Full transcript: Chris Kistan on London Real
7:18 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. We are drinking and sponsored by the folks at Bulletproof Coffee, and if you on to business. My guest today is Mr Chris Kistan, who is the principal of Baston House School, which is outside of London, which provides education and development for children aged 5 to 16 years old who had been diagnosed with an autistic Spectrum condition. Just to you, this isn’t all business.
8:31 Chris is a very dear friend of mine. Chris actually taught me martial arts when I first got here to the UK. He gave me my very first Brazilian jiu-jitsu lesson. I remember it distinctly like it was yesterday. This was June 2002, and ever since that day in June I trained with Chris for eight years, pretty much every week.
8:53 Yeah, every week. I got my PhD in Chris Kistan. You did. I did. We would have these marathon two-hour training sessions.
9:02 We would train twice a week It was just really intense. So you taught me a lot about martial arts. You taught me a lot about how to be a man and how to be a better man. And I’m going to try not to get choked up on this episode, but if it happens, it happens. Yeah.
9:15 So I want to say welcome to London Real. Thank you, and thank you for having me. It’s an absolute pleasure and an honor. Thank you. You know, we’ve been doing this for about two years, and the reason I know that is because it’s taken me two years to get you on the show.
9:30 It’s all about timing, and on that note, with the two-hour training session, do you remember daylight savings? Yes, turned up an hour early. We had a three-hour session. Oh, it was a three-hour session. Three-hour session.
9:39 Okay, that’s what we just went through. Didn’t we went through it? Yeah, we would do an hour in the ring including sparring and then an hour on the mat including sparring, and we had epic sessions. I think we did, we did two hours. I got the shakes, and then I got, Dr, I got the shakes.
9:54 We had something to drink. We went for it. I think an Al was just sparring Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get the shakes, so I think we used to joke, because I think one time you came out of the closet when I was waiting in the room, and you opened up the, the equipment closet and walked out, and I was like, it’s true, you’re a cyborg. That’s right. Yeah, that’s right.
10:10 Yeah, and they trust me to work with kids. Yeah, I know. We got to get into this kids thing. You know, you know, I’ve known you for a long time. You are a, you’re a very intelligent guy.
10:19 You’re a, you’re a very capable guy. You have a, almost a military discipline about yourself and what you do. You know, you’re, you’re also a tough guy, you know you, you trained out at Extreme Couture in Las Vegas. I think at one point they said move out here and basically you know, become a fighter and probably a UFC fighter. I think you could have done that.
10:38 You know, you could have I’m sure worked in the city like I did. You know, you could have been a lawyer, a doctor, but you know you chose to be a teacher, and I just, and I know that you know throughout your career you took a few paths away from teaching, and it always brought you back. Yeah, and I want to know why, why teaching? You know, I’ve lost myself on that question time and time again, and I think a huge part of it may be almost in my blood. I mean, my dad grew up in shipping, and, um, you know, he went from having no qualifications as such, but a lot of experience, a lot of life skills, and a lot of life experience, and he managed to get himself to a place in a company where he got his foot in the door.
11:17 Started off as a cleaner, working, taking care of the place, put himself through college education, and then got himself on the shop floor as a, as what’s called a machine tuner in a, in a huge, um, cotton, and then worked up to become one of the floor managers, and then got into training, and then became head of their training department, um, what’s now called the CPD department or personnel department. So I mean, my family is a testament as to what could happen with the proper education and almost the right aspirations. Okay, this is in South Africa, right?
11:48 In South Africa, yes. As you can tell by my accent, I’m not your typical Londoner. No, nor my English. I’m South African, and I guess I’m what happens when a you know, when a kind of South African sailor falls in love with someone from a South Asian background and looks like me, and that’s what happens. Well, you know, you are extremely good-looking.
12:05 So, oh, thank you very much. You’re from Durban in South Africa, which is, I think it’s the third largest city, right? It’s kind of one of the trifecta of Cape Town, Joburg, Durban. Durban’s the one not everyone goes to, because it’s the best place. It’s the hidden secret.
12:21 All good people come from dubs. It’s a, it’s, it’s a rough city. Is it? It’s rough. It’s rough.
12:27 Okay, and you know, huge part of it is because the crime is not organized. We’ve got a lot, a lot of legacy tribes that lived there originally that are fighting for turf. We had a lot of migrant cultures come in, uh, everyone’s fighting for turf. Crime is not organized, so you know you will unfortunately get killed for your handbag if you’re a tourist, as opposed to being one of the other cities where people know smartly and intelligently that tourism brings finance and business and makes economy strong.
12:54 Right. Okay, so all right, so that’s why people don’t go there as much. Yeah, and it is, it is a, it is a shipping port, so you know, with shipping comes a few of the unsavory characters. So yeah, that’s, everyone’s fighting for turf at some point. Okay, but it is improving.
13:09 And no, don’t, don’t let me get the place down. It’s, it is a place that’s authentically South African. Okay, and it is the place for that’s called KwaZulu, the Kingdom of the Zulus. Okay, Zulu, the Zulus are right near there, or it is, they are, they are, it’s in a, so Durban’s in a province called KwaZulu Okay, which is the Kingdom of the Zulus, so authentically South African. Okay, and you mentioned your parents quickly.
13:30 Your your mother is, is Southeast Asian? Your, well, my mom’s, my mom’s family is, uh, South Asian. South India in the 1800s, they did the whole move. So when slavery became abolished, there was a huge need for indentured laborers, indentured laborers, sorry. And, um, the, the British ex-colonial guys shipped a lot of South Indian families from the south of India all the way through to the diaspora, which is Mauritius, Tobago, Trinidad, parts of South America.
14:01 And, um, yeah, so her family did the route from South India to Mauritius, spent some time in Mauritius for three or four generations, and then moved over to South Africa where she lives now. Okay, and your father, what, what’s, what was his background? Or his background? My father’s a mix, so we don’t typically know where he’s from. Okay, all right, so he’s from this shipping lanes, is what we call him.
14:24 Yeah, okay. So who knows, who knows, who knows? Okay, he’s, he’s a good mix. Okay. Now, now, what made you come to England, and what were your first impressions when you got here, and when was that?
14:34 Originally came to England in 2000 on what most guys come on, which is a working holiday maker visa. And I did come to England because, firstly, South Africa, being a British Commonwealth country, you know, you do have an education system built around the British system, so a lot of the texts you read, a lot of the prescribed books and a lot of the syllabus is based on British culture. So I had aspirations of looking at, you know, the rolling English hillsides and hedgerows and uh, as we all did, reading Blyton books, and so forth.
15:06 You know, you want to, so yeah, I kind of had this romanticized dream of one day, yeah, walking along the lakes and the Peaks, and then you landed in Sun, and then I landed, I landed in London first and realized that, yeah, they were not hedgerows and so forth and then, yeah, for my first long teaching stint, I ended up in lovely Sunderland. Right? My brother’s in the Northeast lovely, and yeah, um, did a stint out there, which was superb. People are great, and I, and I still assert that the north-east has the most friendliest people in the UK, really and strongest community.
15:37 Okay, definitely. And would you, would you ever go back to South Africa, or are you here to stay? I, I’m here to stay. I’m here to stay, just because, I, it’s, it’s now my home. I mean, I love England.
15:48 I love, uh, London. I don’t think I’ll always stay in central London, though. I may move out to one of the leafy suburbs, uh, but it’s great, especially if you love travel, if you love meeting people. London’s, London is the best city in the world. I mean, in no other city in the world can you walk down the street and hear people speaking Japanese and get a good Chinese takeaway and get a good Turkish kebab place.
16:08 No other city has that. You know, everyone says New York’s great. New York’s more for, you know, patchwork quilt of different districts. London’s a proper melting pot. And yeah, go on.
