What's Beyond Karate?

What's beyond karate?

Hey, you want to have a good start?

All right, we'll give it a go.

Huckleberry Hound. Karate.

Oh my God. Huckleberry Hound.

What's beyond karate? This is the Elevate Polk podcast. And I'm your host, Chrissanne Long. And with me as always is Rob Arture.

Hello.

Hello. So we have a guest with us today and it's really fun to have Jay Che from his own podcast, which I can't even remember the name of. It's the Jay Che Podcast. Yes.

Got it.

The Jay Che Show.

It's the Jay Che Show.

How dare you, lady?

I love it. I love it. It's hard to remember.

It is.

Especially with him sitting right here.

Well, I do want to say before we get started, because you might know Jay Che as the person whose name is spelled spelled as if you would say it in English, Cho.

Oh yeah. Yeah.

So there are a lot of people not maybe not connecting who Jay Che is first.

Because of the last name.

Yeah. The last name.

It's a, it's a litmus test.

It is. Do you really know me or do you not know me?

Exactly. That's exactly what that is.

Yeah.

Yeah. Cuz if you can't spell my last name, right.

Or say it correctly.

And pronounce the last name, then you really don't know who I am.

Right.

I mean, you know me, but you don't know me.

Do you really know me?

Yeah, exactly.

That's pretty, that's pretty awesome.

It's a litmus test. I keep it that way.

Some of that, I get some of that. Because people down here, they think it's Arturo, right? Or I get Arturi with an L. What the?

There's an R. I always wanna say R2-D2.

But it is Arturi though.

Yeah.

Right, I always thought it was Arturi.

You did.

Arturi, right? Arturi. Yeah, like an Italian thing.

Yeah, it's Italian for Arthur. It's pretty plain, but yeah, you would think South—

Ooh, that's a good movie, Arthur. Have you seen that?

I have. It's like 30 years ago.

Yeah, yeah. Just checking. All right. So we've randomly just walked around talking about names for a minute or two, but we're now going to kind of talk to Jay about his history, his background. Like, let's, let's, let's kind of walk us through how you got to Lakeland.

Okay.

And if there's no story there, then make one up.

Well, I mean, there certainly is a story. And out of all the places that my dad could have brought my family. We ended up in Lakeland.

Yeah.

And this was, he got here in 1979 and spent about a year, year and a half trying to set up everything, you know, the house, the business, you know, having a car, right? And then we came. So after he had set everything up, So when we got here in the early '80s, you know, I mean, I was 5, 6 years old. My brother is 2 years younger than me. We barely spoke English, right? I think the first words, English words out of my mouth were McDonald's, french fries, ketchup.

No, please.

Right. No, please.

That's not really that crazy because that's probably half of the children in America's first word.

McDonald's or french fries. McDonald's, french fries, right? So we got here in the early '80s not knowing anything, not having any friends, leaving our entire family from Korea to be here in Lakeland. And of course, when you're a kid, you don't know any better. You think, well, Lakeland is Lakeland. That's where the town is.

So is there a story about how he picked Lakeland? Did he just like throw a dart at a map and say, that's where I'm going?

I think it was he knew someone Was it YK Kim? As a matter of fact, yes. How the hell do you know YK Kim?

So, in my previous life, I was a detective.

And he is a savant.

I do have a knack for just having a head full of useless knowledge.

Okay.

Pretty good for trivia though. All right. So, I was doing a little bit of research before we were talking, and I read that story where you had given— it was an interview I don't know if it was in Lakelander Magazine or something a while back. And you had said that, like, I don't know why he picked this. When I moved to Florida from New York, we moved to Orlando.

Yeah.

And YK Kim's After School Taekwondo Dojos, I had a lot of friends that did the taekwondo there.

Yeah.

And people ask, you know, do you want to go? You want to, you know, you should try it. Thinking I have, I have short legs. I'm built for lifting heavy things, not putting my head above my, you know, my foot above my head. So I took a hard pass. But I was always impressed with like, they had quite an operation, you know?

Yeah. So he's a bit of an entrepreneur.

Yes. Just a little bit. Yeah. So I said, I wondered, I'm like, well, I wonder if there's, you know, I mean, how many Koreans could possibly be, why would you pick for Orlando?

Okay. Yeah.

But then I thought about it and I said, well, why Kim? When did he come here? 1978.

Mm-hmm.

So the year before your father picks Lakeland out of all places.

Yeah.

YK Kim picks Orlando, the next city over. Mm-hmm. And you know, if you're gonna try something out, not always a bad idea to do it in a lane where somebody evidently sees something well.

