Episode 1084 - Steve Pearlman
In this episode Jeremy chats with martial artist and author Steve Pearlman about his journey in martial arts, starting as a technique collector into understanding deeper principles.
Steve Pearlman - Episode 1084
SUMMARY
In this conversation, Steve Pearlman discusses the principles of martial arts, emphasizing the importance of understanding Newton's third law of motion and how it applies to martial arts training. He shares his experiences of training, the joy of community, and the role of humor in martial arts. The discussion also covers the evolution of training perspectives, the significance of confidence over mere skills in self-defense, and the philosophical approach to avoiding fights. Pearlman reflects on his journey from being a technique collector to understanding deeper principles and theories in martial arts, highlighting the impact of cross-training on his understanding of the art. Pearlman also discusses the journey of writing about martial arts, the need for a comprehensive martial arts canon, and the significance of community within the martial arts world. The dialogue highlights the unique nature of martial artists as individuals who engage in selfless acts for the growth of others, fostering a deeper understanding of their craft.
TAKEAWAYS
Newton's third law of motion applies to martial arts.
Training should be enjoyable and community-oriented.
Early training can be serious, but it evolves over time.
Training should focus on principles, not just techniques.
Cross-training reveals universal principles across martial arts.
Understanding body movement is crucial in martial arts.
Theoretical knowledge must translate into practical skills.
Depth in training is more beneficial than surface-level exposure.
Finding a good teacher and system is essential for growth.
Principles should guide martial arts practice rather than just styles.
The martial arts community lacks a definitive text akin to 'The Art of War.'
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
02:40 The Joy of Training and Community
06:27 The Role of Humor in Martial Arts
07:19 The Journey into Martial Arts
11:02 Confidence Over Skills in Self-Defense
12:19 The Philosophy of Avoiding Fights
14:13 Evolution of Training Perspectives
20:51 Principles vs. Theories in Martial Arts
25:42 The Transition from Technique to Principle
32:12 The Impact of Cross-Training on Understanding
36:27 Healing Through Martial Arts
39:20 The Importance of Depth in Training
40:48 Principles Over Styles
43:26 Defining What We Teach
46:00 The Journey of Writing
49:02 Introducing Martial Theory
52:09 The Need for a Martial Arts Canon
56:57 Building Community in Martial Arts
To purchase the books discussed in todays interview, please visit:
Martial Theory: Pearlman Ph.D., Steve: 9781735942223: Amazon.com: Books
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Show Transcript
Jeremy Lesniak (03:43.385)
Hey, what's going on, everybody? Welcome back. Hopefully welcome back. Maybe welcome for the first time. This is Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. I'm Jeremy Lesniak. Today I'm joined by Steve Pearlman. Steve, thanks for being here. Looking forward to our chat. And for those of you out there in the audience, if you're new, got a couple of things for you. Make sure you visit whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Check out all one thousand and however many episodes we've done. It's a lot of episodes and.
If you visit the website, you're going to find a bunch of things. You're going to the transcripts. You're going to find links. Everything Steve and I talk about today will be linked over there. You know, we've got the show notes wherever you're watching or listening to this. We've got show notes, but there are things that we can't put in the show notes because, you know, YouTube and Spotify, they they don't let us do everything. But if you want everything, whistlekickmarshalltortureradio.com. While you're over there, make sure you sign up. Join the email list so you get all of these episodes emailed to you so you don't miss a single one. Special shout out today to Kotaro.
for their continued support of martial arts radio and so many of the things that we do at whistlekick, k-a-t-a-a-r-o dot com, Kataro, everything they make, it's made in the USA, like this sweatshirt. If you know them, you probably know them for making the best martial arts belts. They just rolled out this gorgeous new belt display. I think we're gonna clip a image of that in here. If not, you can find it kataro.com and use the code WK10 to save yourself 10 % on your first order.
And with that, Steve, thanks for being here. Appreciate your time.
Steve Pealrman (05:13.385)
My pleasure. Honored to be here. It's a great podcast. I've been listening for a long time, so happy to be here.
Jeremy Lesniak (05:17.806)
Thank you. Thank you so much. So where do we start? There's so many places we can start. if you, the audience, anybody who's been around a while knows that I used to start in kind of the most obvious way, which was how did you start your martial arts training? know, I don't know that that always gives us the best conversation. So here's what I'll do. When was the last time you had a lot of fun in your training? What was the last?
moment where you're like, man, this is the best.
Steve Pealrman (05:50.921)
Well, I always have a lot of fun training because I'm addicted to the arts. And so it's always a pleasure to get on the mat. It's a relief. Everything else goes away. But I will say that last time I just had an absolute blast was at the Renaissance Martial Arts Festival a couple of months ago in Rochester, New York at Mark Cardona's school and number of instructors and students. And it's just...
Jeremy Lesniak (05:55.48)
Hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (06:10.446)
No.
Steve Pealrman (06:17.265)
A great event, it's light-spirited, everyone has a great time training and there are a lot of laughs. There's a great little community. So that was definitely the last time that I was just uproariously laughing during a martial arts segment.
Jeremy Lesniak (06:24.599)
Hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (06:29.262)
That's a lot of laughter. What brought about such extreme laughter?
Steve Pealrman (06:37.611)
Well, I mean, it's hard to replicate, but let's say we have, have a, um, a whiteboard that keeps some of the best lines. Any of the instructors offered during the day, funny lines. And, um, you know, so I don't remember any of them word for word at this point. Um, you know, but every once in a while, an instructor whips out something like, you know, sometimes you just have to choke a fool as Sifu ever, Gwynn free said, and so forth. And it's just a good time. We're all enjoying ourselves, not taking ourselves too seriously.
Jeremy Lesniak (06:45.07)
Mmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (07:04.686)
Yeah, I think there's something to be said for not taking what we do too seriously. For a couple reasons, think it's inherently what we do is kind of ridiculous. As practical, as enjoyable, as beneficial as it is, it's also kind of ridiculous. Okay, you're going even further than I would. Yeah, I agree. But then there's something else.
Steve Pealrman (07:16.703)
Yeah.
Steve Pealrman (07:25.343)
I think it's a patent absurdity. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (07:34.338)
I've noticed that the martial artists that I've trained with who have been around the longest and who are most, I would say universally upheld as being great at what they do, all have a wonderful sense of humor. And that sense of humor doesn't just creep into training. It's a core component of their training. They have a good time. You notice the same thing?
Steve Pealrman (07:55.509)
Well, think, yeah, I do. think that's for a couple of reasons. I think one of them is that everyone's happy in their element when we're doing the arts. I think secondly, people who are good at violence have that pressure off of them to be able to protect themselves. So maybe there's a freeing aspect to that. But I think a lot of times also, you know, we're able to laugh at all this in a sense or have a good time with it because
We're simply realizing that there's, what we do is kind of nuts. You know, it really is. mean, you know, for people who are dependent upon martial arts for their lives, you know, special forces people and police and prison guards who, who deal with violence every day as a reality. That's one thing and more respect to them, of course. But
For people who opt to train in the martial arts, think about what we're doing. We're hurting ourselves, right? We're getting choked out. We're getting submitted. We're getting thrown over and over and over again. There's nothing about that that's pleasant. So I think we have to generate a certain kind of spirit that contends with pain and discomfort. And we become comfortable with that. And we recognize in a sense the absurdity of it, but it's freeing in a way not to worry about.
whether or not you're going to be able to handle a little pain in the next couple of minutes because you know it's coming. And nevertheless, after you do that enough, your spirit lightens because that burden, that psychological burden is gone.