16:19 No, I remember after training one time I was like, what are you going to eat? Which is quite a topic, a big topic after training, and you were like, I think I’m going to have a goat’s head curry, and I think you did. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s the whole kind of social glue, meal, meal time, and what you eat tells you a lot about who you are, where you come from. I mean, I’m, I’m a peasant food kind of guy, so I’ll eat all the entrails, the awful, the feet and the, um, end trails and so forth, because it reminds me of when we grew up as kids.
16:50 We, we stayed in a one-bedroom flat, and then moved on to buying a plot of land, and you, whatever was cheap, and, and that often involved a lot of awful, and, or, an, and so forth. And, uh, yeah. I love going back to that, because it, it reminds you. I mean, taste is one of those really good sensory precursors. It does remind you, when you smell something or taste something, it doesn’t take you back to a time.
17:12 So yeah, when I am eating those chicken feet, you eat the chicken feet. I’m eating chicken feet. It does remind me of, yeah, that time when, you know, my brother and I went out, took the family pet, whacked its head off, plucked the, plucked the feathers, and, you know, cooked for the family. That’s old school. That’s old school.
17:27 We’ve had many epic meals in L, but one of them was when we, uh, pre-ordered, I pre-ordered them to cook an entire oxtail for us. They cooked it for four or six hours, and they put it on a special oxtail plate. It was like a long, there’s an oxtail plate, there’s an oxtail plate. Yeah, that was tasty. Thank you.
17:44 That was my first and last oxtail. I think, yeah. Is that you haven’t, you never have anything. I haven’t had one since. I haven’t had one since.
17:49 I know, it’s good. It’s good. Um, you know, there’s, I’ve been talking to you for the last year or two years, and, and you keep telling me about the school that you’re working for, and you have this, this extra, like, you know, gleam in your eye when you talk about this place, and this looks like almost like the project your whole life has come culminating to, because it’s just, it seems like a big passion for you, and this place sounds like it has so much potential as an institution, and then you tell me the age range of students, and I can’t comprehend that.
18:18 You would have someone so young and so old. So can you break down what is Baston House, where it is, and what you guys got going on down there? So, Baston House. It’s a private school. Um, it runs as a non-for-profit organization, so a smart charity, as such.
18:35 And we provide schooling, education for high-functioning autistic learners. So learners that have autism. And for those of you that don’t know, autism is a lifelong developmental difficulty, or challenge depending on your mindset, that a young person faces, or anyone faces, and it does involve, or it does challenge the person in the way that they interface with society and interface with the world, specifically about the way they communicate and relate to people and the world, in terms of language and expression of thought.
19:07 Uh, often these kids and learners, they can have really fixed interests and won’t move away from them. They have very rigid thinking, and often there, um, there tends to be a kind of plethora of challenges that come with that. So a learner that has autism will also, may have ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and they may have certain visual impairments, certain physical impairments that come along with that. Okay, so, and yeah, we, as Baston House, our school, we provide schooling.
19:36 Daytime schooling. So sessions start at 9:00 in the morning, and they end at about 3:30. Um, that is going to change soon. We’re now going to open the school out for longer hours. Um, yeah, and we, we educate kids and prepare them for life.
19:49 What is the age range? Starts up at 5, so the youngest learners are five, and they’re lovely, because they’re our stress relief. If you ever want to remind yourself of why you’ve gone into education, you go down to the nursery and you interact with these five-year-olds that are all one-way love. You know, it’s all about give me a hug, or anything. They say no matter what it is, sounds great coming from a five-year-old kid.
20:11 Uh, and they look lovely as well. So, okay, you go there, you do a mock tea party, and the world is a better place. It is, yes. I believe you. And, uh, what’s the other end of the age there?
20:22 The other are the 16-year-old kids. These are the kids that are supremely capable, especially with high-functioning autistic learners, and I’ll say this now: autism is a spectrum, and people’s perceptions of autism is pretty varied. Um, so previously, back in probably the ’70s, ’80s, you had doctors who knew very little or nothing about autism. Autism was confined to the psychology, psychiatry. And then the, you know, the, um, the movie started, Rain Man, and I was going to bring up Rain Man because so many people know that movie.
20:57 Was it the ’80s? Mid-’80s? Yeah, it was. Cruise, Tom Cruise, Hoffman. Hoffman was, and everyone that was, I think most people’s first introduction.
21:05 Exactly. And most people think now that, you know, autism is great. And if anyone listening gets a chance, check out a blog called My Son’s Not Rain Man, by a really interesting guy. He’s a cool guy. I’ve met him.
21:16 Um, and yeah, I won’t say much on that, but check out the blog in terms of not every autistic kid is a savant, which is what the character in Rain Man was, and based on a true story. Uh, a guy named Paul, who I think now is in his 50s or 60s, is a savant who has mastered every single book in the library but yet needs support in getting dressed and ready in the morning. Um, does that movie Rain Man, like, help or hurt you? It helps in terms of raising awareness, making people aware of things.
21:50 It does. It does, unfortunately, make certain parents have expectations that are possibly unreal for certain learners. You know, we all hope, and have the best interest of the learner at heart, but we’ve got a set, real, realistic goals, and hope, hope for the best. But certain carers, certain parents, after watching that movie, and certain individuals, you know, they kind of expect that every single autistic learner is going to be a savant. Okay, and they need to understand it’s not, and they need to understand that, you know, every single autistic learner, every person’s unique and should be treated as such.
22:28 Yeah. I, I mean, I know it’s impossible to simplify kind of what autism is, or how it would be to explain it to someone, but we’ve had conversations where you say it’s, it’s a lot like, you know, really looking inwards, and really looking, focusing on your own ego and what’s important to you, and not understanding that there are other people’s feelings. Or is that a good way to explain? Yeah, because autism, originally, um, originally kind of diagnosed and almost created in Germany, and from the word autism, which means to be on your own.
22:59 And that’s exactly what it is. It is, it is the kind of inward perception that a person has, and and doesn’t view, or doesn’t have the skill to be able to interact with others, and that skill is not readily available. Most, most kind of social interaction cues and social interaction rules need to be recalled from memory from the prefrontal lobe, uh, operations, as such. So if a learner wanted to remind themselves of the way in which you interact with a person, they need to think, think about it.
23:29 It’s a, it’s a set of rules they have, as opposed to what we do, which is we sus each other out. We have a look at the body language, and there’s certain things we say. There’s the kind of unwritten feel that you get for a person, right? With, with, with the majority of autistic learners, that is something that they have to teach themselves to do. Okay, and can they teach themselves?
23:47 Oh yes. It, it, it can be taught, but again, it’s, it’s taught like any other skill that one would have to learn. Okay, so it’s a logic-based… it’s a logic-based. We need to respect their feelings so they don’t get hurt, as opposed to an intuitive. Okay, and you and I know that social interaction is not logic-based.
24:04 If anything, it’s it’s the opposite. Logical, and, and, and it changes. Social interaction in the ’60s compared to social interaction in the ’80s, compared to now. You know, everyone OMGs, you know, and that has changed. You know, the social lingo.
24:20 Everyone hashtags everything, right? So if I walked into Baston House and I spent the day there, what would I notice that would be very different about that school than another school that wasn’t, uh, in the autism spectrum, or would I notice anything different? You wouldn’t. Okay, because that’s the thing. I mean, if one had to go into what’s called a neurotypical school, a mainstream school, for want of a better word, the normal school, if you went in there, you’d see kids having a great time, kids being naughty, kids being kids.
24:49 If you come into, uh, you go into any other autism school, you would see kids having fun, kids being kids. Then you also see kids that don’t interact with others, kids that are maybe quiet, huddled in a corner, kids, um, that are using certain sensory diet tools, for example, you know, looking up at the sun through viewfinders, flicking their hands at the light so that they get that sensory feedback from light. Um, learners holding certain auditory equipment to the ears and hearing it quite intensely.
