing techniques, you know, hip toss or something like that. It's not that it's bad for me to know that technique. It is not that it is bad for me to understand and practice that technique. But if we consider our y, which is incredibly important, my why in that case might be striking competition, you know, point sparring sort of thing. That's not going to be a good match. It's not going to work.
Well. Now there are even striking rule sets that permit a little bit of that. But you're not going to use it very often. A technique that needs more practice. Oh, yeah, I should absolutely be doing a sidekick in this circumstance. And the person is able to close the distance before I can get the kick up or something. Maybe that means there's an opportunity to practice more and make that technique better and thus more usable..
Andrew Adams:
Okay. Yeah, I like it. Like when I hear this type of a question I often think of because for me, it's the one that jumps to my mind most quickly, is we have a young woman in our class that we both know Abby. Abby is vertically challenged as a tall person. And our instructor has no problem in the vertical department. He's six foot four. He is a much taller person. And so you know, we will often do a technique in class.
And it doesn't work for Abby. Her size does not allow her to do it on every student. Now, sometimes she'll work with a student that it will work on. And so, you know, even if I would say even if a technique isn't a good match for you, so using Abby as an example and Abby's a An incredibly close friend of mine, I don't mind a throne, I don't say throw him under the bus. But what am I using her as an example?
She still works at those techniques, even though it's not a good match against me because of my height, but she still practices them, because she wants to understand the principle. Because she might be working with someone who is different.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Exactly. I think when we talk about this, I think it's actually easier to see the difference in a grappling II sort of self defense area, there are times when being let's say the same height has a little bit of a window, you know, a couple inches either side. certain techniques work really well, certain throws or self defense maneuvers. work well when the person is roughly your height. Others work much better when you are taller. But let's face it, that's not a common self defense scenario, most of the time, you're gonna be attacked by somebody taller nude. There are some techniques that actually do work better when you are shorter.
Now it can, there can be a point of diminishing return there where you know, if they're 16 inches taller, maybe it's not gonna work. But if they're six inches taller, it works better than if they're the same height as you. There are some of those, they're not common, but they do exist. And so if we talk about those subjects, and you are someone who trains in a school where they say, Okay, we're going to show you all these self defense techniques, these this jiu jitsu, this grappling, etc, and pick a few that you're going to, really feel comfortable with.
If you're a shorter person, a dramatically shorter person, you might pick the ones that are best against a much taller person versus if you're 511. You pick the ones that are best against someone who was roughly your height. I'm guessing that's where Chris was going with it knowing.
Andrew Adams:
Very well could be the case. We'll see him next month. We can ask him.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We will.
Andrew Adams:
We heard we came out with some new products recently. I saw on the website that I can't tell us that sweatshirts are one of them.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, this sweatshirt is not the t-shirt I'm wearing. I'm gonna have a strip. The T-shirt is Oh, yeah, there you go. This is the script I like. I like this font. It's fun. You know, it's not at all our logo. But it's fun. Yeah, and, you know, everybody likes wearing different clothes.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. And what I like about that particular shirt is for those that haven't noticed that whistle kick does not put their name on a lot of things. Look at the hat you're wearing. Look at the sweatshirt you're wearing. It's got the logo. It doesn't say okay. But I like that it says it was okay. That's cool.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Some of the things that we have do not say whistlekick. Most of them do not say martial arts. Yeah. Once in a while we put martial arts on something because some people want to tell the world that they train. Not everyone does. Yes. This hat, that T-shirt. I think the back of this, the back of the hoodie says never settle. Yeah, yeah, it does. So in play, you know, we use our slogan quite a bit.
And if you don't get the newsletter, you probably didn't know that we dropped the fall collection. I'm working on the winter collection right now, which will be smaller. But yeah, check out whistle kick.com. Use that code PODCAST15 and grab yourself a tea or a hoodie or a hat or a denim jacket. Flip flops, lightweight sweatshirt slides. We do have flip flops up there. But the fall collection had slides that were really kind of fun. I had to mess with the logo a little bit so it would fit in. I loved how it came out. Awesome.
Andrew Adams:
All right, are you ready for the next question?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Always ready for the next question.
