Episode 526 - Mr. Jason Brick
Mr. Jason Brick
Mr. Jason Brick is a martial arts practitioner, a successful Journalist, and a host of an upcoming podcast!
I like that experience from martial arts that being told over and over again; "That's not right, do it again." In a way, I know my Sifu wasn't' angry with me, I was just doing it wrong and I was expected to fix it. It absolutely contributed to my success as a journalist and also my success as a parent and spouse.
Mr. Jason Brick - Episode 526
The influence of our parents is monumental to children and that case is true for our guest today. Mr. Jason Brick was influenced by his father, who has an affinity for wrestling, to start training in 7th grade. Being exposed to wrestling first, Mr. Brick transitioned to Kempo without any complications. Mr. Brick's dedication to the martial arts also enabled him to become the best journalist and father that he can be. As a father, he is a staunch advocate of a safe home that's why he created the upcoming Safest Family on the Block Podcast that talks about protecting the family with our martial arts skills. Listen as Mr. Jason Brick talks about his life and journey to the martial arts!
Show Notes
Mr. Jason Brick
Check out Mr. Jason Brick's upcoming Podcast Facebook page
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below or download it here.
What's happening everybody? Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio episode 526 with today's guest, Mr. Jason Brick. I'm Jeremy Lesniak. I'm your host here on the show founder of whistlekick. I'm a guy who loves traditional martial arts which is why everything we do here at whistlekick, it's in support of the traditional arts. If you want to know more about what that means go to whistlekick.com, that's where you gonna find everything we've got going on, including our store and if you make a purchase one of the many ways you can support this show. Make sure you use the code podcast15 that'll give 15% off and lets us know that you're supporting the show. The show, speaking of which has its own website whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. We've got two brand new episodes every week, all with the purpose of connecting, educating, and entertaining traditional martial artists throughout the world. If you want to support that work, like I said, you can make a purchase. Or, you could also share an episode, follow us on social media. You could tell a friend pick up a book on Amazon, leave a review somewhere or support the Patreon. If you think these new shows that we're putting out are worth 63 cents apiece, not to mention all the back episodes you get access to, consider supporting us at the $5 a month tier. Patreon.com, PATREON.com/whistlekick and if you do so at the $5 tier, you get an exclusive audio episode so not only are you supporting us, but we're giving you extra and the more you spend the more extra we give you. Had a lot of fun with today's guest. We talked about a lot of stuff. We talked about travel, we talked about his diverse training, we talked about defending the family, and real world application of martial arts. We got into some stuff that, I will be honest, here we are over 500 episodes over 500, 500, 5 years later and I haven't heard anybody talking about this stuff. So, I think you're gonna enjoy it. I think you're gonna learn something and I'll catch you after the interview. Mr. Brick, welcome to whistlekick Martial Arts Radio.
Jason Brick:
Hello, Mr. Lesniak. Great to be here. Thank you so much for having me on.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You're welcome. Is is that how everybody feels when I refer to them by Mr. or Miss, Mrs. Hearing Mr. Lesniak just, it strikes me so weird.
Jason Brick:
What's the old line, you know. You look over your shoulder for your dad, right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Yeah, that's it's just it's it's so strange. It's, you know, it's the thing off-air that we spend the most time dealing with. Is the whole title question because it's so that there's such a paradox here, right? We, we respect where we come from, we respect the the rank and the title and the history and then the majority of us who have earned rank, say, "Eh, I don't, I don't wanna do that".
Jason Brick:
It's the one of those paradoxes of training. You know, it's it's very similar to the whole capacity for violence thing, where as you earn that rank, as you earn that title, or you become more and more capable of violence, you don't really feel the need to have either of them in your life. It's it's very paradoxical aspect of them this whole martial arts journey we're all on.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, that journey has a starting point. And uh we were we were to plunk down in the post tornado, very beginning of the yellow brick road for you.
Jason Brick:
Was that a pun? Was that pun intended?
Jeremy Lesniak:
It wasn't. That makes it all the better. Oh, man. The best puns are accidental and most I'd rarely go for the pun. I I just, you know what, here we are, and and I could tell we're, I'm feeling a little happy this morning. Clearly, you're on the same page with me and so I'm really digging that. But after how many episodes of asking people, How did you start training martial arts? I'm constantly looking like what's, what's a new way to ask this question. And some of them are strange, and some of them are funny. And apparently one time they turn into accidental puns, so...
Jason Brick:
Excellent.
Jeremy Lesniak:
When, you pop out of the house, and you put on the ruby slippers, and you hop on those the beginning of the trail that was martial arts. Tell us about that.
Jason Brick:
But for me, I can look back very specifically to a dinner I was having with my dad when I was seventh grade, was a little bit before Halloween, and my father was very serious wrestler when he was in high school and college. And, we were fighting about whether or not I would join the wrestling teams. And he made me and within two weeks, I was addicted. And I wrestled all through high school, middle school high school, very, very briefly in college because those people are insane. And, after that I got into the traditional martial arts through some of those classes you can take, you know the elective courses at college. And, then I found my way into a Kenpo Dojo. That was a really magical place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, then that was it for me that that transition to Kenpo happened in 1995. So I was noticed earlier than that. I was 21. So I've been 1993. And then from then has been fairly consistent.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I want to know more about that argument with you and your father at the table. He wanted you to wrestle you didn't want to wrestle but what was the logically side?
Jason Brick:
So, he wanted me to wrestle because wrestling was such an important part of his growth as a human being, was an extremely positive experience for him. Up and to this day, informs [0:05:48] a hugely important part of who he is. And I was more of a bookish kid. And I wasn't really interested in. I knew some of the kids on the wrestling team and they were jerks. Right? Also, I got to know them, right? But I have been being bullied by the kids at the wrestling team. And so by the time it was when it was time for me to decide whether or not to join, I was fairly anti but then I got in there and there's a little bit of natural talent and of course, I had a very good wrestler at home to coach me. And then it turned out I I kind of like this whole sweating my guts out, learning how to throw people around thing. And when I transitioned into traditional martial arts as an adult it was absolutely because I missed wrestling.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That two-week transition that moving from, you know, so opposed to so in favor, was that at all based on a feeling of control? of power? I mean, it's it's pretty darn satisfying to put somebody over your shoulder, over your hip, and down on a mat.
