 Does Kempo Karate actually work for self-defense? Whether you love Kempo or hate it, we're cracking the controversy open on this one, so let the fireworks begin. The question of whether or not Kempo actually works out in the real world is a constant topic of debate, and today we thought it would be interesting and potentially uncomfortable to really dig into this one. Now, I'm pretty confident some feathers will be ruffled, but I think conversations like this are incredibly important to have if we truly want to excel as martial artists. And this discussion isn't just limited to Kempo, but what we talked about today applies to all martial arts that are used for self-defense. Joining me today on this discussion is Mr. Zak, also known as White Belt Zak, along with special returning guest, Aaron Cohen. Aaron Cohen has an incredibly diverse background that includes serving as a former special operations commando, celebrity bodyguard, tactical weapons instructor, and he's also the only American to serve in a secret Israeli commando unit that infiltrated terror cells inside hotbed territory. He is a seasoned martial artist with over 35 years of experience, holds multiple black belts, trades SWAT teams in active shooter and counter-terrorist response, and now you can find him in Hollywood, not only as an actor, but also as a tech advisor training other actors in tactical weapons and fighting for films such as John Wick 2 and Rambo, Last Blood. He's going to tell us a little bit about his training in the background, and then we're gonna find out whether or not Kempo Krati actually works, and if it does, what does it take to use it effectively? So buckle up on this one. Can you tell us a little bit about your martial arts background and training? Yes, my martial arts background training started in the 80s when I was a young teen in Los Angeles. I started off like most people in Shotokan karate. That's what was around. I was training with a great guy from Canada, escaped the Holocaust, ended up coming to LA, ended up working as a fight choreographer and stunt coordinator on the original Spider-Man. I think he might have been in the suit as a double. Emile Farkas was his name. That was my first taste of karate. Loved it. I had shuttled around as a kid between Miami and Los Angeles due to my mother's work. Ended up in the early 90s falling into a style called a Temi Ryu Jujitsu out of Hialeah, Miami and ended up watching a guy by the name of Phil Chenique. I saw him in his black belt's movement. I was blown away. And what I saw was striking combined with Jujitsu. Pros, traditional Japanese style Jujitsu but with a very nasty striking piece built into it, all vital strikes. And that was my first real climb in martial arts and my first real rank in martial arts coming up through Brown Belt through those guys. And they also taught a very gritty style of Akito which I like too. There was our niece mixed in there. Some sea lot seems to be in there. Just a very robust, almost 10-year black belt pipeline. He ended up splitting that up into three or four different styles. And these guys are awesome. I mean, these are the hard-hitting Latinos and Hialeah men and he is his black belts are phenomenal. And that was my first real diet in intro to martial arts that I really fell in love with. And then afterwards ended up going to the military in Israel and went on a strict diet of Krav Maga. The Krav Maga is the ugliest thing you've ever seen. It's terrible. The camera hates it. I don't teach it for film. I use a little bit of it in my fight choreography but Krav Maga really is probably my default if I was to be in a situation where I had to use self-defense. The reason why is because I served in one of four units in the IDF that gasses up Krav Maga to a very high level. And the reason why is when you're doing counter-terrorism operations, you don't wanna kill the terrorists. You need the terrorists captured alive so you can extract information from them and prevent the next terror attack from happening. And so the hands-on portion of the training and the ability to not use lethal force unless you absolutely have to rest in your combatants and your hand-to-hand combatants. And so when the file says alive, it means alive. So it means that the terrorist cannot be neutralized. He needs to be brought in. And the level of Krav Maga in the unit was absolutely torturous is the way to describe it. I mean, when you're going to lunch, you're getting jumped by instructors to up your situational awareness. So it's full contact ballots every Friday. They do four hours of fights. When you go home on the weekends, teams are jumping other teams as part of their training to up your situation. You can be in a movie theater and you're gonna get jumped by something from behind from another team which is all coordinated with the local police. And the whole purpose of that is to make it so that you can go from passive to active without thinking. The main tactic is very simple. It's very oversimplified. There's heel palms. Everything that's in Kempo is in Krav. It's just oversimplified. There's really no point of order. It's just blast, blast, blast, blast, blast. And then obviously a lot of knife defense, a lot of stick defense, a lot of gun defense. And I haven't really seen Krav Maga here in the United States gassed up the way I trained at the IDF. I think there's a disconnect between the two. And I think respectively, so you cannot train to that level of Krav unless you're 19 years old, highly above average levels of physical fitness and forced into a 20 month pipeline where if you quit, you're gonna get thrown out of the unit. So you're gonna put up with the torture. So like we say in the military, you don't rise to the level of your expectations. You fall to the level of your training. Krav Maga would be my default. And then Kempo started a couple of years ago with an awesome, sorry, Kempo, with an awesome Kempo instructor named Joey Cadena out of Texas and went through the IKCA syllabus, did that all through COVID, ate it up like crazy and then ended up getting to Chuck Sullivan's garage for the last year and was recently just promoted to third in his syllabus of Chinese Kempo. And fortunately I get to train with him directly, man. So I get, you know, he knows the whole EPAC syllabus, but he's also taken his own version and streamlined into a 55, very stripped down, no bullshit version of EPAC and just really enjoying it. And so Kempo, Aikido, or Japanese jujitsu and Krav mixed with tactical firearms ends up becoming my primary diet for myself defense. And I do so much Kempo right now because of this movie that's coming up, I wanna get it back into this film, that there's some awesome pieces in Kempo, some very nasty, dangerous pieces to Kempo that can be really effective if you know how to gas them up correctly and time them correctly. How a Kempo gets there, in my opinion, will be based on how they train in the dojo. And I think there's a big disconnect also between sparring and self-defense. So, you know, I do things in my Kempo diet, Dan. I do drills that I call self-defense sparring. So, we'll go 100% me and one of my partners. I've got a wonderful Kempo training partner named Joe Karpinski, former Marine. To get the Kempo more real is we'll do a full, we'll start blasting and mid-technique will throw in a reversal, a name technique, mid-flight at full speed, and then we'll reverse the reversal. And that kind of spontaneous training, in my opinion, is what you have to do in order to be able to gas this up for real. You wanna train sparring, that's cool, but that's shitty kickboxing. You wanna see the sparring, go look at the MMA guys knocking each other around. They're animals. Kempo's got great sparring. You go to the Taekwondo guys and the Muay Thai guys for kicks. Kempo's got the fast hands, but you lose that in the sparring. So, I've always never really understood that disconnect. You're sparring to pull that in as a piece of your training, what happens to all that beautiful self-defense? Well, it's supposed to come out on the day when you're out there street, but like I said, you're not gonna rise to the level of your expectations. You're gonna fall to the level of your training. So how you train that I think is gonna inform your ability to be able to perform. And everyone talks about the concepts and the Kempo should just come out. I say train your Kempo, train your Krav Maga, train your Aikido, and treat it as a self-defense sparring session and start reversing mid-flight at full speed, but make sure you put in your mouth guard. Make sure you're wearing your cup because you're gonna get whacked. But that to me is the stuff that I stole from the IDF, from the Krav training in the military to make it in my opinion, more applicable for Kempo, which is nasty, it's a gorgeous style. I mean, you can't look any better kicking someone's ass than using raking shield, shielding hammer. Or parting wings, or fists, or five swords. Everybody wants to jam five swords, but put five swords into punches, it's the same thing. That's what Chuck did, he calls it fists of fury. You can get it moving a lot quicker with your fists and you can treat it more like a sparring session using name techniques. So those are the, that's sort of how I am looking at Kempo right now and trying to figure out what would