Episode 771 - Rapid Fire Q&A #21
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 #21 - Episode 771
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 some of the questions they tried to answer:
Do you see whistlekick’s destiny manifesting the way you originally envisioned?
What is a reasonable length of time for a belt exam?
Listen to the episode for more questions!
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:
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome. This is another Q&A installment of whistlekick martial arts radio. This is where you all submit your questions to Andrew. He asked them to have me lie the first time I'd ever heard these questions. Well, I don't know about them ahead of time. And I shouldn't say I've never heard these questions before. This is the 21st time we've done it. This is the 21st installment of the q&a series. And Andrew q&a can drink.
Andrew Adam:
That's pretty amazing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If the q&a could drink, what would it be? What would the q&a drink? It's 21. So it would probably be an aftershock?
Andrew Adam:
I don't know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Something that is not very classy. An aftershock with like, bud Light chasers.
Andrew Adam:
Okay, so I did find something interesting. We've got and I'm going to close watching this on my iPad because I can see the comments streaming out of here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, that's cool, right? And, so if you're watching live, you can contribute to this. Sometimes when we've got a really good plan, we will announce ahead of time exactly when this is going to happen. But we don't always have that good of a time that we know, right? Like, we don't always know when these are going to happen. And giving you 20 minutes' notice just doesn't feel like enough, you're gonna get the notification on your screen. Instead of doing our big old intro, we're just going to jump into it. Thank you to those of you who were here. Thank you to those of you who watch or listen later. Appreciate all of you. Oh, Andrew, what's up? What are we doing?
Andrew Adam:
Stacy's here in the chat? She says good morning. Morning. So I have a question here coming from Stacey. But I'm gonna go to question number two. Okay. The first question is from our good friend, Mark Warner. And Mark's question is, as one who believes in manifesting one's own destiny. Do you see whistlekick’s destiny manifesting in the way you originally envisioned?
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, not even close. I thought we were going to be a product company. I thought the way to get where we needed to be was to make better versions of the stuff everybody had. Better versions of gear, better versions of uniforms, and better versions of various training products. And we did and we've done great stuff. Here's the best example of one that did not go anywhere. Andrew, in some circles, is called pork chops. It's a single paddle, right? I had the made with two different colors, one on each side. Because that way, the person using holding them out for drills could add a ton of complexity, just by saying colors. And I used red and blue in the first version because they're single syllables. So you could put that up and go red, blue. And people would have to react in time. They're, like 1001 drills you could have come up with that did not work when both sides were the same color. I ultimately ended up selling them at a loss because no one would buy them, right? So clearly, we weren't where we needed to be on the product side. And I just kept going alright, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do? What are the things that we do well? and what that turned into was realizing that the best things we do are the free content, lifestyle supportive elements, martial arts radio, first cup, and free training day, right? These things really showcase our philosophy and what makes whistlekick different from some of the other brands out there.
And so we're just leaning into that doesn't mean that we don't have products. At some point, the factory is going to send me more sparring gear that sells reasonably well. But we can't build on that because it's not enough. That wasn't growing well enough. And the profit wasn't there in such a way that that was going to take us where we needed to go. We needed to do other things. And so what are we known for now? There are people that know us for having great gear or there are some people out there who have purchased uniforms that we do not have in stock and may not ever again. They love those. But mostly what we're known for is this podcast and free training day.
Andrew Adam:
Cool, excellent. Stacy says all weekend, though not free is unique to the whistlekick event. That is amazing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thank you. Yes, I would say it is and that's an example of taking the free stuff that we do and giving you a path up. If you like martial arts radio, you probably have at least considered joining the Patreon because we do a lot of exclusive and bonus martial arts radio-style stuff there. When you like free training day, we've got something similar in spirit all over the weekend. And some people call it the freemium model, the idea like give away much of your stuff. And if people really find value in it, they want more, they can pay you to get more.
Andrew Adam:
So how can they do that? Like, let's talk about Patreon real quick.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, so our Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick, we have, let's see, two 5 -10 25,$1,500 tiers was that six?
