Episode 818 - Sensei Gage Hanlon
Sensei Gage Hanlon is a martial artist and instructor. He is the Kataaro brand Marketing Director.
You get to watch this kid, this person go from where they start at and just looking back on their accumulation of 2, 3, 4 years and seeing who they have become and what little part you play in that.. It’s just extremely rewarding.
Sensei Gage Hanlon - Episode 818
The dream of becoming a Martial Artist often starts with the love for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which is the case for Sensei Gage Hanlon. Sensei Hanlon recalls how he got started in martial arts as a kindergartener when he wanted to be a Ninja turtle. His love and obsession for martial arts drove him to train consistently and compete in tournaments.
In this episode, Sensei Gage Hanlon talks about his Martial Arts Journey from a student to a school owner himself. Sensei Gage also shares his aspirations for Kataaro and his students, encouraging listeners to explore new opportunities and invest in themselves. Listen to learn more!
Show notes
You may check out more about Sensei Greg Hanlon: Facebook: Gage Hanlon
If you have questions, email Sensei Hanlon at Gage@Kataaro.com
Show Transcript
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, episode 818 with my guest today, Sensei Gage Hanlon. I'm Jeremy Lesniak. I'm your host here for the show, founder of whistlekick. And if you're unfamiliar with whistlekick, you should check out whistlekick.com because you'll see all the things that we do for you. The traditional martial artist of the world, we have a saying here, connect, educate, and entertain. And that's really what we're about. Everything that we put out from our products to our shows, to our events. Is meant to connect traditional martial artists to educate you in some fashion and hopefully to entertain you. Whether that means you laugh or you smile, or you just have a good time. And the best things that we do, do all three. And this show does all three, maybe not all at the same time, but it does do all three. And why do we do all of this? Because we believe that traditional martial arts make people better. It brings out the best in us. And if we can get more people to train, in fact, if we can get everyone in the world to train for just six months, we think the world would be a much, much better place. And that's why we're doing what we're doing. And if you go to whistlekick.com, you'll see all the things that we're doing. And one of the things you'll see there is a store. Because this show and the things that we do, do cost money. How do we pay for those things? Well, we sell some stuff. If you use the code podcast15, podcast15, you're gonna save 15% on a whole bunch of stuff. If you didn't know, that's one of the best discounts. In fact, it is the best discount that we offer continually. We give that best discount to you, the listener, because we value you coming by week after week, and we do some other stuff too. Now, Martial Arts Radio, this show gets its own website because we've got so many episodes, it needs its own spot. So what are you gonna find over there? Well, yeah, you'll find all the episodes we've ever done, but you're also gonna find transcripts and show notes and videos and links to social media, all kinds of cool stuff like for today's guest. Now, if you love what we do, if you consider yourself part of our family, or if our mission just seems to make you non, and say, yeah, I think that's a good thing. Here are a couple things you can consider doing. You could leave us a review anywhere, anywhere that you could leave a review that seems to make sense. Please consider leaving a review won't take you very long. Podcast reviews are the best. You could join our Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick. It starts at $2 a month if you want, behind the scenes on how episodes come to be or who's coming up on the show, or even bonus episodes, cause we release a lot of bonus content. You can get in there for just a few dollars a month and it again helps cover our expenses. Now today's guest, Gage Hanlon, Sensei Gage Hanlon is someone I've been looking forward to talking to for a while, and if you stick around, if you're somebody who listens to the show with a certain well in order, I guess is the best way to put it, you'll know why very, very soon. But here we are. I get the chance to talk to him. Now, this is someone I've been aware of for a long time. Someone I've never had conversation with. We've never emailed, we've never Facebooked, I've never seen him in an event. So this is all completely green for me. But what I saw in our conversation was a story that we're hearing more and more lately. Someone for whom fate or destiny, if you believe in such things, just seemed to pull him on the right path to make sure that his life was a martial arts life. And I'm not gonna say any more than that cause I think anything else I say might take out some of the impact. So we'll leave it there. And here's my conversation with Gage Hanlon. Hey Gage, how are ya?
Gage Hanlon:
Good, how about you?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm well, thank you. It's a beautiful day here. Just went out for a walk. Ready to go.
Gage Hanlon:
Awesome.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's start in the obvious way cause it gives us an opportunity to just kind of spider out. It's a martial arts show. You're a martial artist, you have a martial arts company. How'd you get started in martial arts?
Gage Hanlon:
Alright, so I'm gonna try to keep the timeline as clear as possible because it's been a minute since I started, so some things might get
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure.
Gage Hanlon:
Jump around a little bit. But, so kindergarten, 1996. So I don't know if that's young or old for anybody who's listening or watching, but we'll see, right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
This is your story. The relativity of it doesn't really matter.
Gage Hanlon:
So, 96, pretty sure it was like August or September I came home from school and watch cartoons, right? Get home from school. First thing you do, you gotta watch cartoons.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right.
Gage Hanlon:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were on, and I told my Mom, said, Mom, I wanna be a Ninja Turtle. And she just happened to work with somebody who had a school it was a guy that had, you know, his house in town and he had a detached garage and he built it out as a dojo. So that's how I got started. I wanted to be a ninja turtle. I didn't quite grow the shell yet, so I'm still working on that. But pretty, pretty close.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. What do you remember, if anything, about those early days?
Gage Hanlon:
It was love and obsession from day one.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Really?
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things, like, I always reflect back on it that I tried other things as well while I was doing, you know, my training, baseball, soccer, you know, all sorts of things along like that. One season, two seasons at most with that stuff other than that I was always going to class, always training. I didn't get to spend much time with friends during the week because at, you know, this was back during the days of like, you wanna come to class three days a week, four days a week, five days a week, you know, depending on your interest or whatever. And man, I wanted to be there all the time, all the time. So it was obsession is probably an understatement even as a kid.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Now you teach, I don't know if you teach kids as young as you were when you started. But anybody who has knows that getting a kindergarten-age child that committed to literally anything.
Gage Hanlon:
Oh yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Is incredibly difficult and I suspect it says something not only about you but also your instructor. And we're gonna talk about you quite a bit. Let's any perspective on what your instructor might have been doing that kept you so engaged.
