Episode 748 - Sensei Jerry Figgiani
Sensei Jerry Figgiani is a Martial Arts practitioner, instructor, and founder of East Coast Black Belt Academy, Budokan Dojo in New York.
I played for a legendary coach here in Long Island, he’s in Suffolk County Hall of Fame. I didn’t appreciate, at that time, as a kid what I really had in front of me as a mentor, as a guy… Once the season is over, it’s over, but Martial Arts, it’s for life…
Sensei Jerry Figgiani - Episode 748
Sensei Jerry Figgiani, 8th Dan Black Belt, is the President and Founder of Shorin Ryu Karate-Do International and the owner of East Coast Black Belt Academy, Budokan Dojo. He comes from a strong lineage of Matsubayashi Shorin Ryu practitioners who have followed in the footsteps of Grand Master Shoshin Nagamine. Starting his training in 1977, he has been teaching martial arts since 1988. Through his extensive background and experience, he has developed a unique way of bringing the philosophy of martial arts to everyday life activities. Because he has the ability to reach students of all ages and skill levels and help them understand karate’s movements, mechanics, and applications his seminars are universal to any karate system.
As such, he has been invited to teach all over the world and was one of the first western instructors to have the honor of teaching at the Okinawa Karate Kaikan, the official government-supported center for learning the essence of traditional karate. A published author as well as the subject of many magazines, newspapers, and media articles, Sensei Figgiani is a featured column writer for the premiere martial arts magazine, Masters, and has published books on martial practice and philosophy as well as interviews with some of today’s greatest martial artists and karate pioneers. Building on his distinctive ability to help his students reach and exceed their expectations, in 2010 Sensei Figgiani developed the Mental Martial Arts Program.
Promoted predominantly in the K-12 school classrooms, the series of lessons is designed to create a more peaceful school and community environment, instill a sense of confidence and self-respect in the students and even more importantly, help each individual learn the value and benefit of respecting others. Possessing a 3rd-degree black belt in Judo and membership in the Kodokan, the headquarters of Judo training located in Tokyo, Japan, Sensei Figgiani is able to integrate the principles and foundations of both karate and judo into a well-rounded and total martial education for his students. In this way, the student gets a complete understanding of the mechanics of self-defense enabling them to be more confident and secure as they go through their daily life.
In 2003, Sensei Figgiani created a program with the support of the Police Athletic League that would improve academic achievement through the study of martial arts. Known as the R.E.A.C.H. Program, the acronym stands for Respect Education and Always Climb Higher. The program guides kids having social and academic difficulties towards success through the practice of traditional martial arts skills. This curriculum instantly became so popular that in 2004 the Longwood School District Board of Education recognized Sensei for the immediate impact his methods had on the lives of the student participants. Later, in 2012, Sensei was presented with the National Police Athletic League Mentoring Service Award for the dramatic influence his program has made on the lives of so many students.
The R.E.A.C.H. program continues to this day and has expanded to numerous school districts sharing its positive impact on students throughout Long Island. Sensei Figgiani believes that a major component of learning martial arts is being able to integrate the lessons taught in the school with the activities that take place in daily life. Making positive choices in difficult situations, learning about situational awareness and stranger danger, adopting strategies for safety when it comes to bullying, and being able to manage and overcome peer pressure are just some of the values taught to his students. This mind, body and spirit philosophy creates a safe and unique learning environment for each and every student.
Recognizing this success, in 2018 Jerry Figgiani Sensei was invited to be the Keynote Speaker at Brookhaven Town Hall addressing the issues of making positive life choices and student anti-bullying strategies. In 2019, he was inducted into the Suffolk County Sports Hall of Fame in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the practice of martial arts.
In this episode, Sensei Figgiano shares his journey to the martial arts. Listen to learn more!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How's it going? You're listening to whistlekick martial arts radio, Episode 748 with today's guest Sensei Jerry Figgiani. Who am I? Well, I'm Jeremy Lesniak and I founded whistlekick because I love traditional martial arts. And I wanted to start a company that would support and enhance the experience of traditional martial artists worldwide. And that's why we do all the things we do. Go to whistlekick.com, check out all the things that we do. If you haven't been there lately, you're probably missing out on something. Because it is a constantly changing list. We're constantly adding stuff, we're adding products, we're adding projects, and whistlekick.com is the easiest place to go and find all of them.
