Episode 940- Sensei Paul Musolf

In today's episode Jeremy sits down and chats with Sensei Paul Musolf from Heian Karate Do in Flushing, MI.

Sensei Paul Musolf - Episode 940

SUMMARY
In this episode, Jeremy is joined by Sensei Paul Musolf, a martial artist in Flushing, MI. They discuss Paul's background in teaching and his transition to working in the glass industry. Paul shares his experiences as a special education teacher and the challenges he faced in the classroom. He also talks about the impact of martial arts on his teaching and how it helps him show up as a better instructor. The conversation highlights the importance of resilience, perseverance, and finding balance in life. Sensei Musolf's journey into martial arts began when he quit smoking cigarettes and wanted to get healthy. He started taking karate classes and fell in love with it. His goal was to learn enough to be able to kick high and defend himself if necessary. He trained diligently and eventually earned his black belt in just over three years. His passion for martial arts led him to explore other styles and cross-train in different disciplines. He believes in a principle-based approach to martial arts and is open to learning from various sources. His dedication to his craft and his students is evident in his continuous pursuit of knowledge and improvement. In this part of the conversation, Sensei Musolf discusses his experience creating an instructional video on martial arts and the impact it has had. He also talks about his involvement in the nonprofit organization INKKS, which aims to provide a supportive environment for martial artists who don't have a teacher or a traditional organization to belong to. Additionally, he shares his work with Kitsune Defense, a nonprofit that focuses on helping victims of sexual assault and domestic violence regain their personal power through self-defense training. In this final part of the conversation, he discusses the INKKS organization and his upcoming seminar. 

TAKEAWAYS
* Martial arts can be a valuable tool for dealing with life's challenges and finding balance.
* Teaching martial arts requires energy and a positive attitude to uplift students.
* Resilience and perseverance are essential qualities for both teachers and students.
* Finding a balance between work and personal life is crucial for overall well-being. Paul Musolf's martial arts journey began when he quit smoking and wanted to get healthy.
* He fell in love with karate and earned his black belt in just over three years.
* Paul believes in a principle-based approach to martial arts and is open to learning from various sources.
* He has cross-trained in different styles and disciplines to enhance his skills and knowledge.
* Paul's dedication to continuous learning and improvement is evident in his commitment to his craft and his students. Paul Musolf created an instructional video on martial arts and has received positive feedback from various martial artists.
* He is involved in the nonprofit organization INKKS, which provides a supportive environment for martial artists without a teacher or traditional organization.
* Paul is also part of Kitsune Defense, a nonprofit that helps victims of sexual assault and domestic violence regain their personal power through self-defense training.
* Confidence and body language play a significant role in self-defense, and martial arts training can help individuals project strength and deter potential attackers. The INKKS organization provides valuable resources for martial artists.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction and Background
02:56 Transition to Window Installation
07:48 Teaching Special Education
12:51 Resilience and Perseverance
19:51 The Impact of Martial Arts
26:41 Introduction and Early Interest in Martial Arts
35:46 Embracing a Principle-Based Approach
46:23 Navigating Resistance and Continuous Learning
56:44 Exploring Different Styles and Cross-Training
59:07 Expanding Knowledge and Sharing Expertise
01:04:44 Supporting Martial Artists through INKKS
01:07:19 Empowering Victims through Kitsune Defense
01:23:04 The Role of Confidence and Body Language in Self-Defense
01:30:49 The INKKS Organization and Paul's Seminar

Show Notes

Contact Sensei Musolf at:

kitsunedefense@gmail .com
INKKS .org
Heian karate Do/facebook
Paul musolf/facebook
Paul.musolf for instagram

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Show Transcript

Jeremy (00:00.)

What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode of whistle kick martial arts radio on today's episode. I'm joined by Paul Musoff We're gonna have a good chat. I know this guy a little bit been paying attention to what he does But we'll get a chance to go a lot deeper and of course So will you in the process if you're new to what we do here at martial arts radio? Please head to whistle kick martial arts radio comm check out every episode we've ever done this is I don't know exactly what number this is gonna be but

930, 40 something, we've been around a while. So you've got some material you can go check out if you happen to be new. If you want to support us in all the things that we do to connect, educate and entertain the traditional martial artists of the world, visit whistlekick .com. Paul, thanks for being here, man. Thanks for the time.

Paul Musolf (00:47.114)

Thank you. Thank you for having me. All right. How are you doing today?

Jeremy (00:48.63)

Yeah, yeah. I am doing well. It's gonna be another hot day, but fortunately we're talking in the morning, so got all the windows shut, the cold air is cold. Cold is relative, right? Air is still inside, so I'm kinda comfortable. How about you? What's going on on your end?

Paul Musolf (01:04.106)

Right.

Paul Musolf (01:08.397)

I'm doing okay. I'm gonna get done with this. I gotta go do window installation because that's my day job and then after that go teach karate, so Yeah, well I'm Windows Well 82 I think is the high for in Michigan

Jeremy (01:17.526)

Nice. Well, at least two of those three things sound good. Talking to me sounds good. Teaching karate sounds good. I don't know about the windows. What's the weather gonna be today?

Jeremy (01:31.986)

that's not bad, right?

Paul Musolf (01:33.962)

No, but it did say there are possible thunderstorms, so that'll be something. Anyway, not anybody cares about thunderstorms in Michigan, but...

Jeremy (01:37.526)

Yeah, that's not so good.

Jeremy (01:41.782)

What's the biggest window you've ever installed?

Paul Musolf (01:44.49)

Well, I do right now I'm doing windshields in cars and the biggest one was on a conversion van that they actually used to Deliver windshields. So it was just it was massive as big as a desk. So it was pretty cool

Jeremy (01:48.406)

Okay.

Jeremy (02:00.918)

I would be really nervous about breaking those.

Paul Musolf (02:04.202)

I broke a couple. So yeah, so one of the things you can do when you're installing Windows is you can, there's a urethane bead that goes around the window and you tap on it, right? Well, I've been doing the coconut training stuff, so iron palm. So my boss is like, yeah, okay, tap on it. So I tapped on it and I broke it. Yeah, he's like, not that hard. I'm like, I barely tapped it, right?

Jeremy (02:05.238)

Yeah.

Jeremy (02:16.534)

You

Jeremy (02:22.838)

He broke.

Jeremy (02:28.182)

So what I'm hearing is your karate training is so rugged that you just, you're shattering windshields without intent.

Paul Musolf (02:37.578)

That's, yeah, yeah, my wife said not to, she said, go easy. You're like, you're 10%. It's like everybody else is 50%, knock it off. So that's a.

Jeremy (02:45.014)

I feel like there's some, I don't know, like Superman Hulk sort of joke in there. Maybe we'll find it later, but that's...

Paul Musolf (02:52.618)

Yeah, if anybody's watching and they can write one, that'd be great.

Jeremy (02:56.054)

Yeah, yeah, that's impressive. I don't think I've ever had anything like that happen. So good on you.

Paul Musolf (03:02.058)

Well, I didn't expect it really I looked I did look it up though that since we're talking about that The psi the pounds per square inch to break a windshield is anywhere between 60 and 90 psi Which is not that bad, right? So but when you think about like a pine board a one inch pine board is 250 psi So if you can break up one inch one inch pine board a windshield shouldn't be that hard, right? I mean, it's just two pieces of glass with a piece of laminate in the middle of it to keep it from shattering

Jeremy (03:12.95)

Okay. No.

Jeremy (03:25.046)

Hmm, makes sense.

Paul Musolf (03:32.074)

But anyway, I'll be messing with that. What's that? I've only been doing Windows B. Got it. Windows is about a year, actually. Before that, I was a special education teacher in Flint.

Jeremy (03:32.982)

Hmm.

Which of you been doing longer? Windows or Karate? Which of you been doing longer?

Jeremy (03:45.686)

okay.

Jeremy (03:49.654)

Why that is, that's about his biggest shift. I can't even get there from one to the other.

Paul Musolf (03:55.978)

It's a long story, but I guess we got time. Okay, so.

Jeremy (03:57.974)

Okay, we have time. We have time. And here's why I wanna know. Teaching, right? Because you talked about teaching karate as being something you love doing. Yeah, right? And so I know plenty of martial arts instructors who are teachers in other ways in their day job, but they usually continue doing that. And if they shift out, it's not usually to something that's so 180, like, wouldn't you?

Paul Musolf (04:11.306)

yeah.

Jeremy (04:28.502)

Windows.

Paul Musolf (04:28.97)

Yeah, well, one, it was the job I'm working at is right across the street from the dojo. So it's all I got to do is I take three steps and I'm here. The other part was, it's wonderful. Saves on gas. It's fantastic. But the reason I switched from working in a public school system to doing windshields was a lot of things.

Jeremy (04:35.574)

Okay.

So logistically, it's upside.

Paul Musolf (04:53.802)

The first two years I worked from K through six, which was good. I liked working with the little kids and it actually got me a lot of experience working with kids in the dojo. We don't really, we're not a traditional school that just teaches kids. You know how like normally you get in the average story is you're a kid yourself, your parents put you through the martial arts, you have some aptitude for it. Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but you stick with it. You stick with it long enough to earn your black belt.

Jeremy (05:07.062)

Hmm.

Paul Musolf (05:20.33)

you know, you stick around long enough, maybe you go to the tournament circuit, maybe you just train in the dojo, however that path works for you, then you go and you earn your second degree black belt, you become an instructor and you know, all things line up and then you own your own school, right? Let's say that happens. Okay, that's cool. When you own your own school, you do that same process. You teach kids, they grow up and they go and do martial arts as adults.

I didn't do any of that. I started when I was 26 years old. So it was a non -traditional start for me. And so my delve into martial arts wasn't a kid thing. Like I had no understanding of how to teach kids that martial arts was for kids or could be for kids, that there was two types of martial arts, children's of martial arts and adult martial arts. I didn't know that because my teacher, the

Founder of this school, Heian Karate Dō, he didn't really teach kids under 13. And then I couldn't make it till classes until 630 and then it was the adult class, adult adult class anyway. So I didn't even, you know, so anyway that didn't, whole not whole nother thing. But if you grow up with the kid, if you grow up with the kid mindset or martial arts can be for kids, it's a little easier to hop into training kids. Right and having that be a thing. Okay. So, but.

Jeremy (06:33.078)

Sure, sure.

Paul Musolf (06:45.13)

It really vamped up my thought process on how to teach kids because I really liked working with the kindergarten kids and all the way up to sixth grade. Public education is interesting to see how a young mind grows and learns and works. It's really interesting. And the way the teachers, the teachers I worked with my first two years were fantastic, wonderful people that all they wanted to do was watch these kids grow. And I fell in love with that part of it because I was already a teacher in the dojo. So it was easy to...

go into that because we as teachers, we love to see our students go from zero to, you know, whatever their goal is, you know, and it's wonderful the light bulb moments and the growth. It's something to be really proud of, you know, not from a teacher's point because I led them to that point, but because they were, they had the grit and the determination to get there, you know. So I, so I liked that. I said, I'm going to go be a teacher. I was a, I was a paraprofessional. If you're familiar with that, somebody that helps out in the classroom. Okay.

