Kind: captions
Language: en
following is a conversation with jimmy
pedro a legendary judo competitor and
coach he represented the united states
at four olympics in 92 96 2000 2004
winning a bronze medal at two of them
he meddled in three world championships
winning gold in 1999.
he has coached many of the elite level
american judoka including kayla harrison
ronda rousey travis stevens and many
others
plus he's now my judo coach along with
travis stevens
this is the lex friedman podcast to
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in the description and now here's my
conversation with jimmy
pedro
what is the most beautiful throw in judo
to you
i think uchimara
you know it's the it's the one that
seems to have the most amplitude the
person goes the highest you see a leg
swing through the middle
uh the person doing the throw there's a
leg swinging through the middle the
other person definitely goes you know
head over heels flat on their back um
it's probably the most dynamic pretty
judo throw there is
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 the uh
your your back is facing the opponent
but uh they kind of
both fly through the air and twist
through the air correct
yeah so how does that throw
work what are the principles behind that
throw is one of those throws that um
you know people can kind of understand
how to pick up another human being in
sort of trivial ways but the h mata to
me never quite made sense
like why it works
there's there's a cork there's a
twisting motion
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
so it's not it it's a very confusing
throat
can you say something probably one of
the most difficult throws to learn as
well because it is so complex 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 and it's and it's hard to
it's hard to make that contact with
upper body to your to your back you know
you have to turn your back on the throw
as well so how does it work um it's
definitely sort of a throw where you
need to start pulling your opponent's
upper body towards you
right so their upper body starts coming
towards you your legs go towards them as
your body starts to go
to into the throw so your head is going
to go left let's say your body your legs
are going to go to the right your body's
your partner is going to start to lean
towards you and just as you start to get
their momentum coming forward
your leg is going to sweep up underneath
theirs pick them up onto your hip right
and then the finish of the throw is a
twist and a lot of times the good jadoka
will leave their feet when they do the
throw so both bodies are in the air
together and then the thrower comes down
on top of the person being thrown so all
four feet are in the air correct so
there's just this unstoppable forces
twist so you're all in the air you're
basically doing a roll together correct
okay so who to you is the best uchimada
who has the besides yourself
i'm not gonna lie there's there's plenty
of guys that do shimada a lot better
than i do uh you do have a nice video
about the chamada online but uh
who who's a great practitioner of the
ichimodo team right now shohei ono who's
two-time olympic gold medalist that's
his favorite throw and he there's a
tons of highlight videos on the igf and
judo fanatic showing how he does his
uchimara and it is quite different than
everybody else's um but it's unstoppable
when when he comes in nobody stops it
he's won two goals in a row at the
olympics i think maybe in the last eight
years the guy's lost two matches you
know he's just incredible so at a very
competitive division i guess 73 kilos
okay and then three
three-time world champ too is he the
greatest of all time
do you
the only reason why he's not is because
nomura is a 60 kilo player he was
three-time olympic champion
so no more i mean unless ono's gonna
stick around for another three years and
win again and uh
win again here in paris that's you know
then he'd match what nomura did but
three-time gold medalist in judo in a
lightweight division
that's pretty spectacular
so to you the
the being able to win a championship
world championship or olympic medal
is a measure of greatness it's not like
um
you have some people who are not as
accomplished like koga or something like
that but just
the the beauty
uh the the moments of magic the number
of moments of magic is the highest even
if it's not championships 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 um
you have one you know countless major
events but you know the ability to pull
it together right at those magical
moments the the pinnacle of the sport
the world championships the olympic
games and proving that you can do it
time and time again
makes you unstoppable it makes you the
best um you know there was a guy back in
the
70s and 80s by the name of fuji and he
won four
world championships back to back and
back then the worlds was every two years
so he was here he was a four-time world
champion that's eight years the top of
the sport
he never
uh won an olympic medal
you know he never went to the olympics
you know so there's a guy who missed out
on on olympic greatness but was
arguably the best competitor back in
that that period by the way same
fuji as
as fuji
right really okay wow i didn't know that
was an actual guy fuji our brand is is
named after the mountain mount fuji okay
but you know this is a different guy his
name was future all right well
um history rhymes
what about
teddy renair ten-time world champ i
think two-time gold medalist at the
olympics two times bronze medalist at
the olympics
probably the most dominant judoka ever
is he in the running what do you think
about that guy
i think he's a a freak of nature teddy
you know if you look at the size just
how big he how tall he is how big he is
how physical he is of a specimen like i
sat next to him on a bus
and
like his legs are literally the size of
my waist yeah like when you sit next to
him and just look at the side he's a big
