Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Today we continue our international tour of Ata Nation. Let's get started.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Sir. I will live with perseverance in the spirit of taekwondo, courtesy for fellow students, integrity within myself, and to become a black belt leader.
Welcome to the Ata Nation podcast.
[00:00:25] Speaker C: Um.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: Welcome back, ata nation. This is episode number 94 of the Ata Nation podcast. My name is Senior Master Zach Hayden. I am your host for this broadcast today. We are super excited to be back with you. I just dropped two awesome digital trading cards to people who have kind of our insiders members club card. So if you want to get one of those, you got to go over and get one of our ambassador cards. They're over at Atama Ninja Uncut. And each episode, I drop out a new card featuring the guest that we had on the current episode. So anyways, I was a little behind. I just dropped those. We've got some other ones coming. Chief master Skyles'card is going to get dropped soon. And then our guest for today, which I think we need to get right know, a couple weeks ago, we had Senior Master Cabrera on talking about the Pan American games, and I wanted to get some input on how Ata Nation is doing in Europe. And so I reached out to Master Tenger about his operation in Portugal, and this was just a really fun interview, really neat to connect with our Ata Nation friends all over the globe. So let's get right to it.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Special guest interview.
[00:02:09] Speaker D: Ata Nation. We're super excited to be back with you today with Master Tenger from Portugal, another international guest that we're having today. I'm super excited about this. How are you doing today, sir?
[00:02:22] Speaker C: Hi, sir. Very well, and it's really good and an honor to be on the Ata Nation podcast.
[00:02:29] Speaker D: Well, you know what, we did an interview a couple of weeks ago about the Pan American Championships, and I was like, you know what? We got to hit some Europe guys. We got to talk about what's going on over there in Europe. So before we talk about how Ata is going over in Europe, and I know you guys are doing amazing things over there, I'd love to hear a little bit about your backstory. I know I saw an article somewhere at one point about you had this lawyer corporate job or something, and then we're like, hey, I want to just kick people, so give us a little background.
[00:03:02] Speaker C: That's exactly started. Actually, my longer background is even a bit crazier in the sense that my father is a diplomat. So I kind of traveled the world when I was really young throughout my life, and I landed eventually in Portugal. And because I was feeling so not really adjusted for having traveled so much, I started training martial arts, and it was where I found my happy place in a way. But eventually you get to that age where you need to go to university. And being an instructor, a professional instructor at the time, was definitely not a possibility because it didn't exist over here, so there were no references. So I went to study law and eventually started also became a lawyer. But while I was studying law and while I was being a lawyer, I always taught classes after work. So I was teaching martial arts after that one day, it was the law firm I was working at, which is abridge here in Lisbon. Sponsored my trip over to Little Rock, Arkansas.
And that was the first time I went to world championships. And that was in 2008. And it was then that I looked around and never came back, in a way. So I came back to Portugal, but never came back, really, to law. So that's when I decided I need to do this for my life. This is something I really love. This is where I feel 100% myself. And I saw so many people from around the world, and you were talking about the Panam, and I saw all the South Americans. All the Americans is like, Come on, if this can work in all these countries, I'm sure I can make it work. In know, it took me a year to really take the step, because you need some preparation. Not that I had a lot of preparation, but it took a year to do that step and eventually opened the first school in Portugal.
[00:05:09] Speaker D: Wow. I'm sure your law firm was really pleased that they sponsored your trip, then came to you leaving the job.
[00:05:17] Speaker C: No, they were actually, and I have great relationship with them, and I go there often, and they asked me even today they asked me to go talk with their trainees to show that their culture is not all about because they're not very traditional law firms. They're very progressive, a bit like us as well. And so, in a way, in the sense that they like to try new things and have new angles on things. So I'm actually a good example of their own culture. So they're very proud that I followed my steps to do something that I love, actually. So it's pretty cool. I'm happy with that, because if I had left with them, being angry would not have been such a powerful experience.
[00:06:05] Speaker D: Yes, sir. Well, so you said that in Portugal, are there professional martial arts schools? Is that something that exists there?
You said it was something that there wasn't much of an example for before, but is it just a smaller niche, kind of what's the martial arts environment there?
