Episode 596 - Mr. Matt Hoffman
Matt Hoffman
Mr. Matt Hoffman is a Martial Arts practitioner and teacher at the Wandering Ministry.
I think understanding violence not as something that is just a punch and a kick, but actually everything else that leads up to the violence. The way we speak to each other, the way we hold our bodies infront of each other, the way that we orient ourselves to relationships. These are actually what leads to violence.
Mr. Matt Hoffman - Episode 596
There are few martial artists that are willing to go as far as the source of their discipline. Mr. Matt Hoffman developed a passion for martial arts as a young kid which gave him an opportunity to travel and train overseas. As a self-confessed ‘nomad’, Mr. Hoffman has been on a couple of trips to China and Japan to study where some of the martial arts disciplines were from. There’s a lot to unpack in this episode from his journey to the martial arts to his take on violence so, make sure to listen to find out more!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hello. You're listening to whistle kick martial arts radio episode 596 with my guest today, Mr. Matt Hoffman. I am Jeremy Lesniak; I'm your host for the show, founder of whistle kick and a passionate traditional martial artist, which is why everything we do in whistle kick is in support of the traditional martial arts. If you want to know more about what we do, what that means, go to whistlekick.com that's the place you're gonna find out everything, all the projects and the products and if you find something in our store which is one of the ways that we fund all this work that we're doing. You can use the code podcast 15, saves you 15% lets us know that people who listen to the podcast, buy stuff. It's an important thing to know in business. This show has its own website whistlekickmartialartsradio.com we're bringing you two brand new episodes each and every week. And our goals here at whistle kick and all martial arts radio. Well, it's all under the heading of connecting educating and entertaining to traditional martial artists of the world. It's the work that we do mean something to you and then you want to support it, you have a number of ways that you can help us out. You can make a purchase, share an episode, and follow us on social media if you're not crazy. You could tell friends about us, that's one of the biggest ways that we grow, you could pick up a book on Amazon, we got a bunch of titles. You can leave a review on iTunes or Spotify or Facebook or Google, or you could support our Patreon patreon.com, that's patreon.com/whistlekick.
Patreon is a place where we post exclusive content. And if you contribute to as little as five bucks a month, you're gonna get access to exclusive audio you could actually do two bucks a month and just get the behind the scenes content. $10 a month you get video in fact, today, I just did a brand new video on crafting using and the importance of understanding impromptu weapons, how do you take what you do with a bow or a staff, whatever you call it out to a stick that you find laid on the ground, I go over some of that our content on Patreon. It's meant to give you even more to help you go deeper, or to just get more of the stuff that we do, that you like, you know, every guest that I talked to has a different story. They say different things they come from a different place and that makes sense because we're all different, with different experiences, and today's guest wanted to go deeper, wanted to talk philosophy, wanted to talk about some of the more mental, emotional, personal development components of martial arts and those of you who've been listening to while know, I was quite happy to go there. And that's where my conversation with Mr. Hoffman. So, let's get to it. Hey Matt, welcome to the show.
Matt Hoffman:
Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, really good to be with you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, appreciate having you on. You mentioned a few minutes ago that because of the way the world is right now that you haven't had the opportunity to talk about martial arts with very many people and I can understand the pain of that I can't relate to it because of this show and I am blessed I get to talk to people all the time about martial arts and call it my job is pretty sweet.
Matt Hoffman:
Yeah, I can imagine that, probably on some days is a little bit of a blessing and some days, a little bit of a curse.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's rarely a curse.
Matt Hoffman:
Oh right.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'll confess, not more than nine times out of 10. I am pumped to do it.
Matt Hoffman:
Sweet. Yeah, and you know in terms of, for me COVID has been a really interesting exploration of solitude and silence in an interesting way. So, this when I got the opportunity to come on and join you all felt like a really great kind of meditation on, you know, what's stuck around and maybe what's survived the silence.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's a great way to frame it, and so many people. Our training has changed, whether it's just moving from the things that we did in a group, live, move to doing them online, as a group to more extreme things where so many schools unfortunately went under and people are looking for different ways to train just to keep going I know my training has changed dramatically. You know, it's self-driven from home.
Matt Hoffman:
Yeah, I totally hear that I mean you know and for me, you know as the way I've trained has largely been self-driven since I was kind of in my, my late teens, You know, in terms of I've always had schools that I've trained at or with but I was became a bit of a nomad after high school traveled around to various different teachers and places. And so, you know the solo practice really always was at the heart of it and I think there's something about traditional martial arts that has always really been about solo practice. And I think there's a lot of reasons for that and I think in a lot of, in a lot of ways, hopefully what I will talk about today with y’all is, is kind of why I think that is and why, if you studied like the various historical periods that martial arts had to survive through COVID is nothing compares.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That was an interesting word choice, nomad. I don't know that use that word on this show, you know it's not a new word pop up but the idea of being a martial arts Nomad, made some pretty strong imagery and, you know, let's get into the before but before we get to the before let's unpack that you know what do you mean in your late teens were a nomad?
