The Shintaro Higashi Show - 2021 USA Judo Youth National Championships

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

Shintaro recently went to the 2021 USA Judo Youth National Championships in Salt Lake City with one of his students Luka. It was a great event where he could catch up with his old Judo friends, and check the current status of US Judo, as well as its future. In this episode, Shintaro tells Peter what his experience was like at the Youth Nationals. Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Today's episode is going to be very special. It's going to be a little bit like storytelling kind of a situation because I just came back from the Youth Nationals in Salt Lake City. So it's going to be a very exciting episode. It's going to be a little bit more relative to the competitive landscape and people are very interested in that. So I'm very excited about this episode.

Right. So yeah, you told me a little bit about it we texted while you were there and whatnot so what what give us some deep background like who'd you go with you know were you coaching were you competing in the youth nationals right all right so youth nationals yeah that's a that's a really good tournament they have uh it's like junior nationals, right? In the U.S. for the Americans, they sort of have four national level tournaments for juniors. They have the youth nationals. This year, that was the qualifier for the junior Pan Ams, right?

The American get one per weight class. And then you have the USJF summer nationals. You have the junior nationals. The USJI does nationals for the kids and then usja does a national for the kids oh my god there's like a bunch of them yeah yeah and then generally the two organizations that has ties to the international ijf is the youth national tournament run by us judo and the usji right they control like us judo is the organization that controls right the international.

The Olympics, right? Yeah. Yeah, Olympics and all this stuff because they have ties to the IJF. I think of them almost like a subsidiary or something like that. So yeah, this one was that. It's been a very long time since the U.S. had any sort of national level tournament because of COVID, obviously. And we didn't really know what we were walking into because there's so many shutdowns and

people haven't been running clubs and you know they had to jump through crazy hoops to just have this event so right you know we were walking in we had no clue what we were what was gonna happen as in like which athlete's gonna show up what the competition would be like with the cut yeah and then you know we got an email saying like hey there's 500 competitors at this event oh wow blew me away yeah but then you got to remember there's a lot of divisions right because at these things they try to they squeeze everything in a way where it's they have six mats running right which i think there should be more uh but they have like cadets which is under 15 or 17 or whatever it is they're the ijf juniors they have right bantam division and all these age brackets with the all the different weight classes so you know 500 seems like a lot but

and it is you know for covet times i think and i don't really have a reference point of what last year or the year before his numbers were right but spread across all the divisions the the weight classes seemed kind of thin to me. Like, for instance, my kids' division, there was only six kids. That was why? 198? Luca? Okay.

Yeah. And, you know, like, you're never going to get, it's not like a super popular sport like wrestling where you could go to any local tournament and face 35 kids under the bracket. Or you go to a regional event and you get 80 kids in a division. Like, it really like that right because judo is not as popular in the united states right but you know even for that standard it was pretty thin i thought stretched across the board and you know that breaks my heart a little bit because you know i want to see u.s judo grow and more kids involved right you know because those kids are gonna lay the foundation for the next set of international athletes right i guess it's probably is a combination of things like you know covid and then you know it's in salt lake city so people probably had to fly and it costs money it's it's also you know but you know they had had everyone like negative test results and run safely.

Cool. Yeah, so we had to get a PCR. Within 72 hours, we had to get a negative PCR result. Within 72 hours before registration. So registration was on Friday, so we had to get it 72 hours before. My kid, Luca, didn't misread he didn't know pcr or rapid test and antigen test and pcr is the one that you you go all the way up your nose right yeah but you don't have to know i think oh it's gotten better yeah yeah it's gotten better and then

you know with the scramble around last minute to get you know find a pcr that's like quick turnaround and you know city md website says five to seven days right right just to manage expectations i guess uh so it was a whole not whole thing right you guys got it and then okay we went and registered so yeah how was it run like i said you know usually these bjj judo local tournaments are notoriously notorious for being poorly run. But when I went to nationals, I remember it was very smooth. So I,

I'm sure it was very smooth. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, walking into it, I was thinking to myself like, all right, registration nine to 12 on a Friday.

