Episode 868 - Sensei Gabe Trance
Today's episode is a chat with Sensei Gabe Trance, who sat down with Jeremy after Free Training Day Pacific Northwest.Sensei Gabe Trance - Episode 868
In today's episode Jeremy sits down and talks with Sensei Gabe Trance after Free Training Day Pacific Northwest.
They talk about old school training, Sensei Trance's first school in Massachusetts in the 80's, and taking business classes from Jhoon Rhee's nephew. Sensei Trance was also trained as a classical pianist, so music comes into play here as well. We hope you enjoy!
Show Notes
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Show Transcript
Jeremy (00:00.946)
So welcome everybody. We're doing something we haven't done in a while. This is a an in-person episode of whistle kick martial arts radio and i'm joined by Sensei Gabe Trance here and we'll chat in just a moment just a reminder to everybody Whistlekick martial arts radio.com is the place to go for the show notes the transcripts all that stuff whistlekick.com is where you want to go To find out all the things that we're doing
Like the events, the event that led to this in-person conversation, right? So if you want to stay up on what we're doing, do that, join the newsletter list, follow us on social media, we're at Whistlekick. So good to see you. Good to see you. Had a great time yesterday. Yesterday was a lot of fun. If you, if you didn't make it, I, I feel bad for you because it was awesome. Of course, we're talking about free training day Pacific Northwest. The second time we've done this event up here.
It was great good good. I'm glad you energy the people the people and just the right people now
You've been around a little while. Yeah. We don't need to talk about how long or anything, but your beard gives it away. I'll be 65 in March. Okay. You don't act it. No, I don't. And anybody who knows me knows I mean that as a compliment. No, I don't. I have to apply for Medicaid. It scares me to death, but yeah, I have to do that.
I'm sure in your time training you've been to events that on the surface seem similar as what we do. What do you think was different? What do we do different with that concept? Because there were so many different stylists. Usually the events that I go to is strictly traditional karate, which I teach Shotokan. But yesterday, because it was eclectic, you had BJJ, you had Kung Fu, Shotokan.
Jeremy (01:58.198)
this, this. All the information that I got anyway, personally, that I got from different instructors and I took different classes, helps me to understand my Shotokon better. Hmm. Say more about that. If that makes sense. Because there are, you know, a punch is a punch, a kick is a kick, right? But how you incorporate these into like...
fighting strategy or forms or what the forms mean to different people which was brought out yesterday like bunkai you know kata form interpretation right of movement well this is a kung fu stylist comes from this perspective a traditionalist comes from a BJJ comes from this and it just goes boom and I'm like things click things click it may take a while but yesterday they were clicking for me really quick
because I got to work with a Kung Fu stylist, I got to work with a traditionalist, because we partnered up. Right, so it wasn't just the classes, it was the fact that a lot of the instructors brought some of their students, and so you had different frameworks and classes and different people working together. And you've been training a while. Yeah, since 73. Okay, so that's a little while. Judo and karate since 77. We'll come back to that in a minute, but.
things are still clicking after that time. Yes, and that's the beauty of this whole thing. You never stop learning. You never. Hopefully. Hopefully, but if a person reaches that point where they say, I'm not gonna learn it, they've missed the whole message, I think. They've missed it. I agree. I learned from things like this. I learned from teaching. I learned from my students.
I learned from purple belt, I learned from yellow belt, and I'm a 50 degree black belt, but I'm learning from yellow belt. I'm learning from, and I love it. I love, that's why I've been doing it so long. It's a passion that I have to share what I have, but also to get from other people. And I think that word is such an important word, share. Yes. And you know, we work really hard at the free training day events to not use the words.
Jeremy (04:19.918)
Teacher and teaching we try to use presenter and sharing or presenting because For a lot of people teaching it seems to suggest in authority. Yeah, right and The majority of people Leading sessions yesterday have less experience than you So to say oh, well, you know teaching and student and well, just no I'm gonna share some stuff that I like that you might
I wasn't trying to change anybody's technique yesterday in my seminar and I stated that from the beginning I'm not trying to change anything. I'm just trying to give you a different perspective from a traditional style Shotokan background and hopefully it will Give more light to what you do. Yeah And I got more light to what I do which I absolutely love and I was
I will continue to come to these things because the more I do, the more I learn. Now you said you started in the early 70s. If I'm doing the math right, you were a teenager. I was 13. 12, 13. What sparked that? I got bullied in middle school. Bad. I'm not going to go into details. I was walking home one day and a kid picked on me. I mean really picked, a bigger kid. I think I was in seventh grade and he was in eighth grade.
big tall, he picked on me, and I fought him off. But I ran home, because it was lunch, and I lived close to the school where I went, elementary school, middle school, where I went. We walked to school, back and forth. I ran home, because it was lunchtime, and I was bawling my eyes out. And my mom and dad were home. And I said, I wanna learn how to fight, I wanna learn. My mother looked at my dad and said, maybe we should take him to some type of a martial law.
That weekend, we ended up at the local YMCA and it was Judo. I had no idea. Did you even heard of Judo? No, no. I used to watch Bruce Lee a lot. Well, sure. Yeah, on the Green Hornet TV series. And I was like, man, this guy is great. What is he? He's beaten up all these people, right? And so that was a big influence. Bruce Lee was an influence for this.