man
you know so
obviously to win 10 world titles in the
sport of judo i mean it that's uh that's
almost an incomprehensible feat uh
two-time olympic champion again
um but
you know that puts him in one of the
maybe 10 or 12 people that ever do that
in the history of the sport so
he's definitely got to be in the running
for for the best but
you know technically i don't think he's
as technical as some of the other um
in terms of pure judo
finesse technique you know it's he's
powerful he's explosive he's dominant
he's strong um
teddy also grips really really well
which makes him
that much tougher to beat because a lot
of times heavyweights especially the
heavyweight division a lot of them just
grab the ghee and they go you know man
to man and judo to judo and take shots
at each other and that's why a lot of
them end up getting beat but teddy's in
control like positionally he stays in
really good position and he controls his
opponent the whole fight so they really
don't have a chance against them he
doesn't give them a chance to beat him
which is why he's been so dominant but
he's not really stalling
so i mean he does have a really nice uh
sort of gary this uh
backward trip
outside trip in case people don't know i
mean he has
just like technically pretty good throws
and for heavyweight yes heavyweights can
be sometimes messy
with their uh judo he's pretty
technical
and uh clean
in the execution of his big throws but
a lot of that probably has to do with
the dominant gripping that he does it's
not defensive gripping it's offensive
gripping but the dominant gripping 100
he he controls the grips he controls the
movement of the match as a result of
that and then he creates his own
openings so i mean as a for a
heavyweight phenomenal technique yes
um and what you said messy i'd like to
call it sloppy right a lot a lot of the
uh heavyweights tend to be sloppy
they've fallen on the ground a lot
it's hard to move somebody that weighs
350 pounds you know it's hard to get
that body moving and just with the
simple uh pull motion so
um he's definitely found a way to do it
but he's also i don't know six foot
eight yeah you know he's probably weighs
140 kilos he's a big boy and but he had
this winning streak of just uh i don't
know how long but like over 100 matches
and he lost at this uh 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 tokyo
2020 okay 2020. all right
so he lost to uh tamerlan bashev
i mean it's always sad to see a sort of
greatness come to an end it's like uh
corellon and wrestling and greco-roman
did you shed a bit of a tear to see
greatness go or um
like
or is it just the way of life
um i mean what did you think about sort
of this dominance this run of dominance
being stopped
i think i mean it's obviously sad to see
i love seeing champions succeed um
especially people that that are good
people and i think teddy's a good person
you know 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 um you know
their personality or
but and i think but i think teddy's a
very humble champion you know he's a
people's champion you know he's
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 so he's a he's a lifelong
judo icon
um so it's sad to see somebody like that
get beat especially when this could have
been you know his his third olympic
title and
um
you know just
beco put him in infamy you know so it
was sad to see but i think you know
every athlete
goes through it right i mean you
it's just that's what the olympics is
all about the great ones fall sometimes
and um especially in judo right it's
like so
like the margin of error i mean i guess
the other question i want to ask here is
in your sense how difficult it is to not
lose for
so long
it seems like in judo like a little
mistake
and it's over
there's no there's no coming back any
pawn means it's over so how difficult is
that is
it's hard to stay that dominant without
question first of all when you are when
you are the entire world is is training
against you just to be right they're
studying every single
movement they're they're studying
patterns they're they're trying to break
it down and find a flaw in your game
so everybody's hunting for you when
you're the best in the world especially
at the olympics that's that's the that's
the one to beat you at so
everybody's focused on you and then
there's an incredible amount of pressure
on that athlete to perform you know you
carry the flag for your country you know
when you're in opening ceremonies
sometimes you know there's
all spotlight is on you um and it's
particularly hard when things don't go
well early
you know 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 and
that's why i think the other ones are
able to win it
i've actually never gotten a chance to
listen to teddy renair sort of explain
uh ideas behind his judo like i wonder
what his mental game is like because i
think his english is pretty not very
good
and so
um and i just haven't seen good
interviews but it's always fascinating
to
there's certain great athletes that are
also great thinkers and speakers
like um the satia brothers in wrestling
again not meaning that that's on my
to-do list 100
i'm going to afghanistan and talking to
them because they're brilliant
but to be able to sort of
um maybe after retirement to to think
back what were the systems involved
both on the technical
the training side
and then the uh mental side because like
to stay that dominant just like you're
saying everybody's studying to beat you
and
and the heavyweights are just these
powerful dudes so
to be able to control them with your
game and like the game that everybody
knows is coming is
i don't know i don't know what's behind
that but there's got to be um
it feels like the mental game is
exceptionally important
i think a lot of people underestimate
just how important that that side is
meant being mentally prepared for
victory mentally prepared to be the best
to stay the best um
there's nobody that's weak minded that