Right. I was like, in the morning disaster in the morning. Yeah. Because they're going to test rapid test 500 students 500 kids right they have the rep so you have to have the pcr oh and rapid test and you gotta get a rapid test on site so kids are getting swabbed and you have to wait around for until that rapid results come back and it gets emailed to you and you have to present it right so i was like and

then you have to register for that too. So we get to the venue and Luca hasn't registered yet for it. And I was like, oh my God, we got to do that. And then like I registered for two, but I actually ended up not needing it because I've tested positive in COVID in the past. So, you know, we got there a little bit later. We got there at like 1130 because I knew if we went there at nine it would be we wouldn't it would be a crazy line right right right i've been through this so like we kind of waited it out a little bit got there at 1130 and then it wasn't that bad i see i'll tell you it wasn't that bad and the staff did a great job just navigating everybody and then making marks and putting the bracelets on and

you know i went to the coaching section and i was able to i did the coaching registration early on just navigating everybody and then making marks and putting the bracelets on. And, you know, I went to the coaching section and I was able to, I did the coaching registration early on. They have a new system called sport 80 that you can do everything online, making sure your kids in the right division, right. Register as a coach, you know,

my coach actually, I have it right here. Look at this. See, I'm a Shintaro Higashi international coach. Oh, look at you. Nice.

Yeah. Yeah. I went and checked in and i did my thing and then they gave me the bracelet and everyone was polite and kind right props to them that's a big challenge yeah you know in the a lot of the local dojos usually pitch in during times like this i see when they have like these events oh and from utah like salt lake city area yeah yeah nice so if they're hosted at utah like all the local dojos and the local judo organization pitches in helps run the program right and i think that has a lot to do with like okay where are we going to have our next event because people are always like oh we should just always do it in las vegas or always do in miami but it's like okay you know why does texas and salt lake city get

a lot of these bids because you know they do a good job right right right yeah yeah i mean there's nothing to really do but so so you register on friday around lunchtime yeah you land on sunday oh so yeah what'd you guys do till then so we did the registration anyway saturday saturday so register friday weigh-in saturday fight on sunday i see i see so after we registered it was already like one o'clock so the first day we just kind of went around the tour of salt lake and he hasn't really been out of the state uh so i was like oh man let's take you to downtown salt lake and yeah you know we weren't going to do anything physically intensive right because your coaching kind of begins already there you know it's not just like yelling at the side of the mat and then teaching judo but there's like sort of that in

between it's like how you're feeling you know uh are you nervous and all this stuff and if they're nervous like getting their mind off of it how is the kid gonna be able to perform right how was managing he was a little nervous yeah yeah yeah but you know that's normal you know yeah of course he tells you like i'm not nervous at all and you know it's like okay you know teenagers why why is that right yeah you never know but yeah so you know we went for a tour in salt lake beautiful city like temple square beautiful city we went to the state capital the utah capital with the big stairs and all that stuff and put up an instagram video of us like kind of i saw that grass patch yeah so we did that you know we took these scooters they have these like scooters like paper ride scooters

electric scooters oh we had we had a ton of those in detroit like lime scooters or like yeah yeah it's fun luca was flying on that thing on the regular street. Oh, I know. Teenagers go nuts on this. Yeah, teenagers go nuts on it. And I was like, Luca, you came all the way out. You've got to be careful. You're going to eat it, right? And he's just like flying on this thing. Right.

I caught up to him at a stoplight. I'm like, listen, man, don't go nuts. He's like, Sensei, why are you scared? I'm like, I'm scared. First of all, I'm responsible for you. When you tip over, fall into the, I'm responsible for you. Like, right. You tip over, fall into the street and get hit by a car. Like, what am I going to have that conversation with your parents?

Like, stop, you know? Yeah. So like, yeah, we did that. We had a nice lunch. What did you guys have? We went to the grocery store. We had nice chicken sandwiches, like fried chicken sandwich. Like, I looked it up on Yelp.

I love those. I love those. Yeah. So, yeah, first day we get there, register before even uh you know we checked in on thursday we go to the grocery store that's like number one right when you get to a tournament you go to a grocery store right so we had like a stock we had like bread peanut butter all this stuff and then the second day i just told you and then you know saturday came around and he went in weighed in came back he didn't have to cut he didn't have to cut or anything no no okay so it was good it was a really easy cut uh not even a

cut he's an easy way in situation right and then we went to see mortal combat oh yeah you know i was thinking about oh you guys went to the theater yeah i went to the theater nice nice how was that it was a cool experience. Utah is pretty open. Right. We had a. I think the caseload is pretty low there, right? Yeah. You know, we had a really cool guy, Gary.

