Episode 760 - Sabum Sam Pulfer
Sabum Sam Pulfer is a martial Arts instructor and practitioner who currently represents Malta in International competitions.
There’s something in every single style that you can use to complement in another style. WTF Taekwondo doesn’t put much emphasis on hands. So, when I did Kyokushin, very strong focus went in to the hands and getting in close to be able to use short, sharp punches in parts of the body that really hurt.
Sabum Sam Pulfer - Episode 760
According to Sabum Sam Pulfer, he started Martial Arts for all the wrong reasons. Growing up in a family that moves a lot, Sam needed something to do in his free time and he wasn’t so keen when he heard Taekwondo. However, when he tried it, he did not turn back.
Currently, Sabum Pulfer represents Malta in Taekwondo international competitions and runs the Gemini martial arts team. He was a member of the British Poomsae team (2004 - 2009), coached a team in India (2006), trained with the Sri Lankan military (2005), former British national Poomsae championship (2007 - 2009), and was a former infantry serviceman with the territorial army (2011). He also competed in 102 tournaments since first competing in June 2000.
In this episode, Sabum Sam Pulfer talked about his journey to the Martial Arts, his interest in the psychology of martial arts, and how his multi-faceted approach in life benefitted his training. Listen to learn more!
Show notes
Check out Sabum Sam Pulfer’s YouTube Channel
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey, what's going on everyone, Welcome. This is whistlekick martial arts radio episode 760 with my guest, Sabum Sam Pulfer. I am Jeremy Lesniak, and I'm your host here for the show founder of whistlekick, where everything we do is in support of traditional martial arts. If you want to see everything that we're doing to that end, well visit whistlekick.com. It's our online home. And also the easiest way to find our products and services, view the code, PODCAST15, you're gonna save 15% on any of those products or services that you purchase, it was whistlekick.com. But if you want to keep going, maybe check out something in conjunction with this podcast. Well, there's a whole different website, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com show comes out twice a week and the entire purpose behind everything we do.
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I had a great time talking to Sam, we talked about his beginnings in Taekwondo. And so cross training, and how his multifaceted approach to martial arts into training has been such a benefit for him and really informed what he does. And I think more importantly, how he does it. So stick around, and see what you think. Hey, Sam, welcome to whistlekick martial arts radio.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Hey, Jeremy, thank you for having me on the show. It's a pleasure to be here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Happy to have you here. You know, audience, we just had a little bit of a pre-chat. So I know that I know, some of the places we're gonna go. And it's stuff that we've not really talked much about, over the years. And here we are, what are we in our eighth year or something? So it's not common that we get subjects that are really new, or at least, barely covered. And that's, I know, we're gonna get some of that today so I'm excited.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
So definitely excited about the show. And as thanks, having me on, and anything that I can say, which may add to the martial arts community, or help in any way, shape, or form, or just give new ideas or a new perspective, it'll be an honor as one martial artist to my fellow brethren, so to speak.
Jeremy Lesniak:
For sure, it is a community it is a family, as we like to think of it. Now, of course, we often start almost always start in a rather predictable way. And we spider off from there. So I don't see any reason to change that today. How'd you get started?
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
For all the wrong reasons, the honest answer to that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That is not a common answer. I'm excited wherever we go.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
And one of the things about my life is that there's never like a black or a white. There's always a story behind something like somebody will always say to me, held, how did that come around? Or how did you get this? How did you get that? And I'll look at them. I'll draw a breath. Well, and then it'll be like, you know, 20 minutes feel. But no, I mean, when I was a kid, I was growing up in the Middle East. My dad had a contract with Emirates Airlines, and I grew up in Dubai. And the whole culture of Dubai was very sports based. It was very athletic. I remember at school in Dubai, we had like f-score clubs, and almost every single one was some sort of sports or sports related. And when I was in Dubai, I was very heavily into squash.
I and my brother and were coached by a former European squash champion Nicky Carradine. So, we took that quite seriously. We were dedicated we were training like three nights a week. And I think my parents both like that, they're like, we've got active kids, we've got kids who are healthy, you were eating most well as well, so they were kind of very happy but we weren't okay, let's sit you in front of PlayStation even though PlayStation was only just coming out at the time. PlayStation 1 or something.
And then he got to the late 90s and my family moved to England. And I remember when we go back to England, my parents said to me, they're like, right, obviously you can't continue squash, because we've left. But they're like, but you're not gonna sit down in front of a TV on your weekends, just watching garbage. You will take up a sport and in England footballers in the States, you call it soccer is the national sport. But that has never been my interest. So I was like that’s out the window.
So the parents dragged me reluctantly down to the sports hall in the local village. And they got talking to like the people who work there. And this lady of shyness rounds, completely bored and disinterested. And she was like, yeah, so on Saturdays, we do badminton and on Sundays, we do this, and Mondays we do that. And eventually, as you said, apparently, from one of the days they did taekwondo. Now, I had no idea what taekwondo was. I've never heard of it in my life. To me, it sounded like a disease or it sounded like some sort of, I don't know some cuisine, but I'll order a dish of Taekwondo medium rare. So purely out of interest and curiosity. I said, taekwondo. I fancy giving it a go. And I remember my dad next to me, he turns to me with a raised eyebrow, and he was like, Do you even know what that is? And I was like, pretending to put ideas. Oh, yeah, I know, taekwondo. I've seen it all over TV. I had absolutely no idea. So anyway, they did believe he was like, Yo, we do listen on a Sunday morning come along, wearing loose clothes. So I did and it was an idea of school. And I was there for about a year. Sadly, my relationship with that school did actually break down. Very long story short, the instructor I don't think really had the best interest of students at heart. Sometimes he turned up, under the influence of certain toxic substances or melted certain things.
