Episode 685 - Rapid Fire Q&A #12
In this episode, Jeremy and co-host Andrew Adams take on another iteration of the Rapid Fire Question and Answers.
Rapid Fire Q&A #12 - Episode 685
Jeremy and co-host Andrew Adams tackle a series of questions from you, the listeners, and some guests in the form of a Rapid Fire Q&A. Here are the questions they tried to answer:
As you age, what martial arts fundamental do you find as more important than you found it earlier in your martial arts career?
In your opinion, who is the most influential martial artist in Karate?
Listen to the episode for more!
After listening to the questions and answers, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section below!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hello, everyone, welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. We're doing another Q&A episode. We're doing it live on the interwebs. Whoa. And at some point here, we expect some people will be rolling in on Facebook and YouTube and Twitter. And we've got questions, some of them. If we get this right, some of these questions will be asked live. We have not done that before. That's exciting. And we've got a bunch of other things going on behind the scenes. Please forgive us as we figure some of this out. And as we conduct some, some technical to make this all happen, because it's just us it is no, there is no production team. This is my living room TV. This is a low budget show, folks, there's nothing you could pretend. You could pretend there's a live audience over there.
Andrew Adams:
And but we're gonna have… We're gonna have the live people joining us.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, there are people watching us.
Andrew Adams:
That's true. There are several and I want to make sure people understand I'm not being I'm not being like, you're so rude. I'm not like the worst. Like, I'm communicating with people that are going to be hopefully coming on why Yeah, to ask their questions.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know, the frustrating thing about this is if I enlarge this, we lose this chat. Yeah. And I can't resize that. It's really kind of a bummer. Yeah, yeah. So I can read it. Yeah. Well, you can read comments, then. I'm all the way over here.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, we're on different sides. This week. We switched to really weird, but Craig's in the chat. Craig's calling us two of the coolest people he knows. I feel bad for couldn't sticking it out. For sure. Dennis. hello, gentlemen. Nice surprise on a Tuesday work morning. Oh, so one of our guests is trying to get on. Okay. I don't know. I don't know what happens up here. No idea. But we'll see. We're trying something new today, guys.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We're constantly trying new things, trying to improve a little bit. That's 1% In order to progress, whatever you want to call it. It's that martial arts mindset that actually leads to sustainable results. Absolutely.
Andrew Adams:
Daniel's here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Daniel's here signing past your bedtime.
Andrew Adams:
Well, let's see. It would be like yes, like dinnertime. Dinnertime for him. That's four o'clock early tomorrow.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do they eat food in the UK?
Andrew Adams:
They do. I've been there. I have to try not to eat. Oh no, I spent quite a bit of time in Glasgow, Scotland. It was great. Love it there. And one of the people that I have to ask their questions to is there right now? Sweet. I see them in the bottom left.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, it's working. That's so cool.
Andrew Adams:
Almost like we know what we're doing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do we want to start with these live folks? Why don't we? It's up to you. I just hang out.
Andrew Adams:
Hey, you know, whatever. I mean, do you want to tell people about how they can support the show first or?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, like the whole intro thing? There was?
Andrew Adams:
No, we just want it up.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, all right. Um, if you like what we do, if you love whistlekick, if you want to support us on our mission to connect, educate, entertain, traditional martial arts world, whistlekick.com. Use the code podcast one five if you're watching live you're not gonna be able to get it yet but this shirt is a new entry to the Central's collection. We'll go live February 1 patreon.com/whistlekick for as little as two bucks a month you can contribute and get exclusive behind the scenes like you want to know who's coming on the show that you find out at $2. We have a guest that I'm interviewing later today. Holy cow yeah people have actually reached out to like Wait seriously Yeah, yeah, that big of a name. Yeah, um, and then also there's a ton of other stuff. Instead of going through a long list go to whistlekick.com/family to further incentivize you to go to look at whistlekick.com/family.
We put up photos we've had photos of you and I as we were younger just discounts you're not finding anywhere else and it's just everything like all places to leave reviews. We read some reviews today. People who leave reviews get gift certificates to the store. Yeah, pretty awesome. All right, you want to bring out our first guest. Let's do it for our first question. Do you want me to see who they are from here? Is it more fun if I don't know? Doesn't really matter but the only thing is I'm not sure how to bring on. Well, I can, so we got two people there.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Alright. Hey, there we are.The audio, Watson. Alright, hello. Hello, sir. How are you?
