Episode 274 - Coach Kathy Long
Coach Kathy Long is a Kung Fu practitioner, Kickboxing Champion, instructor and fighter based in California.
Coach Kathy Long - Episode 274
Having a near-death experience as a child is a unique experience on the show. We’re lucky that we now have the chance to hear Coach Kathy Long’s story. This experience had a profound effect on her life, beliefs, and spirituality. Coach Kat is a kickboxing champion and she now teaches to help others become successful in their journey in the martial arts. Let's hear it from her to find out more about her stories!
Show Notes
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/kathylongmma/
Email: kathylongema@gmail.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KpewLvWpzU
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below or download here.
Hey there, thanks for tuning in. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio episode 274 and today, we bring you our conversation with Coach Kathy Long.If you're new to the show, I want you to head on over to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, look for the show notes there, sign up for our newsletter. You can jump on a link over at whistlekick.com where you can find all of our products like our apparel, our sparring gear, kicking paddles, so much more and we've always got new stuff in the works.You know, most of us are afraid of dying but our guest today had a glimpse of what was on the other side. Coach Kathy Long had a near death experience as a child and it had a profound impact on her beliefs, on the way she lived her life. Coach Kath, as she asked I call her, has varied skill sets and passions and some of them are completely outside the realm of martial arts. She has a lot of great stories to tell and I can't wait for you to hear them all. Let's welcome her to the show.Coach Kath, welcome to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio.
Kathy Long:
Hi, Jeremy. How are you?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm doing great. How are you?
Kathy Long:
Good. I'm very good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Very good? That's better than good. Why... Are you very good by default or is there a reason you're very good?
Kathy Long:
I would say by default but that we should also, require an explanation. I think because it just feels I'm enjoying this experience and you know, every day is an interesting lesson.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Have you always been that way?
Kathy Long:
Yeah, pretty much.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Cool.
Kathy Long:
I mean, I've gone through you know, hell, and back several times in my lifetime in this lifetime and you know, it's all in your perspective, literally.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Is that something that comes in when you're training or when you're coaching people?
Kathy Long:
Well then and every other aspect of my life...
Jeremy Lesniak:
Really? Okay.
Kathy Long:
And everything else that I do.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What, not sure... Where does that come from? Is that something you learned on your own or you were lucky enough to have someone teach you that early on? It's not a perspective that I'm used to a lot of people having. I have folks in my life that have that perspective and I aspire to have it, I try to work on it, but I'm curious... where that came from for you?
Kathy Long:
I was fortunate enough to have died when I was 10 years old. I drowned in a pool and that experience was just deeply profound and enlightening and... You know, we have our man-mind or you can call it your monkey-mind, your ego-mind, however you wanna put it, as a lower vibrational being, we're here on this planet or you have your God-mind. You’re connected to source in your higher self or, you know, I try not to bring into religion because religion was definitely man-made and written by man which just means is written by his ego. So from what I experienced, because I know who I am and I can reconnect and ground myself and come back to center and be present and understand that it's the experience that I asked for, no matter what it is, it's what I asked for.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Are you willing to tell us a little bit more about that experience with the pool?
Kathy Long:
Sure. Absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's not a story that most people have.
Kathy Long:
No, not too many.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Kathy Long:
Well, I had just moved. My family and I had just moved, I was only 10, I couldn't move by myself but we moved to a new trailer park, a new area. It was a trailer park that has a nice pool. When I moved, it was April, I had just turned 10 and the pool was closed until after school was out that summer and I never learned how to swim. And I think the couple weeks into it, I'm in the pool with a bunch of other kids and adults and you know, we're all playing with the giant beach ball and I don't know these kids and they don't know me but, you know, we're all just playing and having a good time. The beach ball got bounced into the deep end of the pool and I was on the edge of it trying to scoop the ball towards me and another child just playfully ran by and shoved me in. He didn't know that I didn't know how to swim and he ended up grabbing the ball and continuing to play and it was one of those off perfect storm moments where there were plenty of adults there who were sunbathing and plenty of kids playing who didn’t notice me and I tried to come to the surface several times to get gasp for air and try to say something and I think the 4th or 5th time I tried to get to the surface of the water and take in some air, it ended up being water instead and it just flooded into my lungs. and when that happened, of course, you'd try to take another breath because water is flowing in and I've never in my entire life, I've broken so many bones and torn muscles, 05:41 black eyes, you name it, I've had it, nothing compares to the pain of fluid flowing into your lungs. I truly do understand how fish feel. And I remember spazzing, my whole body was convulsing and you