Episode 929 - Martial Arts Word Association 13: Summer Edition

In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew use a word association game to see if Jeremy can relate random words to martial arts! This time the words are all summer themed!

Martial Arts Word Association 13: Summer Edition - Episode 929

Another episode of “Martial Arts Word Association” where Andrew gives Jeremy a random word that he could connect to martial arts. All of today’s words are Summer themed! In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew discuss randomly generated topics to try and find out how they can relate to martial arts!

After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section down below!

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Jeremy (00:01.048)

What's happening everybody? Welcome back. It's another episode of Whistlekick martial arts radio. Jeremy joined by Andrew. High five, high five. That was high five. Most of you still listen to the show, so you got to hear a high five. But if you want to watch this show, of course you can find, we drop the video into every episode page at whistlekickmarshallartsradio .com. You can also find them on YouTube. Thank you for being here.

This is word association number 13. Andrew is going to try to stump me. Yep. Some words and I'm unstumpable and that's cool. But what you're going to get out of this is really just some different ways to think about martial arts as it relates to everything. And that's why I like doing these episodes. If you also like these episodes or other episodes or any of the things that we do in our efforts to connect, educate and entertain the traditional martial artists of the world, I hope you will do something to help us grow, whether that's.

share episodes with people, buy things at whistlekick .com, you can use the code podcast15 to save 15 % on anything there. Show up to one of our events, write for marshalljournal .com, I mean there's so many things you can do. What's our goal here? Our goal with Whistlekick is to get everybody in the world to train for six months. So anything you do that helps us grow, helps us reach more people, helps us towards that goal. Is that your time? I wonder if that showed up on the...

I don't know. I didn't eat breakfast either, so I might do the same thing. But if nothing else, you get to watch or listen to us chat and be a little ridiculous. Yeah. We have fun doing that. Yeah. We're on location at Keen State College. Yeah. In front of this fireplace. We imported this plant to round out the set. It really brings the room together. It really ties the room together. Have you seen?

Zach Galifianakis is between two friends. Between two friends. Yeah, so this is, you know, between two guys. Yeah. This is one spider plant between two men. Okay, first thing. This bugs me. Can I turn the camera a little bit? Sure. that's better. Those watching will notice the little thing disappeared in the end. okay. Righto. It bothered me. Anyway, so this is Word Association. Martial Arts Word Association. This is our...

Jeremy (02:23.672)

summer edition So I have ten I'm listening I'm wearing shorts. I know I got flip -flops on flip flops. You can't see but

Jeremy (02:36.696)

Alright, so I have ten words. Ten words! Ten words. All having something to do with summer in some way, shape or form. Some of them might be a little less so connected, but they're there. Alright, so the first word is kayak. Did you pick this because you have a kayak? I mean, sure. I mean, it's a good summer word, but I do have a kayak.

I have three. I actually have four if you want to get technical. I don't know if that's technical. But it's true. It is true. So when I think about a kayak, I think about individual sport, right? I'm sure there are, I've seen two person kayaks, but I don't know. I don't know very many people that kayak with multiple people in the kayak. It's usually a solo thing. Even if you're doing it with other people, you're in the kayak.

by yourself and you might be with a group but you're still kind of charting your own course. Well that's martial arts group training. The instructor is kind of the body of water. You don't dictate what the body of water is. You show up, you get in the boat and you paddle around and you do your thing. And you might say, well Jeremy, I have far less independent thought, I have less control over what goes on in a class than I do when I'm in a kayak.

Well, I might challenge that. Because when I show up to class, in a typical hour -long class, which is what most people train, can you go 100 % for the whole hour? No, not possible. You can't go your 100 % for the hour. So what part of class do you put the most energy into? What part of the class are you the most attentive for? What part of the class do you smile the most through? Right?

you have that body of water, which is the class and how it's run and everything, but you still have a lot of option for how you navigate it yourself. Okay. And then what do you do with that experience later? Do you, do you go back from practice or maybe the kayak equivalent is you sit around and think about your day on the water or maybe you, you clean your kayak or have a drink or whatever and reflect, right? There, there's still a lot of, of,

Jeremy (05:05.4)

host activity that you can derive value from. Okay, I see that. Tandem kayaks do exist. Two people in one kayak. I don't see them often, but I know that they do exist. Okay, so the next question, the next word, it'll be interesting to see if you relate it to the definition you did for a kayak. When I need to take my kayak somewhere, I put it on a roof rack on top of my car. So your word is roof rack.