He like drove us on the first day. He like recognized me and I was talking to him. He's a friendly guy. Oh, okay. And he like was working the event too. And then he was like telling us like, yeah, man, like Texas is open. Florida's open. And then right after that is utah like we didn't get any press right because texas and florida are so vocal about it but like we've

been open like right bar's been open all the stuff so like you guys want to see a movie like the movie theaters are open i was thinking about watching more combat on tv because it's we have hb max they're watching on tv i would say watching on tv tv okay you know what man it's like whether the movie is good or not like is it worth going to the movie over it's worth going to the movies period now because it's just like i'm not saying covid doesn't exist or anything like that but it's just experience man it felt like it felt like oh man like this is what we used to do most of it's surreal it was surreal man it was surreal i was actually like nervous a little bit too you know right like i was like all right so there's all these like this is allowed now like

i felt like i was doing something illegal and dirty i know well you know it's just like yeah i think as long as you you know keep the precaution like distance it's such a bad stigma now movie theaters yeah i think i think people miss it shooting right covid and like you can't go to movies like it's crazy it's you know but we had a great time man i got popcorn i was housing that you know the movie was so so i couldn't how many agents were in the movie oh yeah the they hired the nuts japanese guy for scorpion whatever it's like they overcompensated to the other side right

Asians are like there's not too many Asians in Hollywood I've never played they just like stack the whole thing I've never played Mortal Kombat

but are a lot of characters supposed to be Asian I have no idea I've never really played it I don't even know okay anyway

you watched the movie you know you seemed like you chilled out you made some friends yeah a lot of it yeah yeah and then you know I seemed like you chilled out you made some a lot of it yeah yeah and then we you know i got a couple workouts in at the hotel gym oh you did okay nice nice yeah like two workouts in and we did a little uchikomi with luca because you know you don't want to be too stale going out there right so you want to get at least one or two

workouts in when you get to the venue uh you know the tournament not actual site yes at the actual site but in the location. Right. And so you want to get a couple of those to just kind of like get your arms going, legs going. You need to get your lungs going a little bit. You don't want to do anything intensive that you can't recover from. Right.

So Saturday was light training, hang out. Like really light training, like something like that. And Sunday tournament, the competition day. Yeah. Competition day, we rolled out. We were session two two so they usually do session one session two and the brackets get posted online and then you look at the brackets and say hey what session is my kid session one or session two and you show up for that and then it shows you what mat number you are right we were mat number one and then it shows the match we were match number seven so they got it down organized yeah

they used to have it yeah they had it on the wall yeah like a little piece of paper i remember yeah it used to be this crazy system like they give you an actual physical card that had like your name on it and your match number and all this stuff and you have to bring that card and then show your id and they had this thing right but i haven't been to a junior tournament in a very long time so like i asked somebody like, hey, man, do they do those? They don't do those cards or anything, right? And they were like looking at me like, how long have you been out of the junior circuit? Just I dated myself.

But it was super smooth, right? And we knew exactly where we needed to be. And then, you know, we're waiting around like we're eating snacks. We're talking. We get a warm up and when we get there kind of situation, he puts his gi on and then that was it. Like we're ready to roll. You know, how was he feeling? Nervous?

Did he show? He was a little nervous. Yeah. He had this kid, Alex Knopf from Cohen's Judo. And man, that kid was tough. And, you know, we actually watched the highlight reel. Yeah. First match.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You sent me, sent us that video. Yeah. Yeah. The kid had a highlight reel on YouTube. And that yeah you sent you sent me sent us that that video yeah yeah the kid had a highlight reel on youtube and that's the beauty of this online stuff you know you could google people and look at what they do right oh maybe maybe people shouldn't be posting those highlight reels you know yeah i mean it's amazing what you can do man it's like okay tall lefty right his kataguruma to the weak side does a little bit of a sumi, but his main attack is left side uchimata, two-step uchimata,

where he slips the leg and go. So it's like, okay, so now we could kind of, that's what he does, Luka. We got to kind of go for it. He also does a tomonage, and it's like you got to put the hand on first and close it, and it seemed like you like inside outside could do both right right you can't be bent over because you're gonna get thrown tomonage you got to keep your belly forward and then you went out there and got thrown tomonage oh yeah it's a tough match i mean the first draw like was it seeded high the other guy

i think he was the top seed he was expected to win i see so yeah that's something nice you know i saw a lot of my old colleagues like aaron cohen and i were on the same teams together and he's full-blown coaching now with the dojo you know we're in the same place in life right we're mid 30s late 30s you know he has his dojo he has his family where is he located of his kids chicago chicago okay i see yes yes or illinois illinois not chicago like a little outside of the chicago oh pretty close to me maybe i'll yep go visit yeah illinois so yeah he's uh out there doing his thing and it's his student right so then you know uh that's amazing to see right that's amazing to be right there nice you know and uh i think his brother

