Episode 799 - Martial Arts is a Constant Experiment
In this episode, Andrew and Jeremy along with Victor Guarino talk about why Martial Arts is a Constant Experiment.
Martial Arts is a Constant Experiment - Episode 799
Are you ready to get nerdy? Each individual training in martial arts are not the same, each one needs to adapt to his or her physical abilities. Would you agree that every aspect of Martial Arts is a constant experimentation? In this episode, Andrew and Jeremy along with Victor Guarino talk about why Martial Arts is a Constant Experiment. Listen to learn more!
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:
What is happening, everybody? Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. And on today's episode, we are tackling the subject, the assertion that martial arts as a constant experiment. Could get spicy in here. Probably not, won't get spicy.
Andrew Adams:
Probably not.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But we'll have some good conversation if you're listening. You can hear Andrew's voice, Andrew Adams. Welcome, Andrew. How are you?
Andrew Adams:
I'm great! Little chilly in my basement this morning. But I'm doing good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm glad you're here. And because we were recording a different episode and he didn't leave, Victor Guarino’s back.
Victor Guarino:
Okay, well, that just makes it sound bad. You should say that this was the only episode where you didn't need someone who wasn't me.
Andrew Adams:
He’s not, I mean, sort of.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I love that we're at a point where we can joke like this because I would do it anyway and I just I'm just glad that I know you're not offended.
Victor Guarino:
Yes, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's far more enjoyable.
Victor Guarino:
No hurt feelings.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thank you for being here. This will be fun. We don't often get to do three people on a Thursday episode. If you are new to what we do, that is the strangest introduction to what we do you might have ever imagined. However, if you go to whistlekick.com and check out all the things that we're working on, along the way to our mission of getting everybody in the world to train martial arts for at least six months. What do we do? We connect, educate, entertain. We work very hard for the traditional martial arts community. We are traditional martial artists. And we produce a variety of events, products and services to serve, enhance, protect, etc. all of you out there. So if you go to whistlekick.com you might find something, a story you want to grab, use the code podcast15, saves you 15%. Now, martial arts radio, nearly 800 episodes at the time of this recording and you can check out every single one of them for free. Audio versions, newer episodes, video as well, and since day one transcripts. If you want to search something, you want to copy and paste something into your Kindle or iPad to read it later, that's all available for you for free. If you're thinking you know, what was I, there was somebody and I can't remember the episode I wanted to share it with someone and they said this thing. What? You can search that, there's a search box, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Okay. Now, other things you could do to help us out. Besides buying and telling people what we do, we've got a Patreon. patreon.com/lists. Okay, thank you, Andrew. Starts at two bucks a month, two bucks is going to tell you who's coming up on the show. $5 gets you bonus content and $10 gets you bonus video content. $25 a month gets you every book we ever make and training programs and other stuff. And the top tiers, you get access to our school owners mastermind, or this is your choice. I will teach you privately for no additional cost. Okay? So consider doing that head on over to patreon.com/whistlekick. And if you want the whole list, the whole shebang, everything you can do to support us in our mission, it's the family page, whistlekick.com/family. If you're family, you should be checking that out weekly because that's how often I update it. Gentlemen, this could be one of the nerdiest episodes we've embarked on and that excites me. Victor, I know your propensity for nerdiness. Andrew, I've spent more than enough time with you to know your nerdiness on a firsthand, very direct basis. Yeah, yes, small and short. And anybody who knows what my last career was, literally, computer company.
Andrew Adams:
Big news.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I mean, I took nerd and made a career out of it, okay? But the assertion here is that martial arts is a constant experiment. And we kind of came at this topic with a few different titles, a few different angles. And originally, we were thinking about it in terms of sparring. But then as we kicked it around a bit realized, it's everything. And there may be some folks out there, and I don't think we have too many of these folks anymore, but we may have some folks in the audience saying, yeah, but Jeremy, you don't have to experiment anymore. Your instructor tells you what to do. They give you the form and you should, Victor says for all the signs so hard, careful, they're gonna get stuck. And you just do what you've been given and you're good to go. Like we've been doing this long enough. You don't have to experiment anymore. And Victor is the eye roller. I'm throwing it to you first.
