Episode 474 - Mr. Brian Lorence
Mr. Brian Lorence is a martial arts practitioner, instructor, and founder at the Lorence Martial Arts Studio in Wisconsin.
The good instructors out there are going to do everything they can to not make you feel that negative stuff. They are going to be all about helping you get back to. who you are as a martial artist.
Mr. Brian Lorence - Episode 474
It's not often that a teenager's going to choose martial arts over team sports in school. What was it that made Mr. Brian Lorence choose martial arts over his favorite sport? Fast forward to today, he has become a great inspiration to both younger and older martial artists through his Lorence Martial Arts Studio in Wisconsin. In this episode, Mr. Brian Lorence tells us the story of how he ended up teaching martial arts. Listen to find out more about his experience teaching young martial artists and more inspiring stories!
Show Notes
You can check out Mr. Brian Lorence's school here or like their page on FacebookIn this episode, we mentioned Episode 223 and the book From Chuck Norris to Karate Kid
college up in the northern part of the state and I had a martial arts club out there because when I became an instructor, I guess, I was an assistant instructor before I was a senior in high school but then I started teaching classes for my instructor at the school a little bit and he even talked about one of the bigger, and when I say bigger, 20,000 people so one of the bigger towns around us. He was saying we have plans to start a school there. He and his wife are talking about. He hasn’t told his son who was my age and my good friend but that was more looking and doing, we’d like you to run that school and it's like wow, here’s this opportunity and it just didn’t pan out because I was planning to move away and everything for college but I still wanted to teach so I was like hey, I just want to do a club so he backed me in that so my first year of college was having a club out there. I had a very, very small school. I mean, very, very small. Probably 60 people in my class so our listeners know when I say how small the college it is, it's that small.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, I want to underscore this. This is not 60 people in your martial arts club. This is 60 people in your academic class.
Brian Lorence:
Yep, so I had a few students from there. I don’t know, maybe about 10 or so.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That’s a really good percentage.
Brian Lorence:
Yeah, it was around 10, maybe a little bit more. I had one kid that was a son of one of the faculty or actually one or two of their kids so I did that that first year but then, I ended up moving back to Wisconsin after that year. I took some, I think it was called budokai karate classes at one of the universities in Wisconsin here and then I moved to Minnesota and at that time, I kind of got out of formal training. I was on my own trying to train here and there but, of course, I was really busy with schooling so, at that time, it had kind of a period around there in my 20s where I didn’t consistently, formally train anywhere so I’d be kind of on my own. I’d be working on things so that was kind of what it was like after getting out of high school.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I want to talk about that time without the formal training because that is something a lot of people don’t admit and it's something that I’ll even confess, I had a 2-year span and it's kind of a dark time and I'm sometimes embarrassed to talk about it so I'm going to kind of lead this conversation. You don’t have to go first on a subject I'm already embarrassing. That seems like an unfair thing. Hey, come on the show and then I’ll put you on the spot and make you embarrassed. It's hard to do something, anything, for a very, very long time and not have other stuff pop up or get in the way and if you listen to past episodes, anybody who knows the things that I've said, I'm not throwing shade here. I'm not saying that because there was some break in people’s formal training and being a student of someone that you're a bad person or not a martial artist. Just in case you haven't heard those episodes, I want to make sure that you know that but it can be really unsettling and it can be really, I felt lost. What was it like for you?
