 In one of our earliest videos on this channel, I talked about the idea of cross-training. Now back then we were just getting the channel going and I was knocking the dust off myself from a lull in training and getting back into the swing of things. I've studied American Kempo karate for more than half my life and I wanted to venture out and try something new so I joined a dojo that teaches judo and combat jiu-jitsu. It's been a great experience and I've had some wonderful conversations with many of you regarding this topic and I thought this would be a good time to revisit the idea of cross-training and address some of the pros and cons that have come up. So when I released this episode, I got a lot of responses right away and most of them were very positive. A lot of you told me your experiences, you know, I started in this art and I joined this art and I combined with this art so it's actually interesting to see the different hybrids people are putting together and that fascinates me a lot. I also got several comments on why cross-training was not a good idea and I thought that was really interesting because I didn't expect that because in my mind, you know, the more you learn, the better it is. You know, I'll just keep adding to it. But when people brought up different reasons why it might not be a good idea, it got me thinking and I sat down and spent some time and thought about it and realized this might be good to talk about it. So let's ask the very first question. Why cross-train to begin with? Well, there's a few different reasons. One possible reason is people move. Chances are you're not going to have the same options where you go to. So sometimes people switch arts or add other arts because they have to or they don't have a choice related to that could be if your school closes. If you're in an area like I am, you know, we're down in, you know, the Metro South Florida area. There are various types of schools in every corner. We have Shodokan. We've got Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. We have Judo. We've got Taekwondo. We have MMA schools up the Yin Yang. We've got Kemple schools everywhere. You name it. We have most options here. Not every, not every city is like that. So if your school closes and you happen to be training in an art that might be the one of those schools in the area, you have a problem. You go back to, all right, well, what do you do? You look for a school that's outside the area that you're willing to travel to or you switch arts or you do both. You know, I know people who will sign up for a new school and do regular classes, but once a month or once every other month go to another further school to keep their old stuff up. So that could be another reason why you would cross-train. Other people feel that maybe there's something missing in their art. That is one of the primary reasons I think is beneficial to branch out because if you feel like you're lacking in something, there's nothing wrong with going to try to find it, which goes into the next reason. Supplement. Sometimes you just want to supplement your training. You want to just add another spice. Maybe one school will do something a little bit different than the way you learn it. And you want to see another perspective and it's good to see different perspectives. Doesn't mean you have to do it their way, but it's good to know why they do it their way. And then you can make an educated decision on what you want to mix. And then we have people who just want to expand and learn more. You know, some people want to just, you know, they've been doing something for most of their life and they want a different flavor. Or they want to learn a cultural aspect of another art. You know, if you train in the Korean arts your whole life, well, you know, the Chinese art might be something new and might be something worth learning in terms of an academic background. So there's all sorts of reasons why a person would want to cross-train. No art is perfect. There is not a single art out there that does everything the best. Although there are a lot of arts that try and I give them a lot of admiration because they do a good mix. So there's a bunch of hybrid arts that try to mix a bunch of different aspects together to create a unique blend. And like, for example, kajukenbo, you've got karate, judo, jujitsu, kenpo, boxing, shuttle con, it's all mixed together. That is a pretty dynamic mix. And for someone who wants to study in one art, that gives you a taste of stand-up. This gives you a taste of ground fighting, grappling, joint lock. It's a good mix. Kudo. Kudo is an offshoot of kyokushin. It's actually a mixture of kyokushin and judo. Kudo takes the judo aspect of it and mixes it with the competition of kyokushin. And if you go watch some of those competitions, they're pretty amazing to watch. It's full contact. They kick to the head. They wear protective gear, but they go for the knockouts and they can do throws and takedowns and grappling. It's actually fascinating to watch. And I like the idea of, oh, they took a very strong stand-up art and a very strong grappling art and they mixed it. And should be no surprise that probably one of the best mixtures right now are MMA schools, which is literally mixed martial arts. Because they teach stand-up fighting. They teach kicking. They teach punching. They teach blocking. They teach grappling, takedowns, wrestling. It's a dynamic mix. And it's also a good mix if you want to learn how to fight quickly. There's not one art that's going to fulfill all, it's not one size fits all. You have to know what the strengths are of each art because all arts developed differently in different times, different regions for different