Episode 870 - Sifu Matthew Stone

Today's episode is a chat with Sifu Matthew Stone, who sat down with Jeremy after Free Training Day Pacific Northwest.

Sifu Matthew Stone - Episode 870

In today's episode Jeremy sits down and talks with Sifu Matthew Stone after Free Training Day Pacific Northwest.

 “When you think you’ve made it, when you think you’re somebody, you probably aren’t.”

Listen in as Jeremy and Sifu Stone’s discussion weaves through topics like ego, toxic training environments, knowing your role as an instructor, psychology and more!

Show Notes

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Show Transcript

Jeremy (00:00.822)

Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome to Whistlekick martial arts radio. On today's episode I'm joined by Sifu Matt Stone and we're gonna chat and we're gonna have a good time. If the pre-show is any indication, we're gonna have a good time today. If you're new to the show or maybe need the reminder, whistlekick.com is where to go for all the stuff, all the things that we're doing, the events, the products, you can say 15% with the code podcast one five. And if you wanna go deeper on this or any other episode, it's Whistlekick martial arts radio.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming to the event. Thanks for having me. It was fantastic. Good It was really it really was a great event. I came in without a lot of Expectations because it was a new thing. I'm like because you've listened to the show and I've listened to the show you had no expectations Expectations were low Amateur hour. I didn't I didn't know who was gonna be there. I didn't know what to expect Yeah, so I'm like, let's just go and see what happens and

Thank you. It was really, really a heck of a thing. Great people, great energy, great attitudes. Yeah. It was a lot of fun looking for the next one. Good, thank you.

Jeremy (01:15.03)

And let's talk about my theory on why the free training event is different. We can use that kind of as a jump off point to talk about other things. Cause you've been around a little bit. You've been training for a little while. Couple of years. Um, I think it's ego. I think I accidentally stumbled on a format that does not invite people who would attend out of ego. Yeah. You know, no money. Yeah. Um,

There's really no recognition beyond just showing up and having a good time. And we tell people, if you're not leading a session, we want you training. So the people who show up are the ones who want to trade. And they're like, Oh, I get to come to do all this stuff. Cool. Yeah. And I think you're a hundred percent right. Um, because if you, if you have an event and you tell people who have belts of some sort, you say, Hey, where, where are white ones, then, you know, all of a sudden they're, they're put off. Yeah. Because, well, I want to be, I want to.

cool that's fine wear your thing but like you did with the name tags yeah you're not sensei Kyoshi Hanchi Ren Shi Sokei Sifu Sitae you're just mad Jeremy yeah and that's it and because no one's being compensated you're here for the love of it you're not here because you're gonna get some kind of kickback it was fantastic again everybody's personalities everybody's attitude the

I was getting a little tired. But everybody, it wasn't even, it didn't even look like people were trying to push through. It almost felt like when it ended, like people were like, no. And that's something I've noticed because, you know, I love training. So I, you know, and I'm not disparaging anybody else's events. I still go to other events. I hate to go to other events because I want to support everybody who's doing all kinds of cool stuff, whether it's our stuff or not, doesn't matter to me.

interesting to me is a lot of those events, the attendance fades through the day. And you would think it would be the opposite, right? Like, oh, this is free. You know, I'm going to bail after lunch. And it's not. It's the ones where people pay and you can watch the numbers trickle. The last sessions, it's almost an insult to be given the last session at a lot of these events because you know you're getting the lowest attendance.

Jeremy (03:43.094)

You touched on a thing there for a second, sort of hinted at it. One of the reasons I try to support things that I have no connection to, I have a group of friends, we all do Chinese martial arts, we're trying to create a community because that doesn't always exist. Schools are provincial. It doesn't matter what culture they come from. They all have their own little area and they're all concerned about their own student income and recruiting new students because they're businesses. They have to pay the bills. No hate for that.

No, it's just business. But it creates walls of division. And one of the things I've told my friends, it's something that I believe very deeply, is that when one of us succeeds, we all succeed. Because when one of us does badly, we have an instructor that gets in trouble for something, they're in the news, we all suffer. So if when one of us fails, we all fail. When one of us succeeds, we all succeed. And you don't succeed as a group or a community without support.

that you don't have to beg and borrow from. Right, it's just there. If you're not a martial artist, you see martial arts collectively. Yes. If you are a martial artist, you may not. You may not. I do. But it's still collective. Because the people that don't do it aren't in it. And if they're not in it, I mean, from a business standpoint, that's who we're trying to reach. And if all they know is a single unified facade of questionable people.

then when one of us fails, we all fail. But if they know, oh no, I heard about this one school and boy, they're just awesome. They're just so great with everybody. Okay, cool. That filters off to the rest of us. So when one of us succeeds, we all succeed. And yesterday was a fantastic success. I think it was amazing. Thank you. Let's talk about ego, because it became very clear to me very quickly that you don't really have.

Well, married life will do that. She's over there. Don't say that too loudly. The door's closed. That's true. Well, she might watch this later. Not if I have a... I don't know why YouTube will ever work on this computer again. Or these three websites. I don't know why it's blocked.

Jeremy (06:02.29)

It doesn't take long in martial arts to see that we end up egopath non-egopath I have my theories, but I suspect you also do too. Where does that come from?

Jeremy (06:17.874)

One of the first teachers I had was real big on throwing fortune cookie philosophy quotes into our student term sheets and into the bulletin that he would put out. Lucky numbers too? Not that far, thankfully. But through all the things, all the sayings, all the phrases, all the out of context quotes, there was one, I think Dan Inosano has popularized something along the same lines, talking about keeping a beginner's mind.