rj right uh coached him right okay okay which is that's like really cool uh you know and uh i think his brother rj right uh coached him right okay okay which that's like really cool uh you know and i know him so i like hey you know your kid looks tough and he's like yeah man that kid he's a little kid now he's a big kid i know i can't really throw him he's really hard uh you know and i was like oh man like wow that's that's great you know yeah good for them that's amazing yeah it was tough tough first match you know but i love watching this kid because you saw like i could google him right i googled him and i could see his results like he's a runner-up at the illinois states in wrestling he's been doing judo he has produced results and you could tell he by looking at his youtube video like this kid is good right yeah he's good on paper yeah and he's good on you know video too

so it's like okay obviously no one's gonna put that on the internet their worst match is them losing right okay yeah take it with a grain of salt but then i saw him uh fight my kid obviously and then fight other kids that were really good in the division and man he was in it mentally like he was there he was not veering from a strategy like you can take him out of his game right and i was like wow this you know it's really nice to see that kind of judo out there right right not limited to just that kid there were other kids that were very good so it's the first match you know unfortunately luca lost but it's against a tough kid you caught up with your friends. So, and then was it a single elimination?

No, right? No, it's a true double. Double, okay. So you had, you know, two shots, essentially, right? And then he goes out there and fights a kid. You know, he went out there tough. Luka went out there tough. You know, he didn't expect to get, you know,

because he's never been there before, right? Right, right. So he doesn't know what the level is like. Right, right. And, you know, he's now exposed to the best. And now he has all these questions. Right. Good.

And, you know, anywhere, anytime you go somewhere for the first time that is very level up or something that you have never really experienced before, you always have this sort of imposter syndrome. Right. Right. Right. Right. So it's like you probably felt that when you went to Princeton. It sure did. I mean, it was crazy.

Yeah. Yeah. So he was, right. So guiding him through that, it's like, okay, first match is behind you. Now we've got to focus on the second match. You're up in, you know, six or seven matches anyway. It's a very short amount of time. Let's put that behind us.

Go out there and perform here. Right. Okay. Stick to the plan. I think this guy's a righty. Right. I don't have any film on him. I can find him online, but I'm going to assume he's perform here. Right. Okay. Stick to the plan. I think this guy's a righty. Right. I don't have any film on him. I can find him online,

but I'm going to assume he's right. Right. Cause I think I've seen him warm up or something like that. So he went out there and fought. It was a tough match. He went in overtime and threw him Sumi Gaeshi. Right. Oh,

I actually watched that one. Yeah. He got the win. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, there were, there were stuff that I could give him feedback about right you

were kind of looking for that one shot throw the whole time right you weren't really sticking to the strategy right it was very like direct attack judo there wasn't too much gripping so all those things like we he knows this stuff and he does this stuff right to be able to execute this at the level of like the nationals where there's pressure, obviously. Right. So like that's a whole other thing that gets developed through time and experience. Right. So, you know, that's something that we can work on.

That's something that we could sort of polish off. But he got his first win at a national level tournament. So I was very happy for him. Right. I know he wasn't happy with, right, how the whole thing ended. But, you know, he should take that win at least and say, yeah, I got one win. I mean, it's just a start.

It's his first tournament. So he took the second match, and then that means he moved up to Toga, right? How did he do in the third one? So he's fighting this kid, Ise Barefoot. He's this half Japanese kid. And he has like some Japanese backpatch situation on Instagram, right? Oh, dang.

Stalking all these kids online, you know. You mean like a high school backpatch or like a Japanese backpatch? I think it was a university backpatch. Oh, wow. Okay. Japanese university. So I'm thinking to myself, Ise is a Japanese name. So I'm like, what is up with this kid?

And I'm watching him fight other kids. And he does this nice this nice nice drop senagi he's a morote senagi guy but like not like the junior drop from flop bad you know right nonsense stuff this is a good morote senagi follow through fast follow through like gets to his toes and runs it kind of thing yeah the setups and the moving and the timing right so i'm like this kid's good uh you know and uh luka goes out there and then gets bombed with drops in i oh but it's okay yeah because you know i was telling him too it's like hey we don't have that many tall lefties at the dojo right so it's a stimuli that you're not used to yeah we don't have that many drops and agi guys at the dojo either.

