back to indexJimmy Pedro: Judo and the Forging of Champions | Lex Fridman Podcast #236
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The following is a conversation with Jimmy Pedro,
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a legendary judo competitor and coach.
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He represented the United States at four Olympics
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in 92, 96, 2000, and 2004,
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winning a bronze medal at two of them.
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He medaled in three world championships,
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winning gold in 1999.
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He has coached many of the elite level American judoka,
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including Kayla Harrison, Ronda Rousey,
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Travis Stevens, and many others.
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Plus, he's now my judo coach, along with Travis Stevens.
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This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
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To support it, please check out our sponsors
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in the description.
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And now, here's my conversation with Jimmy Pedro.
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What is the most beautiful throw in judo to you?
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I think Uchi Mata.
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You know, it's the one that seems
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to have the most amplitude.
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That person goes the highest,
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you see a leg swing through the middle,
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the person doing the throw, there's a leg swinging
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through the middle, the other person definitely goes,
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you know, head over heels, flat on their back.
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It's probably the most dynamic, pretty judo throw there is.
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Okay, so it's a single, you're standing on a single foot
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and you're raising your other foot in the air
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and it's a forward throw, which means the,
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your back is facing the opponent,
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but they kind of both fly through the air
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and twist through the air.
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Yeah, so how does that throw work?
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What are the principles behind that throw?
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Is one of those throws that, you know,
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people can kind of understand how to pick up
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another human being in sort of trivial ways,
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but the Uchi Mata to me never quite made sense,
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like why it works.
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There's a cork, there's a twisting motion,
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there's some involvement of the hip,
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but not, it's not really a hip throw
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because the hip is not all the way over,
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so it's not, it's a very confusing throw to me.
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So I'm trying to say, can you say something through words?
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It's probably one of the most difficult throws
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to learn as well, because it is so complex.
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You do have to stand on one leg, balance on one leg,
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you know, swing your other leg through the middle,
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hold your opponent up in the air,
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and it's hard to, it's hard to make that contact
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with upper body to your back.
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You know, you have to turn your back on the throw as well.
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So how does it work?
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It's definitely sort of a throw
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where you need to start pulling your opponent's upper body
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towards you, right?
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So their upper body starts coming towards you.
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Your legs go towards them
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as your body starts to go into the throw.
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So your head is gonna go left, let's say,
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your body, your legs are gonna go to the right,
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your body's, your partner's gonna start to lean towards you.
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And just as you start to get there,
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momentum coming forward,
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your leg is gonna sweep up underneath theirs,
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pick them up onto your hip, right,
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and then the finish of the throw is a twist.
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And a lot of times, the good judoka
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will leave their feet when they do the throw,
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so both bodies are in the air together,
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and then the thrower comes down
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on top of the person being thrown.
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So all four feet are in the air.
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So there's just this unstoppable force that's,
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so you're all in the air.
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You're basically doing a roll together.
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Okay, so who, to you, is the best uchimata,
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who has, besides yourself, the...
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I'm not gonna lie, there's plenty of guys
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that do uchimata a lot better than I do.
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You do have a nice video about the uchimata online,
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but who is a great practitioner of the uchimata to you?
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Right now, Shohei Ono, who's two time Olympic gold medalist,
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that's his favorite throw,
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and there's tons of highlight videos on the IGF
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and judo fanatics showing how he does his uchimata,
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and it is quite different than everybody else's,
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but it's unstoppable.
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When he comes in, nobody stops it.
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He's won two golds in a row at the Olympics.
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I think maybe in the last eight years,
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the guy's lost two matches.
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He's just incredible.
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At a very competitive division, I guess 73 kilos?
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Okay, and then three time world champ too.
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Is he the greatest of all time to you?
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The only reason why he's not is because Nomura
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is a 60 kilo player.
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He was three time Olympic champion,
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so Nomura, I mean, unless Ono's gonna stick around
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for another three years and win again here in Paris,
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then he'd match what Nomura did,
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but three time gold medalist in judo
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in a lightweight division, that's pretty spectacular.
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So to you, being able to win a championship,
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world championship, or Olympic medal
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is a measure of greatness.
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It's not like you have some people
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who are not as accomplished like Koga or something like that,
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but just the beauty, the moments of magic,
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the number of moments of magic is the highest,
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even if it's not championships.
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I think you have to go by that
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because there's so many phenomenal judo players
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that have come through the system of spectacular judo.
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You have won countless major events,
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but the ability to pull it together,
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those magical moments, the pinnacle of the sport,
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the world championships, the Olympic games,
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and proving that you can do it time and time again
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makes you unstoppable, it makes you the best.
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There was a guy back in the 70s and 80s by the name of Fuji
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and he won four world championships back to back.
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And back then, the Worlds was every two years.
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So here he was, a four time world champion.
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That's eight years the top of the sport.
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He never won an Olympic medal.
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He never went to the Olympics.
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So there's a guy who missed out on Olympic greatness,
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but was arguably the best competitor back in that period.
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By the way, same Fuji as Fuji?
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Wow, I didn't know there was an actual guy, Fuji.
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Our brand is named after the mountain, Mount Fuji.
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But this is a different guy, his name was Fuji.
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All right, well, history rhymes.
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What about Teddy Renier?
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10 time world champ, I think,
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two time gold medalist at the Olympics,
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two times bronze medalist at the Olympics.
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Probably the most dominant judoka ever.
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Is he in the running?
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What do you think about that guy?
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I think he's a freak of nature, Teddy.
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If you look at the size, just how tall he is,
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how big he is, how physical he is of a specimen.
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I sat next to him on a bus,
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and his legs are literally the size of my waist.
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When you sit next to him and just look at the size,
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So obviously to win 10 world titles in the sport of judo,
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I mean, that's almost an incomprehensible feat,
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two time Olympic champion, again, that puts him in one
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of the maybe 10 or 12 people to ever do that
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in the history of the sport.
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So he's definitely got to be in the running for the best.
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But technically, I don't think he's as technical
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as some of the other, in terms of pure judo finesse technique.
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He's powerful, he's explosive, he's dominant, he's strong.
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Teddy also grips really, really well,
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which makes him that much tougher to beat.
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Because a lot of times heavyweights,
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especially in the heavyweight division,
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a lot of them just grab the gi and they go man to man
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and judo to judo and take shots at each other.
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And that's why a lot of them end up getting beat.
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But Teddy's in control, like positionally,
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he stays in really good position
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and he controls his opponent the whole fight.
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So they really don't have a chance against them.
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He doesn't give them a chance to beat him,
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which is why he's been so dominant.
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But he's not really stalling.
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So I mean, he does have a really nice Osorogari,
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this backward trip, outside trip, in case people don't know.
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And he has just like technically pretty good throws
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Heavyweights can be sometimes messy with their judo.
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He's pretty technical and clean
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in the execution of his big throws.
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But a lot of that probably has to do
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with the dominant gripping that he does.
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It's not defensive gripping, it's offensive gripping,
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but the dominant gripping.
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He controls the grips, he controls the movement
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of the match as a result of that,
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and then he creates his own openings.
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So I mean, for a heavyweight, phenomenal technique, yes.
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And what you said, messy, I'd like to call it sloppy, right?
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A lot of the heavyweights tend to be sloppy.
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They're falling on the ground a lot.
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It's hard to move somebody that weighs 350 pounds.
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It's hard to get that body moving
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and just with a simple pull motion.
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So he's definitely found a way to do it.
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But he's also, I don't know, six foot eight.
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He probably weighs 140 kilos.
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But he had this winning streak of just,
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I don't know how long, but like over 100 matches.
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And he lost at this Olympics that we just went through,
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the 20, I don't even know what to call it, 2021 Olympics.
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I don't know the proper terminology.
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Tokyo 2020 is what they call it.
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Tokyo 2020, all right.
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So he lost to Tamerlan Bashev.
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I mean, it's always sad to see a sort of greatness
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It's like Karelin in wrestling and Greco Roman.
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Did you shed a bit of a tear to see greatness go?
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Or is it just the way of life?
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I mean, what did you think about sort of this dominance,
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this run of dominance being stopped?
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I think, I mean, it's obviously sad to see LFC
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and champions succeed, especially people
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that are good people.
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And I think Teddy's a good person.
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I mean, I think there's some arrogant champions
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that everybody would like to see lose
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just because they don't wanna deal with their personality.
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But I think Teddy's a very humble champion.
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He's a people's champion.
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You know, I think he's been privileged
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and he makes good money from the sport of judo
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and the French Federation has taken care of him well.
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So he's a lifelong judo icon.
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So it's sad to see somebody like that get beat,
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especially when this could have been his third Olympic title
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and just put him in infamy.
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So it was sad to see, but I think, you know,
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every athlete goes through it, right?
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I mean, it's just, that's what the Olympics is all about.
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The great ones fall sometimes and.
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Especially in judo, it's like so, like the margin of error.
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I mean, I guess the other question I wanna ask here is,
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in your sense, how difficult it is to not lose for so long?
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It seems like in judo, like a little mistake and it's over.
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There's no coming back and Ippon means it's over.
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So how difficult is that?
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It's hard to stay that dominant without question.
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First of all, when you are the entire world
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is training against you just to beat you.
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They're studying every single movement.
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They're studying patterns.
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They're trying to break it down
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and find a flaw in your game.
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So everybody's hunting for you
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when you're the best in the world,
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especially at the Olympics.
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That's the one to beat you at.
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So everybody's focused on you.
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And then there's an incredible amount of pressure
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on that athlete to perform.
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You carry the flag for your country
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when you're at opening ceremonies sometimes.
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There's all spotlight is on you.
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And it's particularly hard when things don't go well early.
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In other words, when you're expected to win
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and then all of a sudden now you're in a hard fight
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and it's not going the way you want,
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that pressure, the one who's the favorite
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feels the pressure the most at the Olympics.
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And that's why I think the other ones are able to win it.
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I've actually never gotten a chance
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to listen to Teddy Renner sort of explain ideas
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Like I wonder what his mental game is like
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because I think his English is pretty, not very good.
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And so, and I just haven't seen good interviews,
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but it's always fascinating to,
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there's certain great athletes
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that are also great thinkers and speakers,
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like the Satya brothers in wrestling.
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Again, not meaning, that's on my to do list,
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100%, I'm going to Dagestan and talking to them
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because they're brilliant.
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But to be able to sort of, maybe after retirement,
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to think back, what were the systems involved?
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Both on the technical, the training side,
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and then the mental side.
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Because to stay that dominant, just like you're saying,
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everybody's studying to beat you.
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And the heavyweights are just these powerful dudes.
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So to be able to control them with your game
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and the game that everybody knows is coming is,
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I don't know, I don't know what's behind that,
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but there's got to be, it feels like the mental game
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is exceptionally important.
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I think a lot of people underestimate
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just how important that side is.
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Being mentally prepared for victory,
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mentally prepared to be the best, to stay the best.
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There's no way that's weak minded
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that they can accomplish that.
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It's 100% confidence and belief in yourself.
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If we take a big picture view then,
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not necessarily Taylor Renner,
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but if you want to go from the very beginning,
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from day one of judo class to Olympic champion
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or Olympic medalist, what does it take
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to become an Olympic medalist in judo from start to finish?
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Like how many different trajectories do you see?
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Or is there some unifying principles?
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I think a lot of it has to,
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your journey is gonna depend a lot by where you're from.
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So a path that an American might take
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versus somebody who's from Japan
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or somebody who's from Europe.
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There's two very, three very distinct paths, right?
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Because in Japan, it's part of the culture.
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There's a system of excellence.
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There's elementary school judo, there's junior high school,
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there's high school, there's collegiate,
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there's Olympic and much like our wrestling is here
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in the United States, right?
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It's very similar, there's youth wrestling,
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there's high school, there's NCAA
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and then there's Olympic wrestling.
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And when your country is a factory
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of producing athletes at the highest level,
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then all of those top athletes typically go back
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into the sport and there's professions for them.
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They have an opportunity to coach
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at all those different levels.
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And just the level of their game and the expertise
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that all of them have, even down at the elementary level,
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make their skill so solid.
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And as a coach, in that situation,
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you can just sit back and watch who stands out
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as opposed to, I think in America, I guess,
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you would need to craft.
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You don't get to choose from a thousand people,
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a few people that naturally stand out at the age of nine.
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You have to actually, whatever the natural resources
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you're given, craft them into a champion.
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So if we look at that, the American way,
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where you just have a person with a smile
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show up to your dojo, says I want to be an Olympic medalist,
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what process do you take them through?
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The odds are really insurmountable.
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It's a very, very high hill to climb.
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And there's only a few, there's only a few people
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and there's only a few coaches in this entire country
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that really understand that process
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and that can help people reach that level,
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as it's been proven, right?
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Number one, you certainly have to have a solid base,
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a fundamental base of an expectation
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of what the training is gonna be.
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And it has to be a level of professionalism
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very, very early, where you're teaching
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all the basic judo moves, all the basic fundamental
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movements, posture, gripping.
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Well, maybe gripping doesn't come in so early in the game,
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but throwing methodology, movements,
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niwaza position, standing fundamental throws.
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And I think most importantly is really the work ethic,
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just the way you're gonna train,
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the intensity you're gonna train with,
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the ability to, mindset of going to tournaments constantly.
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In order to compete with the rest of the world,
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our young kids need to be tested a lot when they're young.
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They have to be put through adversity
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because they don't get put through adversity in training
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because you don't have that many good training partners.
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So you get put through adversity in competition
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and then we see what your weaknesses are
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and we continue to make improvements on those.
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But the journey is, it's long.
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And until they're kind of at the teenage years,
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they're gonna have to pretty much stay domestic, right?
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Cause they gotta go through life as a normal kid,
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but they've gotta be training in the dojo at least,
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Sometimes they might wanna get an extra technical workout in
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or doing some base conditioning in addition to that.
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And then really at the teenage years,
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that's where we really, we've struggled in America
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of keeping teens in the sport of Judo
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as well as developing them properly.
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Cause up until around the teenage years,
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I think the Americans are on par with the rest of the world
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in terms of technique and in terms of skill
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and we've proven we can compete with the rest of the world
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up until that age.
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But that's where Japan and that's where the Europeans
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and the countries that are strong in Judo,
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that's where they put a lot of time, energy and effort
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is it to the teens where they have a great coaching staff,
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they have good training camps with 800,
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a thousand people going to them every single weekend.
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When you say teens, what do you mean?
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Do you mean literally like 13?
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Yeah, age 13 to 17, 13 to 19.
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And that's where you really accelerate your development.
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So you're saying like in America, when you're young,
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like before nine, 10, 11, 12, you stick in Judo,
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you can progress quite a bit.
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But then I guess the other competition there,
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if you're into two people doing stuff to each other
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in a combative way, the other competitor
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in America is wrestling.
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So Judo almost primes you, like it teaches you
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how to be a great wrestler as well.
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And so then you have to have a hard decision
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because you can probably be a collegiate wrestler.
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You have like a clear plan of where you're going to go
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if you wanna be a wrestler.
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With Judo, that plan is less clear.
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So you have to be on your own a bit with your coach,
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that kind of thing.
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Okay, so when you're on your own with your coach,
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to me, that's just a fascinating journey
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because then it's just like the purity of it.
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It's the coach and the athlete and the dream.
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It's all about the dedication, the five, six,
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seven days a week competing, what, once a month, twice a month.
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Okay, but also, you probably don't have that conversation.
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I don't know if you do.
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Maybe you do, saying like, we're gonna do this
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for the next eight years.
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Do you ever sit down?
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Would you just take it the David Goggins way,
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which is like, let's just take it one step at a time.
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Let's hope we're there in eight years.
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Yeah, let's hope we're there.
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Like right now, you have to think about,
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the Olympics is gonna be in Los Angeles in 2028.
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So it's really interesting.
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Now would be the time, and now is the time,
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to identify talent and get commitment out of students
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that in seven years, you can make a US Olympic team
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because we're gonna have a full team.
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America's gonna have 14 athletes compete in those games,
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one in every weight class.
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So now's the time, if you're gonna go on a journey
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to the Olympics and stay with the sport of judo,
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now would be the time to do it, you know?
