Episode 731 - Rapid Fire Q&A #17
In this episode, Jeremy and co-host Andrew Adams take on a special edition of the Rapid Fire Question and Answers.
Rapid Fire Q&A #17 - Episode 731
Jeremy and co-host Andrew Adams tackle a series of questions, comments, and reviews from you, the listeners, and some guests in the form of a Rapid Fire Q&A. Here are the questions they tried to answer:
How do you determine if an injury requires time off rather than training modifications?
What do you think is one of the most misunderstood things about martial arts to the general public?
What is the most pleasant memory of martial arts you have?
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:
What's going on, everybody. Welcome. This is another episode of whistlekick, Martial Arts Radio, which we are recording live, put out to the world. This is a Q&A episode. It is number 17. We've done a bunch of these and on today's show, we've got a bunch of questions that I don't know.
Andrew Adams:
They're right here. You do. Sorry. And that's the fun of it. And the other fun is the fact. We just kind of let this one be goofy and we have a good time with it. And it's always the last episode we record when we get through to record. Yeah. So we're both a little punchy. Hey, shout out to CJ.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's going on, CJ. I get to see CJ.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, Mark's up. Mark Warner's here too.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hello, Mark.
Andrew Adams:
If you guys have a question, you want me to ask? You can type it because Jeremy can't see right now.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I can't see it. I can't see it,
Andrew Adams:
But I can see it right now.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, we don't need to do a hard intro on this.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, we, it's fine. All right. Where are we going first? We have our first question.. First question from Chris's Rickard. Chris always makes sure we have questions. He is not gonna lie. He's good, man. He totally does. Alright, so Chris is first. The first question, sorry from Chris Rickard. How do you determine if an injury requires time off rather than just modifications to your training injuries?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Almost never require time off. All right. So, here's my philosophy on injuries. I believe in evolution now. I understand. Not everyone does. That's fine. This argument that I'm going to make doesn't land quite as well. If you are a creationist intelligent design believer. Okay. Assuming you believe in evolution, the things that allow mammals to heal broadly are the things that should also allow us to heal most efficiently because nature, biology, rewards efficiency. When an animal gets injured. They never put a cast on it. They use it, the bearer, where they can, right. Watch a dog that hurts its paw, right. But it still makes contact with the ground. It's still, it's constantly testing it out.
It doesn't go sit in a corner and just rest there for three weeks. If you listen to the episode that we did on why I see it is bad with Gary [00:02:48-00:02:49], he unpacks all of it. You can go back, you can check out that episode. Philosophically immobilization and ice have never made sense to me, even when I was a little kid, thus stopping versus modification is almost never a good idea in versus asking me this question. I am providing this answer. Mm-hmm , here's the thing that people don't generally talk about. Are there times where if you are not properly accommodating an injury, you can make the injury worse? Absolutely. And it is from that approach that modern medicine likes to immobilize. Let's put a cast on this, so you can't hurt it worse.
Again, referring back to Gary's episode in immobilized, part of the body as a waste product develops through the healing process. Doesn't get to get moved out. It slows down healing. What happens to an animal in the wild? If it sprains. Whatever and sits until it heals. It dies. It either doesn't get food or it gets eaten or both. Right. So it has to be existing in the most efficient way for healing, which is to continue to go about life and make modifications, not just despite the injury, but in an effort to heal the injury. And that makes a lot of sense.
I would say that you say there's very little reason just to not modify, but there has to be a threshold I said to not there's very little that you would not stop. What would cause you to have that stop? We recorded an episode earlier, we were talking about severe injuries. It'll come out in a few weeks. After this one does, you're in a car accident. You can't stand it. But from the perspective we talk about, there was still modification to that. Wait for that episode, it comes out soon.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. All right. Excellent. Good job. That's a good answer. I like that. Thank you. We've got, you know, a few people in the chat.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hi, people in the chat.
Andrew Adams:
Have asked another question, which I'll get to in a moment. But some people not necessarily watching now, but listening later might be trying to wonder, you know what? I really like what these guys are doing. How can we help them out?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Send me all of your money. There you go. And give, send me, donate a lot of money and that entitles you to know my address. And then you can send me the rest of your money there. Uh, more serious answers. There are a lot of things that you can do to help. Is this the point where I read reviews? What am I doing?
Andrew Adams:
No.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. Thank you. Our patron continues to grow, which is super cool. Very rarely does someone stop contributing, and we are always looking at ways to create more value within the Patreon, which I think is why people remain. As little as two bucks a month, as much as a hundred bucks a month, the more you contribute, the more you get there's exclusive episodes video. I put up a bunch of stuff and we are in the very early stages. Talking about a Patreon exclusive show.
