Episode 924- Sensei Noah Legel
In today's episode Jeremy sits down and chats with Sensei Noah Legel about his journey through the martial arts as well as his founding of the International Neoclassical Karate Kobudo Society.Sensei Noah Legel - Episode 924
SUMMARY
Sensei Noah Legel shares his journey in martial arts, starting with his interest in Japanese swordsmanship and his academic approach to learning. He discusses his early experiences in wrestling and how it led him to explore other martial arts. Sensei Legel emphasizes the importance of understanding the history, traditions, and philosophies of martial arts, and how it shaped his mindset as a practitioner. He also talks about his passion for teaching and overcoming his social anxiety through martial arts. Sensei Legel highlights the privilege of having access to martial arts training and the importance of schools working with students to make it affordable. He shares his transition to a new school and his experiences in judo, including the physical challenges he faced due to his connective tissue disorder. Sensei Legel discusses his transition from Judo to Karate and his exploration of practical kata application. He highlights the value of kata as templates for training various aspects of martial arts, such as speed, power, and footwork. He then also shares his experience of creating Waza Wednesday, a YouTube series that focused on kata application and supplementary training exercises. The conversation takes a poignant turn as Noah discusses the health issues his sensei faced and his eventual passing. Sensei Legel discusses his journey in martial arts, from training in traditional karate to exploring practical applications and founding the International Neoclassical Karate Kobudo Society (INKKS). He shares the story of his Waza Wednesday series and the impact of his friend's passing on his martial arts journey. He emphasizes the importance of evolving and progressing martial arts while staying true to their original intent. He explains the mission of INKKS to inspire and guide practitioners in practicing karate in a neoclassical way. Lastly, he also highlights the inclusivity and community-building aspects of the organization.
TAKEAWAYS
* Understanding the history, traditions, and philosophies of martial arts is important for a well-rounded practice.
* Martial arts can help overcome social anxiety and improve public speaking skills.
* Schools should work with students to make martial arts training affordable and accessible.
* Judo can be physically challenging and may lead to injuries, but the value of the practice outweighs the difficulties.
* Having a passion for teaching can enhance the martial arts journey and contribute to personal growth. Kata are valuable templates for training various aspects of martial arts.
* Practical kata application involves exploring different interpretations and applications of the movements.
* Creating online content, such as YouTube videos, can help share martial arts knowledge and encourage experimentation.
* Health issues can have a significant impact on a martial artist's training and journey.
* Sensei Legel's martial arts journey from traditional karate to neoclassical karate
* The impact of the Waza Wednesday series and the passing of a friend
* The mission of the International Neoclassical Karate Kobudo Society (INKKS)
* The importance of evolving and progressing martial arts while staying true to their original intent
* The inclusivity and community-building aspects of INKKS
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction and Background
01:53 Academic Approach to Martial Arts
05:48 Overcoming Social Anxiety
13:07 Affordability and Accessibility of Martial Arts Training
21:13 The Joy of Teaching in Martial Arts
32:14 Introduction and Background
47:24 Transition to Practical Kata Application
55:34 Intellectual Curiosity and Nerdist Perspective
01:03:28 Creating Waza Wednesday
01:06:46 Health Issues and Loss
01:08:28 Sensei Legel's Martial Arts Journey
01:14:00 The Mission of INKKS
01:16:59 Evolving Martial Arts
01:19:57 Building Community: The Inclusivity of INKKS
Show Notes
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Show Transcript
Jeremy (00:00.384)
What’s going on everybody welcome. It's another episode of Whistlekick martial arts radio joined Joining me today. See I already messed up. There we go. Joining me today my guest Noah legal We're gonna talk in a moment If you if you enjoy Nerding out about martial arts I think you're gonna dig this episode and I say that only because you know I've been following what Noah does for several years now and know that he enjoys
nerding out about martial arts and I do too so we're gonna have some fun on that to the audience if you happen to be new two things I want you to do I want you to check out whistlekick martial arts radio .com it's where we post all the stuff related to the episodes we've got transcripts and links and photos and videos and all that good stuff anything that no one I talk about today is gonna end up over there you'll see some of that in your show notes but if you want the full version go go check that out.
but also whistlekick .com because why are we here? We're more than a podcast company. We do so many different things. And if you want to get ahead of all of those things, if you want to check out Whistlekick Alliance for your martial arts school, if you want to come to one of our events, like free training day, which is literally free, and there are four of them this year in 2024, who knows what year you're listening to this, but you can also use the code podcast one five if you choose to buy anything because yeah, we sell stuff because things cost money, like food and.
Podcasting platforms. But here we are Noah. Thanks for being on. I'm glad we're getting to do this man. Of course, of course. I'm trying to think, you know, how long have I known who you are? Two, three years? Two, three years? TikTok? I think is where we started engaging. Yeah. And you know, what I think struck me about you initially was you have a...
Noah Legel (01:30.016)
Absolutely, thanks for having me.
Noah Legel (01:40.256)
Yeah, if we're going by TikTok, yeah.
Jeremy (01:53.344)
Academic way of approaching a lot of things in martial arts and that's something that resonates for me, you know It's not just this is what my instructor taught me to do So that's what I'm gonna do. And if you do it differently, you're wrong and stupid but more Huh? Okay. Well, let's see if you have a point there. Let's take a look at it from practicality and physiology and all of these other things You always been like that?
Noah Legel (02:20.288)
I would say so. Probably not so much in the very beginning of my martial arts journey because you are in that that shu phase of shuhari, the copying phase of learning. And so, you know, you're just trying to swim in a sink or swim situation because, you know, you jump in. Exactly. You know, you get thrown into the deep end sometimes when you start out in martial arts training and you feel like you're getting so much information.
Jeremy (02:30.848)
Hmm.
Jeremy (02:40.224)
or maybe even not drown.
Noah Legel (02:49.888)
so quickly you just don't really have time to think about it, you just have to try and do it. But after I got more comfortable with it, which I was able to do relatively quickly because of how much time I devoted to it, most people, I'm not expecting them to do what I did and spend 13 -14 hours in the dojo every single week plus another hour or two every day at home kind of a thing. When I jumped into it...
Jeremy (03:02.688)
Mmm.
Jeremy (03:14.56)
It's a lot of training.
We're gonna we're gonna talk about that in a second. Keep going. We're gonna talk about that
Noah Legel (03:20.096)
But when I jumped into it, I got basically obsessed with it. So I started doing all that training and after a while it becomes comfortable enough that you can slow yourself down mentally and start actually thinking about what you're doing. And I was lucky to have instructors who would be happy to incorporate history into their classes and mention comparisons from different styles that they were aware of.
Jeremy (03:25.568)
Mmm.
Jeremy (03:44.032)
Hmm.
Noah Legel (03:50.016)
Granted, that was still a relatively insular experience. It was still from the perspective of people who focused on one style of karate, and it was the style they liked the best, so that kind of went to bias to that. But it really still instilled in me an interest in more than just doing the physical activity of karate. That was a big thing for them, that if you're going to do a traditional martial art, you should learn...
about the traditions of it, about the history of it, about the philosophies of it, and so on. And that just sort of carried me from there. And when I went from that dojo to training on my own for a couple years karate -wise, I had a judo dojo during that time that I attended still, but karate didn't fit my schedule. So then when I finally got back into karate with an instructor, I happened to have done a bunch of research in the meantime.
you know, being on my own, solo training, all that research was essentially sparked by that interest I was initially given when I started. And that informed what I was looking for in a martial arts instructor, and that's how I found my late sensei, Richard Polk. And he had a really practical but open mindset with the way that he taught things and the way that he...
Jeremy (04:58.752)
Mmm.
Noah Legel (05:18.208)
encouraged his students to learn because he wasn't one of those just like copy what I do and do exactly as I say kind of guys. He was very much a okay how do you see it kind of kind of instructor. You know at least once you'd had a enough time to develop a base right and yeah I think that that's just sort of been a mentality I've had throughout.
Jeremy (05:31.104)
Hmm.
Noah Legel (05:47.936)
my entire martial arts career because of the influence of the instructors that I had. And even before that, I just had a, you know, I valued science and the scientific method. I valued logic and reason and that kind of thing from, you know, my parents, the way that they raised me and all that. So it all just kind of goes together. I was 18, actually.
Jeremy (06:13.728)
How old were you when you started training?
Yeah, a bit of an atypical age, but that lines up, right? You know, I don't know if you went to college, but for most people, they get out, you know, they come out of high school around 18 and we have, there are a couple of things that happen for most of us. I think you're far enough away from 18. I can say this without offending you. You know, for most of us, especially men at 18, we really think we know it, right? We really think we've got a good handle on what life has for us. And...
Noah Legel (06:17.952)
Jeremy (06:46.144)
for a lot of people that can lead in a very different direction. You know, what I'm hearing from you is you at the right time likely ended up with the right person who planted not, you know this, but constantly ask the question what I don't know. You know, and I'm certainly putting words in your mouth, but I think it lines up with what you're saying and how fortuitous that is. And certainly you've, you've continued with that approach.
Noah Legel (07:04.896)
Yeah, absolutely.
Jeremy (07:15.968)
But why? Why at 18? Because again, that's not an age, at least in the States, that people generally start martial arts training. What happened?
Noah Legel (07:25.408)
Well, at 18, the short answer is because I was making my own money and I was an adult, so I could sign my own waivers.
Jeremy (07:34.436)
What's the most violent thing I can do now that I'm 18? What can I do that my parents would not want me to do? I'm gonna go get punched in the face and you can't tell me no. Was that it?
