Episode 801 - Rapid Fire Q&A #23
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 #23 - Episode 801
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:
How competitive is too competitive?
What would a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle martial arts school look like?
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:
Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. We're doing the 23rd installment of our Q and A episodes. We often do these episodes live, not always, but usually, and we have a lot of fun. If you don't know me, I'm Jeremy Lesniak, joined by my good friend co-host Andrew Adams.
Andrew Adams:
That's me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And what do we do here at whistlekick? We talk about martial arts, traditional martial arts. We love traditional martial arts. And the stated mission of our company is to connect, educate, and entertain traditional martial artists worldwide. No matter what you train, how, when, where, why, with whom you train. We simply hope that you train because let's face it, martial arts make us better versions of ourselves. We become better people through our training, and that's why we're so passionate about it. And if you train and you watch or listen, you probably resonate with that mission. If you wanna support us in some way, you could buy something at whistlekick.com with the code podcast15. You could join our Patreon. sStarts at $2 a month and we've also got the family page, whistlekick.com/family. You can go there and see all the ways you can help us, direct links to leaving reviews, all kinds of good stuff. And we even give you some exclusive bonus content. It's free, it's like a free Patreon, and I update it weekly. I updated it yesterday.
Andrew Adams:
Nice.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Q and A's.
Andrew Adams:
Q and A's. I have a bunch of Qs.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Are they good Qs?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I think so.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. I mean, I guess you'll be the determining factor as to if they're good Qs or not.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We're finding out.
Andrew Adams:
We're gonna…
Jeremy Lesniak:
We gonna find out?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Are you ready for your first Q?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm always ready.
Andrew Adams:
Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Born ready.
Andrew Adams:
All right. I was warming you up. So, the first Q.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, and there's a time limit on these. I get five minutes.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Five minutes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But they might not have known that.
Andrew Adams:
True.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We needed to remind them.
Andrew Adams:
Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There may be new people. Always assume there's new people.
Andrew Adams:
It is, you're right. Absolutely right. Alright, so the first question comes from Mr. Chris Rickard.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Chris Rickard. Hi Chris.
Andrew Adams:
Chris's question is how competitive is too competitive?
Jeremy Lesniak:
When it gets in the way of your goals. For a lot of us being competitive, it's a drive, right? Many of us were raised to be as good as we can be. And sometimes, as good as we can be gets confused with the best, right? You can be the best and still not be as good as you can be. You can also be as good as you can be and be, you know, last in the pack. I have a pretty strong competitive drive. And there have been times in my life, in martial arts and out of martial arts, where it got a little bit too far. I found myself competing about things that did not matter. And the best example I can give actually comes outside of the martial arts. Longtime listeners and my friends know for about a decade. I was pretty heavily in the CrossFit. And just the way CrossFit happens, there's a competitive bent to it at most of the gyms. And I found myself investing tremendous amounts of time and money to be one of the best at the gym. Not so good. I could go on and enter and win competitions. I just wanted to be the best among the people around me. And when I say I invested a lot of time and money, I mean a lot of time and money. I mean, I was putting between food and rehabilitation and everything, it was hours a day. And I woke up one day and went, why? This isn't, it's not that important to me. I just felt compelled because of my competitive drive. Now if something that had been incredibly important to me was being a successful competitive CrossFitter. Sure would've made all kinds of sense to do that. And I think we can say the same thing about just about anything, but let's bring it back to martial arts. If you have stated goals around, let's say career success or family or something, and you are sacrificing those things that are important to you simply because someone that you think is not as good as you bested you at the last martial arts tournament. And now you're training extra hard and doing these things, and you're making sacrifices at things that, well, just one, once I do this, once I prove this.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. That's where it becomes unhealthy. So to me, it's not a degree of competitiveness. It's whether or not the spirit of competition lines up with your goals. If it doesn't, any amount is probably too much.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. I like that. For me, it would be when the competition, competitive nature becomes obsessive. And so then the question is, well, how do you know it's obsessive? When it starts taking, when you start changing your life around changing your regular habits and routines around being competitive, then I think it starts to walk the line of being obsessive.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, no, I thought about that. That's actually the first place I was going to go. But think of, you know, when I think of athletes, I always go back to Michael Jordan. Cause he's such a well-recognized figure, he was obsessive, but it was also what was most important to him.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Fair. Okay. I get that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
His life was that because that's what he wanted his life to be. I've known people that end up competitive, even in class I've had people line up next to me and they're trying to show me up. I'm like, okay, great. You can kick higher than me. I don't care.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
For whatever reason, they've decided that they need to be better than me or appear better than me in that moment. If someone were to sit them down and say, why do you come to class? They would never say, because I want to be the best in class or I want to be the highest kicks in class. Michael Jordan would've said, because I want to be and remain the best in the world.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Well, that's fair. Okay. You know what I'm super competitive about? I want to have more reviews of our podcast than any other podcast in the world. That's all I want.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We do decently on reviews, ratings, I should say. We do decently on ratings. We don't do so well on reviews. And it makes sense because you can click five stars a lot easier than you can. Click five stars and go typey, typey, typey.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We missed doing a Q and A episode in February. I was traveling and it was just…
Andrew Adams:
Lot of stuff going on.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yep.
