Episode 773 - Martial Arts Word Association 2
In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew use a word association game to see if Jeremy can relate random words to martial arts!
Martial Arts Word Association 2 - Episode 773
Here at whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, we like to mix things up once in a while. We’re going to do “Martial Arts Word Association” where Andrew gives Jeremy a random word that he could connect to martial arts. In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew discuss randomly generated topics from Iced Tea to dogs. Find out how they relate it to martial arts!
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 down below!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. Today, Andrew and I are doing another word association. He's gonna throw some words at me and I'm gonna have to come up. That's not how I actually block things. That's how I'm gonna have to make his words relevant to martial arts and build a conversation around it that you will all find interesting. Stick around. You guys loved when we did this the last time. If you're new to the show, welcome! What do we do here? Well, here at whistlekick we connect, educate, and entertain. We are passionate martial artists. We are dedicated to the proposition that martial arts makes people better, and our mission is to try to get everybody in the world to train for at least six months. If you wanna check out everything we're doing, go to whistlekick.com. You're gonna find a store over there. Use the code podcast15 saves you 15%, helps us cover our expenses and you can walk around with a with a whistlekick shirt or Andrew's got a whistlekick hoodie. There's all kinds of good stuff over there, protective equipment, et cetera. Now the show gets its own website at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. We give you every single episode we've ever done. We don't hide anything. We don't take 'em down. They're not behind a paywall. You always get our best stuff for free, and if you want to go further, you can. For example, on that website, we've got the show notes, transcripts, all kinds of good stuff there, but maybe you like one of the transcripts so much and you think, hey, I'd kind of like to have this and take notes on it in like a book form. We've got a number of our episodes available in paperback book on Amazon, things like that. If you wanna support us, you could grab one of those books. You could also submit a guest or a topic suggestion. Or you could join our Patreon. Starts as little as $2 a month, you can get in, you get behind the scenes, you get Zoom hangouts, you get all kinds of cool stuff with Patreon, and it goes up from there. And at the upper tiers, we even have a mastermind for martial arts school owners. Our biggest fans go to the family page, whistlekick.com/family. We update it weekly with stuff that you're not gonna find anywhere else. So go check that out. Alright, Andrew.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. How's it going, man?
Jeremy Lesniak:
This was fun last time we did this.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, it was.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm glad it went well and I reached out on a few different channels, Patreon, et cetera, and said, did you all like this? Did people enjoy this? And overwhelmingly, they said they really did.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, it was neat. And I did get some couple people comment on some suggestions on words for the next time, so.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, cool.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. So, if you have fun family-friendly appropriate quest things that I can ask Jeremy to relate to martial arts, please feel free to send them to me. You can reach me at andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com
Jeremy Lesniak:
I can make anything about martial arts.
Andrew Adams:
Well, we're gonna find out.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Any...
Andrew Adams:
We're gonna find out.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Anything. Bring it.
Andrew Adams:
Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Bring it.
Andrew Adams:
So, the first one... are you, oh, sorry. Are you ready?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure.
Andrew Adams:
Okay. And we never set a time limit for this, but...
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think instead of a time limit on it, I think you're kind of driving, like it's whenever you feel it's appropriate to throw the next one.
Andrew Adams:
I just throw another one at you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. I don't think it has to, like, last time I kind of like faded.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And you waited for that. I don't think you have to do that.
Andrew Adams:
But I didn't wanna cut you off.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think just whenever and just make me go.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. I don't wanna cut you off.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Cut me off.
Andrew Adams:
Okay. All right. Zip ties.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Zip ties. Well, we could go like the real kind of literal self-defense thing. You see all, there are videos all over YouTube, how to get outta zip ties and you know, do this and it's really easy and it's really not that easy if you use the cheap zip ties. Yeah, you can break free of them pretty well. But I think there's another way we could come at zip ties. What does zip ties do? They hold things together. Zip ties are ubiquitous in the way that duct tape is. Maybe not quite as versatile, but just as duct tape can hold anything together. Zip ties can hold just about anything else together. And if you have the two, by the way, everybody should have both in their car, but if you have the two, you're pretty much good to go. And I think there are techniques in martial arts that are kind of like that. A jab is kind of the zip ties or the duct tape of martial arts. It can fit in just about anywhere. It can solve just about any martial arts problem. Punch somebody in the face, right? That'll fix almost anything in a self-defense situation if you apply it appropriately and really easy to use.