Jason Brick:
Oh, I wasn't that good at wrestling. I wasn't good enough for wrestling at first to get that. Most, it was very odd. There was this feeling of coming home of just "Oh, this is I'm supposed to be here" was the feeling that I got. And to this day, I can't explain it but I do feel more at home, on the mat, on the deck than anywhere else. My life was almost like, it's almost like when you, um, when you meet the one, you're like my wife and I met my wife. It was "Oh, there you are. I've been looking for you. And I didn't realize it". It was a feeling very much like that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The familiarity is nice. And what did your father think? Was he expecting you to continue or was he surprised that you wanted to continue?
Jason Brick:
I think he he was fairly satisfied. You know that. He was right, that I needed to be there. And he never lorded it over me. But yeah, he he was just kind of it was what he expected. He expected me to realize, "Oh, yeah, this is this is really cool." And he was right.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So six years later, you get to college. And you check out was it was that a wreck wrestling program or?
Jason Brick:
Yeah, it was. Right, you know, recreational program and then I got to know a couple of guys on the college team and this is the best story about college wrestling. My little brother was a better wrestler than me, much more serious about it. He went to college on a minor scholarship for wrestling. He quit college mid-season, his junior year, and join the army and got out of shape in boot. College wrestling is harder than bootcamp.
Jeremy Lesniak:
College wrestlers are nuts. I've noticed them, I've worked out with some, and I would say in terms of, oh I'm curious if you agree with with this, second only to gymnastics and overall athletic ability, I would put wrestlers.
Jason Brick:
With one exception and that being Broadway dancers, because they do all this stuff the gymnast and the wrestlers do while singing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. All right. I haven't. I haven't spent much time with those folks so that makes sense.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, yeah. The cardio the cardio control those people have is just amazing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Jason Brick:
But yeah, wrestling is up, we used to refer to it as the Marine Corps of collegiate sports.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Um, I get it. Here, I'll give a little bit of a story about some of my experience with college level wrestling. I was in an adult gymnastics program a few years ago, and we have a military school nearby. And some of the wrestlers showed up for our class one day. And, you know, the gymnastics coach is a really nice guy but he is the quintessential Eastern European gymnastics coach who will just kind of, say, do this, and if you don't do it, right, you'll say "Okay, next time just don't suck at it". Yes, really, really blunt, gruff, really nice man. And, he does the most cursory explanation of how to do a backflip when he realizes how, you know, how solid these couple wrestling kids are. And of them says look like this and just pulls the most beautiful back tuck standing in place, no assistance. He says, "Yes, just like that." and just kind of walks away.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, college wrestlers are another animal. And I couldn't. I might have been able to hack it, but I had other interests at the time. And I just looked at the commitment that that would have taken and I looked at, to be honest, the women that were surrounding me in the dorms, and how much work my academics were taking, and I wasn't up for that at that time. There there's days that I regret it. Because that that's, as I've gotten older, I've looked back at the challenges I didn't take in my youth and regret all of those. But on the other hand, I had some other really good experiences so who am I to second guess that kid?
Jeremy Lesniak:
One last bit on your father before we move on so what did he think when you when you stopped in college.
Jason Brick:
He didn't really have much of an opinion. He was very hands off once I once I turned 18 really.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Jason Brick:
You know, he'd give he'd give advice. You know, some parents or parents or different parents, you reach certain milestones, or at least my parents were. And he was very much about once I turned 18, it was my mistake to make and he'd be there to help me clean up the mess, but you didn't. He was he was pretty hands off mostly supportive and there and, as I say, in a support role, at that point. So he let me just kind of see where it took me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And you said from there, you found some recreational martial arts,
Jason Brick:
Yes some to Fencing, some Taekwondo, [0:11:33], Aikido
Jeremy Lesniak.
Oh, wow. You're mixing up.
Jason Brick:
Different, yeah different art every semester, right.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Cool.
Jason Brick:
University that was that had a very robust martial arts program in their recreational PE department...
Jeremy Lesniak:
And what was it like, what was it like transitioning from wrestling into those programs?
Jason Brick:
But yeah, this feels a little egotistical to say, but at first, it felt like everybody was in slow motion as compared to the intensity of a wrestling practice, right? But after that it was just really interesting. What I had learned from wrestling was to be fascinated with movement, to be fascinated with athleticism. And these new ways of moving the body, these new ways of expressing movement and, and violence uh were fascinating to me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Did you have a favorite out of those things you mentioned? I think four or five.
Jason Brick:
I had a favorite instructor uh and whose name I'm blanking on right now, cause it's been like 25 26 years.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's okay, you certainly forget it.
Jason Brick:
And I've been hit on the head a lot.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What rather than his name, what did you like about him? What was it about the way he...
Jason Brick:
He had a really good sense of humor and for example, this is an Aikido class and he'd put it okay and some just ridiculous, contorted thing and then you say, okay, and at this point, we can break his wrist in two places, dislocate his elbow, dislocate his shoulder, and break his three ribs, but we won't, because we're [0:12:55-0:12:56]. It was really funny every time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I like that. Yeah,
Jason Brick:
I just I just had a semester with him. But it was, it was fun.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. So you come out of college and find Kenpo towards your knowledge.
Jason Brick:
No, it was towards the end of college where I I transferred to another school um over a girl. And at the, at that point, there was something about me that was ready to go past taking semester's classes here and there and really commit and the dojo within walking distance in my dorm was American Kenpo Karate Academy in Albuquerque. And it was just, I was very lucky that the teaching staff there were some of the best teachers that I've encountered even to this day. And it was a great community to be a part of, and from there, I was hooked. That was it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
When I go back, you you you you almost said something that I am fond of and maybe even known for saying about movement, and that is that, there are only so many ways the body can move. And that only so many of those make sense through the notion of combat. You went in as a wrestler with this certain tool set and found that you were able to step into other things with some competency because you know how to move your body.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, absolutely. Now, this is back in the early 90s, right before UFC had been seen before MMA was, you know, became as popular as it is now. So, here I wasn't in a bunch of stand-up arts. So the crossover wasn't is wasn't as great or as extensive as it is now. Yeah, there was a, as you'll probably remember, there's a huge line of demarcation between stand-up parts and grappling arts,
Jeremy Lesniak:
Of course.