Jeremy Lesniak (09:21.986)
Hmm
Jeremy Lesniak (09:35.318)
Has this always been your attitude towards training? Were you one of the lucky ones that had great instructors that taught you this stuff early on?
Steve Pealrman (09:39.807)
Go.
No, no, no. I started much more seriously in terms of attitude. Most of my early training was by people who were not as jovial. I wouldn't say they were all, you know, wasn't all Cobra Kai nonsense, but there certainly were as a lot more seriousness to the training when I was younger, some hardcore schools and so forth where, you know, every instructor had a personality and they would
Sometimes we'd all laugh or they'd crack a little joke or something to that effect. But the training I think was hard, much more hardcore in my earlier days. I don't mean all training was more hardcore when I was younger. I just mean my particular experiences when I was younger were a little more hardcore.
Jeremy Lesniak (10:24.962)
What got you training? What was the impetus?
Steve Pealrman (10:28.107)
classic story of getting bullied in school and parents shoved me into martial arts and said learn to protect yourself. And that was fine with me because really my motivation was, you know, kung fu theater. Every other Shaw Brothers movies and all the kung fu theater and that was on Saturday afternoons and so forth. I was glued to it and wanted that, you know, wanted to have to stand on plum flower poles for 17 hours in the rain and
holding incense burners until some kind of magical martial arts skills appeared for me under the tutelage of a wizened old white beard master, you know? And that's not really the experience I ever got, but nevertheless.
Jeremy Lesniak (11:07.054)
Have any of us ever actually had that experience? You know, what I find funny about all those cliches is, is I don't know anybody that's ever had those experiences.
Steve Pealrman (11:18.283)
Now, I know maybe no one person who did, but yeah, for the most part, lo and behold fiction doesn't live up to reality, right? yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (11:32.622)
apologies, was your early training effective at tempering the bullies?
Steve Pealrman (11:40.477)
It was effective enough. know, it was, I was, I think once I didn't have to use it per se, but you know, when, when your posture changes, when your attitude changes, bullies go away. And it's one of the primary things we teach people in martial arts is when we do basic self-defense training is just how you walk, how you character yourself obviously makes a difference. had a funny experience though. I'm not a big guy. I'm five eight and five nine in college. weighed
Jeremy Lesniak (11:47.886)
Mm.
Steve Pealrman (12:10.187)
you know, 145 pounds or something like that. It's a scrawny, thin guy. And I was very muscular, thin, looked like a rail. I didn't look intimidating to anybody. And so I was in college, I was there my sophomore year and I was running a martial arts club. so some, we had freshmen, the first start of my sophomore year, the new freshmen arrived in the dorm. There was this one guy who's bigger than I was.
And I'm coming out of the lounge and he's going into the lounge and he bumps me on the shoulder intentionally kind of knocks me on the shoulder. He said, bullying me, which is really strange for a freshman to come on to dorm and start to think he can start to pick on people. But anyway, he also, this is college, mind you, right? We think we were beyond that at this point. But so he bumps me on the shoulder and I kind of look at it and I just keep walking. And then again, another time kind of does the same thing, kind of.
brushes up against me and pushes me a little bit. I just keep walking, I don't care. And then I hear somebody whisper something to him. And the next thing I know, he walks over to me and apologizes. He says, hey, I'm sorry, I was bumping up against you. I didn't know you ran the martial arts club. I'm really sorry. I said, yeah, but you shouldn't do that to anybody, regardless of whether or not they can kick your ass. Maybe you just be a decent person.
And he maybe learned a lesson, I don't know. it's funny how, yeah, I never really used it in that sense, but that was a great experience when all of a sudden someone's apologizing to you for being a little bit of a jerk because they're scared of you. Not like I was going to beat the guy up for brushing me on the shoulder.
Jeremy Lesniak (13:50.84)
Mmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (13:56.259)
Yeah, you bring up posture and all that. One of the things we talk about on the show periodically is this notion that it's less about the skills we learn and more the confidence that comes from the skills we learn that keeps us safe.
Steve Pealrman (14:10.059)
Yeah, I mean, I think how we character carry ourselves, comport ourselves, obviously all the body language cues that we give, the way we speak communicates a lot to people. Um, I think what you start to find is that more senior martial artists, people who really have it start to fill a room a little bit more with their presence. And I don't know if I'm one of those people or not, but then I also think, and then there are also the real self-defense skills that come with it, that you have to have that reality as well.
in order to be able to have that confidence. And I certainly have not experienced real world violence the way a lot of people have. So I don't want to suggest that I'm that guy, I'm not that guy. But nevertheless, as you start to get confidence in your skill set, it does change the effect that you're having on the people around you. Even when you're not doing martial arts. mean, you feel people's presences when they enter a room.
Jeremy Lesniak (15:03.042)
Absolutely.
One of the things that the subjects that comes up that I maybe is appropriate for us to discuss here is this idea that you shouldn't be getting into fights. If you've been training, you shouldn't be testing yourself. You shouldn't find out how good you are because you don't have to anymore.
Steve Pealrman (15:27.369)
Yeah, I totally agree. I don't think, well, I don't think we should ever initiate violence for violence's sake and to test ourselves, test ourselves in controlled conditions. Of course, I mean, there are exceptions. Yeah, so I knew a former Navy SEAL and he was very clear. I know that this is standard operating procedure, but at least back in the day, he was, this is long time ago, but you know, he and his friends in the
Jeremy Lesniak (15:27.65)
Rethink.
Steve Pealrman (15:55.061)
friend seals would go into the biker bars and look for fights. I think in that environment, everyone kind of knows what they're getting into. They didn't necessarily start the fights or what have you. Maybe sometimes they did. I mean, if you're going into a serious biker bar, I think everyone knows what's happening there potentially when they walk in. And that's a different kind of scenario. And they're training for real world violence all the time. But on the other hand, for most of us, what are we doing?
I do martial arts because I love martial arts. I did it at a point because I wanted to be able to protect myself and I always want to be able to protect myself. but really I'm not driven every day going to the dojo because I want to protect myself better per se. I'm going to the dojo every day because I love training in martial arts. love getting better at my skill sets, exploring the arts conceptually, understanding the theories and the principles behind the arts, you know, elevating my students skills, watching them grow.
I just love everything about it. And so while everything I'm doing is towards self protection and being able to potentially conduct violence in a very realistic way if I need to, it's not the foremost thing on my mind every time I'm going to the dojo. I'm really just about perfecting the art itself because that just is what draws me in.
