Episode 1043 - Martial Arts Word Association 16: Pet Edition

In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew use a word association game to see if Jeremy can relate random words to martial arts! This time the words are all pet related.

Martial Arts Word Association 16: Pet Edition - Episode 1043

SUMMARY

Another episode of “Martial Arts Word Association” where Andrew gives Jeremy a random word that he could connect to martial arts. All of today’s words are pet themed!

TAKEAWAYS

• Rules in martial arts serve as guidance for students.

• Understanding boundaries enhances skill progression in training.

• Dog parks are akin to martial arts events for socializing and learning.

• Veterinarians can be likened to instructors providing guidance.

• Proper hygiene practices are essential for a healthy training culture.

• Crates can represent safety and structure in training.

• Training spaces should be welcoming and supportive.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Episode Introduction
02:16 Sponsorship and School Management Software
02:29 Word Association: The Pet Edition
07:38 Exploring the Dog Park and Martial Arts Events
09:03 The Role of the Veterinarian in Martial Arts
10:23 Dealing with Smells in Training
11:39 Crates and Safety in Training
14:04 Tags and Identifiers in Martial Arts
15:14 The Pet Store as a Training Space
16:12 Chew Toys and Heavy Bags
17:42 Closing Thoughts and Listener Engagement

This episode is sponsored by Martialytics. Spend less time running your martial arts business and more time doing the martial arts parts of your business! Martialytics provides easy to use and versatile tools for well-established school as well as ones just starting out. If you sign up through us, they will DOUBLE your free trial to 60 days! Check out more at www.whistlekickmartialartsradio.com/partners

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

Jeremy Lesniak (00:08.748)

What's happening everybody? Welcome back to another episode of whistle gig martial arts radio the world's number one traditional martial arts podcast. I'm Jeremy Lesniak joined by my great friend co-host producer, training associate co-presenter Andrew we wear a lot of hats together Andrew Adams. Thanks for being here man. That is you. When was the last time we did this? This feels super rusty. We

Andrew Adams (00:31.75)

Hey, that's me. That's me. It's been a while.

Jeremy Lesniak (00:38.826)

We banked a lot of content, you who knows when you're watching or listening to this episode, but we're recording this after a little bit of a recording hiatus for some personal reasons on my end. Andrew, thank you for your grace on that. But for those of you out there, hopefully you never noticed because you shouldn't have because we still ran episodes because we're good like that. Now, this episode, like many of our episodes, carries a sponsor. And today, I'd like you to think about martial arts. If you are, if you have a martial arts school.

You probably fit into one of two categories. You do not use a formalized software offering to manage your school, your students, your payments and all those things, because you think it's you probably think it's too expensive. Maybe you think it's too complicated. This is why we have partnered with Marshallitics. I went and found them. They did not find us. I went and found them. It is the least expensive option. It is great. We've talked about it. We've had them on like great stuff. Or you're maybe you're on this other bucket of

you use the software, but you are not thrilled with it. At the very least, you're not thrilled with the price. Consider Marshallitics. If nothing else, they will double your free trial if you tell them that you came through us. And if you want some handholding, if you want to talk to somebody on our team about what we're doing with Marshallitics as we build a stronger and stronger relationship with them, you should reach out. You can reach out to me, talk to Victor. Just reach out to me, jeremy at whistlekick.com and I'll pass you over to Victor and Neil.

he'll talk you through because that's part of his job.

And then the last thing, the last thing that we want you to do, and we'll tell you more about this at the end of the episode, but we've got this great email newsletter that Andrew and some of the team put together. They do a fantastic job. And that way you get every episode emailed to you right in your inbox. It just shows up and it's like, here you go. Here's martial arts radio today. And you go click watch or click listen. And it's fantastic. And as...

Jeremy Lesniak (02:40.086)

As we're getting better and better with that, we're starting to include some other fun stuff that you're not going to get anywhere else. So you should probably do it. And there we go.

Andrew Adams (02:49.006)

and you get a free book.

