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The following is a conversation with Jimmy Pedro, a legendary judo competitor and coach.
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He represented the United States at four Olympics in 92, 96, 2000, and 2004, winning a bronze medal at two of them.
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He medaled in three world championships, winning gold in 1999.
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He has coached many of the elite-level American judoka, including Kayla Harrison, Ronda Rousey, Travis Stevens, and many others.
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Plus, he s now my judo coach, along with Travis Stevens.
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And now, a quick few second summary of the sponsors.
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Check them out in the description.
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It s the best way to support this podcast.
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First is Roka, my favorite sunglasses and prescription glasses.
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And fifth is Masterclass, online courses from world-class experts.
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So the choice is style, nutrition, insurance, computation, or knowledge.
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Choose wisely, my friends.
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As always, no ads in the middle.
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I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out the sponsors in the description.
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I enjoy their stuff, maybe you will too.
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This show is brought to you by Roka, the makers of glasses and sunglasses that I love wearing for their design, feel, and innovation on material, optics, and grip.
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Roka was started by two all-American swimmers from Stanford, and it was born out of an obsession with performance.
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I got to meet one of these founders, Rob, and he s an incredible human being.
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So I love the people, I love the company and the product, the style and the function.
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is designed to be active in so it s extremely lightweight but there s a great grip so it stays on but yet it s comfortable and like i said the style is kind of minimalist and classy so i can wear it when i m running i can wear it when i m wearing a suit it doesn t matter same glasses perform well in both cases
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which is an all-in-one daily drink to support better health and peak performance.
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It replaced the multivitamin for me and went far beyond that with 75 vitamins and minerals.
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It s the first thing I drink every day.
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I drink it twice a day now.
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When I go for a run, I usually, right when I get back, I ll put it in the freezer, go take a quick shower.
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When I hop out of the shower, it s nice and cold, just super refreshing.
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It s a great way to sort of celebrate a great hard run.
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They have travel packs, so if you re traveling, you can bring it with you.
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Like I said, for me personally, given that my diet is all over the place in terms of keto and carnivore, it s great to make sure I have a nutritional base established.
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Anyway, they ll give you one month s supply of fish oil when you sign up to athleticgreens.com slash lex.
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That s athleticgreens.com slash lex.
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And oh yes, fish oil is something I also take as well.
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This show is also brought to you by Ladder.
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I should probably talk to Sheldon Solomon again.
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He s such a fascinating person.
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He s the author of the Warm of the Core and the developer of the Terror Management Theory and kind of carrying the flag of Ernest Becker, who is a famous philosopher, wrote the book Denial of Death.
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I had a great conversation with him before, I should probably talk to him again soon.
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I don t know, whenever I talk about Linux, it puts a smile on my face.
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I just love Linux, and I love people that deploy Linux solutions effectively in accessible ways, super easy, affordable.
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That s why I m a big supporter of Linode.
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Lower cost than AWS, but more importantly to me is the simplicity, quality of customer service with real humans 24-7, 365.
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I never know how to say that correctly.
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Basically all the time, all of the time.
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If it runs on Linux, it runs on Linode.
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Only now did I realize that my name Lex has a lot in common with Linux.
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Maybe I am a machine that s running some futuristic or the opposite version of Linux, some distribution that s yet to be understood or introspected properly.
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by myself.
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Anyway, visit leno.com slash Lex and click on the create free account button to get started with $100 in free credit.
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$180 a year gets you an all-access pass to watch courses from the best people in the world in their respective disciplines.
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The list is frankly ridiculous and it keeps growing.
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Chris Hadfield, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Will Wright, Carlos Santana, Garry Kasparov, Daniel Negrano, Neil Gaiman,
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Martin Scorsese, Tony Hawk, Jane Goodall, the great Jane Goodall, and that list keeps going, and like I said, it keeps growing.
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This is surreal that they were able to organize this and really focus the people to teach like a great course.
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That s masterclass.com slash lex for 15% off the annual membership, masterclass.com slash lex.
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This is the Lex Friedman Podcast, and here s my conversation with Jimmy Pedro.
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What is the most beautiful throw in judo to you?
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I think Uchimada, it s the one that seems to have the most amplitude, person goes the highest, you see a leg swing through the middle, the person doing the throw, there s a leg swinging through the middle, the other person definitely goes, head over heels, flat on their back.
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It s probably the most dynamic, pretty judo throw there is.
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Okay, so it s a single, you re standing on a single foot and you re raising your other foot in the air and it s a forward throw, which means your back is facing the opponent, but they kind of both fly through the air and twist through the air.
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Correct.
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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 people can kind of understand how to pick up another human being in sort of trivial ways.
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But the Ichimada to me never quite made sense, 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, but not, it s not really a hip throw 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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Can you say something?
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It s probably one of the most difficult throws 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, you know, swing your other leg through the middle, hold your opponent up in the air.
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And it s hard to,
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It s hard to make that contact 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 where you need to start pulling your opponent s upper body towards you.
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So their upper body starts coming towards you.
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Your legs go towards them as your body starts to go into the throw.
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So your head is going to go left, let s say.
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Your legs are going to go to the right.
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Your partner is going to start to lean towards you.
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And just as you start to get there, momentum coming forward, your leg is gonna sweep up underneath theirs, 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 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 on top of the person being thrown.
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So all four feet are in the air.
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Correct.
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So there s just this unstoppable force.
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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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Correct.
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Okay, so who to you is the best uchimata, besides yourself?
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I m not gonna lie, there s plenty of guys that do uchimata a lot better than I do.
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You do have a nice video about the uchimata online, 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 IJF and judo fanatics showing how he does his uchimata, and it is quite different than everybody else s.
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But it s unstoppable.
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When he comes in, nobody stops it.
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He s won two golds in a row at the Olympics.
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I think maybe in the last eight years, the guy s lost two matches.
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He s just incredible.
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At a very competitive division, I guess 73 kilos, okay.
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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 other reason why he s not is because Nomura 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 for another three years and win again
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win again here in Paris, then he d match what Nomura did.
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But three-time gold medalist in judo in a lightweight division, that s pretty spectacular.
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So to you, being able to win a championship, 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 like Koga or something like that, but just the beauty, the moments of magic, the number of moments of magic is the highest, even if it s not championships.
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I think you have to go by that because there s so many phenomenal judo players that have come through the system of spectacular judo, have won countless major events, but the ability to pull it together at those magical moments, the pinnacle of the sport, the world championships, the Olympic games, and proving that you can do it time and time again,
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makes you unstoppable, it makes you the best.
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There was a guy back in the 70s and 80s by the name of Fuji, 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 here he was a four-time world champion, that s eight years the top of the sport.
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He never won an Olympic medal.
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he never went to the Olympics.
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So there s a guy who missed out on Olympic greatness, 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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SPEAKER_01
Right.
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SPEAKER_00
Really?
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SPEAKER_00
Okay.
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SPEAKER_00
Wow.
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SPEAKER_00
I didn t know that was an actual guy, Fuji.
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SPEAKER_01
Our brand is named after the mountain, Mount Fuji, but this is a different guy.
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SPEAKER_01
His name was Fuji.
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SPEAKER_00
All right.
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Well, history rhymes.
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What about Teddy Renner?
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10-time world champ, I think.
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Two-time gold medalist at the Olympics.
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Two-time bronze medalist at the Olympics.
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Probably the most dominant Judoka ever.
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Is he in the running?
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What do you think about that guy?
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SPEAKER_01
I think he s a freak of nature, Teddy.
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SPEAKER_01
If you look at the size, just how tall he is, how big he is, how physical he is of a specimen.
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SPEAKER_01
I sat next to him on a bus and his legs are literally the size of my waist.
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SPEAKER_01
When you sit next to him and just look at the size, he s a big man.
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SPEAKER_01
You know, so obviously to win 10 world titles in the sport of judo, I mean, that s almost an incomprehensible feat.
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Two-time Olympic champion, again.
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SPEAKER_01
You know, that puts him in one of the maybe 10 or 12 people to ever do that in the history of the sport.
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SPEAKER_01
So he s definitely got to be in the running for the best.
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SPEAKER_01
You know, technically, I don t think he s as technical as some of the other in terms of pure judo finesse technique.
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SPEAKER_01
You know, it s he s powerful, he s explosive, he s dominant, he s strong.
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SPEAKER_01
Teddy also grips really, really well, which makes him
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SPEAKER_01
uh, that much tougher to beat because a lot of times heavyweights, especially in the heavyweight division, a lot of them just grab the gi and they go, you know, man to man and judo to judo and take shots at each other.
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And that s why a lot of them end up getting beat.
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SPEAKER_01
But Teddy s in control, like positionally, he stays in really good position 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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SPEAKER_01
He doesn t give them a chance to beat him, which is why he s been so dominant.
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SPEAKER_00
but he s not really stalling.
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SPEAKER_00
So I mean, he does have a really nice Osorogari, this backward trip, outside trip, in case people don t know.
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SPEAKER_00
And he has just like technically pretty good throws, and for heavyweight.
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SPEAKER_00
Heavyweights can be sometimes messy with their Judo.
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SPEAKER_00
He s pretty technical.
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SPEAKER_00
and clean in the execution of his big throws, but a lot of that probably has to do with the dominant gripping that he does.
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SPEAKER_00
It s not defensive gripping, it s offensive gripping, but the dominant gripping.
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SPEAKER_01
100%.
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SPEAKER_01
He controls the grips.
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SPEAKER_01
He controls the movement of the match as a result of that.
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SPEAKER_01
And then he creates his own openings.
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SPEAKER_01
So, I mean, for a heavyweight, phenomenal technique.
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SPEAKER_01
Yes.
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SPEAKER_01
And what you said, messy, I d like to call it sloppy, right?
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SPEAKER_01
A lot of the heavyweights tend to be sloppy.
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SPEAKER_01
They fall on the ground a lot.
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SPEAKER_01
it s hard to move somebody that weighs 350 pounds.
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SPEAKER_01
It s hard to get that body moving and just with a simple pull motion.
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SPEAKER_01
So he s definitely found a way to do it, but he s also, I don t know, six foot eight.
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SPEAKER_01
He s probably weighs 140 kilos.
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SPEAKER_01
He s a big boy.
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SPEAKER_00
But he had this winning streak of just, I don t know how long, but like over 100 matches.
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SPEAKER_00
And he lost at this Olympics that we just went through, the 20, I don t even know what to call it, 2021 Olympics, I don t know the proper terminology.
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SPEAKER_01
Tokyo 2020 is what they call it.
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SPEAKER_00
Tokyo 2020, all right.
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SPEAKER_00
So he lost to Tamerlan Bashev.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s always sad to see a sort of greatness come to an end.
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SPEAKER_00
It s like Corellon in wrestling and Greco-Roman.
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SPEAKER_00
Did you shed a bit of a tear to see greatness go?
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SPEAKER_00
Or is it just the way of life?
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, what did you think about sort of this dominance, this run of dominance being stopped?
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SPEAKER_01
I think, I mean, it s obviously sad to see LFC and champions succeed, especially people that are good people.
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SPEAKER_01
And I think Teddy s a good person.
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SPEAKER_01
I mean, I think there s some arrogant champions that everybody would like to see lose just because they don t want to deal with their, you know.
1
SPEAKER_00
their personality.
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SPEAKER_00
But I think Teddy s a very humble champion.
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SPEAKER_00
He s a people s champion.
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SPEAKER_00
I think he s been privileged and he makes good money from the sport of judo and the French Federation has taken care of him well.
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SPEAKER_00
So he s a lifelong judo icon.
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SPEAKER_00
So it s sad to see somebody like that get beat, especially when this could have been his third Olympic title and just
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SPEAKER_00
put them in infamy, you know?
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SPEAKER_00
So it was sad to see, but I think, you know, every athlete goes through it, right?
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s just, that s what the Olympics is all about.
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SPEAKER_01
The great ones fall sometimes, and... Especially in judo, it s like so, like the margin of error, I mean, I guess the other question I wanna ask here is, in your sense, how difficult it is to not lose for so long?
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SPEAKER_01
It seems like in Judo, like a little mistake and it s over.
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SPEAKER_01
There s no coming back and Ippon means it s over.
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SPEAKER_01
So how difficult is that?
1
SPEAKER_00
It s hard to stay that dominant without question.
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SPEAKER_00
First of all, when you are the entire world is training against you just to beat you.
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SPEAKER_00
They re studying every single movement.
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SPEAKER_00
They re studying patterns.
1
SPEAKER_00
They re trying to break it down and find a flaw in your game.
1
SPEAKER_00
So everybody s hunting for you when you re the best in the world, especially at the Olympics.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s the one to beat you at.
1
SPEAKER_00
So everybody s focused on you.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then there s an incredible amount of pressure on that athlete to perform.
1
SPEAKER_00
You d carry the flag for your country when you re in opening ceremonies sometimes.
1
SPEAKER_00
All spotlight is on you.
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SPEAKER_00
And it s particularly hard when things don t go well early.
1
SPEAKER_00
In other words, when you re expected to win and then all of a sudden now you re in a hard fight and it s not going the way you want, that pressure, the one who s the favorite feels the pressure the most at the Olympics.
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SPEAKER_00
And that s why I think the other ones are able to win it.
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SPEAKER_01
I ve actually never gotten a chance to listen to Teddy Renner sort of explain ideas behind his judo.
1
SPEAKER_01
I wonder what his mental game is like, because I think his English is pretty not very good.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I just haven t seen good interviews, but it s always fascinating to
1
SPEAKER_01
There s certain great athletes that are also great thinkers and speakers, like the Satya brothers in wrestling.
1
SPEAKER_01
Again, that s on my to-do list, 100%.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m going to Dagestan and talking to them because they re brilliant.
1
SPEAKER_01
But to be able to sort of, maybe after retirement, to think back, what were the systems involved?
1
SPEAKER_01
Both on the technical, the training side, and then the mental side.
1
SPEAKER_01
Because to stay that dominant, just like you re saying, everybody s studying to beat you.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the heavyweights are just these powerful dudes.
1
SPEAKER_01
So to be able to control them with your game, and the game that everybody knows is coming,
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t know what s behind that, but there s got to be, it feels like the mental game is exceptionally important.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think a lot of people underestimate just how important that side is.
1
SPEAKER_00
Being mentally prepared for victory, mentally prepared to be the best, to stay the best.
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SPEAKER_00
There s nobody that s weak-minded that can accomplish that.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s 100% confidence and belief in yourself.
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SPEAKER_01
If we take a big picture view then, not necessarily Taylor and Aire, but if you wanna go from the very beginning, from day one of judo class to Olympic champion or Olympic medalist, what does it take to become an Olympic medalist in judo from start to finish?
1
SPEAKER_01
Like how many different trajectories do you see or is there some unifying principles?
1
SPEAKER_00
I think a lot of it has to, your journey is gonna depend a lot by where you re from.
1
SPEAKER_00
So a path that an American might take versus somebody who s from Japan or somebody who s from Europe.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s three very distinct paths, right?
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SPEAKER_00
Because in Japan, it s part of the culture, there s a system of excellence, there s elementary school judo, there s junior high school, there s high school, there s collegiate, there s Olympic.
