Episode 740 - Sensei Joe Andrews
Sensei Joe Andrews is a Martial Arts Practitioner and Chief Instructor at Somerset Applied Karate in Somerset, UK.
Stripping the good from the bad. I first learned that principle not from karate but in my old career when I was training as a graphic designer. I was the kind that my first idea was my best idea. But what they said, I’ve got make a whole lot of doodle, 30, 40, or 50 designs. Only when you do that, you can split them into good and bad.
Sensei Joe Andrews - Episode 740
Sensei Andrews worked as a nightclub doorman and various security jobs for over 10 years, gaining experience in violence prevention, violence management, de-escalation, communication, and social psychology. He used this expertise to help teach his students how to watch for signs of violence and how to avoid or manage the situation. It is also during this time that Joe realized what does and does NOT work in combative martial arts!
Joe has trained with some great names in Karate and Martial Arts such as Iain Abernethy, Peter Consterdine, Christian Wedewardt, Les Bubka, Andi Kidd, Tommy Joe Moore, Mary Stevens, John Johnston, Leigh Simms, Bob Rhodes, Terry O’Neill, Shinji Akita, Gary Roberts, Elwin Hall, Gerry Bryan, Mario Spillere, Leon Jay and Paul Herbert.
In this episode, Sensei Joe talks about his journey to martial arts. Listen to learn more!
Show Notes
Know more about Sensei Joe Andrews by visiting his website at somersetappliedkarate.com or check the following social media platforms:
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's happening everybody this is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio episode 740. My guest today is Sensei Joe Andrews. I'm your host for the show, Jeremy Lesniak a founder of whistlekick, and I founded whistlekick, because I not only love traditional martial arts in all forms, but I wanted opportunities to meet other traditional martial artists, and support them in their journey, because I know what my training has done for me. And if you want to see how that manifests all the different things that we're working on, go to whistlekick.com, get everything from martial journal content website, we've recently rolled out awards, we've got our great Patreon. And we've got a store where we make some stuff, check out the stuff that we make, from training programs, to gear to hoodies, to lots of cool stuff. And if you use the code, PODCAST15, it's gonna save you 15% on the cool stuff.
We got over there to help you live your martial arts, lifestyle, whatever that means to you. The podcast has its own website, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Because we do so much with us, we bring you two episodes each week. And it's all to connect, educate, and entertain traditional martial artists worldwide, no matter who you are, what you do, why you do it doesn't matter. We are style agnostic. We're not a karate brand or a taekwondo brand. We're a martial arts brand. We love traditional martial arts in all forms. And if you want to support us, you can make a purchase. But you could also do lots of quick, easy free stuff. You can leave us reviews, you can share episodes, you can follow us on social media @whistlekick, it's all good, and we appreciate every bit of it.
We do have a patreon that people seem to really enjoy patreon.com/whistle kick starts to box. If you like what we do, if you find it a value, please consider supporting us in some way. The Patreon being one of the most effective, but if you want the entire list of all the ways you can help us out. Whistlekick.com/family You got to type it in. We updated weekly fun behind the scenes stuff. Good page. Check it out. I had a great time talking to Sensei Joe. We talked about all the stuff that you might expect we would talk about. And it was a wonderful conversation. And I'm just gonna let you listen. Because that's why you're here. Hello, there.
Joe Andrews:
Hey, how are you doing?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm great. How are you?
Joe Andrews:
I'm very well, I should say good morning to you guys. You know,
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Joe Andrews:
Good morning.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And a bit after lunch for you?
Joe Andrews:
Yeah, it's two o'clock here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's go.
Joe Andrews:
Let's do it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Appreciate the faith. So let's start here. How'd you get started in martial arts?
Joe Andrews:
Okay, so I started in traditional Shotokan Karate back in 1998. So I've been wondering why not a very inspiring reason. It was actually because my mom's friends' kids also did traditional shows and I think she thought I'd find it interesting because before then I was doing gymnastics, and an unusual interest. But as I got older I got taller, and I kind of outgrew the gymnastics instructor.
So I think she politely said to my mum, I think I think he needs something else. I can't get him over the vault. So, that was her. That was actually my mom's suggestion for me to get into it. And so I suppose I took it as seriously as any other kid would have done going into an activity. It was only when I started taking it seriously when I got into my first schoolyard fight.
And one that I really thought, okay, this fight could have occurred very differently in any other circumstance. So I started to take my training seriously. And at this point, I was probably about to be a purple belt. So I would have been about fourth or fifth cue. Okay, and how old must I have been? Maybe 13.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So old enough to recognize that, you know, plates didn't always work out.
Joe Andrews:
It was a fight that should never have happened. I had an argument with a friend and his friend didn't like that. I was arguing with him. And it just turned into quite nasty fight. And we've been around ever since actually the guy that started the fight.
And I took my hand actually, it was around that time that you would expect to start taking your training seriously anyway, because it's actually quite good. It's quite good timing when it happened. So at that point, I was going through my brown belt grades, were you expecting to take it very seriously?
Jeremy Lesniak:
So you'd been training for two, three years?
