 Over the past year and a half, I've been training different martial arts from boxing to Muay Thai to Wing Chun and MMA. And these are 10 things I learned as a beginner. Andrew, you picked it back up after 20 years like that. You didn't stop at Taekwondo like the rest of the family. Woo, yeah, I'm really glad I got back into it. And again, guys, I'm not an expert. I've only trained for about a year and a half. I've obviously have more experience in some of these martial arts than others. Okay, but this is my opinion. You guys let me know in the comments down below. Again, you may disagree with me. My opinion may change in the future, but this is what I'm thinking so far. No, I think it's gonna be a good list because this is your 18th month journey, jumping like head first or like two feet into it. And it's good because you still have that fresh eye perspective. Yeah, and you know, I'm just saying, this is stuff I've given a lot of thought. So anyways, please hit that like button, check out other episodes of the hot pop boys. And David, something else that we gave a lot of thought to recently too was, smile law guys, that's smoky, smile law together, smilelawsauce.com from search, quantitatively. I'm telling you, there is nothing like this out on the market right now. I think it goes amazing on pasta, noodles, rice, any other sort of carbohydrates. I'm telling you, it gives you that extra kick. You don't need to use too much but you could use a lot if you want. Finding the recipe for that took about 14 months and a lot of different iterations. So I'm very proud of that chili oil. Anyways, also proud of my journey through martial arts. All right, so what is the first thing that you learned? Because anytime, I would imagine there was a very steep learning curve after giving up martial arts, taekwondo in like fifth grade. Yeah, so for the past like however many decades I've just been, I ran track in high school and then been playing a lot of basketball, right? And maybe a few other sports here and there. But essentially number one, everybody and especially men, I believe should pick up martial arts later in life. A lot of us did some type of martial arts when you were a kid because your parents wanted you to get into sports and get physical and all that stuff. But a lot of us to our own accord, stop doing it and now I'm in my 30s and I picked it back up and I think it was very, very important and I learned a lot since then. Right, I mean I guess why, what is it like did you take away from it? Yeah, I mean overall I would just, and I'm gonna get into more specifics but I will say this like it was the first time that I pushed my body to that limit since high school. And in high school sports, running track and playing basketball, that's when I pushed myself but I have not pushed myself to near exhaustion. Maybe some of the basketball tournaments we played where we're very tired, where we're hoofing and puffing and you're just like, you sweat like six pounds of water but essentially when I trained martial arts I try to push myself. I know what you're saying because pick up basketball very, very seldomly, maybe one out of every 20 times turns into that tear. Yeah, and also listen, you learn a lot about yourself, about your individual self. You know, it's not really a team sport as much but you do meet a lot of people and I'll say this, martial arts is best when combined with life experiences but anyways, we'll get into point number two, David and I think this is an interesting point that a lot of people need to be reminded of in my opinion is that the streets are not a dojo. And what I mean by that is that when, the reason why I got into martial arts primarily was probably the idea of self-defense following everything that has happened the past three, four years, right? But street self-defense is different than learning how to fight in a gym. How you learn to fight, whether it's boxing or MMA or Muay Thai in a gym environment, there's a lot of rules and you're basically training to be in a refereed fight. You're not training for the streets. Street survival and street self-defense encompasses all bunch of different things, awareness, running away, using verbal cues, recognizing people, looking, intimidating yourself. That's all a bunch of stuff you're not learning in the gym because you're learning just technique on how to punch, kick, and avoid things in a fight. Right, I guess is it comparable to saying, okay, there's fencing in the Olympics and then there's sword fighting in the medieval days to try to kill each other? And for sure, a fencer transported in a time machine is gonna be better than any regular person at the sword fighting, but not necessarily gonna be the best sword fighter on planet earth if they transport back in time. Yeah, what I learned from doing martial arts and training different martial arts is learning martial arts does not guarantee your safety or victory in the streets because the streets, in the streets, and if you talk to a lot of self-defense experts which I've had some conversations with, rage, aggression, and power usually will trump basic technique because the streets are random, it's aggressive, and everything like that, but that's not to say you shouldn't learn martial arts because obviously if you have some of that rage and awareness in you and you have martial arts technique then it's way better. Right, is that why some people like very specific Krav Maga schools that are very into adrenaline testing, cortisol testing, like pressure testing, like they have the fake knives and the fake, et