Andrew Adams:
We can use the excuses, it's a short month.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And it's the shortest…
Andrew Adams:
It is.
Jeremy Lesniak:
…month. In fact, if competing to be the shortest month were a competition, February would win every year.
Andrew Adams:
That's true.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Every single year.
Andrew Adams:
It would.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Quite an impressive victory.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
At least until as far back as February was a thing. Why do we ask for reviews? Because it helps spread the show.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Those ratings, those reviews, whether Google, Apple Podcasts, Spotify ratings, Facebook ratings, you know, there are a variety of places you can leave a rating, and I've said forever. We care about all of them. Those are the ones that are most important. Except for Yelp.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I do not care if you rate us on Yelp because Yelp is a slimy company and yeah, I said it and I can back it up too.
Andrew Adams:
It is also the number one way that people can help the show that cost nothing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yep.
Andrew Adams:
Like I understand not having finances to be able to help the show. That's fine.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
That's okay. But everybody can sit down and leave a review for the show.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And this was the reason that the family page started because I wanted to make it easy.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
To give people a whole list of here are all the places you can go.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, I left a review here. I did leave a review here. How do I get there? Where's the link?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And we give you all the links and we make it super simple. Now, we're not doing it this month, but historically, and we will resume this. We look back and we pick an old review and we say, Hey, this person, reach out to us. Thank you for your review, and we will give you a gift certificate to the whistlekick store.
Andrew Adams:
Free stuff.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Free stuff. So if helping us out isn't enough, maybe you'll win something, right? We're trying to incentivize this because we want to remain the best martial arts podcast, right? I don't know that it's a competitive nature for us, but at the same time, it is a little bit. Because if somebody comes up with something better, we're gonna find a way to learn from what they've done. There's a very martial arts philosophy here. You know, we're not the best because we're obsessed with being the best. We're obsessed with being our best.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah. Excellent. Nathan Porter says, hi.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hello, Nathan Porter. How are you?
Andrew Adams:
So are you ready for your next question?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I am.
Andrew Adams:
Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Born ready.
Andrew Adams:
I was born…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hashtag born ready.
Andrew Adams:
This question comes from Gabe Siu.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hi Gabe. See you.
Andrew Adams:
See you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's actually a family joke for them. I don't know if you know that.
Andrew Adams:
No, I didn't.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
It just reminds me of Kim's Convenience.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Such a good show.
Andrew Adams:
See you. Okay. Anyway, sorry. Alright, so this question's from Gabe. What would a teenage mutant ninja turtle martial arts school look like?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thanks, Gabe. It would have to be underground. It wouldn't necessarily have to be in a sewer because you may not have the space available, right? Contrary to what most TV shows and movies show, my understanding is that most sewer systems are not that large. That they're not 40-foot-tall pipes and big.
Andrew Adams:
Huge open rooms.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. That you can't drive a car around in them. Because why would you need that much? But I think for the authenticity, it's gotta be underground. I think you have to train in weapons.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, definitely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think you have to go out for pizza afterward.
