Episode 854 - Shihan Vince Cecere
Today's episode is a chat with Shihan Vince Cecere, originally from the Bronx, but now living in Los Angeles as an actor.“My life is more than a movie. Goodfellas is for amateurs.”
Shihan Vince Cecere - Episode 854
On today’s episode we have an interview with Shihan Vince Cecere. We take you on an electrifying ride through the extraordinary life of a martial artist who had ties to the underworld and now has a flourishing career in Hollywood. Get ready to dive into a world where fists, fame, and fascinating stories collide.
Shihan Cecere seamlessly transitioned into the world of acting, where he brought his authentic edge to the silver screen, captivating audiences with charisma charisma and martial prowess.
Join us as we delve into tales of brushes with danger, chance meetings, and the glamorous allure of showbiz. In this interview we explore how Shihan Cecere found his way out of the shadows and onto the big screen, through a chance encounter.
So, tighten your black belt, grab some popcorn, and join us on this incredible journey as we unravel the enigmatic life of this martial artist. This is a story you won't want to miss.
Show Notes
You can reach Shihan Cecere at:
Insta: aosjujitsu
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Show Transcript
Jeremy (00:00.753)
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome. This is Whistlekick martial arts radio. My guest today, Sheehan Vince Ciceri. We'll start chatting in just a minute here. Excited to talk with him. But to you in the audience, if you're new, please check out our website, whistlekickmarshallartsradio.com. We've got 850 something. I don't know what number we're gonna put on this one yet, but quite a few episodes out there. They're all available for you. And we're gonna have show notes and things from this episode included there.
And if you want to get the full skinny on everything we do at Whistlekick to connect, educate, and entertain the martial artists of the world, go to whistlekick.com and see the things that we have that we're doing there. It's all in service to you, the traditional martial artists of the world. So, Shihan, thanks for coming on. Thanks for your time. Of course. Good morning. Good morning. It's a bit earlier for you than it is for me. You're on the left side. You're on the left coast.
vince cecere (00:45.944)
Thank you for having me. Good morning, Jeremy.
vince cecere (00:54.897)
Let's just say I'm on the left coast.
Jeremy (00:58.701)
I'm on the right coast. Yeah, it's a, you ever take a map and just like flip, just flip it over and see how much it messes with your brain. It's, it's kind of.
vince cecere (01:07.27)
Actually, because I'm from the Bronx, my brain's messed with every day when I live in Los Angeles.
Jeremy (01:13.683)
You know, it's funny, I should have been able to pick up a bit of that accent being that I'm not that far away, but yeah.
vince cecere (01:20.634)
Usually they peck me for a Georgian guy, guy from Georgia. They get under the accent, but oh yeah, the twang grows them off.
Jeremy (01:25.369)
Really? Yeah, see, it's a different kind of twang. There's a... Georgian twang has a softness to it. New York twang has a confidence to it.
vince cecere (01:35.755)
Yes.
vince cecere (01:40.234)
It's funny because we're doing a movie, Black Creek, with Cynthia next month, the end of the month, in Benson. And she said, wait a minute, you're the bartender in the Western piece, 1898, in the West, you're the bartender? Yeah, Earl, I own the bar, the saloon. Where are you from, the Bronx? I said, well, you don't think people from New York ever migrated west?
Jeremy (02:00.401)
Ha ha!
Everybody came through New York, of course they migrated. I don't know how that accent's changed over time, but I think it works.
vince cecere (02:12.11)
It's very, I like the dialects of the cities. I enjoy them. I think it's really a wonderful thing. It can get a derivation on where people are from, a little bit about their history just by the way that they talk, you know. And you know, as an actor, we're trained to, you know, see Sally, see the seashore by the sea shark and all that stuff, with all these voices, these things. But at the end of the day, you got to be comfortable in your own skin. And that's what the high for, to be comfortable in your own skin, who you are.
Jeremy (02:32.09)
Yeah.
vince cecere (02:40.239)
What unique ability, you know, you're unique. Everybody's unique.
Jeremy (02:44.113)
Did you set out to be an actor or did you? Yeah. How old were you when you first said, that's what I wanna do?
vince cecere (02:46.038)
Yeah.
vince cecere (02:50.935)
Breathe.
Jeremy (02:52.743)
Say again?
vince cecere (02:53.578)
I was on stage at three years old.
Jeremy (02:55.217)
Three! What were you doing on stage at three?
vince cecere (02:57.958)
My mom had me in these dance contests, performance contests, and then I think my first film, at 15, I won a dance talent contest in Florida. And they put me on a show. I landed a part in a movie called Porkies. And that was my first role as an extra in Porkies. It was because I was a dancer then. I got from that.
Jeremy (03:03.005)
Really?
Jeremy (03:17.429)
Yeah. Wow.
vince cecere (03:26.542)
I was 15 and they brought me back for Porky's 2. I did a couple of more things there, Night in Heaven, and then I went to New York at 17 to go to acting school to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts because I was already off and running and I had to bug.
Jeremy (03:29.701)
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy (03:43.633)
What was it about acting that drew you in?
vince cecere (03:46.986)
I don't...an actor doesn't have a choice.
Okay, like all of us, if we put it in martial arts terms, there's a style or a process or a methodology that fits your spirit. You'll see, if you try to judge it, to go into an art based on demographic or money without the consideration of style, teacher.
or the important things of martial arts that we know later on are very important in the selection of a particular path. But the path really picks you. You know this. Same thing as an actor. An actor doesn't have a choice. He sees it, he knows. I was a little kid, I was sitting in front of the TV, my mommy said, you'd have friends waiting for you outside, all waiting by the door to go play, and all you wanted to do was watch movies. That's all you wanted to do. And
that became my life. And by the time I was 17 back in New York, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and I started doing films there, worked on B Street with Harry Belafonte, was a break dancer, and then kept on going. Now I'm over 50, and I've done about 17 films, about 40 national commercials, 30, 40 national.
Jeremy (05:14.759)
Oh cool.
Jeremy (05:20.093)
So movies, acting started at three. When did martial arts start?
vince cecere (05:26.51)
Well, martial arts actually started in my late 20s. I, when I...
Jeremy (05:31.901)
Okay, we're getting the opposite of what we usually get on the show. Usually we get people who start with martial arts and they end up in film.
vince cecere (05:41.443)
Yeah, you know how as an actor you have to work to make a living to do something else until you can actually support yourself as an actor? Well in everything, even as a martial artist opening a new school, nobody opens up, boom, and makes a bunch of money, you develop a reputation and then you go. And work begets work, work begets work. As an actor, as an actor...
Jeremy (05:48.241)
This is what I've heard, yeah. Yeah.
vince cecere (06:07.497)
you're learning all these new things, but as in the street, I was actually working for Italian politicians collecting money.
vince cecere (06:17.506)
So when I hit my 20s, I had a nightclub in South Florida, right where the Hard Rock Casino is now in Coconut Creek, Florida, across the street, and it was called Club Illusions. And a bandleader got stabbed in the neck from another bandleader. The knife went right through his neck, into his neck, on stage in front of 1,200 people.
vince cecere (06:42.942)
At 21 years old, now I'm back in Florida now, I already had a CCW and I carried a piece, but my club was full and this guy stabbed this guy and had all these big body builder guys. I thought that's what you needed for a club at that time. And these guys saw arterial blood and just ran. They were terrified. And we had to end up doing what we had to do. And now, like when people ask me about that experience, because I was birthed into martial arts through fire. You know, the very first thing I saw, it was a guy's neck.
a knife going through a guy's neck. I'm like, oh, that macro. I couldn't shoot the guy. He's up on stage. You got a thousand people on the dance floor. I got a 12-piece orchestra. I had to stay a bit like Tito Puente on my stage. You know, Nesta Torres. This was a first-class Latin nightclub in South Florida that had 1200 people. So a 12-piece orchestra, full of class. I'm in tuxedo for God's sake. I work.