Jeremy (06:40.946)
I think this whole explosion of martial arts back then, right? And it's continuing today. So I signed up, my dad signed me up for Judo, you know? Keep going, I'm just double checking everything's working. And I loved it. It was once a week at a YMCA. It was very cheap. It was on Saturday mornings and I used to walk from my house to the place, the YMCA. I used to walk Saturday morning. It was about three miles, no big deal.
took class and came up and I did that for four years. And then in 77 I started high school and there was a judo coach in high school. He was a phys ed teacher but he was also a judo instructor. It's kind of lucky. Yeah. Wasn't the same guy. No, no, no. What area was this? This was in Queens, New York. Okay. That's where I'm from, if you can.
by my accident from New York. But anyway I did judo from 73 to 77. In 77 when I graduated, I wasn't doing jiu-ren anymore because I graduated high school. I looked... Did you graduate early? No, 77. Yeah, I was 18. 17, 18. I went looking for karate dojos because I wanted to really do karate.
Because when I started judo I thought, where's all the punching and kicking? We weren't doing, we were throwing. You were expecting Bruce Lee. Yes, I was exactly. I was expecting Bruce Lee. I wasn't getting Bruce Lee. But anyway, 77 I went to several different dojos. And I found this one dojo, which was I had to ride a bus to this one dojo. So I went to this dojo and I went upstairs and I watched class. It was a black belt sparring class.
Black belt only. No safety equipment. They were... Yeah, it was 77. Almost nobody was using gear back then. And they were fighting. They weren't killing each other. Nice technique. There was this one person who I'm still in contact with today via Facebook. He was 15 at the time. I was 18. He was a black belt at 15. And he was the most amazing thing.
Jeremy (09:06.226)
after Bruce Lee that I saw. I said I am coming to this. It was because of him. What's his name? Ian Riegel. He teaches in Ecuador. He's had his dojo 35, 40 years. Ecuador. There's a country we haven't had a guest from. Yeah. And we are in contact now. And I said Sensei, you are the reason why I joined Miyazaki Dojo back in 77.
I was so impressed with this kid and he was the reason why. And so you joined, you weren't scared to jump in. Oh no, the next day I had money. Now back then, six days a week, $40 a month for six days a week. It's not bad, it's not bad at all. $40 back then wasn't a small amount of money. No it wasn't. But.
but to be able to train that often. Six days, and we were going six days a week. The people that I finally met, we were there every single day. Sometimes we took two classes a day. That's, I mean, at 17, 18, you have all this energy. Now what, obviously the techniques and the curriculum moving from Judo to karate were different, but what else was different? What was it? You know, you see this,
this kid and you say, okay, this is, I'm going to try this, but you stuck around. So what was it that kept you? The traditionalism. Okay. Similar. Uh, my instructor was Japanese. His English was broken English, but he got his butt across. He was strict, hardcore Japanese and we loved it. There was a Shinae resting in the corner, probably in his hand half the time.
We talked about this a little bit yesterday. Yeah, like this. Can't do that today. No. Not much. You got to be really, really careful. I have a shinai at my dojo and I take it out and I tell the, I ask the kid, you want me to hit you? Am I going to hit you hard or something? He goes, sensei, you're going to hit me hard. I say, no, I'm going to hit you like this. Sometimes just walking around with it, the threat of the shinai is enough. I know, and the parents, they're hysterical.
Jeremy (11:30.646)
The kid sees me coming out with a knife, but I tap. I go, like this. Then you need a little bit more. It still gets pointed across. Like back then, left a mark on your leg for a week. Anyway, and his form, his focus, incredible. Now, if you don't know anything about Toyotomi Irasaki, he came to the United States from Japan at age 22, 23.
and he taught for 50 years in the United States. He passed away three years ago. He moved back to Japan because he got sick with Parkinson's disease and he was declining. His health was, he moved back home. He wanted to be back home with family and friends because he knew his days were numbered. He passed away three years ago from Parkinson's and it was a big loss to the Martial Arts Committee because he was on the cover. He was a kata.
champion and Kumite. But he spoke, he stuck mostly to kata. His form was incredible. I mean just incredible. So and he had an eye for detail like you know I mean real detail. He got deep. I didn't learn a good front stance I'll be honest with you Jeremy. I didn't learn good front stance until I was Brown too.
I was practicing the dojo and something made me go, what are you doing? I said front stand. He goes, that's not front stand. This is front stand. Like this. It changed everything. What was it? He was changing. My hip was not in the right place. Okay. He moved my hip just a little bit and I felt the difference right away. And I've been doing front stands like that since that time, but Brown too. Yeah. Brown too. I'm thinking of myself. I didn't say this. I, I wouldn't dare.
Sensei, why didn't you tell me this a long time ago? That wasn't his message. He didn't tell you everything at one time. Little by little by little, but Brown, Brown too? Really? Like this, changed everything.
Jeremy (13:45.53)
That's the detail that kept everybody there, I think. But he's been on the cover of Karate Illustrated, martial arts magazine to this, official karate magazine to this magazine, this magazine, everybody talked about him. Everybody talked about him back then. People today, they don't know him. They don't know the name. But at some point you left that school. When did that happen? In 84, when I got married the first time.
I got married and my wife at the time and I moved to Massachusetts, Boston. Her family was in Rhode Island and she wanted to move to New England because Rhode Island and Massachusetts are not that far away from here. No, in fact as in New England or some people will say that Rhode Island is the biggest city in New England. Yeah, okay. So they were in Rhode Island, Cumberland, Rhode Island and we moved to Brighton, Massachusetts.
