Episode 76 - Sensei Jaredd Wilson
Sensei Jared Wilson - Episode 76
That's a big part of it too, is being able to think about those situations and being able to say now what? What do I have to do to get past that?
Jaredd Wilson
Today we get to talk to someone that, in some ways, is very much a mirror of myself. Sensei Jaredd Wilson is a martial artist with experience in Aikido, Silat and Kenjutsu, but he also hosts a podcast about the martial arts, called Martial Thoughts. And in a very new development, it looks like we'll be seeing him at the first-ever whistlekick Martial Arts Weekend in July, 2016.We became friends over social media and decided it would be fun to have each other on as guests. We've done that and I really enjoyed my time talking with Sensei Wilson, both on his show and here, on Episode 76. Sensei Wilson has a strong love for the martial arts, martial arts culture and seems to genuinely believe, as many of our guests do, that there's nothing like martial arts training for developing better people and improving the world.So check it out. ~jeremy
Show Notes
Movies - The Golden Cane Warrior, Kundo (Korean Film), Memories of the Sword, Fist of Legend, Ip Man 2, Ninja: Shadow of a TearThe video below is a montage of some of the fight scenes from the Scott Adkins movie we discussed, Ninja: Shadow of a Tear.You can reach Sensei Wilson, and the Martial Thoughts podcast on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook. Or on their website & email.You should definitely check out the Martial Thoughts podcast (iTunes) - just as there's value in all martial arts, there's value in all martial arts podcasts!During our time we discussed both Bruce Lee and Moses Powell.Below is an impressive video of a sword cutting competition, Tameshigiri. If you spend some time on YouTube looking around, you can find some impressive accomplishments... and equally impressive hatred in the comments.
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below or download here.Jeremy Lesniak:Hello everyone it's episode 76 of whistlekickmartialartsradio, the only place you are the best stories from the best martial artists like today's guest Sensei Jaredd Wilson. My name is Jeremy Lesniak and I found it whistlekick and I'm also your host for martial arts radio. Whistlekick as so many of you know already makes the world's best sparring gear as well as really great apparel and accessories offer practitioners and fans of traditional martial arts. I'd like to welcome our new listeners I think those of you checking us out again. If you're not familiar with the products when you get over the whistlekick.com and take a look at what we make. Our sweatshirts are definitely one of most popular items available in both pullover and zip up. We make sure everything has our name on it is comfortable and top-quality and these are no different. I'm actually wearing a gray hoodie from her first front sweatshirts right now, and it's three years old and still looks awesome. Now, if you want to see the show notes does run a whole different website and that's whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. While you're over there, go and sign up for the newsletter we offer special content to subscribers and it's the only place to find out about upcoming guest for the show. We only email a few times a month and we never sell your information. Have a great podcast review to share with you today and this one comes from C. Robinson and C says awesome show. I just finished listening to the episode with Cheyenne Lachapelle who in a word is simply amazing. I really enjoyed hearing her martial arts journey which started at an extremely young age, this is perhaps the third episode of listen to and they've all been wonderful. Me being a non-practitioner, just someone enjoys quality podcasts what always strikes me as being special about the martial arts community is just how much it is shaped the person they've become. The show is one of those that you can take something from even if you are part of the target audience. Well, thank you for your kind words C. Robinson, go ahead and shoot us an email info@whistlekick.com and we can get your free pack of whistlekick stuff. Remember if we read your review on the air, that's all you have to do. Who doesn’t like free stuff? Today we get to talk to someone that in some ways is very much a mirror of myself. Sensei Jaredd Wilson is a martial artist but he also hosts a podcast about the martial arts called Martial Thoughts. We became friends over social media and decided it would be fun to have each other on as guests. We've done that and I really enjoyed my time talking with Sensei Wilson both on his show and here on episode 76, so check it out.Sensei Wilson, welcome to whistlekick martial arts radio.Jaredd Wilson:Hey, thanks for this opportunity to talk to you again.Jeremy Lesniak:Hey, absolutely this is can be a lot of fun and one of the things I want to let everybody know, right off the bat is that you and I kinda do the same thing, [00:03:05.19] what does that mean? So I’ll let you tell them what it is that you do that I also do.Jaredd Wilson:Sit around our pajamas and record radio shows.Jeremy Lesniak:That's a very literal answer isn’t it.Jaredd Wilson:About three years ago, my friends and I decided we want to do a martial arts podcast and we've been doing, I’ve been kind of organizing and we did probably about 10 episodes together and then I took the liberty and decided I want to move to Nashville and kept going with it so, for the last three years of doing martial arts which is a martial arts podcast.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah and of course, we've kinda met under the context of a blog posts that we put out there, I don't even know how long ago was now, it was towards the end of last year there, we let people know that hey, were happier listen in the martial arts radio, we’re glad to hear your letting my voice into your brain once a week now twice a week but were not doing ones out there doing martial arts podcasts and then there are others doing it differently and just like with different martial arts styles everybody brings something to the table. So, we put a post out there, of course you were on it, you even know we were doing that you didn't have any idea who really, we were at the time as we were the new kids on the block and you know because of that we've had a chance to chat with some of the other podcast hose out there and and now we get to have you on the show.Jaredd Wilson:Yeah, it's one big internet world and were all just small part of it so have fun with it.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah it is a good time but of course this episode isn't about the fact that you and I are, depending on your perspective, redundant to the world were just applying different styles in in the same vein that the martial arts offers different styles. So, this is about you so let's dig into what you do and how about you start by telling us about your start in the martial arts.Jaredd Wilson:I kinda came in a weird way. I was always in sports all the way through high school and I was noticed that for whatever reason lack of procrastination or whatever, my grades are always better when I was doing sports so when I got to college I went to university of Florida there's no way I was gonna do any sports that hair that's way too big of a university with too many scholarships going so I said I want to do something and ironically, I decided I wanted to learn how to use swords. So, in my head and this is my no pre-conceived notions of this, I decided I was can learn how to use the best swords available. So, I decided, I was gonna learn how to use Japanese katana. So I went looking around the university see that there was anything and I didn't know this at the time, I didn't realize what a unique opportunity this was, but there was a traditional Japanese koru in town that happen to be teaching Japanese swordsmanship, not kendo, but Japanese swordsmanship. And I studied that for about two or three years while I was there finishing my degree and then I went back home to south Florida, start living down there and I found another place, same base of idea, I was looking for a sword school and I ended up finding a place that does as part of