 Our goal with this channel is to explore the vast world of global martial arts and get comfortable with stepping outside of our own styles to see how others practice. Today, we have a very special guest that is on the same mission. Sensei William Christopher Ford, often recognized for his role of dentist in the Karate Kid Part 3, is here with us today to talk about his experience with Shorin Ryukarate, his exploration of contrasting martial arts, and if you stick around to the end, we'll have some fun Karate Kid 3 behind the scenes moments. So, we'd like to give a warm welcome to Sensei William Christopher Ford. How did you come across to martial arts? What art did you start in? Was it Shorin Ryukarate? Well, yes and no, and I'll explain what I mean by that. My first exposure to martial arts was through the original Kung Fu show with David Karate. And I hadn't even taken karate at the time. It was seven years ago. I was like, I was a kid. But that was a show that was on and it became my favorite show. It was the first time I'd seen martial arts ever. He walked around with almost like superpowers and I couldn't wait to watch him every week. After that, my parents took me to a local theme park here in California called Japanese Deer Park, which was a theme park that was based on Japanese culture. An experience would be like to kind of go to Kyoto, Japan, where there was koi pons and that kind of decor and Japanese dance and whatnot. And one of the things they also did was they had a live karate show that was hosted and performed by Sensei Fumio Demera and his students. Back then, he was kind of a trailblazer now. He was already kind of on a few magazines and things like that. But that was before he became super famous becoming the stunt double from Mr. Miyagi and all that. But his show was very theatrical, very dramatic, very exciting. And it was like watching almost like watching a scene from a movie. And that was the first time I'd experienced karate live. And you can feel the power and the energy and all that. And then shortly thereafter, a friend of mine, I remember I think I was around seven years old or so, I started taking karate at the local dojo. And he was only added for maybe a couple more months, more than I was, but he was already kind of positioning himself as sort of like the karate expert. And he was showing me things and he also said, you've got to come and join the dojo now. You've got to come, you've got to take it. So, okay. And I went down there and I met a man named Glen Robago. And I thought I had to talk like Quentin Kane. So, you know, here's Sensei Glen Robago and he's just a spreader from Hawaii. I said, yes, master, but first may I use your bathroom. And he just kind of looked at me strangely. And my mom was like, you know, what is going on? So, I went and I got my uniform and that was my first day. Now I only trained with Sensei Glen Robago for a few months. He was a great martial artist but had a lot of demons and it showed up in class. And now you're dealing with little kids, you know. And so there's a difference between running a tight ship and having discipline and also, you know, you could physically abuse kids. And you know, it wasn't a good environment and I definitely wanted to quit. But fortunately, his brother Richard Robago took over the dojo. And I really thrived under his teachings. And it was Shorin Rukarati. And the reason why I got into that was just because it happened to be the local dojo. And this happened to be what they were teaching, you know, had it been something else, you know, we might be talking about, you know, kung fu or Taekwondo or something else right now. But that was the one that I started with and that's what I ended up sticking with. When you like something, you practice more. And when you practice more, you get better at it. And when you get better at it, you tend to like it more. And when you like it more, you practice more. And when you practice more, you get better at it. And so it's this wonderful cycle that just feeds in on itself that makes you better and better. And pretty soon, you know, now 48 years have gone by and I'm still a student of the martial arts. I hope to inspire the kids that I'm with by my example. So in your school, you teach a mixture of arts or is there still primarily Shorin Ryu? Well, Shorin Ryu is the base art. You know, that's where kind of our foundation is. You know, I'm a big fan of the four basic punches of boxing, jab cross with rubber cut, you know, the head movements that you have, you know, with your slips and, you know, things like that. I'm a fan of the way that the ties kick. I'm a fan of grappling, you know, be it, you know, catch wrestling or jiu-jitsu. So there's a lot of good stuff out there, Filipino martial arts. We're very quickly, my students are very quickly putting their hands here. And yes, we do chamber on the hip or the ribs, but I'm limiting that to my kata practice. You know, that's where my art lives. That's where the history of the art lives. You know, yes, there is a purpose for that, but I'm also finding that if I can get my, you know, my students to keep