Brian Lorence:
Part of that was there's, definitely, I agree with that thing that sometimes boy, if I tell some people, are they going to be judging you know? Well, come on. You took that break in there? Who does that? The challenge was I had moved around. I was from Wisconsin, ended up in Vermont, came to a different sense in town for a year and moved to the Twin cities in Minnesota and was just trying to get through those wonderful time all of us have when we’re young adults. I was finally, at one point after college, I stayed around there for a little bit and started making some friends over there and was just kind of distracted by that, feeling cool, I've been here. I'm kind of getting settled in, finding new relationships, having fun in that way and it's just, on the side, it was well, I should go train. Grab my sticks and go to the park and swing those around for a while or whatever it was that I did and part of me, at this point, if I was to give advice to somebody in that stage, I’d say; first off, make sure that you are consistently training on your own. Just don’t worry about exactly what you're doing and just do something but part of me was also, I think, when I thought about it, I think maybe I thought about it too hard where I would go to a school and part of my advice would be to just find a place. Even if it's a totally different style, go and train somewhere. As long as it seems it's the right place for your personality, go. Part of me might have been holding back on that. I had considered taking some aikido class. I took one at this club or this school but then, I get this driving in because I had all these new friends and part of me is like oh, why didn’t you just do it but I think that’s definitely one of the big things during that as I look back that I would tell anybody just make sure that you don’t really quit training and feel afraid to take that opportunity if you're somebody like me where you ended up moving around to these different places where I'm not near where I'm used to. Make it a chance to step outside what you're used to and you may find out later on down the road, you get back to the style, the system and the school maybe you're originally from and you're going to go wow, look at how much more knowledgeable I am now than I was before if I wouldn’t have, if I wouldn’t’ve not trained at all. Take what you learn from another style and grow so much as a martial artist. Not like anybody you're going to be smoked for having trained in a different style or something.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And if I could go back to 24-year old me, which I guess 24 or 25 when I took that break, because I started my own school and I had to shut it down due to professional reasons and I could have a conversation. There are a couple things I would tell myself and I'm curious what you think of these things. First off, I would have myself schedule time through the week to have my own classes with myself. Whether that’s a Tuesday, Thursday thing or whatever and maybe I can't do an hour but even if it's 20 minutes to not lose the momentum of the frequency of the training and then, the 2nd thing, because one of the things that I struggle with that I do really that I need instructors and I need classes is I'm not good at telling myself what to do. I'm going to work on the things I like to do the most, not the things that I need the most work on and so, that becomes a little bit of a feedback loop and the good skills from training on my own, maintain or maybe get better in the things that need the most work get even worse. There weren’t back then but now, there are tons of people who post classes, full classes on YouTube and maybe it's not the same thing when they do ABC, maybe you do ABD because you don’t do that kick that way or something but you can still, more or less, follow along. What about the schedule thing? Would that have worked for you back then?
Brian Lorence:
I'm one of those people that thrives when I have structure but sometimes, the structure in plays is a whole different thing. I think, for me, really, I’ll tell you what. I'm not a good self-motivator. It takes a lot for me to be ok, do it but once I start doing it, I'm great. that could help. I just keep thinking boy, if I had just signed up for some club, some school where there are like we’re open at this time, I’d be like oh, you bet I’d be there and then, I'm going to give it everything I got but if we’re going to go with what your question is, if that’s not an option I have or a choice I'm taking, really, for many people especially if you're like me and you have that struggle of that self-motivation and that self-discipline to say I'm going to do this, yeah, do that. I think it would have helped me because for me, my training when I was on my own, was sporadic. Yeah, I got some time. Hop in the car, go over here and practice this in my apartment or whatever it was, I definitely believe that structure would have helped. Would have helped keep me more honed, even I should say, even if it was this thing like hey, if you're going to go through and train on your own, let’s make sure that you're hitting all of these different things. For instance, forms and I know not all of our listeners would not do that in their style and that’s fine but in taekwondo, traditionally, one of our things that we practice, and I could learn them very easily, I can learn them very fast, I could do them; literally, my instructor could show me one time basically, I could learn them and even the more complex, higher ones, I would learn very quickly and I would have them memorized so that was a good thing as an instructor because I know that there are instructors out there that sometimes go away. I remember this when they had to ask somebody else. I didn’t have that problem. I memorized them really well. I could go training when I was not training, I could go a really long time and all of a sudden, show up back at my original school like if I came back to visit my parents, I‘d go take a class and I’d have every single form memorized even though I haven't done them for over a year and they're still there but then, it finally got, one time, it got to a point where I actually, finally started losing a little bit of them. Two of them might combine together and they weren’t one or the other, they were kind of one would look right into the other and I'm like huh, ok. So if I would only discipline myself to say ok, this week, we’ll work on your form or today, you go through these forms and then, tomorrow, you go through these self-defense techniques or this part of your eskrima training. That would be better. You were talking about this, too; you want to do the things that you want to do but not necessarily the things you need to do and that, too, for someone who's going to be training on their own, that could be really beneficial. Just thinking ok, Monday, I'm going to do this, Tuesday, I'm going to do this, Wednesday, I'm going to do this just to make sure, even if you spend only 20 minutes at it, hey, at least you did it instead of going for 6 months and not doing it or 2 years and I’m like I don’t remember and now I'm back to formal training and struggling and I wish I wasn’t.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I get it and I'm guessing by the way that you wrote taekwondo in the form you submitted, the confirmed guest form, that you do ITF? If I'm saying that right.
Brian Lorence:
You could call it that. I like to get into the whole, really ITF that’s in the organization but you could say that I know when people say that, I know what they're talking about. I even use that too so the form that we do.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But those forms? I'm curious what 2 forms you were combining if you remember.