Jeremy Lesniak (02:50.614)

And you get a free book. I always forget that part.

Jeremy Lesniak (02:56.5)

Andrew, it's time. It is like we always do about this time.

Andrew Adams (02:57.318)

Yes, it's time. It is that time.

Andrew Adams (03:05.17)

That's true. We are here to do a word association, martial arts word association. This is the pet edition.

Jeremy Lesniak (03:11.875)

Yes.

Jeremy Lesniak (03:15.5)

I love pets.

Andrew Adams (03:16.752)

I know you love pets, although you do not currently have a pet right now. Maybe in the future you might. And some of these things, I have a dog for those who have never met or seen Daisy for Marshall Summit. She was at the hotel with us. She was whistle dog for the day, for the evening. And she'll be, if you want to meet Daisy, you can come stay at the hotel for Marshall Summit this year, because she will be there again.

Jeremy Lesniak (03:23.394)

definitely in future.

Jeremy Lesniak (03:28.302)

You have a great day. Easy as a sweetheart.

Jeremy Lesniak (03:37.838)

That's WhistleDog.

Jeremy Lesniak (03:44.27)

Okay, new event at Summit, the Daisy Meet and Greet.

Andrew Adams (03:48.818)

I love it. Totally. Absolutely. Come to Marshall Summit. she does her harness does say free hugs. So. Yeah, yeah. All right. So this word association pet edition, your first word is collar.

Jeremy Lesniak (03:50.931)

be the best-attended thing at all on the whole weekend.

Jeremy Lesniak (03:59.342)

She's such a sweet dog.

Jeremy Lesniak (04:16.622)

I'm gonna go a little bit out of where my instincts take me. So my instincts say collar, it's about control, it's not. It's about guidance, it's about boundaries. And in order to keep a dog safe, you put a collar on them. I know very few dogs that don't wear a collar most of the time. I know some where the owners take the collar off when they bring them inside, but if they're outside, they're probably wearing a collar. Now.

some of you out there, I'm sure it's different. I don't need to hear from you. I'm just saying, generally, dogs generally wear collars. Cats usually don't wear collars. Why? Because cats do what they want. And if you put a collar on, a lot of cats. Actually, no, that's not true. I disagree with that. I take all that back. Cats wear collars too, but they're little and they have a bell. And there you go. It's guidance.

It's guides in different ways. A dog collar, yeah, maybe there's a rabies tag on it, but you're hitching on and helping them stay safe. I don't know too many people, most people with pets are good people, that are using that collar in an inappropriate controlling way. So what do we have in martial arts that's similar? Well, it's the rules. It's the rules of the school. And when you start out and when you're training,

Some of those rules don't make sense. Sometimes you want to compromise those rules. Sometimes you want to go harder when you're sparring than or faster or you want to use different techniques or you don't want to wear gear. You do want to wear gear, whatever it is. But the instructors are responsible, not just for the safety. They're not just trying to control us. Instructors are guiding towards an outcome, whether that's an outcome for the drill, an outcome for the day, an outcome for your journey.

as a martial artist and in the same way that the collar allows the owner to better guide, yes sometimes control the pet, our adherence to the rules within our training space allows the instructors to help us similarly.

Andrew Adams (06:33.04)

Okay, so that was collar. How about leash that attaches to the collar?

Jeremy Lesniak (06:40.652)

It's very different when we talk about a dog or a cat. Because I've put cats on leeches and they don't usually like it. So we're gonna talk about dogs. Because I can talk about dogs all day. Because dogs are the best. If you saw my TikTok, you'd be like, dog, dog, dog, dog, goat, dog, dog, dog, karate.

Andrew Adams (06:50.642)

You

Jeremy Lesniak (07:08.874)

I think the best association here is when we think, as we think about skill progression, rank progression, but skill progression, instructors tend to give you a longer leash. You get more freedom. You have more opportunities, but it also carries more risk.

