Episode 793 - Martial Arts Word Association 4
In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew use a word association game to see if Jeremy can relate random words to martial arts!
Martial Arts Word Association 4 - Episode 793
Here at whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, we like to mix things up once in a while. We’re going to do “Martial Arts Word Association” where Andrew gives Jeremy a random word that he could connect to martial arts. In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew discuss randomly generated topics from tire iron to LEGO and sled. Find out how they relate it to martial arts!
After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section down below!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. Today, Andrew and I are bringing you another word association episode where he gives me ridiculous terms that have nothing to do with martial arts and my job is to relate them to martial arts. You all seem to enjoy these, so stick around. If nothing else, the two of us have fun.
Andrew Adams:
That's first.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you're new to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, start at whistlekick.com. Check out everything we got going on from information about free training day and all in weekend and the consulting that we do and so much more like our store. You could be watching or listening to this at any point in the future, but just a couple weeks ago we took another shipment of sparring gear and I have a huge stack of boxes going out later today. If you wanna buy something, you can use the code podcast15. We have training programs over there too. Those have been really hot lately. And it's all meant to cover the expenses of putting all this cool stuff together that we do for all of you, the traditional martial artists of the world. Our mission here is to connect, educate, and entertain all of you no matter what you do or where you do it, or how you do it, et cetera. Now, Martial Arts Radio, this show has been running for just shy of eight years. We're coming up on our 800th episode. I paused for a moment. I counted your fingers. I don't know why. Andrew held up eight fingers and I went one, two. I'm feeling a little slap happy this morning, so you'll have to forgive me. But it might actually go well for the show, for what we're doing. But if you go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, you can get access to every single episode we've ever done. There are transcripts over there. You can search things. And really, we've done episodes with just about everybody you could name. From many, many countries, not quite all 50 states in the US, but just about and every martial art that you could think of, including some that prior to the guests coming on, I had never even heard of. And I thought that was super fun. So go and check those out and if you wanna help us if you wanna support us in our mission to connect, educate, and entertain, let me give you three things that you could do. I already gave you one of 'em. You could buy something at whistlekick.com. You could also tell people about what we do. It's still the number one thing that I wish people would take a more active role in. Reach out to your martial arts friends, because let's face it, if you're paying attention to what we do, you probably wish you had known about us sooner. Well, don't hide what we're doing from your martial arts friends, from the folks you train with, your training partners, your old training partners, your students, your instructor, et cetera. And of course, we have a Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick starts at $2 a month. Gives you behind the scenes. If you wanna know what episodes are coming up, who's gonna be on the show, this is the only way you find out. And of course, as you move further and further up in the tier, we give you more and more like merch and access to a school owner's mastermind or even the opportunity to train privately with me. Andrew.
Andrew Adams:
Yes. Hi Jeremy.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hi, how are you?
Andrew Adams:
I agree.
Jeremy Lesniak:
This is our fourth-word association.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Are we ever gonna run outta words? Are you gonna keep track of all the words? Is somebody gonna keep track of all the words?
Andrew Adams:
I've thought of that today. I thought of like, oh shoot, have I done this one before? I might have, there's one word on my list that we may have done before, but my thought is you may see that word differently today than you did four months ago. So, yeah. But I have not been keeping track of the words I've been using. If someone, if a listener wants to do that, you know what I would love, it'd be great if we had our own Wiki page. That would be fun. I was, so I listened to a bunch of other podcasts.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
This is not the only podcast I listened to. It's a shock. And there's one podcast in particular that I listen to. It's a husband and wife and they bring stuff to talk about each week. They each bring one thing and they try and go back and forth in terms of who starts first. And when they forget, there's a listener that has a wiki that puts down who spoke first and what they talked about to make sure that they don't, so they talk all the time like, yeah, I checked our Wiki. I've not brought this up before, but it surprises me cause I'm, you know, whatever, but let...
Jeremy Lesniak:
I love it.
Andrew Adams:
Some fan, this just has this Wiki page just for them, basically.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's hysterical. And you know, we've actually put out there that we're looking for another person to help with the show, like an hour a week if that, you know.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There are just a couple things that I'd like to take off your plate that, and a couple other small things that we'd like to add into the production mix. So if somebody out there says, you know, I really dig this show and no, I'm not gonna donate money. I don't do any of these other things, but I would be super pumped to put in like 30, 45, 60 minutes a week and get to know who's coming up on show and have some guidance on how this show goes, I mean, it would be fun.