Steven Watson:
Right. Thank you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thanks for being a guinea pig. All right, good.
Andrew Adams:
Steven, how are you this morning?
Steven Watson:
Feeling great, long morning training and some fresh snowfall? You know, we're so quick while shoveling is pretty good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Are you on a green screen?
Steven Watson:
Well, I guess you could put me anywhere and put me in ancient China, if you would.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don't know how to do that. That's above our pay grade. That is. Maybe that's next year, we'll put people in ancient China.
Steven Watson:
Because the COVID area I do a whole lot more filming. So I just try and change the background for people. So I just set myself up here.
Andrew Adams:
Excellent. So, Steven Watson, listening to the guest of the show, was great to have you on. You sent me a number of questions, which were great. And so we thought it'd be kind of fun for you to be able to ask it. Ask your question live and get Jeremy's response. I'm frightened.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I know. I can see in your face. I should be frightened. Knowing the two of you. I'm sure there has been consideration. It's not a word. I'm sure you have conspired. Let's do it. Bring it on.
Steven Watson:
Parts with the phrase after your third stint, then they're very nervous, like, oh, it's ready for me to shoot.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm ready. I'm ready. Bring it on.
Steven Watson:
So, um, as you age, and this is not me saying you're very old. But we are doing it live. So we're aging. Particular days we may feel it more. But as you age, what martial arts fundamental do you find more important, then you had found it for the earlier parts of your life in martial arts career?
Andrew Adams:
Hmm. Five minutes, five minute.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. I think you started that before he was done. In My US career, I have found that I've spent more of my time doing basics, and doing them. This is where I think a lot of people are gonna expect me to talk about moving slowly. And that's part of it. But I'm more inclined now to take a single movement and just unpack it for a little while. So I've gone, I don't want to say full circle, because that suggests that there's a progression that is necessary. But I have no problem spending a few minutes and saying okay, what am I doing with my punch? Where's my elbow? Where's my wrist? Where's my shoulder? Where does my more recent understanding of biomechanics come into play? And I will almost have this Cartesian approach where I throw everything out and kind of rebuild that punch. Where should that punch go? And what I find interesting is that more often than not, as I'm doing that, I'm having not quite lightbulb moments, but memories of past instructors saying, try this. Try that. Right.
This is why you know, we punch this way. As you know, I've trained in Kempo. With the bent wrist I've trained in the issue with a vertical fist. I've trained in other karate styles, Taekwondo with a wrist here, I've trained in some kickboxing where some people actually turn the pinkie over. And I can make just to take those examples. I can make a biomechanical argument for all of them in a certain context. And I find that to be fascinating because it connects me better with what I'm doing, which then gives me a better ability to apply based on context. If you would ask me to do that 20 years ago, Hey, Jeremy, break down your punch and understand it better. What do you think I might have understood ? There was more to know. But you don't know what you don't know. So I didn't know where to go. And it's because of things that I've trained, ironically, outside of martial arts, that I can do that. I find that to be a lot of fun.
Steven Watson:
So, that wisdom helps you as you age or is that because of your aging? You've attained that wisdom.
Jeremy Lesniak:
In the way I apply it. It's because I've aged that I've developed that wisdom. However, I need my technique. But let's take it to the example of self defense. I'm in good shape. I'm honestly at four to in the best shape of my life, but I won't be able to maintain that forever. At some point my body will start to degrade. So kicking out to some indefinite future, knowing okay, maybe I punch here in this circumstance, as I'm 84 years old, and somebody thinks I'm an easy target. I think that is better, would be better for me in that hypothetical than just blindly throwing the punch the way I've always thrown the punch. Does that answer your question, Steven?
Steven Watson:
Thank you. Yes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, excellent. And he had a minute to spare for both cameras. Oh, my gosh. Now, I'm curious because you've listened to episodes, and we've had the chance to chat. Was that an answer that you expected?
