Episode 673 - All-In Weekend
In this episode, listen or watch as Jeremy and Andrew talk about whistlekick’s upcoming event, The All-In Weekend.
All-In Weekend- Episode 673
For the first time, ever, we're hosting an incredible, weekend-long event...
Friday evening, April 29th through Sunday morning, May 1st, 2022
Held at the beautiful Bethany Birches facility in Plymouth, Vermont, USA, this 2-day martial arts event will be half training experience and half retreat.
The cost of the event includes all of your training, your lodging, food, and an event shirt. All you have to do is show up, and we'll take care of the rest.
And if you haven't already noticed the price... it's only $199. For everything.
Listen to this episode and join the conversation! We would appreciate you sharing your thoughts in the comments section below.
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's going on everybody? Welcome whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, today's episode, now bear with me, we're talking about our latest event coming up in 2022, all in weekend. But it's not just going to be about that. I think if you've listen to other episodes we've done where we talk about a thing that we're doing, we try to provide as much value around that. It's not a commercial there, I can just leave it at that it's not a commercial. Hopefully you trust me enough to know that it's not gonna be a commercial. Well, this one is in video, which means if you're watching, you see me referring to notes, which is not a thing that happens very often
Andrew Adams:
You get to peek behind the curtain a little bit.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And if this happens to be your first episode, I'm Jeremy Lesniak joined by my good friend co-host, Andrew Adams. How are you?
Andrew Adams:
Great, awesome. I'm doing well.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Glad to hear and what do we do? It was okay, cool. Everything we do is in support of the traditional martial arts. Head on over was looking back calm, check out all the things that we're doing, there's a ton of stuff we do. If the only thing you ever interact with is this show, you're missing out, they're squished up, it's insane. And how do I know it's insane, because I'm involved in most of it. And if there's a reason I start working 6:30 in the day. If you watch I got more just on the show. If you're like all in on this show. Let's look at martial arts radio.com. And if you want to support us, two biggest things you can do, make a purchase at whistlekick.com using the code, PODCAST15, or the Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick and Patreon is patreon.com. You don't have your sign.
Andrew Adams:
I know, I usually pull up a sign sometimes,
Jeremy Lesniak:
But if you want the full list of everything you can do to support us in our mission to support the traditional martial arts whistlekick.com/family to check that out as well. You'll see some some kind of surprise Easter Aggie sort of things that we drop in there. Alright. Yeah, BAM! All in weekend,
Andrew Adams:
All in weekend,
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's start with the history of how it came to be and then we'll talk about what it is, as we go, I want you to help me make sure that I'm talking about the stuff around it the why, the things that make it not a commercial. Like I'm gonna do my best. But you know,
Andrew Adams:
And I would say that we will talk about our event. We're going to be talking about weekend or week long training sessions in general benefits as well. So yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you remember, there's an older episode, I don't remember what episode number it is about destination training events. This is kind of the extension of that. This is our thoughts, my thoughts on that years later. So years ago, 2016. We were going to have, what time is going to be called whistlekick weekend. Not enough people signed up. The economics didn't work, we had to pull the plug. In pulling the plug, it became what we now call free training day. The whole idea behind whistlekick weekend was, let's get people together. Let's get to a place to sleep. Let's take care of the food. Let's facilitate the training and construct an environment where you're guaranteed to have a lot of great things happening because you're managing those things. But leave enough space that amazing things can happen organically. The initial vision behind whistlekick weekend the main piece was all the different instructors. That has become the hallmark of free training. That is not what's going to happen in all in weekend. Because I want to make sure that, we wanted to make sure whenwe start talking about this with all the weekend was not just going to be more Free Training Day. Because if you've been to free training day, you can't do that for two days.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah Your brain will explode.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It was not gonna work. There's like we're stretching the limits by having seven sessions as it is, with what we're doing. So what are we doing? Free Training Day is about conveying information and building camaraderie. Would you agree?
