Episode 1022 - Guro Michael Williams

In this episode, Jeremy sits down and chats with Guro Michael Williams about training overseas, cross training and community.

Guro Michael Williams - Episode 1022

SUMMARY

In this episode, Guro Mike Williams explores the deep connections within the martial arts community, discussing his journey from a family background in martial arts to his experiences training overseas. He delves into the importance of cross-training, the sense of safety and belonging found among martial artists, and the appreciation for the hard work that goes into mastering any art form. The conversation highlights the unique experiences that come with being part of the martial arts world, emphasizing the value of community and shared passion.

In this conversation, Guro Mike discusses the nuances of martial arts training, emphasizing the importance of understanding the reality of self-defense, the role of playfulness in practice, and the significance of character over skill. He explores the concept of redefining success in confrontations, the necessity of training for panic situations, and the value of public demonstrations, also highlighting the benefits of short, frequent training sessions and the balance of mind, body, and spirit in martial arts practice.

Guro Mike also discusses the importance of maintaining strength and health through martial arts, regardless of age, emphasizing the value of solo training, the holistic benefits of martial arts, and the significance of building a strong foundation in various techniques. The discussion also touches on the community aspect of martial arts and the joy of blending different styles and techniques. He concludes with reflections on the journey of martial arts training and the importance of appreciating the teachings of past masters.

TAKEAWAYS

• Traveling for training offers unique insights into different cultures.

• Cross-training is valuable but requires dedication to maintain quality.

• Understanding martial arts is like learning a new language.

• Success in a confrontation is about not getting hurt.

• Training should prepare you for panic situations.

• Demos help simulate the stress of real confrontations.

• Short, frequent training sessions are more effective.

• Character is more important than skill in martial arts.

• Age does not define strength or capability.

• Martial arts offer holistic benefits beyond just combat.

• Every form in martial arts has its own system and depth.

• Building a strong foundation is crucial for martial arts practitioners.

• It's important to blend techniques from different martial arts.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction
03:04 The Roots of Martial Arts in Family
05:44 The Sense of Community in Martial Arts
09:00 Experiences of Training Overseas
12:45 Cross-Training and Its Importance
18:51 The Illusion of Understanding Martial Arts
20:34 The Reality of Martial Arts Training
22:25 Playfulness in Martial Arts
24:34 Character Over Skill in Martial Arts
26:28 Redefining Success in Confrontations
28:28 Training for Panic and Real Situations
30:19 The Importance of Demos in Training
32:30 Short, Frequent Training Sessions
35:41 The Balance of Mind, Body, and Spirit
37:39 The Long-Term Approach to Training
45:18 The Ageless Pursuit of Strength
48:25 The Holistic Benefits of Martial Arts
51:22 Exploring the Depths of Martial Arts
53:57 Building a Strong Foundation in Martial Arts
57:24 The Art of Blending Techniques
01:00:40 Final Thoughts and Community Connections

Connect with Guro Williams:

www.combatkali.com

After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it.

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Show Transcript

Jeremy Lesniak (01:33.376)

Hey, what's happening, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Whistlekick, martial arts radio. And today's episode, I'm joined by Mike Williams. I don't know why we took, why it took us this long to do this, Mike, but I'm glad we finally get to this is going to be a lot of fun. For those of you out there, whether you're new or you're back, please whistlekick martial arts radio.com for this and every episode. It's where you get the best experience. We've got the YouTube video there. We've got the audio only version there, whatever you want. You can, you can.

Find every episode. You can go back to the beginning. We're well over a thousand episodes now, but maybe you want to go back to episode, I don't know, 17 or 112. Maybe you have a lucky number and you want to see what episode that is. They're all there. Show notes, transcripts and all that. And if you want to find the full experience of everything we're doing as an organization, whistlekick.com for our event schedule, our products, training programs, the services we offer for martial arts schools, all that. You can check that out there, but without.

without any more of an intro. Mike, hey, thanks for being here, man. Great to see you.

Mike (02:37.727)

Thank you. Thank you for having us on. I appreciate it. I'm honored to be on. We just like to share our thoughts and stuff. I'll do my best.

Jeremy Lesniak (02:46.526)

Yeah. Well, you can't do a bad job because this is just you being you. It's two martial artists chatting, right? The thing, you you probably do that all the time. I know. I talk to non martial artists about martial arts. I'm one of those guys. I don't know if you're one of those guys. Just, hey, let me let me tell you about let me tell you about martial arts. Let me tell you about all these things that I do. Are you like that?

Mike (03:08.915)

yeah, yeah, we actually have a museum here so sometimes I'll get carried away and I'll let people know, listen, you have to go hang the sand, but I'll talk for hours about all the stuff we have here, definitely,

Jeremy Lesniak (03:16.014)

it

Nice. Well, you know, were we're not that far away, right? Like I could probably drive to Salem in. Maybe three hours, three and a half hours. I'm not that I'm not that far away and. I'm in Maine right now, yeah, life took me to Maine. I'm on a little bit of a detour, you know, a little bit of bouncing back and forth, but right now coming to you from Maine. But.

Mike (03:30.473)

We are.

Yes sir. And you're from Water? Maine. Okay, okay.

Mike (03:40.925)

Okay.

Mike (03:46.321)

Okay, okay.

Jeremy Lesniak (03:48.588)

You know, New England is this interesting hotbed of martial arts, and I don't know why. Right? You've traveled around the country enough, you know, and it's not a population thing. It's not just an East Coast thing, but there's this huge martial arts community in New England. And it's been there as long as I've been around.

Mike (03:54.567)

Yes, yes sir.

Yes.

Mike (04:12.319)

Yes, sir. Yes. Oh, yes, sir. Definitely. Amazing. There's a lot of amazing guys in the area, or people in the area that share in the art. So many great stuff. Definitely lucky to have that in this area to me. But again, like you said, the parts of the country, some areas out, but then there is a very small pocket where you don't see so much. Yeah. So it's amazing.

Jeremy Lesniak (04:34.598)

Yeah, martial arts is certainly everywhere, but there's a density that we have here. And I know bits of your story, and we're going to go through as much of your story as you want to go through, but I don't know your origin. So how did you get started?

Mike (04:38.205)

Yes, sir.

Mike (04:47.176)

thank you.

Mike (04:51.471)

so my brother, my older brother Ron, great martial arts, has acupuncture place in the Ipswich actually too and he teaches us that way too. me, myself and my brother, my younger brother Adam too, but.

My grandfather was a local boxing champion. We actually have a picture hanging up with the old glove that he used to use, but he did wrestling and stuff like that when he was younger. he actually, your understand, he was close to winning one of the heavyweight champions. was a local champion boxer. Then my father did boxing, wrestling, and he did some karate and judo. started with him when, well, both of them were younger. And then we started doing like KEMPO when we were like, I don't know, third or fourth grade and just kept them going since then. So, but that was kind of like when we started within our family, yes.

Jeremy Lesniak (05:08.712)

cool.

Jeremy Lesniak (05:33.007)

Was it something you wanted to get into because you saw him doing it or is it something you did because he kind of pushed you to it?

Mike (05:41.023)

I think we just kind of enjoyed it and then we're watching Bruce Lee movies and stuff like that over the years. We just get more into it. just become such a huge part of our life. You're just so constantly. And like I said earlier too, we were talking about like always talking to different martial artists. I was saying to some of the guys recently in one of the camps, it's just like you get a whole bunch of us in a room like that. It feels like the safest. You feel so at home and safe. It's not that you don't with other people, but we're all in the same kind of...

idea about me generally idea about how my shots are we just enjoy the company and have a good time.

Jeremy Lesniak (06:14.791)

It's that home feeling, right? That idea that...

Mike (06:16.486)

Yes, absolutely. like a home gathering, know, family gathering.

Jeremy Lesniak (06:20.942)

I wonder if you have this experience. If I go out to eat in restaurant, I need to watch the door, unless I'm in a group of martial artists. And then I just assume whoever's watching the door has it. And it's the one time I'm just like, okay, I don't need to sweat it because I know that person or that person or that person or that person has it. And I can just let my hair down, so to speak.

Mike (06:32.703)

Absolutely.

Mike (06:45.759)

Yeah, absolutely. yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, even like that, you go to restaurant, even like, like, you know, you know, what occasionally we might have a, you know, occasionally between once in a great while, you know, you're not very often at all, but you would never go out to bars, you always hear horror stories, you know what I mean? But when you're good with my shots, you just sharing the beer, it's so mellow, you know, you know what I mean? It's like at one of those camps or something. It's just, you're having such a good time, just laid back, you're not worried about anything, you know, ever happening. Yeah, which is nice. You feel so safe. Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak (07:14.668)

When did that feeling start? It sounds like you started really young and I can't imagine you were old enough to be able to appreciate that home feeling early on. when did, at what point were you so immersed that you were able to find that connection?

