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, 2004,
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winning a bronze medal at two of them.
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He meddled 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 not 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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You know, it's the one that seems
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to have the most amplitude.
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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,
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there's a leg swinging through the middle.
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The other person definitely goes, you know,
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head over heels, flat on their back.
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It's probably the most dynamic,
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pretty judo throw there is.
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Okay, so it's a single,
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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,
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which means 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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It's one of those throws that, you know,
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people can kind of understand
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how to pick up another human being in sort of trivial ways,
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but the Uchimata 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 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.
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I'm trying to say something.
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Can you say something?
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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 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
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upper body 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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a moment then 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 forces twist.
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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?
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I'm not gonna lie.
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There's plenty of guys that do Uchimata
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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's a great practitioner of the Uchimata to you?
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Right now, Shohei Ono,
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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 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 guys lost two matches.
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He's just incredible.
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At a very competitive division,
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I guess seven, you three kilos?
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And then three time world champ too.
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Is he the greatest of all time?
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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 in Paris,
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that's, you know, 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, the being able to win a championship,
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world championship or Olympic medal is a measure of greatness.
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It's not like you have some people who are not as accomplished
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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 one countless major events,
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but, you know, the ability to pull it together, right,
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at those magical moments, the pinnacle of the sport,
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the world championships, the Olympic games,
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improving 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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You know, there was a guy back in the 70s and 80s
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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 world's was every two years.
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So he was, 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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You know, he never went to the Olympics.
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You know, so there's a guy who missed out
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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 that was an actual guy, Fuji.
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Our brand is named after the mountain, Mount Fuji.
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But, you know, this is a different guy,
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his name was Fuji.
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All right, well, history rhymes.
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What about Teddy Reneir, 10 time world champ,
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I think, 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 Jidoka 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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You know, if you look at the size, just how big he,
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how tall he is, how big he is,
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how physical he is of a specimen.
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Like I sat next to him on a bus
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and like his legs are literally the size of my waist.
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Like when you sit next to him and just look at the size,
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You know, so obviously to win 10 world titles
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in the sport of judo, I mean,
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that's almost an incomprehensible feat,
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two time Olympic champion.
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Again, you know, that puts him in one of the,
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maybe 10 or 12 people that 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, you know, technically,
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I don't think he's as technical as some of the other.
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In terms of pure judo, finesse technique, you know,
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it's, he's powerful, he's explosive, he's dominant.
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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 the heavyweight division,
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a lot of them just grab the gi
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and they go, you know, man to man and judo to judo
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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,
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a sort of gary, this backward trip, outside trip,
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in case people don't know.
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I mean, he has just like technically pretty good throws
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and for heavyweight.
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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 fall 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 move in
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and just with the 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's 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 a hundred matches.
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And he lost at this Olympics that we just went through the 20,
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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 Bashav.
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I mean, it's always sad to see a sort of greatness
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It's like Karelian 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 a 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,
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I love seeing champions succeed,
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especially people that are good people.
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And I think Teddy's a good person.
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You know, 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 want to deal with their,
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you know, their personality or,
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but I think Teddy's a very humble champion.
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You know, he's a people's champion.
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You know, he's, 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, you know,
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his third Olympic title and, you know,
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just put him in infamy, you know.
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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, you, 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 want to 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, there's no coming back.
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And Epon 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,
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when you are the entire world is training against you,
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just to be, 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 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, 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 know, you carry the flag for your country.
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You know, when you're at opening ceremonies, sometimes,
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you know, 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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You know, 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 to listen
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to Teddy Reneyre sort of explain ideas behind his judo.
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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 many, that's on my to do list, 100%.
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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 like to stay that dominant,
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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 like 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,
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it feels like the mental game 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 of you then,
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not necessarily Taterinaire,
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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,
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what does it take to become an Olympic medalist in Judo
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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 going to 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 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,
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there's junior high school,
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there's high school,
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there's collegiate,
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And much like our wrestling is here
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in the United States, right?
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It's very similar.
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There's youth wrestling,
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there's high school,
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there's NCAA 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
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typically go back into the sport
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and there's professions for them.
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They have an opportunity to coach it,
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all those different levels.
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And just the level of their game
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and the expertise that all of them have,
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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,
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whatever the natural resources you're given,
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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,
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says I wanted 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 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 they 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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where you're teaching all the basic judo moves,
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all the basic fundamental movements, posture, gripping.
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Well, maybe gripping doesn't come in so early
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but throwing methodology, movements,
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Neuwasa 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 do 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 got to go through life as a normal kid,
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but they've got to be training in the dojo
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at least five days a week.
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Sometimes they might want to get an extra technical workout
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in 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 then, we've proven we can compete
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with the rest of the world 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 home 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 when you really accelerate your development.
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So you're saying like in America,
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when you're young, like before, you know,
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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,
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the other competitor in America is wrestling.
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So judo almost primes you,
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like it teaches you 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 want to be a wrestler.
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Where 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 a coach and the athlete and the dream.
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It's all about the dedication,
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the five, six, seven days a week,
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competing once a month, twice a month.
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Okay, and just, but also,
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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,
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we're going to do this for the next eight years.
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Do you ever sit down, would you just do it,
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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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Do you like actually?
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Like right now, you have to think about
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the Olympics is going to 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 going to have a full team.
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America is going to have 14 athletes compete in those games,
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one in every weight class.
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So now is the time, if you're going to 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 of 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 us,
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some aspects of that system?
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You need it all, what you just said,
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we need it all of it 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, 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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you know, we have them doing randori Tuesdays,
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Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays
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is when they're doing randori,
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they're coming to Dojo Friday night and Sunday night
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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 the 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 Neuaza 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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you know, with resistance in big groups,
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you know, 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, 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, do they are 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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Yeah, 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, we're not talking about on a crash pad,
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right, it's just...
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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, a lot of times
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when he was visiting in Austin.
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And I just remembered, so there's two things.
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I, 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.
link |
And it was very nice.
link |
I immediately actually enjoyed being thrown like that.
link |
To throw a little shade at Craig Jones
link |
with his current mat situation is they're very,
link |
they were quite thin and as Travis commented on,
link |
and not just the thinness of the mats,
link |
but they were laid on like concrete.
link |
So I felt, it's like soft until it's not.
link |
But being thrown very cleanly,
link |
I just felt like there's,
link |
this is not gonna lead to injury.
link |
It was an injury prone.
link |
But then as I mentioned to you,
link |
when I dare to after my entire leg,
link |
one of them, I guess it's the left leg,
link |
was just black, bruise.
link |
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 |
unquestionably, 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,
link |
when I was training judo a lot,
link |
it's hard to shed weight and keep weight off
link |
because your body like,
link |
it develops like this layer of protection on itself
link |
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 kind of develops,
link |
like you said, a level of protection.
link |
What about the Randori, just out of curiosity,
link |
again, I haven't ever had the opportunity
link |
to train 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 |
It's like 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 like forcing stuff in the way you would
link |
in competition, like really the power.
link |
Does that sound similar to you
link |
for the way you tried to do Randori?
link |
So there's different styles of judo,
link |
and to 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 not using minimal effort, maximum efficiency.
link |
We're moving around 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,
link |
five minute rounds, 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 a very like 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 |
And 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, do you mean Germany, France,
link |
Britain, Russia, is there a lot?
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 |
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
link |
of the Japanese, the physicality of the Europeans.
link |
You have to focus on the ground, Neuwasa aspect,
link |
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, 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, Neuwasa, conditioning, mentality,
link |
training methodology, like in game planning,
link |
to beat your opponents.
link |
And I think that's the secret sauce to success
link |
for 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, the rest of the rounds,
link |
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 were preparing
link |
for competition, we might only have 20 people
link |
in the whole gym to work out with those two
link |
Olympic medalists, right?
link |
And of those 20 people, maybe four of them
link |
are Travis's size, maybe there's only one girl
link |
in the room for Kayla, she's gotta train with guys.
link |
And then the other ones are teenagers that are too weak
link |
to train with either one of them.
link |
So what we would do is just put together four or five people
link |
that could give them a challenge and we'd line them up
link |
and they would do a minute, 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 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?
link |
So it's so difficult.
link |
Cause then you look at like the Russian national team
link |
and you have just the world champions and so,
link |
or you even have like, what is the Tom Brands
link |
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 |
Cause that is so difficult to work with,
link |
which it makes Galas and makes Travis's story
link |
that much more amazing.
link |
Is you mentioned kind of picking whatever
link |
the set of techniques the athlete is naturally good at
link |
or prefers or whatever, 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 |
Or do you want to have a bunch of stuff?
link |
Like a variety of throws?
link |
Well, for Travis, it was Epon Sainaghi.
link |
That was his main throw, right?
link |
But from that Epon Sainaghi,
link |
he had a variety of other attacks he could do,
link |
you know, that mixed it up
link |
so that you kept people guessing.
link |
Maybe it wasn't the Epon say we was coming.
link |
Maybe it was the Koshy Groomer that he did.
link |
Or maybe it was the Epon to Osoro
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 Epon Sainaghi.