So that's another new thing. So those are slight gaps that we need to start filling little by little. And this kid turns out, yeah, he's a Japanese kid. He lives in Japan, but he has an American citizenship because his dad is American. So he comes in and fights at these things to make teams, make US teams. It's kind of like the Deguchi situation with Canada. Yes. Yes.

So he's something very exciting to watch. And watching Issei versus Alex, the kid from Illinois. Oh, yeah. The first match. Yeah. It was an amazing, amazing match, man. They met at the final? They met at the final or semis or one of those guys

but it was uh and i think they took first and second respectively but man was it a great match because so they're so there was so much there there was so much there's tall right versus lefty yeah tall left versus a shorter righty yeah and you know uh he's looking for that drop right and he's setting it up in so many different ways and looking for timings and all this stuff. And then there was a lot of precursor stuff that he had to do, right? And, you know, I guess to the average person, like, you would watch it and be like, oh, this kid's just spamming drop Sayonara. But there was a lot there, how he was trying to time it and go underneath and all this stuff. Yeah, it was a really good match.

And then it went into overtime. It went the distance, at least. And, man, you just saw these two kids, right, fighting. Right. They were throwing their stuff at each other. And, you know, Alex had a little bit more diverse way of attacks. You know, like toe left, going back and forth. Karaguruma, Uchimata, and things like this.

And da-da-da-da-da. And other guys just dropped Seinagi guy. So it's like right versus left, right? A lot of stand-up judo versus a little bit more drop in judo right you know but alex could mix in the sumi and the tomonage so it was like really good judo man and i gotta look for the video yeah yeah and uh they didn't break they were both like in their mentally tough focus and i was like man i was like really impressed you know so much so that i went up to right uh alex one

oh alex one okay okay yeah i mean there was some questionable stuff like call wise like right right right you say went for something that i think could have been a score but it's like you can't really tell from where i was standing right right right you know and uh but man i was like it was i was so impressed man so much so that i went up to both kids like, yeah, great job, great job. Oh, nice. Yeah, and I hope they keep doing judo because maybe you get those kids who are that good at that age. And can they perform at the IJF junior international level?

It's a tough thing to do, right? It's tough. But if they stick with it for five years ten years yeah right without injuries without losing motivation they could do great you know they could be great so it's like i'm very excited for that you know do they recognize you the kids i think they did yeah i think a lot of people recognize me and it did feel good and for all the people that came up and said hi and shook my hand thank you so much you. It means a lot to me. Little slab right there.

Yeah. I wasn't like an A-level competitor, right? I would say like B-plus or A-minus at best. I made a couple teams. I was out there, but internationally, I didn't really produce at the top level. I don't have any Olympic medals. I don't have any world medals you know so well

you're giving a lot back to the community now you know i tried to yeah you're famous too people were like oh man yeah peter's great you know well thanks guys i wasn't even there but yeah only one person said that that counts yeah so we love your podcast people wanted to be on the podcast people watch my videos right i think a lot of people you know because i'm wearing the mask and then right i'm not wearing a gi and right i don't know people were like is that you know and i had a lot of looks like is that the guy and double takes double takes and then people will come up to me hey you know thank you for all that you do and thank you for this and that and uh you know really appreciate it that felt good

that felt good and that keeps us going yeah yeah so some people messaged me after the fact too saying like hey i i didn't feel comfortable coming up to you but i saw you there or you know and i said hey like yeah come up to me next time say hi you know i'm pretty friendly so so what uh what was your overall overall impression of all the youth athletes? How is the future of the USA judo looking for you? I'll give you an example. Tech judo, which is a dojo near me in New Jersey, they usually have a crazy amount of kids, like 50, 60 kids on the mat. And they bring a ton of kids, usually 20, 30 kids kids to these things but they've been shut down because they operate out

of a high school right right right right so they weren't allowed to practice so a lot of their athletes have been training but like not at the capacity that they used to train right so they only brought you know two or three students and you know anyone i know assume a lot of yeah gabriel bernal oh there oh he's still with uh tech i thought he was in college yeah he's still with tech oh okay no no no no no you're talking about the older brother oh adrian oh right right adrian goes to texas yeah the younger brother the super tall one the laki one oh yeah he fights 73 but he's like six three yeah he was there he took third. Oh, nice. Good for him.