And my takeaway from those things was that, you know, when you think you've made it, when you think you're somebody, you probably ain't. And if you're the person who's saying, you'll call me this, maybe you ain't really, you know, all that qualified to have that. And then I was in the Army for a real long time. Twenty-three years active duty. Kind of got pounded in my head that, you know, the alpha dog.

Okay, if you have to say you're in charge, you probably ain't in charge. If you're the loud boy barkin', you ain't the tough guy. It's the quiet guy in the back corner. That's the one to look out for. And so I think collectively all that comes together is like, listen, you know, Dunning-Kruger, right? You don't know much, but you think you know everything. And you know a lot and you realize how much more you got left to learn. And so I think you reach that, as you pointed out, that fork in the road.

Which path am I going to take? How much do I think I know? I know all of it. We know where you're going now. Oh, I know how much more I have left to learn. And what was it, at Plato, Socrates, the only thing I know is that I know nothing. I had an IT business. You've probably heard that on the show. I used to be in IT. And I found very quickly that I could lump my employees and later potential employees.

into one of two categories. They thought they knew more than they did or they thought they knew less than they did. And the ones that thought they knew more were the ones that always got into trouble. You know, they broke something, they did something that I had to go bail them out on. And so I would, from then on it was okay. It was the ones that knew way more than they thought they did. And I would hire them because then instead of having to fix their mistakes, I just had to...

Jeremy (08:46.798)

coach their self-esteem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in my army career, they always say trust but verify, trust but verify. Yes, I trust that you did your job, but I'm going to go back and follow up and make sure that things got done. I started off as an infantryman, then I was a cavalryman, and then I finished the rest of my career as a military paralegal. And as a paralegal, like there are other jobs in peacetime and infantryman doesn't really have much to do but train.

They're not actively doing their real-life job. Sure. It's apparently going doing my real-life job every single day I have one chance to get it, right? Because if I get it wrong that affects someone's real life in real time and So again early on in that I learned hey, yeah, there's some stuff. I know there's some stuff. I know really well Don't take don't take that for granted and this other stuff that I don't know you better be honest about it You can always go research it you always have time

But don't put it out that you know something that you don't, because that's going to harm someone else somehow. Little bit, a lot of bit, little bit, doesn't matter. And so you either possess the self-awareness to recognize your own limitations and to work within your capacity and to grow into or beyond your limitations, or you fake it and everyone knows and somebody gets hurt.

Jeremy (10:12.394)

One of the things, and actually we were just talking about this out there, that I find really interesting about this show, is that when I started the show, I assumed that the ones most difficult to get to say yes to come on would be the biggest names. And that's not the case. It's the ones that are that layer down, that want to be the biggest names. You know, and folks, if you go back, if you look at who's been on the show, it's a who's who. But the ones who have said no, or no-showed, or...

wanted us to pay them, they're not names you would recognize. Yeah. Big fish in little ponds. Sometimes not even big fish. Medium fish in a little pond, overstating their purpose and impact.

Jeremy (11:01.262)

How do we improve that as an industry?

Jeremy (11:06.262)

you know, people are people. And whether it's martial arts, law enforcement, the military, I worked in a hospital for a while. There are specific specializations in medicine where certain personalities gravitate. And in certain, I don't wanna say industries, in certain areas, you attract certain personality types. And when those certain personality types,

obtain some degree of authority, then they express themselves in really negative ways. I was reading some things. I'm fascinated with psychology. And I was reading some things about military personnel and how there are a lot of military personnel who come from really abused backgrounds and they seek the safety of the military environment because they know they can attain some degree of authority that will insulate them from ever being victimized again.

And I've read that previously about law enforcement as well. That makes sense. And so I think we get, I mean, we already know as instructors, we know we get people come to us because they are being victimized and they want to be safe again. That's a big part of the marketing that we do. It is, it is. And so if we know that's there, knowing that we have, and this may not be the nicest way to put it, these bullies in sheep's clothing who come to us from an abusive background.

And I mean abusive, that can mean a lot of things. But they're coming from that victimized background. They seek security here, and then they obtain some degree of authority. And then they think there's something more than they are. And instead of remembering where they came from and trying to be kind and compassionate and give back, they create a little fiefdom around themselves. And we've seen it too many times, we know it's a thing. But I think it's just people. I...

My feeling on this is that when we take those examples, the ones that I know personally, in every case I can see that their instructor, if we take the context of military or I would imagine in law enforcement or military, higher leadership.

Jeremy (13:24.278)

didn't address the problem when it was small. I agree. I think there are some schools, and again, I'm not trying to point a finger, whatever, but I think there are some schools that contribute to that kind of environment because they place undue emphasis on hierarchical structures. A lot of American schools have teachers who try to enforce cultural behavior that they've never experienced firsthand.

And they say, this is how it's done. You're talking about someone like the respect that... Yeah, respect titles, you know, just crazy displays of courtesy and whatever. And I'm not saying that those things don't have a place, but they take it to an almost cartoonish level. And if that's the environment you're in, and you have been taught that this is how someone with this rank is to be treated, when you attain that rank and people don't treat you that way and you're already kind of...

not in the best head space. And then I think it's a potential to create a somewhat toxic environment, and then you're just cranking out more people like that. Because they're craving it, they're not getting what they want because the instructor's not giving it. And so if I get to this point, then I can have my own fiefdom as you said. You know, where we see it in popular media, like that's Cobra Kai thing, you know, until you watch the new series and then you see, oh no, Daniel was a bad guy.

