 What exactly is American Karate? Is it the specific system or school or is it the classification of martial arts under a larger umbrella? Now martial arts in America is often subject to debate and today we have a special guest with us to share some insight perspective. Derek Wayne Johnson is a lifelong martial artist in American Karate with extensive competition experience as well as an extremely talented filmmaker with documentaries such as King of the Elder Dogs and 40 Years of Rocky. So what is American Karate? Let's talk to him and find out. Well, first of all, before we get started, I want to congratulate you on your recent achievement. You were accepted to the Carthage Arts Walk of Fame. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Thank you. Thank you. And also it's good to be back on your show. Yeah, I'm from a small town in East Texas called Carthage. It's a population like 6,000 people. And they were so delightful. They inducted me into the Carthage Main Street Arts Walk of Fame and they gave me the first star. It's not really a star, but it's a plaque in the sidewalk outside of a old movie theater. And that was just really, really cool, really neat. It's kind of like, you know, my hometown saying like, we see what you're doing out there. It was really nice. So let's start from the beginning. Tell us how did you get started at the Martial Arts and what was your first class experience like? Wow. So naturally, our generation, hello, the Karate Kid movies. I think we mentioned last time I was on the show, like the Last Dragon, you know, Bloodsport, like all those movies in the 80s and 90s certainly had a hand in the influence. I really wanted to be a martial artist, but small town in East Texas, there weren't many options. So actually, as a preteen, I would go to the library, kind of like Daniel LaRusso, and I would train out of a book and do the techniques and learn from a book. Then I was playing, you know, team sports and things like that, baseball and all that stuff. I was very small, very skinny, little kid. And when I was 13, I caught a flyer at school for a karate program. And, you know, I rushed home and, you know, showed it to my, to my parents and my dad, who had trained a little bit and showed a con was like, I don't know, I don't want your nose getting broke or anything like that. And my mom like knew, you know, he wants to do this. So she signed me up. I was 13. And I've been with that school ever since. First class, I remember it very, very well. I mean, here I am 13 in a geek in a karate class. I remember I'll never forget this first self-defense technique I learned was to go for the eyes. I've never used it in a real fight, but I learned it that day. It was great. And I remember walking out, just going like, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life after the first class. Can you tell us a little bit about your school and your instructors? The school that I've been affiliated with since I was 13 is the East Texas American Society of Karate, E-T-A-S-K for short. And that is a branch of the American Society of Karate. And that's headed by Mr. Bill Gray out of Houston, Texas. Huge organization. And that's how my instructor, Mr. Robert Lamont of E-T-A-S-K, earned his black belt. We take a lot of pride in calling it a society. I never really thought about that when I was coming up through the ranks, that this isn't a club and I've come to appreciate that going into my 40th year that I'm a part of a society of karate. I think that's a really interesting aspect of what I do. Now, the term American Karate can mean a lot of different things to different people. When you use this term, American Karate, are you talking about a specific curriculum or system? Or is it more of a generic umbrella under, like what you would call it, just karate in general here in the United States? Both. Both. And I'll explain. So it is a style, American Karate. That is the style that I've practiced since I was 13. And it's a style all its own. And it's also, American Karate could be used for that umbrella of systems in America. But that style is kind of one of its own, you know, different. Aspects of it, different branches and whatnot. But it all kind of falls under that umbrella. I would say that American Karate is a hybrid or middle ground of traditional and modern martial arts. We're certainly traditional in some aspects, and then we're certainly modern in other aspects. So I would say a hybrid or a middle ground of traditional and modern martial arts. How does what you're describing differentiate from other systems that have been, say, just Westernized? That is a good question. I think only I can only really answer that, I guess, just from what I know, what American Karate is and the things that we teach. I think that one thing is we certainly start off in a side stance. So we don't do necessarily traditional orthodox boxing stance, although we do in some instances, but we start off with a side stance. That's, to my knowledge, a very Westernized stance, you know, the Superfoot Bill Wallace system of fighting