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SPEAKER_00
And, you know, much like our wrestling is here in the United States, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
It s very similar.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s youth wrestling, there s high school, there s NCAA, and then there s Olympic wrestling.
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SPEAKER_00
And, you know, when your country is a factory of producing athletes at the highest level, then all of those top athletes typically go back into the sport and there s professions for them.
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SPEAKER_00
They have an opportunity to coach at all those different levels.
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SPEAKER_00
and just the level of their game and the expertise that all of them have, even down at the elementary level, make their skill so solid.
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SPEAKER_01
And as a coach, in that situation, you can just sit back and watch who stands out, as opposed to, I think in America, I guess, you would need to craft.
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SPEAKER_01
You don t get to choose from a thousand people, a few people that naturally stand out at the age of nine.
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SPEAKER_01
You have to actually, whatever the natural resources you re given, craft them into a champion.
1
SPEAKER_01
So if we look at that, the American way, where you just have a person with a smile show up to your dojo, says I want to be an Olympic medalist.
1
SPEAKER_01
What process do you take them through?
1
SPEAKER_00
The odds are really insurmountable.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s a very, very high hill to climb.
1
SPEAKER_00
And there s only a few people and there s only a few coaches in this entire country that really understand that process and that can help people reach that level as it s been proven, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Number one, you certainly have to have a solid base, a fundamental base of an expectation of what the training is gonna be.
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SPEAKER_00
And it has to be a level of professionalism very, very early, where you re teaching all the basic judo moves, all the basic fundamental movements, posture, gripping.
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, maybe gripping doesn t come in so early in the game, but throwing methodology, movements, nawaza position, standing fundamental throws, and I think most importantly is really the work ethic.
1
SPEAKER_00
just the way you re gonna train, the intensity you re gonna train with, the ability to, the mindset of going to tournaments constantly.
1
SPEAKER_00
In order to compete with the rest of the world, our young kids need to be tested.
1
SPEAKER_00
a lot when they re young.
1
SPEAKER_00
They have to be put through adversity because they don t get put through adversity in training because you don t have that many good training partners.
1
SPEAKER_00
So you get put through adversity in competition and then we see what your weaknesses are and we continue to make improvements on those.
1
SPEAKER_00
But the journey is, it s long.
1
SPEAKER_00
And until they re kind of at the teenage years, they re going to have to pretty much stay domestic, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
Because they got to go through life as a normal kid, but they ve got to be training in the dojo at least, you know, five days a week.
1
SPEAKER_00
you know, sometimes they might want to get, you know, an extra technical workout in or doing some base conditioning in addition to that.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then really at the teenage years, that s where we really, um, we ve struggled in America of, of keeping teens in the sport of Judo as well as developing them properly.
1
SPEAKER_00
Because up until around the teenage years, I think the Americans are on par with the rest of the world in terms of technique and in terms of skill and in,
1
SPEAKER_00
we ve proven we can compete with the rest of the world up until that age, but that s where Japan and that s where the Europeans and the countries that are strong in Judo, that s where they put a lot of time, energy and effort is into the teens, where they have a great coaching staff, they have good training camps with 800, 1,000 people going to them every single weekend.
1
SPEAKER_00
When you say teens, what do you mean?
1
SPEAKER_01
Do you mean literally like 13?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, age 13 to 17, 13 to 19.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that s when you really accelerate your development.
1
SPEAKER_01
So you re saying like in America, when you re young, like before nine, 10, 11, 12, you stick in judo, you can progress quite a bit.
1
SPEAKER_01
But then I guess the other competition there, if you re into two people doing stuff to each other in a combative way, the other competitor in America is wrestling.
1
SPEAKER_01
So judo almost primes you, like it teaches you how to be a great wrestler as well.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so then you have to have a hard decision because you can probably be a collegiate wrestler.
1
SPEAKER_01
You have like a clear plan of where you re going to go if you want to be a wrestler.
1
SPEAKER_01
With judo, that plan is more...
1
SPEAKER_01
is less clear.
1
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, you have to be on your own a bit with your coach, that kind of thing.
1
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so when you re on your own with your coach, to me, that s just a fascinating journey, because then it s just like the purity of it.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s the coach and the athlete and the dream.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s all about the dedication, the five, six, seven days a week, competing, what, once a month?
1
SPEAKER_01
twice a month.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay, and just, but also, you probably don t have that conversation, I don t know if you do, maybe you do, saying like, we re gonna do this for the next eight years.
1
SPEAKER_01
Do you ever sit down with Jesus, take it the David Goggins way, which is like, let s just take it one step at a time.
1
SPEAKER_00
Let s hope we re there in eight years.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, let s hope we re there.
1
SPEAKER_00
Right now, you have to think about the Olympics is going to be in Los Angeles in 2028.
1
SPEAKER_00
So it s really interesting.
1
SPEAKER_00
Now would be the time and now is the time to identify talent.
1
SPEAKER_00
and get commitment out of students that in seven years, you can make a U.S.
1
SPEAKER_00
Olympic team because we re gonna have a full team.
1
SPEAKER_00
America s gonna have 14 athletes compete in those games, one in every weight class.
1
SPEAKER_00
So now s the time, if you re gonna go on a journey to the Olympics and stay with the sport of judo, now would be the time to do it.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so what, you show up to the Pedro Judo Center and how much drilling, how much technique strategy discussions, how much randori, or like live sparring, how much conditioning and strength training,
1
SPEAKER_01
How much of all of that?
1
SPEAKER_01
How much of cross-training to other gyms or something like that, traveling abroad?
1
SPEAKER_01
Is there something to be said about some aspects of that system?
1
SPEAKER_00
For sure.
1
SPEAKER_00
You need it all.
1
SPEAKER_00
What you just said, you need all of it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And we do do all of that.
1
SPEAKER_00
Right now we have a young group of kids at the academy, you ll see tonight.
1
SPEAKER_00
Some of them are 14, 13, 15, 17.
1
SPEAKER_00
Are they good?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, really good.
1
SPEAKER_00
Okay, can t wait.
1
SPEAKER_00
They re right around your weight, so it ll be perfect.
1
SPEAKER_00
They re just young boys, but they ve been training hard through COVID.
1
SPEAKER_00
Travis and myself have been training them.
1
SPEAKER_00
We share responsibilities.
1
SPEAKER_00
They re doing Randori like five nights a week.
1
SPEAKER_00
We have them doing Randori Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays is when they re doing Randori.
1
SPEAKER_00
They re coming to the dojo Friday night and Sunday night to do training.
1
SPEAKER_00
We also have technical sessions for them.
1
SPEAKER_00
They re in school now, so it s a little bit challenging, but they come five o clock in the afternoon and they do a technical session.
1
SPEAKER_00
Through COVID, they were coming every morning doing technical sessions.
1
SPEAKER_01
What s a technical session?
1
SPEAKER_00
It s an hour of repetitive throwing or repetitive drilling to reinforce movements that we deem important to our successful system.
1
SPEAKER_00
So, NAWASA positions, groundwork positions, where we want them to be in this position and they re gonna drill it 50 times.
1
SPEAKER_00
you know, with resistance, in big groups, you know, doing drills over and over again, picking apart the details of the technique and what they re doing wrong, showing them how to fix it.
1
SPEAKER_00
But now we ve done it so much that now we can do a whole drill session with them where they know all the different techniques inside and out, and they can move from position to position really quickly.
1
SPEAKER_01
Do they do it for a period of time, like two minutes, five minutes, or is it like one, two, they re actually counting?
1
SPEAKER_00
No, sometimes it s both.
1
SPEAKER_00
So sometimes we do it for reps, sometimes we do it for time.
1
SPEAKER_00
So sometimes it might be as many as they can do in 60 seconds or as many as they can do in two minutes.
1
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes it might just be, I want you to do every position five times.
1
SPEAKER_01
In terms of throws, we re not talking about it on a crash pad, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
It s just- No, we re talking about free moving around the mat and just dynamically and just throwing.
1
SPEAKER_00
Correct.
1
SPEAKER_01
How many, because as I was mentioning to you offline, Travis threw me a few times, a lot of times when he was visiting in Austin, and I just remembered, so there s two things.
1
SPEAKER_01
Fortunately or unfortunately in my life, having gotten a chance to train with folks of that level, just cleanness of throw and the power, and it was very nice.
1
SPEAKER_01
I immediately actually enjoyed being thrown like that.
1
SPEAKER_01
to throw a little shade at Craig Jones with his current mat situation, is they re very, they were quite thin.
1
SPEAKER_01
And as Travis commented on, and not just the thinness of the mats, but they were laid on like concrete.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I felt, it s like soft until it s not.
1
SPEAKER_01
But being thrown very cleanly, I just felt like this is not going to lead to injury.
1
SPEAKER_01
It was great.
1
SPEAKER_01
It wasn t injury prone.
1
SPEAKER_01
But then, as I mentioned to you, a day or two after, my entire leg, one of them, I guess it s the left leg,
1
SPEAKER_01
was just black, a bruise.
1
SPEAKER_01
It didn t hurt too bad, but it was just the body s gotten soft.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I guess the question I have is does the body get used to just that number of throws, just over time being thrown thousands of times a month?
1
SPEAKER_00
Unquestionably, your body gets used to it.
1
SPEAKER_00
So it hardens, it gets really hard, which is why Judo is hard to come back to after you ve taken a long period of time off because your body is not used to that impact anymore.
1
SPEAKER_00
I always found out that when I was training Judo a lot, it s hard to shed weight and keep weight off because your body like, it
1
SPEAKER_00
it develops like this layer of protection on itself that it doesn t want to give up.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know, when you re sucking a lot of weight, that means you re frail.
1
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, so I always seem to retain weight more, you know, when you re doing hard judo training as opposed to
1
SPEAKER_00
you know, losing weight.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s easy when you go out for runs and things like that to shed the water weight, but to actually keep the pounds off was pretty hard.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the body kind of develops, like you said, a level of protection.
1
SPEAKER_01
What about, Dorian, just out of curiosity, again, I haven t ever had the opportunity to train with folks at a high level.
1
SPEAKER_01
In Jiu Jitsu, there s different gyms at different styles, but I ve noticed that at the highest levels, people can go pretty hard in a certain kind of way where it s more technical, and you re moving at 100%, but the power is not at 100%.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s a weird little dance.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s like you re not really forcing stuff.
1
SPEAKER_01
You re more focused on the right timing, the right positioning of hands and feet and body and all those kinds of things.
1
SPEAKER_01
You re not like forcing stuff in the way you would in competition, like really the power.
1
SPEAKER_01
Does that sound similar to you for the way you try to do rendore?
1
SPEAKER_00
So there s different styles of judo.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I d say the Japanese style, the technical style of judo is exactly what you just talked about.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s almost like two guys in pajamas, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
We re using minimal effort, maximum efficiency.
1
SPEAKER_00
We re moving around and we re trying to feel that movement and it s timing and finesse and technique and fun and clean throws.
1
SPEAKER_00
And when you train in Japan,
1
SPEAKER_00
You can train 15 rounds of Randori, five minute rounds, that s 75 minutes of straight sparring.
1
SPEAKER_00
You can do that straight in Japan without a problem.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you ll get tired, of course, you re going to fall a lot, you re going to throw a lot, but it s a very free feeling.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it s technical as you explained, but then when you go to Europe and you try to do rounds with the Europeans They are very physical.
1
SPEAKER_00
They don t have that same Finesse in their training that they do in Japan and in Europe you d be hard-pressed to do eight rounds of randori in a night it s so physically exhausting because So much effort is going into just fighting and fending off the gripping system and the power of your opponent You re physically drained after eight rounds of randori
1
SPEAKER_00
So it s a much different feel.
1
SPEAKER_01
When you say Europe, do you mean Germany, France, Britain, Russia?
1
SPEAKER_01
There s a kind of similarity to all of those kinds of approaches.
1
SPEAKER_00
The only difference would be Russia.
2
SPEAKER_00
do a lot more active drilling, a lot more sequential movement training.
2
SPEAKER_00
They don t focus as much on Randori.
2
SPEAKER_00
You ll do much fewer rounds in Russia during training camps than you would in those other countries we just talked about, France, Germany, et cetera.
2
SPEAKER_01
What about in this kind of American system where you have much less talent to work with?
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you just select whatever works for the particular athletes or do you have something you prefer in your system?
2
SPEAKER_00
So you need a combination of all of it.
2
SPEAKER_00
If you re going to win at the Olympic level, you have to be able to deal with the finesse of the Japanese, the physicality of the Europeans.
2
SPEAKER_00
You have to focus on the ground, newaza aspect, because a lot of people are weak there in the world of the sport of judo.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s a chance to win.
2
SPEAKER_00
We ve sort of developed our American system of judo, at least for the last
2
SPEAKER_00
I d say probably the last 20 years, it d be the American system of Judo, which relies heavily on taking the individual and whatever techniques they do, perfecting those techniques and the combinations and other throws that go with those throws, but then implementing and overlaying an American system of gripping, nawaza, conditioning, mentality, training methodology,
2
SPEAKER_00
like in game planning, you know, to beat your opponents.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s the secret sauce to success for Americans because there s no way, we don t have eight partners to train with in a night that are going to give us good rounds, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
We might have two, you know, so we re going to have the same guy four times, those two people four, you know, two times each.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now I have four good rounds.
2
SPEAKER_00
The rest of the rounds, I m not being pushed to the limit.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we train differently.
2
SPEAKER_00
And a lot of times we do a lot of stuff like shark bait when our athletes are preparing for competition.
2
SPEAKER_00
For example, when Kayla or Travis were preparing for competition, we might only have 20 people in the whole gym to work out with, those two Olympic medalists, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
And of those 20 people, maybe four of them are Travis s size.
2
SPEAKER_00
you know, maybe there s only one girl in the room for Kayla.
2
SPEAKER_00
She s got to train with guys.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then the other ones are teenagers that are too weak to train with either one of them.
2
SPEAKER_00
So what we would do is just put together four or five people that could, you know, give them a challenge and we d line them up and they would do a minute, a minute, a minute, a minute.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they do five minutes in a row as hard as they can.
2
SPEAKER_00
That person can go hard for a minute with Travis or Kayla.
2
SPEAKER_00
They can t go five minutes hard, but they can go one minute hard.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it made their training much
2
SPEAKER_00
much more intense, much more physically demanding, and then rinse and repeat that six times or eight times in a night, they just got 40 minutes of intense randori.
2
SPEAKER_00
The person that was training with them that wasn t as good only had to do six or eight minutes of training the whole night.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s so difficult, because then you look at the Russian national team, and you have just the world champions.
2
SPEAKER_01
Or you even have like, what is it, Tom Brands and Terry Brands in the wrestling system.
2
SPEAKER_01
You have like these people, it s a small group of people, but they re all some of the best people in the world, and they re going head to head.
2
SPEAKER_01
And yeah, you don t necessarily get a good look out of a variety of styles, but just the quality is there.
2
SPEAKER_01
And even that is missing for people your size in America.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that is so difficult to work with, which it makes Gail s and makes Travis  story that much more amazing.
