Episode 727 - The Challenges with Making Martial Arts Your Profession
In this episode, Jeremy and co-host Andrew Adams take on The Challenges with Making Martial Arts Your Profession.
The Challenges with Making Martial Arts Your Profession - Episode 727
What is a Martial Artist Professional? We could say an Instructor or a school owner, but people running the industry can be considered one. In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew Adams take on The Challenges of Making Martial Arts Your Profession.
After listening to the episode, 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:
Hey, how's it going everybody? Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. Today, Andrew and I are going to talk about the challenges of making martial arts your profession. There's one in particular we're really going to talk about but I'm sure we'll find other challengers. If you're new to the show, welcome. Thanks for coming by what we do here on martial arts radio, we produce a show a couple times a week, for you, the traditional martial artists of the world to hopefully find value in, we are doing that with a few. There are three kinds of pillars: connect, educate, and entertain.
Some episodes, you're gonna learn stuff, some episodes, you're going to have fun. Some episodes, you're going to hear about a person or a thing that you want to go deeper on our best episodes, we're gonna do all three. And we do that because we love traditional martial arts, we have a belief here at whistlekick that martial arts makes people better. And we have a goal of getting everyone to train for at least six months at some point in their life. If our mission means something to you, there are a lot of ways you can help us out. You can buy stuff at our store whistlekick.com, you could support our patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick. Okay, you could share episodes, buy books, there's so many things that you can do.
And if you want the entire list, whistlekick.com/family, you're not gonna find a link to that anywhere you got to type it in. But if you do, type it in, we give you everything that you can do to help us out. And why do we put a little bit of a roadblock in front of it because we know that people who are going to take that step are going to find the most value in that page on our website whistlekick.com/family If you've never been there, you should probably go there. We update at least once a week. So, Andrew, being a professional martial artist doesn't necessarily mean being a professional martial arts instructor's owner, I would consider myself a professional martial artist, a lot of stunt people are professional martial artists.
Andrew Adams:
I would not consider myself a professional martial artist.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You've got people who are employed in marketing for martial arts schools that are professionally in the martial arts industry. And that's probably the more accurate way of describing it. But that makes for a really lame title. When we talk about being professionally in a certain industry, and we're going to talk about martial arts, but a lot of what we're going to say could equally apply to any anything else, you know, if you were professionally in the know, what's another example, the firearms industry, or the basketball industry, or in the world of culinary, right? All of those worlds have their own cultures. Martial arts absolutely has a culture yet we are all part of it, whether we know it or not, we're immersed in it.
And that culture has momentum. Sometimes the momentum of that culture doesn't jive with what you believe or what you're trying to do. They're trying to create a conflict. Yeah. And we do a really good job here. I think of hiding those conflicts. We try our audience. Yeah, I never want people to know about the back channel discussions that we have to have to make sure that we are both holding to our integrity as a collection of individuals, as well as the organization. And the opposition that we receive from individuals and other organizations.
Andrew Adams:
They don't need to know that stuff.
Jeremy Lesniak:
They don't need to know that. It is not relevant. And if we do our job, right.
Andrew Adams:
You never notice.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, we work really hard. And we have discussions, in fact, was it last week or week before, you and I went back and forth on something?
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm glad that the team would have this dynamic that we can argue suggests that it was loud. It wasn't loud. We had a disagreement. And we talked it out over several days. A couple days. Because there was some momentum. That was relevant, some of it being internally to whistlekick, something that we really have never done that you wanted to do versus a cultural element, a broader cultural element within society that we were trying to respect. And those two things were in conflict. And navigating that is not always easy, what made it easier? We liked and respected each other and had differing opinions, so we could figure something out. Not everyone who is the head of an organization has people in their circles that they like and respect that are willing to disagree with them.