Jeremy (07:28.022)

Hmm, for sure.

Paul Musolf (07:45.418)

Well, the first year I was a parapro in a school in Flint and there it was just before COVID and they put me in the parapro position and they had three teachers quit and one was in a second grade class and they said, well, what we can do is put you in a temporary long -term sub position so you can help this classroom out because their teacher left.

And I said, well, I'd be willing to do that because I was already working with that classroom two weeks prior. And the teacher, it was pretty nuts. Jeremy, I mean, the kids were extremely rambunctious. And they, I mean, it was like, yes, they were, well, they were, there were instances of chairs going from one end of the room to the other in second grade.

Jeremy (08:29.11)

You're choosing your words carefully, I can hear it.

Paul Musolf (08:41.482)

pushing each other down, one kid lost the tooth, it was crazy. So I mean, it was a lot, yeah. So I said, okay, fine, at least they're gonna have some sense of stability, because I'm not gonna leave, right? I'll at least work the year with them. And I did that until from September to December, I was the long -term sub in that classroom and I actually made some headway. They stopped being ridiculous and at least for the most part, there was still, it's hard to control kids that are still learning too.

Jeremy (08:46.966)

That is a lot.

Jeremy (08:52.79)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Musolf (09:12.33)

It's very important that you have a skill set. Like I was good at classroom management from the dojo, but to get it to transfer into a classroom setting was, it was a bit of a challenge, but we made it work until almost January. We made it till just after Christmas and then they had an actual teacher come in. So I did my part and then I worked in a third grade classroom with a gentleman named Billy Teer, wonderful teacher. He taught me a lot about how the education system works.

Jeremy (09:17.494)

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, that coming in with some of those skills.

Hmm.

Paul Musolf (09:42.026)

Anyway, I got my feet wet those first two years, that first year, and then COVID happened. And then we learned how to teach virtually, and that was a whole other thing. They saw how I worked in the classroom, so they gave me the history portion to teach, which was really cool. Because you're teaching online, so I like history. So that was a whole thing. And then when we kind of, like history? Yeah.

Jeremy (10:00.726)

Most martial artists do.

Yeah, yeah, most martial artists, at least in my experience, maybe it's the exposure I have here with this show, but most of the people I talk to find some enjoyment in how things used to be. But please continue.

Paul Musolf (10:21.066)

Well, yeah, well, you've got to know where you came from to know where you're going, right? So and that's the same thing we do here when we go and we delve into Katha or we delve into some of the traditions and some of them are traditions for tradition's sake. Some of them are traditions for cleanliness, you know, like why is our, why are our gi white, right? So that we know that we're wearing clean clothes, stuff like that. Our belt's not supposed to touch the floor because the karate spirits will dissipate. It's because you don't want to get the germs off the floor. But anyway.

Jeremy (10:32.982)

Yep. Yep.

Paul Musolf (10:50.474)

So I did my two years there and then some roles changed in that school system and then I went to a different school in Flint and they had found, I had, it's funny, I applied for their Para Pro position in the English section because that's the last thing I did at the other school. And they said, well, actually you did so good at the interview for the Para Pro, we have a position that we might be interested in. It's special education.

It's the you'll be working with a co -teacher, but you'll you'll have control of the classroom You'll be teaching a class in a classroom because you've already had that experience. We think we can do that And i'm like, well, that's irregular But okay And it was it was fantastic I loved working that first year at that school. I got to work high school. It was It was I got to work little kids and then I worked that first year I was still k -6 the second year in that other school. I worked high school

The first, yeah, well I had 14 kids on my caseload. Yeah, I learned how to read IEPs. I did all the stuff. You do all the things you need to do as a teacher, but I was only, I was getting paid as a teacher at that time, right? I got paid what a teacher gets paid, which is fantastic. Good for me because prior to that I did security work and I worked at a body shop painting cars for almost 17 years. That's a whole nother story for another time, right? So anyway.

Jeremy (11:51.734)

It's a huge shift. And anybody who's worked with kids.

Paul Musolf (12:20.042)

I switched transition to high school. My caseload goes from 15 kids down to one kid. I was working in a classroom, but they assigned me to one kid. And I went from getting paid as a teacher to getting paid as a student assistant. And the particular student that I was assigned to was prone to extreme violent outbursts and was a handful.

Jeremy (12:47.798)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Musolf (12:48.202)

Yeah, the year before they hadn't even made it. They hadn't even made it through the first two months of school last year and then they had to be put in an alternative program. So this year they had, because of the way contracts work and that I can't, you know, I don't know all of the things, but at this particular time I was assigned to one student. And the first week was wonderful. They said, hello, how you doing? Fantastic. And greet me at the door. After that, the honeymoon was over. That first week, they...

were extremely violent, biting, hitting, kicking. Karate works real time, by the way. Just wanna let you know. Like, people think karate, it's all like flash and doesn't show, No, there was, at one point, I got, they had grabbed a pen off of a table and tried to stab me in the face with it. So, it works. Disarms work. Just wanna let you know. It was, but. I went the whole year. -huh. Yeah.

Jeremy (13:40.502)

How long did you put up?

Really?

That's impressive. It's a special kind of person who can do that.

Paul Musolf (13:47.562)

went the whole year. So, but what I mean special something.

Jeremy (13:54.198)

Well, I suspect it's not that. I don't think it's that. I think it's that you... Because I know people who work in this field and I hear from them how difficult it is. But when I ask them and I suspect you'd have the same answer, you're just trying to help the kid. You come to understand what's going on in that kid's life and everybody else has given up on them. Or so many people have given up on them.

Paul Musolf (14:00.778)

Bye.

Paul Musolf (14:14.634)

Well, they need somebody in their corner.

Paul Musolf (14:20.458)

Yeah. for sure. And they know that that's why they act out the way they do. And they press you until they find out whether or not you're going to stick with them or not. That's the big they'll they keep push back. It's like, I don't know, testing the resilience of a balloon, right? You keep blowing it up till it pops. And if it doesn't pop and cool, you got a great balloon. Let's use that as an example. It's the same thing. Somebody that wants to put Yeah, they push on you. Well, I'm like, well, I'm made of tougher stuff than that. So they like one time they're kicking me in the shin.

Jeremy (14:26.198)

Yeah.

Jeremy (14:38.294)

Yeah, but eventually it will pop.

Paul Musolf (14:49.994)

and they lost their toenail. They kicked me so hard in the shin, they lost their toenail. And I said, you can kick me all you want. You do realize that I get kicked all day long. Like that's my job outside of this. Like I said, after we did, I said, did you get anything out of that? And they said, well, not really, but you should just leave like that kind of stuff. They're giving me this, that sass and attitude. I said, but you didn't get anything out of it. You just kicked me. And all you did was get hurt. It doesn't do you any good. I get kicked by.

People in our studio every all day long every day and especially in the shins because now we have little kids and they kick it and that's all they can reach But anyway, so We had these little tips going back and forth and I got I went to through some training called CPI training and the schools They provide that for you for students that are unruly. It's okay It does its job, but there's massive holes because of legal issues. There's things you can't kind of can't do of course with

The main job is to keep the kid safe, but it doesn't necessarily always keep the teacher safe. Right? It does the best it can, but there's, yeah. Anyway, I mean, I never lost an eyeball or anything, so that was cool. Right, got to Christmas, came back from Christmas break, and this 11th grader comes up to me, and the student I've been working with for three months, comes up to me and says, Mr. Musoff.

Jeremy (15:54.902)

Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy (16:01.366)

It's good.

Paul Musolf (16:18.154)

you doing today?" So I'm doing great. How was your vacation? My vacation was wonderful. I said, you all right? Like that. You all right? You good? And they're like, no, I'm great. You seem like you're in a fantastic mood. They said it must be a Christmas miracle. Like, that's the words right out of their mouth, right? So I go, I talked to my supervisor and we have a chat and they had shifted some things around in

that student's personal life, some things around medication -wise, and they were able to get it together. So I didn't have a single problem with that student the rest of the year. It was fantastic. It was so good that I didn't have to put the stress on just that student and focus on just that student. They put two more kids on my caseload. But I wasn't getting the pay I wanted. Even though I was relieved that that was not

Jeremy (16:56.502)

That's awesome.

Paul Musolf (17:15.882)

I'm going to be an issue anymore. You know, feeling like I had to be like in orange, you know, in my self -defense dichotomy of that, or the levels of that. I didn't have to be in orange and on the ready all the time. But it just, I think it kind of burned me out of public education. What they had me do in the last two months, because even though I had the three kids on my caseload,

Jeremy (17:38.518)

For sure, I can see that.

Paul Musolf (17:45.194)

They were in and out all the time. So I was teaching in different classes. In the junior high class, I was, because I still had my sub license, right, from the other school. And all you gotta do is resign some paperwork. You don't have to do anything else. So I taught in a junior high, taught high school, did gym class. The gym class loved me, because that's easy, right? Just to say that's what I do every day. And then I even took some coconuts in and broke some coconuts for the students. They thought that was pretty fantastic.

Tried to get some of the teachers involved in some self -defense stuff that we do here because we do free family self -defense classes and they were receptive to it, but then when they're like, well, I got to drive from Flint to where I'm at, which is It's not it's 20 miles away, but it's not that hard, you know, it to me I'm not that big a deal to them. It is I guess everybody has their own struggle. So anyway, I don't know how many times you get when you ask somebody you might come to a martial arts class and they say yeah Sure, that'd be so great

Jeremy (18:36.182)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Musolf (18:42.634)

And then you never hear from them again. It happens all the time. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I decided that wasn't for me. I had my summer was in full swing last year. And I said, cool, I got summer off because your contract goes for 12 months, but they pay you for 10. And then they save some money back, and then they pay for those two months. So you're really working that whole year because you're on, like if they need something over the summer, they can come.

Jeremy (18:44.47)

Often, often. I think we all hear that.

Paul Musolf (19:12.394)

get a hold of you if they need to, because you're still on their contract. You know people say teachers get the summer off, they don't really, even parapros. But that being said, one of my students here at the dojo, her and her husband own a glass company in town and they do windshields and stuff. And she knew, her name is Ellen Burgess, wonderful lady. She knew that I had done bodywork for years and years painting cars and

pumping them, doing that kind of thing. So I thought that would be an easy transition. And knew that I wasn't sure, at the time I was on the fence, I wasn't sure if I was going to go back to teaching. But I got into doing the glasswork and it fit my schedule. I could get out at four so I could open up classes here. It was good physical labor, so I knew that it was less stress and I could just get the job done. Accidents happen and you're going to have challenges anywhere, but it was more on a personal level.

Jeremy (19:50.998)

Hmm.

