Episode 1089 - Martial Arts Goals for 2026
In this episode Jeremy and Andrew discuss listeners’ martial arts goals for 2026 and give advice on how they might help.
Martial Arts Goals for 2026 - Episode 1089
SUMMARY
In this episode, Jeremy Lesniak and Andrew Adams discuss various aspects of setting and achieving martial arts goals for the upcoming year. They delve into the importance of consistency in training. The conversation also covers the significance of defining clear goals, converting kata, and the essential steps to opening a martial arts school, emphasizing the need for a suitable location and actionable sub-goals. They also discuss the importance of commitment in martial arts, the necessity of setting realistic goals, and the discipline required to achieve them. They emphasize how martial arts training can support broader life goals and the significance of addressing physical limitations. The discussion also covers the value of consistent training, the journey to achieving black belts, and the personal reflections on facing mortality. They conclude with insights on effective goal setting and the importance of accountability in achieving one's aspirations.
TAKEAWAYS
Setting realistic martial arts goals can enhance motivation.
Goals must be clearly defined to be effective.
External motivation fades; internal motivation is key.
Converting kata requires focus on differences between styles.
Opening a martial arts school involves more than just passion.
Finding a location is the most critical step in opening a school.
Sub-goals help in managing larger objectives effectively.
Setting realistic goals is crucial for success in martial arts.
Discipline is essential for achieving any goal.
Consistent training, even in small increments, leads to significant improvement.
Achieving black belts requires dedication and a clear plan.
Facing personal challenges can be a journey of self-discovery.
Writing down goals increases accountability and focus.
Empowering language in goal setting can enhance motivation.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
01:56 Engaging with Audience Goals
3:00 Defining Clear Goals in Martial Arts
10:57 Consistency in Training
10:44 Converting Kata: A Personal Challenge
14:01 Opening a Martial Arts School
16:59 The Importance of Location in Business
19:49 The Importance of Commitment in Martial Arts Business
20:05 Setting Realistic Goals for Success
22:06 Discipline: The Key to Achieving Goals
25:32 The Role of Martial Arts in Life Goals
28:00 Addressing Physical Limitations for Progress
30:54 Achieving Black Belts and Personal Milestones
37:14 Facing Mortality: A Personal Journey
39:22 The Power of Goal Setting and Accountability
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Jeremy Lesniak (09:20.898)
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Whistlekick martial arts radio, world's top rated traditional martial arts podcast. I'm Jeremy Lesniak joined here with my good friend, Andrew Adams. Andrew, how are you today?
Andrew Adams (09:36.474)
I'm doing great, Jeremy, if you're listening to this audience on the day comes out. Happy New Year.
Jeremy Lesniak (09:43.64)
Happy New Year, unless you use a different calendar. I don't know if anyone does that. Is that a thing? Do people have different calendars?
Andrew Adams (09:48.829)
I don't... I mean, some people consider other times of the year the new year, like you could have the fiscal year...
Jeremy Lesniak (09:56.588)
Well, you know what?
The Jewish New Year doesn't work on the same calendar, that I should be aware of. So some people, but I don't know that anybody is exclusively operating on a non-Gregorian. That's what we call that, right? That's a Gregorian calendar. yeah. Well, regardless of what day it is for you when you watch or listen to this, it is...
Andrew Adams (10:05.148)
Well there you go.
you
Andrew Adams (10:18.992)
Yep. Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak (10:28.188)
not January 1st, for Andrew and I were recording this the day after Christmas. And Andrew, you reached out to people and you said, hey, what does the new year mean for you? Do you have any goals upcoming related to your martial arts? And they didn't disappoint, did they?
Andrew Adams (10:44.698)
No, I got a handful of people that wrote in. I specifically asked for their martial arts goals. So I wasn't necessarily looking for people coming up with New Year's resolutions for their life. I was looking specifically for within the martial arts, what are you going to be trying to work on this year?
Jeremy Lesniak (11:08.022)
Well, I think we should go through and we should see what people said and we can offer some thoughts on how they might succeed in reaching that goal because we've had some success with achieving goals at Whistlekick. We've done some pretty big stuff, some pretty cool stuff.
Andrew Adams (11:22.172)
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (11:31.72)
Got a random message from a random from not a random friend. Here's a great example of of how things have gone for us. I'm going to share this, hopefully set the tone for for these goals. I got a message from a friend yesterday, Christmas Day, and she knows about Whistlekick. And she said her daughter, who does not train, bought her son a book. He does train at a local bookstore.
