Episode 1: The Era of Evolution
Show Transcript
Joel Ellenbecker
All right, welcome to the Krav Maga Worldwide Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Joel Ellenbecker, and I'm joined here with...
CJ Kirk
CJ Kirk.
Joel Ellenbecker
And today is gonna be our first episode, The Era of Evolution. We're gonna dive into our backstories, how we got into Krav Maga, self-defense in general, a little bit about our businesses, and what we are thinking about, planning for in the future.
All right, so first off, we want to just dive into our backstories a little bit, and get to know each other a little bit better. Okay, so CJ, what got you started or interested in Krav Maga?
CJ Kirk
Yeah, that's a good question. Let's see. I was in my 20s.
I was doing jiu-jitsu back after UFC one, when everyone was like, oh, look at what Gracie did. I was doing kung fu as well, which I thought was super cool. And I was at a dinner one Sunday evening, a little bit later, in Houston over off a street called Montrose.
I walked into the parking lot with two other people, and we were robbed at gunpoint. The gun was held on me the whole time.
The guy walked up. He said, wallets, wallets, wallets. Let's make this quick. I kind of heard in his voice like, I don't think this guy wants to be here.
And so I said, “be cool. We'll get you out of here real fast.” I got the wallets and one purse.
As he ran off, someone in the party behind me said, like, go after him. And he spun around. He presented the pistol for just a second, pointed it at me, and then he looked at it like he turned it in his hand and looked at it, and then ran to the getaway car.
And at the time, I wasn't quite sure. Who knows? But at the time, I wasn't sure what he was doing.
But I got two things from that. One is there was a potential for him to have misfired the pistol, right? Because when people misfire handguns, they typically like to turn them in their hand and look at them like, “what's going on with this?”
But the other thing was, I realized I had been engaging in a fantasy about what martial arts needed to do for me, right? And so I was never going to be a fighter. I didn't really care about that.
And I realized I had to find something that addressed real-world threats, that addressed weapons. And after a few months, I stumbled across Krav Maga. And that's, the rest is history, as they say.
Joel Ellenbecker
So in your other training, jujitsu and kung fu and stuff like that, had you ever thought about, trained on, had been presented weapon defenses in general?
CJ Kirk
I never had been presented weapon defenses. What's crazy is I never even thought about it. I was so consumed by that ideology, if that's a word we can use.
“Look at what you don't know. Look at all the cool stuff.” It never even dawned on me.
I was pretty embarrassed about that. By the time I was thinking back on that, post of being robbed at gunpoint, I thought, what in the world was I thinking?
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah. And I think what's really interesting and also part of what drew me into Krav Maga is the focus on real-world, realistic situation scenarios, attacks, things that actually happen that we have to be dealt with. So what happened after you found Krav Maga?
CJ Kirk
Well, I wanted to know everything, so I went to instructor school. And they told me after I graduated sort of the first phase of instructor school that I had to start instructing. And I had no plans to do that.
But I was so impressed by the way that Krav Maga was built by the principle-based approach and the things that I saw at that time, the National Training Center in Los Angeles, I felt like I've got to do this. And so I started training other people as an instructor out of a desire to know more about Krav Maga and stay in that program. It was all sort of incidental at the time.
Joel Ellenbecker
That's another thing that I think is unique that was also really interesting for me with my experience with Krav Maga is the in-depth immersion into Krav and into teaching. And that was, I mean, I think I heard you in the past say you attended a seminar. And then after that, you went into this phase, this immersion.
What do you think immersion training does for practitioners and instructors?
CJ Kirk
Well, I think any time you want to learn something, you have to immerse yourself in what you're learning. And part of that is there's really three phases to becoming professional-grade at anything, at least according to Daniel Coyle and The Talent Code, which is an amazing book. The first is this idea of ignition, which is that you've created or had an experience where you really want to be like somebody else.
Joel Ellenbecker
And that was being robbed at one point for you.
CJ Kirk
It was, yeah, for sure. The second piece is deep practice. And that's part of the immersion process where you go in, you go slow to go fast, and you do it over and over and over again.
You spend a lot of time, even during a condensed period, say eight or nine days, 10 or 12 hours a day. And the last piece is masterful coaching. And I think the thing that Krav Maga Worldwide offered that was so powerful was this masterful coaching piece where early on we had access to Darren Levine, who's our U.S. Chief Instructor and holds a founder's diploma at Krav Maga. I would just tell everybody, I think there is, no matter what you want to learn, I think if you immerse yourself in it, you can learn almost anything in a very short period of time, at least the base, at least the foundation.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, that's really interesting. We've had lots of conversations, and I know there's a lot more to your story that we can kind of continue to unpack as we go through more episodes and have more conversations together. What, you know, fast-forwarding a little bit, what led to being someone who was ignited and went into this deep practice, going from wanting to learn it just for yourself to now having, you know, a cadre of some of the highest-level instructors in the country and having a school with hundreds of people?
CJ Kirk
Yeah, I think the impetus in shifting from learning Krav Maga to teaching Krav Maga came pretty naturally because I needed training partners, right? For a lot of my early Krav Maga career, I trained alone, I trained through visualization, I had to imagine all the different permutations of what an attacker would do based on, say, a counterattack, and there's only so much you can do there before I wanted to shift to having great training partners. And we were just uncompromising with the quality and the level of performance, both in terms of physical performance and capacity to communicate, early on.
