Episode 390 - Sensei Casper Makkink
Sensei Casper Makkink is a martial arts practitioner and instructor from the Netherlands.
Sometimes when I'm on a match, I get really close to the animal inside me. It's very important to understand yourself better because the person who says he cannot kill somebody is usually the most dangerous at all. The person who knows he can kill somebody but doesn't do it, then he's a good person.
Sensei Casper Makkink - Episode 390
When your father trains you on kickboxing but your mother thinks fencing is safer, you don't really have a choice. Sensei Casper Makkink was trained by his father as a young child and then switched to fencing and became an instructor when her mother asked him to switch. Having suffered an accident, Sensei Makkink had to take a break and then return to train with different martial arts such as Pencak Silat. What's interesting about Sensei Casper Makkink was he is a guy who considers himself not worthy of being called a Sensei out of his natural humility. Listen to find out more!
Show Notes
On this episode, we mentioned Bas Rutten and Bruce LeeYou can connect with Sensei Casper Makkink through these channels:http://back2base.nl/https://www.facebook.com/Back2base-1591032574281130/https://www.facebook.com/casper.makkink[gallery type="slideshow" size="full" ids="6810,6809,6808,6805,6806,6807"]
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below or download here.Jeremy Lesniak:Hello, everyone! Thanks for coming by. This is whistlekick martial arts radio Episode 390 and today, I'm joined by my guest, Sensei Casper Makkink. My name is Jeremy Lesniak, I'm your host on this show. I'm a founder of whistlekick and I'm just a guy that said, you know what? I really love traditional martial arts so let’s find a way to make it, not only my life, but my career and that’s what we have here with whistlekick. We do this show. We have a whole bunch of other projects and you can check out everything we do at whistlekick.com and if you use the code PODCAST15 while you're over there, you can save 15% on everything. You can also find quite a few of our items over on Amazon and we even have some of these episodes transcribed as Kindle books and paperbacks, as inexpensively as Amazon will let us do them. Also, we can share them with you, with others, maybe for people who prefer the written word rather than the podcast format but of course, you can get a transcribed version of every episode at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, those are free and we have 389 other great episodes, interviews, topics, advice, all kinds of stuff. whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, photos, you name it. There’s stuff. Check it out! If you haven't been over there in a while, check it out. We recently updated a number of things, make some stuff easier to find. So, let’s talk about today’s guest. One of the things I enjoy about martial arts is that it's universal. Even though there are localized differences in the way certain styles are taught and some martial arts are more prominent in some parts of the world than others, it’s still something you can find just about everywhere you go and because of that, it's given me the opportunity to speak with people from all over the world and here we have another international guest, someone who's listened to the show quite a bit and he reached out. We had a great email conversation, I said, yes, let’s bring you on the show, it’s time. Sensei Casper Makkink tells some wonderful stories, goes pretty deep, and I've got to say, he’s a paradox with his approach, with his philosophy to his martial arts. I'm not going to ruin that to tell you exactly what I mean but rather I’ll let him tell you, so, here we go. Sense Makkink, welcome to whistlekick martial arts radio!Casper Makkink:Hello, hello! If you please would not call me Sensei because I hate the word.Jeremy Lesniak:The hate’s pretty strong. The listeners are thinking we set this up but we didn’t. This is all organic, this is new to me. Tell me why you hate the word.Casper Makkink:The thing is I’m a Dutch guy just like I told you before and in Holland, we don’t really use it. I'm from a Dutch kickboxing style but it’s a little bit different. It's a blend between Kyokushin, Karate, Thai boxing and just a regular kickboxing and we don’t really use it, I only talk to my teacher like that and I don’t still really qualify to be called Sensei.Jeremy Lesniak:We have so much conversation on this show about titles and their use and the detriment, the downside of using them and we’re recording this in early April, it will be a couple weeks before it comes out but we just released last week an episode on the hierarchy on the martial arts. It’s…I don’t know…I won’t say it's creating controversy because I haven't heard anyone coming through disagreeing with it yet but we have a lot of feedback on it. The challenges of honoring our tradition and using titles and this specific language and yet, trying to grow and move forward and be open and democratic and it’s just…there are so many conflicting elements to it, isn’t there?Casper Makkink:Yeah, I think it kind of is. One of the things is, of course, you put somebody on the pedestal and I think that’s a very dangerous thing to do sometimes. Not because they don’t deserve it but there's always an ego in people and I think martial arts is about removing your own, removing yourself from your own ego.Jeremy Lesniak:I've always kind of enjoyed that idea of putting someone up on a pedestal because anyone that’s ever had small children or taken care of small children knows, what’s the one reason you don’t put them up on something high because the only