Victor Guarino:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let’s talk man. What do you got?
Victor Guarino:
Ah, I mean, it's just I think, especially in modern martial arts, we've moved past the just carbon copy your instructor all the time, whatever he says, don't question anything. One, that's a dangerous mindset but that's another topic. Two, I mean, everybody, not everybody, every body is different. I mean, I had the privilege and the blessing of 20, over 20 years ago when I started training in my style which my instructor founded. It was new. And I hopped around in a couple different places, we trained in a church multipurpose room that had like that thin layer of rug right over…
Jeremy Lesniak:
On the concrete?
Victor Guarino:
Concrete. Yeah. And part of our art is Jujitsu and froing. So you can imagine the fun of that. And then we trained with foam mats, we've trained in parks when we didn't have places and stuff. And so I got to be a part of watching my instructor constantly, well, how does this work? How does this work? Well, I have, so we had this one instructor, Mr. Packett, who he was just like a muscle. Like he was an oak tree. I mean, you would try to throw him and he just wouldn't move, but my instructor could throw him. So his style was caught, our style I should say was constantly evolving before my eyes and I didn't even know he was a white belt. Because I remember how we used to do things and then I go back, and I see how he's teaching the white belts now. And I asked him, that's not how you taught me. And he goes, yeah, well, I realized, throwing you guys around that this way, doesn’t always work. So if I teach them this way, then it's easier for them to adapt it to someone like me who's flexible, or someone like this other guy who doesn't bend at all.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So you're talking about the experimentation that would come from any evolutionary process, if a martial art is going to get quote better, there is some experimentation that's going to go along with that. Makes absolute sense. Andrew?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You've been around, you've done a bunch of different stuff and a bunch of different schools, where do you see experimentation happening?
Andrew Adams:
So before I get there out, I will quickly say that the, and I'm predominantly a karate practitioner, but all of those past founders of their styles, they never meant for it to be preserved in amber. That's a quote that I take from [08:02]. He and I uses that quote a lot preserved in amber and it's just in case that should be exactly like that. Like, there's always been experimentation, stuff always changes. And so…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Even if you go back and you read Funakoshi’s own writing…
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Where he says, don't codify…
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I'm not using it, the direct quotes, but don't codify what I've put down, it needs to continue to evolve. I mean that happened.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And okay.
Andrew Adams:
And so, the experimentation that, you know, when we first started talking about this, my initial thought was in sparring. Like, you know, you and I are going to square off against each other and have a consensual fight. And we're going to feel each other out, and I'm going to try some things. And you know what, those things work really well on when I'm fighting this person over here, but now you and I get together, and it's very different. And so I've kind of tried new things, and the things I used to use don't work and you know, there's a lot of experimentation there. And so…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sparring is probably the clearest example…
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Of where that experimentation is. Please continue.
Andrew Adams:
And so that's where my head initially went. But in talking about it more, it's so much bigger than that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Where else do you see experimentation, if not only in sparring?
Andrew Adams:
Cut force.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Andrew Adams:
You know, the perfect example, the school that I currently train out does not go to any, has never as a school gone to any competitions ever. And last year, my instructor brought forth hey, there's this tournament that you know, my, this is him talking he's like, my instructors’ instructors, he’s former instructors is holding a tournament, if people would like to go you know, he would approve of that and I went. And if it was involved, a lot of me practicing my form different ways. Ways that want to showcase this particular move as being more emphasis on this move than on these other moves. And you know, this coming year, it's happening again in May, and there will be a few students going. And so, there will be discussions on when we perform our forms, they should not necessarily always be move one, move two, move three, move four, move five, move six, move seven, move eight, move nine, move ten. You know, there's, we're gonna play around with it a little bit and find a way that works, there's gonna be some experimentation in there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Anytime you have trial and error, or this or that, A or B, let me see what this looks like here. That's an experiment. Maybe it's not a scientific experiment, maybe you're not controlling for all variables, but there's still an element of that. And one of the early versions of the title of this was kind of around science and this recognition that, especially if we look at combat, there's an evolution that happens. And it doesn't take much time, anybody out there who has been a big fan of MMA from the early days, knows that there have been eras in the UFC where, you know, if you were very skilled in this element of combat, you tended to do better and so everyone started to get better at that. But then other people, you know that, because if my hands out, something's open, right? Like, we know that from our training. So there's always something for somebody else to get better at. And so you end up with these, you know, grappling era, striking era, wrestling era, whatever, in various MMA promotions. So, when you think about how you experiment with your training, Victor, and I know that you've run schools, and I know that you are a thoughtful person, so I imagine that you spend a fair amount of time going, hmmm in the context of martial arts, and what does that look like for you?
