episode 3: crafting a meaningful youth program with trea drake

Oct 15

CJ Kirk

All right, welcome back.

C.J. Kirk, Krav Maga Worldwide Podcast. I'm here with Trea Drake today, episode number three. I don't really know how to do this yet, Trea, so we're just, we're winging it.

I'll tell you a little bit about Trea. Trea's with me in Krav Maga, Houston. Probably the most successful kids instructor that I know, certainly in Krav Maga.

A third-degree black belt in Krav Maga, a talented guy, one of our top-shelf thinkers at the school. Also has a background working with kids in pretty interesting, significant ways. Welcome, Trea.

Trea Drake

Good to be here.

CJ Kirk

Did I say Trea Drake? Did I say your last name?

Trea Drake

You did not, but it's all good.

CJ Kirk

Trea Drake, third-degree black belt.

Trea Drake

It has a ring to it.

CJ Kirk

Yeah, yeah, congratulations on that.

Trea Drake

Appreciate you.

CJ Kirk

Because that was what, just a couple months ago?

Trea Drake

That's right.

CJ Kirk

Yeah, COVID threw you off a little bit on that, right?

Trea Drake

A little bit.

CJ Kirk

Or threw us all off. It did. How many years did you train between second degree and third-degree black belt?

Trea Drake

I received second degree in 2017.

CJ Kirk

Okay, so are you asking me to do the math on that?

Trea Drake

Yes, quite a few years.

CJ Kirk

Seven years approximately, right?

Trea Drake

Yeah.

CJ Kirk

That's a long way.

Trea Drake

It is a long way.

CJ Kirk

It's all good though.

Trea Drake

It worked out and here we are.

CJ Kirk

I love the attitude. You're sort of a positive guy, right?

Trea Drake

I try to be. I have to work pretty hard to be a positive guy, to be honest with you.

CJ Kirk

Yeah.

Trea Drake

Yeah, it doesn't come natural to me.

CJ Kirk

But it's something you do intentionally.

Trea Drake

I try to, I try to present that way the best that I can, to be a blessing to people. Do I need to give you more hugs?

CJ Kirk

Is that what's happening?

Trea Drake

I'm always down for a good hug. You know me. Yeah, yeah.

CJ Kirk

Trea, you've been with Krav Maga Houston with me for, I'm just gonna take a stab at it, 17 years. Am I close?

Trea Drake

Well, I'll let you do the math again. I started in September of 2006.

CJ Kirk

2006. So we're somewhere between 17 and 18 years. You got it.

That's amazing. At some point, I came to you and I said, our kids program is floundering a little bit. Part of the reason is that when I teach kids, they, if they don't, they don't pay attention, they don't do what I tell them.

They go in the corner and 15 minutes into the class, all the kids are in the corner. I'm checking text messages, right? That's the way that class goes.

That's not a powerful way to teach kids, right? And I think fundamentally, one of the reasons people asked for this episode is Krav Maga has been, for whatever reason, inherently or otherwise, primarily an adult pursuit, at least within the Krav Maga schools in the US, as far as I can see, right? I've been around 26 years.

You have a background working with kids. And I asked you at one point, I said, Trea, come, come take this deal over. So before you talk about taking the kids over and growing that program, we have more kids in the program than most schools have total enrollment, pushing up towards 300, somewhere close to that, rounding off, I think.

But talk to us about your background working with kids and, and a little bit about how you pull that background forward with you into Krav Maga, as it applies to the kids program.

Trea Drake

Yeah, well, I knew that when I went to college, that I wanted to do something in to serve, ultimately, and decided that I would get a bachelor's degree in psychology. And while I was in progress of getting that bachelor's degree, there was a program at University of Houston that was a replication site for a study that was conducted at UCLA, looking at kids on the autistic spectrum. And so it was one of those deals where you get to, you get to work with clients, which is rare as a bachelor's level person, especially as a bachelor's student.

So I thought that would be a really interesting project to get involved with. And so, you know, you do your year of, I don't know, I think it was 10 or 12 hours a week of volunteer time, you get course credit. And when I signed up, I figured, you know, I'd do my year and then move on with life.

And I ended up staying with that organization for 18 and a half years. Yeah. And then that, with that, during that time, that overlapped a little bit with me getting involved with Krav Maga.

So when I met you, I was functioning and behavior analysis.

CJ Kirk

Yeah. Is that, can you name the organization? Tell us more about what you did over there.

Trea Drake

Yeah, that organization was called the Texas Young Autism Project. It started out as a replication site, like I said, at University of Houston. And it was a behavior analysis program.

So ultimately a kid that was diagnosed with autism around the age of three, four years old. The goal would be to get them into a regular first grade classroom. And in order to do that, it usually took between 30 and 50 hours of therapy per week.

And, um, ultimately I was trained as a therapist to do that. And then over the course of time, um, started to supervise treatment teams that were providing that treatment.

CJ Kirk

I think we need to pause here for a second and talk about, um, autism. It's been, I think, correct me if I'm wrong. My impression is that the spectrum has been stretched so that people who just maybe acted slightly outside the norm at one point or other people just thought they were sort of odd.

That's not part of the spectrum. Can you talk about the spectrum? The reason I'm saying this twofold, I had two kids that registered on the spectrum.