Other times, he just didn't turn up at all. And obviously, my parents are paying for this. And even my parents, just like, look, we don't think this is right, for yourself or for us. So they're like, Do you fancy finding another school? So I agreed to that, actually, because I didn't really gel with this particular instructor at this idea at school. So I was more than happy to look elsewhere. So we went to the next neighboring town. And we found a WTF school. And as soon as I walked in, the instructor let me have like, a free lesson and, you know, show me the ropes. And at the end of it, he was like, how would you find it? I really enjoyed it. You know, it seemed really cool. All the people there seem to gel, there was a lot of friendliness, and there was a lot of banter. So, I said to my parents, I was like obviously asking them, they're the ones paying for my tuition, but I was like, can I join? And they're like, you're happy to do so,c'est la vie. So, that was from that. And I was with that school from 1988 or 99, I believe, up until 2006. My instructor then shut down the shop in 2006. And he moved elsewhere. And since then, I've pretty much been like an independent body, so to speak. I got interesting things and went off to India. I coached a team in India. I did my gap year out there and I stayed at like a little rural boarding school in the middle of Registan. And I was teaching like the kids out there how to do taekwondo and other martial arts and came back to England the following year. And I said, right, I want to start my own school so I started up my own school in 2007. And it was I could have called any name. It could have been like Sam's taekwondo. It could have been Phoenix. I wanted, something conventional. The name I went for was Shiva Soviet and
Jeremy Lesniak:
Say that again.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
It's as bad as it sounds. Shiva, Soviet
Jeremy Lesniak:
Soviet-like S.O.V.I.E.T, like the Soviet Union.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do you like making things harder for yourself? Well, keep going.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
That came around. This turns into quite a dark story in itself actually. But no, I Shiva, and I will pray those damn Shiva in Hindi mythology or Hindu. The Hindu religion is the god of construction. And I think the name kind of came from when I was living in India, like a month or so prior. I was in a very Hindu-based area. So there are lots of Hindu temples dedicated to Shiva. So that must have subconsciously had a bit of a rub-on effect. But the Soviet Union, I bet literally came around I fought the Soviets just sounds like a cool name. And I remember reading a book about Indian history, which is actually on my bookshelf right there. And it came across actually with the names Shiva and the Soviet Union in one sentence. And my mind is not necessarily working to conventional lines, looked at this sentence for Shiva and Soviets, and I thought, wow, that'd be such a cool name for like a punk band or a heavy metal band or something.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Yeah, so, I can't play an instrument. I can play any guitar, but badly. It's a good instrument.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It is.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
So I said to myself, right. I'll call the team Shiva Soviet. And we got so much interest. I don't know if it's the right kind of interest. I mean, I was 19 at the time. And a lot of my students were like, 18,19, 20, 21, the classes were really crushed up, we could only well, I could only afford a tiny little sports hall, which had an unsanitized floor, industrial walls, metal pylons, kind of sticking across the walls girders across the roof. It was almost like something from Rocky, or like an exaggerated rocky you walk in there, and it's just like, filthy. And I'm surprised I didn't get sepsis or something from that.
But all the students were very sort of like young testosterone. A lot of our syllabus was sparring-based and it was kind of bad. In retrospect, it was really bad because actually, we were sparring like full contact sparring with no protective gear at all. And I might as well just call it Sam's boxing, Friday night boxing, or something like fight club or something like that. And, that was Shiva Soviet, but I think in life what I've kind of learned is that as you get older, you naturally start to learn from previous mistakes and prior experiences, and you start to kind of channel yourself or you start to redirect yourself into ways which you think actually, I'm gonna learn from this experience. Take it forward, but I'm not gonna repeat those same mistakes. As Shiva Soviet, we had a very, I did a video about it once on my YouTube channel. To say it was a checkered history would probably be giving a bit of like an icing sugar coating on it. If I wouldn't do it, I wouldn't run a school like a cheapskate now by no stretch. But anyway, Shiva Soviet closed down in 2009 and I then opened up a radical Gemini Martial Arts team, which is almost the polar opposite of Shiva because Gemini, I said to myself, right, I don't want to have a dojo or Dojang.
Gemini is purely going to exist just for competition. So we're not even gonna really exist as an outfit until the competition comes on. Then I'll ask certain people if they want to be part of Gemini and go to this competition. And that's how it was for many years. But gradually, the last, I'd say 10 years or so. Gemini has now kind of like, cemented itself a bit more solidly. We've got a solid team base. We train a lot more maturely than what I used to do Shiva Soviet. And we've just done a lot of competition. Since then, we've done World Championships, we've done internationals, we've been to Finland, and we did a competition in Disneyland Paris back in 2010. Some guy got dressed up as Mickey Mouse and got punched in the face for I remembered. Like, so there's always a strange story behind all this stuff. And quite recently, actually, last month, as part of Gemini, actually, we went on a cruise to the Canary Islands. And we actually did a competition on the cruise ship itself. So we actually did a competition like in the middle of the ocean.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, that's cool.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
I mean, it was a unique experience and stuff like that. I mean, we've done a lot of charity events with Gemini as well, we did the largest taekwondo display in the world, which was in October 2016. So it's definitely kind of combining a lot of like humanitarian stuff with the martial arts itself. So that has been my martial arts career today in a Reader's Digest version.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I want to go way back. You said something that I'm finding fascinating. Here you are, you're quite young. And you decide to join a taekwondo class without knowing what Taekwondo is when that's interesting. I think it probably says something about you and your personality, just being perhaps a bit of a contrarian, which the name of your first school also would suggest. But what I find even more interesting is that after a year and so at your first school, you had such a positive relationship with martial arts, despite not having a positive relationship with your instructor. And for most people, their first go into a martial art. Those two are not separate.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Yeah, I mean, you're totally right, because as I explained, before we went live, I'm studying psychology, and my career goal is to actually become a therapist, the CBT counselor. And one of the things that I learned from my degree was that the successful therapist-client relationship will be based on how well the client and the therapist gel. So that is true with martial arts because when you do martial arts, you're getting close physically, to your instructor. And I was going to use the word intimate but I believe if I use the word intimate that might be misunderstood. However, at the risk of sounding sexual. With your instructor, you're learning all about self-defense minister, it'd be a lot of like, close contact will be a lot of time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, it certainly is an intimate relationship, people are within your personal space, and they're putting their hands on you in a way that generally doesn't happen outside of a romantic relationship, or martial arts. I mean, most people are not touched that closely in anything but one of those two scenarios, so I know exactly what you mean.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
You won't go up to like somebody in the street and start like, putting your hands all over and stuff you'd be like, Dude, what the hell are you doing? Get away at least.
Jeremy Lesniak:
In that context. It's called assault and you get arrested.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
So if you don't gel with your instructor, and you're getting into this close proximity with them, and you don't gel, then it's gonna be like pulling teeth. And yes, you're right. A lot of people, I believe, from my experience, and what I've seen, will leave a martial arts school, not because they dislike the martial art, not because they dislike the activity, not because they necessarily dislike the other students. But it's because they just don't get on the instructor. And my relationship with martial arts has been, in my mind, one side of my yin-yang. And my relationship with instructors has actually been the other side of my union. Martial arts and not just taekwondo particularly, because I have dabbled in other martial arts as well. In 2011, I became heavily involved in [0:17:27-0:17:29] to the point where I trained in nothing but the [0:17:32-0:17:33] for probably about two years solid. But my relationship with martial arts, it's been my lifeline. It's been there to help me through my difficult teenage years when I'm going through puberty. And I can sit down in college and all I can think about is a women's lumps and bumps, who are sitting next to me. So, but then also times when, if I've had things on my mind, I'll go off and do my videos on my YouTube channel. And just enjoy the experience, enjoy the competitions. To date, I've done over 100 competitions, purely because I enjoyed them so much. And I didn't think anything of going to all these places in random places like Finland, Albania or India, or Sri Lanka, and competing out there. It to me, it just people be like, wow, why are you doing that, and I will just be like, just what I do. So martial arts in general has been good for me, it's been almost like a form of therapy, a creative therapy. And there have been times when I've really struggled in life. I mean, I suffer from depression, and anxiety, but martial arts has really sort of helped with that. It's really sort of grounded me, it's made me focus on the physiological biological sense. But it's also just given me that sense of enjoyment. The sense of, I'm just practicing martial arts, because, it's not to beat anybody up. It's not to borderline kill somebody in sparring, it's just because I want to do it.