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 want to develop, you know, an arsenal of attacks
link |
that go in all different directions,
link |
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 Uchimada.
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 thinking,
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 Girodreams 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 then like releasing the pressure and putting the pressure.
link |
Maybe a little bit 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 like tens
link |
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 and continue to do,
link |
you know, repetition after repetition
link |
and throws on the crash pad, you know,
link |
or throws on the mat, moving around,
link |
just explosive movements 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,
link |
but you do have to evolve.
link |
And I think that's, and I think that's the sport of judo
link |
You know, when I look at,
link |
we talked about Koga from before, right?
link |
And we talked about,
link |
he had a dynamic keep on saying Aggie
link |
that nobody could stop for years and years and years.
link |
But when people started to, you know, be on orthodox
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,
link |
now he did a Sode or now he did a Tomoi Nagi,
link |
which so he can, he added to his arsenal,
link |
you know, 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 Ipon saying Aggie
link |
once he got that grip.
link |
But if they stopped him 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 saying Aggie makes sense to you?
link |
That weird, so when I,
link |
Split hip, 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.
link |
And I was, there's something about like,
link |
just not the cockiness,
link |
but the confidence and just the refusal to quit,
link |
the refusal to just some, that energy,
link |
whatever it connected with me is like,
link |
oh, that guy's badass.
link |
I want to be badass like that.
link |
And then I also, there happened to be
link |
in my university judo and I,
link |
and I got into it and just fell in love
link |
with the elegance and the beauty
link |
and the power of the sport.
link |
But also I started to mimic Travis's game, his and Koga's.
link |
And I, 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 to do it.
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
link |
and the power you can get.
link |
It has certain throws, just like Uchimara
link |
doesn't look powerful.
link |
It just like, it's, it looks effortless,
link |
but like the standing Sainaghi 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, they're feeling a fluttering in the air.
link |
So, and then there's just this pause
link |
and then just big slam, Uchimara it's almost like,
link |
you don't know what hit you.
link |
It's like Taito, she's the same.
link |
It's almost like a surprise, like, oh shit,
link |
I'm not on my back.
link |
And so I just, 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 |
how it works, 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, say, in Aigi 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 your opponent's feet leave them at 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, say, in Aigi, 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 where we're talking about elite level athletes
link |
in terms of Rondori, in terms of like drilling
link |
for more recreational athletes,
link |
like I have personally that situation going on,
link |
but there's other people,
link |
they're 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, say in Aigi,
link |
so how do you do the Rondori?
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 there's not enough emphasis
link |
in this country on paying attention 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 haven't needed it.
link |
And there's a class and there should be a program
link |
And that athlete does not need to do Rondori.
link |
Like the sport of Judo is physical enough
link |
when you're picking somebody up all the time
link |
and moving their body weight around them at 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 Rondori 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 Rondori
link |
who does ugly technique and wins with force.
link |
So, you know, we have a recreational class at our school
link |
where they don't do any Rondori.
link |
They have an option afterwards
link |
if they want to stay for 15 minutes or stay for 30 minutes
link |
where they can participate in Rondori,
link |
but most of the adult students choose not to
link |
because they're already so tired from the other,
link |
you know, hour class.
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 |
You know, so that's a specific set of a 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, you know, 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,
link |
I can't attack, I don't know how to attack
link |
because positionally, they don't know where to put their hands.
link |
They don't know how to hold the gi properly.
link |
They don't understand that they're, you know,
link |
they have an inferior grip
link |
and they don't know how to get into better position
link |
so they can 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 |
I don't have fun getting beat up or losing in competitions.
link |
I don't even know if it's the winner or the losing.
link |
I think this is what, because I competed a lot
link |
in both Judo and Jiu Jitsu and in Judo,
link |
it feels like, 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 unfortunate.
link |
And I think that is a big gap in knowledge actually
link |
in Judo schools 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 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 and the success
link |
that comes at the highest level.
link |
I think in the teen years,
link |
there's the experience plays a huge role
link |
in getting to train 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 |
We 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 |
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 |
I want, you know, he sent me to England with Neil Adams,
link |
who was an Olympic silver medalist
link |
and was a world champion, had a great ground game
link |
and was good at gripping and actually did Taiotoshi,
link |
which is the throw I did.
link |
So I 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.
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What do you make of that guy?
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Just a brief pause.
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He's like Morgan Freeman is the voice
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of like March of the Penguins
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and any other nature documentary.
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And Neil Adams, there's very few sports
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that have a Neil Adams, I would say,
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because he's legitimately maybe like Joe Rogan
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is that from mixed martial arts.
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It's just like an exceptionally recognizable voice.
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He's really knowledgeable.
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Also the passion is conveyed so well.
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Like many times I'll watch just because he's talking.
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Since you got the chance to train with him
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to learn from him, who's Neil Adams?
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He's a great friend of mine.
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Like I said, I lived and trained
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at the Neil Adams Club in Coventry, England
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since I was like 16 years old.
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I went and visited him for the first time.
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He's the one who originally taught me
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how to do Jujigatami in the way that I do Jujigatami.
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I trained with him.
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He was just retired.
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He was in his early 30s when I first went out there.
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And so I trained with him many times.
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And over the years, he was a mentor, great person,
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cares about people, cares about the sport of judo.
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Had a good little club that was a fitness club.
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And it was judo, it was fitness, it used to go there.
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I'd show up at that place at like seven in the morning.
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And the first thing we would do is we'd go for a run.
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And we'd either be running mountains,
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or we'd be doing a five mile run,
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or we'd be doing something at the park.
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We were doing sprints and buddy carries and all this stuff.
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And then at 9 a.m., we'd have a technical session
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with Neil Adams, where he would, for an hour and a half,
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we would drill techniques and learn positions.
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And it was no randori.
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It was that sequential drilling
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that we talked about before, right?
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Where you're reinforcing your two or three attacks
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to set up your main attack.
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Or if you're on the ground,
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you're going through repetitions of certain movements.
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And then I'd spend all afternoon at the club, have lunch.
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I'd go do my weight training in the afternoon at that place.
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And then in the evening,
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we would either do randori training at the Neil Adams Club,
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or we'd all get in a car and we'd drive to another location.
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And we'd go train at another club that might be an hour away.
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And there'd be 50 bodies there to train with.
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And each night, we'd go to a different dojo.
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And so it would be all day at the club.
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And I'd do that for like three weeks straight.
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All we do is train.
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Do you know how he became the voice of Judo?
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Do you have an understanding of what he's thinking
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is around how much he dedicates to himself
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to just commentating on Judo?
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I imagine the amount of research required,
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but also just like psychologically,
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just the excitement he has in his voice,
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it takes work to do that.
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Do you have an understanding of like what his vision is with that?
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He's always been a very charismatic, animated person, Neil.
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Very passionate and loud and funny.
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And the Brits are very funny to begin with.
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So he's very charismatic.
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But I think after coaching, he tried coaching.
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He coached the country of Wales for a while.
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He tried coaching Stints in other countries.
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He didn't have a lot of success on the coaching side
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developing an Olympic champion.
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I know that was a goal of his,
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that he was a world champion.
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I think it was 1981.
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He won two silver medals in the Olympic Games himself.
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He went on to coach for a while
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and had some political issues with the country of England for a while.
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And then left England and went to Wales.
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And I think he had a coach in Stints somewhere else as well.
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Didn't have a lot of success coaching in the sport with athletes,
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not at the highest level.
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Had a great national team and things like that.
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He was really good at teaching his technique to others
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because he helped me a lot.
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But running a program, I think was difficult for him.
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The boys not listening and not having that same kind of passion
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and intensity that he,
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and that's why I bonded well with him because I was all in.
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I went there and whatever he said, I did.
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I didn't care how hard, I didn't care how long.
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I just wanted to get as good as I could.
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And so that's why he was a good mentor for me.
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But now in terms of a commentator, he's very cerebral.
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He researches it nonstop.
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He's got that great voice
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and he knows how to bring life to the game.
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And that's what he's done.
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And now this is who he is.
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He does Judo full time.
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Can I ask you a small before we return to the actual sport,
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the coaching and the sport?
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It's a bit of a political question.
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I did a whole rant before a Travis episode.
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I love Neil Adams voice.
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I love watching Judo.
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And it's really disappointing to me that the IOC
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and whoever is responsible,
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I don't understand this,
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that they don't make it easy for people to watch the Olympics
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in replay for years after.
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I can't watch Travis's matches.