Whatever. But you have these types of schools where the instructor, for better or worse, has negative aspects and communicates those to the students. The first school I was in was a little bit like that. And not to a super toxic level, but we sure were full of ourselves. Did you realize that in the moment or was it only in the context later? Oh, not until many years later, many years later. The city I lived in...

school we had was the only school that's typed in town and this is well pre-internet. And so we didn't know what we didn't know. There's no way to fact check anything. So as time went on and we became higher graded, higher ranking, and we started interacting with people from other schools and then we started moving across the country and interacting with even more people and going to tournaments and then internet.

Jeremy (15:50.838)

And they were like, ooh, hey. Let me guess, you were at a school that, miraculously, you had stumbled on a school that had the absolute best fighting system. What? And your instructor was the best in the world. What? You've been looking me up kind of until you got me. I do tons of research. I hire private investigators. So you thought I invited you yesterday to come on the show. We've been planning this for a second.

No, that's pretty much what it was. And because again, you know, 80s martial arts were 80s martial arts, if you know, you know. And that was very much what it was. It was, and it was kind of soft marketing. It wasn't like, you know, defeat your attacker in 13 moves. It wasn't quite like that. But once you started training, you know, we kind of got conditioned to view other people from a very judgmental standpoint. And we were the litmus test of what good was.

Could we throw down? Yeah, we could throw down. Were we the best? No, demonstrably not. Did we have successes? We sure did. Were we the most authentic? Were we the most legitimate? Demonstrably not. But we didn't know that until we did. Because you didn't have the contrast because you were probably thick walls, you do not cross train, everything else is junk. It was, to that instructor's credit,

when early on anyway, when you reached like black belt level, he was like, go out and get a black belt and something else. Which was cool. That is unexpected from what you're saying. It was. But by that point, you were already steeped in the understanding that probably anything else you studied was going to be inferior. So most of us didn't do that. It wasn't a requirement requirement. It was just a strong encouragement. Was it because he wanted you to learn other things or because he wanted you to go...

beat up, so to speak, people in other schools? I don't think it was the latter. And it wasn't so much because he wanted us to learn other things. It was a contrast and compare. He was very convinced of his- He drank his own kool-aid. He did, he did. And again, like early on, we could bang, we could bang. But we weren't the best. We weren't nearly as good as we thought we were. Cool, interesting. Why did you start training?

Jeremy (18:19.722)

So I was one of those kids who had been bullied and beat up and picked on and socially ostracized most of my life. And I wanted, I couldn't have articulated it then. Looking back, years of therapy helps with this. It does. I wanted to protect myself. Not physically, it wasn't about the fighting. It was about, I wanted to have some sense of

self-respect and self-empowerment and self- uh...

Jeremy (18:56.854)

I wanted to improve my self-image. Where did your understanding of martial arts would give you that come from? Again, it wasn't a fully articulable position at that time, but yeah, I'd seen, you know, this was, I started training in 85. And so, you know, this is the era of Enter the Ninja, and you know, Shokusugi was on the rise. Van Damme was becoming popular. And so you'd see these movies, and you saw these characters.

who were unassailable. And yeah, the bad guys come at him and they talk smack and whatever, but the good guy was just didn't bother him, just fell off him, water off a duck. Because he was confident enough in his own ability to protect himself that didn't bother him. And that's not where I was. That's not where I was. And I wanted to be, I wanted to have that. So I started. I went to one school thinking that was really what I wanted.

I went there and I met the instructor and was just absolutely shocked at how that person talked to me and my mom. I was 16. I wasn't, I didn't drive there. And the way he talked to me and my mom, I was just like, at 16, I knew that was not okay. Talk to you in what way?

Jeremy (20:20.574)

arrogant and rude and coarse and abrasive and just like in my face about how I can't this and I can't that. And I was like... It sounds like his attitude was, you would be lucky if I allowed you to train with me. Very much so. And I was just really put off by that. So I didn't go to that school. And then a few weeks later...

I was at the one and only martial arts supply store that was in our town. And I went there and I'm an idiot kid. I don't know nothing. So I'm asking the clerk, I'm like, hey, how do you find a martial arts school? And he looks at me and says, I don't know, you try the phone book?

What? They're like real businesses and everything. They have phones. Who knew? No, I hadn't read the phone book because I'm a stupid 16 year old kid. Well, and because if most of your understanding of martial arts in the early 80s came from movies, then most of the schools were secret and you had to find them. Yes. And they were intentionally difficult to find. And their hands were licensed as weapons. You know, it was a thing. So it happened that...

the school I ended up joining was a strip mall, two strip malls, one slightly higher on the road than the other, and he's like, yeah, just go down, there's a guy down there, he's opening a new school. Went down there and went there every day for seven days and just sat there and talked to him and helped build the railings and helped put down carpet and whatever. And I was like, this is where I wanna be. And I stayed with them for about 20 some odd years, 22 years.

and eventually left for a lot of... And this is the school that you're hinting at was maybe a bit ego forward. Yeah. But 22 years. Yeah. See, and that's a rare story component that we have on the show. As you know, it's usually people figure that out much earlier, or they never figure it out. A lot of head injuries, man. A lot of head injuries. I'm not the brightest bulb in the box. As you said earlier, you could bang. So you took some shots. I got a knot in my head from where I used to break concrete with my head. Seriously? Yeah, yeah. Don't do that. All right.