Andrew Adams:
Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Or maybe the pizza's delivered at the end of class. Kind of like Planet Fitness where they bring the pizza. I think everything has to be green. I think there's a strong shell theme.
Andrew Adams:
Okay. So you're learning like weapon and shield stuff?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Yeah. I think you're using a shell as a shield, and I think that your head instructor comes by once in a while and says something cryptic and vaguely judgmental and then leaves.
Andrew Adams:
Interesting. Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think those are the high points. Yeah. What would you add?
Andrew Adams:
I don't know. I would, I think that if you haven't seen it, I'm gonna make a plug for another martial arts…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Creator.
Andrew Adams:
Content creators Sensei Seth.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
He did a video where he trained like a ninja turtle for a day or it was for a week, sorry. But there's one video of like, it's like 10 minutes long and it's really good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What does he do in this video?
Andrew Adams:
I would've to go back and watch it, but he trained in some ninjutsu stuff. He trained in some weapon stuff. It was, I just remember it being really funny and going, that was really clever. Like it was funny.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, and we'd have to have a friend come by in full hockey, get up and spar with and take us to task.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Every single time.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. Yep. It has to be better than us. Well, he wasn't better than us. He definitely beat him up.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Any of them, one-on-one.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
They always had the gang in my memory. Yeah. Brandon, I haven't seen new iterations, but in the first version of the show he, Casey Jones, always vested them one-on-one.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Stick, cricket bat…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Or the hockey stick.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question.
Yeah. That would lead to some fun. That could lead to some fun Patreon videos we could do as well.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I wonder if we could get martial arts uniforms, gi’s, devox, whatever you choose to call them, made up patterned like turtle shell.
Andrew Adams:
Interesting. We should do this. We should do some fun Patreon stuff.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Andrew Adams:
How would people see it though?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, they would join the Patreon.
Andrew Adams:
They'd have to join the Patreon
Jeremy Lesniak:
patreon.com/whistlekick. You don't have your sign.
Andrew Adams:
I don't.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We're doing this in person.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
P A T R E there's O N in there, patreon.com/whistlekick. It's like Patron but Patreon. It's an awkward name. I think they wanted to be patreon.com and it just didn't work out. So patreon.com/whistlekick. We just recorded a bonus episode for Patreon. We do a bunch of bonus material, bunch of behind-the-scenes, you get stickers and shirts and book drafts, book drafts, program drafts. We've done so much stuff in there and it's also the only way to find out who's coming up on the show. If you wanna know the guests ahead of time, if you wanna know the topics ahead of time, well, yeah, guess what? That happens in Patreon exclusive. Actually, you get that at $2 a month. You know, we make it really simple for you, and then, at the $1,500 tiers, you get a choice cause there's other stuff too. You can either join the School Owner's Mastermind which meets monthly and guess what? Now, its tax deductible and you will not find better information for that price about martial arts and how to better your school. I believe that wholeheartedly. And the other option is I will train you remotely once you live nearby for free.
Andrew Adams:
The thing I will say about Patreon is I'm still a Patreon member
Jeremy Lesniak:
Despite being an employee of whistlekick.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. That's how much I believe in the company. But I am also a Patreon subscriber to another podcast network, and right now they are having their annual pledge fund drive to help fund the, even though they have a Patreon, they're always constantly looking to get new Patreon subscribers and whatnot. And what did it for me with this particular network was I listened and enjoyed their product so much that it meant a lot to me. And I do a lot of driving as a lot of people know and the time I spent in the car was often spent with these people, and I wanted to make sure that that continues to happen. And if everybody, if every single person listening to this episode were to donate a dollar a month…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh yeah.
Andrew Adams:
It would do so much to make this show.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It would be a, it will not, it would not just change the show. It would change the entire organization.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, and a dollar a month. And so for me, listening to this podcast network have their annual pledge drive, you know what? I'm gonna do it because this show means so much to me and I wanna make sure that it continues to happen. And by me giving them a few dollars a month, it really helps them out and I get to continue to listen to this show. That means so much to me. So take that for what you will.
