 If you had to pick three martial arts to train in today, which arts would you choose? Ah, but there's a catch. The current arts that you train in right now, they don't exist, so you're starting over as a new student. So what would you choose? We have Grandmaster Daryl Vidal with us today as a guest and we're going to explore cross-training and how we make the perfect blend. Now many of you know Mr. Vidal for his role in The Karate Kid, but he's also a lifelong martial artist with extensive experience in Kempo and the Filipino stick fighting system. So we're going to pick three martial arts, talk about how we blend them together and at the end we're going to pick an additional art that we throw in just for fun. Let's do it. Yeah, I think we have a fun topic in store for this time and we just want to reiterate for everyone who's watching, we're not approaching this from any point of academic or authoritative stance on these arts. We might be exploring some arts here that we might not even know a lot about, but the whole point of this drill is just for us to kind of spitball and brainstorm a little bit about if we were going to start over today from scratch but still kind of knowing what we know, what would we choose? You know, would we choose something that's similar to what we're doing now or choose something that we think looks cool? So we're going to apologize ahead of time if we get something wrong about an art. This is just, again, an exploration and we do invite everyone to give feedback down below if there's any insight you can provide or maybe even suggestions that could elaborate on this. And, sir, do you have anything to say before we go into this, any ideas? Because we did not actually share these ideas yet. No, no, we have it and I'm going in kind of cold, going along with Mr. Dan here on a fun adventure. And I just want to add to that disclaimer that, you know, I know my art and the few that I've studied, but, you know, at the risk of sounding ignorant about some other arts, let's give this a shot. Sounds good. So just to go over kind of like the rules of what we're doing here. So basically what we're doing is we're pretending that our arts don't exist. So for me, that would be American Kempo and Judo slash Santa Jiu-Jitsu. And for you, sir, that would be Kempo as well as Filipino stick fighting. Is that correct? That's correct. So we're going into this concept as if those arts don't exist. So we have to choose three arts to cross train ourselves for a self-defense point of view. So basically we're going on what we think would be a good mix for ourselves versus whether it be we like the ideas, we'd like the methods of teaching, we like the conditioning, we like the way it looks. However, we decided we're constructing our own mix. So it's just an exploration and what each one of us would do. And hopefully those watching, it kind of gives an insight to maybe a different perspective of how you can approach martial arts. And if you wanted to look to cross trains, just kind of taking a step back and look at the big picture and kind of figure out how to cherry pick what you would like to learn at the end. We're going to pick a fun one that we're going to do just for whatever reason, because it looks really cool. It could be really silly. It could be just another interesting art that we want to throw in. And we're going on the point of self-defense. And then maybe at the end we'll explore what would we change if we're going into a competitive vote instead? Okay. So would you like to go first, sir? What was the three arts? If you had to choose three brand new arts to start with, what's one of them that you choose? And just to comment a little bit of a, I think the challenge part of it is, um, is starting from scratch, right? Because both you and I, we've been kind of martial arts all our lives, right? So I can't even imagine a time when I didn't have, you know, the preconceived notions of what I've been studying, you know, Kempo. Uh, and so I had to kind of take myself out of that and kind of, like you say, clear my mind and figure out. So, uh, one of the first things that I came up with Kung Fu, San Su. And, uh, and the reason I brought this one to bear is because back when, um, I was younger, uh, and I would, you know, go be out and about going to tournaments or others and you would encounter other people who train and I met, uh, some, some guys who train in Kung Fu, San Su. And I said, Oh yeah, we should get together and spar, you know, to see how we can, you know, how to compare styles. And they said, uh, we don't spar. And I was like, I was kind of incredulous. You know, I was like, what do you mean you don't spar? You have to spar. How do you practice? And they said, no, the techniques that we practice are so deadly that, uh, we can't really spar. And, you know, I kind of scoffed at that and it, it really left a, uh, impression on me for a long time until I, I talked to this guy later, uh, and he kind of gave me an example. He had gotten in a, in a bar fight, uh, and he got, when the fight started, he got the guy in the headlock and, and put his fingers in his nose and ripped like that and tore the guy's nose. And of course the guy was just down after that. And so I said, Oh, I, I understand why you can't spar. Did you notice any sorts of overlap or any sorts of similarity in terms of the movements and the mechanics of what you've seen and compared to Campo? Uh, you know what? I think you'll, you'll, uh, you'll, um, take this heart. It was very similar to some of our, our own techniques. You know, now you do American Campo and mine is Chinese Campo, but you know, the way that we do our one step techniques, you