This was my first dojo after coming out of Miyazaki. Failed miserably. You opened a dojo? I did. It was my dojo. My wife didn't have anything to... I opened a dojo. Miserable. Why? Because I thought I knew everything. I thought if I just taught this... But there's a whole business side. There's a whole business side to it. Now... Um...
So I thought I knew how to do this. I didn't. I didn't know. In hindsight, what were you missing? What were the pieces? Okay. First of all, I was accepting cash at the dojo. Instead of having some type of a recurring billing system. People don't, back then, I don't know now, people don't pay on time. They still don't pay on time. Okay. So my bills, I have to pay my bills.
But my cash inflow wasn't coming in at the right time because people don't pay on time. Now today, with technology and everything, I have a billing system and it's recurring billing. It works like a gym. A gym has all these people, they can't keep track of all these people and have people paying cash. It won't work.
Jeremy (16:04.374)
So the payments now, my tuition payments for my students, they come out automatically the same day every single month. So you can plan things. So you didn't have that. Yeah. Was there anything else you were missing? The area that I chose was not really good. Economically, it wasn't good. You picked a place that probably the space was really inexpensive. It was. But you didn't worry about the demographics of the people around. And I should have done my own.
I should have done my due diligence. But it was close to where my wife and I were living. I could walk there. Convenient? Yeah, very convenient. And it just... How long did you last?
Jeremy (16:49.622)
maybe two years. I don't know, yeah. Did you have a job as well? Yeah, I was working at a fitness center at the same time. As a, not personal trainer, just like in the office. Stuff like that, you know, and things like that. But I learned a lot. I learned a lot from that experience. You're sure? Yeah, a lot.
Okay, so you shut down the school after a couple years, you know, I'm guessing you're probably behind on some bills. You're probably feeling a little dejected. Putting maybe a sour taste in your mouth. Yeah. At the very least about running a school, maybe even about martial arts in general. But in conjunction with that failing, my wife and I went through a divorce. That's a lot at once. Yes. And we had a child together. Oof. It was bad. It was bad. My mother...
back then and my sister drove up from new york where I'm originally from to massachusetts to come and pick me up my mother was in tears I'm not gonna get it my mother was in tears and I went back to new york and I worked for my sensei again because I worked for him from seventy nine to eighty four moved to massachusetts
failed, came back. After the dojo closed, I hung around because I wanted to be close to my daughter at the time. And I got back to, my mother and sister picked me up in like nine, I want to say 89, 90. Then I came back, I said, Sensei, I need a job. He goes, come on, let's go. I started teaching for him, I became the program director, we ran everything. I ran everything.
I was the guy. So you're learning all the pieces you didn't have. Exactly. And what happened was he hired this guy, Howard Chung, of the Chung family. The Chung family, okay. There was Howard, there was Helen, the sister, and the other brother. I forgot his name. But they were the nephews of Jun Ri. Oh, okay.
Jeremy (19:14.05)
Jun restarted with all the safety equipment and everything. They were his nephews and nieces. John, Helen, and Howard, that's who. Howard was a shark in business. He was a shark. That dojo, my sensei's dojo, was making $5,000 a month. When he came in, it was making 30 grand per month. Wow. That's not all safety gear. No.
He did not let anybody out of that dojo until he talked to them about a program, testing, extensions, renewals, introduction. I mean, and he taught me the whole thing. The business side, the formality and understanding, sales. But here's the thing, Jeremy, you go from a student perspective to the business, and it's like, there's this whole other world that just, because the bills have to be paid.
The lights have to be kept on, the heat, the whatever, the air conditioner. The rent has to be paid. And he taught me all of that. Now, I hated him. We were in, my sensei's office, we trained in my sensei's office, right? My sensei's office was like this big. A lot smaller than where we are right now. And it was just me and him. Do this, do this, do this. I hated it, I wanted to quit. But I didn't. I stuck it out.
because I was learning and I knew later on, I would use it later on. Maybe, was it the methods? The message. That you didn't like about him? So, yeah, he was just, ugh. Come back. Yeah, I'm sorry. Come back, you're up. He was hard, really hard, but he had a job to do and he had a year to do it because my sensei paid him in full for the whole year. I think he was, Howard was like 23.
24 years old, young but sharp. He graduated from business school. I think in Washington, D.C. or whatever, I don't know. But anyway, my sensei gave him full payment for the whole year and he said, you better make this good. You better. So he pounded and pounded. Now, at that time, my sensei had seven different schools. All in New York? Yeah, all in New York. What happened was Black Belt's
Jeremy (21:41.174)
went out and opened up schools and he was getting 10% of growth from each school. So he was doing well. But okay. How it broke everything up into business. Okay. This is how it worked. There's information call.
Information call sets up the introductory. Two classes, half an hour each. I was teaching a lot of introduction. Introductory then goes to extension, meaning now we got you introductory, you took two classes, here are the programs you can choose from. And we had them sign up. Okay.
Extension after the program finished. Okay, so you did a one-year program Before the one year is up within I don't know eight nine months You hit that person again where they start thinking about whether or not they're going to renew exactly And then there's the renewal process In the renewal process you get them to try to renew for a three to four year period They sign a contract
So they're bound to that time. And then after the renewal, they're testing their sales. But man, he's hitting me with all of this. And all I know is down block punch. High block front kick, roundhouse kick. I get stuck in the office with him every single day from 10 o'clock in the morning to 10 o'clock at night. Oh wow, you were that into it. Holy cow. I was without. Classes ended at
I don't know, eight, eight-thirty, okay? Then there was that after training. I'd have to close, now everything was paper. We had a ledger. We had receipts that you wrote on it. It copied into the ledger, and then you gave that receipt to the person. This was all handwritten. Every single day, we went through numbers. Every single day. He was hardcore, right? He's like the, I don't know,
Jeremy (23:54.79)
Mark Cuban of Shark Tank or whatever, right? Or Mr. Wonderful, whatever. He was all about numbers. All about numbers. All about numbers. And I just want to take an aside, you know, bit of a tangent. I'm gonna come closer. I'm gonna move this a little bit for us. You know, because there are plenty of people. I just want to throw this out there.