And guess who published the book?
made even more fun by the fact that the daughter bought the book completely on her own, had no idea that we were involved in the book. I know this family, but she didn't know that I had anything to do with this book. So.
we've got some reach. We've been able to do some pretty cool things in what we do. there's, I don't know I want to call it a system, because it's not that repetitive, but we've got some common things that happen as we grow stuff. And I bet that sharing some of those ideas with folks will be helpful.
Andrew Adams (12:40.764)
Yeah, and I think it's important to note it's not magic, but it's not rocket science either. It's not terribly difficult. So let's talk about some of the people who commented and what their martial goals are this year. So our friend Michael says that, honestly, to be more consistent with my training and motivate myself to do better.
Jeremy Lesniak (12:44.714)
No. No.
Jeremy Lesniak (12:53.151)
Yeah, yeah, what do we got?
Jeremy Lesniak (13:05.227)
Yeah, I would guess that plenty of people out there are saying, you know what? That could be me as well. Consistency in training is such an interesting goal because it is the precursor goal to every other goal related to your training. The more you train, whatever it is you do gets better. I want to advance in rank. I want to be a better competitor. I want to,
Andrew Adams (13:13.616)
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (13:35.358)
learn this skill, this form, I want it, whatever it is, right? You've got to practice more and training is where we practice.
Andrew Adams (13:45.597)
Yeah, and I think it's one that most everyone can relate to. I think it's safe to say everyone could train more, often it's matter of other things getting in the way. And so it's just a matter of finding out what those other things are. And sometimes those other things are more important. My family is more important than my training.
Jeremy Lesniak (13:56.728)
Sure, there's always more time in the day.
Andrew Adams (14:14.671)
And so I have to recognize that. So it's about noticing where you can cut things out. If time is the issue, cut those things out so that you can get to your training facility.
Jeremy Lesniak (14:28.162)
Yeah, this is a great one for us to start with because while it has the spirit of a goal, it in and of itself is not a goal. And this is something that I often get pushback on when I work with clients, when I'm consulting with people, whether they are martial arts or not related. A goal has to have a few things. It has to be clearly defined. So when you say my goal is to train more, how much more? Because you could figure out
Andrew Adams (14:36.753)
Hmm.
Andrew Adams (14:56.016)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (14:57.94)
Okay, I trained this much last year and train in additional second and you've technically achieved that goal. But is that really what you're looking for? Right? So the goal has to be clearly defined. It has to be something you can do or not do. Right? You succeeded or I don't love the word, but you failed. You did not achieve the goal. Right? There has to be a time period timeline on it.
Andrew Adams (15:05.713)
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (15:24.682)
So are you saying that I want to train more across the year? I want to have X number of classes, X number of hours? Or I'm going to guess most people would look at it on a monthly or weekly basis and say, you know, last year I averaged five classes a month, six classes a month. This year I want to make sure I'm training at least twice a week. That's a clearly defined goal that is achievable or not.
Andrew Adams (15:48.509)
Sure. Yep. And I think.
Andrew Adams (15:54.173)
Yeah. And I think it's a matter of recognizing a broad goal, which isn't a goal. Let's, let's take Michael's example, be more consistent with my training and motor motivate myself to do better. Well, how do you define a, what better is if it's be more consistent. There's 52 weeks in a year. If you train once a week, you went, you went to your training facility once a week, you went 52 times.
Okay, so in 2026, if you go 53 times, you trained more. But is that really what Michael was asking? I suspect not. But by having a broad quote goal, it's not really a goal. So I agree with you.
Jeremy Lesniak (16:41.026)
Yeah, now we're going to see that a lot of these come a lot of the things that we're saying occur for many of these goals, I suspect. We're not going to unpack it in quite as detailed and quite as detailed of a way for each of them. But when you're on the road to getting better at something, there are a couple of things that I think are really important. One is what do you want to get better at?
It's got to be something that really resonates for you. It has to be something you want to do if it's not something that you want to do if it's something that You think you have to do you should do right that word should if the word should gets in there It's not going to happen because it's about external motivation and other people cannot truly motivate you they can encourage you and your
desire for pleasing them or not letting them down, is internal motivation, can carry you forward. But what tends to happen with external motivations is that they fade. They fade dramatically.
So we've got to find out what is it that Michael wants to get better at. Really, he has to figure out what does he want to get better at and why. And if it is not a compelling why, I'm going to encourage all of you, I encourage Michael, go back to the drawing board. If you don't have a compelling why, you will not reach your goal. If you cannot find a why, manufacture a why, it's not going to happen. And you're better off finding something else that you can find that leads from that why.
Andrew Adams (18:17.072)
Next one, our friend Joe Anders over in the UK. Joe says, I will be converting all my kata to a different version of it.