Steven Watson:
But no, not quite what I expected I was, I tried to offer you something that would give you a few different paths to take, depending on sort of your mood, or what's your most recently been learning where you go. I just kind of find that in an extended martial arts career, which not everybody has, the reasons that they stay with that tend to change from the reason that they began. And that's not better or worse. It's just, it seems to me fairly consistent. So if you had a time machine, like, you know, knowing what you know, now, what would you have emphasized? Do you know, to your younger self, and so it's?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm going to crash through 100. I am convinced. Great time will tell. Well, Steven, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for being the first person that's trying to do this.
Steven Watson:
Does that help anytime? It is fantastic.
Andrew Adams:
Thank you. We appreciate you so much. We appreciate everything.
Steven Watson:
Thank you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Alright, so any cracking?
Andrew Adams:
I heard you cracking as well.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do I kick? I don't ban him. I guess I kicked him. Me. That's literally the verb kicks in Watson. Where's my block button? Yeah, I'm gonna block button kicks. Yes. Stephen, thank you so much for coming. It's like it was made for us. That's how long we've been doing this? No. Oh, kick. The burst.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, my gosh. All right. So that was good. You know, hopefully, people that are in the chat. I see. There's like five of them. Hopefully, you enjoyed that. I hope that was definitely different to have that interaction. And we have one more, one more guest who has a question to ask. Okay, so my thought was we'll bring them in. And then we'll, we'll talk about some things and yeah, if I'm more questions, too, and if you're in the chat, have a question you want to ask. If you want to ask it live, you can do that. Just send me a message.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, most of you. I think most of you in the chat have a connection to me, Andrew, you can listen to me. And he can send you the link to let you in. I think next time we do this, we'll meet. We may need to do things a little differently. So yeah, crawling over football on pack though.
Andrew Adams:
That's doable. That's doable. But anyway, I think I figured it out so I'm gonna come here. Yeah, we're gonna bring in our next guest. It's super easy, because it just says an industry. Oh, that's easier than what I think I did. Yeah. It doesn't say kick in the stream just as administrators. So we've got Jonathan Kenney, can you hear us, Jonathan?
Jonathan Kenney:
I’m here.
Andrew Adams:
Awesome. So John's recent, fairly recent within the last few months, guest of the show. So it's blurry. Yeah. Great to have you tell you what episode you were in.
Jonathan Kenney:
I think the last? I was just talking about this the other day. Someone said, Oh, the last couple weeks have been blurry. It's like, the last two years have been blurry. Let's be honest. It is blurry. If you're in the martial arts long enough, unfortunately, sometimes that is a result.
Andrew Adams:
True. Yeah. So Jonathan, coming to us from the great white north up there in Canada. We are buried. Yep. For those that didn't listen to this episode. You should, by the way. But Jonathan, you also sent in like Stephen Watson, you sent in a number of questions. And so I thought we thought it'd be fun. Ask your question live. So I've got a timer here. So he's only gonna have five minutes to answer this question.
Jonathan Kenney:
Okay, so, this question could either be a three hour answer or a three second, depending on how much you've already thought about this. But in your opinion, who was the most influential person in karate today? Not in general martial arts because like that, that spider web goes forever, right? But in the context of karate, who is today right now? The most influential person in karate?
Andrew Adams:
Five minutes go.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So it's interesting that you've limited it to karate. So it is limited against karate where the impact would also be on Karate. And not broadly the martial arts. I've got answers coming up that I don't like. I don't want them to be true. I understand that modeling is not visually or audibly compelling.
Jonathan Kenney:
Because if we say martial arts in a general sense, I mean, you can easily say, Okay, well, is it Dana White, Conor McGregor? Are we talking about MMA, like, there's a lot of super powerful popular celebrity types that have a huge influence. So that's why I kind of limited it to a kind of karate. As a traditional karate person, myself, and also a sports guy, I would also put sport karate, like WTF Olympic style, in that mix as well, because they do kind of blend back and forth.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, that ironic phrasing, because we look at the timing, which one comes out first, this one will come out two episodes after that one episode after. Okay, so last week, so last week's episode on sport versus tradition. Alright, so if we're talking about influence, influence to me has to result in an impact, not the social media definition of an influencer? Someone has a bunch of followers and they pay attention, but it doesn't change who they are or what they do.
