Master Victor: [00:00:00] There’s always faster. There’s always stronger. There’s always better technique. There’s always more technique. There’s always further refinement. There’s always learning how to become more powerful, more flexible. usually teach this where a lot of people will, try and get super big and strong and then they get super bulky and then become slow.
I prize speed over power. And if you have power and speed, Oh, that’s amazing. But there’s one thing that will beat speed and that is timing. So if you learn power, you learn speed and you learn timing. You’re pretty much there, [00:01:00]
Hey y’all, welcome back to another episode of The Unlimited You. Where we’re going to talk about martial arts, calisthenics, breathwork, meditation, how all of that combines together to create an unlimited you. Where our own restrictions that we put in ourselves through our own lifestyles, our way of thinking, the way we eat, our environment, how they block us in learning how to become aware of that.
And how we can essentially unleash our latent potential in unlocking our true selves. Today’s episode, we’re going to really focusing on Taekwondo, Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and why we train those three, not necessarily together, but at different times, but we do train all three to [00:02:00] create a well balanced self defense system as a martial artist.
Taekwondo today is kind of been really washed out by the Olympic way of training, where our front foot. Is really focused on. There’s a lot of really fast front foot kicking. You see in the Olympics, they’re keeping their hands down, not protecting their face. It’s not a very good self defense application for the arts.
The way we train is old, old school before old school Taekwondo, where, you know, you’d had the good kicks. I’m talking about the holistic treatment, but when all of these arts were originated and they, if you think about like how Shaolin Kung Fu is, You learn Wing Chun, you learn Qi Gong, you learn Tai Chi, you learn energy work, you learn breathing and the self defense aspect.
Learning all these things together creates a balanced martial artist. That is the [00:03:00] goal. And that’s essentially what we’re doing with the collaboration, the integration of these different trainings. Taekwondo prizes movement. in staying away from the opponent, delivering powerful and quick strikes, but making sure that after you hit one strike, you’re ready for what’s coming next because you don’t know if there’s going to be multiple people and you don’t know if they’re going to dodge that strike and be countering against you.
You must always be aware of the potential of your opponent and be dynamic and applying your self defense, your martial arts in order to keep you safe and defeat the opposition. The only enemy that we truly have is ourselves. And once we master ourselves, we can then fit into any situation as necessary.
Now, through some of our life paths, we [00:04:00] may come to a place where we are forced to defend ourselves and that is really what we’re training for, to being ready for any circumstance that arises. Now, Taekwondo, in my opinion, becomes quite ineffective at a close distance. Once you are within reach. Punching range.
Once you’re past my fist, there’s very few strikes in Taekwondo that are effective. Now, yes, you can do elbows, you can do hooks, you can do upper cuts, you can do a back kick, but the stance you are in is going to expose the side of your leg. It’s going to expose your front hand and you will not be as prepared to defend yourself as let’s say boxing or Muay Thai.
This is why we train all three. You train Taekwondo for movement. To allow yourself to get in, to get out, before they even have a chance to strike you. Taekwondo kicks price speed. The ability to bring your foot [00:05:00] from the ground, generating speed and power, with timing, is almost undefeatable. Once you get in close, we work on Muay Thai.
Muay Thai is far more aggressive. You’re having a squared stance. You’re ready to go through. Someone can throw a Taekwondo kick, I’m going to stop it, and then I’m going to pound you. That is the idea of Muay Thai. It is the art of eight limbs. So if my hands are too far, I’m now going to use my elbows, my knees, my head, if I need to, because it is much more aggressive.
It is much more powerful to use your knees to be squared up. I’m not as exposed sideways like I am in Taekwondo. So we use Taekwondo far away, Muay Thai at a closer distance. Now what happens when you clench up? That’s where BJJ comes in being able to not only stay on your feet by being able to sprawl, being able to, [00:06:00] you know, move your legs so they don’t take you down, but being able to take down your opponent, if necessary, if you do end up on the ground, what do you do?
Not being able to freak out and staying calm and managing position and controlling their hips. Maybe taking an arm, taking a choke, right? The basis of Brazilian jujitsu is. Controlling a person’s hips and creating a good base and maintaining a strong position, right? We want to survive. If I get in an altercation and I survive, I won.