Andrew Adam:
Yeah, I think so.
Jeremy Lesniak:
In the $2 tier, you get behind the scenes, and you get to know who's coming on the show. Sometimes we do some other things, we were just having a conversation about something else that we would drop in there. It's for people who want to kind of stay connected. And they just, they're not going to throw a bunch of money in it totally fine. We appreciate every single nickel that comes in every penny goes to offsetting the cost this show is not free. It's not, I wouldn't even call it cheap to put on it, there are fees that we have to incur. But starting at the $5 tier, we give you merch, stickers, shirts, and things like that.
Andrew Adam:
CLEV stickers.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Covering his printer and stickers
Andrew Adam:
All my whistlekick stickers, which I got from Patreon.
Jeremy Lesniak:
At $5, you also get a bonus martial arts radio episode you're not going to find anywhere else at $10, you get a video version of that, or sometimes it's a different episode, sometimes I'll do something I've been working on training wise, like a new drill or something. And for $25 you get training programs, and book drafts. And in $50 and $100, you get access to either the school owners' mastermind or direct training from me.
Andrew Adam:
The other thing that you get that we rarely talk about, and I know it's gonna sound hokey, but it's so totally true. You get the knowledge to know that you're helping this show, continue to grow, and get better. I was a Patreon subscriber long before I had ever come on the show. And, it made me feel good to know that I am personally helping this show happen. And that, to some degree, the show would not be as good if I didn't help support it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We just had a conversation. So here's a little bit of behind-the-scenes of being quick on this. We are putting this out over stream yard, we do most of our episodes on Zoom. Andrew and I are in the midst of conversations about do we make a change. And we're talking about how those changes might manifest what would be up? What would be a pro and what would be a con of making that change? But one thing that entered that conversation was if we did this, we then do this because it gives us better quality. I never hold that anything that's gonna give us better quality, better quality video, better quality audio like we do that like I don't hesitate. And so that thing that I'm talking about doing it's like 25 bucks a month. So there's another, was that $300 a year that we will plunk down just for better quality?
Andrew Adam:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don't hesitate on that stuff.
Andrew Adam:
So excellent. All right. The next question is from Stacey, who's in the chat. So hope she likes your answer. If not, she'll tell us. So Stacy's question is what is a reasonable time length for a belt exam? And I'm going to give you two answers, one for an under the blackbelt and one for blackbelt.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. As with so many things, it is based on the style of training. Here's an example we've talked about before. I find it reprehensible that martial arts classes that do not put a priority on cardiovascular conditioning require a certain amount of running and finishing a mile in a certain time. You're supposed to be testing people based on their knowledge of what you've given to them, right? That's completely separate. Here's why that's I think, relevant in this case.
If your classes are an hour, and the most people I've ever trained at one time in your school is an hour, then you expect them to do a six-hour test. That's out of sequence to me, that doesn't line up.
The purpose of any test is should be, I think, to verify the knowledge that testing candidates have and to challenge them a bit. So those tests shouldn't be five minutes, because that's not enough time to challenge them. But they should also not be 12 hours long. I know I've heard of schools that brag that our black belt test is three days long. I know some schools who do inappropriate multi-day black belt tests, but you also know that they just brag about beating on their students for days on it? If someone is used to training, two to three hours a day, multiple days per week, their test should probably be longer. So I think there's a correlation. I don't think there's a maximum time or an appropriate time, I think there's a minimum -that is obviously silly. I think there's a maximum. Like If I said, your black belt test will be 365 days. Nobody's gonna want to do that. No one's gonna put their life on hold for their black belt. So those are obviously extremes now as we get a little bit more time, - 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Now we're starting to get into time, that couldn't be appropriate. A week, a couple of days, a day, 12 hours. Okay, so now we're getting into things that are more appropriate. But it's so subjective, as long as it is correlated by the volume and style of training. I don't think the duration is as appropriate. As that’s not the right word, I don't think the duration is as concerning.
