Episode 580 - Sensei Aaron Cass

Sensei Aaron Cass is a Martial Arts practitioner and chief instructor at the Portsmouth Aikido in New Hampshire

Aikido sort of demands that you are able to take a potentially violent, dangerous, difficult situation and find a real resolution. I feel like it’s a really nice art to practice for something that integrates with my life.

Sensei Aaron Cass is a Martial Arts practitioner and chief instructor at the Portsmouth Aikido in New Hampshire. Aikido sort of demands that you are able to take a potentially violent, dangerous, difficult situation and find a real resolution. I feel like it's a really nice art to practice for something that integrates with my life.

Sensei Aaron Cass - Episode 580

Some of us might have started their journey into the Martial Arts when they see their first kata or roundhouse kick but our guest today started when he first saw an Aikido roll. Sensei Aaron Cass’ friend demonstrated an Aikido roll and he immediately got into the dojo when he got the chance. Presently, Sensei Aaron Cass is the Chief Instructor at the Portsmouth Aikido, an educational non-profit organization dedicated to practicing and teaching Aikido. Listen to learn more!

Show Notes

Find out more about Sensei Aaron Cass’ school in their website at portsmouthaikido.org

Show Transcript

You can read the transcript below.

Jeremy Lesniak:

How's it going, everybody? Welcome. This is whistle kick martial arts radio with today's guest, sensei Aaron Cass. I'm Jeremy Lesniak; I'm your host here for martial arts radio where everything we do is in support of the traditional arts. If you want to see all the things that we're doing in support of the traditional arts, go to whistlekick.com you're gonna find a ton of stuff over there because we do more than this show. We've got a store. And if you use the code podcast 15, that gets you 15% off and goes to offset the cost of putting all this stuff together. If you want to go deeper on the show for this or any of the other episodes we've ever done, because yes, they are all available for you for free. Go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. 

The show comes out twice a week. And the goal of the show specifically is to connect, educate and entertain the traditional martial artists of the world. If you value what we do, and you want to support it, like I said, above, you could make a purchase. But you could also leave us a review somewhere like Apple podcast, you could check out one of our books on Amazon, we've got Kindle and print versions of a bunch of things like the Martial Artists Handbook, the book that I wrote, you could follow us on social media where at whistle kick, you could tell friends about what we're doing. You could well; you could do a ton of stuff, pick one of those things and help us out, if you value what we're doing. 

Today's guest is kind of local, pretty close by to where I live here in Central Vermont but we've never met. And COVID of course is going to delay changing that. But it's going to happen at some point today, I get to talk to Sensei Aaron Cass, an Aikido practitioner. When we talk to people on the show, we hear their story, we hear how they started in martial arts, and we hear what kept him going. But sometimes once in a while, like today, we hear not only all those things, but we hear about a moment. We hear about a transition, something that changed the future. And on today's show, we have one of those moments and it really stuck with me. I can't give you any more without ruining it. So instead of doing that, I'll just want to hear from Sensei Cass. Sensei Cass, welcome to whistle kick martial arts radio.

Aaron Cass:

Jeremy, thanks so much for having me. Glad to be here.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey, it's a pleasure having you You're not the first Sensei Cass we've had on the show.

Aaron Cass:
That is interesting.

Jeremy Lesniak:
When was that? Two years ago, we had Sensei Amanda Cass on the show from Massachusetts. Yeah, yeah, fun stuff. I'm guessing you're not related.

Aaron Cass:
Likely not related. I haven't met her before.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, okay. Well, you know, it's I don't know how common your last name is. Mine is is uncommon enough that I've bumped into people and they say, oh, are you related to so and so? And I probably, yeah, Lesniak is not a super common last name. So we are not here to talk about genealogy. We usually start every show talking about women not here to talk about, we're not here to talk about genealogy. We're not here to talk about weather. We're not here to talk about what are some of the other things we open the show with all kinds of ridiculous stuff. We're here to talk, martial arts. And so we should do that. And we could start with that, in the easiest, simplest and yet still fundamentally critical way. How'd you get started in martial art?

Aaron Cass:
It's a good question. Okay. I started not very martial path. Back in high school. I don't know I had a tough time sophomore year. And ironically, I teach high school English during the day. So I spent lots of time with high schoolers. But anyway, I somehow I managed to get a copy of a book called Zen Flesh and Bones in my hands. And it's sort of got a bunch of parables and colons and stuff like, that just sort of Zen, Zen stories. And I'm sitting there reading this book, and all of a sudden, I forgot about all my problems. I was totally engrossed and the world looked like a new place to me and I was super excited about it. That was sort of my springboard to get into other aspects of Eastern philosophy. I read about Taoism. I read about different types of Buddhism, all this really cool stuff. And after a couple of years of reading lots of things about right practice and good posture and bright attitude. I was totally confused because I didn't actually have a practice. I was just reading things and thinking about stuff. And as enlightening as I found it, it also drove me a bit crazy at that point. And I think that's somewhere around the time that I was walking down an alley in the town that I lived in in Durham, New Hampshire, and I looked up and saw this flyer for try Aikido. The rest of history, I guess.

Jeremy Lesniak:
There must have been some, what do you call it, priming of the pump, there must have been something that you said ah, Aikido. Because let's face it, Aikido, well, most martial arts practitioners have heard of Aikido most haven't done it. And I would assume that most of your common, let's say, your non-martial artists aren't gonna know much if anything about Aikido maybe you've heard of it. Maybe they heard Steven Seagal does it. But was it really that easy for you? You see a flyer? Like I mean, let's do it.

Aaron Cass:
There was definitely something fortuitous about it. But I actually now that you mentioned it, I did have a friend who, okay, I think I have to sort of like priming the pumps, as you put it. One was that a friend of mine in high school, one day, he said, oh, man, my cousin does Aikido. And they do these things called Aikido rules. And he just did it forward roll in front of me. And I was like, that's wicked cool. And then I sort of ran after him and tried one myself. I was like, Okay, so that was pretty exciting. 

The second thing would be I actually don't remember his name, but I used to skateboard a lot. And there was a guy that one of my skate friends would always point out and say, that's the cool guy. He's like, he had liked all these tattoos on his arms, he had a shaved head, he was super tough, like, oh, that guy's cool. He's the guy he does Aikido. So I didn't know anything about Steven Seagal. I didn't know anything about Aikido, I really didn't know much about the martial arts. I did lots of skateboarding, snowboarding. I liked being in my body. And I think there was something really appealing about taking part in martial arts because it seemed like a really cool way to find out more about myself, find out sort of human potential kind of stuff. What can people do? I think that first Aikido role was a good example of that. Maybe that helped me catch the bug. But I don't know it was a long time ago; I maybe don't remember all the details.

Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm sure you don't, I don't think any of us remember all the details of our initial martial arts, decision or gestation. And that's okay. But what I'm finding interesting is how you described that you liked being in your body. And so we've got these two really positive associations that, you know, maybe they're trivial, but I'm guessing they're not your friend demonstrating a role and then show thing. This is an Aikido role. He didn't call you call it a martial arts role, or a Karate role, you could have seen a poster for Karate, and it might not have hit the same way because of that association. And then you spent a lot of time skateboarding, as you said. And there was someone that had the common pursuit of skateboarding with you that was also that you saw in a socially positive way, you know, a cool guy who also does Aikido. He sounds pretty important to me. So you see that poster, and then you just go home and tell your parents or what happens there?

Aaron Cass:
I think I was pretty independent. I think my dad just lent me his car. And I showed up one day, you know, I probably, I guess this was pre-email. So I might have even picked up a phone, whatever that is. So I think I probably just called up and asked how I come in and get started and showed up. I was 17 at the time. So it was a while ago. I'm 42 now. But when I think the thing is, you know, I know a lot of people have their sort of martial arts origin stories that, you know, I got picked on and it sucked, and well, I got picked on it suck, but Aikido didn't have anything to do with it. You know, or whatever it is, I wanted to save this person in this situation, I didn't have one of those big dramatic ones. 

So whatever it is, that first got me into it, I think once I showed up on that first day, certainly the 08:46, the art of falling and receiving the techniques. That was really interesting to me, because, you know, I skateboard and I was already used to like doing forward rolls on pavement, you know, not when I wanted to, but just as a matter of survival, so that immediately sort of meshed with some of my previous sort of physical skills. 

And then, you know, just, it embodied what I was looking for in Eastern philosophy and Zen, it was a way of being in my body, being present. You know, now we talk about things like mindfulness, but that buzz word wasn't around at the time, but it was definitely a way of me, living the life that I wanted to live being the person that I wanted to be and expressing that on a sort of moment to moment basis through movement through interaction with other people. 

So whatever drew me to it, that's definitely what kept me there, and has kept me there since it gets more and more complicated, more and more deep the way you keep going and going and, you know, you have to step back and wonder about stuff. So I do think back to how I first got into it but I think the main thing that keeps me there is, is that it really gives me a it's a dough. It's a way of practicing, being the person that I want to be and living my life in line with my principles.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Good stuff, I think, inherently that's what we're all in martial arts for whether we realize it or not. What happened to skateboarding? Skateboarding is not something people just pick up. They're like; I do it five minutes at a time. Like it's not like, if that's the extent that you skateboard, it just hurts all the time. And I know, because that was my attempt at skateboarding as a kid. So I'm guessing you're somewhat serious about it did? Did Aikido detract from that?

Aaron Cass:
No, I was never, skateboarding was the thing that I did because I was a decent student in high school, but I didn't play organized sports for the most part. And when everybody else would go off to soccer practice, or baseball or something like that, I just get on a skateboard and go downtown, and I lived right next to the University of New Hampshire. So I got to know their police force pretty quickly, because apparently, they didn't want me skateboarding there. So I just been endless hours just riding around and, you know, just casual, it's just a way to just sort of have fun. And, you know, I like the there's the expressiveness of it, where you're sort of trying to come up with tricks, and You know, there's some things that you're good at, and some things you got to work on. 

And I don't know, it was never terribly serious about it. It was it was just something that fit with me, and I don't know, I've done a lot of different things. And I think the Aikido is the one that's stuck, but, you know, I think maybe skateboarding is part of what got me out to Santa Cruz, which is where I went to college and where I deepen my Aikido practice because I was only in New Hampshire training in Aikido for a year. And then when I went off to Santa Cruz, that's where I ended up getting my black belt and creating a whole lot and Santa Cruz is known for skateboarding and surfing. So that kind of got me into it.

Jeremy Lesniak:
So only a year and then you go to college. Was there a club on campus? Or did you have to go off campus for that? 

Aaron Cass:
Yeah, UC Santa Cruz has possibly one of the oldest Aikido dojos in the country. I'm not sure what your listenership is like. But for people that are in Aikido, most of them will have heard of people like Frank Duran, Mary Hiney, Robert Frazier, and the holiday. There's this whole slew of people. Yoshi Shibata Sensei is one of my teachers now, a whole slew of people that have gone through there and UC Santa Cruz is a pretty progressive place. And I think back in the 60s, when the school started, they had a grand vision of bringing in a bunch of different cool stuff. And Aikido was, you know, this totally new thing from Japan. And I think people found their way to UC Santa Cruz and there was enough people on the fringe that were excited about stuff like Aikido to start bringing it into this world. And, you know, as you say, it's not a super huge thing. It's not as well-known as some things like Karate or Judo, but certainly it started gaining traction in those years and, UC Santa Cruz was a part of that.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Interesting. You stuck around? You're in the black belt. 

Aaron Cass:
Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Talk about that. Why am I stumbling over my words here? Because when I think of Aikido and I guess I'll take us a step sideways here as I tried to explain why I'm stumbling over my words. What's going on in my head right now, as I'm relating our conversation to the other Aikido conversations that we've had, Aikido is, I find all martial arts interesting. Aikido is an interesting art. But it's a little bit different in my observation of the type of people that are attracted, versus other martial arts, the people who tend to gravitate towards striking arts can be the art itself can be somewhat interchangeable. Someone who starts in Taekwondo might shift over to Karate, Karate might shift into 14:12 might shift into Kung Fu, right? Like there's, there's a lot of training around that happens there. People that end up in Aikido for the most part, in my experience would not have done as well in those striking arts. And we've actually heard from another number of people on this show, who started in something else found Aikido. And when this is the thing, this is my passion. Does that describe you like was it clear that this was the type of martial art that resonated for you early on?

Aaron Cass:
I mean, that's the sort of, you know, that's why I feel a little bit like fate intervened with me, you know, You know, I'm probably I don't really remember exactly. But I was probably smart enough at the time to have stumbled into a Karate dojo or found a Judo club or something like that. So maybe I was being selective, I'm not sure. You know, this was pre internet. So I didn't actually get to go and watch 100 videos before beginners’ class, like all the people at my dojo now. But, I mean, it was a little bit, you know, Aikido had just come up, literally, the dojo was founded six months before I get on the mat there. So you know, but I mean, I showed up, and I didn't get a sense of it being merely sort of part of my identity, it wasn't like I had, you know, committed myself to doing it the rest of my life. I mean, I likely will. But it I didn't think that at the time I showed up and I enjoyed it. 