One of the things you're going to find over there is our store. And if you use the code you can save 15% on all the stuff that we've got in there, from training programs, to apparel to protective equipment, and more, the show gets its own website whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. We bring you two episodes each week with the goal of connecting, educating and entertaining traditional martial artists just like you no matter where they are in the world. And no matter what we're how they train, if you want to help us if you want to keep the show growing and keep whistle kick on steady ground, you can do lots of things, you can make a purchase, leave a review on maybe Apple podcasts, or Spotify or join the patreon.com/whistlekick, you can get in as little as two bucks a month and it goes up from there. And at each tier, we give you more and more and more. And people really dig it because well, they don't stop contributing. Once people come in, they see all the great stuff that we're providing. And I hope that you will consider doing so, if you want the full list and If you're really invested in all the things that we're doing.
If you are a passionate traditional martial artist, you should go to whistlekick.com/family, see all the things we've got going on there. It's kind of like a free mini patreon. And we update it each week. So I had a great time talking to sensei iJerry Figgiani. Little bit of synchronicity here, you'll hear some of that stuff as we go being in the same places at the same times, many years ago, and not knowing each other until today, but had a lot of fun. And looking forward to connecting with him more in the future. Here's the episode. Hey, sensei. Thanks for coming on.
Jerry Figgiani:
Thank you for having me do this.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, I appreciate you being here. Now. You know, you're not terribly far away geographically. So you're probably experiencing a beautiful day as I am. And we're both inside.
Jerry Figgiani:
Absolutely. Hold on. I'm looking at the sun right now.
Jeremy Lesniak:
As soon as we're done here, I throw out a pair of shorts and go out in the yard or dance classes. So do you ever take classes outside?
Jerry Figgiani:
Absolutely. Matter of fact, during the course of the summer, I just started doing this last year, and it really became popular only with the adults in the evening. So I'll pick a day and we'll head off to the beach. We won't have class in the evening. So we'll start the class around seven o'clock. And it's really been a big hit. This coming Saturday I'm doing my 32nd annual beach workout with the whole Belgium so I have the little karate masters, which they start there about four or five, six, or even the children's program and the adults altogether. So that's like really a fun, fun Tiger time workout for families. It's a good time. But I love training outdoors, you can't beat it. Now whether it's in a park or beach setting, I think. No, I'm saying unfortunately, when COVID happened, I was out in the park. But that was so enjoyable. You know, it's nice.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think a lot of times. You mentioned periodic beach workouts. I think a lot of people would hear that and say, well, that's a treat. That's a reward. It's not real training. I feel differently. I think there's some benefits there and I suspect you do as well and I'm wondering if I can speak to them.
Jerry Figgiani:
No, it's real. I mean, in the dojo here because not only do I teach karate, I teach Judo as well. So when we go to the beach, it's a great place to work a lot of the applications as far as takedowns and throws and even some of the beginners or people that don't like to fall are really not that intimidated once we get outside. But the training is real. You know, work on the beach with the sand. It's a lot different environment, whether we're running or doing calisthenics or actually doing condo applications, it just has a whole different feel to it. And to be out in the fresh air wind blowing. Again, I've been doing this for 32 years outside. You never know what's going to come upon you. There's been hail storms, rain storms that have come down on us. So it's a good time to hail storms.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It makes me think maybe there should be a class with the people throwing ice while you're trying to focus. And I love training on an unstable surface. Most of us trained in some environment where that floor isn't going anywhere. You never if you slip on the floor, it's because of your own footwork, or somebody sweat. Right and you slipped in it but outside.
Jerry Figgiani:
I always tell my students this is a safe place. It's a spacious room. We have to tighten the mats. But once you step outside, you step off the curb, that's the real environment.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right? Did you grow up in a school like that encouraged stepping outside and kind of that dynamic training environment.
Jerry Figgiani:
Later on. When I trained with Cincy macaron, he was more open to doing different types of events outside the dojo. And then, of course, my first time going to Okinawa, I can experience some outside training, which was nice. But no, not really my dojos, it's pretty much going to the dojo training in class. But one of my other sensei Joseph carbonara, he had before he passed, he was just doing private lessons and so on. And some days we would go out to the beach by his house with a few of the guys and we would do some training out there. So that was nice. But when I first opened the dojo here, I wanted to bring something new to the students like, what a great way to do it. And Long Island was surrounded by water. So what a great place to be.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Absolutely. How did you get started? Let's rewind the tape to the beginning. What does class one look like and what was the reason in the lead up to it.