Right.

Had already done it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So I wanted to ask you, it was on my notes. Yeah. If that was potentially—

That was one of the people that steered, that directed my father to Central Florida was YK Kim.

Wow. That's cool.

There's a gentleman in Jacksonville who has quite a sizable martial arts organization. I can't for the life of me remember his name, but there's another master in Jacksonville. And then there's an, uh, in Winter Haven, there's Rose Taekwondo, right? Who's now, uh, which is now operated by, uh, his son. Um, and he's retired, uh, Master Rose retired. And, and he was like, hey, you know, come to Lakeland or go to Lakeland. It's, it's going to be a spot that's going to grow. And so he said, okay, cool.

And yeah.

And, you know, walked up and down Edgewood Drive, right? Because he didn't have a car, had a small pocket dictionary, right?

Wow.

Took the bus. At the time in where what is now the— there's like a medical clinic. There's like a little clinic there that used to be a pizza parlor way back when, was a pizza parlor. And my father would stay there. The people were generous enough to give him a cot to sleep on. And, you know, he ate there and helped clean up and, you know, did some manual labor and then had enough money to open up the shop where now it's JiJi's Oriental Market, Korean market. And my father took that spot and opened his first dojo right there. Yeah.

I'm a sucker for an immigrant success story. Oh yeah. I, it's like a, you know, I can't resist those types of things. I absolutely love that stuff.

Yeah. I love, well, at some point we'll talk about a little bit about my family's immigrant success story. But my grandfather, I shared with you earlier before the show where, you know, his voice was in my head saying, right. You know, if it can be fixed with money, it's not worth crying about. And, you know, leaving Cuba and a story around all of the things that kind of shaped me and who I am today. So it's It's really cool to kind of hear a different, you know, different culture, but kind of a similar, like, this is the path set by someone who was just kind of putting a dream out there and hoping that it would work and bringing the family along for the ride.

Mm-hmm. Without getting too philosophical, I—

Wait, I like philosophical.

All right.

All right. Well, we'll go with it.

Okay.

I happen to think that the people— I've often said that the magic of this country is that it attracted those people. Mm-hmm. Because whether it's Italians leaving Italy, you know, there was a famine. A lot of Italians came here. A lot of them went back. Whether it's people leaving South Korea to come here, a lot of them stayed there. There's a lot of Koreans still in Korea.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

So the ones that came here were the absolute, I don't want to say the best of the best, but in many ways they were the ones that were willing to risk everything, to leave a wife and two children. Back home to go all the way halfway around the world with nothing, nothing. And in the hope of, of making something big.

Mm-hmm.

That to me is, is a level of gambling on yourself that we can only, you know, we can't even begin to fathom. That's how this stuff happens.

Yeah.

You don't get that just from, from handouts and, and, and all of this type of stuff. There has to be some spark, some, some drive.

Yeah.

You know, I'm all about helping people, but you, you also need that little bit of grit.

Yeah.

And determination.

A lot of grit. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

So see, the philosophical thing is cool cuz I got the goosebumps while you were talking. Like, that was really cool. So thanks for that.

Oh, my, my pleasure.

Okay.

So what was it like growing up? Cuz you might not, you might be shocked by this, but I did not grow up in a martial arts family.

Nor did I.

But you know, your, your dad is a, —has quite a history. I mean, an amazing human being. And I don't want to make this whole interview about your dad, but I think it's important because you grew up in that. He opened the dojo. You, your brother, and your mom are here. I mean, you grew up in that, right?

You know, you idolize certain people in your life. And for kids, it's common to idolize their mom or dad. Sure. Right? Or both. And I certainly idolized my father. Because he did, you know, superheroic feats, physical feats. And— Right before your eyes. Yeah, right before your eyes. So it's like, you know, if you have that conversation in school, you know, in grade school, say, you know, "Hey, my dad could kick your dad's butt," type thing. Well, mine was legit. Like, you know, there was no— Yeah, you know, hey, you win that argument, right? So for me, that was the case. Korean people generally known as being the hardest working people, period. I mean, the work ethic, right? You just, you have work and then you have your family and they blend together. Sure. Right. And that's, that's it. I mean, my father, he worked to the bone to get, to get our family, you know, everything that we could possibly want. For Korean people, it's like, you know, being your own boss is like it's almost like a religion. Sure. Right. It's just like, you know, they want to be completely independent, want to do everything on their own. That type of mentality. Well, I mean, if I can do it myself, I just might as well do it. Right. You know, instead of, you know, handing it off to somebody else to do it for you.