Mike (07:18.573)

yeah, yeah, I saw teaching on.

Mike (07:25.545)

yeah.

Mike (07:32.191)

Oh yeah, yeah. Going way back, I first started teaching, was involved with the guy, Ian Angel, that occurred Seawall in New York. I was in the Boston area, but I worked out in New York and a few other places. There was a guy that used to teach us in Dorchester and he moved away and I was training in different martial arts, so they asked me to start doing it and I've been teaching ever since. And that's probably like late 80s, I've been teaching ever since then. And then when I got involved with Professor Pries, us from YJ and all those guys, was hitting camps.

all the time and ever since then, like even now to now. So that was probably like early nineties maybe. So, but that would always feel like that. I'd be at these big events with Grandmaster Rony Pries, different people like that, Grandmaster Wajay. And it just, it felt so comfortable. It just had such a great time hanging out with everybody, meeting so many great martial artists from all over the place. just, you know, just amazing times like that. Just opportunities. I think when I was younger, maybe I appreciated them, but today I'm blown away. Like I should, you know what I mean? Should have been more aware of those.

amazing opportunities when they were there. I remember, I always tell the story of one time I remember, Mark Klein, he's out in New Jersey, he used to have a big camp at the airport. And one time I was there with, was training with Ryan Preseus, I was training Ryan Preseus all the time. And I remember Mr. Wiley J was at a, they were in a hotel until like three in the morning and he was doing interviews with Blackwell Magazine. I'm just like the young kid hanging out with him and you know, just have to be with that, know, so many events like that over the years, it just blows my mind that I was just like.

You how it can happen.

Jeremy Lesniak (08:59.254)

became normal, I imagine, at that point, because you were surrounded by it so often. Why wouldn't? But then, yeah, you travel around, you meet more people, and you tell these stories, and you realize, everybody does not have this experience in martial arts. And I feel a bit of that because of what I do and what we do. just, that's right. This is not a normal martial arts experience. Not everybody has that. And it's a blessing.

Mike (09:03.143)

Yes, sir. Yes.

Mike (09:20.127)

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And it just feels so so honored. You know, anytime you're at anything like that. so even today, you know, we see each other at the camps from Grand Master Buzz Dirk and the Master Terry Down, Superfoot. You know what I mean? Just just so awesome. We just have such a good time. Yeah, we love it. We enjoy it. But even not only that, too, but even we're overseas, Indonesia, Philippines, even we went to Thailand. It's the same when you're with Marshall, it's the same feeling. You know what I mean? It's

Jeremy Lesniak (09:34.295)

Okay.

Jeremy Lesniak (09:38.028)

Yeah, for sure.

Mike (09:48.255)

that same family event. we just, we just love it. We have a blast everywhere we go. Just have fun and share the share what we can have a week share with anybody.

Jeremy Lesniak (09:57.838)

You did something that that I would like to talk about because it's something that most people don't ever get to do, which is traveling and training overseas and not just once. Right. Like there are a number of people who, you know, they have these dream trips, you know, maybe they're they're multi practitioners and they go to Thailand for two weeks or a month and they train and they, you know, that means a lot to them. Or maybe they're karate practitioner and they go to Okinawa or they go to Japan for judo or, you know, Brazil for BJJ or something like that.

But my understanding is you've made quite a few trips overseas for training. And so I imagine you get kind of the real story. What is the martial arts, the typical martial arts experience of someone in Indonesia or the Philippines versus what we have here in the US?

Mike (10:30.823)

Yeah, you're sure.

Mike (10:46.635)

That's good question. Yeah, thank you, sir. It's amazing. Again, it's the same family, you know I mean, that same family environment. And you meet so many different groups over there too that are so much into these as we train. But yeah, we've been doing the trips. We met in 96 way back at two and then Grandmaster Nenetorto and Grandmaster Leo Gahe were together on that trip. Grandmaster Romel Torto, we just actually saw him yesterday. We drove to Connecticut. was over teaching in Connecticut too. And I haven't seen him. May saw him in Manila earlier this year.

Jeremy Lesniak (11:14.353)

cool.

Mike (11:18.353)

But I haven't seen him since when he was like 14, 15 at that camp way, way back. So was great to reunite with him. we kind of do like when we bring people over there, we kind of do like a private hum-a with our teachers. But we meet so many other people from over like we're in Indonesia. There's a martial arts college we stay at. So you see all kinds of different martial arts around us, know, doing different. that we get to meet them. Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak (11:40.166)

Like a true college, like it's residential and there are classes and you can live there and train.

Mike (11:46.499)

Yes, it's all for my shots. we actually did. Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak (11:50.843)

I just, that's what I want to do. I just want to go stay there forever. Like that sounds perfect.

Mike (11:55.007)

Oh yeah, they have a stadium for sports. lot. have a big museum there. They have all kinds of areas to train. They have a big hotel like campus that you stay in. You we will always stay there and we go there. Guru Libby's one of the top grandmasters from the Utah. Yeah, for the pinjacks. lied and but they have all kinds of different people from all over. It's amazing. But yeah, we stayed at the Guru Libby and Diddy and all those guys for the hurry. Moe burning and Shakti see a lot. So we've been with him since maybe 99. May think, yeah, something like that.

Jeremy Lesniak (12:04.238)

That's so cool.

Mike (12:22.239)

Yeah, we met in 96. that was our excuse me. I was gonna say we were trying to set up trips every year. But then we were now we do like every two years, but it's been constant. We usually always go to Philippines, Indonesia. We've gone even after two months. We're gonna actually get a house over there. We're gonna retire. We bought property. We built the house and everything. So we got a place for training. We got a whole set up for training over there. Oh, in the central area, the island of Negros, Meza Negros, Negros Occidental in the Visayan area.

Jeremy Lesniak (12:42.594)

What area of the Philippines?

Mike (12:51.453)

Yeah, Philippines, 7000 islands, Mendenal, the south, Visayan, the central and Luzon, the north. And she's in Visayan. Yeah. Yeah. So in that area.

Jeremy Lesniak (12:53.718)

Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak (12:59.374)

I know a little bit of the geography because we've had a number of folks from the Philippines contribute to the work that we do here at Whistlekick. Some really skilled artists that I've had the chance to work with, for example. Yeah. Yeah, cool.

Mike (13:09.567)

Okay, yep. Yep. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah, she's a she's in that area and to on grandma's and they taught them from Tallyside Maybe an hour with self I think they write or north. Excuse me And and then grandma's right pieces was in Higgadon, which is about hours I think south in that area So they were all right in that area all the day and the gubiton brothers a right maze village to Bagu City Yeah, so grandma's right pieces modern on is to one any the key to church's rise and the gubiton brothers that we do the Capra

Those are the we always try to do a lot with.

Jeremy Lesniak (13:42.214)

I want to go back because you mentioned something that I want to point out that my experience is that this is uncommon. The late 80s, frost training.

Mike (13:54.461)

yes, sir.

Jeremy Lesniak (13:54.828)

That's what I heard in the late 80s. You were cross training and connecting with all these people. I was around in the late 80s too. Everybody was not cross training like they're doing today. That was not common. So how did was it the school you ended up with that encouraged that? Or did you have your own mindset on that? Like how? How did you end up being someone that did that?

Mike (14:04.837)

yeah, yeah.

Mike (14:15.831)

yes, sir. So well, couple of things I come to realize to give this little idea to because sometimes I think a little bit differently now about it. And I appreciate everybody train with even when I was doing the guy in angels when I used to go to New York City and meet with the other guys that were training. It actually was interesting. You ever see the movie The Last Dragon with Bruce Lee Roy? Yes, we were in a warehouse right next to that. What do you call it? With that club was.

Jeremy Lesniak (14:33.078)

Yeah, yeah.

Mike (14:39.173)

We were in a, because we could hear the music playing all night long. We stayed in the warehouse with the angels. So back then, when we go over there, some of the, some of the other trainers were real. If you, if you did train anyone, make sure that you did. So they checked you out pretty good on that. But, but I think in a sense, I know sometimes they talk about the cross training, not being so much before, but I actually don't believe that I think, cause I meet a lot of old masters that trained a lot of different stuff. So I don't think they, they mind you cross training. I think one thing that they,

Jeremy Lesniak (14:40.516)

what a trip.