Jason Brick:
But the stances even though Wrestling stance looks very different from a Taekwondo stance or a Capo stance. It's still when you put your feet in a place that works for what you're about to do, and you balance yourself and you make sure your ankles are below your knees, and your knees are below your hips, your hips are below your shoulders, right? Now that's there was a lot of similarity...
Jeremy Lesniak:
And it did help.
Jason Brick:
And of course with wrestling particularly the work ethic, the the amount of work, the will, the how to put it exactly the amount of pain I was willing to take to learn how to move and the way my instructor wanted me wanted me to move was fairly substantial. And so that part that made a lot of the training much easier.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Now I got to ask the girl You're transferring schools to to go to or to go away from?
Jason Brick:
To go away from as it turned out,
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Jason Brick:
Got my heart broken and got out it
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah,
Jason Brick:
Right the time that's there was she ended up carrying on with a friend of mine. And, at the time, I told myself that if I stayed at the same campus with those two I was gonna end up in jail for killing the guy or something, right because I was, you know, 20 and stupid. And then there was a there was an opportunity to go to the school in another state. And so, I went.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And did that emotion, it all come into play with your martial arts?
Jason Brick:
Yes and no. Like, I was really angry at the time and but the martial arts is very centering. I was, okay, what I was saying about how you know, I was dumb and stupid and young and like, I'm gonna kill this guy, right? And then I get into this environment and martial arts where I'm with people who are legitimate tough guys, and legitimate tough women, all of whom are fairly contemptuous of that view. Now, you don't have to go kill the guy. Come on, man. Right. And so both the act of training in traditional martial arts was very centering and very healing and having this model of dealing with anger that was much more healthy. Both of those are really, really valuable.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And so what did you think of Kenpo? And let me let me say this carefully as someone who has practice and holds rank in Kenpo. Kenpo is often seen as an odd art among other practitioners. It is. I think some of that is some of maybe due to some of the well-known Kenpo practitioners, because they run the gamut, you know, people, and I think people have this instinct to downplay other arts at, especially when they're different and Kenpo being kind of this odd intersection of almost everything. There's always something to look at that you don't do in your art and say, "That's weird in us. That art is weird, not like..."
Jason Brick:
Yeah, I I loved Kenpo and I still love Kenpo and it is it is an odd art full of really odd people. And what it is one of the things is it's a very nerdy art. And I I always like to say because I'm a huge nerd, I'm such a nerd. I'm in my late 40s and I still play Dungeons and Dragons once a week. Uhm, but I like to say that martial artists multiclass jock slash geek
Jeremy Lesniak:
I would agree with that. Yeah. All right.
Jason Brick:
And Kenpo is are often much geekier. One of my favorite training partners was a Physics PhD, right? Because there's the structure of the art the way they analyze the movement, very specifically, very, not objectively what's the word I'm looking for here it's a, you apply vocabulary explicitly, where they, you know, they analyze the movement explicitly, rather than show you the movement and have you kind of figure it out for yourself. There's encyclopedic lists of techniques you have to memorize, hundreds of different ways to move is very nerdy and that appealed to me. And the culture in that particular school also appealed to me although the culture in some type of schools can be kinda kind of poisonous too. But I did. I did love the art and I loved the community in that particular martial arts organization.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know, I'm, as you said that you said, Kenpo practitioners are a little more nerdy, and I just started running through a list of my Kenpo friends and they're definitely nerdier than than the rest of my martial arts friends.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, I don't know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's very, that's very true. Some of them will be listening to this and I don't think any one of them will be offended. That's how nerdy they are.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, my Dungeons and Dragons group consists almost entirely of black belts that I've met.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right, so here you are. You're you're in Albuquerque, and you've started training Kenpo and it's centering and you're enjoying it and you've got great instructors, and they're all nerdy. And you're feeling like you're at home.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And you stayed there...
Jason Brick:
For for many years, graduated, stayed there for several years after, trained up the second black, taught classes every day and that was one of the best times of my young life. You know, before I had kids, before I got married, I can definitely point to those years of some of my happiest for different reasons, then I'm happy now, of course, but definitely. And then uhm I got kind of bullied into moving to Japan for a couple of years. And while I was there, I coached a karate team and oddly took Capoeira.
Jeremy Lesniak:
He may be the only person I've ever met, moved to Japan, and trained into Brazilian art. That's great.
Jason Brick:
So here's what happened there. Japan has a national program to bring in people from England, America, Australia, South Africa to teach English in their schools. Turns out they do the same thing with their soccer teams only with Germany and Brazil. So there's a lot of resilience in Japan. Which means that there's a surprising amount of of a Capoeira in Japan. Who knew?
Jeremy Lesniak:
What do you think of Capoeira?
Jason Brick:
Oh, I love Capoeira. I wish I was better at it. It's really fun. And it's a beautiful celebration of music and of movement together. I'm not a very good dancer. And so any, anytime I can get better at dance by doing something that also involves kicking. I'm a huge fan. And plus, they're really fun, you know, the verb they use for their practices play, which, you know, as they take themselves far less seriously than some of the more traditional martial artists.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Something I think we could all learn from
Jason Brick:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We had an episode and I don't remember what it was but the guests made a very compelling argument for why we should all use the word play the verb play, to to describe our training.
Jason Brick:
I haven't heard it but i can almost...
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I'm I'm on board. I'm starting to I'm starting to use it starting to use it you know, once you let go of that ego around, your capabilities, it becomes easier.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, absolutely. I, I haven't heard the argument but I can predict that I'll agree with it because that sounds right on.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Alright, so you, you ultimately, you go to Japan, you're there for how long?
Jason Brick:
I was there for the better part of two years. Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And then you come back to the States?
Jason Brick:
Came back to the States, moved into my hometown, crashed my parents basement for a couple of months while I figured out what was happening next, and wound up through a series of very weird events: teaching at a local Kenpo school, then managing that local Kenpo school, then owning that local Kenpo school. And I did that for better part of a decade.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Did you ever imagine you were gonna teach at that level and own the school?