I have won. If I live through it, I won. That’s the goal in self defense. It’s not like I need to beat that person up. It is, I survive that, I live another day. Because some altercations may involve a knife. They may involve a weapon, they may involve a [00:07:00] gun, and we are learning to be calm in whatever situation so we can defend ourselves.
Now Taekwondo, we really focus on a lot of the basic kicks in developing our roundhouse kick, our push kick, our jab, our reverse, our side kick to push somebody away. And then ultimately, one of my absolute favorite for a self defense scenario is a hook kick. A hook kick. We’ll come out of nowhere and it’ll knock somebody out.
If you throw a 80 percent hook kick on somebody and you’re well trained, you will usually give them a concussion and they’re at a significant disadvantage at defending themselves. If you really know how to throw your hook kick, they’re going to be on the ground and knocked out and then you can get it out of there.
And when you get closer, Muay Thai, the elbows are absolutely dangerous. The knees are detrimental to the opponent. And if you’ve ever seen. Any kind of Muay Thai fighting, any kind of UFC that [00:08:00] incorporates Muay Thai, they’re kicking the legs. You’re taking out the person’s ability to move. And if you’ve seen this happen and their legs get taken out, boom, three, four, five, really strong shin roundhouse kicks to the thigh.
That person can’t move. And then you can get out of there, right? BJJ. Extremely useful in a self defense scenario against one person. You’re able to neutralize that person without hurting them. You’re able to get on top of them, keep them from moving, keep their hips immobilized, control their limbs, get position, and then you don’t have to hurt them.
This is especially useful for, you know, our law enforcement agencies who have been known to, you know, put knees on people until they’re dead, learning Brazilian jujitsu and immobilizing somebody and neutralizing a threat. is beyond effective. This is why we train all three because if you just train one, there’s going to be [00:09:00] a hole.
If you just train two, there might still be a hole and I found it most effective to train all three. Now we don’t always train all three together. I actually don’t recommend training all three together because it then confuses the brain. You have a Taekwondo class. You have a Muay Thai class, you have a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class, and then you can incorporate them together in a sparring manner.
And this is because Taekwondo stance, Taekwondo kicks are very different. They’re going to come out different. You’re in a different stance. You’re going to move differently. You can use different methods like sliding and moving your legs, right? You’re moving sideways. When you go to Muay Thai, you’re squared up, right?
It’s more similar to boxing and kickboxing. So. We train them separately, so that we create a good, strong foundation in each one of these arts. And then we combine them in a sparring [00:10:00] situation, that you have everything thrown at you, and you learn how to put them together. And that’s called Mixed Martial Arts, right?
So, we study them separately, so that we can refine that foundation. And the foundation is critically important. Like Bruce Lee said, I am more concerned about the guy who has studied one punch a thousand times than 10,000 punches one time. Because that one punch that you have studied a thousand times is going to become so refined, powerful, fast.
You’re going to learn how to time it. You’re going to know when to throw it and how to throw it. And that’s going to be serve you way better. This is why in training Taekwondo, I really. Hammer down the basics, our front kick, our axe kick, our roundhouse kick, our side kick, our movement drills, our punching, Muay Thai, the elbows, the roundhouse kick, the blocking, clinching, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
The transitional moves [00:11:00] of how to get position over the other person, and then very basic locks. Once the foundation is established, we can then start learning the complex stuff, while we’re always constantly returning to the foundation. If you don’t have a good foundation, everything you put on top of it is going to be weak.
So if your roundhouse kick is weak, your fast kick, your jump roundhouse kick, Your tornado kick will be weak. If you learn how to keep your hands down, because now you’re in the Olympics sparring, guess what? It’s going to take you a lot longer to bring your hands up to defend yourself. And then guess what you go, you spar somebody like myself or somebody who knows how to throw a kick and they’re going to hit you upside the head and you’re going to be on the ground, learning the foundation, the foundational stance, elbow against the rib cage, hands up.
Elbows tight, so nothing comes up through the middle. Allowing the shoulders to stay relaxed [00:12:00] while you’re defending yourself become critical. The state of mind, learning to stay calm, learning to breathe. The inner state of calm and controlling your breath is by far one of the most important things.
Senior Master Martin, when I was training at Kings MMA, used to always say, if you can control your breath, you can control yourself. You can control yourself through your movements, through your mind, and what you do. And it is the very same thing in meditation and in breath work. In meditation, we control the breath to then harness the focus of the mind.