Jeremy Lesniak (18:21.932)
What's up, Joe?
Jeremy Lesniak (18:30.263)
Mmm.
Andrew Adams (18:31.728)
Now he didn't list any sort of goal, but that's what he's going to be working on. So one could imply from my question and his answer that his goal is to be able to do that, to convert all of his kata from one version to a different version.
Jeremy Lesniak (18:45.784)
Hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (18:50.264)
So we can kind of, we know a bit about Joe if you've checked out his episode and he's a karate guy. So I'm guessing the simplest way to look at this is this is like switching one style's version of the kata to another. Maybe that's not the case for him. Maybe he's applying some philosophical or movement concepts to reframing them. I don't know that it necessarily matters for what I'm gonna say, but I think.
Andrew Adams (19:16.698)
I would agree.
Jeremy Lesniak (19:20.246)
You know, this is there's an endpoint here and there's a tangible portion here. Okay, so I'm going to convert these forms. We can assume that that means in the year. But one of the things I've found and Andrew, I don't know if you you found this too. When someone sets a goal and it has too long of a time frame, they burn out. They eat, they say, we've got plenty of time. I've got plenty of time. I've got plenty of time. And they're actually training themselves.
to not approach the goal, and then they run out of time, and they've spent all this time training to not reach the goal, and it becomes too heavy of a lift, so to speak, and they don't reach the goal.
Andrew Adams (19:59.271)
to daunting, yep.
Yeah, and I think that in this case, and we're gonna infer a little bit here, right? Joe said converting them all, we don't know how many that is. Let's pick a random number. We'll say 15, I don't know, okay? We know there's 12 months a year. You have to figure out, plan, because you talked earlier with the last one about setting realistic goals with the timeline. So the overall timeline might be
12 months, but that means with 15 forms, you've got, I don't know, three weeks, I haven't done the math, basically three weeks. Every three weeks, you have to have converted one and know it. So that's the smaller part of the goal. And then if you go even minute from there, it's comparing the two and figuring out where are the differences. And I'll tell you, Joe, I've done this. This is not easy, but it's not terribly hard. And the things that work for me,
is focus on the things that are different. The form is the same, but like this, and I'm looking at it from, learned this Shoren Ruu form this way, and now I have to learn it this way, or I learned this form in Shotokan, and now I have to convert it to the Shoren Ruu version. And so I really focused on the differences are XYZ, and I would write those down.
and focus on those. And I think if you do that, that can help a lot immensely to be able to do that in three weeks or whatever the timeframe.
Jeremy Lesniak (21:41.08)
I've done some conversion, not quite this concrete, as I, know, whether it's for competition, you know, I've made some adjustments to forums I've done in competition. And I think there are two things that need to happen here. One is some clearly defined, what does this conversion look like as a result? Are you talking about that you know it, that you've documented it, but you don't know it yet, that your students know it, that you've videoed materials so your students can learn it?
Right? Like those are all very different. Here's what I would suggest as a first process, because it's probably going to take more than one. I'm guessing it's more than one training session for you to start this process and pop out the other side with you having learned it yourself. It's a little easier because you're making the conversion. But maybe maybe the inspiration of the conversion is not from yourself.
This is where a tripod and your phone are your best friend. Because as you figure things out, you can talk to future you on a recording, and then next time you go back to work on it, you can rewatch that video and go, that's right, that and that and that. Not only can that help you not forget your progress, but it can help you because you're watching what you're doing. And that becomes not just...
how it feels, but how it looks, and that engages memory.
Andrew Adams (23:09.755)
Yep, absolutely. All right, ready for the next one? Our friend Paul down in Kentucky says, I have a goal of opening up a school in 2026.
Jeremy Lesniak (23:13.567)
I'm ready.
Jeremy Lesniak (23:18.86)
What's up, Paul?
Jeremy Lesniak (23:25.932)
That's a clean goal, right? We know what that looks like. We've got an end date. That is...
Andrew Adams (23:34.974)
Tangible Yep, absolutely like there is a an obvious you completed your goal you have a look and and Opening up a school means a few things right you need a location you need Basically you need a location and you need students. I mean there's not I mean if the bare bones That's opening up a school
Jeremy Lesniak (23:35.106)
That's a great goal.
Jeremy Lesniak (23:59.8)
Yeah. Now, we've gotten to know Paul a bit. Great guy. And this advice might not necessarily be for Paul. I don't think it so much is. But this is a common goal among martial artists is opening their own school. So here's what I'm going to suggest to you. I'm going to suggest to you. Because a lot of you, if you want to open a school.
