Episode 810 - Professor Dan Anderson

Professor Dan “Super Dan” Anderson is a Martial Arts practitioner, instructor, and the founder of American Freestyle Karate.

My feet said, Get off your ***, boy, we're heading for Bruce Lee. And I don't know what I'm going to say. It's like, oh, man, what do I say? I didn't know what I would say. So I get up in front of him, I actually walked right in front of him. I cut off his path and I said, excuse me, you're Mr. Bruce Lee, aren't you?

Professor Dan Anderson - Episode 810

Who would’ve thought that our show’s legendary guest today was a failed baseball player before training in Martial Arts? No matter how uncommon martial arts was back in the 60s and there were only two dojos in Portland at the time, Professor Dan Anderson pursued training in martial arts. Eventually, Professor Anderson would create the American Freestyle Karate, a uniquely American Martial Art.

Super Dan, as he is widely known, has a 10th Degree Black Belt in Karate, a 6th Degree Black Belt (Senior Master) in Filipino Modern Arnis, and a 9th Degree Black Belt in MA80 System Arnis/Eskrima. He is a 4-time national karate champion and world champion, having won over 70 Grand Titles! He has taught all over the world as well as authored/produced over 50 books and DVDs.

In this episode, Professor Dan “Super Dan” Anderson talks about his journey into martial arts and encounters with other Legends such as Bruce Lee and Remy Presas among others. Listen to learn more!

Show notes

You may check out more about Professor Super Dan Anderson and his books by visiting his websites: https://superdanonlinelibrary.com and https://superdanonlineacademy.com/

Show Transcript

Jeremy Lesniak: 

What's up, everybody? Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, episode 810 with my guest today, Professor Dan Anderson. Super Dan. I'm Jeremy Lesniak. I don't have a moniker like Super Dan does, but I'm the guy that hosts this show, the guy who created whistlekick, the guy who loves traditional martial arts so much that he invested everything he has into helping you and the rest of the martial arts community via our motto connect, educate, and entertain. And if that means something to you, I'm glad you are here. And if it doesn't, well, maybe in time it will, because what are we trying to do? We're trying to get everybody in the world to train for, well, at least six months. So I think that would make the world a much better place. And what are we doing to serve that goal and to meet our mission? Well, go to whistlekick.com is where you're gonna find all the things that we're doing. Products, projects, training, equipment, free stuff, paid stuff. Use the code podcast15 on something that costs some money over there. It's gonna save you 15%. We make it pretty simple. whistlekickmartialartsradio.com is the online home for this show and all of the other episodes we've ever done. We're proud of what we do. I'm proud of the team. A number of people touch every single episode every week and two a week, really. But a bunch of people are involved and it's great to see the output and it makes me really happy that we can do this. Oh, how can you support? Almost forgot that part. That's an important part. You could buy something, you could tell friends about us. You could join the Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick starts at literally $2 a month. You wanna know who's coming up on the show, $2 a month. You want bonus episodes and stuff like that, that starts at 5 and it goes up from there. But if you want the whole list, if you're a super fan or you love what we do, or maybe you're brand new and you're like, man, this stuff's great, go to whistlekick.com/family. You gotta type it, whistlekick.com/family. That's the list of all the things you can do to help us out, and we put bonus stuff in there. That's why we do it. We wanna make sure that it takes a step for you to get there because if you're willing to put in the time, we're gonna give you the reward. I don't wanna make it too easy. Alright, I had the honor of meeting Professor Dan last October. I'm recording this in 2023, so it's been about six months since I met him. What a great guy. Wonderful instructor, wonderful martial artist, great person. And here we are. We have a lengthy conversation. If you've looked ahead, you can see this is a longer episode than normal. And that's because this guy's got stories like you wouldn't believe his time teaching, training, and in competition connected him to just about everybody. I mean, it's very, very few people and we tell stories about, but you know what? I'm not gonna name-drop because it's more fun when he does it. So hang tight, check out this episode and I will see you after we're done talking. So how are you?

Dan Anderson: 

Good. Good, good, good, good. You know, for some reason we seem to be experiencing the ice age here in Oregon. Yeah, it's been cold and it's been kind of ugly and you know, we had frost on the deck. This morning kind of come on guys. It's April. Come on spring, do something. So, yeah, but on the overall hole, you know, I'm doing fine. Doing really good.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Good, good. Yeah, we don't even take our snow tires off until mid to end of April. I know plenty of people that wait until May or June.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah, well that's back…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Folks in June are just kinda like yeah.

Dan Anderson: 

Well, that's back East. I mean, that's par for the course. It's not par for the course out here. Out here, it's a little bit warmer. Always wet, but, you know, it's just been colder than my heart. So, what can I say?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

It's been such a weird winter…

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

For you guys. I mean, all of you out there. I mean, I've seen photos from Tahoe with, you know, 16 feet of snow. I don't know that I've ever been in 16 feet of snow. Oh, I can fathom 16. I mean, my house wouldn't be here.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

That's for sure.

Dan Anderson: 

No, I haven't. But you know, I mean, I spent the first part of the Ice Age actually in Aruba with my wife. We were on sabbatical for two months.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

It sounds terrible.

Dan Anderson: 

Oh. It was just, we endured. We endured.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

You did what you had to do to survive, right?  You know just…

Dan Anderson: 

Well, you know, we took it for the team. What can I say?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

I'm sure they appreciate that.

Dan Anderson: 

We took it for the team. That's right. Anyway.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yeah. Well, let's dig in. Let's just…

Dan Anderson: 

Sure.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Let's start. Let's see where it takes us and you know. I know you got stories, and I know I have to do very little work to get you to tell 'em, and that's one of my favorite parts about talking to you is that you make my job super simple.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah. Well, we kind of preframed that last time. It was kinda like, okay, let's see, when is he gonna, when is he gonna stop with this story? When is he gonna stop with that one? I just keep going. Yep, yep, yep, yep. But if it's of interest to people, that's good.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

It's you. Hey, they're not here to hear me. It's not about me. They've been listening to me for 800 plus episodes. They're tired of me. They want somebody else.

Dan Anderson: 

800 episodes. Wow! That's… 

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah. We did 800 last Monday, eight days ago. We did 800. Yeah. 

Dan Anderson: 

And how long have you been doing this?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Eight years.

Dan Anderson: 

Wow. A hundred recordings a year. Wow. Yeah. Scary. I mean, that's…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yeah.

Dan Anderson: 

Scary, productive. That's very, very… well done.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Well, fortunately, I've got great people on the team, you know of course you know Andrew.

Dan Anderson: 

Oh, yeah. 

Jeremy Lesniak: 

But there's more than just us. I mean, there's quite a few people that get involved in the episodes. I'm really lucky that we have them cause otherwise, yeah. I would've…

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

I think I would've had to tap out long ago cause it's a lot work.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah, I like that. Tap out.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Right.

Dan Anderson: 

Okay. Yeah. So let's get going.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Well…

Dan Anderson: 

So what do you wanna know?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

So here's where we're gonna start. We're gonna start at the beginning. When did you start training and why?

Dan Anderson: 

Okay, we have to really, really go before I started training.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay.

Dan Anderson: 

I was a failed baseball player. I loved baseball. I adored baseball. Los Angeles Dodgers were my favorite team. I played little league. Little league team I played on was the Dodgers but the thing is, I didn't know that I wasn't any good. I was a utility player. Now, I didn't find out that a utility player was someone you would stick in the position where they'd do the least damage. And so…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

That's why they always put me in right field.

Dan Anderson: 

I saw right field a lot. And I remember I kept pestering the coach, you know, I wanna pitch, I wanna pitch, I wanna pitch, let me pitch. And, you know, but he never let me pitch. I would bat decently in the practices. Young batter, right practice but I just choke at the plate. I mean, really choke. I knew that fastball was gonna come and hit me in the ribs or hit me in the head. It never did, but I knew it was going to, and so I'd be standing there with a bat and I got. So anyway, he let me pitch the last game because our last our best pitcher and hitter, Gordon Cadboys, I still remember his name. He was on vacation and we were, you know, I mean, where we were in the standings, you know, letting me pitch wasn't gonna make any difference. Well, we beat the guys 15 to five and I had a type of a side arm curve ball that was just messing people up left, right, and center. But that was the last game of Little League. Now, I knew that moving up to Babe Ruth, which was the next league up. I was a little guy and these guys were like monsters and they threw rocket light pitches and it was just, oh my god. It was just amazing. And I knew I wouldn't make it in baseball, so I dropped out. Anyway, years further down the line, I was in civil air patrol. And that's an auxiliary of the US Air Force. And so there was this…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

So high schoolers? Junior high and high schoolers?

Dan Anderson: 

Oh no, I yeah junior high, high school, and even so adults.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay.

Dan Anderson: 

And yeah, and I was in the, it's 1966, so I think that was the ninth grade if I remember right. And anyway, one of a captain there, he did karate. I was like. And you know, the only thing that we knew about karate was James Coburn, Our Man Flint, and he chopped the guy with a judo chop on the shoulder and the guy go out. And then shortly before I started training, the Green Hornet came out. So, you know, the Kato and so here's a guy who moved quick, did all these crazy little yells and so forth, but it looked a lot better than James Coburn. So anyway, my mother I pastored my mom and about doing lessons. Now I'll slide into the why before the first lesson. Now, the why on this was that I had a privileged position in junior high that ended. I was Anderson's little brother. Now, Anderson, when we're talking about Don, my brother, well, he was the biggest hood in the school. He was the best fighter. So being Anderson's little brother was a very protected status. He didn't mess with Anderson, so Anderson's little brother could get away with being a wise man or whatever and that sort of thing. Until Anderson got sent to Reform School. Once he got set up, and anybody here who's young, who doesn't know what Reform School is, it's basically prison for underage kids. So once Anderson got sent up to reform school, this special status got yanked, all of a sudden nobody cared if I was Anderson's little brother, cause Anderson wasn't around to pound you if he pounded on me. So, you know, so I remember talking to Dave. Dave was the captain of the Civil Art Patrol and when went our karate class and I bugged my mom that'd be able to go let me try out. So I'd go and I try out. Well, either Dave told me his class or I mis duplicated the time and I came at the wrong time. I came during Dave's class, it was like the advanced class, and now the instructor. At the time, who's very well known in real-deal martial arts and so forth, Lauren Christensen. He was the chief instructor. He was a green belt at the time. And so, and it wasn't even at Dojo, was at the Marshall Recreation Center down in the weight room. They move all the weights off to the side. We're on this concrete floor. I learned to bounce very quickly. But I go in there and, you know, Lauren tells me that, you know, well this is this guy's class. The beginning class is an hour earlier. And then he did something which was just, you know, I still look at it and I marvel to this day. He pulled one of his blue belts off the side. His name was Tony, Tony Leonetti. He says he showed a play from the beginning class. Would you show him how to do climbing form? Which was the long forward stance, Zenkutsu-dachi. You know, show him climbing form. Show him front punch, show him front kick, show him down block, high block. And so that was my first lesson. Tony was actually my first, first instructor, but it was at the [00:11:22] Lauren. And it was diving off the high board and I was amazed. And then I watched these guys spar, right? Now, this is 1966 and there's a bunch of blue belts. So, the sparring was, you know when I look back at it now, it was pretty primitive and so forth, but I'm looking at it, wow! These guys are practiced, right? And they're not killing each other. This is amazing and…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

And I get the sense from, from the way you talked about your brother, you were not much of a fighter that he did all that work for you.