Andrew Adams:
Okay. Next question is sent in by…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Before you do that, we should ask a questionathon. Maybe that's 800.
Andrew Adams:
That's a great idea. Okay. I'm writing that down. Okay, next question sent in by Andrew Adams. He said this question.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don't know this guy. He's a nice guy. Is he? Yeah, I heard. I'm trying to think of like, a gentle insult. That wouldn't involve swearing.
Andrew Adams:
I got nothing. Okay, that's fine. You heard he pours too much milk in the cereal.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I heard he pours the milk first. That's weird, isn't it? Okay, unrelated to martial arts at all. The idea is to pour the milk in the bowl first, which there are people who do this. And I suspect they come from homes where they use much less expensive cereal and the milk was considered more valuable. And they would pour the milk first. That is such an odd thing that it is almost an insult. I bet you pour your cereal milk first. Yeah, go ahead.
Andrew Adams:
Okay, so my question was, have you recently returned from free trading day South? I did. And this is our first podcast where we will have the opportunity to talk about it. And so my question is, what was the most unexpected thing from pre training day South could be good, could be bad could be neither. But what was the thing that you didn't expect to happen on free training day South that did.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So while I'm thinking I'll clue people in in case they're really not familiar with what we're doing with free training days, we are about to have our sixth ever free training day northeast. But this year, we are holding one and we held one in Atlanta over the weekend, I'm flying out to Portland, Oregon, this coming weekend, for our sixth that will be our seventh this year will be our in the northeast, it'll be free training day eight, we're gonna have to start numbering them because I expect locations will increase over time.
The very first free training day in the northeast was very similar to the free training day in the South. And I think for me, that was the unexpected thing that was unexpected, but it should not have been right. One of the things I've found is that while we have a very loyal following that truly is global, I mean, it's American centric, but it is global, we have, you know, when when I checked the numbers, you and I talked about this for broadcast purposes, we have downloads in literally every country, I've seen that it's super cool. But the south doesn't know us that well. Much of what we have going on in the Northeast comes because I had prior relationships with people.
We've built a lot of things and had a lot of reach. And I grew up in New England, you grew up in New England, right? So free training in the northeast, it's like all these connections of all these people and yours to shepherd it forward. And free training day South was very similar to the first year of free training day period, we didn't call it northeast, back then it was just a free training day.
A very comparatively small group of people who were incredibly passionate about training, some of whom knew each other, most of whom knew Justin who put on the event, some of who knew me, and came from other states, we had four different states represented. Whereas the first free training day here in the northeast, I think we had one too. I think we also had four states represented.
And a bunch of people stuck around the whole day, most of them stuck around the whole day, and didn't want to leave. And then we all went to dinner and they didn't want to leave. And then we sit in the parking lot for 45 minutes talking, because people didn't want to leave. Because they found people who were like minded. And so I hadn't thought about that. So it wasn't that it was strange or unusual. I could have anticipated, but I didn't. It makes sense. But that was what was unexpected. And it was really nice. I guess the best word I can use is to bask in that energy of people who are finding that this group, this tribe, this family of martial artists, really is something I don't want to say different because that suggests that it doesn't exist without us. And that is not the case. But that we are exactly what we say we are, we are passionate about training, we support people training and teaching and doing their own thing in their own way. And, you know, I met some great people and look forward to hopefully training with them again.
Andrew Adams:
Awesome. Yeah, that's great. You know, this, this episode obviously is going out live right now. People can theoretically watch it two or three days from now, but it's gonna get released in the podcast form just before our Northeast event. And so the Northeast event is the weekend of November 11 to the 13th. It's the first time we're doing an actual weekend. Day is still Saturday. Training is free.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Training Day as part of you know what, this is kind of fun. This is I'm genuinely figuring this out live with you. Yeah, the original version of free training day was called martial arts weekend. Yep. This is the first time the free training date is part of March. Last weekend.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, that's awesome. That's great. Friday night we're having a meet and greet in town, which is happening in Keene, New Hampshire. If you're listening and we're not planning on coming, you know, we hope you consider doing so.
