Episode 844 - Gino Traballano
In today's episode, we step onto the mat with Professor Gino Traballano, who teaches at The Training Station in Manchester NH.“The capability, of a savate player, is the ability to hit without being hit.”
Gino Traballano- Episode 844
In this captivating conversation, Jeremy chats with Professor Traballano as he pulls back the curtain on his primary martial art, Savate, and provides a front-row seat to his journey of skill, determination, and unwavering passion. His initiation into the world of martial arts began at the age of 14 when he embarked on a path that led him to unexpected places.
As he found his way to the world of Savate, Professor Traballano’s story takes an intriguing turn. He shares how he overcame initial challenges, defying his parents' wishes against karate and ultimately embracing the complexity and finesse of Muay Thai and international kick boxing. Transitioning into Savate at 16, his dedication and grit became evident as he carved his place in this combat art form.
Tune in as we unravel Professor Traballano’s journey, where the path of martial arts intersected with his family's concerns and his unyielding determination to thrive in the ring. This episode paints a vivid picture of his diverse training background, his proficiency in various styles, and the unique world of Savate that truly stole his heart. So, tighten your wraps and get ready to be inspired by his dedication to his primary art, as we explore the multifaceted layers of his martial arts odyssey.
Show Notes
You can find out more about Professor Traballano:
sites.google.com/site/edecombatusa
info.edecusa@gmail.com
On Facebook: Gino Nessuno
On Instagram: ginonessuno554
People can also reach out to the US Savate Federation (ussavate.org) or the training station (https://www.thetrainingstationnh.com) and ask to get in touch with him.✅Subscribe to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio on the following platforms:
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✅You can find whistlekick on all social media platforms using the handle @whistlekick or visit our website at https://www.whistlekick.com or https://www.whistlekickmartialartsradio.com
Show Transcript
Jeremy (00:00.807)
Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome, this is Whistlekick Commercial Arts Radio, episode 844. Today I'm joined by my friend, Professor Gino Trevillano. We're gonna talk about all kinds of great stuff in just a moment. But for those of you out there who might be new, couple things that you might wanna keep in mind, go to whistlekick.com and see all the things that we're doing, because it's a lot more than this show. And if you use the code podcast15, you can save 15% on any of the things that we offer over there.
Whistlekick martial arts radio dot com is the place to go for this show for every episode we've ever done Transcripts links, you know anything that Gino and I talk about today We're gonna have linked up in the show notes over there easiest place to find that stuff And if you love what we do if you want to support us in our mission to connect to educate and entertain The traditional martial artists of the world, please consider joining our patreon our family patreon patreon.com Slash whistle kick starts at just a couple bucks a month and goes up from there
great stuff that you can do to support us as we support all of you in the traditional martial arts world. But without further ado, hey Gino, thanks for being here.
Gino (01:07.498)
Hey, thank you for having me.
Jeremy (01:09.311)
Of course. You know, I was trying to remember how long I've known you. And I don't remember how long I've known you. It's 2015, 2016, somewhere in there. Yeah.
Gino (01:20.81)
Something like that, yeah. That's when we started connecting through the symposium environment, and sounds about right.
Jeremy (01:31.575)
Yeah, yeah, Symposium, of course, put on by Terry Dow, who's been on the show and good friend to both of us, wonderful supporter and probably the person I know that speaks most highly of you. I mean, every, every time he talks about you, he's talking about how you guys are sparring and you're, you're taking it to him, which I know. Yeah, yeah. And you know, let's, let's start here because you're
Gino (01:50.486)
Game and alpha, yes. I was like, I support that, I appreciate that.
Jeremy (02:01.567)
Primary art, which I see is the way people look at martial arts, you know, whatever your main thing is. I don't know a lot about it, and I don't know a lot about how you ended up training Savat. So maybe we start there.
Gino (02:15.026)
Absolutely. So, yes, my primary art is sabbat. And it's funny because the last probably 15, 20 years, people associate me almost solely to that. But my background covers, like you and many other martial artists, covers more styles and proficient in other styles. But absolutely, sabbat is where I come from and where I shine.
Jeremy (02:44.838)
Mm.
Gino (02:45.33)
I started actually, I was preparing for the chat and I was jogging my memory. I started in 1986 and I started doing full contact at the time.
Jeremy (02:58.695)
You just went, you just started doing full contact.
Gino (03:01.866)
Yeah, I was 14 and I wanted to do martial arts. So the funny story is that I wanted to do martial arts, but my parents never wanted me to do karate or something that was in their view too hard. So full contact at the time I was coming out in Italy and my parents didn't speak English. So I told them, hey, I wanna do this sport. And my parents just like, yeah, okay, we'll pay the gym membership. And I went to this...
small karate gym nearby my area where I grew up in Rome, in Cinecittà, where I started training there, doing full contact, no sabata, and it was very old school, very small gym. The classes always ended with the new students sparring with the senior fighters and
old school you will learn how to fight faster or how to fly. I learned a lot that way but then a couple of years later a new gym opened near my house and that's where I started training seriously. I went to workout with Master Cortese which was my first instructor and that's where I started learning Muay Thai, international rookie boxing and so on and so on stuck with me because
of the complexity of the drills and the finesse of the style. That's how I started and continue to move forward.