Noah Legel (07:39.744)
I'm sorry.
not quite. It's even worse than that because what I wanted to learn was swordsmanship specifically. I didn't want to learn unarmed martial arts. I wanted to learn Japanese swordsmanship. Exactly. But really what it was was I had done wrestling when I was younger for a couple of months, but that experience was so bad and abusive on the part of the coach.
Jeremy (07:55.008)
You didn't want to get punched, you wanted to get cut. Okay, all right.
Jeremy (08:10.688)
Mmm.
Noah Legel (08:14.72)
that, yes, that is, that is, I am, I'm very specifically using that word because that is the accurate word for that situation. He taught me nothing and he almost got me severely injured with his approach to coaching me. Coaching is a term I'm using very lightly. So that being my initial martial arts experience, I don't think that
Jeremy (08:14.848)
You're picking that word carefully. Wow. Okay.
Yeah.
I'm so sorry.
Jeremy (08:34.368)
Yeah.
Noah Legel (08:44.672)
I had at that point any inclination to seek out more martial arts experiences. But at that time, I was a kid and I was interested in the Power Rangers and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and so on. So I had an interest in those things, but after that experience with wrestling, I didn't seek any out. I did, however,
around the same time start to develop an interest in Japanese culture through anime. I was an anime nerd. And for my junior year term paper, I did a full term paper on the method of making a Japanese sword, the traditional process of making a Japanese sword. That's actually what got me into bladesmithing, which is a hobby of mine now. But yeah, but just that interest in
Jeremy (09:29.672)
that's cool.
Jeremy (09:34.024)
Okay, we'll talk about that too. Go on.
Noah Legel (09:40.)
weapons had always been there for me. And then just starting to learn more about weapons and then getting into anime and seeing all these really cool Japanese swordsmanship type personas being given with things like Runny Tension and Inuyasha, you know, that sort of thing. I just wanted to learn how to, you know, wield the Japanese sword. I thought that was super cool. The trouble was the nearest...
Kendo school, which is what I was kind of looking for, was about an hour away. And I was living still with my parents in a tiny town that barely registers on a map, but central Illinois, near Peoria. People will probably have the, that's the closest you're going to find. But it was, it was too far away to drive there.
Jeremy (10:13.568)
Where were you living at this time?
Noah Legel (10:36.512)
reliably, depending on when you get off work and that kind of thing, to make it in time for class. And I discovered that training in Kendo is very expensive to start. Because the armor is like $400 by itself, and then even a cheap shinai, the bamboo sword, is like $80. So I had money monthly, but I didn't really feel like saving up to buy a set of armor and everything else.
Jeremy (10:38.144)
Hmm.
Noah Legel (11:04.352)
But I did find that a local karate school taught Japanese swordsmanship on Fridays, but you had to reach a certain rank in karate before they'd let you attend that class. And so I was like, okay, well, I'll go and I'll, you know, try it out and, you know, if I can stick it out until I can start doing swordsmanship, then I'll start doing swordsmanship there. And that didn't turn out the way I expected it to turn out.
Jeremy (11:33.344)
How's that?
Noah Legel (11:34.304)
Well, I fell in love with karate, for one thing. I didn't expect to, you know, my interests that whole time had been in weapons.
Jeremy (11:44.064)
And I imagine, because you've connected these dots a bit, your interest in martial arts remained. You talked about Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, but how can I get as far away from wrestling as possible? Well, wrestling is empty hand. Sword, not empty hand. So when we go sword, karate closer to wrestling, I'm nervous.
Noah Legel (12:04.64)
Right, exactly. You know, when you consider wrestling, it's a grappling martial art. It's all close range. It's very, very close and very uncomfortable with regard to people's personal space. Swordsmanship is the opposite of that. It is how far away can I stay and still do the thing I need to do. Karate was kind of a mid -range for me mentally. And so I figured I could do it. I just didn't think I, you know, have that much interest in it when Sorg was right there.
You know.
Jeremy (12:35.392)
Who wants to punch people when they can chop off their heads?
Noah Legel (12:38.177)
Right, that's so much cooler. But it turned out I fell in love with karate. And I fell in love with karate, and then I started doing judo because the school offered that two nights a week. I started doing Okinawan Kobudo. They offered that two times a week. When I was finally eligible to train in swordsmanship, the Shinkageru class that they had on Fridays, I started attending that.
Jeremy (12:39.904)
Absolutely.
Noah Legel (13:07.136)
And then once I ranked out of classes, I didn't stop going to them. So, you know, they had a beginner class first, and then they had an intermediate class, and they had an advanced class. Well, I started in the beginner class, obviously. But once I ranked up enough to no longer be like the core demographic for a beginner class, I was supposed to go to intermediate class. Well, I just kept showing up for a beginner class. And...
Jeremy (13:34.912)
And also intermediate class. Okay.
Noah Legel (13:36.16)
and also intermediate class. And then I did the same when I ranked into the advanced class. I would still show up for beginner class and intermediate class and advanced class.
Jeremy (13:43.424)
So you were treating this dojo as an all -you -can -eat Marshall buffet. What do you got? Can it hurt people with it? Cool, teach me. That's what I'm hearing. Yeah.
Noah Legel (13:48.384)
Exactly.
Noah Legel (13:54.656)
Pretty much. Pretty much. They had a rotating curriculum for the beginner classes and intermediate classes, but it was a little more open for the advanced class. So, you know, you get a sense for what the curriculum is and when for those first two classes after you've done them for a while. And my first instructor there had actually started me occasionally helping people out.
And I was a yellow belt when he was first like, hey, this new white belt needs to learn their basic punches. Can you take them through that for me? And the funny thing about that is that he stealthily helped me overcome my social anxiety about public speaking. So in Illinois, in order to graduate high school, you have to pass a public speaking class. And I graduated.
only with a D - in that class. And the only reason that I had a D - and could technically pass the speech class was because that was also an English teacher of mine, and she gave me extra credit on my written speeches. Because I failed every single verbal presentation.
Jeremy (15:14.208)
Was this, was this, you just freeze up?
Noah Legel (15:16.768)
I would either freeze up or I would giggle or I would mumble. It kind of depended on the day. Sometimes I would lock up and I couldn't talk at all. Sometimes it would just be... One -on -one I was okay, but the issue with school that I think made things worse was that I had a very bad school experience overall. I did not fit in. I was one of the misfits.
Jeremy (15:24.416)
How are you one -on -one with people?
Noah Legel (15:43.04)
you know, grand total of three friends through the entire course of school. Everybody else would either ignore me or bully me. Those are my only two options. So I didn't really enjoy engaging with anyone but my handful of friends anyway. So I didn't have much experience with anything beyond that very close -knit group of people who have common interests. But with karate, having it introduced as a, hey, go help this white belt.
Okay, we've got these two white belts, now they need to learn their first, you know, three moves of this kata. Help them learn that. And he just sort of built me up from one -on -one to one -on -two to one -on -four. And, you know, as people started to rank up along with my ranking up, I would be able to keep, you know, teach them this next move, teach them this kick. And eventually it got to a point where I was...
helping I would warm up the class. So now I was, you know, telling everybody what to do at the beginning of the class. And then it was, okay, take all these blue belts over here and run them through Anaku. Take, you know, and eventually I actually started attending a class that the dojo had on how to teach, which was a really interesting class. And I think it's something that more people should look into doing.
Jeremy (17:08.704)
Yeah.
Noah Legel (17:10.176)
Because, you know, just because you earn a black belt doesn't mean you know how to teach. Just because you're a very skilled martial artist doesn't mean you know how to teach.
Jeremy (17:17.12)
But martial arts is is probably the worst at saying you know how to do this cool now teach it and we assume that one Equal equates to the other and it's you know, we've done we've done episodes on our solution to that Matic but back to you
Noah Legel (17:32.48)
Yeah, yeah, it was just, it was a very simple premise. It was, okay, it's a whole bunch of us who are assistant instructors or instructors or, you know, want to be instructors. And we would have a class. It would literally be a class, but it would be people taking turns teaching or leading parts of that class. And then the chief instructor would occasionally stop it and say, okay, what went...
well with this? Why did it go well? What went wrong with this? Why did it go wrong? How can we improve on that? And it was sort of very organic. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't a typical school experience where somebody just gets up and talks at you for an hour and tells you how to do something. And I think that was a really valuable experience. But that whole process was gradual enough that by the time I was a
green belt, I was able to give a full speech and presentation in front of a great school, an inner city grade school of about 800 kids plus the entire faculty on, and it was just on the importance of staying in school and that kind of thing. Nothing crazy, but you know, karate guy and I'm going to break some boards. It's going to be fun. But I went from, you know, not being able to give a presentation to 15 people in school.
being able to do that. So that's one of the things that surprised me about it. I know this is kind of a tangent that we've gone off on. But yeah, that also instilled in me the passion for teaching. I really enjoyed teaching once I got to a point where I was comfortable with that dynamic.
Jeremy (19:09.408)
The show is all tangents. Keep going, man.
Jeremy (19:24.896)
Did that surprise you? Did you have any moments where you stepped back and went, wait a second, it wasn't that long ago that my teacher's kind of fudging my grade so I can pass this class because being in front of people sucks to, I like being in front of people and sharing what I am passionate about with them. That surprise you?
Noah Legel (19:44.48)
It absolutely surprised me, but I don't know that there was a singular moment where it hit me. I think it was just one of those things where every now and then I'd realize some little thing of, you know, I couldn't do this in school. I couldn't even lead a group project in school. Now I'm telling this group of, you know, five orange belts how to do this kata, and I feel good about it.