Jeremy (05:46.616)

Nobody is thrilled to have an empty roof rack on the car. It is pointless. A roof rack has value only because of what else you can do with it. I've never known anyone that put a roof rack on a car for aesthetics.

I've never known anyone who said, you know, you know what the top of my car is missing? Something that costs money and slightly reduces my fuel economy while potentially making a lot of noise at high speed. I've never met anyone who said that and to me that's what an empty roof rack is. But it has value because of the additional storage it can provide.

You can put what, two kayaks on your roof rack? I can get three actually. Three, okay. So you, your wife, the kid, the three of you can load up and go do something. How would you do that without the roof rack? Trailer, maybe. You'd still have to have some additional thing. Same idea, right? You're not gonna pull an empty trailer around town just going, wee, look at my trailer, right? It is strictly for utility. There are aspects of our training that...

And they can vary depending on the person that you don't enjoy but they have utility. For a lot of people it's the conditioning side.

I don't know very many people who enjoy physically strenuous tasks in the moment. So maybe it's, okay, we're doing a bunch of push -ups. Or maybe in your school you do body conditioning, you're banging shins or forearms together. I don't know, there are people, I don't know a lot of people who say, this is my favorite thing to do. But it does provide a lot of benefit. If you get really good at that conditioning,

Jeremy (07:33.962)

which ever kind we're talking about, you'll have times down the line where you say, I'm glad I did that. That enabled me to do this. If you become stronger or fitter, you can go on Amazon right now and find a short book that I wrote called Stronger People Are Harder To Kill, which is kinda true, and fatter people are harder to kidnap.

I choose not to respond to that statement. I imagine that I've never tried to kidnap anyone, but logic would suggest that there is truth there. Probably. Okay. But they don't run as fast. That's true. So maybe it depends on the type of kidnapping that's occurred. I guess. Okay. Anyway. You look back on, I did not enjoy.

the getting stronger, the getting fitter, the body conditioning. I didn't enjoy spending the money on the roof rack. I didn't enjoy the noise it made. I didn't enjoy the inconvenience. Because let's face it, your roof rack probably sits on the car most of the time. For the summer, yeah. Because they're annoying to put on and take off. Absolutely. I've had them. Yep. So they stay on and you're, you know, this thing's annoying.

but then when you use it for its intended purpose, you're really thankful. And I think that there are a lot of aspects of martial arts that you can say this about, and again, it differs for the person. I know people who look at sparring that way. I know people who look at basics that way. I know people who look at forms that way. I know people who look at self -defense or breaking that way. It all has utility.

and sometimes the value to you is strictly in what the utility allows you to do next. Alright, I dig it. Yeah, that's good. Alright, next word. Barbecue. Not the food. The actual get together. The event. The barbecue get together.

Jeremy (09:31.8)

I have said to, so most of you out there know I work with a variety of businesses, primarily martial arts schools, in helping them grow. Building retention, increasing revenue, growing recruitment, et cetera. One of the big things, and I'll share this with all of you for free, here's your freebie.

The number one simple thing you can do to check all of the boxes at your school is have a monthly barbecue. And I suggest that happening on a Friday evening. And if you have to adjust your class schedule a little bit, it's worth doing. You have a class that everyone is welcome to, and you invite them to stay after for a potluck. You run the grill. You buy some burgers, some hot dogs, whatever. Everybody shows up.

