Episode 965 - Should Schools Have a Student Creed

In this episode, Andrew is joined by Craig Wharem and Nick Taber as they discuss student creeds, and whether schools should have them or not.

Should Schools Have a Student Creed - Episode 965

SUMMARY

In this conversation, the hosts discuss the significance of having a student creed in martial arts schools. They explore personal experiences with creeds, their impact on character development, and the importance of authenticity in creating a creed that reflects the values of the school and its community. The discussion highlights how creeds can serve as guiding principles for students, fostering a sense of unity and personal growth. In this conversation, the speakers discuss the significance of integrity in learning, the role of teachers in shaping students' lives, and the importance of having a creed in schools. They explore how creeds can foster a supportive culture and promote personal growth among students. The discussion emphasizes the universal struggles students face and how these experiences can be used to build character and resilience.

TAKEAWAYS

• Having a student creed can significantly impact a martial arts school.

• Creeds should be authentic and reflect the values of the school.

• Memorizing a creed can foster a sense of community among students.

• Creeds can help students navigate personal challenges and growth.

• It's important to teach the meaning behind the creed, not just the words.

• The process of creating a creed can be a personal journey for instructors.

• Utilizing creeds in teaching can enhance student engagement.

• Creeds can help shape the culture and philosophy of a martial arts school.

• The culture of a school can be shaped by its creed.

• The struggle to memorize a creed can unify students of different abilities.

• Creeds can help students navigate life's challenges beyond martial arts.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction
03:00 The Importance of a Student Creed in Martial Arts
05:53 Exploring Personal Experiences with Student Creeds
09:03 The Role of Creeds in Shaping Character
11:57 Authenticity and Uniqueness of Creeds
15:10 Practical Applications of Student Creeds
18:10 Sharing Personal Creeds and Their Impact
21:31 The Importance of Integrity in Learning
24:50 The Role of a Teacher in Shaping Lives
27:31 Creeds: A Foundation for Schools
30:30 The Universal Struggle in Learning
33:14 Personal Growth Through Creeds
38:55 Creating a Culture of Support in Schools

After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it.

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Show Transcript

Andrew Adams (04:26.683)

What's going everybody? Let me try that again. What's going on everybody? You are listening or watching to an episode of whistle kick martial arts radio And I may have broken our two guests already with that that little that that just a little thing But you wouldn't know that if you're only listening you should be watching this on YouTube where we put all of our episodes anyway You're listening to me. My name is Andrew Adams I am the producer of the show in an often co-host but today on the main host which I'm excited about

We are not joined by Jeremy this week. We are joined by two others who I'll introduce in a moment. And if you're watching, you know who they are. Although let's face it, even if you're listening to it, you probably read the description, so you probably know who they are. But I'm going to keep you in suspense while I tell you a little bit about Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio and what we do. Our philosophy here and our mission statement here is to connect, educate, and entertain traditional martial artists of the world.

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Andrew Adams (06:52.777)

How about buying us a coffee once a month? That's what you should do. All right, so without further ado, we are joined today by Mr. Craig Wareham. How are you, Craig?

Craig Wharem (07:05.694)

I'm great, man. I'd love a cup of coffee. Yeah, no, I'm great.

Andrew Adams (07:09.271)

Yeah, that'd be nice, right? You know what mean? People spend five bucks on a cup of coffee. They can't buy us a cup of coffee. Come on, buy the show a cup of coffee. That'd be nice. That's right. Well, I'll share it. Craig, you and I and our third guest, Mr. Nick Taber is here with us. How are you, Nick?

Craig Wharem (07:16.864)

And we'll all share it.

You

Nick (07:26.072)

I am utterly fantastic and I think we're all sharing it. Can we at least all go on straws?

Craig Wharem (07:31.52)

Hahaha!

Andrew Adams (07:31.833)

That's That's fair. It's great to have you guys both here with us, with me today. But Nick and I, both share a haircut. Craig, when are you jumping on that bandwagon, buddy?

Nick (07:33.152)

Yeah.

