 Good day and welcome back to the Forty Autie Podcast with your host, Mr Thomas Henley. Of course, today we are covering a very, very interesting episode for our second episode of Season 3. We're going to be talking about martial arts. We're going to be talking particularly about our Lorenz experiences with martial arts, how he came to teach autistic and disabled individuals, how martial arts can benefit disabled and autistic individuals, as well as the importance of finding a balance between challenging ourselves or challenging other people, but also taking into account people's needs and individual adjustments. So I think it's going to be a really good podcast if you have been a part of the channel for a while. You'll know that I'm very into the martial arts world and I'm very honored to be joined by my guest today, Al-Loren. How are you doing? I'm doing great, Thomas. It's wonderful to be here. Where are you tuning in from? I am tuning in from Marin County, California, which is the first county north of San Francisco, right over the Golden Gate Bridge. Whereabouts in the U.S. is that like looking at the map? Is it like the top or the middle, or because it's hard for me to know because the U.K. is so small. It's the west coast of the United States, California, and it's northern California. So Los Angeles is about three to 400 miles south of San Francisco, and I'm in the northern area of a big state, California, which is bigger than most countries in the world. Wow. Yeah. Probably a lot bigger than the U.K., that's for sure. Oh, it is. California has one of the top 10 largest economies, even though it's a state within the United States in the world. So it's got a huge economy, large population. Is it quite temperate out there? Like warm because in the U.K. at the moment it is. I mean, it's a bit weird. It's kind of bone chilling most days, but like now and again, we'll have kind of a mildly temperate day, but nothing compared to like other places in the world where it's like sunny and warm. Like when I used to live in Thailand, it was I think the lowest that it got was about 14 degrees Celsius, which is you know, it's like good weather in the U.K. Well, we're here today to talk about martial arts. And as I mentioned earlier, like I've had my own sort of history within the martial arts world. I used to compete for Great Britain a couple of times in the sport of Taekwondo. WTF Taekwondo, I think it's WF now, they've kind of changed it or WT. Which is basically like boxing and we wear like all sorts of different pieces of equipment and stuff and it's very much like a point scoring game. It's full contacts, but I was a part of that world for a long time since about the age of 14, up until kind of 19, my university days. And I've had a lot of experiences both like traveling abroad, you know, competing and such and it would be really, I suppose, good for me to hear about your experiences because I know that you've been sort of in the world of martial arts for over 30 years. I'd like to perhaps start with your kind of own experience. Like when did you start and what kind of journey did you go on? Getting to the point where you started coaching. When I was growing up and I'm quite a bit older than you, martial arts was not the household word. It was mostly organized sports and it wasn't really as nearly as readily available as it is today or it has been in the past 20 to 25 years as I grew up in the 60s and 70s. And so I was in college as in my university, which is American University, which is in Washington DC, where I got my degree intended for four years. And my senior year at American University, my final semester, I needed an extra, I would say credit or something because I'd completed all my credits for my major and I had to take another credit to graduate. And I saw that they were offering, as you said, taekwondo. And I'd always, you know, had watched a lot of martial arts movies, the Chinese movies that were dubbed in back in the 60s and kind of triggered my interest. I've always been involved in organized sports. I played sports since day one out of the womb pretty much. American sports, I played football. I played organized basketball. I played baseball, of course, and then I got heavily into the sport of lacrosse, which I played in college. And so I'd always been interested in discipline and movement and just learning how to move my body in different ways. And so when I saw that they had martial arts, they were offering a taekwondo course. I said, I'll sign up for that. I need the credit anyway to graduate. And that was my first exposure. So I was probably, you know, 20 years old, 21 years old when I first got involved in it. Like I said, it wasn't really available like it is now as a child, as a kid. And so it really, I really enjoyed it. I graduated. I moved from Washington, D.C., where American University was, to Florida. A couple months went by and then I noticed I was living in an apartment complex and my neighbor next door to me was teaching out of his apartment. I saw some people come out with uniforms with the geese on. I go, hmm, that's interesting. So I went over and approached. Yeah, I went over and approached. I mean, he just had a small little group going on because it was in his apartment. And I asked him, I said, would he be willing to take on another student? And, you know, he kind of interviewed me and we came to an agreement. And that's where my more serious training started. Well, anyway, long story short, he after I trained with him for probably in a small group, an Okinawan style called Shuri Roo and Sakurati style. And he was very, very much into the lifestyle of martial arts. And