I assume a lot of the judo schools are like that. A lot of kids aren't out there training and competing. Yeah. But the one standout dojo was Kitsusai. Kitsusai. In Florida. Florida. Yeah, because Florida never shut down. And I even heard a lot of people saying like, hey, they took their kid from an area that has been kind of shut down.

They just brought him to Kitsusai. They brought him to florida people just moved down there to to train so they had a phenomenal showing you know uh 81 kilo this kid dominic rodriguez looked sharp he looked tough he looked sharp you know he fought ryan russo who is sort of a up-and-coming pedro judo student right so you have like the National Training Center kitsusai Dominic Rodriguez tough 81 kilo and he was on two mats down so I was like watching over there and he was fighting Ryan Russo with Travis sitting in his coaching chair Oh Travis came like that yeah Travis is there and then something like that you know was really exciting

to me watching and kids decideditsusai did very well. Good. And seeing familiar last names, like German Velasco is a coach. He used to be a Peruvian athlete, top level, right? Launching people, standing Kata Grumasode. He was unbelievable. And now he's coaching down there. And then I see this 60-kilo kid going out there.

And I look at the name on the scoreboard. And it says Christopher coaching down there. And then I see the 60 kilo kid going out there and I look at the name of the, on the scoreboard and it says Christopher Velasco. I'm like, Oh man, that must be for, uh, Vermont. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I think, right. Maybe I'm wrong. And that's absolutely incredible. That's amazing. Right.

Yeah. And I saw, you know, a little Cohen, Cohen kids. And it's like seeing the people that I competed with now have kids and bring in their kids. You know, like, yeah, it's just amazing. You know, it's amazing.

It's like coming full circle. So you can see the generation change. And it's like, I think it's a critical moment because, you know, your generation, our generation, I guess, like saw a lot of success with uh you know travis and you know k and all then now that it's always the thing right like yeah when the new generation comes out how can you replicate that and but it seems like uh you know a lot of kids are coming up yeah there definitely will be right and even looking back now it's like, okay, look back to a couple decades ago, Kevin Asano and those guys. And then you get Jimmy Pedro and those guys. And then you get the Travis and those guys.

So there's always two or three that's going to stand out and come out of this crop. Will we be able to produce like Japan, like Russia, like Cuba, like France one day? Maybe. like Japan, like Russia, like Cuba, like France, you know, one day, maybe. Right. And I think that has a lot of factors that go into that. Right. People like to say, oh, it's the organization, it's the leadership and this and that and the coaching and the staffing. And, but there's,

it's a combination of all those things and you kind of have to be a little bit lucky too. And, you know, I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful. Right. But it was just a great experience, man. Just being out there, my kid being exposed to that, you know,'m hopeful i'm hopeful right uh but it was just a great experience man just being out there my kid being exposed to that you know luca right what student what's his uh what's his take on it his on his experience you know he was upset yeah yeah and you know i told him it's okay you know feel upset that's okay embrace it and then you know we're gonna come back and it's gotta excite you right there's gaps now we gotta work on there's There's things that we talked about that we won't follow through on. We got to make sure you follow through on those things. You remember you fought at Nationals, and what an experience was it?

It was crazy. Right? Yeah. And you had some great things happen to you. You fought Max Schneider. How amazing was that? He was a great athlete, right? Fun times.

right you fought max schneider how amazing was that athlete right he was he was as soon you know like when you go to these big tournaments and you know when you you know when you grab you take the first grip you know how good the other person is yeah i i remember being intimidated when i grabbed uh gripped schneider's geese because he was so strong he bombed me with the Seoi Nage but I you know I think you know overall it was a good experience I did all right I guess yeah so hopefully Luca can bounce back and he's got a lot of years left you know hopefully he can continue to perform I don't think I can throw him anymore now he's tough man hopefully he keeps this rolling and he keeps going

hopefully he uses this experience that make him better not a one off gotta build on it so very optimistic outlook for the USA Judo anything else to close this episode

nope if you guys see me at a tournament you can come say hi pretty friendly USA Judo. Anything else to close this episode? Nope. If you guys see me at a tournament, you can come say hi. Pretty friendly, right? Yeah. Obviously, if I'm sitting in the coaches there, don't tap me on the shoulder. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Don't do that.

You know what I mean? But yeah, come say hi. I'm pretty friendly. And yeah, that's it. Thank you guys for listening as usual. And then I hope to see you guys at the next tournament. Cool. Well, thanks for the story, Shintaro. And stay tuned for the next episode, guys.