However, on the other side of the coin, we've had relationships with instructors. attributed to me, a lot of my relationships with instructors have been quite, I would say volatile. That's not the right word to use. But a lot of time, we've not really met eye to eye on things. And I think a lot of that is because I'm a very questioning individual. And again, this comes from the degree when I was doing my degree or when I'm doing my degree, one of the things I'm taught as social psychologists or social scientists is to always question - critically assess, and critically analyze, and that's how you learn. I believe it was Bruce Lee, he once said that I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education. So if anything comes my way, on like a piece of paper or somebody says, This is how you do X. I will quite often look and be like, oh, yeah, but there could be another way of doing this. And I think I wasn't doing any of this stuff. I'll just read a trade actually, but I wasn't doing any of this questioning to be belligerent, I wasn't trying to be disrespectful, and I wasn't trying to be like, condescending in any way, shape, or form. But that was just me being quite innately curious about things.
And I believe a lot of instructors who actually trained under maybe had quite a bit of like a hard time looking at it from that perspective. I've trained with some instructors who are very laid back, and they actually welcome that approach. They're like, yes, feel free to question my approach, because what I'm teaching, may or may not necessarily be the best approach for you. So you have to adapt it to your own approach. Then I've turned to some other instructors who are very sort of deontological in the sense that they like rules. And if you start questioning those, they're like, why are you questioning me, you're the one who's here to learn, you're paying me to teach you so you shut up and listen. But upon saying that, all the instructors I've had, even the first instructor I didn't really gel with, I'm thankful for what they've been able to teach me. And I believe there's a difference between liking somebody and respecting somebody. You could like somebody, but not necessarily have much respect for them. You can respect somebody, but not necessarily like them.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I agree.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
And I found in my experience, most of the people who I respect, I'm talking like, genuinely deeply respect. I don't really like them as people, but I like maybe what they stand for. I like their values. I like their approach and their resilience. I like what they can offer. And I think my [0:21:36-0:21:37] instructor was kind of like a prime example of that. He didn't necessarily like my social attitudes toward life, or how I viewed life. I didn't necessarily like some things that he did. But at the same time, he was phenomenal at [0:21:56-0:21:57]. And I learned so much from him. I mean, he taught me very basic things. But the basic things he taught worked. And I've noticed a huge difference. As soon as he started teaching me the [0:22:09-0:22:10]. I could see the difference between what he was teaching. And, you know, my first Taekwondo instructor, I was like, wow, this is so different. But he's under the [0:22:18-0:21:19] instructor's understanding of the [0:22:20-0:22:21] and the Japanese philosophy behind it. And the Japanese philosophy of kaizen especially, was sort of constant improvement was astronomical, and that really almost kind of like opened up another set of eyes for me of how to look at martial arts. However, I think some conflicts or disagreements are good, hopefully not too much, because then you have a complete breakdown. But if you have a little bit of friction or a little bit of a disagreement, it's healthy, because the debate is healthy. That's how we learn both sides to learn.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I agree.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
If you're going instructor, he says, jump and get the students. That's how high all you're really doing is just creating like a robotic drone, who's just gonna give you blind obedience and blind servitude. But you as an instructor, do you honestly want that? Because they're only gonna go so far. However, if you did kind of encourage maybe like a yes, question, analyze, assess, dissect, add your own bits in, then that's creative. That's constructionism. And I believe that can only come around with a little bit of friction, as I said, not friction to cause a breakdown, but friction that caused the creation to develop.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Friction creates heat, right? Most chemical reactions require at least a bit of heat, something beyond the room. temperature. I want to, and you said a few things that I kind of want to respond to the first one, is when you something, I've been thinking in the back of my head, as you've been talking about this idea of an instructor who doesn't permit questions in any context. And obviously, there are appropriate and inappropriate times to question someone. You know, I don't think you're suggesting that anytime any question is appropriate, that they can have a time and a place. But if we think about a school, we're questioning, because questioning leads to understanding if we can never ask those questions, then the best students in that school can never be as good as the instructor. That instructor has a level of understanding that they are not passing on. And I just wanted to put that out there. You're nodding your head. So I know. we agree there, but just something for the audience.
And I want you to talk and bear with me on a couple of other things. I want to come back and talk about this contrast between Kyokushin and Taekwondo because that's fascinating to me. But first, I want to ask you posed a rather significant philosophical question, so I'm going to kind of put you on the spot with it. Would you rather be liked or respected?
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Respected.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You didn't even hesitate, okay, and you thought about this, why?
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
I have and I've been in a position of both positions I've been, in my day-to-day working life, I worked in a mental health unit. And I'm actually a deputy manager at a mental health unit. And that position entails a certain amount of responsibility. And if you're going to be respected, you have to understand that you are going to make some decisions, which are going to be very unpopular, you've got to understand that people are going to talk about you behind your back, they're going to set you off, they're going to trash talk you. I've never heard people actually do that behind my back, but I'm sure they do. That's just the nature of the deputy manager and other workers. And I look around and think but that comes with the responsibility. And you can read a situation from your heart, or you can read a situation from your head. And if you read a section of your heart all the time, you're going to come over-emotional, you're going to let those little criticisms get to you, you're going to think, Oh, my God, you know, nobody likes me,
nobody's gonna put me on the Christmas list, or I'm not gonna be invited to birthdays, or go to the pub and have a pint. But if you read over your head, you can say, Yes, I know, they're not necessarily agreeing, with what I want to do at this moment, however, I know, the decision that I'm making is going to be in the best interests of them. And I know it's gonna be in the best interests of the project that you're running.
And I've got relating this to martial arts, I've turned to some people who, as an example, I've walked into a boxing gym some time ago. And I could immediately see all the students there battling hard. They had sounds populistic service beds, had squash noses, you could see the cauliflower ears. And you could see be done sparring time. And I did, I went toe to toe with these guys in the boxing gym. And I was severely out of shape. And I could see they started to go a little bit softer on me. However, at the same time, I could see that they weren't the kind of ones who treated me as one of their own. Because I was an outsider, I was from the out-group. But I could see those, they were kind of like maybe having a little bit of sympathy, I think so. They were never like, malicious to me. But I have never seen things that come on, you can do nothing like that. They were very encouraging, on the contrary, but I could just see that they're kind of like, looking at me like to the side of their eyes kind of thinking, oh, you know, come on, this guy's not that good.
However, I remember then learning from that experience. The following year, I went to a martial arts camp that we had in the south of England. And it was all these Japanese styles that got there. We had like, Jujitsu, we had various forms of kendo or Kenjutsu and Kyokushin was there. And I remembered learning about these experiences boxing gym, and I thought to myself, I'm going to volunteer to be a rookie or a partner in every single demonstration which is going to happen at this event. And I said, I'll probably get bashed up, I'll probably be bruised ribs, I'll be pre-vomiting by the end of it, but I was like, but I'm going to share that spirit I'm going to actually earn that respect. And I did exactly that. I mean, I was thrown to the floor countless times I was put into various locks, and parts of my body were being stretched on like this human wreck part of my body I didn't even know existed. The night staggering back to my tent, all the kids and everything else is like running back to their tents now basically almost hobbling to my tent, thinking to myself like well didn't know I could, I had like, an extra nose sticking out my forehead. But at the end of it was like a free day course. At the end of it. We did like four hours' worth of full context sparring. And some of these guys doing this will kind of sparring. They were low-grade, but they'll be built like grizzly bears, they were mammoths.
