Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Hawaii: The Olympic Swim Coach Who Couldn't Swim with Kristina Kuzmic

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

In this episode, Sharon tells Kristina Kuzmic the story of Soichi Sakamoto, a man from Hawaii who became an Olympic swim coach when he didn’t even know how to swim himself. After teaching his boy scout troop to swim, Soichi set out on a new life’s mission: to coach Olympic swimmers. He started the Three Year Swim Club, promising his students that they would be world-class swimmers within three years. His swim club was made up of impoverished children, many of whom did not have bathing suits or enough food to sustain them through practice. As well, because he didn’t have access to a pool, Soichi resorted to teaching his first students in the water-filled ditches of Hawaiian sugar plantations. Despite the many challenges, Soichi did whatever it took to raise up Olympic athletes - from feeding them his own meals to inventing new ways to train his swimmers. This is the story of Coach Soichi Sakamoto and his journey to the 1948 Olympics. For more information on this episode including all resources and links discussed go to https://www.sharonmcmahon.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, hello. Welcome. So happy you're here. I am sharing a conversation today with my friend, Christina Kuzmich. If you do not recognize her name, you definitely will recognize her face because her videos have been viewed on Facebook more than 1 billion times. Billion with a B. She makes videos about humor and motherhood. She has a book called Hold On, But Don't Hold Still. I think you are just going to love this story so much. Let's dive into The Champion Maker. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Christina, I am so happy you're here today. Thank you so much for joining me. I am just,

I'm thrilled. Oh, I am so happy to be a part of this. I adore you. I love you. My family's sick of hearing me talk about you. If you are not yet familiar with Christina Kuzmich, you will, I can almost promise you will recognize her face from her viral Facebook videos. I mean, that is how I found you on Instagram. I was like, I know this person. You have racked up close to a billion video views on Facebook. Tell everybody what you do. Why are a billion people watching your videos? Most people know me from the videos I create about parenting or mental health, often while drinking coffee straight out of a coffee pot or pouring wine on ice cream because life is short. But I am also an author

of a book called Hold On, But Don't Hold Still. And I am on a national tour with my Hope and Humor Show. But my goal through everything I create, whether it's funny or serious, is to be for others what I needed when I was at my lowest. I love that. And what a mission. Well, I am excited to share today's story with you. Let's do it. Today, we're going to be talking about a story that comes from Hawaii. Have you been to Hawaii before? No, it's on my list. Oh, it has to be on your list. There's a reason people love Hawaii. It absolutely is magical. So I want to

tell you a story from Hawaii, and this is about a gentleman named Soichi Sakamoto. Does that name ring a bell for you? Oh yeah, we go way back. So he was a Japanese science teacher who lived on Maui. He was born in 1906. He was part of the Japanese community who worked largely on sugarcane plantations in Hawaii. In the mid-1850s, moving forward, fruit and sugarcane plantations became huge on Hawaii. And many of the native Hawaiians ultimately felt like they didn't want to work there. of the native Hawaiians ultimately felt like they didn't want to work there. They were being owned by Europeans and they were often subjected to terrible treatment while working on these plantations. So because the plantations were so massive, they had to take to importing workers. This is one of the reasons Hawaii has such a multicultural community today is because

starting in the mid 1800s, hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers came to Hawaii to find jobs. And many of them were from China, Japan, Portugal, the Philippines, Puerto Rico. And Hawaii really is a fantastic example of that kind of multicultural harmony that we always think America should have, where you appreciate aspects of other people's cultures, you enjoy their food, but yet you are respectful of their own observances, their own practices, their own culture. So he was born on Maui and his mother, who had been an orphan in Japan, had gone to Maui searching for work and he was born there in 1906. So as a young man, he played

steel guitar in a band to earn money. And one evening at a party, he sees this young woman. She was a native Hawaiian and this young woman caught his eye. He was playing, he sees this young woman. She was a native Hawaiian. And this young woman caught his eye. He was playing. He saw her in the crowd. And then a few days later, he saw her again at a candy store. Didn't speak to her, but was like, there is that woman again. And then a few days later, he was attending a party and he insisted on dancing with her and they got to talk for a little while. And then he insisted on driving her home. And she said, well, I came with someone else. So yeah. And he was like, that's okay. I'm going to drive you home anyway. I insist. Three days later, they got married. What? There was no like, let's see if we're really right for each other.

