Episode 570 - Sensei Erik Johnstone
Sensei Erik Johnstone is a Martial Arts practitioner and instructor. He is the head instructor at the Shindokan Budo New England.
We don’t get to fulfill our obligations to transmit the art without students coming into the dojo, without students coming to training events. So our very existence in the role of teacher is entirely dependent on the existence of the role of the students.
Sensei Erik Johnstone - Episode 570
When your mother finds a way for you to get into the Martial Arts, it makes things a lot easier. Sensei Erik Johnstone has his mother to thank for introducing him to his first martial arts school when he was a kid. A self-confessed avid fan of the 70s show “Kung Fu” starred by David Carradine, his passion for the martial arts grew. Since then, Sensei Erik Johnstone has been a practitioner of traditional and classical Japanese and Okinawan martial traditions for more than 30 years. Presently he is the Chief Instructor of his school Shindokan Budo that has dojos in both Connecticut and Rhode Island. Listen to learn more!
Show Notes
You may find out more about Sensei Erik Johnstone’s school at Shindokanbudodojo.com
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey there. What's going on? Welcome! This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio Episode 570 artial Arts Radio Episode 570 with Sensei, Eric Johnstone. I'm Jeremy Lesniak; I'm your host on the show. I'm the founder of whistlekick and I want to get right down to it. I'm just a guy who loves martial arts. I love training. And that's why we do all that we do here at whistlekick and one of the things we do is this show. It's got a website whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, check it out. There's another website for all the things that we do, because we do a lot more than this podcast, its whistlekick.com, check it out. We've got a store over there and if you find something in there that tickles your fancy. It's a weird expression, but we'll use it, you can use the code podcast 15 to get yourself 15% off. We bring it two shows every week at all with the purpose of connecting, educating, and entertaining traditional martial artists throughout the world. If you like what we're doing. If you want to support it in some way, you could make a purchase or share an episode or leave a review but you can also contribute to our Patreon patreon.com/whistlekick. In fact, if you contribute a little bit of money, we're gonna give you back more content and not just the same content you can find anywhere. This is original content 100% of what you find on Patreon is exclusive to Patreon. So you throw a couple bucks a month. We're going to tell you what's going on behind the scenes, not just whistlekick but with the show upcoming guests, stuff like that. $5, we give you an exclusive audio episode and it goes up from there. We've got people really supporting us. And I don't name names but you all know who you are, I think, means the world to me. Because, let's face it, the show is not inexpensive to put together. There are a lot of people involved in. I think all of you for your hard work to contribute to this amazing production. So today's guest comes in as a referral. And I was warned, that sounds ominous don’t it, but not warned in a negative way. Warned in a very positive way that this person was expecting I was going to have a great time talking with Sensei Johnstone. And guess what I did. We, well, I don't wanna speak for him. I had a wonderful time and I think that he had a good time too. I think you're gonna have. Hopefully almost as good of a time listening to our conversation. I just spent the last two minutes thinking about what else I could say, before we roll to the episode, and I didn't come up with anything, because this one. Well, I just want you to hear it. So here we go. How are you?
Erik Johnstone:
I'm well. How are you, sir?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm well. How are you?
Erik Johnstone:
I’m doing very well.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You're not gonna see me it's not a video show.
Erik Johnstone:
Oh okay, no worries.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don't even have a camera hooked up the joke I make with everyone is, you are welcome to turn off the video, pick your nose all you want. I don't even have to worry about that part of it.
Erik Johnstone:
Well, I'll turn off my video, only because I don't need to look at myself, the whole time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It was a little awkward it is, I get it.
Erik Johnstone:
Yeah, so video stopped. So, very nice to meet you here, in this format and thank you very much for the opportunity. Very kind of you guys.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, you know, we're all about talking to martial artists about martial arts, and that's pretty easy. You know, if somebody's not down to talk then they probably weren't going to be a good guest anyway. Hey, do you want to talk about martial arts with a complete stranger for an hour? Anybody who says yes to that it's probably going to be a good guy.
Erik Johnstone:
Yeah. So you are you, where are you located? In Vermont New Hampshire? Oh in Montpelier. Very nice. I lived in Wilmington, for quite a while and went to Southern Vermont College and I lived up in the hills there and worked at a ski shop at Mount Snow and I used to head up that way pretty frequently and I absolutely miss it still.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Where you know?
Erik Johnstone:
I live down in Westerly Rhode Island, where my wife was born and raised and my family, my mom and my mom and stepfather live over in Mystic Connecticut where my family immigrated to from Canada. So we're in a right on the shoreline here in Southern Rhode Island and as I said I married a girl from westerly so I'll never get out of life. It's a good little place though. It's a good little place.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You have you have some ties with Andrew.
Erik Johnstone:
Yeah. I had the pleasure of meeting, Andrew. So October, a year ago, when myself and a dear friend of mine were invited to come up and teach at the Boodle fest for the white crane martial arts in 04:53 led by Massey Butler. I'm pretty sure you know all about that story. And the loss of his teacher, a number of years ago so he had reached out to me, he'd found me and reached out to me about, I guess it was a year after his teachers passing and inquiry found our website, what it was, we did had seen some degree of overlap with what they what his teacher used to provide instruction in at the dojo there and inquired about coming for training and potentially becoming a student, which he subsequently did. So, I had the pleasure of only meeting Andrew but getting to sit in on his 05:49 Karate, last year. So that was very nice. Just a really warm and really warm, welcoming, lots of good energy with Andrew, and he shows up pretty frequently to our little bi-weekly not quite so bi-weekly anymore but a little bi-weekly dojo happy hour, night Friday.