And, you know, later on they'd asked me a question that I didn't know the answer to, which would normally have also made me freeze up and instead it just made me go, I want to know that also. That is a good question. Let me find out. So just a lot of little light bulb moments that kind of culminated with that presentation for that inner city school. When I got asked to do that,
My girlfriend at the time's mother worked at that school. That's how I ended up getting asked. When she asked me, there was the initial flood of anxiety and fear, and then it just sort of went away. I'm like, you're just gonna talk to them like a class. Like, what's the big deal? You've done that already. I mean, it's a bigger class by several hundred.
Jeremy (21:12.704)
for short.
Noah Legel (21:12.832)
But you've basically done it already. None of the stuff that you're going to talk about is new. And that was the final crowning moment, I think, of overcoming that. And I still have social anxiety about talking to people and talking in public, but it's one of those things that once I get up there and start, I can get past it in a way that I couldn't before.
Jeremy (21:39.84)
So this idea that you step into this martial arts school and just keep adding, keep consuming, keep making this your obsession is the word that's coming to me. And I don't mean that in a negative way, because I can certainly identify with it.
What did the people around you, you know, maybe those friends from school or your parents say about Noah, the obsessed Karateka?
Noah Legel (22:06.112)
you
My parents were mostly just surprised that I was so interested in it and that I was sticking with it because of that experience with wrestling. So it was one of those things where even once I had had that interest to learn swordsmanship, which came about in probably junior year, so I was 16, 17, where I could have probably asked them to pay for some sword lessons or karate lessons. But at the time I just figured they wouldn't because of...
Jeremy (22:13.28)
Cool. Okay.
Noah Legel (22:39.104)
wrestling, they wouldn't want to get me started and have me quit after a couple months because it's terrible. And so that's kind of why I waited till I was an adult, I wouldn't feel like they would be put out if I quit. But yeah, they were mostly, because of that, just surprised that I was enjoying it so much and that I was sticking with it. My friends didn't really have much to say about it.
Jeremy (22:51.136)
I understand, yeah.
Noah Legel (23:06.464)
You know, we were all at that point having graduated high school, starting careers and all this other stuff. It was just one of the things that I was doing and they'd occasionally say, hey, you're still doing that? Yep, still doing that. I'm a yellow belt now. Cool. And we go on about our day. It was weird, weird in a way because my, you know, my small group of friends, we stayed friends within the sphere of interest.
that we had and didn't really have any crossover. They didn't have, they didn't gain an interest in martial arts because I was doing it or anything like that.
Jeremy (23:46.592)
What were your common interests with them?
Noah Legel (23:49.472)
anime was one for sure. Computers was a big one. I was lucky enough to be raised in a household that had a computer already, which for my generation is impressive. My dad bought a computer in 1986 because he was a master tool maker for caterpillars.
Jeremy (24:18.272)
Tandy, Amiga, or TI?
Noah Legel (24:21.184)
So I don't remember, I don't remember, but I want to say it was an Amiga, but I can't, don't quote me on that. It might have been, it might also have been an IBM, but I don't remember for sure. But my dad was a master tool maker for Caterpillar. And so he was, you know, intimately involved with the manufacturing process.
Jeremy (24:28.8)
I would love for you to find out. I would put money. It was one of those three.
Jeremy (24:41.888)
Hmm.
Noah Legel (24:48.704)
and he decided in 1986 computers were going to be the future and so he bought one and he figured, you know, when I was born and then later my younger brothers were born that his kids were going to know how to use a computer because that was the way the future was going to go. And he was absolutely right. And now I work in IT professionally. So it worked out. Right, exactly.
Jeremy (25:06.976)
Yeah, he was right.
Jeremy (25:14.976)
Thanks, Dad.
Noah Legel (25:18.016)
When people talk about, you know, privilege, that's one of those things. I recognize 100 % that I was born into a privileged situation on that front. You know, my parents could afford a computer, for one thing, found value in the computer. Eventually, we could afford the internet, all that kind of stuff. So I recognized that I was a very privileged kid, and that set me up well for adulthood. And not everybody has that, which is really...
unfortunate. But martial arts is one of those things I think that kind of bridges that gap a little bit between privileged and a lack of privilege, provided the schools are willing to work with people on being able to afford classes. Obviously it's a business that you need to keep open, but if you can help people I think you should.
Jeremy (26:09.664)
Yeah, most schools just in my experience and this is as much for the audience as anybody else. Most schools will work with you if you show you are worth working with. They may not advertise, hey, if you can't afford this, we'll knock your tuition down. But if you are genuine and you offer to make an exchange and you show up and you are dedicated, they want you on the floor. They will work with you. Not every school, but most in my experience, vast majority.
Noah Legel (26:39.712)
I mean, I can't tell you the number of instructors that I've spoken to over the years that have students in their dojo who pay their dues by mopping the mats and cleaning the bathrooms. Or... It is. And even when I started training with my Shorn -Ru instructor, the way that that ended up working out was I have...
Jeremy (26:55.872)
It's an old school way to do it too.
Noah Legel (27:09.312)
started helping with classes and they would pay me for helping with classes. But at a certain point it was the same cost as my attendance fees were. So they're just like, we'll call it good. You're helping out with classes, teaching. And then I started doing their social media accounts as well. And they were just like, don't worry about.
your dues, you're paying your dues by doing all this work for the dojo. And yeah, you're right, it's not something that's gonna be advertised because while it does, those kind of things can keep the school running, they don't keep the doors open because of funding needs. But yeah, and other schools have like scholarship programs where people donate over time and that contributes to a fund that they can use.
So yeah, there's a lot of great ways of bridging that gap with martial arts. And I think that that's a really great thing that it can do that it doesn't necessarily get all that much credit for.
Jeremy (28:20.704)
said. So you mentioned another school. So at some point you left this original school, you went to another school. I think you even acknowledged that the man in the photo above your head, I think you spoke about him in the past tense. I don't know if those two things are connected.
Noah Legel (28:39.232)
So what my journey consisted of was I trained in Illinois, in central Illinois, in shuri -ryu karate, which is an American eclectic style founded by a man named Robert Trias. And he's quite well known in American karate circles, founder of the USKA, that kind of thing.
Jeremy (28:58.88)
Kinda heard of that guy.
Noah Legel (29:08.8)
But I started in Shuri Ryu there, then I started in Judo there, I started in Okinawan Kobudo there, I started in Shinkage Ryu in Iaizutsu there, and that was my foundation. And after I reached Brown Belt, I got a job in Phoenix, Arizona, and I moved all the way across the country. And when I did that, I had intentions of training...
continuing my Shuri -Ru training, there were two high -ranked Shuri -Ru instructors in the area. But the schedule that my work gave me was a late shift. Yeah. So by the time I got off work, the classes were half over or over, depending on the school, when I would get there. So it would be, you know, pay the dues for the classes and then maybe get...
Jeremy (29:49.376)
Stupid job.
Noah Legel (30:06.848)
20, 30, maybe 20, 30 minutes of training each time I go. And that just didn't work out. But there was a judo club that had later classes. And I'd already been doing judo.
Jeremy (30:14.176)
It's not going to work.
Jeremy (30:20.896)
And you'd already been doing judo and sounded like enjoyed judo, which we didn't really talk about because that that's even closer to wrestling.
Noah Legel (30:26.464)
It is. So I will say I did not enjoy Judo as much as I enjoyed karate. And there were days where I hated it. But I found the value in it kind of outweighed those days. You know, because I would have bad days where it just, I couldn't make things work. I'd get thrown over and over again, and I couldn't throw anybody. Couldn't defend a throw, saved my life. And
Jeremy (30:54.752)
Judo can be rough. Judo can be so, and I've only, I've dabbled. I dabbled a teeny little bit. And it just, those days where you hit the mat and maybe you weren't quite ready for that throw and you land just a little bit off from what you want and everything that falls for the rest of class hurts. Even if you do them right, because now you're compromised.
Noah Legel (30:56.864)
Judo is, yeah.
Noah Legel (31:01.824)
Yeah.
Noah Legel (31:18.72)
Yeah. Yep, absolutely. I messed up this shoulder worse. I actually messed up this shoulder trying to do sword stuff before I learned swordsmanship. I had the bright idea. I had this rope hanging from a beam and I was using an oak tree stake that I had sanded down to a sword shape.
like a polkan. And I was using it to do these moves I'd seen in anime, basically, on this rope. But the rope at some point wrapped around it and yanked it because of all the swinging around and it tore my rotator cuff.
Jeremy (31:48.896)
dedication. Yeah.
Jeremy (32:05.664)
I think we have enough time in together that I can tease you for a moment and say you lost to a rope.
Noah Legel (32:12.288)
I lost to a rope, I did. I had no training when I lost to that rope. I had no training when I lost to that rope, but I still lost to a rope. But yeah, landing bad in judo messed up that shoulder worse, made injured my knee worse. Those who don't know, I have a connective tissue disorder called Ehlers -Danlos syndrome, which...
Jeremy (32:14.144)
I've lost to worse, but that's new. That's a new one. I like that a lot. That's fun.
Of course.
Jeremy (32:39.712)
Yeah, I'm familiar.
Noah Legel (32:41.408)
means that my joints are hypermobile and it's easy for them to dislocate, slide out of place, and they hurt basically all the time. So it makes that even more difficult to handle some days.
Jeremy (32:55.68)
So it was why I'm going to pull back about 80 % of my rope comment given given this new information. I kind of feel like a schmuck, but you know.