Andrew Adams:
You get a whole access to a whole new show.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Not only do you get to consume the show, but depending on the tier, you get to contribute to the show and be a part of it in some way, be a part of it. I am always looking for how we do something a little bit different? How do we do a thing that hasn't been done? I'm not aware of this being done. I wanna make a show for and buy all the Patreon people. Interesting. This is the first time we've talked about it, that bluntly and this publicly. Yeah, but it is going to happen.
Andrew Adams:
So, you six people, listen, what? I'm sorry. Only five. Because one of them is right here. One of them's you, one of them is me. You heard it first here. One of which Brian Doucette just showed up.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Brian hosts the creator of everyday martial artists shows. If you like our show…
Andrew Adams:
New person just commented from India. Said good job. Thanks. [00:07:32-00:07:34] from India. I'm assuming that's like, I recognize that name. That's someone who's been around a little bit. So, thanks for joining us. Yeah, join the Patreon. It would be, it'll help out. Help us continue.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I gotta talk, Craig.
Andrew Adams:
and I am gonna spearhead that. We gotta talk about that. Awesome. Uh, Mark Warner also said that was a great answer on injury.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thanks mark.
Andrew Adams:
And our next question comes from mark. He just posted in the chat. And this is a question for both of us. And he didn't say whether we're supposed to answer for each or if we have our own individual answer. But his question is what is the most pleasant memory of martial arts you both have? So I don't know if that means we are all the same.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's answer it independently, because independently you and I don't have a ton of training time together. Yeah, if you think of yours first, by all means, jump in pleasant, train pleasant, martial arts. My most pleasant martial art, actually, it's a free training day.
It's the collection of free training days. And at first I was like, okay, but which one? And my first thought was, I was thinking of you. And I think the second time I met you, when you showed up to the one in Woodstock.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. 2019.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We talked a bit. I'd met you before.
Andrew Adams:
I think I hadn’t been on the show at that point.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. But I didn't really know you and you were there earlier, like how can I help right. And so I'm incorporating you as an example of what happens at free training day and just the really cool thing that we have collectively created. That is unlike anything else I've ever experienced because it it's, it's just a big collaborative effort. It defies words you've experienced. In a way that you understand it, defies words and anybody out there who's participated in it understands. I have a hard time explaining this. It's just awesome.
Andrew Adams:
Mm-hmm yeah. I would agree with you, it is incredibly difficult to describe. It's something you have to experience, and I'm incredibly happy that more people will get to experience that this year, since we have free training day, New England, which will be in key New Hampshire and November the 12th. And then we also, this year for the first time, are having free training.
Portland, Oregon mm-hmm and Atlanta, Georgia. So more people will get to experience what this is, which is really good. If you wanna read more, we've got a page, whistlekick.com.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let me just tie up that and I'll hand the ball to you. The reason that is so powerful to me is that I am hyper aware during that day that it is the people I have known, trained and learned from that led to that event even the people who aren't there contributed to that. I think back to the instructors that I had and the breadth of instructors I had. It is because I am who I am and I approach martial arts. The way I do that free training day happens and I spearhead it. We now spearhead the one up here.
I am so grateful and overwhelmed with gratitude during that day, because all these people are like, yeah, I'm gonna go do this thing. I don't get paid for it. I'm just gonna show up. It's cool. Yeah. It’s a very powerful day for me. So it's interesting that both of us have nothing to do with each other. Testing or martial arts or a specific class or anything, it's an event. And for me, it's all on the weekend, really, without a doubt.
Andrew Adams:
Little peek behind the curtain there. I've been training martial arts for, I think 30 years at this point, you know, off and on, Lots of different instructors, but I've never owned my own school. I've never had direct students with one kind of exception within martial arts. I have done some instructing in the martial arts schools that I've been a part of, but never really in charge. I have a lot of teaching experience, but just not within martial arts and all in the weekend, I was really nervous about going in and being an instructor and having people.
Essentially paying me money to show the martial arts and many of the people there. If you look at their training on paper and you look at my training on paper, they know more than I do. Uh, and at the end of that weekend, I walked away saying, you know what? This was good. This was good for me. Because I learned just as much as one of the instructors as the people there, that was a transitional weekend for you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, I watched it.
Andrew Adams:
And so that was, Mark posed this question as pleasant, like that was incredibly pleasant. For me, that was a very pleasant memory and I'm proud that Mark was a part of.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, just because you don't have to know everything. Somebody else knows in order to teach them something. And we need to get rid of that idea in the martial arts.