Jeremy Lesniak:
He's good guy, we recorded a couple Thursday episodes, we do kind of topic driven stuff on Thursdays and we recorded a couple topics earlier today.
Erik Johnstone:
Oh, very nice, very nice. Yeah I I didn't get a chance to listen to the one that allowed the Junior black belts and such what she had actually given me a call about some thoughts on that. So it was really neat. Very well done. You're very well done, the podcasts that you're putting out there. You're obviously very well polished with regards to putting these together.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well if they're well-polished, then I owe it to the time that I've put in, and the team behind me.
Erik Johnstone:
There you go.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because I don't any of the editing anymore. I just I show up, I talk. When it's time, I stop talking. And then I go do something else.
Erik Johnstone:
Well no, but you yourself, so it sound really good, sounds really good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Don't listen to any of the early episodes. I won't say they're awful. I'll just say that once in a while if I catch one of them, and I press play. I stop, very quickly. You know the worst in your own voice is your own voice when you're aware that you're coming across like a fool.
Erik Johnstone:
Right, which one you're me seems to be more often than not.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So how did a guy from Canada end up in Southern Vermont? And working at a ski shop in Rhode Island and like how, how did this all happen?
Erik Johnstone:
Well, my family immigrated down to Mystic from Ontario. Actually I was born down here into a Canadian family and I've kind of run back and forth between the two countries. My grandfather was hired by the Mystic Seaport to do a lot of restoration work and initiate some significant projects there that have that he spent a good chunk of his life doing and he wants to move to Mystic despite the fact that he even he was, you know, into his 80s kept threatening to move back home. Never did and we kept telling him well grandfather, you know, really, it's not gonna work out so well because you are home, you know you've built your life here but, you know. So, but, and so we, they moved down here and then my mum. When I was growing up, you know, actually I was born when she was quite young. She was definitely a product of the late 60s early 70s counterculture if you will but we ended up kind of having quite a nomadic lifestyle, if you will, and I perpetuated that just out of habit for quite a few years even when I was going to school in Vermont I would go back to back to British Columbia, Canada where my aunts and uncles were and I had spent a lot of time in my youth, different stages. I was in Alaska for a little bit, and I just I don't know I just kind of, I kind of wrote I kept that roaming thing going and lived in California two different times growing up and, yeah, you know, number of states in Canadian province, so I've got under my belt at this point.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And when does martial art first appear?
Erik Johnstone:
So, the first actually ties in pretty nicely there. It was actually the first time around we were living in California as I said I grew up with a with a with a hippie mom there, and she was very much interested in in Eastern philosophy and spirituality when I was growing up, I mean, I remember the Zen books and Dallas books and such that were available at that time on her on our bookshelf, so I was kind of familiar with some of these things, way back when. And this is probably gonna sound completely stereotypical but as a kid, I loved the show Kung Fu with David Carradine right. And so when we moved to California and I also didn't grow up with a father. So when we moved to California. We've moved around a whole lot already. By then, and so kind of always 10:49 up people always changing and somewhere along the way and I wore glasses. A teeth recombinant from me and somewhere along the line I kind of, I just retreated inward, I guess, you know, and my mum based on her interests in in Eastern philosophy, thought that maybe this would be a good thing for me, putting into martial arts school. So we were in San Rafael, California and I was in grade five, I think. And we went to look at that time, one of the two or three; we actually look at two of the two or three martial arts schools in town. And even though center fell is only 45 minutes up to one on one from San Francisco. There weren't really that many martial arts schools there at that time. So we ended up, she ended up choosing for me this really kind of old school feeling temple school. And they, you know, plain black. No patches all over the place just really hard training. Despite what I came to find out later was more of an American Kenpo school they were very Karate in their approach. So it was a it was a good start and train there into, we left 12:33 and move back to New England for a little while and then it got a little harder to find places to train.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's stay in San Rafael for a moment. Okay. And you know you were you were into the movie Kung Fu, and you know don't think I didn't notice your very from my perspective, good pronunciation of that term, you know very much not English eyes, you know Americanized, right. People that don't know that the sound for Kung Fu, it's like half G half K, you hit that perfectly as far as I can tell, so I bet we're gonna come to something that tells us more about that in a moment, or at some point. But other than that, it sounded like it was your mother's idea.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's stay in San Rafael for a moment. Okay. And you know you were you were into the movie Kung Fu, and you know don't think I didn't notice your very from from my perspective, good pronunciation of that term, you know very much not English eyes. You know Americanized, right. People that don't know that the sound for Kung Fu, it's like half G half K, you hit that perfectly as far as I can tell, so I bet we're gonna come to something that tells us more about that in a moment, or at some point. But other than that, It sounded like it was your mother's idea.
Erik Johnstone:
Yeah, it really was. Absolutely. I really didn't even know that there were any such places in town and I certainly never seen any such place prior to that. So I mean this must be, if I was in grade five, this must have been like, I don't know 70, 78, 79, 1980 something like that. So, yeah, it was not a common thing at that point. So, I wasn't even aware she had looked into, she always found a way, no matter where we were to be to hook up with the very international communities in any given area. So we she had a lot of friends that she worked with that were Chinese, Korean and Japanese and among others that others have day. So she had a really interesting array, a diverse array of friends and they pointed her in the right direction with regard to finding what was available. And it was, so it was her. It was her doing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And what were your initial impression?