And I remember, like some of the guys I was faring well ahead of them. And they were barely moving. They just do like, I know one to five kicks hurt like hell, but I remember just looking and thinking not I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go down. I'm not gonna say stop. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna give you the satisfaction basically. However, in the end, when this whole thing was finished, the people who were running it actually reached out to me and just said, Look, we'd like you to be an honorary instructor in our organization as we will be highly impressed with what you've done. You showed true Japanese, the equivalent of the Japanese spirit. So like we were really impressed.
And that's all we really said. I mean, we didn't go overboard. But reading between the lines, I remember looking and thinking, that's all that I needed. So it wasn't people kind of like going easy anymore. It wasn't people kind of thinking, Oh, Sam's not too good. So we're not going to try bashing him up. I look to him for they're trying to bash me up because they know I can take
it. So I believe in that kind of instance, I actually earned the respect. So when it comes down to whether I want to be liked or respected, I'd much rather be respected.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's a solid sound answer. I don't know, what am I, I think I want to be respected. But I'm gonna have to spend some time thinking about this one. So let's go back to Kyokushin, and really, what got you to Kyokushin? Because while there's certainly a similarity between ITF and Kyokushin, the way those classes generally run, and what are focused on, in my experience is quite different. So how did you get from A to B?
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
You're right, I mean, the main difference, which I found, excuse me, the main difference, I found was the conditioning. Not so much my experience with the ITF. But when I did WTF we did, quite literally no conditioning. A lot of the taekwondo class format, if I remember correctly, it'll starts off with a warm-up, and we then go into basics, meeting, then do some pad work, kicking the pads, but all the pads stuff was head height, that we have people holding these pedals, maybe holding them as high as you can get. And yet, you have to jump as high as a giraffe's neck to be able to kick them. And then the class would generally end with either some fancy equivalent of Kata for some self-defense. When I did for Kyokushin, generally, the format I experienced generally followed almost the same format, it was like warm-up basic, very basic than the rest, and it was boring. So induction lessons of say two hours long, it'll be about 15 minutes warm up 15 minutes basics, then the rest of the sparring.
So my experience a [0:32:43-0:32:44] was heavily based, more in sparring. And from my experience, that's why the record is a generalization. Of course, I know, there are always going to be exceptions to the generalization. But that's what makes the [0:32:56-0:32:57] fighters so formidable because they spend so much time focusing primarily on sparring. And you fight for where you train. And a lot of the sparring, or even the basics involves conditioning. So you get two partners to come up to each other and one would stand there and the other one would just be blitzing into the stomach for punches, or would be kicking the thighs, slapping the inside of the thigh, punching into the shoulders going up underneath the ribs. And the psychology of that was the fact that what's going to happen to you in a fight, you're going to get hit. But if you're training and all you're doing in your training is being hits, you're gradually psychologically overcome, you're probably gonna get hit reflex.
And what I learned from the [0:33:47-0:33:48] is that the more conditioning that I did, the more I actually then began to almost want my opponent to hit me when it came to sparring because I was thinking because of luck, how hard can you hit? Because in the drills in the training, I've been hit pretty hard. Can you hit as hard as it sounds I felt almost kind of a bit of a Rambo kind of guy kind of making like, come on, give it some of the risks of sounding arrogant, which it wasn't I was just almost wanting to test myself whereas what I found with Taekwondo is that my experience of Taekwondo and I believe generally taekwondo across the board, especially the Olympic version, there is no conditioning. And it's sad, but there doesn't need to be because if you watch the Olympics, they're wearing body armor all the time. And Olympic fighting is not based on it used to be wherein lets KO you, whereas now it's based on that score of points. So you'll get people coming in. And all they need to do is really tap your body armor for the electronic sensor to go oh, yeah, I felt the pressure. Yeah, that's the point. And that's all they're really taught. Whereas the [0:34:55-0:34:56] if you watch the [0:34:57-0:34:58] fighters and their competitions on the committee, The only guards they were our groin guards. I've seen some way gum shields, and I believe shin guards. And that's all they have. But the idea of a costume committee is to actually knock your opponent down or to knock them out. So of course, in the end, the game is going to be different. You're going to be training for different reasons and fighting for different reasons and using different tactics. And I believe as well, that's why you can see a lot of YouTube videos when a lot of Taekwondo fighters actually get hammered for what a better word. And I think that's purely not necessarily a reflection of a bad fighter. But it's just because they're not ready or expecting to fight unnecessarily at the [0:35:41-0:35:42] or contact way.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Rules will dictate how the competition goes, which will dictate how the training goes.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know, I would imagine that even a high-level Kyokushin fighter would get demolished in Olympic taekwondo sparring.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And vice versa, because they are, well, while a punch is a punch and a kick, as a kick, more or less, the way those are implemented is or at least can be dramatically different. That's what you're talking about and I find that fascinating.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Yes, it's true, because I think before karate went into the Olympics, and again, I was actually speaking to Kyokushin guys who I was training with time, they were saying that they knew a lot of karate fighters who wants to go into the Olympics. But as karate hadn't been accepted at this stage, a lot of them were just transitioning over to taekwondo schools. And apparently, over taekwondo instructors, were just saying to him is like, look, just kick. So they were just learning how to kick above the waist and not kick into the thighs or use their hands as much. So the rules were definitely dictated. And I think as well, like one of the saving graces, I think of Taekwondo is, that it's always advancing and evolving with the taekwondo you get in today's Olympics is not the same Taekwondo, you say, 20 years ago, the body armor back was thin so even if you got like a back kick into the body on it, you still felt it. Whereas now it's a lot chunky. But even if you just might add change the rules of a taekwondo competition, it can change the whole style.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So I want to poke at what you're saying a little bit because you're you have up until now been separating? WTF now WT and ITF. And this is a place where I think that separation is critically important.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
In regards to.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Talking about changes and evolution, and how the competitive focus has led to changes in training and an understanding of the art, in my experience ITF is not changing. It is not evolving in the way that WT is.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
I only have minimal experience with ITF, to begin with. I don't necessarily feel as though I can comment so much about the changes in ITF. But from what experience I have with ITF as I know that ITF is very much more in terms of hand techniques. The last one of the last competitions I did actually in a place called Margate in England actually was an ITF competition and the worst world for [0:38:28-0:38:29]. I got actually was a bloody nose because the guy came over to my god soup and punched hit me straight then blood had just been everywhere. But with the taekwondo changing itself, I mean, if you look at a style like I don't know if you've heard it proTaekwondo.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