Jerry Figgiani:
I started 1971 but just for like a really short period of time. My family moved from the city. My mom and dad grew up in Greenwich Village and grew up in Queens, I grew up in Queens. I was going to ps1 17, I had a friend. His name was Satoshi. He was a Japanese student. I believe his family is with the United Nations or worked with the United Nations. And we became really good friends. I used to go to his house. And I used to be intrigued with some of the things I saw in his house that were on in my house. And then we moved out to Long Island 1968. I was eight years old, about two years later, the right Recreation Center was built in my development. And they started offering all these different programs of basketball, which was boxing, and right. So I went one night to the recreation center to watch these live demonstrations as a kid, and I loved it. I told my mom, I gotta do this, I want to do that. So me and my sister, actually, she's three years younger than me, we started together. And then after about six months or so, the program that's been going since the thing wasn't doing the program at the recreation center.
And then I found out he was teaching out of his house. So me and a couple of my friends that were taking class, we would take our bicycles. At that time, it was a pretty far distance and we would go to his house. But when my mom found out I was going to somebody's house to take karate lessons. That was it. So at that time, they were really as far as I was aware there was no real schools around and then I just started getting interested in sports in lifting weights and hanging out with my friends and doing things that we did back then it's kids, so I didn't come around, full circle to.
When I was 17 years old, a good friend of mine in high school, his name was Jeffrey Oreo. I found out he played football together. And he didn't make the team. And then I kind of found out that he was training in martial arts a little bit. I know that he was a blackbelt in Kempo style. So he started introducing me back to it. And I saw a couple of kids in my neighborhood, young kids younger than me at the time walking around in Waikiki, and I would ask them, where do you go to class, so my interest started to swap out. And it wasn't until my senior year in high school that I really said, I want to do this. And, as I continued to do it, I kind of realized I needed to do it. Because I had so many issues.
As a young man, my mom and dad broke off when I was about 10 years old. My dad moved back to the city and my mom at that time at work. So I was kind of lacking self discipline. And I played sports. I was like a star running back on my high school team. Back in the day, we won the Suffolk county championship back where I live and colleges were approaching me to play for them as well. And I knew in my senior year, I didn't want to go to school. I really wasn't a good student in school.
Nothing really kind of caught my attention. At least the way athletics did. So when I started doing the martial arts and understanding, it was just more than kicking and punching, just fighting. I kind of realized that I needed this. And now, we are in 2022. I never thought that initial step would take me to where I am today. It's been a hell of a ride. And I've enjoyed every moment.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We're gonna go back, I want to talk about that point post high school and that decision about college. But before we do, there's a question I like to ask when we think about someone's tenure in the martial arts. And especially when someone has been training for decades. There are very few things that people do for decades, maybe if they're lucky, their spouse, they're married to them for decades, people rarely work in the same job for decades. It's not even common that people spend that much time in the same home. Why have you remained in martial arts for so long?
Jerry Figgiani:
Is really something that I needed, and it's really something that I really get satisfaction from. Personally, get out of it. I see my strengths. I see my weaknesses. I'm the only one you know that's accountable for, when I was going to my sensei school, getting into the dojo. A lot of people commit to something but they come in for different reasons. I was drawn to martial arts because of the physical. As a kid I fought. I was always athletic in high school. Like I said, I excelled in sports. I ran track, played football as well, county football players. I set the school record for rushing yards, my senior year. And I even to this day, I'm going to be 63 in February, very athletic. I probably could have pursued that area of sports, but my mindset wasn't into it.
For some reason, the way it kind of took shape in martial arts, and speaking about commitment is coming this year. I'll be married to my wife for two years. So I always say there's two things in my life that have really kind of helped me stay on the path I am on. That's number one, my wife. Number two, the karate training, because I didn't know how to really express myself when it came to anger issues or holding things in. And martial arts, if trained the proper way, is really the greatest form of therapy.
Anybody could really take if you, but you have to be open to really looking at yourself and say, hey, look, I got a problem. I get angry. I fly off the handle, I'm going to hurt somebody, it's going to be consequences. But you gotta step back a little bit and think about that. I did things that were totally uncalled for and stupid.
And, just recently, we went to celebrate my wife's birthday. And there was something that happened, we were in a Walgreens, and something happened online, and the guy was flying off the handle, and I got kind of aggravated. And I said to my wife getting around, I think I will take Marsh loans, because something like that would happen, the score could set me off, people looking at his value. You're such a nice guy but they don't know the story. How I got to that point.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So talking about football and being successful at football. When I think about the people that I've known, who did well in football, and certainly not all of them, but it seems like they as a cross section, word angry or group than average. Do you think if you had say that, say you'd been a better student, or you'd wanted to go to school and you'd pursued football?