Andrew Adams:
Gazebo.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Ooh, gazebo. Those little kind of shed without the walls sort of thing. They're always round or hexagonal or octagonal. That's a challenging one. But it leads to a story. So growing up in my little town, the owners of the martial arts school lived two doors down from Casco Day Park, which was where we did the big fire department fundraiser every year. And then two doors down from that was the community center where we had classes for a very, very long time. And sometimes we had classes at their house. So like in the middle of these two martial, like the places I've done the most martial arts, was a gazebo. And I spent a lot of time on that gazebo as I finally got to be old enough sitting there after, you know, old enough that my mother would let me go hang out outside during the adult class, but not so old that it, you know, it was inappropriate for me to do so, like I should have been in class, you know, kind of like that 11-year-old, 10, 11, 12-year-old space. And I remember sitting... I remember when they got the gazebo and it was such a big deal cause I'd never seen one before. It had stairs and you just kind of sit there and there were these big cross members and just trying to do pull-ups on them and everything. And it was fun because it's a space that's just so, like that whole strip to me is martial arts. I've done martial arts on that green. I've done martial arts in those parking lots. A few years ago, I even taught back on that green for the first time in like 20 years, you know. It's a a lot of fun.
Andrew Adams:
Wite-out.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What does wite-out do? It keeps you... it corrects your mistakes and there is no wite-out in martial arts. If you do something wrong, you can't undo it. But I think the benefit to that is you have to learn from your mistakes. If you can easily apply wite-out, does it really teach you to be a better writer? To be more careful with your words? To make sure you're spelling things correctly? Back when I first started writing and I had to type on a typewriter, which I absolutely hated, or write a piece of paper, I remember, and you might remember this too, Andrew, you get to a point, you're like, I'm not a hundred percent sure how to spell this word, and I don't wanna do this whole page over again. And you'd go and you'd look it up in the dictionary and have to do that. And so it forced you to be diligent and attentive to what you were doing. In the same way that I think a lot of us even get paralyzed from in our martial arts, whether it's self-defense or it's sparring. Because there's no takebacks, there's no mulligans. We can't just say, oh, that's not quite what I meant to do, whoops! Backspace, backspace, backspace. Haha, you didn't see that! No, you get popped in the face when you do something wrong or you hurt somebody or you hurt yourself. And because there are consequences, I think it matters more.
Andrew Adams:
Name badge.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sorry?
Andrew Adams:
Name badge.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Name badge. Like a permanent one or like a temporary sticker?
Andrew Adams:
Like a permanent one.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Like a permanent one?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, where is it? Like this one?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Or I've got one here as well. Like, like this one.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Like this one?
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's funny. They're both silver with rounded cords.
Andrew Adams:
Nope. Mine's white.
Jeremy Lesniak:
They're official, right? It's something that when I go to martial arts events, I don't do this much anymore, but back when I really thought the way forward for whistlekick was pitching and trying to get people to invest in the company, I was constantly wearing this name badge. Some of you have seen the red polo shirt that I still wear from time to time, and that's what I would wear this with generally. But what is it about a name badge that makes it of value? People don't just come up with them, right? Like you can't go to the store and buy a hundred adhesive name tags to put on anybody's shirt and you write it on it with a sharpie. This required planning. That required planning and intent forethought, right? And the best things that we have, the things we tend to find the most valuable do require that because it shows a commitment. If I show up to a competition and my uniform is clean and pressed and I'm rested and I've clearly practiced my form, it's gonna come out better. You can tell. You can feel. We're recording this is the day after Thanksgiving. There were likely some dishes that were prepared a few days in advance. People put a lot of thought, a lot of preparation into them, and those likely came out better than the ones that people woke up the day of and went, oh, I gotta bring something. What's in the fridge? I'm just gonna haphazardly put something together. We value things that require time and planning is relevant. Time in our martial arts, our skills, the presentation of our skills, the application of our skills requires time. And when time goes in, it is of more value. Andrew just walked away.