place they have to go is to fall. When we lift people up, there’s difference between respect and honoring someone and then to put them above you.Casper Makkink:Yeah. I think so. It’s a very difficult topic because I really, if I look at my sensei, I will say it to him but normally we don’t use it but I really, really respect the guy but still, I think it's difficult thing. We just don’t use titles as much, I thinkJeremy Lesniak:Is that something…because of course, I'm an American, I’ve travelled outside the US. I've never been to Holland but I don’t know the culture, the martial arts culture of other places and you probably have a better idea of American martial arts culture than I have of your martial arts culture. Is that something that’s common there?Casper Makkink:Yeah, I think so, yeah.Jeremy Lesniak:To push back on the titles?Casper Makkink:Yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah, because in Holland, we’re a little bit different than our German neighbors, and the Belgian or the Spanish, we have thought ourselves free since country arose, we really hate authority.Jeremy Lesniak:Interesting, it’s kind of cool. It’s interesting to me how martial arts changes even just a little bit everywhere that it goes because of course, martial arts has to fit in to the local landscape and you have all these nuances of the culture of wherever it is. I mean, martial arts in New England where I am is very different than martial arts in, say, California. I shouldn’t say very different but it is different. It's a little different because people who live in California are different from people who live in Vermont. Alright.Casper Makkink:Yeah, I believe that too and I think that’s good because if there are different schools of people, the styles will develop better because you will look at your way at the technique, I will look my way at the technique and not even the technique but the schools and the philosophies behind the technique. That’s how you can create Dutch kickboxing, that’s why you have a lot of Dutch guys who go to Thailand fight Thai. That’s why you see Dutch trainers in the UFC, why you see a lot of Dutch karatekas.Jeremy Lesniak:Alright, in your first few sentences you mentioned kickboxing, you mentioned Kyokushin, you mentioned Thai, so let’s go back, ask the question that we ask everybody at the beginning, how did you first get into martial arts?Casper Makkink:I first started it with my father when I was really small. My mother didn’t like seeing it that much. We used to spar, grapple and do some karate together. I was about 6 or 7, I believe, when we start with that so that’s like after a year or two, my mother was okay, we’re not going to do this, you're going to fence. So, I see fencing also as a martial arts. Maybe not a traditional martial arts. You try to hit each other, the respect was there, a lot of things are the same. I did that for 8 years or even longer, I believe, for 12 years. I became a fencing instructor also and then when I was, I believe, 16, I started with wing chun, I did that for 2 years. I didn’t really like it but I thought it was so cool to learn how to fight. After that, I had a big accident. I was paralyzed on my left side for over a year and I need to start all over again so after, about a year, I went with a friend of mine with pencak silat, Indonesian fighting art and I did that for about 2 years and Indonesia pencak silat we have in Holland, that’s why I did [00:08:55] is really correlated to Thai boxing so from one thing to another and that’s, after that, I became really into Thai boxing and in Holland, Dutch kickboxing and Thai boxing are pretty much the same. It's only the rules that you're competing that’s different. Let me see, that’s how I got into kickboxing and Thai boxing. I also did some Krav Maga, when I started Thai boxing and also the army, I did Krav Maga with it but it was pretty cool but I missed the system in it. When I was done, let me see, I wanted to focus at kickboxing so I did that a lot for 4 years now and extra and I also did some BJJ also extra and trained with some MMA guys and that’s about it. It’s a clunky story but yeah.Jeremy Lesniak:Well, that’s about it, but what else is there?Casper Makkink:Yeah, I think so.Jeremy Lesniak:You trained just a bit in just about everything. I think that’s pretty impressive but I did want to go back because you said your father trained you in martial arts but where did he develop his knowledge or interest in martial arts?Casper Makkink:When he was small, when he was a little bit younger, I suppose he was about your age, he was a little bit older, I suppose, but not as much. He was looking at Enter the Dragon from Bruce Lee and loved the movie and that’s how he started with Karate and Judo.Jeremy Lesniak:And he’s still practicing?Casper Makkink:No, no. He stopped when he was, I believe, 25 or something like that. The passion was still there and he wanted to teach me so he started training us to defend ourselves.Jeremy Lesniak:You said us, do you have siblings?Casper Makkink:Yeah. Yeah, I have, let me see…I have three brothers and one sister.Jeremy Lesniak: And he taught all of you some basics of judo and got you interested in martial arts.Casper Makkink:No, only me.Jeremy Lesniak:Oh, okay, there's got to be a story there. Why only you?Casper Makkink:I need to clarify one thing. Technically speaking, with my father, I have only one brother. So, the rest is, from my other father and my one brother with this father just didn’t like it at all.Jeremy Lesniak:Alright, I get it.Casper Makkink:But because you asked me how much siblings I have, they're all my siblings. I don’t see the difference.Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah, I get it, I get it. Most of the time when someone comes on this show, when they’ve bounced around and trained in the different martial arts, it usually means that they love martial arts but they're still looking for something. There's something that’s missing in their different training and it sounds like you’ve settled on kickboxing. Is that fair to say?Casper Makkink:For a bit, for the striking part, yes.Jeremy Lesniak:What is it about kickboxing that clicks for you? That resonates for you in the way that, let’s say, you mention wing chun you didn’t really like that as much, what is it about kickboxing versus, say, the wing chun you were training?Casper Makkink:The reality in it. So, in kickboxing, if you get punched in the face, you get punched in the face. In Holland, in Dutch kickboxing, everything you do is full contact, you never stop, just like Muay Thai and I really love it. When you're angry, you can put it there. Well, you don’t fight angry but I think you know what I mean and also, it's the continuous development of yourself. I mean, if I do a punch, I never do it right. I mean, I’ve done punches before for like hundreds and hundreds of hours like the left or straight or right-straight and even now, I'm still doing it wrong and that’s the thing I love about it the most. There's so much depth in the art, so much reality in it that you constantly need to evolve yourself. I love it. It's great.Jeremy Lesniak:I don’t get to imagine…I don’t know the population of Holland but I know it's not nearly as large in the U.S. and still here in the U.S., most martial artists, most people who are fans, you brought up the UFC, know Baz Rutten is who, of course, we had on the show not too long ago. He’s Dutch, he’s a kickboxer, he did some Kyokushin, I’m seeing similarities between you and him. Is he a bit of a role model for you?Casper Makkink:Yeah. Yeah, of course. I really like his stuff. When I was in the [00:14:32] I always looked at his technique, his matches and fights. I loved it and to me, it looks like he’s a very nice guy too. Very relaxed, very honest.Jeremy Lesniak:He was a great guy to have on the show. I can't say that I've met him but our conversation during the episode and leading up to and after was great. I was almost jealous of me. It was a pretty big deal to get him on the show. I was honored. I was honored.Casper Makkink:That’s so cool. It's pretty crazy because last year, I worked [00:15:06] I don’t know if you know him [00:15:12] it was a few years ago, one of the best fighters that ever lived just like Baz, to be fair, and he came to Holland, my trainer who trained in kickboxing, to me it’s so strange. We’re such a small country but all the people who wanted to learn to kickbox come to Holland. Back in the days of glory, day one, it was even so strange like the Moroccan Hollanders, the Dutch people that come from Morocco needed to come out for Morocco because otherwise all the kickboxers on the K1 would be Dutch.Jeremy Lesniak:Why is that? Why is all the kickboxing and the Dutch people?Casper Makkink:I don’t know. I think we really love really basic stuff. Pragmatism. Simple, keep it real and no booing and stuff. We don’t like that. No talk about or that kind of crap. I don’t know.Jeremy Lesniak:So, were you, how do I want to ask this…when you were growing up and you were training in these other arts, some of this less pragmatic stuff is pretty fundamental in what we generally talk about as traditional martial arts, were you aware that that wasn’t something that worked for you then or was it only after the kickboxing that you said, you know, I don’t even want to worry about this other stuff, these extra stuff?Casper Makkink:Well, I always notice it like when you do pencak silat, you have the lankas, they're the same as katas only they called it different because of Indonesian art but I always kind of liked them but I always felt like it wasn’t real fighting. Most of them doesn’t have a real fighting application to it and I don’t want to say that katas don’t have a place because you learn stuff from it but I don’t think it's most effective way to learn how to fight.Jeremy Lesniak:I think I agree and I think most people would agree.Casper Makkink:Yeah, I believe the problem is that most schools…Jeremy Lesniak:I will agree. Anybody who is teaching kata forms and saying this is the best way to learn how to fight is wrong but that doesn’t mean there aren’t tremendous other benefits, yeah.Casper Makkink:Benefits, yeah, of course! I am completely agreeing with that part because it's culture. You're strengthening your body with it, I believe. In some cases, most of the people I know from karate or from pencak silat, has tremendous kicks because they do the lankas or the katas with the kicks and the form. I think it's very important for that and also most kickboxers can't fight both sides and most people who do katas and lankas, they can because they practice it.Jeremy Lesniak:Very good point. Now, anybody that’s spent a lot of time in kickboxing tends to have ended up in competition at some point. I'm guessing you’ve competed?Casper Makkink:Yeah, I did. Three weeks ago, was my last competition.Jeremy Lesniak:Three weeks ago, how are you feeling?Casper Makkink:Pretty good, to be fair. I didn’t have any damage done to me. I was very happy because we fight the shin section and stuff and normally my shins are banged up after and I didn’t have anything so I was happy.Jeremy Lesniak:That’s great. How many full contact fights have you had?Casper Makkink:In kickboxing, I believe, seven? Six? Six! Then I also had a bunch of full contact pencak silat fights so they don’t punch to