Jeremy (07:37.798)
Mmm.
vince cecere (07:40.946)
Anyway, guys stabbed a guy in the neck, very next day, I saw the guys, these guys run, I fired all of them that night, and I wanna know nothing about nothing, I wanna know how to take away a knife. I don't wanna ever be caught in that position ever again, to where I'm helpless to handle a situation like this. And the next day, I got, one of my bartenders had taken some ninjitsu, and he said, oh, there's something called ninja, ninjitsu. And I said, what the heck is ninjitsu?
You gotta remember back in the 90s, hardly anybody knew what the word jujitsu was. The Gracies weren't even out yet. Okay. Uh, what was big was the coming off the, uh, best of the best Philip Rhee and, and Steven Seagal was the thing then coming out of the 80s into the 90s. So Akido was everywhere. And, um, I went and I found my, we couldn't find this in the jujitsu school. He said, well, there's something called jujitsu.
I said, what the heck is Jujitsu? And he said, he says, all I can think is it's gotta be something like ninjitsu, because it's got the same, you know, jitsu, which we know just means pliable now, right? So, I mean, combat. So, doing that, I went to the very first dojo, and I walked in, and I met a guy named Grandmaster, or at that time, Shihan Leoni Velasquez. And Leo's out of the Moses Powell Master V Dr. Chanique lineage. And as I walked in there,
He had said to me, I had just been, I was lifting, I did a level three show in Florida, the Florida Gold Coast. My off weight is 250, my seasonal weight, I come in at 225, 230. So I was pretty large when I walked in the door and I was the biggest guy in the dojo. And he said, I said, I want you to teach me how to take away a knife. And I told him what happened. And he calls up a guy and this guy rolls in.
I had never seen a Hakama before. I had never seen any of these things. And the guy rolls in, he tells him to get this thing called a tanto. I'm like, what the heck is a tanto? You know? And he grabs the tanto and he comes over and then he does this knife thing and he disarms him and puts him down. And he looked, you know, Jeremy, he looked to me like the guy was eating cornflakes. You know what I'm saying? Like, you see a guy doing that. He was so good at what he did. It's like watching Houdini do a magic trick.
vince cecere (10:03.134)
You just, you'll never figure it out, but you can't stop watching. You're like, do that again. But because I was in the streets and I had the life I had, I'm not a guy that, you can't sell a wolf ticket and expect me to buy it. You're gonna have to purchase it. So I said, give me that knife and do it to me. And the guy goes, what? I said, I wanna see you disarm me the same way you did it to that guy. And...
When Sian Velasquez tells the story, coming from the other side, he's like, here's this giant Italian guerrilla collector coming in the door and says, do that to me. Grab the knife from me.
Jeremy (10:45.991)
So what happened?
vince cecere (10:47.414)
So I took that thing, I did what he did, I tried to plant it in him and let me tell you, to this day, I don't know the move that he did. I just know that he disarmed me and incapacitated me and had me on the ground and held me with the knife. And when Shion says, Vinny, you looked up and you had to smile from here to here because it was an encounter with truth.
where somebody actually really put me on my ass and took me out.
Jeremy (11:18.429)
which I'm gonna guess didn't happen very often.
vince cecere (11:21.19)
Exactly. That's like getting hit with lightning. It dramatically changes the course of your belief system in defense. It dramatically.
Jeremy (11:33.021)
So he observed you smiling, so I'm going to guess that you remember what it was like being on the ground. That sounds like one of those moments. What were you thinking at that point?
vince cecere (11:40.918)
Yeah.
vince cecere (11:44.982)
What was I thinking? My father once, my father was a 350 pounds, 62 jacket, gorilla from the Bronx. His wrists were as big as my forearms. He was a big, hairy gorilla guy.
He once smacked a Dolly Madison driver. The reason I'm telling you this, this guy was going after kids and intimidating kids and stalking children and this one girl. So we sent him a message, tell him to stay away from them kids. And then they called us and said, this guy's stalking a kid over at the Red Lobster again. She's in there, she said he's out in the parking lot. Sorry to back up the story so much, but I have to fill you in.
Jeremy (12:24.605)
It's okay, it's okay. Context is important.
vince cecere (12:27.882)
When I came up as a kid, I've always seen guys in the neighborhood and big guys, manhandle people. These are men. You don't, at the way you talk, you're very careful how you speak to these men. So this is in my DNA now as a kid. So now we get there and this guy, he sees the guy and he tells the guy, didn't we tell you? Didn't we tell you never to come back here? And the guy gets out of the truck. He's wearing a cowboy hat.
A white cowboy hat.
and he gets in this stance, which I know now is a front right fight stance. And he goes like this. He goes, I'm a black belt.
My father slapped this guy an open hand in the face, his head almost landed in New Jersey. The cowboy hat was rolling for 15 minutes after he slapped him, okay?
vince cecere (13:31.926)
That was the extent.
Jeremy (13:33.453)
I can, it's a great visual, I can see it.
vince cecere (13:35.902)
This is the extent of the martial arts that I believed when a guy says I'm a black belt and a guy that never took a day in his life, just a gorilla, hit him one shot and tanked the guy.
So my dad, forget how it ended up, but we took care of business. The point is, that was my first, the only thing I ever knew about martial arts was some guy jumped out, got in a stance with a cowboy hat, threatened us that he was a black belt, and I watched him get the heck knocked out of him in one shot. So I didn't have a belief in it, that's why I carried a gun.
vince cecere (14:12.43)
Fast forward. I have this illuminational time with him. I start the next day and You know what? I didn't know I was a fish. They dropped me in the water and I could swim
Jeremy (14:27.633)
So do you remember that first class and what that felt like?
vince cecere (14:30.666)
I don't remember the first class. I do remember purchasing my first Iron Man, my first, not my Iron Man gi, my first one was a heavy duty, white, golden tiger, white judo gi. I remember that, the very first one. I think I still have it.
Jeremy (14:52.223)
Oh, fun.
vince cecere (14:53.374)
Yeah. And I…
Jeremy (14:58.437)
So there's a part here that I think is important, right? Because you've set this up that martial arts was something that maybe you didn't have a lot of faith in. At the very least, you've got this one example of it did not work. And so I suspect that it was because of the relationship you had with this person that you worked with, say, let's go check out ninjitsu turned jujitsu so you were open, but probably pretty skeptical and talking about.
vince cecere (15:06.518)
I had no faith in it.
vince cecere (15:10.815)
Right.
Jeremy (15:24.197)
you know, okay, now you disarm me, that makes sense, right? The skepticism and you're on the ground, but I still kind of wanna know what was going through your head that made you say, okay, there's enough here that I'm willing to put in my time that I'm not simply gonna trust this piece of steel on my head.
vince cecere (15:41.84)
Okay, well I was a dancer in New York.
When I was going to acting school and through I would dance at the Wilson Morelli Ballet Company. So that was on 14th Street and 6th Avenue. And then I got together with a company, I was called Waves out of Philadelphia, which is a jazz company. So I was a trained dancer for years doing shows. So when I got into a place and I felt something organized and legitimate and the guy knew his beats and I felt his rhythms.
This guy knew what he was doing. I guess that was a better way.
Jeremy (16:16.221)
That makes sense. Yeah. And you know, it's funny you describe it in that way because I think those of us who have been training for a while and been in a number of different schools, probably nodding along and saying, you know what, that's actually a great way to separate a really good school versus maybe a less good school. You can feel it. You can feel the structure. You can feel you're talking about it in terms of beats and music. But even without music, there is a, there's a melody.
to the way a martial arts school operates.
vince cecere (16:51.122)
We, we, well, what I wanted to say is, I know we're staying on the track, but even up until today, starting with the thought you just said.