Jason Brick:
I had that was a that was the goal. One of the reasons for going to Japan is that that gig you can save a lot of money was to get seed money to start a school. But then when I came back there was there were some things going on with the organization I was a part of that made it clear that going that way wasn't an option and it was one of those systems that's all copyrighted and everything so I couldn't just go out start my own school that way yada yada yada. You know, martial arts, politics, ridiculousness that's unfortunately happens in almost every art, right? And so, I ended up out here in my hometown, kind of trying to figure out what happened next, talked to a couple of Navy recruiters, looked at some other careers, and wound up falling backwards accidentally into this what I thought would be a part-time job. And then, next thing I know I'm running to school and I'm owning the school. And that was a lot of fun. During that time, I had a chance to cross train just every chance I got. We had seminars coming in a couple times a month, everything from standard Jiu Jitsu to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to some, some of those various three letter acronyms that somebody puts out that they teach to cops that teach the military or they twist or whatever, right. One of those just, I got I got a chance to indulge being a training junkie.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Nice. That sounds like a lot of fun.
Jason Brick:
Yeah. And then the weirdest thing happened. Um, I adopted an amazing seven year old kid.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Nice.
Jason Brick:
And then I had two realizations. One of them was that working in evenings and weekends job when you have a kid in school, doesn't cut it. And the other one was that absolutely none of my training had explicitly showed me how to protect him. Or to think for a second about the situation of having a gun pointed at you and your kids standing behind because you shuffle them behind. Think of the gun disarms, you now, 90% of them. Where's the barrel of that gun pointing? when you move?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Ends up behind?
Jason Brick:
Ends up pointing right at your kid.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Jason Brick:
And so the first thing that I realized that working in evenings weekends job which is what running a martial arts school is, I couldn't be the dad I wanted to be and still do that. And second, all this all these martial arts techniques that I've used and learned and been in competition with and I did some work in insecurities and work bouncing that kind of thing, and been in a couple of ill-advised situations and I used them in ways that kept me safe. There weren't a whole lot of where a whole lot of good when it came to protecting my son. And so that had a, I sold my school to my student body to a local, another school, took on some private students and transitioned into my current career as a journalist. And I'm continuing to train in Kenpo and other arts, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a little bit of Silat, stuff like that. But the whole time, also looking at all these martial arts that I've learned and these concepts and trying to figure out how I can apply them, to keeping my son safe. And then when my wife at the time and I had our son, a baby, a homegrown baby, as it were, the additional tactical challenges of having this tiny, helpless person in one hand, while I'm walking through a parking garage. It was, on the one side, there's this old saying about how being a parent means walking around for the rest of your life with your heart outside of your body. And there was a level of fear and level of vulnerability there that I'd never experienced before. And on the other side, because I'm a Kenpo guy, it was a unique and interesting tactical challenge. Right? And that fundamentally changed my relationship with martial arts.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's the timeline timeline in here because, you know, as we're talking about it, it sounds like, "Oh, you know, here's the thing, I'm gonna go explore it, uh here have a school, and I'm gonna go run with it." But I imagine it wasn't quite that fast.
Jason Brick:
No, that was I was in that school in one facet or another for the better part of 10 years. And then I adopted my son in 2007 and had transitioned out to full time teaching by 2009.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, so it took a couple years for that to percolate and solidify, as most ideas do.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, yeah, it was a big you know, it was a big life choice. I wasn't gonna make it just like that. You know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
When you started looking into this, I I imagine at some point you said, you know, let me see if other people are addressing this concern what'd you find?
Jason Brick:
So I found it very, very little. Actually, fast forward to 2014 when I was testing for 6 dan under Tom Callos, and he's the guy who did that ultimate black belt test thing for a long time, he says retired with mountain Idaho but I was at that test and part of it is that you give a 10-minute presentation. You're not allowed to speak the the movements supposed to present what you want to present on its own. And what I did was my family wasn't able to travel to that to the event with me but I got a couple of people from the from the test, few support personnel, a woman and two kids, middle-schoolers, and my presentation was applied what some things I had learned about squad tactics from my brother in the army and a friend of mine who was a bodyguard. Two scenarios where bad guy or bad guys approached a family. And the the board the testing board, which I did the math and it represented more than 600 years of combined martial arts experience. None of them have seen anything like that before. I'm not saying that to brag. I'm saying that to indicate just how badly missing that material is from our martial arts training. And I was the first person who had shown them the application of our study to the larger family. And so yeah, there was there was very little, I mean, I read "The Gift of Fear", "Protecting The Gift", of course, which for any listeners who aren't aware of that, if you have to fear is [0:29:20 - 0:29:22] the book on personal safety. And you talk to serious security people police, Special Forces guys, they're constantly buying them for all their ex-girlfriends. Or they I don't think they were the ex-girlfriends when they bought them for but they've all bought the book multiple times to give to everybody they ever cared about right. But there wasn't there wasn't much and quick, shameless plug that we'll talk about a little later. My program that it's coming out, "Safest Family on the Block" is my my attempt to take that more than 30 years of martial arts experience, my experience as a journalist, and my experiences a husband and a father and apply it to family safety in martial arts training. But we'll talk about that more later on
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, journalists. Where'd you find time for that?
Jason Brick:
Well, that was what I did do for a living since I closed my school. I'd, I've always had a talent for writing, I was told that by every adult as I grew up when I was in high school, my two best friends: one of them was a New York Times best-selling non-fiction author, the other one was a technical writer. They're both there to coach me and encourage me. I was told in college that I could be a professional writer if I wanted to. So of course, I went into an entirely different career, right? Teaching martial arts. But while I was running my school, I was writing all of my ad copy. I was putting doing the copy for the website. I had an article in the local paper. I had a couple articles in black belts and so as I was thinking, what what I'm going to do now if I don't want to run a martial arts school? I ended up going into freelance writing and journalism because it was it was there for me and it also lets me work from home and be the best dad that I can be.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hmm. That's awesome.
Jason Brick:
It's It's pretty cool. I'm right there with you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now unfortunately, one of the things in the martial arts world is known for is critiquing and pushing back and rejecting uh the the analogy I like to use is the bucket of crabs. You don't have that, sort of, you know, this one audience most of them have heard this, but in case someone hasn't, you don't really need to put a top on a bucket of crabs because the moment one gets enough of a grip to pull itself out, the others will pull back in.