25:22 Okay, and that too, someone who’s not accustomed to that sensory diet tool would think, oh, why, why, that’s not normal, or that’s not neurotypical? And it isn’t. However, if you come to Baston House School, we’re all high-functioning autistic learners, and this is where it gets really interesting, because on the outset these are verbal kids. And as I said, autism is a spectrum, so you can start off all the way at one end of the spectrum, where it’s the classical autism, or what’s called Kanner autism, which is related to the person who first came, first put autism into a category as such, Dr Kanner.
25:54 And that’s the individuals that typically are not verbal, would not speak, very, very limited, as such. Okay, um, are super sensory needy, as in they need a certain sound playing in the background, or they interact well with that sound, or they need something visual or something tactile, noted as such. They constantly need sensory input, or they go kind of, they go crazy. Or they find, yeah, well, that’s it. Yeah, and I mean, we can, we can be absolutely fine with the terminology we use here, because we’re not in a clinical setting.
26:24 We can call it as it is. Okay, because you’re doing it with respect and honesty, really. So that’s it. Yeah. So at one end of the spectrum you’ve got that, and then at the other end of the spectrum, or towards the middle, you’ve got those learners that that use a few words and are able to use certain scripts, um, and have, um, almost a sensory diet session put into their timetable, as such, so they can have that sensory diet top-up, and then have a good day thereafter.
26:51 And then you come to Baston House. The Baston House typical learner that’s high-functioning autism, when you interact with them, you think, oh, this is a neurotypical, normal kid, until certain things, certain things don’t match. Like, most of the learners are very rigid in their thinking. Um, for example, if you told the learner, right, we’re making sweet corn soup, and the learner was great, we’re making sweet corn soup, and you start and you chop up some onions, and the learner trashes the whole kitchen.
27:19 And you go, well, why do you do that? And after the learners come down, he says, you told me you’re making sweet corn soup. Why are the onions in there? And this is where you realize autistic learners are great for certain people because they’re super logical. Why does sweet corn soup, hello, sweet corn soup, have onions in it?
27:40 Okay, okay. So you have to understand why they’re reacting, and that’s it. I mean, when, again, I’m a principal of the school, when it comes to hiring staff, one of the major things I look for is, is this the right person? Is this someone who can learn? Is this someone who is forgiving, understanding, patient?
27:57 And that’s the thing. Doesn’t matter how many qualifications you’ve done, how much of the literature you’ve, you’ve read, if you’re not able to understand first, and know that behavior is communication, and that learner is trying to tell you something, and it’s up to you to understand what that message is. Right? You’ve said this to me. Important in my own, my own adventures, rearing children, but I don’t think you can say it enough.
28:22 Behavior is communication. You could, and gentlemen and ladies, you can learn that from, in your relationships as well, because you can get angry at the behavior, you can punish the behavior. But ultimately, the behavior is telling you. It’s the most pure form of feedback. Right?
28:35 Exactly, exactly. And we all know it. We, I don’t know what the stats are now, and I don’t have any research to quote, but we know a substantial amount of communication is nonverbal. Yeah, and behavior is nonverbal. If I’m doing something, I’m telling you something, and even if I’m not doing something, I’m still telling you something, aren’t I?
28:52 Yeah, there’s a movie called He’s Not That Into You. That’s communication by behavior. Yeah. Um, well, now take me to when you first started, and then I want to get back to that, but when you first started, and now, what are the lessons that you personally learned as far as what to do and what not to do when dealing with some of these students? So, coming out next month in my book called Chris Kistan Way.
29:12 No, I’m kidding. I want to buy that one. Yeah. So, going back to the first question you asked me, is why did I, why am I in education? Yeah, the first part is, my first part is, yeah, I think it’s in my blood.
29:26 This, this, the strongest answer to that is, because I love it. I have a job that I go into every morning smiling, and no matter what happens during that day, and I may have a tough day, I have moments where I go to myself, I have the best job in the world. I do. I have a job where I get to make a difference, where whatever I have made better for a learner, or I found the piece of that puzzle. And in autism, that’s the really important thing: for some of our learners, they’ve gone to four, five, maybe seven schools, and they’ve ended up at us, and we’ve managed to find that piece of the puzzle that makes it a complete picture, and it’s a different child, a different learner.
30:10 And that is the best thing, because there’s a saying that goes, you know, um, a million years from now, or a thousand years from now, it doesn’t matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of clothes I wore, or, you know, what kind of jewelry I wore, how much money I had in the bank. What does matter is that the world is a better place because I was important in the life of a child. Powerful. Exactly. Okay, that’s it.
30:34 And the child whose life you make better could be the person who finds the next cure for AIDS, or the person who finds the cure for world famine, and the fact that you’ve now made that child’s life better by putting in some kind of strategy or understanding the child, and knowing that this works, you fed that strategy back to the team, to the parent, and then embedded that strategy into the child, so that when a child does get anxious, instead of trashing the class or punching someone in the face, they’re now showing a five-minute card, leaving the classroom, doing a five-minute intense burst of burpees or press-ups, and just getting all the energy out, and then coming back in and going to the teacher. I don’t like the fact that you’ve said, I’ve never been in the classroom doing my work, because I did do my work.
31:15 It may have been for three minutes, but hang on, I did do my work. Okay, is, um, I was just about to ask you, when it comes to, um, the behavior of these children, like I said, is there certain pieces that you found that didn’t work at first, and now you found things like you said, like this five-minute card, where the child can elect to take a five-minute period out? I mean, it seems like you’re on the cutting edge of, like, new research with these techniques, because, yeah, it’s, and everything you do is magnified in these children.
31:44 Is that why you like this school as opposed to a normal school? Because normal school, the kids can come in, they have a good day or a bad day, but they’re not going to trash the school. No, yeah. The reason I like the school is that it’s been the culmination of all my putting together of all my skills into one job that allows me to put together a system that works. And that’s a great thing.
32:06 I mean, I love systems, and I love proc. Are you a bit artistic? Well, we’re, that’s the thing. We’re all on the spectrum, as such. Every one of us.
32:13 The fact that you make sure that your taps are fastly, fastly closed, and that your hot plate’s not on at, at home, you check it 10 or 12 times before you go, or you have some kind of routine where on a Monday you wear red socks, or something like that. We’re all on the spectrum, where we have our strange nuances, as such. But most of us are successful. We’re in, um, in positive relationships. We’re able to either earn lots of money and be independent, or even if we’re not independent, we’re making a positive contribution to society, or your local, your local society, your local community, as such.
32:50 Okay, and you can, and also, um, when things go bad, so when you’re not well, when you’re anxious, you’re able to call up a friend and go, you know what, I really feel like crap, or you’re able to go out and do a five-hour kettlebell session, or you can go down to the dojo and roll with your friends, uh, or you know, you can go out and have those shots of tequila with moderation, and you can chill out, but the autistic person isn’t able to make those choices yet. It’s, yes, has to be taught. Yeah, yeah, that there are outlets to that kind of behavior.
33:21 Okay, uh Yeah, so, go, yeah, again going back to, I ask a lot. Yeah, no, it’s fine. It’s, you wait till I answer I’m off on a tangent. That’s good. So yeah, so going, going back to it.
33:33 Love the job. The company that I work for, Hillcrest, started off as a care group, so they come with a great amount of care ethos, which is, yes, learning is important, but let’s get people in who know what they’re talking about. So they’ve allowed me to put in my mission statement into the school, my vision, as such, and they’ve trusted me, and I’m really grateful for that, and they put together really good support and leadership network for me, to make sure that you know I am supported by them as well, but allowed me equally to do things my way.
34:10 What is your vision for this school for the next few years? I mean, what is the perfect world, um, for autism care, for, at Baston, yeah? Well, I have a vision for every single learner in my school, and the vision is really clear, which is that when you leave Baston House School, you will have four things. You will be independent, so you have all those independent skills, you can do the whole Maslow thing, which is you can cook for yourself, you can make sure you have a shelter over your head, either even if you’re still living with your parents or someone who takes care of you, or you’re part of some kind of consortium that lives together, but you can cook for yourself, you can take care of your personal hygiene and personal medical well-being, and you can access the local health services, and so forth.