know, just experiencing that immense amount of pain and then everything just went black. And then I was, I don't know, about 20 ft. above the pool, looking down, watching myself floating in the water while everybody playing and I watched a woman walk out of a trailer across the street, walk into the pool area. Because she was a former lifeguard, she, by habit, would scan the pool. She saw me, ran, dove in, grabbed me, pulled me to the edge, and was yelling for somebody to pull me out of the water. When that happened, I just went into a different realm. You know, I experienced meeting God and one of the Masters we called Jesus and seeing angels and knowing who I was and reconnecting with 06:48 and who I am. And I was told quite a few things and quite a few things explained to me. I reacquainted myself with why I am to be here and had the choice to stay or come back. I chose to come back although I hated being back in that little 10 yr. old body, hate it. She was first reviving me and she's speaking to me, I couldn’t understand her. It was as if she was speaking a different language and it took me a while. I don’t know, I chose not to speak to her but she kept saying, we gotta get to the hospital, you’ve got too much fluid in your lungs, you’re gonna drowns. And she's just asking everybody around, you know this girl? No, we don’t know her. You know, just, you live here? And I just, I wouldn’t answer her cause I just figured, if I got taken home and they had to take me to the hospital, I would get into a lot of trouble. I figured they wouldn’t let me back in the pool again. So I just decided not to say anything and from that point on, I've just been, I guess, very in touch with intuition, very in touch with people’s intention. I can look somebody in the eye and I understand what drives them, whether it's fear or love and sometimes I wish I wouldn’t see that but I can tell who somebody is looking at them in a fraction of a second. Most of the time, that's very nice. Sometimes it isn’t.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What, when is it not nice?
Kathy Long:
Well when you see somebody who was so insecure, so self-hating that they emanate that out, they project that out to everybody around them and because they hate themselves so much and because they’re so insecure because they’re so shy, because they're so doubtful of anything that they can do, they project that out. And it's constantly going on and sometimes there are some perversions that people have and, you know, it all stems from the way they decided to view things.
Jeremy Lesniak:
When you were above your body, you know, I can imagine, I can only imagine because I haven’t had this experience, it might be easy in that moment to look at the people that were around you that didn’t notice you and maybe have some frustrations, some anger towards them?
Kathy Long:
Ah, no.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No.
Kathy Long:
I was quite at ease, I was very happy. I was neutral, let's put it that way. I think that's probably the best way to explain it, I was just quite neutral and just observing what was going on. The though never occurred to me to be angry at these kid for pushing me in because they didn’t know. They had no idea who I was or whether or not I could swim and they were just playing. They’re just being kids, nothing to be upset about.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Have you ever felt any anger at that situation?
Kathy Long:
At that situation?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, as you look back, you know, as you -
Kathy Long:
I don't know t I would describe it as anger but I would certainly say that being back inside that very limiting physical being and being back into knowing that the limitations are, you know, obviously what I place on myself however, as a being in this Earth we are bound by "physical laws", we could, you know, as we choose to be, because that how we grow up, that’s what we learn, that what we believe. And you know, in a lot of ways, it changed my belief system but I also know that I’m here and experientially, it's... to experience is one of the reasons we're here. That we may know ourselves in a different light.
Jeremy Lesniak:
For people out there that might not know your competition career, one of the things as I look over, the things that you’ve done as some of them kinda, let's say, defy what people would typically say can be done. You know, some of your competition and I don’t want to put too fine a point on it but some of your competition at certain ages. As you talk about your physical body, you’re talking about it with respect to it being limiting. Has any of your competitions, if any of the physical things you've pursues, been an attempt to defy your body?
Kathy Long:
Nope, not at all. Not at all. I think I was blessed with the genetics and extremely strong willpower in that. I have a trainer who was my boyfriend at the time, who was also a marine, so he understood all too well the classic brainwashing techniques that they do with you in boot camp and in basic training where with responsibility. They don’t feed you very much, they don’t let you think very much and they constantly drilling the same message in your head over and over and over. To break it down, functionally, that's why they do that. But when it came to the physical part of it, I ended up, and I’m not bragging, but I’m just saying what happened at that time. I just had the ability to do more than any other fighter that he trained could do. And that I did 1000 pushups a day, I would do hell days, and people would ended up throwing up in the middle of hell day and they would be allowed to sit downs a sip it out while I had to continue. I had no choice. I had no choice and, you know once we decided... I mean I took my very first fight after 10 days of learning how. II got challenged by a girl dong Karate to a kickboxing max which she had also done. She's been doing it for two years, she weighs 190punds and I weighed 120. And after 10 days of learning how, we beat the snot out of each other but I discovered an awful lot about myself.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Why would you take that fight?