A lot of people that are heads of organizations surround themselves with for lack of a better word. Yes, people. It sounds silly. There is potentially another example. You know, how do you slice that language? Right, like, we're not going there. But yeah, more conversation. I have said, from day one there will likely be a time that if whistlekick goes the way it's supposed to, that people will be yessing me on the sides. And I work hard to try to recognize who those people are. And make sure I have other people who disagree with me. Because we need to hear those other perspectives. And we all need to hear those other perspectives. And there's such a martial arts attitude there. Right? How do we get better? By being around people who are better to challenge us who disagree with us? I mean, let's just face when we don't block.
Andrew Adams:
Well, and there's a great quote that if everyone in the same room is thinking the same thing, someone's not thinking. Hmm, that's great. It's the same sort of analogy. It's a great point.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, when I pitched this idea to you to have this conversation, there was a very specific example that came up. And the interesting thing about this example is it's hypothetical. But it's one that is written in the back of my mind for 25 plus years.
Andrew Adams:
For you, specifically?
Jeremy Lesniak:
For me personally.
Andrew Adams:
Okay. Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The idea that you have an individual who has a more short school, they teach professionally, meaning they receive money for it, maybe it's some of their income, maybe it's all of their income. And they are engaged in a school where I think like most schools, they charge some kind of fee around rank. Some schools, they charge, you know, they mark up the belts, and the test is free, some schools, they charge for the test, whatever it is, and their hot water heater breaks.
And they've got somebody who is on the verge of testing, and they really know that person should wait a month, or the next testing cycle, or whatever it is. And they're looking at their broken hot water heater. And they're maxed out their credit card, and they're wondering what to do. On the one hand, I would like to be able to take a hot shower. Yeah, at home. On the other hand, I really think this student would benefit from staying where they're from and sticking around where they are just for a little bit longer. Now, we know what the decision of integrity is there, you make the student wait. But what if it's not just those instructors? Hot showers that are at risk? What if it is instead? Not a hot water heater? But a medical insurance payment? Sure, or they want to just be prone to something? Right?
We could come up with a whole bunch of examples. And you could easily come up with specific rejections of each and every one you shouldn't have let it get that bad. You should have been better at marketing your school you should have should have could have would have. Doesn't matter. Right? Because we've all been in a rough spot. At some point. We've all had circumstances. And sometimes those circumstances lead us to wonderful things. But most of us are asked to compromise things. Every day, we are asked to compromise our integrity. I believe the biggest challenge to someone who is rooted in the martial arts professionally, is being asked to compromise their integrity as it relates to martial arts.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. And I think it happens more often than people want to recognize.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think there are very small occurrences constantly. And another example using the same sort of analogy that you know, not analogy, the same scenario you put forward is, maybe you have a student that you can tell we're looking at them that they're starting to get bored. But if you give them this like oh, you know what you can test next month, maybe they'll stick around, even if they're not ready. But you need that person's income in order to pay more.
If that person is part of a family of five and you have a school that's 25 students. And one of them is your second highest rank student. And sometimes they take class. So you can pick up an extra shift at the restaurant. There are so many examples we could come up with. And a lot of them I've seen.
Andrew Adams:
I'm sure.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And that's tough. Now, I think it's important for us to stay here, because we both recognize that this is difficult. And because we both recognize that my way and your way, you're not always exactly the same way. And thus they're not right. We all believe we all have our own ethical code, our own definition of what integrity looks like. And in an ideal world, we all hold to that perfectly. And without fail. So in a perfect world, your integrity is not subject to other people's influences. But we don't live in a perfect world we don't. And our integrity is subject to the influences of others.
For example, let's take that hypothetical, not the egregious situation of health insurance mortgage, but the hot water heater. Because honestly, in the back of my head, it's always been the hot water. Why? What if not, in addition to a water heater, we wrap in what you said, I'm going to lose that student. So now, if I make the decision that is rooted in integrity, I'm not only out a hot water heater, and I'm taking cold showers, but I'm losing a student, or three students or five students? Would I rather be perfectly principled and have a school that loses money, or folds? Are on the other side?