Paul Musolf (20:10.634)

teaching all day and then teaching at the dojo. I'm already making 2 ,500 decisions from the hours of 7 .45 to 3 .30. And then now I got to make another 2 ,500 decisions from 4 .30 to 8 .30. And it was, I was dealing with it, but I noticed that both areas were suffering. Like I wasn't the teacher I could be in both parts. So I had to focus on one and of course I'm gonna pick the dojo.

Jeremy (20:16.278)

Tough. Yeah.

Jeremy (20:29.75)

Mm.

Jeremy (20:38.341)

And so now that you've got this, what seems to be a really good balance, you know, you mentioned proximity between, you know, one across the street from the other and everything. What have your students noticed in how you show up as an instructor?

Paul Musolf (20:48.454)

Yeah.

Paul Musolf (20:57.962)

Mmm more energy in class, you know, just a better I'm saying not I had a poor attitude But I I can get them more uplifted during the clash, you know how sometime, you know There's a lull sometimes and you have certain students that come in and they're not like Eeyore but you can just tell they've had a mopey day and If if they if a student like that can drag the classroom down. Can you imagine if the teachers that way? So yeah, I mean it's just like yeah

Jeremy (21:22.902)

I've been in classes like that, absolutely.

Paul Musolf (21:26.058)

And it did it. Some days I told after class teachers, students will share stuff with me and you'll have a coffee with them and stuff. And so a student would say, man, sometimes it's so hard for me to get here. And I said, well, over the years, I've run this place for 10 years, well, eight years by myself. I took a partner two years ago. I've run it eight years at the time, eight years by myself. And if I didn't own this place, there's times I probably wouldn't be here either. Because it wears you out. You get wore out.

But that's five minutes before you come in the door. Five minutes after you walk in the door, you remember why you want to be here. I don't know if most teachers will admit that, but that's exactly, it happens to all of us.

Jeremy (22:09.142)

They seem to, they seem to. I mean, we certainly do get some who come on the show and they talk about how, you know, everything for them is martial arts, you know, they'll train for hours before they even go to their school and everything. And that's great. And if that's, you know, if that's somebody, if that's you out there in the audience, that's awesome. I am jealous of you. That's not how I'm built, Paul. It doesn't sound like that's how you're built, right? Like there's life, life gets in there. And, you know, I think...

For someone like you and I, it shows how martial arts.

becomes part of the tool set to dealing with life. Because sometimes life isn't great, right? You have those days and I don't want it today, but I've made this commitment. I've made this obligation. I'm going to be there and you make it the best you can, maybe not for you, but for your students. And then it becomes better for you, right? Like I have a routine before I teach that to put down what's outside and just

Paul Musolf (23:09.098)

Yeah.

Jeremy (23:16.246)

so I can give them my best.

Paul Musolf (23:18.922)

Yeah, right. And that's hard. That can be hard. It's hard for students because I see them come in, you know, but when we bow at the door, that's we're supposed to let that go. Right. That's the one thing. And some schools, traditional karate schools, they'll do, they'll sit and say, and they'll do makso and they'll have that moment of breathing and then they'll start class. So we don't always do that. I, my school here, my teacher, a picture up on the wall.

Yes, he's up there somewhere. I, yeah, yeah, I, the school was founded in 1993, right? I don't know if you know any background of that. So the school, Han Karate Dio was founded in... okay. So we were, right, all right. So we know nothing. It's right there. This dojo was founded in 1993 by Robert Lee Sensei and his, his partner Sandy.

Jeremy (23:50.838)

He's up there. He's on the core cord.

Jeremy (24:01.654)

I know a little bit, but the audience doesn't, so pretend we know nothing.

Paul Musolf (24:18.57)

And I wasn't around back then, but they founded the school and they just wanted to teach traditional karate, but it was really kind of semi -traditional. It was a Shotokan school, but at the time they went to competitions and then he stopped doing that around 2000. So there was seven years there where they did competitions, 2001 maybe. He said that September 11th kind of changed how he had to teach and how he, because there was some things there. But again, I wasn't around.

that. But anyways, he revamped how we wanted to do it. He ended up teaching, you know, we've had, we can have about a maximum of 50 students at the school. We're not very big. I don't know if you've seen any of my videos, but we're a pretty, pretty small school, but we get, it's nice, right, that it's small. I don't know if I would want to teach a big stadium full of students, like some of these schools that have hundreds of students and

Jeremy (25:01.782)

few.

Paul Musolf (25:15.754)

And how you said that sometimes schools, that's all they do is karate. I think is there a correlation between them just being, not that I'm not a full -time school owner, because we do five, six days a week, but someone that has the, that their dojo makes enough funding where they can just do that and not do anything else, right? I mean, I have a day job because I have to, yeah. I think maybe that's part of it, yeah. So what my,

Jeremy (25:34.646)

It's a different experience and I'm not, yeah. It's a different experience for sure.

Paul Musolf (25:43.466)

So my sensei ran the dojo for a long long time and the day I started was in November of 2006. So it's not that long. I was 26 years old. I had quit smoking cigarettes and I wanted something to do with the 40 bucks a week that I was going to save. So I spent it. And that was it. And I know that's not like, well, we get people because I'm a school owner and a

Doing been doing martial arts for 18 years, but my big my journey started with I just quit smoking cigarettes And I had extra Yeah, I had I had spare money Yeah Not not really I mean I like the Ninja Turtles and stuff and Power Rangers cuz that was like the I was 13 when Power Rangers came out. So that would have been pretty cool Green Ranger. He's he's bomb

Jeremy (26:17.43)

This is a first, at least for the show, right? You can imagine the origin stories, but this is one that's, I don't think we've heard before, so keep going.

Paul Musolf (26:39.69)

but, but I, you know, watch blood sport and all that. No, that's not when I started. And I did, I mean, I always liked martial arts as far as the appeal of it, but I had a job since I was 13, told another job, cause I have seven sisters. I'm now I'm going to, now I'm going to ramble. I'm the oldest out of eight kids. So I guess wrangling a group of people is my, that's my genre, right? Cause dealing with classroom leadership and, classroom management. It's just, I've been doing that since I was 13.

Jeremy (26:40.918)

But that's not when you started.

Jeremy (26:54.454)

Mm.

Paul Musolf (27:08.906)

Maybe younger probably, because you have a giant brood. But, so I quit smoking cigarettes and I had this money. And I wanted to get healthy. I wasn't really a sports guy. You know, I didn't want to play squash or golf or something. And my partner at the time, she had a nephew that was taking karate in a town over.

Jeremy (27:12.293)

Mmm. That's a lot of kids.

Paul Musolf (27:37.482)

And he said, hey, Paul, I'm taking karate at this dojo. If you want to come try it, you can try it. So I'm like, cool. So I talked to my partner. I said, hey, is this something we can work out? It's only, at the time, it was $50 a month. And I was like, well, hey, that's well within my range of $40, right? So a week. So I said, I can afford that. Plus, we got extra. And she said, that's fine. Do whatever you want. So I'm like, OK. And my goal.

was just to take classes long enough to be able to kick high enough to kick people in the head. Not that I was going to run around and just kick people in the head randomly, but I wanted to have the skill set that if somebody, and again, I just want to say, hey, if I had to, I'm going to kick someone in the head. So all of that. I try my first class and at the very end of class I said, hey, so when do we get to learn to kick high, right?

Jeremy (28:22.166)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Musolf (28:32.778)

Because I was an uncoordinated mess, right? Like we all are. My first class, my teacher pushed on my shoulder and my job was to connect my hip and shoulder, not lead my shoulder, but to connect one piece. So that I could do, so we could do gakuzuki, reverse punch and have a hip generate the power instead of thinking upper body. At the time I'm just like, what am I even doing? Like, what is it? But I'm along for the ride. I didn't know that.

Jeremy (28:37.654)

Hmm.

Paul Musolf (29:02.538)

The end of class, I talked to one of the instructors. His name is Kerry Schultz. And I said, so when do we get to learn to kick people in the head? Exactly like a little kid would ask. And he said, I can do that right now. I can show you right now. He says, stand right there. Get into the fighting stance we were working on. I'm like, cool. I got it. I'm got it. I'm in my fighting stance. And he took his lead leg and he swept my front leg. And when I got down on my knee, he grabbed my hair and put his top of his foot right on my forehead.

And he said, that's how you do that. I don't have to reach you. I can put you where I can go. And I thought, well, that's cool. So then I really fell in love with it. So later on, as I was testing for black belt, by the way. So, Harry Schultz was a big deal at our dojo. He passed away just before I earned my black belt. Yeah, he came in.

And then he left for a little while and came back when I got about coup five, so halfway to black belt. And I had done that for a couple years. cool, Mr. Schultz, it's great to see you. And he brought his son, Joe, and they were doing weapons classes. He said, because Joe Schultz and Kerry Schultz were both doing shinkendo. And they were, that's where they had been, they hadn't been coming to the dojo, so they've been going to do shinkendo. And...

They had asked Sensei Lee if I could participate in the weapons classes. At the time, that's not something you do. You don't do that until Brownville, because you don't even know your body enough to, at least from what their standpoint was, you don't even know yourself enough until that point to control yourself for having weapons. Let's just stick with the empty hand stuff. And I'm thinking, OK, cool.

Jeremy (30:47.862)

Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Musolf (30:54.89)

But they started me with short sticks and then we moved to bow and then we moved to sword and then weapons were a whole nother thing that was just fantastic. But meeting Joe was a big deal because we ended up being training partners all the way to Black Belt and beyond. It's cool to have a friend to push you, by the way. Because you can feed off each other and get better. And at the time, I'm not even thinking Black Belt. I don't even care. Again, I'm still just trying to not kick somebody in the head.

Jeremy (31:14.07)

absolutely.

Paul Musolf (31:23.69)

But now I just want to learn as much as I can. And the goal still isn't black belt. It's just I want to keep showing up. I just want to keep showing up. Because even though I'm not great at it, I know that if I keep going, I might figure this out eventually.

Jeremy (31:38.294)

And you're enjoying it. That's what's coming through too, is that this was something that maybe fairly quickly, it wasn't just about getting off the couch, but it was something you found you had an affinity for.

Paul Musolf (31:53.13)

dude, I can't say that I was a wonderful martial artist or I'm still worth anything. I had a natural aptitude, but I do have a natural attitude to not quit. Like I don't know how to quit. Like except the only thing I quit was smoking cigarettes. But I think I just really what I ended up doing was trading a negative, habit for a positive one. Really? Cause I, cause I really fell into it. I'm, I'm like, I just, I, I read everything I could. I

Jeremy (32:02.454)

Hmm.

Jeremy (32:14.678)

Plenty of people do that.

Paul Musolf (32:21.258)

Trained whenever I could off to off -site because you can go to at the time you can go two days a week And then there was no weekend class But after Joe started coming he said hey you guys want to come in on the weekends you guys can have some mat time I'll just unlock it because I'm just down the street. I'll unlock it so so that was cool And then so I started after that after Joe star tramps like how long will it take to reach black belt? Well, not that I care Because that wasn't the goal, but now I'm like, okay, I'm halfway there. Where where do we stand?

