 Oh, welcome to Out of the Comfort Zone. I'm your host, Arby Kelly, and you're watching Think Tech Hawaii on OC16 Television. Now today we have a really cool guest, but first our book of the week. Now if you've ever thought, oh my gosh, I'm so awkward, or if you've ever had a conversation that could have gone better, whether that's in sales, whether that's talking to your neighbor, whether that's talking and trying to get a date, this is the book for you. This is Captivate, which was written by my mentor, Vanessa Van Edwards, and in here she talks about all the skills you need to master the first five seconds, five minutes, five hours, five days, every beginning of a relationship, and what you can do to make sure the relationship not only starts strong, but continues strong as well. So if you've ever struggled with people and wished you could understand more, wished you could be more charismatic, wished you just could talk to people, then this is the book for you, Captivate by Vanessa Van Edwards. As this show goes on, if I lose my voice, I apologize. I was speaking at camp schools yesterday all day long, and my voice sometimes is going now. But I wanted to tell you for your body language tip, how you can tell if you're about to be punched in the face. And here's something, when I spoke to HPD last week, this is something that can, that most people see as a friend signal, but HPD, the officers I talked to there, they recognize that it's also something that warns if you're about to be punched in the face. And it's called the chin knot, and it can be used in a positive or in a hostile way. And so if it's friendly, if it's positive, it'll look something like, hey, nice to meet you. You see the chin just goes up and down, and there's something of a smile. But if it's negative, it'll look something more like this. You see how that kind of glare, a little bit of the flared nostrils and that angry? So if you see that, you're probably about to be punched in the face. You should probably be back off. But speaking of being punched in the face, I am really excited for our guest today. Coach, we have with us Coach Ichijuma Wan. Hi, how are you doing? Thank you. I'm so glad you're here, actually. But can you explain for our viewers exactly what it is that you do? I'm a coach at Pearlside Boxing Gym. We've had our gyms since 1997. But I'm also the president of USA Boxing Hawaii. And our job at USA Boxing Hawaii is to organize and promote and put on boxing events and then have our athletes advance into the national championships and move on possibly through the Olympics. That's a big deal. And your wife was here in the studio earlier. She was telling me, you actually were in the Olympics, too. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Well, back in 1976, I tried out for the Olympic team and I made the team as an alternate. So I was in the training camp with Sugar Ray Leonard, Aaron Pryor, the Spinks Brothers, Leon and Michael. And that team is still considered the greatest USA Boxing team at the Olympics. That is so cool. And then the next year, you tried out again. And what happened this time? Well, four years later, I tried out again in the 1980 Olympics. And we're all gung-ho. We all made the team, made the trials. And we're going through the Olympic trials at the time. And just before we got to the finals, President Jimmy Carr decided to boycott the Olympics. It just took our hopes and dreams right out of our grasp. Oh, that must have been so frustrating. Yeah, it was. But I'm glad you didn't quit. So what made you make the transition from competing to coaching? Well, it was something that I was thinking. If I quit, if I just retire and stop boxing, then all of the knowledge, all of the skills that I've learned, all of the wonderful things that I've learned through the sport of boxing would just disappear, would just die. And I wanted to pass it on to the kids, to the youngsters and then give them some of the thrill, the glory, the heights that they could gain through the sport of boxing. That makes sense. And in your opinion, what makes the difference between an actual competitor versus a coach? What's the big difference? A competitor is more all about himself. What can I do to get better, make more money, position myself so that I can get into the big fights? And it's all about how good I can be. A coach is more like helping somebody else, seeing them to rise up. Somebody who's not skilled or who doesn't have the confidence, all of a sudden you can speak some truth and words into his life and all of a sudden his eyes light up and he's not afraid to try. And that's the thing, right? We want to help kids avoid the fear of success and fear of failure. They really just try. I like that. And speaking of kids, aren't there actually a lot of kids coming into your gym now to learn and practice boxing? Yeah, in fact, I would say 90 to 95% of the kids, both boys and girls, teenagers, young adults, and even guys as old as me, they want to come to boxing. For the fitness aspect, 90 to 95% come just to get in shape, you know, lose some weight or be active more because, you know, they see the parents, see their kids come home and right on electronics, you know, instead of going outside and climbing trees and, you know, running around, so they bring them down to our gym to, you know, get active. Didn't you actually start boxing when you were just a kid, too? Yeah, and it was because of bullying, you know, and, you