Gage Hanlon:
I don't know if it was what he was doing. He was a national guard.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Gage Hanlon:
So it was intense, right? And it was mixed class, right? This was back when like, you know, oh, you got teens, adults, kids. It was we got a five o'clock, six o'clock, seven o'clock, eight o'clock class kind of thing. Everybody's mixed in together. Doesn't matter what your age was.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Gage Hanlon:
So, yeah, I don't know, like I probably just from what little I can comment on as an instructor looking at kids and things like that, there's something to be said about discipline, regimen, consistency. Things like that. And the guy was scary. Like he was a scary guy, so it was one of those things like, you know, as a kid you have this like, I'll call it like fearful respect for somebody. Like, I don't wanna disappoint anybody. I don't wanna disappoint him. And there were others too that were, you know, Senpai or something like that. Not yet black belts when I started, but there were others that were helping me as well. I mean, there's one guy that I totally credit, anything of during those hard times of training on keeping me going and pushing me, even when my instructor wasn't the one doing it. So, I have to give credit where credit's due. But I think just, it was, like I said, I, my instructor, you know, ran the class. It was militaryesque in a sense, you know? But I really just think that it was mainly about, I found something that I really latched onto. It matched what I saw on TV. I got to be doing something physical, moving my body, you know, I think I just missed the cutoff in the time where they started looking at kids like, oh, what's this ADD stuff? You know? I think I just missed the cutoff for it. I have been born a few years later. I might have fallen into that a little bit. So it was just something that I could really, like, get my energy out on, take all my, you know, kindergarten, crazy self and put into it and not be ridiculed, right? Like you could be as crazy as you wanted because you were doing combative, so, Yeah. I think, you know, that's probably like most of that comes from.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. I think the other interesting question to ask from that time is what your parents thought about this.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. So I have you know, whenever I meet somebody new, or whether it's, you know, somebody at a tournament or somebody at a seminar or a new parent, you know, signing their kid up with us, it's not an uncommon thing. So do your parents do it too? Nope. It was me. You know, my dad, he, boy he was a hard worker. Like he was, you know, he had a 12-hour job, so he was supporting us from a financial standpoint. And my mom, she was I was her baby, you know, like what Gage wants, he is gonna get kind of thing, so you know, spoiled in other ways too. But, you know, they both just saw how much I really enjoyed it, how much I was pushing myself. I can imagine from a parent standpoint, you know, I have my own kid. When you see them latch onto something, you wanna give them everything you can to help them keep going with it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
So it was, I mean, when we started really getting into tournaments and things like that, I would not be surprised if I asked my Mom, you know, how often were we gone on a weekend? Probably close to every weekend. I mean, we were, I loved doing tournaments once I went to my first one, you know, of course, like the probability of winning first place at your first tournament, probably not the highest, but I did it. And again, like that reward, like, oh, I put in this hard work. Let's do it again.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So did you start competing right away?
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah, so I wanna say that my, so I started in, I think, I'm pretty sure it was September 96, and my first tournament that I went to was February of 97. So, you know, however many months that is, I can't do math at the moment.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's six-ish.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. You know, so.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Six-ish months.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah, so I went to my first tournament about six months after, and yeah, I won first place at it and, oh. Yeah, and that's, that was that kind kick-started that too. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How old were you when you thought martial arts could be something? Let's lump it all professional for you.
Gage Hanlon:
That's a good question. I guess like, I was always thinking about the next thing, but not necessarily a long-term thing, or maybe not in the grand scheme of what it is now, right? Today. But when I started and really figured out this is for me, and seeing, you know, the different colored belts, it was like, okay, I want to earn the next one. I wanna earn the next one. Who knows what color belt I was when the mindset changed, like, well now I wanna earn my black belt. So that was the next driving piece. It was no longer the next one, it was here's this level. Then as I was getting closer to it, you find out, oh, there's multiple degrees of black belt. Well, I want that. I wanna keep earning higher black belt rank. Then it started to become where, oh, one day I'd like to teach, I'd like to do, you know, have my own school. Get there eventually. It's a boy, I'd really like to combine everything that I've learned. And use that to teach. All right. We get there. Next one. I'd love to have my own tournament. I did that. I'd love to create my own belt. I did that. I'd love to work at a company that makes belts. I did that. So it's always been that next piece and just kind of figuring out when I get to that, okay, what are the other sections that I'm missing to make this a reality? And it definitely, like I got there with my parental support. If I did not have that, I definitely don't think I'd be where I am today or would've achieved half the things that I have with the martial arts.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What I'm finding interesting in the way you're talking about this, you're talking about being really driven and always looking for kind of, what's that next thing? What's that evolution? What do I want to try? But when you described your relationship with your mother, you mentioned, you know, that you were spoiled. You couldn't have been too spoiled because people who grow up spoiled don't go on to do these sorts of things, right? Like they're used to having things kind of given to them. And anybody who's run a school, started a company, hosted a competition, knows that those are very difficult things to do that require a lot of time, effort, creativity, money, and are often quite thankless. So where's the other half that balances the what you described as being spoiled come into play?
Gage Hanlon:
Well, first off, I'd say you're definitely wrong about me not being spoiled. Only cause like I said, I had, you know, I was the only child, so to speak in the household. I was the baby. And it was the thing, you know? Now my dad was very much so of the mindset of we have to pick and choose the things that I am spoiled with. You know, like,
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Gage Hanlon:
Eating out was not a thing. You just, we're not gonna waste our money on something like that, right? And it rings even true for me today, you know, in our current environment, like, yeah, we can't eat out. You know, you start to see these things of course, like reflected as you become the adult and a parent. But it was, you know, we had our house, like we lived out in the country, away from town. So had to get creative with my own entertainment. A lot, you know, friends were not all that close. Like it was, you know, probably a couple miles to, oh, we have to go into town if we want to go do anything. So that probably helped out a lot. But you know, the spoiled thing comes into like, if there was something that I really was jonesing for and I could convince them of it. Okay, we got there eventually. But you definitely had like the disciplined side of it too. Of the, you know, hey, you have to understand why you're not getting this thing that you want, but now look at what you can do instead. We can go to this tournament, we can keep training, we can travel to these things, you know? So credit goes to the dad for sure with…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes. Okay. So there it is. So there's the balance.
Gage Hanlon:
Being the financial guy that he was you know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Makes sense. I see it. Yeah. Okay. When did you start your own school? How old were you?
Gage Hanlon:
So it's, depends on who you ask after hearing the story.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Gage Hanlon:
Right. So, I don't remember. I was, I think I was a, yeah, I was a second-degree black belt at this point in, I'll call it like old school China Quan TaeKwonDo before like they switched to like the World TaeKwonDo system with the Taegeuk's and whatnot. And then also a second degree in Shari Shotokan Gōjū-ryū. My instructor halfway through my color belt in Taekwondo system started training and learning the Gōjū-ryū. So I promoted him both through him
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, that's cool.