Maybe I compromise a little bit. And I continue to teach because I believe that if people come to class, you're going to get some value out of it. And I'm going to make them a little better. Which is the most important benefit for me, for that person, for the school overall, for the world. If I compromise my integrity a bit, my hot water heater gets fixed when school remains, and I can continue teaching the good things to other students, if my school folds, how many students are never going to learn what I'm teaching and derive the benefit? How do I stack up or balance that one person not quite getting the perfect illustration of my integrity? And on the other side, dozens, hundreds, maybe even 1000s of students in my hot water heater? If we put those on two scales. It really depends how much you value integrity. And I think it's important to note that there's no right answer. There is no right answer, you know, like this is it's a difficult challenging position.
There's a line. And there is a quote, I don't remember it word for word. Abraham Lincoln. Okay, see? 16th president. I've never had a policy. I've just always done what seemed right at the time. But I'm pretty confident I don't have all the words right. But the sentiments there. And I think that that's what I personally fall back to. Yeah, so let me throw some examples out and if you have others, you know, feel free to throw them out. If you're confident I'm okay with sharing them. Do we get people who want to come on our show? All the time? I don't even forward you all of them anymore, because so many of them are just so brutally not our audience. There's somebody who really wants to come on our show and talk about mold mitigation. And I write back periodically, because we've received this request many times. This is not the right audience.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Stop spamming us. But we have plenty of others that are far more accurate. People come out of the MMA space. But they don't have a traditional background. That's one of the things one of the boxes we drew at the very beginning of the show when it was just me they have to be rooted in traditional martial arts, or be presenting something that is incredibly important for traditional martial arts. Even if they don't do it. Now they have to have done it. Or, you know, I think of the case of [00:15:53-00:15:55]. We talked about not icing. If I remember correctly, he had no training, martial arts background. But it was a message that I felt was so critical for martial artists to hear we brought him on the show. If I remember correctly, Jon Hurwitz of Cobra Kai, Jon came to the show. Great episode, we had a wonderful conversation. Yeah, Jon does not train. Jon loved The Karate Kid movies, and wanted to put together Cobra Kai did. And so we brought him to the show.
And we had a good conversation, because a lot of martial artists are involved in martial arts because the Karate Kid was upset. And we know [00:16:32-00:16:34]. So it's interesting. We could come up with a whole bunch of criteria. And at the very beginning, I would have said, Actually Did you have to be a black belt or equivalent? That was an early thing, because in the first 10 episodes, the weakest episode I felt was someone who had not been training long enough, they had an interesting story, but they didn't have enough time in the front of a room to be confident on the show. Now we've since broken up plenty of time. But we've learned how to spot it.
Andrew Adams:
Exactly. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How do we spot this person? So it's an example of, we had something that I would have called the integrity of the show that we later adjusted, not because we were softening the integrity, but because we had a better way of finding it.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Integrity. And this is the, this is the root of it. Right? This is what we're talking about at the heart of this episode. Is the integrity in the specific instance? Or is it in the overall application of what is being done and will be done in the future? And I primarily majored in computer science in college. But we had a very interesting way of sneaking a double major in there with philosophy with very few classes. So I basically took like three more classes, and I double majored in philosophy. I love philosophical discussion. Anybody who's been around with the show, or knows me personally knows that.
