Martial Arts and Yoga

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okay this is a ministry of striving for eternity

00:46

Well, welcome to another edition of Theology Throwdown. This is episode number 35.

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We have had 35 throwdowns and nobody has died yet, so that's a good thing. We must be showing some love and charity in our disagreements here at the

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Christian Podcast Community. Now, tonight's topic is martial arts and yoga.

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Well, this might be controversial for some, we'll see, but we have a lighter crew. This is the second time we've tried to do this, and last time we couldn't get too many folks to show up.

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We have a number of people - Bunch of pacifists out there. We're going to see, some folks said they were going to come in, we hope they will.

01:27

And so we're going to get started and see if they join us. But right now, I'll let the podcasters who are currently here introduce themselves and their podcast.

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Start with Mr. Brewster. Go for it. And actually, in this case, we should do one other.

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For this episode, we should do this. Introduce yourself and your podcast.

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And then if you have a background in martial arts, what are those arts?

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Which styles do you have a background in? So we'll start with Mr. Brewster and then Keith Foskey. Keith.

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Keith. Keith. Go ahead,

02:10

Aaron. All right. Well, for the totality of this episode, it must be Master Brewster, you know, the official accurate title.

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Is that what the M stands for, an AM Brewster? That's right. Yes. Aaron, the Master Brewster. My name is

02:24

Aaron and I have two podcasts. One of them is called The Celebration of God and Celebration of God is about the personal as well as corporate worship.

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What does that look like and how do we do it better this year than we did the previous year? We focus on the holidays and the everydays.

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We can worship God better and be more intentional on that than my other podcast, which

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I've come back to actually having to take a short little break, really excited. We are currently discussing biblical conflict resolution in my podcast,

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Truth, Love, Parent, which is all about family and parenting primarily. And we have over 500 episodes there.

03:03

So really excited to continue on that ministry. And those are both parts of a broader ministry that is called

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Evermind Ministries. And I want to encourage people to check out the Evermind app. They can go to evermindministries .com

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and there they can find out everything about Truth, Love, Parent, Celebration of God, our counseling ministry called

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Faith Tree Biblical Counseling and Discipleship. It's all there on that page and all there in the app.

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Now my history in the martial arts is sorted. It's broad and vast.

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We were just talking before we started rolling here that I'm coming up on 30 years of teaching the martial arts, over 30 years of studying the martial arts.

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My first black belt was in Tang Sudo. And then I studied a number of different martial arts, including

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Kenpo and Aikido, kickboxing, Taekwondo, and Jiu Jitsu was in there, just a number of different styles.

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Kung Fu was also in there until I landed on another martial art that I ended up getting a black belt in and that was a

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Ninjutsu. And then I ended up studying another form, more of an Americanized, modernized

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Ninjutsu where I eventually received a black belt in that and continued on in that.

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And that's actually what I teach. I'm a fifth degree, technically that's a master level, fifth degree black belt in Tiger Ryu Ninjutsu.

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That is the one I've been doing now for quite a while and teaching in that. And I've graduated, I think, close to 15 black belts since this most recent style.

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All right. So you're officially a ninja just for the record. That is correct. Yes. But yeah, by definition,

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I am technically a ninja. Yes. So Keith Heltsley, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself and your podcast and any background you're having.

04:55

Yeah. This is Keith Heltsley, co -host of Quest for Truth. My co -host,

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Anthony Caulfield, usually can't make these, he's got a family life which draws him away.

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But yeah, Quest for Truth, we like to dive into the Bible. Once a month, we'll dig really deep and take our time going through scripture.

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Usually though, we just kind of pick a topic. Sometimes we do something like a

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Sunday school lesson or devotional that we dig into and share ideas. You know, what's truth in the

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Bible, because what's true in the Bible is also true in reality around us. And that's kind of what we do there.

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We also do some other side things like audio dramas and that kind of thing, but that's getting to be a little more rare these days.

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It's harder to find people to respond to the casting calls that Nathan puts out, but that's part of that.

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It gets more complicated. But when it comes to my background in karate, when

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I was a young teenager, I studied Muda Kwan Ting Sudo. And then later,

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I don't remember, I think it's, I want to say Kempo, but it's more of like an Americanized version of karate.

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Now what level was I ever, well, I don't remember about the second time

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I took karate. But in the Ting Sudo, we have 10 degrees from white belt to black and black belt, you have 10 degrees of advancement there.

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Well, I was up to about the third degree on the white belt. So there we go.

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This is my exciting high advancement in karate. But I have to say, I always enjoyed it.

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I always got a lot out of the physical discipline of it.

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And to me, it's all about exercise, you know, get out there sweating and having fun on the mat.

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Yeah. And the second time I took it, I also advanced about the same level, about three degrees into it.

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So I'm not a high impact karate guy. And Aaron, you mentioned rolling, but I don't think you meant it in the context of jiu -jitsu earlier, but which is, so in karate, we would call it sparring and jiu -jitsu, we call it rolling.

07:31

My name is Andrew Rapford. I am the host of not only this podcast with all the many people from the

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Christian Podcast Community who join, I do recommend you to go to christianpodcastcommunity .org to check out all of our podcasts.

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We have over 50, and any of them can join here. But this is the smallest group we've done for a throwdown.

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But I do know a couple of folks that said they were going to come in, so we're hoping they will. I have two weekly podcasts

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I do, Andrew Rapford's Rap Report, if you just search for Rap with two Ps, Rap Report, that is a weekly one hour podcast where we're dealing with biblical interpretations and applications for the

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Christian life. Just finishing up a series on what is a pastor, got a very important episode there coming out very shortly next week on how to encourage your pastor.

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So we got 10 episodes in that series, very valuable,

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I encourage you to check those out. My other podcast I do weekly is a two hour live stream on Thursday nights, 8 to 10

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Eastern Time. You could go to apologiacslive .com to join that, but you can go to, you could just follow

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Apologetics Live, and that is a podcast where we do training to do apologetics.

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Sometimes that appears because someone comes in and challenges me with a debate that I don't know

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I'm getting in a debate, and so that's always fun. They're prepared, I'm not. I actually like that, that's kind of fun.

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But we do get that, and you get to see how, and sometimes it's really fun when I stop someone from speaking and explain to the audience, the reason

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I'm asking this question is to expose that he doesn't know what he's talking about. Okay, continue. And he goes on to show that what

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I just said is true, things like that, it's really funny. But Apologetics Live is another podcast

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I do. My background in martial arts, I started back in college, which was not that long ago, probably about 36 years ago, maybe, no, actually, probably like 38 years ago when

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I started. I started in a style of karate,

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I then left that one and ended up doing most of my karate background is in a style called Ishinryu, it is a

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Okinawan style, and it is a little bit of grappling, it's called sticky hands, because you grab.

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The thing is that my sensei was fighting with the UFC when it was underground, when he got his second degree black belt, none of the fifth degrees wanted to spar with him.

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He was a very scary individual when it came to martial arts, he was very good at what he did.

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But he did teach us a little bit of jiu -jitsu defense, and I gravitated toward that, but at that time, there was no one teaching jiu -jitsu really in America.

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And then the Gracies came to New York. And so I have spent the last several years doing

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Brazilian jiu -jitsu. And that's where my real love would be, given all the martial arts.

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So with that, I think we've kind of given away that at least two of us practice recently, all three of us have practiced martial arts, and we get to the question of, do we think

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Christians can participate in martial arts? I think we've given away that answer. If you disagree with that answer, though, we are going to get to that.

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So I do ask that don't tune out because you just assume all martial arts are wrong.

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If you think that all martial arts are based in an Eastern religion, I will dispel that myth very easily during the show.

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So, and that's actually going to be our first question that we're going to look to answer.

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So the first question we have is, do all martial arts, or is there an

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Eastern spiritual element to the martial arts? So Aaron, you have quite a bit of background in this.