Gage Hanlon:
And all that. So I remember at one point, went to a tournament and don't need to get into it, but we had a falling out with my instructor. So, trying
Jeremy Lesniak:
Not uncommon.
Gage Hanlon:
Right? Trying to figure out where I'm gonna go. Cuz it wasn't that I was done with martial arts, right? It was not an option as far as I was concerned. I just had to find another place to go. And so I went to, my instructor's TaeKwonDo instructor cause they were, you know, 25 minutes away or whatever. Okay. We'll make the trek hanging out there. Oh boy. I'm trying to remember. I don't wanna say it was during a summer. Christmas time comes around, New Year happens and show up to class and the instructor doesn't show up. And I'm, I think, I can't quite remember where I'm at at this point, age-wise, 14-ish, right? So, instructor doesn't show up to class and students start showing up like, I guess I'm gonna teach class today. So that was the pattern for a while. And then, the instructor's stepson came back to training. He had taken a break for whatever reason, and he was, I dunno, maybe, I think he was six years older than me or something like that. So he and I partner up and we just start teaching. So it wasn't my school at that point, right? I think we taught there for maybe a year or so. And then one day the instructor shows up like, Hey guys, how's it going? Like, good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Like nothing happened.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. And he goes, I sold the building. You have to get out in two weeks. Okay, so we're, you know, we're struggling.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Holy cow!
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. Yes. We're struggling big time trying to figure out a solution. We, you know, rent out a gym for a little bit at the elementary school and it all just kind of disappears, you know, just because of the inconsistency of location and all this stuff. Start training somewhere else for a little while. And then my Dad being the guy that he is, he's like, you know, I really wanna build this machine shed on our property. He said I'll tell you what, I'll split it with you. I'll take half and you can have half and you can open up a school.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Awesome.
Gage Hanlon:
So, you know, gear, construction, whatever it was at our open house in September of 2007, and I'm 16 at this point. So, officially, like my branding or whatever you want to call it, is September of 2007 was the first time we opened up the school.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Wow. 16.
Gage Hanlon:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What did that feel like?
Gage Hanlon:
It was one of those, like, it was definitely like a proud moment, but I was very aware of, we'll call it like the stigma of, in the martial arts world, right? Like, everybody has an opinion and a viewpoint on everybody and everything, on how things are done. And if it's not the way that they think it should be done, then it's wrong. So I am very aware of this. But…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Related to your age you mean?
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. Yeah. You know, who's 16 year old, you know, been teaching for two, three years beforehand, so very aware of that, but, It was one of those checklist things that was on my list, right? Like, since I was a younger kid, like I wanna open my own school and made it happen, so of course it wasn't fancy or anything like that. It wasn't machine shed, but, you know, again, you wanna talk about like, the spoiled side of things, like, Dadmade sure, you know, we gotta get all the structurally sound things in there, but then dress it up how we want. You know, we had the mats, we had the mirrors, we had the belt displays, tables, you know, equipment. You know, that's all.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Everything you needed.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. So I'm extremely fortunate, you know, I know a lot of people don't have that kind of opportunity opening up their first school. So I'm definitely like fortunate to have the family that I did to get me there. But it was awesome, you know, and it, I've, it felt like in reflection, like starting another legacy for our family, you know? Yes. My parents didn't train or anything like that, but here we are, you know, doing something that ultimately impacted the community, even if we are five miles out of town on a country road kind of thing, you know, and teaching out of a machine shed. But, you know, I think our largest number of students that we had was like 25 or so. So not bad for a town of 10,000.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Small town out of town, machine shed in the backyard.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. So it was really cool.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And at some point that changed. Was there talk of you going off to college after high school?
Gage Hanlon:
Oh yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So I'm sure, so I'm gonna guess that there, just the way you're smiling, that maybe you weren't quite just given carte blanche to do what you wanted at that point.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. So it's one of those things like, I don't know, college was always on the table. And funny enough, like it was originally my plan was, to go for pharmaceutical. My dad was a pharmacist, so it just was kind of weird. That was not the plan cause he had things to say about his job.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm wondering if anybody else out there would've guessed that your father was a pharmacist. Never would've guessed.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Just the way you've kind of set him up.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Would've been pretty far down on my list.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. Yep. Farm-boy pharmacists, like.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
That's his background. So you wouldn't think so without really knowing it, right? But, yeah, and it was one of those things, like, I didn't know what I wanted to do for college until my junior year of high school. And I took advanced chemistry and I was like, hey, this is cool. So that was kind of how it was. And I thought it was so funny, of course, like that I was gonna pursue pharmacy. My Dadkept trying to talk me out of it, but…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Why?
Gage Hanlon:
He just, you know, his opinion on how the industry treated, you know, the actual like labor force for that or whatever. And some people have it good and some people don't, you know, just with everything. But, so you know that's kind of like where the pursuit was, but then it always came into question like, how are we gonna do the school and do college? So I was like, well, I'll look around at colleges around the area, so maybe there's a way to balance it. Closest one that we were looking at was like maybe an hour away. Like how you gonna do that? And then we were at a college fair and my dad goes and talks to South Dakota State University, and he comes back. He's like, all right, I set up this visit. What are you talking about? I'm not going to South Dakota says, well, I've already done it. Okay. So we go up and we do the tour and we get done. Like, I gotta go here. I love it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Really?
Gage Hanlon:
I love
Jeremy Lesniak:
What did you love about it?
Gage Hanlon:
Oh, that's a tough one. But I think it was just like the overall setup of the campus, the environment, you know, I'll call it even like the weather and the environmental setting. I don't know. You know, we, I grew up in Iowa, so that's where I'm based outta, so it's not like I was unfamiliar to like, snowstorms and blizzards and things like that. I was a fan of the cold. So, I don't know. It's hard to pinpoint, but you can just feel it inside.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
All right. So I didn't, I hadn't promoted anybody to black belt at that point. You know, we're talking two-plus years.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
And I had people who came from a previous school that had earned black belts and came to train with me, but I didn't, at, even after training for two plus years, like they weren't for me. They weren't ready to earn the black belt. So that was another, like, what are we gonna do here, kinda thing. So we had to shut down the school when all was said and done you know, so.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How did that feel? That must have been really difficult.