know, a lot of the parents nowadays, they bring the kids in because their kids are getting bullied in school, you know? But yeah, I was, I used to, like, as soon as the school bell was ringing, I would run out, I was trying to run home before the bullies got around the corner and they would stop the kids and take their money, you know? Whatever change they had from lunch, right? So I used to get picked on all the time around the corner. And, you know, my name, Aichi Jumon. Born in, I mean, I'm born in Okinawa. I'm dark-skinned, curly hair, and my name is hard to say. And I used to get teased and picked on a lot. And I was, like, really small and I'm still small, you know? So that's why I used to get picked on. So one day when my, my coach, my dad was actually fixing, repairing his car in our garage and he came into the house and I was sitting down watching cartoons. He looked at me, slapped me on the leg and says, hey, son, why don't you come down to the gym? Make you strong, make you tough, make a man out of you. And all of a sudden my eyes lit up. I forgot about the cartoons, you know? And I said, oh, in my heart, yes, yes, when can I start? You know? And I started the next day. I love that story. It sounds like you see a lot of kids now who are being bullied and you're teaching them skills, but also some confidence in order to stand up for themselves and stay safe. Yeah, exactly. You know, part of it is that, how do I say it, the victim mentality or the victim posture that kids take some because they're afraid because they're not confident about themselves. And when they're walking in school, walking in the crowd, you know, they're all already, you know, head down, shrinking down. They want to avoid eye contact and stuff. So when they come to boxing, you know, I kind of coach them about, hey, stand up tall. When I'm talking to you, look at me in the eyes. When I ask you something, answer confidently, you know? So whenever I ask them anything, you know, and they don't answer, I say, what's the answer? They go, yes, coach. So, you know, just that alone, all of a sudden starts where the conversation, they can look at me in the eye and be confident. And, you know, when, and I tell them, once you learn boxing, because it happened to me, once you learn boxing, it's kind of like, like, you know, when a police officer walks into a crowded room, all of a sudden everybody like, better behave, better be quiet, right? When a boxer walks into a room of kids, right? And everybody around them knows he's a boxer. All of a sudden people go, oh, I better not pick on this guy. Just pick, and they don't know if he can fight or not, but they know that he's taking boxing, you know? And that alone sometimes is just the initial step they didn't need to start their way on being confident. I love that. There's actually a lot I want to say to that, because yesterday I was speaking at camp schools and that's one of the things we talked about, is actually how you can use your body language to say, I'm not a victim. And that's exactly what you said about straightening up your shoulders, chin in the air. That's exactly what they have to do. Yeah. But also growing up, my mom insisted that we had self-defense classes, that we learn how to protect ourselves. And so we didn't have a boxer nearest, but there was actually a man had come from Hawaii and set up a gym and set up a self-defense dojo there in St. George, where I grew up, and his name was Aaron Ace. And he actually taught us like MMA and karate. And I saw that difference when I was walking around the school. If someone started to mess with me, I somehow through the conversation had come up, yeah, I know MMA. And they would always just get this like, and they'd back off and I'd be like, that's right, leave me alone. And so I love that difference, that you teach kids how to just stand up for themselves and protect themselves. Yeah. And I also teach them that when they're confronted by other people, always remember, though, that they've got to be respectful, they've got to be confident, but be respectful. Stand up for yourself, but don't go out pushing people around and becoming the bully. Yeah, you don't need the bully. Like the guys that bullied against you. Because if you become a bully yourself, then instead of them confronting you one at a time, a gang of them will come up and want to confront you because they know that they can't beat you up by themselves. Right? So that's a don't be, for lack of a better word, a punk. Yeah, you don't want to use your skills and become the villain. You always, you just want to be looking out for the other people. Plus it makes you look bad, makes the sport of boxing look bad, it makes me as your coach look bad. That's what I tell them. Don't make me look bad. I love that. I love that a lot. So I know when we were talking earlier and I was asking you to come speak here on the show today, we mentioned something that came up is that boxing is actually having a resurgence here in Hawaii. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, well, it's been having a resurgence over a number of years. Remember when MMA started to come up? Everybody said, boxing is dying because MMA is the new thing. Like remember when Tybald for your scheme, I was like, oh, everybody's gonna quit boxing and go to Tybald, right? But what's happened is that boxing used to be considered the stigma of the rough neck, you know, the sport that you go into and you're gonna get black eyes and bloody noses and you're gonna get beat up and you're gonna become a thug, right? It used to be like that. We were the bad boys of all those sports. All of a sudden MMA came up and, you know, other than a few boxers that are arrogant and get on TV and, you know, MMA all of a sudden, you know, people are staring at each other's faces and calling people out from the audience and things like that, right? So then, you know, parents had a choice. Should I bring my kids to the MMA gym or to the boxing gym? And then we became the lesser of two equals, you know? But, you know, it's still, we got some bad apples in boxing too, you know? And that's like in our gym too, we always tell our guys, hey, be respectful. Don't be such a braggart. Don't be going around pumping your chest out. You know, be humble, be nice, be helpful, especially to the new ones that are coming along. That makes a big difference. And for our viewers, we are gonna keep talking about this. There's more to ask, there's more to say, and we'll be back on OC16 television, Think Tech Hawaii, without of the comfort zone in just a few minutes. See you in a bit. Hi, I'm Dave Stevens, the host of Cyber Underground. Every Friday here at 1 p.m. on ThinkTechHawaii.com. And then every episode is uploaded to the Cyber Underground. That library of shows that you can see of mine on YouTube.com. And I hope you'll join us here every Friday. We have some topical discussions about why security matters and what could scare the absolute bejesus out of you, if you just try to watch my show all the way through. Hope to see you next time on Cyber Underground. Stay safe. What big eyes you have. She said, what are you doing? Research says reading from birth accelerates our baby's brain development. Push! Read aloud 15 minutes. Every child, every parent, every day. Living in this crazy world. So far up in the confusion. Nothing is making sense. Welcome back to Out of the Comfort Zone. I'm your host, Arby Kelly. And I'm here with our guest, coach, H.E.G.Mawan. Now, when we left, we were talking about bullying. We were talking about self-confidence. We were talking about making a good name for the sport. But now I want to ask you, coach, what happens when someone actually walks into your gym and asks to learn about coaching? Because I know a lot of people are probably a little bit. Coaching and boxing. And asked to learn about boxing. Good question. I know a lot of people are, at least I'm a little scared, that if I were to show up on my first day, I'd be like punching the face and then walk home crying. What actually happens when you start to learn about boxing? Over the years, we've learned how to make it user-friendly atmosphere when they come in, right? And Robin, my wife, she's the best at this. When people come in, some of them are very intimidated because of the sport. They think they're going to get punched in the face. So we tell them, right off the bat, that no, there's no contact for people that first start up with boxing. There's no contact, no hitting in the face or anything, right? And we give them what we call the first day when they come into our gym, first time orientation. So we ask them to come in a half an hour before boxing class starts, right? And we'll introduce them to a few of the people so they'll have a few people, they'll be their friends. And then we'll show them the basics, how to stand, how to hold their hands up, what the basic punches are, how to throw them, right? And we'll have an assistant coach on myself or my wife, Robin, will work with them for a half an hour before class starts so that when class starts, they won't feel like, oh, everybody's staring at me because I don't know what I'm doing and they're laughing and I look stupid and I want to run away and quit, you know? Because my first day at boxing, it was like that, you know? And I made a vow to myself, my wife, to our gym that once we start this, we're gonna make that first day the best day ever in boxing, not like the day I had when I first started. Wow, it sounds like the first day you had left a big impression. Yes, it did, yeah, I went home crying, you know? I mean, I remember all the kids were in a circle and we were doing warm-up exercises, right? I had no orientation. So when they were doing jumping jacks, I didn't know how, because I never played any organized sports so whenever they went up, I was going down and when they were going down, I was going up and they were just laughing, pointing their fingers at me, you know, and that was my initial, oh, I felt that. Then when we were like punching the bag and everything, right, the coaches were telling me what to do and I didn't know how to do it and I was punching like this and everybody was laughing at me again. Then, near the end or middle of practice, the kids were going into the ring to spar, you know, box against each other. I never seen sparring before, right? So I was like, so intrigued, I was like, looking into the ring, like, oh, wow, look at these guys, you know, in my mind, I was thinking, man, these guys are awesome, right? The coach mistook my enthusiasm for what I was looking at that I wanted to jump into the ring and I did not, so, but so he said, itchy, want to try it out, want to spar, put the gloves on, get in the ring and I wanted in my heart to say, no, you know, no, I'm scared, but I didn't want to let anybody else know that I was scared, right? So, you know, I can tell, yeah, coach, sure. But