Look at the juxtaposition with North Korea and South Korea. It's, it's like, you know, it's striking. It's, it's the yin, the real yin and yang, really. I mean, it's, It's so, so different. So polarized. Yeah. I guess it kind of makes sense. So you grew up in the business. Yeah. I guess it's not a, not a shock that you'd continue in that, that same line of work. So you were, when I first met you, my nephew went to, to your school when you were back with your dad and your brother. Yeah. So you started that. Yes. And, uh, you did that for a long time. Mm-hmm. Right. And then it's time to go out on your own.

Right. Right. Tell us about that.

How did that—

So for, for 10 years, I helped my father and, and, uh, and his location. And, you know, we were doing things in a very traditional manner. It did not deviate from what was happening in the '80s. Right. And so for, for that long, for those decades, you know, I mean, things were very good. My father does things in a very traditional and old school manner. It was time for me to break away from that because I have now my own— Sure. —set of ideals when it comes to martial arts training and its pertinence to today's society, to today's culture, to today's— I don't know— ethos. Yeah, sure. It's when it comes to raising kids, when it comes to, you know, exercise methodology and self-defense. I wanted to create something that was completely— what's the right way to put it? Something that will continue to evolve year after year versus something that stays stagnant. So like a living, a living platform that will evolve over time. So whereas traditional martial arts schools, they'll have a certain way of doing things. And that's that. You have one style and you stick with that and that's it. Right. You don't go to other dojos. You don't go learn new other things. You stick with your one master till the end of time and that's it. Well, I took a very Bruce Lee approach where you embrace all styles, you embrace all methodologies, you use what works for you and you discard the rest and you rinse and repeat. Every year. And so year 1 of Karate Beyond will be different from year 2 to year 3 because every year we take on new ways of doing things, retain the, the previous year's work, the stuff that actually works. Okay. Hold on to it, distill it, add on new things. And so it's completely— I mean, it's evolving continuously year upon year.

I've found that the popularity of mixed martial arts— Yes. Obviously must play into a lot of this. Absolutely. But I've noticed that in mixed martial arts, the best ones aren't always ones that have one discipline. That's right. Right? So I actually did dabble in some martial arts in college and I had a karate sensei who said karate's great until you fall on your back. And then, you know, if you want to, if you wanna beat a, a black belt in karate, just get him on his back. Mm-hmm. So we would, we would do karate with jiu-jitsu.

Yeah.

So you had that, you had that blend, you had the polar opposites.

You were talking about a traditional striking style, right? Absolutely true. If you have no semblance of a grappling and you're strictly a striker, right? It's gonna be a rough time for you. Sure. So with Karate Beyond, we have striking components. Grappling components as well as combative components, whereas it's not just strictly kicking and punching, but you know, you're using more, you know, I like Krav Maga, for instance, right? You know, it's a lot of groin strikes and eye pokes. I mean, but that really, I mean, in reality, that stuff does work, you know. It's quite effective. Yeah, yeah, quite effective. But, but so with Karate Beyond, we assimilate. It's like the Borg, Star Trek Borg, where you assimilate and make it your own and part of the collective.

That's really neat. That's a little bit different than like the Bruce Lee style, which is to take, you know, he, he took a bunch of different pieces and he put it together and that was it. Jeet Kune Do is his. Yeah. Yeah. Put 'em together and then it was, okay, this is mine. This is what I'm gonna do. Right. You're kind of doing something a little bit different, which is I'm just gonna have this. And, and I think that does reflect the tastes of people today. People are indecisive. They want, look at what's opening up around like the joinery, right? It's not one restaurant, it's a whole bunch of stuff, right? Options. Right. Food, what is popular? Food truck gardens, right? Yeah. People want choices. So it makes sense. Makes sense. Yeah, definitely. I like it.

I mean, mixed martial arts, I mean, you know, in the '90s when MMA burgeoned with The Ultimate Fighter, it was an eye-opener. Sure. It was an eye-opener. And like, you know, watching those first couple UFCs, you're like, hell yeah, I want the karate guy to win. I mean, I'm a karate guy, right? And the karate guy's on his back and he's getting, you know, you don't know what's going on. This whole jiu-jitsu thing, you don't know what's going on, but it is effective. Yep. Now it, now if you fast forward to current modern day, you can't have one style. Getting back to, you know, the, the, the guys that are on the top, top level. They've embraced all styles.

You have to. I think you have to because you're not the old style, the old school. I think from where your father comes from, you're competing against people in the same style. In the same style. There are rules. There is a specific platform and framework that you go and you operate in. Yeah. And in like mixed martial arts and you're in that octagon, there's no real rules. So you can't just, if you get somebody knocked down, nobody stops it. Right. It keeps going.

