 Here at the Art of One Dojo, we aim to build a strong community of martial artists. Our goal is to be a support group and a productive resource for those seeking information on the variety of arts. This is why I invite you to join me on a new personal journey as we talk about today's topic, Martial Arts Cross Training. Let's talk about martial arts cross training a little bit. If you don't know what it means, it simply means training in different arts and usually blending the styles together for your own use. And as we talk about cross training, let's take a quick look at why I think it's important to consider. First, no art is perfect. Every martial art has strengths and weaknesses. Many people will argue about which art is better, and we talked about that in a previous video, but there is no such thing as the perfect art that can apply to everyone. Secondly, by identifying a potential weakness or gaps in your art, that can help you choose which style to add onto your training. By doing that, you create a blend of skills that will round you out as a more balanced practitioner. Third, even if you don't intend to spend a lot of time in another art, it's always a good idea to know about other styles out there and how they work. It can only help you in your own defense, and if you can at least understand what other types of attacks are, you have a better chance of defending against them. I've spent two and a half decades in my root art of Kempo. I love it. It's my foundation, but for a long time, I've always been curious about stepping outside of my yard and exploring what others are doing. But life happens, and it's always easy to say, oh, one day. For the past few years, life has presented some challenges that impacted my time to train. Additionally, my instructor closed her dojo in 2015 and moved away. The time I have spent in the art since then is usually devoted to teaching children, so it's been a while since I've challenged myself. Time flies. I'm not getting any younger or lighter. Making these videos so far has been a great experience, and a lot of you have reached out to me with overwhelming positivity. So I want to sincerely thank you for that and let you know that you have all inspired me to try something new. So how do you decide which art to expand into? Well, it's really not that much different than picking your first art, which we've talked about in an earlier video, and you'll find that link below in the description. But basically, you have to identify your goal and what you want to accomplish, and then consider the areas in your own training that you want to strengthen. And more often than not, the answer will be easier than you might think. So how did I approach this, and what did I choose? Well, Kempo has a wide array of powerful strikes and principles, and if you find a good school, it can be incredibly effective at defending yourself in close combat. Now, while I love the foundation of Kempo, it is seriously lacking in ground combat. And anyone who's spent more than five minutes in martial arts will know that MMA and ground fighting are incredibly popular these days. And for this reason, you'll often find a lot of schools are starting to supplement their programs with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and other ground fighting arts, just to address this fact. My instructor had also trained MMA fighters, so he put a heavy blend of that into our curriculum, at least enough to get a taste and an understanding of what to expect. Now, additionally, while punching and kicking is awesome, I wanted to learn more stand-up grappling, particularly throws, takedowns, locks and submissions. Karate is a great art of destroying an attacker, but I also wanted to learn about more controlling the person's movements with some finer detail. After some research, I had narrowed my choices down to either Judo or Jiu-Jitsu. So I looked at several schools and I came across the sojo here at Boko Jiu-Jitsu. I really liked the energy and vibe, so I figured it was worth visiting and meeting She-Han Billwood. My school and my background include, well, my background is I was born and raised in New York City and I went to one of only two junior high schools that had a Judo program in the high school. So that was how I was fortunate enough to be exposed to Judo in the first place. And throughout my younger years living in New York City up until the age of 30, I was training in many different dojos in New York City, mostly Kenzen, the Kenzen dojo. Classes I teach here in the school are mostly Sanyama Bushiru, Jiu-Jitsu-based classes. I also teach Judo embedded in with the system because, well, Judo is a huge part of our style of Jiu-Jitsu with all the throws, the locks, the chokes, hold-down techniques, multiple attacker techniques. We defend from knives, sticks, guns, we have wall techniques, chair techniques, we have ground techniques, all sorts of different ground techniques, defending against weapons as well as people on us, not just one person but sometimes multiple people on us. Use of different everyday weapons such as magazines rolled up, sand, dirt. Take my glasses off and I'll use the ends if I have to, but whatever it takes. After a couple of classes I decided I had made the right decision and this felt like this would blend very well with my previous experience, but let me tell you what an eye-opener was. Now, I'm showing you this footage even though I am totally new at this. I'm slow, sometimes clumsy and I'm still processing everything. I could be embarrassed by this but I'm not because this is a process of growth and that's the entire reason we have this channel and that is to be a positive resource for martial artists and enthusiasts. I want to be able to present educational and fun information to all of you while at the same time extending my own education. Starting the martial arts should be exciting and fulfilling and sometimes it means extending yourself past your comfort zone. There's nothing shameful about starting over, which brings me to this. Sheehan Wood has been incredibly respectful of my experience and this made me feel very welcome in his school, even offering to let me wear my belt, my ranking class. And as simple as this was, once I signed up I opted to don the white belt because even though I have previous experience, when it comes to jiu-jitsu I'm a complete novice. So I wanted to give Sheehan Wood the equal respect that he showed me as well as respect to his students who have worked hard to earn their ranks because on this floor I am a white belt. It's very different than what I'm used to. Some of it I'm able to pick up quickly but other times I feel like a toddler. For example, a lot of the spacing between you and the opponent is different than what I'm used to. There's many fine nuances of techniques so I find that even the smallest of adjustment in your feet or position can drastically change the outcome. It was a little overwhelming at first but then I said to myself, this is why I'm here because it's new and uncomfortable. Jiu-jitsu differs from other arts such as karate and many other styles, taekwondo. Basically the first difference is in the country of origin that these arts are from. For example, taekwondo, hapkido or basically Korean martial arts, jiu-jitsu, aikido, judo or Japanese arts and then you have karate that is basically from Okinawa and that has Chinese origins as well as Japanese origins. It just is an ever changing microcosm of techniques that's ever evolving and changing and your methodologies of defense have to constantly evolve and change with the times and with the geographic area you might live in as well. There are distinct techniques that jiu-jitsu has. I would say it basically boils down to the use of blocks and strikes that would be used in many forms of karate and taekwondo combined with the use of throws and then the use of either control techniques if you're dealing with one person or the immediate use of another technique on other attackers if there's a multiple attacker situation. So I present myself to you in this beginning state because there are a lot of you watching who might be new to the martial arts. We're building a supportive community here so I want to learn right alongside you. This is my journey and I feel privileged to be able to share it with all of you and I'm excited at this opportunity for an old dog to learn some new tricks. So in closing, I encourage all of you to branch out and expand your experience. Martial arts cross-training can be applied to just about any art. If you have a significant amount of experience in one art, can you identify the strengths or aspects that you'd like to improve? We don't have to be locked into one mindset. I fully believe we are at our strongest when we learn other ways and then blend them together for a larger picture. I would love to hear from any of our viewers who practice martial arts cross-training right now. What different arts have you practiced? What are some other styles that you haven't tried that you might be interested in trying out in the future? Thank you so much for your support. Please share our videos and subscribe to our channel. And remember, it's always good to be reminded that there's something new to learn. Thank you, sir. Thank you, man. Great to see you, buddy. Hey! Hey! Hey! Thanks for watching!