Andrew Adams:
Yep, absolutely. So anyway, I have a list here of nine words.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Nine? Okay.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Nine.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Whew. I'm ready.
Andrew Adams:
And so I thought it'd be fun, close your eyes. I'm gonna show the audience again cause that was fun last week or last month.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It was fun.
Andrew Adams:
So here is the list of nine items. And then, okay, you can look now. So, are you ready to go?
Jeremy Lesniak:
As ready as I'm gonna be.
Andrew Adams:
Okay. First word, tire iron.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Makes a great weapon. You could really mess somebody up with a tire iron. You could also use a tire iron to which just the phonetic element of tire iron is fun. Also, think about what's the purpose of a tire iron. You use it to take off a tire and put on another tire because things broken. And if only it were that easy with our body, right? You know, like, oh, this ankle needs to go into the shop, right? So you tire iron your ankle off and get a new ankle. Ankle. But what I think I appreciate it for most as a martial artist is the fact that not only is it a weapon that sort of vaguely resembles a tonfa in no useful way, but that most of us have them or something similar to one in our car. And we've talked a lot over the years of this show about the value of an impromptu improvised you just kind of always have it on you sort of weapon. And whether or not you believe all of the kind of history that's put forward about Okinawan weapons, the main premise for all of them is, well, they had them with them. They were around, they had them on them. And how do you take that and make it a little more useful in a combative sense? And I'd kind of like somebody to go through and think about what all the modern equivalents are, not from a necessarily a farming gardening perspective, but you know, a tire iron's a great one because most of us have cars and we drive them and we have equipment to change tires if need be.
Andrew Adams:
They kinda look like a tonfa unless you have the ones that look like throwing stars.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. The square ones. Yeah. Those, I think would be less useful in a combative sense.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Action figures.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Is that some weird hybrid of a Stormtrooper and a samurai?
Andrew Adams:
That is exactly what it is.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's really interesting. You know, I think there are a couple different ways I could go with this, but the one that I appreciate most is, you know, I was probably 10, 11 years old Ninja Turtles and I had a bunch of the Ninja Turtle action figures. And I remember being a little, I guess, disappointed. It's the word that they didn't articulate quite as well as a body. What, because I wanted to take what I was learning in my training and make my action figures do those things. You know, I wasn't able to make Donatello do the bow form that I knew, and I didn't like that. I thought that was disappointing, right? But I also, just to kind of foreshadow a little bit, you know, we're recording this on a day that an episode came out about Master Hopkick and the new version of the book. And it's, you know, it's on my list. I want Master Hopkick action figures. Because how cool would that be?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah. Neckties.
Jeremy Lesniak: ‘Something that really should be the antithesis of martial arts, right? It's like, oh, hold on, let me prearrange this durable knot so you can strangle me and then go to a formal event where I'm probably already wearing movement-restricting clothing. And probably also blurring my sensitivities with alcohol at most formal events, right? It really should be something that as martial artists, we resist. But I had actually not thought of it until just this moment. But I think a necktie is kind of, there's some similarities there with a belt. Up until recently and until you get to higher ranks, belt customization doesn't generally happen that often. But we can look at a necktie in a similar way as the belt, right? We had this cliche, you know, a belt's just there to hold your pants up. Well, it doesn't even do that. Our belts don't do anything. They are just symbolic.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And a necktie is sort of the same thing in that if you have ever worn a martial arts uniform without a belt in such a setting where you would typically wear a belt, it looks funny and it feels funny. And I find that if I'm wearing any kind of a suit or you know, a jacket, I need a tie or it just doesn't quite feel right. It's like I don't wanna know if I want anybody to see my buttons.
Andrew Adams:
Okay, next word, chain mail.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Chain mail. Okay. Takes a long time to make. You have a chain mail cowl.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That you are displaying. And are you gonna put it on?
Andrew Adams:
No.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Why?