[00:06:29] Speaker C: Well, when I opened the school, it didn't exist. So what happened was that you have a lot of martial arts happening around. You have the karate, the judo, even the taekwondo, the Olympic style. You had some, but everybody was an amateur. So everybody would work after their own full time job, and they would teach. So there was no real full time operation or instructors that were professionally teaching like we do, and especially with this offer of kids through adults that didn't exist. So when I opened the first school, it was really literally the first martial arts school in Portugal.
To be honest, even I had never been in a martial arts school before I opened my own. So it was more about seeing what I could see in the US. What you did, and also going to a couple of seminars at World championships where, you know, I remember very well chief Master von Schmelling speaking at the time, which was somebody I had very high in reference because he had a multiple school operation. I was like, always heard of him. And I heard some of his seminars. I heard other seniors in the Ata talking about how they planned their schools. And I got back and I said, okay, so this is pretty much how you open schedule and how you run a school. So let's try that. And that's pretty much the framework I had. And that's when I opened the first one. Then two years later, Master Amaral and Master Montero, good friends of mine, and we tested for black belt together and had our journey and became masters together.
They opened their own school. So we started working side by side a lot, helping each other, and eventually merged into one school. And we opened more schools. We have now six schools, but also other school owners follow the example. Mr. Vermiludo or Master Candidate Vermiludu now opened his school. Mr. Kazimiro. Master candidate Kazimiro opened his school. Ms. Hosha opened her school. Mr. Freight opened his school. Now suddenly we have here in Portugal, I think we have around twelve professional schools, and funny enough, other martial artists or other like a boxing boxing instructor that worked with me in the early years opened his boxing school. A kickboxing guy, very good guy here also was a good friend. And he opened his school because so people started seeing that it was possible to open martial arts schools or commercial schools. But the business side is still very underdeveloped in Europe. Very underdeveloped in Europe.
[00:09:28] Speaker D: Wow, we have a lot to grow.
I was going to ask if your guys'example has fostered this, and it sounds like it has, what was it, the five minute mile or whatever the mile was. Once somebody done, everybody's like, wait, we can do this.
[00:09:46] Speaker C: I want to do yes, that happened a lot. And then also you had a master busk in Barcelona.
She had already we hadn't met before, so I opened my school, but then we met like a couple of years later, and she had already a school in Barcelona, so she works professionally very well as well. And the, you know, here in Portugal, we have Masabuskin in Barcelona area. In Spain, you have Mr. Holmes in the Netherlands, who started with me.
Then you have in Sweden. They have a club there. Then obviously Chief master Schreiber joined know he came from the US. And he opened his started with a Know and he restarted everything. A really cool story. And now he has a full time school that's going really well for him. Mr. McCulloch in some you already have an Ata, very interesting community over here. But overall in Europe, the industry is nothing compared with what you have in the US. And even in with South America. So we still have a long way to go, which is also, if we look at it, can be a very good opportunity.
[00:11:03] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like you have had really good success there, which kind Know, it makes Europe kind of seem like the new land to go in and be able to do some things there.
How did you get hooked in with the Ata specifically and how has that helped you branch out? Obviously now there's a focus in Europe with Chief Master Schreiber over there and some other things. So how did you get started in Ata?
[00:11:40] Speaker C: So when I started, I started with now Master Reyes. Master reyes came from South America. He actually trained in the same club than Chief Master andraji from Brazil.
They were in the same class. I mean, Master Reyes is a bit older and he was a little bit higher rank, but I think a few belts higher rank. And so he's from that generation. And when he became a black belt, he decided to move to Portugal and start his life here. And he found out that the thing that he liked the most doing was teaching taekwondo. So he started a club and then eventually he started in Lisbon. And where I started was in Kashkaij, which is 20 miles away. So I started with then Mr. Ray.
And it was a very different system even at the time because I did karate, I did Judah, I did other martial arts and when I was smaller. But when I went to Mr. Ray's school or club at the Know, I felt this know, this environment is so know, where people are respected and it's a good atmosphere. And I was uplifting and they knew my name, like, wow, this is really nice. Small details that we know are from the instruction points and all of that, but make it so special.
And I said, wow, I feel really good here. So I came back, and when I came back, he knew my name, still knew my name. I was like, oh wow, this is so different. And I just got captivated by the whole Ata history story, the belts, the philosophies, the narrative around it. And this to say that that was very important because it was not about the punching and the kicking. It was about the transformational aspect of the process of learning.
And once you go through it, like many of us, you feel like you want to give it back. So it was very important to be with the fact that it was an Ata origin was the narrative, the philosophies that made me want to do this for my life.