And then when I moved up to Santa Cruz, I happened to be going to school in a place that I can actually like, take like three Aikido classes per semester. And like, half my transcript is Aikido, I didn't actually get credit for it, I think I got like one credit for an elective thing I did, but I just happened to be in this place that I could pursue it. And the thing is, you know, sort of what you're learning, alluding to that Aikido has a certain allure to it a certain depth, a certain sort of interesting, esoteric kind of vibe. 

And I think the thing is that as long as I kept going with it, it got more and more interesting that, you know, maybe I just showed up, and I was enjoying the fact that I could do forward roles and learn how to do them really well. Or, you know, it was fun trying to take people's balance or learn pins or learn, you know, new Japanese terms. You know, I like everything about it. The more I go, the more I feel like it's this infinitely deep path that just sort of unfolds and uncovers one new aspect after another and I just haven't found a reason to stop. So I know, some people in the martial arts are total fanatics, and are, you know, we'll talk all day about it. I love it. I hope you didn't pick the wrong person for your show. I'm not, I'm not selling it very well, but absolutely love it. 

And it's just become, I think the thing that's tricky about it is that it's so deeply embedded in who I am; it's kind of like asking a fish about water. You know, I mean, the way that I interact with people at work in conversation in conflict, I am fundamentally, you know, an embodiment of Aikido as best I can. When I communicate with people in relationships, the way I interact with people, I was a psychology major, I'm always thinking about people and how they are. So Aikido has sort of always informed that part of myself. So I think sometimes I struggle to see you could probably interview my wife or my friends and they can give you a better answer than I could on that, but it's absolutely a part of who I am. And it's so deeply embedded that it's a little bit hard to point my finger at it sometimes.

Jeremy Lesniak:
I get it, I get it, and it's totally okay fanaticism, for the most part is overrated, it tends to burn out for most people. But you talked about Aikido if you use word informing the way that you show up for say, a conflict at work. What do you mean by that? Elaborate.

Aaron Cass:
Well, you know, leading up to this conversation with you, I've been thinking about like, what do I say about Aikido? Especially knowing you have such a broad listenership for people from so many different arts. You know, especially in the days of the internet, when everybody can see a meme of anything and, and instantly get an impression of stuff. However, deep or shallow it may be. But when I when I think about, like, what's important to me in Aikido, and what really makes it what it is, I think the thing that I find so engaging about it is that there is I wouldn't say necessarily like a moral component. But the basic concept of Aikido is that you're able to confront, to meet, to be faced with conflict and resolve it.

And not meaning like, you know, I block your punch in my face, and I punch you in the face and I walk away feeling good because the conflict hasn't been resolved. You know, there's, if I get punched in the nose, I got a bloody nose. If I punch you in the nose, we both have bloody noses or something like that. Aikido sort of demands that you're able to take a potentially violent, dangerous, difficult situation and find a real resolution and so you know, I feel like it's a really nice art to practice for something that integrates with my life and I feel like it. You know, of course, I'm completely biased here. But I think it's really the perfect thing for the world today where you know, you, it doesn't take long to scratch the surface of any conversation. And there are all these brooding conflicts and political division and all these other things. And Aikido sort of demands that you show up, and you're honest, and you're also receptive, and that you find some sort of, not necessarily mutually agreeable way to solve it doesn't mean that you always find, you know, peace and harmony in the minute. But there's a certain one of the things that makes us rich and complex is that you don't get to take you know, you don't get to just take them down as quickly and easily as possible. 

Yeah, you punch him in the throat; you'd slow a lot of people down. But, you know, how would you I remember when one instructor when I was training in Cambridge, one instructor that was visiting talked about the Uncle Harry techniques, I think, because this term for it, and this was the perfect analogy for Aikido, which is that, you know, a lot of times in the martial arts, we imagine ourselves in a dark alley with something, somebody's coming to do horrible things to us and we defend ourselves or save our loved ones. But this is like you're at the family reunion, and Uncle Harry has one too many drinks and he's bothering all your relatives and you're not gonna knock him out, you're not gonna not gonna kick his legs out from under him, you're gonna do something to you know, extricate them from the situation in a way that leaves them both safe and leaves you safe and leaves everyone their dignity and that's, that's a tall order. And you know, the further you go in Aikido, the more you're forced to deal with people that are better and better and produce more and more challenge for that and still be able to walk the walk and talk the talk. So live up to your sort of, again, principles of underlying Aikido in general.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Did Aikido all lead to you majoring in psychology?

Aaron Cass:
No, no, I think that was more about like I say, just sort of having a tough time in high school like I think a lot of people probably do in their teens and then psychology was this, you know, I always I was imagining is my means of saving the world. I think we all have something like that. We're often inspired in those ways and Aikido certainly fit with that, but I don't think it led me there.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Interesting. Because the way we were talking about it like there's this fusion between the two the concepts that you're talking about coming out of Aikido from my understanding of Aikido, you know, they're getting sprinkled in with some psychology there.

Aaron Cass:
Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever heard a podcast with Esther Perel? This may be a bit of a sidetrack. She is an amazing...

Jeremy Lesniak:
Sidetrack all you want. That's pretty much all we do on this show is tangents.

Aaron Cass:
I've just been listening to a bunch of her podcasts recently. She's a really talented therapist. And she does she has a podcast that's all about couples therapy, and other podcast that is talking all about relationships in the workplace and sort of people how people manage themselves and the sort of things they drag from home to their jobs, and how to sort of work through those things. 

But she does impressive Aikido. I don't know if she's ever heard of Aikido before. But like, she's sitting there talking to this couple, this is interesting, because there was one show that there's actually a couple that they run a business together, the husband has cheated on the way they've filed for divorce, but they, for whatever reason, continued to work together. 

And they're trying to figure out how to move forward. And she just sort of steps in, you know, she listens really well. She hears what they're saying, she tries to draw out, you know what they're going for, and what their hopes are. And then she'll just step in, and, you know, just cut in with really clear clean. You know, okay, I hear you saying this and you need to listen to that, and how do we come to some sort of better place? I just see that all the time in Aikido, and I see that in the world. And, like I say, it's always on my mind. So maybe I'm being presumptuous by thinking that everybody thinks about things like this, but it's so fascinating to me, and it seems like, you know, definitely one of the questions I've been asking myself lately is sort of, how does this Aikido thing fit into the world? You know, what's the point of learning how to do this somewhat, you know, archaic, traditional Japanese martial art, you know, why do we do martial arts at all? I don't know any martial artist that can fight a gun. You know, what's the point of all this and what I keep coming back to is things like that where it helps you be, you know, if you're maybe a little bit of an acquiesce or you know, I tend to be somebody who wants to play cake people and make them happy. 