It allows you to remember that people are human beings outside of their training One of my the funniest statements. I remember this so many times as a kid I didn't recognize you with clothes on hmm. Yep. Yeah, right a statement. You've probably said absolutely I've never seen you without a Gia dobok training uniform, whatever you call it

And to see people dressed down, so to speak, is such a different experience. And it helps build camaraderie. It helps build those relationships.

And when people have friendships and you're extending that by hosting that barbecue or whatever you choose to call it, you end up keeping people in training longer because it gives them yet another reason to show up because they want to see their friends. All right. Now, one of the things you will often find at a barbecue is potato salad.

Jeremy (11:20.184)

Okay.

Jeremy (11:24.408)

I used to hate everything with mayonnaise as a kid. Didn't like it. I didn't like mayonnaise at all. I don't know what it is. But now, egg salad, potato salad, especially potato and egg salad, that's much better than either on their own.

Potato salad is the how you do this kata correctly.

Jeremy (11:51.64)

Okay, elaborate.

Jeremy (11:56.28)

People that really like potato salad and make potato salad get really passionate about how their potato salad is better than everybody else's potato salad. And then if you add certain ingredients to potato salad, your potato salad is wrong. And yeah, in the same way that you might say, I can't believe they changed that move in that form.

Right, it's it and let's face it. Does it really matter? There are probably potatoes versions of potato salad you like better than others But if you like potato salad, there's a pretty good chance that you're at least going to find that you accept Most versions of potato salad. Mm -hmm Kind of the same way with a fork if you do it this way and that works for you

but then you're working with somebody else and they're doing it this way. Is it really that big of a deal? No, maybe it is in the context of your school, you know, a student has gone off and changed the official. Maybe you don't do that, okay?

Potato salad is something people get really wrapped around the axle about in a way that grossly exaggerates how much it matters. Coleslaw is the same way. Coleslaw. That's not your next word, but... Good. Coleslaw is definitely the same. I like my coleslaw a certain way and if it's not the way I really like it, I just won't eat it. I'm very particular about my coleslaw, but not so much my potato salad.

Okay, next word if you're at a Barbecue get -together you got some potato salad. You're probably gonna have something cooked on a grill

Jeremy (14:01.144)

There are a few different ways I could go with this, kind of similar to potato salad, right? You're cooking that wrong, the heat's too high, right? Everybody's got their own way of grilling. When, let's face it, for most of our time on earth, we put meat in fire and put it in face. That was kind of how we did it. But there's also something really interesting about the grill at a barbecue.

It attracts attention because it's someone doing something. And if you look at any group of people, not everyone is good at...

Just walk, you're great at this. This is one of the reasons I love going to events with you. You'll walk into a room, know nobody, and have seven friends in 10 minutes. Yeah, that's about right. That's about right. But not everyone's good at that. That's true. This is something I'm getting better at. But historically, if I went to a barbecue, if I didn't know people, I'd probably end up over the grill. Because you've got a captive audience and the person running the grill. Half the time, I ended up running the grill.

but it, because it gave me something to do, but it's also, there's an activity, right? Later on after everyone's eaten, what happens? People are watching other people throw horseshoes. Probably, let's face it, I'm never gonna watch horseshoes on TV. Would probably be one of the most boring things I could imagine. But in the absence of anything else, people wanna watch something. Now.

Why do I bring that up here? Because most martial arts competitions do not do a good job of recognizing the fact that people just want to watch something that they understand. It's pretty easy to understand what's going on in a grill. It's easy to understand what's going on throwing horseshoes. People want to watch things that they understand.

Jeremy (16:00.216)

and I've said it before, I will continue to say it, and until we have the resources to make wholesale change in the industry, I'll keep encouraging other people to try to create this change. Until martial arts competitions cater to the spectators rather than the participants, the financial side and the opportunity side of martial arts competition will not grow. All right.

Before everyone comes over for the barbecue, you're going to want to make sure your lawn is mowed. So lawn mower.