And there were some people that bought in and threw themselves into it, and that was really the start of what is, you know, an amazing instructor cadre now.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, that's awesome. All right, well, let's flip the script a little bit here, and you can put me in the hot seat and ask me some questions.
CJ Kirk
Joel's in the hot seat. So my first question, which is maybe slightly off-topic, is has anyone ever taken their pants off in your school?
Joel Ellenbecker
That's a great question. Yes, actually. So it does tie into my backstory a little bit.
I started out in karate and eventually teaching karate, and what you're specifically asking about was there's a myriad of fun and interesting experiences that happen when teaching others, especially teaching kids, and one of them was we had a young student, I think he was around 8 years old or so. He came into our front lobby and was really excited for class, and so he just started taking off his regular clothes right in the middle of the lobby, and his mother starts going, “Sir, sir, excuse me, sir, you can't take your pants off here!”
CJ Kirk
Sir, please, decorum, sir.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yes, so yeah, that was in the midst of me learning how to become an instructor and teaching karate and lots of other fun stories like that.
CJ Kirk
So you mentioned karate. I'm interested about what style you studied.
Joel Ellenbecker
So our style was American freestyle karate. I think it really got its start in the Jun-ri Taekwondo system, and then over time things were added. My instructor and mentor was a kickboxer.
He also at some point got involved in Krav Maga, so it was a blend of traditional katas and forms and some weapons training, but also realistic self-defense and fight training as well.
CJ Kirk
That's interesting. So when did you find Krav Maga given you were a karate guy?
Joel Ellenbecker
So I took karate as a student for about 10 years, and then my instructor came to me and asked me if I would be interested in instructing, which for me was kind of mind-blowing. I'm a pretty introverted guy. I'm quiet.
I didn't talk much, but I think I had just been dedicated around long enough that maybe he saw something in me and ignited that confidence within me. And around the time that I was asked to become an instructor, within a few short years after that, he was looking to expand and grow his studio and wanted to add another training room and had done Krav Maga 5 or 10 years previously and was like, “hey, even though we're in a small town and a small city, there's still violent crimes, there's still things that I'm seeing.” He was a police officer at the time, and so he was like, “I want to bring Krav Maga back. This is the best self-defense that you can get.”
So I think it was around 2011 when we were going to do that, and that's when I went out for my first immersive instructor experience.
CJ Kirk
That's interesting. So how would you juxtapose karate when thinking about Krav Maga? What are the differences, and where have you gravitated to lately?
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, well, when I first did Krav Maga, we did a couple of training sessions of the techniques of Krav Maga and the drills, which I think are really unique and what really sets Krav Maga apart. And I remember thinking to myself, this is literally everything that I love about karate and gets rid of all the stuff that I'm not too fond of or that I don't find as useful. I think everything in karate and in the martial arts really set me up.
I learned extremely valuable life skills early on as a young kid, and the body control and awareness that I gained from doing things like katas and forms like that, I think really set me up to be able to learn Krav Maga. However, I also think that the self-defense and the focus and emphasis on realism, kind of like what you explained with being robbed at gunpoint, and knowing that I was learning and gaining skills that I could actually use to protect me or the ones that I cared about, I think that was what really drew me in towards Krav Maga more.
CJ Kirk
That's cool. I know you also just completed your third-degree black belt test this last weekend. Congratulations on that.
Joel Ellenbecker
Thank you.
CJ Kirk
You did a great job. I'm interested, though, because you also do jujitsu.
That's correct?
Joel Ellenbecker
Yes, that's correct.
CJ Kirk
Tell me about jujitsu.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah. After I got my black belt in Krav Maga, actually way before that, I had always been interested in jujitsu. One of my karate instructors had went and learned jujitsu and would come back and show me some techniques, and we would roll and do things like that.
And I wrestled a little bit in middle school. So I think the challenge and the learning and excitement that I get from jujitsu is a fun way as a hobby for me. And I also like the context that I gain in understanding ground fighting at a deeper level.
I think for me it's fun, it's a hobby, it's an exciting sport. It's definitely really popular. It's a great way to meet people and share experiences. And it also reminds me a lot of why, if I were in a real self-defense situation, why I wouldn't be on the ground.
Actually, one of the only times that I was ever in a fight or a real situation, I was at a skate park as a young kid, and I was a rollerblader, not a skateboarder. And I was on rollerblades with one headphone in, and I was walking towards the skate park, and there was words exchanged, some things happened, punches were thrown, and the next thing I knew, I got speared in the back on my rollerblades, and I was put down on the ground.
So I have rollerblades and a headphone in, and there's three or four people just kicking me while I'm on the ground.
CJ Kirk
Skateboarders?
Joel Ellenbecker
Yes, they were skateboarders, yes. And I remember thinking actually to myself in that moment, like, there's actually nothing, at the time I was like a third-degree black belt in karate, there's nothing I've learned in karate that is helping me right now, and that's getting me out of this situation. Whereas in level one Krav Maga, I remember when I first did Krav Maga, learning back position and movement and kicks on the ground, I was like, wow, this actually would have helped me there.
The only thing that stopped everything was some girls that were around the skate park just threatening to call the police and then them scattering off.
CJ Kirk
So never go to a skate park with rollerblades, is that the lesson?
Joel Ellenbecker
And maybe don't be a rollerblader, I don't know.
CJ Kirk
Sorry, rollerbladers. Skateboarders rule. Well, tell me more about your school, tell me more about how you got started instructing.