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Do all martial arts have an Eastern mysticism or Eastern spirituality to them?

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And then can we separate those? So the first answer is no.

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We have to understand that the martial arts, okay, we use this term martial in many ways, even in English, outside of the martial arts, it has to do with military, it has to do with armies, it has to do with hierarchy within those systems, even the title of being a martial, not like an old

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Western martial, but within the armed forces, things like that. So the fighting happens everywhere that human beings have ever existed.

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In fact, later, I'm sure we're going to have an opportunity to talk about that's one of the reasons that some Christians think that martial artists should not be involved in the martial arts is the fact that it does involve fighting.

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Some people would even say violence and things like that. But since that is a universal thing, that fighting hand -to -hand combat is not solely coming out of the

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East. And so the interesting thing about the martial arts, as any martial artist can tell you, is the idea that it all primarily had to do with an empty fist, right?

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It had to do with just fighting without a weapon. Obviously many martial arts have weapons.

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But again, even that idea is not unique to Asia and to those Asian systems that came primarily out of Okinawa, China, Japan, Korea.

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So no, not all of what would fall into the category of the martial arts is that, in fact, one of the ones that you mentioned, at least one of the ones you mentioned is specifically not

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Eastern. It comes out of Brazil. Correct. Brazilian Jiu -Jitsu, there's two styles of Jiu -Jitsu.

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There's Japanese Jiu -Jitsu, and there's Brazilian Jiu -Jitsu, which the

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Gracie family made very popular when they started the

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UFC Ultimate Fighting Championship, where they wanted to just test all the individual styles, and the

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Brazilian Jiu -Jitsu won easily. And now it's all mixed.

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People study all of them together. Yeah. None of them are pure studying anything in particular.

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The second part of your question, though, is really important because we have to acknowledge the fact that, yes, some martial arts from the very roots were intrinsically tied to a national belief system, a religion.

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And so the question ends up being, can those things be detached?

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I would even ask, are they intrinsically tied? And the example that I used to use is

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I was in seminary, and I was wearing my martial art bomber jacket from the

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Tang pseudo organization I had gotten my first black belt from. And it had the name of the association on the back, and it had a large red dragon as part of the emblem.

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And a guy tapped me on the shoulder. This was before class. And he asked me, what part does dragons and the martial arts play in the

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Christian's life? And it was coming from the standpoint, actually, later in the conversation, that these two things could not go together because, from his standpoint, they grew out of Eastern mysticism.

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And I told him, I said, well, what's interesting is that in China, the green dragon is oftentimes used to picture

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Christ. So first of all, dragons were real creatures that did, in fact, exist.

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The Bible talks about them. And second of all - We know them as dinosaurs. Yep, exactly.

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The Asian cultures don't just get the market cornered on dragons. But beyond the dragon, and specifically the martial art, when you think about China, Japan, and Korea, the three main places that most of the martial arts we're familiar with have come from, let's focus in on China.

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Literally everything that people group did in the ancient times was intrinsically tied to their religion.

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The example I love to use the most is their tea, how they grew their tea, how they steeped their tea, how they served their tea, how they enjoyed their tea was all very symbolic and very closely tied to their belief system.

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Does that mean that we, as humans shouldn't, sorry, as Christians in America, that we shouldn't drink tea, or that we shouldn't drink

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Chinese teas, or we shouldn't drink Chinese teas from Chinese mugs?

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And the obvious answer is, I think nearly every Christian listening right now would agree that, well, no, drinking tea is not inherently the problem.

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So what is the difference between drinking an Asian tea that has significant roots in their belief system versus using a form of self -defense that has significant roots in a belief system?

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But I'll be quiet there and let someone else take over. That's an interesting thing that I never really thought about with the tea.

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But yeah, you're right. There is a lot that I didn't think about. Keith, what are your thoughts? Well, of course, the martial and martial arts means military, and it doesn't, broadly, it doesn't only limit itself to what we know as the

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Asian martial arts, because certainly the American military does train people in hand -to -hand combat, and it's only vaguely resembles what you would call martial arts, but it's still very effective.

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But what I understood with the martial arts, especially like the karate, the open hand, the foot, or whatever, a lot of it originated not from the

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Asian armies, per se, is that these Buddhist priests, because they're religious or pacifists, they were always being raided, their temples destroyed, their treasures being taken, and they developed this form of movements that they could fight back without fighting back.

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They would use their oversized opponent's speed and energy and strength against them, and you end up with a thing like judo, where you have flips and you have different karate moves, where you, as someone's trying to punch or kick, you can block in a way to use their momentum against them.

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A lot of that comes from there, or that's my understanding of it.

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You guys maybe know more than that. Yeah, I mean, I think I mentioned already the

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Brazilian jiu -jitsu came out of Brazil, not the East. You have the

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Israeli martial art, which is not from the East. There's a style,

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I forget what it is in, I think, South America, where they use the form of dance because it was illegal to train.

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The government wouldn't let people train to defend themselves. You're talking about capoeira? That's it, yes.

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So, it was a dance style. So, it's very pretty. That's a very, you know, pretty -

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And I can see how that choreography of the dance is very much like the kata that's in most martial arts will have various forms of the kata.

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And for folks that don't know, kata means form, and it's putting the moves together.

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It's training your muscle memory so you know how to precisely move your body through the motions because perfect training means, you know, perfect in practice, or as backwards, perfect practice is perfect performance.

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Yeah, the way that I always teach the students would be that practice makes permanent. Yeah. Practice makes perfect because if you -

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Well, you need a perfect practice to make that permanent. But if you're sloppy in your practice, you're going to have a sloppy form, you know, good.

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Yeah. If you keep practicing bad form, you're going to - Permanently be in bad form. Perfectly bad.

20:20

Yes. And so, I think that as far as the separation, I think that in America, there was a lot of -

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I mean, there are some places still that have a lot of the Eastern spiritualism in some of the karate styles.

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I saw that in some of the early ones that I used to do, and that's why I steered away from them. But there were some where they tried to separate that.

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But really now, when we have mixed martial arts, which is what a lot of places are doing, there's not one style being taught sometimes.

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They're multiple, even within the same school. I mean, at our school, we had the

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Brazilian jiu -jitsu, we had wrestling, we had kickboxing, all being taught at the same place.

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Sometimes you'll see other karate styles, and they're all being taught. So, that mixture kind of breaks up that - any kind of Eastern mysticism or Eastern spirituality that would be involved.

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A lot of that, though, is just a hangover from the fact that technically, the martial arts within America is a relatively new thing.

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Let's be honest, we're a young country as it is. Martial arts started creeping over here as early as the late 1800s, but they really weren't - didn't even become popular in mainstream, really, until Bruce Lee.

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That's just - I mean, he's the guy who really brought it to the forefront. And so, that's not that many decades ago, all right?

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I think all of us were alive at some point when Bruce Lee was alive. So, when the martial arts schools, the karate schools, were popping up all over the

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United States, specifically in the 80s and the 90s, when we were going out, my family and I being a homeschooler, we wanted to kind of look for a

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PE credit, and we decided as a family to study the martial arts. We did have to check out a number of schools to see if they were actually teaching the

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Eastern Mysticism as part of the curriculum. And there were a number of them that were, and that number was starting to diminish back then.

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But that was kind of the stigma, especially back then, growing up as an independent fundamental Baptist, you know, who we were pros, champs, at separating from anything and everyone.

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You know, that idea of wanting to separate ourselves from the world and being very careful what influences were in there was huge.

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And at that time in the martial arts history in America, that was still a big part of it. But you're right. It's actually really, really, really hard to find a martial arts studio these days in America that emphasizes the mysticism in any way, shape, or form.

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And I think that a lot of times for Christians who aren't in the culture, who aren't in the martial arts, they don't realize that.

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They kind of just assume that nothing has changed and that it's still as big of a quote -unquote threat as it was before.