Matt Hoffman:
Yeah that's a great question. So I was, you know, just to give a little bit of context I started studying martial arts, you know, as much as anyone can study martial arts as a kid at four or five, and I kind of just became obsessed with it as a field of study, more than any one particular system, and I was really lucky to be, you know, kind of, blessed with an obsession, also for history. And so because of that, my, you know, kind of reading and research led me to Asia in particular as I think a lot of traditional martial artists find themselves gravitating towards Asia, you know, studied, I was lucky enough to be sent over by when I Karate teachers to practice in Japan when I was 15. And then that really kind of gave me the bug the travel bug, and when I was 19, you know, kind of saved up a bunch of money and went over to study Shaolin in China, and became really interested in like a in a really wide, you know, kind of survey of the martial arts and I was really interested in tracking them to their sources as much as I possibly could, which led me down some very strange avenues, which lends itself really well to someone such as myself with. Yeah, will say like nomadic tendencies.
Yeah, you know, and there was always a returning back to the Merrimack Valley region of northern Massachusetts, and so there was always like a going in and coming back, going and coming back, and, and that yeah kind of that nomadic tendency for me really just became one of the great joys of my life. Going to see things, not just, you know, on a screen, but where they're from and the feelings, the cultures, the languages, the food, you know, the flavor of the world that they actually emerged from, you know, that's what that really means to me and I guess, you know, just one final thing, you know, grew up, I was born in 1985. I grew up in the age kind of the golden age of like cinema. But I was you know, always really obsessed with like martial arts movies and action movies and adventure movies and fantasy movies, and so that you know that image of the nomadic martial artists was always really emblazoned in my mind from a young age so maybe that had something to do with it, I'm sure,
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm sure yet your, the story that you're starting to tell here, really could be the story of a lot of old Kung Fu flicks, you know, learning and wandering and being sent away and, and yet coming back home. And there's this sense that I'm taking you being very experimental in things, and you know I'm not I'm not tying that to any one thing whether it's martial arts or non-martial arts or whatever, you know there's no agenda in my use of that word that I get a sense that you say yes a lot. Oh, I'm going to go try this, I'm going to do this; I'm going to see what that is. And having that that foundation of Northern Massachusetts, and I know that area we're not that far away I'm in Fremont. Yeah, but knowing that area, you know, seems like you, you have this interesting dichotomy this ability to go off to be nomadic, and yet know that at some point if you want to need to recharge, you come back, and it sounds kinda like the best of both worlds.
Matt Hoffman:
Yeah. You know, I feel a lot of gratitude for that. You know, I come from, you know my kind of family background is of Sicilian immigrants who immigrated here, not necessarily by choice but by necessity to the US about 100, some odd years ago, 115 years ago to Lawrence, Massachusetts where I am kind of right now, and worked in the mills, just as a function of necessity. And I think you know kind of growing up with that, you know, big family Sicilian, you know kind of hospitality underneath. Maybe a work ethic that is always interested in trying to keep pushing has always given me like a great opportunity to push the boundaries of what felt like was being presented to me.
And try to find what was underneath at all. And then yeah, you know, I was really lucky to kind of be given a lot of free rein, you know, I grew up doing martial arts in the dojo of course but actually most of my young experiences, especially in my teen years were actually running off into the woods and training, you know, kind of now defunct lands that my family had farmed at one point, you know, it was like, I always have had this sense of family underneath this sense of exploration, and yeah I mean you know I would never have been able to arrive at this point. And I think most martial artists will say this, you know, without the influence of various family members and various, you know, kind of factors that allowed for my exploration so out of gratitude there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You mentioned starting pretty early four or five years old. You're born in 85, so we're coming in after the peak from karate kid but little bit before the peak in Ninja Turtles. 12:07 what were the circumstances, why did you get started?
Matt Hoffman:
Yeah, you know, it's so funny. My parents actually had to convince me to take lessons, because I was watching. I remember I was watching The Karate Kid, a lot. And I don't, you know, watching it now, I could not have as a child's been aware of the context of the story that watching ultimately, you know, but I would just go around the house practicing the kicks and the punches and all that sort of stuff. And I was also a really shy young man I still in many ways in very shy. Though I have various reasons learned to be extroverted in my presentation. You know I really just was like nervous about going in and taking classes but my mom was able to get me, you know, to go to a school, studying, or starting with 13:16 Karate and that style has kind of tracked me, you know, for the entire time you know for the last 30 or so years, I still teach and practice, 13:30 with various friends and I actually, right now, having the honor of teaching my romantic partner. Some of the beginning caught of that karate system.