Jason Brick:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And unfortunately, there's a lot going on in martial arts. It's like that. So I'm wondering, did you experience that as you started putting forth some of these ideas?
Jason Brick:
Not as much as I think some do, what I've noticed, especially as I you know, I bring it up on on the internet, you know, never say anything on the internet that you don't mind having torn up. Uh but there are those people in the martial arts world, but they're, I feel that they're outnumbered. Just loud. And so I, I don't hang out with them. And yeah, at this point in my life, you know, I've been doing this for a while I started when I was 11. I'm 40 uhm now, so I've been doing it for 30 uhm odd years. And so I can I can pull rank a little bit and say, hey, that's cute cub. But you know, when you're when you're ready to come sit at the adults table we'll we'll try this conversation again. But most of the people who are serious and experienced and had that change in their ego, because the confidence that comes with real training for a long time, under excellent instructors. Those folks have all been anywhere between mildly interested to profoundly supportive of this shift in these ideas.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And what was your family's reception to this, you know, white kids and I would imagine that here's another martial arts cliche: "Here grab my wrist. I want to show you the thing that we learned in class tonight," right? So I can imagine that you're working out these ideas, and then you're bringing them to your family and wanting to get their input and demonstrating all that, you know, was that going on?
Jason Brick: Oh yeah, and luckily, my family's been very supportive. My first wife who I met in Japan, who interesting grew up 90 miles from me. She actually trained in Japan, got her brown belt in Kenpo in Japan. And so she was very receptive. And then you know, that's that, that relationship didn't ended up not working out. But my, my current wife is also very receptive to it. She's not a martial artist herself, but she appreciates the importance of safety and appreciates that I'm learning these things and it's very open when I've come up with an idea to bring to the family. She's very supportive of it and she's willing to try it. And she's also been a very good what's the word we're looking for here? She She's an interesting sounding board for me because I hang out with martial artists and talking to somebody who doesn't have that worldview. The person who is who if I show you a really great way to break a guy's arm, you're gonna go, "Oh, that is so cool." Normal people say, "Yuck".
Jeremy Lesniak:
Why do you know that? Why do you want to know that? Right? We're a weird bunch.
Jason Brick:
We are we are, we are weird, nerdy people, but having her on there. And then my kids, of course, you know, I'm their dad, and neither, one is 20 but he never went through that period where he thought I was it. I was lame and the other one is 10 so he still thinks I'm Superman. And so anything I showed them, they're there for, but they've been they've been very supportive as well.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Nice. Nice. And let's, let's circle back on that. You know, I want to I want to talk about some of the specifics. But I know that the moment we start digging into that, it's gonna it's gonna changed the tone of the conversation. So I want to hold off...
Jason Brick:
Absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
...on that. And I want to talk about martial arts and how it's influenced your life. You've been pretty open in our conversation about, you know, emotional stuff and, and family stuff and you've been you've been really open. You talked about leaving college because of a really crummy situation with two people that you wouldn't have expected. A crummy situation to come from. Martial Arts gives us a lot of tools. You know, it's it's centering as if it's had its, it can it can help us defend ourselves from any manner of physical and non-physical threats. When you look at the toolkit that you've developed today and you look at your day to day life, what do you what aspect of your martial arts training do you find yourself relying on the most? You know what, what do you, let me ask that in a slightly different way. You strike me as a very uhm insightful and self-aware person. So I would imagine that as you go through the ups and downs of life, you're saying, "Ah, I'm thankful I have my martial arts training, because it's made it easier to deal with x."
Jason Brick:
So that I'll give a I'll give a physical answer and a mental answer. A physical answer falling skills, knowing how to break fall. You know, I've been a martial artist for 30 uhm years. And I haven't been in a fight for more than a decade. I fall down once a month. Right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
We need to get you some better shoes.
Jason Brick:
I know. I know. And I just need to be smarter when I'm doing things like painting the house, but but yeah, so falling skills, absolutely the most important physical self defense skill level. But I think to answer the question you're really asking, I'll tell a little bit of story for my writing career. Where I was presenting at a conference, at a writing conference. And I was sitting at what I call the grown ups table, which is where all the is in many conferences, the presenters all sit at the same table, which I don't particularly like because I feel like I should be out there with the people who just paid a couple hundred bucks to come hang out with us, right. But at this for about half the conference, we'll have you sit together, and I'm sitting together and there's three men and nine women at this table and as a conference of five or 600 people turned up all three of us men, we had wrestle. And we and the women that when we talked to them all, but one of them had been either an athlete or a musician in high school in college, and the other one was in drama. And what I noticed from that is that all these people had during their formative years experiences were being told you did that wrong, try it again. Happens so often that it no longer carries emotional weight. So as a journalist, I don't get twisted when an editor tells me to change the sentence. It doesn't hurt my feelings when I get a rejection letter from a magazine. And a lot of writers I know, they'll get a rejection letter, they won't be able to work for three days. And I feel like that, that experience in martial arts of being told over and over and over again, "That's not right. Do it again." in a way where I know my Sifu wasn't angry with me. I was just doing it wrong and I was expected to fix it. Absolutely contributed to my success as a journalist, and also my success as a parent, and as a as a spouse. That, I can be told I'm wrong without having to immediately jump to my own self-defense. And I feel like that's true of most martial artists I know who've been in it for a long time. And it's absolutely the best life skill that I've gotten from my lifetime toolbox that martial arts gave me
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's it's a pretty phenomenal difference between martial artists and non-martial artists in that way because if you think about the way a non-martial artist approaches a skill they're looking for, what is the base level competency I need to utilize this day-to-day, and then I don't need to go beyond that. You listen to people who talk about, let's say golf. No, I'm not that good, but I'm good enough to go and play with friends and have a good time. They'll say the same thing about you know, recreational basketball or, you know, I'm not a master electrician, but you know, I can fix some stuff around the house. You know, it's that, what's the baseline that I need to utilize the skill the way I want? And in martial arts, it's, it's kind of the opposite. The the baseline is gone. It's always "How do I make this better? Where can I improve this? How do I improve this skill and that skill and that skill and that skill and oh crap that, that, that that and that."
Jason Brick:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Without losing sight of the other 400 things that I've already been working on, you know, it's this realization that there's always so much. And it can be daunting. And honestly, it's what takes some people out of the arts is that they're never going to have that. That mindset. It doesn't it doesn't fit with what we do now.