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And so, okay, so I think we could establish that easier with martial arts. Now let's switch over with the same question for yoga.

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Is there Eastern spiritual elements in the yoga? And let me just read Rebecca from One Little Candle. Couldn't be here.

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She's under the weather. But she said, by the way, yoga, absolutely not.

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Taekwondo, thumbs up. My oldest son got his black belt when he was 10.

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Taekwondo is really good for him as far as teaching him self -control.

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But she says yoga, bad. So let's get into yoga with the same question.

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Keith, I'll start with you this time. Yeah, I think yoga definitely is something that still does have a lot of mysticism tied to it.

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I think it would be hard to deny that. But can you separate the physical part of it?

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I think it would be possible. I'm sure people would disagree with that.

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But just like with karate, it's all about, like I said, self -discipline, self -control, mastering your body and movements.

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I don't know a lot about yoga, I'll have to honestly say. But it seems to be a lot of stretching, a lot of posing, a lot of isometric.

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And if you just take that, because if they say, well, it's all about the chance. Well, if I never learned the chance,

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I don't even know what the chance would be. And I just look at a picture of somebody doing whatever pose they're in, that if I copy the physicality of it,

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I don't see how that would be getting involved with the mysticism.

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Although, again, the mysticism, if you're into the full gamut,

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I can see how people would do that. And I have to honestly,

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I don't understand why somebody would want to do the mystical part.

25:18

Aaron. Okay, so we always want to disagree in love, right?

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We want to speak truth and love. And that's easy to do to a certain degree with the individuals with whom we interact on this show.

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Sometimes though, it can be a little bit easier to take pot shots at people outside the show who can't defend themselves, maybe not as charitable.

25:37

But I do want to say right off from the bat that the individuals I'm about to allude to are individuals that I absolutely love.

25:44

Mama Bear Apologetics is fantastic. Hilary Morgan Ferrer, who's the chief

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Mama Bear, she and I have a very fantastic working relationship. I've read her books. I've promoted her on my show,

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Truth Love Parent. She has been a blessing. Again, her books are absolutely amazing.

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However, just recently, they had a focus on yoga. And they have a number of articles,

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I believe also were put in a podcast form that list out significant, they talk about yoga in great detail.

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Then they also discuss, they kind of go with the format that they do as an apologetics ministry. They have a format to teach mothers in particular how to really grapple with information.

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And so they try to teach them the truth. They try to teach them the lies. They talk about kind of a chewing and spit method where you're taking what's good and you're throwing out the bad.

26:40

But when it comes to yoga, they really do take a stance against it.

26:48

And one of the main reasons that they take a stance against it is the fact that they don't believe that you can really separate yoga from Hinduism.

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Now, I'm obviously not gonna do a fantastic job encapsulating their beliefs. I do not agree with them. But I do wanna say that if you're listening, and you're interested to hear what somebody would argue on the other side of it, you could definitely go to mamabearapologetics .com

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or just search Google mama bear yoga. And you'll find those articles very easily.

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And as you're reading them, you will see things where they talk specifically about the name, like yoga having to do with a yolking between two things.

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And they talk about how the actual movements were supposedly integral to the actual worship in Hinduism.

27:38

Now, this is where I push back a little bit. Again, I love these women. I love the work they're doing.

27:44

But sometimes I think we give Satan too much credit. All right.

27:50

And what I mean by that is this. The argument that to do a downward dog, or that's the one yoga position that everyone's familiar with because it's just a ridiculous name.

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But to do any of these motions that you intrinsically are somehow making, you are participating in the worship of a false deity, or that you are intrinsically opening yourself up to some type of demonic influence is not true.

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As Christians, we know that we cannot, that demonic influence is not in possession. It's not something that we have a concern about.

28:29

Second of all, I just point to Paul's arguments for the meat offered to idols. That meat, the reason that Christians with very sensitive consciences back then did not want to eat the meat offered to idols is the fact that that meat was used in the actual worship of these false gods.

28:48

And be put onto these altars, and it would be cooked up, but then they would take that cooked meat and they would sell it sometimes in the temple, sometimes in the markets.

28:55

And the Christians didn't want to have anything to do with it because it was part of that. Well, what did Paul say? Paul said that those gods that they're worshiping aren't a thing.

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They're not real. You can feel free to eat the meat offered to idols.

29:08

Now he said, yes, he also said the opposite side. You know, we don't want to make our brothers to offend, right, we don't want to be stumbling blocks.

29:14

So if somebody is going to foolishly and ignorantly see what you're doing and then go against their own conscience and to partake in this, then that would be an unloving thing to do.

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And so we, all three of us here today would definitely want to say to you, don't do yoga or study the martial arts if it goes against your conscience.

29:37

But the reality was, as Paul said those things, he was also saying you can eat meat offered to idols, it is okay.

29:44

And so, you know, a yoga practitioner would take a stance that it was a bowing or a part of the worship in that religion.

29:53

But the reality is, if that particular stance has good toning isometrics, if it has a good stretching element to it, then there is nothing inherently wrong with taking that posture for the health benefits afforded by it because that supposed

30:12

God doesn't exist. And we aren't doing it for those reasons, we are doing it for the benefits of the position.

30:19

So I do believe that the two things are 100 % separable. Well, I know if I was to strike a yoga pose where I had to assume a lotus position, the agony that I'll be going through as I put one foot up on the other knee might not be a chant, but there would be some awkward noises coming out of my mouth.

30:40

Yeah, religious experience for sure. I will say this, I did yoga once back when I was in college in ROTC.

30:48

And we had one of the resident assistants in the dorms, he did yoga, he was also black belt in karate second degree.

30:56

And we were military, so we were doing lots of exercising. And one of the guys,

31:02

I don't know how it happened, made a challenge. He would come out and do RPT with us, which was run two miles in,

31:10

I think it was 12 minutes and do 75 pushups in two minutes and do 75 sit -ups in two minutes.

31:15

And so he did that with us, but we all had to go and do a yoga class that he was gonna do, that he would lead.

31:22

And it was kind of funny because the biggest guy out of all of us was, you know, running out of the room, getting sick, because he couldn't handle the yoga.

31:33

And it is good for stretching, I will say that. But I think that there's a difference between yoga and martial arts.

31:43

I think martial arts has separated that spiritual aspect of it from the art itself.

31:51

And so you could do karate without having that spirituality part of it.

31:57

I think yoga is often still very closely tied to it. Now, there's some who would say that you cannot separate them.

32:04

If people wanna go do stretching, do stretching, call it stretching. Don't call it yoga.

32:12

But I know that there's a lot of people do yoga for the stretching element, for the health benefits.

32:19

Very similar to why people did karate or any of the others, whether it be for self -defense or for exercise.

32:26

And so I understand that. But I think that yoga still has too much ties to the

32:37

Eastern spirituality for Christians to be able to do this.

32:42

Now, let me say this. You know, have to be full disclosure here. There is a group called

32:49

Holy Yoga where they tried to take the yoga and replace the

32:55

Eastern spirituality with Christianity and try to bring that into it and make it something of evangelism.

33:03

I'm not a big fan of that. Now, full disclosure. I went to a church where the preaching pastor was on the board at Holy Yoga.

33:13

Therefore, I know that triggers people. So let me just say, I mean, he and I disagreed on it, but we could still worship together.

33:21

But the issue, you know, I understand his perspective. He got on the board because, well, his wife, you know, he and his wife were missionaries in India.

33:31

His wife would do the yoga for stretching. She would try to use it as an evangelism.

33:36

But he discovered that many of the instructors were not Christian. In fact, many of them were homosexuals.

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Not many, but some. And he got on the board to make it more of an evangelistic ministry.

33:50

And so the purpose of it was to specifically, you know, get rid of those who weren't saved, get rid of those who are practicing sin, like homosexuality, and make it evangelistic.