Andrew Adams:
It's very cold. It's very cold and I have no hair.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's very cold. That's a great reason. You know, I think when we look at armor and then you start to look at weapons as they relate to that armor, right? Like there's no one style of armor that is impenetrable, right? Chain mail, ring mail is really good for pointy things. But if you get something, you know, like a heavier, kind of like a thick plate mail, you know, there's ways to come up under, or at the very least, you know, large blunt objects to dent the armor into someone's flesh, right? Like there's, for every protective methodology, there's a downside to it. And chain mail is heavy. It's super heavy, right? Like what do you think that cowl weighs?
Andrew Adams:
Oh, I don't know. It's probably five pounds.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. So if you were covered head to toe in that, you're probably adding 75 pounds?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, probably.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know, and that's not nothing. But if we look at martial arts, is if you're wearing chain mail, does that really change my ability to attack you? Not really. You know, as pointy as my fingers may be, I'm not trying to point through your flesh. I'm gonna attack you with blunt force and chain mail's not really gonna do much about that. But it sounds cool.
Andrew Adams:
It does. It does.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Yeah. The only chain mail I have in my house is for scrubbing cast tire.
Andrew Adams:
Oh yeah, sure.
Jeremy Lesniak:
A little three-by-three square.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. Postcards.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. Postcards. Postcards. I think postcards are a great example of something that has kind of gone away. With the proliferation of email, people don't send postcards anymore. I remember being a kid, and you probably remember this too, when you went on vacation with your family, you had a handful of people that you had to buy postcards for. And you never sent them out while you were on vacation. You always forgot. And you sent them when you got home.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But it was still a thing that you did and those postcards would go on people's refrigerators and you probably had postcards on your refrigerator from people that sent them to you, and they'd stay there for years. And then eventually you'd run outta room on the refrigerator and you'd purge all of it. What do we do now? We post on Instagram. It's probably the modern equivalent. Here's a picture of a thing that I saw and it made me think of, maybe you send it individually to someone or you text it, but it's still, we're trying to capture moments to share them. Postcards, even though they weren't the photos that we took, we're still, you know, we were grabbing a postcard of a thing that we saw to try and capture that moment, to recreate that moment for later. Now, when we look at our training, there are things that have gone by the wayside because we can do other things. Now, here's a great example. When was the last time someone bought VHS or DVD sets? They still happen, but it doesn't happen nearly as commonly as it as it used to. Because it's a lot easier to get access to people who are teaching some things that are a bit different. If you go back to the ' 70s and the '80s, there were people that maybe you wanted to train with, but how would you find out about where they were training? You didn't have a website to go to and say, oh, they're gonna be, you know, four-hour drive away, six months from now. I'll save that date, right? Maybe there was a newsletter you could sign up for. If they were really prominent, maybe they had a fan organization or something. But if you wanted to train, quote with them, you bought tapes or later DVDs. And now, you can go train with 'em in person. You can grab their videos from YouTube or from their own website, right? Like there are a lot of options there. And it's not that one was necessarily better. I think what we're doing in this case is better now. It's more accessible.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But I think it brings to mind this idea that sometimes tradition for the sake of tradition has value and sometimes it doesn't. There are people out there who still buy and send postcards. I'm not one of them. I'm not gonna tell someone they can't or shouldn't. But there are other ways and we should always consider or at least consider the other way.
Andrew Adams:
Alright, flute.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Would make a good blunt weapon for a few ghosts. The closest thing I'm coming to in a martial sense is, you know, when I think Revolutionary War or Civil War, I think about the musicians out in front. You know, kind of, I guess setting the tone for movement. You know, maybe setting the cadence of marching, but also trying to keep spirits elevated. And it reminds me, we did a whole episode on music and the value of music and how it still is in so few martial arts settings. What would it look like if there was a flautist?
Andrew Adams:
Correct.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know, at the beginning of a tournament or, you know, I'm gonna go out and do a form and flutist comes out and then steps off and I do my form, right? You could make some other comparisons in terms of finger dexterity and it being a difficult skill set that you have to master just like martial arts. Yeah, it's the energetic element. It's the fact that music brings people up and a flute is a really distinctive tone, distinctive sound, that you don't really hear anything. If you hear a flute, you know it's a flute.