Both were born really early. One was a pound, 14 ounces, a little miracle all to himself. Um, the other reason is, and I think it's important, if there are people out there working with kids, um, their awareness of the spectrum and, you know, where it starts and stops and what it looks like, um, could be helpful to them.

Now, I don't know if they want to have a conversation with parents about your kid might be on the spectrum. That's probably not what they want to do. But, um, I think awareness, uh, breeds, uh, an opportunity to work with kids differently.

So, to the extent that you can, would you explain the spectrum to everybody that's listening?

Trea Drake

Well, the reality is that over the course of time, um, the criteria have been adjusted. Um, and so, yeah, maybe certain kids that historically wouldn't have been considered on the spectrum could be considered on the spectrum these days. Um, and what, what you're seeing at this point also is, uh, the CDC recently changed the, uh, developmental milestones.

So, historically, uh, kids were expected to have, uh, display their first words by the age of 12 months. And now they've adjusted that with CDC up to, I don't know, it's like 14 or 16 months. And so, you're seeing that over the course of childhood that they've adjusted the milestones.

And the reality is that those milestones in, in various ways are used to determine whether a kid is functioning normally, ultimately, or if they might, uh, be somewhere on the autism spectrum. So, I think really the most important thing, um, for anybody involved in a kid's program is to make sure that they have, um, some knowledge of what normal milestones look like. Um, you know, for a whole list of reasons, not the least of which is so that you know what the zone of proximal development is for the kids that you're working with, which is the zone where you're just kind of pushing them into what you might consider beyond their comfort zone a little bit.

It's not too far beyond their comfort zone. You're, you're establishing skills because you're pushing them. But know what is appropriate based on the age of that child and their current abilities.

And the only way to do that is to familiarize yourself with, uh, what the current guidelines are.

CJ Kirk

So what, do you have advice for instructors who are doing kids programs and want to create additional value for the parents? Um, is there, is there something they can do to evaluate the kids or is that something that should be left to, you know, the professionals so to speak?

Trea Drake

Well, I think it's very individual. Uh, because of my background, I, I have no hesitation with, uh, spending a couple of moments with a parent by themselves after class and explaining, Hey, this is something that I'm seeing. Um, do you see the same thing, a behavior that their child is displaying?

And are you seeing this across environments? And if the answer is yes, and it's a, it's a concerning behavior, I have no problems. And I have a couple of people in town that, um, I will refer that family to and say, Hey, you might consider, um, going and having a discussion with this professional.

Here's the information. You can choose to use it or not. It's entirely up to you.

But I have no reservations about having that conversation. In fact, for me, I feel like I have a responsibility to have that conversation, but maybe not everybody feels that.

CJ Kirk

So I'm going to put you on the hot seat because that's something I just do extemporaneously, just ask questions. So is it possible for, for, for us at Worldwide to develop, um, a behavioral spectrum that mirrors something and, and do some training with the instructor so that they can at least identify, Hey, this kid might be in this range here and give parents some nominal advice about what they're seeing in their kid. Um, some of that would have to be how to deliver that message, obviously.

Is there a program, is it a good idea to develop that program or do you think that would backfire?

Trea Drake

I think it's worth considering for sure. Uh, in the spirit of, uh, you know, providing value to the families and, um, really being, um, of service to the people that were, that we care about.

CJ Kirk

Yeah, I would say that for those people that, um, are listening, their instructors in particular, you know, the kids in your class that seem like they're functioning just outside what you might consider to be a generic social norm. Is that a fair way to say it? Right.

I'm going to talk about normal and get people upset. Um, but there are, there are ways there are, there are contracts, social contracts that we have at different ages and sometimes kids don't, uh, identify with and then act in a way that's congruent with those contracts. Is that an okay way to say it?

Trea Drake

Sure.

CJ Kirk

Yeah. Um, my kids, one of my kids was, was really struggling. Um, and we noticed one day in the pool as a very young kid that he wouldn't maintain eye contact with us.

And, um, that concerned us. We actually came to you and said, you know, can we get the kids evaluated? They're now, um, doing well in school.

They're now, um, playing sports. They have a cadre of friends. Um, and so I think the, I think it's incumbent upon us if we have information that we believe we can deliver in a way that can create benefit for someone else.

I think we have to at least consider that because I would, I'm, I'm real uncomfortable here thinking about what would have happened with my kids and how they would have developed had they not had more guidance, more professional guidance and to be able to save a child and the parents, um, the pain of go growing up and going through unnecessary hardship because they're not able to make contact with someone who's qualified and that can deliver the kind of there was ABA therapy for us, right? Um, deliver the kind of therapy that's shown to have remarkable results.

Is that fair?

Trea Drake

Absolutely can. Yeah. Obviously it's individualized, right?

There's a lot of variability from one kid to the next in terms of the effectiveness. Um, one thing that I will say is it's a travesty when, um, well, one of the, one of the primary things that I learned is that you can diagnose kids on, on the spectrum as young as 18 months, but the average child who eventually gets diagnosed with autism is not diagnosed until five years old. One of the primary reasons that is, is because people are hesitant to speak up and say anything, including professionals, whether it be school professionals or professionals like us.