Gage Hanlon:
It was a big, big bummer. You know, I obviously like as a teenager and, you know, you get connected to things and hard to say goodbye to people and all that, but it was one of those instances in my life, which I have had a few of if you don't do this, you're gonna look back and say, I should have done that. So if I didn't end up going to South Dakota State, I would've kicked myself for it rest of my days. So I'm just…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Curious cause it may be some fun synchronicity. So that sounds like 2003?
Gage Hanlon:
That was in 2009 when I graduated.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. I'm doing really bad math then.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. All right. You went backwards. You made me younger. That's okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I did.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. So 09, you know, we have our last summer with the school and then had to close it down and go and do my college thing. While I was there, I took judo for a month. But being in Honors College up there, I was in honors chemistry my first semester, and that was a brutal class. So I had to drop judo so I could go to all the study sessions that the professor had set up. And I don't remember when it was exactly, I think it was later on, like near the end of that first semester I found a TaeKwonDo place up there and I started training with them again. I went in, I didn't tell them I had any training cause to me I'd rather go in as nobody. And you know, cause it's not my place to say like, I'm this, you know, this rank or whatever. And you need to recognize that, you know, I'd rather just go in as a student. Like I've always had that be-a-student mentality. So I start training with them. End of my first semester I think my honors cam professor really liked me because how I pulled a C in his class, I don't think was accurate, but I just talked to him enough and really like put in effort to show that I was studying and things like that. But, when I was there, the pharmacy school at South Dakota State, you had to have a 3.8 cumulative GPA for your first two years to even apply.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Wow.
Gage Hanlon:
So like on average, I think they, I think the numbers were like 150 applicants, 75 interviews, and like 50 takers kinda thing. So very competitive.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
So pulling a C on an honors chem, I was like, hmm, I don't think I'm cut out for this.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Probably not getting there.
Gage Hanlon:
So, excuse me, I remember talking to my honors dean and he is like, well, what about entrepreneurial studies? I'm like, what is that? And I never heard of it. You know, you've told me about your karate school and you seem to really have a knack for just wanting to drive these self-goals forward. It's like, okay. So I switch entrepreneurial studies and sure enough, like that's my thing. Like the numbers, I like the marketing, I like the, you know, I'm gonna say selling it sounds very bad, but you know. Showing people what it is that you have to offer and why it's beneficial to 'em. So did that, kept the continuing training on with the Taekwondo school. Met somebody there who was…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Did they figure out you had some experience?
Gage Hanlon:
Oh yeah. First class, right? First class. So we started
Jeremy Lesniak:
You weren't sandbagging it too hard then drill.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. Started doing kicking drills and the instructor goes, oh, you have experience? I said, yeah, so we chat or whatever. And so they're like, well, you have, you know, at this point, third degree, well, you're a third degree. You know, you could come in as a black belt. Was like, no. Like, I wanna earn my first degree from you guys. Like, I don't mind going up and, and learning all this stuff. So one of the students there was actually a first degree in Isshin-Ryū karate. So he and I get together, we start training outside of the TaeKwonDo in the Isshin-Ryū stuff, and I start teaching him, you know, whatever I was doing. And then, we start a program at the college through their fitness center. So I'm trained in TaeKwonDo with this group. And then we're teaching karate over here, and I'm getting the best of both worlds. I'm learning stuff from two different people. I'm still getting to teach, you know, my stuff. Putting into practice now, all the fun entrepreneurial studies, things that I've learned. So we did that for two years. I was at South Dakota State and then, my family moved to Joplin. And they moved in 2010. Yeah, like October 2010. And then I went down to visit in 2011 in May. And I don't know if you ever heard or recall at this point, but in May of 2011, there was an EF5 tornado in the Joplin area. And I was down visiting during that tornado, and I was at the mall when the tornado came through town. And like the mall was a mile away from where like, you know, there was a mile away of destruction kind of thing.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
And that was a real, like big shock, like you know, from the mall and back to my parent's new house, it was usually a 20-minute drive and it took me two hours to get back to 'em. And no cell phone service either to let them know like I was alive or anything like that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So they're freaking out.
Gage Hanlon:
Oh yeah. So I get back to 'em, I'm like, you know, I'm not done with school yet. I need to be closer to family after something like that. You know, being, because, at that point in South Dakota and Joplin where I was at, I was like a 10-hour drive.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
Basically. So I finish up my spring semester of South Dakota State, transferred down to Missouri Southern. Sure enough, like while I'm there, I start training with this guy. I think I trained for a month or two with him, and then again, school gets in the way. So I start focusing on that, kind of get all my academics in order. I'm like, oh, I'm ready to teach again. So I start something at the college and when you know it, my Dadhas a machine, shed on their new property, and so I'm like, all right, what stuff can we clear outta here? Let's get these mats down.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I love it. You still have the mats? They still have the mats?
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah, we still had the original mats. Oh yeah. I don't, you wouldn't think so right after they move or whatever. What a thing to keep. But, you know, trophies and all came with them when they moved down there. So teaching at the college, teaching out of machine shed. So we did that for, let me think, where am I at here? 2011. Yeah, 2011 until 2015. Now we're 2015, right? At this point, like my wife and I, we actually knew each other when I was in high school. I came down to Missouri for a tournament. And we met there and we connected and we stayed in touch the whole time. Like, I'm in Iowa, I'm in South Dakota, she's still in Missouri, but I moved down in Missouri like, hey, guess where I live now? So we've been together since, you know, October of 2011. So she has experience in the martial arts world, so she knows all about like what it is for me. You know, what martial arts means to me. I promote two students to black belt within that time. I cried a lot at my first students' black belt tests. That was a really, you know, I…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Say more about emotional.
Gage Hanlon:
It was something I guess like, you know, I, my previous teaching experience, I get close to that, but we never got there, right? And it's something where I would say most instructors can agree with this. Like, you get to watch this kid, this person go from where they start at and just looking back on their accumulation of 2, 3, 4 years and seeing who they have become and what little part you play in that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
Is just extremely rewarding. Like, you know, for me always about, you know, like, I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing what little I can to help you find yourself, right? Like that's, that to me is the big part of it. Why I love teaching so much. So yeah, that first student's testing was a really, really impactful moment. It wasn't a checklist thing that I had, but it sure did check a box when it happened, you know?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
So I get done with college in December of 2014, marketing degree. And I am just, you know, I'm waiting on my fiance at that point to finish up with her degree. So she's gonna graduate in spring. I'm trying to figure out what to do with this degree, right? I'm like, I gotta get a real job with this degree.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And if you're listening, he's using air quotes.