Erik Johnstone:
I thought it was fantastic. I especially like they did like private lessons stuff, you know you'd learn the formalized like techniques, you know the sequences, almost like little mini cutter, right, you know, but required self-defense techniques but I really enjoyed the group classes and at that time there really weren't a lot of kids in in training, certainly not in that particular dojo so I didn't really have a schedule set up to where there were kids only classes and such so I found myself as this guy in grade five and grade six training in these group classes with all these, you know, full grown practitioners you know from all age, you know, all ranks and skill levels and it was fun. I think that's where I started to come into my own, you know, I started to get involved in other sports because of that and started to realize that there was a degree of athletic ability and such because of that I became a high school swimmer and a water polo player second time around in California. It was the start of, you know, certainly, finally, 16:06 it took a while but I thought that was the beginning.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. All right. Then you move east?
Erik Johnstone:
Yeah. There's a little gap trying to find people to train with, and. But it wasn't too long; I mean we're right back in California. So, back to kind of trying to figure it out there. Yeah, there was a little, there were some training gaps there. You know I'd like to say that I had trained consistently since 1978 or 79, whatever it was. But there weren't many opportunities when we'd come back to. First, we were briefly in Pennsylvania for like a very short period of time because my mom had gotten a job in the energy industry and she had her mom had gotten 17:00 so she was trying to get back east. And so she took a job at a job site. Once you're in that little 17:08 for that track. It's hard to get out of it and they start moving around a lot anyway, so there was a brief stint in Pennsylvania, where there was nothing available that was a year. And then I was up to back into Mystic at my grandparents place for a while my mom stayed in in Pennsylvania. And so, that was great. I did some training with a man named John 17:36, who was a Karate practitioner, and he had a small group, practicing in his basement. But again it was mostly adults. So I did that through grade eight. And that was kind of mostly I would say that served to keep the engine oil, if you will, you know, it kept my interest, it kept me at least moving my body in space in in an in a martial art kind of way. They did a very, see I guess they did a very eclectic kind of Karate back then. I think it was became a new practitioner but at that time it seemed to kind of looking back on it I recognized it as being a little more like an eclectic approach. And then it was back to California, that's where I think that's kind of what I consider my true, the real genesis of it, you know. Because I guess I don't know if I'm rambling too much you're already with.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, this is how we run the show, you ramble and I hang out and keep you rambling.
Erik Johnstone:
Got it. So, fast forward to when we're back in California, it's great night and my mother takes an assignment, at a job site down in San Louis, San Luis Obispo County in the Central Coast paradise on earth. And, you know, I'm feeling a little bit better about myself in life. You know I joined the swim team at Row Grande high school. And, but I still wanted to do martial art. I had never forgotten that I still really wanted to practice martial art. My mom comes home from work one day, and tells me that she works with a Japanese man who happens to teach a style of Karate., turns out that style was Waddle Karate. While Jiu Jitsu Kimball. And he had just come down from himself, he just transferred down from San Francisco, which were the main office was and where he had a large group training at the Embarcadero YMCA. And he was a student of a number of well-known water view instructors. 20:15 Sensei and 20:16 Sensei, as well as frequent trips back to Japan training was originally with the founder of watery, 20:24 son Judo who became Kira Nori, the second upon his father's passing. So I was able to begin training in a really authentic style of Japanese Budo, there in San Luis Obispo County. And it's almost like a little bit of a cliché training was held at the local Buddhist temple, you know, because so, in on West Coast, especially the Jōdo Shinshū School of Buddhism, as a number has had a number of temples. Come over with the Japanese immigrants is in the late 1800s. They established what they called churches Buddhist churches up and down the West Coast, and they served as Japanese community centers as well. They served as community centers for the local Japanese populations up and down the West Coast so it's pretty common actually for temples in the Buddhist churches of America, or Jewish into school to have like Karate, Judo and Kendall and the 21:46 Shodo classes all kinds of Japanese culture. The training was fantastic. You know I remember have to backtrack. The first thing about that is, you know, Hiroko Sensei had put together a hard charging group of guys that he gathered from the power plant there, you know that he worked with and then some others have heard about it, and he had initially been reluctant to accept anybody under 18 into training at all. And, but coming to know my mom through working with her and finding out that I you know I didn't have a father. He thought that this would be, you know, probably a good thing for a 14 year old kid to be doing. And so he accepted me into the classroom for quite a while and she only as the only teenager in the class. under the age of 18. It was a hard charging group of practitioners and so I would go train after swim practice every day. And we would have training three nights a week, sometimes four and training what started six and it would end when Sensei decided he was done, which was usually quite late into the evening. I was 14 but when I was, yeah, I was 19 at early 84. When I started training with him. Yeah. So, that was a wonderful time. And due to the nature of 23:39, there was a side from 23:42 that one usually associates with Karate training. Lots of Jiu Jitsu training as well because that's the guts, the teamwork of one of us as a system. It's a real synthesis of the Karate that children of 24:05 learn from 24:10 as synthesis of that Karate with the Shindo Yoshin Ryu Jiu Jitsu in which he held a 24:15. So very Karate in its outer appearance but really driven by principles of Japanese Jiu Jitsu and Kenjutsu, those are really the driving set of principles 24:39. So it was very different. It was very different from what most people think of when they think of Karate but that in it kind of led me to difficult as we moved yet again to really find it to really find what suited me. So, because we ended up leaving halfway through grade 11, I had gotten brown belt 25:02 with Hiroka Sensei. He was getting transferred back to San Francisco and tries it. In he was gonna leave a group there but my mom was getting transferred back to East Coast so that's what happened next.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I find it interesting the way that you're talking about this is you put it nomadic lifestyle. Go ahead. I'm wondering if you were as comfortable with it. In the moment as you are now in hindsight.