cetera, weapons and things like that. Yeah, I took one Krav Maga class, but I'm not gonna say that I'm an expert on that, but yes, from what I know, you basically, the dojo and the gym are essentially isolated areas where a lot of people come to, you pay a membership to, and you learn how to fight, and it's a very supportive community which I'm gonna get into, but it is not the streets. I'm sorry, it's not the streets. It can translate somewhat, but it's just different. Oh no, trust me, if you're a street kid and you learn the technique, then you're way better off. Yeah, I mean, I would say just to bring it back to basketball, five-on-five schematic play-action basketball is absolutely different than isolation-heavy streetball. There's some crossover and some people can't be good at both, but they're different skill sets. Exactly, point number three. Training martial arts for me has been great for my mental, my confidence, my cardio, my flexibility, finding community, even my breathing and basically everything. So I think that, obviously I'm very glad that we play a lot of basketball because I think basketball is a very social sport and there's a lot of, you're managing a lot of different interactions every time you guard somebody. It's a lot of talking. And it's a lot of talking, can be trash talking, but there's a lot of communication. I think martial arts for your individual self is very, very important. Are you talking about like if we were robots, right? And you couldn't put infographics overlaid on us, like we're robots, like we got inner machinery and these different valves. It teaches you more to manage your inner buckets. Yeah, yeah. And what I love about martial arts gyms is that they're kind of a governed place because usually random people, if they come in there and they wanna act up and have a bad attitude, they're gonna get checked pretty quickly because you're gonna have someone like Jeff Chan just spar you and let you know like, hey bro, there's a hierarchy in this place so you don't act up. We treat everybody with respect. So you're saying you saw a lot less toxic attitudes present in the dojo or the martial arts gym versus the basketball court. Yeah, exactly. Like when we, you know, in my little boxing group that I have, like I get to help very beginning, people who are zero out of 10 boxing get to like one or two out of 10 boxing which I'm only that experienced, right? But I would say like that type of like, I feel the same way when I got to like mentor little kids in basketball. I just think that any time you learn martial arts though, you really feel like you accomplished something and it is a generally positive environment for the most part. Yeah, no, that's good. I totally see that and I totally see actually how toxic basketball can be, especially pickup. Trust me, I know a lot of people who stopped playing basketball in their older years because how toxic pickup basketball can get. Yeah, to be honest, I would almost say bad attitudes can be sometimes on the court six out of 10, like six out of 10 people are not playing basketball the right way. They're not taking the lessons away from the game that they should be, that Kobe would want them to. No, they take the most like toxic, like ball hog parts of Kobe, but they're not leaning into the whole like self-development part that Kobe was like, actually ultimately more about. Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of those people like Kobe and like obviously like a lot of other people, they've taken some level of martial arts. I don't know, it's good for the mental. Anyways guys, point number four, no single martial arts is the best for self-defense. Now I'm not a self-defense expert but I have watched a lot of videos and tried to study this as much as I can and asked a lot of questions to a lot of coaches. And generally self-defense, it's like we said, it matters a lot on your environment, in your situation, how many people are there, how many people are you dealing with, who are you responsible for, what type of situation? Do you find yourself more in? Are you fighting a person or a group or what are the actual threats in their proximity to you? When it comes to self-defense, the easiest answer is to not be in those situations. If you get in those situations, get out of those situations and number three, have a weapon. A lot of people, most people would never recommend you fight as much as possible. That is the absolute last resort. So while I wanna say most experts usually rank Muay Thai and wrestling, some type of combination of those two at the top, one for grappling in case you are not in a striking distance or someone tries to wrap you up or striking Muay Thai and boxing because you're gonna use your fist and fist. You're saying Muay Thai, boxing and jujitsu would be the stack at the very top of the, let's just say there's like 25 martial arts. If you do those three for self-defense, that's what the general opinion is. That is what a lot of people, everything from Jocko to Jeff Chan to Heart to Hurt, they would say essentially. But of course, the best self-defense is just not being in those situations, avoiding those people and using your verbal, you know, abilities to get out of it. De-escalation or to exit the situation or to create space. David, deterrence, which is, you just look really intimidating yourself so people don't mess with you. That's also a self-defense. Yeah, I mean, animals use it in the wild. Yeah, I mean, listen, if you got full sleeve tattoos and tattoos on your neck, I think people are less likely to