You're going to get so focused on the why that you're going to build out the name and the logo and you're going think about your website and your curriculum and you're going think about how a class flows and you're going think about how competitions are for you and you're going to think about all the things that are super fun that you're really excited about and you're going to spend very little time doing the most important freaking thing which is finding the location and committing to it.
Andrew Adams (24:53.671)
Yup, yup. I was gonna say the same thing.
Jeremy Lesniak (24:55.048)
All the rest of the stuff can change later and it should because if you're opening a school it suggests to me you do not have a school. If you're opening another location that's probably it's a very different thing but if you're opening a school
Having the place, the dates, the days of the week, the times of the week, and doing a little bit of marketing matters infinitely more than your curriculum. Why? Because you could have the best curriculum in the world, and if you have no students, you don't have a school. You have a theory. You have a book.
Andrew Adams (25:32.281)
Exactly. Yep. Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak (25:36.956)
It is often very difficult to find that location. Spend your time approaching that. This is where sub goals can come in. If you're going to do all of those things, maybe your goal is, I need to look at five possible locations every month.
Andrew Adams (25:47.761)
Yep, that's what I was gonna bring up.
Jeremy Lesniak (26:05.76)
I don't mean look at them online, I mean go and physically look at them and see what's going on.
Andrew Adams (26:10.085)
Yeah. The sub goals thing was what I was going to bring up. opening a school is the overall, but there's all of these other things that have to happen. Whether it's getting your insurance and doing some marketing and all of these other little things, you know, are you going to be an actual business? Whether you're going to be an LLC or all of these things. And for a lot of us, we tackle things differently.
Jeremy Lesniak (26:12.013)
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (26:23.574)
Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Adams (26:38.941)
when you would have something to do. Do you do the easy things first and save the harder things for later? Or do you do the hard things first and save the easy things for later, so you can push them out? Yep. In this case, I think you've got to do the thing that is hard for most people, which is scout the location. Get on the phone and get insurance if you don't have it. And all of those things that most people would see as hard first,
Jeremy Lesniak (26:49.281)
Eat the frog.
Andrew Adams (27:08.541)
because then everything can flow from there.
Jeremy Lesniak (27:11.916)
Yeah. And here's the other piece. When you commit to having the school, there's usually a financial piece. You're paying rent.
Well, now you're paying rent without money coming in. That's very motivating for a lot of us. even if it's only a few hundred bucks. OK, I've got to get this done. Or maybe you're committing and there's a future start date. I've got to get this done so I have students on day one so I don't feel silly showing up to a class with no people or even worse, not having to show up because I haven't even marketed that this is the first day.
Andrew Adams (27:51.292)
Yep, yep. All right, next is from our friend Les over in the UK. Les wants to start treating his club and martial arts as a business in 2020.
Jeremy Lesniak (28:06.7)
This is often the next iteration, right? People open a school and they look at their books one day because they have never looked at their books and they make books because, you know, someone like maybe like me has said, you need to get clear on your financials. And they say, wait a second, I'm making $7 a month. Ouch. Now this is where the industry splits. This is where some people don't want to do the hard work.
And they say, I don't teach martial arts for money. Well, you know what, if you did, you could help more people. All the things that you find valuable about martial arts are better served when you run an effective business because you can market more, bring more people in and all that. But then the rest of the group says, okay, I have to approach my business with the same professionalism I approach my training. How do you become a successful martial artist? You show up to class.
You follow advice. You do the hard things. You eat the frogs. You practice. You get things wrong. You iterate and you improve. That's how business works too.
Andrew Adams (29:18.461)
Yep, yep, I would agree. All right, next, we're getting into some, you know, some overlaps here, which is, which makes our job a little easier. Nate says, get my sixth degree black belt, publish some more books, find a location and open a new karate school and make my newest martial arts parody into a screenplay and hopefully find someone willing to make a movie out of it. It's a lot of goals.
Jeremy Lesniak (29:44.802)
Okay. Those are, so this is where, and we know Nate, Nate's a great guy. Nate's not gonna like this suggestion. Nate, pick one. Pick one and start there. If you genuinely think you can do all four of those in the year, awesome. Set individual goals that do, that allow you to not start until the first, the next one is, you the last one is done. And maybe you have to order them in a certain way to do that.
Andrew Adams (29:54.918)
you
Jeremy Lesniak (30:13.932)
because parallel goals rob you of focus. If you want to get better at karate and krav maga and jujitsu and basketball at the same time, that's gonna be really challenging. Yeah, sure, they all use your body. Yeah, three of the four overlap. But are you going to be showing up to any of those as frequently as you could if it was just one? No.