Not everyone wants to work contracts, but the concepts that we're talking that you're talking about apply to everybody Right understanding how your students are doing. Do they want to keep coming? Yeah, knowing your numbers like these apply regardless of your business model Okay, they called him the shark Sounds like it. Yeah, so he was He was all yours at your school for a year or was he doing this for others, too? No, we all had to we all had to go. No. Uh, yeah, he went to the other seven other schools at that
I think at that time they were not seven, maybe three or four. Okay. So he would train those people too. Okay. He would train those people. And we had staff. We had a secretary. Trained her too. She got so mad at him. She cried and she laughed because she couldn't take it. The pressure. There was constant pressure. I hated it, but I stuck it out. And I'm glad that I did. I'm glad that I did. Because now...
My school is doing well. Yeah. So you do this year with him. And it sounds like you, did you end up being one of the black belts that went off in the school in the area, or did you go further? OK. So after I came back, I was a black belt before I went to Boston. I was a showdown, first degree black belt. After that whole thing fell, the marriage fell, everything like that, I came back. He had a school in Long Island.
Okay, which was, I had to take a train to get there, or a drive, whatever. He gave me that.
Jeremy (25:54.486)
He said, take over my school. I bought it from him for 25 grand and ran it. When the lease came up, the landlord didn't wanna re-know. So I found another place, not too close, I mean, not too far away. There was Rockville Center and there was Oceanside. I moved to Oceanside, opened up a big dojo in Oceanside. And then...
Jeremy (26:26.326)
for some reason. After the, whatchamacallit, the lease ran out. He didn't want to renew. He wanted to put his friend in that space to open up like a grocery store or something like that. So that. Then what? Did you move again? Yeah, I moved around a lot. I moved to, where did I move to? North Carolina. I ended up in North Carolina.
Why? There's a lot of things. Yeah. I ended up in North Carolina. I didn't open up a dojo. I worked at a semiconductor company, but my friend had a dojo. I met somebody who had a dojo and I started teaching for him. I've been- Shotakon again? Yeah, Shotakon again. And then after that, I moved here.
because my current wife is from here. Okay, here being Washington State. Washington, Seattle area. And she, her family is here, and her mom and dad are like in their 80s and not in good health. So, Angela and I met in North Carolina. She was in North Carolina, and we met through a mutual friend. We started dating and she goes to me, if we're gonna get serious, you have to be willing to move to Washington State.
let's go. I said if we move to Washington State I'm not gonna work for anybody. I'm opening up a dojo. She said fine and that's where I am. That was it's gonna be eight years ago. Okay. Now
Jeremy (28:11.902)
As someone who has started businesses and restarted businesses, I know that every time I restart a business, the wheels start turning and I go, I'm going to do this differently. I'm going to do this differently. You started restarted, learned from right? A lot of different schools. When this is my fourth dojo, when you came here, what was it that was really important? You said, you know, I'm going to do this, this and this, like, what were those core things? Business wise? Just in general, what was it that you were going to do?
differently this time that you hadn't done before? Follow the lessons that Howard Chung taught me back then, because I spent so much time with him. It was like going to college. It really was, but it was one-on-one. So I said, let me take these concepts. But now, because of technology, it facilitates the whole thing because of the technology. It just makes it so much easier. Recurring billing.
When we were doing, when Howard and I, he was teaching me, people were paying at the school. They weren't using credit cards or debit cards or anything like that. Now, everybody's using the credit or debit card. You know, there's an expiration date and everything, but I used the same principles, business principles that he taught me, just with different technology. I don't write in a ledger anymore. Give a person a carbon copy of their receipt. It's...
all like that. Now I do all of that and teach. My wife takes care of the taxes, all that legal stuff that I do not have knowledge about and I don't do it. She does it. She makes sure everything's paid on time as far as taxes and all our bills come out automatically from the dojo. So we don't. What about the teaching? Because you've, you know, we've talked about the business side of things changing, but
the way you're teaching I imagine is at least a little bit different. We talked about the difference with the shinai, right? You're not beating your kids with a stick. Yeah, yeah. Maybe not all of them. No, no, no. But here's the thing. I used the same, the techniques that I learned from Miyazaki, Sensei Miyazaki, I used. It's the same exact program. Here's the thing. If you go to one of the schools that are still associated with Miyazaki, meaning his students,
Jeremy (30:40.086)
You're going to pretty much find the same program. So if a student of mine goes to Ecuador to train with Mr. Rugal, Ian Rugal in Ecuador, they can hang. They can hang, okay? Because we're all from Miyazaki. And he taught a certain way and we basically all teach that same way. That's, I'm not a, I joke around a lot.
I have fun. There was really no fun. I mean, it was, I mean, we had we had a good time and. But now it's I'm relaxed. I'm more, you know, do you have more fun teaching in that way? I do. Then you did when it was strict. But here's the thing. When it's time to get down to business, we get down to business, you know.