Mike (15:05.919)

look at it, which I feel sad now sometimes myself when I see this is because you should get one, say one master took one style and you took his whole life to develop that. want to appreciate the hard work. And that's why that Kung Fu means hard work. So when you see that anybody I see now that has an amazing skill, it doesn't have to be martial arts. I feel sad, not in a bad way, but I realized like how hard it took me to get any kind of anything. You know what mean? I still feel like such a beginner.

But, and then I think about the struggle I went through and imagine the struggle they went through to get their skill. So when you see people online maybe complaining about, my teacher didn't show me this and I had to go do this and I had go do that. This guy worked so hard all those years. And you know, it's like saying when you go out and you go on YouTube and you're saying your parents didn't show you all these things. It's like, why don't we just appreciate the parents did your best for you? You know what I mean? And I think the old masters, I think that's why they feel sad. So I didn't think, I think they didn't mind you doing other stuff. They didn't mind you doing other arts as long as you did theirs with the quality. You could show something from their art, whether it's a form, a kata, a jura or something that gave you that quality. So again, look at it in sense, and it's not that I enjoy the arts and I love doing different ones, but sometimes now I hesitate a little bit because I realize how much work it is to maintain a certain quality in an art and I just don't want to do anybody's arts badly. I'm really concerned about that. You know I mean? I want to do it the best that I can.

Jeremy Lesniak (18:47.598)

Yeah. And you do a number of arts. I mean, you've already mentioned, you know, close to half dozen. So.

Mike (18:50.765)

Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Yeah. Yeah. What I did is I actually take a foundation for each one that kind of resonates to the art. And so people can get this solid thing that's very easy to do. And as they do the reps, they'll get a quality from it. But again, like I always say, like if you see somebody in the Olympics and they're going to win gold, if they have the chance to compete for gold, they're just doing one particular area and maybe just swimming, maybe just running, maybe just powerlifting.

But I've never really seen anybody try to get gold in all of those. So in America though, we want to do that with the martial arts, which we want to have an understanding in case we run into a situation, but we want to be maybe an athlete with one, you know, a foundation that will kind of flourish with the rest that we have that, you know what mean? We're not a powerlifter that tries to keep up with the runners and can't, and doesn't know why, but he's doing the same thing they're doing, but he's not moving like they are. So I think, and that's why I think it's too bad because the...

Jeremy Lesniak (19:44.972)

It's a good point.

Mike (19:47.659)

The forms are such important exercises. And I notice people all say, we shouldn't do forms. But no, no. Forget about the application. Sure, I believe there's application in them. But the exercise that they want to create from the forms has a different effect to the body. So you start to become that part of the art. And I see it with the old teachers. It just blows my mind. And then I realized they put on so many years. So this punk kid that grew up in England is going to try to master all those arts in no way.

but can I get a foundation that represents them well and then students can get that and be able to go and learn with them. We show them how to play basketball so they can go play with the Celtics. They're not gonna keep up with the Celtics, but at least they understand how to dribble the ball and be able to get more stuff. Because you can't never finish the art either. Like the old masters say, you got the foundation, but they keep on creating with it. So they'll keep on coming up with more techniques, more ways of catching fish, I guess, which would be the techniques.

Jeremy Lesniak (20:42.126)

It's.

I really appreciate the way you're putting this. Because the more arts you train and the more foundations you have, the faster you can add another one. it's like this. And you put it together. The first art that we train in is generally the one that is the most difficult for us, the one that takes the longest time to understand. to me, arts is kind of like a language. And once you learn that first language, it's this, but it's like this. It's this, but you change it in this way.

Mike (20:54.667)

Yes, yes, yes.

Jeremy Lesniak (21:13.912)

you can kind of make those modifications a little faster and retain it. But this idea that maybe I'm cross-training not for the long-term pursuit of that art, but to have an understanding of it. Because sometimes there's a reason to have understanding of it. Maybe I learn basketball not because I'm going to go play with the Celtics, but because I might end up watching a basketball game and it's a lot more fun if you understand how the game is played.

Mike (21:28.737)

Yes.

Mike (21:41.229)

That's right. Yeah. And then when you watch the game, if you did the work and you watched the game...

Jeremy Lesniak (21:42.742)

And that makes a lot of sense.

Mike (21:48.171)

You get those people out there that are armchair worries that will criticize the game, but they never played it. But when you actually played the game and you sit back and like, wow, those guys are amazing. Even if you think about it, even if you're the worst player on the South X, you still made the team. You're an unbelievable, you're way better than I could even imagine. You know what I mean? So, and I appreciate that. That's why I said like that sadness, you know how they work for that skill. So I can't say anything about, I just got to appreciate that. That's amazing. Rather than I don't know about it I sit back, you can't, you come on, you know what I mean? And I'm criticizing.

Jeremy Lesniak (22:11.693)

Yeah.

Mike (22:18.175)

in some way I don't understand what they've gone through.

Jeremy Lesniak (22:21.038)

It's funny that you bring up that as an example because of course in the martial arts world we have these people who have watched you know three hours of UFC events and they think that they know what's going on they think they have a full understanding and so they watch you know somebody's video you know somebody demonstrating a form or somebody point sparring or someone you know

trying to figure out what nunchaku do and banging themselves in the back of the head and acting like they actually understand. But you mentioned it in the context of not just basketball, but the Celtics. And I don't know you remember the name Brian Scalabrini. I don't know if you're a basketball fan.

Mike (22:57.388)

Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak (22:57.89)

but he was considered one of the, you not as good players on the Celtics and was called out recently on TikTok by a street ball player. And so he went and played the street ball player who had been dominating everyone and absolutely destroyed him. It wasn't even remotely close, right?

Mike (23:17.855)

Yeah, yep.

Jeremy Lesniak (23:19.246)

And so I just, I love that you stepped into that metaphor. That's awesome. Because that's what would happen, right? These armchair warriors, keyboard warriors, Monday morning quarterbacks, whatever we want to call them. There's so much more nuance to what we do. And we don't just do it to learn to fight. Right?

Mike (23:23.179)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike (23:34.903)

Yeah.

Mike (23:39.307)

No, no, that's right. That's right. Yeah, I think that's what's sad too is that again I respect everybody's martial arts and what they do But I feel a of the young guys that want that reality They're gonna get that reality and the sad thing about that is you see that I see them years later when their shoulders have been replaced The hips have been replaced there are no kinds of aches and pains and it doesn't mean that the extreme extreme I say martial arts is always for health. We do the exercises of the art to protect that say healthy

And then if someone tries to hurt our health, we protect it. But if it's for anything beyond that, then you're risking you're putting your life in danger. You know what mean? Which is too bad. They don't need to put so much devastating on their body. would could be the situation if we ever get into it. Hopefully never do. We can go through life and just enjoy it. But it will be a devastating experience. Not like again, when he say again, I don't want to say this in the wrong way. But when people start talking about it's a swimmer training, a swimmer never get in the water. That's a sport.

This is a different thing. This is like a car accident. This is like a plane accident. This is a seriously bad thing that we never want to be involved in, but our boys are going to go through traumatic and even not just our boys, but our mind, everything. So we want to stay as healthy as I possibly because we, if we beat ourselves up so bad that we can't train the out anymore, then our defense has gone to it's gone with it. So we can't say, no, no, I can still do it, but I can't train it. It can't be both ways. So.

Jeremy Lesniak (24:54.05)

That's not self-defense.

Jeremy Lesniak (24:58.862)

If you train in such a way that you get injured, that's not self-defense. That's self-injury.

Mike (25:02.869)

No, yeah, Your self-defense is now should be against you because you're the one doing the damage. know, it's scary. Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak (25:08.585)

Exactly, I think a better comparison on the swimming instead of it being dry land versus swimming, in the water, it's the pool versus the open ocean. They're both swimming, but one was to, I don't know, save your life because you fell overboard and it was unplanned and you don't have a life jacket and the boat is going down.

Mike (25:22.837)

Yes, yes, yes, yes, that's right.

Jeremy Lesniak (25:36.812)

And the other is I'm swimming laps at the YMCA and it's for health and I enjoy it and it's my peace time and everything, right? Like one can prepare you for the other just as with our training.

Mike (25:49.195)

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah, we try to. am I still there? Can you hear me? Sorry. Sorry. I'm right here. Okay. Okay. Good. It's fine. Okay.

Jeremy Lesniak (25:55.104)

You are. No, that may have been me. Something interesting has happened with our recording at some point. I don't know why, but we've had other people trying to come in. I don't know why. And so I'm monitoring that and making sure that they stay away. Please continue.

Mike (26:10.237)

okay. wow.