Jerry Figgiani:
If I had martial arts first, maybe wait before playing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, so we can come back to that, too. But I'm wondering about the anger part. You've highlighted this benefit of martial arts for you. Do you think football would have been exacerbated? Would it have taken you in the other direction?
Jerry Figgiani:
On my teammates, especially my senior year, we had a really great chemistry, and some of the same guys that I've come up with since eighth grade. And they were the ones and some of them I tell today, I'm very close with sonar. They were the ones that gave me confidence. Because as a young man, in high school, I played running back, I was 5’10, two on 20 pounds. I was the fastest guy on the team. So genetically, I always say I got that stuff from my mom and dad are both alive today, my dad's 88, my mom's 85. Both of them are very strong, very healthy. And so being in that group environment and knowing that you have responsibility to your teammates. I play for a legendary coach here on Long Island. He's in the Suffolk County Hall of Fame. I didn't appreciate at the time as a kid, where I really had in front of me as a mentor as a guy. And once the season's over, it's over, right. But Marshall martial arts is for life. And I did go to college. It was a year after I graduated, schools were still contacting me, telling me to think about what direction where are you going? And I really had no direction. And they taught me to go back to school, my wife, like my girlfriend at the time said, why don't you give it one more shot.
And I did. And two months into the season, I got hurt. And I was walking, I was running with the ball. Coach, brutal whistle, somebody hit me from behind and went down. I went to push up. I couldn't feel my legs. I knew at that point, my mindset, it wasn't into the game. It was in practice. It was a practice. And that evening, when I walked off the field, you know, I left school as well. It just wasn't something that was for me. So, but by that time, if I'm connecting pieces and dots, do you feel that way about martial arts? Yes, and as soon as I healed up, I continued and from 77.
At that point, I stopped going to school. I was training. But then I got hurt. And then when I recovered, I went back to my train. And at that time I was training in New York City at taekwondo school. Under Richard Chun, he was a prominent figure in taekwondo muda Quan at that time. And that's what I wind up getting my first Black Belt. In the early 80s. I got married in 1983. And then, me and my wife who lived in the city, then we moved back out to Long Island. And that's when I switched the house, to what I teach my children.
Jeremy Lesniak:
When we think of the archetype of a teenager getting into martial arts, they're usually bullied conventionally, at least unathletic. And it's in martial arts, that they find something that they haven't found elsewhere, they're finding validation, they're finding community, they're learning about themselves, etc. But that doesn't seem to describe you. What was it about martial arts at that age that I learned this?
Jerry Figgiani:
It gave me direction, I started to see self discipline was something that I was lacking. My dad wasn't home, my mom wasn't home. So as a teenage boy, that I'm out and there was nobody that was holding me accountable to do my homework, in the house at a certain time. So, I'm lucky in that sense, actually, my brother and my sister, the three of us are lucky, because we didn't have loving parents, just having the two of them we get along. And we had grandparents on both sides, aunts, and uncles, so, but to find something where.
When I went into the dojo, there was some type of structure, kind of related to what I was experiencing football, but I'm really the only one accountable. See, when you run with the football, you rely on the quarterback handing it off to you, right, you can't fumble the ball, you rely on your teammates blocking from you opening the holes that you can run through.
But as a martial artist even though we work among other classmates, I went to class, one person that was myself and that's something that I tried to convey to my students today, even though I tried to make this a family atmosphere and some of my students that are like brothers to me, their family,
They traveled when I was asked to do seminars, they would travel with you, whether it was to Europe, anyplace in the United States, to Japan, and I feel so blessed. So even though we have this family environment, the training is for you, the individual, you got to find what you need from it. Everybody comes into the dojo for certain reasons, whether it's selfless, self defense, building up their self esteem, trying to empower themselves to have more confidence. You know, in the past 32 years that I've been teaching here, I've come across 1000s of students, and everybody has their own needs. And, that's what martial arts could do for somebody that you could find what you really need. It's almost like self realization, right? You're looking at how you can take yourself from here to there, what's the next step and you constantly build not that you don't fall on your face or make mistakes, but you gotta be open about it.
There's things that people look at in Sensei and they're like the sensei is above everybody. And now it's just a person that has experienced more up to a certain point. Personally, I don't like the bull crap people. As far as you know, what I did was what I could do. I look at the individual as an individual and then I try to see how they could fit in. What's a place inside the classroom? Even in my classroom now my classroom setting, I have teenagers that are making the transition from the children's program into the adult program. And then I have students that even their 60s and 70s and I have a few of them in their 80s.