Jeremy (22:28.142)

We built buildings out of concrete for a reason. Just saying, roads, you know, multiple story structures. Not supposed to be trying to put your face through it. But I did. And yeah, it was, I mean, I was with them and I really thought, I really thought for most of that time that it was the place. I didn't drink the Kool-Aid. I jumped in a bucket of it and hung out. And a lot of our senior students.

fell away very quickly as their eyes were open to the reality of it. And they kept trying to take me with, and I'm like, no, it can't. No, no. I was just very resistant to it because I had started it so early. And a lot of them had started when they were not young adults, but in their twenties and thirties, they had more life context to weight against. But I had started as a kid. Right. And so I was like, really invested in this. It had been a part of my personality for so long. So I was very resistant.

until I ran headlong into some of the problems. And then I was like, I'm gonna have to step away from this. I don't want to put you on the spot. Are you able to articulate anything that might be more concrete for folks? Or willing, I guess is better than able? Yeah, so, you know, there are a lot of martial arts instructors who, like, yeah, I'm a parallel by trade. So frequently I have to tell clients, hey, I'm a parallel, not an attorney. I cannot give you legal advice.

And they don't always understand that. They're like, yeah, but you work here and you know the answer, right? Doesn't matter that I know the answer. What matters is that I know my role and there are limitations inherent in that role. Martial arts instructor is not there to be your life coach or to help you through your divorce or to tell you the right life path to pursue. It's one thing if you've lived a really successful life.

and you have something to contribute, and not even successful. You could be a train wreck, that's fine too. And you can say, hey, this was my mistake, don't do that. Like breaking concrete with your face. And you can speak to that from experience. It's another thing when you really presume that your job is to be some type of guru to other people, and you start telling them who to vote for, and how to express their own personal belief systems, what is right, what is wrong.

Jeremy (24:49.366)

what you should or should not believe in, who you should or shouldn't vote for. You're stepping well outside those boxes. And I'm not the person who does that. People ask me questions. I'm like, you asking me as Sifu, or you asking me as Matt? Because I'll talk to you one on one. I'll say, hey man, when I did this thing, this may or may not be applicable to your situation. But here was my experience. Do with it as you will. If I start going, well, Jeremy, I think you should, oh, see, stop.

Stop, stop, full stop. You're crossing a line, you're crossing a boundary. And since I'm not that kind of person, when I ran face first into that and pushed back and got pushed way back harder, like, okay, cool, I'm gonna have to pick and choose who I associate with and that's not them anymore. And it was regrettable because, and I'm still friends with a ton of people, all of us are no longer associated with that school, literally around the world.

We're all very good friends because we were all super tight, but we're all not affiliated with that school anymore. Does that school still exist? Not in any appreciable way. The instructor still teaches, he has a handful of students, but it's not what it used to be. You know, you bring up a really interesting point that I don't know that I've thought much about, and that's this idea of being in a position of martial arts leadership, and even if you have advice and information.

that what I'm hearing is conveying it as a peer is acceptable. You know, for us to shoot the breeze, to talk as two human beings, fine. And I agree for one of us to speak authoritatively because of a student-teacher relationship, unacceptable. And...

Yeah, well it speaks to the point that you brought up earlier about the free training day. It's ego. Yeah. When you really think you're it, you're going to make some mistakes. When you realize you're not it, tag you're it. If you know you're not it, you are... If nothing else, at least you're being intellectually honest. Hey Jeremy, listen, have you ever broken a leg while water skiing?

Jeremy (27:07.626)

And if you do, what do you do? No, I've never done that. Well, I think what you should do is, well, okay, if you've never done it, then why are you giving me advice on it? You know, that's kind of an absurd, off the cuff example. It is, but it's a great example because it's, and I get pushback from this, just in the wider world.

Jeremy (27:29.878)

Don't take business advice from people who have never been in business.

Which is a crazy thought, really. Like, why? Don't take health advice from people who are unhealthy. They might be able to tell you what not to do. And that is advice, and I guess that's acceptable, but don't... You know, if you look at someone who's clearly unhealthy in whatever way you write, you know, and they're like, I think you should do this. Why aren't they doing it? Right. Did you read a book? Where'd you get that? Cracker Jack box? Doesn't mean that they're wrong, but it doesn't mean that their advice is authoritative.

again, as a paralegal, we get clients that come in and we tell them things they don't necessarily want to hear. It's not my job to tell you something to make you happy. I'm dealing with your legal concerns, your legal issues. I'm here to assist my attorneys in advising on the proper legal course to resolve your situation. Resolve doesn't mean make it go away. Resolve doesn't mean you walk away happy. Resolve may mean you're going to be out of pocket for a long time.

and then they get mad at us because we're wrong. Okay, number one, you came to us. Number two, they're attorneys, but by all means, you know better because you watched a YouTube video. Because they picked and chose the YouTube videos until they found the one that said that what they wanted to do was here. They cherry picked something that confirmation bias is a thing. They cherry picked what fits, what makes them feel good. And then they run from there. And,

martial arts ego, you get people who think they're more than what they are and they're gonna say and do things that reinforce that same perception and if you push back they push back harder and again I have a bit of a fascination with psychology. I am by no means an expert but I've read a small amount on how that's kind of indicative of their mental makeup.

Jeremy (29:32.822)

that the reason they push back harder is because they really have sipped the Kool-Aid real hard and they really believe this is them. And when you begin to shatter that for them, deep inside of them, that's really hard. And so they push back harder to reaffirm what that is. And at the end of the day, they're only hurting themselves because the people around them see what happens. They see that toxic behavior and they're like, oh, we're not doing this. And then they wonder why.

So when you left that school, did you take a break or did you instantly find a new school? No. So I was on my own for a while. And I was just, I didn't stop practicing, but I stopped practicing the bits that were real unique and specific to that school. Just put it behind me. And I have for, since 2008. But then I did get involved with Dr. Kelly Warden and his Natural Spirit International program.

Kelly is an amazing human being and we toss the word master around a lot.