Andrew Adams:
Okay. Here's one that you'll appreciate. Lego.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You make anything might not look good. Sometimes you're looking for that one piece. You're like, oh man, if I had, I need this two by one in this blue color it's not looking right, you know, I got a hole here. Sometimes we spend time hunting for solutions for martial arts problems and to me that's what Lego is and it's still new to me to call it Lego, not Legos, right? I go calling it Legos. I understand it is Lego. If I slip, this is why. But with Lego, you have a vision for an endpoint you're trying to get to somewhere, especially if you're doing, you know, freeform building. I wanna make of this. Okay, how do I get from here to there? And you get some idea and you start putting some pieces together, but inevitably you're gonna have to take some pieces apart. You're gonna not have a few pieces that you wanted, or once it's together, pardon me, it doesn't look quite the way you had envisioned it in your mind. So you make those adjustments. And I think we can say the same thing about a lot of our training. You learn a form and you have this vision of, okay, now I've got it. This is what it's gonna look like. Well, video it, watch it, tell me how it looks. Never looks as good as it feels when you're starting out. If you're sparring, maybe you're sparring someone who always gets you. You know, they're always, they've just always been better than you. And you attack it like a problem. How do I solve the challenge of this person and the way they spar? And you put some pieces together and inevitably the first pass doesn't work. Or maybe if it works, it only works once, right? Like you've gotta go back to the drawing board a few times. And I think that willingness to tear down and rebuild, tear down and rebuild, is a constant process for us as martial artists is incredibly valuable. I don't care who you are, how long you've been training to put a white belt on again. Even in your own style, even to start back over with the first techniques in the first form, learning them a little bit differently, maybe from someone else has a tremendous amount of value.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I knew that would've be an easy one. That was a, I gave you a nice softball there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I appreciate that after flute.
Andrew Adams:
Alright, here's one that's not so much of a lob. Records, as in vinyl records.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So one of the things that was relatively easy to do on a lot of record players, at least the ones I was exposed to when I was young, was that you could change the speed. And while most of the time you would listen to the record at the intended speed, you know, 30, 45, whatever it was, there were times where slowing it down would give you some insight into things that you had not noticed at full speed. Yeah. This is the direction you didn't expect me to go.
Andrew Adams:
That's good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Yeah. That's why I smiled. And when you said, I was like, oh, this one's easy. Now, is it the same? No, the pitch is off. It doesn't sound as good. Nobody's gonna take a 45 and slow it down to 15 and listen to it and enjoy it. But what if you're trying to learn the percussion work? You're trying to learn something about cadence in there. There's a lot that you can do with that. And sometimes it's just plain fun, right? And you can say the same thing about martial arts. And this is no secret that I very much preach the value of training slowly. What I believe I'm settling on for a name is the reduced-intensity training method. Right? That's the, I'm pretty sure that's the name that we're gonna settle on. Because once you can get things slowed down, a lot of really cool stuff, even magic stuff happens because you can train in a way that without that intensity, you are not feeling any semblance of fear, and that's where the mind starts to open up and become a lot more receptive to education.
Andrew Adams:
Cool. You can also sometimes hear different messages if you play it backwards.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes. Yes. What's the really famous one? It was one of The Beatles records, right? John is Dead. If you played it backwards, there was something in there.
Andrew Adams:
I don't think so. I don't remember, but sleds as in winter sleds.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Super fun. And you kind of have to surrender when you get on a sled. You can think that you're in control, but you're not. It's gravity. It's the snow conditions. Anybody who has attempted to steer with their hands is probably torn up their mittens. That was a thing as a kid, you know. Those are the only mittens you're getting, so you're getting duct tape on them. Right. This is a much harder one. Yeah. That what I keep coming back to surrender. You just kind of have to go and you have to trust that it's just, you're gonna get from here to there. I mean, when you sled, you're not going back uphill, right? You're always gonna go downhill. Maybe not as far as you wanted, or maybe you're gonna not hit the jump that you wanted to, or maybe you are gonna hit the jump and it's gonna be faster than you expected. Those were the best days. The number of times that, ah, and you separate from the sled. Good times. But that's what makes it fun, right? Is that surrender and that process and you're just kind of going in. And when I think about some of the more enjoyable scenario-based drills that I've done, especially where I'm receiving from multiple attackers, you just kind of have to surrender. You just kind of have to go. Is it perfectly safe? No. Are you gonna win? No. But it's in that process that you're, is your purpose. It's the whole reason for doing it, and that's what makes it fun is that you know what, I suspend any belief that six people attacking me, I would win. And let's just see what happens.