they can accomplish that you know it's
it's a hundred percent confidence and
belief in yourself
if we take a big picture of you then not
necessarily tater in there but
if you want to 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
like how many different trajectories do
you see or is there some
unifying principles
i think a lot of it has to your journey
is going to depend a lot by where you're
from
so a path that an american might take
versus somebody who's from japan or
somebody who's from europe there's two
very just three very distinct paths
right
because
you know in japan it's it's part of the
culture it's there's a there's a system
of excellence there's you know there's
elementary school judo there's junior
high school there's high school there's
collegiate there's olympic and
you know
much like our wrestling is here in our
in the united states right it's very
similar there's youth wrestling there's
high school this ncaa and then there's
olympic wrestling and you know when you
when you 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 they have an
opportunity to coach at all those
different levels 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 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 need to
craft
you don't get to choose from a thousand
people a few people that naturally stand
out at the age of nine
you get you have to actually
uh
whatever the natural resources you're
given
craft them into a champion
um
so if we look at that the american way
where you just have a person with a
smile show up show up to your dojo says
i wanted to be an olympic medalist
what process do you take them through
well the odds are really insurmountable
like it's it's a very very high hill to
climb uh and there's only a few i think
only a few people and there's only a few
coaches in this entire country that
really understand that process
and they can that can help people reach
that level as as it's been proven right
yeah um number one you you certainly
have to have a solid base a fundamental
base of of an expectation of what the
training is going to be
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
well maybe gripping doesn't come in so
early in the game but um throwing
methodology movements nawaza position
um standing fundamental throws and i
think most importantly is really the
work ethic just the way you're going to
train the intensity you're going to
train with the ability to
the you know mindset of going to
tournaments constantly you need you know
in order to compete with the rest of the
world
our young kids need to
be tested
a lot when they're young they have to be
put through adversity because they don't
get put through adversity and training
because you don't have that many good
training partners so you get put through
adversity in competition and then do we
see what your weaknesses are and we
continue to make improvements on those
um but the journey is is it's long and
and until they're kind of at the teenage
years they're going to have to pretty
much stay domestic right 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
you know sometimes they might want to
get you know an extra technical workout
in or doing some base conditioning in
addition to that 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 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
you know we've 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 with
800 a thousand people going to them
every single weekend
um when you say teens what do you mean
do you mean literally like 13 yeah
13 to 17 13 to 19. and that's where sort
of that's when you really accelerate
your development so you're saying like
in america
when you're young
like before you know
9 10 11 12 you stick in judo you can
progress quite a bit right but then i
guess the other competition there
if you're into uh
two people
uh
you know doing stuff to each other in a
combative way
uh the other competitor in america is
wrestling
so judo almost primes you like it
teaches you uh how to be a great
wrestler as well and so then you have to
have a hard decision
because you can probably be a collegiate
wrestler
you can you can you have like a a clear
plan
of where you're going to go if you want
to be a wrestler with judo
that plan is more um
is less clear
so yeah you have to be on your own a bit
with your coach that kind of thing
exactly
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 it's the
coach and the athlete and the dream
it's all about the dedication the the
five six seven days a week
competing what once a month
twice a month
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
right do you ever sit down would you
just do it take it to david goggins way
which is like let's just take it one
step at a time
let's hope we're there in eight years
yeah let's hope we're there do you
actually like right now you have to
think about
the olympics is gonna be in in los
angeles in 2028 so it's really
interesting now now would be the time
and now is the time
to identify talent
and get commitment out of students
that in seven years you can make a u.s
olympic team because we're going to have
a full team
america is going to have 14 athletes
compete in those games one in every
weight class so now is the time if
you're going to go on a journey to the
olympics and stay with the sport of judo
now would be the time to do it
you know and so what uh
you show up to the pedro judo center and
how much drilling how much
techniques strategy discussions how much
randori or like live sparring how much
conditioning and strength training
how much of all that
how much of cross training to other gyms
or something like that traveling
abroad is there something to be said
about us um some aspects of that system
for sure um you need it all what you
just said we needed all of it and we do
do all of that right now we have a young
group of kids at the academy you'll see
tonight some of them are 14 13 15 17.