2
SPEAKER_01
You mentioned kind of picking whatever the set of techniques the athlete is naturally good at or prefers or whatever.
2
SPEAKER_01
How much specialization is there?
2
SPEAKER_01
Maybe if I give you two choices.
2
SPEAKER_01
Is it good to have one throw and try to become the best person in the world at that throw?
2
SPEAKER_01
Or do you wanna have a bunch of stuff, like a variety of throws?
2
SPEAKER_00
For Travis, it was Ippon Seinagi.
2
SPEAKER_00
That was his main throw.
2
SPEAKER_00
But from that Ippon Seinagi, he had a variety of other attacks he could do that mixed it up so that you kept people guessing.
2
SPEAKER_00
Maybe it wasn t the Ippon Seiwa he was coming, maybe it was the Koshi Guruma that he did.
2
SPEAKER_00
or maybe it was the Ippon to Osoto that he did in combination.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you typically have one main throw that you do.
2
SPEAKER_00
For me, it was Tai Otoshi.
2
SPEAKER_00
For Kayla, it was her Ogoshi.
2
SPEAKER_00
For Travis, it was his Ippon Seian Agi.
2
SPEAKER_00
But then you come up with a variety of other throws that you do from the very same grip.
2
SPEAKER_00
So whatever grip you take for your main throw, you want to develop an arsenal of attacks that go in all different directions holding that same grip.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you keep your opponent guessing as to what s coming.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because if they re just sitting on one technique, at the highest level of sport, with the exception of a few, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
We talked about Ono s Uchimata.
2
SPEAKER_00
With the exception of a few, most of the world catches on pretty quick on how to beat you.
2
SPEAKER_01
There is something to just sticking, making sure you really dedicate to the main thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
So for Travis, that would be like the main version of his Seinagi.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like really making sure you don t forget to really put in the time on that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because I mean, one way to say it is that threat being dangerous opens up a lot of things.
2
SPEAKER_01
But also, I don t know.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think, I m just, as a fan, I think it s sad when elite level athletes in all combat sports kind of start taking their main thing for granted.
2
SPEAKER_01
They think, okay, I ve figured that part out.
2
SPEAKER_01
now I ll be working on this whole system on variations, on different setups, on lefty versus lefty, some like weird variation, as opposed to, you know what, if you look at some of the best people ever, they seem to have not cared about variations at all.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re just like, literally, they are more like Jiro Dreams of Sushi, and like,
2
SPEAKER_01
fine-tuning their ear, their ability to detect the minute movements that give you an opening on that main thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so the whole time, you re just waiting for that throw.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re dancing with a little bit of pressure, releasing the pressure, putting the pressure, maybe a little bit off balance, and finding the right moment to strike and focusing on that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Again, maybe that s just a romanticization of,
2
SPEAKER_01
the simplicity of that, maybe it is kind of impossible to do that on the large scale, but I just, yeah, I don t know if you can comment on that, whether there is some value in still putting in like tens of thousands of reps on the main, main thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, unquestionably, that has to happen.
2
SPEAKER_00
You still have to drill your main throw and you have to fine tune it and continue to do repetition after repetition and throws on the crash pad.
2
SPEAKER_00
or throws on the mat, moving around, just explosive movements doing your main technique.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re never gonna forget that and you re not gonna put it to the side and not practice it anymore.
2
SPEAKER_00
It still has to be part of your repertoire and part of your daily training, but you do have to evolve.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s the sport of judo makes you evolve.
2
SPEAKER_00
When I look at, we talk about Koga from before, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
And we talked about he had a dynamic Ippon Seinagi that nobody could stop for years and years and years.
2
SPEAKER_00
when people started to be unorthodox and come down his back and cross grip him and he couldn t get to the lapel, he had to come up with something else.
2
SPEAKER_00
And all of a sudden you saw Koga doing, now he did a Sode, or now he did a Tomoe Nagi, which so he added to his arsenal.
2
SPEAKER_00
to keep people thinking, keep people guessing.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s not just that one trick pony.
2
SPEAKER_00
They still couldn t stop his Ippon Seinagi once he got that grip.
2
SPEAKER_00
But if they stopped him from getting that grip or putting two hands on the gi, he had to go to something else.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s what he did.
2
SPEAKER_01
Does Travis s or Koga s Seinagi make sense to you?
2
SPEAKER_01
That weird... Split hip.
2
SPEAKER_01
Split hip.
2
SPEAKER_00
Split hip.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if you know this, but I got into judo because of Travis.
2
SPEAKER_01
I watched him at 2008 Olympics, and there s something about just, not the cockiness, but the confidence and just the refusal to quit, the refusal to, just that energy, whatever it connected with me, it s like, oh, that guy s badass.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wanna be badass like that.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I also there happened to be a university judo and I got into it and just fell in love with the elegance and the beauty and the power of the sport.
2
SPEAKER_01
But also I started to mimic Travis s game, his and Koga s.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then the instructors I worked with, they said, that s the wrong way to do it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I never found somebody that told me like, no, that s not the wrong way.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of ways to do it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And there s like the classic way and you have to understand it and you have to learn it, but this is not the wrong way.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because I was trying to find somebody who understands this throw.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because it was so beautiful at the highest level, especially with Koga, the way
2
SPEAKER_01
you re able, the quickness with which you can strike, the fact that you can stand on the feet and the elevation you can get and the power you can get.
2
SPEAKER_01
It has certain throws, just like Uchimata doesn t look powerful.
2
SPEAKER_01
It just like, it looks effortless.
2
SPEAKER_01
But like the standing Seinagi with a split hip, it just looks powerful because there s a,
2
SPEAKER_01
you re like, you re stepping into them, you re lifting the opponent, and they still have, they re not surprised, they re now like helpless.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, their feet are fluttering in the air.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re fluttering.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then there s just this pause, and then just big slam.
2
SPEAKER_01
With the Uchimaru, it s almost like you don t know what hit you.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like Taito, it s just the same.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s almost like a surprise, like oh shit, I m now on my back.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so I just,
2
SPEAKER_01
Love that throw, but it didn t make sense to me.
2
SPEAKER_01
When trying to explain it to others, when trying to learn it, it didn t make sense to me how it works.
2
SPEAKER_01
Does it make sense to you?
2
SPEAKER_00
It does.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was born a judoka, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
So I ve lived this stuff since I was an infant.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I ve seen every style and every technique.
2
SPEAKER_00
The split hip say in Iggy is difficult to learn.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s harder to learn than the basic form, but it is powerful and it does upon entry.
2
SPEAKER_00
both your opponent s feet leave the mat at the same time.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you ve got them.
2
SPEAKER_00
Once you enter, you ve got them.
2
SPEAKER_00
You just got to finish, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
You just got to lock them and turn and go.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it makes sense to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
My dad did teach me how to do that when I was younger.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he wanted me to do a split hip.
2
SPEAKER_00
We have kids at the school today that we teach the split hip Sayonara, same way.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because it is that dynamic, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
You don t drop to the ground and roll and turn.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not the classic form where you re giving way to your opponent.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s actually, you go pick the guy up in the air and then you slam him.
2
SPEAKER_01
Okay, beautiful.
2
SPEAKER_01
So maybe on a small tangent, so where we re talking about elite level athletes in terms of Randoi, in terms of like drilling, for more recreational athletes, like I have personally that situation going on, but there s other people that are just recreationally training judo.
2
SPEAKER_01
How do you recommend they improve judo?
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, if I wanted to compete a bunch and do reasonable with a particular set of throws, say the split... Sayonagi.
2
SPEAKER_01
So how do you... Do you do the randori?
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you use a crash pad to get in reps?
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, what do you recommend?
2
SPEAKER_00
So I guess there s two recreational people that we re talking about.
2
SPEAKER_00
One is somebody who wants to learn judo and become good at judo, but doesn t necessarily want to compete, but just wants to get better.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that there s not enough emphasis in this country on paying attention to that type of student.
2
SPEAKER_00
Everybody pushes them to competition.
2
SPEAKER_00
But in reality,
2
SPEAKER_00
There s a huge audience of people out there that would love to learn judo and be very proficient at judo and have the skills to go execute if they ever needed it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And there s a class and there should be a program for that athlete.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that athlete does not need to do Randori.
2
SPEAKER_00
like the sport of judo is physical enough where you re picking somebody up all the time and moving their body weight around the mat all the time, where you can get very physically strong, very physically fit.
2
SPEAKER_00
Technically, you ll be better than somebody that does randori more than you because if you learn good technique and you learn the movement and you learn the feel and you learn the timing,
2
SPEAKER_00
you ll actually be a better athlete than the person that just focuses on randori who does ugly technique and wins with force.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we have a recreational class at our school where they don t do any randori.
2
SPEAKER_00
They have an option afterwards if they want to stay for 15 minutes or stay for 30 minutes where they can participate in randori, but most of the adult students choose not to.
2
SPEAKER_00
because they re already so tired from the other hour class.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because it s a good workout.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, they re already dripping sweat.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re already like, if you work hard and drill hard, it s an intense workout, you re exhausted.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that s a specific set of program, I should say, at every academy.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then if you wanna get good and you wanna compete,
2
SPEAKER_00
And then to me, once you have your techniques, it s learning how to implement a good gripping system to put yourself in a position where you can always dominate the grips.
2
SPEAKER_00
control the movement, initiate the reactions from your opponent, and then have the opportunity to attack and score.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that when people train with, or when they jump into a higher level of the sport of judo, all of a sudden the first thing they say is, I can t attack.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t know how to attack.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because positionally, they don t know where to put their hands, they don t know how to hold the gi properly, they don t understand that they re,
2
SPEAKER_00
they have an inferior grip and they don t know how to get into better positions so they can attack.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s a big part of the game that not a lot of people really understand.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you really, even for recreational competitors, you really need to have a gripping system.
2
SPEAKER_01
You need to understand the gripping system.
2
SPEAKER_00
if you want to win.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, if the goal is to go and compete, that s a different story.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t have fun getting beat up or losing in competitions.
2
SPEAKER_01
I enjoy the- I don t even know if it s the winning or the losing.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think this is what, because I competed a lot in both judo and jiu-jitsu, and in judo,
2
SPEAKER_01
it feels like, because I didn t have a gripping system, it feels like you re not even playing judo against the good black belts.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re not even trying because they get a certain kind of grip, and you just can t do anything.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I don t have a good answer for that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t even know what I m looking for.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so it s not even fun.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s not like even losing.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like a...
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like you didn t even show up to play, is what it feels like.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think that is a big gap in knowledge, actually, in Judo schools, is the gripping part.
2
SPEAKER_00
When you first go out to do judo, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
The first thing you have to do is you have to grab your opponent, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
And a lot of times I hear coaches say, get a grip, just take a grip.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, sometimes if you take a grip, you re in a worse position than not having a grip at all.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s what a lot of people don t understand.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like if you hold the gi in the wrong way, your opponent can attack you, but you can t attack him.
2
SPEAKER_00
So why would you ever do that grip
2
SPEAKER_00
if it s only to your detriment, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
And the way you grip does set up what attacks you can do as well.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that is a huge part.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m not saying that you have to be 100% disciplined and always outgrip your opponent and only be able to do throws when you have a superior grip.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m just saying that to be able to put the grips together with the throws and understand the movements is gonna make you that much ahead of the game.
2
SPEAKER_01
So if we take a step to our previous discussion of going from zero to hero, so going from the early days through the teenage years to winning an Olympic medal.
2
SPEAKER_01
So we mentioned a lot of training, the dedication of the training, the competing.
2
SPEAKER_01
What other elements are there?
2
SPEAKER_01
The mental side is visualization, believing that you could,
2
SPEAKER_01
perform at that level.
2
SPEAKER_01
So what else can you say about that?
2
SPEAKER_00
I think that comes at the highest level.
2
SPEAKER_00
The visualization, the success, that comes at the highest level.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think in the teen years,
2
SPEAKER_00
there s the experience plays a huge role in getting to train with other people.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like as Americans, we have to go train in Europe.
2
SPEAKER_00
We have to feel the European style of judo.
2
SPEAKER_00
We have to understand that physicality.
2
SPEAKER_00
They grip very differently.
2
SPEAKER_00
They put you in very unorthodox positions.
2
SPEAKER_00
And if you don t know how to deal with that, you get thrown before you even have a chance to try your own throws.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it takes a lot of,
2
SPEAKER_00
It takes a lot of that experience and understanding what s going on.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then you also need to get that physicality.
3
SPEAKER_01
You need to be strong and hard, I would say, by doing all those rounds with the Europeans.
3
SPEAKER_01
And at the same time, you need to go to Asia and you need to train in Japan because you need to feel that free-flowing judo for your technical side.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think that s one of the things that I was able to benefit from.
3
SPEAKER_01
My dad was a coach who said, listen, I ve taken you as far as I can take you.
3
SPEAKER_01
I want you to go to the next level.
3
SPEAKER_01
I want, you know, he sent me to England with Neil Adams, who was an Olympic silver medalist and was a world champion, had a great ground game and was good at gripping and actually did tai otoshi, which is the throw I did.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I said, I want you to go learn from Neil.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I ended up going to
3
SPEAKER_01
England probably eight to ten times in my career and spending a good amount of time there training at the Neil Adams Academy He s now the voice of judo Neil Adams.
3
SPEAKER_00
What do you make of that guy?
3
SPEAKER_00
Just a brief pause.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s like the like Morgan Freeman is the voice of like March of the Penguins and any other nature documentary and Neil Adams is uh, there s very few sports that have a Neil Adams I would say because
3
SPEAKER_00
He s legitimately, maybe like Joe Rogan is that from mixed martial arts.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s just like an exceptionally recognizable voice.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s really knowledgeable.
3
SPEAKER_00
Also the passion is conveyed so well.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like many times I ll watch just because he s talking.
3
SPEAKER_00
So who is he?
3
SPEAKER_00
Since you ve gotten the chance to train with him, to learn from him, who s Neil Adams?
3
SPEAKER_01
He s a great friend of mine.
3
SPEAKER_00
He is.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s a mentor.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like I said, I lived and trained at the Neil Adams Club in Coventry, England since I was like 16 years old.
3
SPEAKER_01
I went and visited him for the first time.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s the one who originally taught me how to do Juji Gatame and the way that I do Juji Gatame.
3
SPEAKER_01
I trained with him.
3
SPEAKER_01
He was just retired.
3
SPEAKER_01
He was in his early 30s when I first went out there.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so I trained with him many times.
3
SPEAKER_01
And over the years, he was a mentor.
3
SPEAKER_01
Great person, you know, cares about people, cares about, you know, the sport of judo.
3
SPEAKER_01
Had a good little club that was a fitness club and, you know, it was judo, it was fitness.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, used to go there.
3
SPEAKER_01
I d show up at that place at like seven in the morning and the first thing we would do is we d go for a run.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we d either be running mountains or we d be doing a five-mile run or we d be doing something at the park.
3
SPEAKER_01
We were doing sprints and buddy carries and all this stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then at 9 a.m., we d have a technical session with Neil Adams, where he would, you know, for an hour and a half, we would drill techniques and learn positions.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it was no randori, it was that sequential drilling that we talked about before, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Where you re reinforcing your two or three attacks to set up your main attack, or if you re on the ground, you re going through repetitions of certain movements.