Brian Lorence:
They were the 2 forms for the red belt, high red belt forms Hwa-Rang and Choong-Moo and yeah, kind of went one right into the other.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There's a point where, that I've done it and I had a feeling and this is why I ask because the taekwondo flavor that I train in is ITF and when you get to that end point and you make that first turn when you’ve reached that forwardmost point, I have absolutely done Hwa-Moo or Choong-Rang, definitely done it wrong.
Brian Lorence:
That’s the place. You're right! You do it there and you're on your way back. You can make the same mistake too so, yep, that’s the spot where it happened and it's that when I realized, shoot, I've gone way too long without being serious about keeping these things up. That’s funny you’ve had that same experience but yep, that’s exactly what happened and that was kind of like, that was an embarrassing moment for me because I always prided myself like man, I'm going to take all the information I learned and not just the forms, every single thing was kind of locked in there and then when that wasn’t there and I was like shoot, this has never happened before. How am I making this mistake here but then it just drove me to make sure I got back on top of that stuff once I've gotten to more formal training again.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Back when I was getting ready for my first black belt test in karate and whole different set of forms, a different group of listeners might be able to get this and I still remember how terrified I was the first time I was training and back then, I was competing and my mother was my coach and she was with me quite often and I remember combining Pinyan Yo-dan and Pinyan Go-dan and they wouldn’t uncombine. I was like oh, that’s silly. Let me do it again and it happened again and it happened almost every time I did the 2 forms except for the actual testing and I remember a lot of really difficult moments of that test was very long and really strenuous but the most joyful of that 2 and a half hours was when I didn’t screw that up. I screwed up plenty of other things but I didn’t screw that up and I was like ah, I'm going to be fine. Right on! Let’s keep marching through time here. You’ve gotten to this point where you're not training for a little, how long was that break?
Brian Lorence:
I don’t know. Honestly, I'm not even sure because it was so off and on. It was over 2 years and I was about, I lived about 2 and a half hours from home and sometimes, I would get home, I would try and go catch a class where I originally started and I don’t know how often I did that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let’s focus on the important part.
Brian Lorence:
It was a solid 2 years of formal training if I can say that and there was this kind of a little period in there where it was kind of where I was going and it kind of didn’t go for a little bit and got back in there regularly so kind of off and on in that early 20s time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
One of the things that listeners don’t know is the sheer volume of email that I get because of this show and because of what we do at whistlekick and a number of those emails are from people who have fallen out of training and they find the show and the show becomes something that connects them with martial arts. It's funny I can see the pattern. They start emailing me and go, I used to train, I hadn’t trained in a little while and I found this show and finding it really inspiring and it makes me want to get back in there but I'm having a hard time getting started. They're looking for a push and I've actually gotten a lot more confident in this. I’ll send an email back after a few, sometimes there's a couple months in between to say so, what do I have to do to get you to start training again? Usually, I get an email back within a couple weeks saying so that was the push I needed and I've signed up and we all need that push. An object at rest tends to remain at rest. How did you get moving again? How did you go from infrequent self-training after years into motion?
Brian Lorence:
A good part of it was actually moving back to Wisconsin. So, I've been in Minnesota for about 3 years and came back to Wisconsin and I was in a town relatively close to the schools I grew up going to but at that point, I started doing it like a 45-minute trip to the country. That’s really what it was that I got back home to something familiar and I had, like I said earlier, I encourage everybody to make sure that they find something even if they can afford it. Even if it's not something that they're familiar with. For me, it was ok, I'm back home. I'm settling down. I felt at home because I was at home and I was like ok, now I'm back where things are familiar and really, just starting to get into it at that point again for me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right on and how did that feel? How did that feel in the first few weeks?
Brian Lorence:
Really good! It was great. I hadn’t really lost much strength, flexibility, all that stuff like just a little bit. In my 20s, I was still exercising. I regularly ran and did a number of outdoor activities like rock climbing and stuff like that so I kept myself in healthy condition so I went back to class and just felt at home especially around some people I knew and it didn’t take long at all like ok, this is where I should be.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Nice and would you have changed anything in that process? Again, we get that time machine, you get to go back.
Brian Lorence:
In the process of getting back into training?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah and again, I'm bringing this up because this is not a subject that comes up often. It's not one that most people are willing to talk about and you seem like you're willing to talk about it so how might someone who’s listening take some knowledge from the circumstances that you went through, that I went through, that might make it easier or create less anxiety for them?