Parker be doing today? What would he be doing today? I saw your interview with Speakmouth, I just said some really intelligent things. You know, he looked at that 500 pound gorilla in the room which was BJJ and they addressed it. I think it's smart. Kempo community may or may not embrace it, I don't know. I stay away from the politics of it. But hats off to Jeff, the question is, is what would Parker be doing today? If he was around, would he be pushing and evolving this thing? I think he would. And people love to stay in that old traditional stuff, but why take a self-defense system that's got so many awesome concepts and bury it in the traditional structure when it can be pushed in advanced into the modern context of combat? I also think there's a big disconnect between the UFC or MMA and self-defense. I think once you take away my ability to punch you in the throat, stick my finger in your eye, kick you in the balls, whatever it is, or thunder a hammer onto the back of your cerebellum, Dan. Those are all things that you can't do in a sport fight. So unfortunately, whatever's on television is where people are gonna leave. They're going, oh, if it's not in the USC, it's not gonna work. It's not real. Bullshit. Once there's a cage around you with somebody who's gonna break you up or throw you out or find you for hitting someone in a place that could potentially kill them, well then it's not self-defense. It's sport fighting and that disconnect, I think is gonna continue to be a conversation. I think there's a myth around Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I don't think 90% of fights go to the ground. I think they do when you're in law enforcement because you have to put handcuffs on someone. And you'll see a sheriff's vest in the back. Again, I've been a reserve deputy for 14 years. I train SWAT teams and patrol an active shooter. I've taken all that training from Israel. I don't get paid to do it. I've been doing it with a small agency on the East Coast for 15 years, my favorite job. I love it. I love to put on my gear and just train cops. It's one of my favorite things to do, especially for really dangerous responses like an active shooter or a hostage situation. Again, that BJJ has to go to the ground for cops because they gotta put someone in cuffs. They gotta get him detained and then they gotta get him into a car. But I don't really believe that all these fights go to the ground. And I don't wanna be on the ground. And I like BJJ and you'll see it in my choreo. I love it twirly-whirly. It's getting really fancy today and pretty, but it's almost losing itself to fencing. It's not the same BJJ as Hickson and Hoyce, back in UFC one and back in his Valley Tudo days. So I don't wanna be on the ground with someone who's got more than one person with him. I don't wanna be on the ground with somebody who's got a knife. And I don't mind being on the ground with someone if you can make that switch like we say in Hebrew, la volta switch. If you're gonna go for the vital targets and it's your survival, you'll do it. So, but again, you're not allowed to do that in a cage. So I just, those are my fallbacks. Those are the styles that I primarily train in. I'm ranked in Akito or Aikijitsu, Kimpo with Chuck as a third and Temi Ryu Jujitsu for years and years. So it's Phillip Chanique and Chuck Sullivan, Joey Kedena, there's some great Kimpo. So I think there's a way to make Kimpo really gassed up. You just, the trick is to do it in a controlled setting where you can let off the clutch. So those are the things I'm starting to experiment personally with myself defense, but I also carry a firearm. So it's obviously a little, but you're in Miami though, or you're in Florida. Yeah, South Florida. There's just as many guns there as there are in Israel. So you're fine. Yeah, I like what you said about there's a disconnect between the self defense and the sport fighting. There's also a disconnect I find between learning the curriculum and actually be able to perform it on the fly. Cause it's different parts of the brain to memorize and learn and repeat a sequence versus a real situations on, you don't get to kind of think back and recall that information. So how do you have something to reset? You mean, do I go to fives? Like how do I go to five swords? Everyone wants to. Exactly, like on the fly. Like you don't see, like in a real life situation, in a real life, especially someone who's been seen in combat, you don't stop, you go like, Oh, five swords will work well here. Or maybe I should do this technique. You just have to act that quick. So how does that person get from that curriculum to the real life application? Spontaneity in your training. You want to gas up techniques. If you can perform name techniques and stop them mid-flight with another name technique and then reverse again to another name technique at almost full speed where you're gonna get your teeth blasted out, like I said, put in the mouth burn because you're gonna get knocked. That's the mastery in my opinion. If you want to perform Kempo, you have to be able to recall a certain amount of techniques, instinctively. The only way to get there is by training it spontaneously. And the only way to train it spontaneously is to get somebody who's really important. Surround yourself with guys who are better than you. If you're the best guy on the mat, you're on the wrong mat. I am the worst Kempo who's in my circle. I'm so happy about that because I get so much nastier after an hour and a half with these guys. And I've built a great network of Kempos. These terms are so funny to me. I get to pop popcorn on Thursday with Hugo Rojas who's a ninth under Chuck who's been doing it. He was a nasty fighter back in his day but fortunately for me I get to, I just try and be good to everybody in the Kempo world so I can land on any mat without any weird politics. And I just try and be like, I just want to go train with everyone. I've had the luxury of training with Larry Tatum. Larry moves phenomenal. He's got a different way of doing things. He's got longer arms. He's gorgeous the way he moves. He also understands camera. He's done some films and he's been around that world. And I got a chance to do a seminar with him through a small Kempo school that I train out here locally. And they invited Larry out and I really enjoy watching him move. He's got his own body English and generates power on an incredible level but not everybody can do what Larry does. And Larry's been in it for so long that you kind of have to find your tricks to getting the Kempo to pop. I think it's spontaneous drills. I don't think it's sparring then. I think sparring is just like shitty kickboxing. I don't want to kickbox with anyone, man. You want to throw a punch, whack, whack, whack. It should be three and you're done. But if you can get the spontaneity going by having to force name techniques and then executing the mid-flight, I believe your Kempo level will go up and this is what I've started to work on and Chuck's looking at it going, good, good. Keep going, don't stop. That's the only way to get to the truth of it is can you immediately react with a name technique on the day when you're out there who knows what'll come out. But if you've done thousands of reps coming out with name techniques, you should be in a better place than you are if you're on the mat doing two-man sets, which is just coordination. But those are how, what speed are you doing the two-man set at? You have speed, 50%. You're just trying to work out coordination, moving up the circle, executing the blocks correctly, getting to the right position, making sure you're hitting that radial nerve on your outward extenders, right? The purpose is basics to just kind of fine tune it. Get it going really spontaneous with a partner. Just be really, really careful and I think you'll see the level go up. And people will look at it and they go, what is that? What is that? Break dance fighting? Who cares? Just gas it up. And the other thing is, the E-Pack system has so many techniques. Let me ask you this, let me back it up and I'm sorry to do this to you, I'm putting on my Israeli hat right now. Dan, would you rather be inside of a punch or outside of a punch on a defense? Myself personally, probably outside of the punch just to limit the weapons or kind of limit their access to me. Is it easier for you to defend inside of a strike or outside of a strike? Myself personally, I find if it's punches, I do better on the outside. If it's grabs, I do better on the inside. Okay, I find that I would rather get inside the punch if it's those haymakers. And you don't really have to change your body position. I find getting outside of a punch is harder, that's for me. Just harder for me to get outside of a punch. Not saying you can if it's a straight punch but to get outside of a punch, I feel is more difficult and harder to get to because a straight punch is gonna come quicker. You're not really gonna get outside of a hook, you can get underneath it and slip it and then start to gas up some techniques and you can get into flashing wings and all that gorgeous stuff once you start getting outside it, right? But for me personally, I find that I would rather be inside because if it's the haymaker which tends to be what happens, inside is where you're gonna be anyways. That's where