mess with you. Surprise, surprise! Point number five, sparring drills, light sparring and hard sparring are probably what you will find the most fun and that's what I find the most fun. So what I mean by sparring is, they're sparring drills where you kind of hit each other but it's with a rhythm and it's a drill so you know what's coming. And then there's light sparring, which is like kind of free for all and you are trying to hit each other but you're throwing punches super light, you're pulling back when you're about to hit each other and then hard sparring, which is where you're essentially more or less hitting people. But you're not still going 10 out of 10, right? Like even in the hard sparring? No, generally in sparring, you would not go 10 out of 10 unless, I guess, there are situations where you go 10 out of 10. I'm sure right before a fight, you know, Javante Davis probably does a round that's probably at least nine out of 10 or 10 out of 10. You know what I mean? Makes sense. Yeah, because drilling to me like doing the drills on your own and hitting pads, I love that but there's something about the adrenaline rush that I feel like prepares you for real life situations when you're sparring because essentially those are like miniature fights. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, just like a lot of people's favorite part of basketball practice is scrimmage, which is typically at the end where you're applying all the concepts you've been drilling on in some sort of parsed out way in the earlier parts of the practice. Exactly, sparring is essentially like a scrimmage on different levels, right? Point number six, this is a personal thing that I don't know, maybe a lot of people didn't think about. You will feel cool after you train martial arts and you will actually want to fight. So I think for a lot of people, and I can't say for everybody, but a lot of the time when you have some newly acquired skills, you want to use them. You're eager because you're like, ooh, I know how to throw up straight now. I know how to do all this now. And then there's kind of this eagerness to use it, which you really shouldn't because you're not that well-trained and you might get in a fight, you might get in a situation where the other person's more trained than you, right? And that overconfidence is gonna lead to a negative situation for yourself. It's possible, but I will say this. It's like, it all comes together in the bucket of feeling more confident and cool. You also want to use it. But then there's that other side of you that tells you, no, no, no, no, no. You don't know this that well. Just keep training, young one, and be like a Zen warrior, you know? Yeah, and I heard that. Is it true that once the people get past five or 10 years, they don't want to fight again? But for the people within the first several years, the three years, they really want to showcase it. I think it's different for everybody. But yeah, in the beginning, your learning curve is very high. So now you think you've improved a lot. You learn how to read some shoulder dips or people telegraphing things and you're like, yeah, I'm unstoppable. Yeah, you need to do a shoulder roll and everybody's doing the Philly shell because that looks cool. And, you know, that's what Mayweather does. And then you want to fight people like that. But point number seven, training hard should hurt sometimes. I think that if you train martial arts and you're kicking and punching and you're doing other things like that, you should bruise yourself sometimes. First few kicks I threw, even with Jeff Chan, I kind of hurt the front of my foot where the front of my ankle, you know, because you're hitting it with your foot. I didn't hit it with my shin, so it hurt. But I think in a way, once you kind of get in that mindset, it does feel good to kind of come away from training and being like, ooh, I'm kind of sore, but that means you accomplish something. Point number eight, I believe, this is my opinion, is that all martial arts have some merit and universal principles that do work and can work in real life. But yes, there are martial arts that are just a little bit more practical than others. And what I mean is like, I think Muay Thai, with its accessibility, the amount of people who train and the accessibility to coaching is really what a lot of people want to learn. Also, it also uses boxing as well, right? While Wing Chun, I believe there are principles in Wing Chun that immediately you can use, you know? But to master Wing Chun, it takes a lot longer, there's less gyms, there's less teaching, it's very teacher dependent, it's less, and there's more variation depending on the lineage. Well, would you say that maybe Wing Chun training early on, it doesn't provide that dopamine rush that a lot of people are looking for, that hardcore sweat, that like 10 out of 10, my cardio vascular is going crazy, all my levels are surging? Also, I've heard from a lot of people if you're gonna train Krav Maga, it helps to have a background in some striking before. Like learning boxing or Muay Thai, and then learning Krav Maga makes a lot more sense. So anyways, there's different ways, but obviously lesson. If you're gonna learn, get into one, get into one martial arts that's accessible for you, that's fun, you got friends in, it's gonna be great. Different people are probably gonna resonate with different ones internally. Yeah, maybe it's Wing Chun, that's fine, I think Wing Chun is really great, but I also think there's tons of boxing gyms and tons of Muay Thai and MMA