There’s this idea in martial arts that lineage is everything. That if you learned from someone who learned from someone who learned from the Big Man himself, you’re somehow legit by default. But let me be clear: lineage doesn’t mean shit if you can’t perform.

Yes, lineage can shape you. It can expose you to solid information. But if your entire value is based on who signed your certificate or what dead guy taught your teacher, you’re not a martial artist — you’re a fanboy in a gi. If lineage alone mattered, where the hell is Kron Gracie right now? With the bloodline and training room most guys would kill for, he should be bulletproof. But that’s not how this works.

What matters isn’t who trained you. It’s how hard you grind, what you test, and whether you’re honest enough to keep learning even when it means stepping out of your comfort zone. Real development happens in sweat, struggle, and reflection. That’s where I live. That’s where I’ve always lived.

I’ve been lucky enough to train with legends and misfits. With men considered gods in their systems, and with people you’d ignore if they tried to talk to you on the street. But truth has never cared about appearances.

Take my early training. I was lucky to start in a Judo program under Joe Turchiano, a name that deserves a second look. A true judo legend. He’s an 8th‑dan now and was a world‑class competitor throughout the 1960’s and ’70’s. Training at the Kodokan, competing in Air Force championships, and rubbing shoulders with Olympians and champions of that era. That caliber of instructor shaped my fundamentals but even at that age, I asked myself: does lineage alone equal performance?

At 12, I joined a traditional Okinawan karate dojo aligned with the Kobayashi lineage of Shorin-Ryu, headed by Hanshi Shugoro Nakazato at the time. Fun fact, he personally signed off on my Shodan grading. That looks great on paper but that goal was not why I stayed.

The owner of that school was a Navy veteran and former folkstyle wrestler who grew up in my neighborhood. He knew my world. He understood that sometimes you’re not training for a sport — you’re training for the bus stop, the sidewalk, the liquor store at 10:45pm. He never put tradition ahead of survival. He respected both.

This man was a lifelong cross-trainer. He attended every seminar he could. He brought in outside instructors from across the country. He encouraged us to do the same, as long as we stayed committed. He taught us that the boundaries of a system are just temporary. They’re scaffolding, not walls.

He’d say, “Go get your ass kicked. Then come back and we’ll talk about it.” That was the ethos. Compete when you can. Travel. Meet different fighters from different backgrounds. Not just to win, but to get uncomfortable, to get real.

I’ll never forget a tournament in Baltimore. You’d see whole families who’d trained together “for self-defense” completely rattled by having to park off-site and walk through the city. It was like they’d left the dojo and landed in a different planet. That was one of my earliest lessons in martial arts self-delusion: most people aren’t preparing for reality — they’re rehearsing a fantasy.

My father was a hoodlum-turned-Vietnam-era Navy veteran who taught me lessons the dojo couldn’t—about grit, improvisation, and survival in real life. He showed me zip guns, jury-rigged weapons, and how to move through the world like you belong. That street-smarts vibe carried me through training and into places certificate-only martial artists never think to tread. He gave me the best piece of advice I’ve ever received:

“Walk like you belong. Act like you belong. People will believe you.”

That’s served me in ways no kata ever could. I’ve used that mindset to walk through places I had no business being in. I’ve used it to get into places others couldn’t. I’ve used it from Long Islnand, NY to visint my family on the island of Barbados as a survival tactic.

We learn by doing. By living, failing, and recovering. By making bad decisions and figuring out how to come out the other side. And that learning doesn’t always come with mats and certificates. I’ve learned from the street, from chance encounters, from the wounded, the worn down, and the written-off.

• I learned how to use brown paper to clot wounds from a homeless man.
• I learned the hard way how much it sucks to superglue and staple your thigh shut after a boxcutter incident.
• And again, my father taught me what weapons you could build from things nobody checks for. The kind of edge you could hide in plain sight.

I’ve been teaching for over 26 years, and the thing I’ve said since the beginning still holds:

“I don’t care who you are — hobo or GI Joe — every man has at least one lesson to teach.”

If you’re waiting for the “perfect instructor” to bless you, good luck. You might wait your whole life. In the meantime, train anyway. Learn how your body moves. Learn what hurts. Learn how to hurt back. Learn from books. From drunks. From professionals. From screwups. There’s no wrong place to learn something real, and no guarantee you’ll get it from someone with a perfect resume.