Dan Anderson: 

I was a mouthy little coward. You know, I was a wise guy and I wasn't, you know, Donnie was the fighter. Dale was the brains, Donnie was the fighter, and I was the failed baseball player, if we're gonna categorize anybody like that, that's exactly how I'd categorize this. So anyway, yeah, so we did the, you know, I did the class and oh man, I started bugging my mom, mom, we gotta let take body business and so forth. And she thought it was gonna be a, you know, six-month fad and you know, 56 years later, it turns out to be a 55-year and six-month fad, so. Yeah, it's worked out really well for me.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

What was it, other than watching these folks spar that hooked you?

Dan Anderson: 

You know, I can't really quantify that or specify as to what really hooked me. It's one of those where and you'll talk to anybody who's in a particular endeavor. And if it's something they specialize in, something they fell in love with, it spoke to them. You know, it just spoke to them. It spoke to me. Oh,let me backtrack. Just a hair. Why I wanted to do it? Well, obviously self-defense, and the other one was, I wanted to be cool, you know, and I, and cool, as the jury's still out on that one, but it spoke to me. It was the dog on this thing. It was like, I felt like I was natural. It came without effort. It was something I could do. And you know, of course the Oriental mysticism that's all behind that, you know, this is a non-American culture thing. And, you know, my own opinions about our culture is that we'll gravitate to almost any other culture because we have none. I mean, when you look at McDonald's and MTV that's Western culture. Sorry. But you know it just bit me. It just grabbed on and there you go. So that's the best I can say on it. It just bit and it bit hard.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

And so what did those early days look like? Because, you know, we're talking about the 60s and you know…

Dan Anderson: 

We're talking about when dinosaurs ruled the earth, yes.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

So the world was in black and white and, you know, everything was uphill. There was no downhill anywhere.

Dan Anderson: 

That's right.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

You're mentioning an instructor who wasn't even a black belt, right? You said he was a green belt. 

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah. Lauren was a green belt. Lauren…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

That wouldn't happen today, and I just want people to recognize that's how new and uncommon martial arts was back then. That it was…

Dan Anderson:

Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Coveted, but yet there weren't this you know, there wasn't this long line of black belts that could open a school on every corner. 

Dan Anderson:

No, no, not at all. Not at all. And it's funny because there was actually two instructors. There was Lauren, and then there was Mike and they would take either day, you know. So if Lauren would have, I think maybe Tuesday, and Mike would have Thursday, or something like that. It was either Tuesday, Thursday, or Monday and Wednesday. But the thing was, is that you know, back in the 60s, dojos were few and far between. I remember in Portland, Oregon, which was the city right across the river from Vancouver, Washington, where I was going, you know, there were two dojos. There was Tracy's Kenpo, and then there was the Oregon Karate Association. Now in a city of a hundred thousand two dojos, that's it. So that's how rare karate was. Now…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

And just in for grins, how many schools would you estimate? I know Portland's grown, but how many schools would you estimate are in Portland now?

Dan Anderson: 

I don't know about Portland. I'm in a suburb in Gresham. And Gresham, you know, Gresham's now like a hundred thousand in Gresham. We've got a six or seven school, so we've probably easily got about 20 schools in Portland. I mean, you know, martial arts these days is as frequent as soccer. You know, it's a lot of the oriental ness, oriental culture has gone out of it, and it is now part and parcel of you know, baseball, football, tennis, badman, full contact, underwater basket weaving, and soccer. You know, we're not very rare. And you know, back in ‘66 it was like, you know Vancouver size of 24,000 people at that time had no dojos, you know? It was the Marshall Recreation Center. That was it. So to have two green belts there wasn't, you know, it isn't like, you know what it would be like now, you know? And now mind you, I got to start, it was birthday present, 14th birthday. And back then, you know, the running joke I like to say is that you know, there were no mighty mites. There were no little dragons. There were no tater tots. There was no, there was no kid's program. I was this skinny little 5’5 kid of 105 pounds and I was in the karate class. I wasn't in the juniors class, I was in the kid's class, I was in…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

The karate class.

Dan Anderson: 

The class. So I'm working with the adults. So I've gotta work with guys like Paul Diamond, and it's funny how I remember a lot of these names. Paul Diamond, who's the weightlifter.  Fred Wilcox, who I still claim has the bonniest shins in karate ever. It hurt to block him.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Some people I train with might say put me up for nomination on that.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah. Well, I'd put you up against Fred Wilcox any day if Fred's still alive.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay.

Dan Anderson: 

Fred was, he was old back then. I mean, he was, gosh, he might have been 30? You know. So, anyway, so yeah, the training was pretty classical. You know you'd be sitting in horse stance and punching and yelling and then doing the high blocks, the inside blocks, and so forth. And you'd be doing the one steps up and down the floor, and then you'd be doing like the one steps with the partner. So they step in, they go bang, and then we'd be doing kata practice. And then at the end, we'd be doing free sparring. Now, the fascinating thing about Lauren is he did everything that we did. So he didn't talk and count, he talked and he would count and perform with us. And he'd worked twice as hard as the rest of us. And so he was like Mr. Joe dripping with sweat when he was done. I mean, we were all sweaty and tired, man. He pushed his body hard and he pushed our basics hard, but it was very old style. And, you know, we'll get into this in the magazines later on, but there were a lot of techniques that were just very, very basic. A lot of the advanced techniques I actually ripped off from magazines and would do in class, you know. Spinning back kick, you know, I learned that from Black Belt Magazine, you know, Chuck Norris, he'd do fake back, hand chop, the guy would go for the high guard and he'd spin around woop. Hit the guy with…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Was that because your school didn't have a spinning back kick, or you were learning it maybe sooner than they wanted to teach it to you?

Dan Anderson: 

I would bet dollars to donuts that we didn't have a spinning back kick. I mean it was what the style that I trained in it was called kongsudo, kongsudo, which are the Korean pronunciation of Karatedo, empty hand way. Kongsudo. Same, same. Now, to me, it was a Korean version of Shotokan karate. How did I know this? Well, I picked up Tsutomu Ohshima's book, his translation of Karatedo Kyohan by Gichin Funakoshi. I'm looking at the katas and it's like dang. That, hey…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

We do that one.

Dan Anderson: 

Hand one, that's pyeong and one. Hand on two, that's pyeong and two. Bassai, that's Bassai.  [00:19:29]. And you know, all with the long stance and with the et cetera, et cetera, it's like, oh. So I originally started out in a Korean version of Shotokan Karate. So if you look at 1966 Shotokan karate, they didn't have spinning anything unless you're hit with a leg sweep, you know? So you know, you get to the tournament champions that are doing all this crazy stuff such as Skip In and Sidekick.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Revolutionary.

Dan Anderson: 

It's good stuff. I gotta jump on this, so, yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay. I know competition has been a big part of your time in the martial arts and…

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah, that's where I’ve been [00:20:14].

Jeremy Lesniak: 

When were you first aware of competition? Was it from magazines or?

Dan Anderson: 

Oh yeah, it's from Black Belt Magazine. Now, Black Belt at that point in time was the only magazine and it was a bimonthly. So, you know, every other month I'd walked downtown probably about a mile, mile and a half, something like that. And pester this one magazine bookshop owner, you know, has the new Black Belt magazine come in. And I'd go down there and I'd just lap it up. And one of the things that they had in there was Technique of the Month. So they'd have guys like Joe Lewis and Skipper Mullins and Chuck Norris and Allen Stein and all these old pioneers demonstrating is either technique of the month or my favorite technique or whatever. But the cool thing was they covered tournaments. And so the thought of competition really got me going, got me fast. And then when I finally was able to enter competition, I did poorly. But the first one was the one they didn't even allow kids to fight. All you could do is kata. So I went up, I competed in kata. And if you are familiar with either Tekki Shodan or Naihanchi Shodan you know, the horse stance one where you go back and forth. I whizzed through that probably and a half a second. I mean, I just, there's no sense of timing, no sense of pacing, no sense of drama.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

How old were you at that point?

Dan Anderson: 

15.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay.

Dan Anderson: 

15.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

You've been training a year or so?