Andrew Adams:
Kilt.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's a hakama. Next!
Andrew Adams:
Nah, not quite.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. A kilt? See, I don't know the history of kilts well enough to draw the connection to like the kind of combative cultural elements, but in my understanding, it's really only been in what I would call more modern times that we have looked at any kind of skirt as being an exclusively feminine thing. If you look at a lot of traditional dress, in a lot of cultures, it's kind of a skirt because it's a lot easier to make a skirt than pants. Pants are warmer, it's cold out. I'm not gonna wear a skirt, don't own any skirts. But I think that there's something there that's kind of, I think primal is probably the best word. Because it's so simple, it ties us back. Now, I don't know what you feel when you wear a kilt. I've never worn a kilt, but I think that they're kind of cool. I think a lot of guys secretly look at them and go, you know, it's kind of cool. It's kind of badass to wear a kilt and know that you know. I know that in the traditional garb, there's like a knife, and I think you even have one of those knives like we've talked about that a few times. You know, there's a knife, there's a lot of tradition to it in the same way that a gear, or a dobok, or a hama also has tradition.
Andrew Adams:
I would state just because I know a little bit more about it, the kilt is obviously related to the bagpipe, right? Bagpipes Scotland, kilts Scotland. The bagpipe has been the only instrument that was declared an instrument of war. So there you go. All right. Gargoyles.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Gargoyles, they're scary. And they're on churches and old buildings. And what's the whole purpose? The whole purpose is to be scary and to remind people of being scary. And the best defense as anybody is to not seem unscary. I'm not saying everybody has to walk around and be scary all the time, but if you look like a victim, if you act like a victim, you are statistically more likely to be a victim. So I think there's a lesson we can take from gargoyles in being maybe not scary, but not unscary.
Andrew Adams:
Think of the Japanese Samurai Mentals, same sort of thing. How about change? Pocket change, coins.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Coins. I know Josh Blum has fought under coins as a deterrent or a weapon. He's brought that up a few times. And I think that's kind of a neat idea, the idea of throwing coins. But change, you can't have growth without change.
Andrew Adams:
Oh.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And obviously, that's a different way of using the word change. But it's been one of my mantras for a very long time. There are a lot of people who want to grow and become better, but they're not willing to let anything go. They're not willing to change. You can't grow without change. You cannot become a better martial artist without someone guiding you. If you're guiding yourself, you've already gone as far as you can go. Maybe there's some physical skills you could refine, but I don't think that makes you a dramatically better martial artist.
Andrew Adams:
Postage stamp.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You're just looking around the room. I love it.
Andrew Adams:
No, some of 'em I am, but some of 'em I'm not. I'm like thinking of things that would be difficult.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's the job of a postage stamp? It is the final thing you do to commit an action to send information to somebody else. It is the thing that you say, you know what, this is done. It's ready to go. It is stamped and ready for delivery, and then it goes out the door. Up until that point, you could change it all, you could rewrite it, you could reprint it, whatever. You could use a different envelope. You have infinite choice up until the point that that stamp goes on it and it goes out the door. Once it gets into the mailbox, you're done. In fact, we see sitcoms, it make a bid out of that and someone ends up getting arrested or stuck in the mailbox on the street. And there are so many things that we can look at in our training that are like that. I brought up the example of competing, presenting a forum for competition. I can practice that a thousand different ways. I can come up with, okay, how do I want my timing to be here? Do I wanna do this movement like this, or do I want it like this? Where am I breathing? I have all kinds of time. But when I go to the competition, when they call my name, that's me putting a stamp on it. It's ready to go. Whether or not it's ready to go, it's gonna go. And sometimes you just have to say, you know what, it's good enough and let's see how it shows up.
Andrew Adams:
Fire extinguisher.