Give me the origin story.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, so after I had been a karate instructor for a few years, I went out to Phase A, which is the first immersion experience for Krav Maga Worldwide's instructor program. And around that time, I had also been doing full-contact kickboxing, and I was in really great shape. Went to this course, it kicked my butt, and I had a lot of fun, and I learned a lot.
And from that point forward, I felt more called and pulled towards teaching and developing my skills as an instructor. So like I had said earlier, I was a student for ten years, and then the next phase is I was an instructor for ten years. And I was teaching kids anywhere from four, you know, adults all the way to seven years and older, and I was teaching five to six days a week, five to six hours a night.
So in those ten years, I racked up well over 10,000 hours of teaching. And I was really enjoying doing martial arts, teaching martial arts, and then I got my black belt in Krav Maga, and I was kind of at this place after getting married and getting my black belt of, you know, what's next, starting to think about a family and where I wanted to go. And it seemed obvious to me that this time investment of learning how to do martial arts, learning how to teach martial arts, was probably going to be the next step for me and turning that into some sort of business.
So I went to my instructor at the time and asked him, you know, what are some different options? What are some things that we can do? And long story short, we ended up settling on he sold me the Krav Maga program.
So I was already the main instructor for this program. We had about 50 students at the time, and he let me start renting space in his karate dojo and running my own business out of his business, which was a really great starting point for me
CJ Kirk
That's really interesting. Let's pep it up a little bit. Tell me something that no one knows about you or about your business that's shocking.
Joel Ellenbecker
Oh, putting me on the spot here.
CJ Kirk
On the spot.
Joel Ellenbecker
I mean, I don't know if there's anything that no one knows.
It was maybe something that not everyone knows that I shared earlier. After about a year of us being in that karate dojo and renting space there, it was just time for us to move out and get our own space. We had grown.
We had doubled in size. We had over 100 members at this point, and we needed to find our own space, and we needed to fund that space. So while I was instructing for the 10 years, I had started to build up a little bit of a rental portfolio, and in order to get all the equipment and to get into our new space, Tamarah and I sold our rentals, and we just went all in basically on our dream.
CJ Kirk
That's amazing. So you went all in on your dream, which I think a lot of people don't achieve their dreams, not because there's not a path forward. There's light. There's daylight somewhere. It's because what it requires is to burn your boats, right? When you get to land, you burn your boat.
You can't go back.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yes.
CJ Kirk
I think there are so many times I look back on when I looked at Kerry, my wife and said, I'm not sure we're going to make it. I'm not sure. We'll talk about that maybe in another podcast, but if you have a dream, the first thing you have to do is be capable, right?
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah.
CJ Kirk
You can't just go, well, I have a dream. Let me just go for it. So you sold a portfolio of residential and a kidney, right?
Yes. Tamarah, was it your kidney? How much did you get for the kidney?
No kidney. So, yeah, I think everybody that ultimately, at least in this business that I know, that ultimately has some level of success, and you might define that based on the instructor cadre that you helped to build, or the types of people that you're supporting and the lives you're touching. And it could be something like I'm able to support other people or I've made a little money along the way.
I think one of the things that's most disappointing about martial arts, but in Krav Maga in particular, because we're so immersed in it at this point, is the people that come in it for profit motive. That's something that really bugs me. Somebody asked us the other day, we were out and about, and they said, you know, you got to have the biggest licensing organization in the world.
And I literally said to them, we've talked about this, “we will never have the largest organization.” And it was one of our licensees, and he said, “why?” And I said, “our standards are just too high.”
There's no doubt that our standards are higher than anything else you'll find on planet Earth. And there are ramifications for that. And because we don't put profit first, because we've got more important things to worry about, like people's lives, we'll never be the biggest.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, I think that's really insightful, and it also brings us to how we got involved with Krav Maga Worldwide, how our schools were involved with Krav Maga Worldwide, why did we personally choose Krav Maga Worldwide, even before joining the leadership team? Did you have other options, or did you shop around when you were looking for an organization?
CJ Kirk
Yeah, I actually did. But I had gone through a seminar with Darren Levine just prior to joining the instructor program at Worldwide, and he was so knowledgeable and so impressive. For those OGs out there in Krav Maga, they know that Darren is so far beyond in so many respects what you can find in other organizations, that it was a clear and easy choice.
It really was. I have been contacted by other organizations throughout my history in Krav Maga, particularly as I built an instructor cadre that people knew about, I built a school that people knew about, that asked me, “Would you consider joining us? Would you consider coming to a seminar and trying to figure this out?”
And the answer was always no. What about you?
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, I think my instructor early on had been introduced to Krav Maga Worldwide through a seminar, and that was the choice he had. So it was never a conscious choice for me. It was something that I already was involved in and a part of, but as I take a step back and think about it, these days, going back to jiu-jitsu like we were talking about earlier, lineage is so important in jiu-jitsu, especially as it's become more popular and it's exploded.
People are like, oh, you're a black belt. And that matters a lot. And that was, I think, part of what started to have me drift away from karate is, I mean, it's really hard to track a lineage when it goes back so far.
Where did this come from? Who are we learning it from? Why are we doing the things that we're doing?
And as I look at it now, being a part of Krav Maga Worldwide and knowing that Darren trained directly with Imi, the founder of Krav Maga, and Darren passed that knowledge on to the leaders of Krav Maga Worldwide and that we're connected to that source of knowledge, I think is really powerful for me and it helps me to know that the things that I'm doing are authentic and effective and purposeful.