Jeremy (04:36.708)
So how old were you when you when you started?
Gino (04:39.686)
I started the sabbath when I was 16 actually.
Jeremy (04:41.711)
Okay, so a couple years of karate and then, and then, and then the
Gino (04:43.906)
Yeah, it was not karate was, you know, it was really just, you know, full contact boxing and some kicking, you know.
Jeremy (04:50.211)
Yeah. Did your parents ever figure out that it was full contact?
Gino (04:55.454)
Eventually, my mother spoke with my primary physician one year later, and the doctor kind of made a face like, you know, that's a tough sport, you know. So my mother questioned it, but at the time the damage was done, and she realized that was not that hard, you know, and we moved forward. Then things got better, you know. From there, I started training in Savate. The gym was a different environment, a different environment.
It was more catered to what combat sports. And also it was a genie that my parents joined us so they could see what was going on. Ironically, they always got concerned about my well-being to the point that they never made it to one of my fights. Neither of my parents never wanted to see me fight for the fear to see me being hit or something.
Jeremy (05:53.407)
Hmm. Oh, and you know, I'm finding this, this timing interesting because you said 86. So, so 88, you're at a combat sports gym, which, you know, granted you're in a rather well populated area at that time, but there was almost none of that going on here in the States then.
Gino (06:15.758)
But seeing there, it was hard. The reason why I actually joined the gym is because my first instructor moved on the outside of town. And I was a kid, I couldn't move. But there was not much availability of these kind of sports. I was kind of lucky to have one in the neighborhood. And then, give it another five years. They started popping up like mushroom. Everybody was doing Muay Thai.
Jeremy (06:17.587)
Yeah.
Jeremy (06:32.668)
Mmm.
Gino (06:42.87)
Jean-Claude Van Damme came out with kickboxer, all of a sudden everybody had the bands on their arms, you know, and everybody was an expert.
Jeremy (06:51.771)
Right, right, and we all know where that led us. Yeah, it's amazing how quickly it happened, you know, that early 90s between some of the movies and the UFC gaining popularity. I mean, it was all of a sudden, it was almost a light switch, it seems. And you're in a big area, so you had the most opportunity there. And I'd like you to talk a little bit more about Savat because I'm gonna guess the majority of the folks watching or listening aren't familiar with it.
most people are going to understand at least a bit about what Muay Thai is. So how might we compare Muay Thai kickboxing with Savat, which to me is a style of kickboxing.
Gino (07:34.282)
Yeah, absolutely. So the main difference is that Sabata allows wearing shoes. They are shoes very similar to wrestling shoes, but they're not jagged on the bottom so that when you kick, don't get scratched or cut. They're actually vulcanized, so they're very not soft, but they're very fine.
And then two kinds of shoes. They are the full contact shoes that tend to be reinforced with stitching to make the kick harder. And the light contact shoes for the assault that tend to constrict the foot a little bit less. But in both scenarios, the shoe allows for a different reach, a different variety of kicks, because now you can use your toes to reach, let's say under the guard.
or point your toes in the stomach, things like that normally you're not too comfortable doing without shoes. But the biggest thing that does is that makes the sport much more aerobic in the competition. Because now, especially in the full contact version, when you kick, you can kick light or commit to that kick, but the shoe is gonna carry a lot of the work.
So you can kick light and still obtain a lot of damage, provide a lot of damage, or kick hard and do the same thing. So that makes the dynamic of the sport much more aerobic. So if you see any competitions online, and I welcome the guests to Google's sub-app fights, there is plenty nowadays on YouTube, you see the difference.
where the kicking is much faster than, let's say, Muay Thai, where it tends to be much more static and you have to commit more on the strikes. I'm not saying that it's better or worse. I'm just saying that it creates a different dynamic in the sport. And it's one of the things that I actually like because I always train to that high pace of competition where I'm used to throw.
Gino (09:50.53)
five, seven kicks and punches at the same time, to the point that when I fight without shoes, all I have to do is kind of slow down a little bit and match my opponent's rhythm. But I can always pick up the rhythm and force my opponent to gas out when I fight. So that is really the biggest difference. There are a few other differences also in style and...
movement that makes Sabata very peculiar. The biggest difference is that we don't tend to fight just linearly, so according to your opponent and back, we focus a lot on moving on angles so that we can maintain the same distance from different angles and force the opponent to move with us. That's really the biggest thing that I try to
Jeremy (10:32.334)
Hmm.