And he said, well, normally it takes anywhere between five and seven years to earn black belt. People can do it in four. I'm like, OK, cool. So I'm about two and a half years in. I'm good. Well, I started going to every class I possibly could, training on the weekends, going to Carrie's house. And then when I made it to red belt, you can go into the advanced class, which that's like coup three.

Paul Musolf (33:19.466)

So I got into that and then we started, I was, work I got out at five, I would go right from work to here from 5 .30 to 6 .30, 6 .30 to 7 .30, and then I, so I did two hour blocks. And my partner at the time was like, so make sure you take time for yourself. So I'm like, okay. I didn't. I ended up just training more. Like I was really like.

I don't know what it was and it wasn't the goal of black belt that was pushing me, but it was just the fact that I wanted to know as much as I could that thirst for getting, I couldn't kick high enough. I couldn't punch hard enough. Like I couldn't know enough. So, you know, and then the belts kept passing. I kept training with Joe kept training on the weekends. not, and then by the time I earned advanced Brown belt, which coup one, like one step away from black belt,

I was helping in classes. I was able to, Sensei would, he just treats you like a black belt by then anyway. He's like, okay, so I'm gonna, there was leadership stuff you can do. If I'm teaching Akata, you can help by shadowing me. There's things you can do and it actually helps you transition into black belt. Cool, all right, so I did all that and then I was able to sit in on some black belt classes, weapons classes, all that stuff. And before I knew it,

I'm ready to test for black belt and it's only been three years and two months. So, and I was like, I didn't even think about it like that. And late, just because he had said it takes about five years and I didn't know that that was the average. Like when you go look online, it didn't occur to me to look at that stuff. You know, I was, I was on an island onto myself when it came to martial arts. But once I earned my black belt, I kind of looked outside of the, of what I was learning and which it's encouraged anyway.

Jeremy (35:02.998)

Mm.

Paul Musolf (35:13.994)

Because once you're in your black belt, you know how to learn, right? You've learned how to learn. Now you can go learn, right? I like to take black belt like it's getting your high school diploma, right? Once you're in your showdown anyway, when you're in your showdown, now you can go really, you know, I agree to that. I read that once. Once you're in your black belt, it's like, now you can go learn real martial arts, right? A real karate. And I don't know if I would say it like that.

Jeremy (35:18.582)

Hopefully.

Jeremy (35:26.038)

Mm.

Jeremy (35:34.102)

Yeah.

Paul Musolf (35:43.85)

But I would say that you can now you can broaden your horizons and you're more apt to take things in from other sources. Right. So you go learn, learn from. Yes. Yeah. At the same time training here. So I, and I earned my knee down through this dojo and sand on through this dojo and yon down through this dojo just recently. which I didn't, I didn't present that to myself. I actually went down to Florida.

Jeremy (35:53.59)

And so you started looking around at what the other options were.

Paul Musolf (36:12.49)

because I told you I had run this school for 10 years. My sensei retired in 2014 and at the time it was gonna be a group of black belts that were gonna run the school. But you know how life goes, right? Some people go off to college, some people move away, some people are like, well, that's a lot of work. I don't know about that. So yeah.

Jeremy (36:23.126)

I do.

Jeremy (36:29.206)

best laid plans. I've seen so many schools that think they're going to transition that way.

Paul Musolf (36:34.938)

I thought it would be great, right? And so I did what I could to learn about business stuff, but I might have a black belt in martial arts, but I don't have a black belt in business. Again, it's just starting from ground zero. And since I did help, Lord, he didn't leave me with nothing. Like he helped a lot, a lot. One, he said, here, here's the school, right? He's like, I'm either gonna lock the doors or somebody's gonna take it over. I'm kind of paraphrasing, but that's kind of it.

Jeremy (36:47.446)

is a rare school that has both skill sets.

Paul Musolf (37:02.442)

because he had to retire. He had his life to live, which is cool. And he was a resource after that, and he's still a resource. Wonderful man. Taught me a lot of stuff. I've gone now, I had a very unique experience because he had a bunch of experience. In the 60s and 70s, he trained in a lot of different martial arts. He did Tiger Style, Kung Fu, Taekwondo, Tung Sudo.

Aikido and Shotokan karate and he put them kind of all together when we do our self -defense stuff He was like doing locks and we were doing throws and we were doing in close fighting stuff and we were doing elbows and knees and Groundwork and all kinds, you know shoot fighting stuff. There's anything he wanted to do for self -defense. It's what we did I didn't know until way later like we had a fourth degree black belt from showed up from the Shotokan FSK a come in maybe Ten years ago. He's like that's this is no this is not Shotokan like I know

I'm like, well, this is all I know, buddy. Like, I don't have to tell you. So when people go like, well, Shotokan doesn't do this and Shotokan doesn't do that, I'm the first to raise my hand. I'm like, yes, it does. It doesn't do trapping and neck cranks and all of these other stuff. It doesn't implement weapons. I'm like, yes, it does. But that was just from my perspective. And I didn't realize until way later that that's not the majority. So really thankful that he was able to put all that together.

really, really unique experience when it comes to martial arts, which made it a lot easier to transition to these other ones. So when I took over the dojo in 2014, I was looking for education to further my education, but at the same time, learn how to run a business. Because what the heck do I know? I didn't think it was as easy as just keeping the door open. I knew that. But I...

Since I said, you're gonna meet a lot of people that are gonna come through the door. The best part about that, about teaching, is that you're gonna meet people from all walks of life. Do right by them and treat everyone the same. Those were what we're supposed to do. So, and which I, I'm like, well that sounds wonderful. That sounds all sage advice and everything. So we've been, and I didn't know exactly what he meant by that, but as I've.

Paul Musolf (39:27.21)

Over the years, I come to realize what he's talking about when it comes to people that are coming from broken homes, people that are coming from impoverished situations, doctors, lawyers. I mean, we teach, I've taught everybody in 10 years. I've taught minorities, majorities, doctors, lawyers, military people, Marines come through here, active military, even...

We had Air Force, we had an Air Force girl come in here for a while. We had somebody getting ready for the Marines that we had built Pugil sticks for and researched basic training and got them ready for it. Like that's all they wanted to do. So they didn't want to learn karate, they just wanted the self -defense portion because they wanted to feel comfortable and ready. But we took Saturdays off and did that. Which isn't.

Jeremy (40:04.181)

That's awesome.

Jeremy (40:13.974)

That's really cool. Aren't a lot of environments where you can say everyone gets to show as they are. Right? That's one of the things I love about martial arts.

Paul Musolf (40:21.066)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, dude, it's so great. And so again, that's the part that I fell in love with again, because you re -fall in love with it for different reasons. I don't know if that's everyone's experience, but that's been mine, right? Yeah, and it...

Jeremy (40:37.206)

If you hang around long enough, I think you have to.

The reason you join can't be the reason that you stay forever. It just doesn't work that way.

Paul Musolf (40:45.866)

No, no, you have to change it. Yeah, it is like sweet and sour chicken. So like there's some sweet parts and there's some sour parts, right? And not to use that as an analogy, but that's the first thing I'd think of. There's good and bad in running a school. There's good and bad in being a teacher. There's good and bad in your own training, right? It's a it is a dichotomy of that. And you it's easy to let the hard parts wear you down, right? So COVID was a it was awful.

Jeremy (41:02.262)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Musolf (41:15.146)

Like I couldn't teach for eight months. So I went and taught in people's garages. I went and taught at the park because we were able to do that with social distancing. But I could, and I got to pay rent at a dojo that I can't even use. Right. Luckily I have a landlord that was like nice enough to work with me. And I know they were so, well, you can't, they can't, they couldn't force you out at that time, but you still got to make the money to pay them back. Right. And we, here again, because I don't run it.

Jeremy (41:38.966)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Musolf (41:44.362)

on the mindset of I'm trying to take a paycheck out of it. I don't have to worry about making an exorbitant amount of money, but I have to make enough to pay the bills and so we have a good facility to train it. Right, right. So that's a worry, but it makes it okay to come into a classroom and to watch a white belt learn how to do a front kick. To watch somebody who's been struggling with something for six months figure it out. For somebody that

Jeremy (41:55.158)

Still can't go into the hole.

Paul Musolf (42:13.194)

Has a bad day and then they're all mopey and they come into class and they're sitting on the floor and within 15 minutes they're smiling and they're sweat dripping down their face while they're working their butt off and Those parts are the best parts, right? If you can bottle that and just have a sip of that every day not the sweat part, but just the feelings, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's wonderful and it keeps me coming back

Jeremy (42:33.954)

I'm with you. It is the best part of my week.

Paul Musolf (42:42.058)

But I'm getting off topic. So when I, it's whatever. Yeah. So five year, about five, four or five years in, one of my students, he'll be my first, my first black belt that I'll ever promote through me running the school. His name is Eric Christensen. He'll be, he's going up for black belt, which is, gosh, we're going on 10 years now. But he's been in and out, but he was, he's a second degree, no, third degree now.

Jeremy (42:43.926)

There is no the topic is you there is no off topic here is whatever it's what we do

Jeremy (42:58.07)

Hmm.

Paul Musolf (43:11.626)

Black belt in Hakeru jiu -jitsu, and he's got probably five or six years experience in win -chan and Letosa eskreema and a couple different arts But he's been training since he was really young. He's loved it. He just he found there was a deficiency in his grappling and Hakeru there's two parts to Hakeru there's ground fighting, but there's also stand -up stuff that time It looks like okay, I keto but really mean vicious Akito. This is the best way I can explain it. It's not

Jeremy (43:39.766)

Frowny Aikido.

Paul Musolf (43:41.994)

It is. It's mean Aikido. So he said, I can do ground, I can do a little bit of ground stuff because that's what we work in, but I need some striking element. And even though he had done a little bit of wind chum with his teacher, he wanted to do so he found karate. So you see, he started coming in. And he got me hooked up with his teacher. So I started learning Haka -Ryu Jutsu. So I'll be doing my up. Yeah, I'm up to earn my Shodan. Yep.

Jeremy (43:43.958)

I like it.

Jeremy (44:09.334)

So still cross training.

Paul Musolf (44:11.818)

In showdown in that I have a degree, my first degree, it's not a showdown, it's not an instructor degree, but it's a degree of learning in Wing Chun from the US Wing Chun Association. So I have the first degree in that and I have a probationary degree in La Tosa Escrima. So I can teach that. It's not a guru license, but I have an instructor certificate. So all that.

Jeremy (44:36.63)

So you're, keep going.