Craig Wharem (07:33.984)

Hahaha

Craig Wharem (07:45.78)

Never. I have a reputation. If you look at most of the Whistlekick core team, there's a lot of baldness going on. I have to represent a little bit with the longer hair.

Nick (07:57.292)

You don't want to shine?

Craig Wharem (07:58.814)

No, no chance. That's what the forehead's

Nick (08:00.598)

No chits, man. Yeah, that's what you're head's for, man. Hell. I the back of my head for that,

Andrew Adams (08:05.027)

Hahaha!

So we are here today to discuss an interesting topic that I don't have a ton of knowledge about, but Nick, you wrote an article about it in Marshall Journal, which for those that may not know, marshalljournal.com is an online magazine chock-a-block full of amazing articles written by martial artists just like yourself. In fact,

Craig Wharem (08:10.592)

You

Nick (08:21.322)

Thank you.

Andrew Adams (08:36.661)

If you wanted to be a writer for Marshall Journal, you can contact them at marshalljournal.com and be an author yourself and write some articles. But I digress. Your article was titled, Why Does a Martial Arts School Need a Student Creed? And so I thought it would be cool to have you on to talk about student creeds because you're clearly passionate about it. And

Nick (08:52.898)

That's right.

Andrew Adams (09:03.7)

I will be completely open and honest. No martial arts school I have been associated with has had one. So I'm excited to hear your thoughts and Craig and I might bounce some questions off of you. why don't you, why don't we start Nick by just saying what made you decide to write an article like this?

Nick (09:24.792)

Well, the first thing that really came to my mind when I did it and the chief and editor asked me, said, you know, do you have any ideas on what you wanted to do? And I said, yeah, I got a couple. And he said, well, just talk about what you're passionate about. And as you said, you know, that is something here. But when I looked at it, I came, I had a couple of martial arts schools growing up and one of them.

had a student creed that was about, you know, it was the same as a lot of other ITF, Taekwondo schools, almost all the same, same thing. And you look at it and we go to tournaments and you go, okay. And where I was, you know, lineage from is Giffords Academy of Martial Arts. His student creed was very simple, but it borrowed in and it really affected the personality and

When I, his personality and when I was reading about it, I said, okay, having a certain way to be able to conduct ourselves and as a student, you know, as we all are perpetual students of martial arts, regardless of our rank or where we are in the school, we have to find something to hang our hat on, so to speak. And I said, okay, well, how did I create my student creed?

And I walked backwards and I went, you know what? There's a lot of good crates here. And ultimately when I thought of it, I'm as I was in the last episode I did with whistle kick, you know, I'm in the process and still growing my own. And I want this one to be like when my kids are in their forties and say, know, whether they come in and only have me for a month or whether they're with me for as long, however long I teach.

I want that to, I want to affect them as a person and I don't want to just, know, okay, I taught them a few moves and they, they, they can handle themselves on the street and they walk away. And I said, how do I do that? I do that on the mental side and I work on that and I do that for ourselves. And ourselves. So like, okay. And like, now then I got all revved up and I sat at my computer and I spent an awful long time typing it out. And I looked at it. went, Whoa.

Andrew Adams (11:28.943)

Mm.

Nick (11:48.02)

Okay, am I, hey, this is pretty good. Who wrote this? yeah, I did. And that's how it came to be.

Andrew Adams (11:51.699)

Hahaha

Andrew Adams (11:57.839)

All right, interesting. whether or not your school, and I don't mean yours, Nick, I'm talking to the audience, whether or not your school has a student creed or not, you probably have an idea what a creed is, right? It's thoughts and philosophies on how people should conduct themselves. I know that you mentioned, Nick, in your article, some common ones like West Point has its own creed. I mean, actually, I suspect most all

Nick (12:24.983)

Yes.

Andrew Adams (12:27.999)

military schools have their own creed and things like that. you know, as an audience, like we can we can understand what that is in general. Craig, I'm interested. Do you have any have you do you have one in your school or have you been in one that does?