It was something that was quite popular in the late 90s. And it was a WTF format in competition, they were WTF toolbox over the actual stylistic kicks, they're doing very much WTF. However, there was no body armor, there were hardly any guards or gum shields. And it wasn't based on points. It was basically meant to be almost like a war of attrition, you wore your opponent down, aiming for a KO. And seeing those pro- TKD fighters spa and most competitions was different from how you saw the Olympics. Like the tactics were changing. There was a lot more emphasis on like heavy kicks, jumping back kicks, and a lot more combinations of hands as well. They'd be like coming in closer using their hands a lot to the sternum and then trying to go for a head-height roundhouse kick as your opponent backed off. So very much, I think even tweak sorry, tweaking a few rules here and there. We'll have a long-term effect and actually change the horse training strategies and methods which are used but ITF Taekwondo, I mean, I, in some ways, I kind of look at this sparring between WTF 90 and actually think maybe it should actually be considered a different martial art because both styles use different methods both styles emphasize different tactics and strategies
Jeremy Lesniak:
I see them as dramatically different in training and philosophy in competition forms I mean there I don't know how well the lineage of the history of Taekwondo if you've ever read Killing Art by Alex Gillis.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
I've not but I have heard of it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I would strongly encourage you to read it, it is a fascinating read.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
One thing actually, you mentioned interesting about the actual forms as well or the tool in ITF. Again, performed completely differently WTF MC, sine wave being one of them. The actual techniques themselves are very different. I found with ITF watching their tools, their forms, and patterns. They seem there are a lot more generally different techniques. And a lot more variety, as well much longer and performance as well. I remember actually, once I taught myself [0:41:15-0:41:16]. I was competing at the World Championships. And I thought well, I'm
competing in World Championships, I'll teach myself [0:41:21-0:41:22] because my name is Sam. No ego there at all. I remember teaching myself a sine wave and learning these new rules. And I was like, wow, I've been in martial arts or Taekwondo for so many years. And I've
never seen this technique before. And it was fascinating. But even like, the philosophical concepts behind the idea forms, a lot of them were based on patriotism, nationalism, historical figures, like dan gun,[0:41:52-0:41:53], and usin as well, and then definitely added [0:41:57-0:41:58] And then I was thinking, okay, so how can I compare this to the WTF forms? And what did they represent? And the WTF forms have their own philosophy, but they seem to be more, not so much specific to career specific.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You've got it. I'm gonna beg you to read the book. And then I want to hear your thoughts because I think it's going to give you some context to these differences that I didn't know about until we had our Alex was on the show years ago. And it is the most often mentioned book on this show because it provides a context in a way that is so dramatic that Alex received death threats.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Really?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes. I don't want to spoil it. You're gonna make you think you know what a martial arts book is? You may not put this one down this thing, and it is fascinating. And just to shout to any of the listeners out there if you're not, regardless of whether you train in Taekwondo. If you've not read this book, there is more about what martial arts is today in the world contained in this one book than any other book or probably any other 10 books you could read.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Oh, Put that down on my bedtime reading. I mean, I'm definitely reading. I'm reading this book at the moment so maybe I’ll read it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
A matter of bad a critical approach to counseling or forensic psychology. Okay.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Heavy reading again.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm inferring from the title the premises whether or not the crime committed was one out of anger or the person just suffered from bad character.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Essentially, it's trying to decipher whether criminals commit crimes. This is a lot of criminologies and social psychology coming here. But do criminals commit crimes because they are inherently bad or evil? or morally impermissible? Or is it because they might have just had a bad there was moment there were several things in the social circumstance more than being intrinsically bad?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, interesting.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Yes, As I said, it's behind my laptop. There's like a whole load of weird and wonderful 1984. And then we've got Madison civilization. And I think there's tinting down there or something.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Awesome.Whenever we talk to people who spend a bunch of time in multiple styles. One of my favorite questions. What did you bring from taekwondo into your time In Kyokushin? What did you bring from Kyokushin into your time in taekwondo, especially if you're competing and you're
coaching others in competition if I've got my timeline, right? You're able to bring all that stuff into the over the last few years as your coaching people.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Most definitely. And that's one of the beauties I've always found about martial arts is that there's something in every single style, that you can use to complement another style. And those are when I was doing like WTF Taekwondo. WTF taekwondo doesn't put much emphasis on hands So when I did Kyokushin, the very strong focus then went on to the hands and getting in close and being able to use very short, sharp, jabbing punches to areas of the body, which really did hurt. What I was able to bring from the guy from the [0:45:41-0:45:42] Taekwondo was a lot of a conditioning aspect. I remember once a friend athlete, a taekwondo friend of mine asked me if I wanted to run her class because she wasn't able to do it. So she said, you don't mind doing it? So yeah, I'd be on it. And I remember teaching some Kyokushin in the lesson, I just said, Look, we're gonna teach something a little bit different, it is Kyokushin karate.
And it was teaching them stuff like the outside five kicks, started getting more [0:46:13-0:46:14] stuff like this, which they hadn't had exposure to so they seem to enjoy it. And I like to think that maybe they kind of took something away, that they hadn't been exposed to before. So again, it was helping them develop and look at maybe martial arts in different aspects.
What I was able to bring from taekwondo to Kyokushin, I'd say definitely, in terms of quick combination kicks. And again, I don't say that with any like, disparaging reference to Kyokushin, because Kyokushin has speed. Kyokushin does have a lot of ferocity and, and aggression. But I remember when I did my first taekwondo spar against this Kyokushin guy, I was able to let fire a lot of combinations. I was much younger than I am at the time. I could do these like double roundhouse kicks, one of which went to his thighs, he went to [0:47:08-0:47:09] jumped up, and was able to land a roundhouse kick to the side of his head. And he hadn't been exposed to these double roundhouses before. Stuff like tornado kicks even stuff like a spinning hook kick, which is a spinning hook kick isn't Kyokushin.
But it's not as predominant or as regular as you get into like one day. So I was able to include a lot of these sorts of probe aspects like quick-fire kicking, combination kicking, and a lot more about the bouncy footwork, where it's another Kyokushin. guys who are trained because of their size their build of them, they much prefer to say, right, I'm going to march towards you. And I'm going to grind you down with strikes. They weren't so they didn't necessarily favor the, okay, let's have mobility. And again, I appreciate every single fighter is different, in some cases advocates different things. But these were the guys who I trained versus speaking from my experience. But I like to think actually, some, I actually saw one of these blockchain instructors, later on sparring another guy.