If your breath is going crazy, guess what your mind is going to be doing? It’s going to be going crazy. If you get attacked and you get this shot of adrenaline and you’re looking around everywhere, guess what? You’re not going to be able to react the same as if you remain calm, right? So we’re learning [00:13:00] these three types of martial arts in doing so we’re putting you in a situation where you learn how to use them together and we’re teaching how to stay calm.
That is extremely critical in any martial arts school.
[00:14:00]
Master Victor: So if you’re looking for somewhere to learn martial arts. You go to a school, they start only teaching you moves. You’re not doing physical exercise. You’re not doing breath work. You’re not doing energy work. I highly recommend you find a different school.
This is why a lot of people are attracted to Shaolin style Kung Fu, because you’re learning the whole array of things. You’re learning energy work, you’re learning breath work, you’re learning self defense, you’re learning calisthenics, and all of them together create a holistic treatment. For the mind, the body, and the spirit.
And that is invaluable. I say this a lot in your martial arts journey, right? You know, when I only trained Taekwondo, I felt very limited in If somebody gets closer, if somebody was a boxer and they got too close, they can do a spinning back this out of nowhere. [00:15:00] And they were much faster and better at throwing that technique because that’s how they practiced it.
Boxers are good at seeing how you’re going to strike and moving out of the way. That’s why we practice Muay Thai, because you practice those things, right? If you only practice one of these arts, there’s gonna be a hole. And if you have a hole and no one ever shows you that hole, If you are sparring and you drop your hands and no one ever taps you in the face and say, Hey, get your hands up, then they’re not doing you a favor.
In our training, you want, every time you were hit, it is not about your emotional response. If you are hit somewhere, I want to thank you. Thank you for hitting me. Cause now I know that strike is going to come this way. And now I know where to block it. Right. And that is so important in how we train martial arts.
And when you put all three together, you have to learn how to transition when to transition between a Taekwondo stance to a Muay Thai stance to then being [00:16:00] able to knowing when to take them to the ground, when not to take them to the ground, right? If someone’s a stronger striker than you and you take them to the ground, maybe you have better ground game.
You don’t know. And this is where the idea of martial arts and first knowing yourself and then knowing your opponent. Allows you victory because in knowing who you are, what you can do, your own limitations and your own strengths allows you to then see the other person, see who they are, what they know, what their capabilities are.
And by knowing that and how they act, we can overcome that moment. We can overcome our fear. We can overcome our thoughts. We can be water and filling any bucket so that we can overcome that situation. If they are the hammer, I will be the paper. If they are the paper, I will be the scissors. I will be dynamic in approaching the [00:17:00] situation in order to defend myself as necessary.
And that’s what we’re learning. We’re learning old school core fundamental principles of Martial arts was created to establish peace. That peace must first be established within the self. If you do not have peace within you, you will not be spreading it outside of you. You will only be starting conflicts because of your ego, because of your own self limitations.
Now, once you start training martial arts, a lot of people do develop an ego. Oh, I’m the best fighter. Oh, I got the best punches. Oh, I’m the strongest. This, I got the best sidekick ever. You know, those people, in my opinion, are way more limited in themselves than someone who is humble, that knows their limitation, that can work through and break their own limits and achieve new heights.
And that’s something that we have to be careful of when we’re studying martial [00:18:00] arts is the development of our own ego. When we see ourselves as the greatest, we have defeated ourselves. Now we can know that we are good at something. We can know that we are powerful, that we are fast, but there’s always another level.
There’s always faster. There’s always stronger. There’s always better technique. There’s always more technique. There’s always further refinement. There’s always learning how to become more powerful, more flexible. I usually teach this where a lot of people will, you know, try and get super big and strong and then they get super bulky and then become slow.
I prize speed over power. And if you have power and speed, Oh, that’s amazing. But there’s one thing that will beat speed and that is timing. So if you learn power, you learn speed and you learn timing. You’re pretty much there, right? The only then limitation becomes what [00:19:00] technique is when to use certain things.
Like, you know, if you’re in a Taekwondo stance and somebody kicks your knee in, right, and you didn’t switch your stance, right? That’s, this is where style becomes limiting style. teaches you foundation. Taekwondo is a style of martial arts. Inside of Taekwondo, you have five Kwans, Chung Do Kwan. That is a style of Taekwondo.