five swords lives. That's where delayed sword lives. But you're gonna have to look at that list, that board with all those 24 texts on each belt on the wall to remember them. What Chuck did, which I really, really think is smart is he took that 154 and they boiled it down to 55 which is what American Kemple originally was around 50 techniques. I know that on my syllabus, I've got exactly nine techniques for inside of a punch and I can perform every one of them. I've got eight techniques for outside of a punch and I can perform every one of them. I have to memorize because it's only nine and eight. When I get an impact guy and I said, I'm not trying to shake the boat right now and you're gonna get the impact comments. Thank you, man. But you know what? Let's shake the boat. Do you know all of your strike techniques? Because the pushes aren't gonna knock you out. The wrist grabs aren't gonna knock you out. The chokes aren't gonna knock you out. It's gonna be the right left or the left right or the big right haymaker and it's not gonna be coming from in front of you. So the next question is how are you training on angles? Are you training in a semi-circle drill so that you can fire off any one of your inside defenses or outside defenses off a right from every angle on the clock? These are the things that I think about. Go, yeah, yeah. No, yeah, no. Just playing that thought. It's actually, because you're right, 154 techniques is, it seems excessive. So actually where I'm at right now with my training is though, what I'm finding interesting though is it's not really 154 techniques. When you start getting into the meat of it, and this is where I'm working with some of my colleagues is that we're taking those 154 and realizing they're really just variations off of five or 10 techniques. And then we're exploring, well, what's changing? What's the difference? What's the application in that way? Unfurling crane into this, unfurling crane into this is you're gonna see it all over EPEC. There's certain principles that you just keep seeing repeated, right? That's, and that's what you're boiling down, which I think is really smart. Because they all have a lot of the same key movements too. And they'll have a lot of the same, they're interchangeable pieces. So when stuff happens on the fly, if you've pressurized them like you've been saying, you've been doing spontaneously, you start to recognize more by your position with that person versus trying to memorize from a list what a technique is, you start to feel it. Understood, and I agree with you. And I think it's really smart what you're doing. I agree, you get the whole system so you can learn all the combinations, but they're just combinations. And you can reconfigure them. And I've been at several of these seminars. I keep seeing instructors, high rank in black belts, many for people to see stuff, can teach the same stuff. It's like, guys, guys Parker wanted you to play with this. He wanted you to make this better. Personalize this, make it your own. And by the way, I haven't seen a system more customized than Kempo. It's the one system where everybody changes something to make it fit, which I think it's great. But a lot of it still seems to be stuck in the, well, this is the way Parker did it. Again, what would Parker be doing? Parker would be driving this animal, be on the ground, man. I think he'd be everywhere. He'd be looking at crab, he'd be looking at sea, he'd be looking at everything going. That's what he did when he was putting this thing together from what Chuck was telling me. I mean, he's looking at everything, trying to pull all the best nuggets. And that's what Chuck did. He just went, hey, this is 154, it's too many. And I'm not saying Chuck's better. This one's better. I don't care. I love all Kempo. Let me say this to your Kempo. Listen, I love Kempo. The camera loves Kempo. I love the concepts. I love the lines. I love all of it, man. It's awesome. I love Tracy. I love 5.0. I love EPAC. I love IKCA. The more Kempo, the better. And I think it's gonna come back. And I hope it does. We're just gonna get it in the movies. Cause once people start to see it, they'll go, what is it? It's really different and interesting. And it's been like almost 40 years since we've seen Kempo on film. So I think it's the perfect time in the art cycle for it to be recycled now and come back. So those are my thoughts on how to gas it up. Spontaneous, 100%. Make sure you're training with someone who's way better than you or better than you and push each other on the mat and keep doing reversals and getting it faster and faster and get popped. Put on the headgear, who cares? Get popped a little. All of a sudden, you're gonna be able to function under stress, which is the biggest gem that I got from the military. Can you do it when your heart rate increases and then you go into tunnel vision and auditory exclusion because you're over processing too much oxygen. So all of a sudden you start to lose your fine motor and you go into gross motor. The way to make Kempo gross motor is to train it spontaneously, using name techniques. On the day, you're not going, make the training harder than when you're out there so that on the day you're gonna go out. Well, I think a lot of what's happened to Kempo, which is very unfortunate is the commercialism has taken over and even when Ed Parker was building the system, there was a fine line between making it the way he wanted and then making it to what people wanted to purchase because like originally there weren't 154. That was something over time. Like the techniques stopped at like Greenbelt. And then people were supposed to reflect and build- Was it 12 or 15 originally? I'm trying to remember the- It was originally 32 techniques per belt, but by the time he got to Greenbelt, that was the end of the curriculum. That was it. The students were expected to work it, but people kept asking him for more stuff, more stuff, more stuff. So he ended up and him and his senior belt started adding stuff because to make it more commercially viable for better or worse. So there really, there is a lot more content in there than it needs to be or what he intended because it kind of got out of control. And even to say now, you see, like you said, everyone changes it for whatever they want now. So it's in all sorts of different directions, but it's just, it's I think the whole, it was good because he got Kempo out there in that aspect. Like it became the widespread as it was, but I think in the same sense too, that commercialism took a chunk out of its reputation. Well, I think Chuck realized that. And I think when Chuck Sullivan and Vick LaRue started the IKCA and Chuck can pontificate on this a lot better obviously. He's the expert on exactly how it went down, but and Chuck, just for context was Parker's fourth black belt, but Chuck scaled it down. He was just too robust. And all the concepts and principles are still in there. I mean, you still got the marriage, you still got the torque, that rotational, that, I love all this stuff, man. Just five sorts is gorgeous. How do you make it work? You got to gas it to fuck up is what you got to do, man, but you got to do it on a new K, but you got to be exchanging in the middle of it. And I keep going back to that because there's another thing too I want to throw in. I see the Kempel getting done and one guy is just kind of standing there and taking the lids, which is cool because you got to work out your texts. And by the way, I post videos doing Kempel all the time and I get hated on all the time. I love it because it's just more content driving from the algorithm, from the hate. And so it's all the trolls. Thank you for the algorithm boost. When you're just standing there and you're taking the flurries, it's cool for your partner to get to get the targeting and get to move and feel a human body, it's cool. And when they're reacting, it gives you a small taste of how it should look. I tend to drive forward with my techniques with Kempel. And that's one of the crop sprinkles that I put in, except when you're moving up the circle and you have to start cutting angles. But I noticed that a lot of guys are just kind of standing, you know, as you're doing five swords, and you're starting to come up at that point right there as you throw that uppercut, I think on that fourth piece and then you start coming up the circle and you throw that final chop. Why not drive forward? Why not be blasting that thing and pushing the guy forward? I don't know if those reactions that are taught, you know, that action reaction thing that makes Kempel really cool. I haven't seen any real data and videos of the exact, if I reverse hammer, he's gonna come forward and then I can feed him that elbow on the extension of, what is it, shielding hammer. So we go raking hammers, this truck's got a very similar name to it. You know, so as you're going outside and you're throwing that block and then boom, you're throwing the hammer and then the elbow and then the extension, you go to the groin and throw the elbow. But like, all that action reaction, I don't know exactly if it's gonna, if it's exactly gonna play out that way. Do you know what I mean? Like, have you ever seen any footage of like pop, pop, exactly the way it's taught with all that action reaction? Not footage, but it's actually