3
SPEAKER_01
Um, and then I d spend all afternoon at the club, have lunch.
3
SPEAKER_01
I d go do my weight training in the afternoon at that, at that place.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then in the evening, we would either do Randori training at the Neil Adams club, or we would all get in a car and we d drive to another, another location, you know, and we d go train in another club that might be an hour away.
3
SPEAKER_01
And there d be, you know, 50 bodies there to train with.
3
SPEAKER_01
And each night we d go to a different dojo.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so it would be all day at the club.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I d do that for like three weeks straight.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, all we do is train.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you know how he became the voice of Judo?
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you have an understanding of what his thinking is around how much he dedicates himself to just commentating on Judo?
3
SPEAKER_00
I imagine the amount of research required, but also just psychologically, just the excitement he has in his voice.
3
SPEAKER_00
It takes work to do that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you have an understanding of what his vision is with that?
3
SPEAKER_01
He s always been a very charismatic, uh, animated person, Neil, you know, very passionate and loud and, and, you know, funny.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the Brits are very funny to begin with.
3
SPEAKER_01
So he s, he s, you know, very charismatic, but, um,
3
SPEAKER_01
I think after coaching, he tried coaching.
3
SPEAKER_01
He coached the country of Wales for a while.
3
SPEAKER_01
He tried coaching stints in other countries.
3
SPEAKER_01
He didn t have a lot of success on the coaching side, developing an Olympic champion.
3
SPEAKER_01
I know that was a goal of his, that he was a world champion.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think it was 1981.
3
SPEAKER_01
He won two silver medals in the Olympic Games himself.
3
SPEAKER_01
He went on to coach for a while and had some political issues with the country of England for a while, and then left England and went to Wales, and I think he had a coaching stint somewhere else as well.
3
SPEAKER_01
Didn t have a lot of success coaching in the sport with athletes, not at the highest level.
3
SPEAKER_01
Had a great national team and things like that.
3
SPEAKER_01
He was really good at teaching his technique to others because he helped me a lot.
3
SPEAKER_01
But running a program, I think, was difficult for him.
3
SPEAKER_01
The boy s not listening and not having that same kind of passion and intensity that he... And that s why I bonded well with him, because I was all in.
3
SPEAKER_01
I went there and whatever he said, I did.
3
SPEAKER_01
I didn t care how hard, I didn t care how long, I just wanted to get as good as I could.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so that s why...
3
SPEAKER_01
was a good mentor for me.
3
SPEAKER_01
But now in terms of a commentator, I mean, he s very cerebral.
3
SPEAKER_01
He loves judo.
3
SPEAKER_01
He researches it nonstop.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s got that great voice and he knows how to bring life to the game.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s what he s done.
3
SPEAKER_01
And now this is who he is, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
He does judo full-time.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is his job.
3
SPEAKER_00
Can I ask you a small, before we return to the actual sport, the coaching of the sport, it s a bit of a political question.
3
SPEAKER_00
I did a whole rant before Travis episode.
3
SPEAKER_00
I love Neil Adams  voice, I love watching Judo, and it s really disappointing to me that the IOC and whoever is responsible, I don t understand this, that they don t make it easy for people to watch the Olympics in replay for years after.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I can t watch Travis  matches, I can t watch, they make it very difficult to watch stuff online.
3
SPEAKER_00
So what happened is,
3
SPEAKER_00
I uploaded the Travis Stevens episode and we talked about his Ole Bischoff 2012 match.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it was like one minute of like a small overlay of the video as we re talking through it, like stepping through it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it got taken down immediately from YouTube, the whole four hour conversation because of that one minute little clip.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the way it got taken down automatically is because the IOC has that video uploaded.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s set to private, but it s uploaded.
3
SPEAKER_00
So they have the video and they choose not to show it.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not that they re asking for money or whatever, they re just not showing it anywhere.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re not showing it through their own service like NBC Olympics or so on.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s just so many great human stories that the Olympics reveals.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re just not made easily accessible.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s the Olympics charter is you want to, I think the actual line is to ensure the fullest coverage and the widest possible audience in the world for the Olympic Games.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it seems like to me as a fan of the Olympic Games,
3
SPEAKER_00
we re not getting any of that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you have an understanding of why that is?
3
SPEAKER_00
Like why we can t watch Kayla s matches, Travis s matches super easily, even if we re willing to pay money for it.
3
SPEAKER_01
So you can t go on the International Judo Federation website right now and watch any of the Olympic footage?
3
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no.
3
SPEAKER_00
So the only thing they have is for certain, for example, Teddy Renner match he lost.
3
SPEAKER_00
Not available anywhere.
3
SPEAKER_01
Really?
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s like a dramatic thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
So the one thing they have is for certain sports at the highest level, like gymnastics, they ll have a highlight, which is the most frustrating thing to me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because this is what I can t, I m going to try to prevent myself from going on a rant, but
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, people don t just want to see a two-minute highlight of a historic moment.
3
SPEAKER_00
They want to see the buildup, where the athlete is standing, the nerves, the fear, the confidence.
3
SPEAKER_00
You see the buildup to the event, say it s a gymnastic.
3
SPEAKER_00
whatever floor routine, like their name is announced, they re walking, the coat, then they cut to the coach, and the coach with anticipation, and they go to the athlete.
3
SPEAKER_00
You want the full 10 minute thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
You don t want a two minute highlight of what happened like last second or whatever.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s just like the magic of that full story, like a lifetime building up to those 10 minutes, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
That s the magic of the Olympics, that both the drama and the triumph that happens in those moments,
3
SPEAKER_00
And the fact that you can t relive that, like Travis had a bunch of those, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Like he had a bunch of times he faced like world champions, he won and lost and just, it s always close, it s always dramatic.
3
SPEAKER_00
And none of those are available except like, maybe the one where he beat Armbard or George Clooney.
3
SPEAKER_00
whatever the submission was, I forgot.
3
SPEAKER_00
The choke, the choke, yeah, the Georgian.
3
SPEAKER_00
But most things are not.
3
SPEAKER_00
Usain Bolt, the full races, not all of his races are available online.
3
SPEAKER_00
The race with the Italian winning the 100 meter, the track race.
3
SPEAKER_00
this Olympics is not only highlight is available for what I saw, I didn t look too hard.
3
SPEAKER_00
So like, but that, the fact that it s not super easily accessible if you re willing to pay money even, but probably should be for free, is heartbreaking to me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because to me, the Olympics is like some of the best of humanity.
3
SPEAKER_00
Just like, again, the hardship they have to overcome, so like the losses are really powerful.
3
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because it s such heartbreak, but it s also like the triumph.
3
SPEAKER_01
Where you re losing history.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re losing history is what you are, of all the magical moments of your sport, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
It s a sin.
3
SPEAKER_01
I got to blame it on television rights and money.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s what it comes down to.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re talking billions and billions of dollars of television rights paid by NBC here in the United States and globally, whatever the main carriers are and all the other nations that are dictating what can be replayed and what can t.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s what it comes down to.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, I made a
3
SPEAKER_01
DVD or a video when I first retired from the sport.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was called Fury on the Mat.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was kind of my story, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
And I did it with a friend who was a videographer and we grabbed a bunch of my old footage and Olympic footage.
3
SPEAKER_01
And somebody said to me, you can t use that Olympic footage.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was young and I had just retired.
3
SPEAKER_01
I said, what do you mean I can t use the Olympic footage?
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not the television footage.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s my buddy who filmed it with his own camera.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s my footage.
3
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
3
SPEAKER_01
And they said, no, if it has Olympics in it or it s anything to do with the Olympics, the USOC owns it.
3
SPEAKER_01
I said, okay.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, they said, well, you should get to send it to them and let them review it.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I sent it to them and I got a bill back.
3
SPEAKER_01
I got a thing back that said, if you want to use this footage, it s going to be like $30,000.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I said,
3
SPEAKER_01
Man, it s only like three minutes.
3
SPEAKER_01
I spliced it up as much as I could and I only have highlights in there.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I said, come on.
3
SPEAKER_01
I went back and I negotiated with them.
3
SPEAKER_01
But at the end of the day, I still had to pay like $15,000 just to have a few minutes of footage in my own film.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I m thinking, you wouldn t even have that film if I didn t compete in it.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, like you can t, you know, so that was a, it was a struggle.
3
SPEAKER_00
This is the different, like you have the same in jujitsu, there s certain organizations, IBJJF, or like Flow Grappling and Flow Wrestling.
3
SPEAKER_00
I understand, I think when it s a business, it might make sense.
3
SPEAKER_00
First of all, you should actually be good at being a business and making money, which is why for me, the IOC doesn t make sense.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like it should be accessible, but it would cost money.
3
SPEAKER_00
I can t buy it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Would I have to email them for this footage and pay $30,000?
3
SPEAKER_00
No, but the question is, the way you run a business is you make that frictionless.
3
SPEAKER_00
Whatever the money is, $30,000 or $30, you make it frictionless and easy to pay that money.
3
SPEAKER_00
But anyway, I understand why that might be the case with flow grappling, but to me, the Olympics is a special thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like you said, it is history.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like there s not even, like even the world championships don t compare.
3
SPEAKER_00
I understand they re really important, but Olympics is history, and the stories should certainly belong to the athletes if they want to do like Fury and the Mat to do their own story, or like on a podcast to talk about the most tragic moment of their career.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you have a sense of how that could be fixed, or no?
3
SPEAKER_01
The only thing I could think of is, you d have to go to the Olympic Committee.
3
SPEAKER_01
The U.S.
3
SPEAKER_01
Olympic Committee is the place I would start because the U.S.
3
SPEAKER_01
controls the worldwide market when it comes to television.
3
SPEAKER_01
We pay the most for our television rights.
3
SPEAKER_01
Our sponsors pay the most for their rights to be associated with the best team in the world, which is the United States.
3
SPEAKER_01
So all the money starts here.
3
SPEAKER_01
I got to believe there has to be a way to get that footage that should be accessible to the sports themselves.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m surprised it s not, but if it s not, then it s because of dollars.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s because the sport itself is not willing to pay enough money to have it accessible to its audience.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s too cost prohibitive for them to do it.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, but I think it s also unfortunately might be some mixture of incompetence and just an old way of doing things because there s a lot of money to be made on television rights where you like live show the event, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
But what s not being leveraged is the huge amount of money that could be made on the replay.
3
SPEAKER_00
This is what people don t understand is do you know how many times
3
SPEAKER_00
just the tens of millions of times that people watch individual events years from now.
3
SPEAKER_00
You watch all the videos on YouTube, they re still getting plays, hundreds of millions of views on stuff that happened 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s really powerful and there s a lot of opportunity to make a ton of money.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s not that they re necessarily greedy, they re also just not good at being greedy.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s not the traditional, think about it though.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not traditional, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
For television studios, it s non-traditional to go to online streaming, to online access to information.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not hard, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because everybody s doing it now, but it s not typical.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it requires for the IOC to operate outside their comfort zone.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, I definitely hope that s the case.
3
SPEAKER_00
And since Travis s video got taken down, it s obvious they have it.
3
SPEAKER_00
They have it on their YouTube channel.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s like, I hope, I hope that they will just release it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And for money, for whatever, but release it and have that history not be erased.
3
SPEAKER_01
It d be wonderful if athletes could buy, even if you could buy your own footage, you can t use it commercially, you can t, but you can buy your own matches and have them available for yourself or package the footage, it d be awesome.
3
SPEAKER_00
Thank you for that.
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SPEAKER_00
It was quite heartbreaking for me, 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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Sure.
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You represented the United States at four Olympics, winning a bronze medal at two of them.
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Who or what was the toughest match or moment you had in those years?
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Maybe a moment that defined you, that you remember as being particularly defining in your career.
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I would say the bronze medal match in Atlanta in 96, because up to that moment, the United States team had not won a medal, had not fought for a medal in the games.
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We were on our 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 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.
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But the gold, silver, and bronze medalist at that Olympics in Barcelona were all guys that I had beat.
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In fact, two of them I was undefeated against in my entire career, the Brazilian and the Cuban I had never lost to.
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So that s when I knew I was capable of being 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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I was 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 I was supposed to fight against Japan, so I was anticipating the match against Japan and I got beat by the Mongolian.
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So that was kind of a letdown, but the match for the bronze, you know, in front of the hometown crowd, all of my family, all of my friends, everybody who had ever helped me in the sport were in the stands that day, including all my teammates at Brown University that were on the wrestling team and little, my uncles, my aunts, everybody, everybody was in the stands, right?
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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 for the bronze medal.
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I had beaten the Brazilian like two or three times before that.
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I found myself down in the match.
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He actually countered me.
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I came in my Tai Otoshi and he was waiting for it and he countered me and he scored a yuko against me.
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So I was losing the fight, came down to about the last minute in the match and I was just tucking in my gi and fixing my thing and gathering my thoughts together and the whole crowd just started chanting, USA.
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USA!
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USA!
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And I literally got so much energy.
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I walked out there, I grabbed the guy, I came in my taotosh again, he stepped off the taotosh, I threw him a tuchimata, a free pon.
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I won my first Olympic medal in front of the hometown crowd.
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Everybody went bananas.
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The United States judo team had our first medal from the Olympics.
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It ended up being the only Olympic medal we won at that Games, but it was like a magical moment that defined my career and solidified myself in history where, hey, and now I get to step up on the Olympic podium and I m Olympic medalist.
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And to me, that was
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my defining moment.
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And after that, I was sold.
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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 this feeling all over again.
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I don t care if I have to wait four years.
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Let s do it.
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In your career, moments like that, do you think you love winning or hate losing more?
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So do you live for those moments or are you more driven by just how much you hate losing?
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So in order to be a champion, my belief is that you have to hate losing more than you like winning.
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Hate losing more than you like winning.
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But I live for those moments when you do win.
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And what excited me the most in my career when I was competing was,
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Loved being in the finals.
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I love the spotlight being on me.
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I can t think of too many times in my career Of course, there were a few but there weren t too many times where the chips were down like the lights were on and I didn t win like it was I
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might ve lost early in the day and didn t make it to the finals or didn t make it to the medal rounds.
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But in my career, I have a ton of golds, I have a ton of bronzes, which means the lights are on and I won, and I have very few silvers and very few fifths.
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So I either lost in the early rounds and didn t make to the medal rounds in my younger days, or
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spotlight came and I really shined.
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Because if you look, I don t know how many silvers, but there wasn t very many silver medals in my career that I won.
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You know what I mean?
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So I just loved that moment.
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I didn t feel pressure.
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I loved the crowd.
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I loved being in the spotlight.
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I wasn t nervous when it came to the finals or I knew I was getting a medal.
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It didn t matter.
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So it was just me against the other guy and that s how I always saw it.
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And I just loved that moment.
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So your dad was your coach.
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You didn t get to meet him tonight.
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Oh, great.
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He s kind of a legend in the sport.
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So how has your dad helped you as a coach, as an athlete, as a human being throughout the years?
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Number one, my dad is the most brutally honest person you will ever meet in your life.
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Brutally honest.
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He will tell you, if you are fat, he will tell your fat right to your face.
