If You Learn to Hurt, You Learn to Heal: What Martial Arts Teach About Longevity

You never can be perfect. Even if it's perfect, there's better. Not block or defend or... No, the very first rule in karate is seek perfection of character. Alan Whitman, it's a pleasure to have you. My pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me. I'm very curious about your past and how you go through where you are today. Where did you grow up? How did you come across martial arts? And how did that shape the course of your life? Ah... Good question. Okay, so... I grew up in Japan as a kid. I spent 23 years in Asia, total. I've been all over Asia. I've been to China several times, but mainly in Japan. Philippines, Thailand, Korea, Hong Kong, multiple times. And when I was four, my next-door neighbor was going to a karate class and it just sounded cool. And I just remember... I remember watching Saturday morning kung fu theater movies and I'm like, Oh, I want to learn how to fly like the kung fu guys and jump 40 feet. And, you know, none of that clearly true. When you're four, you believe anything. But I ended up going to karate class with him, just stayed with it, just fell in love with it instantaneously. And I've done everything from karate, aikido, jiu-jitsu to Chinese kung fu to Filipino FMA to Muay Thai to just about everything. I try everything. So, I mean, I can only assume it might be difficult to be in a culture that might be different from your own, maybe your household, and even the way you look. So, it's kind of weird you say it because I was there since I was four. That sort of was my culture. I grew up with that. Yeah, I went to... I was on a military base, but our school was at another military base. So, we had to get bused every day. And it was sort of a half and half. They had lots of contractors for the military who were Japanese who went to our school. So, sort of a very mixed environment. And it was just something I grew up with. So, it wasn't really... For me, it wasn't really out of the ordinary. It wasn't like someone your age going to Japan for the first time and having to assimilate. I sort of, you know, just culturally assimilated at my age. I think it was a great experience for me. What did your parents think when you wanted to do karate, martial arts? My mom was happy just to get me out of the house. She's like, yes, please go. And I was a really independent child. So, I'm the last of nine children. Yeah. So, that's why you had to learn martial arts. Yeah, pretty much. If it wasn't for myself and my older brother, it would have beat me up. No, actually, he wasn't around much when I was younger. He's a little older than I am, as are most of the other kids. No, it was just something I went to on the very first day was just something so fascinating. And when I saw the karate teacher do a sort of a fighting demo with several of his students, I was just wowed. I was a little very floored, and I was thinking, I want to do this. This is what I, I love that. That's great. Let me do that, you know. And it's just, this is my 54th year coming out of my 55th year in martial arts, and I love it. My next question is, you know, we often think about martial arts as combating, as fighting, but I really want to get your opinion. Like, how can martial arts help us preserve life, longevity? So, there is a rule. If you do real martial arts, and I'm not saying Americans don't, but Americans seem to focus primarily on the combative piece of the art. But combative part of martial arts is just one faction of it. And there's a rule in most traditional arts, if you go to China or Japan or Korea, where it is, if you learn to hurt, you learn to heal. So, there's a healing aspect in the martial arts. There's, of course, a combative portion of the martial arts. There's defensive. There's tactical. There is life evolving. Character building. The very first rule in traditional karate is to seek perfection of one's character. That's the first rule. Not block or defend. No, the very first rule in karate is seek perfection of character. What does that actually look like? Because I think it's, you know, we learn that a lot in the movies as well. Jury, and they have to fight the bad guy and look inside and become a better person. But what does it actually look like in the dojo? So, in the dojo, it's learning to understand that what you're always striving for in martial arts is to perfect yourself in however way that sort of cascades into what you're doing. So, for example, if you're doing combative piece or defensive piece, how to make it perfect. Now, with the complete understanding that you never can be perfect. Even if it's perfect, there's better. There's somehow, some way to be faster, to be stronger, to be looser, to be whatever. Better angle, whatever it is. So, the whole concept of perfecting oneself is always working on yourself. Always knowing there's something more I can do. I can give something more. I can give some other mental different approach that I can take that I wasn't thinking of before. Instead of maybe circling over, maybe it's a straight line out or maybe it's the opposite. But it's always just that. It's perfecting oneself. And when you're talking about martial arts as combative defensive form, then you're talking about how can I build my body and my technique better. Make it stronger. Make it softer. Make it harder. Make it faster. Make it slower. Better angle, better approach. So, the whole concept is perfection in one's character knowing we can never be perfect. And that's sort of a dichotomy, isn't it? It's sort of contrary, but it isn't. We always look to the betterment knowing that we can always do better no matter what. Famous saying, don't fear the man that's done 1,000 techniques. Fear the man that's done one technique 1,000 times. Because that's the one you've got to watch out for. So, it sounds like discipline is definitely part of the practice. Repetition. Discipline, repetition, respect. Respect. What does that look like? Respect for the