And he was using some of these taekwondo techniques, or he was trying to use them. Some of their works and some of them didn't. But at least I'm looking for actually fair plays, at least trying, and I'm not going to blame him for trying it. I thought, he obviously saw something which he liked, and wants to experiment with. And once the hat goes, I'm never gonna blame somebody for wanting to do that. So, I think there are a lot of opportunities for cross-over with different styles. And all I'd say to anybody is I'd always encourage cross-training. For all students, I've had Gemini and Shiva Soviet, and I've always encouraged cross-training. And I'd say really, the only thing you've got to lose is just, your prejudice. And one thing which has always got me in the martial arts world is when people have this sort of reluctance to learn from other styles, or
they tend to believe that the style they do is the true style or that what they're doing is the be-all-end-all. And you see them on YouTube comments, basically, the keyboard warriors, oh, X and X style is the best, or ABC style is amazing. Your style is rubbish, but that's always kind of like got under my skin a little bit. And I thought to myself, well, you're just worshiping the name, you're not worshiping or you're not really paying attention to the technique or strategy. It's just because then he's got a name or a fancy name that is making you put this sort of like deification on it. So, I've always said you know, always cross-train if you can. Be honest about your art as well. Be honest about strengths, and be honest about the challenges or weaknesses, because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. But if you can identify those weaknesses, and then say, okay, so what can we do to remedy this? Let's take something from Brazilian jujitsu and add to our weight our repertoire, or something from our Wing Chun, sort of person, add something else to that, I'd always encourage that,
Jeremy Lesniak:
I find that there's an inverse relationship between how loudly someone criticizes others on the internet, and how much skill they have. The louder folks took four classes six years ago. The silent ones are the ones that you've got to watch out for, which, interestingly enough, correlates with some of the strongest advice I ever received. If you're ever, there's ever a fight happening, if you end up at a bar, and there are a couple of groups fighting the last person you want to be around will be perfectly calm. They're the ones going to be the most dangerous.
I also think cross-training is incredibly valuable. And if nothing else, let's take that example of the Kyokushin fighter, experimenting with some taekwondo techniques, maybe they would almost never work in a competition, maybe they're completely outside the curriculum they're being taught. Maybe they don't even find them enjoyable. But they're going to have a better understanding of that random person such as yourself that shows up to class and is now throwing things, that they've never seen before. And they're taking the task. Even if it's not for your own usage, it's for your own understanding. And I think that is critical. In my mind, diverse martial artists are good as better martial artists.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Now, completely second that most totally incidentally. Actually, at the beginning of the year, on my YouTube channel, I put out a friendly invite to my subscribers and said, Would you like to come and like roll with me down? It's down at my gym. And one young man did. And it was just friendly. I was off the bat. I was like, this is not going to be an ego contest. It's going to be sharing experiences. And I'll buy you a beer at the end of it. We didn't get time to have a beer. We gobbled up a lot of our time actually talking about Star Wars.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Even better.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
But like he came down, gotten our gym and we have a radio playing in the background. It was like Spice Girls are something, my favorite band is Iron Maidens, but we have Spice Girls on and he came from a predominantly Tai Chi background. And a lot of people could say, okay, tai chi, is it a martial art? Or is it an exercise with martial techniques? But this individual was able to use Tai Chi concepts with a lot of Chinese-related material as well. He used a lot of Bong Sau from Wing Chun when I tried to go for strikes. He combined it with a lot of Muay Thai as well. He landed quite a few five kicks and can use question mark kicks, who was as well, he was well
versed in a whole different variety. But just from sparring with him for about half an hour in this gym. It was such an eye-opener for me because I was seeing the different tactics and strategies he was using, and I was thinking to myself, I can see the value of that.
And he as an example, was doing stuff like as we're sparring his guard came, like really wideout and exposed to the side. And the first time he did that, he had this expression on his face, which was almost like a puppy dog kind of wide-eyed, lazy, goofy kind of expression. And I thought, all right, perfect opportunity. So I went to go and struck him Immediately, he just like, trapped, my arm came in, just punch me straight in the face. And immediately knew it was like, I'm such a sucker. It's like, he was planning that he was basically wanting meat, he wants to make himself look really vulnerable for him to be able to come and do that. I learned quickly, very quickly, but that in itself, and I then began thinking about it afterward.
I was like I'd like to try that technique one thing and see how it might not work. But it's an idea for me to play around with. It's like a seed that has been planted. But I like to think that maybe he took some things away as well from what I was doing, too. But I always value cross-training because if you get some people who say as an example, Taekwondo just because we've been talking about that.
If you get a taekwondo spar, who wants to spar up against another taekwondo guy, you're going to be using the same skills that you're used to, and you're going to be expecting the same skills in return. However, if you get a taekwondo guy against, say, Ching Yi, as an example, two completely different styles. So they'll both be using techniques and strategies and methods, which neither is probably going to be used to or recognize. So that's when you start seeing the real sort of adaptation and modification of their respective skills. Which I think is instrumental in being able to build a more not just a complete fighter, but actually a martial artist as well. It's really, I've always found when you go outside of your comfort zone, that's when you really learn. There's an old saying that a boat is safest when it's in the harbor. But a boat is not designed to stay in Harbor, it has to go into the stormy sea. But that's how it gets from one end of the ocean to the other. Same with martial artists.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You can't learn to do the same stuff over and over in the same ways, you've got to branch out. And that example you gave of sparring with someone. It's honestly those situations where it's friendly. It's not rooted in competition, it's rooted in sharing. Those are the points where I have learned the absolute most.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Yes, there are many things I wish I could take away from this specific sparring episode in particular. As the beforehand when I put this invitation out first, I had some reservations, because I was thinking, this is YouTube. Right? And I've said,
Jeremy Lesniak:
But the jerks aren't going to show up because the jerks are the ones with the least amount of training, and they know you're going to take on the task.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
The jokes one is just the comments, like, who could take you when you click on their profile? You see, they've got like, they opened up their channel like four years ago, and they got like, no subscribers and no picture.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Exactly.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
But admittedly, I did have reservations, I think, okay even if it was somebody, not necessarily a jerk, but somebody who might have been thinking, oh, this is an excuse to come down. And, come you'll be picking your teeth out of your feces for a week. But I said, No because I'm going to sift through, I'm going to vet, this kind of stuff. And if I get any of that kind of stuff as a response, I'm just gonna say, look, thanks, but no, thanks. And this young man, when he messaged me, actually was polite. He was like, I've just seen your advert. And, I'll be interested, here's, like, can I ask if it's a serious, serious thing? So we got talking on Facebook, and we got to know a little bit about each other, we had each other as friends and say, doing background research on him. I was looking at his profile and seeing kind of what he wasn't, I'm sure he was doing the same to me. But, he genuinely seemed like a nice guy. So, when we did meet up at this place, I mean, he was six foot two. So I mean, he was.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How tall are you?
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Six foot.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
But, it's weird. I'm used to little old ladies coming up to me in the supermarket saying, Oh, could you pick that off the top shelf? Certainly. Anything else you'd like, madam? But, this guy got out of his car. And he was like, Oh, Hi. And he was like, this big tearing giant. And he was just thinking, well, he's big. But again, his whole persona, his whole approach, and how he presented himself was very humble. You always have a stick sort of like a friendly smile on. I've got the impression though, he was a very straight-talking guy. So, we went in there and talked about Star Wars for a bit, got the music going, and we just wrote, but it was good. Because like, as we're aspiring along, as well, we were kind of offering constructive criticism as we were going along. And I remember at the end of the whole event, actually did a video on my YouTube channel, basically as my analysis of how I think it went. And I remember saying that it takes something for two fully grown men who should know better and who've never met to get into this hot sweaty gym to then punch and kick each other and be absolutely fine. And not have any malice or not have any sort of pull you punch me so I'm going to punch back harder. None of that whatsoever. He was hitting hard as hitting hard, but it never went too overboard. It was never like right, you're not going to get you back on anything like that
Jeremy Lesniak:
Any intent was in the right place. The intent was not to harm. The intent was to share and learn and enjoy.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Yes, and quite often as well actually in sparring, whenever I get hit, I would say to myself, don't hold anything against the guy who's hit you. Because he's simply doing what he said to do. Instead, ask myself, why did I get hit? So that's kind of very introspective, in that sort of aspect. And even at the end, once I've made this analysis video, and this young man got back to me, he
was just want to say, thank you so much for this opportunity, have really good fun. And hopefully, we'll do this again in the future.