Kathy Long:
Well, because I would go to these tournaments and in Kung Fu San Soo we stick our fingers, knuckles deep in people's eyes and we rupture their testicles, we stomp on their knee and do things that are highly effective but you don’t compete with them unless you happen to be a attacked which is not terribly common. But she would constantly ask me to compete against her in point-fighting and I said look, I don’t see the value in that. I see a lot of bad habits in that. I mean there are some good habits but there are some also bad habits that I don’t agree with it so I’m not gonna compete you with you in that. If you wanna step outside and fight, that was my attitude back then. Because she would constantly nag me and I said look, if you wanna step out back and fight, let's fight. She would never do that so her instructor called my instructor and asked if I'd be willing to do an "exhibition" kickboxing match with her because of the weight difference cause she weighed 190, she'd been doing it for 2 years and I've never done it. So he asked me, my trainer asked me, and I said yeah, I'll do it. Cause I knew what she wanted to do. She wanted an opportunity to beat the snot out of me and I thought, alright. Here we go, let's do it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Was there some kind of rivalry or bad blood? I mean, it sounds like there's more to why she would wanna...
Kathy Long:
She 15:10 Yeah, she didn’t care for the fact that I would not compete against her in point-fighting as I called it, you know, I didn’t care for it. I said look, I don’t like this type of fighting. I think it's useless and has no meaning and there’s no point to it so I don’t want to do it. If you wanna step outside and fight, I told her, let's step outside and fight. Outside of this ring, outside of this building. If you wanna fight, let's do that. She wouldn’t do it. But she didn’t care for me too much.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And kickboxing was the compromise?
Kathy Long:
I would suspect. At that time, I didn’t know what was going through her head but I do know that she didn’t like me too much and I didn’t care for her to much, you know. I just... The way she would try to get me to compete against her in point-fighting was you know, wasn’t very polite, wasn’t very nice, and I just thought, you know what, I’m not gonna do that. You wanna step outside and fight? Okay. 16:09 upset with me 16:10 angry with me or you think I’m that little, then go ahead, step outside. But I guess she found that the middle ground, more of a neutral ground. Well, maybe not some neutral. She’s been doing it for 2 years and I’ve never done it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And what happened with that fight?
Kathy Long:
Oh we beat the snot out of each other and they, I mean, literally, she split my lip open and I’m beating the crap out of her and... The bell would ring and she'd sit down and I'd be standing there in the middle of the ring going, come one, get up. Let's go.16:44get up! I was scared to death and I wasn’t gonna let her know that. Hell, no. So at the end of the fight, the announcer, because it was her school who put on the event with all her... the judges were from her school, the referee was from her school, so... oh no, the referee wasn’t from her school. The referee was Peter Cunningham. But at the end of the fight, the announcer gets in, he goes, okay they're tallying the scores right now, give the ladies a good hand and my coach walks up to him, puts his arm around him, and said look, your girl weighs 190, my girl weighs 120, you said this was a n exhibition, if you're gonna announce the winner right now, I'm gonna break your arm right here and right now. So the guy changed his tactic, oh great exhibition! Give the ladies a hand, they gave us both a trophy, we both went about our way. I can’t tell you who won, who lost, doesn’t matter. I discovered a deep, deep love for adrenaline and having you brought up. Putting myself in situations where extremely dangerous and loving every second of it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That fight kinda set a path for you.
Kathy Long:
For competing in kickboxing, it did. Also for hand gliding and skydiving and whatever else scares the crap out of me, yes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do you find that when you face those things - hand0gliding, skydiving - does the fear go away and then you move on to find something else? Or are you learning to understand the fear?
Kathy Long:
Well, there's the initial fear of all the things that could possible happen when you compete like getting hurt or getting literally killer is part of the worst thing that could happen. Although, I would find it welcoming but as far as physically being damaged or hurt or injured for life or things like that, those are the motivations of fear, right. I mean, because skydiving, your chute doesn’t open, guess what?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Kathy Long:
It's gonna be a hard landing, right? But that’s what makes it so fun and exciting and cliff diving and whatever else. What was the question? Losing track of what you’re asking.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So my question was around fear, I guess, Cause I'm not an adrenaline junkie. There are certain things that I’ll; do that evoke a strong fear response and I’ve earned to either... I guess my response is always very kinda academic and cerebral but I’m guessing that's not you. It sounds like you probably have a more energetic approach to fear or more physical acceptance of fear, I don’t even know that I can fully form my question but it sounds like, just in the words that you're using, something changed for you in the way you approach life from this fight.