Jason Brick:
I would say it's not exclusive to martial arts, most of the musicians I know, for example, are very much like that. And I think that's why so many martial artists I know are also musicians. There's a lot there's a lot of crossover there too.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Yeah. We've had a few on the show. A creative and yet applied mindset skill set.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, I feel I have a lot. They have a lot of things in common.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Do you still teach at all?
Jason Brick:
I do a...
Jeremy Lesniak:
Guest lecturer. So I've been in visit
Jason Brick:
I do some seminars from time to time. I'll pop in and visit from time to time. I've got this program that we'll talk about later where I'm going to start instructing a little more seriously again. And then, about six months before the pandemic shut everything down, my son's best friend, his little sister, and then a couple other kids from the neighborhood talk me into running the class for them once a week. And that's just been fun. You know, it's it's, it's entertaining, of course, to use the kids' classes. I know. I know instructors who hate teaching the kids' classes. And it's not my very favorite thing in the world but there is something very, very wholesome about teaching kids karate, you know, you feel like you feel like Mr. Miyagi. Yes, it's fun.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's, you know, I it depends on what I'm looking to get out of get out of my instruction. If I'm looking to convey a lot of information and work some stuff out and get some people doing things so I can see how it works with different body types and skill sets. I want to work with adults.
Jason Brick:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I wanna have a heck of a lot of fun and forget what's going on in the world, I want to work with kids.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, there's there's a there's a satori moment in kids training and then you know that deep focus then moment and kids training you don't get with adults, partially because you got to keep them behaved as well as teach them. It takes that much more personal resources. So you really can't think of anything but what you're doing when you're teaching the kids class.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And the younger the kids, the more on your toes you have to be I had a I had a kid raise his hand I was I was teaching at a summer events, you know, not not my students. This kid barely knows me. I think I've spent a total of 15 minutes with him at that point, he raises his hand and I you know, we're in the middle of a drill. And I said, "Yeah, what?" and he and he looks stops. It looks at me says "I'm Batman". And the amount of self control that you need to not reward one of the funniest moments of my life knowing that it will completely destroy what everyone's doing. That's a skill set.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, yeah, the worst injury of my martial arts career was from a seven year old. We were doing a drill where we they were sprinting across the deck, leaping over a kick shield that was on the ground and then trying to kick a hand shield. And I had turned my head to look at the kid who had just done it and the other kid hadn't, did not wait for me to go and just say go, and he went, and he jumped up over the shield and as it hasn't happened, my head was turned sideways, directly above that shield. So he basically head butted me right into the temple, off from a two headed two foot jump, and gave me a hospital level concussion. And it's just coz I took my eye off of that little ball for a second. And it's the worst martial arts injury I've ever experienced.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I'll, I'll give you, I'll give you one more because I don't want you to feel, I'll give you one of my not quite injury but but similar uh hack for all I know you have something like this in the program in the material that you we're going to talk about in a few minutes. Uhm, I grew up in Maine, I grew up in and around a lot of farms and
Jason Brick:
Lovecraft's territory.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Uh and my mother was bringing me to a farm. She was going to talk to somebody, and this particular farm had geese. And one of these geese hated people. And this goose would...
Jason Brick:
All geese hate people.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, no, no, not like this one. This one would hide in the bushes to stalk you.
Jason Brick:
Oh, man!
Jeremy Lesniak:
It would it would attack you. And so I remember I was probably three and we pull up. And you know, there was a protocol for this. Jeremy, do you see the goose? Now I don't see the goose. Let's wait a second. Let's make sure. We're looking we're looking at all the bushes, and no there's no goose so we get out, we're walking and I mean the car's 15 feet from the door it's not far and the goose comes charging out with the same posture that you've seen a T-rex attack on Jurassic Park, I mean, it's that low head and they're just aaahh, and gunning for us. And, I hadn't started I'm I'm maybe I was four or five maybe I just started training my mother and not started training at that point. And she picks me up by my hands and tees off and clubs the goose in the head with my feet. So is that in your program? Is utilizing your children as a weapon, considered a good resource?
Jason Brick:
It is now
Jeremy Lesniak:
You have to go back to the drawing board now you completely see you haven't even thought about that. Always another layer.
Jason Brick:
What's the old joke about I'll kill a dude with another dude. Your mom did it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Yeah. She she, she did...
Jason Brick:
That's hilarious, man. That's brilliant.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's funny is is that it it was not traumatic, but yet is still seared in my mind so vividly.
Jason Brick:
That would be memorable. That would be memorable.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, 30 murmur years later,
Jason Brick:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's still there.
Jason Brick:
Yeah. Amazing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So now that we've let it in with possibly the worst anecdote, and the funniest anecdote, I I'm gonna, I'm setting you up. So what what is in this thing, if somebody were to, you know, first off, what's it called?
Jason Brick:
It's "Safest Family on the Block". "Safest Family on the Block" and it's on YouTube. And I'll send you the link so you can put it in the show notes. Yeah, please. Our first episode drops August 4th, which is a couple days from now, but probably a couple of days after this episode actually goes live. Yeah. So it'll we'll be out there for everybody by the time that they hear it, and what it is, is I take this experience of being a sixth degree black belt, a father to a husband, and a journalist and I sit down across the table from subject matter experts. For example, our first season as it were has 10 people. It starts with the guy in charge of paramedics for San Francisco International Airport. Guy's been a paramedic for 20 uhuhm years. And tell him telling me and telling our viewers what injuries he sees too damn often in children and how we can prevent them. And then the next conversation is with Alex Bromley from verbal Judo, about how to apply verbal Judo techniques to getting what you need out of your teenagers and out of your grade school kids. And got eight other interviews, we got John Riddle black belts', instructor of the year for 2012, who's a SWAT operator telling us how to make our houses a harder target. Talked to Karen Letofsky who is Canada's foremost expert on suicide prevention about what are the signs that might indicate that your child's having suicidal thoughts and what you can do when you see that. And so I'm talking to experts from just across every discipline I can find about family safety, and taking their knowledge through this lens of my own experience. Because what I found when I was looking at this for myself, was when you look at Family Safety advice, you've got either another journalist who's not a martial arts person, who's not a police military person, kind of relaying third-hand information that they read, usually during a quick internet scrape before they you know, wrote the wrote the article or got on TV, or you got these highly specialized professionals who don't really understand parent the role of a parent in civilian life. For example, there's a Clint Emerson right writes this amazing book a "100 Deadly Skills" that has a lot of cool things in it. He's a navy seal and a covert operative. And he goes into detail about how to hide a handcuff key up in yourself, just in case you're captured. And on the one hand, I guess that's a good skill. On the other hand, if I'm ever in a situation where I feel the need to do that, I have made so many mistakes prior to that moment.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Jason Brick:
Right. And so I kind of see my role in this as being a translator between these highly tactical people, these highly specialized professionals and regular parents. Because I didn't find that person when I was looking for the information.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. I would imagine that in in what you're talking about what you're addressing in your own research and experimentation, you've accounted for the fact that let's face it, most self-defense taught to children is based on self-defense for adults.