Joe Andrews:
Almost. About this time? Yeah
Jeremy Lesniak:
I always find the reasons that people not only join, but remain to be really interesting. You're talking about joining for kind of a different reason, he's too tall for this. We gotta move them over here. But at an age that, you had some friends training then. But, my understanding of the martial arts space in the UK, is that it's fairly similar to the US in that you kind of have a hole around adolescence, you know, 8,9,10. And then, early teens are not really so interested in training. But as something that, even beyond, you know, the validation of a school schoolyard fight, you found of interest.
Joe Andrews:
Yeah, absolutely. That I mean, it's interesting you bring that up, because that's a subject that we've been talking about, for many, many years. And in the days when I was doing a traditional shotokan, whenever that question was asked, Why is there a huge demographic gap? In karate? We're talking less, say 16 to 35, or something like that? And the answer was always, well, they're going off to university, they're starting their lives, you know, getting married, having kids, getting careers and all that.
The reality is, they're not doing karate. They're doing boxing, judo, Jiu Jitsu, MMA, I mean, certainly in recent years, that has definitely been the case. Which color nicely sits with what we do now. So whereas I used to do traditional show, or can I progressively moved everything towards applied karate, which is holding your hands up and saying, yeah, sometimes cry, he doesn't have all the answers, but then neither does Judo need a jiu jitsu needed his boxing is it's having the bravery to stand up and go. Yeah, okay, let's collaborate, let's cross train.
Jeremy Lesniak:
To say it in another way. It's about being held to a positive outcome, rather than a restricted methodology.
Joe Andrews:
Exactly. I guess that is why I tried, I don't tend to refer to myself as a show. I can't anymore. I just say that we do karate. For two reasons, mainly because of the association awareness, we're in the British combat Association.
Nobody cares. What you do. Nobody cares what style you came from because what style you do you come into a room and go. No one cares. You just go then you learn stuff, you collaborate, you network, you share ideas, which that nicely fits in with the way that I've started to feel, in recent years, about styles, how the style, how the terminology of style in karate has changed over 100-150 years.
Whereas it was literally, this is how I do it. And this is how he does or this is how she does it. Whereas these days, it's an institution. Yeah, and certainly, maybe that's a little bit harsh, but that's certainly how I don't think I see it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don't think it is, I think if you take a step back and you're able to remove your own ego from it and recognize that the value of lineage has nothing to do with quality. There's value in it for a lot of people, myself included, but it's not about because this is old or went through this person. It's better. Exactly the listeners, I'm using air quotes.
Joe Andrews:
But, I mean, I don't know if it was ever the intention. Maybe it was just my instructor. I don't know but I didn't really train anyone else other than shotokan. It was not just an institution, institutional style, but there was a system, there was a very tight knit syllabus. And your entire life was dedicated to perfecting that system.
So instead of branching out, learning new things, trading with new people and sharing ideas, like I was just saying, it's about trading with people that can help you to perfect the thing that you already know. And just to be clear, that's not the reason why I left the shotokan, it was more so that I actually ended it. I actually fell out with my instructor, we're not on good terms now. And it was only because a friend of mine, Andy, recommended it, I was looking for a shotokanAssociation and he said, no, go to something that's gonna give you a little more freedom.
So I saw I did. And it was, within being a part of that association. This is headed by [00:11:04-00:11:06]. That is all about inclusivity. Like saying, you go to a course, it can cause. it's not even really a crappy course, come and train with this guy, or come and train with this person. It's networking. Come and see what I do. And then if you host a course, I'll come and see what you do. And that way, your friends.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, I like that word freedom in there. Because we've talked about this subject, we've had folks on this show. And for listeners who pay attention to what we do on our Thursday episodes, we often talk about the value of cross training of diversity in practice, etc. And we've had you never nothing on the show, the two names coming to mind most for folks who are saying, you know, like, let's, let's let's style fall away, and like, let's charge forward with what, what works in karate. But what I'm, what I'm kind of seeing is, we're almost going full circle, because if you know your karate history, the quote styles that are trained today in karate, primarily came from people who trained with a bunch of other different people, and said, This is what works for me, and some of the evil insofar as I say, don't call it a style.
Joe Andrews:
Exactly. And so how we ended up in that place. I don't know, maybe it's the way that karate got globalized, maybe that principle got lost. But it's interesting how, in a matter of years, I ended up moving from one crappy community to another, instead of there being one karate community, or even a martial art community, if you want to broaden it, by went from being an a traditional community to an applied or a practical or pragmatic community that is saying, no, we're going to try and get karate back to the way it used to be.
When it was Okinawa, when Pete, it was literally, you know, come and train with me, I can do this, or you can go train with this guy. But with the modern approach, which I was completely taken in by, I was like, I'm all about that. Let's do that. Let's go and train with the people there. It's, it's putting your hands up and saying there are people that know more than I do. And if they're willing to share that knowledge, then let's collaborate. That's the point.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You mentioned that you had a falling out with your instructor and I don't need to pull that thread.
Joe Andrews:
No, I'm happy to help you to pull it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'll let you inject the information on that if you choose with this. As you answer this question. Anytime someone seems to transition from a thing they've done for a while, especially in martial arts, where they wrap at least a part of their identity in it more and more as they progress in rank.