their hands up here, they tend to get hit a little bit less, you know, especially coming in with somebody. So I'm going to try to get you with a hook and I was like, oh, there it is. You know, you can at least cover or get out of the way or block or, you know, whatever you need to do. I have found that by going outside my art, so to speak, I have found things by able to look at things in a different perspective that may have already been in my original art, but I just didn't recognize it. You know, there are throws and grappling and things like that that are, you know, they've either been hidden or forgotten or, you know, maybe they were never intended to be there. But because I'm looking at things through a new lens, suddenly I'm able to see a movement and go, you know, that's could be a throw, you know, and not even realizing it. So I think that for me going outside my art has actually allowed me to be better at my art. So speaking of the history of the art, Shorin Ryu is pretty much one of the oldest forms of Okinawan karate. How does it stem from Shurite and like what are some notable differences? You know what, the differences that I've noticed in a lot of the Okinawan styles are in the kata, you know. You know, the stances in Okinawan karate tend to be higher and, you know, the theory was from mobility, but the way that I was taught by Shorin Ryu was we favored lower stances and not, and not like maybe as low as like a Shotokan stance. Theory behind that was that, you know, if you can learn to move quickly from a lower stance, then it will be there when you go to a higher stance. Interestingly enough, there are, there are no round kicks in any of our kata, you know. There are plenty of front kicks, some side kicks, but no Mawashigeri. So there are some theories out there anyway in regards to, well, where did the, what, where did the roundhouse come from? And we use it all the time. So I don't know if that was even part of the original, you know, arts, you know. And if you talk about the original art, you know, the indigenous art, you know, tea, you know, there were influences that came in from Southeast Asia and other parts, you know, of the world, you know, and karate is a relatively new term. You know, I think the early 1930s is when it was actually like point karate and even the calligraphy was changed from like China hand to empty hand. You know, it's all very simple and more, more, more similarities than differences in my opinion. You know, things are different when you have resistance training, right? Nobody leaves their hand out, right? You know, when you train, yeah, it's like, you know, okay, we're going to train this technique and we're going to go slow. It's different when you're working with your partner. You know, even if it's just, hey, let's do some, let's just do some free grappling and see what happens when somebody is not cooperating. It is a little different. That's a big part of the, what I think is important in training is let's pressure test. Let's resist. I do want to go back to Simon. He makes, I wanted to ask you about the punches because there seems to be this debate about the vertical and the horizontal punches. How does punching, how does punching differ in show and review versus like, can you elaborate on what this debate is? You know, I can only tell you what I was taught and I was always taught, we always did, we never did the vertical punch really. It was either that or it was that it was either counted or horizontal and it was always taught the first two knuckles. You know, never punch with a pinky, obviously. That seems to have been what worked. And then later on, when I started incorporating more of the boxing, then it was, okay, how do you bring it around in a circle? And when I was first taught that, we had an assistant instructor over at the school named Dave Loob and he was highly influenced by boxing and infoslay and whatnot. And that was the first time I'd actually learned how to throw a hook. The first time I learned I threw a hook, I was like, and I thought that's the stupidest punch I've ever seen. It doesn't work, you know? And he was like, no, no, no, no, you know, you got to put your shoulder into it. You got to turn your hips, you know? And, you know, that by the mechanics of by the mechanics where they'd be boxing or karate, right? It's like, okay, there's got to be a rotational force. You've got to move towards your target. There's got to be some velocity so on and so forth. And then pretty soon it was like, oh, you know, I don't even have to work that hard and just by doing the technique. But I also discovered that it's like, oh, you know, in kakas like Naihan Chi, we have punches that are kind of like a hook punch. And if you just kind of bring it up and you can either turn it this way or turn it this way, it can be a good thing. There's a lot of debate whether, okay, do you hope this way or do you hope this way? I like them both. I think they both, you know, they both work. So I teach them both. So Sean has a lot of circular motions to it, correct? It's a very circular based art. What people don't know about me, a