Aikido gives me maybe some of that bravery to step in and assert myself at times. Or maybe on the other hand, you have somebody who's big and strong, and is used to getting their way all the time. And, you know, they could use a little bit more sensitivity and receptivity, and Aikido gives them a chance to practice that. So I guess to me, it's kind of a panacea, it's the right method, it's the right medicine for anybody of any sort.

Jeremy Lesniak:
I think it could be, you know, I think there's something really magical in martial arts as a collective offering. Because there are so many sub options, right? The philosophical approach of Aikido is inherently different than Karate even if you take the same instructor, even if somebody knew both really well and presented both, there's going to be some differences just in the kind of the codification of the techniques, what's available. 

There's a psychology that is there among any martial art practitioner, basically, somewhat on, I think, what they study. I certainly don't have the resources to commission this study, nor am I aware that it exists. But I bet if we were to go back and take a look at kids who got into martial arts young, we could probably make some generalizations about them based on the style that they grew up in. You know, we can probably say some things, maybe not this style of Karate versus that style of Karate, but just we could probably say, you know, grappling arts versus striking arts versus gymnastics, right, like, different movement disciplines tend to bring a different philosophical approach and a different mental result.

Aaron Cass:
Yeah, there's always a different vibe. I mean, I haven't cross trained at a time but I've been around people from different martial arts and, you know, I find like the the Judo Jiu Jitsu guys are really, they're, like, sort of friendly and warm, you know, they're used to being really close to other people for a long time. And, and you sort of get this, you know, like, easygoing this about them, right? You know, the Karate guys are may be sharp, and, you know, really on point or, you know, I'm stereotyping a little bit, but I definitely do see.

Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying though. 

Aaron Cass:
Yeah. And, and then they're all good. You know, I have a teacher that said, All martial arts training is good, that it's all fundamentally valuable. Because if somebody sees value in it, and they bother to show up, and, you know, spend all their free time and extra money, doing this thing that you know, whatever it is, that inspires them to do that, it's going to add value to their lives, and most likely, people are going to tend to gravitate towards those things that they need most. And hopefully, the martial arts can satisfy some of those things in different people.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Cool. Yeah. So let's switch gears here. you graduate. Well, let's go back and let's talk about your buck. But we got we got sidetracked. 

Aaron Cass:
Okay.

Jeremy Lesniak:
So, you're there, your training, your, I think you said three classes per semester. So I'm assuming that doesn't mean like, three instances, I went to a class for an hour, but three, concurrent, you know, maybe different instructors, like you were all in Aikido is one 28:37.

Aaron Cass:
Yeah, I mean, it basically means that whenever there is an Aikido class offered, and there was like multiple classes per day, I was there. I just sort of lived at the dojo. So I trained on campus at UCSC. At the dojo, there are my teacher, Martha Jordan, who was fantastic. She was so cool. She was this 60 year old woman that was teaching all these, you know, 19 20 year old guys how to do high falls and like, the coolest stuff, and she just had the best attitude. She was so curious. And so, you know, engaging and fun. And it was really cool, because I already walked in to the dojo with some experience, a lot of times people go to UCSC, and they figure out that Oh, Aikido is really cool thing, but I showed up with enough background that I got to train and train and train and move through the ranks. 

And by the time I was, I think it was maybe my junior year. Maybe my senior year, I was ready to take my black belt test. And because it's, you know, most people are at college for something like four years, which is generally shorter than Aikidos’ are able to get their black belt because I had trained a year ahead of time. I was lucky enough to take my black belt at UCSC under the supervision of the Santa Cruz Aikido dojo, which is the off campus Aikido people in that town. There's lots of Aikido in Santa Cruz. 

And so Linda Holliday and Glen Kimoto Sensei, who were my teachers, after I graduated, was still training there for a couple of years, they, they came up and administered my black belt test. And I was so honored that Greg Kimoto Sensei, who was also one of the teachers at UC Santa Cruz, a long time ago, he was the last person that we know about to have taken a black belt test on campus. And that was like 20 years before I took mine, or 25 years. So it was it was such an honor. And it was such a cool thing to be a part of this big community that comes together. And I couldn't have been happier with it. Yeah, it was a great experience.

Jeremy Lesniak:
All right, so black belt, check. You graduated? I'm assuming.

Aaron Cass:
Graduated. Yes, I did graduated.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Check. And you stuck around? Did you stick around for psychology reasons or?

Aaron Cass:

Stuck around for two more years, because right before I graduated and was heading back east, of course, I like, met my girlfriend and decided to stay there and then went out, I took a little motorcycle trip across the country, as my little graduation gift to myself, got back to New Hampshire promptly flew back to Santa Cruz, of course, immediately broke up and had no plans and nothing to do but was back in the town that has lots of Aikido. So I got a job slinging espresso. I was working at a coffee shop. And I pretty soon became, I started managing, and I got to write the schedule for people. So I whittled my way down to working four days a week, and basically trading with the rest of my available time. And yeah, just trained and trained and trained for two more years. And that was, you know, I realized I was thinking I was gonna work in mental health. And I worked in a mental hospital for a while. And it was a very interesting and formative experience. And I there's a lot of things I enjoyed about it but when they pay you nine bucks an hour to be in charge of 18 people's lives. It's a little bit more than I was ready to deal with at that point. So I was happy to be with.

Jeremy Lesniak:
That was very diplomatically. 

Aaron Cass:
Yes, yes, without going off the rails here. It was not an ideal work situation. So I just trained and trained and trained and so really, I found myself at a point going like, well, I don't have any desire to go back to graduate school or anything. I don't actually have a real job, you know, I can pay the bills, what are my options here? And I'd taken a semester of Japanese during my sophomore year of college. And I remember somebody had mentioned something about the JET Program, the Japanese exchange and teaching program. And so I that was that was in the days without the internet. So I went on the internet and looked it up. And I said, that sounds good. Well, let me apply there. So I applied to the Japanese exchange and teaching program and I was accepted to go teach English to second language speakers in Japan, and ended up staying there for three years. So that was sort of my springboard for further continuing and deepening my practice. 

Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, so what came in? 

Aaron Cass:
Well, I moved, okay, here. I trained and trained and trained. And let's see, again, a little bit of diplomacy, I was training and training and training. And at some point, I started to say, I don't think this works. You know, of course, now we have the internet to tell us all the different Aikido, 

Jeremy Lesniak:
Aikido? 33:49 feeling like Aikido doesn't work? 