Okay, all right. Thank you, sir. yeah. Yeah, thank you, sir. Yeah. Yeah, we try in Filipino martial arts that we like to call the role which is which place so when people learn the exercise and the drills and different applications, we get just where they get very playful and it's a whole different thing. So it's almost like rather than people are trying out to each other's spinal so hard, they so playful where it feels like you're in this kind of crazy, weird combat thing. But you walk both walk away laughing like, wow, that was the coolest.

You know what mean? It's very fun. I don't know if the other one's going to get people close. At least you're not going to get your body all banged up and wrecked. Which I think is too bad. know what I mean? It's sad.

Jeremy Lesniak (26:53.782)

You've been around plenty of amazing martial artists, so have I. And it's funny, interesting that you bring up that idea of being playful. Because as a rule, would say the better the martial artist, the less seriously they take most of their training. Not all, right? There are times where it's very serious. But most of their training is done with that playful, joyful, relaxed sort of spirit. Is that what you see?

Mike (27:18.859)

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. It's I love again, like like in the groups that we're with, we're always so encouraging of each other. Nobody's, you know, I mean, trying to put anybody's down or anything like that. We're always very supportive and try to just be there for each other. So I absolutely. Yeah. Very played very good. You know, I know this is everybody always says to me now we talk about, you know, you know, somebody we met and like, oh, this guy's amazing martial artist. But the biggest thing I've ever asked is he a nice person. The number one thing over the skill of that they're at is

how is he as a person? that's not, you know, obviously most of people are very nice and 90 % of people are going to be great, very friendly people. that seems like the most important thing that you want to make sure that he has the same house the rest of us in a sense.

Jeremy Lesniak (28:04.046)

And there are people out there. I think one of the hardest things for me as Whistlekick has grown and I get to hang out with and train with all these wonderful people is sometimes I bump into people who are very physically skilled and maybe even skilled instructors and they're not good people. And that's hard. That's hard to see that, especially because I've bumped into some that I didn't know. You know, I knew them from afar and looked up to them and got to know them like, I don't like you.

Mike (28:21.601)

Yes, Yes.

Mike (28:30.029)

Oh, yes, Yeah, yeah, yes, sir. Yeah, and it's a turn off right away. Not in the name. It could be a great idea being interested in, but just you kind of you can't just shy away a little bit. Not again like us, we're very mellow. We really sort of but we just kind of stay low key and just, you know what I mean? It's just what we're doing. Just have fun with it, you know, but but I would say I was going to say to another thing I was talking about earlier about.

Bruce used to say that he feared the person does one kick 500 times compared to someone does 500 kicks one time each. Like you were talking about earlier, when you learn one odd, it's easier to get another odd easier because you get to that level in the sense of what it took to master this and you can wade in on the other one and realize the reps it takes. So you already have reps in to get that quality in a sense.

You know what I mean? So you can kind of weigh in on how would it be to get that. And I always say too, like, and again, I feel like it's always such a beginner trying to train, but we should always look like that. And I guess the idea of mastery would be an organization that supports us that way. Even though we don't feel like that at all, we know that we have a lot of great people that feel that way about us. that's, you know what I mean? And that's very honorable. You know what I mean? We want to respect that. But then we want to take that idea of maybe

what that level maybe is and gear it to other arts where we can develop. You know what I mean? Get that idea where it was. And then also, I think the hardest thing too that people don't realize too is sometimes is we get people like, I guess it's the same way of the measuring this.

If you get people that know a lot of martial arts movie stuff, which is great, we enjoy those too, but they don't know about other martial arts that we know about, then their mind is in the movies, which is great. It's fun to enjoy that, but we have to get them to realization, no, you're not gonna take on 20 guys and have them all, you know what I mean? But I had people over the years that actually asked me, oh, you're gonna teach me to do that? I'm like, you know what I mean? So the grandmaster has to walk on water and smash your powers. No, they're an old timer that's been doing what we've been doing just a lot longer, you know what I mean?

Mike (30:28.237)

spent the heavy years in, you know, so.

Jeremy Lesniak (30:31.342)

We just hosted an event this past weekend and some of the material that we got into was around this idea that a lot of times martial artists define success in a confrontation as I got through it quickly without any injury, everything went fine, I'm perfectly healthy and

The reality is that is statistically so unlikely, even if it's, know, sometimes we talk about that in the context of knives, you know, most people that have taught me knife stuff, the first thing that they say is, if there's a knife involved, you're going to get cut. If a fight's involved, you're going to get hurt. The goal is to not get dead. That's the goal. That's success. And then when you run it through the idea that

Mike (31:15.991)

Yes.

Jeremy Lesniak (31:25.824)

If there's an altercation, you're not prepared for it. You're not warmed up for it. You're not dressed appropriately for it. The lighting isn't great. You know, you didn't, you know, you've it's been the right amount of time from when you last ate. Right now, it's probably going to be dark. You're probably going to have the wrong pants or the wrong shoes on. You probably just came from the restaurant and you had an extra piece of cake and now it's sitting heavy and you're a little sluggish and maybe you had a drink and and and and and.

Mike (31:52.973)

Yep, yep, definitely, yes sir.

Jeremy Lesniak (31:57.396)

The goal is to not die.

Mike (31:58.605)

Yeah, and I try to do things now with people and show them how to train some of the techniques with the exercises on panicking, recognizing the panic and then recovering as quick as possible rather than being stuck in a panic. Like maybe trying to learn too many things and then try to make them so perfect, you know what mean? And then all of sudden you get crowd and panic and then they all kind of go out the window. You're trying to figure out which one to use. So I try to get people to kind of respond off panic and respond from that. But I always tell people to...

Jeremy Lesniak (32:24.12)

How do you work on that?

Mike (32:25.237)

There's no way you can ever win a street fight. No way. Because again, if you're not ready for it, your life's in danger. But if you do defend yourself, and I know a friend of mine that went through this years ago, I talked to him about a while back at a couple of camps.

The cops can come there and say you defend yourself 100%, but you're going to go to court. You're going to go through all these hassles. And a friend of mine that did it years ago when he was younger, he's older now, but he said at that time it cost him $10,000 in court fees to find out he defended himself. So you can't win. It's a nightmare. You got to get out of there as quick as possible. And then if you have no choice, yeah, you don't want your life to be in danger, but you're going to go through the court system. It's going to be a nightmare. how bad? mean, none of us hopefully have to experience this. But how would it be bad if someone's life

You it was, did get taken in a sense, in a situation where you had to defend yourself and you, all right, you defend yourself, you had to do that. But if you, find out that this didn't go the right way, then you're facing prison for the rest of your life. I say, well, I just defended myself. He was going to kill me. You know what I mean? Like, what a nightmare. I would never want to go through any of that. Anybody I know, yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak (33:29.368)

I have a friend who has confided in me, you know, and I'm gonna work really hard to make sure I don't share any details. But bottom line, there was a confrontation and it was a long time ago and this person still has nightmares.

There's, and that's why, right, like redefining success, right? It's what does winning look like, right? You don't, to my mind, you never win a fight. You just don't lose the goal. You try not to lose. The only way you win is if you can get out of it, extract, walk away, then both people can win. No, everybody wins. That's the goal.

Mike (34:11.801)

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Definitely. And the biggest thing I think too is when people train martial arts, they think they're going to find an artist that's going to solve these problems, but they're always going to come up with more situations. And even, I know it's a cool thing I tell you to us, I was talking to people recently about, but what do call it? That panic, that nervousness that takes over. You know what mean? All that stuff's going to happen. It's an overwhelming experience. But the easiest basic way to train that, and I tell people this all the time, is public demos with your art. And the reason for that is,

You're working as a team. You're not even competing with each other. You're working as a team to put on a performance in front of the people that are watching you. And the worst that could happen is they all laugh at us and think we're terrible. And we're horrified. Yeah, know people tell me, no, I could defend myself fine in the street. But I don't want them in front of public. But if they look at the sensation that the nervousness of both is the same. So your body's being... It's like going to gym and doing one hand curls to two hand curls. Your body starts getting stimulated. So that nervous feeling of public demonstrations is horrifying, but...

It's the same feeling that you'll get in a situation on the street.

Jeremy Lesniak (35:14.178)

said that about competition, I, you know, demos make a lot of sense because I think demos are even better in that way, because when you go to a competition, there's context. So there, people know why you're there. They know more or less what you're doing. But at a demo, those demos are often part of, you a town festival or something that is not a martial arts thing. So it's that much more terrifying.

Mike (35:24.258)

Yes.

Mike (35:28.694)

Yeah.

