Jason Wilson's Viral Pep Talk Video, Guiding Kids Through Martial Arts

You know, I think one thing that young boys and men as well need in this world is guidance and mentorship. And to get that from martial arts is one of the best ways in one of the most fulfilling and satisfying ways. So I've found you from a video that a bunch of people sent me of you working with a young boy who was having a hard time dealing with the pain of like punching through a board. You know the video and just the way you were communicating with him and letting him know that it's okay to cry and that you know just express yourself and it was refreshing and it was authentic but it was also like you could tell like that kid is going to get a lot out of that exchange and I was like I want to meet that guy. Well yeah man I mean that video opened my mind up to really what men were dealing with inside because when that video went viral our offices at our nonprofit had to shut down. Really? Okay so the Cave of Adelum the martial arts program you're speaking of is under the umbrella of our nonprofit the union and so when this video went viral my wife calls me who was our executive director she says Jason is there a video that's going viral and I'm like what do you mean 2016 I didn't really understand the terminology and sure enough this video started racking up a lot of views shortly thereafter our phones wouldn't stop ringing and it was men from all over the world crying to our staff calling in crying saying I want to be free I'm tired of holding all of this in I wish my coach would have talked to me that way when I was going through. Yeah there it is right there. Yeah that's it. Well it's hard to find a good mentor and I think every man needs a mentor and you know one of the things that martial arts does that I think is really important is it gives you these goals to work towards as you move through a belt system or whatever kind of system that each martial art that's different has as you develop your skills and you get more proficient and you improve you have like tangible progress and you can see it and I think there's a lot of people that go through life not exactly sure where they stand where they're at and I think martial arts provides you with real feedback in one of the most I think one of the most emotionally and physically difficult things that a person can do. Yes and so many people don't realize the young boy in that video Bruce he was actually had a fear of failure he had broke that board easily the week prior but because of this test and the pressure and everyone watching he just froze on his non-dominant hand and he couldn't break through so he broke down crying and I welcomed his tears and said look we cry as men you know let this go and men and I love about martial arts more than sports it makes you face your fears and nothing like if a punch is coming at you a kick or if you're grappling and you're concerned if someone's gonna take you back and choke you I apply all these principles in life as well and so when you give a man or male a safe space to really be emotional and let go of anxiety that he feels every day the father wound his fear of failure his lack of confidence where he can have a moment we call it a moment on the mat where you can stop the training and you can express what's overwhelming you in that moment they transform instantly man and it's a great thing to see and I've never seen anything work like the arts even with my son he's 13 years old you saw him you know six one and a half everyone says you're gonna play basketball and it's like no it's other things that I want to do and so even with sports I say son it'll give you some confidence but when we spar we're training the anxiety he feels the voices are man Chris hit you again what are you gonna do about that how you gonna maneuver how you're gonna respond and I allow him to break down in that moment I said okay cool now it's time to recover reflect on it what's the lie what's the truth do you think this man is not supposed to hit you he's a skilled fighter the goal is not for you to be the best the goal is for you to learn all right so when I give them that freedom to feel to feel the fear now they're not they don't succumb to it when it really happens in real life and so that's why I love the arts especially the grappling arts which I hate I didn't discover to later in my training because nothing like someone invading your space you know we can keep distance striking and it we're comfortable here but when someone invades your space or when a problem happens in your life where it's so close and personal that you can't just shake it you have to learn how to buy your time and maneuver and don't let it come around you or you can get tapped out by the stress of that situation the arts is just amazing if it's taught in a way that man could apply it to life how long how many years have you been mentoring young boys I would say almost 16 17 years and how did it get started um in 2000 and well I founded our nonprofit in 2003 and from there my father wasn't actively in my life you know he was around but wasn't there and I had was called a father wound and basically just an absence of a male figure in my life specifically my father he was verbally abusive you know I could make if I knocked this cup over I would get cursed out you know things like that so I had to overcome a lot of that so in Detroit I saw a great need for black boys to be mentored and so at first I started the cave of a duller with just martial arts but then I quickly discovered after these boot camps boot camp programs kept failing over and over again and scared straight programs was that our boys didn't need more discipline they needed more love so then I made the cave of a duller more comprehensive so I still use the arts focus on what works but also give boys a safe space to release the trauma they're dealing with in their lives the emotional pain the lack of confidence all these other things that they're dealing with and give them this space where they can release it and become strong so that started I had my first pilot in 2008 and then after that 2013 I was awarded a grant for just a developing the cave and that's when we just started going full-time in our own location and we haven't looked back then we have almost 500 boys on our waiting list yeah and you know what's interesting Joe I thought it was just a black thing you know because again if that's all you're around you think that's the only youth that are dealing with these issues I had a group one time it was multicultural which was great was my first time and I saw white kids you know that I cared about was struggling so much and weren't used to releasing what they felt and one of them direct messaged me a 16 year old he says mr. Wilson please don't ever forget about us because he was concerned because there was a lot of school shootings at the time he says a