Aaron Cass:

Yeah, like I was there. And I was just like, I don't know, somebody really tries to come and hurt me. I don't really know if my skills are meeting that right. So, you know, we're talking about different martial arts. Every martial art has its benefits in every martial art, in order, you know, if we accept that, you know, maybe this is debatable if we accept that martial arts are fundamentally you know, able to do great harm to people, right? Even though Aikido is sort of this nice martial art. any part of it could be done in a way that damages people in their other arts, you know, punching in Karate, or choking somebody out or breaking their neck and in Jiu Jitsu or Judo, every martial art has the potential to permanently damage or kill people. 

So we all have to train in some, I'm going to use the word artificial way that we are able to train safely and that we can learn you know, starting as a beginner and moving up and increasing our skills without you know, getting destroyed, or when we get better having to destroy other people. So, sometimes that means we shift the motive practice to making it into a sport. Just some sort of competitive thing, which there are rules that we abide by so that we can continue to practice and practice. 

Sometimes you do really devastating punches, but you don't hit your target. All these different modes of training are meant to allow us to practice and learn those skills. While being able to continue, you know, we're living in civil society and Aikido, we leave a lot on the table, so we can grab each other, right, I was doing some Judo when I was in Japan. And it was really cool to be able to try to unbalance people to have you know, I had some, I was a secondary black belt in the head, some middle schooler and come up and hang out with the Judo club. And he was just throwing me around like a rag doll. And I said that’s damn impressive. 

But I also was sitting there going, why don't I just punch any of these people in the head, you know, what's stopping me from doing that. So, you know, you train at one aspect of something and the martial arts, by definition, sort of have to limit you, so that you keep training in them. And so in Aikido, we have grabs, we have strikes, we have throws, we have pins, but we are non-competitive. And we, you know, the pervasive attitude of it being this peaceful martial art to resolve conflict and everything, you oftentimes don't fully get challenged. And you I think, I would guess that almost all martial arts are secretly wondering, oh, gosh, does this work? Maybe I'm wrong. But you know, I don't want to go out and fight people in the streets. But it does make you wonder if you do something for 10, 15, 20 years, like, what am I doing with this actually work and after training a whole bunch in Santa Cruz, where the basic training out there was very fluid. And I learned such you know, so many good skills about how to fall safely, and how to be connected with somebody else and move really well. But I didn't feel like I learned a lot of those sort of basic, you know, martial skills of being able to incapacitate somebody who's trying to hurt you, or, you know, know that I can, I got something in my back pocket to stay safe if I need it. 

So, you know I didn't take it out and test it, but I just sort of grew a little disillusioned with it. So the ironic thing is that by the time I got on a plane to Japan, I had left my Hakama, I left my training uniform back in the states and was heading over there with a white belt, so I could find something else to do so. On my way to Japan, I already sort of figured I was not going to do Aikido anymore, and I was going to look for something else that might satisfy. Then, of course, I show up at my new school where I'm teaching, and everybody's very welcoming. It was a lovely place to have an international experience to live as an expat. And one of my colleagues, one of the English teachers at my school, she said, Oh, you do Aikido? That's fantastic. My father's a fifth degree black belt, you should try out the club there right down the street. I said, you know, it was a new place. And I wanted to meet people. And so I said, Well, Aikido doesn't really interest me too much. But I'll go, I'll give it a try. Whatever. 

So I went and after training for a little while there. It was good training. It was nice. But you know, it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. With this one day, I look in the back of the class and there's this, you know, sort of older, middle aged gentleman that was was training and everybody sort of gathered around him. And I sort of noticed he put off a vibe and I didn't really know what everybody was so interested in. But I was folding up my Hakama, folding up my training uniform at the end of class and I look over and he waved me over. And so what's gonna go on here and so he was having all of these other students up, here grab my arm, okay. So they grab his wrist or something, you'd say, No, no, no, no, grab harder, okay. And grab the guy hard as I could. And then he just poof and flip them on the ground. And they had no idea how he had done it. And I was watching and I was like, I don't get what this guy's doing. But I was young. I was like, 22, I was strong. I've been training and Aikido for, you know, maybe six years at that point. So okay, I can do this. So he said, Okay, here, grab my wrist, and grab his wrist. He said what you can't hold any harder? Grab his as hard as I could and the next thing and I'm looking at the ceiling, and that turned out to be my teacher, Yukio Takahashi Sensei, say that I spent the next three years training with and have spent actually the last 15 years or so going back to Japan since living there and trading with him. 

So he, I had no doubt that he had something that was both effective and held the principles of sort of things nonviolent resolution of conflict and it was amazing. And I was hooked and again, my journey deepened with no great content of myself. I just happened to be in the right place and pursue it.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, 40:08 we need to unpack that moment because there's so much that's happening there and listeners I don't know if you're also getting a wave of the peaceful warrior vibe out of this conversation but I was waiting for this moment I knew it had to come. I knew about it. 20 minutes ago, this was coming, but not what it was, I just had a feeling and that's why I didn't bring it up prior

Aaron Cass:

Good you found it.

Jeremy Lesniak:
So here you are, you have found it. Here we are, you've changed literally everything, other than which you are in your name right, you've gone to another country, different job, different people around you, and you're even going to change the martial art. You said you went with the intent of not doing Aikido the thing that had been, I think we can say at this point the longest, any the longest continuous thing that you've done in your life up to that point.

Aaron Cass:
That is true, it remains that.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Like, I'm gonna put it down, I'm done, I'm questioning whether this works. 

Aaron Cass:
Yep. 

Jeremy Lesniak:
And through complete coincidence, you end up at a school. Reluctantly, you're trying to leave and you're called over. And your ego is challenged which is part of what was discouraging you from Aikido. I don't know if this works. So all of these amazing unlikely occurrences coalesce into this moment where you're lying on the ground. What's going through your mind as you're looking up, pain, what I'm assuming I don't know what just happened but what's going on in your head? 

Aaron Cass:
Well, I mean, there's my mind and then there's my emotions. I'm sitting on the ground lying on my back but I have just the biggest, you know, I don't know what your editing is like but the biggest 42:09 grin on my face there's just staring at the ceiling. And when I hit it was done really well. And that is what I would say, my teacher Takashi Sensei, the way he does it. It has a feeling of like what they're doing to you is almost a part of your own body. It's not like there's something being done to you, it's like this funny thing happened in your body, and then, you know, something happens and of course as you continue to train you start to figure out what some of those things are, and now you know I've had the experience where somebody grabs on to me, and I do something that they don't know what I'm doing, and they look at me like I got two heads, and they're smiling, and that's just one of the feelings that brings me back to Aikido again and again so it's both that like sort of impressive, you know, humbling part where I'm like, gosh there's somebody who knows something that I don't know how to do and he can do it with his body and I can't do it with mine, but also that I guess there's something that, for me, it just feels intuitively right that you know it's almost like sometimes in IKEA we talked about, you know, there are no throws in Aikido that we're simply bringing some initial energy some attack or some, you know, whatever's coming at you bringing that to some sort of resolution and that was sort of what I felt is that it wasn't like, you know, training I get it for a long time. I've had people who you know manhandled me all over the mat when I'm taking in academy and it's not much fun and it doesn't feel quite right but you know with Takashi Sensei. Not only did it feel right, I knew that he had some insight into, like I said, like I mentioned before, just sort of what what are humans capable of. And what are they capable of in a martial sense. 