No standing 8 count.

But that also applies to the real world.

Right. Yeah. I think there's a whole lot of life, you know, lessons learned in the approach that you're taking with Karate Beyond because like you said, you see the way the world's going and you want to be adaptable and you kind of know that if you're not, you might not continue to be relevant as the world continues to grow and change.

And I mean, much like my father made sacrifices and changes in his life to benefit his family. Same thing with me. I do Karate Beyond for the most selfish of reasons. I do it for my kids. I want my kids to have other knowledge than just traditional martial arts methodologies. I want them to have it all. It makes them better prepared for the world. Yeah.

Well, and that's, that's, that's the risk of the entrepreneur. That's the risk of the immigrant leaving their whole world and coming to a new country. And it's a, it's a great story. It's a great example of how we are wanting to form the lives of those behind, you know, that we want to set those examples for them so that they can see, don't get comfortable, don't get complacent, don't just sit around and wait for, you know, things to just come to you. Go to them, meet them, meet them where you need them to be so that you can continue to thrive and grow. And so what a great model you are for your children, but also for the kids that you're also serving. At the dojo. I mean, you're, you're working with kids that might not have that discipline in their lives, and you're the example at the same time. So you're, you're teaching them an art and you're also teaching them through the example of your life.

I've— my example of my life. Wow. The, uh, and it is a colored one. Um, but we, we want that for our children, right? Uh, and, and that's a selfish desire, right? We, we say, You know, we want to do it for our kids, but I mean, yes, but at the same time, it's a selfish thought.

It's inherently selfish, but it's selfless at the same time. Exactly. It isn't— I mean, it isn't for anything for yourself other than the satisfaction of knowing you did a darn good job raising those children. Right. And the more successful that they are, the more it memorializes the work that you did and how you cultivated that in their in their future. So it's a legacy. It's a legacy. Absolutely. I hope I'm not messing up my kids. We're all messed up a little bit, so it's okay. Yeah.

There's a myth of fragility with children that I think has been, and I could talk for 6 hours on this, we won't, but that's been part of our culture for about 40 years or so, 40 or 50 years. And it's kind of reaching critical mass, but it's just not true. You know, there's an old cliché, and I'm required, just as Chrissanne Long has a required phrase, I have to say something cliché on every episode, but you prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child. And whether you're talking about different styles of martial arts and different components for an overall holistic approach to martial arts, the same does apply to life that you have. If you are just focused on one thing, If you're just, I'm gonna take over my parents' business. Mm-hmm. Well, that's great. You might have every advantage going in, but what if the market changes? What if things change? So you have to constantly be expanding that skillset in life. Yeah. You know, a couple summers ago, my son didn't know what he wanted to do. He didn't want to go to camp. So he said, I just wanna come up with the office with you. I said, that's great. You're gonna sit here and you're gonna learn how to do Photoshop. Mm-hmm. So I bought him an online course and I made him do Photoshop classes online. He didn't really like it, but he's familiar with it. Yeah. And nowadays you have to have those types of skills because the traditional path, just go to college, take out a whole bunch of loans, get a degree in some ridiculous thing, and the world is your oyster.

That's just bad advice. Yeah, it certainly can be, especially if you don't have a direction or a passion. Right. Right. And I think a lot of people struggle with that. Sure. This existential angst of which seems to be prevalent no matter what age you're at, it's, "What am I doing with myself?" Right. Right. "Am I truly enjoying my life and the experience? Am I meant to be doing what I'm doing now?" Sure. All those sorts of questions. I mean, as a child, you're taught that you can become anything, but as you continue to grow, you're like, "Well, you can't do certain things." Reality check. Right, reality check, right? So, I mean, a kid going to college, and they don't know what exactly that they're wanting to do with themselves, I say don't go to college yet then.

Right. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm with that. Spend some time abroad, maybe just work for a little bit. Yeah. And figure out a little bit about yourself.

So this new age of my life, like I would say early 30s, I kind of, I call it the awakening. This time when I kind of started to find out those things that I didn't find out at a young, at a young person's age. And I really regret not having the opportunity to find my purpose sooner. I don't know what I would have been able to do any differently, but it's part of the story. So I don't allow the regret. But every once in a while when I think about it and I think that that, that angst for me is I'm wanting younger people to find their purpose sooner. Right. And it's not through a path that was charted for them by necessarily their parents, although we give them the best opportunities to get them where we want them to go so that they can find whatever it is that's on the other side. But we only have those first 18 years. And then at that point in time, they should be able to go out and make their own decisions.