Andrew Adams:
Absolutely. And I will even go so far as to say, and I'm glad Mark's in the chat. Mark, you're one of the people that I was worried about, not worried about that sounds really bad, but you have so much experience in the martial arts that I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna be teaching this guy.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How do you teach someone who knows so much?
Andrew Adams:
Credit to Mark and everyone that was in attendance, they made it easy because everyone came willing to learn and wanting to learn and being eager to learn. And it was so great, and it made it a lot easier for me as an instructor. So, thanks Mark, people are watching.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We are more than half sold for next April's event.
Andrew Adams:
So before we move on really quick, uh, mark said very powerful answers. And he said, I worry about me too. so, you know, here we go. Hello, mark. Um, so I do have another question coming in, but we should send what next let's give a, read a review Okay. Give away free stuff. Cause who doesn't like free stuff.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So here's the deal. There are three really important spots for you to leave reviews. There's a fourth rating. If you can leave a rating for Spotify, you've gotta do it from a phone or a tablet. You need to do it from the Spotify app. That helps us. We actually saw what we think is a surge in viewership that came in. When we prioritize Spotify and say, everybody, please leave ratings. So that's number one, you can't leave a review.
So we don't know who leaves them, but. Reviews on apple podcasts in Google and on our Facebook page, whistlekick, martial arts. If you leave reviews in any of those places, it helps the company overall. So today ,I've got a Google review from John [00:15:13-00:15:14] and I will read this and John, if you reach out, you heard this, we will send you a gift certificate. Folks out there. I'll send, trust me, your odds of earning a gift certificate, leaving a review.
Very good. Where is it? Is right here. whistlekick.com from a podcast. Live daily shows merchandise and martial arts gear, awesomeness. Check out. Whistlekick.com You will not be disappointed. Thank you, John. Awesome. So a free gift certifi. Yeah, John, amazingly. I know you pretty much. That's pretty amazing.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. Alright. So this next question, actually, again, coming in, live from the chat from Brian, what do you think is one of the most misunderstood things about martial arts to the general public? Oh boy, those that are only listening.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I hate him. So, I've never been able to create that reaction with you before.
That was good. And I'm so excited that I made it happen.
Andrew Adams:
I'm actually not gonna say what happened. I gotta watch it to find out what it was…
Jeremy Lesniak:
So what's the question?
Andrew Adams:
Hang on. I'm gonna go like this. So, I'm not looking at you. What, but of course I see you on my screen. I can't get away. The question again from Brian Doucette,, what do you think is one of the most misunderstood things about martial arts to the general public, the amount of violence? What would be your answer?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think the amount of violence and sadly, It shows up in every element of martial arts culture, right? What martial arts competitions do? The average person is aware of MMA, right? You and I, a lot of our listeners will draw a fine line between those because yeah, it's martial arts, but it's not what most of us engage in. It's not what we would call traditional martial arts. It is a very distinctive sport in the same way that. Soccer is a sport and there's a skill set there's kicking in soccer. There's kicking in football. Those are not martial arts. Okay. I'm not saying MMA is a martial art in your opinion, right? Some may say that soccer is a martial art. That's fine. When you think of martial arts movies, the ones that have done the best recently are incredibly violent. John Wick.
I'm intentionally ignoring that the John Wick, The Raid series are really violent films. They are celebrated in our world as being really good, modern martial arts films. And that leaves the average person to fill in the gaps themselves as to what martial arts is. Thus, they form the opinion that it is violent when the irony is. I think if anything, the average martial artist is less violent, less violent, absolutely than the average non artist, because we have a better understanding of what violence is. We train against violence, we train to suppress violence and those things combine. You really wanna understand a perspective on violence, death, killing war, talk to a soldier.
The soldiers that I've really had strong conversations with a lot of 'em are pacifists. They're like I came out of that. I never wanted to be involved in that or subject someone else to it ever again. And I think it's similar in the martial arts world. I would agree. And we've had discussions on Thursday episodes. The correlation that the general public makes from UFC style MMA yeah. And traditional martial arts. So I get that, Brian also commented, you were talking about soccer, kicking, whatever the [00:19:21-00:19:24] Okay. So, there you go.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. I agree. I think that's good. I have…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Bad taste movies.
Andrew Adams:
No, no. Mark Warner and I both have great tasting movies. And actually Brian's in the chat too. All three of us love best of the best, such a good movie. Anyway, I have a test coming up in January and I really need to get a little better cardio and a little better flexibility. And I have started to look at it.