And I knew that he knew something about the world that I didn't know. And that was enough to get me to go back and do it more and more and more. Yeah, that was you know and and this all happens in layers, I think, you know, when I was in high school, I found a way to go and train and move around and have fun and learn some new skills and that was what Aikido was for me and in Santa Cruz I gotta, I gotta find a way to really refine my skills and know something, you know more and more solid and more and more, more, martially robust and then when I got to Japan, it was sort of like, I hit this mystery that I didn't know was out there and you know I'm still chasing after it to some extent.

Jeremy Lesniak:
It's not often that we get single moments that we can point to and say that moment, that second changed my life. But you have one. And it's there and am I taking liberty in saying that?

Aaron Cass:
I mean.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Is it as dramatic as it sounds? 

Aaron Cass:
Well, I mean, the thing is that I grabbed them today, and I still have the same feelings so you know it wasn't maybe a little bit of overstatement it's not untrue. But I also think that, you know, I've had, I guess I've had a lot of life changing experiences through Aikido and each one of them informed me to some extent. Admittedly, if I had not met him that day or someday soon. I probably would have veered off into doing other things, and I would have would have been totally different life. I probably would have gone different places and done different things. So, in that sense, absolutely, it did, fundamentally change my life. Yeah, I'll give you that. 

Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. All right. All right. Well, the goal here is to hear your story not for me to, you know, smash my own opinions down on top of it. But the more we unpack these occurrences. I think the more it brings context to what you said and what you will say, but I think it also helps some of the listeners out there who may be wondering. People who are struggling with the same question is what I'm doing right, you know, not just necessarily in a martial arts context. I'm a firm believer that there are signs along the path, however you want to deem what that looks like. To me, that was a sign along your path.

Aaron Cass:
Absolutely. 

Jeremy Lesniak:

That will change your direction. 

Aaron Cass:
Yes.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Now you mentioned that you've continued training under him, and that you have the same feeling at times, working with him. Oh elaborate on that.

Aaron Cass:
So, you know, I think one of the things that I've found, especially you know in the martial arts in general and Aikido, in my experience is that, you know, I think, in the beginning when you start something, you know, you go from knowing literally absolutely nothing to accruing a number of skills pretty quickly where you know, I just taught we have a six week beginners course that, that we run every, every couple of months and we just have another one start you know on the first day, people don't know which hand to grab with which foot to put forward. You know where to move how to fall down how to get back up. 

And so they go from having very little knowledge to having significantly more knowledge in a pretty short amount of time there's this really noticeable improvement or change. And I think, I don't know about this from other martial arts, but a lot of times in Aikido, I tend to see people that will really enjoy that sort of acceleration where they'll have improved physical fitness where they'll have increased technical knowledge and more and more competency with a lot of different things but those things actually the relative change, the relative amounts that you increase your skills gets less and less from year to year. 

For a while I think were you in the beginning, you're just going from zero to 60 and then you know it's sort of incremental steps from there but what I didn't realize until sticking around for a long time is that the more you stick around that each new element that you add to your training that you now have this entire repertoire that you can apply that new thing to.

And so, you know, my teacher he's at this point I think he's probably in his early 70s or something like that. He's probably learning faster than I am. Because, when he learns one new thing he learns 10 new things because he has more tricks in his bag, and he takes that magic potion and he sprinkles it on all the things he's already got, and he increases his skills tenfold so I always have the image of like you know you see your teacher in front of you, and you're going as fast as you can, but he's just pulling way ahead, or she's just pulling way ahead just, you know, so that's one of the reasons why I you know I think we keep going in the martial arts is that we know that there's always somebody out there who's better than us, there's somebody that knows something that we don't know so we keep coming back to it and every time I go back. 

So, my other side stories, I met my wife in Japan and we got married and I. After living there for three years we decided to move back to the states and I brought her with me but it gives a nice excuse to go back, and she happens to live in the exact town that my teacher has practices at so I go back there pretty much every year, we haven't gone since COVID but nobody goes anywhere during COVID. So, but we've gone I've gone back and train with him. Nearly every year to the point that my in laws get mad at me for not hanging out with him enough, when I go back because I just go and train. So, I still see him regularly on literally an annual basis, and every time I go back. He's doing something that, you know, I couldn't figure it out the last year but then this year he's on to something new and it just keeps going.

Jeremy Lesniak:
How does that feel as someone who's trying to learn and I would assume if you're someone who went to college, there's a value on education on knowledge on maybe mastery isn't quite the right word but developing a competency around his skill and if I'm connecting the dots on what you're saying. He is continually showing you that you're not keeping up with him.

Aaron Cass:
Yeah, yeah I've been reading a blog since the summer and this is like probably going to be my next topic or something I want to address soon which is that the pedagogy, the philosophy of teaching in Japan. I think in traditional, you know, traditional martial arts in their native countries, compared to sort of modern days slash Western slash American teaching is very different. And we in the West, we tend to be much more explicit where we can explain things and give a rationale for it and show you how to do it. 

One of the classic things in Japanese martial arts is 51:40 which literally means see it and steal it. So, you know, whereas in the US if you go, if you teach like that in the US where you know if I went in front of my class and I showed them. You know the fanciest techniques that I've got and give them my best demonstration then I said okay you try it. No one will get anything, they'll sit around and look at each other for a long time and probably get frustrated. And I will not have a successful dojo. I will not have, you know, I will not be able to pay the rent and keep the lights on. 

But there's a different cultural assumption in Japan and I would prefer other countries where these martial arts come from that, you know, these are long held you know these sort of comes from a culture of long held martial secrets, and you don't just give them away but, in fact, the onus is on the students to get them. 

So, the short version is that if I had stayed in Japan and continued training there. I don't think I'd be as good as I am now. And I mean that because, he didn't explain things, and I didn't get to figure stuff out, and it was utterly frustrating. I you know I trained, I train there I had to. So I lived in a town, a little ways away so I had to hang up a car at the time so I just biked there. 