34:05

Now he did get off the board and full disclosure here, you know, he got off the board because they were growing in the government, realized that they were making a lot of money.

34:15

They were not a really functioning as a non -profit. And so they had to make a decision.

34:20

Either the non -profit was going to be over the for -profit business, which kept the accountability and kept the board in, you know, over that, or the for -profit business would be over the non -profit.

34:35

And therefore the for -profit, which doesn't have the same accountability as a non -profit, would be able to do what they want there with less controls.

34:44

They ended up going the latter way. He resigned immediately, along with, I think, most of the board, because he felt that it was no longer a ministry, it was a business.

34:53

And so I do have some familiarity with what's called holy yoga. That being said,

35:00

I still don't see, I have a hard time when you have these positions that are very in tuned with Hinduism and the mantras that they have.

35:10

I think that, I personally think it's very problematic. Now, could you get to a point in many years from now where yoga is just seen as stretching and it doesn't have a spiritual aspect to it?

35:24

Maybe, and just like - Well, I'm going to argue that it actually is there. I will argue that, and in part, because like, oh, almost 10 years ago now, my kids and I got a game for our

35:36

Wii, and it was a game that involved a bunch of different exercises, tons of exercises you could do.

35:43

I think it was called stay fit, or I don't remember actually what it was called, but they actually had a section about yoga. And you were able to do the poses following your little me character up on the screen.

35:53

And it had zero to do with anything. It was 100 % based off of balance, because that particular, the technology used a balance board that you would do it with, and it was all about holding that balance.

36:05

And I taught at a Christian school on part of the PE curriculum. The kids did yoga for a semester or something like that.

36:14

And it was all about the stretching. It was all about the balance. It was all about the control of the body.

36:20

So that, again, I can't say specifically, I've not done hot yoga. I've not done goat yoga.

36:26

I've not done holy yoga. So I don't know what the majority of the yoga places are doing out there.

36:33

But I think that from a cultural perspective, the vast majority of people I know and interacted with it, there wasn't that spiritual emphasis at all.

36:43

Yeah. And see, that's where I may change my view if that becomes dominant, like it did with karate, for example.

36:53

Because karate, there was a spiritual element to it, to some of them. I do want to push back a little bit on something you said earlier, because as a

37:01

Christian martial artist, who I actually teach, all of my martial arts teaching has happened within the context of Christian organizations.

37:10

I taught at the Christian school I was in. There's a friend of mine that I'm going to go be seeing him in Jacksonville later this year.

37:17

And his church has a karate program and a karate camp. How did you get to meet that guy? You introduced me.

37:23

I'm so glad you did. It's been life -changing for me. But for the record,

37:29

I said, there's a guy that you're going to meet he's the guy you would least likely believe does karate.

37:36

And you're going to get along well with him. Is it just the Peters? No, not just the Peters. It's actually

37:42

Keith Balski. Maybe you'll know him from his humorous interdenominational videos. But Keith is absolutely fantastic.

37:49

I love the guy to death. You guys have the karate background. You also both have the professional magician background, which

37:55

I knew. We have a lot of scary things in common. I'm pretty sure we were separated by birth. He was just born a couple months before I was, but I'm pretty sure we were twins.

38:04

His mom and my mom don't know that, but we know. Yeah. Yeah. You're twins. Uh -huh.

38:09

And you picked a picture. Identical. Uh -huh. Paternal. Paternal. It's okay. I'm sorry.

38:14

Front turtle. That's what I meant to say. There was a podcaster of the

38:20

CPC early on that was in karate. Is this the guy you're talking about? Or someone else? I don't think so. I think.

38:26

No, no, no. Yeah. Either way, I bring all that up just to say that as a Christian martial artist,

38:31

I teach the martial arts from a Christian perspective. The martial arts are very famous for your memorizing things in Japanese or in Chinese or in Korean, different names or whatever else.

38:42

But in my martial arts, we are studying verses. We are learning truths from the scriptures and we are applying it because for the longest time, one of the reasons that Christians ran away from the martial arts was they were always trying to find this way to harmonize and unify the mind, the body, and the spirit.

38:59

And that all just sounded very mystical to Christians. But the reality is, if there are any people on the entire globe who should be unified in our mind, body, and spirit, it should be

39:10

Christians. Guys, everything should be spiritual. When we go,

39:15

I mean, the Chinese, especially again, ancient Chinese, it's not so much true as much as it used to be nowadays.

39:23

But the ancient Chinese in many ways kind of put us to shame or should have put us to shame because they made their tea deeply, pun intended, steeped in their religion.

39:34

They dressed their dedication to the calligraphy had a lot to do with their religious beliefs.

39:41

But we Christians have segmented things. We've got martial arts over here. We've got parenting over there. We've got church over here.

39:48

But the reality is they should be connected. And I would argue that the Christian martial artist should be better at unifying the mind, body, and spirit under the will of Jesus Christ than any other so -called martial art that tried to do the same because they don't know

40:03

God. They don't know their creator. They don't have the power of the Holy Spirit to achieve that discipline that God calls his people to.

40:11

So I don't know, just a little bit of a pushback. I understand completely what you were saying, but I do want to give a different flavor to it. Yeah, and I mean, but with the yoga,

40:18

I agree with that. I think with the yoga, when it comes to yoga, I think that it's harder to separate that.

40:26

So let me do this. Matt Slick had just joined us. So let's let folks, you get to hear

40:33

Matt's voice and know who he is. Matt, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself, your podcast, and then since you also,

40:42

I happen to know this as well, you have a background in martial arts. If you wouldn't mind explaining a style that you have studied.

40:49

Okay, good. First, new mic. Can you hear me okay? We can hear you. Okay, good. I didn't get everything you said, but you want me to introduce myself?

40:56

You introduce yourself, your podcast, and since we're talking martial arts and yoga, explain the background you have in martial arts.

41:05

Okay, and you have a specific one that I think you have a black belt in. That's really funny when you share about that one.

41:12

Yeah, I can talk about that black belt one too. That's a good one. Everybody should have that one. Yeah, so I'm Matt Slick.

41:18

I run karm .org, 67 years old. I am, Karm's 28 years old and it just hit,

41:23

I think today, 162 million visitors. So praise God for that over the weekend.

41:31

But yeah, so I've been persecuted. I've been swatted, been chased, have death threats, all kinds of stuff.

41:38

So I've been involved with martial arts and believe it or not, I did yoga when I was in my late teens. I did yoga for quite a while.

41:45

You were swatted. Folks may not notice, you were swatted while you and I were doing a live stream.

41:50

Oh, that's right. Yeah, we were doing a live stream together when you got swatted and nobody knew.

41:56

We played it off. Matt just was like, answers the phone. He disappears. I take him off screen. He comes back, pretends like nothing happened.

42:03

So the guy, whoever did it, like did it hoping to see some, you know, police break in. Yeah, they never got to see that.

42:09

No, no joy on their part. Sorry. That's right. Yeah, I had to keep it quiet because of some stuff.

42:14

But yeah, then later I talked about it. So anyway, yeah, I took judo when I was younger and then kung fu, very hard style of kung fu, sensu, took that.

42:24

And then I did a Krav Maga for almost five years. And I have a black belt in run fu, the ancient

42:31

Chinese art of removing yourself from danger. And I also have Glock fu. I'm good at Glock fu also.

42:38

And his podcast is Matt Slick Live, which is a radio program, five days a week.

42:43

So you want to check that out there so that you get five days of Matt's wisdom. It is a call and answer show.

42:50

So people call in with any kind of questions and Matt has the answers. The five days of wisdom can be condensed to about maybe five minutes tops.

42:59

That's it. There's not much in there. I don't know. But you got to fill the rest of the time. Yeah, with the name Persiflage.

43:04

That's what I'm good at, the name Persiflage. So Matt, the question that we're asking right now is just with martial arts and yoga, we were asking whether they have an

43:17

Eastern spiritual element to them and whether they could be whether those elements could be separated from them.