Craig Wharem (12:43.324)

Yeah, yeah. So we have one at my school and we've had, it's the same one we've had since I was a kid, right? So the school that I run and manage is the one that I grew up in. So it's the same one. And I have found the emphasis on it is important, right? If you're gonna have it, you've gotta have it and utilize it. But that implementation can be hard to do, right? Like that's at the end of the day.

If I, you if I'm being honest, I probably don't, don't recite it or drill it as much as I probably should, but we do have one and it's the same one. And I think that it's a good thing because it's a unifying struggle for us to memorize. Right. You know, we moved away from it a little bit long time ago before I was really teaching, but you needed to memorize the student creed before you were allowed to wear the school patch.

Andrew Adams (13:29.294)

Hmm.

Craig Wharem (13:41.736)

So you needed to recognize the creed and what we were doing and why we were doing it before you were allowed to represent the school. Obviously that becomes a struggle when kids have trouble memorizing things or things like that. There's a certain amount of you need to discipline and study, but there's also amount of, sometimes memory is hard. And now you've got people in your classes who aren't wearing patches, now you don't look all uniform, now it starts to look a little, so that kind of went out.

Andrew Adams (13:41.952)

interesting.

Andrew Adams (14:07.887)

Hmm.

Nick (14:09.27)

Right.

Craig Wharem (14:10.546)

went out the window, but the idea of the creed I think is important. think my initial thought, because I only heard about this topic about what five, 10 minutes ago. So I was forming the thought and the first thing that popped in my head was if you're going to have one, you need to make it authentically yours. am not, I am not a fan of having a creed that every other school has just for the sake of having one.

Nick (14:32.034)

Yes.

Craig Wharem (14:41.202)

Right? so the one that the one that we have at my school, it talks about why we do what we do and what we should not do. And then it has a cadence to it when you present it. And the flip note of that would be that I don't know any other school that has the same one. So my school, Karate International, there's Karate International is all over the country, right? Like, but we're not all the same, but

Andrew Adams (14:41.207)

Interesting point.

Craig Wharem (15:10.514)

I don't know another school that has a creed similar to ours, even the ones we're friendly with and kind of close to that I would consider a sister school has a different creed than we do. So it's got to be authentic to the instructor, the environment, and the culture you're facilitating, I think. Otherwise, it can be detrimental because you're saying one thing and doing another.

Andrew Adams (15:31.471)

Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. So here's an interesting question then for you, Craig. If the creed that your school has is the same as when you were a kid, when you didn't run the school, now that you're running the school, did you alter it in any way to reflect how you were teaching?

Craig Wharem (15:53.036)

No, because I found the creed and memorizing the creed. It didn't take me very long. That's not because I'm great at memorizing things. It's because it resonated so strongly with me. I never felt the need to change it. You know, it starts off with to build strength, and courage within ourselves and one another. You know, like it's something where it's instantly about the community. I haven't felt the need to change it. I do.

Andrew Adams (16:06.403)

interesting.

Craig Wharem (16:23.038)

change the way that it's been taught, meaning we'll break it down. You only have to memorize it one line at a time. And so we'll spend a month on just that piece and we'll talk about what it means to have strength, honor, and courage within yourself, but also how to help foster it in other people. And I think that that's important because it gives kids a sense of pride. Well, not just kids, but obviously a majority of martial arts schools, or majority kids, but...

It gives you a sense of pride in what you're doing. And I think you'll find that if you have one from the get-go, it does really help shape and mold your philosophies and beliefs a little bit. If it is an authentic one, if it's not something you found online and you just go, that hits all the hot words that I need to hit. Right? Like this is, this is what I genuinely believe in. We always talk.

in teaching and education and in growing up, right, you're a product of your environment. So you do learn these lessons and these lessons help mold and shape you. And the creed did that for me. And I think it's really important to kind of, I think it's easy to overlook because I overlook it even though now as I'm talking it through, I'm realizing how much it matters to me. But, you know, I think it's important to keep it in perspective.