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah, about a year. And on that one, I think my mom allowed me to take the bus up to Tacoma. And so this is like 15-year-old Greyhound bus, go up, compete, come back, but I ripped through it and I don't know what place I got. I know it was below third place and they didn't tell me. Then later on in the year, I compete at the Seattle Open. Now the Seattle Open was the big monster tournament, and that at this point then they let us, the junior divisions fight and anything under 15, 16 was junior. And so I was 15 years old. And at that point in time I was really funny because you know, there's been a big thing on, you know, continuous fighting. Well, that's what we did. The juniors did continuously, we didn't do points. And so, I'm out there and I'm in this match and it's the only one my mother ever came to. And so I'm out there and yeah this is before safety pads and all this good stuff. I take this shot right in the sternum and I start going down, right? Then they call time to let me get my air. Well, outta the corner of my eye, here comes mom coming down the stance and I'm gonna go, no, mom, no, because I can't have her coming to the ring and you know, my poor Danny or anything like that. So I finally was up and ready to go before she got down there. But that was the last tournament she ever came to. And after that, it was like, you know, you go with friends, you go by yourself, but she wasn't gonna see her kid get dropped. And then now my dad, my dad was a funnier one cause this one if you're ever around me in a social sense, then you see that I've got this oddball wicked sense whatever. This is from my father. So years later, ‘71. I'm fighting for the grand championship at Trail Vancouver. Vancouver, Washington, and, no, no, no, excuse me. It's in Portland. In Portland. It's the Portland Community College Championships. And he told me he was gonna show up. Well, all day. I don't see him. He's like, where's dad? Where's Dad? Where's Dad? You know, I wanna do well for Dad. Where's Dad? I don't see him. And so I'm fighting in the championship and then at that point in time when you were tied and you know, and time ran out, you turn around, you go back to your respective lineup places, and you'd sit in an oriental kneeling position for 30 seconds, right? So we're tied. They have us turn around, sit down, and out of the corner of the gymnasium I hear, hit him now. Yeah, Dad's waving now.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Found him. Found him. He's here.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah. He turned around, sat down, hit him now, you know. So those are the only two times that my parents ever watched me fight. But my turning point and this was in ‘68? The white belt division back in the day was white belt through green belt. So, you know, those poor orange belts and purple belts and blue belts and white belts had to fight as green belts. Well, I took third place at that tournament. And then shortly thereafter, I made my brown belt and I took third at the Seattle Open and first at the Western States, two of the two biggest tournaments in City of Northwest. And things started. And so you know, I continued on.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Let me ask a question for you.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Was that buying time? Was this something you were putting a lot of time into practicing, or was it strictly natural talent?

Dan Anderson: 

You know it's funny, everybody and their mother will tell me that I was a natural. Lauren Christensen, he mentioned that I was a natural learner. I don't know. I know I practiced a hell of a lot. I practiced very hard. But if anything was gonna make a determining factor is I was very passionate about it. This was the thing that was my niche. This was my thing. This is the thing. I mean, I felt like a natural, but was I honestly a natural? Hard to say. I mean, it's really hard to honestly say. So, the best thing to do is just let others make that determination for me. I know that and, you know, and passion is like, if we talk about my success, I can talk more about passion, but I was a very passionate about it. And then the second thing is that I was willing to overcome the upsets of life so to speak. You know, there were many, many people who had lost in tournaments and so forth and they let that be the determining factor as to whether there any good or… me I'd lose and I'd get cranky about it and I'd go harder. But it was a real passion thing so, you know, like I said, I'll let other people determine that I know that it was not uncommon for me to bring a notepad to class and I would take notes and I would draw, I would cartoon the techniques and I even did this up through when I was training with Remy Presas in modern arnis.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Is anybody else in your school doing that?

Dan Anderson: 

Oh, no, no, no. They… 

Jeremy Lesniak: 

It’s a very rare person I see take notes in a martial arts context.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah. Yeah. And this was like, you know like I said, I was passionate. I was burning at it. And so this is you know what I was going to do, so there you go. 

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yeah. Okay.

Dan Anderson: 

So anyway…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Oh yeah, please go ahead. Go.

Dan Anderson: 

Oh, I was just gonna say…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

You don't need my segue if you're taking it yourself.

Dan Anderson: 

Well, you were talking about tournaments, so, you know, I did well as a brown belt and I can tell you about my black belt test later cause it doesn't have to do anything with tournaments. But by the time I made black belt, you know, my thought process was I can beat these guys. Now, the first guy…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Who were the guys? Because there were some names that people might recognize, right? When you talked to, they got…

Dan Anderson: 

No not in the Pacific Northwest.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay. We're still there. Okay.

Dan Anderson: 

No. We're still in the Northwest. No.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay.

Dan Anderson: 

But, you know, my thought was, you know, I could beat these guys. Now that didn't quite turn out as planned because in the first two tournaments, I got beat my very first match. And I've seen this happen to others where, you know, they get upset, they get cranky, they get this or that, they get discouraged. And it was like, no, no, no, I gotta go harder, go harder, go harder. Then it was finally in Bremerton, Washington, a little seaport that's across from Tacoma in 1978, Bob Hills Tournament, where I actually won the grand championship. And it was like, yes! But if we get into talking about some of the guys, okay, now I gotta roll back to 1969 and I was a brown belt at the time. A very well-known martial artist across the country, Mr. Steve Armstrong who has since passed, he ran the Seattle Open, but more importantly, he ran the International Karate Championships. He was the guy that was on the floor at Ed Parker's Tournament. And so, he was the guy's getting rings going, making sure things ran on time, et cetera. Well, anyway, so he went down to the internationals every year. And he had taken a shine to me because I was you know, this scrawny little kid coming out of Portland, Oregon but I would come up to his tournaments and I had to ask everybody questions. I'd ask everybody questions, and so one year he, you know, he asked if I'd like to come along and he usually had like little caravan, a bunch of his students that go down. And so I went down to the internationals at the age of 16. You know, and again, my mom is like, yeah, you can go. Okay, cool. So I go down and this is the first time where I get to see some of the, I mean, the champions, you know? I see Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris competes in Con Mike Stone. Mike Stone competes in Con. I get to see fighters like Joe Lewis and John Natividad and Benny Urquidez and Steve Saunders, who's now Steve Mohammed. And it was in, oh, and I get to claim right now that I'm the only person alive who has met Bruce Lee and taught him nothing. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. And like, and I can't tell you my Bruce Lee story in a moment, but I had several things happen as a young brown belt that was just incredible. Okay, so picking it up from the 1968, ‘69 internationals. Yeah, that was an amazing experience for me because I learned some very, very good senior-junior habits actually as a brown belt. And one of the most important ones was that now see back in 1969, okay? Those of you guys who were my age, you know, I just turned 70 in November. Remember this very well. The rest of you guys Google it up, go to YouTube and look at the political climate at that time in 1969, summer of 1969. So what you had is you had this huge black-white thing going, you had civil rights, you had the Black Panthers, you had Elridge Cleaver. You had a lot of this stuff going on, and, you know no offense to you know, us white boys, but you know, you had white-oriented press, so all this was like even fueled more, right? And I lived, you know, the town that I lived in was 24,000 people and it was mostly a white-oriented town. I only knew five black kids. Yeah. Two were the Mosley brothers. They were twins. One guy was Clarence Harris, who was the school jock. Another guy Jimmy Johnson, who got himself as a young James Brown. And then this other kid that I can't remember was Urkel before there ever was Urkel. So these are the only guys that I knew, right? 

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yeah. 

Dan Anderson: 

But at the same time, you hear about you know, this Black Panther movement and this and that. The next thing, well, I'm driving, I'm writing, see, I'm not driving. I'm writing down. And I'm hearing all this stuff about the Black Karate Federation and how there's been riots at the tournament and that sort of thing. You know, you gotta watch out for this business. And you know, Steve Sanders, who's, like I said now, Steve Mohammed, he was chief instructor, he was the main guy. Well, he had also been in the magazines, you know, he, but Steve Sanders fought Harry Font there and like that, and I was very big on Heroes at the time. So I'm at the Internationals and over probably about a hundred feet from me as Steve Sanders, probably about 20, 30 of his guys, and you know, like every other martial arts school, you know, the school hangs together, you know, Chuck Norris's guys were over here, and the Tracy Kempo guys were over here. And here's Steve Sanders with BKF and I'm looking over there and I'm kind of going, God, I wanna meet this guy, but I don't wanna get my butt beat just cause I'm a white boy. Now, see, mind you, this is the promo that I bought into.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Right.

Dan Anderson: 

So I decided, you know, to gird my loins and go over and I walked over, excuse me, Mr. C Sanders. Yes? He goes, yes. And I go and I said something about, you know, I just wanted to meet you. I read about you in magazines. And I don't even remember what he said to me, but I know it was soft-spoken. It was like, thank you. And I just thought in my head and thank you, and I turned away and it was like I didn't get killed. I didn't get jumped. I didn't get my ass whipped. Something's wrong with this picture of the promo that I was given. And as I told him and Cliff Stewart later on says I got my first brilliant race relations lesson right there. And the funny thing was just to go further on this after I made black belt, I started hanging with the guys. There was the second-gen guys. And so young know I'm hanging out with Sammy Pace and Ernest Russell and Hotdog Harvey and Nathan Cruz and Crager Smith and number of these guys and you know, I'm almost second family with that guys, right? And I run into Cliff Stewart oh gosh, in the early 2000s or something like that. And we're at George Kirby's Boot Ocean Camp and George Kirby's a well-known jujitsu practitioner. But he'd have a bunch of people in at his Boot Ocean Camp and they'd be teaching different things. while he teaching arnis, Cliff was teaching his WAR, I believe it's called Weapons at Reach or Weapons at Range, something like that. And I'm thinking, okay, he's one of the BKF seniors, he's not gonna remember who I am. So from across the gym, I hear Super Dan! I look up and it's Cliff and I'm thinking, oh God, he does remember me. So we get together, we talk and I told him the story about, you know, meeting pops in 1969 and I said, you know, I said, where does he live? Cause I'm in LA at the time. I said, well, he's in Atlanta, Georgia, so okay, fine. I said, you know, I never got to tell him that. Well, anyway, that was in the morning. Later on in the afternoon, I hear again Super Dan! Except his arm is extended, he's got a cell phone in his hands. He goes guess who I have on the line? Oh, really? So I get on there and I talk to Steve and I told him about this lesson that I learned from him and honest to Pete and he goes, well, Dan, you don't know this, but you're the guy that we used to watch to learn how to fight the top fighters. And I'm kind of going, you've got to be kidding. You, the guy who Bruce Lee said had the fastest hands in karate, you had won the International Karate Championships Lightweight Title, I don't know how many times, you are watching me to see how to fight them?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

That's quite the compliment.

Dan Anderson: 

Oh, oh, it's beyond that. It was amazing.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yeah.

Dan Anderson: 

And anyway, so, you know, he's been a very special place in my heart. You know and I met a number of people there and the creameth crop in terms of learning how to treat others actually came from Bruce Lee. And it's funny because, you know, I mean, like I said my running joke is that I'm the only you know person who's ever met Bruce Lee who taught him nothing because of course, after he died and people talk about hey I worked at Bruce. He learned this, he learned that he learned next thing…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

And or the other way you know, he taught me what he really wanted this to be and…

Dan Anderson: 

Exactly right. And so my thing on Bruce Lee was that, you know, and now the International Crowding Championships is like 2,500 competitors. It was two days long. And after the second day, there would be an intermission where they would clean the arena and then set it up for people to come in for the finals. So I'm sitting off to the side and there's this limo that pulls up, black limo and out pot, and I can recognize, you know, this is like maybe half the length of a football field, maybe 50 yards, maybe longer. But I recognize him, you know, it's like, you know, Bruce Lee’s everybody's hero at the time, and he gets out and he and Linda, he get out and I'm kinda like, next thing I know is I am up walking to an intercept. I am going to intercept. So I was like, man, I'm…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Was this conscious or did your feet take over?