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He wants you to get better, he wants you to be healthy.
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He doesn t want you to die of obesity.
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It s just the way he is.
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If you didn t do well,
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he will not sugarcoat it.
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He will let you know what you didn t do right.
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So he s the ultimate litmus test, right?
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Second is he is the most passionate, caring, deep, always thinking about
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Very cerebral, very like a student of the game.
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Somebody who helped me immensely in defining my strategy, helping me improve and always look for what s next.
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In terms of training, I think that he s
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probably the most brilliant human when it comes to preparing an athlete physically, not necessarily mentally, physically for success.
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When all the chips are down, that athlete will be ready that day and he has a system of training and preparing and getting the athlete to peak for performance.
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You mean like conditioning, like the whole thing?
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Yes.
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Okay, because I remember like, vaguely remember,
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Kayla Harrison talking about her preparation being very difficult.
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Yeah, that s it.
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That s him?
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Yeah, that s him.
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You go back and ask Rhonda Rousey about her career, right?
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My dad was her coach.
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My dad moved her to Camp New Hampshire in Boston
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Got her up, ran her in the morning, had her downstairs in the basement of his house, training with the weights.
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We brought a Russian girl in.
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She did throws on his cement outside with the little crash pad.
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Nice.
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Threw the Russian girl 100 times that morning.
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And then every night, came to Boston, to the training center in Wakefield, trained at night, and went back and slept at my dad s house.
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And three weeks straight before she went off to Beijing.
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And he did the same with Kayla.
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He did the same with me.
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He s just, his passion is producing athletes at the highest level and he knows how to do it.
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And then the one side of my dad s coaching where I think there s a flaw or weakness is on the mental preparation side of the game.
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He wasn t somebody that was, I don t know if he, maybe because he wasn t an Olympic champion himself and wasn t a world champion, he lacked the confidence in helping others be more confident.
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So he s more of a,
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this is what you need to work on type of thing.
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He doesn t know how to build the athletes up to make them feel invincible.
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And I feel like that s something that I was able to give all of the athletes, to help them with that visualization, belief in yourself, knowing that you re gonna win before you step out on the mat, knowing that we ve earned the right to victory, seeing success in your mind.
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having a positive mantra that you, I m the best in the world, nobody s beaten me today type of feeling.
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So you go out there feeling like King Kong when you step on the mat, that nobody s going to stop you.
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And so I think the combination of both of us as coaches
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I m a lot more technical.
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My dad is good at identifying what they need to do for their techniques and strategy, how to beat opponents and putting game plans together.
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So combined, the two of us made an unbelievable team.
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So he s not going to let the athlete be soft when they enter the highest, the most difficult competitions of their career.
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So on the mental side, what s mental preparation look like?
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Like how many years before the Olympics do you start helping an athlete believe that they can win an Olympic medal?
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I think it s got to be a seed in that athlete s brain, something they want to do, right?
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Nobody can quickly get there, right?
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It s a long process.
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But if your goal, if you re a national champion or you ve proven yourself to win in some international tournaments and you think the Olympics is a possibility for you, then defining it as, hey, I want to be on the Olympic team, that would be the first step into
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you know, into getting ready.
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And, you know, I always make them put it on paper.
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You know, if it really is your goal, then you show me that it s your goal and put it on paper and commit to it.
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I want to be Olympic medalist.
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I want to be Olympic champion.
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I want to go to the Olympics.
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World team member, maybe junior world team member, whatever it is, we walk before we go to the highest level.
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But if the goal is to go to the Olympics, let s accomplish these other things first, right?
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Because if we can accomplish these other things,
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then we re on our way to getting to the ultimate goal, which is the Olympics.
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For somebody like Kayla, for example, she didn t say that she wanted to be Olympic champion when she first came here in 2005.
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We wanted to
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become national champion, then we want it to be on the world team, then we want it to be a world medalist.
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Then our sights were set on the Olympics or the Olympic gold.
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So it s having those clearly defined goals that are attainable.
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They should be a reach, they should be a stretch, but they have to be attainable.
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They can t be just a pipe dream.
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But once you put it to paper and you think it s achievable, then it s mapping the plan to get there.
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Is there a daily process of visualizing yourself as an Olympic champion or national champion?
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Yes, it is.
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And you should do it either every night before you go to bed or before every training session or after every training session.
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One of those three times it should, or first thing you wake up in the morning, because it may be to help some people, it motivates them to go do what it is they re supposed to do in the day.
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But the process of visualization is, to me, is closing your eyes for a few moments.
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Your brain works really, really fast, right?
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And it s actually picturing the day in its entirety, from start to finish, you know, from the moment you wake up and you step on the scale to the moment you have your breakfast and you go through your morning routine, like live the day that you re gonna have at the Olympics.
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So whatever it is you re trying to do, let s say the Olympic day, for example,
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Picture yourself making weight, picture yourself who you re around, eating your breakfast, maybe saying a few jokes, laughing.
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This is a real day, make it real.
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Going back and packing your judo bag for the day, getting on the bus, driving to the venue, feel what it s like walking into the stadium for the first time, going to the warmup area, seeing your drawer up on the sheet of who you re going to fight that day.
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watching yourself warm up, go through your warmup routine, walking out of the shoot, into the venue, going to do that first fight, picture the moment of throwing your opponent, coming off the mat, high-fiving the coach, getting ready for your second fight.
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Live the day from start to finish and make it as real as possible.
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where all the way to the moment where you ve just won and you re raising your arms in celebration, you re bowing, you re hugging your opponent, you come off the mat, you hug your coach, you re running around the stadium with the flag, you stepped up on the podium, you heard your name, Olympic champion, Jimmy Pedro, you heard the moment, the medal being put around your neck, picture the people coming up on the podium with you, arms around them, taking the pictures.
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the more real you can make it, even before it ever happens, right?
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When you do that enough times,
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I feel that like pathways get created for you so that when your body gets to that moment, and I ve been here before, this is it, this is my moment, this is what I ve pictured my whole life.
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I m not nervous because I ve seen this, this is gonna happen.
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I believe it s possible, right?
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And I believe the athletes that do that and make it real enough that when they get to that moment,
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They go right through, there s no hesitation.
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This is meant to be, this is my destiny.
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This is why I did everything I did.
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Versus the ones that don t think about it ever, but just kind of like hope.
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It s not real to them.
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It doesn t feel attainable.
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They don t believe it s possible.
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They haven t committed to believing it was possible.
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Without that commitment in yourself and that belief, it can t happen.
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And one thing that, I talked to Travis a bit about this.
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You probably worked with him on the details of what you re talking about.
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But he said that you should really focus on visualizing the sensations you feel.
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So say if you re drinking coffee or something like that, you re not thinking about observing yourself from a third person perspective drinking coffee.
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you re thinking of how your hand will feel when it touches something warm.
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Like you try to replay the actual sensations you would feel, right?
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It sounds kind of strange, but meaning like you really want to put yourself in the body as you would experience those moments, as opposed to like watching yourself on TV experiencing those moments, like really be inside.
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And yeah, so that means sensations, like how does it feel when you grip a gi?
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How does it, you know, yeah, the sweating, just the sensation of sweat, like rolling down your forehead or whatever, like all of those actual feelings.
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when I explain it to you, I guess my body has been through it so many times, both in my mind and in reality, that it brings back all of those same emotions.
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I start to get goosebumps, my armpits start to sweat.
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I m living it if it s real.
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I m reliving it now, but when you re going through the visualization process, it has to be that real.
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The smells, the taping of the fingers.
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The more colorful and the more real you can make it,
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the more believable it is.
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So I ve been doing this kind of thing, just having listened to you enough for other stuff in life.
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So let s see if it works.
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But do you see this kind of visualization being useful for other things in career and all those kinds of things?
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All, 100%.
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100%, because I just know with my own life, my own experiences, like I, like my wife sometimes says to me, she says, well, where do you see yourself in like, you know, five years from now?
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And five years ago, I had said to her, you know, I wanna have my own business.
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I wanna have, you know, this is the amount of money that I m hoping I can make in a given year.
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Like you have to have goals for yourself.
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Like is this, and you put out there like, okay, I wanna make a million dollars in a year.
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That s a big number.
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Like for me or for the normal person, like that s a really big number.
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You know what I mean?
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Like it s not, especially when you re not making that much at the time, it s a super big number, right?
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So having those goals for yourself, like it won t happen and it s not possible unless you dream, it s possible.
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and think that it s possible.
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And then it doesn t magically happen.
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And maybe it doesn t happen in five years, maybe happens in 10.
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But at least you re on the path to getting there.
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You know what I mean?
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And I said, I want to own my own business.
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I want to control my own destiny.
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I want to be my own boss.
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I want to make my own decisions.
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These are the things that I told her I wanted to do.
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And now I m at that point where I work for myself.
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I have my own company.
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I have partners, obviously.
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But I
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If I wanna pick up and go somewhere for a week, I just do.
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I don t have to ask permission to do it.
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That s what life, freedom, that s what I d like.
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And all of it starts with a dream.
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And the same with my dojo.
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When I first opened, so I ran a dojo for a long time and I only had 60 students always.
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Like 40 to 60 students had fluctuated.
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And I sit there and I said, why can t I get more people in my door?
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So I hired consultants to come in and look at my business and say why.
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They came in and said, well, this place is really intimidating.
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Like, if I was coming in off the street, the first thing I see is this big Olympic champion on the wall, and I see this training that s going on, and these guys are flying through the air and landing hard, and as a white belt, you re telling me that s the class for me?
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Like, no way, I m not gonna do that.
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So, like, I listened to these people, and I said, you re right.
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And the training was hour and a half, two hours long.
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People can t handle an hour and a half or two hours training when they first walk in the door.
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So I had to restructure all my programming.
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I had to look at the way I was offering my curriculum at my school and I had to make levels for everybody, right?
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Like here s my four to six year old class.
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Here s my six to 13 year old class.
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Here s all my beginner classes.
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They don t mix in with the advanced people.
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And I had to learn how to,
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make it accessible for everybody instead of just the people that wanted to train hard.
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And then the challenge was, okay, if you can have a lot of people in your dojo training, it s a recreational school.
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You can t produce champions at that same school.
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That s what I was told.
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So then I got all my black belts together and I said, listen, this is my vision.
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This is what I want.
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I want to have a club that has over 200
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Judo only athletes, no jujitsu, no karate, nothing.
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Judo only.
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I want over 200 people.
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And inside of that dojo, I want to have Olympic champions and I want to have recreational.
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Like little kids, five and six years old, older guys in their 70s training.
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I don t care, but I want the spectrum of recreational and I want Olympic champions.
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The only way to do that is
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to take your instructors and say, you re going to do this, define the roles, who s going to be the recreational coach, who s going to be the competitive coach, how do we separate these programs?
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And lo and behold, that was my vision that I shared with all of them.
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And that was back in 2006.
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And by 2012, we ve got Olympic champion Kayla Harrison, we have over 200 people at the school, we have a successful thriving business, but it doesn t happen without that vision, a plan, and believing that it s possible.
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Believing that it s possible.
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I don t know, but I personally have, on top of that,
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almost like very specific visions of a future like I Don t know what I think because I don t want to give actual examples because for several reasons one of which is just people will as They often have they often will in your life.
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They ll just Laugh at it a little bit like that seems silly and I don t I m very hesitant to share certain things like that with people because they ll
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I mean, I m with Johnny Ive, who s the lead designer in Apple.
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You want that dream, that little flame to not... People will put that flame out too easily, even people that love you.
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So I have very specific kind of...
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visions, like maybe for Travis it would be like a specific opponent or something, like Ole Bischoff, like very specific, very specific situation of what s going to happen.
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Not just like, I want to be Olympic champion, but very specific, like almost silly situations.
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Yeah, like the dynamic between Travis and Olay Bishop or something, like maybe visualize that.
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For me, that helps because it makes it all real, even more real.
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It s not like some big goal, like a million dollars or something like that, which is also really important to have because you can measure it and so on.
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But it s just like you belong in those situations.
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Just believing you belong there.
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It s not the default.
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It could be you.
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Yeah, it could be you.
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And for some reason that really helps me, the little details.
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Sure.
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The visualizing.
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Most of them are almost a little bit funny.
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Like focusing on the funniness.
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It s the mundaneness of it helps me a lot.
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And all the people that have done great things, they re just human too.
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Correct, and I think a lot of people
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overestimate who others are, right?
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And sell themselves too short.
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Because at the end of the day, everybody started like everybody else, really.
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I mean, we did, you know, we were all inference, we couldn t walk, we couldn t talk, we couldn t do anything, we learned along the way.
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And I think that s the one thing that I realized is that, and I tell this to my athletes, but I also tell it to my recreational students,
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Nobody is better than you are, nobody, unless you allow them to be, right?
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If you really want something to happen, then map the plan, believe in yourself, decide, and no, full out, you re gonna fail a lot, you re gonna get beat down, you re gonna have losses, you re gonna have struggles.
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And I think that s the one thing with social media today is that
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Everybody sees everybody succeed.
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Nobody posts a picture when they re on the ground and fail, you lose them.
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Nobody sees when you broke your arm and you had to go through rehab, whatever it is, had your injuries and you re on your couch watching TV and you were suffering and you were... Everybody has really, really dark, bad moments in their life and defeats and losses and suffrage.
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And it s only at the end, after they ve recovered from all of that, they ve reclimbed up the mountain and they ve gone to the pinnacle that you see them on social media with the medal, right?
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But everybody else struggles and was human and failed many, many times.
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And convincing yourself that you re capable, I think is the first start of everything.
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Do you need people in your life that believe in you or should most of it come from within yourself?
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I think most of it has to come in from – it certainly helps but it has to come from you first.
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You have to be driven like other people can help you define where you want to go and help you get there and encourage you and can support you and whether it s resource wise or with connections and like they can help with that path.
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But that first part has to come from you.
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It has to be your passion, your desire, your commitment to yourself.
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You re the one that s gonna ultimately make all the sacrifices to do it.
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So it has to be your decision, not your parents, not your spouse s, something that you re really motivated to do.
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Let me ask you about Travis, Kayla, and maybe a few of the other athletes you ve been involved with.
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So first, Travis.
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Travis Stevens, Olympic silver medalist, three-time Olympian 2008, 2012, 2016.
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What makes Travis Stevens great?
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What makes him so successful?
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What makes him unique in your mind as an athlete?
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through all the hardship he had to overcome, through his weird looking Sayonara that eventually worked out nicely, through the full richness of his personality.
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In the context of all the other great athletes you ve coached, what makes him special?
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His fight, Travis has fight.
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And you know, the first time I ever saw Travis Stevens was in, like recognized him, maybe I had seen him before as a younger boy or something, but like actually recognized him is, I brought a group of young kids to Italy for a competition in a training camp.
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And it was this program called U23 Elite.
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And I picked, handpicked 20 kids to go to this event.
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And it was the first time I coached an international team.
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And I had never seen Travis fight before, compete, train, anything.
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And during this competition, you know, he s an 81 kilo player.
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I think he was maybe like 18 years old.
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17, 18 years old.
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And it was a really hard European event.
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And I think Travis won three matches and he lost two.