So I'd bike like 45 minutes I just completely haul and be all out of breath when I get there, just so I can train, and he'd throw me around I'd have no idea what I was doing. He spoke in this fairly impossible to understand dialect that I only you know I've worked on, I speak Japanese but he still speaks sort of old man countryside Japanese and half the time I still don't know what he's saying. Now I kinda get it but back then I didn't know what he was saying he was pretty impatient. 

But I stuck around because I knew I had to get it, I knew I had to find it. And the thing is that I didn't actually get in there. I went, you know when I moved back to the states I still hadn't still lucky enough to have access to a bunch of really excellent teachers. And when I go around you know I could train and, you know, I don't know, maybe it's not the right metaphor, but I'm pretty promiscuous when it comes to martial arts in Aikido, I'll go anywhere and I'll try anything at least once, and I've checked out a lot of different people and train with some, you know, more continuously and a lot of them have helped me to make sense of what my teacher was doing to me in Japan. 

So I sort of take all these different points and triangulate in on, like, oh, that's why I felt that way and that's why I, you know, couldn't pick up my feet and why you know I wasn't able to pull my hand back after throwing a punch even though he wasn't grabbing me like what was he doing and my teachers now and the people that I run into can help me to unpack that. And, you know, I asked my teacher I said no Takashi Sensei you you live out in the countryside you've never lived in Tokyo where the big name teachers have been, you you haven't actually studied under real famous instructors. How did you get good? 

And he always just sort of looks at me like, why do I bother this guy says, I thought about it. And, you know, that's the sort of classic Japanese understatement. He thought about it and he spent his whole life, pursuing it, and doing everything he could to test things and figure out what works. And he owns it. And to sort of circle back to what I was saying about the difference between teaching in the east and teaching in the west. I actually see it happen in real time where I'm sitting there and I'm teaching my students. I mean, I'm a you know I have a graduate degree in how to teach them. I'm a professional educator and I know how to get people to acquire skills and gain knowledge. And I also look at and I go, every time I give them something. It's something they can never actually get to because I have to because I'm doing the work of giving it to them, they don't actually owning a sensor or just some degree I maintain that ownership with Takashi Sensei and I think in the Japanese martial art there's a real premium on what you can discover that what you can find and, you know, maybe innovation is the right word. 

I see a lot of my really best teachers are sort of scientists in the sense that they don't just accept what somebody told them is, you know, right, this is how we do it but they say, oh, let me try it, and they try it, and if it works they continue to do it and refine it. If it doesn't work they discard it. And that's, that's I think how Takashi Sensei arrived where he is got. And that's part of the process that I've tried to internalize since.

Jeremy Lesniak:
It makes sense to me. When I think about the things that I've discovered as a martial artist. Maybe they're similar to something that I was taught or maybe even, it was something I was taught but I didn't internalize I didn't get it. I wasn't ready. But through my own exploration. Oh, what about this and it changes, other things at the very least, when we come up with our own answers. We tend to internalize them better. If you're an educator, I'm sure you everybody else who's ever taught anything knows that when someone comes up and they're asking you the answer to a question. You can give it to them. Sure. And you'll inform them for, you know, that moment, are they really going to remember, the more they have to figure it out. Apply it the harder they have to work to discover that information, the more likely they are to retain it because they don't want to have to go through that again.

Aaron Cass:
Yeah. And it's interesting I mean I think one of the things that I find fascinating about looking at really high level martial artists, is that they come to refine or really, I don't know, I rarely use the word perfect but they've okay I use the Japanese they say Cuba made it means to take something to its fullest extent that they've found something and refined it and made it so incredibly good, and that thing is like often kind of small, you know, my teacher Takashi Sensei he's sort of, I guess if I was to boil it down his main gig is Cinna Gotti which means connection. But you're kind of stuck to him and he's able to sort of throw you around like a rag doll because he's, he's got you on the edge of your balance, and he's got you in a way that your balance is compromised and that he can he can take advantage of that and move you around so whatever it is I think martial artists, especially in those sort of later years they tend to find these little details that on the surface might seem mundane or like, not everybody, but would be interested in, but they get so good at it. 

That they they've just taken it to another level and those are the types of things that at this point most inspire me is to see those things that they're so detailed and so nuanced and maybe even subtle but, you know, in a sense change everything. And when you, when you grab on to somebody, and one of the, one of the things I love about Aikido and just a really basic sense is you grab people, you feel what they're doing. And then they grab you and when you put your hands on somebody that knows their body better than you know your body. They might even know your body better than you know your body. It's hard to not keep going and get really curious, and just want to get back on the mat again and again.

Jeremy Lesniak:
You mentioned that you have a school but we didn't talk about how that happened. So tell us about the gestation there. 

Aaron Cass:
Sure, yeah. Okay good we're coming full circle, we're almost up to today. So, I started in New Hampshire at age 17, I train there for a year, I think I got my fifth Q, my like first first white belt. I go to Santa Cruz where I train and train and train and I got my black belt. I go to Japan, and earned another black belt. And then after that so I came back in about 2005 to the US and when I got back, I actually went back to training at Portsmouth Aikido which is the place that I started and back in 1995 and when I was training there. 

Back in 2005, the chief instructor Judy Ringer who opened up the dojo very bravely in 1995 when she was only like the first level of white belt at that point but she was so in love with the two that she was able to connect with some really excellent instructors that came in sort of a rotation and would teach us. She had sort of reached a point where she was feeling a bit tired of it and was interested in doing pursuing other things and not being so tied to the dojo. And she said, you know, okay you know I was in graduate school and I was living off of savings and so I was trying to spend as little money as possible and she said well you know if you maybe teach once or twice a week then you know okay I'm happy to happy to have you, you know not pay dues and you can just train them the other days and teach when you teach us oh, that'd be fantastic and then it wasn't long after that when she said, would you like to dojo. 

So, I think I said no for a while because I knew how much work it was going to be but eventually after, sort of, talking, talking about it more and figuring out what it would mean I eventually said yes. I don't tend to do things in half measures so I was reluctant to say yes because I knew I would be completely committed to it.

And so in 2009, I took over the dojo. Formerly and became the chief instructor. I think within a year, I transitioned us to becoming an educational nonprofit like a 501 1:01:55 organization that allowed us to do a fundraiser that put us in our own training space which hadn't happened for the first 15 years in the organization's history. 

So we had our own training space with our own mats and our own dedicated dojo. And then I realized hey you know what I've traveled all the way around the world and I've had all these great instructors. I'm running a dojo. I can now bring them out and have them teach seminars and so excellent my teacher Yoshi Chiba Sensei from Santa Cruz. Find ways to connect with other people and bring them here and then go out and train with them and it was a real sort of flourishing in my training of getting access to a whole bunch of different people and really continuing that growth and excitement and the dojo. 