Jeremy Lesniak (17:21.088)
I can imagine as long as you've been training that some things have changed in the way you look at martial arts, know, philosophies around training, philosophies around implementation of skills. You know, when you think back to your early years, you know, your first few years, however you want to define it to now, if we were to watch Steve's training as a movie, what would we notice that's changed between then and now?
Steve Pealrman (17:45.759)
That's a great question. So when I started training, I was an encyclopedia of techniques. I was a technique catalog, right? I mean, I would not only from our particular training, but any other school I went to or any martial arts magazine or video, I could get my hands on. I would remember every single martial arts technique I ever saw. didn't mean I could do them, but I would at least
could remember every technique I've seen and from this style and that style and so forth. I had almost an identic memory for martial arts techniques. And then that started to bother me because there's something and I was training in different arts and so forth. And there was something for me that was disjointed about it. And what's disjointed about that is, so it's great to train judo and you have the judo throws and stance and so forth.
And then you're training the next day, maybe in some, something like a karate system. but how do those two things blend? And, and, you know, there's always the argument that, they can blend within the individual and however they manifest, which is true. Right. I mean, you're still developing the skillset that's in your body somewhere and it's going to come out at some point in the correct place. But on the other hand, those are systems that are operating from different stance work.
different conceptions of entry, different conceptions of control, different conceptions of what, how it is to win or even what it is to win sometimes or defend oneself. How do we make sense of any of that? If we're going to train in more than one style and then was training Tai Chi and you know, so forth down the road. So I've trained in so many different styles over the years. But the point was that as we look at all these different arts and I'm training in different arts and so forth, I'm trying to say, well, how do we make sense of all this?
And that's when I, I mean, the first layer of my training was this encyclopedia catalog and then starting to question. And I think the next big step for me was when I shifted to looking at martial principles, and the, the underlying forces that connected systems together. So it didn't matter which style you were studying. We could understand it through the conception of a principle, which might be something like, let's say we, look at.
Steve Pealrman (20:05.875)
triangular structures within the body and bodies based on a lot of kind of triangle ideas Well now I can start to understand anybody's martial stance and structure anybody's martial postures Through that lens and I'm not saying that's the only lens that through which we can look at those Of course, it's not but it's one lens that we can start to then look at what are what are how are people? Establishing sound structures within their bodies in that martial art versus in the other martial arts
They're both doing it, but they're doing something very different. Or if we take a very basic idea, like for example, the triangulation point between our stances, the idea that, you know, I think most martial artists are familiar with this, but that if we take a stance, there are two legs of a table. And then if we triangulate each of our feet forward and backward, then we have two more, where two more legs of a table would be and they're missing, right? So those are the weak places of our stance.
And every style is always trying to direct the strength of their stances towards the opponent and minimize the effect of the weak of the triangulation points against them. So now if you start to look at every style and how they're operating with respect to stance and posture, positioning, now we start to understand how is that style designed to mitigate the risk of the triangulation points and exploit the triangulation points of the opponent.
Every martial art in some way was designed to do that because that's only, you know, we have to. But now I'm not looking at, well, Tai Chi is doing something different than Eagle Claw, which is doing something different than a C Lot, right? Now I'm seeing, okay, these systems are all doing the same things with respect to the triangulation points and stances, because they all have to. And maybe they're not talking about it that way, but they're doing it. So now we can start to understand. Now they might be doing it little bit differently.
Jeremy Lesniak (21:47.022)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Pealrman (22:03.039)
but they're doing the same thing with respect to triangulation. So now we start to understand that better. So that was my next layer. And I, my first book, Marshall power identified about 70 principles that we all function under. And, but then I went down that rabbit hole really hard, probably a little too hard and probably started teaching my students and practicing a little more theoretically than pragmatically for, don't know. I don't know how long it was, but
Not too long, but I went a little far down that rabbit hole and that changed my teaching a lot. But gave me lot of great insight and that exploration was very valuable to me. I'm not, I don't regret it. I value it. and then I think the next layer was returning to more pragmatism in my training and then taking another leap forward into not looking at principles per se, but starting to look at theory and strategy in the arts that principles, why would I
distinction I would make there is that principles are universal things that are happening regardless of whether or not we want them to be or recognize them. So for example, The example I always give is Newton's third law of motion. For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. That's a principle in how I define it because that law is operating on every martial artist all the time everywhere no matter what they're doing. It does not matter if you want Newton's third law of motion to be acting on you.
Jeremy Lesniak (23:13.934)
Hmm.
Steve Pealrman (23:30.695)
It's acting on you. And so the better you understand it, the more you can maximize it, which is what a lot of martial arts is trying to do. It's maximize Newton's third law of motion for power against the opponent and so forth. Great. But theory and strategy for me is more about how might we consider something like, let's take a simple idea of speed. Every martial art is attempting to be fast. What do we do with that?
So how are, I don't mean in terms of how are different arts training for speed. There are plenty of books written and videos and training techniques on developing speed. That's not really my point. My point is how do we start to really understand what speed is? What's the value of speed? What's the risk of speed? So for example, Dan and Asanto said, don't hide your inadequacies with speed. And so now we have something that we have to think about.
And I think we see it lot in a lot of dojos. was sure as heck was guilty of it a lot of times in my earlier training. No one corrected me on it, but of what I call chasing speed. So I'm trying to get faster and faster and that's great. Faster is better than not for sure in a lot of ways, but not if I'm hiding my inadequacies with speed. And what does that mean? Well, let's say for example, you're able to, you develop your hand speed so well, you're able to tag somebody, you know, really easily on the head with your hand.
Okay, super fast. But maybe you're hiding a better footwork that would bring you closer or put you in a better position. And your footwork really isn't that great. And you're able to use speed to compensate for the fact, this hand speed to compensate for the fact that your foot positioning isn't perfect or your footwork could be better. Now we all are doing that in different ways with all the different things that we're doing. We're always compensating for our weaknesses with our strength and so forth. But now we're starting to understand
What's the value of speed? What are the risks of speed of how we do it? How do we compensate for that? How do we correct for that? As we train, when we start to say, what am I hiding? What inadequacies am I hiding with speed? And then you start to break speed down. So there's speed that is the literal velocity and acceleration. And that's one thing, one way to consider it, which is how most people consider it. Okay. But then part of speed is reaction time.
Steve Pealrman (25:55.168)
how well I react to you. Part of speed is distance. If I'm closer to you, I'm faster, hitting you faster than if I'm farther from you, know, same hand speed. I'm half the distance, I'm hitting you twice as soon. So now that's another factor within speed is really positioning and distance and range. That's interesting. So now if I, how do I get faster that way? Then there's economy of motion. You know, so if I, if I, my punch is
half the size of your punch, you're pulling back and winding up and I'm more direct. If I'm half the size, I'm twice as fast. Twice as fast is a hell of a lot faster than somebody to be. But now we look at economy of motion, we can break down speed in a different way. And then maybe we're looking also at how do I slow you down? Right? So it's so many people in the martial arts are always focused on how do we accelerate ourselves? Very important question that let's not put that question away. Let's keep that question.