Are you going to show up with as full of commitment and as healed of a body? No. And not only do your goals take longer, it takes longer to do all of those together than it would if you did them individually.
Jeremy Lesniak (31:06.539)
Discipline overall Super focused committed get up early go to bed late Think about it morning noon and night discipline It is the thing that is missing from most people's goals regardless of what the goal is Most people treat a goal the way they treat a resolution and I don't know what the statistic is of New Year's resolutions was which is why we didn't do it this way Because most of them are done by the end of January. I'm gonna do this vague thing
And then by the end of January, they're no longer doing the vague thing because they're not willing to put in the work to get the result because it wasn't that important to them.
Jeremy Lesniak (31:50.528)
I think those are all great goals. I want to see all four of those happen. I'm sure you do too, Andrew. One at a time.
Andrew Adams (31:55.421)
Sure, absolutely.
Yep, yep. And one of them, he, I would argue, he doesn't have a ton of control over, which is get his 6th degree black belt. That's really not up to him. It's really kind of up to his instructors, one could argue.
Jeremy Lesniak (32:15.286)
Yeah, depends on the school. also depends on, you know, when did he earn his fifth degree? Now know a little bit about this story that I'm not going to share, and I know that it makes it even more complicated. This is this is not this is, you know, I'm not going to say anything more than that, other than you are taking some really, really big bites with any of these, let alone all of these.
Andrew Adams (32:39.537)
Yeah, and I think transitioning away from Nate's goals, but in general, a goal should be something that is reasonable. I'm not gonna say a little out of reach is that's okay, but if it is absurd, here's a perfect example. I'm gonna start, and I'm not gonna say me because you could make arguments against it, but.
Joe Schmoe was gonna start martial arts on January 1st and his goal is to get his black belt by December 31st of that same year. That's a fairly unrealistic goal. And that's why think having a reasonable goal makes sense. And I don't know the difficulty on the goals that he has asked, but for everybody that's setting goals, think of that. It's gotta be something that is at least possible.
Jeremy Lesniak (33:35.768)
It should make you uncomfortable. Your timetable should make you uncomfortable. It should not make you terrified.
You should look at that and say, OK, given the things that I have complete control over, what is the likelihood I will achieve that goal? And if you cannot find a way that through your own efforts, you can get to, I'm going to say, 70 or 80 percent. Your goal is too aggressive. And the reason I'm not saying 100 percent is because of that discipline piece, that showing up morning, noon and night piece.
Options unfold, opportunities show up. When you work really, really hard on a thing, you get better at finding how to get even better at that thing. And so leaving a little bit of that room matters.
Andrew Adams (34:32.573)
from our friend Gage. And he doesn't really have a goal, but I'm gonna read his comment anyway, because I think it's cool. He said, I'm not sure of the what yet, but I'll be celebrating 30 years of martial arts in September, so I know I want to make it memorable.
Jeremy Lesniak (34:35.522)
gauge.
Jeremy Lesniak (34:47.436)
Hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (34:55.606)
Yeah, what does that mean?
Andrew Adams (34:57.265)
Yeah, I'm sure it will be memorable for sure. Our friend Tim, martial arts is one part of my life. So I do not have martial art goals so much as life goals. And how can martial art facilitate those goals? Any goal in martial art must further the overall life goal for me or it's superfluous.
Jeremy Lesniak (35:00.161)
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (35:21.356)
For me, this is where I go back to a couple things. People that are actively training tend to be happier, more, more.
I'm going to use pain in all the forms, pain tolerant, right? You're more resilient to the things that life throws at you. You tend to be in fit, better physical shape. And so no matter what your goals are, your active training generally supports them. Now, Andrew, you brought up at the top, this idea that, you know, your family's more important than your training. If what, if your goal is that you're repairing your romantic relationship because you've spent all your time training.
and your partner or spouse feels neglected, training more probably doesn't solve that goal. In fact, I would say quite definitively it doesn't. But I think outside of that, I'm sure we could come up with some other contrived examples that.
where martial arts isn't the solution. But in the vast majority of goals, martial arts is going to help you get there better because that complete discipline, that dedication, that's a muscle, not a literal muscle, but you can train it. And the more you're practiced with that, the more you can bring that into the other aspects of your life.
Andrew Adams (36:45.086)
Yep, I agree. Next we have our friend Kyle. He says, fix my hips so I can finally do a question mark kick. Also earn my Shodan and Gojiru, just to name a couple.
Jeremy Lesniak (37:00.824)
depends on what's going on with the hips.
Jeremy Lesniak (37:08.544)
Yeah, the big things that I'll throw out to people there, if you have joint discomfort and you have not tried addressing it with diet, I think you're wrong.