And that's, that's a terrible tragedy because, uh, it's, it's important that these kids get assistance as early as possible. And so that's a huge gap where we can reliably diagnose at 18 months, but the average kid is not getting diagnosed until the age of five. That's a pretty big gap.

Um, especially when we, we know, uh, that kiddos really need to get, start getting therapy, uh, at least by the age of three, uh, so that they are best prepared, uh, to enter school by kindergarten or first grade.

CJ Kirk

So most, uh, kids programs for Krav Maga, at least in my, to my knowledge, start around five years old. Right. And so to the extent that, that we have instructors who are watching these kids and who are trying to interact and teach them, um, starting at five years old, it feels like if they haven't been helped at that point, this is their last best hope is, is, you know, walking into a Krav Maga school because the parents think the kid needs more discipline or the kid is a little bit social, just a little socially off. And it's amazing to me to correct me if I'm wrong, but I watched this with kids.

Kids have incredible radar for who is within the fairway of natural social contracts and who's one foot outside of it. And if you're one foot outside of it, the kids attack like sharks on a bloody piece of bait is that that's been my experience that they really, um, can identify it even before the adults can for sure. For some kids at five or six or seven years old, this is their last best hope to get help.

And as we're sitting here talking about this, I think we've got to, you know, we've got to do something to help instructors have productive conversations with parents and, and have the means for them to be trained in a way that is at least sufficient enough for them to be able to identify this and have those productive conversations. I think, you know, I talked to Kelly last month, Jill the month before. And I think one of the things that everybody kind of echoes here is in this community at worldwide.

We're looking to invest in our community. Yeah, the community pays a fee to get to get involved, but I think it's, it's rare. It's unusual.

And this feels to me like almost a mandate as we're, we've never discussed this and, you know, I haven't talked to the staff about it, but I feel like this is a mandate. Tell me more about, okay, it's five or six years old. You notice something a little bit unusual about the child.

This is like a time when there's almost no going back. Is that, is that what I'm hearing?

Trea Drake

Well, there's a couple of things that are coming to mind as we're having this conversation, like you said, for the first time. First of all, I think it's important to know what we're seeing here is more and more kids that I can identify as likely being on the spectrum that are walking through our doors and seeking training in Krav Maga. And one of the biggest challenges is are we able to provide a proper service to that kid given his individual needs in terms of support in a classroom, right?

And so we need to first and foremost know do we have the capacity as a school or as a program, whether it's here or anywhere else, given the current number of students that are in a class, the number of helpers that we have, the number of instructors that we have in a classroom, are we able to really provide for this kid and provide for all the other students at the same time? Sometimes the best response is not yet, but here are some recommendations of places to go to to get, to seek treatment and just know that we're in your corner and we want to help the best that we can. And so maybe six months from now, after the kiddo has had some treatment somewhere, then we will reevaluate and be able to bring them in and make sure that they're squared away.

So it's super important that people know what resources are available in their area. We're lucky enough to have a place directly across the street that we've recommended people go to quite often over the years. So I hope that answers the question.

CJ Kirk

I think it does. I think you and I'll do some more thinking about how we can support instructors and allow them to support the parents and the kids that they that they impact in their own schools. We'll circle back to that very very soon, but if we if we navigate a little bit away from this conversation to you, Trea Drake, Third Degree Blackbelt, Krav Maga Warrior.

Your personal story is pretty incredible too. Can we take a minute and talk about that? Because I think it's been an inspiration to a lot of people that know your personal story.

Are we okay to go there? Yeah, so you were injured, right? Talk about the surgeries, talk about your path back to Krav Maga.

Trea Drake

Yeah, I've had a couple of detours along the way. The biggest one was having neck surgery. That was back in 2013.

I had just taken over the kids program a little bit, maybe two years before then, and I ended up slipping a disc as they say, but the disc essentially split into two pieces. One piece went down the spinal cord canal. The other piece landed on the nerve root of my right arm and caused permanent nerve damage.

It was, it was, it's one of those things it's really easy to kind of downplay and be like, I'm okay, we'll manage, you know, I'll be fine. I went to a chiropractor, thought it would be an easy fix. They pushed on my neck and I screamed because I'd never experienced pain like that before.

It was a shock through the whole body because I didn't know yet that my spinal cord was depressed, and so it turned into an emergency after that because the spinal cord was like 50% depressed. He looked at it on a MRI. It looked like a water hose that was being stepped on, and they said if you, you know, if you just get in a slight fender bender on the way home, you could be paralyzed, and so got that surgery as quickly as possible, and that recovery was rough, and I was told by the surgeon that I would need a second surgery five years later.

Here we are 10 years after that, 11 years now after that, and still haven't had that second surgery, which is amazing. I actually had two levels that were injured, but they fixed that one level that was completely destroyed. Didn't fix the second level, so I have a second level that at some point will probably need to be addressed, but honestly, I think the the work that I do in Krav Maga as far as fitness and mobility and strengthening completely saved me in terms of allowing me to recover as quickly as possible and then be able to go as long as I have.

Obviously, training with a different level of circumspection, but I truly attribute my recovery and ability to go so far, so long at this point without a second surgery to my Krav training.

CJ Kirk

So you you did your third degree a couple months ago, and I know you were, you went everybody went hard in that in that test, and then you had some temporary issues as a result of that. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like how do you deal with those, you know, temporary setbacks?