Mike (35:36.683)

Yes.

Mike (35:42.101)

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And then nobody's competing against each other. You're working as a team. So there's no threat any other way than the people that are there that don't. But even if we did a bad performance, they didn't like us, we still got to rep in feeling that sensation to get us ready for when it does happen. There's one little bit closer.

Jeremy Lesniak (35:43.338)

I love that and I completely agree with you.

Jeremy Lesniak (35:51.278)

Right. It is.

Jeremy Lesniak (35:57.646)

It's physically safe. It doesn't feel necessarily socially safe. And that's where the anxiety comes up. But you're right. The more you can practice that in that way, because there are so many people think. And I've done this as I travel around and I work drills with people. I've run drills.

that are scenario drills and not even high intensity scenario drills, but just drills where there are some unknowns introduced. You don't know which person is going to attack you. You don't know which technique they're going to do. And I've seen multi-decade, multi-degree black belts completely freeze. If you can't handle that, you cannot handle a self-defense situation. So, right.

Mike (36:45.974)

That's right, yes. And same thing with the demos. If the demo is too much, stroke self-defend to be worse.

Jeremy Lesniak (36:52.788)

How do you train that? You said that you work with people that you train that, you know, through that panic. What do you do to help people get more comfortable?

Mike (37:00.959)

so when I do those, like you saying, like random drills where you get these random attacks so they can respond to it. So what I try to do now is like, have them like they would panic and then start to recognize the panic so they can recover. So make the technique part of that and not having too many techniques. I know that I always say it's always hard because you learn so many great techniques and you get sentimentally attached to them and they're all great techniques.

but they become enemies together. So if you have a hundred techniques and then you have to count one to a hundred in the middle of a situation, it's overwhelming. You can't do it. So I try to look at the old GMAT to Patent Z Master's left us and the classic ones is the triangle. So all right, triangle, right? Three techniques doesn't mean it doesn't have to be three, but three is a requirement to make sure they have some kind of technique built and then let them have fun, build as many as they want in their own, but they have these three that they can kind of, and even that can be a lot to think three, three, know, through the set.

But I want them to almost like someone grabs them, they panic and all of they recognize the panic. So they make that part of the response. So that way they're not panicking trying to come through. had which technique to use and they're panicking and they can't figure it out and it's too late. They panic, they get a little struggle and then they do that one technique that, you know what I mean? That's it. And I noticed there's a lot of teachers I work with over the years that I show them some ideas that we came up with the technique and like, no, no, no.

you finish now, you don't have to add anything on, you just go right and finish. You know what I mean? So they're they're experienced to do the technique and that's it. Whether it works or doesn't work, you're 100 % committed to shutting it down, I guess, that idea. So trying to make it so if their hands are panicking, they recognize it and recover rather than being stuck in it and make drills so they can get that sensation, know, like randomness out of it in a sense. But you know, even with demos and even in a situation, you're always constantly looking at what you...

You know, people might come up and say, was amazing what you did, but in your mind, oh, I should have done this. I should have done this. Even demos, but even the real fight. But if you look at ways of training that sensation, the demos would be the easiest. Competition's a little bit harder because now someone's trying to compete with you. Other ones would be a real street fight or a plane accident or a car accident. And we don't want those. Those are taken off the list. know I mean? But I can appreciate it again, like, you know, young guys that can be very athletic in the development.

Jeremy Lesniak (39:11.434)

No, for sure.

Mike (39:17.367)

but I believe the wear and tear is just going to affect them. And it's too bad if they get to the point where they're suffering in life now because there's so much pain or they had to have surgery for that. I have MS myself and I think a lot of these things help my MS. One thing I'll say about this with it is, you know when you first learn something in the art and you're thinking and you had how to coordinate it in your mind to get it to happen. when someone, from my experience anyways, loses something because of something like MS or Alzheimer's or whatever, anything like that.

that struggle to learn how to walk again or wherever it might be is, again, like I was saying, that same sensation of being a real fighter in a demo, that same sensation, that's the same sensation we do when we struggle to do a stick drill again, or the first time we learn something. So now I'm constantly making up new drills all the time because I want to feel the struggle all the time. I want the struggle to happen now so it doesn't happen later. So I'm constantly putting my body through my mind, through that all the time.

I love like Grandmaster Buzz Dirk and Alan Azeoff School, Master Alan Azeoff School in Lexington every Wednesday. But part of Buzz Dirk and all those guys, way you do it. Great guys, way you can't always go on. We love those guys. But I love the first kata, San Chin, which in China, San Chin, the famous kata, they talk about three conflicts. And I always say like this now, because I love the way they talk about that. But mind, body, spirit, three conflicts. So now when I tell people to train is...

Look at them as three enemies, they don't want to get along. So you have to make them get along and hold them there and build endurance and then relax and let them go. So the body's active, the mind's really thinking about it and you're trying your best because the spirit, you you have a good spirit and you hold it as long as you can. Then when it's too much, take a break and shake it off. And I think if we're not doing that with not just martial arts, but with all workouts, then we're not 100 % committed and maybe waste a lot of time that we don't need to waste. We can get such a faster workout, you know, doing it that way.

But Patois, last time I was with him in Colorado, 89 years old, still amazing. Couldn't doubt he's one of the pioneers in the world, but he shows me, gives me all these little tips when I'm with him. It's amazing. He'll do housework and do things around the house and then stop and do a five-minute exercise of martial qigong type stuff and then do another work around the house and then five minutes again all throughout the day. And that's what he does to maintain himself at that age. And he still moves amazing. It's scary how amazing he is.

Mike (41:38.925)

But at 89 years old, this is not this long. And again, I tell people, you can do a five-minute workout every week for the rest of your life or the next 10 years. It would be better than two, three hours hardcore one day and all of you miss two, three months because you're so, you know what I mean? Those short little routines are so much more valuable, I think.

Jeremy Lesniak (41:58.692)

Building in that habit, that routine and keeping things sharp. Right. Right. It's interesting to me that as I get to talk to more and more people who are getting older, that seems to be the way that they're approaching their training. It seems to be fewer long intense sessions and

Mike (42:01.036)

Yes, sir.

Become an athlete with the yacht.

Jeremy Lesniak (42:23.522)

very frequent short sessions. You know, I'm going to do a form every couple hours or, you know, for me, I'm, know, I'll do a few minutes of kicks, you know, just kind of, you know, kicking around, checking my accuracy, you know, doing, doing a little bit of footwork and range stuff. and it's amazing how not just that can keep you where you are.

Mike (42:27.393)

Yes, you're right.

Mike (42:36.727)

Yes.

Jeremy Lesniak (42:53.218)

but actually help you progress. You know, you get back out there for one of those longer intense sessions and you realize, I'm not just as good as I was, but some of these things are better because I did these things so many times over a course of time. For my school, we send out, I call it homework. It's not required or anything, but it's...

Mike (42:54.891)

Yes sir, absolutely.

Jeremy Lesniak (43:16.502)

I send out seven two minute drills, one for every day. And if you do the math on that, that two minutes a day ends up being across a year as much training as most people do in two months. Right? if you compound that over the course of three, five, 10 years, it's a significant amount of training. And everybody has two minutes. You can all find two minutes.

Mike (43:20.124)

awesome, awesome.

Mike (43:29.259)

Yes.

Mike (43:37.453)

It's nice. Yeah.

And that's what I think is as well as instructors and sense, maybe, you know what mean? Like, like, like I said, we're always still trying to master stuff, but we can maybe see the big picture of what needs to be trained with someone new, maybe can't see that yet. So we're trying to show them how to do that. So I think I always say to this is like, because we've all gone through this, we have those lazy days, don't want to do anything. So what Mosh watch would you get away with on that day and make that the regular routine? Don't do the maximum routine because everybody does that. New Year's comes around, they get on that kick and they go to gym. Then you see him a week.

Maybe a month later, I got to get back into it again. They're all burnt out. So I think look at the minimum you can get it with on a regular basis. And then when you have time to do extra stuff, you don't have to be to work. You feel great. I'm to be four hours now. That's fine. Then do it then. do cater the routine based on how lazy you really are in a sense. And that way you'll never miss it. And you do five minutes a day for the rest of your life. And then you get those once a week, twice a whatever those spurts of doing two, three hours. You know what I mean? That you feel in the mood for.

Jeremy Lesniak (44:13.548)

that. Yeah.