And, yeah, you know, and then from there, I you know kind of the rest became history of course like all young people there's like, I don't want to. But it was always the thing that was there, it was always the thing that I was doing. You know no other sports really drew me into like an immersive awareness. Though I will say, I have always been kind of an endurance athlete as well, running, as any good fighter of any framework will tell you roadwork is one of the most important things you can do. And so, you know running long distances has kind of interestingly, kind of tracked along with martial arts, and my mom, like, you know, kind of similarly to getting into martial arts know as a dancer yoga practitioner a runner and so I grew up around those disciplines, and they all really influenced my early development, and my yearning to kind of understand more and more about what was going on underneath the surface. Yeah, I was really lucky, and as you said, you know, the pop culture of the time. You know the other thing that always tracked for me was Japanese anime was really becoming popularized in the West around that period of time, so of course there's Karate Kid, of course there's Ninja Turtles, but very early on, like early Dragon Ball, And there was this really weird show I think called like monkey magic which is based on the stone monkey mythology, for some reason had that show like kind of track in my early childhood, in a way that really, I think probably influenced my interest and care in cultural mythology from other parts of the world that really has influenced my study.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's interesting, we have quite a few guests on the show, who find some kind of resonance with the culture of the country of origin of the 15:51 that they study, and you know I've got some of that but not nearly at the depth that it sounds like you have and and certainly not as deep as some of the other guests that we've had on the show. You mentioned earlier that you made it to Japan at one point at 15. And by your instructor I think is what you said. Was that a continuation of that interest in the culture?
Matt Hoffman:
Yes, very much so. You know, I think, you know I worked my first gi when I was when I was four. So because of that, you know the bowing in those Japanese lessons, and the ritual of it all really became, you know, in this very evocative way really centralized in my awareness, and it always alluded to a lot more underneath it and, you know, flash forward to 25 years later, when you know kind of working as a running through what would be commonly referred to as a 16:58 program with one of my teachers in my late 20s. There was a heavy focus on where all of the elements of the ritual are actually coming from and so you know this element of ritual and why the rituals are done what they are done the way they are and the way that the cultures themselves are actually encoded into the arts, you know, is so interesting.
And also, I have to say, as a student of history I now understand, so insidious, right, because there is a truth to why there is a necessity to encode culture within ritual. So that, you know, we can't really necessarily remove the arts that we're practicing from the cultures we're practicing them in. And, as an American, I found something just so interesting about that, and it has really, you know, whether the right word is haunting, or you know just intrigued me enough to really lead me down the roads to kind of go deeper. It's, yeah, really early on there was a deep interest in the cultures that all of this emerged from. And you know I guess I'll say very specifically because I can't, I guess I want us to go there and our conversation. I don't feel that this conversation can or should be removed from a lot of conversation in the United States right now around things like cultural appropriation around things like, you know, kind of equality and justice across these different cultural lines. And that sense of justice has really kind of, you know, as that martial arts Nomad, you know, kind of ideal has really permeated my practice, always really been there at the heart of it is like how does martial arts actually assist us in bringing out, bringing about a more just world.
And I felt that there was something underneath what I was looking at as a kid that was all about making a better world. And in the bow right Gichin Funakoshi, you know, to track karate all the way back, Karate begins and ends with great respect, always. And so yeah that's really always been at the heart of why I wanted to understand more. Of course for my personal curiosity but, so that I could deeply respect and care for the cultures that were able to kind of bring me this knowledge.
Jeremy Lesniak:
There's a lot there.
Matt Hoffman:
20:06 I apologize.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, no, definitely don't apologize. This is good stuff. You've used some very intentional language you talked about going deeper. And I'm getting the sense that you were aware of, let's call it the non-physical, non-combative aspects of martial arts, earlier than maybe some others might have been, you know, am I reading that right? I'm gonna guess 12 13 somewhere in there you started saying, there's more to this stuff's in the punch and kick in.
Matt Hoffman:
Yeah, well and this is probably where my path diverges, as you say from a lot of other folks who are were my peers at the time, you know, probably for, you know, a strange number of reasons, I found my way from Karate and then my best friend at the time was studying with this Kenpo practitioner like American Kenpo practitioner, and, you know, Ed Parker Kempo, you know, coming out of Hawaii. In some ways, is like one of the early, you know, kind of predecessors to what we now kind of clearly understand is like a mixed martial arts model right, this conglomeration of a bunch of systems, but we'll just say there's a lot of, you know, kind of 21:31, you know, knocking around the edges, especially in the late 80s, early 90s, I heard one guy I was listening to the other day, this great kind of video documentary. It's called fighting in the age of loneliness which is like a socio economic kind of analysis of the mixed martial arts. But he said in it, he's like, in the early 90s people still believed if you punch to the right way you could make the guy's heart explode, you know, and so there's a lot of that stuff that really is still around the edges, when I was coming up as a kid, and I immediately, you know sense that there was a lot that wasn't true. But as a result of some of that, I got really introduced to meditation and 22:23 at a very early age.