Gino (10:50.03)
provide to anybody that comes to my class or whenever I do seminars in other martial arts, that is what I focus on. Because without it and without the shoes, it ends up being a form of kickboxing. Like you chamber your kicks slightly differently, but that happens with every style. Those are the two big things that I really try to pass on.
Jeremy (11:04.991)
Thanks for watching.
Jeremy (11:15.823)
The angle thing I think is really important to mention. You know, most of us who have done any form of martial art have had our instructor at some point telling us to stop backing up, change angles, move around, you know, don't just back up. And the little bit of training that I've done with you, when we've done kicking combinations, those directional and angle changes were part of the combination. It wasn't change angle, then throw this combination. It was kick.
kick, land change, kick. It was built in with, I would say, much more importance. It was very fun, it's fundamental in Zabath versus other martial arts that I've trained in.
Gino (11:59.026)
It is, it is. And you can spot people that train a lot in sabbat because of that. We focus a lot on that. I push my students and the people that I train and all the other people that I know do the same in forcing these angles as part of the drill, as part of the movement and the natural approach.
Trying to maintain the same distance from any angle is very important. The other thing is to move with those angles, so what we call the cadrage, which is, in proper translation, is framing your opponent, but not in the sense of framing your opponent in a spot where it cannot move. It's more like framing and moving together. So wherever my opponent goes, I adjust my distances and movements
change those angles accordingly. And vice versa, if he tries to do the same thing, it works the other way around. I'm able to get out of a situation more easily than if I will be stable in my guard, static, and trying to find that angle after I combo.
Jeremy (13:16.607)
That makes sense. And I guess, you know, I'm not asking you to be the world representative for what Savata is, but I believe you're the first person who's been on that I can really ask these questions. Here we are, 800 and something episodes and you're the first person. So I'm excited to ask these questions. Shoes. I'm not aware of another martial art that makes shoes...
Gino (13:33.39)
Thank you.
Jeremy (13:44.839)
mandatory might not be the right word, but a part of the training method and a part of the competition. And in fact, it's generally the opposite, right? Where there's protective equipment. And from what you're describing with the shoes, I've been hit with your kicks with your shoes, and I know that they weren't anywhere close to your full power, but it still stings. It hurts in a different way than a barefoot does. So why, why shoes?
Gino (14:11.314)
Well, the reason is the history of the sport, you know, stepping back a little bit, maybe for your audience, sabbat historically is associated with sailors that went to the side of the world and brought back some martial art techniques that they then developed on self-defense style called chassonne.
Jeremy (14:15.975)
Okay.
Gino (14:39.982)
coded into what's called the box from say, Savate, which is a mix of English boxing and the Oshasong. The Oshasong basically is very similar to, it's a style of Savate that used to work on boats. So the sailors used to use a lot of ropes, hands on the floor, kind of like capoeira for balancing. And they used to have, they used to strike with open hand because you know, you wouldn't,
Jeremy (15:00.139)
Oh. Oh, cool.
Gino (15:09.654)
wear gloves, so for more protections against cats and things like that, they used to strike open-ended strikes. And eventually it was in the late 1800s, early 900s, it was coded with the English boxing that was becoming.
very popular at the time and combined into what became the box francais savate. And the shoes were part of the style because basically that's what you were wearing when you were going around. When savate became a self-defense sport, people were going around with shoes obviously and with canes. Actually the cane is the only, the cane and the baton.
The long stick are the only two sabbat forms of self-defense. And sabbat would be a great sport for a modern pimp because nowadays, you know, it's the only people that I can see going around with a cane. But there was, at the time, it was very common to carry them around. So it became a form of self-defense. Yeah.
Jeremy (16:28.697)
interesting.
Gino (16:30.514)
And the shoes stayed with the style, obviously because they were part of it.
Jeremy (16:35.359)
Oh, cool. Okay. And
So here, now we'll go back, you're 16, you're doing some competition, obviously, well, maybe not obviously, because we haven't said that, but you reside in America now, so at some point you moved, but I've got a feeling that it wasn't just, oh, you're 16 and then you moved to New Hampshire, there's probably some steps in the middle. So what's the next mark on your timeline there?
Gino (16:59.462)
Oh no, it was a while.
Gino (17:06.67)
So after I start training in Sabata, then you know, and competing, I did a little bit of, like I said, I did a little bit of everything Muay Thai, K-1, the time was just coming out, and I did also a little bit of shoe boxing, which is the precursor of MMA nowadays, but not much of that. Sabata was my main focus, that's where I wanted to grow, and I started training with
different instructors throughout the country, particularly Master Lalo and Manoni, which were in the north part of the country. And this is the funny part of the story. That's the 80s, around 89, that's when I started. And we didn't have the internet or the means that we have today to learn things. It was a lot of VHS tapes going to somebody, waiting a week.
and getting a call, writing down, jogging down directions of what to do, doing another tape. And I wish I could find some of those tapes. I don't know what happened to it, but probably they got thrown away or never returned. But that's how I started learning more about the sport and competing. Eventually, I got my first instructor certificate in...