My oldest one is wow, so, and the 85 year old has been with me about almost 20 years now. Okay, that's awesome. Actually, he coached against me in high school. That's true. We came into the dojo and I said my last name. He said to me, you're not running back for sejam High School, are you? And I said, Yes. So he came in. He was in his late 60s. And he didn't even had no idea what martial arts was all about. Karate. And then now he uses it just to keep going. Now, he's found something that he can connect with and make it a part of his life.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's great. I love it. When did you know you wanted to open a school?
Jerry Figgiani:
Well, you really want to open a school. I absolutely do. When I got married to my wife, I was driving the truck. What I wanted to do, my family wanted me to move to Florida, they had a business down there. I went down for a short period of time, it didn't work out. I came back to New York, and my father got me a job in sales. So I'm selling Budweiser. So I kept the client for different jobs. And I wind up getting a job for a chemical company based in Cleveland, Ohio. And long story short, I didn't have a college education. But I worked my way up to district sales manager. And I was actually applying some of the principles that we use in martial arts as far as you know, self control, perseverance, confidence. I went into the meeting rooms, and all these guys are talking about all the different degrees they have, and I'm just sitting there. And anyway, I still am.
When we moved back out to Long Island, I started training in Shawn's room again. And so I really never read any books in high school. I just wasn't a good student. And one of the tests I had to take my sensei told me that I had to read this book. And I'm like, I'm going for my yellow belt, and I got to read a book. I just didn't get it. And the book was the karate dojo by Peter Irby. And so you had to buy the book at the time, I bought the book, and I started reading it. And I was like, wow, this is pretty cool. I was like getting into it. And all of a sudden, you know, the next Bell, you had to buy another book, you had to read another book, do another report. I was really getting into this. And then I started going into bookstores, and forming my own collection. So long story short, I made a I made black belt in Taekwondo. And when I went into Shawn rules and a macro and asked me, Do you want to come into my dojo as a black belt? Or do you want to start again, as a beginner white belt? And, and I say, no, if I'm coming into a different style, I put my ego aside, I want to start at the beginning. I want to take this on from day one. And I use that as a challenge.
And so I progressed. And then like in any Federation organization with Dojo is politics, and came to a point in dojo and it's such a long story. I'm really not going to get into it, but there was a point where me and my senpai at the time, we kind of left Sensei, macarons dojo. I am still on speaking terms with him now. He was at one of my seminars I just held last week, since he's eight years old now. But anyway, somebody invited me to a seminar. And it was a tournament weekend in Ohio. So I told my friend about it, and I said, Why don't we take the drive out then? be it was a show and move on. And We both went out there. Long story short, we both won our divisions in Catia and we both won our divisions in Clemente. So the head of the organization at the time, Frank Grant was World Sean Riccardi Federation. He and Sensei Joseph were the two highest ranking American black belts.
At that time he said to me, when are you getting your black belt in Matsubayashi? And I said, Well, I don't know. You know how that's gonna happen? Because I kind of left my sensei school. Long story short, he said, Why don't you two guys, my friend was already a black belt in law spa, she's one of the two guys go back to New York, open up your own Dojo underneath the world shredding Karate Federation, because I think you got the skills and the talent and this and that, to do this, even though it was only a brown belt at the time in Shawn row. And we talked about it on the drive home. And we said, well, even if we just get like a real club, and we did, we found a little storefront. I think it cost us like $200 a month. And we opened up a little cry school, it was called cinema, which is great. And that's where that's where the school was located at the time sandwiches, Long Island. And then I had that for a couple of years and then I wound up becoming part of Sensei Frank's organization. He had a special group of people that was like, really, he could see that they were really dedicated to the art. And you're a certain patch on your game. And he made me part of this. And he also made me the New York State Director of his organization, to see if there were other schools, which they had won because of the politics of the shrine room in New York at that time. He made me stay threaded. So I would go to different schools and talk to people.
And then I met this one Sensei, I walked into his school. And when I gave him my card, he looked at it and he said, I will never join an organization. As long as I live, and nice to meet you. And I walked out the door. Three months later, I got a call from him. And again, long story short, we wind up, I wind up selling my share of my school and cinema riches in gunpoint. And we so it's kind of, and again, I didn't know in the dojo to be my full time thing. It was just to have a club to train where, you know, there were no politics, you could just go in and do a hard workout.
We had some senior students that were more advanced than us, you know, teaching us some of the candidates. So I opened the dojo that I'm sitting in right now: East Coast black belt, Academy, mentee. And 32 years later, wow still, I left my job.