Victor Guarino:
Yeah, so it's, I think I said this in the episode that I was on that interviewed me is that I know a lot of people do martial arts. But there's a difference between someone who is a martial artist, and someone who does martial arts. I think everyone should do it. But the person who is a martial artist is like myself, everything that I think about is through the lens and the concept of martial arts. 100%. To the point where I have a hard time with my friends and family who don't train in martial arts. And I'm trying to give an analogy, and it's a martial arts analogy, and they have no idea what I'm talking about so that I have to explain my analogy.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And it makes so much sense. If you guys are just trained for a little bit, you totally get what I'm saying right now. Yeah.
Victor Guarino:
So, back to my instructor and how we would experiment with our art, he was the founder of the system, at the time that I started, I think he was the seventh. But you know, he's a 10th-degree master who still spars his white belts. And a lot of people don't, a lot of people have a hard time doing that. But by the time there’s black belts, like me, he knows all of our tricks, and he can still keep up with us. Why? Because he's been keeping up with us the whole time. That part of experimentation is really good. I kind of would push back a little bit in just the statement that you said about it's not scientific, maybe but it is. I mean, every type of experimentation is scientific. When I came to free, the not the seminar that you did in Philly, with my cousin, he's a brown belt in our system and he's one of those people that sees music is Math, that Math is music. Like, that's how the depth of his nerdiness go. He's so much I have to reign his scientificness in when we talk because I don't understand the stuff that he's going into. So he's very much like, what if this happens? What if this happens? And so when him and I talk, Andrew you talked about forms, I remember this one time that I called him one day because our style doesn't have a lot of forms, because it's just something that my instructor needed in order to get certified. So he took Chuck Norris’ forms and adapted them to ours because he had the book and technically one of his schools was part of that system and style. So we don't have and we have no weapons forms because weapons are like every so often, for eight weeks, my instructor will hand a sigh, and we'll just fight each other and figure out what to do. Like that's how our weapons program used to be.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's very experimental.
Victor Guarino:
Very experimental. And so I was like, why don't we have forms for this? I was like, what if we would do, what if I took the sai and I did it with a wakizashi? And I started doing it and I came up with something but like all good science, it needs peer review. So what did I do is I got my phone, I set up a camera and I video-called my cousin at like nine o'clock at night. And we then were on the phone for three hours. He was in his living room. He got, he didn’t have a wakizashi, so he got a stick and a shorter stick. Right? And I'm in my living room. He's in my living room, I film what I got and goes, well, what if you did this? Why? Because peer-review? Just like, I mean, we think of peer review when it comes to sparring. I got plenty of examples when it comes to that. But peer-review when it comes to working on something. Even there's the form specific to my system called [15:47], that is made up. And then there's another, we have our version of kanku, which is one of our black belt kata which my instructor made up. And I like kanku a lot. I like his changes in his tweaks to it. It took him two days to make all the tweaks that he wanted. With [16:08], he let his right-hand man and two of his high ranking black belts take part in developing that kata. Took him six months.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yup.