And that piece in particular around eight to 10 is when I was really starting to be like huh. So just like sitting and breathing is a part of my training, what's that about. And, you know, as we'll get to kind of later in the conversation that really led me to a lot of the esoteric and spiritual underpinnings of martial arts, but my, you know, as I mentioned, you know, watching Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball as a kid and meditating and studying energy, you know, like what's energy work really became this kind of quiet side pursuit that led me, you know, kind of down a lot of roads that brought me to Buddhism and Taoism, in particular around that 12 to 13 age, I read the data chain probably for the first time when I was 13, and I became very aware of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path, right around that age as well, and has influenced my training kind of ever since, and is, I absolutely like without a doubt know that is the reason that I am the type of person I am now around values such as service, in particular in martial arts.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You maybe, one of as few as two, possibly three or four people who have brought up the concept of service in martial arts to the other. I did an episode of martial arts and service a few years ago.
Matt Hoffman:
Thank you for doing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, I would like you to unpack that concept as, you know, what does it mean to you? How does it manifest for you?
Matt Hoffman:
Yeah, no, that's a great question. Thanks for picking up on that, you know, I was, I was really lucky, most of my martial arts instructors who I've spent, you know, a long period of time with were veterans of, you know various conflicts. And for that reason, the idea, and this is just, it's everywhere in the traditional writings on martial arts. So there's tons of precedents for this conversation to be in every single classic, that has to do with, you know the philosophical underpinnings of martial arts so that piece cannot be removed as far as I'm concerned, the martial right at the heart of Knighthood right Samurai, or even the Germanic niche that emerges into the word Knight is to surf is the etymological root of the word.
And yes, that word can be taken advantage of. We can see clearly now with a historical study that the samurai were, you know, just as much, you know, kind of mercenary thugs as they were, you know, kind of virtuous knights, but the mythologies the stories, the, the ideals underpinning it around service, not just to a person, not just to the Lord, but to your people right to your ancestors in particular is an extremely important concept to, you know, your nation state as we previously understood it, and I would say actually this transcendent understanding of of service must kind of lead us to a common humanity. Now, as we know more about the world around us and actually that our separations of borders are kind of someone imposed on us and so we as martial artists. I know that a martial artists from anywhere in the worlds will have more in common with me than most people, even from my own country, who have never studied martial arts were that common respect, that common practice, that common care for one another's growth actually will supersede in so many ways individual cultures.
And so for me service is always expressed through a love of one another and appreciation and desire to learn from one another. But also, I think the thing that all good teachers understand is true services in the development of the future, right, and children in every way, are the future of the martial arts and so for me service has always taken the role of teaching, you know, I've always like, even since I don't know 14 15 was when I started getting interested in saying, I'm not going to really be like a world class competitor, but I really do want to teach and I really do want to share this knowledge with people who want to invite it into their lives to enrich themselves. And hopefully you know my hope was that they would enrich the world around them by being enriched by these practices.
Jeremy Lesniak:
He talked about the idea of having things in common with other martial artists and it's a concept that comes up frequently on the show but I've said quite a bit, we have far more in common with other martial artists we have that is different. There's more that binds us and divides us lots of different ways you can say it, but I find it interesting is not quite the right word because that, that implies some disrespect anybody who's familiar with the karate style, 28:42 that it is kind of different looking. I'm gonna say odd not in a disparaging way but if you were to line up Goju and 28:56 which I consider to look a little bit different aesthetically, 29:03 is kind of out there, aesthetically, constantly very similar, but movements, etc. When was it that you started to connect the dots realized that this thing that I'm rooted in is still much more like these other things and seeing those commonalities?
Matt Hoffman:
Sure, no it's a great question. Well, you know, I mean, the way I always say to people is two arms, two legs the head and the torso, so everything's the same underneath itself. And while we all have two arms, two legs, the head and the torso. The functionality of our musculature structure is always going to operate the same. And what I find interesting about martial arts is and traditional martial arts in particular is that you can essentially pinpoint what does this system, find useful or around how to functionalize that musculature and what do they specialize, and what is it that they, as a system is or what is it that they as a system are focused on developing in their students. 30:19 is only odd, if you don't know where it comes from. And I think for a lot of reasons the way karate developed over time, during the Meiji Restoration period is a function of Japanese nationalism trying to claim Karate for itself from the Chinese mainland, and 30:56 is an interesting Karate style, because it's the youngest one or one of the youngest ones in the Okinawan islands.
It came over very specifically from a man and I do have to say the story of this man 31:14 he is very formative in my, my nomadic tendency right. He followed actually a pretty archetypal path of 31:27 who went to China to study and live, you know he emigrated to China live there for a decade studied martial arts and Chinese medicine for a period of time, came back, there's some, you know there's a lot of will say like mythology around why he came back, but for whatever reason he came back, and resist, it was very resistant to teach it. And when he was teaching, you know, it was very private, as a lot of the, the Okinawans are very private people, they very much, were able to keep their arts allies by keeping them very private. As we all understand the Japanese, you know, kind of colonialism of okay now or right okay now it was its own independent nation until Japan, you know, kind of colonized it.
And it was during that period of time that the Okinawan Arts, The Tei arts, as they referred to them, you know, kind of had to really go underground in order to survive and it wasn't until the early 1900s that kitchen for the Koshi was able to popularize the arts by making them seem very useful to the Meiji government, which then, you know, in many ways, became, you know, a tool of the Japanese Imperial structure for training young men to go to war.