When that man's got a stick in his hands, you know what mastery looks like. And I really enjoyed my time with him. And then I moved, because I was living in Washington at the time, I moved from Washington, Hawaii, and I spent some time dabbling here and there with some people. And then I moved to Maryland, which is where I found my final teacher, Sifu John Scott, in the Chen Pan Ling family lineage. And that was it, I found home. How did you know?

Because you're saying it like it just, it was clear very quickly.

Jeremy (31:16.662)

So, you know, when we talk about ego, Seafood has, Seafood John Scott has very little ego. He is a very self-effacing man. He is a very kind, humble, generous man. It took me a couple of weeks to find the school because the school, like it's in a strip mall, or was, he's got a new school now, I haven't seen it. I've been back to Maryland in a while. But it was in a strip mall.

And there was no big sign. There was an 8 by 11 plastic plaque that had his logo and the phone number next to this rusted blue door. And you couldn't see either of it from the street. And I went there, I said, hey, can I come by school and meet you? He said, yeah, come on by, such and such and such. And I drive by, and I didn't know that's where it was. So finally we made arrangements, and he came outside and flagged me down. I'm like, all right, cool. So we walk.

go through the door, walk down this back hallway. And I'm like, this is weird. And we go back into this back room that is evidently a storage room for, or would have been a storage room for the stores that were in the strip mall. But he was renting it from the strip mall's owner for his school. So no windows. No windows. One door, like, you know, if something goes sideways, there's only one way out. So it is like the schools we were talking about at the beginning where you had to.

You had to hunt them down. Yeah, very much so. The 16-year-old you was right. You were just premature. Well, and I was stationed in Japan. I was stationed in Korea. And I've seen these little back alley schools that were like a thousand times more legit than some of the big fancy mini-mall, for lack of a better word, McDojos, right? That still can have great things. But these schools in Japan and Korea were not glitzy. You didn't know. And you didn't know unless you knew someone who knew. Like there wasn't even asking around. They were certainly working at a dojo.

somewhere. You weren't making a phone call. They were not on the internet. Lucky if they had power, whatever. So I walk into the school and I look around and I'm like, this feels right. And he asked me, he says, well, what do you want to start working on? What are you interested in? I'm sorry, what? That's a weird question. It was. And so I already knew that he did, you know, Xiao Lin Quan and Jing Yi Quan and Ba Gua Zhang and Tai Ji Quan. I've always really liked Jing Yi.

Jeremy (33:41.506)

Can we start with you?" Yeah, sure, no problem. Show me what you know from the previous school. And so I do. And immediately he just starts correcting everything I'm doing. And I had this real strong feeling that I'm like, wow, I don't think I know anything. Little light bulb comes on. And we start working on that. And then he shows me, not just positioning me, it's not just do this, cause it's wrong. It's wrong and here's why.

And again, we thought we could bang. We thought we knew the stuff, despite going to tournaments where authentic instructors of these styles had come up and said, what are you doing? And he starts showing me why. He's, Sifu John's a big man. Six four, six five, big tall guy. He's a big man. But it wasn't him just using muscle. Like he put his hands on me and I still maintain to this day. He's like a sheet on a clothesline in the wind.

You ain't touching him unless he wants you to touch him. I've trained with people like that. And you don't want him to want you to touch him. We did push hands at the end of that class and that's where I formed this sheet in the wind kind of mindset with him because we did push hands and I was, oh, I was trying hard, I was trying hard. I couldn't get my hands on him. And the few times I actually touched him, no, the few times I actually touched him ended up in literally me sailing across the room. I was like, I'm done.

I'm done. I'm getting goosebumps talking about it. I was like, I'm done. This is what I've been after. And I've been with him since.

Jeremy (35:24.114)

No, no, I got to Maryland in, so I retired in the Army, retired from the Army in 2015, so I've been with him since like 2013. So there was a something you mentioned that I want to go back to, and this is an experience that I think a lot of us have had, and we don't really talk about, I felt like I didn't know anything.

we meet someone, we take someone as an instructor, or we go to a seminar, or whatever it is. And it's one thing to say, okay, here's an area that I know I need work. Yeah. But it's the area that you didn't realize you needed work. And something happens and exposes it, and that happened for me when I joined the Superfoot organization. And it was like.

Jeremy (36:16.606)

And for me At the first opportunity I went in the bathroom and I sobbed Because I'd been training for decades and realized Things that I didn't even know were wrong or wrong. Yeah What was your experience like him on that so, you know, I left the previous school in oh wait and When I start training with Dr. Kelly It was a lot like that like I did I wasn't sad

I was stoked. I learned more from Kelly Warden in under a year than I had learned from the previous school in the previous 10.

I had learned more from Datu about what I did before in the time with him than I did in that school. Because Natural Spirit International is not, I mean it's a style, yeah, but it's not a style. It's modern ornice and jikun-do and all these other things, squeezed, shaken, poured out, there you go. And there's a personalized aspect to all of it too because I met people there that were karate stylists and kung fu stylists.

nothing whatsoever or straight up military personnel. So everybody approaches it from a different perspective. And the material is a template that you lay on top of what you already know. And the insight that provided, the stuff I didn't know, stuff I didn't know I did know, it was just amazing. It was a very joyful realization.

Then it was another seven-ish years, 2013 from 2010. So five years later, I meet Steve John Scott. And it was a sense of relief because I'd already had all that time to grieve the lost years that I had to set aside. And I was already, and I'm still, I'm not gonna lie. I'm still a little miffed that those years were, I don't think they were wasted wasted, you know? A friend of mine and I.

Jeremy (38:19.882)

We have a saying that all XP is good XP, right? All experience points are good experience points because you're still learning. You're still learning. Even bad things teach you things.