And if we think about people within karate, I would say that me being aware of them is probably a gate, if I'm not aware of them, I don't know. But also, because of what I do. I would say that the most likely candidates or people that I've been aware of, and there are three names that are coming to mind right now. Abernethy, Patrick McCarthy, all three vowels, three past guests, three people that most people in karate circles don't pay attention to. And I think that all three of them have different contributions in terms of their influence.
And I'm going to guess that McCarthy's influences, probably a little quieter. There are people who have been influenced by McCarthy Sensei, who may not realize that they've been influenced because it was their instructor who was influenced. When we think about the more modern movement to kind of revive Bunkai. You know, I, he's there anybody you can point to other than n? Who has really been at the front of that. I mean, there are other people who have hung out.
But when I think of influence, I think of him. And of course, Jesse has done a lot of work to make karate cool. Yeah, he's done a phenomenal job with that, and is a student of, okay, coffee, right. So I don't, I don't think I can get tighter than those three. So hopefully, you'll accept three, I could probably think about it more and do research to narrow it down to one. Those are the names that really come up for me that I think highly of and, you know, it could change in a year.
Andrew Adams:
But I mean, it's an ever evolving thing for sure. And, and it's what's interesting about his three answers, is they connect to three different types of people. Yeah, you know, so they both have their own audiences, which I find interesting that they influence different types of people.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, I'm willing to kind of put a pin in that. So I'm curious what your answer is to your own question.
Jonathan Kenney:
Well, I actually have those three on my list. Well, I've trained with all three of those guys. So it's like that. Those are, those are my three. But then I was wondering if you were going to kind of go into that sport realm, and there's a lot of influence coming from the gold medalists, like, okay, perhaps this round is named [00:19:18-0:19:20] winning a gold medal at the Olympics. The influence of a gold medal at the Olympics for the first ever karate. I mean, I was just, I was wondering what your feeling of their impact and their influence and, of course, Ian Abernathy, Justin Enkamp and Hanshi. McCarthy. They've been doing it for decades now.
Jonathan Kenney:
What do you think the influence of the Olympics is today? Is it going to have a bigger impact than those three gentlemen? So just where are we with that?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. What I think about my influence is if you pull that person out, it's sometimes hard to look at the influence of a person as it's going through, but try to imagine the world without that person. And we can imagine a world without the work that the three names I gave you contributed, if we pull out not only those individuals who took gold, but the entire Olympic participation, I don't see the world of karate being different at this time now, that could change that could change moving forward. Um, and I will 100% say the reason it doesn't have influence is because karate, as a broad practice, couldn't get out of its own way to support karate in the Olympics. Big surprise. And that was very disappointing to me.
But it is, it is hard to look at the Olympics and say, this has changed because of that. Now, I'm sure there are things that have changed. And I would guarantee there are individuals who train differently or look at things differently. But How broad is that? Yeah, there are, there are 250 million people in the world doing martial arts, I am not aware of all of them. There could be huge swaths, especially in Japan, where I don't speak the language. I don't pay attention to Japanese karate YouTube stuff that is markedly different as a result of the Olympics.
Jonathan Kenney:
I guess you make a good point. Because if you take either of those athletes, or any of the athletes, that one you took them out, somebody else is gonna win that medal. So it might not be the name, right, but maybe you could look at it because you have been thinking about a different perspective. Whereas not a person but an event like an Olympic sport as being influential and you hear people all the time. Olympic rules changed how Judo can be practiced. And people say the same thing about taekwondo. Oh, the Olympics ruined taekwondo because it's turned into something different than it was 50 years ago. So, I think you're right today. If karate stayed in the Olympics today, it might not be influential. But what would Olympic karate do if it had stayed in? In 20/30/40/50 years? Right.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, time will tell.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, we'll see. Awesome. Did he do a good job answering your question?
Jonathan Kenney:
Yeah. Brilliant. That was good. Thank you very much
Jeremy Lesniak:
Brilliance. Whoa. All right. So that concludes an episode because thanks for coming on.
Andrew Adams:
John. Thank you so much for having me. Right now. I'm going to take you out.
Jonathan Kenney:
That's one of those expressions. It's martial arts is one of the 20 things where punching people in the face is a sign of endearment. So thank you for kicking me.