their overall curriculum that do jujitsu, that do aikido and then they do the kenjitsu, the swordsmanship and I adopted myself into there and have been doing that for, altogether for about 20 years. Just recently, I moved up to Nashville recently spent a year and a half now. So, I decided I want to go back to being a beginner again and I decide I want to take some penchak Silat. Ironically cause I heard about it on a, I heard a very good description of it on a podcast interview. They described it as being wing chun and aikido meat mixed together, so I’m like that sounds really cool so let me go try that out and I have been doing that for about six months now is the Silat.Jeremy Lesniak:Oh that's really cool. Now was that description on your show or was that another show?Jaredd Wilson:It was actually, it was a different show but I ended up interviewing the author Steve Perry not the guy from journey but he's got a, I’ll plug his books because I love them. If you like martial arts science fiction, he has the man who never missed the matador series. They're short little I don’t' want to say novellas but they're short little paperback books and he describes martial arts beautifully to the point where you realize that the guy who wrote this knows martial arts so I kinda tracked him down and he was kind enough to actually do interview on my show too.Jeremy Lesniak:Oh that’s really cool, how fun. When we get to the book section tell us little bit more about the books because it's a really different angle than any of our guests before, I’ve really taken taken books and we don’t get a lot of fiction. So that's a pretty good introduction to who you are and in what makes you tick in terms of the martial arts but you know you've heard the show and all of our returning listeners know it's about the stories here. We do everything we can to dig the best stories out of you and put them out there so people can blackmail you until the end of time. So, what you tell us about your best martial arts story.Jaredd Wilson:Well this one will date me again, a little bit but again I was in university Florida cause I had [00:08:50.15] think about this cause I’ve been preparing for the show. One of the first things that we talk about in aikido is the most valuable skill you learning aikido is actually how to fall down. You know there's very little chance that you're gonna actually be attacked and Have to use any technique or anything like that but there's a pretty good chance you're gonna fall somewhere in your life. So, that's the part is aikido that I got to use. This gonna date me but I was rollerblading over to the bookstore and...Jeremy Lesniak:Hold up, that might be the oldest sentence that's ever been uttered on this show I rollerblade to the bookstore. I'm sorry to take you out of that...Jaredd Wilson:Ironically, I guess it left a memorable scar but I actually remember cause I was getting a martial arts book and I still have the book around my shelf. I was rollerblading and you know in rollerblades you're going pretty good speed and as I was rollerblading actually my front wheel caught in a crack in the sidewalk, so imagine like sprinting and then have someone grab your big toe and pull it out from under you. So you know course I fell flat but ironically you know my year of training, two years of training that point I did a perfect front fall and I had scrapes on my forearms but that was about it. So, the story is better because when I went to the bookstore got the book was on my way home, my mind was wandering which again there's a martial arts lesson for you, the exact same crack in the sidewalk, I fell in it on the way home. It did the exact same thing and ironically actually fell the same way and I scars in my forearm to show for it but nothing broke. In fact I actually rolled over and started laughing because I realize where I was and a car actually pulled over to make sure I was okay. It was hard to say yes through all the laughter at myself.Jeremy Lesniak:Wow yet there's so much that we could dig into there and I won't psychoanalyze it or anything but man the same crack, the same place and you had the same response,Jaredd Wilson:It was a pretty good training if nothing elseJeremy Lesniak:You're consistent, you can definitely say that. Now did you continue rollerblading after?Jaredd Wilson:Believe it or not, this is again this is gonna date me, I actually took a rollerblading classic at college. And two semesters of fencing so there's a good college education for you.Jeremy Lesniak:Did you mix the two?Jaredd Wilson:Do jousting on rollerblades?Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah.Jaredd Wilson:That would be a Good idea. We should to try that.Jeremy Lesniak:Did we just invented a new sport? Because I would totally do that.Jaredd Wilson:If nothing else I’d watch people do it.Jeremy Lesniak:Alright, maybe we can get something together we can have the first rollerblading,Jaredd Wilson:Roller joustingJeremy Lesniak:Now there's a name we got a pause the opposite while I go by rollerjousting.com, just kidding. That's great stuff.Jaredd Wilson:There's a couple other times where I’ve actually unintentionally you use the joint lock on someone so I mean it has shown up in my life, I teach high school by you know my mild-mannered day job type of thing and I’ve actually had two kids over getting a pushing and shoving contest right in front of me I grab one's kids wrist and actually held them in a control while I talked to the other kid and I didn't even realize that I have him in a lock until I looked over and he was just staring at his own wrist trying to figure out why he couldn't move. So I mean there are little things like that happen too.Jeremy Lesniak:That's actually kind of an interesting topic and one that doesn't get discussed I think enough with in the martial arts is you know you as a school teacher there's a lot of things that you can't do. I mean if you work at a conventional job you can have defensive aids, you know be they firearms or a knife or pepper spray or a stun gun I mean there's a lot of in a lethal and non-lethal things the you could have that you can't have in a school whether your your staff or a student. So have you had... What are your thoughts on, because it keeps coming up right you know that the idea of how do we keep school safety you have any thoughts on that and I know this is completely out of the field and not on the sheet that I sent you but you bring up a good point with the ability to to control and keep students safe, but keep each other, keep them safe from each other in that moment.Jaredd Wilson:Right. Ironically, I think that's kinda where some of the more controlling arts like aikido or jujitsu where... Cause there really, I’ve had a couple sentences in school where two kids are trying to get after each other and I have to get well, legally I’m not actually supposed to get involved. I'm supposed to just say no, stop. I mean come on, as any real adult urine step in between but I think that's were kind of the aikido the jiujitsu, the joint lock type of thing actually comes into play. Where you can upset their center of balance, because first of all their attention is not on you, so all you have to do is just disrupt them and [00:14:09.28] where they can't do something. I mean that's all you really goal is for their, on a personal level, I have really nice heavy steel pen that I keep on my shirt collar, in case something would happen I can use it as a [00:14:27.08] like little [00:14:29.04] which is just a little stick just so you can use it on pressure points. I've never had to use that part of it but it's completely legal I mean, it is a pen so but it's something I do keep me just in case.