1992 and with my then sparring partner Marco Gilotti, we opened up for school, he called the Combah, which is actually still in Rome. And we also have the branch here in the US, they call it by U.S.A. At 20, yes.
Jeremy (18:49.835)
You opened a martial arts school at 20. Wow, that's so cool. What did your parents think about that?
Gino (18:55.626)
What's that? It's funny, my mother was always supportive of these kind of things. I was not making a lot of money out of it. And my father was old school, like, why are you doing these things? Like, you're not making any money. Like, I'm gonna give you money, just stop. And to me it was like, no, I wanna do this because it's something that I like, it's self-empowering. And so I continued to do it. And actually between the two of us, we had a good following.
We had several classes throughout the city, and we reached around like 150 students at any given time. So we developed, and I don't wanna take the whole credit, but we were among the early instructors that developed the Roman School of Sabat. It's funny, cause I met some of the senior officers of the Italian Federation last September.
And when they saw me, it's like, oh, you guys, it's nice to see you. The old Roman school, people still remember that, which is a nice thing to hear about. But then, at a certain point, I really wanted to compete more. I wanted to complete my, how would you say, I wanted to get more exposed to fighting, and I wanted to achieve a goal in fighting.
Jeremy (20:03.182)
It's nice to be acknowledged for the work that you put in.
Gino (20:21.954)
That eventually led me to take a sabbatical from teaching and focusing more on fighting. And with that, I also ended up going to France for a little while, and I was able to train with one of the legends of this sport, the biggest legend, Richard Silat, which for people that do sabbatical is... I don't know if Tyson gets to...
gets close to it, but the man is alleged, is considered the lion of the sport. He had a total of 137 fights in his career, 69 alone in Sabata and lost just once. Overall, he lost some other fights, kickboxing or boxing, but overall, he had an impressive panmaras of...
win. So it's incredible. Yes.
Jeremy (21:19.976)
That's an incredible, incredible record. I don't think I know anyone else in the modern era that's had that. I mean, you hear stories from a hundred years ago, these boxers that would fight three times a week and they'd be 304 or something like that, but.
Gino (21:39.126)
He was almost undefeated in Sabat again. He lost once against Dutch fighter Lucien Cardin. And in, I'm reading from my notes, but in boxing, he had 33 fights, 28 victories, kickboxing, 28 victories out of 31. So very impressive guy. Very knowledgeable, very friendly person.
But when I trained with him, I had the opportunity to train at the Insep Paris, which is basically what we would consider the Olympic training center in Colorado here. I didn't know I was going there. Like, I just had a chance to talk with the guy. I was just there.
Jeremy (22:23.839)
So how did all this happen? Did you just get on a train and go to France? Or did you set some of this up ahead of time? Okay.
Gino (22:31.382)
I studied a little bit ahead, so as part of my study curriculum, I had an opportunity to get scholarships to study in Europe. That was part of a program that is still going on in Europe to facilitate the travel of students across countries. So I had an opportunity to do one year of free study in Portugal.
because that really appealed me. And just six months in Paris. And my first thoughts like, I'm going to Paris. I'm going to train some art. And that's how I did it. I went there, I got his phone number from my then Italian Federation, called the guy and I thought he was not gonna answer. And he answered the first time. He's like, yeah, I know, come over, come and train with us. I was like, okay.
And when I got there, I was training with some of the best legends of the sport at the time. Like, you know, all of...
French champions and people that have done this at a serious level. So that's when I learned a lot about the drilling, not because I didn't know it before, it just didn't click in my mind. I was doing it but not as well as them. I remember the first few rounds I did with these people, I was gassing out trying to touch them, you know, and these people just were moving around, just waiting for their opportunity to counter and never...
gas out. So I learned a lot there and was really, really happy to have that opportunity. And after that, I went back to Italy and I was there for six months.
Jeremy (24:16.903)
How long were you there? That's a long time. You must've gotten a lot better being around so many people who were so much better.
Gino (24:23.518)
I got a lot better. Yeah, I kept calling my friend Marco in Italy. He's like, Marco, I got these drills. Like, we're gonna do this when I come back, you know? And that's what happened. I got back to Rome and we started training more, competing more. And at the time, I stopped competing around 1998, 1999. At the time, I made it 10th to the,
WK ranking professionally and third in their international ranking. And I made it to a good rank in Sabata. I became a Silver Glove one, which is for us is the highest level that you can get. So Sabata like
Karate has ranking which we call gloves. And the yellow glove corresponds roughly to a brown belt. Sorry, the white glove. The yellow glove corresponds to the black belt. And then you start with the silver gloves which are the highest ranking. You can go one, two, and three.