First, and then they're in their 20s. I, I don't— that's an idealized version of—

Well, it's a podcast. We got to keep it. We got to keep it short.

Right. But it's like, you know, you're in your 20s and you're impervious to pain, injury, right? Yeah. You know, hangovers, right? You're impervious. Most days. You're impervious to everything, right? So you feel like you can conquer everything, but at the same time, you're still just this monkey. Just— there's so many things to do. There's so many places to go and experience. And it's almost— It's almost debaucherous, kind of.

Right. Right. Right. That's the phase of life. Right. The phase of life.

So it was like the thought of, hey, I need to go out and find my purpose. You get distracted by carnality, right? And then finally you mature a bit and then you're in your thirties.

Right. Right.

And then you're like, okay, you're settling down. You're not such a, such a chimpanzee, you know, looking at shiny objects anymore. And now, you know, like, oh, hey, I'm kind of a person.

I don't think there's any real consistent path, but I think that the timeframe may change. But I think that evolution is pretty common with most people, with a lot of people. Mm-hmm. But I do it too. I think, well, what if I would've gone to dental school? You know, that's a, all right. Okay.

That's a good, uh, you would've had, you would've had straight teeth. I would've.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I would've nothing, nothing against dentists.

I know. No, they're awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

But that's a, it's a great, it's a great business model. But I think to myself, how ridiculous and presumptuous would it be to just say, well, if I did this, if I did this, I would not be me making this decision at this point in time. You can get into a real— Oh yeah. There's a real cerebral psychological time warp black hole. If you start digging with this type of stuff, you know, my, my rule of thumb, whenever I get a little too crazy thinking about that is just, am I learning something? Am I moving in a direction where I'm learning? Something as I'm growing? Well, today it's just be present for me.

Like, it's just where am I today that I need to be here, be here now, stay present, and then let that path unfold. Because I was— I was— someone listening to this that knows me well will know that I am kind of controlling, but I was a lot more controlling as a younger person. And when things didn't go my way, that was just wreaked havoc on everything. So now it's more like, okay, something's not going to go my way. So what am I going to do about it right now? And let's move on.

Yeah. And look at you now. You come in, look at me. I give you a rundown of what we're going to talk about and you go from there and we just go, here I am.

I'm present.

You went from when Chrissanne the Crusader to Pavlov's dog. Just do what I'm told. Not quite. Not quite.

So I want to talk a little bit about a couple of things deviating from what we've been chatting about first, because my story of podcasting is Rob talked me into it. Right. So I, Very persuasive. Never would have thought that I'd be here having a conversation with Jay Che on the Elevate Polk podcast. So how did you get into the podcasting? What does— what— where did it start and how did you decide you were going to take this on?

So I started my first episode of the podcast was April of last year. Okay. So it's been under a year, you know, that I've been doing this, but I've done 65 episodes so far. Yeah, he never remembers what episode. Yeah, I know, I never remember what episode. Well, it's like a running joke for my show. I did it because I just, I don't know, I listen to podcasts, I enjoy them very much. I've listened to them for, you know, over a decade now. I just wanted to— What a good answer. What a great venue to sit down and have a chat, a meaningful conversation. With someone in the comfort of— well, for me, it's my, you know, my office at my house. Your headphones are on, you've got a mic, hit the record button and go and just have an isolated conversation.

Was there a reason for it or just, I want to do this, so I'm going to do it?

I just wanted to do it.

That's it. Did you look around the landscape of podcasting locally and say— No.

You just said, I'm just going to do it. I didn't know there were any podcasts around at the time.

Yeah, that's funny because we really didn't either. And I didn't know that you had your show. Until someone on, I think Lakeland Now was, was, you know, hey, what are the podcasts that you listen to locally? And I'm like, oh, JJ has a show and I can send it over to Rob. He goes, well, we need to get him on our show.

Yeah. I mean, it was, it was, it's, you know, am I running ads? Am I, you know, trying to boost traffic and concerned about numbers? And no, that doesn't mean squat to me. Just having fun. I'm just having fun. And I think the, the listeners you know, that subscribe to the show or not. I mean, they, I think, appreciate the fact that it's just purely conversation and trying to make it and trying to derive some meaning from that. Right. Not, you know, have a certain any formula per se, you know, or an angle, if you will. None of that. Just, just straight up conversation. And if it's entertaining, great. If it's not, I mean, that's okay. It's, it is what it is.

