 When training hard in the martial arts, busting yourself and your partners up is all part of the trade and helps us become better martial artists. However, sometimes it's necessary to turn the volume down, especially as we enter advanced ages or tending to injuries. Now the martial arts aren't just for fighting, but they are a way of life, a balance of body and mind, and sometimes we forget that. Now I recently attended the 2023 Kempo seminar camp, the Zen of Kempo, hosted by Master Sean Kelly, and he's with us today to talk about what makes this weekend of class is unique, how he chooses his guests, and the message that we should all take away from training. Well, the Zen of Kempo started in 2018. What actually was the idea behind it was Coach Jocely Gonzalez. We were together with Mr. Sholty going over some just history of Ed Parker and files that he keeps in his database. But we started off by doing, you know, Jocely says, you know, we need to do a gathering of the masters. So we brought in Steve Muhammad, we brought in Michael Pick, Rafi Babawan of the Babawan system, we had Terry Rich, a smorgasbord of talent from different generations, including Mr. Sholty. So technically from 1960 to 1990, and a few of their years after, some kind of interpretation of Ed Parker's art was being exposed. And to share that homage and respect that we all are trying to continue in our tribute. And it was soon after that we went to the Hall of Fame in California. It was a moment right there where Lisa Heim, Jo Heim's wife was there, and her and I struck a friendship for quite some time and I'm like, could I get more of your books? I love that book that everybody has, technically the Zen within the martial arts, right? And she reproduced the book and basically made them available. Well, Jocely takes the book, goes home, and she, four days later, calls me and says, I got it. I'm like, you go, you go, well, what are you talking about? She goes, I know your next theme, your big theme that you want to do, that you've been talking about, what can we do next? How can we offer more value, something next, more expansion of the art? You need to do a Zen of Kempo. Because I've always told her, I know exactly what the community needs. I know what the generations that I deal with need and that is to learn how to shift and make a mind and body and spirit shift in their training and use it more as a therapy of health and wellness. You know, we got stuck with the COVID, people were in depression, anxiety, schools closed down, work became at home. And so the Zen is a place where people can come and even though they're maturing at the ages that they are, they can learn another alternative about health and wellness to carry on their passion, just doing it a little different, even though they have aches and pains, wounds, surgeries and other circumstances. So the Zen is all based on the balance in the art. That was the launch. We're in our fifth year molding, chip away the pieces. And this is the biggest one we have so far with the limitation because it's more of a VIP thing. But you get the Bill Wallace's, 77 years old. Rick Avery, 75. You know, most of these guys are in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Mr. Sholty is in his 80s. And if we can go out in our society and make some changes and live more intentionally, intentional living is what we try to tell people, live with better intentions every day, smile a lot, be first, embrace, encourage, enjoy it. And the quality of a life will last for as long as you put forth. Well, you know, Sean Kelly is a gentleman that I've known since I competed back in the late 70s, early 80s on the National Circuit. He was, I introduced me through a gentleman named Francisco Condi. Francisco Condi was a direct student of Ed Parker. And I had actually trained for Master Condi for a few years as well. So I knew Sean from that. And so he had asked me if I would come and talk a little bit about some of the applications of Zen. A lot of the Zen and Kempo, a lot of those concepts come from Joe Hyam's book, of course. It's sort of this compilation of the idea of how Zen fits hand in hand with a Marshall mind. Because what I have found through my experience, that the people who attend these are people who are hungry for more insight. They want to better cross their t's and dot their eyes. They're the one percenters. They're the ones who will go the extra mile. Successfully enough, at this particular event, we've had people that I haven't personally seen probably in 15, 20 years. And they came from Kansas. They came from Canada. They came from South America. They came from all over the globe for the same reasons probably that I was hoping it would make them go back with. And that is to re-plug in, re-boost that fire that was flickering to go out and give them that inspiring feeling again to go home with. It's more not even about what's being taught. It's the camaraderie, the breaking bread. I'm already listening going, man, I was so looking forward to seeing you. I haven't seen you in over three years in some cases or more. So it's a place of unity. I love that Sean asks me to come and teach at these things to give these guys maybe a little bit of a different perspective on some joint locking arts. And I just, I love the fellowship. It was great. My observation of individuals, how I believe in my career, who's going to come in and still represent my theme. And the people who I select are the people who, not only do I trust them, I