Dan Anderson: 

My feet said get off your ass, boy. We're heading for Bruce Lee. And so, and I don't know what I'm going to say. I really don't. It's like, oh man, what do I say? What did, I don't know what I'd say. So I get up in front of him and I mean, I actually walked get in front of, I cut off his pass and I would say, excuse me, you're Mr. Bruce Lee, aren't you? He goes, yes. I'm thinking furiously. Well, I used to collect business cards, martial arts business cards. And so I asked him I collect business cards. Do you have one on here that I can have? No. When I tell this story in a seminar, I'll always pick somebody and I'll always ask okay, so who came here in street clothes? Not in your credit, but who came here in street clothes? Somebody will raise their hand. Okay, good. So what shirt did you wear? Oh, I had this blue button-down shirt. Good. What kind of pants? Levi's. Good. Did you wear a belt? Yeah. What kind of belt? Well, it was this brown thing. What kind of socks did you wear? Well, I got these blue and white striped socks that I got from my wife for April Fools Day. Good. What kind of shoes do you have? Well, I got a pair of Reebok and they're, it's good. What color are they? They're red. What, so do they have stripes on 'em? To describe it and they'll go in this description of what they wore, right? Well, and I do this to emphasize a certain point which is, so I asked Bruce Lee, now I'm regretting the question. Like this Bruce Lee, you know, he liked to show how buff he was. So he's got his little black Nero jacket and it's nice and tight. He's got these white pants that they're skin-tight. You can count every single hair on his butt, and he's got his beetle boots on. And so he didn't have a business card I saw he didn't have with him, he didn't have a wallet. It would've been seen either in his rest pocket or his back pocket or whatever. So what does Bruce Lee do? I asked him for a business card, honest to Pete. Pats his chest, pats his pocket, says I'm sorry, I don't have one. Maybe next time. He takes three seconds to put on this show of looking for a business card. He knew damn well he didn't have just because a kid asked him. And so I said, thank you very much, sir. And I left, and of course, I was out at Cloud Nine now. Yeah, he could have very, very easily done a WC Fields and you youngsters go Google 'em up, go YouTube him. And, you know, he could have done a go away kid, you bother me type of thing. Which I got from Joe Lewis later on. So that was my only down thing in the 1969, International but, you know, that lesson was utterly brilliant because later on in my tournament career, I even have kids come up and ask me for an autograph on the, not the flyer, but the booklet that they'd have a term, the pamphlet at the tournament. And I would never refuse. In fact, I even had one where they are calling my name. Dan Anderson, riding light-weight, her first place from Portland, Oregon. And kid comes up and I go, look, they're calling my name. I gotta go fight. You stay here, don't move. I'll be back. Don't go. You're not gonna go away. Good, don't go anywhere. I go up. Win lose or draw. I can't remember what happened on the match, but what I do remember is I come back down, the kid's still standing there. I said, thank you. You didn't move. Let me. And you know there's a good buddy of mine, Mike Geneva, who was also a top tenor when I was a top tenor. And he and I quite often would have kids lined up and we'd always sign, always sign, always sign, never turn anybody away. And even to this day, you know, if and it's not so much on autographs, like, you know, advice or they wanna say something, I always give them time. Always give them time because you never know how just a few seconds might impact somebody. And the big thing is, is if you can impact somebody positively, let me tell you this other story here. 1973 US Championships, okay? I had taken the second place at this 1972 Internationals, but I still wasn't really widely known. And you know, I'd never met Bill Wallace. Wow! The best kicker in all karate. The guy who's like number one in the United States. Wow! This is amazing. So, you know, there's Bill Wallace and so I kind of get my guts up and, excuse me. Hi, Mr. Wallace. You don't know me. I'm Danny Anderson from Oregon. May I ask you a question? Sure. Could you gimme any pointers on my hook kick? So what does Bill Wallace do? He takes me outside the competition to a hallway. We end up stretching and training together for 20 minutes. This is the time the number one guy in the country, I mean, he could have cocked his eyebrow. And again, yes. Sorry, I can't, I don't have the timer. I'm talking with these guys or he takes me out and he works with me so.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

He's always been a Class Act.

Dan Anderson: 

Bill's great.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yeah.

Dan Anderson: 

Bill's great. I mean, but there's a lot of guys that were really great. Jeff Smith was great. Howard Jackson was great. Chuck Norris. Okay. I have two Chuck Norris’ stories. One's a really good one and the other one shows what a knucklehead I was.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Well, that could also be a really good story.

Dan Anderson: 

Well, it is a good story. It's just one of those that I mean I can still tell, but you know, Chuck. Okay. 1973 here in Gresham, Oregon. Yeah, I'm a poor karate boy. I'm a poor karate competitor. He's got a seminar and I don't know how much it is. It's, I dunno, a princely sum 25 bucks or something. And one of his students, Bob Barrow, is teaching English at Gresham High School, right? So I come out, but I'm sitting up in the stands. Now we had met several times in the, you know, at the internationals and so forth. And being a competitor, I'm pretty sure he knew who I was only because we competitors tend to scope out other competitors. And he looks up in the stands and you know, I'm watching, he goes Danny, what are you doing up there? I said sorry, sir. I couldn't afford the seminar. He says, did you bring a gi? Yes sir. Come on down. Come, come and train. Didn't charge me for the summer. Pulled me out of the stance to get with the rank and file and do what he was doing, right? And it's like, ah, again, you know, Chuck Norris was like, this is before movie film Walker, Texas, Ranger Delta, blah, blah, blah, chucker. But he was still very, very extremely well-known. Yeah. It's being like the number one guy for three years in the US. Danny, come down, train, come down and train. This is Chuck, you know. I felt comfortable enough around him to prank him later. This is really bad. But people, anybody who knows me outta the road, go, yeah, that was dead. The 1980 Battle of Atlanta and Chuck is sitting at the like the VIP combo, VIP announcer's table, and I walk up behind him. I pinch my nose and I say in a very high voice excuse me, Mr. Norris. Could you sign my cup? And he hesitatingly turns around to look at me like, oh my goodness, what have I got myself to? And he looks at me and I have this great big grin on my face, and he just starts laughing. Oh, Danny says, hi, Mr. Norris, how you doing? But that was, so those are my two Chuck Norris stories, but…

Jeremy Lesniak:

Those are great.

Dan Anderson: 

But the thing I like to tell about, you know, people about Chuck Norris, I'm not meeting him. Is that the guy that you see, you know, on Carson or on Letterman or [00:45:13], that's the guy you see in real life and the guy who's just friendly, affable, not full of bs, et cetera. Yeah. That was Chuck and that was Chuck before his movie days. And then you see him after his movie days and you know, I think he just did like his 83rd birthday or some crazy, crazy thing.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

83, yeah.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah, yeah. More power to him. I mean, just a wonderful.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

He looks great.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah, doing great. And it's just a wonderful role model. So I learned a lot from these guys, and although I didn't let's say enact it until later on there were terrific role models. And so this is kind of the thing that I try and emulate out to the younger colored belts, the younger black belts, and so forth. You know, I'll do this more so in seminars. I don't go to tournaments anymore, but, you know. I remember Jackie Bradbury, she and her husband run, Kindred Protective Arts in Kansas City, Missouri. And she said something that really made me feel good was that I said, so what, you know, what is it that I should promote my, about myself, because I'm not a great self-promoter? And she said, well, you're the most accessible Grand Master that I've ever met. Oh, One of my students, Barry McConnell, I remember we were coming back from somewhere doing like a seminar or something, and it's like 11: 30 at night, and I'm just hungry in their big dog. I said, Barry, do you mind if we like stop for a burger or somewhere? He goes Dan, you're the most low-key grandmaster that I've ever met. Yes, we can stop and get something to eat. So, and I tell you that sort of thing, you know, is like one of those, you know questions that you get. How would you like to be remembered? Well, low-key Grandmaster, accessible, aside from being a technical geek that will figure out any and everything so that you can do it easily. That's how I'd like to be remembered. And you know, I learned it from guys like, you know, like Jeff Smith. You know, he's one of these guys that if anybody's earned to have a chip on his shoulder, this is Jeff.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Sure.

Dan Anderson: 

There's another chip on his shoulder. Bill, he's earned enough to have two chips.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yes.

Dan Anderson: 

One on each shoulder.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yes.

Dan Anderson: 

No chips on his shoulder. I mean, these guys are like very accessible and…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

There's a joke in there somewhere about hitting. He put both of 'em on one shoulder.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah. So he can kick with his left leg so he can counterbalance.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Can't quite find the joke, but there's one in there.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, this all stems in from the question, you know, of the old guys. What did I learn from the old guys? That's where I learned from the old guys so.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay. Eventually, competition lost its luster for you. You stepped back and you started thinking about other things with regard to martial arts. What was the pivot? Where did you go next?

Dan Anderson: 

Well, where I went next was in Filipino martial arts, modern arnis. And I had the great fortune not of meeting Remy Presas, but of Remy Presas putting up what my big on knot head.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

It's a little bit of a theme going here.