lot of times we were abused and we don't know how to process this emotion then we'll grab a gun and this is the only way we know how to express ourselves it's no different from a man who is volatile and abusive to his wife you know I used to hit things in my home Joe I'm not you know proud of saying you know my wife would say things that would trigger me and I would knock holes in the wall just in anger because I didn't know how to express hurt or sadness or just feeling dismissed and passively dismissed for how I felt and as a result I became a very unstable man mentally emotionally and I was just what I call just a masculine male I wasn't comprehensive at the time and so I've saw a direct correlation when I allow a male that freedom to feel to be angry when you're upset but then teach you how to reset from that anger how to use that anger for good because anger isn't bad it's only bad when it caught you allow it to make you do bad things the greatest statistic I love in our academy is that over 78 percent of our recruits improve their grade point average by one letter grade without tutoring that's because we allow them to be who they are inside allow them to live from the good in their heart allow them to talk about the things they're experiencing at home the the things they're experiencing at school we don't just go on to training in martial arts because then they could be great that day in training physically believe they're still mentally traumatized or emotionally damaged and so the cave is just that it's a it's a it's an institute or an academy where we allow boys to feel you know our mission is to teach train and transform boys into comprehensive men men who are physically conscious mentally astute but spiritually strong enough to navigate through the pressures of this world without succumbing to their negative emotions so when you're doing this you're you're learning yourself and you're also teaching these kids so how much of a process was it to develop the curriculum to develop this program and to figure out what is the best way to address these these boys and their insecurities and their issues and how to how to give them give them strength and give them love but also give them discipline also teach them how to how to get through work through pain work through emotions it must have been a lot of trial and error it was a lot of trial and error um more so joe i had to become transparent um in that moment when that video went viral none of my recruits really ever seen me cry you know i was still just tough man and at the time my mother was going through dementia so i'm still trying to develop this curriculum i'm saying okay it's coming along but it's still missing something and what it was missing was giving men the freedom to be vulnerable in any given moment and for them to feel that liberating power when my mother developed dementia joe um she was like my sensei man meaning the emotions that i could hide in martial arts training because where i came up you couldn't express that you know they would you know once school i was at they would just rush you the instructor would say everyone on jason and you know we would shake going into this school our hands would shake because it wasn't just grappling we dealt with real knives you're getting kicked no pads none of that man but you dealt with real knives yeah so you're doing like knife yes because this whole thing is like everything he's a masterful teacher a lot of this stuff is choreography okay you see some of the gun defenses and things like that's like come on man that wouldn't work right the way he taught us is like if someone has a knife you can get away go oh i think joco said the same thing if someone has a knife go the other direction but if you have to defend yourself first thing you need to realize is that they should cut you if it's just your uncle drunk at a barbecue they should cut you can you deal with that pain and that emotion seeing your own blood run down your arm and still eliminate the threat so these things we would practice with knives because he says if it's plastic in your head what happens when a real one comes but i couldn't express really who what was going on inside of me that would make me feel the fear you know the cave needed that element it needed to say why are you pulling back why aren't you applying that arm bar why are you scared to get thrown when your partner needs you to practice his own and we tie the throws especially judo throws to a fear of failure because as you know in judo if you're not relaxed when you take that fall it hurts significantly more in life if you don't just go with it and allow yourself to freedom to make a mistake or freedom to fall or freedom to fail when you hit that ground when you fail to hit that wall it hurts that much more and so what i had to do was first allow my students to see what hurts me my mother had a stroke one day and my wife comes in and said hey you need to leave immediately your mom has had to get rushed to the hospital i start breaking down and all of my kids imagine all of them and the fathers there surround you hug you and pray over you just just hugging me and at that moment i said this is what they need they need to see a comprehensive man someone who's strong but sensitive someone who's courageous but compassionate someone who freely lives from the good in their heart and doesn't allow their fears to stop them from living when that happened joe these boys became not only greater at martial arts but greater sons greater community service greater students able to deal with bullies one of my students a beautiful kid josiah short curly hair beautiful personality he was getting bullied at school but he thought it wasn't christ like you know or the christian thing to do is defend yourself you know you're supposed to take it i'm like i don't know where you got that from i said if someone is trying to harm you defend yourself so the bully grabs him one day he grabs him from behind he throws him kick the legs out and slam the bully down to the ground you would think he would celebrate just defending himself but what made josiah the proudest was that before the bully hit the ground he pulled up on his hoodie to stop his head from hitting the cement hmm wow that's when i knew he was going to be i said this is it where the good kids the gentlemen the kids who are bullied and overlooked can defend themselves turn on the lion but reset back to the lamb no one wants to be prowling all around defending and looking rough all the time having the hit and being just in that fight of flight mode 24 seven someone tries to harm you you defend yourself demonstrably but you reset you don't ever allow your kind spirit to conform to something that's callous and so that's the main principle that we teach is do not live from your fears live from the good that's inside of you watch the entire episode for free only on spotify