Jeremy (16:39.928)

How you mow your lawn is the style.

landscaping it's the martial arts style okay I want to pause I'm not talking about how you know your line I'm talking lawnmower itself okay I understand okay I may I may fear a little bit I may be a little

Jeremy (17:03.32)

You and I can take the same lawn mower and mow our lawn very differently. We can give it to four or five other people. They can mow the same piece of grass differently. How many ways can you punch? A handful of different ways. Not very many. Yeah. Right? I mean, not a gazillion, but a junction hand position, maybe. There are a few, but you can implement those very differently.

There are only so many ways the body moves, only some of them make sense through the context of combat.

And yet, like a lot of things, and this is changing, right? And most of our audience does not feel this way. But there are people who will say, that is not how you cut the grass. That is not how you use a lawn mower. It has to be done this way. Otherwise, X, Y, Z, right? Personal preference becomes.

valued so extremely that we forget its personal preference and we feel really passionate about it and so we try to backfill that opinion with some logical justification instead of just saying, I like it better that way. Yeah, alright. You want me to know how I mow my lawn? I do. I never mow my lawn the same way two times in a row. Yep.

So I'll mow it left to right. You see my lawn. So I'll mow it left to right all the way up. The next time I'll mow it straight up and down. The next time I'll mow it at a diagonal. And the next time I'll mow it on the opposite diagonal. And then I go back. Do you ever mow it in concentric squares? Not typically, no. But, yep, that's how I mow my lawn. I do it different every time. Come on. Because that way you get all the grass.

Jeremy (18:51.96)

If you mow it in the same... This could be total BS. Don't at me everybody. But I feel like if you always mow the lawn one direction, your wheels are gonna be always pushing grass down in that same direction. So I wanna get it all these different directions so I get all the grass off. So what I did recently sold my house, but what I did when I was cutting the grass, I had an acre with a self -propelled push.

non rider mower. Would not make that mistake again. But I make a lap and then I turn and I cut back and I have just enough on the next lap to pull back on the wheels. Right? So I wasn't using quite the full width, I was using 80 % of it. So anyway, that's how I do it. Now your next word is related to lawn mower but it's definitely a different tool and it's a weed whacker.

It's the detail, it's the nuance, it's all the little bits, it's the difference between a beautiful lawn and a nice lawn.

I don't care what your backyard looks like or your front yard. There are probably things in there that you can't mow all the way up against. In fact, I've never known a lawn that didn't have something, right? Because maybe it's the edge of your house. And unless you have some crazy mower that has like, spinny things on the end, or you mow exclusively with a DR trimmer and you use that as your mower, you have edge. Yep. Yep. Now...

you might get really close, maybe it's hidden, but you can take that weed whacker and you can take it to the next level. The difference is a lot of people don't see the value in investing that time in the same way that a lot of people don't see the value in investing the time in...

Jeremy (20:52.504)

fine -tuning things in their forms or their sparring or their whatever right and What's the easiest way or I should say the most effective way to get that detail? It's one -on -one training It's work, you know, it's a private lesson with your instructor or someone who knows more than you a senior student to say That's good But now do this or try that or when you're doing this think about that or follow up this with that You know, whatever that is

Going to class, going home, never training at home, never having private lessons is the, I mow my grass the same way every time, and I never weed whack, I never change the pattern of martial arts. All right, cool.

So we're gonna, last one having to do with our outdoor barbecue, if you have a large deck on your house, often you might need to pressure wash it. So pressure washer.

Jeremy (21:53.784)

Hmm.

Jeremy (22:03.384)

I don't think I've ever used a pressure washer. I certainly know what one is. When we come back to the house, you can use mine. I have one. Just so I can say I've used a pressure washer. Sure. Cool. All right. We can check that box off my bucket list, my bingo card bucket list.

Jeremy (22:24.28)

It's about as specialized as you get. It does one thing. It removes debris from whatever it is.

if it's used improperly can be very destructive. My understanding is a pressure washer should never face a window unless it's especially, you've got to manage the pressure on it, right? Maybe you want a broken window.

Jeremy (22:57.272)

And I think that we have plenty of things in our training that are like that. I was talking to someone yesterday, and he'll be listening to this episode. I'm not necessarily going to say his name.

