Founded by Hip-Hop author and scholar Adisa Banjoko, is the worlds first scholar to teach how music, chess and martial arts can promote unity, strategy and non-violence. This award winning speaker teaches youth of all backgrounds risk assessment, emotional mastery and how to apply what they see on the chessboard to real life decision making. Follow us @realhiphopchess on IG! You can also listen to Bishop Chronicles podcast on www.bishopchronicles.com iTunes, Spotify and Mixcloud.
In Hip-Hop culture, the barbershop is known as a community hub for news and debate. Inside special exhibition RESPECT: Hip-Hop Style & Wisdom, gather around the Barbershop space inside the gallery to learn from guest speakers focusing on new topics each month. Explore unexpected aspects of Hip-Hop culture. This month’s theme is Hip-Hop & Martial Arts, featuring Gene Ching, Publisher of Kung Fu Tai Chi & kungfumagazine.com, and Adisa “The Bishop” Banjoko, Founder and Executive Director of Hip Hop Chess Federation.
Included with special exhibition Museum admission. There is an additional $4 charge for special exhibition RESPECT. Advance online tickets are available; choose your date and desired hour of entry. » Buy tickets
We also have some other special guests coming through....Don't miss this one!!
Long before a lot of people cared about NHB (no holds barred) or Vale Tudo (anything goes fighting) I wrote a piece for a small MMA publication called Vale Tudo News. As a new white belt I was loving jiu-jitsu but deeply troubled by the lack of philosophy that worked to balance such a dangerous art. I don’t remember my exact words but I said something along the lines of “ Without a solid philosophy the people learning jiu-jitsu and MMA we will have a country of bulls with no brains or sense of moral duty.”
While it was well received by some, by many others it was just the whining of a new white belt who wished for teacher and pupil scenes from Kung Fu TV show. As I trained in jiu-jitsu I read books like The Art of Peace, The Art of War, various Taoist and Confucian, Christian, Sufi and Buddhist texts. It helped my understanding of jiu-jitsu, violence, non-violence, emotional control and other areas of my life. I believe without question those years of personal cultivation have made me a better student, t eacher and overall human being.
Despite taking the super duper slow route I am now a brown belt under my instructor Alan “Gumby” Marques at Heroes Martial Arts. I teach chess fused with jiu-jitsu to help people cultivate body and mind simultaneously. I currently teach high school, and college courses on chess and jiu-jitsu. I also teach an all ages class on the weekends. I find it very rewarding personally, but I also see impact in both young and adult lives. Some teens I mentored are now graduating from college and thanking me a lot. Others are just finding their self esteem and trying harder in school. Others are just making better decisions as they do their 9-5 thing.
The other day I was really shaken. I learned a student of mine (who trains in MMA and aspires to be an MMA champion as an adult) . He was accused of intimidating and threatening a teacher who is an elderly woman. I was really confused by the incident. I thought when I met him that because he already did martial arts that he was well acquainted with philosophy. As it turned out he was not. Additionally, he is a borderline average student. Even in my class. He aspired to little more than MMA. Skillwise, he certainly has a decent base but it will remain to be seen if he has what it takes in the long run to get to the top ranks of MMA. I thought we would bond. I found him helpful when it was time to do jiu-jitsu demos. From time to time he was a helpful at getting other kids to be inspired about training. More often than not though, he was largely out to lunch academically.
I was very disappointed in him after I learned about the incident. I asked him about what happened. He was less than truthful initially about what he had done. After I told him I had several witnesses, he admitted what happened. I told him about the difference between being a martial artist and a fighter. I explained a martial artist is trying to cultivate their mind and heart- not just their bodies. I told him a fighter is just looking for a check, a mercenary of sorts. I used Bruce Lee and Jon Jones as examples of each (Jones being a fighter). I could not help but wonder if his martial arts teachers push aside philosophical discussions so they can get another round in on the bags.
He was unremorseful about the incident. His lack of remorse scared me more than the incident. Further he admitted he had wondered about if he was a fighter or a martial artist and he said he saw himself as a fighter. I explained that fighters last only as long as their body holds up but martial artists help the community through their teaching and training of others. The boy blinked at me silently with a minimal sense of remorse or desire to lift up his character. Not only did he not care that much, his desire to pretend he cared was equally low. I realized I was looking at one of the young bulls I wrote about all those years ago. Digital tools like Worldstar, YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram fights add to the emotional vacuum our young people live in.
As I left school that day my hope was that he changes. He is young, so, the potential for change is great. When I was his age, I did did a lot of reckless things. Things that made it so nobody I grew up with back then could evision me the way I live now. At the same time I can’t help but wonder if bulls I spoke of years ago are starting to stand up. Is he just one kid in the new era of morally unreachable young men who happen to train as fighters? Without using Eastern philosophy, meditation, chess etc. to balance out the martial arts training, we can only expect more of these kinds of incidents will become commonplace in our society.