Mike (44:40.301)

but it's not so much a chore where, again, I could be wrong about this, but I see sometimes some of the harder type training, sometimes people have like maybe an angriness come across and where they're, and it's not that, again, I think we all experience it. Like sometimes you get in a great routine, you train two hours every single day and then something interferes. And it could be something that you want to be there for somebody. Maybe someone passed away, you're to go to a wake or something like that, but you had to go to work or whatever happened to be and you want to be there for that person.

but you had this great routine going in and then it's like, I'll just, I don't know, wait till next week. I'll just throw it away and wait till next week. I'll start training again next week. And you give up the, cause it's so, it's just too much. And it makes you almost like, feel a little bit anxious and angered in this too. And where it shouldn't be that way. It should be like sleeping, eating, natural training.

Jeremy Lesniak (45:21.314)

Yeah. Or even worse, somebody misses the hour and they say, I'm going to make it up next time. I'm now going to do two hours. And now it becomes even less likely for you to pull it off. And you're never going to make it up.

Mike (45:27.061)

Yes. Yeah, yes.

Yup. Yup. That's right. It's too much. It's too much. So if you had that five minute routine where you didn't feel like doing it, you felt wiped out or you had to be somewhere, five minutes is out of the way. You know what I mean? I didn't have time for everything, but I got my main thing out of the way that I needed to get through today. And then you were able to do more things. But it should be, again, like sleeping, eating, just enjoyable. I know one year we were doing the MS walk and the police were crossing people for the walk.

And these people come by riding their bikes and they probably do it every day. But they say, you know, get out of the way. And it's like this anger to them. It's like their exercise should not cause that. It should be something that's healing, helpful. And that's why that's what we try to do a lot with Qigong and arts like that, the old Kundal styles that they have that quality to them, you know, hopefully develop us in a good way. But again, I appreciate the athleticism that people do when they're younger. But I just think that they may pay the price later on with all that.

impact, I guess on your body.

Jeremy Lesniak (46:30.562)

You see that, you know, I have friends who have, you know, I'm not even going to say specifically what they have because, you know, then people might, guess who I'm talking about. And I'm not talking about anybody specifically, but I have friends that, know, they've been training a while and they, went hard at it. And now I look at them and they're, they're chronically injured from their training and

Mike (46:55.425)

Yes, yes, that's right. Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak (46:59.02)

To me, that's counterproductive. I'm trying to stay healthy. I'm trying to make sure that my practice keeps me healthy and keeps me ready to protect myself if I need to be. Because even if I get attacked, that's a very small percentage of my time. I would like to have the rest of the time be good, not just get ready for that one thing that might happen between now and when I die.

Mike (47:15.255)

Sure, yeah.

That's right.

Yeah. And hopefully it will never happen. But, you know, we obviously realized it could, but at same time, no matter what we do in our training, we still might not be ready. I mean, hopefully we will be, and hopefully it never happens. That would be the ideal, but there's still that possibility. So if we put on the stress of, right, I'm going to take on the world, and all of sudden, no, the world's going to crush you if you try to. It's just too much, you know, too much of a burden. So it makes it really not enjoyable at that point. And I know some people use ideas of, right, well, so-and-so did it at this age.

But that's not the best representative because if you had, like Jack Willing, what an amazing athlete. But at his age, how many Jack Willings were there? If he was the only one, I'm not going to swim in the deep end. got there. What most people can do at that age? You see people doing the soft exercises. So all right, I'm going to go with those guys and master that now. So when I get that age, I'll be okay, hopefully.

Jeremy Lesniak (48:02.604)

the only one.

Jeremy Lesniak (48:15.906)

Yeah, you don't want to build yourself to trying to be one of the outliers because you'll always be disappointed. Yeah.

Mike (48:20.661)

Yes, yes, sir. Yes, And that's why a lot of the teachers like Bapak William de Troyes, I see that teacher. He's 89. Grandmaster Jason Nenetoto, 87 now, at the Kiti Terce Suratis. Grandmaster Savath Gubaton, his late brother Abraham Gubaton, but Savath is 80 something right now. And Grandmaster Olibe, I think in the Bering Sati Indonesia, he's in his 80s too. Yeah. So, so I hope I can still train at their age too, but Joseph Mencisa, Grandmaster.

Jeremy Lesniak (48:48.238)

All four of those guys are moved. They still move well, don't Yeah. Yeah, it's. And I think that's why, you know.

Mike (48:51.371)

They unbelievable. Amazing. Yeah. It blows my mind every time.

Jeremy Lesniak (48:59.862)

I, people will tell me, well, you're, you know, you're that that's inevitable because you're this certain age. And I reject that. I wholeheartedly reject that because here I am, you know, I'm, I don't consider myself. I still consider myself pretty young. I'm going to be 46 shortly. I'm the strongest I've ever been by far. You know, I'll go to the gym later today and I'll, I'll, I'll have a lifting session and it feels good. And, and.

Mike (49:17.345)

Yes, yes sir. Yes.

Jeremy Lesniak (49:27.348)

Maybe I can't progress in everything in a way that I did when I was younger, but I can progress in the things that are most important. I can make that time and I can keep the other things shored up by, you know, five minutes a day or two minutes a day or whatever it is, you know, do the things that I know I need to do to maintain. And maybe I periodically want to shift focus, you know, maybe maybe this art that I train is more important to me this year.

Mike (49:30.401)

Yes, sir.

Mike (49:35.243)

Yes sir,

Jeremy Lesniak (49:53.228)

And so I spend the time, you know, more time on this one than the other one I spend less time on. And I just try to maintain it. Because I can't do everything at once. Right? mean, I'm interested in every art. I can't do that. I know that about you, right? We have that in common. But there's just, aren't enough hours in the day. Even if I didn't have to eat and sleep, and even if I had a perfect memory, and even if I didn't have social commitments and a business, I still wouldn't be able to train

Mike (49:59.117)

That's lot.

I asked you. Yeah. Go to my line.

Jeremy Lesniak (50:22.986)

everything that I wanted to. Because there's too much cool stuff out there. And that doesn't make me sad. That makes me excited. It means I have this amazing buffet of choice.

Mike (50:24.161)

Yeah, that's a lot.

Mike (50:30.401)

Yes.

I think that the sadness and the senses is trying to do the best you can. I always concern about, don't want to let my teachers down, so I just do my best. That's only in word books. I know they're all effective acts. But I do now, and again, and I love to do stuff like that, not to pick on how it's great. But I was going say, I let these acts possess my body now. Not that I enjoy the other stuff, but what I looked at is, I talk about this sometimes, the...

solo exercise like the forms, the contours and stuff like that with the DNA because you think about especially with COVID just a few years back, people had to train by themselves. It cleaned the schools like the old days, right? So I believe in a sense they purposely did this so we'd have the DNA because people, always want to train with different people, have different equipment, but the solo stuff you can always do, it's always yours. You don't need any equipment, you don't need anything. And I believe they gave us gyms by giving us...

I think every form by itself is a system. There's so much inside in every one of those. You know what mean? So I do those 100 % for the workouts. I want to see what it to my body. I like the old, you know, from the old masters. I love it because it's from them too. You know what mean? They appreciate it that we do that stuff. So, but I try to do like, you know, just constantly be like an athlete with those exercises all the time. Not that again, I appreciate all the other exercises that are out there because people should do something to stay healthy too.

Jeremy Lesniak (51:31.31)

I agree. I agree.

Mike (51:53.613)

But I just want to see what you're It ended so much as it is to him. Well, all this exercise we get from these guys. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Thank you. Thank you.

Jeremy Lesniak (52:03.854)

You know, it's the, if we look at the physical development aspects of martial arts, take the combative side out and the health benefits and the mental health benefit, like put all that together. I think that's always been there.

Mike (52:20.481)

Yes, sir.

Jeremy Lesniak (52:21.226)

I think, and I think in our Western philosophy, I think we've become overly simplistic. it's a martial art, so it's just about fighting. And I know very few martial artists who've been training a long time who believe that. But it can be easy to see that from the, think that from the outside. But if I was going to put together a program that did as much for people...

as as I could to keep them safe and physically healthy and mentally healthy and add it all together it ends up being martial arts right you add it all together and you end up with that and I think that that more than any other reason is why we have that all over the world because it's somewhat inevitable when you start putting these ingredients together in a bowl you you get something very similar coming out

Mike (52:55.783)

It gives you everything. Yes. Yes.

Mike (53:10.797)

Yeah, that's right. And especially like when these are put together, when they had those exercises, you might live in a small village. There's no gyms, there's nothing around you. That's going to be your thing that you do. I think about this. always say how many reps of form does it take to get to this level? So Vipak, one year as we were with him, he was doing a seminar and it was after the seminar, we're just hanging out and I'm talking to a couple of other people and he's just kind of chilling out by himself for a few minutes. He bangs out a form, one of his forms and we all sat back and we're watching.