Dan Anderson: 

And finally seeing the light, you see. I mean, there were several knot headed moments in my martial arts career. Now in meeting Remy Presas, okay, we'll back up to you know, it was 1980 and I was in the top 10 world-class athletes but I was starting to get disinterested in competition. I had achieved all my goals. The one goal that I never set was to be and remain number one in the country. Whoops! Perhaps I should have set that goal, but that in five bucks we'll get you a cup of coffee. But anyway, so we're down in Oakland, California and I'm rooming with a very good friend of mine. His name is Fred King. He was a Kajukenbo stylist. And Freddy, he had a school in Portland, and we'd go over every Thursday night and we'd train, you know, it's just a heavy sparring night. We'd beat each other up. But he was into putting on seminars by all these guys that I was not interested in. I've got this Tai Chi guy coming in, says really good. Says yeah, Tai Chi guys can't fight. Danny, Danny, I got this weapons guy coming. Yeah, yeah. Put the weapons down. I'll beat on him. Danny, Danny, this guy's got a Qigong. You know, it's like a yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My thoughts on Qigong was, is more of like a rhythm thing, Qigong, you know, and yeah, I was karate jock, I was a fighter. I was not interested. So we're rooming down in Oakland, California, and at this point, I always switched to my viewpoint at the time because it makes the story better. And so he's got this professor guy with him, and this kinda short stocky guy can't understand every three words that comes out of his mouth. And this guy is tagging along with us. I can't shake this guy. And he's always telling stories about there was this, there was that, and I, you know when they do the audience and everything the New York. And please, please, please, please, please get me away from this guy. Well anyway, you know, the night before the tournament, I'm out partying and so I go to bed and I'm at six in the morning. I'm hearing this. He and Fred are up practicing. They're doing trapping hands. Brush, grab, strike, brush, grab, strike. I look at the clock and I say, guys, it's six in the morning, and I pull the covers over my head and they stop. Well, an hour later I hear off in the distance. Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack. Whether they're doing a double canes drill called sinawali out in the parking lot. I'm thinking, you fucked to be kidding me. These guys are nuts. Okay, so anyway, so we've got the eliminations of the shirt and we, I still can't shake this guy. I mean, it still can't shake this guy. This guy's following all over this professor guy, and I can't understand him, and he won't leave me alone. We get to the intermission and we're at this point where it's like he's telling a story and I'm looking for a rope and a rafter. I'm ready to hang myself. It's like, spare me this because this is like going on way too long. And maybe he's in the subway in New York and they grabbed me and he said three person. So he is telling me about how he's getting mugged in New York in the subway. And then he goes honey, you grab me. And I don't know of, I mean, at least spiritually, I rolled my eyes up on my head, okay, now's the time to take me out and shoot me. So I grab his wrist and then magic happened. He just did a very simple walk away, you know, I'll see if I can do this from the camera. You know, you raise your arm up here, then you walk under your arm and it prices it under your hand. But it wasn't what he did, it was how he did it. Remember, I've been fighting the Black Belt Division. This is 1980, I've been fighting for 10 years. I was in the top 20 for three or four years. I was in the top 10 for a couple of years. I have seen all kinds of confidence. I've seen Jeff Smith own a room just by walking in. I'm just whoah! I've seen Howard Jackson calmly, extremely certain of himself. I've seen blustery types try and fake their way into conference or come. When Remy Presas did this, I got the feeling that it never occurred to him that it wouldn't work. I mean, this was so above any confidence level that I'd seen. And mind you, I've been trying to blow this guy off for a day and a half. And I spotted that. And one of my first thoughts is, whoa! I gotta watch this guy. So several months later he comes to Portland and he's on doing a two-day seminar. And I took the two-day seminar and I was just off the high board again. Jump off the high board, don't hit water with karate, jump off the high board with arnis, and don't hit the water. And the thing that impressed me so much about him was how he did disarm, how he did takeaways on the stick. And it was like a hot knife through butter. There wasn't any yanking, wrenching, overpowering so forth is you had the stick. He captured the stick. You no longer had the stick. And you're, how in the hell did he do that? And it was the most perfect segue from being a karate jock over into being a martial artist. And the thing about him, which is just amazing is as opposed to Professor Remy only being a stick guy, he was an empty-hand guy as well. So the entirety of, I mean there's a huge piece of the pie that I was missing in terms of martial arts. So we have joint locking, we have throwing, we have sensitivity, we have body maneuvering. You know, I had the kick and punch down because like I said, you know, National Champion, three years running. Easy. I have kick and punch. You don't have to, I don't have to worry about that. But there's all this other stuff that I had read about because I studied many martial arts and I've gotta make a clarification here because there's an author, Japanese author, his name is Kenji Tokitsu, and he's in Paris now. He's written several very good martial arts books, and he was talking about karate kata and he said, you know, I have studied 50 variations, 50 different karate styles. And he goes, but let's make the distinction between studied and trained in. I said, he's only trained in like maybe three or four styles, but he had studied which mean he had studied the attributes and characteristics and the similarities and differences in the principles of 50 other styles. Well, I had studied a lot on martial arts. I had studied a lot on internal Chinese martial arts. I studied on Indonesian martial arts as well as Japanese, Korean, and Okinawan martial arts, and then as well as principles of judo and Aikido and so forth. And so I had a concept of the rest of the piece of the pie, but I had not had the training. Well, with Professor Remy, I ended up having the training and it shifted me from being a karate jock to a martial artist. And at that point in time, you know, I remember talking to Steve, the other late Steve Fisher, very good friend of mine, class individual. I'm poo-pooing this ab. I'm just karate jocks. It's not a Dan new martial arts, nah, I'm a karate jock. You're a martial artist. Well, he knew about five years before I did that I was a martial artist. But…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

I'm curious with the stuff with Presas, did it feel like an evolution of your training or did it feel like it was a complete shift?

Dan Anderson:

It was a left turn at Albuquerque.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay.

Dan Anderson: 

Which morphed into the evolution of my training. I was familiar. It's funny because there's been a lot of yip on the internet about you know, if you trained in another style, you didn't get pure modern arnis and yada yada yada. And that's for a totally different interview with somebody else. But the thing was, is that luckily enough, back in the day, I was a bit of a chameleon. If Chuck Norris did a move, I worked on that move until I looked like Chuck Norris. If John Natividad did the low, high round kick, I worked on it until I looked like John Natividad. So I was constantly redefining, reshaping what my body could do.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay.

Dan Anderson: 

Keith Vitali, and he'll back us up, he said to me many times, Dan, you and I fought alike, except you used both sides, you know? And I never looked at it that way. I mean, we had the same tools and so forth, but the thing is that I was very familiar with accommodating or using my body to accommodate whatever techniques for lack of a better word. So I gravitated on an arnis very, very quickly. But there was a lot of stuff that I had never done. I had never worked with weapons because most of the weapons I had been familiar with was like the six-foot bow staff, which is like, yeah like, I'm gonna carry a bow, or the sickles or the new chaku. You know, I played with new chaku until I did a letterman, stupid petrick conked myself in the head. Very hard. It's like, nah, these are going away, man. I'm throwing these away. But when we got into the single stick, and then the single stick could also morph into the empty hand, it was like, oh, this is fascinating. And then the final thing body-wise, which was just amazing, and I found out that it's pretty much this way in other Filipino martial arts is that it was based on the flow. So instead of being ballistic, high speed, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam which is hard on the body. Okay? Now you're into a continuity of motion, continuity of action, continuity of movement that didn't have the cha cha cha type of thing to it, which is very body friendly. You know, you think about it on let's say Tai Chi after about five quad shots of espresso. That's the flow in arnis.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

It's a great metaphor. I hope you get it.

Dan Anderson: 

And it was, and this became the evolution of Dan's art because it has, it's funny because there's again, like, you know, going back to that like Pierre Modern Arnis Yep. You know, yeah. Somebody's karate or TaeKwonDo influenced their arnises. Well, with me, it's the reverse. It's the arnis has totally morphed my karate and morphed what I do, what I teach. And you know it was a wonderful gift and wonderful test of patience for Professor Remy to put up with me being a knothead, trying to shine him on so that then I could finally, I could repeat the rewards of it. And so 1980, it's 2023, so that's 43 years no. My math right? Yeah. 43 years. Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

What was your relationship with him like?

Dan Anderson: 

Oh, now, okay. Hold on. How's that? Palm slapped to the forehead. We were very friendly, but I kept him at a slight distance because one of the things about my, yeah, I was known as Super Dan. I was known as the Rebel. I was the first guy to wear a t-shirt in karate competition at work. I was the first guy to have a nickname nationally before Superfoot, there was Super Dan. And there's a funny story to that, which I can get into. But the thing that wasn't known about me is, was that I had a strong senior-junior ethic, Professor Remi was my senior. Danny call me Remy. Yes Sir, Professor. No, no Danny. You call me Remy. Yes, sir. Say, professor, what about, you know so now, unlike Fred King, now Fred King who also has a terrific senior junior ethic, but he had more of a personal relationship with Professor Remy. And if there was any, I don't believe in regrets, but if there's any, and substitute a better word for regret, but if there's any regret that I had, it was that I never took the time to actually establish a personal, personal relationship. And he wanted to. But I still had the senior-junior thing going on. That being said, you know, I helped organize seminars for him. There were several seminars where I was his right-hand man, where I was his dummy, et cetera. And so we had high regard for each other but I didn't let him in as close as perhaps I should havee so.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

You regret that sounds.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah. Anyway, we're back to funny stories, Super Dan. So back in, oh, 1973? I had one our organization's tournament which was the Western State Karate Championships. And I'd won it for like the second or third time or some crazy thing like that. And one of our black belts, Paula Short would write it up, send it to the magazines. Cause the magazines would print, you know, so she wrote it up and sent it in, had pictures and so forth. And she has in their Young Super Dan Anderson as he is being known across the Northwest and she'd done that as a prank, because also because I liked comics. I read comic books. I love comic books. And I'm reading this Super Dan Anderson, I'm kinda going and I'm pissed off. I'm angry cause it's like, and her attitude on it was ha ha deal with it.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

I love it.

Dan Anderson: 

So I was cranky about it until I was at a tournament and there was a guy that came up and he goes, Super Dan! And he shook my hand, but it was out of like, wow, this is cool in respect. And my first thought is I've got a handle, you know, like CB radio, you know, breaker, breaker, Super Dan on the line, you know, it's like I've got a handle. And ever since then I liked it. Now here's. And it punished. And funny story when I quit competing, people call me Super Dan and I said sir, that guy's no longer around. Cause I didn't fight anymore, right? So anyway, about four years ago, I get tickets to the Grand Cardone 10X Summit. And it happens to be down in Vegas, so it's close cheap tickets which means I'm way up in the nosebleed seats. But think of Super Bowl halftime for businessmen on steroids. That was the Grant Cardone thing. And now at the same time, one of the buzzwords in the industry was, does what you're doing reflect your brand? And so, you know, I'm huge on definitions. If you have a working or correct definition of something. Okay, you can work with it. Nobody would define brand for me. You know, it's not your brand name, it's not your logo, it's your brand. And it's kinda like, thanks, guys. This is getting me nowhere. Well anyway, so I'm up in the cheap seat, there's this guy talking about oh, watch what you post on Facebook because it can reflect negatively on your brand. It's kinda like, yeah, my wife has told me that a lot. Watch what you post on Facebook because you wanna put a good image for us and so forth. But he goes, it might reflect negatively on your brand. And then he goes, so what is your brand? and honest opinion he goes, it's you and what you stand for. And I damn near jumped outta my seat and yelled. Thank you because somebody had given me a working definition of brand about a quarter of a second later it hits me, wait a minute, I've got a brand that I had been dissing for nearly 20 years. That was Super Dan. That's what people knew me as. That had a whole image to it. So I'm sitting there and I've got my phone, I'm texting Fred King, I'm at the Grant Cardone 10X Conference. Super Dan is back. Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. I will explain when I get home. And he sends me this picture, like with a great big thumbs up or whatever. And ever since then you know, a lot of my posts, a lot of my stuff, you know, it has to do with Super Dan, because that is what I was known as, that was my brand. And it all came out of being pranked. So you know, so when we get back to and again, this segues goes back around to the senior-junior thing. Because I was Super Dan, one of the first things I did was I caught me this three-quarter length blue shirt I ironed on a Superman symbol and I fought in that. First person across the country that did that. I later on had a football jersey Super Dan.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Did you get any pushback?