Andrew Adams:
Oh, absolutely. I've only had the pleasure of going twice to two Free Training days 2019 and 2021. And one of the biggest takeaways from the first one I went to was the amount of people that I met, and had genuine fun and learning experiences with. It was huge for me, that's probably the biggest takeaway from 2019. You know, and some of the people that I had met them and put in quotes for those that are just listening, "MET" online, but never met in person. And finally getting to see them in person and talk to them and
Jeremy Lesniak:
hugs and handshakes.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, it was, it was great. And, you know, I came home that night, incredibly sore. And, you know, I'm remembering this because it came up in my Facebook memories from that year, you know, I came home, I sat down, I had a big cup of tea. And, you know, my meal and I just sat there and wrote an incredibly lengthy review of the day of like, all the classes I took, and all the people that I met and, you know, tons of pictures that I had taken, and it just was such a thing for me that I couldn't imagine not going.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It was impactful.
Andrew Adams:
Absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And that's what most people say about free training is that it is impactful. And when you and I started putting together the pieces, because we suspected leading up to free training day, that it was time to launch this. Yeah, you know, we put a lot of pieces in place for for what we are now calling All-in Weekend. At the time, we didn't have a name when we start talking about it. I said, you know, here's this thing I tried to do that didn't work. But I think the time is right. And we put it together in a way that if we needed to pull the plug, we could pull the plug, you know, without being out a whole bunch of money. But the part that I wanted to keep was the impact. And I think that the format we've developed, does that. And I think the best way to describe it is we take everything that's good about free training day. And it's as if you take one session, we've all whether or not you've been a free training day, if you've been to any kind of martial arts events, training seminar, maybe you're part of that organization, you get a group together people you'll typically train with, when you bring in new blood or fresh meats, as some people like to call it. There's this really interesting thing that happens in the energy of the group, if people are on the same page, and they're there for good reasons, not even necessarily that same good reasons. Some really magical stuff happens. And you've probably been part of groups where you said, I don't want this group to break up, we've got this magic with this group, this 20 or 40 years, 60 people, however many it is. And we're just starting to explore those inter dynamic.. interpersonal dynamics isn't the right word, but the the way we're training together, is yielding the results, benefit for everyone involved through those connections? What if we could continue that?
Andrew Adams:
That are as passionate about what you are for that length of time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now we're never going to take free training day and say, you know what, team one like, is this random group of people have to go through the secret? We're not going to do that. But that's kind of what's going on with all-in weekend, because it's limited to 40 people. And that includes us, like the 40 includes us like it's, it's not a big number of people. So you're going to have not, six, seven hours or 45 minutes with a group, you're gonna have two days a weekend with a group. And most of us as adults, don't get to spend time with other adults in that capacity. Most of the time when adults do a thing for a weekend. They're taking care of kids or they're worrying about rooms or they're worrying about food, they're worrying. So what's left? Martial Arts. In all the ways you can define that. Now, why do I think it's important for us to talk about this and make this an episode now? Yeah, full disclosure. We want people to come. We're going to tell you about it because we hope that incentivizes or inspires some of you to attend this event. By the way, last weekend of April, you can find all on whistlekick.com. But one of the things I've learned over the years is that we, I, approach, things that we do differently than most. And we've had people come up to us, after free training day saying, I've done things like this, but it was nothing like this. Next time I do mine, I'm going to do one, go for it, take our best ideas and implement them. That's a good thing. Remember our mission. It's not to make the best free training day, it's to help grow and support martial arts. So if we do a cool thing, and other people learn from it, and their things get cooler, like we're all winning.
Andrew Adams:
it's a win win.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, that's the goal. So when we take all in weekend, which is hyper focus on fostering the culture, when this airs, it'll be six weeks or so that we did an episode on culture? This is about culture plus training. And its culture first, because we get the culture right. The training will be amazing. Yeah, you can have good training without culture. Absolutely.