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But what stood out the most to me was like the fight he had in him.
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He was scrapping every fight.
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Like he scrapped hard.
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Like he wanted to win more than any of them, right?
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He didn t win, but he wanted to win more.
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And I noticed that right away.
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And then I also noticed that after he lost his second match and he was eliminated from the tournament, I saw how disappointed he was in himself.
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Like he actually thought he was supposed to beat those people, even though he was like 17, right?
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And he s fighting against grown men that are, you know, a high level judo, much higher than he was.
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And I said to him, I said, hey, son, like, don t worry, man.
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You got a long career ahead of you.
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Like, I m glad you re disappointed, but there s so many things you don t know and so many skills you don t have.
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The fact that you were able to hold your own and scrap like that, like you ve got a good future.
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And I remember calling my friend, Jason Morris, after that,
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tournament.
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And I said, hey man, did you ever hear of this kid Travis Stevens?
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He says, no, why?
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I said, man, that kid s got some fight in him.
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And I said that to Jason at the time.
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I said, that kid s got some fight in him, man.
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He s pretty talented.
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And that s how it started.
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So I saw that in him when he was young.
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But the other thing was, Travis, there s no such thing as hard work to that guy.
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If you tell him to put his head through the wall and that s how he wins, he ll go put his head through the wall.
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He ll do whatever it takes for him to do to achieve success.
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And he hates failure.
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more than he likes winning, 100%.
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He always has.
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He punishes himself when he doesn t do well.
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He makes himself work harder.
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He goes and just abuses himself when he doesn t succeed because he s so heartbroken and disappointed in himself.
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So that s a trait that I think all of the athletes that I work with
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like closely, they all had that same trait.
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They hated losing more than anything.
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They would break their arm, they d fall on their head.
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They d rather get hit by a car than lose a judo tournament.
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And as a result, then they all had fight and they all were willing to train, they were willing to listen and they would do anything for victory.
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Within the rules, I m not talking about taking drugs or anything like that, but they d give 100% of themselves
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for victory.
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And Travis was somebody that when he was down, he found a way to get better doing something else.
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If he couldn t do standing, that s when he started jujitsu.
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He couldn t go on his feet anymore.
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He couldn t stand up and train.
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Might as well go learn jujitsu and get good on the ground, right?
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Because I can.
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So he always found a way, no matter what obstacle was in his way, he just went around it.
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So what about the, it d be interesting to get your perspective, because I know Travis s perspective is just the number of injuries.
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Like, what do you make of the perseverance through all the injuries he had to overcome?
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Specifically, like, you just observing this creature that you ve coached.
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I mean, he seems to not see the injuries as a problem.
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He just like, just like you said, head through the wall.
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It s like, what?
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Like, when we were talking about injuries, he kinda, he doesn t even see the injuries themselves as the problem because he thinks that the injuries, you know, you heal back stronger.
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I forget the exact quote, but he said like, my body is now less injury prone than most of anyone else.
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because I ve already broken everything.
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I ve broken everything, and it s just grown back stronger.
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Like, because I asked him something like, do you regret sort of pushing your body to all of those places that resulted in those injuries?
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His response was like, no, I m stronger now.
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So I don t know if that s justification, but that certainly describes a mindset that, yeah, head through the wall, that doesn t, it s almost not,
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Like, look, I got this injury.
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It s so, I m so like brave and special for overcoming this injury.
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He s just, he s just, that s part of the job and he gets the job done.
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But like that job involves a lot of injuries.
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One of the talks I gave Travis and that team at that particular tournament was at the very beginning of the camp, after the tournament, I said to them, listen, my vision, I shared my vision with them.
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I said, my vision is,
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in seven years, because that was 2005, I said, in seven years, I want to have a US team that steps on the mat that is ready to kick ass.
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And in order to get there, all of you guys can be a part of this team and part of this process, but in order to get there,
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You guys have to be the first ones to practice.
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You have to be the last ones to leave because we have to work harder than the rest of the world because we re up against all odds.
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I said, I am sick of America being a laughingstock of judo and being the first round easy match warm up for everybody else.
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I said, if you get injured, you re not going to be on the side with an ice bag on taking off rounds and then get back on the mat the next day and tell me you re okay.
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If you can train the next day, you can train today.
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So there s no injury.
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The only time you ll leave in this dojo is if the ambulance has to take you out of here.
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And I do think subliminally, Travis bought into that message and heard that message then and said, if I m going to be a champ, then that s the way I m going to do it.
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And he did.
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And he embodied it.
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He lived it.
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Man, there were many times in Europe where I said, dude, just tape it up.
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Go off to the side.
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Just take the day off.
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Take the rest of the day off.
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You re beat up.
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You can t do it.
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He said, no, no.
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I m going to tape it up.
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I m going to tape it up.
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I said, no.
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You don t need to right now. 
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And he said, no, sensei, I m doing it.
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The ambulance isn t taking me out.
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It s just my wrist.
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It s just my ankle.
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It s just my wrist.
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It s just my ankle.
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Yeah, I love it.
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Yeah.
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So the other really big thing is you comment on a little bit is the weight cut.
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So early in his career, he was 81 kg and that was presumably not so difficult.
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But later in his career, he is 81 kg and it s becoming more and more difficult.
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So that s the other thing with him.
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So I ve known a lot of really, really tough people at the highest levels broken by the weight cut.
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Like that can break the toughest minds and it doesn t seem to have broken him.
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and he s delivered on it often, on like insane weight cuts.
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So just as a coach, what do you think about his particularly, his mind and the challenge of the weight cut?
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It was part of his process.
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It was part of his way of getting ready for battle.
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Suffering.
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Yeah, it really was.
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And if I m going to suffer this much, then I m going to make my opponents pay for all the suffering that I went through to get here.
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That was his mindset.
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Later on in his career, you re right, a lot of times Travis, he would never step on a scale.
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until he got to the tournament.
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And even when he d get to the tournament, he d weigh like 90 kilos.
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He d show up at the tournament nine kilos over.
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I m like, you have to, but I never, it was just an expectation of making weight.
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Not making weight was never an option for any of our athletes.
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And Travis knew it.
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And he said, as a professional, my job is to make weight.
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If I don t make weight, he was never gonna allow that to happen and he was never gonna allow us to come to him and say, hey, I told you.
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Losing wasn t an option, not making weight was not an option for him ever either.
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But a lot of times he wouldn t even... He d be nine kilos over on the plane going over to the tournament and have to make weight three days later.
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And he didn t break 86 kilos until the day before the tournament.
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He had five kilos over the day before, that was his way.
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But he would do...
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three workouts, wake up in the morning, work out, then he d eat, then he d work out in the afternoon, then he d eat again, then he d work out again at night, and then he d reward himself, hey, I worked out three times today, he d go have a Mountain Dew.
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Yeah.
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Or a chocolate bar.
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And then his next morning, he s back up to 87, and he would never touch weight until the morning of weigh-ins.
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He wasn t on weight for more than like five minutes.
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His process will break a lot of people.
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So the fact that he got the job done is... Not just the job done, but every single time he got the job done.
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And I made those athletes fight.
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We would fight in Paris.
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We would do a camp for a week, double session camp for a week.
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he d be seven kilos over, have to fight the next weekend.
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We re talking two or three days later.
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So not only did he make the weight, but he did a grueling training camp twice a day and then cut weight and then fought again.
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Then did another camp for a week in double session training camp and then fought on a third weekend in a row.
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And our athletes,
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went through hell.
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All of our athletes went through hell because on the tour around the world, they fought in every event, they did every camp, they fought in every event, whereas most of the other teams like Japan comes in and fights in Paris, then they go home.
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They maybe do a camp for three days, then they go home.
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They don t stay in Europe for four or five weeks straight and fight in every tournament.
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And when you get to Germany, the Germans skip the French Open, they skip the camp in France, they re just getting ready for Germany.
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Our athletes already had two competitions, two training camps, three weight cuts now, and then, so they re not 100% when they fight in Germany.
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But that s all part of the experience they need, the training that they need that they don t get here in this country.
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And all of those were just preparation for our world championships or our Olympic games.
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So by the time our athletes got to those tournaments, they felt so strong, so rested, so like, man, this guy that felt like a monster in Germany feels like nothing today because you re fully rested now.
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You know, but part of the challenge is because the American team is smaller and more, I mean, just smaller is, you know, all the different places you go to do the weight cut, to do the diet, to do the preparation or the recovery, there s like that process changes every time.
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So it s your basic have to improvise a lot.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah, you show up to a hotel and How you do the wake I you don t know and there s a different weather conditions.
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SPEAKER_01
It s not it s like So what is it Rocky versus Drago, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
Right, so you don t have you have to just improvise and that that s also a fascinating part of the American Judo story Which is like you have to improvise more
6
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Well, it was funny because when I, it was 1990 and it was at the Goodwill Games, right?
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And we were, it was a U.S.
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Olympic Committee type event.
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And so we re on the bus with the swim team.
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And it was me and Jason Morris on the American team and we re going to the judo competition, but we re on the bus with the swim team.
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SPEAKER_00
I m sorry, we re going to the venue where we re staying.
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I remember being like by ourselves with no staff, no manager, no coach.
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We re just by ourselves going to fight in Russia, right?
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And the swim team s on there with their full sweats and their staff and their managers.
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And I heard the girl go, I m sorry, this was 1994, because it was in St.
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Petersburg, Russia.
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So I heard the girl on the team, she goes up to the coach, she goes, coach, do you think you can send the massage therapist to my room at 10 a.m.?
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I m feeling kind of jet lag.
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I looked at, me and Jason looked at, we looked at each other like, she s scheduling a massage?
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We don t even have a staff.
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Like what the hell is going on here?
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You know, what a difference in sporting, you know, different sports within the same country.
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You know, and then.
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But that, I mean, not to romanticize things, but that you do represent the spirit of the Olympics when you re kind of, the improvisational nature of it.
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Because it is just you.
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You and sometimes you and the coach and just pure guts and you against the world with no money.
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The warrior spirit.
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The warrior spirit.
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How did it feel like when he, after being in two Olympics, beating some of the best people in the world, facing some of the best people in the world and just barely losing, what did it feel like to you as a coach to see Travis Stevens win the silver medal?
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Electric.
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First of all, in 2012 in London,
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It was like, it felt like somebody died.
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I m not gonna lie to you.
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The Ole Bischoff match?
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No, just seeing Travis not finish on the podium, period.
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In the Ole Bischoff match, I thought he won, regardless of who won and who lost.
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He just left everything he had on that mat, right?
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10 minutes of, probably it was a 20-something minute match, but 10 minutes of fighting, actually, right?
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He left everything he had.
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He wanted to be in the Olympic finals.
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He wanted to be Olympic champion.
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And when he didn t get that opportunity, he lost everything.
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He drained himself.
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He cried for 45 minutes straight.
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I couldn t regroup him.
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I couldn t get him up.
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I said, Travis, you ve got to stop your crying.
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You ve got to get off the floor.
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We ve got a bronze medal fight.
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If you don t recover, you re not going to perform well.
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And he just didn t care.
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It was gold or nothing.
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And so when he walked out against the Canadian boy, he had beaten the Canadian, I think at that time, he had beaten that Canadian every single time except for that bronze medal match.
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But he just didn t have the fight in him anymore.
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He d left it all in the match in the Bischoff match.
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So to see him come back with zero, right?
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SPEAKER_00
We just had a team where his best friend, Marty Malloy, won a bronze medal.
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right?
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Then the day after Travis fights, Kayla Harrison goes and wins her first gold medal, right?
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SPEAKER_00
Our first ever gold.
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So we have a gold and a bronze.
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SPEAKER_00
His training partner wins a gold.
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His best friend from growing up wins a bronze.
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He has nothing, right?
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To see him for four years,
6
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go through hell, like literally like all of his injuries, every training camp, and then forget the humiliation, because every time any reporter ever came to my dojo, they wanna talk to Kayla, she s the Olympic champion.
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SPEAKER_00
Who s this Travis guy?
6
SPEAKER_00
Who is this guy?
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So he didn t matter, he s not that important, and up until you get to the right before the Olympics, now they talk about he s an Olympian again, but up until that point, and then every little kid
6
SPEAKER_00
See Kayla s medal.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, Travis, yeah, you went to the Olympics.
6
SPEAKER_00
Where s your medal?
6
SPEAKER_00
How did you do?
6
SPEAKER_00
I took fifth, I didn t place.
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SPEAKER_00
It s the lowest of low, every day having that constant reminder.
6
SPEAKER_00
So four years later, when that guy, I mean, mentally, he was ready.
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SPEAKER_00
Physically, he was ready.
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SPEAKER_00
He was ready.
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SPEAKER_00
That was the best and strongest Travis Stevens that I ve ever seen and I ve ever felt.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like, cause I had to get on the mat and do some drills and stuff like that.
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And like try to defend arm bars and cause we didn t have a lot of bodies in Rio.
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And I was like, my God, he s, I said after one of the practices, this is the strongest I ve ever felt that guy, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
Before the competition.
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So physically he was ready.
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Mentally, the morning of competition, I said to Travis, I looked him in the eye and I said, you know, we re ready to go over to the venue.
6
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I said, are you ready today?
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And he just looked at me like he goes, I am going to shock the world today.
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That s what he told me, I m going to shock the world today.
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SPEAKER_00
And I said, all right, great, let s go, right?
6
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So we go to the venue and every other athlete was just like nervously like doing repetitions of uchi komis.
6
SPEAKER_00
You could see like sweat coming out.
6
SPEAKER_00
You could see like all this nervous energy going through their body.
6
SPEAKER_00
And here comes Travis Stevens.
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He s got these big goofy headphones on.
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SPEAKER_00
He s got a tank top that says USA on it.
6
SPEAKER_00
He s got the swim trunks that say USA, like that have shiny letters that glow in the dark.
6
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And he s like, and this is in the middle of the judo hall where all these athletes are warming up for their first match.
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And he s like dancing around, like doing this loose warmup, like almost like,
6
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a little kid at an amusement park whose dad said, yeah, go play.
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And it was like he had waited four years for that moment.
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He was so relaxed, so focused, so relaxed, and couldn t wait.
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It was like a caged tiger.
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Coming out of the chute to go step onto the mat was like this tiger that you were just letting out of the cage and he just go.
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Now s your time to go fight.
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And that s what he did that whole day.
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he beat Chirikishvili in the semis and choked him out and won that fight, there s nobody, with the exception of maybe the guys in the American team, there was nobody in that stadium that expected Travis to beat him.
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Nobody.
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Yeah.
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You know, he had smashed Travis, I don t know how many times before that free poem, like in the first minute even, it wasn t even a fight, right?
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And it was great game plan.
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He s the world number one at the time too.
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World number one at the time, world champion, carried the flag for the Georgian Federation walking into the games, most dominant 81 kilo player in that weight class for quite some time.
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Man, we just had his number and Travis was ready to go.
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It was so cool, it was so awesome.
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We had already won, Kayla had already won her second gold, right?
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The way the event went, and Travis winning that was like icing on the cake for our team.
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That was the best performance we ve ever had in history.
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It was awesome.