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah, yeah. I've found that that heavy pen is is a great implement and couple years ago I did a fair amount of international travel and of course what place are you're more vulnerable than on the inside of security when you can't bring anything through but the one thing I was able to get through was that metal pan that rolled around in my pocket.Jaredd Wilson:On that same note before 9/11, I actually, I would literally walk on the plane with my [00:15:20.00] and my wooden sword. The x-ray make sure it wasn't a you know like a sword cane or something like that but I put in the overhead compartment. Once one of the pilots wanted to take in the front just make sure I wasn't gonna do anything with it but so I mean, that shows a little bit of our changing world. I kinda kill billed it where you know, you keep the sword with you on the plane type of thing.Jeremy Lesniak:Nice and you know, there's more and more conversation coming up there seems to be this return to people looking at the cane as a great defensive tool because with the Americans with disabilities act not only are you permitted to bring on a plane but it is actually federal offense from my understanding, from the way it’s been explained is a federal offense for security to even question your need for it. So for those of you out there that maybe travel a lot and feel little bit anxious, there are people out there the really great with a cane, check them out, get some education. So, here we are were talking about all kinds of things you know, with your life with martial arts threaded through it and how it's changed your views and your ability to healthy children from beating the snot out of each other and you know, bringing wooden swords on the planes. But let's pretend you know let's go back in and you never wanted to learn sword fighting, you never really cared about getting in the martial arts, or you didn’t have the opportunity, what you think your life would look like now had you never started your training?Jaredd Wilson:Well, first and foremost I’d be a lot more rounder. I mean just the physical part of it alone has kept me in better shape than anything I probably would've done. And I think that alone is probably worth the price of admission, that's worth the... You know I saw a great thing online it talked about how monetarily it doesn't make sense to take martial arts. You know, there's no amount of money you're gonna carry in your wallet that can make it equal to 12 months of tuition you had to pay to try and stop them from taking your wallet. But you know if you type included as a say a gym membership in a meditation class and you know you can conclude all those things rolled in and then I think does start to make sense. So I think it's actually kept me more active, more human, emotionally it's actually a good stabilizing factor as well so I’m a really calm person I really tend not to, I tend to not let my emotions take control things in fact, my [00:17:57.22] yells at me cause the more emotional the more crisis the situation is, the more I calm down. So, I think I get that from from martial arts. You can't panic when people are swinging swords at your head. It just doesn't work you have to have a plan and you have to Be able to breathe and do something so I think those are the things that I gain from martial arts. I don't think I would have those if I didn't do that.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah, I think that's a pretty valuable and I think you really honed in on something good that we don't talk about a lot in the martial arts it's that ability to stay calm and cool under pressure and it's something that I think a lot of us experience. Be it difficult physical situation or difficult emotional situation, you know, when that pressure is applied a lot of us just kind of fall in and the extraneous stuff falls away and we focus in on what's important because of course that's core to our training.Jaredd Wilson:Right, I mean that’s kinda...Jeremy Lesniak:Learning how to not die.Jaredd Wilson:Or at least thinking about death. I mean that actually that's a big part of it too. Your sitting there trying to imagine what it would be like if I didn't do something here and my arm got cut off or you know I got it in the gut and I was had to work from there you know. That’s the big part of it too is being able to think about the situations and being to say now what? What do I have to do to get past that?Jeremy Lesniak:Right absolutely. So let's bring it back to our current actual timeline, instead of this other parallel one where you haven’t trained and let's think about maybe some of the less positive aspects of your life some of the challenging things that you've been through and tell us about one of those and how your martial arts training or your experience in the martial arts has helped you overcome it.Jaredd Wilson:Well I think I touched on some of the emotional control. You know, the simple thing is you know a fender bender, you know they happen. People freak out about that and just through martial arts you are able to maintain that control it’s like you know, go through the steps okay is anyone hurt? No, okay well now we need to do something rather than the emotional response which is you know, kind of everyone's instinct is to come out screaming and yelling and yelling about how you're gonna sue someone, you know, keep calm about it. That's the that's honestly my most valuable part of martial arts is being able to you with those difficult situations in a controlled, calm manner. Like you said, I teach high school so the fact that two kids are in a fight, you're able to calmly deal with that. It isn't an emotional response on my part so I think that's the most, I don’t know if I wanna say difficult part of it, but those are the difficult parts on your life you have to be able to get through and not making it an immediate emotional response. Is the most valuable part there.Jeremy Lesniak:Is there anything that you found to be particularly helpful in your training to separate the emotion from the situation?Jaredd Wilson:I'm not really sure how it happens but at some point, especially with aikido with randori which is where you have multiple attackers, on my black belt test in particular you're supposed to have, you are supposed to do a randori against a staff, a randori against a sword and then randori against the knife. So on my test in particular, my instructor goes, we're running out of time all three of you guys attack him all at once. So that was an incident where my crap, and I had to figure out what to do cause that wasn't the way I trained and those are three very different lengths you have to worry about. So you don't have time to get emotional with it, those are the instances where you literally have to just say, what do I need to do at this second to make sure I’m not getting stabbed or hit in the head. So I only died twice on that test was actually pretty good test you know.Jeremy Lesniak:That is pretty good so how do you defend against a sword a knife and a staff at the same time?Jaredd Wilson:Well in aikido, one of the things we like to do is we like to throw people in the way of the other person so it kind of takes one person out and then make him a barrier for the second one so that you can deal with the third one, then you put him in the way of the first ones you can deal with the second one then kinda just, you kind of build this pattern of you're not staying in the middle of them and your kinda Putting in themselves in their own way. So it actually ends up once you get used to the pattern, once you get used to how to set it up, its actually not that bad. It's just not your first instinct.Jeremy Lesniak:Right and it's actually one of my favorite drills is that multiple attackers especially at a slow speed, especially in a given the opportunity to really think through what you're doing. And I’ve traveled to a lot of schools and it's amazing to me when I teach that how few of them have done it before and it’s something that you know for anybody out there that runs their own school or has control over some of the class format I would encourage you to implement that. You know, 2 on 1 sparring. If you want to watch students that think they know what they're doing that have never done it before freak out, given them two attackers are more and watch a lot of what they rely on just fall apart. So, you know you’re training in a whole different style now but I’m sure as you think on what you have learned in the martial arts, it's primarily aikido, you've got your aikido instructors and now your Silat instructors, but if we were to take them out of the mix, who would you say has been the most influential in your martial arts upbringing?Jaredd Wilson:Well if you go back [00:24:08.17] his name is Rick, he's