know, our self-defense techniques where they come in and could be, because some of them were very similar, though, the way that they use, you know, a takedown or a joint lock to introduce a throw or something. Yeah, there were, there were a lot of those similarities. This was hard because I know, I originally were contemplating going over five arts and without that might have been too much, but, um, I had a hard time choosing just because there's a lot I want to try and there's a lot I don't know about, um, so I tried to think of what would be a good base. And after a little bit of searching, I think I've decided, um, my first start would probably be combat Sambo. Um, I looked at it for a little bit and I'm like, okay, well, it's got, um, it's, it's, it's a Russian martial art. It's grappling, but it's got a strong standup game. They punch and they kick. I love punching and kicking. They have that they've got some really good takedowns, grabs and a lot of trips, a lot of similar take sounds that you see in judo, as well as you've got ground fighting a little bit similar to BJJ, but there's also an emphasis on ground fighting with striking. So I kind of liked it as a hard conditioned martial art that had standup takedowns and some ground and pounds with the intention of getting right back up. So I thought that was kind of a, um, a good, uh, foundation to build onto just because it seems to have a little bit of everything in there. Yeah. Yeah. That was going to be my comment was that it seems to be one of those arts that incorporates, you know, like he said, standup, striking, kicking, uh, you know, uh, grappling and joint locks, but also the groundwork. Yeah. It seems to be like one of those, uh, all around, uh, arts. Uh, it's not as, uh, it doesn't have the mystique of, of, you know, the Asian martial art. It's Russian, but I always think of Fedor, obviously Fedor of Emilianco, uh, that's his, his art. So it's pretty well proven in the ring. I like the emphasis on competition and sparring. Like the sparring seems to be such a huge part of it. You just know that somebody who's really experienced in the art, they get their hands on you. You got a little bit of a fight on your hands for that. And I kind of, that intrigued me. And I don't know a lot about it. Like historically, I don't know a lot about its curriculum, but just a little bit I've seen. I'm like, it actually kind of set that little bell. Like, I'd be curious to learn more about that. So I think that would be, I think that would be my first choice into the four waves. Just, um, yeah, combat song will be my first one. Yeah. And even if you think of Fedor, you know, he, he's a striker, uh, but he's on the ground. The hell he's kicking, you know, doing the kicks. So very well rounded fighters. So I think, I think that's a good choice. All right. So as I started to, to deal with, you know, another one, I kind of went off in a lot of directions because I didn't know if, okay, from a self-defense standpoint, I almost went, I need to talk to Mr. Dan about, you know, what type of self-defense, you know, is it a bar fight? Is it a gang? Uh, there are a bunch of people, but then when I got right back to it, I said, you know what? It's self-defense, right? It's, it's not competition. Something that had solid striking, uh, because I'm, I've always favored striking. So I went with Muay Thai because I'm thinking, you know, there's, there's the, the clinching, uh, you know, there's the great, uh, handwork. And then there's the footwork and the kicking, you know, the legs, the leg kicking, which, which we know can be a devastating weight. And if you're not familiar with, with it, which, you know, I don't really do that in karate, you know, so if I got the ring with a Muay Thai, I would really be, we're afraid of getting the legs, you know, attacked. And, uh, and then, you know, the way that they train and fight is just very, uh, very aggressive, very, you know, uh, fast and I, you know, just, I think it's, it's the right, uh, level of, uh, aggression and violence that you want, uh, for a self-defense situation. So that's where I went with that one. Yeah, I have to agree with that. I actually had that, I was debating between that one and my third choice. And I went back and forth for a long time because for a lot of the reasons that you said, uh, those chopping kicks are just absolutely devastating. And, uh, my, my Kempel instructor, uh, for a while, he was training amateur MMA fighters and he implemented some, some minor techniques into our Kempel curriculum, but those leg kicks were definitely something we drilled a lot. And we would, we would do pad drills with it all the time. And I love that kick just because, I mean, you catch someone off guard with that, you're, you're sweeping your feet right out from underneath them, if not right leg. It's the mixture of boxing, which I love, you know, I've boxed for a while. So to me, boxing is, is one of those spaces that I think any striker needs. I always said that I didn't learn to punch until I learned to box, you know, I was already a black belt or it was a brown belt when I started boxing, but I kind of felt like, you know, learned how to punch when I learned how to box. Uh, and so, you know, Muay Thai incorporates that, but it has, it has the kicks and, and you know, like I said, the, you know, the violent, you know, violent, um, way of practicing it and attacking the body. So yeah, that's why I can't stop that. So for my second one, um, I thought for a little bit and I kind of leaned toward Krav Maga and not the standard Krav Maga that you would go out and like, like, if you just go, let's sign up for a school right