know their skill sets. I know their teaching communication skills. And I know what I went away with by being in their company. If that lifted me up, I want to know more about what they can do to the people coming as my guests. I started training in 1969. I have an eighth, three black belt in Taekwondo. I was a kickboxer with Joe Lewis. I trained in military combattos extensively. I trained in Yosincon Aikido, specifically Chudokon Aikido with a federation up in Canada with Kevin Block Hanchi. So, and then I was a golden gloves boxer. So lots of exposures and experiences. Of course, this was a focus on Zen. So I did, I think cover some of the history of Zen Buddhism. And, you know, I walked them back. I mean, we went back to antiquity in, you know, India and the Bodhidharma and Chan meditation, eventually becoming Zen meditation in Japan. And we mentioned the Kamakura period and you could get us into the weeds with this. So if I can increase that link with people like you, who's doing what you're even doing, you're a part of the link. Every generation coming past or present can be a part of this growing link. As you already know, being a part of the form, format of having the expression. And that's another thing I do is try to bring the ability for someone to test their skills in an atmosphere they never have. And it's intimidating. But someone's got to give that if they're going to profess, professorship, give them a chance. My platform has always been there. So it's like, if I think you have the ability, go test yourself because you're going to be your worst critic anyways. But someone needs to give you a chance. Everybody, you know, we have a lot of people who critique others and you watch it and listen on social media. You should have turned your toe, bent your knee and, you know, we have the keyboard warriors. To me, I've learned that that's them and their own frustrations because they're hiding in behind four walls. In many cases, they can't go to a seminar. The school they went to shut down or they lost an instructor. More importantly, they forgot to get mentored. So a lot of people who become a black belt put a period to their sentence where I use a comma. You're always a student. If you shut down from learning, that's on you. Okay. Coach Jocely, she's my mentor now. She's my life coach because I always had men. So I needed a woman's perspective. I needed someone of her experience. It's not a belt thing. It's her experience. And that's important is when you build trust and you forge relationships, friendships matter. Hopefully we have an influence. We talk about the responsibility of intentional living, living with good intentions. If we show direct connect, we can learn from everybody willing to share a gem. To me, they're called nuggets. If you can go away with one thing throughout the whole weekend, great investment. I don't care what it is. How to do a kick. I didn't look at it that way. Good investment because now you're doing it for the rest of your life from that point forward, better than you did before. Or a story. I never knew that. I thought about that and then they shared it with you. Maybe through their experiences. I like to get the principle of point of contact to point of control. And those lessons, if you can understand point of contact to point of control, you can take that one sentence and apply it to just a multitude of lessons. Because point of contact could be me looking at some scary looking guy a hundred yards away. And I'm not going down that alley. I'm going to go get my car locked the doors and drive away. That was my point of contact. My point of control was to escape. Or you can take it to a true combative nature where the guy grabs you. Well, that's his point of contact. I have to do something in order to control that battle space to survive. In a fight, in a real fight, not in a ring in an MMA. I fought in rings before and did some kickboxing full contact and fought in war zones. Real combat is not martial sport. It's not martial arts. It's an utterly horrible thing to experience and go through. But it is through living those experiences that we develop as human beings and we have a greater understanding of how good we can really be and how horrible we can really be. Again, the duality of nature. Both our yin, yang, our good and bad intentions can be expressed in one act. Hence point of contact, point of control. We talk about the present in Ed Parker's name and likeness. He's been gone since 1990. You might think he was still here. That's how we feel. Some of the people who aren't here, they're here in spirit. But I think this is more of a you got to be here to understand it just like we're feeling the breeze now. Can't see it on camera. Okay, but I can feel it. I can breathe it. This is the greatest recovery since COVID. Kempo is our recovery. It's our camaraderie. It's our love button back again. What makes you love? Find it and keep dwelling on it. Do more of it. Whatever it takes to make you happy. A great weekend and enriching experience. We'd like to thank Master Kelly for inviting us to be a part of it and for sharing his insight. Now I was lucky enough to be one of his guest instructors a few years ago and it is definitely a positive memory and as illustrated in this episode which recast my experience with the event as well as an overview of how to get the most out of attending seminars. So for all of you who are looking for those extra little nuggets as Mr. Kelly put it, this video is for you.