one of the co-host on the early episodes. He wasn't the top instructor in our school but he was an instructor in our school and he actually did a lot to show me how to make aikido work. And I don't mean in a class situation I mean, in a more realistic with resistance and he's always gonna be above me rank wise, I mean, he's much better martial arts and I am, just don't tell him I said that. But I once I got to my Shodan and we became more peers, and we became really good friends we started to experiment together and I think that was my real opening of idea of how aikido and how martial arts works. We'd read books may go up you will see what does he say with this part? Oh that's what he was talking about, here's how it works and we actually go back and forth with little things we discovered like that and that was actually one of the biggest influences is to have a lab partner, for lack of a better term someone you can experiment with and someone you trust and not to say well this isn’t working let's try something else or it’s like, okay that one didn't work lets go with this one, oh that one really work but how would you get into that situation? You know so, I think having that someone you can experiment freely with that's an important part of martial arts training. Especially with aikido where it's kind of a two-person thing we don't have kata in aikido or I should say we don't have single man kata in aikido, we have two men kata. Which means you gotta practice with someone so having another person is a real important part.Jeremy Lesniak:That's interesting and that's something I didn't know I’ve done very little aikido but it's always been in a seminar format where there have been plenty of other people but I guess it makes a lot of sense cause forgive me if I buy from misspeaking but the majority of what you’re learning in aikido requires that response that feedback from someone else.Jaredd Wilson:Right you're trying to feel their motion and there, they use the word energy I hate that word, but their energy and how they're moving and you're trying to direct it. So, you do need another person to actually practice the aikido part of it.Jeremy Lesniak:And so to practice is solo could almost be counterproductive because you’re setting in paths that might not work at all. Okay interesting interesting. I hadn't considered that but it makes a lot of sense now that you say it.Jaredd Wilson:Well it'd be like if you know you're practicing Brazilian jiujitsu by yourself, it’s like, yeah it look kind of funny too.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah yeah, I think that maybe that's why at least my limited experience with jujitsu, with Brazilian jujitsu spent the first I think it was the whole class just kinda shrimping back and forth if anybody knows what that meansJaredd Wilson:Oh yeah, we do shrimpingJeremy Lesniak:Okay that’s a tiring drillJaredd Wilson:Really that’s just the way to clean the mats [00:27:10.10]Jeremy Lesniak:That's all it is. Man, and here I was wearing my white gi. So how about competition? Have you done any time out on the mats?Jaredd Wilson:[00:27:23.27] aikido specifically is a noncompetition martial art. It is actually in the the dogma of aikido that there isn’t competition and aikido does not have competition those are words from the founder of the system. Now, on the sword part the kenjitsu part, I’ve actually I haven’t participated but actually gone to several cutting competitions [00:27:51.03] which is where they roll up the straw mats and they do the cutting on those and that's a fascinating part and I practice tamishegiri but I’ve never competed in that part of it. I it’s just been part of my martial arts journey nothing for or against I just haven't done it myself.Jeremy Lesniak:Is it something you you perhaps see yourself engaging in in the future?Jaredd Wilson:Yeah. You know what is it the sword is how I came into martial arts in general so, I like to get to the point right as you compete with it but my skill is nowhere near the level that the people actually do it. I mean it's scary the way how good they are and how precise they are these cuts so.Jeremy Lesniak:Now I’ve never seen a cutting competition like that and I’m gonna guess there's at least a few of the listeners out there that haven't either so could you tell us just a quick minute what a competition like that looks like?Jaredd Wilson:Yeah it’s kind of based on a bracket system so they usually divided up as kind of like let’s say, for example blowback black belt then they'll have Shodan and nidan 1st level black belts, 2nd level black belt is one competition and then I think samdan and above is the third one and the one's I’m referring to, the one's I’ve seen was actually through toyamaru batodo which is a traditional modern Japanese sword system I guess the best way to say it and those were in Orlando, they still have those actually. What it, like I said it’s kind of a brackets essentially, they have two competitors come up to the stand and there's about a 3-inch wooden spike that’s gonna you roll up this straw mat, it’s the tatami the ones that he Japanese use on their floors so it is a very specific size you roll it up, you soak it in water for a week ahead of time and the ideas it's supposed to have the consistency cutting through an arm which is a lovely thought. Take the mat you spike it on the wooden spike so its standing on the stand it’s kinda held in place and depending on which level of competition you're at, its either gonna be a six-stroke pattern, six cut pattern, or a 5 cut pattern. The lower levels do the five cut pattern cause it gives a little bit more leeway as where the cutting can take place. There is rules that the angle of the cut will be 45° and they judge it based on how close is that angle, if you've never cut the Japanese sword they'll cut through it but this is to get to the point of competition where if it dips a little bit in the cut or if the cut is at a slightly wrong angle then they kinda take point off for it. And there's three judges usually and though basically looking at the five cuts or the six cuts, they'll say which person did the best set of cuts and then they'll go from there and say okay that person goes on to the next bracket. So that’s kinda how the competitions work. At least the one that I’ve seen.Jeremy Lesniak:That sounds like a lot of fun really interesting stuff and as someone who is really only played with a sword I won't even say I’ve trained with the sword, that stuff just sounds really impressive hopefully I can check something out like that in the future.Jaredd Wilson:I mean, it’s incredibly detail oriented. If you hit the wooden spike that's holding it on there, that automatically means you lose so I mean there's very strict rules about the angle of the cuts, how you're supposed to cut, and it's a pattern so like I said if its five cuts it might be one going downward angle from the left or the right the next one will be going from right to left, next one this will be right to left and then one will be straight across or something like that. So there's a very specific set pattern that you have to do.Jeremy Lesniak:And is that pattern different at different competitions?Jaredd Wilson:Yeah it depends on who's putting forth the competition. So you know, one system might have one particular pattern one will have another but it's generally pretty similar. If you go to one cutting competition you could probably go to the next one and do and learn their pattern real quick.Jeremy Lesniak:Interesting so let's pretend that you have not only unlimited funds, but a time machine and you get the ability to train with any martial artist ever. Who would that be?Jaredd Wilson:Well there's a couple of people. I mean, obviously, I would like to know at least kind of separate the man from the myth for Bruce Lee. I mean, there's so much here about him and I know he was a human so I know some that had been exaggerated but at the same time, some of that had been true too so it would be nice to kinda hear some of the words from his mouth so to speak and because you know, he was cut short, there's only a limited timeframe of what we are able to learn and a lot of that stuff kinda gets repeated to the point of legend basically. So he definitely want