he had a girlfriend that was from Indonesia. And she had set up a training, I guess she had certain connections, set up a training with the Buddhist temples up in the mountains of Indonesia, which he was going to go there and live for a while and train. So he said to me, you better go find a dojo because I'm not going to be able to teach anymore. So I found a dojo in Florida in Miami, where I was living greater Miami, which is a big city in the United States. And one of the biggest cities in Florida found a place called Miami Karate Academy. Started training there, really getting into it seriously. The lifestyle, the training, the discipline, and it just became a part of me. And as I got into my mid twenties and got away from playing organized sports because they were school oriented sports and I was out of school, I had graduated. This really filled that that area that I needed to be filled for my body movement, my competing, but there was so much more. I enjoyed the discipline. I enjoyed the camaraderie of training with other people. Then I got into competing, like you said, into tournaments. And I've competed in quite a few tournaments of everything from local, state, world championships, United States Open, doing kata, fighting and weaponry. Kata is like the movements, isn't it? We call it patterns, I think, in the dojo that I was at. But I think it's interesting that you were sort of mentioning about like an Okinawan style. I've very much been into a particular sort of string of movies called The Karate Kid. And not like the new one with like Jane Smith, like the old one, like kind of Daniel Laruso kind of. I probably watched like the series of Karate Kid movies over like at least like 40, 50 times. I had such an obsession with like, particularly around like Asian culture. And I think, you know, obviously, when we're talking about martial arts, you know, a lot of people kind of nowadays, you see things like the UFC sort of MMA, you see like, obviously Taekwondo, you see boxing, you see like Muay Thai sort of championships, which is all very much like focused on sort of the physical discipline of like fighting and competition and stuff. But you know, as you said, there is quite a large sort of cultural discipline, sort of mental or even social aspect to martial arts, which I don't think it's really highlighted a lot sort of in our sort of Monday. But I think it was, you know, it was quite interesting, particularly for me to kind of learn around like the backgrounds of it. And you know, I lived in Thailand and I was around some monks, which who like practiced and did like shows and stuff for like the tourists and all that. So it is interesting, kind of like the roots of it. Have you seen the Karate Kid films? I was blown away by the original Karate Kid movie. After that, I watched a little bit of the sequels. And it was a bit diluted for me, you know, but the first one, quite honestly, it made me cry. It really moved, literally, it really moved me. And, you know, it's, you know, I know it's some Hollywood and all that, but it really, really hit a note in my inner being. And I thought it was pretty for the time, you know, the early 80s, it was pretty fantastic in a lot of ways and gave the martial arts some great exposure universally, you know, really started to put it out there. And Mr. Miyagi is like, because when you were talking about like the individual that you sort of trained in their apartment is kind of making me, you mentioned Okinawa as well. So I was like, trying to thinking of like Mr. Miyagi, sort of doing his classes with sort of Daniel in like the, you know, trimming bonsai trees and catching flies with chopsticks and stuff like that. Exactly. Yeah, so I think it really opened a big door for the public here, certainly in the states to really enthusiastically get a lot more awareness and interest in the martial arts. It was kind of a watershed moment, I would say, that movie coming out and the exposure it got for martial arts. I suppose talking about like sort of the, what do you say, the sort of epitome of the movie, sort of like the final fight between, well, how is it? It's Daniel and, I can't remember the name of the dude, the guy from Cobra Kai. I've watched it so many times, I can't remember his name. But I suppose sort of leading on from like that epitome of that movie, I mean, what is one of the more memorable sort of competitions or fights that you've had, which were like particularly like difficult or emotional or sort of had a, had sort of the most impact on you? Well, competing one year in the world championships and we're talking probably the mid-80s and we were in an arena and there were practitioners from all over the world and I was getting ready to fight and I was feeling really, I believe I was a brown belt at the time and so I was fighting in the brown belt division, which is pretty intense division because everybody's hungry to move to the next level and when you're competing against not only people from your own country, but from South America and Europe and on and on, I had really trained hard for that and I was feeling really good about myself and I had some fans there who were going to watch me in my next match and my girlfriend at the time was there and I was just feeling very, very confident that I was going to be successful in that fight and I was fighting against a, my match was against a Taekwondo practitioner as a matter of fact and so, you know, I know Taekwondo has really good kicking in legs, I knew that and I figured if I could get inside the legs, then I would be really successful and had a good chance at being winning the match. Well, what happened was