Three days after talking, they got married. They ultimately were married for over 60 years. So it absolutely worked out for them. This was in the late 1920s. One of the things that was very challenging for them as a couple is that they were not accepted as an interracial couple. He was of Japanese descent. She was of Polynesian descent. And that was not socially acceptable in either one of their families at the time. One of the unique things about the Japanese community, and again, about many communities who lived on Hawaii, is that unlike, say, Japanese immigrants who moved to California, where it was very obvious that they were immigrants, they were much more isolated. They were living in communities largely of European Americans.

Unlike that experience, people who were working on these plantations were living in community with people who already spoke their own language, who have the same perhaps religious observances. They were in a community of other Japanese people or Chinese people or Portuguese people just living on the Hawaiian islands. And so it gave a very, very unique experience to people who lived there that they did not have the same sort of immigrant experience that somebody who had moved to, say, California might have had. It doesn't mean it was idyllic or fantastic. They were often paid very little. They were forced to live in conditions that were far less than stellar. They were forced to spend their money at company stores, etc. And the Japanese immigrants

largely came to Hawaii from the late 1800s until 1924 when Congress passed the Federal Immigration Act, and it really closed the door on a lot of immigrant workers coming from Asia. All that to say, this set up a very unique experience for Soichi and his wife. He became a Boy Scout leader and a teacher after they got married. I mentioned at the top that he was a science teacher. And as a Boy Scout leader, he would take his troops to earn their merit badges. And one of the merit badges they had to earn was about swimming. He had never been a good swimmer. And he said later that he read some pamphlets on swimming. Because that's how you learn how to swim. You read about it.

Read about it. Yes. Yes. And then you're good at it. Yes. So he read about it and, you know, taught some kids how to swim. And then in 1937, an idea occurred to him. He had watched the Japanese swimmers perform very, very well in the 1936 Olympic Games. And he thought to himself, I wonder if I could coach some swimmers to be Olympians. Wow. Again, this is a man who barely knows how to swim himself. His proteges later described him in the pool and they would say he didn't know how to do any stuff. He could just like dog paddle, tread water to keep his head above water. So this is not a man who has mastered the art of swimming. But what amazing confidence. Like I want some of that confidence. Yeah. Like I

wonder if I could do it. Let me give it a try. I love that. So in 1937, he decided to form a club called the Three Year Swim Club. Anybody who wanted to join could join, boys and girls. It was largely impoverished children who worked on plantations. If you wanted to join, great. And our goal is in three years, we are going to win a bunch of Olympic medals in swimming. His rules were, work hard, you cannot smoke or drink or gamble, and you must obey your parents and you must obey the coach. And if you do that, you will have a chance at being in the Olympics. So he gets 100 impoverished children who say, I would like to be an Olympian. I would like to be on your swim team. And he quickly realizes this is great. Small problem.

There is nowhere for us to swim. And you might think we'll just swim in the ocean, but it doesn't really work like that. There's too much surf. It's not a place where you can really perfect the intricacies of swimming because of all of these other external forces that are constantly at work on you. So these children had no bathing suits. They had very little food, but he did notice that they swam in the irrigation ditches on the sugar plantation. And these are like four foot deep trenches that run around the sugar plantations carrying rainwater, et cetera, so that they can use it to irrigate the sugarcane, which is a crop that needs a ton of water. What do Ontario dairy farmers bring to the table? A million little

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It is my girl in the studio! Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Lady 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. The plantation owners did not like the children swimming in the irrigation

ditches and they would come and chase them away on horseback. So he approached the plantation owners and said, I will supervise the children swimming and it would give the children something to do. Could we please swim in the irrigation ditches? They agreed to let him coach his three-year swim club in the irrigation ditches of a sugar plantation in the 1930s on Maui. Talk about making the best of what is instead of being like, oh, I guess it's not going to work. Right? Like I don't have what I need. I guess I can't do it. I love this. Also Hawaii wasn't a state yet. Right? So, I mean, he doesn't have any of the resources of the actual United States. It's a territory.