Jeremy Lesniak (26:42.008)
Hmm.
Steve Pealrman (26:51.722)
Very few people in the martial arts have an open discussion about how do we slow the opponent? Now it's not to say that a lot of martial arts don't do that in some way. I think many martial arts, most martial arts in a lot of ways make efforts to slow down the opponent, which might be something like a feint or could be something like maybe I'm creating a positioning that making them take longer to rotate to hit me, what have you. Plenty of ways that that's happening, but are we conceptualizing that that's happening? Are we training to see it happening?
Jeremy Lesniak (27:17.613)
Hmm.
Steve Pealrman (27:20.618)
And trying to understand how, what is embedded within our arts that enables us to do that to the opponent. How do we maximize that factor within our arts? Have we looked at our arts through that lens? So then I start to see all these other lenses through which we can start to examine the martial arts and no one of them is right. I think a lot of them haven't been consciously brought out in our community as much as we could be talking about them. So, that's my current, my more current iteration.
is the sort of more theoretical perspective, but wrapped deeply in what I refer to as praxis, not practice, praxis, P-R-A-X-I-S, which is the practical application of theory. So for in other words, if you, if all this talk about theory is nice, but if you can't kick ass at the end of the day better, that is not really doing us any good. Abe Lincoln said, I care not for a man's religion if his dog or cat is not the better for it.
Jeremy Lesniak (27:57.39)
Hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (28:10.423)
Right.
Steve Pealrman (28:18.086)
And that's kind of how I feel about, in other words, if your religion is nice, but if you're not a better person at the end of the day, then that doesn't do you any good. I think the same thing about martial theory. I'm not talking about martial theory just because I like it. If it's not making us better martial artists, better at self-defense and self-protection and in pragmatic terms, violence at the end of the day, then it's not doing us any good. It's not just for lofty navel gazing.
Jeremy Lesniak (28:46.712)
Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak (28:50.552)
That's quite the transition. Right? So we go back to the question and I'll confess, I did not expect that sort of an answer. That was a deep and detailed answer and I appreciate that because I felt like I was watching the journey of your training.
Steve Pealrman (28:51.564)
Yeah.
Steve Pealrman (29:07.178)
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (29:10.422)
I think most people start out and remain as technique collectors. How did you transition from
Was it outside influence? Was it a book? know, where, why, how?
Steve Pealrman (29:22.112)
It's
Steve Pealrman (29:28.62)
It was, there were a few little pieces that started to come together for me when all of a sudden I had an epiphany, but it was, I'm trying to remember, but so, uh, when I was back in the day, I did some, uh, Aikido and, um, when one of the things my, he was, uh, broken English. Um, so we didn't get it.
I think it's clearly, but it didn't matter. But he was, he was really talking about how you're only moving the arms really don't move much in Aikido that even though the arms are moving, that it's really, they're connected to the body at all times. And it's really the body motion that's driving the technique and the arm remains in the unbendable shape and not much else is going on. so don't get distracted by the arms. thought, file that piece of information away. Arms not doing it, you know, and so forth. And I, I wasn't highly skilled at it.
in the early days with it, but nevertheless, I was understanding that concept. couldn't do it as well as I wanted at all, but I could get the concept. So then I, you know, I get looking at doing Tai Chi and my Tai Chi instructor says the same thing. That's, know, it's Tai Chi is not about the arms. It's about the whole body moving as a unit and so forth. And then I get a Wing Chun person who says, just, you just move in your elbows a little bit, but shut off your hands. So then I realized this isn't about, if it's not about what the arms are doing, then there's something deeper going on here. And several martial arts instructors have told me there's something deeper going on.
Why in the world then aren't we focusing on those deeper aspects that are present instead of the more surface aspects? And there's a lot of good reason for that. And it's something that I worked through with my students that sure, at first we're all distracted by the arms and the legs and the techniques and everything that's moving in that way. I'm just talking about this one aspect of the arts about body movement, but because those are the things that are hitting us. know, those are the things that we're hitting with.
or protecting ourselves with. So we have to focus on the techniques because those are the things initially that enable us to protect ourselves from literally physically getting struck or what have you, right? That makes sense. And that's why that becomes the initial obsession. But at a certain point down the road, we have to realize that all those things are being driven by something else. And then if we can start to look at the something else, then it changes how we perceive the things that
the arms and the legs that are coming at us because those become less consequential. It's a very hard lesson for my students to learn. one of the hardest lessons I think for any of the martial artists to learn, which is that, say for example, we're sparring and I keep telling them it's not about the arms and legs. The arms and legs are a distraction in sparring. saying, what are you talking about? Those are the things that are hitting us. How can they be the distractions? Well, really I'm just concerned about their body structure.
their positioning, their tactics, where I am positioned relative to them, how fast I'm moving relative to how fast they're moving, how I'm able to deceive them into other techniques. Arms and legs and stuff are nice. I can kind of just put my guard up for the most part and often protect ourselves reasonably for short term against a flurry of arms and legs. But that's not really accomplishing much until we get to the person's body. So now we have to really look at this from a different perspective.
Steve Pealrman (33:15.103)
to answer your, go back to answering your question in specific, it was that a number of things were pointed out to me in succession that made me realize there's a deeper aspect to all these arts that's connected. And so then I started to catalog what are the deeper aspects of the arts. So I became more of an encyclopedia of the deeper aspects of the principles and theories than an encyclopedia of the techniques. Though that too still, I wouldn't say instead of, on top of.
Jeremy Lesniak (00:17.133)
One of the things I find, I'm not gonna say in all, but I think I can certainly say in the majority, maybe even the overwhelming majority of people who end up making this transition from technique to principle, is that they're cross-training. Everybody I've ever heard talk about this says essentially what you've said, it was my own experience as well. I started hearing similar things in different ways from different people in different arts, and it made me take a step back and say,
there's this universal principle here, regardless of how I stand, how I'm punching, how I'm kicking, know, regardless of the philosophy of, you know, maybe distance or power versus speed. These things apply all over the place. And for me, too, it was it was a pretty powerful transition and.
I went through almost the same thing you're talking about with your students where I just kind of went, okay, we're gonna go all principal. And they kind of went, what? So then there ends up being a bit of a correction back and you find something more in between that.
I think can work better for most people. you know, I yeah, as you were talking, I was nodding along going, yeah, I this describes a lot of my journey. So if we go back to those times when you started with that cross training, because I think this is so important. Why why the cross training? Because if you're in a position where you're collecting techniques, was it simply for that?
Jeremy Lesniak (02:03.617)
encyclopedia that you were building in your brain? Or was there something more?