Gage Hanlon:
Yes. Yeah. Air quotes on that. I start doing these interviews for like, oh, sell this makeup made from the Dead Sea algae and stuff like that. Oh my gosh. Like, so here's another facet of being spoiled, right? If I don't like it, if I don't believe in it, I'm not doing it. That's just, I'm very, very spoiled in that sense. I have to…
Jeremy Lesniak:
You might call it spoiled. I call it integrity.
Gage Hanlon:
Well, sure. All right. Well, I like that word better.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think it's a little more positive.
Gage Hanlon:
You know, but that it was, I just, it wasn't jiving, like yeah, I really wanted to do the school, but I had, I think 12 students at the most, right? So super small. So it definitely wasn't something that could be, at least like in my capacity at that time, something that could be a stable income to support, you know, my soon-to-be family of my wife and I, so I don't know how many months it was, but my fiance, wife, whatever, I need to refer to her at this timeline, right? She goes, why don't you look at companies that you do business with for your school? That way you can still be doing things martial arts related. She's smart by the way. I just, I have to say that now. If I don't say it, at any other time, she's a very smart woman. So I'm like, okay, so company who won't be named, I was like, you know, I do a lot of business with them. You really don't wanna relocate to that state.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yep.
Gage Hanlon:
So I'm like, well, the only other company that I do business with for the school, is Kataaro, I, my first belt that I ordered from them to go back and look at my account, but I think it was like 2008, right? And since then I was like, oh yeah, fall in love with it. Ordered belts for myself or for others from them. I used their belts for grand championship awards for the tournaments that I hosted. So, you know, I've got a big working relationship at this point with them, and I'm like, okay. So I send an email and I say, Hey been a customer for a while and finished up with school and like to come work for your marketing department. And this is gonna be a little peek behind the curtain here for a minute, right? But they said, well, we don't have a marketing department. Okay. So phone calls, emails, set up an in-person interview. So I drive from Missouri up to Illinois, Juliet, so you know, a little bit outside of Chicago. Have my in-person interview. Went awesome. Very nerve-wracking. You know, I'm an adult now. I did a job interview, so.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm laughing, laughing out of understanding.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah, right. So get back home, and I don't remember how many days it was later, but I get an email with an offer. Oh, now reality hit, I'm gonna have to leave the school that I've built up. I'm gonna have to leave my two black-belt students.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Again.
Gage Hanlon:
Again.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Again.
Gage Hanlon:
And so it's a big conversation that I have with my family, with my fiance, wife, whatever we need to say. And it's one of those moments again where like, it's going to be hard, but if you don't do it, you're gonna regret it. Okay, so gotta make the announcement in the school. The announcement date to our students could not be worse timed because it was April 1st. So I had to preface it by, this is not an April Fool's joke. We're gonna have to close down the school. I'm gonna have to move. My first black belt student they were looking into like other facilities they could rent to start, you know, continue the training for students who wanted to do it kind of thing. So we were trying to figure it out, but unfortunately, it didn't work out. But you know, there was a lot of definitely a lot of gratitude shared and all that stuff. So we get to May of 2015, my wife graduates June of 2015. We got married July of 2015. I start working at Kataaro. August of 2015, we find out my wife is pregnant.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. I was waiting for that one. I knew that one had to come in. Yeah. Just the way you were lining them up.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because what else is there to tackle with all of that?
Gage Hanlon:
That's right. Checklist. Checklist, you know?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Let's do it all.
Gage Hanlon:
So, we moved, we were in a one-bedroom apartment. As all you know, newlyweds have it's tradition, right? Got start out that way. And I have one student who consistently keeps training with me via Skype. And if anybody did it during the pandemic or if anybody has tried to do it, that's a tough thing to do, not being there in person to, you know, correct stuff or whatever, or, you know, there's just that physicality that's removed from it. But, I'm very picky with anybody that I do the online training with. And it was a thing where I almost tried to convince him not to do it. Like, you know, there's this school here, there's this school here, you know, here's the people that I know in the area that I recommend that you can go train with. And this kid was like, oh gosh. He started training with me when he was three, so I think he was like seven maybe at this point. And his Mom kept telling me he doesn't want to go anywhere else. He wants to train with you. So I got this kid continuing his training with me. You know, we'd meet up at tournaments every once in a while, we'd get some training in there after he got done competing. He still trainings with me via Skype.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Love it.
Gage Hanlon:
So we're that's about the extent of the training, the teaching that I'm doing. And then I find this, customer of ours at Kataaro, who is local in the area. Like, all right, well I'll go check 'em out. It was recommended by one of my co-workers cause that's where she was taking her kids to train. So I go and funny enough, it was an Isshin-Ryū school which, you know, I had previous experience with while I was in South Dakota.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
I'm like, okay. And I go in, you know, obviously like, you know, hey, I work at Kataaro, here's, you know, I've got previous training. And I go in and man, I really like it. They really focus on the application stuff, which I had never really gotten before in my prior training. Like yeah, we did a little bit of it, you know, like we did one step in TaeKwonDo and we had these, you know, set partner drills, but there was always that deeper dive piece that I was missing in my training. So, alright, you know, be the sponge while this thing still works, I'm gonna absorb as much as I can kinda thing. So I start training with them. And then that was, yeah, 2015, I think. 2015 we started doing that. Maybe 2016. I'll have to ask my Sensei about that so it's all going good. I'm just teaching through Skype with my one student. Doing my training, going to tournaments when I can, you know, in a totally different role now, you know, I gotta rep the brand and all that stuff. And, then in 2021, we Kataaro finds a building we had to expand because we were just, we're busting at the seams. So we find this building and its historic Carnegie-funded library. And it's in Indiana. So we move in May of 2021 to this new building where we're at now. And of course, what do all libraries have? A basement, right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yep.
Gage Hanlon:
I shouldn't say that, statistically, I don't know if that's actually true if all libraries have a basement, but we're gonna say there is at least this one. So, you know, we had always talked, like after I had moved up here for, for a job. Boy, it'd be cool to open up the school. It'd be cool too, you know, get a Kataaro Dojo going.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
Here we are now. It's what, 2023 we're coming up on our two-year move anniversary. We're coming up on our two year of the school being open. Things are going awesome.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Nice. I wanna go back a little bit, because you talked about, you know, throwing almost this random dart on the wall, sending a completely unsolicited email to Kataaro. I wanna work in your marketing department. We don't have a marketing department, and obviously, they hired you, and obviously, the company has grown. And, I think we can assume that your involvement is part of that growth. Seems logical. But what was it like taking something that you loved Martial Arts and getting a real job that was still themed in martial arts?