Erik Johnstone:
You know, we had become so normal that it seemed comfortable. On the other hand, in hindsight, over the, you know, over the years. I think that some of the more negative impacts of that experience had gotten kind of buried. There were certainly difficulties that I had difficulties academically, at some point, mostly in mathematics and sciences such just the constant change made it difficult to sustain academic success. I had to leave a successful High School swimming career in California. I had to leave my Karate training in California. The long and short of it is, it kind of was ended up being set back again. Because I ended up going to a number of high schools and start started to especially in grade 11 kind of really turned inward again. Grade 12 found us back in Mystic and around people that I had known when I was there in grade eight and earlier in my, some of my elementary school years but the reality was is that I was really kind of an outsider, you know, most of the time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
When were you an outsider? And I'm guessing we're all going to imagine the answer to this question, but was the dojo a place that you felt you're different? You felt that you belong?
Erik Johnstone:
Yeah, I really did and I in grade 12 I looked around what was available in the area, and between from New London Connecticut over to Western Rhode Island places that I was able to get to. And there was quite a bit of more. Even though it was Okinawan Karate there's been no short news and such. It was really kind of everybody's really interested in that 80s point fighting thing. And I was never ever intrigued with that at all. Despite being having been, you know, and such and realizing some success in a competitive arena. And therefore not adverse to the idea of competition, I wasn't interested in that approach. And so I found a game kind of a hole in the wall, 28:46 Karate school. And by training 28:50 in grade 12, and also started to practice Aikido, because old friend of my mom's from way back when I had been in Japan for a number of years and he came back from Japan, with a Sunda in Aikido under Michiro 29:16 who was one of the few to receive 10 stone from the founder of Aikido, 29:22. So I got to train Aikido as well. So that was really important as well. Another important point in terms of a springboard and, really, I guess what I'm getting to is most of these early experiences became the springboard as I matured and evolved and found my way in Budo. That's also when I really got to start to study some of my Aikido teacher being exposed to a little bit of 30:12 with Hidoka Sensei in California but started to do a little bit more 30:17 with Sensei my Aikido teacher, and those 30:26 and the Jiu Jitsu component of water view and sword was where I really knew I wanted to be. So I continued searching and traveling to go and find those things which I ultimately did.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. And not quite sure what I'm asking because you're connecting pieces that are, in some sense, you could look at and say these are very disparate, these are very different things you're being eclectic. You're choosing I want this, and I want this kind of looking for this martial arts buffet. And yet, you know they're not there, that if you take the systemic element out of it, you know, sword work and grappling work, you know that they're not that foreign to each other right.
Erik Johnstone:
No, they really aren't.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, at this point in your, in your journey you've identified the pieces that you want. And I'm guessing you're hoping to find somebody who has all of them together, and you can just go to that one person.
Erik Johnstone:
For the most part, yeah. And again, you know, it took a long while. It took a long while to finally get that first showed on for instance and it was due in part to two choices that I made. I found myself, often in places where there weren't really like going to school and for a long time, when I was there. You know I would come down to Mystic and train in Aikido when I could and I kept up a lot of the training that I had had been familiar with in terms of. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that 32:31 like I have a completely different way of getting there. As far as the standard experience that most people have probably goes just bouncing around earlier on. And then, and because of bouncing around geographically there was a bouncing around in martial arts so it wasn't really choosing a buffet approach it that's kind of what life choices provided.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Maybe I misspoke, I wasn't suggesting that it was quite choice based on where you were training, but I'm just I'm listening to how you're talking about certain things, the way you're talking about 33:25 and the way you're talking about the Jiu Jitsu component of Waterloo school. You know, you seem to have singled out the way you were talking about those pieces, and you know I'm guessing that you know you're, it was the sword work. 33:43 that you probably were drawn to more I mean, am I getting this right?
Erik Johnstone:
Yeah. At that time I had, I was living in Mystic. And the reason I had gone out to back out to train with 35:51 Sensei there was a little point of little time of unemployment there so I had been training with it with another Aikido teacher that had recently come to the area. And I went out to train in Waterloo again with Hiroko Sensei, and just really intrigued by even more intrigued at that point by the classical Jiu Jitsu component, or the Jiu Jitsu roots of Waterloo which was really nice because I was a big part of that focus of the focus for that time out there. After that point, came back east, my Aikido teacher my second Aikido teacher at that time Shawn Nagel had been approached by a local Jiu Jitsu Group, a group that was headed by two gentlemen that were in the Navy and had studied coding Jiu Jitsu you know, 36:56 And they were looking to, they start to cross train with 37:02 Sensei, and wanted to establish a dojo and 37:07 sensei knowing that I had been with 37:08 Sensei in California and had come back. Quite green still at showed on but tasked with, you know, potentially establishing a model group in England, Nato Sensei asked me to take part in that dojo as one of the instructors by offering Waterloo there. So we, we had that going for a little while. And that going for a little while and things changed, always seemed in my life.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The only constant right?