I did not get inside the legs, I got kicked in the, I got kicked in the head and really hard and you know, got my bell wrong was pretty physically dizzy after that and ended up losing the fight and kind of, you know, learned a lesson there to never really lost the fight actually. I'm not proud to say but being honest and humble to say that at that, at that time, you know, the Taekwondo practitioner was more efficient than I was and so that's a story that, you know, really stuck with me because I realized I was probably a little overconfident and to, you know, I had to temper that part of myself and just to for future experiences know that, you know, confidence is good, however, you know, I have to be there in the moment and realize that on any given moment anything is possible and just take it as it comes from that perspective. I think it's really interesting to kind of hear a story like when I first started going around later the international circuit because of my heights, I was about six foot three when I started, I mean, I still am, but I was pretty tall, so I was in quite a heavy weight division and one thing about weight class sports is that like the majority of people tend to sit like in the middle of that weight class. So there's a lot of people who compete in the sort of middle divisions, but not many people sort of on the upper end of things. So attending not to have too many fights to kind of get through to make it to the finals, but because I was so, so it's usually ordered and seeded based on how many like ranking points you have as a fighter. So if you just join as kind of a beginner and you have very little ranking points, you tend to be put with people who are very, very good at the start, basically, because they try and have them on like both sides of the sort of the table as people sort of move and fight it to the kind of the middle to the finals. And I had this fight, I think with like, and then at that time he was probably like number number one seeded in the world for my weight class, which was a bit daunting. Consider it was probably like my second international fight. And I remember, I remember giving it a good go. I definitely wasn't, I wasn't quite at his level, that is, that is for sure. I remember this because I've always particularly been quite a sort of aggressive fighter. I think I was always kind of a nervy fighter, like I've had a lot of like panic attacks and meltdowns and stuff before fights or like coming up to the actual sort of event. But I always did it. And when I was actually sort of in the fight, it was very, I was very sort of forward front footed kind of fighter. And you know, obviously this, this guy just delivered I think one of the most, the hardest back kick that I've ever experienced in my life, which is like, there, I don't know, like it like kind of like a horse kick. I don't know if there's like a different name and that you know of, but he just absolutely plowed his foot into my, into my body. And I had body armor on, but it completely winded me. And I think that was probably like one of the more memorable ones for me. The other, the other sort of memorable competition would be sort of the commonwealth, which is like a sort of collection of countries who come to fight or come to compete together. It's quite a well known thing sort of in the UK. I don't think it's a US thing though. But I had to fight, I think, well, there's three other Australians in my category. And I was in the category below heavyweights. And there was one guy in heavyweights. So they decided to merge the light heavyweights myself with the heavyweights. So I ended up kind of like in the final in this very sort of rocky-esque kind of movie moments with like the crowd just like shouting because it was like the final fight of the day as well, because, because of our weight division. And it was a very, very, very sort of crazy experience. I have talked about it before. So I won't go into too much detail on it. But yeah, it was really good to hear sort of your experience as well. It's always kind of enlightening to hear other people's journey through martial arts. But I suppose focusing a little bit more on like the topic of the podcast, which it's kind of around martial arts and autism. At what point did you decide to start coaching? And why was it that you sort of gravitated towards teaching autistic and disabled individuals? Okay. It was about 1991 when I started teaching. I was in the corporate world for employment. And, you know, I was earning a nice living and, but, and still training when I moved out to San Francisco area, the Bay, what we call the Bay Area at California, is a very rich area for martial arts when I moved from Miami, Florida there in 1989. So I wanted to continue my training, which I had been doing in Florida for probably, oh, since I moved there for 10 to 12 years. And I wanted to continue. And I was excited when I moved out here to California and to the Bay Area because of the really rich area of martial arts where there was a lot going on there. And so I continued training. I got into different styles when I moved here in 89, 1989. Karate, I got into some Wing Chun Kung Fu, got into some Aikido, Jujitsu, Tai Chi, and just continued on to learn new things. And I guess you could say I was kind of on a mission just to better myself martial arts-wise internally, discipline-wise. And I really enjoyed it. It was my passion. It was my spiritual calling, so to speak. And it just felt a big part of me. Well, I met a man and we got talking and just in passing kind of randomly, so to speak. And I told him what I did. I said, I'm in the corporate world, corporate advertising. I'm