Dan Anderson: 

You know, the traditionalists looked at me kinda like the young ones, they loved it, but the thing was is I could back it up in tournaments.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yeah. Did you wear a belt, still wear your belt?

Dan Anderson: 

Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Yeah. And I, you know, I'd wear like the regular black karate pants, gi pants, I'd wear the belt, or sometimes it'd be blue because I mean, I wore whatever I wanted. I was Super Dan. If you don't like it to whip me in the ring. And unfortunately, I was kind of Mr. Joe cocky that way. I thought I was the white Muhammad Ali. I thought I was having a lot of fun. Everybody else thought I was cocky, so they either liked it, that didn't. 

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Sure. 

Dan Anderson: 

But anyway but yeah, I mean, and sometimes there are even tournaments that wouldn't allow you to wear a t-shirt, but, and of course, I had a gi jacket with me just in case. But eventually, I started winning my way over. And this is, and people that are listening there's a lesson that I learned a little bit too late in the competitive field, but no matter how you feel, what you're doing. Be observant of the reactions around you. See, my blinders were like this and like this. So when I thought I was being the white Muhammad Ali being cool, I figured everybody knew that. No, no. I started hearing stories about what an arrogant little whatever a cocky, et cetera. And it's kinda like, oh no, I'm having fun. Well, I'm having fun in my head, but that's not what I'm projecting. And so I found out that it is much easier to earn a bad rep than it is to work it off. It took me about five years to work off this arrogant, cocky business.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Okay. How did you do that? How did you combat that?

Dan Anderson: 

I just stopped acting like that and let the stories die out. You know, it was just I didn't do any explaining to anybody because you know, it's like anybody can explain or justify or whatever. But the thing was is, I started, you know being friendlier or side being friendlier towards traditionalists. I started acting more like a karate guy instead of like the white Muhammad Ali. And within that culture, it's kinda like, oh Super Dan must have mellowed out. Good, this is what I want. And so now it has morphed into being, you know, Super Dan's more of the elder statesman. You know, I do that in modern arnis right now cause I'm one of the probably one of the very, very few that's been modern arnist continuously since 1980. There's several others, but I'm…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

It's a short list.

Dan Anderson: 

It's a short list, I'm a bit more prominent. So you know, my nickname amongst the group that I hang out with is Uncle Dan, you know. In Filipino, Manong Dan, and it's, so, it's kinda like the elder statement thing, so it's kinda morphed into that but that's how I did it. And it's going back to the lessons that I learned from guys like Steve Muhammad or Chuck Norris, or Howard Jackson, Jeff Smith, Bill Wallace, these guys. And so you know, that's kind of what's happened there. But yeah, arnis has been, it's been a savings grace not only to my interest but to my body. Because there's a lot of martial arts out there who have bad knees, bad hips, bad backs, bad necks, bad this, bad the next thing. And like here's an example. I was 68 cause it was a year and a half ago where I rode my spider. That's a three-wheeled motorcycle. Two on the front, back. I rode it cross country to Connecticut. And the guy who's organizing the gig Brian Salinsky, he's like, he's very spooked that I'm gonna have like some sort of episode on the road. So I have to tag with him every evening just to let him know that I'm okay. But he would mention to people, says, you know, God, he's been riding all the day on that thing. And all you ever see it is in the first 20 steps, it's like he's back to normal. I get off, I'm a little bit sore. Takes me about, I figured about 10 steps to lubricate the joints and then bam, right back with it. 

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah. 

Dan Anderson: 

Bruce Chu, who is another arnis guy who's also done Kung Fu, he remarked to his to mishand work said, yeah, he's almost 70. God, he's good, you know? And so the thing is that the arnis has really kept the body to where it can function instead of being an old-timey karate guy that you know, has the bad elbows, the bad joints have marched slightly hunched over because I'm injured, et cetera, et cetera. Instead, I look a lot better than you know, people generally estimate my age in about the late 50s or you know, 60s, 63, something like that.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

I've seen you move, you certainly move better than just about any other martial artist at 70.

Dan Anderson: 

And that's the arnis, I mean, there's the karate that was the foundation, the background but the flow on the arnis has helped me move my body in a very relaxed type of manner. And then, you remember when I was telling you about there's difference between study and training?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

And training.

Dan Anderson: 

Okay. Well, I don't have it in front of me, there's this marvelous quote by an internal martial artist named Tim Cartmel. He teaches down, I think, in the San Francisco area. And, you know, people, when they look at internal martial arts, they look at, you know, like Taiji or Xingyi and Bagua. But the thing is, if they go heavy on the cheat, on, you know the chi is flowing and you do the chi power to emanate. Yup Yup Yup.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

I thought the name was familiar, episode 354.

Dan Anderson: 

Oh, I've gotta see that then because Tim Cartmel is one of my heroes. We've never met.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Oh, fun.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah, we've never met, but I've read a lot. But the thing is that Tim, he mentions about internal arts being more of leverage, timing, and precision to use your strongest alignments and positioning against their weakest. And so that concept of internal, along with the flow of arnis has impacted my personal martial arts heavily. Heavily. Tthis is why I can move the way I move. Certain things that I've studied in terms of internal martial arts, I don't do breathing exercises. I don't do Qigong exercises that sort of thing. I respond well to acupuncture and acupressure so I do believe in the healing aspect of the energy. The martial aspect, I'm unconvinced. You know, it's the Mike Tyson rule. Everybody has a plan until he hit him in the face. But when he talks about leveraging and principles and alignments etcetera, you know, this is something that, it's funny cause I've never said this to anybody before, but I'll say this now, is that it's the closest thing to do unless say an internal form of arnis, you know, because…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Sure.

Dan Anderson: 

One of the things that and I'll segue into cause I mentioned by being a geek, a technical geek. I'll segue into that. One of the things that I firmly believe is that anybody can become as skilled as any old master. You know, the old masters did not spring from the head of Zeus fully armed like in Greek mythology, like the Goddess of War, Minerva or Athena. They were the same stupid white belt that everybody is. They got hit in the face because their hands were down. They got kicked in the groin because they didn't cover. They got coughed in the head with the stick because the hand were down at a check-in we said or, and then they continued to train. They morphed the evolve. They became unspeakably awesome. Some knew how to explain it, some didn't. Professor Wally Jay. Okay Small Circle Jujitsu. He knew how to explain small circle. Professor Remy, he was more of a natural fighter. He didn't know how to explain anything in terms of the way that an inquiring Western mind would. That's where his boy comes in. This is where the martial arts geek comes in, because my 100% belief is that anybody can be as skilled as the greatest master or anybody can be as skilled as I am. The only thing is you have to understand it the way that I do. So, that lays the burden of explanation on me. So, how can I communicate this so that you can get this in one lesson? Now, the practice and the training of it, okay, as you and I know, that takes time. That takes time to become skilled at it. But the thing is you learning it via osmosis or intuition or whatever, that's unsatisfactory to me. That is unsatisfactory. I don't do that. I don't believe that. I did the research so that I could figure out, okay, that's the geek in me. I adore research. I love research, I love digging in. But the average Joe student, you know, it's like okay, here's one, here's a freebie for you. You should really buy the book, but here's a freebie for you. Okay. Kata, how can kata training positively affect your free fighting ability? Okay, now everybody in their mother's talking about Bunkai and the self-event applications of breakdown. So kata, but I'm talking free fighting. Now, on the surface, you can't get two more different animals. Free fighting is fluid. It's intuitive. It's fast. This is not kata. It's very set. You can't do the other moves of it. It's like these two are two different animals and they don't mix. Well, actually, and I did this as a research project and it was like, okay, if it's not the surface moves of the kata, what else is there? So what does kata develop? Well, it develops certain attributes. Oh, attributes eh? Let's see where these attributes can trade over. So, what's your background? Very Japanese? Korean?

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Yeah. Think of me as an Okinawan karate.

Dan Anderson: 

Okinawan. Okay, good. So Okinawan karate, your back is straight. You don't lean. If you do your punch and you lean forward, sensei gets crabby.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

That's right.

Dan Anderson: 

He's straight. It's your backup. Okay. Structure. So now, how many times do you see in a tournament competition where the guy is throwing the punch and his body is way forward and so forth? Okay.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Often.