I'm gonna be working through some of our programs at whistlekick. And I can't stress enough how amazing that I'm looking forward to it cuz I've read through it and I see where it's gonna go. Can you talk a little bit about those programs?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure. So the flexibility program is the one that's free. And we did that because flexibility is, is kind of the thing that is most broadly. Ascribe to martial artists, not that other disciplines aren't seen as having flexibility, but if you were to think of a quality of a, a really good martial artist, a lot of people would think flexibility. So that program, like all of our programs deeply rooted in science and not old science, new science, I put in a significant amount of time digging into the research and making sure that my understanding was correct and still correct.
And building a program that leverages that based on not just the science, but what has worked for me, what I've seen work for others and being realistic, asking someone, Hey, do this three hour a day. The Flexibility program is unrealistic.
Yeah. If I said, Hey, stretch three hours once and it'll be flexible forever. I'll make the time for that. But that's not the way life works. Life is busy and all of our programs are built around the realization. Life is busy. And frequency matters. So the flexibility program is based around that. And, uh, again, it's free whistle, kick.com like completely free. If you get it and you do it and you don't see results, I want to talk to you because I wanna know what's different about your body versus everyone else. The only people I'm aware of that do not get results wrong are the people that don't follow it because it takes an investment of. Not a lot of time, but sometimes, I can't get you more flexible with zero time.
The other program, the conditioning program, which we call fuel, is rooted in the premise that getting out and training at moderate intensity for activity that is high intensity does not have a direct correlation to going out and running eight miles. So you can step in and do 20, 32nd, two minute rounds. It doesn't add up. And I spent a bunch of time doing the research on this for myself. I watched a bunch of boxing matches and fought everything. And here's the thing you're going to see what I call surges.10 to 15 at most 20 seconds. And then people back off. Yeah. Why?
Because the way our cardiovascular system is built, the way glycogen operates and the entire training program, because it's for martial artists is built around that idea. Go watch some UFC and any MMA, and you will see. Condensed high intensity followed by break and then people chill out, replenish a little bit of glycogen, catch their breath, and then they do it again. They go again mm-hmm and the training program is built on that and not okay. This week you're gonna run this many miles and next week you're gonna run an extra half mile. And build you up that way. Is there a place for that? Absolutely. Is it the fastest? Most. Resistant to injury training protocol that you can have as a martial artist? No. So I built that because it didn't exist.
Andrew Adams:
Cool. Well, I'm looking, you know, like I said, I've got six months or so to work through the program, so I'm really excited about getting going.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I got a comment from someone, I think I mentioned this one first. I mentioned somewhere recently that I got a comment from someone who used the fuel program for their black belt test. And she said, I had more in the tank when we were done. I think you mentioned it this morning, did I?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And it works. They all work. They all have the endorsement of medical professionals, because I don't just do things in a vacuum. I'm like, “Hey, did I get this right?” And they're like, oh yeah, you're not supposed to know this. How did you know this? Awesome, available at whistlekick.com.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. A comment on your last answer. Uh, [00:24:31-00:24:31] said, truth as a soldier, I can relate and agree about soldiers coming back. Totally get it. Uh, shout out to Liz. She just showed up in the chat, Liz. Um, our last question actually is gonna come from [00:24:45-00:24:46]. Oh, nice. And this might be kind of a fun one and it might be a really short one. His question is how's the martial arts seminar tour going?
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's going well. I knew going into it this year. Well, a little bit of background. So last year's last year was ending. I was finding. A few things. One whistlekick grows when we get to share our philosophy with others, meaning getting them to events or me getting to that. We do a bunch of events. We're constantly adding events. We're growing in that way. But what at the other end look like? How do I get in front of people? Oh, I can teach. What do I teach? Well, like, there's this, there's that training protocol around moving slowly and everything that I teach. So people kind of.
And so eight months ago I said let's make 2022, let's make this a goal. I taught some seminars and started doing some seminars and they started going really well. And we're just as an aside, we're still adding dates to that. So if you and your school want to have me in, this is not something we're trying to make money on. I'm just trying not to lose too much money on it. Uh, ultimately I would like to get in front of people and. Make a little bit of money, pay for your time, pay for my time. You know, at this point I'm happy to pay for the gas in the hotel and some of the meals and whatever.
But as I get better, we're like everything else we do slowly incrementing and, and finding ways to improve, including raising the price a little bit as I get better. So if you want to have me in, don't wait, because it'll be more expensive than if you don't wait, but in terms of stories. Let me think for a moment while you think. She just showed up now. Just show up. I know the kind of stories you're looking for. Then there, Jeff, those don't exist there. Aren't stories of big, fancy, dramatic things, but what I'm thinking and it wasn't really the tour, but at all on the weekend. Maybe there's something funny that happened. There were a bunch of things. I'm not gonna, I don't wanna share all the weekend stuff because that kind of operates in a bubble and I like that being in a bubble. Bubbles are fun.