You talked about the codification of show deconnick I trained in show TOCOM for a time it's a it's a wonderful system and some of my best friends are involved still involved in shoulder con and I know what it was like for me leaving that I know what it's like what it's been like for me leaving any school as I move away or or have a falling out or something. You left a thing to go to a thing.
Joe Andrews:
Was that difficult internally for you? I guess not because that wasn't the primary reason. So when the first ever seminar I went to under the BCA was one being hosted by Ian Abernathy and Peter Constantine. This is actually the first time I ever met Peter. This was of course up. So up north from the UK, and I barely know anybody, the only person I knew was Andy, who I knew previously. He actually used to be in the same association as me. That's how we knew each other. And I got to talk to a lot of the lobby to introduce myself and talk to people. And the thing I noticed very quickly was that the guys that were in the BCA had taken exactly the same journey as me that they were just several years ahead.
The difference was that they left their associations, so they left their styles, because they wanted more. They wanted to expand their training, and they felt restricted. So they joined the BCA. They wanted freedom. I wasn't looking for freedom, I was looking for somewhere else to go. And I discovered freedom. So that's the major difference is that? Yes, so the reason I left my old association was nothing to do with the association. Actually, it was because I fell out with my instructor, which I mean, to try and make a big story small. Because this happened over a matter of about four years, I was his Senpai, I was his assistant instructor. And he was an avid follower of what he would call Funakoshi .
So he believed in a lot of the old fashioned customs of karate, like he believed that karate was either life or nothing. And he believed that if you were going to commit your life to karate, there was nothing short of 100%. You had to eat, breathe, drink, sleep, karate, there was no exception. Which is inspiring for people that want to make karate 100% part of your life, but sometimes that's not possible. And I don't think he could quite understand when anyone, even if someone gave that, you know, 75% of their life to cry, he just couldn't understand. He couldn't get that into his head.
He was a direct instructor of [00:17:18-00:17:20], and various other instructors in the [00:17:20-00:17:22] And, but the reason I actually fell out with him was because he had interesting thoughts on what were the responsibilities of a senpai. So it included things like watching his house, but it was really hot when he went on vacation. Looking after his dog, he had allotments in two different villages, so I had to go and water them. I used to take classes in his absence. So we taught Karate and Tai Chi and I did Tai Chi with him for a decade or two, and I was taking those classes, but I wasn't getting paid for it. I wasn't getting anything for any of these things. It was kind of taught to me that it was part of my duty.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So like the kind of cliche apprentice master relationship that we see from, you know, films supposedly cast back a few 100 years.
Joe Andrews:
Exactly. And I guess a lot of the issue with that is that in our culture, a lot of my friends and my family couldn't understand that kind of relationship. Whereas I was engulfed in it. So I understood it. And it was only like I said, this, this occurred over about four years, where I started like, no red flags were coming up, and okay, that's not normal. That's and it was all hidden, can you do me a favor? Can you? What are my plans? When will we go away? Can you do me a favor, do what you love, you know, teach these classes, and have been more and more on the currencies longer, longer, longer.
And the major red flag was he gave me a list one year and said, these are all the classes that we need you to teach over the year, and it was many, many weeks. And he said This includes looking after my dog and looking after the allotment. And that was a pretty big red flag. That he was that he had. He had his own idea of what the responsibilities of a senpai was. Now just to be clear, this I said there was a kind of implied there was no reciprocation. He wasn't paying for training at this point. Because I bought in return, he was expecting 100% commitment. So I was training with him six times a week. So karate, Tai Chi, seminars and everything. So I was already kind of giving a lot of my time as it was. And it was only on one occasion where he was going away. And I couldn't fit.
There were lots of reasons my sister in law wasn't very well, my wife was seven months pregnant. It was just all getting too much in full. I gotta go to work, as well as doing all of this stuff. And I actually had to confront him and say, No, I can't do it. I'm really sorry, we need some kind of alternative plan. And I can't swear. But he basically told me to do one. Quite bluntly. Like, no, we're getting in the car, let's go, like, just left me behind. It was that harsh. And at this point, he had been my instructor for 20 years.
He taught me a lot about karate and a lot about life. A lot of you know, he was a clever guy, he just wasn't very good at applying that into normal life. So it took me about three days to kind of get to grips with what the hell just happened. And I bumped up the courage to, to say I'm, I'm parting ways, and it didn't go well. No, it didn't go down very well at all. And he actually gave me some quite nasty online abuse for about three years. And that was about seven years ago. It just made me feel a little bit better about it so I didn't take it personally. I just thought everything that you said and did just made me happier that I left.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, validating.
Joe Andrews:
Yeah, very much.So, I'm in a much better and happier place. And my training, my training has direction. And as an instructor, now, obviously, I have a lot of experience with teaching. I suppose that before I started my own organization, but I was able to say, Well, what do I want? What do I not want? Which is that something that's a principle I use in life in general is that sometimes you gotta know the bad to know what is good, and strip the bad and you get left with what you actually want. And that's what's made me a better teacher.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Can you talk about that process? You know that? That thoughtful process of here's the body of work. Here's what karate is, to me. At this point, the point where you transition out, and you look at it, and there I'm sure it's even different now from then. But that first examination to say, I want to keep this. I want to take this out. Do you remember what that was? How did you approach it?