34:51 Yeah, you can cook for yourself, you can do things like make sure your shirt’s ironed for the next day, or your dress is pressed for the next day, or hand it into the dry cleaners, collect it, and do that, getting onto public transport, and so forth without any of life’s challenges stressing you out too much. Okay, so that’s the function, that’s independence. The first, the second thing is that again everyone needs to have purpose, so either you do good or do something positive for your local community and society, or you’re part of a company, or you run a business that gives you meaning in life.
35:26 And third thing is that you are able to form positive, effective social relationships, personal, private, as long as you’re able to and maintain those, and they need to be positive. They need to be two-way. I mean, with some of our learners, the relationships are not in the way we would expect, in terms of being comforting and loving, as such, for some of our learners. It won’t, it’ll just be business, professional, but the ability to communicate and to make those relationships effective, that’s what we try and focus on.
35:59 And the last point, point number four, which is possibly the most important, is that when learners leave our school, they leave our school with the tools needed to combat anxiety, promote self-esteem, self-awareness, so that kids know how to have fun and be happy. Okay, those are good missions. I know you mentioned a couple of your students, and I just want to talk about them, because you mentioned there’s one young man that’s got the entire bus map of London memorized.
36:23 Yes, yeah. We, and that tends to be quite common. I’m talking to colleagues in the States and in parts of Africa, South America, and on the continent. We all of us have this young person, or these young people, who are really great with timetables. So anything, anything that has a timetable, yeah, bus schedules, bus map, route maps, the Underground map.
36:44 Our learners are drawn to that and love it, and can memorize it. So we have a young learner who will tell you every single bus route, every single start, every single bus stop along the way from start to finish, every single bus in London. And is this a good thing? Do you encourage them to have these things that they can master, or is that essential for someone on the autistic spectrum? Well, it goes back to point one, when people ask me what works, I put down point one, my way of teaching kids, which is firstly everything you do with kids needs to be structured, predictable and visual.
37:26 So structure, structure, structure is great. Stepping into the whole theme of structure, or the topic of structure, structure shows that someone cared enough to write this stuff down. Okay, that’s it. Yeah, and our learners find comfort in structure, because it tells you what’s going to start, when it’s going to start, and when it’s going to finish, and guess what, it doesn’t change. Okay, so bus routes and so forth.
37:51 Okay, train, train line, journey planners and so forth. They are structure. They’re structured, predictable, they’re visual. Right? So there’s something that learners can hang on to that doesn’t change, because if you think about it, there is a theory, and I do, and I do believe in it as well, I, I do believe in it as well, that some of our learners don’t interact with the world because the world changes too much.
38:16 There’s too much change. I know certain learners who won’t go to sleep at night because they’re afraid of what happens to the million other kids in the world who may die, and that’s tough for them to kind of get their heads around, that there’s other people, and they are going to not be here tomorrow. Okay, okay. So, so it’s kind of an ultra, like I guess you use the word control freak, but they really like the structure, and the way it’s dependability, and it’s grounding yourself, and knowing that I can, I can put my feelings, my beliefs, my hopes into something, and it’s going to be there and always be there.
38:51 Okay, so how is the UK when it comes to comparison to the US or the rest of Europe when it comes to, you know, on the cutting edge of autism, being, you know, having the institutions like yours or the research, or how does it compare? Um, as always, the US and Germany tend to lead the way, uh, in terms of, do it, it’s solid, evidence-based practice. Very scientific, very scientific, because everyone has anecdotal stuff. I have anecdotal stuff, right? And, you know, practice that I’ve known works, and until we check it and get it peer reviewed, we need to be careful.
39:26 And a good case and point that I’ll mention right now is what drew me to autism is the year I finished university, a really interesting article that got published in The Lancet, um, magazine, by an author named Wakefield. I think it was Andrew Wakefield, and that went on to be that article that stopped moms from vaccinating their kids against the MMR, because he postulated that that could be the cause for autism. Right, right. And every, all it took was that article, and it really, it caused a whole generation of kids to be unhealthy, I’m sorry, unhealthy, as such, and if you look back at the article, it wasn’t peer reviewed.
40:08 It was based on a really small cohort of, um, study, so I think it had only five, five to eight kids on it, and you think how is it possible that that could happen? Yeah, so it’s very dangerous just to go on. It is dangerous, just just to go on anecdotal stuff, and as humans we’re, we, so, PR, to just take that anecdote and take that story and run with it. It’s social, it’s social, and I guess that’s why some autistic learners have every right not to trust the social, because, right, where’s your evidence base?
40:38 Right. Yeah, that’s fantastic. Have you learned things from these, these students, these learners? Well, that’s, that’s us, you know, coming back to our interaction over eight years. A huge part of that was me learning.
40:50 It was me learning about you, how to tailor my teaching to teach you, and working, working in school. That’s tough. Working in any special school that caters for learners with challenges is very, very tough. Working in a high-functioning autistic school with learners that have special needs is superbly tough, and you have to be able to learn, and that’s the ethos that goes through my whole school, that we are lifelong learners. Everyone learns.
41:17 It’s a safe place to fail. We want you to fail, because here we want you to feel safe to fail. You can fail, you can make all your mistakes, it’s absolutely fine, because everyone here is okay with that. What matters is what you do after, and that you’ve learned something from it. So, so yeah, the biggest thing I learned is, for a school to be effective, it’s got to have a safe environment where it’s absolutely okay to fail and learn from it.
41:43 Okay, what, as, as the public, like people listening to this right now, like all over the world, what is there anything we can do to be more knowledgeable, or just to acknowledge that these people exist, or is there anything, like, are you always trying to educate people, or is there anything that we should know or know more about what you do? Yeah, the, the usual typical thing is, if you’re if you’re out shopping and you see a naughty kid, and you know, I’d say 80 to 90% of the time you would get the person thinking, come on, the parent, career should be taking better care of this kid. This kid is loud, they’re, you know, they’re not minding their P’s and Q’s, their politeness and quietness.
42:23 Yeah, guilty. Exactly, exactly. And then that makes you question. I mean, there’s think of it this way, and this is the analogy I use. Again, when I train stuff, I go, right, imagine someone in a wheelchair who has no ability to walk, spinal cord severed uh, no feeling, no control in the limbs, lower limbs, and you are out there shouting at them, go stand up and Walk, stand up and walk, stand up and walk, no matter how much you shout and try to make it happen and no matter how much belief you have, yeah, it’s not going to happen.
42:55 Autism and certain behavioral challenges that certain individuals face are exactly the same. They have a genuine, now you can call it disability, a challenge, syndrome, if you want to, but they have a challenge that they face that prevents them from doing what is socially acceptable. And if people understand that, then it moves on from what we have now, which is, you know, we have a medical model of disability, where we say, right, for a disabled person to interact with the world, they need to make certain changes to what they have, so um, they need to be able to go to places that only have a lift and only have a ramp because they’re in a wheelchair.
43:35 Then you have the social view of disability, which goes, hang on, why isn’t society ensuring that every single restaurant, every single school must have ramps, must have lifts, so that these people can access the whole of society. Now, using that analogy and thinking right, when you come across an individual who’s behaving in a way that’s not neurotypical as such, are you questioning yourself, going, do I really understand this person to make a judgment? And if I don’t, what am I doing about it?
44:06 Am I am I, am I, am I trying to be supportive? Um, am I doing nothing, and what does it say about me if I’m doing nothing? Okay, so, think you’re, you’re making a lot of assumptions in those situations, and it sounds like with an autism spectrum person those could be completely wrong. Yeah, yeah, and it’s, it’s easy for me to say, but it’s, it is tough. I understand it is tough, because society being what it is, you do get individuals, if you come across as, if you go up to someone and say, can I help you?