There's a time and a place. And everybody knows that time. I know that time and a place, and I try to set that atmosphere that people know that time and a place. I call it serious fun. It is serious fun. It really is. And people learn. I got good students. They're my students, so I'm kind of biased. But they're good. They're good. Can they be better? Of course. Can I be better? Of course. I can teach better. Again, like I'm still learning. People learn at different...
levels they learn in different ways. There's auditory, there's visual, there's tactile, there's a combination of all three or four, whatever. And as an instructor, I have to pick on that, pick up on that all the time. I think people are basically the same from the 70s, 80s, maybe, and now people are basically the same. Here's the thing, back then, when I was training and other people were training at Miyazaki's, we didn't have, we didn't practice.
karate, basketball, soccer, swimming, gym, today, kids are all over the place. I hear stories from parents, I gotta drive my kid here, then I gotta pick this kid up, I gotta drive him here. So we were going six days a week. A lot of my students, my kids are not going six days a week. I'm also open on the first and third Sunday of every month. So there's.
Jeremy (33:05.758)
a seventh day, two times, you know, that you can come. They don't come because they're doing this. They're doing it. And I get that. I get that. Uh, I'm guessing some of them do some. Oh yeah. A lot of my team members do. Okay. I got a nice team, maybe 25, close to 30 people on my team. Kids, excuse me, teens and adults. Okay. M- mostly kids, you know, kids, as far as a business thing, uh, for a dojo.
really all your bread and butter, I think, because kids grow up to be teenagers, teenagers grow up to be, and hopefully they stay. And they bring their kids. Now, I have a lot of kids who started at seven years old. Right now, they're 14 years old, right? 15 years old, I've been there, I'll be there eight years. But yeah, they're your bread and butter. But I have a lot of adults too. I have a nice size adult class too, you know, with cloche.
It fluctuates between 145 and 150, maybe a little bit higher student body. Um, I mean, there's a lot, we're in a, a large Lee populated military area. And a lot of times families have to pick up and go. So when I lose the mom and dad and the, and the child as students, I have a lot of father and son, uh, students together. I have.
one woman with her whole family sat at the dojo. But when dad or mom or both have to move to serve, which I understand and I applaud them for that, I lose students. But that's okay. Because more people come in. Yeah, that's fair. They're moving out, somebody else is moving in. You gotta just have to get them. Exactly, exactly. But as far as business-wise,
I don't really mark it a lot because of the area that I'm in. There are the main elementary, middle, and high schools right in that area, and it's very family oriented. There's a dance studio right next to me. And when little Sally is taking dance, little Johnny is taking karate at the same time, which mom and dad love, because they can get everybody to hear, and right next door to my school.
Jeremy (35:30.57)
It's the dance studio and it makes it easier for the parents. Convenient. Yeah, very convenient because it's basically running on the same time schedule too. So that's good. There are a lot of kids in the area because of the schools. You have Tom Water Elementary, Tom Water Middle, Tom Water High School, Black Lake, Peter G Element. I mean, it's all over the place. In fact, when my wife and I signed the lease.
We're on our second lease right now. The first lease, my landlord, you know, you're going to outgrow the place. And we did. So a store went out that was right next to us, it was Lionberry, they had like Italian ices and stuff like that, whatever, yogurt, whatever. They went out. So there was this wall separating my place and them. I was going to take the place. I was about to sign the lease in 2020.
Boom! You know that whole thing, right? COVID. I said there's no way. Now, during COVID...
That was hard because I have a lot of, there was a lot of business. So we were in a little shopping center, right? Closed, closed, closed. The parking lot was like a ghost town. I said, what are we going to do? I was asking my, what are we like? She goes, you're not closing. I talked to my landlord. He goes, this is what you can do. This is what I'm going to allow you to do. You not only can I teach one student at a time, six feet apart.
Mask.
Jeremy (37:10.454)
So I said, I'll do it. I talked to my wife. She said, just do something, figure out something. I said, I started calling people. Within, I don't know, three hours, I had 50 students one-on-one. Jeremy, I taught from nine o'clock in the morning till 10 o'clock at night, Monday through. It was the most difficult thing I had to do. Now let me guess, because if you...
So long time listeners of the show know that when COVID hit, we released a couple, I don't want to call them bonus because that sounds, suggests that they were really positive. We released a couple episodes. My recommendations to students and to schools. So my recommendation to schools, and I want to see if this was true for you. Yeah. Don't give up, do something. On the other side of this, you will be better off if you do. Absolutely. Because we were about, we were...
below water, but because I was still teaching and there was income every month because I basically charged not the same but not too far from what I... And there was nothing else people could do. No, and the parents loved it. But here's the thing. We were underwater but we weren't this far underwater. We were closer to the surface than if I had completely shut it. We would have been in real trouble. My landlord, God damn it.
bless him, he reduced my rent. He said, pay me whatever you can. Because he knew if you went out, he was gonna lose all of it and the future income, right? Absolutely. And because of that, Jeremy, we finally took that space. We broke down the wall. It was a major project. And we extended the dojo 1,000 square feet.
So my mat area is pretty big. When did that happen?
Jeremy (39:12.706)
Last year. Okay. So, the prediction, you did what you could, you showed your students, hey, we will get through this. Oh, yeah. We're going to do everything we can. Yeah. They stuck around. You probably attracted a bunch of new students because of that. Yes. And when everybody got the green light, you probably looked around and went, holy cow. Yeah. You'd built a stronger relationship with your landlord through this. And now, boom, that wall is gone. You've grown your school. Everybody wins.