reasons. You know, a lot of people like the Chinese arts. Others think they're garbage because well, it's not what they want. Some arts are primarily for fighting, such as boxing, sport, you know, sport, taekwondo, boxing, judo. These are highly competitive sports and some people want just that. Other arts like Bujinkan or a lot of the Chinese arts, they have combat aspects depending on which art you go to, but there's also a lot of cultural. There's a lot of centering and balance. It's more of a lifestyle. It's not just for fighting. Martial arts have a lot to offer besides just fighting. Others like myself have a base art that is their foundation and you want to add a bill on top of that. I'm actually pleased and I'm usually surprised when a lot of you tell me what you're doing because I find it very intriguing. Okay, now I want to get to the part again that surprised me when I did the first episode. Some of the warnings or some of the resistance to cross training that I was meeting from some people. One reason that was given was it's too confusing and it's really easy to mix the arts up. So the argument there is, okay, well if you're training in Shodokan and you're going to go do this other karate system over here, you're going to mix them up. You know, your form is going to be, you know, you're going to not remember which form goes to which art and your stances are going to be affected and this method is going to conflict with that method and it's going to be really easy to confuse the arts. The other comment I got was it's too dangerous that based on the confusion is that if you don't spend enough time in one art and you're trying to do multiple other arts that you're going to die if you try to use it to defend yourself. Also some feel it's disrespectful to train in multiple arts. They feel that if you go to a school that that is your school, that is your home, that is your instructor and you should be loyal to them that the venture outside that circle is very disrespectful and dishonorable. And the other reason I hear sometimes is well my art is perfect or XYZ is perfect so you don't even need anything else. If you've got this you're done. So everything else is garbage so why would you venture out because all you need is right here. So let's tackle some of these. Why do I agree and disagree with some of these warnings? So the whole thing about it playing to be too confusing that has some legitimacy to it. It could be easy to confuse the arts together. My statement on this is it depends on the experience of the practitioner. If you have spent 20 years in one art and you want to venture out I see nothing wrong with that you're not going to accidentally confuse this with another art because now this is your core this is your base you're going to add flavor to it. If you are a beginning student and you are just starting out and you have no experience in any martial arts then you can start running into some problems. Yes it's very possible that if you're trying to learn too much at once you can conflict arts and you can forget one thing and even so even though that won't allow you to dedicate your your your concentration fully on one art so you're kind of splitting in between so it's kind of like you're kind of half-training that is legitimate concern and again that comes down to your experience. How much experience do you have in one art before you go off to another one? Also I think it depends on the similarity between arts. Experience aside a lot of arts are based off other arts so for example shodokan and tungstil are very very similar. Tungstil is based partially on shodokan so they've got a lot of shared techniques and vikatas but they're still a distinctive difference so if you're trying to learn them both at the same time if you're a beginner that will get confusing because now you're trying to learn two versions of the same thing without the experience. If you're an experienced shodokan practitioner well then honestly tungstil you'll probably pick up quickly and vice versa so if you're really strong in one it's not that hard to learn the other. It's kind of like if you know Spanish learning Italian and Portuguese they're different languages but they're close enough that there's enough commonality it's an easier transition say going from Spanish to Japanese. Martial arts is very similar it's a lot like languages the way they're spoken and where there's accents so sometimes it's easier to learn one if your base is from another that's similar. Now regarding the comment that you're accidentally going to use the wrong art and kill yourself in a self-defense situation this one gets wiggy to kind of analyze because I agree and disagree. I disagree with the fact that you're going to accidentally do the wrong art if you've got experience and you've been training and you're confident in your skills and you train in karate and you train in Brazilian jiu-jitsu you're not going to accidentally do one technique over another. If you respond to a situation without thinking about it then you've done something right whether you use one art or the other if something happens and you are attacked and you can just instinctively react and defend yourself then bravo good job but I don't think you're going to suddenly make a mistake of accidentally doing the wrong technique when you should have done this and get yourself injured unless you have very little experience and you're trying to do too much and you're not getting the full benefits of each system or that can also happen if you're just training in one art. If you just started karate a week ago don't expect it to work for you right away you've got to put time into it. Same thing with Chinese art even