Andrew Adam:
And do you think spectators should be allowed that's also from Stacey.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hmm. again, depends on the culture of the school and the style of testing. I have had both my original black belt test, no spectators were permitted. More recently, I've seen plenty of schools, and I've participated in black belts. My last one with the super foot was quite public. In fact, there were guests on the board. And that was also really cool for different reasons. As long as the instructor or school owner is again, connecting those dots in a logical way, depends on what you want people to get out of it.
Andrew Adam:
That's great. And people get out of it, what they put in, we say that all the time about martial arts.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And is that what you put in?
Andrew Adam:
Yeah, absolutely. And one way you can get more out of whistlekick is to go to our family page.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I continue to enjoy making updates to the family page. And I know most people don't look at it because I look at the statistics, I see it, which is interesting. We have quite a few people who check out this show. We have lots of people who come to whistlekick.com, we have tons of people who look at our social media, we make that easy. But not everything in life is meant to be easy. And that's why you have to type it in.
It's why it's not linked from the navigation because I'm going to put a small hurdle in front of you to test how much that means to you. And it's why I have no problem putting discounts on certain things that don't go anywhere else. It's why I don't mind putting in the most personal information that occurs anywhere within the whistlekick. I don't know universe sounds like a weird word but diaspora there, it's a weird word but more appropriate the whistlekick diaspora. And because casual fans of what we do casual listeners, which we love everybody, I'm not, this is not me, belittling anyone. But if you're really passionate about what we're doing, if you're really long for the mission, you're probably going to find value in that page. So you take that step, and you type in whistlekick.com/family because it's the only way to get there. And you see stuff that you're likely to find value in because of who you are and your connection to what we do.
Andrew Adam:
Yep. All right. Are you ready for your next question?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm ready.
Andrew Adam:
All right. So Mark is asking diaspora what?
Jeremy Lesniak:
DIA-SPO-RA.
Andrew Adam:
There you go. By the way, people if you are watching live and you want to ask a question, feel free to drop it in the chat. I can see it and I'll ask. The next question is from Mark Warner, who's in the awesome chat. This question is
Jeremy Lesniak:
Marks is a huge support. I really appreciate it.
Andrew Adam:
Yeah, His question is if you met a martial artist, so duplicitous that they would destroy their school, their students, their other teachers, and their style to forward their own agenda. What would you do?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Probably wouldn't do anything. Because if someone is that self-destructive, how do you stop them? In World War Two which I have like bits of knowledge of history on, one of the most difficult strategies for the allied forces to overcome was Japanese kamikaze pilots. How do you keep someone at bay when they have no line, when nothing when they're willing to sacrifice everything to get what they want, you cannot stop them. If someone is willing to die and while this might not be life and death, this is personal relationship death, this is reputation death. This is someone willing to give up absolutely everything that they have, to further whatever their interests are, you can't stop that.
You could also look at this. And I'm going to take a little bit of liberty with the question and kind of flip it in that. If someone is truly dedicated to what they want, you cannot stop them. And that is a good thing. If you want something, if you are truly driven for something, you cannot be stopped, you will find a way. And if that requires sacrifice, you'll do it. Because it's not that important to you.
If someone is willing to sacrifice their students, their school, their reputation, their rank, and their style, in order to try to come up with something that would be so important, let's say they want to film a career that it's ego-driven. They want to be on film or something. I don't know how to stop that. I don't know that I have the right to tell someone to stop that. It's their school, it's their students. You can take a look at my history with the school I had and say that I did this. I had a school. I wouldn't call it successful, but it was profitable. I enjoyed it. My students were learning they were getting better. They enjoyed it but my heart was in my IT company. It was my day-to-day it's that paid the bills, and it provided jobs for a lot of people. I sacrificed my school and I closed it down. So I could focus my time there.
In a sense, I sacrificed my martial arts reputation in that area. I did not do what was in my students' best interest, right? Like I did a lot of things it took it was it was agonizing. It took a lot of time for me to not only prepare and make that decision but to recover from it. It still hurts. I'm still sad that I made that decision even though it was the right decision. No one could have stopped me if somebody had said Jeremy, you can't do this. Of course, I can.