Joe Andrews:
Yeah, it was a long process of trying to find the answers to questions that were answered for me. In the past, such as I mean, even, I mean, even an example like, what do you do if you end up on the floor? And the answer is always don't end up on the floor. Crying is not a ground martial art. You put people on the floor, don't take them to the floor. I respect that. But what if I end up on the floor accidentally? What if I tripped? What if I fall? What if they know what they're doing? And they put me on the floor? They all stand back up again. Now at the time, I just kind of played ignorant of mine.
It's not part of the system. But as I matured, I started realizing no, it's quite sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one, which is that they don't know. They didn't know the answer. Or they weren't taught the answers to questions they couldn't answer. Just having a little bit of being a bit humble, I suppose and saying, you know, if they just said, I don't know the answer to that question, go and train with someone that does. But that wouldn't have been the right answer, because they wanted me to trade with them.
So that's what I mean. That's one example. So, that is something that I take and I go, right, I need to answer that question. So I'm going to go and learn some jujitsu and go and learn from someone that can answer that question. What happens if I end up on the floor? Even if it's the basics, even if it's not wrapping somebody up? Like a pretzel? It's just how do you go to a mountain position or a guard position or sight control position?
And I can pass that information on to my students and say, if you end up on the floor, we actually do that. We actually did a class like this. We said we're actually going to do a throw and the partner is going to take you with them. When you go down, I want you to. I want you to try and fall into one of these positions and try and take the dominant position. Not for competition, not for Self Defense just as a good, just a good drill, a good drill to just drill into your head and go if I fall over sideways trying to incite control, try to control the arm, get the leg over, I'm answering questions that couldn't be previously answered.
That whole thing about stripping the good from the bad I actually, interestingly, I learned, I first learned that principle, not from karate, but when I was training to be a graphic designer, which was my old career, It was always my first ideas, my best idea, I was that kind of graphic designer, and they said, no, what you've got to do is you got to do a whole load of doodles, just get paid scribble all over it. 30,40,50 designs, only when you do that, can you then go through and I want you to split in half the ones that are good ones or not, then you take those ones that are good, you do a nice dark pen drawing, right?
Once you've done that, then you strip it again, you split 50,50 all the way through until you end up with three designs you present to them. And so not the most inspiring of routes as to where that principle came from. But that taught me that you have to know what the bad ideas are. To finalize, or get to the point where you know what the good idea is.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think just as importantly, and you might say it's an uninspiring source, but I actually quite disagree. It's okay, brilliant, that maybe there's a lot of repetition in that maybe you're doing a lot of different things. But it's recognizing the necessity of throwing stuff against the wall. Knowing that, you know, out of 50. You're going to hate 40. Yeah, but you have to go through that process. And I think if we look back at all of our time and early days training, for those of us that have I don't have any.
But for those of us that have early videos of our first few classes, or our first competition or something, you look at it, you're like, I was terrible. But you're only terrible. In hindsight. Yeah. And as you got better as a graphic designer, it's not that you were the equivalent of your best designs from your early days becoming the standard. You said, those are fine. I can use the first three now. Yeah, your standards continue to evolve. And you still have 47 to get the good three.
Joe Andrews:
Yeah. And the principle in that is that I could have just done one drawing and gone. Yeah, that's fine. But it was through that process that I realized that even if I came to the end point that was the same as my first doodle. I've still gone through that journey. Yeah, that is my best idea. I wouldn't have known that if I've not done 49 other drawings.
And I've taken that principle, there doesn't seem to be a correlation between that and martial arts by finding a correlation. So now I go, Well, I know what doesn't work, which means I know what does. And certainly with the kind of creativity that we do, which is a lot more tried and tested. And it's partner based, it's you who learn our material compliantly, then non-compliantly to ensure that students understand, and this is something that I've been trying to push on the online community is as teachers, we have to be responsible to say you can't just say this works. And even more, so you cannot just get your students to train it compliantly because they're only able to perform it compliantly you have to be able to then drill the exercise on a button that is less compliant to then realize what doesn't does not work. And I think that's where the big journey from what I used to do to what I do now. It is so important in my karate career.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And it is so interesting to see people go through this transition, I don't want to say I've gone through it. I was very fortunate in my early training that my instructors were very wide open, you know, this is what we do. But we want you to do other stuff, too. You don't have to know that for your next rank.
But we encourage you to learn it that you know, you bunch of right. But I've been around enough of it and had some kind of minor epiphanies that set me back and say, oh, this thing that I thought worked actually doesn't work. I don't have to throw the whole lot of it out. But there's enough here that I've got to work back through.
And it seems that the longer people stay in what they do, the older someone is, when they have that kind of realization that you had, the less likely they are to throw it away or to put it aside or to start over or whatever you want to term it because it can make them feel wasteful. I spent all this time on this when I look at it as no, you only got here because you put that time in.
