Thai Boxing Association of the U.S.A. 

   Articles

Interview with Dean Lessei

by Ryan Blackorby

TBA Instructor Ryan Blackorby, of The Peoria, IL Thai Boxing Club, conducted this interview June 28, 1997.   At 29 years of age, Dean Lessei is the director of the TBA for the State of Iowa, headquartered in Dubuque.  He has two children, daughter Savannah and son Luke.  Dean is a Tool and Die mold maker by trade.  He began his martial arts training in 1982 and 5 years later started training in Muay Thai, receiving his TBA apprenticeship 1991. This interview is from TBA Newsletter Vol.1.1.

TBA Instructor Dean Lessei

Ryan Blackorby:  What are the primary arts that you have studied?

Dean Lessei:  Tae Kwon Do under Lee Merrick and Ben Springer, I’m an apprentice in Jun Fan /JKD and Kali under Guro Dan Inosanto.  Jun Fan/JKD grappling under Larry Hartsell. I’ve studied Kali and Jun Fan/J.K.D under John Fehling and Tim Mousel.  Muay Thai under Ajarn Chai Sirisute.  I also studied under Rick Faye (Minnesota). As well as Judo under Terry Smith and Jeff Lang, and Kickboxing under Mark Streator and Boxing training under Pat Swan.

R.B.  Which of these Arts has most influenced you?

D.L.  I’d have to say Muay Thai has been the most influential in my life because it helped me find out a lot about myself as far as pushing myself to the limits.  It helped me overcome fears, getting in the ring and to deal with contact.  I was a little gun-shy in the beginning.  The discipline I learned from pushing yourself toward the goal, the dedication.

R.B.  What is your ring experience?

D.L.  I was Thai Boxing commission Heavyweight Champion of Midwest 93-94.  And I retired undefeated from a short but successful Kickboxing/Muay Thai career with 6 wins, 3 KO’s and no losses.  As well as the Heavyweight full contact stick fighting champion ‘91 (recently Dean won the HWT division stickfighting championship in Waukesha, WI on Nov 1, 1997.) 

R.B.  Then to continue on that line of thought.  What has fighting and training for fights taught you?

D.L.  Once again it has taught me discipline, you have to decide about doing it and once you’ve made that choice, you have to put in the flight time, to be willing to get up every day and run in the morning.  Get your road work in before you go to your job and then after work, go to the gym even if it’s been a long hard day and your tired, you still do your diet so you can make weight.  You may have to sacrifice spending a lot of time with your loved ones, neglecting them some until your fight.  You have to make this choice and that taught me discipline.  To strive toward that path and to keep committed to it.  Keep working and it’s helped me in other ways in life once you learn to really focus. 

R.B.  Dean, what is your teaching style?

D.L.  My teaching style is based on the Work Ethic.  The only way your going to get anywhere is to put in the hard work.  It’s not a lot of fancy moves, I’ll show the drills and I won’t try to over correct the student right away.  I’ll let them experience it and let their bodies get comfortable with it and you know everybody makes mistakes in the beginning, because their bodies don’t feel comfortable doing the moves.  After a while their bodies adjust and work more efficiently.  Then they kind of self-discover a lot of things.  But basically the conditioning, the hard work and keeping it friendly and relaxed is my teaching style.

R.B.  Is there one piece of advice that you could give beginners or any student for that matter?

D.L.  To keep going, to keep pushing yourself and don’t worry about what everybody else is doing.  Worry about yourself, make yourself improve.  Your not trying to live up to what someone else’s efforts appear to be, or how fast they’re kicking or how high.  Make yourself better so your conditioning improves. 

R.B.  What do you think the most important attribute an Instructor should posses?

D.L.  Communication, being able to relate what you want the students to pick up in a way that they comprehend.  Not everybody learns the same way.  And keeping it relaxed and friendly too helps the students share and grow with you.     

R.B.  What is your opinion of full contact sparring?

D.L.  I believe there has to be sparring in training.  There are two schools of thought of which you have to find a happy medium.  One extreme is the schools that just beats the crap out of each other or the schools that spend all their time doing the technical stuff.  Every once in a while there should be some kind of sparring, it teaches different timing and puts you in a modified mentality.  At our gym we spar once a week and we have a professional boxer who is very skilled and just boxes at the level of the student. 

R.B.  On a different note, what is your personal training schedule like?

D.L.  I run every morning for 20 minutes and go to work.  After work I go to the gym and lift for an hour, then I teach my class and I try to incorporate my training into class if I can get a partner to work out with other wise I’m demonstrating techniques and I’ll try to get a little work in. On Tuesday’s sometimes I can sneak over there and workout but usually on Thursdays for two hours we work on double stick, we do all the walking drills on Sinawalli.  Then we work single stick drills and Espada y daga and end with knife drills.  From there we work empty hand drills, hubud and chi-sao, focus mitt drills, and then 3-4 rounds on Thai pads.  Sometimes we have about a half -hour of grappling and groundwork.  We put on the gi’s and roll around on the mat.  So I basically only get about two hours dedicated to myself while all the rest of time is dedicated to my students. 

R.B.  How much time should a student dedicate to becoming proficient in Muay Thai?

D.L.   I think in a short period of time if your are willing to put in the hard work and push yourself, you can achieve quite a bit.  As far as conditioning, technique, power, and toughness, it can all be achieved quickly just in the training.  While there are some arts that might be more technical or intricate, Muay Thai is pretty straightforward and powerful. There’s a lot of skill once you get into it, but you can learn it in a short period of time, and then start to put drills together to boost your endurance and conditioning.

R.B. What factors are the most important for practical self-defense?

D.L. Awareness is the most important thing.  For instance if your attacked in a public place, and your not aware of your surroundings, there maybe friends of your assailant in the crowd.  And then grappling wouldn't necessarily be the appropriate answer.  We’ve always had a problem here in the Midwest, because it seems like everybody and his uncle was a wrestler, in high school or college.  I’m from Iowa, home of the Hawkeye’s the greatest wrestling team ever, and Dan Gable.  Hell everybody knows how to wrestle, except me, I didn't participate in school.  So your odds of going to the ground are greatly increased.  You need to know something about the ground fighting systems to stay away from it, unless that’s your thing.  In conclusion, you need to be well rounded and aware for practical self-defense.

R.B.  What has the Martial Arts contributed to you on a personal level and in turn what has your teaching contributed to others?

D.L.  Personally, a lot, as far as being able to control myself.  In my youth I was pretty hotheaded and the Martial Arts have given me an avenue to look inside myself, as well as learning to control my temper.  It’s also helped me stay in shape and keep me healthy.  It allows me an escape, if things aren’t going right; I always have my Martial Arts.  Some people turn to drugs and whatever, my drug is the Martial Arts.  If a day is bad or good I can always use Martial Arts to either celebrate with or to pick me up when I’m down. It’s also allowed me to meet a lot of people that I never would have had the opportunity to meet.  I’ve met people from all over the world that I can call my friends.  In that way it’s helped me grow into a more diverse person as well as getting along with other people. I hope in turn I’m giving back as much as I have been given.  When I go to teach I am sharing what I’m fortunate enough to have learned from my instructors.  I feel that’s one way I can pay them back and to keep the art alive.  Guro Dan Inosanto always says that the next generation will take the art farther because each generation adds something to the art, I and my student’s in turn help take it to the next level and make it a more complete thing.  I feel the payback is to share with as many people as possible, anyone who is willing to learn and is open-minded and wants to check it out, I’m willing to help them.