He was sparring. And one of the things, one of the rules, there are a handful of rules that are very common in sparring at your typical striking martial arts schools. One of them is don't grab someone's leg when they kick. Because the risk of injury is massive. This person got injured because someone...

that apparently is a wrestler, grab the leg. And what was interesting, so we're recording this on Friday, this was a Thursday conversation, just on Wednesday, I had to tell one of my students, don't grab the leg. There's too much risk for injury. There are times to practice that stuff, and it's usually when you have maths and you're going slower. Mm -hmm.

Jeremy (24:07.256)

It's incredibly effective if you mean to do that, can be really effective. You can get your job done. But if you just casually do it or if you're not paying attention, if you don't get it quite right, things can go sideways. I would imagine like a pressure washer. Yeah, okay. Probably a warning that says don't point it at your face.

It would be hard to point it at your face because they're usually really long so you can't do that. Yeah, good Yeah, absolutely. He's wise don't put it somebody else's face All right, so we have two more words. Okay, the next you memorize all these Most of them yes, so the next one we're gonna veer away from the barbecue. Okay, okay. We are gonna go on a road trip

Okay, because we're going on vacation. Road trip. Yay! That's your word. Look, kids, Big Ben. it'd be hard time, it'd be hard press to see Big Ben on a road trip from here.

Jeremy (25:04.536)

Before I answer, does getting on a plane, getting off the plane, getting in a car and driving around not constitute a road trip? That part of it is a road trip. The moment you get out of the car to get on another mode of transport, it is no longer a road trip.

I would be interested to hear the audience's thoughts on this. I think the audience needs to weigh in. Because I do not see that as a road trip. I see a road trip at, like, if I go on vacation to Scotland, which I have done multiple times, and I'm there for a week, a week and a half, and I get in the car and drive somewhere, I don't consider that a road trip. I'm on vacation in a car. I'm talking, I pack up the car.

from the house because we're gonna go camping or whatever, pack it up, we start driving. Road trip. So let's say you fly into London, you fly into Heathrow, you rent a car, you pack it up and you drive to Northern Ireland. I don't consider that a road trip. That's just me personally. But okay, go ahead, answer your answer. Road trip. This is interesting. Yeah. All right.

Jeremy (26:15.384)

For most people, road trips are about a couple things. There's an element of self -sufficiency. Now, maybe it's for cost concerns, but most people that go on a road trip, they bring snacks. They bring a bunch of clothes. Maybe you're bringing some camping gear. Let's face it, there are very few places you would drive...

where you wouldn't be passing the opportunities to buy all the things you needed. You could buy more clothes, you could buy food, you could buy all the things that you want, but you choose not to. Now again, maybe it's for cost concerns, but there's also something kind of interesting about just loading everything in and saying, I think I have everything. We're really good at living in our homes with everything to a point of excess.

But I think for a lot of us, figuring out where that simplicity is, I think resonates. I think it's really interesting to say, okay, can I get everything I need for a week in the trunk? Which becomes more complicated the more people in the car. If you've got a family of six, you probably have a roof rack. Maybe a trailer. Maybe a trailer. Okay.

I think a lot of us have similar thoughts about our training. Now maybe that comes through as, well if I only had two or three techniques that I was allowed to use, you know, we've posed questions like that on this show and on social media. Or maybe it's, does all this stuff actually work for me and maybe you step into competition of some sort.

Jeremy (28:01.108)

Knowing how the things that we have with us the things that we've chosen to take To develop to work on to make our own just as we select what goes in the car Is an interesting exercise and I think a lot of us like making those choices Because the consequences aren't huge hmm because you get in the car and you drive and you realize I forgot

So you can find somewhere with socks or heaven forbid you wear the same pair of socks for a couple days, you know Maybe you know if you're camping you leave them outside of the tent overnight But Trying to understand how all of this works without severe consequences is Appealing to people which is why points barring is I think so appealing to people?