And that's a very you know it's an essential component of how karate developed because 33:12 did not follow that trajectory. 33:15 comes very specifically from southern white crane. And when you look at 33:22 as opposed 33:25 with the fist, as opposed to the open hand in which you, you can see clearly in that stance, the southern white crane influence, and for me that was really what influenced my travels to China was a desire to understand the roots of these systems that got to China.
And we're then, you know, currently developed over hundreds of years. Right. But you look at Shodo Khan in particular, that was developed from Funakoshi senseis, you know, shorty take system that he had learned in secret from his teachers, and then made to be more accessible to high school students and secondary school students so that they could learn the gross motor movements and internalize the movements, and then be able to apply the movements in, you know, kind of later sparring competitions and ranking competitions.
All of that was very late to come into way too 34:39. And it has a unique history in that way. And especially, you mentioned the one thing that I really want to speak to the really unique piece about 34:52 it's very exotic and forms. You know, it makes very strange positions with its fingers and with its fists. And whenever you study traditional Chinese martial arts you see those fists everywhere. You know, Panther Tiger all of those things would naturally be taught at a very young age.
And actually, you know, it's only now on the other side of 35 that I understand why and dexterity is extremely important to human survival pre industrial period. And the other piece about it is that if you study Chinese medicine from the bodywork standpoint, You actually see that a lot of the exotic Kansas that come when he was teaching are actually tween off techniques, they're actually I believe tied very specifically to techniques that people would employ to do massage work on people's bodies acupressure as opposed to acupuncture work right. And I'm almost certain that nobody picked up on that until, you know, I'm sure there have got to be a couple of people who've studied it since then, but it was only my apprenticeship with an acupressure teacher and 36:15 teacher and a Chinese medical teacher that actually really cemented my theory on that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That suddenly quite the epiphany, was is it as simple as I might be imagining well and when we're doing acupressure, you know, we make our hands like this, you're like oh my god, that's I did 36:36, like it was simple?
Matt Hoffman:
Yeah, probably that simple when I decided, you know like when I this you know, Gideon decided yeah that's what that is. No, it was you know and it still is a theory that I would never claim to hold over someone who is like, you know, a high ranking witchy practitioner who said, like, you're, you know. You're completely wrong, you're Asian or a Chinese medical practitioner who's like, no you're completely wrong. I would never push that theory, but I do have a sense that come away she was a very humble man, who, as I said, was interested both in Chinese medicine and in Chinese martial arts. And because of that I'm just anybody who knows that kind of scholar warrior tradition of Chinese martial arts knows that there is actually very little separation in that worldview right actually to fight is to learn to heal and to learn to heal is to learn to fight.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And especially in Chinese traditions, we've heard from a number 37:49 on the show folks who have, you know, learn Kung Fu and they're learning other medical things, you know, whether it's acupuncture or something else, this dichotomy that, you know, one supports the other and one is a responsibility.
Matt Hoffman:
Yes and that's exactly right and I could not agree more with that and I think it's only my deep curiosity about the Chinese systems that undergirded the Japanese evolution that really kind of brought that forth in me so you know in my mid 20s I was really very much kind of coming across these things and be like, yeah, that's, that was what that was. That's so interesting. Okay, let's go deeper, let's go deeper, and that was actually what led me to my apprenticeship with my Chinese medical practitioner teacher, and I had actually become, you know, I guess I'll throw this in there. I had been doing Reiki since I was 18, and became very interested in the dichotomy of if I'm going to learn to harm I must learn to heal. And that became a huge driver of my, you know, we’ll say like my broad study over time.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, this is not the typical common, there's not one of us. This is not the common path for someone who trains even folks who train at a deep level and make it, the thing, the central point of their lives. Seems like if we roll back to the beginning this nomadic lifestyle I use the word experimental and what is an experiment, other than an attempt to answer a question, in order to try to answer the question you have to ask the question, where does this constant drive to ask more questions come from?
Matt Hoffman:
Man, if I had the answer to that question, I don't know that many questions.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Or maybe you'd ask far more who knows.
Matt Hoffman:
Yeah, maybe you know and it is funny, you know, as I think it was when I turned 30 and I was leaving my practice ships, actually that the burning desire to ask more questions kind of begin to fade in my, I think, by that point by 30 I have been meditating and studying kind of the spiritual components of martial arts, you know, by that point we'll say, for 20 years.
And I started to Taoism really has been a guiding factor for me and started to just feel a willingness to sit with the not knowing, and a joy at letting the questions be the cones that they are from Zen, you know, Zen Buddhist term cone, you know the question actually itself is more important than the answer.
And I found myself really just coming back to that truth have two arms, two legs a head and torso, two arms, two legs, torso. Everything that I'm every answer I was gonna find was ultimately a human answer. And so, you know, it was at that time, you know I know the seeds have been planted all those years before and through my 20s to say like this is fundamentally human experience that we're talking about here, a human understanding relationship to conflict and violence.