Kathy Long:
Well, that's one of the factors that helped changed my perspective. In that, I know that when I came up to the ranks of Kung Fu San Soo and you know, became a master in Kung Fu San Soo, you know, my black let test I failed 9 times because my black belt test was a 3-day 24/7 test and at any given moment somebody could’ve jumped out and attack me from behind the building or walking out of work or getting into my car or whatever the occasion may be. And on top of that, the bazillion things that I had to do - write a thesis and you know, perform forms with blindfolded, with the long weapon, short weapon, double weapon, you name it, create something... there's so much that I had to do but getting to that point, somewhere in the middle, I was reawakened to another very powerful vision of how many time vie here and how many times I’ve been here as a warrior and fear doesn’t really take a place in it. I mean, I guess here in my case as a motivator and not a disable content
Jeremy Lesniak:
Just considering a transition here.
Kathy Long:
That’s okay. And you know, I guess along those lines I... if something is boring, typically don’t do well or if it's not challenging, if it's not something that, you know, not unnecessarily scares me or frightens me but if it's not something that, whether it's intellectually or physically or emotionally, then I don’t tend to do walk.
Jeremy Lesniak:
When you consider how to spend your time now, what are your priorities? You just seem to have this very-
Kathy Long:
Helping others.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. Your outlook on life is different than I would argue anyone we’ve had on this show is. So I'm at a bit of a loss and I don’t mean that in a bad way but
Kathy Long:
That's okay. No ---
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm kinda searching in how to ask some of these questions, okay. So your goal has been in, your priority in time is helping others, well how does that manifest?
Kathy Long:
It manifests itself in, gosh, 22:28 I think I’ve mentioned earlier before the show actually started that I am a minister. Not that I go to church, the world is my church. But I just, when I say I’m a minister, I don’t say, oh you have to believe in God or you're going to hell. That doesn't exist. But what does exist is fear or love and you can choose to operate with fear or you can choose to operate with love and I help people see, I help people understand that there can be a different way of looking at things. There can be a differed not way to approach tings, there can be... For example, here's a classic example, literally, very simple. I wanted to meet a friend in West Los Angeles, go to see a movie in the afternoon, it was a matinee showing. I drove to West, LA and you know, in West Los Angeles, parking is a monster, it's extremely difficult. But thankfully, this particular mall had a parking structure and I think I finally got to the 5th level of the parking structure to find a parking spot and in my mind, I’m thinking, oh I'd like to find something really close to the elevator door so that I have a sense of where it is, so I don’t get lost, right cause I didn’t know the area very well. Long story short, I see a spot literally right by the elevator door and I’m thinking, score! SO I pulled in and I sat down and I thought, well, I’m early, I would just read for a little bit and wait until it's time to go down. Right at that moment, a woman knocked on my door and she said, I was waiting for that spot! And I said, oh you were? She goes, yeah I was sitting there, waiting for it and you just pulled right in and you just past right by me and ignored me. And I said, oh I'm so sorry. I pulled out, and I found another parking spot very close by and I sat. So I pulled out my book again and started to read. That same woman came back to me, she knocked on my window and I got out of the car this time, and I looked at her and said, can I help you? She says, yes. I'm really sorry. I'm sorry that I blew up at you, I’m sorry. I was just really frustrated and I was trying to get somewhere in a hurry and I was being really mean and I’m so sorry. And I gave her a big hug and she started crying. I said, it's really oat, you know. It's just a parking spot, it's not worth it. And she said, you're right it's not. And she's saying and left. I sat back in my car and continued reading until it was time to go. But it's little things like that that turn out to be big things after a while.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You spend time working with students in a martial arts context now.
Kathy Long:
Yes
Jeremy Lesniak:
How do these lessons that you’ve learned outside is, I guess, we'll call it ministry. How does that show up in the way that you work with students?