Gage Hanlon:
Like I was saying before, if I don't actually value the thing, right? It's hard for me to do it. So this was literally marrying prior experience, degree, and passion all into one thing. So yes, I wasn't teaching at a school, which that was definitely a difficulty. You can ask my wife. I was going a little stir-crazy, not training, not doing anything except in my living room, Skype-wise. It was that checklist thing again, like, boy, this is right, this hits things for me. Aligning of life's calling. Yeah. Kind of thing. You know, it's as much as I found it with starting martial arts, I found it in this job as well. Not too often can you say that, you know?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
Not too often at all.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And so you have started a school under the Kataaro name?
Gage Hanlon:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
In that basement. Yep. That I imagine has a couple of awkwardly placed support columns.
Gage Hanlon:
We did our best to open it up.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I have this theory that all new martial arts schools have to have at least one awkwardly placed support column.
Gage Hanlon:
Oh, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Bonus points if it ends up being where the high ranks line up. Yeah, I've trained in karate systems where it ends up being, you know, front to the left. The Taekwondo school I trained at it ended up being front to the right and it's like, I can't get away from these poles.
Gage Hanlon:
Right. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And, I just went and looked at a space to once again open a school and looked in the basement. I was like, oh, there's the columns. Got it.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
This is the right spot.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, like, I was surprised we didn't have more. When we originally looked at the building, of course, they used the basement for classrooms. Like that was the thing when it was the library. So we took out a wall to that, made a classroom. So we used that wall being removed as our seating area. And then they had like, I'll call it like the gathering area, you know, probably where story time or whatever was, there. And we used that as, where we set up the training space. So, we stand columns in the training area or the seating area. So good or bad, depending on what your perspective is on that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, it's absolutely good. It just seems to be a required element.
Gage Hanlon:
Right? Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know, it's almost like the worst. You know, all the cliche things. Well, you're not a real martial arts school.
Gage Hanlon:
Oh, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because the, you know, you could lend some credibility to those statements, whether or not they're ridiculous and apply.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But I think the poll one is the one that, in my head, it's a meme, you know? It's like, well, you're not a real martial arts school. You don't have awkwardly place poles in the middle of the floor.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. Yeah. And I've been to a few too, so, yeah. I've, I may have hit those a couple of times on accident too, so
Jeremy Lesniak:
For sure.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So for people out there who may not know Kataaro because, you know, I didn't realize how much older Kataaro was than my awareness.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Of the brand talk about the company and what it does and what you do there and all that.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. So started 2003. So a lot of times people ask me, so is Kataaro your business? No, I'm just the pretty face that goes along with it most of the time, right? So they started in 2003 and essentially it was built out of a need for that they were hearing about wanting higher quality martial arts belts. You know, everybody starts on the path of ordering from overseas or, you know, anything like that. And just, you know, looking for something better, right? So all that process turns into, well, let's make the belts in the US. You know, that's one of our pillars is made in USA . Like, that's a big deal. And, all of the belts are made by hand as well, and they're made to order. We all like guilty as charged. We all get conditioned to like, hey, I need this belt in three days. Pull it off the shelf and ship it. That is not us. We are, we're not Amazon. There's no you know, prime,
Jeremy Lesniak:
There's no Kataaro Prime.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. Not yet. I, you know, I'm always playing around with it. But you know, all the whole thing is of course, like with US materials, US laborers, right? Our costs are, exponential compared to, you know, you order overseas. So one way to keep our costs down is we save that, making the belt for when the order comes through, right? So that was one of the things when I ordered my first belt that I fell in love with, like, you guys make this by hand when I order it? Okay, it's gonna take you four weeks to make this? Okay. That's a big deal. You know, it takes a long time with embroidery. You know, the four weeks thing is, is where we're at with it for standard turn. But it's not just about, okay, we gotta make the belt and embroidered. It's the process along with it. I'm sure you'll talk about it in a minute, but, one of the things that I fell in love with was, oh, I get to see a picture of the belt before it's embroidered to make sure I actually like the embroidery. I wanna change my mind on a color for the embroidery or the location or a font, I can do that. So there's just a lot of things why I fell in love with the company and why I kept up with them as long as I did before joining up. So all of our stuff's made in the US. Mm-hmm. All the belts we make by hand, we embroider in-house. We keep everything under our roof. Like, that's the goal, right? Help keep down the cost, cut out any middlemen. And it also helps us remain, I'll say, like intimate to the process with whoever's ordering it. You know, a lot of times that in this, especially day and age now, everything is so like, click the button, get it here. I didn't have to talk to anybody removing that human element.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
To it. And it's certainly like in doing that, it increases right time, but it removes something to me that I think a lot of people do value at the end of the day is somebody understands who I am as a person, why I'm ordering this.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. You talked to the top of the show about going out to eat.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know, what's the only reason you go out to eat? Yeah. It's a different experience that involves other people. Yeah. You're eating, maybe not with them directly, but they're around you. You have engagement with the server. Most of us have had some really positive experiences with a restaurant server who somehow made the meal better, right?
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Like, just that, those conversations and everything. And we have ended up at this place in the world where things have gotten rather sterile in terms of human interaction and Yeah. When I ordered my Kataaro belt, I was blown away at how long it took. Not the manufacturing process, but literally the part where I had to click buttons online because there was just so much involved in it. And as a business owner myself, I understand what that looks like on the backend.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And why all those pieces are there? I understand why you go through the steps. Okay. This is roughly what your belt's gonna look like with the embroidery because we want you to be happy with it when you get it. We don't want you to say, oh, that wasn't quite the shade of this, or the placement of that that I thought it was going to be, right?
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You want everybody to be happy and you can't do that with, you know, two-day shipping.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. That's a lot of the conversation that we have. I mean, the website itself, right? A lot of times we'll hear like, oh, I didn't see this on your website. If I showed you everything we could make, the website would never run.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right.