and, you know, minimizing your target. Also, I would say we simplify techniques. In other words, we learn a great deal of the amount of techniques. Don't get me wrong, traditional, modern, etc. We do quite a bit. But I think that we focus it in and we harness it in to just basic fundamental techniques that work, staying practical. We differ from other styles that are Westernized. We don't do extreme kata. We do kata, but not the extreme tournament forms of kata. Again, we just keep it kind of a five or six, seven basic techniques and sparring that work, but we cover a wide range of techniques in our curriculum. Now you mentioned Bill Superfoot Wallace. How has he represented in your system and what kind of influence has he had on your school and the society of the karate systems that you work with? Well, I would say that Bill Superfoot Wallace is one of the pioneers of American karate. I mean, and obviously Ed Parker as well, and there are others, Joe Lewis, etc. Bill Superfoot Wallace, I mean, he's a legend in our system. As a matter of fact, my school is a part of the Superfoot system. We are affiliated with that. So I have a black belt in the Superfoot system as well as the American Society of Karate and East Texas American Society of Karate. Again, all encompassing. So his influence is undeniable. I mean, again, I mentioned the side stance. He's close with with Mr. Bill Gray, as I mentioned earlier, and he's been to the East Texas American Society of Karate many, many times for seminars and classes and tournaments with Mr. Robert Lamont, my instructor. So he is clearly an influence on American karate, a pioneer, a true champion, a legend, and a lot of his techniques. Again, he likes to simplify things. I think he talks about, you know, he does back to strike, jab, hook, cross, side kick, roundhouse kick, hook kick, and that's about all he relies on. Well, we do more than that. But we, again, when we're sparring, we focus heavily on those techniques. That comes from Bill Wallace. Now you mentioned kata, and I want to kind of revisit that for a second. You mentioned that your system doesn't focus super heavy on deep kata, but you do have kata in your system. Can you tell us a little bit about what kata you do have? So, yeah, as I mentioned before, we don't really emphasize on extreme kata, you know, that kind of the screaming and the acrobatical style, which is fine. I mean, that's their thing. And we don't necessarily just focus on traditional Japanese and Okinawan kata. We kind of have our own American karate style of kata. Same fundamentals that come from the Japanese and Okinawan styles. And we have, you know, for example, we do H-forms. So we have H-form 1, 2, 3, and 4, which are pretty basic katas. And we have Tosan, which is a very universal kata. And then we take it into other katas as well. We have one called, that's a step up in Tosan called Destiny. That was, I believe, created by Mr. Bill Gray. And then we go into original katas, weapons katas, where you start forming your own. So we have that foundation and then you can take it as far as you want to take it. But I like to keep it grounded with kata and I'm a big believer in kata. I mean, it's a formal exercise. It's breathing, it's tension, it's technique. Obviously, in my opinion, I'm not going to perform kata while in a real fight or sparring. Certainly one of my problems I have with Karate Kid Part 3, using kata in the tournament. I do believe in kata and if it gets rooted in the foundations and it helps you perfect your techniques and your breathing and your tension, balance, etc. So again, taking that hybrid, I think, of coming from traditional forms and katas and modernizing it and simplifying it. And talking about the competing and sparring, I understand there's a great emphasis on competition and sparring. Can you tell us a little bit about how your school approaches that and what your experience in competition is? Absolutely, yes. We are very, very heavy on sparring. And let me say again, we're also heavy on kata. And in our tournaments and competitions, we do both. We do kata and we do sparring. Those are the two main things that we do for competition. We focused a great deal on kata when I was coming up. And now sparring seems to really, really, really, really be more of a focus because we're sweating. We're moving. We're exerting ourselves. We're competing with someone else. We're filling that person out because you can translate that into full contact or into a real fight. But also just that competitive spirit. I've been competing since, again, 13, 14 years old in numerous tournaments. I can't even remember how many tournaments I've been in, but I love to compete. I don't see I'll ever stop competing. And I just love how karate is kind of making a comeback in the sense. I mean, you probably see the hat I'm wearing. This is karate combat, which is one of my favorite sports. And I love watching karate combat because it's kind of like, that's us. That's our thing. Those are our guys. You know, they're out there doing what, you know, I wish that leave