Steve Pealrman (02:08.886)
I started cross-training, I don't want to say by accident. I was in one of my earlier schools to which I was most devoted and had, I guess, reared in, in some respects in the arts, was what was purportedly, this is back in the early 80s, the term that was going at the time was eclectic schools, which was the modern, it's sort of like,
MMA for today, but it wasn't we're doing the techniques of MMA at the time. It was more a purported mix of karate and jujitsu and kung fu and so forth. Different styles of kung fu and what have you. It really wasn't. It was mostly just sort of. I don't know, probably a basic jujitsu kind of school with a karate mixed in or vice versa.
But it wasn't a big mix of all these different styles and so forth. And so I thought I was doing it. I thought I was already getting all this different exposure until I realized I wasn't getting any of it. so I left that school very disillusioned for a lot of reasons.
I didn't want at that point because of the sorrow I went through leaving that school because I loved the people there in a lot of respect. I didn't want to align myself with a particular school for a while after. I don't think I consciously realized that at the time, to be honest with you. It's something I realize now that I didn't want to commit myself to a school because I had such a, got burned and had such a bad experience with it. It was painful.
Jeremy Lesniak (03:35.161)
Mm-hmm.
Steve Pealrman (03:55.714)
for me as a young man. So.
Jeremy Lesniak (03:57.818)
without, I'm not gonna ask you to go into detail, but can you be a little more specific? And I ask only because I think sometimes when these subjects come up, people think their experiences are very unique. And one of the things I appreciate about our show is that people can start to understand, I wasn't the only one that went through that.
Steve Pealrman (04:21.612)
Yeah, I was training six days a week, probably six nights a week or Saturdays or whatever, or close to it at the school. And the people there were kind of family for me. was a teenage kid. know, I didn't have, I had a decent home life, but it wasn't the most familial, warm, familial environment. And so, and I love the martial arts. So I was training at the school all the time and the instructors became kind of like parental figures to me in a way.
Jeremy Lesniak (04:24.707)
Okay.
Steve Pealrman (04:50.878)
And a lot of the people I was training with were friends and kind of felt like friends and family, right? And so what happened was this purportedly eclectic instructor started to make some increasingly outlandish claims about the style and started to use some reverse logic. So he would say, we're, you we do Shotokan. I said, can we be doing Shotokan?
He said, well, we do corkscrew punch and Shotokon does a corkscrew punch. So we're doing Shotokon. Now, so that's argued by definition. It's a fallacious logic. It doesn't work, right? It's like, well, know, race car drivers turn left and I turn left. So I'm a race car driver, right? No, you're not. So that was a real problem for me. And I couldn't...
Jeremy Lesniak (05:46.318)
Hmm.
Steve Pealrman (05:48.801)
Ethically continue in that school, especially because I had cheap, you know post black belt level and I was teaching I couldn't do that with conscience to anybody So I had to leave the school and that was very painful for me to have to step away from that So I had to give up all those relationships in essence That was rough. So I didn't want to have to I didn't read again. I wasn't conscious of this at a time, but I didn't want to have to engage
that kind of misery again. I, it's, yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (06:21.037)
It was like a breakup. A lot of people end a romantic relationship. They need time to heal and grieve and that's what I'm hearing of you.
Steve Pealrman (06:29.794)
That's exactly right. I going through the stages of mourning, you know, and so on. So instead, I just started training around with different people. I would go to different schools. I was down in Washington, D.C. at college, and I would go to different schools in the area. would, you know, found lots of people to train with. I never pursued a style. I never became part of one school, you know, as a dedicated student. And I don't recommend this. I think it's far better to find the best martial artists I know.
meant most of them, not all of them, lot of them are cross trainers, everyone's always learning and so forth, but a lot of the best marshals I know have a root system that is what they're refining most as they go forward, know, one particular, whatever it is, and their cross training and other things is also valuable, and they might be very good at different things as well, but they're really building one or two core systems, most of anything.
I think that's it's much better way to train for most martial artists, especially if they're doing it as a hobby and you're not going to want to be a teacher and, you know, teach 15 different arts, focus, find a very good teacher, find a very good system, one that meets your needs, whatever they are, you know, there's some are more self-defense oriented, some are more sport oriented, some are more kata oriented or what have you, but whatever it is, find that and go deep.
Go really deep, don't spread yourself across the surface. And that was the frustration that I was feeling as I was training all these different things with different great martial artists, great people, and I was learning a lot and developing a lot of skill, but it was saying, we gotta make sense of this. So my brain had to make sense of all of this seemingly disparate technique. And that's how it foisted me into the principles.
Jeremy Lesniak (08:21.249)
Analog that I've used over the years is language. And the first martial art that we use tends to be our first language. every other art that we do refers back to that. You know, I'm a native English speaker. I'm learning Spanish. Kind of hard to learn Spanish if I don't understand enough English for the Spanish teacher to teach me Spanish. Well, this is the Spanish version of this word, but I don't even know this word in English, right?
That gets really complicated. And I think that's kind what I'm hearing. And I've known people like this. That they, know, three months here, three months there, three months over there, six weeks there. I went to these two seminars and what they have cobbled together is, know.
Jeremy Lesniak (09:11.225)
some, I don't even know, there's gotta be some example with language that I'm missing, you know, where you're squishing a few different languages together to make one, cause you don't have any one creole, is creole like that? You know, it's some.
Steve Pealrman (09:17.944)
But I think if you...
Steve Pealrman (09:28.344)
to match. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (09:29.655)
you know, something like that. And.
So does that mean that you then kind of went back in a sense and said, what is my depth going to be that I refer back to?
Steve Pealrman (09:44.536)
Yeah, first of all, I love your language analogy. I think that's great. I'm going to steal that. Thank you for that.
Jeremy Lesniak (09:49.188)
Please do. I don't think it's mine. It happened. I heard it on the show. This is the beauty and also the pain of doing this show is that I get to talk to so many wonderful martial artists who I learned from, but I don't remember what I steal stuff from people. I don't always remember who it's from, but we can assume I stole it from somebody who said it on the show.
Steve Pealrman (10:09.41)
I will always attribute to you, as said by Jeremy Lesniak, as said to him by somebody else. And yeah, well, I I decided to go deep into the principles. That was what made it all connect for me. So it wasn't a style that I went into. It was the principles themselves that I went into and then use styles and my training and exposure to other things to understand the principles better.
Jeremy Lesniak (10:12.793)
Okay. Perfect. I appreciate it.
Steve Pealrman (10:38.636)
and then re-engineered my practice and my teaching around the principles so that we have a cogent system that I teach. I think it's cogent. don't know, a people might think it's madness, but I have a cogent system that I teach, but that's driven by all these principles and theory. And it will just look like a martial art. But, you know, until, but if you came into my school,
If you came into my school for class on Monday, it might look like we were doing, I'm going to pick something random here, but it might look like we're doing Wing Chun. have serious background in Wing Chun. We do some Wing Chun drills and so forth and what have you. But so it might look like we're doing Wing Chun. And if you came in the next day into my school, you come into the next class on Tuesday, you might look like we're doing Jiu Jitsu. Okay. Now.