inside I was like, jello, put the gloves on me, put the headgear on and then I started boxing and he did tell the guy that was boxing against me to go easy on me because it's my first time, right? But he was embarrassing me more than going easy. So when I tried to hit him, he'd jump out of the way I'd miss, right? Then after I'd miss, I'd swing and I'd miss, then he'd go, oh, I'm a four, like that. And then everybody would laugh, right? Then, so I got angrier and angrier, then finally I decided to just charge and rush him, then he sidestepped me and I almost went out of the ring through the ropes. I was just hanging over the top of my waist, yeah. And more and more, you know, everywhere is teasing, laughing, I could hear the kids all around the ring and pretty soon I tried to hold it back, but I started doing this and tears started running down my face, you know, not because I got hit hard, but because, yeah, I was humiliated. So the coach finally said, oh, that's okay, stop. That's all right, H, this is your first time, you know. Don't feel bad, but I already felt bad. Then he said, okay, you gotta go sit down. So I came out of the ring, I sat down on one of the wooden benches in the corner and I wanted to run away, but I was only nine years old and I drove to the gym, I rode to the gym with my coach. I didn't know where I was. You know, it was like out of the town that I was at. See, it was outside. So I went outside the door and then I looked, I always saw his bushes and trees and I couldn't imagine, it was dark already. So I came back into the gym and I just sat down because I was more afraid of the monsters out there. But I sat there and as I was sitting there watching the rest of the training, and I just, to myself, I just vowed, I'm gonna come back to this gym every single day until I make that boy cry, like he made me cry, you know? And you know, funny thing was, every day that that boy missed practice, I was so giddy and happy and everything, right? And the coach was like, what's wrong with you, HG? He didn't realize, but I was thinking in my little nine-year-old mind that every day that that boy missed practice, I was catching up, I was gaining a day of experience and practice. And one day I was gonna catch up and be as good as him or better, you know? It was a weird way of thinking, but I had that. So that's right now when I train my guys, right? I tell them and I'll be yelling out with the mic on and I'll tell them, hey, don't let your opponent out-train you or out-work you, you know? Because that came from when I was nine years old. And that's what eventually you did, you did out-work him, you did out-train him. And I'll look at you now. You are, you've been on the Olympics, you've been, let's see, Hawaii's, what was the award your wife was telling me about? The only two-time national champion from Hawaii. But that's in the elite men's division. Back in my day, when you were 17, you could go in the open division. Yeah, now 17 and 18 is in the youth division, right? So, yeah. When I was 17, I was fighting against 25, 30-year-old men and I was beating them. And so it sounds like you put in the work and it paid off, paid off big time. And it sounds like that story made a huge impact on the way you treat people who come into your gym to make sure, for them starting out, it's not a scary experience. It's not traumatizing. And then they love the sport, you know? They love the way the coaches guided them in and groomed them. It's a progression, right? You start off down here and you take baby steps and you get better and better and your confidence builds and you get proud of your own skills, you know? Then if you're coached like that, you wanna pass it on to the younger ones. I just want them to keep passing it forward. I love that. And what's some of the progression that people go through? Go through, from day one, they're stepping into your gym. What are some of the levels they have to progress through before they're competing? Yeah, we call it our beginners level, you know? That's in our initial 530 class and basically they just learn the punches that we do in boxing and some of the drills. Then they learn how to punch the bag. They learn, you know, the small speed bag, right? They learn how to skip rope. And we do these drills in a number of different ways and change it up so that it's not monotonous and boring, you know? And sometimes I'll play with the kids too, you know? Play around with the kids. Let them hit me and I'll make a miss and then I'll tease them, right? And so we do that, but that's the basic fitness level, right? Then there are times boxing is, how do I say it, interval driven. So intervals will go really hard and really fast and then there are times when we just kind of pace ourselves, right? So that type of physical fitness training is one of the best for losing weight also. So all of a sudden the kids start to see that they get stronger, they get faster and they start losing that baby fat, you know? And then they like the sport. So some of them, they just love that and they want to stay at that level. Then there are the rules that realize that, oh, they're better than the average guy that's in that gym and then they'll come up to me and say, coach, can I try it for the boxing team? I want to see if I can actually spar with somebody. Then they move on to our more advanced class, right? Where there is more contact and before they get hit in the face, I teach them