lot of people is that one of the people that I learned from that actually was my sensei sensei was a man named Tadashi Yamashita. If you Google Tadashi Yamashita, he does come up. He's one of the, I would say the pioneers, you know, of the American karate movement. But if you ever looked at the way he moved, he did a lot of circular motions. And so, you know, he was doing stuff where he'd come in and carry this way, come over the top, come back this way, come here, break the arm, come back this way, you know, break the shoulder. And for years, I was like, oh, you know, Sean is a very, very circular art, but I didn't necessarily see it in our kata. I didn't see reflected in our kata except for maybe when we do this thing called, you know, a kake-uke or a kake-uke, you know, where it's sort of like a parry and this one comes in here. This almost looks like Filipino martial art, right? Where you're checking here and you're struggling here, right? But he was good friends with a man named Tino, Tino Terusuga, founder of Lima Lama. There was a Chinese Polynesian influence that he had adopted, and eventually he combined his shorinu karate with that. In my opinion, I may be wrong. You call it suikendon, which kind of translates as fists being the way of water. And if you look at him demonstrate, it's like, that doesn't look like your typical karate movement. You know, he's blinding fast, you know, like just a blur. And, you know, being on the receiving end of that is okay for a few years, you know, it was like, I don't know how many times he slapped me, but it was a lot. So I don't know if there is that conception of shorinu being circular, but there's only one kata that I practice that has circular motion in it. And it's called gochushiho, and it has movement like this, where you're moving like this, and then you go into a spear hand and then another spear hand. Everything else is mostly linear. And I want to use that topic of, you know, mixing the arts and different influences to segue into your channel, kaizen dojo films. And if I understand correctly, kaizen means continues improvement, is that correct? It is a Japanese word that has come to mean in modern times, continual improvements. It was adopted by the Toyota Corporation within their company culture. And that's how I really first heard of it, and I started doing some research on it. And when we opened up the dojo 10 years ago, I thought kaizen dojo was kind of a cool way to describe how we teach and what we teach. You know, the idea of continual improvement, not only as martial artists, but as human beings. And as long as somebody is continually improving in some way, then you're succeeding. Now tell us about the iconography of your logo. Is there a significance to the turtle? Oh, I'm glad you asked that. The turtle is my connection to Hawaii, and my mother is from Japan, but she believes her father was actually Hawaiian. And we have a lot of family who live in Hawaii. So that's my connection to Hawaii, but also the turtle in Hawaiian is called a honu. And to me, that represents connection to nature, longevity and wisdom. But the honu, the legend is that she was a goddess who was able to transform herself into a woman, and she would stand on the beach and watch over the children to make sure that they were safe. So I like that legend, and so I wanted to incorporate the Hawaiian honu into our dojo logo. And then if you'll notice that there's the shell, which represents defense, but then the fins are blades. So the turtle is thought of as being a very, not a predator, it's a docile creature, but I wanted to have the symbology of the shell being defense and the fins being offense if we need to use them. And if you look on the logo itself, there is the kanji for kaizen right in the middle. And that's what we talked about, continual improvement. The red dot represents Japan, which is where I'm from. The red dot with the circle inside represents Okinawa, where my heart comes from. And then you'll see the stars and stripes represents the US, where I was born. And then we have the three prongs, some people call it the three tears. If you look at the negative of it, it's like three tears. But if you look at the black part of it, it's like three blades. And you oftentimes see that associated with martial arts from Okinawa. But if you go further back, one of the gods was the god of war called Hachiman. And one of the samurai clans, they adopted that three-pronged thing. It was like a symbol of Hachiman. And the Okinawan version of it, it's a little bit thicker and it looks a little bit more like the blade of a kama. So there's some history with that. But thank you for asking that. Most people don't think to ask me that. I love it. I find it very striking. The colors are still bold. It just stands out. And I've always thought it was a very striking image. So I was really curious to know what the meaning behind it was. Because it looked like it was very deliberate in its design. It was. And I do appreciate that. And I took the time to ask. And when I started the YouTube channel and I started wanting to create little films about martial