So that's very.
[00:14:08] Speaker D: Know as an Ita guy my whole life.
My guess is it would have been more difficult for you to go, hey, let's do this full time in a country that's never done this full time. If you didn't have something like the Ata where you came to World Championships, and there's all these school owners who are like, doing this full time and making a career out of it.
[00:14:31] Speaker C: Oh, absolutely.
I didn't even bridge it to that side. But definitely if you go further a few years and you see the whole structure that you have behind.
And 15 years ago, when I opened the school, you already had a lot of structures in place with the instruction course that was really much more advanced than anything else in the martial arts industry. If you want to say that and the whole structure behind it, the World Championships, definitely that helps you give the confidence that you belong to something much greater than you're. Just your little club or your little school. The other side of the ocean. So that really gave me confidence to move forward and even looking now, one thing I really appreciate with everything that the Ata has been doing and we keep on doing, all of us, even together, is this 15 years later, you even have more material. We even have so many more specificities on the programs, on marketing, on so many things that help us run better schools and create a better community. So definitely that's super important.
[00:15:40] Speaker D: Well, and you guys have probably been one of the I know a lot of our people across the globe, though. Obviously, COVID was a horrible thing, zoom and doing classes with headquarters, doing seminars and stuff with headquarters. Now we enjoy in the US. Too, but being able to connect more often, I'm sure has been a benefit.
[00:16:04] Speaker C: As sure, for sure. I think one of the good things, one of the upsides of zoom of COVID was definitely we found out that we're not that far away. And I think we all thought the same, like, why don't we train more together? It's like, is this that easy? So it kind of brought us up together. It brought us together for sure. Absolutely.
Even one of the things that I remember and I remember dearly, from the COVID era was the trainings we had with so many seniors from the Ata just sharing the love, come on, let's zoom in and we get the students together from all over. That was very special. That was very special.
[00:16:42] Speaker D: Yeah. Yes, sir.
Go ahead.
[00:16:47] Speaker C: No, sorry to interrupt. Just to say even now, like, things like this, this is something so important that we are really when I started, I opened the school 15 years ago, it was clearly Ata was mostly us, focused by obvious reasons. And then you had some South America, but mostly us. And I really, really appreciate the efforts on making this Ata Nation concept and reality of us being all, wherever we are, we are the same nation. And that's so, so important. And it's so important and just wanted to share with everybody in the US and everything. It's so important for us overseas to feel that we're part of the community because we feel like we are. And it's really important to have these moments with you all.
[00:17:45] Speaker D: Yes, sir, I agree. I think where we've come kind of post COVID learning that the world is much smaller, we can connect more easily.
I think being able to interact, like you said, ata has worked really hard in the last couple of years at South America, really bringing that together.
Europe with Chief Master Shriber moving over there and helping connect and everything. What do you see as the future, next 510 years in Europe for Ata Nation?
What would you like to see?
[00:18:26] Speaker C: Well, I would definitely like to continue opening. I feel the momentum happening. There are more and more professionals. So I believe the growth has been bit slow if we want to think about it, because we're the first professionals going on the field and there are some nuances to the product. It's some things that we need to understand. Europe is a lot of countries together. Each one is very specific, very different language, very everything. But slowly, as you have a bit more professionals, I believe that growth starts to be more exponential because each school will produce one more instructor. And the more schools you have, suddenly we'll duplicate Triplicate. So what I would like to see for sure is for once me in my schools, we continue growing to set the example and to set the bar as high as we can. And probably go to other countries if we can. But also see that set the motion for other schools to start operating also and open multi school operations as well.
And hopefully inspire people not only to grow from Europe inside, but also attract maybe instructors from America, South America that want to move to Europe and that see that this can also be the new El Dorado of Know. But actually they can see opportunities and grow like that. And also if we can inspire other martial artists that are already operating here to join us. So we have all these three streams, right, that we would like to grow. But mostly if I want to cut it short, is I really want to see our operation as a whole as the Ata grow, open more professional schools.
And one thing I think is important as well is that we open because each school has their own personality, right? If you look at that, like each brand has their own vibe to it and that's really important because it creates a diverse ecosystem where you have different types of schools operating under one big Ata nation culture. So that's really what I hope happens in the future.