CJ Kirk
I like that. I think a lot of people don't know that Imi grew up with a father who was a policeman. He was a boxer. He was an athletic guy. He was a gymnast. He learned the police holds from his father and he was a pretty prolific wrestler.
And when he was fighting for Jews just before World War II really broke out sort of as sort of the neo-Nazi or the Nazi, I should say the Nazi sort of ideology was spreading in Europe. I think one of the things he figured out was like “the things that I know and the things I've been trained in are not sufficient to deal with, you know, three thugs in an alley.” And so because he had that kind of experience where I'm sure he was consumed by this situation, right, I have to protect my neighborhood, my neighbors and my family.
At the same time, I've got to protect my own life and to shift into that kind of deep biological need to figure this out is really where the power of Krav Maga has come from. It's from that being immersed in that crucible of violence and having Imi work through “How am I going to save my life? How am I going to save my neighbors?”
And in a way that demanded he find an answer, right, he was bringing all of his resources together to figure this out. And that's why we say lineage or pedigree matters most. The closer you are to the source, the more that you understand why you're doing what you're doing, the more that you can connect the movements together and understand the system as a whole, why the system first mentality is paramount, the more effective you are in not only self-defense but in teaching people to do self-defense.
I think that's important.
Joel Ellenbecker
I think what really stands out to me there too is just that the techniques in the system weren't just created because, you know, oh, we think that this is what would work best. I mean, you see shirts out there for Krav Maga all the time that they're battle-tested, right? Like these things were actually tweaked and adjusted to find what is going to work in a realistic, real-life situation.
I think that's what's so empowering about being connected to that source and also being a part of this organization.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, one of the things I noticed in the third-degree test this last weekend and also just in other tests and with other students is they're not recognizing in some cases that they have this wealth of knowledge through Darren and through people who have studied Darren and what he does is study Krav Maga. And this idea, no matter what kind of martial arts you're in, this idea that someone's teaching you is all wrong. I mean, no one can teach you.
You have to learn it, right? In other words, they can't do it for you. They can't imbue you with some kind of power.
You really have to attack, in some respects, the learning process. And one of the things that I found early on when I would have access to Darren for short periods of time during these immersive experiences, I realized I've got to figure out a way to really understand what he's doing and why he's doing it. So obviously I've paid close attention.
I found a way to do shorthand notes, sort of a language on my own. And one of the things I started working on was a process for noticing. How can I watch something? How can I notice something? And in noticing it, garner the bulk of the information very, very quickly. And for people that are out there doing martial arts or doing Krav Maga, you've got to do these kind of things.
You've got to teach yourself a language you can take notes with quickly. You have to find a process that allows you to really understand what you're watching. Because when people say “notice”, I think what they think is, well, did you notice that kind of like, was your memory good from a couple minutes ago? Or did you glance that way? And making that an intentional process is really powerful in terms of learning to educate yourself and learn something very, very quickly. And when you have access to a source, like Darren, who has Imi's Black Belt.
It's not an accident, right? Amy gave him his Black Belt. I think it's paramount that people take that opportunity and make the most of it.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, I agree. It kind of brings me to something that I've heard you say a few times. It's like “rent to own”.
How you were saying, it's not like someone can do it for you. It's Darren, or you, or Kelly, or these leaders in Krav Maga Worldwide have the knowledge. They've spent the time studying and learning and noticing to obtain this.
And then they're giving it or sharing it with us. But if we don't take the time and really attack it, like you were saying, then it's just going to go in one ear and out the other.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, I even would go so far as to say when you're presented with information, you're really renting someone else's version of whether this is going to work or not. And so the other thing we always say is “prove it to yourself,” right? Once you have this, once you're renting information, you've got to find a way to prove it to yourself.
You certainly aren't going to do a knife threat to your throat defense in the street if you don't own that response, right? Don't believe it. There are questions, that's right.
So yeah, this is really, I think, in some ways as we talk about this, as we go through Krav Maga, it's a microcosm for life, right? How should you live your life? How should you notice things?
What do you do with information? How do you attack opportunities? It's really the same, it's about learning, it's about moving forward, it's about supporting people, it's about being, in some respects, the best version of yourself that you can be.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, I think we could do a whole episode just on the principles of Krav Maga and then also how the principles can be applied to business, relationships, life, challenges, opportunities. I know that once I started to learn and understand the principles, I can look back and be like, oh, that's how I got my school or that's how I helped to build these instructors is taking those principles and then applying them to other places, not just self-defense.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, I mean, if you take the principles of Krav Maga, you could literally write a business management book, right? Yes. And I've talked to Darren about that through the years and it's something we've had our eye on for a while, really understanding that life and operating in life is a principle-based approach, right?
It's not something you can just plan out, pre-plan. It's not something where you have rote responses. You have to have a set of principles that allow you to navigate adversity and that's really what Krav Maga is.
You're navigating adversity in the form of violence and you're using a set of principles that have proven worthy of life and worthy of saving life and that's what it is. If you don't see the connection between the way you learn, approach and understand Krav Maga and life in general, there's more there.
Joel Ellenbecker
I think one thing that's really exciting about this podcast, about the new direction for Krav Maga Worldwide, like us coming together is our shared love and passion for self-defense and for Krav Maga and then also our unique experiences. I mean, just starting with where our schools are located. For those who don't know, where is your school?