Paul Musolf (44:39.818)

All that's to add into the classroom. Like I had had weapons training, my teacher did weapons training, but I wanted to have a different system under my belt too for that. And, and Latoza Escrima, if you're not familiar with that, is pretty great. It's straightforward and it's just as much power, balance, and assertiveness as you can put into your martial art. That's what Latoza Escrima is. And that went well with my karate because that was what Sensei taught us anyway. Be assertive without aggression and

Don't be you be as efficient as a possible. So those are things that are kind of open -ended thoughts and whatever that means to you, but you can put it in a lot of You can be very violent without The uncouthness if you want to call it that you have to ride the line of it, you know without being a total Like not like a matmully, but you have but you have to learn how to be assertive, which is hard for a lot of people

Jeremy (45:39.03)

with you.

Paul Musolf (45:39.562)

I mean, I don't know. Maybe not. People have different things that they want out of karate.

Jeremy (45:43.062)

Yeah, yeah. What I'm hearing here that's interesting to me is this, you know, you were raised in an environment that wasn't...

I'm gonna say super rigid, right? That your instructor had these other things that he raised you with and you've continued that self exposure of what are these other things that I can expose myself to, bring back, make myself a better instructor, give my students more and I think that that's really interesting. As someone who exists on the internet,

You know, we certainly have seen that there are those who push back against that for a variety of reasons. And I don't think we have to get into the reasons. Have you ever doubted that being so versatile was an asset?

Paul Musolf (46:41.969)

No, I can see why there is an allure to want to keep tradition for tradition's sake, but without a proper reason to keep it as a tradition, it's just paying homage to something that doesn't do us any good, right? It has to have a reason. So what we say in this school, and because we're

We're going to change how we have to. If someone came in tomorrow and showed a better way to punch, said, I have the best way in the world to punch, or I have the best way in the world to kick, or whatever the technique might be, guess what we're doing on Thursday. We're going to do what they showed. And if they can prove it, it's got to be applicable. So that's important for us so we don't stay stagnant. Because you can be married to the idea

Jeremy (47:23.158)

You're doing that. You're making that change.

Paul Musolf (47:37.642)

that something is just the way it is, and there are principles that we can follow. But I think that's the difference between a technique -based art and a principle -based art. So a technique -based art would be something where you collect a bunch of techniques, or I do A, they do B. Or are you familiar with one steps?

Jeremy (47:49.014)

Hmm.

Paul Musolf (48:03.53)

Okay, so you have these patterns for one steps that some are great, some are not so great, some are applicable to the street, some are not, you know, some are totally worthless for the application of martial application, but to learn a certain skill, they have value. Okay, but you could collect a million things to do inside of your one steps, but now you're bound by those one steps, right? Because that's the learning

Jeremy (48:13.622)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Musolf (48:33.13)

Module that you learn you you have to step when they punch right I have to step left and all that stuff if you learn the principles that guide those techniques now you can just learn the principles and Then you can take any technique out of those principles whatever you need right it so a technique based art is limiting and I think traditional martial arts they

Jeremy (48:48.374)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Musolf (48:57.482)

They lay into and they find comfort in technique based training because it's safe. Right? Principle based arts, we don't always get to be the best. Right? Do you know what I'm saying? Especially as a teacher or a high ranking student, the last thing you want to do is have a white belt punch in the mouth. Right? Cause you're like, well, cause you, it's going to happen anyway. As a teacher, I feel like that's my job to get hit. It's my job to get hit.

And I want you to hit me a lot. In fact, the last testing, I got busted in the eye by a yellow belt. I'm like, yes! Like, I'm really, I go, good job, because you did exactly what you're supposed to do. And then, they felt bad about it. But anyway, but if you have a principle -based art, those guiding principles can give you 1 ,000 techniques instead of just one technique, right? And then you're not bound by that. And I do think that some schools that

Jeremy (49:51.482)

It's gonna happen.

Paul Musolf (49:56.138)

Too much tradition can breed that technique -based training for the sake of safety and for the sake of looking good. Now that's just my perspective. That's just my opinion.

Jeremy (50:06.134)

There are times, I'm with you, there are times when my students will ask me, you know, we're doing something and I intentionally don't get super specific on how I want them to do some aspect of it and they'll say, well, do we do it like this or do we do it like that? And I'll say something that used to drive all of us nuts as students when I was coming up, yes. But which one's right? They're both right depending on the context.

Paul Musolf (50:29.418)

Yep, absolutely.

Jeremy (50:34.134)

And our job right now is to drill this enough that you start to see, okay, maybe if this happens, I want to go in this direction. If this happens, I want to go in that direction. For some people, they thrive on that principle side. For some people, they want to know if this, then that. And you know what? That only takes you so far because the world doesn't work that way.

Paul Musolf (50:55.789)

Yes. No, it is important though, because I've noticed that I have some students that that's how that is you have brought that up. That is how they learn. They have to have A equals B equals C or A plus B equals C, however you want to. And I don't mind teaching that way. I have to lean into some of that. But it also I always tell the students, hey, this is this is a module to get you to be able to branch out and do it yourself.

Jeremy (50:58.838)

Yes.

Jeremy (51:03.35)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Musolf (51:23.466)

My sensei was always, he said, I'm not a technique collector. You know, as we got up to at past Black Belt, he said, I'm going to show you some things. And he didn't use the words principle -based art or principle -based training, but he showed it in his actions. He said, I'm not going to, I'm not going to teach you a million techniques that you're going to, to memorize and produce. Then you're just a robot. You're a karate robot. I don't want that. I want you just to be you for you in order for you to be yourself and to

express what this karate means to you, you have to have an open -ended process. So which I thought was very interesting. And that type of training has led me to meet and being open -minded, if I should say I'm thankful for that, because he gave me that. Now I get to meet people like Sensei Paul and Michelle Enfield from their Gojiru out in California. I've went and studied with them as Uchideshi for a while.

Jeremy (52:22.806)

Nice.

Paul Musolf (52:22.954)

and wonderful. And I found out Goju has principles that Shotokan share like, you know, styles of karate, they branch off. My karate doesn't look like your karate and no karate. Okay, but karate is all karate. It is, but it isn't. But there are some stuff where Shotokan and Goju are very, very similar. And then there's some that they're very, very different. Shotokan is like somebody took karate and wrote it on a rubber band, and then stretched it way out. So you can almost read it.

Jeremy (52:40.406)

there's a lot more in common and different.

Paul Musolf (52:52.714)

And I want to say in general, mainstream Shotokan.

Jeremy (52:54.038)

Interesting. I'm chewing on that metaphor. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Paul Musolf (52:58.474)

Yeah, you can think about it. Well, look at what I always like. Shotokan is the Texas of karate. Everything's bigger. All the stances are bigger. All the punches are bigger. The ki -ais are bigger. So, but anyways, so it got me to, I got to look into other stuff like makiwara. My teacher didn't teach makiwara, but I found out through Sensei Paul, he, or Sensei Anfil, I'll use proper terminology. Noah, I had, he had mentioned Noah Lego.

Jeremy (53:04.758)

That that one I get

Paul Musolf (53:28.746)

He, he, I said, Hey Noah, do you know anything about ma about Machuara? He's like, well, I'm okay. I know of it, you know, I've trained with it. So, but if you want some good education on it, there's a guy, his name is Paul Enfield. He lives out in California. So I'm like, he's like, go talk to that guy. So I'm like, all right, sweet. So I hop on the internet and I get on Facebook messenger and I message him. I'm like, Hey Paul, how you doing Mr. Enfield? Cause I don't know. I don't know what he does or anything. Cause he just says, learn Machuara or go ask him about Machuara.

Jeremy (53:29.334)

Noah's been on the show.

Paul Musolf (53:58.058)

didn't know he was a GoJuru teacher, didn't know he did anything. I'm just like, so I got told, my friend told me to talk to you about Makuara. Do you know anything about it? He's like, well, I know a little bit. I'm like, what? Okay, cool. So we get to talking. He said, I actually, I have a DVD that I just put out to instruct people that don't have teachers that teach Makuara. It's the most comprehensive thing on Makuara. If you want to, I'm not a seller myself, but hey, you try it out. So we share correspondence. I get

I'm halfway decent at it. I buy the DVD and it dude how he laid it out the way it's fantastic if you haven't checked it out by the way not that this is a plug for that but it was so in -depth and so educational that I was able to take that information and from halfway across the country learn how to hit the makiwana right properly not hurt myself not do nothing so if anybody says virtual education isn't any good one covid told us different if you have the right educator

back to it's got to be the right person on both ends. If that makes sense. So, so I learned how to hit Machuar. Now I just I started posting videos a couple years ago because I just wanted to get out of my shell of it. And I didn't want to save them on my phone anymore. You know, I wanted something to look back on like, am I going to get any good at this? Because you never you know, I'm always I'm not good enough. Not in a bad way. But there's something I'm chasing and I don't know if I'll get there.

Jeremy (54:58.134)

Mm -hmm.

Jeremy (55:03.446)

Mm -hmm.

Jeremy (55:27.51)

That's the martial arts philosophy, right? There's always a thousand and one directions to improve.

Paul Musolf (55:28.202)

But I have to get there. So, makiwara. So now I'm to the point where I just went to a seminar over the years from 2017 to today, maybe last year. I went to a seminar with my friends in Heartland, made friends with Adonia. And I'm hitting makiwara next to Sensei Paul, because it was the seminar they're running. And a student came by and he's just staring at me. And I'm like, what? I'm just happy to work with my teacher that I never get to see.

So I'm hitting makiwara. Do you want a turn? Are you waiting for a turn? He said, no. I just like to watch when talented people hit makiwara.

I hope you're looking at him. Because me? I don't know about that. And I had there, since Paul looks at me, he's like, just take the compliment. You know, I just said it. So it's a, you don't realize the box that you're in or the, because you can only see the world from the mountain you're standing on, right? And everybody's on a different mountain. So I didn't realize that, hey, maybe I'm getting pretty good at it. And that led me into.

Jeremy (56:36.31)

And you kind of, I think I was about to take you the direction that you're going to go, go.

Paul Musolf (56:41.738)

that led me into coconut training. Like I learned how to break coconuts, which is I found out that it goes in stages, it's boards and then it's bricks and it's coconuts. Well, I went right to coconuts because that was the program that I was presented with. And then so I started hitting those in different ways. And there's three levels of that. You can put it on the ground, you can put it in your hand, you can hang it up. And so I'm like, well, now I got to find out if I can do it. You know, so and all I wanted was to my for my blocks to be better.

Jeremy (56:43.926)

Yeah.

Paul Musolf (57:07.082)

you know, because I wanted my blocks to be stronger and I wanted to feel comfortable because I didn't do Ude Tanren or body tempering with my hands other than one steps in self -defense here. Sensei would just say, well, hit as hard as you can without killing each other. Okay, cool. So, and, and, but that wasn't a system of training. Goju has a system for all of it. So I kind of got into that. And then I went talking to Noah and all this other stuff. He was like, Hey, do you want me to come out?

for a seminar, which I brought him out to 2020 for a seminar and maybe a year or two before that, May 2018, I got into the makiwara and then I started messing with this thing is called a kakie. A kakie is basically just a pole with a stick tied to it and it puts you in the position, do you know cross arms position in a lot of martial arts where we cross our arms and you see it's prevalent in winchun but it's in a lot of Okinawan crafts.