It's still viewed in many ways as kind of like, whoa, it is way out there in the middle of the Pacific. Who has even been there in the 1930s? It was viewed as this very kind of foreign place to many mainland Americans. And so he begins having practices at 5.30 in the morning. You come here before school, we're going to practice two to three hours before school. You're going to go to school. And then after school, we're going to practice another two to three hours. On weekends, they would practice all day. They would have morning practices. Then they would have land

drills. Then they would have a lecture over lunchtime, more land drills, more swimming. Then they would have a lecture over lunchtime, more land drills, more swimming. This really occupied his entire life. One day, his wife, who he married after meeting her for three days, she was very supportive of his endeavors to become an Olympic swim coach. And she brought him a hot meal one day to his swim practice. She didn't know it, but he, instead of eating the meal, distributed the meal to his swimmers, what food he had brought. She continued bringing him hot food and he did not tell her, I'm giving away the food to the children. One day she brought him food and saw out of the corner of her eye in her peripheral vision that he was distributing his lunch that she had just cooked for him to the children.

She said nothing but made a mental note and the next day came back with a cart full of food to give the children so they would have adequate calories, nutrition to be able to perform as swimmers. So not only was he volunteering all of his time, it's not like he was getting paid. He's volunteering all of his time. And now he and his wife are feeding all of these makes Soichi Sakamoto so amazing is that so much of what swimmers, high level athletes, high level Olympians, high level competitors do to train to be amazing swimmers was pioneered by him. He was the person who came up with this idea that he should have his swimmers swim against the current of these irrigation ditches because that resistance, he hypothesized, would improve their performance. Again, he's a science teacher, but yet he doesn't know how to swim. So he's making scientific observations.

If I do this, I wonder if this will happen. And he encouraged his students to try things that had never, ever been tried before in the history of swimming. All of the best swimmers in the world, the Japanese, the Australians, the British, people on the mainland United States, none of them were doing any of the things that he was doing. And a lot of them did not respect his methods because he was of Asian descent. His biographer said that coaches talked about him in the sense of what kind of voodoo witchcraft are you using out there? Which, of course, it was neither voodoo nor witchcraft. These are some of the things, the ideas that he pioneered. First of all, that swimmers needed to

be trained on land in addition to in the water. So they would do things like run uphill and try to race against his car. He would drive alongside them and make them try to beat his car up a hill. He thought, okay, what if we do interval training? Because he observed track and field athletes sprinting so fast and then a cool down. And so his thinking was, what if we do super fast swimming and then we have paced kind of cool down swimming. Interval training for swimmers, not a thing then. Now it's just, of course you do that. That's obvious today.

He also did things like he handmade these wooden paddles that students would hold in their hands to try to improve their strokes, to try to make it easier to tell the position of your hand in the water. He drew all these diagrams of here's what your strokes should look like. He also pioneered essentially what is today weight training for swimmers, where they would have to pull on things with a pulley and a rope system with their arms to make their arms stronger and push against things with their legs to make their legs stronger. He wasn't all about just improving swimming technique. He was also about athletic conditioning, which is something that had not existed in swimming at all before then. at all before then. By 1939, so two years into this experiment, he starts developing world-class athletes. His athletes start competing on the mainland. And again, these are impoverished

children competing and winning all kinds of titles. His athletes qualified for the 1940 Olympics. And he was like, this is it. I have done it. We have trained all of these athletes. I have put three years of my life into doing this. And they are finally going to be able to compete in the Olympics. And the Olympics were scheduled to be held in Tokyo, which to him was just like an even extra bonus that they were going to be in Japan. Early on in 1940, the Japanese gave up their Olympic placement because of an ongoing war with China. And so the Olympics then got moved to Helsinki, Finland, and then eventually the 1940 Olympics were canceled because of World War II. So he was disappointed. He felt like they had done all of this work. And then his athletes, you know, you age out of being an Olympic level competitor

relatively quickly. There are very few 40 year old Olympians. You know what I mean? Even at the time, like early twenties was old. So he was very disappointed, but he was determined to keep at it. He, at this point, had risen to a level of success that other mainland athletes were coming to Hawaii to train with him. And this is a Time Magazine article that came out about him in the 1940s. It said, undaunted, underfunded, and unmatched. Soichi Sakamoto turned international swimming on its ear. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, he resurrected Hawaiian swimming, producing world-class swimmers whose first pool was a Hawaiian sugarcane irrigation. I just love that phrase, unappreciated, undaunted, underfunded, and unmatched. Yes. I just am like, yes. So inspiring. He had nothing. He literally had nothing. And that didn't stop him. These children literally did not have food or swimsuits and it did not stop him. And what incredible thing beyond just