Andrew Adams (17:47.757)

Yeah, that's an interesting point. And the other thing that I found interesting about what you said is that it's unifying in its, for lack, I'm paraphrasing, but you know, that it's not an easy thing to learn. It's not like three words and you have it, right? It takes some time to get it and memorize it. And that's something that everyone in your school will struggle with. It's kind of like a form, you know, that yes, you're the teacher and you can teach the form, but there are other students that might be able to help others learn it and

Nick (18:10.999)

Yes.

Andrew Adams (18:17.677)

just like they might with a form. And so I dig that. So Nick, I'm not going to ask either of you to repeat your creeds unless you want to. It's yours and it's unique to you and for you and your students. But Nick, is yours also one that is lengthy to a degree that makes it, you're not going to memorize it in a day or whatever.

Nick (18:40.736)

Yes, it is. There is a length to it. It's actually I can read mine. It's four. It's four lines. Yeah.

Andrew Adams (18:47.723)

If you want to, I'm not, if you want to, it is yours for you and your students. If you don't wish to share it, I'm not going to ask that you do. Okay, go ahead.

Nick (18:53.708)

No, I don't mind sharing it. I don't mind sharing it. But it's the the point of it and just to bounce off Craig here is really to be the pillar. Like this is what you would do in this. You could filter all the lessons you're trying to teach through the creed and through this to be able to do that. So

I based mine and I won't go unless the conversation allows it. I won't go into like how I got it. But I spent a long time trying to build it up. But as I I built it off of the seven tenants of my art, Chaucer and Doe, which is courtesy, self control, indomitable spirit, perseverance, integrity, honesty and humor.

and I have this here. will have courtesy to myself and others as I maintain control of myself in all situations. I will maintain high spirits in life, always looking through tough challenges. I will always do the right thing even when no one is looking while speaking truthfully while acting as my true self. I will find joy and work on seeing the good in my life when I can.

And with that, like to give you an example, like right now I have a couple of kids and I primarily over the last few years have had teenagers and kids will come up to me and I'm sure you both have this as well. They'll want to talk about a problem they necessarily couldn't talk about with their parents. And then you can utilize that, whether it's something like the classic school bully or, trying to

deal with the situation and you know they're just beating themselves up. Like I had one last night with a student who was just really super low energy and he was just dragging it in. I said well where's the courtesy of yourself dude? You know what what are you doing and you you brought yourself here that you're you can't control that problem right now but you can control everything in the dojo right now.

Nick (21:06.594)

yeah, you're right. You know, and then it was a way for me to utilize that and bounce it off the pillar and refocus him. You know, it's something like, okay. And then you're right. they, both of them that were there last night haven't memorized it yet. you know, I keep it up and we were excited to talk about what that means. You know, why am I having you do like.

why, and even it's an ability to also reinforce some things like practicing a Cata at home. Why would you want to do that? Well, you're not, you're not there. And this happened with one student once. Well, you're not there to see how I'm doing. said, yeah, but you should still be doing it. Even if I'm not around, you know, like, you're not going to tell your teacher you didn't do your homework because you weren't at school. Right. So there's a

Andrew Adams (21:51.149)

Hmm.

Nick (21:59.096)

okay. yeah. Integrity. Right, right, right, right. Okay. And then like little bits kick in and over time, like my goal is for them not to memorize it over time, but to have the bits that do. And this is also for myself, for them to go, okay, because in time, like generally as a teacher, you know, and I've been a teacher for

Andrew Adams (22:14.084)

Hmm.

Nick (22:27.838)

I can't even quantify how long it's been, but over time and you guys probably remember like there was a school teacher that probably did amazing and you probably remember that person's name or not, but what they taught you is so ingrained inside you that you just live it anyway. And whether they go on and that's the, that's the whole point of the creator. they going to remember like if you're in the military,

Andrew Adams (22:30.082)

you

Nick (22:55.06)

Are you necessarily going to remember West Point's duty on our country? Hopefully, but are you still, is that lifestyle and living up to that code while you're in training and while you're doing that going to affect you down the road for the rest of your life? Most likely. Most likely. Yeah. Most likely. I mean, that's the biggest thing because if you have, and get bringing off what Craig was saying, an authentic

Andrew Adams (23:12.781)

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Nick (23:24.372)

student create and being in schools where one wasn't and then one was I can honestly tell you what bled in in reality and I talk about it in the article a little bit what bled in is from the one where since the Giffords sat down and said what the heck are we gonna do and you know it's just it's just five words courtesy self-control indomitable spirit perseverance integrity

That that's it. And what does that mean? You know, and most people who I'm still in contact with over all these years wouldn't remember it like I did because I added to. You know, but they have a they could definitely say like, yeah, little, know, a little bit of Giffords Academy is always inside us. That's that's probably because of falling on the floor, scraping our knees too much, something is that dojo is probably inside us literally.