Brian Lorence:
For me, it was easier because I was going to something that was familiar and I know that not everybody has that opportunity. When it's familiar, sometimes I can imagine some people may be dealing with a little bit of ego if they feel like I'm going back, it's been a while especially if they're somebody that’s highly regarded in their school and they're like boy, I really have gotten rusty. I know some people would be like that. I personally didn’t. I just went back and I'm ready to jump into it but I know if somebody feels that way, don’t worry, no one’s going to hold anything against you. Not oh no, look at you, you didn’t train and now, you're not looking as sharp as we know you're used to be. No one’s going to hold that against anybody. If they do, I'm sorry that that’s your experience but I really think most people are going to respect anyone who was, even if you weren’t the top student of your school, you're just somebody who came in and go there regularly, people are going to be welcoming you back with open arms but for those people who are, maybe you’ve moved and there is not a school that’s of your style, that’s going to be one thing or let’s say the culture’s different and even, in one part of the US to another part of the US can be even a little culture change for some of us. I think you just got to, if you really want it, do your research and you go about it kind of easy and slow and you find the right school, just give it a shot even if it's just some kind of trial program or something. Be upfront with the instructor, too, and just say hey, you know what? It's been a while. This was my path in martial arts. I want to get back into it, I'm feeling a little nervous, a little even embarrassed or whatever it is, let them know that because the good instructors out there are going to do everything they can to make you not feel any of that negative stuff. They're going to be all about helping you get back to who you are as a martial artist and again, not all of them are not going to be like that but you'll know if you go talk to somebody, you're going to see their response, you're going to hear your words and you might even take a couple of classes that, I think overall, is kind of a fear thing especially as adults when you're in our culture, everything is all about success, it's all about growth, it's all about these other stuff that can make it hard but we just got to tell ourselves, forget about that. It's about me and my opportunity. My chance to do what I want to do at my pace and if you want to, take that step and be honest and I think anybody that gives it that shot, I can't imagine. You and I know what the martial arts can do for any of us. It doesn’t matter what style, doesn’t matter what age you are, how long we’ve done it, we all know that it's just a unique thing to do that I think anybody that pushes past that stuff says ok, it's been 10 years and I'm older and I'm not in shape like I used to and if they just jumped in and gave it a shot and acknowledge those negative feelings, those fears or whatever but they just say it doesn’t matter, I'm doing this for me. I'm doing this because I know I used to love it, I think, I can't imagine anybody being like boy, I regret that decision. I don’t want to listen to Brian Lorence ever again.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We’ve got a pretty good timeline for you and your training. We started with now and we rolled backwards and we came forward but I want to go back. I want to plug in a couple of pieces and you're going to get the chance to decide where those pieces fit. The first piece, almost everything we’ve talked about today is overwhelmingly positive, and I'm going to guess that you're a pretty positive person but I'm also going to be really surprised if everything in your life has gone really, really well so I’d like you to go back, find us something that’s gone on that really sucked and how martial arts helped you get through it.
Brian Lorence:
Yeah, I laughed a little bit ago about the positive person because typically I am but my wife, she’s like mm-hmm, sometimes. Yeah, we’ve gone through some of the most challenging times have been, since we’ve been married and like that’s when I was slowly kind of getting back and I've been getting back to martial arts before I met my wife and then, we met and she got sick early on in our marriage and it's been this long-term kind of battle for her and very up and down rollercoaster and I know this is a mixed thing I'm sharing. It's not all yeah, it helped me pull through or helped me pull through any of the challenging times because I know it also caused some challenge here for my wife who was sick and just needing my comfort and my presence and all that and it was sometimes, for me, going to a job, some people think like hey, there's a break. yeah, but that’s work. But for me, when I would go and train, either for me to train or for me to be teaching my students, those were at least moments there where I was thinking at home, I can't. I rarely get through the stuff and she’s going to get better and all that. I can say, when I would be training, those things aren’t coming to the forefront. Those things were now on the side like in the beginning of our classes, we sit in silence and I tell people where this is the time where you can, if you have something tough going on today, this is for everyone to set it aside. If you got something that you're really excited about afterwards, we want to train and put that aside. If you're somebody who prays, take this time to pray but I’ll tell you what, even in that moment, as I'm praying before a class, it's not until we get ready to start that stretch, we start training then it's like ok, my mind’s in this. I'm all about honing my skills, my mental skills, my physical skills where I'm here, focused intently on my students. I'm going to help them gain skills that they may need to and that’s kind of the thing that, through that stuff, again, I say, it's a mixed thing because I want to be there for my wife and she’d want me to be there but I know that when we’re dealing with that trouble, especially if it's caused any tension at home of how things are going because it's been difficult on her health when I go and train, that was a time where, at least, I know I can come down from it, come back and feel, at least, more like ok, I'm here now, I'm ready without intentionally running away and hiding, I knew that training gave me that chance to focus on something completely different and have that like a break. Again, I say that with mixed feelings but that was the thing that I know, even from hearing other adults, that yeah, it's a nice way when you have stresses that you can step away and you do that because your mind is so focused on what you're doing for a half-hour or for as long as your classes are so I know it's a little long-winded for an answer but I hope that answers it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There are no long-winded answers if you know your history of the show. We are not even close to long-winded. There's so much further we could go but we won’t. that’s pretty powerful and I think not every martial arts starts a class with some sort of meditation. In fact, based on my experience, it's the minority of classes, too, but I found that if it's something that’s organized, great, but if it's not, it's part of how I get ready and finding my space in that class to have that time for myself which is my take away from what you just said. I think it's so important. You have to take care of you so that you can take care of others.