swimming that he gave to these kids. I mean, they felt seen, they got all this attention, they were getting healthy. I love, love this. Yes. He absolutely dedicated his life to coaching these students. His daughter later in his life gave an interview in which she told the story of when her father was a child, he was hit by a truck and was nearly killed and somehow survived. His daughter said in this interview, he literally felt he was saved by God for some kind of special work. of special work. I don't know how he stumbled on this idea of I need to coach swimming, but he clearly felt like it was his life's work. So by the early 1940s, his swimmers basically sweep the Pan American games, the international competitions that happened leading up to the Olympics, his swimmers were

winning all of that. And he was gaining all of this notoriety. One swimmer named Bill Smith decided to move to Hawaii to train with him full time. And everybody was like, what? You could be on mainland at these major universities doing all the best things. And he was like, no, I believe in this guy. So he moved there to train with him full-time. They then set their sights on, okay, 1944 Olympics, let's do it. The 1944 Olympics also canceled because of World War II. In 1946, his swimmers were so incredible despite having missed two Olympics because of World War II. In 1946, his swimmers were so incredible despite having missed two Olympics because of World War II. He got an offer from the University of Hawaii to come be the swim coach at the University of Hawaii. He moved his family to the island of Oahu and became the swim

coach there from the 1940s until the 1960s. Wait, at this point, did he learn how to swim yet? No, he could only tread water. He used none of the training on himself. Oh my goodness. No, he didn't enjoy swimming. He just enjoyed coaching other people who were swimmers. His children described how he would stay up late at night, watching films of his swimmers, trying to use his scientific inductive reasoning techniques to figure out how he could improve their efficiency. And during the time period of 1948 to 1956, where he was coaching at the university of Hawaii, all of his swimmers, he coached both men and women, all of his swimmers became national champions. I mean, what, what a

record all of you guys are going to win. Basically it's, it is amazing. So one of his swimmers, I mentioned Bill Smith in 1948, finally got to go to the Olympics. World war II ended London, who was supposed to host the Olympics in 1944, got to host them in 1948. Bill Smith won two gold medals. And Soichi Sakamoto was the assistant Olympic swim coach during that time period. He got to actually be on the Olympic coaching team again, as a man who cannot swim. But also finally, after all these cancellations, finally. Yes, finally gets his moment. And his swimmers, both male and female, medaled in the 1952 and the 1956 Olympics,

which again, to have this man create swimmers who medal in Olympic after Olympic after Olympic games is very remarkable. His children talked about how his wife, again, who he married after three days, his wife would travel with him all the time. And she was the female chaperone for all of his female competitors. This was obviously before cell phones, Netflix, and whatever. And so students would need something to do. And she would bring her ukulele and would play the ukulele for them while they're on these long flights overseas, tell stories about growing up on Hawaii, et cetera. During the downtime at meets, she would show the audience how to dance hula. Like this couple became a very beloved couple and a well-known figure in the swimming community during the period of the forties

through the sixties. Has there been a movie made about them? No, but there has been a fantastic book called the three-year swim club that came out a number of years ago about them. book called the three-year swim club that came out a number of years ago about them. One of his swimmers said this about him, which really cemented my opinion of Soichi Sakamoto. He said he trained the swimmers hard, but he was a kind and gentle person and he never screamed or hollered. If you did something that he didn't like, he would become quiet, but he was not vengeful or vindictive. He wasn't a politician. He was barely recognized in public, even when he had the majority of swimmers on the Olympic team. And it goes to show that anything can be done if you have the desire and the drive and someone pushing you to never

give up. Oh, isn't that just like the best? This is so inspiring. What an inspiring figure. And one of his other swimmers said, I learned that it doesn't matter if you swim in a ditch or in a four lane pool, as long as you have water, you can work and perfect your craft and become a great swimmer. It's all in your attitude. What a great analogy for so many things in life. We're so quick to focus on what we can't do and don't have. And here he is like, I'm going to find a way. I'm going to focus on what I have. I have a ditch. I'll use that. I mean, we can all use that in life. Can't you take that and apply it to so many things? It doesn't matter if you swim in a ditch or a four lane pool that applies to almost the entirety of the world. Some people are handed tons of privilege and some people have very little.