But I invested 22 years of my life in that school. Where could I have been had those 22 years been invested with my current teacher? Now that's not a realistic thing because I didn't meet him until later. Sure. But it's still like, I still have that regret. But, and if I may, and I'm saying this less about you and more because there may be some folks out there. Sure. Would you have been looking for these other folks?

Would you have been as motivated or would you have had the context to know, here's the puzzle piece that I want to insert here without that 22 years?

Jeremy (39:16.178)

And so I'm not arguing because I get it. But I don't want folks out there to feel like that time was wasted. Could there have been an instructor or a school or a method that got you closer to where you wanted to be? Yes. Would you have known where you wanted to be without it? And I think the answer is often no.

Another bad analogy, you can invest in these things and make $50,000. And then you find out when you cash in that $50,000 that if you would have invested in these things, you might have half a mil. How many people, you've probably heard them say, you know, I could have invested in Apple back in the day. Right? Well, yeah, everyone could have. But you had no perspective to understand that Apple was going to be what Apple became. So you can look back. That's why I say I have some regret because I'm like, wow, what could I have accomplished?

because I'm old and broken now. My wife says so. What could I have done when I wasn't? What could I have done when I was younger? What could I have put into the work to achieve by this point? But at the same time, I have some, I got great stories and great experiences and some great friends. And I don't regret what we did, even the concrete breaking with my dome. I don't regret it.

I just wish like having the 50,000 versus half a mill, I would really love to have been able to invest and get a half a mill, but I still got 50,000. So it's still a win. It's bittersweet, but there's no way, as you said, there's no way I would have known until I'd had the experience to be able to look at it and think negatively of it. And without that experience, I wouldn't have been prepared or enabled to see the value in anything subsequent to it.

Yeah. One of the things that I've been working on personally, it was less so martial arts stuff, but we can close up this point with this. If I'm going to blame someone for something that has happened, I also have to give credit for all the good you do. You do. You can't, you can't pick and choose. You can't, you know, I'm going to take all the good and not give you credit, but you know, just, and I, I have some materials that I provide to my students and my prior life is part of that.

Jeremy (41:42.226)

And I give credit to that teacher for the things that I did learn. Am I thrilled at the way everything ended? No. Am I thrilled at what things that I may have discovered later? No. But I learned some really valuable stuff. I learned how far I can push myself and think that I've pushed myself to the limit and then realized, no, you haven't. You got way more in the gas tank left. Keep going. I've learned so much from you, technically about martial arts.

about the community. I've learned a lot. There are a lot of good, please don't misunderstand me. While there are things I don't like about that experience, I still give credit where credit's due for the for the beneficial things that I did come away with. So you mentioned students. You have a school? Yeah, so we have a small group in Enumclaw, Washington. I've got about a dozen students there. I also teach on Joint Base Lewis-McChord through the Morale Welfare and Recreation Center.

I've got 12 to 15 students there to teach for free because this is how I do something for the community.

I don't have many other skills that are marketable. You know, you don't always come out of the army with stuff that's directly applicable to job skills. So I work for the federal government as a civilian employee and then a couple of times a week I teach on post to give back to the military personnel in the retiree community and then I teach in the town I live in.

Jeremy (43:15.906)

How? Okay.

your military experience and your martial arts experience, because martial arts came first, right? Unless you really lied on your paperwork. No, no. I love hearing those stories like World War II, like 14 year old signing up, that's a trip. I cannot imagine that, because what did you say, 20 something years of service? 23 active, yeah, I went in at 87. Okay. I can't imagine that you've got that much martial arts experience and that much military experience and both didn't improve the other.

What did you, what from your time in your military experience have you brought into your martial arts and what did you bring from the martial arts into your military service? So the army is a really rough life at the best of times. And just to let the, pardon me for interrupting, just to let the audience know, um, we're, we're in a school and there is a class that is about to start because, um, I'm not always the best at holding to time tables.

with when episodes will start and finish. And yeah, this is the fourth that we're doing today. And so, yeah. So if you hear some noise, that's why. Please continue. That's all good. The Army instills a lot of things, whether you know it or not. It inoculates you against hardship. Chinese martial arts, they say, you know, eat bitter, taste sweet. Military service, we don't have sayings like that.

We just say, suck it up and drive on. And you realize, if you're willing to listen to the lesson, and that's a big one, when you're first timer, first two or three, four years, you're not listening to anything. You just think life sucks and you made a bad decision. You get past that, you pay attention, and you realize that our training is done very specifically for very certain, we have outcomes we know are gonna happen. We do things to you.

Jeremy (45:20.334)

to teach you how far you can go, to teach you to rely on yourself, to teach you to endure hardship. My first teacher said, pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. The Army doesn't tell you that, but they sure as hell let you know. I've gone, one of the last exercises I did when I was in Korea back in 89, 90.

went the better part of a week with no food and no water. The temperatures were freezing at night and blistering during the daytime. So I found out just how far I could go. I went three days without food, or no, three days without water, four days without food. And this is why we're doing 20 to 30 miles of travel every day with 80 pound rucksacks up and down the mountains of Korea.

at what point was I ever gonna do that on purpose? No one willingly goes, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm not gonna eat for the next three days. Sounds like a great hike. Yeah. And that taught me, listen, you have got capacity within yourself well beyond what you think. So stop thinking in terms of limits. There are no limits. And what did Bruce say? Have no limitation as limitation. But until you confront that, you're not gonna know.

you're tested, you're not going to know. That is not uncommon in martial arts in terms of philosophy, but it is uncommonly experienced. And so I got it shoved in my face and it changed the way I look at my own training. Oh, this is uncomfortable. I don't want to do it today. Get up, do the thing. And after a while it just becomes kind of robotic and it's just, you know, you press play on your brain and you go and do the thing. It has not always been

good influence though because sometimes I can be...