Andrew Adams:
You know, I think we at whistlekick has worked really hard at putting forth an ethos of style agnostic, no ego, and just training for the purpose of training and learning. And I think that the two biggest takeaways that I heard from people leaving free training day, number one, that I heard a new way or differently, but was that they loved that aspect, that it didn't matter what style they came from, and that there was no ego, that everybody was there to train the fact that all the instructors took classes as well. So that was the one takeaway. And the second was that every single person I talked to, although they were dead, tired, at the end of the day, wish that it had been more the wish they had had more of an event.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We know, and maybe you're new to martial arts, or maybe you participate, or run a school, where culture is not part of the conversation. So you may not be experienced with us. The tighter a group gets, the more they trust each other, the more they trust each other, the more risk they're willing to take with each other. If I just meet you, like, if we just met, we started sparring. I'm going to be holding back. Yeah, if I let me holding back, even from that point where I know I can safely go. Because, I don't know how you're going to react if I you know, slip that 16th of an inch. And that that, you know, straight to the chest maybe was a little Oh, yeah, you know, even though it doesn't hurt, you're like No, wait a second, that was harder than it needed to be right? Or harder than I expected short. So we're gonna kind of feel each other out. That happens in any group of new people. Because we are aware of this, what we are constructing which by the way, we're not sharing the syllabus, this is not going to be here's the itinerary of events, which is internally can be incredibly detailed. Because it needs to be to achieve the goal. But we're not sharing that. Because that's not what you need to know.
Andrew Adams:
But what I would share is, because I mentioned one of the ethos is style agnostic and no ego. I feel confident saying that, if the attendees that come are not going to learn, Boxing, Karate weekend boxing, they're not going to learn, you know, Karate, for three days. It's not going to be that. It's not going to be jujitsu for three days, nor is it going to be entirely physical. Absolutely. It's going to be a multitude of different things, different kinds of training, different types of training. We are not leaving in one direction for anyone
Jeremy Lesniak:
we're trying we're trying to stay broad in this purposely. Because one of the goals is that people are taken outside of their comfort zone, at least some of the time. What makes that easier, recognizing that by fostering trust between the attendees they will be more likely to feel comfortable stepping out of their comfort zone and supporting others as they also do so. It is unlikely that we're going to have any one thing that we do we're everybody's out of their comfort zone to try on some of them. Yep. And but no, we're not talking about, we're gonna make you walk on fire. We're not going to walk on fire.
Andrew Adams:
That would be cool. But no.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you want to on fire we can all cheer you on. But we're working from from some end goals. And when I think about anything that we do at whistlekick, we start with the end goal. What is the result that we are striving for? When we talk about this episode? We didn't take notes. We said, Okay, what is the goal? What do we want people to come away with this episode? Knowing, thinking, and we do that with every episode that we record. When we put together a book, when we put together the training programs, it's all working backwards from what is the goal so that's a hard piece of advice that I want to offer to everyone, no matter what you're putting together, martial arts or not, whether it's a training event, or testing or whatever, work backwards, what is the goal? How do you define the success of that thing? And make sure everything supports that success. I don't think people are going to come away from this with the first thing that they talk about being I'm a better kicker. Does that mean we won't have kicking? No. There will probably be some kicking at some point, they're probably not going to come away from this going "I feel like so much more flexible and I know all the things I need to know to be more flexible now." That doesn't mean there won't be flexibility. What we are expecting my goal and we're on the same page on this, people will come away saying this was a powerful and transformational experience. I'm even more in on martial arts, hence the title All-in weekend. And I'm inspired to continue training. Hopefully even more, so harder, whatever. And I can't wait for next year.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, with an increased vigor for wanting to do it. And learning new stuff. You know, some of the people that are attending I've talked to, and they are, they feel stagnant is not the right word, but they have been learning the same thing for a long time. And they're excited to be able to get outside of what they already know. And learn something new. Free Training Day is great for that. But it's in small blocks. This is going to be a larger version of those classes, right learning more stuff.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And free training days more on the physical. Yeah, it's about skills. It's about concepts. Yeah, this is when we talk about martial arts, if you pay any attention to whistlekick, and what we put out, you know, that I'm very passionate about the personal growth aspect of martial arts, I believe that it is the heart of martial arts. We're gonna have elements of that. You know what, there's going to be times where we're talking in groups about what I'm not going to tell you, in part, because we don't know yet. Because we haven't solidified everything. Because with 40 attendees total, we get to customize this event. And we can dig in and know, okay, this is what this person does. This is what this person does, because we are hell bent on making sure that that goal is achieved. And when you've got months and prepare, we're going to take that time, and we're going to crush it. Yeah. Because we want people to want to come back.