gyms, right? Number nine, martial arts obviously is very much based on the teacher and the school. Like there's gyms that you go to one gym and they're talking trash about another gym, they don't like how they train or they call themselves an MMA gym, but they're just doing that for marketing. My style is superior to your style. Are you referring to the, this is a prototypical martial arts archetype. No, dude, when I got into conversations with people who work at gyms and own gyms, I was like, oh, there is kinda like that old school drama like, yo, man, oh, that coach left that gym to go to this gym, that coach left, I didn't really like how they taught at that gym. Are you saying it was a little bit like the old school Chinese kung fu movies where like my master beat your master? There's definitely a lot more drama than I thought, but I felt like between boxing gyms, it's because boxing is more standardized versus even MMA and Muay Thai, I guess. I think the training for boxing is, I guess so standardized. I don't know, maybe there's people between boxing gyms too. You let me know in the comments down below. Number 10, people train different martial arts for different reasons. Obviously, we have a good friend who trains Wing Chun. He loves Wing Chun and BJJ, but he likes Wing Chun because it's not going to like sever your nerves on your leg and you don't have to like, it's not as ballistic. So something. You're saying low risk of nerve damage. Yeah, it's something that you can do when you're older, but it still is martial arts and you still learn high technique, right? Wing Chun is a very high technique thing, but then you also times it with BJJ, which is a very tiring wrestling type style, grappling type style, martial arts, where you're really trying to like untie a knot. Would you say that some are way more cerebral and some are way more just straight up physical in the sense of just like pounding the heavy bag and like just Muay Thai, you know what I mean? Like that's like. Listen, I'm not a master at any of these, but from what I heard that mastering any of these at a high level, it is cerebral, right? But I think at a base level, things like Wing Chun seem way more cerebral than boxing, but to master either of them, you have to have high technique. I'm sure I know Mayweather is may not be the most eloquent person or may not even have the highest level of reading ability, but he could probably break down boxing in a highly technical manner, you know what I mean? So anyways, those are the 10 things that I learned. Hopefully this video was helpful for me personally. I'll say I love playing basketball and doing martial arts at the same time. Do I have a favorite martial arts? I think my favorite martial arts right now is the one that is the most accessible and the one that's most fun and the one that is the most gratifying, okay? And I think that for a lot of people, you should judge a martial arts based off that. If you have a good friend that trains in it, start training with them, whatever it is, you know what I mean? And that's just gonna get you into the system. No, for sure, for sure. I mean, I think that from what I can tell, it's something that everybody should pick up, at least dabbling. At least for a season, like half a year or a year. Like when you're later in life, do it for a year, at least to kind of update yourself. I think it's kind of like to refresh yourself and to kind of show yourself, hey, I'm like, I'm 25 or hey, I'm 45 and this is what my body can do. Yeah, I think the biggest takeaway for me as somebody who does not do martial arts is I started to notice how untoxic and how progression based the training environments for martial arts are versus pick up basketball, where it's a lot of people sort of like validating their own insecurities or just like being selfish that day because they had a bad day at work so they shoot the ball every time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, definitely basketball can be very toxic. Obviously we met some very great friends through basketball, but I think that when you do both a team sport and an individual martial arts, I think that's a great combination and that's why I recommend it. Doesn't have to be basketball, could be soccer, could be pickleball, but do- And there is a lot of Asian guys that are professional in martial arts too. Yeah, yeah. More than basketball for sure. Well, to be honest, in sports, leagues, there's, it's more uneven because I could be guarding a guy who's six-five versus I'm probably not gonna spar or fight a guy who's six-five, unlikely, right? It's more weight classed out. But anyways, I do plan on taking a wrestling or judo or BJJ class, a specific BJJ class soon, but those are the things. So let me know in the comments down below what you guys think. Hey, hit Andrew up on social media if you guys wanna train any type of martial arts. We might be adding this aspect to the channel. If you guys are trainers out in New York, let me know. I'm down to link up because I think that's really fun too. So anyways, guys, that's my journey so far. Let me know in the comments down below what your feedback is. I might not know anything. Maybe what I just said all sounded like BS. Did you agree with Andrew what he said? What's your own personal journey within martial arts? What specific martial arts? What do you think about the beef between different styles and ranking this style versus over that style? Those are always fun discussions. Keep it civil. We encourage the debate. Until next time, we're gonna hop out boys. We out. Peace.