Noah Legel (32:59.532)
Well, you know, hey, I didn't know I had this at the time. At the time, people still thought growing pains were a normal thing. If you aren't aware, growing pains not actually a normal thing. You should not hurt to grow. Yeah, the actual your joints hurting when you're growing is not supposed to happen, turns out. But at the time we didn't know that. So...
Jeremy (33:17.28)
the physical kind anyway.
Noah Legel (33:27.424)
I only learned about my condition actually fairly recently, to be honest. You'd think we would have figured that out earlier from all the dislocating that I dealt with, but I don't look like I have Ehlers -Danlos, so...
Jeremy (33:44.512)
I have the folks that I've known that it's funny. I've only known a few people with it, but they all defy what I would imagine them to be, which would be, you know, couch potato, very sedentary. And the few folks that I've known, two or three, went the opposite way. And they're like, I'm not letting this control me. I'm going to be an athlete.
Noah Legel (34:04.832)
Yeah. Well, from what I gather, the look of an Ehlers -Danlos syndrome patient is usually overweight, sedentary, or very, very thin and usually longer -limbed than would be normal, the lanky people, right? And so I literally had a doctor walk into an office to give me a second opinion on this and literally just looks at me and goes,
Jeremy (34:25.12)
Okay.
Noah Legel (34:33.856)
You don't look like you have Ehlers -Danlos. Like, that's not how medicine works. That's not how this... I'm not the doctor here, but I know that's not how medicine works. But all that to say, you know, it makes it tough to train regularly, and as I get older, it gets worse. So I have to, you know, make sure that I'm staying on top of that training. But...
Jeremy (34:38.496)
That's a thorough exam.
Noah Legel (35:01.024)
When I was younger and I was actively doing Judo, I literally dislocated my knee, snapped it sideways in Judo. I dislocated the shoulder to the point where I had to modify certain throws and do them wrong if you're looking at the official Kodakon manual. But it was also a very different experience from my first Judo experience.
Jeremy (35:19.456)
Hmm.
Noah Legel (35:29.728)
because the school that I started in did traditional kodokan judo. So it was a little more old school. Literally 50 % of the training was groundwork, which is abnormal for most modern judo schools, because groundwork doesn't win in tournaments as much as the big flashy throws, because they want you to do the big flashy throws so that people watch it in the Olympics. But...
doing traditional judo, we literally did one day of the week was stand up grappling and one day of the week was groundwork. And the instructor was very big on making sure you knew how to do the throw correctly. And it was more about doing the throw as effortlessly as possible.
And then when I moved, I started training under Olympic alternates.
And I think a little bit there. The first day that I went and trained with them, they were like, all right, we're going to quiz you. We want to see what you know, because you've done judo, but you did judo outside of our organization. You have a green belt. We don't even do that in our school. They only did white, brown and black in their school. So you've got a green belt. We don't do that really. So let's see what you know.
Jeremy (36:26.496)
bit of a culture difference there.
Noah Legel (36:53.6)
and they started quizzing me, and I knew and could demonstrate properly all of the throws that they required of Black.
Noah Legel (37:07.36)
But they were like, it's all very textbook.
I'm like, yeah.
Jeremy (37:16.224)
That's bad?
Noah Legel (37:18.272)
Right, I was very confused at the time. Like, I don't understand the problem, but okay.
Jeremy (37:23.104)
Sounds like a compliment delivered like an insult.
Noah Legel (37:25.984)
Exactly, exactly. This sounds like backhatch. Should I be insulted? I'm not sure. And, you know, as I started to train with them, it occurred to me why they said that and why it felt that way. So, you know, Olympic Judo, there were two maxims that the founder of Judo set out with. And that was mutual benefit.
Jeremy (37:32.16)
You
Noah Legel (37:54.432)
everyone involved should be benefiting from the practice of judo. And maximum efficiency, minimum effort was the other one. And when I was doing traditional judo, those two things were very much part of the process. Everybody should be getting the chance to practice. Everybody should get the chance to benefit. If somebody isn't able to do something, then we want to try and give them more opportunities to do it. It wasn't competitive. It was...
you know, collaborative, we'll say. But when I was training under Olympic alternates in Olympic judo, especially the idea of maximum efficiency, minimum effort was not there. It was maximum effort all the time. It was if you start a throw, finish that throw, no matter what, no matter how hard it is, no matter how out of position you are, no matter not off balance they are.
make that throw happen.
Jeremy (38:55.488)
Feels like you stepped into an energy drink commercial.
Noah Legel (38:58.016)
A little bit. It was much higher energy, that's for sure. I mean, they were also CrossFit coaches, and so our warm -ups were literally a CrossFit workout before we did Judo, which, you know, got me into even better shape, but man, that wiped you out before you even got to technique. But, and they...
Jeremy (39:20.288)
Yeah, just as an aside to schools out there, if you want to do rugged conditioning, don't put it before technical work, especially technical work that involves learning things for the first time. Just, you know, just a thought.
Noah Legel (39:34.592)
Yeah, yeah, when your legs are jello and your visions are trying to do this, not the best time to learn. They do help, they do help. And they changed a lot of my throws to be fully committed throws. So there was really no way to back out once you start it.
Jeremy (39:42.432)
Vision and standing are good prerequisites to most things in martial arts.
Noah Legel (40:02.048)
It was either you get completely stopped by the person's resistance or you flip with them. You know, because that's how you win. You got to throw them with a full flip so they land on their back and you win with Epon. Which meant that your throws were not always done very well and were sometimes dangerous to yourself. Because technically headdiving was illegal.
you weren't allowed to like dive and throw your head into the mat to throw, except that literally everyone did it. Like it's in the Olympics, people are doing it. So it's against the rules technically, but I've watched an Olympic judo medalist slam his head on the ground in order to throw somebody and win. That...
Jeremy (40:53.536)
This sounds like rewarding behavior that a martial art might instead discourage.
Noah Legel (41:00.192)
Well, and it goes even farther than that. Most martial artists should be familiar with ukemi or break falls. If you're teaching sweeps or throws or takedowns, you need to teach how to fall safely. I would say most martial arts schools do that, at least to some degree. Judo does it more, obviously, because it's focused on throwing. Except...
Jeremy (41:20.512)
I would agree.
Noah Legel (41:28.704)
that once you start competing in judo, when you're in a competitive school, they teach you how to fall wrong.
So they go, okay, all of your safe ukemi practice is great, but when you're competing, don't fall that way. Because falling that way, you lose. Exactly. If you fall properly on your back, distributing your weight like you're supposed to, you lose. So fall wrong. So you start out learning how to breakfall properly, and then when you start competing, they're like, okay, now this is how you flip in the air so you land all twisted.
Jeremy (41:44.64)
because if you fall right, you lose points.
Noah Legel (42:06.848)
hurt your elbows and shoulders and break your fingers so that you don't lose. It is. And that is indicative, I think, of one of the issues of making a martial art into a sport, especially an Olympic sport, because Olympics being the biggest stage in the world for amateur sports.
Jeremy (42:11.648)
This is silly.
Noah Legel (42:34.24)
Obviously there's a prestige to that and people who participate in things that are in the Olympics are going to oftentimes have that goal. It may be a very distant goal, it may not be a realistic goal for everybody, but a lot of them will have that goal. And so you're going to want to train to do what they do. And if a rule set is changed enough times, it diverges from the intent of that martial art in particular.
to be a spectator sport. And when it becomes a spectator sport, the martial effectiveness no longer matters. It's different when it's a competitive sport that isn't a spectator sport.
What I mean by that is, if you consider something like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu...
for a long time, that was not a spectator sport, even though they had competitions. They had lots of competitions, still do. But we have seen over the past decade or two, these bigger, we're having super fights and big streaming events where they're doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitions, but it's a spectator sport. But before the spectator sport, it was focused on
being the better martial artist in that context.
Jeremy (43:59.264)
Really exciting if you're one of the two people, kinda boring if you're everyone else.
Noah Legel (44:03.136)
Exactly. You know, and you see that in people complaining about mixed martial arts fights when it would go to the ground. Before people had any idea what the groundwork really was, you'd hear tons of booing in the crowds watching mixed martial arts fights.
Jeremy (44:17.984)
to the audience go back to I forget which number which UFC number it was but hoist gracey ken shamrock and I remember watching that with a friend and they were they were tied up for 45 minutes and the ref found an excuse to stand them up and within 15 seconds they were back down and they're just clenched and I'm looking at him going how long are we going to watch this this is miserable
Noah Legel (44:28.608)
Yeah, the really
Noah Legel (44:35.232)
Yeah. Yeah. And then.
Right? Right? When you don't know what's happening, and especially when you're looking at people who are high level at the same thing, it becomes a chess match and you can't just make moves without thought. You have to consider second, third order effects of whatever it is you do, so of course it slows the pace. But again, when you're training to compete and determine who is...
Jeremy (44:43.808)
Yeah.
Noah Legel (45:08.576)
better at executing that martial art, that's one thing. When you make it a spectator sport, you change the rules to get rid of the boring stuff. And you don't necessarily ban it. Like, Judo didn't ban groundwork. But what they did was they made it so you only had a limited amount of time on the ground. And it was harder to win on the ground. You had to pin somebody for 30 seconds.