Andrew Adams (24:04.068)

Mm-hmm.

Andrew Adams (24:14.787)

Yeah.

Andrew Adams (24:23.446)

Hahaha

Nick (24:24.994)

But the reality is that that's the goal of a teacher because eventually you will be forgotten but it's not about remembering my name. It's about remembering what I taught you. That's the reality but that's why a creed has to be in every school in order for to really have that vehicle.

Andrew Adams (24:36.921)

Mm-hmm.

Andrew Adams (24:42.457)

Gotcha.

Yeah, so in your opinion, you feel every school should have a creed. Interesting. All right. Craig, do you feel that strongly as well?

Nick (24:50.248)

I absolutely do.

Craig Wharem (24:57.424)

Only with the qualifying factor, if you have to know exactly what it is your goal is. I, because I feel like there is the idea of you have to have a creed and you don't know what it is you want to say. You can't sit down and write the creed. You don't know what it is you're ready to impart. and, and some instructors, they're uncomfortable with the idea of being more than, you know, the, I'm teaching you this form. I'm teaching you this technique. I'm teaching you.

Andrew Adams (25:02.445)

Mm.

Craig Wharem (25:26.122)

They're uncomfortable with the idea of the mental or the emotional side of what it is we do. And I think that if they are not prepared yet, whether they own a school or they run a class, then you have to be careful because you have to be able to uniquely identify what it is you want them to leave with. I agree with what Nick said. Most students are going to leave us not necessarily needing the fighting skills, though they may have them.

They, they, it's the other things that are important. And I've said that and I don't, this is probably like my 700th episode of martial arts radio or something. So I feel like I've said that a lot over the time, but I think that it's important, right? So our creed is to build strength, honor, and courage within ourselves and one another to promote a strong and peaceful community through friendship, cooperation, and leadership. Never misuse our knowledge or fight to achieve selfish ends, but to develop.

might for right. That's the whole creed. And I think as I say it, I feel as though most of that falls in line with who I am and what I embody anyway. And I think that to Nick's point, it was taught to me. Like that mindset and that shift was taught to me. I also think it's important to have this understanding that Nick's is...

creed to my ear sounds like a personal mission, right? I am going to do this, I am going to do that. And what struck me was my, my creed for our school, it's I or it's an hour or we, or it's so you can also as and I'm just kind of giving this as a thought a brainstorm for instructors who if they don't know what they want the student individually to do, they can also talk about what the culture of their school and training at their school will do.

Andrew Adams (27:07.791)

Mmm.

Craig Wharem (27:21.49)

And that's the, I don't think one way or the other is better. I think that it depends on your comfort level, your ability and what you're looking for out of your creed.

Andrew Adams (27:21.859)

Mm-hmm.

Nick (27:31.81)

Totally agree with you, Craig.

Andrew Adams (27:33.485)

Yeah, yeah, I dig that. That's an interesting way to think about that. You certainly can have a creed that would be singular, that is about me or the student, and then one that is more general for the school, which obviously embodies the students as well. But, you know, definitely two different ways of thinking of the same thing, right? So.