Erik Johnstone:
Yeah. So I was starting to get a, you know, nice background. And a few different Budo traditions and fast forward to 2000 and this is where I come back to saying I found a teacher that I had been looking for. There's a reason I didn't go continue. I didn't go back to California to train with 38:24 Sensei. I won't go into that too much, yeah, just. It was a unique experience going back out there with him but I knew that wasn't something that I probably should pursue in the future. And Waterloo in New England at that point was almost I think there were zero 38:59 at that time. So really, knowing as understanding how young I was mid 20s and good grades that I was carrying. I felt it better to can to drop any concerns with trying to establish something like that, you know, establish a whole tradition if you will, or help plant some seeds for a new area, I should say not establish the tradition but help the tradition gifts established in an area. I was too young for that, too inexperienced for that I was, it was much more important for me to continue forward strictly as a student of Budo. So, but in 2000, I had the great fortune to meet Carl Long out of Kingston Pennsylvania and Long Sensei aside from being a very senior practitioner of 40:16 Karate specifically the 40:18 branch was also the senior most students of Masayuki Shimabukuro, who would become the 21st generation of 40:32. I began training with Long Sensei traveling to Pennsylvania to train with him, seeing him at training events, and very shortly thereafter was also able to start training with Shimabukuro sensei at events and training seminars that he was leading 41:07
Jeremy Lesniak:
I want to press the pause button. Because we're getting a lot of details in the news a great newsroom. And they're giving us context to refer back to, but I'm gonna jump in from time to time and, you know, now we've got a pretty good foundation. No don't apologize; please you would have to work very hard to hold the record for the longest episode, so I'm not concerned at all.
Erik Johnstone:
Oh I'm sure. I saw I just I don't want to commend you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's all good. I want to ask because we spend a lot of time talking about the what, and I want to take a moment talk about the why because in this last minute, we just got. I mean, to me it was. Hope you found the thing? Right like I didn't even know that existed but five minutes ago. 10 minutes ago whenever I broke in that was I mean if we were to just pick random Japanese words, those were the two things that you were looking for. Yeah, and somebody had a style for it so I want to know what it was like, not technically not just physically. What was it like when you found that? Oh my god, this is, this is what I've been looking for and you jumped up and down. Or was it you know much more subtle than that?
Erik Johnstone:
No, you know, that I think inside I think internally, it felt that way. Felt like a jumping up and down. I really think it did. It's not that what was available to me in my immediate area wasn't good and valid. It was a lot of my dear friends in this area, are you know high level, teachers, of those arts. Now, you know, leading a new generation, you know, and then actually being the new generation of leadership and most relations, but what was available wasn't really for me, it wasn't what grabbed me and what grabbed me was that deeper intention, but also that older tradition that these what's called Cori. You know the old schools of Japanese arts. The arts that were developed in Japan prior to 1868. Maybe it was the romantic or some romantic inclination, you know, somewhere, way deep. That's what I found, compelling as I, you know, because through all this journey I'd also read, you know as much as I could and tried to find out as much as I could about you know Budo martial artists, martial arts in general not just Japanese martial arts, of course. But that was what I had been exposed to. And so that the from a kind of a cultural sense that's what resonated with me and seemed to make sense, most sense for me and that's. And I had that great immersion back in San Luis Obispo County. I knew that's what I wanted him by a sheer luck. I found someone in Pennsylvania who along with his teacher, and their teacher the 20th generation headmaster of that particular sword school exemplified in to me. Everything that I was, I was searching for. You know it. There's absolutely no doubt that they exemplified the physical and technical portion of the 45:34 technical corpus I mean. Absolutely eminently skillful Budoka. But it was who they were and what they were about, that really captured my interest so the fact that I could study this query, this Japanese sword school has over 450 years, standing. That retained all of its claws and bangs, if you will, in terms of it being a school developed by the summer I have taught of 46:22 for use in life and death combat. Then it retained all of those teachings it hadn't been watered down, hadn't been changed into something that was more about aesthetic performance or just a a moving philosophical practice. It was Budo; it was, life and death Budo with that higher and deeper heart, you know, where 46:58, the 21st generation Headmaster very had very much a sense of mission. His teacher Mira Sensei, a deep sense of mission, and long since he died, and that's why Long Sensei he yet when he found 47:17 Sensei left at the opportunity to train with Shimabukuro Sensei and 47:22 Sensei. Because of this, while not just because of being able to have the great opportunity to study a 450, living 450 year old Living Buddha tradition, but to study such a beautician with men who are really interested in changing the world through Budo. You know, that sense of mission, it was even exemplified in the name of 48:01 Sensei dojo, 48:04 means direct to the heart that. 48:10 is direct as heart and mind so both 48:13 Sensei and Shimabukuro Sensei used to speak all the time. You know, changing the world from heart to heart to heart. And for them. Budo while retaining, as I said, the technical corpus. The principles and methodologies, the strategies that were used in life and death combat in 48:40 Japan. It was that sense of mission, you know to help improve your community and thereby help to improve your society by, you know, working on changing yourself internally right. Awakening to a higher reason in life you know, living life built on a foundation of gratitude and dignity, wisdom. Hopefully, and compassion, most importantly, that as I said that's what really grabbed me that synthesis of a living, breathing 49:21 with this real deep urgent sense of mission for living a life of virtue, you know, and this tradition really serving as a vehicle for actualizing that life of virtue. You know, and 20 years later, I find myself one of the senior practitioners and instructors under Long Sensei who since 50:03Sensei actually both 50:05 Sensei passed away in 2012. 50:12 Sensei had years earlier transmitted the art completely to Shimbuko Sensei naming him being the 21st generation inheritor 50:27 in 2012 Long Sensei became the 22nd generation 50:33 of our line of 50:35. And I find myself often curiously in the position of being one of the senior practitioners instructors. Under training under him and helping him propagate the art throughout the Northeast, throughout the country, it's really quite curious to me how I arrived here. Given that really odd training history, you know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You're using some interesting words to talk about teaching or sharing of information you said propagate, you said transmit. And, you know, if this was at the beginning of the conversation I might think, Oh, this is just part of your speech pattern but I suspect not. It sounds like you're choosing those words very carefully.