Pinning somebody for 30 seconds who doesn't want to be pinned is not easy. It's not like some other 10 count pins. 30 full seconds. You could win by a stranglehold or a joint lock if they tap out. But because you had such a limited amount of time, most people could resist long enough to not have to tap, or they'd just let it go.
and they'd get their arm dislocated or they'd get choked unconscious and then they'd get back to it because that wouldn't end the match. If you didn't tap, you didn't lose. So if the time ran out of being on the ground, which I think was originally 30 seconds, but I think they've lowered it again since then. And then of course, in addition to penalizing the groundwork in that sense, they incentivized the throws.
because you can instantly win if you throw somebody with a big throw that lands them on their back. And you can win quickly by doing two of them where they kind of land half on their back. So, you know, they're incentivizing big flashy things that aren't necessarily tactically the best idea from a full martial arts perspective, right? When you're thinking about throwing somebody, you know, where you're going to also flip
to make them fall. Strategically, not a good idea in the wider sense of martial arts, especially self -defense. You don't want to also fall down when you throw the guy. So again, I know we've gone off on a tangent. I'm a karate guy and here I am rambling about Judo, but that's been my Judo experience.
Jeremy (47:11.968)
Hmm.
Jeremy (47:17.856)
I love you. Yeah. No, it's it's.
Jeremy (47:23.968)
So I'm curious, was this, let's call it departure from the academic, the cerebral approach to Judo, did that create...
I'm trying to know that I use this word without judgment in overcorrection to go further into the cerebral side, the academic side of martial arts. Did you say this isn't it? So I really liked this. I'm going headlong here.
Noah Legel (47:57.088)
know that it was necessarily an over -correction. I think it was more of a...
A reaction out of relief of getting back to something comfortable in a way. Yeah, embracing it. So when my work schedule changed, and this was two years, I spent two years just practicing my katha and doing bag work and whatnot, training by myself, and I was still training regularly, but it was by myself, and then two or three days a week doing judo. But then...
Jeremy (48:07.616)
Okay. In embrace. Okay.
Jeremy (48:27.296)
while you're also doing judo.
Noah Legel (48:32.928)
I was researching through that whole time and I found people like Ian Abernethy doing practical kata application. And that wasn't the kind of kata application that I had learned. So when I first saw it, I'm like, I don't understand. This doesn't make sense. I'm looking at it and it doesn't look like the kata. But I'm intrigued. I like the idea of having practical applications for these kata that I've met.
Jeremy (48:57.856)
something about it resonated.
Noah Legel (48:59.68)
Right, and so I started finding more people along those lines and I decided, okay, I want to do Shoren -Ru, it's similar -ish to Shuri -Ru. And there are some instructors around. It just so happened that Richard Polk was the first one of two that I visited, and I ended up training with him. But he obviously was very welcoming and was excited to have
somebody come in with experience who is interested and just
I sat down with him for probably two hours after that first class just chatting with him about my karate experience and his karate experience and it became very evident that he wasn't the kind of person who just does it. He thinks about it. He considers it. He evaluates it. He tests it and
He didn't want his students to be carbon copies of him. He wanted them to learn how to learn karate. And that kind of brought back all those initial things that I enjoyed about all of the stuff that I memorized when I was first, you know, diving headlong into karate and it developed my obsession.
To the point which, by the way, I had a website blog that I called Karate Obsession for several years. Which...
Jeremy (50:42.304)
that I know a few people who I could have guessed would have had that, but you would have been on the list for sure.
Noah Legel (50:49.332)
Interestingly, I had a blog before that called My Budo Geek Life. Well, you know, I decided to be just weird about it. But...
Jeremy (50:55.264)
would not have given that one to you.
Jeremy (51:03.712)
Was it on GeoCities?
Noah Legel (51:05.792)
It was not on GeoCities, it was a blog spot. When I did GeoCities was before I did martial arts. And Angel Fire, if you remember those. But yeah, so all that said, I started training with this instructor who was only three years older than me. But he started when he was four.
Jeremy (51:09.024)
Okay. All right.
Jeremy (51:18.816)
How about Angel Fire? Yeah. All right, keep going.
Noah Legel (51:35.584)
Which makes a difference. Right? But he had actually trained in Shuri -Ru as well. So he knew where I was coming from, you know, on that front, so he could help me make the adjustments. But he would also give me just so much to think about beyond to memorize this thing. So he...
Jeremy (51:37.472)
I had a little bit of time in, yeah.
Noah Legel (52:02.528)
He found pretty quickly that I could memorize a kata quickly. That wasn't an issue, right? Getting the kata curriculum memorized, for me by that point was easy because not only had I memorized everything that I needed in my previous school, but I had attended several little seminars they did where I got to learn kata from other styles as well. So I knew more kata that I needed to begin with and then I started learning all these other ones.
got to a point memorizing them wasn't an issue. But then he'd give me stuff to think about because it wouldn't be, okay, the bunkai you need to learn for this move is that you're doing this against this thing. Now practice that for 17 hours before you learn the next thing. Which was a little bit more what I was used to from the perspective of kata application. It was...
all prescribed. Every technique in the kata had one application that you had to memorize, but you had to memorize it different ways in that school. You had to be able to tell somebody non -verbally how to attack you for it so that you could do it. Then you had to do a verbal interpretation where you explain everything that you're doing, and then you had to do a full run of the kata with people attacking you. But these weren't practical applications. These were
very much the kind of applications you'd see in the old JKA films. It's really kind of children's applications, basic applications. That at the time I didn't question. I was just memorizing and I was enjoying the process. But as I got more interested in how to use it, my mindset started to shift and he didn't ever give me one application. Ever. Every single time.
I would ask about some part of a kata or he would teach about part of a kata, he would always give you at least two examples. Because it was important to him that you understood that it is a movement and a posture. It doesn't inherently have a singular application or purpose.
Jeremy (54:15.84)
Yeah, I want to pause here for a moment because not every school has this open interpretation. In fact, there are schools that really preach this move in this form is doing this. And that memorization you're talking about never changes. That never goes away. And I've trained at schools like that. And I can understand.
that I understand why that is now I I was very fortunate I grew up that that was never it was very much like this gentleman you're talking about it could be this it could be that it could be this it could be that and that open mindedness I think has a lot of value in it but given that there's a transition in here for you from one way of thinking to another and you talked about Ian Abernethy who's been on the show and shout out to Ian he's awesome and this this
What feels like a big and also maybe not long time wise, but not an overnight transition for you, because I know enough about you now to know that on the other side of this, this is huge for you. This is a very fundamental shift in how you approach martial arts. Was there any intellectual resistance as you go through that shift?
Noah Legel (55:33.664)
There wasn't any resistance necessarily, but there was certainly a disconnect at some points because he would show an application and I wouldn't always understand why that would be an application for that movement because it didn't look the same. And I would have to mull it over, I would have to...
think about it more, I would have to go through it in the air, visualizing it. I say visualizing, although I don't technically have that capability. I have aphantasia. Yes. So when I talk about visualization, what I'm actually doing is I am imagining the feeling of moving, not seeing what I'm doing, but how it would feel to do something is what I'm imagining.
Jeremy (56:09.792)
You just learn that that's a thing that not everyone can visualize.
Noah Legel (56:29.088)
But yeah, I would do that. I would think about it over and over. It would come to me when I'm trying to go to sleep at night, and I'd have to try it out with people. And it would take me time and occasionally ask more questions. Can I see this again? To understand that the reason it was an application for that movement, even though it doesn't necessarily look like that movement, is because it has the same underlying principles and it's doing
the same kind of thing, right, but you're using it differently. A good example is the crossing action that you get before a lot of your uke waza or blocking techniques, right? I had always looked at those techniques as the end part, the end posture. And even in shuri -ru, they did teach us that, you know, you parry first and then you do the block.
parry first and then you do the block. They did teach both pieces of that, but Richard Pogue would weaponize this. So yeah, you might be parrying with this hand, and this hand that's setting up to do something, setting up, he's hitting you with it. And I'm like, it didn't even occur to me that you could hit somebody with that. Right?
Jeremy (57:53.312)
Hmm. Blocks or strikes.
Noah Legel (57:55.296)
Blocks are strikes, exactly. But at first, that didn't make sense. And so because I had never considered that possibility, it didn't look right. Like, well, you're not setting up and blocking, you're punching in. And I had to kind of reconsider that the kata are templates. They can't show you every possible variation.
of a technique because they would be infinitely long, infinitely complex. They're templates. They give you set examples that are kind of ideal. They're giving you idealized examples of techniques and of drills, of developing postures, all kinds of different things that they teach you, but they're templates. You then have to expand on those templates. You can't just copy the template forever. This is the same thing as if, I don't know if you've ever...
taking an art class. But in art class, they do have shape templates for helping you to cleanly draw curves and angles and things like that. But the thing is, the way that you use those templates in the beginning of an art class is not the same way you use them at the end. Because, yeah, in the beginning, you lay the template on the piece of paper and you trace the circle. Trace the triangle, right?
But at the end of the class, you put the template on the page and you do part of the circle and then you move it. You put part of the triangle and you move it. Right? You no longer have to do it exactly the way that it shows once you understand the underlying principles of how it all works. But that is a process. It's not something that comes to you overnight, especially if you have a background in a totally different perspective. So...
Yeah, it was one of those things where in my head, you know, if I'm doing a technique in the kata that way, the bad guy's over there and he's going to attack me from that side and I have to turn and do something. And so the idea that they're in front of me, but I turn didn't make sense at first. I'm like, well, why would the kata be that way? You know, and just the more historical research you do, the more you see, okay, that's how it developed over time.
Noah Legel (01:00:22.656)
For example, Mabuni Kenwa's statement about the angles of kata telling you how you take an angle in relation to the opponent, not that you're being attacked from all these angles. You know, before I read that, it never occurred to me. So, but yeah, it's definitely not an overnight process.