But what happens inevitably, when I teach what I'm teaching for a seminar is you get somebody. There's always at least one person who struggles to slow down. And when I have that person, that person gets a lot of attention because the things that we're doing there are milestones and we can't move on to the next milestone until I can get everybody to where they need to be.
At least there's a minimal standard else. It creates the risk for injury or at the very, at best. Everyone's not gonna get the benefit. So there are times where I get people who I could tell they're mad.
They're so annoyed. They're like, go slow, leave me alone. I don't want to do this. I don't agree with your philosophy. Stop harassing me. I can see it in their eyes. And there have been seminars where one person over, like say a 20 minute span is getting 40% of my attention, and I know it's driving them nuts. but they don't know what it looks like in hindsight. So I know what I need to do to get them where they need to go. And in every case I get them to have that breakthrough and we move on and I slide up to them and I'm like, you get it now. And they're reluctant, but they see it and they understand. And that moment. Where someone who had a hard time is able to see why I push them so hard. And a lot of you out there are instructors and, you know what I'm talking about when someone who struggled with a concept or a technique is finally able to get it. And in part due to your insistence on pushing them, that's powerful. Yeah, and that has happened every time I've taught and I love it. So that of stories, Jeff, that's the best one I can give you.
Andrew Adams:
Awesome. Excellent. I think that's a good episode today.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I agree. That's the fourth episode we've recorded today. And I'm recording. Number five later on, you are recording number five. There will be something very, we're not gonna tell them what, but there will be something incredibly special about the episode you're recording later.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. For those listening, when this episode came out, it was last week's episode.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm glad you can keep all this for this.
Andrew Adams:
For those watching live. It's coming out in two weeks.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How about the people watching live that are participating in the episode? I'll see you. See, are there any? Are there?
Andrew Adams:
No.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, interesting. Yeah. I would've guessed at least one of them would. I mean they haven't said anything anyway.
Andrew Adams:
Before we do our , Jeff says, well between my school and our surrounding community. And so, in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, I would love to get a seminar going.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Jeff emailed me, Jeremy@whistle.kick.com. Let's see if we can make it work. Yep. As long as he's on the south side of Chicago. Okay. North side of Chicago. I understand. It's okay. I dunno. No clue.
Andrew Adams:
Alright, so there we go.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thank you. And anybody who wants to talk about a seminar, just because you email me doesn't mean you have to go forward with it. Like there are a lot of. There's a lot of logistics and I don't pretend that it's gonna work for everybody in every school, but I will say value exchange because we know that's critical to me.
Andrew Adams:
There is no better value exchange in bringing someone in than bringing me in. It'll be worth it. It's what you're saying.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's going to be worth it. And if we do it right, the school makes a little bit of money.
Andrew Adams:
You said it sounds good. Everybody wins. Thanks. All right. Yeah, I think we're good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thanks for joining us. Thanks for tuning to those of you who tuned in live. Thank you to those of you who might be watching or listening, saying, I wanna tune in live. I didn't know what was happening. That's cuz we don't tell you in advance because we have enough things to coordinate with these episodes that, sorry, we're not gonna hold you to a fixed date and time. We do enough things that are alive.
First cup is alive every morning at 6:30, you could join us for. We have other things that are brewing that will be live, but this is kind of a catch. So if you're following us on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitch, you'll get a notification that we are around. And you can come on and you can watch for whatever you can. And it also happens midday. Not everybody can tune in midday.
Andrew Adams:
And, I typically post in the Facebook group, if you're not in the whistlekick behind the scenes group, you wouldn't know that's right. So, if you're not a member of that group, join that group whistlekick Behind The Scenes. And this morning I posted and said later on today, I don't know what time, because we recorded a bunch of other things. It's usually like 11 to 12.
So, about 11:30.
Jeremy Lesniak:
11 to noon Eastern us somewhere in that ballpark. Yep. If you want to email, if you have a question for the next Q&A email, Andrew, not me. Andrew@whistlekickmartialradio.com or social media @whistlekick, Jeremy@whistlekick.com. If you wanna have me at the school, email me.
If you wanna check out one of the training programs they're at whistlekick.com. Flex is free, but you can get 15% off fuel force or fast by using the code PODCAST15, or anything else in the store. If you are part of this family, and you're not checking out the whistlekick.com/family page on a weekly basis, you are missing out on some fun stuff.
A little bit of context, you know, kind of like a mini-Patreon. We do have the full blown Patreon that starts at $2 a month. Patreon.com/whistlekick. Until next time, train hard, smile. Have a great day.