Jeremy Lesniak:
whistlekick's business model’s to give away our best stuff for free. I know that a hundred percent of people will never donate or buy or come to an event. That's fine. But we wanna make sure that if we provide the opportunities for those of you who want to show thanks, who want to give back, who want extra, more bonus, whatever you want to call it. That's why it's not just a donation. We give you a whole bunch of stuff. It's all about value exchange. We will always work hard to deliver overwhelming value to you in everything that we do. And if you have not thought about contributing to the Patreon, please consider doing so.
Andrew Adams:
Alright. You ready for your third question?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Born ready. I was born of me wild.
Andrew Adams:
This third question is from Lessy Trail.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hi Lessy.
Andrew Adams:
And her question is should there be size categories in traditional martial arts sparring?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, if you know Lessy, that gives you a little bit of context. Lessy is a very tall woman, 6’2.
Andrew Adams:
At least.
Jeremy Lesniak:
6’3.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And her husband's even taller. Both wonderful, wonderful people. However, she is generally eight to 10 inches taller than the women she spars on tournaments. And especially at early ranks, that's a huge advantage. I've refereed her, her stuff. In fact, I think she says I was, I refereed her first tournament. That may or may not be true or I may be confusing over someone else.
Andrew Adams:
It sounds right.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But you know, I've known her for a long time and she actually had your producer spot before you. So we love Lessy. In an ideal world, I would say that you would have both because height is an advantage and it's one that you can train to overcome, but it's not one that you can ever have full apples-to-apples comparison. I'm a smaller man. I'm 5’7, closer to 5’6 by the time I go to bed. I am used to sparring people who are much taller than me which gives me a different sense of my skills. That if I sparse people roughly my own height, when I spar people roughly my own height, I'm actually quite good because I've had to work so hard…
Andrew Adams:
To fight.
Jeremy Lesniak:
To spar people who are taller, right? I mean, the average man in the US is 5.10. It's 5’9, so it's at least two, three inches. So there's, you know, 2, 3, 4 inches of reach.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
On hands and feet. That's a big deal, right? But I've also never thought, you know, this is unfair. Maybe it's unfortunate, but it is what it is. I was born this way. Born ready.
Andrew Adams:
She was born, she was tall.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Born tall.
Andrew Adams:
I was born to be wild.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's right and you have to work with what you have. Now, we, in the martial arts like to, you know, when we talk about self-defense, we talk about the fact that you will probably be attacked by someone taller than you. Just generally works out that way, statistically.
Andrew Adams:
If not taller, bigger at least.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes. And we also teach that height can be a disadvantage if approached correctly. If I was sparring Lessy, what's the first thing I'm going to do? Try to stay inside her kicking range. Yep or far out and get in. Small people are generally faster, right? So you find ways that it impacts your strategy. Should there be, it should be an option because I think it gives another way of training. I'm gonna learn different stuff, training people in my own height than if I am.
Andrew Adams:
That's true.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sparring a child who's smaller than me or in you know, heck, a lot of children taller than me. Someone's smaller than me versus someone taller than me. And I appreciate that variety because as I've said many times on the show, a diverse martial artist is a better martial arts.
Andrew Adams:
How realistic would it be? I don't do many tournaments. In fact, I went to my first tournament last May for the first time in like 15-ish years. I have to imagine statistically, there are less females that are involved in martial arts.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes.
Andrew Adams:
I have to imagine statistically the amount of martial arts that train in the world is much bigger than those that actually go to competitions. So now, we're doing dwindling it down even smaller.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yep.
Andrew Adams:
So in Lessy's case, she is female.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yep.
Andrew Adams:
She's going to a smaller subset of those that go to tournaments.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yep.
Andrew Adams:
Is her division gonna be just her?
Jeremy Lesniak:
And then when we factor in height where she is statistically on.
Andrew Adams:
That's what I'm saying.