Andrew Adams:
There we go.
Jeremy Lesniak:
This is so much fun. Why didn't we start doing this forever ago?
Andrew Adams:
I had no idea. Jonathan will be kicked from the studio. He's gone. Alright. Now we're back to the big screen.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I can't, I can't see the chat. Lower Right.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, okay. Okay, there we go.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, so hanging out.
Andrew Adams:
I know. That was fun.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, that was super cool. Great surprises. Yeah. I am curious about those of you in the chat. And those of you watching or listening later? No, of course, you know, the visual element here does add something. But I think Andrew and I are both going to be really interested to know what people's thoughts are of this. And, and we've been building up to this.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, right. We started using the stream yard. For the first cup.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It changed the first cup. We started using a stream yard for the Q&A episodes. And initially, it was just we were recording because it was an easy platform to record. And I was like, let's make it live.
Andrew Adams:
Why not?
Jeremy Lesniak:
And then last time, it was like, Should we bring on guests, it has the tech to do that. Well, and then you know, he can be behind the curtain.
Andrew Adams:
Sometimes we do that occasionally. Is that? When there was talk of doing something like this for episode 700 Yeah. You know, big episodes. Come on. There you go.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'll figure it out. On whatever.
Andrew Adams:
So it was nice to see how it works. And it was pretty easy, actually. I mean, I sent the link out to both Jonathan and Steven, maybe we can do a follow up with each of them and a little bit of a debrief and see. Yeah, their thoughts were Yeah, but I thought that was great.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Awesome.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, it was great.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I will read reviews now.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, let's do that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
For sure. So for those of you who might be new, whatever. One of the things that we ask people to help us is we have reviews and there are three primary places on Google Apple podcasts, Facebook. Now you can also leave not quite a review, but a rating on Spotify. And I'm going to be honest, we made a big push on the Spotify one. And I think that that has helped tremendously. That's like we've been talking about this. That's my current working theory that something's gone on there.
So if you have Spotify, please, even if you don't listen through Spotify, pull up the Spotify app, find whistl kick, leave us a review, you have to listen to I think it's at least 30 seconds. Yeah, before you can do that. So help us out. That would be awesome. But I got a couple reviews here. And for both of you, when I read these reviews, if you would be so kind. Well, if you would like to email me, Jeremy@whistlekick.com, I'm gonna throw you a gift code to use at whistlekick.com for free stuff.
Andrew Adams:
Awesome.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, so the first one nope, that's the second one. I guess.
Andrew Adams:
People in the chatter enjoying the live aspect?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, yes. That's great. It's awesome. Alright, so this first review comes in from Apple podcasts from Maverick and Jay, I think I know who this is, but maybe not. It's titled a martial arts message. Jeremy, thank you for everything you do, coming from someone who never gives reviews, five stars. I've been listening to the whistlekick Martial Arts podcast for many years now. I've enjoyed all the episodes and in different ways, I'm able to get at least one memorable thing out of each episode, sometimes from the guest story. And other times, it's the back and forth conversations between Andrew and Jeremy giving their various opinions.
The host, Jeremy has a special natural way of getting a guest to open up about themselves by allowing them to go on tangents. However, just when you think the topic is going to veer one direction, Jeremy realizes something that guests had said and zeroes in on it, which redirects the conversation. Many times the guest says, Oh, they never thought of it that way before and have to take a moment to rethink their answer. I like this because it makes the interview real and not just a carbon copy. Yeah, it's my favorite thing about what I do. I like finding those opportunities to just take it in a different direction.
Andrew Adams:
And I will agree with Maverick and Jay that often the guest does say, oh, you know what? That's a great question. I've never had that before.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know, one of my goals when I record with a guest is that I get that at least once. And that's why I don't research, right? If I sit down and do a bunch of research, I get trapped in what has always been talked about and what they've always done. I come in with a preconceived notion of who they are and what they're going to talk about that the listeners don't have. So I'm gonna do next. And I know who this is Elizabeth [00:27:43-0:25:45]. I know this, as well. This was on Google a couple of weeks ago. You will not be disappointed in the quality of any items, podcasts, events, or books, the whistle kick team works hard to provide endless value in every aspect of the company. If you're a martial artist looking for a community to invest in, this is for you. A Jeremy quote, the beauty of martial arts is that it comes back exactly and only what you put in this quote, I believe to be true, except in this case, you will way more than what you put in when it comes to anything with whistle kick on it. Thanks, Liz. So both of you reach out to me, jeremy@whistlekick.com I will send you your codes into the rest of you, Spotify, or I'll give it to you in Priority Spotify. Google, Apple, Facebook. Thanks. There you go.