arts and shows, documentaries, things like that, I just decided to call it Kaizen Dojo Films. And that's a perfect segue to my next question. Because I absolutely love what you're doing with the channel. Your whole series on the 52 Masters and how you're working to bridge the gap and understandings and bring different education, different arts together. So people can see that there's a lot more out there. What was the original motivation of your channel? And how did you transition to the series? And tell us a little bit about 52 Masters. Well, you know, the original motivation of the channel was just to, you know, create some awareness about the Dojo. So more like, hey, you know what? You got to get some videos out there. You know, you got to, you know, it helps the algorithm of Google searches and things like that. Then I discovered that I enjoyed interviewing people. What I eventually got really comfortable with was, you know, first of all, people would say, oh, you know, you're pretty good at this. You know, you're easy to talk to. And then that's when I, you know, I really honed in on that, being able to not talk to people, but talk with people, communicate with them, get them comfortable, have it be a conversation, not a monologue, talking about martial arts. How they got started in it, like you and I were doing, how we got started in it, what's our philosophy? See, I'm 55 years old now. I'm going to be 56 this year. The idea behind 52 Masters was when I was 51, I wanted to do something to celebrate turning 52. And so 52 experts, 52 black belts, 52 people were pretty good. 52 Masters. Oh, that's the one. 52 Masters is a catchy title. So that's how that was born. And the original concept was, let's go to celebrate turning 52. Let's take the next 52 years, the 52 weeks, and train with one master per week, document the training, and then do an interview. I haven't finished the series yet. And, you know, then I'm not going to change it to 56 Masters. But I only have 15 more episodes to go or so. So I'm almost there. So, but mark my words, I will finish. You know, I got it finished. Well, for anybody watching at this point, guys, I do recommend going to check out the channel because there's quite a few right there now. And it's a lot of material to watch. And it's so fascinating to watch because I love the structure you do too, because you guys, you do the introduction and then you do a training, like a drill training session and then you do the sit-down and talk after that. And I think it's such a great reflection that you can offer right after showing a little bit of the art. So I love the format. So I can't recommend the show enough. I appreciate that. And I appreciate it even more coming from you because, you know, you do something similar. You know, it's a different flavor, but you're basically doing the same thing I'm doing, you know, and you're experiencing something and you're sharing it without jealousy, without judgment, without selfishness, you know, and that to me, you know, shows that you're a true martial artist and a true teacher, you know, because you're giving something, something that's of value. If they want to dive in, there's these nuggets of wisdom there. And people want that. Sometimes I'm surprised at the lead. You know, you know how skilled somebody is, but, you know, you hear about it and when you experience it, it's like, oh my gosh, you know. It makes it real. Yeah, somebody who like, well, I didn't know that they could generate that much power or, oh my gosh, this person is brilliant. You know, when you feel somebody's power, you know, up close and personal, my friend Michelle Manu, you know, I've known for years and years, but being able to experience that with her, but they also have a tremendous amount of self-control. They don't hurt you. They don't show you how good they are. They don't have to. Now, you also have a very touching sentimental episode up there, a documentary, Chronically Sensei Fumio-Demura's Last School. Can you tell us about The Last Dojo? That project is very dear to my heart. It's probably, it's probably the piece that I'm the proudest of. And it came about because my own instructor, Sensei Richard Mubago, he had a dojo close to mine about, he had it for over 35 years, and the landlord told him, hey, you know, Carl's Jr. wants to expand and get a drive-thru, so that means it basically made me an offer I couldn't refuse, so you guys got to go. So somebody calls me up and says, hey, you know, Sensei Robago's dojo is closing. No, that can't be. I call him up and he confirms that. And so I said, why don't you come to my dojo and train, you know, hero of the off times when I'm not teaching the class. That's what he did for about six weeks. And then he passed away. He had heart condition, and he passed away in his sleep. His cousin, Kurt Abduhan, came by to pay his respects at my dojo. And I have a piece of the original dojo floor that was salvaged. This was, you know, a plank. And this was something we all used to train on. And it has 35 years of DNA and sweat and blood and energy and all that. And I was able to salvage this. I