Jeremy Lesniak:
An underrated self-defense tool.
Andrew Adams:
Hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because I broadly define self-defense as things that can hurt you, like fire. Most people do not know where their smoke, their fire extinguishers are. If they do, they're not easy to get to, and it is entirely possible that you have one. It's 20 years old, you've never looked at the charge indicator, and that's a problem. I have one in my car and I have one, two, I think one in the garage, maybe two in the garage. There's at least one in the house. I have a small house. They're all over the place. You can get a decent fire extinguisher for relatively little money and if you need to, you can bludgeon someone in the head with it. By the way, there are different ones for cars. You should have one. Everyone should have one. It's like 20, 30 bucks. It's probably not gonna save your life, but it could very well save someone else.
Andrew Adams:
Gorilla Glue.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Gorilla Glue. Don't put it in your hair.
Andrew Adams:
Not a problem for me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Not a problem for me either. It was a problem for one person who thought it would be fine. We use Gorilla Glue in the same way that we use zip ties or duct tape, right? The reason Gorilla Glue is something that most of us know of despite being a brand is cause it does what it does really, really well. That original iteration of Gorilla Glue was like a better super glue. It came out and it was just like, bam! It was less messy. Didn't come in the little tubes, right? It was a very versatile product. And I think that we as martial artists, we have some of those very versatile things, but we get bored with them. I was listening to an audiobook that had nothing to do with martial arts the other day. And they were actually talking through a session where someone was training other people in self-defense. It was really interesting because one of the main characters speaks up and says, we've been doing this for hours, I'm really bored.
Andrew Adams:
Mm-hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Can't we learn something new? And what ends up happening is the person teaching demonstrates, like rushes them and gets them to a point where the student applies the techniques without having to think about it in, you know, a semi real environment. And I think that that's something that we often forget, that most of what we need to learn as martial artists, we learn in the first six months. We don't need to learn other stuff. There's only a few punches and a few kicks and a few blocks that you need. And honestly, most of us end up blocking completely different anyway because those blocks are not really blocks as you demonstrated recently and as most of us know. But it's because of a bit of boredom that we forget how versatile a sidekick is or an elbow can be. Those are the Gorilla Glue.
Andrew Adams:
How about a necktie?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I like neckties. I always struggle to tie them well because I'm short and they tend to come in one length and I tie them wrong and one ends down to my knees. Doesn't work well, but I like dressing up and I think a necktie, like a belt is incredibly versatile as an impromptu self-defense weapon, you know. Probably a little bit harder to deploy than a belt, but you could still use it, you know, you could garrote somebody if they're trying to murder you. Yeah. Andrew's demonstrating being choked to death with a necktie. But I think more than that, a necktie brings an outfit together. If you wear a nice shirt and a jacket and no tie, you can do that. And in fact, there are, you know, that's considered fashionable in some ways, but it doesn't look right to me. If somebody was wearing a jacket or a vest, I don't wanna see buttons. It looks funny to me. And we have things like that in martial arts. It's expected. It just kind of goes along with these other things. There are techniques and it's different for different people depending on the style. There are techniques that if you throw A, B, C, you're probably gonna throw D. That next technique, there tends to be something that follows along in an exchange, which is both really good because it means you've practiced in that way. But it might also not be great because it could mean that your autopilot could take you in the wrong direction.
Andrew Adams:
Stuffed animals.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Stuffed animals. I used to beat up stuffed animals when I was a kid. Remember, I started when I was four, and so I had stuffed animals that were my size and I would set them up and I would punch them and I would kick them. I'm demonstrating as if I actually knew what I was doing back then. And I was not throwing solid uppercuts or hook punches or back fist or anything. You know, I was lucky to not fall over when I was four. And those were fun times, right? Impromptu training on random and inanimate objects. It's something I think a lot of us do. And you've probably seen, you know, like at fairs you can win that like massive stuffed bear. That's the only thing I see. I could see value in that for either, you know, punching it or practicing grappling maneuvers. Way cheaper than one of those grappling dummies.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, good point.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I mean, if you wanna grapple at home with something, you know, get a really large stuffed bear. It's gonna cost you way less money.