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And so what, you show up to the Pedro Judo Center
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and how much drilling, how much technique,
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strategy discussions, how much randori,
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or like live sparring, how much conditioning
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and strength training, how much of all that?
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How much of cross training to other gyms
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or something like that, traveling abroad?
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Is there something to be said about some aspects
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What you just said, you need it all of it.
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And we do do all of that.
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Right now, we have a young group of kids at the Academy,
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you'll see tonight.
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Some of them are 14, 13, 15, 17.
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Yeah, really good.
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They're right around your waist, so it'll be perfect.
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They're just young boys,
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but they've been training hard through COVID.
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We've been, Travis and myself have been training them.
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We share responsibilities.
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They're doing randori like five nights a week.
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We have them doing randori Tuesdays, Wednesdays,
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Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays
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is when they're doing randori.
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They're coming to the dojo Friday night
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and Sunday night to do training.
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We also have technical sessions for them.
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They're in school now, so it's a little bit challenging,
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but they come five o clock in the afternoon
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and they do a technical session.
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Through COVID, they were coming every morning
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doing technical sessions.
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What's a technical session?
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It's an hour of repetitive throwing
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or repetitive drilling to reinforce movements
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that we deem important to our successful system.
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So, niwaza positions, groundwork positions,
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where we want them to be put in this position
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and they're gonna drill it 50 times
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with resistance in big groups,
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doing drills over and over again,
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picking apart the details of the technique
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and what they're doing wrong,
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showing them how to fix it.
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But now, we've done it so much
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that now we can do a whole drill session with them
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where they know all the different techniques
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inside and out and they can move
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from position to position really quickly.
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Do they do it for a period of time,
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like two minutes, five minutes,
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or is it like one, two, they're actually counting?
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No, sometimes it's both.
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So sometimes we do it for reps,
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sometimes we do it for time.
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So sometimes it might be as many as they can do
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in 60 seconds or as many as they can do in two minutes.
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And sometimes it might just be,
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I want you to do every position five times.
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In terms of throws,
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we're not talking about it on a crash pad, right?
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We're talking about free moving around the mat.
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And just dynamically and just throwing.
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How many, because as I was mentioning to you offline,
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Travis threw me a few times,
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a lot of times when he was visiting in Austin,
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and I just remembered,
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so there's two things.
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Fortunately or unfortunately in my life,
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having gotten a chance to train with folks of that level,
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with just cleanness of throw and the power,
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and it was very nice.
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I immediately actually enjoyed being thrown like that.
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To throw a little shade at Craig Jones
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with his current mat situation,
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is they're very, they were quite thin.
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And as Travis commented on,
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and not just the thinness of the mats,
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but they were laid on like concrete, right?
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So I felt, it's like soft until it's not.
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But being thrown very cleanly,
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I just felt like there's,
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this is not gonna lead to injury, it was great.
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It wasn't injury prone.
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But then as I mentioned to you,
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when a day or two after,
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my entire leg, one of them, I guess it's the left leg,
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was just black, a bruise.
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It didn't hurt too bad,
link |
but it was just, the body's gotten soft.
link |
So I guess the question I have is,
link |
does the body get used to just that number of throws?
link |
Just over time, being thrown thousands of times a month?
link |
Your body gets used to it.
link |
So it hardens, it gets really hard.
link |
Which is why judo is hard to come back to
link |
after you've taken a long period of time off,
link |
because your body is not used to that impact anymore.
link |
I always found out that when I was training judo a lot,
link |
it's hard to shed weight and keep weight off,
link |
because your body, it develops this layer of protection
link |
on itself that it doesn't wanna give up.
link |
When you're sucking a lot of weight,
link |
that means you're frail.
link |
So I always seem to retain weight more
link |
when you're doing hard judo training,
link |
as opposed to losing weight.
link |
It's easy when you go out for runs and things like that
link |
to shed the water weight,
link |
but to actually keep the pounds off was pretty hard.
link |
Yeah, the body develops, like you said, a level of protection.
link |
What about the randori?
link |
Just out of curiosity, again,
link |
I haven't ever had the opportunity to train
link |
with folks at a high level.
link |
In jiu jitsu, there's different gyms at different styles,
link |
but I've noticed that at the highest levels,
link |
people can go pretty hard in a certain kind of way
link |
where it's more technical,
link |
and you're moving at 100%,
link |
but the power is not at 100%.
link |
It's a weird little dance.
link |
You're not really forcing stuff.
link |
You're more focused on the right timing,
link |
the right positioning of hands and feet and body
link |
and all those kinds of things.
link |
You're not forcing stuff in the way you would in competition,
link |
like really the power.
link |
Does that sound similar to you
link |
for the way you try to do randori?
link |
So there's different styles of judo,
link |
and I'd say the Japanese style,
link |
the technical style of judo
link |
is exactly what you just talked about.
link |
It's almost like two guys in pajamas, right?
link |
We're using minimal effort, maximum efficiency.
link |
We're moving around,
link |
and we're trying to feel that movement,
link |
and it's timing and finesse and technique
link |
and fun and clean throws.
link |
And when you train in Japan,
link |
you can train 15 rounds of randori, five minute rounds.
link |
That's 75 minutes of straight sparring.
link |
You can do that straight in Japan without a problem.
link |
I mean, you'll get tired, of course.
link |
You're gonna fall a lot, you're gonna throw a lot,
link |
but it's very free feeling,
link |
and it's technical as you explained.
link |
But then when you go to Europe
link |
and you try to do rounds with the Europeans,
link |
they are very physical.
link |
They don't have that same finesse in their training
link |
that they do in Japan.
link |
In Europe, you'd be hard pressed
link |
to do eight rounds of randori in a night.
link |
It's so physically exhausting
link |
because so much effort is going into just fighting
link |
and fending off the gripping system
link |
and the power of your opponent.
link |
You're physically drained after eight rounds of randori.
link |
So it's a much different feel.
link |
When you say Europe,
link |
do you mean Germany, France, Britain, Russia?
link |
So there's a kind of similarity
link |
to all of those kinds of approaches.
link |
The only difference would be Russia
link |
that they do a lot more active drilling,
link |
a lot more sequential movement training.
link |
They don't focus as much on randori.
link |
You'll do much fewer rounds in Russia during training camps
link |
than you would in those other countries
link |
we just talked about, France, Germany, et cetera.
link |
What about in this kind of American system
link |
where you have much less talent to work with?
link |
Do you just select whatever works
link |
for the particular athletes,
link |
or do you have something you prefer in your system?
link |
So you need a combination of all of it.
link |
If you're gonna win at the Olympic level,
link |
you have to be able to deal with the finesse of the Japanese,
link |
the physicality of the Europeans.
link |
You have to focus on the ground,
link |
niwaza aspect, because a lot of people are weak there
link |
in the world of the sport of judo.
link |
That's a chance to win.
link |
We've sort of developed our American system of judo,
link |
at least for the last,
link |
I'd say probably the last 20 years
link |
it'd be the American system of judo,
link |
which relies heavily on taking the individual
link |
and whatever techniques they do,
link |
perfecting those techniques and the combinations
link |
and other throws that go with those throws,
link |
but then implementing and overlaying an American system
link |
of gripping, niwaza, conditioning, mentality,
link |
training methodology, and game planning
link |
to beat your opponents.
link |
And I think that's the secret sauce to success
link |
for your Americans, because there's no way,
link |
if we don't have eight partners to train with in a night
link |
that are gonna give us good rounds, right?
link |
We might have two, so we're gonna have the same guy
link |
four times, those two people four, two times each.
link |
Now I have four good rounds.
link |
The rest of the rounds, I'm not being pushed to the limit.
link |
So we train differently.
link |
And a lot of times we do a lot of stuff like shark bait.
link |
When our athletes are preparing for competition,
link |
for example, when Kayla or Travis
link |
were preparing for competition,
link |
we might only have 20 people in the whole gym
link |
to work out with, those two Olympic medalists, right?
link |
And of those 20 people,
link |
maybe four of them are Travis's size.
link |
Maybe there's only one girl in the room for Kayla,
link |
she's gotta train with guys.
link |
And then the other ones are teenagers
link |
that are too weak to train with either one of them.
link |
So what we would do is just put together
link |
four or five people that could give them a challenge
link |
and we'd line them up and they would do a minute,
link |
a minute, a minute, a minute,
link |
and they'd do five minutes in a row as hard as they can.
link |
That person can go hard for a minute with Travis or Kayla.
link |
They can't go five minutes hard,
link |
but they can go one minute hard.
link |
So it made their training much, much more intense,
link |
much more physically demanding.
link |
And then rinse and repeat that six times
link |
or eight times in a night,
link |
they just got 40 minutes of intense randori.
link |
The person that was training with them that wasn't as good
link |
only had to do six or eight minutes
link |
of training the whole night, you know, so.
link |
It's so, it's so difficult because then you look
link |
at like the Russian national team
link |
and you have just the world champions and so,
link |
or you even have like, what is it,
link |
Tom Brands and Terry Brands in the wrestling system.
link |
You have like these people, it's a small group of people,
link |
but they're all some of the best people in the world
link |
and they're going head to head.
link |
And yeah, you don't necessarily get a good look
link |
kind of a variety of styles, but just the quality is there.
link |
And even that is missing for people your size in America,
link |
because that is so difficult to work with,
link |
which it makes Kayla's and makes Travis's story
link |
that much more amazing.
link |
You mentioned kind of picking whatever the set of techniques
link |
the athlete is naturally good at or prefers or whatever.
link |
How much specialization is there?
link |
Maybe if I give you like two choices,
link |
is it good to have like one throw
link |
and try to become the best person in the world
link |
at that throw, or do you want to have a bunch of stuff?
link |
Like a variety of throws?
link |
Well, for Travis, it was Ippon Seinagi,
link |
that was his main throw, right?
link |
But from that Ippon Seinagi, he had a variety
link |
of other attacks he could do, you know,
link |
that mixed it up so that you kept people guessing.
link |
Maybe it wasn't the Ippon Seinagi that was coming,
link |
maybe it was the Koshi Gruma that he did,
link |
or maybe it was the Ippon to Osoto
link |
that he did in combination.
link |
So you typically have one main throw that you do.
link |
For me, it was Tai Otoshi.
link |
For Kayla, it was her Ogoshi.
link |
For Travis, it was his Ippon Seinagi.
link |
But then you come up with a variety of other throws
link |
that you do from the very same grip.
link |
So whatever grip you take for your main throw,
link |
you wanna develop, you know, an arsenal of attacks
link |
that go in all different directions holding that same grip.
link |
So you keep your opponent guessing as to what's coming.
link |
You know, because if they're just sitting on one technique
link |
at the highest level of sport,
link |
with the exception of a few, right?
link |
We talked about Ono's Uchi Mata.
link |
With the exception of a few,
link |
most of the world catches on pretty quick
link |
on how to beat you.
link |
There is something to just sticking,
link |
making sure you really dedicate to the main thing.
link |
So for Travis, that would be like the main version
link |
Like really making sure you don't forget
link |
to really put in the time on that.
link |
Because I mean, one way to say it is
link |
that threat being dangerous opens up a lot of things.
link |
But also, I don't know.
link |
I think I'm just, as a fan,
link |
I think it's sad when like elite level athletes
link |
in all like combat sports,
link |
kind of start taking their main thing for granted.
link |
Like they think, okay, I've figured that part out.
link |
Now I'll be working on all this whole system
link |
on variations, on different setups,
link |
on lefty versus, some like weird variation
link |
as opposed to, you know what?
link |
If you look at some of the best people ever,
link |
they seem to have not cared about variations at all.
link |
They're just like literally,
link |
they are more like Jiro James of Sushi
link |
and like fine tuning their ear,
link |
their ability to detect the minute movements
link |
that give you an opening on that main thing.
link |
And so the whole time you're just waiting for that throw,
link |
you're like dancing with the like little bit of pressure
link |
and like releasing the pressure, putting the pressure,
link |
maybe a little bit of off balance
link |
and finding like the right moment to strike
link |
and focusing on that.
link |
Again, maybe that's just like a romanticization
link |
of like the simplicity of that.
link |
Maybe it is kind of impossible to do that on a large scale,
link |
but I just, yeah, I don't know if you can comment on that,
link |
whether there is some value in still putting in
link |
like tens of thousands of reps on the main, main thing.
link |
Well, unquestionably that has to happen.
link |
You still have to drill your main throw
link |
and you have to fine tune it
link |
and continue to do repetition after repetition
link |
and throws on the crash pad or throws on the mat,
link |
moving around, just explosive movements
link |
doing your main technique.
link |
You're never gonna forget that
link |
and you're not gonna put it to the side
link |
and not practice it anymore.
link |
It still has to be part of your repertoire
link |
and part of your daily training, but you do have to evolve.
link |
And I think that's the sport of judo, makes you evolve.
link |
When I look at, we talk about Koga from before, right?
link |
And we talked about, he had a dynamic Ippon Seinagi
link |
that nobody could stop for years and years and years.
link |
But when people started to be unorthodox
link |
and come down his back and cross grip him
link |
and he couldn't get to the lapel,
link |
he had to come up with something else.
link |
And all of a sudden you saw Koga doing, now he did a Sode
link |
or now he did a Tomoe Nagi,
link |
which so he can, he added to his arsenal
link |
to keep people thinking, keep people guessing.
link |
So it's not, you're not just that one trick pony.
link |
They still couldn't stop his Ippon Seinagi
link |
once he got that grip.
link |
But if they stopped them from getting that grip
link |
or putting two hands on the gi,
link |
he had to go to something else.
link |
And that's what he did.
link |
Does Travis's or Koga's Seinagi make sense to you?
link |
That weird, so when I,
link |
Because split hip, split hip.
link |
So I don't know if you know this,
link |
but like I got into judo because of Travis.
link |
I watched him at 2008 Olympics and I was,
link |
there's something about like, just not the cockiness,
link |
but the confidence and just the refusal to quit,
link |
the refusal to just, that energy,
link |
whatever it connected with me is like,
link |
oh, that guy's bad ass.
link |
I want to be bad ass like that.
link |
And then I also there happened to be in my university judo
link |
and I got into it and just fell in love with the elegance
link |
and the beauty and the power of the sport.
link |
But also I started to mimic Travis's game, his and Koga's.
link |
And then the instructors I worked with,
link |
they said that's the wrong way to do it.
link |
And I always, I never found somebody that told me like,
link |
no, that's not the wrong way.
link |
There's a lot of ways to do it.
link |
And there's like the classic way
link |
and you have to understand it and you have to learn it,
link |
but this is not the wrong way.
link |
Cause I was trying to find somebody
link |
who understands this throw.
link |
Cause it was so beautiful at the highest level,
link |
especially with Koga, the way you're able,
link |
the quickness with which you can strike,
link |
the fact that you can stand on the feet
link |
and the elevation you can get and the power you can get
link |
has certain throws, just like Uchimata
link |
doesn't look powerful.
link |
It's just like, it looks effortless.
link |
But like the standing Seinagi with a split hip,
link |
it just looks powerful because there's a,
link |
you're like, you're stepping into them,
link |
you're lifting the opponent and they still have,
link |
they're not surprised, they're now like helpless.
link |
Right, their feet are fluttering in the air.
link |
And then there's just this pause
link |
and then just big slam.
link |
With the Uchimata, it's almost like
link |
you don't know what hit you.
link |
It's like Taitoshi is the same.
link |
It's almost like a surprise.
link |
Like, oh shit, I'm now on my back.
link |
And so I just love that throw,
link |
but like it didn't make sense to me.
link |
Like when trying to explain it to others,
link |
when trying to learn, it didn't make sense to me
link |
Does it make sense to you?
link |
I was born a Judoka, right?
link |
So I've lived this stuff since I was an infant
link |
and I've seen every style and every technique.
link |
The split hip Saiyan Aiki is difficult to learn.
link |
It's harder to learn than the basic form,
link |
but it is powerful and it does, upon entry,
link |
both of your opponent's feet
link |
leave the mat at the same time.
link |
So you've got them.
link |
Once you enter, you've got them.
link |
You just gotta finish, right?
link |
You just gotta lock them and turn and go.