the head but still full contact and I also did some Kenpo fighting but I didn’t like it. A funny story, to be fair, we are fighting in a Kenpo tournament, it was the Dutch championship and it was, for me, my first tournament I would fight in. So, we came there, we started to compete and I hit the guy in the face full force. Boom! Then the referee stopped us, okay, you cannot hit full force. It’s point sparring. I didn’t know that. Nobody did. They told me that. I trained in it, they didn’t tell me so we were perplexed like oh, okay! So, after all, we made some adjustments, got a lot of warning for not pulling my punches enough but all in all, I became a Dutch national champion in Kenpo.Jeremy Lesniak:Even though you thought you were getting into a full contact fight?Casper Makkink:But I never did.Jeremy Lesniak:Now, I don’t know if that says something really positive about you. Maybe it says something less positive to the people you were fighting but maybe both but that’s pretty funny.Casper Makkink:Yeah to me, it was too and I forget, I was with my best friend, he get me into martial arts, into the pencak stuff and the Thai boxing and this guy really kicks hard, really, really hard. Amazing, his low kicks. He was standing there, he kicked the guy in the shin with shin protectors on and the other guy didn’t want to fight him anymore.Jeremy Lesniak:Those low kicks! Those low kicks! Now, I can speak to low kicks because I grew up in martial arts that don’t use low kicks in any of the rules. I grew up primarily doing point fighting and I’ve trained with and actually, just this past weekend, was training with some folks spending a lot of time in Thai kickboxing. I'm thinking of Kru John Johnston was there this weekend. He's been on the show and he and his guys, they're used to throwing those leg kicks and here we are, we’re sparring and I'm sparring with this one person and they just kept trying to take my legs out from under me and I knew that if any one of those had connected, my shins aren’t conditioned for that, I'm not used to that. It hurts! It's very different! But it's such a practical movement at the same time. Anybody can reach the shin, anybody can kick anybody in the shin.Casper Makkink:Yeah, if you go a little bit higher in the leg itself, oh man, those things hurt. But my last match in my first round, I make 20 low kicks in the first round only. So, I had a match from 2 minutes, that was first round and I kicked the guy 6 times in his leg and that was an amazing part to me. He was a tough guy and he trained well.Jeremy Lesniak:Now, you’ve…go ahead.Casper Makkink:I think it was a Russian and most Russian guys are tough always.Jeremy Lesniak:Now, when we were starting off and we started talking about titles and everything, you mentioned a couple times, your karate instructor, your Kyokushin instructor, so are you still training in Kyokushin?Casper Makkink:Well, officially it's a difficult story because in Dutch, we have blended at least in the kickboxing style, we blended them all together. My trainer is Peter [00:23:48] and he is a world champion Thai boxer, world champion [00:23:55] fighter and a Kyokushin fighter so the guy is amazing. He has so much knowledge in fighting systems, he is really amazing. Sometimes, we still train it like that but most of the time, we just train kickboxing. Although, I want to compete in Kyokushin again because I kind of like it and I don’t get that much hit in the face with Kyokushin.Jeremy Lesniak:Right, a whole different movement. I also like not getting kicked in the face. One of my personal preferences.Casper Makkink:That’s great, not getting punched in the face. It's one of the most important part of fighting.Jeremy Lesniak:Now, whenever we have people on who’ve trained in a bunch of different martial arts, they get exposed to a lot of different influences so I'm curious when you think back, when you look at your own, we’ll say, personal style of martial arts, who’s been the biggest contributor? Who influenced your martial arts the most? Trainers or coaches, to be honest, we had people credit their parents. It could be anybody if you were to imagine what one person could we take out of your history and it would change you and your martial arts the most? There’s another way.Casper Makkink:Peter, the guy I trained for the last three years, two and a half years. Peter [00:25:40], he’s one of the most important people. You really learn how to move. Before this, I was just banging and standing with somebody. I want to say I learned such amazing skills and so much knowledge, he’s one of that who really changed my game. Another guy, I can say, [00:26:00] such an amazing, amazing athlete I had trained with. He was amazing. The guy was so fast, [00:26:10] something like that. Really heavy dude and I’m like 80 kilos, 160 I believe, and I couldn’t hit the guy. Amazing. But all basic, basic, basic, basic. I trained with him for hours, only stepping. That’s one of the most important things I carry with me. That being said, also, my first kickboxing teacher [00:26:45] an amazing kickboxer also multiple world champion in Thai boxing and also karate. Amazing, the kicks, I love it.Jeremy Lesniak:When I talk to martial artists, martial artists, like everyone else in the world, has challenges. We have things that we go through in life that are difficult. Sometimes those things are physical, maybe someone attacks you. sometimes, hopefully, most of the time, it's not something that dramatic but it could still be very intense. Something emotional or personal but as martial artists, we have different tools, we have different experiences to face and overcome those challenges. Tell us about one of