Joe Andrews:
I have to remind myself sometimes that I go over the stuff that I used to do for 20 years. And I sometimes get a little bit down and I go, wow, that was a lot of material that I trained 1000s and 1000s of times, I don't do anymore. But then I have to keep slapping myself in the face reminding myself that it's the trance, it's the it's that it's the transition from that to what I do. Now, if that had never occurred, I may not be where I am now, which goes back to my previous analogy, which is that I have to know what not to do.
So that I know what I am doing is right. So for one example, we were always taught to use a low dart. That's fine in the realms of karate, but in the realms of combat. It's not not applicable. So that's why even highly regarded karate icons like people say, even in the cage fighting world, like Lyoto Machida and George St-Pierre, you know, they've got karate history, but they come up with high guards. I can imagine that traditionalists would probably look at that and go, Why is their guard so high? Is because because it's it's not? It's not negotiable? It's right. What they're doing is correct. You have a high regard, I would use a different word because it works.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because when you pick up the options, and you test things, you find it, maybe it's not 100%, maybe not, this thing works for 100% of people and 100% of circumstances, but we're playing odds benefit.
And if it works for 90% of people in 90% of circumstances, well, then you should probably do that. Instead of being wrapped up in, this is what I was taught, this is what this person said, if you've got the choice between what's probably going to work and what you were taught, I'm going to go with what's probably going to work.
Joe Andrews:
Exactly. That's what our community is all about. It's saying, practice this, because it works. And certainly this is something I've been talking a lot about recently is that, let's pretend for a moment, or maybe it's not even pretending, maybe it is true. That tradition, I'm generalizing traditional karate here, so forgive me. But if traditional Karate is not about combat, it's not about self defense, let's say it is about discipline, it's about protecting oneself. Self esteem, confidence, teamwork, maybe even going into the realms of competitive karate, that's great. I respect that.
But if you're going to choose the medium of combat, of which to channel, those, those skills, those crucial life skills, it's got to work. I think that's, I think that's the kind of, I can say that because I did it. I imagined probably a lot of people in my community would be upset by me saying that, but I can say that because I did it. I've done the you know, the constant, he gets A's to a head height punch and being taught that you can punch somebody in the face, whilst not protecting your own face. Whereas as you quite rightly put it, that it's been tried and tested that to protect your own head to attack somebody else's, in either competitive or self defense aspects. That that is us, that is that it's a system that works.
So it just interests me. If somebody from the traditional standpoint could hold their hands up and go, Yeah, okay. It's not a self defense system, it is not a combative system. So well, in that case, pick a different channel, to channel what you are trying to offer. And this is something that I've been talking a lot about, on forms about, you're saying, be open with what you teach. What you know is asking the black and white question, what do you teach? Do you teach people how to fight? If so, you are teaching people how to fight if you're teaching people how to acquire the skills, enter competitions, then tell people that's what you do. Whereas if you're looking for more military discipline, you know, push ups if your belt isn't the right length, tell people that's what you do. Or at least advertise that I'm sure.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I'm gonna guess you'll agree with this statement. It doesn't mean that 100% of what you do, has to be that thing, but there it should be clear which of those things are in are not there's, I see value in one step in three steps barring. But if that's the primary implementation of freeform movement, there's quite a delta between the skill that that brings you and your ability to apply that in a street confrontation or even in competition.
And if that's the goal, if that's where you want your students to be able to go, if you tell them, I will help you be this, then what you do, you should be able to work backwards and say, okay, instead of doing this 40% of the time, maybe we do it 3% of the time, there's value, but it's not the greater value. So we should do this instead.
Joe Andrews:
Yeah, I just think if you, you have the responsibility as a teacher to teach material that either the Stephen students are going to use, or in a certain circumstance, they could use it. So if we're talking about combat, if I'm teaching my students to be able to defend themselves, it's my robot responsibility to make sure that I'm offering the best tuition, even if they never have to use it.
But it's giving people hope, I suppose it is the Hollywood term to use so it's not creating false hope. So giving somebody a black belt is, to a lot of people saying, yeah, this is clarification that I can look after myself.
And it's my responsibility to ensure that my students will be able to feel that way, at some point. So it's my responsibility to make sure that what I'm teaching them is at least tried and tested. And that's something that used to worry me. In my traditional days, it was only my club. But it still worried me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You're aware that there was a gap?
Joe Andrews:
Yeah, I genuinely would look to go to courses and seminars, I'll be looking down the line, all of these black belts and thinking, I don't believe that there'll be a look after themselves, if they were confronted with a verbal or physical altercation. I genuinely believe that. And I've witnessed the same thing. We talked at the top about why, why you got started. Why do you continue?
I guess, which actually leads nicely on from what I just said, which is, I have a responsibility to not only keep karate going but to help push karate into the future. So as a tradition as an ex traditionalist, which in its definition, is preserving the past. But that but there's material that will help push it into the future and that's the world I'm in now, is that we're in a community of fellow martial artists, I use the term martial arts because we don't want to get institutionalized again I'm making everything really tightened saying just karate we train with people to do karate and something else.