Points barring the same as self -defense on the street in an unprovoked altercation. No, nobody thinks it is But it's closer than not It's a new environment probably with new people there are yeah, there are rules But it helps you understand okay, well when this happens I did this when this happens I did that

But you usually get to go home afterwards. I've only seen a few concussions in my decades of martial arts training and competition with points barred. It's usually pretty safe. And I think there's something to be said for, huh, how did what I choose work out in this environment? All right, last word. We got in a car, we packed everything up, we went on a road trip because we're going camping.

Jeremy (29:54.712)

I used a lot of what I would have said about camping.

Jeremy (30:04.472)

Camping for some of us is type one fun because we take away a lot of the things day to day that are frustrating about life. Technology, the complexity of jobs, noises. Running water.

I don't camp if I can't get water. I understand to some people that's not camping, but give me a campground. I want to be able to go get some water. I really don't want giardia. That's not my idea of a good time.

Jeremy (30:38.592)

For other people camping is type 2 fun. They know they need it. There's something Primal about it that they say, you know, I want to go out in the woods I don't really enjoy it, but I know it's good for me. I know I sleep better. I know I feel rested I know I need to detach from all of these things

Jeremy (31:02.04)

and we see a similar experience at some of our events. So you could look at going camping as removing yourself from certain things, or you could look at it as immersing yourself in certain things. You can't fully immerse yourself and bring everything well with you, it doesn't quite work.

All in weekend is an immersive event. 48 hours, you train, you eat, you sleep, it's about all you do. Free training day. You train, you eat.

That's about all you do. That day, maybe you have some logistical travel, maybe you're on a road trip to get there.

Jeremy (31:48.312)

When we train for an hour or two at a time, there's some benefit there. It's enjoyable, there's progress. When you go out for a walk for an hour or two, it's enjoyable, there's some benefit there. But something different happens when you dramatically extend the duration. You ever gone for a walk for a day? Maybe you call it a hike? That's a whole...

whole different experience than walking down the street or walking even in the same environment. Yeah, that makes sense. And you get something different out of it. And so whether it's one of our events or somebody else's events, it doesn't really matter to me. If you've never had the opportunity to immerse yourself in an all -day training event, I hope you do. Because I think you'll find that you have a different relationship with martial arts after, even if it's the same people.

Even if you're doing the same things, there's something about putting the rest of life aside for a day or two or a week or whatever that allows you to embrace your training. Because if you know, I don't have to worry about those emails at work. I know somebody else has them.

you can shut off that part of your brain and then what's left now some people that's why they hate camping because they don't know how to shut off their brain yeah some people don't want to train for days on end for the same reason which is exactly why you need to do it all right there you go

That concludes our Worship Arts Word Association Summer Edition. Summer Edition number 13. My favorite and lucky number. Thank you for being here. I kind of share this joke. Mitch Hedberg. So I think it's on the first album. It says you get an elevator. There's no 13th floor on an elevator. But you know what?

Jeremy (34:01.336)

People on the 14th floor, if you jump out the window, you'll die quicker. That's true. My favorite joke about, not about 13, about camping, because I thought you were going to go with a camping joke there, was Steven Wright. I don't know if you are familiar with that comedian. I am. And he had a joke where he went camping with his girlfriend and she was really not very smart. She got poison ivy on the brain. The only way she could scratch it was to think about sandpaper.

Jeremy (34:33.4)

Steven Wright is brilliant. Absolutely. Who's your favorite comedian? Completely unrelated to martial arts. Thank you for being here. Thank you for indulging us here. If you have words you want to submit or maybe you have a theme idea, shoot it over to Andrew at www .andrewatwhistelkick .com. And if you want to help us out, remember, we've got this great Patreon with bonus content and you can join it for as little as $2 a month.

Please consider doing that. And we've got some really cool changes coming for you over the next few weeks and months. Stay tuned, get excited, we're excited. And remember, we're here to serve you. So if there are things that you need, you want, we want to hear your feedback. My email's jeremy at whistlekick .com. Our social media everywhere is at whistlekick. We appreciate you. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.