43:26

The position we kind of took is more so with karate or martial arts. Yeah, there is that separation now.

43:32

Yoga, we were having some disagreement. Aaron thinks that we've gotten to the point that they are completely separated in America today.

43:41

I'm not so sure. I'm not convinced yet. But what are your thoughts? Is there that spiritual element to martial arts and to the yoga?

43:50

Some martial arts, yeah. When I took Judo, there was no martial arts. I mean, no spiritual anything. It was, you know,

43:56

Hippon Senegi, Taiyotoshi, Tamanagi. You just did various things. And it was just a move.

44:02

That's all it was. And so you just did that. It was no, hey, let's meditate. Let's get the chakra balancing, which

44:07

I did in yoga before I became a Christian. And Krav Maga is nothing but the rule is destroy them as quickly as you can.

44:16

There's no mysticism in that. And so yoga, you know, people say to me, you can't do yoga.

44:23

Well, if you're doing what's called the bound lotus, for example, or the crane or whatever it is, you're doing these positions.

44:29

You're just stretching. So if I just bend down to stretch my my hamstrings and my bad lower back, that's a yoga position.

44:38

Well, you're not cultist. No, it's just stretching it. The danger is a spiritual aspect associated with certain things that you are aware of and you're doing on purpose.

44:48

That's where it's dangerous. That's where it should be denied. And Christians shouldn't do it. And for folks who may not know,

44:54

Krav Maga that he was mentioning is an Israeli style that I mentioned earlier that is an

45:00

Israeli art. So it's not from the East. So it was actually first, they first came up with it in Czechoslovakia.

45:08

Done by a Jewish guy. Yeah, it's very aggressive. And there are many times like in Kung Fu Sansu, I wondered, why am

45:17

I doing this? I wouldn't get beat up this bad in a real fight. So let me ask this question.

45:25

And so Matt, I'll start with you since you came in last year, but give you some time to talk.

45:31

But the question is going to be a two part. One is, can Christians practice the martial arts?

45:38

And then second, can Christians practice yoga? And with each of those, are there any warnings? They can practice martial arts as long as there's no spiritual they can do stretches.

45:49

By definition, yoga is the stretching with the occult craft. That's what yoga officially is.

45:57

But you might have someone says yoga up on a sign and you go in and he's just stretching classes that use advanced yoga positions.

46:05

But they're not doing any spiritual chakra balancing where you go like this, you move things up to your forehead, you do stuff, you balance, you get in tune with the divine consciousness.

46:13

And that was part of the yoga that I took. But they don't do any of that. You're just doing the same names.

46:20

You know, it's OK. All right. That's what

46:25

I say. What are your thoughts, Keith? Can Christians practice martial arts and yoga?

46:31

Or yoga? Well, yeah, I don't see the problem there. I think they can. And those who want to, they probably should because of the more for the physical aspect with it.

46:47

Like what Matt was saying, once you get in, if you start going to do the spiritual side, then then that would be a little bit too far.

46:59

But there's nothing wrong with keeping your body physically fit, stretched out and strong.

47:05

Yeah. I'm thinking about doing boxing now, just because. Does it just get in shape?

47:12

I mean, yeah, I'm 67, you know. I sit here all day. So you got to do something to get yourself in shape.

47:19

So after I'm done here, I'm going to walk them down my stairs ten times and then do some stretches and do some calisthenics.

47:26

And, you know, you know, what you should really do, Matt, is you should, you know, each morning, make sure the first thing you do is go in the in a room and look in a mirror.

47:35

Then you could practice your run through it. You'd be so scared of what you see. Yeah, I want to keep my heart in good shape.

47:41

I don't be terrified. Yeah. No harder than Aaron. Your thoughts,

47:46

I mean, obviously, since you you still practice and teach martial arts, I think we know the answer that you're going to have on that one.

47:55

Yeah. But can Christians practice? Because this is the question a lot of people ask is, can

48:01

Christians do this? Can Christian practice martial arts? Can they do yoga? What are your thoughts? I believe the answer is yes.

48:07

I think Matt hit the nail on the head. Keith did as well. I mean, there's there is that which glorifies

48:12

God. He created our bodies. We need to steward them. And I guess unless you plan on talking about it later,

48:19

I kind of like to point out the one thing I alluded to earlier, that idea about, you know, is there any space in a

48:27

Christian's life for violence, quote unquote, for fighting? Well, I'm going to pick that up next.

48:33

That's going to be OK. Because that was to be part of my part of my argument is that part of part of honoring

48:38

God by stewarding our body requires to a certain degree that we be able to defend ourselves.

48:44

And I can I can prove that from the scriptures. All right. So then why don't we get to that? Because I mean, obviously, obviously, since I'm a practitioner in jujitsu and not so much karate anymore, but I do think that Christians can do it.

48:59

I have more of a more difficult time with yoga, as I mentioned. But, you know, as Matt said,

49:07

I hate agreeing with Matt Slick. Oh, but he's right. But, you know, if there if there's no

49:13

L, if it's just stretching, then it's stretching. I just wish they'd called something else called holy stretching instead of holy yoga.

49:20

All right. Yeah. So so let's get to I mean, my next question was going to be, can can

49:28

Christians watch martial arts? Because often what comes up in that is the idea of that people have of the violence aspect of it.

49:42

And so why don't you you bring that up? I mean, I'll start with you, Aaron, because you were going there.

49:50

Can Christians practice martial arts because of the violent aspect? Can we watch it because of that violent aspect?

49:58

That's a that's a two part answer. The second part actually is kind of interesting.

50:03

I do not watch boxing. I don't watch mixed martial arts very often.

50:08

And the reason for that is a little bit different. But I do want to answer the first one. I can answer that a little bit more confidently.

50:16

We see all throughout the scriptures war, war that God commanded.

50:23

We see we talk about, you know, the sword in the trowel, right? Nehemiah, they were working on the walls and they had a sword in hand.

50:29

And we have no problem with that. But suggest that a modern Christian American use a gun or the martial arts or whatever else to defend himself.

50:38

And there are a lot of professing Christians who really cringe at that concept.

50:44

I have friends and family who have in the past and who still do. And really, the place that I go that kind of genuinely clinched the idea for me is that when

50:53

Jesus sent his disciples out the first time, he said he was going to protect them. They didn't need to worry about taking money with them.

51:00

They didn't need to worry about any of this. He was going to oversee the entire thing. But when he sent them out the second time, there was a big change in his instructions.

51:08

And one of the things that he said was, hey, get a money belt, take it with you.

51:14

He says, take a sword with you. In fact, if you don't have a sword,

51:21

Jesus's words, take some of your clothes, sell them so that you can buy a sword.

51:28

And if anyone were going to look at this and suggest that they were using this sword to cut up their onions or to shave, those people are really, they need to get a

51:39

T -shirt and a black magic marker and they need to write on the T -shirt. I don't read my Bible and I don't understand how to interpret it.

51:46

Jesus here was telling the guys, you need to be able to protect yourselves. You have a job to do. Go out there and make, have means to protect yourself.

51:54

And that was our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who rose from the grave, celebrated him on Easter. This is what he told us to do.

52:00

So I firmly believe that one of the best ways in a dangerous, violent world that we can steward our bodies to God's honor and glory is to learn how to protect ourselves, both physically and spiritually.

52:15

And others. Exactly, yes. Ourselves and other people. 100 % right, Matt. Now I do,

52:20

I should mention in the show notes of this podcast is going to be linked a crash course on yoga by Mama Bear Apologetics.

52:29

I also have in there a article that Matt Slick has written. Do Christians have a right to physical self -defense?

52:37

So that's going to be linked in the podcast. It's harder to do links on the YouTube video, so go over to follow the podcast to get those links.

52:46

But you know, I think that, you're right, it's a two -part question when it comes to self -defense.