how to block, how to duck under those punches, also how to step away, you know, footwork and agility to avoid getting hit, right? And then when they do get hit, it's like really soft at first, you know? I teach them how to block the punch and I hit them softly, then they block, then as they get better, I hit them harder and harder and harder. And by the time you see, you should see some of our little kids, I'll start hitting them soft, right? And then when they get better, I start hitting real hard and they actually get knocked from one side to the other, but they're laughing. Yeah, and they're laughing at me and they go, coach can knock me down, you know? Because they're proud that they can handle that. Whereas if I did that in the very first class, they would never come back. Wow, wow. And then those that want to actually compete and when we do compete, you know, with USA Boxing Hawaii, there's different levels. There's the novice or sub-novice, which any people that don't have any boxing experience, then the novice division, kids that are between one and 10 actual boxing matches on their record. Then there's the open division, which is 11 or more boxing matches. So when you first compete, you only gonna be competing with people with zero or one or two matches. So, you know, as evenly matched as possible. And we tell our referees that, these are just beginners. So if one side gets too strong or too overwhelming over the other, then the referees are instructed to like stop the fight and not let them go, you know? Our motto in USA Boxing is this. I would rather stop a thousand fights, five seconds too fast than five seconds too late. That makes sense. It's safety is a major number one concern. I like that. And then how else do people progress? Are there different levels that they can go through from amateur up to like championship or Olympic? Yeah. So the box at the local level, we call it, yeah, local fights, local. And then once a year, we, USA Boxing Hawaii, which I'm the president of, we put on state championships, okay? You gotta have a minimum number of bouts on your record to even qualify to compete in a state. So we don't wanna begin to step in and then, you know, get overwhelmed. Yeah, get pummeled. So once you got your minimum, then you can step in between your coach, your parents and the qualifications, you enter into the state championship. If you win the state, then you can advance to the national championships, which is usually on the mainland. So some of our kids, first time they ever played, fly down the plane, flew on the plane, you know, to the mainland, you know? So that alone is an experience. Then at the national championships, right? That's an open championship. So you've gotta be good enough that just in case you're boxing against the number one contender from last year, you're gonna have to step in the ring with that. But see, so our kids go to the nationals and then how they place there will spurn their desire to come back the next year. Very few people in their first year will actually win the national championship, but they'll get a taste of what, wow, I'm riding my shoulders with the next Sugar Ray Leonard, you know? The next Muhammad Ali. And then they'll recognize, because nowadays they'll go on the internet and they'll YouTube people, right? And they'll say, well, who's the best guy in my weight class, in my age division? They already know, before we know it, we the coaches know, right? And then when they see that they've competed well against the best in the country, their desire to come back is on next year. My goal is to win it, not just make it to the nationals, but to win it. So once they do that, then the next in USA boxing or amateur boxing is to make the Olympic team. Then, you know, there's qualifications for that also, right? You gotta not only place in the US national championships, then you gotta qualify in the Olympic qualifying tournaments. Once you make the Olympic qualifying tournaments, then you get on the USA boxing team. Once you get on the USA boxing team, then there's international qualification now. So it's a long road, you know, but it's achievable. I love that. And for those just starting out, if they're walking into your gym, I know a lot of women who were nervous to walk into a gym because we're afraid we're gonna be surrounded by guys. What's the atmosphere like in your gym for people just walking? We have more women actually walking into our gym, more parents bringing in their daughters to say, hey, my daughter wants to try some boxing. You know, the stigma of boxing being a man's sport or a boy's sport is out the door now. Especially remember in 2012 and 2016, Clarissa Shields from Flint, Michigan won the Olympics, right, she was the only US boxer to win the gold medal of female, a woman. So she's kind of like paved the way, you know, that boxing is not only a man's sport, but it's also for girls too. I love that. And I'm excited and you'll probably see me in your gym and within the next couple of weeks. But thank you viewers for watching. I hope you enjoyed this show and I hope you keep tuning in next week. If you'd like to learn more, the website for Coach is here right in front of me and you can always visit that and learn more. Thank you for watching and I'd encourage you, whether it's for yourself, for your friends, for your kids, step out of your comfort zone, visit the gym and see what happens. See you next week and have a wonderful day.