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They make it very difficult to watch stuff online.
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So what happened is,
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I uploaded the Travis Stevens episode
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and we talked about his Ole Bischoff 2012 match.
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And it was like one minute of a small overlay of the videos.
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We're talking through it, like stepping through it.
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And it got taken down immediately from YouTube,
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the whole four hour conversation
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because of that one minute little clip.
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And the way it got taken down automatically
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is because the IOC has that video uploaded.
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It's set to private, but it's uploaded.
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So like they have the video and they choose not to show it.
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It's not that they're asking for money or whatever.
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They're just not showing it anywhere.
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They're not showing it through their own service,
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like NBC Olympics or so on.
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There's just so many great human stories
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that the Olympics reveals.
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They're just not made easily accessible.
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That's the Olympics Charter.
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You want to, I think the actual line is
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to ensure the fullest coverage
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and the widest possible audience in the world
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for the Olympic Games.
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And it seems like to me as a fan of the Olympic Games
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we're not getting any of that.
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Do you have an understanding of why that is?
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Like why we can't watch Kayla's matches,
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Travis's matches super easily,
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even if we're willing to pay money for it.
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So you can't go on the International Judo Federation website
link |
right now and watch any of the Olympic footage?
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So the only thing they have is for certain,
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for example, Teddy Renier match he lost.
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Not available anywhere.
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And that's like a dramatic thing.
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So the one thing they have is for certain sports
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at the highest level, like gymnastics,
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they'll have a highlight,
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which is the most frustrating thing to me.
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Because this is what I can't,
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I'm going to try to prevent myself from going on the rant,
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but people don't just want to see
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a two minute highlight of a historic moment.
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They want to see the buildup where the athlete is standing,
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the nerves, the fear, the confidence.
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You see the buildup to the event,
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say it's a gymnastic, whatever, floor routine.
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Like their name is announced, they're walking,
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the coach, then they cut to the coach,
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and the coach with anticipation,
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and then go to the athlete.
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You want the full 10 minute thing.
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You don't want a two minute highlight
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of what happened like last second or whatever.
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It's just like the magic of that full story.
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Like a lifetime building up to those 10 minutes.
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That's the magic of the Olympics,
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that both the drama and the triumph
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that happens in those moments,
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and the fact that you can't relive that.
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Travis had a bunch of those.
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He had a bunch of times he faced world champions,
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he won and lost, and it's always close, it's always dramatic.
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And none of those are available,
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except like maybe the one where you'd be arm barred,
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or whatever the submission was, I forgot.
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Yeah, the Georgian.
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But most things are not.
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Usain Bolt, the full races,
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not all of his races are available online.
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The race with the Italian winning the 100 meter track race,
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this Olympics is not only a highlight,
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that is available from what I saw, I didn't look too hard.
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But the fact that it's not super easily accessible,
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if you're willing to pay money even,
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but probably should be for free,
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is heartbreaking to me,
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because to me the Olympics is like some of the best of humanity.
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Just like, again, the hardship they have to overcome,
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so like the losses are really powerful,
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because it's such a heartbreak,
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but it's also like the triumph.
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Where you're losing history.
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You're losing history is what you are,
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of all the magical moments of your sport.
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I got to blame it on television rights and money.
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It's what it comes down to.
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You're talking billions and billions of dollars
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of television rights paid by NBC here in the United States,
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and globally whatever the main carriers are,
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and all the other nations that are dictating
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what can be replayed and what can't.
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And that's what it comes down to.
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I made a DVD or a video
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when I first retired from the sport.
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It was called Fury on the Mat.
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It was kind of my story, right?
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And I did it with a friend who was a videographer,
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and we grabbed a bunch of my old footage,
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an Olympic footage, and somebody said to me,
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you can't use that Olympic footage.
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And I was young and I had just retired.
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I said, what do you mean I can't use the Olympic footage?
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It's not the television footage.
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It's my buddy who filmed it with his own camera.
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And they said, no, if it has Olympics in it,
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or it's anything to do with the Olympics,
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I said, okay, well, they said,
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well, you should get to send it to them
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and let them review it.
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So I sent it to them and I got a bill back.
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I got a thing back that said,
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if you want to use this footage,
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it's going to be like $30,000.
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And I said, man, it's only like three minutes.
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I spliced it up as much as I could
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and I only have highlights in there.
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And then I said, come on.
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I went back and I negotiated with them.
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But at the end of the day, I still had to pay like $15,000
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just to have a few minutes of footage in my own film.
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You wouldn't even have that film
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if I didn't compete in it.
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You know, like, you can't, you know,
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so it was a struggle.
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This is the different, like you have the same in Jiu Jitsu,
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there's certain organizations, IBJJF,
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or like Flow Grappling and Flow Wrestling.
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I understand, I think, when it's a business,
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it might make sense.
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First of all, you should actually be good
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at being a business and making money,
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which is why, for me, the IOC doesn't make sense.
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Like, it should be accessible, but it would cost money.
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If the index, I can't buy it.
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Like, what I have to email them for this footage
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But the question is, like, the way you run a business
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is you make that frictionalness.
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Whatever the money is, $30,000 or $30.
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You make it frictionless and easy to pay that money.
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But anyway, I understand why that might be
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the case with Flow Grappling,
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but to me, the Olympics is a special thing.
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It's like you said, it is history.
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Like, there's not even, like,
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even the world championships don't compare.
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I understand they're really important,
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but Olympics is history,
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and the stories should certainly belong to the athletes
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if they want to do, like, fear in the mat
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to do their own story,
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like on a podcast to talk about the most tragic moment
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Do you have a sense of how that could be fixed?
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The only thing I could think of is, you know,
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you'd have to go to the Olympic Committee.
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The US Olympic Committee is the place I would start
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because the US controls the worldwide market
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when it comes to television.
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We pay the most for our television rights.
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Our sponsors pay the most for their rights
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to be associated with the best team in the world,
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which is the United States, right?
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So all the money starts here.
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I got to believe there has to be a way to get that footage
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that should be accessible to the sports themselves.
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I'm surprised it's not,
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but if it's not, then it's because of dollars.
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You know, it's because people aren't...
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The sport itself is not willing to pay enough money
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to have it on its, you know, accessible to its audience.
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It's too cost prohibitive for them to do it.
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No, but I think it's also, unfortunately,
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it might be some mixture of incompetence
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and just an old way of doing things
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because there's a lot of money to be made on television rights
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where you, like, live show the event, right?
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But what's not being leveraged
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is the huge amount of money that could be made on the replay.
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This is what people don't understand,
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is do you know how many times...
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Just the tens of millions of times
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that people watch individual events years from now.
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You watch, like, all the videos on YouTube,
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they're still getting plays,
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hundreds of millions of views on stuff that happened
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10 years ago, 15 years ago.
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That's really powerful,
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and there's a lot of opportunity to make a ton of money.
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So it's not that they're necessarily greedy.
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They're also just not good at being greedy.
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No, I get what you're saying.
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Yeah, it's not the tradition.
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You know, think about it, though.
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It's not traditional, right, for television studios.
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It's nontraditional to go to online streaming,
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to, you know, online access to information.
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It's not hard, right, because everybody's doing it now,
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but it's not typical.
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So it requires for the IOC to operate
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outside their comfort zone.
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Well, I definitely hope that's the case.
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And since Travis's video got taken down,
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it's obvious they have it.
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They have it on their YouTube channel.
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So it's like, I hope that they will just release it
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and for money, for whatever, but release it
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and have that history not be erased, right?
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It'd be wonderful if athletes could buy,
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even if you could buy your own footage.
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You can't use it commercially.
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You can't, but you can buy your own matches
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and have them available for yourself
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or package the footage to be awesome.
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Thank you for that.
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It is quite heartbreaking for me.
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So I wanted to talk about it a little bit.
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Let's go to you as an athlete real quick.
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You represented the United States at four Olympics,
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winning a bronze medal at two of them.
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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 particularly defining in your career.
link |
I would say the bronze medal match in Atlanta in 96,
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because up to that moment,
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the United States team had not won a medal,
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had not fought for a medal in the games.
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We were on a home turf.
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It was my second Olympic Games, right?
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So I had competed in 92 and I had won two matches
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and lost in the third round in Barcelona.
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I didn't make the podium.
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I lost to a Japanese guy from Japan.
link |
But the gold, silver, and bronze medalists
link |
at that Olympics in Barcelona
link |
were all guys that I had beat.
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In fact, two of them I was undefeated against
link |
in my entire career, the Brazilian and the Cuban
link |
I had never lost to.
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So that's when I knew I was capable of being,
link |
you know, on the podium at the Olympic Games.
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When 96 came around, I was 25 years old.
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I was fairly in my prime.
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I had lived in Japan for six months.
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My technique was at a high level.