And you pull on the arm, you hikite on the arm, and then you hit various parts on this pole. I built my own. I wanted to train on it. I saw people like Ryan Parker use it. People like Jerry Leverett use it, which I got into friends with him with the breaking stuff. Ryan Parker, I just thought he was awesome. Because who wouldn't you want to know a guy that can get punched in the throat and not even feel it? If you're familiar with those guys.

And then I met, you know, Jonathan Kenny up in Canada, runs a wonderful dojo, met some people in Florida and out in New York. So martial arts will take you everywhere, by the way. So I started branching out once I asked all these questions. And so Noah wanted to come out here, do a couple of classes, and then we do this seminar here. He starts messing around on the cocky that I built, but I thought it's cool. And then not much longer,

After that, my brother got into videography and he said, hey, that dummy that you're messing with, is that like a karate thing? I'm like, yeah, as far as I know, from the information that I'm gathering, it's from karate. It was a tool in Chojin Miyagi's dojo, garden dojo, but it's just a picture. There's not really written records. There are oral traditions for it and there are certain people like Ryan Parker and Jerry Leverett that work on it.

Paul Musolf (59:34.666)

but there's not a real system. And so I'm like, well, he says, well, can you make a system for it? I'm like, well, I don't know. I'm just doing what I'm doing. I can show you how I learned how to work on it. And what was, so that ended up being a whole thing. He said, well, you got three weeks. I'm like, what? You said you got three weeks. I'm like, well, that's great. What do you mean I got three weeks? Well, I just bought a camera, the same camera they shot The Walking Dead on.

I have some people that have that have free time in December in three weeks hand me an outline. We're shooting this thing. I'm like we're shooting what thing? We're gonna do an instructional video on it Come on dummy. He says I'm like, okay, cuz you have to know my brother He is He's always been involved in the martial arts He's a army ranger and then he got out of the army and then found he found a love instead of a bite He'd said now I'm not behind a gun anymore. I'm behind a camera

Jeremy (01:00:13.654)

I love it.

Paul Musolf (01:00:33.578)

And I love it. So he still gets to shoot stuff, but now it's to preserve life, he said, which is a really cool thing. But yeah, Corey James Taylor, if you don't want to look him up, he owns Flint Michigan Films. Anyway, so we come in here for a weekend. On Saturday, I shoot the build, how to build one, because I figure people need that information. And then on Sunday, we filmed how to condition yourself before you do, because you're slamming your body into a piece of wood, how to do warmups on it.

Jeremy (01:00:35.702)

It still shoots.

Paul Musolf (01:01:03.754)

and how to do basic combinations and then how those basic combinations transfer to a partner. They don't transfer equally because a kaki is a supplement. It's an adjunct to partner training, but it got me through COVID without having a partner. And it gets me to where if I want to work on something, I can work on angles. It does its job. It's a wonderful tool. I love it as much as I love working on the makiwara.

Jeremy (01:01:31.382)

And did you, so did you finish that course? Like how did that go?

Paul Musolf (01:01:36.205)

Well, we filmed it and now it's for sale. It took four years to get it edited because I'm not an editor, but I tried my hand at it.

Jeremy (01:01:38.422)

Yeah. Okay.

Jeremy (01:01:43.478)

So it wasn't three weeks. It wasn't three weeks start to finish. It took a little while. All right. okay, I misheard you. Keep going, keep going. It's been four years.

Paul Musolf (01:01:48.01)

Yeah, we, yep, it was three weeks start to finish, got it done. yeah, you know, it took three weeks in December of 20. Yeah, it's been four years. It sat on a shelf for about two because COVID was in the middle of COVID. Couldn't find anybody to do it. My life took a bunch of different change turns and changes. And I'm like, well, I'll get, I'll get to it when I can find somebody to edit it. And I had my friends, my martial arts friends were like, they know I'm working on it.

So a couple of them are pushing me in the right direction. You just need to set a date. If you set a date, then you'll get it done. So I set a date and I found a friend to do it, Ron Gillespie. He's actually a part of the group, the INKKS. I'm getting to there. I'll culminate that in a minute. I promise we'll get there. So we finally got the video out and it was June 1st.

Jeremy (01:02:30.614)

We'll have to talk about that in a moment.

Paul Musolf (01:02:42.762)

I've sold so far. We've sold 15 copies, but it is the only video of its kind because no one else is putting out a video it it is karate based, but it's I Built it in a way where anybody from any martial art Can take the knowledge and build their own and put their martial art into the tool. It does not have to be a karate tool, right? In fact, I got gosh, what was it? It wasn't seven star mantis, but a guy that does

Five and five ancestor family kung fu messaged me recently and said hey I can see the potential for use in my style with your tool when I get back from China because right Yeah, right now I'm training in China when I come back I would like to get with you maybe this because we have a lot of students that can't work with each other anymore there some of them are advanced -age some of them just don't like the contact with another person

Jeremy (01:03:26.39)

I think with just about any striking art.

Jeremy (01:03:38.87)

Mm.

Paul Musolf (01:03:42.218)

Some of them don't have access to a partner, and this will be a wonderful addition to our heart. And I thought, well, wow, that's really cool, because that's not what I was thinking. I just wanted to get the information out there. You know, it's funny, because you think, again, all I want to do is kick somebody the head. Now I run a school because my teacher said, hey, just go do it. And all I wanted to do was have the information on hand so that I could share something I love, and now other people are finding a better use for it. So I guess the lesson in that is,

Jeremy (01:04:09.846)

That's great.

Paul Musolf (01:04:12.49)

Don't just get hung up on what you think it's going to be. It could be something completely different. Which leads me to this INKKS thing. The INKKS is a nonprofit organization, which I'm hooked up to two nonprofits, by the way. Yeah. But the INKKS was founded by Nathan Ogden and Noah Legel. They're the president and vice president. And of course, it's just.

Jeremy (01:04:28.886)

Yeah, we'll talk about the other one once we talk through this one.

Paul Musolf (01:04:41.642)

It's me and Ron and then you already did, I think.

Jeremy (01:04:49.046)

Talk to Kyle.

Paul Musolf (01:04:50.826)

Yeah, didn't you? Right, you did one with Kyle, didn't you? Okay, because I didn't want to speak out of turn, I thought you already did. I know you did one, we did an interview with Noah, I didn't know you did with Kyle Doan. So, and we all just sort of met on the internet and became fast friends because that's what martial arts does. It has a wonderful job, it does a wonderful job of networking and building connections. If you could say anything, you know how in the turn of the century they said karate was good for, okay, maybe it was good for fighting?

Jeremy (01:04:51.798)

Yeah, Kyle's been on. Kyle dome.

Jeremy (01:04:59.638)

Noah's more recently. Good guys.

Jeremy (01:05:07.67)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Musolf (01:05:19.914)

but it was good for longevity. That was what they touted it as, right? Because people in Okinawa live forever. Well, now we know it's because they're dying and stuff. But also they could say, well, it's partially karate because now people at any age can do it. Now I would say that karate and martial arts in general has a wonderful way of building connection.

which could fold back into what my teacher was saying, hey, you'll meet people from all types of life. And I didn't think it was going to be as much as it is. So anyway, now we're trying to provide a venue through the INKKS for anybody that doesn't have a teacher like mine. My teacher retired. I was left with no way to advance in my rank instead of maybe going to one of these organizations, which I didn't have a lot of experience with. I didn't think I could go to like the JKA or the JS.

or the FSKA or any of those, right? Because I wasn't sure that because our Shotokan is so individual, it's so different than what regular mainstream Shotokan is. How would I fit in? And same with Noah, his sensei passed away. So he's like, well, where do I fit in? Nathan Ogden, he had his own situation and so did Kyle and so did Ron. We've all, we found a mutual ground to stand on. And we said, if it happens to us, yes, if it happens to us,

Jeremy (01:06:36.598)

It is a common situation.

Paul Musolf (01:06:41.162)

then I bet you there's so many other people out there that could have it's happening to you.

Jeremy (01:06:44.662)

If you train long enough, it's probably gonna happen to you.

Paul Musolf (01:06:47.914)

Yeah, so we're looking, you know, that's what we're trying to do, provide an environment where people can learn, people can share, people can grow without fear of stuck in a box. You know, or we are honoring tradition without being bound by it, right? So you're able to come from any direction and find a home if you need it, right? Which I think is a wonderful, wonderful thing we're trying to do. And so far it's working out great. We had our first seminar.

down in Missouri this past year, just before the term is in 2023. It was great. I learned a lot. I met some Kempo people down there and they got so excited about some of the, because I did some cocky drills with them, but turned them into partner work. And they thought that was so much fun that they couldn't wait to take it back to their school and work on it. And then two weeks later, I get a phone call, a phone video message, and she says, hey, look what we've been doing in class. Because I totally forgot about it, honestly.

She shows me the drills they're working on. I'm like, that's so great. I can't believe you're doing that. It was really, really nice because you never know. I had never taught a seminar before. I mean, I taught women's self -defense classes. I went out and taught to senior citizens groups, but I've never done anything like this. This was a totally different thing. Needless to say, it worked out fantastic. And we're planning on doing another group training, gashaku.

murder that terminology. I don't know if that's how you say that. But a meeting of different martial artists. Yeah. It's a group of people going to training right now we're trying to figure out all of that that's in the works for next year. So I'm, for me, I'm gonna bring an MMA guy in here to train and teach, come in here and do a seminar to teach here because I think it's important. I think we should go like, it's funny because now MMA is doing the same thing.

Jeremy (01:08:17.462)

No idea, not a term I'm familiar with.

Jeremy (01:08:27.158)

Awesome.

Paul Musolf (01:08:42.058)

And whether it becomes its own art or not, or people think it's its own art, I don't know what the qualifications are for that. There's probably a good list. But I think it's a principle, an idea. And I think if they can start there, it'll eventually become its own art. But that's, yeah, maybe speaking out of turn. But I think it's important, because they're so well -rounded in the fact that they do all this different stuff, they're like a martial art stew, that

traditional martial arts can learn from that, just that concept, just the concept of it. Yeah, yeah, I guess so.

Jeremy (01:09:14.166)

But that's kind of what you set out to do anyway. Right? That's the principle -based versus the technique -based. And I think that there are a lot of us that...

Paul Musolf (01:09:23.21)

Yeah, so I guess I'd be easy to lean into that I guess for me. So, yeah, it's working. yeah, again, probably can't see the sign it's gonna see B backwards. Consummate defense, my, this is pretty cool, this is one of the cards that we did.

Jeremy (01:09:26.966)

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Now you mentioned a second nonprofit. I want to make sure we get there because I know this one's important to you.

Jeremy (01:09:44.822)

Unmask your personal power with a sweet graphic on it. Nice. Yeah.