Andrew Adams:
Birth certificate.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Birth certificate, certificates. I wish martial arts schools made a bigger deal out of when people started in the anniversaries that come following. How many people have been training decades and they don't know the exact day they started?
Andrew Adams:
Yes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But they can easily go back and say, I started school on this day, started college on this day, I was born on this day, started this job on this day. There are records for that, but most of us don't know. I've got it down to like one of two days. It was September 6th or 8th, 1983. I know that. But I don't know how I would be able to verify one or the other. I might be able to go back and through conversation and looking at old calendars, figure it out, but I'm really unsure. And the only reason I know that is cause I was so close to two years for my yellow belt. Like it was, I was six when I heard my yell out, and it was right around that same time. And so I just remember that being discussed like that. It was so close to that. But I wish we had martial arts birth certificates in a sense cause I think it's worth celebrating.
Andrew Adams:
Hmm. All right, I got one more.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Andrew Adams:
Hot Pockets.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hot Pockets. Kelly and D pocket. The Jim Gaffigan beat if anyone doesn't know. I'm trying to find a delicate way of saying this. Where I'm trying to go and I don't think I can get there respectfully, is that such and such is the hot pockets of martial arts.
Andrew Adams:
Hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right? But what are hot pockets? They're tasty, relatively inexpensive. They're not good for you, but they feel good in the moment.
Andrew Adams:
Right.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And so rather than disparage in art or a style of training or anything like that, I would say hot pockets are the emotion of sparring of martial arts, right? The moment emotion creeps in, it can feel good at the moment, right? And that could be pride cause you just applied a technique really well and you're feeling good about yourself, and then you get punched in the face. It could be anger because someone you felt was being disrespectful. They hit you harder than you wanted. You get angry, you lash out, and then somebody hits you in the face, right? Emotion is something that is really natural for us, but it doesn't serve us when we spar. It's really cheap and easy to bring in. And there are some people who think that it's a good idea. Oh, well, if you're in a fight, you know, you just get really angry and then you just rawr and you get it done. Just as there are some people who think, you know what, it's fine. I can eat a hot pocket for lunch every day. But you shouldn't. It's not actually in your best interest.
Andrew Adams:
Awesome. Good job! That was fun.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thanks, man! I like those. They're challenging. They make me think. So if you have ideas for words that you wanna throw at me in a future version of this, send them to Andrew, andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Don't send them to me cause I don't wanna know them ahead of time. That's half the fun of this. And what else? Anything else along those lines before we close?
Andrew Adams:
No, I mean they can also send me Q and A questions as well, like more in-depth questions.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, do a Q and A in a moment here, we're gonna record it live and publicly, and everyone can be there. So that'll be fun. And if you want to know more about this show, go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. You can subscribe to our newsletter. We only send out relevant stuff. It's not just like, Hey, we haven't sent you an email in a week, so we're gonna send you stuff anyway. Right now, we're recording this towards the end of the year, so there's a little more going on, so we're sending out emails a little more, but through the summers a little less. We try to be respectful of your time and of your email address. We never sell it or anything like that. You can also leave us a tip, a donation if you will, over at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. People do that once in a while. Most people go the Patreon route, you can have a recurring thing there. But if you don't wanna do that, if you're really just like, you know what, I loved this episode or that episode, or this really means a lot to me and you just want a one and done, that's why we set that up over there. It's through PayPal. And you know, if you have a martial arts school, we have a, it's called a zero obligation look at our consulting services. It's something that is becoming more important for us. We're getting more and more questions. For those who want to go deeper, we can help you with that. We've had great results with the clients we've worked with. We'll continue to work with those clients and new clients. And hey, if we can help martial arts schools grow, it is in our best interest. Remember, what's our mission? To get everyone to train, so if we can help schools grow, that furthers our mission. If you wanna bring me in for a seminar, we can do that. Reach out jeremy@whistlekick.com. Our social media is @whistlekick everywhere you could imagine and that brings us to a close. Until next time, train hard, smile, have a great day!