teacher. Again, in traditional Japanese system, we generally bow into class at every class. You bow in three times. One to the dojo. To the center that you're training. Showing respect that this is the place that I have been given to train in safely. And then you bow to the instructor to thank that instructor for teaching you and sharing you with you all these things. And then the last one is to all the other students who help you. Because learning on your own can be incredibly difficult. Right? But when you have someone else to work with, when you have multiple people, different heights, weights, sizes, you have those people, that betters you much faster, much easier. Right? Because you have different... This person's punching from this level. So, they're from this level. Or this person only weighs 145 and this guy weighs 280. There's a difference between those approaches. And you have to understand those differences. So, you may... You may train with someone you're equal, physically. And if you run into somebody smaller or bigger, you'll probably be in trouble if that's all you've ever trained with is someone you're equal. Right? Because you don't know what that is like. Right? You only know what you're like. So, being able to respond to other people who are sharing and learning with you. They're learning the same thing you're learning, basically. Right? So, just understanding, finding out those little... Oh, OK. I need to do this, or this, or... Oh, I get it. Maybe I should stay, or maybe I should step back. Maybe I should move forward. So, it's... The respect is to everything. And we always show the respect to, again, the room, the teacher, the fellow students that you're learning with. So, it's a really... Respect is a huge part of it. I'm curious. Is your journey in martial arts, and when people are learning, is it a linear development of the more I put in, the better I get? Oh. Or is it up and down? No way. So, what does that look like? Sometimes you put in, put in, put in, you get nothing back at all. It goes back to seek perfection, right? It's, you know, we're learning, right? And sometimes, what we're learning, we're wrong from step one. That means we're wrong by step 10. So, it's... It's all just dependent upon each individual person. And I really... I really hate and discount schools that say, oh, come and earn a black belt in three years or five years. It took me... It took me 10 or 11 years to get a black belt. My first one. So, I mean, here's the difference, three years, 10 years, you know. And it's because it just all depends. Maybe I was a horrible student, I know, right? But it just depends on what you grasp. And I don't mean just the physical. I mean the mental, the discipline, the respect, everything. Some people can get things faster. Some people get things slower at a slower pace, right? It doesn't mean they're bad. It's just their mind just doesn't function that way, right? But that's something that martial arts does develop. They develop this mental sense of starting to understand body mechanics and movement and balance and focus, power, you know, ability. It's all developed, yeah. So I often hear how people talk about mind, body, spirit in the context of martial arts. But what does that look like? I understand the physical aspect of throwing the punches, practicing, but what does the mind aspect look like and then the spiritual aspect? Well, I think, first of all, I think you should sort of decipher the physical aspect as not just the combative portion. The physical aspect also relates to your own health physically. You, you know, strengthen your body in the best possible way. For some people, that's push-ups and jumping jacks. That's great. Some people, it's nutrition. Or some even need acupressure or acupuncture or herbal medicines to whatever it does to build their body into a healthier point. So don't dissuade physical to being, you know, just punching and kicking. The physical is all of the physical. The spirit is sort of that respect, the dignity, the self-perfection. That's spirit. And the mind is that mental, there's several points to it. There's the mental acumen, understanding things better. I'm incredibly good at like Tetris, right? I can credit that to martial arts. Because it's problem solving and it's positioning and movement, right? That's the game, right? Hand-eye coordination sort of thing. And you're like, okay, turn, turn. No, no, I need to be there. I need to be here, there, and down, you know, which is exactly what a technique is. I need to be here, there, and drop. So it's sort of, it builds all of that. So mind, body, and spirit isn't just something you hear from a movie. I should know, I've done 78 of them at this point, right? Yeah. Remember, I am a professional Hollywood stunt coordinator for Helms. I've done over 78 films in Helms, which is actually a lot. And then I actually won the Luxor Gala's Oscar Award this last March, so I have been involved with movies. The difference between reality and movies. So what is the difference? Because I think we have an idea of Hollywood and what martial arts is like, where you've spent your life in Asia with, you know, the real masters in the dojos. What does the West or people in general have as a misconception? Well, I think the misconception is that what you see on film is real or doable. And it's so hard to explain, but some of it is and some of it isn't. And understanding real martial arts, you can suffer what's real and possible, what's really not. You know, that's just for show, right? For example, one of the biggest things right now is like the XMA, where people are spinning and twisting and doing 560 kicks. I'm like, yeah, try that in a street fight, buddy. You will just land on your ass in the heartbeat and you just get your butt beat, you know, and like, you know, that would never really work. Looks great. And in a movie even, looks even better. Wow. You know, right? But not realistic. But of course, some of the techniques they do, for example, you go to John Wick, right? John