now, a strip mall type school, there's a lot of really, really good schools and there's a lot of other schools that are questionable. But what sold me on it actually was, um, a previous guest that we had last year. His name is Aaron Cohen and he does a lot of tactical stunt work for film, but he also has extensive experience in the Israeli military and, um, he did a lot of special force work in, in, in the Middle East and he explained their method of training wasn't just, you know, we're just going to run through some drills, some partner drills, they went full contact, they went hard and they also would, um, outside the school have teams, they would ambush each other to the point like he goes, you could be out in the movie theater and one of your competitive teams in school could come up behind you and just attack you while you're watching the movie. And of course they would alert the local authorities that that was happening, but I'm thinking that is hardcore, but I'm like, well, if you're going to be in the Middle East, you know, capturing terrorists and you're going to want to be able to hold your own. So I think, um, I would probably choose a Krav Maga that went really hardcore with the, the weapon defense and also the weapon usage. Um, I think it's one of the, the arts out there that actually really has a good grasp on weapon self defense and weapons that are very, very common and also has the tactical edge to it so that if you want to learn how to, and I think using, learning how to use weapons is one of the better ways to learn how to defend it because you have to understand to begin with. So absolutely. And in addition to that, I also like Krav Maga in terms of, it's very similar to Kempo. What I like about Kempo is it's very close quarter. It's, you know, close quarter striking, limb destruction, body destruction and quick sequences. You're trying to overwhelm your attacker. And sometimes when I watch Krav Maga, I see a lot of similar emotions. So I thought, as far as my own physique, my own bodywork that would lend itself to, or that art would lend itself to be a bit more complimentary to myself since I do have the Kempo mentality, thought that something like Krav Maga with that intensity cranked up might have been a good option for my second art. Very good. Very good. And I think it's a good lead-in. My third one was between two, Krav Maga and Brazilian jiu-jitsu straight up because of, you know, an area to have, you know, some level of specialty. And obviously that's one I don't have, you know, I've watched it for, for the whole era. And so I could say I can analyze it from, you know, a armchair standpoint. But I don't, I wrestled in high school, but I don't practice, you know. So, you know, I can see a new Maplana. Can't say I can set it up. So, but I did go kind of gravitate toward Krav Maga for some of the same reasons that you enumerated, which is, you know, the fact that it's based on, you know, real warfare, if you will, you know, tactical, military type applications. Now, I had the same reservation with Krav Maga because if you watch videos on Krav Maga, they start to get like watching Kempo videos where, you know, and then he does his technique. And it's like, okay, wait, at what point is he not controlling that opponent and that this technique would slip away. And so, I start to see that. But again, when you bring in the way they train, you know, or like, you know, where they're really going full contact with each other and, you know, surprise situations, you know, no rules type of things. I think, I think that would be a factor. So, yeah, it was between the two, but Krav Maga is my third. My third one, and this is, this is where I almost picked Muay Thai and I had to go back and forth between the two. Ultimately, I had to go with the Japanese art of Kyokushin. And yeah, and the reason was I have a massive respect for that art. We did a documentary on it, but just watching them and talking to the practitioners, it's one of the few karate styles where I feel that when you see someone wearing a black belt, they've really earned that black belt. I mean, it takes anywhere from seven to 10 years to earn it, but they've got the conditioning there. I like the, it's got that cultural aspect to it. I do like the Japanese art arts. So, that drew me to it. It's got a little touch of Japanese karate and it's got Okinawan karate and it's a good mixture. And I like their, they've got a very unique style of close quarter fighting those, those body punches, those body strikes are just like bombs. And they've got very similar kicks to Muay Thai, not quite the same, but they've got a very similar chopping kick, but those body shots with those kicks and their leg kicks and then they, they've got those surprise spin kicks that you just don't see coming out of. Right. You just don't see them coming. You watch these tournaments. Yeah, so you watch some of these knockouts in tournaments and I'm blown away by it. Like, well, I mean, not that I would say that's good for South Princeton Street. I wouldn't risk doing a jump spinning, you know, heel kick, whatever. Or the one where you go down and come like that. Exactly. But I just see, I see them when they land and like that's that, that would end the fight quickly, but I like the conditioning to it. I like the cultural aspect to it and I love the close quarter. I'm going to eff you up with these body shots and with these devastating kicks and the similar chopping power that that Muay Thai has. So I had the balance to do for a while and I ultimately went with Kielkeshan just for really more of the cultural aspect. And I like the karate element built into that. Yeah. When