Jeremy (47:22.822)

not as plugged into other people as maybe I need to be. I mean, I at least have the self-awareness that that's a thing. But sometimes I forget that they're not me. You know they have more capacity than they realize. I do. And when some of my students start saying, oh, ow, pain, hardship, and then I'm better at it now. I didn't used to be, but I used to be like, I would have to physically switch something in my brain to care.

No, do the thing. You're capable of better. You keep, get after it. Now I'm like, oh, okay. They haven't been pushed to that point yet. Let's ratchet it back a little bit and let's help them work to that point. So, you know, both the positive and negative have, I feel, improved my personal training and the way I present things to the people.

Jeremy (48:21.73)

How do you choose what you teach?

Jeremy (48:28.318)

At first, I usually don't. Most of my students come to me because they want to do Tai Chi. And I love our Tai Chi. I love it so much, it's in my skin. Ling Yun Pai is our organization and Tai Chi is what Chen Pen Ling was most noted for. Chen Pen Ling is the founder of our lineage. His son Chen Yun Qing was my teacher's teacher. My teacher was Chen Yun Qing's disciple. I am my teacher's disciple. And this is what I'm all about.

And so most of them come to me because they just want to do Tai Chi because of reasons. And so I'm like, cool, we'll start there. And then we see where it goes. And some people express more interest in other things. They want to learn more about this or something over here. Sometimes I've kind of imposed that and said, hey, I see you struggling with thing over here. Let me show you a thing over here. This will help inform you. And then you'll understand this and this will start going someplace. So like I have three classes on Saturdays.

first one is straight martial arts oriented. It's about the martial aspect of it. Then the second class is just Tai Chi for whoever comes. Then the third class is just an open training. We just do whatever. And I let my students tell me, like, what do you want to know? What do I have that I can give you? Because just because I have all of it doesn't mean they want all of it. And just because I have all of it, boy, that's cocky. Just because I have what I have.

doesn't mean they want to have everything I have. And just because I think they may benefit from a thing, well, who am I to say? Maybe they're not interested in that thing. And so I just, I don't even look at my students as my students. They're people I share time with, people I share information with. I don't teach them, the material teaches them. I share choreography. I share theory and ideas. Go train.

you're gonna put it together. You're gonna understand it how you understand it. And so I let them come to me and go, hey, I have a hole here. I'm not sure how to address this. And then we kind of work through it. I'm not a very dictatorial teacher, not anymore.

Jeremy (50:46.69)

When did that shift start? Was that conscious or was it? A lot of the things you've talked about today have been clear in hindsight, but I'm wondering if that might have been one that was. The first school I was in, and this is one of the things that I absolutely adored about that school, and still do, and I still credit the teacher for his incredible ability to organize information. We had a very distinct curriculum. Our tests were very specific. What you needed to know was on every test.

And it wasn't, oh, just no forms one through three here, and the next test, no, four through, no, it was all cumulative. The higher you went, the more you had to know. And there were portions of more senior tests where it was just like, you know, instructor's choice, you better have it all clean, because they're gonna ask something out of the blue. There were other parts that you knew to prepare for. I love that. I think it benefits a student to have a solid curriculum that starts someplace and then provides you with a syllabus for progression.

It's almost crazy like we actually do that in real education. Who knew?

but.

Jeremy (51:55.63)

Traditional martial arts are not, we don't live in a dangerous society like we used to. Not everybody wants to be a fighter. Not everybody's in martial arts because they wanna fight.

So I say, okay, well, what are you here for? What are you trying to get out of this? This started probably.

Jeremy (52:15.458)

15, 20 years ago, even when I was in the first school that I was in. And has really got to the point now where unless someone shows that they really want, they want the whole package, then I'm just like, here, take what you need. You're gonna be with me for however long you're with me. You're gonna walk this path as long as you need to walk it. Once you've gotten from it what you need, it's likely that you're gonna depart. So let me give you what you want. Let me give you what you need

from this walk that you and I are sharing. And you don't see that as, well, I wanna make sure, I'm not saying this in a judgmental way. I'm channeling others. You don't see that as a failure on your part as an instructor, that they depart.

No, because I mean, I drive a Jeep right now. Right now I drive a Jeep. Maybe I won't drive a Jeep forever. Is that a failure of the Jeep Corporation to keep me in a Jeep? No, I changed my mind. I moved on. I wanted something different.

Jeremy (53:22.546)

As an instructor, it's my job to present material to students. Students make the choice to come to us in the first place. Life still exists outside of the school.

their lives may no longer be conducive, for whatever reason, to remaining in training.

Should we feel hurt by that because they have a life? Because they're not cult members dedicated to the cult? No, did they have a good experience? If one of us wins, we all win. And if they had a good experience with us, maybe they'll return when life allows it. Maybe they won't, maybe they'll go someplace else. Maybe they've moved. And so the first school they were in is no longer an option. My teacher's school is in Frederick, Maryland. I am not in Frederick, Maryland. So I can't go to class.

I try to go back, but that's big muscle movement to make that happen, especially with three years of pandemic going on. So I'm not upset if students leave. I mean, I am because I miss them.

But that's their path they're walking. It's not my job to keep them in class. It's my job to make sure that they got something useful out of the training. What does that mean? Did they learn how to fight? Good, is that what they wanted? Did they learn how to improve their health? Did they improve something in their life? If I did, I did my job. Whether that's two weeks, two years, 20 years. However long you walked with me, I just wanted to be good.