And that is such a complex field of study, you know, and I guess my questions my experimentation had always come from a desire to be able to articulate myself, ultimate. I always had kids and adults, asking me questions. As a teacher, and I always wanted to be able to answer their questions and I had this internal, you know, people will say, you know, overly internalized sense that I had to be able to answer all the questions right so I had to be the best question asker in order to be the best question answer. And, you know, even that has kind of fallen away, even the idea that I have to be the best at anything, has really kind of fallen away. And if there's really a thing that feels resonant for me now, it is, you know that this is a function of trying to be the best 43:07 I can be. This is trying to be nears, you know, my partner was trained as a counselor an expressive arts therapist, and we talk a lot about ultimately underlying everything know, the study of human relationship is the study of conflict.
The study of relationship on any level depends on us being able to skillfully and gracefully negotiate conflict. And ideally, you know, for me, and I know a lot of people would disagree, probably on some level, but the truest sense of a skillful martial artist in my mind is someone who can negotiate a conflict, without ever arriving at violence.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Can you say that again, that's deep.
Matt Hoffman:
Yeah, sure. Yeah, I mean you know the, I don't know that I can say the exact word to say it's okay to say in a different way. No, but I'll say it a different way, which is the hallmark of an extremely skillful practitioner is someone who can negotiate conflict without ever having arrived for arriving at violence. And I believe that that requires us, you know, for a lot of reasons, you know, my teachers were men who were very aware of the truths of human violence inflicted against one another skillfully and arriving at violence to me, is effectively the, if you study the legalistic definitions of continuum of force.
Right, arriving at violence is the last steps in the continuum of violence. You know, first we have to be able to say like, can I be mutually beneficial first, you know, can I add value to someone else's life. And then if we arrive at a conflict, can I mediate that conflict effectively. If I can't mediate that conflict effectively can I empathize with what this person might actually be saying, underneath the conflict? Can I negotiate back to mutual benefit, where are we going to continue to descend toward violence?
Not using violence as my end all be all. Or even, I mean, God forbid my first option when there's conflict. And that really, you know, without, we’re having a great conversation so I don't mean to you know kind of deviate from our, our direction here. Yeah, but you know for me actually the study of in the teaching of self-defense in particular to women and children but, honestly, the more I've studied it to everyone in our cultural context has a lot of trouble with an around violence.
And I think understanding violence, not as something that is just a punch and kick, but actually everything else that leads up to the violence, the way we speak to each other, the way we hold our bodies in front of each other. The way that we orient ourselves to relationship is actually what leads to violence, and violence is something that should be and can be skillfully engaged with. But if we're not engaging with the other pieces skillfully I think we're fundamentally missing the point of all of it, which is a more harmonious interaction with one.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm right there with you. You know one of the things that I've long criticized our industry, for lack of a better word about, is that we teach self-defense as starting at the point of the initiation of violence, when in all but very rare cases, there are things that happen ahead of that. And in order to get to the point of violence, you have to mess up, you have to handle it wrong. Are there other cases, comes out of left field with intent that they just want to hurt you. Yes, but statistically, that is the minority.
Matt Hoffman:
Statistically speaking, that's exactly right. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Where are the escalation techniques? I teach what I teach self-defense, I suspect you do, and we probably have quite a few people listening who do because you know our audience does skew a little bit more towards this thoughtful perspective, but we are the minority in our industry. One of the things I am and you know I told you before we roll I was gonna say very little about me but here's something that that I will say and I'm very proud of this. I've never been in a real fight; I have managed to walk it down. Every single time including being around friends who were constantly in fights that they would start to bubble up. And I was able to bring everything back. Because I think that is the only way where you win. I'm using air quotes a fight. When it doesn't happen and what's the Mr. Miyagi best not fight if fight when something like that.
Matt Hoffman:
Yeah, absolutely. Let's not fight, and let's understand why the fight is going to happen and actually I talked to some of my students a lot these days like, you know about. During my apprenticeships I became very interested in primatology as the undergirding understanding of the way humans are going to interact right because we're fundamentally just great apes with nice clothes.
And, you know, that's, we separate ourselves out right we'd like to mystify a lot of stuff we'd like to make it all seem like it's so much more complex than it actually is. And I tell my students a lot, if you're using, what I'm teaching you right now you, you did everything else wrong.
And yeah, it is a powerful statement and most people look at me like I have three heads when I say it so I you know I have a lot of empathy for like hey man I came here to learn how to fight like I didn't come here to like learn how to talk.