Vibration and synergy are one of the biggest things that we count on, running our school and dealing with our students.
Jeremy (17:10.045)
Absolutely. And I believe there's something really innate about that. You know, whether you talk about it as sixth sense or instinct or anything, I think, you know, we pick up a lot and I think those of us who train have learned to trust that in a way that maybe not everyone has.
vince cecere (17:26.806)
I think when they go through the whole process, first off, if you're lucky enough to have a teacher who is almost at that enlightened stage, that he's been through it for a long time and he's already done the physical mental processes and he's on as we all hope to attain to be in the spiritual realm for the rest of your career because you're really not coming from a physical point of view anymore. You're coming from a spiritual point of view, trying to affect people in a positive manner rather than trying to scare people.
I think that we all have the vibration, we all have the ability to sink and do the same thing. I just don't believe unless you have the proper training of someone that takes you through the body, mind and spirit, because many places that I've went to, and this is not a knock or bad, good, anything, these are merely observations.
vince cecere (18:25.026)
You're the only teacher that ever sat down, did the circle of truth with us, and let the students say what's on their mind, and you listen to them and give them feedback about thoughts. Maybe that guy hit me too hard, is he holding something back? How did I feel when I got hit? Did I feel like that was aggression? Did I feel I was a proper response? And we go through those thoughts, so there's no one leaving the dojo with a bad feeling.
thinking that another guy doesn't like them. In dojos, they're very cliquey. You get these groups, so we're a high-rank group. So they're a clique. They don't, oh, I can't work out with that guy. He's gonna be this rank. I don't believe in any of that stuff. Any of it. I think you're a martial artist. You get up, you start working, you're doing the job, you're eating a fire like everybody else. And if you're just, I don't care if you're punching, kicking, grappling, wrestling, firearms, combative tactics. I don't care what it is. You're a martial artist going through.
Jeremy (19:01.306)
with you.
vince cecere (19:18.767)
your art, you're expressing yourself hopefully honestly, which makes us all brothers.
Jeremy (19:25.234)
Yeah, and that's right. And we'll go back, but I wanna follow this for a minute. This idea of what I guess I'm gonna describe as a after class therapy session, group therapy, support group, you know? And okay, I can't say I've ever heard of this, but it makes so much sense, especially if we roll back two minutes when you're talking about the physical's gotta come first.
vince cecere (19:38.614)
Yeah, we call it the circle of truth.
Jeremy (19:52.865)
And then ultimately you can get to this emotional, mental, some people would also include the word spiritual progression in there, that you've gotta take away ego, you've gotta take away these barriers, these boundaries that get in the way of training or you're not gonna get there. And what I've just heard that I think is so powerful is here's another way to attack that is incredibly efficient.
vince cecere (20:20.016)
Yes sir.
Jeremy (20:21.181)
How did you come up with that? Where does that come from?
vince cecere (20:24.034)
It started with my teacher from Leo and those guys, the Temiru guys back home under Sanukis and Dr. Powell, the East Coast Jiu-Jitsu lineage. It started there at that school where we first did it, but the teacher just used to talk and everybody didn't get a chance to speak. The teacher would talk in a circle. I moved it more to where I want to hear people talk. I go around, I say, is there anything you would like to say on your mind?
before we close out and we go from high rank to low ranks in the circle, obviously, and, uh, and get the truth out of it. And what's great about it is like in the military or law enforcement, do an after action analysis of a situational that we dealt with. Yes, this is really what we're doing is an after action analysis of the class and the potential for making it better. You know, where are the, where could we have taught you more? Where could you have learned less? Is there something that you want to work on more? You know,
Jeremy (21:21.721)
I would imagine on your drive home after class as the instructor, you're coming up with six dozen ways to make the next class even better because now you don't have to wonder about how they're responding. Now you not only get to observe, like you're getting their feedback.
vince cecere (21:40.201)
I have long-term students, pretty good, 25 years, 15 years, long-term students. My dojo is at my home. I have a whole built-in facility. The whole garage, oversized garage, is built into a school. So my commute home is about 35 foot walk.
Jeremy (21:59.359)
Okay, so maybe not six dozen ideas on the way.
vince cecere (22:03.958)
But the thing about it is that I teach organically.
I don't have a, I don't come in with a plan. And the teachers have a lesson plan. Let's say like, you have teachers that teach, let's say an organized cookie cutting system. And you have to learn this many katas, this many forms, this kick, you know, this is the bun kai, the whole thing. But how in our world, and I have a security company, where were the rubber meets the road?
We don't, we're not a hands off, we're extremely hands on close quarter system. Which means if it doesn't work, you're in trouble. You can't, there's no, there's no air techniques. It's got to be meat and potatoes. And it's got to be simple. It has to be natural. It has to be one, two, three, or succession of one, two, three strikes.
linked together but never more than three because you're never going to do it. The students get these emotional feelings that come up and have these great breakthroughs and many times they start crying because you've created an atmosphere that you wish the whole world would be like. I've got white, black, Asian, Spanish, San Salvador, El Salvador, I got people from all over the world on a map.
completely different philosophies of religion, of spirituality, of government, of everything, completely different. And you're on that mat, everybody's in one beautiful synchronized symphony. They're laughing, smiling, crying, hugging each other. And we use it as a microcosm for what the world could be like.
vince cecere (24:09.386)
You know, if you can't do, if you could duplicate that in the whole world. Here's people punching and beating the crap out of each other.
and then hugging each other and laughing about it on the way out. Now where do you have that?
Jeremy (24:24.193)
only in good training. Only in good training. And it's one of my favorite things. It's one of my favorite things. You know, I've spoken a lot on this show about, you know, maybe not the biggest fan of the high level pro MMA, but you get a notch or two below that. And this is exactly what you're talking about. You see it, they, sometimes they even bow. They beat the tar out of each other. They're bloody, they're bruised. And then they hug.
because they can't do what they're doing. We can't do what we're doing without people who are willing to be vulnerable and potentially make sacrifices in their body for our own mutual training. It doesn't work. Very few people become even competent martial artists solo. You could do a lot of techniques, but can you actually do anything with them? I don't think so. You need other people.
vince cecere (24:55.515)
Thank you.
vince cecere (25:22.764)
I agree with that. I know that the MMA and it's a multi-billion dollar industry. I know that's everybody. I hear them say, what do you do? People come and they say, oh, what do you do? Oh, you're a teacher. Oh, yeah. Naturally, the next question is, oh, yeah, I do MMA. So the first thing that I ask someone when they say I do MMA is what arts do you blend?
They're completely lost.
Jeremy (25:52.261)
Right. What are the M's that you're M-ing? What are the M-ing? What are the M-A's you're M-ing? There we go.
vince cecere (25:54.87)
Thank you.
vince cecere (25:58.902)
That's right. And they can't, a lot of people can't answer that question. No, no, I study MMA and CrossFit training. No, I completely understand. But you're saying a term that you're using and I'm asking you, which arts are you blending? And most of them are confused.
So then I explained it to him. Well, if you were taking Kempo, if you were taking Aikido, if you were taking Jiu-Jitsu, if you were taking Muay Thai, if you were taking Taekwondo, if you were taking Kempo, this is the difference. Now, if you were to black belt in Kempo, and then you were also a black belt in Muay Thai, and then you were a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu, well, Kempo, you'd already have the hands of Jiu-Jitsu, but you would be a well-rounded martial artist able to adapt to a situation that comes in. In our thought process is...