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So you mentioned Kayla.
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She is one of, if not the greatest American judoka ever, two-time gold medalist,
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2010 world champion.
6
2010.
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For Senior Worlds.
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Senior Worlds.
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What makes Kayla special?
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What makes her so great?
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What made this champion?
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It s a combination of a lot of things.
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One was obviously Kayla s mental toughness, right?
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To overcome what she overcame.
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This is a girl who,
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Let s, I don t want to say forget about the sexual abuse, but the fact that she had to go through that in life and learned how to compartmentalize that and keep that off as a separate part of her brain and forget about it and move on, that took an incredible team to help her do that.
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And my dad was a huge part of
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her accomplishing that.
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So for people who don t know, we should comment and say that Kayla had to go through trauma in her earlier life through sexual abuse and had to overcome that through the whole process of becoming a champion as well.
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Because she had zero self-esteem, zero self-worth.
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She was at the lowest of lows.
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And, um,
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didn t even want to be on this earth, right?
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So she was traumatized, obviously, and getting her the right help and surrounding her with the right people who could help her get through that and be by her side as she s getting through that and letting her know and reaffirming that she s doing the right thing and she made the right decision and
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She should have zero guilt and this doesn t define her.
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It happened to her, but it doesn t define her.
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What defines her is what she does from now on.
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And then rebuilding that person to become who she became.
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I think the mental toughness is a big part of it, her mind.
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But then as an athlete, she s a lot like Travis.
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you know, she s a warrior, she s a fighter.
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You know, my dad always jokes with her, you know, he says, you re a workhorse.
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You re not a thoroughbred, we re not gonna treat you like a thoroughbred, right?
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You re a workhorse, so you re gonna work.
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And the way you re gonna get bigger and stronger is you re gonna work harder and you re gonna keep, you know, and she came to us when she was only 15.
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So at that time, we got her with a really good strength and conditioning coach, we did all the core Olympic style lifting, like as her body was developing,
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she was getting stronger every single day.
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And then she had the luxury of being on the mat with, at the time I was still young enough to train and be on the mat and I was around her weight class and Travis was able to train with her and we had all the top US athletes at the time training here at my school.
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So she got the benefit of all the best guys to train with in the country.
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And her doing all of those rounds,
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you know, night in week, night, every night, every week, every year compiled with the best, you know, highest level she could as a girl.
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She got the strength, she got the technique, she got the, and then she had the coaching on top of it with my dad being on her as, you know, working her out and, you know, having the, the wherewithal to develop a strategy and a plan for her.
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Because when she first came here, she competed at 63 kilos, which is 138 pounds.
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At the time,
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Ronda Rousey was also training here, and she was 70 kilos.
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So if Kayla was struggling making 63, so the only way to, obviously, the only way to still compete is to move up.
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But my dad said, well, if you move up, then you re in Ronda s weight.
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So let s skip that weight.
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You re going to go to 78 kilos.
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And he told her, listen, you re going to go up two weight classes.
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She looked at him and was like, that s 172 pounds.
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And he goes, well, I don t care.
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You re already struggling making 138.
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You weigh 150.
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What s the difference?
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We put 20 pounds on, go to 170.
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So that s why she jumped two weights, because she passed Rhonda.
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She went to the weight above, so she could make the national team.
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And she had a chance to go to the Olympics and all that, because we envisioned Rhonda staying around till 2012.
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And that s also like a long-term vision because you kind of grow into that body then over time.
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Correct.
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So you can dominate, you can learn what it s like in that weight class, you can learn to dominate that weight class, excel and then dominate.
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People that cut weight too hard, too long, they forget about technique, because they re only worried about losing weight.
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They re always tired in training, they don t give 100% effort, they re not getting better.
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She now is just focused on getting better at judo, and getting bigger, getting stronger, getting more powerful.
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So I think giving her that purpose and that, that was a great call.
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What are some memorable, or maybe the most memorable moment, Kayla Harrison moment to you as her coach?
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Not the most, perhaps.
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Let s say, what are some memorable moments?
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Everybody hears the good ones, right?
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So everybody knows she won the World Championships in Tokyo in 2010.
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She was our two-time Olympic champion in 2012, 2016.
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I ll never forget those moments, right?
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Because they re historic.
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One of the biggest moments that I like sharing this story with everybody is that
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in 2010 in January, Kayla was still a developing athlete.
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And we had a local tournament in New York.
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It was in Brooklyn, New York.
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It was called the Starrett Cup.
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And I knew that at that tournament that two of the Canadian girls, they were like ranked 15th or 20th in the world.
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They weren t superstars, but they were tough players.
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Both of them I knew were going to be at that tournament.
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So I said, Kayla, we re going to go to this tournament.
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You re going to compete against the Canadian girls, get some good experience, figure out what you need to work on, and then we ll go home and work on some stuff.
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Well, she went to the tournament.
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There was only three girls in the weight, her and the two Canadians.
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At that tournament, she lost both fights.
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So this is January, 2010.
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She lost both matches.
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She was competitive, but certainly things she needed to work on, it was good development thing for her and for us.
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It also opened her mind to say, oh man, because she was already a junior world champion at the time.
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But so now there s another level.
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This is a senior level.
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You got to go up another level.
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Here s two girls that aren t even medalists that are beating you.
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So now there s more work to be done.
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And so I like telling that story because
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Everybody sees the champions in the greatest moments.
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They don t see them when they have bad days And I could you imagine being you know, oh and two you feel like you feel like a failure, right?
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but Ten months later was Tokyo 2010.
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She went from oh and two at Starrett, New York and
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to world champion 2010 in the motherland in Japan.
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I mean, that s an amazing turnaround.
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And that s only possible if you put the losses in their proper context.
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You don t let it destroy you mentally and just keep moving forward.
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Correct.
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That s so funny.
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So you were there at 2010 at the Sarah Cup?
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Was Travis there?
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Yeah.
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I made all those... We fought at every... The mentality of our team was no tournament is beneath us.
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If our goal is to go to the Olympics in the world and win, there s no tournament that s beneath us.
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We re going to get experience, we re going to fight, we re going to learn, we re going to compete, we re going to get better.
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I actually, just as a funny little side, I was there, I competed.
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Really?
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It was one of the earlier tournaments, like the beginner division.
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Oh no, I actually did black belt division too.
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That was one of the, actually, yeah, I remember that.
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That s when it was so early that I thought,
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Like I was also really strong at that time, just like physically, like power lifting stuff.
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So I thought like, it ll be good experience to also do a black belt division.
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I remember, it must ve been actually Travis s division, which is funny.
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Legere brothers.
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Yeah, Harry and Gary.
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They are super, they re super good and they re super dominant, but I think Travis faced one of them and beat them.
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I don t know, I just remembered,
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It s funny how there s just like these little roads that later reconnect.
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But yeah, there s some incredible people there.
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And I saw, obviously, the positive things.
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And it s interesting that Kayla s story was also intersecting there.
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And that was one of the lower points for her.
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Another story I like to share is that
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You have to know your athletes, right?
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And you have to really get to know what they re thinking psychologically, mentally, what s going through their head.
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Another story was in Tokyo.
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It was 2015, the Tokyo Grand Slam.
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So we had Kayla face off against almost all the top girls in her division.
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She had beaten everybody going into the 2016 Olympics.
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But at the 2015 Tokyo Grand Slam,
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It was a girl from Japan that she hadn t fought in a long time, and she lost to the girl last time she fought her.
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So it was something we wanted her to beat this girl going into the Olympics so that she knew she could beat everybody.
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And it was a first round match, and it was going to be tough for Kayla, right?
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It was going to be a really hard fight.
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And she had won a bunch of tournaments in a row leading up to that.
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So her confidence was really high, but at the same time,
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She didn t think she needed this fight.
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And she showed up to the tournament and she said, I don t think I can fight today.
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I ve got a stinger in my neck.
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I ve got a stinger coming down my neck and I m kind of sore.
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She didn t
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tell us.
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She went and told the trainer.
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She walked around.
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She s holding her neck.
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And me and my dad were like, what s up with her?
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I don t know.
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And then, so, like, I don t know, maybe she doesn t want to fight today.
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I don t know.
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Yeah.
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Right?
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So, all of a sudden, the trainer comes up to us.
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And she didn t come to us.
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The trainer came to us and says, you know, I really don t think it s a good idea that Kayla fight today.
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I mean, we looked at him and like, well, your opinion doesn t really matter, does it?
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Like, what s up with her?
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Yeah.
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Oh, she has this thing in her neck, it s like a pinched nerve and there s this and that.
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We talked, I said, is there a risk of her getting injured?
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Like, is this pain or is this risk that she s going to get injured and she s going to set her back like long time in her career?
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He says, no, she s not gonna get injured, just a pinched nerve, a little pain she s gonna have to deal with.
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I go, okay, well, can you fix the pain?
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He says, yeah, I can do this and that and I can give her a shot and the pain will go away.
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I said, okay, then do that.
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And so Kayla comes up, she goes, didn t the trainer talk to you?
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I said, yeah, he talked to us.
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Well, he said, I can t fight.
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I know, but we already talked to the trainer and he said, you re good to go.
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She looked at us like, and then we had to talk to her and say, listen,
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You re not injured, you re in pain because we just came from a camp.
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I said, you re in pain, but here s the deal.
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We want you to fight this girl.
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Why don t you go out there and beat this girl, period.
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I don t care, but I want to know that you can beat this girl.
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This is why we came.
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This is our last hard tournament before the Olympic games.
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This is what we want from you.
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And lo and behold, she understood.
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They gave her a quick shot.
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The rest of the world thought we were crazy making her compete.
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And then she went out there, she fought.
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Didn t even know she was injured.
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You know what I mean?
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She just went out there.
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She fought the tournament.
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She beat the Japanese girl.
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She ended up going through the whole tournament.
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She took a gold medal.
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She won the event.
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That turned out to be a great confidence builder.
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Yeah.
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And that kind of sets you up for all the chaos that can happen at the Olympic Games.
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And it tells you, if you can beat these girls when you re not 100% and you re not at your best, you re physically beat, mentally beat, imagine what you re gonna do when you re fresh.
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Well, when she was going into the Olympic Games, there s a lot, she had the mental game... Down.
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Down.
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Down.
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There wasn t a girl in that division that thought they could beat Kayla going into those games.
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Not a one.
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They just looked at her and went, no, not happening.
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Yeah, that s great.
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I mean, she s a great Olympic champion, two-time Olympic champion.
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But there is something that she s commented on, which is she s suffered or went through depression after winning her second Olympic gold.
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Why do you think this happens?
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You often hear stories of great champions becoming depressed after the Olympics.
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There s a lack of purpose afterwards.
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right?
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Because you ve done in life what you set out to do.
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You ve had a goal every day you woke up.
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You knew what your purpose was.
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You knew what your day looked like.
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You knew why you were doing that.
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And all of a sudden you won and you got all the fame and you re all happy.
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But then you wake up and you go,
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Now what?
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I don t have a next.
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And also because there was nothing for her, there was no path set out for Kayla that said, okay, you re gonna become an ambassador, a global ambassador of judo.
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The IJF is gonna help pay a salary.
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The USA judo is gonna give you a salary.
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We want you to go teach children.
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We want you to go be an ambassador for women.
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We re gonna fly you around and whatever it is.
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We re gonna give you a job and here s what you re gonna do.
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if you d like to take it.
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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 in the next Olympics?
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And I said, no.
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Why?
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She s already a two-time gold medalist.
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What does three-time gold medalist do for her?
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Nothing, right?
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Doesn t motivate her to do it again.
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They said, are you doing MMA?
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I said, no, why would she do MMA?
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That s ridiculous.
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She doesn t need MMA.
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She should be able to make a living off of what she s accomplished in this sport for the rest of her life.
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But what happens is, and what most people don t understand is, once you say I m retired, I m no longer competing in the sport of judo, you don t get a salary from USA Judo anymore, which she was getting.
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I think she got like $72,000 a year from USA Judo at the time.
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You don t get a stipend from the Olympic Committee anymore, goes away.
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your sponsor, like the New York Athletic Club was a great sponsor for her for all those years.
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In fact, she could have never been the athlete she became without the support of the NYC.
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Because I talked to them when she was 15, I said, hey, I got a girl that s really good.
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Someday, like if you invest in her now, I promise you she ll pay back for you.
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And I remember the day she won the Olympic gold, I called the guy up, I said, hey, I told you.
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But they can no longer give you stipends because you re not competing and representing them anymore.
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SPEAKER_00
So that goes away.
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SPEAKER_00
All of your sponsorships and all of your money that you would make from your TV commercials or whatever, that didn t happen for her after the Olympics because judo is a obscure sport, right?
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SPEAKER_00
So she didn t have any opportunities for that.
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the end of the day, she has no revenue coming in.
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SPEAKER_00
How do you live?
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You get a bonus of 25 grand from the Olympic committee or whatever for winning a gold.
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But aside from that, you re not going to live on that money.
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So no purpose, no goal, right?
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What am I going to wake up and do tomorrow?
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I don t know.
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So she has no direction.
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And then at the same time, she has no money coming in.
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So everything shuts off.
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So now it s like, where do you turn?
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What do you do?
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And that leads to being depressed because yeah, even though I ve accomplished all this stuff, I m kind of lost in life.
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Like what s next for me?
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And I guess you just have to ride that out because when you re a great human being, great champion, life has a way of helping you find a way.
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I mean, she s in mixed martial arts now, but she has a lot of stuff going on.
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Well, her kids, she adopted her sister s kids, so she s their legal guardian now, so that is her purpose, right?
7
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Raising these kids and making them part of her family, and she s fortunate enough that she has enough money that she can do that, and she can give them a good life.
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I m gonna ask you to start some trouble, but I heard that she said somewhere that she can beat Khabib Nurmagomedov in judo.
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What do you think?
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To be honest with you, I mean, I don t know what level of judoka.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I don t know.
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SPEAKER_00
I don t know what level he is.
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But I do know that that Russian system respects judo immensely.
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What I will tell you is this.
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I trained with Kayla and I was an Olympic medalist and a world champion in judo.
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And granted, I was older when I trained with her, but you have to go as a man, you have to go 100% or she will smash you as a man.
7
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And I could tell you that if Khabib doesn t do a lot of just judo, doesn t like gripping and doesn t understand, if he can throw, that s one thing.
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But if he doesn t really understand judo at a high level, she will throw him.
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She would beat him in a match, in a judo contest, not in a mixed martial arts contest, not in a wrestling contest, not in a submission contest, in a pure judo match where he cannot grab legs and he has to grip up and just throw.
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I d put my money on Kayla.
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Unless he s you know, and if he could go placed in the Nationals in Russia, he would beat her But if he s not at that level of judo, he s more like a brown belt or he s not he s not a high-level judo player She will win.
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I saw her take some of our best juniors in this country some of the some of the
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guys that went and medaled in our senior nationals, I ve seen her smash all of them in judo.
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Now, she s not going to do that to a Travis Stevens.
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She s not going to do that to a senior national champion or Olympian in our sport, but she will go toe-to-toe with every other male, black belts or not.
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Speaking of Khabib and Russia, Vladimir Putin, I don t know if you all have heard of him.