And there are some interesting philosophical discussions that we can ask about, it becomes a lot clearer when we take it to extremes. Would you pardon this one person to save these two people from harm? Would you harm this one person to save these million people from harm? Who needs a lot of therapy? And we could probably concoct a scenario where this where the answer is no. But on the surface, most of us are going to say, “Am I going to compromise the martial arts experience of this one person? To benefit?” Absolutely everyone else, including me? It's a tough call.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Other ways that this surfaces in what we do? We are not paid to play. I have never. And I continue to say this when I said that there may be newer listeners to the show, especially on a Monday episode. This sounds awfully commercial. Did they pay to be here? Because let's face it, there are podcasts that are what I call pay to play. And I've watched what's happened to them. We do not do that. Now, I'm not going to absolutely promise we never do that. But I don't see a future where we do that. We have plenty of monetization plans. And reach out that's not one of them. We have people who reach out and they're like, “Hey, we should do this thing together”. And I look at what they've done. And I'm like, they're really good at doing commercial things. You're pretty good at making money. I don't want to be affiliated. Yeah, they're kind of slimy. You're kinda gross. I feel like they've compromised their integrity. The primary thing, the highest priority is their ability to put money in their pocket on a short or medium term basis, not even long term. Because if you're financially successful long term, you've probably got some integrity. Because otherwise people stop showing up. Can you think of anything else? Those are the main ways.
Andrew Adams:
Those are the main ways. I mean, we get a lot of people that contact us to come on the show that have written books. And you know, they are totally upfront and honest. They want a cup.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Or even a book.
Andrew Adams:
Any year, they're not totally upfront and honest, we can read between the lines if they want to come on the show, because they want to sell their book, and I get that and no problem. But I think we do a good job of making their episode not about that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And here's, here's something that happens pre show, or even, you know, I don't know all the details of what you talk to guests about, but I'll tell them point blank, I know you have a book. I know you want to sell the book. Let me tell you the irony of what will happen. If you spend the whole time talking about your book, nobody's going to engage, feel a connection with you. They're not gonna buy your book. Yeah, I recognize that you want to sell your book. So let's focus on you. And if there's an organic moment, we're talking about when the book comes up, we'll go there. If not, when we get to the back end, we'll make sure, we'll bring it up. And you've got a book. And if you've been listening for a long time, you've heard me say that.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, you're more because that way the audience is more engaged in being interested in that person. More likely to buy the book. But we don't let them but people don't come on the show to pay us to come on and show their book, that just doesn't happen.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There's also never been a case. And we've had this offer multiple times. Okay, I'll give you a discount code. And if your audience buys it will throw you a kickback. Nope. I don't want to. So if you're gonna give them 10%, you want to give me 10%? I want you to give them 20%. Because I wrap because that lines up better with our values. I want to make no money. Because what happens if that person does that, and then we make a bunch of money, and then they want to come back on the show to do it again.
Andrew Adams:
You’ll feel obligated?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm feeling pressure, right? Like, and that's very clear and 100. It's also like we've said from the beginning, this show is meant to bring people into what we do, and we monetize in other ways. So we don't have to worry about this being a profit.
Andrew Adams:
Exactly. We do occasionally get authors afterwards who will send us a copy of their book. I mean, every one that's happened for me, I've purchased the like, they sent it to me, but I purchased one, like, you know, I mean, I appreciate that. But I don't. This sound will sound weird, but I think you guys will get it like I don't want to feel beholden to them. I don't want them to feel like I have to owe them but I don't want to feel like I owe them something.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Yeah, I get that.
Andrew Adams:
And they should be paid for their work.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now, you might be saying, okay, you're talking a lot about you, Jeremy, as being a professional in the martial arts world. What about some other examples? I'm actually being careful about examples. Because being a school owner is not easy. Because we all know a bunch of school owners. There are other examples that I could make in other industries, other ways of being involved. That you could look at and say, oh, I wonder if Jeremy is sorry about this person. Don't want that.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because we've spent the entire conversation here talking about how difficult this is, and how much pressure there is to do this. And I don't want people to think that I disregard those challenges. Now, are there people out there who are doing things professionally in the martial arts world that I have absolutely zero respect for?
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Plenty of them. I've done business with some of them. There's one person right now. i If I could unsubscribe from knowing them?
Andrew Adams:
I hope that’s not me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It’s not.