Here's the thing, before COVID hit, 102 students. COVID hit, 45 students, 50, top. So that's a big loss, right? It's a big loss. Now, 150. Because people still talk about that time today. Sensei, you stayed here, you did one-on-one. Okay, nine o'clock to 10. Next person, 10 o'clock.
to 11. Next person, 11 to 12. Took a half an hour break for lunch. 12 to 1, 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4. All the way up to like 9.30. I was doing this.
Kid was coming in, a kid was leaving. The kid was coming in, a kid, parents would wait outside. Yep. The kid was masked, six feet apart, one on one. One on one, right? One, like a revolving door, it was. This is a common story that I've heard from a lot of squeamish. Crazy. You know, they were scared, but they didn't quit. Nope. Right? And it's a very martial arts philosophy.
As we think about in terms of self-defense just do something exactly right the schools that said I don't know what to do I'm gonna do nothing most of them are gone. Yeah, but you did something. It wasn't great. It was messy it was difficult it was but it ended and You're better for I bet you're a better instructor for it. Your students are better for it because that much one-on-one time. That's pretty awesome That went on for like four months Jeremy four or five months I was doing it I was
Jeremy (41:20.322)
exhausted. But why didn't you quit? What was it? Because you didn't know two months in how long you were going to have to do it. I didn't quit because I love what I do. I got to be honest with you. It's not a career. It's not a hobby. It's not a job. It's a passion. This is what my first dojo that I ever opened up. I was in my mother and father's garage. I can't buy a pipe.
12, 13 years old, whatever. No, it was after that, because I was doing judo. I cleaned the whole garage up by myself, took an old carpet that was downstairs in the basement, and then stole it all by myself. I had friends coming over. We were practicing. We were just fooling around, but still. But you were very early on sharing what you had learned. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew this is what I was going to do. I just knew it. And my sensei...
I saw that in me. And you know, that whole thing. But anyway, yeah, you know, you talk about like, like fighting, right? You get into it. You got to pivot. You got to move. You come from a different angle. And that's exactly what we did. And my landlord was, I was giving, he was still getting paid. I was paying rent because I was using the space. It wasn't the rent that he was originally,
Something where everybody else around there completely shut down
Jeremy (42:55.834)
And now today, thriving, you know, I'm not gonna lie. It's good. That's great. It's good. And I'm, you know, I want more, I'm working on a project right now where I'm gonna hopefully get more students out of this thing I'm working with, but I don't really wanna talk about that right now. No, that's okay. But here's a question, and hopefully I'm not guessing at what this project is, but.
you come from a tradition, a lot of people do, where it is very common to, as your students, reach a point, you know, maybe first degree, second degree, they've, maybe they've got the competency to do 80 to 90 percent of running a school, but they still need some guidance. Oh yeah. On the business side, do you have students that are getting ready to spider out and open some schools? Nobody's shown an interest here. Interesting. Yeah, because they're all- I hear this from a lot of people. They're all professional people. They all have their full-time job.
They travel a lot. A lot of people that I have work for the state of Washington. They work from home. A lot of them work from home. They don't go. But some have gone back to the office, and now they're traveling again. I got students who travel. They go away. They stay away for two weeks. People at the top level, brown belt, almost black belt, black belt. So no, not really. Not really. Could I?
Could I train somebody to do that? Yeah, absolutely I could. I would start a program, like an instructor's training program, that type of thing. This is a subject and some of the audience knows some of the things we're doing on this front. A lot of schools do something similar internally in terms of getting people ready to be instructors and to own schools. I don't know if I wanna call it a problem, but it is a challenge, right? It's a very big challenge.
Now let me give you an example from yesterday, right? Free training day. I had two people teach at my dojo. I was nervous the whole time They were teaching because this is the first time it really left them alone without me there because you're always there because I'm always there I'm always how did they do they did really well from what they told me now I'll heal out here here. Yeah when I get back all here. Yeah. Okay. Here's the thing
Jeremy (45:19.786)
I was a Brown 3, I think. My sensei came to me, this was back in New York, my sensei came to me, I was teaching for him, he and the Howard Chung and the Chung team. My sensei came, he goes, I'm going away for the weekend, the dojo is yours. Here's the key. I said, what? He goes, what? He said, I'm going away for a whole weekend. Well it ended up being more than a weekend.
They were in Las Vegas. How much more? It's like four or five days more. They had a good time in Las Vegas. Yeah, right. I had that dojo, the whole thing was mine for that. I was like, okay, I'm gonna do this. I said, Sensei, what if I teach class and advanced class and there are black belts in the class? What do you want me to do? He goes, you're teaching that class. He goes, don't let anybody tell you that you're not, it's like a black belt.
I'll get it. I got it. No, I can't. He doesn't want that. He goes, I want you teaching the whole time. I'm away. So he and running the business and setting up introductions and setting up extension and renewals and this and taking all the pain. There's a piece I want to call attention to there because it is not common. It was even less common back then. The idea that rank and teaching skill are not the same. But here's the thing. A lot of the black belt.
were not happy. I'm sure I was. I mean, you're talking about sound on third degree, yoga, fourth degree black belt. Yeah. Having a class from a brown three. And these guys I was three, three to one, right? Yeah, yeah. So I want to make sure the audience. No, it was 123. Yeah, we counted up. Okay. Brown one, brown two. Just before first degree. Yeah, right. Just before shoulder. They were not happy.
