Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: We're just hoping that you feel better, that's all. This is the Feel Better podcast. My name is Mike and I'll recommend that you subscribe and tell a friend about this podcast, because all we do is talk to people that can help you feel better. Today is no exception. Chris Doyle is joining us from the Academy of Martial Arts. Chris, thanks so much for coming in. I appreciate this, man.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: I feel so honored to be here.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: You know, it's really not. And I will share this. Transparency is my thing.
You sent me a list of 25 questions, which is amazing because the truth is I can do this all day, but I have no idea when it comes to martial arts even where to begin.
But your questions were amazing because one of the first things that I had to ask you was, what makes karate, fitness, kickboxing and tai chi different and why offer all three? So wait before you answer that. That was your second question, but your first one's really good.
Chris, how do you end up the guy who owns Academy of Martial Arts? What brings you to this place? How did you end up here?
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Well, there's lots of different stories or different reasons behind it. I could go into many, many different ones. But the number one thing that kept coming up for me, I started training. I was 13 years old.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: We were. Our family immigrated to Canada when I was four years old.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Where did you come from?
[00:01:28] Speaker A: The uk.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: All right.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: North of uk, Rochdale, Littleborough area.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: I just spent some time in the UK and the outlying areas and the countryside are just incredible. Very beautiful. Yeah, Yeah.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: I went to visit my aunt when my grandmother turned nine years old. And we went on a Roman highway and I was like, oh, Roman highway.
Walking through the hills. And then down below was all these little pieces of brick that was a Roman highway at one time. So it's kind of cool.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Culture and history, the ancient culture is rich there. But. Okay, so your parents bring you over over here.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So immigrant, 13 years old, hormones are kicking in, bit of an accent. Was bullied in high school.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Wait a minute. British accent with the hormones kicking in. Should have been a rock star. I. I'm sorry, but.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Well, you should have seen my hair way back when I had the Roger Dalry look. Oh, yeah, yeah, grade nine. But when I went to high school, it was grade nine to grade 13. Probably yourself as well. So there was literally three 13, 14 year olds and 18 year old men with full beards going to school.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember that.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Basically I had a guy who picked on everybody, but, you know, chose me as the Target.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: And basically one day he was. We are. Our high school had two levels, Hill Park Secondary School and Hamilton Mountain.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Shout out.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: And I was coming up the stairs, he's looking down. He started spitting on me. I guess I saw red. My hair wasn't naturally this beautifully gray. Used to be a little strawberry blondish, right. And back then I saw red and I just went after him because I was mad. Had enough, had enough, had enough. Used to have what they call minor niner days.
Initiation days.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: Welcome to Ontario.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Yeah, probably all around the world too.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Oh, probably.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: So I basically tackled him as best as I could. Probably was unleashing emotions, crying, all that stuff. Pounding on, hitting as best as I could. Got pulled off him by Mr. Griffiths, which was the high school wrestling coach. And he basically separated us and said, stop it, leave each other alone.
That's back in the 70s now, you know, nowadays that doesn't happen, suspensions and all that as well. So I started High School Wrestling October 1976. And we went to a Halloween party with my parents, they used to bring us to Halloween parties. And a buddy of theirs, his name is Leo Franey, and basically he was dressed up as a samurai. He had white T shirt, pants, samurai sword and a sombrero hat.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Yeah, of course, of course.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Nunchaku's on the wall. Because Bruce Lee was very famous back then. He was kind of popular back then. So that's what got me involved. Sat down, chatted with one of the people who trained in this, the karate club. And it was just like, oh, I gotta do this.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: So basically high school, karate, wrestling, all the same month. And that was. As of next year, it'll be 50 years. 50 years ago.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Wow. And you're still like upright. You've got. Everything's intact. There's no cauliflower in those years.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Nope.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: You must have learned some skill along.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: The way, defensive skills, that's for sure.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: How did you, how did you gain your skills? Give me the, give me the timeline on your, your training over the years.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: So we did a lot of training in Ontario and then eventually back in 1995, I said, you know what, I want to go back home. And the idea behind that is the birthplace of karate. So the birthplace of karate is Okinawa, Japan. So what I did, my. My actual instructor passed away.