And like I said, it was just such a nice experience, both in terms of martial arts content, learning from the martial arts, but also being able to actually meet up to meet somebody like this, who had the same sort of thought process as myself, who didn't take anything to heart, didn't harbor any grudges, and just rolled with it. It's so nice to actually be able to train with something like this. And when you train somebody like that, that's when you genuinely learn, instead of thinking about, Oh, I got really beat up, given that you're actually thinking, Okay, that was a good learning experience. What did I learn from it? What can I take forward? What needs work on? Those kinds of experiences, I think are amazing, and to be honest.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I completely agree. So tell folks a little bit more about your YouTube channel, and where they can find it.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
My YouTube channel, it's Gemini-TKD-Sam. It's been up on YouTube for the last two years. And that is interesting itself. Like I said, there's always a story behind something. This channel came around, it was again, it was a form of therapy. As I mentioned earlier, My professional background is in mental health, psychiatry, and psychology. And I was working in a mental health unit and had very challenging papers. I was working with people who have personality disorders. It reflects schizophrenia, emotionally unstable personality disorder, narcissism, and a lot of heavy-duty mental health. And it got to about the middle of 2020. And I felt myself burning out. I was going to talk about all the ins and outs of my working life.
But I was working excessively, and I found myself becoming very jaded, very burnt-out, and quite lackluster, as well. And I recognize this in myself. And I said to myself, right, okay, take some time out and find something that you enjoy, or something, that you're good at. And I thought to myself, Well, okay, took a step back. And I looked at myself and thought, what am I good at? Well, bad corny jokes and martial arts. But then I thought, Well, I wouldn't say I'm good at martial arts, but I thought I enjoy martial arts.
So I invented myself, how about doing intuition videos, and tutorials on YouTube? And at first, I wasn't too big on it. I thought well, people will laugh, people will leave snide comments, or all this kind of stuff in particular YouTube kind of keyboard warriors. But another part of me said to myself, don't do it for other people. Do it yourself. Upload a video of yourself doing clumsy, upload a video of yourself talking about the history of Korean martial arts, upload a video of myself doing maybe some very basic exercises or warm-up exercises, and just bid on YouTube. And I said it doesn't matter if you get one hit. It doesn't matter if you get 100 hits. As I said, just do it for yourself and see how I feel. What do I get out of it? So I did, the first video I uploaded was called Spar with Sam because this is during the whole pandemic. So, gyms were closed dojos and dojang were closed so we weren't martial artists weren't getting around to doing some sparring, right? So I filmed myself. And when I looked back on the video now, I cringe because I look like some sort of bobo doll going from side to side. And it's literally called Spar with Sam where somebody the cameras filming me and I'm literally doing these techniques and bobbing to the side. I say to the camera. Come on. Can you hit me? Can you hit me? You got my head over here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I love it.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
I think it's still there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's a great concept.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Well, the thing is, it got hits. No pun intended. People actually, they did tune in and it went up. I think it's still getting hits now. It's like 300 hits. We've got 300 hits the first month and then Sunday YouTube ping me one morning it was like you've got one subscriber And I was like, wow and part of me sort of a jokey side of it, I was like kind of one subscriber that deserves a celebration, let's go to the pub. But the serious side of me says to myself all those doubts which I had, people are gonna laugh, people gonna think it's stupid or do it yourself. And I thought one person has seen this video. And it's affected them, it's touched them,
Jeremy Lesniak:
And they want more.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Yes. So the next video I did was like, a couple of weeks later, I was like a spar with Sam, too, and exactly the same. And I think I just had some corny music in the background or something that isn't what I remember correctly. But long story short, gradually, the more videos I began to make, the subscriber count was gradually going up. And when the channel gradually grow, I then started then taking it a little bit more seriously and spending a bit more time on editing or I'd actually give video title screens at the beginning.
And then I'd given like little ending screens at the end. Still very basic stuff. But gradually, the subscriber base was building up and up and up. The video quality then started going towards a bit more tutorials. Now the channel now is mostly tutorials and exercises for various different types like leg exercises or exercises, push-up exercises.[1:06:25-1:06:26] showing a lot [1:06:27-1:06:28]. The one thing that the channel teams are lacking at the moment because I've got a lot of ideas for future videos but they all require partners.
So there's only so much you can kind of do by yourself. And I do as best as I can. I try to explain it as best as I can. But I think myself, there'll be so easier if I actually had like a rookie that can demonstrate on and all the people I seem to ask, I think they think that I've I intend to beat them up. Because I say something like, Oh, would you mind the previous weekend? Do you mind helping me out with all my videos? And I'm like, yeah, sure. What are we doing? And say, oh, I'll require you to stand there as I kick you like, over the head. And that if their face is dropping, they're like, oh, sorry, I think I'm busy this weekend.
But that's a work in progress in itself. And I'm sure that will rectify in time. But in terms of actually the subscribers of the channel, they again, this is gonna sound like a very cliched-to-go YouTuber. But the subscribers have really been what's made the channel. And as I said, at the beginning of describing my YouTube channel. It originally came out as a form of therapy to help with my depression because I just beat up, I basically just ran myself into the ground. This was purely kind of almost my own personal therapy with no real intention to actually get subscribe accounts or anything.
But some subscribers have come from, there is a Filipino man who now lives in California. And I haven't spoken for a while actually but he was always so supportive. And he would always leave
supportive comments. I think did a lot of like Kelly and G conduct, comparing a lot of methods and philosophies and theories. The young man who I described came down from sparring. He's subscribed, and he's been like a strong pillar of support. I've got another subscriber that comes from Bristol, in southwest England, and he's coming up actually this weekend, and we're having another challenge spar together. So but it's been a very international global network. But I suddenly get comments from people from like, Australia, Canada, France, Norway, Japan, and Korea. And it is actually so nice to think that or to realize actually a lot of what I've done going into this forest, I don't know if you've seen my videos on YouTube, most of them are filmed in a forest and doing tutorials in this forest. And I'm thinking people are watching this from half a world away and they're actually enjoying it and they're wanting to interact.