are they good yeah really good okay so
they're gonna get away they're right
around your weight so it'll be perfect
they're just young boys but they've been
training hard through kovid yeah um
we've been travis and myself have been
training them we share responsibilities
um they're doing randori like five
nights a week you know we have them
doing randori tuesdays
wednesdays
thursdays fridays and sundays is when
they're doing randori they're coming to
the dojo friday night and sunday night
to do training
we also have technical sessions for them
and 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 through covid
they were coming every morning doing
technical sessions what's the technical
session you're it's an hour of um
repetitive throwing or repetitive
drilling to to reinforce movements that
we deem important to our successful uh
system so nawaza positions groundwork
positions where we want them to be put
in this position and they're going to
drill it 50 times 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 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 do they do it for uh a
period of time like two minutes five
minutes or is it like one do they're
actually counting no sometimes it's both
so sometimes we do it for reps sometimes
we do it for time
yeah so sometimes it might be as many as
they can do in in 60 seconds or as many
as they can do in two minutes and
sometimes it might just be i want you to
do every position five times
in terms of throws
we're not talking about on a crash pad
right it's it's just we're talking about
free moving around the mat and just
dynamically and just throwing correct
how many uh
because uh as i was mentioning to you
offline
uh travis threw me a few times
a lot of times when he was visiting in
austin and i just remembered uh so
there's two things i
fortunately or unfortunately in my life
haven't gotten a chance to train with
folks of that level without just
cleanness of throw and the power and it
was very nice i can i immediately
actually enjoyed being thrown like that
to throw a little at craig jones
with his current matt situation um is
they're very they were quite thin
uh and as travis commented on and not
just the thinness of the mats but they
were laid on like concrete right so i
felt i felt it's like soft until it's
not um
but uh
being thrown very cleanly i just felt
like there's this is not gonna lead to
injury it was great it wasn't injury
prone but then as i mentioned to you
when i a day or two after my entire leg
one of them i guess it's the left leg
um
was just in just black bruise
it didn't it didn't hurt too bad it was
just the body's gotten soft so i guess
the question is um
does the body get used to
just that number of throws just over
time being thrown thousands of times a
month
unquestionably your body gets used to it
so it hardens it gets really hard which
is why judo is 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
um i always found out that you know when
i was training judo a lot it's hard to
it's hard to shed weight and keep weight
off because your body like you know it
it develops like this layer of
protection on itself that it doesn't
want to give up yeah you know when
you're sucking a lot of weight that
means you're frail and you know so i
always seem to
retain weight more you know when you're
doing hard judo training as opposed to
you know losing weight it's easy when
you go for runs and things like that to
shed the water weight but to actually
keep the pounds off was yeah pretty hard
yeah the body kind of develops like you
said a level of protection what about
the randori just out of curiosity again
i i haven't ever had the opportunity to
train with folks at a high level
um it's you know in jiu jitsu
the there's different gyms have
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
not you're moving at a hundred percent
but the power is not at a hundred
percent
it's it's a weird little dance it's it's
techn like you're not really
um
forcing stuff you're more focused on on
the right timing the right
uh positioning of hands and feet and
body and all those kinds of things
you're not like forcing stuff in the way
you would in competition like really the
power does that sound similar to you for
the way you tried to durandori so
there's different styles of judo and
they say the japanese style the
technical style of judo is exactly what
you just talked about it's like it's
almost like two guys in pajamas right
we're not going we're not using it we're
using minimal effort maximum efficiency
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 and
when you you know when you train in
japan
you can train 15 rounds of randori five
minute rounds that's 75 minutes of of
straight you know sparring you can do
that straight in japan without a problem
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 very like free feeling
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 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 so it's a
much different feel when you say europe
do you mean germany france britain
russia is there a lot so
there's a kind of
similarity to all of those kinds of
approaches the only difference would be
russia that they do a lot more active
drilling a lot more sequential movement
training they don't focus as much on
randori you'll do much fewer rounds in
russia
during training camps than you would in