52:54

I mean, Matt has a whole article saying basically Christians can do that. I agree.

53:00

I think that Christians not only can, but I think should. We as Christians should be able to not only defend ourselves, but others.

53:12

I think we have a responsibility to our neighbor to be able to protect them and to utilize what

53:23

God has given us to train ourselves to be able to do that. Not just sharing the gospel, that's important.

53:31

Not just, you know, being able to work and provide for family and community.

53:37

But I do think part of it is also being looking to be a protection for that.

53:45

And I will say that for you to be a protection, how are you going to do that?

53:51

How are you going to provide that defense if you don't know what to do to provide that defense?

53:59

At some point, if you need to defend someone, there's a child in your yard and you need to defend them from some violent action.

54:10

If you'd never done it, you wouldn't know what to do. And so this is why you practice, you train.

54:21

You mentioned about watching the karate. If you need to spar at some level, and it's because you're training so that when the time comes, hopefully you won't have to do anything.

54:37

But should you need to do something, you will know your capacity. You know the extent of what

54:44

I can do, what I can't do. But if you never do anything, then you'll be useless to defend somebody rather than stand there paralyzed.

54:56

You know, do nothing. We as husbands, if we're husbands, need to be able to defend our wives and our children.

55:03

Yeah, now given the choice, granted, given the choice between picking a fight with Matt or his wife,

55:11

Neek, I'd pick a fight with Matt. Wife scares me. Yeah, she has like a lot of women have the look.

55:19

I would pick a fight with her. I also would say that some people say, you know, what's the best way to train self -defense?

55:28

You know, because of course, you know, I am indeed a person who is blind. And I talk to other blind people, often, you know, small blind ladies.

55:39

And they're like, how do you, is there a way you can train me to do self -defense? You know, meaning show me some karate moves.

55:46

And the single best self -defense move that you can do is always be alert and aware in your surroundings.

55:56

Because whether you can see or all I can do is hear. If you're always on the alert to anything in your environment, that's the first thing because you'll have a little bit of heads up.

56:11

Then you can apply that run foo and get away before somebody jumps out and gets you. And that's the best thing to do.

56:18

If, you know, is to be aware, be totally, you know, so forth, especially if you're in a place you're unfamiliar with a strange town, you're visiting somewhere, a dark street.

56:34

The best self -defense is at first be alert. Be fully alert.

56:40

And, you know, part of that's also being alert means when you're walking the streets, phone in your pocket.

56:49

Oh yeah. You know, this is a thing that why there's, I think, so much opportunity for violence these days is because everybody is distracted when they're walking on the streets and all.

57:00

So I'm going to, I want to give my aspect to this because I'm going to say this.

57:06

I have discussed slash debated with folks over the issue of, you know,

57:13

I think that practicing martial arts is not violence. It's self -defense. It's just good for your body.

57:22

I think it, there are aspects where some people can be prone to violence. I say this, that I remember when my sensei, when my kids were starting to do karate and the kids, there was an interesting thing that my sensei mentioned is the kids will get violent at the beginning.

57:44

When they start doing karate, they get very aggressive. And it goes away the first time they, or second time that they lose a sparring match.

57:54

And that's really what it is. Like what it teaches people is that there's somebody who knows more than you. And that is good.

58:01

And so what I've found in the martial arts, there is an aspect where just with unsaved people, there is a pride to, hey, look what

58:11

I could do. But there's also a view of it that, you know, a lot of people recognize that this is something that they're doing for the betterment of themselves to be able to protect others.

58:25

So I don't think that it necessarily is violent, but there could be people who are prone to violence that maybe they should not be doing it.

58:33

So I don't think there's any problem with the practicing of it. Now the watching of it,

58:38

I'm gonna say this, I don't have time to watch martial arts anymore, but I used to enjoy it very much.

58:46

Because as someone who practices it, I'm looking for the technique. I'm not looking for the blood. I'm not looking for someone to beat someone up, but I watch it for the little techniques.

58:55

Now there's times that I'm watching with people who don't have any martial arts background.

59:01

And I watch something and go, ooh, ooh, it's over. And they don't even know what happened yet. And there's times where I watch with people who are far more advanced in jujitsu and other styles than I am, especially with the jujitsu, it's more like a chess match.

59:14

And there'll be slight moves that happen and people are like, oh, that's it, done. And I'm still waiting to see what happened, right?

59:22

And so it's the technique of it. Now, I'm saying that to say this, though I have always defended that Christians can watch martial arts,

59:32

I believe in all the arguments that I've heard against my view, and this is why

59:37

I wanted to make sure Matt was here tonight, because I think Matt Slick has gave me probably the best argument against my view.

59:49

And so folks, here, this is theology throwdown. What do we do? We want to disagree with love and charity.

59:54

I disagree with Matt's view, but I'm admitting, I actually find it kind of hard to disagree with his view.

01:00:01

And it is causing me, I mean, the fact that I haven't had time to watch has made it convenient. But Matt, explain the view you have, because I think there's a lot of validity from your position.

01:00:15

In refutation of what? Of watching martial arts. Oh, well, it depends on what kind of martial arts, but I think a jujitsu match is interesting because it's skilled, but this is where it's subjective.

01:00:29

The idea of inflicting harm on somebody, that's different than, for example, in judo, it's not harm you're doing, it's technique.

01:00:39

Okay, but we're made in the image of God and we are to represent

01:00:45

Christ. So I don't see the value for a Christian to take enjoyment out of watching other people, made in the image of God, inflict pain and injury upon each other for entertainment value.

01:01:02

I think that's morally wrong. And I remember you were at my house, there were a couple of others, there was a

01:01:14

UFC match on. Yeah, I watched that. The guys wanted to watch it, you didn't.

01:01:20

You were like, hey, you go watch it, I'll go do my own thing. And so I think we each took turns hanging out with you and watching, but it was...

01:01:33

I wasn't judgmental about it either. Yeah, no, you weren't. Like coming down on us going, you're in sin for doing it.

01:01:38

But we got into a good discussion and you based it in something you had read from one of the early church fathers that formed your argument.

01:01:46

Yep. And I remember that. I did. I still remember. And you talked about the fact that we're made in the image of God and the inflicting of violence on another human being for entertainment purposes you felt was wrong.

01:02:01

Now, in our case, we're looking at mixed martial arts, but you were referring back then to the games, the

01:02:09

Roman games and the violence that was there. That was

01:02:14

Chris Estom talked about that. Yeah. If you watch Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan movies, it's just entertainment and choreography.

01:02:23

Well, yes, yes. And there's a difference there with the Kung Fu movies. But I think the one thing that I thought about like after we had that discussion was there is a little bit of a difference though between the

01:02:37

Roman games where they're fighting to the death or possibly to death, whether the emperor gives a thumb up or thumb down.

01:02:46

But the barbarians are sitting there fighting in there. And that is sometimes they were slaves.

01:02:54

They had no choice versus guys who are trying to fight to show that they got better skill than one another.

01:03:03

Now, I will admit I do not like so much of the boxing match.

01:03:08

I don't like watching boxing. I do like watching martial arts and maybe it's because I do martial arts, but to me, watching boxing, it's just brutal to watch two guys beating each other up.

01:03:26

I just sit there saying, use your feet. Come on. You know,

01:03:31

I do. I will say this. I have difficulty watching women's martial arts. I personally think that's not appropriate in my opinion.

01:03:43

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, go ahead. Okay, so I totally agree with Matt. I said it's difficult because so I'll watch a martial arts movie because no one's actually getting hurt.

01:03:55

I mean, unless they make a mistake, but that's not really what ends up being on the final film. No one's getting hurt.

01:04:00

No one's dying. I will spar with people, but then the key things about most sparring and fighting and so on and so forth, practice fighting, if you want to call it that, is that you're wearing pads.

01:04:12

You're being careful to protect the other individual and yourself because it's about learning the techniques.

