Episode 817 - 6 Freedoms of Martial Arts
In this episode, Jeremy and co-host Andrew Adams talk about whistlekicks 6 Freedoms of Martial Arts and its controversies.
6 Freedoms of Martial Arts - Episode 817
Every martial artist has the right to determine their own definition of martial arts and what it means to them. What is most important is that the martial artist is happy with their training and feels that they are growing as a person. This is enabled by the 6 Freedoms of Martial Arts that Jeremy came up with and is discussed by Jeremy and Andrew in this episode.
Tune in to learn more about the six freedoms and why they are so essential to the martial arts community.
After listening to the episode it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Comment down below!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What is happening, everybody? Welcome to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio and on today's episode, Andrew and I are going to discuss the 6 Freedoms of Martial Arts. There's some controversy in here, but I don't care. We're gonna do it anyway. If you're new to the show, if you're new to whistlekick, please start at whistlekick.com, find out all the things that we do. I started this company, well, over a decade ago because, well, I wanted better sparring gear and we made better sparring gear, but now we make so many other things and that's why you should check out whistlekick.com. Because you can get better sparring gear, 15% off with the code podcast15. But you could also read up and get links to Martial Journal and Free Training Day and All in Weekend, and our blog, and our training programs. And the biggest thing that I think we are known for is the show, Martial Arts Radio. And I'm joined today by my often co-host, producer extraordinaire, Andrew Adams. Andrew, thank you for being here.
Andrew Adams:
Hey, that's me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That is you. I appreciate you being here. Andrew and I have a good time talking on our Thursday episodes about something and today we're talking about the six freedom of martial arts. Now, if what we do here at whistlekick really clicks for you, then please, I would encourage you to consider supporting us. What do we do? Well, we do a lot of things, but why do we do it? We do it because we're trying to connect, educate, and entertain all of you. And the end goal is to get everyone in the world to train for six months because we believe martial arts brings out the best in us. And if that means something to you, please support us. Share episodes, buy stuff, tell people, subscribe, leave reviews, or consider supporting our Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick. If you're a martial arts school owner, you could join the Patreon at the 50 or a 100-dollar tiers and get access to the School Owner's Mastermind. You will not find a better value for motivation and accountability and creative ideas to help your school than it exists in that group. So consider joining. But what if you're not a school owner or what if you wanna spend less? Well, you can go to the other end of the spectrum, $2 a month, and you get a whole bunch of stuff like who's coming up on the show. $5, you start getting bonus content, bonus episodes that you're not gonna get anywhere else. And we know that we're crushing it with a Patreon because people very rarely unsubscribe. In fact, what happens much more often is that people up their pledges. So yay! Go us!
Andrew Adams:
And a $5 a month you get free merch.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh yeah.
Andrew Adams:
Look at all my stickers. This is my whistle printer.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It works better because of those stickers.
Andrew Adams:
It does work better. Yep. It kicks out pages much quicker.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And if you are a big fan, if you love what we do, please consider checking out the family page, whistlekick.com/family. We don't link it. You gotta type it in, but it's worth it. You'll find stuff that you're not gonna find anywhere else. Now, back in January, we hosted an online live stream called The State of the Martial Arts. And a big component of that was me codifying some things that I had felt frustrated about in the martial arts world over many years that ultimately became the 6 Freedoms of Martial Arts.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We have posted clips of some of this content in various places. There's a page that will eventually go up at whistlekick.com because this is such a strong line in the sand that we feel needs to be drawn. But Andrew and I were talking and he said, you know, it's worth unpacking this again in a different way for a different audience and with some discussion because last time it was me going not having a conversation and I agree. And so that's what we're gonna do today. We have six freedoms here and I'm gonna read them all upfront, and then, we'll go back through and we'll unpack them. You know, I don't know how much time we're gonna spend on each one. We'll talk until it makes sense to not talk about it anymore. Move on to the next one. So, number one, the freedom every martial artist has. Number one, the freedom to train what they want, how they want, when they want, where they want, with and from whom they want, and why they want. Number two, the freedom to remain private about who, what, where, when, why, and how they train as well as their rank, instructor lineage, and training history. Number three, the freedom to determine what martial arts is to them and to embody that for themself. Number four, the freedom to become better as martial artists and as people. Number five, the freedom to take your martial arts training back into your life in the way that you feel is best, including self-defense and protection of others. And number six, the freedom to compete in a mutually agreed upon fashion. Now, on the surface, those all sound great, and you might wonder how could anybody have a problem with any of them, except that in every single case, I wrote those out because there are people who want to take those freedoms away from people.