Jeremy (01:00:40.384)
Yeah, and I think just the point that I want to hit here is what you're talking about is the antithesis of the arguments that people make about forms. People make fun of, they mock forms, they criticize forms. This is useless. Why would you ever do this? And when I see someone saying that, it's very clear to me that they unfortunately did not receive instruction in martial arts in a way that suggests...
the instructor understands how powerful forms are. Cause to me it's, it's what are all the things you might ever want to train distilled down into? I like the word template you're using because, okay, do you want to work on speed? Kata. You want to work on power? Kata. You want to work on footwork? Kata. You can take, and you know, I'm using the word Kata cause you're using the word Kata.
But any of your forms, how you approach them dictates what you get out of them. It doesn't just have to be choreography.
Noah Legel (01:01:48.352)
Yeah, and I think it does a disservice to the art to sort of simplify kata to just being a pattern you memorize. If you just enjoy memorizing them, I'm not hating on the people doing that. But from the teaching perspective, from the instructor's perspective, I think that you're doing a disservice for your students if you don't yourself...
learn more than just how to perform it and pass that on because they have so much value in them. But if you don't teach the value then they'd no longer have that value. That's the big issue there.
Jeremy (01:02:33.088)
Yeah. So you go through this transition, you know, here, once again, we're identifying all these points of intellectual curiosity for you. You know, you use the word nerd early on. I think it's a great word for you. I identify as a nerd myself. People who know me are nodding. Yes, that's Jeremy's a nerd. So it's certainly not an insult coming out of my mouth, but you continue this intellectual curiosity, this nerdist.
perspective on martial arts. And, you know, I want to make sure that we get to some of the things that you're working on now, but help me bridge that. How do you, how do you get from where you are, you know, training in, you said it was Phoenix area to, to the more of the contemporary things that you're working on.
Noah Legel (01:03:28.192)
As I got more comfortable with the practical kata application perspective that my sensei was teaching, and I got a deeper understanding of the material to the point where I was able to derive my own applications. And I would come to class and I'd be like, Sensei, I thought of this thing, can we try it out? And he'd be excited, absolutely, yes, let's try it out. We'd play with it, and we'd spar with it, and we'd do all these different...
variations and modifications, and sometimes he would then have me teach that to a class. Or he'd teach it to a class and say, I got this, Noah had this idea. You know, he would encourage that. And he didn't just do it with me, he did that with all of his students as we got to that point, right? He highlighted the value that we were bringing in that sense. But then, you know, he was not a technologically in
Jeremy (01:04:16.32)
good.
Noah Legel (01:04:27.328)
inclined guy. But he knew that it was important to have some online presence and whatnot. And so early on I had offered to do the social media for them. But as we had more discussions over time, he had expressed the interest in trying to put more material out there so people got to see more of what corrupt they could be. And we came up with the idea of Waza Wednesday.
which became a fairly long -running YouTube series that we did together, where every Wednesday we would have a video come out that would go over kata application or how to apply some basic techniques or some supplementary training exercises or sparring drills, all kinds of stuff. And it started out with just him presenting and me being the ookey, the demonstration dummy. And then it...
grew to where he would have me do a bunch of them. And we'd have these whole brainstorming sessions where we'd spend an hour or two talking about the kinds of things we were going to show and how to do it. We'd record, you know, and I had all this extra footage of us goofing off for one. We came across as very serious in those videos, but we were being total dorks most of the time. And...
but just a lot of play and experimentation and encouragement from him with regard to me coming up with my own ideas and being able to share them. And then in 2017, we attended a seminar with Ian Abernethy. I believe it was actually his last US seminar. I don't think he's done another US seminar since that one.
And it was the first one that we had gotten to go to with Ian. San Diego. Or, San Francisco.
Jeremy (01:06:27.232)
Where was that?
Right around that time, Andrew, our Andrew, I believe it was that tour and Andrew's going to check me on this if I'm wrong. I believe also participated in an Ian Abernethy seminar as part of that US tour. I think it was that year. Yeah, that's fun. Keep going.
Noah Legel (01:06:46.272)
Yeah, yeah, 2017. Yeah. Well, it was a blast. We recorded A While's a Wednesday with Ian when we did that. But my sensei had had issues with headaches. They would get real bad, sometimes real bad migraines. And I had always given him crap about his caffeine habit. Every time he had a headache, he'd be like, well, if you drink more water and less...
Jeremy (01:06:56.704)
nice.
Noah Legel (01:07:15.712)
monster energy and coffee, you might not have so many headaches. Of course, now I feel bad about that because he ended up not being able to finish out the second day of that seminar because the headaches got too bad. And then he had a seizure in the car on the way home.
So we booked it to the nearest hospital and come to find out he had a brain tumor, a very large brain tumor. They helicoptered him back to San Diego. And I had a friend, Dr. Rafael Gutierrez, actually, great martial artist as well, who lived in the area. He drove out.
picks me up and drove me to the hospital so I could keep being with him. But the doctors didn't know how he had been able to walk, much less attend a karate seminar, regularly teach classes. He competed like three weeks before this.
It was, you know, knowing what we know now, it was astounding. But of course, also knowing what we know now, we can look back and see signs of issues in the video that we have of him from that last year, you know. And he did end up passing away. They did surgery, but it was...
Jeremy (01:08:27.808)
That's awesome.
Jeremy (01:08:35.552)
Hmm.
Noah Legel (01:08:55.296)
much drama to the brain and he ended up passing away at the end of 2017. And we continued doing Waza Wednesday for a year after that as sort of a tribute to him and then we discontinued the series to kind of lay it to rest with him. But you know that had had me mostly taking the lead on that project.
Jeremy (01:08:58.016)
I'm so sorry.
Noah Legel (01:09:24.128)
and trying to get other black belts in the dojo to be interested and brown belts in the dojo to be interested. But not everybody wants to get on camera and demonstrate stuff for the internet. So it was hard to do. And it was taxing emotionally as well because I was so used to doing this with him. Every single week we'd get together, we'd record anywhere from one to ten.
Ten Waza Wednesdays in a week, depending on how much time we had, what ideas we had. It was a very different experience, but it kind of set in my mind the idea that I can do this. That he set me up to be able to do this.
And I kept teaching and helping out at the dojo until 2019. And I was supposed to move and open my own school at the beginning of 2020. And then COVID happened, and neither of those two things occurred. So I didn't end up moving, but I was like, well, I was going to open a dojo anyway. So I'm going to start out of my home.
Jeremy (01:10:31.456)
Rough timing.
Noah Legel (01:10:45.216)
didn't move, but I'm like from my home, I'm going to start teaching out of here, doing virtual lessons. And then when the vaccines came out, I was able to start having one -on -one private lessons with people who were vaccinated and teaching real small groups and that kind of thing. And still trying to put out content, but partners were sparse. You know, again, not everybody wants to be on the internet.
So even when I have students, I don't necessarily have students who want to be on camera. So I do a lot more solo content since that time. But this got me into networking even more. I'd already had a pretty strong online presence from Waza Wednesday, primarily, from all of the advertising and sharing Waza Wednesdays that I've done. I'd also organized a couple training events in Phoenix.
prior to that, that got together different people of different martial arts backgrounds to teach and have a big cross -training event. I also organized some sparring events where we invited everybody in the area who wanted to do sparring to come over and spar. So I had networked already, but when COVID hit, because you couldn't really do anything physically, a lot more people got into online training and online collaborating.
Jeremy (01:11:48.608)
cool.
Noah Legel (01:12:12.512)
And so I met even more people. This is also when I got onto TikTok, as you mentioned at the beginning. And that is how I got more involved with some people that I'd already known. For example, Kyle Doane, who you've had on before as well, Paul Mussolf as well. These guys were people that I had already been...
Jeremy (01:12:29.856)
has been on the show. Yeah.
Noah Legel (01:12:38.656)
connected with online for a while, but we only had conversation in passing here and there. But we really started to have more conversations during that time. I got on to Zoom sessions with Kyle. I taught him Goji Shiho. He was like...
Jeremy (01:12:57.472)
Nice. That's a rough cut out to teach over Zoom. There's some nuance in there.
Noah Legel (01:13:01.024)
It is a little bit, a little bit. There's some, but he wanted to learn Goju Shiho because he didn't have a version of it and he'd been having kind of a rough time and he needed something good, you know, and so we got together, we did that and Paul Mussoff eventually flew me up to Michigan to teach at his dojo and yeah, we just started networking more. I started talking with Nathan Ogden Sensei as well.
Jeremy (01:13:14.976)
Hmm.
Noah Legel (01:13:30.496)
Ron Gillespie -sensei, and last year we had discussions throughout the course of the year about the idea of founding an organization that was style agnostic, that wasn't about engaging in politics or martial arts politics, or about, you know, getting a lot of money for us, right?
And we eventually settled on, we were going to start a non -profit organization called the International Neoclassical Karate Kobudo Society. And that's what we did. We chose the term neoclassical. Actually Nathan came up with that term. He didn't come up with that term. Neoclassical is a musical term.
Jeremy (01:14:23.008)
I seem to remember some conversations, because I remember as you all were...
commenting and we'll say cross pollinating with each other's content on TikTok. I remember, I think I remember conversation about how to term this way of thinking. And I remember there were different terms that were thrown around and I don't remember jumping in, but I remember hearing that and just being really fascinated that there were not just one or two other people, but a group of people that were so like -minded.
in how to approach things that they were debating semantics on what to call a thing. And I was like, these are my people.
Noah Legel (01:15:06.976)
Yeah, that conversation absolutely happened because a lot of us for a long time have been using the terms practical karate, pragmatic karate, applied karate, all of these different terms. But when Nathan suggested the term neoclassical, which is what he used for what he teaches, and he's a musician as well. He plays guitar and everything.