Victor Guarino:
I think that [16:19] is the far superior and complex. I mean, you can watch that kata, if all you did. And Andrew, you've seen it, because I did it a bunch of times in that form group that we did. That kata, the essence of the style of Segeido Ryu is in that form and movement and everything. Why? Because it's peer-reviewed. And I think it's better because of that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well done. You know, I do want to clarify, I agree there’s a scientific element, what I meant was to say that I'm not aware of anyone taking rigorous scientific method into martial arts. They're not doing you know, controlled experiments, et cetera, et cetera and you know, sometimes we will. But we all have good days and bad days and, you know, I don't think anyone's suggesting that we have full control over the number of variables.
Victor Guarino:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
For example, right? Which is kind of something that you would need. So, where else might experimentation show up? Andrew, like, you know, beyond forms…
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Beyond sparring? Where would we see it?
Andrew Adams:
So, in our school, when you are testing for any Yudansha rank…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Which is what?
Andrew Adams:
Any rank above black belt. Black belt and above are considered Yudansha. You know, we have the forms that we have to do when we have bunkai or applications from those forms. And as you're going up in the under ranks, these are the bunkai that we expect you to know, like, the move in the form is this, and this is the application that, we're not saying this is the only one, this is the one that we choose to teach to our students. But once you get to black belt, testing for black belt or higher, you are expected to understand and perhaps change a little bit on your own the bunkai that is the quote official one for our school. But if you want to tweak it a little bit to add on something that maybe you see the form doing or going in a different direction, you are allowed and in a lot of ways expected to do that. How do you do that? Well, you experiment, you try it. You grab the person, I would grab the uke that I'm working with, a partner, and I say okay, so this is what the bunkai is, the official bunkai is but you know, what, what if I did this and you play around with it? Well, what is that? That's experimentation.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I understand, but you know, let's make sure everyone does, what's the value there?
Andrew Adams:
Well, the value there is looking at the movements within a form, how they could be utilized, and the principle of that movement, how could it be used in an actual application.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Victor, I see you nodding your head or something you want to add?
Victor Guarino:
Yeah, I mean, it's so funny. So recently, I've been cross-training in Kung Fu in the style Baguazhang which is one of the three main internal parts. There's Xing Yi, Tai Chi, Bagua. Bagua is the baby brother, and it is my Sifu who calls it. And there's these things called Palm changes which are forms, each one's forms and they are generally in sets of eight. So there's the eight animal palm changes. There's the eight double animal palm changes. There's the eight dragon palms, the heaven palms, the earth palms. It's Chinese art, so everything sounds very pretty in both the original language and English. Like scooping moon low, where, you know, in the English translation, if it was Japanese would just be like, bend and strike. But one of the things is, is that generally with Bagua, the way my instructor teaches it, because I asked him like, at what point like, I have a high rank, as much as I don't like to talk about it, it makes me uncomfortable, in my style. And I was like, well, he asked me during our first conversation, what do you want from me? It’s a weird question. And it's like, I just want whatever you're gonna teach. He goes, well, I'm not gonna start you with basics. What are basics? He told me he generally, most of the people he takes already have at least the black belt or higher in some other form of traditional martial arts. And he teaches me the palm changes. And some of them, he'll be like, here's an application. But a lot of them he says, this move is just to get you in close and then you have stuff to do, do it. And I'm like, I'm sorry, what? Cause you have stuff to do, do it, I don't need to tell you, when you should hit, how you should hit whatever. And then there's this whole other set that I'm working on that, because he knows that Karen's with me, and I get to have a training partner and he goes, have her throw punches at you, and come up with applications. And then he said the weirdest thing I've ever had an instructor tell me. He goes, because you might find a different thing that I might steal from you because I've never thought about it that way. The admittance of his Bagua is constantly evolving because he's taking in students from other arts and basically, I mean, I went to a seminar that he did, where he did Seiunchin sho. And it was a form he learned from my instructor’s instructor. So it was I was like, oh, I know, this version of Seiunchin sho, it was nothing like Seiunchin sho that I knew, because he took it. And he made it so much softer than it was supposed to be to fit his art. But he only did that, because he experimented with it. And he's constantly taking on students who move differently, who know differently, do different things. And he's not rigid and saying this is the way that I want you to do this, do it this way.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So here's the question, if we're going to make the statement that martial arts is a constant experiment, can we also make the statement that more experimentation or I guess we can call it better experimentation because one could experiment in a poor fashion, but better experimentation leads to better martial arts? If you are a better experimenter, are you a better martial artist? Andrew?