Trea Drake

Yeah, so what you're referring to is after an intense event like a black belt test, like my black belt test, when I completed that, I had to have somebody else remove my shirt because I couldn't lift my arm at all. I managed it just through adrenaline, managed to get through the the test itself, and then once the adrenaline was gone, five minutes later, I had this soaking wet shirt on, needed to change it, couldn't lift my arm to change it. And then after that, what happens is there's multiple days and sometimes a month or two where I get really intense pain in that right arm where the nerve damage is.

Just, I guess, just the the nerve is aggravated for some period afterward. And that can still happen. Look, if I did, you know, pull-ups, several sets of pull-ups today, I'm gonna be sore for the next couple of days.

So it's just a matter of managing those things and knowing what I need to do. Knowing when to rest is the most important these days, honestly, is just being willing to say, you know what, I'm just gonna sit back and not do what I really feel like I want to do and maybe hit it hard today. But instead, allow that nerve to rest so that I can have more longevity, ultimately.

If I have, if I have another surgery on my neck, life is gonna get a lot more difficult than it is now.

CJ Kirk

You talked about knowing when to rest, putting you on the spot here, but what else, what did you learn from the injury and the rehabilitation and your path back to something that looks like normalcy from the outside in? What did you, you know, what are the powerful lessons you learned?

Trea Drake

Yeah, you know, I think the biggest lessons came after, it was COVID. COVID had just begun, 2020, and we were doing the MRF challenge. And we were planning on doing the Murph once a day, every day, for 30 days.

Don't do that.

CJ Kirk

Yeah.

Trea Drake

If you're listening, don't do that. And I think it was the fourth day, and we're on lockdown. It was the fourth day, and this is so silly.

And I still catch a lot of flack for this, but I'll share it anyway. I'm doing the run and running past my neighbor's house, and as I'm running past, I notice him out of the corner of my eye, and I notice him wave. And I didn't want to appear rude, but I also didn't want to stop my run.

So, I kind of turned like this, did a goofy wave, and then stumbled, tripped, tripped myself, just because of the way I turned my body while I was running. And I started to fall, and I tried to stop the fall, just stumbling. And so, ultimately, though, I had to roll.

So, I rolled on concrete, hit the tip of my shoulder, didn't hit my head, didn't land on my face, but hit the tip of the shoulder enough to rip all the ligaments off the shoulder completely toward the AC joint of my shoulder. And so, the joints are sticking up. It looks like a golf ball on the top of my shoulder.

The neighbor looks at me. I just turn around, start walking back to the house. Neighbor looks at me, and he goes, are you okay?

I said, no. He said, I thought you did that to show off. Why would I do a forward roll on concrete to show off to you?

Like, no, I need help. And he said, I'm happy to drive you to the emergency room. And so, we did that, and ultimately couldn't get the surgery.

It's usually a surgery you get in the hospital, in the emergency room. They wouldn't do it because of COVID. So, I went, I don't know, 10, 15 days with that thing, and I had to shop around the state of Texas and found a surgeon that would do it five hours from here.

And I will say that it was the recovery from that that showed me that I had gained so much from the experience with my neck. Just my ability to recover so much quicker, just because I knew how to take care of myself. I knew what to do.

I knew how to manage the pain without using medications. The recovery was especially grueling in terms of the therapy. And I remember going to the physical therapy sessions, and there were grown men next to me on both sides of me, and on tables next to me, getting their therapy session, and they're screaming.

And I was perfectly relaxed. I, of course, I was, I was in pain. It hurt, but I was able to manage that pain in a different way, to the point that the therapist said, it's really incredible that you're not making any noises while we're doing this type of therapy to you.

And as a result of that, they informed me that I was able to recover 75% faster than the average person who had that same injury, that walked through their doors. And I attribute all of that to what I had learned from the neck surgery. Unfortunately, that, that shoulder surgery was on the same side of the body as the nerve damage.

So, there was some compounding there, but I've managed it okay.

CJ Kirk

That's interesting. So, the adversity you faced helped you to face more adversity, essentially, right?

Trea Drake

It did. Well, the previous adversity compelled me to learn certain skills, that primarily being certain breathing and meditation techniques that make everything easier, including recovering from a catastrophic injury.

CJ Kirk

Yeah, one of the things I was gonna ask you, because I'm sure people who are listening would say, well, like, well, what were you doing on the table next to the two guys that were screaming? It was allowing you to manage that experience.

Trea Drake

Yeah, more than anything, it was knowing better how to manage my nervous system. So, obviously, when somebody is pushing into your shoulder for deep tissue work, and you start to experience pain, you're gonna experience an activation of the nervous system, fight-or-flight mode could kick in, you get stress hormones, all of that going through the body, adrenaline, heart rates gonna go up, and just knowing a variety of techniques. I have a buffet of techniques that I would choose from, depending on the day.

One thing works better than another, and just scrolling through those continuously, until I found something that worked, and once that stops working, find the next one, and thankfully, I had, you know, several years under my belt at that point of engaging in those practices as a result of that neck surgery, that it was surprisingly easy to manage.

CJ Kirk

Well, one of those things was breathwork, I suspect. For sure. Yeah. Is there a breath technique that you like, that you go to more for pain management, as opposed to, like, relaxation, or tell me a little bit about the breathwork you use.