Erik Johnstone:
That's what we do. You know, yeah, it's. I'm not sure how to respond to that actually.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And it's okay maybe you don't necessarily have to. Yeah, you know, we, I think for any of us, the things that we spend our time doing martial arts and non, show what is important to us, you know, if I spend a lot of time working on my house I probably love my house, I spend a lot of time with family. I love I really love my family. You know, hiking, I love being outdoors. When we can find that that concept to martial arts and what we study. We find one of two groups of people we find people who train what they've trained because they've always trained it, and they don't know other options, you know not to say that what they're training is bad it's what they do. You have other people like yourself, have trained a whole bunch of different things all over from a bunch of different people, and ultimately find what I guess the word I'll choose here as resonates with them. And as you're talking about training, you have talked about this tradition that you're involved in now differently. And I would encourage you to listen to it I bet the listeners are hearing it, too, that there's, there's something deeper, there's something reverential in the way that you view and engage with this art. And it's not something I've heard very often from people and in every case, it's been someone who I don't want to put this, it's cliché but when the students ready the master appears right so take it back to that moment where I said, you know, was it clear that this was you know some gospel, you know, overhead angel singing this is the art that you wanted right and here it is. And you confirm that a bit that yeah, there was something there that I was jumping up and down inside. Yeah. And I have to imagine that based on what you're saying. And the clear dedication that you have via the language you're using, that what you were involved in now is far beyond the physical techniques. It has had a tremendous impact on you and who you are. And I'm guessing you're aware of it. So I want to I want to know more about that. I want to know more about how Erik Johnstone is a different person because of this training that we're talking about right now.
Erik Johnstone:
Yeah, there's definitely a sense of of reference. Not that we 55:01 the individuals that came before us I don't do a fire read, or, you know, my teacher, or my teachers but in fact I'm actually quite close to him and we've spent enough time together that, you know, we're very aware of other's humanity, you know, but there is reverence for the living tradition, the flow that has come down through 22 generations. The sense of mission but also a profound sense of obligation to Long Sensei, the obligation to cross entity to do the to to repay them for allowing me to receive their teachings that repayment comes in the form of obligation to those that I have the good fortune to provide instruction to. So there's an obligation that moves in two different directions through time. You know, we have this sense of obligation to the future generations to students who haven't even walked through the door yet to transmit this living tradition and diluted to transfer the heart, to transfer the soul of what makes this tradition, what it is and what makes the men that passed it on to us and I say men because there have not yet in our line. Being any direct line, any women that have inherited the tradition, although 57:16 Sensei does have another did have another senior student 57:22 Shimabukuro Sensei, who do start with district. So there is a line of Asian view out there in Japan, headed by a woman so that's kind of nice. But as I said that that sense of obligation. There's a sense of gratitude even when I'm in my dojo. You know, we have every dojo has a way of beginning and ending our class right, on Japanese we call that 58:02, right or 58:04 etiquette. With which one conducts themselves but also specifically the formal way of beginning or ending a class and there's usually three bows in Asia. About to the front of the dojo coming down and such, bowing to the living legacy, that is the art. And then, you know, there's the 58:33 meaning instructor. And then totally fall into the sword. Coming to 58:39, you know, that's the point here. 58:43 is really about that especially when we do, 58:50 in a nonverbal way, the teacher initiates the bow, the teacher bows to the students first and the students respond and bow back to the to the instructor. So it's not students bowing to the instructor, it's a recognition of respect flowing in both directions, the mutual interdependence of teacher and student, teacher doesn't exist in that role without the students sitting across from him. We don't get to fulfill our obligations to transmit the art without students coming to the dojo without students coming to training. So, our very existence in the role of teacher is entirely dependent on the existence of the student. And so 59:53 is a recognition of that it's next it's an act that expresses that art, you know, it's the things like that. I think that for me make such a significant impact that make it so meaningful, so alive. Just simply bowing, bowing wholeheartedly. Completely being the bow, you know, and it's this is not also about copying and mimicking somebody else's culture, I tell my students, yes you know we're, you know this is Japanese or Japanese Budo, this is Japanese Budo, so we don't westernized. You know we don't attach our ideas and we don't change things to suit our Western inclinations and there's nothing wrong with that in modern martial arts that do that. But coming back to this idea of not we're not just merely parroting or mimicking somebody else's cultural construct. When you do 1:01:07 or when you do hiding that bow. At the beginning, the standing bow where you're falling to that legacy that has gone before us is being handed down to us over the course of 22 generations from heart to heart. The idea is that you embody that action, fully and completely in that moment. And you should have the same art, the same feeling just when you shake somebody's hand or greet somebody or give someone a hug it's wholehearted single minded action and intention wholehearted just being that thing, you know, and so then when you're doing physical technique and you're drawing a sword, you know, 1:02:02 cutting single action. Finishing downward 1:02:08 wholeheartedly. Being naked skin, no separation wholeheartedly, be embodying 1:02:17. And I think that's what makes this pathway so profoundly significant for me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Some heavy stuff. That's intense. The ability to be present in that way. It's so difficult and yet so necessary it's something I've been working on myself quite a bit. This endemics because otherwise I'm losing my mind. Do you find it easier to do that with a sword in your hand?