Jason Brick:
Yes, my my brother. My other brother had that experience where he, he was never as serious about martial arts as I was, but he took some classes with his son at a Hapkido school in Seattle. And there were two instructors, one of whom was like a 6 foot 3, 210 pounds, former Marine, you know, and he was high speed, low drag, ripped, aerodynamically efficient. Solid martial arts jock, you know the type. And you know, there's nothing wrong with that type. The other one was his mom, who is like 5 foot 6, 100 pounds soaking wet, who got her first black belt as a woman in the 70s. So, that guy's experiences martial arts in martial arts doesn't even apply to hers. And you know, which one of those two knew how to make a technique work no matter what? It was this small,
Jeremy Lesniak:
It was the woman, yeah.
Jason Brick:
That's right. And that I kind of lost my train of thought it. I derailed my train of thought there but I was just kind of building up to a point.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You're you're probably building up to this wonderful reveal about your brother's experience and his children's experience in the class and how the things being taught to them were probably not appropriate or…
Jason Brick:
Oh yeah, that's what we're talking about martial arts types and children being inappropriate because they're not adult-sized. And his experience with that really underscores that if you're teaching somebody from the experience as a serious martial artist, as somebody who's been an athlete for their entire life, as somebody who's been interested in and gotten training in military and police combatives and military and police situational awareness, if you're teaching Family Safety from the point of view of that person, that person alone is not going to be useful for most of your students coz most of our students aren't that person. There's somebody who may or may not have done some athletics in high school, some athletics in college, but have had priorities of family and work, do not have that combative mindset, do not have the martial artists approach to violence. One of the superpowers of martial arts gives us is 90% of the violent situations that are that might come towards us, if we see them coming, which is a whole other thing. We have a plan already. And having a plan makes it a lot harder to panic. Where most people have never thought about these things before and that doesn't make them bad people doesn't make good people. It just makes teaching them what to do in those situations much more difficult than teaching somebody who has been showing up three or four times a week to do martial arts for the last 10 years. It's a different person and we need to and the curriculum for them is a different curriculum.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If and actually before I say this, I haven't said this in a while so I want to remind the audience. There are a lot of podcasts out there where people get the opportunity to pay to be on, you know, especially if they're selling something if they're pushing something. And I want to remind everyone that we have never and will never do that. So when we bring someone on when we talk about a program, or a course or a book or anything like that, it's because I think you all might be interested in it. And I mean, you can, you can account for the fact that you reached out and what was my initial reaction was to push back.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, your response was...
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because I wanted to make sure. Go ahead.
Jason Brick:
Yeah, your response was to say, you know, dude, it seems like you want to come on my show to promote this product. And my response to you was well, yeah but also, I'm a passionate martial artist. And let me tell you about this project a little bit coz it's a really cool project. And you're like, okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And not everyone passes that test. Right,as as people might imagine, we get hit up all the time. All the time. Everyone wants to come on the show. And they want to push their their this that and the other thing, you know, "hHi, I took these three self-defense classes and I'm a ex-Navy Seal plus, plus, plus and I wrote a book and I want to talk about my book because everybody wants to be the next David Goggins.
Jason Brick:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And, you know, that's, we don't do that. We don't do that.
Jason Brick:
So I think your exact words were. "So Jason either you're really good at telling me what I want to hear or the truth about this project is what I want to hear."
Jeremy Lesniak:
Not only does it sound like me, I'm pretty sure that was me. Yes. That's, right on. And I wanted to lead into what I'm going to ask you with that because I I, from our conversation, from our conversation before the show, from our emails, if this is something that sounds like it needs to exist, and it's something that I think people listening should be interested in learning more about. If If, even if they're not going to financially support it, and make it their their focus of their training or anything like that.
Jason Brick:
Well heck Jeremy, at this point, I don't have a way for people to financially support this.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Perfect!
Jason Brick:
It's just a podcast.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Perfect!
Jason Brick:
Eventually there's going to be a book on developing a curriculum where once I've done enough interviews to have all the information or some of the information I need a way for martial arts school owners to do a seminar on the weekends. I'm even talking to a couple of my other experienced friends who are also lifelong martial artists with kids about even coming up with a Kenpo style curriculum that involves a small person to protect. Right, where your, you know your your standard guard stance, step back with your strong hand, you put the hands up, elbows in, head down right. Where the front hand is opening a stopping position and the backhand is grabbing your child and putting them behind you. And having them grab you by your belt line, by your belt by the back pocket by the by the pants there so that your child is protected, and you know their exact position. And so we're working on that kind of thing as well. But none of this is out for purchase right now, right now while we're doing is putting that information out to as many people as possible via YouTube and these interviews. We're gonna have two different interviews. One is the raw interview, which is about an hour long conversation that we just recorded. And then the other one, I'm calling them at the TLDR episode, where I just named the five most important things I learned from the hour long interview, and you can get that in about three minutes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Cool. Awesome. And if if you could you get you gave an example of something that might be taught. If you could give another example of something that you see people are doing wrong. I, I want people's minds to open up I want people to start taking a look at what they're doing and how they're thinking about these things. So if we could kind of, you know, send out a bolt of lightning and epiphany and say, This is a thing that doesn't work, doesn't apply in this context. Well, but what might that be?