got this. And so I put it out on Facebook. I said, hey, anybody who has trained with Sensei Robago at this dojo, come by and sign the back of this thing. Uncle Kurt came by. He signed it. And he's also an Emmy award-winning cinematographer. And he says, is there anything? Let me know if there's anything I can do for you. And I said, well, you know, that Sensei Demera is kind of going through the same thing that Sensei Robago is. The city is saying, I'm in a domain and that you got to keep going pretty soon. So they're trying to close this dojo down. We went to Sensei Demera's dojo. He was kind enough to be interviewed. And Kurt took all the feral of all the dojo. He took pictures of the pictures on the walls and everything and the old doors and the mats. And he comes back and he says, I think we have something more here than just in there. So he comes back to my dojo. We do it at night. And he interviews me when it was put together and edited by Nate Joseph. And the music by Randy Miller was inserted in. It was composed for the movie itself. It became a 20-minute little gem. It's my love letter to Sensei Demera and his students. And anybody who's trained in the traditional dojo, the dojo isn't there anymore. And the good thing is that Sensei was, he was paid by the city and he hasn't even heard the dojo. But that dojo is there for almost a few years. So there's a lot of memories there. The sad thing is also is that the city basically kind of changed their mind because there's a McDonald's on the corner and they said, no, we're not going to go. And the city backed down. So it all came down to the almighty dollar. It was really about money. And McDonald's wasn't about to leave. So Sensei's dojo was destroyed really for no good reason. And everybody who came together, including Sensei Demera, to participate in that made it super special. And if your viewers could go and watch the last dojo, it is on YouTube, you can watch it for free. It's going to be on Amazon very soon also. But it's the piece that I'm most proud of. Maybe more than anything I've ever seen. You can just feel the soul. I watched it just recently. I put it on just to kind of watch it for a second and I found myself just totally into the whole thing. And so you can feel the soul of the school. You can see the history of the school. It's so beautifully filmed that it really, it's like as a viewer you can feel lost even just through the video of what happened and the travesty of it. But it's a wonderful piece. So absolutely I would recommend this to anyone that get a little piece of history with that. So with your channel too, I noticed that you also like to throw in a little bit of levity here and there. And with that being said, I have to ask you, how is your relationship with rice paper Japanese screens these days? Well, I'm thinking about founding a style called Shouji Guru. Based on my infamous destruction of Shouji screens in the film Karate Kid 3, where I played Dennis Domenis, you know, Cobra Kai Henshman and trainer of the bad boy of karate, Mike Barnes. So my relationship is okay, you know, but I think you still have some issues, you know? I think Dennis is still walking around with a Shouji screen under his arm and he's got some, he's definitely got some issues, you know? But he's trying. I love that film. I watched it when I was 10. I mean, I love the whole trilogy, but like I watched that one so much and so I just, you're curiously, when you got the role of Dennis, were you given any sort of a backstory to him? And if not, what do you imagine his backstory was and how did he get tangled up with Terry Silver? You know what? It was basically, they were under the gun. They needed a Henshman and I Henshed. So, you know, I had originally auditioned for the part role of Mike Barnes. Didn't get that. I thought that was done. I get called in like a day before production is supposedly starting. I go down and I meet Pat Johnson. He looks me over. Yeah, you look okay to me, but it's really up to John. Now, previously I had gone to the open call that Sean Cannon had gone to, 1500 kids. And it was like, John came out and actually talked to me. Most of the people he didn't talk to, but he came over and talked to me. I gave him a picture and a resume. He said, how old are you? I said 22. He says, you look too old. I mean, somebody who looks like they're right out of high school. The day before we're supposed to start productions and rehearsal, I'm back down on the lot. John comes in, says, well, how old are you? I said 22, sir. He goes, ah, you look young enough. Let's hire him. And then, since Demer was there that day because he was the stunt double for Pat Merida, obviously. He saw me. He recognized me because, you know, I'd gone to his tournament years past. You know, he knew my mom. You know, we had maintained a friendship over the years. And he actually vouched for me when John came out. He says, John, this kid, okay. And John was like, good enough for Sensei, good enough for me. Let's hire him. In regards to the name, I actually, they asked me, what do you want to name your character? And I was like, ah, ah, ah. And