01:04:21

It's about working on your speed and your accuracy. It's not about destroying the other person, but so much of the

01:04:27

UFC mixed martial arts, things like that, that really is the idea. Obviously, the old wrassling that we all kind of joke about being fake, fake real doesn't matter.

01:04:39

That whole realm is very much as that bravado, that egotism where they're just in each other's faces, tearing each other down.

01:04:46

So I'm going to kill you. I'm going to destroy you. Well, that has come over huge. I mean, it's the exact same mentality, just with less showmanship on the

01:04:54

UFC side. It's still that bravado. I'm going to win. I'm going to destroy you. It's a breath of fresh air when you find someone who's even remotely respectful in that arena.

01:05:03

And I do have a significant issue with that. It's pride and it's using that force in order to hurt somebody and not somebody who, like Matt said, it's for entertainment.

01:05:14

It's not hurting somebody who is doing something wicked. And the most loving thing I can do for him is to get him to stop doing the wicked thing he's doing.

01:05:21

That is what self -defense is to a large degree. I love you enough to stop you from doing this wicked thing to me or somebody else.

01:05:30

And that's why I wanted to point out to this concept of violence, because oftentimes people point to the scriptures, the word violent and violence shows up many times in the scriptures.

01:05:38

One of the first times it shows up is, you know, they're right with the flood. The earth was corrupt in the sight of God and the earth was filled with violence.

01:05:46

But that word has the idea of not just physical aggression, but physical aggression that is malicious, that is wrong, that is sinful.

01:05:57

It is using force to do something wicked. That is a much better definition of violence.

01:06:05

It's not just that something hit hard and hurt hard. It's that something, that force was being used to do something wicked to somebody else.

01:06:15

And that's a huge difference between self -defense. And I think sometimes, I mean, in all fairness,

01:06:20

I think sometimes we do see violence, genuine violence in the UFC and places like that, that they're trying to do that.

01:06:26

But I think the self -defense side of it's very different. Yeah. So let me, as we wrap up here,

01:06:33

I'll start with Keith, just to, you know, like Keith, any other things you'd like to add that you think maybe we haven't covered?

01:06:41

Well, I think you covered a well -rounded topic here.

01:06:49

Okay. I mean, it's, you know, self -defense is good, but you need to know how to use it.

01:06:56

But like, you don't want to be, like you were saying, you don't need to be brutal about it.

01:07:03

You need to do as little as possible, you know, run if you can, or hit and run is a good self -defense too.

01:07:13

To stand there and go toe -to -toe with somebody, that's, you definitely got to be on top of your game.

01:07:19

If you're not on top of your game, you know your limitations, you know.

01:07:25

Aaron, you have any last thoughts that you want to add for this? Yeah. Well, I love that.

01:07:32

I mean, all genuine accomplished martial artists will bring up running.

01:07:38

And, you know, it sounds like a joke sometimes, but I tell my students the first three rules of martial arts are run, run, run.

01:07:47

When we mean that seriously, but I also, I guess, just wanted to kind of piggyback onto what Keith and you were saying earlier about being aware.

01:07:53

I teach my students AAA. You know, AAA, I'm not sure, are they even around anymore? The old insurance company?

01:07:59

They are? Okay. Yeah. So if you think AAA, you think insurance. And one of the things that you can do to a certain degree to ensure that you won't become a victim, is awareness, avoidance, and attitude.

01:08:09

Awareness keeps you paying attention to where your surroundings. Avoidance keeps you away from those places that has the higher potential of being dangerous.

01:08:18

And attitude is the way you carry yourself. That has a lot to do with not being distracted by your phone. That's part of awareness, but it's also part of attitude.

01:08:25

And I'll tell you what, as somebody who has studied the martial arts, who has taught people to protect themselves, who has been brought in to teach women and children specifically, rape victims and so on and so forth, how to protect themselves moving forward, which

01:08:39

I consider that to be a huge honor. One of the things I tell them all the time, a large man consumed with his phone is going to be a far better target than a little woman whose head is up, who's paying attention, whose hair is pulled back, who's wearing clothes that actually make it easier for her to protect herself.

01:09:00

And that's part of that attitude and awareness part. So awareness, avoidance and attitude are three really important things that all of us can do better in order to help protect ourselves and the ones we love.

01:09:12

Matt, any final thoughts you want to add? Yeah, the reason

01:09:17

I do martial arts, there's two reasons. Part of it was just to be in shape, but the other part was to take care of myself because what

01:09:23

I do for a living, but also to defend others. And both of those can be done for the glory of God because he does instruct us.

01:09:31

I've written articles on this, that violence is used in the Bible and God even rewards violent people for their violence of destruction of ungodly.

01:09:41

So if someone's breaking into the house and may it never happen that I have to shoot somebody, that's violent.

01:09:52

I don't ever want to do that. I don't ever want to do that. I don't. But if that's necessary, then that's the obligation we have to protect others.

01:10:00

And I think that this is something that in martial arts, that it's one of the best things is to help others, to protect others.

01:10:08

That's what I would use it for. And that's it, you know, and we have, I tell people about self -defense.

01:10:14

We have the right of self -defense, but not the obligation. We can take a beating depending on the circumstances, if it's for the faith or not, but it's not so much an option when defending others because Christian men in the

01:10:31

Bible are told you defend the helpless, go do it. And so if someone were to tell me,

01:10:36

I'm taking martial arts, I'm learning it, so that I get in shape too, but I can help defend others.

01:10:43

Do it, you know, just do it and praise God that you hopefully never ever have to use it.

01:10:50

I use it my brother once. Yeah, the only time I've ever, I could tell you a story, but I use it my brother.

01:10:56

He picked me up from behind. I just reached back and grabbed, you know, boom, and he dropped me. But once I tell my wife,

01:11:02

I tell her all these wrist locks and she was a waitress at a nice hotel and this guy kept bothering her. I've never used my,

01:11:08

I've never done it, any martial arts ever, never had to do anything. And so I told her how to do this.

01:11:14

Have the guy hold your hand, let him say, you want to hold his hand? And I told him how to get into a wrist lock, get him into a wrist lock, you know, and she did it.

01:11:23

I told him, get him down on the ground, face on the ground, put your foot on his shoulder, lift his arm up.

01:11:29

I had her do it to me, do this, do that. Cause I knew it'd be easy for her, you know, and, and she did it.

01:11:35

And she did it to me. And I said, now, you know, do all this stuff. And I'm going, and she got it right. She did it to the guy.

01:11:41

She actually did it. So she's never taken any martial arts and she's done more than I have.

01:11:48

My martial arts training has kept me out of more fights than it ever saved me from. That's exactly what

01:11:53

I was going to say. You know, I get asked a lot because I do a lot of street evangelism and I get asked a lot.

01:11:59

Do you, do you ever use your martial arts on the street? And I think that what martial arts has done is given me a confidence to know the difference between real aggression and fake aggression.

01:12:11

Someone who's just, you know, I remember being on the street and there was a guy that kept talking about punching me in the face if I didn't stop sharing the gospel.

01:12:19

And he wasn't, you know, he was, he was boasting for his friends. You could see it by the way he's turning to his friends every time he'd say it.

01:12:27

Now, this is a guy that he, he got in my face and I'm standing on a box and we're eye to eye.

01:12:34

Okay. So, and, and he looked like he was probably 350 pounds of pure muscle. And so I, I, I didn't want to get into a fight, but I had the confidence.

01:12:45

I still remember I turned to him. I said, look, I got a question for you. But before I get to my real question, I just want to establish some things. I mean, clearly you're in the gym.

01:12:52

What, like three hours a day, you're all buff and stuff. And he like sticks out his chest and I'm like, okay,

01:12:58

I, I think I got him. But I'm like, look, here's the thing. You're clearly in the gym working out.

01:13:05

I'm an old scrawny guy. Okay. And so, I mean, don't you think if you were to, to beat me up, don't you think you'd look pathetic in the eyes of your friends?