Trea Drake

Yeah, so, the breathwork that I use in relation to pain is normally just to calm the nervous system, first and foremost, and then use some sort of meditation technique to further manage the pain, but there's a variety of techniques. First, I really like the 4-8 breathing, so breathing in for four seconds, exhaling for eight, you, whatever, it doesn't really matter what the first number is, you just double that number for the exhale, so just a prolonged exhale tends to calm the nervous system. I also like the physiological sigh a lot.

I probably get a lot more mileage out of that than I do any other calming breathing technique, so I very much appreciate Andrew Huberman's work out of Stanford. I've done some box breathing in the past, but, and it's still useful, I just don't use it as much as I used to.

CJ Kirk

All right, I got an answer out of you, that's progress. I have a buffet of things, people are like, what are you doing? Right?

All right, let's turn to the kids program. I think a lot of people are interested in understanding more about the kids program. Before COVID, which has impacted us all, I think we had about 1,100 students here at the school, and I think north of 400 were kids, is that right?

We had 365. 365, so right, pushing 400. That's a big number.

What do you think it is that you're doing that others aren't that's creating the kind of gravity around the kids program that allows you to continue, even now, with a substantially large kids program? Because we don't, I know for a fact, we don't do a lot of marketing or advertising around the kids program, so just talk to that. Would you, if you were, if you're gonna do a seminar for instructors, here's how you run and attract kids program, which I'm sure are one of the same, what would you tell them?

Trea Drake

That is a interesting question. One, I have...I will say first and foremost it starts with the way that me and the instructors that I've developed for the kids program interface with the kids. We demand respect but we do it in a way I just remember as a kid noticing how adults oftentimes talk down to kids in a way that is embarrassing. I feel embarrassed for families when I see this and I it seems fairly ubiquitous in our society.

The kids are lower than adults are bigger than and we're it's expressed in the way language is used as well as the tone that adults use with kids and so I first and foremost don't use that tone. I speak to them as human beings and I think they pick up on that first and foremost and it creates a different culture that they are I would just say more attracted to ultimately they appreciate not being talked down to. Second, I recognized early on that you know you could be a really good Krav practitioner you could be a really good Krav instructor but not really know how to develop a program and so I sought out education from a whole slew of people.

Stephen Oliver was one of those people there was I spent time in Colorado at a karate school I went spent a whole week there and studied what they did so I just tried to learn from as many people as I possibly could and then I realized that as the face of the program I needed to I needed to build my resume as much as I could so that if parents saw my resume they would say that's a person that I want my kid in front of right so building value essentially by building my resume and what I mean by that is you know I spent probably a quarter of a million dollars on trainings I've got 10 certifications in breathing and meditation I've got like 20 certifications total and this is including you know breathing meditation life coaching for kids that type of thing right in addition to formal education that type of stuff.

CJ Kirk

Talk to me real quickly about those certifications and the connection between the certification and the kids program is how you interact with them as a tool to give them.

Trea Drake

It's all the above so what one of the things that I learned from Stephen Oliver that was probably one of the game changers for us and our program was developing the master program and the idea behind the master program we called it that for a reason the idea is that they become a master at Krav Maga but also try to master other aspects of life and so that program is an invite-only program for kids who have a long-term attitude regarding Krav Maga they would like to earn a junior black belt by the time they graduate high school and that type of thing and they also demonstrate good quality technique during class during a regular class they're respectful to their peers they're respectful to the instructors that type of thing based on those that set of behaviors we may invite them to the master program part of that program is leadership development includes a whole variety of things we do leadership lessons but we also teach them to be leaders in the Krav community and also promote them promote leadership outside of the Krav community so we do volunteer work as a group with the kids with the kids and their families so part of that program I wanted to incorporate breathing and meditation so one of the certifications was mindful schools which was an organization that was taking mindfulness into public and private schools so they had already developed that program and I was aware of the person who headed up that program and designed it I had already trained with him in a variety of other ways and so when I started that master program I immediately went and trained with him and got the mindful school certification and that kind of kicked it off.

CJ Kirk

So you said volunteerism I know that you talk about Memorial Day a little bit

Trea Drake

oh yeah so there is a veterans it's the veterans Memorial Cemetery here in Houston and every year for gosh I don't even know how many years now probably 10 years on Memorial Day weekend the group the master program group and their families and the instructors from here go to the cemetery and we they have a really beautiful ceremony to honor the soldiers who have fallen and then we put flags out at all of the gravestones it's it's such a great event the families look forward to it every year we've never had any trouble getting all the families we needed to go assist with that it's just a beautiful day so talk a

CJ Kirk

little bit about the volunteer opportunities that you pursue and the deeper motivation the lesson the idea behind the volunteer program fitting into what you're teaching in the in the classroom part of the attitude of the

Trea Drake

master program is that again trying to master all aspects of life not just Krav Maga and one of those elements is being of service to others as much as you can right it sounds intense but sometimes we say be a blessing rather than a curse right so what what am I doing today that is making someone's life easier in the moment it could it could simply be at the gas station how am I behaving at the gas station with the gas station worker right behind the counter am I behaving in a way that makes their day better or my behaving in a way that makes it worse and so these volunteer opportunities are just simply a way of really getting the kids to think more outside themselves and understand how their behavior has an impact on other people and so along with that we used to go up pre-coven we used to go to this organization called home that stands for help our military endure and what they would do is put care packages together for soldiers who are deployed overseas and we have we have soldiers in like a hundred and forty countries right and so there's constantly someone in need in that regard sometimes it's just letting them know that hey we know you exist we know you're out there you're far away from home and we appreciate you so you know it's magazines books toiletries that type of thing that goes in boxes and then the kids would write letters what they didn't realize is that someone that we know from this organization would receive one of those letters right and so to reinforce this whole process that person came and spoke with the kids and said you know and informed them of the impact the positive impact that that small gesture had on him.