Paul Musolf (01:09:47.242)

Yeah, is it backwards? It's probably backwards. But yeah, so my wife put all this together. She's a genius when it comes to this stuff. But she did marketing for Harley -Davidson for a while. So she knows a bunch of different. Yeah, she did marketing and advertising. She's definitely, if I'm good at teaching, she's good at all the other stuff. She's, I'm just good at paperwork, baloney. She's fantastic at hitting me.

Jeremy (01:10:01.334)

Okay.

Jeremy (01:10:09.942)

Hmm.

Paul Musolf (01:10:13.898)

She actually started training. She started training martial arts before I did. She started when she was 11 and when she was here, when I started, she was already a black belt here. And yeah, that's how I met my wife. But we were just friends for about 17 years before we even decided to do that. That's a whole nother thing. She actually taught...

Jeremy (01:10:14.55)

You

Jeremy (01:10:34.006)

Hmm.

So I gotta ask, what changed? That's not a common thing. What changed? Yeah, yeah, is there a good story there, one you're willing to share?

Paul Musolf (01:10:42.314)

why we went from friends to partners like that? Yeah, we can get into that then we'll get into the nonprofit she started. She'll say I started it, but she started it. I believe. So when I first started she was a black belt. She taught me how to get into a front stance and showed it was piss poor, but I work on it. But yeah, that's what she said. We'll get you there. Okay, cool.

Jeremy (01:10:49.654)

Okay, all right, all right, we'll set that up.

Paul Musolf (01:11:13.23)

But she trained for a couple of years after I started but then her life was going in a different direction so she took a break and then she ended up getting married and then her life went in a completely different direction. She ended up doing marketing and working for all these other interests and all these other things and she but she'd always come in every once in a while. She'd say hi Paul, how you doing? And I always show her some cool stuff that I'm working on. I'd show her like Perry Pastrails or a new lock I learned or something.

our new katha, and she was like, that's really great. So we would just talk, you know, because that was our mutual bonding thing that we had always done. You know, we're friends and she's my teacher and all that stuff. So it was always great to see her. And so she came and went and came and went. And well, one day she, I was in the middle of transitioning out of a relationship and so was she.

She said she wanted to come back to the dojo and just train. So she started training for a couple of months and I had ended my relationship and she had ended her relationship and then it just sort of blossomed from there as we were training. So, you know, because you always have things to talk about after the floor, a training floor. It's one of those things where you could talk to somebody. So you and I could sit and talk. We have a mutual thing that we can talk about, martial arts. So that gives us common ground to share a conversation over a coffee.

But if I was to talk to you, anything I would say verbally, you might always take with a grain of salt because you can't experience what I experienced, I can't experience what you experienced. So we have to do the closest thing we can. So I can only know you so well from a conversation. When we're out on the floor, there's very little talking, but I can know you better, way better than a conversation. I'll know more in 10 minutes on the floor with you, what kind of person you are, how you conduct yourself through life. And I know that sounds silly, but it...

Jeremy (01:13:12.502)

Not to me if If people have been training a while they they get it for sure. Totally, absolutely

Paul Musolf (01:13:13.706)

the nonverbal interactions that you have, you become so close with people.

From an outside observer, I know that sounds silly. They're like, what are you talking about? But I firmly believe that you learn more about someone training with them than you ever will have a conversation. So that being said, we trained, we shared information, and she got back into the point where she felt comfortable training because she had been out for so long. And she, that's where this

unmask your personal power comes from. Part of it is when you can lose that. There's a lot of ways we can lose our personal power. And sometimes it can be taken from us and sometimes directly or indirectly. So this is where the nonprofit comes in. So yeah, so I ended up, so me and my wife, at the time, not my wife, she was getting back into training and teaching. I said, hey, I've been running the school for so long by myself.

It's a lot of work I don't want to do by myself anymore. And you know, would you want to help me? And she jumped at the chance. She didn't even like say, there was not even a thought. She's like, like, absolutely. So we started building the dojo, reinventing the brand of it. So we're in the process of that. But again, since I didn't really have any money in the coffers, it's kind of like a grassroots thing. Still there, we're getting somewhere. Because I just had the dojo, not to say it like this, but I had the dojo on life support.

You know, just so happy that it was running. I didn't want I didn't care about the growth part. Yeah, I didn't care about the growth part.

Jeremy (01:14:50.774)

It was scraping by, yeah. I think one of the big secrets, the big deep dark secrets in our world, in the martial arts industry is that so many schools are in that place, but people don't talk about it.

Paul Musolf (01:15:06.794)

Well, yeah, what is it the the statistics are 60 % or are underwater or almost there and 40 % are sort of making it and inside of that 40 %

Jeremy (01:15:14.934)

I would be surprised if 40 % are thriving. I really would. My guess is it's 70 to 80.

Paul Musolf (01:15:21.386)

Yeah. And then we can talk about, like, I would ask you, yeah, you think it's that? It probably is. And that goes into statistics. It can be skewed too. But that'd be a conversation that you could have with your audience about why that is and how that can change. Maybe that's something you can talk about later, because we're still on this. Because I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that. So as we're building this,

Jeremy (01:15:26.678)

I do.

Paul Musolf (01:15:49.738)

There was a, we had a student come in. She was a victim of a sexual assault when she was in college and she tried different martial arts to not feel powerless. And this was back when she was 20. She tried Muay Thai and she tried a couple other things. Loved Muay Thai but she didn't want to get, she didn't like the closeness so she mostly worked on the bag, did a couple things. I hope she doesn't mind me. She probably wouldn't mind me sharing the story.

So I'm not calling her out by name, so that is probably okay. So she stops all that. She felt, she was sleeping with a gun by her bedside, like that afraid. Afraid to go to the store, afraid, always looking over her shoulder. She started training here in 2022, if I'm not mistaken. Me and Sensei, Emily had already been running classes, got her groove back, right? To where we were feeling good working together. We could run a class, I'd run one, she'd run one.

I mean, when you have a good partner, you can bounce off ideas and stuff. So we were feeling good. She came in and she said she didn't really want to work with people as much, but she wanted to try it. So we started working with her. We said, we are trauma informed. At the time, we didn't even know that term. But we had worked from a standpoint of, we want you to have a safe place where you can grow because it's important. What do you need? What do you need out of it? And we were already doing the self -defense Saturday classes where it's not, you're no -gee, straight up street clothes.

and we deal with the things that happen, we take a martial art and we just strip it away from all of the traditional parts and we say, what works for you right now? And what would you need for like the worst 30 seconds of your life? What do you need? Right? What do you need to deescalate a situation? What do you need post? What do you need pre when your sympathetic parasympathetic nervous system kicks off and you start tunnel vision? How do you get that slowed down a little bit? How do you deal with the police afterwards?

How do you deal with all the legal ramifications from six months down the road because you defended yourself appropriately or inappropriately? How do we deal with all of that scary mess? And how can martial arts help that?

Paul Musolf (01:18:01.674)

Because that's not something, because we feel that's what you need, because that's what you're telling us that you need. So we started building a program, not necessarily around her, but any student that came in on Saturdays. And she said, she said, hey, you know, there's other people that can use your help. I know some people. So she got other people involved in the Saturday classes and it got really big. And it gets big, it gets small, it does, it waxes.

But it's become, Saturday class became a thing unto itself, where it was just self -defense. And it was just what, and we talked about proximity, we talked about de -escalation, we talked about low -level techniques or attacks or principles, right? And then we talked about what things can be simple, that what things can be direct and repeatable. Those are the things.

And Emily and I got to talking and the student got to talking and we started building a program around this thought. She said, and she said, you know, this is the first time in 20 years where I haven't slept with a loaded pistol on my nightstand. This is the first time in 20 years where I've walked to the grocery store or I drove into the grocery store, walked to my car, put my groceries away. And I know.

that I've scanned the area properly and I know I'm doing all the things right where I feel comfortable going by myself. And she is a prosecuting attorney that does sex crime, that prosecutes sex crimes. So for someone that sees violence and deals with violence on a daily basis after the fact and went through it herself, for her to say that to us was just mind blowing because we just thought we were helping a friend and student, right? And then it blew up into something completely crazy.

Jeremy (01:19:41.686)

Mm.

Paul Musolf (01:19:48.074)

So, Consummate Defenses, now we put in for the nonprofit, took us a year. We started, it actually got our official paperwork back in January. So now we are the first nonprofit of its kind that deals with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, no matter your background, and families of domestic violence and sexual assault, because we know that the best way to deal, to help the person is to help the...

Jeremy (01:20:12.086)

This is great.

Paul Musolf (01:20:17.482)

network around that person to build that up. So we're trying to give you the skills so that you can, not that you have to, would ever have to survive it again, but that you get your personal power back. Because when you go through something like that, we found out through the courts, you, one at one, everything you ever thought about being an adult or being a child is stripped away. Your personality gets stripped away if something like that happens. You are in a domestic violence situation,

You aren't even yourself, right? Because no one in their right mind would stay with someone that's hurting them, right? You would think. Our self -preservation instinct would kick in. That doesn't happen. It is a psychological issue. There are psychological things that we need to help with in combat, which with our nonprofit, we're trying to provide, have a therapist on our... Because we found out that people get triggered in our self -defense classes. So we have one on call.

So we've got that. I lost my train of thought, went off the tracks for a sec. But we're trying to build this up so that we can provide this for anyone that needs it. yeah, back to the courts. That's what I was getting at. So if you go to the courts and you're a victim of domestic violence or sexual assault, the court can provide you with money for housing if you need it, money for ways to get a different job.

Jeremy (01:21:45.718)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Musolf (01:21:45.994)

of ways to get a vehicle, even therapy, some therapy services, but they don't provide that other support system of feeling whole because that student that I'm telling you about the other students, they didn't have that. The martial art part didn't help because they didn't have it. Didn't even know it was a thing they could, that would help them. And I'm sick and tired of feeling like I'm going to be a victim or I'm worthless. Right.

And we know from our training that we can build that. That'll build us up mentally. Anybody that hasn't gone through that, we still get the feeling of, I feel stronger, I feel more confident. We build leaders anyway. So we just take that and then we turn it into a force for good that can help people that really, really need it and don't even know that we're here. So we're trying to get into the court system right now to be able to be an active participant in that.

so that we're one of the people that get called as, hey, you don't have to participate in this, but this is a service for you.

Jeremy (01:22:47.958)

Hmm.

Jeremy (01:22:52.47)

This is a wonderful thing that you're doing. I think it's great.

Paul Musolf (01:22:56.298)

And we, not to really quote that movie, Robots, but you know, C &E, Philanede. We're trying to do that, you know? Because if we're not gonna do it, who else is gonna do it? I got sick of being, not being the people that say they're gonna do stuff and not doing it, but I've always been like, if I'm gonna say I'm gonna do something, or I'm even gonna think about saying I'm doing it, I better do it. I can't talk about it, I gotta be about it. So what good am I if I'm not? I have to stand on my own for that.

Jeremy (01:23:03.99)

Yeah.