really funny. You mentioned that exact technique. This past Monday, sparring, I did do the first three techniques or the first three moves of shielding hammer and sparring. He threw a jab, I just caught the inside of it and then I recognized position. I contoured up, shuffled forward, got him across the face of the hammer fist, his body turned and I was able to get that elbow right in there. So I was like, oh wow, that worked. So you got the reactions that are detailed in the explanation of the technique or was he reacting those first two, like he just, I hit him and he actually turned and he actually shuffled back a little bit and actually someone even asked him, why did you move back? He goes, I didn't. He goes, he moved me. So that hammer fist across the face turned him and that position, I had that position for that elbow. I didn't nail him with the elbow. I just kind of gave him a little bit of a tap but I realized that- Did you have to move into him to get the elbow? Yes, yes. That's what I mean. I moved into him with the shuffle with the hammer fist across the face and that set me up for that position with the elbow. So you could drop the elbow. Right. But moving forward and pushing forward helped deliver the cluster. Absolutely. And that's how that technique is written too. It is written to drive in on that one. Turn up, turn up, turn up. So that's, and that's hard to do in sparring, man. Yeah, it's hard to do. It wasn't even a thought. It was just, I actually just kind of felt the tension in his arm. I'm like, oh, and that contour was right there. I just, I didn't even think about it, just went into it. And it worked. All right. I'm shutting up because if you got the actual reaction based on how the technique was written then that's exactly how it should be done. But I think you're adding, yeah, go ahead, Zach. Just like as you keep saying is that you fall to your training. And that's the one problem I've noticed with a lot with martial arts is that the people just like taking Wing Chun, like the Chi Sao so much that every fight they want, every fight to get into comes out to be Chi Sao versus actually going into pressing into the sparring. And I've noticed nothing against Kemple, but doing this channel, been around a lot of Kemple, there's a lot of Kemple instructors who basically just teach the techniques and don't connect it and don't push it. So then the problems, what you find onto is you get a sloppy, a lot of sloppy Kemple people. I think that's one thing that's really hurts Kemple right now is there's a lot of sloppy Kemple out there. And it's true, it's because there's no, there's no form of regulating of the black belts. So the standards are all over the place. And it's kind of, but like you're saying is that they would do the techniques and I've noticed all the time that they don't, all they do is they think, oh, he does this, I do these techniques, I don't have to change it. I don't have to drive for it. And they don't get the reactions they need because they're not putting the effort into it. They're not like sit, they're not gassing it up is the best examples of it. It's honestly, they're watering it down. And Dan is a big believer in just even sparring just to build up that pressure because, and they're not even doing sparring. So even as you're talking about doing self-defense and bringing it and even gassing up beyond sparring, they're not even sparring. It's exactly what you're saying, which is you've got to gas it up to get it to be able to function under stress. Now, Dan, you've been, you've been sparring a lot. I've looked at your videos closely, brother. I've seen a lot of your movies. Dan, you move like a whip. You're like a fucking tightrope. I did. No, no, I just, I've seen you move, man. Like, you know, for a bigger guy, you're fast. Kempo's awesome. It makes you fast. Cause once you start burning in the, I call them the clusters, they're there. It's like playing a drum fill. And that's another trick to speed. By the way, play drums. You can't see my drum set hiding in the corner. It makes your hands faster. Get on the drum pad, man. Yeah. Well, here's the thing too, because it's the curriculum. In my situation, there's a lot, like the second half of the curriculum, it's a lot more fuzzer on because as time went on, my instructors moved around, I moved around. I kept restarting the system. So I've seen the first half so much more. I've seen the second half. See, like up to green, up to green. And then by the time you start getting all the extensions and yeah, yeah. Exactly. And when I started teaching too, we did the kids program, but the kids don't do the higher and stuff. It was all the lower and stuff. So moves like shielding hammer and five swords and the late sword and intellectual departure and deflecting hammer. Those techniques I do use in sparring because those are the ones I've seen and done over and over and over. Those are ingrained. Like a shielding hammer is one of my favorite techniques, but it's ingrained. And the second I felt that position, it just snapped. Dan, I liked you before this. Now I really like you. Shielding hammer is my favorite technique. In fact, man, I'll turn the camera on the bottom of it right now and I'll gas it up in the fucking audience. Like live, no cuts, no bullshit. And the reason Chuck made a slight variation to it, he went right to the extension him and Vic when they were building this out. So I don't even do it off a left because I don't think that left is coming. So I gas it off a right. I do an inward extended. I love the slappy connecting pieces in Kenpo. It's my favorite thing. We start inserting, wherever there's not action happening, insert one of these. I love that. And then I rake and then I chop and now I'm at the beginning of shielding hammer right now but I skip the elbow as I throw and then Chuck has his going right to the groin and then throws the elbow up. I think it's a perfect technique. It's the ultimate Kenpo technique. I can use that on the street today. It's all over my choreography. You'll see it when you insert some of the reversal sparring stuff that your audience will see once you drop that in this interview. It's a perfect technique. My point is, is that how many techniques are there in the syllabus that you really feel like you can lean on? Never mind the fact that you were jumping around and you kept doing green belt over and over and over again as you had these instructors coming and going but how many techniques really in that syllabus do you really feel Dan that you can gas up? How many go-tos do you have besides shielding hammer? A handful. My go-tos, a shielding hammer. It's funny with five swords. I've had a hard time performing that one inspiring because people like experienced fighters don't typically do these wild hand makers. They're more hook punches and those are harder to catch. It doesn't work on fighters, yeah. No, but I've found it's effective against kicks. I've actually stopped hook kicks and round kicks with that block and come in with that jab cross. So basically converting those strikes into punches like you mentioned before, deflected hammers I go to and also one of my favorites is, I used to hate it when I was younger but the crossing talon. I'm a big fan of frictional pulls and like getting that friction to body and I actually pulled this off of Randori a couple of times. I got frustrated, you know. You're doing Japanese jiu-jitsu now too which you're starting to graft into your tempo, right? And that's where the crossing, yeah, and that's where the crossing talons actually come into play with me. It's like, I'm grappling with judo guys who are better than me and I'm trying to do their techniques and of course they're taking me to the ground and one day I just got frustrated and we were clenched and I just did a frictional pull. I cleared one arm, came up on the knee and I got that cross guard and then I got into that crossing talon right into the arm bar and kicked his leg out and he went right down face down to the ground. I was like, oh. Frictional pull. I just felt it, yeah. Frictional pull is basically taking someone's Kizushi or taking someone's balance in judo and Japanese jiu-jitsu is basically judo. They didn't have the word judo before it was sported out by Keino but that pull on the arm is no different than Kosoto Geri or any kind of throw where you're pulling someone's center. It works. It's brilliant to put that in there. So I 100% agree with you. What are the techniques? What are your go-tos? I've always wanted to ask Dan from the Art of One Dojo your favorite tempo techniques. What are they? I like deflected hammer because it's just basically off a front kick. It's not hard to do that downward block. Just kind of slightly get off the line, deflect that kick and just shuffle in. Like you said, moving forward and you've got that front hand pinned. I like intellectual departure, but I modify it. I step back, I do that and we're blocked for that kick to divert it the other way but I will continue to momentum and I usually can land to spinning back kick on them probably 60, 70% of the time. That's one of my favorites as well. Okay, rules. Inspire, otherwise it's a lot of shuffles. I do a lot of the same leg checks. I do the buckle, the slide up. Oh, that's one of the extensions, but I'll do like a back fist and I'll