Brazilian jiu-jitsu just because you take a week worth of classes you're not going to be fighting somebody off that well. It takes time to learn so I think the danger is more of trying to use material you're not familiar with versus just because it's a different system. So again back to experience and back to the individual practitioner. As far as training with other arts being disrespectful it depends on your art. If you're into Chinese arts and you train under a shifu it is considered disrespectful to go to another shifu especially without permission especially even the same art. In America if you're training at a shodokon dojo and you want to go try Brazilian jiu-jitsu there's really usually nothing wrong with that and I have met instructors who have a problem with that but it's for other reasons and I think it's more like the they just don't want the students going anywhere else but as far as if you are concerned that it's going to be disrespectful to your school talk to your instructor see you know just talk to them see what their limits are if they're okay with it. When I taught at this children's school it was a Kempo school we did have an assistant instructor who came to help out but he was from a different art all together I don't even remember because it was a hybrid art but it wasn't Kempo and he was coming to help out and work with the kids and he wasn't teaching them anything from me to school he was teaching Kempo when his instructor found out that he was helping out he got really mad he goes look is either your school or that school or my school you can't teach over there if you're going to train over here it didn't matter it was a different art so he ended up leaving going back to his school but this is where it comes out to check with your instructor check with the etiquette of your dojo it might not be a big deal or it might be something that's part of the culture so that's something you need to know ahead of time before you do it. Now to go back and touch on the oh art XYZ is perfect if you train this you don't need anything else. Okay look sorry no no art is perfect unless it's a merit dote of course and there's no touching that one but that one aside no art is perfect and if someone's trying to tell you that there's that you can't cross train anywhere else because you've got everything you need to know right here it's a bit of a red flag because I'm sorry you can't have one art excel in every single aspect it might have a blend it might have a decent balance but it's not going to be the top end of each aspect. Now I did find this interesting since I had a lot of pros and cons in the comments everybody who was for cross training they gave me examples of what they love how things worked for them experiments they tried like okay I didn't try I didn't like to start but I went over here and it worked much better I got a lot of experiences as examples for the people who commented on why they didn't like cross training I didn't get any experiences it was all about oh warnings and problems but not one person said oh I didn't like cross training because I tried this and this happened or because I did this and that happened so what was interesting was the people who were against it seemed to have more worry and concerns rather than specific examples as to why it was bad either they felt it was bad because of the confusion they felt that their students would confuse another art with another art or it could be for business reasons you know I have met people who did not allow their students to cross train because they were afraid they were going to lose their students if they found something better that does happen I have seen it a lot of these warnings I feel can be and I'm not like if you have concerns I'm not saying this applies to you I'm just saying what I've encountered and a lot of the arguments I got is it seems there's a lot of concern based on the confusion or for business reasons and I also got the same thing from from the mcdojo video I actually had a very irate viewer get really nasty to the point where he had to be blocked that he got extremely angry that I made a video about warning signs of a dojo he was screaming at me that how dare you mess with another person's business you know this is their livelihood how dare you tell them you know how dare you tell people what to look for in a school and I kept saying well look yeah it's their livelihood but they are teaching a skill they are teaching something that someone expects to use to defend themselves if it is not good if they're getting a poor product that puts them at risk so like you can be a doctor and if you're running in poor practice your patients are at risk so yes as a patient you have the right to scrutinize and determine what a quality school is and he got extremely angry and basically my bottom line is if you are really upset that there's videos like the mcdojo video that point out and give advice how to look for a good school or scrutinize the school look for warning signs or if you're so much against cross training because you don't want people to go out and leave your school and look somewhere else then the problem might not be the videos there could be other things to look at all right and onto the question people ask for recommendations of which arts should they pick the cross train in again I've said this many times it depends on your reason you need to define why you want to train are you looking for health benefits are you looking for rehab are you looking to be a competitive fighter do you want self-defense are you looking for culture that makes a big difference on what you choose when it comes to martial arts you've got different aspects and I kind of say you