link |
So it makes sense to me.
link |
My dad did teach me how to do that when I was younger.
link |
Yeah, he wanted me to do a split hip.
link |
We have kids at the school today
link |
that we teach the split hip Saiyan Aiki, same way,
link |
because it is that dynamic, right?
link |
You don't drop to the ground and roll and turn.
link |
It's not the classic form
link |
where you're giving way to your opponent.
link |
It's actually, you go pick the guy up in the air
link |
and then you slam him, so.
link |
So maybe on a small tangent,
link |
so we're talking about elite level athletes
link |
in terms of Randori, in terms of like drilling.
link |
For more recreational athletes,
link |
like, you know, I have personally that situation going on,
link |
but there's other people
link |
that are just recreationally training Judo.
link |
How do you recommend they improve Judo?
link |
Like if I wanted to compete a bunch
link |
and do reasonable with a particular set of throws,
link |
say the split Saiyan Aiki,
link |
so how do you do the Randori?
link |
Do you use a crash pad to get in reps?
link |
Do you, like, what do you recommend?
link |
So I guess there's two recreational people
link |
that we're talking about.
link |
One is somebody who wants to learn Judo
link |
and become good at Judo,
link |
but doesn't necessarily want to compete,
link |
but just wants to get better.
link |
And I think that there's not enough emphasis
link |
in this country on paying attention
link |
to that type of student.
link |
Everybody pushes them to competition.
link |
But in reality, there's a huge audience of people out there
link |
that would love to learn Judo
link |
and be very proficient at Judo
link |
and have the skills to go execute if they ever needed it.
link |
And there's a class
link |
and there should be a program for that athlete.
link |
And that athlete does not need to do Randori.
link |
Like the sport of Judo is physical enough
link |
where you're picking somebody up all the time
link |
and moving their body weight around the mat all the time,
link |
where you can get very physically strong,
link |
very physically fit.
link |
Technically, you'll be better than somebody
link |
that does Randori more than you
link |
because if you learn good technique
link |
and you learn the movement and you learn the feel
link |
and you learn the timing,
link |
you'll actually be a better athlete
link |
than the person that just focuses on Randori
link |
who does ugly technique and wins with force.
link |
So we have a recreational class at our school
link |
where they don't do any Randori.
link |
They have an option afterwards
link |
if they want to stay for 15 minutes
link |
or stay for 30 minutes
link |
where they can participate in Randori.
link |
But most of the adult students choose not to
link |
because they're already so tired from the other hour class.
link |
It's a good workout.
link |
Right, they're already dripping sweat.
link |
They're already like, if you work hard and drill hard,
link |
it's an intense workout, you're exhausted.
link |
So that's a specific set of program,
link |
I should say, at every academy.
link |
And then if you want to get good and you want to compete,
link |
then to me, once you have your techniques,
link |
it's learning how to implement a good gripping system
link |
to put yourself in a position
link |
where you can always dominate the grips,
link |
control the movement, initiate the reactions
link |
from your opponent,
link |
and then have the opportunity to attack and score.
link |
And I think that when people train with,
link |
or when they jump into a higher level of the sport of judo,
link |
all of a sudden the first thing they say is, I can't attack.
link |
I don't know how to attack.
link |
Because positionally, they don't know
link |
where to put their hands.
link |
They don't know how to hold the gi properly.
link |
They don't understand that they're,
link |
they have an inferior grip,
link |
and they don't know how to get into better positions
link |
so they can't attack.
link |
And that's a big part of the game
link |
that not a lot of people really understand.
link |
So you really, even for recreational competitors,
link |
you really need to have a gripping system.
link |
You need to understand the gripping system.
link |
If you want to win.
link |
I mean, if the goal is to go and compete,
link |
that's a different story.
link |
You're going, I don't have fun getting beat up
link |
or losing in competitions.
link |
I don't even know if it's the winning or the losing.
link |
I don't think, I think this is what,
link |
because I competed a lot in both Judo and Jiu Jitsu,
link |
and in Judo, it feels like,
link |
because I didn't have a gripping system,
link |
it feels like you're not even playing Judo
link |
against the good black belts.
link |
You're, they're just, they're not,
link |
they're not even trying because they have,
link |
they get a certain kind of grip,
link |
and you just can't do anything.
link |
And I don't have a good answer for that.
link |
I don't even know what I'm looking for.
link |
And so it's not even fun.
link |
It's not like even losing.
link |
It's like, I don't know.
link |
It's like you didn't even show up to play
link |
is what it feels like.
link |
And it's not, and I think that is a big gap
link |
in knowledge, actually, in Judo schools,
link |
is the gripping part.
link |
When you first go out to do Judo, right?
link |
You, the first thing you have to do
link |
is you have to grab your opponent, right?
link |
And a lot of times I hear coaches say, get a grip.
link |
Well, sometimes if you take a grip,
link |
you're in a worse position than not having a grip at all.
link |
And that's what a lot of people don't understand.
link |
Like if you hold the gi in the wrong way,
link |
your opponent can attack you, but you can't attack him.
link |
So why would you ever do that grip
link |
if it's only to your detriment, right?
link |
So that's, and the way you grip does set up
link |
what attacks you can do as well.
link |
So that is a huge part.
link |
And I'm not saying that you have to be 100% disciplined
link |
and only always outgrip your opponent
link |
and only be able to do throws
link |
when you have a superior grip.
link |
I'm just saying that to be able to put the grips together
link |
with the throws and understand the movements
link |
is gonna make you that much ahead of the game.
link |
So if we take a step to our previous discussion
link |
of going from zero to hero.
link |
So going from the early days through the teenage years
link |
to winning an Olympic medal.
link |
So we mentioned a lot of training,
link |
the dedication of the training, the competing,
link |
what other elements are there?
link |
The mental side is visualization,
link |
believing that you could perform at that level.
link |
So what else can you say about that?
link |
I think that comes at the highest level,
link |
the visualization, the success,
link |
that comes at the highest level.
link |
I think in the teen years, there's the experience,
link |
just plays a huge role in getting to train
link |
with other people.
link |
Like as Americans, we have to go train in Europe.
link |
We have to feel the European style of judo.
link |
You have to understand that physicality.
link |
They grip very differently.
link |
They put you in very unorthodox positions.
link |
And if you don't know how to deal with that,
link |
you get thrown before you even have a chance
link |
to try your own throws.
link |
So it takes a lot of that experience
link |
and understanding what's going on.
link |
And then you also need to get that physicality.
link |
You need to be strong and hard, I would say,
link |
by doing all those rounds with the Europeans.
link |
And at the same time, you need to go to Asia
link |
and you need to train in Japan
link |
because you need to feel that free flowing judo
link |
for your technical side.
link |
And I think that's one of the things
link |
that I was able to benefit from.
link |
My dad was a coach who said,
link |
''Listen, I've taken you as far as I can take you.
link |
''I want you to go to the next level.''
link |
And he sent me to England with Neil Adams,
link |
who was an Olympic silver medalist and was a world champion,
link |
had a great ground game and was good at gripping
link |
and actually did Tai Otoshi, which is the throw I did.
link |
So my dad said, ''I want you to go learn from Neil.''
link |
And I ended up going to England
link |
probably eight to 10 times in my career
link |
and spending a good amount of time there
link |
training at the Neil Adams Academy.
link |
He's now the voice of judo, Neil Adams.
link |
What do you make of that guy?
link |
Just a brief pause.
link |
He's like the, like Morgan Freeman
link |
is the voice of like March of the Penguins
link |
and any other nature documentary.
link |
And Neil Adams is, there's very few sports
link |
that have a Neil Adams, I would say,
link |
because he's legitimately, maybe like Joe Rogan
link |
is that from mixed martial arts.
link |
It's just like an exceptionally recognizable voice.
link |
He's really knowledgeable.
link |
Also the passion is conveyed so well.
link |
Like many times I'll watch just because he's talking.
link |
Since you've gotten a chance to train with him,
link |
to learn from him, who is Neil Adams?
link |
He's a great friend of mine.
link |
Like I said, I lived and trained
link |
at the Neil Adams Club in Coventry, England
link |
since I was like 16 years old.
link |
I went and visited him for the first time.
link |
He's the one who originally taught me
link |
how to do jujigatami and the way that I do jujigatami.
link |
I trained with him.
link |
He was just retired.
link |
He was in his early thirties when I first went out there.
link |
And so I trained with him many times
link |
and over the years he was a mentor.
link |
Great person, cares about people,
link |
cares about the sport of judo, had a good little club
link |
that was a fitness club.
link |
And it was judo, it was fitness.
link |
It used to go there.
link |
I'd show up at that place at like seven in the morning.
link |
And the first thing we would do is we'd go for a run.
link |
And we'd either be running mountains
link |
or we'd be doing a five mile run
link |
or we'd be doing something at the park.
link |
We were doing sprints and buddy carries and all this stuff.
link |
And then at 9 a.m. we'd have a technical session
link |
with Neil Adams where he would, for an hour and a half,
link |
we would drill techniques and learn positions.
link |
And it was no randori.
link |
It was that sequential drilling
link |
that we talked about before, right?
link |
Where you're reinforcing your two or three attacks
link |
to set up your main attack.
link |
Or if you're on the ground,
link |
you're going through repetitions of certain movements.
link |
And then I'd spend all afternoon at the club, have lunch.
link |
I'd go do my weight training in the afternoon at that place.
link |
And then in the evening,
link |
we would either do randori training at the Neil Adams Club
link |
or we would all get in a car
link |
and we'd drive to another location
link |
and we'd go train at another club
link |
that might be an hour away.
link |
And there'd be 50 bodies there to train with.
link |
And each night we'd go to a different dojo.
link |
And so it would be all day at the club
link |
and I'd do that for like three weeks straight.
link |
All we'd do was train.
link |
Do you know how he became the voice of judo?
link |
Do you have an understanding of what he's thinking is
link |
around how much he dedicates to himself
link |
to just commentating on judo?
link |
I imagine the amount of research required,
link |
but also just like psychologically,
link |
just the excitement he has in his voice.
link |
It takes work to do that.
link |
Do you have an understanding
link |
of like what his vision is with that?
link |
He's always been a very charismatic, animated person, Neil.
link |
Very passionate and loud and funny.
link |
And the Brits are very funny to begin with.
link |
So he's very charismatic.
link |
But I think after coaching, he tried coaching.
link |
He coached the country of Wales for a while.
link |
He tried coaching stints in other countries.
link |
He didn't have a lot of success on the coaching side
link |
developing an Olympic champion.
link |
I know that was a goal of his that he was a world champion.
link |
I think it was 1981.
link |
He won two silver medals in the Olympic games himself.
link |
He went on to coach for a while
link |
and had some political issues
link |
with the country of England for a while.
link |
And then left England and went to Wales.
link |
And I think he had a coaching stint
link |
somewhere else as well.
link |
Didn't have a lot of success coaching in the sport
link |
with athletes, not at the highest level.
link |
Had a great national team and things like that.
link |
He was really good at teaching his technique to others
link |
because he helped me a lot.
link |
But running a program, I think was difficult for him.
link |
The boys not listening and not having that same kind
link |
of passion and intensity that he...
link |
And that's why I bonded well with him
link |
because I was all in, right?
link |
I went there and whatever he said, I did.
link |
I didn't care how hard, I didn't care how long.
link |
I just wanted to get as good as I could.
link |
And so that's why he was a good mentor for me.
link |
But now in terms of a commentator, he's very cerebral.
link |
He loves judo, he researches it nonstop.
link |
He's got that great voice
link |
and he knows how to bring life to the game.
link |
And that's what he's done.
link |
And now this is who he is, right?
link |
He does judo full time, this is his job.
link |
Can I ask you a small, before we return to the actual sport,
link |
the coaching and the sport,
link |
it's a bit of a political question.
link |
I did a whole rant before Travis episode.
link |
I love Neil Adams's voice.
link |
I love watching judo.
link |
And it's really disappointing to me that the IOC
link |
and whoever is responsible, I don't understand this,
link |
that they don't make it easy for people
link |
to watch the Olympics in replay for years after.
link |
Like I can't watch Travis's matches.
link |
I can't watch, like they make it very difficult
link |
to watch stuff online.
link |
So what happened is I uploaded the Travis Stevens episode
link |
and we talked about his Ole Bischoff 2012 match.
link |
And it was like one minute of like a small overlay
link |
of the video as we're talking through it,
link |
like stepping through it.
link |
And it got taken down immediately from YouTube,
link |
the whole four hour conversation
link |
because of that one minute little clip.
link |
And the way it got taken down automatically
link |
is because the IOC has that video uploaded.
link |
It's set to private, but it's uploaded.
link |
So like they have the video and they choose not to show it.
link |
It's not that they're asking for money or whatever.
link |
They're just not showing it anywhere.
link |
They're not showing it through their own service.
link |
Like an NBC Olympics or so on.
link |
There's just so many great human stories
link |
that the Olympics reveals.
link |
They're just not made easily accessible.
link |
That's the Olympics charter is you want to,
link |
I think the actual line is to ensure the fullest coverage
link |
and the widest possible audience in the world
link |
for the Olympic games.
link |
And it seems like to me as a fan of the Olympic games,
link |
we're not getting any of that.
link |
Do you have an understanding of why that is?
link |
Like why we can't watch Kayla's matches,
link |
Travis's matches super easily,
link |
even if we're willing to pay money for it.
link |
So you can't go on the International Judo Federation
link |
website right now and watch any of the Olympic footage?
link |
So the only thing they have is for certain,
link |
for example, Teddy Rene match he lost.
link |
Not available anywhere.
link |
And that's like a dramatic thing.
link |
So the one thing they have is for certain sports
link |
at the highest level, like gymnastics,
link |
they'll have a highlight,
link |
which is the most frustrating thing to me.
link |
Because this is what I can't,
link |
I'm going to try to prevent myself from going on a rant.
link |
But people don't just want to see a two minute highlight
link |
of a historic moment.
link |
They want to see the buildup where the athlete is standing,
link |
the nerves, the fear, the confidence.
link |
You see the buildup to the event,
link |
say it's a gymnastic, whatever, floor routine.
link |
Like their name is announced, they're walking,
link |
the coat, then they cut to the coach,
link |
and the coach with anticipation,
link |
and then go to the athlete.
link |
You want the full 10 minute thing.
link |
You don't want a two minute highlight
link |
of what happened like last second or whatever.
link |
It's just like the magic of that full story.
link |
Like a lifetime building up to those 10 minutes, right?
link |
That's the magic of the Olympics.
link |
The both the drama and the triumph
link |
that happens in those moments.
link |
And the fact that you can't relive that.
link |
Like Travis had a bunch of those, right?
link |
Like he had a bunch of times he faced like world champions,
link |
he won and lost, and just, it's always close,
link |
it's always dramatic.
link |
And none of those are available except like
link |
maybe the one where he beat Armbard,
link |
or whatever the submission was, I forgot.
link |
The choke, yeah, the Georgian.
link |
But most things are not.
link |
Usain Bolt, the full races,
link |
not all of his races are available online.
link |
The race with the Italian winning the 100 meter track race,
link |
this Olympics is not only highlight is available
link |
from what I saw, I didn't look too hard.
link |
So like, but the fact that it's not super easily accessible
link |
if you're willing to pay money even,
link |
but probably should be for free, is heartbreaking to me.
link |
Because to me, the Olympics is like some of the best
link |
Just like, again, the hardship they have to overcome.
link |
So like the losses are really powerful.
link |
Because it's such heartbreak,
link |
but it's also like the triumph.
link |
Where you're losing history.
link |
You're losing history is what you are,
link |
of all the magical moments of your sport, right?
link |
I got to blame it on television rights and money.
link |
That's what it comes down to.
link |
It's like billions and billions of dollars
link |
of television rights paid by NBC here in the United States
link |
and globally, whatever the main carriers are
link |
and all the other nations that are dictating
link |
what can be replayed and what can't.
link |
And that's what it comes down to.
link |
I made a DVD or a video when I first retired
link |
It was called Fury on the Mat.
link |
It was kind of my story, right?
link |
And I did it with a friend who was a videographer
link |
and we grabbed a bunch of my old footage
link |
and Olympic footage and somebody said to me,
link |
you can't use that Olympic footage.