Andrew Adams:
Whether they mean to or not.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So let's start with the first one. The freedom to train what they want, how they want, when they want, where they want, with and from whom they want, and why they want.
Andrew Adams:
This is probably my favorite one of…
Jeremy Lesniak:
And it's the first one for a reason, right? We did an episode and I don't remember what we ended up calling it, but in my brain, it's still, we kicked around a title of the first amendment of martial arts. And it was that episode and that thinking that ultimately led to these freedoms, because this is something that I think about a lot now. If we unpack this, what, how, when, where, with, and from whom and why. Some of those are much more hot buttons for people than others. I don't think anybody really cares where you train. You know, if you wanna train in a big school or a small school or a basement or outside, I don't hear people arguing about that very often.
Andrew Adams:
No, no. I mean, the only thing, the only one that I could conceivably see is and I'm always gonna put myself in the bad position.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure.
Andrew Adams:
So someone comes to me and says, oh, I train at this school across town. I could be like, oh, you shouldn't train there. You should come train with me. Like, where you train comes into play there, but I don't see people arguing about it online.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yep. Yeah. I would say that that's less about where the physical space is and more about the next clause with and from whom?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Okay. That's fair. Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. Who your instructors are and who your fellow students are, right? People get rap bent out of shape about that, but others that are less important when there are people who will say, well if you're not training this many hours per week. Okay. That's kind of rare, you know, if you wanna train Mondays and Wednesdays or Tuesdays and Thursdays or six days a week, nobody really seems to mind that much.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's the what they want, the how they want, and the why they want.
Andrew Adams:
Yes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If people really get upset.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And that comes down to, I think, a very simple thing, and it ends up being different discrepancies in the why. Why you train will inform what you train, how you train, when you train, et cetera.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Yep. Then I would agree the biggest, one of the biggest that I see often this is by no means the biggest, but one that I happen to notice a lot is a lot of people will say, oh, this style is so cool dumb. Or, why would anyone ever want to train in this particular style? And who cares? That's what it comes down to me. Like if person A is training their style and I'm purposefully not saying the style that comes up for me all the time, but if person A is happy doing that, good for them.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yep.
Andrew Adams:
It doesn't affect me. It doesn't affect them. I don't train in that style. That's fine. I don't want to. But if we did a whole I did. Who cares?
Jeremy Lesniak:
We did a whole episode on this because the common response, the common defense of taking this position is, well, it gives black belt a bad name and all this other stuff and do you remember the episode title that we did for that?
Andrew Adams:
I don't.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It was the myth. The myth of something.
Andrew Adams:
I don't.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. We did a whole episode.
Andrew Adams:
[00:08:48] over 800 episodes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. No kidding. We did a whole episode where we just destroyed that argument. It doesn't exist. Okay. If somebody wants to go train in something that you disagree with, let 'em go, let 'em do their thing. Don't be so arrogant as to dictate to think that you have a position in dictating how all these things go, because remember, nobody ordained you as the keeper of what. Somebody else's reasons in methods for training are, and you are welcome to your definition of martial arts. We're gonna talk about that in a moment, but it's not right. I have mine. Andrew has his, they're slightly different. That's okay.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Yep. Absolutely because often it comes across the people that are saying these things. Oh, that's such a dumb martial art that would never work on the street. Okay well, maybe that person has no intention of having to defend themselves on the street. Maybe they're taking it because it feels good and they enjoy it. And for them it's centering and, and it's giving them peace in their life because they have a job that is very stressful and for them. So why does it have to be effective on the street?
Jeremy Lesniak:
What if they're, let's say self-defense, lacking martial arts training? Is the only thing keeping them from relapsing into heavy use of drugs or alcohol.