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You know, I was, you know, amongst the best in the world.
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I lost at that Olympics to a guy from Mongolia.
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It was right before the match.
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I was supposed to fight against Japan.
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So I was like anticipating the match against Japan
link |
and I got beat by the Mongolian.
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So that was kind of a letdown.
link |
But the match for the bronze, you know,
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in front of the hometown crowd,
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family, all of my friends, everybody who had ever helped me
link |
in the sport were in the stands that day,
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including all my teammates at Brown University
link |
that were on the wrestling team and little,
link |
my uncles, my aunts, everybody was in the stands, right?
link |
So it was like the Jimmy Pedro day.
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And I'm getting goosebumps right now talking about it.
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But it was a match against the Brazilian
link |
for the bronze medal.
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I had beaten the Brazilian like two or three times before that.
link |
I found myself, I found myself down in the match.
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He actually countered me.
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I came in my Tao 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, came down
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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,
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I came in my Tao Tosh again.
link |
He stepped off the Tao Tosh.
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I threw him with Duchi Mada free pound.
link |
I won my first Olympic medal in front of the hometown crowd.
link |
Everybody went bananas.
link |
You know, the United States judo team
link |
had our first medal from the Olympics.
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It ended up being the only Olympic medal
link |
we won at that games, but it was like a magical moment
link |
to define my career and solidified myself
link |
in like history where hey, and now I get to step up
link |
on the Olympic podium 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.
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I want to win a gold medal.
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I want to do that.
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I want this feeling all over again.
link |
I don't care if I have to wait four years.
link |
In your career, like moments like that,
link |
do you think you love winning or hate losing more?
link |
Did you live for those moments or are you more driven
link |
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 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 love 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 have 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, 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 it didn't make to the medal rounds in my younger days
link |
or the spotlight came and I really shined.
link |
Because if you look, I don't know how many silvers,
link |
but there wasn't very many silver medals in my career that I won.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
So I just loved that moment.
link |
I didn't feel pressure.
link |
I love being in the spotlight.
link |
I wasn't nervous when it came to the finals
link |
or I knew I was getting a medal.
link |
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,
link |
caring, like deep,
link |
like 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 |
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 to say 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 |
Because I remember like vaguely,
link |
I remember Kayla Harrison talking about her preparation
link |
being very difficult.
link |
You go back and ask Ronda Rousey 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 with the little crash pad.
link |
We brought a Russian girl, you know,
link |
a hundred times that morning.
link |
And then every night came to Boston, you know,
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 coaching,
link |
I think there's a flora weaknesses on the mental preparation
link |
He wasn't somebody that was,
link |
I don't know if he,
link |
maybe because he was 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 to make them feel invincible.
link |
And I feel like that's something 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 going to win 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.
link |
Nobody's beaten me today type of,
link |
So you go out there feeling like King Kong,
link |
when you step on the mat,
link |
nobody's going to 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 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 going to 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,
link |
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 got to be a seed
link |
in that athlete's brain,
link |
something they want to do, right?
link |
Nobody, nobody can quickly get there, right?
link |
It's a long process.
link |
if you're a national champion
link |
or you've proven yourself to win
link |
at some international tournaments
link |
and you think the Olympics is a possibility for you,
link |
then defining it as,
link |
hey, I want to 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 want to be Olympic medalist,
link |
I want to be Olympic champion,
link |
I want to go to the Olympics.
link |
World team member, maybe junior world team member,
link |
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 |
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
link |
and you think it's achievable,
link |
then it's mapping the plan to get there.
link |
Is there a daily process
link |
of visualizing yourself as an Olympic champion
link |
or national champion?
link |
You should do it either every night
link |
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
link |
in its entirety 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 |
live the day that you're going to 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,
link |
eating your breakfast, having maybe saying a few jokes,
link |
laughing, this is a real day.
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 draw up on the sheet
link |
who you're going to fight that day,
link |
watching yourself warm up, go through your warmup routine,
link |
walking out of the chute into the venue,
link |
going to do that first fight,
link |
picture the moment of throwing your opponent coming off the mat,
link |
high fiving the coach, getting ready for your second fight,
link |
like live the day from start to finish
link |
and make it as real as possible.
link |
You know, 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, 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, this is my moment,
link |
this is what I picture my whole life, I'm not nervous,
link |
because I've seen this, this is going to happen,
link |
I believe it's possible, right?
link |
And I believe the athletes that do that and make it real enough
link |
that when they get to that moment, they go right through,
link |
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, 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 observing yourself
link |
from a third person perspective drinking coffee,
link |
you're thinking of how your hand will feel
link |
when it touches something warm.
link |
You try to replay the actual sensations you would feel.
link |
It sounds kind of strange,
link |
but meaning you really want to put yourself in the body
link |
as you would experience those moments,
link |
as opposed to watching yourself on TV experience
link |
in those moments, really be inside.
link |
So that means sensations, how does it feel when you grip a gi?
link |
How does the sweating, just the sensation of sweat,
link |
rolling down your forehead or whatever,
link |
all of those actual feelings.
link |
When I explain it to you,
link |
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.
link |
My armpits start to sweat.
link |
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.
link |
The smells, the taping of the fingers,
link |
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 for other stuff in life.
link |
So let's see if it works.
link |
But do you see this kind of visualization being useful
link |
for other things in career and all those kinds of things?
link |
All 100% because I just know with my own life,
link |
my own experiences,
link |
my wife sometimes says to me,
link |
where do you see yourself in five years from now?
link |
Five years ago, I had said to her,
link |
I want to have my own business.
link |
This is the amount of money that I'm hoping
link |
I can make in a given year.
link |
You have to have goals for yourself.
link |
If you put out there, okay,
link |
I want to make a million dollars in a year.
link |
That's a big number.
link |
That's a really big number.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Especially when you're not making that much at the time,
link |
it's a super big number.
link |
So having those goals for yourself,
link |
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 want to own my own business.
link |
I want to own my own destiny.
link |
I want to be my own boss.
link |
I want to make my own decisions.
link |
These are the things that I told I wanted to do.
link |
And now I'm at that point where I work for myself.
link |
I have my own company.
link |
I have partners, obviously.
link |
But if I want to pick up and go somewhere for a week,
link |
I don't have to ask permission to do it.
link |
That's what life, freedom, right?
link |
That's what I like.
link |
And all of it starts with a dream.
link |
When I first opened, 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 said to myself,
link |
why can't I get more people on 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 |
If I was coming in off the street,
link |
the first thing I see is this big Olympic champion on the wall
link |
and I see this training that's going on
link |
and these guys are flying through the air
link |
hard and as a white belt, you're telling me,
link |
that's the class for me?
link |
Like no way, I'm not going to do that.
link |
So like I listened to these people and I said, you're right.
link |
And you know, 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 curriculum at 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 and like, you know,
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 and I said, listen,
link |
this is my vision.
link |
This is what I want.
link |
I want to have a club that has over 200 judo only athletes,
link |
no jiu jitsu, no karate, nothing, judo only.
link |
I want over 200 people.
link |
And in the inside of that dojo,
link |
I want to have Olympic champions and I want to have recreational
link |
like little kids, five and six years old,
link |
older guys in their seventies train.
link |
I don't care, 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 and say,
link |
you're going to do this, you define the roles,
link |
who's going to be the recreational coach?
link |
Who's going to be the competitive coach?
link |
How do we separate these programs?
link |
And lo and behold,
link |
that was my vision that I shared with all of them.
link |
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 |
because I don't want to give the actual examples,
link |
because for several reasons,
link |
one of which is just people will,
link |
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 like that
link |
with people because they'll,
link |
I mean, and with Johnny Ive,
link |
who's the lead designer in Apple,
link |
you want that dream, that little flame to not,
link |
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,
link |
it would be like a specific opponent
link |
or something like Ole Bischoff.
link |
Very specific, very specific situation
link |
of what's going to happen,
link |
not just like I want to be Olympic champion,
link |
but very specific, almost silly situations.
link |
Yeah, like the dynamic between Travis and Ole Bischoff
link |
or something, maybe visualize that.
link |
For me, that helps because it makes it all real,
link |
It's not like some big goal,
link |
a million dollars or something like that,
link |
which is also really important to have
link |
because you can measure it and so on,
link |
but it's just like you belong in those situations.
link |
Just believing you belong in there.
link |
Yeah, it could be you.
link |
And for some reason, that really helps me,
link |
the little details.
link |
most of them are almost a little bit funny,
link |
like the focusing on the funniness.
link |
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
link |
overestimate who others are, right?
link |
And sell themselves too short.
link |
Because at the end of the day, everybody started...
link |
Like everybody else, really.
link |
We're all inference.
link |
We couldn't do anything.
link |
We couldn't learn 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.
link |
Unless you allow them to be.