Gage Hanlon:
You know, we try to show like popular options, but part of it is when the belt gets made, if we have an opportunity to photo it, to put it on the website, then maybe we can add that as an actual visual option there. But we we're custom. Sometimes we're so custom. It's confusing, right? I have to choose. What do you mean the size? Eight is 130 inches. When I order a size eight from this company, it's this long. What do you mean? I have to choose the width of the belt? I don't know what width my belt is. I've never had to know that. Do I want it softer, stiff? There's different options for this. There's different material. I can have it constructed different ways with.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm laughing because this was exactly my experience with mild annoyance.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I was like, I have to go get a tape measure. I have to measure my belt. Okay, fine. It's how long is all? It's this long. All right, let me do that again. That's not what the belt calculator said. Okay. Well, I'm thicker around the middle than it thinks I am. Okay. How wide is my belt? Right. But what came in was exactly what I ordered. It's what was in my head and I put it on and it was, it felt different. It felt right.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
In a way that no mass market belt ever has.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. And I think like the biggest thing with what we offer, as much as have certain aspirations to become, you know, the largest supplier, right? We don't do equipment, right? We've tried uniforms in the past. We're still working on trying to do those, but. Right now we don't have that. We do certificates cause those we can custom make, we do displays, you know, the wood displays, whether it's for a single belt, single certificate, multiple belts. You know, we have our apparel that we sell all that stuff, but we're not, don't come to us If you're looking for a bow, don't come to us. If you're looking for a sai, you know, a pair of sai.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
That's not what we are. We don't have sparring gear. We don't have a lot of that stuff. We're more niche in that sense, right? Niche, niche, whatever. It's a marketing term. I should know this, right? But it's almost a departure from what you're used to as an instructor, right? Because 99% of the time you're ordering in mass for your student base, right? Where you got 10 students or a hundred students, I gotta order X number of uniforms, I gotta order X number of colored belts and I gotta get 'em here by the end of this week. Very different from where we're at, you know? And obviously like what we've talked about, the manufacturing process, there are costs, right? Of course. Like we are not your 4.99 belt that you're ordering off of, you know, redacted website.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No.
Gage Hanlon:
No. And you know, of course, like at first like, wow, it's this much for a belt. Because when you are a student, Most of the time you get conditioned to, here's the standard for it. Right? You're getting this belt. And as a school owner, we all know like, where I can find an opportunity to cut costs so I can stay operable, I'm going to Right. That's a reality that's out there for sure. And definitely not knocking it. So you get conditions for this, certain expectations, and then you move into an instructor role and you see, okay, I know how much this is now. And then you stumble upon Kataaro and you go, how much for a black belt? And I think like you of course can attest to it, but it's different, different quality, right? Different materials most often. And a lot of times, like I find myself having a conversation with people, It ends up boiling down to how much have you invested time-wise into your journey, and how long do you expect this product, this belt to last? Are you buying a one-time use thing or are you purchasing and investing in yourself again to be respectful and honor what you have went through and our stuff's built to last a lifetime bar from taking a saw and cutting it, or literally trying to rip the belt in half kind of thing, right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
It's meant to last a lifetime. So yes, it's always that like upfront cost to it, but that daily cost gets lower over time until it almost becomes obsolete.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right? One of the things that I. You know, I don't know if you know this, a lot of the audience knows this. I do some consulting work for martial arts schools and non-martial arts schools and we so many schools do the cost-cutting, right? Because it's just, it is baked into what we do.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But what I think we don't realize is that it is those very elements that we judge literally every phone on. If you go into a restaurant, let's say you went to a reasonable restaurant, you know, not a fast food restaurant, but anything mid-scale or up, and they had folding chairs, you can still sit in them. The meal is gonna taste just as just the same. But you're gonna look at it and you're gonna say, that's weird. They're going cheap here. It changes the experience.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And you can say the same thing about absolutely everything in absolutely every business, whether it's a product or a service-based business, whether it's martial arts or not. And if you show people with cheap belts that is what you think of that experience, that is what they will correlate to that experience.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you show them, you know what, we ordered this much nicer belt, and you have some belts that don't require, you don't have to get embroidery. It doesn't have to be crazy and fancy. You have stuff that on the, let's say your lower end is like some other's higher end. And you don't have to ship it overseas. So there's a range in there, but to me, it's all about saying what you're trying to say, whether it's in words or not.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. And I wanna make it clear to everybody watching or listening, this is not me saying like, you have to start ordering, you know, colored belts from us,
Jeremy Lesniak:
All of your white belts.
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
For your junior program. Yep.
Gage Hanlon:
You gotta toss out all the other ones. You've gotta get 'em promoted in a month here and you gotta order constantly. That's not what it is. Cause we do the same thing, right? We've got our little kids' program.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
We use the colored stripe belt. Those kids, they're not to the mentality to handle Kataaro belt yet, right? And we do tape stripes, and I just have a thing where I'm not putting tape stripes on Kataaro belt. So if anybody gets tape stripes while they're training with us, they're not getting a Kataaro belt, they move up into our solid colors.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
We don't do stripes anymore then. Okay. Now you get your Kataaro belt with your name on it kind of thing. But that's just what we have done.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure.
Gage Hanlon:
And I know just from the time that I've worked there, we've got people that do just their black belts with us, just their master level belts with us brown belts and up, we've got jiujitsu community orders from us a lot.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Cause you got a lot of folks who might be in a white belt for years.
Gage Hanlon:
Absolutely, right? So everybody's gonna be different, on what they, what they can do and what they want to do. But, it's always a thing for me, like if they, if somebody hasn't tried finding something above and beyond like the norm, I encourage that. Whether it's ordering a Kataaro belt or, you know, looking for the nicer uniform or the higher quality gear. Whatever it is. Because you can always go back, right? You can always say, you know what that was for the cost. It's just not for me, didn't meet my expectations. I'm happy with this stuff. But I think it's kind of reflective on the martial arts journey in general, right? It's not about the stagnation. If you just stay here, there isn't as much potential growth as you could of exploring something. You can always come back to that lane if you need to. But isn't that the whole point, like why this age-old thing has lasted is because we've explored these new things. We've looked for that personal growth. We've tried the unknown to see if it's a right fit for us.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Gage Hanlon:
You know, that's why there's so many different styles out there. Cause it's not, one style does not fit everybody, and that I find that being reflective in all aspects of my life. Like, I gotta try this thing. I haven't done it before. I don't know how it's gonna turn out, but let's just see, let's just see, you know? What's the whole point of the theme of the month in class if you don't try to practice it? Right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Well said. Yeah. So what's coming next? What do you, when you look into the future, you know, are there boxes that you want to check?