What's the name of it?
CJ Kirk
Yeah, we're in Houston, Houston, Texas. And you're in?
Joel Ellenbecker
Neenah, Wisconsin.
CJ Kirk
Neenah.
Joel Ellenbecker
So what's the population in Houston, roughly?
CJ Kirk
It's, you know, a greater Houston area is six, seven million people.
Joel Ellenbecker
And then we're in Wisconsin, you know, our area, our actual town is about 30,000 people. We're kind of sandwiched in a couple of other slightly bigger towns. But I think that's just a metaphor for this can work and be useful and valuable everywhere in the world, big or small.
What is the thing you say for Krav Maga?
CJ Kirk
Oh, Krav Maga is for men, women, big and tall, short and small, right?
Joel Ellenbecker
I love that.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, yeah. Well, people don't know, I'm subtly trying to get you guys out of Neenah because you're too big a talent and too big of a group of a dynamic duo between you and Tamarah to be where there are 30,000 people. You gotta spread your wings more and touch more lives.
But that's another episode, right?
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, I appreciate that. So what about Krav Maga Houston, about the programs and the school, you know, what do you think made it a success and helped change so many lives?
CJ Kirk
That's a great question. And we kind of talked about it a little bit around our 20th anniversary, which was about five or six years ago. And one of the… it was a question that was posed.
And as I thought about it, I thought, you know, we never, I never once thought about this primarily as something I did to make a living. It was always the quality and the standard. And people buy into that.
And when you have a quality and you have a standard and people begin to buy in, there's this cycle of reinvestment in each other. And then other people see that. And there's these concentric circles that build around you, like there's an instructor cadre.
And then there are people that wanna be helpful in class. We call those people advocates now, student advocates. And then there are people that have been around a while and wanna know more about other opportunities and how they can support the people in the community.
And what grows out of it is a community of like-minded people from all walks of life. It's crazy, all walks of life. But they share this one thing in common.
And this one thing is so important, right? It's this, how do you save your life? How do you save your child's life?
How do you save your spouse's life? How do you help your neighbor? How do you confront fear?
How do you learn to have courage? And these are big ideas, right? No matter if they are Blue collar, white collar, all different races and nationalities.
They come together around this central theme and they support each other. And at some point, I stopped steering the ship and just stood back and went, wow, this is pretty darn amazing.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, I've gotten a chance to meet some of your instructors and the team at Krav Maga Houston and they're world-class. I mean, I think, what did you say now? There's five third-degree black belt instructors.
CJ Kirk
I have, yeah, I have five third-degree black belt instructors that I've trained. And it's not just me, right? It's everyone jumps in and says, let me help you.
Right, we have three or four people that are about to test for their black belt. And the upper-level people are available. They, I think they train once or twice a week outside of their regular training.
And they'll ping me and say, can you come on a Saturday and evaluate us? Yes, well, what did you do last week? Oh, well, Trea was here or Travis was here.
It's pretty incredible the amount of time and effort people invest in each other in the community.
Joel Ellenbecker
I think what's really, really awesome about that that maybe not everybody knows is, you had mentioned earlier, like I just took my third-degree black belt test this past weekend and you have a group of five leaders who are at that level already. And there's many school owners in the world who aren't at that level yet. So just the high concentration of talent and passion and teamwork that's here in Houston is really remarkable.
CJ Kirk
Well, I appreciate it. It's something that really took on a life of its own. And I think if people approach it that way, if they demand excellence in the people that respond to that call are the people they need to invest in.
It's been a lot, I mean, there's been ups and downs, Joel. I mean, this instructor cadre is sort of a self-selection deal, right? There have been people that didn't have the right integrity that have moved on, the right approach, people that were self-serving. And those people in the midst of this ethos that everybody else holds, they just don't last long. Even though one or two of them have been talented and they end up moving on.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, yeah, I've seen a little bit of that myself. Side note, for those who didn't catch it, he mentioned earlier, did you say it was your 20 year anniversary?
CJ Kirk
Six years ago was our 20th anniversary.
Joel Ellenbecker
And that video, I think it's maybe pinned on Krav Maga Houston's Facebook, super powerful video. Take a moment to go watch that if you're listening after this. Really, really great video, just underlining the greater impact, I think, that Krav Maga has on people's lives.
Yeah, awesome. Okay, before you ask me about Fortitude and that, what do you think would be one of the biggest challenges that you face at Krav Maga Houston?
CJ Kirk
There've been a lot of challenges. Floods, economic downturns. But I think the bigger challenges in Houston are the same challenges that everybody faces.
Who are those that run a school, right? And I think those things are really misunderstandings in the larger martial community, right? Like, oh, you gotta do jiu-jitsu.
It's like, well, jiu-jitsu's not self-defense. So if you wanna do jiu-jitsu, that's awesome. I love jiu-jitsu.
I did it for a long time. But if you're looking for self-defense, it's not self-defense, right? Would you agree with that?
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. Like I said earlier, I love it for a sport and for activity and for learning and growth. And every time I go teach a Krav Maga class that involves ground, it just reminds me how much I don't wanna be on the ground.
Like back to that story I said where I'm getting kicked in the head. Or weapons involved as well.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, I think people don't understand that there's traditional martial arts, there's fighting arts, and then there's self-defense. And they each have their own basket of amazing benefits. But ultimately, and look, we do some ground fighting in Krav Maga.