Kathy Long:
Well, I tend to... I mean I’ve had, gosh for so many years I’ve been teaching. I started to open my first school when I was 19 years old. And you know, I knew martial arts, didn’t know how to run a business. learned an awful lot but as ever since then, there's been periods of time when 26:00 will come to me at a variety of ages, typically young teenagers to young adults, not that I haven’t had the other spectrum. I have tons of children and tons of older adults as well but for some reason, that age group seems to gravitate to me and they confide in me issues that they’re having in school or their girlfriend or events that go on in their life and one student in particular thought, I won’t say his name not that anyone's gonna know, doesn’t matter, but just in respect of him and his privacy, I won’t say his name, but he was driving along, him and his brother, were driving down the freeway and a woman crossed the median and drove straight into them with a head-on collision. Thankfully, Reuben - there you go, I just said his name - thankfully my student said that the presence of mind to react quickly and 26:59 .so he didn’t take the full damage of the action, the head on collision. He and his brother went to the hospital and they were checked out and she went to the hospital and she was checked out and she admitted that she wanted to kill herself and take someone's life with her. So he comes to me and he’s the kind of guy that, you know, as a young boy, 15, 16, he was in a Mafia type of situation where he was just making money, hand over fist, and you know, supporting his family, paying the mortgage on his mom’s house, he had a nice car, he had the nicest clothes, he had whatever he wanted. But you know, I just realized that that's not the best way to be and turned himself around, however, in this particular situation, he came to me and he was just really troubled and conflicted because he said, look if she wanted to kill herself, she could have just come to me and I would have happily shot her. And I'm looking at him, thinking wow, okay. But he hated so much that he was contemplating, finding out where she lived. And I said, you know, you have to understand that there’s a reason she chose you. You can see this is random, because there are no accidents, you can see this as a random incident and that she just decided that that very moment, and she crossed the median and hit the car that was there because she decided that at that moment she wanted to end her life. But there are no accidents. The reason she chose you is because you need to learn something. At that time, he was going to college, become a minister and I said how are you going to respond to somebody who comes to you, explaining this _ situation. Do you say to him, yeah go find where they live and stuff them? And he looked at me wow you’re right. What would I say? And I say, you know it's not that you have to you know, befriend her. But understand the situation, understand what she was going through, be compassionate enough to know that if somebody wanted to kill themselves, they must be in a pretty dark place. and the hope that you have, that gets out of this is that maybe she finds another way or she can, you know, find a reason to be happier and live and become a better person. And when I gave him a hug, I guess, I mean he told me this afterwards but apparently all the anger and hatred and frustration just let his body right at that point. And I wouldn’t have an opportunity to help somebody like that if I hadn’t experienced something on those lines myself.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do you ever have
Kathy Long:
And that
Jeremy Lesniak:
Go ahead, sorry.
Kathy Long:
No, I was just gonna say and that’s just 30:20 surface of all the 30:24 things situations that I gone through in my life
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah I can only imagine. You know, that’s kinda the primary thing that I’m hearing right now - is your kinda operating on a different level, you think, than most of us. And that’s my question. Do you ever have a hard time connecting with people because you’ve had these experiences, you have these different view on life, on the universe.
Kathy Long:
It's not that I have a different view. Everybody can have the same view it’s what they choose. But as far as answering your question, I cannot even more so with people because, you know, I am human. I have an ego and it's a continual struggle to keep that ego at bay and you know, try to stop and respond to somebody as oppose to need your reaction to what somebody might be saying or doing. And II, you know, I have to remind myself many, many times, all day. To try to see things from their point of view. TO see that yes, they're being a butthead right now but it's because they’re projecting. When they see a little toddler, a 2 year old who does not know how to communicate adequately what they want or what is wrong with them, so instead they throw a temper tantrum because for some reason when they do that they see that that seems to get some results so I’m gonna do that. And that’s how they train themselves to behave. And it just continues on or they can choose to see something differently. But at 2 years old, they don’t quite understand. So by stopping, I think, okay, they truly had a precognitive, they have this constant nature of this is how I’m gonna respond with things because this is what I’ve always gotten, this is how I get what I want. I can’t necessarily get mad at them, doesn’t mean I have to be subjected to it, doesn’t mean I have to allow myself to be abused although I did for many, many years, that's a whole another story, something I came to understand that I needed to go through in order to put myself where I am today. In order to be the person I am today. But looking back at them, you know I try to be a little more compassionate, see where they're coming from and why they're behaving that way. And that tends to be the way the ego works. When you’re behaving like a butthead, you think the world is going to 33:20 in a hand basket but it really isn’t. It's just how you're seeing it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What are you thinking when you're training and when you're... And I don’t mean this really training for a fight but just general martial arts training, what is going through your mind?
Kathy Long:
Okay, that would depend largely on whether I’m learning something or I’m teaching something or I’m just connecting with somebody and working with them.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Could you talk about each?