Dan Anderson: 

Horrible structure. So, here is a drill. I go, I have, somebody go, okay, give me the first, two moves of Pinan Nidan. Oh, okay. So you go, they do the down block and then they put the straight punches. Okay. Do it again. Good. Do it again. Alright. Now your back is straight. What would sensei do if your back was oh, you get cramps. Okay, so let's do this. Let's have you guys do just some sparring drills, but you have to focus on keeping that back straight. You can't bend it one bit. Oh, okay. So there, and there, and they're back nice and straight, so, okay, good. There's structure. Alright, now here's another attribute. You do your first move. Okay. Do the second move. You know, I showed up. Start from the down block. Okay. Step in and punch. Okay, good. So what did you do? Well, I stepped in and punch. Okay. Let me ask you this question. Did you arrive? Huh? Well, did you arrive? I don't understand. Well, what's the purpose of that stepping and punch? Well, you going to hit the guy said, okay. Did you arrive? I don't know. I said, okay, well what's the intent to hit somebody? Okay, well do that same move and intend to hit. Okay. Then they, I got, okay, good. So in your mind, did you hit the guy? Yeah. Did you arrive? Yeah. Okay, good. Well, let's do this. How many times have you thrown the punch in the air and you missed the guy cause you didn't get close enough? Oh, good. So then here's the drill. They're about 20 feet apart and they have to do a continuous shuffle until they arrive and they tag the person. That's kata. So it's how you take the attributes of the kata. So if you take the attributes of the kata and you apply 'em to free fighting, okay, there's one application. Let's flip the pancake. Now, how do you take the attributes of free fighting and put it into your kata? I did this example one day with my group and it was amazing. I said okay, guys, I usually let you guys free spar. I don't let you free fight. You know, free fighting is win and lose. Okay. I'mma let you guys free fight. I want you to win in any way that you can and your purpose is to win. Have you guys got it? Okay good. Start. I let 'em go and these guys are being rough neck and thugs for like 30 seconds. And they're pounding each other hard. I go stop. Good. Don't take off your pads, execute Naihanchi Shodan with that same intent now. All timing, all pacing, all clear cut, wonderful technique went totally out the window and that caught came alive. They were beating and pounding something, someone doing that kata. Okay. They breathed life into the kata so they took an attribute from free fighting, infused it into the kata And this was all research project. It's kinda like, okay, good. So our katas valuable? Yeah. Can you learn Bunkai from them? Yes. If you think of it in the way that I do, it's very simple.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Makes sense.

Dan Anderson: 

Can they infect positively each other? Yes. And so when we talk about geeking, okay, that's my job. My job is to make it easier for you and this is in all facets of the martial arts. So whether it's street, whether it's throwing, whether it's locking, whether it's stick work, whether it's double stick work, whether it's karate competition, whether it's free fighting, you know. That's my give back. That is my give back.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Was this the mindset when you started writing books? Cause I wanna make sure you, we've got a little bit of time. I wanna make sure we talk about your books cause you know you've written more than a couple.

Dan Anderson: 

I just finished book number 37.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Right.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah. You know, it's interesting because see, when I wrote the very first book which is my flagship book American Freestyle Karate, A Guy to Sparing, I actually started that out in 1974. And the reason was what you had on the market, you had books on basics. You had books on self-defense and there were real, real basic type of things. You had historical books, you had nothing on free fighting. And so, nobody had written something that I wanted to read. So I wrote it myself. I wrote the book I wanted to read. And I started in ‘74. I was this close to getting it published by Tatle Publishing. And Tatle they were the peak in martial arts books at the time. Well, I went cheap on the photography, didn't wanna spend the money and they rejected it because of the photography. Really smart. So, we fast forward to 1979, I'm in a tournament in LA? Somewhere like that, LA, San Francisco or whatever, and I'm talking to Paul Maslak, who's the editor of Inside Kung Fu, and I tell him about my story about the sparring book. And he looks at me, he goes, Dan, if you write it, I'll publish it. Are you sure? He says yes. You write it and I will publish it. Boom! Handshake. I spent the next nine months handwriting and then taking the handwritten notes over to the Steno pool where I worked, where Kathy typed it out. After three rough drafts, we had the finished manual. Then I sat out very meticulously. I had a notepad on this technique, this move, this move, and I have a number after it. And it would be, okay, this is gonna take five pictures. Because one of the things I had hated was that you were here and then you were here.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Right. You fill in the parts in the middle and…

Dan Anderson: 

Where is the middle stuff? How do we get the…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Magic happened.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah, exactly.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Your time…

Dan Anderson: 

That's how I set up the book. And when we went down there, when we shot the photos, we did over 1200 photos. The photographer, Ed Ikuta said I was the most organized guy he had ever met. I forget I had one shot. That was it. And so I laid everything out in his book. It became the bible of karate-free fighting. It was actually required texts in a lot of different schools. And so that's where it started. Now we get into the year 2000 and I'm a very, very technically minded guy and Professor Remy has three books and for me, and I really have to say this so that everybody can get cranky at me later on, for me, they were useless. They were useless. They were your typical 1970s-style book. And I'm just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I write explains nothing. So I had two books written, but I wouldn't do anything with. Because again, senior, junior, I am not going to interrupt or cross his income stream. Now, he passed away in 2001. Boom! Door open. 

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Came on.

Dan Anderson: 

At the same time, I find out about how to do online printing from Mish Handwerker, good friend of mine and the ball starts rolling now. So, to answer your question, when I first started it was to get a book out there what I wanted to read. As it kept on going, I started looking at okay, where are their holes in the martial arts book trade? Oh, here's a hole. Good. I'm gonna fill that hole. Here's a hole in arnis. I'm gonna fill that hole, filling, filling, filling, filling, filling until I've got as many holes as filled as possible. And again, it's all about, I mean, I'll be the first one to say yes, I wanna turn a profit you know. I wanna make money off of what I've done.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Of course.

Dan Anderson: 

But the number one thing is, again, when I look at myself, okay? I was a kid of 14 who came from a town of 24,000 who did not have a karate dojo. What did I have? Oh, I had desire. I had desire, I had a burn inside me. So, a lot of stuff I had to learn, pay attention, figure out how to describe. And now, after having, you know, I've been teaching since 1969. I've been teaching for 54 years now. You don't have that many nuts in martial arts. You know? I mean, I was a nut. I learned social graces very, very late. I learned a lot of things very, very late because I was such a nut. Well, after having taught for, you know, 54 years, there aren't that many nuts in martial arts. People will leave martial arts because they're confused. You know, why? Because teachers can't explain stuff. Why can't the teachers explain stuff? Well, they weren't nuts either. They didn't geek out on how to really describe how to do this well. So for me, my books and my videos, they are a way of making your life easier. That's how I look at it. If I can make your life easier, boom, I've done it. And aside from just absolutely enjoying the research aspect of it, I adore the research aspect of it. But when we talk about, you know, I've produced, I don't know, maybe, I dunno, 50, 60 DVD titles. Like I said, I've just finished book number 37. And if they have a continuing thread that runs through 'em is that you are going to be able to honestly learn from this. I mean, you're still gonna have to put in the sweat equity. It's not gonna be magic. But it's going to be explained in such a way that you are going to be able to understand the duplicate. And that happened in my first book. I had people going, oh wow. You know, you're not talking above our heads. You're not using this high flute in terms you're, it's almost like you're in the room talking to me. Yes, because that's what I wanted. That's how I wanted it to come across. I am, aside from being, you know, Joe Geek, I'm the same as everybody else you know. I need explanation on computer stuff, so I know how to run it. Good. Please speak to me like I'm a 1970s high school graduate, cause that's what I am, you know. So I will speak to others as though they're high school graduates. Not talking down, but talking straight across. And you know, I've got a personal motto on my own purchases. If I learn one thing from any book that I get, the book paid for itself. It paid for itself, just like that. So long answer to your question..

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Where could people find those books?

Dan Anderson: 

Okay. I mentioned earlier that, my nickname is, you know, Super Dan, so I call it the Super Dan Online Library. If you Google up Super Dan Online Library, it'll take you to my website and I've even got the website easy enough so that my mother-in-law when she passed away, it was ‘94, she could navigate it. So, you know…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

It's a test.

Dan Anderson: 

Yeah. It's not the niftiest looking high-tech website, but you can go down, oh hey, karate books and e-books. Click. Poll page comes up. And then you've got this title, that title click goes right straight to the book, you know, just a couple steps here and there. So yeah, the Super Dan Online Library. And I'm also revamping what I call the Super Dan Online Academy, which is gonna have…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Was that what the DVDs were and you bringing that material forward?

Dan Anderson: 

Well, there are cross-references to both, but the DVDs and the DVDs are, if I get hotter on a project, again, that hasn't been thoroughly explained. You know, like I've got a book called you know, the Super Dan Method of Free Fighting. Where I look at free fighting, totally different than everybody else does because, you know, I'll describe my underpinnings, my pillars, you know. So you have attack recognition, which is one time and positioning alignment. Perfect finish meaning in your head. And then the difference between free sparring, which is all developmental and it's all co-op, cooperative based, free sparring. And then it'll morph into free fighting, which is win-lose. But you have to know how to free spar before you can free fight.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Makes sense.

Dan Anderson:

And most people collapse the two, so, okay, good, let's spar. And they're trying to win. No, no, no, no. You're not developing. You have to learn how to spar. And in your sparring, you will learn the moves, you'll learn how to mix it up, how to knock out the fear so that when you get into free fighting, you're not going to be afraid, you know? And then it all goes back to these pillars where you know, I gave a seminar at American Elite Karate Academy in North Carolina, Jared Keasling. And I said, okay, we're going to do advanced free-fighting. Oh, advanced free fighting. Yeah. Has nothing to do with jump spins and explosive takeoff. No. It has to do with advanced perception. Which means anybody of any age can do advanced free fighting because it's about advanced perception and everybody can perceive, you know. I'll give you just an incredibly short answer or a short example. Timing. Everybody knows timing, but if you ask five different people the definitions of timing, you're gonna get a different answer. And more often not you're gonna get an unworkable answer. Well, you know, it's the inner space of time, relationship and distancing, and da, da, da. No, no, no, no. How does that translate to a white belt? It doesn't. So working definition of timing. It's a decision of when? When, what? When anything. We all know timing. If you're going to the front door, when does your arm start to move up so that you can grasp the handle? You know, you don't reach too soon and your hand is up here looking like a door until you get there. You don't get to the door and kinda stand there, looking and go, oh yeah, I'm supposed to raise my hand.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Right.

Dan Anderson: It's a decision of when, when what? When anything. Well, it's precision. And what are the two errors in timing? Well, I just said too soon, too late. Now, what's the hidden error? Unprepared. You can get ready to take off, but if your knees aren't bent, your split-second timing is ruined by now. Having to get prepared to launch or prepared to go back. It's the hidden error. And so if you're not prepped to go, your exact split-second go moment is ruined, you know, it's like, okay, in the camera, I have one hand down. There's the opening. I just ruined it by picking up my hand. No, they should have been, there's the opening. I go.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Right.

Dan Anderson: 

Okay. It's stuff like that where timing all of a sudden is no longer amongst the intuitive, but it's in an actual definable term backed up by exact drills that you can take with you and you can run with now.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

We got a couple more things we gotta get through before….

Dan Anderson: 

Yes, sir. Yeah, go ahead.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Before we can wrap because these are, these are important things.