44:34 You most likely will get, you know, you’ll get a response that is quite vulgar, or, you know, going, no, it’s fine, mind your own business, as such. Right? Can I get your quick, quick take on Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder? It’s something that’s, uh, it’s, you know, it’s very popular in the States. Some people are concerned if their kids are being overmedicated because of it.
44:54 You’ve been in teaching for a long time. Uh, you know, what are your thoughts, and do you deal with that at Baston House? Yeah, we do. Um, like I said, autism comes along with other, um, learning challenges that, um, individuals face, and most, most commonly we have learners with ADHD, or, you know, and yes, we have to ensure that the curriculum we give them and the day is set out so that it supports them. So a typical learner with ADHD can work for about 10 minutes and needs a movement break, needs to get out of the classroom and do something physical, so forth, and then they can come back in.
45:31 So we’ll have a structured timetable that does it. It isn’t your hour of reading, writing, arithmetic. We break that down. We have, um, an understanding ethos in the school, where if a learner is out on their own in line of sight, doing something like jumping up and down, enjoying the, the, the four acres of uh, land, we have a little selling point I’m going to throw out there, or feeding the ponies, or interacting with some of the other animals. We, you know, that’s allowed, as long as it’s requested for, or shown politely, with respect, use of a five-minute card, or I need five minutes.
46:06 Um, they leave the classroom, they go outside, they use this movement break, and it is, um, a sensory break. It it is, it is part of their learning. I mean, they are using that to support them in learning, because without that movement break, the anxiety builds up, the energy builds up, becomes too much for one person to sit on their chair and do their work. Okay, um, yeah, so it’s about having the right strategies, the right tools in place. We have these lovely chairs in our school called Hokki stools that allow you to rotate and sit and move about, so you can move, yet still do your work.
46:38 A lot of details. Yeah, a lot of details. There are, there are certain children that work well if there’s music in the background, or something loud in the background, they can concentrate more. Sounds like a, a serious attention to detail. Yes, it is, and we are fortunate.
46:50 We have an onsite therapy team. We have a clinical psychologist onsite. We have an assistant clinical psychologist. We have an occupational therapist, we have, we have two occupational therapists, one that does the strategic research work, one that puts in all the operational bits that needs to be done, and we have a speech and language therapist, because, again, going back to what I said, um, autistic learners interpret things very literally. We, one of, and this is where we as teachers got to watch what we say.
47:17 We cannot use too much figurative language. I remember my first interaction with an autistic learner many, many moons ago in my training days. Um, I was having a discussion with him, so I told him, come in, take a seat, and he walked in, picked up the chair, and walked out. And I was like, oh, here we go, learn, you know, learn a mistake, 101, and I learned from there, you know. Um, we have learners who have gone home and said my teacher is so dumb.
47:40 She said time flies. Now, how can time fly, you know? Things like that. Now, if parents are listening who think their children are autistic, should they contact you, or most people, really, they have to show serious symptoms before they can be in need of your school? Yeah, you know, make sure it’s a concern, and it becomes a concern if the well-being, all the kind of, the, the future prospects of a learner are worrying.
48:07 So if you think that, that, that your child or young person that you care about may have difficulty in being successful, forming good relationships, being happy, or just being an independent, then you go through the normal channels. Contact, speak to your medical advisor, your doctor. Um, health advisor, um, get an assessment done if you think you need to. Um, some schools are really good in getting assessments done. Um, speak to your special education needs coordinator at the school, or speak to the team around the child in the school, and yeah, firstly make sure that you know your perception of what’s going on is validated and is backed up by it.
48:47 Okay, yeah, excellent. I want to um, ask about you and martial arts. Why did you first start training martial arts, and what do martial arts mean to you? Um, I first got drafted into the Cobra Kai dojo at the Cobra Kai, never did, uh, Sensei. Martial arts for me, so I, a good part of my family is from a military background, um, so we had uncles who would, you know, give you a really good judo throw, and show you how to, you know, box and punch.
49:19 So people ask me when did I start learning martial arts. I can’t really tell you, because it’s always been around me as a kid. My, my good, my dad was a good judo player. As kids, used to teach us judo throws. Uh, fear of my uncles were really good boxers, kick, kickboxers.
49:35 Grew up in South Africa. Durban has a huge, used to have a huge following of kickboxing, dojo, and then went on to have lots of tie boxing dojos. Did your dad used to train martial arts in secrecy? Yeah, he did during apartheid. Yeah, during the apartheid era it was illegal, or, you know, if you were, if you were a Black community group that was caught training martial arts, it could easily be seen as a militant group forming, and then, yeah, you would, you would get, you would go missing for a long time and probably never return.
50:05 So I have this, I had this really cool photo of my dad doing a judo throw in what appears to be a community hall, wooden floors, no tatami mats or anything like that. Those, these were hard guys. Yeah, and, um, and the other pictures that you see, two guys throwing each other, and you see all the guys around who are in their tracksuit bottoms, and they’ve got nothing, they’re topless, and you realize these guys were so poor that they all clubbed in to buy one gi jacket, and they would share it, and they threw each other.
50:34 They would share jacket, and they would share it. I was like, so you look at that one picture, and it’s, it shows, it shows my dad, one of his friends, and all the guys standing around, and up in the distance, up in the background, you see windows, and the windows are all blacked out by black bin bags. Wow, and that’s blacked out because they didn’t want anyone to see, and they had guys who would look out outside to make sure that no one would come in.
50:56 Yeah, so I’ve got to try and find that pic and maybe stick it up on the website for you. I’d love to see that pic. So it was just part of your upbringing? Part of my upbringing, and then, um, my dad never wanted me to get into martial arts. He, you know, he always wanted me to take the education path, and he always wanted me to get into the usual thing, which, you know, be a good doctor or a lawyer or something, a noble profession as such.
51:22 And, uh, and it’s only in my 20s when he realized that, you know, martial arts took me throughout the world. You know, I, I was fortunate enough to have some really good trainers. Uh, at this point I’d like to raise Michael Atkinson, who now has a dojo out in Brighton, I think it is, or Bournemouth, one of the two. And yeah. really good personal friend and trainer as well.
51:43 Um, Patty Carson, from the good old school, uh, kickboxing in South Africa. Um, yeah, these are guys who are rock-solid guys, who, like most old school guys, knew five or six techniques but made you do it a thousand times until it was perfection. Yeah, like my mom’s food. She knows five or six good dishes, but does them to perfection. I remember you were teaching me an armbar at the dojo at the Third Space gym, where we used to train at Piccadilly, and, uh, it was probably like six months in or a year in, and I said to you, I said, how many times do I have to do this in order to learn it?
52:19 And you said a thousand, yeah, or you said 10,000, one of the two. And I just, my jaw dropped. I was, I was just like I couldn’t even conceive of doing that many of those, but you were right. That’s it. Yeah, it’s like, one, one of the old boxers said that, you know, for every second you spend in the ring, that’s an hour of work you’ve got to do.
52:39 Yeah, I think you told me that quote as well. All right, so you did martial arts. You trained down in Rio de Janeiro with Carlson Gracie, Carlson Gracie, back in the day, where Carlson Gracie dojo was a dojo proper, dojo, where you’d, you know, go up there, and on the mat was Milla Bustamante, sitting there like a normal, ordinary guy, and you know, the all the top five guys, Mario, Mario Sperry would come into the dojo wearing a white belt, shake everyone’s hand, and then start uh, white belt, white belt.
53:07 Yeah, cuz he’d forgotten his black belt coming from work. Yeah, you know, but those were the days. Those were the golden days, the kind of late ’90s, where dojos were open access. No one tried to sell you [expletive]. Um, you know, it was authentic.