Jeremy (26:37.457)
Right, right.
vince cecere (26:46.71)
You're always going to be overwhelmed by a number of guys. You're not going to be alone. So don't think you're going to fight alone because nobody fights fair. The minute you fight two guys or there's going to be more guys, somebody's around the corner, get ready for them. Which is a reality based way to think when you're thinking about self-defense. You know, check your surroundings, look around, make your six. Don't be so focused on one guy with tunnel vision that his two buddies jump on you and destroy you from behind. You didn't see him.
vince cecere (27:15.023)
But anyway, and that is what I, when it comes to MMA, they've asked me to judge before. When Grandmaster Bill Ryosaki was around, he was doing it in Vegas and going to these things, he would say, yeah, I got to go do these things. He says, but I don't understand. There's no art in it. It's just two guys beating the crap out of each other. And I say, you know, if it's their thing and it brings them to their truth, that's cool that they're doing it and they're making a living and they're doing it.
But when the kids come and say to me, I want to study this, and the first thing, if somebody comes to me, first of all, I don't study, is anybody under seven years old, Jeremy? And the other thing is, when you come, I ask you the first question, like Master V asked me, why do you want to study martial arts?
Why are you here? And they give you an answer like, oh, I just want to beat the shit out of people. Or I'm sorry, I don't know if we're cursing. I don't know where. He says, but, and they say, oh, I want to go in the MMA and compete. The very first thing I do is send them to Gene LaBelle, well, I used to, Gene died. But I'd say, no, I'm not your teacher. Because anything I'll teach you will get you disqualified. You won't be able to compete.
Jeremy (28:05.469)
It's okay.
vince cecere (28:22.878)
and just very straight up about it. You know, you can't do everything. You know what I mean? You can't be a master of all trades. And these people that have eight different black belts or eight different high ranking master that are like, oh, I'm an eighth degree black belt in four or five different styles. I find that hard to swallow.
vince cecere (28:46.602)
because
I'm doing this now 30 something years and I'm pretty much purely just jiu jitsu. I studied with Samuel Kwok, some Wing Chong. I've learned some Wing Chong and I was with Benny Okides for a few years. So you know, then I got some of his inside kicks in there, his inside wheel kicks. So we kind of blended some great things. Then I worked out with Philip Reed for a couple of years. So between hop keto and that he taught me some hop keto.
and we did a kendo together with the things. He taught me some kendo, and I taught him jiu-jitsu. So what we did was, you know what was really great with Philip? Because Philip is such a great martial artist. I said, Philip, let's pull it apart. Let's find out where the sport meets combat, and let's see what happens. And that's what we started doing. He'd start throwing him fancy kicks, and we just closed the distance, man. And you see what he's...
Jeremy (29:22.053)
Nice. Oh yeah.
Jeremy (29:39.709)
Hmm.
vince cecere (29:47.818)
It's not going to happen in the street like that. The fancy stuff, they will never get away with it in the street. It has to be basics.
Jeremy (29:56.189)
I'm with you. How much of this philosophy was instilled in you and how much of it is stuff that you've pieced together on your own as you've spent time training?
vince cecere (30:16.374)
Because I went back to school and I got myself an advanced massage therapy degree, 725-hour course, I spent six months in class, I learned all the systems of the body from cellular mitosis to the intercutomery system. By learning that, I learned cause and effect of anomalies on the human body. And while you're learning to heal people, you can also learn that if you reverse the polarity of your intent, instead of healing and opening pathways,
you're actually closing pathways and creating problems, blockages. So it's the yin and yang of martial arts, healing and destroying. I don't think you could be any good until you know how to heal people and help people first.
Jeremy (31:00.965)
That's a philosophy that we've heard a number of times on the show, usually from practitioners of Chinese martial arts. It's usually where it comes in this idea that, and there are even some schools out there that start on the healing side, that they're not going to let you learn the combative side until you've learned the healing. And you could almost make the argument that the way Tai Chi is taught, if it's a lineage of Tai Chi that they have, you know, the combative elements.
built in it. That's kind of what they're doing. You know, it's the self-healing. Then, okay, now let's show you how these same movements apply in a combative scenario.
Jeremy (31:40.213)
When you started, was there much conversation around the healing side? I guess a better question is, what made you want to step into massage therapy?
vince cecere (31:48.583)
No. Oh, I stepped into massage therapy because I knew I was going to come to California from Florida because I thought he was an actor and the plan was always to come to LA. So again,
vince cecere (32:08.15)
I have to put it all together.
When you do bigger movies and you're collecting in the street for these fellas, your face is everywhere.
So I could no longer consciously do the work I was doing and become the person I was becoming. First off, my face was everywhere. Analyze this, had my face on the screen up close for four or five seconds, and then the scene with me and De Niro, there's no way not to see me. Everywhere I went for 10 years, people go, you're the guy from here? Yeah, and then one time I was doing a collection in Kendall at a pizza joint, and the guy sees me and wants to take a picture. I said, what are you doing?
He says, analyze this. I'm saying, Jesus, I'm gonna get pinched on Netflix over here, I'm gonna go to jail because this guy see me on Netflix. So when you become, when you, he brought it.
Jeremy (33:02.554)
There's a concern that nobody in the family's had 20 years ago. Oh, we gotta watch out for this Netflix stuff. It's gonna mess with the business model.
vince cecere (33:10.99)
And there's a phone everywhere now.
During this time I went in there, the guy, he had to make this payment. I put him on payment plan. He says to me, no, wait, wait. And he says, you sign, you sign. I said, you want me to sign something? He's still, I ain't signing nothing. Give me the money. And the guy, and his whole family comes out, his wife and his two kids. And he goes, look, look. I said, oh, I'm here to grab this guy. He's bringing the family out. Like we're going to Disney World. What are you doing? What the hell's going on? And he goes, analyze this. Have a look at this. And I go, oh my God.
Oh my God, I couldn't believe it. And I had to stop doing that kind of work. But also, remember we talked about your spirituality and the way that you go from physical to mental to spiritual, I was in the physical world. I was bodybuilding, I was working, I was already physically at the peak where I was at that level. And then the mental stage was, I already had that mindset of you're a man, you're in the streets, this is what you do.
Jeremy (33:48.361)
So you needed a different form of work.
vince cecere (34:11.242)
But the other spiritual side wasn't being fed as much. And as soon as I started studying martial arts deeply and started getting more into my spiritual side, I could no longer do the work that I was doing because I cannot go out in the street and take something from, like I'd have to chase these gambling junkies. And these degenerate gamblers were the problem.
and then they run and hide. You got, you know, it's a man hunt. That's what you do all day long, you're hunting. And...
vince cecere (34:45.82)
You can't be this person, truly, and be that person as well. One of them is false.
And I realized I'm much more spiritual than I was willing to be in the streets. Cash didn't hold that much in my mind that when I looked at a person suffering anymore, I can't, um, I had a sister who had a gambling issue. So when I, when I, I see these guys, I just say, you know what? I, I.
I would make sure the guys cut them off so they don't get any deeper trouble. So if they do go somewhere else, at least it's not on my watch. And they're not getting any deeper and the family's not losing food off the table because they can't pay their bills or whatever. And I couldn't do it no more.
So that's how I progressed into, I figure I'll be a martial artist and strong, I'm real good at it, at the massage. And then I came out here and went to do that. And then I realized, when I was going through massage therapy school, I would come back with a question to my teacher that had something to do with a medical question and they couldn't answer it.
And I said, okay, now this is how a system evolves. You have a limited amount of information. We'll consider that like a guy that plays a piano. He's got his rudiments that he does every day. Gotta do his rudiments. And then he goes to do music. Without the rudiments, you don't have any basics. It's your katas, your forms, whatever. Same thing here.
vince cecere (36:29.406)
You can't. I would say when I punched a guy in the arm, let's say I know that I'm taking his arm out of the equation. But why? Why doesn't his arm move where I hit it? What's the cause and effect of that strike? And the teacher used to go, don't ask me that shit. Don't ask me that shit. Right. So my desire.
was to be able to answer all those questions.