Andrew Adams:
Alright, you ready for question number three.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's do it. Alright.
Andrew Adams:
Oops, I accidentally turned my phone on. Okay. Phone has to be on. Well, no, I turned on the talk to text and so it picked up you saying let's do it. So, this was a question sent in by me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You send your own question yourself. Yep. I said I want to see the email where you emailed yourself the private emails. Is it your whistlekickmartialartradio.com?
Andrew Adams:
No, it was mine.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. All right, because a Supreme Court would uphold my rights. Look at that.
Andrew Adams:
Alright, so anyway, the question that I emailed myself was in this team. Alright, what's the number one thing in your opinion? That tournament's done wrong. I said number one thing, you only have to pick one thing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We did it. We did an episode on this in the first trip 50/100. Like I think it goes back aways. The number one thing the tournament's get wrong is they don't put much effort into making it entertaining for spectators. It is competitor first versus spectator first. I believe that That lack of attention or that shifting focus is the reason that every other sport is bigger. Looking at the next time you see curling on ESPN. Look at the state. There are more people at a curling match. Then at a very large martial arts competition. More importantly, the people in the stands are there to watch curling the people in the stands that a martial arts competition are there because they are someone they love is competing to see one person Yep. I have a plan to solve this. It will require a substantial amount of money to kickstart it. We are trying the first foray into this. If all goes well, knock on wood will occur in 2022.
Andrew Adams:
Cool, any more? All right.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Not saying anything. Alright, that's my are a couple of little you know, some of the stuff on this are a couple people that I've talked to about this. Think about it, you go to a competition. There are a bunch of things going on at once. You are Imagine, imagine being a non martial artist. If I go to a football game. And I know nothing about football, American football, professional football. I can enjoy the experience. There are two teams, there's a ball, there's a scoreboard. I have one thing to watch at a time. It's all happening. People are happy and they cheer there's food. There's alcohol, people wear jerseys. It's an event. And even though I'm in the stands, I get to feel like I participate a little bit.
Andrew Adams:
Gotcha. We have a question that came in follow up. Question. From Ray Mason, how do you make it more entertaining?
Jeremy Lesniak:
That I'm not going to say.
Andrew Adams:
Okay, okay, that's fine. Sorry, Ray.
Jeremy Lesniak:
This is without giving specific answers, because the ones that I'm going to come off the top of the head are ones that we are planning on doing when we do things. I will say back in 2016, when we had a competition, we had things going on around it. I'll name off some of the things that happen. We had music playing in the back very light, but it filled the space. We had seminars running outside in the racquetball courts. We had vendors, we had massage therapists. We had dental competitions to kick off the day. I mean, some tournaments do that. But I spent a lot of time thinking about okay, what's going on? And how do we make it fun for people, either when they're not competing? Or when the people they're there to watch are not competing? How do we make it more fun? And if you were at that tournament, there are plenty of things I screwed up. It was not a did not knock that out of the park. But I learned a tremendous amount, but a lot of it into a book about an old martial arts tournament. And I have been mulling for six years on what the next foray into that space looks like. And it was dramatically different. And to my knowledge, unlike anything anyone else's.
Andrew Adams:
Cool. Ray forgave you for not answering this question.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thank you.