Kathy Long:
Of course.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay
Kathy Long:
In learning, it's not so much about learning the technique but it's about seeing how and why it works. Understand the root of what that "technique" would be. When it comes to, I guess, we like to say defend ourselves and you put yourself in that situation. And when I’m learning how to defend myself, I always tend to 34:36 the intention behind the attack. Sometimes people are just scared and they just want money and, you know, they just want to be cared for. They just wanna be love, they don’t know how to ask for it. Sometimes, well let’s go to... I guess in learning something new, which I love to do, I love learning new things, sometimes I can get lost in the technique of it but it's connecting with the person where I learn the best. I don’t learn as well in a group situation. I learn better when one-on-one. Not that I can’t learn in a group situation, I can but there's a lot of, you know, a lot of kinetic energy going on in the room. And, you know, being very aware of it, sometimes I can get distracted so it's best when I have somebody I'm working with. When I’m learning something, it's best for me when I’m learning with somebody who knows more than I do. And though it may slow them down, we're just learning. And if they’re willing to be with me and help me to it, that’s great. And I learn better that way because I’m connecting with the person that I’m with. When it comes to teaching, I try to break things down to the absolutely as simply as possible that they all understand how and why something I’m showing them is going to work or not work. I spend two and a half years working in a bar as a lead bouncer in Baker's Field and it's a beautiful seafood restaurant during the day. And at night, they open up the bar and they had a dance floor and because there were not many dance clubs there, all walks of life came there. But the manager was very, very intelligent and that he put on... he had a Country in Westerns Night, he had hip-hop night, he had lip syncing contest, he had all kinds of promotions that he would do so all walks of life came there. And after midnight, not too many got along. So I got into all kinds of altercations of all kinds of people. And I learned an awful lot especially because some people are... they have gorilla strength and a very high tolerance of pain or they don’t feel pain right away. So in teaching, you know, I try to explain to people that if you’re going to be attacked, so many factors come into play, so many factors. And, you know, the situation and the what-ifs endless, completely and utterly endless. But you can also narrow it down to... there's always circular attacks or linear attacks, period that’s it. Well there's a lower body or upper body or they're moving forward or they’re moving around, doesn’t matter, either linear or circular. And once you know how to kick apart the middle. Everything else was easy. But that, you know, I’m saying that is because I’ve spent my entire life learning that. So when teaching, I try to put people in many different scenarios of it if I can, you know, literally. Getting out of the car or you got a hurt arm, can’t use it. What would you... Walking in a parking lot or you’re... it goes on and on.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Those are scenarios that tend to show up in a lot of different schools. We've had Tony Blauer on the show and of course anyone that knows his body of work knows that he's really fond of training those kind of a typical martial arts but yeah, very typical life situations.
Kathy Long:
Well as being well-rounded as possible as a martial artist, it's for dealing with all kinds of situations. But truthfully, if you're aware and you can feel the intentions of somebody, you can get out of 99.9% of altercations, period.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Have you had any scenarios like that that you'd be willing to share?
Kathy Long:
Sure. I'm trying to find one that would be quickest to explain. There was man, a serial rapist, that I was living in because of that time. And I guess what he would do was walk around the neighborhood, looking for women to live alone. Well I didn’t live alone but this particular rapist, serial rapist, would target women who lived along and cased her house as long as possible to see if when, eventually, they would leave a window cracked open or a screen undone or something along those lines and they would probably creep into the house and pin them down and rape them. And I... he would usually hold them at gun point so it's not like... I mean if they did know how to disarm him or if they didn't know basic self-defense skills, they would be in a lot of trouble. And I remember getting out of work late and my car broke and I’m walking, just walking home which was quite a few miles but it didn’t matter because it was summer, it was nice and it wasn’t a bad night. So I was just walking home and I became very aware, you know how you get a prickly feeling and the hair stand up at back of your neck and you just know somebody is there watching you. You don’t know where they are but you feel it. I had that situation and as I’m walking down the street and I finally, I stopped and I turned around and I looked and as soon as I turned, he ducked behind a house that he had been casing. And I stood there thinking to myself, that's a serial rapist. I’m gonna go see. But when I went there, he wasn’t there. I ran around the corner, I’m walking around the entire house and m feeling kinda weird because I’m walking around somebody's house so I don’t know, in the middle of the night. So I thought, alright obviously he's hiding. And if I follow him at all, if I was correct and I did see him but I decided to keep walking. So I’m walking and I feel it again. And sure enough, I turned immediately and he was right behind me. And I just yelled, what you want! He turned and ran.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And then?
Kathy Long:
I went home. I guess he figured, well I'm casing someone’s house, I haven’t been able to get it, here's another girl walking down the street late at night. It's very possible he was casing out of that other house and then I guess seeing me, decided to abandon that and followed me. And just turning around and yelling at him, I hank he wasn’t expecting that. I think he probably would have felt better if he was enclosed in a room wherein he had control. But I don’t he expected a woman to turn around and yell at him, what do you want? Very early in my martial arts training the situation where I was walking down the street again late at night, not that I do that often, I don’t but it was just I couldn’t sleep and I just decided to get up and go for a walk. And in a biggest field, in the summer, it's still 90 degrees even at 2 in the morning, crazy. It was hot. And I’m walking down the street and again there’s a guy who’s walking towards me and I’m looking at him and I am scared to death because I’m just beginning, I’m just a beginner in martial arts. And I remember my instructor telling me, when you ae scared, you square your shoulders, walk straight ahead, you look him in the eye, you make eye contact. Look at them. And that usually acts as a deterrent because they don’t want somebody who was confident. And they look you in the eye, they don’t want to deal with somebody like that. So I did that and he sees me and he looks me up and down, he goes hey, baby you looking for some work? And before I could stop myself, the words were just flowing out and I said, no. Are you looking to get your head stuck up your ass? And I was so shocked to hear myself to say those words. And I guess he was just as shocked. And he was, oh, oh, what no, no, Sorry. And he took a few more steps then I took a few more steps, I 44:20 behind my shoulder and I ran home as fast as I could run.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There’s a bit of a common thread here of you rising to occasions. When we talk about limits, you know, one of the first words you use to describe the physical form, I mean we were in minute 3 of talking that this word already come up twice. DO you believe in limitations?