Brian Lorence:
Yeah, definitely. That’s one thing that I feel like as an instructor, when it comes to adults, one of my big goals is to have the martial arts school in my area that’s known for a great adult program because I know that’s not always the case and I'm not bashing anybody who’s all about kids’ programs in their schools. I know that’s what a number of instructors focus on but I have kids’ classes and I have adult classes and I really love working with adults and high schoolers too but I love getting to do that because we can get into the really heavy stuff and that’s real technical stuff and even the philosophical stuff that you can't really with a child. When you talk about having to harm someone, you got to be careful with how you explain that to a child when it comes to self-defense but when adults start martial arts program and they go wow! How many times have we heard mom and dad are bringing their kids to class and after a while, they're like why am I not doing this? And then, they do it and they love it more than the kid and because I know a lot of people like that, whether they're in my school or one of my really good friends have a big school with a lot of adults and that’s how they are. These adults are eating it up and whether it's that physical outlet where they, again, get to focus on something that’s for themselves, that’s helping themselves grow because they're feeling better physically , they're feeling better mentally, that’s great. I mean, how many adults talk about that or even one of my students who’s a mom in her 30s and she’s just saying I love that first few minutes of class where we sit quietly. She said I kind of get to go ok, a little moment for myself and that’s the first time I heard somebody say that to me about that. It's why the kids have already taken their classes, they're seating there eating their dinner for the night and it definitely does give people that moment but even outside of the adult, all of my kids’ classes too. Same thing where they sit quiet like that and I feel, these days, we talk about all the benefits for children yet I think a lot of the benefit that we use to see for children, personally, I don’t want to get off tangent too much here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I’ll pull you back if you do. Don’t worry.
Brian Lorence:
I feel like we’re losing a lot of that in school these days when people are like oh, martial arts is great for kids or whatever, focus, self-discipline, any of those things. I feel like sometimes, we’re missing some of the most simplest things that we used to always do traditionally in martial arts. Maybe not in all styles but traditionally, especially if we think back to most common styles that we’ve been seeing in the US over the last half century plus. Karate, taekwondo and all that kind of stuff. I feel like something as simple as that, that little moment of silence or meditation, whatever you want to call it at the beginning of your class. Even my little program for my preschool and kindergartners, they sit for a little bit and I'm all about cross your legs, hands on your knees, your eyes are closed, you're feeling relaxed, you're sitting up straight and you wait until I clap my hands and we get to open them. Even that moment, and I keep it shorter for the little kids, but I use that moment as that ok, we’re kind of like getting centered, we’re kind of like getting our minds into classes, we’re going to do this before anything else. We’re sitting here even with the kids and I feel like when we take out those traditional practices like that, again, you don’t have to do that but any of those things that were traditional that we know would benefit to maybe us when we were kids or the prior generation or the prior generation back in martial arts, I feel like we’re losing some of that really valuable stuff that is as simple as that theme. I'm not talking about having to teach any eastern meditation techniques or anything, I'm just saying hey, sit here quietly. If you had a tough day, just move on and forget about it or I just help the littlest kids because they shouldn’t have tough days, really, hopefully not, but just think about how you're going to have a great class. Think about how you're going to show focus, how you're going to treat everybody with respect, how you're going to work hard, how you're going to have fun. Those are the 4 things that I remind the kids. If they do those little things in that time because now, they're picturing yeah, I'm going to treat everybody really well or oh man, when we kick today, I'm going to kick my hardest or I'm going to kick my highest or punch my fastest. Just little things alone, help those kids taking that time also from how cluttered out culture is with all the noise and if we’re taking away that opportunity for kids to sit quiet for a class, we’re not giving them something that’s crazy healthy. I think in our very loud culture, just the western culture and all the ads and devices we have and all that kind of junk, I see a ton of value in that and we don’t do it for a long time but we do it, it's there, the little kids, the longest I might have them sit like that is maybe a minute. That’s probably more than a half-minute or so but then, the older kids go a little bit longer but I see the value for that even for the young kids. I think there's a ton of value because of that one thing where, guess what, when your kid is struggling with, let’s say, ADHD or something like that, or you just have kids that got a lot of hyper energy, that moment is giving them a chance to practice and it's in a disciplined environment because I'm going to take a peek and I might have to say hey, stop playing with your toes or close your eyes, whatever it is. I think there's a ton of value in that so that’s my tangent.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Totally. No, that’s good stuff and I think that one thing I want to tack on in this current landscape where we have so many things vying for our attention, it's so noisy, as you said, what's the thing that falls away? Boredom. What does boredom lead to? Imagination and that imagination is critically important and I am fearful, actually fearful of what we’re going to see in the next 10 or 20 years as we have people growing up who have not explored their own imagination as much as humans have evolved to do. So, we’ll say, if you're a parent of children, make sure they're bored at times. That boredom is important and I'm not at all suggesting that meditation before and after class is boring but I think it works a similar part of the brain. Let’s shift our time machine forward now. You're growing the school, sounds like it's going well, it sounds like you're happier. Is that fair?