The majority of the foods that we eat are inflammatory. Inflammation does not occur equally among people with the same foods and it doesn't occur equally in the body. You might have one knee that constantly feels funny and I am not a doctor. I am not a licensed nutritionist, but I will tell you that...
Most of us know we don't eat well and in our of internet research on what foods are inflammatory and what are not. And starting simple and keeping a food journal. That's where I would go there. I would do that long before I was building a habit with ibuprofen or going under the knife.
Andrew Adams (38:12.594)
don't know his situation. It could be that surgery is something that he would need to have done. No clue. So we can't really comment on that. And getting your showdown and go Drew, we certainly wish you luck. I would say you I suspect likely know the things you need to know to get that rank. So depending on where you are at in that list, make a detailed
goal of like learning this and then doing that. It's all about those little progress, overall goal and then little itty bitty goals to help lead up to that.
Jeremy Lesniak (38:42.53)
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (38:51.35)
Yeah, for sure.
Andrew Adams (38:54.174)
All right, next we've got Irvin who says, Black Belt, also doing 150 Tabata workouts. So that's his goal for 2026.
Jeremy Lesniak (39:04.628)
Okay. I know Irvin. I know Irvin pretty well because he's my student.
Black Belt is certainly in striking distance for 2026 for him. I don't think I've ever had a student who trains at home more than Ervin, which is pretty impressive, yeah. The 150 Tabatas, I'm guessing that that's like a three times a week thing that he's gonna do because you're not doing 150 in a row. That would be a lot of work. That would be, well.
Andrew Adams (39:35.902)
Yeah, exactly.
Andrew Adams (39:39.742)
and three times a week would give you 150. Little over.
Jeremy Lesniak (39:43.256)
Yeah. A standard Tabata is four minutes, so 600 minutes would be 10 hours of Tabata. I don't think anyone should do 10 hours of Tabata. I think that would be a bad idea.
Andrew Adams (39:57.896)
not in a row.
Yeah, but doing three a week, that seems reasonable.
Jeremy Lesniak (40:03.65)
Three a week, for sure. Especially if they're off training days or something, four minutes. We've talked about it on the show over the years and there was a website that has, I believe, gone defunct and there's still a concept for a book called Two Minute Martial Arts.
This idea that your training has to occur at a place and in, you know, an hour block of time is silly. And if you do the math on, you know, what if I train two minutes a day? What if I practice this one form that I'm trying to learn once a day? It's a significant amount of time and everyone can find two minutes. And if you can't find two minutes, it's not a priority.
Andrew Adams (40:47.197)
Hardly, so many of our listeners or viewers if you're watching on YouTube Will know that I teach drums for a living and I got in the habit really early of having this speech with new students which is and the speech is something to the effect of a lot of Drum teachers will tell you that you have to practice every day if you want to get better and I do not prescribe to that
You don't have to practice every day. You only have to practice on the days that you eat. To which they laugh and it's funny, ha ha ha. But what do you mean? And I said, okay, now let's go a step further. I said, obviously that was a joke, but here's the serious part. I do not prescribe that students that are learning something should practice for an hour a day. If you're a new drum student of mine, I actually don't want you to practice.
for an hour day. I would much rather my students practice for three to five minutes in the morning, five minutes in the afternoon, maybe at dinner time you get, in the evening you have 10 minutes. Whoa, that's a lot, right? Because when you make it as a set time, I have to practice for an hour. Let's say it's an adult. They've got up in the morning and they have to think, they think, I gotta practice drumming an hour today if I wanna get better.
Okay, they get up, they go to work, they get home, they get their kids from school, now they gotta cook dinner. shoot, it's four o'clock, I still haven't done my hour of drumming. But I gotta get dinner going, okay, dinner's done. I gotta get Jimmy in the tub before bedtime. Now it's eight o'clock, the student is completely wasted and exhausted and they feel like they still have to do an hour worth of drumming. It is con-
not conducive to actually learning anything and in fact makes it more stressful on the student. But when it becomes five minutes here, two minutes there, 10 minutes there, it is way more reasonable and you will reach your goals, I think,
Jeremy Lesniak (42:59.734)
Yeah, yeah, especially when you're new at something. I'm sure part of the reason you don't want them training an hour is they're going to build some bad habits.
Andrew Adams (43:06.937)
And they're gonna get to, they're gonna begin to hate what they're doing because what they're doing is so very basic.
Jeremy Lesniak (43:11.928)
Yeah. Two minutes a day, every day, is equivalent to 12 hours.