CJ Kirk

So in that case you were able to close the loop with the kids that's right see from start to finish the kind of impact it that they can have on people's lives one of the things that I've heard about kids and things like active shooter or things that are scary it's not that you that you don't need to talk to your kids about things are scary because it will scare them is that you have to have a plan for them that somehow they're built so that if they find out something is scary and uncertain the idea that they have a plan mitigates that substantially

Trea Drake

is that true also absolutely true I think that's the case not just for kids I think that's the case for all of us as human beings

CJ Kirk

I just thought it was interesting that kids would function in the same way that say you or I would yeah I think people in that way people don't give kids enough credit for sure for being about man is those types of things all right so you we've got this kids program you've got some volunteerism going I have noticed in the classes particularly when I was watching you noticing you that you did have this way we used to call you the Pied Piper or that you have a Jedi mind skills with the kids because there's something that you do you described it earlier but you talk to them at a level that isn't diminishing them at all right yet you still are the authority in the classroom right which is a balance yeah of course can you talk any more about that because the way that you handle the class is so different than say another multi-level black belt different than I handle obviously that's why I sought you out we had other people here that are high-level black belts try to do the kids class that was even more disastrous than me I won't I won't name any names CW but taught you know some somehow find in in your own way to juxtapose what you do versus what someone else might do where they're not having the kind of control and success

Trea Drake

in the classroom can you do that a little bit yeah I think I think first and foremost there's an energy aspect of it where the reality is if you if you want to keep the attention of young people you you better be you better walk through the door and and be energetic essentially try to be happy to be there enjoy yourself really appreciate the opportunity to impart this knowledge and potentially help someone else especially a young person the reality is that the most violent years of a person's life especially men in particular is middle school so if you have an eight-year-old in class you only have a few more years until especially if they're a boy you only have a few more years until they're likely to experience real violence my very first fight was I was ambushed from behind I was 11 years old walking down the hall at the end of school day and a dude ran behind me jumped in the air body checked me and I fall on the ground roll over on my back and he's already on top right that was middle school and that's the reality for a lot of kids and so you know to me I always see it as I have limited time to be able to provide them what they need for something that could potentially happen tomorrow I don't know so I think there's really this this attitude of walking in and let's have a good time let's learn something serious that might save your life or your quality of life someday and again there's that respect element right it's plays a bigger role than I think people can imagine where there's no condescension there's no attitude that you're less than you

CJ Kirk

nailed it so one of the things I heard you say that resonated with me is you're to be there yeah and I think people that teach kids maybe they come in with the wrong sort of default attitude which is that this is somehow not as serious or less important than teaching adults right and you just outlined the case

Trea Drake

that this might be more important yeah I think a lot of people see it as

CJ Kirk

…glorified babysitting well I think that's the way a lot of traditional martial arts have in the past maybe approach this but something resonated with me also because my kids are in middle school they've been in a bunch of fights they've been ambushed you know so that resonated quite a bit there's another piece of this though that I think we need to talk about and I think you have some level of qualification to talk about it and that is that as you're growing up whether you're a baby and need something and can't get it because you can't talk or you know or you're in middle school and you're being you know physically attacked by somebody and you're realizing that those people don't hold your worldview they don't think like you do etc that leaves a mark and what happens to kids who go to middle school who don't have the tools to defend themselves physically mentally emotionally what does that adult look like you know 10 20 30 40 years later it varies a lot I can tell

Trea Drake

For me personally unfortunately I was bullied quite early I was I was very small it was 85 pounds when I went to high school and first day of high school was just brutal I walked through the door moments later I was grabbed by my wrists pinned against the wall and lifted by my wrists so that my feet were dangling off the floor and multiple upperclassmen came up and were you know striking my body punches this became a daily occurrence and it got to where I I knew I would get beat up but I would do my best to get back of them when I could right I remember one time one of the upperclassmen was it was after school he was at the end of the hall and he was leaning up against the wall with a chair the front legs of the chair off the ground and a couple friends of mine were standing next to me and I said hey watch this and I went running down the hall as quickly as I could and I kicked that chair out from under him of course I got beat up terribly after that I knew it was gonna happen but it felt worth it in the moment but unfortunately I wish I could say that I was one of the people that could get through that and not abuse other people at the same time but that wasn't me unfortunately I I did the same thing when I was older in high school to people who were younger than me but I knew it was wrong and I once I got to college as soon actually as soon as I graduated high school I felt completely free from all of that and completely changed the way I comported myself with other people and would never think of hurting someone else in that way and then got involved in grov and my my whole mission is to teach other people to protect themselves to give them those skills but also teach