Wick, where John Wick and Holly Berry, all that crew and staff on that film, they train six months to nine months, eight hours a day, five days a week for six to nine months before they shoot a frame of that movie. And it's not just rehearsal, it's training. They're in the dojo, they're getting trained by the Gracies, the Machados, right? Aikido instructors, karate, and they're being taught real martial arts. And what they do is they go, you know, in the training session they find things that Keanus really can be good at. And they go, oh, we'll use that in the film because that looks cool and he can do it and it's a real technique. Right? And that's why John Wick I think is so successful because, you know, it's so bam, bam, bam, bam in your face the whole movie, right? Which is the style I actually like doing in films. I love choreographing sort of realistic, gladiatorial sort of, you know, fighting where it's just, you know, punching and kicking and throwing that looks real because it's based on a real technique. Now, the difference between movies is we don't ever really hurt people. We don't ever intentionally hit someone and let's say you don't ever hit someone. It happens. Well, I've been hit many a times. But, in general, you honestly don't want to hit the other person because, here's the thing, it's not a real fight. It's just for camera. It's all camera angles. So, the camera sitting there, it looks good if I'm, if I'm here and I cross. See? It makes it look like I hit you. I don't, I'm that far away from you, right? You know? And then you as an actor, you react. You know? So, it looks great, right? You know? So, so, here, try it. Ready? I'm going to pass your face and your radio and, right? So, it looks great on camera, right? But, I'm okay, by the way. We don't care. They don't care anyway. No, I care. So, you know, doing that in a film just sells the action and the story, moves the story, right? And in fights for films, it's really what you're doing is you're telling a story without words. And I teach this a lot when I do stunt workshops and, you know, teaching choreography where I'm choreographing on a movie set. The idea is that everything you do in a fight tells a story and it's a, it's a verbal, it's a, it's a nonverbal language, right? Like, I would say, hi, my name's Alan. Hi, my name is Makai. Right. So, in a fight scene, it would be, and then you put your foot, right? So that's the greeting, right? And the stance that I do will tell you a story automatically. If I, if I put my fist up like this, it dictates, oh, he's probably a boxer, right? Or a street fighter. If I put my hands like this, oh, he does some sort of martial arts. If I do my something like this, I'm maybe more tactical, military stuff, right? So, without telling you, without telling you anything, I'm telling you everything. I'm telling you a whole history that the movie never gonna tell you, right? Oh, this guy's had some training, or he's had some work, or he's done something, you know? So, for, for movies, it's telling that story. That's what I love about it. You're telling a story, right? And when I get hired to do choreography, or stunt coordinating, whatever, that's what we're doing. I have to, I have to tell the story. And if they have a script, of course, then I have to put my story has to somehow connect with their large verbal story that they're telling, or the visual story that they're telling, right? So, it has to be cohesive to that story. So, that's, so, it's a lot involved. Right, right. So, as a closing question, you know, you've had many great masters, and you've taught many people. Is there any quote, any wise saying that you could share with the audience from the way of life that you've taken a little while? Goes back to the first rule you ever learned? Seek perfection of character. Always goes back to that. You know, when I have questions about what should I do in any given circumstance, it always goes back to that. What's the best way, not just for me, but for my character, for my life? Maybe it benefits me financially now, but what's better for me after that? Does this actually better me later? Right? So, it's great. I think, and we all have bills, and we all have monetary needs. We all do. We all have a mobile bill to pay, a phone bill to pay. But, it's just, what can we do that will make that nullified by the actions I take? So, I don't worry about my phone bill. I worry about what's the best approach? What should I do next? What helps me, but not just what helps me, what helps everybody else? My magazine is one of those things. Our motto is, it's for the community by the community. And with International Martial Arts Magazine, one of the, my favorite things, we cover all martial arts. We have a healing section, shiatsu section. We have Michelle and I have been friends for years and I love her to death. Sumiko Nakano, who's in England and Japan, is our vice president and she writes the women warrior section, focusing on women in the martial arts, which I think is a very under appreciated segment. Women make up a huge portion of martial arts and there's some really amazing female fighters. And we just hit 700,000 views, so we're doing something right I think. But we're just out there reaching out to different arts, kenpo karate or traditional karate or jiu jitsu or kung fu or whatever it is. The idea is just to share everyone's knowledge, share it all with everyone. And where can people find you? They can go to imamag.org I'm a mag, right? I'm a magazine, the International Martial Arts Magazine. So imamag.org and we do sell prints on Amazon. Go buy a copy of the magazine, it's fantastic. Or go look at all the digital versions that we have every single month. It's free, there's no sign up, no email verification, nothing. Go to our website, click play and turn the page like a real magazine. It's a pro. Cool, cool, cool. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thanks for sharing your time. Appreciate it. Thank you. And cut, Back out. Just your microphone.