link |
And I was young and I had just retired.
link |
I said, what do you mean I can't use the Olympic footage?
link |
It's not the television footage.
link |
It's my buddy who filmed it with his own camera.
link |
And then they said, no, if it has Olympics in it
link |
or it's anything to do with the Olympics,
link |
I said, okay, well, they said,
link |
well, you should get to send it to them
link |
and let them review it.
link |
So I sent it to them and I got a bill back.
link |
I got a thing back that said,
link |
if you want to use this footage,
link |
it's going to be like $30,000.
link |
And I said, man, it's only like three minutes.
link |
I spliced it up as much as I could
link |
and I only have highlights in there.
link |
And then I said, come on.
link |
I went back and I negotiated with them.
link |
But at the end of the day,
link |
I still had to pay like $15,000
link |
just to have a few minutes of footage in my own film.
link |
And I'm thinking, you wouldn't even have that film
link |
if I didn't compete in it.
link |
You know, like you can't, you know.
link |
So it was a struggle.
link |
This is the different,
link |
like you have the same in Jiu Jitsu.
link |
There's certain organizations, IBJJF
link |
or like Flow Grappling and Flow Wrestling.
link |
I understand, I think when it's a business,
link |
it might make sense.
link |
First of all, you should actually be good
link |
at being a business and making money,
link |
which is why for me, the IOC doesn't make sense.
link |
Like it should be accessible, but it would cost money.
link |
Like would I have to email them for this footage
link |
No, but the question is,
link |
like the way you run a business
link |
is you make that frictionless.
link |
Whatever the money is, $30,000 or $30,
link |
you make it frictionless and easy to pay that money.
link |
But anyway, I understand why that might be the case
link |
with Flow Grappling,
link |
but to me, the Olympics is a special thing.
link |
It's like, like you said, it is history.
link |
Like there's not even,
link |
like even the world championships don't compare.
link |
I understand they're really important,
link |
but Olympics is history.
link |
And the stories should certainly belong to the athletes
link |
if they want to do like Fury on the Mat
link |
to do their own story,
link |
or like on a podcast to talk about the most tragic moment
link |
Do you have a sense of how that could be fixed or no?
link |
The only thing I could think of is,
link |
you'd have to go to the Olympic committee.
link |
The US Olympic committee is the place I would start
link |
because the US controls the worldwide market
link |
when it comes to television.
link |
We pay the most for our television rights.
link |
Our sponsors pay the most for their rights
link |
to be associated with the best team in the world,
link |
which is the United States, right?
link |
So all the money starts here.
link |
I gotta believe there has to be a way to get that footage
link |
that should be accessible to the sports themselves.
link |
I'm surprised it's not,
link |
but if it's not, then it's because of dollars.
link |
It's because people aren't,
link |
the sport itself is not willing to pay enough money
link |
to have it on its, accessible to its audience.
link |
It's too cost prohibitive for them to do it.
link |
No, but I think it's also, unfortunately,
link |
might be some mixture of incompetence
link |
and just an old way of doing things
link |
because there's a lot of money to be made
link |
on television rights where you live show the event, right?
link |
But what's not being leveraged is the huge amount of money
link |
that could be made on the replay.
link |
This is what people don't understand is,
link |
do you know how many times, just the tens of millions
link |
of times that people watch individual events years from now?
link |
You watch like all the videos on YouTube,
link |
they're still getting plays.
link |
Hundreds of millions of views on stuff
link |
that happened 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
link |
That's really powerful and there's a lot of opportunity
link |
to make a ton of money.
link |
So it's not that they're necessarily greedy.
link |
They're also just not good at being greedy.
link |
I get what you're saying.
link |
Yeah, it's not the tradition.
link |
Think about it though, it's not traditional, right?
link |
For television studios, it's nontraditional
link |
to go to online streaming, to online access to information.
link |
It's not hard, right?
link |
Because everybody's doing it now, but it's not typical.
link |
Yeah, so it requires for the IOC
link |
to operate outside their comfort zone.
link |
Well, I definitely hope that's the case.
link |
And since Travis's video got taken down,
link |
it's obvious they have it.
link |
They have it on their YouTube channel.
link |
So it's like, I hope that they will just release it.
link |
And for money, for whatever, but release it
link |
and have that history not be erased, right?
link |
It'd be wonderful if athletes could buy.
link |
Even if you could buy your own footage,
link |
you can't use it commercially, you can't,
link |
but you can buy your own matches
link |
and have them available for yourself
link |
or package the footage, it'd be awesome.
link |
Thank you for that.
link |
That is quite heartbreaking for me,
link |
so I wanted to talk about it a little bit.
link |
Let's go to you as an athlete real quick.
link |
You represented the United States at four Olympics,
link |
winning a bronze medal at two of them.
link |
Who or what was the toughest match or moment
link |
you had in those years?
link |
Maybe a moment that defined you,
link |
that you remember as being
link |
particularly defining in your career.
link |
I would say the bronze medal match in Atlanta in 96,
link |
because up to that moment,
link |
the United States team had not won a medal,
link |
had not fought for a medal in the games.
link |
We were on our home turf.
link |
It was my second Olympic games, right?
link |
So I had competed in 92 and I had won two matches
link |
and lost in the third round in Barcelona.
link |
I didn't make the podium.
link |
I lost to a Japanese guy from Japan.
link |
But the gold, silver, and bronze medalist
link |
at that Olympics in Barcelona were all guys that I had beat.
link |
In fact, two of them I was undefeated against
link |
in my entire career,
link |
the Brazilian and the Cuban I had never lost to.
link |
So that's when I knew I was capable of being
link |
on the podium at the Olympic games.
link |
When 96 came around, I was 25 years old.
link |
I was fairly in my prime.
link |
I had lived in Japan for six months.
link |
My technique was at a high level.
link |
I was amongst the best in the world.
link |
I lost at that Olympics to a guy from Mongolia.
link |
It was right before the match
link |
I was supposed to fight against Japan.
link |
So I was anticipating the match against Japan
link |
and I got beat by the Mongolian.
link |
So that was kind of a letdown.
link |
But the match for the bronze in front of the hometown crowd,
link |
all of my family, all of my friends,
link |
everybody who had ever helped me in the sport
link |
were in the stands that day,
link |
including all my teammates at Brown University
link |
that were on the wrestling team
link |
and little, my uncles, my aunts,
link |
everybody was in the stands, right?
link |
So it was like the Jimmy Pedro day.
link |
And I'm getting goosebumps right now talking about it.
link |
But it was a match against the Brazilian
link |
for the bronze medal.
link |
I had beaten the Brazilian like two or three times
link |
And I found myself down in the match.
link |
He actually countered me.
link |
I came in my Taiyo Toshi and he was waiting for it
link |
and he counted me and he scored a yuko against me.
link |
So I was losing the fight,
link |
came down to about the last minute in the match
link |
and I was just tucking in my gi
link |
and fixing my thing and gathering my thoughts together.
link |
And the whole crowd just started chanting,
link |
And I like literally like got so much energy.
link |
I walked out there, I grabbed the guy,
link |
I came in my Taiyo Toshi again.
link |
He stepped off the Taiyo Toshi.
link |
I threw him with duchimada for Ippon.
link |
I won my first Olympic medal
link |
in front of the hometown crowd.
link |
Everybody went bananas.
link |
The United States judo team had our first medal
link |
from the Olympics.
link |
It ended up being the only Olympic medal
link |
we won at that games.
link |
But it was like a magical moment that defined my career
link |
and solidified myself in like history where,
link |
hey, now I get to step up on the Olympic podium
link |
and I'm Olympic medalist.
link |
And to me, that was my defining moment.
link |
And after that, I was sold.
link |
Like man, I had to go back to the Olympics again.
link |
I wanna win a gold medal.
link |
I want this feeling all over again.
link |
I don't care if I have to wait four years, let's do it.
link |
In your career, like moments like that,
link |
do you think you love winning or hate losing more?
link |
So do you live for those moments
link |
or are you more driven by just how much you hate losing?
link |
So in order to be a champion,
link |
my belief is that you have to hate losing
link |
more than you like winning.
link |
Hate losing more than you like winning.
link |
But I live for those moments when you do win.
link |
And what excited me the most in my career
link |
when I was competing was I loved being in the finals.
link |
I loved the spotlight being on me.
link |
I can't think of too many times in my career,
link |
of course there were a few,
link |
but there weren't too many times where the chips were down,
link |
like the lights were on and I didn't win.
link |
Like it was, I might've lost early in the day
link |
and didn't make it to the finals
link |
or didn't make it to the medal rounds.
link |
But like in my career, I have a ton of golds.
link |
I have a ton of bronzes,
link |
which means the lights are on and I won
link |
and I have very few silvers and very few fifths.
link |
So I either lost in the early rounds
link |
and didn't make it to the medal rounds in my younger days
link |
or the spotlight came and I really shined.
link |
Cause if you look, I don't know how many silvers,
link |
but there wasn't very many silver medals in my career
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
So I just loved that moment.
link |
I didn't feel pressure.
link |
I loved the crowd.
link |
I loved being in the spotlight.
link |
I didn't have, I wasn't nervous when it came to the finals
link |
or I knew I was getting a medal.
link |
You know, so it was just me against the other guy
link |
and that's how I always saw it.
link |
And I just loved that moment.
link |
So your dad was your coach.
link |
You didn't get to meet him tonight.
link |
He's kind of a legend in the sport.
link |
So how has your dad helped you as a coach,
link |
as an athlete, as a human being throughout the years?
link |
Number one, my dad is the most brutally honest person
link |
you will ever meet in your life.
link |
He will tell you, if you are fat,
link |
he will tell you you're fat, right, to your face.
link |
He wants you to get better.
link |
He wants you to be healthy.
link |
Doesn't want you to die of obesity.
link |
It's just the way he is.
link |
If you didn't do well, he will not sugarcoat it.
link |
He will let you know what you didn't do right.
link |
So he's the ultimate litmus test.
link |
Second is, he is the most passionate, caring, deep,
link |
always thinking about, very cerebral,
link |
very like a student of the game,
link |
somebody who helped me immensely in defining my strategy,
link |
helping me improve, and always look for what's next.
link |
Third, in terms of training,
link |
I think that he's probably the most brilliant human
link |
when it comes to preparing an athlete physically,
link |
not necessarily mentally, physically, for success.
link |
When all the chips are down,
link |
that athlete will be ready that day,
link |
and he has a system of training and preparing
link |
and getting the athlete to peak for performance.
link |
You mean like conditioning, like the whole thing?
link |
Okay, because I vaguely remember Kayla Harrison
link |
talking about her preparation being very difficult.
link |
At the same, you go back and ask Ronda Rousey
link |
about her career, right?
link |
My dad was her coach.
link |
My dad moved her to Camp New Hampshire in Boston,
link |
got her up, ran her in the morning,
link |
had her downstairs in the basement of his house,
link |
training with the weights.
link |
We brought a Russian girl in.
link |
She did throws on his cement outside
link |
with the little crash pad.
link |
Threw the Russian girl a hundred times that morning,
link |
and then every night came to Boston,
link |
to the training center in Wakefield,
link |
trained at night, and went back and slept at my dad's house,
link |
and three weeks straight before she went off to Beijing.
link |
And he did the same with Kayla.
link |
He did the same with me.
link |
His passion is producing athletes at the highest level,
link |
and he knows how to do it.
link |
And then the one side of my dad's
link |
coaching where I think there's a flaw or a weakness
link |
is on the mental preparation side of the game.
link |
He wasn't somebody that was,
link |
I don't know if he,
link |
maybe because he wasn't an Olympic champion himself
link |
and wasn't a world champion,
link |
he lacked the confidence in helping others be more confident.
link |
So he's more of a,
link |
this is what you need to work on type of thing.
link |
He doesn't know how to build the athletes up
link |
to make them feel invincible.
link |
And I feel like that's something
link |
that I was able to give all of the athletes,
link |
to help them with that visualization, belief in yourself,
link |
knowing that you're gonna win
link |
before you step out of the mat,
link |
knowing that we've earned the right to victory,
link |
seeing success in your mind,
link |
having a positive mantra that you,
link |
I'm the best in the world, nobody's beating me today,
link |
So you go out there feeling like King Kong
link |
when you step on the mat,
link |
that nobody's gonna stop you.
link |
And so I think the combination of both of us as coaches,
link |
I'm a lot more technical.
link |
My dad is good at letting,
link |
identifying what they need to do for their techniques
link |
and what, in strategy, how to beat opponents
link |
and putting game plans together.
link |
So combined, the two of us made an unbelievable team.
link |
So he's not gonna let the athlete be soft
link |
when they enter the highest,
link |
the most difficult competitions of their career.
link |
So on the mental side, what's mental preparation look like?
link |
Like how many years before the Olympics
link |
do you start helping an athlete believe
link |
that they can win an Olympic medal?
link |
Well, I think it's gotta be a seed
link |
in that athlete's brain, something they wanna do, right?
link |
Nobody can quickly get there, right?
link |
It's a long process.
link |
But if your goal, if you're national champion
link |
or you've proven yourself to win
link |
in some international tournaments,
link |
and you think the Olympics is a possibility for you,
link |
then defining it as, hey, I wanna be on the Olympic team,
link |
that would be the first step into getting ready.
link |
And I always make them put it on paper.
link |
If it really is your goal,
link |
then you show me that it's your goal
link |
and put it on paper and commit to it.
link |
I wanna be Olympic medalist,
link |
I wanna be Olympic champion,
link |
I wanna go to the Olympics.
link |
World team member, maybe junior world team member,
link |
whatever it is, we walk before we go to the highest level.
link |
But if the goal is to go to the Olympics,
link |
let's accomplish these other things first, right?
link |
Because if we can accomplish these other things,
link |
then we're on our way to getting to the ultimate goal,
link |
which is the Olympics.
link |
For somebody like Kayla, for example,
link |
she didn't say that she wanted to be Olympic champion
link |
when she first came here in 2005, right?
link |
We wanted to become national champion,
link |
then we wanted to be on the world team,
link |
then we wanted to be a world medalist.
link |
Then our sights were set on the Olympics
link |
or the Olympic gold.
link |
So it's having those clearly defined goals
link |
that are attainable.
link |
Like they should be a reach, they should be a stretch,
link |
but they have to be attainable.
link |
They can't be just a pipe dream.
link |
But once you put it to paper and you think it's achievable,
link |
then it's mapping the plan to get there.
link |
Is there a daily process of visualizing yourself
link |
as an Olympic champion or national champion?
link |
Yes, it is, and you should do it
link |
either every night before you go to bed
link |
or before every training session
link |
or after every training session.
link |
One of those three times it should,
link |
or first thing you wake up in the morning,
link |
because it may be to help some people,
link |
it motivates them to go do what it is
link |
they're supposed to do in the day.
link |
But the process of visualization is, to me,
link |
is closing your eyes for a few moments.
link |
Your brain works really, really fast, right?
link |
And it's actually picturing the day in its entirety,
link |
from start to finish,
link |
from the moment you wake up and you step on the scale
link |
to the moment you have your breakfast
link |
and you go through your morning routine.
link |
Like live the day that you're gonna have at the Olympics.
link |
So whatever it is you're trying to do,
link |
let's say the Olympic day, for example.
link |
Picture yourself making weight,
link |
picture yourself, who you're around, eating your breakfast,
link |
having maybe saying a few jokes, laughing.
link |
This is a real day, make it real.
link |
Going back and packing your judo bag for the day,
link |
getting on the bus, driving to the venue,
link |
feel what it's like walking into the stadium
link |
for the first time, going to the warmup area,
link |
seeing your drawer up on the sheet,
link |
who you're gonna fight that day,
link |
watching yourself warm up, go through your warmup routine,
link |
walking out of the shoot, into the venue,
link |
going to do that first fight.
link |
Picture the moment of throwing your opponent,
link |
coming off the mat, high fiving the coach,
link |
getting ready for your second fight.
link |
Like live the day from start to finish
link |
and make it as real as possible.