And then we said, but Pac, what form was that? He goes, what you talking about? I didn't do anything. So he was daydreaming the form and his body just started exploding. He had no idea he was moving. So I was like, how many reps does it take to get to that level? That was unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Jeremy Lesniak (53:55.886)

The unconscious performance of forms. That's a new level. I'm not there. I know that.

Mike (53:58.495)

Yes, yeah, he does so many reps where he did. Yeah, isn't it amazing? It was a weird daydream and we just happened to be in the middle of it, I guess. So that blows my mind when see stuff like that, different things like that that teachers are able to do. It's just fascinating stuff and some of the stuff they've gone through. But that's what I did, a friend of mine said years ago in census, obviously we want to get the idea that you can go hard to cover different elements that we could face in

martial arts, but a lot of those things were taught even before Bruce Lee did it, like in Chinese, tí dà shuì nà fà, kick punch, shoulder lock application, you know what mean? So, or method. So it's been taught going way, way back. So can we find, instead of finding another art to cover that, can we find the art that we have that would cover all that? So can you take something that everybody might say, like taekwondo, great martial arts, everybody looks at the kicks, but they do so much more than that. So...

Can you find the groundwork in that or vice versa? Someone that maybe just does all the groundwork and they find the standard from what they do. But it's like a math ball, but I think it, you know what mean? I think we just have to look at that way. Not that we don't enjoy doing other stuff outside that, but can we find the essence of all the ranges or whatever, the things we're concerned about and why not in a sense, be that artistic.

Jeremy Lesniak (55:12.876)

I think that kind of intellectual, academic, whatever you want to call it, approach to the art, I think there's, when you reach a certain point, I think that's what you should be doing is exploring that. There was, you know, I spent some time in Taekwondo and there was this one particular movement in this one particular form that, you know, some of the folks out there know what I'm talking about, that.

Mike (55:18.668)

Yes.

Mike (55:23.606)

Yes, absolutely.

Jeremy Lesniak (55:37.038)

You I said, there's no way that what it's presented as is accurate because you would never do that. And it took me about a year and I went, it's it's a throw. I'm scooping the leg and I'm taking them down. Completely changed the way I approached the form. It made so much more sense now and it clicked and it felt good as opposed to awkward and uncomfortable. Right. And.

Mike (55:45.975)

Yes, yes, nice. Yes.

Mike (55:57.143)

Yes, yes.

Yes sir, yes sir, yes I understand, yeah. I did Subak Dota Tung Sido for a while too myself, Man in the Muda Kuan, yeah. Awesome, great martial arts. I did when I was younger, yeah, but yeah I loved it, it's That foundation still helps me with all the stuff that I do. When we do, like when we'll cover in the Filipino martial arts, we'll try to cover the Dumag, the grappling element of it, the Pukul Siva, which is the Philippine kickboxing.

Jeremy Lesniak (56:07.806)

cool. You've done a bit of everything, haven't you? Come on, admit it. You've been... Sure.

Mike (56:26.039)

So any art that we experienced before helped enhance that area. absolutely, yeah, we definitely, you we put all that together. So again, try to keep nice tight sets for everybody. Even like that element too, like when we do the Puku Siba, the foundation sets, three forward sets, three kicks, three punches. But I tell them later on, have fun with more variations. We just use this as a platform to build and get an idea how to be decent at moving around with some kicks and punches. You know I mean? And then they can...

add on all day long, have fun with it. There's so much to it, you know? But again, if they want to do something, you know, like they maybe like to grappling to it, showing them a foundation from the do-mog. And we got a chance to do stuff way back with different, like I was very close to Grandmaster Wally J, but we got a chance to go to some Gracie seminars way back before the first Ultimate Fighter even came out. Hicks and Gracie used to go to Joe Maathie School in Waltham, Mass. We used to go down there.

Jeremy Lesniak (57:12.728)

Wow

Mike (57:16.293)

And then another friend of mine went down to Virginia for another Gracie. So and then like a couple years later We see the first ultimate fight like it's but just amazing. Yeah, amazing meal those guys over the years

Jeremy Lesniak (57:16.962)

That's cool.

Jeremy Lesniak (57:27.918)

It's cool to see that stuff develop and it's been neat to see how some arts have become, you know, kind of more popular over certain cycles. you know, right now it's a lot of the Filipino, the Indonesian.

you know, the CILA, Arnie's, Escrima, et cetera. And it's been cool to see that, especially for the folks who have been doing it for a while. And they're like, yeah, we've been telling you this for decades. This is great stuff. There's some validation in it. then a lot of the stuff that I grew up with, people are like, well, we could do that too. It's all the...

Mike (57:55.031)

yeah.

Mike (58:05.227)

Yeah, yes sir. Yeah, they try to have a good platform to build from. like when we, our program, we will do single stick, double stick knife, but then we'll go over to other weapons and then the empty hand portion, Pukul Sipa, which is a kickboxing, manana, manana, the close combat and then Dumar, the grappling element, and then build off of that. So they have a good foundation of those areas of Filipino martial arts. And then obviously the Indonesian and the Chinese arts that we'll share from those. So the Chinese arts, we do the pin san wun chong and then we do...

Jeremy Lesniak (58:11.042)

Yeah.

Mike (58:33.229)

Alpapax Kuntau, Chuanquxingy Kuntau, those and then the Silat is Ken Dong and the Barang Yinsakdi from Guru Libby. So I try to cover those elements. So that way we'll use those as our platforms to build stuff from. Yeah, I we can kind of hopefully work with everybody and get some different ideas from those ads. Got a little paper there, may as give me a strike.

Jeremy Lesniak (58:49.996)

Hmm. Nice.

Jeremy Lesniak (58:56.546)

So this is a question that I've been asking a lot lately because I've been thinking in this way lately. So let's say you and I connect again in the future. Let's pretend we did this again five years, 10 years, 20 years, some point in the future. And I said, hey, Mike, what's happened since we last talked? And I know I'll see you around, don't think I'm going to. It doesn't mean I'm ignoring you until then. But just for purposes of this hypothetical.

Mike (59:15.659)

Yes, sir. Yep. Yep, I understand.

Jeremy Lesniak (59:22.37)

you what would you want to, what would you hope you'd be telling me if I said, what have you been working on? You know, what do you, what do you think you'd say?

Mike (59:28.909)

I would say probably the biggest thing I'm trying to do now is make sure we have a, like I saying, with that foundation, make sure there's something that represents all the teachers that we train with. And I've seen people over the years do this where they work with one teacher and then kind of abandon that and go off to another one. But I don't want, I want to keep something from each one of the teachers that represent. But again, be very fundamental where we create a good foundation. we're not, you know, like, like, like say with, like a good story about in sense is like the 12 strikes in Filipino martial arts, very classic.

Everybody has it. Everybody has a unique way of doing it. I've learned so many 12 strikes. I'm just like, it's great. It's all great. But we teach the first five that everybody uses to work off of anyways. So we just made that. then if someone needs, you know, if we work with certain teachers, then we'll go over his 12 and we go to work with them. So people have that. But the regular platform, the five, that way we're not being in a sense redundant, but we build off of a foundation. Cause I've seen people do this without trying to teach maybe all different styles at 12 and take the whole.

You know, like in class you're doing 12 strikes and you didn't do anything else. You did a whole bunch of variations and that can be overwhelming too. again, it doesn't matter which one. It could be just one. But then they're all, I think they're all very important for the individual system too of that teacher. So it helps enhance it. But I think the five is kind of generic where it can go across the board. And then if the old master says, hey, you don't have my 12. Well, I'm almost there. I'm halfway there. I got five. But at least they can blend in and be able to adapt to other Filipino groups that might do that.

Jeremy Lesniak (01:00:54.41)

It's almost like...

Yeah, I lately I've been thinking a lot about a lot of things in the in way of, you know, kind of like cooking, right, and ingredients. And you've got ingredients in your pantry that you use every meal. And then you've got ingredients in your pantry that you bought to make that one dish. And you've never used it again. Right. And so the five strikes, that's the first thing I'm thinking of, right. And for people who don't who don't know this is the know, the corners and the sides and the poke, right? That's that's, that's the five. And

Mike (01:01:11.851)

Yes. Okay.

Yes, yes.

Mike (01:01:21.867)

Yes, yes,

Jeremy Lesniak (01:01:25.666)

that's there in everything. mean, it even starts to break out of Filipino martial arts into other martial arts. It's not as common, but it's there. I mean, there's only so many ways we can move the body. But this idea that you're building kind of that common foundation on which to lay those other foundations is really interesting. It's got some wheels turning for me, and I like that. I like when wheels turn. Sure.