53:22 I remember just rocking up at the dojo, and these guys trying to speak to me in Portuguese, and I was like, hang on, I’m South African, and they were like, okay, did you come in as a team? I was like, no, I just came in here, and they’re like, okay, you’re the first South African, you’re not part of a team. Uh, all right, how’d you get, you? I was like, well, because I just put together my last bit of savings and bought a ticket out here, and they’re like, okay, great, where you staying?
53:45 I don’t know yet, can you recommend a place? And like, guy’s like, no, you come stay at my place. So I stayed at, I stayed at the guy’s place for two weeks, and yeah, had the time of my life. That’s old school. Old, you kept teaching martial arts like your whole time when you were in London, and you know, you taught me for eight years, but you were notorious at the gym in the Third Space for not taking on any clients.
54:06 Like people, it was like Fight Club, trying to get into Fight Club to get you to train them, because you would like, you know, wait outside on the porch for four days, and then maybe we’ll, but you know, you were very selective about who you would train, and I was just wondering, well, why did you continue to teach, because you obviously didn’t have to, and then why were you so selective about who you taught? I continue to teach because I love what I do, and it’s great to see an individual go from knowing nothing to being superbly good at something. Now, the difference between martial arts and food technology and cooking and so forth is you go through a cooking course and you end up being able to make a great cake, being able to make lots of people happy, making a good dish, and so forth.
54:52 If you’re put through a martial arts course by someone who has a right know-how, someone who has been able to use martial arts to protect themselves and defend themselves, and do a lot of damage, at the end of it you are a skilled fighter, as in you can choose to defend or offend. And if an individual that I trained, or has come through my training, chooses to hurt someone, they could very easily, and I’ve had people I’ve trained in the past who’ve been able to put an end to someone’s life. You can do that, and I’m very selective about who I train, and the demeanour and the character of the person, because at the end, when you train with any martial artist who’s good, you end up leaving with a skill set that can be used for whatever reason you choose to use it.
55:37 So I need to believe, firstly, that you’re committed as a person, that you are of undeniably good character, and you’re a good guy. That’s it, which makes for a small clientele. Exactly, which makes for a very select clientele in London. Yeah, so yeah, you could count them on one hand. Yeah, you absolutely, your students.
55:57 And, um, what was it like training me? It was an experience. It was, it was great, because you came to me with no learned bad behaviors. You were the clean slate. Totally.
56:13 Yeah, you were the project one. So you know, you, we had to go through just the, the way you moved, your whole body intelligence, the way you put together your movement, and it made me then have to go and think about the way I did things, so I got a chance to break down what I did, uh, and again, another huge opportunity to bring in all to develop my kind of eclectic style of, you know, I’m a, I’m a kickboxer, tie boxer, that’s, that’s my background. Um, and then I got into grappling, uh, and I didn’t go to an all-system school.
56:47 I made these things up as I went along, and I was fortunate to interact with some of the best in the business, and I got these little nuggets from them in terms of what works and what doesn’t, and these were parallel to what I believed in, so I thought, I told myself, I’m on to something good here. And as much as, at one stage, I thought that yes, there’s a livelihood, there’s a lifestyle, there’s a career in martial arts for me, or even a business if I wanted it to be, and it goes back to the whole thing: if you love something, just don’t make it your business. Cuz you were close a few times.
57:21 You almost opened up your own dojo here in London. I wanted, I wanted, I, I, I was involved in the opening of uh, one dojo, and it was what I wanted, so again I went back. I was a consultant for a while, and I set up a really successful Fight Club. Got that going, and I did the usual thing, I got it going, and then I left, and then was really close to opening up a dojo of my own, and, um, the economic climate wasn’t the greatest, and, um, yeah, we decided that it wouldn’t be a good move, especially for if I wanted something to have my signature stamp on it, it needed to be Seven Star.
57:57 It would cost a billion dollars, and the Pentagon would have to be involved, and there’s not many places you can get a billion dollar. So I remember you were talking about your curriculum, and you were going to have any instructor at your dojo would have to, like, um, file a progress report after every training session, and if they had ticked the boxes, and they were even going to have to file, like, a pre-lesson, you know, statement of intent, and it was just like, all by the Kissen book, exactly, and that’s, and that’s what got the, the previous gym that I worked at, that’s what got them to be an outstandingly good gym, is because we took teaching process that’s mainstream school teaching processes and put that into martial arts, unheard of, because your typical boxing martial arts trainer rocks up with pads and an idea.
58:43 Right? What are we going to do? We’re going to, we’re going to hit the pads, and there is no pre-planning, there is no baseline evaluation, it’s not data-based. I mean, who thought of making martial arts a data-based learning system? Yeah, and that’s, and that’s what we had.
58:58 We, you know, without giving too many trade secrets away, we’re going to have precision sensors in the pads, counters in the pads, and so forth, uh, so it was going to be a scientifically based gym. So, okay, will this happen someday? Watch the space. Okay, well, I mean, and in a way it’s good it didn’t, because then you might not have been at Baston House doing this wonderful, no, no, I would yeah, and things for the autistic spectrum children. Um, well, you know, it’s funny, cuz I found you uh, back in the day on the interweb, in uh, in June 2002, before there was an internet.
59:30 I don’t even know if I Googled you, cuz I don’t even know if Google was around. I don’t know when Myspace was. Yeah, Myspace too, but uh, I was literally just completely random. My buddy in New York had just started training with Henzo Gracie, Dan, you know, D, the man, and uh, he said, you got to try this Jiu-Jitsu thing out, and so I went, uh, found you on the web, boom, started training with you, and I, I think we trained pretty much every week after that for eight years, and uh, it was a really important part of my life, because I had come from New York to London in January 2002 as a broken man.
1:00:02 Yeah, I was a shell of a man. I had been crushed in New York, I had had a long-term girlfriend leave me, I had been sacked from my job by one of my best friends, uh, and then the Trade Center came crashing down in my neighborhood, and it was just bad, bad, bad, and uh, I knew I needed to get the hell out of New York or I was probably going to die. I probably was going to die, to be honest with you, and I came to London with knowing no one really, and with a job in the city, and started training with you, and it literally, you really, like, almost built me up into the man I am today.
1:00:39 Thank you for saying that. I was, I don’t know if you know that you were doing that. I bet you probably did. Yeah, you know, people do martial arts for different reasons. Um, there’s certain select members that do martial arts because it’s a confidence thing.
1:00:53 They want to feel better about themselves. Certain people do it because they have issues. They want to beat up on people. You know, I do martial arts because, on just the baseline level, I’m like a dog. I need to be walked.
1:01:07 I need some kind of physical activity. I find being on a treadmill really, really tough. Uh, martial arts is skill acquisition. It’s a bit like the autistic kids needing the physical break. You need, we’re all on the spectrum again.
1:01:19 We all need that, and, you know, and it gives you a great workout. You learn to defend yourself, if, if, if the time ever came. Name for it, and martial arts is an art. You get to express yourself, and if you’re not that person who’s into cooking, or something artistic like drama, or expressive drawing, art, or urban art, or something, it’s tough for you to express yourself. But then you’ve got something that’s socially acceptable, as being the mat guy thing.
1:01:45 You’re shadow boxing, you’re putting all these routines together, you’re sprawling. Your mind’s doing the meditative, repetitive process. You’re fine-tuning everything, and it takes you to a certain place. I’ve always told guys, you know, my girlfriend’s great, she’s lovely, she’s a superbly good girl. The one constant that’s been with me from a kid till when I can no longer sprawl is my martial arts, and even, even, even if I can’t do that, I’ll still get into tai chi or something, because it is the one thing that just keeps me checked.
1:02:13 And for most people who don’t know this, we don’t really have five senses. We have seven sensors. Oh really? Yes, okay. What are the other two?