your challenges that you’ve been through and how martial arts made it easier.Casper Makkink:For me, one of my biggest challenge, like I told you, when I was 16, 17, I had a stroke or at least, we thought so and I was done. I was in a coma for some few minutes and I believe, a few hours, I'm not sure because I couldn’t remember it precisely and when I wake up, I was paralyzed for a full 70% on my left side and I believe that martial arts, [00:28:17] in general, helped me get better. Doctors told me I would never walk again, I would never run again.Jeremy Lesniak:How old were you when this happened?Casper Makkink:16 or 17.Jeremy Lesniak:Do you know what caused it? Did you say…I missed it if you said that.Casper Makkink:Yeah, they suspected, in my family, we all have the one bad…Jeremy Lesniak:Gene?Casper Makkink:Blood vessel in our brain and it can break at any moment, most of the time it breaks when we’re a little bit older and it broke when I was really young. I was kind of lucky in that one because when you're young, you can recover fast.Jeremy Lesniak:So, at 16 you have a stroke and you're out and you come back and you're partially paralyzed and they tell you you're never going to walk again, what does that feel like? That has to be overwhelming.Casper Makkink:Yeah, it kind of was. I just started with a new education and I couldn’t do anything and it was bad, it was really bad but I wasn’t going to accept it. It wasn’t going to happen.Jeremy Lesniak:And that was your attitude from the beginning, as soon as they told you that, you said no, forget that, I'm going to walk again, I'm going to make full recovery?Casper Makkink:Yeah, pretty much it. I believe 2 weeks, something like that to be really sure because the 1stweek, you're there but you're not really there. I couldn’t stay in that way. After that I was going to recover and I'm going to do it and I was in luck, it was the friend of my parents who have been into recovery and he took me in and I could train 5 or 6 times a week with him free and that’s how I recovered. As of half year, I started pencak silat and the other half year, I become the Dutch champion in Kenpo within a year and I also, within that same year, I believe, I had it in the starting of October and the next year, end of October, I did my first marathon.Jeremy Lesniak:Are you someone who enjoys doing things that others say you can't do? Are you a rebel? You sound a bit rebellious to me.Casper Makkink:Yeah, a little bit I believe. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, that’s the whole story of how I started on a martial arts. I was running and very long dike, we call it dike. We have a really big wall that makes sure no water will come into the country.Jeremy Lesniak:A dam.Casper Makkink:A dam, yeah, thank you! and that was 30 kilometers long and I had something like, okay, when I was little, I looked at it and said, I can run that far, I can make it. So, I just did. So, when I was already in Army School, I told my pals like hey, guys, look at what I did this weekend? And they told me, no, you didn’t do that, you're a liar, screw you, or at least you couldn’t do it. So, I told them, listen to me, I will prove it to you. I will run the marathon in about two weeks and they were laughing and then I did it without any training or any special run training. We had a training mission the week before so I come back at Friday and then on Saturday, I ran the marathon in 3 hours and 40 minutes.Jeremy Lesniak:Okay, you are a special kind of crazy, my friend. I've known other people who have run marathons without training but they have not finished so that’s impressive.Casper Makkink:It did hurt. I need to be honest.Jeremy Lesniak:I wouldn’t have believed you if you said that it hadn’t.Casper Makkink:Well, I was pretty happy because when I get back to my military base, they were so proud of me that I didn’t do any gym for the rest of the week.Jeremy Lesniak:I love it. I love it. When you think of the time in the martial arts, and not that what you just told us isn’t an amazing story, but I'd love for you to tell us your favorite story involving your martial arts and you’ve told some good ones and if the ones that you already told us are your favorites then just pick another one, tell us something new.Casper Makkink:Okay. It may not be my favorite but it's a good story so I'm going to tell you. let me say before this, I hate violence. I don’t like to fight at all but it's a martial arts story so nevertheless I'm going to tell it. Let me see, when I was going out with some friends, most of my friends were in the army or kickboxers also or Thai boxers or something like that so we went out with friends of mine and also, the guy who kicked hard that the guy didn’t want to fight him at the Kenpo competition and another friend who is a jiujitsu expert and also a pretty good Thai boxer and he also was in the army. So pretty tough guy and we went to Amsterdam, a lake near Amsterdam where we go a night out once or twice a year, we always go there and we’re sitting in the bus and some guys like 14 guys were sitting in the bus, screaming, drinking beer, throwing bottles and just really being - and my friend of mine, the guy from the army stood up and told the guys to be quiet, very nicely, because that’s the guy he is and we had a little rabble and then I said, okay, just be quiet, we don’t want anything to happen. Just fun. Behave. Then they were trying to rip loose the seating on the bus, the bus driver wasn’t saying anything so we were annoyed so at some point, we talked to them again like hey guys, just behave, come on and they were quiet after that. So, we went out the bus, at the moment we went out, 