My students understand eventually, it takes a while, it takes a couple of years, to really see that we're only doing the same things every class. We have very few motions that we actually use. We have a couple of core motions that we're always referring back to of arm motions and footwork. And we're always doing it. You wouldn't see it unless you knew what to look for. And eventually when you know what to look for and you see it clearly enough, my students understand. I always tell them,
dumbest system in the world. We've got, you know, like six moves and some footwork and that's all we do. But from that is our locks, our traps, our throws or strikes and takedowns and all the things. but really what we're always doing, therefore, because we do so little different, even though we manifested very differently in different contexts, is really reiterating the same principles and theory over and over again. We're just doing it.
different contexts. So the same principle, the same theories, the same structures when applied to a locking structure, locking context, looks entirely different potentially than when you're doing it in a trapping context. They look different on the surface. They're not different underneath, at least as we practice it, as I say, if we're doing it right. And doing it right is for our purposes in our system, not as
Steve Pealrman (13:05.742)
I'm not saying that we have the right answer to that, at all. But it looks different on the surface. Underneath, it's all the same stuff. And that's kind how I cycled all that back.
Jeremy Lesniak (13:17.881)
So when people ask you, what do you teach? How do you answer that question? People ask me, so what do you teach? And I say karate. And they say, what kind? And I go Okinawan. And that's usually enough to make them go away. if they have, you know, if people have been training a while, they'll understand that there's something in there and they'll ask a more specific question because I, like you, you know, have pulled things from other places. And I think all martial artists ultimately do if they've done any sort of cross-training.
Steve Pealrman (13:21.24)
god, I hate that question so much.
Steve Pealrman (13:30.296)
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (13:48.332)
even if it's just drills, right? But that was the thing I was trying to imagine, you know, if you have a school and you kind of have to market the school and people say, I'm interested in coming to your school, what do you teach? How do you answer that? Do you just say martial arts?
Steve Pealrman (14:04.662)
I start with martial arts and self-defense. And you say, what style do you do? And then usually I say, I'll say something like, well, it's kind of a mix of different influences. I'll say Japanese and Chinese influences and Indonesian influences or something like that. Usually they go away at that point. Or they come to train. That's more through word of mouth. Because I can't really explain what my system is.
You know, my approach to teaching is there's no one way to encapsulate it. You can only really get it if you experience it.
Jeremy Lesniak (14:41.303)
You need to make up an impressive sounding name. What style? it's this. And they will never have heard of it. So they'll go, OK. Because I think we've trained them to ask about the style. Because they watched Kung Fu Theater.
Steve Pealrman (14:44.16)
I do. I do.
Steve Pealrman (14:49.726)
Yeah, I agree.
I need something like, you know, I need something like, you know, ancient masters fire dragon and Kung Fu, right? And then the people go, that sounds great or whatever. And, and then how does that different? Oh, well, you know, you can't tell you about the fire dragon until you experience it. It would sound great. It would make things a lot simpler.
Jeremy Lesniak (15:14.437)
You know, you could you could I feel like this might be a joke, but maybe it's just because I'm fighting off a cold and I think it's funny. just say Tay. What do you teach? Tay.
Steve Pealrman (15:24.546)
I, that's because that's how I used to, what I used to say in my original. Yeah. my original system, I just called it. said, let's just, we're just doing Tay and people said, what's that? said, Tay, you know, that's it. And, that's what I called it at first cause I didn't want to call it anything. cause I, and I, I would kind of have a name now, but it doesn't mean anything to anybody and that's perfect. So,
Jeremy Lesniak (15:27.789)
Really?
Jeremy Lesniak (15:49.832)
You
Jeremy Lesniak (15:53.498)
Now, you mentioned before that with your first book, which suggests you've written more than one book and we'll have to talk about that, but I'm curious if your reason for writing your first book will hold true to what it seems like a lot of people, myself included, wrote their first book because there was stuff they were tired of just keeping bouncing around in their head and it needed to get out and put down on paper so you could stop thinking about it all the time.
Steve Pealrman (16:23.799)
I wish that was the case. Yeah, no, I, well, I mean, there was a lot of reasons for writing. think I'm a writer as a writing instructor for 35 years in higher education. So writing is endemic to me. I, I'm a, yeah, I'm a different, I'm a different human that I like to think about writing and the theory of writing. So, I don't, I don't know why anyone would have this interest, but I do. So.
Jeremy Lesniak (16:25.248)
Okay, that's not okay.
Jeremy Lesniak (16:34.553)
Okay. Okay, so you're you're a different sort of martial arts book writer than than okay.
Ha ha!
Steve Pealrman (16:53.357)
But yeah, so I wrote it because I wanted to it's not getting out of my head, but I want to formalize the list of principles. It started off the book started off as I was I was making something for my students. Like let me just been talking about all these principles. Let me write down the list of principles that we're using and give an explanation of each one. Well, that's a book Steve when you're done with it. So that's how it started.
And I wish it had gotten out of my head so I'd have to stop thinking about it, but it just made me obsess about them all the more. So I'm kind standing towards the next book. So yeah, that didn't happen. But I am actually in process of revising that first book for a second edition because as I went back and looked at it in service of writing the new book, I was so upset with what I'd written. I'm way over the critic.
Jeremy Lesniak (17:49.252)
Well, how long ago had you written it? OK, and right. Shouldn't you be disappointed? Shouldn't that suggest that you've grown? Right. Like, I heard about you. I look back at some of the things I've done 20 years ago, know, martial arts and otherwise and go.
Steve Pealrman (17:51.501)
20 years.
Steve Pealrman (18:03.725)
Yeah, it's awful. And of course I should write I should have a much better understanding now that I did then which I do I'm also just hate looking at my writing Yeah, I'm actually I think I'm an accomplished writer actually, but I hate looking at it because I'm my own worst critic about it But anyway, so yeah as I went back and looked at it I went god cringe and so I had to I feel I'm compulsed to To rewrite it and revise it and add to it
I was just going go in and do a minor adjustments and just maybe put a little commentary on some things and then turn into more of a... It's really not. You read me like a book, so to speak. So I don't remember where we're going with this, but I think maybe I am.
Jeremy Lesniak (18:34.777)
You don't strike me as the minor adjustment sort of person. I can't imagine that's ever part of your personality.
Jeremy Lesniak (18:48.851)
Tell me about the new book. If there's a new book, what's going on with that one?
Steve Pealrman (18:53.121)
New books called Martial Theory. And so the first book was the Book of Martial Power, the new book's Martial Theory. And Martial Theory is a look into, well, let put you this way. So I started after my first book, I was writing a number of essays. And I thought eventually I'm gonna publish a book, a collection of essays on the martial arts. I didn't have a strong ambition to write another book at all, actually, but I was writing these essays and I thought, all right, eventually.