We do courses with people that don't do karate, they do something completely different like jiu jitsu and Judo, jiu jitsu and all kinds of stuff. And it's, it's, it's moving karate forward and saying, How can we make it better? I'm actually part of that community that is saying, how do we make karate but how do we change people's perceptions of karate? Because if you ask the general public, certainly they don't know about the US, but certainly in the UK, they'll say that they'll narrow it down to two things. It's the Karate Kid series. And that thing we used to do as a kid that's basically it.
People have no ties. That's how the public would see it. And actually, it's interesting that we understand the differences between different martial arts but the public don't. So no one ever comes to me and says, How's your cry? There we go. How's your Taekwondo and Judo guys? Jiu jitsu. How'd you come through?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Most of them don't mean it disparagingly. Some of them might be poking fun. But to most of them.
Joe Andrews:
These are all interchangeable terms because they don't understand. And I'm not criticizing them. Because they don't know. You can't criticize somebody for not knowing something. And so I guess that's what We were trying to look at how to move forward within and without the community. So that's a big thing in our promotion. We're not trying to talk about how awesome we are.
We're trying to advertise, look, this is what karate is, wherever you think it is, this is what it actually is. So we have to use a lot of video footage we have in our film classes dry, put it out there and say, you know, this is, whatever you think it is. It's a lot more than what you think it is. And wonder with it that's within and without that in and out with a great community of the martial art community.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And what has the response been? I mean, we know what the response has been from it, at least the most vocal elements of the karate community. Like, I'm not even gonna use words with that tone. Right? Because we get some very accurate results. But what about the folks who? You know, maybe maybe aren't that how they are receiving this content that you're putting out? Are they supportive? Do they understand what they say, I don't get it?
Joe Andrews:
I think, because it's a subject that people aren't fully understanding of, it's a case of coming and trying it. Whereas in the UK, it's all about football, rugby, and cricket. So those are are those are main sports, they are seasonal sport and tennis as well. nuts about tennis. If you don't do those sports, you have a basic understanding of how it works. Whereas with martial arts, now people don't understand that even in our basic level that Judo is grappling, jiu jitsu is on the floor, karate is kicking and punching.
The basics if people don't understand that, so when people can't, I can only talk on behalf of the people that come train with us, I don't know about other clubs, but they come to us and then the, it's like anything else, they either stay or they go, if they stay, they might stay for a year to 5-10 years, we've we've had students come for one class, and go now don't say anything, they just don't come back. And it might not necessarily be that they didn't like what we do, it just wasn't what they thought it was gonna be.
Or maybe we get kids coming to do it. And they think it's gonna be like kids karate, like peewee karate, or short can tigers, where they're gonna be kicking and punching things and team building games and then get the next belt. So it could be that our expectations or their expectations aren't always met because of what we're trying to represent. But then we can't please everybody.
Certainly, in my years of being a teacher, I've come, I've had to come, I had to come to this realization, I had to come to this acceptance that for karate, much like anything else is either life or it's a phase. I think once you get your head as a teacher, you actually feel a lot better about when people come and go. Because this happens, this happens everywhere else.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I suspect whether you realize it or not, the quality of your instruction and the value that you deliver to your students has increased. Because you know what it's like to train under someone who is karate has life and cannot wrap their head around any other perspective on it.
Joe Andrews:
I'd like to think I'm a fairly realistic person. I like to keep these things in mind. I feel I'm quite an aware person. I know that people have got other hobbies and interests. So I got hobbies and interests. I do. I'm in a band. Now I play in a band on Monday nights. Then we even play drums and vocals.
So I've got a Phil Collins thing going on. We didn't like that. He didn't like that I had other interests. He wanted me to be 100% committed to karate. So even if it was something that this was, we were practicing when there was no training. But then he expected whenever you weren't training you class you were training at home. So I'm fully understanding because I do it myself. I know people have got oh god. I work and I have a job.
I have family, I have friends. I have stuff to do outside of karate, outside of my training, outside of my teaching, and it will be hypocritical for me to not feel that way compassionately for other people. If the people come up to me and they go I'm so sorry that I wasn't there last week. I'm so not to shoot us. You are there, it's fine. Yeah, I'll probably try and change something. What did you do? Because I had some family visiting. Oh, that's nice. Where did you go? I went out when that went out. Oh, great. I'm glad you had a nice time. And just sort of try and stare at the feeling in the room? From sort of total, totally apologetic students feel really terrible. What about what they did? And I'm going about what you have to eat? Maybe going there sounds really nice.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The only time I draw an issue is when the implementation and their goals, their why disconnect. If you have if you want to get ready for a testing or a competition, or whatever it is, and you're not putting in the time to get you there?
Well, then I might point out, hey, you know, you're not, you're not setting yourself up for success. But for most of us, if something is going to be a lifelong pursuit, or something we're going to do at least indefinitely.
\You kind of have to have the rest of your life if martial arts betters your life, where's the life? Where are your friends and your family? How do you take the lessons in your trading, and make the world a little bit better?
Joe Andrews:
I mean, I'll make that very clear from the beginning. With new students I go, you know, we have a belt system, we have a great system. And like anything else in life, the harder you work, the more you get out of it, you know, the more the more class you put in, and the more effort you put in, when you when that time frame comes and you become eligible, you're more likely move on to the next Bell, somebody will probably argue and say that's not the point. But everything I teach has an underlying principle. And the underlying principle of that is, you get what you put in.