link |
We're all the way to the moment where you've just won
link |
and you're raising your arms in celebration,
link |
you're bowing, you're hugging your opponent,
link |
you come off the mat, you hug your coach,
link |
you're running around the stadium with the flag,
link |
you stepped up on the podium, you heard your name,
link |
Olympic champion, Jimmy Pedro,
link |
like you heard the moment,
link |
the medal being put around your neck,
link |
picture the people coming up on the podium with you,
link |
arms around them, taking the pictures.
link |
Like the more real you can make it,
link |
even before it ever happens, right?
link |
When you do that enough times,
link |
I feel that like pathways get created for you
link |
so that when your body gets to that moment,
link |
and I've been here before, this is it,
link |
this is my moment, this is what I pictured my whole life,
link |
I'm not nervous, because I've seen this,
link |
this is gonna happen, I believe it's possible, right?
link |
And I believe the athletes that do that
link |
and make it real enough that when they get to that moment,
link |
they go right through, there's no hesitation.
link |
This is what this is meant to be, this is my destiny,
link |
this is why I did everything I did,
link |
versus the ones that don't think about it ever,
link |
but just kind of like hope, it's not real to them,
link |
it doesn't feel attainable,
link |
they don't believe it's possible,
link |
they haven't committed to believing it was possible.
link |
Without that commitment in yourself and that belief,
link |
And one thing that, I talked to Travis a bit about this,
link |
you probably worked with him on the details
link |
of what you're talking about,
link |
but he said that you should really
link |
focus on visualizing the sensations you feel.
link |
So say if you're drinking coffee or something like that,
link |
you're not thinking about like observing yourself
link |
from a third person perspective drinking coffee,
link |
like you're thinking of how your hand will feel
link |
when it touches something warm.
link |
Like you try to replay the actual sensations
link |
you would feel, right?
link |
So it sounds kind of strange,
link |
but meaning like you really wanna put yourself in the body
link |
as you would experience those moments,
link |
as opposed to like watching yourself on TV
link |
experience in those moments, like really be inside.
link |
And yeah, so that means sensations,
link |
like how does it feel when you grip a gi?
link |
How does it, yeah, the sweating,
link |
just the sensation of sweat,
link |
like rolling down your forehead or whatever,
link |
like all of those actual feelings.
link |
When I explain it to you,
link |
like I guess my body has been through it so many times,
link |
both in my mind and in reality
link |
that it brings back all of those same emotions.
link |
I start to get goosebumps, my armpits start to sweat,
link |
like I'm living it if it's real.
link |
I'm reliving it now.
link |
But when you're going through the visualization process,
link |
it has to be that real, the smells,
link |
the taping of the fingers,
link |
like the more colorful and the more real you can make it,
link |
the more believable it is.
link |
So I've been doing this kind of thing,
link |
just having listened to you enough
link |
for other stuff in life, so let's see if it works.
link |
But do you see this kind of visualization
link |
being useful for other things in career
link |
and all those kinds of things?
link |
100%, 100%, because I just know with my own life,
link |
my own experiences, like my wife sometimes says to me,
link |
she says, well, where do you see yourself
link |
in like five years from now?
link |
And five years ago, I had said to her,
link |
I wanna have my own business.
link |
I wanna have, this is the amount of money
link |
that I'm hoping I can make in a given year.
link |
Like you have to have goals for yourself.
link |
Like is this, if you put out there like,
link |
okay, I wanna make a million dollars in a year.
link |
That's a big number.
link |
Like for me or for the normal person,
link |
like that's a really big number.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Like it's not, especially when you're not making
link |
that much at the time, it's a super big number, right?
link |
So having those goals for yourself,
link |
like it won't happen and it's not possible
link |
unless you dream it's possible
link |
and think that it's possible.
link |
And then it doesn't magically happen.
link |
And maybe it doesn't happen in five years,
link |
maybe it happens in 10,
link |
but at least you're on the path to getting there.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
And I said, I wanna own my own business.
link |
I wanna control my own destiny.
link |
I wanna be my own boss.
link |
I wanna make my own decisions.
link |
Like these are the things that I told her I wanted to do.
link |
And now I'm at that point,
link |
where I work for myself,
link |
I have my own company, I have partners obviously,
link |
but like if I wanna pick up and go somewhere for a week,
link |
I just do, I don't have to ask permission to do it, right?
link |
That's what life, freedom, right?
link |
That's what I'd like.
link |
And all of it starts with a dream.
link |
In the same with my dojo, when I first opened.
link |
So I ran a dojo for a long time
link |
and I only had 60 students always,
link |
like 40 to 60 students had fluctuated.
link |
And I sit there and say,
link |
why can't I get more people in my door, right?
link |
So I hired consultants to come in
link |
and look at my business and say why, right?
link |
And they came in and said,
link |
well, this place is really intimidating.
link |
Like if I was coming in off the street,
link |
the first thing I see is this big Olympic champion
link |
on the wall and I see this training that's going on
link |
and these guys are flying through the air and landing hard.
link |
And as a white belt, you're telling me
link |
that's the class for me?
link |
Like no way, I'm not gonna do that.
link |
So like I listened to these people and I said, you're right.
link |
And the training was hour and a half, two hours long.
link |
People can't handle an hour and a half or two hours training
link |
when they're first walking in the door.
link |
So I had to restructure all my programming.
link |
I had to look at the way I was offering my school
link |
and I had to make levels for everybody, right?
link |
Like here's my four to six year old class.
link |
Here's my six to 13 year old class.
link |
There's all my beginner classes.
link |
They don't mix in with the advanced people.
link |
And I had to learn how to make it accessible for everybody
link |
instead of just the people that wanted to train hard.
link |
And then the challenge was, okay,
link |
if you can have a lot of people in your dojo training,
link |
it's a recreational school.
link |
You can't produce champions at that same school.
link |
That's what I was told.
link |
So then I got all my black belts together
link |
and I said, listen, this is my vision.
link |
This is what I want.
link |
I wanna have a club that has over 200 judo only athletes,
link |
no jujitsu, no karate, nothing, judo only.
link |
I want over 200 people.
link |
And in the inside of that dojo, I wanna have Olympic
link |
champions and I wanna have recreational,
link |
like little kids, five and six years old,
link |
older guys in their seventies train, I don't care,
link |
but I want the spectrum of recreational
link |
and I want Olympic champions.
link |
The only way to do that is to take your instructors
link |
and say, you're gonna do this, define the roles,
link |
who's gonna be the recreational coach,
link |
who's gonna be the competitive coach.
link |
How do we separate these programs?
link |
And lo and behold, that was my vision that I shared
link |
with all of them and that was back in 2006.
link |
And by 2012, we've got Olympic champion Kayla Harrison,
link |
we have over 200 people at the school,
link |
we have a successful thriving business,
link |
but it doesn't happen without that vision,
link |
a plan and believing that it's possible.
link |
Believing that it's possible.
link |
I don't know, but I personally have on top of that
link |
almost like very specific visions of a future.
link |
Like, I don't know what,
link |
cause I don't wanna give actual examples.
link |
Cause for several reasons, one of which is just people
link |
will, as they often have, they often will in your life,
link |
they'll just laugh at it a little bit,
link |
like that seems silly.
link |
And I don't, I'm very hesitant to share certain things
link |
like that with people because they'll,
link |
I mean, I'm with Johnny Ive, who's the lead designer
link |
in Apple, like you want that dream, that little flame
link |
to not, people will put that flame out too easily,
link |
even people that love you.
link |
So I have very specific kind of visions,
link |
like maybe for Travis, it would be like a specific opponent
link |
or something like Ole Bischoff, like very specific,
link |
very specific situation of what's going to happen.
link |
Not just like, I wanna be an Olympic champion,
link |
but very specific, like almost silly situations.
link |
Yeah, like the dynamic between Travis
link |
and Ole Bischoff or something, like maybe visualize that.
link |
For me, that helps because it makes it all real,
link |
It's not like some big goal, like a million dollars
link |
or something like that, which is also really important
link |
to have because you can measure it and so on.
link |
But it's just like you belong in those situations.
link |
Just believing you belong there.
link |
It's not the default.
link |
Yeah, it could be you.
link |
And for some reason, that really helps me,
link |
the little details.
link |
Like visualizing, most of them are almost
link |
a little bit funny, like focusing on the funniness.
link |
It's the mundaneness of it helps me a lot.
link |
And all the people that have done great things,
link |
they're just human too.
link |
Correct, and I think a lot of people overestimate
link |
who others are and sell themselves too short.
link |
Because at the end of the day, everybody started
link |
like everybody else, really.
link |
We're all infants.
link |
We couldn't walk, we couldn't talk,
link |
we couldn't do anything.
link |
We learned along the way.
link |
And I think that's the one thing that I realized is that,
link |
and I tell this to my athletes,
link |
but I also tell it to my recreational students,
link |
nobody is better than you are, nobody,
link |
unless you allow them to be.
link |
If you really want something to happen,
link |
then like map the plan, believe in yourself,
link |
decide, and know full out, you're gonna fail a lot.
link |
You're gonna get beat down.
link |
You're gonna have losses.
link |
You're gonna have struggles.
link |
And I think that's the one thing with social media today
link |
is that everybody sees everybody succeed.
link |
Nobody posts the picture when they're on the ground
link |
and fail, you're losing.
link |
Like nobody sees when you broke your arm
link |
and you had to go through rehab,
link |
whatever it is, like had your injuries
link |
and you were on your couch watching TV
link |
and you were suffering and you were like,
link |
everybody has really, really dark, bad moments in their life
link |
and defeats and losses and suffrage.
link |
And it's only at the end after they've recovered
link |
from all of that, they've reclimbed up the mountain
link |
and they've gone to the pinnacle
link |
that you see them on social media with the medal, right?
link |
But everybody else like struggles and was human
link |
and failed many, many times.
link |
And convincing yourself that you're capable,
link |
I think is the first start of everything.
link |
Do you need people in your life that believe in you
link |
or should most of it come from within yourself?
link |
I think most of it has to come in from,
link |
it certainly helps, but it has to come from you first.
link |
You have to be driven, like other people can help you
link |
define where you wanna go and help you get there
link |
and encourage you and can support you
link |
and whether it's resource wise or with connections
link |
and like they can help with that path,
link |
but that first part has to come from you.
link |
It has to be your passion, your desire,
link |
your commitment to yourself.
link |
You're the one that's gonna ultimately make
link |
all the sacrifices to do it.
link |
So it has to be your decision, not your parents,
link |
not your spouses, something that you're
link |
really motivated to do.
link |
Let me ask you about Travis, Kayla,
link |
and maybe a few of the other athletes
link |
you've been involved with.
link |
Travis Stevens, Olympic silver medalist,
link |
three time Olympian, 2008, 2012, 2016.
link |
What makes Travis Stevens great?
link |
What makes him so successful?
link |
What makes him unique in your mind as an athlete?
link |
Through all the hardship he had to overcome,
link |
through his weird looking sayonagi
link |
that eventually worked out nicely,
link |
through the full richness of his personality,
link |
in the context of all the other great athletes
link |
you've coached, what makes him special?
link |
His fight, Travis has fight.
link |
And you know, the first time I ever saw Travis Stevens
link |
was in, like recognized him, maybe I had seen him before
link |
as a younger boy or something,
link |
but like actually recognized him as,
link |
I brought a group of young kids to Italy
link |
for a competition in a training camp.
link |
And it was this program called U23 Elite.
link |
And I picked, handpicked 20 kids to go to this event.
link |
And it was the first time I coached an international team.
link |
And I had never seen Travis fight before,
link |
compete, train, anything.
link |
And during this competition, you know,
link |
he's an 81 kilo player.
link |
I think he was maybe like 18 years old, 17, 18 years old.
link |
And it was a really hard European event.
link |
And I think Travis won three matches and he lost two.
link |
But what stood out the most to me was like,
link |
the fight he had in him.
link |
He was scrapping every fight.
link |
Like he scrapped hard.
link |
Like he wanted to win more than any of them, right?
link |
He didn't win, but he wanted to win more.
link |
And I noticed that right away.
link |
And then I also noticed that after he lost his second match
link |
and he was eliminated from the tournament,
link |
I saw how disappointed he was in himself.
link |
Like he actually thought he was supposed
link |
to beat those people.
link |
Even though he was like 17, right?
link |
And he's fighting against grown men that are,
link |
you know, a high level judo, much higher than he was.
link |
And I said to him, I said,
link |
hey son, like, don't worry, man.
link |
You got a long career ahead of you.
link |
Like, I'm glad you're disappointed,
link |
but there's so many things you don't know
link |
and so many skills you don't have.
link |
The fact that you were able to hold your own
link |
and scrap like that, like you've got a good future.
link |
And I remember calling my friend, Jason Morris,
link |
after that tournament.
link |
And I said, hey man,
link |
did you ever hear of this kid, Travis Stevens?
link |
I said, man, that kid's got some fight in him, right?
link |
And I said that, I said that to Jason at the time.
link |
I said, that kid's got some fight in him, man.
link |
He's pretty talented, you know?
link |
And that's how it started.
link |
But so I saw that in him when he was young.
link |
But the other thing was, Travis,
link |
like, there's no such thing as hard work to that guy.
link |
If you tell him to put his head through the wall
link |
and that's how he wins,
link |
he'll go put his head through the wall.
link |
He'll do whatever it takes for him to do to achieve success.
link |
And he hates failure more than he likes winning, 100%.
link |
He punishes himself when he doesn't do well.
link |
He makes himself work harder.
link |
He goes and just abuses himself when he doesn't succeed
link |
because he's so heartbroken and disappointed in himself.
link |
So that's a trait that I think all of the athletes
link |
that I work with closely, they all had that same trait.
link |
They hated losing more than anything.
link |
They would break their arm.
link |
They'd fall on their head.
link |
They'd rather get hit by a car than lose a judo tournament.
link |
And as a result, then they all had fight
link |
and they all were willing to train.
link |
They were willing to listen.
link |
They would do anything for victory.
link |
Within the rules, I'm not talking about taking drugs
link |
or anything like that,
link |
but they'd give 100% of themselves for victory.
link |
And Travis was somebody that when he was down,
link |
he found a way to get better doing something else.
link |
If he couldn't do standing, that's when he started jujitsu.
link |
He couldn't go on his feet anymore.
link |
He couldn't stand up and train.
link |
Might as well go learn jujitsu
link |
and get good on the ground because I can.
link |
So he always found a way no matter what obstacle
link |
was in his way, he just went around it.
link |
So what about, it'd be interesting to get your perspective
link |
because I know Travis's perspective
link |
is just the number of injuries.
link |
Like what do you make of the perseverance
link |
through all the injuries he had to overcome?
link |
Specifically like you just observing this creature
link |
that you've coached.
link |
I mean, he seems to not see the injuries as a problem.
link |
He just like, just like you said, head through the wall.
link |
It's like what, like when we were talking about injuries,
link |
he kinda, he doesn't even see the injuries themselves
link |
as the problem because he thinks that the injuries,
link |
you know, you heal back stronger.
link |
I forget the exact quote, but he said like,
link |
my body is now less injury prone than most of anyone else.
link |
Because I've already broken everything.
link |
I've broken everything and it's just grown back stronger.
link |
Like, cause I asked him something like,
link |
do you regret sort of pushing your body
link |
to all of those places that resulted in those injuries?
link |
He was, his response was like, no, I'm stronger now.
link |
So I don't know if that's justification,
link |
but that certainly describes a mindset that,
link |
yeah, head through the wall.
link |
That doesn't, it's almost not dramatic.
link |
Like, look, I got this injury.
link |
It's so, I'm so like brave and special
link |
for overcoming this injury.
link |
He's just, he's just, that's part of the job
link |
and he gets the job done.
link |
But like that job involves a lot of injuries.
link |
One of the talks I gave Travis and that team
link |
at that particular tournament was at the very beginning
link |
of the camp after the tournament, I said to them, listen,
link |
my vision, I shared my vision with them.
link |
I said, my vision is, you know, in seven years,
link |
cause that was 2005, I said in seven years,
link |
I wanna have a US team that steps on the mat
link |
that is ready to kick ass.
link |
And in order to get there,
link |
all of you guys can be a part of this team
link |
and part of this process.