So I was a ronin, basically a master of samurai, so to speak.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: And the challenge of that is I had a full time martial arts club with hundreds and hundreds of students and no direction. So I was like, okay, let's go back home. So I made a trip trek to go all the way back to okinawa, Japan. Spent 30 days there, 28 days there. The first day, our first time back in 1998 when my wife Lisa, who also is co owner of the academy, she was six months pregnant with my daughter Alexander, who's sorry, seven months pregnant daughter will be her birthday's this month.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: And basically it's funny how kids inspire you to get moving. Right? Yeah. In the right direction. Yeah. Right.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: So then I, I traveled to Okinawa, Japan and basically you could say the rest is history. Just staying with that connection to Japan. And that's where I met my main instructor. His name is Tetsuhira Hokama or Hokamahanshi we call him.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Started he was born in 1944 and just turned 81. And his full time profession before he retired was a university professor of accounting. And then he did a part time martial arts club. Now flip side the other way around for the last 47 years.
This October 25th is his 47th anniversary of full time martial arts club.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: And if you see this guy, he does not look like an accountant at all.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: Nope. You would think of. Even though he's from Fuzhou, he's in Okinawa. Which is completely different. What you would say when you say, hey, what's a Chinese gung fu master look like?
[00:06:09] Speaker B: He looks like this guy.
Have a look at this.
So okay, now this, that's question number one of 25. So let me just move things along for us a bit. Okay, Chris, like now why back to my original question which was this Karate now fitness kickboxing has been a big thing for a number of years.
And Tai chi, which by the way I had a little experience with for about six months and it might be, I don't think people know how difficult Tai chi is.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: It's fairly cerebral.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Which is, which is actually a good thing. So if I, if I wanted to base how.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: Sorry, you guys offer all three of these, right.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: We do karate.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Is there a connection between them besides.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: It just being a martial art?
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: There's different era, we could say a lot of the different styles of karate, Taekwondo, aikido, judo, all the different types of martial arts come from different parts of the world. That's the first thing. So if you want to say Taekwondo, it's Korean.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Karate, Japan or Okinawa. Tai Chi, China, China.
Calabri Pyatt was from India. Like there's lots of different styles of martial arts. That's the first thing where, where it is. But when it gets right down to it, there is foundation, there's stances. Though the human body only has so many things they can do. It can stance, the arm bends, it straightens, it twists. So if somebody wants to show you a block or a punch, pretty much it's the same. And traditional linear styles of martial arts, or what we call the hard styles of karate, they don't have any circular movement. So our style of martial arts, which is called goju ru or gojiru karate do, which is hard and soft, so it has a blend of both.
That's why we have the ability to put the Tai chi involved in it as well.
[00:07:44] Speaker B: I see.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: Is completely opposite.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: So. But I could do karate really, really slow and get the benefits of Tai Chi.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: Oh, I've heard that, yeah.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: So if you think about where Tai chi came from, let's jump over to China. There was a time when there was, let's say, they were being invaded or there was people who were trying to suppress and they weren't allowed to practice their martial arts. So they took their hard style kung fu, which you see from the Shaolin monks, and they went, okay, let's add some soft, gentle music to it and let's all start doing all these nice movements. And it doesn't really look like we're doing nothing. It just likes we're doing dancing and exercise. What they're really doing is reinforcing, reinforcing and reinforcing a biomechanical movement. And all they have to do is switch it faster. But to the average person, it only looks like they're moving slow.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: But the muscle movement, that muscle memory is there.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: It's ingrained in the membrane over and over and over.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: And in fact, if you start slow, I recall to, you can then control the speed with which you do it.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: You're not just at the speed that you learn to do it, if you're doing it at your optimum speed, always. And so to do both seems like an. Now kickboxing and karate, why do you offer all three?
[00:08:52] Speaker A: So basically the karate system. Actually, my wife, who started our cardio kickboxing program. You ever heard of Billy Blanks Tae Bowl?
[00:08:59] Speaker B: Yeah, Right.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: So back in 1984, I was in Trinidad and Tobago competing in a world championship, the mini world championships. And this is when I watched Billy Blank do his pre Taibo warm up. He had a little, probably a Walkman.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: He was doing all his taebo exercise to warm up before he competed in this system of point fighting in karate. I watched somebody for the first time move so fast I'm like, oh my God, this guy's spectacular. He was doing a cartwheel. In the middle of a cartwheel, he would kick you in the head and then land. I watched. I was a junior belt, so I wasn't up there. So he was so fast. That was the, my first introduction to the fitness kickboxing side of it. Even though he wasn't really talking about it.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: That's going to be my new threat, by the way. That's going to be. I can't do it, but that's my new threat. Don't make me cartwheel kick you.
Who knew you could even do that?
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Yeah, well, there's a system of Brazilian martial arts called capoeira and they do cartwheel kicks and spin kicks and there's a whole cultural history to it. That's how it was developed.
So we do the karate side of it, we do the tai chi and again we do the blend of both. But when my son was born 30 years ago, my wife went to get back in shape. So she did the fitness certification, did the step classes, the aerobic classes and was bored because she's used to doing the martial arts.