the ones you kinda just wanna you know learn from the sermon so to speak. Because I do aikido, I know you're supposed to say you know in a sense the guy who founded aikido but everything I’ve read on him says he was kinda nutty. You know aikido especially in the readings of it has these really esoteric ideas to the point where nobody can really understand what it is he was talking about. So personally, I actually like one of his students his name is gozo shiyoda who kinda made aikido a practical martial art and instead of concentrating on the more esoteric, the key idea he kinda said well, that's great but you have to be able to walk away from a fight at the end of the night. And I like his aspect of it he's one I really like to be able to say that I learned from. And then on the jujitsu side of the [00:33:56.17] my root system here, my instructor's instructor dr. Moses Powell whose me in a relatively a big game if you look him up he'sJeremy Lesniak:Yeah, we’ve talked about him on the show beforeJaredd Wilson:Yeah, he's my instructor's instructor so I got the chance to meet him at a seminar but when I saw him I think at that point he had both hips replaced and he wasn't the same man that the legend says he was so I would have like to see him in his prime too.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah, I mean absolutely great answers to that question and I think you bring up an interesting point in not, in questioning that automatic answer should I train with the founder of a style because I think sometimes the founder of the style has these great ideas but they're not always the best at that first level of refinement. You know, kinda that... There's a saying in in business that it's often better to be the second person, the second business to market with an idea could you get to see the mistakes made by the first effort. And we had just a couple weeks ago, we had prof. Gary Dill who trained at Bruce Lee's school in Oakland and we spent some time talking about how he felt that he benefited not training directly with Bruce lee but with Bruce lee's number one guy because of it is his ability to understand it and teach it better and make those minor refinements from Bruce lee's ideas.Jaredd Wilson:Yeah that's that's one thing I learned from years of martial arts is just cause you’re great martial arts does not mean your great instructor. Those are two completely separate skill sets and you know, just cause you get a black belt doesn't mean you should really be called sensei just because, we've almost use that at least in American systems as a rank. It’s like, well you’re a black belt and I get to teach a class well that's great but I have no training in how to teach a class.Jeremy Lesniak:It's interesting you bring that up. Just yesterday I was and I’m not gonna bring any names into this mix cause some of these names are names that have come up on the show. I was just speaking with someone yesterday about that exact subject and we were friendly debating on how that could be handled and I would like to see almost I don’t want to say separate but similar tracks because not everyone is interested in teaching. I mean, I think there's tremendous benefits in teaching I think if you learn how to teach something you understand it so much better and you can apply it better yourself.Jaredd Wilson:We actually in at the [00:36:52.11] the jiujitsu and aikido system, we actually have that. We have instructor ranks and we have black belt ranks.Jeremy Lesniak:Now is there any requirement for tying the two together can you just stay on one track versus the other?Jaredd Wilson:Well, it's, we have people at our school like you said, they want to do the martial arts they have no intention of ever teaching it. So their technique why is there not taught any differently but they're not given the opportunity to teach. In our school, we’re fairly loose like our head instructor, we call him Doc, its dr. Philip [00:37:33.15] cause it’s his name. He'll start off a class but then he'll start asking some of the senior students to come up and say okay now, you teach the next class go off of that thing that I just did. You know, we did a wrist lock to lock the wrist lock. So he kind of I don't gives you a trial period on how to teach before were you're actually given your your sensei rank. So that's an interesting way to do it and I not really heard that that kinda is the way it works with other schools. There's some people that just want to learn a martial arts only the martial art, they have no intention of teaching it, they don’t really want to open a school anywhere so they get their Shodan, they get their black belt and that's exactly where they want to be so.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah. I think that it's something that I would love to see us as the martial arts realm discuss a lot more because I see the skill set for teaching to be just as different and have just as much complexity as the ability to learn forms or fighting or self-defense I mean, these are all separate and distinct things and the just because you can do it doesn't mean you can teach it. What's that, is especially to you, I guess mildly offensive statement those who can do, those who can't teach. Right?Jaredd Wilson:I kinda cheat cause my high school or my day job as a high school teacher so. On that same note, it is kind of funny is when I started getting ready to take my Shodan, I actually I got a couple books on how to teach martial arts and I learned more about teaching theory than and I did ever actually in my teaching classes so there you go there's another way martial arts has helped me out. I actually learned how to teach from it.Jeremy Lesniak:That's really cool. So how much time did you have as a high school teacher before your Shodan or how did those tie together time wise?Jaredd Wilson:I saw probably had about five years of teaching high school before I got my Shodan, so somewhere in that range.Jeremy Lesniak:And if you could make a couple I guessJaredd Wilson:Time machine changes?Jeremy Lesniak:Well no, not quite that I mean we don't have a lot of people that have the the opportunity to teach different things. I mean you’re teaching high school primarily but I expect that you probably have some time that you're instructing in your dojo?Jaredd Wilson:Yeah.Jeremy Lesniak:Even if it’s just casually, so I’m gonna guess that you're probably a pretty good teacher cause you’re teaching different things, in different ways to different groups of people and if you could boil off a couple bits of advice to people out there that might be listening and saying "oh man, you know they're right, I’m a pretty good martial artist but I really don't feel confident when I’m in the front of the class" you know, what bits of wisdom could you give those folks?Jaredd Wilson:This is something that it took me a long time to figure out in the dojo is and you know, it’s one of those kind of like old you know climb up into to the top of the mountain and hear the words of wisdom from the old guy type of movie thing but not everybody is ready for all the information at the beginning. You know you kinda have to space out so even if you are teaching one technique, you show them kind you build it up in steps. You go okay here's the basic footwork for it. Okay, now I got that now do the wrist. Okay that's good, now do this you know, make sure you balanced. Okay now do this as opposed to trying to correct everything all at once and I think that's a fault of a lot of martial arts instructors is we want to correct everything all at once rather than [00:41:19.29] concentrate on the little pieces of that technique. And build that up for it is you don't overwhelm them with all the information. The other thing that I really learned from martial arts and actually taking this in my high school classes, there's a point in martial arts, before this point what people are really wanting is encouragement. They want to know they're doing the right thing that they're progressing, they're getting better. At some point there gets to be a switch were you like okay, now stop giving me you know stop blowing smoke, now start critiquing me getting better at it and finding that balance point for everyone where they want to get better where they just