So whenever we do pressure points, whenever we do strikes, and we say, I say, well, here's your angle, here's your energy, here's your leverage, it's going on this angle, and you're transitioning energy into the body, into the organs on this particular thing. What's the cause and effect of that? Well, if it's carotid artery, the cause and effect is knockout, twilight. If it is a bicep brachii, brachii ulnar nerve, radial nerve, brachial nerve.
That's going to take off the arm with one punch and a well-placed punch into the center of the bicep. It takes the guy's arm offline, means you can't use it, you can't hold a weapon, you can't grab it, you can't fight. You got him for about three, four minutes where he's helpless. But they couldn't tell me why. And I always wanted to know the why, cause and effect. So I teach my students medical terms. Everything that they learn has the medical term to it. Like if we're looking at our hands.
Jeremy (37:45.329)
Hmm.
vince cecere (38:00.906)
our wrist. And my weapon created so that it fits on the styloid process, the two little C bones that are on the end of your ulna and your radius bone, that reason for keeping your wrist from going sideways, right from breaking. So if one of those little C's break off doing the Nikyu or something like that, now you have your hand just falls to the side. You don't have structure. So in the three rules of combat are sight, structure and breath.
Take away one of the three, you win.
Jeremy (38:40.815)
What?
Jeremy (38:45.369)
What was it like for you when you started incorporating?
the medical terms and that depth of understanding for your students. And let me say why I'm asking that question. Because similar to folks saying, I train MMA, there are people who, they don't want to know the why. I love the why. You love the why. Not everybody loves the why. So did you find a way to convince them the why is worthwhile, or did you send them on elsewhere?
vince cecere (39:20.306)
No. If they're training for MMA, they don't even start with me. I try to discourage them.
vince cecere (39:30.407)
If it's somebody that is educated in the flash of advertising in the martial arts world, all the flair, fanfare, they don't realize that the dojo is sweat, blood, bruising, and tears. That's the real work. There's no fun, flair, and all that. It's about hard work.
vince cecere (39:56.47)
When people realize that they can hit a nerve and incapacitate someone, instead of trying to wrestle this giant guy, when you make such a statement that's physically provable.
then you have their imagination.
Jeremy (40:20.742)
sense.
vince cecere (40:25.514)
When I do a demo, when I do anything, the very first thing I do, in the last 30 years, I'll run into people that I haven't seen in 20 years, and they'll come up to me and go, I still feel that thing you did to me 23 years ago.
vince cecere (40:41.93)
We do this cuticle technique, you know the cuticle technique? Simple thing.
Jeremy (40:44.703)
Yeah.
vince cecere (40:47.714)
When I started doing demonstrations 20 some years ago, I just said, you know what? You can't. People have no idea what you did to the temple. They don't know. These are just people. You have to look at them like kids. You're teaching kids. They don't know. So how can we teach them? Make it as simple as possible. First make it real for them. So the first thing I do is walk out into the crowd and touch everybody. And as soon as I hit them with that cuticle technique and they all jump, their feet all
All of a sudden they realize that the pain these guys must be feeling up there. If that little bit hurt like that, imagine what the rest of that feels like. Now you've completed the jumper and now their brain is open. So instead of them saying that's not real, let's say I went on a demonstration stage and did a demo and these guys are all affected by the techniques that you had implemented. The audience as an audience member or when we watch on television in a two dimensional world.
We do not understand what they're feeling because we haven't felt it, which means it's not real to us. As an audience watching a martial arts demonstration, you have no idea until that guy touches you what's going on that stage. So when I go out and touch him first, they've already made the physical connection and they see the guy. When I told the guy, I was like, holding macro. Yeah, I'll bet that's why the guy's down. Now you have them.
Jeremy (42:20.849)
Did your father have any thoughts on you training?
vince cecere (42:24.746)
My father was, my father never even saw me fight or was never in a dojo, never saw any of it. My dad, like I told you, was a gorilla from the Bronx. And my dad would say to you, Whitting, what do you wanna talk about, cash?
vince cecere (42:42.418)
You know what I mean? He was one of them guys. I didn't come from that, you know, dad took me out to play baseball in the street and stuff like that. My dad, I'd get up in the morning and he'd punch me in the arm and send me across the room and say, hey kid, you better toughen up if you're gonna be in this life. That was the kind of dad I had. So that stuff didn't mean anything to him.
Jeremy (43:08.962)
That was more or less what I would have expected.
So, go ahead.
vince cecere (43:13.214)
I'm the first person that's ever went into martial arts in my lineage. My father died at 60. My mother died at 62. My sister died at 49. So I saw a lot of cardiovascular problematic medical problems from the way that they live their life based on, you know, the Italians, the way we eat and the way we do, the way live, love, be big, you know, eat, eat. And I just...
Took it the other way. We became fanatical about physical fitness
Jeremy (43:51.481)
What did you notice different in the martial arts culture of Florida versus California? What changed for you when you moved out there?
vince cecere (44:01.57)
Big East Coast, West Coast thing going on, just like rappers. There's a lot of that. When I first came out, I caught a lot of rigidity.
Jeremy (44:05.147)
Yeah.
vince cecere (44:18.074)
And not nobody would invite you into anything. You have, so I'm out there and the question is, what did I see in the difference? Benny or Kides?
When Benny and Sarah were coming by and I was teaching in the park on Moorpark Park on Laurel Canyon, it's Moorpark Road in the valley, I was a mile away from his dojo, Jets Gym next to Golds on Laurel. He saw me in the park, he pulls up and I said, well, the macro, this is Benny the Jet. He comes up and he goes, what are you doing here? This is incredible. I said, I'm teaching. He goes, where's your school? Why don't you have a school?
I had 39 guys in the park in our commas and geese, fully dressed. 39 guys, one class. So they go, he goes, where's your school? I said, I'm in my school. I said, how many people have taught in the parks? Everybody. And he goes, well, if you ever want to come to a school, you could always use my dojo. And I was like, wow. Benny has offered me a spot.
Jeremy (45:25.605)
That's huge. Yeah.
vince cecere (45:27.086)
And I thanked him, but in my thought, from being around high ranking masters back home and watching how the interactions happen with the people around them, I felt that it was inappropriate for me to come into another man's house and teach my martial art while all his guys are teaching what he's teaching. You know what I mean? And it's like two masters under the same roof. It's very difficult.
I didn't want to ruffle feathers even though you always end up ruffling feathers, Jeremy, no matter what happens. Somebody always takes some offense to some.
Uh, he offered it twice to me and it wasn't until another martial arts guy dropped a dime on me to the city and had them come out and tell me I couldn't do what I was doing in the park.
Jeremy (46:26.424)
Why?
vince cecere (46:27.362)
because you're not allowed, he says you're running a business in the park. But everybody teaches in the park, all kinds of things. But this was the guy that wanted to be next to Moses Powell, that didn't have a shot at getting near him in any way, shape, or form. And when Dr. Powell came out here last time and he saw how close I was with him, this guy all of a sudden went on and started dropping dimes on me. And then all of a sudden I'm getting visits. So when they came out and said this,
Jeremy (46:41.225)
Hmm.
vince cecere (46:56.994)
instead of making a big deal or making them throw me out, anything like that. I said, yeah, it's okay. I went to Sensei. I said, Sensei, I know you offered. I said, but they're telling me I can't do what I'm doing. He was like, what? I said, this is what they say. He said, you can have this. And I said, well, and he told me what his schedule was. And I asked him, I said, Benny, are you, sir, naturally I don't call him Benny, Sensei. I said, Sensei, what days are you closed?