Jeremy (01:15:34.464)
Mm.
Noah Legel (01:15:36.576)
and he is also a pastor, yes, and he plays his guitar when he's doing church stuff. But he, as a musician, neoclassical means that you are essentially performing music that is in the spirit of classical masters, but uses modern methods as well. So to make a very
Jeremy (01:15:37.152)
Isn't he also a pastor? Okay.
Jeremy (01:15:44.554)
that's cool.
Noah Legel (01:16:05.184)
basic and clear example, think somebody playing Beethoven on an electric rock guitar. Right? You could consider that neoclassical, right? It can be way more nuanced than that, right? Because classical refers to a specific time period and a specific way of making music that you could still do today and, you know, make your own stuff. But that was kind of the way we...
our karate as well. Because yes, we're trying to be practical, we're trying to be pragmatic, we're trying to make it able to be applied. But largely the reason we're doing that is because that was the intent, right? The original intent of karate being this effective martial art for self -defense, for law enforcement, for security personnel. Those are the people who developed it.
And, you know, the kata are meant to be applied. They were to record material for you to practice with partners that was supposed to fulfill that goal. So that is the intent of karate originally. And so if we're looking at that classical era of before karate was modernized for the school system and for large groups and for military preparation, we're looking at that, you know, pre -1900s.
idea of what karate was, and we're totally fine incorporating modern training methods, modern scientific understanding. You know, we're not necessarily saying we're only going to do it that way, but we're in the spirit of that going to continue the process of helping the art evolve. Right? Do you think that Boushi Matsumura would have said, I won't use a Muay Thai pad? What are you talking about?
Jeremy (01:17:38.048)
Hmm.
Noah Legel (01:17:59.168)
No, he didn't have Muay Thai pads available. I bet you if he did, he would have used them. You know? We've got several martial arts masters of the past, consider Miyagi Chojin, the founder of Goju -Ryu, said that karate should open itself up to criticism from other martial arts and should cross -train with other martial arts and take inspiration from them. Numerous karate masters that in general said that karate needs to have
new infusions of information and knowledge and methodologies. Exactly. I know Funakoshi made a metaphor, I believe, about karate being like a boiling pot of water. Take it away from the heat, then it goes still. Chibonochosun likened it to a pond, where if there's not a river feeding that pond, it's going to get stagnant.
Jeremy (01:18:32.)
You can't get better otherwise.
Jeremy (01:18:54.912)
Hmm.
Noah Legel (01:18:57.696)
That's the kind of mentality that we have with it is we know what the original intent was, even if we don't necessarily know all the original techniques, all the original applications, all the original methodologies, we know what the intent was and we have a lot of examples of the material. So with that, we should be able to carry that into the future, keep it evolving. It isn't supposed to be like Ian Abernathy likes to say, preserved in amber. It doesn't need to be locked and frozen in time.
Jeremy (01:19:23.072)
Hmm.
Noah Legel (01:19:26.656)
which a lot of people have done. And if that's what you like to do personally, I understand. Your interest is in preserving a thing. But I think it's also important that there are people out there working to progress the art because in the end, if something is only being preserved, it inevitably is going to die out because it's going to lose interest, it's going to lose validity, and it's not going to be as relevant.
as time goes on.
Jeremy (01:19:56.744)
We've worked through the logic on this show that if all you ever do is pass on what you were taught, it will get worse.
Noah Legel (01:20:05.153)
Yes, the telephone game. The telephone game. I have done a telephone game exercise before when I've been teaching to make up movements of kata. So it's kind of to illustrate this point. So what I would do is I would have everybody get in the line and I will admit that I
Jeremy (01:20:24.032)
Tell me about that. That sounds interesting.
Jeremy (01:20:29.12)
Okay.
Noah Legel (01:20:34.432)
100 % stole this from a corporate retreat video from work. 100%. But I got everybody in a line, all facing the same direction. The person at the back had to come up with three karate moves in a row.
three moves that they know, okay, show that to the next person. And they had to pass it along the line. And then we would have the person at the back of the line and the person at the front of the line both show what they were supposed to have passed on.
Jeremy (01:21:11.264)
Should be the same. Probably wasn't the same.
Noah Legel (01:21:12.576)
should be the same. Never, never was. Never was. And sometimes it depended on how many people were involved and how complex the movements were, but you had everything from a hand going from open to closed or vice versa to just a completely new movement being introduced somewhere along the line.
You know, you'd have somebody at the beginning do a middle block punch and it ends up with like a Mawashi -uke, Haito -uke situation, just something totally different because you're relying on a very brief glimpse at something then being passed on without fully understanding and internalizing that material. And it's a very rapid fire.
way to look at what happens over the course of time. Because obviously that's a very small scale experiment, but it shows what can happen when you try to pass something along exactly the same way, especially when you don't necessarily have the supporting material. Because all of these, this exercise I always did with just solo movement.
So you don't have the partner work to inform it. And so that makes it worse when you don't have the partner work to inform the material. It's easier to change the solo movement because there's no other person involved. And so it's an interesting experiment that I recommend if you haven't done something like that. It's a fun thing to do in your dojo. Because yeah, it really highlights.
Jeremy (01:23:00.416)
Yeah, I'm going to play with that with my students. I like that.
Noah Legel (01:23:05.952)
This is what happens over time. Even if you are fine with karate changing over time, it's interesting to be aware of how much that can happen. And especially when you hear so many people talk about kata should never be changed, and you're supposed to teach kata exactly the same way as your instructor taught you. That's a new idea. That idea is post -World War II karate. That's how new it was.
It's not 100 years old yet, that idea. You know, karate before that was basically tailored to each student, which is of course easier to do if you have fewer students. The more students you have, the more generalized you have to make things. But even so, the nature of progression means that you're going to have fewer advanced students, and so you can tailor it to them as they progress. And that's why you have people...
Jeremy (01:23:37.6)
Hmm.
Noah Legel (01:24:03.968)
who all share a lineage but do things differently. You know, each...
Jeremy (01:24:07.904)
Yeah, some people see that as a liability. I see it as an asset.
Noah Legel (01:24:11.648)
Exactly. Like, if you look at my lineage, there are three big names, big organizations that came out of Chibana Chosen's Shorenryu Karate. He was the first person to name Shorenryu as a style. And he taught a bunch of people, but his three most senior students were Nakazato Shugoro, Miyahira Katsuya, and Higa Uchoku. All three of whom went on to found their own organization.
Shoren -Con, the Shido -Con, and the Kyudo -Con respectively. And they all do it a little bit differently. It's all recognizable as coming from Chibana, because they all have the same basic format of material. But all of them do things a little bit differently. And there's always the fight of, well, this guy was the real successor, this guy was the most senior, and so that, you know...
makes his organization the real one. And in reality, they're all doing the karate they learned from Chibana. But Chibana probably taught them all a little bit differently to suit them. So it's not that one of those guys is right and the other two are wrong. They're all right in their own way. And when you have an open enough mind to be able to look at that material and go,
I see the value in that material. I see why it's being done differently, or I don't understand why it's done differently and I want to find out. You get so much more out of the art than just going, no, our way is the right way.
Jeremy (01:25:54.88)
with you. This is such important stuff and I really hope people take it to heart. We took a little bit of a detour from the INKKS and I want to make sure we get back there because I like what you all are doing there. So, you know, this quest for neoclassicalism within martial arts.
Noah Legel (01:26:04.576)
Yeah.
Jeremy (01:26:18.336)
If someone were to go to the website or check out what you guys do, I know you've put on seminars, you know, what are they going to find? What's the real implementation as it hits three dimensions on what this organization is?
Noah Legel (01:26:33.408)
Well, our goal with it is really to, in the words of a famous Japanese poet, Basho Matsuo, seek not to follow the footsteps of the masters, seek what they saw.
We want to help inspire people to do that and help them do that. Because, you know, thinking back on my transition from one style to another and that transition from, you know, memorizing set applications to being more freeform with it, that's something that you need help with. You need examples, you need guidance. You're having a hard, you're going to have a hard time doing it by yourself. And so...
We want to put out content that helps people do that. So that's, there's a lot of video content that we share that's either discussion -based or examples of techniques. Some of it's solo, some of it's partnered. Sharing articles from various different sources, not just us. Setting up training events like the seminar that was held in February out in West Plains, Missouri. I was supposed to be there, but we had a family.
emergency that happened, so I missed that event. But the other founding members of the INKKS taught at that seminar. Since then, we've been doing fairly regular webinars that are free to INKKS members. They only cost
Jeremy (01:28:03.552)
And some of the names on those webinars would be familiar to folks who pay attention to the show.
Noah Legel (01:28:06.912)
Yes. Yeah, if you're involved in the martial arts community online, chances are you'll come across some of these guys at some point. And I say guys, but we've got women who are teaching as well. So it's not just guys. And that was an important thing for us, too. We don't want it to be all one demographic of people that are involved. We've gotten quite a list of advisors.
put together. And that list of Board of Advisors is on our website as well. And you can see it's kind of a who's who of people from all different martial art styles, walks of life, gender identities, all this.
Jeremy (01:28:54.143)
You've got some great, great people involved in this organization and I'm glad you're doing this work.
Noah Legel (01:28:58.016)
Absolutely.
Noah Legel (01:29:02.048)
I am too. It's been work for sure to get things put together, but we've been really honored to have a lot of these people be interested and willing in being involved and helping out. And they've been open to teaching these webinars and providing articles or videos or content or just discussing with people any number of subjects.