Jeremy Lesniak:
One extreme of the bell curve.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. If we were looking at height and forget about age and rank appropriateness, right?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Like this, could this happen at larger events? Yes. Now, devil's advocate here could be, well, if we had more separation among height, weight in addition to agent rank, maybe people would be more comfortable competing.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Okay. I see that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Could see how that is a possibility. I don't think it would work out that way in practice. Cause I think most people don't compete for other reasons.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But I think it becomes interesting. Let's face it, in every combat sport, reach is part of the equation. When you're talking about boxing or MMA, people are talking about reach. So it is a factor. And finding ways to remove that from the list of factors is at least intriguing,
interesting.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I like it. Staci's in the chat. She says hello.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hi Stacy. Hello.
Andrew Adams:
Mark Warner says, here I am to save the day Mighty Tashi.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hi Mark.
Andrew Adams:
Thanks for being here. Let's talk a little bit before we get into our last question about the new stuff going on here at whistlekick.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure.
Andrew Adams:
And some of the new programs that we're doing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes. So if you've been following along for a while, you know that I've enjoyed putting the other training programs. You know, whistlekick is the term we use internally is style agnostic. We are not a karate company. We're not a Taekwondo company. We're not a Kung Fu company. We're a martial arts company which carries with it some difficulties in that. We don't use style-specific language, even though much of the world refers to a martial arts training environment. As a dojo, we don't do that. We try not to. Sometimes we'll share quotes on social media that are like that and sometimes the team slips and will use terms like that, but it means we stay very neutral. That also means that these things that I'm fairly skilled at in my martial arts repertoire are not applicable to teaching. I'm not gonna teach you how to kick.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because the way I kick is not the way everyone else's kicks, and I'm not gonna use the whistlekick platform to say this is how you should kick. Because it flies in the face of being style agnostic. But there are things that are universal strength and speed and flexibility and balance, et cetera and that's what we've started doing. So we rolled out our core four, the Force program for strength, the Fuel program, for cardio, the Fast program for speed, and the Flex program for flexibility. I had an idea at the end of last year, what if we did a daily email, 30-day challenge? So we rolled that out, made it free, and a ton of people did it. And in fact, a lot of people finished it way more than finished. I think it was roughly 40% of people finished it and huge numbers came through. It was awesome. And I said, well, we gotta follow this up. So we followed that up with kick clinic, which was a 30-day, 10-minute-a-day email program to make you a better kicker. Not by telling you here's how you kick, but let's get you better at the strength and the flexibility and the speed and all these other things.
Andrew Adams:
To do whatever kick you want.
Jeremy Lesniak:
To do your kicks, your way, your style.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And that went really well. And I said, all right, let's take the Flex program, and let's adapt to that into this. And again, the Flex program is free. The 30-day challenge is free. Kick Clinic is not. Once again, we have a ton of people going through it and I'm seeing the numbers and they look good. Not as many people are gonna finish this one. It's okay. Because, you know, still 10 minutes a day, still a daily email builds on your progress because let's face it, daily habits lead to success.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's not the thing you do once, it's the thing you do every day that gets you to your goals. And there's another one coming and then there's another one coming. We're gonna get to probably 12 or 15 and see what's going on then because I've got a bunch of other ideas. And if you want to check out Flex or you want to do the 30-Day Challenge, or you want to grab Kick Clinic or any of these others, they're all available at whistlekick.com. And if you use the code podcast15, you can save 15% of the paid ones. And I would challenge you genuinely, you will not find better programming even on the paid ones for anything close to the price that these are rolled out. Why do so many people have trouble with flexibility? Because 95% of the martial arts population is using old information on flexibility. You don't tear your muscles when you stretch. That's called an injury. That's not how it works.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. You don't injure yourself and get better.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And in fact, if you pick up the full flex program, which again is free, if you prefer to go through it that way, it's reference footnoted. I mean, I did hours of research in scientific papers. I didn't just go read somebody's book and then copy it. I went back to the first, the original source material. There is nothing out there that's more research that I'm aware of, and the rest of our programs are similar. So 10 minutes a day and it's free. The next time you say, I wish I was more flexible, recognize that you have an option and if you choose not to do it, you actually don't want to get more flexible.
Andrew Adams:
There you go. All right. You ready for your last question?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes.
Andrew Adams:
Okay. We started with Chris Rickard, we're gonna end with Chris Rickard.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It sounds morbid. Just the circle of life.