Kathy Long:
Well in that we are in a very limited reality that we've all created, there could be tons of limitations like I can’t fly. Although I could if I decided to, if I chose to. If I really chose to believe that I could, I'd probably can. But you know, we're all believed that gravity is such that it keeps us round on the Earth. So I believe in limitations. You know, I understand that I’m living in limitations at this point in this specific form but otherwise, no.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How does that affect you r life, your training? Most people go through life seeing this very hard limits and I think most martial artists that have trained for even more than a little while see that those boundaries are much broader than a lot of people see them as, you know, a lot of non-martial artists. It's pretty clear to me that you haven’t even, let's call it bigger ripple out of where you would draw them in and it sounds like you draw them pretty softly. How does that affect you martial arts? It’s a martial arts show so I’m gonna bring it back once in a while.
Kathy Long:
Sure.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How does that impact your training?
Kathy Long:
Well, I'm 53, gonna be 54 in a couple of months, and you know, I can still run and kick to the head and hit the bag and spar and... I still have fun with that. I’m not at that point where I need to... When I was competing professionally and fighting for World Championships, I was running 10 miles a day and... I mean I had to, I literally had to run 10 miles in one hour, I had no choice. That’s what was given to me and you had to run that. So I accepted that and said, okay. Then I would run 10 miles in one hour. And that what I have to do. I have to do styles and 47:19 a day, I have to hit so many times with as much power as I can on the bag in three minutes, I have to hit so many like 400 strikes. It's what was given to me and so I didn’t see that as a limitation. It was like, okay this is what I what I have to do. Was I able to do it in the beginning? Of course not. But I worked at it and I asked my body to do it and he did. So in 1998, I remember I was boxing professionally and there was a mini belt on the line. It wasn’t a world title belt or even a state belt or anything but it was just a little tournament belt for boxing and I was fighting a girl named Leena 48:01, a very tall girl and she’s trained by 48:05 and we were in the south in Louisiana and I knew that if I didn’t knock her out, there’s no way that I’m gonna win this fight if I didn’t knock her out. I was there 10 days before the fight and on the 8th day, 2 days before the fight I catch a horrible cold, really bad cold and I’m miserable and I go to the State Athletic Commission and I said look, I got a little bit of a cold, I lied, and I said what am I allowed to take? Because they did drug testing and I said I don’t want to take anything that going to interfere or you know, test-positive for any kind of performance enhancing drug so what am I allowed? And they told, they gave me a list of over-the-counter medicines that I could take. I took them all. All of them. And when I walked into the fight, my whole body was just buzzing and I was numb. I didn’t feel anything literally. I can barely think. My mind didn’t quite shutdown but it went in auto-pilot and I fought. I fought for those 4/5 rounds or whatever it was for that tournament belt. And when they announced her the winner by unanimous decision, I looked down and I shook my head and I thought to myself, okay that's it. I’m never getting sick again. Never. And that was in 1998.it's been 20 years of no colds, no flu, no allergies, no joint pains, no arthritis, no nothing. Nothing. Because I decided I don’t need to do that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Have you applied the same conviction to accomplishing any of your martial arts development? You mentioned that you enjoy learning new things so I imagine that you are often learning new things. Knew things are difficult.
Kathy Long:
Yes. No, new things are wonderful. They're not difficult.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well they can be both. Challenging if you prefer that word.
Kathy Long:
Challenging, yes. Difficult, no. It's a just a matter of retraining your mind due the task at hand. We all get into habit. We all form habits and we all do the same things over and over because we're creature of habits. That’s the way we operate, however when you choose to do something new you have to let go of those old habits. You have to let go of what you already know. You have to literally walk in with the wonderment of a child and see how wonderful and exciting something new might be. And that's' the best way to learn. I'm sorry, you were asking a question.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That’s okay.