Andrew Adams:
I think the case could be made for that. And I think the other thing I'm gonna backtrack a little bit, you know, one of the things you talked about earlier is that you know, not questioning your instructor and I think that that's important. But I also think when you're a super beginner, there's something to be said for just learning what you're doing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Absolutely.
Andrew Adams:
Which is why, that experimentation that I talked about with the applications of forms that happens at black belt and above, right? But I get what you're saying and I could make a case for either way. I kind of I'm torn as to drawing a hard line on that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think there's a limit.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's see, Victor, what do you think?
Victor Guarino:
Well, to go back to your scientific thing, I'm just thinking about this. I've read a lot of really good scientific papers and really bad scientific papers. And I found a delineation. When the person who's writing the paper, doing the experiment enters in, saying I'm going to prove that this is true, it's generally a bad paper, because they do not exhaust. As soon as they get the result they want, they stop. They stop the experimentation. The best papers that I've read, that have put to practice the scientific method, have been the ones that said I'm curious as to what happens under these conditions.
Jeremy Lesniak:
They’re open to either way.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, and they drill, and they drill, and they drill and they drill, and then they'll say, you know, we got this complete opposite result, but these are outliers because seven out of 10 times this is the case but we can't, not even mentioned these other three times because that's still valid data. So I think that you can experiment and not become a good martial artist. But in two ways. One, experimentation too soon. After eight years, I got my black belt, my instructor tied around my waist, and said, now you're my student. After eight years. On the other side of that, I now understand, because I didn't know enough to know, as we all know, we don't know enough to know the things to question, right? So you can experiment too soon. And I think we see a lot of that as martial arts are now popular. Well, I know how to throw a punch and a kick, that's all I need from this person. Now I'm gonna go over this person and get this. Okay, I know how to get out of this lock. That's all I need from this person. Now, I'm gonna go over. And you just, you never drill the same thing over and over. Or I could see if you just live in your own little secluded bubble and say, well, I can defend myself from this punch. How many different ways? I mean, I've been in how many different schools or even Jeremy, when I went to the seminar that you did with all those different people, I don't think anyone, my cousin included, who trains in the same style, or at least did as me through a lunch punch the exact same way. So just exposing yourself beyond your bubble is I think another prerequisite. Another necessity to good experimentation, because there's bad experimentation that then I think would lead to be, not lead to, but keep you from becoming a good martial artist.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If we unpack what experimentation is, you know, I think there are two critical elements as it enters this conversation. The first is having enough of a foundational understanding of the thing that you were experimenting on or with that you can see what the outcome is. If you don't know what you're doing with the technique, or the form, or sparring, or whatever it is if you're experimenting, let's call it too early, your results become very murky. You know, if I'm going to, if I participated in an experiment involving quantum physics, I can use the words. I can read the results. I can run the simulations, probably even do some of the programming, but I don't have enough of an understanding of the science to fully know what's going on. And thus, my participation in that experiment would be kind of wasted. Even if I'm not running the experiment, right? Like, I'm not going to fully grasp the outcome and be able to internalize that. Okay? That's number one. And then number two is being able to really understand what that outcome is. You know, if you brought up the example, Andrew, you know, you spar with somebody else, you don't, you spar with me. If I was sparring with you, and you kick me in the face, what does that mean? Now, obviously, something didn't go the way I'd intended but was it my attention? Was it my guard? Was it my stance? Was it that I was so hyper-focused on doing this that you took advantage? Right, there are a lot of possibilities there. And the ability to understand what's going on is kind of critical. And that leads me to something that I'm going to suspect we all do, maybe without realizing it. And that is that we are generally experimenting on a small number of things at one time. Maybe it's one, if I step in, and I'm sparring with someone, I'm probably thinking about, here's what I'm thinking about today, my priority today is on this or that. If I'm working on one of my forms, I'm thinking about one particular section or one particular technique. I'm not getting overwhelmed by experimenting on everything. Because the human mind really can't process information in that way. We're really good at doing one thing at a time. We're not so great at working on seven or eight things at a time. I'm not sure if either of you have a response?