Mike (01:01:36.055)

Sure.

Mike (01:01:45.291)

Yeah, that's right.

Mike (01:01:49.805)

And I the 12 strikes are important for each individual system and that definitely is very important. I think the five is very generic, but I've seen people do this too where they did original 12 from one particular teacher and then they went off their own and changed it, which is fine. They come up with some great stuff, but then they keep on changing it because they keep on coming up with a better idea, which is weird because they're great artists, so it's awesome to do. So I didn't want to go through that either. So I figured, right, let's just keep the basic five, make it very, you know what I mean? Because everybody's going to go through this no matter which system they go to.

and it's very fundamental they can build from. it's not, you know, a little easier to memorize and know, everybody's 12. And I've seen people too where they learn to 12 and they think they don't, well, they don't realize there's maybe, I don't even know how many 12, there could be thousands, I guess, so many styles. So they realize there's more than just that, you know I mean?

Jeremy Lesniak (01:02:18.957)

Right.

Jeremy Lesniak (01:02:26.241)

Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak (01:02:33.195)

Right. Right.

Jeremy Lesniak (01:02:37.666)

But it's like we were talking about at the beginning. Once you have a certain level of understanding of one art, you can take pieces of that into another art and it helps you learn that art. But this is another way of looking at it. If I get good at these five angles, then I can step into any Filipino martial art system, maybe for the most part, maybe not all of them, and not feel completely lost.

Mike (01:02:44.075)

Yes. That's right.

Mike (01:02:59.937)

Yes, sir. Yeah.

Mike (01:03:05.805)

Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Yeah, you'll see certain things like that and that's what we try to do in that foundation set that kind of go across the board like the five strikes, the Cinewallis, things like that are very fundamental. I was looking at like professor, he had the single Cinewalli, double Cinewalli, reverse Cinewalli. Those three, everything else is a variation. So that's a foundation set that we try to push too. But you'll see variations of high, low, high, low, you know what mean? Like tons of variations. But and that's why I tell everybody there still could be

more variations I've never even seen, but there'll probably be something based on that area of the double, the reverse, or the single. And it made something based on that. mean, maybe there isn't, maybe there's something unique, but I think we're probably up to 89%, everything pretty covered solid from those series. So when you get that program done with us, and so we make it very basic so people can make it, they can train, they don't have to think about it. And hopefully it gets the boy to respond without thinking so much. Again, like I said, that...

Jeremy Lesniak (01:03:39.864)

Hmm.

Mike (01:04:01.697)

They panic and they respond. They recognize the panic and they respond to it. Not get kind of overwhelmed or stuck in it, I guess, in a sense, through the exercises. Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak (01:04:10.562)

Makes sense, makes sense. I'm gonna have you close us up in a minute, us some final thoughts, but before I do, I'm gonna have you do websites, social media, if people wanna reach out, how do they find you in your school?

Mike (01:04:15.498)

Okay.

Mike (01:04:23.829)

Okay. thank you, sir. Thank you. Okay. Yep. Thank you. So our website is combatcali.com. Yep. Sorry. I my glasses. I can read some of these things. we're at 53 Mason Street in Salem, Massachusetts. our face. Yeah. Phone number. 978-745-2555. And the Facebook, May?

Jeremy Lesniak (01:04:35.918)

You

Mike (01:04:53.301)

Yeah, Moshroth Research Institute. And then we just, I'm trying a couple things. wanted to make sure we go over to Ty, Sarah. Thank you so much.

Jeremy Lesniak (01:04:58.154)

No, no, don't apologize, please. Please, this is commercial time. can plug anything you want.

Mike (01:05:04.775)

Alright, thank you, sir. Thank you so much. We're doing this one a couple weeks at Tim Hottman school on Buffalo So that'd be pretty good to Bobby's wise gonna be all those guys and every fun fun camp department that's all with the

Jeremy Lesniak (01:05:15.382)

Yeah, yeah, there's a there's a good tight Filipino martial arts community in in New York bridging into New England and I see you all you know that that group of you folks all over the place all the time.

Mike (01:05:27.185)

yeah, yeah. yeah, definitely. Yeah, we try to keep in touch with as much as we can. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And then we have a tribal leader program too. And we go through the list here, but we got Justin. Elmo. Elmo. Elmo. Sorry, I'm saying it wrong. Elmo. Justin Elmo from Maine. Mike Corner from Arizona. Adam Fillmore from Florida. Mike Lusherbilt, New Hampshire. Eric Manard, New Hampshire. Who else, May?

Uh, which deck? Yep. We check. Yep. And Tom and Carol from Connecticut. And then also my brother Ron, who has a place in Ipswich, uh, acupuncture, long time. John Savage. He met John John. John's been trained since he's done so much for the school. And we had a lot of stuff we wouldn't have. It wasn't with Johnny insurance and everything that he's been trained since before I was born. Great martial artist. So just want to little shout out to them. Um, and we said, oh yeah. And, my, uh, one of my teachers, two, Tom Sotis. Uh, we go way back. See for Al Thavo.

Peter Friedman, Tim Jolette, all those guys. just want to throw some shout outs quick. Jim Rosendo, the Pin-San Wing Chung group. Wu Qing, White Crane Kung Fu, Northeast Kung Fu Federation Chinatown. We're part of that too. So we'll have to bring in some time and have dinner in Chinatown with those guys. Great, great guys. Good time in Chinatown. Oh, Walt Isaac, Terry Dow. Just a shout out to those guys. They always have us in their camps. And Grandmaster Buzz Dirk and Alan Azoff and all those guys.

Jeremy Lesniak (01:06:43.084)

Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak (01:06:53.56)

Good guys.

Mike (01:06:55.637)

I think who would I miss me? This one. trips. Okay. Excuse me. Sorry. So, so May, Buffalo, July, we're going to meet with Bupont, Colorado. August, we're to be in Connecticut in August. September, BuzzDurkin, Rimal Torto, I think was going to be here in September, Connecticut in September too. Okay. Okay. And

excuse me, training trip in the Philippines, Indonesia, and then the FMA invasion Filipino martial art thing will be here in November 15th, 16th. I think I got it. What is it? Collective. Sorry, I'm saying it wrong. Collaborative. Excuse me. Sorry, guys. Sorry. I pronounced it wrong.

Jeremy Lesniak (01:07:44.718)

You know, send, send, feel free to send over that stuff. We'll get it. We'll get it pushed out on social media. Yeah. Send it, send us stuff, send us dates and we'll make sure we, we share that because you know, this, this will come out, but you know, we want to be able to put stuff out as it happens. You know, we, always tell the guests that, that, you know, if you're doing cool stuff, we'll, we'll help you share it because people want to be aware of cool stuff. And that's one of the things we can do.

Mike (01:07:49.18)

okay. You said that name. Okay. Yeah, make sure she said, I'm sorry. Sorry about that, sir.

Mike (01:08:04.481)

Thank you, sir.

Mike (01:08:11.086)

I appreciate it. Thank you, sir.

Jeremy Lesniak (01:08:11.886)

I'm gonna just remind the audience, know, if you want the show notes, we'll get a bunch of that stuff into the show notes at whistlekickmarshallrarchradio.com. You probably see some of it in your, in the show notes in whatever podcast app you're using or in the description on YouTube or Spotify, but there's stuff that they filter out when we do that. So make sure you go to whistlekickmarshallrarchradio.com. It's also the place you can sign up for the newsletter and we send you, we don't send you extra stuff. We just send you, here's an email, the episode's out.

Click the video, click the audio, it's right there for you. all those links. So if you love the show, make sure you sign up. But Mike, now it's your turn to close us out. How do we want to end this episode?

Mike (01:08:53.005)

Oh, I just thank everybody. I did just I say, like we said, keep on doing the best you can training, train, train safe and smart. Take care of yourself. And again, I would say especially like I was saying earlier about the old teachers or any teacher you work with, you know, appreciate everything they share. That's just so hard work. Nobody's perfect. And I think all the events we go to, like me and May always say to our own nurse, want to make sure we do a good job of represent the arts. So I know we know everybody, you know, we all make mistakes. We're trying to do the best we can. So

You know, just I guess appreciate all the outside everything that's shared with us. And that's all anybody really wants. You they may not be able to share and be appreciated for what they shared and the hard work they put into it. You know, they I think sometimes they say the West is always in a rush to get there. They want to be the first ones there even if don't know where they're going. So slow down, enjoy the journey. Have a good time with it.