As I mentioned at the top of the episode, I've never been in a school that had one. That doesn't mean we didn't practice and the instructors didn't teach the things like what you were talking about, perseverance and double the spirit, all of those things. It was just done in a different way. I'm not going to say worse way or better way. just in a different way. And it usually had to do with Matt Chats.

or at testing there would always be a quote unquote lecture part of the test and he would talk about some of those you know instructors would talk about some of those things but it's definitely different because what if students aren't there at that class as opposed to a creed that every student has to learn you don't have to worry about anyone being overlooked like everybody's gonna get it because they have to it's part of the curriculum

Now, Craig, you said something earlier on that I found really interesting, which you have since gone back on, but it was in terms of you weren't allowed to wear the patch until you could recite the creed. So there was a little bit of a barrier to entry in order to get that patch. And you know, you've since gone back on that, which I understand why. But is it still part of your curriculum? Are you allowed to like, is it required on any of your testing or things like that?

Craig Wharem (29:16.117)

Mm-hmm.

Craig Wharem (29:29.34)

It's no longer required on testing, but it is expected you learn. I'm a big fan of in curriculum, is a whole separate episode, right? I think that you can have an expectation of a student. It doesn't need to be codified in a curriculum like it was when I was a kid. So for me, the flip note was you needed the student creed to test or you need the student creed to get the patch. You weren't allowed to test for your orange belt without a school pass.

So you could go from white to yellow, but you couldn't go any higher until you had the patch. So there was even more of a barrier. to the point where back then, I mean, obviously I wasn't teaching, but there were a lot of students in the school. were at the time close to 300 students. I didn't see anyone without a patch after. I didn't see anyone get to Yellow Belt without the patch because it was something you, like you just wanted that patch.

Andrew Adams (29:59.957)

Okay, there, so, yeah.

Craig Wharem (30:30.782)

You know, and the instructors would help you with it. The senior students would help you with it. I remember guiding kids through it when I was a kid, right? Like I remember that kind of camaraderie of let's help you get there. Because like I said before, and I'm a big fan of this too, that universal struggle, right? That idea that maybe somebody's a star athlete and doing all this physical stuff is easy for them.

Well, but what happens to the kid who can read a book and memorize all the facts? That's soon Creed parts probably easier to them. And so there's a universal struggle, but it's, it tailors to the person. The athlete may have a hard time with the Creed, whereas the, you know, the, person with great memory has a harder time with the form. So you get to kind of encompass all, cause I think the struggle of memorizing it was part of doing it.

Andrew Adams (31:09.551)

Mm-hmm.

Andrew Adams (31:24.429)

Yep. Yep. Now, Nick, what about you? Is it a requirement at all for your testing or anything of that nature?

Nick (31:32.024)

I do like what Craig was saying though. I think it's really interesting because having a barrier, almost seemed like it created the culture in a way, if I'm not wrong, because when you have that star athlete and then you have that yellow belt that might be the book smart person who got it.

and then is reaching back and helping that white belt out to be able to memorize it so they could get their patch. It seems like it was a tool to unify everything. Am I wrong on that?

Craig Wharem (32:15.578)

No, I don't think so. I don't know, because I wasn't the one who made the decision, that that was the intended consequence. It may have been a natural consequence, but I think it was a good one. And so I think that I love that idea of the universal struggle somewhere along the way and making a barrier.

Nick (32:17.121)

Yeah.

Nick (32:21.74)

Hmm. Yeah.

Nick (32:27.233)

Yeah.

Nick (32:31.416)

Yeah. Yeah.

Nick (32:41.88)

Right, Yeah.

Craig Wharem (32:43.612)

So, but I don't know that that was the initial intention.

Nick (32:47.148)

Yeah. And I agree with what you're saying with the universal struggle, because when I created this creed, it was at first, it was for me, just for me to wake up in the morning and do this and say, okay, I'll memorize this as much as something like the, you know, the four agreements, you know, by Miguel Ruiz or reading something like that. said, okay, what could I do for me? That would make me the best person.

Craig Wharem (32:56.352)

Mm-hmm.

Andrew Adams (32:56.783)

Hmm.

Andrew Adams (33:14.83)

Mmm.

Nick (33:14.992)

And it's something that I stress with my students that this is also not something we can master either. You know, where the last line, I will find joy in my life. It'll find joy. And if you're going through a very tough situation, you know, where like I was a few years ago, it's

The wording itself is, know, like, I'm not, you know, somebody would say, I'm not doing well because I'm not finding joy. will find joy and keep my spirits high in life through tough challenges, but it's a constant work in progress. You know, if you just had a death in the family, for example, yeah, it's going to be super hard to find joy, but then we can come together and help you out with that.