was around 20 years ago. I might would have signed up. It's amazing to see that growing. It's also a nice answer to any people who would say that karate wouldn't work in MMA. We're actually seeing it in karate combat. It does work in a full contact situation. These techniques do work when the person applies them in the same athletic manner, in discipline manner that these athletes do. Absolutely. And I think it's also terrific that some of the spokesmen for karate combat are karate people, Bass Rooton, George St. Pierre, Steven Thompson. I mean, these are the Odomachita. I don't want to leave anyone out. These legends are saying, look, it works. Here's a league that shows exactly that works. And of course, those guys have all fought in the UFC and showed that karate works. And that's one thing I wanted to bring up as well is American karate. It sounds like, you know, we just do a bunch of techniques in kata. We do ground fighting. We do throws, we do sweeps, we do takedowns. We get on the ground and we fight. Does that mean that we do jiu-jitsu? No, I don't want to ever say that, like, I know jiu-jitsu, I don't. And I mentioned to you last time I want to get started in that. But what I love about karate and especially American karate is I feel like we take all aspects and we just take what works. So we fight standing up. We fight on the ground. We don't fight at all, which is the best form of fighting as far as self-defense. That is also something that separates us from others is in American karate is it is American karate, a melting pot, just like America, where we're taking, you know, Western boxing, we're taking karate, kickboxing, judo, jiu-jitsu, and we're doing it all and staying practical with it. Yeah, and this is an observation of my like, I like to look at the different generation. So when people talk about different types of karate, you know, when they're like, oh, there's there's there's Sean Rue. There's there's Gojiru. I'm like, I like to look at types of karate more in generation. So you've got the Okinawan generation, the Japanese generation, the Korean generation. And I really do believe that as it came over here to America, America, the American generation has become what's on the side because like you said, it's a hybrid. And I find it interesting that you mentioned right now that you've implemented you've implemented some throws and takedowns and sweeps and locks and ground fighting. It's kind of a mixture back in the original days of Okinawan karate, all that stuff was in there. And it's funny as you see it jump from different cultures to cultures. They'll like the Japanese trip a lot of that stuff out. The Koreans put more of a size on kick. So you start to see each culture adopted as its own. So what it sounds like you're describing is now that it's come back to America, it's kind of look at the big picture. Say, well, this would work. This would work. This would work. And we're making that new generation of an actual new style of karate. So it's not just altered. It's not just an American flavor. It's actually a whole new construct with cultural influences and generational influences to make something new. Absolutely. I mean, you hit the nail on the head. It's like I said, my school alone was formed in the early 70s. So if karate came to America in what early 50s, I believe, you can kind of see that American karate has evolved for the last 50 years, 60 years. I mean, it goes back to the 60s. If it wasn't called American karate at the time, I don't think when those guys were point fighting and the blood and guts era, but it started evolving. And I think that that's one thing I love about American karate is it is ever evolving. Look what Jiu Jitsu has done since 93 since UFC since, you know, Gracie came on the map. It's revolutionized the martial arts. So I feel that karate is a complete art, a complete system because it encompasses all American karate focuses on all of it because you don't know on the street what's going to happen. Are you going to stand up or you're going to go to the ground? I feel like the resurgence of the martial arts and karate in particular is just we're just in a really wonderful period of martial arts and of karate. It's like a renaissance, if you will. And I think that the grapplers are starting to see the importance of striking. The strikers are really starting to see the importance of grappling. Of course, I'm not saying anything new here. There's been going on again. I would say since 93. So I just have to ask since we're talking about competition is sparring. If you could choose living or dead, fictional or real, any dream sparring match that you could dream up, who would you choose and why? Oh, wow. Okay. So multi multi answer here. My dream sparring match and I got to meet him briefly and I was I was starstruck, but Vinny the Jeter, he does. I got to meet him. I was actually interviewing Judo Jean LaBelle Sensei or Kitas walks in and I'm like standing in between both of these two legends and Mr. LaBelle introduces me to him and I'm just like, wow, it and they could tell I