Jeremy Lesniak (07:34.368)

The reason respectful advanced ranks don't generally hurt each other when they're banging arms, legs, sticks at a higher speed and with more force is because they have a better understanding of where the lines are.

A well-trained dog is similar. I've seen plenty of dogs that hold their own leash. They've been trained well. They know what they are supposed to do. I've seen plenty of other dogs where, the owner's holding the leash, but there is plenty of slack in the leash. That's a dog that understands the boundaries that are in front of them. And where I think that becomes important within the context of martial arts training is when we know where our boundaries are.

we can work within them. And if you've been to any of the seminars that I do, that is a big portion of it. When we have clearly defined parameters, boundaries, and we work the material within them, we progress much faster than when we don't have boundaries, when we don't have parameters. What happens to a dog that is unsure of the boundaries of their yard or the boundaries within their home or their role within the family dynamic? It can be stressed.

sometimes even leading to Donnery's better.

Andrew Adams (08:56.4)

All right. There's certainly boundaries in this next word, which is dog park.

Jeremy Lesniak (09:10.604)

dog parts are like

Jeremy Lesniak (09:19.82)

Dog parks are like Marshall Summit and free training days. You go, you see people that you don't see all the time, you have a good time. I would say what we do at Marshall Summit and free training days for the people who really love martial arts. And if you really love martial arts, you need to make sure you're checking out what we do with our events.

Andrew Adams (09:24.889)

Okay.

Jeremy Lesniak (09:46.784)

It's the martial arts equivalent of playing at a dog park. Because there's a bunch going on. You get a lot of choice about do I do this or that or the other. You're hanging around good people. People rarely bring a mean dog to a dog park.

The, unfortunately there are quite a few, I don't think it's the majority, but quite a few by count jerks in the martial arts space. They don't come to our events. Jerks don't like hanging out with the rules, the collar, the leash that we have set up at our events.

Jeremy Lesniak (10:22.956)

Dogs don't want to leave the dog park. They're like, why can't I stay here? All my friends are here And at the end of the day at the free training day at the end of the weekend at marshall summit This is how people feel they're like I have to get in the car and drive away. I have to go get on a plane and fly away Yeah, unfortunately Until next time

Andrew Adams (10:42.352)

All right. I like that. I just had to take Daisy to the vet. So your next word is vet. Or veterinarian.

Jeremy Lesniak (10:56.814)

What does a veterinarian do? A veterinarian helps us if we were dogs or cats. If we were a pet, the veterinarian is helping us when we need more help than we can provide to ourselves or our owners. So this ends up being one of two things depending on how we look at it. If we look at it as a martial arts student,

It's probably our instructor's instructor. It's another instructor. It's not necessarily someone who is superior by rank. They're not also not even necessarily superior by knowledge, but they have a different perspective. And plenty of times when the pet owner brings the pet to the vet, the vet saying the dog, the cat needs this.

Sometimes the owner says, that's what I thought. They were looking for confirmation. They're looking for some validation to know that they're on the right path. Well, an instructor does that for us quite a bit.

Jeremy Lesniak (12:11.854)

The school owner might be looking for something that's different. Maybe that's where a consultant like me or there's plenty of others out there. Where you're looking for some business advice, some help could be, right? The vet has answers that you don't have or aren't sure of.

Andrew Adams (12:31.356)

All right. One of the things you often go to the vet for is your flea and tick medication that you would give to your dog.

Jeremy Lesniak (12:41.806)

It's deodorant. Next. It is deodorant. It is deodorant. But is there anything more to say? We're deodorant. If you train with people that are gross and smelly, you as the instructor, it is your responsibility to make sure that the gross and the smelly is dealt with because you are negatively compromising the training experience of everyone else and whether you realize it or not.

Andrew Adams (12:44.4)

Alright. That's- no, that's fine.