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He s the president of Russia, but he s also a judoka.
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Have you gotten a chance to see him do judo?
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What do you think about his judo, if you were to analyze it?
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I m actually really good friends with the Russian Federation.
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The guy in charge is Ezio Gamba.
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He s an Italian.
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He s a mastermind behind their success of the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams.
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2020, he suffered from leukemia, blood cancer, so he wasn t part of their 2020 program, but he was part of 2012, 2016.
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That whole national, the Olympic team in 2012 came to our studio.
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And lived here for a month in Boston.
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They went to school in Boston.
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I brought them to my house.
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They had three Olympic champions.
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Three Olympic champions.
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Oh my God, what a team.
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They all came and lived here in Boston for a month.
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They wanted to be part of like experience America type program.
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So I ve seen all of them with Putin in Russia at their national training center, working out with them and taking falls and doing Judo with him.
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So it s hard when you re older to move in Judo.
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I mean, I was at a high level and I m now 51.
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It s hard for me to move like I used to.
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So at his age, he s got to be, what, 60, between 62, 65-ish?
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Yeah.
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I mean, he moves really well for somebody that s that age and probably hasn t done very much judo for the last however many years, right?
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So that tells you, at one point, he had to be a really good judo player.
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Yeah, he put in a lot of work at some point to develop the technique.
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You can tell when a great judo player, even if they haven t practiced it, even if they re up there in age, just the way they move, the way they go in for a seoi nage, the way they go for a particular throw, the way they do foot squeaks and all that kind of stuff, you can just tell he s good at judo.
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And that s kind of fascinating.
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It s fascinating to see political leaders.
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I ve gotten to interact with quite a few for whom judo was a formative experience in their life.
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And that s so interesting that for a lot of people, judo played a big part in their life, early development.
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It s similar to if you served in the military.
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There s just something about judo.
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As a martial art, it s not just the technique.
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So yes,
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there s something about gaining confidence through becoming aware of what your body can do, the artistry and the skill of it, also the power, being able to dominate another human being with technique, but also the, I don t know, the formality, the discipline of just honoring the tradition of it.
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So all of that mixed together somehow creates memories.
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It creates memories that kind of define you as a human being and you carry that forward throughout your life.
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And I ve just been surprised to know how many powerful people internationally have in their heart and who they are, judo.
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That s the core of it.
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It makes you the human being that you are.
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It really does.
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It becomes a fabric of, the people that stick with it, that stay with it because it,
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I mean, it teaches you so many lessons.
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It s so memorable because of what you talked about, the tradition.
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But it s also, you grow with other people, and you learn from other people, and you experience things with other people.
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It s such a hands-on sport that it s very memorable.
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And people love it so much.
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right now at my dojo, we have like four generations.
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Like somebody that did judo with my dad, you know, had a kid who, who trained with me, who loved, you know, judo so much, had a kid.
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That kid was, you know, now in his twenties who
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did judo and now has a kid who s two or three or four that s coming to my toddler program at my school.
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Like we re talking four generations and they all love the experience so much and what it did for them and their lives that they wanted the next generation to also experience the same thing.
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This is a tricky question, but if people are interested in Judo and wanna start learning it, in the United States there s thousands of Jiu-Jitsu schools, for example.
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Is there advice you can give to people interested in Judo or maybe to Jiu-Jitsu gym owners?
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How do you get Judo as part of your life in America?
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I mean, if you re fortunate to live near another dojo, a place that has judo locally, then that s your best opportunity to learn, is to go learn from another school.
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Unfortunately, sometimes the nearest dojo might not be for two hours or three hours away from where you re at, which is
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an obstacle.
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You re not going to do that.
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So, I mean, Travis and I did start the American Judo System online.
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It s at usajudo.com.
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And we ve broken down every single judo technique
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to the very, very basic elements of just movement.
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So we teach every technique of how you do it mechanically with just your feet, then how you incorporate your hands and your feet together, how you do it in all directions, moving forward, sideways, backwards, how to then introduce a partner into the movement, how to do basic,
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Uchikomi or repetitions with a partner, then moving with a partner, then how to throw your opponent static, how to throw your opponent.
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So basically from the very foundation of the movement all the way to the most advanced level, we ve documented this through separate videos.
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And we ve taken now, I think, 12 to 15 of standing techniques combined with a whole bunch of groundwork techniques.
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And our goal is just to continue to build this platform out so that anybody anywhere can learn online and can ask questions.
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We have a live training class every couple of weeks.
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Every two weeks, he or I answer questions online.
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for our members.
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Ideally, what we d like to do is have a standing curriculum for jujitsu instructors that want to learn and become black belts in judo.
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Here s how, these are the techniques you need to know.
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This is how many reps you need to do.
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This is how efficient you need to get at that, at those techniques to become certified as an instructor or become a black belt.
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And eventually have an online promotion system where anybody, anywhere could just submit videos
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and show us that they can do those techniques.
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And obviously we ll have people review them.
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And this is a dream and a vision, but we ve already started the platform.
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We re about to do a collaborative effort with USAGETO, where all of their members will start to get access to this platform as well.
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And if we can get that influx of money and people on the platform, it ll allow us to hire and grow it faster.
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So you also want to do certification there.
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It s not just instruction.
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Correct.
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That would be amazing, yeah.
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I mean, for me personally, I m mostly in Austin, Texas now, and there s a few Judo schools, but it s not really.
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And it s just one of those cities that doesn t quite have, I mean, there s a few, it s basically just a few random Judo people that kind of gather together a couple of times a week.
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but it s not a system, a dojo, an instructor, integrated into a jujitsu school or not.
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The problem with most judo dojos right now is that most of them cater towards the competitive side.
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Also, a lot of them do it recreationally, meaning this isn t how they make a living.
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So they re there three nights a week, or they re there five, even if they re there five nights a week, it s still only,
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one junior class and one senior class and that s it.
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And it s one size fits all.
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Doesn t matter what level you re at, it s one size fits all.
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So you can t get out of the training what you re looking to get out of the training.
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It s whatever the instructor s teaching.
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And you can t learn because it s not at the appropriate level for you.
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And usually you re pushed into doing randori where you have no choice but to do the randori part of the training.
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So it s a challenge to go learn.
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And then a lot of times the schools are old school.
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So they go make you do falls for a half hour, make you do things, maybe you re a jujitsu person who knows how to fall already, but you haven t proven it to the judo instructor and they don t break the norm and say you still have to fall for six months, which turns a lot of people away as well.
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So it s like any business, if you don t deliver on your customer s expectations, you re not gonna have very many customers.
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Which is the way it is now.
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A lot of people do listen to this, but in general, in the United States practice Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which has a lot of similarities to Judo, as obviously its origins in Judo.
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How would you compare the two arts from the perspective of people just interested about both arts?
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Do you recommend people who do Jiu-Jitsu get into Judo?
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How can it enrich their Jiu-Jitsu?
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How do you compare the two arts, the actual practice of it, and why it might be useful to you?
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I mean, I think that judo is a hard sport for adults to do.
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It just is.
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Especially people that haven t fallen in a long time, aren t very athletic, haven t... I think about my own experience, right?
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Other than judo, when did I ever do like a forward somersault?
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Maybe when I was in grade school, right?
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That s the last time I ve left my feet was in grade school.
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Most people haven t got off of a chair or a couch.
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They spend eight to 10 hours a day either working behind a computer or sitting on their couch watching TV, right?
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And they re not that athletic.
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And they haven t done anything athletic at least probably since high school.
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That s their last athletic endeavor, most of them.
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So you re talking about as an adult that s 35 or 40 wanting to start a sport.
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Judo is a really hard sport to start, especially in today s dojos that don t have a recreational adult program.
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When it s one size fits all, it s hard.
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So for those people, jujitsu makes a heck of a lot of sense.
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good self-defense, it s cerebral, where you gotta use your brain, you re a smaller person, you have to use technique, it teaches all the same things as judo, but it s a safe way to do it.
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because of the validation it has with the UFC and MMA today, right?
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Everybody knows jiu-jitsu, so now they can be part of mainstream society and talk intelligently about what they see on television or what s going on on ESPN today, right?
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They have some knowledge.
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So they have an identity.
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And also there s a good culture in jiu-jitsu where it s becoming a family.
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The dojo s the family place.
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You go to feel good, you go to see your friends, you go to get fit, and you have a good time.
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So it makes a lot of sense why it s growing.
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Judo on the other hand, I think is a better sport for children to do.
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It s more, I would say, fun and interactive.
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It s a little easier to teach the kids how to do the throwing skills and for safety and things like that.
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Their body can handle more than the adults can.
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They re less likely to get injured.
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It makes them better athletes because it s a lot more three-dimensional in my opinion.
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So I think there s a good fit between
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Judo can thrive from kids till, you know, whatever, high school, college.
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Jujitsu thrives from that 18 year old up, right?
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SPEAKER_00
Right now, that s kind of where it is.
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So as a dojo, you have to kind of focus on the teens and the college, like early 20s, that kind of- Or you need to have, if you re going to be a successful judo dojo, you have to have that recreational
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fundamental adult program in your school where people actually come to judo, learn the moves, but aren t pushed into Randori training and pushed into things where they re uncomfortable and they can t control the situation because there s too many unknowns.
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You got an education at Browns.
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You re somebody who s amazing because as an Olympian and an Olympic coach, you always emphasize kind of balance and education, all of that side of life, so developing your brain too.
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So you are an Olympic medalist, a coach of Olympic medalists, you re a business owner, so successful in all these domains.
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So I have to ask, what advice would you give to young people today, high school, judo age, high school, college, undergrad, how to be successful in their career or just in life in general, how to live a life they can be proud of?
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I think you have to be true to yourself.
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You have to decide what it is you really want to do with your life.
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And it s hard because when I grew up, I didn t know I was going to be successful.
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When I was young, I didn t know I was going to be an Olympic medalist.
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I certainly did envision myself owning a couple of companies that
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that makes their living exclusively from martial arts or judo, because that wasn t really an opportunity when I was a kid, but I ve created that opportunity.
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I would just say that, pick something that you re passionate about.
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I was stuck in a career before where I wasn t passionate about it, and it was my wife who said, Jimmy, if you can figure out how to make your living exclusively from martial arts, where your brain and your heart and your passion is all towards one thing that you really like, then you ll be successful.
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And I left the job, I had three kids, I was working for monster.com, I was in internet marketing, and I was working for that company, great company, nothing wrong with the company.
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But sitting behind the desk from eight till five, and then I get to go to judo from six till nine at night, my whole day is tied up doing something that I m really not passionate about.
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She said, if you can figure out how to make money from your dojo and other things judo related,
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then I think you ll be successful.
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And so she s the one that my wife, Marie, gave me that advice, and I would give that to others.
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Find something that you love doing, where it doesn t feel like work.
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Something you re passionate about.
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And if the opportunity doesn t exist, how to make money on it, you can create the opportunity.
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Be resourceful.
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Figure it out.
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Don t let anybody tell you you can t do it.
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I didn t know that I could have a 200-person judo school that only taught judo.
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That really didn t exist in this country.
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you know, that actually charges money like jujitsu charges, right?
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We re talking not, there s plenty of clubs out there that charge 10 bucks a month that might have 100 people, but there s not many that, you know, where the tuition is $150 a month having 200 people.
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So that s a successful business.
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but it wasn t done before.
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But be passionate about it, understand you re gonna fail, understand you re gonna get knocked down, beat up, right?
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There s gonna be dark days, but you gotta persevere, you gotta believe in yourself, you gotta have a plan, you have to be willing to learn from other people, and that s what I did.
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If I didn t know it, I brought somebody in to tell me, what am I doing wrong?
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Like, look from the outside, what do you see?
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Okay, great, then you gotta be willing to change, you gotta be willing to adapt.
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And I think listening, believing in myself, and creating opportunity.
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And the other thing is helping others.
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Something I always did in my judo life
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in my business life.
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If somebody came to me and asked for help with, hey man, is there something you can do to help me?
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I m trying to get this thing started.
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I m trying to get this dojo off the ground or I m trying to run this event series.
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I was creative and trying to figure out a way to help them make it work.
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Because if that really was their dream and I could help them do their dream, I felt like that person would then
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give nothing but good, good comments about us, good, good, like they ll remember it forever.
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They become like family and they d be the best advocates for your business ever.
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And so the kids that I taught at my dojo were treated that way.
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The people that work for me get treated that way.
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The people that my customers that I work with and building their dojos,
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get treated that way, people that ran tournaments, whether it was Grappler s Quest years ago, and helping that guy with a full set of mats for his, Brian Simmons with his thing, or any of the Gracies.
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It just became like family, and then I just work hard and deliver on what I say I m gonna do.
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If I say I m gonna do it, I do it.
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and I think it goes a long way.
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And I got a comment, so in a small way, people may not know, I think it s still on YouTube, we previously talked many years ago, and I remember you were so kind to me, and you didn t really know who I was, you just took me as a human being, you welcomed me into your dojo, and we just had a conversation on a podcast or whatever the heck you call that thing, and you were just very kind, and you were also just,
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It was the last conversation I had when I showed up to MIT and it stayed with me.
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So I resumed doing this podcast.
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But it stayed with me because you said that I did a good job at this.
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And people, especially at that time, didn t tell me that.
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And just that little act of kindness is probably just a regular part of your day.
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You had a busy day, it was the end of the day.
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Just saying that, that was powerful.
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And that pays off somehow.
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SPEAKER_01
So thank you for that.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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But it was sincere, right?
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SPEAKER_00
It was genuine.
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SPEAKER_00
I felt like I had been to so many interviews.
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SPEAKER_00
When it s around the Olympic time, there s lots of beat reporters that come out and they re trying to get your time.
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SPEAKER_00
And they re there because they have to get the story for their newspaper or their television show.
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SPEAKER_00
And a lot of times those people show up, right?
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SPEAKER_00
And
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pronounce my name wrong, or they get something wrong about the background, or they offend me because they call me five minutes before they re supposed to be there and say, oh, sorry, we re running late.
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SPEAKER_00
We ll be there an hour and a half.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, I m a busy guy too.
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SPEAKER_00
But you were somebody that showed up
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SPEAKER_00
was so prepared with your notes, knew everything about like the history of what I had done.
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SPEAKER_00
The questions you asked were intelligent questions.
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SPEAKER_00
They were well thought out.
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SPEAKER_00
And at the end of that interview, I was really genuinely impressed.
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SPEAKER_00
And I wanted to let you know you did a great job because you stood out from the rest.
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SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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I mean, for me, it was like showing up to like the Mecca, like the track.
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SPEAKER_01
I mean, you know, you don t always want to just tell that to people, but you show up
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you know, obviously you re the legend of judo in the United States.
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And so that was like Boston is the Mecca.
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That s where you travel to talk to the greats.
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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 to to be kind to others, to give them
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to give them a chance.
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Jimmy, thank you so much for 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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So I can t wait.
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Let s go.
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Let s go do some Judo.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, awesome.
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SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
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SPEAKER_01
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Jimmy Pedro.
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SPEAKER_01
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
8
SPEAKER_01
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 one kick 10,000 times.
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Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.