Dan Anderson: 

You said you let me talk, so that's.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

I did. You're you're going, you're going, you're…

Dan Anderson:

Anyway, the couple other things. Yes.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

First one, what's next for you? I mean, we've spent a lot of time talking about all these wonderful things that you've done, but you seem just as excited talking about the things that are recent as you do, talking about the things at the very beginning. So I can't imagine you're not excited about the future.

Dan Anderson: 

Well, the immediate future's lunch and I'm getting really hungry here. The next thing and I need to learn about it because one of the things I'll tell people is what I know, I know extremely well. I know martial arts extremely well. I know how to do books. I know how to do videos, but what I don't know, I don't know. So,combination between marketing so that I can get more of these into more people's hands and then self-marketing as to the seminar. I adore doing seminars. I love teaching people.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

You got a lot of fun.

Dan Anderson: 

Who don't know who, I don't know. I didn't raise up as babies, so to speak. You know, they have different skill sets, they have different orientation points. But the thing is, is that you know, martial arts is to me, there's no more mystery about martial arts. You know, and it's not being said as I know everything there is to know about it because I mean, you know, There's a lot still left to learn, but there's no mystery. I can always figure out, I can observe, I can explain something, et cetera. So, if I can pass this on to others, there you go. So at some point, not yet, but at some point it all phases out of the day-to-day teaching at the martial arts school. Cause I'm still the main dog on the floor. Who's teaching the five and six rolls? Me.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

You're still having fun doing it?

Dan Anderson: 

Some days are better than others.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Sure.

Dan Anderson: 

You know, some days are better than others, but do I have the same spark that I had in 1969? No. Do I hate it? No. No. It's just I am like you said, you know what next? I'm ready for the next phase.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Sure.

Dan Anderson: 

I'm ready for the next phase. And the next phase, I think is a huge public outreach so that others can reap the benefits because going back to modern arnis, okay, there's a lot of wondering about, okay, how are we going to keep the art alive? And we have one person here that says, oh, it's gotta be in an organization, in schools, et cetera. And with me, I'm not a huge organizational school person, but I know how to write, I know how to video. So, my contribution is going to be this. People still read books, whether it's eBooks, Kindle, people still watch videos, whether it's DVD, whether it's streaming, whether it's download. Information is information. And so taking the materials that I have, getting them across a broader base, and then doing it in person you know, kinda like a super foot thing> Except I don't have the degree of contacts that Bill has. 

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Sure.

Dan Anderson: 

But for me, that's the next phase. And as long as the body will still move, you know, it's like Guru Dan Inosanto. That's kind of a gun. It's he's what, 82, 83 and he's still doing seminar art. That's my longevity hero. I wanna move like Guru Dan when I'm his age. So that's kind of goal. So that's the first answer to that question.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Alright. Well, if anybody's, and this is a good time to pose this. So if anybody wants to talk to you about a seminar, would they go to the website or should they email you? How would you want them to reach out?

Dan Anderson: They can reach me in any number of ways. The email address is basically my birth name, which is Danny. I'm not a Daniel or a Dan. I'm Danny, Danny. Lee, Lee. Anderson, Anderson. And this shows you how old I am, @hotmail.com. People are going, are you still using Hotmail? Yes, I'm still using Hotmail, but you know dannyleeanderson@hotmail.com. You know, my cell number, I pick up pretty much anything anybody calls me, 5033178779. They can reach me through the Karate School website, which is craftily named Dan Anderson Karate.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

So clever.

Dan Anderson: 

That's a tough one.

Jeremy Lesniak:

 Yeah.

Dan Anderson:

Or the Super Dan Online Library.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

Sure.

Dan Anderson: 

I can be reached through all those different ways and yeah. So if anybody wants to contact me about anything, I've had phone calls from people I don't know that go, sir. Hi. You don't know me, but my name is blah blah. I have a question for you. Yeah, go ahead and shoot. And the only…

Jeremy Lesniak: 

You clearly enjoy this style of conversation about martial arts. I can imagine.

Dan Anderson: 

Oh, absolutely. Because the thing is like, you know, if we go back to, you know, Chuck Norris or Steve Mohammad or John Natividad or Jeff Smith, those were the guys that aided me. You know, the old line in martial arts, the first as far as Dan rankings, you know, the first five stripes are what you get out of martial arts. The next five are what you give back. Well, I'm huge in give back. I've got you know, 10th dan in two different arts, you know, and so there's no reason why somebody else can't do this. But at the same time, if I sit back and I hoard any knowledge or any inspiration, then you better start peeling those stripes from the belt. So, yeah. So that's, I very much enjoy that kind of discourse. In fact, it's hard to get me to shut up when I'm having that kind of discourse. So that answer the first question.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

You would serve me up for what is now going to make me look like a bit of a jerk of a segue. So now that we're about to end what would your final words to the audience be today?

Dan Anderson: 

Okay number one, if you're tournament player, do not fall into the trap of using that as a litmus test to how skilled you are. You know, tournament karate is like playing poker. What kind of cards do you get? If you get a pair of deuces, you know, and that's the best hand you got. That's not how good a card player you are. You just got a crappy hand. Okay? You get into a tournament where either you don't play the game that well, or the judges you know, they don't see your points or whatever, you know, don't take that as a litmus test. The thing is that it's how the game was played that day. The second thing is that there's a lot of talk about, you know, why are you doing martial arts? And here's the thing, you know, nobody ever thinks about it this way, but what is the bottom line, common denominator amongst why people do martial arts, whatever kind of martial arts? And whenever I ask people this question, they never get it. The bottom line is because they wanna, you know. Now, why they wanna? Okay, that's where you get into the thousands of reasons. But, you know, so when I talk to let's say junior instructors, the first number one rule is you can't blunt the wanna, you can't chip away at the wanna. So if you want to do martial arts, whatever reason that you have is valid. The only non-valid reason that I would interject on people in my school is that if you want to use it to hurt somebody, okay, that's not a good reason. But the rest of it, you wanna be a tournament player? Rock on. You wanna do it for physical exercise? Rock on. You wanna do it for a social thing? Rock on. You wanna do it as a pastime or a hobby? Rock on. You wanna be a geek like Uncle Dan? Rock on. No matter what the reason is, any reason that you're doing martial arts is valid. So don't allow all this other stuff, including belt ranks, including style affiliations, including how you did in this contest or whatever. Don't let those be the litmus tests of why you like to do this you know. It's looked at it as a comparative, you know, why do you go to this restaurant? I like their food. Case closed. You know, so there's that. Now then the other thing is that remember about ups and downs? Okay? Look back at the first grade, when you're learning how to do penmanship. Yeah. You learn that capital A and you got this line, line that goes up, and then you got this line that goes, whoops, that went way off to the side. Okay. You got this line that goes up and an angle goes down, goes this crossbar that went upwards. Well, that's better, but okay, so we got this line that goes up, line goes down, and there's that crossbar that goes straight. Oh, that's a good-looking A. You do the next one and it sucked. It's all a learning process. So the thing is, is that one of the things that took me, the hardest thing to learn that I adore now is that if I have a bad day at execution or training or whatever, I revel in it. I enjoy the heck out of it. Why? Well, next class can't be that bad. It can't get any worse than that. It can only get better. So instead of that class, or that exhibition, or that tournament, or that seminar not going well and then really taking it personally. No, no, no, no, no, no. Let's enjoy it. Let's enjoy it. That really sucked. Dang, that was bad. Wow! That can't get worse. Next time it's gonna get better. And then what you find is that you find on the overall hole, things aren't going that bad. I am enjoying this. So for whatever reason why you wanna enjoy it, enjoy it. If you have a day that sucks. Cool. Mark that on the calendar. April 28th, this was a 10 star bad day. Yeah, baby! And then don't use all this other stuff as a litmus test as to the validity of why you're doing it. Why are you doing it? Bottom line, bottom line cause you wanna. Rock on. Cause you wanna, that's why we all do it. Why we wanna? Lots of different reasons. And then oh, the last thing is go to my website and buy my stuff. I had to have a cheap plugin there. I had to have a cheap plugin there. But you know, I'll segue from there into one last thing is, and let's find your inspiration from anywhere, whether it's from you, whether it's from somebody else. I had terrific inspiration from the Golden Age and then into the silver age of karate competition but I had inspiration, Professor Remy, I had inspiration from my wife, I had inspiration from my friends, I'm gonna have your inspiration from anywhere and in the long run, be your own hero. Be your own hero cause you're the one putting in the sweat equity of it. Pat yourself on the back for what you did good. Take what was hard and just acknowledge. Don't take it personally. Just acknowledge, okay? Yeah, that was kind of hard. And then you continue to persevere. You know, as long as you look at it. If you look at it any way that you can twist something into a positive? Do that. And that has worked extremely well for me. I didn't learn that lesson early on, but it worked extremely well for me. And so it works for me. It can work for anybody. I can do it, anybody can do it. That's what I wanna pass on to people.

Jeremy Lesniak: 

What did you think? Not quite a marathon episode, but a longer one for sure. And well, it's concerned a lot of great stories. I appreciate you coming on the show, Professor Dan. Thank you for sharing all that great stuff. The smiles, the laughs. I had a blast and I know I'll talk to you again. I'll see you again too. That's gonna happen, I'm sure. Audience, thank you. Thanks for watching or listen, thanks for being in the audience. Knowing that you're there means a lot to me when we're recording. It really does. And if you wanna go deeper on this episode, please check out your show notes. There are in your phone if you listen there. But there is always more at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Please go check it out and enjoy. I hope you do. If you wanna help us out, Patreon the family page, share episodes, leave reviews, but here are two other things. Bring me out for a seminar. Let's have some fun. I'll work with your students and you will have a blast. If you want your school to be more better, bigger, more profitable, whatever your goals are, let's have a no-obligation conversation about how we can do that. We are working with a number of martial arts schools right now and I'm watching the numbers whether we're talking revenue or profit or student count, they're all going in the right direction and it's a direct result of the work that we do. We have a unique methodology that other consulting firms do not use. It's a lot more holistic. It is not cookie-cutter, and it's also likely more affordable than others. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from there. If you have feedback for me about those things or something else, you can reach out jeremy@whistlekick.com. If you wanna see more of what we're doing, if you wanna stay in touch, you can jump on the newsletter list at whistlekick.com. There would be a popup there. You could also follow us on social media @whistlekick, everywhere you could think of. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.