Jeremy Lesniak (13:11.422)

Other people are not sticking around as much it is hurting your school culture If you know if there's a person if I say to you right now, hey, do you have a school? Yeah, do you have a smelly person if you know who that person is? done You need to solve it Because they're not it's it's one of three things. It's deodorant It's their uniform it's usually those things or it's diet

There are plenty of people who eat certain things like don't eat a plate of garlic before you go train with other people. That's rude. Don't eat a plate of insert whatever here before you go train with a bunch of other people. If you want to eat a plate of garlic and beans and cabbage before you go train solo, be my guest. Don't come into my school after that was lunch.

Andrew Adams (14:00.602)

Yep. Yep. All right. Next word, crate. Sometimes used to take your animal to the vet or sometimes just in the house for your animal to go in and out of.

Jeremy Lesniak (14:12.566)

It's like Spark.

Jeremy Lesniak (14:18.254)

Most dogs don't like getting in a crate. But it's safer. You don't like this answer, you? You're making faces.

Andrew Adams (14:26.298)

No, I don't like the sentence you gave, which is most dogs don't like going in the crate. Most dogs, they are crate trained, Daisy will like we have our crate in our house. It's just open. It's in our bedroom. We have got one in the bedroom and one in the living room and it's open and Daisy will just go in there and sleep. Like often dogs will find their crate as a safe space.

Jeremy Lesniak (14:47.814)

I think there is better information now and I think more owners are doing a better job of not making a crate a punishment. I think most owners treated a crate for dogs and cats as a thing that they only get into when they go to the vet so it carries a negative association.

Andrew Adams (14:56.636)

Yes.

Jeremy Lesniak (15:11.884)

So I'll stand by my most. don't know how, you know, it could be 51%. I think it's more than that. But I think we're saying essentially the same thing. The crate is a place of safety.

Does Daisy go in the crate when there's a thunderstorm?

Andrew Adams (15:31.92)

No, she'll go on my lap.

Jeremy Lesniak (15:35.182)

Right? A lot of dogs look for a place of safety when there's a thunderstorm. For some of them, that's the crate. And that allows them to...

It's taken in the context of travel. Put a dog or a cat, especially a cat, into a crate when you're traveling, whether that's on a plane or you're going to a vet, whatever, it is a known quantity. It is a less enjoyable experience, pretty much for everybody involved. But you can do things because of that equipment.

that you could not do at least as generally considered safely otherwise. Sparring gear falls into that group. Most people, and I say this, like we make gear and for those of you who've been waiting, we have more here coming. It's long story. We're not gonna get into it.

I don't like gear. That's why I made the gear the way we did. Because it's less annoying, significantly less annoying. But I can do things wearing gear like kick people in the head and be less concerned.

And that's a great.

Andrew Adams (16:57.084)

All right. We talked about caller, but I want to talk specifically about the things you attach on the caller, dog tags or maybe rabies certifications, whatever, but tags on your call.

Jeremy Lesniak (17:20.814)

There's no one reason that people put tags on. Sometimes it's decorative. Sometimes it's to help them get home if they get lost. Sometimes it's legal requirements.

Jeremy Lesniak (17:36.568)

think the closest thing we have is like a driver's license. We don't really have that in the martial arts. mean, we could, you know, the closest thing to that is when people put name embroider names on their belts. It's an identifier. If your belt, if you misplace your belt, somebody is going to know it's yours. Right. Cause you usually misplace it at the school. If you misplace it at a tournament, maybe not.

Andrew Adams (17:50.77)

Mmm.

Jeremy Lesniak (18:05.068)

The belt itself, I guess I'm talking myself into this. The belt itself is an identifier. It's an identifier of your rank, roughly correlates to your skill.

Jeremy Lesniak (18:22.486)

And I'm pretty sure if you were wandering around, if you were lost, if you didn't know where you were, and you were wearing your, if you're wearing a belt, you're probably wearing a uniform and you walked up to somebody, they could probably help you get home.

Andrew Adams (18:37.17)

All right. Pet Store.