We use jiu-jitsu, we just don't do jiu-jitsu.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, it wouldn't be a complete system if we just said, oh, you're never gonna be on the ground. I mean, I don't know the actual stat but there's a lot of stats out there where people are touting almost every fight's gonna end up on the ground. And that may or may not be true, but I think that's, it's relevant to address.
You know, and Krav Maga I think is sometimes seen as almost like the ER doctor of the martial arts or of self-defense. Like we have to have an answer for anything that could happen in real life. If we go to the ground, we have to be able to get back to our feet.
If somebody has a knife, we have to understand how to deal with that as well.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, I would agree with that 100%. I think, so jiu-jitsu is one of the things, right? That people believe that that is the end all be all.
In fact, I have a joke in class, like somebody has a problem. It could be something that comes up in their life. Oh my God, because I check in with everybody before class starts.
Hey Joe, how are you? You want to share anything with the class? It's like, oh, having trouble at work.
And people talk through it, like, hey, well, what's the trouble? And well, I have this coworker and they go, okay, well, this or that. And my comment always at the end is, well, if that doesn't work, you can always do jiu-jitsu.
Jiu-jitsu fixes everything, right? The answer to everything is jiu-jitsu, right? And again, look, I love jiu-jitsu.
I'm not anti-jiu-jitsu, right? I'm really about putting everything in context. And the other big thing in the industry right now that's absolutely dangerous is hybrid Krav Maga, using wrestling moves to do Krav Maga, which is a disaster.
I mean, if you have weight classes in the sport that you're in, and they have weight classes for a reason, Imi was a wrestler. It's like, for people in Krav Maga, you're using, Imi was a wrestler. If wrestling worked for him in the streets, he would have thrown it in.
There's some missing pieces there.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, I think there's a couple things there. I mean, just what I've been experiencing or noticing is that it seems like people just want to create new and exciting things. And I don't know how much they go back and do what Imi did and battle test them, and see it all the way through.
And as someone who practices jiu-jitsu and competes, like I won gold at IBJJF a year ago, and then not long after that, tore my ACL doing jiu-jitsu. It's not something that I'm dabbling in. I'm committed to it, and I love it.
I find it's hard to grapple with people who are bigger and stronger, and throwing sweat or blood or intention of someone trying to kill you with a weapon into that. I think that complicates it and makes it even more difficult of trying to restrain somebody and hold them and stop them from hurting you, versus attacking the attack.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, I would agree with all that. And again, I think wrestlers could be the most powerful and in-shape people in the world. I mean, I'm super impressed.
When you watch Olympic wrestling, I'm just floored by it.
Joel Ellenbecker
And like the most mentally tough as well.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, just awesome. And jiu-jitsu guys are the same, right? And a lot of times they do both, right?
I was a wrestler and now I do jiu-jitsu. And it's awesome. It's like a chess match on the ground, and there's a sense of body position, and there's a sense of leverage and setup, and it's awesome.
There's no doubt about it. So I don't want anybody to think that we're not pro-jiu-jitsu. I want everybody to understand in context what each martial art or martial science can do for them.
Joel Ellenbecker
And I think one thing, too, to keep in mind with this conversation is that the audience in which we're trying to reach and train self-defense for, you know, the average soccer mom who had a terrible road rage experience and is frightened and realized, like, oh, if something were to happen to me, like, I don't know what I would do. And while wrestling and jiu-jitsu are great, they do take a long time to master and to get really good at. Like, people spend hours and hours and hours and years and years and years working on those things.
And one thing that's always impressed me about a Krav Maga class is you can go to a Krav Maga class, learn a technique, and walk out feeling more confident, feeling more empowered, and feeling like if something like that were to happen, at least you have an idea of what to do now and maybe feel empowered to actually do it.
CJ Kirk
Let's shift gears for a second here. Let's talk about Krav Maga Worldwide.
We are now on the leadership team. What's your vision going forward for Krav Maga Worldwide? Share some of that with us.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, that's awesome. I think, you know, what I'm noticing and what I've been hearing from the greater community, like, people not even inside of Krav Maga Worldwide yet are people are looking for real and authentic Krav Maga. And my vision is to help Krav Maga spread that and grow that, you know, within the schools that are already with us and to regions, countries, states, areas that don't have that yet.
You know, Imi said so that one may walk in peace. And I think that, you know, it's up to us to help hold the standard and not allow for people to gain false confidence in their skill sets and their abilities that could actually put them in more danger. And to help empower them with the techniques, the principles, the skill sets to actually protect the people that they love and care about.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, I love that. One of the things I've been thinking about is the need for the leadership team, all of our amazing and powerful licensees and for the community itself to create a self-sustaining momentum around the quality and power of Krav Maga, the potential of Krav Maga in people's lives so that no matter who is on the leadership team, there's this sort of implicit mechanism in place that allows the wheels to keep turning, right? It's really about creating like-minded people across the world that understand their role, the importance of their role in ensuring that we are providing real self-defense for people and that people are learning real self-defense.
I think that there can't be any other greater goal for an organization like this than to create a self-sustaining model where the standards are always high. I think that's where my head is.
Joel Ellenbecker
And I think something that's really exciting that we've already embarked on just this year is creating trainings and certifications and opportunities for people to become well-rounded as a Kravist and as a practitioner, the handgun expert certifications and the coaching. I think that that's something that we've gotten really great feedback around is how does coaching fit into Krav Maga or why is that important?