Andrew Adams:
Sure, yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The likelihood that you're going to need to defend yourself and avoid harm in a street, confrontation is a far lower statistic than the harm that one would do by drinking heavily or doing drugs, et cetera. And yeah, that to me, that self depends.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So let's go to number two. Okay. Every martial artist has the freedom to remain private about who, what, where, when, why, and how they train, as well as their rank, school instructor, lineage, and training history. What I tend to see, and I don't see this as often as I used to, But what I used to see was if someone would make an argument against something in the first freedom, you know, well, that's stupid. That's not how that's done, you're wrong, et cetera. If that, if the person that was being attacked was able to defend that attack well, and we're talking usually verbal attacks, well. You know, maybe it was, I really don't care what you think, or this is how my instructor showed me, or, I like it this way. It might have been met with. Well, who is your instructor? Who did your instructor learn from? Where? Show me your rank certificates.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
As if that really matters.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And as if anybody is entitled to demand them. Who made you the martial arts police? Nobody. The answer is nobody.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So you are demanding to see someone else's certificates.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Credentials. Let's face it. It doesn't matter what credentials they show you, you're still not gonna agree with them. So why bother asking? You're fishing for a reason to justify you feeling superior. And you don't, you know, on some level, you don't have a right to feel superior, so you're trying to back it up with these other things.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. I also think. At times, political stuff comes into play there. Because they want, they, who did? Who's your instructor? Person A. Oh, well I don't like person A because of X, Y, Z and so your rank means nothing to me. Whatever.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Great.
Andrew Adams:
Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, well, does that mean leave me alone? You know, for a lot of people martial arts training is very private. You know, there are a lot of people who get into training for deeply personal reasons, and we've heard a lot of those stories on martial arts radio. The idea that someone would have to justify or rather ex, you know, disclose where they're training and why they're training and all these other things is incredibly insensitive. You know we did an episode on the movie Red Belt. And I keep coming back to the example, you know, a scene in that film where the instructor instantly put a new student in a very emotionally stressful situation that just really showcased a lack of understanding. Now it's a movie, but if you've been training for more than a little while and you have some awareness of the people around you and you train with more than like two people, you've probably trained with someone who's been the victim of some manner of physical violence and there are people who don't wanna say that. That's why they're training. You have no right to demand that they tell you that's why they're training.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. Exactly.
Jeremy Lesniak:
They have the right to train. If we go back to the first freedom, which is the most important one, the freedom of train, what, how, when, et cetera, they want, because they have that freedom. They also have the freedom to not have to tell you…
Andrew Adams:
Correct.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Their why and this really is an expansion of the why.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. Exactly. Yep. And again, you mentioned earlier someone training because they don't want to relapse into drugs or alcohol. That could be their reason. So for me to say to them, you have to tell me why you want to train may…
Jeremy Lesniak:
But why do you train that way? Or why do you train with that person?
Andrew Adams:
They may not want to disclose that information to you, and they have the right to not have to tell you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's go to number three. Every martial artist has the freedom to determine what martial arts is to them and to embody that for themself. I get a lot of people arguing with me on this. This is probably the one I get the most flack for because my definition of martial arts mine is personal growth through the practice of hand-to-hand combat. It's evolved a little bit from the very early years, but it's, the spirit's been the same. I don't expect that to be anybody else's definition. Now, why is it so important that I have the right to determine what martial arts is to me, just as you do to you and just as the audience does for them? Because why is one definition superior, correct? Now, this is where people will get ridiculous. Well, what if I say martial arts is driving a car? I refer you back to freedom one, the freedom to train. What, how? If you think that you are practicing martial arts, driving a car, I don't care. It has no bearing on me. If you think that martial training, martial arts is playing basketball, I don't care. Now, by the way, I could make a case that there are martial elements to both of those activities.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And we have an episode upcoming where we're gonna chat a little bit about making martial arts or bringing martial arts into everyday activities, but if you get to say that your definition is more correct than mine, where does that authority come from?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, exactly. And let's put labels on it that people will probably likely be able to understand better.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure.
Andrew Adams:
Again, I'm gonna make myself, I'll be the bad guy. Jeremy, do you feel that boxing is a martial art?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes.
Andrew Adams:
Okay. I'm gonna play devil's advocate. I also agree, I think boxing is martial art, but we're gonna say, I feel boxing is not a martial art for whatever reason that is.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And there are plenty of people who don't.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. And you know what? That's okay. That's fine. But who, what gives me the right to say, Jeremy, you are wrong. You know, I jokingly ask people for fun. What's the best Disney movie ever made? Jeremy? What would your answer be?
Jeremy Lesniak:
The Lion King.