12 or 13 guys also get out of the bus and come at us to get a story out of us, why did we talk to them like that and normally, I'm kind of nice guy but I'm not really good at handling somebody touches me really good. I just don’t like that. Don’t do that and the guy pushes me so I headbutted him and at that moment, 12 of those guys just went into a rage and it was one big fight but then friends of my just spring into it and after about 10 seconds of hitting people, I have kneed somebody, somebody punched somebody else in the face, it was complete chaos. We heard them screaming, oh my god, they're boxers, they're boxers, we need to get the hell out of it and I believe, after 5 seconds, everybody was gone and we were standing there like what the hell did just happen here and meanwhile, my girlfriend was standing a little bit behind us, she was like, oh my god, guys, I hate you but at the end of the day, nothing happened so I was really happy.Jeremy Lesniak:What I like about that story is that it starts of very much like it was in a movie. You can see that as a scene in a movie but of course, the reality of violence is so different than what we see in entertainment. If it had been a movie, that would’ve been a three-minute fight. Everybody would be getting thrown around and it would be much more dramatic than what it was.Casper Makkink:That’s the thing with violence is always an explosion. It's an explosion and then people lose some morale and then they run. That always happen. You don’t have to win. You don’t have to put the other guy out, you need to break his morale. That’s how you fight, that’s how you…I do war on somebody because you don’t want them to fight, you want them to run.Jeremy Lesniak:Now, you mentioned that, I think that was before the start of the episode, that you spent some time as a bouncer.Casper Makkink:Yeah, I did.Jeremy Lesniak:Talk to me a little bit about that and how your time, in this very real, sometimes, violent environment changed your ideas or formed your ideas on what violence really is.Casper Makkink:First, I think what I can tell you about it is that talking with people and it's funny because last episode, I was listening, talking is the most important part of being into fighting. I always thought when I make a joke, [00:38:47] just talk to the guy, be patient, try to figure this out and try to solve without violence because violence, oh my god, it only can end bad because if I hit a guy, I probably go to jail. If I throw a guy on the ground, maybe he breaks his arm then I also go to jail and I don’t do anything, maybe he will punch me in the face so I think talking to somebody is so important. The other thing, when it does happen, it's fast and you need to be efficient and what I meant with that, do your best technique, I mean just do what you think is right, do it as hard as you can because you need to make them quit.Jeremy Lesniak:A lot of that sounds like it could have come out of Krav Maga class. That philosophy, that be very brutal very quickly, don’t wait, don’t hesitate. Now, admittedly, I spent very little time training in Krav Maga but I've worked with a number of people who have and that seems to be a common theme.Casper Makkink:Yeah, well, it's the soldier. It's the way of the soldier how you approach something. You need to attack it. The thing is if you don’t attack with full force, some other guy will look at you and maybe his friend or maybe some other people and oh, that’s okay. No, you want them to see that he gets kneed in the face, elbowed in the stomach and the other guy will think okay, I'm not going to interact with this guy, I'm going to leave because that’s what you want and I think, it's so important if you don’t, if you need to pull the trigger, you need to pull the trigger and you need to wait as long as you can, as long as you can talk, talk, talk, talk, talk but if it's real violence, if somebody’s really trying to hurt you, you need to -- the guy up.Jeremy Lesniak:That’s okay. That’s okay.Casper Makkink:Sorry.Jeremy Lesniak:That’s what editing is for.Jeremy Lesniak:And the beauty of it is that the listeners know what word you used even though we bleeped it out. Let’s just keep our rating on iTunes. You get worked up. You got emotional. I'm going to take some credit for that.Casper Makkink:The other thing is that you also may look at bouncing is a lot of straight violence like if somebody tries to really injure you or you also have some guys who are just drunk and when a guy is drunk, you don’t have to hurt them at all. When you try to remove somebody, you just grab them by the neck, you just grab them by the arm from behind. They cannot defend themselves. You don’t have to hurt them. If you relax, take them outside but at the moment, the guy really wants to hurt you, that’s a different story. That predatorial. When there's a predator, it's different.Jeremy Lesniak:You’ve had a lot of pretty amazing experiences, if you could add one by training with anyone, anyone in the world, we’ll even say, anyone in time they could be dead. You could train with anybody, who would you want to train with.Casper Makkink:Well, that one is pretty easy: Bruce Lee.Jeremy Lesniak:Why Bruce Lee? It's the first time you mentioned him. You mentioned Enter the Dragon earlier. Well, why Bruce Lee?Casper Makkink:Yeah! Well, that’s the standard because of his fighting skills. I believe he was an amazing fighter but I don’t believe he was an amazing fighter but I don’t believe he was any more amazing than the fighters I have already trained with, to be fair. Maybe a little bit blunt but I want to pick his mind about philosophy. I really think that’s the most important part about it.Jeremy