And it is, no figure and I’m not exaggerating at all, but it is actually so humbling. And I've always said to like, the subscribers at the end, I've always said that as long as you guys learn at least one thing from me, and all these videos if there's just one thing one person can take away. I've done my job as an instructor. And often in my videos as well, we're saying stuff like, stay safe, train hard, keep listening to insert band's name here. And sometimes I've mentioned these really obscure bands, so I think myself nobody's going to know who that is. And then somebody will somebody knows that. There was one band called Creator, and they were like this German thrash metal band. And I left a comment somebody just saying, oh, keep this into creative because they're the best band around. And he'd have to comment back to that saying, like, Oh, I was listening to create it the other day, I really liked their album, blah, blah, blah, and all this kind of stuff. And I was like, it's a small world, it really is,
Jeremy Lesniak:
It really is
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
But they have been great. They really have and sometimes I just think to myself, they make the channel. And especially when I see them interacting with each other as well, it's so nice to see that. I had a channel on my, sorry, I had a video on my channel, about a year ago. Now, it's not there anymore. But two guys got into a debate. And I was following this debate as it was going on. And both these people were actually quite strong in in their personal opinions and what they thought about this particular video. But what got me as a fan, at no time would be disrespectful to each other.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's it. I love when that happens. It doesn't happen often. But I love seeing that. What to me is a true debate. Not an art.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Yes, I've often and I mean, one thing I learned a long time ago was that I was a quote now, the quote said, only idiots, have arguments. Friends have debates. And so just seeing that how this debate was going on. And there was no name-calling, though. There was no snideness. And they were saying stuff like, oh, you know, I see what you're saying, however, have you considered and then the next person say, yeah, you've raised a good point. However, let me say this, even if it was really long, it just went on and on this debate. And eventually, I kind of stepped in. And I just read a comment saying, oh, guys, I've just been following this. And I actually said, it's actually so nice to see. Because again, the typical kind of YouTube argument would just degenerate into name-calling. And I said, this is kind of what I want on my channel, what I'd like to see is healthy debates, no name calling, no snideness, or anything like this just healthy debate. Because we don't necessarily have to agree with somebody else's opinion. But we can still show that opinion, and respect.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And you foster that you set the tone for that, with the content that you were putting up on your channel and the people you were attracting and how you were engaging with them. So I hope you take some credit for it at least.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
I like to think so, it definitely takes two to tango. Well, I have drawn on my channel before a pass over the odds, like negative comments here and there. So for that, but I mean, that luckily that's extremely rare. And I haven't had any comments like that for a very long time. Because I don't, personally, I don't get drawn into those kinds of things. If I see a comment, and I looked at it, I can see it's just trying to get under my skin. I think I'm just gonna delete this. I'm not even gonna bother applying
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I do the same thing.Someone's gonna be offensive. They don't need to be part of our community. That's not what we're about.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Most exactly. So I mean, there are plenty of other YouTube channels, and they can feel free to go. And I often think myself that. Even with that kind of stuff, I don't let it get to me personally, because I think if they've done it to me, they leave a comment on my channel, they probably the 100 comments, another 100 other channels, and they'll continue to leave comments on the 100 more channels. But no, it's always the positive comments that always make the day most definitely. And, if any subscribers of mine are watching, I did kind of like mention it out there, but all I got was a bit of a response. But if any of them are actually going to be watching them, you know, I do genuinely feel it. It really is. It's a small channel, but he's got a big heart. I like to think.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Good. How can people engage with you beyond YouTube, Do you have other social media, website or anything like that would be relevant?
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
I used to have a Facebook, I'm currently actually taking a break from Facebook. That's a decision for both me and my partner, my wife. We went on our honeymoon, belated honeymoon quite recently, actually, we got married during the pandemic and we weren't able to go on our honeymoon as a result of continuous lockdowns. So we went on a honeymoon quite recently, but we decided to turn our Facebook off whilst we were on our honeymoon. And we actually found ourselves not really missing that sort of like internet sort of thing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Understanding.
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Since we've been back, it's kind of been a bit like, do we kind of need to go back onto Facebook yet which I will go back onto Facebook eventually. But at this time being, I'm just kind of enjoying the, a little bit of like a bit of the Facebook isolation, whatever you wanna call withdrawal, maybe, but YouTube is definitely there. All comments, I do reply to notwithstanding because we just mentioned that if anybody wants to drop her a message on any of them videos, suggestions if somebody say, Oh, are you familiar with XYZ topic? Would you be able to maybe do a video about it? If so, even if somebody just wants to say something like, I like the content, I'll always make time to reply, because the way I see it is that somebody has taken the time to visit the channel, somebody's taking the time to watch a video, which they don't have to watch. There's so many other videos they can watch. And sometimes my compare my videos, other YouTube channels, I think, well, they've got a gym, they've got a fancy intro screen. They've got fancy, snazzy music. I've just got a muddy field in a forest. But the fact they've chosen to watch mine, as well as maybe another one I looked at, I think the least I can do is actually say thanks and reply to a comment that they leave. So all comments on my YouTube will be answered. And I will try and do that ASAP. If not, then, just feel free to give me a nudge or a boy, you. You said you'd reply. And I'll say sorry, and I will.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I love it. So, Sam, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate your time. It's been a great conversation. But it's time to wrap. So how do you want to end? What are your final words to everybody?
Sabum Sam Pulfer:
Well, first and foremost, I'll say thank you to yourself and Andy once again for this amazing opportunity. Like I said, study on my YouTube channel. In the beginning, just like personal therapy I honestly wouldn't have if somebody said you'll be on a podcast talking to somebody who runs a well-respected Martial Arts Network. I'll probably have said like, yeah, whatever. And Kobe never won. But no, thank you. Thank you so much. And it's always nice actually talk to like-minded martial artists and generally cool people like yourselves, and sort of the well viewers who are watching this. Stay safe, train hard and keep listening to Iron Maiden because they're the best band around.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What I listened to Sam's story, one of the things that stick out most for me, is how open he is about learning and improving and just being a better version of Sam. We heard it as he talked about things that he did that maybe he wouldn't do now. We heard it when he talked about training and Kyokushin when he really didn't know that much about Kyokushin but he wasn't willing to quit. And all this has so much about his character. But of course, I'm not surprised because this is what martial arts does for us. It makes us better. So Sam, thanks for coming on the show. listeners. I hope you check out his YouTube channel. There's a lot of great stuff over there. If you want the show notes, all the stuff that we've got related to this episode, go to whistlekick martial arts radio.com. You're gonna find videos and links and social media and pictures and all kinds of good stuff not just for this episode, but for everyone we've ever made. Some podcasts put stuff behind a paywall. We don't do that you get access to everything, we've ever done. If you're down to support us in all of our work, you have a few options you might consider buying one of our Amazon books, maybe telling others about the show this episode perhaps, or supporting our Patreon. If you want to bring me into your school for a seminar, I'd love to join you reach out, we'll find a way to make that happen. And don't forget we've got that code PODCAST 15 gets you 15% on all the stuff that we sell at whistlekick.com. Now if you've got topic or get suggestions, feedback and good stuff like that, I want to hear it email me, jeremy@whistlekick.com or social media. It's at whistlekick, and that takes us to the end. So until next time, train hard smile, and have a great day.