Well, I'll tell you that I don't think that there's another way to really do good podcasting other than that. People who do it in reverse, I think it's possible to, you know, some of the most successful podcasts, lucrative podcasts, they start out as just like that. People just having a conversation. And that's how this podcast started. Chrissanne Long and I were having conversations and I thought, you know what? This is a really neat conversation. I bet there's somebody, maybe one person, but there's somebody out there that might find what we're talking about interesting. The hardest part of podcasting is getting over that hump to think, well, what arrogance that I have that people think that what I have to say is important enough to listen to. That was my big barrier. My personal thought is I don't care. It's not arrogant because I don't care if anybody listens. But you know what? They do. And you hear from people that they enjoyed what you were talking about and we keep certain conversations going. So we do it. But if the reverse is not true, you can't start out and say, okay, we're going to come up with an idea for a podcast and we're going to monetize it and then we're going to do it. Just ask Gatehouse Media about that one. Anyway, so we'll just keep going. So tell me about bro yoga.

Oh, bro yoga. You kind of skipped that one. I was going to—

okay. What? No, no, no, go ahead. So bro yoga is— For many months I've had a yoga class at my studio, and again, doing it selfishly because I want to do it, right? So I hired some yoga instructors, and they're friends, and it was like, it was, man, people weren't showing up. I mean, people did show. I mean, you know, it wasn't like big droves of people, right? Because there's other yoga places in town that have been doing it for a long time and doing it really well. So it's like And I'm not trying to take away their business either or anything like that, but it was like, at one point I was like, you know what? I just gotta call this something else. And so I just kinda called up, I called up a bunch of, I didn't even call anybody. I texted a bunch of buddies in town, predominantly guys. I said, hey, show up for yoga next week. See you at 9 o'clock. At my place. That was it. Wow. That was it.

That's a, that's a pretty good command in your, in your friendship. No, no.

It's like, it was just do this. It's like, hey, you know, you know, it's good for you. You know, you want to do it. You don't have a regular 9 to 5 job. You're an entrepreneur like myself. And that's predominantly the base of people that come at 9 o'clock on Tuesday morning at my, at my joint. You're not working for Publix and coming to yoga at 9 AM on a Tuesday. And so people showed up and I was like, I gotta give it a name. Ah, bro yoga. Yeah. Bro yoga. It's brilliant.

Because it's not, now I know Chrissanne's like, it's not just men. It's not like a men's only.

No, it's not. Okay. It's not.

I don't like that exclusive stuff.

It's not the boys club. So I'm gonna announce it on this. This is a first. Oh, all right. I'm rebranding bro yoga and now I'm gonna call it boss yoga.

Boss, I like that. Boss yoga. All right, I'll allow it. It got me. Right. Did you go to bro yoga? No, not yet. Not yet.

I'll see you next week.

But I thought like I heard the name. That stuff works. Yeah. I wouldn't go to bro yoga and be like, what is this woman doing here?

I'm not going to do that. No, no. But it's like— and women show— I mean, there's men and women in the bro yoga class, quote unquote bro yoga class. Right, right.

But it's a, you know, it's just a funny thing. But I— it's just the name.

Yeah, it is.

But it works. It's cool. I like it.

So, and so, you know, a lot of my friends are like, well, you know, I've always wanted to yoga, but I didn't want to be, you know, like Brandon, Edie. He's like, you know, he's one to not, he doesn't like not knowing how to do things, you know, around people and stuff. You know, he has to constantly have to know. And I'm like, you don't have to have any of that. You could be completely terrible. You can be completely inept. It's fine. Just come show up.

Do something good for yourself.

I am, I am more than comfortable doing something and looking like a complete ass in the process.

Um, yeah. So, so yeah, Bro Yoga is going to turn into Boss Yoga. Uh, and, and that's for, and I title it as such for entrepreneurs in town, uh, men and women that don't have a regular 9 to 5 that know that you should be doing an activity like yoga because number one, it brings you focus and relaxation at the same time and gives you a bit of a workout and puts you in the right headspace. When you leave to tackle the rest of your week.

It's important. It is. It is. I've been thinking about it from a flexibility standpoint. I don't ever believe I'll reach peak yoga flexibility, but I would like a little bit more greater range of motion.

But you don't want the peace and the mindfulness and the good headspace?

Oh yeah, no, that too. That too. But there's all kinds of gimmicks with yoga too, right? So my wife wants to do this goat yoga. Oh, that's a thing. It is a thing. I don't understand.

Goats are evil. Well, those eyeballs, man, the pupils, they're like rectangular, straight up.