was starstruck. So I got to meet him shake his hand. He was wonderful and he's probably one of my all time not probably he is one of my all time favorite karate fighters. I've never got to spar with Bill super for Wallace, but he did come and do a seminar at my school years ago and he picked me to be his assistant, you know, the guy that he beats up on and uses the techniques on and I remember, you know, he, he did a roundhouse to, you know, my backside and he was like, now you can tell everyone got your ass by super foot. So that was fun. But I would love to spar him as well. And then third bass routine. Everyone's probably thinking like, he'll break you in half. Of course he will, but I got to know bass a little bit interviewed him as well for a documentary and I just think he's just one of the coolest, like, you know, this big guy, just tough and just visceral when he fights, but he's got a great personality. I would love to spar with him as well. Now, again, I'm saying sparring, you know, training with these three men. I'm not saying that I want to go toe to toe with these guys full contact. Come on, like bass would, you know, literally break me in half, but I would say those three, I know you don't ask me one, but I would say those three would be my three dreams sparring that. Since you're talking about a society of karate, do you does your school have a particular patches or any particular emblem that can represent the art or is it a little bit more of a mixed bag among schools? How does that work? Well, it's deaf. There's definitely a mixed bag of patches. I mean, different schools, different, you know, organizations have their school patch. I mean, there are universal patches in the sense, you know, shodakon. When you see a shodakon, but you know that shodakon kinpo. I know there's kind of a mixed bag there as well, but you know it's kinpo. I would say that with my school, we have a designated patch, but I would say is there an American karate style universal patch? I don't think there is and I could be wrong on that. I would say clearly the American flag is a dead giveaway on a knee, but also the superfoot system, if you are affiliated with Bill Superbowales system, which my school is, there is a universal patch. So you could be from one school. You know, we're in my schools in Texas with your school patch and then the superfoot system patch. You might meet someone from say Florida. Well, of course, a different style, different school. They might not even be American karate, but if they have that superfoot system patch, there you go. That's kind of a universal thing right there. But no, I don't think there's an actual just American karate emblem out there. So when it comes to the word American and the martial arts, there seems to be a stigma attached to it, especially among traditionalists. If viewers were to walk away with one idea about the merits of American karate and what it has to offer, what would that be? Well, I think that a lot of times when you think of American martial arts, there is that mcdojo kind of, you know, scarlet letter, if you will, on some on some dojos and some systems, which they should be called out mcdojos. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you know, Google mcdojo and you'll know. But I think that that stigma sometimes they think that that might be what American karate is or Americanized martial arts, but it's really in my sense, it's not. All it is is it's saying, you know, we are karate and Americanized version. Yes, but it's just a simplified version. In other words, you know, we focus on what works, what's realistic, what's practical. We don't have that mcdojo mentality. We don't focus a lot on theory and things like that. We just focus on hard nose karate, what works. And I think that we are traditional in one sense, Americanized in the other. I so I, yeah, I don't know. I don't I've never really seen it as a problem. When I tell people that I do American karate, because that is my style and I back it up. I've been doing it for 26 years, but I kind of understand how some people can misconstrue that once they hear American. It's like as opposed to Japanese or Okinawan. Well, we come from that, but then we incorporated this, this and this American karate isn't saying that it's better than traditional karate or Americanized this or that. It's just, you know, the name of a style that has meaning that has heart that, you know, has a foundation. And again, it comes from the Asia martial arts, but it's a very American thing here. And again, it's a melting pot of ideas. Now let's talk about filmmaking. Being a filmmaker, do you find yourself including in the elements of American karate in any of your works? Or do you plan to do in the future? You know, I really haven't in my films. Sometimes if there's like a little fight scene or just there's a little move here there, I'll throw it in, but it's not like I've made a martial arts film yet. I do hope to make a martial arts film one day. I just haven't yet, but I'll sneak it in every once in a while in a little quick move or