Erik Johnstone:
Certainly there's a, well, you know, it definitely changes things. You know everybody of course here's you know in weapons training in martial art, you know, weapons should become an extension of your body, but we really do we really dig deeply into this idea of 1:03:31 Sensei as we speak of it all the time 1:03:34. You know the sword and the sword of the mind is that one thing. So, when the sword is being drawn, sword draws. It's not I draw the sword, you know, sword draws, sword cuts. I think maybe I might be starting to answer a question you didn't ask, but I think is what a sword does, especially when you're training with it 1:04:05, which we generally don't do in groups of people I trained with 1:04:12. When I don't have people around. But there's something very immediate about the sword. And it's one of those things that separates classical Japanese sword art from a lot of 1:04:27 Budo, you know, modern martial art like Karate and such, really. Every time you're doing was or a 1:04:37 a sword has drawn. Somebody like ended that was it. Right. So, in actuality, each time you do that you're recreating a life and death situation, something that our lineage forebears, our Budo ancestors experienced right up until 1868. When our 17th generation Headmaster Masamichi Sensei fought as a 15 year old in the 1:05:15 at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate for a battle Toba, right up until 1860, in our lineage we had a man born in the summer a class that that fought with these methods and took lives with these methods because what was necessary and that that experience of course changed him profound, but there's something incredibly real and immediate about that understanding of what it is that you're creating, we recreating. Yeah, it was a life and death Budo. That was it. So I find that, with regard to that single mindedness. I find that it is for me. A very efficacious way of experiencing that 1:06:32. I also you know, I practiced in. And so I sit in saws in every day, in fact we just had an online retreat. A couple of weeks ago, over the course of two and a half days and the Saturday, that Saturday, I think I spent about almost eight hours total from five in the morning till 10 o'clock at night with breaks in between. And those breaks were actual work practice and body practice. Like, they felt my body practice was doing and such so. So I'm reinforced my point is, I'm reinforcing that plates, so frequently in my life. Right. So it's that structure, there's a physical structure that's necessary for Japanese Budo especially sword arcs that same physical structure is required in 1:07:31 in that same physical structure is required in the 1:07:35 that we teach in our dojo. So, I am constantly reinforcing the mind, body that hurt that place.
Jeremy Lesniak:
1:07:55 A little bit because I want to tie some of these ends together, we've got a lot of thread here. And that's not a bad thing it's don't want you to think that's a negative judgment, it's just an observation. And it's because there have been a lot of bits, a lot of stories, a lot of aspects, that we've talked about here today.
Erik Johnstone:
I really didn't even intend to get into all the details.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I know, that's the beauty of this format is I just kind of hang out and people talk and quite often in hindsight, they go, huh, why did I go there, what needed to happen today. So, first the first thing that I want to do is I want to kind of want to flip the clock over, talking about the past, we've talked about today. We'll talk about the future, you know I'm not, you're welcome to I'm not going to put such a fine point on it to guess your age but I've got a rough idea, based on dates and ages that you gave us. And, in the world of well just in the world you're still quite young, got decades ahead of you.
Erik Johnstone:
I'm 51, but a very, I find are very useful feeling. 51, you know, I trained Budo every day, I lift weights pretty well every day. So, keeping young and healthy and that's part of my obligation to my, especially to the arts that I teach, it's part of my obligation to my teacher in that. Not that he's ever asked me to. He hasn't put it that way but I haven't, you know, the senior group of instructors immediately under him, we're all kind of starting to get up there and there are some, you know, we're realizing some issues with knees or this that or the other. So part of my personal intention my part of what drives me to keeping young and healthy so I can just serve as do my job.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What is your job?
Erik Johnstone:
My job is to help him transmit the art to our, to the members of our duty to the members of our community. So when we go into training events I'm often called out onto the floor to demonstrate what we're working on at that moment, and that often means receiving corrections for the benefit of everybody else but I have to. I go to all of these events with a job to do, we demonstrate in Japan for the in the 1:10:39 game in front of some of the 1:10:42 teachers of Budo in Japan and members of the imperial family and I have a job to do, you know. So I take that obligation really seriously. So yeah, despite my age, I don't find 51 to be old at all so I continue to train with intensity.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The older I get, the more I think age truly is is a mindset, I'm 41 and if I, you know, if I didn't look in the mirror and notice the white hairs in my beard and the lack of hair on top of my skull, I would think I was in my 20s. I certainly don't feel 41, I don't feel 51.
Erik Johnstone:
No, not at all.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It puts you in this interesting position because you have a fair amount of responsibility. Yeah, it sounds like you're not alone in that. And yet the way you're talking about that responsibility. Doesn't sound like someone who's 51. It sounds like someone, it sounds like the folks in the 60s, their 60s or 70s. Oh guest on the show. I think that creates an opportunity but I don't know what it is.
Erik Johnstone:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It gives you that time in that role to further the transmission, the propagation of this art, in a way that is appropriate to you and to others, you know, whoever however.
Erik Johnstone:
And that's also, you know, while realizing that you know I'm still growing, and still learning and still receiving instruction and correction and, you know, there's so much more. There's so much more to do. It just so happens that I've also been tasked with the job of of helping to to transmit this art forward, you know, by my teacher made promises to his teachers and I've pledged to assist him in fulfilling that promise to the best of my ability.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, let me ask you a question that I don't know have asked it in this way before you know I I trust my gut. At this point, you know, been doing this for years and tend to trust my gut and sometimes they'll take a shot, usually working, maybe doesn't. Let's fast forward some decades, doesn't matter to me how many and your diet. And you're sitting there laying there. However you envision it. And somebody comes in. And they say, with regard to your martial arts. Were you successful in achieving your goals? Are you aware, do you have those goals thought out is there are there concrete things or is it more subjective?