rebound off my body like the second half of student hammer teaches and I'll usually do it like a jab and I'll rebound off myself and I'll be able to land a body strike which sets me up for that buckle where I can kick their leg out and usually if I can get that buckle. Yes, love the campo buckles. Love the buckles. And I've showed footage of that before. Yeah, I love the buckles and I gotta tell you, man, yeah, there's a lot of nectar in getting in between those legs, man and getting into that reverse bow and opening the legs up and dropping those. Oh, God, those are tasty and the camera's gonna love that. Just wait. I love those, I love those, man. Buckles, give me, I know you've got a few more go-tos. What else? Five swords you liked? I liked, it's not technique specific but I love the inward-outward parry, the trap. Love the double factors, love the double factors. So that's why you're able to get to the outside? Yeah, I love going to the outside because I've done those parries so many times. I've even actually caught inspiring boxers arms a couple of times with that trap. And once you get that trap, you can get that pull and if you get them off balance for a second and you can shuffle in, then there's your window right there. You own them, right on. And there's gotta be one more. Everyone's got their like 10 favorite techs, man. You need pack. But there's, I'm gonna connect the thread though and let me do that. If you can give me one more, though. Is there anything else that you go to? I like the simple stuff, Dan. Give me trigger salute, you know? Oh, I love trigger salute. I love trigger salute. Give me long kimono or were you coming into class? A good friend of mine. I'll show a clip right here. A good friend of mine actually did long kimono by the book in sparring. And it was funny. It was right after arguing with another guy that long kimono would never work and they were going back and forth and during the match, his opponent put his hand on his chest and he just sat back. He just did the textbook technique. It was perfect. Bam, bam, bam. So the reason why I was asking you what your favorite techniques are was to try and connect the thread here and I'll bring it back around. All the techniques that you named were the basic ones. Absolutely. Well, they're the ones that I've trained the most. Because probably instinctually they make the most sense to you because they're less complex. You didn't name any really crazy ones. No, and the reason is, that's where I'm studying right now. I'm working with Master Ken Herman and Master Sean Kelly. They've done a lot to teach me some of the under the hood parts of the camp. But what I'm starting to see now is when you say, okay, five swords is basically the same technique as parting wings. And basically there's 23 techniques. You're like, that's just five swords. It's taken apart and applied differently. Bowing to Buddha is five swords flipped upside down. So if you're gonna understand why it was written the way it was on an academic level, okay, well now that technique makes sense. It's basically just a textbook. It doesn't mean you're ever gonna use it in that sequence. But now you're seeing how this motion was applied here. Well, let me play with the idea. I can flip it upside down and make it work this way if I had to. And it highlights different aspects of it. So that's why I'm saying that you're starting to find out it's not really 154 techniques, but really variations of like 10 techniques. It's 154 variations of 10 techniques. More or less, basically. Or 10 combinations. Right, and you're already taking it. Yeah. And that's what I'm loving too, because it makes it more digestible because you do look at the syllabus and you're like, holy crap, that's a lot of stuff. But then when you start to break it down and condense it, it makes it more bite-sized and it's not as intimidating to go into it. And you're like, okay. And when you play with it that way, I'm finding in the past year or so, my spontaneity has actually increased because I'm not thinking as much anymore and more recognizing. And that's made all the difference. And sparring more often and trying to take these ideas now and apply them in sparring, it's becoming more and more successful. And like you said, it's just you have to get the hands on. You have to keep doing. You have to keep doing. And with my schools closing so much and moving, there was years I didn't get to spar. And I suffered for that and I'm trying to overcome that, trying to get back into it now. And do you find that the Jiu-Jitsu is helping you? A hundred percent. A hundred percent. It's finding me transition between techniques. I use the Jiu-Jitsu a lot. I went through the extensions and I've actually kind of dropped them in favor of a lot of the Jiu-Jitsu takedowns and submissions. I find them better. Called the guy out. Called the guy out. Yes, exactly. And they're built into the techniques too. And, but I use them if I'm transitioning, doing one Kemple sequence. You know, a parry can go into under the arm or you just kind of slip and move. And it's, I'm finding that you can switch from one to the other pretty easily. And it's a reverse too. When I'm in Jiu-Jitsu classes and we're doing techniques, I find, oh, elbow can go there. Oh, palm heel there. Oh, the ground, the hammer is there. It's blending well when it starts to play with it. Yeah, you get to frustrate the hell of the other. You get to frustrate the heck out of that school with your other training. You start throwing Jiu-Jitsu at a Kemple school and they're like, what the hell is that? But it works. You're not doing the traditional takedowns. You know, you're not doing shitty Jiu-Jitsu. You're actually throwing real Japanese Jiu-Jitsu now. And then same thing when you're on the Jiu-Jitsu mat, all of a sudden you've got all these little tasty nuggets, whack, whack, whack, to help drive the technique, the throw. Yeah, and it's funny, we'll do techniques in Jiu-Jitsu that's based off, okay, the person's gonna grab you. And we work the leverage where we grab and we throw them. But I find myself, it's actually, oh, I got an elbow in there. Let me loosen them up a little bit. Then I got the arm control a little bit better. So Kemple's the perfect fabric softener in terms that you guys use for Jiu-Jitsu. Perfect. That's a fair way to put it. Yeah. But I'm experiencing currently. And I mean, I've got a long way to go. Like I have a lot of rust to knock off. I'm really kind of doing a deep dive for my own purposes because I want to be better. I always want to be better. And I do look at the curriculum and be like, how can I make this work better? Because yes, I've got concerns. There's techniques I hate. There's techniques I've always hated. There's some I don't understand. So I'm trying to, my quest is now, well, let me understand why I don't like them and then make a decision, okay, are they valid? Is there valuable information in there? Or do I should I not even bother with them? Well, listen, when I get to Miami, you need to come with me to go see Doc Shanique. So we can show you some of Timmy Roo Jiu Jitsu which you'll really like. Because he's inserted a lot of the vital strikes. This whole system is based around Kempo style strikes already inserted into the Jiu Jitsu so that action reaction will feed those Jiu Jitsu throws in those locks and those breaks. So he's, I'm going to drag you over there to meet him. And then we'll, and then we'll pop and then we'll Kempo break dance fight. We'll gas up some, we'll gas up some rehearsals, man. We'll stick in one of your videos. I just, I just, I love Kempo. I can tell you do too. And I'm, and I think it's cool that you finally, I've been wondering what's, what are dance favorite techniques? You know, it sounds like you're really open to continue to try and shave out the silliness to get to how to make it work. Which I think has been a universal struggle looking at a striking based system like Kempo. I'm not trying to shave out the silliness so much as trying to understand why it's considered silly and then decide if I still agree with that or if it's just got another purpose, maybe not necessarily in a fight setting, but is there any academic value to it that could be applied anywhere else? Right on. Because it's, I mean, Parker wrote this. Go, go, go. Parker wrote this material for a reason the way it was, at least originally. So I'm kind of trying to get, kind of get in his mind space of what was he looking at? What was his intentions? And I mean, the guy is way smarter than I'll ever be. So I'm not always going to see everything. I mean, that guy, the way he thought. So what have you deduced? What have you deduced based on this timing, thinking about it this way, in terms of what Parker was thinking and what he was trying to get to? I've deduced that there's simplicity to be found in that complication. And I think the key to, I think the whole point of learning these techniques is more academic, again, just to learn, because he was all about, okay, well, if you could do this move, well, this move has an opposite reverse somewhere else in the system. So everything has an opposite reverse. So it was all scientific-based, curriculum-based, academic-based. But from there, I think it's a matter of deciding what's going to work for you. And like you said, people are going