Jeremy Lesniak (18:47.31)

The pet store is the school, it's the training space. Because they run the gamut, some of them are amazing and I love being there and the animals are happy and whether they're selling animals or they're just providing products for animals, it's a place that you wanna hang out. And then there are others where you're like, it's gross, it's scary. You can tell if the animals are even.

If there are even animals there, can tell from their body language. Even the ones that they bring in off the street, like somebody brings their dog in to pick out a toy and the dog is like, I've trained in places like that where nobody wanted to be there. You get the employees that don't want to be there, the owners don't want to be there, the pets don't want to be there, the instructors don't want to be there, the students don't want to be there, the parents don't want to be there. Those pet stores don't last, those schools don't last. At best, they have a lot of turnover.

Andrew Adams (19:29.458)

Hmm.

Jeremy Lesniak (19:45.902)

and small student counts.

Andrew Adams (19:51.25)

All right. Last word I have for word association pet edition. Chew toys.

Jeremy Lesniak (20:06.19)

It's like a heavy bag. Chew toys are heavy bags, whether it's a stand-up bag or a hanging bag, because what is the dog trying to do? Or even the cat, I've known cats that do this. What is the pet trying to do with the chew toy? Tear it apart.

Andrew Adams (20:08.751)

Interesting.

Jeremy Lesniak (20:28.002)

We tell them not to, but that's what they want to do. And so we're caught in this loop of buying chew toys that are getting progressively more, more, defensible. And when you're hitting a heavy bag, you're trying to beat the tar out of it. And you know what? What is more satisfying than I know people have done this snapped the upright off the base of a standup bag or

Broken the chain or the bracket comes off the ceiling on a hanging heavy bag Yeah, you broke it awesome That who doesn't want it sorry I broke my heavy bag That's dragging rights Same deal every dog I've ever seen destroyed chew toy you take it away from them and they're sad But there's also a little look in their either like yeah, I did that I tore that I tore that apart. Yeah

Andrew Adams (21:08.658)

That's yeah

Jeremy Lesniak (21:23.374)

I understand that it says no non-destructible, just no destroy. I'm looking at you Kong. All the Kong toys are like, your dog can't eat this. It's like, you're holding gross slimy pieces in an hour. That was a lot of fun.

Andrew Adams (21:41.362)

All right. So there that was our pet associate pet association, a pet edition of word association.

Jeremy Lesniak (21:49.838)

If you out there have pets, please email me pictures of all of them all over the top. I've had people ask me, hey, am I sending you too many pictures of my dog? And the answer is always no. Jeremy at whistlekick.com. You can send me pictures of your dog. That will make me very happy. If you ever have new pictures of your dog, please feel free to send those over to me as well. And for those of you with cats, people don't take pictures of their cats as much.

But if you have a cat, I wanna see pictures of your cat. If you have pictures of other animals, if you have a mongoose or a horse, I wanna see those two. An ocelot. If you have an axolotl, it lives to be how long, Andrew?

Andrew Adams (22:27.664)

or an ocelot.

Andrew Adams (22:36.202)

Axolotls can live up to 15 years.

Jeremy Lesniak (22:39.38)

If you have a 15 year old axolotl, Andrew wants those pictures.

Andrew Adams (22:44.078)

No, no, i've got four-year-old axolotl four and half almost at this point

Jeremy Lesniak (22:49.984)

Andrew at whistlekick.com. If you're still here, thank you for being here. Thank you for your continued support and spending some time with us. We appreciate it. Andrew and I have fun with these, but the only reason we get the opportunity to have fun with them is because you're here. Thank you to Marshallytics for their support. And if you're interested in Marshallytics for your school, check out the page at whistlekickmarshallarchradio.com at the top for our sponsors. You can learn a little bit more about Marshallytics and you can reach out to us and we'll help you get started with them.

And if you have a suggestion for a guest or a topic, let us know. Join the newsletter list at whistlekickmarshallartsradio.com. I think that's it. Is that it for today, Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.

Andrew Adams (23:32.38)

That's it for today.

Andrew Adams (23:36.604)

Smile and have a great day.