want to encouragement is a really delicate thing and it’s an individual thing, not everybody is gonna be the same on that. So those are the two things I’ve learned most about teaching.Jeremy Lesniak:You know as you are kind describing that and the refinement I had this analogy popped into my head and for some of the younger listeners, this might not resonate as much. But for the rest of us that remember dial-up internet, when you would go to a website that had a a picture and that picture was big and there was a big file size lots of dots, you know that picture andJaredd Wilson:I know where you're going with thisJeremy Lesniak:And it would come up and it would be really blurry and you can even tell what it was and then as it downloaded more and more if it would the picture would get clearer and clearer and clearer until eventually out that's what it is and then often times, it would get, continue to get clear. And I think that as instructors we need to be a little more patient and let that unveiling happen within people if we drill into much, they can get frustrated they can walk away.So we shouldn’t give belts, we should just say okay you're a 4-bit aikido person, you're an 8-bit aikido personJaredd Wilson:I wasn’t gonna take it quite to that geeky of a place because that is my background, I do have quite a few years in IT, but yeah for I know there are few at least a few out there that are just as geeky and we'll get that reference yeah, it's. Yeah, I now I'm speechless that's just perfect I love it. So let's talk about entertainment and martial arts entertainment. You mentioned those books earlier we'll talk about that in a second, but let's talk about movies. Are you at all a martial arts film fan?Jeremy Lesniak:Oh yeah, if you read the blogs, that goes with the web, with a podcast I do movie reviews on there too. I collected them, I go to used movie places and buy all the old bad movies, I’d buy all the samurai stuff. And there’s new countries that are actually making really good martial arts movies too that are kinda break into that scene so I’m enjoying some of those as well.Jaredd Wilson:So give us some specifics. How about have a couple movies maybe that people haven't heard of that you would say are worth seeking out? Start there.Jeremy Lesniak:Okay. There's one I just saw. It was actually on Netflix is where I saw it you know, cruising through all the martial arts movies on Netflix it's called, something about the golden cane warrior, I think it’s the name of it I think that’s what it was the golden cane warrior and it's out of Indonesia, so you know that made me think of The Raid, made me think of Silat which is why I actually found the movie in the first place, that's kinda what I was looking for but it ended up having a very very old school kung fu feel to it. Almost a crouching tiger kinda feel where everything is kinda more operatic in it. And that one I really dug it. The martial arts was decent it was almost all staff work which was kind of an interesting thing, they had almost no empty-hand it was almost all staff work. But the movie itself was actually really really nicely done. Like I said, they're trying to go for that really grand big scope of things and I think it worked out really.Jaredd Wilson:That sounds kinda fun and yeah, I think it's interesting you bring up that other countries are getting into the martial arts film game and I’m starting to see more on that because it was for the longest time it was... I mean, really for a long time it was just Hong Kong.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah china is starting to do their own stuff, you know the samurai films came out in japan but like Ong Bak, Thailand was starting to do some of the martial arts films, Indonesia starting to get into them. Recently I’ve seen a couple from Korea, Kundo is the one that I bought probably a couple years ago that's actually a really good martial arts film. And then also, I’m in the middle of watching a Netflix, memoirs of the sword which is again another big operatic one but I’m pretty sure that one's Korean as well. So I’m starting to see you know the other Asian countries are starting to go [00:46:30.22] their doing this, why isn’t our film industry getting in on this action.Jeremy Lesniak:Right and one of the things you and I were talking about before we started the episode was this growth of martial arts outside of the traditional three. Right? I mean [00:46:52.02] when we think about traditional martial arts most people gravitate towards thinking about Japanese arts and Chinese arts and Korean arts. But here we have all these other things and they are popping up, I shouldn’t say popping up cause they've been there for a long time but coming to the more global consciousness and I wonder how much tie there is between that in the movies you know or the movies following that consciousness or is it the other way and I don't know.Jaredd Wilson:I think besides that, I think the internet is helping a lot. It used to be, before we're talking about dial up days, you literally like go to a phonebook and just kinda look through the martial arts and see what was there. Nowadays, you can search and you know and have like, there is no in, I'm Nashville and there's no Silat teacher in Nashville but next city over is Murfreesboro and that's where I go to teach this I’m about about 25 miles away but I would never would've found that if I did get the internet. So I think the internet is actually connecting us more that way. I think we will see more of what's actually available, more the stuff that's actually has survived and is spread around, like we're talking about the European stuff is actually starting to sneak up on us.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah and I think you know maybe this is a good point to kinda step out and and bring up that point that I brought up cause I think it's an interesting conversation. One I haven't had with anyone before, when I think back to this time when I have in my head up at least of the shift, what I see is a shift in the awareness in the martial arts realm for again martial arts outside the traditional three countries. The first thing that I think of is krav maga. And you can certainly have a conversation whether or not krav maga is or is not a martial art, is it a defense system and I don't know that it matters for what we talk about here because here we have something that's coming out of a completely nontraditional space that is resonating for people and I think it made people take a step back and say what else is out there?Jaredd Wilson:Right. Yes, I that might have been the opening the door for us.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah so, I mean who knows what else is gonna pop up? I mean, are what are we going to suddenly start seeing capoeira schools on every corner which I think would be a lot of fun, I did a few years a couple or have had a really good time with it. I think that one's been out there because it only the strong, you see that movie?Jaredd Wilson:Yeah. Maybe that's it, maybe it’s a, want something featured in the movie that starts to become more prevalent.Jeremy Lesniak:There we go so that's your instruction manual out there for any one that wants to start a martial arts style is you have to develop the style then you have to make a movie and that if you can get that movie on Netflix, you are good to go and so you can start teaching seminars and make some money. So let's come back, I mean that was a fun tangent, let's bring it back for second. Now out of all these movies that you like is there one that might be a little more traditional? You know, something a bit more mainstream? That you would tap and say of the films that other people have heard of, this was my favorite?Jaredd Wilson:Yeah, my go to is always gonna be fist of legend with Jet Li. And I recently have come to realize why I like that one so much and it took me a while to figure it out is it doesn't just have movie fu. It doesn't have just the movie fu style. It actually shows you the different martial arts styles and how they attack and defend, which is it's something that's kind of rare in martial arts, at martial arts movies. Like Ip Man 2, when he has to go against the council of grandmasters and he's standing on the table. If you pay attention, he specifically doing wing chun style kung fu. Sammo Hung is doing bagwa, I mean they're doing different styles of attack and defend it's not just the... Again the only thing I can call is movie fu where you know, all the movements are basically the same they just call it different things. You know I’m doing double dragon fist and stuff like that but there actually showing you how different styles interact and I think that's a cool thing that fist of legend actually gets right.