link |
If you really want something to happen,
link |
then like map the plan.
link |
Believe in yourself.
link |
You're going to fail a lot.
link |
You're going to get beat down.
link |
You're going to have losses.
link |
You're going to have struggles.
link |
Like, and I think that's the one thing with social media today
link |
is that everybody sees everybody succeed.
link |
Nobody posts a picture when they're on the ground and fail.
link |
Like nobody sees when you broke your arm
link |
and you had to go through rehab, you know, whatever it is.
link |
Like had your injuries and you were on your couch watching TV
link |
and you were suffering and you were...
link |
Like 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 from all of that.
link |
They've reclined up the mountain and they've gone to the pinnacle
link |
that you see them on social media with the metal.
link |
But everybody else like struggles and was human
link |
and failed many, many times and, you know,
link |
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.
link |
Like other people can help you define where you want to go
link |
and help you get there and encourage you and can support you
link |
and, you know, 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, your commitment to yourself.
link |
You're the one that's going to 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 really motivated to do.
link |
Let me ask you about Travis, Kayla,
link |
and maybe a few of the other athletes 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 you've coached,
link |
what makes him special?
link |
The first time I ever saw Travis Stevens was in,
link |
Maybe I had seen him before as a younger boy or something,
link |
but actually recognized him is,
link |
I brought a group of young kids to Italy
link |
for a competition in a training camp.
link |
It was this program called U23 Elite,
link |
and I 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,
link |
he's an 81 kilo player.
link |
I think he was maybe like 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 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 |
he was eliminated from the tournament.
link |
I saw how disappointed he was in himself.
link |
Like he actually thought he was supposed to beat those people,
link |
even though he was like 17, right?
link |
And he's fighting against grown men that are, you know,
link |
a high level judo, much higher than he was.
link |
And I said to him, I said, hey son,
link |
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 and scrap like that,
link |
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, the kids got some fighting him, right?
link |
And I said that, I said that to Jason at the time.
link |
I said, the kids got some fighting him, man.
link |
He's pretty talented, you know?
link |
And that's how it started.
link |
So I saw that I meant 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, 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.
link |
100% he always has.
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, like closely,
link |
they all had that same trait.
link |
They hated losing more than anything.
link |
They would break their arm, 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 |
and they would do anything for victory.
link |
Within the rules, I'm not talking about taking drugs 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 |
I might as well go learn jujitsu and get good on the ground, right?
link |
So he always found a way,
link |
and no matter what obstacle was in his way,
link |
he just went around it.
link |
So what about the...
link |
It'd be interesting to get your perspective,
link |
because I know Travis's perspective
link |
is just the number of injuries.
link |
What do you make of the perseverance
link |
through all the injuries he had to overcome?
link |
Specifically, you just observing this creature that you've coached.
link |
He seems to not see the injuries as a problem.
link |
Just like you said, head through the wall.
link |
It's like, when we're talking about injuries,
link |
he doesn't even see the injuries themselves as the problem,
link |
because he thinks that the injuries, you heal back stronger.
link |
I forget the exact quote,
link |
like my body is now less injury prone than most of anyone else.
link |
Because I've already broken everything.
link |
I've broken everything.
link |
And it's just grown back stronger.
link |
Because 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 |
His response was like,
link |
no, I'm stronger now.
link |
So I don't know if that's justification,
link |
but that certainly describes a mindset
link |
that, yeah, head through the wall,
link |
It's almost not dramatic.
link |
Like, look, I got this injury.
link |
I'm so brave and special for overcoming this injury.
link |
That's part of the job.
link |
And he gets the job done.
link |
But that job involves a lot of injuries.
link |
One of the talks I gave Travis and that team
link |
at that particular tournament
link |
was at the very beginning of the camp,
link |
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 |
because that was 2005.
link |
I said, in seven years,
link |
I want to have a U.S. 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 |
because 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
link |
of Judo and being the first round, easy match,
link |
warm up for everybody else.
link |
I said, if you get injured,
link |
you're not going to 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
link |
and heard that message then.
link |
He said, if I'm going to be a champ,
link |
then that's the way I'm going to do it.
link |
And he embodied it.
link |
Man, do it many times in Europe where I said, dude,
link |
just tape it up or go off to the side.
link |
Just take the day off.
link |
Like take the rest of the day off, you're beat up.
link |
He said, no, no, I'm going to tape it up.
link |
I'm going to 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.
link |
It's just my ankle.
link |
It's just my wrist.
link |
It's just my ankle.
link |
So the other really big thing is you comment on a little bit
link |
is the weight cut.
link |
So early in his career, he was 81kg.
link |
And that was presumably not so difficult.
link |
But later in his career, he is 81kg
link |
and it's becoming more and more difficult.
link |
So that's the other thing with him.
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 particularly,
link |
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 going to suffer this much,
link |
then I'm going to 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 |
he'd weigh like 90kg.
link |
He'd show up at the tournament, 9kg is over.
link |
I'm like, you have to...
link |
But it was just an expectation of making weight.
link |
Not making weight was never an option for any of our athletes.
link |
And Travis knew it.
link |
And he said, as a professional,
link |
my job is to make weight.
link |
If I don't make weight, he was never going to allow that to happen.
link |
And he was never going to allow us to come to him and say,
link |
hey, I told you, because losing wasn't an option.
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 9kg over on the plane going over to the tournament
link |
and have to make weight three days later.
link |
And he didn't break 86kg
link |
until the day before the tournament.
link |
He had 5kg over the day before.
link |
But he would do three workouts.
link |
Wake up in the morning, 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 mountain dew.
link |
Or a chocolate bar.
link |
And then he's next morning, back up to 87kg.
link |
He would never touch weight until the morning of Lance.
link |
He wasn't on weight for more than 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 |
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 |
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 in double session training camp.
link |
And then fought on a third weekend in a row.
link |
And 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,
link |
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 that they don't get here
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.
link |
But part of the challenge is because the American team
link |
is smaller and more, I mean, just smaller,
link |
is, you know, all the different places you go
link |
to do the weight cut, to do the diet,
link |
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 |
You show up to a hotel and how you do the weight cut,
link |
And the different weather conditions, it's not,
link |
it's like, what is it, 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, which is like,
link |
you have to improvise more.
link |
Well, I was funny because when I was 1990,
link |
you know, 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 |
So we're going to the venue where we're staying.
link |
You know, I remember being, like, by ourselves with no staff,
link |
no manager, no coach, we're just by ourselves
link |
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 girl go, I'm sorry, this is 1994
link |
because it was in St. Petersburg, Russia.
link |
So I heard the girl on the team, she goes up the coast,
link |
she goes, 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 Jason.
link |
We looked at each other and he said, like,
link |
she's scheduled on 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, you know?
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 |
Because it is just you.
link |
You and sometimes you and the coach and just pure guts
link |
and you against the world with no money.
link |
The warrior spirit.
link |
The warrior spirit.
link |
How did it feel like when he, 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 |
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 |
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 map, 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 an 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, 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 out in the match
link |
and the Bischoff match.
link |
So to see him come back with zero, right?
link |
We just had a team where his best friend,
link |
Marty Malloy, won a bronze medal, right?
link |
Then the day after Travis fights,
link |
Kayla Harrison goes and wins her first gold medal,
link |
right, 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, 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 |
You know, who is this guy?
link |
You know, so he didn't medal.
link |
You know, he's not that important.
link |
Up until you get to it right before the Olympics,
link |
now they talk about he's an Olympian again.
link |
But up until that point, and then every little kid
link |
sees Kayla's medal.
link |
Oh, Travis, yeah, you went to the Olympics.
link |
Where's your medal?
link |
You know, I took fifth that in place.
link |
You know, it's the lowest of low every day
link |
having that constant reminder.
link |
So four years later, when that guy, I mean,
link |
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, because I had to get on the mat and do some drills
link |
and stuff like that and like try to defend on bars
link |
and because we didn't have a lot of bodies in Rio.
link |
And I was like, my God, I said after one of the brags,
link |
they were stronger than I've ever felt that guy, right?
link |
Before the competition or physically was ready.
link |
Mentally, the morning of competition,
link |
I said to Travis, I looked him in the eye and I said,
link |
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 going to shock the world today.
link |
So he told me, I'm going to shock the world today.
link |
And I said, all right, great, let's go, right?
link |
So we go to the venue and every other athlete
link |
was just like nervously,
link |
like doing repetitions of Uchikomis.
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 for their first match.
link |
And he's like dancing around,
link |
like doing this loose warm up,
link |
like almost like a little kid at an amusement park
link |
who's dead said, yeah, go play, you know?
link |
And it was like he had waited four years for that moment.
link |
He was so relaxed, so focused, so relaxed and couldn't wait.
link |
It was like a cage 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 and he just go.
link |
Like now's your time to go fight.
link |
And that's what he did that whole day.
link |
And like, when he beat Cherokee Chavilly 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.