He says, we don't train on Fridays, the dojo stays closed. I said, can I have Friday? I don't wanna engage with anything else, I just wanna come in and do my thing and go. He said, it's great. And he gave me keys and an access pad, you know, code to get to the learn. That ruffled some feathers. Because some of the guys have been with him 30 years and they would never receive the key or code. And he just met me and gave it to me.
And then we got in there and all of us, we mixed it up for a whole bunch of times and now we ended all up being friends. So that.
Jeremy (48:01.801)
He saw something. He knew something watching you in the park. I'm sure he's been on the show. You know, anybody who's had a conversation with Benny or Quidez knows that is a very thoughtful man. He's not doing anything just offhandedly or no, he saw something. He knew something. Doesn't surprise me.
vince cecere (48:13.772)
Oof.
vince cecere (48:23.219)
Really a great man.
Jeremy (48:30.521)
And how long did that go on or is it still?
vince cecere (48:32.958)
I was with him for two and a half years. I took, then he had stunt school on Sundays. I used to come in with all my guys, we'd do stunt school together. Then I got connected with the House of Champions. They asked me to go teach their black belt class to all their guys, to Mark Barr and those guys. So I remember once going over there to teach their black belt class and Benny just saying, remember, always be loyal. And after that, just, you know, everybody else has been tremendous friends, Marshall Arts History Museum, Michael Matsuda.
They're very good to me. The Marshalls community has been very, very good to me. I'm extremely humbled and blessed by the relationships that we have, because from where I came from on the East Coast, guys either liked you or hated you. There was no middle ground. You know what I mean? I used to see cliques all the time, and I couldn't stand it. I didn't understand it. Why do you have a clique? You're all on the same thing.
Jeremy (49:02.406)
Mm-hmm.
vince cecere (49:30.294)
But what I realized is there's no spiritual training. It's all ego charged. And if it's all ego charged, how can you expect to get to that next level? Because all you're doing is fueling the ego. And anything that has anything to do with you feeling inferior or superior to somebody else is an ego charge.
Jeremy (49:46.769)
Do you think that is an inevitable thing that has to be worked through, or can we teach and train in a way where it doesn't develop?
vince cecere (49:58.378)
I think that everyone learns at a different level and a different way. I think a good teacher, in my opinion, knows how to translate to multiple languages. I consider it like when somebody talks in tongues.
You understand the messaging, even though you don't understand the words.
your, when we're teaching, they have to find a way to do it themselves. But we're all going to be doing the same thing, but slightly different because we're slightly different people. If you were truly in my opinion, as you know, some of these guys have claimed this great martial arts teacher.
Jeremy (50:21.021)
That makes sense.
vince cecere (50:44.33)
most of your point of your focus would be on your student and making him better. You've already done your job. If your name is already out there and you did the work, you already cut the mustard. Your work now is making sure that the legacy and that your lineage is strong and that you have a strong front line of pillars that can keep teaching. God forbid something happens to you and you don't just dry up and blow away.
Jeremy (51:14.065)
So what do you got going on now? You know, you've, we've got a lot of different layers to who you are. And you know, I just, I know from the bits that I know about you, that you haven't stopped doing, I think any of these things. It sounds like you're still doing and probably continuing to progress in all of them simultaneously. So tell us what you've got going on now.
vince cecere (51:40.279)
Okay, well, we just came back last weekend from the very first ever the inaugural event of the Golden Gate Hall of Honors Grandmaster Sinclair and Grandmaster Cynthia Rothrock's event. And
It had a very nice turnout in San Francisco. About 230 people showed up for the event. It was wonderful. I knew probably 150 of them in the room out of the 230. So it was very, very cool. And I do comedy. I'm a comedian as well. I'm a
Jeremy (52:00.573)
That's great.
Jeremy (52:14.341)
That doesn't surprise me, the way you tell a story.
vince cecere (52:15.742)
Yeah. The museum wrote a book on me called my first book of veneisms based on spiritual adventures. It's got nothing to do with, you think because the martial arts history museum, when I was talking to Michael Matsuda, like we're talking, I'm giving him all the stories. And he says to me, you gotta write a book. And I said, Michael, I don't know if you've been talking to me long enough. I'm not the kind of guy who sits and writes books. I don't do things like that. And he goes, he says, well.
He says, he goes, all you're going to do is sit in front of a camera and then speak, tell your stories the way you tell them. We'll put a couple of people in front of you like an audience so you got somebody to gauge off of it, ping back and forth. And then the Dragon writing program wrote the book based on the, you know, just like a stenographer. So the book came out and we did a thing at the museum. But the people who read this book...
call me and say, I can't believe this. And I say, it changes your life because the book is not what you think it is. Every great.
The book is an adventure in faith.
vince cecere (53:30.767)
If you're destined for something and you truly believe it, and if God put a desire in your heart, and you follow that, you don't second-guess.
You don't have the capability of second guess him. He's put in your heart and he give you a direction. Now go. And the journey is what unfolds in the direction.
vince cecere (54:00.726)
It's like he winds you up and puts you out there, go. Now like a kid on the park, you take your kid, you bring him in the car. Okay, let's see what he plays with. Is this a swing? Is this a slide? Is it the jungle gym? What's he doing? In my book, God put me in these moments that no matter what, it should have never worked out because statistically it's impossible to work out, but yet it worked out. Explain that to me. And it's happened.
Jeremy (54:26.837)
Hmm.
vince cecere (54:30.094)
20 times. So Michael said, you gotta write a book about this because one of the things that I'm talking about is when I went back to school after doing the first few moves, I wanted to go to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. When I got there, when I was in 10th grade, I got thrown out of school first week of 10th grade because I broke a guy's face on a piano in drama room. So they threw... I told you I had a little rough life right then.
Jeremy (54:58.609)
It's like straight out of a movie.
vince cecere (55:01.578)
My life is way more than a movie. Goodfellas are just amateurs.
Jeremy (55:08.285)
But I'm sure all the, I'm sure the deleted scenes are, the good ones. The ones we're not gonna hear are the good stories, aren't they?
vince cecere (55:15.959)
These are like, there's like 10, 12 stories in a book that are true. And no matter how you cut it, like again, this thing with the academy, I went in there and I went all the way to New York. I'm 17 years old. I'm on my own again. My family went back home. I said, okay, I'm going to do this. And they said, no, I'm sorry. You don't have transcripts. We saw you were out. You got a GED. You can't come to this academy on GED. And this is so much money for it. And you don't, you know, do you have financial support? I didn't have any of that.
They chased me. Buddy, I was 17, I was heartbroken.
completely heartbroken you know everybody they see what you are now but they don't realize to get here you gotta go through a lot of heat
vince cecere (55:58.23)
When I left there, I used to go by St. Patrick's Cathedral all the time on 50th and 5th. And I would always go light a candle and see God and say, God, okay, I'm here, I'm gonna follow what you're doing, blah, very, very devout. So all of a sudden they turn me down and my uncle gives me a job working at a place on 61st and 1st called Paso di Italiano, Prego di Italiano, next to the Hilton Hotel, and it was owned by a New York City detective. They put me on there as a waiter, and I'm serving, as a waiter, I'm serving.
uh... possibly said bread and glasses one it may get out of nowhere in the super white coat tomato sauce all over me i'm hating life i work in ten twelve hour days you know i get out of there i'm walking home we're walking up fifty uh... we're walking up uh... i guess it was sixth avenue on the way to fifty nine let's take the train back to a story one of my guys that what i was living
This guy was with me. He worked at the same place and we lived close, so we always took the train back and forth together. So as we're leaving, he's walking with me, and this is one of those things that happen. As I'm walking, it's a Monday night in Manhattan. Mind you, this is about 8.30 on a Monday night, okay? You know Manhattan at all? Okay, you know how many people are in Manhattan?