Brian Lorence:
Yeah
Jeremy Lesniak:
Good! If you weren’t, I’d be really sad.
Brian Lorence:
Absolutely. It's just funny you say that because as soon as you say that, I'm quickly picturing being the last 10 years at the same company and I started in a kind of lowly job and got a promotion to a pretty full position out of that, promoted in that role, then got promoted into a supervisor of a clinic but even with those promotions which were all good things and there was more pay, there was even more freedom in a way with my schedule and stuff like that, it carried all this weight and everybody has and it wasn’t like ugh, every day with my job. There are days I really liked my job. There were a lot of days I really liked in that job and some of those different positions I had but there was still also the other junk that came with it, the other stuff that I don’t have to deal with at this point. The different stressed that we have now, the school is small. I don’t have the income I had before. I'm praying we’re going to get there and hopefully, we’re going to get there soon but yeah, definitely happier getting to do something I'm passionate about. I’ll tell you what, healthcare? Not a passion for me at all. None of the aspects of it. I did my job to the best of my ability and I really enjoyed what I did a lot of the time but I wasn’t passionate about it and this is something that I love. I love to teach, I love to learn, I love to see people’s positive reaction to stuff like just the other day, I had some students promote to new belts and one of them was a new student. A boy who was about 10 and I just shot a little email a couple days after the test to his mom and I said, your son did great. Happy to have you guys as part of our martial arts family and my wife saw the response yesterday. The mom responded back in the evening and it really touched my heart what she said because even her son, who again, I think he’s only 10, he said he himself told her I'm growing in confidence and he’s only been with me a handful of months and he’s telling his mom he’s feeling more confident and he’s really excited getting his new belt and it's the 2nd belt he’s had. He’s got the 1st one with his uniform and he got his promotion and he’s really excited and he’s such a great kid. In class, he’s there like he connects, he gets what it's about, he works hard, he smiles and I'm like that is so awesome. In my other job, I've had, yeah you could have some good moments, but you don’t feel like you're certainly changing somebody’s life and so it's just the little things that’s really great stuff that, as an instructor at least, that you get to experience that are pretty unique and they're the ones that, I don’t want to sound cliché but I almost sound like I am because I've heard these stories from hundreds of other instructors and but getting to hear them myself, I'm like that’s really cool. I'm so excited about this for her son and I know you know he’s not the only one that feels that way but that one sticks out in my head.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That’s awesome. Those are the stories that make it worthwhile. You lead a kids’ class and it's been chaotic and you feel like you got nothing done and maybe they even revolted and collectively refused to do anything and you had to resort to some, really barely adjacent game to pull them back in and, maybe that doesn’t happen to you, it's happened to me.
Brian Lorence:
Most of my classes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It happens more than I like to admit when I teach but then, you see progress form one of those children or, it could be what you're talking about, the kid actually sees their own progress which never happens! That’s so powerful!
Brian Lorence:
Exactly! I mean, what shocks me so much is that this kid himself said mom, I'm feeling more confident. What kid at that age, what even teenager admits that about themselves so yeah, that was really cool. That’s awesome.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Awesome. Let’s go back to where we were going. I love the tangent! Future, what's the future hold? If you look out, you can pick whatever time stamps you want. A year, 5 years, 20 years. What's going on with you and martial arts?