Andrew Adams:
Okay. You're wrong. It's clearly Robinhood, right? Robin Hood's clearly the best Disney movie ever made. Now, obviously, I say that as a joke because the Lion King is the best for you. You love it. That's great. I didn't like The Lion King as much as I liked Robinhood. I think Robinhood is the best Disney movie ever made. Who really cares? It doesn't matter that you like a different movie than me. You feel boxing is a martial art? I don't think it is. I'm kidding. Really, I do, but that shouldn't affect how I train or what I train. It doesn't affect me that you think it is a martial art or that you think The Lion King is the best Disney movie ever made cause it's clearly not. Just kidding.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There are people who get really wrapped around the axle on the martial part, but they don't understand grammar.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. Arts is the…
Jeremy Lesniak:
The noun is art. We've talked about this many, many times on the show, and my definition contains the Martial aspect. But there are people who will say, you know, it's fighting. It's about fighting. Oh, it's all. All but guarantee that if you go back to the people who founded the things that are or became your martial art, you will probably find that they said otherwise, probably directly at opposition. But guess what? If martial arts to you is all about fighting, go for it.
Andrew Adams:
You're allowed to have. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You can train how you want. I don't have, you know, maybe I disagree. But I don't have any right to exert any effort in stopping you from training the way you want. I don't have any right to step in and demand that you tell me why you're training that way because you're doing your thing and I'm doing mine.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. Yep. I agree.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. The next one. Every martial artist has the freedom to become better. As martial artists and as people, I don't think anybody directly opposes this. But I think it needs to be said because, actually, no, I take that back. There are circumstances where crummy instructors will inhibit the progress of some of their students for whatever hours. Yeah. Well, say more then.
Andrew Adams:
You know, we've done an episode on instructors should be striving to have their students become better than they are. Better than the instructor is, but there are instructors out there who do not want that. They want to stay up here and have their students stay lower than them so that they are always the top dog. I don't know that it's a majority, but there are instructors out there like that. Yeah. And. You as a student have the right to become better as a martial artist. If that means you become better than your instructor, so be it. And good instructors will have no problem with that. You know, I remember the first time I had a drumming student of mine compete against me in the same division and beat me. I was elated and I had other people that are like, why are you so happy? Your student just beat you. Like, doesn't that mean you're bad? It was like, no, it means I'm great. It means I'm a great teacher.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
This was so amazing for me, you know?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yep. Absolutely. And then kind of the back half of this phrase, and as people. The freedom to become better as people, you know, one of the things that's core to whistlekick to our philosophy and you know everybody that's involved with whistlekick, this is kind of a test. You kind of have to believe this or, you know, we're not gonna keep you around. Martial arts brings out the best in us. It makes us better versions of ourselves, and if your training is helping you become a better person, you have the right to do that. I've seen people, Andrew, you've probably seen people that here's the most concrete example. Someone is in a poor relationship, poor marriage, and they trained for 6, 12 months and they're feeling better about themselves. And that relationship can no longer handle the growth of one person in the partnership and it falls apart because there was a lot of tension and stress in there, but nobody could really figure out who they were outside of that partnership.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And in many of the cases where I know some of the details, the other person will speak poorly about martial arts. Oh, you were? I liked you better before you started doing that karate stuff, right? We have the right freedom to become better.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Number five, every martial artist has the freedom to take your martial arts training back into your life in the way that you feel is best, including self-defense and protection of others. But notice, I'm not saying that those are the only two ways that martial arts can come back into your life.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
They should interact in your life in the way that you want them to. Your why will direct how your training impacts your life. Martial arts is my life. It's my job.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's my social circles. It's why I do many things, including get up in the morning. That's my why. It manifests in all of those ways, but if that's not your why, that's okay. Maybe for you, martial arts trading is social and fitness, so maybe you step back into the non-martial arts aspects of your life with greater understanding and feeling in your body and maybe some extra friends. Cool.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, martial arts is not a hundred percent my life. It is a large part of it, but it's not the only thing that I do. You know, I have another job, but that's okay. I'm allowed to have it be a part of my life in the way that I choose.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. And our last one, every martial artist has the freedom to compete in a mutually agreed upon fashion. Now, this one on the surface sounds like no big deal, except that there are people saying that if your competition is not literally fighting with no rules, to the death, that there's no point, that points sparring is silly, that forms competition is silly, that I don't know, pick your flavor of martial arts, combat sport that you know it, there's no point to it. Well, guess what? If the two people literally are figuratively beating on each other in the ring are gaining some benefit from it and they're there by choice, it doesn't impact you. So shut up and go away.