Paul Musolf (01:23:26.538)

And so my wife's like, yeah, we can do this. We can build this. I know we're running into 1030, aren't we? But she said, we can build this. This will be great. So we got all that stuff. And we're actually into a position now where I am, through the nonprofit, we've been going to local churches, doing Saturday classes after we do our Saturday class here. Doing mother, we've always done mother, daughter, self -defense classes twice a year. We did them.

Jeremy (01:23:31.35)

It's all good.

Paul Musolf (01:23:53.77)

four weeks in a row, my teacher instigated that in the 90s. And we have a red man suit, we got all that stuff. And his was, we can't make you black belts in four classes, but we can get you the conversation started. Seminars get a bad rap and self -defense classes like that get a bad rap, because it's going to give you a false sense of security. Yeah, if you go to one. Yeah, if you go to two.

Jeremy (01:23:57.846)

Mm.

Jeremy (01:24:06.422)

Mm -hmm.

Jeremy (01:24:15.414)

Actually, I don't believe in that misnomer. We did a whole episode. If someone is more confident, then the psychology shows they're less likely to be a victim.

Paul Musolf (01:24:24.65)

Yeah, yeah, okay, so one of the things we talk about psychologically you carry yourself We whether you know how I said non -verbally you can meet you can know somebody better on the floor than we can have a conversation Plus our conversation is 85 % non -verbal anyway that you have with people so but that's beside the point so we use that that actually there's a psychology study done over in the UK where they Filmed women walking down a hallway some were victims of sexual assault some were not are you familiar with that?

Jeremy (01:24:32.566)

Yeah.

Jeremy (01:24:53.494)

I think I know where you're going. I know a similar one. Keep going.

Paul Musolf (01:24:57.034)

So they had predators watch these videos. They never saw a face. It was all just 10 or 15 seconds, maybe 30 seconds of this, people walking down the hallway away from them. They could tell within five seconds which ones were victims of sexual assault or which ones were easily gonna be preyed upon. They could tell which ones would be an easy meal, which ones would be a hard meal, and that's what a predator wants.

Jeremy (01:25:18.87)

And they agreed and the criminals agreed. Yep. Yep.

Paul Musolf (01:25:26.026)

A lion doesn't want to attack the young, strong bulls or the strong kudu. They want the weak, the sick, the elderly, because they want to eat again tomorrow. They want to eat again the next day. So you got to think about why, why are they, why did they pick me? That's what, you know, and that's not a victim blaming thing, but that's what they asked. Why did they pick me? Whether or not that's true or not, but they saw something in you that they thought they could get away with. Right? They're just a bad, they're in, in ultimately in all things being considered, it's nothing to do with you. It's just.

That person was there and they're a bad person and they're evil. That's it. Okay. But what we can do as a human, if we want to be less of a victim, is set ourselves up for success. How we carry ourselves. Did you notice, like in school, were you a people watcher in school?

Yeah, I was too. I didn't know this at the time, but I was a big dork in school. I'll admit that. I was not a sports guy. I liked art and I did photography and I liked history, right? And comic books and stuff. But I would watch people walk down the hallway. I would cruise through the hallway, like just try to get around people. Like kind of like the way I shop. I just move and get out of the way. But I would see some people were very confident. They had their health just up their

Jeremy (01:26:27.574)

Yeah.

Paul Musolf (01:26:48.778)

head held high and they were walking through and you could equate that to some people that were really good. Either they were extroverts or they were like captain of the football team, that kind of thing. They were used to the attention for one and they were used to portraying that. But whether they knew it or not, they were consciously or subconsciously portraying someone that isn't a victim. Because we know that people that don't want to be victims, my head's on a swivel, I'm looking up, I look like I'm not an easy meal. Right? I look like I can't be taken,

Jeremy (01:27:14.838)

Hmm.

Paul Musolf (01:27:18.73)

off -balance or taken by surprise very easily, you'd have to get me to let my guard down, but there's our tactics that they use. But then there's other people where their shoulders are slumped forward, they're staring at their feet while they're walking. I know you by your shoes kind of guy. We do the same thing when we're walking when we look at our phone too much. So you are subconsciously showing the world that you're a victim just by looking at that you're,

portraying that physical embodiment of that. So we try to tell people not to stare at your phone for a good reason, but that's one of the main reasons. I think that's a pretty good analogy for that. So anyway, why am I getting off that? Just the more confident you are, the more you hold yourself like you're confident, right? And so when you think, okay, do self -defense classes teach that? Hmm, some do, some don't.

Jeremy (01:27:56.79)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Musolf (01:28:18.378)

Right. So what we wanted to do is why we wanted to set ourselves apart with Katsuhi Defense was we saw that these other self -defense programs, when people got away from them and they ended up leaving, they were like, well, I still have questions or I still have things that didn't get addressed for me. So we thought we would try to help add that, you know, and we've talked to other people, like because we talk with law enforcement on a regular basis and we talk with lawyers.

Jeremy (01:28:35.638)

Hmm.

Paul Musolf (01:28:46.793)

We try to get the legal aspects of it and we try to do study case studies and see where things went wrong for the victim and how in the future you can learn lessons from those situations. And some of it is just how you portray yourself in life. Some of it is, you know, don't go anywhere without a buddy, things like that. But we saw there was deficits. We saw there was deficits in some. Because I don't know if you've run into some of these schools.

Jeremy (01:28:49.142)

Mm.

Paul Musolf (01:29:16.298)

But they'll say I can do self defense because I'm a black belt. Have you heard that? I can teach self defense.

Jeremy (01:29:21.878)

There is an overlap between martial arts and self -defense, but they are not synonymous.

Paul Musolf (01:29:27.589)

Gosh my wife says something awesome and I'm probably gonna ruin it. She said Martial arts and self -defense are not mutually exclusive or not mutually something. She's so much better. I wish she was here. She's working She's more eloquent than me But yes, so yeah when you have a good partner, we know like if I don't know I don't know half the stuff and she knows the other half But

Jeremy (01:29:44.822)

It's a good thing she does the marketing.

Jeremy (01:29:53.174)

So if people want to learn more about, let's do it all now. Let's do all the links, the websites and the social media. Let's put that out to everybody.

Paul Musolf (01:30:02.442)

Okay, so the dojo itself is heonkarate .net for the dojo. Kitsune, I'm gonna have to make sure I get this right, kitsunedefense .org is K -I -T -S -U -N -A, or N -E, excuse me, at gmail .com, kitsunedefense .gmail .com. That's a, kitsune is the, if you're not familiar with it, it's the nine tail fox from Japanese mythology, and they wear it.

Jeremy (01:30:15.094)

spell kitsune for people.

Jeremy (01:30:28.918)

okay.

Paul Musolf (01:30:31.466)

It's portrayed as a mask in like Kabuki theater and things of that nature. So my wife said, like unmask your personal power. Once you are, once it's taken away from you, you wear a mask throughout your life because you're not the person you used to be. So we get to unmask that and bring it back to yourself. Anyway, there's a little plug for that. So yeah, we've Katsue Defense. It's the INKKS .edu. I don't have that on my favorite. Could be org.

Jeremy (01:30:49.142)

Nice. And INKK asks,

Jeremy (01:30:57.814)

Pretty sure it's org.

INKKS .org.

Paul Musolf (01:31:01.386)

Yeah, that one. Yeah, I'm one of the founders of it, but I'm just terrible at the paperwork stuff. Yeah, they're all they're really great at there's so many fantastic resources built up into that INKKS. I'll be doing a seminar July 27 for the KAKIA and that's 20 bucks for most people. Anybody that's in it, it's free.

Jeremy (01:31:10.71)

Yeah, we'll get all that stuff linked up in the show notes for you.

Jeremy (01:31:24.054)

Nice.

Paul Musolf (01:31:30.43)

The dojo itself, we got that, we got the nonprofit. Is there anything I'm missing?

Jeremy (01:31:34.166)

Social media for any for any of these things

Paul Musolf (01:31:35.946)

I have, it's just at Katsune Defense and I assume that's Instagram. But again, my wife does.

Jeremy (01:31:44.95)

Okay, tell you what, if you want, because I know you put a few things in the form, like come up with a full list on all this stuff, ship it over to us, and we'll make sure we get it plugged in.

Paul Musolf (01:31:55.178)

week. I'll totally do that. Like I said, it's not that I'm defunct with that. It's just, it's not my area.

Jeremy (01:31:59.478)

No, it's just, it's not what, look, you could ask me for a list of all our websites and social media, and I guarantee I would miss a few things as well. So no worries, no shade being thrown here, my friend. In a minute, I am gonna throw it back to you to close us up. This has been an awesome chat. But before we do, no, no, I never show up to these wanting to ask anything. I just show up and see where the guest wants to go.

Paul Musolf (01:32:11.37)

right on.

Paul Musolf (01:32:15.578)

cool. Well before we do that, is there anything that you wanted to ask that you didn't?

Jeremy (01:32:27.478)

And you made my job easy. I mean, the audience would probably tell I didn't I didn't say as much as I usually do because you just kind of went and I just hung on for the ride. It's a good time. It's a good time.

Paul Musolf (01:32:32.33)

I just did a bunch of word salad talking. Yeah, that's usually what happens. My ADHD kicked in.

Jeremy (01:32:39.99)

You are not alone. But to the audience, I hope you do check out all the stuff that Paul's got going on. And I hope we sparked some thought in this episode. We talked about a number of things that are, I think they're big subjects for contemplation. And hopefully all of you out there take at least one of them and sit with it and really think about your training and how it relates to.

Paul Musolf (01:32:42.442)

thanks.

Jeremy (01:33:09.43)

I'm not even gonna tell you which ones you should be thinking about. And don't forget whistlekickmortar .com radio .com as well as whistlekick .com for all the stuff that we've got going on. But Paul, how do you wanna close this up? I mean, you've talked about a ton of different great things today, but.

Paul Musolf (01:33:26.346)

Well, thank you everybody that stayed this long. If you listen to the end, you get a bonus. If you sign up for the cockade thing, you can do it for free. By the way, though, thank you very much. Thank you. And if you want to participate in that, all you need is a broomstick and a punching bag. Just show up, because it'd be cool to see you there. But thank you for having me and allowing me to just talk with you and not necessarily at you.

Jeremy (01:33:43.414)

Nice.

Paul Musolf (01:33:55.594)

And if we did spark some questions, it's wonderful. At least just some thought, because that's what I really want to do is I want to make sure my job is just to share what I love with other people and they can take with it and do it what they want. Right. And just because that's been my motivating factor. I just want to be able to share what I love. If a guy like me can do it. So I'll tell you more. There's a synopsis about like my physical things. So I can't see out of the side.

Jeremy (01:34:25.654)

Paul Musolf (01:34:26.41)

Right? Yeah, and I was born two months premature and a heavy smoker and all this stuff and the last guy you'd think would be doing martial arts. So if a guy like me can do it and be halfway decent at it, you know, I hope the whole world tries it because everybody should. And I'll just leave it with that.