not really that happy. I said, I'm making a good living, but it's not really sustaining me internally. And it's not where my passion is, my calling, my heart doesn't sing from that. And he said, I told him about my martial arts background. And he said to me, because, you know, you should consider teaching. I looked at him with a funny expression on my face. I said, me, teach? I go, he goes, yeah, you may not feel like a teacher, but you know more than most. And I started to ponder that. My coaches were the same. They were like, Thomas, you should get into teaching. I'm like, I would like to. I would like to. And, you know, I really slept on it for a while. And I go, you know, if I don't make a move and do something now, I'm not happy doing what I'm doing in my career. I'm never going to do it. So what I started to do is I started to advertise. It was before the internet, really. And in late mid to late 1990, and I was dating this woman by the name of Jennifer, who eventually became my wife. And we would go out on dates. And on a Saturday night, we would go out to dinner. And then we would post flyers of classes that I found a studio where I could teach at in my area. And that I was leasing space from. And I'd post flyers of my classes. And, you know, one free class, if you try, if you come and see me. And I actually got a lot of business from that. I started doing demonstrations at different local centers, recreation center schools. And I little by little started to develop a clientele and a reputation. There were only in my county where I live, there were only a few schools, a few dojos back then. Now there's probably 40 to 50, there were probably like, you could count them on one or two hands, mostly on one hand, when I first started, which was fortunate for me. And, you know, the Ninja Turtles were were big at the time. And so there was a lot of interest from kids. And I kind of built my business around kids at the time, although I also started teaching Tai Chi to adults and seniors about the same time. And I did a lot of work at retirement residences, which I'm still at 33 years later, for seniors, the Tai Chi. I've heard that the Tai Chi can be quite a good sort of exercise for older people. Yes, very good for their balance. It's non impactful on the body. It's something they can do because it's slow moving so they can be deliberate and take their time and feel what they're doing. So it's safe for them. Yeah, absolutely. Tai Chi is probably the best exercise for seniors. And when I'm talking seniors in my class, I have a woman last week at one of my facilities that I teach at residences, she just turned 107. So, you know, it goes all the way. My median age is probably 85 to 90 in a lot of my places where I teach at. I'm in about seven or eight different places that I teach at Monday through Friday. Tai Chi, that is in addition to all my other martial arts schools and clients. Taekwondo might be a bit too intense too. Oh yeah. Okay, do a roundhouse kick. No spinning back heel kicks or jump kicks. That's not happening. So anyway, back to my story, in 1991, I decided to go full time. And I was getting a pretty good crop of students. And so I was working at my corporate job and teaching in the afternoons, doing the same until it was enough to sustain me. For about six months, I had two jobs. And then I let go of my corporate work, my advertising that I was in, and went full time and never looked back since. So I've been full time self-employed teaching Tai Chi and martial arts for, let's see, I started January of 1991 and it's February of 2000. So 33 years and doing it full time and earning a living at it. So what about when you had your first autistic or disabled student? When is it that you made the switch to focusing on teaching that demographic of people? Well, I wouldn't say it was a switch. It was a very profound addition to my training, to my teachings. And it was about 1992. And actually a mom, or as you would say in England, a mom, we say M-O-M, you say M-U-M. I watched a lot of Brit box movies, which I'm kind of tired of the American movies sometimes have really enjoying that it's opened up a whole new world for me. But anyway, getting back to the point. A mom of a kid who I was teaching was an occupational therapist and she called me up one day and she said, this is about, yeah, about 1992. She said, would you, she said, Al, would you be interested in teaching two boys who have, I don't even think she's, the word autism was not even the buzz back then, you know, 32 years ago and who have some, maybe she said disabilities, some physical, emotional disabilities. Would you be interested in working with them privately together? And I said, absolutely. And so that was my first, first experience of teaching in that area. And I go, hmm, said to myself, this is pretty cool. I really connect with them. I resonate with them. I feel them. And I like, like working with them because I can see the vast, great benefits of doing martial arts, you know, for their, their coordination, their fine and gross motor skills, their emotional makeup and how they can gain some self confidence and some environmental and space spatial awareness around them and just using their bodies better and feeling more confident. And I also noticed that I really wanted to make it fun for them to have to have joy when they were, were doing it. And I seem to be pretty good at it. And, you know, I go back to my family roots and my dad was really good with kids. He was a pediatrician, a practicing doctor, physician, and he, you know, his, his practice was working, you know, treating kids. And so I probably inherently got some of that