Jeremy (57:07.117)
No, no, not well enough. A lot.
vince cecere (57:11.886)
It's like 12 million people on the island.
vince cecere (57:17.439)
I'm walking on that we're walking all of a sudden. I can't walk anymore, Jeremy. I physically can't take another step and I'm like what the heck and something goes off in my head which now I know what it is but then I did not. It's like not knowing how to block a punch and you keep getting punched in the face and then finally your teacher says learn how to block and you block correctly now you never get punched. It was like that again so I get this hit and I'm like what the heck is this?
And I look and this is just a bar with an open sign. Just says open in neon and it looks like an old Irish pub. And something inside me said, I gotta go inside here. And the guy, he says, what are you doing? I'm tired, I wanna go home. I said, I gotta go inside this place. He says, you gotta go inside this place. This is a bar. You don't even drink. You ain't even old enough to drink. So I said, I don't know, but I have to go in there. I don't know what this is. And he goes, but I don't, I said, listen, I don't have time to explain it. I'm tired. At the end of the day,
God, this is how my mechanism works. And to try to explain it to you will make complete horse, it won't make any sense to you. It only makes sense to me. So when I, as soon as I stepped in the door, just like I'm looking at you now, one guy is looking right in my eyes and he's the only face I see in the whole place. Everything else is dark, just him. And it's like I'm...
You know when you download something slow and then all of a sudden it stops buffering and then goes brrrrp, okay, 100%? That's what it did. It downloaded, I got it, I went right over to him, I knew I was supposed to talk to this guy. I didn't know what about. I just knew that's who I'm supposed to go see. I would go over and he goes, hey, how you doing? My friend standing at the door, his jaw hit the floor, he can't believe it. Cause I'm gonna tell you who it was in a minute.
Jeremy (58:49.329)
Yep.
vince cecere (59:09.378)
So we're sitting there and he says, hey sit down this is my wife and we're talking and I got him laughing and he goes, wow you're a funny guy. He goes, what are you doing here in New York? I said, I came to go to American Academy of Gymnastics but they threw me out and they told me they can't see me, I don't have grades, I don't got this, I got that. I said, man my heart was set on that. I said, I thought it was based on talent but I guess everything is politics, huh? And he goes, let me give you your first advice as an actor.
Let me tell you who it is, Conrad Bain from Different Strokes, the dad on Different Strokes. That's who this was sitting there. And this was 1986. So he was the biggest show on television at that time. There was nobody bigger than him and Colman. So now he says to me, I'll give you a first acting tip. Don't ever take no for an answer. Always go back. If you're willing to take no for an answer, you'll never make it in this business.
Jeremy (59:41.23)
Hmm. Oh, funny.
Jeremy (59:45.597)
That's, yeah, yep, nope.
vince cecere (01:00:03.07)
I said, wow, thank you so much. It was great, you know, and we talked a little bit and he says, so he goes, you should go back and I go, okay, all right. You know, I'm like, yeah, no, yeah, I'm going to go back. They were these guys who want to kill me over there. I go home and I see my uncle Tony, who's one of those guys.
And I'm having breakfast with him in his apartment. He goes, he says, so what'd you do last night, kid? I said, you ain't gonna believe it. I met this guy, Carmen Vane. He goes, oh, no kidding, that's great. I said, what happened? I said, well, I said, God taught me the way he does and he sent me in there and I went in there and I meet this guy, but you know what? I'm confused, Uncle Tony. I said, there's no payoff. Where's the payoff? You know, like God, okay, I get it. You wanted me to talk to him. And I left and I feel better that I talked to this guy, but...
Where's the payoff, God? Where are you taking me? So my cousin then says, with that wise guy humor they got.
So you're gonna go back, right? I said, no, Uncle Tony, you crazy? That guy almost hit me with a bat. I go back in there, that guy, forget about it. He'll have a couple of guys waiting for me. We told you never to come back here. And so now he looks at you and goes like this. This is always how, this is great how these guys do this. So, you're telling me that you have more wisdom than a guy who's a star on television. That's what you're telling me?
vince cecere (01:01:34.292)
I said, no, Uncle Tony, I didn't say I had more wisdom than the guy, I'm just saying. He said, so you're going to go back, right? I said, of course I'm going to go back. Just that fast. I go back in there. I got my head down, Jeremy, I'm sure there's a room that you walked into somewhere that you didn't want to walk into. You never want to go back in this room again, Jesus. I don't want to walk back in here.
I can't take the abuse that they're going to give me. You know what I mean? You know you're going to get crushed again." And I walk in, I go up to the thing and I go, they go, "'Yeah, it's going to help you.'" I go, "'Yeah, I'm Vince DeSiri.'" And she's like, "'I'm sorry, what's your name?' And I'm like, "'I'm Vince DeSiri.'"
Jeremy (01:02:07.45)
Yeah.
vince cecere (01:02:30.254)
came to see about enrolling. And she goes, oh, Vince is here. She looks at the paper and then she goes, oh, could you wait right here? And then she takes off and goes upstairs and I'm go, oh man, they're gonna come down with a couple of guys. You remember something, where I'm living, where I came from, I'm 17, I'm entrenched in this mob stuff. And the next thing the dean comes running down.
Jeremy (01:02:51.526)
Right.
Yeah.
vince cecere (01:03:00.342)
Comes over to me and goes, Mr. Sesteri. Puts his arm out like this and shakes my hand. And I'm going like this, all right. Them guys usually set you up like this, take you somewhere, shoot you in the head and take the cannolis. This just sounds like one of these things going on over here, right? So, I'm gonna go.
Jeremy (01:03:17.789)
I love it.
vince cecere (01:03:18.335)
He shakes my hand and I go, oh, Mr. Sissieri, I said, you don't remember last time I was here, you told me you didn't want me back? And he said, we received a call on your behalf.
And I said, a call on my behalf. I don't know nobody here. And he says, no, Mr. Conrad Bane called us and said, if a man named Vince DeSiri comes back, a young man, you're going to give him an opportunity. So now, being Italian, I don't want it.
because why did that guy have to make a phone call for me? I walked in there on my own two feet. And my talent's the same.
vince cecere (01:04:00.49)
And that guy, and now I'm serious to say to myself, I don't want this shit. Somebody can just call and do this. That means it's not real.
And then she goes, and then the guy, and then he says to me, well, we're not, we didn't say we're letting you in. He said, we were told to give you an audition. You still got to prove yourself. I said, oh, I said, well, let me just ask you this question. So you're telling me that some prestigious, anybody can just call this prestigious academy and get anybody else in with a phone call. That's the way it works here. He says, well, Conrad Bayne isn't anybody. He's the chairman of board of alumni of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
vince cecere (01:04:40.202)
Are you going to tell me God didn't have a hand in that? Are you going to tell me that I'm so lucky that I walked into the one guy on 8.30 on a Monday night after work in a pub?
and this guy is the one guy that can pick up the phone and get me in and you're going to tell me God had nothing to do with that. My book is full of 10 stories just like that.
Jeremy (01:04:58.725)
Mm. That sounds awesome. Where would people get that book? Okay.
vince cecere (01:05:03.348)
On Amazon. It's called Vinci-Syri, my first book of veneism, my complete book of veneisms. Volume 1.
Jeremy (01:05:12.346)
Is there going to be a volume two?
vince cecere (01:05:13.482)
Yeah, because many things have happened since then that you can't believe. Um, I know you're in Vermont. I don't know what it all is. Like I'm good friends with, uh, with Larry Elder. You know what Larry Elder is? He's running for president right now. The black gentleman, the talk show host, Larry Elder. Huge. He would have been our governor right now. He won 49% of the vote. If Newsom was recalled, he would actually be our governor. And I'm real close with him and he's running for president right now.
Jeremy (01:05:20.421)
But in... Yeah.