And I have to say, I'm happy to hear that I'm in good company around criticizing our industry, because I would say that a lot of the reason that I went on, you know, I guess I'll backtrack in our conversation around why was I so obsessed with finding some of the answers to these questions, was because honestly everywhere around me that I looked, there was nobody asking those questions. There was nobody, you know, there were people saying like how do I get how do I retain more students, how do I get more students into the door, how do I, you know, what's the next hot program that I can bring in is it Krav Maga this month is it Brazilian Jiu Jitsu next month visit this is that don't me wrong, I studied all those things, and I enjoy all those things and actually, you know, my primary study for myself right now is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Because I just have a blast rolling around on the floor. Always have, you know, yeah it's good times. And there's a reason that the US military, you know uses that as one of their primary combative tools. And the way that we approach violence is such, it feels like a cowboy mentality right it's one of my teachers was talking with their teacher in Japan, and, you know, the cultural mythologies that get tied in to the martial arts is so interesting, right, in Japan, obviously there's these like various cultural relics the Samurai is a great example of a cultural relic. Right, but as I said to one of my, it was like someone who taught at my school for a period of time, essentially is just Neo Confucian cosplay, right we're all dressing up in funny pajamas that come from a bygone era so that we can, you know, kind of make a gentle nod to another culture right it's so good.
But in America we have very different cultural signifiers in America we are actually a much more violent culture. You know, all we have to do is look at the gun violence. You know components of our, of our country to say, Yeah, we kind of have this like cowboy thing, everybody gets a gun and if it really comes down to it, we just, you know, I'll see you at noon on the street and let's shoot it out, you know, really becomes this like kind of cultural signifier, and underlying mythological framework for understanding violence.
For a lot of reasons, that's just kind of ingrained in our population. And when it does come to a study of violence, and we're talking deep violence is one of my collaborators like mentioned right like we're really looking at deep violence. Yeah, okay. It's dirty, you know, we're not going to get into a fight. I'm going to go home. I'm gonna get my gun. I'm gonna come back and I'm going to win the fight. But when it comes to kind of ceremonial violence when it comes to the idea of sparring meeting in training meeting in this mutual great as I mentioned right all martial arts begins and ends with respect. There's a very different set of rules that are applied to the interaction and the exchange the transaction itself is very different because the premium is not placed on who can beat the crap out of who necessarily.
It is actually, you know, especially in training environments. The premium is placed on learning, right the premium is placed on how much did I learn from that interaction, not did I beat the crap out of that person as well as I possibly could and you know I don't come across many dojos that are, you know, just beating the crap out of each other, you. Yeah, at least not publicly yeah you're right, and a lot of a lot of the beating the crap out of people actually is largely emotional, that I've ever come across, you know, making sure that people don't feel comfortable, you know, finding other teachers or finding other ways or you know whatever.
Because of this kind of desire to make sure that people are sticking in that school in that system, not questioning too much not, you know, not going outside of the box too far, because I think once we really go out of the box I think a lot of our conversation is really where we start to come up against the truth right which is that this is a human endeavor, this is an endeavor is all this time. You know, people have been killing each other for as long as we've been around, and I certainly am not the greatest combatant to ever live and never will be. That's not, that's never going to be my way. That's not going to be my karma, but ultimately when it comes down to it, our industry has had to kind of feed on those cultural myths, right may have had to really build the idea of, oh yeah, you know, people who are afraid, are actually going to come and take lessons a lot more than people who are not afraid.
And there's a way to capitalize on people's fear, and if I make it about justifying, then me the big strong man at the front of the room is always going to be the one that the little person in the back of the room is going to look to for answers, and if he's coming to me looking for answers. Then, I'm going to make sure that he's going to keep paying monthly to make sure that I give those answers, and it's a real chicken and egg situation around a lot of the way that we engage with violence, as a culture. It's really led me to question a lot of the way we do things, and I know you know, I have nothing to plug in this interview, but I know, as I look to my next iterations and evolutions as a teacher. Most of what I'm interested in teaching is about the transformative power of conflict in people's lives and changing our relationship to conflict changing our relationship to ourselves in conflict with others as not this is a thing to be avoided, but actually this is a thing to be embraced and welcomed in so that we might be more skillful practitioners in that, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm gonna ask a question in a different way than I think I've ever asked it before but it feels appropriate. If you ask most people, you know, how would you classify one martial artist as being better than another martial artist, the general population is going to equate that to fighting. Oh well I'm that person can beat up that person there are better martial artists. There is a percentage I don't know how large it is within our industry of martial arts people listening to the show, etc., who, if you said, what makes one martial artist better than another would likely go to that, not just because they believe it but because it's such a difficult and subjective question that how to really rank. Some ask you that question, if you were to compare martial artists and look for a way to determine this martial artists is better than his martial artists, what your methodology rubric whatever fancy academic word you want to come up with here in that evaluation?
Matt Hoffman:
That's a great question. Well, I'll cop out of the questions that are answering the question first, you know like all good are good teachers and say, you know actually I really like this one scene in the Jet Lee movie fearless right and the Japanese martial artists in hammered sitting down and drinking tea, and the Japanese martial artist is mentioning that the tea they're drinking is the best team, you know you can find and Jet Lee's character who is based on a true, real person. You know says it's all just, so there's no there's no need to rank it next to it to itself, you know, so you know I personally would. The word sensei does not mean teacher the word sensitive means one who has gone before. Right, we're all on the same road there's no better there's no worse it's just a path that we're all walking those. There might be some who have started the path before us and there will definitely be others, who start the path after us, and it is actually our continuum, it is our line of practice that is most important.