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, 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 |
the most dominant 81 kilo player in that weight class
link |
quite some time and we just had his number
link |
and Travis was ready to go.
link |
It was so awesome.
link |
We had already won,
link |
Kayla had already won her second goal, 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 judoka ever.
link |
Two time gold medalist.
link |
2010 world champion.
link |
For 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 |
This is a girl who,
link |
I don't want to 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 |
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 it,
link |
we should comment 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 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,
link |
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 going to treat you like a thoroughbred, right?
link |
You're a workhorse, so you're going to work.
link |
And the way you're going to get bigger and stronger
link |
is you're going to work harder and you're going to keep...
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 |
As her body was developing,
link |
she was getting stronger every single day.
link |
And then she had the luxury 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 U.S. athletes at the time
link |
training here at my school.
link |
So she got the benefit of all the best guys
link |
to train with in the country.
link |
And her doing all of those rounds,
link |
night and week, night every night, every week,
link |
every year, compiled with the best,
link |
highest level she could as a girl.
link |
She got the strength, she got the technique,
link |
and then she had the coaching on top of it
link |
with my dad being on her as working her out
link |
and having the wherewithal to develop a strategy
link |
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, so let's skip that weight
link |
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 |
weight 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 and 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 and all that
link |
because we envisioned Rhonda staying around till 2012.
link |
And that's also like a long term vision
link |
because you kind of grow into that body then over time.
link |
So you can dominate.
link |
You can learn what it's like in that weight class.
link |
You can learn to dominate that weight class,
link |
excel and then dominate.
link |
If you don't get 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.
link |
They're not getting better.
link |
She now is just focused on getting better at judo
link |
and getting bigger, getting stronger, getting more powerful.
link |
So I think giving her that purpose
link |
and that was a great call.
link |
What are some memorable
link |
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 in Tokyo in 2010.
link |
She was our two time Olympic champion in 2012, 2016.
link |
I'll never forget those moments, right?
link |
Because they're historic.
link |
One of the biggest moments that I like sharing this story with everybody
link |
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 Sterrett 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 going to be at that tournament.
link |
So I said, Kayla, we're going to go to this tournament.
link |
You're going to 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, her and the two Canadians.
link |
At that tournament, she lost both fights.
link |
So this is January 2010.
link |
She lost both matches.
link |
She was competitive, 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 |
because 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 |
Here's two girls that aren't even medalists that are beating you.
link |
So now there's more work to be done.
link |
And so I like telling that story because everybody sees the champions
link |
in the greatest moments.
link |
They don't see them when they have bad days.
link |
And can you imagine being, you know, 0 and 2?
link |
You feel like, you feel like a failure, right?
link |
But 10 months later was Tokyo 2010.
link |
She went from 0 and 2 at Starrette, 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 in their proper context.
link |
You don't let it destroy your mentally and just keep moving forward.
link |
So you were there at 2010 at the Starrette Cup?
link |
I made all those, we fought at every, like the mentality of our team
link |
was 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 going to get experience.
link |
We're going to fight.
link |
We're going to learn.
link |
We're going to compete.
link |
We're going to get better, you know?
link |
I actually just, as a funny little side, I was there.
link |
This is one of the earlier tournaments, like the beginner division.
link |
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, like, I was also really strong at that time,
link |
just like physically, like powerlifting stuff.
link |
So I thought, like, it'll be good experience to also do Black Belt division.
link |
And remember, it must have been actually Travis's division, which is funny.
link |
There's Legere Brothers.
link |
They are super, they're super good and they're super dominant.
link |
But I think Travis faced one of them and beat them.
link |
I just remembered, it's funny how there's just like these little roads 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 was also intersecting there.
link |
And that was one of the lower points for her.
link |
Another story I like to share is that you have to know your athletes, right?
link |
And you have to, you know, really get to know their psychology, what they're thinking psychologically,
link |
mentally, 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 against almost all the top girls in her division.
link |
She had meeting everybody going into the 2016 Olympics.
link |
But at the 2015 Tokyo Grand Slam, there was a girl from Japan 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 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 and it was going to be tough for Kayla, right?
link |
It was going to be a really hard fight.
link |
And she had won a bunch of tournaments in a row leading up to that.
link |
So her confidence was really high, but at the same time, she didn't think she needed this fight.
link |
And she showed up to the tournament and she said, I don't think I can fight today.
link |
I've got a stinger in my neck, you know, I've got a stinger coming down my neck
link |
and I'm kind of sore and she didn't tell us.
link |
She went and told the trainer, 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, like, I don't know, maybe she doesn't want to fight today.
link |
I don't know, right?
link |
So all of a sudden, the trainer comes up to us and she didn't come to us.
link |
The trainer came to us and says, you know, I really don't think it's a good idea that Kayla fight today.
link |
And we looked at him and like, well, your opinion doesn't really matter, does it?
link |
Like, what's up with her?
link |
Well, she has this thing in her neck, it's like a pinched nerve and there's this and
link |
I said, is there a risk of her getting injured?
link |
Like, is this pain or is this risk that she's going to get injured and she's going to set
link |
her back like long time in her career?
link |
She says, no, she's not going to get injured.
link |
Just a pinched nerve.
link |
It was a little pain she's going to have to deal with.
link |
I go, okay, well, can you fix the pain?
link |
She says, yeah, I can do this and that and I can give her a shot and the pain will go away.
link |
Okay, then do that.
link |
And so Kayla, Kayla comes up and she goes, 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 don't know, but we already talked to the trainer and he said, you're good to go.
link |
She looked at us like, and then we had to talk to her and say, listen, you're not injured,
link |
you're in pain 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 |
Why don't you go out there and beat this girl?
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 making her compete.
link |
And then she went out there.
link |
Didn't even know she was injured.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
She just went out there.
link |
She fought the tournament.
link |
She beat the Japanese girls.
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.
link |
And that kind of sets you up for all of the chaos that can happen at the Olympic Games.
link |
And it tells you, if you can beat these girls when you're not a hundred percent and you're
link |
not at your best, you're physically beat, mentally beat, imagine what you're going to do when
link |
Well, when she was going into the Olympic Games, there's a lot.
link |
She had the mental game.
link |
There wasn't a girl in that division that thought they could beat Kayla going into those
link |
They just looked at her and went, no, not happening.
link |
I mean, she's a great Olympic champion, two time Olympic champion.
link |
But there is something that she's commented on, which is she's suffered or went through
link |
depression after winning her second Olympic gold.
link |
Why do you think this happens?
link |
You often hear stories of great champions 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 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, there was no, there was no path set out for
link |
Kayla that said, okay, you're going to become an ambassador, a global ambassador of Judo.
link |
The IJF is going to help pay a salary.
link |
The USA Judo is going to 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 going to fly you around and whatever it is, we're going to give you a job and
link |
here's what you're going to do if you'd like to take it.
link |
There was nothing for her.
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I remember doing the interview at the Olympics with her and they said, are you going to compete
link |
in the next Olympics?
link |
She's already two time gold medalist.
link |
What does three time gold medalist do for her?
link |
It doesn't motivate her to do it again.
link |
They said, are you doing MMA?
link |
Why would she do MMA?
link |
That's ridiculous.
link |
She doesn't need MMA.
link |
She should be able to make a living off of what she's accomplished in this sport for
link |
the rest of her life.
link |
But what happens is, and when most people don't understand is, once you say, I'm retired,
link |
I'm no longer competing in the sport of Judo.
link |
You don't get a salary from USA Judo anymore, which she was getting.
link |
I think she got like $72,000 a year from USA Judo at the time.
link |
You don't get a stipend from the Olympic committee anymore, goes away.
link |
Your sponsor, like the New York Athletic Club, was a great sponsor for her for all those
link |
In fact, she could have never been the athlete she became without the support of the NYC.
link |
Because I talked to them when she was 15, I said, hey, I got a girl that's really good
link |
If you invest in her now, I promise you she'll pay back for you.
link |
And I remember the day she won the Olympic gold, I called the guy up, I said, hey, I
link |
So, but they can no longer give you stipends because you're not competing and representing
link |
So that goes away.
link |
All of your sponsorships and all of your money that you would make from your TV commercials
link |
or whatever, that didn't happen for her after the Olympics because Judo's an obscure sport.
link |
So she didn't have any opportunities for that.
link |
But at the end of the day, she has no revenue coming in.
link |
You got a bonus of 25 grand from the Olympic committee or whatever for winning a gold,
link |
but aside from that, you're not going to live on that money.
link |
So no purpose, no goal, right?
link |
What am I going to wake up and do tomorrow?
link |
So she has no direction.
link |
And at the same, then at the same time, she has no money coming in.