to resort to their favorite handful of techniques, their favorite handful of combinations, their favorite blends. And but I just think it's a whole giant toolbox. You can learn to use a special wrench that you'll probably never ever use, but at least you understand how it's worked, but you're probably going to resort to the hammer, because that's what you're familiar with, or that's what you use the most. So it's just learn a lot, see a lot what's there, see what people are doing, find your options, and then you start to narrow down your own simplistic combinations that work for you. And then pressure test it. The best you can in the safest way. Absolutely. I agree. At the very minimum of sparring, and if you can get the work of sparring, great, but like, I mean, I like what you're saying too, and I haven't really experienced school, and I know Zach's been mentioning this for a long time. He's been saying that, you know, why don't you guys do this? Why don't the schools do these reversals? And I haven't really had an answer other than, well, some do. Ours never did, not to that degree. Well, a lot of them don't, though. That's the thing. No, most of them don't. You're right. Yeah, most of them don't. It always aggravated me to watch that, like, because so many of them, like you said, they do the technique line. We see so many of them do the technique line, and they're kind of going through the motions. They're using, the best example is they're using the other person as a wooden dummy versus a live person. I'm like, you know, I'm just surprised they don't put something, you know, you should have something where if you don't do the technique, have the person respond. Have the person, you know, you got to get some feedback, you know. It's Kempo Breakdance Fighting, man. That's what I call it. Yeah, that's the best, yeah, that's a good example. They just, and so many times I see them, I'm like, I don't even think he hit them. Don't even think he made the strikes and he's acting, this is, yeah. And I think that's the part that's really destroying the Kempo name in the martial arts. A lot of schools don't go, they don't go past that, you're absolutely right. And that's why I've been trying to say a lot is most schools don't teach it the way I feel it should be taught, or at least how it used to be taught. You go back to the 70s, it was a very different landscape. Oh man, Dan, can you imagine? That was a toy that went around. No way. Can you imagine if you were on the mats at the old West LA school in the 70s? Oh no, they were bloody. Those, the classes were bloody. Every person I talked to who was at. All those videos in the, yeah, in the line when they were doing that Friday night line. In fact, Angelo Corriotto, you know, who's a good buddy of mine, who's easily one of my E-Pack coaches. Like I said, him and his son used to run that Friday night line and he said it was a monster. And I would, man, if I had a time machine, it was the first place I'd go. I was gonna ask you, your favorite form, go. Oh, favorite form, probably short three. Short three? Yeah. When I do have to learn, when I do have to learn a form, I go to Angelo, the 23 time form, where, you know, forms champion. He is awesome with that stuff. Do you think the forms are important for your training diet? I think they, they fulfill the same thing as the techniques. So there, there's application. All right, I'm sorry. There's academic information there, kind of showing, see, see the forms we have, I'm not gonna, this could get really long. I'm gonna condense this, but there's, there's the first four forms we have are called dictionary forms and the rest are in psychopedia forms. The dictionary forms are literally introducing beginners to basic steps. So the first form is just, okay, we're retreating on this line and this line, we're using our front hand and we're only using rotation. The next form, we're gonna add a counter punch. The next one we're gonna add, okay, now we're going on angles. Now we're gonna use other power principles. So they kind of build basic blocks. So I think those are important for beginners. And then after that, the flowy forms like the short three, the long four and up, there are more studies of motions. Kind of like, you know, it's funny because I call the techniques mini kata, but you can look at the forms as long techniques. It's just sample sequences to kind of see how the moves can flow and relate to each other. I actually used part of long one once as a reaction. Someone came up behind me and tried to sucker punch me in the kidney and I stepped off the line, did an elbow drop and instead of the upper block, I stopped the back fist right in front of them and it just happened like that. But it was that one little nugget because I'd done it so many times, I was just used to seeing the coming, just getting off that line. But I think forms are the same way as the techniques is you have to look at why, if you're just gonna memorize the form or run through it, it's not gonna do you any good whatsoever, besides earn a belt at a test. If you can break it down the same level as the techniques and pull ideas from it and recognize, okay, well, maybe this idea works here, you can start to implement it with your techniques. It's a lot of information. That's what Angelo was telling me about the original Friday night lineup was that when he was running it, it was all based on long four. You had to get through everyone doing pieces of long four to get all the way to the end and when you made it to the end of the 23 and 24 texts in long four, I don't know how many there are in total, it was like a badge of honor. You had to literally blast through 23 guys. It was the same guy, it wasn't like a traditional tech line, do it, go to the back, next guy up, do it, boom, switch, and then go to the back, you had to run the whole line. That's the way to train it. That's how you get beasts. That's fucking, I don't even know, I think I know the first four parts of it are five pieces of it. It is a beast. It's similar to our master form, just so you know, we have one master form in Chuck Sullivan's system. And it starts at orange belt, the first technique, and it goes in order from orange through black belt. That's it. So anytime I do the kata when I warm up, it's the whole syllabus, all 55 techniques. And I think it's really smart. Because when I'm working on a film, I can work out alone and do the whole system. Literally, it's all it is, it's just literally the first tech all the way through the last tech in black belt. I think it's genius. It's simplified. You don't have, how many forms are in impact? It's a lot. Quite a bit. 11, 12, something like that. Well, we got four, we got the short forms and then we got the long forms. And you have your sets on top of that too, which are other types of forms. So it's a lot of information. It's a stack of textbooks. It's a stack of textbooks. And it's basically a college course. If you go to a college course, are you gonna remember everything or use everything you've written in textbook? No, you're gonna see the context of it but then you're gonna resort to whatever your profession is but you're gonna resort to your basics that you're gonna use every day. Agreed. And that's just the way I kind of choose. That's the way I try to make sense of it. It's an awesome system. Like I said, it's pretty Krav Maga. But all of the things that are, to me, make Krav Maga effective tempo has it all. It's just a little more mindset conditioning that I try and sprinkle in and then to try and train in a way that's going to allow you to be able to really blast under stress. That's really what I've been focusing on. How do I train tempo under stress? It sounds like you're on the same journey and it sounds like you're figuring it out too, so good on you. Can I have a quick question? I have a quick question, real quick. Since you basically come from, like real pressure test it, which one would you say, or even any martial art, do you feel in your background that is the fastest for a novice to learn versus some of that needs, that takes a little more experience, a little more time to learn? I'd say Krav Maga is probably the easiest. Palm strikes, punches, elbows, knees, a little bit of clenching and explosiveness. And it's all done and there's no sequencing. There's no memorization. There's no order of strikes. It's whatever comes out. And it was designed for the military and it can be learned in a couple of months. And what makes the mastery of Krav Maga, in my opinion, is the way it's trained in Israel. I don't know how the belt system found its way into Krav Maga. It's a very simplified or oversimplified form of tempo. There's just no shielding hammered down. You're not memorizing a sequence of techniques. You're literally just blasting and training to blast. That the secret sauce in Krav Maga is having the aggressive switch turned on. And what ends up happening is we end up fighting on Fridays in the IVF in my unit. You're fighting one guy and then you're fighting another guy and then you're fighting another guy and then you're fighting two guys at the same time and then you're fighting five guys at the same time. And what you learn is that you're not gonna get killed. You're gonna be fine. If you keep attacking the attacker, that's the best defense. Attack the attacker. And