Andrew Adam:
Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. So, Mark, I hope that answers your question to your satisfaction. I'm sure he'll let us know if it doesn't
Jeremy Lesniak:
I hope so
Andrew Adam:
Is getting cold here out.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It is getting colder.
Andrew Adam:
You and I are in New England, Vermont, and New Hampshire respectively. You and I with the colder weather come wearing, you know bumbling up a little bit. I'm wearing my dragon hoodie right now. Because that's a little chilly in my basement where I do my recording.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It was torture.
Andrew Adam:
Are there other whistlekick merchs that would be appropriate for those of us in New England where it's getting colder, any or any new stuff on the horizon?
Jeremy Lesniak:
There's constantly new stuff on the horizon. The reason this is here is that we're done with tour dates for 2022. This was like an early version. We updated the back as we added more dates, but I'm gonna do a final version. What's happening?
Andrew Adam:
I gotta get one.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm going to do a final version of the shirt and the hoodie for people to grab for the end of the year. So that's coming. What else is out right now? Over the last couple of months, we rolled out the fall collection. I know it seems strange that we're talking about the fall collection in November. In New England, in November, we think of it as winter but it's really not winter for another month. Hoodies, sweatpants, hats, and there are winter hats. You can pick up one of those dragon hoodies like Andrew's wearing through the end of 2022 and you pick the two colors, then I'll send you a mock-up.
Andrew Adam:
Awesome.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There’s always stuff. If you're not checking out whistlekick.com every few weeks you're missing stuff like there's so much going on here.
Andrew Adam:
All right, we have a question that came in through from the chat.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, cool.
Andrew Adam:
And this is from the left leg J
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hello left leg J left leg J joins us on the first some mornings
Andrew Adam:
He says, he or she says, Good morning. In general, what do you think a person's very first martial arts lesson looks like, I'm assuming they mean should look like
Jeremy Lesniak:
Assuming that they're defining lesson as the first time they're in the school - not first time they're in the public class. Because the most important thing is that people know what to expect. That they that we make an effort to make them feel comfortable. Anybody who's starting a new thing is nervous. And we live in a time where there are so many options. And we have conditioned the rest of the world that it is okay to belittle someone for not knowing someone, just something just watching any martial arts on any platform.
You don't even have to say you're an expert, you can say, Hi, I learned this yesterday, and people will still tear you apart and tell you to not bother. So if we make their first experience, one that is comfortable, hey, when you come in, we're a school that asks you to bow here, the bathrooms are over there, please take your shoes off and put them there. We expect that you wear athletic clothing or your uniform or whatever, make sure they know what to do. And if it's more than like two things, give it to a little piece of paper. And then once that's covered, because it shouldn't take that long, hopefully, it doesn't take that long. You give them some very, very basic things from which they will see success. Here's how we punch, we make a fist like this. And when we punch, we try to hit here. Here's a heavy bat, why don't you hit it? Or here's a shield, why don't you hit it? Give them an experience where they are going to succeed. Where they're going to be able to correlate Hey, I put in a little bit of effort. I felt good about it. The results coming back out of it were good. And if you do those two things, comfort and correlating effort to results. Everything will be fine.
Andrew Adam:
I would agree. It's all about making them feel comfortable. Yeah, Great question. Great question. All right. Normally, we do four questions, but I have the fifth one that I want to throw into it. It's a fun one though to end on. Again, it's from Mark Warner.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Andrew Adam:
So, Mark, buckle up, buddy. This is gonna be fun.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And to be fair, we have time. So if somebody in the chat has another question like, we're not going to go forever, but as long as good questions are coming in, and it's within times that you and I have will, I'll keep answering.
Andrew Adam:
Yeah, Absolutely. But this is the last question I have planned. If something comes in, we'll deal with it. So this was sort of this was from Mark, here we go. Okay. tag team wrestling. Dennis Campo and Jeremy Lesniak versus Andrew Adams and Craig Wareham, who would win?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Craig has martial and wrestling experience. Both you and Craig are taller than Dennis and me. But I think Dennis and I would have the style points.