In the beginning, it was just plain old a lot of work you know when you see you know we went from paying $500 a month to rent a space, you know, three times a week from the seacoast YMCA to having, you know, triple the overhead there and having to pay rent. It was a lot of stress, and so that was a lot of work but I was partly lucky and probably made some good decisions and definitely worked really hard and now we've got. I mean, pre COVID we had 80 students. And we were doing really well. We've, let's just say we've trimmed back a bit at this point, maybe, for obvious reasons. We've got people that are taking time off the mat and it's been hard, too hard to continue training during the pandemic but we're still going strong. And it's been good for me to be committed in that way because it focuses my training. It gives me the opportunity to constantly question. What am I doing and why am I doing it what's valuable?

You know when you're when you're figuring that out for yourself that's one thing but when you're offering it to other people and representing your art to the rest of the world, you know, for me, I feel a real obligation to do my best and to do my best and make my practice as good as it can be. 

So, ultimately it's been a very positive force and I've been so happy and blessed and thankful for the community that fortunate Aikido has become, it's, you know, for my day job, I go there and pays the bills, it's nice to have medical insurance and whatnot. I want to go to the dojo every time. And it's just the place I want to be so I'm very thankful for that.

Jeremy Lesniak:
That's great. If people want to find your dojo online where do they go?

Aaron Cass:
portsmouthaikido.org. So, come on by and there's actually we've got lots of different ways you can find us that that'll get you most of it, but we also have a YouTube channel which is just YouTube Portsmouth Aikido. And then, Facebook, and then I keep a blog which I post on the PortsmouthAikido.org website. I think that's most of it, but um yeah come find us. We're happy to have you. We always welcome people and we've got great people, and Aikido is fantastic and I love to share it so I'm happy to have people come on by anytime.

Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, this has been a great conversation we went in some interesting directions, we went in a circle ultimately I guess it's the truest direction as some would say you know the perfect shape is a circle. But now it's time to wind down so I'm gonna hand the ball back to you. How do you want to wind or how do you want to transition out? In other words, what are your final words to the listeners?

Aaron Cass:
Ah, that's pretty definitive. I would say, you know, it is really important to constantly reflect on what your art is, you know, what are the, what makes your art what it is? For me that comes down to principles that comes down to like not relying on brute force to do things, it comes down to, respecting the integrity of others and yourself and living your life in a way that allows people to, again, maintain their dignity and be the best people that they can be while allowing for people to be who they are. 

So I think you have to constantly reflect back on who you are and what you're doing. And so as you look at those principles, those basic underlying sort of essential parts of what your art is, I think you then have the responsibility to look at the world the way it is today, and be really honest about where do those things fit together. 

So I sort of see two components that you have to really understand what your art is and, you know, anything that's worth doing, probably has a lot of depth to it. You know all martial arts have something really excellent and insightful to offer, and then trying to figure out how that applies to the world that we live in, you know, as I said before, you know, no martial artist can trade a gun. You know, we were sort of obsolete more these days, and fathers fought with machines. 

So what's the point of doing this thing where we deal with grabs and punches and pins and those sorts of things? So, for me, that have come down to, you know, looking at, I guess in a sort of philosophical psychological way How do you interact with people, you know, do you, are you the best person you can be? Are you really a good listener and able to be present with somebody else, and let them be who they are, without feeling threatened by it and needing to concede some part of yourself. 

And then, like, we haven't talked about it so far but one of the things that I've been doing for the last two years, is that I work with energy hospital down in Newburyport Massachusetts. One day the director of their psych ward called me up and said, we have this program for dealing with 1:08:29 and the hands on portion is not working for us. Is that something you could help us with? And it has been so fascinating and interesting that we work together, and developed a program for managing violent patients in hands on scenarios, either for what we call tier one which is for the on floor staff that deal with patients on a regular basis so like nurses that might deal with somebody in the emergency room that you know has just come out of sedation and they're psychotic, and they're flailing around and trying to hurt you or somebody who is having a psychotic episode in the mental health facility and they can control themselves and you don't have the option of knocking them out or doing something like that, you have the obligation to care for them. 

So the program developed is called compassion and care. And, you know, when I teach at the dojo. I have a bunch of really nice people, a bunch of nice men and women and children. They're all going to go out in the world, and hopefully never have to deal with hands on conflict that they probably are not going to get on fistfights that they're not going to have to deal with those things, of course I'd want them to be ready for it and want to provide them the skills, but we're a bunch of nice people living in the countryside of New Hampshire and not a lot of that happens. But the staff that I trained down at NHS hospital, they actually have to apply these things on a daily basis, and it's so rewarding for them to reach back out to me and say, it's working. It's good. We have ways to manage people that are you know we cared for, and are trying to hurt us but we don't have to get hurt anymore and that's just infinitely satisfying so that's one of the ways that I think that Aikido is so relevant to right now is how do you interact with people in a way that in this case it's not even metaphorical that they're physically trying to hurt you and you're able to stay safe and keep them safe and really be a living example of compassion. 

Jeremy Lesniak:
That was a moment, wasn't it. Not only did things change in the arc of Sensei Cass's story, but I heard something different in the energy, as he was leading up to it, did you notice it. His energy was a bit reserved his tone of voice was a little more stoic, but on the other side of that experience with that man who became his instructor, everything changed. And even in retelling the story, he changed. 

And I find that so powerful. Our lives are full of these moments, but we don't always have the clarity of being able to see them, it's my hope that in hearing this one today that you'll take stock of some of the moments that you had in your life. The ones that might be coming, and be able to appreciate them for who you become as a result. 

Sensei Cass, I really appreciate your time, your openness and just the conversation, and a lot of fun. If you want more I know you want more you always want more, because you're tuning in for more. So go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, check out that website check out Episode 578, find the photos find the links find the other stuff that we've got going for the other episodes find the transcripts find the videos. Did you know that you can dig in and find episodes based on style or region of the guest can do that? 

Lots of things that you can do at that website and you can also go whistlekick.com, you can support the show, you can leave reviews, you can buy stuff, you can support Patreon, and you can get a new hat. So many things that you can do, just pick one pick one thing, whatever things seems to make most sense for you, please do and if you spending your time with me, with our guests, listening, if that's what you can do. I'm gonna be appreciative of that. That's the most important part. If you have feedback or suggestions, email me jeremy@whistlekick.com. 

And that's it for now until next time, train hard smile and stay with me. Have a great day.