CJ Kirk
Yeah, I brought coaching into the Worldwide organization because I saw a need for it in my own life and I benefited so much from it. So I went out and of course did with coaching, right, with Krav Maga, I ended up getting a coaching certification, became a master coach, became a health coach. And I saw such amazing improvement in the way that I could support the people around me, how I communicated, how I thought about the way they were communicating and acting with me and being able to see through things that I hadn't been able to see through.
I think one of the things that's most important about coaching is if you're the most courageous in that process, seeing yourself for who you really are and not investing in the veneer that you've invested in over and over again because newsflash people see through that anyway. People don't see you the way they think you think they see you anyway. So why invest in that?
Why not get real, why not be authentic? And why not learn to support people? And when we talked about this as we joined the leadership team, I mentioned, I think Krav Maga instructors could really powerfully benefit from becoming coaches, performance coaches.
And in our first cohort, I think the feedback we've gotten and the way that people have grown really exceeded my wildest expectations.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, I think you had mentioned early on that there was a good opportunity for Krav Maga instructors to become coaches. And I think all of us, we don't know what we don't know and we're not exposed to what we're not exposed to. And as soon as we started to share, you started to share these tools for coaching with instructors, I mean, they were instantly talking about the impact that they were having on their students and the shifts and changes and the improvement that they were seeing in their businesses.
And it's been really remarkable.
CJ Kirk
I love it. We're planning for our second cohort. I think one of the things that we did that was important for licensees, we're both licensees as well, is trying to find ways to both bolster their capacity to lead and to teach and also to monetize their skills at the same time, right?
One of the things that we are focused on is for school owners in particular, ensuring that they make a living doing what they're doing while adding skill sets that are powerfully important for their own community. And I think that the emphasis on that is so important. We had a call not too long ago and people were saying, what's the point of the call?
And it was really about trying to support licensees in a way with new skills that allows them to create super powerful value exchanges with their students and their community. Like give way more than you're charging for, change lives, ensure that your school goes on, ensure that you can still pay the bills. I think that's something that is often left out of organizations like ours.
The profit motive is there. And like, oh, and we'll show you how to make a profit. And it's usually this boiler plate, boiler room, sort of like, this is how you sell.
One group said, you take the person's license as if you're pretending to write their information for them and then you put it on your clipboard, you do the tour and you never give them their license back. I've actually seen that happen. I was like, well, we probably need to shift away from that because you don't really keep those people for long.
That approach I think is something we don't wanna teach.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, it's not about tricking somebody into becoming a part of it. It's being able to show the value, demonstrate the value and have them experience how it changes their lives. And I think that was a big part of what drew me to wanting to be part of the leadership team is just seeing the opportunities to support others in making their dreams a reality.
I think something that we share is that we both at one point taughtKrav Maga part-time and then made a transition to this as our full-time careers. And I think that only benefits the students. If the students can have instructors who are passionate and dedicated and who have devoted themselves fully to this, I think that that helps the other instructors grow and I think it helps the students become their best as well.
CJ Kirk
I agree, yeah. I think at one point we discussed all that and I think in maybe another podcast, we need to talk about the litany of challenges and obstacles that kind of popped up in our way as we made our way through part-time to full-time. Just it's crazy and miraculous all at the same time.
Joel Ellenbecker
Agreed. So I think another thing that we're really starting to build with Krav Maga Worldwide as we've stepped into this leadership role is the connectedness of the community. I mean, the licensees and instructors having an opportunity to be able to communicate and chat and share their experiences with each other, I think is a reservoir and like a wealth of knowledge for them.
And then also beginning to update technologies and being able to push out curriculum updates or business updates in real time and faster, I think is something that I'm really excited about.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, you and Tamarah are doing a great job with that. If no one, if no one. If you haven't been to kravmaha.com and seen the new website and if you have as a licensee, if you haven't been to the Discord, various channels, you gotta go see what's going on there in terms of creating opportunities for people to find things more quickly and to have access to more information. Technology is an awesome thing when you leverage it properly and you guys are doing a great job with that.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, thank you. I think even this podcast, I mean, a big part of why jujitsu and other martial arts have been able to grow is because there are people advocating for them and explaining them and helping people to understand them. So I think it's really exciting to have this opportunity to sit down and talk about Krav Maga, learn about it, maybe in the future, get some exciting guests on and hear their perspectives as well.
Because not only does it help us deepen our connection and knowledge of what we're doing and why we're doing it, but it can also help people understand the benefits of training in Krav Maga.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, I think one of the things we could do is just have Rogan on as a guest and clear up his ignorance around Krav Maga. I think that would be helpful. Meredith, can you get Rogan on next week?
Joel Ellenbecker
She's saying yes.
That's awesome. Well, what's next, Joel?
What are we doing? What are we talking about here?
Joel Ellenbecker
I mean, I think that maybe just diving in. We've discussed it a little bit already, but just diving into our vision for what we want the next 12, 24 months to look like for Krav Maga students and licensees, or even just the landscape in general. Our goals for the Krav Maga Worldwide community.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, I would say for the licensees, it's more certifications around highly relevant skill sets, more skill sets, supporting their community, finding ways to monetize while still creating this powerful value exchange, giving them some breathing room, allowing them to really start to leverage their potential across Krav Maga, across handgun, across knife, across coaching, developing new certifications with Darren and some of the people that he's close to, things like third-party protection and putting some meat on the concept of awareness, situational awareness. I think if we support people that way in our community, everything just feels exciting. Everything feels like it's brand new.