I thought Dennis, Dennis the menace. And so I just called myself Dennis because I was under the gun and I needed to come up with something really quick. And I was like, okay, Dennis. And that's how that came about. And I didn't really give it any thoughts until years later when I thought, you know, he was probably this hotshot martial artist, my character. And he was recruited by Terry Silver to be the trainer or something. I've heard fan fiction rumors that, you know, he's Terry's son, but I was never told that. I was never told that Dennis was related to Terry or anything like that. I just thought, okay, he's the guy who was good and Dennis hired him. I mean, Silver hired him. And I imagined that after that tournament that he probably threw him to the curb, you know, fired him and, you know, that's my imagining of what happened to Dennis. If Dennis were to cross pass with Laruso again, does he still have that famous Cobra Kai grudge? It can go one of two ways. It can either go like that, you know, where, you know, I haven't let it go. And it's like, okay, we're going to have a rematch or we pass each other going into the Home Depot. And I'm carrying a shoji screen. We do a double tape where it's like, nah, it would just keep going. It would be fun to be able to show that, yeah, you know, I can do more than just get thrown into shoji screens. And I got a few good kicks left in me. So I think it would be fun if I could do that. If they could show some dimension to the character and what his motivations are. If he's bad, let's find out why he's bad, just like they've done with the other characters or maybe he's not so bad. And let's find out why he's not so bad. Either way, it would be a fun rematch. Forgive me for bringing this up, but you were one of the more notable martial artists to be in the film. And yet Dennis seems to be the only Cobra character that Daniel happens to throw aside no problem. What's with that? I don't know if Dennis is just having a bad day. Maybe he's just got good PR, you know, but think about this is that Dennis, you know, if you rank his skill compared to, you know, you can say, would Dennis be able to beat Mike? Would Dennis be able to beat Johnny? Would Dennis be able to beat Vidal? Would Dennis be able to beat Dutch? He hasn't even been able to beat Daniel yet. You know, in the rankings, if it was like an MMA world, you know, Dennis is kind of at the bottom of the list there. Well, I think he got a big splinter in his hand when he chopped that shoja screen. And the wood went really, really deep and it created this infection and it just affected his performance and he just wasn't able to bring it when he fought Daniel. Sounds legit. You know what? You're very diligent in your observation and you're very, very observant and very, very little gets past you. So I appreciate that you noticed that because I've wondered that for years. Well, to be fair, I've probably watched all three of those films way past the healthy level. Well, you know, I have not been the biggest fan of Karate Kid 3 in, you know, despite the fact that I'm in it, but I do believe that Cobra Kai makes it a better film. It fills in gaps and it kind of explains things. You know, and just like, I don't know if you've ever seen the animated show The Clone Wars. Yes. The Clone Wars makes Revenge of the Sith a better movie. Absolutely. That's what I think Cobra Kai does for particularly the Karate Kid 2 and 3, but particularly 3, because think about this. Terry Silver is this billionaire, right? He's like Elon Musk. Like if Elon Musk was going out and harassing an old man and a guy who was like 18 years old over karate schools or something like that, it'd be like, why would he do that? Right? It doesn't make any sense. And he'd be in a lot of trouble. But now you're kind of going, okay, I can kind of buy into this now. You know what I mean? Yeah. If let's just out the context, it's actually giving more support to what we saw before. And, you know, I never really got a chance to hang out with Thomas Ian Griffith. He's a legitimate Taekwondo guy and he is a tremendous actor, writer, producer, and I have a lot of respect for him in that regard. And he was playing over, Terry Silver over the top, not because he wanted to, because John Abelson asked him to do it that way. You know, where he's like laughing maniacally. John is talking to Mr. Griffith saying, you know, it's Thomas, you know, play it like this. And he's like, John, are you sure? And he was, you know, he did it in his credit, but he really wanted to make it more grounded. He wanted to make it more realistic because he's an actor who comes from theater, you know, and, but that over the topness made him memorable. And as much as Crotty Get 3 was not liked as much as the other two, when it was announced that Terry Silver was coming back, the internet broke, right? Everybody was like, oh, Terry Silver's coming back, you know. I have a question for you. And this is something that's bugged me for years about Crotty Get 3. Officially in the Crotty Get canon, the trilogy, Dennis is the only bad guy not to go up against Miyagi. However, when