The style in itself becomes limiting. Learning another art shows you the limitation of the other, and it shows you how to overcome that limitation. And then combining all three, we then reduce our holes. We reduce the ability of our Own selves in being dynamic, right? We increase our dynamic ability to fit the containers.
Once you learn them and you [00:20:00] surrender to the flow, and we’re going to have an entire episode on the flow state. When you surrender to the flow state, you stop thinking you’ve reduced the amount of time. It takes you to receive. Input from the outside, process it, and then do it becomes instantaneous at the speed of thought.
The second something happens, I react and sometimes I will even see it before it happens. I will see them thinking about throwing a punch and the second they throw it, my body’s already where it needs to be to counteract that move. The idea is to not react, but to act. To react receives input, thought, and then action.
Action is doing. That is the flow state. In receiving that input, in tuning ourselves with it so that we don’t require input, we just do. And that [00:21:00] takes surrender, confidence, and trust in yourself. That requires the foundation. Once that foundation is there, the flow state is easy, more easily achieved. And once you reach that flow state, you can then do what is necessary to overcome any situation.
And then what, are your limitations at that point? Flexibility, your speed, your power. Right. And then that’s how we work on those. We work on calisthenics. We work on stretching and work on meditation so that you have the strength, you have the mobility, you have the flexibility, you have the calmness, the internal calmness to do what’s necessary and training martial arts this way teaches us to carry that calmness everywhere we go and that calmness we can spread just by being calm.
By remaining still in standing unshaken on the face [00:22:00] of breaking worlds and being the warrior in the middle of a battlefield who can caress the cheek of their enemy and saying, I could have stricken you down, but I chose not to write in doing what is necessary, not letting the emotions overcome us, not letting our minds and our thoughts overcome us and being a true vessel for our higher selves.
And that is the goal. So creating that foundation, ascending our limitations, and then creating a funnel that transcends thought that transcends the future and the past, where you become this moment. When I throw a punch, I am the punch. When I throw a kick, I am the kick. And if you are anything else, you have not attained that moment.
If you must think knee up. Pivot roundhouse. You have not attained that state [00:23:00] and it requires training. It requires repetition to get to that state. That is why we train all three to reduce holes, to create balance and style so we can transcend style. That is why we also train meditation, calisthenics, and breath work.
To learn more about our minds, ourselves, our energy, and how it flows. Once you can feel how the power moves from the ground through the leg, through the hips, into your punch and out. Once you can feel that energy going from the cerebellum all the way through the body. Then you have attained that level of awareness within yourself that you can break and shatter all limitations.
And then you are unlimited from there. You can go wherever you go, wherever you choose to go. You [00:24:00] can apply this to your life, in how you move, in how you sit, in how you interact with others. And how you shake hands and how we talk to people where you’re not anxious. You’re not nervous. You’re calm. And that calmness spreads that smile spreads that love spreads.
We spread peace by becoming peace. We spread love by becoming love. We spread hate by becoming hate. So we must be careful and controlling our minds and understanding ourselves. This is the triangle of our training. So if you’re out there looking for a school, be aware of what they’re teaching, how they are teaching.
If they’re teaching you to control yourself while creating a strong foundation or creating a strong mind, a strong body and self awareness, you are at the right school. [00:25:00] Keep going. You are on path to your journey. If you are not, find somewhere else. We at Ferrer Academy train in person here in Rockville.
We train online. If you are interested, you can go to farahacademy. com slash you to find out more. This was a very short episode. There is far more to talk about, but I want to get into each one of these subjects. We’re going to have an episode just on Taekwondo, just on Muay Thai, just on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, just on breath work.
We’ve already done one on meditation. You can check out the power of meditation where we brought on Chris Parks. I’m going to do a little bit in depth about each little technique and how important that is. Because honestly we can talk about meditation for like days and how important it is. Watch our previous episodes, subscribe, check out our future episodes, like go to our website, read our content.
I’m always putting out new content that is extremely important for how to care for the body, [00:26:00] the history of the arts and anything else. And if you are curious about something, leave a comment, send us an email, and we’ll see you on the next episode of The Unlimited You.