Even if I'm not directly making that point, there's always an underlying issue and an underlying principle, which is that if you don't come to classes, so then come to me in a few months time and go, where's my belt, I'll go when I made it perfectly clear that the you have to, you have to come to classes, you have to put the effort in. And I like to think that wherever I teach, in terms of principles is a generic enough principle that they could apply that to life.
Like, if I work hard at my job, I get there early on my stay a little bit after work, and I'm proactive, I go to my boss and say, Here's anything you need me to do. It just increases your chances of getting promoted. There's always that's what I liked about principles, they're not set to anything in particular, you can carry them around with you in your pocket and use it throughout your life.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think sometimes people forget, promotion advancement rank is for what you've done, not what you used to do a while ago, what we're hoping you're going to do in the future. It's what you've done kind of recently and where you're at and what you're capable of.
And if there's a hole in that, then the belt isn't a bandaid, it doesn't magically fix that. And there are some schools out there who will promote it in hopes that it will motivate people to remain and to fix these things. And I get it's one of the few places I get quite bent out of shape. I think it conditions them in the wrong way.
Joe Andrews:
Yeah, I always try to make sure that everything I'm trying to promote, or anything that I'm trying to incite upon my students is for the right reason. It's not for my benefit, it's for their benefit. I don't want people to come to me so that I get loads of students and my club looks awesome. I'm doing it because I'm almost providing a service.
I'm providing a service, they might know they might never end up in conflict in their entire life and I don't wish it upon anybody but if you can take something from it. So you can adapt to life the same way that karate and martial arts have made my life better. It's made me a better person. Then I'll go to bed happy every night. There we go.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So what's coming down the pipe for you? What's in the future? Or to say it another way? You know, if we were to connect back up in five or 10 years, what would you hope you were telling me?
Joe Andrews:
So, one of the main things that I really want applied gratitude to represent is that there is that the wall, the metaphorical wall between teachers and students, is knocked down.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I think more about that.
Joe Andrews:
And I want to collaborate with people, I want students to collaborate with us, I want to collaborate with students, I want to learn more, they want to learn more. So that whole thing about when you become a senpai, or an instructor, you hop over that wall, you end up on that side, you're a teacher, now, we are students as well. We are going off, we're learning more, we're going to train with other people, we're going and training and other martial arts, get some other opinions.
Get out there meet people and network with people, the more I learn, the more my students learn. And I say the same thing to my students, my students go, I'll tell them to go off and practice on stuff. And I've done it many times where some of them have gone off and learned something else. So you'll come back and teach me what you've gone and learned. I don't know, I know, you know more about the subject than I do. And they sort of look at me like what, you're the teacher.
So you're the teacher now. You teach me. You're going out, you've gone off to uni, and there's no way there's no karate club near the university. So they've gone and practiced Japanese jujitsu when I do Brazilian jiu jitsu. So they might. Let's talk about it. What's the difference between Japanese and Brazilian jiu jitsu? Let's talk about it. Okay, cool. And so I guess that's what I want in in five or 10 years time, I want to keep doing what I'm doing, which is to learn more, because for my benefit, but also for the students benefit, and honestly, I'm one person, whereas I'm going to have an X number of students over the next 5-10 years.
So it actually will benefit them. Because there's so many more of them than it'll benefit me. So again, it goes back to me having a responsibility to take material that is tried and tested. It works. And it's useful. Even if you never end up in combat in your life, it's still a useful life skill that I can pass on to people.
So I'm going to keep on going, I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing. Because that's not a pursuit that expires. The smarter I get, the smarter my students get. And I want Somerset applied correctly to grow. Because it's fresh, it's about six, plus six years old, six to seven years old. I've got about 20 years of teaching experience behind me because of the amount of teaching I did in the old club.
So I like to think I've got enough experience to pass on to black belts that are interested in being instructors, and help them to pass on the same message.
Jeremy Lesniak:
In that vein, I asked you a kind of a form of this question I'll ask you again. Now in a different way. I'm sure we have people listening, who if they've listened this far into the episode, likely one of two things are happening.
One they have recognized and taken some steps in their martial arts training, because they recognize that there was more available. Or maybe they have, we're kind of pulling them along. And they're like, you know, okay. But I've been training for this long, and I've got this school or, you know, this pile of sort of entrenched history, this tradition, that's kind of waiting for them down. And they're not quite sure where to go.
So here's the question. If you could go back to and talk to you six, seven years ago, as you were stepping away from what you were doing and to what you are now doing, what advice would you give yourself at that point in time?
Joe Andrews:
I said try interesting, because I remember exactly how I felt. In that time, it was it seems like a long time ago, but it was it was a very big part of my life that maybe some people in my life maybe won't understand that falling out with your crate instructor is this same as falling out with any old friend but this is a person that had a huge influence. Probably the main influence.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Especially if you start training with them at an impressionable age?