energy from him, that ability. So I just seemed to naturally normally connect with people who had, you know, who have now what we say, who are on the spectrum and non non divergent and disability, whatever you want to call it, you know, people here, you know, politically correct and politically maybe incorrect, but, you know, people who could use some help. And I just seem to really like a, like a whisperer connect with them. And so I started to little by little, from that point on, seek out those associations and groups and schools that work with, with that type of demographic. Well, in terms of like, I suppose, perhaps like specifically, like autistic people, were there any like, sort of standout kind of highlights, sort of either like learning moments for you or sort of successful moments for you or kind of like times times which you kind of approach and perception, so shifted. Well, I had one student who had autism that I was working with privately. And this is probably about 10 to 15 years ago. And he told me he goes, somehow we got into a conversation while we were doing our training session. And he said to me, he looked at me and he got, he called me Sensei and he said Sensei Al, you know something, you're the only person that I respect on this planet. And I looked at him and I go, okay, wow. And I thought about that. And I'm going like, wow, you know, it's stuck with me for quite, it still sticks with me quite a bit after that here's somebody who's telling, making a statement like that, that I'm the only person that he respects. Now he granted he has autism. But and he struggled, you know, academically. And he struggled relationship wise and finding his place in the world and what he wants to do and his mission and everything. But, you know, he was very capable, really good, a very good martial artist, and got a lot of power and was pretty well coordinated. But what he said to me that he I was the only person on the planet that he respected, I'm going like, Oh, my goodness, that's like a tremendous impactful statement that really moving me. And, you know, I was honored, I was just completely blown away that he would say that to me. I mean, yeah, given him my best teaching effort, and I'm there to help him. But for someone to say something like that, that was an incredible moment for me. But there's been, you know, that's one that, you know, just off the top of my head, that was impactful. But there's so many, you know, I have autistic students who I've promoted to black belt, which I never thought would happen occur that what came up through the ranks who have done, you know, years of training, I have a student who's a black belt of mine. And in fact, the original student that I was mentioning, referring to earlier, one of the two boys that I that got me started the referral from the from the mom that I was teaching their son. He's still with me 30 years later. And he's one of my black belts. His name is John. And I see him privately and work with him once a week, pretty much for the last 30 years. And, you know, it's amazing to have students that long standing. He's like a family member. He's like a, you know, a surrogate son to me. And I know him so well. And it does kind of feel like a family system, like you kind of have like, you know, sort of people within sort of the training halls and stuff. That's what that's why you can get like so much drama, like when people move from like classes to like other people or like, you know, they sort of decide to go to go somewhere else that could be sometimes a bit of sort of political kind of drama, at least as far as I've seen and heard of sort of in the taekwondo world. This how you define success with autism is different than mainstream success to me. And when I see the kids or teens, and I work with kids, young kids, teens, adults, like I said, my student who's been with me for 30 years, he's going to be turning 40 in July, this year in July. So, you know, up to that, up to that age, I have another girl or a woman now who has autism who's been working with me for 20 years. She started with me when she was 16. And she's 36 now that I work with privately. And she's also a black belt, very capable and a really good martial artist and can defend herself. That's how to take care of herself. Anybody tries to grab her. She's got a great, great blocking system, defense system. She kicks well. She's spot on with her techniques. She knows submission moves, tech downs. So my motto is never underestimate what a person is capable of when you present it to them. It may not be easy for them. It may take patience, diligence, time, and just a lot of commitment and effort. But I'm always wanting to say in the world of autism and also other disabilities, present and give the person the opportunity. And they many times, you know, they're not going to take off like a, you know, a ballerina always, but they're going to rise to the occasion. And from what I found from my experience, that they want to do well. And once they see little, little bits of success and encouragement from the right teacher, the right sensei, or the right teacher in any area, they're going to, they're going to start to believe in themselves, get more self confidence and see those little steps of success going in the right direction. And no matter how incremental or how small they may be, it's definitely achievable and tangible. I see a lot of commitment, a lot of progress and willingness through encouragement to want to participate. And, you know, I've gotten years and tons of resistance over the years, and sometimes it takes quite a period of time to break the ice, so to speak. And some of my best