Andrew Adams:
Well, I mean, I would say it also, I mean, what is a scientific experiment, right? It is having a control and a baseline of something, changing a single variable, and looking at the result. And maybe changing it in a different way and looking at the result. If you have a baseline and you change 12 things, you have no idea which of those 12 things created the different results.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right.
Andrew Adams:
So when you're sparring, you can't all of a sudden change 12 things like if you're sparring and something doesn't work, you have to change one and maybe two things about what you're doing to determine what is it that gave you the result you we're looking for.
Victor Guarino:
What I said when I…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Go ahead, Victor.
Victor Guarino:
Sorry, when I was talking about my thing before is to be open to any result. But that's the thing is it you need to at least expect a result.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Victor Guarino:
If you're experimenting and changing everything that's just chaos. There's nothing to observe there. If you're changing you need to be looking for a result and Jeremy, you said it, we can't process information like that much at one time so we have to control the amount that we change in order to do anything. And that's, I mean you see it online when people say to martial artists to art martial artists, but that will never work on the street, but what they don't understand is the dojo, dojang training hall whatever that is an experiment lab. That is the scientific lab. We are pulling out, I can't remember who I heard say this, but when I throw my punch and hold it here, we all understand that this is not held here, right? This is a microsecond in time that we are removing and pausing so that we can now observe all of the openings because we can't, no one perceives things that fast naturally. We have to train it, so we are taking these little microcosm seconds and pauses in these moments in time and dissecting them so that in the quote and quote street, something comes out of us because our body by rote muscle memory remembers those moments in time that we trained over and over and over again. The training hall itself is the lab.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That metaphor of where we train being in a lab being a laboratory and I suspect if we, you know that would, I don't have a school of my own currently, but I wonder if those of you out there do, what if you had laboratory night? You know, don't call it lab night because people will show up with their dogs, but if you have laboratory night and actually if they do show up with the dogs you better invite me. Dog night at the dojo. Dojo dog. That's not diagnostics but there we go. Anyway, if we set that expectation on certain days, what if there's laboratory night where everything is up for discussion? You know, you probably want to limit that to higher ranks, but what if it is? What if there was one night where there was no stupid question? And in fact you encourage people to ask questions of the most fundamental things? Well, why do we have our stance like this? Like there’s a really interesting stuff could come out of it. Because if you think back you know philosophy is a subject that isn't often considered scientific, but if you start to get into the philosophy of science or the science of philosophy which you know tend to go one direction more than the other. Victor, you brought up the way most research papers are done. They're trying to prove their point well, what if we try to disprove what we do? Okay, so you know front stance on is a fairly standard thing you know in terms of weight, distribution, and length among the martial arts styles that I've trained in anyway. What if we try to break that? What if there was a better way to travel forward while remaining defensive and offensive with a lot of versatility and the ability to use these techniques, can we do that? And you throw stuff against the wall and you see what sticks. And I suspect that at those very fundamental levels, no you won't come up with anything, except a much greater understanding and probably some detail that your newer upper ranks might have some epiphanies going on. And I suspect everybody periodically would. Actually, this idea excites me enough that if I had a school we would be doing this tonight.
Victor Guarino:
Oh, I wrote it down.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I saw you write that down. Yeah.
Victor Guarino:
I'm still, well, it's funny you said the thing about philosophy. So a while ago on my podcast, my cousin and I had a conversation on Stephen Hawking's, “A Brief History of Time.” Just a light conversation.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, yeah. You know, casual.