When I opened the dojo, students started coming in. And I didn't realize how popular karate was, and then the Karate Kid stuff back then in the 80s. I think that kind of attitude. By the way, he was just at my dojo a couple of weeks ago, off my chair.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I heard about that. How was that?
Jerry Figgiani:
Yeah, it was great. It was absolutely incredible. But anyway, after a few months, people would come in and I'm seeing and this is like, I'm gonna have to take over another store. I can't fit all these people. In six months, we opened another store, and we took down a wall. Then we expanded into another store, and then we wind up taking, I had school about 5000 square feet. And I left my job, my mother in law to talk to me for about a month because I had this job.
She said, what the security company called benefits. But when I started really teaching, I was like, this is great, because when I'm teaching, it's like learning twice and then to help someone overcome a different quote, whether it's learning a move, or maybe even feeling better about themselves, that like, brought me so much joy. And over time I started attending seminars, how to teach what to do, what not to do - listening to tapes on personal development.
And I just started immersing myself in that stuff, and it started coming out, the more good stuff I started putting in here, the better stuff started coming out in my teachings, and then people started to recognize it. And in the beginning, I was still very heavy into the fighting. And I didn't compete a lot in the tournaments, but I wanted to because I liked that competitiveness. And then, in 1994, I went to compete, I got kicked in the nose at one of the tournaments, and I think the guy broke my nose. And so I stepped out a few clients, then I decided I wanted to compete in the professional karate Lee, I don't know if you remember that back in the day. Anyway, I competed, and I was the number one rated fighter. But what when I finished and then the next year, they put me in the Hall of Fame? Is it competitive, or via it didn't bring me as much joy…
Jeremy Lesniak:
I was at that banquet. I was at that event, by the way,
Jerry Figgiani:
What really was it in Massachusetts? Well, it didn't bring me as much joy as teaching. And that's learning. I still continued to, even though I had the dojo here, I would still continue to progress myself. And that's what I really felt brought me joy was teaching and helping making a difference in other people's lives.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Did that surprise you at all? Because the way you're saying this, it's obvious, there's an evolution as you're discovering this about yourself. But it almost sounds like if you were teaching full time, you could go back 5,6,7 years just before you'd started teaching, and say, we care, we're gonna love teaching. I don't get the sense that you would have said, “Oh, yeah, that makes complete sense”.
Jerry Figgiani:
It's funny, when I had my first dojo, the VHS tapes. And the videos, one of the promotions in the school. And I was running some of the students through the test. And I took it home, and I showed my wife, and we're sitting down, we're watching this. And my wife said to me, this is how you test in school. She goes, I would never want to learn karate from you. She goes, because I was doing what I thought was the thing to come down hard on this person, not realizing that every individual is unique, different, and has a different makeup. And in 91, actually in the mid 80s, I went to a seminar up in Syracuse, and I needed Joe Lewis, and I wasn't really good at sparring back then.
And there was an instructor. His name is Mr. Arthur. He was a black belt under Wing Chun. He said to me, Jerry, why don't you come with me up to Syracuse to meet this? This? Teacher, Joe Lewis, and I say, Joe Lewis from the magazines.I didn't know who we were, I never met him before. He said, when I saw him the guy was about 220 to 225. But moving around, like he was a 140 pound guy. I was just amazed. And we had kind of connected and we had like a little friendship, we exchanged numbers. And then when I opened my dojo, I actually got a call from him. He was doing a seminar on Long Island, and he invited me to the seminar. I said, Well, I have my own dojo, I got to teach a class. He says, I'll come to your dojo. And I'm like, John Lewis is going to come to my dojo and future seminar, which he did. He came out and we kind of became friends. And then I had him here 91 And we went next door. It's a rush. John right next door to me sat down, we're having lunch. And I was talking to him about, you know, the mindset of some of the students how come students coming to train, and not on the same page, like, they don't work as hard they. And he said, Jerry, if you can get 1% of your student body to train the way you do, because you're lucky, because people are going to come in for gentleman was, he was a tough guy, and you wouldn't want to fight, he was the best of the best, I mean, even Bruce Lee, but he has special qualities that he he recognized, you know, how to deal with certain people.
And when he said that, to me, I kind of sat back and said, and there's got to be a better way. And that's when I really started diving into the self improvement and listening to different tapes and attending different seminars with different instructors. And that's how it all came to be and I said to myself, if you could just change one person, to maybe not be so intimidated in the training itself, and then get them to a certain level to see that they can make progress, and then give them another push on the back to seem that, it's always room for improvement. That's the whole key to teaching. Well, once a student feels that, okay, I made my black belt, that's it, you know, there's nothing beyond, then that's when they're out the door.