we first talked about our first choice, the alternate first choice was Kielkeshan because one, I'm a big fan of all of my early reading was Masayama and, you know, and the reason my Instagram is rock breaker boys is because I learned from his book kind of break rocks. Now he's demoed rock breaking. And so Kielkeshan is hardcore, you know, they fight, yeah, the body punches, you know, they pummel each other and, you know, some of those kicks coming out of nowhere. So I like that as a choice. I definitely am a believer in that. At the higher levels and ages, we start to, you know, hit each other harder and actually punch each other and take that punch and do some more of that conditioning training. So I think it's important because ultimately, you know, kids, when they're sparring, it takes them a while to learn that, oh, you know what, you really can't hurt me that bad, you know, even if even if you knocked the wind out of me, that's not that big a deal. And, you know, if our shins hit, it hurts for a minute and then it's kind of like, well, you know, you kicked me and you did knock me out. So I'm still standing here. Here I come. Okay, so officially, so your list was Sansyu Kung Fu, Muay Thai and Krav Maga, correct? Yes, that's correct. And mine was combat Sambo, Krav Maga and Kielkeshan. If we weren't going to say, okay, that's for self defense. If we were going to alter this list at all for competition, what changes would you make? If your goal was just to compete only, like forget the self defense side of it. If you just wanted to go in the ring or do a tournament circuit, whatever it was for competition, what would your choices be? I think one of my choices, I don't know, I haven't really think about three choices, but I think one of my choices from, you know, what I've seen is just to go straight up Taekwondo because, you know, their tournaments are widely seen, they're global, their organization is global. So they kind of all do it the same way. You know, they're great kickers. And I like that about, you know, they're they're ranging and staying outside and throwing the crazy kicks, which I used to be able to do not so much anymore. But yeah, I think that would probably be a great competition art to study. I didn't even think of Taekwondo until you just mentioned it now. And I think in the back of my mind, I put it out of my mind because I know every time I see them do it, my brain says, that'd be fun to do, but I know I could never do those kind of kicks. So I think I actually kind of forgot about the art. Like I didn't even enter my consideration because I just can't move like that. Right. Exactly. That's interesting. But you're absolutely right. I mean, as far as competitive fighting, they're one of the top for that. I mean, talk about them in those kicks. Yeah. And the acrobatics doing it in an application, I used to smart like that, you know, because, you know, you know, nowadays you and I, we're both, you know, Kemple stylists, we we come in hard, straight in, you know, hands, you know, kicks, kicks as setups mostly. But in the older days, you know, I might have been able to do some, you know, stuff I did in the Karate Kid. I would do, I wouldn't do them in tournament, but I would do them sparring, you know, just for fun. As far as changes for my list, I made two alterations. One, I think if it was competition only, I'm definitely switching out the Kyokushin for the Muay Thai. I just think that's a little bit more like what you're saying is that's, I think they're better suited for that because I wouldn't need the culture side of it. And a lot of the stuff I liked about Kyokushin, I wouldn't need that for competition. And I think that kind of Muay Thai into that slot. And instead of Krav Maga, I'd probably switch out for boxing. Just like you said, it's one of the best striking arts. I've never done it myself. I've always kind of be curious about it. And I want to do it because that's only going to improve any strikes that I know. So I think, especially in terms of competition, if you don't have boxing, you're at a disadvantage. I agree with that on a couple of fronts. You have to be a good striker, but it depends again where you're competing, right? Because here's a couple of thoughts. One is, if you're competing in the UFC, you got to have the boxing game, right? But Lioro Vachita has shown that the karate range can be effective in the UFC. Karate was like, ah, karate doesn't really work. But I think he certainly has shown that it does. But then if if you're doing straight boxing and you're competing in straight boxing, then that's it's very technical and conditioning is everything. Now, if you were to throw in an art in there that was just for fun, whether you like the way it looked, you thought it might be fun to do as a hobby, whatever reason, what would your bonus art be? Okay, and this was an easy one because I always thought about it and I toyed with the idea. And now with getting older, I probably wouldn't be as good at it. But Capoeira is one that's always fascinated me. And there's some of the stuff that I used to be able to do and from a Karate Kid type of movement, but it's even more drawn out. Yet to tie it into a fighting art, I think it's way out there for me. But that's what I probably, it was my pick for the other art. Very fluid, very fluid. And you do see it pop up in the UFC, so it does have a reality to it, yeah. Absolutely, yeah. So for my art, I wrestled with two of them. My runner-up, which is kind of ironic what I said about Taekwondo. My runner-up might be Vovenam, the Vietnamese Karate style. Because I like watching their demos because they are extremely acrobatic and