[00:20:48] Speaker D: Yeah, well, I'm super excited to just continue to see what's going on there in Europe. After we talked about the Pan Am Championships, I was like, hey, when my kids are a little older, I'm heading to that well, European Championships one of these days. My family is going to come out there then, too.
This growth of Ata nation just makes it so we can all travel cooler places.
[00:21:14] Speaker C: Yes, and I hope we can.
I was supposed to go to Panam this year, and for some specific reasons, I couldn't make it. So it's something I promised Chief Maternadi and I promised the South American community I will go next year. It's something I really want to commit to. Because of that, I think we really need to connect at all levels here in Europe.
We're trying also to bring many seniors not seniors specifically, but very good trainers from all over the world to create that community. Our European camp will be from the 26th to the 20 eigth of April, so if anybody wants to come over, please do. It's a tournament. It's not big like the Pan Am, but it still counts for points. It's an a class tournament. It could be a good time to come over with the family and just compete and be part of this family as so. Yes, I think really it's really important that we keep on creating these bridges so people see know might as well go to that tournament there or well, just take the plane the other side and go to Lisbon and compete there. Why not?
[00:22:28] Speaker D: Yes, sir. I mean, it's a business expense to know to a great location and hang out.
You know what? We'll have to have you on early next year to talk about the European camp and the tournament stuff, get some more information to people about that, because I agree. I think we are seeing more people from the US. Head to the Pan American Championships. I would love to see that as well on the European side. And I don't know if it was just the way it felt to me this year, but World Championships this year, I felt like there were even more international people than we've ever had before. I don't know if that was true numbers wise, but it just felt that way, and I love that. I mean, it's just getting to see at and nation as a whole.
[00:23:15] Speaker C: Look, we brought from Portugal, our largest group ever. So I think Brazil as well. So it is probably but also, I have to say that the organization of the World Championships did indeed make it also special for the foreign contingencies to be represented. The flags with the parade, that also makes it very special. And again, it's these details that when you're from overseas, you feel like, okay, this is really good.
So I think that also created a very special energy to it.
And again, the more we do these types of traveling around, also the more competitive our teams come. So even from the US. Or South America wants to come to know. And you're coming here, you're also setting an example of what the level of competition is outside, right? So it really helps us also grow. And because of that, we had Senior Master Isaacs come over for the past two years. And because of his influence and going to worlds and everything, this year we had one of our young adults become world champion in sparring, which was a huge thing here. Huge impact.
[00:24:34] Speaker D: Yes, sir.
[00:24:35] Speaker C: So these things are really important in the future of Europe and of the Ata in general.
[00:24:42] Speaker D: That's awesome. Well, sir, I greatly appreciate your time today. It is awesome to connect with more people in Ata Nation all across the nations.
So thank you very much. Any last words for our audience today?
[00:24:56] Speaker C: Well, I just wanted to say thank you again for having me over. And just wanted to say to the audience that the Ata Nation is a true thing. We are all connected, no matter where we come from, we are all connected with the same story through the same experiences. And the more we share that, the stronger we'll be.
[00:25:19] Speaker D: Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
[00:25:21] Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Listener feedback.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: Well ata nation. I hope you enjoyed that. I thought it was super cool to hear from our friends over in Europe.
What a great community we have. What a great Ata Nation, as we say. So super cool. Now, speaking of Ata Nation, I would love to hear from you guys out there in Ata Nation. Reach out on Instagram, send us a DM. Let us know who you'd like to hear from. If you follow us on Instagram, one of our good friends of the show is Grandmaster Caruso, and we've got an interview with him next week. What other interviews would you like to see as we get close to episode 100 of the Ata Nation podcast? Pretty excited. We've got a lot of great things in store, but we want your input. What would you love to hear? Who would you love to hear from?
We'd like to know. Inquiring minds like to know. So ladies and gentlemen, that's going to take care of our episode for today. Make sure that you are out there taking action.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: Thanks for listening to another episode of the Ata Nation podcast. Be sure to subscribe and share with your Ata family.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Secret part. Hey, guys, next week we've got our episode with Grandmaster Caruso. We're talking all about self defense in that episode. And then then we'll see. We've got Pittsburgh is coming up real soon, so we might take a quick little break. We're going to get to episode 100 before our end of the year break. But I'd love to hear who you want on the show. Who would you love to hear? I've got some thoughts, some ideas, but I want to hear from you guys, so shoot me a message. Take care. Bye.