Andrew Adams:
He said no worries. Excellent. Now, within, if you are a tournament competitor, you're going to want to be fast. Speedy, yes. How could someone do that?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Here's how you train to be more flexible. We got that part down. Another bunch of people that we have a flexibility program. Has flexibility tools, like there are so many people out there and they understand okay, this one I want to get flexible. I'm gonna get more flexible. If you want to become if you want better endurance, while there are better ways to do it. We have plans for that. If you want to get stronger Well, there are ways outside of martial arts. How do you get faster? Here's a hint. It is not going as fast as you can. Until you can't move your arm. You know why? Because that actually trains you to move slower. So I put together a protocol. We have our whistlekick FAST program, originally called speed development, but you rebranded everything it's called FAST. It's available at whistlekick.com, and it is scientifically driven to make you faster. And here's the really cool thing. The principles that make your backfist faster make your roundhouse kick faster, make your jump faster, make your anything faster. All the science on this actually comes from sprinting, sprinting in athletics. Yeah, so I dug really deep in there and pulled stuff out and tested a bunch of things. And it works.
Andrew Adams:
Right in the chat says to go slow.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. There is an element of that to it, and that principle is sprinkled throughout the program. But there are quite a few days where it's just we're drilling speed in ways that you've probably never drilled. So yeah, and it's just different. And this program, which you can purchase through whistle kick, is probably like a million dollars, right? So many millions of dollars, millions and millions of dollars. Honestly, I have toyed with whether or not we should raise the price on the programs, because I think people don't pay attention to them, because they think they're too cheap. The speed is 49 bucks.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. To get faster, that's pretty awesome.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I don't like that we don't have a formal policy on this. But if someone actually does track their results, which Yeah, the program, all the programs have tracking built in, and you come out the other side, and you are not, like definitively faster, I'll give you 49 bucks bet. You can't beat that. I would like it's no one has written to me and said these, this, these programs don't work. But if you try one, and you do it, and you do the whole thing, because you can't cherry pick, and I'm just gonna do the first three days and expect that it's gonna work and work that way. You know anything about me, you know, I don't promise results rapidly. You come out the other side, you will be faster or I will give you your money back.
Andrew Adams:
Awesome. Great.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And you can use one funnel to get even cheaper.
Andrew Adams:
Awesome. All right. So I've got one last question. Before we get into it. Just a reminder, if you're either watching live, if you're watching live and you want to ask me a question you can do so in the chat. Although I'm about to read, the last question might be a little late. But send questions to me. You can send them to me at Andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If we had a producer they would have put that up on the screen.
Andrew Adams:
No, we don't have that. So a little low budget.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, technically, you're the producer, but you're also on the..
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, you can also Facebook me like if your friend of mine on Facebook, just send me a message. Just don't tell him to me. Because the fun is that? I don't know about that. Right. And if you want to come on our show, and ask your question live, we can make that happen. We can be alright, so this last question was sent in by Jared Wilson didn't ban Jared from asking questions after last month ever. He already asked the question that was already in my queue. I don't believe you know, because this was and he admits that this was again stolen from a different podcaster named [00:37-20-00:37-22]. Last on his show. Here's the question. Okay. Don't worry. We're not going to break you on this one.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, I'm so nervous.
Andrew Adams:
Okay. If you had $1 million, how would you improve traditional martial arts today? Oh, I think we broke up again.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It relates to the other question, it relates to res releases of the fixing tournament's. So that's what you would do, you would use it for a holiday, it would be a huge chunk of it would fit into that path. So sorry, here's my logic. I believe the number one rule of any economy is to stop the outflow of money. Okay. But think about it, like your personal economy. Like we're spent, we're eating out seven nights a week. Let's cook some food at home, right like that simple act, you stop the outflow of money, you constrain more, you have more options, right? The second rule is how do you bring money in from outside? Right? Like if you and your wife are constantly giving each other money back and forth? That doesn't change any? Right because the economy is the household? Sure. In martial arts, our economy has pretty rigid walls. Most of the money being spent in martial arts is by martial arts.
I will give the example of pro football for sure. Most of the money being spent around pro football is not professional football players, which is why those teams are worth a tremendous amount of money. Good point, they have found a way to bring money in from outside. We as martial artists have not done a good job of that, with the exception of movies. But the majority of martial arts movies aren't really martial arts movies anymore. Yeah, that's true. What would it look like if a non martial artist was like, hey, there's a martial arts competition going on? I've heard that they're awesome and fun to watch. It's 20 bucks to get in for the day. Let me go. If that starts happening more and more instead of people going and reluctantly paying a spectator fee so they get to watch their kid or spouse or whatever compete. You end up with stadiums full of people because it's that dramatically exciting. To watch, yeah, money comes in what happens when that money comes in? You can do a lot of things. Did you know The majority of referees and martial arts competitions aren't paid at all. They volunteer their time. What would happen? What would happen if they were paid?