Jeremy (01:05:29.788)
Oh, okay.
vince cecere (01:05:43.598)
He's actually running against Trump and them guys. But like that, you know, how I met that guy. I'm sitting next to him for four months. Didn't even know. I knew who he was. But because we were both getting our hair done, we were both at the things and the stuff, and nobody was paying any attention. One time, I look over to him, I say, I say, you know how many guys tell you, you look like Larry Elder? And he says, that's because I am Larry Elder. Everybody, I go, get out of here. You got to be kidding me. And now he's my buddy.
Jeremy (01:06:11.953)
You know, in my experience there are, you know, and I've known people like this, folks like you that for whatever reason, the dice just come up right. That there's just, there's something, there's something that they, you know, I don't know very many people that have one story like this. They have zero stories like this or two dozen.
And I don't know what it is. I don't pretend to know what it is. I'm not even going to speculate. But when someone finds that they have these sorts of stories and they first off, I love hearing them. So, you know, selfishly, thank you. But it sounds like you've taken it and you have faith. Sounds like you're willing to take risks because of, you know, there's a track record here. And then.
vince cecere (01:07:03.446)
percent.
Jeremy (01:07:04.789)
And I think that that's great. And I think it's something that, you know, not all of us have faith in God, but I think we all need faith in something, whether it's the people around you or yourself. And I think that from that faith, a lot of incredible things can happen. And, you know, this episode is about you. It's not about me, but we could compare notes sometime.
Yeah, I mean, the entire trajectory of my life, my career has required tremendous faith in a lot of ways. I mean, what we've done here with Whistlecake is all faith based. The amount, the amount of, the amount of money, the amount of risk, the number of people who said this is never going to work, but I had faith.
vince cecere (01:07:37.279)
It was.
vince cecere (01:07:44.782)
It's an amazing amount of naysayers in the world. It's very easy to be negative and say no. There's so many people, so easy just to say no, it won't work, can't. You know what the same amount of energy, you can pump a guy up and say congratulations, go get it. Good, hope for you. And a majority of people choose just to go to the negative line.
because maybe they haven't had any success trying it or something or they run into some things and I think that anybody who's successful will tell you first how many times they got hurt and failed. Okay? Very few people come out of the bat unless you're an entitled kid with a rich dad and you get to swing the bat and you're already out of base. It's just, you know what I mean?
Jeremy (01:08:29.145)
How many people, even after going into the bar and meeting that person, even after uncle saying, why are you not going to do this? How many of them still don't have the courage to do it? And they spend the rest of their lives wondering.
vince cecere (01:08:48.786)
I think it's the biggest cornerstone in that Jeremy is the martial arts. None of them are martial artists. I think that by me taking martial arts, it actually increased my connectivity to God. Can I tell you? I know a lot of people who don't, who...
believe in something and initially God or whatever.
vince cecere (01:09:15.149)
I'm putting it together right now.
Jeremy (01:09:17.049)
Yeah, take your time.
vince cecere (01:09:20.73)
I had two near-death experiences. I had a traumatic brain injury, which I couldn't walk and talk for two and a half years. And I couldn't, for six and a half months, I couldn't get off the couch. I couldn't move because they were worried my brain was still bleeding. And I had a pool of blood in the front. And they didn't require surgery, but two and a half years later. But I lost how to speak. I understand. Here I am. I'm almost normal now. Like, you hear me? You can't tell.
I have a few little hiccups in my speech pattern sometimes. My thought processes when they come together because of the brain injury. And I have a little PTSD that I still deal with from the injury. When people threaten me or put me in a threatening situation or you know what I mean? When you're overwhelmed by a number and they put you in that place, then that guy comes out if you know what I mean.
Um.
But in that, I found my faith because I came, the one injury, five percent, 95% of the people die and never wake up. Only five percent of the people ever survive. And I'm one of the five percenters. So I thank God every day for that. But my esoteric experiences,
have manifested in a physical world.
vince cecere (01:10:50.914)
That's tangible proof.
of the effect of a non-tangible idea.
vince cecere (01:11:04.49)
And that's where faith comes in. Because you know what? If you knew, right? If you knew without a doubt that this was the way to heaven or this is this or this is that, we'd all believe just that. Because why we wanna have a safe bet? Everybody is that. That's not what faith is.
vince cecere (01:11:28.982)
Faith is believing without having the proof. That's why it's called faith.
vince cecere (01:11:37.322)
is something so strong in knowing intrinsically and then believing. And then once that connectivity starts becoming accepted and understand, a lot of people think they can govern this and control it. You can't. You're a receptor and a transmitter. You receive or you transmit. You can't do both.
vince cecere (01:12:06.37)
So when you're quiet, like Dr. Bob invited me to go study with the monks in Thailand with him. So when you're quiet, everything comes back into alignment and you start to understand self when you're talking. And then by being quiet, related to the martial arts, you're using the void.
You know the void? So we have our five realms, fire, water, earth, wind, and void.
The void is when we meditate or when we clear our mind. You're in the void, which means you're not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow, but you're in the moment and you will receive in the moment signaling that you can't hear when you're making too much noise.
vince cecere (01:13:00.29)
then you apply it.
Jeremy (01:13:08.261)
I want to start to wind there because I think we've just opened everybody up for.
some thoughtfulness and I want to send them out with their mind open that way. If people want to follow you, get in touch with you, how do they do that? Facebook. I'm going to go ahead and put this in the chat.
vince cecere (01:13:23.822)
Facebook. Yeah, my AOSJ.
Jeremy (01:13:31.109)
I know we've got a few things that we'll link in the show notes that you sent over.
vince cecere (01:13:33.214)
Yeah, yeah, my Facebook page, Vince Asiri, AOSJ. And, you know, everything I do, I do through the Martial Arts History Museum. I bought my weapons, stuff like that, because it allows them to make some money. And so everything is not for profit for the museum. I just, you know, just being part of the community, you know, being part of the martial arts community, being, it's a wonderful community.
It really is. It's some of the best and the worst people in the world are in the boxing and martial arts community. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Jeremy (01:14:07.045)
I do. I absolutely do.
So I'm going to ask you to end us. You know, we've, you've told some absolutely fantastic stories today. You've gotten people thinking, including myself. What might you send them off to think about?
vince cecere (01:14:40.034)
People all have a thing that they're unsure of inside.
Doubt. Fear.
vince cecere (01:14:52.806)
fear of inability, a fear of not being good enough, I would say to you, kick anything negative to the curb. Any body, anything, any negative ideas, people that are around you that think negative, talk negative, act negative, just abstain from all of it because it rubs off. Energy has a way of rubbing off.
Stay around positive people, stay positive. If you've never had an experience. Now, listen, it just happens to be where my life is. And I talk about my faith a lot. But it's different because I'm not talking about going to a church and then going to the man. I'm telling you, you go directly to the source.
and don't need anybody in between you.
the source will help you. And vibration is everything.
vince cecere (01:15:59.274)
as we understand quantum physics more and more, as we understand the nature of the universe now it works in dimensions and things like that, which we know now have scientific evidence to prove these things. But if you were to speak about these things 20 years ago, people think like you're talking about aliens and things like that. You're on Bigfoot. They don't understand. It's because most people only get a little bit of news or a little bit of this and that's it. They never really have taken the time to dive into the studies and really read everything you can get your hands on.
have an informed decision based on that. And that's martial arts or anything else that you endeavor to do. Don't just listen, don't just read one thing and then listen to what the crowd says because I found most of the time the crowd is wrong.
Does that make sense? When it's a crowd mentality, most of the time somebody incensed that crowd to think that way. And then more people think that way and more people believe it because more people are talking about it. Stop, open a book, read it yourself, experience it for yourself, journey for yourself, then be an informed decision maker on what you're talking about rather than saying, well, Charlie told me that this is how it works.