in those other countries we just talked
about france germany etc what about in
this kind of american system where you
have much less talent
uh to work with is
did you uh
just select whatever works for the
particular athletes or do you have a
something you prefer in your system
so you need a combination of all of it
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 you have to
focus on on the ground nawaza aspect
because a lot of people are weak there
in the world of the sport of judo that's
a chance to win
we've sort of developed our american
system of judo at least for the last i
say probably the last 20 years would be
the american system of judo which relies
heavily on taking the individual and
whatever techniques they 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
like in in game planning you know to
beat your opponents and i think that's
the that's the secret sauce to success
for the fair americans because there's
no way if we don't have eight partners
to train within the night that are going
to give us good rounds right we might
have two
you know so we know the same guy four
times those two people four you know two
times each now i have four good rounds
the rest of the rounds i'm not being
pushed to the limit so we train
differently
um and a lot of times we do a lot of
stuff like shark bait when our athletes
are preparing for competition for
example when kayla or travis were
preparing for competition
we might only have 20 people in the
whole gym work to work out with those
two
olympic medalists right and of those 20
people maybe four of them are travis's
size you know maybe there's only one
girl in the room for kayla she's got to
train with guys and then the other ones
are teenagers that are too weak to train
with either one of them 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 and then do five minutes in a row
as hard as they can
that person can go hard for a minute
with travis or kayla they can't go five
minutes hard but they can go one minute
hard so it made their training much
much more intense much more physically
demanding and then rinse and repeat that
six times or eight times in a night
you know they just got 40 minutes of
intense randori 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 yeah you know
so
it's so
it's so difficult
because you then you look at like
the russian national team
and you have just world champions and
so
um
or you even have like um what is the tom
brands and terry brands in the in the
wrestling system 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 and yeah you don't
necessarily get a good look kind of a
variety of styles
but just the qualities there and even
that is missing for people your size in
america because
and that is so difficult to work with we
should make scales and makes travis's
story that much more amazing
is um you mentioned kind of
picking whatever the set of techniques
the athlete
is naturally good at or prefers or
whatever
how much specialization is there
maybe if i give you like two choices is
it good to have like one throw
and try to become the best person in the
world at that throw or do you want to
have a bunch of stuff
uh like a a variety of throws well for
travis it was he pulling saying aggie
that was his main throw right but from
that ipo and saying he had a variety of
other attacks he could do
you know that mixed it up so that you
kept people guessing that maybe it
wasn't the paul and say we was coming
maybe it was the koshi grumma that he
did or maybe it was the ipone to osoto
that he did in combination so you
typically have one main
throw that you do for me it was tai
otoshi for kayla it was her ogoshi for
travis it was ipo and sanagi but then
you come up with a variety of other
throws that you do from the very same
grip so whatever grip you take for your
main throw you want to develop you know
an arsenal of attacks that go in all
different directions holding that same
grip so you keep your opponent guessing
as to what's coming you know because if
they're just sitting on one technique
at the highest level of sport with the
exception of a few right we talked about
ono's uchimada
with the exception of a few most of the
world catches on pretty quick on how to
beat you
there is something to just sticking
making sure you really dedicate to the
main thing so for travis that would be
like the main version of his inagi
like really making sure you don't forget
to really put in the time on that
because um
i mean one one way to say it is
that threat being dangerous opens up a
lot of things right
but also
i don't know
i think i'm just as a fan i think it
it's sad when like elite level athletes
in in all like combat sports
kind of start taking their main thing
for granted
like um they think okay i've i figured
that part out
now i'll be working on all this whole
system on variations on different setups
on
uh lefty versus 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
they're just like literally
they are more like jiro dreams of sushi
and like
like fine-tuning their ear their ability
to detect the mine movements that give
you an opening on that main thing and so
the whole time you're just
waiting for that throw you're like
dancing with the like little bit of
pressure
and like releasing the pressure and
putting the pressure maybe a little bit
off off balance and finding like the
right
moment to strike and
focusing on that again maybe that's just