link |
So everything shuts off.
link |
So now it's like, where do you turn?
link |
You know, and that leads to being depressed because yeah, even though I've accomplished
link |
all this stuff, 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 because when you're a great human being, great
link |
champion, life has a way of helping you find a way.
link |
I mean, she's in mixed martial arts now, but she has a lot of stuff going on.
link |
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, that she can do that and she can give
link |
I'm going to ask you to start some trouble, but I heard that she said somewhere that
link |
she can be Khabib Narmagomedov in judo.
link |
What do you think?
link |
To be honest with you, I mean, 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 respects judo immensely.
link |
What I will tell you is this, I trained with Kayla and I was an Olympic medalist and a
link |
world champion in judo.
link |
And granted, I was older when I trained with her, 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 doesn't do a lot of just judo, doesn't like, you
link |
know, gripping and doesn't understand, like, if he, you know, if he can throw, that's one
link |
thing, but if he doesn't really understand judo at a high level, she will throw him.
link |
She would beat him in a match in a judo contest, not in a mixed martial arts contest, not in
link |
a wrestling contest, not in a submission contest, in a pure judo match where he cannot grab
link |
legs and he has to grip up and just throw.
link |
I'd put my money on Kayla, unless he's, you know, if he could go place in the nationals
link |
in Russia, he would beat her.
link |
But if he's not at that level of judo, he's more like a brown belt or he's not, he's not
link |
a high level judo player, she will win.
link |
I saw her take some of our best juniors in this country, some of the, some of the guys
link |
that went and won our, meddled in our senior nationals.
link |
I've seen her smash all of them in judo.
link |
Now she's not going to do that to a Travis Steven.
link |
She's not going to do that, you know, to a, to a senior national champion, you know,
link |
or an Olympian in our sport, but she will go toe to toe with every other male, if black
link |
Speaking of Khabib in Russia, 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 |
I'm actually really good friends with the, the Russian Federation, uh, the, the guy in
link |
charge is Ezio Gamba.
link |
He's a mastermind behind their success of the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams, 2020.
link |
He suffered from leukemia, blood cancer.
link |
So he wasn't part of their 2020 program, but he was part of 2012, 2016, that whole national,
link |
the Olympic team in 2012 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, they had three Olympic champions, um, they all came and lived
link |
here in Boston for a month.
link |
They wanted to be part of like experience America type program.
link |
So I've seen all of them with Putin in Russia at their national training center, working
link |
out with them and taking falls and doing judo with him.
link |
So, um, you know, it's hard when you're older to move in judo.
link |
I mean, I was at a high level and I'm, you know, now 51, it's hard for me to move like
link |
So at his age, he's got to be what, 60, between 62, 65 ish.
link |
I mean, it moves really well for somebody that's that age, you know, and probably hasn't
link |
done very much judo for the last, how have many years, right?
link |
So that tells you he, at one point you had to be a really good judo player.
link |
He put in a lot of work at some point to develop the technique.
link |
You could tell when a great judo player, even if they haven't practiced it, even if they're
link |
up there in age, like just the way they move, the way they go in for a say, nagi, the way
link |
they go for a particular throw, the way they do foot sweeps and all that kind of stuff.
link |
You could just tell he's, uh, he's good at judo and that's kind of fascinating.
link |
Um, it's, it's fascinating to see political leaders.
link |
I've gotten to interact with quite a few for whom judo was a formative experience in
link |
And that's so interesting that for a lot of people, judo was played a big part in our
link |
life early development.
link |
It's similar to like, um, if you served in the military, there's just something about
link |
It's the, um, as a martial art, it's not just the technique.
link |
So yes, there's something about gaining confidence through becoming aware of what like your body
link |
can do the sort of, uh, the artistry and the skill of it.
link |
Also the power being able to dominate another human being with technique, but also like
link |
the, um, I don't know, the formality, the discipline of just, uh, honoring the tradition
link |
So all of that mixed together somehow creates memories.
link |
It creates memories that kind of define you as a human being and that you carry that forward
link |
throughout your life.
link |
And I've just been surprised to know how many powerful people internationally have, uh,
link |
like in their heart and their, who they are, judo, for the core of it.
link |
It makes you the human being that you are.
link |
Like it, it becomes a fabric of, of, if people, the people that stick with it, right, to stay
link |
And it, because it, I mean, it teaches you so many lessons.
link |
It's so memorable because of what you talked about the tradition, um, but it's also you
link |
grow with other people, you know, and you learn from other people and you experience things
link |
with other people.
link |
It's such a hands on sport that, um, it's very memorable and people love it so much.
link |
Like right now at my dojo, we have like four generations, like somebody that did judo with
link |
my dad, you know, had a kid who, who trained with me, who loved, you know, judo so much,
link |
had a kid that kid was, you know, now in his twenties who did judo and now has a kid who's
link |
two or three or four that's coming to my toddler program at my school.
link |
Like we're talking four generations and they all loved the experience so much and what
link |
it did for them and their lives that they wanted the next generation to also experience
link |
This is a tricky question, but if, if people are interested in judo and want to start learning
link |
it in the United States, there's, uh, thousands of jiu jitsu schools, for example, is there
link |
advice you can give to people interested in judo or maybe to jiu jitsu, uh, uh, gym owners
link |
like how, how, how do you get judo as part of your life in America?
link |
Well, I mean, if you're fortunate to live near another dojo, right?
link |
And a place that has judo locally, then that's your best opportunity to learn is to go learn
link |
from, uh, another school.
link |
Um, un, unfortunately, sometimes the nearest dojo might not be for two hours or three hours
link |
away from where you're at, which is an obstacle.
link |
You're not going to do that.
link |
So, I mean, Travis and I did start the American judo system online, um, it's at USA judo.com
link |
and we've broken down every single judo technique to the very, very basic elements of just movement.
link |
So we teach every technique of how you do it mechanically with just your feet, then
link |
how you incorporate your hands and your feet together, um, how you do it in all directions,
link |
moving forward, sideways, backwards, how to then introduce a partner into the, into the
link |
movement, um, how to do basic, uh, Uchikomi or repetitions with a partner, then moving
link |
with a partner, then how to throw your opponent static, how to throw your opponent.
link |
So basically from the very foundation of the movement all the way to the most advanced
link |
level, we've documented this, uh, through separate videos.
link |
And we've taken now, I think 12 to 15 of standing techniques combined with a whole bunch of
link |
groundwork techniques.
link |
And our goal is just to continue to build this platform out so that anybody anywhere
link |
can learn online and can ask questions.
link |
We have a live training class every couple of weeks, every two weeks, he or I answer
link |
questions online, um, for our, our members.
link |
Um, ideally what we'd like to do is have a, a standing curriculum for Jiu Jitsu instructors
link |
that want to learn, um, 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 that, at those techniques to become, um, certified
link |
as an instructor or become a black belt, um, and eventually have an online promotion system
link |
where anybody anywhere can just submit videos and, um, show us that they can do those techniques.
link |
And obviously we'll have people review them and this is a dream and a vision, but we've
link |
already started the platform.
link |
We're about to do a collaborative effort with USA Judo where all of their members will start
link |
to get access to this platform as well.
link |
And if we can get that, uh, influx of, of money and people on the platform, it'll allow
link |
us to, to hire and grow it faster.
link |
So you also want to do like certification there.
link |
It's not just instruction.
link |
That would be amazing.
link |
Um, let me, for me personally, sort of, I mean, mostly in Austin, Texas now.
link |
And there's a few Judo schools, but it's not, not really.
link |
There's not, uh, and it's just one of those cities that doesn't quite have, I mean, there's
link |
a few, it's basically just like a few random Judo people that kind of kind of gather together
link |
a couple of times a week, but it's not a system, a dojo, uh, uh, an instructor or integrated
link |
into a Jiu Jitsu school or not.
link |
The problem with most Judo dojos right now is that most of them cater towards the competitive
link |
Um, also a lot of them do it recreationally, meaning this isn't how they make a living.
link |
So they're there three nights a week or they're there five, even if they're there five nights
link |
a week, it's still only one junior class and one senior class.
link |
And it's one size fits all the, 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, what you're looking to get out of the training.
link |
It's whatever the instructor's teaching, you know, um, and you can't learn because it's
link |
not at the appropriate level for you.
link |
And usually you're pushed into doing randori where you have no choice but to do the randori
link |
part of the training.
link |
Um, so it's, it's a challenge to go learn.
link |
And then a lot of times the, the, the schools are old school, so they go make you do falls
link |
They make you do thing, you know, make you do things, maybe you're a jujitsu person who
link |
knows how to fall already, but you haven't proven it to the Judo instructor and they
link |
don't break the norm.
link |
And so you still have to fall for six months, which turns a lot of people away as well.
link |
So it's, you know, it's like any business.
link |
If you don't deliver on your customer's expectations, you're not going to have very many customers,
link |
which is the way it is now.
link |
So a lot of people who listen to this, but in general in the United States, practice
link |
Brazilian jujitsu, which has a lot of similarities to Judo has obviously its origins in Judo.
link |
How would you compare the two arts from the perspective of people just interested about
link |
Do you recommend people who do jujitsu get into Judo?
link |
How can you enrich their jujitsu?
link |
How do you compare the two arts, the actual practice of it and why it might be useful
link |
I mean, I think that Judo is a hard sport for adults to do.
link |
You know, especially people that haven't fallen in a long time, haven't, you know, aren't
link |
very athletic, you know, haven't, I think, I think about my own experience, right?
link |
Other than Judo, when did I ever do like a forward summer salt?