Lesniak:What sort of conversation would you hope to have when you talk about philosophy in martial arts, tell me more, where would you hope that conversation went?Casper Makkink:The different ways to be when you’re fighting, Mushin, mind without mind. How you can develop yourself better but also how to be in balance with your inner self. I mean the Mushin way, with the dark part of yourself and with the light part with yourself and I think, nowadays, in our society, a very big problem is the only thing we want to talk about is our light side. We don’t want to talk about the predator that is inside ourselves and I would love to spar with him about those things. I would love to talk about all these with him.Jeremy Lesniak:I'm going to guess that you spent some time contemplating that, you called it the predator, some people call it the dark side, the shadow side of our personality. How does that relate to your perspective, your philosophy of martial arts?Casper Makkink:I think it's one of the things you can train with martial arts. You can put it do good use. It's like the yin and yang. It's not all good and not all bad for definition. It's a part of you and you need to integrate with your own person and the only way to do it is to get in touch with it and I believe, sometimes when I'm having a match, something like that, I get really close to that animal inside of me and I think that’s very important to understand yourself better because the person who says he cannot kill somebody are usually the most dangerous of all. The person who knows he can kill somebody but doesn’t do it, that’s a good person. There's a difference there.Jeremy Lesniak:I'm going to have to think of that. It's interesting. I haven't heard that before. Don’t get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing, but I need to digest that a little bit, I like it.Casper Makkink:Yeah, in the Old Testament, there is a little bit. It's about the people who have sword and don’t use it are good people and in most translation, it translates differently, it translate like the weak shall inherent the world, if you know that. If you translate it from, I believe, Jewish, it translates a little bit differently. It translated as people who have sword and know how to use them but don’t use them will inherit the world. The idea is if you know how to be violent but you're not, if you can be it but you don’t act on it, then you're good and you will inherit the world because then somebody cannot mess with you and otherwise you are only weak.Jeremy Lesniak:And that’s certainly an idea that comes up a lot in martial arts conversation, the idea that, and I've heard some express it as to have the ability to defend yourself, the ability to protect someone else and the choice to not use that skill is much more valuable than not having the choice at all.Casper Makkink:Yes, yes, because if you don’t have the choice at all, you're just not doing it because you can't and maybe you should then. Because if somebody is pushing you, you need to be able to push back.Jeremy Lesniak:Now, you mentioned Bruce Lee, you mentioned Enter the Dragon, I'm going to guess that you're a fan of martial arts movies. There’s just something about you tells me you like a good fight scene, am I right?Casper Makkink:Yeah, I do.Jeremy Lesniak:Go ahead.Casper Makkink:I'm on a mission to let my girlfriend watch them all.Jeremy Lesniak:It's a lot!Casper Makkink:Yeah, I know. But at least from Bruce Lee, the Ip Man series, like the basic stuff.Jeremy Lesniak:Now, what’s your favorite? Do you have a favorite martial arts movie?Casper Makkink:Well, Enter the Dragon is one of my favorite. I believe, Fist of Legend is the one that he goes to the Karate school, right?Jeremy Lesniak:Yeah, I think you’re right and I’ll admit, some of the movies at that time period get a little blurry for me. I haven't watched it as many times as I'm sure the listeners think I have.Casper Makkink:I need to be fair, I believe, Fist of Legend, when I was small was one of my favorite movies and I'm also going to say The Last Samurai. I really dig that movie maybe because I still hope to learn how to fight with a sword better.Jeremy Lesniak:I think that’s one of the few martial arts discipline that you haven't trained in is something with a sword. Oh no! You said fencing! See, I'm wrong!Casper Makkink:I did fencing! I said fencing! But that was a katana, so…and I would still love to learn it. I really would or something like eskrima or something like that. I think that would be so great.Jeremy Lesniak:Let’s look into the future now. When you look out over the next however many years, I assume you want to keep training. I don’t think we’ve had anybody on the show who said I'm just going to stop. So, I'm imagining that you're not going to be the first person to say oh, I'm just going to stop in like 8 years.Casper Makkink:Absolutely.Jeremy Lesniak:Okay, good.Casper Makkink:No, no, that’s for sure.Jeremy Lesniak:So, when you look into the future and your training, what are your goals?Casper Makkink:In my training, specifically, learn more weapons, weapons stuff. I really kind of dig it, I think it's cool. I would love to get a black belt in Taekwondo and Kyokushin just for the tradition of it and I really love to kick, I want to learn how to kick that’s why I learn taekwondo and Kyokushin just because the attitude in it, I love it. I think that’s the greatest, most important thing I want to do and honestly, I keep competing and maybe some MMA matches in the future.Jeremy Lesniak:I’ll make sure I’ll keep an eye out for your name.Casper Makkink:I need to be fair in that. I love competing but I don’t think it's the more important