Andrew Adams (34:05.869)

Hmm. Okay.

Nick (34:06.274)

You know, and we can help you out and we can work with that and say, okay, because to me, it's like mastering the student creed in my mind would be like somebody earning a 10th degree black belt in Taekwondo. Where that, you know, that is just, that's not a, that's not a thing that's achievable because that's equivalency. Kelly Thomas would say that's an equivalency of perfection and nobody's, you know, we still have consistency to learn.

Andrew Adams (34:30.383)

Mmm.

Nick (34:34.676)

And, as much as I tell my students, I can learn something from you eventually. And I want these kids to be better than I am at something, so to speak, you know, not put me on a pedestal because I have the title of sensei in the class. You know, I want, I want it to be something that even I'm working on, you know, where it's like, we all have those days when you walk away and go, dang it, I was an idiot there.

Andrew Adams (34:51.321)

Got it. Yep.

Andrew Adams (35:03.407)

You

Nick (35:03.478)

Or could have done way better. But then you go back and go, all right, I got to have some courtesy to myself. You know what? That's a learning experience. I can do better when I come across that situation next time. And always.

Andrew Adams (35:13.165)

Mm, sure.

Andrew Adams (35:17.463)

Yeah. Now, Nick, you mentioned that yours was something you came up with kind of for yourself. Did you adapt it at all when you brought it into your school for everyone?

Nick (35:29.976)

No, because it's ultimately with the goal being that they wouldn't memorize it, they would ultimately live the life. think when you have, eventually I think the goal of anybody is if you have someone who sticks around long enough and they open up their own school, or maybe they have kids and they do, or whatever they do is that they extend it on to other people.

Andrew Adams (35:56.867)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nick (35:57.228)

And you know, they're going to do like, this is the rubric and this is the pillar. However, you're going to create your own eventually, you know, off of, off of something with that. Like I took, I took this from Giffords Academy and I expanded it to my own. But somebody else is going to be able to do that and say, okay, let's do something else. But this is for me, this is what I do. And then they could take it and go, you know what?

I really need to work on my self control because you have somebody, I have a kid who just came in to me who he has a problem with being very disrespectful to teachers. And you know, he he's not mouthing off. He's not doing that. He's only been in a few lessons right now and he just, he needs to know where the line is.

And, know, I said, okay, this is where it is. But ultimately what happened is he's trying to find out why am I doing this? You know, and we all have that where you go in school and what's the point of doing these math problems? What's the point of doing this? And then, but you could take that and say, okay, what's the right thing to do? The right thing is to say, you know, what did I just try to find, you know, ask your teacher, why do you want to do like, you know, this, you know,

Andrew Adams (37:08.108)

Mm-hmm.

Nick (37:17.26)

because I said so might not be the answer. Hey, that's not working. What can I do? to be an overall better human and really get just borrowing a line from Steven Watson to really find that lesson behind the sidekick and really just go beyond that and say, I could maybe, and you guys probably see this like,

90 % of kids will probably never get into a fight. A physical fight, possibly. Maybe a little less, maybe more or something. But are they gonna be able to handle themselves when, let's say they have a bad boss or whether they have like, they almost get into a car accident, okay? Like how can they shift or they blow out a tire and they don't lose it on the road, you know?

next to something or when something, when something, mental comes about, you know, we're like, I'm really super depressed today. Can I take those? Can they take those elements that came from the creed and then, know, but, you know, they came from the creed, but also came in lessons and talking about stuff. And you'll learn that when you're learning how to do rolls and flips and wrist locks and stuff. But then they went out, they went beyond that, like one step beyond and went, Hmm, you know,

Andrew Adams (38:26.201)

Mm-hmm.

Nick (38:41.73)

That's how I built it from there. Yeah.

Andrew Adams (38:44.057)

Cool, cool. I dig it. So lot of interesting things to think about. Craig, anything you want to add, chime in here before we wrap up? Any thoughts?