martial artists on the spectrum had been very resistant and hesitant initially. Sometimes it might take a week, a month, or even longer, six months before they want to dive into it. But I stick with it and encourage them. And then all of a sudden, you know, little by little, it can happen. And they can become, they can just soar. I get quite a few that go, Whoa, this is pretty cool. And I can actually do this. And look, there's somebody here who's willing to teach me and, and, and then the whole group rallies around each other. So it's really good for social socialization. You know, they're encouraging way to go whoever the person's name is, way to go Lily, way to go Steven, way to go, who, you know, James. And they encourage each other, and they feed off of each other, and they clap for each other. And that's just really amazing. And it really means it's wholeheartedly means a lot to each individual to be encouraged and to go, Wow, I must be doing pretty well here. I want to continue with this. And it's, it just, you know, evolves from there in a really powerful and positive way. I've been attacked. I've been scratched. I've been cursed at. I've been, you know, had so many disruptions in my class. So, you know, there's that end too. So that's where my ability to be patient and loving and compassion and understanding and forgiveness comes in. And for an effective teacher, whether it's martial arts or any teacher with working on the spectrum and teaching on the spectrum, you really sincerely need those qualities. You can't, it's not just a job. It's, it's a way of being. And, you know, for me, it's my passion. It's become my passion. I love it. I care. I believe in my students. I believe in what I'm doing. And, you know, now after 33 years, I have reference points of success for, for those characteristics of knowing that the, the students are going to accomplish things and they really develop a, a sense of purpose and self accomplishment. Well, I'm, I suppose it'd be good to kind of talk about, I suppose some of like the benefits of, you know, martial arts, I think from my personal experience, I definitely learned a lot of interpersonal kind of social skills through my experiences. Because I was never really, I did become a coach at one point, but I was kind of one of the sort of the, the top sort of people in the, the, in terms of training, in terms of like belt structure and in terms of like success and such. And I had a lot of, around that time, I wasn't the most sort of social myself. I definitely found that through my experiences, you know, part of the martial arts world that I started to kind of develop sort of a feeling of being a part of a group or a family around the time that I was sort of competing quite regularly. And I was training quite regularly, you know, I was in secondary school and for a lot of autistic people, secondary school or high school can be particularly difficult. And so it was kind of like my, somewhat like my escape and also called me anxiety sometimes, but it was, I think it was generally quite good for me in that way. And as I sort of moved through and sort of got myself more accustomed to the environment, I definitely took on quite a lot of sort of leadership roles in those, in those areas. I think you were saying before about sort of your, one of your parents and how sort of their influence kind of sort of fed into your sort of coaching. And my mom's the same, I mean, she's like an autism, one of like the lead autism head. So she was for a large part of England. And I definitely, that kind of stuff rubs off on you, I think. I think there's there's also something to be said about like the nature of like martial arts or doing sports or training, you know, obviously having quite a stable routine is important for autistic people. And it's funnily enough, like one of the, I would say one of the, the more interesting kind of like benefits of being autistic kind of in martial arts that kind of stick into routine and hyper focus and such. I think probably the major sort of benefit that I could talk on which was kind of related to my experience in secondary school, which was kind of like, you know, sort of navigating confrontation, bullying and such. I had a really hard time with that, particularly, particularly in secondary school. A lot of instances of both sort of physical, social and emotional bullying. I never particularly used like my skills in that fashion. But when I started to get to quite a high level in the sport, started to make like the school newspaper and, you know, be, have my face sort of posted throughout the school, people started to kind of not pick on me as much, which was kind of good. Absolutely. And one of, you know, that was definitely a really big benefit for me because my self esteem was pretty much rock bottom for a very, very long time. And that kind of showed me sort of the benefits of having a bit of grit, a bit of sort of self perseverance, even even if things are very difficult, how that can be beneficial. Also, like stepping outside of my comfort zones also, I think something that, you know, it is definitely something that I did in the martial arts world, but also, you know, there's experiences sort of carried on sort of throughout my life, wherever it be going to university, living on my own, wherever it be going abroad, going backpacking, you know. I've always been, my mum's always had this very sort of great attitude towards me, which is kind of like pushing me to step outside of my comfort zone, but always, you know, feeling okay about sort of retreating and sort of feeling kind of comfortable. So there's a kind of like the top things that come