part of fighting sport. Competing for me is just to test the theories I know about fighting because I'm a teacher, fundamentally. I love to teach. I think I love that more than fighting itself but I don’t want to teach my children and I teach the wrong stuff.Jeremy Lesniak:Makes sense. I get it.Casper Makkink:So, for me, that’s why I want to learn…that’s why I want to fight and also, sometimes, I you need to do something crazy, I suppose. Not going to lie about that 51:08Jeremy Lesniak:I understand. I know exactly what you’re saying. Now, if people want to find you online, they want to reach out to you, learn more about you or whatever, where would they go? Social media, websites, stuff like that.Casper Makkink:On social media, you can search me up Casper Makkink, it’s my personal Facebook page. Otherwise you can look at Back2Base, that’s with 2 in the middle of it. That’s my school and otherwise, in Instagram, it's the same @back2base is the Instagram of my dojo and also if you just look for Casper Makkink, you can also find me on Instagram, I also talk about movies about fighting and that’s about it. In other ways, there’s my website, back2base.nl.Jeremy Lesniak:Of course, we’re going to have links to everything that you just mentioned at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com so if people want to check out what you’ve got and they don’t have a pen or maybe your accent’s throwing them off a little bit. I mean, your English is amazing but understanding a website is hard enough when there's no difference in accent.Casper Makkink:Yeah, I know, it's horrible and especially when I say it, I say it in Dutch.Jeremy Lesniak:I will not say your English is horrible because you are more understandable than some of the folks that we have on who are native English speakers. I'm not going to name any names but we’ve had a few folks out of the south that I got some listener feedback that they had a hard time understanding so I’ve had it easy, fine time understanding you. You’ve done great.Casper Makkink:In Holland, we learn how to speak English when we are four or something like that. One of our languages at home was English when we’re discussing things because my little brother went to an English school so when we’re talking about science and philosophy and politics, he could speak better English than he could talk Dutch.Jeremy Lesniak:It's fascinating to me. I guess I just feel lucky that I speak English and at the same time, a little sad that the language I speak, the next best is Spanish and it barely compares. I could never appear on a Spanish speaking podcast and say anything beyond what a 2-year old would say.Casper Makkink:So, I'm fairly dyslexic but the thing is I cannot write it at all so my little brother helped me with the email that we sent you because I cannot write it at all but normally, in Holland, it's normal to speak English, German, French, Dutch and sometimes, Spanish.Jeremy Lesniak:And do you speak all of this?Casper Makkink:No. I speak a little bit…I can understand German because it looks a lot like Dutch. Like I said, I was pretty dyslexic when I was in school and my teacher said in one month, okay, you are not going to learn this so just quit it and it's the best thing that happened.Jeremy Lesniak:I’ve had a lot of fun talking today and I appreciate your time. It’s obviously, folks, there's a time zone difference going on here and you were gracious enough to speak to me a little bit later in your day and we mentioned before we came on and started recording that you gave up on one of your personal commitments to come and do the show and I really appreciate that but if I could ask you for one more thing for all the folks listening. What parting advice, what words of wisdom would you share with the listeners today?Casper Makkink:Just be yourself. Go and be yourself and try to experience new things. Everything, new things you can do, you can do way more than that. I would say when you think you're done, you're not even 40% of yourself. You can go way beyond. I think that’s the more important thing. Just go out and try it.Jeremy Lesniak:We’ve had quite a few people on the show who have transitioned from the“more traditional” martial arts into something a little more reality-based or realistic or whatever you choose to call it and sensei Makkink was one of those people yet throughout the conversation, he spoke affectionately for the philosophy, for the teachings of other, again, more traditional martial arts and that was something I really appreciated. The martial arts is something that becomes inherently unique and our perspective on that tends to show through when we talk about it and that’s what I loved most about this episode is that we got to see that so thank you so much for coming on this show. Thank you for your time and I'm sure we’ll talk again soon. If you want to check out the links to the social media accounts and the websites that we referenced as well as check out a number of photos, head on over to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com again, this is episode 390 and check all of that out there. Don’t forget the PODCAST15 discount code saves you 15% on everything we sell at whistlekick.com. sparring gear, apparel, sneakers, uniforms, tons of stuff, check it out, help support the show whether that be through a purchase there or simply sharing this or another episode, leaving us a review, anything you can do helps and is greatly, greatly appreciated. Find us on social media, we’re @whistlekick on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and of course, you can email me directly jeremy@whistlekick.com. Until next time, train hard, smile and have a great day!