And I still promote black belts today, and black belts leave. But I feel like, I didn't do my job getting them to really understand that just because you achieve a certain level doesn't mean that it's an end, there's more to find out not only in techniques, but there's more to find out about yourself, and how you could apply these same principles to destroy, and I've run into people. And people will say, to me, Sensei, the best time in my life was when I was in the dojo, and I'm like, why don't you get back in? It doesn't make sense.
I have people here in the 80s fighting, using this, just having something to look forward to get into the door, and trying to make improvement in something, whether they understand that term a little bit differently, or they understand an application better, whatever it is, only there's never one class. That's the same. And I'm sure he's when any of us train, yeah, know, anything about what we do. Okay, and we've all learned from one another, you know, I always should anyway, we should some people. You gotta be realistic, the senses out there that they preach respect, self discipline, all this stuff. And then, don't walk the walk. Words are easy. So, those are some of the things that I really try to get across to my students that I make excuses for, and make them all the time.
But then I sit down and I say to myself, Man, I have a student that you didn't make an excuse. It just gets you thinking, you're human, you're gonna make mistakes, you're going to make excuses. Just like, they're going to be sensei. They tell you to do this, this and that. And they don't do it. No. So those are just some of the things that I've learned. That really helped me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So it sounds like you spend a lot of time thinking about not just martial arts, but the art of teaching martial arts, it sounds like you're willing to evolve. I think you use that word early on. So given that your school is just shy. Given that your school is just shy of 32 years, what are you doing differently now than when you started teaching?
Jerry Figgiani:
I think I have more compassion towards people. I think I have a better understanding of people. I know that 99% of the people that walk in the door, it's something that they lack, whether it's confidence, self esteem, no that self discipline, whatever it is, it's something and then they're trying to do something, we're trying to find something, to feel good about themselves. And if I can be part of the solution, that brings me greater joy that helps me with my purpose and what I want to do with martial arts. So over the years, in 2003, in 1991, I went to Okinawa. And at that time, Grandmaster [00:45:49-00:45:54]. And he brought me and a couple other guys to the school, an hour, and we went into the school, we took our shoes off, and I'm saying to myself, Man, this is not like how it is in the United States, these kids are expect for me a balanced and polite, quiet,. So I came back to New York. And, and I'm thinking about it and I've heard that, and there's other instructors that had very successful after school programs or Karate Club programs and schools, I decided I want to start within my community so I approached the school district.
And over a period of years, I actually had a meeting with the superintendent of schools. And I got this idea to start this program. This is yesterday, this is in the early 2000s. Because,I still had this thing in the back of my head. And I had a good friend of mine, who was a principal at the local school here. He used to be my neighbor, he lived behind me. And then he moved out towards the Hamptons, which is good 30 minutes from me. And he used to leave his school, drive out to where he lives, pick his son up and drive him back here, two or three times a day.
And I said to him, ``Chuck, let me ask you a question. You get off work, you go home, you pick up your kid, you drive it. Why do you eagles, Jerry, what you're teaching is so valuable. He said, this should be in the schools. And then I said, I tried to get it into the schools. Long story short, he set me up with this meeting with the superintendent. I sat down and I said, Look, I got a program I like to introduce in schools, and blah, blah, blah. And she says to me, Jerry, you're going to come in here and teach the kids how to kick in a punch. When they are already doing that in the hallways. She says no, I don't think it's a good idea.
But a week later, I got a call from my friend. He says, Jerry, we're gonna have a second meeting with the superintendent. This time. I'm bringing this gentleman, his name is Dawn Yuri. He's from the Suffolk County Police athletically. He wants to meet with you. He knows about you. He heard about things that you do in the community. I went to this meeting. The superintendent agrees to give us a six week pilot program. And they're going to monitor how the kids behave, their attendance after the six weeks, test scores, and attendance in school. Go on, right, the attitude of the kids. Go, kids, we're going back to this classroom telling the teacher Thank you. No, ma'am. Yes, sir. Teachers are saying what's the problem with these kids? And we had some potential gang members that were part of this program. The kids, of course, are attracted to the martial arts, because of the physical once we sat down, and when we went into the meeting with all the children, when they gave us our first opportunity.