whatnot, maybe, you know, a wrist lock or, you know, some sort of kick that is from karate. So as we talked last time too, you were in the middle of working on a project called Bloodstreams. Can you give us a bit of update on how that's been going? Yeah, so it's so funny. We shot this feature film Bloodstreams. It stars Yuji Okamoto from Cobra Kai and Friday Kid 2, Han Soto from Cobra Kai and several others. And we have a finished product, but we're actually decided that we're going to turn it into a trilogy. So we've actually are not releasing the film yet. We hope to release it this year or next and we're going to take it into a trilogy. So it's exciting. I mean, we made this film. We're getting some steam with some producers that want to come in and take it to a different level. It's kind of exciting. It's really hard as a filmmaker to kind of shoot a movie and then wait for release. But now that I mean, it's like, do I release it now? Enroll the dice or do we do it right and do it as the trilogy? So we're going to do it as the trilogy. Very awesome. Very awesome. Well, I'd love to thank you so much for spending your time with us today. Is there anything about American Karate that we haven't covered that you'd like people to know about? Well, I think it's just, you know, we say this in American karate, the most important part of karate is having a good attitude. And I really feel that American karate promotes that. And again, I'm talking about the style of American karate, not just, you know, a certain school or or Western influence or just karate in America. My style, American karate promotes a good attitude. And I just feel that that's one reason why I was I was drawn to it. It was a really like the positivity that comes out of it. And I think American karate has a lot to offer. It's not as well known obviously as Kenpo or Shota Khan, but there's derivatives of that. And I'm not here to promote American karate, but you and our friends and we just discussed about, you know, different styles and you do Kenpo among other things and you're like, Hey, let's talk about American karate what you do. So I'm very happy to have been here today to talk about it. This is what I've been doing for years. And again, not to say that I didn't do boxing and kickboxing and MMA and all the other martial arts. But I would say my foundation, the one that, you know, that I started with is American karate. And no matter how many other martial arts I study, my heart is always with American karate. I love it. And I just look at it is it's like any other topic we approach, you know, we're approaching the martial art as a cultural symbol. It's not just a set of moves. It's not just a technique list is a cultural influence. It's an evolutionary influence, generational influence. So I love exploring all that, how that comes together because people can't ask the question. Well, you know, American karate can be a very broad term. So people ask, Well, what does that mean? I think you provided great insight say on how to look at it, take a step back and see it as a whole cohesive picture rather than a one specifics at school or more technically that you mentioned. So I love that. And that's one of my favorite things about this channel is taking these looks and seeing how the cultures and the influence play into the art and moldy arts is not just tradition, but you've got a lot of contemporary ideas that mix in as well. And I think this is a perfect, perfect example of that. I just want to thank you for your time today to explain that to us. Oh, thank you. I love your channel. I love what you're doing here. And I just love that you give guys like me a platform to talk about something that again, that maybe needs a little bit of a definition for people that don't know. So thank you very much for having me on again. And I look forward to hopefully coming back again. Who knows what we'll talk about. Welcome any time. So we can definitely collaborate and if any of you guys, everyone out there watching has any ideas or wants more elaboration, please let us know in the comments and then if there's something there, we can explore it further. But um, yeah, thank you everyone for watching and thank you so much, Derek for joining us again today. Thank you very much. A great big thank you to Derek for sharing some information on American karate. I think today's discussion opens up the door for some in depth conversations about what the term means and the potential it has for the future. So please share your feedback and thoughts in the comments down below. I also cannot recommend his films enough, especially the documentary King of the Underdogs, which is one of my personal favorites and it's a biographical look at John G. Abelson, who was the director of Rocky and the karate kit trilogy. You can find a link in the description to his website. Now Derek was also a guest on the show before as we talked about the martial arts and how they are implemented into American cinema. So please be sure to check this episode out and I'd love to hear your feedback on that one as well.