to mind when I, you know, think about sort of the impact of like martial arts on my life. Is there anything that you'd like to add particularly about sort of the experiences with your students? Absolutely, Thomas. I think that you mentioned some really great points. Self-esteem, enhancement, self-confidence, sense of self-accomplishment, and what I mean by that is a student of mine, either specifically or in general, learning a technique that they're having difficulty with, and over a period of time, they say, for instance, a roundhouse kick or a, you know, doing an effective uppercut or how to get out of a wrist grab or a shirt grab, and they at first are not really interpreting that physically, mentally, physically, and when they over a period of time practicing and they go, oh, I got it. Look at that. Oh, yes. And they get a sense of confidence and self-achievement, self-accomplishment, which is awesome because, you know, being on the spectrum, they are not always witnessing that or experiencing that. So that's a really- I think there is a pretty, pretty sort of strong, strong sort of trend that I've seen in some parents, not all parents, but, you know, you might- it's something that I've heard from my mom sometimes, like, where I've seen even myself and heard from other sort of autistic adults that, you know, sometimes people kind of, I think maybe coddle might be the right word, sort of trying to protect us too much from sort of going out and doing things or telling us that we can't do specific things because of, you know, being autistic. I think, you know, I think definitely like that there is a line and it's obviously going to where that line is, where the goals that we set for the individual is, is very dependent on, like, who that person is and what their capabilities are. I agree. I totally agree. I mean, if you want to raise the person, raise their capabilities, you must raise the bar. It's just, you know, and, you know, going to mainstream and then bringing it synonymous with autism on the spectrum, the greatest inventors, the greatest achievers were not afraid to fail. Failure was a roadmap for their success. They find out what works and what doesn't work. And in the world of autism, if you don't present it to them, they're never- we're never going to know. They're never going to know. They're never going to have the opportunity to, as you used a really good word earlier, develop that grit, that internal grit to be able to push through things. And, you know, it's not, sometimes it's not an easy world for anybody. And certainly for people on the spectrum, it has its life challenges. So when you present and allow them to grow and give them new things to work at and develop, it's doing them a great service. And they may be hesitant, not confident, but what you said, another great word that you used or a point that you said, you know, when you coddle them too much, you know, you don't have any evolution or growth. And I know some people, you know, it depends on the individual. Every person is different, and they proceed and operate and interact with the world differently. And I get that. And some people, you know, have different, everybody has different considerations. But I'm one for pushing people to, I'm one to raise the bar. Well, I think it's definitely an interesting kind of sort of line of thinking. I think everyone deviates with their own personal experiences. And like, you know, if I put out like a post particularly about, you know, saying, saying, you know, don't let the fact that you're autistic, stop you from doing the things that you want to do. I get very, very mixed reactions. Some people are like, Oh, yeah, you're right, you know, I can do this. And they take it quite positively other people. They kind of, you know, say, Well, actually, you know, I'm disabled and this is difficult for me in that. And, you know, you're not really taking into consideration that people can have all sorts of different reactions when you like kind of speak on, you know, developing that grit and everyone falls somewhere on the spectrum. But I think it's very worthwhile to try and I suppose understand, I mean, understand like the mentality that's that's kind of important. So I do think that there is a pretty sort of key, like middle ground to it. I don't think that we should be stopped from from doing certain things. I think there is definitely a lot of utility in doing things differently and providing adjustments and also being a bit more cautious, a bit more sensitive around new experiences, new things. But I definitely don't think it should, it should be something that we should stop, you know, autistic people from engaging with just because they can find it quite, quite difficult. I think, you know, there's a lot of learning to be done and sort of finding sort of new challenges for people to sort of confront. I suppose like it'd be good to know like in your in your personal experience, like what sort of mentality do you do you sort of try to instill within your autistic students when it when it comes to facing sort of challenges and difficulties that they may have? Yeah, I really emphasize that with my students, especially my private students and my class students, that with with some effort and time and time commitment to our practices, you will get better, you will achieve learning of some of the techniques that they're the only perfection is the effort and the willingness to move towards doing something to the best of your ability to increasing your your your effort. And with my teaching or as you would say, I guess maybe they say in England, coaching, we call it teaching here, but either way, I