Erik Johnstone:
There's, it's actually a few things. First of all, it was a lifelong goal to have my own dojo. That took forever, but I finally did it and it took forever because I chose to pursue arts that weren't going to be bringing people flocking to the dojo and breaking down the doors to get in. It took me a long time teaching over the course of, however long it's been. Now, usually renting time and space from dojo run by colleagues and dear friends of mine to finally get to the place where I could have my own dojo and that wasn't without some serious coaching. Along the way, you know, somebody else, showing me that it could be done. So, that goal, a lifelong goal has indeed been realized. I don't do it for a living. I do have a day job. That is okay because that day job affords me a tremendous degree of responsibility to follow through on this calling, which is really how I see it. This calling allows me to respond to that. So yes, I have fulfilled concrete goals in terms of having my own traditional little traditional Japanese Budo dojo. Having a place where we can come together where we have the opportunity for practice to take place. Having the opportunity to have my teacher. Come and provide instruction to all his students because we're all his student ultimately. So that's a very concrete goal that's being realized, I didn't expect to be in the senior leadership in this 1:15:51. I didn't expect to be leading an Aiki-budo, Aiki Jiu Jitsu, group that others are seeking to connect with. But that just happens to be, what is taking place in terms of realizing goals. It's kind of more subjective goals, it's hard to say. There's no doubt that this pathway makes me a better human being and helps me cut through very viscerally. You know, it's kind of very it as a swordsman is much less of a metaphor than it is for others but you know it's a pathway of practice that is a vehicle through which I work on cutting through my own delusion my own greed, anger ignorance. And the thing is the more grime you wake away off of your consciousness, the more work you realize there is. And so, it's a never ending process, it's a never ending process of refining and refining. You know it's transmuting that rubble into gold. Do you know, realizing the light in the existing in the depths of your life? That's a never ending goal; it's never going to be accomplished. I guess the answer to that is what others who know me would say, at that time, you know, did I make a difference in this life? Was I a good man? Was I a good father? Was I a good husband? Was I a good son? Was I a good student? Was I a good teacher? If I can say yes to any of those things or if the people that love to know me, can say yes to those things. That's a victory.
Jeremy Lesniak:
People want to reach out to you. Email, websites, social media and stuff like that you're willing to share.
Erik Johnstone:
Of course. Yeah. So, my website is shindokanbudodojo.com. My email is shindokanone@gmail.com Shindokan. You know, we and people are always welcomed these people are martial art practitioners or not or want to be martial art practitioners. People are always welcome to visit, you know, my brother comes down from Kingdom visit Andrews, Andrew is talking about coming down to visit. I always welcome anybody who is genuinely interested, you know, genuinely curious, has good intention, you know, we welcome. Our doors are open to people if they want to come and see what our at least at my level of understanding 1:19:29 Japanese sword. 1:19:31 is or our expression of Aiko Jiu Jitsu. People are always welcome.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Typically I asked some kind of broad esoteric sort of, you know, how do you want to close out the show, kind of vague thing. As we fade out to the outro. Well we've done so much of that. That's been the whole discussion; it's not a bad thing. And the reason I'm not gonna ask it is because he's afraid to give us your best stuff and you know, I'm sure you have a few things left in the holster but let's be honest, if they're still listening they're not bored. Yeah, yeah. That's one of the beauties of this format is. Nobody's going to suffer through it if they don't want to and that's okay you know we have people that pick and choose episodes it's all good. Yeah. So I want to ask a different question. Sure, and we’ll cut after this. It’s been a strange road for you.
Erik Johnstone:
Long strange trip it has been. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And, you know, I could ask the cliché, would you change anything and I suspect the answer is no because wouldn't have gotten you where you are. But I have asked this question a few times before. So I'm going to run with this one. If you now could go back to you and I think you said fifth grade. He started training that first day. And you said that other than TV, you weren't really interested or even aware of martial arts as an option. Let's say you got 60 seconds with you then. What would you say?
Erik Johnstone:
That's a really good question. I would say, because I was in grade five. Yeah. Have fun. Feel good about yourself, feel good about yourself. Do your best. This is about being a good kid. Have fun. It's all gonna be okay. I wouldn't have said anything about you should do this that or the other in terms of martial arts specifics. Have fun. Feel good about yourself. It may take a while but life is going to be good, life is going to be very good. Thank you so much I, I guess, there was a lot that you that I got into that I really didn't expect to.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I hope you enjoyed that one, I had a blast. So much fun to such a passionate martial artist. And I suspect someone that it would be good friends with. So, we chatted a bit after the show closed as you might imagine, and the training part, maybe the friendship part will come to pass in the near future, fingers crossed. You want to know more, you want to go deeper go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com check out the transcripts and the videos and the links and all that good stuff in all that stuff you caught during the show that you said, oh, what was that website again, yeah we ran it down for you go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com sign up for the newsletter while you're there. We don't send out very many issues, we're not gonna bombard you, we're not going to sell your list, but we are going to help you stay up to date on the show and whistlekick in general. And if what we're doing, if we're putting down you're picking up. If you enjoy it if you want to support it. Please, be willing to share episodes, rate things, buy things or consider the Patreon. If you see somebody out there wearing someone whistlekick on it, say hello, and introduce yourself. If you want to follow us on social media, we're at whistlekick everywhere and my personal email address jeremy@whistlekick.com I love hearing from people, you've got feedback or suggestions, I what to hear them, but until next time train hard, smile, and have a great day.