Brian Lorence:
The biggest thing right now is getting the school to grow because I need to. My wife is at home, she’s here taking care of things with our little one and even with her health, we know that’s not an option for her to have a regularly scheduled job outside of the home so it's really reliant on me. This year, in particular, the time for us to really, for me, to really dig deep and for us to see our school grow. That’s a big thing because if that doesn’t grow then my family isn’t going to be taken care of so that’s my biggest thing right now and there's a lot of moving parts, like I said, when I was doing part time, there was a lot of things that I wasn’t getting done and now, it's full time. It's like ok, alright, cool! You got all this time, you got all these stuff and then, it's like there's more stuff than I even realized so a lot of it is really moving ahead on that kind of stuff to build the school and I have other, and I got other programs I'm honing. I started one just last year that’s specifically for children with autism or related diagnoses so I'm working on growing that and kind of honing that. I have someone we met through the fostering system, foster care system, who is an occupational therapist that’s going to work with us. She’s already come in and given me some tips just from watching one of my private lessons and so, we’re actually looking to partner even more there which is really awesome. She’s a great woman. She’s given me opportunities to actually do some eskrima classes with some of the children she worked with in the foster care system and my other goals are, I had worked with one of my students, he’s in the national guard and great student and a couple years ago, gave me the opportunity to work with his national guard unit on one of his weekend drills which was a really cool opportunity so I'm talking with him about the opportunity to get back in there and so, I'm hoping I can get more of the chances there. It's neat when you can have that type of captive audience so I'm hoping we can get to continue building on that and other goals? I actually have one and, not to rain on you, I don’t want to take anything away from your show here but I'm actually looking at, last year, I had started kind of towards the end of the year of thinking of starting a martial arts podcast myself so that’s actually something that’s been in the hopper as the school gets moving along is something I would like to step into.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do it!
Brian Lorence:
That's one of my goals this year.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do it. I’ll help you if I can. I don’t feel the need to own this space.
Brian Lorence:
I figured you’d be a guest.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sweet! Let’s do it! As an aside, if anybody thinks I'm just paying lip service, martialartspodcast.com, we have put up everybody that has reached out or that we’ve wanted to or that we knew about, their podcast feed worked. The more, the better.
Brian Lorence:
Yes, that’s two of the things that are kind of going on. The big thing is growing the school and for my own training, that’s the thing that I think I don’t want, sometimes, I think some instructors can forget, oh yeah! I'm supposed to keep growing myself and I don’t. I pretty much weekly travel to train in eskrima, in INA eskrima every week. A good friend of mine owns a school about 45 minutes away on the other side of Milwaukee. I try to hit his school once a week and keep up with that and the head of our system, Jason, and I come to Wisconsin couple times a year and does seminars. I'm always trying to keep up with that just to grow in that and in my taekwondo too. Trying to make sure I put my time into that so kind of the, all the goals. I don’t like putting goals on ranks or anything like that because I tell my students the same thing. You work hard, ranks come and they come at the right time but yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Ranks are just a reflection of the work you put in. Focus on the work.
Brian Lorence:
Right, exactly and I really try and instill that in the students I have ever since I've had this school because I know there's a lot of schools will actually use that as the tool to keep the kids motivated, I don’t. I tell them your belt, I tell them, don’t train for your belt, however I word it for the kids but I say the belt is an awesome goal. It is so cool getting a new belt. I point them my belt and I show them how many striped in there and I say, you know what? When I get to test for my next one, I'm going to be so excited to get that belt too, just like you guys are but I make sure when I train, I work really hard whether or not I'm getting the test for a new belt and overall, really, the kids respond to it well and I let the parents of the children know that too if a child is just not there and there's a test coming up, I might even tell the parents who may have had their kid at the style for a while, I might just go up to them and say, you know what, so and so is not quite ready. I want to make sure when they test, they're ready and never once has a parent said anything except no, that’s great. If they're not ready, I want them to earn their belt and I'm like awesome because I don’t want a parent thinking that hey, we’re here for us to get belts. That’s not it. I want your child to grow. I want them to feel good about what they get. I want them to feel confident about their martial art so I definitely don’t like pushing the belt thing on my students and even though myself, I'm like that’d be cool to get my next rank, well, I'm not training for that. I just train to get better as a martial artist.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Awesome. Great philosophy! Now, if people want to find you online, email, website, social media, whatever, where would they go?