Andrew Adams:
And we, you know, the people that are going to attend, we hope that they do trust us to do that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I would assume that they do know.
Andrew Adams:
And I think one of the best testaments to that is we announced this at free training day. And we had already sold multiple spots,
Jeremy Lesniak:
we sold one in the first 10 minutes, somebody stepped down to their free training day session. Do it on the phone.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. And I think 18:49
Jeremy Lesniak:
So that knows a lot about the event. So let's, let's kind of branch out a little bit. Give you a bit on setting that goal and working backwards. We talked about culture, if you miss the episode on culture and martial arts school and the importance thereof, go back and check that one out. Because that culture, it's not just school, it's the event. It is something, remember, it happens whether you want it to or not, it's there. And if you ignore it, you don't get to control it. If you're aware of it, you get to control influence it. That's important. Food, food could be easy to skip over and maybe sounds a little cheesy that was not intended but works really well. People always appreciate when there is good food at an events.
Andrew Adams:
And again, going back to what we said towards the beginning, the fact that we are providing food and obviously we're talking about our all-in weekend but any event, when you take out the things you have to worry about it makes the event itself something you can focus more on As an attendee, and so that's something people have to worry about.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. And Bt Dubs, we have looked at an actual chef, doing the food for the weekend. This is not, like, Oh, we're gonna give you hot dogs and hamburgers. Six, eight meals no this is like, legit food, like, the second biggest line item behind lodging is food.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, absolutely. And we are very, you know, I'll peek behind the curtain a little bit more for the audience, like, we're very lucky that the person is doing the food, The Chef, is a personal friend of mine. One of my best friends, I eat in his house all the time. Like, he's doing us a favor, to be honest, we are locking out on our food, because he's helping us.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And that's, that's kind of the fun thing. You know, that's another piece when we put this together. And when you think of a successful events, the best events you go to, they leverage the people that are part of that community. So, you know, you think about like free training day, why did we get free training day where it was and all the wonderful things we could have? Because of you. And I think quite often, when people put things together, they don't ask for help. I suffer from that I'm getting better. Yeah. And they don't consider the resources available to them that they can leverage easily. If you're a martial arts school owner/instructor. Even as someone who's been around martial arts a while, you probably know, at least half a dozen people. If you said, Hey, I'm trying to put this thing on. Can you help? They'll say, Yeah, what do you want me to do? Sure. Absolutely. And don't be afraid to ask for that help. If you're trying to add food to your event, or like, I can't handle food, maybe somebody would help put together food. Maybe you put out an email to whoever and you say, hey, does somebody knows somebody, that's a really good cook, it would like to make a few extra bucks. When we did our tournament, that was the predecessor to the non first all weekend,
Andrew Adams:
which I was not at, but the chef that all the weekend, his wife was at
Jeremy Lesniak:
because the world is small,
Andrew Adams:
especially the martial arts world,
Jeremy Lesniak:
I had foodtruck. And there were plenty of things that did not go well about that event. This was my first one andd I bit way more than I could chew. But people came away saying, you know, I appreciate it that you had good food. Good food will change everything. People will put up with a lot for good food. And this is the first time I'm realizing this. Like, even if we don't crush it, we're going the food was amazing.
Andrew Adams:
I was about to say, if nothing else, the cost of the event. You could come just for the food and sign up and not do any of the training
Jeremy Lesniak:
The whole weekends is 200 bucks. You get you get your lodging. No, it's not a private hotel.