So the kick punching excitement of the martial arts and learning all the self defense aspects of it was a little bit too much, a bit limiting. Let's see if I can blend it together. So that's where we started. She said, okay, let's come up with what we were going to call cardio karate. So we called it cardio karate. We're on city TV once.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:10:36] Speaker A: Doing it karate. What do you do when you get mixed karate and kickboxing together? Cardio karate, of course. And then we actually change it to cardio kicks because it became more kick related. So if I had to go real quick on karate and tai chi, which is cerebral versus the kickboxing, cardio kickboxing, I would say 80% fitness cardio kickboxing and 20% skill set. So basically you still have to learn it, but it's basically jab, cross, hook, weave, weave, knee, knee, elbow, kick. That's about your plethora of information or techniques that you have to know where you go karate or tai chi. There's lots to learn, but I'm not going to say 80 learning and 20 fitness. Because martial arts and karate is always about fitness.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Okay, so now somebody's taken interest in our conversation. Inspired like you were.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Which they should.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Yes. Well done. Good pitch.
Well, it gets me kind of. My next point.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Is this limited in any way to who can and can't do this because the truth is there's a club not too far from my place that does mixed martial arts and Muay Thai and I see guys my age coming out of there and I'm like, I really should at least what are they doing in there? They're going to break themselves.
Is there sort of an age range through these three offerings that you have that you welcome or recommend or who can do it?
[00:12:00] Speaker A: I fully believe anybody can do it. It just means that they have the will, the want and the want to do it as well. Our classes, our classes at the poor credit academy of Martial Arts are separated between children's, teens and adults.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: So if you say you see a guy your age doing it, probably not participating with 3 year olds in the same class.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: No, it's all the same age kind of guys coming at you.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: So if we touch base on that, if it's in our case it's not mixed martial arts, it's more of the kickboxing. And if you notice, I call it cardio kickboxing. So there is no contact. So there's no fear or worry or concern about sparring with someone and getting hurt. That's the first thing.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: If the Muay Thai gym and the MMA place is a good gym and they want people to actually learn and feel comfortable and get all the benefits of it, then they would, they would have a gradual, slow introduction to it.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: To contact as well. Yeah.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: So there may be a non contact variation, variation of it. You just go there, get all the, do all the drills, the classes, get the fitness out of it and never move on to the contact part or never move on to the competition side because there is get involved in it contact and then competition to, to see if, well, you can test yourself against somebody else.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: Chris. Okay. By the way, I could take your whole afternoon and, and drive everybody nuts with a million questions that they're going to have for you in their own probably more skillful way.
But what I'd love to do is get people to get in touch with you because this has been delightful. And I think that if somebody wants to make a connection to martial arts, just having a conversation with you about what the options are, what you offer is great. But I can tell already you're wide open to explain the world of martial arts to somebody to help them get the best out of it for themselves.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: And I have a little thing that I work on as well. We've been in the business full time martial arts Professional Academy since 1986, just past 39 year oh, congratulations. 40th anniversary. All right, 50th for me as a martial artist. So I have the 5, 10, 15 mentality. So if somebody wants to get involved, what they would do is jump online, type in karate, cardio, kicks, kickboxing, mma.
Near me. That's just type near me. And then the algorithms or whatever it is, finds where you are and then you look at the closest place. So you have to be 5 minute walk, 10 minute bike, or 50 minute drive away from the facility because there's time to go to the class, there's get ready, participate in the class and get home. So you don't want to spend three hours of your night to do a 40 minute class.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Wait a minute, hold on a second, Chris. What you're supposed to say is it doesn't matter where you are, you need to come to my club. But what you're saying is if you really are interested, make sure that there's a place nearby that you can commit to.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Yeah, most places offer a trial class anyway. All right, so if you're a five minute walk away, this is the best thing to do. You're walking, it's close, you know, it's good for the environment, good for your exercise. You can bike it there in 10 minutes, perfect. 15 minutes because of traffic. Could be car or transit, so it really doesn't matter.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Okay, well, if you're in the port credit area, where can people find you?
[00:14:54] Speaker A: At 108 Lakeshore Road East. Or you can jump online at academyofmartialarts ca.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: This has been a delight. I really appreciate it, Chris.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: Fantastic. Thank you.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Thank you, buddy. And thank you, I think this place. Thank you so much for joining us. Don't forget, subscribe, share it with a friend.
And oh, I almost forgot to ask.
How is it that Steven Seagal still maintains the ultimate master in martial arts? It's fascinating to me.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: No comment.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: See you next time. Thank you.