Brian Lorence:
Our website which is www.lorencemartialarts.com but you got to spell Lorence the right way. Lorence is L-O-R-E-N-C-E so lorencemartialarts.com. We’re on Facebook also Lorence Martial arts. Just make sure it's not L-A-W because you're going to be finding the wrong school. Actually, I don’t think there's one like that but maybe I should grab that, the wrong Lawrence Martial Arts and redirect it to my page.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Wouldn’t be a bad idea and it's Brian, not Johnny.
Brian Lorence:
It is Brian. However, that is funny because I forgot about the Karate Kid and one time we had a martial arts movie night for the martial arts school and we watched the original Karate Kid and I had not seen it since I was a kid and then, I hear Mr. Lawrence and I was like are you kidding me? I forgot all about that so it was very funny because my students are looking at me like what?! Mr. Lorence?!
Jeremy Lesniak:
When your guest form came in, that was all that was going through my mind was were those moments of Mr. Lawrence throughout that film, so yeah. Absolutely!
Brian Lorence:
Of course, in the school that I train in eskrima, we have a couple of other artists there too and one of the guys has been an instructor there, every time they see me, they're like is there a problem, Mr. Lorence? Every time. Every time! It's became this, is there a problem? Sometimes, just change up the tone and I'm like yeah, there's a problem. He's like oh, really?
Jeremy Lesniak:
That’s awesome, I love it!
Brian Lorence:
Yeah, you got to have fun with that. Not everybody gets that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Awesome. How would you send us out? What words, parting advice, whatever you want to call it would you give out to people today?
Brian Lorence:
The biggest thing, it's kind of 2 big things. I think they kind of go hand in hand is really just, as a martial artist, having an open mind and I know that, too, could sound cliché because I know a lot of other guys say it and I know not all of them do really just as a student have an open mind even if you trained in one style for 30 years and you're like no, I love this. That’s great. I don’t have any problem with that. I think that should be. You find a style and you go hey, I really like this style. I really have a passion for it but opening yourself up to other training, even if to just go on to seminars of another style or another instructor, something like that but if you have that opportunity to train a little bit in another style, I think, if someone hasn’t done that and they’ve been in training for a while, I suggest they do that. I mean, if you're only in 1 or 2 years, I’d be like hey, wait, no, no. Just focus, really get your groundwork, I think, somewhere where you think it's best but yeah, if you’ve been around for a while, try something out even if it's just for a little season just so you can go cool, now I understand it whether it's strength or weaknesses or whatever or it helps you see if there are any strengths and weaknesses in you yourself as a martial artist or some things that you’ve been taught and the other thing is, too, with the internet, because you wouldn’t have seen this when you started because how many people would have been in the internet back in the early 90s that don’t let people pick up, tear down your style or your art because sadly, I see that even from, I'm not going to say where but I've seen it in audiences where I'm like are you kidding me? You guys? Of all people? Are going to be tearing apart some of these art or style? If you do some style and you hear somebody say something about it, so what? If you realize that maybe there's a flaw in something, in some aspect of it, well, then that’s where maybe you have to do some research, dig deep, maybe ask questions to make sure you understand what's going on with that but don’t let anybody just like don’t let that stuff get you because I think that’s happening more and more with how negative people can be hiding behind their keyboards and say some stuff about so and so’s style is all that because that’s not what it's about and besides, it comes down to the martial artist and if somebody doesn’t like a particular style and you love it? Nothing wrong with that. If you love Chevy and somebody says no, they're stupid, you should only drive Ford, who cares? It's that kind of thing. So, just to start people to move, just to be bold about what they do and get the best training they can. Keep an open mind.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So did you pick up on the theme? The theme I left with was how Mr. Lorence defined so much of what he did by how it served other people. His students, the other people in his life, his family and that was really powerful for me. I think you can tell a lot about a person, not just for what they say but how they say it. Not by, necessarily, their actions but how they tell the story of how those things happened and, to me, my big takeaway here is that Mr. Lorence is as dedicated a martial artist as we’ve had on this show but one who, I suspect, loves teaching and loves working with his students so for any of you listening who get to call Mr. Lorence his instructor, I suspect you are very, very lucky individuals. Thank you so much, Sir, for coming on this show and sharing your time with us. Go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com for show notes with links and photos and more about this episode as well as every other episode we’ve ever done. If you're down to support whistlekick and the work that we’re doing, you’ve got all kinds of options. You can go to whistlekick.com and use the code PODCAST15 to save 15% or you can leave a review, buy a book or help with our Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick. If you have suggestions for guests, how to improve the show, social media content, anything! I want to hear it. Email me: jeremy@whistlekick.com and if you want to follow us on social media, it's @whistlekick. I've had a great time today, I hope you did as well and until our next meeting, train hard, smile and have a great day!