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah. Yeah, it's a great movie Ip Man 2 that table scene I mean you mention that and of course I did a big smile because that, out of the series is probably my favorite scene. It's just so well done and just so fun and I really enjoy creative use of of props and scenery.Jaredd Wilson:On a very specific fight scene that I really really dug was actually in the second ninja movie with Scott Atkins, I think it’s called shadows of the tear, and I think it’s in the subtitle of it. There's a scene where he walks into the dojo and is looking for someone and it takes you a minute to realize it but the whole minute and a half I see it's all one shot. They never switch camera angles and you just realize that something is weird about that because the guy, the directors is actually a martial artist so he knows how to film martial arts fights, you know, pull the camera back a little bit stop, stop, stop cutting. Make it like, it should look like it's smooth and there's an action going on so that is a really cool fight scene, if anyone wants to watch that one knows that was a really well-done fight scene. The movie itself is good but that one fight scene was really excellent.Jeremy Lesniak:We'll see if we can take that up and put that over on the show notes for new listeners, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com we put all the stuff over there. I'm gonna try and find some video of a sword cutting competition, put that over there, I want to check it out myself.I will see if I can send you some links for that one, I might find some that I went to.Jeremy Lesniak:Oh that would be great yeah please. So those are some good movies you know, give people a good homework assignment to watch some of those lesser-known movies.Jaredd Wilson:That's a good homework assignment though.Jeremy Lesniak:Absolutely I mean, what's better I would've loved that in high school and college. Now how about actors there and made it really pops up for you as being your favorite?Jaredd Wilson:You know I'm thinking, our Silat school actually has a connection with one of the guys from Raid 2 from [00:53:21.29] who is the guy's got a little goatee at the end of the raid 2 he's got the 2 carambits, the night fight scene at the very end, so I’ve been watching a lot of stuff on him and he's a phenomenal guy but the main actor in the Raid, he shows up a lot of things in actually in the last hour I felt b all three of them were all in the last star wars movie so, that was a cool little bit there too. Iko Uwais is his name. He's, I actually like him a lot. He's a newer face but I’m digging what he's doing. He's actually the man from tai chi, with Keanu reeves movie, he was one of the competitors at the end on that one too.Jeremy Lesniak:Oh cool sounds like a guy who's kind of in behind the scenes is now coming into his own.Jaredd Wilson:Yeah and he's just got, he's got a good presence. He's kinda like Jet Li and that even if he's just doing a fight scene, there's content in what he does with it. So I appreciate that aspect of it.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah had definitely adds a lot to a film.Jaredd Wilson:Anytime you can be mentioned the same sentence as Jet Li, you know you're doing pretty good.Jeremy Lesniak:You are doing very well. Now let's go back to those books that you mentioned towards the beginning of the episode what were the, what’s the name of those again?Jaredd Wilson:It's by Steve Perry, there's I think, eight or nine of them. It's a series of them, they're called, the first one is called the man who never missed and the whole series is called the matador series and it's a space opera so it is a different take on it and they mention all sorts of martial arts but they have this made up martial art [00:55:03.19] he talks about how he thought he was making up all these ideas and making up a martial art and then he found style of Silat that has all the same things he thought he made up. So, unintentionally he was using Silat in his books. AND they started practicing and he start putting more of it into the book so that's what one's why it’s got a special place in my heart. But what I love about those books in particular is he talks about the physical and mental set up that the guy does. Just because you throw that punch it’s not intended to hit, its intended to get you to react so that you can do a grab and actually break something or you know something like that. And I thought that was just brilliantly done with that and all the books, they talk about the training of it pretty well too.Jeremy Lesniak:Those sound interesting definitely gonna check those out, we will definitely link to the episode where you interviewed the author. I think that adds a lot of interesting context for anyone that wants to check out those books. And as you talking about the books, I’m realizing that why is it that we as martial artist whenever we start to write a book, it's gotta be factual, it has to be instructional. I don't know of too many martial arts fiction books.Jaredd Wilson:Yeah there's a couple around. There's actually a series of mysteries called the aikido mysteries, and where the martial arts isn’t necessarily the the center point of it but it’s definitely an important part of it. There's another one I can think of off the top of my head it was a Sensei was the name of the first book. I can’t think of what the name of the series is right now. But, that one actually is centered around the martial arts. The martial arts is the center of the mystery in the first book but yeah, it’s one of those things, it’s like me like martial arts movies we love is over the top ideas maybe just doesn't translate as well into books maybe that's why, it’s a visual medium.Jeremy Lesniak:Maybe I have no idea. But yeah, I mean we love to get really creative in movies I mean what's the number one I believe the number one grossing martial arts film globally, the original crouching tiger hidden dragon. We don't have too many movies that are more fantastic with the martial arts application and that, fighting at the top of trees. The moment we put pen to paper it's gotta be here's how what you're doing is wrong and here's how to do it right.Jaredd Wilson:Well, some of it might be cultural because crouching tiger is actually based off a novel. It's in Chinese and as far as I know it’s a part four out of the five series, book series and I don't think those translated in English yet. So I think part of it is we just got away from this idea that martial arts part of our culture, you know, where it’s supposed to like you said, china, Korea, japan it's just been in their culture for so much longer and so much more recently it's been relevant. So maybe that's part of it.Jeremy Lesniak:I think you may have just offered a pretty good insight there and I’m not even gonna try and add anything to it as I got nothing. I think you're right, that’s something that I’m going to go contemplate. It's good stuff.Jaredd Wilson:See martial thoughts thinking martially.Jeremy Lesniak:Hey, that’s why we brought you on, you have a very good different perspective and I think this is great. Meeting of the minds and we're all better because of it. So what's keeping you going? What’s keeping you training? Do you have goals? Are there things you're trying to accomplish?Jaredd Wilson:Well I guess I just started my Silat training. I’m only been doing it for about six months so I’m enjoying being a beginner again and having absolutely no clue what I’m doing, having to learn a new culture, a new language to describe everything and that's actually part of what I was going for. You know, I could've actually, ironically there's actually three like branches of our school and one of having to be about 30 minutes away from here, [00:59:05.22] so I could have actually continued with what I was doing and I still go down there sometimes and practice with but I wanted to be a complete beginner again. I wanted to have to start from the beginning cause that offers a whole new set of challenges rather than just saying oh well, let me just continue what I’m doing. So, and ironically, I had read somewhere along the lines is talking about and it was kinda making fun of aikido, it said, aikido because eventually everyone gets old. You know that was their tagline on their poster or whatever was and I thought about it and they were talking about how basically almost everyone ends up going to a softer system as they got older. And I thought about that why start at the soft systems? What's that say about me? So I want to go back and actually should go to a harder system and I started doing this for a while and actually want to learn how to put in all these strikes and all the fun bits like that. So that's kinda what I’m doing is I wanted to go back and learn some of the stuff that I missed from the aikido.