Andrew Adams:
Exactly. Exactly. I think a classic example is a lot of people do not enjoy the different, there are different ways to do sparring, right? There's lots of different ways of sparring and who, like, who cares? Like that style over there, like that kind of sparring. I don't like that. It's not valid. As long as those people are enjoying it and they agree upon the rules that they're fighting in sparring, great. Good for them, doesn't matter. In my school. I'm gonna do it this way over here, that's also totally fine.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Great. Go for it. Can you imagine, imagine that instead of martial arts, we were talking about food? Well, I don't like brussel sprouts. Okay, well, brussel sprouts can no longer exist.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. No one, you need brussel sprouts cause they suck.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Broccoli makes, you know broccoli isn't as good as cauliflower, so we'll get rid of broccoli.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And you know, cauliflower can give some people gastric distress, so we gotta get rid of that. And really, fruit can do that too. And you know, plenty of people dislike meat and all we're left with is water, but we won't even be able to agree on what kind of water to drink.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We drink it out of plastic bottles with microplastics or does it come out of the well where it could have some stuff? Or does it come out of public water supply where it's got some fluoride? Or do we go get it out of a naturally occurring spring where it hasn't been treated?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah. But we all…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Go ahead.
Andrew Adams:
Well, we all need food to live, so why does it bother me that you eat whatever and I don't.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It doesn't.
Andrew Adams:
Exactly.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We used to exist in a world where live and let live was a way that we did things. And that is the heart of what all of these freedoms are. And there's a good chance that if someone disagrees with these, that they're probably not watching or listening to this show, right? You know, we've got some selection bias in here, but we've had some folks who have paid attention to our content. I put the first, I think the third one of these went up as a clip from State of the Martial Arts, went up on TikTok today on my personal account, and I think it was the first one where I did catch a bit of flack, but one or two people said, you know, I used to feel really strongly and disagree with what you're saying here. But the more I've thought about it, the more I've listened to what you've said. I see your point and I get it. Now I don't care that they change their mind because again, if you feel, you know, let's, like what's something nobody argues Shotokan karate. I don't think I've ever heard anyone argue about Shotokan karate and that it is useless, but I'm sure somebody has. I'm picking it because it's the one I can think of that is least likely to lead to that of the things that I train, have trained, and understand. If you are over there thinking that Shotokan and karate is the dumbest thing you've ever seen, guess what? It's not gonna change anything. The JKA and offshoot organizations are still quite large. And have a significant participation and not one of those people is gonna care about your opinion.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So go for it.
Andrew Adams:
The thing that I hope that listeners and viewers of this episode take away because I think you're right, I think an overwhelming vast majority of our listenership will likely agree with most everything we said. And first off, if you don't, that's okay. You're allowed to not agree with us.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Would love to hear why.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. But what I hope people take away from this is that don't let others if you do agree with us and you agree that what we just said, and stand for something you agree with, don't let others bully you into changing your mind. And I have purposely called out friends of mine for saying or doing things that broke one of these freedoms, and I have told them like, hey, like why are you bashing on this? Like, it doesn't matter. That like, why are you, and it has led to some good discussions about why are you so heated and worked up over this because it doesn't really affect you. And so that's what I hope happens from this, is that when you see these things happening outside in your own life, you have some food, some more food for thought that can help others potentially.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. And if you want to talk about this, if you disagree with this, I'd love to hear your intelligently articulated arguments. There was somebody recently who I had to end up blocking from our YouTube channel because they disagreed, but they were unable to do so without being disrespectful. To both myself and guests that we've had on the show. So I was like, you know, it's one thing if you're going after me, but if you're going after guests, yeah. I'm pretty much done with you.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you can't articulate your argument with respect, then you don't have a strong argument. I wanna thank you all for coming by, for watching, for listening, for being part of our audience, for being part of our family, or whistlekick.com/family and whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. For all the episodes we've ever done. You know, if you want to go back, if you wanna look at some of the other episodes that we've referenced, go ahead. Go search. You'll find that between the transcripts and the titles, you can find a whole bunch of stuff. And maybe you've only been listening a few years. We've been going for over eight years. As of the recording of this episode, if you wanna support our work, buy something. Patreon, podcast15 as a discount code. Tell people, leave reviews. Don't be afraid to reach out if you think that maybe your martial arts school could do a little bit better. We do offer consulting and I'm quite proud of the track record that we have with our consulting clients. And if you're interested in having me out for a seminar, let me know. Email me jeremy@whistlekick.com. Andrew's email, andrew@whistlekick.com. Our social media everywhere is @whistlekick. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.