like a romanticization of like
the simplicity of that maybe it is kind
of impossible to do that on a large
scale but i just um
[Music]
yeah i i don't know if you can comment
on that whether there is some value and
still putting in like tens of thousands
of reps on the main main thing well
unquestionably that has to happen you
still have to drill your main throw and
you have to fine tune it and continue to
do you know repetition after repetition
and throws on the crash pad you know or
throws on the mat moving around just
explosive movements doing your main
technique you're never going to forget
that and you're not going to put it to
the side and not practice it anymore it
still has to be part of your repertoire
and part of your daily training but you
do have to evolve and i think that's and
i think that's the sport of judo makes
you evolve you know when i look at we
talk about koga from before right and we
talked about he had a dynamic he pulling
say in agi that nobody could stop for
years and years and years but
when people started to you know 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 and all of a sudden you
saw koga doing now he did a soda where
now he did a tomo nagi which so he can
he added to his arsenal you know to keep
people thinking keep purple gas in so
it's not you're not just that one trick
pony they still couldn't stop his ipo
and say
once he got that grip but if they stop
them from getting that grip or putting
two hands on the ghee he had to go to
something else and that's what he did
does travis's or koga's say nagi make
sense to you
that weird uh so when i because split
hip that's
split hip so
i don't know if you know this but like i
got into judo because of travis i
watched him with 2008 olympics and i was
uh there's something about like
uh just the not the cockiness but the
confidence and just the refusal to quit
the refusal to just some that energy
whatever you connect to me is like oh
that guy's badass
i want to be badass like that
and then i also there happened to be in
my university judo and i um
and i got into and just fell in love
with the elegance and the beauty and the
power of the sport um
but also i started to mimic travis's
game
uh his and koga's
and i and then uh the instructors i
worked with they said that's the wrong
way to do it
and i always i never found somebody that
told me that like
no that's not the wrong way to there's a
lot of ways to do it and there's like
the classic way and you have to
understand and you have to learn it but
this is not the wrong way because i was
trying to find somebody who understands
this throw
because it's so
beautiful at the highest level
especially with koga the way
you're able the quickness with which you
can strike the fact that you could stand
on the feet and the elevation you can
get and the power you can get it has
certain throws
just
like uchamata doesn't look powerful
it it's just like it's it looks
effortless
but like
the standing sanagi with a split hip it
just looks powerful because
there's a
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 right their feet are
fluttering and flattering so and then
there's just this this pause and then
just big slam with the ucha mata it's
almost like you don't know what hit you
that's like tayatoshi is the same it's
almost like a surprise like oh i'm
not on my back and
um
so i i just i just
love that throw but like
i it didn't make sense to me
like
when trying to explain it to others when
trying to learn it didn't make sense to
me uh how it works does it make sense to
you it does yeah i'm i was born a judoka
right so i i've lived this stuff since i
was
an infant and i've seen every style and
every technique um
the split hip saying aggie is is
difficult to learn it's harder to learn
than the the basic form but it is
powerful and it does
upon entry
both your opponent's feet leave them out
at the same time so you've got them once
you enter you've got them you just got
to finish right you just got to lock
them and turn and go so
it makes sense to me my dad did teach me
how to do that when i was younger yeah
he wanted me to do a split hip we have
kids at the school today that we teach
the split up say in aggie same way
um because it is that dynamic right you
don't drop to the ground and roll and
turn it's not the classic form where
you're giving way to your opponent it's
actually you go pick the guy up in the
air and then you slam them so
okay uh
beautiful so maybe on a small tangent so
we're talking about elite level athletes
in terms of randori in terms of rep like
uh drilling
for more recreational athletes
like
you know i have personally that
situation going on but there's other
people there just recreationally
training judo how do you recommend they
improve judo like
if i wanted to compete a bunch
and do reason reasonable with a
particular set of throws say the split
uh
senagi
how do you do you do the randori do you
use a crash brad to get him reps do you
like what do you recommend so i guess
there's two recreational people that
we're talking about one is somebody who
wants to learn judo and become good at
judo but don't doesn't necessarily want
to compete but just wants to get better
and i think that there's not enough
emphasis
in this country on
just that on paying attention to that
type of student everybody pushes them to
competition but in reality 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