as long as the techniques are simple, the main tactic becomes aggression. Two things, aggression and then what we call it spigote, which is conditioning. Where you're literally getting the shake kicked out of you and you're just standing there like this. Nothing in the face. This doesn't do anything by the way. You can't condition somebody's face. When I see people hitting people in the face with no protective gear on, I'm gonna say it triggers me. It really triggers me because there's no data showing that you can condition this. But the body, the arms, the legs, the solar, all the stuff can be toughened. And so once you learn that getting beaten isn't gonna kill you and that you're gonna get tougher and you're gonna get used to being uncomfortable and getting hit, while learning how to attack. To me, that's the simplest, easiest system to digest. It's not pretty, it's just, you're getting to the point. Smash, smash, smash as fast and as hard as you can with basic combative and targeting strikes and then get the hell out. Kempo's got a lot going on on the menu but taking all the aggression and putting it into the Kempo seems to be working. But it's a lot of training though, the memorization and getting the techniques and equipment. Dan, you know, it's a lot of pieces to learn. It's a thick syllabus. I enjoy it. I like the science of the motion. I like the way the economy has put together the vital strikes, but you almost need the oversimplified version to teach the beginners. And that's why it's suitable for the military. We don't have the time in Israel to train a soldier. We've got two years, man. We've got a lot of things we've got to put him through. He's going to get crocs this many days a week and we're going to just destroy him with it. And that's going to be his default. Yeah. I think what happens a lot too is, and especially with Kempo with all the different changes, it's kind of like you take a sentence and you translate it to a language and you translate it again and you translate it again and you translate it back that there's so much revamping and piling on that you start to get errors built in or you start to get other ideas mixed in. You stop recognizing the Kempo. Yeah, exactly. And I'm kind of glad that we've broached our topic today because I want to go on record with this because doing this channel for the past four or five years now, I've had my fair share of comments, people coming out and saying, Kempo's no good, Kempo's trash, you're wasting your time, Kempo sucks, they'll get you killed, across all other arts. And the thing though is like, when I started too, like I'm not going to lie, years ago, like I love Kempo. I've loved this since day one, but I have had questions in my training the whole time. And I'm at that point where I'm exploring those questions like, well, is it really good? So it's kind of interesting and hearing from someone like you who has had the training in several different arts, not just one, so it's not like you just did Kempo, you've got a bunch of different arts in your belt and the military experience that you have and the real life application that you have and experience, I value your input and opinion on this. And it's kind of like this whole channel and exploring these other arts and talking to the people and looking at other worlds is just as much as me trying to look back into my own world and dissect what I like and what I don't like because I still have a lot of questions. I will hands down say right now, I love Kempo. I will devote this my life to it. I still, I love it the more I learn about it, but I also recognize it's not a perfect system. I don't believe there is a perfect system in any art. And it all goes back down to when people try to trash any art of saying that the art is garbage, I think it's like, it comes back down to the actual practitioner understanding, if you're just memorizing the textbook curriculum, I don't care what you're training. You can just, you can memorize all the BJJ moves you want. Doesn't mean it's going to work for you. You've got to pressure test it. It comes out to the students at the time I'm involved. The teacher and how it's taught and Kempo is a big software of that. I don't think there's enough good schools that teach it the way it should be taught. I know a couple, I know a bunch of Kempo schools that are out there. I only have a few that I would recommend to people just because I like the way they teach. They understand how it works. They understand where it's applied versus they're not just running off a list. So I really am happy that you broach to say because this has been an ongoing struggle within myself to try to identify the parts that work that don't work and try to talk to people. And it's frustrating sometimes to explain to people that have never even stepped foot in the Kempo Dojo how it works, because they only see what is put out there and it's always like you said, the technique lines. And Zach's mentioned this for years and years and years. That's what's seen, where is the rest of the stuff? And I've seen the rest of the stuff, but it's not, it's boring classroom software. It just doesn't always make it out. So I think this is definitely a discussion that is worth having. Well, how do you make Kempo work? Well, how do you make it work? How do you gas it up? Yeah, well, what's the biggest thing? Like Dan, you get asked all the time is speaking of the sport fighting is all the time, oh, if it doesn't work in the ring, it's no good. How many times do you hear that? And how many times do you hear, oh, I never see Kempo in the ring. I never see it in the ring. I never see anyone Kempo that's no good because I never see it in the ring. 98, 99% of the people that are making the comments don't train or a good percentage of them don't train. The amount of trolling, I just hope they start verifying every account on social media because the trolling will severely get curved once people actually have to show their face to the world with their comments. People have lost respect because of the internet. I like the trolls. When people say to me, oh, the Bob doesn't hit back, I go, well, neither does a fucking heavy bag moron. What are you talking about? You know what I mean? Neither does a speed bag, neither do focus mitts. You know what I mean? And if it's not in the ring, listen, the only reason why you know about the ring is because that's what you're being fed. The ring is what you're seeing on television. That was a $60 million investment by the Petitos which turned into that reality show about the UFC which eventually became a billion dollar company that WME bought and then plug in actors into it. And so whatever you're seeing on television is what you're believing. So basically you're just a product of Psyops or however you want to call it, a diversion or, you know, what's the word? Were you being fed propaganda? And that's what you see. Which you're not seeing is the stuff on the streets. Go look at the streets and YouTube videos, man. There's plenty of stuff out there that would never happen in the ring. It's not even allowed to happen in the ring. Yeah, I will agree with the statement. Kempo's not going to work in the ring. But you know what else doesn't work in the ring? BJJ doesn't work in the ring. Taekwondo doesn't work in the ring. Boxing doesn't work in the ring. What works is the plan. Hey, gunfighting doesn't work in the ring. Yeah. Yeah. Knife fighting doesn't work in the ring. Well, how come there's not multiple attackers in the UFC? Right, that's a good point. And that goes back to what you mentioned before. Everybody's out of line. Everybody's just getting fed what they're being fed. And if it's not Conor McGregor and if it's not MMA. By the way, MMA is a couple of months of this, a couple of months of that, a couple of months of this. You're not a really well-rounded martial artist. You're a guy who knows some really important key pieces of the sport to be able to apply it in a very controlled environment. And I don't want to get started on this because martial arts is so subjective. But like you said, I'm just glad we're having the conversation only to start it at some point. At some point, I think the UFC will evolve and I think it's going to get even nastier. It has to. I hope so. I hope so. Now, I do want to throw out here too that in no way it might disparage MMA fighters because... I'm not either. Because those are some of the toughest mothers I've ever encountered. And those are people... And it's not the art that defines them. It's their discipline. They are on that mat. Like you said, they're spending hours and hours. And this is an individual martial arts and your ability to react and to stress and be able to perform and defend yourself is a very individual thing. People say that doesn't work. Well, you don't know that doesn't work. It may not work with that guy doing it. But the second some killer comes along with some basic pieces, it's a different animal. So I think it's all very highly individualized. Again, I've seen you move. You move phenomenal. Could you gas your stuff on the street? I don't know what's going to happen to you in the chemical dump. When you train for the chemical dump, it's going to be easier. Is there the same type of pressure in a professional boxing ring? I don't know. I don't think so. When