Jason Brick:
Oooh oh man, that's a interesting question. One of the ones for me was the last episode of season one is a conversation with Steve Mullins, who's a wilderness firefighter and he's been a medic for his entire career. He right now works as a medic on movie sets. And what we did with him was the structure the interview was a couple weeks before we talked, he sent me a loadout list for the platonic ideal of a home first-aid kit, and of a car first-aid kit, and of a first-aid kit to come camping. And we literally just put all that on the table. He walked me through what each thing was for and how people messed up using them. Everything from a basic band-aids to uh aloe cream for your sunburns, to yeah the Israeli compression band and there's the whole nine yards. And what I learned from that is, most of us, we haven't gotten our first-aid certification re up to the last two or three years, we're doing that wrong. Partially because it completely changed the way CPR supposed to work. And partly because, we always forget the information that we don't refresh. And most of us are fortunate enough to not have to use first-aid on a daily basis. So the biggest thing I learned from that was how much I was doing first-aid wrong, or how much again, because I'm fortunate enough that my first-aid is mostly just fixing booboos, how much of the more advanced first-aid I had forgotten or confused in my mind and would have done incorrectly.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I love that where you went was a little bit different than what I asked because I think it shows the the diversity of the application. You know, it doesn't sound like what you're putting together is strictly for martial artists.
Jason Brick:
Well, that's a that's the hope right? That it's the interviews we're having is not just the tactical physical martial arts because as all martial artists know, all of our listeners know, if you're in a fight, you're already screwed up. Right? You can get out of those fights unless it's your job professionally, to step in and stop the bad guy from hurting other people. You're you know the best, wisest course of action is to, as my instructor used to say, evade injury through rapid flight. But to give a more tactical answer, one thing that we do wrong as martial artists, we trained just for ourselves, you know, I know what I'm going to do if somebody throws a haymaker at me. I know what you know, you know what someone's going to do. What you're gonna do, someone grabs your wrist, no, no, not that way. The other way. All those things. We we have a plan for that. But, as soon as you involve the chaos and the concern of a nine year old, who you're responsible for, your wife have you sat down with your family and discussed the quote, unquote self-defense technique, you will as a team undergo if you see a threat coming in. And I don't think very few martial artists do that. And I think it's hugely, hugely important. As a martial artists, you know, being a protector, being a defender, being a warrior as part of our it's part of our souls is a core part of all of our personalities. And we need to think about how best to be that warrior when we are protecting more than one person. And very, very few martial arts artists, I know do that in a very disciplined way, in a very systematic way. And I have yet to encounter a traditional martial arts program that discusses it at all.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Good stuff. And you said it's gonna be on YouTube by the time this comes out, what's the name of the channel?
Jason Brick:
It's "Safest Family on the Block". And
Jeremy Lesniak:
You don't think anybody will find have a hard time finding that?
Jason Brick:
No, no, there's a there's a YouTube page that I screwed up. But there's also the YouTube page I made. That's that's working those fine. So the only place someone could go accidentally is also this project is just nothing has happening there. Yeah, and by the time this drops, we'll have Justin Shore. He's that paramedic who is, I'll tell you he's he's a little salty about the the ways kids get hurt because of how preventable they are. And then the next one, by the time this drops out, we'll probably up there and John Riddle, and maybe even Karen, who's the Canadian suicide prevention expert. And then we've got some really, yeah, it's I've been very pleased with how this has turned out. The people who have come forward to be interviewed, the amount of information, the amount of skill, the amount of passion people have had, as they come on to the show because each of these people are specialized professionals, top of their game in these categories, who want to share their information and you can see a lot of them are frustrated in the channels. They have had to share information with people who need it, or in many cases, because they're the first person to see what happens when a parent doesn't have that information. So these are people who really, this is part of this is part of their mission. And it's really these conversations have energized me towards this mission that I've taken off of myself, because they're showing me how, how much this information needs to get out there in the world.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Got it. Awesome. Well, this is this has been a phenomenal conversation and one that I'm sure everybody's really wrap their mind around, or at least open their mind to and I hope people will check out what you're doing. I'm certainly going to and yeah, I'll make sure I'll link these stuff.
Jason Brick:
I really hope so and thank you so much. It's been a great conversation. Jeremy, I appreciate you having me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, of course. And you know, I'm gonna give you the chance that I give everybody as they as we wind down here, you know, what, what are the parting words you want to leave the audience with today?
Jason Brick:
Just train more, make time to train. Piece of advice I got actually in writing circles, which was an answer to well, what if you don't have time to write is that when we say we don't have time for something, what we're really saying is, I value this other thing more, because we all have the same amount of time. So if we don't have time to train, we need to look hard at what we're valuing above our training. And if that's time with our family, and a job that fulfills us, and traveling to the world, and cooking good food, and dancing, and singing, and laughing, and hanging out with our elders, that's, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But if it's the hitting the feeder bar on our Netflix, then maybe we want to re-examine our priorities because getting every time something's gone wrong in my life. When I started training, more things start to get back when needed to be and I might might just be my experience, but if you're saying you don't have time to trade, maybe make that time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
As promised, we have delivered. We talked about a lot of different stuff. We talked about really interesting things today. And this idea of using martial arts to defend others. I'm surprised we haven't talked about it more and sooner. And I hope it's a conversation that Mr. Brick can inspire others to have. And I hope that his work on the subject can be beneficial. So, sir, thank you. Thanks for your time. Thanks for coming on. And I just found out today, you and I have a good mutual friend. Not even not even not even going to explain that one because I've got a feeling it'll play out and it'll be much more fun when it plays out. If you want to see more, learn more, find out more go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, that's where you're gonna find the photos, the videos, the links, social media, transcripts, all that stuff that we do for this and every other episode. And again, if you want to support what we're doing because this stuff doesn't come for free, it's not toss. You've got a number of things that you can do. You can visit the store, use the code podcast15 you can leave a review, buy a book. Or check out the Patreon, P - A - T - R - E - O - N.com slash whistlekick. And remember if you see somebody out in the world wearing a hat or a shirt or something with whistlekick on it, say hello. He might be your next training partner or friend. Our social media is @whistlekick and my email address Jeremy@whistlekick.com. I really enjoy hearing from all of you. And even more so, I appreciate your support so thank you, and until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.