I'll cobble them together and see if there's a book there. And every time I went back and looked at one of my essays, I knew something was really missing from it. And I didn't know what it was. It was bothering me. And I couldn't figure out why this was so unsuccessful. And they were decent essays. I was saying some nice things about some insights that I had into the arts. think they would have been worth reading in some respect. But something was really missing. And I realized was that there was no context for it. And the context being
other thinkers in the martial arts. I was just saying these ideas and they were floating in the vacuum of me or in the space of me and not contextualized by other writers and thinkers in the arts and set over the years for centuries. And then I realized something that was very uncomfortable for me. And I think a lot of your listeners, I would imagine, have a similar feeling.
that maybe I'm going to give voice to that they hadn't conceptualized until now. Because a lot of people have said this has resonated with them. The martial arts world does not have its own art of war.
We have not had a text that does for the martial arts what the military has in terms of texts for theories about warfare, war strategy. So there's the Art of War by Sunza, right? Famous text even read in business schools and what have you. There's Onward by Von Clausewitz, right? There's work by Little Hard, very famous books on warfare.
Steve Pealrman (21:02.753)
And I said, wait a second, wait a second, we don't have one of those. One of the most frequent ones that's often referenced as something that is doing that is Dao Jid Kundal. And that's a great book, but if you really look at it, it's not a universal book of martial arts theory. A lot of it's about boxing technique and so forth and which points of the hand you can use to strike with and so forth.
and some philosophies about footwork that are very useful or different philosophies about different things. And I love the Dow Deep Hindu, it's a great book, but it's not really as universal as people often assert that it is if we really break it down. And I say, know, we need, the martial arts community deserves its own art of war, not just because we need it to have a conversation on that level and we deserve it. And there's so many of us, I think, who are thinking,
thirsting for deeper ways to think about our arts and our practice and to communicate with one another about what we're doing and gain insights that we hadn't had before. especially for instructors who want deeper levels of understanding of how to communicate their style and what insights there are there. But more so that warfare began with martial arts, right? All warfare was originally predicated on martial arts. was hand-to-hand combat.
It was all martial arts to begin with. So all these books that are about warfare, you know, skipped a step because the original sense of warfare was one on one, hand to hand combat, not necessarily a duel, even on a battlefield, you're only really engaging one opponent at a time, right, generally, or you get killed. But if all warfare really started with martial arts, why don't we first have texts that are talking about
the theory of martial arts that's universal to everybody. so like things I was talking about with speed, that hiding our speed or not hiding our speed or slowing the opponent, not slowing the opponent, that's universal. Now you might manifest it very differently in different styles, but that's present everywhere. And so I was the, you know, the perfect idiot to think that I could go then and write the art of war for the martial arts, which I hope I did, but who knows when I accomplished or not, time will tell.
Steve Pealrman (23:26.241)
But so anyway, a few years, 130,000 words and 500 references later, pops up Marshall Theory. And that's how that book came about and sort of what it's trying to accomplish.
Jeremy Lesniak (23:43.29)
Right, that's awesome. Anyone who's written a book, and we have some folks in the audience who have written books, they know it is rarely a fruitful, financially fruitful endeavor. It's generally a pursuit of passion. I've written a few books, it's exhausting work.
Steve Pealrman (23:52.333)
I've probably read them.
Steve Pealrman (23:57.207)
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (24:06.893)
But I think the goal, whether or not you've achieved the goal, and I think that's entirely subjective to the reader, I think the recognition that this is a gap in what we have in our libraries, I think is quite apt because while we keep using the art of war and pulling it into the martial arts space and treating it as a martial arts book, you're right, it really isn't. And if we had something else, we wouldn't be doing that.
The closest thing that comes to mind for me, not that it's the same or on the same level, is Zen and the martial arts. You know, that's the closest I can think of.
Steve Pealrman (24:53.207)
Yeah, Hayim's book is a great book. you know, especially when I was younger, loved it, it is also talking more about some Zen philosophy than it is really talking about martial theory. For some of it, it goes back and forth. And your point about, I forgot, about how art of war doesn't always translate. And I talk about this in martial theory. So we're always making, we're using it by analogy.
And that's useful. Analogy can be useful, but it's not direct and we should have something more direct. so when Sunza says, you know, make sure your supply chains are, you know, well-firmed and in close proximity to your front lines and so forth, right? That's nice. And then we go, okay, so that means that the supply to my power is my feet and it goes up my body that I've got to align my body in a certain way. We're trying to make these analogies back to the art of war. thinking analogously is valuable.
exercise we can learn a lot from it. I don't suggest otherwise. But often we're stretching and it breaks down and it doesn't really work because it's not really about martial arts and it's all we had to turn to. And again this is the irony right. The irony is that warfare started with martial arts and yet now here we are as martial artists trying to draw theory from warfare. And we shouldn't have to do that. We shouldn't have to do that. We should get our own text. And so I will say this whether or not
You know what I achieved as you said is a subjective but I can assure you that it is Universal in the sense that there's nothing style specific about what I've written. Yeah There are examples of things through different styles and being discussed But there's that the text is purely universal to any martial artist anyone any stage of their training Will get stuff out of it whether or not, you know, who knows how great is I think it's good. We'll see what happens down
Jeremy Lesniak (26:28.729)
That's great.
Jeremy Lesniak (26:48.843)
Awesome. Awesome. How do people find that book?
Steve Pealrman (26:52.141)
It's on Amazon. And I also have, there's a workbook that goes with it. And one of the things that I realized as I was writing it was that I'm talking about all these, all this stuff that martial arts have talked about for centuries about speed, power. And I bring in concepts like time. How do we, what's the role of time in martial arts? we ever looked at it through that lens that really martial arts is a battle for time. It's a battle in time.
Jeremy Lesniak (26:57.121)
Okay.
Steve Pealrman (27:19.789)
That's about a four time. If I can slow you, if I can take one, if I can take your next second of the fight and own your next second, then I should be alone in the second after that. Right. In a sense, martial arts is a battle for time in the sense that it's a battle for all. If in lethal combat, I want all your time, jazz, Jeremy, on every second you ever have left, because I'm going to take it all away. I'm taking away all the rest of your time, right? Because I'm going to kill you. Your time is done.
Jeremy Lesniak (27:44.099)
sure.
Steve Pealrman (27:47.981)
in lethal if we were in mortal combat. I don't expect that the other us will be in mortal combat with each other anytime soon. I hope not. But just saying in theory, that's what the goal would be as yours would be for me. But if I'm not going to take all of your time, I want to at least take your next second. I want to own that next second. How do we own that next segment? Have we looked at our martial art that way?
Jeremy Lesniak (27:55.097)
I hope not.
Steve Pealrman (28:10.775)
So I realized that a lot of people who are reading this, are going to get some of these ideas and have things to think about will need a way to help them connect it to their own practice and to think about, wait second. He's talking about inadequacies, hiding inadequacies with speed and different facets of speed, timing and distance and so forth. How does that play out in my martial art? What does that do in my training? What does that look like if I'm doing?
If I'm practicing Taekwondo, how does that manifest in Taekwondo? Or if somebody else is over there and they're doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, how do those things manifest in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu so that they can know to train them better and become better martial artists through it? So I created a workbook and the workbook allows you to reflect on every chapter and how it connects to your own practice. And the art has questions that you can just answer at your own leisure that make the connections to your own training.