provide encouragement, lots of patience, sincere compassion when need to be, and try to make it as a joyful and fun experience as possible. Does it work for everybody? Like you said, you know, there's some middle ground there that, you know, it's there's not one straight linear formula that you can apply to each individual is different. And I will tell a parent or a school or a teacher, if it's not working for that student at that time, it's, you know, it we're not getting the benefit that we're looking for, it's just discouraging them. And I'll let them know. But most of the time, percentage times, I see that the martial arts are just bent, you know, can be of great benefit. And when I mean great benefit, you know, they're not going to jump around throwing spinning, you know, jumping spinning back heel kicks or anything like that. I mean, just from a standpoint that they're getting exercise, that their mind is working, their concentration is developing, they're following me in a very specific way because we're working one on one. And I can keep all the focus on them and they can keep some focus on me. So the thoughts are getting stronger, the processing in the brain is getting stronger, they're getting more used to moving their body, they're developing reflexes, flexibility, coordination, as I said earlier, gross and fine motor skills, the reflexes are getting better and they're having fun and they're they're getting some joy out of it. So those are the experiences that I am looking to instill in my students and that I see manifesting. And the reason I wrote my book is to tell them my journey and the specific stories which are in the book and the methodology that I use to connect with these students and to bring some joy and some self-accomplishment and self-confidence and some self-defense and teach them how to defend themselves. And some people can't do it. Like I said, there's middle of the road and some people may be saying who are listening to this, to my interview, to our interview with this podcast right now, may be saying, oh well, I can't do this, I can't do that. And that may be true and it may not be true. There is middle of the road and I'm not saying it's for everybody, but it's certainly, certainly because of the not being a team sport and being an individual discipline, there is opportunity for a lot more people on the spectrum to be able to participate and to have some success. Well, I think if anything, I feel like a lot of what we've talked about can be applied to lots of different kind of situations in life, both for individuals who are listening and also perhaps parents of particularly autistic or disabled individuals. I think I would definitely highlight before we kind of try and wrap things up that in all of my experiences, both sort of within school and coaching in Taekwondo and sort of working with other sort of kids, a lot of them are really sort of starved of a lot of encouragement quite often. I think sometimes in our efforts to kind of protect and make sure that they're okay, we sometimes were a bit wary about them trying new things and taking on things that might be quite difficult for them due to sort of the differences that they have, but I think that's definitely something that I would highlight and I think this is being good to try and would you be able to sort of share the name of your book and where people can find that? Absolutely, I'd love to. It's called Martial Arts on the Autism Spectrum. It's available, it's actually available in the UK on Amazon and Martial Arts on the Autism Spectrum and the full title is Practical Tips from Three Decades of Training, Kids and Adults and if you just search Martial Arts on the Autism Spectrum and my name Al Loren, it'll come up and if it doesn't come right up scroll down a little bit and it'll be there and yeah it's my journey, it's my story and it's backed with a lot of information, it's a fun read, it's an informative read. Awesome stuff, well thank you very much for that and as usual the links, the link to that will be put down in the description of this podcast or the YouTube video that comes out if you want to go check that out. Thank you very much and I'll just a little update for everybody before we sort of say goodbye. Next episode we are going to be talking to a very very lovely lady about cerebral palsy, so their experiences with that so stay tuned at the moment where I am sort of taking a bit of putting podcast on the back burner a little bit so you can expect kind of more sort of monthly episodes rather than weekly like it was before but we're still going with them and if you want to stay up to date with all the stuff that's going on in my life in terms of like my business and the things that I'm creating, you can always check out the link tree down in the description or type in at Thomas Henley UK on pretty much any social media site, Instagram Spotify Instagram YouTube being like the main places that I would highlight and of course make sure to rate the podcast if you are on those streaming services like the video and consider subscribing and becoming a member on my YouTube channel to further support the kind of work that I do. Well it's been an absolute pleasure Al and thank you. Thank you so much Thomas it's been a great pleasure and I'm really happy that we could do the interview here. Likewise Al it's been great to hear about your story and your experience teaching autistic and disabled individuals and I'm sure that a lot of people have got some really worthwhile information from this. Well guys it's been a pleasure and I will see you on another episode of the 40 Aughty Podcast very very soon. See you later guys.