Andrew Adams:
Part of the benefit of doing a seminar like this, and again, not just all in weekend, there are lots of these types of events all over the world. One of the benefits of doing this type of event is the growth of the group, as a group that you're going to connect and know people. The Chef's wife who was at your tournament, martial artist, she got her black belt when I got my first degree in the Karate and study now, she has been to the Jessie Enkamp karate experience. She met so many people that that event, and because she and I are friends, when I was looking for more guests on the show, four of our last, you know, 25 or 40 Guests are connections that she made from that event. Because they're more passionate martial artists and the people that you meet at these types of events can very, very easily turn into lifelong friends. And that's an added benefit that many people don't see in this type of residential program.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So you should have events. You should make them fun. You should be intentional about the culture. You should provide tasty food and you should recognize that if you leave space for good things to happen, and you are fostering culture by bringing good people the things that you never could have imagined will happen. Positive power, life changing things. And if you're someone looking to grow, build a school, that's the kind of stuff you need people saying. This thing that I did or attending the school or whatever changed my life. What better thing can people said, and that's what we're shooting for here. We are shooting for a life changing weekend. So with all that being said, as of this recording, it is more than half sold. The promotion on this not the promotion, the adoption of this has gotten better than we expected. Okay, here we are. We're releasing this early January recording at the end of December. 40 slots total 38 I guess because you know, we're in there. And I think because we sold one while we recorded the last episode, I think we're down as of right now to like 17 slots. Yeah. So if you're listening to or watching this, and you're thinking, Huh, maybe I should try to do this. I think I'm interested. Do not wait. The only part that sucks about this event is everyone who wants to come will not be able to attend.
Andrew Adams:
That's very true. Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sorry. Literally not sorry. But sorry. But that's part of what makes it special is that it's union camp. You know, here's another behind the curtain. If this goes well, we will consider doing others. In other locations. Yeah, right.
Andrew Adams:
Even the same location, if there's enough interest.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's true. That's true. It's, you know, we're building something that we both believe in that we think is going to be really, it's something we're both going to be proud, I think is the best way to put it. So if you have questions, check out the event at whistlekick.com. If there are questions after reading that, reach out, Jeremy@whistlekick.com you know, I've been circling Andrew and on all this stuff, we've talked about it. Three days, wemight go up to six, I'm sure at some point. But we want to make sure that the right people get there the people that are all in on this idea. And part that is being very open about what we can do.
Andrew Adams:
And, you know, I would also say we will not be the only instructors there. There will be other people instructing, we're not going to tell you who but it's not going to be just us which helps lends to that learning lots of different things.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I don't know that we would ever pin attendance on the instructors, we're not going to hang out the person be like, come train with Bruce Lee. Obviously not. But let's protect right. Yeah, we will not say all the weekend featuring Bruce, because that's not that's not going to get the right people.
Andrew Adams:
That's not the message we're trying to convey. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So will there be amazing people there? Yes. Will you have heard of them? Maybe? If you know our names? Oh, you know, at least. Thank you for indulging us. Hopefully you did find some value in this even if attendance is not on your radar. If there are aspects to what we talked about that you want us to go deeper on, because I'm sure we could we have stuff out there. Yeah. If it's little stuff reach out, you know, I'll write you back. If it's big enough, we'll do another episode or six. I mean, we're, we're all about sharing this information. Because if someone takes this idea runs with it, and they see success with it, then maybe we'll show up and we'll steal your ideas. Everybody wins. Check out the shownotes whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. And if you're up for supporting what we do, aside from attending all-in weekend, you got a bunch options. You could leave a review. You could buy a book on Amazon, or maybe help out with Patreon at patreon.com/whistlekick. And you know, you want to bring me to your school for a seminar? I'd love to join you and reach out and find a way we're booking seminars through 2022 and the kids are going fast. It's kind of insane, and I'm a little bit scared. Don't forget the code podcast15 and get 15% off anything in the store. If you have guest suggestions, let me know. Social media is @whistlekick myy email Jeremy@whistlekick.com Andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Until next time, train hard smile and have a great day.