The people who have been going through it so far said that this was critical, that it was the smartest thing I did was to create this workbook to go with it because otherwise they wouldn't be able to make the connections as much as they are. I think that's true for some people, I think it's not true for others. Others just make the connections more genuinely or in more relaxed way. But I think putting them both out there was a valuable endeavor.
Jeremy Lesniak (29:13.518)
No, that's great.
Jeremy Lesniak (29:36.633)
Awesome.
Jeremy Lesniak (29:42.242)
more books, right? I'm just, I'm always throwing people, right? More books because different books resonate for different people for different reasons. And you know, you've made a pretty clear case why you wrote this. And I think it makes a lot of sense. And, know, I hope everyone will at least check it out and consider it. just, just a reminder, cause we haven't had an author on in a little while. I always like to hit this point once in a while. we're,
Steve Pealrman (30:00.767)
I hope so.
Jeremy Lesniak (30:11.341)
We're probably gonna have a link in the show notes for this. I hope we do. We receive nothing for that. Nobody has ever paid to come on this show. Nobody ever will pay to come on this show. If they sell something as a result of being on their show, we receive nothing of that. We've had people offer in the past. I reject it 100%. I say, if you want to throw something to us, give the audience an even bigger discount. Right? So my encouragement to the audience to check out the book is completely selfless.
Steve Pealrman (30:39.468)
Thank you for saying that, it's very true, and I'll get the check in the mail to you tomorrow.
Jeremy Lesniak (30:43.033)
This is a place where I think we're going to start to whine. So my question for you is, how do we want to end? You know, I want to again thank the audience. I want to thank Kataro. I want to thank you, Steve, for being here because I can't do the episode without you. But we've kind of run all over the map today. And how do we close out? Where do you want to leave it?
Steve Pealrman (31:12.716)
Well, I'd like to take 10 seconds of shameless self promotion and also mention Marshall Theory University, marshalltheory.com, where you can see me demonstrating a lot of the concepts in the book in video, because I realized, know, books only go so far. And not just me, more importantly, we've got tons of other instructors there who are giving what they see in the book and how it manifests in their art. So it's not about me. It's really more about seeing
Jeremy Lesniak (31:17.273)
Please do.
Steve Pealrman (31:42.261)
all these ideas brought forth by so many other instructors. And I just think that's important to note because it's about building community and conversation in the end. But I don't know where to end. This has been great. And I think, I guess where I'd like to end is maybe trying to talk about our community a little bit.
It's funny when you're really involved in martial arts community over the years, see, and I'm sure you've seen this as well, and maybe you have a similar or different take on it. I'd be curious to know, but it's interesting to see the crazes and the trends that sweep through the community. Of course, Karate Kid hits, and everyone's running to their nearest karate school, and they all want Mr. Miyagi, and Ninjitsu hits, and...
Everyone's trying to find a ninja to train under, you can't ever find a ninja, which is one of the problems. And then, right, so then UFC hits and everyone's BJJ and MMA, know, Krav comes on the scene. Lots of people are getting attracted to that. There are all these different trends in the martial arts community. But I think in the recent years, we've seen some more contentiousness because we have
So much of what goes on online in the martial arts now is people are so easy to criticize one another on social media, rightly or wrongly. mean, think going on criticizing people is not productive as an endeavor in itself. But that doesn't mean some of the criticisms couldn't be valid. But so we have some of this contentiousness that's been going on. And I think there's also some
feuding between the MMA group and the traditionalists, right? And the modernists, the Krav people and the traditionalists and so on. And I think it's a shame that some of this has come to emerge as fueled by social media because, and I get it, I understand why some of this has emerged. I understand why some of the criticisms of traditional arts emerged. Right, I'm not saying they're right.
Steve Pealrman (34:02.772)
saying some of has emerged and I understand some of the why these different communities are sometimes having trouble understanding each other better. And one of the reasons one of the things that wasn't my motivation for writing text one of the good things I think that comes out of it potentially is that we have another way to have a conversation with each other that when we realize that that
modern street self-defense systems are really doing the same stuff they were doing in classical arts back in the day in a lot of respect, even down to some of the psychology of training. It doesn't mean that there haven't been any evolutions or breakthroughs or ideas emerging, but it does mean that we can have a conversation again about all of it.
I think that's really important that we can think more deeply about the arts and have a conversation with each other on a deeper level. And I think really, in a sense, the martial arts community has been thirsting for that of late. I think a lot of people are tired of the places where we see discord. And there's a lot of community, of course, but I think a lot of people are tired of the social media places where we see discord about the arts and they want a way to do that. And I think...
My call for all martial artists is to deepen that conversation and see what we can do together more rather than apart or rather than in discord with one another. Everyone who's doing martial arts are really all a family. We just have to sometimes be, but sometimes family feuds are the worst ones, right? That's for sure. Yeah. But one of the things I also mentioned is that
Jeremy Lesniak (35:50.841)
to the story.
Steve Pealrman (35:58.881)
We're weird people, martial artists, because it kind of brings us full circle to what we were talking about earlier, almost at the start. We're very strange people that we go there and we let people throw us and lock us and put us in pain and hit us. That's a weird thing to do. It's hard to explain to anybody. would you want to do that exactly? So you go there and they hit you and you like it. And you go, yeah, it's great. they go, well, wait a second, what?
and go back tomorrow. But it's one of the things that comes out of that is we're the people who will put us selves through pain and and hard work and and the risk of injury or serious injury in somebody else's hands so that somebody else can get better at something. Right now, in part, there's a selfishness to that because we do it because we want to become better ourselves.
but there's also a hell of a lot of selflessness to that because I'm giving myself into somebody else's care for a gentle term so that they may learn and putting myself at risk or in pain so that they may learn. You're letting somebody choke you out, that's a real risk. You gotta make sure they stop. So that's a real risk.
We're people who do that for other people. All martial artists are people who do that for other people. Nobody becomes good at martial arts without feeling the other side of it. So we're extraordinary people in that respect. We're very selfless. The capacity of amazing selflessness to do that for somebody else. Most people can't do it. And there a lot of people who come to martial arts who think that they're gonna continue with martial arts and they get thrown off by that.
by the hardship of martial arts. They want to be able to kick ass, but they don't realize that they gotta experience it on the flip side a lot of times before they can do it, and they're not up for it. And that's okay. They're more power to whatever they go and do and so forth. We're weirdos, but we are weirdos who give so selflessly to other people and who also care for one another very carefully because when you're there, you can break somebody's arm.
Steve Pealrman (38:23.748)
And you're at that moment where you can snap their arm like a twig and you don't, right? That's an act of integrity and responsibility and maturity that's very important. We've all seen people go too far sometimes, especially new people come in and they go too far. But ultimately we transform into being much more responsible people with great integrity and honor because you have to train that way. You got to be able to trust one another to train you. So
I think we're extraordinary people in a lot of respects and I think we should rely on that and fuel that a lot more because why not? I mean it's worth talking about.