link |
But in order to get there,
link |
you guys have to be the first ones to practice.
link |
You have to be the last ones to leave
link |
cause we have to work harder than the rest of the world
link |
because we're up against all odds.
link |
I said, I am sick of America being a laughing stock of judo
link |
and being the first round, easy match,
link |
warmup for everybody else.
link |
I said, if you get injured,
link |
you're not gonna be on the side with, you know,
link |
with a ice bag on taking off rounds.
link |
And then get back on the mat the next day
link |
and tell me you're okay.
link |
If you can train the next day, you can train today.
link |
So there's no injury.
link |
The only time you'll leave in this dojo
link |
is if the ambulance has to take you out of here.
link |
You know, and I do think subliminally,
link |
Travis bought into that message and heard that message then,
link |
said, if I'm gonna be a champion,
link |
that's the way I'm gonna do it.
link |
And he did, and he embodied it, he lived it.
link |
Man, do it many times in Europe where I said,
link |
dude, just tape it up, go off to the side,
link |
just take the day off, like, take the rest of the day off,
link |
you're beat up, you can't do it.
link |
He said, no, no, I'm gonna tape it up, I'm gonna tape it up.
link |
I said, no, you don't need to right now.
link |
And he said, no, sensei, I'm doing it.
link |
You know, the ambulance isn't taking me out,
link |
it's just my wrist, it's just my ankle, it's just my wrist.
link |
It's just my ankle, yeah, I love it.
link |
Yeah, what about the, so the other really big thing
link |
is you comment on a little bit is the weight cut.
link |
So early in his career, he was 81 kg,
link |
and that was presumably not so difficult.
link |
But later in his career, he is 81 kg,
link |
and it's becoming more and more difficult.
link |
So that's the other thing with him is,
link |
so I've known a lot of really, really tough people
link |
at the highest levels broken by the weight cut.
link |
Like that can break the toughest minds.
link |
And it doesn't seem to have broken him.
link |
And he's delivered on it often, on like insane weight cuts.
link |
So just as a coach, what do you think about his,
link |
particularly his mind and the challenge of the weight cut?
link |
It was part of his process.
link |
It was part of his way of getting ready for battle.
link |
Yeah, it really was.
link |
And if I'm gonna suffer this much,
link |
then I'm gonna make my opponents pay
link |
for all the suffering that I went through to get here.
link |
That was his mindset.
link |
Later on in his career, you're right,
link |
like a lot of times, Travis,
link |
he would never step on a scale
link |
until he got to the tournament.
link |
And even when he get to the tournament,
link |
like he'd weigh like 90 kilos.
link |
He'd show up at the tournament nine kilos over.
link |
I'm like, you have to, but I never,
link |
it was just an expectation of making weight.
link |
Not making weight was never an option
link |
for any of our athletes.
link |
And Travis knew it.
link |
And he said, as a professional, my job is to make weight.
link |
If I don't make weight,
link |
he was never gonna allow that to happen.
link |
And he was never gonna allow us to come to him and say,
link |
Cause losing wasn't an option,
link |
making weight wasn't,
link |
not making weight was not an option for him ever either.
link |
But a lot of times he wouldn't even,
link |
he'd be nine kilos over on the plane
link |
going over to the tournament
link |
and have to make weight three days later.
link |
And he didn't break 86 kilos
link |
until the day before the tournament.
link |
Like he had five kilos over the day before.
link |
But he would do three workouts
link |
to wake up in the morning and work out.
link |
Then he'd work out in the afternoon.
link |
Then he'd eat again.
link |
Then he'd work out again at night.
link |
And then he'd reward himself.
link |
Hey, I worked out three times today.
link |
He'd go have a, you know, a Mountain Dew.
link |
You know, or a chocolate bar.
link |
And then his next morning, he's back up to 87
link |
and he would never touch weight
link |
until the morning of weigh ins.
link |
That's a, when he,
link |
he wasn't on weight for more than like five minutes.
link |
His process would break a lot of people.
link |
So the fact that he got the job done is...
link |
Not just the job done, but every single time
link |
he got the job done.
link |
And I made those athletes fight.
link |
We would fight in Paris.
link |
We would do a camp for a week,
link |
double session camp for a week.
link |
He'd be seven kilos over,
link |
have to fight the next weekend.
link |
We're talking two or three days later.
link |
You know, so not only did he make the weight,
link |
but he did a grueling training camp twice a day.
link |
And then cut weight and then fought again.
link |
Then did another camp for a week
link |
in double session training camp,
link |
and then fought on a third weekend in a row.
link |
And our athletes went through hell.
link |
You know, all of our athletes went through hell
link |
because on the tour around the world,
link |
they fought in every event.
link |
They did every camp.
link |
They fought in every event.
link |
Whereas most of the other teams,
link |
like Japan comes in and fights in Paris,
link |
then they go home.
link |
You know, they maybe do a camp for three days,
link |
then they go home.
link |
They don't stay in Europe for four or five weeks straight
link |
and fight in every tournament.
link |
And when you get to Germany,
link |
the Germans skip the French Open.
link |
They skip the camp in France.
link |
They're just getting ready for Germany.
link |
Our athletes already had two competitions,
link |
two training camps, three weight cuts now.
link |
And then, so they're not 100% when they fight in Germany,
link |
but that's all part of the experience they need,
link |
the training that they need
link |
that they don't get here in this country.
link |
And all of those were just preparation
link |
for our world championships or our Olympic games.
link |
So by the time our athletes got to those tournaments,
link |
they felt so strong, so rested, so like,
link |
man, this guy that felt like a monster in Germany
link |
feels like nothing today
link |
because you're fully rested now, you know?
link |
But part of the challenge
link |
is because the American team is smaller and more,
link |
I mean, just smaller,
link |
is all the different places you go to do the weight cut,
link |
to do the diet, to do the preparation or the recovery,
link |
there's, like that process changes every time.
link |
So you basically have to improvise a lot.
link |
So you show up to a hotel
link |
and how you do the weight cut, you don't know.
link |
And this is the different weather conditions.
link |
It's not, it's like, what is it?
link |
Rocky versus Drago, right?
link |
So you don't have, you have to just improvise.
link |
And that's also a fascinating part
link |
of the American judo story,
link |
which is like, you have to improvise more.
link |
Well, it was funny because when I, it was 1990,
link |
and it was at the Goodwill Games, right?
link |
And we were, it was a US Olympic committee type event.
link |
And so we're on the bus with the swim team.
link |
And it was me and Jason Morris on the American team,
link |
and we're going to the judo competition,
link |
but we're on the bus with the swim team.
link |
I'm sorry, we're going to the venue where we're staying.
link |
You know, I remember being like by ourselves
link |
with no staff, no manager, no coach,
link |
we're just by ourselves going to fight in Russia, right?
link |
And the swim team's on there with their full sweats
link |
and their staff and like their managers.
link |
And I heard the lady, the girl go,
link |
I'm sorry, this was 1994,
link |
because it was in St. Petersburg, Russia.
link |
So I heard the little girl on the team,
link |
she goes up to the coach, she goes,
link |
coach, do you think you can send the massage therapist
link |
to my room at 10 a.m.?
link |
You know, I'm feeling kind of jet lag.
link |
I looked at, me and Jason looked at each other like,
link |
oh, she's scheduling a massage?
link |
We don't even have a staff.
link |
Like what the hell is going on here?
link |
You know, what a difference in sporting,
link |
you know, different sports within the same country,
link |
But that, I mean, not to romanticize things,
link |
but that you do represent the spirit of the Olympics
link |
when you're kind of the improvisational nature of it.
link |
Cause it is just you, you and sometimes you and the coach
link |
and just pure guts and you against the world with no money.
link |
The warrior spirit.
link |
The warrior spirit.
link |
How did it feel like when he,
link |
after being in two Olympics,
link |
beating some of the best people in the world,
link |
facing some of the best people in the world
link |
and just barely losing,
link |
what did it feel like to you as a coach
link |
to see Travis Stevens win the silver medal?
link |
I like, first of all, in 2012 in London,
link |
it was like, it felt like somebody died.
link |
I'm not going to be, I'm not going to lie to you.
link |
The Ole Bischoff match?
link |
Not, no, just seeing Travis not finish on the podium period.
link |
You know, in the Ole Bischoff match,
link |
I thought he won regardless of who won and who lost.
link |
He just left everything he had on that mat, right?
link |
10 minutes of probably it was a 20 something minute match,
link |
but 10 minutes of fighting actually, right?
link |
He left everything he had.
link |
He wanted to be in the Olympic finals.
link |
He wanted to be Olympic champion.
link |
And when he didn't get that opportunity,
link |
he lost everything.
link |
He drained himself.
link |
He cried for 45 minutes straight.
link |
I couldn't regroup him.
link |
I couldn't get him up.
link |
I said, Travis, you've got to stop your crying.
link |
You've got to get off the floor.
link |
We've got a bronze medal fight.
link |
Like if you don't recover, you're not going to perform well.
link |
And he just didn't care.
link |
Like it was gold or nothing.
link |
And so when he walked out against the Canadian boy,
link |
he had beaten the Canadian.
link |
I think at that time,
link |
he had beaten that Canadian every single time,
link |
except for that bronze medal match.
link |
But he just didn't have the fight in him anymore.
link |
You know, he'd left it all in the match,
link |
in the Bischoff match.
link |
So to see him come back with zero, right?
link |
We just had a team where his best friend, Marty Malloy,
link |
won a bronze medal, right?
link |
Then the day after Travis fights,
link |
Kayla Harrison goes and wins her first gold medal, right?
link |
Our first ever gold.
link |
So we have a gold and a bronze.
link |
His training partner wins a gold.
link |
His best friend from growing up wins a bronze.
link |
He has nothing, right?
link |
To see him for four years go through hell,
link |
like literally like all of his injuries,
link |
every training camp,
link |
and then forget the humiliation,
link |
because every time any reporter ever came to my dojo,
link |
they want to talk to Kayla.
link |
She's the Olympic champion.
link |
Who's this Travis guy?
link |
So he didn't medal.
link |
He's not that important.
link |
And up until you get to right before the Olympics,
link |
now they talk about he's an Olympian again.
link |
But up until that point,
link |
and then every little kid sees Kayla's medal.
link |
Oh, Travis, yeah, you went to the Olympics.
link |
Where's your medal?
link |
You know, I took fifth, I didn't place.
link |
You know, it's the lowest of low,
link |
every day having that constant reminder.
link |
So four years later, when that guy,
link |
I mean, mentally, he was ready.
link |
Physically, he was ready.
link |
That was the best and strongest Travis Stevens
link |
that I've ever seen and I've ever felt.
link |
Like, cause I had to get on the mat
link |
and do some drills and stuff like that,
link |
and like try to defend armbars,
link |
and cause we didn't have a lot of bodies in Rio.
link |
And I was like, my God, he's,
link |
I said after one of the prizes,
link |
those are the strongest I've ever felt that guy, right?
link |
Before the competition, so physically he was ready.
link |
Mentally, the morning of competition,
link |
I said to Travis, I looked him in the eye,
link |
and I said, you know, we're ready to go over to the venue.
link |
I said, are you ready today?
link |
And he just looked at me like he goes,
link |
I am gonna shock the world today.
link |
That's what he told me, I'm gonna shock the world today.
link |
And I said, all right, great, let's go, right?
link |
So we go to the venue,
link |
and every other athlete was just like nervously,
link |
like doing repetitions of Uchi Komis.
link |
You could see like sweat coming out.
link |
You could see like all this nervous energy
link |
going through their body.
link |
And here comes Travis Stevens.
link |
He's got these big goofy headphones on.
link |
He's got a tank top that says USA on it.
link |
He's got the swim trunks that say USA,
link |
like that have shiny letters that glow in the dark.
link |
And he's like, and this is in the middle of the judo hall
link |
where all these athletes are warming up
link |
for their first match.
link |
He's like dancing around, like doing this loose warmup,
link |
like almost like a little kid at an amusement park
link |
whose dad said, yeah, go play, you know?
link |
And it was like, he had waited four years for that moment,
link |
and he was so relaxed, so focused, so relaxed,
link |
and couldn't wait.
link |
It was like a caged tiger.
link |
Like if you like coming out of the chute
link |
to go step on to the mat was like this tiger
link |
that you were just letting out of the cage,
link |
and he just go, like now's your time to go fight.
link |
And that's what he did that whole day.
link |
And like when he beat Chirikishvili in the semis
link |
and choked him out and won that fight,
link |
like there's nobody with the exception
link |
of maybe the guys in the American team,
link |
there was nobody in that stadium
link |
that expected Travis to beat him, nobody.
link |
Like, you know, he had smashed Travis,
link |
I don't know how many times before that free poem,
link |
like in the first minute even.
link |
It wasn't even a fight, right?
link |
And it was great game plan.
link |
He's the world number one at the time too.
link |
World number one at the time, world champion,
link |
carried the flag for the Georgian Federation
link |
walking into the games,
link |
most dominant 81 kilo player in that weight class
link |
for quite some time.
link |
And man, we just had his number and Travis was ready to go.
link |
It was so awesome.
link |
I mean, we had already won,
link |
Kayla had already won her second gold, right?
link |
The way the event went and Travis winning that
link |
was like icing on the cake for our team.
link |
That was the best performance we've ever had in history.
link |
So you mentioned Kayla.
link |
She is one of, if not the greatest American Jidoka ever.
link |
Two time gold medalist.
link |
2010 world champion.
link |
First senior worlds.
link |
What makes Kayla special?
link |
What makes her so great?
link |
What made this champion?
link |
It's a combination of a lot of things.
link |
One was obviously Kayla's mental toughness, right?
link |
To overcome what she overcame.
link |
You know, this is a girl who,
link |
you know, let's not say forget about the sexual abuse,
link |
but the fact that she had to go through that in life
link |
and learned how to compartmentalize that
link |
and keep that off as a separate part of her brain,
link |
you know, and forget about it and move on.
link |
That took an incredible team to help her do that,
link |
and my dad was a huge part of her accomplishing that.
link |
So for people who don't know, we should comment
link |
and say that Kayla had to go through trauma
link |
in her earlier life through sexual abuse
link |
and had to overcome that through the whole process
link |
of becoming a champion as well.
link |
Because she had zero self esteem, zero self worth.
link |
She was at the lowest of lows
link |
and didn't even want to be on this earth, right?
link |
So she was traumatized obviously
link |
and getting her the right help
link |
and surrounding her with the right people
link |
who could help her get through that
link |
and be by her side as she's getting through that
link |
and letting her know and reaffirming
link |
that she's doing the right thing
link |
and she made the right decision
link |
and she should have zero guilt.
link |
And you know, this doesn't define her.
link |
It happened to her, but it doesn't define her.
link |
What defines her is what she does from now on.
link |
And then rebuilding that person to become who she became.
link |
I think the mental toughness is a big part of it, her mind.
link |
But then as an athlete, she's a lot like Travis.
link |
My dad always jokes with her.
link |
He says, you're a workhorse.
link |
You're not a thoroughbred.
link |
We're not gonna treat you like a thoroughbred, right?
link |
You're a workhorse, so you're gonna work.
link |
And the way you're gonna get bigger and stronger
link |
is you're gonna work harder and you're gonna keep, you know.
link |
And she came to us when she was only 15.
link |
So at that time we got her
link |
with a really good strength and conditioning coach.
link |
We did all the core Olympic style lifting.
link |
Like as her body was developing,
link |
she was getting stronger every single day.
link |
And then, you know, she had the luxury
link |
of being on the mat with,
link |
at the time I was still young enough to train
link |
and be on the mat and I was around her weight class
link |
and Travis was able to train with her
link |
and we had all the top US athletes at the time
link |
training here at my school.
link |
So she got the benefit of all the best guys
link |
to train within the country, you know.
link |
And her doing all of those rounds,
link |
you know, night in, week, night,
link |
every night, every week, every year,
link |
compiled with the best, you know,
link |
highest level she could as a girl.
link |
She got the strength, she got the technique,
link |
she got the, and then she had the coaching on top of it
link |
with my dad being on her as, you know,
link |
working her out and, you know, having the wherewithal
link |
to develop a strategy and a plan for her.