Andrew Adams:
All right. That was our ninth word, however, I have a 10th bonus word.
Jeremy Lesniak:
A bonus word.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, did the audience know there was a bonus word?
Andrew Adams:
Nope.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, okay.
Andrew Adams:
The final word is chain mail. Not chain mail, but chain mail.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Like a chain letter?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do people today even know what a chain letter is?
Andrew Adams:
I bet a lot of our listeners do.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, wow! Oh, easy. Okay. So just in case you are younger and miss the transition from chain letters, pieces of paper to chain email because nobody sends those anymore. The closest we get now is on Facebook. When someone posts something ridiculous, it's like, you know, I tried this and it works, and you do this, and then it changes everything. No, not really.
Andrew Adams:
Or put this on your Facebook wall and have people comment on it. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Those are similar, but the spirit is a little bit different. So, believe it or not, younger people, you used to receive letters in the mail that were typed on a typewriter and it said, you know, if you don't send this letter out to 10 people in the next seven days, you know, bad things are gonna happen, or if you do, you're gonna get money or whatever. And people would do it. You know, remember this is back when you had to like go photocopy things or type them out and pay for stamps, right? Like the whole idea of a chain letter was so much more involved in the '80s than it is today. But if you ask someone, why are you doing this? Well, just in case. I just, just in case. But what if it works? You know, there was this suspension of disbelief even among very rational people, that this act may have a consequence despite their inability to recognize any possible logic of that consequence. And there are elements within our training that are that. Why do you still teach this thing this way? You've made all these other changes in what you do. Yeah. Well, I don't, I just do. Okay. It's inconsistent with what you say is important to you and for your students. Yeah, I know. Okay. For a lot of us, there are things for which true examination takes a tremendous amount of energy. And not all of us are willing to exert the energy to make that examination because we are fearful that there's also a lot of energy on the other side as we see the consequences of that. This happens all the time, every day. Not to all of us, but I would guess that for most of us. If you were to sit down with a close friend and say, hey, what are some of my closely held beliefs that maybe you think are inconsistent with other things that I do? Here's a great one. Medical professionals that smoke cigarettes. That was a conversation I was having with someone in the last few days. I'm not telling someone not to smoke, but if your whole purpose professionally is to keep people healthy and then you are choosing to do something that is counter to that, that's the type of example that I'm thinking of. It defies logic. And there are plenty more of those.
Andrew Adams:
Cool. Thus concludes our fourth-word association.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Word association. Nice. Thanks. You're having fun putting these words together. I appreciate it.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's cool. The chain mail and the chain mail. How did you end up there?
Andrew Adams:
Because I said chain mail the first time and for whatever reason it popped in my head.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, okay. So that was an audible at the end.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, right on. I dig it. All right. Well, listeners, viewers, anybody consuming this in some form, we will collectively refer to you as audience. Thank you for tuning into another episode. Remember, if you have words that you want Andrew to use, you can reach out to him andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Don't send them to me. I don't want to know about them ahead of time. But we're having some fun with these and you know, even if nobody else enjoys 'em. But from the feedback I get, I don't know about you, the feedback I get, people do enjoy them.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. It's fun. It's fun.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It is fun. And it's a different thing that I am not familiar with anyone on a podcast doing. And we're always looking to do things that are fun and different. If you wanna support our funness and our differences, you can support us in a lot of ways. You can join the Patreon, you can go to the whistlekick.com/family page for all the things you can do to support. You can make a purchase using the code podcast15 or consider too that we offer consulting services. If you have a martial arts school and your school would like to be more. However you define more, that is a thing that we can help you with, so please reach out. You can email me directly, jeremy@whistlekick.com. There's also a page at whistlekick.com that outlines all of that. And you know, seminars, we're still booking seminars. We will continue to book seminars. I like teaching seminars, so reach out for that too and we'll see if we can make it work. Our social media is @whistlekick everywhere you might think of. Andrew, thanks for your time prepping for this one. Audience, thanks for coming by. Until next time. Train hard, smile, and have a great day.