Andrew Adams:
No, I didn't say we're ending.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Is he the Lion King?
Andrew Adams:
I didn't say we're ending Chris Rickard.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I hope we're not ending Chris Rickard.
Andrew Adams:
Ending with…
Jeremy Lesniak:
We need him.
Andrew Adams:
His question.
Jeremy Lesniak:
He's very valuable member of the team.
Andrew Adams:
I agree. Alright. His question, tomorrow we train outside, where is class held and why?
Jeremy Lesniak:
There's a lot of snow on the ground. That doesn't change the question. I feel like I'm missing part of the question.
Andrew Adams:
Nope.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Who's we?
Andrew Adams:
It could be whoever you want.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm a big fan of training on grass. I like training on grass. I like training on slightly uneven ground, slightly sloped ground, because even my backyard, even the flatter parts of my backyard, I've fallen over training. Because balance is completely different, and yet that's the real world. We're used to training generally on these flat surfaces. You know, perfectly level mats or hardwood or whatever, usually barefoot. And then we get outside uneven ground wearing shoes and things work really differently. So I think if it was that impromptu and I didn't have other information about who, what, when, where, why that would be the focus, it would be probably a class rooted in HA balance to see where that took us.
Andrew Adams:
The question was open-ended on purpose. I'm sure.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm sure it was.
Andrew Adams:
That it could be. We're having class outside tomorrow in the Bahamas. Well, why, you know, may I wanna go to the Bahamas. Okay. For me, it would be outside here in Vermont or New Hampshire. How often was the last time you trained wearing a winter coat? Very different doing anything.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure.
Andrew Adams:
Wearing winter coat, maybe snow pants, big winter boots. And I thought about this actually just a week and a half ago when we got another big snowstorm. I don't know how much you got up here. In Keene we only got…
Jeremy Lesniak:
22 inches. 24 inches.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. So in Keene, we only got about 12 to maybe 14 inches. But if you drove 15 minutes outside of town, 40 inches was recorded.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Wow.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. And so when I went out to snow blow my driveway and put on my snow pants and put on my big surreal boots, put on my coat, and I thought, oh god, that would be very different than this. And when I was done snow blowing my driveway, I did it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And people from the south might say, yeah, but Andrew, people don't get into altercations in winter. People are literally stealing other people's winter coats.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Like the Canada Goose. Is that the brand? The very expensive…
Andrew Adams:
I dunno.
Jeremy Lesniak:
…coats. There's a brand and they start at like $250, go up to like 1200 bucks. There have been a whole bunch of cases of people in Montreal being assaulted for their coats.
Andrew Adams:
Well, and the fact.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So you can't fight off the person for your coat cause you're in your coat.
Andrew Adams:
Well, and someone in the south saying, you know, altercations aren't gonna happen when it's cold outside. Half of the year, people just become pacifistic. Pacifistic.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Pacifists.
Andrew Adams:
Pacifists, like just six months a year.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Pacifists.
Andrew Adams:
Ah. So like that's a kind of laughable like it's cold up here like at least four months outta the year.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Just…
Andrew Adams:
I wish it was like four months.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Just because people from the south don't wanna go outside when it's cold. We just deal.
Andrew Adams:
Part of life.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
So anyway, good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Snow tires seven months a year.
Andrew Adams:
I almost took my studded snow tires off a week ago and was like, nah, I'm glad I left them on.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Minor coming off the last two weeks of April. One car one week other than other week.
Andrew Adams:
That concludes our last Q.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No more Qs symbols. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you to Lessy, Chris, and Gabe for the great questions. I appreciate I have fun with these cause I don't know them ahead of time. Yeah, that's what makes it fun. If you wanna support us, we talked about reviews, we talked about products, we talked about all those things. Please consider supporting us as we grow and we grab big new guests. Let's face it, if there's more money, there's more cool stuff we can do. So we will all benefit as that money grows. So please consider throwing some into the pot. If you have a question for the next one of these episodes, find Andrew. You can email him andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. My email's jeremy@whistlekick.com. Our social media everywhere you might think of is @whistlekick because we're super creative with these things. And that takes us to the end of another one. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.