Kathy Long:
Forgive me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I told you at the very beginning and all of the listeners know, at least long time listeners, the best stuff I son the edges. I’ve said that before so I can ask you a question, you can answer it completely different question and I’m probably still gonna be fine with it. That’s what's happening today. You know, we are wondering, we are all over the place and I love it. This... If I had my druthers, I would say okay go! And you would just talk but of course that’s not really the best way to have a conversation, to have an interview. So I don’t get to do that because I enjoy this show in the same way that all of the listeners do, at least I hope they do. I started the show that I wanted.
Kathy Long:
They do. You’ve got to understand something, this is your show. So if it goes to different rounds, it's still your show. You can do whatever you want with it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That’s right. And what I want is to listen to what my guests like to talk about.
Kathy Long:
Okay. Let’s do that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah and that's what we're doing. What goals do you have for yourself?
Kathy Long:
What goals?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah
Kathy Long:
You know, I think the best way to put it, I guess, if I were to say this is a goal, would be to help people in a much larger way. You know, in a much more... Look, there's a ripple effect which we all know happen. If you help one person, if you’re... Because you never know what’s going on in somebody’s mind so it's just better to just be `kind. It's better to just be nice no matter what; just be nice, be kind because you have no idea what demons and hells they're going through at that personal moment. So in that respect, I... One of my goals are to help people in a much larger way meaning more people at once as oppose to, not necessarily, one person at a time. And whether it's by speaking on the radio or it's by doing talks to larger groups, or whatever the case may be. That is my focus right now. That is my goal; that is my desire - to help in a larger way, in a largest spectrum.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Comes back to one of the first things we talked about - service. Serve others.
Kathy Long:
Yeah, giving back.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because look, no matter what’s going on, we're all one and we're all connected source. And when I say we're all connected to source, it's not like there’s a cord going between me and you and everybody else that we come into contact with - it is we are all one. We are all created by source and so in that respect, we are. And we can create and we do all the time. Because ultimately, when you're helping others, you are also helping yourself. There’s no one else in the room because we're all one.
Kathy Long:
This has been a lot of fun and I really appreciate you coming on and sharing so deeply. You know, I think there are people out there that ae listening that are nodding along and I’m gonna admit, I’m one of them. That might be apprehensive about sharing such core beliefs. I mean this is... feels like we have quite the window into your soul right now. And I appreciate that. And that takes guts.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because it is also your soul and their soul and everybody else's soul. And it's not about religion. It’s now about tying yourself or limiting response to a specific belief. You know, Just be good. You don’t have to be religious. Just be good, just be kind, and just be helpful to others. And guess what, it'll come back. No matter what, it will always come back.
Kathy Long:
You’ve shared such amazing stuff here today. If people want to find you online, get a hold of you, you know, maybe they're swaying through your area and hoping to drop in on a class or something, how would they do that?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, they can email me. I’m not sure which email I give you, I have four Gmail accounts.
Kathy Long:
Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's okay because I’m thinking of one I would prefer to massively use, kathylongema@gmail.com.
Kathy Long:
Okay. And we'll post that, of course. Any new listeners, we post our show notes at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com so if you're driving or something, you don't have to worry about jotting down notes and risking life and limb. I appreciate everything you've shared here today. This is one of those that I’m sure quite a few people are gonna hit rewind, listen to again. There’s just been so much amazing stuff to take away and I just... Think you, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You’re very welcome. So this an hour? Or is that an hour and a half?
Kathy Long:
Just about an hour. We usually do about an hour. Seems like we were a graceful place... IF there’s another story you wanna send us out with I would like to hear but otherwise we can fade into the night now.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, I think we're good. I really appreciate you. Thank you very much.Coach Kath is undoubtedly a unique individual. She’s philosophical, spiritual, and in all together, insightful human being. She’s an inspiration to many - both, martial artists and non - and that certainly includes me. Thank you, Coach Kath for you time.If you want to check out the show notes with everything we talked about, links and a whole bunch more, you can find that at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. If you wanna follow us of social media, we are @whistlekick on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can also find us n YouTube, Tumblr, and a bund of other places. Sign up for the newsletter. We send that out once or twice a month, just keep you up-to-date on what's going on, sometimes we drop some discounts in there. Really, it's just an extension of the show as are other show notes. And if you wanna leave feedback, you can do that on the show notes page at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. You can do that via social media or you can email me directly, jeremy@whistlekick.com. I wanna thank you for your time today, thanks for spending a little bit of time with Coach Kath and I ND I hope that it's had a good impact on your day and tomorrow and maybe even the day after that. But that's all I've got for today. So until next time. Train hard, smile, and have a great day.