1:02:20 So the other two are vestibular. One’s vestibular, which is your sense of movement and motion, where you are, and sorry, movement and motion, which comes back to and which comes back to why with certain autistic kids they need swinging therapy, and why kids in general love to be swung around, because it’s that movement sensation, okay, that we love. Okay, which is why, you know, roller coaster rides are so much fun. And then you’ve got your, um, your, your almost um, proprioceptive.
1:02:48 It’s called your proprioceptive sense, which lets you know where you are. Yeah, and that’s why hugs feel great, because if I touch your hand, it lets your, if you close your hand, if you close your eyes and stick your hand up in the air, you know where your hand is, not because you can see it, it’s because the proprioceptive receptors in your body tell you where it is, and if someone gives you a hug, it feels good because all those proprioceptive receptors are being squashed. Okay, so training is good because it keeps those proprioception and your vestibular senses going.
1:03:20 So when you do your burpees, you do your squats, you do your sprawls, you wrestle, it keeps those parts of your senses being fed. It’s a good point you’re saying about the expression, because especially guys, and then the tough guys, you know, there’s not a lot of times a socially acceptable way of expressing themselves, art or singing or whatever, and maybe that, I never thought that’s why I or other people are drawn to those martial arts. And you, you, you, you need that.
1:03:44 You know, it’s a fight. Is it like an opera? Is isn’t it? If you get it right, it has all that dilemma, that sweetness, that beauty, that violence in it. And it’s like a Shakespearean tragedy.
1:03:58 Yeah, yeah, it’s got everything. You know, a few things you said to me once, once, was one, you just said, is uh, you once said to me, training comes first. Yeah, he said after his parents, after our friends, and after his work, but training comes first, and said that to me one time, maybe three or four years in, and it’s always stuck with me, and I, and I get people sometimes are like, yeah, come meet me here for dinner. I have to do this, and I, like, I have to train.
1:04:21 Like, we’ll skip it. Yeah, but no, no, no, no, I don’t, never, skip my training for anyone, because I can’t be me without my training. Exactly. And I have to live with me, and you, you don’t want me anyways. Exactly.
1:04:31 Training. Yeah, and it’s, it’s an investment in your future. It keeps you healthy, uh, makes you feel good. You know, for whatever reason, all, all the hormones that get pumped into you, uh, keeps you healthy, keeps you fit. Yes, and then, you know, the other bits of expressiveness, and challenging yourself, and taking you to that point where, after you’re in the middle of your kettlebell session, where you’re going, what, what am I doing here?
1:04:55 I could be at home sitting on the couch, fried chicken and ice cream. What am I doing here? You know, and that’s the great part. That’s when you continually challenge yourself, and you go, no, not yet, I’m not there. I, I’m, I’ve started this.
1:05:09 I’m seeing this through to the end, and that becomes you. Yeah, I’ve had that moment where you’re mounted on me and you’ve got your elbow down into my neck, and it’s Saturday morning at 10:30, and why am I here? And I’m painful. Exactly, but I’m not going to [expletive] not going to tap, because you’re not there yet. Yeah, yeah, that’s it.
1:05:29 I just wouldn’t want to give you the, it, was not giving you the, I just, it, going out like that. You’re not going out like some punk. No, no, no, I didn’t want to go out. No, well, that, that was, uh, you know, those first couple of years where I was training. It was just a big, a big time for me, and more than once, yeah, I found myself in certain situations, or in the city, or with people, where, you know, it was like, yeah, let’s go do this, and more than once I said to myself, what would Chris think?
1:05:55 Oh no, you did not just say that. I did, and I and I did, and I was like, what would Chris be very impressed with this? I don’t think he would. So many times that came, and then maybe subconsciously after that. But yeah, you had that effect.
1:06:09 Now I’ve got to tell a really quick story before we go. You go, there’s this crazy story about you and me, and I’ll just break it down. It was, I think, maybe a year or two into my training, and, uh, you were going to Rio. Right, this is ridiculous, and so you’re like, I’m going to Rio for two weeks, and I was like, okay, cool, cool. And then, uh, you left, I think, and I had like a week’s vacation coming up, and I was like, okay, um, I don’t have any friends or girlfriend.
1:06:32 I don’t know what the hell to do with myself, and I’m like, I’m going to go to Rio. So I booked the ticket and I sent you an email and said, I’m coming to Rio, let’s meet up or tell me where you’re training or something. I go to Rio. I’m staying in Copacabana, and it’s like day, second day, I haven’t heard back from you. And, uh, this is back in the old days when there was no, you know, there was no iPhones, and roaming charges were like $50 an hour.
1:06:53 Yeah, and I don’t think you could access your, could know, 3G was, you know, nothing. It was a group, I think, a pop group or something. Yeah, yeah, so I’m walking around Copacabana. If you don’t know, Copacabana is a highly dense population. I think there’s like a million people or something.
1:07:09 It’s very dense. It’s crazy. There are people from all walks of life, all colors, all creeds, I mean, and I’m walking down the street and I look up ahead, it must’ve been a hundred meters ahead, and I was just like, what, who is that guy? And you walk, get along, and it’s, it’s not like there’s not any black people in Brazil, everybody, but it was something by the way you’re walking, and I was walking and walking and walking, and I that’s, that’s Chris, and I guess you finally saw me.
1:07:36 And we walked, and I was just like, what the hell? And I assumed you had gotten my email, but you didn’t know. No, I didn’t know. I was offline. I wasn’t even looking at my phone.
1:07:44 All I did was get up, have breakfast, train, go to sleep, get up, eat, sleep, train. That’s all I did. So I’m surprised you didn’t run away and think this is the worst stalker ever. But you took me. I greeted you.
1:07:58 You took me straight to the Hot Blood store. You made me buy a gi, which I still own today, my black G Ninja. Son. Cobra, and, and, and the guy in the store offered to sell me a black belt. Want a black belt?
1:08:14 Like, only 10K extra. And I was like, come on, man, come on, what brand is that? Gringo Big G on it. Oh, Jesus. And now imagine rolled up to, um, the Gray Seas with the black belt on.
1:08:28 So now I got the white belt, and then you dragged me down to, um, uh, Barra, yes, Gracie Barra, where it was Carlos, Carlos Jr. Gracie. And, uh, yeah, I trained down there, and I made myself go for five days in a row. It was actually really hard for me. Talk about autism spectrum. Like, I was not into being social.
1:08:46 Training with you was one thing, but going to a class with the, the dirtiest mats you’ve ever seen in your life, smelliest guys. Yeah, no offense, guys, but That’s some crazy, I, me, I remember looking, it was like a foam there, so many, PZ of DNA in that. But I made myself go every day, and it was really hard, and I remember I went to no-gi Friday, and, uh, that was the first day I actually tapped somebody out, I think, cuz I wasn’t wearing a belt. Yes, so like they didn’t know who I was, and I didn’t know who they were, and I tapped some kid out like six times.
1:09:13 That was the first time ever. Super. But yeah, that was, uh, that was my stocking story. So, um, you know, I always ask everyone on the show a few questions at the end. It’s almost like my Actor’s Studio, you know.
1:09:24 But, uh, so here we go. If you could make a phone call to the 20-year-old Christopher Kistan and give that young man a bit of advice, what would you tell him? I, I tell him everything’s going to be okay. That’s, that’s what I tell him. Yeah, go on.
1:09:42 No, no, no, no, no, no, continue. And I, and I tell him, yeah, enjoy yourself. Enjoy yourself. Just don’t stress about the future. What was that young man doing?
1:09:52 That young man was at a key point in his life, where he was assessing, do I stay in the country I love or do I make that move, and leave my strong community network, and leave my parents, who I want to care for, um, and just jump out there and go for it, and go traveling. Yeah, okay. Uh, on that same note, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received? The best advice I ever received was when I was about nine years old, and I had stumbled across this typical kind of boy DIY magazine that was teaching how to do a paper crane.