link |
Because when she first came here,
link |
she competed at 63 kilos, which is 138 pounds.
link |
At the time, Rhonda Rousey was also training here
link |
and she was 70 kilos.
link |
So if Kayla was struggling making 63,
link |
so the only way to, obviously,
link |
the only way to still compete is to move up.
link |
But my dad said, well, if you move up,
link |
then you're in Rhonda's weight.
link |
So let's skip that weight and you're gonna go to 78 kilos.
link |
And he told her, listen, you're gonna go up two weight classes.
link |
She looked at him and was like, that's 172 pounds.
link |
And he goes, well, I don't care.
link |
Like, you're already struggling making 138,
link |
you weigh 150, what's the difference?
link |
We put 20 pounds on, go to 170.
link |
So that's why she jumped two weights,
link |
because she passed Rhonda, she went to the weight above
link |
so she could make the national team
link |
and she had a chance to go to the Olympics
link |
and all that, because we envisioned Rhonda
link |
staying around till 2012.
link |
And that's also like a longterm vision
link |
because you kind of grow into that body then over time.
link |
So you can dominate, you can learn
link |
what it's like in that weight class.
link |
You can learn to dominate that weight class,
link |
excel and then dominate.
link |
People that cut weight too hard, too long,
link |
they forget about technique
link |
because they're only worried about losing weight.
link |
They're always tired in training.
link |
They don't give 100% effort, they're not getting better.
link |
She now is just focused on getting better at judo,
link |
getting bigger, getting stronger, getting more powerful.
link |
So I think giving her that purpose and that,
link |
that was a great call.
link |
What are some memorable or maybe the most memorable moment,
link |
Kayla Harrison moment to you as her coach?
link |
Not the most perhaps, let's say,
link |
what are some memorable moments?
link |
Everybody hears the good ones, right?
link |
So everybody knows she won the world championships
link |
She was our two time Olympic champion in 2012, 2016.
link |
I'll never forget those moments, right?
link |
Cause they're historic.
link |
One of the biggest moments that I liked sharing this story
link |
with everybody is that in 2010 in January,
link |
Kayla was still a developing athlete
link |
and we had a local tournament in New York.
link |
It was in Brooklyn, New York, it was called the Starrett Cup.
link |
And I knew that at that tournament
link |
that two of the Canadian girls,
link |
they were like ranked 15th or 20th in the world.
link |
They weren't superstars, but they were tough players.
link |
Both of them, I knew were gonna be at that tournament.
link |
So I said, Kayla, we're gonna go to this tournament,
link |
you're gonna compete against the Canadian girls,
link |
get some good experience,
link |
figure out what you need to work on
link |
and then we'll go home and work on some stuff.
link |
Well, she went to the tournament,
link |
there was only three girls in the weight,
link |
her and the two Canadians.
link |
At that tournament, she lost both fights, right?
link |
So this is January, 2010, she lost both matches.
link |
She was competitive,
link |
but certainly things she needed to work on,
link |
it was good development thing for her and for us.
link |
It also opened her mind to say, oh man,
link |
cause she was already a junior world champion at the time.
link |
But so now there's another level,
link |
this is a senior level, right?
link |
You gotta go up another level.
link |
Here's two girls that aren't even medalists
link |
that are beating you.
link |
So now there's more work to be done.
link |
And so I like telling that story
link |
because everybody sees the champions in the greatest moments,
link |
they don't see them when they have bad days.
link |
And could you imagine being, oh and two,
link |
you feel like a failure, right?
link |
But 10 months later, it was Tokyo 2010,
link |
she went from oh and two at Starret, New York
link |
to world champion 2010 in the motherland in Japan.
link |
I mean, that's an amazing turnaround.
link |
And that's only possible if you put the losses
link |
in their proper context,
link |
you don't let it destroy you mentally
link |
and just keep moving forward.
link |
So you were there 2010 at the Starret Cup?
link |
I made all those, we fought at every,
link |
like the mentality of our team was
link |
no tournament is beneath us.
link |
If our goal is to go to the Olympics in the world and win,
link |
there's no tournament that's beneath us.
link |
We're gonna get experience, we're gonna fight,
link |
we're gonna learn, we're gonna compete,
link |
we're gonna get better, you know?
link |
I actually, just as a funny little side,
link |
I was there, I competed.
link |
This is one of the earlier tournaments,
link |
like the beginner division.
link |
Oh no, I actually did black belt division too.
link |
That was one of the, actually yeah, I remember that.
link |
That's when it was so early that I thought,
link |
like I was also really strong at that time,
link |
just like physically like power lifting stuff.
link |
So I thought like it'll be good experience
link |
to also do black belt division.
link |
And remember, it must have been actually
link |
Travis's division, which is funny.
link |
Is Legere Brothers?
link |
Yeah, Harry and Gary.
link |
They are super, they're super good
link |
and they're super dominant,
link |
but I think Travis faced one of them and beat them.
link |
I don't know, I just remembered,
link |
it's funny how there's just like these little roads
link |
that later reconnect.
link |
But yeah, there's some incredible people there.
link |
And I saw obviously the positive things
link |
and it's interesting that Kayla's story
link |
was also intersecting there
link |
and that was one of the lower points for her.
link |
Another story I like to share is that
link |
you have to know your athletes, right?
link |
And you have to really get to know their,
link |
what they're thinking psychologically, mentally,
link |
what's going through their head.
link |
Another story was in Tokyo.
link |
It was 2015, the Tokyo Grand Slam.
link |
So we had had Kayla face off
link |
against almost all the top girls in her division.
link |
She had beaten everybody going into the 2016 Olympics.
link |
But at the 2015 Tokyo Grand Slam,
link |
there was a girl from Japan
link |
that she hadn't fought in a long time
link |
and she lost to the girl last time she fought her.
link |
So it was something we wanted her
link |
to beat this girl going into the Olympics
link |
so that she knew she could beat everybody.
link |
And it was a first round match
link |
and it was gonna be tough for Kayla, right?
link |
It was gonna be a really hard fight.
link |
And she had won a bunch of tournaments in a row
link |
leading up to that.
link |
So her confidence was really high, but at the same time,
link |
she didn't think she needed this fight.
link |
And she showed up to the tournament and she said,
link |
I don't think I can fight today.
link |
I've got a stinger in my neck.
link |
I've got a stinger coming down my neck and I'm kind of sore.
link |
And she didn't tell us.
link |
She went and told the trainer.
link |
She walked around, she's holding her neck.
link |
And me and my dad were like, what's up with her?
link |
And then, so maybe she doesn't wanna fight today.
link |
I don't know, right?
link |
So all of a sudden the trainer comes up to us
link |
and she didn't come to us.
link |
The trainer came to us and says,
link |
you know, I really don't think it's a good idea
link |
that Kayla fight today.
link |
And we looked at him and we're like,
link |
well, your opinion doesn't really matter, does it?
link |
What's up with her?
link |
Well, she has this thing in her neck.
link |
It's like a pinched nerve and there's this and that.
link |
We talked, I said, is there a risk of her getting injured?
link |
Like, is this pain or is this risk
link |
that she's gonna get injured and she's gonna set her back
link |
like long time in her career?
link |
Says, no, she's not gonna get injured.
link |
It's just a pinched nerve.
link |
It's a little pain she's gonna have to deal with.
link |
I go, okay, well, can you fix the pain?
link |
Says, yeah, I can do this and that
link |
and I can give her a shot and the pain will go away.
link |
I said, okay, then do that.
link |
And so Kayla comes up, she goes,
link |
didn't the trainer talk to you?
link |
I said, yeah, he talked to us.
link |
Well, he said, I can't fight.
link |
I know, but we already talked to the trainer and.
link |
He said, you're good to go.
link |
She looked at us like.
link |
And then we had to talk to her and say, listen,
link |
you're not injured, you're in pain
link |
because we just came from a camp.
link |
I said, you're in pain, but here's the deal.
link |
We want you to fight this girl.
link |
We want you to go out there and beat this girl, period.
link |
I want to know that you can beat this girl.
link |
This is why we came.
link |
This is our last hard tournament before the Olympic games.
link |
This is what we want from you.
link |
And lo and behold, she understood.
link |
They gave her a quick shot.
link |
The rest of the world thought we were crazy
link |
making her compete.
link |
And then she went out there, she fought,
link |
didn't even know she was injured.
link |
No, you know what I mean?
link |
She just went out there, she fought the tournament.
link |
She beat the Japanese girl.
link |
She ended up going through the whole tournament.
link |
She took a gold medal.
link |
She won the event.
link |
That turned out to be a great confidence builder, yeah.
link |
And that kind of sets you up for all the chaos
link |
that can happen at the Olympic games.
link |
And it tells you if you can beat these girls
link |
when you're not 100% and you're not at your best,
link |
you're physically beat, mentally beat,
link |
imagine what you're gonna do when you're fresh.
link |
Well, when she was going to the Olympic games,
link |
She had the mental game down.
link |
There wasn't a girl in that division
link |
that thought they could beat Kayla
link |
going into those games.
link |
They just looked at her and went, no, not happening.
link |
Yeah, that's great.
link |
I mean, she's a great Olympic champion,
link |
two time Olympic champion.
link |
But there is something that she's commented on,
link |
which is she's suffered or went through depression
link |
after winning her second Olympic gold.
link |
Why do you think this happens?
link |
You often hear stories of great champions
link |
becoming depressed after the Olympics.
link |
There's a lack of purpose afterwards, right?
link |
Because you've done in life what you set out to do.
link |
You've had a goal every day you woke up.
link |
You knew what your purpose was.
link |
You knew what your day looked like.
link |
You knew why you were doing that.
link |
And all of a sudden you won and you got all the fame
link |
and you're all happy.
link |
But then you wake up and you go, now what?
link |
I don't have a next.
link |
And also because there was nothing for her,
link |
there was no path set out for Kayla that said,
link |
okay, you're gonna become an ambassador,
link |
a global ambassador of judo.
link |
The IJF is gonna help pay a salary.
link |
The USA judo is gonna give you a salary.
link |
Here's what we want you to go teach children.
link |
We want you to go be an ambassador for women.
link |
We're gonna fly you around and whatever it is.
link |
We're gonna give you a job and here's what you're gonna do
link |
if you'd like to take it.
link |
There was nothing for her.
link |
Like I remember doing the interview at the Olympics
link |
with her and they said, are you gonna compete
link |
in the next Olympics?
link |
She already two time gold medalist.
link |
What does three time gold medalist do for her?
link |
Doesn't motivate her to do it again.
link |
They said, are you doing MMA?
link |
I said, no, why would she do MMA?
link |
That's ridiculous.
link |
Like she doesn't need MMA.
link |
She should be able to make a living off of what she's
link |
accomplished in this sport for the rest of her life.
link |
But what happens is, and what most people don't understand
link |
is once you say I'm retired, I'm no longer competing
link |
in the sport of judo, you don't get a salary
link |
from USA Judo anymore, which she was getting.
link |
I think she got like $72,000 a year
link |
from USA Judo at the time.
link |
You don't get a stipend from the Olympic committee anymore.
link |
Your sponsor, like the New York Athletic Club
link |
was a great sponsor for her for all those years.
link |
In fact, she could have never been the athlete she became
link |
without the support of the NYC.
link |
Cause I talked to them when she was 15, I said,
link |
hey, I got a girl that's really good someday.
link |
Like if you invest in her now,
link |
I promise you she'll pay back for you.
link |
And I remember the day she won the Olympic gold,
link |
I called the guy up, I said, hey, I told you so.
link |
But they can no longer give you stipends
link |
because you're not competing and representing them anymore.
link |
So that goes away.
link |
All of your sponsorships and all of your money
link |
that you would make from your TV commercials or whatever,
link |
that didn't happen for her after the Olympics
link |
cause Judo's a obscure sport, right?
link |
So she didn't have any opportunities for that.
link |
At the end of the day, she has no revenue coming in.
link |
You get a bonus of 25 grand from the Olympic committee
link |
or whatever for winning a gold.
link |
But aside from that, you're not gonna live on that money.
link |
So no purpose, no goal, right?
link |
What am I gonna wake up and do tomorrow?
link |
I don't know, so she has no direction.
link |
And then at the same time, she has no money coming in.
link |
So everything shuts off.
link |
So now it's like, wait till you turn, what do you do?
link |
And that leads to being depressed because yeah,
link |
even though I've accomplished all this stuff,
link |
I'm kind of lost in life.
link |
Like what's next for me?
link |
And I guess you just have to ride that out
link |
because when you're a great human being, great champion,
link |
life has a way of helping you find a way.
link |
I mean, she's in mixed martial arts now,
link |
but she has a lot of stuff going on.
link |
Right, well, her kids, she adopted her sister's kids.
link |
So she's their legal guardian now.
link |
So that is her purpose, right?
link |
Raising these kids and making them part of her family.
link |
And she's fortunate enough that she has enough money
link |
that she can do that and she can give them a good life.
link |
Mm hmm, I'm gonna ask you to start some trouble.
link |
But I heard that she said somewhere
link |
that she can be Khabib Nurmagomedov in judo.
link |
What do you think?
link |
To be honest with you, I mean,
link |
I don't know what level of judoka.
link |
Yeah, I don't know.
link |
I don't know what level he is.
link |
But I do know that that Russian system
link |
respects judo immensely.
link |
What I will tell you is this, I trained with Kayla
link |
and I was an Olympic medalist and a world champion in judo.
link |
And granted, I was older when I trained with her.
link |
But you have to go as a man.
link |
You have to go 100% or she will smash you as a man.
link |
And I could tell you that if Khabib
link |
doesn't do a lot of just judo, doesn't like gripping
link |
and doesn't understand, if he can throw, that's one thing.
link |
But if he doesn't really understand judo at a high level,
link |
she will throw him.
link |
She would beat him in a match, in a judo contest.
link |
Not in a mixed martial arts contest,
link |
not in a wrestling contest, not in a submission contest.
link |
In a pure judo match.
link |
Where he cannot grab legs and he has to grip up
link |
I'd put my money on Kayla.
link |
Unless he's, you know, if he could go place
link |
in the nationals in Russia, he would beat her.
link |
But if he's not at that level of judo,
link |
he's more like a brown belt or he's not,
link |
he's not a high level judo player, she will win.
link |
I saw her take some of our best juniors in this country.
link |
Some of the guys that went and won our,
link |
medaled in our senior nationals.
link |
I've seen her smash all of them in judo.
link |
Now, she's not gonna do that to a Travis Stevens.
link |
She's not gonna do that to a senior national champion
link |
or an Olympian in our sport.
link |
But she will go toe to toe with every other male,
link |
black belts or not.
link |
Speaking of Khabib in Russia,
link |
Vladimir Putin, I don't know if you have heard of him,
link |
he's the president of Russia, but he's also a judoka.
link |
Have you gotten a chance to see him do judo?
link |
What do you think about his judo, if you were to analyze it?
link |
So I'm actually really good friends
link |
with the Russian Federation.
link |
The guy in charge is Ezio Gamba.
link |
He's an Italian, he's a mastermind behind their success
link |
of the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams.
link |
2020, he suffered from leukemia, blood cancer,
link |
so he wasn't part of their 2020 program.
link |
But he was part of 2012, 2016.
link |
That whole national, the Olympic team in 2012
link |
came to our studio and lived here for a month in Boston.
link |
They went to school in Boston.
link |
I brought them to my house.
link |
They had three Olympic champions.
link |
Three Olympic champions.
link |
Oh my God, what a team.
link |
They all came and lived here in Boston for a month.
link |
They wanted to be part of experience America type program.
link |
So I've seen all of them with Putin in Russia
link |
at their national training center,
link |
working out with them and taking falls
link |
and doing judo with him.
link |
So it's hard when you're older to move in judo.
link |
I mean, I was at a high level and I'm now 51.
link |
It's hard for me to move like I used to.
link |
So at his age, he's gotta be what, 60,
link |
between 62, 65ish?
link |
I mean, it moves really well for somebody
link |
that's that age and probably hasn't done very much judo
link |
for the last however many years, right?
link |
So that tells you he, at one point,
link |
he had to be a really good judo player.