can break it down to a bunch of different subgroups you've got striking arts which is punches and kicks you can kind of separate them some arts are better for punches some are kicks some do both you have stand-up grappling you've got ground fighting you have weapons defense defense and you have weapons training so an art like krav maga might teach you a bunch of defenses against knives and guns but then you've got kendo and the screamer that actually teach you how to use the weapons and combat methods so there's a lot of different things to look at there so what aspect are you looking for do you want to learn striking art or do you already have experience in striking and you want to learn grappling or or do you already have say maybe do MMA and you already have a good stand-up game you got a good ground up ground fighting game but maybe you want to learn bow staff so I guess my overall general advice here is try to find arts that are complementary to each other so if you've been trained in an art for a while take some time and look at what you feel it lacks and don't just assume oh this is the best of everything because this is what I chose every art has a weakness try to find it and again this goes back to the experience if you're brand new it might take you a while to find out what those weaknesses are or what the strengths are so spend some time in your art to really learn it and get a feel of it and then you'll start over time you'll start to realize if there's more that you want to learn kind of hints in which direction to go to if you are a beginner and you really wanted cross train I still recommend find a core art and make that your base just spend time don't overdo it learn how the martial arts work get a routine get a feel for a dojo work with people do it for a while even if it's a few years get a good foundation that's just going to give you a much better platform to work with when you start mixing other stuff in because when you start mixing different ideas yes it can get confusing so give yourself a good base to work with but if you are beginning and you you definitely want to try multiple arts then I do recommend try to do two different arts that's pretty pretty different so if you're fresh fresh off the street you've never done the class before don't sign up for shodokan and then go over down the street and shine up for tongues tongues they're too close you will get confused but if you want to do boxing and learn ground fighting okay at least they're different enough that you're not going to actually accidentally go into like an arm bar when you're doing a boxing so it that's at least different enough for the confusion levels not there but I do recommend getting some experience before you try to mix too much too soon and I want to use shodokan again as an example because the reason I keep mentioning this one a lot is shodokan is very diverse in terms of it is the base of a lot of arts it's it's one of the four main styles of krate and shodokan is very very popular especially in japan and the united states and you can find it a lot of different places but a lot of arts are based on it such as tongsudo is based on it kyokushin is based on gojiru and shodokan so you find a lot of shodokan influences and a lot of other arts waduru is a branch off of shodokan so there you've got some cross training right there happening a lot of arts have similar roots to each other and there's a lot of overlap so all in all if you're going to cross train just be smart about it you know do your homework don't just go running to the next school or the closest school to you and say okay i'm just going to do this analyze what you want if you're in an art what is it lacking what are you trying to add on to it like why do you want to cross train find the reason why then try to determine your head a combination that you think is going to work for you and then go through searches based on that you'll be much more prepared and educated and and helping pick the right school for you as far as the benefit of cross training if it wasn't for cross training we wouldn't have most of the arts that we have today you know we only have like a dozen as opposed to the hundreds or even thousands that are around you know humanity grows by building knowledge on top of the knowledge you know arts cross training you got shodokan that came from shoriru and shoriru and tongs that came from shodokan and they all build and you'll see that as people build and learn they branch off because they've they've trained in this art but they've now taken elements from this art they've made their own in that branches in that branches and that's where we have such a dynamic system today that no art is alike and to me that makes it much more richer and deeper and and meaningful so thank you so much for watching you know as before i i definitely want to open this up to the conversation so please tell me what you think about your cross training or or if you want to cross train or if you have other pitfalls and warnings or why you don't like cross training i want to hear it all so please you know comment below let's get a discussion going also please like subscribe and don't forget to check out our patreon you know we're trying to add a lot of elements of interaction for our patreon so we have exclusive benefits over there we've got bonus videos we're going to have goals that we're trying to meet but also to people who communicate to us through patreon we kind of hear a little you know it's filtered and we see it earlier so that's stuff that we can implement more so please be heard join us be part of our family and join our community and thank you so much for your support and we'll see you next time