The meet and greet is free. All of the info will be on the Facebook page. Free Training Day. Look for it on Facebook. And then the free training day is Saturday we're having dinner at a local restaurant in town. It's going to be so much fun.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Never settle awards are getting doled out that evening at dinner. Yep, the magic level one teacher training the next day. Right, like all these pieces, like all coming together. It's so fun. All right.
Andrew Adams:
Are you ready for your fourth and final question?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm sad but yes. Okay.
Andrew Adams:
I know that you Here's an aside. Do you watch Kung Fu Panda?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I believe I've seen them all. They were together, so hopefully you're not gonna get specific.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. I know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Jack Black's ever done.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. And I know you've seen the Ninja Turtles.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Like a million times.
Andrew Adams:
It's an understatement. This question was actually sent to me from my friend Braden Fisher, who's not a martial artist at all. But he wants to know your thoughts on who would win in a fight Master Splinter or Master Oogway.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Who was a wagon?
Andrew Adams:
He was in the turtle. Okay, the teacher turtle. It's interesting that Master Splinter taught Ninja Turtles and he will be fighting Master Oogway who was a turtle.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think I'd have to give it to Master Splinter. And I think that is one of the very reasons, it's a small reason. But if you've spent a bunch of time teaching turtles, you know how turtles move, they will have physical advantages and disadvantages.
It also depends on if I don't remember the movies well enough. I don't remember what kind of turtle Master Oogway is. Is he one that can just pull into a shell completely and hide? I don't remember you know, because that creates a pretty awesome defensive strategy to me.
Master Splinter is, you know, it's like Bruce Lee, right? Like I just can't imagine him not winning. In any given moment. I can't imagine anyone being better than him. He was you know, he was my Bruce Lee grown up. Yeah. You know, just like, very wise and very powerful lessons hidden in cartoons.
Andrew Adams:
And it's interesting that they both use a bow. They both fight with the staff or maybe not fight but the master who has a staff and splitter often carries around the staff. So not only can the bow control, like a cane sort of push closer.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Some, like an iron cage or something. Yeah, I'm doing splinter. All right. I wonder if anybody disagrees. Do you disagree?
Andrew Adams:
No, I think you're right. I think Master Splinter would win this. Mark Warner. Mark Warner's shakes Oogway goes metaphysical though.
Jeremy Lesniak:
See, this is where my knowledge of those movies really is not sufficient. So maybe I'm going to have to eat a lot. Maybe that's how to fight. How to Fight Master Oogway. We haven't done one of those in a while.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, boy. Yeah. So there you go. They were all over the board. I liked it. Yeah. Yeah, that was fun. So there's our final question. For our live q&a Number 20.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I hope people who are watching or listening now or later, we'll all bombard you with questions. Please do please do Andrew at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Please hit him up with some questions for the next time that we do this.
I think that would be great. The questions that come in, they're always great questions, but it would just be nice, you know, because you do so much for the show. And these episodes, you know, I don't do anything on this episode. I show up. I intend to read a bunch of comments. I don't know what any of them are. I'm assuming you've put some of them on. But a lot of them are, you know, they're just over there.
I'm you're doing the whole thing. Yeah. I'm a willing participant and little more so people out there willing to help you would be kind of cool. Absolutely, I'd love it. If people want to help us sharing episodes, suggesting guests, there's a forum at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, or you can email that to you as well. Making a purchase using the code podcast, one, five, the Patreon patreon.com/whistlekick.
And of course, we've got the family page whistlekick.com/family. If you find yourself, you know, checking out the things that we do and really feeling like you are heard, seen, understood, with the philosophy that whistlekick has been style agnostic, and simply passionate about training and supporting the training of other martial artists, you probably are family.
And thus, you would probably find value with the family page whistlekick.com/family, you got to type it in. We did that intentionally and we continue to do that intentionally. If you're not willing to take eight seconds to type it in. I'm sorry, you don't deserve the benefits that are on that page.
Andrew Adams:
And you only have to do it once because this is just saved in your browser history.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I even put a date and time at the top to show you when it was last updated. So you don't have to scan the page to find the update. Only to not find an update.
Andrew Adams:
Awesome.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So there we go. All right, everybody. I appreciate you being here. Andrew, thank you for this and for you. I'll hit the end of the broadcast here. I'll do something on this show. Until next time, train hard. Have a great day.