And I just love this idea that it is so much about what you make of your circumstances. Yes. Yes. So he passed away when he was 91 years old. He lived a very long life. He's been inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, the American Swim Coach Hall of Fame. There is currently a huge and beautiful public pool on Maui named after him, the Coach Soichi Sakamoto Pool. There are swimming competitions like the Soichi Sakamoto Invitational, so much of what he came up with through his inductive reasoning skills as a science teacher, still in use today. Science would later come up with the reasons behind why his methods worked. He was just like, I think just observing X and Y and Z, I think if we do interval training, it will improve their cardiovascular performance. I think if we train on land, it'll strengthen their muscles.

I think if we do this, here's what would happen. And of course, now through exercise physiology and whatnot, we now know the whys behind all of those things. But just thinking like a scientist, all of those things. But just thinking like a scientist, he was able to absolutely come from nothing. The child of an orphan who immigrated to Hawaii to work on a plantation, to being in all the swimming hall of fames, all of them. There's several of them around the world. He's in all of them. And to have all the coaches today still using his techniques all these years later. I'm like all choked later. I just love him. I'm like all choked up. I do too.

I told you we go way back. That's right. When you look at pictures of him online, he has a very gentle, unassuming face. He just looks like this very kind man in all of his pictures. He is crouched by the side of the pool. And I just love the legacy that he has left, not only to competitive swimming, but also to the students that he coached. And then that his wife was like, I'm going to help feed these kids. I mean, she could have so easily

been like, what are you doing? You don't even know how to swim. What's going on? Like she could have been like the negative voice, right? Which we often have somebody in our life sort of negate our dreams. And instead she just did everything to help. I love that. Yes. She talked in interviews about how her advice to anyone who was getting married was to be as supportive as they can be of their partner's dreams, to do whatever you can to support them in their dreams. Amazing. I'm so grateful that you were able to come today. Oh my gosh. I love this story, but I love learning from you on your Instagram and your workshops. I do want to ask you something that everybody who follows you, I think wonders. Okay. How do you

remember all the facts you do? Because I honestly can't remember if I shaved both my armpits this morning or just the left one. Like what vitamins are you taking, Sharon? I just take the multivitamins, nothing special. You should sell your own vitamins. The Sharon says so vitamins. Oh my goodness. I don't really have a great explanation other than I have always been a very curious person and I inherited a good memory from my mother and my grandfather. My grandfather was an amazing teacher. He was himself an amazing sports coach. My mom is highly intelligent and has always had a fantastic memory. When I was growing up, which was like pre interwebs, you know, like as a small child, my mom was the person who all of her friends would call and be like, Julie, how do I get rid of my child's topical dermatitis?

You know what I mean? Or like, Julie, you told me a while ago about this one book. And what did that author say about X, Y XYZ? And so my mom was always a big reader. She always read to us. She took us to the library all the time. She let me do things like take the bus to the library and just like check out as many books as I wanted. So some of it is just inherited good memory. And I don't claim any credit for that. I have a good memory and that just is what it is. Some people have other skills, like they can dance or sing or whatever, you know? Some people can do comedy shows like you. I'm good at snacking and napping.

Those are my biggest talents. Really good at snacking and napping. False, false. I am an excellent snacker as well. It's great food. But I'm just curious and I just read things and that's the only explanation I have. I just read things and I retain them.

I'm an immigrant. I immig immigrated to the U S in high school. And so even though I've been here forever, I'm in my forties now. I still feel like a foreigner following you has helped me learn so much about history and politics and all of it. And I'm just so, so grateful. Thank you. Tell everybody where they can find you because they absolutely should be following you on all the platforms. Oh, thank you. So Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, everywhere at Christina with a K, K-R-I-S-T-N-A, last name K-U-Z-M-I-C. Thank you so much for joining me. Oh, thank you. All right. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you.

And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. I cannot wait to have another mind-blown moment with you next episode. Thanks again for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.