1:10:34 So I remember sitting in my dad’s study then, and he was sitting at his desk doing some work. It was about half 11 at night, and I was there trying to fold up this paper crane. I was like, oh, this is really, really frustrating me, and I told my dad, I don’t know what’s happening, I need to do this, and he told me, stop, take a break, go sleep, come back in the morning, and everything’s going to be okay. And I don’t think he even thought about what he said.
1:11:01 He just, cuz I questioned him about it now, and he’s like, Really? Did I say that? And I did. I stopped, went back, did my, you know, end of end of day prep for the next day, went to sleep, got up in the morning, went back to the table, and lo and behold, solution in front of me. I wasn’t folding the paper certain way, and I did it.
1:11:21 That was the best bit of advice: that tomorrow everything looks slightly better. Okay, that’s good advice. The last bit of that question is, what advice do you have to the 20-year-old that’s listening to this, who, uh, you know, might want to get into martial arts or get into teaching, or maybe move to London, you know, get out of his comfort zone? What advice do you give them? Do it, just absolutely do it.
1:11:44 Teaching is a noble profession, and, you know, if you’re that, if you’re that 20-something that has that patience, dedication, you’re absolutely forgiving, the teaching profession needs people like you, and I do know that, you know, the, the government, po that, they are trying to improve the salaries that teachers get, especially in London, but I’ll give you this bit of advice that I figured out on my own: if you love something enough and you do it, the financial security will follow. Powerful, powerful message. Um, you know, when I left the city, I was, uh, I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with my life, and we had lunch, we had dinner, I think, in Victoria Park, um, at the one of the pubs there, and I think I asked you point blank, and I, I would have not asked this to many people in my life.
1:12:29 You’re the only person I would ask this, and I said, what do you think I should do? I remember I asked you that with my life, cuz I really had no idea. I mean, now I’m doing London Real, and, look, I don’t, I don’t try to claim that this was all created. I didn’t figure this out. This wasn’t a plan.
1:12:43 You know, I really didn’t know what to do for six months. It’s not a good feeling for, you know, a, uh, a control freak to have. But, um, I’m asking you now, what is your advice for me? You know, rather than point you in the direction of what I think you should do, I’m, I’m, I’m going to take the kind of every man’s advice, which is, yes, do what makes you happy. Yeah, but if you look back at all those times when you were in that office job and you went to yourself, you know, what I’d rather be, and you had an answer at the end, and you make a list of those answers that you had, so all, all those things where he said, I’d rather be a short order chef, or I’d rather be a school teacher, or I’d rather be an owner of a martial arts club, and you work out how feasible that list is, and off that list you’ll come out with about two or three, and once you have that, two or three, making the decisions easier.
1:13:45 Yeah, I mean, I’m, I’m, I’m hugely about being spontaneous, and, and just, you know, going out, enjoying the world, and making brash, just kind of decisions that are, bam, go for it. I’m all for that. However, I’ll also say, you know, structure, logic, thinking things through makes a big difference, and having a system. So the system I give you is, yeah, think back to when you were in that job that everybody aspires to be, which is the, you know, the paycheck, the bonus coming in, the team.
1:14:12 Yes, you may not like it, but it pays the bills, all allows you to do things you want to. And when you were in that job, and you knew it was tough, and you went to yourself, I’d rather be doing, take all those answers that you have, put them down, look at how feasible they are. You know, have those jobs changed? Are they no longer around? And just go through it.
1:14:31 That’s the advice. So I’m not going to give you a solid answer. Good. I’m going to give you, I didn’t expect that it would be that easy. Um, last question.
1:14:38 What are you going to be doing five years from now, 10 years from now? What do you see for yourself, you know, for Baston House? What is your five-year plan, or what do you see? So I’ll go back to the first question you asked me, which was, why did you go into teaching? So you know, I went into teaching cuz I’ve always loved teaching.
1:14:56 I’ve been reasonably better than average at it. Um, what solidified me being in teaching was that I had two or three really good teachers growing up that were so influential in just me being the person I was. We had a guy named Mr Singh, who was an ex-professional wrestler, and, you know, he was lovely. He was a super kind of guy who would come up to you in the middle of, I went to a proper old school school that was strict on discipline, and he would come in and headlock you and pull you out of the line and go, how’s my boy doing?
1:15:30 And, you know, he’s like one of those guys who had huge neck, huge arms, but really, really genuinely nice guy. And, yeah, schools have changed, society changed. You can’t just go out and give a kid a hug now, because everyone assumes, and has every right to, that there’s some individuals out there that don’t have the best intentions in their heads when they are having physical contact with a kid. So you know, that teacher, he had both. He was a great teacher, really good on the academic side, based all his teaching on really solid principles, made sure assessments went through.
1:16:03 You knew that he loved what he’s doing, but he was a down-to-earth kind of guy. Yeah, yeah. And then we had, at the other end of this spectrum, one of my other teachers, who was the deputy head, Mr Nogan, his name was, and he was immaculately dressed, very well spoken. However, I remember once, um, an incident happened in the school where an outsider came into the school, and it’s the first time I’ve seen a guy dressed in a double-breasted suit put someone in a full-on restraint without creasing a line on that suit and walk them out to school.
1:16:38 So that’s what you want. You want someone who is the almost embodiment of perfection, suaveness, and, you know, this, the teacher, again, you know, exuding that nobility in the profession, but when the time comes, he’s got your corner. That’s the guy you want. And again, yeah, these, so those two individuals kind of inspired me to go with the profession, as such, and also to keep that nobility in the profession, that that’s that teaching. Yes, I know it’s filled with those individuals that have gotten a degree and didn’t do well at something else and then decided, I’ll go into teaching because it’s a regular check coming in.
1:17:15 However, the legislation, government is now making teachers more accountable for what they do, so treating it like a business, you know, your turnover is how well your kids learn, and if you’re not a profitable business, we’re going to sort you out. So yeah, that’s, and will Baston House be bigger in the future? Yes, we have plans for Baston House. Baston House is going to be a bigger school, uh, it’s going to be a school where it is a beacon school that shows others how it’s done.
1:17:43 Yes, that’s, you’re very good at doing that. Yes, um, if people want to get in touch with you, or website, or how can they find out more about, uh, yes? We, we are doing a total rebrand and overhaul of the website, and an all-associated media push, so watch the space. Contact the school, and you can do the usual, you know, Google Baston House. Yeah, use, well, any other search engine that’s fine, and yeah, stick it in there.
1:18:06 Uh, you contact the school, and, um, and yeah, just take it from there. Fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on. It’s been an absolute pleasure, and apologies for the two-year wait. I would expect nothing less from you.
1:18:19 Um, but no, thanks so much. I know I’ve been asking you for the longest time, but it’s good, and I said it before, you know, you’ve been a very pivotal person in my life. You still are. Uh, you’re one of my closest friends, the man I would trust. Um, I think I’ve joked with you before, if I get a phone call late at night and I need to dig a hole, then that will be done.
1:18:38 You just get one hole, though. Oh, that’s it, but you get one. So now that we’ve said that, I guess we can’t do that. We can. Oh wow.
1:18:47 But, uh, um, I, uh, yeah, it’s been a big thing. You remind me of my father, and that, um, you kind of lead by, um, by example. You lead by leading your life, and you know, you don’t tell people what they need to do, but you just do the right things, and so when people see you, they aspire to be better people. Thank you, thank you, Brian. I have to say again, thank you for having me on the show, and yeah, it’s been a journey the past 10 years, and I am ever so grateful that you’ve been a part of it, because both you and I have been through a lot of change, a lot of life changes, not only in business, personal lives and so forth, but it’s really good having you know, one or two friends, and you are top of that list, who’s been there through through it all.
1:19:29 So yeah, well, we’ve got a lot more time to come. So yeah, awesome. As we say on the show, it’s about the journey. Yeah, thank you so much for being here, and, uh, Namaste as they say. Thank you, sir.
1:19:41 Take care. Thank you.