At the time, I got my first silver glove from the Federation and then moved to the US.
Jeremy (25:58.547)
Why? Yeah.
Gino (26:00.086)
Why? Well, one of the things that happened when I started traveling across Europe, I met a bunch of Americans. And at the time I couldn't speak English because of my background was in French. So they spoke Italian and a little bit of a grasping words from shows and things we communicated. And I was very fascinated by a couple.
and the difference in culture that we had to a point that I decided then, I was like, I'm going to the US to have an experience in that country. So I moved here in 2000 with my wife. She's American, actually. And then we stayed here. At the beginning, we didn't have a plan to stay permanently here. It was like, let's go and see.
We can stay in the US, we can go back to Europe. But then, you know, you settle down and we like to hear and the rest is history.
Jeremy (27:04.971)
Mm-hmm, nice. And does she train?
Gino (27:10.302)
No, my wife.
Jeremy (27:11.963)
I always find this fascinating because for the folks who come on the show, obviously martial arts is such an important part of their life. People either have said, I need someone who trains or I need someone who doesn't train because I need that contrast. That describe you?
Gino (27:33.282)
For me, my wife used to train a little bit when we were in Italy when she was younger, but was more part of her fitness journey. She was doing spinning, she was doing weight lifting. That class was there too, and she did it, but not really at any interesting level. Then she just parted away, she's more like a boot camp kind of person, I need to do that class.
move out, the movements are simple, you know, I don't have to think too much about the strategy and stuff like that. That's kind of it. And my kids too don't train. It took me a while actually to get used to it because it kind of bothered me a little bit at the beginning. But it is life. You cannot expect everybody to follow your path.
And actually Bill Wallace was very supportive of that. One time we were talking about it during one of the symposiums, it's like, you know, they're gonna find what they love. And they are, like, you know, my daughter does synchronized swimming, my son does competitive swimming, and they're good with that.
Jeremy (28:44.696)
go. They've got something, they're doing something with some discipline, something that's taking some hard work. I think that's the most important part. Yeah. Okay. And, you know, given that you're part of this culture, this Savate culture that you created in Italy and you immersed yourself in France and then back to Italy. And I would imagine after you came back, your teaching, your school kept growing.
And then you choose to leave that and come here where I'm gonna guess one in a hundred martial artists have even heard today of Savate. That must have been difficult for you, this discipline that is so important to you.
Gino (29:28.53)
It was different. It definitely was different because I was used to the structure that the organization has in Europe versus what we have here in the US. Also, one of the other differences is that when you talk about Europe, every state, every country has its own organization. The main part of Western Europe, they're very organized. When you come to the US,
because it's a country, you think, okay, you go there and there is an organization. But then when you land here, you realize, well, there is many states, it's kind of like talking about the whole Europe versus talking about the individual countries. And so in the U.S., we had definitely a smaller reach, but overall also different level of organizations set up in different states.
So when I moved to the US in 2000, the area around New York had a few schools. New Jersey had a federation. Maryland had a federation. Nowadays, those two states don't have official federations. They have representatives, but not official federations. We also changed the structure a little bit, functioning more as an umbrella versus having the same thing that we were trying to copy from Europe.
every location has its own branch that has to build everything from scratch.
Jeremy (31:04.851)
Were you well received by those practitioners when you came?
Gino (31:09.754)
I was well received, but nobody... Let me rephrase it, because I don't wanna sound like that people were negative. Everybody was focusing on their little space where they had to develop the sport. And also again, you come to the US, it's a different attitude. There is more of a...
an emphasis of creating a following for your school, then a larger organization that oversees everything. And that has always been a challenge that we had in the US. We grew from 2000 to probably 2015, we continue to grow, but then we went down and then we're coming back up. There is a...
always this waving effect with the organization that prevents us to be a full grown organization like we have in Europe or Canada to an extent, even if they're not much bigger than us and other organizations. We have developed different approaches also in the US that are possibly better than other countries
Because of the vastity of the country that we live in, online training now became a more predominant approach. So there are a couple of options that people can follow for that versus finding a school in Alaska, which you're not going to find. But at least you can train in a sport that you might like.
Jeremy (32:59.247)
I've heard from a number of people who have spent significant time training both in Europe and the United States about how different it is. And specifically people who train seminars, that they teach seminars, that when they go to Europe they are just welcomed and people just, they're much more open whereas here in the United States, kind of what you're talking about, that people are a little more reserved. Some people, you know, they want to carve out their own space and they don't want to let anybody else into it.
that's much more common here than it is there.