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 either working behind a computer or sitting on a
link |
couch watching TV, right?
link |
And they're not that athletic and they haven't done anything athletic, at least probably
link |
since high school.
link |
That's their last athletic endeavor, most of them.
link |
So you're talking about as an adult that's 35 or 40 wanting to start a sport, Judo is
link |
a really hard sport to start, especially in today's dojos that don't have a recreational
link |
adult program, you know, when it's one size fits all its heart.
link |
So for those people, Jiu Jitsu makes a heck of a lot of sense.
link |
Good self defense, it's cerebral, where you got to use your brain, you're a smaller person,
link |
you have to use technique, you know, it teaches all the same things as Judo, but it's a safe
link |
And because of the validation it has with the UFC and MMA today, right, everybody knows
link |
Jiu Jitsu, so now they can be part of mainstream society and talk intelligently about what
link |
they see on television or what's going on on ESPN today, right?
link |
They have some knowledge.
link |
So they have an identity and also there's a good culture in Jiu Jitsu where it's becoming
link |
a family, you know, the dojo is the family place, you go to feel good, you go to see
link |
your friends, 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, I think is a better sport for children to do.
link |
It's more, I would say, fun and interactive, it's a little easier to teach the kids how
link |
to do the throwing skills and for safety and things like that, their body can handle more
link |
than the adults can, they're less likely to get injured, you know, they can, it makes
link |
them better athletes because it's a lot more three dimensional in my opinion, you know.
link |
So I think there's a good fit between Judo can thrive from kids till, you know, whatever,
link |
high school, college, Jiu Jitsu 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 and the college, like early 20s,
link |
Or you need to have, if you're going to be a successful Judo dojo, you have to have
link |
that recreational fundamental adult program in your school where people actually come
link |
to Judo, learn the moves, but aren't pushed into randori training and pushed into things
link |
where they're uncomfortable and they can't control the situation because there's too
link |
You got an education of Browns, you're somebody was amazing because as an Olympian and an
link |
Olympic coach, you've always emphasized kind of balance and educational, all of that side
link |
So developing your brain too.
link |
So you are an Olympic medalist, a coach of Olympic medalists, your business owners,
link |
so successful in all these domains.
link |
So I have to ask, what advice would you give to young people today, high school, Judo age,
link |
high school, college, undergrad, how to be successful in their career or just in life
link |
in general, how to live a life they can be proud of?
link |
I think you have to be true to yourself, you have to decide what it is you really want
link |
to do with your life and it's hard because when I grew up, I didn't know I was going
link |
When I was young, I didn't know I was going to be an Olympic medalist.
link |
I certainly did envision myself owning a couple of companies that makes their living exclusively
link |
for martial arts or Judo because that wasn't really an opportunity when I was a kid, but
link |
I've created that opportunity.
link |
I would just say that pick something that you're passionate about.
link |
I was stuck in a career before where I wasn't passionate about it and it was my wife who
link |
said, Jimmy, if you can figure out how to make your living exclusively for martial arts,
link |
whether your brain and your heart and your passion is all towards one thing that you
link |
really like, then you'll be successful.
link |
I was working for monster.com.
link |
I was an internet marketing and I was working for that company, great company, nothing wrong
link |
with the company, but sitting behind the desk from eight till five and then I get to go
link |
to Judo from six till nine at night, my whole day is tied up doing something that I'm really
link |
not passionate about.
link |
She said, if you can figure out how to make money from your dojo and other things Judo
link |
related, then I think you'll be successful.
link |
She's the one that my wife, Marie, gave me that advice and I would give that to others.
link |
Find something that you love doing where it doesn't feel like work, something you're
link |
If the opportunity doesn't exist, how to make money on it, you can create the opportunity.
link |
Don't let anybody tell you can't do it.
link |
I didn't know that I could have a 200 person Judo school that only taught Judo because
link |
that really didn't exist in this country.
link |
It actually charges money like Jujitsu charges.
link |
We're talking not, there's plenty of clubs out there that charge 10 bucks a month that
link |
might have 100 people, but there's not many that with the tuition is $150 a month having
link |
That's a successful business, but it wasn't done before, but be passionate about it, understand
link |
you're going to fail, understand you're going to get knocked down, beat up.
link |
There's going to be dark days, but you got to persevere.
link |
You got to believe in yourself.
link |
You got to have a plan.
link |
You have to be willing to learn from other people.
link |
That's what I did.
link |
If I didn't know it, I brought somebody in to tell me, what am I doing wrong?
link |
Look from the outside.
link |
Then you got to be willing to change.
link |
You got to be willing to adapt.
link |
I think listening, believing in myself and creating opportunity.
link |
The other thing is helping others.
link |
Something I always did in my judo life and in my business life.
link |
If somebody came to me and asked for help with, hey man, is there something you can do to
link |
I'm trying to get this thing started.
link |
I'm trying to get this dojo off the ground or I'm trying to run this event series.
link |
I was creative in trying to figure out a way to help them make it work because if that
link |
really was their dream and I could help them do their dream, I felt like that person would
link |
then give nothing but good, good comments about us, good, good.
link |
They remember it forever.
link |
They become like family and they're the best advocates for your business ever.
link |
The kids that I taught at my dojo were treated that way.
link |
The people that worked for me get treated that way.
link |
The people that my customers that I work with in building their dojos get treated that way.
link |
People that ran tournaments, whether it was Grappler's Quest years ago and helping that
link |
guy with a full set of mats for his, Brian Simmons, with his thing or any of the graces.
link |
It just became like family and then I just work hard and deliver on what I say I'm going
link |
If I say I'm going to do it, I do it.
link |
I think it goes a long way.
link |
And I got a comment in a small way.
link |
People may not know.
link |
I think it's still on YouTube.
link |
We previously talked many years ago and I remember you were so kind to me and you didn't
link |
really know who I was.
link |
You just took me as a human being.
link |
You welcomed me into your dojo and we just had a conversation on a podcast or whatever
link |
the heck you call that thing.
link |
And you were just very kind and you were also just, it was the last conversation I had when
link |
I showed up to MIT and it stayed with me.
link |
So I've resumed doing this podcast, but it stayed with me because you said that I did
link |
a good job at this.
link |
And people, especially at that time, didn't tell me that and just that little act of kindness
link |
is probably just a regular part of your day.
link |
You had a busy day.
link |
It was the end of the day.
link |
Just saying that, that was powerful and that pays off somehow.
link |
So thank you for that.
link |
But that was sincere.
link |
I felt like I had been to so many interviews.
link |
When it's around the Olympic time, there's lots of beat reporters that come out and they're
link |
trying to get your time and they're there because they have to get the story for their
link |
newspaper or their television show.
link |
And a lot of times those people show up and they pronounce my name wrong or they get something
link |
wrong about the background or they offend me because they call me five minutes before
link |
that they're supposed to be there and say, oh, sorry, we're running late, we'll be there
link |
an hour and a half.
link |
Well, I'm a busy guy too.
link |
But you were somebody that showed up, was so prepared with your notes, knew everything
link |
about the history of what I had done, the questions you asked were intelligent questions
link |
they were well thought out.
link |
And at the end of that interview, I was really genuinely impressed.
link |
And I wanted to let you know you did a great job because you stood out from the rest.
link |
I mean, for me, it was like showing up to like the Mecca, like the track.
link |
I mean, you know, you don't always want to just tell that to people, but you show up,
link |
you know, obviously you're the legend of judo in the United States.
link |
And so that was like Boston is the Mecca.
link |
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 just stuck with me for a long time.
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So it pays off to be kind to others, to give them a chance, Jimmy, thank you so much for
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giving me another chance and spending your valuable time.
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And you've also were kind enough to invite me to train with you today at your dojo.
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Let's do some judo.
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Thanks for listening to this conversation with Jimmy Pedro to support this podcast.
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Please check out our sponsors in the description.
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And now let me leave you with some words from Bruce Lee.
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I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced
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one kick 10,000 times.
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Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.