Jeremy Lesniak (43:22.52)
12 hours of training if I said hey I want you to find another 12 hours of training just on this one form just on this one concept you'd be like man that's gonna be awful that's gonna be boring but if I said two minutes a day spend two minutes a day on this form that you struggle with or two minutes a day on this technique this combination this whatever and you did that for a year you'd get pretty darn good at it
Andrew Adams (43:50.674)
Yep, yep. All right, we have two more. Last two. We've got Karen. Karen says, besides continuing my studies into my 60s, my big goal for 2026 is to obtain my need-on, my second degree black belt in the super foot system.
Jeremy Lesniak (43:54.456)
All right, let's do them.
Jeremy Lesniak (44:11.416)
Great goal, shout out, hello, Karen.
Jeremy Lesniak (44:18.402)
good goal. There's no reason it can't happen.
Andrew Adams (44:21.821)
Yep. what I like about
Jeremy Lesniak (44:23.724)
Time qualifications already been met, I know that.
Andrew Adams (44:26.373)
Yep. And what I like about this goal is because you and I have already gone through this, right? We know what is required on the test. We know the steps that we have to do in order to make that next rank. We know that there's this has to happen and then this has to happen and then this has to happen. So I like this goal because it is achievable. It's not easy. And
all of the steps that Karen needs to do, she knows what those steps are. And so it's just a matter of putting the pieces into place to be able to do it.
Jeremy Lesniak (45:04.576)
Yeah, this is where that small chunk every day comes in. Right? Believe it or not, the way I prepared for my last super foot test was roughly two to three minutes a day as the core part of my training.
It was standing on one foot and I was doing, you know, started at 50. I'm doing 50 kicks on one leg without putting my foot down. And then the other other leg and I built up to a hundred, 125. And that was what I needed to supplement my other training. And I stepped in and, you know, most tests are exhausting, right? I'm not going to pretend that I went in and it was trivial, but I felt prepared.
Andrew Adams (45:44.679)
Ha
Andrew Adams (45:49.502)
And I did something very similar for when I tested on him as well. All right, so we've got one more, which isn't one that we can really discuss, but he took the time to post it on my wall, so on Facebook. So I want to at least read it. Stephen says his goal is to face my mortality with my full humanity.
Jeremy Lesniak (46:14.742)
Well, if we convert that to a tangible goal, and maybe this isn't a thing that is public, maybe it's a very private thing, but what's the gap between where you are and where you want to be? Understanding what that looks like, right? Because for most of us, that's a very vague thing. I suspect it's much more tangible for Stephen. How do you get there?
Right? Is that a, is that a journaling thing? Is that a ceremonial thing? Is that a medical thing? Right? Like there are a lot of ways, but I think, you know, like everything else, clarity on what that looks like and approaching it. This, the methods might of, of achievement may differ with people's goals.
But I think the process of determining and setting out the goal is still the same. Where am I? Where do I want to be? And this is to all of you. Where am I? Where do I want to be? When do I want to be there? Based on right now, what is my understanding of how I get there?
Communicating to the people around you that this is in fact a goal because every study on goal setting shows that if you are constantly working on it and communicating with the people that are most important to you about your goal, they will support you. They'll hold you accountable. Hey, how's that goal? How's that rank goal going? How's opening your school going? And now you're not doing this in a vacuum where if you don't...
meet a goal or a mini goal, a milestone, it just happens and passes and you try to pretend it's gone. No, now people that matter to you are holding you, no, you should do this. you said this was important to you. Like keep going. Like how can I help? Right? That becomes really important too.
Andrew Adams (48:16.84)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (48:22.174)
We all have goals and we all have goals that really matter to us, but I think most of us are scared of not achieving the goals. And I think that is the silliest reason to not work for a goal. Because you the result is the same. But if you work on the goal and you practice the skill of goal setting and being disciplined and working towards those goals, you get pretty good at achieving goals. I'm going to be honest, I'm pretty good at setting goals and achieving them.
I've gotten really good at not setting arbitrary goals that don't actually matter to me.
Andrew Adams (48:54.846)
Yeah, I Think the other thing the last thing I would say on this is that you mentioned telling someone so that they might be able to help you I think it's also important to write your goals down
Jeremy Lesniak (49:07.82)
I can't believe we didn't talk about that one. Yes, of course. Keep going.
Andrew Adams (49:09.758)
Yep. Write it down and put it in a place that you will see often. Again, going back to my drumming, when I teach drumming, I require my students to have, and you've got to watch, if you're on YouTube, you can see that I'm holding some things up in front of me. You have to have two of them. You have to have two of these.