Andrew Adam:
Yeah, we're both bigger.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You are definitely bigger. Now, was this? No. Did he say professional wrestling?
Andrew Adam:
He said tag team wrestling
Jeremy Lesniak:
If this is professional wrestling, we're playing to the crowd. Working for the crowd up to support you is relevant in the decision. Okay. Then I think that's the only way Dennis and I have a chance. See, I don't know that it seems Woo is only surpassed by Ric Flair that anyone's heard this in person. I have said for a very long time that if I was ever a pro wrestler, I would be stealing a few finishing moves. The first one, the one I would become known for sweet chin music. I've got a good sidekick. I can put it on anybody's chin at any time as long as they're within range. And someone willing to let me so I think if there was that, right, if it was seen as these two underdogs
Andrew Adam:
Yep
Jeremy Lesniak:
Bringing forward some of the most beloved elements of wrestlers of yonder year, then we could get the crowd behind us. And who knows, maybe somebody comes running in from the back and hits the two of you with a chair to support us, and then we will win.
Andrew Adam:
Maybe, maybe I don't know, I have no idea. I will say I'm a pretty exuberant guy, I'm pretty good at hyping the crowd up.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So what we're seeing is if the two of you were seen as beating on too-smaller men.
Andrew Adam:
That's fair, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That doesn't look good for you. That's not what.
Andrew Adam:
You're right. You're right. That was a fun question mark.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's really good.
Andrew Adam:
Mark also commented on the last question, listen to Jeremy talk, I'm making students feel good. This reminds me if you want more, check out his school consulting. It really rocks. Trust me. I know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thank you, Mark. I appreciate that. That's very nice. Any other questions?
Andrew Adam:
Not that I have on my list. I mean, I have others on my list, but I was gonna save them for next time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, that's fine. I just in case any had come in in the chat like this.
Andrew Adam:
Not to come in. But if you're in the chat, and you want, shoot, shoot a message.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But the consulting stuff is something that I try to talk about in the outro. Because it is something that we do really well. It's if you know what whistlekick is and what we do if you know the spirit of everything we offer, we take that into the consulting side. We help you grow with integrity, and support you in what you're trying to do with your school. Every school is not the same. Every school owner's goals are not the same. Some school owners do not want to be full-time. Some are trying to do less themselves. Some are trying to convert from part-time to full-time. We can help and have helped with all of these over the years.
And it's something I'm really proud of. I've got decades of consulting experience. Truly like my first job out of school, was as an IT consultant. Guess what, if you learn how to ask the questions, all consulting is the same assuming you have a body of knowledge that is relevant. Well, I've got what is this 700 and whatever episodes of showing you what I believe, what I feel what I think. And I've benefited from the conversations that I've had with many, many guests. And just as with everything we do, you get the fruit the best stuff for free. If you want to piece together everything, I believe in what you think I should do, what I think you should do for your school, you can check out the relevant episodes and read the books and everything, all that stuff's out there. But if you want my help with it, yeah, you can reach out and we can do it. And honestly, it's probably going to cost you less than a lot of other options. Not gonna throw shade at them because a lot of consulting services out there do a great job, but we do it the most. Okay. And nobody else does.
Andrew Adam:
Mark says up and down the head bottom.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. No more questions.
Andrew Adam:
No, we're good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. Well, I want to thank everybody for coming by. Thanks for watching live to those of you who did so I appreciate you making it fun. Andrew, as always, I appreciate you and that you are putting together this stuff on the back end that means I just have to show up and do what I do, which is talk. I'm pretty good at the talking part. Listeners, you can always let Andrew know if you've got another question for next time for the 22nd installment of this series. andrew@whistle kickmartialartsradio.com. I'm jeremy@whistlekick.com or on social media at whistlekick everywhere. I appreciate each and every one of you. And that takes us to the end. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.