Joe Andrews:
Yeah, exactly. Well, I trained with him from the age of nine, up to about the age of 27/28. It's a third. What would I say? I well, I can approach it from, from the falling out with my instructor point of view, but I can also from the changing in my martial arts direction as to approaching the, the leaving my instructor, I'd simply say, don't worry this, you're going to realize that this is the one of one of the greatest decisions you've ever made.
And you should be proud of yourself for having the courage to stand up for yourself, you should be proud of yourself, don't feel bad. Don't feel like you've let anybody down this, this is the best decision you're probably ever going to make. And you are going to become a better representative for what you do. Which kind of leads on to the other thing is that you're going to this is how I felt at the time this was this was I remember how I felt.
It was like the only way I could describe it. It was like being taught karate in a closet for 20 years. And being told everything in here is everything you need. And it's like somebody opened a door and showed me that there's a hole, there's a house, there's a garden, you go through the front door, there's a whole world. You don't have to practice everything that's in that broom closet, you've got an infinite number of things you can practice and people you can train with. And there's no one stopping you.
Other than yourself, or in some cases, your instructor. And some people have the audacity to say no, you know what, I'm going to leave, I'm going to go and train with somebody else, I'm going to find another organization, whereas I didn't leave for that reason. So I kind of figured that out for myself. I didn't have the courage to say I'm leaving, because I'm going to do something else that was a byproduct of me leaving. So I actually thank the few karate friends I had at the time, like Andy, he was a great bridge for me from where I was to where I am. And, also, my wife used to do karate and her stepdad was her teacher. And he was obviously also very instrumental with bridging me from where I was to where I am. And my friend James, who does walk through, he was another one I went training with him for a year and he's one oh club. So he was able to pull me in a direction when I felt like there was no direction.
So if I didn't have those people helping me, I don't know where I would probably be now I'd probably still be a bit lost. So I would also say to my former self that, you know, you might feel like you've lost a lot of friends. But sometimes bad things have to happen for you to realize who your real friends are. And I learned that from falling out with my instructor is that I said no once and it destroyed the relationship. So I learned from that, that he wasn't really my friend. He wasn't my mentor.
But the friends that remained there were the ones that sort of pulled me along and said, you know, come and do this, come and try something else for a bit. That got me to where I am now. So I'm eternally grateful to those people. So in general, I'm saying to my former self, you know, you're gonna feel pretty, you're pretty awful for the next three or four years. And I did just say, you know, it's gonna be worth it. Yeah, the place you're going to and the place you're going to go to is going to benefit you and it's going to benefit the karate community. And I hope it does. I hope people benefit from teaching why put out online.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If people want to get a hold of you if they want to see what you're putting out online, how do they do those things?
Joe Andrews:
Yes, we put regular content on YouTube. Just going to Somerset applied karate, we have a Facebook page called website just serves some set by gravity and our online content also it features myself and my very dear friend, Sensei [00:59:40-00:59:42], who again, is another a very crucial part he plays a very crucial role in the future, some setup like karate. And he has a lot to offer.
He has a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience and skill he gets, he gets out there, he practices all kinds of stuff. He takes what he likes, he strips what he doesn't like. And the same thing, it makes him a better teacher and we feed off each other. That's why our organization is the two of us. As far as we see it, two heads are better than one.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Absolutely. So what final words do you have for the folks listening today? Any thoughts you want to leave them with?
Joe Andrews:
Well, certainly something I tell my students all the time, and I'm a personal trainer as well. And I say the same thing to my fitness clients as well. And they want to be remembered by the end of my life, which is that hard work without fun, it's just hard work. If you got to, you can either. Take what you take yourself seriously, or what you do seriously, you can do both. So that's kind of my, my own way of saying if you're gonna learn something, it's gonna be sweaty, it's going to be hard. It's going to be physically or mentally hard work. Make it fun. That's what I do with everything I try to teach. I try to find a way of making it fun.
So it makes it more engaging. Because I was always taught, find the fun in it. Find fun and hard work. Which that's fine. If you like hard work. There's people out there that do and I respect them for that. But yeah, if you take a serious subject, enjoy it. Because like I said before, you may never end up in a physical confrontation in your life. So you don't want to get to the end of your life and going out was a waste of time to get down and go. Yeah, I met some great people. I had some great fights, went had a drink afterwards and talked about it. Yeah, enjoy it, like you would any other activity.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sensei Joe, thanks for coming on, listeners. Thanks for listening. I really enjoyed this. I always do. But I always enjoy it for slightly different reasons. That's because all of our guests are slightly different people. My favorite thing about the format that we have for our interview episodes is it showcases how something that most of us think of is pretty similar, right? Training, traditional martial arts can lead to such dramatic differences in people's lives, and what they do with it. And here's another example of that.
If you want to go deeper if you want the show notes for this episode, go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, sign up for the newsletter while you're over there. If you want you can tip us. He makes a one time donation. In a sense through PayPal, there's a link over there. But if you want to support us in other ways you got so many I'm not even going to name them. I mean name them all the time. You know what they are? I'll skip that today.
If you have any feedback, I want to hear that feedback, topic suggestions, guest suggestions, ways we can improve the show, things that we should offer, things we should get involved in, and it's all welcome. Email me Jeremy@whistlekick.com. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.