Victor Guarino:
One of my favorite sections was actually in the wrap-up where Hawking is talking about how sciences continuously gotten better and basically a year after someone graduates with a doctorate in their site in their very specific scientific field, if they don't continue their education after school everything that they know is old news.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Victor Guarino:
One of the things that he said in that was in the ancient days, the field of science was so small that it was and I quote thought to be the job of the philosophers and the seers at the time. And he almost speaks of it as he's lamenting that there are more philosophers within the scientific community because they're the ones who, there is no stupid question. I talked to a lot of scientists who's been like well, that's a dumb question. Obviously, the universe works like this. Well, what if it doesn't? There's a whole chapter in “A Brief History of Time” where he was like, I understand that this is how we know things to work but let's assume this to be true. What is the universe? That's a great place to start in any conversation. What if this was true, right? Isn't that how we talk about self-defense, but what if there's one person? What if there's two persons? What if I have someone with me who knows nothing about martial arts and I can't just jump out of the way and let them get hit by the baseball bat that's being swung at me? Right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right.
Victor Guarino:
I think it's great to be philosophical. That's the I'm such, I'm a nerd, but I am such a martial arts nerd. Everything will be about martial arts, I will talk for hours about it. And like I went to the zoo and was talking strongly to Karen about you know well, that's actually a really good martial principle. What those wild African dogs are doing right there? And she's a martial artist so she gets it. She puts up with me. But like that's a day like you see it everywhere but then you're like because of that I had this conversation and I haven't had a chance to because I don't have a school with more than just her and I right now and my buddy doesn’t train too because he moves around with his wife who's in military. And I'm like, it would be really fun if we did team sparring. Like, we’ve done one with three opponents, but what if it was like okay, it's you two versus these four or these three…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Absolutely.
Victor Guarino:
And we'll start really slow. That's an experiment I want to run and I yet to have the opportunity to do it but I'm really excited and I'll film it when we do.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I've done that. We can talk about it. Yeah.
Victor Guarino:
Oh! I can't wait. I think it's so interesting. Like my brain is already on 20 different tangents about what would happen if this happened? What about this? What about this? What about this?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yep. Andrew?
Andrew Adams:
Yes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think we're reaching the end. Is there anything that we haven't put on the table for folks to consider?
Andrew Adams:
I don't think so, I think I would be surprised if people listening if people started listening to this episode and started thinking what are you guys talking about? Martial arts isn't the science experiment. I'd be surprised if they didn't see it differently now. Because when you really break it down and look at what it is we're doing. It's fairly obvious.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It can be if you're looking for it for sure.
Andrew Adams:
But if you've listened to this episode…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
I think you would see that it’s fairly obvious.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh! Fully agree, fully agree. And of course, as always, we invite people who disagree to respond and let us know in a respectful way because we always value that discussion. Victor, how about you? Did we leave anything out that we should shoehorn out?
Victor Guarino:
Yeah, I think that we touched a lot of things, and again, that philosophical part, I just hope that if those who did enter this episode had that thought of martial arts is physical science, science is that they look at it differently now. Because if you look at it differently, you'll be better.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Really agree. And I do want to thank everyone for checking this out, for watching, for listening, maybe reading, whatever it is, however you consume this episode, thank you. I wanna thank Andrew, I want to thank Victor for coming on, for your time. And to all of you out there, if you want to support us if you want to help us continue to connect educating and entertain hopefully you’ve found a bit of all three in this episode. Well, you got lots of things you can do. Leave a review, buy us something, tell us somebody come do a thing, join the Patreon, whatever it is. Our social media is @whistlekick. Insider for our newsletter on any of our websites. And if you've got a school, maybe you want to have me come out teach a seminar. Maybe you want to hire us as you're consulting firm to help you grow and make more money and reach more students and do all the things that you love to do. And if nothing else, I do appreciate your time. Shout out to everybody who supports us, those Patreon contributors, and all
the rest of you doing cool stuff to help us do what we do, including you two gentlemen here. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day! Oh! That was so cringe.