Well, we could guarantee a better quality, we would have better caliber results. A lot of things would flow from that if we brought in money. So I would take that money, and I would use a big chunk of it to kick off probably a competition series that is more focused on spectator enjoyment. And as that economy grows with that money, external martial arts become internal martial arts. We start doing things like paying referees, but maintaining, mandating that they are certified in a certain way. So we know we have good referees, we hire them. We have bigger and better venues, we have bigger and better food. Right? A lot of those things start to come into play. And it becomes if you want to borrow the Jim Collins for any business nerds out there, the Jim Collins analogy, the flywheel starts to spin faster and faster.
Andrew Adams:
Cool. It sounds good. Okay, We have another person in the chat. Andrew Marley, most recently, Andrew on the show. He came out yesterday, yesterday. As we're recording this. That's pretty awesome. He said Jeremy and Andrew just picked up the live chat. Great stuff as always.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's been awesome. Are there any other questions or we start to fade out and that was it? We were good. You've got lint on your shirt, and I probably should have taken it off three episodes.
Andrew Adams:
Oh my gosh. You can't take me anywhere.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Fortunately, I didn't have to you just drove over. That's true. We don't actually plan these Anders who shows up and he's like we're recording. No. And I put on pants? No, no. Well, I put on pants before he arrives because we do plan these. Yeah. I have recorded episodes without pants. It gets really hot in the office in the middle of summer. Being able to have the air conditioner on.
Andrew Adams:
I won't tell some of the guests that I know you do that with. I have pulled a few people. It's not like I'm naked.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Like I'm not like I chase it with pants or professional shorts or not. Sure. No worries. Do we have any other housekeeping stuff? Program?
Andrew Adams:
No, I don't think so.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Isn't there a third thing that we're supposed to do? The third one.
Andrew Adams:
Okay. Stacy says love to my whistlekick family. Chat. No, just this shirt.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Can I tell? See the shirt? This shirt be available soon?
Andrew Adams:
Yep, in February.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I feel like there was one more thing we're supposed to say.
Andrew Adams:
How can people support the show?
Jeremy Lesniak:
whistlekick.com/family, patreon.com/whistlekick buy something at whistekick.com with PODCAST15. And seriously, if you haven't been to whistlekick.com/family. I have on my calendar. Once a week I go there and I make a change. I'm constantly going to constantly weekly making updates. So if you're not checking it out weekly, you're probably missing out on something. Everything from ridiculous photos of one of us in our youth to exclusive discount. You're not where else. Other things. There's just there's just stuff. I wanted to make like a free ish, kind of Patreon thing. Yeah. And it's also all the links, like I mentioned reviews, like, oh, what were those places to leave reviews just go there and like their link gets low.
Andrew Adams:
And you can see old photos of us. And it's the old phones.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Although I think those are all downright lik I really take them out.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, no, I know that. I have to find something.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You got to rotate that.
Andrew Adams:
Daniel says you should conduct all your interviews in your Gi.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No.
Andrew Adams:
All right. Awesome.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thanks, everybody, for watching and listening. We do these live episodes monthly with no planning ahead in terms of date and time. Well, we plan ahead but we don't let you know that. Because we're not always sure exactly. When we're going to go live. We know the day. Sometimes things change.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, it was a little tough challenge at juggling. What time we're going to record it for me to tell Jonathan and Steven I think 10:30 You know, so for those so for those of you who can make it live cool.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's kind of like a bonus. If you can't, that's okay. If you have feedback or questions or anything like that, if it's specific to q&a days, and you want to question, email Andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com Anything else you can send to me Jeremy@whistlekick.com. Our social media is @whistlekick. I teach seminars, if you want me to come to your school and want a seminar, reach out, we can make that happen. We're booking aspects of the 2022 tour around the country right now. So get in on that save some logistical costs. If you're really pumped on what we do, and you want to bring both of us in it will cost you a little bit more because we know kind of has to but we can do that. But we're open to that. And yeah, so thanks for joining us. Thanks for your support. Appreciate all of you. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.