they do like what you see out of the Marvel films, like the Black Widow, you know, I'm gonna jump on your shoulders and do like this half spin and flip you this way. I think that, I mean, I would never do that for self-defense, but I think that is fun and it's interesting and I kind of like that they've got their unique flair to the martial arts, but if I were to pick an art, took me a little bit to think of, but I think I would probably try and forgive me anyone out there if I pronounce this wrong, but Bahtariak, the Irish chick fighting? Oh. But I've watched some of their work and I love the way they manipulate the stick. Do they use a Shalely? Yes, I love that one too. Oh, yeah. But I like, it's very fluent. It's very, it can be flashy at times from what I've seen. I like how creative the locks and disarms and the takedowns are with it. And with a weapon like the Shalely, I mean, if I'm not mistaken, you've got the hard end so that's a great striking tool. And I think that can translate it over to everyday objects. You know, if you've got a stick, if you've got a cane, if you've got an umbrella, now you have an object with a hook on it, I think Irish chick fighting would actually be really fun. I love how it's saturated with its culture, its background. I don't know much about the background, but you look at it and you're like, you can see it teaming with culture. And I think it would blend well as a weapon defense or a weapon art with the other art. So if I had to pick one for fun, I think that would be the one. Yeah, the two you came up with are two names I've never heard of. I have seen a Vietnamese martial art because the studio used to come to one of our tournaments and it was like, oh, I've never seen that before. Oh, no. Okay, I've never heard that. And then the Irish one, I mean, I know that there's all kinds of different European fighting arts, but so I haven't heard the name that you use stuff for that one either. I probably butchered it too. I'm going to put the name up on the screen. So those who know, who know the art know what I'm trying to say. They can correct us, yeah. I've heard people say it. I can't repeat it. It sounds a very, very Irish word and it's one of those words you look at. You're like, that's how that's pronounced, but I just find it fascinating. Yeah, sounds great. And the cool thing with the Vietnamese one, their uniforms, their standard uniforms are like a blue, like a light blue, which you don't really, you don't see that very often in traditional martial arts. So yeah, I think that was fun. I just want to say this was just for anyone watching, this is just a drill that we wanted, an exercise we wanted to try. We're not trying to come up with the best arts out there. We're not trying to be authoritative figures on any of these arts. This was kind of like, oh, what if, you know, if we're going to start over, knowing kind of what we know now and we can't choose our arts, what will we start and kind of how would we approach cross training? Like if we were starting from the beginning, how would we cross train from the beginning, choosing three different arts? And I think this list would be completely different for every person watching. I'm sure everyone would have their own. Absolutely. And I think, I think everybody should try the exercise because, you know, you automatically bring your own biases into a whole analysis. And then when you have to stop and say, wait a minute, let's pretend I don't know, you know, that my art doesn't exist. I don't know any of it. And then try this exercise. So, you know, if they want to comment with their three, I'd be interested to see those. Absolutely. So yeah, guys were all officially invited. Paste down below and into the comments section. What would your three yards be? And even how would you change it from competition to self-defense and even put some fun arts you want to explore? So, yeah. So thank you guys for watching. Thank you Mr. for joining us today. This was a lot of fun. This was fun. And I think this is actually like you said that everybody should take a part of because it's just it's just taking a step back and because it's too easy to get stuck in what you're doing in the martial arts. And I think it's worth taking a breath, stepping back and just kind of seeing what your neighbors are doing and, you know, what you could learn from that. And, you know, there's nothing saying that we can't try some of these arts today. And, you know, if you're watching pick different arts and just see how it mixes with what you're doing. Sometimes it's surprising what the overlap can be. All right. All right. Well, and there's a final note. I'll send you a Vidal Kemplow Karate shirt if you can send me an Art of One Dojo shirt. You got it. Absolutely. All right. All right. Thank you so much for coming on, sir. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So I do want to reiterate that we're not endorsing anything or not declaring which arts are the best. This was just a thought exercise on looking for attributes on constructing a personal mix of martial arts based on our individual goals and needs. Now, just an exploration in the perspective of knowledge and hopefully that this can provide some inspiration and insight to help some of you construct your own personal mix if that's what you're seeking. Now, I want to thank Master Vidal for spending this time with us today. If you are interested in another art comparison exercise, check out a discussion here in which we talk about and compare our very two different versions of Kemplow, what makes them similar and what makes them different, and the attributes that we feel make it such a great art.