Gino (33:32.47)
It is, you know, I would agree on that. It's just a different attitude, a different practice, you know, I don't want to say it's better or worse. It's just the way it is, you know. We are raising Europe and in the part of the world to grow within organizations and have opportunities to compete within those organizations. The counter is that financially, there is not much of an opportunity there to make the money that you can.
here in a competition or even teaching seminars. So that's the biggest counter. Another thing that I actually, I really noticed coming to the US is how American fighters tend to be more comfortable with fighting. And I'll elaborate on that. Basically,
Jeremy (34:27.071)
Hmm. Yeah, please.
Gino (34:31.638)
When I was training people in Europe, I almost had to beg them to compete. You know, you as an instructor train a student, you know, you know that they can do that competition. But those students, maybe it was me, you know, some of those students are like, oh, I don't feel I'm ready. Maybe we'll wait another couple of months and we'll do one, you know, next time. While here, just like, you know, it has always been.
my experience when I trained somebody, you know, I was like, hey, you're ready. And I was like, okay, I'm ready. Just no questioning, you know? And at the same time, also I had opportunities to train good fighters that just didn't need too much coaching on the mental side, like, you know, they just were ready for it. And that was always something that shocked me a little bit.
Jeremy (35:25.812)
And when you talk about training fighters, is this specifically for Savat or are you training them for other things?
Gino (35:32.93)
So here in the US, my main focus has always been training other sports with Savate drills, but I had opportunities also to train students for competitions here. The challenge with Savate is that we are not that developed nationally, so there is not a lot of opportunity to compete here. One good thing for me is that because I'm in New Hampshire and close to Quebec, I have the opportunity to go there and compete.
and bring my students to compete locally there. It's four hours drive, it's considered an international fight, but it wouldn't be different than going to New York. It's just an opportunity to compete. And I was fortunate with that. It just happened to be that way because I was located in New Hampshire. The closest gym for the longest time was in Maryland and still there with Steve Savoy.
teaching locally, but there is not, there are not a lot of competitors that can challenge your students to get at a good level for an international competition. So going to Quebec provided some of that opportunities, those opportunities. And in 2008, I took some of my students in,
a world championship in Paris. Actually, one of the largest group of Americans that we brought to an international competition was that year. We had representatives from many states and some were from New Hampshire too. And one of them actually, Peggy Morgan, which ended up going to train for
one of the UFC Ultimate Fighters, the first actually female edition, had a good run at UFC for a while too.
Jeremy (37:39.359)
Nice. And I hope it's okay that I say this. You recently had a significant birthday and Terry was telling me that you wanted to celebrate that birthday in a certain way and he was blown away at how that went. Is it okay that we talk about this? Okay.
Gino (38:04.114)
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, so I turned 50 last December and joking with my students and with Terry, he's like, oh man, you know, because let me step back. We always have sparring on Saturday and between sparring with Terry and my students, I always do between 25 or 30 rounds of sparring with everybody. You know, assuming, you know, that not every round is a full speed, you know, but
You know, I still put a good training, which I like because it forces me to train on a Saturday. But joking about it, it's like we start talking about my birthday and we said, well, you know, maybe we do 50 rounds, you know, and then just became one thing. So it was, I don't remember, it was like two days before I went to Italy because I was going to celebrate with my parents and relatives also in Italy for this big milestone.
Jeremy (38:38.055)
Yeah.
Gino (39:01.502)
So we had this event and a lot of people showed up from nowhere. You know, so, you know, I thought it was going to be just with my students. You know, really we have people just that stop by. Oh, I heard that we were going to do this thing. So give me a pair of gloves. You know, and it was nice. It was almost two and a half hours of sparring, you know, and I spied with kids.
Jeremy (39:08.319)
Hehehehe
Gino (39:30.218)
and I sparred with senior fighters, but the majority was with people that I was happy to exchange combos with, you know. So I really enjoyed it.
Jeremy (39:44.327)
And without, you know, I'm not gonna try to quote what I was told, but it sounded like it went well. It sounded like you can, you can still hang at a fairly high level.
Gino (39:57.974)
Thank you, thank you. Yes, it went well. I was tired at the end, you know, and I'm looking for a six.
Jeremy (40:02.151)
Well, sure, two and a half. I don't know who wouldn't be.
Gino (40:06.838)
Yeah, it's a, how do you say, it was a long amount of time, but at the end, one of the things I learned in this sport is to pace yourself and commit to certain combos and strikes. So one of the drills that we do a lot in class is a live
light sparring that goes on for the, especially Saturday, goes on for an hour and a half and people spar for roughly 20 rounds. But the key is not going hard. We can always do that. It's controlling, working on your technique and the things that you wanna drill that you can do when somebody's not challenging with a strong punch or kick. So for example, if you're not good at bobbing and weaving,
and you wanna try that, you're not gonna try it with somebody that is trying to take your head off. But if everybody has the same mindset, you're gonna start trying those things that you normally don't do because of fear of being hit. And that forces your capability to adapt to the movements and also committing to certain strikes versus other strikes. One of the things that I push a lot is that you don't have to
kick hard every time, particularly if I see, for example, that you're parrying that kick. I waste less energy by throwing the kick light and going back into my guard and do something else or move away, then commit to that kick anyway, or worse, stop in mid air. It's like, oh, it's not gonna go in. And creating an opportunity for you to counter whenever you get the way I behave.