CJ Kirk

them to not abuse other people I think you're one of the more self-aware people I know so it doesn't surprise me I think the place I was going with this is you know if kids don't have the tools to defend themselves and they're abused by their classmates or even teachers for that matter there's a likelihood that they're either gonna grow up to be abusers themselves in some form or fashion or if they're gonna grow up and and essentially become victims right and to the extent that that might be true teaching kids how to navigate the most violent time in their life appears to me now as we talked about to be of paramount importance yeah so outside of Krav Maga outside of how you approach working with the kids outside of the volunteerism is there something at one point I saw you passing what looked like a pharmacist mixing bowl in a circle did I see that right you did yeah it was a singing bowl say it again singing bowl s-i-n-g-i-n-g you got it okay so but the kids weren't singing

Trea Drake

all right no it's not a singing bowl because it has a little mallet and if you just run that mallet along the rim of the bowl it starts to hum and it can be it can get quite loud or you can just use that mallet and hit the bowl and we just use that as to initiate a meditation but the kids love it and they like to be the one to ring the bell and so that was just part of our our meditation practice.

CJ Kirk

So what do you say to parents who are nervous about meditation I think a lot of people think it's deeply rooted in something weird

Trea Drake

and it's just really well explain that well I'll just say that over the course of the last ten years I'm guesstimating but about a decade I can't I couldn't even properly estimate how many kids we've had go through the master program where we do meditation and breathing a couple hundred and I will say first and most that we tried to build so much value into that program that by the time we had the parent meeting to get a kid started so you know once we identify a child as a candidate for the master program we give them an application they fill that out they hand it in to us we meet with the kid and the parents describe the whole program make sure we're all on the same page and have a long-term attitude and then they start the program by the time we get to that meeting the parents usually have a good idea of what it is we do and I can tell you that over the course of the last ten years once a kid was invited there was a hundred percent chance that they were going to join that program despite the fact that it also costs more money it's a hundred dollars more per month here for us not once has a family said oh we don't we're not going to do that ultimately hundred percent of the families have joined have been invited and not one time has a parent questioned us in regards to the breathing and meditation component never happened I could imagine that it might somewhere along the way it just hasn't happened today so for those people that are

CJ Kirk

listening that are nervous about that you know I don't want to start a meditation program because one I don't know how to do it what I what I try to tell people is meditation and visualization live on the same block for sure can you talk speak to that help people navigate this well there's ways

Trea Drake

of well first of all there are plenty of meditation certification programs that are completely non-religious there there's no realist religious attachment whatsoever one in particular that I've appreciated a ton over the years is unified mindfulness they have a really fantastic teacher trainer program I highly recommend it just just to be out in the open I've got their certification as a coach and I'm also now one of the trainers for their new coaches just to put that out there but I highly recommend them for programs like a master program because of the languaging it is a mindfulness program it's called unified mindfulness but I can say that there's there's also ways of communicating mindfulness in a way that you're really just talking about attentional control skillful use of attention right skillful use of concentration sensory clarity and equanimity and being able to communicate that in a way that you know really puts people's guard down and they don't have any concern that you're going to be instilling values onto their child that they don't agree with I always tell families here that hey look when your kid gets in the master program we get to know that family well enough that we already know the family's values and we know that they fit with our values and all we're doing and I reinforce this big time is that all we're doing is reinforcing the values that you already have and the reality is you already know that there's times that you can say something to your kid a thousand times and then someone else outside the household says it once and it clicks and your kid attributes it to that person despite the fact that you said it a thousand times so one of the most frustrating things so I explained that to parents and they all say the same thing yep absolutely that happens and I just tell them I'll be that guy for you in the master program

CJ Kirk

So what I’m hearing is new tools not different values that's right new tools for help the kids navigate whatever it is they're navigating that's right one of the things I just want to touch on for a second it's a terrible thing we my oldest son who's 15 lost a friend to suicide back in in the spring no we've known the kid we know his parents there weren't really any outward signs in fact the kid had gone to a party the kids like to play poker I think you want a poker game posting on social media and then ended up an hour later leaving a note saying don't be mad I just haven't felt right lately and I'm leaving this place I know that that is something that's also woven into the way that you interact with the kids there's this Chinese proverb every child's life is like a piece of paper on which every passerby leaves a mark yeah and you know talk about the marks you're trying to leave and the marks you're trying to heal with the kids I know you take that seriously we've had a situation like that here in the school talk talk a little bit about that for instructors that need to understand that how important being a resource for kids