you're protecting your fan. Such a subjective world. I'm not negating the professional fighters either. I mean, these are professional athletes who train 12 hours a day for the years. It's very difficult. I'm not a fighter. It's not what I do. I make make believe. I make make believe. Yeah. And I make it better than anybody. Yeah. And that's the difference. It's not the art that they're training and that defines them. It's their discipline that they're putting into it. It's their practice. It's that time and that conditioning that whatever they're learning, they're finding that blend and they make it work for them in that context. Because they are training for sport like any other athlete. They're at the top of the top of their sport. Right. Well, it's sport. It has rules. That's, you know, and the rules dictate how the fights and how things are. Yeah, but you'll get Joe Rogan who will come along with his 100 million followers and he'll disagree. You know, Joe Rogan will take a big shit on everything that we're talking about right now and they'll say, no, MMA is the truth. MMA blew all of the McDojo bullshit out of the water. McDojo's Instagram page and YouTube page will say the same thing, you know? And yeah, is there hokey shit out there? Are there bullshit power energies? Yeah, of course there's a bunch of crap out there. But Kemple's a striking style. It's a nasty, nasty striking style. Question is how do you gas it up and get it to work? Right, but that's the important distinction. An art cannot be a McDojo. A McDojo is an individual school who treats the art as a franchise or a money-making machine. It doesn't apply to just generic art in itself. Agreed, agreed. But the lines have been blurred. Everything has been blown out of context. If it's not the UFC or MMA, then it's a McDojo. If it looks good, it's a McDojo. If there's aesthetics to it, it's bullshit. So the problem is that the narrative has been driven to the UFC context in that controlled environment cage. Where I come out, train, learn what the hell you want. Get really good at it. Do your best to pressure test it. And if you enjoy it, do it. Most of those trolls that are popping up anyways, thank you for the algorithm boost. I appreciate it. You just put more eyeballs in our video and we got more ad dollars coming in. So thank you. Okay, yeah, I'm not gonna lie. I do engage with the trolls sometimes. And a lot of times you can tell they're just trolling. They're just trying to push your buttons. But there's been several times where I've actually gotten a good, a constructive discussion out of them because when you push them a little bit, then they'll actually say why they don't like what they don't like. And sometimes have a good back and forth. And there's actually been a couple of times they've asked me stuff, I'll be like, I should know that answer. So sometimes I can learn from the trolls as well. Other times you're just like, okay, delete or just ignore whatever you can say. It's all across the board. But that's why I love doing this channel is because we have this platform. We have a very, very diverse audience who watches this. And many of our viewers hate Kempo and I'm fine with that because I like to see their point of view. I want to hear from them and why they think it's garbage. And we have the people who absolutely love it. And I love to hear from them too. And I think that this discussion that we're having today is relevant to pretty much all our stars in general. It's not just Kempo. We're talking about it because we're that close to it. But I think these principles and concepts and the application and the stress testing applies to everything. So I think if we could wrap up a unified message for our viewers to sum up this video in one sentence, what would you say to people that don't believe that traditional martial arts could work at all? It's up to the individual to be able to make your skills work. Make sure that you're training and learning things that have a track record in some context with being applicable in self defense. Make sure the school that you're going to is in two belt driven. You still need the belts to be able to codify where you're at in relation to the high ranks and the low ranks. But the focus really should be on what you're trying to get out of it. If it's self defense, find a place that will teach you a system that you enjoy learning that's gonna give you the correct intensity to be able to use it. If you're looking for a martial art and you want to get into a monster encyclopedia that's cool too, just be honest about what you want to do. And if you're looking for sport fighting, go do that. It's all good, but remember, one's in a cage, one's designed for the street, and on the street it's a lot more dynamic. And it's very easy to shit on systems, but it's really not the system, it's the individuals. So to sum it up, be honest about what you're looking for, train diligently, make sure you, and then seek the right instructors. Don't spend 10 years, man, working on a black belt with idiots. You know, forget the striping up. Go find instructors who are passionate about teaching, but have credentials to be able to back up what you're looking for. Go spend 10 years finding the right instructor. That's what I would do. And I've been blessed. I've had some good people, man. I've been blessed. I've been blessed, man. Every kidney IDF who pounded on me was an animal. Meaning, you know, they're hand-picked, they're hand-trained, their pipelines are well-designed. The Kemple world, I've been lucky. You know, there's a lot of shlock out there. I've been lucky in the stunt world. There's a lot of great martial artists, too. And I'm always picking little nuggets trying to get stuff. So to close it out, this is an individual thing, guys. You know, it's really easy to rip on this and that and the other. At the end of the day, go train. Go put up videos. Go put your stuff online. Share what you know or what you don't know with the world. Make the world better by posting what you're learning. Stop trolling and start adding content to the universe of knowledge. That's a big one for me, man, because most of the trolls don't post. Show me, I always say, show me a better way to do it, man. You don't like the Bob drill? All right, cool. Please post it. My favorite thing is when someone does criticize, I click on their username and it says, this person has zero videos. So like, it's a completely empty profile. That's right. That's right. That's right. I'm on for opposition. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you. And more people are going to agree with you than you think. And remember, the trolls are just a small percentage. They like to light the fire and just get the blood boiling, but whatever. Again, thanks for the algorithm. Sometimes it's good to boil. Yeah, it's good to boil, man. It's good to start the dialogue and the conversation again. And if no one's hating on you, you're not doing it right. That's what I always say. So I like criticism. It's a big part of being in the creative world. It's tough because when you do create something and you put it on film and it gets released, you get slaughtered. People can hate what you're putting out there. People can look at my query and go, it sucks. People can look at my acting in this next film and go, it sucks. You know what I mean? But that's the cost of doing business, man. I just don't listen to anyone. Just keep going. Just to say real quick and speaking of what worked is I always love, though, people think that comparing real life, this is always a big thing, that they're like, oh, if this person beat person A, then person B, and then someone beat person B, C beat person B, then C can beat person A. And it's like, not necessarily. It all depends. Everyone thinks very linear sometimes. I'm like, not necessarily. One little thing that the person A does is different, could completely throw off what person C does and how he. Well, yeah. And there's so many factors that can reduce the dynamics of what happens in the middle of altercation. Oh, yeah. And there's luck. And there's luck, too. I mean, in war, they say, man, it's war. It ain't up to you. You don't know where or shit's going to go how it's going to fly. Yeah, really, really cool, man, talking to you guys and kind of getting us out there. And I think we did more than what I was expecting, which is very cool. Just to really crack that subject. All right, so thank you so much, man. Yeah, I appreciate you guys, man. Thank you. I'm quite sure that a bit of you right now have a lot to agree or disagree with, regardless of which camp you come from. And that's great. And that's part of the reason that we wanted to broach this topic. I believe that it is critical for us to be able to play devil's advocate and try to view our own arts from an unbiased lens. And that's not easy to do. We'd like to extend a great big thank you to Aaron Cohen for sharing his time, background, and experience with us. Now, this was a heavier discussion than we normally have on this channel. And we'd like to do more of these, so let us know down in the comments what you think. Did you agree or disagree with what was discussed here? We have an awesome community, so let's make this a very constructive experience. That'll do it for today, everyone. Thank you so much for watching.