and there's a class and there should be
a program for that athlete and that
athlete does not need to do randori
like the sport of judo is physical
enough when 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 technically you'll be
better than somebody that does randori
more than you because you're move if you
learn good technique and you learn the
movement and you learn the feel and you
move the learn the timing
you'll actually be a better athlete than
the person that just focuses on randori
who does ugly technique and wins with
force so you know we have a recreational
class at our school
where they don't do any randori 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 because they're already so
tired from the other you know good
workout right they're already dripping
sweat they're already like if you if you
you know work hard and drill hard it's
an intense workout you're exhausted
you know so that that's a specific
set of of a program i should say at
every academy and then if you want to
get good and you want to compete
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 you know dominate the grips
control the movement initiate the
reactions from your opponent and then
have the opportunity to attack and score
and 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
i don't know how to attack because
positionally they don't know where to
put their hands they don't know how to
hold the ghee properly they don't
understand that they're
you know they have an inferior grip
and and they don't know how to get into
better position so they can attack and
that's a big part of the game that not a
lot of people really understand so you
really even for recreational competitors
you really need to have a gripping
system you need to understand the
gripping system
if you want to win yeah i mean if the
goal is to go and compete that's a
different story you're going i don't
have fun getting beat up or losing in
competitions i
enjoy the
i don't even know if it's the winning or
the losing i don't
i i think
this is what because i competed a lot in
both judo and jiu jitsu and in judo
it feels like because i didn't have a
gripping system it feels like you're not
even playing judo against the the good
black belts you're they're just they're
not they're not even trying because they
have they get a certain kind of grip and
you just can't do anything and i don't
have a good answer for that i don't even
know what i'm looking for and so it's
not even fun it's not like even losing
it's it's like um
i don't know it's like you didn't even
show up to play
is what it feels like and it's
unfortunate i i think that is a big gap
in knowledge actually
in um
judo schools
is is the gripping part
when you first go out to to do judo
right you the first thing you have to do
is you have to grab your opponent right
and a lot of times i hear coaches say
get a grip just take a grip well
sometimes if you take a grip
you're in a worse position than not
having a grip at all that's what a lot
of people don't understand like if you
hold the ghee in the wrong way your
opponent can attack you but you can't
attack him so why would you ever do that
grip
if it's only to your detriment
right so that's and
the way you grip does set up
what attacks you can do as well so that
is a huge part and i'm not saying that
you have to be 100 disciplined and only
always out grip your opponent and only
be able to do throws when you have a
superior grip i'm just saying that
to be able to put the grips together
with the throws and understand the
movements is going to make you that much
ahead of the game
so if we take a step to uh our previous
discussion of going from
zero to hero
so going from the the early days through
the teenage years to winning
an olympic medal
so we mentioned
a lot of training the dedication of the
training
the competing what other elements are
there the mental side is uh
visualization believing that you could
perform at that level
uh so what else can you say about it i
think that comes at the highest level
the the visualization the success that
comes at the highest level i think in
the teen years um
there's the experience just plays a huge
role in getting to
train with other people like as
americans we have to go train in europe
we have to feel the european style of
judo we have to
understand that physicality they they
grip very differently they put you in
very unorthodox positions and if you
when if you don't know how to deal with
that you get thrown before you even have
a chance to try your own throws you know
so it takes a lot of
it takes a lot of that experience and
understanding what's going on
and then you also need to get that
physicality you need to be physically
strong and hard i would say by doing all
those rounds with the europeans and at
the same time you need to go to asia and
you need to train in in japan because
you need to feel that free-flowing
judo for your technical the technical
side i think that's
one of the things that i was able to
benefit from my dad was a coach who said
listen i've taken as far as i can take
you i want you to go to the next level i
want you know he sent me to 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 taotoshi which
is the throw i did so my dad said i want
you to go learn from neil and i ended up
going to
to england probably eight to ten times
in my career and spending a good amount