Trea Drake

So this topic gets me quite emotional yeah we've had we've had this happen to students up here adults and kids alike the last couple years I'll say to that I think this is part of the reason I don't know if I ever divulge this to you but this is probably one of the reasons that I've decided to comport myself a certain way first of all being of service going into psychology and then deciding to work with kids and try to be a role model and a resource for them my best friend when I was 11 his brother and my brother went to the same kindergarten together it's preschool actually and my mom picks me up after school one day we go pick up my brother and my friend's name was Robert he his mom comes running in to the daycare it was a daycare and screaming saying he's gonna kill me and she was referring to her husband and so she comes running in and they put all of us kids under the table and they locked the door and he beats the door down in front of all of us and beats up his wife my friend's mom and a couple weeks after that my friend would babysit his younger siblings he was 11 and he had several siblings and all of them were younger than him and he would be tasked with watching them while his mom and dad went out and about did whatever they were doing and she called home one day to check in and one of the younger siblings answered and she said hey where's Robert and so he goes out comes back to the phone and says he's outside but he won't answer me and what he had done is get an extension cord and hang himself from a tree in the front yard at 11 years old which is intense obviously he had serious family issues going on that probably played the majority role in that decision I will say that I don't have any magic in this regard all I try to do is treat the kids with respect ask them with real interest what's going on with your life I don't just I don't just ask them how was your day I asked them specific questions about how their life is going we just had a long multi-week discussion with all the kids because I could just tell there was an air in the room and I said hey stop everybody have a seat and they they call it story time even the the bigger kids the teenagers call it story time we just gather around a box to jump box and I sit on the box and we have a discussion and I said hey I can tell something's up what is what's going on in the room what's bothering you about life or the world and they came up with a list of ten things that were bothering them and then we had a discussion around how are we how are we framing these things and the way they're affecting your life right I'll give you an interesting example that came out of that 50% of the kids in the room including teenagers thought that if they were going to die as a teenager it would be at school from a mass shooting right so they had a total misunderstanding of the reality of mass shootings because it's in their face all the time we had one girl that she was 11 and for six months she thought that if you got COVID you die right so COVID to her was a real existential issue and so this was going on with every kid in the room had some sort of belief about the world around them that was completely distorted and wrong it wasn't even close to right but they were carrying that belief around so it's it's important to identify those things and to have a discussion around what is the reality of school shootings the you're not likely to die at school right and in any form or fashion much less of school shooting right and give them that understanding give him give them those stats if necessary depending on the kid and what they can handle and address those those distortions because it's not healthy to carry that stuff around those types of distortions can lead to a kid taking their own life so it's important that we be aware of those things and be that resource and let them know that hey you know if if you are if you're not feeling right just know that I'm always here let them know that I think that's

CJ Kirk

that's really powerful I'm sorry to bring up something that's so somber we you mentioned we've had an adult here during COVID take his life who was sort of the light in the room half the time we've had a kid who to me seemed like it just a kind of a quiet kid but nobody nothing unusual yeah it's a problem someone once told me and I haven't said this anybody it's just it wasn't warranted saying but maybe in this context it is I had a friend of mine who is in this community who served call me several years ago pre COVID and it was night and the only reason I answer the phone is I knew that I knew who it was I said hello and the person told me I'm sitting here with a pistol in my hand trying to figure out what to do and the only thing I kept saying to him was this is a permanent solution to a temporary problem one and two people that get desperate they lose the capacity to imagine a future outside of the narrow keyhole they're looking through right but what if we had a hundred keyholes to look through what would that look like would it be different and I think part of our job as people who interact with the people around us is to ensure that they stay in possibility mode and that they're able to imagine a future that isn't being killed at school or isn't dying from COVID or is it nuclear war because they're carrying this stuff around and they don't understand that they've misunderstood something even though scary as it might seem and they don't understand that the headlines are sensationalized there's you know as we talk through this that the responsibility to be able to interact with kids and to give them a resource, a trusted resource that can advocate for them alongside the parents, I think is, it's just of immeasurable importance.

Trea Drake

Hey, I would hope, um, that any, anyone who is running a kid's program is getting CPR training, right? First aid training. Um, I think a lot, a lot of people don't know that there is also. Psychological first aid training that you can get. And we had, um, one of our kids here, her dad, uh, took his own life. And after that, um, we brought in a professional to teach us, uh, and certify us in the psychological first aid. I think it's really important that people know that that's available. And, uh, any, any school should do that, whether they have a kid's program or not, uh, but especially if you have a kid's program.

CJ Kirk

So I'm, I'm trying not to end the podcast on a downer here. I should have navigated this differently. Sorry, everybody.

Um, I think what you have, uh, given us, at least as a framework, um, that's, that's very powerful in terms of the kind of mindset and attitude and intention that people need to bring to a kid's program. I mentioned, we don't do a lot of advertising. Most of the kids that come here, come here because the parents of a kid that already comes here has said, you know, Johnny or Sally is showing some market improvement in the way they go about their daily business.

Is that a fair thing to say?

Trea Drake

That's fair.

CJ Kirk

Yeah. So any last words for someone who is either running a kid's program or is thinking about running a kid's program, anything you, you know, if you could, if you could top off the tank here, what would it look like? What would you say?

Trea Drake

Uh, I, I really think it comes down to being of service and developing a program that, um, is of high value.

CJ Kirk

Okay. So be of service and being of service creates the kind of intention that creates a kind of action that creates the kind of value that, that parents and kids need to stay involved, uh, to bring other kids. Um, yeah, I see that.

I see that. There's a lot of things that were implied in what you said today. So I hope people hear those things.

There's a process to bring the kids into the master program. There's a meeting with the parents. Um, and so we may have you back at some point just to talk about the, the fundamentals logistically of how you move from you signed up today to now you're in the master program and the interaction with the parents and the expectations you said, and, um, a hundred percent success rate in getting kids in the master program is, is unbelievable.

So I think you're a resource, uh, on a number of fronts. I'm so glad you took the time to be with us today. Congratulations again on your third, Dan.