Most of them are in our Facebook group for the INKKS and they engage in the content there and they'll give feedback or answer questions. And it's very grassroots, you know. But I think that kind of makes sense when you're trying to be a nonprofit organization that is apolitical and style agnostic, right? You're not...
We're not trying to throw ranks in anybody's face and say, you have to do it this way because this high ranking person said so. Even as people join the organization, we've got different levels of membership in the organization. If you just want to have access to the content, great. You can just join and have access to the content. If you want to become a lifetime member, you can join and become a lifetime member. If you want to register your entire school, you can do that.
you know, whatever is going to fit you best. And we're still developing more content for this as well. And so right now, what's coming out in smaller pieces and in these webinars, all of that content is being collected into a repository that members have access to. So even if you don't attend the event, when it happens, the recording is there. We're going to be developing training modules that can help people add to their curriculum,
expand on their understanding of what they're doing, set it up basically like a school in a way. More of a university type school than a dojo type school, right? Okay, here is 2ED 101. Here is Kathabunkai 101. You know, that sort of thing. Have training modules in that sense. We want to help people develop their curriculum. If you're an instructor and you're teaching and you want to make that transition from
Noah Legel (01:31:27.904)
the more modern tradition of karate that you might be doing that doesn't have practical kata application or doesn't necessarily have sparring that connects with your kata, you know, or any number of things that you want. Maybe you just want to learn additional kata that you don't have in your system. We want to help people get that material. So rather than being exclusionary, we're not an organization that's going to say, you don't do karate the way we do, so you can't join. It's...
you want to do karate this way, we're going to help you do that. That's the goal of it, not to be the exclusive club of we do the best stuff, but more these are the best practices that we've been finding as we train, as we teach, as we collaborate with all these other people that fit best with the neoclassical methodology and mindset. If that's the way you want to go, we want to help you get there.
So it doesn't matter that right now you're not doing any kata application. It doesn't matter that right now you don't have any partner drills, you know, based on your kata. It doesn't matter that you don't do kata X, Y, and Z. Doesn't matter what style you come from. If what you want to do is get to a point where you are doing karate in a neoclassical way, that is in the spirit of its original intent, but open to modern...
additions and variations. We want you to get there with us. We don't want to keep you.
Jeremy (01:33:02.592)
a support system, not a judgment.
Noah Legel (01:33:10.24)
Exactly.
Jeremy (01:33:11.232)
You don't have to be there if you want to go there. You'll help them to get there.
Noah Legel (01:33:15.104)
Exactly. It doesn't make sense to create an organization for people who are already at the top of the hill.
you know, okay, at that point it's a good old boys club to make you feel better about yourself, but what are you doing to help everybody else? We're much more interested in helping people get up the hill.
Jeremy (01:33:39.232)
Love it. And that's part of why you're here. If people want to check that out, website, social media, that stuff, and also tell us about your, because I know you have social media independently of the INKKS. So feed us the links.
Noah Legel (01:33:50.24)
The INKKS, the International Neoclassical Karate Kobudo Society, that website is just INKKS .org. Kept it as simple as we could. It is on Facebook as the International Neoclassical Karate Kobudo Society, full name. There's a page and a group, so you can follow the page for updates and you can join the group for all discussion. You do not have to be a member of the organization to join the group.
Jeremy (01:34:02.528)
Easy. Easy.
Noah Legel (01:34:20.64)
It is open to everybody. And we kind of figure that openness and transparency is important. How do you know if you want to be a member of a thing if you can't see into the thing at all? Right. We've also got an account on Instagram, which is at neoclassical karate. It's at I and KKS on TikTok.
We've also got International Neoclassical Karate Kobudo Society on YouTube. I believe that one's also at Neoclassical Karate on YouTube, but I'd have to double check that one to be 100 % sure. So we tried to put it out there everywhere. We don't have a ton of content everywhere just yet. We're still building up all of that. Exactly.
Jeremy (01:35:05.696)
You're growing and you're a nonprofit. Anybody who's ever been part of a nonprofit understands the mission is what's most important. And the mission is called.
Noah Legel (01:35:13.088)
Exactly. And if it helps, when we say non -profit, we mean it. We make no money off of this. All of the funding that comes in is used to go back into the organization, to pay for the educational materials, to pay for equipment, to pay for event venues, to pay for all kinds of stuff that goes into running the organization.
None of us on the board get a paycheck. This is a voluntary thing that we're doing. So don't worry about where your funding is going. It's not going to me.
Jeremy (01:35:55.968)
I think if people take a look at how much things cost on the website, they will know very quickly this is not a labor of capitalistic intent. This is a labor of love.
Noah Legel (01:36:06.176)
Yeah, yeah, we did our best to keep the different membership tiers affordable and, you know, yes, they may still be outside of the reach of some people, but we do have the option for you to also pay it forward and pay for somebody else's membership if you want to do that. That's an option available to you because it
Again, the same thing that I mentioned earlier in our discussion with martial arts being able to kind of bridge that gap. If there are people of means who are able to pay for their own membership and somebody else's, we are thrilled to have that happen. If you can afford to pay for somebody else, and we've already had that happen, we've had people have their memberships paid for by other people. And that's been fantastic because it's...
Jeremy (01:36:59.904)
That's awesome.
Noah Legel (01:37:04.672)
expands the reach and it builds community and it really is what the spirit of martial arts, I say brotherhood, but you know more broadly than that siblinghood should be about. There's a saying in Okinawan, which is Ichi -ri -ba -cho -di.
Jeremy (01:37:18.624)
Siblinghood. Siblinghood, that's a rough word.
Noah Legel (01:37:32.512)
which is, once we meet and speak, we are as family. And a lot of Okinawan martial artists like to use that phrase. And if you visit a traditional Okinawan martial arts dojo, they will often treat you as such. Once you've visited and trained together, we're family now. So that's kind of something we want to foster in the organization as well. So that's been going well.
So with, yeah, with regard to my own, I am Illinois practical karate now that I've relocated out of the Phoenix area. I am in Southern Illinois, so I'm not near Chicago. If anybody's curious about that, I'm much closer to St. Louis than I am to Chicago. But that would be ILPracticalKarate .com and Illinois practical karate on.
Jeremy (01:38:03.04)
Good, good. And how about your personal links?
Noah Legel (01:38:31.296)
Facebook, Instagram, threads, YouTube. TikTok, I did it a little different. I did it as at karatealuminati. That's been my tagline for so many years now. I don't even remember how long it's been since I started saying HiSci karatealuminati. Even before I started saying HiSci, which is okinawan for hello.
Jeremy (01:38:36.928)
all the places.
Jeremy (01:38:43.136)
Every time I see your handle, it makes me crack up.
Noah Legel (01:39:00.576)
I was just saying, greetings Karate Luminati, for however long before that. I actually have gotten some hate for that saying, which is a bit funny.
Jeremy (01:39:09.568)
You know what? Of all the things that you could get hate for, that's, you know what? Whatever. People hate.
Noah Legel (01:39:16.768)
I'm actually wearing my Corrutta Illuminati shirt as well.
Jeremy (01:39:20.672)
I just saw the top just, I just figured, okay, he has a well -placed shirt that says karate up by the, up by the neck. That's great. But yeah. that's great.
Noah Legel (01:39:27.872)
It does, but it is full karate illuminati. I even had the artwork on here is based on Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, but with the opening of Cusanku as the shapes that are highlighted, the triangle, the square, and the circle. Because there was the whole thing where he was supposedly in the illuminati, a kind of tongue -in -cheek reference there. But yeah, it's...
Jeremy (01:39:42.08)
That's cool. I love it.
Jeremy (01:39:52.928)
Yeah, that's awesome.
Noah Legel (01:39:56.768)
It's more fun than people give it credit for. They try and take it too seriously.
Jeremy (01:40:01.632)
I agree. I'm going to throw it to you in a moment to close us up. But before I do that to the audience, you know, if you knew Noah coming in, you knew this would be a longer than than average episode. I expected that. Hopefully you knew we were going there to know. But some some really great stuff, some wonderful conversation. I've truly enjoyed this. But I hope you will check out.
Noah Legel (01:40:20.32)
I have an idea.
Jeremy (01:40:28.32)
what Noah's got going on and what the INKKS has going on. And if you missed Kyle Doane's episode, you know, go back, we talked about him a bit. He's been on the show. Go back and check out that episode. I forget the number, but Andrew will likely drop it in the show notes. Because the more we can build these connections with people who are doing cool things, the more it benefits everyone, right? It supports, if you think about the Whistlekick mission of connect, educate and entertain, of getting everybody in the world to train for six months.
supporting these sorts of things lines up with that. So for all of you out there, even if joining organizations isn't your thing, I want you to be aware of what organizations are doing because you might bump into somebody else that says, you know, I wish I had this resource. well, you should go check out these folks over here. They're doing exactly what you're looking for. Right. So we can all continue to support and grow together. Whistlekickmarshwardsradio .com for the full show notes with all the links.
Noah, you've been so gracious being here with me today, man. I really, really appreciate it. I feel like I know you even better than I did before, which is awesome. But it's up to you to close us up today, man. What what words do you want to leave the audience with?
Noah Legel (01:41:35.008)
Well, I mean, I appreciate you having me. And I think that the biggest things for me are that that ichariba chode statement of once we meet and speak, we are family. I think it's something that we really should foster in the martial arts community like you were referring to. And with regard to the mission of DINKKS and my personal perspective, that quote from Basho, the poet on
seeking what the masters sought rather than following in their footsteps. Those are things that I want people to really think about and really try to see the value in. Hopefully we'll cross paths and we'll get to do some training together one of these days, be that at an in -person event or on an online seminar. The more people we meet and connect with, the better.