of time there training at the neil adams
academy
um he's now the voice of judo neil adams
what do you make of that guy just a
brief pause he's like the like uh 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
he's legitimately maybe like joe rogan
is that from mixed martial arts it's
just like an exceptionally
recognizable voice he's really
knowledgeable also the passion is
conveyed so well like many times i'll
watch just because he's talking right so
who is he since he got the chance to
train with him to learn from him who's
neil adams he's a great friend of mine
he is he's a mentor
um i like i said i lived and trained at
the neil adams club in coventry england
since i was like 16 years old i went and
visited him for the first time he's the
one who originally taught me how to do
juju gatami and the way that i do
jujigatami
i trained with him he was just retired
he was in his early 30s when i first
went out there and you know so i trained
with him many times and
over the years he's he was a mentor
um great person you know cares that
cares about people cares about you know
the sport of judo
had a good little club that was a
fitness club and you know had it was it
was judo it was fitness it it you know
used to go there 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 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 we were doing sprints and buddy
carries and all this stuff and then at
nine 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 and it
was no randori it was that sequential
drilling that we talked about before
right where you're
reinforcing your 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
um and then i'd spend all afternoon at
the club have lunch i'd go do my weight
training in the afternoon at that at
that place and then in the evening we
would either do randori training at the
nail 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 and
there'd be you know 50 bodies there to
train with and each night we'd go to a
different dojo and so it would be all
day at the club and i'd do that for like
three weeks straight you know all we did
was try do you know how he became the
voice of judo do you have an
understanding
of what he's thinking is around like how
much he dedicates to himself
to just uh commentating on jude i
imagine the amount of research required
but also just like psychologically just
the excitement he has in his voice
it it takes work to do that do you have
an understanding of like what his vision
is with that he's always been a very
charismatic animated personnel you know
very passionate and loud and you know
funny and the brits are very funny to
begin with so he's he's you know very
charismatic but um
i think after coaching he tried coaching
he coached the country of wales for a
while he tried coaching stints in other
countries he didn't he didn't have a lot
of success on the coaching side
um developing an olympic champion i know
that some that was a goal of his that he
he was a world champion i think it was
1981 he won two silver medals in the
olympic games um himself
he went on to coach for a while and had
some political issues with the the
country of of england for a while and
then left england and went to wales and
i think he had a coaching somewhere else
as well
didn't have a lot of success coaching in
the sport um with athletes not at the
highest level had a great national team
and things like that he was really good
at
at teaching his technique to others
because he helped me a lot
um
but running a program i think was
difficult for him you know 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 right i went there
and whatever he said i did i didn't care
how hard i didn't care how long i just
wanted to get as good as i could and so
that's why
he was a good mentor for me
but now in terms of a
commentator
he he's very cerebral he just
he loves judo he he look researches it
non-stop
um he's got that great voice and he
knows how to bring bring life to the
you know to the game and that's what
he's done and now this is who he is
right he he does judo full-time this is
his job can ask you uh a small before we
return to the actual
sport the coaching of the sport
it's a bit of a political question i did
a whole rant before travis episode
uh
i love neil adams's 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
uh in replay for years after
like i can't watch travis's matches i
can't walk like it they make it very
difficult to watch stuff online
so what happened is
i uploaded the travis stevens episode
and we talked about his ole bishop 2012
match
and it was like one minute of uh
like a small overlay of the video as
we're talking through it
with like stepping through it and it got
taken down immediately from youtube that
the whole four-hour conversation
because of that one minute little clip
and the way got taken down automatically
is because the ioc has that video
uploaded
it's set to private but it's uploaded
so like they have the video
and they choose not to show it it's not
that they're asking for money or
whatever they're just not showing it
anywhere
they're not showing it through their own
service like an nbc olympics or so on
there's just so many great human stories
that the olympics reveals they're just
not made easily accessible that's the
olympics charter
is you want to i think uh
the actual line is to ensure the fullest
coverage and the widest possible
audience in