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah. So, you know, my next Black Belt student, of course, that's a big thing for me. My, so the kid that I've been working with through Skype, right? He wants to open a school.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Nice.
Gage Hanlon:
That's his thing. He is I'm trying to think of when he tested, but he just tested for his second degree with me not too long ago. And for me, you know, you gotta be third before you open up a school. That's just the way that we do it. I know others do it differently, so not knocking anybody on however their process is, but for me, like be a third so that way you have that experience in that black belt rank for a while. So he wants to do that. So that's kind of like the next thing that's in my mind as far as the box being ticked is seeing one of my students open their own school. That would be awesome. I'd love to see that, especially if it's successful for him. My son, he trains with me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Nice.
Gage Hanlon:
So we literally just got back from a tournament this past weekend, and it was his first tournament that he competed at. And…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Did he have fun?
Gage Hanlon:
Oh yeah. Well, he was very sad to leave the waterpark. He was more upset to leave the waterpark at the tournament venue than he was to leave Disney when we went. So, must have been a good time, right? But yeah, we had a group of eight that went to this tournament. Almost everybody, it was their first tournament. And for him, he, it's the best he's ever done that I've seen him do.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, that's great.
Gage Hanlon:
And, you know, he just kept talking about how proud of himself he was because we do that a lot. Like we try to, of course, find that balance between, you know, ego and humility. But it's yes, I'm proud of you, but are you proud of yourself? Like whether you go out there and you win first or last, whatever, are you proud that you went out and did something you haven't done before? You know, the courage to take that step out onto that mat. Yeah. I'm really proud. I'm really proud. I'm really proud of this medal that I won. Like, okay, we'll get the general, you know, you're getting there. Yeah. So, you know, just he is, he just turned seven.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Seven.
Gage Hanlon:
Just turned seven. Yep. So I am, I'm eager to see what he does, you know, maybe martial arts is for him his whole life. Maybe not. I definitely don't want my passion to be pushed on him and become a point of resentment, so I've never pushed him to do it. He's just seen me do it his whole life. So he wanted to do it. Next up after that, you know, we'll see, I've got aspirations I can't talk about for the company.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Ooh. Excited.
Gage Hanlon:
But I'm in a position where literally it's an open format to see what comes next, to see what either myself or anybody in my bubble comes up with that we do to propel us next level. See the school grow, see the product side grow, whatever it is. But, I'm enjoying the journey regardless of what it is.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Awesome. I love it. And how about website, social media, email, any of that stuff you wanna share, either personally or for Kataaro?
Gage Hanlon:
Yeah, so Kataaro.com, everybody always has issues with the spelling so.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's a two A's.
Gage Hanlon:
I always think of.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Two A's throw me off.
Gage Hanlon:
Right? The owner has said if I could go back, I would change it. But the way that I always tell people, like, if you're familiar with Kata it's spelled kata. And then another a r o o.com. So that's the website. kataaro.com. That's our main website. We're on Facebook and Instagram. Our school is Kataaro Martial Arts. If you guys wanna see what we're doing in class, me, I've my past five years, I've become much more selective with the friend requests I accept on Facebook. So, they're welcome to look for me if they want to, but I'm, don't be too offended if I don't accept the friend requests. Just trying to keep my bubble to people that I actually recognize at this point. I get lots of updates on my feed and I go, how do I know this person?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right.
Gage Hanlon:
So, yeah. But that's, you know, that's, I'd say the best way to do that. If anybody wants to send an email. Directly to me, it's just my first name, Gage, gage@Kataaro.com. I am playing the role of products and school owners, so there are days that I am literally dedicated to only our school. So if I don't get back to you in a couple of days, it's not that I'm blatantly ignoring you, I just have other responsibilities there and I'm sure everybody recognizes
Jeremy Lesniak:
Quite understandable.
Gage Hanlon:
As well. So yeah, I think that'd be good. Phone number is on the website. If anybody wants to give us a call, yeah, that's about it, I can think of.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Oh, time to close up shop here. So how do you wanna leave it? What are your last words to the audience?
Gage Hanlon:
There's a lot of times where we might feel self-scrutiny or self-doubt. Even with all the time that we've put into building up the confidence and things like that, we get customers that contact me and we'll have conversation. Cause I'm a practitioner, you know, we connect on a different level. You know, I don't know. I don't wanna be too flamboyant with this belt or, you know, I'm gonna do something a little bit different with this one. Nobody else does it. And you know, there's, we have this concern of authenticity with what we do because we hear a lot of criticism from our peers, right? How ironic that we're supposed to be about respect and things like that. And then we go around and we talk about how bad somebody else is doing something. And the conversation that I always come up with, with these people when they're questioning or concerned with what they do, I tell 'em, do what you want with the belt because it's yours. And if somebody is so offended by your belt that they have an opinion on it, it's probably not worth listening to. And the same thing I'd say is go with the journey, right? Nobody knows you better than yourself. Nobody knows your students better than you do. If you're open to criticism from people, you can ask them for it, but if anybody's offering it without it, it's probably not anything you have to worry about.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What did you think of that? Did you enjoy that episode? I enjoyed that episode. I enjoyed talking to Gage. I had a good time talking to Gage, and I hope that you found some faith, and I don't mean that in a religious sense, but I hope you found some faith that if you truly understand what you want in the world and you keep working towards it, that good things seem to happen, that you can have what you want. Gage, thanks for coming on. I appreciated our conversation. I know we will talk again. Thank you for all you do out there with Kataaro. I hear good things. I see good things. Audience, thank you for coming by. Thank you for listening or watching. Remember, we can't do this without you, so your help is appreciated. Reviews and sharing episodes with friends and buying things are all really important elements of what we need here. So please consider supporting us and let me give you two other things that you can do in support if they're of interest. Number one, you could host me for a seminar. I teach fairly unique method of learning martial arts. I'm not gonna teach you how to kick. I'm not gonna teach you what to kick, when to kick, but I'm gonna teach you how to make your kicking better because I'm gonna teach you how to learn better. Is that of interest? People tend to bring me back for seminars, so I'm doing something right. You can reach out to me, jeremy@whistlekick.com. The other thing that you might be interested in, we offer consulting for schools. We take the same methodology, the same integrity-based, respect-based methodology that threads through everything that we do, and we offer it up for martial arts schools. So if you're a school owner or you're in charge of a school, recheck jeremy@whistlekick.com and we'll see how we can help you. Our social media everywhere is @whistlekick. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.