link |
Yeah, he put in a lot of work at some point
link |
to develop the technique.
link |
You could tell when a great judo player,
link |
even if they haven't practiced it,
link |
even if they're up there in age,
link |
like just the way they move,
link |
the way they go in for a Seinage,
link |
the way they go for a particular throw,
link |
the way they do foot sweeps and all that kind of stuff,
link |
you could just tell he's good at judo.
link |
And that's kind of fascinating.
link |
So it's fascinating to see political leaders.
link |
I've gotten to interact with quite a few
link |
for whom judo was a formative experience in their life.
link |
And that's so interesting that for a lot of people,
link |
judo played a big part in their life, early development.
link |
It's similar to like if you served in the military.
link |
There's just something about judo.
link |
It's the, as a martial art, it's not just the technique.
link |
So yes, there's something about gaining confidence
link |
through becoming aware of what like your body can do,
link |
the sort of the artistry and the skill of it,
link |
also the power of being able to dominate
link |
another human being with technique,
link |
but also like the, I don't know, the formality,
link |
the discipline of just honoring the tradition of it.
link |
So all of that mixed together somehow creates.
link |
It creates memories that kind of define you
link |
as a human being and that you carry that forward
link |
throughout your life.
link |
And I've just been surprised to know
link |
how many powerful people internationally
link |
have like in their heart, in their, who they are, judo.
link |
At the core of it.
link |
It makes you the human being that you are.
link |
Like it becomes a fabric of,
link |
the people that stick with it, right?
link |
That stay with it.
link |
Because it, I mean, it teaches you so many lessons.
link |
It's so memorable because of what you talked about,
link |
But it's also, you grow with other people,
link |
and you learn from other people
link |
and you experience things with other people.
link |
It's such a hands on sport that it's very memorable.
link |
And people love it so much.
link |
Like right now at my dojo, we have like four generations.
link |
Like somebody that did judo with my dad,
link |
had a kid who trained with me,
link |
who loved judo so much, had a kid.
link |
That kid was now in his 20s who did judo.
link |
And now has a kid who's two or three or four
link |
that's coming to my toddler program at my school.
link |
Like we're talking four generations.
link |
And they all love the experience so much
link |
and what it did for them and their lives
link |
that they wanted the next generation
link |
to also experience the same thing.
link |
This is a tricky question,
link |
but if people are interested in judo
link |
and want to start learning it,
link |
in the United States there's thousands of jiu jitsu schools,
link |
for example, is there advice you can give
link |
to people interested in judo
link |
or maybe to jiu jitsu gym owners?
link |
Like how do you get judo as part of your life in America?
link |
Well, I mean, if you're fortunate
link |
to live near another dojo, right?
link |
A place that has judo locally,
link |
then that's your best opportunity to learn
link |
is to go learn from another school.
link |
Unfortunately, sometimes the nearest dojo
link |
might not be for two hours or three hours
link |
away from where you're at, which is an obstacle.
link |
You're not gonna do that.
link |
So, I mean, Travis and I did start
link |
the American Judo System online.
link |
It's at usajudo.com.
link |
And we've broken down every single judo technique
link |
to the very, very basic elements of just movement.
link |
So we teach every technique of how you do it mechanically
link |
with just your feet,
link |
then how you incorporate your hands and your feet together,
link |
how you do it in all directions,
link |
moving forward, sideways, backwards,
link |
how to then introduce a partner into the movement,
link |
how to do basic uchi komi or repetitions with a partner,
link |
then moving with a partner,
link |
then how to throw your opponent static,
link |
how to throw your opponent.
link |
So basically from the very foundation of the movement
link |
all the way to the most advanced level,
link |
we've documented this through separate videos.
link |
And we've taken now, I think 12 to 15 of standing techniques
link |
combined with a whole bunch of groundwork techniques.
link |
And our goal is just to continue to build this platform out
link |
so that anybody anywhere can learn online
link |
and can ask questions.
link |
We have a live training class every couple of weeks,
link |
every two weeks, he or I answer questions online
link |
Ideally, what we'd like to do is have a standing curriculum
link |
for jujitsu instructors that want to learn
link |
and become black belts in judo.
link |
Here's how, these are the techniques you need to know.
link |
This is how many reps you need to do.
link |
This is how efficient you need to get at those techniques
link |
to become certified as an instructor
link |
or become a black belt.
link |
And eventually have an online promotion system
link |
where anybody anywhere can just submit videos
link |
and show us that they can do those techniques.
link |
And obviously we'll have people review them.
link |
And this is a dream and a vision,
link |
but we've already started the platform.
link |
We're about to do a collaborative effort with USA Judo
link |
where all of their members will start to get access
link |
to this platform as well.
link |
And if we can get that influx of money
link |
and people on the platform, it'll allow us to hire
link |
and grow it faster.
link |
So you also want to do certification there.
link |
It's not just instruction.
link |
That would be amazing.
link |
I mean, for me personally, sort of,
link |
I mean, mostly in Austin, Texas now.
link |
And there's a few judo schools, but it's not really.
link |
There's not, and it's just one of those cities
link |
that doesn't quite have, I mean, there's a few,
link |
it's basically just like a few random judo people
link |
that kind of kind of gather together
link |
a couple of times a week, but it's not a system,
link |
a dojo, an instructor, integrated into a jiu jitsu school
link |
The problem with most judo dojos right now
link |
is that most of them cater towards the competitive side.
link |
Also, a lot of them do it recreationally,
link |
meaning this isn't how they make a living.
link |
So they're there three nights a week,
link |
or they're there five,
link |
even if they're there five nights a week,
link |
it's still only one junior class and one senior class,
link |
And it's one size fits all.
link |
Doesn't matter what level you're at,
link |
it's one size fits all.
link |
So you can't get out of the training
link |
what you're looking to get out of the training.
link |
It's whatever the instructor's teaching.
link |
And you can't learn because it's not
link |
at the appropriate level for you.
link |
And usually you're pushed into doing randori
link |
where you have no choice
link |
but to do the randori part of the training.
link |
So it's a challenge to go learn.
link |
And then a lot of times the schools are old school,
link |
so they go make you do falls for a half hour.
link |
They make you do things,
link |
maybe you're a jujitsu person
link |
who knows how to fall already,
link |
but you haven't proven it to the judo instructor
link |
and they don't break the norm
link |
and say you still have to fall for six months,
link |
which turns a lot of people away as well.
link |
So it's like any business.
link |
If you don't deliver on your customer's expectations,
link |
you're not gonna have very many customers,
link |
which is the way it is now.
link |
So a lot of people who listen to this,
link |
but in general in the United States
link |
practice Brazilian jujitsu,
link |
which has a lot of similarities to judo
link |
as obviously its origins in judo.
link |
How would you compare the two arts
link |
from the perspective of people
link |
just interested about both arts?
link |
Do you recommend people who do jujitsu get into judo?
link |
How can it enrich their jujitsu?
link |
How do you compare the two arts,
link |
the actual practice of it and why it might be useful to you?
link |
I mean, I think that judo is a hard sport for adults to do.
link |
Especially people that haven't fallen in a long time,
link |
aren't very athletic, haven't...
link |
I think about my own experience, right?
link |
when did I ever do like a forward somersault?
link |
Maybe when I was in grade school, right?
link |
That's the last time I've left my feet was in grade school.
link |
Most people haven't got off of a chair or a couch.
link |
They spend eight to 10 hours a day
link |
either working behind a computer
link |
or sitting on their couch watching TV, right?
link |
And they're not that athletic.
link |
And they haven't done anything athletic
link |
at least probably since high school, right?
link |
That's their last athletic endeavor, most of them.
link |
So you're talking about as an adult,
link |
that's 35 or 40 wanting to start a sport.
link |
Judo is a really hard sport to start,
link |
especially in today's dojos
link |
that don't have a recreational adult program.
link |
You know, when it's one size fits all, it's hard.
link |
So for those people,
link |
jujitsu makes a heck of a lot of sense.
link |
Good self defense, it's cerebral,
link |
where you got to use your brain, you're a smaller person,
link |
you have to use technique, you know,
link |
it teaches all the same things as judo,
link |
but it's a safe way to do it.
link |
And because of the validation it has
link |
with the UFC and MMA today, right?
link |
Everybody knows jujitsu.
link |
So now they can be part of mainstream society
link |
and talk intelligently about what they see on television
link |
or what's going on on ESPN today, right?
link |
They have some knowledge.
link |
So they have an identity.
link |
And also there's a good culture in jujitsu
link |
where it's becoming a family.
link |
You know, the dojo is the family place.
link |
You go to feel good, you go to see your friends,
link |
you go to get fit and you have a good time, right?
link |
So it makes a lot of sense why it's growing.
link |
Judo on the other hand,
link |
I think is a better sport for children to do.
link |
It's more, I would say fun and interactive.
link |
It's a little easier to teach the kids
link |
how to do the throwing skills
link |
and for safety and things like that.
link |
Their body can handle more than the adults can.
link |
They're less likely to get injured.
link |
It makes them better athletes
link |
because it's a lot more three dimensional in my opinion.
link |
So I think there's a good fit
link |
between judo can thrive from kids till whatever,
link |
high school, college.
link |
Jujitsu thrives from that 18 year old up, right?
link |
Right now, that's kind of where it is.
link |
So as a dojo, you have to kind of focus on the teens
link |
and the college, like early 20s, that kind of.
link |
Or you need to have,
link |
if you're gonna be a successful judo dojo,
link |
you have to have that recreational
link |
fundamental adult program in your school
link |
where people actually come to judo, learn the moves,
link |
but aren't pushed into randori training
link |
and pushed into things where they're uncomfortable
link |
and they can't control the situation
link |
because there's too many unknowns.
link |
You got an education at Browns.
link |
You're somebody, it's amazing because as an Olympian
link |
and an Olympic coach, you always emphasize
link |
kind of balance and education, all of that side of life.
link |
So developing your brain too.
link |
So you are an Olympic medalist,
link |
a coach of Olympic medalists, you're a business owner.
link |
So successful in all these domains.
link |
So I have to ask, what advice would you give
link |
to young people today, high school, judo age,
link |
high school, college, undergrad,
link |
how to be successful in their career
link |
or just in life in general,
link |
how to live a life they can be proud of?
link |
I think you have to be true to yourself.
link |
You have to decide what it is you really wanna do
link |
Like, and it's hard because when I grew up,
link |
I didn't know I was gonna be successful.
link |
When I was young, I didn't know I was gonna be
link |
an Olympic medalist.
link |
I certainly did envision myself owning a couple of companies
link |
that makes their living exclusively from martial arts
link |
or judo, cause that wasn't really an opportunity
link |
when I was a kid, but I've created that opportunity.
link |
I would just say that, pick something
link |
that you're passionate about.
link |
I was stuck in a career before
link |
where I wasn't passionate about it.
link |
And it was my wife who said, Jimmy,
link |
if you can figure out how to make your living
link |
exclusively from martial arts,
link |
where your brain and your heart and your passion
link |
is all towards one thing that you really like,
link |
then you'll be successful.
link |
And I left the job.
link |
I was working for monster.com.
link |
I was in internet marketing
link |
and I was working for that great company,
link |
nothing wrong with the company,
link |
but sitting behind the desk from eight till five.
link |
And then I get to go to judo from six till nine at night.
link |
My whole day is tied up doing something
link |
that I'm really not passionate about.
link |
She said, if you can figure out how to make money
link |
from your dojo and other things judo related,
link |
then I think you'll be successful.
link |
And so she's the one that my wife, Marie,
link |
gave me that advice and I would give that to others.
link |
Find something that you love doing
link |
where it doesn't feel like work,
link |
something you're passionate about.
link |
And if the opportunity doesn't exist
link |
how to make money on it, you can create the opportunity.
link |
Be resourceful, figure it out.
link |
Don't let anybody tell you you can't do it.
link |
I didn't know that I could have a 200 person judo school
link |
that only taught judo
link |
because that really didn't exist in this country.
link |
That actually charges money like jujitsu charges.
link |
We're talking not, there's plenty of clubs out there
link |
that charge 10 bucks a month that might have 100 people,
link |
but there's not many that,
link |
where the tuition is $150 a month having 200 people.
link |
So that's a successful business, but it wasn't done before.
link |
But be passionate about it, understand you're gonna fail,
link |
understand you're gonna get knocked down, beat up, right?
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There's gonna be dark days, but you gotta persevere.
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You gotta believe in yourself.
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You gotta have a plan.
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You have to be willing to learn from other people.
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And that's what I did.
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If I didn't know it, I brought somebody in to tell me,
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what am I doing wrong?
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Like, look from the outside, what do you see?
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Then you gotta be willing to change.
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You gotta be willing to adapt.
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And I think listening, believing in myself,
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and creating opportunity.
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And the other thing is helping others.
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Something I always did in my judo life
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and in my business life.
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If somebody came to me and asked for help with,
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hey man, is there something you can do to help me?
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I'm trying to get this thing started.
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I'm trying to get this dojo off the ground,
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or I'm trying to run this event series,
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or I was creative and trying to figure out a way
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to help them make it work.
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Because if that really was their dream,
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and I could help them do their dream,
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I felt like that person would then give nothing
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but good, good comments about us.
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Good, good, like they'll remember it forever.
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They become like family.
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And they'll be the best advocates for your business ever.
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And so the kids that I taught at my dojo
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were treated that way.
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The people that worked for me get treated that way.
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The people that, my customers that I work with
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and building their dojos,
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get treated that way.
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People that ran tournaments,
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whether it was Grappler's Quest years ago,
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and helping that guy with a full set of mats
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for his, Brian Simmons with his thing,
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or any of the Gracie's.
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It just became like family.
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And then I just work hard and deliver
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on what I say I'm gonna do.
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If I say I'm gonna do it, I do it.
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And I think it goes a long way.
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Well, and I got a comment.
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So in a small way, people may not know.
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I think it's still on YouTube.
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We previously talked many years ago.
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And I remember it, you were so kind to me.
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And you didn't really know who I was.
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You just took me as a human being.
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You welcomed me into your dojo.
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And we just had a conversation on a podcast
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or whatever the heck you call that thing.
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And you were just very kind.
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And you were also just,
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it was the last conversation I had
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when I showed up to MIT,
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and it stayed with me.
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So I've resumed doing this podcast.
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But it stayed with me because you said
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that I did a good job at this.
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And people, especially at that time,
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didn't tell me that.
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And just that little act of kindness
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is probably just a regular part of your day.
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You had a busy day, it was the end of the day.
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Just saying that, that was powerful.
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And that pays off somehow.
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So thank you for that.
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Yeah, but it was sincere, right?
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I felt like I had been to so many interviews.
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When it's around the Olympic time,
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there's lots of beat reporters that come out
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and they're trying to get your time.
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And they're there because they have to get the story
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for their newspaper or their television show.
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And a lot of times those people show up, right?
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And they pronounce my name wrong.
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Or they get something wrong about the background.
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Or they offend me because they call me for the wrong reason.
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Or they call me five minutes before
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that they're supposed to be there and say,
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oh, sorry, we're running late.
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We'll be there in an hour and a half.
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Well, I'm a busy guy too.
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But you were somebody that showed up,
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was so prepared with your notes,
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knew everything about the history of what I had done.
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The questions you asked were intelligent questions.
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They were well thought out.
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And at the end of that interview,
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I was really genuinely impressed.
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And I wanted to let you know you did a great job
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and you stood out from the rest.
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I mean, for me, it was like showing up to like the Mecca,
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I mean, I didn't, you know,
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you don't always want to just tell that to people,
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but you show up, you know,
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obviously you're the legend of judo in the United States.
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And so that was like, Boston is the Mecca.
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I think that's where you travel to talk to the great.
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So the fact that you were kind to me
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just stuck with me for a long time.
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So it pays off to be kind to others,
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to give them a chance.
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Jimmy, thank you so much for giving me another chance
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and spending your valuable time.
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And you've also were kind enough to invite me
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to train with you today at your dojo.
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Let's go do some judo.
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Thanks for listening to this conversation with Jimmy Pedro.
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To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors
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in the description.
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And now let me leave you some words from Bruce Lee.
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I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once,
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but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.
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Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.