 Hi everyone, today we're going to do something a little bit different. I want to take an opportunity to address a bunch of questions I've been getting and also to give an update on the channel and some future announcements. So first of all, I want to thank each and every one of you who have followed us this far, who have subscribed, who have shared. We just passed 10,000 subscribers and that's due to you guys. So thank you so much for your energy and your commitment and your contribution to the channel. I also want to say that I get comments all the time for people who come up to me and say, wow, your community is really, really high quality. Let's face it, YouTube is not known for civil conversations. You look at a bunch of channels and the comments are full of trolls and they're negative and it's battling. You guys have been awesome. Thank you guys for being this quality audience. You help this channel grow. You inspire us to do more with it. And on that note, I want to address the most common question I get is, can you cover XYZ art? Now we've been doing some of the history of an origin of video series, which are getting great feedback. And honestly, they're a lot of fun to make because that gives us the opportunity to research other arts and learn things I never knew about or I knew about in some form. But you know, I expand on it and understand it better. So that's a great experience to work on. Unfortunately, they take a lot of work. So we can't crank them out as often as we would like to, at least not at this point. As the channel grows, we start getting bigger, more self-sufficient and we can start covering production costs. We can definitely do more of those. But we definitely want to start implementing a lot more art-based content. While we work and we do have more history of projects in the works, but while we're working on those, we're going to start peppering in, you know, other arts here and there expanding. So we might like look at Shoren Roo, for example, and break down a technique or go to Wing Chung or break down a technique, try to get more of a wider net cast so we can start to collectively build the series. Yeah, we're going to make them into series. So we're going to actually establish a karate series. We're going to establish a kung fu, Korean arts, grappling, KEMPO. So we're going to start adding to them. So as this channel grows, we're going to just add each one to the series and the playlist. And also on that note too is we've had viewer contributions, you know, with Kyoko Shin. We had one of our viewers help us with the outlining and scripting for that, as well as one of the projects we're working on right now. We have another viewer helping with us. So if you guys have an art that you really want to see and you want to contribute, please by all means feel free to put it together, outlines or any information relative to your art that you think that you would want to see on the show. We're happily going to take a look at it and work it in if we can. And this includes Chinese and Indian arts. I know we've gotten a lot of requests for that. It's just an area we're not as familiar with as the Japanese arts, but we're working on that and we're definitely going to include that. So again, please submit your request so that we can point us to references. If there's a specific art that you want us to cover, point us to if your references and it's not wine, anything like that, and we'll put it to use. Another question I get is sometimes people ask me if I would do Kempo drills or Kempo lessons as episodes. The quick answer is not for episodes because I don't want this channel just to be all about Kempo. This is not necessarily a how to tutorial, but rather more of a global discussion group. There are Kempo topics and there will be more Kempo topics, but I don't want to limit it to just lessons on one art. There's a ton of channels out there that do that. I want to keep it, you know, I want to do a wide variety of topics. However, that being said, we are in discussions and talking about doing Kempo lessons or drills and things like that as a potential Patreon exclusive or a video workshop for purchase or even both. So why don't you guys tell me what you think, what you want, which would you prefer? If you guys want it, we'll work it in there. I guess inspiring offensive movement wise is I like the backfists. I like the quick snapping backfists. It's a good setup. You know, if you time it right, you can, especially if you get the jump on the opponent. It's great. It's a great setup. You can follow through. But as far as my favorite offensive move, honestly is I like to advance and jam. Like I try to read them. So if they're in a position where I look like they might kick or I'm trying to anticipate what they might do, I like to advance in and either jam a kick or block off their leg, check their leg, check their front hand. My goal is to take away at least one or two of their weapons right off the bat and then follow through with something else. And so to answer the question, my favorite offensive move in sparring is the quick explosive attack in to cancel out some of their weapons and follow through with a counter. My answer to one person in particular was, first of all, to establish what do you mean by being bullied? Is this somebody who's just calling you names or is this somebody really harming you, hurting you? Because there's a big difference. If it's just something more psychological and calling you names, you don't want to go learn an art to go and attack them with violence. That's really not appropriate. But if you are in danger and being threatened, then yeah, that's a very real concern. So first of all, I want to start off by saying there's no single right answer because there's a lot of options here. But the key word here is quick. Now there's a lot of arts that I love. And there's a lot of arts that I want to train in just because they're interesting. I think they could enhance whatever you learn. Maybe there's particular maneuvers I want to learn or something I want to sharpen. So you've got a lot of karate systems and kung fu systems that are great arts, but they take time and commitment to be good at it. You can't expect to go to a karate class and after a month be prepared to totally take anyone on. That's just not realistic. It takes time. It takes effort. A lot of systems like karate systems, especially Kiyokushin, they're very power-based. So a smaller person might have a harder time or take longer to become efficient with that. If it's a person who's a smaller stature and you're getting picked on and you need to learn defense quickly, honestly, you're going to want a couple of different things. Speed is going to be your friend. So look for an art that's going to teach quick footwork, quick handwork. Something like boxing will be excellent for that. Something like Muay Thai. We even use some kicks in there and you get your conditioning on it. You look at a lot of MMA fighters. A lot of them are small, but they are deadly. So you're going to learn fast footwork and fast hand drills. And also you're going to want some sort of grappling in there as well because there's a good chance if you're getting into fights frequently, it's going to go to the ground. You don't want to go to the ground immediately as a first response, but you want to be able to handle yourself if it does, especially if you're fighting a big guy. That's a good chance you guys are going to go down. In the context of I need to learn defense quickly. And I'm smaller. You want something that's going to be sparring and fight-based focus, at least right off the bat. So I do recommend finding an MMA gym that teaches striking art and grappling art, whether that be boxing or Muay Thai or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and get that mix in there. And because you're going to constantly, constantly, constantly stress test and get your hands on an opponent and you're going to work it out. As far as a self-defense-based art, you're going to be able to build it up quickly. Now, of course, I would definitely recommend, even later, adding in other arts if you would like to learn other arts. There are good kung fu and karate systems as well that can complement. So again, it comes down to your basic need and your reason for it, but there's a lot of options. So I would definitely look around. And best thing I always say is go try out a school. Go take a look. You'll know if it's right for you. You'll feel that click going, OK, this is what I need. Or it's not. Take a look around for that. And finally, I've had some people ask about, will I be collaborating with any other channels? And the answer is, I would absolutely love to. That's all part of the growth. The bigger we get, the more opportunities we're going to have. We do have some collaborations in the work right now. And we're actually excited to bring that to you. It's kind of new territory for us. And it's actually a sign that our community is growing. So as far as collaborations go, that's absolutely a focus, something we want to work on, and build a network with other channels. The reason we made Art of One Dojo is that we want an open online forum. This isn't just a how-to channel. This isn't just how this technique works, and it's not why this system sucks. This is an open global community. We want your input. We want your feedback. We want you to share. This is a classroom for everyone. So we love to take all viewpoints into consideration, especially working with other channels, because that shows us other perspectives. We want everybody to share. We want to take all these arts and bring it together into an Art of One People so that we can focus and build a dojo for all. Thank you all so much for your support. Please continue to share this channel. Please share our videos. Like, subscribe. We have a Patreon set up. We're rolling out some shirts, another merchandise. Anything to support the channel grows us bigger, lets us do a whole lot more, and we become even stronger and an even bigger community. So thank you for your efforts, and thank you for joining the dojo.