Andrew Adams:
Okay, good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Someone who's been around for a long time. Someone who was engaged professionally, someone who was a high ranking martial artist, and just flat out lied to me on a number of cases and got money out of me. Because in the early days, I thought if you were a high ranking martial artist, you were also a good person. Not always And that bums me out. So what do you do with this information? First off, you recognize that I'm not judging you. If you are a professional in the martial arts world where you aspire to be a professional in the martial arts world, rather than feeling judged, I hope you recognize that I see the challenges that you are all facing. It's difficult. It is difficult, it sucks.
In a perfect world, we would just be able to do the thing that we want to do. And we wouldn't be tempted. And we wouldn't have questions of whether to or have we compromise our integrity, and haven't existed if only we lived in a perfect world. But at the same time, if we apply martial arts principles to being a professional in the martial arts world, this is how we get better. How we understand ourselves, until we understand what we're trying to do and why we're trying to do it. Because that is also critical.
We speak often on the show and within whistlekick, about how martial arts makes people better, how it makes them better versions of themselves, et cetera. iron sharpens iron, etc. It is only logical that if you are going to take martial arts, and you are going to jump into it with both feet, not just as a practitioner, but as a professional, that you will continue to derive lessons from that immersion.
Though there are exceptions to every rule. Like a high ranking person.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There are lessons, they just failed them.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, by that you can lead a horse to water, can make them drink, can give people the opportunity to make the right decision, doesn't mean they're gonna do it. Yeah, I hope they do that. Don't always. This is one of those episodes that I'm wondering if there's a bunch of private feedback, there may be a bunch of people out there thinking. To me, I want to go deeper on this. I want to talk to you about this, I'm having an issue with this thing that I saw happened at my school. Can you give me some feedback? We don't talk about this often. I will write back to almost every email I get.
We're past the point where I write back to absolutely every email. But it is almost every email and I still read them. Once in a while I get somebody who is wasting my time. And I don't mean wasting my time with a question. I mean, they write to me, and it's the seventh time they've written to me, and they want to know about our inventory on a certain product. And instead of going into the website and looking at inventory, yeah, they write to me in a 16 paragraph essay about why they want to borrow and why they want to buy two pairs of shin guards. And you know, that's a terrible example, because I would still reply back to that. Because if somebody wants to buy it, but we get the idea there, they're a rare example, rare exceptions. But the point being if you want to reach out to me, Jeremy@whistlekick.com.
I'm happy to hear your feedback. I'm happy to hear your questions, your concerns. This is an important discussion, and it's an important discussion we'll have to gather. So if you're not having it with me, or Andrew at whistle, kick martial arts radio.com, I hope you're having it with your instructor, with your students, with your spouse, with your friends, your training partners, or even just with yourself. Integrity is good. We live in a time where integrity has been compromised at a faster rate than I could have ever imagined. And when I look at who I think has the best chance of providing some light, it's our community. And I hope that you are willing to take that responsibility. Seriously. It's important.
Andrew Adams:
I agree.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Anything else?
Andrew Adams:
No.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. Thanks for coming by. Thanks for watching or listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you want to go deeper on this or any other episode, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com is the place to go. Whistlekick.com is where you're gonna go to pick up a couple pairs of shin guards, or anything else that we have from mug, from shirts to hats to training programs to event registrations. There's so much going on over there. It's also the place to find all the other things that we work on beyond the show because it's a lot more than just this show. I said training programs we've got those strength, speed, conditioning, flexibility, flexibility, one's even free.
And if you want to support us beyond maybe buying something, you could join our patreon for as little as $2 a month. You could tell somebody else about the work that we do, maybe share this episode. Or even check out the family it was with a.com/family we update it once a week with some cool behind the scenes stuff as well as all the ways you can help support us in our mission. How to connect, educate and entertain or social media that whistlekick everywhere you can think of. And I think that takes us to the end. Yeah. Alright, until next time, train hard, smile and have a great day.