You went to three clubs. Talked about our shortcomings in class in school. When we were kids, some of the experiences we had, what could we have done differently just to plant the seed and then the official launch of the program, it's called Reach, respect, education and always quite high. The official launch was in 2003. The end of this month, I'm running an anti-bullying program on the 26th . I've worked with 1000s of boys and girls in Suffolk County since the start of that program, and he gave kids direction. They gave them some type of motivation to kick start them in the direction they wanted to go, which it did for me. So I just find all this stuff really rewarding. And I heard a lot of Sensei back in the day. Or training back in the day was different. Right? Yeah. And you had to be a little crazy to stay. At the end of the day, if you really contemplated and you sat down, what did I not know about my friend Frank or Joe? Well this guy got out of it, what do I get out of it. So I have a lot of friends that started with me that are no longer, they're always telling me to be a jerk. I can have an opinion on that. But they didn't stay the course. And that's one time I felt that doing martial arts gave me a certain feeling I didn't want to let that feeling go.
Look, people are addicted to drugs, alcohol, whatever, they're addicted, this was my addiction. I needed to be in the dojo - sparring, doing kind of knuckle put whatever it was, I had to be doing it. That was my path. And, then the whole mind, body and spirit thing really connected. The whole thing for me, it gave me a whole new purpose in life. And my wife, if it wasn't for my wife being who she is, and it's supportive. I have attended seminars all over the country, I've been all around the world. And I always tell people, I got two handprints on my back from her pushing me. And it's really made it morning, and it's tough, especially today, when two people ask the world prices, it's very hard, but if people could not find the best style. Now, what's the best style? What's the best martial art? So it's what's best for you. People are always like, you're on the plane, right? When the planes hit turbulence,they're losing air compression, whatever it is, you gotta put that mask on first before you help somebody else. And this is what the martial arts can do to a person.
Jeremy Lesniak:
People want to get a hold of you. Website, emails, social media, anything like that you're willing to share?
Jerry Figgiani:
Yeah, I'm so bad with technology. I think Yeah. Trust me. I'm good with Facebook. I have an international organization called Shorin Ryu Karate-Do International. It's SRKDI.com. They can reach me there. To reach me at my dojo, my phone number here is 631-924-2900. And the website here is ecbbacademy.com. Make your routine awesome. Birthday, Google my name, you can find that website.
Jeremy Lesniak:
This has been great. When you've shared a lot. And so this might be asking you to go back to the well too many times. But we'll try it anyway. If we could boil everything off into a soundbite, we put it at the end, we leave it there. But, we'll work on this in a sense. What are your final words to the people listening?
Jerry Figgiani:
Well, whether it's martial arts is something in life. You know, if you want to feel a lot of people today, especially what's going on in the world. This is why I'm finding a lot of people who feel isolated and not connected. If you can find something that you enjoy. Again, it doesn't have to be martial arts, it could be anything you want. Try to just take that one step. Surround yourself with you like minded people. Listen to other people, try to tame the ego a little bit and understand that it's better ways of doing things. You can find your path and you could find it.
And then what you gotta do is polishing, that's up to the individual. Too many chains were distracted, too many people were worried about it and it's normal. Sometimes I find myself on social media. I gotta go on and post a flier about an event I'm having at the school, but then, somebody's on a trip in Morocco, and then all of a sudden the scrolling and you're being taken away, those are the things that martial arts teaches us. They have that focus to kind of come back like I tell the kids all the time. it's okay to do it on a piece of paper or whatever in school, but realize what you're doing, come back to the lesson, pay attention to the teacher. I think today, just whatever you can find, stay the course, give it your best and don't be afraid to make mistakes, too many people are afraid to fall.
And the great thing about martial arts is it teaches you to get back up. No, you don't get back up, people are gonna still still be stepping on you. And that goes physically and mentally. These are lessons that I try to incorporate every day. I'll tell the kids, if you had a friend, would you still say you're no good or you can't do this or you were. When you keep a friend like that and make it No, of course not. But how many times do we do that to ourselves? While we doubt ourselves? And create its own?.So being a martial artist. It gives you some sense of control but it doesn't mean that you can't slip up. But you'll have a better chance of recapturing yourself and getting back on track, if you didn't have the trade.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well, that was fun. Finding out that I shared a room with a guest. What would that be? 25 years ago was always a fun time. Jerry, thanks for coming on. Thanks for chatting with me. Thanks for the great stories. Hey, listeners, head to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. If you want the full scoop on this episode, or any of the episodes that we do, you're gonna find videos and links and social media references and transcripts for every episode we've ever done. And if you want to support us and the work that we're doing, make sure that we are able to continue doing what we're doing. You've got a lot of options, buy a thing, share a thing, review a thing. It's all good. You want me to come out to your school to teach a seminar. That's an option to let me know that or if you've got feedback on the topic or guest suggestions, Jeremy@whistlekick.com. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.