01:13:17

And he turned around to look at his friends for assurance. And once he did that, I knew I had him. When he turned back to me,

01:13:24

I go, here's my question. I leaned into him. I go, what if you can't? And he just sat there and went, oh, like I just realized that one way

01:13:35

I look foolish and the other way I look more foolish.

01:13:41

Either way, I don't win. He just looks at me and goes, man, you ain't worth my time. And he walked off. There wasn't real aggression there.

01:13:48

Okay. But I have used the martial arts to defend others. I had one of my, a guy who heckled me for 13 years in New York City, vile individual.

01:13:58

But what changed is when he got sucker punched, he was right to my left side. And I saw his

01:14:04

Bluetooth device fly in front of me. And I didn't even think it was just reaction. I jumped off the box, jumped in front of him to protect him from his attacker.

01:14:13

And it was interesting because he had told his friends that I had moved so quickly that he fell backwards because he didn't know what happened.

01:14:22

The guy that attacked him saw how fast I moved and ran. Nothing needed to be done.

01:14:30

And so it actually changed. He actually started to have a lot more respect for me after that. But I've used it in that.

01:14:35

I had once where a friend of mine, Mike Stockwell, he was up preaching gospel. And there was a guy who was drunk and he really was someone who was aggressive and would have done violence.

01:14:46

And so he started running like, you know, he was yelling at Mike and walking off.

01:14:52

Mike made a quoted scripture that, you know, cowards flee when no one's chasing them. And he turned around and started running toward Mike.

01:15:00

And I just positioned myself in the drunk guy's way. I hip -tossed him, but I didn't throw him to the ground.

01:15:09

I actually guided him so he didn't hit the concrete hard. And then I pretended like it was all my accident.

01:15:14

I was like, oh, I'm sorry, sir. I got in your way. I got in your way. And he was now all embarrassed. And his friend got there.

01:15:19

Now he looked like I'm helping him up. And I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry. I got in your way. And I just totally diffused it.

01:15:26

But the martial arts gave me the confidence to do that, to know when I can talk my way out of situations.

01:15:33

I mean, so the goal is always to recognize real aggression versus fake and know when to run away, you know, get away from the situation.

01:15:42

But let me - I would have pushed him into the other guy and then run. Yeah. Push him into Matt and then run.

01:15:48

Just push him, you know. But here's the thing. Matt was joking about gunfu or glockfu.

01:15:56

You know, there are some people who walk around, conceal carry and figure, well, hey, I don't need defense because I have a, you know,

01:16:04

I can carry concealed. I know the answer I would give to this. Aaron Brewster, you're within a, say, three to five feet.

01:16:15

You have a choice. The guy that you're against has a gun. Would you rather have a gun or nunchucks?

01:16:25

Would I personally rather have a gun or nunchucks within five feet? Oh, I like that option.

01:16:30

Can I have guns that are like connected by a chain? So it's like a gun chuck. Can I have a gun chuck?

01:16:38

Hit him in shoes at the same time? Well, I actually, I'll tell you this. If I'm within five feet of somebody,

01:16:44

I'd much rather he have a gun than have a knife. A gun I feel far more comfortable with defending myself, even if I don't have a weapon than if he had a knife.

01:16:54

If he has a knife, I want to carry a gun and a knife. Exactly. I've got to both keep me away no matter what. But no, like, yeah, if I, I mean, if I had a pair of chucks that were easily accessible and you know, most people don't walk around with those.

01:17:06

I would take that over the firearm because when it's all said and done, I will have the chucks and the firearm, just his firearm.

01:17:13

Yeah. And I've been in a position where I remember in high school, someone pulled out nunchucks on me.

01:17:21

And unfortunately for him, I'm actually skilled with chucks. And so he was very scared when he was doing what you'd call figure eight motion.

01:17:32

And I grabbed it right out of his hands because there is a way to, you can train for that. And I've trained for that.

01:17:38

And so I took his nunchucks away and he was very scared at that moment because what he thought was his weapon certainly wasn't.

01:17:45

And so that's the thing. Like, don't think that just because I have a gun or I have a knife that that can protect.

01:17:51

I mean, I typically will carry, you know, when I can, I have a gun,

01:17:57

I have a knife and I'll usually carry a cane. I walk with a cane a lot of times because I need a cane.

01:18:03

No, but it is a, specifically my cane is a very heavy wood that I got from Israel.

01:18:11

And it is, it will hurt. And it's, it is a weapon. And so, and they let you take it on airplanes.

01:18:18

And they let me take it on airplanes where they don't let me take my guns and knives on the airplane. Ballpoint pens. Yeah, I have tactical pens with that you can get these.

01:18:27

I mean, they're not very expensive. And, and if you know how to use them, they could be as dangerous as a knife at close distance.

01:18:35

So to the, to the point about the weapons, just as a side item, it is, your odds of survival and not getting hurt grow exponentially when you have something in your hand that is super valuable.

01:18:50

But there's a, I've heard this a lot among women, you know, in a similar way, they say, you know,

01:18:56

I don't need to learn the martial arts. I have a gun. I've spoken with women who say, well, I don't need to know how to defend myself.

01:19:01

I have a husband. And, you know, Matt's 100 % right. You know, we men, we should make it our responsibility to protect everyone.

01:19:09

Even someone else's wife, you know, obviously if need be, but ladies, if you've ever thought that, that, that is, that is far more foolish than even the idea.

01:19:18

I don't need to learn how to defend myself with the martial arts because I have a gun. That is just a, in many ways, asking for trouble.

01:19:25

Praise God that you've got a man who can help protect you, but you still have a responsibility to the Lord. You might always be around. Yeah, exactly.

01:19:31

And most of the time he's not that particular individual. I joke with people that I just, I wanted nothing more than just a grabber

01:19:37

I throw in the back of my truck and drive around town and dump her off at home. But, you know, obviously that would have been a really bad idea.

01:19:43

But I would have taught her a really good lesson because her husband wasn't around when she told me that.

01:19:49

Yeah. Well, you know, I'll just say as a final comment, as we - I've never done that to anybody but my cousin, just putting that out there.

01:19:57

As, as we, you know, as we close out, I mean, the thing is, is that you want to, you know, we want to give you guys some things to think about as well as, you know, since we're talking about protecting yourself.

01:20:07

And yeah, there's things like guns and knives and martial arts and canes and, you know, tactical pens that you can carry.

01:20:14

But, you know, you'd, sometimes all it is, is, you know, a coffee cup, having a cup of coffee.

01:20:22

You know, if, if someone does, if someone is being aggressive toward you, if you throw something in their face, their natural reaction is to flinch.

01:20:32

That gives you the couple of seconds to run a different way. In fact, in my wallet, in case

01:20:37

I ever get mugged, in my wallet, I have fake money. I keep fake money in my wallet.

01:20:44

And look, they look like hundred dollar bills. And they're, they're, I keep it in such a way that I can toss it away from whichever direction

01:20:51

I'm going to run. But I'm always paying attention as I'm walking at which way can I make escapes from impositions?

01:20:58

So if someone comes up to mug me, I'm going to try to distract them, get them going a different direction than the way

01:21:03

I want to run. So a lot of it is, as Aaron said, awareness, but I hope that this podcast has been helpful for you.

01:21:10

I hope that, folks, you've, you've gotten something out of it. This is a ministry of the

01:21:16

Christian Podcast Community. We do this once a month where we get together and talk different theology, different discussions.

01:21:23

And I hope that you have gotten a lot out of this. Please go to christianpodcastcommunity .org

01:21:29

to check out all of our podcasts. This is a ministry of striving for eternity.

01:21:36

We're glad that you came. We hope that you learned a lot, that you may go out and find a way to defend yourself and others.

01:21:44

go check out all the podcasts that we represented here tonight. See you next time.