So students tend to adjust to that and tend to play with that opportunity to combo things hard and light at the same time and save energy. And that's how I do it. Because again, you know, whenever I'm pressed, I will kick and punch hard. Whenever I'm not pressed, or whenever I don't find that opening, that will connect.
Gino (42:28.362)
I would just go light. And this saves a lot of energy throughout the whole long time.
Jeremy (42:33.979)
sense. Now you've mentioned a couple people, you know we've talked about Terry Dow who is a fantastic martial artist, you've mentioned Bill Wallace who's been on the show, fantastic martial artist, and folks can likely assume from that you've been around plenty of other fantastic martial artists, I know you have, and generally when we're around other people who are really good at things it changes who we are and how we do things. If we were to watch you
train or spar today versus say 20, 25 years ago, what would we notice that's different?
Gino (43:10.986)
Definitely the drilling, the movement until I went to France and until I met Richard Silaba, also Francois Penaquio a few years later, which is another champion of the sport. His nickname was the star of the Savate at the time, Le Toit de la Savate, because of his style. And Francois Penaquio, for those that
Don't know him on the channel. One of his biggest fights was against Ramon Decker in 1998, 1999, very big fight at the time it was the clash of the styles. Ramon Decker coming with a more traditional Muay Thai style at the end of his career, starting with more with a Dutch style, but then toward the end it was that much more traditional versus
François Penaquio being a more sabbat driven kickboxer. And the fight was amazing. You can find on YouTube, if you check Dekker versus Penaquio, there are many uploads of that fight. But ultimately, François ended up winning that fight because of his drilling and movements.
and power too, but you know, the biggest thing was that he didn't go into a fight against Ramon Decker trying to match Ramon Decker's style. He worked around that and that to me is what made the difference for the fight. Ramon Decker was a very hard person to hit and a very hard person to take down. So if you went into that fight hoping for a knockout and a glorious...
fast ending chances where that you wouldn't have achieved that easily. Francois won on the long term on points and did a great job. And to me, Francois was the one that drove me more to understand how to change angles to avoid being hit and countering, which is one of the fundamentals of the sport. As you progress in
Gino (45:35.542)
your ranking, you start with the basics, hitting and then hitting without being countered. And as you progress farther up, the techniques don't get much more complex than the basics. But the complexity of the drills come from the capability of hitting without being hit or setting your opponent to be hit without being hit. And that just...
keeps drilling that mentality of avoiding being hurt while hurting your opponent. And there was something that Francois Penaquillo told me one time in a seminar, and he just talked with me. He said, you don't wanna spend the money that you make with a competition or two into medicines and therapy to fix something. You want to get to the end of your career being able to walk.
Gino (46:33.835)
And that kind of drove my teaching after. I always focus on that, avoiding being hit and countering at the same time.
Jeremy (46:43.731)
Makes sense. You've had a chance to, again, train, not just with wonderful, high caliber martial artists, but a lot of what I would call everyday martial artists, folks like me who, you know, they've been training a long time, but you know, we're not world-class, we're not champions. And a lot of those people are coming out of what we might call more common martial arts, karate, taekwondo. And you've sparred a lot of them, and...
you've probably noticed some patterns. What advice might you give to folks from your perspective that might improve their sparring?
Gino (47:15.531)
Yes.
Gino (47:23.742)
Yeah, so it's hard because depending who you are talking with, like, you know, and how they're training. If they are so into the martial art that in a way that they don't see outside of it, it's hard to have them learn tricks that can help them because they will just...
how do you say, dismiss them ultimately. Many times I spar with people that do traditional karate and might not do competitive karate enough to have that mobility that they need to have to be in the ring with me. And they just end up trying to come in with a...
one kick, one punch, but they might absorb 30 seconds of hitting just to get in with that punch, you know, so it just doesn't work in that context, you know, might work in a different situation like self-defense where, you know, you don't have somebody that is trying to apply a combat sport practice with you versus somebody that is self-dependent against...
somebody that attacks you. We have a different dynamic. And that's the biggest challenge I see, that people try to use those skills just one way fits them all versus adapting to my style. I hope that answers the question.
Jeremy (49:09.111)
Yeah, it does and it doesn't. Let me ask it a little bit differently. If you could give your typical, your average Karatika, Taekwondo practitioner one drill to work on, one drill for that you could assign them and say, do this a bunch. What would that be?
Gino (49:32.354)
that to me will be changing angles and at the same time hitting without being hit.