Miyazaki Sensei came back from his three-day weekend in Vegas. His Vegas bender. And they played a lot of golf. Japanese love to play golf. But anyway, that's the whole thing. He came back, not from the Black, well, from some of them, not all the Black belts were a poet, but a lot of them. He came back, he called... They complained? Yeah, they complained, but a lot of people said, man, he can teach. He can teach.
Jeremy (47:41.23)
So he goes, I've heard, so he goes, when you become a black belt, I want you teaching me, and he offered me a job right then and there. Full time, with pay, because I wasn't getting paid at that time, when I was, you know, learning. He goes, I want you, as soon as I hit showdown, there I was. Assistant instructor, full time assistant instructor, program director, and everything else associated with that.
order inventory, I check inventory, order inventory, stuff that I'm doing at my daughter now, right? Back in the 80s, this was happening. What an experience. Your whole career has been the trajectory to take those next steps. Did you ever think about doing anything else? Did your parents ever want you to do anything else? No, no, it's nothing like that. You're going to be a doctor. You're going to be a... No. I wanted to be a... This is like totally unrelated.
Well, maybe not. But anyway, an orchestra conductor. I went to college for music. I was a musician. I played piano. Classical piano. Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Bach. I studied all. I studied piano longer than I've been studying karate. I started piano when I was six years old. Do you still play? I still play, yeah. I have an electric keyboard at my dojo. Every so often when I'm playing,
by myself, which is not very often. I'll go through the stuff. I play a little bit of jazz, a little bit of blues, but it's mostly classical. There are two kind of interests that seem very common among the martial arts community. And it comes in waves for me when I do these interviews. One is IT. Okay. There are a lot, seemingly a lot of people who end up on this show who are in IT.
And they trained and you know, what did I do before whistle kick? I had an IT company, but lately it's a lot of musicians. Really? Have you noticed that as I'm curious if you see overlap? I mean, I can see the overlap in conducting an orchestra. I was talking to Andrew last night. Yeah. Andrew, you all know Andrew. Yeah. He plays drums. He teaches drums. And he teaches drums like full time, right? And he, okay, said drumming, right? But also.
Jeremy (50:05.294)
drumming for bag piping. We got into this whole conversation last night because we were hanging out at the same place. And there was a bagpiper here yesterday too. Yes, he told me that, that he met him. Who will be on the show soon. Yeah, so I said, what? And then I told him I play piano. He goes, what? And it's like, yeah. Now let me tell you something. When I teach karate, I relate a lot of my music background into the, what does that mean, Sensei? What are you talking about?
Practicing piano, you start one note at a time, boom, and it's really, really slow. Same thing when I teach, boom, easy, and then gradually you pick up, pick up, pick up, where you get it to a speed that where it should be. Just the intensity, the emotion that I put into music when I play music.
the feeling that I get when I am playing for an audience. Because I play at weddings, I play at different banquets, I play all over churches, whatever. But my musical background helps me to be a better karate instructor, if that makes sense. It does. I love forms. I grew up karate and I just love forms. I love kata. Back when I used to compete, I was like, okay, inspiring, fine.
And it was a statement I heard made about music that snapped me in. And this wasn't that long ago, this is less than 10 years ago. A great musician plays the space between the notes. Yeah. And I went, yeah, that's the difference. Because if you look at an amazing forms practitioner, no matter the discipline, it can be really hard and really subjective to say, what makes this person better than this person?
you know, that they're executing those techniques really well. It's the space between. It's the split second decisions in timing. It's the energy, the charisma they put into that. It's how they make you feel as they tell the story. Yeah, it's a story that you're telling when you play music. It's a story when you do kata. You're telling a story when you do kata. A lot of times when I teach kata,
Jeremy (52:33.406)
And I see people do kata, this is my opinion, in my honest opinion, from my background, they rush. There's no stopping in between the notes. And a lot of that power that comes from the rest, just like in music. When you're playing, when I'm playing music and there's a pulse there that's not played but felt, wow. Wow. I'm getting like really, you know, because that's...
For me, classical music, it all has it. Now, when you play jazz and you improvise, that's a whole nother skill set. You have to know a lot of theory, but it's also coming at that instant. Real improvisation comes at that instant. Real sparring improvisation comes at that instant. It's a correlation there. Yeah, and you have to be in sync with the person. Yes. Right, people? Yes. This is a concept that I think people...
underappreciate inspiring the better synchronized you are with whether it's a partner or an opponent the better you see and understand and feel what they're doing the better you're going to yeah we were practicing yesterday whose class I forgot it wasn't your son it was somebody else's seminar but we were practicing some countering or stuff like that
So we were switching partners, great, you know, got to practice this person, this person. Then I found this one person, his name was Mike. He's a traditional karate guy. And we just clicked. It's like we didn't know each other, but it's like we've known each other for a long time. And when we started practicing- You spoke the same physical language. Yes, when we started practicing these drills, it was, I didn't wanna stop. It was so good. We were practicing the count. Oh, it was a-
Sensei Shintaku, Mike Shintaku. Okay, he was doing this drill. He was also going to be on the show. Yeah, so we were practicing. Good, great guy by the way. We were practicing and I came, baaah! It was just like being back at Miyazaki's. That traditional boom. But we were so in sync with each other. It was amazing. And we've never met before. I think we met once. Because he goes to the tournaments there.