Jeremy Lesniak (49:30.264)
Hmm.
Jeremy Lesniak (49:35.628)
Hmm.
Andrew Adams (49:39.967)
One that lives in your drumming bag that you take to band practice or whatever and one of them that's out in the place that you see all the time Because you will be more likely to actually practice if you see them out and about and so Let's say your goal is to I don't know I'm I'm not going to drink soda in 2026 like that's my goal is I want to lose weight and one of the ways I'm going to do that is to not drink soda
Okay, write down, don't drink soda and put it in a post-it note somewhere that you're gonna see on a regular basis to help remind yourself of my goal so that you can not.
flip back and not pass your goal.
Jeremy Lesniak (50:23.648)
I want to make a small twist on that. Yes, everything you said, but I want to adjust that sort of language because I think the language, words matter and the words that we use when we set our goals are really important. So I would say to the person who isn't going to drink soda, the goal is to not drink soda.
Jeremy Lesniak (50:48.196)
We'll say it's you, Andrew. We'll say you're the non-soda drinker. The Andrew I want to be never drinks soda. Or the Andrew that I want to be doesn't have a single soda in 2026. Or maybe there is a connection between soda and weight loss.
Andrew Adams (51:01.898)
huh, huh.
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak (51:12.88)
All it will take for me to reach my goals in 2026 is to drink zero sodas a day. Right? I didn't have a soda today. I'm successful. Right? And approaching that language, and that's a whole other subject within this, but the way you write it and the way you look at it should feel empowering, not prohibitive.
Andrew Adams (51:27.198)
Yep.
Andrew Adams (51:42.43)
Yeah, that's fair. That's fair.
Jeremy Lesniak (51:42.976)
If you look at it and you feel like it's taking away from your life, you're less likely to do it. This is why when we go back to the top, we talked about the why and the why being so darn important. When you understand your why and the way you write your goal leads from there, and the goal is what's elevated in the language versus the thing that you're...
Andrew Adams (51:49.608)
Yeah, yeah, good point.
Jeremy Lesniak (52:12.436)
It could be a simple, let's take one more and then we can wrap here. Let's take the two minutes a day idea.
Jeremy Lesniak (52:23.328)
The martial artist I want to be, the martial artist I deserve to be, spends two minutes training every single day.
Andrew Adams (52:35.39)
Yeah, that's powerful.
Jeremy Lesniak (52:36.428)
That's a lot better than I'm gonna spend two minutes a day training. It's a boring goal.
Andrew Adams (52:39.902)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
And we're gonna wrap up here, but I'll just throw out as we're gonna wrap up that for some of these people, a lot of these goals would be helped by coming to our all-in weekend.
Jeremy Lesniak (52:55.392)
Yeah, you should come to in Weekend. For sure. If you're not familiar with All in Weekend, please check it out at whistlekick.com. It is an event that Andrew and I put on. It is an exceptional event. We have incredible return visit rates. People come back year after year. It's 2026 will be the fifth year. We have quite a few people who will be attending for their fifth time. Five out of five.
Andrew Adams (52:57.574)
you
Jeremy Lesniak (53:22.904)
Learn more at whistlekick.com and of course, somewhere in the show notes, however you are watching or listening to this, is a link to sign up for the email list. And if you want all the behind the scenes stuff, we are getting better at giving you bonus content in the emails. And then of course, if you want to support us via our Patreon, where there's even more bonus content, you can do that for as little as five bucks a month. We give you eight episodes a month, $5 a month. That seems like a pretty good deal.
Of you don't have to, but we hope you do because this does cost money.
Andrew Adams (53:56.062)
Report the things that you love.
Jeremy Lesniak (53:58.06)
Yeah. All right, Andrew. Thank you. This was fun. All right, are we ready?
Andrew Adams (54:02.088)
You're welcome. That was fun. All let's do it.
Jeremy Lesniak (54:07.18)
Three, two, one. Train hard, smile, and have a great day.
Andrew Adams (54:10.046)
Until next time, train hard, smile, have a great day. It's not gonna light up at all, because I said until next time.
Jeremy Lesniak (54:17.848)
Okay, let's try let's do that again because That's on me for forgetting how we actually close the show. All right. Are we ready? I'm good. I'm gonna I'm gonna do it the right way. Yeah, okay three two one until next time train hard smile and have a great day I Don't think that was anybody
Andrew Adams (54:26.566)
What are you doing until next time? Okay, great. Here we go.
Andrew Adams (54:34.49)
Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.
Andrew Adams (54:44.67)
That's okay.
Jeremy Lesniak (54:47.461)
Maybe in another thousand episodes we'll get it.