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah, I firmly believe that all martial arts have something to offer and that when you spend some time you know, 20 years as you have doing one style to go to something pretty opposite is going to give you the most benefit. Now did you pick Silat because you had that kind of a mindset? You know what is the opposite martial art to aikido?Jaredd Wilson:Well I was specifically looking for something that was involved a lot of striking. Because if there is striking aikido and that’s a whole separate issue but I you don't, it's not trained that way anymore but there is striking and there is hidden, but I wanted something that was their primary focus was a striking art. So I looked at a couple of things, I looked at a karate school that was around, I looked at a southern praying mantis kung fu school and I honestly, I don't know how I settled on Silat but that just attracted me to it. Physically a lot of the handwork like I said looks a lot like wing chun, there's a lot of similarities and like I said I don’t really wanna say I trained in it but one of the one of the people at [01:01:21.15] is also instructor of wing chun so we had a little bit of exposure to that, so I can at least recognize like that's the same idea that’s going on there. So it’s the idea Silat that's actually more interesting to me than, it’s a striking art but it’s very intellectually difficult to put it that way.Jeremy Lesniak:Interesting yeah and I think we'll have to find, maybe you can offer up some good resources for people that are not familiar with Silat that we can include in the show notes you know video or webpage or something to just kinda give people a primer.Jaredd Wilson:Yeah, I’ll send it over to you.Jeremy Lesniak:Appreciate that. So now is kinda your commercial time. So yeah, we know little bit about what you've got going on, you’ve got this great podcast that I hope everybody will check out so tell us a little bit about more about that how they can find you, someone wants to contact you directly, whatever you want to tell us.Jaredd Wilson:Well the podcast is the easiest way is going to stitcher, iTunes and just search martial thoughts. It does show up if you just put in martial arts but it's [01:02:27.08] the black magic that is iTunes I have no idea how they rank them but I’m in there somewhere. Put in martial botts can buy it that way or if you're the blog site that I have which is thinkingmartial.blogspot.com just because, apparently somebody had taken martialthoughts.blogspot.com if I find him, I’m gonna kick him on the shin. Besides the podcast, I do a lot of book reviews and whenever I catch a new martial arts movie I put up a review on their too or you know, some weird ideas it just to strike my fancy up I’ll put a blog post about that. You can get there to the blog site facebook.com/martialthoughts you can find is there. I do have a twitter account which is @martialthoughts. And then the emails just martialthoughts@gmail.com so it should be over easy except that blogspot where it's thinking martial.Jeremy Lesniak:Well maybe we can track down, we can beat them with a stick, maybe a broken if that seems the appropriate tool I’m gonna send them your way cause you are certainly more skilled on that tool than I am. But that's great stuff and I really hope everyone out there will check out what you're doing and you know cause were doing some different stuff, I mean you're doing different things than were doing over here and and I think that's great and I think that there's room for all of us. I think you know one of the sad things is that if we took the show and your show, we've talk about Sensei Ando's fight for a happy life podcast and the hiyaa and all the guys we mention on that blog post, if we added all of our listenership up we wouldn't come anywhere close to some of the worst podcasts out there and I’m not gonna name names because I will end up offending someone. But yeah, I think if we can let our community know, hey you know what, what we’re doing is great the martial arts overall and there's a lot more to our culture as martial artist than just reading some books and watching some movies and training in the school. There's a whole bunch of us out there doing other things to add value to our, what I consider lifestyle. You're right on the forefront of that and I appreciate it not just as your peer but as a martial artist so thank you. But before we tie up, you got any parting words, words of wisdom for us?Jaredd Wilson:Well, kind of on the same note of everything we've been talking about. One of the things and there's nothing wrong with either one but you know, you're talk about making martial arts your lifestyle versus say the hobby guy that just comes in because it's Tuesday and it's martial arts day you know from his point of view can be bowling night whatever happens to be. Make martial arts, make learning martial arts an active participation. Meaning don't just sit there and try to passively absorb everything, you know, you have to seek out extra stuff ask questions know where it's appropriate in your school, cause every school is a little different about that. Read books, listen to podcasts. You know try to make your learning martial arts an active process, don't make it through osmosis cause that will take you longer you just won't get as much out of it.Jeremy Lesniak:Thank you for listening to episode 76 of whistlekickmartialartsradio and thank you to Sensei Wilson. Head on over to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com for the show notes, including impressive cutting video, the sword cutting through the bamboo that we discussed, I’m probably gonna butcher the Japanese but temishigiri and that was a lot of fun, there's a lot of great stuff out there, we pulled a couple videos there's also another one from that Scott Adkins movie that Sensei Wilson mentioned called ninja shadow of a tear. So, hit the show notes check those out. Now if you like to show make sure you subscribing or using one of our custom apps, they're are available in both iOS and android and for those of you kind enough to leave us review like C. Robinson did we read that review in the intro remember. When randomly check out the different podcast review sites though it is primarily iTunes and if we find your review and mention on the air, go ahead email is for your free box of whistlekick stuff. Now if you know someone who would be a great interview for the show please fill out the form at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com or if you just want to shoot us a message with a suggestion for Thursday show or some other feedback there's a place to do that on the website as well. You can follow us on social media, we're on Facebook twitter Pinterest and Instagram pretty much everywhere you can think of and our username is always whistlekick. Every episode is also available on YouTube so check us out there if you have a chance. Remember the products you can find at whistlekick.com like our comfortable sweatshirts that come in different colors and styles. But that's all from us so until next time. Train hard, smile and have a great day.