That said, while that is my personal answer. I think the most important thing to always remember is what rule set, are we talking about better how are we talking about a submission game are we talking about a knockout game are we talking about a position game are we talking about, you know, just a sheer, you know violence game. What's really being asked of the athlete in the moment?
For me one of the most important things is adaptability across rule sets, adaptability and flexibility for me as like a human species, it's actually like one of those things that separates us actually from the vast majority of creatures is our adaptability to many different circumstances and situations. And so, yeah, like a subtle flexibility across rule sets is something that I've always endeavored to make sure that my students have, is that you should never be saying like, oh, this, this way of practicing is better than that way of practicing, it's actually like, I've always really wanted to pass on to my students like how do I appreciate every way of practicing so that I can practice with everyone.
And that piece for me really comes down to like my personal preference around teaching, of course you know so that's maybe my second way of answering the question, and then when it does come down to the raw brute force, answering of the question who can beat the fish out of who I understand why that question is so appealing. I understand why there's just like people have always watched gladiatorial balance. People have always just had this obsession with who's the biggest ape on the block.
And I can understand why you know I was the 15 year old kid wants to, and I was curious and watching you know who could beat up who I remember, you know, I grew up, also in the time of MMA right and so like we've really in a lot of ways had the chance to answer those questions a lot over the last 20 years, 25 years, 30 years, you know, Watching these different styles and practitioners fighting each other. Pretty violently, you know, with very little limitation on what they can do to each other.
And I think what we're really finding is that this horrible realization comes true, is that there's always going to be somebody who's got your number, and even the best martial artists in the world can get knocked out, given the right sets of circumstances right, so real violence is always unpredictable real violence actually doesn't always favor the person who's most prepared or most trained right real violence actually favors circumstantial, you know, or happenstance sort of events.
And so in that way, you know, I think a lot of martial artists have sought to hide behind rule sets, and to pick the rule sets that suit their strengths, the best as a way of appearing the strongest.
And so yeah, you know, that was a long way of not answering your question directly, but I really appreciate it. Yeah there's a few of them. Yeah, totally. Yeah, and I always will appreciate the question, and I'll always, you know, I watched fights, to this day. And I love watching it, I love watching the evolution of our love watching the evolution of martial arts through this, this time in this place in human in human history is extraordinarily interesting to watch the way that fighters are evolving right now. Yeah, and I personally, you know, as someone with lots of critiques for the martial arts industry continue to be interested in always learning better and better ways of practicing and teaching and working to understand and master skillful use of violence.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Good stuff, that's a great place to start winding down some deep subjects and if we open the door on more, it's going to go even deeper.
Matt Hoffman:
I know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
1:03:49 your back for more of a subject discussion.
Matt Hoffman:
Oh, that would be that'd be a blast, you know, I just got to say I really appreciate your thoughtful questions, and it really appreciate the discussion and the opportunity to discuss with you.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thanks for coming on. If people want to get a hold of you, or their websites or social media that you can share?
Matt Hoffman:
Yeah, you know, right now I actually am getting I'm working on getting off social media for a little bit. I, up until 2019 was operating a school in Southern Vermont called Thunder martial arts which I thankfully closed right before kind of COVID all started and relocating back to the Massachusetts area, so I'm on Instagram as embodied mystery where I hope to be posting a lot more, which is around, reclaiming the human body as a tool of expression, animal movement and martial arts and dance all kind of mixed together.
And I have a website which is actually more focused on my service aspects that I wasn't sure if I was going to share but I will share. It's called wanderingministry.org and that is more focused on my inter faith, practice as a spiritual practitioner. And, yeah, I'm sure I one day have something more focused on martial arts but for right now, that is, that's where my mind is kind of leading me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm sharing that and of course we'll we'll get that for the show notes. Yeah. and this is where we start to close up. So I'm going to ask totally how do you want to send us out to the outro that I'm going to record later final words, motivational thoughts, you know, something like that your, your final words to the listeners today.
Matt Hoffman:
Yeah of course. Yeah, you know, if there's especially, you know, younger students who are looking to embrace martial arts as of half. You know my thing I would say to any practitioner, though, is in continue to follow your curiosity, continue to follow where the work leads you and do not let anybody's explanations deter you in your constant questioning of what is real and what is true.
Jeremy Lesniak:
One of the common themes on this show is asking the question why. And when you work backwards from why it often leaves the opportunity to add and change and implement new things to keep that white belt mentality that we talked about. Well, I think today's guest exemplified that, and that's why I had not only so much fun talking to him but hearing what it was he said I heard a lot of little thoughts echoed but as you might expect, as I always hope for, just enough that's different either articulated differently or expressed in a way that makes me think. And that's my favorite thing about this show so I got some good stuff out of it I hope you got great stuff out of it. And, Mr. Hoffman, thank you, Matt. I appreciate you coming on the show, hope you got something out of it as well.
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