Jeremy (55:00.15)

There are a lot of instructors out there who see every departing student as a failure. And I've never been able to articulate why that didn't seem right. But you're expressing it in a really... From a corporate perspective, it is. From a business perspective, it is. Every customer you lose is money out the door. I get it. I get it. I teach for free. I don't have to worry about it. My students, we all, I pay, my students pay. We all collectively contribute.

pay the rent on the hall that we rent. That's it. Sifu, how much do we have to pay? How much can you afford? Well, I'm a little short this month, Sifu. Okay, then I guess it's coming out of my pocket. And so be it. Because I'm here to help you. If it was a business, I get it. You need income. I get it. I get it. No hate. I don't have that. So my job is to make their walk good. Your why is lined up with how you teach what, when...

And that's, you know, I keep coming back to that in every aspect. If you don't understand your why, if you're not clear on your why, it leaves a lot of room for a lot of things to not go right. And I think there are a lot of martial arts schools out there where they would be better served having fewer classes and a full-time job because then they would be more lined up with their why.

Well, and not to put too fine a point on it, if you're teaching and you have a school, you're teaching and you're recruiting students because you're trying to pay your own salary and your own rent and your own food bill, what's going to happen to the quality of the instruction? Because at some point, you're going to have to make a choice between how well you teach and how well you profit because they don't always go together. And it is very difficult to keep those two separate. Yes.

It's a business decision. And it doesn't mean that people can't do it well. No, not at all, not at all. It's possible. It's also very common though, for people to screw it up. Given enough time, everybody's gonna screw it up at one point. Sure, and some of them just make a profession out of it. They got locked in contracts where the student can't cancel them no matter what happens in life. And I see that in the office that I work in. I've seen that happen with local martial arts schools.

Jeremy (57:27.938)

where I have a soldier's family that my federal government orders are moving to another part of the country. And that school's like, well, you've got a contract. Really? Really, that's how you're going to be. Do you have a person serving in the military, a person serving in the armed forces, and their family has to depart with them, and you're going to say, I'm sorry, you've got a contract, you have to pay me $100 a month for tuition. Come on now. It's ridiculous. I understand you've got a business.

But this is a high risk business. You know, don't come into it unless you can survive. So. No, I hear you.

Jeremy (58:08.618)

looking at the time. This went fast. It did. It did. See you got plenty to say. You kept it easy. Made it easy for me. That's my job. It is, but you do it well.

I kind of like that we have background music. Right? That's good stuff. It's probably showing up a little bit on the mic. And that's not a bad thing. You know, it's... Helps you on the outro. It does. Well, you know, I love this building. I love this space. It's so alive. And it's not even a martial arts class going on. It's a dance class. And I think that's so cool, just the energy in this space. And that's probably part of why the energy is so good, is that they use it for so many different things. Yeah, this place is awesome. I was really impressed.

If people want to get a hold of you, do they have to hunt? Do they have to track down the two inch sticker that you've hidden on the underside of a something and you've got to ask the right person? You've got to go to the right motel six, get the correct room and look under the ashtray and then there's a sticker. No, so I have a Facebook page, Three Lakes Kung Fu Tai Chi. That's probably the easiest way. My email address is...

while Ling Yun Pai, W-A Washington, W-A Ling Yun Pai, L-I-N-G, Y-U-N-P-A-I at Gmail. Oh, I thought it was gonna be something like, I have all of the answers. Ha! Dot. No. Trust me at something. You know, I may just go make that email address just for fun. I'm sure somebody has it. They probably do. Mine will be like six. If only it was number six. It's gonna be.

Jeremy (59:54.1)

More like 678. As I've heard said, Western mathematics can't adequately express this number.

Jeremy (01:00:05.762)

This has been fun. I enjoyed it. I'm really glad I got to meet you. I'm stoked. I got to meet you. Yeah. I've been listening to your podcast for a couple of years. I'm like, that's awesome. Thank you. When the roster was getting put together for the event.

Jeremy (01:00:25.13)

You were a bit of a wild card as it was brought to me. It was, there's this guy and he wants to come and he teaches at JBLM and we don't know anything about him. I was like, cool, it'll work out or it won't. I joked with Kathy yesterday. I said, you know, I'm not a somebody. I know some somebodies. I'm just a nobody. I just hang out and I do my thing and I help people as much as I can. I've been very fortunate to have some incredible teachers.

By the way, Kathy is Kathy Long. Yeah, Kathy Long. I get to call her Kathy. And the absolute luck I've had in meeting people. I was fanboying like crazy yesterday with Kathy and Restita here. It was kind of cool. And then- How do you think I felt? I got past my fanboying about you when I saw your name on the thing, right? I've known Resti for like 20 years, but I don't get to see her. And I've known Kat for a couple of years.

and I don't get to see her. And so yesterday I was just like, oh my God, Jeremy's here and Kat's here and Rusty's here. It was just, it was overwhelming for me. I just absolutely loved it. It was fantastic. Thanks for being part of it. To the audience reminder, you know, whistlekick.com. If you want to get as much notice on these events as possible, you know, get on the newsletter list. You know, we try to let people know as we have this stuff going and it won't be long before we're putting together dates for 2024.

Whistlekickmarshmarshradio.com and at whistlekick everywhere and all that so I appreciate you in here. Do it. The only person you're cheating is you How do you want to close up? What do you want to tell? Train train humbly Train with passion follow what interests you And make it a part of your life and reach out to other people because without connections There is no community with no community. Why are you doing it?

Jeremy (01:02:24.022)

You bet.