Craig Wharem (38:54.048)

No, feel like we've given people a lot to think about. I don't know that adding more onto the pile is going to be beneficial now, but maybe a conversation down the line again and revisiting this would be good.

Andrew Adams (39:07.567)

Yeah, yeah, I dig it. So the audience may remember, Nick, we both did an episode a month or two back about opening up our own schools. I don't have a creed and it has got my brain thinking about what that might be. People listening or watching, we'd love to hear yours if you'd like to share it with us. You know, you can certainly...

If you want to share it with me privately, I'm at andrewatwhistlekick.com. know Craig has craigatwhistlekick.com. If you want to complain about this episode, send those emails to Nick.

Craig Wharem (39:40.18)

Send me some emails.

Craig Wharem (39:47.924)

via carrier pigeon.

Nick (39:48.12)

You reach me at nicktaborfitness.com or through my website taborfitness.com. I mean, want to kick one though.

Andrew Adams (39:56.437)

Awesome. So thanks for being here, guys. Before we wrap up, I definitely want to remind the audience of a few things. This whole discussion came from an article that I read in Marshall Journal, which you can check out at marshalljournal.com. If you're interested in being a writer for Marshall Journal, please

Reach out to Mark Warner, the editor-in-chief. know he would love to do that. Craig has his hand raised. Yes. Do have to go to the bathroom, Craig? Is that why you're raising your hand? Yeah, OK, go ahead.

Craig Wharem (40:28.499)

I've contributed.

Can I please, sir? No, I've contributed to Marshall Journal. I've got some articles up there, too.

Andrew Adams (40:37.689)

Well, see there you go. There's all I mean, I'm willing to bet if you're listening watching this show Excuse me. There are probably other people that have written articles that you'll be like, hey, I know that person So go go check it out Also check out whistlekick martial arts radio comm for this episode's show page. It's got all kinds of show notes It's got transcripts of the episodes extra photos of interview guests and whatnot

You can listen each of these people have been on the show multiple times so you can definitely check out their episodes whistlekick.com is where you can go to find everything else that whistlekick does and This episode is being really I can tell you right now that we this episode is episode 9 65 And marshall summit is coming up in two weeks As of this when this gets released, so I hope everyone listening and watching will

be at Marshall Summit Although I suppose if you listen to this episode four weeks from its when it's released you'd show up late, but you can always come next year Anyway

Craig Wharem (41:37.588)

coming.

Nick (41:44.866)

Yeah.

Craig Wharem (41:46.816)

So come meet us that Friday night at the presenter meet and greet and tell us your student creeds. Anyone who does one gets a bonus high five.

Andrew Adams (41:51.629)

Yeah, that would be great. man, you know what? That's a great idea. If you made it all the way through this episode and you come to the meet and greet, I will personally give you a high five. If you tell me, if you come up, you know what? If you come up to me and just say, student creed, I'll be like, I'll give you finger guns. I'll give you a high five.

Nick (41:51.744)

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah.

Craig Wharem (42:14.676)

I might even give you a sticker.

Nick (42:14.955)

Aw.

Andrew Adams (42:17.071)

Ooooo

Andrew Adams (42:21.251)

Now Nick is thinking. Yeah.

Nick (42:21.394)

I'll give a high five too. I would say I give people a hug but that might be different.

Craig Wharem (42:26.336)

Yeah

Andrew Adams (42:26.489)

So you don't have to tell me your student creed. You just have to say to me, student creed. That's it. So hey, guys, thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate it. definitely given me some stuff to think about. We're going to do this in a fun order. It's going to be me, Nick Craig. So until next time, train hard.

Craig Wharem (42:32.863)

I love it.

Nick (42:34.39)

No.

Nick (42:48.322)

Have fun.

Craig Wharem (42:50.226)

and have a great day.

Nick (42:53.208)

Smile!

Craig Wharem (42:55.629)

Yeah.

Andrew Adams (43:02.073)

That's a great ending.

Craig Wharem (43:03.636)

That's great.

Nick (43:05.91)

You