Jeremy (54:55.282)
and he is with the Rising Tide Karate, Josh and Polly, great people, great instructors, Josh and Polly, um, uh, what's your name, Josh, I forgot, but anyway, he was with them, and I said, and we, I grabbed him, because I saw him practicing with other, I grabbed him right away when it was time to, I grabbed him, and boy, it was like, it was like, so, to me, Japanese.
It was that old school, that old school Japanese. Pah! Japanese, back then, the traditional sparring, was 90% reverse punch. Reverse punch. And at Miyazaki, that was the go-to technique back when I was training with Sensei Miyazaki. Shoo! We practiced reverse punch a hundred times over. The techniques, we didn't really jump and spin so much and get really fancy.
It was nice, basic, fundamental. Now, excuse me, now today on the open circuit and in the traditional circuit, you get these high kick. And the reason why is because people score more points that way. The rule set will always dictate the techniques. Three points to the head. So everybody's using hook kick now. Hook kick is in traditional anyway, hook kick is still big.
big technique. Tough to block and it's three points automatically. But anyway, before at Miyazaki's when we were sparring, we didn't do that stuff. We did. Well, because if someone hits you with a hook kick, you probably deflected it enough that it didn't hurt and then you're going to be wrist deep in their ribs. The reverse punch was the go-to because it's basic, it's quick and effective.
in a heavier contact situation like you probably had in your dojo. Yeah. Before... You're safe doing it. You can still cover yourself, you can retreat. Yeah. But it was very fundamental. Ki-hon, basics, kata, kumite. That's it. Weapons didn't play a role until much later on. I don't teach weapons because I didn't study it long enough. I'm not going to teach something I don't know.
Jeremy (57:17.994)
I tell my students every day, not every day, but a lot, I don't make this stuff up, guys. I spent over four decades learning what I'm teaching you. Everything I'm teaching you, I learned back then. And that I want to bring that classical karate to a very modernized world. Are you choosing that word classical versus traditional? Because I'm starting to hear people use those words differently. I use them interchangeably, yeah.
It was very classical to me. Like classical music. Beethoven is classical, Mozart is classical, Miyazaki was classical. Was he traditional? Yeah. Why? Because he had his rules and regulations that we couldn't deviate from. We were never allowed to call him by his last name. Okay? It was just sensei. Don't call me master. Don't call me shihan. Don't call me the...
Sensei now he was a fifth-degree black belt at a very high level Sensei we were never allowed to shake hands with him only about only about we were never allowed to hug only bow Why? That's it. That was just that's how we wanted. Yeah, well, that's what that's what he learned back in Japan When he was studying, you know, and he brought that to the States now. I shake everybody's hand. Yeah, I'm a hug Yeah, I shake it. I'm fine with it
and I help my students, I shake my students, but we still bow to each other. If I'm at a store, right, and a student sees me, we bow to, if they're back here and I'm back here, we bow to each other. Because it's that tradition that I want them to take outside of the dojo. Don't just keep it in here. Show, have that respect attitude, not in just that, but in everything you do outside of the dojo.
five principles, right? We call the dojo kun. Seek perfection of character. Endeavor to excel. Respect others. Be faithful. Respect others. Refrain from violent behavior. We recite that every time at the end of class, but I want them to take it outside, into the community, in their daily life. But anyway. Yeah.
Jeremy (59:40.91)
Probably a good time to start to wind up. I'm gonna ask you to close us up in a minute, but to the audience, thank you. And remember, if you wanna go deeper, we'll have some show notes at whistlekickmarchwardsradior.com. I don't know what episode number this is gonna be. Check out all the stuff that we're doing at whistlekick.com to connect, educate, and entertain the traditional or the classical martial artists of the world and thank you for your continued support. And you can use the code podcast15 to save 50% on just about anything we've got going on.
Guys, you gotta come to free training day next time. It's an incredible experience. Thank you. Yeah, it really is. You're doing a great thing. The goal is to spread them. Yeah. The rule is you have to have come to a free training day before you can launch a free training. Okay. Because now that you've been here, you get it. Yeah. Right? Yeah.
It's not the same as other events that claim to be similar. It's on paper, it looks similar, but there are some nuances that make it dramatically different. And so my hope is that they start popping, we start popping them up everywhere, you know, because- Countrywide. Yeah, yeah. I sadly look forward to the day that there's a free training day I can't make it to. Okay. Because there will be-
so many of them. Outside of the United States? And also outside of the United States. We have our first international attendee coming to the Northeast one in a couple weeks. Oh wow. Maybe he brings it back. He says, you know, I want to do one in Canada. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. We'll get you going there too. That's cool. So. Um.
Thoughts for the audience? How do you want to close this out? What do you want to tell them?
Jeremy (01:01:30.851)
I think martial arts in general is a really good thing to get involved in, whether it be karate, judo, kung fu, budo, aikido, whatever, because it really, depending on the instructor though, I mean there are some instructors that don't teach this stuff. There are some instructors who are just all about, we're better than you, we're better than you, we're better than...
Be a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, all of this stuff that's happening with these full contact fights and everything. All your stuff doesn't work against ours. Don't go to places like that. Get in, if you're interested, get involved with a martial art that teaches tradition, that teaches that everybody, everybody can learn from each other. I think that's the big thing. I think a lot of people who teach that art school is better.
are very close-minded, cannot learn from anybody else, and to me that's political. It gets political. And I do not like martial arts politics. I hate politics, especially within the martial arts. We should all be together and helping each other grow and grow and grow and grow. That's my message. It's a long one, but not a long one. Get to a class somewhere.
All right. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thanks.