 Scorpion says this might sound a little off-topic, but why did you choose to study Japanese jiu-jitsu over Brazilian jiu-jitsu? This is an excellent excellent question. And the reason is I chose Japanese jiu-jitsu to fill a very specific Area of training that I felt I was missing again. My background is Kempo. I've spent 30 years in Kempo There's a lot of strikes. We have takedowns. There's a little bit, you know, Ed Parker Did a lot of judo. So there are judo elements into American Kempo But I felt like I wanted to learn more Stand-up grappling more wrist locks submissions arm manipulation and more takedowns that I can mesh into my Kempo I wanted to step outside of Kempo learn something new that you bring back to it And it's actually an interesting story Originally, I was looking for judo and the reason it wasn't BJJ and I'll come back to why it wasn't BJJ I was looking for judo and I was googling judo schools in my area and believe it or not There really weren't many I found one and it looked okay. It wasn't that close to me I'm like, okay. I kept looking but as I was looking for judo another school came up a Bokojitsu with a she hand William Wood and I'm like, all right, you know, I'll check that school out. He was super friendly and he said come on in come check out A class, you know, let's just talk whatever honestly, I was a student from the second I walked in that door I walked in and He was so friendly and so open and I was a little bit nervous because this was actually the same time It was actually the same month that we were actually started art of one dojo Whenever I go into a new school or meet with a new instructor I'm a little bit apprehensive about how receptive they're gonna be about, you know, what I want to learn or are they going to Answer questions or they gonna be okay with me doing topics, you know video topics on on whatever subject And I walked in and instantly I knew by his greeting that I was in good company He asked me a bunch of questions. He got to know me. He told me about what he taught He told me about his background his passion for teaching. He wanted to know what I wanted to learn We actually I felt like we bonded in that first hour and he goes jump on the mat with us Give it a try and I wasn't expecting that. I'm like, yeah, okay Why not and by the end of the night, he had me doing flips in the air me, you know I'm not the I'm not the lightest guy He had me it was a confidence to do a jump flip in the air and land into a breakfall first class And I knew it was something very very different but I realized that this was what I wanted to learn because we did a bunch of stand-up grappling and He's very very good on teaching technique and I mean I'm not used to being picked up. I am not an easy person to pick up I am solid and he did it with ease and that was a very very foreign feeling for me And the more I trained with it the more I realized it meshes beautifully with Kempo. I am finding a Symbiosis between the two arts honestly, so there's times in jujitsu class where we're gonna go do a throw and I'm like Oh, I can do this strike here. I can do just a couple move here I can go into this vice versa. I'm in Kempo. I'm like, oh, I can do this take down here This work this was locked here For those who know American Kempo like you go back later. You learn extensions techniques I went through them all I learned them all years ago I kind of dropped most of them and now my extensions are jujitsu techniques If I'm gonna do a couple strikes a person and go for a take down I'm doing the shoulder throw or the wrist lock I'm gonna do the jujitsu techniques. I find them so beautifully well Malibu and and compatible with so many different arts and striking that it just I fell in love with it right away And I give a lot of credit. I want to give a shout out to my teacher Sheehan William Wood Fantastic school. I love training with them. He's family. He made me feel welcome right away So that's honestly the reason I chose that school. Hey guys Don't forget to pick up your own colors of combat t-shirt We've got a brand new collection 22 designs over multiple different martial arts That way you guys can wear your art with pride It's a way for us to support the channel without resorting to sponsorships while you guys have some really cool souvenirs So get your own now check out the link in the description art of Wendoja comm slash door Why I didn't go with BJJ why I didn't look around for that was because my previous Kempo instructor brought it You know, we were we were a just people school for a while and we did 5.0 for a while So we had some elements of that in there and then when my instructor broke off became his own school He he brought in a lot of BJJ himself We had grappling class separate from from a Kempo class and I'm not saying I'm I hold no rank in BJJ whatsoever, I know concepts I can I can grapple a little bit. I'm not good at it I'm rusty at it But I had a lot of exposure to it for a few years and at the time I was much better at the time So I felt like okay I have a good, you know, I'm versed enough where I could probably hold my own a little bit, you know In the experience BJJ guy will tie me up into a knot. I'm not gonna debate that But I had a good taste of it and I liked how it merged but I kind of felt like here was the ground stuff Here's a stand-up stuff. I felt like there was a middle area here I wanted to learn the stand-up grappling because that's an easy transition between stand-up to BJJ if you know judo and jujitsu it meshes beautifully with the ground stuff if it also meshes beautifully with the stand-up stuff So it was this is an example of and people ask me all the time, you know, I'm looking for a new art What should I what should I do? You know, I'm looking at this art this art this art in choosing the art You have to step back and look at what you want to learn in my case I I love Kemple Kemple is my home base, but I step back. I'm like, what do I feel like I'm missing? What's what's something I really want to learn and I'm not getting from this and it was the stand-up grappling So I had to identify My passion my my my goal and then I had to look at arts that I felt achieve that goal Judo was that answer until I looked a little bit closer and I fell in love with the Japanese Jitsu a little bit more Then a judo tends to be more sport too and then a lot of schools teach it the sport and sport rules I like the jiu-jitsu stuff because it's a little bit more Street-wise or street application and that's the thing too. I love about the classes You know, we'll learn a technique a certain way a certain throw He'll show us how to do it safely with our partners Then he'll tell us how you would do it in the street if you were doing it for self-defense How you would actually make it a little bit dirtier and it also oh here's how it's done in judo And he shows us the difference So that's my advice to anyone who's looking for another art if you want to venture outside of your art Then by all means go go look at you know ask yourself the question What do you feel like you're missing or what is it something that you're trying to add on to and then go and find that? And once you've identified that go visit the school talk to the instructor That's the number one thing go and talk to the instructor And I think you're gonna get a pretty good example right away if it's the right school for you