So Craig's kids, I see this post on Facebook that the kids, Craig's kids, Alex and Amber, are at this thing called goat yoga. And I'm like, I just pick up the phone and I look at it and I'm like, Craig, you need to see what your kids are doing. He's like, what is that? And his son Alex has a goat on his back. And I guess there's the thing called goat yoga.

So that's a hell of a shtick. It really is. You're going to bring goats to your dojo?

Oh no. I have a friend that has like a little farm and they have goats and I've seen them in their little pen. They're fun. I get it. And then you see them poop. Right? Look, I have 3 kids. I've spent enough time dealing with poop in my life. So I don't know how it works with goat yoga. So goat yoga people don't hate me here. I just can't imagine being on the ground, having a goat on my back, right? That part is fine. I don't get it. But then what happens if the thing decides to, you know, nature calls? I mean, like, no. Seriously, that might ruin, I mean, you talk all about focus and clarity and all this stuff.

It's hard to focus when you got a droplet next to your ear.

Yeah, well, when you got little brown marbles rolling down your back, I mean, to me that ruins the thing. I don't know, maybe that doesn't happen. There's too much bro going on in this conversation.

That goat beard brushing up against your arm. Female goats do it too. You got a horn rubbing up against your leg. So, all right.

Changing the subject, Jay. Goats are fun. What is beyond karate? Like, not just for yourself, but for your worldview of the community at large. Polk County. This is the Elevate Polk podcast. Yeah. You've lived in Polk County most of your life. What do you want to see the community become? Where do you see it going? Give us just some of your take on where we're going as a community.

It's a funny thing to now know that people are coming from outside of Lakeland and Central Florida to come visit Lakeland. It's a weird thing. I'm like, "You're coming to what? Your Airbnb's booked? What?" Like, how is it that all these people are like— and then Lakeland is in the national news for being the hottest place to live. For snakes. And then snake orgies, right? Sheriff Judd. Yeah. All these headlines, right? Not in that order. But it's a weird thing.

What do I—

When you say weird, do you embrace that? Oh, I do. I do.

I think it's fantastic. I think it's great for Lakeland to grow and get notoriety. And I think that's going to be fuel for entrepreneurs to do more great things, for the city to rise above and do more great things, provide more services, provide more businesses, and more importantly, having a culture of kind people. Ooh. Yeah. That is what I would really like Lakeland to be is to, you know, yes to the diversity, right? Yes to the, you know, all the shops and services and all that stuff. But a kind and caring community that looks out for one another. Yeah.

Well, so I have a story I can add to that. One of my Airbnb guests came for a pretty extended stay. And so I, I usually at their request, I'm either I'll meet you or I won't, you know, it's up to them. It's their preference. In this case, she and I were, you know, I just messaged her. I was like, hey, you know, you want to come? We're going to Union Hall. There's a, you know, comedian, come check out the community. And she came and we met and she's a CPA moving to Lakeland, looking around the landscape that she's trying to figure out before she buys or before she, you know, does a long-term rental. And, you know, we just kind of, plopped her right into the community. She gets invited by someone to go do a presentation on, you know, a specific, you know, CPA talk. And it's like, we're just embracing anyone who wants to come and love Lakeland. Yeah. Or love Polk County. And just not making the barriers so like, oh, you're new, we don't need you to come, we have, we have plenty of people. You know, it's, it's like, no, this is a warm environment. And she just can't wait to figure out where she's going to end up buying so that she can really truly become a part of the community. So it's really cool to see that.

Can I, can I brag on their show for a minute? Because building off of that. Yeah. So we got a comment on the show on Facebook from somebody who's outside of Polk but was listening to the show. Yeah. Thinking about moving here. And it was a wonderful comment about how they're learning about our community from people talking about the community. Yeah. That's something that was never a foreseen conclusion. We didn't even think about marketing the show or even talking about it outside of Polk. But it's just how weird how this stuff works.

So shout out to David Blood for being a listener because we appreciate that comment and we're just happy to know that you're listening.

We do read them. So in regards to getting Lakeland some notoriety, we're in pre-production right now. Jamie Clements of Loud Life Productions and I, we're in pre-production for for a television show that features, well, Lakeland and Polk County in general. Uh, not, not only the businesses here, but, and, and the service industries here. Uh, but just the community at large, uh, via personalities, uh, that are about here. And, uh, I don't want to jump the gun by saying it, but it's very much like an Anthony Bourdain-esque type show. Where it's almost like no reservations, the layover where you're just exploring different parts of Lakeland and the surrounding areas through the lenses of various personalities. Cool.

So we're in pre-production, so when is, when are we going to be?

Hopefully next month we start shooting.