you watch the scene in the Banzai shop, there is a weird edit there where after he takes out Snake, Mike Barnes gestures to you and points to Miyagi and all of a sudden it cuts to Mike Barnes attacking. Is there a deleted scene where Snake did face off with Miyagi? There is a scene where the way we filmed it was Miyagi comes through the doors, Mike points at me, both Snake and I attack Miyagi. He takes us both out. And I threw a punch at Miyagi. He does this thing where he carries the arm on the outside and puts his hand on my elbow. So it's like this kind of move and he pushes and then I go summer solving over. We filmed that and Pat Morita was the one who did it to me, that's when they were done. So he did that. Much to my surprise when we saw the finished film, I was like, Oh, it's not there. It's a weird jump. And my thinking is that for some reason it just did not sound. You know, I tried to sell the hell out of it, but it was almost like I might have done it too much to where it just was like almost like Miyagi's got Jedi powers or something and he's just like, he goes and I just go, I might have oversold the thing, but they didn't say anything to me at the time. So I would have loved to see that, but I still have this frame of somebody who was on set and took a picture and it's kind of blurry, but it does show me punching Miyagi and it shows him like this. I'll send it to you, but it's a frame of us and it's proof that that does exist. Awesome. That is awesome. Now you can see better. I'll let you know. Oh, I feel fulfilled now because I've wanted for years. But do you want to point out a fun fact? I don't know how many people have read this, but I actually do have the novelization of Chronic it through. Oh my God. I think I'm in the novelization and I'm described as the friend or something. Yeah, because Snake doesn't exist. I believe it's just you and Mike Barnes in the book. And they don't call me Dennis. I think it's called, and then Mike Barnes is friend or something like that. Well, I'm thrilled that you're still willing to talk about it and that you're still having fun with it. And yes, to answer your question, you are referred to as the thug. The thug? Okay, there you go. But we know it's Dennis though. Well, that's really cool. So I do appreciate that. You know, I am grateful for the experience on Chronic it through, and I'm still acting. I still do projects of my own. They're, you know, they're independent stuff, but Chronic it through was my big, you know, it was a big opportunity for me. And I'd never knew that 30 some years later, I'd still be enjoying the benefits from that. You know, thank you for keeping Dennis alive. It came out the same summer as the original Batman. Tim Burton Batman, I believe, 1909. And the other movie that was that summer was Star Trek 5 directed by William Shatner. So that's what I remember. And we did a preview screening for the cast and crew and John Appelson gets up and he says, Batman doesn't have a chance. And you know, everybody says cracking up, you know, because it was like, yeah, we think Batman's Batman's gonna like bust through everything, you know, but that was a big summer. That was a real big, you're right. It was Chronic it through in Batman and Star Trek, but there was also Back to the Future 2 and there was also Ghostbusters 2 the same summer. That's an amazing summer. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's awesome. And I just really personally want to thank you for doing such a great job, doing what you're doing with your channel, always exploring, just trying to educate others, bring awareness to the other arts. I think that's such an important mission, especially we're in a world now where there's a lot of toxic politics where people are like, oh no, this my art's better than this art. I think just doing this open door policy of exploring other arts is so important just for everybody to appreciate what we're doing. So I just want to say thank you for the work that you're doing with your channel and for being available and spending time with me today to talk to our viewers and just kind of share your experience. Well, you know, since it's my honor and pleasure and I'm happy to do it, hopefully people will enjoy the interview and maybe get something positive out of it. And you know, I strongly encourage you to keep doing what you're doing and doing it your way. And for all of our viewers out there, you know, it's the same. You know, it's got to be about people first. You know, all the other stuff will take care of itself. Thank you so much to Sensei William Christopher Ford for spending his time and sharing his experience with us. I highly encourage everyone to please go visit his channel and check out his short film, The Last Ojo. Anyone who likes martial arts history will be able to absolutely appreciate that as well as his awesome 52 Master Series. He's got some great content, so please let's show him our support and go support his channel. Thank you all for watching, and as always, we welcome your feedback in the comments, like, subscribe, and we'll see you back on the mat next week.