Jeremy (49:40.28)
Okay. How?
Gino (49:40.43)
So thank you.
Jeremy (49:43.795)
Keep going, say more about that.
Gino (49:45.834)
So to change angles, you know, you got to start focusing again, not going into a specific attack, but taking that attack from a different angle. So let's think about how we move on the Tadami or on the ring in a circular way versus linear way. So, for example, I don't like to talk about side stepping when you do a side exiting, because to me that...
brings you into a geometry of triangles. So my distance changes when I take a sidestep. But if instead I do a step on a circle, I always maintain the same ray from every angle. So that's the biggest thing. Try to move around the circle instead of moving sideways, backward, and forward. And attacking your opponent, not necessarily by going forward, but by going...
on a different angle on the circle. That is the biggest thing that people around you are concerned about. Thank you for the clarification. Your opponent is the center of the circle and you move with that opponent. Now with that, there comes more exposure to you and that's why you need to be able to be in and out from that circle at the same time to avoid being hit and be capable to...
Jeremy (50:49.447)
And you're talking about a circle around your opponent, your partner.
Gino (51:12.974)
to hit at the same time. And the biggest difference that I see usually in traditional martial arts, or even sometimes in kickboxing and boxing, is that when people avoid, try to avoid being hit, they take a step back. And that step back might be two feet. Well, it's good. I'm away from you to, and I'm protected, but I'm also away from you to attack you. Because now it takes more energy to cover an attack.
or to close that distance with one or two steps. While instead, if I move on a circle and I move away from your attacking guard on the circle, I'm always protected because you have to follow me. So if you think about a regular guard, if I move outside of your guard, the only thing you can do is spin on that side to counter, unless you want to rotate with me. But when you rotate with me, you're following my drill.
All I have to worry about is your back rotation, you know? So that is one of the things that people can work on. And maintaining that ray has always that opportunity for you to move on the side, one way or another one to attack or defend.
You need to try it more than think about it. That's the challenge, having people doing things one way. You need to put them in a class, a seminar, and work on that for a little bit and hope that they take it home and try it. One way to do it is have your opponent stand in the ring and work around it or do it a lot on the back. But the back can be deceiving because your distances.
Jeremy (52:43.153)
Yeah.
Gino (53:00.15)
tend to change a little bit, so it definitely needs to be complemented by something else.
Jeremy (53:07.099)
Got it. If people want to see more of this stuff, if they want to connect with you, follow you on social media, maybe online training, you mentioned that, how would they connect with
Gino (53:20.47)
Absolutely. So people can find me online on Facebook, Aggino Nessuno, or even Instagram, same name. They can reach out to me via email at info.edec, for the call to combat, edecusa.gmail. And I'm sure we can share that information after.
Jeremy (53:48.251)
Yeah. Yeah, we'll link all that stuff.
Gino (53:50.554)
And they can reach to me also through the US Federation at usavad.org. You know, the Federation can get in touch with me in the area. And that's the main way I connect with people that want to work with me. For online training, I don't have an online training
program. I, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just not me. I like to train people face to face and I'm appointing my life actually, you know, for full disclaimer for your audience. I'm appointing my life that I don't train everybody. I train those people that want to be trained at a serious level because my time and your time is valuable. I have a family like other people have families.
Jeremy (54:25.479)
Yeah, that's okay.
Gino (54:49.858)
So if they really wanna be trained, I will train them and we'll work them to get to a point where they can continue their journey independently and move on. But I don't have much time for beginners. You know.
Jeremy (55:14.226)
I understand.
Gino (55:15.474)
For that, I actually suggest going to Sabat USA. It is an online, or Sabat Teachable. I can share that information with you for the group. Nicolas Siniac, which is a French man that lives in California and is my counterpart, actually. I think he's the only other person on my rank of internationally recognized in this country.
Jeremy (55:28.403)
Yeah, please.
Gino (55:46.046)
that has an awesome online course and he's really good in teaching people across the country and develop these skills from a beginning level to an experience level too. He had a very good child fighters too. But he has put together actually this course a couple of years back and people are taking advantage of it.
Jeremy (56:15.415)
Awesome, awesome. And yeah, to the audience, we're definitely gonna link all that stuff up in the show notes. Head over to whistlekickmarshallartsradio.com for the full experience of that. Check out our stuff at whistlekick.com. And Gino, thanks for being here, but I want you to end. So what are your words that you wanna leave the audience with today?
Gino (56:38.874)
Again, for me, it's follow your journey, train into the martial arts that you love, but also be open to other martial arts. I learned a lot, for example, from Taekwondo and karate on things that I could do slightly differently and provide me an edge against my opponents. And I learned a lot from other martial arts on things that I shouldn't do just because they don't work.
You build your style and as long as you're truthful to that, you're going to be successful.