Cool. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I like that. That's going to be cool. Yeah, absolutely. And it fits well now because there's so much going on here. There's so much popping up. You know, your canvas is pretty wide.

Well, it's fun. It's fun to have you on the show too from the entrepreneurial side because I, you know, work in that space and I see a lot of growth and opportunity. Let's talk for just a minute about how easy or difficult being an entrepreneur is or was. Maybe it's getting easier. Maybe, maybe you have some, some range of it could be better in this way or it's perfect, or how do you kind of feel about the entrepreneurial space? I would love to see Polk County being known in Central Florida as an entrepreneurial hub. People come here because they know that entrepreneurial ideas are embraced, welcomed, and you can explode your future by just being around people who think that way.

For me now, the— it's growing pains, you know, having my own business, the Karate Beyond. I mean, we're busting at the seams at the moment and, you know, we're looking for a new location and we're actually, we're probably going to build a new facility that's 9,000 square feet. Wow, cool. That's a good problem to have. It's a good problem to have. But now for me, it's a matter of letting go a little bit and being able to delegate, delegate tasks. Yeah. Have you read Clockwork?

Have you read the book Clockwork? No. I can't say the guy's name. His first name is Mike, Michael, Michaelowicz, Michaelowicz, something like that. Sorry, Mike. Yeah, sorry. I've tried. I just can't.

Assuming he's listening to this show.

Of course he is. But it's in there. The book is basically talking about how exactly to stop being the doer and start delegating and not delegating tasks that end up coming back to you because the person doesn't have the ability to make the decision on the delegating. You told them to do this, but now they don't know what to do. So they come back to you to ask a question. And so now you're stuck because You got to help them do the thing that you ask them to do. Yeah. So it's really good. So if you're in that space right now, in that headspace, that's a good book for you.

Yeah. I need a Star Trek replicator to replicate myself. You're saying multiple—

yeah, just don't make a copy of a copy. That's right. Michael Keaton, right? Yes.

God, I love that guy.

Yeah. How do you go from Batman to that? I don't know. So good. The tangent.

So, all right, so let's do a little promo for you. Karate classes, you know, how to follow you.

All right. So the best way to find Karate Beyond is to go to the website karatebeyond.com. We have our Facebook page, facebook.com/karatebeyond. A lot of people like to put "and" in between karate beyond. It's like people say karate and beyond. I'm like, you do realize there is no and or ampersand in between the two words. Anyway, so karatebeyond.com is one way. The podcast you can find on any any podcast app, just type in my name, Jay Che, but Che is spelled C-H-O-E. And Jay is spelled J-A-Y. Yeah, yeah, I know. So this is, I mean, it's a litmus test, intelligence test to find me. The karate classes, I've got pre-K classes, I've got, you know, kindergarten through second grader class, they have third through fifth grade class, teens and adults, the yoga class, summer camps, after-school pickup, and we just do everything.

We're gonna get Rob's 3-year-old into the pre-K class so that we can wear him out.

Yeah, that might help. I might get some more sleep.

Well, do you have any wrap-up thoughts? Anything you want to say? Any shoutouts you want to give? Why don't you— you know, you've got these beautiful children. Why don't you give them a shoutout?

Oh, my kids!

Let them know that you mentioned them on the show.

Yeah, Davin and Zoe, they are the best things ever.

Oh, great. How old are they?

So Davin will be 10 come end of next month, and my daughter's 8 going on 18. Okay.

So how I actually originally met you, so your kids are about the same age as Braxton's kids, right? Yeah. Braxton Wiggs.

Yeah. I, man, I ran into him a couple months back at Starbucks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He seems like he's got, he's got a lot going on right now.

Yeah. He's doing some great stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So he's a tie-in to all of the other conversations that we've had because we had Linda and Howard on the show to talk about Love Lakeland.

Yeah.

And we had Joe Cruz on the show from The Lakelandist who's best friends with Kimber Wiggs. And now we've got you who I know through Braxton Wiggs. So it's a whole Wiggs family reunion through the podcast.

Essentially then, the Wiggses are like our Kevin Bacon. Right. Huh. How many degrees of separation? 6 degrees of Mayor Wiggs.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's great.

Awesome. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on the show, guys. Thanks for being here.

What a great conversation. So thanks for sharing your time with us. No problem. Thanks for listening. And remember, we have a new podcast each week, so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And remember to leave us a review. We promise to read every one. By golly, you can all— you can always find all of our episodes at elevatefolk.com. If there's— sha! If there is something you want to hear about on an upcoming episode, reach out to us on Facebook at Elevate Folk.