It's Christmas day again. And I think that's what I want people to feel like. I feel like it's Christmas day again, because that's what it felt like when we first started.
Joel Ellenbecker
Right. When we've talked about this, you brought this up this past weekend at the third dan training is the three different buckets. There's a bucket of things that people know and that they're well versed in.
And then there's a bucket of other things that need to be refined or tuned up or improved upon. And then there's this whole other bucket, which is the one that really excites me is the bucket of things that we don't know. And being somebody who has been in the system for a little over a decade, 13 or so years now, and then discovering that there's so much more for me to learn and so much more for me to improve upon, I think has been really awesome for me.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, I think that whole bucket concept was important to lay out. There are people who are high level instructors in Krav Maga and they've gone other places because sort of the attitude has been literally, well, I know everything I need to know. And I wanted to ensure people understood this weekend, no, you only know what you know.
And for a lot of those people, they don't know because they don't have eyes on them with knowledgeable people, that there are many refinements and corrections they can make to be more powerful. In fact, I don't know many high level people or low level people in Krav Maga that actually move hands, body, feet, that protocol. They don't do it.
That's something we absolutely demand of our instructors and our cadre. And if there's one thing you could do to improve your Krav Maga across the board, it's gotta be the hands, body, feet protocol. So that basket's there.
Joel Ellenbecker
And that's a principle of Krav Maga, right? So for people who don't know, can you explain what do you mean by hands, body, feet?
CJ Kirk
Yeah, so when you are addressing a threat, what most people tend to do is they drop the weight on their feet. They push from their feet, they move their body, and then either the feet and the hand go one or the other. And it's a huge telegraph.
So if you're gonna strike somebody, they typically see it coming too soon. They move out of the way. If you're trying to grab a weapon, the weapon's gone.
So hands, body, feet in terms of how effective you are at striking your target quickly and entering the fight, as well as virtually and literally every weapons defense. And when I show people this, they're like, oh, I'm doing it. And then I put on video and go, well, what do you think?
Oh my gosh, I'm not doing it, right?
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, video and slow-mo video are really, really powerful tools for checking yourself if you don't have that high-level person looking over you all the time. Yeah, for me, I think hands, body, feet is tied to another principle, which is using instinctive responses whenever possible. And I think a training scar that comes up is people know what the attack is going to be.
They know it's going to happen. So they start to move their feet to get out of the way because they're early, because they know it's happening. When in reality, if we all picture a foul ball at a baseball game getting hit into the stands, and there's a snapshot or a picture taken, we'll probably see people who are standing, their hands are coming up, and then they're starting to lean away, or people that are seated, like that's happening.
And the last thing that happens when they're late or unexpected is that their feet move. So if we can train in accordance to how our body wants to move, it's going to literally speed up how effective we are in our defenses.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, it's tapping into that instinctive sequence when you're doing a more intentional movement that people have the most trouble with. Which is so powerful, and I think we have talked about that on several occasions. So your hands, body, feet comes up for me as something that is a basket where you can improve things. I think a lot of people didn't understand that we were developing, in conjunction with Darren, a lot of other new content in the system.
And so, yeah, we've connected the principles of Krav Maga into shooting a handgun. We've connected the principles of Krav Maga into various, In fact, I just taught knife protocols to you guys on that third day, and it was the last day.
And we did knife patterns. We did knife-on-knife responses. We did knife retention.
And I think people were surprised that there was that much content available that they hadn't seen.
Joel Ellenbecker
And what's most powerful for me is that it's not, oh, let's make up or create new shiny objects just for the fun of learning new stuff. It's principle-based. It actually feels like, even though it's new to me and it is exciting to learn new things, it feels like Krav Maga.
It doesn't feel like I'm going off and doing some wrestling or some jujitsu and putting that together and calling it Krav Maga. It's actual Krav Maga with these other things mixed in.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, when I started designing that whole protocol, I wanted to use the Krav Maga essential movements as the base or the foundation for all that so that you're really just doing Krav Maga. You just have a knife in your hand and there's very subtle differences. Would you agree with that, subtle differences?
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, very subtle. And the Krav Maga essential movements could be an entire podcast episode of its own and how keeping things simple and effective can speed up the learning for students and make it so that they can use these things in real time.
CJ Kirk
What else, Joel?
Joel Ellenbecker
Well, I've really enjoyed getting the chance to just talk about Krav Maga and our vision and where we're headed and what's next. And I think that we have lots of awesome ideas for more episodes that popped up just in this conversation. And I think it'd also be great to hear from our students, our licensees, instructors, potential listeners here on what things they would like to hear us talk about or what types of episodes or content that they would like to see.
Our goal is just to spread more awareness about Krav and self-defense and reality-based training in general.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, that's awesome. Maybe we could invite them to send some questions in. I'd love to, somebody throw me a few curve balls.
I'd love to address really whatever is on anybody's mind would be cool. I'd love that.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, I think that'd be great. And our intention is to have this podcast available on anywhere you can find podcasts. And if you're looking for more information about Krav Maga, you can find us on kravmaga.com or kravology.com.
CJ Kirk
Oh, Kravology, yeah, that's one of our assets.
Joel Ellenbecker
Yeah, great resources and information there. And CJ, it was a pleasure.
CJ Kirk
Yeah, always remember to keep your pants on.
Joel Ellenbecker
Keep your pants on.
CJ Kirk
Keep your pants on.
